Okay, so my attempt on this...



Squamata



Background: The Squamata is variety of tribes composed of reptilian beings. Not even the tribe elders remember the origin of Squamata, but each tribe share a story how they came to be so fractured race. Eons ago, tribe was unified and ruled by chief who was respected by all. Chief sired many children, which ended up being undoing of the tribe. Upon his death, the children argued with each other for they all thought they had better ideas on how to lead the tribe. Each child gained followers within the tribe and eventually tribe splintered into multiple tribes each lead by one of children. Stories differ which one of chief's children was the one who was "right" based on the tribe. Nevertheless, despite the feud between the tribes, there were never violence against each other as all of the tribes preferred to be left alone. This mentality has made them to be strict isolationists who avoid each other and other races. The poor fools who have made mistake of getting too close to their territory were dealt with frightening efficiency.



Since their ancestors split up the tribe, each individual tribe has developed biological differences to each other. They are still same species, but another eon and they would probably be different species by then. That is how strict their isolationist practices were. While each tribe has physical and cultural differences to each other, they all share art of stealthy hunting which makes them deadly in their own territory.



Squamata were quite satisfied with minding their own business, until some of the tribes got eradicated by major factions' expansion and conquest. One of the tribes realized that this would be fate of them all if they wouldn't become one tribe again. This tribe had special reputation as charismatic leaders along the other tribes and they showed that skill by convincing the remaining tribes of the need of unification. But alas, as it turned out even combined might of tribes isn't enough to be a major player. The Squamata are specialized in guerrilla warfare, but they aren't able to defeat other factions in straight up combat, they can only stall them. Tribe realized that their only hope of retaining their lifestyle was by allying with other "minor" players and banding together against major factions to protect themselves.



Gameplay: Instead of assimilating minor factions, they ally with them. This means they don't have limit of how many minor factions can "join" them, but to balance it out the faction units are all form of guerrilla warfare. They are unable to defeat other faction units in direct combat, so they fight with sabotage, infiltration, traps and such. So basically faction units' role is to support minor faction units. They also don't have settler and instead have ambassador who can convert minor faction village into "Base of operation" that basically works like a city. Faction starts out weak, but as Alliance grows, they will eventually match other empires in strength. Some of infiltration mechanics are encouraging assimilated minor factions to rebel against the empire and ability to stay undetected in certain terrains. They are also able to send spies into enemy cities to do sabotage and study enemy strength. Allied minor faction in the region needs to have their villages destroyed before enemy can assimilate them. One of guerrilla warfare ideas I had is that they could be able to raid trade routes and such. So instead of trading, they can get profit at expense of factions' trade routes. They could also either sabotage resource extractors or steal resources from them.



The only city which's location they can choose is their "Hidden village" which is set up by unit you receive in first turn. In region where hidden village is located you can't convert minor faction village into base of operations, but enemy empires can't locate your city before minor faction villages in that region are destroyed



Minor Faction Alliance mechanics: There are two sorts of bonuses, first is amount of regions who are part of the Alliance and second is based on race of minor factions in Alliance. First one gives resource bonuses(and/or unlocks more options in research tree. I'm assuming that Squamata start out with weaker resource growth than other races before they gain allies) and it stacks, second one is only given once per race. Ideally Alliance race bonuses should be different(or alternatively give larger bonuses) from assimilation bonuses to show that them working with Squamata is different from them being assimilated into an empire. They should show how race is helping the alliance, for example, urces could give consruction bonuses to show that they help with building stuff due to their strength and bos could give defense bonuses or increase vision range due to them fluffwise patrolling alliances' borders.



Now, my original idea was that Squamata can use each of minor faction units without there being limit how many different units can be recruited at time(unlike other races who are at first limited to one but can with research expand to three), but in case that would be too powerful, I figured out alternative. This will work whether Squamata are limited to three minor faction units at max or if they have more minor faction unit slots than other factions: You can choose which races in Alliance participate in war, but in response they don't give their racial bonus since instead of helping in background, they are helping on battlefield.



