Is there any longevity to this game? What happens after prohibition ends?

[Ronin]

This is what I believe the game has severely missed the mark on - by focusing it around ONLY manufacturing booze and leaving out other mobster related activities such as attacking other businesses, proper extortion rackets, selling arms or other illegal substances. (I see I can sell cigerettes but why can't I set up an import business that deals exclusively in tobacco products?) This would ensure that you could continue building your gang/business well on past the end of prohibition and would make the game the best mafia sim out.

It currently is the best mafia sim but it's too focused on booze and it's a complete shame. It's quite immersion breaking knowing that after countless hours, my max "crew size" can only be 10. It's amusing that I'm supposed to believe one person can run multiple blocks with no crew, whilst there's countless other gangs/outfits/mafia around, it's just not realistic for the time and it seems the game wants to give you a reduced 'option' of "inbetween" big time and small time mobster. You either do self delivering of small amounts of booze (small time) or you can sell a little bit more and the game teases you with this deep system but severely limits you on how large you can actually grow - as you'll always be limited to booze production. The option to at least buy actual legal businesses would be good. I want to love the game but the limitations forced upon you by the dev design decisions are very offputting and make the game more of a chore, because it's impossible to get immersed. The limitations on what you can do severely limits the immersion and makes the game feel more like a job than a game or 'mobster simulator'. It's called City of GANGSTERS and realistically no gangster back then ran a 1-3 man crew and produced and moved only booze and had no other money makers on the side.

They really need to consider expanding the options and gameplay as this will also open it up to far more players that would like to experience a mob sim, many casual players would avoid this as at the moment it's just "illegal booze production sim".. it doesn't feel like a gangster sim at all. The fact it's a chore to play and lacks immersive elements and further mob related options to get further immersed means it's only ever going to appeal to a small number of people.

[Ronin]

Also, to keep my complaints contained in one thread.

Please adjust the seeding/zone/resource distribution as at the moment it just seems nonsensical. I'm on my 4th try, my primary/starter production was crocks. The other shop on the same corner also produces crocks, the next corner also produces crocks, two corners up also produces crocks, 3 corners on the other side is another shop that produces crocks. In total I have around 8 crock producing shops within 3/4 blocks of my starting corner. This is also extremely immersion breaking as why would I only be presented with shops that sell irrelevant items. At least give some variety so there's not just 1-3 forced resources spawned into an area - or at least give us the option to buy them out as what sense does it make having high relations with people that sell something I literally produce in bulk.

The way the game 'assigns' extremely limited resource options to the same area with quite literally no variety completely breaks immersion and destroys any feeling of realism. What's also annoying is that it spawns all of the same type of shops. My latest default start is a lumberyard, that produces crockery. There are 6 other sawmills/lumber suppliers within two corners of my starting corner - again, this is just wholly unrealistic and immersion breaking as there's no way that many businesses could co-exist within a few miles of each other and all make a profit.

Please for the love of god adjust the settings so there's at least a little more variety or at the very least it's realistic in the sense that there aren't all the same limited selection of stores available at the start. And don't get me started on the way movement points suddenly go haywire and force you to stay local, regardless of heat levels. You get a favour from a shopkeeper who says they've got a friend who will buy your booze. Camera zooms to several blocks away, no big deal right? Wrong. The game wants to force you to assign a character (you must have more than 1 crew member if you want to maintain fronts whilst away on the expedition) to go on a 2 month long trip JUST to go meet someone literally 5 miles away so you can sell to them. Again, this is just another thing that completely breaks your immersion and makes me feel like quitting when I see how long it will take to go visit them - and that's JUST to confirm what they want, so you can't even know what batch to take with you making it a waste of time. The worst
part is that you can't just click a location and it will automatically work its way over there, you have to manually guide your character, over the course of many turns (months) just 8 corners away, so you can sell product without heat.

Amazing game but at the moment I just keep finding too many things that just seem forced in to force the players into certain actions or severely limit the player and each thing just breaks immersion again and again and puts me off playing it further. My excitement for 'what comes next' has died within hours of playing the game simply because I'm now just waiting for the next annoying forced limitation/mechanic to pop up, break immersion and make everything feel like a chore again.

[Maul]

Ye the seed generation does feel pretty bad. I had 1 game where I spawned with homemade beer. To the left of my base there was only like 2 businesses for like 8 corners in total and to the right was really straight road so it was pretty bad to expand and then absolutely no one wanted the homemade beer.

