M.U.L.E. Post your scores here!

[Delmoko]

This is from the one time we tried the round 12 trading bit. There were only two human players but we got a score of 183,000. Your score of 500,000+ is awesome to see! I guess you retire in the same Luxurious estates you do if you score 125,000?

 

This picture is from years ago on the Atari 800 version. (2003'ish)

Honestly - we had never played the Commodore version until sometime in 2013 - but by 2013 we were down to two of us playing (other two human players either got married or moved away) and were itching for a "new" version. I have not tried this trick on the Commodore, but I can't imagine it wouldn't work.

 

Growing up "all things Atari" I was shocked to find out that I like the Commodore version MUCH better!

My biggest gripe is that it seems on Planetquakes EVERYTHING gets about 1/4 production... not just mining and it's certainly less than half. I think Dan Bunten moved a decimal somewhere!

[Delmoko]

Here is a short list of differences I found while playing a 24 round tournament game on the IBM:

Supply ship randomly comes and doubles the price of Crystite. One round the price was $172 a unit. The supply ship doesn't count as a round event - a regular event happens after the ship leaves.

The line where the buyer and seller meet does not form a solid line to indicate a transaction is taking place - also the transaction itself is too quick. It's difficult to precisely buy or sell the number of units you want. (I played via DosBox set at 311 cycles)

In the auction round, the time limit to decide whether to buy or sell goes MUCH too quickly. When the auction shows how much the store has, it's a good idea to be pressing up or down on your joystick to either buy or sell.

You cannot hit button to speed up computer player's round - not a huge deal, but a minor annoyance.

You see when the computer catches the Wampus - and it seems to be random in amounts... I saw up to $800 - and that was in an early round (I got $200 in round 9).

I found it harder to catch Wampus as he seems to move a mountain every flash.

I never saw more than 1 land auction in a row in a turn.

Crystite does not sell in increments of fours (140, 144, 148).. at one point it sold for $143.

I witnessed "bad event music" at the beginning of turns but no text sometimes to tell me what the event was? Also - no scrolling text on beginning of turn events.

Orange played as the Smithore maker for the colony - brown and red played normal games (i.e. food/energy - Smithore in the beginning, more Crystite as properties were assayed).

When the game is over - you can't hit your button and go back and look at the final board to see how the plots ended up.

[Delmoko]

Since writing these I found out:

 

-- I believe Crystite can go as high as $300 after a Supply Ship comes!

-- You can press "alt" on the keyboard to speed up the Computer's round and to also end auctions when you're done and just the computer is trading. This speeds up the game A LOT!

-- The Wampus starts out being worth $100... for every player's round that he isn't caught he goes up by $100 to a maximum of $1000. After being caught that number divides in half and is rounded up. (I.e. you catch him at $900, next player's turn he will be worth $500: which is $450 rounded up)

 

I am all for playing M.U.L.E. on real hardware, but DosBOX being the only way to play this gem is ok with me. Well worth checking out!

[alpental]

This is from the one time we tried the round 12 trading bit. There were only two human players but we got a score of 183,000. Your score of 500,000+ is awesome to see! I guess you retire in the same Luxurious estates you do if you score 125,000?

 

This picture is from years ago on the Atari 800 version. (2003'ish)

Honestly - we had never played the Commodore version until sometime in 2013 - but by 2013 we were down to two of us playing (other two human players either got married or moved away) and were itching for a "new" version. I have not tried this trick on the Commodore, but I can't imagine it wouldn't work.

 

Growing up "all things Atari" I was shocked to find out that I like the Commodore version MUCH better!

My biggest gripe is that it seems on Planetquakes EVERYTHING gets about 1/4 production... not just mining and it's certainly less than half. I think Dan Bunten moved a decimal somewhere!

 

Your report on the Commodore and IBM versions is interesting. Every single version of this game appears to have so many differences! It goes to show you really can't compare scores across platforms.

