Posted August 12, 2019
This game is really intriguing but very poor on details - even the manual does not address a ton of important things.
I recently *FINALLY* had my first win, here are some huge things I discovered that really transformed the game for me. I hope they will help others playing this interesting game. Maybe you guys know them already but I couldn't believe I didn't know this stuff until now.
--
1. You can open ANY BUSINESS YOU WANT *ANYWHERE* by shutting down unwanted businesses you own and setting up a new one.
2. You can CONVERT a block type by doing this (I.E. Residential --> Commercial shops).
--
What happens if you want to ship booze with a warehouse, but your Office starts in the suburbs and there are no warehouses or industrial buildings for miles? You simply can't do it, right?
WRONG!
I didn't know this until today, but if you buy any legal business you can shut it down and open something else there. "Large" businesses such as Industrial and Large Hotels, Large Banks, Department Stores take up a whole block - this means you need to buy and Shutdown all the Commercial buildings in a block to convert it to a Department Store, for example.
This also means cheap Industrial buildings and Tenements are great - buy them and Shutdown and next week you get a whole 9 Commercial Shop spaces empty for you, or the ability to build a Warehouse or other desired large building.
This is more expensive but gives you almost complete control over the buildings in your turf. I think the only thing you can't build are "one-offs" like the Docks, Courthouse etc.
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3. You can RECRUIT from Pool Halls and Gyms that you build.
4. Empty Commercial Space can be turned into Soup Kitchens.
--
Okay this is huge too when coupled with the above. That crappy useless Tenement you own in the poor part of town? Shut it down, turn it into a Commercial block and build a bunch of Pool Halls and Gyms on the same block. They only cost like $1-2k each.
This attracts a ton of mobsters to your area of the city right next to your office and you can even hide an illegal business (like a Prizefight Ring) behind them too. You can patrol this block very easily and stop anyone else from recruiting here. In fact, other gangs will get their recruiters killed by trying to go to your gyms and you will get stronger as they get weaker.
No longer do you have to risk 4-5 star Intelligence guys running around in hostile territory all over the city trying to recruit gangsters. Nor do they have to walk 20 blocks to hit up 9 recruiting spots. Instead you have a whole safe concentrated block devoted to giving you manpower and all your guys can just walk around it in a couple of hours.
Combine this with one empty space for a Soup Kitchen. This will only cost you a few hundred bucks a week and it gives you a significant positive boost to business owner opinion in the local area.
Since I started building Kitchens every now and then I found I barely have to rely on violence to keep my territory, and even bombing campaigns from other gangs fail to shake my territory easily. Occasionally you will still get Squealers, but it's less common than it would otherwise be.
--
5. Make sure you are the strongest gang, or close second strongest, every single week from the start.
--
Momentum seems very important in this game. You want to Extort territory as fast as possible at the beginning and get a second Extortion squad ASAP.
A bit like the Total War games, the stronger you are, the less likely you are to get brutalised by other gangs. Whereas if you are too slow to grab power you will find you are constantly losing men and can never do anything except get shot.
Recruit constantly, get businesses up as and when you can. If you're strong enough, enemy gangs will ask for peace and allow you to continue to get stronger and stronger.
Avoid any violence if possible until you are much stronger than the other gang - and then attack their office directly. Contrary to what the manual says, fighting in the street should not be something you try to do, since it attracts the cops and gets tons of guys killed.
It also seems that the stronger your gang overall, the more people will join your protection racket. Weaker gangs struggle to expand even when they're committing tons of violent acts - and they'll end up getting owned by the cops.
--
6. The protection racket is extremely important and should be a priority for most of the first 10-15 weeks or so.
--
I've seen a lot of people saying that Extortion should be ignored in the favour of illegal businesses. I disagree here - businesses are great but they require a lot of manpower to guard and cost a ton to set up. Also the more territory you give your enemies, the stronger they get.
Extortion can bring in $15,000-$40,000 a week (on "standard" extortion setting!) once you have sizable territory, and this is enough to bribe Judges and get all your businesses set up.
You should never have a week where the protection money isn't collected, unless something went seriously wrong. You can't afford to not pick up your $15+k every week, that is your lifeblood.
--
7. Cars are often better than guns. They let you escape, and let the cops kill your enemies.
--
Cars keep your guys safe - this is even more important than their speed. Even the $3000 car is a huge upgrade over having all your guys on foot, because it enables them to often escape the police and/or rival gangs.
Cops in this game are an absolute death sentence. Even if you've bribed the Mayor and the Chief, any cops that hear shooting on the street will come and kill or arrest you. They are easily the most dangerous force on the street.
By contrast, most of your gangsters, even the better ones, won't be great with firearms. Maybe if you have hundreds of guys in the Pool you might be able to get an amazing team that can shoot AND do all the other stuff, but most of the time that super intimidating or intelligent guy will be bad at winning fights.
As a result, equipping your everyday guys with guns is often a terrible move, since they try to fight and just die. By contrast giving them a car and no gun means they tend to run to the car and drive away - and this is very successful if they have good Stealth.
Meanwhile the cops will kill everyone who was shooting at your guys for you, giving the other gang a ton of problems while leaving you unharmed and legit.
One final thing - unlike expensive guns, you do not lose cars when your gangsters die. A huge squad of Tommy Guns getting wiped can cost $20,000, whereas a crew with 3 cars loses nothing when killed.
