Factions that matter, and that can be told appart

from Elemental Forums

So was doing some thinking on the factions problem; mainly that there are not really any factions,  just one standard and with different makeup.


Each faction needs to be different enough that you HAVE to play differently when playing them
So, Some suggested changes.

One,  
Make all units gain experience passively, 1 per turn.
Except.  One faction that gains 2 passive experience, and one that gains none.

TOTALLY different game-play.   One faction is  turtle haven, Just wait long enough and your heroes will step on anything (once heroes are fixed). One faction MUST adventure must be almost nomadic, keep moving, exploring, killing, to keep at par with others. 

 

Two,

Gilder:  Most races taxed 0.5 per person,  One taxed 1, and one not taxed at all.

In the late game this is pointless as the game is currently configured, everybody has too much money... so that will have to be fixed, but if the money is reigned in this is your merchant or trader factions,   Buying everything they need or selling lots of extra to get the money they need to survive.

Three,

Vampire Faction:   Like FFH2,   Race doesn't attract people to their towns much because people are cattle,   armies must consume people to survive.  When attacking a town the people are captured and brought back, then bread and slowly slaughtered to keep the armies alive and in fresh blood.

 More but i don't have time,

All these would need to be balanced of course But that's easier then one might think, They play so differently that if one team wins a lot it stands out easily as to what to neff to bring them back into line.


Please post your thoughts of what would Force the player to change the way they play the game, and really make your faction choice Guide your gameplay. (not so much so perhaps to restrict it to one and only one path... but there are 5 ways to win, if some of the factions really only able to win by 3 of those 5, that would be GREAT. [three is enough choice, choose a different race to for a different endgame, OR take the supper challenge of winning by Diplomacy with the race that is BUILT under the assumption that the race will not be able to win by Diplomacy.])


FFH2 did this superbly.  Elemental needs this level of faction diversification.

Robbie

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Fall From Heaven--while a SUPERB mod which I would love to see for Elemental--had the basics to work from already. One needs to keep in mind that SD started from scratch. 

However, you are completely right. Each faction is, well, boring. I tend to choose influential ones to make my empire expand more rapidly, but otherwise... it's all rather boring. There are no unique items, creatures, troops, or buildings to tell one from the other, save for between Fallen and Human. The more I play, the more I wish we would have had this version to beta test because the suggestions are flying out like mad. I really like this game, but I don't love it because it's just all the same--it doesn't matter in my tactics what I choose to play. FFH, OTOH, my tactics varied wildly depending upon which faction/race I picked, and while the underlying strategy was the same, I used different paths to get there. 

I do have faith in Stardock to make changes as time passes, and I'm enjoying playing the game now, but I suspect I won't start playing compulsively until some mods are out to make the variety I wished. Heck, I'm even considering making mods myself just to get the variety that is so sorely lacking.