Some laws will already be enacted at the start of the game. If there’s one you particularly dislike and you have enough political influence, you can have it revoked.
The majority of the laws that have a negative effect for you are ones you start the game with with, so they’re revoke only, or they were the result of a scheme gone wrong. I got saddled with Safe Street Speed Limits when my Operator failed their scheme, and it took a while before I could manage to revoke it. But on the plus side, I then also had enough influence to enact Advanced Traffic Systems while I was at it.
If there’s a law that you think would be particularly useful and you have enough influence to enact it? You can do so. It uses up that number of influence, and the change is either temporary or permanent:
- Temporary – valid until the start of the next election cycle (June in election years) when it automatically expires.
- Permanent – valid until manually revoked.
You have all of January to make any changes you want, but once you hit February you have to wait until next January to make any further changes.
You can make changes every January, not just the one following an election year, provided you have any/enough influence. If you don’t want to make any changes that year, you don’t have to.
“Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me.”
Laws you can enact or revoke
Each of the available laws, how much they cost to enact and/or revoke, any specific requirements and what they give you.
Abandoned Property Seizures (temporary)
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | 16 | Pass a law that allows local politicians to give out deeds to buildings that have been seized by the city for one reason or another. This law is valid until the next election. |
Requires a territory size of at least 12. Go to the ward office and claim one free building per ward/politician per election cycle – very nice when you’ve managed to get more than one politician elected!
The ward office needs to be within your territory, or it won’t work. Sometimes there are no buildings available, so it says you get one, but you don’t. It’s a bit hit and miss.
If you enact this law two elections in a row, any politician(s) you got a building from last time won’t give you another one this time.
Advanced Traffic Systems
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 12 | 12 | Get the city council to pass a law that enacts some sweeping new rules and increases funding for street maintenance. This will add movement points to each crew member. |
Must not have the law Safe Streets Speed Limits enacted. Requires a crew of at least 3.
Gives +2 Movement to all crew members. Presumably also to rival outfits.
Apple Juice Ban
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 14 | 12 | Bowing to pressure from dry lobby, the city has passed a law that makes buying apple juice in large quantities illegal. So you’ll have to gain some trust with vendors to buy any in the quantities required to be useful. |
You can get a mission to revoke this law for a $2000 reward. Gives a 20% bonus?
Ceramics Subsidies
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 12 | 12 | This law encourages ceramics production in the city and some businesses will produce more stoneware crocks than usual in response to the law. |
Makes 25% more crocks available?
City Repair Initiative (temporary)
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | n/a | This city ordinance subsidizes construction materials to make it easier for business and home owners to build or renovate. |
Must not have the law Construction Regulations enacted. Gives you a 50% discount on construction materials.
Construction Regulations
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| n/a | 12 | The city has enacted some strict regulations that require inspecting and quality standards for construction materials. Expect building materials to be more expensive while this law is in force. |
Makes construction materials 20% more expensive, but isn’t really a problem if you have enough buildings that passively produce building materials.
Election Fairness Act
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| n/a | 12 | This law was passed to make it harder for dirty money to play a role in politics. In reality, it just makes politicians more expensive to influence. |
Fruit Subsidies (temporary)
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | 15 | Enacting this law makes fruits and products made from fruits cheaper to acquire in the city. |
Must not have the laws Grape Concentrate Ban or Apple Juice Ban enacted. Gives you a 50% discount on fruits and associated products.
Get Our Businesses Back Act (temporary)
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | n/a | Enacting this law turns some of your influence into a one-time grant for funds from City Council. |
Glass Subsidies
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | 16 | This law encourages glass production in the city and some businesses will have more bottles and small bottles available than usual in response to the law. |
Makes 25% more bottles and small bottles available?
Grape Concentrate Ban
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 14 | 12 | Bowing to pressure from dry lobby, the city has passed a law that makes buying grape concentrate in large quantities illegal. So you’ll have to gain some trust with vendors to buy any in the quantities required to be useful. |
You can get a mission to revoke this law for a $2000 reward. Gives a 20% bonus?
Informer Funding
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| n/a | 14 | This city law gives healthy rewards to stool pigeons with people calling the cops about every little thing. While this law is in force, be extra careful about heat. Cops will be around more. |
Not really a problem if you’ve paid off all the local cops in your territory. The modifier is -15, but I’m not sure to what.
Local Loosening: Beer
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | 30 | Have the city pass a law that allows the buying and selling of homemade beer within the city limits. This law makes brick wine legal within the city, so anyone who wants to buy it will openly say so. |
Must have produced: Homemade Beer 600 crocks.
Must not have any of the other Local Loosening laws enacted.
The Cider and Beer requirements are the wrong way around in the Epic version.
Local Loosening: Cider
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | 30 | Have the city pass a law that allows the buying and selling of hard cider within the city limits. This law makes brick wine legal within the city, so anyone who wants to buy it will openly say so. |
Must have produced: Hard Cider 450 crocks.
Must not have any of the other Local Loosening laws enacted.
The Cider and Beer requirements are the wrong way around in the Epic version.
Local Loosening: Spirits
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | 30 | Have the city pass a law that allows the buying and selling of moonshine within the city limits. This law makes brick wine legal within the city, so anyone who wants to buy it will openly say so. |
Must have produced: Moonshine 400 crocks.
Must not have any of the other Local Loosening laws enacted.
Local Loosening: Wine
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | 30 | Have the city pass a law that allows the buying and selling of brick wine within the city limits. This law makes brick wine legal within the city, so anyone who wants to buy it will openly say so. |
Must have produced: Brick Wine 500 crocks.
