When I started this game I was all about playing sandbox, the other modes didn't interest me at all. I tried the first carrer scenarios but found them boring, so I just played on my big sandbox zoo. But a few weeks ago the lag and low fps made my zoo basicly unplayable. So I started doing the carrer scenarios again. And by scenario 4 they started to become really fun! and I fell in love with not only building, but maintaining the zoo and make sure both guests, staff and animals were happy.
Playing the scenarios also made me a bit curious about franchise, so last week I started my very first franchise zoo! I got an idea for how to build it here on the forum.
The first few ingame years were really really rough, I had to take both the 20k and 50k loans just to start up. And while I payed of the loans I barely made even (having exibit animals is really a lifesaver at the start of a zoo, since you can sell all the babys as soon as they are born for some extra cash).
But at around year 5 things started to turn. I managed to pay of my loans and started to make a little profit. And as soon as I got enough money (around 50k I think) I started to expand a bit. At the start I only had three habitat animals, Peafowls, Warthogs and Ostriches. I built a new habitat for savannah animals and made my original warthog/ostrich habitat into a djungle instead.
I had to stick to animals I could buy with cash as I hardly has any CC (never got more than 200 since I had the animal aging at 5times to make it easier at the start, and the ones I had only generated about 5-10 CC when releasing them). The upside to this was that the animals I got were really cheap to feed, so the feeding costs were low.
I ran into a problem with my Savannah habitat after a while. I had over 40 animals in it from 8 different species with three zookeepers assigned to it (all fully trained). The problem was that only one of them did all the work, the other two just complained they had nothing to do. Meanwhile the animals in the habitat were starving and getting sick as the habitat didn't get cleaned in time. I fixed it by moving my Black wildebeests to their own habitat, fiering the two lazy s, hiering a new zoo keeper and making one clean and one feed. After that I haven't had any problems with it.
Now I am at ingame year 45 and I hit three major goalposts for me. I got my first 5 star review from the inspector, just hit 3million in profit and got my first predators! I went with cheetahs as I have heard they are good for getting CC (I'm at below 100 now after getting my cats)
Here is a pic of my zoo (it's really ugly as I haven't put any effort at all in aesthetics, my goal is to make about 5mill cash and then redo it completly)
1. Peafowls (walk in habitat)
2. Djungle (Okapi, Nyala, Bongo, Tapir, Lemurs)
3. Savannah (Zebra, Ostrich, African Buffalo, Warthog, Springbok, Thomson's gazelle, Sable antilope)
4. Aardwark
5. Flamingo (walk in habitat)
6. Cheetah <3
7. Gemsbock, Camel
8. Black Wildebeest
9. Galapagos and Aldabra Tortoise and Chinese Pangolin
I managed to make both my guests, staff and animals happy
I'm still a real noob when it comes to franshise, but I thought I would share a few tips if any of you are still struggling
1. I have trashcans and benches EVERYWHERE.
2. I check the heatmap for negative influence about every 5-15 min. If I see a full trashcan I just replace it. If there is trash on the ground I move one of my caretakers on top of it.
I have 5 caretakers, two at the entrance, two in the middle and one that doesn't have a workzone.
3. I have education boards everywhere where there is no shop or habitat. Small space between shops of habitat? just put a board there I also put boards behind almost every bench
4. I make sure to have loads of speakers for each habitat so that ever space of the viewing area is covered without it going to much in to the habitat
5. I have one zookeeper for each habitat (two for djungle and savannah) and make sure that both the zookeeper hut and a staff room is very near the entrance to the habitat/exibit
6. I only have two kinds of food/drink shops. At the entrance area I have the two "starter" ones (gulpee soda and cheef beef) and in the middle I have Coffee and Hot dogs.
7. I have all of my staff facilities eather on the outside of the area or in the middle area. I do this both so that they can get to the habitat/exibit/facility etc without bumping in to guests that slow them down, and also so that the negative area is far away from the guests. I also make sure to build lots of roads so that the distance they have to travel is as low as possible
8. I only use solar power and set them to 3months maintenence (it's the second thing I reserched, barriers is no1)
Overview of my shops.
