Overview   Introduction:   The goal of Oil Tycoon! is to become a billionaire within ten years. Recently, your rich Texas uncle passed away, leaving his start-up oil business in your hands. When your uncle died, he gave you 1 plot of land in Lampassas County with 1 oil well, 1 refinery, 1 storage unit, 1,000,000 gallons of crude, and $1,000,000.00.   With these and your keen business skills at your disposal, you attempt to turn this small company into a booming business.   What's New in Version 5.0:   Here are some of the new features in this version of Oil Tycoon!: Now made for Windows 95 and 98 Graphical interface that uses the mouse and keyboard Improved land plots section where you can manage six different counties Concise charts and reports to get the information you need quickly High scores can be posted on the Internet! Background sounds and voices include Overview:   In general, you can get crude oil by 1) importing crude from overseas or 2) buying plots of land in several counties and drills oil wells to extract the oil.  Then to make a profit, you must 1) export the crude overseas or 2) refine the crude into more usable products, such as gasoline and kerosene, and selling it.  Exporting crude will often times result in a loss of money, since export prices are so low.  Since importing crude is a bit expensive, you will most likely want to drill oil from land.   Here's a quick explanation of each process: 1. Importing and Exporting Crude: Importing crude often costs as much as $0.40 per gallon and more, while exporting is usually between $0.03 and $0.08 per gallon.  Therefore, you cannot continuously import and export crude and expect to make a profit.  It is usually a good idea to export when you have an extra amount of crude and you need quick cash. 2. Refining Products: By refining products, you are increasing their market value by changing crude oil into something that can be used more efficiently, such as gasoline and kerosene.  The cost of refining products varies for each product, but it is usually lower than the price of selling a product.  You can use your refineries to refine your crude and sell them at a profit. 3. Selling Products: You can sell products after they have been refined.  It is a good idea to sell your products when the market value is above the breakeven value. 4. Buying Land Plots and Drilling Wells: When you begin the game, you own 1 land plot in Lampassas county, with oil reserves of 39,200,000 available for drilling.  The process for obtaining crude oil from land plots begins with surveying the plot.  After you have surveyed that plot and believe you can get a good amount of oil for little cost, you can purchase the plot.   Once you legally own the plot, you can drill wells to begin extracting crude oil.   Note that you must wait 1 turn after surveying a plot before you can purchase it, and another turn after purchasing it before you can begin to drill oil wells.  After wells are drilled, crude will begin coming into your inventory and a constant rate.   You can increase the rate by drilling more wells.  If you are finished with a particular plot of land before it is finished depleting the oil reserve, you can sell it.   A plot will be sold automatically after the oil reserve is depleted. 5. Applying for Loans: If you're ever short of cash, you can apply for a loan at the bank.   Depending on your credit rating, the bank will allow you to loan up to a certain percentage of your net worth.  You begin the game with the highest credit rating of 'AAA', which will allow you to loan up to 75% of your net worth.  You can take out a fixed-rate or a variable rate loan, but the fixed-rate loan will be 3% higher than the current interest rate.  In general, loaning is a better solution if you're tight on money than exporting crude, except if you have a really low credit rating.