[+therealbountybob]

Some interesting reading guys

 

I suppose with more Human players the colony will do better as generally you will sell to others to maximise profit [or at least keep them going] (unless you're out to cripple the opposition at a key moment ) whereas the Mechtrons often make stupid choices leaving themselves with no energy etc (ok they just do what they were programmed to do). So really we would need tables for 1,2,3 and 4 players.... if we get a few more active players then we could run some new tables

 

I'll add the trading on 12th go as a new table too

Edited January 27, 2015 by therealbountybob

[Delmoko]

So everybody here plays the Atari version I'm assuming?

 

I like the Commodore version better for a few reasons - the most important one being that I think the

AI is a lot more intelligent than the Atari version. We've actually lost to the Commodore computer twice!

That didn't even come close to happening in the 10+ years we played the Atari version.

 

The colors are also more pronounced and easier on the eyes on the Commodore.

When planetquakes happen mountains never move - I like this.

 

If you only have 2 players or you're playing solo, I'd certainly check out the Commodore version.

Hell - there is a guy on ebay that sells "blank re-usable disks" for $7.99 each - and one of them

just happens to have M.U.L.E. on it.

[CapitanClassic]

The 12th month trading trick makes your goods value based upon whatever the goods sold for at auction. Usually the COM players don't trade, so you can only exploit this trick with 2+ players. What you need to do is for every auction, have one player sell exactly one good to another at a minimum (this works best if the last month is a fire, because you don't have to buyout the store). Immediately have the seller start moving down (while the buyer moves up) to slow the clock, until the buyer line appears. Then retreat until the buyer buys out the store. Then the buyer can keep making the price of goods climb. The fraction of a second before time runs out, make a single trade. Then the goods new value will be based on the selling price at this auction.

 

This works best for Smithore/Crystalite, since they don't spoil until you hit 50 goods. You can still do it with food/energy, but you cannot build up stock with losing 1/2 and 1/4th of your goods each round. The pirates don't steal Smithore on tournament, but you will usually have a higher starting price on Crystalite, which makes driving the price up easier.

[+therealbountybob]

Thanks Captain, so it is a fiddle and something they didn't program to prevent - next question is the C64 ver the same? If the C64 ver is harder (as reported) then perhaps the logic was improved and maybe this 12th month thing was fixed? Perhaps the A8 version was earlier or due to decisions re RAM for the each release there was more done on the C64 ver

 

Discuss

 

p.s. Still want to know if anyone is successfully playing a Smithore game - see last few posts for my nearly cracking it.

[carlsson]

Regarding the IBM PC version, I remember the story how the programmers got zero, zilch, nada, none documentation or specs from Ozark. They simply had to disassemble the Atari version, reverse engineer the game from playing and studying the machine code, and then recreate the game on the X86 as closely as possible. That might account for some of the differences, in particular if they had tight deadlines to make and could not play the Atari and C64 versions forever to find out every variation. I don't know how much Ozark even were involved or had anything to say, or if it was Electronic Arts licensing the game to IBM to develop and publish.

 

I've been meaning to play it on real PC hardware, but none of my 8088 class computers output NTSC composite video through CGA. I have understood that it is not super common to have CGA cards with that capability, and the pin used for composite video otherwise is known as "reserved" and might not be connected, in particular on lower end motherboards with integrated CGA graphics. The game might be playable with regular CGA too, but fewer colours and sharp patterns that otherwise would blur into alternative colours.

 

I've also been meaning to try the MSX2 version of M.U.L.E. which I'm unsure if it was licensed, same with the NEC PC one.

 

Of course one can also play the NES version, which I don't think anyone in this HSC has done yet. From what I remember, it has quite a few differences too over the Atari and C64 versions. Perhaps Mindscape (wasn't it?) also had to reverse engineer the game once they got a license to develop and publish it through Nintendo?

 

Frankly, it appears to me that even M.U.L.E. Returns and other modern remakes, pretty much have to move in the dark and reverse engineer most of the game mechanics, even though today there are 3rd party efforts to detail the game for an easier, cleaner implementation. Quite possibly it might turn out Ozark never had or at least never kept any formalized specs or other documents about the game.

