Cartel Tycoon

TL;DR This is a logistics simulator. It's a pleasant game for a relaxed, customizable experience at mostly your pace. This is not a difficult game unless you go out of your way to make it difficult. It could use tweaks on performance. Long version: I enjoy this game considerably as a busy individual who needs to be able to pause regularly and keep an eye on other things. Which means if you want a challenge this is not the game for you. The biggest challenge is your patience and your attention to detail. It's incredibly forgiving to a point of it almost being impossible to lose. The mechanics are straight forward: You have Legal money and Dirty money with their own uses and drawbacks. Legal money goes directly into your bank account. Dirty money moves around on the map. Heat and Respect. Respect is of the people of the nation to tolerate your existence. If it reaches 0, you lose, and at various levels you get bonuses. Heat is the nation's tolerance of your existence and at max Heat, you lose. At various levels of Heat, you get more law enforcement actions against you. You have lieutenants who help move things around for you, seize territory, fight the cops, etc. They have different abilities based on their rank and character. You play as a "Capo", who functions identical to a lieutenant. If your capo dies, you select a new lieutenant to play as the Capo, as well as a moderate amount of destruction to your buildings across the map. If all lieutenants die, you lose. Yes, you can recruit more. Lieutenants have a loyalty mechanic. At max, they are at max loyalty. At low, they're roughly the same as having an angry 3 year old around. Some lieutenants like certain levels of heat. There are other gangs on the map. They can be assets or enemies. You can make deals with them. They can shoot you. You can make alliances. The game is about supply and demand. You manage logistics. You can get drugs from either your own production or rival gangs. You can ship them out of the nation or sell to other gangs. You get dirty money in return that gets shipped back to you. Then you take your dirty money and launder it into legal money. You can pay your businesses with either. And yes, you can just legally make money. It's less profit. But, I mean. Friendly neighborhood gangsters, am I right? You got various modes of play. They all resemble each other. If you like the campaign, the sandbox is that but freeform. You also select your leader in Sandbox. Campaign gives more guidance. Survival is just that, try to survive. I thoroughly like the aesthetic of the game. I find the artwork cute. The in game dialogue is fun. But this is an easy game that's more about your patience. Each game can take a LOT of time. But, likewise, you can also win it without firing a single shot. Or you can go in guns blazing and make a lot of chaos for yourself. The game looks scarier than what it is. The game, story wise, glamorizes the criminal lifestyle and emphasizes your power and status. You're all about seizing power, being stronger and smarter than everyone else, and an all around power fantasy. It actively shields the players from the reality of this lifestyle and the effects on its victims. So don't worry about your conscience being throttled on being scum of the earth and a parasite on society. You're portrayed as smart, cunning, powerful, wealthy, and important and you can safely look the other way. Even taking a wisecrack at Big Pharma as being too evil for even your taste. For a game about being a ruthless, murderous, drug dealing sociopath, this game is shockingly tame. I enjoy this game thoroughly. If you're looking for a challenge to prove yourself? This isn't that game, it's easy. If you're looking for a deep plot? This isn't that game either, it's a blatant power fantasy game. This is a laid back management game centered entirely on logistics whose difficulty is mostly about your patience and how you want to play. When playing for that purpose? This is a really fun game and adds a fun flavor.

4/10

I do recommend Cartel Tycoon. At its heart, it's a resource management game - but the atmosphere and theme set it apart from other similar games. It's fun to build the supply chains, and the game is quite realistic to the reality of drug cartels in Central/South America. The soundtrack is great, the graphics are (IMO) beautiful, and some of the quests provide some fun moments. This game isn't without flaws, though. For starters, there are [i] lots [/i] of mana bars. You don't want to fill the Terror bar, otherwise more powerful law enforcement agencies will come after you; and you do want instead to fill the Loyalty bar, so that you can different bonuses. Each of your lieutenants (the agents you control on the map) have a loyalty indicator, however. So does every single gang. The game in part then becomes a wack-a-mole of filling and emptying various bars, which takes away from the experience of managing a drug cartel. Sometimes, especially in the early game, having gangs and authorities attacking you feels punishing. Again, this is realistic, but it does feel like the game is coming at you just for trying to set up your operations. This becomes more manageable as you earn more money to fill in the Loyalty bar and keep the Terror bar empty. At the end of my last match, I never had to deal with anything worse than the second-lowest law enforcement agency. Also, there is only one map. And some of the mechanics should be better explained. For example, by resisting the police, rival gang loyalty increases. Kinda makes sense, but I discovered at the end of my last run. At the end of the day, however, this is a solid game. The creators clearly read about this topic, and it shows. It gave me quite a few hours of fun managing my own personal drug cartel, and seeing my supply chains work and the money rake in was quite satisfying. All in all, this is a recommend from me.

Not fun, the gameplay loop just isn't entertaining or complex at all.

Добротная игрушка с отличным визуалом, музыкой и прекрасными сюжетками. Последние, несколько мягкие и идеализированные для рассматриваемой темы - уместно было бы побольше жести. Но атмосфера на уровне, а интересных поворотов хватает. С игровым процессом похуже - он очень мягкий: даже на старте быстро получаешь стабильный доход, а конкуренты являются даже не противниками, а сложным рельефом местности, о который иногда спотыкаешься. Внутренние дрязги можно легко сводить к минимуму, а действия властей больше похожи на имитацию. Куда большим врагом выступают тупняки инфраструктуры и производственных цепочек. Тему осуждаю, а игру советую, но не как глубокую стратегию, а нестандартную веселую ферму.

Игра мощно затягивает, впечатление очень положительное

大家好，我因为一直种植蔬菜鳄梨养鸡做狗粮调味品等合法生意导致被杀了。

Over 2 years since last update, many things still need to be fixed or expanded on. Worth getting with the 75% discount but it will not hold your attention for long.

那翻译的啥啊，再者说费死劲培养的人一不留神没了(微笑)

Really good game about management