Nosferatiel wrote:
I believe the telepaths are going in that direction, even if they're rather of the "Your mind is weak, start salivating and do my bidding!"-variety.

I don't care, i'm gonna draw them anyway ! Mouahahaha ! (joke)

Hey ! dont waste it ! I could use some help for design

I brougth some new elements of gameplay and really improved the overall mechanics. The sons of winter are now a bit more interesting !

If anyone would like to leave feedback for my faction, I will happily return the favor!



The Tluli Serenu: /#/endless-legend/forum/7-archives/thread/3573-faction-creation-competition

look at them they are basically ice dragons they are even portrayed with a winter like minor faction.

i would assume that the Drakkens will be surely a winter based faction.

Seek wrote:
Any life's death diminishes we, for we are life, and so, never ask to know for whom The Calling's trumpet sounds; it sounds for thee."

I'd actually rephrase that with some alliterations to:

"Any life lost diminishes us, for we are the embodiment of life itself[...]"

but apart from that, my other comments:

The lore is nicely dramatic, one immediately gets what this faction stands for: Peace and the eradication of the opponents of peace. (A bit like paladins)

I do get that you try something unique with the southeastern asian approach and the, in that scenario fitting, morphology of six-legged-elephants. I have to admit though, it just isn't s.th. for me.

The gameplay has some interesting points for teamplay and diplomacy, making it interesting to ally with this faction just for postponing winter. The question would be, with such a mechanic, how to prevent misuse. E.g. someone going into an alliance shortly before winter with your faction, obviously helping you against e.g. necrophages, then breaking the alliance with his units in your territory, instantaneously starting the previously postponed winter and making you extremely vulnerable to start a veritable Blitzkrieg? The alliance-effect together with the winter-mali are really making this faction perfect for being backstabbed, sadly.

In terms of lore convolved with gameplay, I don't get the connection of the winter-postponing abilities and the lore. They may be an abstract embodiment of life, but why does any city or even alliance of them have an influence on the planet's climate? This could be fleshed out a bit.



I hope my comments are useful for you.

Seek wrote:
If anyone would like to leave feedback for my faction, I will happily return the favor!



The Tluli Serenu: /#/endless-legend/forum/7-archives/thread/3573-faction-creation-competition

Well, lore is certainly interesting. What inspired the Tluli Serenu? I mean, multi legged split trunk elephants with possible psychic/telepathic abilities is certainly rather unusual. Plus I doubt many people associate elephants with camouflage. Were they inspired by Hindu mythology or something? I'm for some reason reminded of that. Or alternatively, this, but thats completely different thing. Though I'm not sure if combating necrophage is much of unique trait since everyone hates them.



I dunno what to say about mechanics since I'm not actually sure how factions which can't declare war actually work in these type of games <_< I know Dust Collective was potential such faction in Endless Space, but I never understood how that one would have worked. Delaying winter sounds awesome and useful, but I guess that could backfire if player would have needed winter to delay enemies from attacking and needed more time.



Dang, giving feedback is really hard <_< What words compose the name btw?

Sovereign wrote:
look at them they are basically ice dragons they are even portrayed with a winter like minor faction.

i would assume that the Drakkens could be a winter based faction?

Yeah, that seems to be the case. Plus their Dungeon of the Endless ship is basically a freezer.

Background

This story is about infinite greed:

Their greed for luxury and comfort is legendary, luxury is nothing they need to relax - it is a state which has to be permanent and as extreme as possible. Thus any measures are fine to acquire any form of luxury and enjoyment as fast as possible. This unbreakable will to enjoy as much as possible had huge influence on the society of worms. Enjoymnent without "working" requires people doing the job for them instead. Soon their own workers were not able to deliver the required amount of "luxury" while maintaining a stable amount of food for the lower masses. Thus they began to enslave other smaller, inferior races to maintain their rising needs for more luxury.



Within several civial wars between families, a dominant cartel of female worms - addicted to unbelievable enjoyment in any imaginable form - won the battle and enslaved all other "inferior" families. Which means that all men have been enslaved as workers. Years passed and their enjoyment without restraint marked their bodies. They became fat, nearly immovable & insane, while increasing their power by increasing their riches. Thus their battles, their economy and research has to be done by their slaves which have been sucked into this machine of luxury-production. The envy and greed on each others luxuries unites all worms, slaves and bounty hunters under one banner. This is a society not based on trust, it is based on the pure power of dust (which represents more luxury, more drugs, more enjoyment).



