Territory

The map is divided into sections: named city blocks and zones. Each section has an owner, a type, and a risk level. Territory is the board your crew and your rivals fight over, and it ties directly into heat and the Director.

Sections

A section is the atomic unit of the map. Every pawn is in exactly one at any time, and heat is tracked per section.

Field	Meaning
Name	Human-readable block name
Owner	The controlling faction, or neutral
Section type	Residential, commercial, industrial, drug trade, warehouse, etc.
Risk level	Static baseline (0 to 100), seeds starting heat

Section type drives several systems at once: it sets the heat decay rate and the baseline character of the block.

Factions and ownership

Territory is owned by factions, not individual types. Each faction starts controlling a set of sections. The player is a faction too, as is each rival crew, the cartel, and the police precinct.

Concept	Rule
Starting control	Each faction begins owning its home sections
Neutral ground	Sections no faction owns are contested space
One parameterized rival type	Rivals share one entity type, distinguished by faction, so new factions are pure data

Hostility between factions is resolved through the faction matrix, so who fights whom over turf follows the same rules as all combat.

Rival corners

Each rival faction seeds a visible corner on the map at the start: a marker of their presence and a place their dealing concentrates. These give rivals a foothold to defend and give you targets to push against.

Taking and losing turf

Territory changes hands through presence over time, not a single action:

Direction	How it happens
You take a section	Your crew establish and hold the only gang presence there, or a turf-assault order completes on it
A rival takes a section	A rival faction dwells in a neutral or bordering section long enough with no response from you

The core capture rule: a section flips to a faction when that faction's pawns have been the sole gang presence there for a sustained period. Contested sections (both sides present) do not flip; they become flashpoints.

NOTE

Territory is an evolving system. The capture loop above is the baseline model. Expect the display and the depth of control effects to grow, which is one reason this wiki is the live source of truth.

Why territory matters

Holding turf gives you	Because
Safer places to work	You can route dealing to blocks you control and keep heat manageable
Income footing	Rackets, corners, and fronts all sit on sections
A buffer	Owned sections between you and a rival slow their push

And it costs you: held turf keeps your name on the street and draws the Director's territorial events toward your borders.

The Director and territory

The Director reads the map to make pressure feel territorial. It can pick a rival faction based on how aggressive they are and whether they border you, then aim an attack at a crew member in or near that faction's turf, rather than a random target. Rival pressure on a bordering section, left unanswered, becomes a capture.

Modding

Sections and factions are defined in data: section templates (type, risk, owner) and a factions file (home sections, aggression, player-controlled flag). Adding a rival faction is a data entry, not new code. See Entities & Identities.