Why are there non-playable factions?

[Xerrop]

The Shogun-players will know that there were all factions playable.

In MTW it started with some unplayable factions like Novgorod (early era) or Mongols and Swiss (late era). Atleast Aragon, Sicily and Hungary were made playable with the expansion "Viking Invasion".

In Rome and M2:TW it started with only some factions playable, but you could unlock others. Sadly in Rome factions like Dacia or Macedon (one of the most important powers during the time) remained unplayable.

Now in ETW or NTW there are only few factions left. All others remain unplay- and unlockable.

What is the reason for doing this? Atleast in Rome or M2:TW it is easy to change with minor changes in the txt-files (don´t know how it works in ETW or NTW). When it is so easy to change why not making them playable in the released games?
Wouldn´t it be better for the replayability to have more (or all) faction playable?

[Graphic]

Just FYI, there are small mods that unlock all the unplayable factions for NTW and ETW.

Unplayable factions usually are that way because they're only meant to be target practice for the major factions, and it's so they can populate the game with factions without having to make big unique rosters for each one, in order to shower even more special attention on the major ones.

It's no coincidence that Shogun and M1 have the most generic rosters across the board and the least number of unplayable factions.

[The Fishman]

Just FYI, there are small mods that unlock all the unplayable factions for NTW and ETW.

Unplayable factions usually are that way because they're only meant to be target practice for the major factions, and it's so they can populate the game with factions without having to make big unique rosters for each one, in order to shower even more special attention on the major ones.

It's no coincidence that Shogun and M1 have the most generic rosters across the board and the least number of unplayable factions.

Why did they make them unplayable then? EU has hundreds of rubbish little factions, many of which won't necessarily appear in any game, or get conquered a few years in. But they are all still playable.
Some people might like the challenge of building a mighty empire out of a tiny country with only three unit types, why did Empire have to arbitarily stop them from doing so?

[Jeskyre]

Why did they make them unplayable then? EU has hundreds of rubbish little factions, many of which won't necessarily appear in any game, or get conquered a few years in. But they are all still playable.
Some people might like the challenge of building a mighty empire out of a tiny country with only three unit types, why did Empire have to arbitarily stop them from doing so?

Cause then the game would be too hard and people would complain that most of the factions are nearly impossible to play. If one really wants to play as them, they're easily unlocked with mods, which is OK by me

[Jazx]

Mods are buggy but I can understand :S

[Killerbee]

also the non-playables aren't worked out as good as the playables

[Augustus Lucifer]

I think what Mr.Blackadder is trying to say, is that the game is balanced around play with a certain number of factions. These factions aren't all necessarily 'easy', and in fact some of the playable by default factions in Empire/M2/Rome do have an uphill battle, but they have had more work put in fleshing them out. Some of this has to do with unit roster, others has to do with building tree progression(at least in M2), and others still may involve AI responsiveness to a player playing as that faction. They can only 'flesh out' so many factions which are full, though this is less of a problem when they just clone everything anyways.

The key here is, what's different about playing Faction X compared to Faction Y? In EU3, the answer to that question is virtually nothing, which is why you can play so many. There are differences based on culture group for technology and troops, some differences in starting location value or religion or sliders, but ultimately they're not very dissimilar. When you are allowed to play as Oldenburg, there's nothing about it which screams Oldenburg.. it's Western European units and tech like all other HRE states, with historical leaders(if you choose), and a marginally different starting ideology. Whatever is truly 'Oldenburg' about them is contrived, a notion implanted by me as the player to flesh them out because the factions are all similar without roleplay.

With the TW games, it's better to have a number of factions that have truly unique setups and elements, such as completely different rosters, ideologies, and starting locations, than it would be to have 500 carbon clones. I don't like the hard cap on factions in previous games because it limited certain interesting systems which used faction slots, but in terms of adding more and more factions, the 31 in kingdoms is already far too diluted to preserve any sense of uniqueness if they're all used for full-fledged factions, much less 100.

[Axalon]

Hi guys, to answer your question directly Xerrop…

Having unplayable factions is not necessarily always a bad thing. Out of a designer perspective this is especially true. It’s also pretty common in PC-games as well, so it’s hardly something unique for TW-games (rebels have always been unplayable). What does matter is the experience you actually get with the ones you are supposed and expected to play, and, chances are that these made with a little more care to ensure maximum fun for you as a player. Thus these are the ones you really should worry about, not the unplayable ones…


Anyhow, I think Augustus Lucifer is on to something very important here…

With the TW games, it's better to have a number of factions that have truly unique setups and elements, such as completely different rosters, ideologies, and starting locations, than it would be to have 500 carbon clones. I don't like the hard cap on factions in previous games because it limited certain interesting systems which used faction slots, but in terms of adding more and more factions, the 31 in kingdoms is already far too diluted to preserve any sense of uniqueness if they're all used for full-fledged factions, much less 100.

This hit the nail spot on for me. I often come across remarks more or less like, “but it has more factions and troops! Then it got to be better and cooler!” That is anything but the truth as far as I am concerned. It is, as Augustus already pointed out to some degree, a question of quality vs. quantity, and diversity vs. conformity in the internal structural design and the limited capacities of making distinctions we can find there. It’s no secret that the various distinctions in element X in TW-games are usually limited ranges of numerals like 00-99 for instance.

