City of Gangsters - a crime syndicate business sim

[jztemple2]

OK, lots of news for City of Gangsters (Steam link). There's a free update that adds loads of stuff, plus their third DLC has been released. The base game is on sale for 40% off until midday Thursday, plus there is also a bundle option that saves you 10% off the already discounted prices; even the new DLC is 15% percent off for a couple of days. And don't forget the game has Steam Workshop support.

First, the video in case you don't want to read the rest of the post


Now the details. Free Update 1.3: Roles & Schemes is now live!

Ready to expand your criminal empire with a whole new host of abilities and activities? Then good news - our latest FREE 1.3 Update
“Roles & Schemes” - is now available!

As your Captains work to grow your empire, they’ll pick up their own, unique experiences. You can now use that experience to elevate them to a new Role in your crew. Once they’re in a role, they’ll be able to start their own Schemes - ongoing activities that will give you an opportunity to make some big scores. You’ll use the new organization chart to see each crew member and Captain and their progress toward a Role.


Each Role also comes with unique abilities. For example, Intimidators can help you discover what rival gangs are storing in their hideouts, while Accountants will help you purchase buildings at cheaper rates. All Captains are eligible for promotion into a Role and you can have several of the same Role.

Based on their experience and Role, your promoted Captains will have some ideas of their own that they’ll want to pitch to you as the Boss. Once you agree to one of their cunning Schemes - and after some investment on your part - they’ll get down to business.


Schemes come with risks as well as a variety of rewards, each depending on what you choose to have your Captain do, so choose carefully. Get it right and the rewards will be worth the risk. Get it wrong and all your investment will go down the drain, or worse - your Captain could get arrested or killed.

And the new DLC, City of Gangsters: Criminal Record is available now!

City of Gangsters: Criminal Record is now available! Discover and profit from expanded Roles and Schemes as you take on new challenges in historic Philadelphia! On the streets of Philadelphia, you’ll discover countless banks and jewelry stores ripe for the taking, along with homemade brandy, a new type of booze to make and sell. On top of all of that, we’ve added a unique starting condition which gets you a Captain on your crew from the get go.

You’ll also have 5 new Roles to explore for your crew, each with their own requirements and capabilities:

Enforcer
Captain requirements: Attack and take over rival territory
Role bonus: Fronts will become cheaper

Jailbird
Captain requirements: Fight and kill rival gang members, and get arrested
Role bonus: Excels at non-firearm weapons

Lookout
Captain requirements: Discover corners and drive around the map
Role bonus: Drive 50% further

Mouthpiece
Captain requirements: Establish fronts and bribe cops
Role bonus: Bribing cops will become cheaper

Closer
Captain requirements: Complete business deals with corner hooligans, trade in favors and attend events
Role bonus: Taking over buildings becomes cheaper

Each of these Roles includes a unique Scheme. Want to organize a bank heist with an Enforcer? Blackmail businesses around town with a Mouthpiece? Set up a new front across town? It’s up to you decide which of your Captains’ ideas you’ll agree to and which you decide are just too risky.

You’ll also have a new way to show off what you and your outfit have accomplished during Prohibition! As your wealth grows, the time will come to set up Your Office. You’ll have to decide between a secluded woodland lodge or glitzy penthouse where you’ll stash trophies and rewards from your criminal escapades.

[LordMortis]

While I'm still employed, is this worth the $18? It's still on my wishlist but I'm even more frugal with my money than I was back when this released.

[jztemple2]

While I'm still employed, is this worth the $18? It's still on my wishlist but I'm even more frugal with my money than I was back when this released.

Depends I guess on whether this is the kind of game you'd enjoy. As to the $18, only you can figure out what you're giving up for that $18.

[infinitelurker]

While I'm still employed, is this worth the $18? It's still on my wishlist but I'm even more frugal with my money than I was back when this released.

I had fun with it and got about 30 hours of play out of it before switching to the next shiny object. YMMV of course.

[jztemple2]

I've played around with this since the update, but this is a very subtle, there are lots of little things to know to be successful and to be honest I've not been able to play too far into playthrough without balling it all up . So I'm going to do an AAR and make myself focus on the nuances... that is, until the next shiny thing shows up

And no the obligatory screenshots. First of all, my character, Roger Ryan. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail now, but please post questions if you want to know about anything you see.


Now the Ryan area of operations. Number one rule of starting a new game of CoG is to not have a starting position that's closed off by the river or the lake (this is Chicago btw). After several restarts I finally decided to start with this, it's not hard up against the water at least.


