When I think of the 4x games, the classic Civilization series comes to mind, and after that, a lot of scenarios on the theme of space as Stellaris, Sins of a Solar Empire and Endless Space. No matter where you go, the common theme at all is that they take place on a large scale that changes the world. City of Gangsters takes this kind and returns it, keeping it across a big city, and does a surprisingly good job.
As the name suggests, the game is to direct a gang. Turning in the 1920s in the United States, prohibition creates a huge opportunity for those who wish to seize it. You play one of these "entrepreneurs", from a small basement company in the basement, finally develop to respond to requests as your name grows. But beware, you are not the only one to invest in this opportunity, and criminals do not tend to be kind with competition.
In City of Gangsters, money is everything. Every action you will be running around earning money, only to spend it to earn more. But how do you do that? Well, of course, exploring, expanding, exploiting and exterminating!
At the beginning of each game, you are a stranger to the city and you barely know your neighborhood. With a little work, however, you establish some links around you - maybe a restaurant with thirsty guests, or someone who can provide you with supplies, or a friend who is ready to set up a facade " "For your" business ". After some good gestures, your name will spread and your business will develop as a trail of powder. Soon you will realize that the operation becomes too important for one person to manage it, then you hire other people who are ready to do what needs to be done. All of a sudden, you now have a gang.
Then there is the final X: exterminate. Even if you are trying to be as peaceful as possible, you lead an illegal operation at the end of the day, and violence will eventually find you. As you develop, you will meet the territory of another gang, and they will want your resources as much as you want theirs. Once they start to get muscle in you, it's exterminated or exterminated.
You can not fire all wood. What controls everything in the city of gangsters is the law. Know when to be a little silent is what will keep your gang alive. Sometimes you can not stop you from making noise, but fortunately, there is always a solution if you have the money. Buying the police will be expensive, so you will need to calculate if it will be worth it. Do not forget that there are limits to what the cops are ready to close your eyes. Having a total war with another gang in the streets is nothing but a mutually assured destruction.
Without a doubt, City of Gangsters is a unique variant of the 4x formula, and it certainly contains very well executed ideas. Unfortunately, there were some areas where I thought the game had missed the target by creating the basics of what makes the genre 4x so addictive, this feeling of a turn more than the good ones give us.
The first point, ironically, is that there are too many resources to exploit for players. The rarity is paramount for all strategy games. This is what drives us out and explore better land; That's what we scare us when we see that our competitors have seized a powerful tool. This is what encourages us to take risks and aggressive actions. The classic example of this in other games is the luxury resources that prevent you from developing you properly until you have more.
In City of Gangsters, you are never short of customers or specific resources. In fact, there are really no rare resources you need to hunt or hunt. In other titles, you would have tribes, wonders or anomalies that offer a substantial bonus to the first person to find them, but such a mechanics does not exist here. In addition to this, the exploration is slow. Not only do you have to go to a new area, but you must also slowly inspect each company's business, which takes turns and many clicks. The fact that you do not really need to find more specific resources makes exploration simply not worth it.
I want to talk about the mechanism that requires you to inspect a little more every business, which, in addition to the time it takes, means that a lot of information is hidden to players. I understand that the game tries to do this "hidden underground criminal" thing, but hide profitable resources makes it a lot more difficult to plan your actions. The ease of access to resource information is not just a functionality in most 4x, but in all strategy games as a whole, RTS like Age of Empires at board games like Settlers of Catan.
Your growth as a character and gang works a bit like the technological tree in this game, except that it is not at all a tree. You find new techniques to do things with random knowledge and connections offering you a quest. As much I appreciate the game that tries to rely on the design of needing these connections, as much this aspect hurts the game by creating an impetus.
For me, one of the best parts of the 4x games is the time you go to look at the technology trees, plan the direction in which you want to go, made more complex by the fact that the player has to adjust his plans according to the resources and threats. around them. In City of Gangsters, technological growth occurs randomly, which makes any planning in advance almost impossible. Perhaps instead, it could have had a normal technological tree but requiring specialized connections and knowledge to accelerate the process and maintain the theme. This would also mitigate the lack of rare and very sought after the game.
Overall, City of Gangsters is a good title that tries fun twists on the 4x genre. The setting is excellent, the art is good and the music is atmospheric. It would have benefited from a little dubbing, especially in the tutorials, because this game has a lot of text to read. City of Gangsters demonstrates that the 4x genre works as well in miniature as in the great epic periods of history.
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