Rival Strategies

[jhughes]

I would like to know how you guys are handling Rivals.

1. Don't care, they can all pack sand

I have tried just putting building everywhere and not caring if the rivals get angry or not .. and I can easily get to the number one ranking.

But then I run out of warehouse space or store availability because all the primary rivals own a bunch of retail, office, and warehouse buildings.

So I end up under attack by 4 rivals and there are few stores to buyout at that point. I can probably last forever here and slowly whittle away that them one rival at a time.

2. A slower and more subtle approach

I try to concentrate on one major rival (usually Ingrid) and try to load up in the Garment District and also Lower Manhattan since there is no primary rivals there.

In this approach, growth is slower, but I can continue to buy out Ingrid's stores since she does not own all the buildings that she uses in the Garment District.

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Scheming to but a rival out of business.

Concentrating on Ingrid initally .. I try to pick an area where she is making the most cash. Not necessarily the largest individual store but if she has 4 Fastfood that total more income than one larger electronics store, maybe target Fastfood.

Any way .. I would like to hear how some of you actually target the rivals and what strategies you have used and if they worked or did not work. etc.

[Eivvehs]

I've just about eliminated Ingrid. Decided to start a new game with all the new updates as i haven't played since release. I haven't built any businesses outside the Garment district as to not draw any attention from other rivals so I'm focusing solely on locking down the entirety of the Garment district.

The strategy i used to take all of her businesses was to target her most profitable businesses (preferably ones with low overall customers like jewelry, electronics, etc). I created the same business as close to it as I could and I drop all my prices to 0.50c per product. This worked because i already had 1 business established making good money so I can afford to just let the business lose money while I put the beat down on hers. As you advance time you'll see the valuation of her business just plummeting. Then i just buy her business at dirt cheap prices. I've used this strategy to take all her businesses. I will take a business with like a $2.5 million valuation down to like 200k-300k then buy it. Or take a business that had a $1 million valuation down to like 25k. Just massively undercut their prices to the point where you're taking losses, so all the customers come to you, and the only way they can compete is to take losses as well, which they won't do. They will lower their prices but they won't lower them as far as I'm willing to.

I've only got 1 business left to take over but there's a bit of a problem, i cant buy the business because she owns the building the business is in, and therefore won't sell her business at any price because she won't rent to me. At the moment, I haven't accumulated enough money to buy the building as a whole, but i assume that's how i can force her out.

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Another thing i've been doing is every time a location becomes available to rent, I rent it, most of which i don't even have businesses in. The rent is pretty cheap and easily affordable, so it blocks them from renting the space and plopping up another business to compete. I'm only up to like $1m profit/ week, and im renting a whole bunch of retail locations and its only costing me like $7000/week or so to just rent them and block them from her.

[Lord_Reavous]

A bit of a cheesy strat I have been using to prevent Ingrid from pummeling demand in Garment is to just rent any unoccupied building. And I mean all of them. The Devs don't want rent to be viable as income so the rent is dirt cheap. If you're asking how I can afford to pay all the rent...

You can own up to two businesses in each district without attracting the ire of a rival. I have a massive M1 fast food restaurant in Murray Hill near the Produce Wholesaler and another in Lower Manhattan by the cathedral. Both make over 100k a day. I have a smaller fast food joint in Hells Kitchen at the 75 traffic building making close to the same with half the customer capacity.

Ingrid had the 50 worker office building doing Graphical Design in Garment, I basically put three Graphical Design Companies in the district and under cut her until I could buy that building and now it makes about 100k profit too and I own all the Law Offices now so I can easily slash fresh food, veggies and her bookstore is about to be dirt cheap to buy.

I'd say getting two high demand businesses in each district is a great strategy so that you can resist a rival's attempt to lower demand or price cut.

[David Estes Creations]

Originally posted by Lord_Reavous:

The Devs don't want rent to be viable as income so the rent is dirt cheap.

Real estate will be getting a big revamp. But for now, rent is too low, true.

[Lord_Reavous]

Originally posted by David Estes Creations:

Originally posted by Lord_Reavous:

The Devs don't want rent to be viable as income so the rent is dirt cheap.

Real estate will be getting a big revamp. But for now, rent is too low, true.

Yeah it needs it because I've really abused it LOL.

[Sound Zero]

Originally posted by jhughes:

I would like to know how you guys are handling Rivals.

1. Don't care, they can all pack sand

I have tried just putting building everywhere and not caring if the rivals get angry or not .. and I can easily get to the number one ranking.

But then I run out of warehouse space or store availability because all the primary rivals own a bunch of retail, office, and warehouse buildings.

So I end up under attack by 4 rivals and there are few stores to buyout at that point. I can probably last forever here and slowly whittle away that them one rival at a time.

2. A slower and more subtle approach

I try to concentrate on one major rival (usually Ingrid) and try to load up in the Garment District and also Lower Manhattan since there is no primary rivals there.

In this approach, growth is slower, but I can continue to buy out Ingrid's stores since she does not own all the buildings that she uses in the Garment District.

=================

Scheming to but a rival out of business.

