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[Neon Green]

I've made a few attempts on the no seduction+no crime+no active recruits challenge, and I'm having dissapointing progress. I've had the founder write to newspapers with 15 skill and seven fireman sleeper agents promoting liberalism with effectiveness between 60% and 80% for about seven years, and public opinion on expanding free speech is sitting at 0%. I've had other laws (Gun control and Nuclear power) briefly go to C (and once M), but free speech is a difficult one. Is there a better sleeper for free speech than firemen, or a better activity than newspaper writing?

I'm actually not sure if Firemen affect issues at all as sleepers. I know firefighters do, from the code:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

case CREATURE_FIREFIGHTER:
         if(law[LAW_FREESPEECH]==-2)
         {
            libpower[VIEW_FREESPEECH]+=power;
            break;
         }


But I'm not sure if Firemen are included in that. If they're not included as Firefighters, then they each affect a random issue, and not Free Speech specifically. Seems like this code is for if you have firefighter sleepers, then the free speech issue drops to C+, then suddenly they start adding power, but they do nothing otherwise. Again, still not sure if Firemen are included in Firefighters (though I doubt it).

It seems like the best ones to have for free speech would be Agents, Conservative Judges, and Actors (they all affect Free Speech laws, in addition to others). Also it seems like Radio Personalities and New Anchors affect most, if not all, of the issues (if I'm reading this right). But they lose power as people lose trust in AM Radio and Cable News, respectively.

CREATURE_FIREFIGHTER is the same thing as firemen; the game changes the displayed title and skill/weapon loadout if free speech is archconservative when the creature is created, but they're otherwise identical.

This isn't the only situation where the displayed type is distinct from the actual underlying type, and in most (all?) cases the displayed type is not used internally.

[BoxOfAids]

Ah, well that's good to know. So in any case, it seems like Firemen/fighters only affect free speech if the issue is at full C+. So that may make it easy to get it up to C, but from there it's more likely to drop back down to C+ than it is to go up to M if all you're doing for trying to get it up is use Firemen sleepers. As for why it would be at 0% with that many sleepers and strong writing skill, that is in fact a mystery to me.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I didn't implement the Firemen, but I believe that the Firemen are a subset of the CREATURE_FIREFIGHTER creature type, so would act the same as Firefighters when made into sleepers.

[ed boy]

Having researced the underlying mechanics of the game, it appears that actors are the best way to go. From what I can determine, the effect that a sleeper has on an issue is the sum of their charisma, heart, persuasion and intelligence, with some professions adding their relevant skill to the mix. However, some professions have multipliers - CEOs and eminent scientists have a 10x multiplier, Deathsqauds, Educators and Military officers have a 3x multiplier, and Actors, gang units, seals and military police have a 2x multiplier. However, actors are the only ones in that list that have an effect on free speech.

Given that, I'm going to try again, but this time recruiting actors. I'll probably only accept those that have a combined HRT, CHA, INT and PER of 20 or above, get seven of them, and see how things go.

[FritzPL]

I'm doing pretty well with a little modified strategy:

I keep the printing press, tailor squad, seduction.
I first recruit 2-3 Fashion Designers.
Then, I go for 1-2 Actors and 3 College Students/Authors.
I train them to get high disguise, security and optionally some dodge if I fuck up and alienate the masses or pick locks with conservatives looking.
I also get one Programmer to keep me updated on opinion polls.

I basically call this game style 'Become America's #1 Cheap Suit Producer Today!'

[Alpheus]

Isn't plotting against the government illegal?

Or heck... Just being the LCS in Nightmare mode (where they likely repealed the "right of association") illegal in esssence?

Thoughtcrime & Thought Police would be a funny thing to add or make optional, like have a mind reading mode.

[ed boy]

Having researced the underlying mechanics of the game, it appears that actors are the best way to go. From what I can determine, the effect that a sleeper has on an issue is the sum of their charisma, heart, persuasion and intelligence, with some professions adding their relevant skill to the mix. However, some professions have multipliers - CEOs and eminent scientists have a 10x multiplier, Deathsqauds, Educators and Military officers have a 3x multiplier, and Actors, gang units, seals and military police have a 2x multiplier. However, actors are the only ones in that list that have an effect on free speech.

Given that, I'm going to try again, but this time recruiting actors. I'll probably only accept those that have a combined HRT, CHA, INT and PER of 20 or above, get seven of them, and see how things go.

I'm not having much success with this strategy. I have seven actor sleepers, each with a combined HRT,CHA,INT and PER of over 25, but after several years of trying I can't get free speech support high enough. I'm going to have to either get more sleepers or get rid of the CCS, if I'm going to have any chance of success. Either way, I'm probably going to have to use the seduction skill.

Secuding/Recruiting the Hardened veteran is something I'll have to build the character around (after getting high INT).

