Squeals to the kerb in his quattro. You see one crocodile boot followed by the other. The smell of man hits your nostrils and the sunbeams emitting from this mans arse blind you.

Hello bastards. Good day to be educated isn't it.

Swigs heavily from his hip flask and lights a fag

The recent war. How amusing. The use of shooters seems to have been quite poor. How many birds did you hand them to?

I was looking in from an outside perspective so I am not going to really comment on it. It isn't my place to give the rights or wrongs as to why the losing side were such a massive failure yesterday.

I am talking about wars in general. You see, I have never quite understood people who roll out excuses such as ' We didn't know they had that many guns' or 'We didn't know how many people we'd have awake". It is the job of the people organising the take downs to know these things. Wars nowadays seem to be done in a slap dash fashion leaving a lot of things down to chance.

I will say this once so everyone can hear me. You are playing with 50 people lives and yours. Most importantly. You leave nothing to chance.

There are only two positions from where you go to take down another family or city:

1) You have had enough of that lot down the road and they are not living any longer. You have made your choice. They are going to die. You set out a detailed plan of how you will achieve this. You collect all the information you have on their hitters. You collect all information on what times they like to be awake. You follow them and check out their usual haunts. You speak to your hitters and ensure they can be where they need to be at the given time. You ensure you have enough guns that are good to kill everything that needs killing. That, I would say, is the bare minimum of any war plan. If you do not have any of the previously stated stipulations then you do not war until you do. You will get an arse kicking when you go slap dash into it. As we saw yesterday in my opinion. Which is correct.

2) You hear cast iron information that you are going to be taken down. The family shooting, if they are any good, will have done all the points from position (1). Your options are limited. You are dead if you sit and wait. Talking will not save you in this situation. Only bring the wave faster. So, you gather whatever you have and throw it at the opposing city. This is the only situation where you can leave things to chance because you are fucked whichever way you look at it.

You see. Those are the only two positions in Takedowns. You are either the hitters or the targets. If you don't leak like a whore at the end of her shift then position 1 will never be a problem and you will win. Your percentage chance of losing from position 1 cannot be more than 10%. Favourable odds in a shootout i'd say. Position 2 is hazy. But gives you a better chance than sitting there like a small nun at a penguin shoot.

The only other thing to consider when you war is that you are not just risking your life. You are risking the lives of everyone affiliated with you. Is it right you are happy to go into a war which you will more than likely lose? No. It fucking isn't and I am sick of seeing members of crews in the obits for following their leaders into foolish wars for reasons that are frankly laughable. Yes a member should follow his leader everywhere. In return a leader should do whats best for his crew. Going head first into a war that you have not planned properly or correctly is the best way as going down in history a fool.

So there you go. The Gene Genie has tried to educate the masses. Someone, FakeManCP more than likely, will disagree with me on how to do things. But for all those fool hardy happy go lucky chaps out there who fancy a quick shoot out. Remember what Gene said and think about the consequences first eh?

The only wars that have been badly run are the two most recent ones.

I would largely attribute this to the inexperience of those running them and the experience of their opposition.

The vast majority of people here don't know how to run wars and don't appreciate or understand what is required from the individual doing so. This was evident in the two most recent wars, as the main protagonists have always had someone there to tell them what to do and when to do it. They really just had to follow orders and make sure they did as instructed. When that is removed and they are left to their own devices, well, the evidence speaks for itself.

It is all well and good sloping off to shoot yourself some sleeping Bosses to boost your gun when you have dedicated people at the top making sure what needs to be done is getting done, but when you don't have that safety net, your decision to bag a couple of kills that are essentially worthless affects the outcome. They didn't stay on task. They didn't marhsall their shooters. They didn't remove the threats. They didn't do what they should have been doing.

Anyone with the ability to check the ranks and BG status of their targets can organize a takedown, which is just the product of training your gun. It is really telling whether you can get the job done when your opposition are actually their to stop you doing exactly what it is you want to do.

Essentially it boils down to surrounding yourself with the right people. Choosing a hitsquad leader who is just your best pal and actually can't effectively run your war is a stupid and costly decision. Having the right person available for the task can and will make the difference between you surviving and you dying.

In my limited experience as a Gangster, I'll just have to make some wild guesses as to why these wars of the recent past went the way they did. Most of the 'newer' (read: worse) hitters of the modern age have no idea what it takes to win. Staying on your target for hours if necessary is essential and I would wildly guess that many people have no idea how to get this done.

Whilst it might be a fucking annoyance to have someone hounding you every few minutes to see what you're doing and why, then telling you what you should be doing instead, it wins wars.

Sometimes you have to forsake a few pointless names on your list in order to make sure the important people die. An inactive Boss looks beautiful, but is completely useless to the effort when you need to be shooting BGs.

You have to take the big shots and take a few risks. Pussying out to a safe city when you need to be in the firing line is going to cost you wars. Waiting 15 years for a pro wack, particularly when you're a low level target, is going to cost you wars. Sometimes you have to take a shot their and then, if you don't, you won't win.

Until more people learn their trade properly or actually study from those that do know, stupid decisions will be made and more lives will be lost. If you're one of the new leaders who have just setup or will in the near future, have a look around at your selection for hitsquad leader. Is that person capable of winning you a war or are they going to mill around whilst you lose? Do yourselves a favour and get the right person in.

There are plenty of positions from which to consider a takedown of another family. A lot of people pretend to consider things and have a good reason, but largely it won't be the case. Self-preservation, boredom and dislike are the primary motivators for most wars, regardless of how they are later dressed up.

Reall, the only important question to ask is 'are we capable of pulling this off?' Guns don't win wars, people win wars.