Due to the power of the female cartel, there is also an imbalance between the rights of male and female slaves / workers. Male are in general less worth in comparison to female citizens. Male slaves have to do the lowest available work using their superior strength while their female counterparts are assigned to higher, less exhausting jobs. Except for female bounty hunters, the majority of their armies are consisting of male slaves. Female slaves are normally officers within the army, ensuring with whips and cruel tortue methods that noone even thinks of falling out of line. The fighting power of their armies heavily depends on the "aura" of their commanders. Only exceptional commanders are able to maintain "order" (and maintain the greed for luxuries) within enemy fields (while all those luxuries are far away).



The small boundries of their kingdom are not enough, the whole world (and beyond) needs to be claimed to try to satisfy the needs of the Worm Cartel.



There is always more to claim, to enjoy!



Gameplay

They need to enslave minor factions (especially strong male ones) to increase their (dust) production. The superior role of female beings within the society means that those female slaves do "higher" jobs - like being scientists. Thus it matters what to enslave (first).



There are very rarely "worms" on the field. Because they are so heavy that they can't move for themselves, but on the other hand their pure presence "inspires" their slaves to do anything as they command - to work beyond their limits towards death. The cruelties caused by the Worm cartel are beyond speakable. Huge parts of their armies are consisting of fearless bounty hunters.



"Happiness" in cities is solely defined by the happiness of the worms in that city. And more access to dust and luxury increases their form of happiness. Towns without access to luxury goods (because they are sieged) are crumbling really fast. As fast as their walls are being brought down, as fast they are able to enslave other cities. The aura of unspeakable "luxuries" are corrupting any others heart and demoralizing opposing confronting armies and cities. Mighty bounty hunters - following the call of dust - are assassinating any high priority targets which are between the Worm cartell and their quest for more riches. Ensuring that as well the shining riches and bloody force are intimidating their own folk as well as the enemy.



some possible Traits:

-Ability to "enslave" minor factions and opposing cities to gain boni on production / dust / science

-dependence on dust as huge influence on "happiness"

-dependence on luxury good (no sieges) to maintain happiness, sieging factions are cutting down luxury supply and thus having easy victories

-increased access to better heroes (bounty hunters) - the "best" bounty hunters are hearing the call of unbelievable riches

-ability to corrupt other armies / heroes by paying large sums of dust

Can i participate and give someone else the trip? Because i'm not interested in traveling to those events, like the one mentioned in pdf-file.

MysteryOne wrote:
Can i participate and give someone else the trip? Because i'm not interested in traveling to those events, like the one mentioned in pdf-file.

I think the pdf said you can refuse the prize and it would go to the person with second most votes.

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

Nosferatiel wrote:
I'd actually rephrase that with some alliterations to:

"Any life lost diminishes us, for we are the embodiment of life itself[...]"

I was trying to give a nod to this, I do admit the phrasing came out a little clunky, I will give it some more thought.

but apart from that, my other comments:

The lore is nicely dramatic, one immediately gets what this faction stands for: Peace and the eradication of the opponents of peace. (A bit like paladins)

I do get that you try something unique with the southeastern asian approach and the, in that scenario fitting, morphology of six-legged-elephants. I have to admit though, it just isn't s.th. for me.

The gameplay has some interesting points for teamplay and diplomacy, making it interesting to ally with this faction just for postponing winter. The question would be, with such a mechanic, how to prevent misuse. E.g. someone going into an alliance shortly before winter with your faction, obviously helping you against e.g. necrophages, then breaking the alliance with his units in your territory, instantaneously starting the previously postponed winter and making you extremely vulnerable to start a veritable Blitzkrieg? The alliance-effect together with the winter-mali are really making this faction perfect for being backstabbed, sadly.

Yes, the alliance mechanic is currently unknown to me (given the AIs all act like Necros and DoW almost immediately), so when it is possible to get more details the winter-delay mechanic may need to be rethought a bit.



