A call for umbrella factions

[Genava55]

I'm creating a thread to discuss a suggestion I made in another thread.

The problem arose following the proposal of different scenarios for a tutorial campaign. Several scenarios were rejected simply because the factions didn't exist in the game as playable. In this case, they were mainly Greek city-states. The case of the various Greek city-states is a perfect illustration of the problem, as these are generally proposals for which many of the buildings would be similar to those existing for the current factions. So I think it's important that we come up with a solution, and to do that I propose having umbrella factions.

An 'umbrella faction' in this context is simply a primary faction that encompasses multiple related minor factions, allowing players to start with a broad cultural group and later specialize in distinct sub-factions.  For example, in the case of the Greek city-states, the player can start out as a generic Greek faction and can choose to become affiliated to a minor faction during the course of the game, thereby unlocking bonuses, units, buildings and so on. Affiliation can consist of joining the Spartans, the Athenians, the Corinthians etc.

There are many reasons for umbrella factions:

1. Creative and Practical Limitations: Designing unique factions for each minor group is challenging, expensive, and risks creating repetitive or uninspired content. The current approach could also exclude interesting cultures due to resource constraints. Umbrella factions could be a more flexible and modular concept. It would even be possible to create minor factions for campaigns.
2. Visual and Artistic Quality: It would help to maintain visual cohesion by avoiding the need for excessive new assets, preserving the game's overall artistic quality.
3. User Interface Concerns: Adding many minor factions from similar cultural backgrounds (e.g., Greek city-states) clutters the user interface, making it more complex and less user-friendly.
4. Gameplay Strategy and Diversity: An umbrella faction approach enables strategic diversity without overwhelming players. For example, a player might begin as a generic Greek faction and later choose to specialize in a specific city-state (e.g., Athens or Sparta) based on desired bonuses or units.
5. Improved Game Balance: Umbrella factions allow for better balance, avoiding factions that are overpowered due to an excess of unit choices or too weak due to a lack of variety. Linking specific units to choices within umbrella factions can enhance strategic depth and create interesting counter-strategies.
6. Encouragement of Adaptive Gameplay: Umbrella factions could introduce adaptive gameplay, where players must make decisions based on their opponents' choices within the faction. This means that as other players specialize within the same umbrella faction, players must adjust their strategy, creating dynamic interactions and keeping gameplay fresh.
7. Reduced Cognitive Load for New Players: For beginners, a simplified umbrella faction model lowers the learning curve. Rather than overwhelming new players with numerous faction options, they can begin with a broad faction and gradually discover the nuances of various sub-factions as they progress.
8. Flexibility for Future Releases: Umbrella factions allow for easy integration of new units, buildings, and technologies without the challenge of designing an entire faction from scratch. For instance, if future expansions explore more diverse regions, new minor factions can be added within established umbrellas, enriching gameplay without overcomplicating the framework.
9. Enhanced historical authenticity: By grouping culturally similar city-states or peoples into unifying factions, players experience historical alliances and rivalries in a more realistic way. This structure makes it possible to add numerous historical references and offer players a glimpse of the diversity of the ancient world. It also reflects how ancient societies often shared cultural traits while having unique distinctions, offering players a more nuanced and immersive historical experience.

 

In the case of a faction such as the Greek cities, the idea is to choose to affiliate with one of the city-states or leagues that were very important:

• Corinth, famous for its fortress, its architecture and its craftsmen. It was a very powerful city even before the wars with the Persians. Corinth was inscribed with Athens and Sparta on the second coil of the serpent column at Delphi for its part in the defence of Greece against Xerxes. According to Thucydides, the trireme was introduced to Greece by the Corinthians.
• Sparta, a city that focused on military power and control of a large territory with many agricultural estates. There are many military features that are unique to Sparta.
• Athens, a powerful thalassocracy with major cultural and economic influence. A very rich and detailed history which enable us to implement a lot of diverse features.
• Thebes, an important city that made the poor choice of allying itself with the Persians and played a minor role in the Peloponnesian War. However, Thebes came back into the limelight during the following wars and became a major military power. Thebes is famous for its sacred battalion.
• Syracuse, a Greek city in Sicily, took part in numerous conflicts such as the Peloponnesian War and the Punic Wars. Syracuse was known for its mercenary recruitment, its powerful fleet and its brilliant inventions (see Archimedes). It is generally believed that the first ballistas were invented in Syracuse.
• The Achaean League, a powerful confederation that held out against the Macedonians and controlled a large part of Greece. They had a powerful army and were the only ones mentioned to use Thorakites apart from the Seleucids. They reformed their army at some point to use the Macedonian pike.

