Future suggestions to improve difficulty

[sgb]

These aren't pressing issues, but just some thoughts to improve the difficulty of the game.  At the moment, once you get established it is flat out impossible to ever lose.  The reason for this is that fully trained gangs are invincible killing machines.  Once you get the maximum number of gangs, you can just leave one or two on Guard, set the rest to Sabotoge, and hit Next Week until you are declared the winner.  This is obviously a problem.  Some suggestions:

-Gangs have levels as well as their combat skills.  Skills now have a cap based on the current gang level.  No amount of Training can surpass this cap until the gang levels up more.  (This is also an idea for girls as well.  A virgin shouldn't be able to have 100% sex skill.)
-Riskier activities give more XP.  Guarding, Training, Watching, etc. should give little to no XP.  Grand Theft and Catacombs should offer the highest gain.
-Even 100% skill gangs should have a chance of losing a fight.

This way it would take a lot longer to get fully trained gangs, making the player more vulnerable to attacks throughout the game.  Right now, you can just leave one 100% on Guard and never worry about losing businesses or money.  This eventually needs to change.

[Alugere]

I have had 4 squads of maxed out gaurds with level four weapons and full potions completely wiped out by a 38 rebelliousness 50% combat skill girl.

I think there are other things that need to be worked out long before we up the difficulty. Leave this idea until after the bugs have been worked out.

[sgb]

Girls going berserk have more severe results than gang fighting.  The problem is once you have a gang at 100%, they will pretty much never lose to another gang while Guarding or Sabotaging making the end-game too easy.

And I already said this was meant for something after the current bugs get dealt with.

[necno]

Regardless they are good ideas and placed in the to-do file.

[Alugere]

I'll put it here because this is about gangs, more or less, but the 'kidnap' option for gangs seems to have a less than 10% success rate that has remained constant since the beginning. The chance that the gangs will encounter a girl who they need to use a net on seems to be even lower.

Maybe the find rate for girls should be set much higher given that the effective cost to kidnap a girl is 1500gp which is much higher than simply buying a girl, not to mention they aren't even slaves when you catch them. At the very least 'kidnapping' a girl should use nets most of the time. I practically never see nets used.

[Solo761]

Well, non slave girls have higher value so it's only logical that cost of acquiring them is higher.

[zodiac44]

The problem with that logic is that you can buy a slave and free her at no additional cost, making slaves cheaper.  That being said, I have no problem with the current success/failure rate when making kidnapping attempts.  What I don't understand is why no one at all complains when you kidnap girls off the street and force them to work for you.  There should be negative consequences for kidnapping (at the very least, kidnapped girls should have a vastly higher rebelliousness rating for being forced to work against their will).

If the intent is that the girls are coming willingly, then perhaps the mission should be changed to reflect that (perhaps call it "recruit girls" or something).

[DocClox]

What I don't understand is why no one at all complains when you kidnap girls off the street and force them to work for you.  There should be negative consequences for kidnapping (at the very least, kidnapped girls should have a vastly higher rebelliousness rating for being forced to work against their will).

Well, if I remember rightly, the idea is that the goons kidnap homeless and vagrant girls: anyone who they think won't be missed. Which also explains the fairly low success rate. I agree the rebellion rating should be higher: higher than slaves bought at the market, not so high as women kidnapped from defaulting customers. Probably put the value in the 25-45 range.

This does raise the interesting possibility of being able to decide how great a risk the goons will take when kidnapping girls. Higher risk means more girls coming in, but suspicion goes up much faster, and if you get too far out of line, the army turns up and gameovers your operation. Maybe. Perhaps give the player 10 turns warning so he can try and get some dirt on the garrison commander, or kidnap the mayor's daughter so that the assault gets called off.

There's also the possibility that irate citizens might send assassins. This being Crossgate, I expect the assassins would be beautiful and female and (if the attempt proved unsuccessful) would make interesting additions to the players stable. As well as telling him who paid for the hit, opening the way for possible reprisals.

Of course, this is all a lot of work, so file it under blue sky speculation for now.

If the intent is that the girls are coming willingly, then perhaps the mission should be changed to reflect that (perhaps call it "recruit girls" or something).

The turn summary messages used to say that some of the girls were tricked into coming willingly, and some were seized against their will. I don't think any of them have ever been recruited as such.

[Command]

How about have a few female rivals that you can get the option to enslave them or not.
 
