Cartel Tycoon - survival business sim inspired by the ‘80s and '90s narco trade

[jztemple2]

I picked up Cartel Tycoon yesterday, in anticipation of the 1.0 release today. I've had it on my wishlist for a couple of years and have been following their newsfeed. It's been in Early Access for over a year but I'm trying to swear off games till they hit 1.0 which Cartel Tycoon did today.

Just as a heads up, the game is 30% off starting today for the next two weeks. And there is a Supporter Bundle that includes the game, their first DLC, an artbook and the soundtrack for only $2.50 USD more than the base game.

It is described as:

Cartel Tycoon is a survival business sim inspired by the ‘80s and '90s narco trade. Expand and conquer, fight off rival thugs and evade the authorities. Earn people's loyalty and strive to overcome the doomed fate of a power-hungry drug lord.

Key features
• Grow your empire. Develop your humble farming operation into a massive logistical system comprising plantations, laboratories, aerodromes, and more.
• Reign your way. Tycoon action on an epic scale with dozens of upgrade paths and endless strategic combinations.
• Death is inevitable. When your capo falls, promote one of your unique lieutenants to take control and continue growing your cartel.
• Everything - and everyone - has a price. Launder your hard-earned cash to develop your empire, maintain your lieutenants' allegiance, and bribe corrupt politicians.
• Defend what's yours. Evade the authorities and square off against rival cartels on the path to profit.
• Endless replayability. Explore a dynamic narrative system with dozens of unique characters combined with limitless sandbox gameplay.
• Play a variety of modes. Story mode for those looking to dive into tens of hours of rich narrative within the game's world. Hardcore permadeath Survival mode for those looking for a challenge. And a highly customizable Sandbox mode for those looking to play by their own rules!

Below is the release trailer.



I've put in only 40 minutes on the game today and am part way through the tutorial. I'll post more about it in a while.

[jztemple2]

One of the nice little touches in the tutorial is that in the upper right of the screen there is a little video instruction that runs continuously so you can see what actual steps you need to do to accomplish the current goal. It helps since at times it is not always totally obvious what steps are needed.

[jztemple2]

Always things to worry about when you are a Capo, like a lieutenant turning volatile and becoming hostile to you.

[jztemple2]

The tutorial starts off with your character arriving at the office of your father, a well established Capo. Your father sends out your uncle to greet you.


After some to and fro in the dialogue, you get your first assignment.


I won't go through all the dialogue screens, which are a rather clever way to walk you through the tutorial. Instead I'll post the occasional interesting screen shots that display more of the essential parts of the game.

Assuming there are folks out there actually reading these posts????

[Max Peck]

Apparently this Twitch streamer is doing a launch-day giveaway for game keys: https://www.twitch.tv/hbomb_editor

[jztemple2]

Here's a nice little touch. The federal police (federales) have thrown up a roadblock to prevent my dirty money from reaching my money laundering taxi company in the city. And so on the map there is an actual roadblock.


And if I want it removed? I can wait till they get tired of blocking the road, or I can spend $2,000 in clean money to have the roadblock removed. While I have tons of clean money in the tutorial, once we get into the story missions and the sandbox clean money will be harder to come by.


Now the federales are attacking one of my opium farms.


The police have seized my farm. I now have to wait.


A day has gone past. I now can spend $5,000 in clean money to buy back the farm. Again, clean money is going to be harder to get later on.

[jztemple2]

As you progress through the tutorial, additional chapters are added to the manual so you have an in-game reference.


And here you go, the production chains. Not your old Transport Tycoon, is it?

[gbasden]

Let us know how you feel about the game in general. It sounds intriguing!

[jztemple2]

Let us know how you feel about the game in general. It sounds intriguing!

I've put in three plus hours and have completed the tutorial part of the first of three story campaigns. A nice idea is that you can continue with that first campaign so you don't feel like you've wasted those three hours.

So far I've really enjoyed the game. It plays in plausible real time with four different speeds so you can avoid long waits. The graphics are really nice and there is a lot of eighties cartel gangster flavor to it. The sound track is good and the voice acting is excellent. The 3D map icons are very well done. There are little trucks transporting goods, police cars, farms that are different for each good they produce, etc. Lots of production value in the game.