And if we implement this system, it would be much easier to create a faction for a campaign. For example, if we decide to create a faction to represent Massalia for a campaign, we reuse the vast majority of existing elements. This would mainly be parameterization rather than design.

[ShadowOfHassen]

This would be a LOT of work, but honestly, I'm for it. I agree with everything @Genava55has just said.

[Genava55]

This system could also be applied to a possible Germanic faction. If you want to take advantage of the different cultural groups and different periods that characterize the history of Germanic tribes, it's possible to create a system with different sub-factions.

Edited Wednesday at 21:41 by Genava55

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

It would be very easy to make campaign-only factions if ever needed, so there's no need to make a brand new system of sub-factions based solely on that fear. 

However, the idea of sub-factions and branching factions, etc., has been around for a long long time. Certainly since the inception of the game back in the early 2000s. The original game design had the Greeks sub-dividing similarly to how you propose, but only in a very limited and frankly limiting sense. That's why it was decided to split the Hellenes into Athenians, Spartans, and Macedonians. I'm glad that happened. 

 

Now, to the proposal itself, it's not bad. I've wanted an Age of Mythology-style choice Ui for quite some time. 

 

The only problem is what's next in P3? Choosing a political system might be a good idea. Democracy (or Demarchy as I believe its proponents would have called it), Monarchy, Oligarchy, what else?

One thing I like about this proposal as opposed to other sub-faction proposals, is that it leaves the Spartans and Athenians intact. The hang up I have is its additional complexity (I like complexity, but the multiplayer crowd prefers simplicity) and the UI coding.

[Lion.Kanzen]

38 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Now, to the proposal itself, it's not bad. I've wanted an Age of Mythology-style choice Ui for quite some time. 

It would be interesting to include, especially if it gives you extra units and unique technologies.

It's like the one you included in Delenda est, each game with the same faction would be different.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I guess it works ok for campaigns, but like @wowgetoffyourcellphone said, its seems fine to just make a campaign only civ as needed.

However, I am completely and totally opposed for what this near complete rework of 0ad civ design would mean for multiplayer.

• 1-click strategies (chosing civ specifications upon phase up) results in cheap gameplay. If the civ design itself depends on what option you choose then the game could be decided by clicking A when your opponent clicked B. The same thing goes for the "cards" you get in aoe3.
  • additionally, it would mean each umbrella civ is capable of a massive number of strategies which makes trying to counter them or shape the game early on pointless. (an example would be denying metal when your opponent is likely to go for mercs).
• Since phase 1 is the generic "umbrella" civ it means we will lose many interesting and fun p1 civ bonuses, like the spartans p1 gameplay, or briton p1 gameplay which often involves slinger rushes and forward builds.
• How would Iberian walls work? Would this not force the Lusitanians to start with walls?

[alre]

I'm kinda opposed to this. it's good to have this structure for art I guess, but I think that for gameplay it's bad. Why should two greek city states like Athens and Sparta play alike? One is a thalassocratic democracy with a stratified social system, the other one is a militaristic oligarchy with a frozen society and political system. They would have a similar military in many regards, but the eco should be different, and new players should not feel like they are the same at all.

agree with campaign-specific civs, I think they are a cool idea.

[Genava55]

17 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

 

The only problem is what's next in P3? Choosing a political system might be a good idea. Democracy (or Demarchy as I believe its proponents would have called it), Monarchy, Oligarchy, what else?

It was a quick draft, this is why I only depicted the first two phases, but the idea could continue in P3. Your idea for a government in case you continue as an independent city-state is interesting too. I will think about it.

In my draft, I originally planned to let the players choose only between Sparta and Athens in P1. But I think it would be better for the player to choose between the Corinthians, Spartans and Athenians. Corinth was a powerful city early on, so it makes sense to enable this option early on. Thebans (or more generally the Boeotian League) and Syracusans make more sense as options for the second phase. Maybe Massalia but I am not certain of this one. For the third phase, clearly the Achaean League is an interesting candidate. Another possible choice could be the Kingdom of Pergamon.

20 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

1-click strategies (chosing civ specifications upon phase up) results in cheap gameplay. If the civ design itself depends on what option you choose then the game could be decided by clicking A when your opponent clicked B. The same thing goes for the "cards" you get in aoe3.

I don't think it would be cheap gameplay. For example, currently Athens and Sparta have several good options. They are not bound to a single strategy. Why it would be the case for minor faction or sub-faction? It is not really different. You can bound several technologies, several units and even buildings to a faction choice.

