Discussing Gangs

[letmein]

New thread!  Some bits on gangs have bothered me for a while, so, 'tis time to mention them.

This is as good a place as any to bring up another little quirk that'sbothered me a bit, since it kind of relates to the last post:  you cando some really bad spamming with gangs until you get the magical+40,+40,+40 stats.  There has to be a way to curb that...  among otherideas, perhaps all starting gangs should start with the same stats? Perhaps there should be an initial cost to prevent this sort of thing? Could there be a limited number of hires per turn?

Actually, while I'm remarking on gangs, is there any good reason whythey're limited to seven (or eight, or whatever it is, I'm not lookingright now)?  Should the max level be based on number of buildings, orsomething?

Other general gang comments:  does it pay to have multiple gangs on guardduty?  IIRC, it didn't used to, but necno may have snuck in a fix tothat.  Are there any new *gang* actions planned with the newbuildings?  Should gangs on guard duty be assignable to specificbuildings?  I know that loyalty is a planned (or, perhaps, coded and not quite working) feature based at least partially on born kids; should gangs end up with other new stats as well?  Are gangs going to get new types of orders?  Are we ever going to be able to custom-name them?  Will they ever be meaningfully involved in random events (other than a "...and a bunch of gang members died.  Terrible, that.")?


Now, I'm not saying these should all be done, or even that they're good suggestions.  However, I do think that necno should decide where he wants to take the game, and mess around with gangs accordingly.  I know his original intention was to create a dungeon crawler of sorts - obviously, this is either not happening or not happening anytime soon.  With that in mind, what should the game become?  If we aim for a *crime* simulator, then gangs become really important, and should be treated as such.  If, instead, the goal is more brothel-based (which, actually, I wouldn't recommend:  Sim Brothel already does that, and if the building changes end up like I expect them to be necnowill have already veered to the aforementioned crime simulator) then gangs can stay as they are - i.e. almost an afterthought.

necno, as always, its wholly your decision.  I'm just trying to spitball a bit here, and probe into your head.  I WILL FIND ANSWERS!   

[Rose]

I think that it would be a good idea to make it so all new gangs have the same stat total. Say that all gangs have 90 points split among the three stats. That way new gangs will all be unique, but there won't be any gangs that start out much better than others.

[letmein]

Well, without knowing what the actual algorithms are for gang combat, I would suspect you'd always want the most balanced starting stats possible...  having them equal minimizes the amount of time it takes to train them to 100%, and I know of no reason why being decent at everything would be worse than being great at one thing and bad at the others.

[Count Zero]

Another way of reducing the problem could be to hire only gang leaders not gangs, so a new gang starts only with one member. And the leader must then recruit members for his new created gang.
Give the player one or two starting gangs, the loyal rest of his father's former workers, and every new gang starts with only one member.
 
But as letmein already said, it is necno's decision. And if he keep the hirering of the gangs as it is or change it, it doesn't make any real difference for me.

[DocClox]

Another way of reducing the problem could be to hire only gang leaders not gangs, so a new gang starts only with one member. And the leader must then recruit members for his new created gang.
Give the player one or two starting gangs, the loyal rest of his father's former workers, and every new gang starts with only one member.

I like that. Start with two full gangs, and everyone else needs to be recruited from the ground up.

Also, you could add opportunities to hire better trained and/or populated gangs as the game goes on. It would make a good reward for accomplishing a mission: "Your ruthlessness has impressed the leader of the Cheeseaters  (10 goons, 55/45/50) and he pledges his allegiance to your cause".

[necno]

Yes, i like that idea as well.
its now TODO
The dungeon crawler aspect isn't planned at all. I have a few ideas for alternatives but they are not thought out enough to add to the todo list.
My next game will be more inclined to being a dungeon crawler, however I'm tossing between action RPG similar to secret of mana (prefered choice) and 1st person old school like eye of the beholder. I could also whip up a 3d engine in no time since i coded one a while ago that works for this purpose. The main issue with these games is one of art assets (not the 3d though, modeling is easy for me).

[Command]

Likely to be a good idea if you could also provide pictures that show depending on what job's the Gangs did and how sussessful they were. 
 
It would likely make micro manegment somewhat more interesting.  You can also if you want try to make the gangs act differently towards their jobs like one job they will either be uninterested in doing to do it poorly.  Of even if they are prone to violence they could accidentally kill the girls they have been assigned to kidnap.  Or if they are bad at the job enough they girl could either get away or get killed.

