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The best strategy in this game is highly dependent on: the board layout, your board position, and the actions of other players (in no particular order).
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Milestones are the key to planning your strategy. You will need to achieve milestones before others do. Reaching the right milestones as soon as possible is often essential, as the others will likely be taken by the time you reach them.
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There is a trade-off between building up your company through recruitment and training and earning money through marketing and sales. The winning mix depends on how long the game will take. This is strongly determined by the trade-off chosen by the players.
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The game normally accelerates strongly towards the end. You can win by earning money only in the last turn, if you have prepared well. Or, you could still be preparing for a turn that never comes.
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You can hurt other players by advertising goods they cannot produce. But beware, you may also be helping them sell more later on!
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Price wars are very effective to attack others, but they will be very costly to yourself as well. Use them tactically.
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Houses with gardens are very lucrative but may attract competition.
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You can sometimes make more money selling a few things at high prices than by selling a lot of things at a discount. But it can also be the other way around.
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Sometimes, it can be useful to advertise in such a way that other players earn money-as long as you earn more yourself!
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Combine the previous two ideas.
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Food Chain Magnate is a highly unforgiving game. If you make a mistake, it can be very hard or even impossible to get back on track.
In order to get to know the game, we strongly advise during your first game to alter the rules as follows:
- Do not use the reserve cards.
- Put $75 per player into the bank pool instead of $50.
- Take out all milestones.
- Do not pay any salaries (skip phase 5).
- The game ends when the bank breaks once.
This will allow for a somewhat shorter game that enables everyone to get to know the rules without running their companies into the ground. For your next game, we recommend playing with these same alterations and adding the milestone cards (even if some of them will not have a benefit in the introductory game).
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