The Beta 2 series of Fallen Enchantress is where we begin to introduce the bread and butter differences between the different factions. Beta 2-B, which, I’m sad to say, won’t be out until at least the 22nd, will reintroduce players to Magnar and Gilden. We’ll be talking a lot about the differences in an upcoming journal.
Broadly speaking, each faction will receive unique equipment, weapons, armor, items, improvements and abilities. While most of our focus will be on making each faction distinct in how you play, we will be working to make them visually different as well. A Wraith city will look different from a Trog city which will look different from a Krax city and so on.
In the meantime, let us know which faction you tend to play as the most and how you would like to see them differentiated from the others. What would make them feel special to you?
Vote here:
https://www.elementalgame.com/journals
I like that idea also.
I like that. If you don't mind I might copy that into the description
Actully it did give me the idea to make two more factions thanks
Looking for a good example of faction differentiation? GalCiv II: Twilight of the Arnor
1) tech trees - faction's unique ones like slave pits or stuff like less steps to research archery tech
2) "superabilities" - make death worshiping and monster taming unique and something like that for every faction
3) cultures/philosophies - just flavored texts that would make the points 1 and 2 believable for that particular faction (and BTW there are better systems than the silly D&D alignment chart)
4) races and "gear" looks - more differentiation for the textures and at least some horns, spikes, tails, feathers or other interchangeable faction specific 3D eye-candy on the clothes/capes/armors/weapons models.
Playing as lizard folk with 4 arms and knees bending backwards that came out of some deep chasm after the cataclysm to start an invasion can be left for the next chapter, or better yet - a full blown editor for race/weapon/armor design, no need to go Spore level here the one GalCiv has with rigid parts with different attachment points would be a dream!
Yeah, i think it would help to reduce the number of factions to make them unique. Quality vs. quantity would reduce the time to design faction specific AI, techs and spells. Probably 6 factions and the ability to design the own faction are enough to make the factions unique and to give the player enough enemies to populate a large map.
+ 1 Karma. I think that is a great suggestion, because it would make the factions different and the resources on the map more useful.
I favor the differention used by Warhammer - where each faction is based around different strategies and tactics. www.games-workshop.com
Note: From what I recall the key aspects of Warhammer games are Morale, Initiative and Control. Each unit must make an iniatitive check to move, a unit that does not make its check loses its turn - the presence of heroes gives a bonus to the initiative check of units in range. A unit that suffers damage may be forced to make a morale check. A unit that fails its morale check flees the battle field - not all units (i.e. skeletons) make a morale check. Some units must make a control check - else they attack the nearest enemy unit.
The Bretonnian army is formed around a core of brave knights and chivalrous heroes, accompanied by a mass of peasantry on foot.
The Lizardmen are a merciless, unflinching force on the battlefield, a host of thickly scaled, powerfully muscled Saurus Warriors and swift, deadly Skinks who are unshakable in their resolve and who give no quarter.
In battle the Dark Elves fight as lightly armoured infantry wielding wicked blades and deadly repeater crossbows. They march to war accompanied by hideous monsters, from towering many-headed beasts to reptilian steeds that their nobility ride into battle. The Dark Elves are the masters of Dark Magic, their Sorceresses unleashing bolts of crackling lightning and roiling darkness to turn the tide of war.
The men of the Empire have none of the supernatural strength nor brutal upbringing of the Warriors of Chaos, nor do they boast the numberless ranks of the vile Skaven, the savage resilience of the green-skinned Orcs or uncanny agility of the High Elves. Rather, the men of the Empire rely upon their steel-forged armour, the potence of their wargear and unflinching faith in their warrior god, Sigmar.
At the heart of the armies of the High Elves are its citizen soldiers, expertly trained warriors proficient with spear and bow. The nobility of the High Elves are expert warriors too, riding to war on the backs of Elven steeds, their sharp lances lowered to strike their foes.The High Elves' strength of arms is matched only by their innate understanding of magic and the Mages that wield it. Aided by powerful allies such as the ancient Dragons and noble Great Eagles, High Elf armies stand as beacons of light against the encroaching darkness of Chaos.
Well, let's give it a shot. Each resource gives each faction one cavalry option, either a second cavalry option or a "hero" unique unit (only one unit available per resource held), and one attribute.
