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[Jonathan S. Fox]

I'm currently trying out a system where one of the public opinion issues (with no law attached) is the amount of tolerance for political violence the public has. It starts extremely low, drops steadily over time, and increases as you (or the CCS) engage in violence that exceeds their existing tolerance level. The CCS spawns when the public tolerance for violence gets very high, or several years after the start of the game, whichever comes first.

Instead of your actions on site turning the action into a "rampage" because you hit a moderate in the crossfire or smashed a machine in front of a union worker, they'll be considered a rampage if the violence to political action ratio for the site action is too high for the public. Political action is just about everything except fighting, breaking doors, and stealing: tagging the walls, freeing rabbits, smashing machines, pressing the button, cracking the CEO's private safe, springing prisoners from the police station, and so on. Shooting moderates and friendlies still counts for more violence than just shooting conservatives does, but it's not a one shot ruins the entire gig deal.

Under this system, as the game starts the public will frown on any shooting sprees you go on, regardless of who you shoot at. But if you insist on shooting things up (or as the CCS gets on the scene and starts engaging in rampant violence for you), the public and the media will accept more and more violence in your actions without causing a backfire.

Because the violence level for an action is calculated as a ratio to the amount of actual activism you engage in, instead of just directly counting how many people you kill, you can rack up a higher body count before going into rampage if you are doing a big operation rather than a small one.

[Aqizzar]

I can't form an opinion yet on how the game play would work, but I do have one additional idea.

As a disincentive or warning against taking violence too far, I think you could eventually hit a critical point where more violent groups besides the LCS and CCS start forming, as cultural tolerance for political violence slowly turns America into the Balkans.

[Earthquake Damage]

The CCS spawns when the public tolerance for violence gets very high, or several years after the start of the game, whichever comes first.

The CCS should probably spawn when either tolerance for violence is high or when the issues begin to tip toward Liberal.  Putting a timer on it makes little sense, as the country heads toward Conservatism on its own.  The CCS has no motivation if the news media is doing their job for them.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I can't form an opinion yet on how the game play would work, but I do have one additional idea.

As a disincentive or warning against taking violence too far, I think you could eventually hit a critical point where more violent groups besides the LCS and CCS start forming, as cultural tolerance for political violence slowly turns America into the Balkans.

What kind of gameplay implications are we talking about here? Just news stories, actual third party groups attacking your safehouses? It seems like a lot of work to make full groups you'd actually fight, but random attacks and violent news stories might spice things up.

The CCS spawns when the public tolerance for violence gets very high, or several years after the start of the game, whichever comes first.

The CCS should probably spawn when either tolerance for violence is high or when the issues begin to tip toward Liberal.  Putting a timer on it makes little sense, as the country heads toward Conservatism on its own.  The CCS has no motivation if the news media is doing their job for them.

That makes sense.


I'm planning on expanding it so that the public's tolerance of violence is based on a combination of how much they like the LCS (or CCS) and how much they tolerate violence in general. Thus, even if you don't normally commit violence, if people like you, you'll have more leeway.

[Aqizzar]

I can't form an opinion yet on how the game play would work, but I do have one additional idea.

As a disincentive or warning against taking violence too far, I think you could eventually hit a critical point where more violent groups besides the LCS and CCS start forming, as cultural tolerance for political violence slowly turns America into the Balkans.

What kind of gameplay implications are we talking about here? Just news stories, actual third party groups attacking your safehouses? It seems like a lot of work to make full groups you'd actually fight, but random attacks and violent news stories might spice things up.

By implications, I'm the gameplay effects of what you were talking about.  It's too nebulous for me to say whether I like the idea.  I'm not sure what it would actually mean, except that the more violence you use, the less people care about your violent actions.  Which does make sense.

My bit was just an idea pitch.  Yes, I think random violence would be best.  Maybe the game could generate some cardboard stand-ups, like a growing list of groups, each with a name and active locations, and a couple issues that make them more or less active at different levels.  Not complete, strategically active groups like the LCS and CCS, but not completely ethereal, random encounters either.

[mainiac]

Maybe the balkanization could be represented by <random cause> <random action> <random organization> groups.  This would be one organization that would do raids like the CCS but the name would be randomly selected each time.  Random organization raids would always have the same result: shifting the criminal justice system sharply conservative and making the LCS less popular (since they are now "just another terrorist gang."

example random things;
Causes:
religion, abortion, prohibition, marijuana legalization, nationalism, treason, banking, flying spagetti monster, cable news, misandry, media, gold standard, AK-47, metric system, electric car, nuclear power, coal
Actions:
unification, destruction, education, terrorism, independence, obscuration,  study, rebirth, spell checking, eradication, sublimation, unmasking
Organizations:
front, brotherhood, sisterhood, solidarity, bowling league, appreciation society, true believers, anointed ones

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I can't form an opinion yet on how the game play would work, but I do have one additional idea.

