Author Topic: suggestion: Restructuring gang battles  (Read 4578 times)

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Offline Ctwo

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suggestion: Restructuring gang battles
« on: January 12, 2011, 06:24:42 AM »
Most of the work in the game towards winning relys entirely on gang management. The Brothel is just something you do on the side while the gangs do all the work. I'm perty sure you could win the game if you just ignored the brothel completely. Also the enemy gangs battling amongst themselves is probably your best friend and ally. Even with me aggressively attacking I'm sure half of the work of taking out my rivals was done by enemy gangs in the first few months.
 
Also once you get a few "super gangs" the whole gang war turns into a steam roller as you sabotage your way to victory.
 
I think if gangs were made more reliant on Brothels then the game would focus on the girls again. Instead of buying gangs and being able to own 8 all at once, have the number of gangs your allowed to own be based on 2 factors. First, the combined fame of all your girls. Second how many Brothels you own. I'm thinking that you should be able to control a number of gangs equal to the number of brothels you own +3 at max, with a starting number of 2 gangs to begin with (or just 1 if you want to focus on just the girls to begin with).
 
When you get into gang battles, you only fight the gang based in the next brothel. Not only do you need to take over enough territory to secure the new brothel, but you also have to defeat the gangs defending the brothel and will expect the occasional attack from that one brothel. Other NPCs might give battle reports but they would be cosmetic. When you go to face the next brothel it is at full strength.
 
To keep the game intersting, each time you take over a new brothel your two best gangs retire to enjoy the new territory. Best being the ones with highest combined stats naturally. This way you need to build up some before taking over all of the new territory.
 
Instead of buying the new brothel your really doing repairs, bribing local officials and smoothing things over so you can do business where your former rival operated.
 
As a bonus, you should be given a few slaves when you take over a brothel. I'd suggest they all have some good experience but also have low obedience, injuries, and some negative conditions like addictions, scars and maybe diseases so your not 100% happy with the aquisition but since they already have some fame maybe your not willing to just get rid of these girls right away. Or maybe you sell them for cash and just populate with new slaves.
 
Another suggestion, try making the opponents equal to the award. I tried some muggings with the 593 build and both times the very experienced gang I sent got wiped out. 15 guys against 1 or 2 people? Muggings should be simple but low proffit. Get 5-100 gold and the occasional junk item. Maybe the big penalty should be your gang gets arrested and you get stuck paying to get them out of jail?
 
Last suggestion for gangs. Get rid of training. Have the gangs improve by doing. Offer "easy" and "difficult" versions of all jobs except guarding. Muggings are the easy version of robbery. Kidnappings are the easy version of territory aquisition. Sabotage is the easy version of Assault. Assault are what you will be doing to take over a brothel once your enemy has no more territory left. Even guarding should improve stats, but only those that get used during guarding. Maybe stats should only improve on easy missions, to reflect they are training missions while difficult missions give better rewards? Even when an easy mission doesn't happen it should give training points.

Offline DocClox

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Re: suggestion: Restructuring gang battles
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2011, 09:00:48 AM »
I think if gangs were made more reliant on Brothels then the game would focus on the girls again.

 Interesting way to look at it. One obvious thing would be to make the gangs into a cash sink. Currently, as you say, gangs are capable of supporting themselves. If the cash brought in from gang ops was seriously nerfed, the player would depend on money from his girls to finance gang operations. Maybe use a sliding scale, so the first couple of gangs were cheap (to allow for start of game) but have the costs rise steeply after that.
 
Instead of buying gangs and being able to own 8 all at once, have the number of gangs your allowed to own be based on 2 factors. First, the combined fame of all your girls. Second how many Brothels you own. I'm thinking that you should be able to control a number of gangs equal to the number of brothels you own +3 at max, with a starting number of 2 gangs to begin with (or just 1 if you want to focus on just the girls to begin with).

 Nice idea to use fame as a limiting factor. Possibly again on a sliding scale, just so that one overpowered girl can't subsidise half the player's military activities by herself.
 
 
When you get into gang battles, you only fight the gang based in the next brothel. Not only do you need to take over enough territory to secure the new brothel, but you also have to defeat the gangs defending the brothel and will expect the occasional attack from that one brothel. Other NPCs might give battle reports but they would be cosmetic. When you go to face the next brothel it is at full strength.

You might be interested in the discussion in the Town Wards thread. The idea is that each ward supports one brothel, and has one rival based there. You need to unlock each ward before you can operate there, but your rivals (being better established) can still raid you. Once you gain access, you need to control so much of the ward before you can base gangs in that ward.
 
To keep the game intersting, each time you take over a new brothel your two best gangs retire to enjoy the new territory. Best being the ones with highest combined stats naturally. This way you need to build up some before taking over all of the new territory.

