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Author Topic: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad  (Read 8097 times)

G-Flex

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Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« on: February 16, 2009, 07:31:54 pm »

So I've started playing the game, and I THINK I'm getting the hang of it, but there are just some things I can't figure out.

  • Why is Tactics so damn hard to increase? I have my recruits fighting people and not one of them has had their Tactics stat increase even to 1.
  • It's really, really easy to get killed by cops even with body armor on the whole squad. I guess this is more a problem of getting in over my head.
  • Speaking of getting in over my head, my safehouse got raided. How in the name of Jesus am I supposed to get out of my safehouse with like TEN squads of SWAT officers armed with assault weapons in the way of the exit? I have no idea how I'm supposed to survive or even prevent this sort of thing. Is it because I was hacking too many websites and trashing all the downtown/outskirts buildings too much?
  • Basically, it just seems hard to survive. I guess I might get the hang of it, but... ehhh.

I just really want to know what the hell I'm doing in this game, more or less, without dying horribly left and right.


(edit)
Oh, isn't there also supposed to be a Conservative Crime Squad? I never saw one at all mentioned anywhere in the game.

And I forgot: Maybe the raid also had to do with me printing so many secret documents in the Liberal Guardian paper I was running.

Is there any way to PREDICT that a raid is coming, though? That would be nice.
« Last Edit: February 16, 2009, 07:55:38 pm by G-Flex »
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== Human Renovation: My Deus Ex mod/fan patch (v1.30, updated 5/31/2012) ==

beorn080

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #1 on: February 16, 2009, 07:57:43 pm »

Losing is Fun.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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G-Flex

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #2 on: February 16, 2009, 08:09:10 pm »

Good points. I think I was relying too much on running around invading everything and printing stolen information and hacking mainframes to realize I was going to actually get caught.

Martial Arts actually seems surprisingly good, since it seems to hit regularly (although I could be making this up) and often more than once.
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Karlito

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #3 on: February 16, 2009, 11:49:24 pm »

Martial arts can be pretty good.  It costs nothing, but you need to train it up to pretty high levels before it becomes useful and its fairly useless against armed opponents.
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Jonathan S. Fox

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2009, 12:20:52 am »

It is definitely hard to survive in LCS. And unlike most games, it doesn't go out of its way to tame the authority figures in the game to make it easier on you -- even a liberal in heavy body armor with a machine gun is likely to get killed if they walk in and try to attack a police station. In "losing in fun" style, I actually fully intended that the first time you see a Police SWAT raid, you'll experience a full wipe and probably lose the game at that point. Fortunately, once you're anticipating it, there are multiple things you can do to try to avoid it happening again.

I'm a little rusty, as I haven't played in awhile, but from my point of view, most to least important when it comes to protecting yourself from raids:

1. Ensure you don't lose given a catastrophic wipe. Sometimes it's the police, sometimes it's worse. You can always surrender to the police, and they'll drag your people off and give them a fair trial. But you can't surrender to a torch and pitchfork mob, or a shady out-of-jurisdiction raid by the MIB. To that end, you might consider keeping your forces split into different safehouses, to ensure part of the LCS will survive at all times. Your founder is a particularly sensitive target, as the LCS will crumble without him or her; best not to have them in with the people you think are racking up the most heat. Try to get someone that is reporting directly to the founder and has a lot of juice, that is based in another safehouse. Worse case scenario, this lieutenant can still take over leadership of the LCS in the event of the founder's death.

2. Avoid a catastrophic wipe when raids occur. You can keep a small army around, but it takes a very large amount of firepower to fight off even an early police raid. Other options include surrendering, and either springing them from the courthouse, or fighting your battles in court with a lawyer; worst case scenario, your people end up with life in prison or death row, and even then you can always take anyone that's still free and attack the prison to release them before their execution. Court battles are much more survivable if you get a sleeper lawyer first... just make sure you have enough to pay the tiny nominal fee the sleeper demands to make it look "legitimate". If are hell-bent on fighting it out in the hallways of your safehouse, the least you can do is fortify the compound first. Security cameras will ensure you can look at the map and see all enemy units at all times, and booby traps will weaken and immobilize a proportion of the enemies. Finally, if the enemy is too strong, you can always walk up to some police and talk to them to give up, or simply dash for the exit, ignoring your enemies and fleeing in the direction of the exit in every encounter. Keeping someone trained in first aid in your party, like a nurse or doctor, will help to keep people from bleeding to death as you run for the exit.

3. Minimize the chance of getting raided in the first place. Keep your people divided up into small groups, and use unsuspicious safehouses. A team of three alone in a nice, respectable apartment in the upper-class part of town is much less likely to be raided than two dozen people trying to run an insurgency out of the homeless shelter. Installing business fronts in your upgradable safehouses won't prevent raids on those safehouses, but they will significantly decrease the frequency of them. The more sleepers you get in the police station -- whether cops or janitors, just people who work there -- the more likely one of them will find out about an imminent raid and tip you off in time to have the place be empty when the SWAT trucks show up. No special orders necessary, just having them in place is enough. And this may be obvious, but if you've been torturing some poor Conservative fast food worker the back room of the homeless shelter, get out of there immediately if the fast food worker escapes to tell his 50 closest police friends about the harrowing experience.

