How to play the game

The Hooded Gunman Game Guide, Learn how to play the worlds first game about the Northern Ireland “troubles”

Fast Start
1. Go to the Hire section and scout for defensive units and/or operatives.
2. Go to the Black Market to purchase drugs and alcohol and weapons to make your crew happy. You need to arm your defensive units. Keep in mind that defensive units without weapons won't do a thing. Also pay attention to your happiness levels. It's easy to keep them happy but if you don't they will leave you.
3. Make some cash by collecting from your casinos, brothels, loan sharks, and gambling dens.
4. When you have enough turns, go scout for more operatives and defensive units and repeat from step 1.
5. When you feel strong enough, you can attack other players within range. Keep in mind that when you attack someone they will have a revenge to use against you. This is the real World: "an eye for an eye, arm, and a leg".
6. You can protect a percentage of your cash in the bank. This will safeguard it from attacks.
7. Joining a family is wise, since you won't be able to survive very long by yourself. You also have the option of creating your own family.
8. Enjoy the game and watch your back :)

Rounds
Each round length may or may not be different however once the round ends everything starts over from scratch. You can select a new name at the start of each round. Each round is clean slate. Nothing will roll over from round to round. This means all turns, cash, defensive units, operatives, guns, drugs, cars and planes; none of it follows you in the next round. Use it or lose it.

Turns & Reserves
Turns are required for everything. For example: attacking someone, hiring defensive units, collecting cash from your whores. All of these actions require turns. Every 5 or 10 minutes (depending on the length of the round) you will receive a certain number of turns, depending on the round settings. You also start each round with a given amount of reserves. These reserves can be used at anytime during the active round. Reserves do not carry over into the next round.
You can get more turns in two ways:
1. Purchase turns/credits directly, which you can add to any round you choose and use whenever you want.
2. Win turns/credits (this will be determined by the settings of each round)
In order to use credits, they must be moved from your account to your active reserves. Once in your reserves, they must be used in that round. Unused reserves are lost at the end of the round. Won credits expire 30 days after they are issued, so don't let them go unused.

Net worth
Ranking is based on net worth. Here is how net worth is calculated:
Card Dealers (£2,500) + Whores (£2,000) + Bootleggers (£1,500) + Hustlers (£1,000) + Punks (£500) + Hitmen (£1,000) + Thugs (£500) + Bodyguards (£300) + cash + bank + Chrysler 300 (£8,000) + S-Class long (£40,000) + Gulfstream Jet (£40,000) + Boeing 737-400 (£250,000) + alcohol (£1) + Weed (£2) + Coke (£5) + Glock (£400) + Shotgun (£800) + Uzi (£2,000) + AK-47 (£4,000) = Net worth.

Families
The Hooded Gunman is a simulation of the terrorist underworld in Northern Ireland. Just like the real Northern Ireland, you can join families - a group of people sharing the same goals and philosophy, these families may or may not have a home-town (depending on the round settings) where you may or may not gain an advantage (again depending on the round settings) . A family can bring protection and respect from other players, and it can allow you to trust in your fellow members. Trust and respect can save your life, but can also get you killed.

Hire
One of the basics of organized crime is to do things your own way and not end up in prison. This is accomplished by not committing any crimes yourself, instead paying others to do your dirty work. In order to maintain this power, you need different types of personnel to perform all the different tasks and duties. To scout for crew members, use your turns and scout in the place offering the type of people you are looking for.

Operatives
Operatives work in your businesses and produce different kind of goods or collect cash. The operatives you can hire are:
Card dealers - work in your casino and determine how much cash your tables roll out.
Whores - work in your brothel and determine how much cash people will pay for a good time.
Bootleggers - work in your speakeasy and determine how much liquor you will produce.
Hustlers - work in your loan shark's office and collect loan payments.
Punks - work in your gambling den and push people to bet.

Defensive Units
Defensive units protect you and your operatives, and can attack other players. The defensive units you can hire are:
Hitmen - their strength is their intelligence and superb weapons skills. They kill for you and protect you.
Drug Dealers - not as intelligent or well mannered as Hitmen. They also attack others and protect you.
Bodyguards - really easy to get and will protect you well. However, they are not that effective when attacking.

Happiness
Having a happy crew is critical to success. If your operatives or defensive units are not happy, they will start leaving you as soon as you ask them to work. Your operatives need alcohol and coke to be happy. They will also need defensive units to protect them. Your defensive units need alcohol and weed to be happy. They need to have anywhere from 2 Glocks to 1 AK-47 per defensive unit to be happy.

