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[Alsvid]

Pgup and Pgdwn also work not for I - on both my desktop and my mom's laptop.  Pressing them actually equals a letter for me (I think something like K and Q) on the screen where you sign liberals up for a squad.

This may just be an annoying problem to do with different keyboards and stuff.  May I suggest having two back up keys - like [ and ] - to also do the pgup and pgdwn job?

I really want to have this working... I get the feeling there are places downtown I really want to go to!

[Toady One]

For some reason, a few computers seem to code page up and page down as "R" and "S" (maybe different letters for you?).  However, the code converts all letters to lower case so that people don't have to worry about having capslock on or off, so there are conflicts on some screens for those with these keyboards (and no way to page up or down).  Apparently (doing a google search), this is something of a standard problem.

I guess the best way to solve it for now would be to use [] as backup keys as you suggest.  I'll try to be careful about it in my future games.  Computers suck.

I'll post a fix at some point in the near future -- I'll try to get the other bugs as well.

[Antilles]

Maybe it's because I'm using a localized keyboard, but... PgUp and PgDn reads as some letters (probably K and N, haven't checked), but luckily I discovered that 3 and 9 on the numeric keyboard reads as PgDn and PgUp, respectively.

[raifield]

I found a bug that wasn't in this thread as of yesterday, when I last checked, and I have been able to reproduce it.

When I have a Liberal on a week-long vacation date with someone and the month ends while they are away, the game crashes every time.

[Toady One]

Thanks.  I've put that in my ISSUES LIST on my NEW LCS PAGE.  It's not much to look at, but it should save people some hunting through the forums.

I'll try to get a bug-fix version out as soon as I can.  This won't be a major overhaul in the sense of LCS 2 or 3.  Back to projectile debugging...

[Aquillion]

Well, I beat LCS a while back.  The ending is more climactic now, what with the raids and the super-liberal amendment, but it's still rough in some ways...  I'd gotten public opinion to entirely 100% on all issues ages before I finally beat the game, and from that point on I never felt there was any serious possibility that I could lose.  There were occasional random events, yeah, but my sleepers constantly fixed up any public opinion problems that occured.

The most frustrating thing about the endgame is that (as far as I can tell) there's nothing the player can do to advance the liberal agenda any faster once public opinion is already at 100%.  They're basically reduced to sitting there and enduring raids until they've won the game; and even the raids aren't that exciting, since you probably don't have any more use for your non-sleeper liberals anyway.

In fact, that's what I eventually realized.  I was fighting off tons and tons of raids at first; I probably wouldn't have gotten so many if I hadn't constantly fought off the police and refused to relocate afterwords, but with 50+ liberals in each of my hideouts, the thought of moving them around in groups of six was agonizing.  Besides, fighting off police raids was easy once I'd recruited a few dozen Agents--as long as I avoided tanks, my 50+ liberals could take down any raiding parties in one turn.

Then I suddenly realized that my liberals were of absolutely no use to me anymore--my sleepers were doing all the work, and public opinion was pinned at 100% liberal anyway.  So I ordered all my non-sleeper to surrender to the cops.  (Actually, some of them surrendered to the CIA and died.  But who cares?  I didn't need them anymore.)  When trials came around, I ordered everyone to plead guilty.

Sure enough, after that it was easy to hold down the "wait" key for a few years and win the game.  My liberals had been totally useless to me once they'd completed their tasks and stuck public opinion at 100%.

So, anyway, this sounds like a big problem with the end game--but I realized that it isn't.  Really, the game just needs one thing to fix the endgame:  A "declare victory"-type command the player can use once they think that the LCS have set the country on an irrevocable course towards Liberalism.  Once this command is entered (and confirmed!), your LCS is disbanded, your non-sleeper liberals all go their seperate ways, and the game automatically zooms forward through howevermany months and years until A. the Liberal Agenda is realized, B. the country becomes a Conservative Dystopia, or C. waaay too many years have passed and it becomes clear that the country has merely reached an effective state of Stasis.  In any case, the player is then shown the final state of the game, the year, laws, etc.

