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[nenjin]

Isn't there something already like voter fraud going on? I can see that being used by the conservative hive mind when they're on the defensive, just as much as when they're winning and don't need voter fraud because the public already supports them.

[Kay12]

You could make it possible to do more than once per game. Publishing the Data Disc would weaken the CCS, destroying them if they're already weak. There's a bunch of different power levels they have, right? Affecting things like the quality of their mooks. And every time you cause a new Conservagate Scandal, the CIA would lash out against you. I think the juice gain could be something like 100 for the squad for hacking the supercomputer, and another 100 for everyone in the LCS when the data is published.

The data disc is very hard to steal (unless some freak sitemaps script causes the supercomputer to spawn right next to the exit). It requires a top-notch stealth-action Liberal with superb hacking skill. Things that are easier include getting dozens of Arch Conservative Sleepers, becoming a millionaire, beating the [poop] out of five Conservative Crime Squads, having your founder become a sleeper and beating the game with clubs only (heh, "beating"). Since the CCS is not exactly hard for armed squads to take on, I don't think it should be put in the near-impossible category for Liberals that would perform the Epic Feat of Stealing the Data Disc.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You could make it possible to do more than once per game. Publishing the Data Disc would weaken the CCS, destroying them if they're already weak. There's a bunch of different power levels they have, right? Affecting things like the quality of their mooks. And every time you cause a new Conservagate Scandal, the CIA would lash out against you. I think the juice gain could be something like 100 for the squad for hacking the supercomputer, and another 100 for everyone in the LCS when the data is published.

The data disc is very hard to steal (unless some freak sitemaps script causes the supercomputer to spawn right next to the exit). It requires a top-notch stealth-action Liberal with superb hacking skill. Things that are easier include getting dozens of Arch Conservative Sleepers, becoming a millionaire, beating the [poop] out of five Conservative Crime Squads, having your founder become a sleeper and beating the game with clubs only (heh, "beating"). Since the CCS is not exactly hard for armed squads to take on, I don't think it should be put in the near-impossible category for Liberals that would perform the Epic Feat of Stealing the Data Disc.

I'd also like to add that, should anyone decide to go with the "several weeks long social uprising" model of the Conservagate Scandal that I advocated, it could easily be made tough for the LCS. Heat could skyrocket on all safehouses just for existing while the country is being rocked, with risk of being raided by any groups already searching for you, as well as the Riot Police and Looters. My model lasts for ten weeks, which can be a long time to last with easy siege conditions suddenly active.

[Kay12]

On the other hand, I'd make mass riots and such a random event that would happen about once in every two years. LCS activity could escalate the riots further and even cause positive stuff at the Government to happen.

Now that we're discussing revolutions, one idea I've bounced around in my head but haven't tested or analyzed further - political tension meter. There used to be (briefly) a similar popular attitude tracker for political violence. My proposed system would, instead of limiting the player's ability to act, change the mechanics with public opinion changes. Basically, if the LCS and CCS both lay low, political tension will stay quite low, and people are quite willing to accept a few compromises and have a higher chance of voting for a less extreme candidate (M, and to less extent C and L) instead of an extremist (C+ or L+). High political tension would reverse this, producing election results not unlike the current system, where the only likely winning alignments are C+ or L+. I don't intend this to cause situations like "whole country's Arch Conservative but no one cares about politics so every Senator is moderate", but rather that big difference in opinions between issues will cause a L+/C+ division when tension is high, and a much more moderate division when tension is low. High political tension also means people are getting more extreme, and popular mood swings will reduce as people take a side.

And this would affect riots by making them much more likely when tension is high, and much less likely (if not impossible) when tension is low.



EDIT: By the way, would anyone oppose making destruction of industrial equipment much more severe when industry laws are C+? I got the idea from Kurt Vonnegut's novel Player Piano, where sabotage is a very serious crime, easily comparable to treason.

