The information provided in this guide is also available in the game through tutorials and tooltips. This guide’s purpose is to assemble everything in one place for more convenient reference.
Contents
Basic Guide to Gameplay
Goals
The overall goal of the game is to survive. Surviving entails meeting the Las Rosas Drug Cartel’s laundering goals every week. If you fail to meet the deadline, Eddie Taylor will be killed, which results in a Game Over.
Main Objective
Laundering goal is shown at the top right corner of the screen. It shows the amount of money you need to launder at a current week in order to survive.
To meet the laundering goal, you need to launder dirty money through partner businesses.
Tasks
Side Objectives are shown at the right side of the screen. Typically, completing these objectives isn’t required to survive, but you might receive a reward by doing so.
The Agents
The Agents are your employees who help Eddie Taylor run the money laundering operation. Most interactions with the world are done through Agents.
You can send Agents, including Eddie Taylor himself, to perform various activities, such as Partnering Negotiations, Managing your partner businesses, etc.
Agents’ Stats
Energy
Performing actions consumes your Agent’s energy. If all energy is depleted, the Agent won’t be able to perform any more actions until it is replenished. Energy replenishes over time when the Agent is idle.
Experience
While performing activities, Agents are rewarded with Experience points. Once enough experience points are accumulated, the Agent levels up.
When leveling up, your Agents gain a skill point that can be used to improve one of the Agent’s skills. After leveling up a skill to a certain level, your Agent will get a perk associated with this skill.
More information about skills and perks can be viewed by hovering over a skill in the Agent Info screen.
Agents’ Skills
Social Skills
Social: Represents the Agent’s ability to sweet-talk others into getting what they want. Leveling up the skill to a certain level will unlock additional Trait: Scout
Intimidation Skill
Represents the Agent’s ability to instill fear. Leveling up the skill to a certain level will unlock additional Trait: Extortionist
Strength Skill
Represents the Agent’s aptitude for physical confrontations.Leveling up the skill to a certain level will unlock additional Trait: Durable
Leadership Skill
Represents the Agent’s ability to direct and manage others. Leveling up the skill to a certain level will unlock additional Trait: Delegate
Agents’ Perks
Perks are persistent traits that your Agents get from leveling up certain skills.
Scout
Allows Agents to be assigned to Scouting action in the Office Menu. During scouting, the Agent will search for new potential partnering businesses.
Higher levels of this trait allow for finding more businesses during one search.
This perk is granted and leveled up for improving the Social Skill. Some Agents might have this perk unlocked right away.
Extortionist
Allows Agents to collect more clean money and funds while performing a Collect Cash action.
Higher levels of this perk grant higher collection bonuses.
This perk is granted and leveled up for improving the Intimidation Skill. Some Agents might have this perk unlocked right away.
Durable
Provides Agents with immunity to some negative temporary traits. Higher levels of this perk grant more immunities.
This perk is granted and leveled up for improving the Strength Skill. Some Agents might have this perk unlocked right away.
Delegate
Allows Agents to be assigned as Merged Businesses managers to partially Automate the business’s work. Higher levels of this perk allow for managing more businesses at the same time.
This perk is granted and leveled up for improving the Leadership Skill. Some Agents might have this perk unlocked right away.
Agents’ Traits
Aside from stats and skills, your agents can have or receive Traits. Traits provide different unique positive or negative effects. Some traits are temporary and will disappear after a set amount of time, while other Traits are persistent and will stay with a character forever or until meeting certain conditions. The information about Trait’s effect can be viewed by hovering the mouse over the Trait icon.
Hired Agents
Some agents will only work with Eddie for an additional fee. Such agents can be hired at their respective bases of operation. For Example, Travis McCann can be hired at the Police Station.
Hired agents charge you daily. The higher the level of the Agent, the more money they will charge.
If you run out of funds, the Hired Agents will automatically return to their base of operations.
Sending Agents to Rest
You can send any Agent except for Eddie Taylor to rest at any point during the game, unless this agent is currently busy with fulfilling some task or otherwise blocked.
Sending Agents to rest will result in setting them inactive. You can call them to work again at any time through the office menu or through their base of operation, in case of hired agents.
You might want to send certain Agents to rest to free space in your active roster of characters or to save funds on hired agents.
The Main Office
The Fresh Start main office is Eddie Taylor’s main base of operations. Various actions can be performed using its menu. Typically, you don’t need to send any Agent to perform a Main Office action.
Take/Return Loan
You can take a loan from the Cartel at any point during the game. The more time it takes you to return the loan, the more the interest will grow. If you fail to return the loan by the Laundeering Goal deadline, Eddie taylor will be killed, which results in a Game Over.
The amount of money you can take depends on your Expansion Level.
Scouting
Scouting is used to search for new potential partnering businesses. Performing scouting will result in a new business appearing on the map. Before you can use it to launder money, however, you will need to negotiate the terms of your partnership.
Only Agents with a Scout trait can be assigned to Scouting.
The amount and quality of businesses you can find depends on your Expansion Level.