Spoiler: seduction mechanics (click to show/hide)

The seduction process that I'll be using is as such:
-My founder will make a seduction roll
-The CCS boss will make a wisdon roll, multiplied by 1.5 (as he is conservative and my founder has 50 juice)
-My founder's roll will be increased by 3 for each skill that he/she has between half and double the CCS boss's skill
-Both rolls will then be increased by their respective religion, probably business and possibly science skills
-If the CCS boss roll is at least my founder's roll, the relationship is over
-If my founder's roll plus twice my founder's heart is greater than the CCS boss's roll plus twice the CCS boss's wisdom, the CCS boss is a love slave
-Otherwise, the target may have a heart increase
So, assuming that this is accurate, I plan on starting the CCS boss seduction attempts with the following stats:
-Maxed seduction (probably 9 given my planned build)
-Hand to hand of 4 (obtained via university classes)
-Driving of 4
-Psychology of 2
-Business of 2
-Religion of 4
So I would expect to have a modifier of at least +19, whereas the CCS boss would have a modifier of at least *1.5+2

Spoiler: recruiting mechanics (click to show/hide)

When recruiting, the difficulty will by the sum of my target's business, science, religion, law, and intelligence, minus my founder's skills in those, plus the target's wisdom plus five, with a minimum of zero. If money is spent, then this decreases by five, but notably this decrease takes place after the minimum of zero is put in place. A persuasion check is then made against this difficulty. If successful, the target's eagerness increases. If not, a second check is made to see if the eagerness decreases by one, or the target breaks off all contact. Once the eagerness reaches four, the target can be recruited.
In this case, I would plan on getting extremely high business, religion, science and law via university classes (5 in each of those should be plenty to recruit the CCS boss).
In order to get the CCS boss to come for discussion at all involves making a pretty hefty persuasion check (A very easy one with a -14 modifier).

Both routes have their ups and downs. Going down the seduction route would mean that I can keep my seven actor sleepers, but it would mean breaking my code of conduct on no seduction. Going down the persuasion route would mean I can keep no seduction, but it would also mean I have to only have five actors (one sleeper to give the CCS safehouse location, one sleeper as the CCS boss). The only way to get around this would be to turn the sleeper into a full member, then immediately disband them.

Even if I get my hands on the CCS backer list, there is still the question of what to do with it. Publishing it would result in a free speech crime, though I might make an exception for this one case.

Even if I can get rid of the CCS, there's no guarantee that that will allow me to succeed. I might start a new game with the CCS disabled and see if I can make progress before trying one of the above.

Also, could someone point me to where exactly "skill_roll" and "attribute_roll" are defined in the code? Knowing where 'LCSrandom' is defined would also be very useful.

EDIT: Come to think of it, where are the effects from writing to newspapers detialed? I couldn't find anything in daily/daily.cpp, or daily/activities.cpp

[ed boy]

For those who are interested, I've hunted down the code that I wanted in the above post:

Spoiler: code (click to show/hide)

LCSrandom is a uniform distribution with minimum zero and maximum M-1, where M is the argument given to it.

skill_roll works as such:
-Take the skill value
-Add half the governing attribute value, up to a maximum of three plus the skill value
--Security is the exception, you instead add the skill value again
-call roll_check with this argument
-Some skills (Psychology, law, computers, security, music, art, religion, science, business, teaching, first aid) return zero if the skill is zero
-Stealth is modified, based on amrour quality and type
-Disguise is modified based on various factors

attribute_roll just calls roll_check with the attribute as the argument

roll_check works as such:
-Divide the argument by three, remembering the remainder
-Roll that many six-sided dice
-If the remainder was 1, roll a d3
-If the remainder was 2, roll a d5
-return the sum of the highest three dice

-Each day that someone writes to newpapers, the background liberal power of a random issue increases by 5. If that person writes for the liberal guardian, then the background power of that issue increases by 15 (it may decrease by 15 instead, but that requires failing a pretty easy check). Background liberal power doesn't directly affect mood. I found it interesting that that the effectiveness of writing didn't increase with writing skill.

-Each month, the liberal power one each view increases by its background liberal power, and the background liberal power decreases by a third. The liberal power of each view is also increased by the power of the relevant sleepers multiplied by their effectiveness. This is compared to the conservative power, which is 200 minus the attitudes on AM radio and cable news. a random number between 0 and 399 is generated for each issue, with the liberal power added and the conservative power subtracted. If the result is less than -50, attitude becomes more conservative, if it greater than 50 it becomes more liberal, and if it is in the middle it changes randomly. However, the magnitude of such an attitude switch is only 1. The background liberal power of that issue will increase by 10. An attitude of 0 is complely arch-conservative, and an attitude of 100 is completely elite liberal.

-The maximum juice a sleeper can get is 100, which puts them at the 'revolutionary' rank, which multiplies each of their stats by 1.2 (rounded down) and increases them each by 3.

