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Company of Crime - criminal empire builder with tactical turn-based missions set in 1960s London

Mark Richard

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Hi everyone! I'm the narrative designer working on Company of Crime. I've been following this thread quite a while now, and it seems to be the most civil discussion about the game I've seen thus far from all the forums.
I have to be honest, I've never been to rpgcodex, and don't know what I'm stepping into or how developers are received here, but anyway I'm open to answering any questions you might have about the game (barring questions falling under NDA obviously).
Maybe you could explain the stealth phase in the demo. What does it mean to alert civilians and how does their behaviour change?

Any information you can provide on the police campaign outside of the hookedgamers interview would be greatly appreciated too.
 

Storyteller

Resistance Games
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Sure. "Stealth" is probably the wrong word to describe that phase.

First of all, the "civilians suspicious" should say "civilians alerted", but that didn't get fixed in time for the demo. Your criminal gang is somewhat known among the general populus. When you enter a public place like a pub, you're not immediately doing anything hostile. However, the civilians understand it's better to leave before trouble starts. That's the lore of it.
Mechanically it's because we wanted the locations to feel alive and have normal people in them, but not have them interfere the battle that much. They are programmed to leave the scene, and only defend themselves if needed. Civilians are different from employees. Employees defend their workplace.

Stealth has a few functions in the game. You should be able to walk freely in areas marked for general public, unless the mission has enemy gangs in them (not seen in the demo), and if haven't done any hostile actions. Then there are "restricted" areas that will start a fight if you are caught trespassing in them. I can't remember from the top of my head what the sight range is for units. If you hit someone, every enemy within 5 squares are alerted to the noise. It might have been that way for being seen too (the spotter alerts their surrounding friends). Guns are louder.

There are 3 stages of combat. Somethingsomething (normal), brawl and gunfight. In normal mode employees shouldn't attack you (gangs might), in brawl they attack with fists and melee wepons and in gunfight they might start shooting. Weapons are actually lethal and dangerous, so you should be afraid even when a level 1 enemy is waving a pistol at your max level gangster. This is a clear difference to XCOM.

All of the values (and features) could still change, as we are testing and balancing the game.

I'll post another answer for the police campaign, since I'm writing this on a phone, and it's tedious.
 

Storyteller

Resistance Games
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Any information you can provide on the police campaign outside of the hookedgamers interview would be greatly appreciated too.

A bit more specific questions would be easier to answer, but I'll explain the gist of the police campaign in general.

When playing the police campaign, you step into the shoes of Graham Brooks, a young and aspiring constable of the Metropolitan Police. You soon find yourself promoted to the Flying Squad, which was a special task force of the Scotland Yard in the 60s, that did investigation all over London (and not just in certain appointed districts). They wore mostly civilian clothing instead of uniforms. You can find more about their history by googling.

The main difference with the police and criminal campaigns is that when the criminals are proactively doing crime, the police has to react to crime that's ongoing or already happened.

You start by appointing sergeants to patrol the streets, and find out criminal activities. When you find a location that has criminal activity in it, you still can't be sure if the location is civilian owned (being extorted for example) or is it a legal cover for organized crime. You can perform stake outs and other assignments on those locations to catch the culprits red handed. In tactical missions your goal should be to arrest as many criminals as you can, and gather evidence about them. If you manage to find a location that is actually owned by the criminals, you can apply for a search warrant and perform a raid to that place. However, that can only be done if you have enough evidence against them. In raid missions, the criminals will try to destroy evidence (cooked books, drugs, etc.) by burning them of flushing them down the drain, and then flee the scene. Your job is to arrest them before they can do either of those things.

So Evidence against a criminal faction is the key "currency" you collect in the Police side. In addition to that, each criminal family have a certain number of boss characters. They are the key characters you need to detain in order to actually bring down a whole faction. Every time you manage to arrest enough of them, you are closer to getting rid of that faction all together.