1. Information
2. Gulpee soda
3. Street fox coffee
4. Cheif beef
5. Hot dog squad
6. Souvenirs
7. Toilets
(it seems you need way more drink shops than any other shop, they are almost always full of guests)
There are probably way better ways to build zoo's that are more profitable, but since I managed to get quite a good profit on my first zoo with both animals, staff and guests happy, I thought I would share my experiences. Hopefully it can help or inspire someone
Playing the scenarios also made me a bit curious about franchise, so last week I started my very first franchise zoo! I got an idea for how to build it here on the forum.
The first few ingame years were really really rough, I had to take both the 20k and 50k loans just to start up. And while I payed of the loans I barely made even (having exibit animals is really a lifesaver at the start of a zoo, since you can sell all the babys as soon as they are born for some extra cash).
But at around year 5 things started to turn. I managed to pay of my loans and started to make a little profit. And as soon as I got enough money (around 50k I think) I started to expand a bit. At the start I only had three habitat animals, Peafowls, Warthogs and Ostriches. I built a new habitat for savannah animals and made my original warthog/ostrich habitat into a djungle instead.
I had to stick to animals I could buy with cash as I hardly has any CC (never got more than 200 since I had the animal aging at 5times to make it easier at the start, and the ones I had only generated about 5-10 CC when releasing them). The upside to this was that the animals I got were really cheap to feed, so the feeding costs were low.
I ran into a problem with my Savannah habitat after a while. I had over 40 animals in it from 8 different species with three zookeepers assigned to it (all fully trained). The problem was that only one of them did all the work, the other two just complained they had nothing to do. Meanwhile the animals in the habitat were starving and getting sick as the habitat didn't get cleaned in time. I fixed it by moving my Black wildebeests to their own habitat, fiering the two lazy s, hiering a new zoo keeper and making one clean and one feed. After that I haven't had any problems with it.
Now I am at ingame year 45 and I hit three major goalposts for me. I got my first 5 star review from the inspector, just hit 3million in profit and got my first predators! I went with cheetahs as I have heard they are good for getting CC (I'm at below 100 now after getting my cats)
Here is a pic of my zoo (it's really ugly as I haven't put any effort at all in aesthetics, my goal is to make about 5mill cash and then redo it completly)
1. Peafowls (walk in habitat)
2. Djungle (Okapi, Nyala, Bongo, Tapir, Lemurs)
3. Savannah (Zebra, Ostrich, African Buffalo, Warthog, Springbok, Thomson's gazelle, Sable antilope)
4. Aardwark
5. Flamingo (walk in habitat)
6. Cheetah <3
7. Gemsbock, Camel
8. Black Wildebeest
9. Galapagos and Aldabra Tortoise and Chinese Pangolin
I managed to make both my guests, staff and animals happy
I'm still a real noob when it comes to franshise, but I thought I would share a few tips if any of you are still struggling
1. I have trashcans and benches EVERYWHERE.
2. I check the heatmap for negative influence about every 5-15 min. If I see a full trashcan I just replace it. If there is trash on the ground I move one of my caretakers on top of it.
I have 5 caretakers, two at the entrance, two in the middle and one that doesn't have a workzone.
3. I have education boards everywhere where there is no shop or habitat. Small space between shops of habitat? just put a board there
I also put boards behind almost every bench4. I make sure to have loads of speakers for each habitat so that ever space of the viewing area is covered without it going to much in to the habitat
5. I have one zookeeper for each habitat (two for djungle and savannah) and make sure that both the zookeeper hut and a staff room is very near the entrance to the habitat/exibit
6. I only have two kinds of food/drink shops. At the entrance area I have the two "starter" ones (gulpee soda and cheef beef) and in the middle I have Coffee and Hot dogs.
7. I have all of my staff facilities eather on the outside of the area or in the middle area. I do this both so that they can get to the habitat/exibit/facility etc without bumping in to guests that slow them down, and also so that the negative area is far away from the guests. I also make sure to build lots of roads so that the distance they have to travel is as low as possible
8. I only use solar power and set them to 3months maintenence (it's the second thing I reserched, barriers is no1)
Overview of my shops.
1. Information
2. Gulpee soda
3. Street fox coffee
4. Cheif beef
5. Hot dog squad
6. Souvenirs
7. Toilets
(it seems you need way more drink shops than any other shop, they are almost always full of guests)
There are probably way better ways to build zoo's that are more profitable, but since I managed to get quite a good profit on my first zoo with both animals, staff and guests happy, I thought I would share my experiences. Hopefully it can help or inspire someone