[+therealbountybob]

It's been a while... first we had a shock when the game loaded up as it was our first go since I'd swapped over the PAL 800 for my recently acquired NTSC 800XL! The colours and speedy tune were noticeable and the game was more peppy throughout. I guess the player colours orange and purple are not correct but it was a pleasant surprise. A not so pleasant surprise was bluecat winning

 

We picked our favourite characters and it started off quietly, somehow I was so busy spotting all the colour changes and speeded up noises that she managed to get too many early plots and even some good crystite plots My food out on turn 9 was a big mistake - darn pests they are pests Left the game on at round 6 status and made a cup of tea only to return to "Press Start to Continue" had a mini panic thinking it would re-start, but it was fine; I forgot we usually pause it!

 

Bluecat's wampus nabbing helped her keep ahead, including a $400 but on my go I went out of the store to get one and walked right onto it as the mountain was right next to the door. Two fires but fairly uneventful though Bluecat would mention she lost 3 mules... but I wont Both Mechtron's got a few crystite plots and I can officially report it's the green Mechtron in league with the pirates - funny that he swapped out all his plots on turn 10 just before they arrived. I stupidly gambled with the crystite price, holding most of my stock on turn 11 and it went down from 112 to 80ish

 

Great fun

 

bluecat (Gollumer) 24,248

trbb (Packer) 23,279

Mechtron 17,381

Mechtron 15,656

Total 80,564

[bluecat]

Thanks for appreciating my superior play :-) As soon as we finished he wanted a rematch but I refused! Great game & the federation was pleased with our efforts!

[carlsson]

What is a better way to wait for Halloween (that I actually don't care about, but remarkably many other Swedes suddenly do) than play a round of M.U.L.E?

 

Carlsson (Blue Humanoid): 29255 pts

Colony Total: 87103 pts

 

Stats about how the round progressed:

 

 

Rd Land Auction  Event          Smit Crys Food Ener Order
---------------------------------------------------------
1  ---           Pirate Ship     50  ---   15   10  RC GC VC BH
2  452GC         Planetquake     43   80   15   10  GC VC RC BH
3  375NS         Planetquake     43   52   15   ??  RC VC GC BH
4  288VC         Nothing         50   84   15   37  BH VC RC GC
5  400BH         Crazy Mule BH   50   56   49   24  BH RC VC GC
6  632RC         Meteor Strike   50   92   77   59  BH GC RC VC
7  720RC         Pirate Ship     36  ---   50   43  BH RC GC VC
8  840RC, 780NS  Acid Rain       43   76   45   68  BH RC VC GC
9  618BH         Acid Rain       43  128   28  119  BH RC GC VC
10 ---           Sunspot         43  116   15   54  BH RC GC VC
11 ---           Pest RC         57  112   28   17  BH RC VC GC (lead by 4800 pts)
12 ---           Mothership      43   56   57   17  BH RC VC GC (win by 4800 pts)

[+therealbountybob]

 

What is a better way to wait for Halloween (that I actually don't care about, but remarkably many other Swedes suddenly do) than play a round of M.U.L.E?

 

That's not a bad idea - might have a game of MULE tomorrow night

[carlsson]

Since the computer was plugged in and redo, why not another round?

 

Carlsson (Blue Humanoid): 30377 pts

Colony Total: 91632 pts

 

Notice how the Smithore price hovered around 60 for a long time. Usually I see it rise and drop in units of 7, not float like that. The Green Computer was far behind from the beginning, and at one point neither had food or energy production nor money to buy anything, which caused him to drop even further behind.

