Something about, rushing too fast, and, lack of attention to detail. Yeah.

I was immediately interested in Oil Rush's macro-management approach. What turns me off of expert-level play in other strategy games (be it StarCraft II or Civilization V) is the endless level of micro-management those games demand: tuning, and paying acute attention to, every individual element of your army/empire. Oil Rush, through a combination of smart design inventions (like minimap-oriented controls!) and intuitive AI, obviates the need for most of these details, in favor of high-level "Send dudes here" commands. So, yeah: I really liked this, at first.

But as it turns out, Oil Rush also neglects any kind of micro-management, to the gameplay's detriment. You can only select units that are around/at a building; you can only select either 25%, 50%, or 100% of those units at a time; and you can only order them to move to another building. Want to send out a single unit to scout? Nope. Balance the number of units stationed at your bases? Nope. Redirect units en route to A, and send them to B instead? You can recall them to where they came from, but otherwise -- nope! Send units to unoccupied water to intercept enemy forces? Move units to take proper advantage of attack range? Focus fire? Patrol, escort, or stop? Nope on all counts.

I'm not going to even bother getting into the game's god-awful writing or lackluster art style, because they don't matter. The game isn't - what I would consider - playable.

Much as I'll disparage Oil Rush, though, I have to give credit to its developers -- for making a cross-platform engine with some relatively impressive capabilities. Nice work on the tech, guys. Shame about the game design.

Progress: Finished "Wild West" (mission 3).