Remember to check if you are getting the extra % chance added to your rolls for jobs & jail as sometimes when you open up the game they aren't added. If not try opening up the 'my gang' tab/window and then see if the % has been added. This can also happen with the bonuses like the atk and def, etc.
Getting out of Jail. Make sure you got the 2 prison collections (card and map), make sure you get any extra bonuses you should be getting when doing ANY jobs (sometimes they don't come up, click some of the tabs like My Profile, etc till they do). Do the cheapest job you can like 'make a sharping' that costs 5 energy and 2 hrs punishment. Don't keep pounding it, either refresh or come back a little later if your very unlucky.
Mercs only add to your overall gang members numbers, so only really good for counting towards brawling. As they cost more in game cash and gold to hire each new one, each lvl you go up not really worth it. Hired Assisants are the ones you need if you want to assign them as advisors but they cost 5,10 or 15 gold to hire per week, the bottom row been the cheapest. There's also one called the Master that can fill/swap between any role but costs 30 gold per week. The lower the lvl you are the easier it should be to find friends to be your advisors, so it might be better to be mutual Laywers with someone who lvls at roughly the same pace as you.
To get people to join your gang, just friend them 1st and send them a PM that you have due to city gang. Look for active players through the rankings/raffles/comments/etc. Putting the city gang link in the comments here is not needed given we are on that page already to read the comments/play the game.
It's hard to fill up all the gang positions as you lvl up. Could do with a lawyer and a couple of other ones, that keeps pace with me lvl wise myself. I don't think the old bug(?) of having the position still work, even after the lvl gap gets too big, as long as it was assigned before then still applies? People should vote more for the free energy/health/aggression. You can ask all your friends to vote for you under the My Profile tab and you can vote for an individual once every 24 hrs. Most of us could easily get 2 refills of energy at least a week, if votes were used.
Make sure you got the collection called plan of the prison and a lawyer to help with the % chances. Even using the 5 energy one that gives over 37% chance of getting out, I usually do it on the 1st attempt but it has taken me 4 goes sometimes and the very odd time 8 times. Don't keep pounding it, if your on a bad streak leave it, try relogging in or coming back a little later.
Trading cash for gold would be tricky to work out a solution, as wouldn't you be able to just buy more watchers with the gold so increasing cash, so increasing gold and so on and so on.
Given that the Lawyer is only effective if the person assigned isn't more than 5 ranks below you, make sure you don't outpace your assigned gang members, so you get the % bonus. Also get the prison map that helps alot in prison but only if you got a lawyer. Do sharpening to get out of prison, even without bonuses it should take 1-3 goes most of the time.
Distribution of the level pionts is very important. The atk and def number is important because half of each, is the actual number of gang members you can field in a battle. Each gang member plus you as the boss, in battle will carry one each of your best wep, arm and transport. So its no good having 100 accomplices, if you only spent enough on atk/def pts to field 10 members in a battle in either mode.
The lead fist event update certainly has caused afew problems, seems a little buggy to me besides afew things with the event itself. I suppose one could always "get new face" from Dom, to "reset" one's level?
crazywana - I've had problems with accomplices showing up in the past. For some strange reason sometimes it has taken about a week for them to show up.
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