Harvatos wrote:
Perhaps by replacing watchtower with Harvester Docks? It could be an Era 2 tech that is placed on foundations; from there, Zeppelins collect Dust from nearby tiles like Cultist's converted villages at the benefit of the home city.

You know what? Zeppelin could be unlocked by Imperial Highway, and collect Dust in addition to providing sight. Then, Caravensarei would add collection of industry and/or food to Zeppelins, and Scientific Envoy would add science collection. It would be fairly different from other factions and fix part of the Dust problem (especially with Dust Efficient increasing tile yields).

Adventurer_Blitz wrote:
Sounds like a mix of automatons and the Broken Lords, but as of yet there are no machinery centered factions. I believe that you should follow Krimson's suggestion and try to differentiate this faction from the Wild Walkers as much as possible while still relying on industry. A problem I think in your design however is the increased maintenance cost for units and buildings. None of the faction traits seem to help provide any amount of dust except for that improvement in chapter 6 and I'm not sure that this faction could feasibly keep a strong standing army AND build as many improvements as befit an industry focused faction. This lack of dust would be especially noticed if this faction used regions rich in industry which tend to lack an excess of dust. I would personally suggest some early-game tech to convert industry to dust to make up for this. As for your units they seem very like the Broken Lords with a backbone of strong infantry supported and healed by support units, you may want to mix the units up to preserve this faction's originality.

Very good point. The easiest fix would probably be to remove Food for all/Geomic Labs/Veins of Auriga and replace them with something like Dust Efficient. I'd like to point out that not been able to activate "Feed the Beast" early without having to sacrifice something is important for balance (Double industry would allow massive early growth, especially on military).



For a long term source of dust (to be turned into industry), I have a concept for Dust-harvesting Zeppelins, but I'm unsure how to best integrate it. Improvement? Special unit? Perhaps by replacing watchtower with Harvester Docks? It could be an Era 2 tech that is placed on foundations; from there, Zeppelins collect Dust from nearby tiles like Cultist's converted villages at the benefit of the home city.





For the Autolocomotor being too much like the Dust Bishop, I was thinking to replace it with a ranged artillery unit. It wouldn't be able to attack in melee range and would need escort from other units. Essentially, it would reverse the support role and change the dynamic of the fight.

Adventurer_Blitz wrote:
but as of yet there are no machinery centered factions.

Aren't the cultists a robotic faction? Sure they like to enslave organics, but they are still machines.

Sounds like a mix of automatons and the Broken Lords, but as of yet there are no machinery centered factions. I believe that you should follow Krimson's suggestion and try to differentiate this faction from the Wild Walkers as much as possible while still relying on industry. A problem I think in your design however is the increased maintenance cost for units and buildings. None of the faction traits seem to help provide any amount of dust except for that improvement in chapter 6 and I'm not sure that this faction could feasibly keep a strong standing army AND build as many improvements as befit an industry focused faction. This lack of dust would be especially noticed if this faction used regions rich in industry which tend to lack an excess of dust. I would personally suggest some early-game tech to convert industry to dust to make up for this. As for your units they seem very like the Broken Lords with a backbone of strong infantry supported and healed by support units, you may want to mix the units up to preserve this faction's originality. You say your infantry may be the best basic unit in the game with the only negative side being that it costs a bit more industry than normal basic units. It seems like your factions version of a ''tank'' and I believe you should probably make it both slower than an average basic unit and cost far more as you will be using these as the backbone of your army and starting out with even a small number of the best basic units in the game seems a bit overpowered to me. So I believe they would need to have disadvantages so you can neither mass produce them mid game for the tiny industry cost they would have (compared to your faction's industry potential) and overwhelm everyone else nor use your starting units to quickly seize nearby cities in the first few turns of the game. The flying units, by your description, seem to be both incredible scouts, and very good fighters, you should probably nerf their fighting power to ensure they are used mostly as scouts rather than taking the pace of your infantry. To me your faction's militarystrategy seems to be focused on a strong army of infantry and support with long range scouting provided by your flying units. You should keep your units in these (or different roles if you prefer) just to keep this faction using a diverse army with no unit being good st everything. Now to keep your army strong I would assume this ''blitz mode'' would be active as much as possible. However while increased movement on the world map is useful and not too powerful, adding two movement to all of your units seems more problematic. For instance, your strong and tanky infantry would outrun all other infantry in the game and your initiative boost could very well have your units moving first in every battle, allowing you to outflank enemies in the earliest phases, which would reduce the effectiveness of archers and any tank unit guarding them drastically. To avoid such a unique ability from becoming too powerful you should either greatly increase the cost for it or make it less powerful, maybe just one extra movement and a lower initiative bonus. As for your heroes, all-round efficiency seems more of the role of a Cultist hero, you may want to just keep your heroes abilities to cutting maintenance costs, boosting science, and providing strong battlefield support. Now to the questline, I have got to say the reward for chapter 3 would probably be the most overpowered improvement in the game. Suffering no happiness penalty for building districts, you could grow your cities as much as you wanted without needing to ever strategically place districts to raise happiness or even build happiness improvements. I would advise changing that reward to maybe a flat bonus of +x amount of approval for building the improvement or just improving the amount of happiness gained from using luxury resources. As for chapter 7, stopping all wars you declared and getting rid of privateers you control for 10 turns seems much to simple for the rewards offered. I would suggest either increasing the turn limit or making the faction make peace with everyone they are at war with, whether they declared it or not. Just some suggestions and advice for improving your faction, good luck with it it is a nice idea!

KrimsonVagus wrote:
But for now, I highly recommend that the faction be composed of inorganic half-robot or AI programmed people who consume instead of , with heavy industry perks. Just like the Broken Lords, but using instead of Dust. This way the faction would be more unique and "extreme" compared to the others.

It's a concept worth looking into. However, for the no part, I don't thinks it would really bring anything new since there's already a faction not needing it.



Of course, when coming into the EL universe, we could go with almost any ratio of flesh/robotic and sentience/programming. Personally, I think that real sentient lifeforms bring a better (and more complex) social dynamic into play. That being said, these lifeforms could very well be small deep abyssal invertebrates, strapped into pressurized glass aquarium and driving mech suits.

Finally, a "machine" themed faction. You have my attention

I will read it more in depth...



But for now, I highly recommend that the faction be composed of inorganic half-robot or AI programmed people who consume instead of , with heavy industry perks. Just like the Broken Lords, but using instead of Dust. This way the faction would be more unique and "extreme" compared to the others.