However, as of now, I've designed the faction with a few assumptions in mind: that Alliances will last a minimum number of turns, that there will be sufficient disincentives to backstabbing to prevent it from happening all the time (ie, alliances will not be broken lightly), and that the winter-delaying mechanic will be permanent (so if backstabbed, winter will still be delayed the appropriate number of turns and not start immediately). I've also tried to design the faction to have fairly powerful defensibility (free roads, high movement on units, high defense/HP on units) - perhaps I should add to the "minor factions give units occasionally" element with "and all assimilated villages spawn a unit when war is declared against the Tluli"?



Given these I hope it will work fairly well - and honestly, if one of these elements doesn't pan out I think I'm ok with that. I certainly want there to be some element of risk in their design: I don't want them to be boring because they can't declare war.

In terms of lore convolved with gameplay, I don't get the connection of the winter-postponing abilities and the lore. They may be an abstract embodiment of life, but why does any city or even alliance of them have an influence on the planet's climate? This could be fleshed out a bit.

Hmm, I do admit my grasp of the lore is a bit shaky (there doesn't seem to be much out there?). From what I understand, Auriga is sentient to some degree (a sort of living thing) that is going to "die" when the ever-winter comes. Is this correct? I can see there is a logical hole in the lore story there (the connection between delaying winter and alliances) - but even though there is no mention of a connection between winters and the Necros, there might be. In any case, I'll try to come up with something to fill the hole here.

I hope my comments are useful for you.

Very much so, thank you! Aside from the SE Asian/elephant theme not grabbing you, does the faction seem fun?

ResonanceMask wrote:
Well, lore is certainly interesting. What inspired the Tluli Serenu? I mean, multi legged split trunk elephants with possible psychic/telepathic abilities is certainly rather unusual. Plus I doubt many people associate elephants with camouflage. Were they inspired by Hindu mythology or something? I'm for some reason reminded of that. Or alternatively, this, but thats completely different thing. Though I'm not sure if combating necrophage is much of unique trait since everyone hates them.

Hmm, both feedbacks have problems with the Necrophage angle... Maybe I'll adjust it. Regarding the inspiration I wanted a faction that didn't fit the standard fantasy or scifi fare, and .. well, elephants! (I was going for unusual to try to stand out from the crowd.) I was considering going with more of a human-elephant hybrid (a la Indian mythology) but it just didn't seem to fit. I gave them more legs, split trunks and shifting patterns to make them look cool, and the camouflage aspect was added at the end just to shake it up a little more (given the contrast of hidden massive beasts) - it would be the first thing I'd drop if the faction seems too incohesive. Seems it sparked your imagination? If so, awesome - that was the goal.

I dunno what to say about mechanics since I'm not actually sure how factions which can't declare war actually work in these type of games <_< I know Dust Collective was potential such faction in Endless Space, but I never understood how that one would have worked. Delaying winter sounds awesome and useful, but I guess that could backfire if player would have needed winter to delay enemies from attacking and needed more time.



Dang, giving feedback is really hard <_< What words compose the name btw?

I appreciate the feedback! As I mentioned in response to Nos above, I did try to design the faction to have good defensibility, given that you won't have those respites in winter (assuming all goes well).



The name is derived from Thai for "dust defender"



I'll get my feedback for both of your factions together and post them later today, thanks again Nos and Resonance!

ResonanceMask wrote:
I think the pdf said you can refuse the prize and it would go to the person with second most votes.

Thanks for the info. Must not skim-read next time. I'm not sure if i have an idea yet though..

As promised:



Cultists of the Eternal End - Nosferatiel



One of my favorite factions that I've read about so far. The "cultist" thing doesn't really grab me, typically, but the mechanics sound really fun. Lore is interesting and well thought out.



I don't have too much critical feedback (you've obviously put a lot of thought and effort in here), but here's what I have.



The OMCETS are nanobots essentially, and so is dust - maybe merge them into the same concept or tie them together? Not sure, they just seem like overlapping concepts.



Didn't see any mention of a starting unit - if they gain robotic units later, do they just start with being able to only build minor faction units?



Don't quite follow the interaction between "Belief Equals Power" and "Subversive Theology": The Cult doesn't get pop from converted villages, unless in alliance with another faction with intact villages? Seems strange to me. I see how you need to limit the population potential with this faction, I just wonder if there isn't a more elegant method - perhaps change it so the Cult never gets pop from villages no matter what and Converted Villages in another faction's land only grant them the extra pop if they are allied with the Cultists.



