Bay 12 Games Forum

Of the three that you list, OpenXCOM is certainly the closest to what I am thinking of. It is a clone of the original X-COM, but it says that it is open-source, so should be easy to mod, or so I would think.

There's also UFOAI, which is another X-COM spiritual successor and is open source, but its forum is utterly inaccessible from my computer (I believe there to be a bug in the forum software), so can't access it.

Speech attacks could work like Mind Control in OpenXCOM.
Combat is highly lethal in OpenXCOM, just like LCS.

If you use OpenXCOM, I recommend you take a look at OpenXCOM Extended mods like PirateZ (Warning: NSFW) and X-COM Files, or even at the features OpenXCOM Extended itself has.

Rimworld could also work, I guess. Never played it, though.

What even is Neoliberalism and what will make it different from the Liberal Crime Squad? Opposing an "Xenophobic, racist, sexist" agenda still kinda sounds like a Liberal Crime Squad thing, except more 2016-ish.

Another pet peeve of mine: Inability to assign "Repair clothing" in bulk. No reason why it shouldn't be bulk-assignable, especially during a Siege when there's not much to do but repair the TONS of damaged armor left over from the countless murder sprees my Liberals have gone on.

I don't want to go into too many details until it's closer to finished, but the overarching concept is that, rather than just reskinning the existing political system, I want to place the new crime squad in the center of the political chart with enemies on both sides of the spectrum opposing you.

So... Moderate Crime Squad? Sorta? Since you're in the middle and all. Or would that be Centrist Crime Squad?

Latest date: Revamp of the inventory system.  Currently, unequipped weapons cannot be detected by metal detectors, because metal detectors only look through the inventory of individual squad members, rather than the squad itself.  I'm not sure how it should be done, just that it should be different.

Hopefully disguises would still work even if the metal detector starts beeping? Also, good luck removing those 104 lines of code.

I always had an idea for a sort of LCS remake, but as a forum game and revolving around music. Instead of the Liberal Crime Squad, you're the Disco Squad, and trying to bring about the revival of disco. Other factions include the Rockstar Alliance, Dubstep Brigade, Classical Symphonists, Country Crew, and a bunch of other rival music-themed squads I haven't thought of yet. Like a name for a jazz-focused squad.

At the start of the game, Disco is dead. Very dead, in fact. Very few people like it, and thus very few people are willing to join up for the cause other than your founder and a small group of other friends, depending on starting choices. You must make Disco the most liked genre in the country by committing crimes in the name of disco, going out in public and blasting disco music, kidnapping anyone who doesn't like Disco and brainwashing them, musical activism, etc. You must also survive, since music is very serious business, and the other groups will do whatever it takes to make their musical genre the most liked in the country, even if it involves violence.

In addition to the rival music squads, there's also the police and the general public to deal with, too! Tolerance for "musical violence" is very low at the beginning, since people killing each other over not liking Rock and Roll is insane and shocking. As the conflict escalates, the public eventually gets desensitized to all the violence. Be careful, however, as too much violence will backfire and possibly lead to a full-blown civil war and the country being balkanized or something. The police won't exactly tolerate violence and crimes, either, unless bribed to look the other way.

Maybe have stuff like random events related to AM Radio and Cable News that affect things politically? Something like AM Radio having a podcast about stories where responsible gun owners save lives (pushing public opinion on gun control to Conservative) or something? Technically, that kinda already sorta does happen with the random events that pop up in the newspaper, like an AM Radio Personality going bonkers and swearing a lot (or something like that) but those are rare IIRC.