In order to better appreciate/understand/like the game, I wanted to look at the faction creator to see what traits were available. Doing so was an eye-opener and uncovered some bugs (see the tech traits) and some frustrations.
12/23/10 Update: I've cleaned up the document, added comments, and left some open questions.
1/3/11 Update: I've added my opinions of the faction traits. I've also started on the sovereign traits.
1/11/11 Update: I made some minor updates to the sovereign creation lists. I wanted to emphasize that Cowardly and Stupid are two weaknesses that you can take that have no effect on gameplay in 1.11.
1/16/11 Update: Added charisma/champion recruitment cost information.
1/28/11 Update: Added the 1.19 changes. (All the juicy bugs are still in!) The Sovereign customization portion of this FAQ is where all the changes occur.
Current Favorite Faction Builds
Exploited Kingdom
Normal Kingdom
Open Questions
Combat Related
Death Worship
Cost: 2
Effect: Our people cull the weak and gain a +10% bonus to HP.
True Effect: Units get a +10% bonus to HP.
Rating: 8/10
Comment: Everyone can use extra HP when battling. This bonus comes cheaply.
Brave
Effect: All units start with more health.
True Effect: Units get a +5% bonus to HP.
Rating: 5/10
Comment: Why the disparity between Death Worship and Bravery? Both cost 2 points. Shouldn’t death worship also come at a cost to relations, cost 4 points, or reduce prestige (slow city growth due to culling aspect)?
Great Warriors
Cost: 8
Effect: All units have a combat speed increase.
True Effect: Units get a +10% bonus to combat speed. This appears to round up. A combat speed of 3 would convert to a combat speed of 4 with this trait. A combat speed of 11 would convert to a combat speed of 13.
Comment: Combat speed affects how many action points a unit receives in tactical. Most units have a base speed of 3 (giving you 3 action points), but most actions require 2 points. In order for you to see a benefit from this trait, you must keep your speed at an odd number. This means you'll need to increase your base combat speed by 1 additional point (base 2 + 1 for GW + 1 from extra source = 5). This means equipping an edged weapon, equipping a magic doodad or mount, or casting the spell Haste (+1 speed). The most powerful weapons for normal troops provide no combat speed bonus, magic doodads require crystals, and mounts require horses or wargs. Haste, however, is part of the mobility spellbook, which I consider essential for every sovereign. This trait is best used with warrior-based champions, because their best weapon gets +1 speed, they can buy a bunch of doodads, and they can buy mounts.
I gave this trait a low score because you need to work with it to make it good, you need to spend 8 points, and Tarth (overbalanced warrior faction) already gets it.
Egalitarian
Cost: 1
Effect: Can design male or female warriors.
True Effect: This used to reduce the population cost of your units, but now it just lets you create female warriors. It’s 100% aesthetic.
Rating: 1/10
Comment: When you start researching heavier armor, the warrior sex aesthetic is diminished. You can’t tell if an armored knight is male or female.
Siege Masters
Effect: City walls reduce effect of attack.
True Effect: ???
Rating: 2/10
Comment: In my brief searching, I can’t find out how much this affects units attacking defenders. Still, by the time city defenders get a defensive bonus from a hedge wall or fortress, you should have climbed up the attack tree and armed your troops with something that can punch through.
Master Scouts
Cost: 3
Effect: Units have a greater line-of-sight.
True Effect: +1 Base Sight
Rating: 4/10
Comment: This is useful in the beginning-to-mid portion of the game, but it is offset when you start creating units with equipment that grants a bonus to sight. I don’t think it should cost 3 points.
World Related
Civilized
Effect: It costs less to establish settlements.
Comment: This used to reduce the administration penalty for extra cities, but now I’m not sure what it does.
Industrious
Effect: Metal production is increased by 10%.
Comment: Metal is only used as raw material for weapons and armor. If you’re not a warmonger, this trait may not be worth it. You only need enough metal to arm your defensive troops. (Though metal CAN be used as a powerful bargaining chip.) Metal is a scarce resource, and I've been penalized by not having access to enough. Without any other refinements, this trait gives you an extra 1 metal every 10 turns. It's best used if your sovereign has the naturalist trait.
