Starting the game The only real decision that needs to be made prior to starting the game are what type of specialty you will be: manufacturing, marketing, or researching. Each specialty is twice as efficient at its job than the players of another specialty. Depending on your strategies for playing the game, you may decide that one specialty better suits your style of gameplay. Getting oriented Take a quick look at the "popup" help items on the main screen. These will only appear by default on the easiest level, but then can be recalled any time by hitting F2. Similar screens will also appear in your marketing, site, research, and production windows(more about those later). Use the +/- adjust the speed of the game. Initially, Fast or Faster are probably the best choices, though you'll quickly find that multi-player games become a lot more challenging when playing on Fastest or higher. Press the Pause key(upper right of your keyboard) at any time to pause the game. Press it again to resume play. Let's Play Click on a region adjacent to your initial starting region and press Investigate Region in the right-hand panel. Click on the Site button on the right-hand side(not the one toward the bottom) to enter the Site screen. Site Screen Click on your garage. This is where you initially manufacture your product. Use the slider to hire some workers(20 should be good to start). Click on the empty "plot" in the upper-right of the site map. This is where your research buildings are built. Note in the top display that it will cost $2 million for the next upgrade. Upgrade the building(which actually builds it in this case). Double-click on the garage to enter the Production Screen. Note: once a building is constructed, you can double-click on it to enter the corresponding screen for the building(if available). Production Screen The production screen is where, in many ways, whether you win or lose the game is decided. Set your prices too high and demand will fall off. Sell an inferior product, when compared with your competition, and watch the toads conquer the world as your corporation goes bankrupt. Since all products are about equal in the beginning of the game, you can overcharge a great deal. Set the price to $6500(be sure to hit Enter to make the change official). In only a short time(In terms of game years), you will have to return to this screen and adjust your price to be more competitive. But, for the initial stages of the game, he who has the most money comes out ahead. Note the demand on the bottom of this screen and the corresponding figure for how many units you are producing each period. Overproducing is not a big factor initially, but you'll want to keep an eye out so that the amount you are supplying is relatively close to demand. To get back to the Site screen to adjust your production(if desired), click on the little "button" in the upper-right corner of the screen. Back on the Site Screen By now, your Engineering Lab should have been constructed. However, we need to check some things out before hiring any workers(why waste the money on their salaries when they are not doing anything?). Click on the lower-left "plot" and start building your first Marketing Office. At this time, you may want to hire an additional 5-10 workers, on the expectation that demand has increased while you have been working with other things. Return to the Main Map by clicking on Done or on the mini-map near where your site is highlighted. Back on the Main Map By now, you've investigated two regions(your initial region and the one you started investigating before going to the Site Map). Click on another region adjacent to your first and investigate it as well. If this is your first time playing, now might be a good time to pause the game while you learn what the inhabitants of these regions want. Click on any of the regions that you've currently researched. Click the Region button on the bottom toolbar. The window pane in the lower-right of the screen contains the Regional Desires for that region (Reliability, Performance, etc.). By researching these traits, you can improve your product and make it more attractive to different regions. The longer the bar in this window, the more the regions desire that attribute (w/green bars being the most desirable). Check the other regions you've investigated as well. Their desires are relatively unimportant during the first year or two of the game(since your products have not been enhanced yet), but you will quickly find that they will buy a lot more of products that they like(vs. your competitors). By now, you should have investigated your third region(if you did not pause the game-if you did, unpause now). Start investigating a fourth region. Goto the Production Screen by clicking the Produce button. Production Screen How is your demand relative to supply? If you are under or overproducing and click the button at the top of the screen to jump to the Site Map. Site Map Adjust your production as needed based on the info you just got off the Production screen. If you have more than $3 million, now might be the time to upgrade your Garage to increase your manufacturing capacity. If you do not do this now, keep in mind the fact that you will need to upgrade at some point. When is now up to you, but the sooner the better if your demand is higher than you can supply. Another choice that can