[Soadreqm]

The data disc is very hard to steal (unless some freak sitemaps script causes the supercomputer to spawn right next to the exit). It requires a top-notch stealth-action Liberal with superb hacking skill. Things that are easier include getting dozens of Arch Conservative Sleepers, becoming a millionaire, beating the [poop] out of five Conservative Crime Squads, having your founder become a sleeper and beating the game with clubs only (heh, "beating"). Since the CCS is not exactly hard for armed squads to take on, I don't think it should be put in the near-impossible category for Liberals that would perform the Epic Feat of Stealing the Data Disc.

Couterpoint: If you already have the required Liberal Ninja Hacker, and she survives the CIA retaliatory strike for stealing the first disk, there is no additional investment required to steal a second disk. And although the CSS is quite easy to deal with if you have armed squads, I think this Data Disk stuff is mostly supposed to be a benefit in a hypothetical situation where someone might want to destroy the CSS non-violently. Stealing and publishing three or so Data Disks would definitely be very difficult, but it wouldn't be impossible, and after the CSS is demolished, you've more or less won the game.

Speaking of surviving the CIA retaliatory strike, what if you just walked into the police station and turned yourself in? Would the conservatives still try to assassinate you?

[Kay12]

Countercounterpoint: Why would the player be made to steal the data disc several times if it is trivial? LCS has enough grind already, having an extremely difficult operation that gives a large but one-shot reward at at least a few places is much better than making everything in the game be about repeating the same raids all over again to shift the public mood. Furthermore, I still think the difference in difficulty between smacking a few CCS safehouses and stealing even one of those accursed data discs is too large to not have the latter pay out a lot more.

[Servant Corps]

Okay, sod it. In order to prove once and for all that you don't need to buff some stupid Data Disk when the game is so broken that I don't really consider the CCS an actual threat, I have started an LCS game on Nightmare Mode where I plan to swamp the CCS with so much Sleeper-Dom that they won't be able to do anything. Thread will be posted soon.

EDIT: Okay, yes I know that Nightmare Mode, especially a Nightmare Mode with no CCS starting already active, may make acquiring a powerful sleeper network trivially easy to start with, but work with me here.

[Kay12]

The CCS do siege safehouses. Nothing extraordinary bad, though. Perhaps they should be stronger, at least more resilient as the CCS period is the most thrilling time of the game! I'm in favor of postponing the CCS appearance, by the way, to balance difficulty between early and late game.

And yes, I think the data disc should be buffed because it's almost impossible to get unless you're the illegit son of the Random Number God. However, that comes with the bad side that most you'd need in LCS - trained & equipped characters, destruction of CCS and political mood change, can be achieved by experienced players with much more ease than that, even if the data disc is made more powerful. LCS has had issues with balancing difficulty to make it challenging across the game (not just the beginning) and make the difficulty be something deeper than just random rolls against other rolls. Difficulty aspects are the game's weakest point but I think it's rather impossible to fix these flaws without major overhauling. Also, to stick with the Covert Action rule, the game should not have multiple complex aspects, and making site actions deeper could result in the player losing track of their basemode operations while doing site action. Coincidentally, Covert Action was all about site raiding and basemode stuff, with Sid Meier claiming each would've been a better game on its own.

[Servant Corps]

Yeah I heard of Covert Action syndrome. The reason I'm complaining is the idea of trying to buff pacifist squads when pacifism seems already buffed to me. I don't really care about the Data Disk, but I do want at least some attention paid to other problems. Truth be told, most players of LCS likely don't really care about the inherent imbalance of the LCS game and might even be fine with the game being hard when the country is conservative and easy when the country is liberal. Meh.

Also, as for the civil war, I was wondering about just having an option at the start of the screen that turns on an Second American Civil War or not. If it is on, you hear about random terrorist attacks by single-issue groups that affects the issues either positively or negatively. This would serve as a little bit of flavor, similar to that of the random newspaper articles that appear. The weaker side is the one that will usually resort to terrorism, so you'll see more Liberal terrorism in a Conservative USA, and more Conservative terrorism in a Liberal USA.

[Kay12]

Really, if the data disc is going to stay, it must be buffed to be even somewhat balanced. You get a very cheap reward for one of the most challenging "feats" in game (quotes because the actual feat is buffing a chatacter to be able to do this and random rolls). Similar files come from agent sleepers or just sneaking around. Not to mention the ease of changing popular opinion in other ways as well.