Altar: [Canines] Altar gains access to Swift Hounds (Light Cavalry), the Pack of War (a pack of dogs), and Superior Scouting (+ Strategic vision).Capitar: [Horses] Capitar gains access to Purebreeds (Light Cavalry), Warhorses (Heavy Cavalry), and Supreme Logistics (+ Caravan speed).Pariden: [Magical Golems] Pariden gains access to well-armored Golem Chariots (Heavy Cavalry), the Pegasus Knight (a magical, animated Pegasus statue), and Stone Resolve (+ Defense in city that possesses resource).Gilden: [Boars] Gilden gains access to War Boars (Heavy Cavalry), the Boar Master (a Gilden Warrior who has the strength and speed of the boar), and Tilled Lands (+ Grain yield in city possessing resource).Tarth: [Forest Drakes] Tarth gains access to Drakelings (Light Cavalry), Master of the Forest (a powerful Green Dragon), and Speed of the Serpent (+ Unit Speed through Forests).
Magnar: [Fire Dragons] Magnar gains access to Dragon Knights (Heavy Cavalry), Master of the Desert (a powerful Red Dragon), and Fire of the Soul (+ Speed in Enemy Territory).Resolyn: [Specters] Resolyn gains access to Pale Riders (Light Cavalry), Pegasus Ghosts (Heavy Cavalry), and Spectral Subterfuge (+ Unit Dodge in city possessing resource).Kraxis: [Spiders] Kraxis gains access to Spider Riders (Light Cavalry), Spiderling Horde (a blob of tiny spiders), and Defense of the Web (- Attacker speed in attack against city possessing resource). Umber: [Bears] Umber gets Bear Cavalry (Heavy Cavalry), the Bear Tamer (a skilled Fallen tamer, with two of his ilk), and Bear Necessities (+ Material in city possessing resource).Yithril: [Wargs] Yithril gets Pack Riders (Light Cavalry), the Alpha Hunter (a magical, deadly warg), and Warg Tamers (+1 Warg unit bound to all resources in Yithril's territory).
The cool thing could be that, if you were to capture an enemy city and they failed to raze their resource, then you would gain access to their unique creature features.
I've enjoyed the direction the beta is going in.
As I have seen in some other posts. I would really like the tech trees to be fleshed out with faction specific technologies in each of the trees.
I would also like to see each of the armors sort of be its own branch of tech. Instead of Leather preceding chain which precedes plate, have several levels of the various types. You might have a range of 2-8 armor for leather 4-11 for the chain varieties and 6-14 for plate types. Combine that with weapon damage types and resistances you have already started to incorporate and much fun could be had with troop outfitting.
Cheers
True. If you have metal, you might want to skip leather and just go to Chain and/or Plate.
(I think Chain might should be a prereq for Plate though?)
meanwhile if you don't have any metal, you might want to go down the mundane leather path (or even magical leathers as well, if you have that option-> aka Tarth)
(with potential upgradeable leather types, Chain types, and Plate types ... other than simply X and Masterwork X)
For instance, Simple Leather, Hardened Leather, Studded Leather, and finally Skath-hide Leather or Troll-hide leather.
Not only metal is important but faction strength, Trogg players would want heavy armors as soon as possible because their strength offsets penalties (If Plate is made usable for units), while weaker teams such as Paridan would want later game leather armor so that their low strength units wouldn't be forced to suffer initiative penalties to be competitive.
If I was designing the armour tech line I would have:
Basic leather as first tech. This would allow access to second tier, improved leather and basic chain (different techs). Taking basic chain would allow third tier of basic plate and improved chain (while improved leather would lead to superior leather as third tier tech).
The defence bonus of armour would be pretty much (maybe slight variations) the same at the same level tech (i.e. superior leather = improved chain = basic plate) but would have different secondary characteristics - protection from partiular kinds of damage, encumbrance penalties, production cost etc. Plate would be better but only once you get to the top level. Leather would be cheaper to tech to the top level but not as good (in terms purely of defence bonus).
Guess if I ever make a mod I'll do something like this...
Possible Armor System:
[Banded Plate]--------[]------------[Plate]---------[]----------------[Master Plate]
[Scale]---------[]-----------------------[Chain]-----[]---------------[Splint Mail]
[Leather]----[]---------------[Studded Leather]----[]------------[Brigandine]
"It is a common misconception that the plate armour of European soldiers adversely affected mobility in a significant manner, but in fact soldiers equipped with plate armour were more mobile than those with chainmail armor."
