Post game completion content

[delta224]

What you people like to see for post game completion content.  Hell, what would like to be the requirements for completing the game.  As it stands all you need are some fully maxed out gangs set to sabotage and a way to pay for them and you can get the you beat the game message, just by hitting the next day message over and over, with the occasional save, for protection against the very rare next day crash.
 
Any ideas people.

[zodiac44]

I think the answer to this question will come when we decide what the real focus of the game should be.  If we keep it as a brothel-management game, where criminal activity/catacombs exploration is a side game, then the end-game scenario should be related to brothel management.  If the criminal element is enhanced and brothel management becomes the side-game, then we can go with some variant of defeating all rivals/controlling all criminal activity in the city.

Quite frankly, I'm at a loss as to what a win condition would be for brothel management would be.  Reaching a certain income and/or collecting a certain amount of money/girls/brothels are the only two conditions I can think of, and neither one strikes me as particularly satisfying.  Maybe there could be some sort of competitive nature to brothel management, where the opponents also run brothels and the goal is to lure customers away from them so that they end up closing their shops or selling to the highest bidder.

[DocClox]

I think I'm more or less happy with "wiping out all the other gangs" as a victory condition. I think the trouble is that the game gives you too much up front.

I think I'd like to see the city divided into distinct wards, roughly corresponding to the location of the six brothels. Each ward has its own customer pool, so control of a ward means lots of extra income. And I'd like to see each ward need something specific to unlock it before the player could try and expand into it. Also, each ward is ruled by its own gang, which is going to need to be dealt with if you want to do business there in safety.

Set it up like that, add a bit of fanfare for each ward unlocked,  a bit more again for the final victory, and retain an option to keep playing after victory, just like now. I think would satisfy most people.

Also, we should look at finding faces for the enemy gang leaders. Don't want to spend too much resources on it - I know the girls are the main focus. But maybe we could find some bad-guy mugshots, and then have them pop up to taunt,threaten or gloat from time to time. Make the player's quest for vengeance a little more personal. Perhaps get a dozen or so pics so we could have random faces to go with the random names. We could probably take the opportunity to implement female gang bosses as well, with the potential to enslave some of your rivals.

Anyway, that's the way I'd like to see this go.

[zodiac44]

Maybe each rival controls a ward, with his/her own gangs providing security and raiding other rival leaders' (including the player's) territories.  Taking over a rival leader's territory should require a massive amount of resources and should earn the ire/jealousy of other leaders, who might step up attacks on the newly empowered leader.  If it takes time and resources to solidify a hold on a newly conquered territory, then conquering one wouldn't automatically give the conqueror an advantage over his/her rivals (and lead to the cascade-victory effect).  Victory in the game would then be achieved by conquering (and solidifying one's hold on?) all territories in the city.

If the buildings a pre-purposed (meaning each is suitable for conversion into a select list of the available building types), then it may be worthwhile to have multiple wards per leader, each with it's own specialized resources.  The player starts out from a small base of operations in a poor district of the city and has to expand out, exploit new resources, and defeat his rivals - all funded or otherwise supported by his stable of girls.  This way, the girls are a means to an end and brothel management is still critical to the game, but we pick up an element of strategy along the way.  Do I risk expanding into the South Side, spreading myself thin in the process, to gain control of the lucrative drug manufacturing ring there, or do I play it safe and move into the harbor district to gain control of the (less profitable) harborside whorehouses?

[edit]
On the subject of images for rival leaders, could we add additional girl types for rival leaders and/or gang leaders?  I know not everyone is interested in the "all my rivals are female" schtick, but I don't see the harm in enabling the capability for all rival leaders and gang leaders to be female if modders are willing to create enough girls to make it happen.  Those who don't want them can opt to not use them.  If there aren't enough girls of the appropriate types to fill the roles, then Vinnie "The Random" Badass (or Jimmy "Twofingers" McGee, Tommy "No Nickname" Johnson, etc) can step in.  Pack enough "random tough guy" pics with the game to cover all the potential rivals, and those who don't want to play with female rivals will never need to.

[DocClox]

That all sounds good to me. I definitely like the idea that not all wards are created equal

We  could have an "uptown" ward where all the old money lived, and there were a lot of private guards. Serious money to be made, but very little tolerance for public disorder, so you'd have to be careful. Need a better class of girl to do business there too.

Could have a market quarter where control got you a discount at the market, or maybe just access to better shops/a better selection of goods. Possibly a better class of slave girl, too.

