One Complaint

I've been playing Oasis quite a lot over the last two weeks, easilly logging 20+ hours of play, and I like it a lot. My only complaint is that the harder challenges are occassionally impossible (due to the random level generation). In particular the levels with rocks fallings from the sky annoy me. I haven't found any solid strategy for countering them, so I just play normally and hope that I get lucky. Half the time my cities are either directly destroyed or my roads are so mangled that I cannot raise an effective defense. I even tried not revealling my cities until the last moment, but then I didn't have enough population to fight off the barbarians.

Those levels are the most obvious cases, but every once in a while I get a level that is (in my estimation) impossible, at least in Hard or Insane modes. Mountain and city placement is a common culprit. If you only get 4 cities, each in a corner of the map, and the mountain/oasis make road building a nightmare, you're pretty screwed.

On the up side, there isn't much penalty for losing one or two levels in a game, it's just frustrating to realize that you failed not due to poor strategy but to chance. (particularly when you spend quite a while on any given level, only to find your efforts in vain)

Anyone else run into this?

Those falling rock levels are the hardest. I have found that it helps to make sure you explore all oasis squares. That way you have a chance to get your tenth or eleventh glyph on a bonus level, where the rocks don't fall. A strategy I am trying, but I don't know whether it works yet, is to explore mountains as much as possible. The rocks always fall on an explored square, and when you explore near mountains you reveal two squares per click, which means more potential squares for the rocks to fall on without hitting your cities or roads.

Yea, using oasis levels to get past the falling rocks is a must. Exploring the mountains isn't a bad idea either. Also, I try not to uncover the oasis until the last moment, since the rocks won't fall on it and I want to reduce the chance of them hitting cities.

Eh, it's still fun, and I'm having more success with Insane mode than I had expected. :)

If it pleases the central committee, I would like to mention that there is an official Oasis forum for discussing strategy. It can be found at http://community.oasisgame.com