Distances and waiting.

[Rednax]

So right now, i'm 120+ turns in.
I'm playing in Atlantic city, and i'm stuck in the left most corner near the little outcrop at the lake. Its a nice chokepoint, and i'm slowly expanding westward.
i've got homebrew beer coming out of my ears, plenty of moonshine and have recently started dabling in bathtub gin ( using the stils instead of moonshine ).

Problem is, i need more crocks. I can get more crocks, but then i would have to constantly send my drivers on 2 weeks journeys through town to buy like 30 more crocks, to temporarily solve the issue, because then they'l run out of supply again.

The map is vast, there are 8 other gangs, but i haven't even seen them yet. I've been stuck buying crocks, barley, whatever for hours. I had to send my guy on a 2 way journey to get 14 pipes that took him a whole week, and then i had to send him back for another week because i needed 1 more pipe.

Why is everything so far away, why does everything take so long, and why can everybody do so little?
I'm playing in a city, yet it takes my guys 7 days to drive through a small suburb, like i'm asking them to cross a freaking continent.
In one week, my guy can go and talk to 4/5 guys to sell some booze and ask for favors and then he calls it quit, like the worlds most laziest gangster.
Why does everything have to be such a huge pain in the ass?
Mission: I need 60 crocks.
Gameplay: slowely drive around buying 8 crocks here, 12 crocks there while you also need them elsewhere.
Wanna go upgrade a buidling? F*CK YOU, you need 15 bricks, and your car can only hold like 8-12, so have fun slowly driving from the brick place, to the distilary twice.
Then you get there, and turns out the local small time gangster has been a pain in the ass. So now you gotta first talk to the guy and ask him to leave/stop ( which he wont ), so then you gotta spend multiple turns killing the guy, which takes time. And then, you still need other ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of money.
Wanna expand your zone of control? BOOM, one corner at a time, because f*ck you thats why.

I feel like i'm slowly playing monopoly by myself, waiting to get past start so that i get more money, so that i can buy more stuff.

I love the empire building aspect. I love the favors. But man, this is the second time i've tried the game after a while to try out the new dlc's, and boy does it feel like a slog.

I had to get that of my chest, but i do suggest 2 solutions / potential mods to adress the issues i ( and maybe other people ) have.
1. Add an option to double / triple movement points.
2. Add an option to import bottles / crocks ( for an potentially increased price ). I mean, why can we fairly easily get luxery alcohol from europe by spending favors with a guy who has the same ethnicity as you ( for example getting german schnaptz this way, and basically getting 2500 dollars for free instantly ), but we don't have the option to import containers?

[Goweigus]

You can automate routes so that people will buy crocks while they are out delivering booze, you can buy buildings (if lucky) that produce crocks, you can pay off a 1 block gang for a mission that could net you crocks delivered straight to wherever if its the mission they are offering, you can get a pick up truck or a small delivery truck which can carry a lot more stuff,

you probably just have a map seed thats tougher than most, if you want one thats a good mix of starting position, starting business, room to build, nearby gangs to exploit, and rival gangs that are close enough to have to deal with after the first 2-3 years. There arent any super close sources of barrels of grape juice, but once your first business is up and it realizes it doesnt have enough someone (pick one close to your start) will offer a mission to exchance barrels and cash for it until you get the research that allows you to press your own grapes. Chicago 31415926538

edit: you can also pay off shop owners so they will only do business with you, this isnt useful i think unless there is a large gang near the shop, there will be a specal red/blue? symbol that pops up under their shop icon if theyve recently done business with someone other than you

edit2: a great easy way to get money is to get a favor with a small 1 block gang and then intimidate them (may not even be necessary) sometimes there will be an option when speaking to them where they give you a good amount of a random beverage for free and it doesnt count as a favor (it may reduce relations a little, you can make up for this by doing a raid with them), usually the higher end stuff, i can get basically up to in a 1200 in a single pop this way easy most of the time in the first year