What else? A university ward: not much income, but good for grabbing girls off the streets, and maybe a bonus for training mages. There'd be a slum district. Not much good for anything, but that's where you start. Possibly a red-light district: gets the most customers, if not necessarily the biggest wallets; an artisans quarter, where you could get some items made to order. Possibly make some items only available this way.

Definite possibilities  there  

[Savagefrog]

Do you think there should be a way to influence the law an the mayor. In the game now we can only bribe other gangs. Should there also be a religious ward, I know alot of people like to go after nuns.

[DocClox]

I thought the bribe money was for the mayor - to stop him sending the city guard round to bust your operation.

mmm... garison ward: customers mainly soldiers, so torturing them may be a bad idea. Street walking is a lot safer, although there's the girls still risk getting beaten and raped by the customer. Possible guard support against raids by other gangs. (Of course, if you're the invader, this could work against you). Brothels in this ward are unlikely to get raided (or raids will tend to turn a blind eye).

A Temple/Cathedral quarter sounds good, although someone might need to rustle up a nun based girlpack

[Command]

I think that some of the Rivals should be female but not all.
 
It would be interesting to get the option to enslave the rivals as well.
 
I will say that it would be helpful if the rivals weren't so easily beaten.  I mean I had a slight mistake in one situation where I stopped taking over territory's I only had to claimed. 

Then after a while of not taking territory I got the message that a rival showed up after loosing all his assets when I didn't take any of his.  It's almost like the Rivals are just dropping like flies even if you don't do anything.  So it would be useful if some of the completion on the crime part had you giving more effort into it instead of them seeming to loose if you simply hold on to your small 2 buiseness territory.  (I have no idea if this was a bug but the situation actually fit this discussion now since thier is discussion about winning by beating rivals)

[DocClox]

I will say that it would be helpful if the rivals weren't so easily beaten.  I mean I had a slight mistake in one situation where I stopped taking over territory's I only had to claimed. 

Well, that's part of the idea behind having wards. You can't really hurt a rival gang until you can gain access to the ward where they're based, and that takes some doing. (On the other hand your neighbours can still raid you, so you need to defend).

I do agree that we need to tone down the rivals warring among themselves. Either that, or make it so that they get tougher the more territory they control,

[zodiac44]

I think that some of the Rivals should be female but not all.
 
It would be interesting to get the option to enslave the rivals as well.
 
I will say that it would be helpful if the rivals weren't so easily beaten.  I mean I had a slight mistake in one situation where I stopped taking over territory's I only had to claimed. 

Then after a while of not taking territory I got the message that a rival showed up after loosing all his assets when I didn't take any of his.  It's almost like the Rivals are just dropping like flies even if you don't do anything.  So it would be useful if some of the completion on the crime part had you giving more effort into it instead of them seeming to loose if you simply hold on to your small 2 buiseness territory.  (I have no idea if this was a bug but the situation actually fit this discussion now since thier is discussion about winning by beating rivals)

The beauty of my solution is that you only have as many female rivals as you want to have.  If you only want 1 or 2, great!  Don't add more than that in the .girl files and that's all you'll ever see.  Alternatively, the number could be set in the options, with gang leaders randomly chosen from the pool if the pool is larger than the set number or generated from the random girls files if the number is larger than the available pool.

The "rivals are too easily beaten" thing will be taken care of.

Well, that's part of the idea behind having wards. You can't really hurt a rival gang until you can gain access to the ward where they're based, and that takes some doing. (On the other hand your neighbours can still raid you, so you need to defend).

I do agree that we need to tone down the rivals warring among themselves. Either that, or make it so that they get tougher the more territory they control,

One way of making them tougher as they expand is to make the number of gangs you can control dependent on the number of territories you control.  If we alter the recruiting process so that you must obtain the loyalty of a gang before you can hire them, and make gangs persistent in each ward (so a gang maintains loyalty to the previous controlling rival after you take over a territory - the gang will interfere with your operations until you lower its loyalty to your rival(s) and raise its loyalty to you or you annihilate the gang entirely.  Gangs loyal to rivals will help them if they attempt to regain control of the ward).

