natev wrote:
The idea is that the infiltrated player could control them-- up until the point that the infiltrating player exerted control, at which point they would irrevocably become a Skinchanger unit.





I feel that Endless Legend allows what combination of depth and simplicity it offers by making mechanics that are unique to factions. Some Fleshless might make it into the mercenary market, though, just as Proliferators do.

hmmm... alright fair point... I still think the control option has potential to be over powered unless its expensive or tricky to pull off...

Eh, I'd back this faction idea provided it were fleshed out a bit more beyond military unit function... and there was some trick to getting a unit to infiltrate beyond just kill another unit or so.

pineappledan wrote:
I think another faction which interacts with food and manipulates that would be interesting.



The Plaguebearers.

Oh boy, lets see here. Looks to me like the ardent mages and necrophages had an even more war obsessed baby...and then it died and started walking. lol

I think as is, it's a bit overpowered... I liking the feel of it though...

I'm not really in a place to speak though. I havnt really played as necros or mages so I dont really have a basis for my judgment beyond mere eyeballin' it. Could someone war obsessed give an opinion on this? lol

- On my side, after debugging and balancing, I think it would be better if the devs can focus not on new units or new factions, but on specialising the factions. Now, everyfaction has access to nearly all bulding. This idea is normal for Civilization serie where all civs are human and historic, but does not feet to Endlss Legend.



- If some building specialisation work is done, the desire for new faction will decrease, because the ancient faction will be largely more distinct than now.



- For exemple, it that logical that necrophages can have Monuments, Markets, Glory of Empire buldings and some others ? Or if we consider that ardent mage are a mages civ they maybe should not have advanced forge building, or big constructions.



- As there is special units for each civ, it would be good that at least 30 % of bulding list would be out of access for any civ. But each civ would have more special buldings, adapted to their gameplay and identity off course. For exemple (without balance idea) :



*Ardent mage nightmare chamber : Sacrifice two population point to give to the following produced unit +3 experience level.



*Vaulters subterranan district : An adjacent district which give you acess to the adjacent hexagones but with immunity to siege hexagone block or winter malus. Problem : -2 food per hexagone worked adjacent to this district.



*Rovin Clan dust conjuring : A magical building which give to the clans the capacity to conjure a dust storm for 3 turns in the whole region (cannot be used 10 turns after the 3 turns). This storm make -2 food production in any hexagone of the region, but give -2 speed of all non desert unit, -3 vision and -25 % in defense for them.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
- On my side, after debugging and balancing, I think it would be better if the devs can focus not on new units or new factions, but on specialising the factions. Now, everyfaction has access to nearly all bulding. This idea is normal for Civilization serie where all civs are human and historic, but does not feet to Endlss Legend.



- If some building specialisation work is done, the desire for new faction will decrease, because the ancient faction will be largely more distinct than now.



- For exemple, it that logical that necrophages can have Monuments, Markets, Glory of Empire buldings and some others ? Or if we consider that ardent mage are a mages civ they maybe should not have advanced forge building, or big constructions.



- As there is special units for each civ, it would be good that at least 30 % of bulding list would be out of access for any civ. But each civ would have more special buldings, adapted to their gameplay and identity off course. For exemple (without balance idea) :



*Ardent mage nightmare chamber : Sacrifice two population point to give to the following produced unit +3 experience level.



*Vaulters subterranan district : An adjacent district which give you acess to the adjacent hexagones but with immunity to siege hexagone block or winter malus. Problem : -2 food per hexagone worked adjacent to this district.



*Rovin Clan dust conjuring : A magical building which give to the clans the capacity to conjure a dust storm for 3 turns in the whole region (cannot be used 10 turns after the 3 turns). This storm make -2 food production in any hexagone of the region, but give -2 speed of all non desert unit, -3 vision and -25 % in defense for them.

Hmmm.... I can really see some sense to this... after all, some suggestions that have been made could easily be adapted into the properties of another faction if they were all further specialized... The plague bearer faction could easily be stripped and absorbed into the necrophages to enhance their war capabilities at the expense of all others, but that's how they were meant to be played anyways.

Still, there are some ideas that would still be better suited to unique factions. The original sisters of mercy idea creates a civ that acts on diplomacy and an actively defensive war style, completely unique to all others. Another faction could be buffed to have benefits in the winter months as opposed to weaknesses. The water civ could be made to play an interesting obstacle to expansion victories and make travel more interesting, the skin wearer faction could be made to add to suspicion in game provided mercs were more readily available...



At the end of the day, all of these suggestions point towards a need in the game. Even if these factions are never added at all, the ideas here point towards improvements that should be made.

Going back to natev's idea--- I entered something similar (different in a lot of ways) back in the competition.



I'd love to have something with heavy espionage focus, like the Darloks from Masters of Orion 2.

I've yet to encounter anything that plays quite like they did in 4x!

HappyHead wrote:
I think as is, it's a bit overpowered... I liking the feel of it though...

I'm not really in a place to speak though. I havnt really played as necros or mages so I dont really have a basis for my judgment beyond mere eyeballin' it.

I would argue +1 on science tiles is OP. Every faction has something that is OP and that is what gives it flavour.



As of right now I think ardent mages and necro are both considered lower tier to things like Drakken and Vaulters. With pop growth restricted to the death of non-faction units, and unit production of any sort draining pop, you might be able to pull ahead in growth of cities initially, but you have to keep winning battles or your entire empire grinds to a halt. Losing a 4-stack army means cutting your city pop by as much as 1/4 early era 2. Against the AI, a faction like this might be a steamroller, but in MP it would be a very high risk, high reward playstyle.



And yeah, I agree that my idea is not nearly unique enough to make it into the actual game. Writing this was just a distraction. It is hard to think of an undead's unique flavour and not have it overlap with necrophage in a big way. I did my best to stay away from zombies, at least

linking to more developed talk on plague bearers /#/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/3410-new-faction-the-plaguebearers

As of right now I think ardent mages and necro are both considered lower tier to things like Drakken and Vaulters. With pop growth restricted to the death of non-faction units, and unit production of any sort draining pop, you might be able to pull ahead in growth of cities initially, but you have to keep winning battles or your entire empire grinds to a halt. Losing a 4-stack army means cutting your city pop by as much as 1/4 early era 2. Against the AI, a faction like this might be a steamroller, but in MP it would be a very high risk, high reward playstyle.

point taken.

Going back to natev's idea--- I entered something similar (different in a lot of ways) back in the competition. I'd love to have something with heavy espionage focus, like the Darloks from Masters of Orion 2.

I've yet to encounter anything that plays quite like they did in 4x!

agreed. espionage in general needs to be added and the skin wearer faction plays an interesting role in that.