My starting front is my aunt's grocery. As shown, I'll have a steady supply of apple juice, so that means I'll be making hard cider. But first I have to raise the money.


I've loaded up my car with an assortment of booze my aunt had lying around the place. I'll start checking out the neighborhood to unload this stuff.


Oh, this is something I don't remember seeing before in the game, it's a character info page. Sort of cool.

[Isgrimnur]

Looking a little rough for 23.

[jztemple2]

Here's something really important in the game; connections, favors and opinions. My aunt, Rose Hill, has a slightly positive opinion of me (+15) and owes me (or will do me) a favor. See those connections? I'll be running into people with whom I'll want to do business. If my aunt knows them she can put in a good word for me. But since she only owes me one favor I have to be careful to use it wisely.


See those businesses near me? Those little green boxes with the logos, two on the left and one on the right. I have to visit them and see if they might want to buy my hooch.


I stop by the cafe. Go ahead and read the text in the screenshot, I'll wait... I've already asked her if there is anything she might want to buy or sell, so she s in the market for brick wine and cigarettes. That's good, I have those bottles of brick wine in the car. Also, and this is important, she deals in things I don't know about yet, in other words haven't yet been revealed in the game. So even though I'm going to be making hard cider there might be a product I can sell to her later on. By the way, places either buy stuff from you or sell stuff from you, I've never seen one that does both. Also, she really likes me (I'm deliciously handsome ) and is willing to do favors for me. Good to know.


Next door is a drugstore. The owner already likes me and I can sell her the homemade beer I have in the car. And there is something else I can have her do...


You can follow the request in the screenshot. I want her to open a front for me. That will give my outfit a base to expand to adjacent corners, earning local respect and giving me a more positive attitude with the businesses. She agrees.


And since she's now my front, I ask her about expanding my territory. She tells me that for a measly $8 a month she'll be able to expand my territory into the next corner. Sounds good.


One final screenshot to illustrate the concept of corners. In CoG, all characters occupy a corner and movement is from corner to corner. Businesses are associated with specific corners and the game mostly does a good job of providing visual clues as to which corner is business is on. Also, since my memory isn't any better than it used to be, having movement, etc tied to corners means I can use a scratch pad to make simple schematics of my local area and note the nearby places I need to remember, although the game does provide you with a lot of good tools as well.

[jztemple2]

Looking a little rough for 23.

It's the clean living, it wears you out

OK, something about how you manage to keep track of things. I've been visiting businesses and finding out what they buy or sell. I've now come across a place that will buy my soon to be produced hard cider and another that sells stoneware crocks, which I need to package the cider I make. And how to I keep track of these locations? There's an overlay! Click a couple of buttons and I can now see where I can buy the stoneware crocks (brown triangles) and sell the hard cider (green triangles).


Here's something important. I figure the owner of this tobacco store might be interested in buying or selling from me, but her opinion of me isn't high enough for her to trust me.


So I approach her again. She might be interested in buying some of my goods if I can bring her a sample. Well, it just so happens I've got some in the car! I give her some and then she agrees to buy more from me. And now she likes me and will owe me favors.

[jztemple2]

So I'm still driving all over the neighborhood, finding folks to whom I can sell my hard cider. I did come across the situation where someone didn't know me well enough to trust me to tell them what I was interested in buying or selling. However, one of my previous contacts knew them and was willing (for me expending a favor) to let that new person know I was trust-able. And that's how the system works.

But now big news, I have enough money to start my own back room operation! It will take five turns to complete. In the meantime I can finish selling the hard cider I have and buy some stoneware crocks.


And here's my first encounter with a hooligan. Hooligans occupy a corner and you won't be able to work with any of the businesses there while the hooligan is active. This hooligan has a business stance, so I'm able to talk to him and he tells me he'll let me know if there is a business opportunity for me with him, like something fell off the back of a truck . Once I've done some business with him he'll relent and let me visit the local businesses. I might even be able to hire him!

[jztemple2]

Here's another concept... Heat. Those two blue buildings are my aunt's grocery and the nearby front. You can see those red buildings, that means that my less than legal activities are raising public awareness, which is Heat. Heat is bad, the local cop (which I haven't seen yet) may swing through at any time and make arrests at a local corner. And if they catch me they will take my illegal goods and my cash . The best way around that is to bribe the local police captain.