IIRC, the CCS won't enter the stage until a bit later in the game. They start appearing when you're doing well and Conservative reactionaries decide to take matters into their own hands.
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beorn080

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #5 on: February 17, 2009, 03:50:40 am »

Quote
or a shady out-of-jurisdiction raid by the MIB.

Requested features: Noisy Cricket and Memory Eraser.
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G-Flex

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #6 on: February 17, 2009, 01:25:49 pm »

Thanks for the advice.

My safehouse was fortified (whatever that does), and had cameras and a front operation.


I think my main problem was that I had too many illegal operations going on from the same safehouse, including one guy who just kept hacking computers CONSTANTLY. I also had every single outskirts building (the important ones, anyway) on High Security. They probably didn't like me shooting at corporate CEOs in their homes.

I suppose I could split guys up such that, for instance, my hackers operate from their own safehouse, and take cover in an auxiliary safehouse in case things go bad after doing anything ridiculous. I was also way too trigger-happy, but I've mentioned that.


Oh, and I did have some sleeper lawyers and a couple sleeper judges. One recruit of mine wound up getting acquitted from trial despite his multiple counts of murder, breaking/entering, and just about everything else (like 87 vandalism charges), in a country with arch-conservative-style death penalty laws, because of a sleeper judge presiding and a sleeper lawyer defending him.

I never knew about having sleeper police officers, though. Granted, recruiting a police officer might be a bitch... my founder is extremely persuasive, though, and has managed recruiting conservatives before, although I never did because of their high Wisdom and low Heart freaking me out. I'll either just try to convert them normally or maybe recruit a guitarist or two to swoon them over. I don't really feel like getting into brainwashing at the moment.
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beorn080

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #7 on: February 17, 2009, 01:43:07 pm »

Try and get one seduced sleeper in every location. Ideal sleeper would be any type with one point of leadership, but isn't essential. By having seduced or recruited sleepers, you allow them to recruit their own sleepers, who can then also recruit.

Brainwashing is good for high value, low risk targets like CEOs and scientists. Eventually you will be able to flip them in 1-3 days, and then you MIGHT be able to start flipping conservatives with psychology. DO NOT do risky brainwashing with your founder. He can flip janitors and suchlike but there is a chance of gaining wisdom from a failed interrogation. Get him skill, then have him teach others.
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EuchreJack

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #8 on: February 17, 2009, 02:46:28 pm »

You probably need police sleepers a lot sooner than you'd be able to get a cop, so start with a janitor.  Actually, if you recruit instead of brainwash a janitor in the police department, that recruit will eventually be able to talk a police buddy into joining the LCS.

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G-Flex

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #9 on: February 17, 2009, 10:28:54 pm »

Heh. I didn't even know you COULD have sleepers recruit people themselves, honestly. Is that an option in the sleeper tasks menu?

Oh, a couple more questions:

What IS the real drawback to high-Wisdom, low-Heart characters, aside from the skills that use those stats? I'm afraid that they'll turn on me or something.

Also, what does getting electricity or fortification for a safehouse do? They seem to use their hacking skills and cameras just fine without electrical power...
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mainiac

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #10 on: February 17, 2009, 10:43:15 pm »

High wisdom low heart?  Uh oh...

Debate attack conservatives will first strip your juice, then raise wisdom and lower hearth.  If your wisdom is higher then heart, they will cause your liberals to lose their way and succumb to conservatism, turning their weapons upon their comrades.

Be on the look out for Radio Personalities, TV Anchors, Eminent Scientists, CEO and Hanging Judges.  And a future version may have the unspeakably horrific mime.
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G-Flex

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #11 on: February 17, 2009, 11:17:20 pm »

So should I not bother recruiting those types with persuasion at all, or at least only use them as sleepers?

The reason I ask is that it would be nice to recruit, say, Agents, without having to brainwash the hell out of them.
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mainiac

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #12 on: February 18, 2009, 12:16:21 am »

Well, keep in mind that Liberal Ranks will improve heart and wisdom a lot.

http://lcs.wikidot.com/liberal-rank

I'm not sure if this information is up to date.  But heart gets a one time increase and wisdom gets a one time decrease when levels are gained.
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G-Flex

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #13 on: February 18, 2009, 01:17:25 am »

Beorn said that Tactics can be taught, but I don't see it in any of the categories on the actual teaching list. What gives?
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mainiac

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Re: Trying to get into Liberal Crime Squad
« Reply #14 on: February 18, 2009, 01:20:52 am »

I don't know.  I manage to get along fine myself without pursuing tactics intentionally,  You can always grind tactics by exposing yourself to attack from weak conservatives for a while.
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