Strategy Summary for New Players

[MuleyMan]

Basic information for new players.

Always:   get a plot, be completely developed if possible,
              take care of basic food and energy needs,
              buy low sell high, learn what is a good price for each product,
              plan ahead - decide primary and secondary plot desired for next turn before land grant phase
              ends,

Smithore: prices 35-230, it takes 2 smithore to make 1 mule, corral can hold 14 mules,
              price of smithore goes down towards the end of game, change them to crystite or another good
              product

Crystite: random prices 48-148, never a store to buy them, pirates come 0-2 times a game,
             you must assay or develop a plot with crystite to see what it will produce (0-4 per plot)
              this is the pattern of a crystite plot and the surrounding plots with their production value,
               0 0 1 0 0
               0 1 2 1 0
               1 2 3 2 1
               0 1 2 1 0
               0 0 1 0 0 , super highs (meteor strikes) worth 4),

Food:     prices 15-260, food = time, rivers best for production, get a river plot before they all gone,
 
Energy:  price 10-260, energy = production, always try to keep 1 extra energy so you can have the option
            to put out 2 non-energy plot developments, if you are even on energy, you can put out only 1
            non-energy type and the rest must be energy for all plots to produce. 1 short and all new plots
            will need to be energy, 2 or more means that plots wont produce unless changed to energy.

General: stock up on energy if you want (no limit), others limited to 50 and will spoil the excess,
            1/2 of extra food and 1/4 of extra energy will spoil (3 extra energy and 1 extra
            food will not spoil),  keep plots touching when you can for extra production,
            the game is based on supply and demand (plan for future shortages, if everyone goes for smithore,
            they will need energy, player in first never gets a bonus, player in last never gets a negative hit,
            don't always try to be in first place till close to the end of game.
            after round 8, a plot priced over 1500 may be hard to buy and make a profit by the end of game,

Read this until you have it all memorized.  Ask questions (everyone wants a good game hopefully).  Never quit (you can still come back a lot of the time).  I may be slightly off on some advice due to differences in this new version of MULE.
Learn from every game.   HAVE FUN!

[Who is Your M.U.L.E.]

Good summary for new players, MM

I will add...

Crystite plots CAN have 2 (or more) High plots side-by-side;
Crystite may be high under store or river;
Cannot mine on river;
A fire will wipe out all stock in the store (except mules already built);
Normally, turns go from 1st place to last place, but if mule shortage, it is reversed;
Shortage of food = shortage of time.  3 foods = 100% in Rd1-4, 4 in Rd5-8, 5 in Rd9-12;
Example, if you are 2 foods short in Rd5-8, you will only get 50% of time;
Shortage of energy = any non-energy plot may (randomly) not produce;
and
if you can get in a game with high ranked players - you will LEARN A LOT!

And as MM said, DO NOT EVER GIVE UP - we have seen many remarkable comebacks
from players down and out early.

Cheers,
WYM

[Big Head Zach]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this information not in the How-To-Play section or in the stickied posts in this forum? I'd like to think I didn't miss anything, but I'm ADHD so errors are expected...

[hocux]

I read the stickied posts but this really helped bring everything together and made it easier to learn

[friendman]

Is energy the most valuable thing to collect? It seems that energy can't be taken away like everything else.  How do you sell crystite and do pirates only usually attack the 1st and 2nd place players?

[Chuckie Chuck]

Is energy the most valuable thing to collect? It seems that energy can't be taken away like everything else.  How do you sell crystite and do pirates only usually attack the 1st and 2nd place players?

Energy is the least valuable actually, but almost the most important, if you don't have enough other products won't produce.  For every developed non energy plot, you need to produce one energy unit for that plot to produce anything at all.  Say 3 plots of smithore, 2 of food, 4 of crystite, you better of produced 9 units of energy (or purchased it) in the last round for all those plots to produce.

Food equals development time.  Smithore can be the most valuable via supply and demand manipulation.

Crystite is a gem mineral commodity, no practical use, but can make you a lot of money.  Can also cost you big time if you don't play it right.  Pirates take all crystite from everyone when they visit, so if you didn't sale it in the last auction before they came, you stand to loose a lot.  Most of us just don't even start producing it until they've come, but if they don't show by round 8, it's time to take chances and hope for the best.

They only come twice in a game, hopefully it happens earlier than later, and sometimes they never come at all, but you never bet on that.
 

[Spoonwood]

Smithore: prices 35-230, it takes 2 smithore to make 1 mule, corral can hold 14 mules,
price of smithore goes down towards the end of game, change them to crystite or another good
product

    This isn't quite correct.  Usually it does make sense to change all smithore to crystite at the end of the game, yes.  Usually smithore goes down towards the end of the game.  However, if demand for mules is higher than the smithore supply, it can even go up to 229 on turn 12.  In this game: http://www.planetmule.com/hi-score-game/game?game_id=39661, the store didn't have any smithore on turn 12, I think we had 3 open plots (that is plots without mules on them), and 1 mule in the pen.  The store price for smithore was 92/94 on turn 11, bought for around 120, and went up to 229 on turn 12.  I saw smithore go to 229 on turn 12 in another one of my games, but I don't remember which one.  It just doesn't come as easy to do this by yourself.

[Chuckie Chuck]

Well known fact spoon, it is just difficult to get everyone to go along and make it happen, there is usually and obvious leader that will win from such tactics and the others do what they can to prevent that person from doing it.

Under normal circumstances, it won't stay high.  In an earlier release it would stay high even when there was no demand.  The strategy for new players isn't meant to teach every advanced trick, it's to help them learn a basic successful game, and they can add the advanced tricks as they learn.