Here's the police precinct map. You can see my two blue buildings in a sea of white buildings, those white buildings are in one precinct, while the lavender ones on the lake to the right are under another precinct. If I expand my front into that territory, or even show up there, I might be arrested, so it would be better to bribe that police captain as well.


Zooming out a bit also gives a better look at the map and the three corners where my territory is located. That orange area to the top left is the location of that hooligan I came across.

[jztemple2]

By the way, places either buy stuff from you or sell stuff from you, I've never seen one that does both.

Silly me, I just came across one.

[jztemple2]

There haven't been any posts today because the game won't load my last save. I can load the previous auto-save, but that was eighteen minutes and four game weeks earlier and I did a lot of things in that time . And of course now I'm concerned that this will happen again and if it does I'll lose even more progress. So I'll hold off until I see an answer to my bug report posting.

[LordMortis]

Either this game is much more slow play than I've grown accustomed to (entirely possible and not necessarily bad) or I really suck at the game. 52 weeks (turns) in and I finally have a second driver. Still one business and the respect of 8 blocks.

[jztemple2]

Either this game is much more slow play than I've grown accustomed to (entirely possible and not necessarily bad) or I really suck at the game. 52 weeks (turns) in and I finally have a second driver. Still one business and the respect of 8 blocks.

Yup, that's a lot slower than my play. It is possible to play that slowly without hurting yourself, the game doesn't try to kill you off if you don't expand at some certain rate.

I've been using a money cheat via the cheat console since I'm really bad at economics in the game. If you are interested I can post the info.

[LordMortis]

No cheating for me, other than save scumming when I don't get a concept.

I'm not sure how to speed up my play. Maybe it will come with experience though some shiny is likely to pull me away before I get that experience.

Being really bad at economics... I wonder if there is a way to be good at economics. I'm going to go back to the beginning of my map and see if I can pick up the pace on production. I think I keep allowing myself to get distracted with quests and this and that and the other and they all take money that probably should have been going toward building my production line.

[jztemple2]

No cheating for me, other than save scumming when I don't get a concept.

I'm not sure how to speed up my play. Maybe it will come with experience though some shiny is likely to pull me away before I get that experience.

I really should have called that money cheat "an alternate play method", since I'm of the belief that in a single player game you aren't really cheating if you use an exploit. But I'm sure others will differ. Anyway, I'm using that money hack to speed up the gameplay. Money is the pacing item to getting things done

[infinitelurker]

My play was slow for a long time early game. Once I finally got some money to start expanding it picked up just a tiny bit, but by mid/late game, I had more money than I could spend. It really grew exponentially as I took down rivals and acquired their territories/operations.

[jztemple2]

I've sent off my saved game that won't load to the devs and also my player.log which is essentially the crash dump. I'm still awaiting some word from them before I continue, either with a fixed last save or the previous autosave.

[LordMortis]

I'm a little better off after one year. The biggest learn has been advance tactically and strategically. Don't go looking for stuff that doesn't directly contribute to your gain of cash. That means expand to the corner opportunity with the most businesses. Take on actions only that contribute to your war chest first and then to extorting people second and things that advance your cause without costing you money. That was hard learned for me. Probably the worst lesson which was a giant save scrumming lesson for me was don't upgrade your businesses. First you waste the effort getting the skill. Then there is the upgrade cost, which is nearly as expensive as scouting a new front and building a business, but lastly you lose to cycles operational income, which is the heart of you early enterprise.

Now here is where I am after a year, much better. Though the game is still very much a slow play and now I'm making each turn much slower as I try to lay out consequences of each muscle's turn before I take it.

It turns out, this isn't so much a Tycoon Sim as it is a 4X (so far without the emphasis on tactical Xing) . Who knew? Probably ally'all and you probably said it and I just glossed over it, focusing on the Gangster Tycooning of your posts.

[LordMortis]

Been splitting my gaming time between this and TS. Both going very slowly. I'm really digging this but I take too long to take turns. I also save every turn because I save scum *a lot*. I either forget what I was doing or I click somewhere and don't realize I am about to move someone I did not intend to move. Not sure how to fix that. If I am not alone, maybe a setting to turn on and off single click moving? Beyond that I really need a ledger. Something to tell me when extortions are due. A single glance at production and resources. An estimate of consumption and JIT scheduling. ETC.. I try to save money. I never do. *Something* is always demanding it. I think I need to accept a slow down in expansion.

