Wildcatter (1981)

"The Authentic Oil & Gas Exploration Game" has an educational aspect to it, as the drilling success ratios, drilling depths, costs and monthly production figures were taken from the real world. The game is played within the U.S. and Alaska; the players lease properties and drill for oil and gas, trying to get rich. On each lease, you must decide whether to go for shallow or deep wells --once a well has been drilled, even a dry hole, all future drilling must be done at the same depth, even if the lease changes hands. The first few wells are Exploratory and have lesser chances of success; once a producing well has been drilled, further drilling is Developmental. When you land on a player's lease, you buy its monthly oil production from him; landing on your own lease nets you double that amount (paid by the bank). Payments also roll in every time you go around the board. Random events are injected by Wildcat and Blowout cards. The rest of the game falls in line with what its design is: a Monopoly clone. Big box with lots of fairly nice bits, however.