Rd Land Auction         Event          Smit Crys Food Ener Order
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 1 ---                  Pirate Ship     57   --   15   10  VC GC RC BH
 2 556VC                Pest VC         43  112   15   12  RC VC GC BH
 3 496NS                Pest VC         43  140   52   10  RC VC BH GC
 4 ---                  Meteor Strike   36   68   78   21  RC BH VC GC
 5 ---                  Planetquake     59  112  205   37  BH RC VC GC
 6 776VC                Meteor Strike   57   88  235  166  BH RC VC GC
 7 984VC                Sunspot         62   76  210  120  BH VC RC GC
 8 1536VC, 1476NS       Planetquake     66   64  160   82  BH VC RC GC
 9 730BH, 862RC, 802BH  Fire in Store   65  144  160   90  BH RC VC GC
10 ---                  Pest Attack BH  64  108  173   84  BH RC VC GC
11 ---                  Crazy Mule RC   43  140   97  101  BH VC RC GC
12 ---                  Transport Ship  43  120   47  105  BH VC RC GC

[+therealbountybob]

Well It happened again 3rd. bluecat (Purple Gollumer) 2nd, Mechtron 1st, they're doing crystite for a change what's that all about?!!! The high crystite plots were hard to find which made it an interesting game. I played as Human (Orange) and then decided not to get a river plot for food - boy was that a mistake and after an initial start on smithore I got ahead for a while and made a big land grab to stop bluecat taking over but in a crazy moment totally lost it and bought a ton of energy at $130+ each which helped the Mechtron more than anything... I had a food shortage entire time though the colony was ok right up to the end. 2 fires 1 pirates just after everyone had kept their production as it was a low price - greedy lot eh?!

 

24,761 Mechtron

23,157 bluecat Gollumber

20,695 trbb Humainod

20,416 Mechtron

Total 89,029

YES I nearly came 4th

[carlsson]

My first C64 score since the highscore contest started.

 

Carlsson (orange Humanoid): 31892 pts

Colony Total: 89814 pts

 

A rather lopsided round with reasonable crystite prices but no computer really growing any, a bit of extreme food prices midgame and nearly no land auctions. I played this round while visiting a friend's gaming party, but I was the only player. Score wise, I believe Atari and C64 scores should be quite similar so they count in the same lists but you might want to note the platform.

 

[+therealbountybob]

If you're reading this and wondering about what is going on - the High Score Club Season 13 can be found here on this same sub-forum 8-bit-high-score-club.You are viewing a special thread for MULE, which is NOT part of the HSC season(!) for which I've updated the tables (on posts 2&3)

[+therealbountybob]

I met up with a local Atariage user djmat56 and went around his house, about 15 miles away, to look at his Atari collection - he's more into the hardware mods and I'm more into the gaming but it was really nice to meet another enthusiast. He has a lot of boxed software and cassettes on display, which I enjoyed browsing through. We made contact on the Turgen System/Rambit thread.

 

We fired up his souped up 800XL and had a game of MULE, though it was a bit unfair as he wasn't familiar with tournament mode...

 

The game was a bit crazy mainly as I was yapping on about things so I didn't concentrate and starved him and the colony (by accident honest! I was trying to show how to use collusion but the time ran out!) the Mechtrons actually went for Crystite and somehow the Smithore price rocketed (funny as I always try and fail to engineer this when bluecat and myself play)... anyway a fun game and on the last turn my Crystite was just too valuable so I leapt into the lead despite being behind for most of the game. I'm sure Mat will remember as we waited for the final production he said "I don't mind where I finish, as long as I don't come last!" oh well it was still fun and we somehow had a reasonable colony in the end

• trbb Packer 29,050
• Mechtron 23,617
• Mechtron 23,163
• djmat56 Leggit 22,609
• Total 98,439

Playing MULE could be a great way to fall out with someone, but next time he will come over to me. It will be back to old tech and 14" CRT and the corner of the dining room or the front room CRT TV. If I can find another local Atarian (I'm in the South of Lincolnshire - UK) then we have a 4 player MULE game which would be pretty darn

[devwebcl]

20707 leggite

[carlsson]

A rather mediocre round, where the red mechtron got ahold of way too much cheap land. The colony didn't really evolve in either direction.