The basic flow of the game is that you place buildings that produce goods, much like any tycoon business game. The twist is that many of the goods you produce are illegal so different steps have to be taken to make a profit. For instance, growing pot is easy, but you can't move it without disguising it. So it is mixed with vegetables and crated and smuggled out of the country. But do you buy vegetables from the local villages or grow your own? Growing your own gives your a bigger profit margin, but buying from a village increases their loyalty. Loyalty is important, without it you become more suspectible to being raided by the police.

Another twist is the concept of dirty versus clean money. The initial production flow has you growing opium on farms, collecting it into warehouses and then sending it to an airport where it is sold for dirty money as the product is smuggled out of the country. Dirty money can be used for your payroll, but for many other tasks like building you need clean money. How to launder money? One way is to build a legal business in a city. But then there are one of those twists. You can't build a business in a city unless you have the support of the mayor. To do that you'll have to do some "favors" for his honor And usually those favors are illegal or at least shady.

And there are a lot of other tidbits I'll share as I proceed.

[gbasden]

Thanks! That sounds interesting.

[Blackhawk]

Interesting timing... I was just reading an article in NatGeo about the horrors of the Colombian cartels, and then this thread pops up. My first reaction was to cringe a little.

[jztemple2]

Interesting timing... I was just reading an article in NatGeo about the horrors of the Colombian cartels, and then this thread pops up. My first reaction was to cringe a little.

Well, that's true of a lot of games

Anyway, I'm back to continuing with my current campaign. Here's a look at my empire. I control the cities at the bottom left and top right, more on them in a while. In the center of the screen are my opium fields, off to the middle right are my pot fields.


Here's a look at my opium operation. The orange roofed building in the center is my warehouse. The two farms towards the top, connected by the white dashed lines, are the opium fields. Trucks carry the product from the fields to the warehouse; that's done automatically so you don't have to assign them. At the bottom left is one of my transport companies. It provides trucks to carry the opium to the aerodrome (top center left). The dirty money I get from selling the product to smugglers goes back to my residence, which is the nice house with the hedges surrounding it towards the upper right.


Follow the (dirty) money! Those yellow lines represent my dirty money going out to pay maintenance at the farms, the warehouse, the aerodrome and the transport company. It also shows the three lines going off to the left bottom where the dirty money is being transported to the church, casino and taxi company to launder it. Clean money paths aren't shown because clean money is automatically available everywhere, if you want to spend it. Dirty money on the other hand has to be transported, and therefore is subject to being intercepted.

[jztemple2]

This is a look at my other production chain. In this shot there are three cannabis farms and two vegetable farms. The cannabis goes to the warehouse. Then a drying rack building picks up the cannabis and dries it and puts it back in the warehouse. Then the workshop takes the dried leaves and the vegetables and puts them together into crates. Then a transport company picks up the crates and carries them to a border crossing in my control. It sounds more complicated than it is, since once it is in operation there only need to be tweaks to optimize it.


There's also a research tree, part of which is shown below. New unlocks on the tree will allow upgrades to existing buildings and access to new buildings plus other technology.


These are my lieutenants. Lieutenants are needed in each city to maintain loyalties. They also transport goods and dirty money as needed, defend my properties and attack other gangs. And lieutenants have their own allegiance levels. That lieutenants on the bottom wants the terror level to be up higher and since it's not, she's going to lose respect for me and might even assassinate me or switch to another gang. Ah, the problems of management!


Finally the economy screen. It's important to keep an eye on the money.

[jztemple2]

Let's take a closer look at the economy. First, the Black Market. At the top is the current price of opium. Since demand is outstripping supply, the price is staying steady. Push too much onto the market and the price will fall. At the bottom are the sales by unit. It's a good way to make sure things are running smoothly. You can also select other goods to look at.


Here's the legal market, with all goods selected and displayed with different colored lines. Selling legal goods isn't as profitable, but it won't draw the police attention and it generates clean money.


The revenue screen, showing the income from illegal goods. The black market screen shows sales by unit, this shows actual income.