Of course, there are other things that could be done to add new and exciting endgames (more direct involvement in elections/amendment votes and such), but a 'zoom forward' option seems like the easiest solution.

[ April 08, 2004: Message edited by: Aquillion ]

[Toady One]

That analysis sounds very correct.  Thanks for going through it.  I think what I'll do is add such an option during the bug fix release and then later ponder different ways to make the endgame more complicated.  I'm sure there are 101 humorous ways for the conservatives to make a last stand.  Or not.  Once the vast leftwing conspiracy is in place, you might as well end the game.  On the other hand, when things are up at 100% on all views, there should just be some kind of spontaneous populist movement that ends the game.  On the other hand (three hands!), people could be in agreement but just be possessed by lethargy and need some final firing up to do such a thing, which could lead to some kind of whatever...  Hmmm...  one could do a lot of things I guess, some mutually exclusive, many courses vaguely appropriate to the setting.  Enh.  In any case, I'll make a note for the next major version for the ending not to be a letdown.

I forgot who suggested it, but I guess there really needs to be a simple base-changing screen to relocate people very quickly, in case you have that many liberals.

[fastjack]

i think one problem with the game is the fat that you can have as many liberals as you want and it is really easy to recruit them so you can have 100 transients as part of your squad just being disobedient or whatever, it would be nice to articicially limit this, i suggest by entering the possibility of CIA or police undercover agents (fbi?) so that once you become well-known recruiting is a hassle and people who go to prison can be turned as well.  Another idea is to have your actual organization and then something like a supporter pool, you initially recruit people to the supporter pool (or they natually migrate there?) and the poeple in this pool pretty much automatically either protest/solicit for donations.  You can recruit them into your team later if your wish but this way they cant hurt you if they ar UC agents.  Maybe even limit the actual squad to like 18-24 people to keep it manageable.

i really endorse the idea of a 'retire organization, job done' option.

[Antilles]

Bug Report: Game froze when I received an eviction note. Haven't double-checked this, since it happened in the end-game and I'd been fast-forwarding three-four years. But, since it's frozen in the 'eviction notice' screen, I sorta figure that's the problem.

[Toady One]

There's a bit of control for large-numbered squads, although not enough.  People who go to prison can rat out whoever hired them, and that person will get hit with a racketeering charge.  Still, large numbers of liberals are still abusable.  The previous versions of the game did have a nameless volunteer pool, but I didn't like the way it was working out, so I made them all liberals.  On the other hand, I can leave them as liberals, but as you suggest, have levels of how far you've brought them into the organization, a la Scientology  and other groups.  This would also give me the opportunity to have liberal rites of passage.  People that are brainwashed through the hostage process would work differently.  This might be too much to bite off for the bug fix version, but I'll add it to my longer list of future changes.

Hmmm, I tested eviction without incident.  It could also be whatever happens after eviction in the code for passing time...  I'll have to look through it.

Thanks to everybody who's been testing LCS out.  Barring something unforeseen, I should get a bug fix version out by the end of the month.

[Antilles]

Will fortified compounds keep out the police for as long as you got rations, or is it just at best a couple of months? I'm asking because the manual seems to indicate the former, yet practical play clearly shows it's the latter. A year's worth of rations, and the cops come busting in after a couple of months...

[Toady One]

The cops will attempt a raid after a while.  What I meant in the manual was that if you do not have food, you cannot wait out the siege.  If you have food, you can wait, but the police won't go away unless you fight them off.

[Aquillion]

Another thing that occured to me while I was playing was that only a few kinds of sleepers seem to be useful--"big name" sleepers who can influence public opinion, lawyers, and judges.

Maybe other types of sleepers should have specific uses, too?  One way to fit in a lot of possibilites would be to give certain kinds of sleepers "one shot" abilities, abilities that may consume the sleeper in various ways if they try to use them.

For example, a Cop or CIA Agent sleeper could tip you off to an upcoming raid.  A Janitor (and just about anyone, really) might be able to bring you things from their workplace--incriminating items, generic loot, uniforms, weapons, money, you name it.  People at the police station or the intelligence HQ could let you view or even try to erase/modify criminal records.

