I have two families fighting for control over a city. So my question is What are some ways these families can wage war against each other? What i had in mind was do it the way mob families would rage war against each other by trying to kill off the other family. They can come up with different ways to kill each other but how repetitive would that be. For example: John tries to kill Matt. It fails and Matt tries to kill John. It fails, so now John attempts to kill Matt wife since she seems like an easier target. Just a bunch of back and forth until either: 1. One family kills off the other family. or 2. One family gives up and leaves the city. or 3. The families decides to work together and end the war. I'm going to create methods for how they try to kill each other to make it crazy and interesting. i just think people would find it repetitive. So i was wondering what are some other methods they can wage war against each other.
Families can wage war against each other in tons of ways. Destroying property, reputations, business partnerships, friendships, alliances, killing members, deceiving one family into believing there's a double agent, actually putting a double agent into the other family, etc.
Control as in, basically No other family is allowed to make money in this city unless the family thats in control is getting they share. And since these are huge families we talking about, nobody is trying to share profits so its either all or nothing.... And the family that is in control has rules and laws that other families must follow if they want to live in this city.
Okay, so mob story then. I'd check out the various "5 families" wars of NYC. Specifically Lucky Luciano and the Genovese in 1920s-30s and John Gotti vs. Paul Castellano in the 80s. Remember, mob bosses always get killed in restaurants! Most of that Godfather shit was taken from the rise of the Genovese crime family...
And it needn't all be about killing each other. Depending on the code of honor, organized crime groups might interfere with each other by ratting out the opposition's operations to law enforcement. If the... Pepperoncino family knows that the... Yakitori syndicate is selling homeopathic remedies that, in fact, contain measurable quantities of FDA certified medications, they might drop a dime to the Gwyneth Paltrow's enforcement division as to the location of the warehouse, leading to the arrest of a number of key skewers...
If the gangs deal in anything, say drugs, the other gangs could steal their goods while they're being transported and sell them themselves. (Or hire thugs to do it for them.) Also, you could give one gang an edge by having them make a deal with the police. The other gang would be trying to make their rivals fall out of the city management's favor or put one of their own in office. Also, it might be an interesting idea to have a council of all the crime families in the area, of which there could be four to six. It would be a small council, but its job would be to tell the families to knock it off and stop intruding on each other like civilized criminals. Of course, since members of both opposing families would be on the council, all they'd do is tell them to knock it off and then sit on their thumbs doing nothing when they get ignored. Eventually, one faction could gain power over the others and start denying supplies to the opposing family-- no more ammo, no more going into this part of town, etc, and the other family would be trying to counter that by doing the same to them. Eventually the council gets so divided it dissolves itself and just joins the feud. Don't know if having this kind of thing would be too much, but... Also, you might try researching "secret combinations". It's a term in Mormonism that describes any cult or organized force for evil like al Qaeda, the Mafia, the Clinton Foundation, etc. They subvert morality and the government to their own ends, and protect their own brotherhood members at any cost. They deal in secrets, murder and theft. In the Book of Mormon, there was a cult called the Gadianton Robbers who conducted raids to take whatever they wanted, and they put their members in government positions so they could protect their members from legal punishment. It's interesting stuff, and it's also helpful because there are so many today to be aware of.
I was going to mention this too. A lot of your crime family's success will depend on their ability to co-opt the traditional authorities. This would include police and politicians. Both the mayor of Providence and the governor of Rhode Island went to jail for corruption when I was growing up. It took years for the Feds to build their case but none of what they were doing was even remotely secret to anybody. The newspapers used to make fun of it and nobody cared. Check out mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci for a take on this. This fucking guy had his hands in every illegal mob racket you could think of and nobody gave a shit. He ripped off tax payers like Robin Hood and still nearly got reelected when he came out of jail.
lol I wouldn't say mob families. If there is no police or presidents or mayors etc etc, can you really call them a crime family since they activities wouldnt really be illegal?
lol i wouldnt call them mob families and there is no police officers since the only enforcements the city has is the one the family in control supply or hire.
Still doesn't change much. The Prince didn't have much control over the Capulets and Montagues, did he? EDIT: Sorry, didn't read that carefully enough. In your story, the Prince would be the head of the main family, but the other families could still betray each other to him, couldn't they?
its not mob families lol but you did point out some very interesting stuff that i can use, so thank you for that lol
Lol yes correct.... they control how justice is serve. They make sure businesses stay open and supply law enforcement to keep criminals off the street etc etc etc
If you feel that constant assassination attempts prove repetitive: why does the feud have to mean killing? Perhaps the warring families might find it more satisfying to completely destroy the other's credibility so utterly that that would be a fate worse than death for them if they were particularly proud, and would be a much sweeter victory. That could mean destroying them economically, hitting their various fronts and operations. Perhaps they could blow a whistle to the police on a certain clandestine operation, which would mix it up a bit. Discredit them in the media with some sensitive scandal, manufactured or not. There's plenty of other ways than just murder,
Have a look at the ways political domination has been achieved over cities. As has been said above, there have been strikes, infiltration, entryism, vandalism, propaganda, community work etc. The IRA were very good at this, if you want to look into the way they became a huge part of the Catholic community in the Six Counties.
This sounds to me a little bit more like feudalism than the mob wars of the 1920s/30s. In that there isn't some higher authority over the feuding families, the way there were theoretically police who fought against all the mob families of the '30s. I wonder if a good model wouldn't be some of the internecine struggles in Italian city states in the middle ages? Like the Grimaldis vs Spinolas in Genoa. That's not really my area of expertise but it may be worth a look.