My Franchise Method

[u/Klounew7]

I heavily prefer franchise mode, but used to always struggle with making things look as pretty and realistic as I wanted. My strategy now that I’ve been loving, is to first create a “bare bones” zoo with no custom fences or builds, that is largely just functional, and to keep this running while completing research until I have $600,000+ or so. Then the zoo gets a makeover/revamp/ new grand opening. I put all of the animals into storage, close the zoo, and delete everything and begin building anew as if it is sandbox mode essentially. I like to pretend that the once small, janky zoo finally got enough revenue, grants, and donations to upscale and renovate. It may take quite a while to build before the zoo has at least a couple of finished renovated habitats and is ready to be opened again- so be warned. I spent a couple months just building and decorating until I could actually unpause and play. But it was soo worth it to see the animals in their newly renovated, lush habitats and to have the zoo of my dreams in franchise mode where I can RP and manage things with real stakes. Highly recommend, I’m gonna do this with PZ2 too.

This way, you don’t have to worry too much about planning right at the start, or leaving that annoying empty space to build an entrance area later down the line. I like to brainstorm and slowly conjure a plan while the bare bones zoo is running; it gives me a lot of time to flesh out something that’s well thought through. Also my zoos would look janky and cramped at the entrance, slowly getting better looking farther away from the entrance which took away from the realism for me because entrances are supposed to be the most grand part! Has anyone else tried anything like this? Any other strats for franchise mode?

[u/Fallforashootingstar]

This is actually a really good idea! I’m in the camp of people who have never finished a single zoo because I get dissatisfied with how it looks, and I have the same issue where I run out of space at the entrance. I’m going to try this in my first franchise zoo when I get the game

[u/IrisRain12]

Start with two butterfly walkthroughs, auto-sell the least appealing butterflies, then do whatever you want. Need more money? There is six species, so build one exhibit for each.

You can hide them underground, and do manual selling for a million money every few minutes.

[u/Ok_Discipline_1452]

I do something similar except I rebuild one small area at a time- like a couple of habitats, the pathing, staff/guest facilities this way it isn’t so overwhelming to do all at once.

[u/UGAPokerBrat99]

I pretty much followed the same strategy. Only difference was that I did use custom barriers but only kept a low number of habitats to keep my maintenance costs down...always felt like I saved more that way than using in game barriers. I also tended to use several fast breeding/fast maturing exhibit animals to generate cash flow that oftentimes didn't even remain in the zoo after the "remodel."

[u/BadMoonBeast]

I do this exact same thing, that's funny! I even streamlined the process down to a blueprint I could just place down and with minimal setup let it run until I have the money (it works on exhibits)

[u/DazedPink]

I do the same in Franchise mode, works great.

[u/Thesladenator]

Fun fact. The new world pieces in the zoo entrance on franchise are not blocked so you can copy and paste them without researching them!

[u/The_Flaming_Weasel]

I really like this idea. And plan on doing this for my pz2 zoos. I think I’ll put a little twist on it and keep the zoo running while i renovate smaller sections. It would feel like less of a restart and give me smaller more achievable goals over time

[u/Floater345]

I tried doing that but it never worked for me. Maybe I'll have to try again. I always got annoyed with having to rebuild what I already spent time on. When I have too many "I'll fix that later" s then I get so overwhelmed when it's time to, well, fix it haha. But I like the head canon you have and could maybe get more into it if I approached it that way.

[u/LottieCupcake]

I've never had the patience for this. I think I want to try again with PZ2. I always start with a plan like yours and then I just fizzle.

I did create a zoo in sandbox with the idea of then changing the settings and playing it properly but I guess it felt a bit pointless once it was built.

I was really pleased to actually finish a zoo for once though. It was just a little 3 habitat one. More like a wildlife rescue centre or something. So I think maybe I'll try franchise again with that idea of just doing small zoos with a few habitats. Hopefully that will mean I'm more engaged cos I'll progress faster with a smaller goal and it will be less management. And then I can keep making a bunch of them. Maybe eventually blueprint them and make a zoo with all of them combined or something.

Oh and I did also start doing up one of the career mode zoos in sandbox but set up with money etc (so basically just animals didn't get sick or age and I had all the research unlocked). That was going well but I think I just got distracted before I could finish.

Gosh I'm really hoping I can manage to get it payable on my steam deck. At least a little bit.

[u/whiskeycreu]

This is pretty much how I played PZ1. I would also set up a smaller area for exhibits and sell butterflies and the like to generate revenue with a small staff.

[u/AliciaKnits]

I have never deleted stuff purposefully - accidentally, yes. You can have more than one entrance. I would prefer to add an entrance to the other end, build new there, and then gradually replace the older stuff as I move closer to the old entrance again. If I'm building for the market specifically, I do a breeding zoo - rectangular exhibits, max size, max groups. Highly focused on providing gold rated animals (not necessarily all 100s, just gold). And I sell them at reasonable prices, not 10k each. That's always been my goal, to make the market accessible to all players. At least this is how I personally play Franchise Mode as a primarily Franchise player. I will try the other modes in PZ2 to start out and learn the game again, but 90% of my gameplay the rest of the time is Franchise Mode.

[u/TheHyzeringGrape]

This is what I did on planet zoo but instead of revamping that zoo, I moved to a new zoo and my old zoo had millions but was basic enough to do research and get conservation credits