Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[EuchreJack]

On a related note, I'd think the moderates would be most likely to side with whichever group is losing, thus the LCS could easily recruit moderates when issues are Arch-Conservative, and the CCS could easily recruit moderates when issues are Elite Liberal.

Also, I look at today's economy, and speculate it would be easier to recruit people into a radical movement then when things were going well.  Perhaps the state of the economy should also affect recruitment for both sides?

[Yanlin]

Psychology: It is easier to cause a revolution when the public isn't happy with the government. This can be caused by any disaster that can be blamed on the government.

This game should include the current economics crisis as the kickstart to the founding of the LCS. Would explain why it works so well. As soon as the LCS is known, it gets advertised mouth to ear. Eventually, it reaches the legislators.

[E. Albright]

in practice, the idea would have more than a little overlap with tracking tolerance by location, but... what about tracking it by social class?

(Yes, yes, there I go bringing up class again...  )

[Guy Montag]

Well, I don't know how difficult things are to program but how about the tolerance for Liberal violence is proportional to the violence that the police or CCS inflicts.

Say your cheeky group of rag-tag hippie rebels tags up a corporate office or cracks a safe and a few members are shot to peices by security guards or police. They'd be made into martyers, and say you shot up some police or guards "in self defense" and the public sympathized.

Thats the sort of stuff people riot over, especially if the economic situation is bad anyways. People loved Bonnie and Clyde and those other depression-era gangsters because they wanted to see somebody "stick it to The Man" and ignored the fact that they were basically spree killers, shooting storekeepers and the such.

I'd say the main factors would be how satisfied the public is with the current paradigm and how much of a beating the LCS took violence wise. People love the underdog, unless they are portrayed as deranged radicals.

So, media, public opinion and the maryter factor could all contribute to how much tolerance the public has for political violence. I'm sure there is more that could effect it. Random events or public figures could speak out or something.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Well, I don't know how difficult things are to program but how about the tolerance for Liberal violence is proportional to the violence that the police or CCS inflicts.

Say your cheeky group of rag-tag hippie rebels tags up a corporate office or cracks a safe and a few members are shot to peices by security guards or police. They'd be made into martyers, and say you shot up some police or guards "in self defense" and the public sympathized.

Thats the sort of stuff people riot over, especially if the economic situation is bad anyways. People loved Bonnie and Clyde and those other depression-era gangsters because they wanted to see somebody "stick it to The Man" and ignored the fact that they were basically spree killers, shooting storekeepers and the such.

I'd say the main factors would be how satisfied the public is with the current paradigm and how much of a beating the LCS took violence wise. People love the underdog, unless they are portrayed as deranged radicals.

So, media, public opinion and the maryter factor could all contribute to how much tolerance the public has for political violence. I'm sure there is more that could effect it. Random events or public figures could speak out or something.

I like this idea.

I'm still wrestling with how to get the game to balance fun, playability, and something vaguely resembling a realistic feeling here. Ideas like this on how to improve the system, or just comments on balance and the feel of it now that the latest release includes these concepts, are greatly appreciated.

[EuchreJack]

The "Tolerance for Political Violence" bar reminded me of the "Tolerance of Nuclear Fallout" bar present in some games I've played.

Essentially, you can use nukes in these games, but they gradually make the world worse.  Eventually, nobody is able to win, cause the radiation kills everyone.

I'm also reminded of the "World Peace" bar in political simulation Shadow President.  In that game, you play as the U.S., and if you fight a lot, then the world become more warlike, until eventually the terrorist ploys of other countries gets you killed, you get nuked to the point where others can conquer you, etc.

Actually, I'm just rehashing what other have said with examples.  Currently, it seems the CCS is actually helping your cause by always Rampaging.  Those guys don't know how to be subtle like the LCS.  That would be fine if their actions didn't cause such a backlash.

The best thing would be to fix the CCS so that after they arrive on the political scene, they won't attack sites unless:

A) The "Tolerance for Political Violence" Issue is such that they have a 60% or more chance of being successful in swaying public opinion.

OR

B) They directly attack the LCS (Like attacking LCS operatives as they leave a site, or attacking the safehouses of the LCS), since these would technically be LCS site actions.

[Servant Corps]

The best way is to allow the CCS to be able to brainwash sleepers in much the same way that the LCS can. Get Jaded Liberal Judges, Neoconservative Hippies, and the like. Allowing the CCS a pacfisit path to victory should provide the CCS a needed boost.

[mainiac]

Wouldn't pacifism strike the CCS as some sort of evil liberal plot?

If CCS sleepers were put in, I think there would need to be some sort of way for the LCS to target CCS sleepers (and presumably vice versa.)  Elsewise the player would almost always be forced into a sleepers race with the CCS at the expense of the other paths to victory.

[Guy Montag]

Also, the more the country slips toward C+ could increase the tolerance for political violence, simply because organized violence from the government is so commonplace anyways. You have death squads executing people for petty crimes, the local fire department starts fires, rather then putting them out and you have the right-wing paramilitary CCS that spills blood in the name of Jesus and Capitalism. Machineguns are openly purchased everywhere.

That sort of society would be quite uneffected and would not be moved by violence.

