Empire of Sin – Diplomacy Guide

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Diplomacy

It’s only a matter of time once you start exploring Chicago before you run into a rival faction. It’d be great if you could just blow away all the competition, but sometimes you have to play nice when dealing with others. There are a lot of benefits to keeping your rivals on your good side, from trading to alliances.

Diplomacy Screen

All of your interactions with rival factions are managed from the Diplomacy Screen. This screen also shows how each gang you’ve encountered feels about you. You can also see how many rackets your rivals hold, as well as how much cash they have. An important piece of information available on the Diplomacy screen is the Agenda: you can see what your rivals are currently focusing on. Knowing what your potential enemies are up to is useful when trying to move against them.

Faction Rating

Faction Rating is a basic measure of how another gang feels about you, running from -500 to 500. You’ll start off on zero with most factions, except for gangs run by bosses who have the same personality type or heritage as you. Otherwise, faction rating is impacted by a variety of actions – starting up new rackets, doing favours, going to war. Everyone will have an opinion on almost everything you do, for better or worse. Your rating with a faction will affect how successful you are at performing diplomatic actions with them, such as asking to trade or forming an alliance.

Threat

Threat is a measure of how big a danger another gang perceives you to be. It is affected by the size of your empire, how close your rackets are to theirs, how many gangsters you have hired, and any violent actions you take.

Faction Ranking

You can also monitor how well your gang is ranking overall, compared to the other gangs operating around Chicago.

The rankings are split into different categories that cover most aspects of running a criminal empire in the Windy City. They are:

  • Strength: A ranking of strength over all the gangs in the city, from strongest to weakest. Strength is based on a combination of your net income and how many gangsters you have in your crew. The bigger your empire, crew, and income, the stronger you’ll be overall.
  • Cash: A ranking of which gang is holding the most money currently.
  • Alcohol: A ranking of which gang is producing the most alcohol currently.
  • Rackets: A ranking of which gang has the most rackets currently.

These numbers may appear to be insignificant at a glance, but they can help you keep a close eye on how well you’re competing with other gangs, and can be a good insight into what areas you may want to improve, so that you don’t lose your foothold to another gang.

Honor

Honor isn’t a measure of your morality, but rather how true to your word you are. Other rivals want to know if you will back out on a deal or not, but they also want to know if you’ll back up a threat once it’s made.

Sit-down

You can request a sit-down with a boss to discuss various options. Upon encountering a faction (minor factions don’t have bosses) for the first time, you will have the option of having an initial sit-down. This will allow you to get to know them a little, as well as decide if you want to tentatively work with them, or refuse.

After this, you can request a sitdown with them to end a war or a business arrangement with another faction, to request a truce if you are at war, or to demand retribution for an action they have taken against you.

Discuss

Outside of sitdowns, you can discuss things with a rival boss directly from the Diplomacy screen.

This gives you several options:

  • Set up a Standing Order: Set up a standing order with a boss for a certain amount and type of booze for a set price per month.
  • Request Protection: Ask the boss to protect you from attack for six months for a set price.
  • Offer Business Arrangement: A business arrangement means you are formalized allies with the faction. This greatly increases your faction rating, and allows you to ask for favors or Defensive Pacts.
  • Offer Tribute: Offer to pay a selected amount as tribute to the faction’s boss. This can greatly improve your faction rating.
  • Request Non-Aggression Pact: You agree not to attack each other for a set period of time.

Favors

You can ask for a variety of favors. Other bosses will only give favors to you if you have entered into a business relationship. You can ask for, or be asked for by another boss, for the following:

  • Kill Someone: Ask the other faction to take out a gangster. If that gangster is working for another boss, it could make taking out that boss that little bit easier. Or if you’re feeling brave you can ask them to take out another boss.
  • Put in a Good Word With…: You can ask a boss to put in a good word with another faction that they are friendly with, increasing your faction rating with them.
  • Borrow Money: You can ask to borrow any amount of money. How much a faction is willing to give you is determined by your faction rating and honor.
  • Borrow Alcohol: Borrow a set amount of a certain kind of alcohol. Your faction rating and honor impact whether the boss will agree to do you this favor.

