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[MicroclineHat]

Yeah, it would be hard to keep track of all of them at once. It was kind of a brownie dream to start with, anyway.

Well, there's a couple of ways they could be made more interesting. For a start, maybe some way of randomly generating a slogan for them to shout.

Edit: Just a thought in this direction, but might it be possible for that "multiple groups" thing to be a setup at the beginning of the game, like nightmare mode?

[Kay12]

I would concentrate on the core, but I'll check back to it once I'm done doing a lot of other stuff. CCS slogan sounds like a fun idea. There could be some pool including stuff like

Abortion is murder!
Down with commies!

and the classic

THEY TOOK OUR JOBS!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Alright, I'll try to compile some of these ideas together, and add mine as well.

Conservative Crime Squad

The CCS should be changed to first emerge in a mirror image to that of the LCS, when the following conditions are all met:

-Public Opinion 60% or higher Liberal.
-Elite Liberal President
-Near-Liberal Majority on the Supreme Court
-Liberal or Elite Liberal House and Senate
-Issues have become 10% Elite Liberal, 40% Liberal, or 75% Moderate

The CCS should have their ability to effect public opinion supercharged to equal that of the LCS. This makes the CCS a legitimate threat to a liberal public opinion, for as we all know the works of the LCS can make a Nightmare Mode population over 90% Elite Liberal in a couple of months.

The CCS will attract Rogues to their cause. Rogues are members of organizations that have suffered or been eliminated due to the fulfillment of the Liberal Agenda: Rogue Death Squad Members, Rogue Police Gang Units, Rogue Agents, Rogue Firemen, and the like.

Disillusionment
As the country comes closer to Liberalization, some of your liberals might begin to have....doubts about the validity of the LCS in a world so close to their ideal. The conditions for winning the game should be taken, and the percentage of those you have fulfilled applied to a Public Juice Count. At the game's start, the Public Juice Count will be in the negatives and not affect any Liberals but those who also maintain negative juice. However, once the percentage to completion raises, so will the Juice Count. When it reaches positive numbers, any Liberals who have a juice count lesser than it will occasionally approach their direct superior and point out one of the LCS's immoral actions (Using guns, killing people, rampages, "enlightenment", publishing someone's private information, flooding the city bay with nuclear waste even after nuclear power is banned, obstructing the justice system, etc). These are only "unlocked" if you've ever actually committed them, giving bonuses to things such as pacifist runs, as the LCS is more in-line with its worldview. For example:

You've told us all that we're working to eliminate guns from society and make people safe, but we shoot people to prove our point! How is this ever supposed to work!?

Success: Look, sometimes we have to make compromises for the greater good. The conservatives will shoot at us even if we don't shoot back, and if we die this has all been for nothing.
-OR-
Failure: Don't rock the boat, man. Just do as you're told.

Success: (Doubting Liberal) is satisfied for now.
-OR-
Failure: (Doubting Liberal) walks out of the safehouse in disgust

If it succeeds, the Liberal's juice is raised to the Public Juice Count's current location. If it fails, they abandon the LCS. However, the larger the disparity between the liberal's juice and the public's juice, the harder it is to convince them. At the end of the game, the Public Juice Count will be 700 Juice. This also applies to sleepers, so that would assist in making them less powerful. Finally, it can also effect the current leader of the LCS should they not have a high enough juice count, but without a superior what happens to them is different. The leader, filled with doubts, goes off on their own to soul search. The leader is transported to a random site. If the leader can commit a Liberal Action while on the site, their crisis is resolved and their juice is raised to the correct level. If they cannot, they abandon the LCS and the same events occur that do when a leader dies.

Re-education/Rehabilitation
It wouldn't be one of my LCS suggestion posts without.....a New Issue!

