Crusader Kings 2 meets the Costra Nosa with a good pinch of 4x: It's "
Mafia Dons"
So, I've been playing Mafia 3 recently. One of the main mechanics of that game is that there are 9 districts of the city it's set in, and these are all conquerable. Each one of these districts must be assigned to one of 3 Lieutenants, as you can't hold them directly. Each Lieutenant starts out in a home district, and each one is beside a district that it would make geographically for them to hold, as well as matching their skills, although it's still up to you who holds them.
One Lieutenant is a traditional Italian Mafioso, One is part of the Irish Mob, and one is Black Haitian gangster. Each one and their crews have their own strengths and weaknesses, and each Lieutenant is looking to hold as many districts as possible, and become extremely annoyed if passed over. Each district has at least 2 major "rackets" running it, that is to say an illegal money making operation.
The whole experience has brought back fond memories of
Gangsters: Organised Crime, a classic 4x style game from the 90s. In that game, you controlled 1 of 4 gangs all competing to grab hold of an entire city. You can win in various ways: Amassing a fortune, acquiring a political office (become the mayor), or wiping out all your enemies. What was so fun about G:OC was you had so many ways of achieving your goals. One way was extorting as much of the city as possible, the classic Mafia "protection money" racket. But you also build far more complex rackets: Buy up a grocery store, build an illegal alcohol still behind it, and boom, now you're a booze baron. Combo your still with control of the highly sough after docks, and boom, now you're a national exporter. Combo your still with an illegal speak easy, and boom, you're the party king of not-Chicago. What's that, you control part of the cities slums? You've got a lot of unemployed young women on your hands? Set up a brothel and now you're a Pimp Lord. It goes on and on. There were so many very enjoyable ways to make money in G:OC. But what was also so fun was your AI opponents could set up highly profitable rackets as well, and what's more, each side could attack the other's rackets. One moment you're racking in the dough via an illegal casino operating out the back of a bank, the next moment you're cursing to high heaven that the East Side Greens just torched the place, leave 4 of your main squad dead in the process.
If you squint your eyes very hard, Gangsters: Organised Crime's character profiles become CK2 style ones in your mind...
1998's G:OC did get a sequel in 2001, however Gangsters 2 changed the gameplay from a turn based 4x style game to a RTS style, one that fans of the series didn't enjoy. The sequel focsed too much on combat, rather than the elements of what brought G:OC popularity: It's 4x style racket system that gave the players so much freedom.
I, personally, would love Paradox to do a Mobster game in the vein of G:OC, using the engine from CK2. I think mixing CK2 style characters (ie characters that have strong personalities and identities, and act off those), with the 4x style building an empire dynmaic from G:OC would lead to quite a thrilling game.
Going back to the start of this post: I mentioned Mafia 3, and the 3 Lieutenants compelling for power; I can so imagine those three as vassals in a CK2 system. Each one is a duke you need to manage in order to grow your empire. Each one has major pros and cons for your cause.
In my head, this game would span from around 1880, which was the emerged of organised crime in America, to the present day. Just as in CK2, you'd try and build a dynasty for your family, while every other family tries to do the same. Sons will try and claim their father's turf and rackets. Different Ethnicities will have different events: The Sicilians will demand traditional Mafia ideology and elitism is kept. The Irish will press their numbers to their advantage. Black Gangs will start terrible disadvantaged, but gain traction as history passes. The "melting pot" dynamic from CK2 can be used to show the shift in both the general population and the gangs from immigrants to hybrid natives i.e. Italian+American=Italian Americans, Irish+American=Irish Americans.
The player will face many challenges: Should their keep their gang mono-ethnic, and minimise identity politics with their organisation? Or should they have an open recruitment policy, allowing them to draw from many communities, and then in turn allow those recruits to manage those areas of the map? (Ie as a Sicilian Organisation, recruiting Irish members so you can use those members to work in areas populated many by the Irish). Should the player keep Omerta, the code of silence? Doing so would force their organisation to keep to the shadows and avoid at all costs the involvement of the FBI, or should the player let the city know who their gang is, vastly increasing their ability to intimate and terrorise the city into bending the knee?
In EU, you attempt to rule the world. In CK2, you attempt to rule a kingdom. In
Mafia Dons, you would attempt to rule an entire city, one two-bit racket at a time.
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