Maybe have each ward need gangs posted there permanently. So if you have Sleaze Street and you take Pinchpenny Lane, then you need to split your gangs between both wards. Comes to more or less the same thing, I suppose.
 
As a bonus, you should be given a few slaves when you take over a brothel. I'd suggest they all have some good experience but also have low obedience, injuries, and some negative conditions like addictions, scars and maybe diseases so your not 100% happy with the aquisition but since they already have some fame maybe your not willing to just get rid of these girls right away. Or maybe you sell them for cash and just populate with new slaves.

Yeah, it does seem like there should be girls captured when you destroy a rival. Suppose we say the number of gangs a ward can support depends on the fame of the girls in that ward's brothel. Then you'd need some girls so the ward could support a gang. Of course, you could always transfer in girls from another territory ... which would potentially reduce the number of gangs supportable in the donor ward. Some interesting strategic choices there...
 
[edit]

That "Town Wards" link does not want to work... [edit] Got it!
« Last Edit: January 12, 2011, 09:03:58 AM by DocClox »

Offline Bluebeholder

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Re: suggestion: Restructuring gang battles
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2011, 08:08:15 PM »
Having to maintain garrisons reminds me of big bang age.  While I hated the garrison mechanic of that game.  I really liked how the different acts opened up the more complicated rules.  I've wondered how having gangs or the catacombs locked out for an initial act would work out.

Offline Ctwo

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Re: suggestion: Restructuring gang battles
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2011, 11:19:27 PM »
   
Maybe have each ward need gangs posted there permanently. So if you have Sleaze Street and you take Pinchpenny Lane, then you need to split your gangs between both wards. Comes to more or less the same thing, I suppose.
   

Not really. If the best gangs wern't removed you would still use them for assaults, leaving probably your 3rd or 4th best gang for defense. Also it wouldn't really slow the player down unless they lost those best gangs. It would make more sense for each brothel to have its own assigned defender. If that was the case, then the defending gangs should definately get better at guarding while they are there. Not necessarily against other gangs, but probably against rough customers or dungeon escapes. Maybe even give the dungeon its own gang to guard it?
 
You might be interested in the discussion in the Town Wards thread. The idea is that each ward supports one brothel, and has one rival based there. You need to unlock each ward before you can operate there, but your rivals (being better established) can still raid you. Once you gain access, you need to control so much of the ward before you can base gangs in that ward.

Yeah, if the Town Wards idea was implimented that would help focus you on 2 or 3 different wards at a time. Just eliminate the part where the other gangs actually damage each other (but keep the reports of them fighting for flavor). Instead of having a ramping number of territories to take over, a fix number for each brothel would be better.
 
 

Offline DocClox

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Re: suggestion: Restructuring gang battles
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2011, 08:17:43 AM »
Not really. If the best gangs wern't removed you would still use them for assaults, leaving probably your 3rd or 4th best gang for defense. Also it wouldn't really slow the player down unless they lost those best gangs.

Unless the opposition gets noticeably tougher for each ward. Actually, that might work quite well: cap the gang abilities by ward. Then when you come to invade a new territory the gangs are tougher and your best gangs are needed just to survive. Probably have to allow gang stats over 100 - or reduce the starting stats ... it'd take a lot of rebalancing, either way.

We'd need to think about why the higher end gangs haven't steamrollered the sleaze street operations as well...

Just eliminate the part where the other gangs actually damage each other (but keep the reports of them fighting for flavor). Instead of having a ramping number of territories to take over, a fix number for each brothel would be better. 

Good ideas.

Offline sgb

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Re: suggestion: Restructuring gang battles
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2011, 12:19:47 AM »
Good ideas, and sounds like the wards idea would solve a lot of the difficulty balancing issues.  Not being able to attack the rivals directly without enough development on the brothel end sounds like a pretty good way to balance things.  Not only could you not win the game, but you'd be cut off from all that sagotage money.

Offline Moonrunner

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Re: suggestion: Restructuring gang battles
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2011, 04:31:32 PM »
Perhaps Girls <=> Gangs interaction could be more integrated?
For example, by giving Gangs a "Loyalty" stat, much like the girls' "Happiness" that influences whether or not they stay in your employ. Heavy casualties, other (allied) gangs being destroyed, being assigned dangerous/unpleasant duty (like exploring the catacombs) lowers loyalty, while girls assigned to "entahteynin' da boyz" raise it again?


In place of girls being assigned to "Security" for a brothel, a gang has to be assigned the duty to keep customers in line?


Maybe a new method for gangs to rake in cash; "Drug peddling", which is profitable but risks getting one's girls addicted?