Turmoil: Complete Strategy Guide

A practical guide to Gamious' oil-rush sim: how to read the land auction, find oil cheaply, build pipe networks that don't waste money, sell at the right time, and win the shares race to become mayor. Includes notes on The Heat Is On and Deeper Underground DLCs and the Daily Challenges.

Researched September 2026 — current as of the Daily Challenges update (May 2025) and the Deeper Underground DLC (September 2024) plus its follow-up fixes. Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.

Quick Start

• Every level is one in-game year. Your goal is to end the year with as much money as possible. What happens in March matters as much as what happens in December; start drilling early.
• Don't overpay at the land auction. The best plot on paper can be a trap if a rival bids it up. A cheaper plot you actually drill beats a prime plot you bankrupted yourself to lease.
• Scout before you drill. Use a dowser, mole or scanner to find pockets first. Blind drilling burns money on pipe.
• Storage is a bottleneck. Oil you pump has to go into silos. If your silos are full, your rigs sit idle. Build or upgrade silos before adding more rigs.
• Two buyers, two prices. Oil sells to the buyers on either side of the map, and their prices move independently. Always check both before sending a wagon.
• Wagons are money. Oil in a silo earns nothing until a wagon delivers it. More wagons (and horses) keep the flow going.
• Shared pockets are a race. If a rival's pipe reaches the same pocket, they're draining your oil. Pump the pockets you share first.
• Buy upgrades in town between levels. Better pipes, drill upgrades for rock and ice, and faster tools pay for themselves over a whole campaign.
• Shares make you mayor. In the campaign, winning money isn't the end goal; buying more town shares than your rivals is.

How a Level Works

• Land auction. Plots are auctioned; you bid against rivals to lease land for the year.
• Scouting. Use your tools to reveal oil pockets under your plots.
• Drilling. Place a rig, then draw pipe down to a pocket. Pipe can bend around obstacles.
• Storage. Pumped oil flows into silos next to your rigs.
• Selling. Wagons carry oil from silos to a buyer; the price at that moment is what you get.
• Year end. Money earned counts towards your campaign totals and the town grows as the oil business booms.

You compete against three rivals on each map, and each level lasts one in-game year. Right-clicking cancels an in-progress scan or an object you haven't placed yet (dowser, rig, wagon), which saves misclicks.

Pipe and pumping rules worth knowing

• A pipe doesn't have to reach the bottom of a pocket. Once it connects, the whole pocket can be pumped out.
• Flow is limited by the weakest pipe in the chain. One old, slow segment throttles everything behind it, so upgrade pipes along a whole route, not just at the rig.
• The ground reveals itself gradually. A dowser may not show oil directly beneath it at first; check around it before writing a spot off.

Campaign Map and Stages

The base campaign moves through four regions, and each adds a new underground problem (per the popular "Guide to Turmoil" on Steam):

Stage | What's underground | What to buy or learn

The Fertile Lands | Oil only | Learn dowsers, rigs, pipes and wagons. Set a minimum price you'll sell at

The Desert | Oil and rock | Buy the rock-drilling upgrade once you actually start hitting rock; route around small patches

The Plains | Oil, rock and gas | Moles become essential for finding gas before your drill hits it

The Snow | Oil, rock, gas and ice | Same toolkit as the Plains, plus ice handling; more room to grow gas

Each map is a separate year-long level, and the town unlocks more shops and upgrades as the campaign goes on.

Level Bonuses

Levels pay flat bonuses on top of your oil sales, and they are easy to overlook. The community guides list a $1,000 bonus each for:

• pumping every pocket dry,
• selling all your stored oil,
• depleting all gas pockets, and
• giving your land lease back early.

Late in a level, check which bonuses are still in reach. Emptying the last small pocket or selling off the final silo can be worth more than another month of drilling. The early-withdrawal bonus is worth taking once your pockets are nearly dry rather than paying out the clock.

Scouting Tools

Tool | What it does | When to use it

Dowser | Surveys underground near where you place him, revealing oil nearby | Cheap first look at a new plot

Mole | Travels underground and reveals what it passes through, including obstacles | Mapping a route or checking a plot's depth

Scanner | Reveals a patch of the underground directly | Precise scouting once unlocked

Rules of thumb:

• Scout the edges of your plot first. Pockets often straddle plot boundaries, and knowing whether a rival shares one tells you how fast to pump it.
• Don't scout what you can't afford to drill this year. Information has a cost; use it on plots you'll actually work.
• Mark big pockets as priority. One large pocket and one rig is often more profitable than several small ones and a sprawling pipe network.

