Explain to me how criminal syndicate is mutually beneficial (it's not)

[Kryndude]

It's year 2014 and I met one as my neighbor. It opened up a branch office right away and since I didn't want to spare resources on police I just went ahead and made crime lord deal. And btw don't tell me that it's free 10 stability cuz it's not. It's 10 stability at the cost of 4 pops. Clerk job that the branch office provides is useless. Now I'm earning 7 food, 9 minerals, and 5 EC per month LESS than before. I should've just built a precinct house, but then again, how is forcing me to invest a building slot and 2 specialist pops beneficial to me?

Criminal Syndicates are like mosquitos. You want to get rid of them as soon as you can.

 

[Dlin369]

I mean, it's a crime syndicate. Parasitism is just their nature

 

[Derp]

if i'm playing a pacifist and crime syndicates spawn i will ethics shift my way out of it just to put them in the ground

 

[Kagemin]

That's pretty much exactly how they're supposed to work, no? They're not meant to be beneficial to you, only to the Syndicate itself.

 

[RoverStorm]

So the reasons people give for them being mutually beneficial:

1. Most negative crime events can be prevented by the "make a deal with crime lords" decision. This MOST IMPORTANTLY gives +10 Stability. Crime doesn't even directly give any negative affects other than eating 3-4 pops which will give -1 trade value each, and some nasty events (see above), so this is considered a huge boost to most empires. (Of course you clearly don't like losing the pops. It should be noted that only workers become criminals: pops prefer to be specialists over them. Most empires don't notice losing 4 pops on a planet though, but this is a rare example.)

2. Max-crime planets provide 50% more income to the megacorp than a normal branch office.

3. No commercial pact is necessary, saving a small amount of influence for both sides. However sometimes people enjoy the benefits of the commercial pact, so it's a trade off.

4. I personally disagree, but some people apparently prefer the +5 Trade that a few Buildings give in replacement to the 2 Clerk jobs on the non-criminal version.

5. Can use a criminal syndicate ally to basically sabotage an AI's economy by tricking their AI into spamming precincts instead of resource buildings.

Up to you if you enjoy those benefits.

 

[zukodark]

I think the problem is how early you did the crime lords decision. If the planet was more populated or you had more planets it would be better.

 

[beckermt]

The corporate branch should only have 1 building at this point, which should largely be mitigated by the enforcer of your capital building.

As @zukodark said, I think you negotiated with crime lords somewhat ahead of time. Also, you have TEN free jobs on your planet (6 if the criminal were gone). Next time, don't build so many districts ahead of time.

 

[Azmodael]

You enacted the decision too early.

Early it is much better to pick a Righteous (-25 crime) governor and enact the decision to reduce crime. This will make the branch unprofitable and it might eventually close down on its own.

Lategame when you have 50+ pops and crime becomes hard to manage on its own the deal is worth it. You lose 4 pops to crime, but the stability bonus is applied to your other pops and you'll probably even benefit from this.

Also clerics have an (undeserved) bad rep. They are actually decent.

 

[Slynx]

crime syndicate on your planets is beneficial in few ways:
fist: if syndicate opens a branch office on your planet it can't declare war on you. so it's like a non aggression pact without 10 year truce.
second: if you are not trying to remove the branch from your planet you can negotiate (if CS is a player) that he'll build beneficial buildings for both of you(that gives jobs instead of flat +50crime). more jobs = less unemployment. also clerks produce trade that'll counter criminals(that can spawn if you're unfortunate enough to get criminal underground modifier)
third: if he opens an office - the crime will rise. so you will be able to make a "deal with a crime lord". which removes most negative events and gives +10 stability. also you can disable enforcer jobs and redirect the freed pops elsewhere. for example on alloy production.

over all I think having a criminal branch office is always good, cuz unlike normal branches you can decide that you don't like it anymore and DoW the syndicate after re-enabling enforcer jobs on a planet.

 

[Incompetent]

The message I'm getting from the OP is that crime lords are 'mosquitoes' because they are only half as beneficial per pop as legitimate lords (you know, the kind you only get with the Aristocratic Elite civic).

I'm wondering if actually, the opposite is true: that once the planet gets big enough, you should deliberately create some crime in order to get some crime lords, even in a game with no criminal megacorps. On an Ecumenopolis, +10 stability at the cost of 4 pops sounds like an amazing deal.

 

[Kryndude]

The corporate branch should only have 1 building at this point, which should largely be mitigated by the enforcer of your capital building.

As @zukodark said, I think you negotiated with crime lords somewhat ahead of time. Also, you have TEN free jobs on your planet (6 if the criminal were gone). Next time, don't build so many districts ahead of time.

No, one enforcer from the captial building was not enough which was why I made the deal in the first place. Also, I exclude clerks from job count in the early game.

You enacted the decision too early.

Early it is much better to pick a Righteous (-25 crime) governor and enact the decision to reduce crime. This will make the branch unprofitable and it might eventually close down on its own.

Lategame when you have 50+ pops and crime becomes hard to manage on its own the deal is worth it. You lose 4 pops to crime, but the stability bonus is applied to your other pops and you'll probably even benefit from this.

Also clerics have an (undeserved) bad rep. They are actually decent.

So they're beneficial only in limited situations then. I'm pretty certain in the early game they're only harmful.

 

[Kryndude]

That's pretty much exactly how they're supposed to work, no? They're not meant to be beneficial to you, only to the Syndicate itself.