Master Smiths
Cost: 5
Effect: Metal production is increased by 25%.
Rating: 7/10
Comment: Metal is only used as raw material for weapons and armor. If you’re not a warmonger, this trait may not be worth it. You only need enough metal to arm your defensive troops. (Though metal CAN be used as a powerful bargaining chip.) Metal is a scarce resource, and I've been penalized by not having access to enough.Without any other refinements, this trait gives you an extra 1 metal every 4 turns. It's best used if your sovereign has the naturalist trait.
Educated
Effect: Worldly Knowledge production is increased by 10%.
Rating: 10/10
Comment: Knowledge = Power
Influential (Bugged)
Effect: Area of influence increased by 1 tile.
Rating: 0/10
Comment: This does not work. Your area of influence is determined entirely by your city.
Diplomatic
Cost: 6
Effect: Faction receives relation bonus.
True Effect: Adds +10 to your diplomacy rating, or the ability to swing deals to your favor.
Rating: 3/10
Comment: There is a similar Diplomacy ability exclusive to Sovereigns that adds +20. I'm not sure how this bonus works. I rarely need extra leverage when dealing with negotiations anyway.
Resourceful
Effect: Faction starts out with 10 materials and 10 metals.
Comment 1: The starting materials are nice, as it lets you build a hut after you build your beacon and initial farm. If you are lucky, though, you can find enough materials in goodie huts to make this trait useless.
Comment 2: The starting metals portion of this lets you produce 5 units with beginner metal weapons (axes, daggers) before you can mine. By the time you should be producing units, you probably have acquired enough metals from goodie huts.
Starting Technology Related
NOTE 1: If you pick one of these traits, you are given a free tech. All other techs still cost 15 TK to learn. If you were to take the Wanderlust trait, you’d start off with the Exploration tech and all other techs in all other trees would cost 15 TK. If you were to learn Exploration on your own, the next tech in the Kingdom Adventure tree would cost 44 TP and all other techs in all other trees would start out at 17 TK.
NOTE 2: Most technology traits only give techs to a Kingdom or Empire, but they still give their effects. Taking Cartographers as a Kingdom, for example, will not give the Kingdom the Mapping tech, but it will give them all the non-building benefits of that tech. Your quest level increases.
Wanderlust (Kingdom Only?)
Effect: Start with the Exploration technology.
True Effects:
Rating: 6/10
Comment: Exploration leads to the resource revealing tech chain and to the champion recruiting tech chain. The quest track is not affected. More resources at the start is a good thing, provided that you can claim them.
Civics (Kingdom Only)
Effect: Start with the Civics technology.
Comment: Civics is a root tech that unlocks most of the civilization tech tree. Thus, it gets a higher rating than other techs.
Adepts
Effect: Start with the Arcane Research / Lore Mastery technology.
Comment: This tech is not as critical as shard harvesting, which unlocks the use of shards and leads to the elemental spell books. It still lets you harvest Arcane Temples, but you have to start close to one for this tech to take off.
Darkling Ambassadors (Empire Only)
Effect: Start with the Reunion technology.
Comment: Darklings aren't that great any more. This is a gateway tech.
Habitation (Empire Only)
Effect: Start with the Proper Living technology.
Comment: This unlocks more of the imperium tech tree, and it also allows your hovels to be automatically upgraded.
Entrepreneurs (Kingdom Only, Bugged for Empire)
Effect: Start with the Trading technology.
NOTE: Even though Empires can learn Trading, they cannot take this trait and get the Trading tech. They still can train caravans, though. Bug?
Rating: 9/10
Comment: Early caravans let you get your faction to profitability faster, as each caravan boosts the guildar produced in the home city by 10%. It's even worth considering for Empires despite the bug.
Weathered Warriors (Kingdom Only, Bugged for Empire)
Effect: Start with the Training technology.
NOTE 1: Even though Empires can learn Training, they cannot take this trait and get the Training tech. They still can train experienced troops. Another bug?
NOTE 2: It looks like you can train experienced units without this tech anyway. Bug?
Comment: This is more useful as a stepping-stone tech. Extra HP is nice, but currently defense rules the roost. You need it to unlock larger unit sizes and the raze city command.