Trade

Trading with other factions is also handled through the Diplomacy screen. After selecting Trade, you will be able to make an offer of items or cash from your inventory, and ask for items from the rival faction’s inventory.

You will be able to see if the other boss will accept your offer and the reasons affecting their decision making: your honor, your reputation with them, and your threat level.

There is also an opportunity for some subterfuge: while trading alcohol, you are able to attempt to disguise your alcohol as a higher grade of booze.

Police

When it comes to diplomacy, the cops are just another gang you gotta deal with. While you cannot declare war or request a sitdown with the police, you can discuss things in much the same way you can with other factions. The police have their own unique options available to discuss:

  • Bribe to Improve Relations: Kick the cops some money in the hopes they’ll take a shine to you.
  • Turn a Blind Eye for $X: With a high enough standing with the police, you can pay them a large sum of money in order to turn a blind eye to your criminal activities.
  • Request 6 Months Protection for $X: If the cops are amenable to you, you can pay them to protect your rackets for a period of time.
  • Clean Slate: For a large sum, the police can be bribed to release incarcerated members of your crew.

War

When you think you have the muscle to take out an enemy faction completely, you can declare war. This is done under the Action heading of the Diplomacy screen.

When declaring war, you will be given a success chance rating as well as the option to invite any allies to join you, as well as seeing what allies will join your enemy. Your success chance is based on your relative faction ranking compared to the faction you are attacking. This chance has an impact on whether or not allies will accept your invitation to war. A variety of other factors will determine if another faction will want to enter your war: their opinion of the target, the target’s strength, your honor rating, and your faction rating with the invited faction. When war is declared, all members of the enemy faction will be hostile to you, and their rackets will only be able to be entered when attacked. War’s end when a truce is declared, or when the opposing boss is killed.

Moles

A gangster can be sent to be a mole in a rival gang. This is done by going to their character sheet and selecting “Make Mole” at the bottom of the screen. You will be given an option of which gang to send them to, and their percentage chance of completing their given task. The task the mole will be sent to complete will be based on the gangster profession.

Below is a list of the different tasks each profession carries out as mole:

  • Hired Gun: Take out rival boss.
  • Enforcer: Steal some cash.
  • Demolitionist: Sabotage one of the target factions’ rackets.
  • Doctor: Plant misinformation. This will make the targeted faction angry at another faction, lowering that faction’s rating with your chosen target.
  • Con Artist: cannot become Moles.

The higher a gangster tier, the better chance they will have of being a successful mole. If your mole is unsuccessful, there is a chance that they will be caught and killed by the targeted faction.

Sal’s Tips

Keeping things friendly between a bunch of hot-headed, power-hungry gangsters ain’t easy. But I’ve been in this town a long time – I know how to get by without too much trouble. At least til you’re ready to start some trouble, anyway. Here’s a few tips on being diplomatic with your rivals:

  • Keep the Booze Movin’ – Having too little alcohol is bad, but so is having too much just sitting around, not making you any money. Trade alcohol with other bosses to keep your alcohol levels just right.
  • Friends with Benefits – Every rival boss has their own unique ways of running a criminal empire – these bonuses can be yours if you make an alliance with them. Check what bonuses other Bosses are running with, and make friends with those who have bonuses you’re interested in.
  • Know Your Enemies – Each Boss has their own unique personality. Some just ain’t as trustworthy as others. Getting to know another Boss’s traits will make dealing with them easier.
Volodymyr Azimoff
About Volodymyr Azimoff 7933 Articles
I love games and I live games. Video games are my passion, my hobby and my job. My experience with games started back in 1994 with the Metal Mutant game on ZX Spectrum computer. And since then, I’ve been playing on anything from consoles, to mobile devices. My first official job in the game industry started back in 2005, and I'm still doing what I love to do.

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