(Although obviously the best general can't win with sticks against tanks either)

Demetrio tips his hat for -Gene_Hunt.

I wish I had a lamp to get a Genie like you sir out of it and teach me, My blood line would have done better for sure.

Demetrio laughs, then takes a pause to light a cigarette.

Actually sir, you pointed a very important matter that has recently been surrounding our community, leaders risking their lives and their crews' lives because they are don't like someone, or are sick of them or even worse are bored and sick of their pathetic mafioso lives, so they pick their guns and walk to their victim's homes, shoot them while asleep and then nothing happens, I dunno if it's the quality of hit-squad leaders going down or the lack of hitters, but either cases it's a very stupid move by that leader.

Demetrio takes another puff from his cigarette before he continues.

To be fair, I wouldn't put 100% of the blame on them, It's kinda the fault of who gave someone who lacks the qualities of leadership the opportunity to be one -at least that's how I see it -.

Actually, I don't disagree with you at all.  In fact, I had to check your identity a few times to make sure I wasn't giving this speech, myself.  Well done.  My only gripe is that we should keep the ignorant people in the dark.  Why give them more competence so that they can kill us better next time?

FakeManCP, You aren't eternal you are gonna die someday, so it's better getting killed by a Knowledgeable person, i.e not ignorant, or an ignorant idiot who was trying to clean his gun and killed you by mistake?

First of all, I believe I am eternal and will live forever.  And yes, I would rather get killed by someone I respect as opposed to a drooling idiot.  However, if I had to choose between who would TRY to kill me, I would rather have the drooling idiot try to kill me.  My chances of survival would be that much better.  Even if I was not eternal, I certainly would not want to hasten death.  By your logic, we should all just blow our brains out right now since we are going to die someday, anyhow.

It isn't my logic, I was giving an example, the first that came to my mind, since I didn't have my morning coffee yet and my brain isn't very functionally right now, We can get over that example, let's say if you were joining a crew, would you join an ignorant's crew or someone whom you owe respect to and know is smarter and more knowledgeable?

Hope that made better sense for you, sir.

What does that have to do with teaching someone how to better kill you?

Pours Demetrio a cup of strong coffee...

There you go, my friend. Maybe that will help.

Takes the cup of coffee, and drinks it all

Thank you very much sir, I really needed one, I hope it isn't poisoned though.

Smiles at FakeManCP as he takes his pack of cigarettes out, he offers the lad a cigarette as he puts one in his mouth and lights it.

A well Taught blood, will do good at everything sir, we shouldn't only teach people to shoot and be just trigger happy idiots, like they train a gun and have no mind how to use it, that doesn't work well, does it? Your bloodline is known to be decent hitters in the history of this thing of ours, you should know better.

Demetrio looks confused

I forgot what was the main topic we were about but hope this answer makes more sense for you, or you can wait for me to pass by this evening and finish our conversation when I am more awake and less distracted.

I see now where we were looking at things from different perspectives.  I was talking about teaching potential enemies, and you are discussing teaching fellow family members.  Of course, we should do everything in our power to instruct those who stand by our sides in battle.  My point was, that we should not also teach those who have the gun pointed at our heads.

True that sir, but you also know that a fellow family member could be an enemy sometime later, but you never know, Does that mean you are not going to teach the fellow family member how to be good since you aren't sure if he will stay on your side for ever or not?

A good example can be given, by the last war between LA and the rest of cities against NY, though Godfather SpaceMountain and most of his members were originally New Yorkers and learned a lot there, but however they had pointed their guns against their ex fellow members.

Demetrio takes a puff off his cigarette, then waits for FakeManCP.

It is a point my ancestors have often considered, Mr Bonaventura.  You see, I have ancestors who have been hitsquad leaders for literally dozens of families, including the great Anita, Oberon, Evsie, and Robespierre.  The methods those war generals used have been imitated and have evolved into the standard practices used in running a war today. My ancestors have seen their most trusted students go on to later declare war against my ancestor's families, using all the knowledge instilled in them from my ancestors. Keeping in mind that knowledge I pass along may later be used as a weapon against me, I will now teach enough to make my protege competent, but no ancestor of mine has ever passed on everything he knew.  It's always good to keep a couple of tricks up your sleeve.  Besides, there is something to be said for learning things on your own.  I don't want to mold someone into a duplicate copy of myself.  I want to give them the tools to get started, and then allow them to learn things on their own if they are capable.  The most deserving of students will still excel using this method.  The undeserving will not, and probably never should have been taught to begin with.

However, what Mr Hunt is describing here doesn't really apply to that.  He is talking about the bare minimums necessary to instigate a war.  This is knowledge that any competent hitsquad leader should already know, and if he or she does not already know it, should be able to learn through experience in due time.  If they are unable to learn it, well then that says something about their intelligence, and I doubt that person would be much of a threat no matter how much information was passed along.

What the dear Mr Hunt has put into the public domain is pretty much the "Bleeding obvious". If he were to give out the crown jewels of wars I would imagine there would be a bullet with his name on it residing somewhere within his HQ.

As Mr FP has pointed out, learning on the job is what will make you a better war leader than anything anyone else can teach you. There are no better lessons than learning from the mistakes your ancestors have made. The basics of war are simple, the beauty is in the execution and having the ability to counter peoples movements 2 or 3 steps before they have even thought it.

Being able to run a war at a level above mere adequacy isn't just something that can be learned, in my most humble opinion.  You've either got the mentality, patience and authority to do it right or you haven't.

Back in the day, BADCHOICE and Kari were the bomb with their planning, attention to detail and total control over how to get the win.  Nowadays, very, very few come close to that and even those that do, I'd never tell them that because, to be honest, they're conceited and arrogant enough without me adding to it.