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[KA101]

On the subject of making CIA raids scarier...well, someone compared them to the urban-legendary Men in Black, which made me think of the movie of the same name. Maybe the CIA shows up with powerful weapons and other neat gadgets that make them formidable, but which make defeating them lucrative?

Well...Men In Black nowadays is a comedy franchise.  Hell of a roleplaying ruleset, too--I like the mechanic of having unlimited rolls to succeed at the time-sensitive task...but having to roll X amount of successes in T amount of real-time.  (Example: 6 successes to make it out the door before the 30-second bomb goes off; one would need to tailor this for one's group as there may be accessibility issues with counting dice results that fast.)  Roll faster!

Not sure how to reload the Noisy Cricket either.

It's an idea (if nothing else, the CIA might show up with the Future!weapons pre-2100), though I agree that conventional Rifles and the training to match make the LCS formidable enough as is.

Major objection I'd have is that one only really needs to defeat 10-11 Conservatives to force a raid to retreat.  CIA raids try to counter that by denying the LCS the ability to see them on the map.  If the LCS is unarmed, yeah, that could be a problem.  If the LCS is expecting trouble or has Martial Arts, they can probably blast the first two squads.

(Complaining to the Victory screen that one was just getting warmed up is optional.)

Chances are that you/the LCS doesn't know the CIA is coming--but if you're familiar with the concept of safehouse attacks, chances are that you've weapons & armor laying around.  If the CIA or perhaps the SEALs can come in through the roof--thus bypassing (most of) the traps & ambushing the LCS before it has a chance to gear up, the existing raid troops would be a lot nastier.

[Sheb]

A nice idea would be that the CIA raid totally surprise you. Your squad leader is at first alone, and you have to team up with liberals you find on the map to get a bigger squad/firesupport. So it'd be a lot of sneaking to assemble your troops before facing the goon.

[KA101]

Provided that one's sleeper Agents don't issue a raid warning, and whoever codes it changes the raid-arrival flavor text, yeah, that's an idea.

Having only one Liberal at the start completely changes the dynamic from other raids, though.  Can't say I'd like to lose the Founder because xe got cut off and killed by 6 CIA goons in the safehouse.  Unlike the CCS, the LCS Boss isn't infinitely replaceable.

(Other issues: If you don't have a Squad present, what determines the Squad Leader?  If you do lose a fight but Liberals are still in the building, what then?  Do you switch to [one of] them, or do they all just get CIA'd because the Liberals lost a fight?)

[Soadreqm]

I think some kind of abduction mechanic could work better. Let the CIA attack your guys during liberal activities like the cops already do. You're peacefully painting some tags on walls, and they jump you, wrestle you to the ground and drag you to the CIA HQ. Like getting arrested, except there won't be a trial. >:]

That'd force you to take the CIA on their home ground, with six guys tops on your side. Or if you lack the offensive capability to fight the agents, you could let the guy rot become a martyr of the Liberal Cause. Also, If you want to make safehouses less safe by letting the CIA sneak in through the ventilation and corner your liberals alone, having the ability to surrender and mount a counterattack later would probably be less frustrating than just dying.

[KA101]

Not so much jacking people from the safehouse, as beginning Escape/Engage in the same room the squad starts in.

For example, the Fireman raid that came through earlier (and seems to do permanent damage to the safehouse) starts near the front door, as do most raids.  This gives the LCS a minute or two to grab their combat gear and equip before the shooting starts.

My proposal for the CIA would be to have at least one group spawn within one or two moves of the LCS--if you didn't know they were coming, there's an initial ambush out of the power-outage.  The idea is to throw the player off-balance at the start: rather than "ho-hum, I guess I don't really need the map anyway" I'm hoping for "What the--<gunfire> $EXPLETIVE where are they?!"

It seems to this non-C++ coder like a comparatively easy modification to make: change up the spawn location & perhaps some flavor text.

[Soadreqm]

What would that change, though? Letting the CIA bypass your traps, I get that, but it's not like there is a "grab your gear and equip" phase before the fighting starts. There's not much of a reason to NOT have everyone wearing body armour and carrying assault rifles at all times, especially if you think there might be a raid coming.

[KA101]

If you're a combat-heavy LCS, yeah, 24/7 battle-rattle would be the way to go.  I send a lot of Disguised missions so my people spend a lot of time in Expensive Suits, Lab Coats, or Work Clothes.  Naked, too, if they left the sweatshop in a hurry.  Only time I have people armor up is if they're going to clean up litter at the MilBase, they're going to pound a CCS safehouse, they're going to grind Dodge at a factory, or someone lets me know that there's a raid on its way.

There isn't a formal gear-up phase--agreed--but in practice the hostiles are gonna take 5-6 moves, minimum, before they can actually engage the squad.  (Random fires from Fireman raids notwithstanding.)
This initial spacing during the Escape/Engage gives the player a time buffer; less-prepared players can use it to grab inventory and gear up, or more-prepared players can use it to take the initiative.  The CIA raid activity I'm looking for would take that buffer away.

[EuchreJack]

Perhaps the solution is to make the Agents like Demons and other megabeasts in Dwarf Fortress: Make them trap-immune.  Or perhaps just increase their trap avoid rate, if that is a variable in the game.

[KA101]

Hmm.  I really hadn't intended the CIA ambush as a trap-avoidance issue so much as an immediate-fighting issue*, but letting them dodge traps (with flavor text, obviously) might be worthwhile.  Immunity to traps seems a bit much though.  50% might be reasonable, but that's just an illustration number.

*If you're familiar with Star Control/Ur-Quan Masters, think of the VUX Intruder's ability to enter Melee immediately in range and aimed at its opponent, rather than at a random location and orientation.  That's what I'm hoping to accomplish: the Agents are right on you as the battle starts.

[tenmillimaster]

I don't think having  the CIA raid the LCS is really appropriate, since being clandestine is their shtick. Perhaps attempting to get sleepers inside the LCS (via "converted" agents), stirring up bad feels in the public for the LCS which cause less donations, higher chances of getting caught while wanted, angry mobs attacking the LCS, and tipping off the CCS to LCS locations, drumming up false charges. Hacking the LCS to destroy their funding, and alert others to LCS raids (a % chance that when you go to a location, they're on high security instead of no security, or are closed instead of high security).

All of which can be fought against with a hacker or with sleeper agents.

[Sheb]

Actually the CIA getting sleepers inside the LCS would be amazing.