In Cartel Tycoon, success isn’t just about making money—it’s about maintaining control, managing terror levels, and ensuring that your infrastructure keeps up with the ever-growing demands of your cartel. In this guide, we will explore how to expand your influence, upgrade key facilities, optimize production, and ensure that your operations remain efficient while keeping the authorities at bay.

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Understanding Terror and Managing Stars

One of the biggest challenges as your cartel expands is managing terror levels. As you engage in hostile actions, seize territory, or attract attention, you will begin accumulating stars. The problem? Once you earn stars, they cannot be removed. This is one of the more controversial mechanics in the game, and while some players hope for a future update that allows a way to remove stars, for now, managing terror strategically is crucial.

To keep terror under control:

• Use Mayors to reduce it before you gain stars.
• Avoid unnecessary conflicts until you are ready to deal with the consequences.
• Invest in reputation-building activities to balance out negative actions.

Once you have stars, you’ll need to adapt your strategy to accommodate increased police scrutiny.

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The Mission: Taking Over All Three Seaports

The current objective is to capture three key seaports:

1. Puerto Roja – Already under control.
2. Los Grandes – The next target.
3. Soledoco – The final challenge, requiring strategic expansion.

Since Soledoco is two regions away, the challenge is in choosing a path:

• Option 1: Expand through Takarina.
• Option 2: Expand through Tensaka.

Choosing the right approach will depend on your resources and ability to sustain operations while taking over these key locations.

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Upgrades for Maximum Efficiency

Expanding territory is one thing, but ensuring your infrastructure can support it is another. Efficiently moving products from production to export points requires upgraded workshops, warehouses, and farms.

1. Upgrading the Workshop

The Workshop is essential because it processes raw materials into high-value products. The recent upgrade to Workshop 2 brings benefits:

• Expanded product line – Now supporting spice, cocaine, chicken, meth, consoles, and TVs.
• Increased processing speed – Allowing more product flow.
• Additional export destinations – More flexibility in where products can be sent.

2. Farm & Plantation Enhancements

Farms and plantations are the backbone of production. Upgrading them boosts:

• Storage capacity (e.g., a plantation holds 150 units vs. a farm’s 38 units).
• Production rates, allowing more products per cycle.
• New resources, including cannabis and coffee.

By investing in better farms, you ensure that the supply chain remains uninterrupted.

3. Warehouse Upgrades

Warehouses handle logistics—without them, products pile up, and operations grind to a halt. The Warehouse 2 upgradeprovides:

• Increased storage from 125 to 200 units.
• More trucks, increasing transport capacity.
• Larger delivery radius, reducing logistical bottlenecks.
• Ability to serve multiple destinations, making operations smoother.

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Optimizing Transport and Delivery

Managing transportation efficiently is key to profitability. Here’s how to keep things running smoothly:

• Use Workshops to process raw goods into higher-value products.
• Keep transport routes short and efficient.
• Upgrade roads from dirt to gravel to increase transport speed.
• Ensure Seaports and Aerodromes are working at full capacity.
• Monitor your warehouses to ensure they don’t become overstocked.

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Expanding Through Smart Research

With the game’s research update, optimizing your operations requires strategic planning. Some key upgrades to prioritize:

• Aerodrome Upgrades – Increasing export efficiency.
• Plantation Level 2 & 3 – Unlocking more crop production.
• Workshops & Warehouses – Expanding production and distribution capabilities.
• Drying Racks & Chemical Plants – Unlocking higher-value narcotics production.

For those looking to expand faster, researching a second Aerodrome can allow greater product distribution, opening up new revenue streams.

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Optimizing Money Flow

Cartel Tycoon is all about moving money efficiently, and washing money remains a major concern. If your operations outgrow your laundering abilities, profits become stagnant.

Strategies for Managing Money Efficiently:

• Invest in Residences to automate money laundering.
• Expand your laundering network with casinos, banks, or taxi services.
• Don’t let excess cash sit idle—reinvest it into farms, research, and transportation upgrades.

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Research and Expansion Priorities

The next research goals should focus on:

1. Maxing out the Farm, Warehouse, and Workshop upgrades.
2. Unlocking the Drying Rack for additional product processing.
3. Investing in better infrastructure to support growth.
4. Preparing for large-scale expansion into the final seaport regions.

Since research takes time, planning ahead ensures that the right upgrades are completed in time for expansion efforts.

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Final Thoughts: The Road Ahead

With upgrades in place and strategic research underway, the focus now shifts to finalizing the seaport takeover. The goal is to:

• Capture Los Grandes and Soledoco.
• Maximize workshop output for larger shipments.
• Ensure transport efficiency with better roads and warehouse capacity.
• Keep money moving and reduce the risk of cash bottlenecks.

With Cartel Tycoon’s constant updates, new strategies are always emerging, and staying ahead means adapting, expanding, and optimizing at every turn. Keep building, keep expanding, and most importantly—keep out of the authorities’ radar.