Okay. I played a bit farther. Some notes and more questions.
NOTES:
(1) Nightmare mode is kind of funny in a way. At first glance, it is a disaster (O NOEZ! ALL ARCH CONSERVATIVE!), but some AC laws actually give great benefits. Advantages and disadvantages list:
Disadvantages:
-If you are incredibly lazy, the AC amendment is passed and you lose. However, even assuming you do nothing and let the evil Tories win, it takes something like forty years for it to pass.
-Almost all of the passers-by are conservative, or moderate at best (barring a couple of class specific exceptions). This makes recruitment a pain in some ways, as it is hard to, for example, get an elite army of recruited black belts or yoga instructors as ninjas. It also means you will have a slightly harder time on raids.
-Everyone is armed. In a moderate/slightly conservative/liberal society, the conservatives in cafes, etc are easy target practice for training up a group of commandos. In this world, doing that is dangerous because they will shoot back, possibly with large guns (come to think of it, this is kind of a deconstruction; guns actually DO stop crime here).
-Death squads will shoot you rather than take you to jail. If you somehow go to jail (the only way I can think of this happening is if you actually stroll into the PD, shoot cops, and then surrender to a police officer rather than a DS officer), you will be executed no matter the crime unless you are found not guilty. This is probably the biggest problem.
-You can't use the liberal guardian without being raided by Firemen.
Advantages:
-You can get the best assault rifles, whereas you have to be really screwing the pooch if gun laws go this far to the Conservatives in a regular game. This means that once you are making lots of money, it is easy to arm a large group of cannon fodder with assault rifles and turn them into killing machines. Furthermore, excessive violence is extremely effective, so all you really need is a bit of money (gained by loot from raids), someone good with computers to do polling, and 6 guys with assault rifles to go massacre people in the buildings of those representing a widely supported Conservative issue.
-Because everyone is conservative, you have lots of TARGETS for training. This means if you have a decent force of veterans or others with good rifle skill, you can mow people down in common areas before they use their weapons, resulting in absurd rises in juice and rifle skill.
-Mutants are around because of the nuclear policy. Mutants are ALWAYS liberal and almost always have above average skill. They are effectively hippies with better stats. They can be used for just about anything if you recruit enough, and you can easily arm them with cheap pistols and use them on dangerous raids to effect issues.
In other words, it is about as hard as regular mode. Once you know how to play LCS, it becomes very easy for both regular and Nightmare modes. What about the CCS? Well:
CCS Notes:
-In Nightmare mode with We Didn't Start the Fire, they are actually somewhat beneficial. Because they are in a world that is already as far conservative as it gets, their most successful raids achieve nothing and their "rampages" actually push public opinion in the Liberal direction. Furthermore, because they generally don't target the same place twice, they actually have a way of pushing public opinion in your direction without you needing to do much. It IS a pain to fight them when they attack you directly, but it isn't too hard to avoid being attacked while they make things easier for you.
-In Nightmare mode without WDSTF, they are a pain in the ass when they occur. However, they aren't THAT bad, for the sole reason that once they arrive, you should already have an extremely powerful force to fight against them with. For example, I had a group of 6 "Commandos" with very high rifle skills and all nearing 1000 juice, a leader with 19 persuasion, 18 disguise, and 19 psychology, not to mention a group of "civilians" repairing large amounts of army body armor and 7 programmers either checking polls or doing credit card fraud. When they arrived, I simply sent my leader to the Gentleman's club repeatedly, dated a hick/rube/etc, kidnapped him, and then converted him as a mole. I then sent my commando squad, which was easily able to clear out the hideout. Rinse and repeat. After the gain in disguise, psychology, and rifle in addition to the juice increase, the CCS was beneficial when it popped up in the long run.
-In regular mode with WDSTF, they are extremely annoying as their raids are actually effective. However, those rampages can still cause them pain. This is probably the toughest mode.