Must not have any of the other Local Loosening laws enacted.
Malt Syrup Ban (doesn’t exist??)
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 14 | 12 | n/a – This exists as a thing in the settings file, but I’ve never actually come across it in game for some reason. Maybe they forgot to add it or decided against it. |
Gives a 20% bonus?
Neutral Alcohol Deregulation
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | 16 | Seeking to cut red tape, industries in the city have convinced politicians to waive all of the complicated rules that once made neutral alcohol hard to get. |
You can get a mission to enact this law for a $2000 reward.
Newspaper Advertising
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 100 | This law lifts the limits on who can place political advertising in the city’s newspapers and allows you to run print ads during political campaigns. |
You can get this law enacted for free through a mission that only requires you to have a certain amount of Influence. Don’t revoke it. Gives a 5% bonus to something?
Parking Lot Contract (temporary)
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | 20 | Use your influence at City Hall to secure a contract to manage the city’s parking lots. This will give you a nice bit of cash that you will definitely spend on parking lot improvements. Plus you can park some truck in a few lots and increase capacity. |
Must not have the law Vehicle Taxes enacted.
Looks like it might require you having the Truck Driving skill. Gives +3 truck parking spaces, and $2500 in your safe house.
Police Commission Appointment (temporary)
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 18 | 18 | Get someone you trust appointed to the police commission. This will decrease the amount of heat generated by your actions. Plus, friendly politicians will be able to use your new powers to convince cops in their wards to leave you alone. |
Must not have the law Police Ethics Board enacted.
If you have this, instead of paying off a cop when it’s time to renew their bribes, go speak to the politician in their precinct and they’ll leave you alone for a whole year instead of 250 days. As a bonus: it also works on cops you can’t bribe! It has a -20% modifier, but it’s unclear about what.
Police Ethics Board
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| n/a | 18 | Outrage with crooked cops has led to this law that makes it riskier for cops to take your bribes. So while it’s in force, expect them to be more expensive. |
Makes cops 25% more expensive to bribe.
Police Transportation Contract (temporary)
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 12 | 12 | Use your influence at City Hall to secure a contract to transport items for the police force. Your politician friends will be able to advise you about lucrative jobs. |
Requires you to have any of the four T2 skills. If you enact this, you will be able to arrange some T3 booze barrels to be diverted to you. Similar to importing booze barrels from a passenger train station, except here you only get 3 each time and you have to wait a few weeks before you can ask the same politician again.
Radio Advertising
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 100 | This law opens the airwaves to all types of political advertising and allows you to run radio ads in campaign season. |
You can get this enacted for free through a mission that only requires you to have a certain amount of Influence. Don’t revoke it. Gives a 10% bonus to something?
Real Estate Rebates (temporary)
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 36 | 36 | Passing this law makes the purchase of new buildings less expensive with a rebate program that will last until the next election. |
Territory size: 10 corners.
Must not have Real Estate Taxes enacted.
Looks like this gives a 40% reduction? Could be worth looking into, but Abandoned Property Seizures will give a free building instead.
Real Estate Taxes
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| n/a | 20 | This tax makes buying property more expensive. This will make property deals more expensive while the law is active. |
It means buildings are 10% more expensive, but revoking it won’t be enough to make buying buildings affordable. Go for Abandoned Property Seizures instead.
Replace the Mayor
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 80 | 80 | Use your influence in City Council to remove the existing mayor and get your own candidate into power. This is the ultimate statement of political power. Once you’ve done that, you’ll also find the cops are much easier to deal with. |
Requires an Operative Captain to be available, and at least 20 Influence?
This is one of the game’s legacy goals. Other than that I haven’t noticed it doing much? It mentions a static modifier of 100, but unclear what it’s about.
Safe Streets Speed Limits
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| n/a | 10 | City Council has reacted to a few unfortunate accidents involving speed and reduced the speed limit on all city streets. This will cut into your ability to move around unless you can get rid of this law. |
-2 Movement to all crew members while enacted.
Storage Regulations
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| n/a | 12 | The city has enacted some strict regulations that require inspecting and quality standards for crocks, barrels and bottles. Expect those materials to be more expensive while this law is in force. |
Makes storage resources (as above) 20% more expensive.
Translated Election Materials
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | 15 | This law requires the city to translate election materials into the many languages spoken by newcomers to our city. This will increase the effect of ethnicity in elections. |
Looks like a 10% boost?
Truck Deregulation
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | 16 | Getting this law passed will make small delivery trucks available for purchase in addition to basic pickup trucks. It also opens up some extra parking to increase truck capacity. |
Skill: Truck Repair Bays (if you don’t already have it).
Must not have the law Vehicle Taxes enacted.
You can still buy small delivery trucks even without this law enacted. The multiplier is -10%?
Vehicle Taxes
| Enact | Revoke | Description in game |
|---|---|---|
| n/a | 15 | Even though you don’t really get a lot of your vehicles the legal way, the taxes enacted by City Council are even making the black market a bit pricier. |
Through the first Car Deals mission you can get the skill Negotiation Assistant, which considerably lowers vehicle prices from vendors. And if you keep repeating Car Deals you can also get a choice of cars and/or trucks, so this doesn’t seem very useful, but revoking it will lower prices by 25%.
Some laws are only really worth enacting if you have a lot more influence than you could ever hope to spend. Like, it’s 1931, you have 150+ spare and you’ve already replaced the mayor and enacted/repealed literally everything else you actually want? Then why not; go to town! Let’s not forget who really owns this city.