Also, the disparity between the status of the current policy in effect and the public opinion in favor of it would effect the tolerance for violence. If Liberal or Conservative change happens too quickly and too drastically, people will be out in the street screaming for blood to spill and City Halls to be leveled.

Subtle, slow changes do not upset people as much as sudden drastic changes do. The PATRIOT act passed without a hiccup, the 94' Assault weapons ban passed with only minor bitching from the NRA.

But if you revoked the 1st or 2nd Admendment or you outlawed abortion or gave animals the same rights as people, you would have riots and normal people emotionally provoked to murder their neighbors, like what happened in the Spanish Civil War in 36'.

I think it would be super-neato if it was mostly rapid policy changes that inspire a tolerance for violence. If you start the game, stay low, and the Conservative nation swiftly steers right, the tolerance for violence would be high, same if you kicked the game off with the LCS steering the nation hard left overnight, the tolerance for political violence would skyrocket and the CCS would emerge faster.

Creating situations like wide-spread riots and martial law and the "Moderate Crime Squad" or coup d'ete type events in response to the player's actions or unaction would be awesome.

It'd make gameplay interesting, to keep the game from being easily lost through inaction or easily won through intense pursuit of the LCS's agenda where the public is not behind the Liberal idealogy.

The Martyr effect would just be the trigger. The people hate the policies in effect but don't take action, then your pacifist liberals spray a mural in the park, are executed on the spot by the cops... well, that'd start riots, like it did in Greece recently, or the LA riots back in the day. It wasn't that single beaten man or dead kid that caused the riot, it was just the breaking point for the people's tolerance for a system they hated anyways.

[BigFatDwarf]

Wouldn't pacifism strike the CCS as some sort of evil liberal plot?

If CCS sleepers were put in, I think there would need to be some sort of way for the LCS to target CCS sleepers (and presumably vice versa.)  Elsewise the player would almost always be forced into a sleepers race with the CCS at the expense of the other paths to victory.

Maybe you could set up sleepers on ''seeker duty'', where they would actiely seek any CCS sleepers in same location, eg. LCS Judge seeks and finds a CCS lawyer. He notifies the LCS group about that. The LCS take ''care'' of the CCS sleeper.

Of course, if your sleepers are deeply infiltrated, that would be a big bonus, since conservative CCS sleepers would trust fellow conservatives. Likewise, you could get your sleepers attacked by CCS sometimes.

[EuchreJack]

Personally, I've never liked the idea of the CCS having sleepers.

In the current game, the CCS activates either due to a high tolerance for political violence, or due to watching the LCS mess everything up for 8 years.

That doesn't sound like the founding of a discrete organization, like the LCS.

My view of the CCS is mainly brute force.  Instead of giving them sleepers, they should get something that the LCS can't do, but that matches their style.

.......

That said, if we wanted to turn this into a spy simulator instead of a political simulator, why limit sleeper agents to the LCS and CCS?  We all know the real-life entities of the CIA and the Police have "sleeper agents", though in most cases these contacts aren't as dedicated as they are in LCS.  Corporate Espionage happens also, so most other organizations would also maintain a small number of "sleeper agents".

Of course, in order to balance things out, you'd have to implement more liberal organizations for the CCS to have sleepers in, and to send out sleepers into other organizations.

That's probably why we aren't gonna see CCS recruiting sleeper agents any time soon, as you'd basically have to rewrite the game to the point where the player could chose to play as either the LCS or the CCS.

[Servant Corps]

The only special thing the CCS can do is sending suicide bombers to your safehouses.

Altough...AM Radio is the mouthpiece of the Conservative movement right? Wouldn't it make sense if AM Radio behave more like, say, a Conservative Al-Jazzera? Prehaps important CCS leaders may get interviews on AM Radio to promote their ideology, causing both CCS popularity, political violence tolerance, and AM Radio popularity to rise. The chance of CCS leaders spreading hate speech increases as Free Speech laws turns more Liberal.

[Guy Montag]

I agree with that. The CCS doesn't need sleepers because it has the Conservative police, military, priests. hangin' judges' and everyone else on its Right-Wing side already.

All those reactionary rednecks, cops, soldiers, corporate managers and everyone else basically represents the "good ol' boy" network already inplace before the LCS comes into being.

Not to mention the Cable News Network and the AM Radio influence.

[Servant Corps]

The problem is that the Good Ol' Boy network doesn't work, or it collaspes rather easily once the LCS get sleepers within it. That's why the CCS comes into existance in the first place, as a safeguard when the Good Ol' Boy network falls apart and the LCS can convert society to Liberalism.

* Servant Corps sighs

[beorn080]

The only special thing the CCS can do is sending suicide bombers to your safehouses.

Altough...AM Radio is the mouthpiece of the Conservative movement right? Wouldn't it make sense if AM Radio behave more like, say, a Conservative Al-Jazzera? Prehaps important CCS leaders may get interviews on AM Radio to promote their ideology, causing both CCS popularity, political violence tolerance, and AM Radio popularity to rise. The chance of CCS leaders spreading hate speech increases as Free Speech laws turns more Liberal.

It should also include rants against the LCS to make it more unpopular. Perhaps they go on a news show and show tapes of CCS members posing as the LCS murdering people or some such.