As you discover more business types, their icons will appear on the list at the right side of the screen. Once you discover a business type, you can choose it for target search. Searching for specific types will have a higher chance to discover the type you set, but is not guaranteed.
Expansion
Expansion can be done to expand the territory of your operation. The more territory you have, the more businesses you can find and partner up with. Additionally, as you Expand, the businesses you find will be of higher quality: they will be able to launder more money, but they might also be more difficult to negotiate with.
To Expand to the next level, you will have to meet certain requirements. These requirements can be viewed by hovering the mouse cursor over the Lock icon on the Expansion button.
Collect/Deliver Cash
In order to keep your partner businesses going, you need to regularly deliver dirty cash for them to launder. If the business runs out of dirty cash, they will stop working until a new batch of dirty cash is delivered.
Delivering cash requires an Agent. An Agent can only deliver cash to 5 businesses at a time.
You can choose between auto and manual modes. Auto mode will send the agent into 5 businesses that are lowest on dirty cash. Manual mode will let you choose specific businesses you want your Agent to deliver cash to.
You will also need to collect laundered cash from the businesses manually. Collection works the same way as delivery.
Any business can store an infinite amount of clean cash, so it’s up to you to decide when you want to collect it. However, keeping too much clean cash in the business raises the risk of this business being attacked and robbed.
Additionally to clean cash, your Agent will also collect funds during Collection.
PR Campaign
PR Campaign temporarily boosts laundering efficiency by 25% in all businesses in partnership with you. Additionally, PR Campaign generates +10 Influence Points per business.
The PR Campaign price depends on the number of businesses you have.
Charity
Charity temporarily raises Loyalty in all businesses in partnership with you. Additionally, Charity grants Influence Points.
The amount of money needed for a Charity donation depends on the number of businesses you have.
Business Negotiations
In order to launder money, you need businesses through which the laundering is done. Partnering up with any business requires you first Scout for potential partners, then go through Bribing and Negotiations.
Bribe
Before you can negotiate with a potential partner, you need to bribe them. The more money you pay, the higher are the chances that your negotiations will go smoothly.
Negotiations
Before any business starts laundering money for you, you need to negotiate with them.
The outcome of your negotiations with a business is determined by a dice throw. In order for negotiations to be successful, you need to score equal or more points than the business owner in the respective skill check. The score you get is a sum of your dice throw score and your skill level.
If your dice throw results in lesser points than the check requires, negotiations will fail and the business will refuse to work with you.
You can negotiate using three possible approaches:
Coercion
Coercion uses threats to force the owner into offering you a good deal. Using Coercion will affect the business’s starting Fear once you secure the deal. Coercion success chances are affected by your Intimidation skill level. The number near the Skull icon represents the score you need to beat in order to win the negotiation.
Persuasion
Persuasion helps you win a good deal by flattering and sweet talking the owner. It will have an effect on the business’s starting Loyalty once you secure the deal. Persuasion chances are affected by your Social skill level. The number near the Speech Bubble icon represents the score you need to beat in order to win the negotiation.
Accept Offer
If you don’t want to risk failure, you can accept the business owner’s proposed terms by choosing, “Accept deal.” However, you won’t get any bonuses and the business will launder money less efficiently.
Business Overview
Sum
This is an approximate value of how much money the business can launder in a day. Keep in mind that you will rarely actually get the exact amount shown, since business laundering can be affected by many things. For example, the business can stop working because of your management oversights or because it was arrested or attacked.
However, this value can be useful to understand which of your businesses are the most and least profitable.
Laundering
The business launders money in cycles. Every cycle produces part of the daily laundering represented by the sum (see above).
This bar shows the current progress of a laundering cycle. Once the bar fills, it means the business has finished one cycle of laundering.
Additionally, you can check the speed of laundering by hovering over the Laundering stat icon.
Loyalty
Loyalty affects the speed at which the business finishes one cycle of laundering. Business’s Loyalty deteriorates over time with every cycle, but there are a number of ways to boost it, such as Sending Gifts or Curating.
Keep in mind that If Loyalty reaches 0%, the business will stop working with you and will dissolve your partnership at the end of the day.
Fear
Fear affects the amount of money the business launders in one cycle. If Fear reaches 100%, the business will abandon you. Additionally, The higher the business’s Fear, the faster its Loyalty will go down.
Unlike Loyalty, Fear doesn’t go down over time, but is affected by Loyalty increases. If you need to lower the business’s Fear, try raising its Loyalty.
You can raise business Fear by performing actions such as Intimidation and Curation.
Dirty Cash
This stat shows the amount of Dirty Cash currently stored in the business. If the business runs out of Dirty Cash, it will stop working and will require you to deliver a new batch of Dirty Cash to resume the operation.
Heat
Every laundering cycle generates Heat. The more Heat the business has, the more likely the Police will come to arrest it. If the business gets arrested, it will stop all its activities until the arrest is lifted. You can’t lift the arrest manually, so you will have to wait until it’s over.
Clean Cash & Funds
This stat shows the amount of clean cash and funds stored inside the business. You will need to manually collect it from time to time. Unclaimed clean cash doesn’t count towards meeting the laundering goal.