[Wabi Sabi]

Originally posted by Ronin:

It currently is the best mafia sim

It isn't a 'mafia sim.' I wish people would stop trying to make it one. We get it, you all want the next Omerta or whatever other game you're nostalgic about, but this isn't it. It is its own game and that's what makes it good.

[Decker]

then restart on a different seed (not every seed will be ideal or workable ..thats the fun part of a new strategy every game)
i restarted many times til i found a seed i liked..doesnt take long..i even started on seed 1 and moved up looking where it placed me..if i did like it i picked another
i found one with i like
turn 400 something and over 100k worth so far
i started with crocks and im fine... just started my whiskey production today..

gotta give them some time.. not one game comes out prefect...some games never become perfect or mismanaged beyond repair.
Gotta give them time to add more content and who knows who makes workshop items that make things a bit easier for some to ease the "chore" bit.
Yes its alot of work managing 20+ guys per turn ..you have to be well organized to survive to the end of prohibition.

not putting ya down...just saying give some patience
ive waited over 7 years for this kind of game so... im 100% fine with it...expect the sun setting in the east but other than that im having a blast.

Maul, businesses farther away is good...spreads out the heat. Also some can be hidden until you progress in the tech trees unlocking stuff ...you might get a nice hops or barley source right next you later. All clumped on 4 blocks will bring so much heat on ya.

good luck guys

[Maehlice]

I like that seed generation is as random as it seems to be.

When procedural generation becomes too refined, every "random" seed suffers from the same "sameness".

As it is, each seed can provide wildly different challenges, which (I think) adds tremendously to its longevity/replayability.

[VoidfullBrain]

Originally posted by Wabi Sabi:

Originally posted by Ronin:

It currently is the best mafia sim

It isn't a 'mafia sim.' I wish people would stop trying to make it one. We get it, you all want the next Omerta or whatever other game you're nostalgic about, but this isn't it. It is its own game and that's what makes it good.

Why the potential shouldn't be used? this game or the core of this game have so much potential, so why restrict this game to a single topic, if u can develop it as far further as it is right now?

[galadon3]

Originally posted by VoidfullBrain:

Originally posted by Wabi Sabi:

It isn't a 'mafia sim.' I wish people would stop trying to make it one. We get it, you all want the next Omerta or whatever other game you're nostalgic about, but this isn't it. It is its own game and that's what makes it good.

Why the potential shouldn't be used? this game or the core of this game have so much potential, so why restrict this game to a single topic, if u can develop it as far further as it is right now?

for the same reasons you dont add a supply-system to chess where every pawn works his stretch of land at the edge of the board to keep the horsies fed:
Its not what the game is about

[Gunnar]

There is something everyone should be aware of. This is about the period from 1920 to 1933. And what shaped this time in connection with the Mafia and other gangs? Exactly. Bootlegging. What made the gangs rich and powerful? Bootlegging. I agree with you when you say that casinos and brothels were also business areas of the gangs, but these existed before Prohibition. And it didn't make the gangs so rich and powerful. Of course, it would be nice if such business areas were also integrated into the game in some way, but they would have to play a small role, as has historically been the case.
I could imagine a casino, for example, as an extension of a speakeasie, in which, in order for the store to run and there are no problems, you have to place a gangster with the appropriate skills (muscles, tall) so that it generates an adequate return. It should simply not be a profitable self-runner, otherwise the alcohol smuggling would be wasted.

[Kuattro]

Yeah, bootlegging was what made the gangs powerful, and the fortunes they made there was what they used to become powerhouses in the decades after that.

With that said, if they end up adding new businesses (and maybe, new goods to deal with, of the nature you only get from latin america, if you know what I mean, although of course local production would be out of the question), and the game is sucessful enough of course, I don't see why they couldn't release expansions that take the game further than the 30s, all the way into the 70s or the 90s even. I don't know if a game could be played all the way through though, we might be talking about several thousand turns.

In fact, since the files are all text, I don't know if it could actually be modded in, even in a rudimentary maner...

[VoidfullBrain]

Originally posted by galadon3:

Originally posted by VoidfullBrain:

Why the potential shouldn't be used? this game or the core of this game have so much potential, so why restrict this game to a single topic, if u can develop it as far further as it is right now?

for the same reasons you dont add a supply-system to chess where every pawn works his stretch of land at the edge of the board to keep the horsies fed:
Its not what the game is about

That's your opinion, and its ok.