I wouldn't add to many new armors myself, the current gaps could be plugged by 1 or 2 new armors. We definitely need a early game medium weight choice like splintmail for Strength champions. Splintmail would be an inferior version of chainmail. Then you could also add a midgame heavy option like halfplate, which would be an inferior version of plate. This way at every stage of the game you would have access to at least two armors.
Yes. It is worth adding that if you add a lot of techs you will have to make all the techs somewhat cheaper to keep the balance of tech points to end of tech tree progression the same (if you want that...). My personal preference would be for more graduated techs but I'm sure there will be lots of other opinions. There is also the issue you correctly identify of what techs you can reasonably be expected have at each point of the game. One reason for not having all weapons and armours available at the start.
Basically something like this with an advantage/resistance for each category. The leather branch might allow for a blunt resistance, The chain branch could have a pierce resistance, the plate branch a slash resistance perhaps. Faction specific armor would maybe have a small bonus (Outside of the stylishly good looks) Umbers renowned banded armor might have a con bonus as well as being very economical, Tarths Chain might be so well made it also has a slash bonus, Paridens Brigandine might have a point or two of spell resistance...(perhaps their armor is revealed in the magic tree)...
I'm game for adding more techs, to me they equate to more choices, and that should add more weight to the decisions we make playing.
Off topic (as it just popped into my head) The eyes of the eagle spell should +1 to your sight range, +1 per air shard, then it might actually be useful.
I could support this.
I'd like some definitions of Scale, Splint, and Brigandine however ... for instance why is Chainmail better than Scalemail, and what the heck is splintmail? (other than the fact that I've heard of it)
But given an assumption that Chain is all around worse than plate, having the Chainmail line die out around the same time as Plate starts to see heavy usage makes sense (to be taken up by Splint mail ... whatever that is )
Anyways, I think its a cool idea ... and I'd like to know more.
Splint armor:
Metal strips (splints) sewn onto a backing, usually leather or sturdy fabric, and usually only found on vambraces, greaves, rerebraces, and sabatons.
Scale armor:
There are many forms of scale armor, lamellar being one of them, all having similar characteristics being usually pieces of metal or cured leather tied to a backing, usually leather, and arranged to look like the scales of a fish. Advantages to scale were that is was more cost effective than other types of armor, chain and plate, and that it could offer better protection to blunt attacks than chain. Disadvantages were that it offered less coverage and loss mobility/flexibility.
Brigandine:
Small metal plates were riveted to cloth or leather backer and typically worn over a chain mail shirt. The advantages to this combination were close to the effectiveness of plate, though not as effective, while still remaining much cheaper, as plate was very cost prohibitive.
Cuir Bouilli:
"Boiled leather," typically thick leather immersed in hot water that increases its thickness and hardness but also its fragility. Often this process was used to make lames for lamellar.
I always thought that Cuir Bouilli was leather armor, like if you said "leather armor" this is what you meant.
For me, armor is a minor factor in battle - more important would be the availability of tactical traits for each army unit. Tactics? Like the Defend order that you can give to defending units, tactical traits would give each combat unit different combat abilities. Some tactical trains would only be available to trained and expery soldiers.
Example: Build Units With Charge Ability tactical trait - they gain once per battle the ability to +1 move and +50% attack, Units with Arrow Shield tactic trait (requires equipment: Shield) give units using this tactic +20 dodge vs ranged attacks, -20% armor (as the shield is held high over their heads. Etc.
I would like to see more counter spells. For example, something to counter fog or blindness.
Agreed, a dispel magic spell. The effectiveness of the spell would be a function of Spell Mastery and Spell Level. I.e. A caster of Level 1 spells would be unlikely to dispell a Level 5 spell and a caster of level 5 spells would be more likely to dispel a level 1 spell. My initial tendency would be to make the dispel magic spell a researchable spell, thus you could learn how to cast Dispel Fire it but it would take some research effort, OR a selectable trait for those in the path of Magic: i.e. Dispel Fire, Dispel Air, Dispel Earth, Dispel Water are traits that can be selected by one on the Path of Magic.
and take a page from Dominions 3 here and be able to put more mana into it so it is harder to dispel. for strategic spells at least
I've been following the development of Fallen Enchantress from the beginning, ever since buying War of Magic. I have played a lot of strategy games, and I don't want to cause any offense, but I honestly don't care at all about the background lore for the factions here. When I think back to memorable strategy games, I remember them by the factions unique units, and what made them stand out from each other, not the background fluff. For instance, the Paladin Knights, or the Lizardman troops in MoM. The Supertanks, or the free fremen units in Dune2, the Enhanced Elven archers from one of the Heroes of might and magic games, etc, etc.