It would also be useful if their were pro's and cons to leading your rivals to safety, killing them, or casting them out into the street.
 
Like
Leading them to safety gives you  a good chance of getting something important in return but you do have a risk of betrayal or him comming back to threaten your buisness.
 
Killing them allow's you to know that he will not be threatening you any more but it would stiffen the resulve of the other syndicates attempts at destorying you and also likely lessen the chances of them surrendering.
 
Casting them outinto the street could give the rival leaders a change to regroup or unite.  But you don't get any unwanted attenchion to the other gangs.
 
 
You could also have a setting where you have your troops get an option to raid an enemy brothel and you have the option of killing the slaves there or capturing them.  (Obvious as to the pro's and cons there would me measured in less slave you can capture but more you can kill)

[zodiac44]

That would be very cool if the rival gang leaders were girls (perhaps with their own special type, differentiating them from slave/normal/catacombs girls) who you could recruit/enslave when they are defeated (as alternatives to leading them out of the city/throwing them to the streets/killing them).  By recruiting them, you could gain their assets (buildings, money, gangs, whores) as well as having the leader working for you.

What if this was the default way to gain new property?  Assume there are a fixed number of buildings suitable for your criminal enterprises in the city, you own one (or two or three, some small number), and the way to gain more is to defeat your rivals and capture their territory and assets.  The more territory you control, the more power you gain: you get more brothels, girls, gangs, money, businesses to extort, etc.

Maybe divide the map up into sectors, with each sector having some resources for the owner to draw upon (buildings to own, some number of potential customers, gangs to be recruited, special buildings and resources - a catacombs entrance, a viras plant farm, a hospital, etc).

Maybe I'm getting carried away here too  >;o)

[exodia91]

oi vey, first people want your gangs and staff to all be girls, now this? if people keep doing this the entire world will be populated entirely by girls. Generally a criminal organizations leaders tend to be men, women are much rarer. maybe having a small % chance for an enemy leader to be a woman. I just want to get this across, it breaks the realism when all your possible enemies/soldiers/people are beautiful women you can fuck and is one of the main ridiculous points of H games.

[zodiac44]

I don't think anyone suggested the gangs should be girls, I was just suggesting the leaders.

On the topic of stretching realism to the breaking point, the game already has the players accept that they are running a brothel in a world where girls fall through dimensional holes from other universes and wander the streets seeking employment as whores so they can earn enough money to find their way home.  I don't think making the leaders of the enemy gangs female is going to strain many players' willingness to suspend their disbelief.  If it does, then don't add in any and/or remove existing girls with the gang leader tag, and the problem is solved.

[letmein]

I do see exodia's point, though.  Why shoutd *every* possible person in the whole game be a woman?  Its not like the PC is the only guy in Crossgate.  Leave it as it is.  In my opinion, it would be a needless complication to the game, with no discernable benefit.  If this were a different type of game, I might not feel that way, but the focus shouldn't really be on the gang leaders, or at least, not right now.  If this game eventually becomes a larger simulator of lots of different things (which I do not really support, but if it happens, whatever), then it maybe should be tossed in.

[zodiac44]

I was thinking of it as a reward for defeating your rivals.  As it is now, there are no rewards, except in the end, you "win."  I don't feel as if I have won the game by defeating them, though.  As it is now, your rivals are more of an annoyance to click through all the related messages at the end of each turn than anything else.

[ker]

That would be very cool if the rival gang leaders were girls (perhaps with their own special type, differentiating them from slave/normal/catacombs girls) who you could recruit/enslave when they are defeated (as alternatives to leading them out of the city/throwing them to the streets/killing them).  By recruiting them, you could gain their assets (buildings, money, gangs, whores) as well as having the leader working for you.

What if this was the default way to gain new property?  Assume there are a fixed number of buildings suitable for your criminal enterprises in the city, you own one (or two or three, some small number), and the way to gain more is to defeat your rivals and capture their territory and assets.  The more territory you control, the more power you gain: you get more brothels, girls, gangs, money, businesses to extort, etc.

Maybe divide the map up into sectors, with each sector having some resources for the owner to draw upon (buildings to own, some number of potential customers, gangs to be recruited, special buildings and resources - a catacombs entrance, a viras plant farm, a hospital, etc).

Maybe I'm getting carried away here too  >;o)

I like the idea for being able to capture gang/rival leaders and putting them to work.