This is my rough guide. I am by no means an expert on the game but this is what seemed to work for me. Some bits are my guesses - they will end with ? or similar. Also, following some of the advice on the tips page can help as well as the information here.
This is just how I played and got far enough to buy a jeep with - please add / correct any bits!
(Whirled): In addition, each section below will contain some stuff from a different person (user name is Whirled, find me on kongregate as WhirlMaster). I (Whirled), will mark which passages are mine by putting my name in front it just like in this passage. Note that what I write is somewhat more longterm than gamerno1's idea. Please note that his idea of beginning is up to the first jeeps or so, mine is up to the point when you get to Qubba. There's also some tidbits of strategy you'll need to know.
Character
You can pick any character - it doesn't really matter as you can edit all the stats. The four stats are:
Physical Shape: Affects starting HP and starting and maximum strength. Especially important late in the game.
Agility: Affects starting and maximum AP. Vital for the entire game, this should always be at least 8 or 9.
Accuracy: Affects starting sniper skill. Very important early in the game, less so later on.
Intelligence: Affects starting doctor, vet, and mechanic skills. Also has a small effect on the growth rate of skills, particularly D/V/M. Mildly useful early on, utterly useless later on. Most players recommend having this at 1.
(Whirled): My personal build is 1 Intel, and 8 everything else for a well rounded character. Who cares about intelligence in this game anyway?
More information can be found at the character page in this wiki.
Starting the Game[]
I didn't buy any cargo to begin with except for food and forage, and just went out and found some bandits to kill. You should find them easy to kill as they will only travel in twos or threes and carry knives which you can shoot them from afar. Sell everything you get from them unless it's something really cool. You will find that the shops get bored of buying everything though so I ended up with hundreds of bottles for water!
After a few kills I had started doing trade runs just as the man at the Sheriff's Office suggested. I didn't hire anyone else for a very long time.
After a while you can move further out, I suggest going to the middle of the map next but be warned the bandits have guns. I picked up several M4s there which I think are the best weapon I've tried so far. But the heavy machine-guns are the best in the game - they are very accurate and can do 3, 5 and 10 round bursts which take most people down in a 2 burst -
You can make a lot of money from selling the guns you get from the robbers.
I buy cargo from the start and do a few runs to get some cash, then I go to Merdin and then Okaidi to get armour and an M14 and a Beretta AL391.
Hi I have played this game for about a week now. I have picked up a few things. You should probably have your intelligence turned down to 1 and after that it's your pick. Get a medium wooden cart, 15 forage, 5 food, and 20 water and the rest leather then go to Caganel. Then fill up the water get even out your forage to 20 then buy all the shoes you can. At Drushlak buy 30 clothes, all the medicine, and 15 forage. At Poca Cosa go sell the clothes keep the medicine 20 forage 5 food and 20 water and if you have enough a mule. Sell the medicine at Caganel, and keep doing that 2 or 3 times. I advise buying help on your second lap.
