Food Chain Magnate and the Pizza Coup of 2017

So, if I'm honest, I discounted Food Chain Magnate when it first came out. I saw some pictures of the lack luster board and saw the price tag and I was ready to forget that it ever existed. Then I watched a review done by the boys from Shut up & Sit Down and I admit that my interest was piqued. Then came a bit of trepidation. It was described as a 'systems' game, and an economic one at that- and I was a tad worried that I'd just find myself crushed.

What I found was an incredibly nasty, but very fun game! It wasn't as long as I thought it might be, and the puzzle was a fascinating one but not overly complex. I'd certainly recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind a knife fight of a game.

So, I came into this very blind. I watched a review, but otherwise I
had nothing up my sleeve. First impression? Love the little player reference.

Having the 'org' chart for the cards is very helpful, but I admit
that I made a silly assumption about the colors. For instance,
I found the hard way you can't train a waitress!

The milestones. The first tip my opponent gave me, and I'll give to
any of you looking to play this- Pay attention to the Milestones. They
are extremely important to your strategy.

 

Our little town there at the bottom. Whoever built the roads in this
particular suburb should probably be fired.

One minor complaint about the game is just how much table space
it takes up. I've played war games that take less room than all the cards!

Here I am, CEO of the brand new 'Golden Duck Diner'. As it
turns out, 'Gold' happens to refer to our famous lemonade.

With our little suburb map being a little... wacky I managed to pick a good
centralized location. My opponent was forced into a worse position- so
he quickly began to focus on the realty business.

My opening strategy. After looking at the milestones I went with a trainer first
and trained up a errand boy. This gave me the 'First to Train' milestone that I
found amazingly useful over the game. It gave me a flat $15 discount on
salaries for the rest of the game. My opponent went with hiring girls out the gate.

As the game went on my access to more houses and easy marketing opportunities
gave me many turns of a modest income selling lemonade to a few houses.
Everything else, every turn, would go in the freezer or get trashed. America!

Things started to look dicey when all of a sudden my opponent had four houses
with gardens buying his beer. He was poised to make an unreasonable amount of
money... but I had a campaign manager in the wings. In what I called the 'Great
Pizza Coup' I made all those households want delicious pizza with their beer. The
payout was huge, and the game ended in a rain of baked cheese.

This was what my opponents corporate structure looked like on the last turn.
He spent a lot of time building his organization, and spent a lot of money
on salaries each turn but if the game went on any longer he threatened to
drown my diner in sheer actions alone.

This was my svelte little operation on my last turn. Nice and simple
heaven bent on meeting demand and profit. Thanks to the training
milestone and the advertising milestone, I never had to pay a penny
in salaries.

Allll of the food I made on my last turn (added with what I had from my
freezer). I'd guess probably 75% of it wasn't used. ~

Everyone I had at the end. It was an excellent, cutthroat two player game,
swung by a last minute advertisement that couldn't be countered in time.
I can't wait to try it with even more players.

Final Score:

(Approximately)
Me: 490
Opponent: 295