Balance feedback:



"Inciting fanaticism" trait is a great concept, but I think the Influence values should be raised - they seem quite low - or maybe scaled so the initial ones are cheaper but get more expensive (maybe set by era?). I worry the Influence snowball could get out of control.



"Your enemy's dagger in your hand... " Trait seems OP, but given the faction has some severe limitations it might not be. One stockpile per building and one for 3/4 population seems too much, especially late game. Maybe shift one of these to steal strategic resources from the city somehow? Resources seem to be needed in excess for the cultists.



=============================================



Squamata - ResonantMask



The lore works - classic mythological theme of splintered groups finding unity against a common threat. I like that the aesthetic is not the typical brutish "lizardman".



For a faction that seems to want to be left alone, they seem to be very focused on warfare. I do like the "guerilla warfare" aspect, with hidden armies harrassing other factions' units, resources and trade routes, but I would like to see something beyond warfare that makes this faction unique.



I'd also like to know a bit more about how you imagine the mechanics to work. In particular, is there a special method to how minors "join them"? I see a lot of potential here, I'd like to see you flesh it out a bit!

Faction description



Short: expansionist, werewolf/hellhound like beings mastering fire, receives extra gains from minor factions and their army relies on them.



Long: The Cerberions are in a continuous need for expansion as due to their aggressive nature they are not willing to share their homes even with their peers. They rely heavily on minor factions on many sides. They gain extra benefits from minor factions, also they like using their units to fight beside them. The mysterious Cerberions were born in the fields of volcanoes at the southern part of Auriga. They had to learn to master the fire they live with, while the winter is unknown to them. Since the ancient times, they learned how to master fire based buffing abilities on other creatures giving them new abilities and advanced strength, therefore the Cerberions rely heavily on minor factions.



Faction traits



Military points: It’s a counter similar to Necrophages’ empire wise counter (counting the kills), but this one is a counter placed individually in each city. If 40 military points are reached in a city, the city gains one basic unit (with basic armor and weapons) same type of the minor faction of that area, and the counter is set back to zero.

• Unwelcoming hosts: Cities receive -10 happiness for every excess population over the number of residences the city have. City center provides 3 residences while boroughs only 1 (for example: 12 population with 7 boroughs results -20 happiness)
  
  

• Military training: Sacrifice 1 opulation: population to gain +20 military points (5-turn cooldown in city)
  
  

• Military tribute: Pacified minor factions do not provide +1 opulation: population, instead +1 military points per turn.
  
  

• Expansionists: -50% expansion disapproval
  
  

• Culture of assimilation: All adjacent tiles to minor faction burrows provide +1 influence (+2 as soon as level 3 technology is reached, +4 as level 5 reached)
  
  

• Supernatural senses: They receive +1 sight and +2 movement on land tiles (does not apply on ships)
  
  

• Supply to the minors: -50% dust cost reduction on retrofitting assimilated minor faction units
  
  

• Cold as ice: During winter the fire based buff abilities of their units do not work
  
  

Basic idea of unit pool

Their units should be very fragile in nature. Their basic unit pool should lack strong “tank” units, so they must rely on minor faction units.

Their base unit could be a support (!) unit of some kind, giving fire based buffs to minor faction units in the army. This ability should be a very fun way to change interaction fighting with minor factions, not just simple attack of defense buff. This faction could have 2 support units, one is the basic, and one is a high class unit with firecircle casting ability around a single allied unit hurting enemy units standing next to that unit, or something similar affecting only minor faction units in the army. Third unit maybe a flyer. There could be a lot of clever and fun ways to come up with, but this is for a later phase of designing.



Basic idea of hero pool

Their heroes are fast and have advanced sight. Their abilities provide buffs for minor faction units in their army. One of their ability could be to reduce retrofitting cost (only dust) on minor faction units (lvl1: -10%, lvl2: -10%, lvl3: -15%), or other abilities buffing them.



Why they are fun to play with?

