Bangkok Tutorial

Bangkok(*) is actually very simple.

(Still some screenshots pending)

We have to do jobs in order like Moscow, so there is no thinking there.
There is no bribes, so we can just buy stuff as we can afford it.

We can master each episode 4 times--Great change! There are 10 jobs total per episode, like moscow... 40 per tier means even better leveling opportunities!

THE TRIAD VS YAKUZA DEBATE

This is glaringly obvious because of the big faction meter across the page.

like Moscow, which loot is available to farm depends on whether we partner with yakuza or Triad in chapter 2 and chapter 3 of each episode.... we'll visit that in a few paragraphs below.

What is REAL important is that you are trusted by the triad when you get to episode 5a, and that you are trusted by the Yakuza by episode 5b... and that you are allied with both to access the faction store's combat gear.

751 is "trusted"

1401 is "Allied"

To assure you attain these status, you are going to want to "juggle" between the factions each chapter and/or episode. We can do this two ways; jobs or fighting.

Jobs

You do jobs to accumulate favor with either faction. Each clan-job done adds 3 alliance to the "favored" clan, and reduces the "shunned" clan by 1.

SO by juggling jobs back and forth, you can gain the top favor, "allied" of both clans...

Here's a mental exercise on how it works (this is just to illustrate... see below)

First, do Yakuza 500 times... 500 jobs x 3pts / job = 1500 faction

This drops Triad to 000. ... 500 jobs x -1pt / job = 000 faction

Next, do Triad 500 times. 500 jobs x 3pts / job = 1500 faction
But drops Yakuza to 1000... 500 jobs x -1pt / job = 1000 faction

Now, Do Yakuza again; you only need to do it 167 times...
167 jobs x 3pts / job = +501
501 + 1000 = max of 1500
This drop s Triad down 167 points... 1500 - 167 = 1333

Finally, you bring Triad back up with 42 jobs...
42 jobs x 3pts / job = 126 + 1333 = 1459
This drops Yakuza again; 42 jobs x -1pt / job = 42. 1000 - 42 = 1458

Now just juggle the two evenly from here on forward, and you always have full alliance with both.

To get to this point requires 1209 jobs... worth noting about bangkok: the cost per job goes UP each mastery! Same amount of alliance points costing MORE energy each mastery... What to do?

Fighting

Real simple; when you fight someone in Bangkok, they are either yakuza or triad, depending on their faction scores. When you attack, you get 2 points towards one faction, and -1 for the other...

750 yakuza = 1500y / ot

750 triad = 750y / 1500t

375 yakuza = 1500y / 1125t

188 triad = 1312y / 1500t

94 yakuza = 1500y / 1406t

47 triad = 1453y / 1500t

24 yakuza = 1500y / 1476t

12 triad = 1488y / 1500t

6 yakuza = 1500y / 1494t

3 triad = 1497y / 1500t

1 yakuza = 1499y / 1499t

...2250 fights may be easier for combat accounts to do than 1209 jobs.

--> This is the start of a trend that Zynga has eluded to; that stamina will become an actual game mechanic instead of just something with which to beat on each other... expect to see more in-game uses for stamina in the future.

SO.. WHICH FACTIONS SHOULD YOU CHOOSE WHILE DOING JOBS?

Yakuza loot is superior to Triad loot in both Ep. 5a and 5b.... and the amount of pirates/drugs depend on which faction you choose. I am strongly recommending you lean heavily on Yakuza for the sake of better loot...

--Episode 1 & 2 choose Triad. it really doesn't matter in the first 2 episodes, but it matters later. you will do a LOT of yakuza later, so this will always be a cheap source of Triad faction..

--Episode 3 & 4 choose Yakuza. their need for satellite phones is less, so its actually easier on you, plus you'll need allied status for 5a access.

--5a requires allied with yakuza. this should be no problem considering the amount of cell phones you have to gather... but you can farm chap 3 more if you need to plus fight fight fight!

-chapter 2 really doesnt matter, but for the consumables; go yakuza.

-chapter 3 pick yakuza to get the tanto. [43,28] this is as good as the ubijca in Vor, but it is less expensive to acquire, with a better energy to xp ratio.

