Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Ramidel]

I was reading over the ancient, musty tome of the LCS 3 thread, and when I looked over the discussions on, A, what happened when you wanted promotion from LCS Founder's chief aide position, B, how to send people to other cities to do dirty work there, and C, about the idea of a revolution in the LCS if you've got a coward leader, and an idea popped up.

We need to have splinter cells.

To form a splinter cell, my idea is that one would have to have one Liberal who's directly under the Founder, ideally one who's got a lot of juice and a lot of followers. Then, use the command "Form Splinter Cell." Select the cell's leader and name the cell. The new cell leader all her followers split off to become an entirely new group in another city.

This new group will serve several purposes. First off, the orientation would be either Debating, Activist, Militant, or Radical, starting at any except Radical. Debating groups sit around and argue against the establishment, which doesn't do much...oh, and are involved in drawing in money for the main LCS. Activist groups go out and do Liberal Disobedience on their own, Militant groups do much the same thing as the main LCS (which, abstracted, is quicker and more violent Liberal Disobedience), and Radicals are declaring open war against the U.S.A. and the Liberal Crime Squad (they're too soft to be True Liberals). Every month there's a chance of moving towards the radical end by one phase (which is based on your founder's juice and heart, mostly...a weak leader is going to get the splinters pissed off).

The advantage of the splinter cell is that it, at Debating, brings in money and avoids attack, while at Activist or Militant it changes public opinion on the issues for the better. However, there are several problems with this setup. At Debating and Activist, the cell won't suffer any shakeups, but at Militant, there's a chance each month of the group being attacked and destroyed. There's the same chance with Radical groups, but Radicals also -damage- public opinion on occasion (going on a rampage), and can also attempt to raid your compounds. Of course, you can also do your own raids on Radicals in an attempt to destroy them.

This is all a collection of unformed late-afternoon ideas, of course, particularly the Radical part. Feedback would be welcomed.

[Floydman]

I like the splinter cells idea.  This is especially good to "automatize" some redundant tasks when your roster crew begins to extend over two screens long.  I think it can also be an acceptable alternative to the LCS internal elections I proposed in that late thread when a founder's leadership is questionned amongst the ranks of the LCS.

What I am not too sure about is why would someone want to form a radical cell in the first place, considering it will almost certainly hurt your public image and can even start raiding against you.  It seems a little counter-productive to me.  I mean, if you have a coward leader, it is primarily your fault, and you'd be better trying to improve his public image than openly trying to get his ass busted.  On the other hand, IF the leader is weak and coward, what could be fun is that a strong member of the LCS with lots of juice could very well decide on his own to form his own splinter cell, radical or not depending on the individual's credential (a gang member or an agent don't care as much  for what is called a democratic process).  The leader (the player) could still make his own splinter cells of the 3 less violent forms for the reasons described by Ramidel, but radicals would only be the acts of disgruntled LCS members.

And thinking of it, the internal election process could just be one way for the LCS leader to defend his leadership, radical splinter cells being the other.  This way, a somewhat coward leader but not too low could still win his way by pulling the political strings within the organisation during LCS internal elections, but the most radical members, even more disgruntled by the electoral process result, could very well decide to form their own radical branch to fight the system, and the LCS at the same time, as this radical group would perceive the LCS as part of the problem instead of the solution.

Now, other interesting questions are: would these splinter cells perform some recruiting of their own? (which would make them harder to anihilate); and also it should eventually be possible to get rid of a radical splinter cell (or the cell getting rid of the LCS), either by direct confrontation (random run-in when walking in public places and/or by raiding them, which would mean finding the hideout, again by running accidentally into it) or by the means of law enforcement.

In any case, all of this promises to add a lot of depth in the stories made in this game, if any of this ever sees the light in LCS.

What does everybody think about this?

[ October 06, 2004: Message edited by: Floydman ]

[Toady One]

Yeah, more fun ideas.  I guess it'll be tough to merge together with some other suggestions.  Namely, how much interaction should you have with other cities, should you be able to travel, that kind of thing...  whenever I get around to it we'll have to collect all these posts and come up with some kind of coherent plan for lcs 4.

[Ramidel]

Well, a leader, as I mentioned, -wouldn't- start their own Radicals, in the original idea, a Radical was a Militant group that got PO'ed at the LCS central command.

I mentioned raiding a radical cell in the beginning (and you already know their hideout since you helped set it up). As to recruiting more...sure, at Militant I'd give the new splinter cell a chance to start building up their group.

A splinter cell starting on its own...I'd think that there, an "internal election" failure would cause just that, instead of Le Boss being replaced. (Simple fact, Trotsky will not give up power to Stalin except at the barrel of a gun, which Stalin's more than happy to provide.)

[bbb]

don't know about renegades. but it does get a bit tedious with all the micromanagement.

after all. there are only 10 safe houses (that i know of) and when you have to stash a few hundred people and manage them... and keep managing them when you bust them out of jail/etc, it's a pain.

so not so much moving them to another city... as having some sort of delegation scheme