In Beta 3 the minor factions were in but not really because the odds of them being spawned were miniscule. That’s something I’ve been working on over the holiday.
But minor factions shouldn’t be just fancy goodie huts. Instead, they have many of the same abilities as a major faction except that they don’t expand. Not being able to expand, however, is a tough thing. In GalCiv, minor races were pretty much at the mercy of the player.
Of course, GalCiv didn’t have magic.
In Elemental, the minor factions get a guardian unit that represents their tribe. Secondly, they get a special unit producing improvement. If you capture it, you can train units of that type.
In the long-run, we hope to let players use their diplomatic abilities to trade for the special creatures they provide.
Example of a faction’s guardian unit:
+1 Awesome
I like the idea. As you mentioned above, the minor races in GC were entirely at the mercy of the player..usually the AI in most of my games, as I liked having as many factions around as possible, to keep things organic and interesting. What I'd really like to see is that the minor factions not only have teeth, but claws too! Kinda in the same spirit as Star Trek: Birth of the Federation, the minor races in that game were rather..scary. Go to Eden and declare war, I dare ya! I double dare you.
In regards to the factions being able to give you benefits via diplomacy, could that extend to include swearing fealty, and/or becoming a protectorate? Instead of just being absorbed into your civilization, they'd keep control and such, but you'd still get whatever perks they provided. Or you could also just attack the city that is protected by the drakes, only to have a rather large and angry drake discuss with you that it wasn't the best of ideas to attack that particular faction. Either way, so long as the minor races aren't on the same level of fodder as the GC ones, I think all would be well. Though in my own GC games, I rather enjoy giving the minor races advanced warships, primarily for defense, but in some cases they have taken these ships and gone deep into enemy territory and sacked several fleets...but I digress, keep up the awesome work.
It would be cool if say you capture a minor faction, you can utilize them as your own, producing units etc., but if you don't station units there theres a chance they can rebel. You could consider this the "allegiance" percentage that was in SINS.
Another option would be that they would pay tribute or something if captured, but you don't have direct control of their city. You would have to station units etc., to ensure that they don't rebel.
I like it. The only way for minor factions to succeed at being anything more than a glorified goodie hut (in GC 2 this just meant a great planet, really) is for the benefits of keeping them around and being on good terms with them to be as worthwhile as the benefits obtained by conquering them. I don't really mind that minor factions don't expand, to be honest; I think the mechanics governing minor factions should be substantially different from those governing the major players.
For example, perhaps you encounter a minor troll faction. If you capture the unit-producing building you can recruit a troll once every 10 turns for a significant cost (trolls are strong, after all). If you instead build up your reputation with this minor troll faction you can strike a mutual defense agreement; the trolls will then attack any enemy of yours that comes too close and will produce one troll every 20 turns for free. Building up a good relationship with these factions should require some work, and could be done through quests. The cost of maintaining such an alliance could be a small quantity of food or other resources, or even free - after all it's a mutual defense agreement and if you let someone else come in and capture it you not only lose that defensive ally, occasional free troll unit, and now someone else can recruit trolls instead.
Some system like the above would be a great deal of fun. Not all minor factions need be unit-producing, either. Some could grant research points, resources, spell points or even spells.
As far as I'm concerned, "minor factions" are not minor factions until there are good reasons to keep them around instead of overrunning them. Until then, they are just fancy goodie huts or resource nodes, or points of interest on the map. Hopefully you guys will come up with something innovative here! This is actually the main thing about Civ 5 that has me really interested; it looks like they might finally implement true minor factions that are worth having around and that are worth warring over to keep them around (vs. warring over their charred remains).
Hehe, what if the price was serving up some of your own people, a la a quest? So then say you stumble upon a nice evil location that will provide you with the tech needed to produce their units provided you give them peasants to bolster their ranks.