Spoiler: conclusions based on that (click to show/hide)

The power of my sleepers, if I get them to 100 juice, will vary between 37 and 40. If I have seven of them, working at an average effectiveness of 90%, I'm only looking at at most 250 liberal power from sleepers and writing each month. Since AM radio and cable news will not be opposed, the conservative power will be 200 each month, which will mean that the chance of a percentage point increase will be 2/3 each time at best. At the same time, the CCS will have their effects, which can easily have magnitudes in the twenties and thirtes each month. A single CCS event (of which multiple can occur in a month) has the potential to undo years of effort. If the CCS were to not be in effect, then I can conclude that it would be possible, but it would either mean having my sleepers do illegal things to get their juice up, or being absurdly lucky and taking a lot of time for public opinion to change.
There is also the option of reducing the conservative power. If I can reduce those significantly, then it would make the whole process a lot easier. In order to do this, radio personalities and news anchors must be recruited. Although they do not have any power multipliers, they apply their power to all issues (reducing as their media following reduces). Furthermore, each month they promote liberalsm they also each automatically cause a public opinion shift on their issue of a percentage point. Even though their influence on issues decreases as their following reduces, so does the conservate power that affects how issues change.

I'm therefore going to try again. I'm going to skill up my founder to max tailoring (for money),  decent business, religion, science and law, max persuasion (for recruiting), and good disguise (to get into the gentlemen's club.
I'm going to build up lots of money via tailoring. I'll then skill up (as detailed above), then go to the gentleman's club. Once at the gentleman's club, I'll hunt for news anchors and radio personalities. I'll try to get three anchors and two personalities. If one of them is also a member of the CCS and gives me their location, I'll recruit a third personality. If not, I'll recruit a hick to tell me the location. Once I have the location, my final recruit will be the CCS boss. At that point, I'll savescum, and try to finish the game in as pure a way as possible.

[BoxOfAids]

Regarding the seduction mechanincs, does Psychology affect Seduction at all? How much Seduction/other stats should I have to get Radio Personalities and New Anchors? I have a founder with 14HRT, 22 CHA, 14 Seduction, 4 Business, 2 Science, 2 Psychology, and 1 Religion, and I can't even get either one to stay for a second date. Is it just too low Seduction, or what?

[Darvi]

Well apparently, having the same skills as your target increases the chance of them staying, even more so if your religion, business or science rolls beat the target's. Psychology doesn't matter.

[ed boy]

Regarding the seduction mechanincs, does Psychology affect Seduction at all? How much Seduction/other stats should I have to get Radio Personalities and New Anchors? I have a founder with 14HRT, 22 CHA, 14 Seduction, 4 Business, 2 Science, 2 Psychology, and 1 Religion, and I can't even get either one to stay for a second date. Is it just too low Seduction, or what?

Are you spending the money? You only get the bonus for similar levelled skills if you're spending the money. Your heart only comes into play when you've avoided the break up. If you're not getting to the second date, it means that your roll isn't beating the target's roll.

News anchors can easily have wisdoms well into the teens, and they will have their roll multiplied by 1.5

If you pay money, you add 3 to your roll for every non-zero skill of yours that is between half and double their level in the same skill.

If the target has a non-zero level in science, religion or business, then both character's rolls are increased by their respective levels in those skills.

Keep in mind that there are diminishing returns for having obscenely high charisma and seduction. Your roll on that cannot exceed eighteen, and increased skills and stats just bias the results more and more towards the higher scores. If you want to go for the premium targets, then you can't rely on a high skill for the base roll - the additional bonuses are a lot more important.

Unfortunatly, since the skills that anchors and personalities are a lot more variable than the CCS bosses, it's a lot harder to predict what they will have and therefore a lot harder to predict what skills to train to what levels. The best advice I can give is to train lots and lots of skills to a level of 2, and always spend the extra money.

In my experience, however, recruiting them via persuasion is a lot more reliable. persuasion is a lot higher to grind up, and you can train the relevant skills nice and high without worrying about them getting too high.

[BoxOfAids]

Stuff

Good information, I hadn't been spending the money, I just gave up and recruited instead (much easier). Now my seduction is at 19, plenty of room for more love slaves!

[ed boy]

I've been doing some tests, and I think I've determined how to do the no crime/no seduction method. I'm pretty sure that this is the only possible method - I can't think of any others.

Spoiler: method (click to show/hide)

I need two radio personalities and two cable news anchors. Anything less than this will mean that I won't be able to get AM radio and cable news following down to zero.
I have also detemined that I cannot do it while the CCS is active. I'm going to allow myself a single violation of the free speech rules to publish the CCS backers list. I therefore need to get one hick sleeper from the gentlemen's club, and then once I have the CCS safehouse location, get the CCS boss as a sleeper.
Since I can get seven sleepers, I will havy my last as an actor, who can influence free speech. This last sleeper is not necessary, but it will speed up affairs an awful lot, and means less reliance on luck.
I'm going to max out charisma. Since I won't be able to get high enough INT to profitably manufacture expensive suits, getting money will be quite a bit slower than in my previous attempts.
I'm going to have my personalities and anchors promote liberalism constantly. I'm going to also publish the CCS backers list as soon as possible, and have my actor sleeper start promoting liberalism when the conservative media influence is zero. I reckon it'll take about twenty in-game years before free speech goes C, at which point progress will be trivial.

[Darvi]

Doesn't retrieving the backer's list already involve hacking the supercomputer?

[ed boy]

Doesn't retrieving the backer's list already involve hacking the supercomputer?

I believe it can also be done by getting the CCS boss as a sleeper, and looking for evidence. Given that that would result in a juice gain, he will be deactivated afterwards and never used again.