It requires lot of thinking and planning to play them properly, but if it is done so, they are very strong. Their units are support units basically, but they have great variety of minor faction units in their disposal, as each of their cities provide them different free units depending on the region they are at. Their own units provide very strong buffs on minor faction units, which buffs are not effective in winter. The player must expand rapidly in summer as the winter is harsh in sense of military as well, not just economically.



I found few pics they resemble how I imagined them. They are fire based/mutated creatures, far descendants of werewolfs/hellhounds:

Sovereign wrote:
look at them they are basically ice dragons they are even portrayed with a winter like minor faction.

i would assume that the Drakkens will be surely a winter based faction.

Damn ! it was so obvious that i didn't even thought about it ! But thanks..

I guess that makes my proposition useless then

Seek wrote:
Squamata - ResonantMask



The lore works - classic mythological theme of splintered groups finding unity against a common threat. I like that the aesthetic is not the typical brutish "lizardman".



For a faction that seems to want to be left alone, they seem to be very focused on warfare. I do like the "guerilla warfare" aspect, with hidden armies harrassing other factions' units, resources and trade routes, but I would like to see something beyond warfare that makes this faction unique.



I'd also like to know a bit more about how you imagine the mechanics to work. In particular, is there a special method to how minors "join them"? I see a lot of potential here, I'd like to see you flesh it out a bit!

Yeah. The actual reason I had the faction itself composed of splintered groups of same race was to show that before they tried to ally with other minor races, they already tried to do same thing, but in smaller scale. So that their turn from isolationists to trying to ally with other races doesn't actually come out of nowhere, though some feedbacks hows that seems to be bit unclear... One friend of mine thought that gameplay didn't fit well with lore idea even though I built lore around the gameplay <_<



Dunno what you mean with "they seem to be very focused on warfare" since I thought guerrilla warfare is mainly form of defensive warfare so I thought it'd fit with isolationist part. Can you elaborate? And what basically would you like to learn about gameplay besides warfare? They are meant to be faction that first plays defensively and then switch to offensive when they get strong enough, so can you tell me what else you would like to know about so I can think of an answer?



Well, umm, actually <_< The ambassador turning village into base WAS the special recruit method. I guess that was bit unclear, but thats why I called unit ambassador instead of settler. Anyway, how should I explain the mechanics better? I assumed I shouldn't get into too much detail since devs are ultimately ones who decide how gameplay is implemented so I thought my role is to give basic idea of what it could be like.

Bibool wrote:
Damn ! it was so obvious that i didn't even thought about it ! But thanks..

I guess that makes my proposition useless then

Not at all! In fact, having more than one Major Faction that gets an overall buff in winter would make for some interesting interactions, especially in combat situations where they'd go head to head against each other in "Winter Offensives".

_theclamps_ wrote:
Not at all! In fact, having more than one Major Faction that gets an overall buff in winter would make for some interesting interactions, especially in combat situations where they'd go head to head against each other in "Winter Offensives".

The opening post does say:



"Proposals for the Major Faction should take into account the theme below, to avoid having too many similarities with the 3 upcoming unannounced factions and their gameplay.

Keep in mind that we have already given some hints on the Roving Clans during our Gamescom 2013 Reveal, you had a sneak peak at Drakkens at the Early Access Release and that we are already working on some Magic "



I tried to find stuff about Roving Clans and they are nomadic merchants focused on trade. So I guess trade based factions, factions similar to Drakken(whether that means reptilians(gulp for me Though if we can have wild walkers and humans, I think we can have two distinct reptilian beings as well)), dragons or winter faction) would be out. And I guess magic is for everyone so they just mentioned to keep it in mind that magic based faction wouldn't be that special



Though I can see why they told people to keep the theme in mind... All ideas so far are rather cool, but some of them seem like minor faction theme is afterthought. Like, the faction weren't designed around theme, they were designed around lore that writers found cool and then they thought about how to incorporate minor factions in them leading them to mostly giving bonuses. Or the writers had gameplay idea they would find cool to play and then as side note added minor factions on sideline.



I'm kinda worried about how much the faction should resolve around the theme... I tried to design my idea around the theme, but I'm worried if it become too much about guerrilla warfare to qualify... I didn't even realize it at time of writing it, but I really would like to play such faction at least a once in strategy game.

ResonanceMask wrote:
"Proposals for the Major Faction should take into account the theme below, to avoid having too many similarities with the 3 upcoming unannounced factions and their gameplay.