Drilling, Pipes and Hazards

• Pipe costs money per segment. Short, direct pipes are the goal. Diagonal and winding routes add up fast.
• Obstacles: the store page lists rock, gas and ice as problems you'll need town upgrades to handle. Early on, route around rock; later, buy the upgrades that let you drill through it.
• Natural gas isn't just an obstacle. It can be used to boost the oil price, so a gas pocket near your rigs can become an asset once you have the right setup.

Working with gas

• Find it before you hit it. Moles reveal gas pockets; drilling blind into gas is how early Plains levels go wrong.
• Valves are your safety switch. If gas starts escaping from a pipe you didn't intend, close the valve immediately.
• Pipe gas to a buyer to boost the price. Gas connected to Left Inc. or Right Inc. raises what that buyer pays for oil, and linking several gas pockets at once gives the biggest boost.
• Gas speeds up oil flow. Connecting gas into an active oil pipeline noticeably increases how fast oil moves.
• Growing a pocket: experienced players ring a single gas pocket with pipe and close its valves so it expands. It fails if the loop encloses more than one pocket, and an oversized loop grows slowly.
• Pipe upgrades in town improve your network. Because every rig depends on its pipes, they tend to be a strong early purchase.
• Rig placement: place rigs so that one pipe can branch to more than one pocket. Branching from an existing pipe is usually cheaper than a new rig.

Storage and Selling

• Silos first, rigs second. When a silo fills, the rig attached to it stops. A good ratio of silo capacity to rigs is what keeps money flowing.
• Wagons and horses: each trip takes time. As the town grows you can buy more horses and better wagons. More wagons mean less oil waiting, and a parked wagon also works as overflow storage when silos run low.
• Super-silos: upgrading silos increases their capacity, which matters more as your rig count grows.
• Watch the prices. The two buyers, Left Inc. and Right Inc., sit on either side of the map, pay different amounts and the prices change through the year. If one buyer's price dips, send oil to the other or hold it in the silo for a bit.
• Don't hoard too long. Holding oil for a better price only works if your silos have room for new oil. A full silo means idle rigs.

Selling rhythm that works

• Keep one or two wagons constantly shuttling to whichever buyer is higher.
• When both prices spike, dump everything.
• When both are low and silos are near full, sell anyway rather than idling rigs.

The Town, Upgrades and the Saloon

• Town buildings grow as you earn. New shops and upgrades become available as the town develops.
• Upgrade priorities (rough order): better pipes, extra silo capacity, more wagons and horses, then obstacle-handling drill upgrades for rock and ice, then better scouting.
• The saloon is where you meet the town's characters and make shady business deals. Offers include things like bribes for better oil prices and reduced loan interest; some are straightforward gambles, so read the terms before accepting.
• Diamonds you dig up can be traded in the saloon. In the base campaign, Anthony will use them to tip you off about which land is oil-rich before you bid.
• Loans can be taken during a level if you're cash-strapped, but they have to be paid back. Borrow only for something that clearly earns more than it costs, such as a critical upgrade early in a campaign.
• Train deliveries: Edward, Raynor, Fred and William arrive by train to sell drilling equipment. Their stock is worth checking each visit.

Shares and Becoming Mayor

In the campaign, you're competing with rival oil entrepreneurs for town shares, and the goal is to own more of the town than anyone else and become the new mayor.

How the finale works: at the end of the campaign a share auction decides the winner. The player with the smallest stake drops out and their shares are auctioned to the remaining players; this repeats until someone holds more than half the town. That means cash in hand at the end matters, so save money as you approach the final map instead of spending it all on upgrades you won't get to use.

• Money is a means, not the goal. Earning the most oil money in a year is great, but if a rival hoards shares, they win the campaign.
• Balance reinvestment and saving. Too little reinvestment and your later maps earn poorly; too much late spending and you arrive at the share auction short of cash. A common approach is to invest heavily early, then shift toward banking money once your operation is efficient.
• Watch the rivals. The rival with the smallest stake is eliminated first, so you don't need to beat everyone at once, just stay out of last place until the final rounds.

DLC Notes

The Heat Is On

Released March 21, 2018. Adds a new town (with a new mayor) and a new oil-rich map split into three areas, each introducing a drilling mechanic built around a new underground substance: magma.

Feature | What it means for you

Magma | New mechanics in each area; treat it as something that changes how you route pipe, and scout carefully

Jack | Runs the magma tools business in the new town

Philip | Runs a shady card game in the saloon (he returns in Deeper Underground with Dice Dice Dice)

Built-in gas intake | Left and Right Inc. can take gas from the start, so gas price boosts are available immediately

Underground treasures | Nine collectible treasures instead of just diamonds, which you can collect and trade

Returning characters include Edward, Fred, William and Anthony. The Volcanic Lands levels were added to the Daily Challenge rotation in May 2025 for owners of this DLC.