War Machine (Empire Only, Bugged for Kingdom)
Effect: Start with the Tools of War technology.
NOTE: If a kingdom takes this trait, they can train units that use bone spears and fang daggers, too! Unfortunately, they are no different than oaken spears and daggers.
Rating: 10/10 Empire, 8/10 Kingdom
Comment: Arming your champions with basic armor can give them enough umph to defeat all early monsters (and fledgling factions) with ease. For a while, you only see monsters with a max attack of 8. Plus, this is a root tech for the Empire's Conquest tree. Kingdoms can't get the same benefit, but they CAN use the extra armor.
Cartographers (Empire Only)
Effect: Start with the Mapping technology.
NOTE: Kingdoms can't get the tech, but they can get the effect of the questing and notable levels increasing. If you pursue Adventure tech, it will put you well ahead of the curve, for better or worse.
Comment: For both realms, this is an extremely useful trait. Kingdoms don't get a free tech, but they do get the benefits!
Weaknesses
Arrogant (Bugged in a good way)
Cost: -1
Effect: Makes it more difficult to recruit champions.
True Effect: REDUCES the champion cost by 20%.
Rating: 11/10
Comment: Bug Bug Bug! According to the XML, this reduces the champion cost by 20% (A_Recruiting = -20).
Uneducated
Cost: -2
Effect: Worldly Knowledge production is decreased by 20%.
Comment: This will cripple you. Taking this excludes you from Educated, meaning you'd start at 80% learning rather than 110%.
Superstitious
Effect: Decreases arcane knowledge learning ability.
True Effect: Arcane Knowledge production is decreased by 20%, just like Uneducated and Tech Knowledge.
Comment: Magic research currently dead-ends once you hit spell level 5 and learn all the spells. (You can learn higher spell levels, but they do nothing.) There are only a handful of spells worth learning. Unless your strategy hinges on a key spell (Raise Mountain), you will not miss the lost research.
Faction Point Totals
Or… “Why is Tarth lopsided?!?”
Altar
Capitar
Gilden
Pariden
Tarth
Kraxis
Magnar
Resoln
Umber
Yithril
Comment: All pre-made factions, save the Tarthans suck from an optimization standpoint. Custom factions are superior to 9 of the 10 pre-built factions. Umber only gets a +3 total? Seriously? Why would you want to play as them instead of creating a custom faction?
I've decided to add a discussion on Sovereign Creation...
Stats
Stats can start at 10 and can be raised to 15 or lowered to 5.
Increasing a stat costs 3 points (or your remaining points if you are left with 1 or 2 points).
Decreasing a stat yields 3 points (unless you bought one with 1 or 2 points).
Strength
Effect: Every 2 points (rounded up) increases your attack value by +1.
Comment: Keep this at an odd level. Your attack value determines how much damage your sov can do in physical combat.
Dexterity
Effect: Every 2 points (rounded up) increases your dodge value by +1.
Comment: Keep this at an odd level. Your dodge value lets you occasionally dodge attacks, but I do not know the exact formula.
Constitution
Effect: Every point provides 0.4 HP per level, added to a base of 10.
Formula: HP = FLOOR(10 + 0.4 * <CON> * <LEVEL>)
Comment: If you start off with a low constitution and increase it at a later point, your HP will adjust accordingly.
Intelligence
Effect 1: Every 2 points (rounded up) increases your magic resistance value by +1.
Effect 2: Allows a champion to use specific spells.
Spell Effect: Used in the Arcane Arrow spell damage calculation (Damage = 50% of INT).
Spell Effect: Used in the Spell Blast spell damage calculation (Damage = 30% of INT).
Spell Effect: Used in the Stone Skin defense calculation (Defense = 25% of caster's INT).
NOTE: Sovereigns are not limited by intelligence as to what spells they can cast.
Comment: People have a love/hate relationship with this stat. I personally love it because of the above spells. Others think you are better off not using magic at this time. The magic resistance portion of the stat is currently useless.
Charisma
Effect 1: Increases the prestige of the city your champion is stationed in by 0.2 for each point above 10.
Effect 2: Reduces the cost of champions (see table below).