On the tactical side your gameplay is much different than the criminal side. Although your characters can't go to jail like the criminals do, they can't act however they want on the missions. There is a police brutality protocol that should be followed, and excessive force is extremely frowned upon. If and when you decide to start whacking people with your batons or, worse yet, shooting them, your playable characters will be judged accordingly. In the mildest case they'll be off-duty for a week, and in the worst case they'll be fired (meaning out of the game, even they would be completely unharmed and leveled up).

Both sides feature an actual storyline throughout the game.
 

Storyteller

Resistance Games
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I'm off to celebrate the Midsummer day festival. It's the most important holiday in Finland besides Christmas. I'll pop back here tomorrow.
 

Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

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First of all, the "civilians suspicious" should say "civilians alerted", but that didn't get fixed in time for the demo. Your criminal gang is somewhat known among the general populus. When you enter a public place like a pub, you're not immediately doing anything hostile. However, the civilians understand it's better to leave before trouble starts. That's the lore of it.
Mechanically it's because we wanted the locations to feel alive and have normal people in them, but not have them interfere the battle that much. They are programmed to leave the scene, and only defend themselves if needed. Civilians are different from employees. Employees defend their workplace.

Stealth has a few functions in the game. You should be able to walk freely in areas marked for general public, unless the mission has enemy gangs in them (not seen in the demo), and if haven't done any hostile actions. Then there are "restricted" areas that will start a fight if you are caught trespassing in them. I can't remember from the top of my head what the sight range is for units. If you hit someone, every enemy within 5 squares are alerted to the noise. It might have been that way for being seen too (the spotter alerts their surrounding friends). Guns are louder.
I presume this means that civilians exiting the building has no relation when cops are called on the scene?
Is appearance of the cops on strict timer or is there something that player could do to delay it?
 
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AwesomeButton

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This looks absolutely like what the doctor ordered. I'll play the demo and wishlist!
 

Storyteller

Resistance Games
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Is appearance of the cops on strict timer or is there something that player could do to delay it?

Civilians don't have anything to do with it. The police arrive on the scene when when you reach a threshold in the Heat-bar (top-center on the tactical side UI). Heat works kind of like a wanted level in GTA. The more noise you make on the level and the longer it takes raises the heat. When it goes over a threshold, someone has called the cops, and you have X amount of turns until they arrive. As the heat bar goes up further, the police start to have batons and firearms and finally the Flying Squad arrives, and they have also skills. Knocking out an enemy also generates less heat than actual murder. When the police are coming, you should pick up all evidence you might have dropped that could implicate you. If the police get their hand on the evidence, it generates a lot of Heat.

When you finish a level, you'll have to toss all murder weapons to the bottom of the Thames, and buy new ones. Some portion of the heat you gathered in the level add up to so called Pre-Heat, that can be seen on the strategy map. Pre-Heat means, that your action have been noted by the police, and they are likely to come to the scene quickly. If the Pre-Heat raises too high the police starts raiding your owned locations, and finally, if the Pre-Heat goes way up, you'll have 30 days to drop it to a suitable level or the game ends. Some units might also get a heat trait, and it's wise to get rid of it before you take that unit on missions.

There are a couple of ways to deal with heat. First of all, it's OK to fail a mission, if you get your men out of there alive. You shouldn't stick around long after the cops have come. Owning businesses drop Heat every day by a little, as you funnel your dirty money through. Your crewmembers can also do assignments in laundry-houses and barbershops to lower the heat or remove a personal heat trait. Finally, you can use your influence (the most important currency) in bordellos or newspapers, to dig up some dirt or gain some leverage on politicians, that will then get the police off your back.

There's still no gameplay video on Youtube.

That's not up to me, but there will be one soon enough. Covid-19 caused a bit of a hiccup on the gameplay trailer's timetable.
 

Strange Fellow

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
That all sounds really interesting. I had half dismissed this as yet another simplistic nuXCOM-like game, but I'm definitely following this now.
 

Burning Bridges

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Does it have "strong", "independent" female characters? Is Ronnie Kray replaced by a bland, black woman?
 

AwesomeButton

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I finally managed to give it a first run. Only did the tutorial and the first protection mission.