be made now(or later) is whether to invest $1 million in a Sales Building(center-top "plot"). This building functions much like your salespersons on the main screen(more about them in a minute). By building Sales buildings, you can sell to the regions surrounding your site without needing a sales executive in the area. Click on the Engineering Lab and hire some workers. Then, double-click on the Lab to enter the Research Screen. Research Screen The Research Screen is where your engineers work on upgrading components of your product. For the default computer market, there are seven components (plus the case) that have attributes that can be improved via research. Some components have a larger effect than others on specific attributes. For example, improving the performance of your CPU(the "chip" to the left of the case) will boost performance the most. Similarly, increasing the ease of use of the operating system(the OS 4 box on the right) will help lift the overall ease of use of the product. Researching product upgrades is not an exact process. Since different regions in the game desire different things(remember the Regional Desires indicator on the main map?), improving one aspect of your product at the expense of another could cost you later in the game. Juggling all aspects of the product, while simultaneously competing marketing the product, investigating new regions, upgrading your sites, _and_ competing against other players may seem daunting at first, but you'll quickly get the hang of things. For now, recall the Regional Desires of the regions around you. If, for example, they really liked a product's Aesthetics, increase the Aesthetics of a component and hit the Research button to start your engineers working. Initially, since you have few researchers, you can only increase the attributes by a small amount without requiring enormous amounts of time. While you are learning, you may want to limit individual research projects to somewhere between 15 and 30 weeks duration. Later, as you upgrade your engineering labs, you'll be able to research things more quickly. If you start researching something and change your mind while it is still in the Research Queue(the listing to the lower-right), select it and hit the X to prevent that particular project from ever being started. Note that you cannot cancel the current research project, so be sure not to start one that will take many years. Return to the Main Map by clicking Done. Main Map By now, the sales executive in your home region should have a little number next to him. This represents the number of sales executives that are in a particular region. As your corporation increases in revenue earned, you will gain additional sales executives. Click on your sales executive. Notice how the display on the right changes to display him and the attributes of the product he is currently selling. If there is more than one sales executive in a region, you can select them simply by clicking on them(notice how the graphic becomes highlighted). Any selected sales executives or marketing units(more on them in a minute) will move to any region that you have researched when you click the right mouse button(RMB) in that region. Try moving him to another region now. Your sales executives will sell to the region they are currently in as well as surrounding regions, though at a decreasing level of effectiveness the more distant those regions are. Now might be a good time to click the Share button on the right. This will show you who is selling products in the current region, the number of products sold, and the number of each product demanded by the population. If the number sold is less than the number demanded, you may need to increase production. This might also be a good time to consider dropping your selling price as you research cheaper and cheaper components. Start investigating some additional regions. Notice that they become more expensive to research the further they are from your site. Now we come to the most misunderstood, but most powerful, units in the game--marketers. Return to the Site Map, hire some marketers, end enter the Marketing screen (remember how to get to screens from the Site Map)? Marketing Screen Here is where you will develop the marketing campaigns to assure your utter domination of the world. As you upgrade your marketing buildings, additional types of marketing campaigns(positive and negative) will become available. For now, think about the Regional Desire of the areas around your initial site and develop a radio campaign based on the desired attributes. Click on the attribute on the left and Create Campaign on the right. Go back to the Main Map and continue investigating regions, adjusting production, and researching new components until your first marketing unit appears(it will look like a small card in your home region). Click on this marketing unit and move it to a neighboring region by using the RMB on the target region(just like your sales units). Conclusion By now, you've gotten a firm start on the basics of Entrepreneur. Practice makes perfect. As you continue playing, you will quickly get the hang of manipulating all the various facets of the game. Other Resources Visit http://www.stardock.com to find links to sites dedicated to the strategy of Entrepreneur. Entrepreneur is a game that is very easy to play but very hard to master.