Bay 12 Games Forum

No!  We can't fail!

Perhaps someone could go to colorodo and wait until however many years into the game your squad was destroyed (I'd go with the arrest date, not the actual defeat date.)  They only influence perception the bare minimum to fend off defeat.  They then play the city from then on, and treat it as a Vanguard movement for at least a while.

I answered my cell before the first ring even finished, eager to hear the news.
"Hey, Kim, call me a genuis!"
"Alright, Simpson, you're a genuis.  Why?  What you got?"
"Get over here and I'll show you."
I switched off the cellphone and hurried to the public library where Simpson was doing her snooping up on my new friend in black.  I saw her favorite booth in the back was occupied and hurried up to her.
"So... I started by looking this guys history up.  Born in north Cali, went to school in north Cali, works there, probably gonna die there.  Here's all the docs."
I peered at the records, not quite getting it.
"Yeah, okay..."
"They did a good job making it look like all this stuff's been in the system forever.  It looks like he's got 44 years of life history recorded.  But they missed something.  The courthouse has school records a bussiness permit dating back more then 20 years.  The time stamps confirm it..." Simpson grinned, enjoying my confusion.
"So..."
"The court house started keeping electronic records 18 years ago.  Mr. West's records were apparently put in 2 years before the system came online.  Damn fine job of fakery.  But it's fakery, it's got to be.  Sure sounds like a secret agent sort of thing to me."
"Huh..." intruiged I leaned in to see my new friends fake life story.  "So this is what tipped you off?" I asked Simpson to clarify.
"Yeah, just compare that to this here.  Look as much as you want but don't mess anything up.  I'm going to get some more coffee across the street."
Simpson departed and left me to peering through the documents, piecing together Mr. West's fake journey of life.  Going by what was here, he'd never even left the country.  It could be a lie, but what if it wasn't.  Who was he spying on without going abroad?  Well... there was Bonita for one.  I pondered that for a bit, then decided to quickly check my e-mail.  I'd only begun to move my hand towards the mouse when my phone rang.
"Hey, babe.  Sorry I'm running late.  I'll be there soon."  Ah, my new friend had finally decided to play.
"Running late?  You stood me up!" I didn't bother trying to hide my disbelief.
"Bussiness ran late.  But I'll make it up to you.  Fine dining, private film screening, the works.  Where can I pick you up?" He sounded genuine and I was almost tempted to lead him on all evening.  Almost.
"Now, now, Mr. West.  My parents taught me not share secrets with strangers who are spies.  Besides, I'm more the rainbow cafe type."
"Spies?  What are you talking about?"
"Hey, now, I shared a secret, now it's your turn.  Why were you tailling that woman in the coffee shop?"
"Huh, Martine?  Just a friend."
"Wrong.  A spy and a liar to boot." I leaned back in the chair and grinned into the phone.  "Why were you tailing her?"
"Look, Bonita is an ex.  I didn't think she'd be there and was worried things could get awkward.  Alrgiht?"
"Strike two.  Bonita goes there every day."
"Look, Kimberly.  How about you tell me why the hell you care?"
"Kimberly?  No one's called me that since-"
"College."

A shiver ran down my spine as every muscle in my body froze.  There was a gun muzzle against the back of my head.  I hadn't even heard the bastard walk in.

"You had a real wild time in college, eh Kimberly?  Kimberly!" the spy pushed the gun against my head harder until I made eye contact.  Then he took the wallet I had stole from my unresisting fingers and went on.  "All the parties... the boys, the girls, the drugs, the riots you kept instigating when you got pissed off.  You think you're quite the little hero don't you 'Gibby the Fox'?  Normally, I'd ignore a little nuisance like you," the spy yanked the computer power cord from the outlet and the screen went black.  "But you, you just didn't know when to mind your own damn business."

((This seems like a nice place for a break.))

Quote from: mainiac

China's economy today is an excellent example of the variation problem(...)

this can be easily done too(it had been done before). Your teritory/planet has varied levels of industrial capacity/infrastructure. You can't build you newest tanks/spaceships where you've got no ability to do so, but you can easily commision a starport, or improve said infrastucure to change that over time. And this could cost more/decrase happiness to reflect the cultural inertia of a given society.

I gotta keep this short but, no that doesn't indicate the spread of technology well at all.  Deploying new techniques isn't just about a central industrial beureu deciding to, even in a communistic country.  To go with HOI, which you mentioned.  Anyone playing as the US 36 starts the game building factories and getting the industrial efficiency techs because they can't go to war for a while.  Then, once war looms, they stop expanding their economy and start building troops.  That's the opposite of history, industrial growth was practically non-existant in the depression and low wages from high unemployment meant efficiency was less important then before. 
The war time boom meant there was opportunity for industrialization (i.e. industry technologies) to spread again and technical efficiency was pursued with new vigour.  Adoption of a technology is about more then devoting resources to it and it's even possible to go back.  In an extreme example, an Indian industrialist started a profitable textile industry before it's time (early 18th century I think, waaay before India industrialized).  But after his death the industry disappeared.  The pain to the local economy caused so much resistance that no one else could make the industry succeed.
But setting local production limits does not model why technical ability varies across a country.  This is significant for strategy games.  What's available in one theater can be very different from another theater, even single battlefields often feature a variety of the same tech.

Yeah... I suck at keeping things short.  It was so straightforward in my head.

you mean game breaking imbalance?

You can't break LCS.  It doesn't bother with balance beyond making the game playable.

