Something I was thinking about in my previous post but didn't type out was something a little deeper with the mount system, but since a few people liked what I said here it is. I think all the creature lairs you can capture and all the horse and worg resources on the map should all be removed. Instead give a "creature" resource that changes depending on the faction looking at it. IE maybe Gilden would see horses while Kraxis sees spiders. Then take this resource and expand on it, so Kraxis could use their spider resource to train spider mounted troops, or spider units by themselves (with varying spider power levels costing more or less of the resource). Gilden on the other hand could maybe have different kinds of horses to equip troops with, like fast scout horses and heavy warhorses. Then most factions could have their own mounts/creatures (a few could share horses if it's difficult to come up with something else), maybe even a faction without mounts but can train more powerful creatures.

So rather than having all these somewhat boring and useless creatures anyone can train we limit each faction to one easily identifiable creature. You see an army with a bunch of spiders you know that's Kraxis without looking at their ownership, a bunch of worgs some other faction and so on.

I think with the number of factions we have we really need to give each one a strong identity of some sort, even if that makes them "one dimensional." They really need to stand out and be exciting, and being "romanesque" isn't really (no offense). I'm not saying spread spider worship and idolization to every aspect of Kraxis culture, but being the only faction with a lot of spiders and poison abilities would make it stand out. Ditto for Magnar and lots of fire.

OH HELL NO!!!!!  Keep the options to create factions/Races/Soverigns and other utilities so we won't have to go through and mess with XML manually. The more user friendly the custom utilities are the better.

True. I also stick with custom faction and hand-made leader.

And I think having "Random Personalities" option would be useful. I use it in my every Civ or Civlike game.

Unless they really make the factions each unique and awesome to play, I doubt that I would ever play this game without the ability to make my own faction.  

I just prefer to have "me" and play with/against all the unique factions + added mods... so there can be great interplay among them, if they were truly unique.

I really like the idea of different mounts and creating those as standalone creatures and especially spiders ! It's an idea I've been propposing for a long time... Nobody ever listen to me :/ nobody likes me ! 

Thats something that could be found in the custom faction creation too.

But ya, I complain a lot ! Can't seem to be happy with some stuff of the game that seems like they won't change ! Im excited and worried at the same time for the  game... Already wondering what the press will say about it too !

Second this!  If there was no way to make custom factions, I would lose 75% of my interest in the game!

I wouldn't take the no custom factions thing seriously. At the very least, we would be talking about renaming it a custom race creator. No way we would lose what we already have. 

People also shouldn't take that D&D meme too seriously, but I guess no one wants to hear that...

I really don't see what the big deal is, besides possibly copyright infringement

That's pretty much what I was requesting in my post on page 1 of this thread. Awesome.

I too play a Sith among other things. And the Jedi need to die....:)

While I do agree that that this game lacks the depth of factions you see in other games current I do disagree with you on the unit design system. this is a great system. I usally scrap the generic units and create my own. This is one of the best concepts of FE as it was for Gal Civ 2. There is nothing stopping them for creating unique units for each faction as well as having this system. To tell you the truth if this system was not in then I probably would not play FE in it's current state.

Lore is something that games should not follow to closely. What I mean by this is that the game should not let lore get in the way. For me the Lore is a bit boring and I don't really get into it. Besides this is a 4x TBS game. Each game's "lore" is what you make it as with all games in this genra. But then I never play the campaigns  in these games just sandbox.

The Tech trees do need a lot of work. But I think the devs said they were going to work on this

I like this. Will these options be avaliable to chose when creating a custome faction?

Yea the Empires are more Democrate like. Governments having all the power and race bating and such very Democrate like. The only real difference is that they would tax everyone where as the democrates only want to tax the so called "rich" and give food staps to everyone else no matter if they need it or not.

HA I now know what my 2 new custom factions will be, Democrates and Republicans.

You could have a 3rd American Democrat where they say they want to tax the rich, but for some reason they are all rich and all have their money in Kraxis Banks. They would rely on the illusion of class warfare to sustain power, while their real goals are a status quo with a greener energy policy and a socialist system funded by anyone that is not rich enough to avoid taxation. 

Go Team!

this is getting very fun and completely off subject. we should probably avoid having them lock a dev thread lol

Yea, my post was meant to be 100% joke.  If Brad was a well know Democrat, I would have found a way to make a democrat joke...I don't actually care much for politics, I just like teasing and making jokes.

I always go for the "we are all evil bastards" jokes. No need to take too seriously. But it does show how much fun we have with custom factions.

I too play a Sith among other things. And the Jedi need to die....

 

I am a pro sith too, Long live emperor Palpatine

So say we all!

For me its about true difference betrween factions. Sure tweak the edges: stats, equipment blah de blah, but pick 2 or 3 major things, almost unbalancing things and stick them in - so if you are magic loving faction, pick some really nice big stuff to go down that path. In every other game (edit: actually fall from heaven 2 and master of mana came close) i've ever played there is so much concern over balance that really yuo can play all factions almost the same as any other... if you are willing to push the boundaries it could make each position a completely different playing experience.

I agree that "nearly-game-breaking" is far superior to "perfectly-balanced"

To me balance means that I can do a lot of things in different ways and still be successful.  Build mages or build warriors, use champions or monsters or soldiers, have a lot of cities or few cities, be diplomatic or warmongering. etc.  But, it should be "balanced" in a way that one strategy isn't far superior over another.  Right now deciding to stick with the civics path over the other two, will get you killed.  you have created a beautiful nation easily taken by others. 

This is excellent news!

I agree with the "handful of big obvious things" approach. This will likely be easier for you to balance, and yet it will provide enough difference in playstyle to encourage experimenting with other factions.

I would like to second the "surrounding land" idea that Gammit10 put forward. One faction should spread the frost tileset, another the swamp tileset, yet another the dark forest tileset, etc. The spreading tilesets should also carry a benefit for the faction involved.

For example, one faction might get warg/wolf troops as a percentage chance based on the total area that they have covered with the frost tileset (much like the eco-hippie factions from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri). The swamp faction should gain the ability to get increased movement in swamps (+1 movement across swamp tiles) making the swamp a type of "road" for that faction.

I really like the "population gained as a result of killing" idea. 

Perhaps a faction should gain a bonus based on the number of forests surrounding their city (ie. increased production per city, increased unit defense in forests and +1 mana for every forest tile traversed by a champion or sovereign (maximum "X" per turn to prevent spamming) as well as gain a faction specific spell: raise forest.

I would get rid of global research bonuses to sovereigns (e.g. default Pariden gets a research bonus to whatever it researches) and ONLY give research bonuses to particular research trees or parts of trees (e.g. all research in "Civilization" is +20%); this would make a noticable difference in factions.