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.