Finally back to the first economy screen, which is the profit page. It shows both income and expenses of dirty and clean money. Each of those sideways triangles on the left side can be clicked to open up a detailed look at that line item. For instance, clicking the triangle on the building upkeep line will give detailed information on all buildings. About the only problem I see is that the Money Laundering line item can't be opened for a detailed look. You can click on the specific city buildings for a more detailed look, but it's not as convenient.

[baelthazar]

Interesting timing... I was just reading an article in NatGeo about the horrors of the Colombian cartels, and then this thread pops up. My first reaction was to cringe a little.

Well, that's true of a lot of games

I cringe every time ANOTHER WWII game comes out, particularly named something like "Hitler's Reich," which is close to just being "Reich Simulator." I've gotten to the point that I even wonder if I could bring myself to play the CSA in a Civil War game.

I saw this one on Steam and it looked a little like one of those janky indie titles that comes out of nowhere. Is that an accurate assessment?

[jztemple2]

I saw this one on Steam and it looked a little like one of those janky indie titles that comes out of nowhere. Is that an accurate assessment?

No, it's been in development for three years and was in Early Access for over a year. I waited to pick it up but I've rather sworn off early access games. I've been following the development and the devs have been adding new features and tweaking the game for months. I'd put it in the Tropico class of games, not that it's a city builder, but it is rather an empire building. It's like Tropico with the bright graphics, multiple ways of doing things, random events and so forth. I'm sure there are some Let's Play videos out there that will give a good look at the gameplay.

I'd also like to correct an impression I might have given when I posted about the economy pages. This is not a spreadsheet game. You can safely ignore those pages and just look for caution and warning icons to let you know if certain buildings aren't working properly. There's even an overlay that lets you find them easily, like the overlays in Cities: Skyline.

If you mean by janky that the game is of poor quality that's not at all true. It's very polished and the mechanics of the game systems, like the economy and the gang conflicts,seem nicely balanced. I've played seven hours now and haven't seen a glitch or a bug. Be careful looking that the Steam reviews, there was a rather big update getting to the 1.0 release and many of the issues flagged back in June and early July have been fixed.

I'm busy for the next few hours but when I get back to the game I'm going to try the Sandbox mode. I've post images and impressions as I get to them.

UPDATE: I don't want people to think that I believe this game is the uber-solution to your gaming needs. It appeals to me because it's rather different than what I've been playing lately and so far it hasn't disappointed me. But it's still early days.

[naednek]

I saw this one on Steam and it looked a little like one of those janky indie titles that comes out of nowhere. Is that an accurate assessment?

No, it's been in development for three years and was in Early Access for over a year. I waited to pick it up but I've rather sworn off early access games. I've been following the development and the devs have been adding new features and tweaking the game for months. I'd put it in the Tropico class of games, not that it's a city builder, but it is rather an empire building. It's like Tropico with the bright graphics, multiple ways of doing things, random events and so forth. I'm sure there are some Let's Play videos out there that will give a good look at the gameplay.

I'd also like to correct an impression I might have given when I posted about the economy pages. This is not a spreadsheet game. You can safely ignore those pages and just look for caution and warning icons to let you know if certain buildings aren't working properly. There's even an overlay that lets you find them easily, like the overlays in Cities: Skyline.

If you mean by janky that the game is of poor quality that's not at all true. It's very polished and the mechanics of the game systems, like the economy and the gang conflicts,seem nicely balanced. I've played seven hours now and haven't seen a glitch or a bug. Be careful looking that the Steam reviews, there was a rather big update getting to the 1.0 release and many of the issues flagged back in June and early July have been fixed.

I'm busy for the next few hours but when I get back to the game I'm going to try the Sandbox mode. I've post images and impressions as I get to them.

UPDATE: I don't want people to think that I believe this game is the uber-solution to your gaming needs. It appeals to me because it's rather different than what I've been playing lately and so far it hasn't disappointed me. But it's still early days.

Not falling for it this time JZ

[jztemple2]

Not falling for it this time JZ

You know you're going to buy it . Might as well get it on sale.