Prisoner Rights
C+: Prisoners have no rights whatsoever, subject to constant conservative brainwashing and abuse. (Effect: Prison is a Re-education Camp that functions the same as the one that exists now, with the addition of a check for damage every month to the already existing Juice check. Liberals who suffer too many checks in succession and don't have First Aid skill may die.)
C: Prisoners are regularly deprived of human rights and used as cheap labor for industry. (Effect: Prison is a Prison Factory that has a lesser drain on your Liberal's Heart and Juice than the Re-Education Camp. A less likely to succeed damage check is also in place.)
M: Prisoners have some guaranteed rights, but are generally not encouraged to change themselves. (Effect: Prison is Prison. Just prison, exactly like the one we have in the game now.)
L: Prisoners have the same rights as anyone else, but rehabilitory programs are limited in scope. (Effect: Prison is a Progressivist Prison. Liberals suffer a juice loss check each month equal to the Re-education Camp's.....except instead of being resisted by high Heart, it's resisted by high Wisdom. If your Liberal's juice reaches zero, they abandon the LCS. So yeah, that'll be a problem for you.)
L+: Prisoners are given comprehensive therapy and education during their term, allowing rehabilitation into happy and peaceful citizens. (Effect: Prison is a Rehabilitation Center that has a Wisdom-resisted Juice check that subtracts 300 Juice if failed. If it reaches zero Juice, the Liberal leaves the LCS.)

This makes prison a heavy threat to the LCS in Liberal law.

Technological Progress
As the world's tech advances, certain developments would make things very uncomfortable indeed for the Liberal Crime Squad.

2011: The police introduce mandatory entry into the fingerprint database for all citizens of the nation. This significantly increases the chance of a guilty verdict at trial from now on, if the Liberal has ever before been arrested or was recruited after this event. Disabled at Elite Liberal Privacy Law.

2012: Mandatory tracking chip implantation introduced, disabled at Liberal Privacy Law. Allows the Police to track down anyone who's wanted, preventing the Liberal from shaking any Heat. The chips are implanted if the liberal is recruited after the event or arrested. They can be removed illegally...for a price.

2013: Soft AI developed. All computer-related activities are harder to perform. The CIA siege the LCS quicker than they could before, and their Supercomputer is harder to hack.

2015: Hard AI developed. The CIA's Supercomputer is replaced with a named AI, which can instantly ID any wanted liberal at a site through facial recognition, immediately alerting the conservatives there. Destroying the AI at the Intelligence HQ will shut it down for a year while the CIA try to make another one.

(I know, I know, AI might be pushing it. The fingerprints and tracking implants, though...)

[Elodie Hiras]

Good, but just a few things:

Will masochistic/hardcore LCS players still be able to chose "We didn't start the fire" and have the improved CCS right from the beginning?
Do corporate/CIA/AM Radio/Cable News files count as private informations, or only the COE letters/photos do?
What does "Obstructing the Justice system" means? Does that means having a chitchat with thu Jury at the Court House? Do sleeper judges count for this one?
And last but not least: would there be a way to non violently disband the CCS?

[Soadreqm]

Liberals flat out abandoning the LCS with a single failed check doesn't sound fun. Maybe make it just damage heart or increase wisdom, with abandoning happening when the latter is higher than the former. The liberal prisons also seem too overpowered. Make the rehabilitation process only start at L+, and make it WAY slower. I mean seriously, you must have either high wisdom or more than 300 juice or the prison destroys a liberal in a single month? That's worse than C+ death penalty. It wouldn't happen often, as it's really easy to get away with crimes with liberal public opinion, but I really can't think of a situation where it would be fun.

Anyway, a liberal country having everyone's fingerprints on file, and a moderate country having a tracking chip on everyone? I know this is silly fantasy politics, but that sill sounds kind of odd.

Your timeline for technological progress also seems kind of optimistic. Artificial intelligence by 2015? What is this, the Transhumanist Crime Squad? I think it could be funny, but not as a flat "make the game harder" feature. Heh, if you had enough hacking skill and heart, could you convince the AI to join your cause? That sort of happened in Deus Ex.

...Actually, that might be an interesting option for the CIA super computer, whether or not it's actually intelligent. If you successfully hack it, you could get a powerful sleeper in the form of a back door that your ninja hackers installed.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Liberals flat out abandoning the LCS with a single failed check doesn't sound fun. Maybe make it just damage heart or increase wisdom, with abandoning happening when the latter is higher than the former. The liberal prisons also seem too overpowered. Make the rehabilitation process only start at L+, and make it WAY slower. I mean seriously, you must have either high wisdom or more than 300 juice or the prison destroys a liberal in a single month? That's worse than C+ death penalty. It wouldn't happen often, as it's really easy to get away with crimes with liberal public opinion, but I really can't think of a situation where it would be fun.

Of course it's worse. That's the point. We're supposed to be making the game harder to suceed at as it goes on, becuase right now you just have to get over the initial difficulty curve 90 degree angle and the game is child's play.

Anyway, a liberal country having everyone's fingerprints on file, and a moderate country having a tracking chip on everyone? I know this is silly fantasy politics, but that sill sounds kind of odd.