This sums it up perfectly. I appreciate its almost certainly too late in the day to change any of the above, but honestly, changing the "all human" existing factions to completely different races would make this game have much more widespread appeal to gamers.
I can see why the paperdoll system evolved as it did, as it was a popular feature in Galciv2 being able to customise your units. Also relying on armour rather than shields/point defence made for an interesting research dynamic. However in a fantasy strategy game like this, I don't really care about maces/swords v chainmail/platemail. Its not very exciting, and doesnt have the same kind of interesting tactical depth that you would get from say: Griffon mounted Knights vs Treants, or Ghouls vs Lizardmen.
These are some great suggestions. The idea of being able to have a unique, faction specific building, that enabled unique (non human!) troops is also a great idea. If those troops were non-customisable and had set equipment, it would minimise any potential extra modelling work that was required.
Each city on the map should look radically different from that of a different race. I think going the good/evil route for the two "sides" is a sensible plan, because you can then at least go with the obvious stylistic changes like graceful towers, vs spiky fortresses for example. I haven't played the most recent Heroes of Might and Magic games, but I remember in the 4th game of that series, the various cities looked radically different from each other, with each faction having entirely different sets of units.
I think radical faction differentiation is going to be crucial to the success of this game, and making factions hugely different from each other is going to make this game much more replayable. A +10% here or a +1 to stats there is not going to b enough, the sides need to both look and feel very different from each other.
In any case, good luck with the rest of the development of Fallen Enchantress.
Guess it is a little late to join this thread, favorite faction is Capitar, which has since been dropped. Hopefully, still there in terms of being able to create a custom faction. I like Mancers/Capitar for they remind me of Noldor/Vanyar from Simarillion, at least that is how they played in E WoM. I liked how the race was headed in FE with heavy war horse which imply a heavy cavalry focus, currently no race has a focus on heavy cavalry. Kind of surprised by alignment chart especially with Amarians as LN and Capitar/Resolon as TN. Anyhow, its Brad's IP so go with. Does not take away from the game. I truly hope that Urxen and Capitar make a comeback.
-GoC
A few ideas from a new player:
[Altarian] Focusing on their hero specialization, I believe Altarians could have a unique advantage if their standard troops would eventually spawn a (Level 1?) champion once they reach a certain level. The level required for the champion's creation increases depending on the size of the unit.
[Altarian Alternate/Addition] Another way the emphasis on heroes might work is if each unit had a sergeant/commander who would be significantly harder to down than the standard troops (2-3x the HP). This by itself may help their units survive battles and gain XP. If combined with the above idea, this sergeant would step down and become the new champion. This weakens the unit itself but I feel the pay off may be worth it.
[Kithril] I feel the Trogs may be best suited as the "monstrous horde" faction and should have many of their advantages tied to conquering monsters. Instead of destroying most lairs when they move over the tile, they'd convert it into a domesticated version which could then be built over once that tile fell under their territory. They would also be able to outfit their monster units with new armor and weaponry.
[Tarth] Not simply a bonus, but perhaps it might work better to subtract 1-2 from all Tarth troop sizes to make them the "small army" faction? The bonus might need to be improved to compensate and the starting group size might need to be upped from 3 to 4-5, although such a change may also help early units in general not be as useless.
[Resoln] Perhaps instead of simply healing, Wraith troops who get a kill during combat operate for the rest of the battle as if they were at full strength, replacing their numbers with skeletons or simply making up for lost numbers with the surge of power they received from their victim(s)?
Also, I'm not sure if this would fit well within the existing factions and their lore, but I think it would be interesting to create a faction whose army was based entirely on summoned units (think either Conflux or parts of Academy from the HMM series). It seems the Wraiths are getting a few mana resource units which is nice, so that might be able to fall under their territory?
Another faction could, instead of upgrading weaponry, be mutated/transformed (possibly unlocking additional trait options?). I just can't think of a great place to put it... possibly under Tarth if it veers towards the classic 'druidism' archetype somewhat in addition to being wilderness rebels.
Also, not a by itself thing, but maybe give traits prerequisites, including race trait requirements. This could allow for some selections of troops to perform better in certain areas. It's a minor thing and probably shouldn't get too much a focus compared to differentiation with impact (i.e. unique effects that make the entire faction play out differently than others.)
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