How Many Factions Should There Be?

[H.Humpel]

Originally posted by Commy
I think the best number would be 10, for three reasons...

Well, I hope - if there will every be any ACAX2 - there will be more than these parameters given to form a faction!
And don't forget the Aliens! There lies a very big potential which hasn't been used (or even been made for being used). If Aliens would be more able to have their alien personality with even new ways/parameters the human faction aren't able to use (or at least most of it)... wow!
Or what about new classes, like AIs etc. (ok, these etc. are hard to name... ).
Some of these approaches can be found in some custom factions, but most of them seem to be too limited be the ACAX faction basics.
Anyway, the possibility of Custom Factions (and the easy way using Text files to use und create them) is one of the greatest things in ACAX. And if they would keep this feature in ACAX2, I really wouldn't care much about the amount of factions they'd provide (although their factions really are among the best available) as there will be plenty new factions within weeks I guess (as there are more than 200 custom factions for ACAX out there...).

1. The ecology insane people like the Gaians...

What do you mean "insane" ?????

[MysticWind]

Originally posted by Commy
I think the best number would be 10, for three reasons...

First, note that each faction is either explore, discover, build, or conquer, or two of these...mathematically, using either one or two of these interests, there are 10 possibilities...

Second, there are 10 social effects (economy, morale, research, etc.)...

Third, there are 12 social engineering choices, but only 10 appear to be an "idealogy"...I find it hard, but I guess not impossible, to find someone for wealth and planned, but I guess a communist could do that...

Simple. We simply need more social effects and social engineering choices. It'll be a lot more intersting with more government types. Also, as in Civ, just give certain factions special units unique to them.

However, it is true that the current factions have exhausted a lot of the archtypes. Basically, the original SMAC's factions represented important parts of human civilization, except maybe for art and culture.

Are there any archtypes left out besides science, religion, peace, war, control, wealth, and planet-loving?

[Brent]

We could always have a separate Progenitor counterpart to every human faction, maybe introduce nonprogenitor aliens. And in addition to the same paramaters as humans, I agree they could have parameters of their own.

I don't know much about the fancreated factions out there. What does their nature indicate more, that you really can't easily have additional unique enough factions, or that more diversity would work after all?

[Brent]

We could separate commerce from industry

[MysticWind]

Originally posted by Brent

I don't know much about the fancreated factions out there. What does their nature indicate more, that you really can't easily have additional unique enough factions, or that more diversity would work after all?

The best site for fancreated factions is http://www.networknode.org

My main point about the site is while it's very cool there are a lot of factions there, most of the factions are either themed from something else (Dr. Evil faction, for example), or just knock-offs of the originals with the same stats (there's too many Green factions that have no depth in story! argh!)

Of course, there are other faction types. They are often odd, like a children's faction, as well as Public Health of Planet faction. I don't know if any faction is meant to be thought of as on the same level as the original factions. Personally, I'm trying to model my Second Ship factions after the originals in term of story and fromat.

Story-wise, I think in any sequels there should be room for at least 14 new factions, since we can already handle that number. The problem is as the story moves on, the factions become more esoteric, that is you have to know more of the story to appreciate them. You no longer have a "religious faction" or a "science faction" or a "hacker's faction", but you have to know more of the story.

I think it's inaccurate to say that more than the original 14 from SMAC and SMAX and you won't appreciate the new people as much. The problem is that as factions become more specific, they have less depth. I think the SMAX factions aren't exactly as open-ended to interpretation, story-wise, as the original ones. Forex, the Usurpers are definitely evil, and the Cult is never portrayed as good. Everyone else in SMAX is either slightly good (in a roguish way) or just neutral.

Game-wise, I think up to 50 different factions or players would be cool, though there would be rarely over 40 players at once. I think it should be doable, as long as there are plenty of unique units and styles of play.

[Brent]

Well maybe there would be seven categories, and seven options to choose from in each category. You could never have more than one science faction at the same time, but you could pick your one or two favorites to use frequently out of seven. Each could have a very unique personality, and slightly different Traits.Maybe they could design it so that most people would be likely to gravitate to one or two from each category and really get to know them.

Oh! Blasphemy time again! Forget about deep story for the sequel, let gameplay make up for it.

But maybe all this discussion leads to just using basically the same factions on a different Planet, or expanding from Chiron to have other maps in the Alpha Centauri system, or going interstellar.

I personally never care much about number of civs or factions playing together. What I care about is options. And I'd just as well have 40 AI opponents as human ones.