I think it'd be nice to see the goodie shack grow naturally, so perhaps some un-blighted land could be generated around the huts? Not so much that they could really expand to be a feared power, but an interesting chess piece should they find themselves situated on a border between warring factions. Not all minor factions should be generated the same, however; it'd be cool to play one game where there were several minor factions that grew to be somewhat powerful roadblocks for potential conquerors, then play another where most of them were simply there to raze or obtain special units. The importance of a minor faction doesn't necessarily be in what it can grant you in regards to your tech/unit tree; sometimes the best way they can be of use is to slow down your aggressive neighbor. He won't want to attack you so boldly if by taking over the minor faction means losing a large portion of his army, leaving him open for a counter-attack.
So yeah, the idea of a unit being granted via diplomacy is a great way to entice the player not to raze the earth and rid themselves of some pesky up-starts. But if a minor power is able to tech up slightly and build up a single city, and the AI works well with the player, then having good diplomatic ties basically grants you an additional army.
Excellent idea with the guardians. Now we just need an Orion faction and we're set.
I don't mind if minor become major, or at least serious pests- they should in some games.
In GCII that would never happen.
The only penalty that should have is no sovereign/ maybe no magic unless they somehow get a magical hero.
I agree with arstal's post.
Best regards,Steven.
There could be a small chance of the special unit production capability being destroyed if the minor faction is assaulted rather than bargained with. Special unit production should be limited to minor faction cities, no?
Thoughts.
Their should be a way to incress the strenght of them over time, perhaps each fraction shoudl get a new Tech from Magic every X turns so they grow strenght over the game, This would be multipled by Difictily and such..
maybe they can only become major is if they ally with a major. like if its me vs another faction, id like to ally myself with a minor to make it a 2v1
I found the GalCiv minor races to be at the mercy of the player, but not because they lack magic or couldn't expand. Rather, they had excellent economies and produced decent enough ships. The problem was more that they suffered from many crippling bugs in their implementation. One thing I tried to do several times in GalCiv2 was to utilize the minor races in a proxy war against the majors and test out my new ships. The problem was that the minor races appeared to have a bug in their implementation that when you gave a ship to that minor race, even if you also handed them a bunch of cash for its maintenance, the ship would just sit there in space with 0 move points. No way for it to attack the enemy or mount a defense of their homeworld...
There were others, and probably bugs in their AI as well, that made it essentially useless to use them as anything but a source of resources or a way to declare war without being aggressive. My primary tactic for minor races ended up being to surround their homeworld with constructors or freighters and blockade the major races attacking them until I built up enough trust with them to form an alliance, and pay off anyone currently at war with them. Once the alliance was formed, I just had to wait around for one of the major races to declare war on them, follow up on my treaty obligations, then wipe that race out.
I can tell you, that I never had that problem with the minor factions in GC2, in fact the only time I ever noticed the ships have zero movement is the same turn that they got the ships. The very next turn it went up to almost normal (they'd have say 5 movements whereas before they had 7 or more). Now I did notice in some cases that the factions would start to lose money if they weren't in an economic alliance with me. But it was never a big problem, just toss them a couple thousand every few turns and all was well.
Also,
I agree with this post. Perhaps allow a toggle between having the minor factions having the ability to expand like a "normal" (not having a magical hero that can move mountains and smite foes with bolts of thunderous lightning!) civilization. Kinda like independent city-states that explore/expand, with the only real difference between major/minor factions being that the major factions have magically imbued, semi-immortal heroes to hold their hand; whilst the minor has no such luxury.
Though not all of the minor factions need to be entirely interesting and/or unique in one way or another, but let us not have them all be completely mundane either. Perhaps a group of slaves escape some sort of labor colony of the Empire and decide to create a city all their own..Or maybe a guild of merchants find a nice spot for a city who specializes in trading? Nifty little things within the world that can occur through random and/or triggered events that keep the world breathing in a way that really makes it feel alive. Just some ideas off the top of my head.
Sounds good to me.
Oh God...the memories...THE MEMORIES! One time, a Minor Race spawned and basically took a random planet from every race, taking all technologies with them...I was a heavy researching race for extra income. The other races basically spread out in the war section.