Level & Efficiency
Business Level and Efficiency are represented by the stars below the business’s name. Open any business for an overview. The higher the business’s Level is, the more stars are displayed.
Raising Efficiency by managing Loyalty and Fear, and finding optimal Curation settings will fill up the star indicators on the business. When the business reaches maximum or near-maximum Efficiency, the stars will turn gold, indicating that the business is ready to be Upgraded to the next level.
Business Actions
Curate
Any business can be Curated to raise its efficiency.
You can raise Fear and Loyalty by Curating a business. If your Agent’s Intimidation skill is higher than the Social skill, you will get a Fear boost from Cuartion. The opposite is also true. Higher Social skill raises Loyalty. Your Agent’s Leadership stat also provides an additional bonus to either Fear or Loyalty when curating.
Additionally, curation will let you choose different settings for how the business will operate. You will have to manually find optimal settings for every aspect of business operation. The best settings are represented by color with red being the furthest from optimal, while green represents the best possible value. Upgrading the business will unlock additional curation settings.
And finally, when curating a business, your Agent has a chance to receive a temporary bonus trait. The chance is equal to the efficiency percentage you get when tweaking the curation setting of the current level. Different businesses grant different traits.
Intimidate
Intimidation boosts the business’s Fear. The Fear boost you get from Intimidation is affected by your Agent’s Intimidation skill. After performing Intimidation, you won’t be able to Intimidate it again or Curate it until some time has passed.
Send a Gift
Sending a Gift raises the business’s Loyalty.
The Loyalty boost you get from sending a gift is affected by your Social skill and the amount of money you choose to send.
Upgrade
Once you’ve achieved maximum efficiency of a business, that business can be upgraded to the next level. Upgrading a business costs money, but upgraded businesses will launder more as well as give you more settings to tweak during Curation in order to further raise its efficiency.
Every level of upgrade will unlock one additional setting of Curation, allowing you to tweak how business operates in more detail.
You can Upgrade a business any time you want by clicking the Upgrade button as long as this business’s efficiency is currently at near-maximum level — which is indicated by the gold stars under the business’s name.
The maximum level of Upgrade depends on your Expansion level.
Merge
This action allows you to Merge any business of Level 3 or higher with other businesses.
Dissolve Partnership
You can dissolve your partnership with any business at any time if you deem them no longer needed.
Business Merging
Any 3 businesses of level 3 or higher can be Merged together to create a new business and vacate the Scouting spots, allowing you to Scout for more businesses.
Merging costs Influence Points, but it provides several benefits. The business created through Merging will launder more money than any ordinary business. Merging also unloads some of the work from your Agents: you will only need to manage one business instead of three at the same time.
Furthermore, Merged businesses’ work can be partially automated to help make managing your laundering empire a little simpler.
Keep in mind that the amount of money the Merged business launders is dependent on the cash flow of the businesses used in Merging.
To create a Merged Business, open any business of level 3 or higher and click “Merge”. Choose two other suitable businesses of level 3 or higher that you want to merge together. The Merged business will be created on the spot of the first business you chose when you started merging.
Merged businesses can’t be upgraded.
Common Stats
Infamy
Infamy represents how much attention of the police your actions draw. The higher the infamy is, the more partner business the police can arrest. Reaching 100% infamy results in a Game Over at the end of the day.
You can lower infamy by bribing the Police at the Police Station.
However, certain decisions you make during the story can affect the minimum infamy cap. Lowering infamy further than this cap is impossible no matter how much bribes you give out.
Influence Points
Influence Points represent how much Influence you have in Goodland. Influence points can be spent on various actions, such as Business Merging or Expansion.
Funds
Funds is the amount of money you can spend on your operational costs, such as bribing, investment, paying hired agents’ fees, etc.
Loan
This shows the debt you accumulated by taking loans from the cartel. If it’s higher than 0 at the end of the week, it will result in a Game Over.
Partners
This shows the number of businesses you have in your partnership as well as the overall number of businesses you can have at your current Expansion level.
Unique Businesses
This shows the number of Unique businesses you have in your partnership as well as the overall number of Unique businesses you can have at your current Expansion level.
Factions
The Police
The Police can arrest your businesses, which will make them stop all operations until the arrest is lifted. You can’t lift the arrests, but you can avoid them by managing your Infamy level as well as Heat level of your businesses.
The Police Station provides you with the ability to bribe the Police to lower your Infamy.
The opportunity to interact with the Police unlocks during the course of the story.
The Bald Eagles
The Bald Eagles can attack your businesses. If you fail to defend a business from the attack, the business’s Loyalty will be decreased.
You can prevent the Bald Eagles attacks from happening by bribing the gang’s Leader — Big Beth.
The opportunity to interact with Big Beth unlocks during the course of the story.
The Wild Wolves
The Wild Wolves can attack your businesses. If you fail to defend a business from the attack, some of its clean cash will be stolen.
You can prevent the Wild Wolves attacks from happening by bribing the gang’s Leader — Mac.
The opportunity to interact with Mac unlocks during the course of the story.
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