[Commy]

Ultimately, I have to go with my SimCity idea...if you have read other recent threads, you might have heard about it...instead of making a social engineering, you have ordinances that have very, very specific effects...

[Lazerus]

I doubt you could squeeze many more factions out of the SE settings that are available, quite a few factions are already plays offa other factions; and all extremes are pretty much covered. You'd basically just end up creating a faction from the numbers and then attaching a story to go with it, personally i think the original factions and most of the new ones are great, you really get the feel that they had a faction + background story in mind first and THEN did the numbers to make them playable.

[Commy]

Having more than 14 or 15 factions would, well, detach us from the game...how many of you would be attached to the SMAC characters if there were 30 or 40 or 50? I know this has already been said, but I think that sometimes having too many choices is worst than having none at all...perhaps by having only a handful of factions that come with the game, and then creating your personal faction instead of choosing from a list of 40 would be a lot better...

Perhaps the new SMAC 2 should have, say, seven factions, with perhaps 20 different graphic sets...maybe they could let you scan your picture and make it a lot easier to create custom factions instead of having to look through text files and going through Paint shop Pro, fast movie editors...

[MysticWind]

Okay, how about this:

How many new factions do you think players can handle? Suppose the old 14 won't be playable, but will appear in the story. How many more sides can appear?

Personally, I think it would be awesome if there were three or more alliances fighting at once. But true, it would be hard on the story and attention to have too many new factions. Also, the original 7, again, were all based on parts of human culture- fundamental parts like peace, war, religion, science, wealth, and nature. There's not much more you can squeeze out of that.

I still think if I ever do get my Second Ship project set up, it wouldn't be too hard to handle...

[Brent]

Maybe we should have all the same factions, or fewer, and create new characters to lead subfactions. These can be your advisors, and they would lead mostly-non-geographical political parties. And there would be a game mode where the whole world was Believers, or University, or whatever, and it could run a little more like The Political Machine, but just a little. You could command a subfaction and try to sway regions politically. And I'd also like to have the option to treat the subfactions the way SMAC1 treats the original factions. All the (sub)factions in this game would have something in common, but not everything. You might gravitate toward one macrofaction to use all the time, or almost, and get to know and love those seven subfaction leaders.

The Believers could be an orthodox denomination, a reform one, an ultrafundamentalist one, a semisecular one, a planetcult one, etc.

The University can be a space administration, a geology- oriented group, a xenologist group, etc.

The Gaians can have an ultraextremist group and a least extreme group, a pacifist group and an ultramilitant group, one that wants to control Planet and one that wants to submit to Planet.

The Spartans can have an Air Force, an Army, a Navy, a Technologist group, and a Manpower group.

The Morgans can have an industrial group and an economical group, a greedy group and a philanthropist group.

The Pirates can have nonpiratical merchant marines, nonaquatic economic pirates, and the traditional pirates.

The Peacekeepers could have a noninterfering group and a busybody group.

Or, you could have the original seven factions but specialize them according to the subfactions, led either by the SMAC1 leaders or the subfaction leaders.

You could have the default factions and still include minor factions that few people will want to play often: give them a penalty of some sort. Have different choices by difficulty level? Have midgame splitoffs? Have two worlds to choose from, and each faction is strictly assigned to one of them? I guess having only seven complete factions but extra graphicsets would do too. And definitely be able to import a picture of yourself, and be able to make it 3D possibly.

[waab]

Well I would like they idea with seven original and then let the revolution start

Seven orginal, mayby some more like cuture and art. Then let minior factions appear (non - playabel) during the game. Example Yang is in trouble, the other factions doesn't like his police state and some have decide to wipe him out. He counter attacks with support to rebelion in the evil factions that doesn't understand Chairman Yangs beutifull words Some bases breaks free and start their own way after Yangs agande.

sorry for bad spelling I am in a hurry....

[Brent]

An artistic faction sounds interesting but how would that work in the game? And maybe one faction above the others would seek to preserve Earth culture and/ or transmit a database of it to friendly aliens.

Nonplayer factions sonds like a possibility.

[Flubber]

A different type of science faction sounds interesting to me-- Instead of research bonuses, they could be able to learn methodologies unknown to any other faction like perhaps they are geologists and all their mines are +1 mineral compared to anyone else, or agriculturalists with +1 food from any type of tile etc . I think there are many ways to give advantages and disadvantages.

[Brent]

Could imitate Galciv, and have various ways to boost the same general area of focus: bonuses to manpower, bonuses to vehicles, increased speed, more allowed trade routes, more income from each trade route...