robin94122
Master Chef
Posts: 325
Joined: October 30, 2007
My strategy for Castle City
Posted: December 24, 2007 at 11:38
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CRUSH SNEERSWORTH. (These tips won't work until you've completed 3 above--you need to have money and upgrades.) Now you're ready to crush Sneersworth. He's tricky--he can survive a long time with just 3 or 4 customers a day as long as his popularity stays at 20% or so. You will be making $4,000 to $7,000 a day, so you'll be able to do it, but you have to use the right tools.
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A. Hire the corporate mole.
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B. Set your prices using the forecasts and your knowledge of S's pricing. I click on the spell's name to see its usual price.
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I set my price the same percentage from the low range as the forecast. So if the spell is usually 45 to 70 (25 beans range) and the forecast is 10%, I set my initial price at about 47 (45 + 10% of 25). If the forecast is for 90%, I set my price at about 68 (45 + 90% of 25).
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Now that you have your initial price, check S's price. If he's gone way high, leave yours where it is. If he's gone way low, you can meet his price in this stage even if you're losing money. If he's pretty close to yours, set yours 10% below his as long as you're still making a 10 bean profit on your cost of materials.
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3. Buy Marketing. If the forecast is for 60% or above in two spells, buy 2500 beans worth of marketing, and buy the following goons: Lazy Baby (sitting on S's doorstep), Siren and Prince ( both in gateway to his courtyard towards the top), Gorilla Marketer (on path from his courtyard to yours, about half way). I found the Gorilla Marketer was essential long term to drive down his popularity. Otherwise he holds on forever. If the forecast is for less than 50%, you can dial marketing down to 2000 and you may want to drop the siren and the prince, depending on your money.
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4. Buy supplies. You're not going to use the Recipe Book as much in this phase, because your goal is to buy cheap ingredients and store them for the
future. For the first few rounds check the recipe book and try to aim for 40 of each spell, then eventually 50 of each spell. (If some supplies are expensive, you may want to adjust this based on the forecast as you did in earlier stages.)
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But you're going to spend most of your time on the Purchase tab. If you click on the name of each ingredient, a window pops up that shows you its average price. And if you've bought the top Spy spell, you'll also see its price tomorrow! This is the knowledge you need to stay in business while crushing Sneersworth.
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For each ingredient, you want to eventually have about 100 in stock. But if it's cheap (green) today and will get expensive tomorrow, go ahead and top up to 200. If it will be cheaper tomorrow, even if it's green, you only need to get enough for your base 50 spells. If it's black today but will get expensive tomorrow you may want to top up to 150. (You can also see tomorrow's weather report on the News tab, but it's not really as useful--you're pretty much going to try to keep 50 spells in stock every day.)
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5. Start the day. Run at turtle speed. Freeze his goon if he has one. Pick up extra beans. Watch the people coming out of your store--if they're unhappy because you have a price set too high, use magic ink to change it. Make sure you right click any negative talk about you (usually from people who got tired of waiting when your store got too crowded) or are saying nice things about S. Use elephant drop if any of your supplies get down to 3 and you see people waiting in line in your store for that spell, but you usually won't need it.
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If you check the Competitors tab under Reports you'll see his popularity and cash go down with this method. It will take 6 to 10 turns in this stage, but you should win.