Effect 3: Increases the amount of diplomatic capital that certain techs provide (Propaganda, Refined Diplomacy). (Diplomatic Capital = 5*Charisma)
Comment: You can drop this to 5 and have no ill effects when your sov is stationed in a city. Also, the prestige bonus is cumulative with ALL stationed champions! The recruitment cost bonus only uses your Sovereign's charisma, and this bonus has diminishing returns. Gutting this stat to 5 will make you spend double on champions, while increasing it to 15 reduces costs by 1/3rd.
Here is a table of starting recruitment costs based on champion. MOST starting champions cost 28 gildar with 10 charisma, but they can cost more if they have better equipment (Gara/Rilis/Jasper) or no equipment (Qayidd).
Charisma 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Gara 72 60 51 44 40 36 32 30 27 25 24
Rilis 68 56 48 42 37 34 30 28 26 24 22
Jasper 64 53 45 40 35 32 28 26 24 22 21
Generic 56 46 40 34 30 28 25 23 21 20 18
Qayidd 20 16 14 12 10 10 8 8 7 6 6
Here is the change in points compared to a base charisma of 10. A sovereign with a charisma of 5 will pay 28 more gildar per champion, while a sovereign with a charisma of 15 will pay 10 less.
Gara 36 24 15 8 4 0 -4 -6 -9 -11 -12
Rilis 34 22 14 8 3 0 -4 -6 -8 -10 -12
Jasper 32 21 13 8 3 0 -4 -6 -8 -10 -11
Generic 28 18 12 6 2 0 -3 -5 -7 -8 -10
Qayidd 10 6 4 2 0 0 -2 -2 -3 -4 -4
Spell Books
Each spell book costs 5 points. These spell books are not acquirable in-game. If you do not take these spell books at the start of play, you can never learn their spells. (Though Raise Mountain is available through a lv3 quest to find Moriah's lost journal.)
Comment: I personally think that all 4 spell books are useful and worth sinking 20 points.
Note: Tactical Spells are underlined and italicized.
Terraforming
Comment:
This spell book starts off slow, but is useful for crossing mountain ranges or forming land bridges. Terraforming is fantastic for isolationists, as the AI cannot defend against someone raising a mountain in their path. Note that you cannot use these spells to destroy cities, and units will move out of the way. Conquest-minded players can use the revive/desecrate spells to swing combat in their favor. Raising and lowering lands can also affect combat, as hills give a defensive bonus for auto-resolving.
Combat
NOTE: Spell Immunity has no upkeep, and it is found in the CoreSpells_COMBAT_Tactical.xml file. It only costs 64 mana to cast. Yet... It comes up as a strategic spell. Bug?
Warmongers, delight! This is a great spell book. Arcane Weaponry, Berserk, and Blood Rage, and guardian aura are geared toward melee. (If you cast berserk on an armored archer, they can actually do damage.) Arcane Arrow and Spell Blast are great to abuse with hit-and-run tactics. Finally, you have Spell Immunity, now a tactical spell, that makes a unit invincible to all tactical combat special effects.
[1.19] Spell Immunity was changed from being a strategic spell to being a tactical spell.
Mobility
NOTE: For return, it's "Capitol", not "Capital".
Mobility lets you move units around better on both the tactical and strategic maps. Teleport is incredibly useful and outshines all the rest. If you don't take the mobility spell book, you WILL regret it. Call of the Titans is no slouch, but it costs too much to use frequently. It's best used when you have enough mana stockpiled, but it can make one hell of an alpha strike.
[1.19] Blink was removed because the developers couldn't think of a better way to stop people from abusing it. It was replaced with a worthless spell, Wind Shield, which only protects against archers. Since archers can only have a max attack of 20, defensive tech can quickly negate damage from bows.
Enchantment
NOTE: If you summon a Guardian Ward, their HP is the only thing that depends on the city. They are stuck with an attack of 26 and a defense of 33. The spell isn't that great, though, because Call to Arms costs 150 mana and can give you a unit better than a Guardian.
Enchantment lets you convert your mana into something useful. You can turn it into gold, food (not efficiently), materials, or tech. You can speed up the building construction times, and you can instantly build a company of troops that would normally take 48 turns to complete. The only disappointment is Guardian Ward.