[YellowKing]

Just wanted to express a bit of appreciation for jztemple2's posts. Even when I'm not necessarily interested in the game, I really enjoy the screenshots and commentary.

[jztemple2]

OK, starting a new sandbox campaign, my first. Here's a look at the settings screen for the campaign. I'm leaving all settings as they are. I've moused over one of Garza's attributes, Robbery. He can raid a bank! Cool, didn't see that in the tutorial, but there is a lot of depth to the game I haven't gotten to yet. Every lieutenant is different with different strengths and weaknesses and for a campaign you get one of them. You can also chose one or have it randomly changed.


This is my starting province, Amado. One city, some opium farms, a warehouse and a transport company and very importantly a river pier.


Local thugs hold the farms and the production chain, I'll have to get rid of them.


And a close look at that river pier. It's in ruins so I'll have to spend clean money to get it working. And notice that unlike the tutorial where I started off with a million clean dollars, I have only fifty thousand clean and fifty thousand dirty dollars.

[jztemple2]

OK, still looking around. There's a plantation, good for growing legitimate crops, but it's been seized by the feds and it will take $12K to buy it. That's a lot of my war chest.


I don't have a starting residence like in the tutorial, but I do have a hotel in the city. It will be my base.


I also have this the radius of my hotel. It's a special building (Indigenous Territory) that has special features, as can be read in the screenshot. However, I have to talk to the chief to set this up and no doubt he'll want something from me


And a closer look at my character Garza, the Capo of this operation. He has five special "powers" which since he's a capo have already been unlocked. It's important to utilized those powers.

[jztemple2]

Well, first things first, let's hire a lieutenant.


I've hired "Samson". He is expensive but comes with special talents already unlocked.


Wait, bad choice. Samson has a combat power of zero. My character Garza has a power of only one and since each thug location has a defending power of one as well, it's important that I hire someone who has at least a power of one as well. You can't win a fight unless your power is greater than theirs. I reloaded the last save and then I'll recruit this guy instead.


Now I'm attacking the warehouse held by the thugs and since I have power of two versus their one, eventually I'll win this fight.

[jztemple2]

So I've attacked and seized the warehouse and two opium farms so I can start a production chain. You can see those in the upper right. However, also in the upper right, you can see that I've managed to raise the Terror level to Outrage due to my attacks. The police have thrown up a roadblock (bottom left) that will block my access to the river pier. Now I'm in a quandary. I can ask the local mayor to reduce the terror level, but that will also reduce the loyalty of the people to me. If loyalty goes too low the people will rise up and kill me . I can offset that somewhat by spending money for an event at the charitable foundation I'm building in the city. But that takes more clean money. Alternately I can spend clean money and bribe the cops to remove the roadblock. So many problems!


After capturing two opium farms, a warehouse and a transport company from the local thugs, I've spent the money to fix the river pier. I've now got a production chain in place. At the bottom center of the screen you can see a truck carrying twelve opium units to the river pier.


Now you can see a fishing boat carrying twenty-four opium down river. I'll get paid when the load is sold.


Now I need to research something on my research tree to increase the product I can move through the river pier.


Time to spend that clean money to run a charity event to increase loyalty. It will take a while so I'll make this the last item of this post.

[Isgrimnur]

Just wanted to express a bit of appreciation for jztemple2's posts. Even when I'm not necessarily interested in the game, I really enjoy the screenshots and commentary.

+1

[jztemple2]

Some things have been happening. First I visited the Indigenous territory and spoke to the chief. I went through a dialog chain and for reasons too long to go into now the chief wants me to take away a 100 coca and bring back 20 dried coca. I don't have that capability yet but the chief didn't give me a timetable so I'll get to it when I can.


I've upgraded my river pier to move more product. I've held that charity event that raised the people's loyalty to me to "Idolatry" and then used that leverage to get the mayor to remove the terror level. All that took a lot of clean money so now it's time to put up a building to launder some money. A taxi company isn't too expensive and I can build it with dirty money.


Remember how that chief wanted me to process coca to dry coca? Turns out there's a facility to the south of me in the next province, run by local thugs. Time to take that over!

[hepcat]

Just wanted to express a bit of appreciation for jztemple2's posts. Even when I'm not necessarily interested in the game, I really enjoy the screenshots and commentary.