When engaging in gang warfare to control a new territory, bringing more gangs to the fight should increase you chances of winning.  Wisdom says it is easier to defend a position than to attack it, so defending gangs should get a bonus (perhaps limited to those gangs who were assigned to guard duty in the ward being attacked).  The locals in the ward could take sides as well, if one side has a clearly better reputation than the other (for example, when a leader with a good rep assaults a ward controlled by a leader with an evil rep [for extortion, torture, murder, etc], the locals might side with the attacker, hoping he wins.  If the attacker loses, there could be dire consequences for the locals, though, so they also might opt to stay quiet, especially if the attacker looks certain to lose.

Territories should have individual maximums on the number of gangs you can recruit from them, and the gangs can be of different starting quality.  As an example, the slums would produce more gangs than the Uptown ward, but they would probably start with lower stats and poorer equipment than any recruited from Uptown.  Similarly, the military ward might produce a larger number of well trained, well equipped gangs.

[letmein]

I don't think that having a lot of rival infighting is a big deal, so long as the one that wins out is actually stronger for doing so - you don't want to create a power vacuum, but if a rival manages to conquer two of his neighbors and solidify his hold, where's the harm?

I like most of the ideas here.  I'm not sure how *practical* they all are, because a lot of them seem to be veering a bit from what I think is the main point of the game, but perhaps my viewpoint will (should?) change as we get through the building update going forward.

[Mehzerz]

Well, I've been saying the game has needed to become more "personal" from the get-go. But I was suggesting more so with girl interaction as well as local interactions.
Such as a greedy merchant coming to you personally, looking for a girl with specific traits. You find the girl convince her to work for you and then a month later (however long he gives you) He'll come back looking for this girl. Now, maybe you send spies to learn more about him, or maybe you become more attached to said girl. Making it harder to give her away.
The girls as is are pretty much just objects, but I'd like to see their thoughts and feelings and player interacting expanded more upon.


Not to say the gang ideas are bad, I actually like them. However, they detract from the possibilities of what could add to more expansive gameplay in the current meat of the game, the girls and the brothel.


None of what I added really relevant to post game completion however...


As far as game completion I don't see why there can't be a marriage ending possibly even alignment related good/neutral/bad (Marry a girl and accept an option to end the game?)
As well as the player becoming either mayor or ruler of Crossgate (Wipe out gangs)
You could have a "Fathers foot steps ending" Where you become an incredibly successful Brothel owner (wipe out all gangs + have several girls maxed out and possibly 50+ girls in your brothel)
Assassinated ending, Girls revolt and kill you, Wiped out by gang, Police execute you, Gang revolts, Citizens of Crossgate kill you, Customer blames you for ruining his/her life blows the place up, Mind fucked girl eats you, monster kills you, demon girl (queen?) curses you
Plenty of death endings. :p

[DocClox]

Not to say the gang ideas are bad, I actually like them. However, they detract from the possibilities of what could add to more expansive gameplay in the current meat of the game, the girls and the brothel.

I think I need a bit more explanation on that point. How does developing the gangs a little detract from the possibilities of girl- and brothel-management? I don't see that at all...

[exodia91]

Because it sounds like you're making fighting the gangs the entire focus of the game, which arguably detracts from the brothels in that they're not the focus anymore, just there to support the gang fighting. Also, you need to consider necno, and what he intends for the real end game. He's stated before what's in right now is merely a placeholder, and he intends to expand it.

[letmein]

Well, even though having more options in one area may not explicitly remove options from elsewhere, it certainly divides the player's interest.  No matter how much you veil the issue by saying "but you don't have to use these things!", the minute they become available the game has become a little broader.  Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but just as importantly it's not necessarily a *good* thing either.  It depends on what you're aiming for.  Anyway, the point is, I can see where Mehzerz is coming from, and to a certain extent I agree. 

Currently the game is pretty focused on the brothels - sure, there are some other options thrown in, but they're not implement nearly as well as the core brothel section.  Do we want to try and keep the game that way?  I don't know.  Certainly it's entertaining in a way right now, but I could see how extending the focus more to an overall crime sim might be a boon.  It's a matter of scale, really.  Do we go bigger, to a more city-oriented feel?  Do we stay as we are, with most of the consideration being within individual brothels?  Or, as M seems to be suggesting, do we try and go smaller, with more personal interations between the PC and individual girls?

Of these three options, I can see good things about all of them.  However, in my opinion going smaller is the weakest choice - partially because this is probably the hardest to do, partially because we already have so much excellent material that it feels wrong to have to ignore it when shifting to a smaller scale, but mostly because that sort of game is already pretty effectively done in the SM series.  The other two scales are pretty equal.  As the game stands, it's good;  changing it would probably just make it good in a new way.  Total wash.