Advertisement

Drugs/natural resources in west africa conflict zones

Started by August 04, 2013 06:17 PM
5 comments, last by Jungle Friend Studios 11 years, 4 months ago

Hi

Im doing a management/strategy game in a fictional western african setting. The players runs a criminal militia that build bases in the wilderness for explotation and control of the region. Some ways to earn money may be (plz comment):

1. Cannabis fields. Sell in towns or export. Not much processing? Western africa seem to export mostly in marijuana form not hashish?

2. Diamond deposits, sell to exporters. Sell as rough nuggets? Not likely cut in camps in the jungle right?

3. Gold mines, sell to exporters. Some processing at base?

What about other ways? Other drugs to grow? How about lab-made chemical drugs like LSD, speed etc. Most likely not made in simple labs right? Meth production seems to increase in the area since 2011, i guess i could have such labs maybe... (heroin/cocaine is not grown in africa).

Drugs are "fun" for gameplay reasons as supply and demand can play a role.

Some other natural resource to exploit? I know about oil but its to bulky (need many tons of goods for profit). Another gemtype (other than diamond)?

Thanks for your input

(and plz dont turn this into an ethical/morality discussion)

Erik

Some random thoughts

Oil fields - "protection"

Slavery

Wildlife poaching

piracy (if coastal)

food and medicines -- stolen from the humanitarian charities

political and official corruption

Tribal wars

Arms trading

The more normal criminal vices i.e. drugs prostitution and gambling

Hope this helps :)

Advertisement

An interesting dimension to add might be the transportation and distribution of whatever goods the player can produce. It doesn't matter how many illegal diamonds you have if you can't sell them to anyone. Different militias could even use their distribution networks as products themselves-- you could have a service-only militia that doesn't do anything but traffic for others.

It also adds a regional element to the game: diamonds exist only in specific places, so a camp has to be placed in one to get that resource regardless of how hard it is to move or sell. Anything that can be produced in a lab is a totally different story.

I like all of Storymnature's suggestions, especially oil fields (consider adding pipeline protection too), arms dealing, territorial disputes, and slavery (especially something like child soldiers, which is recent and horrifying enough to be out of the mold of "traditional" crime simulators).

-------R.I.P.-------

Selective Quote

~Too Late - Too Soon~

What about foreign investment like in Tropico? You could loosely simulate this by maybe having "East" and "West" powers or capitalist and communist powers which will give you money in exchange for playing a certain way. For example, if you take money from one side they may be interested in your human rights record overtly but covertly only really care about you keeping out the other side, whereas the other side may give you more money initially but require greater and greater things of you later on to recoup on their investment.

--------------------Just waiting for the mothership...

Mercenaries?

If you're willing to wade into the politically toxic, you can reap children from near-by villages to be trained up as child-soldiers and sell them as mercenaries, which is pretty much representative of what is going on in the real world.

You can also propogandize your fights as religiously motivated to get external funding, depending on what sect you align with, or financially exploit the influx of foriegn fighters who come to wage a holy war. Positioning yourself relative to certain groups is a great way to get an influx of funds and arms from motivated third parties in other countries who like the idea of your side winning but not enough to get mired down in the muck of fighting.

If you're feeling satirical, you can put a price on a bunch of territories, where each land region is worth exactly 1 'nothing', and you can trade your valueless 'nothing's for enthusiasm on the part of local fighters to defend their utterly worthless territory.

Tribal/gang factions to deal with

Child soldiers

Coersion thru murder ....

--------------------------------------------[size="1"]Ratings are Opinion, not Fact
Advertisement

There's nothing politically touchy about things that are terrible and downright wrong. If you're going to make a game like this, make sure it's in very good taste and your reasoning for it is sound. It's a very fine line to walk - It's interesting to me as a platform for change, but I think the audience will get the wrong idea.

Looking to meet strategic partners and other game developers!

Skype: JungleFriendMax

This topic is closed to new replies.

Advertisement