+1

I always look to see if he’s played a game I’m interested in so i can get the lowdown.

[jztemple2]

It's not going well in the province south of me. Instead of a city the province is controlled by that Indigenous Territory I showed earlier. And you saw the task I had, to take 100 coca and come back with 20 dried coca. And I was attacking that Drying Rack facility. Well, bad news, another gang attacked me at that facility, destroyed all the coca I had stockpile and took over. And now if I take it back they sending out a raiding party of power eleven. Even with all my lieutenants I only can muster a power of eight. And you just can't run down to the corner store and get 20 dried coca . I'll have to do something else.


Meanwhile I'm still bottlenecked with trying to push all my opium production through that one river pier, even though I upgraded it. I'll have to find a new source of income. I've researched the Aerodrome so I can ship through that as well, but it will cost money to build one. I'm really counting every penny now, but a lot of that is my fault for spending so much clean money on research that I could probably have put off.

[jztemple2]

So, time to talk to the other gang leaders and see if I can sell them some opium. I'm rolling in the stuff.


And we cut a deal to send some opium her way for money. And, hopefully, to raise her opinion of me so she won't raid me as well.


Ah hell, that boss is sending a raid against my river pier even though I'm doing a deal with her! Is there no honor? I getting all my lieutenants with power to assemble at the pier to defend it.


And the battle is on! I have a one point advantage over the attackers, which will win me the battle. Let's hope I don't lose any lieutenants.


I've won the fight! No resources lost and the enemy loses one of it's power points.

[gbasden]

Just wanted to express a bit of appreciation for jztemple2's posts. Even when I'm not necessarily interested in the game, I really enjoy the screenshots and commentary.

+1

Absolutely. His posts have been super informative about whether I am going to like a game or not. I should start hiring him to be my game concierge.

[Isgrimnur]

I’m sure you can work out a deal if you buy the game for him.

[Unagi]

Just wanted to express a bit of appreciation for jztemple2's posts. Even when I'm not necessarily interested in the game, I really enjoy the screenshots and commentary.

+1

Absolutely. His posts have been super informative about whether I am going to like a game or not. I should start hiring him to be my game concierge.

+1 again

[jztemple2]

This is a nice tool, the resource finder. Want to know where all your dirty money is located? There you go!


I've been working on my sandbox campaign for a couple more hours now. I've managed to capture some coca fields and a facility to turn that into dried coca so I achieved the next step in convincing the indigenous territory to let me control their province. But first they want me to build a bank! I guess they want to use the safe deposit boxes for something

Oh, and I also contacted the local guerrilla group. They had some requests, like needing coffee and cocaine. Must be some interesting parties. Then they wanted me to increase the Terror level to outrage, which wasn't too hard, then finally I had to defeat any group of police or federales. That took some doing but finally the feds decided to attack my residence (think Scarface's country home) and with the built-in power (combat strength) and every single one of my lieutenants I finally beat them. So the guerrilla have partnered with me, which means I have their airfield from which to smuggle my goods and also if one of my facilities is attacked they will send armed parties to help defend it. Very nice, except that it takes them a long while to get there so I need to bring enough of my own folks to keep the fight going long enough for them to get there.

I am really enjoying the game now. I haven't even touched on the deals I've been working with other gangs, like buying and selling legal and illegal good. Also I hit a crisis and ran out of clean money and had to scramble. My lieutenants didn't mind not being paid for awhile, they just took their compensation in cocaine . Also I robbed a bank, but when I was escaping with the money I had to go through another gang's city and I had to give them half of the take. Boy, what some folks will do to make a few bucks!

[jztemple2]

This game is affecting my sleep, I was up till 4am which is three hours past my bedtime

The situation right now. I control two provinces now, my starting one and the one south of it. The latter doesn't have a city, but it does have the Indigenous Territory which functions like a village. I can buy legal goods from them at high prices to increase the overall loyalty rating. I do have to use clean money so that's something to think about.


In that southern province are coca fields, a warehouse and a place that will dry the coca leaves. However, dried coca isn't a saleable item, I need a lab to process it into cocaine. I haven't researched that tech yet and to do that takes, yes, more clean money .


