The Mysterious Vessel

One of the questions that everyone was asking when Tiny Empires 3000 started was "is there a Mysterious Trader?" And no wonder, since he gives the best gifts possible in the original Tiny Empires game! The answer is yes, there is an equivalent. So far, it's come twice. Here is the recording I obtained from its second visit:








The possible prizes are much the same as the Trader from the original game:

• For one year, you may buy ships at a very low price: same as the original trader, buy for twelve turns


• For one year, your ships will be worth more than normal: again, same as the original, sell for twelve turns


• Purchased ships are likely to contain surprises: same as original, you buy ships for eleven turns and get a good surprise in the next turn.


• Fuel Pellets, this is the same as the 'golden seeds', only instead of land production increasing, it is ship fuel efficiency. Stay on for twelve turns and watch the credits roll in.


• Increased fleet efficiency (pictured above): does exactly what it says. You don't have to do anything from that point on, you'll just get more credits from here on out.


• Your first ship is maybe worth more (or) one of your ships is worth more: this one is new. Sell ships, when it is hinted that the ship might be worth more. Eventually, you get a huge prize from selling a ship that pays you back for all of the ships you sold and paid the entity, and a nice profit. The person who got it in our group reported a sale bonus of ten to twelve times the ship cost.

There is one major warning:
This is NOT a good idea to do when your HUD is fatigued!

If you get the wrong prize, you may not see any good at all out of it, because fatigue will eat up all of your profits. You have been warned!

In the end, I suppose it all works, but it just doesn't seem to be as much fun, dealing with a faceless entity that just sends messages over a comm channel. It lacks the human touch. Still, send it by again! As it stands, the track record is one mysterious vessel in a little over a hundred years.

(On a side note, the year hasn't rolled over to 3000 yet. We're in year 3289 as I write this, the original game rolled over in 200 years. How long for TE3K? We already have people calculating how long until the year 9999 and predicting doomsday.)