Chocolatier
From Badges Wiki
| |
| Status: | Active |
|---|---|
| Genre: | Business |
| Developer: | Big Splash Games |
| Publisher: | PlayFirst, Inc. |
| LTP badge type: | Generic 2 |
| Game version: | Restricted |
| Game length: | Unbounded |
| Playable in non-IE browsers: | No |
Contents |
Technical information
This game uses an ActiveX control, which means it won't run in browsers besides Internet Explorer. It also has the stability issues that are common with ActiveX controls, for example the game might freeze, making you unable to continue.
Scoring
Your weekly income is the score that will be used for your badge album.
Strategy
Buy low, sell high. Through the early stages just follow the tasks as directed until you own both factories and the shop. The money rolls in fairly regularly and you will soon reach $50k. Once you have a big enough wallet, pay attention to all the hints about low prices. At some stage, it differs from game to game, the sugar will be available for $1 - buy thousands of bags now and you won't need to bother again. Also, be on the lookout for coffee beans at $40 (I bought 360).
Don't sell all your goods at once - if you have 12, sell 10. This will build up a small stockpile in your inventory. This can be utilised in two ways. Firstly, you can take advantage of greater demand and higher prices on different flavours throughout the later stages of the game.
Secondly, and this is where a big boost comes along, set both factories to make coffee flavour for fifteen weeks (using all 360 bags). Travel back and forth selling small amounts of your 'stockpile' at any price. Once you have your 360 cases of coffee bars hold them until the price rockets - I sold mine for $484 each ($174200). Do not always believe people when they tell you that a certain flavour is commanding higher prices at a certain place - shop around.
On Chocolatier, I found that the 446 price for coffee bars occurs with a decent frequency if you keep clicking on the saloons for the various comments. I click on each one until I keep getting the same one. I watch for the person saying that the price is high in a certain spot.
The coffee bars seem to offer the biggest profit margin of the products available, especially if you load up on cocoa beans, sugar, and coffee when they are at their cheapest. I try to load up when cocoa beans are between $10-$15, sugar when it is $1-$3, and coffee beans when less than $60. I will buy up to 1000 bags if I have the money. If you are making the bars in both factories, it won't go bad before you use it. As I go from port to port, I don't buy at all if the price is really high for something unless I'm about to run out. I buy small increments if the price is still in the lower range, but I have plenty.
If you can manage to stay interested long enough you can try this a couple of times - I've also done this with almonds, making both recipes light/dark up to 180 cases each.
When it comes to haggling I've found that it is more worthwhile doing it when the prices are already low. I've managed to get the cheap cacao beans at $8 down to $6 (25% discount) and bought big. At the other end of the scale when coffee hits $108 I've only got it down to £96. Sounds like a good deal saving $12 a bag but its only a 12.5% discount. But beware, you have to be quite lucky because most of the time, the prices might go up.
Finally, and this is NOT something I strongly recommend, play the dice up to a reasonable stake. Don't gamble when the stakes hit $250,000 - sure you might get lucky - but when you lose it is like losing a years worth of work. I suppose you could get really lucky and win seven or eight times / at big stakes / inside two years / without losing to gain the coveted ML10. Bit of a long shot.
Thanks to Chrisiom and tinytam2 for those tips!!
Alternate strategy
Start playing the dice as soon as you are able to - check the tavern every now and then after completing objectives if it still wants you to do the default tasks instead of adventuring on your own. If you can play the dice, sell everything you can to get more cash to start with. Once you hit 5000 points, quit immediately. Don't try for higher scores as you can end up losing a lot more than you win. (According to the law of large numbers, you will eventually get a series of wins that's enough to get any score, but the higher your target score is, the longer you might have to wait.)
Prices
Here is a list of highest prices and lowest costs I have found in the game, with a computed profit.
| Chocolate Type | Max Sale Price | Min Cost Per Unit | Profit At Max Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $122 | $7 | $115 |
| Milk | $162 | $10 | $152 |
| Cashew | $230 | $23 | $207 |
| Dark | $223 | $13 | $210 |
| Almond | $244 | $22 | $222 |
| Mint | $262 | $24 | $238 |
| Extra Dark | $324 | $19 | $305 |
| Dark Almond | $345 | $28 | $317 |
| Coffee | $484 | $47 | $437 |
This list is in order of possible profit.
| Ingredient | Lowest Cost Found |
|---|---|
| Sugar | $1 |
| Milk | $3 |
| Cacao | $6 |
| Almond | $15 |
| Cashew | $16 |
| Mint | $17 |
| Coffee | $40 |
This list is in order of cost.
Thanks to Loze for this info!
