Part 1: Exploration
So spring has arrived and patch 1.04 has fixed up a lot of things in Empire of Sin. Great news. Now lets talk about thing only a re-work (or additional development?) can fix. Namely: Exploration, Management and Economical systems of the game.
During the developers stream, before the release of the game one of the devs, have mentioned that apart from Empire of Sin, there are no other game like that on the market. I don't know how bring it up nicely, but there are other games in same theme and genre. And most of them do a much better job at their chosen approach to the game.
For example, good old Omerta: City of Gangsters, has its roots in Tropico management series. In that game we follow the path of one of the Sicilian gangsters in Atlantic city, all the way from being a henchman to a “Capo del tutti”, (Boss of the bosses), and then through his confrontation with Federal investigation (led by his own brother), and finally to the end of Prohibition era, and as he eventually becomes a legitimate businessman. In over 30 missions, player is always on the edge, as he is racing against the opponent's AI, raising police attention, ambushes from enemy gangster and somewhat limited resources, as you start conquering each neighbourhood with your trusty crew and some cash.
Omerta and EoS share one major thing, they approach resources, such as booze, people and money, as pure expenses to be made in order to have profits. They do not get into production cycles, types of alcohol, its fine qualities. Its a mean to an end. In fact, EoS has more variety of booze on offer. They also do not dwell on logistics of the their goods. The only thing moving around is your gangsters doing various missions like: finding the informant, getting information, renting or buying property, doing a drive by to a competition, hiring a lawyer, setting up a soup kitchen for poor, attending a rich and famous party to talk to politician, buying guns from police chief, setting up a pizzeria, and many more. Most important thing, is that every action leads to your actual influence growing, and giving your more and more protection from police activity. Police rarely patrols the streets, since main combat action is hidden in story missions. Instead, your every action increases the Heat level by certain percentage, once heat is at 5 stars (or 100%), investigation starts and even if you have money, you or most of your crew risk being arrested after police raids your safe house. Heat mechanic in its simplicity works as a pan, that is slowly heating up under the players feet. It makes you run, and run fast.
On the other end of the spectrum is an upcoming bootlegger simulator, named City of Gangsters (I know, it gets confusing, but its different game), in development by Soma Interactive. They create a city filled with NPC, and give each one of them a certain network of friends and relatives. In addition, they focus their game on :
production cycle: booze of different types require different ingredients, distillery, time and a handler,
distribution network: you have a number of customers, then you you have a relationship meter with each one of them, the more trust you have, the more chances of you selling or buying your illegal products or introducing you to another client,
management of your crew: people you hire have certain traits, like Attractive (which will boost sales), or Strong (that will increase your chances in combat), then player assigns daily tasks, routes and vehicles they take. In addition player may choose who will go exploring around town and look for new contacts. Yes, it is micromanaging.
maintaining relationship: game creates micro-event like birthdays, thug raid, illness, car crash and so on, that allows player to increase their trust rating with important people of each neighbourhood, and eventually develop a protection ring from both outsiders and police. Small talk here, bribe there, then gift here and you control the city through knowing all major players. This is also a systemic gameplay, not something that is hand-crafted for individual character.
In short, each game hides layers of information and possibilities from player. But each one of them also gives tools on how to expand and open up new possibilities, thus creating an Exploration gameplay and gives player meaningful Management decisions. Its up to a player how to approach the information gathering, be brutal or polite, use real violence or just threats, leave a good tip or try to sweet talk yourself in. It also make player to choose whom to send for a certain missions, would you send an angry thug to do a conversation or smart con artist?
Each game gives two or three know starting points, that would lead player further up an away in gameplay, simply by hiding majority of information, by making player work for information on his opponent's, and slowly opening up opportunities to use. None of these features are present in Empire of Sin. The biggest step in right direction was hiding the safe houses and making a sit-downs happen elsewhere.
So my question is simple: How developers are going to address the Exploration?
As it stands now, its limited to my gangster walking down the street and slowly discovering all the rackets. Chicago being rather big, it may take some time, but it will eventually happen. In addition, player always has perfect information on enemy gangs, how much cash they have, how many troops, how many rackets and weapons. Unless you hide all that, any meaningful exploration or mole infiltration is pointless! You cant give player perfect information, it kills the very idea of illegal business!
My suggestion on Exploration part would consist:
hide ALL rackets behind the “facade” of legal business or residential housing. Do not tell player any racket location until you send one or more gangsters on the reckon mission.
Allow you gangsters to have a certain influence or network of informants in specific neighbourhoods (yes, that would require to have a certain static element in the neighbourhood).
Create AI controlled, neutral businesses, that can provide either services or information or can be bought, rented, or ransomed. I'm bored with city, where only business activity stems from gangsters!
Create a mission system that will open up known building in the area in following stages:
A) known legal function, service and link to other legal business (house, bank, garage, club, flower shop of Mr. O'Banion,)
B) known illegal function link to other illegal business (speakeasy, brothel, casino, pit fight arena, ect).
C) known ownership: neutral, gang faction owned, gang controlled (pays protection money to a gang). Probable mean of taking over: buy out, offer better protection, drive-out of business by sabotage or drive by attacks, or hostile take over (traditional EoS combat).
Hide essential faction information from the player, unless he has got a mole in the faction! OK, at least allow player to switch between “all visible rackets” mode and “all hidden mode”, if someone cant be bothered to search for every corner.
Thank you for reading my smartass ramblings.