This turn might take me a while to get to.  I've got some stuff that needs sorting out, IRL.

Yeah, scratch that.  I have survived the most boring thermo lecture ever, so my plans to work on thermo tonight are cancelled in celebration.

((I forgot to save when I exited after January, so sadly Marty disappeared.  So I repeated the raid until I found another vet, this one named Lisa.  Farewell Marty, we hardly new ye.

After that I started playing normally, when what some events happened in a sequence that seemed cool to me.  Naturally, I had to flesh out a story for it but I don't have time to finish it right now.  But it's got like, spies and stuff and I think it'll be cool.  I swear, I won't make a habit of ridiculously fleshing stuff out this much in the future.))

Febuary 9th: been recovering and talking to the people I inspired with the talk about HMO's.  Some gratitude money is flowing in.  Recruited a college student who shows potential.  Welcome to the squad, Sharon.  Also, we got another programmer on the line, welcome Lisa Hanneman, or as we're affectionately calling her "Simpson"  With Simpson on board, website harassment was much more successful.  I started lending a hand, then Ariel offered to lend his computer knowledge.  Ariel is like 40 years old and erm, a man, a man named Ariel.  Just don't ask him why he loves San Fransisco...
Acceptance is a liberal virtue.

Anyway, Adrienne has come to understand why we fight.  She has agreed to lend he expertice to our cause and has decided on a few "practice runs" for the LCS to learn the tricks of the trade.

----
Adrienne doesn't like what she sees.  She's assigned us "night school" while she went to scope out locations.

... that went real bad.  Adrienne crossed paths with a reporter from the local branch of Faux News.  Apparently, the reporter knew that Adrienne was associated with the LCS, must have been doing a report on us or something.  Adrianne got shot three times but stumbled away from the scene.  Wierd thing was, the first shot was in her arm.  I need to get like, special body armor for the arms or something.  This is getting out of hand.  Adrienne is gonna be out of commision for a while.

Training continues for the others, but with Adrienne out of commision, I can't join in.  We've come up with a new heist that should turn things around...


((Here is the start of the chain of events I found interesting.))

I headed out towards the late place downtown.  Adrienne says there's a fashion designer I need to meet, Bonita Purcell.  She's straight and narrow, but her brother was supposed to be a great disguise maker and forger before he "disappeared" a few years back.

Adriene had given me a vague description but I couldn't tell Bonita from any of the other fashion designers in the place.  Donned out in fashions that seemed bizarre, faces made of plastic; they might as well be nothing but a "fashion designer" label above their heads for all I could tell them apart.  Well, I should start somewhere... I approached a woman.
"Do you want to hear something disturbing?"
"I'll tell you what's disturbing!  They're trying to shut down my clothing line!" she snapped back.  "They're whining about sweatshops!  How else will the clothes get made?  They'll completely ruin the spring fashion season over a few children half a world away!"
I stared agast at this womans disgusting, brazan display of conservatism.  I was shocked no one else seemed to mind.  But as I continued my inquiry's I discovered to my horror that I had stumbled upon the most conservative fashion designers on the planet.  Conservative after conservative without a liberal to be found anywhere!  Adriene had to be wrong about this time and place, Bonita certainly wasn't to be found here!
Disgusted by such a cesspool of conservatism, I stumbled towards the door.  I made it about halfway before I collided with a man who'd been standing still admist all the hustle and bustle of the shop.
"Oh, sorry!" he quickly appologized as he offered a napkin for my drink, which had spilled in the collision.
"Whoa, it's okay." I passed it off, "I didn't see you.  You were-" there was an awkward silence as neither of us finished that sentence.  He didn't volunteer an answer and it took me a moment to recall what he'd been doing.  Then I noticed the woman who had just walked by.
"What, you were watching her?"  I sized up the object of his attention with a grin.  Another of the fashion harpies, about 45 and vaguely latina.  I hadn't noticed her before in my search for Bonita... wait, 45, latina.  Crap, that was Bonita right there!
"No, no, just looking the other way." he insisted, he saw my slight puzzlement "What?"
 "Nah, it's just..." my sentence trailed off as I thought 'just that you were watching her, so why deny it?  What is Bonita caught up in that she's being tailed?'
"Just..." he prompted when I didn't finish the sentence.
"Just, in that case I wanna tell you I'm new in town.  Could you give me directions to your apartment?" I gave my most demure smile an batted my eyes.  Then I innocently brushed my shirt where he'd spilled my drink all over it.  He was good.  He didn't look at Bonita at all as she walked away from his watchful eye, nothing to tip me off he had been watching her.  But I saw the hesitation, knew it was killing him to let her out of his sight.  But he was good enough not to let it show and answered in a sultry tone.
"But if we use a hotel, you won't get shot by an angry spouse tonight."
I laughed at his quick wit and leaned in against him as he went on, "Let's make some plans for tonight."
"I can hardly wait." I grinned before leaning in for a sudden kiss...  It caught him off guard and I remembered what Adriane had taught me, pulling it off perfectly.  I broke off the kiss and smiled while beaming up at him.  "You got a cell number?"  No doubt he'd give me a fake, but he'd want to call the number I gave him.  His wallet was in my back pocket after all...

Sarcasm does not exist.  And it's never really obvious.

I think we're being a little bit hard on Prince Harry here guys.

90% of the posts are saying no one has the right to be offended...  A few of us are say that Harry isn't a racist or anything but should amend his language.  Have I missed the posts where people are being hard on the Prince?