If you’ve downloaded the Cartel Tycoon demo and are wondering how to get started without falling into frustrating trial-and-error traps, this walkthrough is your shortcut to success. The in-game tutorial gives you some clues, but let’s be honest — it’s sparse. So we’re walking through everything in a clear, structured way to help you build your empire the right way from the beginning.

Starting Fresh: Interface, Tasks, and Map Basics

Once you boot into the demo and hit “New Game,” you’re greeted by your first territory and a task list in the Efficiency tab. These are the steps the game expects you to follow. Helpful question marks in the top left also guide you through building basics. But for many players, especially those who don’t love reading pages of static text, a step-by-step guide like this makes things clearer.

At this early point, you’ve got your boss (lieutenant), a warehouse, and the ability to create farms. You’ll soon unlock the lab. These are the core pieces of your infrastructure — and how you place and connect them matters more than you might think.

Initial Layout: How to Set Up Your Early Supply Chain

Here’s the essential order: build a warehouse, then build three farms and connect them to the warehouse using roads (sandy roads are cheapest and work fine). Next, your warehouse will need to be linked to the lab, which you’ll unlock a little later. That lab converts cannabis into dry cannabis, which becomes your first exported product.

The final link in the chain is the airport — your first and most important export point. Once your warehouse and lab are built, you’ll set the aerial destination of the warehouse or workshop to the airport. The airport accepts all illegal and packaged drugs, so this is your lifeline for earning money in the demo.

Pay Attention to Crop Efficiency

Before placing your farms, use the efficiency map layer to identify high-yield land. Brighter shades of green mean better cannabis growth. This mechanic also applies to other crops like cocaine, vegetables, and coffee later on. In the demo, your space is limited, so place your farms in the best available zones within your starting area.

A quick warning: the farm crop defaults to Tier 1 cannabis. If you misplace a farm with the wrong crop (e.g., vegetables), you’ll either have to wait for the cycle to finish or destroy and rebuild it. Always choose your crop before confirming farm placement.

Using Lieutenants to Bridge Gaps

At the beginning, your lieutenant is crucial. He can manually deliver goods and cash from your warehouse to other points, like the bank. For example, once you produce dry cannabis, you can have your lieutenant pick it up and deliver it to your lab before automation kicks in. You can also use him to transfer money directly to the bank.

This becomes important when building your early cash base. You’ll need $100,000 before the bribe event hits — more on that in a moment.

Don’t Trigger the Bribe Event Prematurely

Once your cannabis lab is operational and everything is flowing — from farms to lab to airport — focus on building up to $100,000 in dirty money. This is absolutely vital. Later in the demo, the National Police will demand a $100K bribe, and if you can’t pay it, your airport will be destroyed, effectively ending your run. So delay completing tasks too quickly, and instead grind that early income loop.

You can use your lieutenant to ferry cash to the bank and build up funds manually while you wait. Once you’re ready and sitting on the required amount, progress the mission and deal with the bribe confidently.

Unlocking the Workshop: First Step to Automation

After meeting the early requirements, you’ll unlock the workshop. This building lets you package drugs using vegetables, coffee, or basic cover items. Place it close to your warehouse and airport. Once it’s set up, it replaces the warehouse as your main transporter to the airport. Set the workshop’s destination to the aerodrome, and products will begin flowing more automatically.

This drastically reduces how much micromanagement is needed. It’s one of the biggest efficiency jumps in the demo and helps prevent warehouse overflow, which can cause you to lose product.

Assigning Your Second Lieutenant

After you complete the Dirty Money task, you’ll receive a second lieutenant, Alejandro Hector, making things even easier. Now you can use one lieutenant to ferry goods while the other handles money. Or set one to help during overflow emergencies.

Introducing the Residence: Automatic Money Laundering

Once the workshop’s in place, research and build a residence close to the airport. The residence acts as a passive money launderer — it automatically pulls dirty money from the airport and sends it to your bank. Set its destination to your bank, and it’ll handle regular transfers for you. This is a massive quality-of-life improvement.

You can monitor how much money is being held at each step in the chain — airport, residence, bank — to ensure there’s no backlog or waste.

Final Optimization and Research Priorities

At this point, your setup should look like this:

• Three cannabis farms feeding into a warehouse
• Warehouse connected to a nearby lab
• Lab output moving to the workshop
• Workshop shipping directly to the airport
• Residence pulling money from the airport to the bank

All of these should be connected by roads, and all destinations should be properly assigned. Once that’s in place, research warehouse level 2. This gives you more trucks, enabling faster and more efficient transportation, especially as your production scales up. Do the same with your farms when resources allow.

Closing Thoughts

This demo walkthrough guides you through building a functional, mostly automated supply chain that avoids the biggest early-game pitfalls. Get that $100K early, automate exports with the workshop, automate laundering with the residence, and use your lieutenants to cover gaps or overflow. By the time police pressure ramps up, you’ll be prepared.

The best part? Even after finishing the demo objectives, you can keep playing — this isn’t a timed or locked demo. There’s plenty of game left to explore and optimize. Play smart, and build the foundation for a true cartel empire.