As a disincentive or warning against taking violence too far, I think you could eventually hit a critical point where more violent groups besides the LCS and CCS start forming, as cultural tolerance for political violence slowly turns America into the Balkans.

What kind of gameplay implications are we talking about here? Just news stories, actual third party groups attacking your safehouses? It seems like a lot of work to make full groups you'd actually fight, but random attacks and violent news stories might spice things up.

By implications, I'm the gameplay effects of what you were talking about.  It's too nebulous for me to say whether I like the idea.  I'm not sure what it would actually mean, except that the more violence you use, the less people care about your violent actions.  Which does make sense.

Sorry, I got that, I meant the implications of your suggestion. Which you also answered, so thank you.

[Servant Corps]

Maybe the balkanization could be represented by <random cause> <random action> <random organization> groups.  This would be one organization that would do raids like the CCS but the name would be randomly selected each time.  Random organization raids would always have the same result: shifting the criminal justice system sharply conservative and making the LCS less popular (since they are now "just another terrorist gang."

I think I would rather prefer that these random terrorist groups just affect the issues a little bit, either liberal or conservative.

Or, prehaps you can have a random terrorist raid affect one issue Liberally and another issue Conservatively! For example, Stalinists who support the plight of the working class and desires for the death penatly to be used to deal with any "class enemies".

A worry I have is that the standard techinque of brainwashing AM Radio Personalities and Cable News Anchormen and setting promoting Liberalism can backfire badly. Since Cultural Sleepers affect all political views, and support of political violence is Liberal, even though having a high tolerance for political violence leads to the formation of CCS and other rival terrorist groups, as well as having people dismiss violence ("Yet another shooting at the Sweatshops? Gah. Can't we listen to more positive news, like what's going on in Pakistan?"). I am afraid it could eventually lead to Fox News stating, "Yes! You too can sway government policy by use of violence, right in the comfort of your own home! We talk to a local terrorist cell at 5 PM to show you how it can be done."

[mainiac]

I was trying to propose a simple but bad thing, nothing fancy.  I got no input on your fancy idea.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I'll have to make sure sleepers don't affect that issue -- that won't be hard to do. Honestly, on whether political violence is liberal, I've been debating whether to have it be so that high tolerance is liberal or high tolerance is conservative. It's pretty neutral, really.

I'd like to give you the opportunity to actively try to sway it in one way or another, depending on what's in your strategic interest, through a non-violent means. If you want the CCS to get slapped with rampages, you may want to reduce tolerance for violence. If you want to give yourself more flexibility, you may want to increase tolerance for violence.

[G-Flex]

I'm currently trying out a system where one of the public opinion issues (with no law attached) is the amount of tolerance for political violence the public has. It starts extremely low, drops steadily over time, and increases as you (or the CCS) engage in violence that exceeds their existing tolerance level.

Honestly, I think it should only increase tolerance if you exceed their existing tolerance level, but only to a small degree.

For instance, if they hardly tolerate ANY violence at all, you shooting up the latte stand every day is NOT going to go over well, will not make you friends, and they'll consider you so far out-there that they won't be swayed.

However, if you start small, with vandalism and fighting in self-defense, they might be able to sympathize a bit and get nudged towards accepting more-violent actions later on.

In other words, basically how it works in real life.

[Karlito]

Honestly, I think it should only increase tolerance if you exceed their existing tolerance level, but only to a small degree.

For instance, if they hardly tolerate ANY violence at all, you shooting up the latte stand every day is NOT going to go over well, will not make you friends, and they'll consider you so far out-there that they won't be swayed.

Except after you shoot up that same latte stand every day for a year and still haven't gotten caught, they're going to stop caring about it.

[Aqizzar]

On that note, there should be a difference between violence becoming passe at one location, versus all of society.  This could work even better if the old talk about having different cells in different cities is ever implemented.

If you shoot up the latte stand all the time, the latte stand will be infamous for it's violent atmosphere.  If you shoot up Denver all the time, Denver will be infamous for it's gang warfare.  If you shoot up all kinds of stuff all over the place, only then will all of American society consider violent means to ends at least legitimate, if not acceptable.

For that matter, if tolerance for violence was tracked by location, it would make it less disconcerting to be wanted for assault after starting a fistfight in a crackhouse.

[Neonivek]

On that note, there should be a difference between violence becoming passe at one location, versus all of society

Well I guess that would be the mechanic that allows the CCS to remain threatening and violence to still be a solution.

[Ruttiger]

It seems like a good idea, but without more site actions being available it's going to be somewhat limiting.