Battle for Midtown

This is where it all started for syndicate creation and events for Crime City!

There was no announcement in the game about the creation of syndicates, so anyone that was not following the GREE/Funzio forum was left in the dark. Some may have noticed that when fighting another player, sometimes a strange item would pop out: A brick! Great... a brick... But what the hell do I do with a brick? I can't find it in my inventory, what is it? A bit of searching around led to the GREE forum and some threads on syndicate formation.

Syndicates started sometime in January/February of 2013 and players had to work together to figure out what to do and how to work together as a team. Bricks and in-game cash were donated to build walls (hideouts) and purchase bonuses that all team members could enjoy. Bonuses had 5 levels and many were not cheap, but having up to a 25% increase in attack and defense for guns, armor, melee, explosives, and vehicles really pumped the stats up. Not to mention having a whopping 25% increase in building output.

Without having much knowledge about the upcoming events or battle at the end, players needed to develop fighting strategy for an unknown event. As teams would soon learn, strategy is absolutely crucial for gaining the most Influence Points during battles. How do we efficiently take down the Defense Leader? Who attacks the hideouts? Which opponent players do we attack for the most IP? Those teams that did not have a good game plan or could not adapt their strategy on the fly were destined to struggle.

I'm pretty sure this was GREE's intention, but syndicate events were a fantastic method of ramping gold use tremendously. Prior to syndicate events, gold was generally spent on Open Case events, Defeat the Boss events, Limited Edition buildings, and refilling energy or stamina. With the introduction of syndicates and enticing rewards, teams could fight together, pool their resources, and earn sweet rewards for the entire team. Fighting for the tiered placements and rewards increased gold use and the team environment allowed peer pressure to cause people who would normally not buy gold to purchase some to help their team win.

If the game wasn't already addictive enough, syndicates completely changed the game and addictive nature.