Keep in mind that we have already given some hints on the Roving Clans during our Gamescom 2013 Reveal, you had a sneak peak at Drakkens at the Early Access Release and that we are already working on some Magic "

Ahahah, I feel like i was playing a game not really knowing the rules. Ok, complete redone then ? arg I did like my Sons of winter :'(



- No mage

- No winter base faction

- No nomadic merchant



If I may, the greatest Idea for me so far (a.k.a good match with the theme of minor) were



- religion/conversion;

- native federation ;

- slave/sacrificial ;

ResonanceMask wrote:
Yeah. The actual reason I had the faction itself composed of splintered groups of same race was to show that before they tried to ally with other minor races, they already tried to do same thing, but in smaller scale. So that their turn from isolationists to trying to ally with other races doesn't actually come out of nowhere, though some feedbacks hows that seems to be bit unclear... One friend of mine thought that gameplay didn't fit well with lore idea even though I built lore around the gameplay <_<



Dunno what you mean with "they seem to be very focused on warfare" since I thought guerrilla warfare is mainly form of defensive warfare so I thought it'd fit with isolationist part. Can you elaborate? And what basically would you like to learn about gameplay besides warfare? They are meant to be faction that first plays defensively and then switch to offensive when they get strong enough, so can you tell me what else you would like to know about so I can think of an answer?

What I meant by that was that all the characteristics of the faction that you described are militaristic, aside from the unique assimilation method. So do they excel in some area? You said one of the tribes has great diplomacy, maybe they could get some bonus to Influence in an interesting way, for example. I think you have some worthy ideas in the guerrilla warfare, what else makes this faction feel unique to play compared to other factions?

Well, umm, actually <_< The ambassador turning village into base WAS the special recruit method. I guess that was bit unclear, but thats why I called unit ambassador instead of settler. Anyway, how should I explain the mechanics better? I assumed I shouldn't get into too much detail since devs are ultimately ones who decide how gameplay is implemented so I thought my role is to give basic idea of what it could be like.

oops, missed that, sorry. Yeah, I think going into mechanics will make people excited about the faction (it's like reading the back of a video game box - they still have those, right? - you see a list of features that make you go "ooh, cool!" and make you want to play the game). Don't forget this is going to be a vote! So going into some detail about this stuff would help spark the imagination.

Seek wrote:
What I meant by that was that all the characteristics of the faction that you described are militaristic, aside from the unique assimilation method. So do they excel in some area? You said one of the tribes has great diplomacy, maybe they could get some bonus to Influence in an interesting way, for example. I think you have some worthy ideas in the guerrilla warfare, what else makes this faction feel unique to play compared to other factions?







oops, missed that, sorry. Yeah, I think going into mechanics will make people excited about the faction (it's like reading the back of a video game box - they still have those, right? - you see a list of features that make you go "ooh, cool!" and make you want to play the game). Don't forget this is going to be a vote! So going into some detail about this stuff would help spark the imagination.

Ah. Well, thats because faction isn't actually diplomatic one, its aims for military victory <_< Diplomacy applies mainly to minor factions. Idea is to ally with enough minor factions until you get strong enough to go offensive. Like I said, I wrote lore around the gameplay idea. The diplomatic tribe is justification for ambassador unit being able to with turning villages into bases and convincing other races to ally with them, they are just that good at it. The splintered tribes and them having developed independently from each other to point of becoming subspecies of original tribe is a justification for units having different physical abilities and cultural skills to fit into different roles and being visually interesting. I was even considering writing that they can't have trade routes with other major factions and can only raid trade routes, but I figured out that might turn off people...



One thing on how they are different from other major faction is that bonuses that they get from alliance with minor faction is different from assimilation bonuses other faction get. But I don't know how else they could be different from other factions. I guess they could also be restricted in what tech they can research until they spy other races, but again, just like the lack of trade routes idea, that might be too restrictive gameplay wise and I'm not sure if I should make faction be weak in every possible way before they join up with minor factions...



Well, like my signatures say, I'm bad at advertising xD So yeah, I'm pretty worried about that. I guess I could elobrate it more, but I'm not sure what people want to hear and where is the line when the text becomes too long to anyone keep interest in reading it.