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[Jonathan S. Fox]

Test Release:
LCS 4.07.4 for Windows
Your feedback and bug reports are requested!

The biggest differences between this version and the latest non-beta release are:
1. The ability to play in multiple city mode.
2. The ability to raid the White House and interact with the President.
3. The ability to recruit from the activation screen.

The changes in this version are pretty huge compared to the stickied post, and aren't entirely complete. In particular, much of the behavior around the President is still half-baked. The news doesn't react to stuff involving the President, and kidnapping/converting/seducing him or her has no effect on the game. However, killing the President will result in VP succession.

4.07.4 Changelog
- Added more disguises.
- Conservative enemies with 200 or more Juice no longer run away from battle when wounded.
- More politically correct handling of people who reject binary gender identities.
- Full location names with cities used more often throughout the game.
- Being naked makes seduction easier.
- New init.txt option to temporarily disable ClearType on Windows (workaround for a text display bug in Windows XP and later).
- Drug overdoses of hostages during interrogation are now medical emergencies (try and have at least one interrogator with First Aid skill if you use drugs on hostages).
- New Ultra-Elite Liberal issue text for all issues if you bring the country to Elite Liberal status when playing in No Compromise Classic mode.
- Mini-skill display of top 5 skills on top of screen improved.
- More types of business fronts.
- Red states and blue states follow their political leanings better on votes on Constitutional amendments.
- Skills in full skill display are in alphabetical order, while crimes in list of crimes committed are in order from most to least severe.
- Many bug fixes.

4.07.3 Changelog
- You can now raid the White House and find the President in the Oval Office.
- Added highly capable Secret Service agents to protect the President.
- Added cost for intercity travel.
- Added ability to raid locations outside the city to one city mode. Costs the same amount as travelling to another city in multiple city mode.
- Restored Commercial District for single city mode.
- Liberals will be forced to complete their original prison sentence when they escape from prison and are re-arrested.
- Liberals will no longer attack unarmed or crippled targets if armed, healthy targets exist.
- Chance of accidentally hitting bystanders with guns reduced to 1%. Melee attacks now also have an equal chance of hitting bystanders.
- Can meet with potential recruits from the activation screen. Some options on the activation screen re-arranged.
- More of the text in the game is cyan rather than blue, to increase contrast with the black background.
- Prostitutes and Gang Members now start with street sense.
- Starting as a gang member now provides you with additional street sense and strength.
- The new game option that mentions trading sex for money now decreases your Heart stat, but gives twice the Charisma bonus.
- Many bug fixes.

4.07.2 Changelog
- Multiple city mode is now optional
- Current city is reflected in more places, including news stories
- Fixed prison law change crash bug
- Removed some special rules for unusual public opinion shifts for certain locations

4.07.1 Changelog
- Game now has three cities and the ability to travel between them
- Activity doesn't go from stealing cars to laying down when you don't like the car found
- Added option to disable autosave from init.txt
- Fixed bug where sleepers, prisoners, hostages, and dead people could be placed in squads


Original post:

I've given some thought to the idea of the Liberal Crime Squad spanning multiple cities instead of being centered as an action in just one place. It occurs to me that it would not be hard to support multiple cities with minimal variation on the existing gameplay. Right now, when you choose to go forth, you must first select which part of the city you want to take action in. There is no reason this could not be extended to choosing which city to take action in. Selecting an action in another city could require car travel, or air travel, your choice; both would cost money, depending on the mode of transportation, and take a variable amount of time to reach the destination and return from it. Potential safehouses could exist in any number of cities. Some cities might lean more in one direction or another, and therefore have different concentrations of Liberals and Conservatives. Different cities could have separate heat tracking; hiding in a city with no LCS activity might throw off the police. Different cities might have different local sites as well. Washington DC in particular could have special locations and special actions associated with it.

That was more than four years ago.

I'm not yet committed to the idea, because I'm not sure that I'd want to water down the locations by simply duplicating them in different cities. Or maybe that's okay for most locations, and cities should be defined by a couple of unique locations each? I'm not sure, which is one of the reasons for posting this. In any case, the technical barrier is even lower for it now than it was then: Part of the just-released 4.07.0 was some behind-the-scenes changes that cleaned up the code for building the list of sites the LCS can visit, which means it'll be much easier to maintain a bigger world.

I know that there was a ton of support for the idea when I brought up originally, and it's one of the things I've been asked for in the donations thread. (By Capital Fish, who has sent me money three times.) So this is definitely on the table, I mostly just need confidence in a solid design to make the game play better.

I've mentioned that I have a design for letting you visit the White House in Washington DC, potentially attack, seduce, or kidnap the (fictional) President of the United States. Inquisitive players may find that there's already map data for a WhiteHouse location in the game's art folder, as of 4.07.0. This, obviously, would be perfect for multi-city play, with the White House in Washington DC.

I also really like the concept behind ed boy's LCS goes to the Movies! mod, and I think it would work awesome with a multi-city play -- you could have the movie studio or studios in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles! I would change a number of things with the mod before folding it into the mainline though; the mod as it stands is very focused on the set of features that set it apart, and they get in the way of the rest of the game a bit. But they're pretty cool features.

[Vherid]

I would love if this could also lead to highway pursuits(Imagine having his mad max type of system going on, with a level explorer view of the highway, and being the car instead of the squad), and airport attacks/situations, as well as having a police raid on the airplane after it has landed per say, A LA 757 in Counter Strike, or the one plane level in rainbow six rogue spear.