It doesn't sound odd to me. There are already plently of people in the US who support making the fingerprint database mandatory.

Your timeline for technological progress also seems kind of optimistic. Artificial intelligence by 2015?

We have some pretty amazing stuff already, but my real motivation is that most games that get won now end around 2016 or so, which means that the meaningful timeline events have to happen between 2009 and 2015. I did say it was a stretch, though.

[Soadreqm]

Anyway, a liberal country having everyone's fingerprints on file, and a moderate country having a tracking chip on everyone? I know this is silly fantasy politics, but that sill sounds kind of odd.

It doesn't sound odd to me. There are already plently of people in the US who support making the fingerprint database mandatory.

So, would you say that the privacy law in the US is currently ELITE LIBERAL, but slowly about to flip over to liberal?

And yeah, it's okay for the later game to be harder, but binary failures like "don't go to jail or you DIE" aren't really a good way to go about it. Would it even make the game considerably harder? I can't remember when I last had a liberal in jail at L+ death penalty, which I think currently affects the prisons. I think it would mostly be irritating.

[Kay12]

I was never too much into adding advanced technology in the LCS - it's not supposed to be a scifi game. Drawing difficulty from politics is better, as it genuinely increases the difficulty as the player progresses.

Stuff that could be easier in the Conservative end:
* crimes at the Crack House could have at least partial heat exemption status because no one cares about those people (say, 80% check to have a crime go unnoticed)
* certain disguises (cops and death squads) could be buffed by more Conservatism
* police reaction could be a bit slower (they have very few actual responsibilities and people have guns so they can defend themselves anyway)

Stuff that could be harder in the Liberal end:
* CCS
* harsher punishments (no death penalty, but these people are sick and need help!)
* gun control
* police response should be swifter and more effective (valiant paladins of justice)
* More?

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I was never too much into adding advanced technology in the LCS - it's not supposed to be a scifi game.

Unless the game lasts 100 years. Then all bets are off. Fighting cybercops with hover crowbars and space shotguns.

[Kay12]

Oh yeah, that. However, I consider that part of the satire - one hundred years in the future, and the only way society has got better? Cool gun names!

[GlyphGryph]

And yeah, it's okay for the later game to be harder, but binary failures like "don't go to jail or you DIE" aren't really a good way to go about it

Even in the worse case scenario above, you still have a month to spring them from jail. That should be more than enough time! (Although wrecking elite liberal institutions should obviously come with an opinion shift). And springing them should probably be quite easy if the LCS is willing to abandon their ideals enough to get them out, since the Liberals inside will be most unarmed and intent on "helping". (They should probably get some juice lowering attacks though - "Why are you doing this? We're here to HELP you!")

An I do support the "crisis of faith" thing too - but having a high enough skill or juice commander should make failure rare, the frequency of such crises should be based on how low the liberals juice is, and failing it should only reduce juice (until its less than zero, then they leave).

So at the end of the game, you'll probably steadily be reduced to a core group of liberals, as recruiting and maintaining people to join your extremist group gets a lot harder when those sympathetic to your cause are no longer outraged.

[Biag]

Wait- mandatory tracking chips at moderate law? In 2012? That seems like something that should only happen at C+ and/or L+ (conservative police state, liberal safety first). Not to mention that it would make it basically impossible to get away with on-site crimes after three years.

[ryacko]

I was never too much into adding advanced technology in the LCS - it's not supposed to be a scifi game.

Unless the game lasts 100 years. Then all bets are off. Fighting cybercops with hover crowbars and space shotguns.

Theoretically the game could last 100 years.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I was never too much into adding advanced technology in the LCS - it's not supposed to be a scifi game.

Unless the game lasts 100 years. Then all bets are off. Fighting cybercops with hover crowbars and space shotguns.

Theoretically the game could last 100 years.

Yes, it's happened before, especially if you combine sleepers with long prison sentences. If you manage to make the game last that long, plasma guns and light swords are yours.

[Detonate]

I was never too much into adding advanced technology in the LCS - it's not supposed to be a scifi game.

Unless the game lasts 100 years. Then all bets are off. Fighting cybercops with hover crowbars and space shotguns.

Theoretically the game could last 100 years.

Yes, it's happened before, especially if you combine sleepers with long prison sentences. If you manage to make the game last that long, plasma guns and light swords are yours.

Is there an actual difference or is the change just in flavor?