Ideas for units: Ambassador unit is made of those "silver tongued" tribe who managed to convince other tribes' about need of unification in first place. They are more colorful than other tribes. First unit is gecko like support unit with scouting abilities. Main purpose of this one is to support minor factions. Second one could be venomous lizard specialized in sabotaging enemies. Third one could be chameleon like unit whose purpose is to spy by infiltrating enemy cities and sabotaging buildings. Each of them has ability to hide in certain terrains, bonuses in defending in those terrains and good climbing ability allowing them to have good movement even with high altitude. Third unit could have better terrain camouflage allowing it to get closer to enemy cities unless spotted by enemy units or watchtowers. The heroes could be either the strongest combat units they have or just have variety of different buff/debuff support and sabotage options depending on skills you choose.



Minor details on my idea:



The faction units are supposed to be weak on their own. This faction is supposed to rely on other minor factions in order to survive. You can stall enemy with factions unit, but you can't win this war with guerilla warfare.



The Squamata doesn't specifically like other minor factions more than major factions, they simply offer them a chance to defend their culture and independence instead of being assimilated into the larger empires. To Squamata the ideal solution is that all other races leave them in peace, so they are willing to consider peace treaties and alliances with major factions.



Reptile aliens are cool, but you never really see aliens based on geckos or chameleons or other lizards than brutish "lizardman" type of aliens you see anywhere. Hence why this faction is based on more stealth orientated reptiles.



This idea was mostly build around gameplay and the theme. I had figured out beforehand that I wanted race to be reptilian, but other than that lore was based on gameplay ideas.



Phew... Well, thats now written. I hope that went okay <_<

Faction Name: Georifts



Background Story: Formed from the manifestations of magical energy scattered around Auriga, these elementals have joined forces in order to rid Auriga of its inhabitants. The land has become tainted with the expansion of the other factions and it is the desire of the Georifts to set things back to their natural state.



The minor faction "The Silics" is where the idea of the Georifts came from. Was thinking about how this minor faction could have formed and came up with this idea.



Basic Gameplay: Immune to movement reduction during winter phase. I would think that this faction would have low movement points and would benefit from a support class which can manipulate this in battle. Industry efficient. Good at making weapons and armor from the various elemental resources scattered throughout Auriga.

The system has had an update....



Check out the new update to: The Cognition



The update is to the Faction Traits. I hope you will like them.

Background Story



First of his kind Saask-watch “the one who saw first” was wondering. Something was different. As the whisper of winter has grown stronger his dreams have become strange and colorfull. Was it the words of The Lord of Ice ? Time has passed since he first stepped out of the cave. They learned, yes, how to build wall of the sacred ice, and how the Cold could break the earth and forge the iron. Yet, that didn’t stop the Leaf Worshiper and the Bloodbugs to kill them. “Earthkiller”, said the firsts, “you’re a plague we should take care of”. And so they tried. While the sweet embrace of snow has protect them so far, he knows that it will not last forever. Learn. Learn from others how to protect themselves, As knowledge is their first weakness. Answer of who they are.

“That we will seek.” And so, first of his kind Saask-watch stopped wondering, and raised himself in the cold storm.



Basic gameplay



Call of winter : + 100 % collect during winter, and +2 unit movementS



Ice cream : + 2 , + 1 , + 1 , + 10 on snow tile



New born : Minors factions provides



Strong fur : High PV units



Basic Nightmare Strategy



The Sons of winter will be the nightmare of other player in the mid game, so they will look for you and tries to erase you from the map in the begining. If you survive however, or if you hide yourself enough, you will strike back with heavy forces as the first winds of winter blow. The winter is your main ally, as well as minor faction youy rely on to get science. Indeed, you start at the beginning of the game with a malus, getting only half the science you normally harvest. But as you expend you loose that malus. And you expend fast, thanks to the snow tiles.



Faction traits



- Fresh start : automatically start in a snow Biome

With regard to the voting system suggestion/discussion from earlier, I've compiled everything up to now into a post. The whole issue of "vbulletin doesn't support it" is resolvable; just give me a moment to stitch some code together. I was actually thinking of just using one of the off-site solutions but I guess it makes sense it needs to be in the forum. I'll post the thread when I finish writing the script with forum integration.



With regard to entries being too long, yes they are... there should have been some "sell your factions traits in 100 words and then your faction bio in 100 words, then write however you want after." It is indeed really hard to read though and this will just causes a lot of problems with voters. In the game skullgirls, when we had to vote for characters, there was just something like 20 character and those had pictures and 3 lines of text to them and it was still a lot of work to vote.