My experience is limited to MTW1 primarily, but it will probably serve as good example of the universal problems anyhow. The parameters of making distinctions between – say units/troops for instance - are limited, they always are. The more troops we include the harder it will get for us to assign actual new distinctive qualities between each new included troop and the ones already included. And, we can only get away with it so far, until we reach and go beyond the threshold of what a game can structurally handle successfully. The more we travel beyond that threshold the more conformity increases – while diversity decreases (which is bad for a game, for any game in fact) wherever this crucial threshold may be located.

"Why is this bad news?" Well, conformity actually counters diversity (and vice versa), which in game-terms means that viable solutions to problem X can get more and more standardized due to the lack of diversity of distinctive qualities of the included parts of any element X. The more this happens the less challenging and thus less interesting a game get since it will decrease the necessity that we stay alert on what happens in the game or to be flexible in our solutions as we play the game and encounter supposedly “new” circumstances and problems. Thus in effect making it more and more predictable. Making a game predictable is bad news by definition, for any game. A successful game is something that can offer unpredictability somehow, that unpredictability is indeed the game we are supposed to handle… Otherwise it ceases to be a game and becomes a sheer sequence. This is in conflict with what defines a game as we know it – as far as conventional theory goes anyhow.

Now, with all the game-basics explained (hopefully), let’s get back to the troops and se what happens when we include too many units/troops for the distinction-numerals to handle. Well, we get conformity due to the fact that we are forced to reuse some values – thus conformity increases. The more troops we include the greater risk of increased conformity we have. Thus we actually get, what to some might appear as a paradox, by including more quantity in parts in a limited aspect, will only increase the risk that the desired diversity will actually disappear proportionally once the structural threshold of distinctions is passed. We only get conformity instead…

In other words, the more troops we include the greater risk that we are actually creating an easier and less challenging game due to making more standardized solutions increasingly viable - which, I boldly assume, was not part of the plan as we included those additional troops/units - thus it is bad news. That is, if we are all supposedly looking for a more interesting and challenging game.

Now these rules apply to everything; factions, buildings, agents, you name it – the rules apply. Thus, I always found it amusing when gamers try to maintain the importance and significance of having more troops and factions included in a game/mod as a good thing – since that will only make the game less challenging and interesting if too many of these are included, due to conformity-problems. It can happen fairly easily actually.

All the same, the “average gamer” seems always ridiculously impressed by excessive quantity in factions and troops for instance – while it in fact it makes the game easier and less challenging to play… Personally, I assume that this was not quite what the gamers had in mind as they with great conviction point out that quantity as a supposed quality… Usually with the very opposite effect in mind as they do it, namely the game would somehow get harder and more exiting as result of that quantity…. Rather ironic isn’t it?

Anyhow, the end of this little tale is this; for a game like MTW1 for instance, it is not necessarily a great idea to throw in some 5000 units, factions or whatever element included - probably the very opposite in fact – due to the problems with conformity. These rules do not discriminate either; the same apply to MTW2, RTW or TW-whatever….


- Cheers

[Angrychris]

They would hate for you to get your money's worth.

[Thermal]

The Shogun-players will know that there were all factions playable.

In MTW it started with some unplayable factions like Novgorod (early era) or Mongols and Swiss (late era). Atleast Aragon, Sicily and Hungary were made playable with the expansion "Viking Invasion".

In Rome and M2:TW it started with only some factions playable, but you could unlock others. Sadly in Rome factions like Dacia or Macedon (one of the most important powers during the time) remained unplayable.

Now in ETW or NTW there are only few factions left. All others remain unplay- and unlockable.

What is the reason for doing this? Atleast in Rome or M2:TW it is easy to change with minor changes in the txt-files (don´t know how it works in ETW or NTW). When it is so easy to change why not making them playable in the released games?
Wouldn´t it be better for the replayability to have more (or all) faction playable?

First off, shogun only had 7 factions (discounting rebels) so it was more feasible for all to be playable.

I think some of the less developed factions are unplayable as having poorly thought out factions playable can arguably decrease the games quality.

Personally I enjoy playing quaint factions (for Rome total war: Thrace, Pontus & Dacia are major personal favourites) but unplayable factions unit rosters were often poor and non sensical (javelins in a barracks for numidia, horse archers in a barracks for scythia etc.). Its not as if these factions didn't have diverse units either (half of macedons roster is unique to it pretty much, same applies to numidia, scythia is almost all unique).

I believe that this sort of lack of development makes it more interesting to play as these factions for the challenge of it, especially if you only start with 2 regions, which is why CA & sega were clearly just appealing to an easy audience, only allowing you to play the steamrolling factions which after a while, get very boring in my opinion.

As for Empire total war, I feel that a lot of the factions were generic (no unique units) and were very boring to play as, they should have made a few more playable such as the Mughals and at least an american indian faction, but overall I support there decision as the good factions could possibly be overlooked beyond a horde of boring generic ones, which are either maratha wannabes or european typical army wannabes.