Black Market
In the black market you can buy whatever you need. You can purchase narcotics, weapons, cars and planes. You can also sell your items if needed, but you won't get as much back as you paid for them in the first place, so make your decisions wisely.
Narcotics are mainly used to make your guys happy. Your defensive units need alcohol and weed to be happy. Your operatives need alcohol and coke to be happy.
Weapons are used for attacks and defense as well as maintaining happiness. You can purchase Glocks, Shotguns, even Uzis and AK-47s. You must have one gun per defensive and can sell all weapons that are in excess of your defensive units. The more expensive the weapon, the more efficient it is in dealing death.
Cars are used for drive-by attacks and stealing other player's cars. The Capri seats 5 people and the Granada seats 10 people.
Planes and Black taxis are used to travel to other cities and stealing other player's planes/taxis. If you have enough planes/taxis, you won't need to purchase plane tickets to travel to other cities. The Black taxi can carry 40 people and the Boeing 737-400 can fly 300 people.

Produce
Production is one part of your illegal activity. You can use turns to produce coke, weed, and alcohol as well as cash.
Thugs are used to produce coke and weed in your drug lab.
Bootleggers are used to produce alcohol in your speakeasy.
Punks are used to print fake money.

Collect
You can also use turns to collect cash from your businesses. You own casinos, brothels, loan sharks and gambling dens.
Card dealers are used to run your casino tables.
West Belfast Millies are used to work in your brothels.
Hustlers are used to collect loan payments in your loan shark offices.
Racketeers are used to run your gambling dens.

Cash and the Bank
Just like the real world, you have a bank account as well as the money in your pocket. However, keeping money in your pocket is risky. Other players can attack you and take whatever you have. So, depositing a part of it in the bank might be a good idea. You are able to deposit up to 75% of your money into the bank, or your personal safebox and 25% is kept loose.

Later, if you want to add more money in to the bank, you can deposit 75% of all the total cash you currently have. You can withdraw it all when you need it at anytime for free. If you need cash right away, you can use the  Pawn to exchange turns for cash.

Attacking
To attack a player, go to the Attack screen and click on the link of the player you wish to attack. You can also attack directly from their profile screen. When you are viewing their profile, click on attack. If you see "Out of Range" instead of "Attack", you cannot attack that player. You can only attack players between 1/2 to 4 times your net worth. The Hooded Gunman will automatically take your best crew members armed with the best weapons in order to have the most efficient attack possible.

There is a limit to the amount of times a player can be hit. You can be hit up to 7 times in 1 day, and then you are "maxed".

There are 7 different types of attacks:
1. Drive-by - This attack inflicts more damage (on both sides) than any other, so it can be used to quickly kill an opponent if you have enough cars. You do not steal anything during this attack. You attack with as many people as your cars can carry.
2. Run up in Headquarters - Invade your enemy's headquarters and whack their defensive units. You steal money if you win the attack.
3. Extort Business - Invade your enemy's businesses and whack their defensive units AND operatives (if you win the attack).
4. Attack Armory - Invade your enemy's armory. You kill their defensive units, and steal guns if you win the attack.
5. Sabotage Drug Labs - You kill their defensive units and steal drugs from your opponent if you win.
6. Steal planes - In order to steal someone's planes, you need to make sure all of their defensive units are dead. You can only steal planes if you have enough planes and defensive units.
7. Jack cars - In order to steal someone's car, you need to make sure all of their defensive units are dead and that you own enough cars.

Revenge
You are allowed to take revenge attacks on any player that has attacked you, within a 24 hour period of the attack occurring.
Be careful though, as once you take revenge, that player will have revenge on you.

Travel
Traveling is used for different purposes, such as running away from someone that is trying to kill you, moving to another city in order to kill someone, or traveling to and from the city where your family is located. Being in your own city has pros and cons. A pro is that your family offers you more protection in your hometown; a con is that it's easier for your enemies to find you.

TopDogs
These staff members include the Admins, Mods and Helpers. They monitor the game and make sure everyone is playing fair. It's best to stay on the TopDogs' good side. If you have any problems, come across a bug in the game or have found a game abuser, let them know by sending any one of them a message (preferably to the staff member(s) currently online; the rest are probably sleeping or out buying more alcohol). You can also use the topdogs board to alert the staff to any of the above situations. Posting on the topdogs board is the ONLY way to request compensation if you have been attacked by a player who was subsequently removed from the game.