(Whirled): First, talk to the sheriff, and click everything he says. Then go buy the cheapest cart ya can find in the shop, attach it to your animal by opening the "Caravan" menu. Sell your water bottles, buy a 20L Jerry Can from shop. Fill water. Buy 5 food and 15 Forage. Then buy as much leather as possible. Head to Caganel. If attacked, wait until enemy is within 30 meters to shoot with aimed shots, 15 meters for quick shots. Sell all leather at town. Fill water. Buy another 20 forage. Check shop for Jerry Cans (20L). If there, buy it. DO NOT FILL UP WATER IF YOU BUY JERRY CAN, THE CAN IS FOR LATER, NOT NOW. Buy as many shoes as possible. If you were attacked on the way to Caganel, buy enough ammo to have 50 ammo. Head to Drushlak. Repeat above if attacked. Sell off shoes. Fill water again, but still only up to 20 Liters. Check shop again for jerry cans. DO NOT BUY CLOTHES YET. Whatever Mr. Sheriff says, clothes aren't worth it YET. So buy medicines. Head to Poca Cosa, sell off medicines, get 20L water. *Remember to check up on Food and Forage levels every trip!* Hire the guy who's got the highest AP. Repeat the above. Have a max of 6 Jerry Cans and two people (including your own character.) Remember, buy shoes only if they are selling at $21, clothes only if $9 or less, and leather only at $5.25. Once you reach 10k dollars go to Poca Cosa. Get rid of your Donkey, buy 2 Mules. Buy another cart. Buy guns and ammo for your two man group. Get 250 Forage and 20 Food. If you're really rich, buy a THIRD mule and cart. Just add 50 forage to those 250. Make sure you've got 120 water if you got 2 mules, 140 water for 3 mules. Go to Caganel, obviously selling leather from Poca Cosa. Buy max shoes possible. Go to Verdamnter Platz. Get rich. Buy a car or two, *making sure you've got the fuel for 'em*. From there, talk to the Desert Patrol guy and you should be entering the mid game now.
Plot Lines[]
There are two plot lines. You tend not to start them until later in the game, but I will give you a quick overview:
Desert Patrol: Much harder and longer, but still you can't truly claim to have finished the game until you finish it.
Government: Short and pretty much pointless, all you have to do is drive (or walk) from Qubba to Fort Goks and then to Verdammter Platz.
Trading[]
(Yes grabbed details from the cargo page, but formatted it into a table and sorted alphabetically)
Cargo Low High Buy From ----- --- ---- -------- Alcohol 4.2 22.4 Masriah, Smerd Clothes 8.93 44 Drushlak Cotton 0.01 0.06 Drushlak Crude Oil 15.75 93.17 Diep Gat, Verdammter Platz Food 0.63 3.00 Poca Cosa, Drushlak Forage 0.02 0.09 Poca Cosa, Drushlak Fuel 0.77 4.25 Hara Gold 4.25 45 Sekir Bashka, Abu Kirdyk Jewelry 715 4500 Hara Leather 5.25 25 Poca Cosa Medicine 0.38 2.20 * Fort Goks Shoes 21 110 Poca Cosa, Fort Goks Textiles 1.13 7 Okaidi * Small Quantities available sometimes
In theory medicine is the best to trade with, because it is per gram and not kilogram like almost all the others. Crude Oil, for example, weighs so much you will only be able to carry a few barrels. With medicine, you can (if you have the money) buy the entire 60K supply and go sell it for 7 times the price.
One way to avoid bandits is to buy horses and carts, as that lets you travel faster (assuming you can walk fast enough). When you have enough money, you can buy one of a variety of vehicles for yourself and then you can race around at 15-25 Km/h, which is fast enough to avoid most bandits.
Then I would recommend upgrading to Land Rover Defenders - fast and can carry other people and 1000 Kg of goods. They are also very fuel efficient for all that cargo. Then you can zoom around at 20 Km/h.
[Player who earns 1M average per town with demand] While in theory that medicine may be the best, the problem with medicine is that towns don't want an infinite supply of it. What I've found is that you can buy thousands of units of medicine, however it comes back to haunt you when your average price sinks down to how much you invested. What works really well for me is to buy up as much jewelry as you can. When you buy jewelry, you can purchase for about $800 (anything less is good); but when a town wants to buy jewelry, they buy all your stock at about $4000 per piece (or a slight difference in price/demand at unit 1 all the way to last unit). Immediately after selling, the town loses all demand for jewelry and its price goes back to sub-$800 a piece. Buy all of them back and find another town to begin the cycle all over again. At first, you start with maybe 100 units of jewelry, but when you get the cycle going, you can hold onto an infinite supply (theoretically but I've only gotten to 600 units). And each time you enter a city that wants to buy (because to grow demand for jewelry takes a long time), you walk out with millions more! However, this is an advanced strategy as you need to build up lots of money to do this first...