Deeper Underground (September 2024)

Set in the Roaring Twenties, with a new town, new mayor and balloon trips to special deep-drilling grounds.

Feature | What it means for you

Water underground | Water makes drilling faster and cheaper, and is essential for producing petrol

Petrol and refineries | Petrol can't be sold straight from the ground; it must be produced in refineries. High value but more infrastructure

Research missions (Deep Mode) | Every few in-game years, you get a special mission: drill as deep as possible with limited resources, competing with rivals

Rubies | In Deep Mode, picking up a ruby gives a direct $500 bonus to your research fund (changed in the October 2024 update)

Diamonds | Using a diamond in the main game grants extra time (a bug where that extra time wasn't counted in profit was fixed in October 2024)

New characters | Playable Thorpe and Mabel; NPC vendors Yvonne, Sanjay and Dynamite Dale

Dice Dice Dice | A dice game from Philip in the saloon

Petrol tips:

• Don't rush refineries until your water and oil flow are stable; an idle refinery is expensive.
• Plan pipe routes so water and oil reach the refinery without long detours.

Daily Challenges

Since May 2025, the old weekly challenges were replaced with Daily Challenges. Each day brings a fresh level and a global ranking. DLC owners also get DLC-specific dailies in the rotation (Volcanic Lands for The Heat Is On; Deep Mode and The Cliffs for Deeper Underground).

Daily Challenge approach:

• You don't have a campaign's worth of upgrades, so efficiency matters more than scale.
• Scout aggressively in the first weeks and commit to the best one or two pockets.
• Keep wagons moving all year; any idle time lowers your score.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Winning an auction you can't afford to work. A leased plot with no money left for rigs is a loss.
• Building rigs with no storage. A full silo stops a rig dead.
• Selling to only one buyer. Always compare both prices.
• Long, snaking pipes. Every segment costs. Scout and route efficiently.
• Ignoring shared pockets. A rival on the same pocket will drain it. Pump shared pockets before private ones.
• Neglecting shares in the campaign. You can earn the most money and still lose the mayoral race.
• Accepting saloon deals without reading them. Some are traps for impatient players.

Advanced Tips

• Branch pipes. One rig feeding two pockets through a branch is often cheaper than two rigs.
• Sell into spikes. Keep a buffer in silos so you can sell in bulk when prices jump, but never enough to stall rigs.
• Front-load drilling. Oil pumped early in the year has more time to be sold; late-year rigs rarely pay back.
• Use gas smartly. Once you have the tools, using natural gas to boost oil price can add a big chunk to late-year sales.
• Bank cash for the finale. The end-of-campaign share auction is won with money, so stop buying late upgrades that can't pay back before the last map.
• Chase the bonuses. Emptying every pocket, selling all oil, depleting gas and giving the lease back early each pay a flat bonus; plan the last months of a level around them.
• Upgrade whole pipe routes. Flow is capped by the slowest segment, so a single upgraded pipe on an old network is wasted money.
• In Deep Mode, depth is the goal. Use water to make drilling cheaper and grab rubies for the research fund.

FAQ

Does Turmoil have multiplayer? Yes. You can play against computer opponents or challenge friends and random opponents online.

What's the difference between campaign and single game? Single game gives a procedurally generated level where you earn as much as you can in one year. The campaign strings years together with town growth, upgrades and the race for mayor.

Which DLC should I buy first? The Heat Is On (2018) adds a new town and a three-area map built around magma, plus underground treasures to collect. Deeper Underground is the bigger shake-up with water, petrol refineries and Deep Mode. The "All You Can Drill" bundle includes both.

How do I deal with rock? Route around it early, then buy the drilling upgrades in town that let you go through it.

Are Daily Challenges free? The base Daily Challenges come with the game. DLC-specific dailies require the relevant DLC.

Is the game still updated? Yes. Gamious added Daily Challenges in May 2025 and marked the game's 10th Steam anniversary in June 2025.

Sources

• Steam store page: Turmoil
• Steam news: Turmoil (Daily Challenges, Deeper Underground update notes)
• Wikipedia: Turmoil (2016 video game)
• Steam store page: Turmoil - The Heat Is On
• Steam Community: The Guide to Turmoil
• Steam Community: Turmoil in-game tips
• Steam Community guides for Turmoil