My bottleneck is still smuggling points. I have my upgraded river pier, but that's slow. I now also have the guerilla airfield and I've connected that to my transport company. I'll see if the long roundabout journey to the airfield would make it more likely for me to add a second transport company.

And here are my lieutenants (I've now learned how to spell that correctly!) who do a lot of my lift and carry work, as well as combat. I can pay them in clean money (not desired), dirty money (but they have to be near someplace with it) or just let them take some of the inventory for themselves. No solution is perfect, but when other gangs come calling I need their combat power.

[jztemple2]

Oh dear. I managed to get the terror level too high. The US Army arrived and with the federales attacked several of my facilities. They also blew up one and it happens my capo was there...



I've now promoted one of my lieutenants to become capo. I also lost other lieutenants in the attack, so I'm really hurting. The survival of the gang is questionable.

Was:


Is now:


By the way, for those picking up this game, don't bother with playing the tutorial after the point where it says you're done with it but you can keep playing if you want to. While it does allow you to poke around and try different things, it enforces some wrong ideas of how to do things.

[Blackhawk]

I think this will make its way onto my list. Thanks for the running write-up.

[jztemple2]

Some good news. When starting with a new capo, my treasury gets bumped up to 50K of clean and dirty money each. Also all missions are canceled without penalty since the deals were will the old capo.


I still hold my old properties, although I still need a new warehouse since the US Army blew up the old one . After a while the ground cleared so I could build my new warehouse.


This game plays a lot like Crusader Kings III in that as long as you have a successor you keep playing.

[jztemple2]

Gameplay has been very different since I lost my first capo. With a reduced staff I've tried to avoid conflicts. Just before the old capo died I had cleared the second of the two gangs that were adjacent to me so that has meant it's been quiet, no gang raids.

I now have a significant cocaine production chain going.


And with an upgraded River Pier I not longer have to deal with plodding fishing boats, I have fancy fast cigarette boats.


My opium operation is still in full swing, even though the price opium has dropped a bit due to oversupply


It doesn't show up so well, but in the city I have four buildings, three of which launder money and the fourth holds charity events when I need to make a big boost in loyalty.


This is the nearby guerilla base whose commander I convinced to come work for me. As you can see, periodically I have them do robberies to get me some dirty money and kidnappings which gets me clean money.


This is the seaport I liberated from local thugs. I used it for a while but it is awfully expensive to operate. It will be more useful when I can use it to ship legitimate goods.


Finally a look at the big picture. The province at the very south, Amado, is mine. The yellow bordered provinces aren't controlled by any gangs; the two adjacent to me were controlled by gangs but were cleared by the first capo. There are still four gang held areas, but I've learned my lesson about overextending too fast. I'm going to open up the research tree, expand my operations and when I have a big staff of strong lieutenants, we'll go after those other gangs.

[jztemple2]

Damn, eighteen hours into my sandbox campaign and I've lost another capo. This time to a family member who was unhappy and decided to go



And I screwed up. I thought I had to promote from the next level up, but I could actually have promoted anyone. It might be useful because whoever I promote automatically has all their traits unlocked. I might consider reloading a save, but probably not. I think the lesson is better learned if I don't.


The bad news is that again, all the contracts underway with the old capo are voided. I was half-way through convincing a mayor to let me control his city, but now I have to start again . But may if the contracts I have to fulfill are the same as before I might already be able to do those, like remove the local gangs from the province. And I just checked... and yes, they seem to be the same. That makes it not quite so bad. Again, it's rather similar to Crusader Kings III, when a ruler dies and you start playing the successor, some things get reset, some things your new character inherits.

And yes I'm still enjoying the game

[gbasden]

Was there a reason he was assassinated, or is it just a random event that can happen?

[jztemple2]

Was there a reason he was assassinated, or is it just a random event that can happen?

Nothing the capo did, it was a case of a disgruntled underling going postal. Now I know why some lieutenants has an assassination trait, you can use that to get rid of potentially dangerous subordinates before things like this happen. As I've said, there's a lot of depth to the game.