But yeah, LCS gameplay is all about figuring out a strategy and random rolls. It doesn't make LCS a bad game, because LCS is strongly built about the funny details and political satire. Improving the gameplay wouldn't hurt though.

[Soadreqm]

Okay, sod it. In order to prove once and for all that you don't need to buff some stupid Data Disk when the game is so broken that I don't really consider the CCS an actual threat, I have started an LCS game on Nightmare Mode where I plan to swamp the CCS with so much Sleeper-Dom that they won't be able to do anything. Thread will be posted soon.

EDIT: Okay, yes I know that Nightmare Mode, especially a Nightmare Mode with no CCS starting already active, may make acquiring a powerful sleeper network trivially easy to start with, but work with me here.

How does that relate to the Data Disk? Is it an integral part of your strategy somehow? You'll steal the Data Disk so you don't have to set any of your eleven sleeper agents to snooping, instead having them all promote liberalism? And you won't be picking up any of the random loot in the CIA HQ to get Secret Documents, so that your Elite Liberal Ninja Hacker will only be charged with treason, and not theft?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

The reason for data disc being one big event that only triggers once, rather than a repeatable event, is that the challenge is in getting a Liberal who is capable of retrieving it. If you already have that Liberal, you can get it as many times as you want with minimal added risk.

The reason for buffing pacifists is because pacifists can't destroy the CCS, which is a major part of gameplay. A strategy the game ostensibly allows shouldn't require you to change the game options to make it viable.

The reason for the data disc being buffed in general is because it's cool, and interesting, and gives players something to set as a goal, or a surprising reward for a difficult mission. It increases how fun the game is.

[Kay12]

The data disc is probably the worst thing in LCS per investment and payoff, considering that the issues can be swifted substantially with even less epic Liberals. I'm in for implementing cool new variety wherever possible, and data disc is certainly something that can be enhanced with such variety.

Also, tbe CCS. They aren't exactly challenging (at least to someone who's played for years) unless, of course, the player encounters one of those bad dice moments and gets caught with their pants down, just about to say "Oh crap, I sure hope the CCS won't become active now". Dealing with the CCS, if the player is even slightly prepared, is a matter of repeating a task that's quite trivial - sitting in a CCS safehouse and killing people. Very little thinking involved, but there is always the risk of losing a squad member to a failed datenap (arguably good, as many games are about handling risks)! Jon is working on improving the CCS infiltration system, and I'm very much looking forward to it. Pperhaps the CCS itself could be enrichened, like them having safehouses for different purposes. Destroying their armories would make them rely on revolvers and shotguns instead of M4 and AK47. Destroying their conference rooms would severely reduce their political impact. Destroying their barracks would prevent (or weaken) their raids and reduce their numbers. Something like that.

I'd also strive for making each site look unique and pretty, even if it means sacrificing some of the maps' randomness. Current maps are next to useless anyway, unless used well - the typical armed raid will only need one room to kill people in and then get out. Each site should have unique flavor options mainly (but not exclusively) aimed for stealth Liberals, similar to the Cable Studio and industry machines, but I think they should be greater in number, even in sites that already have such stuff. Stealth burglars should be favored because the current stealth method for damaging a site is spraypainting over it, which is rather... meh. However, having actions that work with less stealthy military squads as well would add incentive to move away from the exit and actually risk something. And, as for purely flavourish changes, I would like some aesthetic additions (coloured walls, carpets, smoothed pillars, more wall texts, fountains and more!) to add a means for setting a clear visual tone for each site. Factories could have brown walls with visual dirt on them and so on.

At this point, I re-read my entire post, fixed most of the typos I spotted and decided to go to bed. Nite.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Jon is working on improving the CCS infiltration system, and I'm very much looking forward to it.

Er... ah... I should downplay any expectations by stressing that I'm actually not coding any of that. It's just an idea I had. My actual use of time right now is split between writing some final papers for my last two online classes, working on de zombie game, and practicing art. The last one just for kicks and personal ambition.

[Soadreqm]

New rumor: Jon working on a graphical tileset for LCS.