--5b requires allied status with triad. by now you should already have allied with bith factions, but if you need, you can go get Ep1 and 2 for cheap.. plus fighting as usual.

-chapter 2 pick yakuza. lloyd spectre with its 45 defense trumps the moscow KCC... but it requires a satelite phone to run the job... so it's one point advantage over the KCC may not be worth it... the Elitist snob will insist it is :p.

-chapter 3 yakuza offers cleaver with 44 defense.. this matches zmeya blades, and the cost is comparable in energy... just another resource. Odd that both top defense weapons are small melee weapons.. zmeya blades and cleavers.

INVENTORY --> FACTION STORE

Each clan offers different items that can be bought in the Faction store under inventory
You have to have varying levels of alliance with either clan to get the various items offered.... but by the time you can afford them, you should have alliance with both factions anyway... so that doesn't matter.

Worth noting is that currently we have to have dominant alliance with the faction we are buying from.. if yakuza has more alliance than triad (even if both are "allied") you cannot buy top triad inventory. once bangkok is fully released, you can push both up to 1499, and thus BOTH are dominant, and you can buy everything from both sides.... but you can always just juggle the jobs now that fighting will modify the score.

The ONLY way to acquire these gems is to BUY them with Baht-- this is new. We've never had stuff we can buy worth actually HAVING before.. so money has never been an issue beyond paying for prerequisites to do jobs. but that has changed.

To get the best inventory, we HAVE to have the best alliance with BOTH factions, and then pay for them like normal inventory... This is INCREDIBLY expensive. Some is B$400,000 per item.
B$400,000 x 501 = B$200,400,000!!!
Businesses bring in B$150,000 / day... it'll take 1336 days to max out ONE of these suckers.... So get to jobbing and fighting!!!

Also interesting is that these cannot be gifted! You have to buy them for yourself!

I'll share my opinions on this later.

HOW TO MOVE THROUGH BANGKOK QUICKLY

Bangkok is very linear; we go through each episode in order; each chapter in order... but when we finish chapter 3, the next episode opens up!

(screenshot pending)

It pays to not go charging in. Each mastery requires more inventory... so it quickly becomes a money pit.

(screenshot pending)

DO NOT COMPLETE THE FIRST EPISODE

DON'T move past chapter 3 in the first episode. Move directly on to episode 2 and work it through chapter 3 then on to episode three.. etc, etc up through episode 5b. You can loop back later... but ep. 1 is VERY cheap energy costs... you may want this available to get your faction up for ep. 5a and b. You can always finish mastering these jobs later when everything is available... but for now focus on getting to ep.5b where all the good paying jobs are waiting to fund the rest of the city's enormous B$requirements.... plus we have two business- produced consumables now-- Pirates and Drug Shipments. (see below)

Episode 3 also includes the consumable; Satellite Phone
(screenshot pending)
this is a loot drop on the faction jobs... build faction, B$ -AND- get SP is awful generous. you will need truck loads of these for chapter 3,4,5a & 5b.. so work this; get baht, SP and faction needed for 5a & 5b plus faction store loot.

BUSINESSES:

(screenshot pending)

Maxed out, these things offer about B$150,000 per 24 hours. You are going to need as much Baht as you can get... Inventory is INCREDIBLY expensive, just like Moscow.
but be sure to build up the pirates and drug shipments rackets FIRST (see below)

A further warning;

the two businesses; yaa baa operation and gun smuggling-- they produce +32 defense and +32 attack BOOSTS. they have NO value! save the B$300,000 to access these worthless money pits, and get some good upgrades on the Pirates and Drug Shipments....