 

Carlsson (Green Humanoid in second place) - 20448 pts

Colony Total - 71495 pts

 

 

Rd Land Auction  Event            Smit Crys Food Ener Order
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 1 --            Crazy Mule BC     50   --   15   10  RC VC BC GH
 2 --            Crazy Mule VC     57  108   15   10  BC VC RC GH
 3 376BC 356RC   Pirate Ship       69   --   34   10  RC BC GH VC 
 4 296GH         Pirate Ship       54   --   92   32  RC VC GH BC
 5 472RC 412NS   Acid Rainstorm    50  132   85  103  RC VC BC GH
 6 354RC 294RC   Pest Attack RC    57   76   56   82  RC GH BC VC
 7 358RC 354RC   Fire in Store     57  116   49   37  RC GH VC BC
 8 998BC         Fire in Store     43  116   31   24  RC VC GH BC
 9 --            Planetquake       50  128   15   32  RC GH VC BC
10 --            Sunspot Activity  43   88   15   49  RC GH VC BC
11 --            Planetquake       50   76   17   22  RC GH VC BC
12 --            Transport Ship    43   92   37   30  RC GH VC BC

[+therealbountybob]

20707 leggite

Do you remember the colony score? If so post it too

 

 

We played again recently. Bluecat was tricked into playing Humanoid and the Atari decided to dish out some first class punishment including taking her plot away and giving it to me right at the end I took the win due to some serious Crystite mining and having grabbed a lot of plots

 

trbb Humanoid 20,722

Mechtron 20,468

bluecat Humanveryanoid 20,160

Mechtron 16,127

Colony 77,477

[devwebcl]

71784

[carlsson]

Hm, it appears May is a tough month for M.U.L.E. players, with generally low scores.

[alpental]

My friends and I finally fulfilled a life long (well, two year) dream tonight, by breaking 600,000 in Atari 800 M.U.L.E., something we have long theorized was possible.

To get such a score, we definitely had to trade in month 12, but we were curious what kind of a score was obtainable if you don't restrict any rules of play. We played a 4 player human game, using the beginner characters. Next, we will try and break 600,000 using the humanoid expert characters, and also play without trading in month 12 to fit in with the rules of the forum.

We are very curious if anybody else can figure out how to get scores that high. It is only possible if you have 4 human players, and trade in month 12, but we have further refined our strategy by playing many games over the past 24 months to see how much we could maximize our score.

 

Our 12 month scores were:

1 - 9444

2 - 13,089

3 - 21,522

4 - 43,832

5 - 53,119

6 - 62,812

7 - 98,447

8 - 134,464

9 - 154,361

10 - 191,513

11 - 230,396

12 - 600,527

 

Our month 11 score was 230,396, meaning that when we play without trading in month 12 we still expect to beat 250,000.

 

We would like to invite others to play with trading in month 12 allowed and hear your results!

 

- Danny

 

Edited July 23, 2016 by alpental

[carlsson]

Well then, a more moderate session against three computer players. Perhaps most noteworthy was that once after a fire in store without any smithore traded in and where the sole smithore producer never got ahold of any energy, followed by pirates in the next round, the auction jumped directly to food. Also violet computer player in round 12 ended with 127 units of non-tradable crystite. However, I've got a fair amount too so even a top crystite price would not have put him ahead of me.

 

Carlsson (Blue Humanoid) - 31519 pts

Colony Total - 99767 pts

 

Rd Land Auction  Event            Smit Crys Food Ener Order
-----------------------------------------------------------------
 1 612VC         Pirate Ship       57   --   15   10  RC GC VC BH
 2 --            Sunspot Activity  43  128   15   10  RC VC GC BH
 3 552NS         Pest RC           43   48   24   10  VC BH RC GC
 4 268BH, 280RC  Meteor Strike     50  120   32   17  VC BH RC GC
 5 --            Fire in Store     72  100   62   63  VC BH RC GC
 6 952RC, 1332VC Pirate Ship       --   --  135   84  BH VC RC GC
 7 --            Acid Rain Storm  187  144  147   78  BH VC RC GC
 8 --            Pest BH           80   80  165  108  BH RC VC GC
 9 --            Meteor Strike     43  116  177   95  BH VC GC RC
10 Lost plot     Acid Rain Storm   43   68  105  114  BH VC GC RC
11 --            Pest BH           43   68   63  130  BH VC RC GC
12 --            Transport Ship    50   72   54  100  BH VC RC GC