Narcos: Idle Cartel Guide: Tips, Tricks and Strategies

Narcos: Idle Cartel is a brilliant idle tycoon game from Tilting Point. Overseeing a Colombian Cartel can be tough, especially when your father is no more and it’s up to you and your sibling to carry his legacy. With some help, you will be able to manage production, distribution and profits, but with the authorities tracking your family down, your job won’t be easy.  

The mobile-exclusive Narcos storyline has several twists and turns as you unlock new chapters and characters. Down the lane, you will have to make tough decisions that will decide whether you are just an average bootlegger or a real narco tycoon. These Narcos: Idle Cartel tips, tricks and strategies will help you rake in more idle money, improve production and increase profitability. Follow all steps to unlock new chapters and characters fast. 

How to Play  

This game is all about how fast you produce goods, earn profits, complete objectives and move on to the next chapter to get more challenges.  

There will be a resource supplier (Stockroom) on the left and a market transporter (Market) on the right side of the screen. The worker is in the middle, dozing off on his workbench. 

Tap on the stockroom supplier to deliver raw materials, the sleepy worker to produce finished items and finally the market transporter to collect products from the worker and sell them to the market to earn profits.  

Narcos: Idle Cartel

As you progress, you will be able to unlock more workbenches. This will let you produce a variety of shady and normal products besides the machete. You will also be able to automate most tasks by hiring managers.  

In each chapter, your goal will be to:  

– Complete missions shown on the top of the screen to progress in a chapter.  

– Increase the amount of raw materials supplied to the worker.  

– Allow workers in each workbench to produce more products  

– Upgrade the market transporter to collect more goods from the worker and sell them.  

The above three are main objectives.  

You will get many opportunities to complete chapter missions, earn more profits from sales, unlock new character cards to boost production and progress through the story by unlocking new chapters in Narcos: Idle Cartel. These tips, tricks and strategies will make it easy for you to earn profits and complete missions fast.  

Level Up Stockroom  

The stockroom is located on the left side of the screen. This is where the supplier gathers resources and delivers them to the worker at the workbench. The worker then produces finished goods from the raw materials. You will have to tap on the green “LvL” button to start upgrading the stockroom.  

Leveling up the stockroom increases:  

Max resources transported (delivered) from the stockroom to the workbench. The supplier will supply more raw materials to the worker than before  

Transporters capacity. He will carry more materials with him each time he moves from the stockroom to the workbench.  

Transporters load speed. He will unload resources at the workbench at a much faster rate. This is needed the most when you have unlocked more workbenches.  

Walk Speed: He will move from the stockroom to the workbench and back will pick up movement speed and deliver resources faster.  

When you level up the stockroom, pay attention to the level gauge. Fill the gauge to increase the number of suppliers (transporters). You will see more and more transporters delivering raw materials to workbenches.  

Upgrade Workbenches  

A workbench is placed on the middle of the screen. This is where a worker makes finished goods.  

Upgrading the workbench will allow the worker to produce more finished products, thereby increasing the cash earned per second. However, this will also increase the raw material requirement, which is why you should level up both stockroom and workbench(es) in tandem to increase the amount of materials supplied and the increase the production.  

When you tap on the green button on the workbench to upgrade it, you will notice is gauge above the level up button.  

When the gauge fills up, it gives a big boost to the production level, but once a workbench reaches level 50, it will lead to a huge production increase.  

Level up the Last Few Workbenches to Earn More Profits  

Once you have accumulated more cash, idle or real-time, always level up the last few workbenches as they tend to produce higher-priced products.  

A workbench that produces bulletproof vests will obviously fetch more cash than a workbench that produces machete. Transporters that gather items from the bulletproof vest workbench will sell them at a higher price if you upgrade that workbench.  

Upgrade the Market 

The Market is where the transporter sells finished goods made by the workers. The transporter on the right will reach each workbench (in case there are multiple workbenches unlocked), gather products and then go back to the market to sell them for profit.  

Leveling up the market offers these benefits:  

Max products transported. More products will reach the market, earning more profits. 

Transporters capacity. Increases the number of products a transporter can carry at a time. The higher a market’s level, the more products a transporter can carry from a workbench to the market.  

Transporters load speed: Speeds up unloading of products gathered from a workbench to a market. A transporter will sell products faster.  

Walk Speed: Increases the walking speed of all transporters 

Tap on the Market on the right side of the screen and then tap on the “Level Up” button to upgrade it. Fill the Level gauge to increase the number of transporters.  