Histories
Only one history can be taken at a time.
I recommend taking a history that will last the entire game and leave the production bonuses to your talent selection.
Miner
Effect: Increases metal production by +20%.
Comment: This is useful when combined with faction traits.
Warlord
Effect: Start with two Sentinel units - 12 HP/4 ATK/1 DEF/1 CS/2 MOV.
Comment: These units are extremely underpowered.
Warrior
Effect: Your sovereign gets a +10% attack bonus.
Comment: This increases your sovereign's melee/ranged damage. If you plan on taking your sov into battle, consider this history.
Merchant
Effect: Your sovereign generates 2 gildar per turn.
Comment: This only helps in the beginning of the game. Gildar is easy to acquire.
Bard
Effect: Reduces champion recruitment costs by -25%.
Comment: Reducing the champion recruitment costs allows you to quickly recruit a base of units that can act as resources, explore the map, and increase prestige.
Assassin
Effect: Initial attacks from your sovereign do double damage.
Comment: You get one strike per combat. If the enemy strikes you first or they dodge the initial blow, you lose your assassin strike.
Thief
Effect: Your sovereign earns 20% more gildar after battles.
Comment: You don't get much gildar anyway...
Adventurer
Effect: Your sovereign gets +1 strategic movement.
Comment: Extra moves are useful, but you may be better off taking the Tracking talent. Other histories are more useful.
Royalty
Effect: All Cities receive 10% more prestige.
Comment: Your cities will grow 10% faster.
Dungeon Master
Effect: Your sovereign deals double damage to non-humans.
Comment: This effect works for both attacks and counterattacks, but only to non-humans. It is not as useful as the warrior history.
Diplomat
Effect: Your sovereign generates 1 unit of diplomatic capital per turn.
Talents
Attunement
Effect: Your sovereign generates 2 mana per turn.
Comment: This is extremely useful throughout the game if you rely on magic. It also allows you to maintain 2 extra spells from the beginning.
Brilliant
Cost: 10
Effect: Your sovereign generates 1 tech knowledge per turn.
Comment: While this talent tapers off in usefulness, it lets you rush the tech tree. You should have your first discovery before you build your first library.
Wealthy
Effect: Your sovereign generates 1 gildar per turn.
Meditative
Effect: Your sovereign generates 1 arcane knowledge per turn.
Comment: Like Brilliant, this allows you to rush the spell tree without building an arcane research facility.
Green Thumb
Effect: Your sovereign generates 2 food.
Comment: This is extremely useful. Not only will it let you start building a hut on turn 1 and delay the need for a farm, it will also give you the ability to build extra housing once you would have normally run out of food.
Diplomacy
Effect: Your diplomatic offers are valued +20% higher.
Comment: The diplomacy system as a whole is very lackluster. Essentially, this trait lets you pay 80% of normal value for treaties. It could be useful if you wanted to use diplomacy to trade/steal away the AI's entire metal reserves.
Intimidating
Effect: Your sovereign's army gets +3 spell resistance.
Comment: Useless!
Tactician
Effect: Your sovereign's army gets +1 dodge.
Hardy
Effect: Your sovereign's hit points are increased by +15%.
Comment: Consider this talent for combat oriented sovereigns. The current mechanics emphasize defense over attack (high defense = blocked attacks), but attacks still can get through. Extra hitpoints can keep your sovereign alive.
Tracker
Comment: Very useful. With Traveler's Boots, you get a sovereign with 4 movement.
Naturalist
Effect: Start the game with an iron ore deposit 2 tiles away from your sovereign.
Comment: Since metal limits what armor and weapons you can equip your armies, having a known source from the start can help.
Daring
Effect: Your sovereign's attacks have a 3% chance of ignoring a target's defense.
Comment: It costs the same as a stat point. Take it if you can.
Cowardly
Cost: -10
Effect: Your sovereign's army gets -3 spell resistance.
Comment: This is a free 10 points! TAKE IT!
Reckless
Cost: -3
Effect: Your sovereign's army gets -1 dodge.
Clumsy
Effect: Your sovereign's strategic movement points are reduced by -20%.
