[Help Request] Starting out.

[Hemmels]

Hey all, I'm 16hrs in, and am still struggling. Really enjoyed the pinned spreadsheet "Ultimate guide", but in my last save after 3 years, i thought I was doing pretty well with 20 corners, 4 crew, T2 alcs and T1 alcs upgraded, selling on rotation and automated routes to pick up products and sell etc etc, I had machine guns and could fight off nearly everyone or bully bullies. thought it was going well, but then I checked and I was #8/#8 for alcohol production. Huh?

So I started a new map, scoped out what was selling, chose Brick Wine as I had a grape concentrate vendor and multiple purchasers close. The GC vendor sells 6 every so often (which is what I need), and i got occasional missions that gave me some in exchange for small barrels too.

Got selling enough and expanding enough to get a crew member to help, was about to look to expand my operation and i'm #6/#8 in production.

Is the game really hard or am I just being unlucky? It always seems like an absolute slog to get cash since nearly every expansion or mission requires me to sell my entire inventory 3 times over, and that takes ages. So when I choose to do something I end up with no cash for front upkeep or wages.

[SgtGrimez]

Yes the game is just a slog, and more so the further you get. Play with mods and cheats is my recommendation

[Raremob]

if you're 3 years in and only 4 crew members you are playing a bit slow, always get more crew members when you can and set up as many automatic routes as possible.

20 corners isnt' bad I guess but I get the feeling you are manually doing a lot more than automated stuff.

try to make more of the different T1 alchs, backrooms are good for a constant supply of cash if vendors are not buying.

have you set up any gambling houses? those are pretty good for money too once they get rollin.

also join the discord, there's a few people on there that are almost always there and will answer your questions with help

don't listen to the guy above me who said to play with cheats. game isn't hard once you understand it better.

Oh yeah another good way for some easy cash is to try to kick a rival gang's ass a bit, take out their fronts and as many members as possible, they will eventually want to meet you at a neutral spot then they will pay YOU to stop attacking them for 180 days. When that timer runs out they will pay you again.

also get a crew member dedicated to just driving around the city, I am thinking you are staying in one spot, drive around with a truck and you will find lots of killed off hooligans from other npcs. basically free loot and money from their houses.

hope the tips help

[nerdofanarchy]

Yep, get these "mods" from the discussion section, search ParisMilano. Affordable Buildings and Profitable Fronts. Only put in the profitable fronts mod after the cost reaches $500 to open a front. It's editing the .sim files and is very easy. You can do it yourself and change everything: car size, production run speed/size, etc.
I am also going to suggest some things. If you already know them, maybe the next person doesn't.
It's a resource management game. Logics logics and relationships.
Keep re-rolling the map seed, get a good one. This can take 1 re-roll or 50.
Do everyone's intros in the starting moves then keep doing that. Only 1 intro works so don't waste favors.
Choose missions carefully. No need taking a job to deliver stuff you don't make.
Choose corners carefully. Make sure there's at least 2 businesses. Expansion always follows clockwise so if the N & E corners have no buildings don't open a front.
Choose crew members carefully. If you go all brawlers, what happens if you clear everyone out?
Open 5 fronts then expand them. Can't open while expanding so doing 5 at a time keeps the territory and crew size limit growing.
Expand expand expand. You had 20 corners after 3yrs, you should have 200 corners by 3 yrs
Favors, Favors, Favors. Learn those skills and feed the expansion.

[Raremob]

Originally posted by nerdofanarchy:

Yep, get these "mods" from the discussion section, search ParisMilano. Affordable Buildings and Profitable Fronts. Only put in the profitable fronts mod after the cost reaches $500 to open a front. It's editing the .sim files and is very easy. You can do it yourself and change everything: car size, production run speed/size, etc.
I am also going to suggest some things. If you already know them, maybe the next person doesn't.
It's a resource management game. Logics logics and relationships.
Keep re-rolling the map seed, get a good one. This can take 1 re-roll or 50.
Do everyone's intros in the starting moves then keep doing that. Only 1 intro works so don't waste favors.
Choose missions carefully. No need taking a job to deliver stuff you don't make.
Choose corners carefully. Make sure there's at least 2 businesses. Expansion always follows clockwise so if the N & E corners have no buildings don't open a front.
Choose crew members carefully. If you go all brawlers, what happens if you clear everyone out?
Open 5 fronts then expand them. Can't open while expanding so doing 5 at a time keeps the territory and crew size limit growing.
Expand expand expand. You had 20 corners after 3yrs, you should have 200 corners by 3 yrs
Favors, Favors, Favors. Learn those skills and feed the expansion.

I agree with most things you said but with the mod portion I don't, if you understand the game well enough you don't need mods to lower costs of things as you will be rolling in dough.