I like the 4x way of doing a tycoon game. I really like how the favors work. How you build your logisitcs and sale network to build ties and then leave those ties open to wait for a good opportunity. How you sell self sealing stem bolts to move favors around and away from your central network to discover more on the people around you.

I'm not very deep into the game yet. I don't get the point of bribing. My interactions with the independents and the larger gangs have been pretty limited so far. I bought off one independent as it seemed the best way to get at her corner and she is a good manager. I have another independent who shake down for stuff every few months.

[jztemple2]

Small update to the game today and included a fix for my save game that wouldn't load

Update notes for version 1.3.2

Added Role Icons before crew names in crew management UI.
Expanded range for the Lookout scheme.
Fixed a bug where receiving an office item on startup would cause the save file to be unloadable.
Fixed a bug where Lookout scheme could place a front in Canada on the Detroit map.
Fixed a bug where Lookout scheme could leave you with no cars in Canada on the Detroit map.
Fixed a bug where in Detroit, the Closer scheme would break the game by picking a target in Canada.
Fixed a bug where the Precinct UI would break in locations without a cop assigned.

[LordMortis]

Just finished year 2. The Sullivans have decided to cut my egress between Carpenter East and Carpenter West in half and they went out of their way to do it. I'm not trying to be violent gang but they keep threatening my fronts, so things might change during year 3.

[LordMortis]

Finished my fist scheme this morning. I swear my captain left with billy club and $500 and came back with nothing. I will have to pay more attention the next time a scheme is offered.

[LordMortis]

I think I built a repair bay and small gambling den too quickly. I go to get my 7th business and they want over $10,000 to get me started. I probably need to upgrade one of my three existing basic boozes but crocks are already in high of demand and soon so will ingredients. I'm just shy of three years in and I have resetitus itching again for a game I've playing for three weeks.

I *do* learn a lot every playthrough and reset though. First I thought I was growing too slow. Now I'm grew too quickly. Conserve and spend money very deliberately. That is always my lesson. Every time you think money is flowing easily, things are about get turned up a notch. I also see that I should make a deliberate effort at experience and promoting the gang.

I miss the days of manuals. "Discovering" the rules that govern what are essentially giant solo board games, hoping a wiki is developed and that you can navigate it, is not a turn in video games that I appreciate. I'm the olds.

[jztemple2]

I miss the days of manuals. "Discovering" the rules that govern what are essentially giant solo board games, hoping a wiki is developed and that you can navigate it, is not a turn in video games that I appreciate. I'm the olds.

I feel the same way. It's a shame to read that the game devs don't do a manual because they believe most people don't read manuals.

Off topic a bit, my brother in law worked for Sierra decades ago, not as a developer, but as someone to help them write more intelligent and useful manuals. I remember him telling me about the first game Sierra put out (Cyberstorm 2?) that had no manual, only help pop-ups. He knew his job was on the way out.

Back to City of Gangsters! A new update has been released, version 1.4.0. Note, current saved games are not compatibile with the update!

Spoiler:

Operations can now be removed from controlled buildings

Rival gang adjustments:
• Rival gangs will grow beyond the previous crew limit
• Rival gangs will grow into larger territories
• Agreements now available between player/rival outfits to:
1. Not expand near player/rival territory
2. Stop attacking player/rival fronts
3. Join a rival/player in a conflict with another outfit

Other:
• Adjust rewards from troublemakers/corner hooligans to be more likely to offer useful booze
• Increase frequency of missions for basic inputs (apple juice, grape concentrate, malt syrup, neutral alcohol)
• Various stability fixes, minor bugs and typos addressed

Additionally, Shadow Government DLC and Outfit Content Packs Out Now!

In our new expansion pack City of Gangsters: Shadow Government you’ll be welcomed into the biggest map yet, New York. Home to some of the most famous city halls, the city is bustling with politicians. Use seed money from your businesses to nominate a council member of your choosing and then plan out events with your new ‘friend’. If they win the precinct vote, then it’s time for a little compensation.

Also...

Our five Outfit content packs are also releasing today. While each is a little different, they all allow you to bring a slice of home to the west. Produce Cigarettes when playing as an English Outfit. Utilize your armored car while playing as Italians. Or even celebrate a Volksfest as Germans. Every Outfit content pack comes with a new UI design flourish, new production module, new legacy goal and more!

[YellowKing]

Bumping this as it's on sale today for $11.99. I may give it a shot at that price.