This sounds reasonable to me. Would prevent powerful crews/members resting on they laurels. I think something like this should be implemented to "stir the pot" from time to time, to prevent stagnation.

Has my vote.

I echo the thoughts of Mr_Pickles. In "reality" the size of a building does not decrease after time. However, in "reality", one has to pay rent or a mortgage on their business space. This would make more sense than a shrinking building. A monthly or weekly rate based on the city the HQ is based in and the size of the HQ would be a more believable idea to go with in my opinion.

I gotta agree with Canuckle here, although the goal of the reducing HQ size is to help power change hands which I don't think the weekly taxing will achieve.

I'm thinking a better idea is what Chuckle suggested, limiting the amount of crews in each city. People will be forced to fight if they want to expand, not just keep putting more and more crews into one city.

As a family becomes more established and starts to turn over more money it isnt an absurd idea that the landlord of the HQ would up the rent on the premisis.

Personaly, I think we should go back to the number of CLs in a city. Bigger families with more expereince rolling around them rather than the CL and hands running 10-15 NPMs and mutes

I think limiting the number of crews per city is a good one -BUT - the numbers should be different in each city.

This would make things interesting - if LA and DET, for example, could only start 6 crews each in their cities, it might make them more interested in taking out Chi, which can house 8. 

What do you think?

But there will be more money collected. As someone else before has stated gun malfunctions happen and if in your situation where a full 50 man HQ has gegradated to a 48 man HQ and one of your most trusted members dies of a gun malfunction the CL would have to buy a new 50 man HQ just to get him/her back.

I like the idea of limiting the amount of crews per city, not as a hard physical cap IE each city only has 5 crews but one based on city population. Say when the city reaches like 75% of their open slots another crew is allowed to be spawned. But at the same time not all crews can start with a 50 man HQ but start with the option of of the 15 man HQ and when they reach 10 members they can upgrade to the 25 man ect, with this there would be no need for the 10 man unless you are taking over as Godfather, but there would be a need for a level between the 25 man and 50 man HQ size.

Not sure if I understand everything or if this has been answered but meh...

What about those people who spend months and months as a leader hoping one day for a Godfather slot in an open city, but they have been waiting so long that they are limited to a crew of less than 30 members. Does that not then make the chance of reaching Godfather for that person impossible?

Or is there a way around that I have missed?

ok, so you get the degradation of the max size. correct me if i'm wrong, but if i have a 50 man crew, then my crew degradation will not force me to remove people. yes? cause it seems people have taken this that way.

now, i do see the issue of losing your top man and not being able to get him back, but, hell, i've always believed that bloodline shouldn't be the big deal it seems to be. so i'm for it.

This is a very welcome development - and you're all missing the point.  If your top man dies, he's gone.  His son, if he choose a life of crime, will have to go elsewhere. 

What's to stop the leader killing off another innocent person just to free up a space for there friend? This could work well or it could simply have innocent people slaughtered over simple favouritism.

Simply killing a random crew member because you want someone returning to take their spot isn't a great way to maintain ones power. More than likely, a second, third, etc crew would be created from a trusted member, and the returning person could go to one of those crews. Or someone from the existing would move to one of those crews, and the returning player would take a spot in the existing crew.

As far as the suggestion, I would have a few additional questions. Would this also affect a godfather crew size? Would it simply be a slower rate, or would that size of HQ essentially serve as the 'minimum' (as per your example, if you had a 50 man HQ for the 2-3+ years for the total to drop below the GF crew amount and you never reached GF....something went terribly, terribly wrong)?

tbh, I don't like this idea...

"You don't, thats the point. It forces crews that have been established for a very long time to diversify.
Reply by: Squishy at Oct 17, '11 20:51"

I'm not saying I don't like the idea of rotation of power, but to force it by code? I really don't like it.

People die and go IA all the time. If a CL is able to keep a crew of 50 motivated enough to either get new or returning members for years and years, he shouldn't be forced to relinquish that, imo.

Maybe a crew that is not full could be degraded. Like if you spend a whole month with an open spot, then that spot is lost and then you start degrading.

Seems like a good idea to me. Should add some diversity in Crews.

I have to agree with Axe here. I thought we were all for removing the safety wheels, not adding extra ones.

If someone can hold a position for a long time...they deserve it.

One of the things I love so much about the game is its simplicity.  The simplicity makes the game beautiful.  Adding too many of these features that may sound exciting while making the game more realistic but I think keeping a lot of things simple is important. 

Just my 2 cents.