If anyone has nostalgia for Syndicate or Syndicate Wars, I recommend Satellite Reign. It's a similar real-time squad-based isometric cyberpunk game as those games. Also, Satellite Reign wasn't just influenced by Syndicate, it was made by the producer and lead programmer of Syndicate Wars.
Syndicate and Syndicate Wars were both real-time squad-based isometric games. EA published both of them. Since EA owned the rights, they decided to make a new Syndicate game in 2012. Except this time they made it a first-person shooter:
This pissed off the original programmer of Syndicate Wars so much he created a kickstarter to make his own game, following the original Syndicate style. Of course, since EA owned the name "Syndicate" he had to name it something else. He called it Satellite Reign. The kickstarter was successful and he made the game. And it's really good.
I mean that was my basic strat. The way you could work up from regular civilians, to security guards, to police then to other syndicate and build an army.