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[Huntar]

This may be a bit unusual to ask, but would it be too hard to convert this game into one where you can actually mold the political situation into the exact one you want? Sure, it would get rid of an ending, but I think it would be a bit better to be able to make your ideal country, with work.

Or maybe there's something already like that out there? Not precisely like LCS, of course, but a game where you can control the sway of the masses and the political situation.

I apologize if this is strange to ask, but it would allow those of us who aren't true liberals to get a bit further into the game.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

This would be great, but it would be a lot harder than just changing some of the issues. From Hangin' Judges to the newspaper, selling brownies to heart/wisdom, the game "knows" that it's Liberal Crime Squad. It would take a good deal of effort to change it. Even if you could pick your issues, the game would need to be able to figure out how society responds based on that. The good guys are Conservatives, the bad guys are Liberals? Or are the good guys Libertarians and the bad guys Statists? Maybe the good guys are Patriots, and the bad guys are Communists? With the political dynamic, what is "Heart" called? What is "Wisdom" called? Have their gameplay effects changed accordingly? I would be happy to provide help to anyone who wants to attempt this, but it's not an easy job. Easier would be to just add a second gameplay mode, Conservative Crime Squad or something, but that would still leave some viewponts untouched and wouldn't be as nice as letting you chose your own.  

[Trichordate]

That reminds me of a stupid idea I had: a multiplayer turn-based game where one person played LCS and another played CCS. The country wouldn't initially be turning right like in the current version, so it's up to the two players to shift America in their direction.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

That would be really cool.

[Aquillion]

When Toady was asked, way back when, why he didn't originally make Conservative Crime Squad, he said it was because he didn't know enough about the silly insides of conservatism to make fun of it believably in a videogame.  Or something like that.

The game is also partially intended to make fun of real-world violent liberal movements like the SLA which, while horrible, are also inherently funny for their gross incompetience and absurdly over-the-top methods.

What would we do to make a Conservative Crime Squad funny?  Would you have people play the KKK or a group of abortion-clinic bombers?  I don't think anyone here would know how to make that funny.  You could have a generic group of angry, frothing militias, I guess...  but when you get down to it, conservatives in the US are more organized than liberals, and the modern "Conservative Crime Squad" would probably be under the direct control of some major corporation or something.

But, anyway, you see?  This isn't funny, because I don't know enough about conservatism to make it funny.  I know enough to make fun of it, but that's not the same thing at all.

(The only one that might be workable is an Anarchist Crime Squad, because the liberalism in LCS is really pretty close to anarchist socialism anyway, and because cartoon bomb-throwers have been an issue for the image of anarchism for over a century.  But if I was making Anarchist Crime Squad I would set it in the late 19th century, give everyone bowler hats, and name it "Anarchist Ruffian Squad.")

[ July 28, 2007: Message edited by: Aquillion ]

[Fieari]

Instead of Conservatives, perhaps Libertarians would be easier to have be funny?  They're opposed to the liberals on nearly every point, yet aren't really conservatives.  And they could easily be amusingly violent.

[John Hopoate]

quote:Originally posted by Huntar:
<STRONG>This may be a bit unusual to ask, but would it be too hard to convert this game into one where you can actually mold the political situation into the exact one you want? </STRONG>

You don't like that new gun control feature do you?

[John Hopoate]

quote:Originally posted by Aquillion:
<STRONG>
The game is also partially intended to make fun of real-world violent liberal movements like the SLA which, while horrible, are also inherently funny for their gross incompetience and absurdly over-the-top methods.

What would we do to make a Conservative Crime Squad funny?  Would you have people play the KKK or a group of abortion-clinic bombers?  I don't think anyone here would know how to make that funny.  You could have a generic group of angry, frothing militias, I guess...</STRONG>

The SLA and comparable organisations in Europe were Marxist, whilst the LCS are a particularly ruthless group of Liberal-Socialists, sort of what the US Green Party would be like if it were run by Ernst Rohm. It would be easy to model a CCS on a late-90's American militia group and to adjust their ideology accordingly.

[Gruegirl]

the idea of converting LCS into a sort of universal political sim would be difficult, it would require a complete top-down redesign as-is... but it's possible.

perhaps it could be based on the "political compass" style 4-point system (economic Left/right verses Authoritarian/free). With several groups from all across the spectrum vieing for power. That would make things interesting because you're not only fighting a hostile government, but you are fighting other revolution movements as well.

Perhaps also being on different parts of the spectrum might cause different issues. Here's a basic idea:

Left-Free: Never run out of food as your messege of "sharing what you have" spreads, however everything else costs slightly more

Left-center: Socialist philosophy allows all weapons and equipment to be distributed evenly, making defence easier, but perhaps keeping the better weapons out of the better soldier's hands

Left-authoritarian: Hyper-centrilization means that your initial base is VERY difficult to overrun, however once it is, you cannot move operations to another.

Center-free: Live free or die mentality means that your soldiers are more effective, but they may disregard orders.

Center: no effect

Center-authoritarian: If your leader is present, all people work more effectively, if power is out or people are otherwise cut-off from your inspiring messege, they are less effective.

Right-Free: Hyper-decentrilization makes the loss of any base less severe (there will always be at least one surviver in a base with at lest 5 people) however since each base works independently they may not recieve orders or may chose to ignore them

Right-center: Big business connections make money easier to come by... but it makes public opinion sour.

Right-authoritarian: Better guns are availible however soldiers take longer to train due to stiff indoctrination.

[Jonathan S. Fox]

I have a pipe dream of having a diametrically opposite "crime squad" controlled by the computer start up shortly after yours. It recruits and builds power similarly, and is the primary vehicle for the enemy agenda. They'd commit crimes and make the news and occasionally interfere with your operations. Eventually you could try to figure out where their safehouses are and attack them.

[Gruegirl]

That would be good for a "Hard mode" version of LCS I would think.

[Solara]

When I first played LCS, the first thing I thought was how awesome it would be if instead of a parody of a real world political party it was a sci-fi game set in a dystopian future or planet or whatever. Actually I still think that, but it's not something I even bother fantasizing about because even if Toady agreed that it was brilliant and I was brilliant and he should totally do that somehow I doubt he's going to have a chance to work on any other game besides DF for, well, ever...

[ September 17, 2007: Message edited by: Solara ]

[a1s]

well some people (mostly Fox here) are working on expanding this game, so once they are done with the more principal things, maybe we can ask them to make the game more mod friendly. well that, or you could try to learn C++ and make it yourself (the sources are public as far as I know).

[Jonathan S. Fox]

Ever since I read your post about the sci-fi idea back in the archives waaay back when, I've secretly shared the same dream. At the moment my work on updating/modding LCS is at a freeze due to being too busy, however, and this also precludes working on an alternate science fiction version too, unfortunately. But yeah, if it was science fiction, it would easier to be more serious and also less guilty for acting bad, because it's not as close to home, and you could set the story to be justifying your actions. Or at least arguably justifying your actions.