[letmein]

...

...

?

Why?  I guess I don't see the point here, either.  It all seems like an unnecessary complication.

[Command]

For the bad stuff happaning it would show the importance of having competant guy's on the job and show a better importance in training.
 
For pictures it would be interesting to show a picture on where the Gangs say that the raid was successful and you see several Guys with weapons carrying bags of loot back. 
 
Or if you exploring the caticomes have a picture of several guy's in a dark cave looking around.  If they lost someone have a picture of a creature in the shadown just behind someone.  It would give you a feel of realism and a better idea of cause and effect.  It also would likely impress players more.

[Alugere]

Drawn versions of those pictures would be incredibly hard to find. If you really want that, you probably will have to dig up the pictures yourself to give to necno.

[trex]

One thing, are pictures to be coded in for *gangs* now? As this is primarily a h-game, coding a new screen for gangs for visuals shouldn't be necessary, unless its a breeze. As for the complexity of tasks (accidentally kill girls ect), that would require more coding for stats, the simplest way is just use intel/mana/combat, which may not be logical for some interactions. New stats for gangs isn't something really needed. I like the leader > gang members thing in the management screen. Realistically, you would have captains that ran crews for you, and the best (?) way for their loyalty to stay true or even just start higher is to recruit your currently slave-bound sons into these roles. 


Hell, you could even make (mods?) short stories on how a son in a gang relates to his life of crime with his dad and his working girl mother. Perhaps tying in her fate and wellbeing into his loyalty? If that could be done, it'd flesh out the sons accent into the family business quite well. If a players house is planned, just bring your many mistresses/wifes? to your mansion and forget about accidentally starving your best gang's leader's son's mother!


You could even go a step further and make the competing forces of outside gang leaders (non-family) vs. Sons, and/or Sons Vs. Sons, playing loyalty of each other, or simply make inter-organizational factions in the gang side for a more crime family appeal. I admit it starts getting complicated, but a simple form would suffice, giving modders some bare-bones would allow them to take care of the rest. 


One last thing would be to allow you to gear a new gang for a specialized task. A simple way via telling a gang leader what job they'll be doing, would allow him to gather a team higher in one stat. You could keep the 100/100/100 thing, but just allow one stat to get a 20% in that field when maxed. The team would also lean towards one stat more heavily in the progression to becoming gods, making it worth gearing up in the early stages of gang development. (So you want to Rob banks eh? Tell Sonny Jim to assemble a motley crew to start their heists. The team has higher Intel (Get away planning/Safe Cracking/Whatever) progression, and when maxed, has 100/120/100. You could change the numbers to whatever and assign more than one skill grow more if you need to vary the options out for all the jobs. (So you don't get the same result for training to be bank robbers as you do gearing for kidnap) A simple blurb is good to add some character into the dialogues and screens. Perhaps a shifting ( to whatever you select to gear for) trait could allow pre-made blurbs to just appear ?  

[letmein]

I still don't think this is really necessary.  Pictures, to me, are the very last thing the gangs need - mostly because I very much doubt (and very much hope) that they'll be greatly overhauled soon, and that even if someone was willing to try to find pictures or write blurbs they wouldn't apply to the newer iteration.  Perhaps after they've been looked at; even then I don't think they should really have pics.  Why should *everything* have a picture?  Gangs shouldn't really be the focus, or at least the *visual* focus, of the game.

[necno]

A system for displaying pictures at key points (and in scripts) is planned but is low priority. This is a nice idea but not needed yet. It will be kept in mind however for once everything else is done.

[letmein]

Before I'd worry about gang pics, I'd consider doing something for the talk options.  Granted, that area of the game isn't finished, but even so I'd put a much, much higher priority on getting possible pictures for the PC-girl interactions than gangs.  Especially since the pictures are already within the game, just not activated for that particular use [yet].

Without drawing too far from the topic here, what *is* planned for the talk options?  It seems like there is still room for more productive expansion there, even aside from the planned-but-not-programmed-yet choices.  Perhaps new chat options?  Would this be the way to get girls to act as matrons?  Different versions of torture?  Assassination jobs?  Some day, the combat stats either have to be utilized properly or just ditched, since they're pretty pointless right now...

[Command]

Speaking of a talk option why now one for the various gangs.  That way you could likely get a personal idea about how the gang's morral and other interesting stuff could happen when you talk durring their various jobs is and likely eventually include random events that could give a benifit for 1 turn .