City of Gangsters: Shadow Government

Control city politicians and manipulate laws in New York and beyond, in the new expansion pack City of Gangsters: Shadow Government.

I want to wake up in the city that never sleeps

Prohibition showed how much power is accrued by politicians who pull the levers of government. Now imagine how much power you could have, if you in turn controlled those politicians.

It’s going to be easier than it seems: politicians need votes, and votes cost money, so helping with either is a sure way to earn gratitude – and obedience. And during Prohibition, city council members are especially easy targets: as politicians they have great sway over city laws, but they’re also small fry who are always hard up for cash. This is where you can make a big difference.

Use your profitable booze operations to finance successful election campaigns, and use your control over large swaths of the city to ensure high turnout of voters who know exactly which ballots to cast. With your vast resources, you will be able to catapult your chosen candidates to high office where they will do your bidding – or to install your own, hand-picked lackeys who will follow your every word.

Just make sure you’re backing the right horses in the elections. Because if you lose, your opponents will remember.

Top of the list, king of the hill

Once the local city council members are your puppets, you can pull on their strings to get them to enact – or repeal – various city laws that can help your outfit or hurt your opponents. Would you like to make it more expensive for rivals to make wine? Enact heavy new tax on grape products. Do you think the cops are getting too nosy around your operations? Cut their funding so they don’t come around as often. Just think about all the things you could do – political control offers so many creative solutions to life’s tedious problems.

The benefits of controlling political power will only increase as your grasp on the city council tightens. Who knows how far you’ll climb? Maybe one day you’ll even get to pick the mayor of the whole city.

If I can make it there, I’m gonna make it anywhere

With elections happening once every two years, you will need to plan and strategize how best to deploy your resources in support of various candidates across the city’s many districts. You will probably start small and buy a local politician with limited sway at first – but over time, you will be able to gain control over many more.

It’s up to you, New York

This expansion pack also includes a new map: New York City!

Welcome to the Big Apple, home of a corrupt political machine the likes of which the world has never seen. It’s an ideal spot to get into politics with your outfit’s ill-gotten gains as you expand across Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Manhattan.

Hidden behind the distinctive buildings and iconic landmarks of New York City are opportunities unique to this most ritzy and roaring of cities. Access the bustling ports and rail terminals around the city’s booming harbor, make copious amounts of moonshine, and craft luxury liquors to grace the cocktail menus of the city’s swankiest watering holes. Then turn your attention to politics and make sure that everybody on the council knows which side their bread is buttered – and use your newfound powers to buttress your own business and break the competition.

This is the biggest map yet, full of great opportunity and even greater competition. Are you ready to stand up to the challenge, and add your outfit to the illustrious list of New York City’s criminal elite?

Start a crime syndicate from nothing, and grow it into a well-oiled money machine. Build speakeasies and illegal distilleries. Manage production chains and resource distribution. Smuggle goods from out of town and bribe the police to look the other way. Grow a powerful crew and keep your rivals under your thumb. Eliminate competition and rule the city. But most importantly, keep the money flowing.

The year is 1920, the start of Prohibition in the USA. With congressional action, a huge segment of the national economy becomes illegal overnight: bars and saloons are ordered to close, distilleries and breweries go quiet, distributors shut down. But a new era is dawning: a gilded age for smugglers, black markets, illegal manufacture, and organized crime.

This is where you come in. You’re a new arrival in the city at the dawn of Prohibition, with ambitions of striking it big. Behind many of the city’s facades, people are building makeshift distilleries, secret loading docks, nighttime speakeasies. Work your way into this network, and the world will be yours.

But think beyond making a quick buck or two. You gotta be thinking ahead. You gotta be thinking bigger. Much bigger.

WELL-ORGANISED CRIME
Get started in the booze biz by hocking some homemade hooch. Start your own stills, and find raw materials to supply them. Learn new techniques to make expensive drinks, or smuggle imported booze to fuel your growing operation. Soon you’ll be supplying entire neighborhoods, and opening your own swinging speakeasies.

YOU GOTTA KNOW A GUY
On the black market, social currency matters as much as the greenback. With cops and feds sniffing around, trust is everything and personal introductions are worth their weight in gold. So work your connections to find profitable new friends, and get people who owe you favors to put in a good word.

YOU CAN'T DO IT ALONE
You will need plenty of hands to open new fronts, do delivery runs, and protect your product from envious rivals. Your outfit’s ambitions are only limited by the number of people working for you. Keep them paid, armed, and organized, and who knows how far and how fast you’ll rise.

THE WALLS HAVE EARS
But proceed carefully, because everyone is always observing what you’re doing, and family members stick up for each other. Whether you send your people to harass someone, or to help them, you can be sure they’ll remember it down the line.

GETTING TERRITORIAL
As your outfit grows, convince locals that your goods and theirs will be looked after. Territory under your control will provide a safety net, an income base, and a wealth of opportunities for further growth and expansion.

THIS ERA BELONGS TO YOU
You’ve grabbed the opportunity by the horns, and the city is yours for the taking. But you only have a few years to make your mark on history, to build the largest, most profitable crime syndicate, take over your competition, and rule the entire city. Because after 1933, it will be all over, alcohol will be legal again. And doing business fair and square, well, everybody knows that’s not where the real money is.