Well as you can see there are people who think it's beneficial so I'm trying to understand if I'm missing anything. So far I don't see it. They say 10 stability on highly developed world is amazing, but they seem to ignore the fact that it costs you 4 pops. For a world to benefit more from 10 stability than loss suffered from 4 pop vacancy, I'd say it has to be pretty late in the game and before that point, criminal syndicates are bad for you. So basically throughout most of the game they're bad.

 

[Badesumofu]

Well as you can see there are people who think it's beneficial so I'm trying to understand if I'm missing anything. So far I don't see it. They say 10 stability on highly developed world is amazing, but they seem to ignore the fact that it costs you 4 pops. For a world to benefit more from 10 stability than loss suffered from 4 pop vacancy, I'd say it has to be pretty late in the game and before that point, criminal syndicates are bad for you. So basically throughout most of the game they're bad.

Well - 10 stab is 6% more productivity from jobs and 6% more trade value. So very roughly, if you have 100 pops, getting about 6% more out of them is probably going to be worth giving up 4% of the population to criminal jobs.

As others have said - it's not so good to do the crime lord deal on a less developed planet.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Well as you can see there are people who think it's beneficial so I'm trying to understand if I'm missing anything. So far I don't see it. They say 10 stability on highly developed world is amazing, but they seem to ignore the fact that it costs you 4 pops. For a world to benefit more from 10 stability than loss suffered from 4 pop vacancy, I'd say it has to be pretty late in the game and before that point, criminal syndicates are bad for you. So basically throughout most of the game they're bad.

4 POPs is chump change past the very early game.

 

[Slynx]

They say 10 stability on highly developed world is amazing, but they seem to ignore the fact that it costs you 4 pops.

because pops are mostly irrelevant.
you can for example encounter caravaneers that'll propose you a deal, only to steal some of your pops afterwards.
it's the same here. assume that those 4 pops were just stolen(except they still count for unlocking buildings). for a 10 stability and -4 trade.
it's a great deal. even from the day1.
but you have the luxury to delay the deal if you want.(not sure why though)

as for the situation with slightly reduced production: check your jobs. maybe some of them were messed in a process of making a deal.

in most of my games I have 60-80 pops by 2220....but even if it's not the case...by the time Galactic market will be established you'll be able to buy yourself 4 slaves on every planet, o compensate the criminals

 

[Vilcoyote]

As an autoritharian esclavagist if i don't build lots of commercial zone, criminal synd is usefull to provide me amentities with the night club building

 

[Azmodael]

Well as you can see there are people who think it's beneficial so I'm trying to understand if I'm missing anything. So far I don't see it. They say 10 stability on highly developed world is amazing, but they seem to ignore the fact that it costs you 4 pops. For a world to benefit more from 10 stability than loss suffered from 4 pop vacancy, I'd say it has to be pretty late in the game and before that point, criminal syndicates are bad for you. So basically throughout most of the game they're bad.

You have to realize that criminal syndicate buildings become harmful the moment Criminal Underground triggers and you as the owner of the planet are in power to influence that. Early game your capital is the only good planet for the Crime Syndicate to make a branch on and it has -25 innate crime suppression from the capital modifier. It is usually enough to prevent that event from spawning. In the meantime you get to enjoy the bonus from the building.

Of those the +10 amenities or +5 trade power are amazing and so is the +1 merchant job.

Even the 2 clerk jobs or 1 soldier job buildings are good, since you don't need to spend any minerals or upkeep for the building that supports them. It also doesn't add to your sprawl.

In the end crime syndicate is the "evil" corporation and it's meant to harm you and help the corporation. This is actually advice on how to minimize the damage they cause and even turn it to your advantage.

PS:
Deal with the crime lord is an endgame too where the base crime for pops is already too high. Instead of wasting jobs on enforcers you just accept the presence of the criminals (which don't take 2 of your building slots as prescints do) and get 10 stab as compensation.

 

[Ridixo]

Yeah, Syndicates are more parasitic but even when the increase in crime is the primary effect in the planet there are others as well. The underground clubs increase amenities, the front corporations gives jobs, many other buildings of the branch office give the planet trade value. It's easy to be generous when you are going to steal back everything you give them

 

[Kryndude]

Okay after hearing to what people say it seems I've been wrong to state that Syndicates are down right bad. I'm still convinced that in the early game they're no good for you, but I can see that as your planets mature the benefit would grow more and more until you surpass the break even point and fully benefit from then on. Thank you everyone for explanations.

 

[Less2]

Well as you can see there are people who think it's beneficial so I'm trying to understand if I'm missing anything. So far I don't see it. They say 10 stability on highly developed world is amazing, but they seem to ignore the fact that it costs you 4 pops. For a world to benefit more from 10 stability than loss suffered from 4 pop vacancy, I'd say it has to be pretty late in the game and before that point, criminal syndicates are bad for you. So basically throughout most of the game they're bad.

It's not 10 stability and 4 pops working criminals vs. nothing. It's 10 stability and 4 pops working as criminals vs 4 pops (or more) working as enforcers (with higher maintenance costs than criminals) + 1 or more building slots for policing.

The Crime lord deal would have absolutely benefitted you had you not spawned next to a criminal syndicate. As it is, it's still more beneficial to have the crime lord deal and let crime go on than to fight the syndicate, and past a certain size it's essentially wholly beneficial compared to not having the syndicate.