Sometimes I wonder: did the simulation game genre pop into existence because someone somewhere wondered ‘are we living in the Matrix’? It’s scary when you realize you’re just a pawn in someone’s grand scheme of things and all your actions are scripted (including your realization). But think for once: what if you become that supreme being? The one player who shapes and shifts the world with a flick of his fingers… or with the click of mouse and keyboard. I guess, that’s how the subgenre of sim games – the business sim and ‘Tycoon’ games (Cities: Skylines, Two Point hospital etc.) took birth. What’s better than managing an entire hospital/mall/game dev company etc. without any real world ramifications when things go awry. And things will definitely go south which is why I consider Cartel Tycoon as the Dark Souls of Tycoon games!
Why so? Read below to find out!
Become the next drug lord
The plot and setting of Cartel Tycoon is inspired by the historical events that took place in the 80’s when a wave of drug trafficking took over the Americas. The game begins with you, Cesar Garcetti, stumbling across an ad in the local tabloid while looking for work. You dial up the number only to realize that things are shady, and the chat with the stranger at the other end makes it clear that the job is going to get your hands dirty. With a large estate at your expense, harboring hoards of black money, the stranger gives you your first job – horticulture. You start by building opium farms and warehouses then export them to bring in black cash. And before you know you’re running a Taxi company and a casino to launder black money into white while providing services to the citizens to increase your loyalty. You begin hiring lieutenants, assign them jobs, capture seaports and checkpoints, raid rival gangs and fight off enemy raids, bribe mayors and exchange favors, and soon you’re standing atop the proverbial pyramid and looking down at the Sodom below. The law not underneath but standing beside you with its arms on your shoulders as you both take a drag of the Cuban cigar while jamming to Cumbia beats.
The Narcos game we deserved
Cartel Tycoon is currently ‘Uncut Early Access’ but it’s got so much content and variables that it feels like a complete game in its current build. I’m a complete junkie when it comes to analyzing and micromanaging resources to build something, and when I successfully pull that off, the feeling is bliss! For starters, you’ve got two types of currency – Dirty Money which you get by selling illegal produce via seaports, aerodromes, checkpoints etc., and Legal Money which you earn via laundering the dirty money through several business fronts you build in the cities. Every facility/farm/residential house you build requires upkeep expenditure every few hours, which can be in either black or white money. So make sure you’ve enough of both or else you can land in a tight fix.
Bard of Blood
You hire lieutenants to do your dirty work (transport produce, deliver money, and all) while you can lay back and enjoy, or you can haul your ass along with them. Each of them have their own backstory, perks, power levels and special abilities. The power levels become crucial when you’re about to capture an enemy facility or when you’ve to defend your own. That said, all these lieutenants need to get paid for their blood and sweat every few hours in dirty money. So if you’re short on resources then they won’t be paid in time and their loyalty with you will reduce. Once it falls below a certain level, they become as unpredictable as a ten year old with a gun. In my case, one of them left me and raided a rival city and became the boss there. Another one destroyed my estate (perhaps out of anger) and went rogue and therefore I had to send a third lieutenant to silently assassinate her before she took over a rival city. Then I had to quickly extract the assassin before a turf war could start.
Things would have been smooth with me blowing puffs of smoke into the sunset if it wasn’t for the ‘Terror’ scaling mechanism. Like they say – once you proceed with violence, it’s a slippery slope. You want to know why Cartel Tycoon is the Dark Souls of tycoon games? This is how it is. It all started when I took over a rival gang’s seaport in a neighboring city. This fueled a vendetta and their raid campaigns on my facilities began. With each clash, my terror meter increased awarding me with infraction stars from the law. DEA smelled turf wars and regularly began investing my aerodrome and seaport – my primary selling points of illegal produce. During investigations, your earnings stagnate, so on one hand I wasn’t earning as much as I was spending on the upkeep of buildings and lieutenants’ salaries who were busy fending off the relentless raids, and on the other hand my terror meter was skyrocketing. And before I knew, my farms, warehouses, workshops, churches etc. had stopped operating due to zero cash influx, while I had garnered enough terror to attract the attention of the CIA and the US Army.
Then what? I had to battle both the rival gangs and the army! My aerodrome was sabotaged by the CIA (like literally exploded!), national guard set up barricades barring entry and exit from the cities. Cesar was trapped in Amado, unable to escape while his lieutenants were mercilessly slaughtered by high power enemy gangs. Two of my warehouses were overrun with illegal goods as I was unable to sell anything anymore, and that got the attention of the law. And guess what? They were seized too! If only the game had some menu where I could instantly select my lieutenants and direct their actions, maybe I could’ve defended myself faster. But no matter how fast your are, you can never outrun fate. As the vestiges of my dirty money faded into oblivion, I could imagine Cesar awaiting his silent death sentence by the stranger who had hired him, for blowing everything into kingdom come.
Ah, my smol polygons and Cumbia beats!
I just love city building games! Looking down from up above at the small, cute low poly buildings, humans, vehicles and whatnot makes me feel like a supreme being. And Cartel Tycoon has a huge world sprawling with slums, villages, apartments, bridges, rivers, fields and even Indigenous territories like Mayan pyramids! (although they are not available in the game’s current build). I just wish we had greater camera zooming levels (similar to Divinity: Original Sin 2) but I guess the devs didn’t implement it because the world is a tad less detailed on a closer look.
Cartel Tycoon gave me a new genre to be added to my playlist – Peruvian Cumbia. I had heard such music before in various movies and shows set in Latin America but I had never played any game based in these regions. These local Columbian vibes with a tinge of psychedelic rock legit made me feel like a drug baron on the rise. If there was actual voice over then it would have been mind-blowing! By the way, the entire soundtrack of Cartel Tycoon is out on YouTube.
Real Talk
Cartel Tycoon is the Narcos game we both needed and deserved. Not even for a moment I felt that the game is in Early Access – I had only myself to blame as I kept messing my own playthroughs to start all over again. Were the A.I a bit more forgiving and sent fewer gang raids in my way, I would probably have been swimming in a pile of dirty cash. Or maybe I suck at management sim even if I love the overall aesthetic. Whatever it may, Cartel Tycoon is a must play for everybody as rarely will you find a game in the market which perfectly captures the ambience of 80’s Americas, not to mention a good narrative with multiple plot twists! Disclaimer: The final version of the game is going to be a lot different and improved than the current build.