Also don't agree with your re-rolling map seeds till you find a good one. You can make almost anything work. Heck the map I just started this week I started in the absolute farthest corner of the bronx and beer was my T1 starter, only a few vendors were buying near me and only 1 vendor was selling malt. I eventually just made a malt business and used that to make it work. It was a tough start but like I said you can make things work, that's part of the fun of it... to me anyway. But if you wanna just keep rerolling till you find a good seed you have every right, it's a single player game so play how you want heh

[nerdofanarchy]

I agree with most things you said but with the mod portion I don't,

And Free Parking on the Monopoly board is supposed to do nothing but no one plays that way. The near exponential increase of buildings and fronts is too restrictive.

Also don't agree with your re-rolling map seeds till you find a good one

OK, be in a section of the city where all the bridges lead to dead-ends. 1/3 the city was unplayable. Or no way of leaving a closed loop neighborhood. I've seen some weird ones. Sometimes roads just don't connect and the only way around is 42 moves.

[Hemmels]

Thanks for the modding idea, it's certainly a valid suggestion.

I had one save just now where i prioritised bullying everyone on the map and emptying safehouses. There is very good loot to be had (some t2/t3 that sells for loads), but obviously once the map is clear there''s not much else, I feel like emptied territory far away from any of my fronts should fill up again with new punks. Got to about turn 120 before I gave up,

Also, i ended up with about 9 billy clubs, 8 switchblades and 12 baseball bats that I couldn't sell which was annoying.

I feel like 5 movement points for discovering blocks is over the top, as you can search about 12 corners, and find nothing of interest wasting 5-6 turns, especially on the edge of the map where there's literally nothing; at the start of the game this is pretty harrowing.

Which brings me onto my next point. There isn't enough sellers or demand for products on the map. I've tried various saves and sometimes it's a choice between choosing a backroom operation to sell to 1 store down the road who buys almost nothing, or another store 12 blocks away. There just isn't enough opportunity to make good cash quickly for the setup costs.

[Raremob]

Originally posted by nerdofanarchy:

I agree with most things you said but with the mod portion I don't,

And Free Parking on the Monopoly board is supposed to do nothing but no one plays that way. The near exponential increase of buildings and fronts is too restrictive.

Also don't agree with your re-rolling map seeds till you find a good one

OK, be in a section of the city where all the bridges lead to dead-ends. 1/3 the city was unplayable. Or no way of leaving a closed loop neighborhood. I've seen some weird ones. Sometimes roads just don't connect and the only way around is 42 moves.

that's part of the fun for me, I actually find the maps with a very hard start way more interesting than say getting one where right off the bat you have a ton of selling locations and more crock sellers than you even know what to do with. Like I said, if you understand the game you can make things work. Also there's many different ways to play it, most people just stick to one section of the map. I tend to do insane long delieveries across the map also once i get a few extra crew members I tend to send them to other portions of the map as well and they start their own little mini outfit, this way I have bunch of different ones running instead of just one giant one. I mean for new players that's fine rerolling but I think experienced players can figure it out.

edit: also to the OP i highly suggest you join the discord for this game, there's a few people on there that will almost always get back to you and respond to your questions

[nerdofanarchy]

"that's part of the fun for me, I actually find the maps with a very hard start way more interesting than say getting one where right off the bat you have a ton of selling locations and more crock sellers than you even know what to do with."

Dash, I followed up "a good one" with a explanation that you can be trapped or the city roads can spawn in too messed up to get anywhere and you still on your definition of good? I wish I took a ss, all the bridges crossing the rivers where circles. Six corners on this side, 3 on that. Next bridge the same and so on. Have you not played with the random gen maps?

Next time ask about my vague words, I think the rest of the sentence but don't type it. Traumatic Brain Injury

I'm years in, way over 200 corners, 30+ crew 85% of all the production lines going 100s of 1000s dollars. Yet, I want to restart bc of a stupid part of the map where my territory can't connect and I need to drive 42 blocks to get there. Plus there's a political office I can't get near with my territory and in turn can't get the abandoned building and that's boiling my blood.

OH, Hemmels, the train station/Longshoremen cask connection is way OP

"Also, i ended up with about 9 billy clubs, 8 switchblades and 12 baseball bats that I couldn't sell which was annoying."

You can delete them in storage, or save them for schemes if they're used?

"I feel like 5 movement points..."
That's to get you growing and for the AI to establish. Plus, I suggested doing the intros, that opens a corner for a favor. Sure there are 4 corners to get to that corner but maybe more favors and intros lowers that.

"...especially on the edge of the map where there's literally nothing,"
oh yeah, really thins out around the edges.

[Raremob]

Originally posted by nerdofanarchy:

Have you not played with the random gen maps?

you should have said that, yes THOSE maps can be very buggy. I tend to not use those.

[Ice_King]

My problem is that new properties aren't becoming available, or maybe I'm not growing enough? Are properties gated to territory size? If so, that's pretty dumb.

[Hemmels]

Replying to myself, I think a key I was missing was heat management, or not wanting to extort businesses. Turns out heat overview pretty much tells you where it's safe to end turn, or you just pay off the cops and you're golden.

Cash flow becomes much easier when you've got multiple businesses on 1 corner all paying you.