- I would advise not selling all your jewelry at once to any one town. Aim to sell small amounts, in batches to 10-20. Otherwise you will bankrupt its citizens and make it virtually impossible to sell anything to at a good price.*
Or, if you're lazy, just sell shoes for massive early-game profit.
(Whirled): I agree with chart, but sometimes it's better to just see how the game progresses, cause the chart is not completely accurate-the game likes to mess with you sometimes. And beware: buying jewelry is not plausible until your get a TON of money. The best way is to start at Hara. Buy Fuel for all your cars, and Forage if you like to keep your horses. Though horses are useless once you get the large cars. Anyway, go to Qubba, buy leather, head to Fort Goks, sell leather buy shoes, head to Smerd, sell shoes buy alcohol, go to Qubba, sell alcohol buy crude oil, go to Hara. Repeat, but obviously check prices before you buy just in case a bargain appears. And jewelry, unfortunately, has the habit of bankrupting cities. So stick to standard low cost materials that you can buy in bulk.
Hauling[]
While it can be tempting to get rid of all animal-driven carts and lead a large vehicle convoy later in game, keep in mind that you will need tons of fuel (which only two towns sell in sufficient quantities, so barrels will eat up a huge part of your cargo space) and at least one extra crew member per car. Instead, think about using several horsed metal carts along with a car or two (preferably Land Rovers) carrying your squad. You'll lose only 5 km/h in speed this way while having less trouble keeping the caravan up and running, as forage and water are extremely cheap and can be obtained just about everywhere. On the other hand, even if movement speed itself is not a problem for you (which it certainly is considering robbers), forget about any other animals than horses, especially oxen, as they consume TONS of forage and water while crawling for days even between neighboring towns. Again, horses are the most forage- and water-efficient in terms of supplies consumption per 1 kg of cargo per 1 km. Actually, a dromedary camel can be slightly more efficient until you grab some metal carts and cars for the crew, but no longer.
(Whirled): Bull I say. Once you get to Hara, you should buy vehicles. ONLY BUY LAND ROVER DEFENDERS AND HUMMERS, everything else fails. GET RID OF YOUR HORSES. Once you have Hummers, horses become obsolete. Get about 5 to 10 cars first, with only one man/woman per car. Then, you can expand if you want to go to more dangerous places such as Abu Kirdyk.
Some Possible Trade Routes[]
Pretty much the only ones I (gamerno1) use are:
- Poca Cosa to Caganel to Drushlak
- Meds at Fort Goks or Hara to Qubba
- Alcohol at Fort Goks or Smerd to Qubba, Crude oil to Smerd if taking this route.
- Crude oil from Qubba, Sell it in Hara or Smerd and buy Fuel, Sell it in Sekir Bashka or Abu Kirdyk buy gold (I would advise on buying shoes and clothes as well, since jewelry takes up very little cargo space), sell it in Qubba buy jewlry, sell it wherever and buy back at lower price (if possible). "Jewelry usually appears 24 hours after you sell the gold; average price I've had to buy it right after is around 800-950 gold/ea.*
Don't try to trade crude oil by itself, it may look good but 1 barrel weighs 137 kilograms.
(Whirled): Close enough. Keep in mind Sekir Bashka and Abu Kirdyk are giant robber hot-spots, with 10 to 16 robbers coming at ya. Best have rockets and snipers if you wanna survive, along with some M14s. Once you destroy the robber base, basically the robbers disappear. Crude oil earns little, but you gotta do it. Keep sending crude to Hara and Smerd, or else your fuel supply is gonna run out. (Hara and Smerd need crude to make fuel). Alcohol is the safest and most efficient trading item in any case. Smerd, the alcohol city is quite close to Qubba, and Alcohol is not too heavy. You can earn hundreds of thousands of money in one big run with alcohol.
(Whirled): If anybody sees any problems/suggestions/questions/unanswered stuff in this place, don't hesitate to email/private message me. email: paintfletcher@gmail.com