Of course, every time they do any of these things there'd be a risk--based slightly on their intelligence--they would get discovered.  If they can't talk their way out of it, this would result in one of a number of Bad Things happening to them.  They might just lose their sleeper status (in which case they'd arrive in the shelter as a generic liberal); they might get charged with a crime (becoming a non-sleeper liberal in stuck in the conservative justice system); or, in some cases, they might just get executed with no chance of a trial.  Worst of all, they might spill the beans about the organization, resulting in criminal charges, raids, and/or unflattering news coverage; or even spill the beans about other sleepers working at the same location, blowing their cover.

In addition to the intelligence check to avoid getting caught, some Sleeper tasks could require specific skills to succeed (e.g. Computers or Security to get incriminating items.)  Each attempt would train these skills; each successful attempt would also build juice, so they could become more elite even while infiltrating Conservative society.

Perhaps there could even eventually be a way to turn generic Liberals into low-level sleepers--having them get jobs as Janitors, Guards, and the like?  This would require decent disguise and fasttalking abilities, not to mention a clean criminal record; it would also provide a way to keep key liberals out of the way of raids and other dangers.

Heh, that gave me a strange idea for an alternate endgame:  Your liberals start as a criminal organization outside of society, but as the game progresses they would increasingly infilitrate it, until at the very end they control it completely and occupy the highest positions themselves.  This would add a humorous--or perhaps kafkaesque--twist to the endgame:  In victory, your anarchist, idealistic liberal crime squad eventually becomes the corrupt society it was trying to overthrow, and a cynical observer might note that you know you've won when your infilitration has become so subtle and complete that only a highly-trained observer could tell that anything has changed at all.

Well, that last bit probably wouldn't work with the way the game is set up now, but I couldn't resist mentioning it.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

The founding member is pretty kick ass, overall... I've found that I can succeed in 95% of all attempts to ask someone out with them. While it's a very Liberal thing to ignore gender, it's just so hard for me to see a Hangin' Judge returning a really bad pickup line from someone of the same sex, especially when laws and popular opinion are conservative on homosexuality. Just in general it seems too easy to pick people up, and then you're in a generic date menu, and I've never failed to take someone hostage from there, even normally too well-armed police officers have fallen before my mighty hostage-taking from the date screen. It just seems like a stretch to have a 95%+ success rate for kidnapping people, just ask them out then abduct them on the date.

The premise for the game is, of course, questionable from the beginning, but I think it's just too much to think that I can simply walk into any old building in an army uniform and blow off a random Janator's leg with an AK-47, then have people think we're heroes. It also seems like it's too easy to get off when you're taken in by the police. Even if you have a dozen charges on you including murder and treason, the worst they can do is sentence you to death. And if they do that, you just need to set up any liberal as a single-member team, give them a car, and then send them to the prison, where they can walk in and break them out without even alarming the conservatives on the site. When the police raid, just give up and then have a retrial. They'll then charge the escapee with escaping from prison, and if you can pull through the court case, you're clean!

My suggestion is that it be much, much harder to win in court as things pile up, and only with significant sleeper influence. I mean, I've gotten off of a dozen serious charges I was guilty off all at once before. Perhaps each charge should be considered individually, with the same judge, jury, and lawyers, but other random factors or modifiers being different for each charge. That would be more realistic. You could even have multiple charges for each crime committed (four counts of murder, seven counts of theft), but honestly, I think it would get too cumbersome (and hard) for the player. Finally, I'd suggest that prison be a lot harder to raid! You'd probably have to shoot some people to open the jails no matter if it's the courthouse, police station, or prison, but prison would strike me as the most difficult.

It seems to me that violence and other anarchy should only be effective if people already view the LCS favorably, and the target negatively... otherwise, even stretching things, you'd think that violent rampages with shotguns and axes would backfire, witness or no witness from the masses. Especially if people turn to AM radio and Cable TV, and you don't have a newspaper out.