In the first protection mission, I chose the laundry. Made a bad decision on the participating crew and additionally screwed up the combat itself with some bad positioning and misunderstanding the UI. I keep trying to attack by selecting the attack action and clicking at the enemy whereas I should click the little "hit" button. As a result I end up moving instead of attacking, triggering AoOs, etc.

I'll give it another try later and take my time with it this time. For now my impressions are that the design and production values are very immersive, but the writing is filler text, and I feel goofy with how the combat looks - models standing in front of one another and exchanging boxing hits, but I guess this is part of the genre. I've made two attempts to play Omerta, and it felt very much the same.

I also can't escape the feeling that I'm playing a Pathfinder: Kingmaker minigame with these abstract bonuses which businesses give me, but I guess this is also a staple of this kind of games. On the whole, the production values are what gets me immersed and interested in playing, but the gameplay is driving me away. Maybe this genre isn't for me in the end.
 

Storyteller

Resistance Games
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Does it have "strong", "independent" female characters? Is Ronnie Kray replaced by a bland, black woman?

The Kray brothers are not in the game at all, although one of the criminal families (as well your own) are heavily inspired by them. We also have a nod to Richardsons, another actual criminal family in the 60s London.
The characters you're playing as on the criminal campaign are Ailis and Nathaniel Clearwater (Allie & Nate for short). They are twins and they've grown in the streets of East End. Yes, Allie is a female, independent and strong. Those are pretty much the minimum qualities you need if you're going to start a criminal empire. After those qualities comes a myriad of other nuances that set the characters apart. Although the storyline is theirs, you play as them quite rarely. They are the brains behind the operations, and only appear in tactical missions on story beats every now and then. The main bulk of the game is played by the crew you select. There's a variety of 4 different classes, men/women, White / Black / Indian / Asian (modelled mainly from Chinese and Japanese appearance). You're free to make the crew whatever you want. History has plenty of examples of all-female organized crime too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Elephants



No buzzwords, no PR nonsense, knows the mechanics and explains them in detail. I like this guy.

Thanks. This is PR in a sense, or at least community management, but I'll let the game itself do the marketing to you.



I'll give it another try later and take my time with it this time. For now my impressions are that the design and production values are very immersive, but the writing is filler text

The gameplay always comes first in these kind of games, and the storyline follows. The speech bubbles that you see in the tactical missions aren't trying to be Shakespeare. They convey the necessary information whilst maintaining character, in a shortest possible way, so it doesn't interfere with the actual tactical mission. The deeper storyline is then in the Strategic layer and in cutscenes. Personally though, I'm pretty sure our storyline is better than XCOM2s, but I'm biased since I wrote it.



, and I feel goofy with how the combat looks

The goofiness is good I hope. We made the combat it bit more Hollywood than realistic, and tried to get both Bud Spencer and Guy Ritchie vibe to it. Close quarters combat is our unique selling point compared to others, so I'd hate if people felt disappointed at that.



On the whole, the production values are what gets me immersed and interested in playing, but the gameplay is driving me away. Maybe this genre isn't for me in the end.

Thank you, and sorry to hear the game fell short for you. Our team size is 13 (13 years is also our team's average age working in the games industry), so we're not exactly on a level playing field with Empire of Sin and XCOMs, but we try to make damn sure that whatever we manage to do, we do with the highest production value we can.
 
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Burning Bridges

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The characters you're playing as on the criminal campaign are Ailis and Nathaniel Clearwater (Allie & Nate for short). They are twins and they've grown in the streets of East End. Yes, Allie is a female, independent and strong.

There's a variety of 4 different classes, men/women, White / Black / Indian / Asian (modelled mainly from Chinese and Japanese appearance). You're free to make the crew whatever you want.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Elephants

OMG this is amayzin'! So you have taken inspiration by the Krays and other real gangsters from the 1960s and replaced them with women and transgender. Thanks for listening to what we gamers really want!
 

Storyteller

Resistance Games
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Just wanted you guys to know, that if you haven't played the demo yet, you can watch a stream of the game @ https://youtu.be/I_uA_CerZMg

Our stream starts at 20:30 CET, and it's in English. I think it was from the full game this time and not the demo.
 