PIRATES AND DRUG SHIPMENTS

Cuba has Politico Corruptos... Bangkok has Pirates and Drug Shipments.
That's right-- TWO business-farming consumables.
Pirates are acquired in Episode 3-pirate
Drugs are acquired in Episode 4-commadant
Start up cost requires completing chapter 2 for each episode, and a B$40,000 investment each.
At first, you will have a business that produces 1 every 3 hours; max capacity of 5.
You can upgrade all the way to 10 every 3 hours (1 per upgrade);
you can upgrade all the way to max cap of 50 (5 per upgrade).
It will cost about B$1,200,000 to get to 10 / 3h
It will cost about B$1,200,000 to get to max cap 50
that's about 2.4 million baht for 10/50 ... for each business.
Here's the breakdown:
B$40,000 to start each
cost - produces/capacity
B$7k - 2 10

B$12k - 3 15

B$21k - 4 20

B$36k 5 25

B$62k 6 30

B$107 7 35

B$181 8 40

B$307 9 45

B$523 10 50

so it costs B$40k to get a pirate business producing 1 pirate every 3 hours, with a capacity of 5 pirates... 2/10 will cost B$54,000... 40k for the startup, 7k for +1 production, 7k for capacity from 5 to 10.
IF you can consistently play every 3-5 hours, all you have to do is bump up max cap to 10 (one upgrade about $B10,o00) and max out the 10 / 3h. for B$1,000,000.
If you have a work / life schedule that prevents gathering for 12 hours, then obviously you will want to max out both to 10/3h-50cap.. more expensive, yes. but you gotta use your time economically.

Here's how much of everything you ACTUALLY need if you go ep1 & 2 triad, the rest yakuza

• Satelite Phones - 674
• Pirates - 619
• Drug Shipments - 468

so.... it takes some time. :)
Every challenge has a solution. Keep reading.

First, some hypothesis;

Folks, you are looking at Zynga's solution to farmer accounts feeding combat accounts. What currently happens is a combat account will have dismal energy, so it cannot collect HighEndLoot. So high energy "farmer accounts" work as slaves to the combat accounts. Collecting loot with their superior energy batteries, and then giving the HEL to the combat account... so the combat account ends with great combat skill AND top combat loot. The farmer of course, has NO combat, and then NO loot either... This pissses Zynga off. You can tell.
Unfortunately, they have not considered that this is the life blood, economy, and REASON clans exist at all! The warriors protect and support the farmers, who are gathering the inventory to strengthen the warriors. Without this interaction, we may as well play on MySpace. YUK!

Their "solution" to our social gaming is to make bangkok loot non-giftable. you buy it-- you USE it. this makes farmers pointless in bangkok... and thus likely worthless in the future Vegas release... and thus worthless altogether. The combat accounts now stuck with their weak energy have a few choices;

1. begin building energy to eventually afford to farm B$ to buy the HEL... VERY SLOW solution... could take a year to fill up!

2. keep building combat stats, and rely on businesses to accumulate the B$ needed to buy another HEL... this will take YEARS!

3. pull out the plastic to BUY godfather points to put towards B$. THIS is of course, Zynga's preferred answer :)

This is very clever of Zynga-- but we at SOP are smarter! Our clan, Soldiers of Peace, have already anticipated this, and can provide a strategy to not only have STRONG combat stats, but to also be able to harvest these new items in a timely manner!
As unfortunate as this change is, this is a great opportunity for those that are prepared, and look for opportunities to succeed. If you want to succeed, and take advantage of the new changes; join us at SOP!(**) We are actively recruiting both new players and disillusioned veterans.

(*)Please note: In this tutorial we specifically held off doing Bangkok until after we had finished NY, Cuba, and Moscow... as an energy/speed leveling account; this gives us a MASSIVE battery of energy to blast through all the jobs in as short a time frame as possible.
In practical application; you can realistically juggle NY and Bangkok jobs as soon as you get the necessary items from the Soldier, Enforcer, and Hitman tiers of NY.. at best level 18. This guide is to tell you HOW to complete each city; not at what level or with how much energy. These methods work no matter what level, no matter how much energy.

(**)SOP training has a specific order in which you complete NY, Cuba, Moscow, and Bangkok to optimize your character's performance. If you wish to be mentored, contact SOP.

Folks-- I could have put this in some pdf and charged $20 like all those lame "dominate blah blah" books that promise us everything and deliver squat... Ironically, this guide ACTUALLY delivers what you want-- levels, power, and a formula to do it with no BS attached.
If this has been a help, please make a donation so my wife doesn't feel so neglected. :)
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Next chapter; everything about Cuba!