Multiple Factions is on board

That's starcraft-style hidden. So you ask me to click/hover every enemy unit from 100+ units army approaching to find out it's stats? Of course, I may try to remember all stat modifiers in advance, but as there will be nor one, nor two ACU, but 100+ (with unique ACUs)...

That's quite the assumption you got there.

Mike

I'd rather have identical factions fighting eachother than visually different with hidden benefits....

I don't see that everyone is going to get pissed off. As far as I can tell the reason people were behind having a single faction was because from a development perspective it would be quicker and easier to concept/design/implement/test and thus take less money and development time enabling that effort and money to be spent on a single, larger unit pool (which as others and yourself have mentioned is still the case).

I haven't seen an example of anyone being conceptually against multiple factions, certainly I am not. If anything it is neat to hear that there is concepting going on for different commanders which may well be what differentiates factions.

of course not, but why so many rts games stick to multiple factions? I guess because it is the best. However, I understand that uber has limited financial resources and it is to consider to have a single unit pool.

I isn't bad math, you didn't get me right. It's said we could have more units from a single unit pool (which I ment with 1 faction), than having 2 factions, and I can't really see that. But I would be fine with anything I would get in PA, as long as it isgoing to be fun and working.

Don't forget that a "faction" could mean anything. It could be a paint job. It could be a change in story. It could be a custom commander model. It could be a custom model for everything. Games like Starcraft take it to the extreme, where each faction has similar tools but absolutely no units in common. Empire earth creates factions by giving players a hundred points to choose a few bonuses for their units and economy. Age of Empires creates factions by giving each race a few unique bonuses, a unique unit, and random access to the most advanced units.

Factions offer a chance for players to directly flaunt their play style. They also offer a chance for cookie cutter factions that simply have better things than other factions.

The personal aspects should absolutely be emphasized, as a Commander represents the player and should really showcase that fact. The gameplay aspects aren't as important, and can create a ton of nuanced issues in both design and testing.

Not too fussed about the Common Unit pool but I see no problem with Units having different stats based on your faction (Not pick and choose individual stat increases like has been mentioned) as long as you can learn it before hand just like you know what faction people are going to be in a SC2 multiplayer (Unless they are random)

Example:

Faction A, The Raiders.

Any units that are Fast Movers (I.E Scout Units/Raiding Units) get +10% Damage & +10% Health. They also cost 10% less (Build time stays the same)

Faction B, The Sluggers.

Any units that would be classed as the meat in your forces (I.E Any Battle Mechs or Tanks that are meant to stand toe to toe with enemy units) get +5% Damage & =15% Health. They also cost 5% less (Build time stays the same)

Faction C, The Gunners

Any units classed as artillery get (I.E Mobile Artillery/Mobile Missile Platforms not static Artillery for this example) +15% Damage & +5% Health. They also cost 10% less (Build time stays the same)

As long as its clear which faction your opponent is playing in a custom and you can also tell by scouting their commander and checking him out if he/she plays random, I wouldn't see a problem with stats changing. Also it would be a lot cheaper than making a complete new set of units but it would allow more changes in tactics.

Combine that with different Commanders having different abilities and you have factions the cheap way...

And then we can have it so that when your units give or take damage, a bar slowly fills up, until it reaches a certain level. At which point, a Commander Power activates.

Or we can go play Advance Wars.

Apart from the semi-hidden modifiers, there's no real drawbacks for this apart from the fact that it really doesn't feel consistent with the theme of PA. And also because I believe it was mentioned somewhere that all commanders have the best tech in their units.

I wasn't talking about major differences but some people use their commanders differently... I personally used mine entirely as a builder in the Mid/Late game on Supcom. The only time it saw action was during early game rushes...

A single unique ability based on a Commander type wouldn't harm the game too much.

For builder commanders you could have an ability that boost construction/assist speed by 20% for 30 seconds or for a combat commander he could get a shield worth 50% of his HP for 30 seconds or until its depleted throw on a cooldown to stop spamming and I really can't see a problem...

It's already more or less confirmed that we'll get different commanders to pick from at the start of a game. With different abilities most likely.

I am.

Really, I'm sick of developers finding ways to introduce bloat into their games, which only ends up harming the experience. I also feel this is one of those things people only think they want, without actually wanting it.

As am I. The concept of a universal unit pool is nice because it doesn't restrict the player into a set number of strategies, but gives them the option of choosing any strategy, at any time and switching between them on the fly.

