This is a concept rather than an actual suggestion, and it's pretty much comprehensive and looks towards a total overhaul of the way HQ's would work. It's not finished, it's got big holes, but I thought this would be the best place for it. Add your own thoughts, ideas and feedback!

Essentially, HQ fortifications are something I fundamentally disagree with because they go against one of the baser elements of the game as I see it. The idea that you should only have a reasonable chance at consistent success if the work you put in is roughly equal to or more than the work put in by those you are trying to fuck up.

Basically, the reason that you can't sign up and shoot a GF as a gangster the very next day. 'Safeguards' have always existed to retain an element of chance/luck/whatever you want to call it - Low ranked accounts getting the dreaded '1%' or wackbacking high ranked accounts, and so on.

However, and this is just my opinion, HQ fortifications have fucked that concept in a big, big way. I appreciate the fact that it's only a boost that exists in the home city, but in my view it creates two very big imbalances:

1. The benefit of being in your home city D-wise is much much greater than the benefit of your aggressor being in their home city attack wise. (You could make an argue for credit driven things such as durden spawns and MIAs increasing attack benefits over a longer term period here, I suppose)

2. The biggest imbalance. The fact that someone with 250 kills could plausibly miss something as low as a sponsored IA gangster in it's home city is, to me, astounding. Again, I realise it's only 1 city that this will occur, but to put in that amount of work only for to essentially be nullified in one of the cities is incredible.

Therefore, I'd suggest totally removing HQ fortifications from the game. Initially, I assume they were intended as a 'protection' for younger/lower ranked mobster not important or rich enough to fund their own bgs. A quick look at the obits from the recent war will show this has not happened. These people still died, they just tended to die to big guns.

The removal of HQ forts, though, would clearly lead to a massive loss of revenue through credits and such for the game, this is why I'd suggest the overhaul that will hopefully address this and bring a new element into overall gameplay. Please note, I've not thought about any price figures with either game cash or credits for this. I'm not sure if the idea has any milage yet:

Step 1: Buy your HQ. One size fits all; 50 man HQ with unlimited associate (unmade spots). Level 1 HQ's have space for 1 Boss, under which is 2 capos, under which are 4 made men.

Step 2: Upgrade your HQ. Congrats, you've got space for a second Boss. He has the same openings under him; so now you've got space for 4 capos and 8 made guys

Step 3: Rinse and repeat.

You'll notice I haven't included Consiglieres. Traditionally, Consiglieres are not part of the typical hierarchy. Therefore, there'd be a side tree where you can 'purchase' space for Consiglieres; but like for any rank, there needs to be space. If one of your WG's is ready to be made and there's no room, you need to 'open the books' and purchase an upgrade, so there's now room for your made guy, along with more room for capos and bosses.

Under such  a system. Made guys (as happens with the current associate system) would actually work under capos, who work under their bosses. Each rung in the ladder would provide a boost to everyone in the chain. Therefore, an associate would get a boost from his made guy who's getting a boost from the capo who's getting......and so on.

I think this could be a really exciting idea, not least for war strategy:

 A prowacker sponsored by a made guy and a capo who are both IWP is going to have quite formidable defence. Do you go after his sponsors, or do you send a big gun after the prowacker?

You've killed the CL, so the battle should nearly be over: but wait, some boss with a tank og a gun is still getting a boost from the 2 capos and the 8 made man who are sponsored by him. Oh noez!

Another consideration is putting a cap onto the amount of upgrades possible. Whilst everyone would receive a boost relative to the units they held, no one would actually get the prestige of the rank in their profile unless there was space in the family for them to be in that position. This, in turn, would hopefully lead to more regular auths.

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I realise this is an extremely unpolished idea, and much of it has gone straight from my brain to the keyboard. If anyone's unsure on where the fuck I'm going with this, I'll do my best to explain; but please post if you see things from a different angle or perspective. I'd really love some feedback on this!

100% agreement from me regarding HQ fortifications.

Your alternative sounds interesting, but I'll leave it to more engaged people than me to debate the finer points :)

I actually like this idea. How the ranks mean more. But not the unlimited associates.

How about like you said you get a boost if you got say for instance, a Capo and Made Men below you. Make this a slight boost, but when there is a % of that tree in the same city gives an even bigger boost? (If that makes any sense)

An awful lot to take in here, so I'm going to add what my interpretation of it is, if I may;

I like it, although, as you have said, there is still an awful lot more mileage in this, but fundamentally I like it. I do think that more emphasis should be put onto the family, its ranks and the hard work put into each individuals account should have a knock on effect for the next and the family as a whole, and you ideology of it based on ranks, for me works.

If a family works hard as a unit, then they should be rewarded as a unit and visa versa, if you have a lazy family, then the rewards are less. Hopefully, if needed, this will put more emphasis on CL'S keeping their members active and busy. This surely has to be a viable option, both from a role play and common sense base.

Meaning that each boosts, or any boosts that may exist, have a good probability that they will all differ, from family to family. Therefore hard work is rewarded, again adding that what if factor into the game.

I hope I have read and understood your logic, I could be way off the mark, I usually am. All in all, I think we need an MR think tank to dissect it and look at from a coding and game play level.

Noah just sent me a message saying my input didn't make much sense. So I replied this to clear it up. I hope this makes more sense.

"Under such a system. Made guys (as happens with the current associate system) would actually work under capos, who work under their bosses. Each rung in the ladder would provide a boost to everyone in the chain. Therefore, an associate would get a boost from his made guy who's getting a boost from the capo who's getting......and so on."

The boost in the chain. If this did come in to action, and the boost was there. Maybe suggest having only a slight boost within the chain. But if there was a % of the chain in 1 city, then an even greater boost is received.

This would make it interesting when it comes to war time. You'll have a chain of people following each other from city, to city. Would be like a real strategy game.

One thing I like about this is the rank means something now, for example if you have 15 made men and you have 4 who can become made men is it worth it for you to spend possible just throwing a number out there 5-6mil for these guys to get to Made Man. Not only does this achieve what you want in the way of getting credits and money spent back into HQ's but it cound do some other possible things people have been wanting aswell. I like it.

I know that there are a zillion other little detail to go over before this is relevent, but I have to ask. How in the hell do we implement this? I cannot think of a way to phase a concept such as this in without utterly screwing people for a significant amount of time. And doing so would screw people in the new system not the old system, leading to loud cries for it's removal (see threads on Subject: NPMs for an example of such). I think this needs to be considered under that light.

As much as I like the idea on paper, I can't really figure out how this could be implemented in a clean way in the game's current state. I've been thinking a form of it could work at the higher echelons of structure - perhaps a Godfather in charge of a main family, who in turn has dominion over another, and so on. Each subsequent family would have members that are of lower rank until you have what as akin to a Capo/Made Man at the lowest levels.



Either way, there'd definitely have to be a fusion of what we currently have if this feature was to be implemented at some level, though. I can't see completely changing the very foundation of how we run things without running into some serious roadblocks.