The result: A minor race being far more superior then all of us combined. I started allying with a couple of races in the hopes that we could take our planets back but....IT WAS HORRIBLE. I quit playing after 50 turns of getting massacred my a minor race
One thing I noticed in Galciv II was that in some circumstances where invasions occured, particluarly where a major civ was at war with several other civs, and a minor. The minor civ conquered a few planets and became a real threat, at least in that sector of the map. It was at this point that I realised the line between minor and major civ's became rather blurred.
Is there any way that after successfully invading several cities, a minor civ could activate and become a major one, or is that just a pipe dream?
the minor races did expand too in galcivII btw. at least in earlier patches i had a minor race conquering nearly half the map with my help. the only big problem i had later on was that they were immune to culture influence
the reason why this was so rare though was because they started expanding very late.
Isn't there a way to tie NPC's into this? Example, a mercenary becomes extremely wealthy in his travels, builds up a bit of an army, and then uses some of that money to build a keep somewhere. As a player, then you can go and purchase troops from him, or you can attack him to take his stash of contract money. Or a wealthy administrator NPC finds a mine or quarry that currently isn't being used. He sets up shop, buys some protection, and then you can begin trading with him for the resource. Or say a successful adventurer happens upon a small village. He is elected as leader, and now that small village has made the jump from minor power to a major power, just minus the sovereign.
I am on par with StevenAus and Pigeon Pigeon on this one.
There should be different kinds of behavior you could have towards minors and different consequences (something like in GalCiv: evil decision = immediate rewards, good one = more long-term reward)
- you can conquer a minor. Reward: you gain a city and the special-unit building. Consequences: must station units there some length of time to prevent rebellion (ala AoW) and future diplomacy malus with other minors (the greater the malus, the more chances other minors near your borders would arm themselves more or ally with your ennemies)
- you can blackmail/vassalize a minor (would work with pacifist minors by moving a powerful army nearby or when you stop attacking them just after you killed their Guardian). Reward: they provide you with resources or units for free (Ex: Switzerland had to furnish napoleon 16'000 soldiers ready at anytime) but reluctantly. Consequences: some lesser malus with other minors and the possibility that this one turns side and stabs you in the back when they see you deep into war with another major (coding of that would probably depend of the repective powergraph of opponents and the number of units of each side there are in the vicinity of their city)
- you can make treaties or even ally with minor. Reward: you can buy them units, do commerce with them (by caravans) or barter for special material (iron, horses, crystals) or they can even lend you a shard. They can even ally with you and provide assistance during war. Consequences: small diplomacy bonus with other minors. If at war with a major which has very bad diplomacy with minors, you can even receive some assistance from minors far away. Ex: suddenly on one of your borders appears a raid of 22 archers, without wages. "Your reputation of respect towards independant duches is well-known, General Carrodus. Thus our Prince sent us to help you during your war against the Trogs."
" Of course, GalCiv didn’t have magic. In Elemental, the minor factions get a guardian unit that represents their tribe. Secondly, they get a special unit producing improvement. If you capture it, you can train units of that type. "
In Elemental, the minor factions get a guardian unit that represents their tribe. Secondly, they get a special unit producing improvement. If you capture it, you can train units of that type. "
I would assume(I know, I know) that to take a Minor Village, a player would have to dispose of the Guardian unit? Otherwise it might be possible to sneak in the back door and take the Village, and the Special unit producing structure, without a fight.
Another point, just from looking at the Pic's, it would seem that even if you have a Minor right next door to your starting position, quickly running over a Minor will not be an easy task in the early game given Drakes and the likes (what is that long nosed thing in Pic #1?) being the protectors...
I say, give minor factions the same A.I as major factions. Since they don't have a Sovereign they'll be overrun or integrated eventually.
Like some people have said, being able to ally with them sounds really good. Protect them and they will help attack your enemies (or give you resources or something.)
I'd like to see at least some of the minor factions as expansive, where it applies anyway. It'd be really cool if it worked something like this:
Giant Spiders:
Expands: Slowly
Location: Expansions must be located within 2 tiles of a mountain tile or be within 1 tile of a forest.