Starcraft is the perfect example of how stupid this rigid faction system is. Say I want my long-term strategy to be focused on beefed-up, powerful units. Then my choice would be Protoss. But what if I wanted to do a fast, early attack to poke my enemy and misdirect their attentions while I built up? Then my choice would be Zerg. But alas, I'm already devoted to Protoss, so my choices are reduced.

(Starcraft goes even further with this by limiting your choices within the race you choose, due to upgrades, etc. If you are going for a Terran bio composition and want to switch to a mech composition, you're stuck, as your upgrades are all focused on bio. But that's a different matter)

Total Annihilation was a bit closer to the ideal, since for the most part Arm and Core units were similar enough. But again, the best would be a universal unit pool. Given a large enough selection of units, you're pretty much guaranteed to have different unit compositions for each player, and each player has the option of changing their composition at any time to accommodate their strategy.

Zero-K comes close, as it has a universal unit pool. Players determine their "factions" by choosing different starting factories, although I still consider that system to be a bit rigid, as switching unit compositions is still challenging until you get the necessary resources. (Commander customization also sets players apart, but it's never so huge that it changes the gameplay significantly, which is nice.)

I do like having something that the other guy doesn't have, but not at the cost of losing something that is generally required for a well rounded army.

Yes to Sumo bots, but not at the cost of my tanks planes or ships.

But then he has something you don't have, so what's the difference? It makes more sense to expand your technological capabilities to cover all options. There were certain factions during WWI that didn't have machine guns, and suffered heavily for their deficiency. You can bet that they had machine guns by WWII.

It makes more sense that you can build a variety of units, but choose to build the subset that works best with your current strategy. Say you want to rush with peewees and flash tanks, fine. Your opponent doesn't take this route and instead has stumpys and slashers. In this case, you have something he doesn't, and vice versa. But you have the OPTION of switching if you decide that it suits you better. It will take some time to build up, but that is the cost you have to pay.

Or you could stick to the units you have and consider the SITUATIONAL advantage you get. Your units are faster, but lighter on defense, so you'll have to compensate with your playstyle.

This system is much nicer than just some paper-scissors-rock deal, because it requires the player to think about how they're going to play, rather than simply reacting.

I wasn't arguing against what was being said.

You have misread what I was saying.

As in, what you people have been describing. So don't jump the gun on my point.

I am saying that I do like the single diverse army idea, but I also like it when there are a few additions (As in not subtractions) to an army for the different factions.

Look at Age of empires for instance, same units, same building and same technology, but additional units (And looks) for each individual faction.

If PA went down that path, you would get individual factions (Essentially with the different commanders, we will have that already.) that have the same stuff and thus balance, but with that added uniqueness that makes them, them.

As for your WW1 machine guns argument, is nothing like that, its more like the German ME-262 to the American P-38 Lightning.

Fair points, and points I agree with. But at this stage I dont think we need to be concerned about any of that, Uber have put a reasonably clear delineation between what constitutes a faction and what constitutes a unit pool. I wasn't terribly clear in my post so I apologise for that but I gather that we aren't talking about factions meaning totally different unit pools as in Starcraft. So far the only difference I can envision between the factions in terms of units might be the Commanders. I haven't seen any mention that Uber have suddenly decided to make multiple unit pools.

Yeah, I have no issue with different commanders, though I question whether that's enough to claim a group to be a "faction."

Others have mentioned different factions giving their units different statistical advantages, or special units, Age of Empires style. This, I feel, is once again a false limitation of the options available to the player. And if it's minor enough that the changes don't matter, then it just becomes "Oh hey, let's put factions in this game . . . just because!"

I think it would be reason enough, the only real requirement for factions is that they are at odds with one another. I guess the term faction has taken on more specific connotations with RTS games, but if Uber want to have descriptions to delineate a few factions with commanders for each then I dont see that taking too much out of their development time given they were already working on varied commanders; it would just be a little bit of fun for them to write up.

The way I see it is the differing commander designs let people have a more unique identity, or provide a measure of variety to the most personified unit as it is more or less your avatar on the field of battle. Having flavour text added describing a faction would just flesh out the commanders a bit.

People have talked about the age of empires type thing but I dont think we have heard anything official on that right? all the way though the answer I've seen Uber put out has been that they are having just one unit pool to reduce design and balancing time.

I guess that makes sense . . . (unless two people choose the same commander type and then fight it out)

I did quite like the custom commanders of ZK, if only because it made mine feel unique. (Which was helped by the ability to name the commander.)

I'm really against multiple factions in general, but doing it like AOE is something I wouldn't mind.

I may be a bit biased though because AOEII is probably my favorite game of all time.