AwesomeButton

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Storyteller I went through it again last night, and did the two extortion combats after the tutorial. I am pretty sure I went with partly wrong expectations. Let me try to explain.

As a player, I rarely play games that classify as tactical RPGs or tactical strategy/RPG hybrids. However, history is something I'm always curious about so if you put me in the crime world of 1960s London, I'm more than happy, regardless of the game's genre. In addition to that, I've grown up with Scorsese's and various others' gangster movies depicting mostly the mafia in the US in the mid-20th century, but I also remember "Gangster No. 1" as a great gangster film set in Britain. When Guy Ritchie became a big name I was an ardent fan, because it was like watching Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" but with added English humor and atmosphere. To this day I remember some dialogue from "Snatch" by heart.

This background probably makes me more interested in the period indepth, and as I was playing I had a longing for a more "simulationist" approach to the subject than the game was offering.

The root of my criticism is, I find myself challenging the choice of genre to use to represent this particular slice of past reality. It felt similar when I was trying out Omerta: City of Gangsters, which I attempted to play twice. An economic strategy feels kind of like the wrong genre to use to represent the dynamics of criminal organizations fighting over territory. It's similar to competing companies, you could argue, but I think there are important differences too, which make a depiction through the economic strategy genre incomplete.

In an economic strategy, the player has to deal with questions of supply and demand, and manage the economically rational expenditure of limited resources, but I don't think that's what managing a criminal organisation is about. I would use a genre like Crusader Kings 2 - interpersonal relations, opinion of person X on person Y, plotting, intrigue, spying, alliances and betrayals - these are dynamics which the economic strategy just lacks.

So with that in mind, the strategic layer, or the taste of it that I got in the demo, felt kind of oversimplified and over-abstracted compared to what I would have liked - I'm simply too curious about the period and subject matter to be satisfied with this level of abstraction.

That's my attempt at well-composed feedback, some random thoughs below.

I still had minor trouble with the UI, but didn't get anyone of my crew knocked out this time. It looks like great fun when things are working out, like an action scene from a capers movie. I feel like the ingame mission objectives are too disconnected from the mechanics I have to use to achieve them. I guess someone more experienced with the genre would be more ok with the trope of "fulfill your objective and get out" but for me it's weird that I basically have to run into a place, bring down the stamina of one specific enemy, and then rush back out. How is this supposed to put the fear in him - a couple of buggers running in, breaking things and running out? Instead of gangsters, I fell like my guys are acting like a band of misbehaving kids, and I don't understand why the marks take them seriously.

There is an extortion mission that's more believable:


Or a pretty nice heist scene:


Intimidation 101, but you can't properly present that in a tactical RPG:


That's one complaint from someone who is admittedly a newbie to this genre. So all of the above may not be applicable, and probably is at least in part not faithful to the cultural context of 60s Britain.

Now some nitpicks and observations without connection to each other:
Something that kept breaking my suspension of disbelief is the overabundance of female characters. It's like a 50/50 chance that any one of my gang members will be a woman. A female brawler beating up men looks weird. Yes I know it's a game, and it's abstracted. It looks weird though.

The boxing-style idle animation executed by men in suits and women in dresses - same effect, i.e. also looks weird. Why? I couldn't find it funny in a goofy way, if that was the intention. I'd rather have them standing next to each other, no idle animation or a relaxed posture, than the boxing-style idle animation. For something I would have went with, check out the idle animations in combat in "Ash of Gods" for example.

I did enjoy the environment-contextual abilities, and generally all the creative ways to cause pain. I wish that combos of those were possible for increased effectiveness, or bonus "Fear" resource.

I definetly think the game could use some sort of a combat log.

With all this aside, I'm still quite curious about two things. The first is the police gameplay as a whole, because if there is something more enjoyable than making honest entrepreneurs' lives miserable, it's rubbing the noses of those assholes who think themselves too smart to work an honest job for their income. I'd love a chance to do some raids and busts, probably more than the criminal side of the gameplay.

The second thing I'd like to know is some more details on the various types of tactical combat missions that I could find myself in - the demo shows "extortion" missions, if that's one type, but what are the others and what are their win/lose conditions and mission-specific rules?
 