I'm sure I'll think of more, and I'll add to the post. Hope this helps a few people still playng this game :)
I recently *FINALLY* had my first win, here are some huge things I discovered that really transformed the game for me. I hope they will help others playing this interesting game. Maybe you guys know them already but I couldn't believe I didn't know this stuff until now.
--
1. You can open ANY BUSINESS YOU WANT *ANYWHERE* by shutting down unwanted businesses you own and setting up a new one.
2. You can CONVERT a block type by doing this (I.E. Residential --> Commercial shops).
--
What happens if you want to ship booze with a warehouse, but your Office starts in the suburbs and there are no warehouses or industrial buildings for miles? You simply can't do it, right?
WRONG!
I didn't know this until today, but if you buy any legal business you can shut it down and open something else there. "Large" businesses such as Industrial and Large Hotels, Large Banks, Department Stores take up a whole block - this means you need to buy and Shutdown all the Commercial buildings in a block to convert it to a Department Store, for example.
This also means cheap Industrial buildings and Tenements are great - buy them and Shutdown and next week you get a whole 9 Commercial Shop spaces empty for you, or the ability to build a Warehouse or other desired large building.
This is more expensive but gives you almost complete control over the buildings in your turf. I think the only thing you can't build are "one-offs" like the Docks, Courthouse etc.
--
3. You can RECRUIT from Pool Halls and Gyms that you build.
4. Empty Commercial Space can be turned into Soup Kitchens.
--
Okay this is huge too when coupled with the above. That crappy useless Tenement you own in the poor part of town? Shut it down, turn it into a Commercial block and build a bunch of Pool Halls and Gyms on the same block. They only cost like $1-2k each.
This attracts a ton of mobsters to your area of the city right next to your office and you can even hide an illegal business (like a Prizefight Ring) behind them too. You can patrol this block very easily and stop anyone else from recruiting here. In fact, other gangs will get their recruiters killed by trying to go to your gyms and you will get stronger as they get weaker.
No longer do you have to risk 4-5 star Intelligence guys running around in hostile territory all over the city trying to recruit gangsters. Nor do they have to walk 20 blocks to hit up 9 recruiting spots. Instead you have a whole safe concentrated block devoted to giving you manpower and all your guys can just walk around it in a couple of hours.
Combine this with one empty space for a Soup Kitchen. This will only cost you a few hundred bucks a week and it gives you a significant positive boost to business owner opinion in the local area.
Since I started building Kitchens every now and then I found I barely have to rely on violence to keep my territory, and even bombing campaigns from other gangs fail to shake my territory easily. Occasionally you will still get Squealers, but it's less common than it would otherwise be.
--
5. Make sure you are the strongest gang, or close second strongest, every single week from the start.
--
Momentum seems very important in this game. You want to Extort territory as fast as possible at the beginning and get a second Extortion squad ASAP.
A bit like the Total War games, the stronger you are, the less likely you are to get brutalised by other gangs. Whereas if you are too slow to grab power you will find you are constantly losing men and can never do anything except get shot.
Recruit constantly, get businesses up as and when you can. If you're strong enough, enemy gangs will ask for peace and allow you to continue to get stronger and stronger.
Avoid any violence if possible until you are much stronger than the other gang - and then attack their office directly. Contrary to what the manual says, fighting in the street should not be something you try to do, since it attracts the cops and gets tons of guys killed.
It also seems that the stronger your gang overall, the more people will join your protection racket. Weaker gangs struggle to expand even when they're committing tons of violent acts - and they'll end up getting owned by the cops.
--
6. The protection racket is extremely important and should be a priority for most of the first 10-15 weeks or so.
--
I've seen a lot of people saying that Extortion should be ignored in the favour of illegal businesses. I disagree here - businesses are great but they require a lot of manpower to guard and cost a ton to set up. Also the more territory you give your enemies, the stronger they get.
Extortion can bring in $15,000-$40,000 a week (on "standard" extortion setting!) once you have sizable territory, and this is enough to bribe Judges and get all your businesses set up.
You should never have a week where the protection money isn't collected, unless something went seriously wrong. You can't afford to not pick up your $15+k every week, that is your lifeblood.
--
7. Cars are often better than guns. They let you escape, and let the cops kill your enemies.
--
Cars keep your guys safe - this is even more important than their speed. Even the $3000 car is a huge upgrade over having all your guys on foot, because it enables them to often escape the police and/or rival gangs.
Cops in this game are an absolute death sentence. Even if you've bribed the Mayor and the Chief, any cops that hear shooting on the street will come and kill or arrest you. They are easily the most dangerous force on the street.
By contrast, most of your gangsters, even the better ones, won't be great with firearms. Maybe if you have hundreds of guys in the Pool you might be able to get an amazing team that can shoot AND do all the other stuff, but most of the time that super intimidating or intelligent guy will be bad at winning fights.
As a result, equipping your everyday guys with guns is often a terrible move, since they try to fight and just die. By contrast giving them a car and no gun means they tend to run to the car and drive away - and this is very successful if they have good Stealth.
Meanwhile the cops will kill everyone who was shooting at your guys for you, giving the other gang a ton of problems while leaving you unharmed and legit.
One final thing - unlike expensive guns, you do not lose cars when your gangsters die. A huge squad of Tommy Guns getting wiped can cost $20,000, whereas a crew with 3 cars loses nothing when killed.
I'm sure I'll think of more, and I'll add to the post. Hope this helps a few people still playng this game :)