Concentrating on Ingrid initally .. I try to pick an area where she is making the most cash. Not necessarily the largest individual store but if she has 4 Fastfood that total more income than one larger electronics store, maybe target Fastfood.

Any way .. I would like to hear how some of you actually target the rivals and what strategies you have used and if they worked or did not work. etc.

I think it's random...because in my game Ingrid owned a large swath of the buildings in the garment district, and I couldn't buy out most of the businesses.

I had to deal with her by forcing her prices so low she closed the businesses down, and then I grabbed the rental for myself.

[braendig]

I started in a single district and built up to the point where I'm making enough to put me at the top of the leaderboard. Then I started buying up -all- locations that are available. As soon as a business (any business) closes, I rent the shop. This works on everything that's 'AI' owned (not Rival) -- which is about 90% of the city that I've found.

Starting with offices, I'm filling in businesses using the interior decorator and 'recruiting' a set stack of staff to complete that business (100 programmers for a 50 desk web design shop, etc.). I then train them up to 100% and start the business.

I'm basically just ignoring the competition as I don't want to compete on price (abundance mindset) and I don't really want to buy them out -- that would require firing people and I don't like doing that. I doubt I'll ever 'win,' but I can probably buy up the entirety of the city while still having 5 'active' rivals who bother me with trifles now and again.

[jhughes]

Originally posted by braendig:

I started in a single district and built up to the point where I'm making enough to put me at the top of the leaderboard. Then I started buying up -all- locations that are available. As soon as a business (any business) closes, I rent the shop. This works on everything that's 'AI' owned (not Rival) -- which is about 90% of the city that I've found.

Starting with offices, I'm filling in businesses using the interior decorator and 'recruiting' a set stack of staff to complete that business (100 programmers for a 50 desk web design shop, etc.). I then train them up to 100% and start the business.

I'm basically just ignoring the competition as I don't want to compete on price (abundance mindset) and I don't really want to buy them out -- that would require firing people and I don't like doing that. I doubt I'll ever 'win,' but I can probably buy up the entirety of the city while still having 5 'active' rivals who bother me with trifles now and again.

This was my exact strategy last playthrough. I was at the top of the leaderboard, but eventually I went after the rivals after a particularly painful 50 office lawyer raid they did.

[SAHP]

I haven't taken out a single rival yet. But renting every since building I can after they shut down their businesses, whilst expanding rapidly, I'm in #1 place ofc, and most only have 7-8 businesses going. I got four rivals from day 50. I'm at around day 210 or something.

[lanceyshi]

This might not be my strategy for all the runs. But for my current playthrough though:
1, I open 2 stores per district first to gain a decent income without activating any rivals.
2, After that, starting to open more stores in Garmet District. Since Garmet District has most available stores with decent traffic. I can't choose not to start a war with Ingrid.
3, I activated Thierry and Huang Guo very quickly later on. Honestly, I don't want to start a war with Thierry because he owns a big number of warehouses and offices. But there is a new M1 store location available in Murry Hills which is too lucrative that I can't say no to. And for Huang, Midtown is the most lucrative district and I won't choose to stay with just 2 businesses in it.
4, I chose not to activate Jessica is because in my current playthrough it doesn't have any M1 location available and she has quite a lot of warehouses and offices.
5, Before I started war with any rival, I just rented all their properties available first. I don't mind paying a bit more rent.

[Dave Mongoose]

Don't overlook poaching their best employees as a strategy, particularly if you can make good use of themselves.

Ingrid's best business was a hairdresser so I set up my own and then poached every hair stylist she had with > 50% skill. Not only did it harm her rating and force her to re-hire lower skilled employees, it let me kickstart my new business without waiting for training.

[lanceyshi]

Originally posted by Dave Mongoose:

Don't overlook poaching their best employees as a strategy, particularly if you can make good use of themselves.

Ingrid's best business was a hairdresser so I set up my own and then poached every hair stylist she had with > 50% skill. Not only did it harm her rating and force her to re-hire lower skilled employees, it let me kickstart my new business without waiting for training.

You can use headhunters to only hire 100% skilled employees

[Baron Von Cheeky]

When a rival is defeated do the warehouses and buildings they also owned go up for grabs?

[SpeedDaemon]

Originally posted by Baron Von Cheeky:

When a rival is defeated do the warehouses and buildings they also owned go up for grabs?

Everything they were occupying becomes available for rent. I think the real estate becomes owned by the city, or something.

[Baron Von Cheeky]

Originally posted by SpeedDaemon:

Originally posted by Baron Von Cheeky:

When a rival is defeated do the warehouses and buildings they also owned go up for grabs?

Everything they were occupying becomes available for rent. I think the real estate becomes owned by the city, or something.

Thanks, exactly what i wanted to hear :)

[Zornvel]

You can also open one business in every district. The rivals don`t really care when there is only one business.
I am playing on hard now and have the most of my shops in Garment District and I totaly ignore Ingrit, she started a litle fight over the prizes and wanted to get some of my workers, both failed and then she said she will open extra shops and as this happend her income drop down by 50%. So I did nothing and she started to ruin herself.