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Taka-Haradin puolipeikko

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It felt similar when I was trying out Omerta: City of Gangsters, which I attempted to play twice. An economic strategy feels kind of like the wrong genre to use to represent the dynamics of criminal organizations fighting over territory.
I've bounced from Omerta 3 or 4 times.
That game really seemed to have disconnect between strategy layer and missions.
 

Saduj

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I basically have to run into a place, bring down the stamina of one specific enemy, and then rush back out. How is this supposed to put the fear in him - a couple of buggers running in, breaking things and running out? Instead of gangsters, I fell like my guys are acting like a band of misbehaving kids, and I don't understand why the marks take them seriously.

Haven't played the demo so I don't know the exact details here. But this does sound like the early stages of an extortion scheme. After making an initial visit to a store, the mobsters will send a bunch of younger guys into the store to break stuff and make a mess. Then the mobsters come back and say "See, this is what we were talking about. This neighborhood is going to hell. We can keep these gangs of young hoods in line for you....". If that doesn't work, they escalate.
 

Storyteller

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There's a lot to go through here, but I appreciate the feedback immensely.

As a player, I rarely play games that classify as tactical RPGs or tactical strategy/RPG hybrids.
An economic strategy feels kind of like the wrong genre to use to represent the dynamics of criminal organizations fighting over territory.

Company of Crime is not meant to be an RPG, although it has distinct characters and a storyline. The roots of the game idea stem from the iconic time period of 60s London. Even though people don't necessarily know the history of organized crime back then, the Swinging sixties, youth movements, Beatles, pirate radios etc are known to all at some level. It was also the worst time period of organized crime and police corruption in Britain. Britain's organized crime was a bit different, than in many other places, in away that criminals were respected and adored by the general population and were often seen with politician and celebrities. Obviously the was no hard evidence against them, but everyone must have heard the rumours, and they also did a lot of good to the normal people. Even the Kray twins had _maybe only_ 9 murders to their name when they were finally caught. So that's the angle we're aiming for. Being a respectable member of society on the front, while running a criminal empire behind the scenes.
It's true that the game could have worked in many different genres, but since Resistance Games consist of mainly strategy game lovers, it was a natural choice for us to bring the game to that genre. So the correct genre should be "turn-based tactical strategy game / empire builder."

How is this supposed to put the fear in him - a couple of buggers running in, breaking things and running out? Instead of gangsters, I fell like my guys are acting like a band of misbehaving kids, and I don't understand why the marks take them seriously.
Haven't played the demo so I don't know the exact details here. But this does sound like the early stages of an extortion scheme. After making an initial visit to a store, the mobsters will send a bunch of younger guys into the store to break stuff and make a mess. Then the mobsters come back and say "See, this is what we were talking about. This neighborhood is going to hell. We can keep these gangs of young hoods in line for you....". If that doesn't work, they escalate.

The game starts with the extortion missions, and that's all you can do during the demo. Beating someone, and running out ensures a small "royalty" from the establishment owner's revenue, provided you go and collect it every month. That payment ensures that the shop owners are untouched by your further operations against them, and holds a promise that they will be safe from other gangs too. One of the main mechanics of the game in the criminal campaign is raising fear and respect in each district you do your business in. If you collect extortion money, and then decide to attack that same place again, you will be punished by losing the respect of the population in that district. "why pay anything, if they're going to attack us anyway?". If and when other gangs try to harass those shops you "protect", you'll have a responsibility to revenge in a relatively short amount of time, or you'll once again lose respect. When you have enough respect, the extortion missions will "auto-complete" instead of a tactical mission, meaning the people pay their dues without a fight. When you are feared, you don't even have to go collecting any more, and people bring you their money themselves. Further mission types require a certain amount of fear/respect in order for you to even perform them.

With all this aside, I'm still quite curious about two things. The first is the police gameplay as a whole, because if there is something more enjoyable than making honest entrepreneurs' lives miserable, it's rubbing the noses of those assholes who think themselves too smart to work an honest job for their income. I'd love a chance to do some raids and busts, probably more than the criminal side of the gameplay.