Diplomacy: No/Communicate via magic instead? Allows recruitment
Raids: within X tiles of nests
Dragon:
Expands: Never
Diplomacy: Difficult/Magical Allows recruitment (one time)
Raids: within X tiles of nest
Goblins:
Expands: Moderate, capped at one level 3 city and up to 3 level 2 cities.
Location: Typically located near mountain ranges or elevated areas, also inhabit forests
Raids: Organized raiding parties target weaker villages in neighboring empires.
Diplomacy: Yes, Allows limited recruitment
Conquered cities remain of the goblin race and only have access to those improvements, size limitation remains in effect. Subjugation of the village allows limited recruitment, lesser quality than diplomatic relations. (larger quantities)
Werewolves:
Expands: Light, small villages (level 2), typically only 1-2 of them per faction.
Location: Within forests
Raids: Defends home forest fiercely
Diplomacy: Yes, Allows recruitment
Conquered villages retain limitations and tech of the werewolves, lesser quality units than diplomacy creates ( larger quantities)
Rogue warlord:
Expands: Never, main city is typically a fort or fortress, military improvement focused, troops are tough.
Location: Anywhere
Raids: within X tiles of home city
Diplomacy: Yes, Allows recruitment, gold is best for gaining trust.
Conquered city tailored to produce units, both yours and a few set types available to the warlord originally, nothing super special though, maybe grants a champion/warlord NPC that submits once you conquer the city and joins your cause.
Wasteland Tribes:
Expands: Often, Typically villages of level 1-2 with rare cities level 3-4. Troops are lightly armed and armored, move great distances at high speed.
Location: Barren terrain, often near oasis or other food improvements on the map.
Raids: Within X tiles of town, defends local resources viciously
Diplomacy: Yes, allows recruitment, may get better tech for greater benefits from food improvements.
Conquered cities produce lesser quality units, sometimes discover the tech improvements.
Necromancer's tower:
Raids: Within x tiles of tower
Diplomacy: Yes, usually requires magic technology, even offering of access to certain shards, necromancer will raise units for you, quality increases with better negotiations.
Conquered tower is destroyed, perhaps they can be built on a site of magic power so the conquering nation can take control of it after victory.
These are just examples, races and whatnot can obviously be altered to fit into elemental lore, the idea was to give a baseline of the different kinds of "minor factions" there could be and the behaviors that I think would be neat to see. I think it would go a long way to making the world feel more fluid and alive, especially on larger maps where you might not run into another major faction for awhile, it'll add some extra flare to the early game and give you things to deal with in times of peace later on.
Sounds like it might be possible to obtain Vassal states.
Will minors have special economic bonuses, leader traits, resources and diplomacy behavior to offset their relative weakness?
Will minors play a roll with quests and random events?
They seem to go beyond being a "minor" race by giving them some of these abilities.
If a city can rebel after capture, just stationing troops there shouldn't permanently lock it down. They should still actually rebel randomly, and a fight happens, and if your troops there quell it so be it. Instead of static equipment so you know what to prepare for, it could also be based on the wealth of your cities. If you've got tons of money, metal, tools, or weapons floating around, a "freedom fighter" would have a lot easier time buying or stealing it.
Honestly though, if a guardian unit is awesome, and a rebellion is all the risk is, it seems like no choice at all but to roll them. There needs to be bigger drawbacks than a rebellion or just a chance to destroy the guardian structure, even though you couldn't recruit before, so you honestly lost nothing in that scenario. Possibility disgruntled citizens try to assassinate your units or heros within travel distance from the city. If you link a road to the city they can kill your people a lot further away.
Also don't be stuck with a minor race only has one city. There was really no reason in GC why minors only had one planet. Maybe they learned a hard lesson in the past that made them stop expanding? but they had grabbed a few. Or maybe they had neighbors they joined up with.
Minor's could also just be there to have unique play styles. A super warlike one that constantly just sends out armies and attacks everything no matter what. Or people who really like scenic beauty, and send out their mages to make mountains water.
Things that would just be straight up silly for a "major" AI to do, but have small affects on the game, which would be a nice change since "minor" races in GC basically had little affect.
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