I have an idea about the media. I'm thinking to have several media establishments with viewership levels, quality, and political affiliation, with political affiliation the same 5-step range as the government agenda, only with the extremes locked, so that "Arch Conservative" media must be destroyed, not turned, and "Elite Liberal" media is reserved for your newspaper.   Or radio, actually -- I bet LCS could handle that. Anyway, for non-extreme media establishments, having sleeper news anchors wouldn't just turn all people's opinions and slowly get 100 on all issues, but would gradually turn the news style of that individual agency. And quality probably drifts upwards with time due to refinement, but attacks on their sites or having their reporters killed and such would damage that, and thus reduce viewership. The degree of effect the media has on people's views would be related to viewership levels and quality levels, and the direction they alter people's views would be related to the affiliation of the source itself. Your newspaper, of course, would be Elite Liberal, and its quality would be influenced by who with intelligence, writing skill, heart, and maybe Juice too, was actively writing for it. And the Arch Conservative media, having sleepers with them doesn't change their affiliation, it degrades their quality. So does shooting up their station and stealing their equipment, but again, people's perceptions of that will depend on the LCS's respectability, that media company's popularity, and what bias most people are exposed to in the media.

I keep thinking about less overtly criminal things that I would also like to be doing, besides what's covered by mischief. Things like making speeches, maintaining the newspaper, and leading protests. Speeches would probably only be effective if very persuasive, charismatic, intelligent, high-Juice people made them, backed by high LCS popularity. And they could backfire, of course, by being lame, or the speech maker making a major mistake. Plus, if free speech isn't Liberal enough, you might incite a reaction from the police and get arrested. And there's even a slight chance that, if they're desparate enough, some counter-revolutionary conservatives could try to assasinate a very popular Liberal during a speech... Maintaining the newspaper is a persistant task, like mischief, basically do writing for it, and it influences the quality of your propaganda. And protests, well, as we know, protests and marches can be really boring, not very big, and irritate people, or they can be exciting media magnets that say "the people are fighting back". And what's protesting and marching in a game like this without a chance for police brutality and rioting? Heck, I used to know someone who started a riot once, inciting one should be very beneficial in the right circulstances, considering that violent rampages can be effective elsewhere. This also brings to the forefront the freedom of speech and police issues: If they're conservative enough issues, you could get your protests crushed rather brutally and your participants arrested, even for peaceful protests... and watch for laws requiring a permit for your demonstration, a permit might be hard to get without a sleeper, and holding one without a permit could get your demonstration broken up, poorly looked-upon by the masses, or your leaders arrested.

And of course, if the police have a criminal record on you and you're making a speech or starting a protest... well, publicity might not be the best thing.  

[Toady One]

I've finished 4 or 5 of the smaller bugs/requests, and I'm going to try to knock the rest off today (no guarantees -- the clothing bug has been elusive).  I'm not going to be able to get to very many of the major overhaul issues people have been talking about at this time, but let's discuss them...

Aquillion--

Regarding sleepers, I had planned to finish them at some point, although I hadn't thought very hard about what they are going to be able to do.  All of those suggestions are good and will definitely make the next major version.  In particular, I had been planning to make criminal investigations more complicated and to have sleepers be able to report back to you about their progress and perhaps throw monkey wrenches into things.

Yeah, I guess the Kafka ending would be too subtle the way things are set up now.  I mean, you've just perpetrated some kind of nonsensical bloody /criminal revolution and somehow absolutely everybody loves you.  I think the game would just have to be more coherent to support your idea

Johnathan--

If you select a founding member with the 'a' options, you'll be able to pick almost anyone up.  The frequency is unrealistic, but at some point the player is just being punished if they have a character with those skills and asking people out still doesn't work.  On the other hand, I think it will be required of me at some point to make dating more dangerous/exciting.  I was also considering making people that become Liberals-through-love do incredibly stupid things, like visiting the person who hired them in prison and blowing their own covers -- and so much more, of course.