The second thing I'd like to know is some more details on the various types of tactical combat missions that I could find myself in - the demo shows "extortion" missions, if that's one type, but what are the others and what are their win/lose conditions and mission-specific rules?

I'll answer both of these at the same time. Moving on from extortion missions, the next in line is Beat Up-missions. I know it sound similar, and in essence it is, but the goal in these types of missions is to attack other gangs. You'll increase your status among the other criminal families, and raise the respect of civilians living in the district. Most revenge missions are also beat up missions, where you still shouldn't kill anyone. Enemy gangs own locations all around London (their legal business covers to funnel dirty money through). If you want to get rid of a gang in a location, you'll have to perform a Menace-mission. Menace missions are "kill or knock out all enemies"-type of mission, and if you're successful, the enemy gang will leave that location altogether. That locations is now back to civilian ownership, and if you want the same deal the enemy gang had, you'll have to do a Coerce ownership -mission. If that mission is successful, you'll be a silent partner (owner) of that place. Owning locations is the main goal you're trying to achieve in the game. Own the majority of businesses in a district, and you'll own the district. Each of the locations will give you different kind of passive and active abilities, and the locations can be levelled up. They'll also give you steady income each month, without any extortions etc. Robberies and burglaries are also an option for gaining some quick money.

Example of location benefits are more men on tactical missions, better weapons, units can go and heal their wounds faster, armours, performance enhancing drugs etc. Any location type you own starts at level 1, but if you own X amount of those kinds of locations, you can upgrade all of them to level 2 etc. Each level unlocks better stuff. Your headquarters can also become better, but that's tied to storyline progression.

In addition to the missions mentioned above, there are a few mission types that can happen reactively. If you are very hated by a gang and/or not very feared, they can do nasty stuff to you. Let's say a few of your guys are having a pint in peace, when a group of rival gang members surprise them, and intend to beat the shit out of them. Then you'll only have a few units, you'll start inside a pub while the enemy is outside, and you'll have to escape/fight your way through. The police might do the same, if someone in your crew has a heat trait on them. The police could also raid your owned locations. In those situations you can't just run out (well you can, but you shouldn't). Your crew members should strive to gather all incriminating evidence in that location (drugs, cooked books etc.), and flush them down the toilet or burn them. Then if they still can, run out. Getting arrested is not that bad. An individual is in jail from weeks to a few months, but if the police finds the evidence, you might lose the location, get units on a long jail sentence , increase the heat against you or even lose the game. Criminal gangs can also launch attacks against you. Units in jail get out eventually, or you could use your influence to get them out early. All tactical mission in the game involve fighting in some form. We wanted to have stealth elements in the game originally, but we didn't have infinite time to develop the game to support all of it.


All police missions revolve around arresting gang members, especially their bosses. Normal gameplay loop for doing it is:
- Scout a district for possible locations that have illegal activities in them.
- If the criminals are doing extortions or something like that against civilians, you can do a stake out job to catch them red handed
- If the locations are owned by criminals, you'll need enough evidence to apply for a search warrant and raid them.

- Sometimes you'll be called on an active scene of crime, or a scene where a crime has just happened. In those locations you can investigate the crime scene and interrogate suspects and eyewitnesses.

The main goal is to arrest enough criminal bosses to take down the Head of the criminal gang. In order to do that, you'll need to raid their locations, and weaken their power in the city. In order to do that, you'll need strong evidence. Everything in the police campaign revolves around evidence, and feeling like you're always two steps behind, until you aren't. Similar to fear & respect in the criminal side, you'll have safety on the police side. If you make sure the districts are well patrolled, and safe, the criminals won't try to reclaim the locations back. If you don't bother with that, well, then you're fucked. Safety also determines how dangerous the missions are for your own units (how likely it is for the enemies to have weapons and eagerness to fight instead of running away). If you don't want to sit on your hands and wait for evidence to fall on your lap, you can always hire informants to dig up stuff for you (crime scenes, criminal owned locations, general evidence against a faction), but that ain't cheap.
 
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Incantatar

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I wish there would be a remake of Gangsters:Organized Crime instead. Love that game but it's buggy as hell.
 

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