Cartel Tycoon is a city management game focusing on narcotics, developed by Moon Moose and published by tinyBuild. Players take control of several pre-made capo leaders to expand their drug empire across a fictional South American island.

Mauricio Romero learns the ropes of taking over his father’s turf in the northeast region. Towards the south, Cesar Garcetti takes the chance on a mysterious job ad. And across the center of the island, Juan Jose Vazquez is the head honcho but may find himself losing control.

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Players are free to choose any of these scenarios, but only Romero’s acts as a guided tutorial. This makes it ideal for learning the ropes of what is going on and having a better introduction to the overall setting.

Mauricio returns home after an extended stay in the United States, much to the chagrin of his uncle, Salvador Romero. Thankfully, Salvador is more than happy to teach how the opium trade works in the region.

Players begin constructing farms to produce their crop of choice - opium in the first part, but can switch later to coffee, cannabis, vegetables, quinoa, chicken, and more products. These farms then need stable roads to deliver to warehouses and then, in turn, from warehouses to airports to export the goods.

This generates revenue, but the money is still dirty. Players can clean up their cash by putting it into a more legitimate business, like taxis or factories. Clean money can then buy real estate, which gives a better headquarters for commanding the entire operation.

At first, the player’s capo avatar and lieutenants will have to do all the muscle work of directing business, moving drugs, and other inventory management. But with time, smaller side companies can take care of these tasks, creating a form of automation. However, these subsidiaries still need enough legal money to operate.

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Additionally, most structures can only automatically route to two or three sources, called logistics. Once all of a building’s allocated routes are full, players will need to build more of said business. Still, some building types still need to be within the radius of each other, regardless of if the roads themselves attach.

Once freed up from daily tasks, the capo and his men can concentrate on further expansion. This starts with moving into other enemy regions and killing off capos of other factions.

Players can then take over existing operations or build brand-new infrastructure. In some regions, the government and army have also moved in. In most cases, their military grade gear is too strong to take in a direct fight, essentially acting as an area to simply ignore for most of the match.

Lieutenants also have stats of their own, including power-ups and special tasks they can undertake. Players can give them new vehicles and set an upkeep budget to appease them. Unhappy team members may lose loyalty, either quitting the cartel or outright joining an enemy’s side.

While most of Mauricio’s allies are overly loyal, Cesar typically has to contend with more unreliable help. Thankfully, in his scenario, he is also given many direct dialogue options to boost his relationship with various characters.

As the empire expands, players can also peruse a large upgrade tree. The research includes new models of transport vehicles, better roads, faster money, and higher storage.

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The tree branches out in multiple ways, often leading back to several other paths. This means players could get upgrades while bypassing whole avenues of the business. For instance, players could get a new chemical plant by having either upgraded labs or an upgraded airport.

It is highly recommended that players go through all three chapters in order, as this will create an overall narrative of what is happening around Cartel Tycoon. In total, it should last around 20-30 hours. Afterward, players can fully dive into sandbox mode.

Here, players can pick their own custom capo, starting location, money, and various bonuses for construction and growth. From there, the game will plop players on the map without much fanfare. It might be overwhelming to find out all of the other established leaders all across the map.

Players might spend a good hour examining other territories and taking the time to speak with the various cartels, mayors, generals, and native chieftains. It might even be some time before one is even able to work on their territory safely, or else risk being compromised by a powerful neighbor.

This is where Cartel Tycoon begins to falter: there are just too many concepts and systems immediately working all in tandem without first building on one another. In every scenario - including Mauricio’s framed tutorial - infrastructure is already built by some or all factions.

This means it lacks the step-by-step planning found in other builder games like Civilization or Cities Skylines. Instead, Cartel Tycoon constantly feels like loading into someone’s pre-existing save game without bearing on what has transpired.

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Cartel Tycoon also never really becomes fun to play. All of its micro-management and orders start to feel like repetitive work, going through the exact procedures to get things right. The limited length of roads and radial zones around the building means that placement is rigid and lacks overall freedom.

The oddest choice is that each building needs its own separate road instead of connecting to one another. For example, if roads were placed between four farms, and the final one goes to a warehouse, the previous three are counted as disconnected.

A nice point for Cartel Tycoon is its visual and audio presentation. The game’s art direction is bright and very in line with Latin American culture. Each character looks memorable and has personality from their choice of clothes, grooming, and facial expression.

The music is also great, with an authentic South American vibe. All of the characters have some basic Spanish dialogue when interacted with. Sadly, only Mauricio’s mission is fully voiced. The others make due with just text and canned sound effects.

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Cartel Tycoon is mostly for people who want a fun and gritty theme to their city management, even if it is at the cost of overall gameplay. As it stands, the game needs more onboarding and a better user interface instead of just throwing players to the wolves. Moon Moose has already announced further updates, and perhaps those could help relieve some of the existing issues.

Cartel Tycoon

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