I think in the end there will be several classes of people in your squad:

1) Regulars:  People who you've gotten by discussing the issues or released from bondage
2) Love-struck People:  Easy to get with your best attractive smooth talker, but erratic and unreliable at times
3) Brainwashed Hostages:  Require crime to obtain, but very loyal, might be kind of insane or unstable
4) Sleepers

My brother and I were discussing this.  I might not have time for the love part now, but what I am going to add is some notion of hierarchy.  The game already keeps track of who hired who but doesn't do much with it.  When a Liberal is killed or gets arrested, any regular Liberals under him/her will disappear, as your character no longer can communicate his/her intentions.  In the current version that's out, it is too easy to insulate you main character and thus too easy to win (once you figure that out).  Now your main character, as the driving force behind what's going on, will be responsible for everything, even if the cops don't know it.

The key feature here will be that you can move people up in the organization.  If somebody is working out (has high juice, etc.), you'll be able to place him/her under another Liberal higher in the organization, until eventually that person is reporting directly to you.  In this way, if part of the LCS gets rolled up by the cops, you won't lose the best people.  The downside is, if this person gets caught and the cops put enough pressure on him/her, they'll be closer to busting your head Liberal on racketeering charges.  Liberals with low juice will be easier for the cops to lean on, so creating a large organization of juiceless transients before you do anything illegal won't insulate your head Liberal any better.

Also, here we could incorporate fastjack's Conservative mole idea.  Bringing people higher up in the organization will allow potential moles greater access.

I haven't decided if you lose the game if your head Liberal dies, or if you can promote one of the Lieutenants up to the head position.  It's an arbitrary decision, really.

Let's see, getting back to picking people up, I don't have a problem in the game with Hangin' Judges doing whatever they want.  Maybe they should be more discreet about it, but laws and popular opinion have never stopped people in power from getting their freak on.  I agree that it's too simple to just kidnap people -- although it really wouldn't be that hard.  Even if it's a cop, there will come a time during the evening when it would be easy enough to incapacitate them if that's what you've planned.  The game should make it more interesting though.

I agree that the court system is messed up.  As I wrote above, I'm planning to overhaul the investigation system.  This will also involve giving people rap sheets and persistent sentences, so that when someone is captured after an escape, they'll just be returned to prison for a longer time, and repeat offenders will receive harsher sentences.  I actually don't think it's so bad on the player to rack up multiple counts, and it will allow players to catalogue their vices and to compete with their friends  I was also planning to make entry into prisons/etc. more difficult.  I was also going to put bouncers in the Gentlemen's club and better security in expensive apartments to make it harder to get at choice conservatives.  There's a lot to do...  ack!

Regarding violence and public opinion, I guess it just matters where you draw the total nonsense line.  It wouldn't be a random Janitor's leg, it would be a conservative Janitor's leg.  Perhaps the fundamental illogical premise is that everyone is innately liberal, and as long as you are butchering the right type of ideologue in the right place, everyone else will gravitate ever so slightly toward their true nature.  To be forced to ease them into the violence through doing Earth-First style destructive civil disobedience first is a another way to set up the game, but I don't have a problem with it being over the top as it is.  On the other hand, setting it up as you suggest would make the game harder, which I welcome at this point.

Which leads us to other non-violent activities.  I started adding those in LCS 3, and I was planning to add protests but never got around to it.  Turning the game into a bonafide non-criminal populist movement simulator runs against the premise:  as you might have been suggesting, it seems that the LCS's primary goal in attending a protest would be to turn it into a riot, which is counterproductive in real-life, but in LCS, maybe not.  On the other hand, protests at sites you've attacked a number of times could just be a natural side effect of your influence on public opinion, and in this case, you could either let them go on until the places go out of business (slow), or encourage the protestors to riot and destroy the site in question (risky).  The tear gas needs to turn to mustard gas, etc. in conservative times, as a matter of course, with face shots by rubber/beanbag/wooden bullets as an intermediate (e.g. the Oakland dock protest recently).  I was also going to have them tear/mustard gas your compounds.

The game makes vague references to FM radio and Network News, but the game just assumes that Network News Viewership = (100% - Cable News Viewership).  I like your idea of fleshing it out more.