The basics This is the Police Guide

Newspapers. Each day before starting the work, the protagonist is reading headlines. Most of them tell about the moods of the community and events in Freeburg. Sometimes you can learn a bit more from them, for example that the mayor isn't happy about police effectiveness. This information should motivate you to improve your situation.

Shifts. You have access to two groups of subordinates - shift A and shift B. When one of them is working, the second is resting. This allows you to led quite effective but smaller group. Not only the policemen, but detectives are part of a shift as well. Transfers and assignments can be determined only during the day, not during the beginning or the end of the day. It's similar with firing and hiring subordinates. As for the first one, remember one rule - you must have a good reason to fire someone.

It's hard to be working when one's son had a serious accident. It is better to let such officer rest than create danger in work. All that's left is to promote someone.

Briefing. Before the day starts, you will learn if all policemen came to work and you will listen to various favors asked by your men. Sometimes the favors are small, for example one of them wants to finish the book and another is feeling bad. Other times they will give you some serious reasons - things to do in the office or a court trial. The small ones can be ignored (like finishing the book). If it is something serious like officer's son had a serious accident (1), then it is better to give a free day (in such state the officer won't be eager to work nor will he be effective in what he does. Sometimes you can give a free day but order the man to immediately come to the next shift. If you're not desperate, then it is better not to use this option. A rested policeman works better and a tired one will ask you for a free day anyway. In this case you can also promote someone (2). If you frequenly refuse to give your officers a free day, especially if they have a serious reason to ask for it, then they will be more eager to inform on you, for example for trading with the mob.

Calls. From time to time you can answer a call on the map or on the right side (grouped in a table). The calls are various tasks - a crime, a task to help citizen, beginning of an investigation, securing mafia activities and other. To each task you can send from one to a few officers. The number of slots will tell you whether the task is easy or hard. If the slots for assigning officers have red border, it means that all of them must be filled. More about how many officers you should send to which task can be read further in the large chapter "Calls, crimes and favors". The outcome of the action is always limited to whether the criminal escaped or was caught, the policeman survived or died and whether the civilians survived or were killed.

Various types of events that can occur.

When a call starts, a counter will appear and inform you how much time you have to send a patrol. You can wait for your men to return and send them in the last second. How fast you respond doesn't impact the outcome of the action. There are a few types of calls:

Yellow, orange and red. These calls can be about various crimes. The color changes as the time to the end of the countdown becomes shorter.

Green. Favors for the citizens of the city, often rich ones. Requires you to send a few policemen to specific place. Various things can happen there - they can resign from working because you treat them as errand boys, they can come back drunk or rested because they played games with kids for two hours. Usually you are awarded with money for these favors.

Purple. Place where investigation starts. Send your detectives there so that they start solving crime. Sometimes the crime will be a theft, a murder or finding gang members. Remember that if you don't start the investigation in the day when it appeared, then it won't be available the next day. Started investigations can be postponed for later. If you obtain evidence and learn who the culprit is, again one or more location markers will appear.

Blue/light orange. These are tasks for Vargas and Sand during a mob war. At that time you will receive many tasks of that color, so don't worry if you accidentally miss one. Usually they require 1-2 officers.

Black. A protest is at that place. In order to react to it you must send 4 policemen there, a SWAT team and (if you have it already a prison van. If you start the task, the patrol will always handle it, but the question is how you will act. You can always choose between using force or not. It depends on whether you follow mayor's advices. You will receive an option to fabricate evidence in order to have alibi.

Dark red. A chain of events related to a serial killer. One could call it a harder investigation. The opponent isn't easy and you will have to combine many pieces of a puzzle. If you want to keep the case a secret and solve it in your own way, then some of your men will rat you out. If you inform FBI agents, the murderer will get angry and he will start acting.

You will also receive tasks from the city hall. Such call appears suddenly and you cannot postpone it. Usually these calls require from one to three officers that become unavailable for the rest of the day. You don't gain any profits from them, but they will positively impact your grade at the mayor.

On the above call one place is lighted in red - you need an additional man. On the second one, despite the fact that 3 policemen can be sent, we decided to send only one there.

Assigning officers. All you need to do is click the portrait below or drag it in order to assign an officer to a task.The game hints you about the difficulty of the task by checking the number of slots for that task. If there are only 1 or 2 slots, then usually it is an easy task. However, sometimes the case will prove to be harder - in that case the patrol will ask for backup. You can determine who and how many officers to send by reading the description of the call. You can send moderate cops to young kids, who stole shoes from a shop, but to a gun robbery with 4-6 slots you should send even maximum number of people - and you should select the better ones. You can also send some weaker policemen to such tasks so that they easily gain additional points. Remember that you should leave someone as reserve. If an event appears in which you have only a few seconds to react and your men did not managed to return in time, then you can risk a bad outcome.