Stupid
Effect: Increases the cost of learning spells by 15%
True Effect: Nothing! Hahahahaha! How stupid is this bug?!?
Blunt
Effect: Increases the cost of hiring champions by +15%.
Insane
Effect: When stationed in a city, your sovereign reduces prestige generated by 50%.
Ugly
Effect: Your sovereign will produce one less child.
Inefficient
Effect: When stationed in a city, your sovereign increases the building production time by 10%.
Go to [your documents folder > My Games > Elemental > Races] and they should be in there. You can delete the files and they will go away.
Karma for the nice break-down of faction creator stats! Thanks.
I figured that out on my own, but I was disappointed that they didn't have an in-game way of fixing this.
On civilized, I believe it lessens the cost of training Pioneers. I can't remember and not in the mood to check it out.
Uneducated increases techs by 10%. Right? My assumption, but you know what happens when one assumes.
{wink} OOC - Great Point on tech traits and this also applies to your mortgage payments and principal and interest on your mortgage debt.
I checked.
Pioneers cost 5 guildar, 1 population, 10 materials, 5 turns, 0.3 guildar/turn in wages regardless of the civilized trait. I wish they were cheaper.
Uneducated reduces TK production by -20%.
For both Kingdoms and Empires? I vaguely recall Empires costing 13 materials for pioneers. Which kinda sucked when trying to ramp up exploration/expansion. I usually play kingdoms myself.
Empire pioneers cost the same, and they aren't affected by the civilized trait.
Here is my faction load-out for a turtle victory:
1 - Civilized
1 - Influential
2 - Educated
2 - K: Civics or Trading / E: Habitation
2 - Arcane Lore
2 - K: Exploration (or Mapping to exploit the bug) / E: Mapping
Civics or Trading is a toss-up. you have to learn Civics to unlock most of the Civilization Tree, but you need to master Trading to build caravans. Caravans require only time to produce, but you need 2 cities for them to be beneficial.
I didn't take any of the combat oriented techs because you can still win in combat without their aid. I also didn't take the resources related traits because they are worthless in the face of goodie huts and abundance of metal.
If I were to play a combat-oriented faction, I'd take the Tarth. I would not create my own.
Great thread!
Thanks for your efforts, IBNobody.
This needs to be stickied.
Karma given!
Now that I have more hours under my belt, I've taken a whack at rating the traits from 1 to 10. I've yet to rate the tech, but I'll do so in an hour or so.
I'd welcome anyone's opinions.
I've now started documenting the sovereign traits.
I'm going through them one by one, looking at the XML files to try and figure out what they really do.
I've finished documenting the sovereign traits. I'm now working on the comments/ratings.
Appreciate your dedication. Thanks for the informative thread. Cheers
So Charisma no longer has any effect on the cost of hiring champions!
Jeez!!!
I didn't see any effect swinging it from 5 to 15. Plus, I assume that in this case, the game is honest in what it tells you what the stat does when you mouse over it.
The bard sov history and the bugged arrogant faction trait together reduce costs by 40%, though.
Charisma is not tied to a reduction in champion cost anywhere in the XML files... It could be true, but it's difficult to prove.
But it does look like it is tied to some of the diplomatic capital generation techs for the Empire factions.
Thank you so much for this. It has proven very valuable information.
from my own playing around with charisma it seems to be 0.1% PER point of charisma ie when you have 100 points of char you see a small decrease of cost, when you have 500 points a larger decrease, at 800 points most notables are less than 10 guildar even for stacks with occasional at zero guildar, have not played t 1000 char, but would expect all notables to be either free or 1 guildar even for stacks.
harpo
As you will see, I was wrong. I will update my guide.
Charisma does still reduce champion cost, but the effect is non-linear.
Keep up the good work.
I've updated my FAQ for v1.19.
That's an awesome job of documenting the workings of the faction and sovereign creator. It's about time that one of the designers updated the Faction traits to be as competitive ( or perhaps build in "specials" ala GalCiv 2 that can't be matched in user created faction ) as one that a player can put together.
looks like floor (base/cha) to me - with base being 280 for generic etc.
It's close - I assumed it was something similar (10/CHA*base) because SD likes percentages.
Is there anyway of increasing the pre-made faction stats?
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