In this tycoon you’ll start by picking a spot for your pizza place, then hire some staff, contract suppliers and create your first menu. Understand your customers and deal with the mafia to expand. Soon your small pizzeria will grow into a true pizza empire spanning across the city.
Key Features:
- Manage your own pizza chain
- Deal with the mafia
- Expand your pizza empire throughout a diverse living city
- Outsmart your competition
New York is the city of business, opportunity and of course pizza. What better place to build your Pizza Empire? But there is a catch. It’s the 90’s. No internet, no cell phones and mob operations are still thriving in the city. Plus the outfits are ridiculous. Can you handle it?
The city
The city is divided into boroughs, each with different demography which translates into customers having different fancies, expectations and tastes. That makes expanding into new territory super exciting, almost as if starting a new restaurant from scratch.
Additionally city boroughs are built of city blocks. Each block has its own community and its own points of interest - places like museums, theatres, schools, factories, police stations and even mob hideouts. Explore the blocks to learn about the needs of communities and complete missions to win people's hearts.
Or you could not do that and instead ally yourself with one of the mobs, drive out the competition and leave the people no choice but to love your pizza. But be careful, when dealing with the mob, because it’s a slippery slope.
The mafia
There are several mobs in the city, and they hate each other. Dealing with one will affect the others. You can accept their “friendship” and rise through the ranks, even help the mob to rule the entire city. Or you can stand up to them and deal with the consequences. Though I would advise to make friends with the police and hire some security.
Each mob has a native borough where its influence is the strongest, there are even blocks where you don’t stand a chance without the godfather's blessing. However most blocks remain neutral, with just some mob influence. Watch out for conflicted blocks, where different mobs are trying to gain power. Attempt diplomacy to wiggle your way out of the conflict or play a dangerous game of switching sides.
Mobs also present opportunities, siding with a mob will open up new ways to affect your competition, like harassment, bomb threats or sabotaging their supplies. But everything comes at a price, the mob will require you to complete special tasks, anything from throwing a birthday party for Sonny to staging an assassination in one of your places. Just remember that the media and authorities won’t turn a blind eye to your shady dealings. That is unless you pay them off.
The pizza
However thrilling and enticing, the mob stories are just the background to running your pizza business. You won’t build an empire without expanding. It’s crucial to pick the best spots for your restaurants. Mob sympathies aside, restaurant placement affects the demography and the number of your customers, delivery range, and in turn influence over the borough and neighbouring blocks. You can even set up next to your competition to starve it out.
Next up is designing your new restaurant. Choose the furnishings that will best attract your customers. Of course the space available will affect your storage and guest capacity and overall satisfaction of both guests and staff. Be creative and remember that each of your pizzerias will be at least a little bit different.
Flexibility is the name of the game also when it comes to food. Create your own pizza recipes to conquer the hearts of different customers. Experiment with your menus and adjust to special events taking place in the neighbourhood. Be sure to keep an eye on the newsfeed to be always prepared and plan ahead to acquire game-winning supplies.
The empire
But your empire isn’t just about opening restaurants. Securing the best (or the most cost-effective) ingredients and storing them is just as crucial. That means opening warehouses and managing deliveries. You will also need to set up delivery areas for your pizzas and in turn build up a fleet of delivery vehicles.
The staff also won’t manage itself, or will it? Laying out timetables for your employees, hiring new talents and laying off deadbeats might be fun at first, but as your empire grows and encompasses more and more restaurants, you will need help. Hire resourceful managers to take some load off your shoulders.
Every empire is built on conquest. And with conquest there’s conflict, and casualties are inevitable. Your competition needs to be taken care of. Of course, you could just make tastier pizza and provide more robust service, but you can’t count on your competition to keep things fair, now can you? Better hire some security, just to be on the safe side.
Or even better, go on the offensive! Plan aggressive advertising campaigns, discredit your competition in the media, undercut their supplies or just open up next to them and starve them out. And when things get hairy, you can always ask the Don a favor…