-



Can I have some feedback on [post=176824]my faction suggestion[/post]? (it's a short read)

Interested in what are the negatives/weakpoints that stand out.

nightbasilisk wrote:


Can I have some feedback on [post=176824]my faction suggestion[/post]? (it's a short read)

Interested in what are the negatives/weakpoints that stand out.

The idea you suggest of a big city is interresting, but the way it could work without buying out or without industry seems a bit strange to me (but still interresting). Besides, both the name and "lore" are too close from reality to my taste ("all road leads to Rome", Castle etc..), but as it is intentionnal it is just my taste



What about mine ?

The Confederacy of Free Peoples





Lore



In a time long past, the land of Auriga was devastated by the feuding of small tribes vying for dominance over each other. A group of five tribes, horrified by the loss if life made peace. They formed a Confederacy to maintain the peace amongst themselves and for the benefit of mutual defense. The Confederacy established a great capital, led by a council of representatives from each tribe. This council was dedicated to using diplomacy to solve all internal and external problems. They established diplomatic ties with nations all over Auriga. In time however, increasing outside pressures led to the collapse of their diplomatic empire. Eventually, an invading army sacked their Capital leaving the once great union in ruins. The refugees wandered Auriga alone, unwanted. they were from many different tribes with little cultural similarity to hold them together. The group began to fall apart, with groups leaving to settle in lands unknown. However, one of their own experienced visions compelling him to lead his people out of the dark age they had fallen into. He reestablished their belief of union through the Confederation. They are now guided by the goal of renewing the Confederacy to its former glory.





Gameplay



The theme of my faction is a union of a myriad of minor factions. They are a diplomatically dependent faction. Their power is based on one highly centralized capital but can stablish outposts in other regions.



Some Gameplay Ideas:

Their whole gameplay is centered around a capital, a major encouragement to expanding through street burroughs and city centers is needed. I would like the capital to be able to provide huge influence production and a way to offset the negative influence made by street burroughs.

They can establish outposts in other regions but they cannot build city extensions or increase population past three units. The only reason they should build these outposts is to reestablish connections with minor factions so i would suggest fidsi and happiness penalties.

Their main theme is diplomacy so they cannot declare war or attack minor factions. They rely on assimilating minor factions using diplomacy so they have to use large amounts of influence to assimilate them. Minor factions should give better city bonuses to this faction then others, but only to the capital.

The cost of maintaining a faction like this through diplomacy is high so for the empire plan, minor faction villages assimilated should increase the influence cost by a lot while comparatively, the faction’s outposts should increase them by a much smaller amount.

This whole faction is based on a union of minor factions, so it should lack the ability to use powerful armours and weapons. Higher level weapons can be acquired, but only through minor faction quests and should be expensive per unit. The tier one armours and weapons however, should be researchable and equipable.

As for unique improvements, they should focus on improving the capital, providing large influence bonuses especially and some large FIDS bonuses per population and workers.

Unique techs should include lowering the high costs of influence, and increasing the amount of minor factions available to be assimilated occurring earlier.

The minor faction villages should be under their own control, but giving some minor bonuses such as dust, science, and happiness. they should also be able to produce un-upgraded versions of their units in small amounts to provide some basic early game defense, but only happen infrequently like every 20 turns or so.

EDIT: so i forgot to mention, they can only fight wars when declared but they CAN fight back, however when they take an enemy city it automatically builds the salting the earth improvement. Also, the people like being safe so they should have some sort of bonus for alliances and peace but have negative bonuses when at war.

These are some of my basic ideas for the gameplay that I could adjust, so be sure to offer me any suggestions.



I am a bit sad for posting this so late, as some other people have posted ideas of union, but I want to define my faction as different from those, unique. Also, I did not include specifics on heroes, cities, units, etc. because those are being voted for later. However, i would like their original unit to be a sort of refugee infantry group of different races wearing the same uniform, acting in unison, etc.



So this is my faction, influenced by both the Iroquois and Greek city-states especially Athens. Unfortunately I couldn't find any sort of creative combo name.

Bibool wrote:
What about mine ?

Thanks for the feedback! I was actually a little cautious since yours seems like a game of thrones reference and I'm behind a season or so.



