You start out by naming your company and then picking your "specialty." What your specialty is determines what bonus you get when you build your company. Build factories and produce goods to sell on the market or in your own shops. Build offices to offer various services to the population of the city you are based in. Whatever you do, the world of Tycoon Online changes every day depending on your actions and those of other players. The game plays in real time and your company continues to function even when you are not logged on.

There are many other aspects of the game, such as hiring your staff and of course each staff member has their own specialty. One of the challenges of staff is whether the person you need is actually available. With all the other players, some looking for the same people you are, you may have to hire someone else that isn’t "qualified" for the job and there are deductions because of it. The unemployed staff list always has at least 200 people and when it goes below the 200 mark, the game will regenerate new ones but the timing and what they are qualified for are random, so just because there may not be any "woodcutters" when the list goes below the 200 doesn’t mean that they will be the ones regenerated. Other challenges include employees going on vacation, getting sick and just disappearing for a certain period of time, which will effect your productivity.

Once you have built your factories and hired your staff, your factories will then start producing. There are two things you can do with the end product. In this instance, I will use the wood industry. You start out with a forest and you hire woodcutters to cut them down. You can then either sell the wood directly on the market at market price (if you’re desperate for money, you can sell it to the bank but at a HUGE discount). Or you can build a sawmill and turn the wood into planks which can then be sold at market for a higher price then the wood. You can go even more extensive and turn the planks into furniture, open your own shop and sell them or once again just sell them to the open market.