I think there are a lot of interesting ramifications that could come out of this type of addition, Multiple police departments and features associated with that, certain businesses in certain cities, would could also be amazing is to input the drug wars system into this game perhaps, and then you could have a multiple supply and demand system across cities, instead of just the, Hi Im selling brownies today man.

I think it would be a great doorway.

[seth--]

Some locations should be in multiple cities, like the hospital and the police station.

Maybe the commercial district can have different products in different cities, like having monster trucks (it's an example, there is no need to add them) only in the countryside and sport cars only in rich cities.

If we have, let say, 5 cities, maybe we can have two nuclear plants or three universities.

An airport in each city would be nice with options to fly, "cause trouble" and do both.

[mainiac]

I'd love to see even a very minimal implementation.  Even if every city just had one unique site that would be neat.

If you are looking for stretch ideas then small towns could be neat.  They wouldn't have as many sites or be as effective for issues but would let you burn away heat faster.  So you could have your liberal network go to ground by hiding out in small towns.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Some ideas:

Washington DC
- White House
- Capitol Building
- Pentagon

Los Angeles, California
Hollywood
- Movie Studio
Orange County (needs car)
- Corporate HQ
- CEO House

New York, New York
Manhattan
- AM Radio Station
- Cable News Station
- Central Park (replaces public park, larger map)
- Downtown Apartments
Long Island
- Airport
- Factories
- University District Buildings
- Normal Apartments
Outskirts (needs car)
- Nuclear Power Plant

[ggamer]

One of your commandos hands you an out-of-state newspaper article

The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Local group goes on rampage
South Georgia sources have reported that a group known as the Conservative Crime Squad burst onto the scene of political activism yesterday. The group assaulted a local library, commiting Murder, Theft, and Vandalism, among other crimes.
More on page 3a...

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm moderately unsure about this one. Having multiple "full" cities is a bit much and would bog down the game. However, the idea to have special locations that the LCS can operate at if they are not in the founding city by engaging in a Liberal Road Trip is very appealing.

It might be interesting to have a way to set up independent LCS cells in other cities, who will help you if they can should the main LCS have business there.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I'm moderately unsure about this one. Having multiple "full" cities is a bit much and would bog down the game. However, the idea to have special locations that the LCS can operate at if they are not in the founding city by engaging in a Liberal Road Trip is very appealing.

It might be interesting to have a way to set up independent LCS cells in other cities, who will help you if they can should the main LCS have business there.

I have the same moderately unsure reservation, but I'm starting to come around. What I'm thinking is that most of the game is agnostic as to what city your crime squad is in. You don't need to spread out and form parallel organizations everywhere, attacking a factory in every city in order to bring an issue to 100%. Just hitting the factory in one city repeatedly is enough. But a few locations are found only in specific cities, and to raid these locations, your squad needs to be in a safehouse in that city.

So if you want to hit the national media, you need to secure a safehouse in New York and base your squad there (which costs some overhead in time or money for the travel time). This can be relocating the entire LCS or just that squad; you're welcome to set up parallel cells or just move your elite squad around as needed, it's entirely up to your preference. Once there, your squad can raid any location in New York, and can stay there and tangle with the NYPD or a local cell of the CCS (if there is one) doing generic and city-specific activism as long as you like, recruiting sleepers in New York, etc. Then you can fly/drive them home or to a different city, if you so choose.

One of your commandos hands you an out-of-state newspaper article

The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Local group goes on rampage
South Georgia sources have reported that a group known as the Conservative Crime Squad burst onto the scene of political activism yesterday. The group assaulted a local library, commiting Murder, Theft, and Vandalism, among other crimes.
More on page 3a...

I like it. I was thinking similarly that the CCS would have a separate safehouse in each city (starting in a different city than you), and would expand to new cities instead of the current model of vaguely gaining in power. Any LCS activities in a city the CCS is in risk the full range of CCS interference, including bombings and raids, but you can also find and take out their safehouse there to end the CCS activity in that city permanently. Find their safehouse in each city, and you can eliminate them entirely.

[mainiac]

The CSS HQ should be in an out of the country location like the Caymen Islands or Somalia.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The CCS is, as of the current version, secretly funded and founded by the CIA and Arch-Conservative forces in the government.

Their HQ should be somewhere ridiculously conservative and closed off from the rest of the nation. We're talking "get murdered and your body is never found"-level backwoods.

[ggamer]

North Alabama? or the Bayou, maybe a choice from multiple sketchy locations.

[seth--]

Remember that the starting location needs some basic places, like somewhere to recruit people, shops and a few safehouses (including the homeless shelter)

[Funk]

The CSS should start in a random city, but have there main base in a random small town in the deepest darkest part of hicks vill.
really play it up, have the sheriff say stuff like "we don't like your kind, round here yer commie/what ever"
maybe the bunker can be at its outskirts and it is really well are armed.

if the CSS just sends out teams to random citys ever so often to start a cell, then you have a reason to try to find there HQ.

i can think of 3 ways to travel.
fly (limited cargo space, has crime checks,cost money)
car (need a car, traffic checks, slow but cheap)
walk/ Hich hike (dead slow, no checks, only really use full for getting out of town fast, free)

[Cheedows]

If you are situated in DC though there is a higher likelihood of being hunted down by the Pentagon

[usr_share]

As far as I guessed, the AM Radio and Cable News Stations were supposed to be small local stations. If there would be TV or Radio Stations in larger cities, they should have a much higher effect.

Right now, a "best hour of (AM radio / cable TV) EVER" influences a single issue by 25% or more. Probably, taking over a larger radio / TV station should make the squad able to do more -- for example, to influence several issues or talk about the documents they've got (I think the Liberal Guardian shouldn't be the only way to do so).