-In regular without WDSTF, they are far more dangerous when they arise as the LCS generally isn't quite as large to have changed public opinion as they would be in Nightmare, making them a real threat. However, they are easier than in normal with WDSTF due to the player at least having something to work with.
Now, here is how my game in Nightmare without classic or WDSTF went:
(1) I began by recruiting a group of 6 "Enforcers". They would assist my leader (King was his name) in kidnapping. Initially they did the kidnapping unarmed, but over time I made enough money to arm them with cheap guns.
(2) I used these enforcers to kidnap a judge, a radio personality, a news anchor, a cop, assorted people (janitors, etc), 6 pseudo-soldiers (veterans, etc), and 7 programmers. After kidnapping enough to leave me in a very strong position (especially the cop, as he had sufficiently high efficiency as to warn me of basically every raid), I left my enforcers in the industrial district, doing things like clothing repair.
(3) I used the 6 "soldiers" as a commando group, calling them commandos Blue, Yellow, Orange, Purple, Red, and Green. Each one of them had decent skills in an area other than rifles and combined were very useful (for example, Orange had skills with first aid while Purple had a great security skill).
(4) From here, I used the programmers to do credit card fraud (which was very profitable) and occasionally opinion polling. If I saw an issue that wasn't liberal enough, the commandos would go and shoot up a building until the people liked it. I didn't bother with the newspaper as it would simply result in more raids. Raids themselves were not a problem because my cop mole informed me of them all ahead of time.
(5) The CCS arrived. I used my boss to capture CCS members and to convert them. His persuasion and disguise skills went through the roof. When the CCS was in "recovery" mode, I used him as an absurdly overpowered robber in conservative buildings. He had no security skill, but his disguise was good enough for him to be able to rob entire bases without ever raising the alarm so long as he had the right clothes, and if the alarm was raised he could bluff past anything. Later on, I was able to basically use the cable and radio buildings as Liberal proxies, having my King stroll through, "hijack" the station (though no one ever complained), bluff past all the guards, rinse and repeat.
(6) From here, it was basically a waiting game. I finished off the CCS and did some musical chairs to prevent my commandos and hackers from being arrested in raids. I used my boss to hijack the radiowaves mostly for the lulz (public opinion was pretty much 90% liberal at this point anyway).
(7) The liberal amendment failed. I disbanded since it was clear I would win anyway (Despite all laws and all branches of government being strongly arch conservative). I waited and sure enough, the government become entirely Elite Liberal by 2018 and I won (having ended the LCS in 2011). I suspect the liberal amendment would have actually hurt my cause, since I have seen many games where it results in the conservatives coming back to power and stopping things from going far enough liberal to win and then reversing my influence, whereas without it the liberals can't be dislodged and win by default.
Now, questions:
(1) No matter how liberal it gets, gang members in the crack house are all conservative. Is there any way to change this?
(2) How do I reduce heat? No matter how little I used my commandos or put them on community service, they racked up absurd amounts of heat immediately wherever they were. Same thing with my hackers.
(3) How do I effect each individual issue? Some were obvious in a strange, LCS world way (AM radio is popular? Shoot up the building! Police brutality isn't being noticed? Bust the door down and shoot up the PD! etc), but some I couldn't figure out (gay rights, gender equality, military spending, CCS popularity, etc)
(4) Is there a way to get my kidnapped and converted Liberals to court to remove their rap sheets without them being "rehab'd" back into conservativism? I always avoided this happening for this reason, but I suspect I would have had an easier victory if I could have had my commandos and hackers found "not guilty" so that they could do lower key actions.
(5) What is the deal with the CEO in his residence? I can't seem to kidnap him because he is "too dangerous" (also, is there a way to kidnap "dangerous" people outside of datenapping?), I can't date him because either "this isn't Brokeback Mountain" or "I am happily married", so what do I do with him? Do I get an advantage by shooting him dead?