Major and Minor Factions to eliminate the need for "Rebel" faction?

**Yomamashouse** · July 21, 2012, 04:09 AM

At some point, someone brought up the fact that portraying every single city/tribe/other possible faction, could be difficult since just about everywhere had people with some identity.

Does anyone think the concept of minor faction and major factions could be used to deal with this? I don't think the ETW system could just be ported over as it is, but the idea of assigning factions into these categories according to power and influence might allow for the creation of a multitude of minor factions that would replace the bland, uninspired homogeneity of the "Rebel" faction.

Basically, regions that weren't under the control of the major factions (the ones we all know and love) could be their own minor factions - either single city-states or multiple affiliated regions, depending on the extent of their unity. Because of their minor nature they would not require as much attention or depth as the major factions (in most cases), since their minor status meant they would not have advanced as much as the major ones did. They could have either unique techtrees or reduced ones similar to related major factions.

Some examples of individual cities that would be factions would be each of the independent hellenic states, celtiberia, perhaps smaller tribes in Germania, Britain, etc....

Some minor factions that would comprise multiple affiliated regions might be the baltic, Ireland, Scandinavia, Scotland (Caledonia), Scythia etc...

The advantage this would have (aside from adding flavour and depth) would be allowing for more individualized relations with non-major faction-associated regions. In the older games, you were at war with every rebel settlement equally or none at all. They couldn't allow them to build, train, grow, and go to war in the way normal factions did because that could mean starting off at war with the largest faction in the game. With minor factions you can now invade scotland without being at war with the baltic tribes, and can now trade with those regions. Basically you get the in-depth diplomacy that you did with non-rebel factions, rather than just being permanently at war with them. I think this would be quite realistic since not every independent state was at war with all the factions we have the option to play. Based off my playing of EB, Celtiberia was allied with the Lusitanians, the Greek alliance of Rhodes/Sparta/Athens was allied with Bosphorus and Sinope, at some point Syracuse was allied to Carthage and then Rome.... etc.

**cupoftea** · July 21, 2012, 05:09 AM

The way I saw it was that they weren't going to add anymore rebel factions, and just cram in a bunch of minor states and cities, like they did it with shogun 2.

**Yomamashouse** · July 21, 2012, 11:41 AM

Originally Posted by cupoftea

The way I saw it was that they weren't going to add anymore rebel factions, and just cram in a bunch of minor states and cities, like they did it with shogun 2.

Awesome, I liked the general direction that they have been headed in with their newer games. I just hope they don't oversimplify and have too few of them.

**cupoftea** · July 21, 2012, 11:50 AM

Originally Posted by Yomamashouse

Awesome, I liked the general direction that they have been headed in with their newer games. I just hope they don't oversimplify and have too few of them.

They're going for about 50 factions I thought they said, so that might just work

**MathiasOfAthens** · July 21, 2012, 11:51 AM

If they dont add minor faction tribes like minor faction german tribe than they will have to make region sizes larger so you dont have city or town that was occupied by lets say the Belgi but the Belgi are not in the game so the region is deleted and covered by another region.

That would reduce the number of regions and replayability and I would be severely disappointed. I hope CA creates a lot of regions. They can at least make between 30-40 main factions and a few minor faction tribes to cover the regions not covered by actual tribal factions in the game.

So in Iberia if they only make 3 factions, Lusitani, Turdetani and ilercavones they better at least make a few minor factions and name them Vascones and Celtiberia. Let Celtiberia cover most of Iberia. I swear if there are only 5 regions in Spain I wont

ing buy the game.

**Yomamashouse** · July 21, 2012, 01:02 PM

Originally Posted by MathiasOfAthens

So in Iberia if they only make 3 factions, Lusitani, Turdetani and ilercavones they better at least make a few minor factions and name them Vascones and Celtiberia. Let Celtiberia cover most of Iberia. I swear if there are only 5 regions in Spain I wont

ing buy the game.

Ya if they just reduce the number of territories it would be a crying shame.

**Drtad** · July 21, 2012, 01:08 PM

They didn't really reduce territories for Shogun 2 and included all kinds of obscure clans so I'm assuming they're going to have a whole lot of factions.

**MathiasOfAthens** · July 21, 2012, 01:18 PM

Japan =/= Europe. And Rome II isnt centered in Iberia or Gaul or Italy. It covers all of Europe and extends at least to India which means there is a potential list of hundreds of tribes. At the very least 50 major factons comprised of empires, states and tribes. You could even bump that list up to 70 or 100 by including more tribal states. However, because of the scale you have the potential to reduce the amount of regions. Spain should have several tribes and more than 15-20 regions. I would love more but I am being realistic. I would seriously hate it if the regions are too big, like in Empire. You cant really assume what Rome II will look like based on a regional game like Shogun II.