It might be a bit of a pointless diversion, but let's speculate on the characteristics of factions based purely on their names (which is pretty much all we have right now). It might throw up some good ideas/stimulate some detail leakage from the developers. You could also contribute smaller faction ideas you have, or things you would like to see. If you have a full blown faction idea it probably belongs in this thread.
Kingdoms of Men:
Empires of the Fallen:
Now as far as I can see the only mention of any of these names elsewhere is that Calax is a Dread Knight, last seen falling off a balcony. Now apart from the fact that the Empire of Calax are going to be slightly bitter about the whole balcony thing (irrespective of whether Calax survived or not), I'm speculating that they are a highly militaristic empire made up of hosts of unswervingly obedient grunts. Their magic is of the sort that gives their troops a distinct military advantage, allows them to produce larger numbers of troops quickly and instills fear in the opposition.
I imagine something like the fire nation from "Avatar: The last airbender" They were fire guys that rode around on steam ships. They were more naval then the water tribe for crying out load. The opening video shows the firenation landing on beaches with their ships. In the major water vs. fire battle the water nation is defending from an amphibious assult by the fire nation, and other than a few small boats no other faction is shown with any really big water vessels. The fire nation has water based platforms and bases its jails out on islands. Earth and water nation did no such thing. So, yeah... in the avatar setting, the fire nation is the good-navy faction.
I've only seen the first episode of that show (accidentally.. and in danish) but yes, I agree. You can be the "big seafaring bitches"-nation and still not have water as your major magic.
I like the Luchuirp for the Golems, but I've had fun playing as Hippus, Amurites and Malakim. When I read that E:WoM wasn't going to have distinct tech trees per faction I was a bit disappointed, but thinking about it, FfH has the same tech tree whoever you play and the factions are still incredibly varied. It does also benefit from the fact that there are some very distinctive mechanics for each race on top of the unique units and buildings.
At the moment, I can't separate the Empire of Izen from Isengard...
[...]
You've missunderstood something. Every nation in E:WoM is going to have it's own "unique" (some overlapping, I presume) spellbook and tech-tree. I have no idea where you've picked up that tidbit. From all accounts, that's in and has been in from the start.
Edit: My favourite by far is still the Svartalfar, but I haven't mentioned it as one of the nations I'd like in E:WoM, because I realize that they're incredibly generic and.. well.. elves.
Ah, my mistake. Misread this one:
That 'largely' makes a difference.
Link and/or source?
Regardless, it sounds a lot like GalCiv2:TotA, where the tech trees can also be described as "largely the same". I'd rather get hung up on this quote by Brad:
It was from the Text Assets journal here
I'd rather get hung up on your quote too.
And I think the comparison with GalCiv2 : Twilight of the Arnor is probably a good one.
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