Cartel Tycoon

Cartel Tycoon is an unusual twist on the tycoon genre set in the drug wars of the 1980s. The player plays as a drug smuggling gang in a fictional Latin American country, trying to become the dominant criminal power in the region while avoiding death at the hands of the police, other gangs, or their own lieutenants. Some jank notwithstanding, this is an oddball gem that I strongly recommend. On the positive side, the core gameplay, which revolves around the logistics of growing, processing, and transporting illegal drugs, is simple, but fun and addictive. Negotiating with politicians and other gangs is tricky but rewarding, and you really feel like you're always dealing with an individual with their own unique quirks and needs, rather than just a set of stats and a picture. At first it can be tricky to learn to balance legal and illegal businesses in order to avoid heat from the police and calls for a crackdown from citizens, but once the basics are figured out it becomes fun to try to walk the balance as best as possible. The graphics are excellent for an indie title, especially the hand drawn character portraits, and the extensive original soundtrack of contemporary Latin music is also of high quality. In the more negative side, the game does occasionally suffer from some strange issues, such as text that seems as if it was badly translated into English from another language. Also, combat in the game is very simplistic and kind of boring, with the player not really having any direct control over it and usually boiling down to a matter of which side has a larger gang. In conclusion, Cartel Tycoon is a unique twist on the tycoon game genre, one that was clearly made with heart and genuine enthusiasm. Recommended to anyone who enjoys tycoon games, strategy games in general, or who has an interest in crime games.

Cartel Tycoon is very smart; it does things I've never seen a management sim do, and it does them well, but a lack of development follow-through means the micro in the game is demanding and punishing. Laundered money moves between facilities and your budget automatically as needed, but dirty money has to be moved manually or by a small set of dedicated facilities with very particular rules. When the cops raid a facility, they pick one with maxed out storage, which means if you keep your storages from maxing out you can attract their attention and then redirect them to a rival's facility. These are very clever mechanics, but Cartel Tycoon lacks any kind of handle on redistribution of resources other than one-time manually initiated runs. The threat of a police raid requires the player to work against their automated distribution system, which only concerns itself with emptying producers and filling warehouses and consumers. Empty a storage and it is full again in seconds. Residences move dirty money within range from producers to consumers, but not amongst themselves. Manually refilling one requires clicking on facilities one by one to see where your dirty money is held up, because there's no at-a-glance ledger for cash location. I haven't given up on Cartel Tycoon yet, but it is such a shame to be so conflicted about it. It is so close to being an excellent title. It is great fun to succeed at, but not very much fun to play.

The tutorial is garbage. It does not explain the basic game mechanics and concepts well. I put down farms. Then it tells me to build roads afterwards, except the farms don't conect to the road even though I'm placing the roads right next to the farms.

The game started out good but now the near constant raids by the police make it imposible.

Who would have thought leading a Cartel is so much fun?