Company of Crime – Gameplay Guide
Criminal Campaign
Strategy Map
Your units can perform Assignments. Assignments sometimes lead to tactical missions.
More assignments are unlocked as you progress in the game.
Some assignments require you to have Fear or Respect in the district where you want to do that assignment.
Menace assignment & mission will lead to enemy faction losing ownership of a location. You need Fear before you can perform this.
Coerce Ownership assignment & mission will bring the location under your ownership. It requires you to have respect in the district you want to perform that.
Owning locations will unlock new features and items. Unlocking even more stuff requires you to raise your location level.
Enemy or neutral location’s level dictates how heavily it is defended.
Units will rest and heal automatically, but you can heal them faster with heal assignments. Wounded units cannot perform any other assignment.
Heat influences what the police do and can do. Some of your locations reduce heat every day.
If your unit has a Heat trait – it will create extra heat in both the strategy map and tactical missions it participates in.
If you have a situation where multiple assignments lead to tactical missions, the least meaningful one(s) will auto-resolve. There are many factors in play that will be auto resolved, but in general, the least important missions and locations you’ve been to often are more likely to be chosen.
If AI attacks a location that you’re extorting – you lose respect in that district. But for a short time, you will get a retaliate bonus (extra respect) if you attack the same enemy who attacked ‘your’ civilians.
Tactical Missions
Each unit, apart from civilians, has a Zone Of Control. Moving within or away from Zone Of Control triggers a free attack.
Status effects remove Zone Of Control. Status effects are earned with moves like a kick in the nuts.
Each unit has 2 action points.
Most skills can be combined with movement.
Flanking bonus is earned for attacks from behind. That’s why the unit movement comes with a choice of orientation.
Heat brings the police force every time a threshold is crossed.
More loud and violent actions bring more heat. Knockouts and kills also bring additional heat.
If you have a lot of Heat in the strategy layer, you will start the mission with pre-accumulated heat that grows faster. In the worst possible case, you start with some gained Heat.
When the police arrive – the game reveals where your units have dropped items. Leaving them behind will increase the heat a lot.
Air gun is a strange gun because it doesn’t trigger a gunfight. Bottles and ashtrays are also good ranged weapons to use in a brawl.
Getting units arrested in a police raid is a smaller thing than not destroying the account books.
Police Campaign
Strategy Map
To wipe out an organized crime you need to arrest their mid-bosses and raid their locations.
The final mission for each crime faction is a story mission, unlocked by reducing the boss & location count of that faction.
To find out suspicious locations, assign your sergeants on patrol duty.
To find out owners of locations, use patrols, informants, or crime scene investigations.
Raiding a place needs evidence and a known location owner. Successful raid makes the location-neutral/civilian owned.
Police units have no upkeep and cost nothing to hire
Promotions will provide you with more sergeants, more units, and more units for missions. They are earned via story steps.
Crime scenes are spawned after missions and after certain assignments. You can perform three assignments there, but crime scenes will be removed soon, so make sure you assign units immediately.
Interrogating suspects requires evidence but will reduce the boss count.
Tactical Missions
Arresting units take place from behind or from knocked-out state.
Arresting boss units will reduce their count in the strategy layer, helping you wipe out the criminal faction.
Police brutality is bad. Shooting first, attacking civilians, killing unarmed or lightly armed crooks will lead to internal investigations.
Criminals will try to flee, so make sure you arrest or stop them before they do that.