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[Jonathan S. Fox]

Singapore is a small, heavily urbanized, island city-state in Southeast Asia. It has less land area than New York City, is completely surrounded by water, has about five million people, and has a per capita GDP higher than the United States. It is a parliamentary republic modeled in part after the government of the United Kingdom. Although elections are not rigged, a mixture of censorship, gerrymandering, and civil libel suits against opposition political figures has kept a single party in power for over half a century. This party has grown increasingly conservative over the decades. Singapore is now one of the most economically free countries in the world, but homosexuality is illegal, chewing gum is banned, eating on the bus carries a $500 fine, failing to flush the toilet after you use it is a criminal offense, and the execution rate is higher than in Saudi Arabia.

Don't get me wrong, I have no personal issue with Singapore or its government. But a fictional modern island city-state like this would make an awesome setting for a game like LCS.

[LiteralKa]

Indeed. Though I like how we have a working American political system right now.

[Leafsnail]

Indeed. Though I like how we have a working American political system right now.

But elements of it feel a bit... odd.  It's like the entire political system is in a glass case you can't touch, which is strange when you can influence public opinion on a national scale.

[Blacken]

I agree that this is the big issue with LCS: it doesn't scale. Somehow your one-city brigade is influencing national politics. That doesn't really make a lot of sense. I'm actually working on a "city-state" simulator rather similar to LCS in my free time. (If you ever played Republic, you probably get the idea.)

[Servant Corps]

Indeed. Though I like how we have a working American political system right now.

But elements of it feel a bit... odd.  It's like the entire political system is in a glass case you can't touch, which is strange when you can influence public opinion on a national scale.

Think of LCS acting as a vanguard, encouraging copycat terror attacks in other cities.

Indeed. Though I like how we have a working American political system right now.

At the same time, I like having a government not responsive to public opinion. It makes the game longer.

[mainiac]

Nice to get a preview of what the U.S. will look like under president Palin.

[Zangi]

Sounds like a more.... viable setting.

What would fundamentally be different?  From random US city to Singapore?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

For one, everyone on the Liberal Agenda screen lives in the city you're taking action in...

[John Hopoate]

Singapore is now one of the most economically free countries in the world

In many ways the economy is free but the economic models of Singapore and South Korea are often characterised as "State Capitalism" because the government controls such a large portion of the economy. In many Western countries like the USA, Australia, the UK and France, only the hard-left believe that the government should control a significantly larger part of the economy, before the 80's in some cases it used to be different but not any more.

[LordBucket]

a fictional modern island city-state like this would make an awesome setting for a game like LCS.

True. Moving the game setting to a fictional city-state would also free us from feelign the need to be tied down to american political mechanics. It would be nice if the system were redesigned to be more game-like.

[ChemicalVengence]

This sounds like a really good direction for LCS. I told a friend of mine who lives in Singapore about this, as he's also an LCS fan. He said that the government there spies on people a lot(like the Privacy issue), and that Singapore is generally a great example of an actual Arch-Conservative government. Free speech is very conservative, which is why he wanted me to post this for him. Some bloggers from Singapore have been executed for saying things like this already. He also said some of the elections are a bit rigged. In one, some people went out into the street telling people who to vote for, but they were eventually arrested(probably killed too).

[Leafsnail]

If all the people on the Agenda screen were in your city type state, there would be a lot of interesting possibilities such as kidnappings and assassinations (these would be extremely difficult to carry out, of course).

[Kashyyk]

I always wanted to raid the parliament building and assassinate the Arch-conservative president...

[Aldaris]

If CNN ever spots that quote and inevtiably rips it out of context, you are so screwed.

[RandomNumberGenerator]

Indeed. Though I like how we have a working American political system right now.

But elements of it feel a bit... odd.  It's like the entire political system is in a glass case you can't touch, which is strange when you can influence public opinion on a national scale.

Think of LCS acting as a vanguard, encouraging copycat terror attacks in other cities.

Indeed. Though I like how we have a working American political system right now.

At the same time, I like having a government not responsive to public opinion. It makes the game longer.

Oh the other hand,  we could make the government much more responsive to public opinion, but make public opinion harder to change.

I always thought it weird that 100% of the population could support Elite Liberal viewpoints when at least 30% of the people you see walking around are Arch Conservative.