Boost Production for Four Hours or More 

Want to increase sales and profits? Well, you can boost production for at least 4 hours. Tap on the old TV icon on the bottom of the screen and then tap on the boost button. Watch a 30-second video to increase sales/production x2. You will earn double cash than normal. 

Hire Managers to Automate Production 

An Idle game isn’t “idle” enough if it does not allow players to automate tasks.  

In Narcos: Idle Cartel, the fun begins when you start automating transporters and workers. Doing this will help you focus on other tasks, such as upgrading the stockroom, market and workbenches, unlocking new workbench, leveling up cards and boosting production.  

Everything from producing shady items at the workbench to selling the same at an inflated price at the market can be automated, thanks to your dedicated managers.  

Hire managers to automate the market
Tap on the manager silhouette to hire him

In every level, there’s some clicking involved in the first few minutes until you earn some cold hard cash. This means you will have to tap on the stockroom transporter on the left to supply raw materials, the worker at the workbench to produce finished goods and the market transporter on the right to collect products and sell them to the market.  

You can increase material supplies, production and sales by upgrading stockroom, workbench and the market respectively if you want to earn cash fast 

Once you earn enough in-game cash, an arrow appears over one of the managers’ silhouette. These silhouettes are placed next to the stockroom, workbench and the market.  

Tap on a manager’s silhouette and tap on “Hire Default”. You will hire the most basic manager. But you can hire advanced managers once you acquire cards. Please note that default managers don’t have boosts.  

To hire the basic stockroom manager, you will need 2K cash 

Workbench manager – 3K cash 

Market manager – 4K cash 

You can wait until your collect 10K cash, but you can star automating stockroom once you accumulate 2K cash.  

Get Speed Boosts 

Tap on the loudspeaker in the middle. Now, tap on Activate, view a short ad to get 2x speed boost. Everything from supplying materials to selling products in the market will gain speed for up to 30 seconds.  

You can activate speed boosts every 10 minutes.  

How to get Character Cards 

In Narcos: Idle Cartel, you will unlock new character cards once you move to a certain chapter.  

When you complete all objectives in a chapter, tap on the “Next Chapter” button to tear down your facility. Now tap on the green “Next Chapter” button under “Time to Get Away”.  

In the Tear Down mini-game, you will have to tap on the screen as fast as you can to destroy your makeshift facility – the facility where you produced all those shady items and sold them at a profit.  

Wait for the countdown to hit zero and the tap on the screen rapidly. You will have to fill the gauge above as much as you can to move to the next destruction level.  

Get a new character card after the tear down mini-game

The more gauges you fill, the higher the chances of obtaining rewards. So, if you fill 4 gauges, you will get a golden briefcase containing 4 cards, including a brand-new character card, influences and super cash.  

You can also acquire duplicate cards for upgrade purposes by completing chapter objectives.  

You might also get a random duplicate card when you fill the gauge while upgrading the workbench, stockroom or the market:  

Tap on any one of these facilities and you will see a green gauge above the “level up button”. Fill up the gauge by leveling up a facility and you might get additional rewards, such as influence and maybe a random character card.  

Character cards grant various boosts, such as increased profits, getaway power (will fill the gauge fast in the teardown facility mini-game) and many others.  

How to Get Duplicate Cards and Influence 

Upgrading a character card increases profit and getaway power boosts.  

To upgrade a card, you will need:  

– A certain amount of influence (revolver icon) 

– Duplicate cards 

You can acquire duplicate character cards and influence by finishing chapter missions/objectives that are displayed on the top of the screen.  

You might also get a duplicate card when you reach certain level targets of a workbench, stockroom or market. Check the green gauge in the upgrade section of a facility and fill the gauge to acquire a random card. However, in most occasions, you will obtain influence.  

Login daily to acquire multiple duplicate cards on certain days.  

Tap on the arrow on the right side of the screen to bring up the “Daily Rewards” calendar. On certain days, you will get x5 duplicate character cards and up to a whopping 1K influence.  

Get character cards and other prizes from daily rewards

Pay attention to the flying pigeon. She will be perched on the stockroom tent. Tap on her to get a lot of influence.   

Tap on “Shop” and scroll down until you see “Government Gift”. You will get up to 100+ influence and a random character card or two.  

Once you acquire the required number of duplicate cards and influence, tap on the Narcos character on the bottom of the screen. You will see a green bar under each gauge.  

When you have the required number of cards of that character card, the green bar is full. Tap on that card and upgrade it. Make sure you also have enough influence to level it up. 

Last Updated on August 9, 2020 by Jude

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