For example the Corinthians. They should have some features giving them advantages in building construction, maybe some bonus for defense, maybe even an early bonus for their CC to reflect the Acrocorinth citadel. But they were also good with their navy. They were the first to introduce the triremes in Greece, they were the providers of a navy to the Spartan alliance against Athens. They weren't as good as Athens but they were decent. So for example in this case, I don't see why they would be limited to a single strategy that would be countered by a single opposite strategy. The same for Sparta and Athens.

20 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

additionally, it would mean each umbrella civ is capable of a massive number of strategies which makes trying to counter them or shape the game early on pointless. (an example would be denying metal when your opponent is likely to go for mercs).

It's true that this gives the umbrella faction more flexibility. But I see it as an asset. These multiple strategies are linked to choices that the player has to make at a given moment. They can't go back and change their choice. It would therefore reinforce the need for the opposing player to scout and observe.

That ties in with my comment above. There has to be a happy medium. A balance between offering too much flexibility for each choice and offering too little. To answer your example, just because Syracuse would have an advantage with mercenary units doesn't mean that Syracuse would be a faction dependent on mercenaries. Preventing the player from having metal would be a blow, but it shouldn't rule out all possibilities.

20 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Since phase 1 is the generic "umbrella" civ it means we will lose many interesting and fun p1 civ bonuses, like the spartans p1 gameplay, or briton p1 gameplay which often involves slinger rushes and forward builds.

I don't think every faction should be an umbrella faction. And I don't think every umbrella factions should be designed with the same mechanics and structures. It's simply a case of making more things dependent on player choice. This amount can vary from one context to another.

It is true it could potentially impact the strategy in P1, it depends on the implementation of the choices. They could be tied to the changing phase but they could also be available directly in CC with very few conditions. In fact, I think that would be the most interesting thing, simply to have different choices that work like technologies or reforms. It would add an extra dimension, because the player would have to think when making the final choice. It could also be a strategy for bluffing.

12 hours ago, alre said:

Why should two greek city states like Athens and Sparta play alike?

This is not the idea. Think of this choice of sub-factions as a kind of giant reform. It's also like when you change phase, a lot of things become unblocked after the research is complete.

20 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I guess it works ok for campaigns, but like @wowgetoffyourcellphone said, its seems fine to just make a campaign only civ as needed.

23 hours ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

It would be very easy to make campaign-only factions if ever needed, so there's no need to make a brand new system of sub-factions based solely on that fear. 

If it would be the case, there wouldn't have been so much reticence when we discussed the possible scenarios for the campaign. Currently in the editor, you don't really create a faction, but you create customized units and buildings with dependent technologies and other dependent buildings. This works, but the rendering and consistency are not equivalent to a faction. There are always elements that will seem odd.

[Stan`]

There is an option in the civ.json file to not show “minifactions” in gamesetup. I think Hyrule makes use of that.

[ShadowOfHassen]

13 hours ago, Genava55 said:

If it would be the case, there wouldn't have been so much reticence when we discussed the possible scenarios for the campaign. Currently in the editor, you don't really create a faction, but you create customized units and buildings with dependent technologies and other dependent buildings. This works, but the rendering and consistency are not equivalent to a faction. There are always elements that will seem odd.

Yeah. I know that Age of Empires 3 you played civilizations you can't get in the original game, but that just made me feel cheated (WHAT ABOUT MY HOOP THROWERS!?!) And it is a little excessive to have to design a completely new civilization for literally everything we'd want to cover.

 

On 06/11/2024 at 9:48 PM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

• 1-click strategies (chosing civ specifications upon phase up) results in cheap gameplay. If the civ design itself depends on what option you choose then the game could be decided by clicking A when your opponent clicked B. The same thing goes for the "cards" you get in aoe3.
  • additionally, it would mean each umbrella civ is capable of a massive number of strategies which makes trying to counter them or shape the game early on pointless. (an example would be denying metal when your opponent is likely to go for mercs)

We don't want to get too much like Age of Empires, but what if we limit the strategy that players can do before phasing up? If the player has to make a decision on what alliance they want to take within the first 5 minutes, then the other players would know and be able to change the strategy.

 

On 07/11/2024 at 6:03 AM, alre said:

I'm kinda opposed to this. it's good to have this structure for art I guess, but I think that for gameplay it's bad. Why should two greek city states like Athens and Sparta play alike? One is a thalassocratic democracy with a stratified social system, the other one is a militaristic oligarchy with a frozen society and political system. They would have a similar military in many regards, but the eco should be different, and new players should not feel like they are the same at all.

Well, that's easy enough, we just design them to play different.