You must be new in town, huh? -- Well then, welcome to Chicago.
This city requires you to have an ear to the ground when it comes to less-than-legal dealings in this city. Since the start of Prohibition there’s been an explosion in all kinds of dirty dealings, and someone in the right spot with the right know-how stands to make a neat chunk of change. If you’re interested in breweries, speakeasies, casinos, brothels, or hell, just taking a chunk of the city and making it yours, then you’re in the right place. And don’t take this personal, pal, but you seem like the type who would be interested. But you don’t know Chicago like I do. This wiki will give you some tips about how things work around the town.
Starting a New Game
The first destination on your way into Chicago is going to be the Empire of Sin start screen. From here you will be able to start and manage save games.
You have several options, some of which are discussed in more detail in this section.
- Load Game: Allows you to load a previous saved game or autosave. If you don’t have any saved games, this option will not be available.
- New Game: Allows you to customize a new game start and get an opportunity to learn about your Boss and others through interactive intro scenes.
- Quick Start: Allows you to start a new game but bypass the interactive intro scenes.
- Settings: Allows you to customize Empire of Sin to your system specifications and play style.
- Credits: Shows the list of all the individuals who brought you Empire of Sin.
- Quit: Exits Empire of Sin and heads back to the real world.
Load Game
The Load Game screen will present you with a list of all the game sessions you have begun on the left hand-side, displaying the boss played, the time and date of the lastest save, and the in game month and year. On the right hand-side you will see all saves available for a particular game session once it’s highlit. Select a save-file on the right to load or delete it.
New Game
Selecting New Game will take you to the Boss select screen. This is the character through which you will be experiencing most of the world of Empire of Sin.
Selecting the left and right arrows on either side of the boss window will cycle through the available bosses. Each boss has four primary attributes:
- Boss Ability: A specific combat ability, unique to each boss that they can use during a fight. Taking the above picture for example, you can see Frank’s Boss Ability is the Home Run, which allows him to rush an enemy target and deliver a devastating melee blow.
- Empire Bonuses: An enterprise bonus, that gives a boost to elements of two different types of racket.
- Diplomatic Bonus: A public relations bonus that is based on a boss’ own background and personality. Taking Frank as an example again, you can see that thanks to his background with Ragen’s Colts, he has Strength In Numbers which lowers the rate of his threat generation when he has a crew behind him.
Those differences are explained in more detail in the Boss section, and a run down of each available boss is provided in Appendix X.
Once you have selected a boss, you will be able to set the rules for this game session.
You can change three factors:
- Neighborhoods: Set the amount of in-game neighborhoods between three and ten. A smaller amount of neighborhoods means a quicker, tighter game.
- Enemy Factions: Set the number of enemy factions you will be playing against..
- Difficulty: Choose between one of the five difficulty settings: Associate, Made, Lieutenant, Underboss, Boss.
Quick Start
Choosing Quick Start will bring you through the same process as the New Game option, but will start you up in the game right after the initial boss sitdown that usually begins a new game.
Play to Win
Now that you’re in Chicago, it’s time to get to work building the biggest empire you can. Unluckily for you, there’s already a few powerful players in town trying to do exactly the same thing. The only way to win in Empire of Sin is to eliminate every other major faction and become the undisputed King or Queen of Crime in the city. To do that, you’re gonna have to hire gangsters, sell booze, buy (or forcefully takeover) rackets, and carefully execute alliances and betrayals.