I think, going with the negatives, the main issues in my mind are "what are the benefits again?" since even the "relies on minor factions for tech and influence" seems like a giant pain to pull off. The whole gets bonus in winter is nice but given how winter feels like 10% or so of the game or at least the early game (it usually pops out at turn 30 for 6-15 turns) it seems like if anyone wants to get you out of the game they have 30 or so turns to out right kill you. I'm not too sure about the climate idea either, I mean things like forests (which are in all climates) are okey but climate specific seems like just getting gimped a lot of the time (especially with the desert malus adding more gimp-ness to it). I don't even think you can even avoid that, since the way the game is setup currently you have to settle in a finite set of turns or go bankrupt. When you go bankrupt the game gives you a warning on the turn before and starts selling your crap afterwards; I can only imagine its gameover if it can't but never was able to simulate a "cant sell enough to auto-balance it."

nightbasilisk wrote:
Thanks for the feedback! I was actually a little cautious since yours seems like a game of thrones reference and I'm behind a season or so.

Only here for advertise purpose !



But thank you very much, you brought some very interresting ideas that i will have to think about !

Aww, dang it, third minor faction alliance faction. Standing out seems to be pretty hard Would be nice to get tips on that...



Someone should do list of faction suggestions and see how many of them belong to particular categories...

Well we really need a thread with ONLY factions presentations.

This would be so much better to read...

PANCZASU wrote:


Amplitude really should pick 3 winners. One of them will get his faction in before EL release and he'll get to visit gamescom as well. Meanwhile the two runner-ups will see their faction implemented post-release in an expansion. That would be soooooooooo cool

Indeed, that would even be more than cool...

Kingsguard wrote:
Well we really need a thread with ONLY factions presentations.

This would be so much better to read...

This. This thread quickly became an advertisement forum...

Hmm, yeah, it'd be easier for devs to read them as well if there was thread only for them...

I can create the Thread but.... I will not being able to remove the "spammer" (anything else than presentations would be spam offcourse)

We need a moderator to help us for this

Kingsguard wrote:
I can create the Thread but.... I will not being able to remove the "spammer" (anything else than presentations would be spam offcourse)

We need a moderator to help us for this

We actually need a thread with everyone only posting short summaries. Devs being able to read it aside, the voters wont be able to read it.

Bibool wrote:


On the other hand the Cultist sounds really good, with a deep coherent background wich I like a lot. The religion is a great purpose and justify very nicely the use of minors. There is however some things a bit unclear about the way we could play them (How war would work if you cant take other factions cities ?, as for the automatic casus belli while fighting a minor (no diplomatic cost then ?))

Thanks for liking them, you strike a really good point. I'll add s.th. to fix that, later. It will be about the material the temple of cessation is built out of...

Kingsguard wrote:
Well we really need a thread with ONLY factions presentations.

This would be so much better to read...

You need to petition Nosferatiel for that. He is the cultist with the power to do that

nightbasilisk wrote:
We actually need a thread with everyone only posting short summaries. Devs being able to read it aside, the voters wont be able to read it.

Well, that feels like waste of effort *had originally written very short summary, but spent whole day making text more descriptive because everyone did similar texts*

nightbasilisk wrote:
With regard to entries being too long, yes they are... there should have been some "sell your factions traits in 100 words and then your faction bio in 100 words, then write however you want after." It is indeed really hard to read though and this will just causes a lot of problems with voters. In the game skullgirls, when we had to vote for characters, there was just something like 20 character and those had pictures and 3 lines of text to them and it was still a lot of work to vote.

I cannot agree with that, there's no such thing as an entry too long in my book. The more lore people pump into their factions, the better.

That being said, it is nice when people post short and long versions of their factions. The problem is - readers often don't even notice that. They just look at a wall of text and go like "f that" and move on, even though there is a clearly marked short version for the impatient ones. So even by using your suggestion of 100 words for gameplay ideas and bio wouldn't help because reads would get intimidated by whatever is posted afterward.

A possible solution would be to just limit all entries and disallow posters to write anything after that but I seriously think that this is a bad idea. By having more space to describe their faction, people in this thread were often able to underline how unique their ideas are and how they could be implemented in the game. I, myself, would have been able to limit myself to 100 words (since I think that my short summary is roughly that size) but without the ability to write anything else, I wouldn't be able to provide various examples of how my proposed ideas could work in the game world. Would it still be a valid entry? Yes. Would it make things harder to understand? A little bit, yes.

Besides, I like reading lore that people post on their factions. The more the merrier ^_^

Kingsguard wrote:
Well we really need a thread with ONLY factions presentations.

This would be so much better to read...

100% agreed but it's kinda late now. Maybe next time :l