What's your preferred faction design philosophy in strategy games?>a few different factions (Starcraft, CnC)>many mostly similar factions with some unique features (Age of Empires, Cossacks)
Few factions, but with several specialization options each (like Company of Heroes).
>>1936881I really liked Kohan II and they did a pretty cool thing along those lines. You chose which race your dudes are, but then you also chose your faction (political ideology basically). And your faction changed the stats of ALL of your units and gave you a unique unit too, so for example dwarves who supported the council played differently from dwarf nationalists even though they're both the same race.
As many factions as possible, with mostly the same slightly flavored features/mechanics, but each faction should have one game-mechanics-changing quirk.Think of Endless Legend where one faction can teleport units between cities, while other faction can only have one city.Or Europa Universalis IV, where one country can expand through alliances and marriages, while other country can't form alliances at all but has an unrestricted ass-kicking license.
>>1936857Something like CoH. The factions are all very similar but have different strengths. So I guess AoE.
>>1936857One unifying tech tree with pieces removed for variation. (Age of Empires 2)
>>1936857Not exactly my favorite but I like the idead of Rebellion approach, few different factions but with inbetween variations:>Defensive vs offensive TEC>Burn the ground and salt the earth vs trying to be diplomatic Vasari>Psionic women who huh... vs psionic women who erm... AdventToo few factions and it's easy for it to be unbalanced (starcraft 2 stuggled for sometime), too many and it doesn't have any impact (Empire Earth 2 comes to mind).
One faction balanced against itself with a good variety of units and strategies. Zero-K is probably the most ambitious on that front.
>>1937096Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion is pretty good.
>You can capture a different factions worker unit and build their shit.chefskiss.tif
>>1937140As a kid playing C&C Generals, you bet your ass I staged a "rescue mission" with Chinooks and riflemen to get GLA workers
Original War's mostly similar gameplay and strength of units but completely different visually and quirks-wise, mostly in lategameTo make it sound simpler, everyone has a medium tank, but one faction doesn't have heavy tanks at the price of having super-fast, super-light tanks or vice versa, one faction has only mediums and heavies but their heavies are tougherOr one faction's footmen can utilize explosives while others can get immobile invisibility or access to sniper riflesOr one faction can ruin others economically by destroying their source of the most precious resource while other can detect every vein, tank or building running on itOr how everyone can train the neutral mobs in different ways, one can make them repair buildings and do cargo transport, other can do that + make them weak soldiers while the other can do only soldiers, but also can turn them into suicide bombers and tank driversYou can capture tanks, you can capture enemy bases and build their tanks, you can utilize their soldier specialties (so as a faction without native snipers you can get them after a victory)I seriously don't know if there's a game that works in a similar way. Not even one.
>>1936923I like the theory of modular designs like this, but they usually fall flat. The later Age of Wonders games do a good job with race/tech combos, but usually that means one is far more important than the other.>>1936943This but no need to hold back. More than one gamebreaking mechanic per faction would be welcome.>>1937140Also this.
>>1937140IIRC, ine RA2 there were even some hidden units/buildings if you had both allied and soviet tech.
>>1936857I have a huge weakness for games that just have a shitload of different factions, even if it usually means that the balance is retarded and only a few of them are viable in competitive PvP. It's one of the reasons why I love games like Warlords Battlecry.
I like assymetric games.
>>1936857I hate factions and want unit designers.
>>1937700'sup my fellow nigga
>>1937382I think you had to infiltrate enemy's battle lab with a spy for the hidden units. Having enemy tech also allowed you to have some funky IFV combos.
