Vanilla Factions Expanded - Empire notions poll

I participated in the survey Oskar, and I have to admit, I think I clicked on about 2/3rds of them, as they all seemed to integrate well and all had fun sounding mechanics. It's kind of amazingly good timing, you've caught me in the middle of a pretend empire run. Stole the base design paradigm from Sam's Empire playthrough, circular hedgewalls, and using Psycasts expanded with Alpha Memes for the Psyfocus ideology. Not sure if you're interested but I created a pseudo custom starting scenario: You start as members of an Imperial noble house disgraced by internal politicking by your house's rivals, and (exiled) tasked by the Stellarch to pacify and civilize this Rimworld to redeem your house's tainted name. I started with four pawns, a Brother/ sister pair of nobles that had escaped dishonor by being the youngest, with backstories that had them as members of the Imperial church and Military, as the youngest often go into civil service knowing they would never gain title. The other two pawns were the house's last two loyal servants, a butler, and the house's last loyal trooper, and went from there, with a few extra bits of technology like one set of prestige power armor, a Solar Generator and pair of batteries, and a pair of Norwegian Forest Cats (great opportunity for Royal Animals integration). Don't know if that's a fun idea for you, but I think it's a fun starting scenario setup.

Lex

All of these sound super amazing, especially the nemesis-esque "great hierarchy"

Yusuf Tagari

I like the idea of Imperial Laws, but really want to stress that it should be an option. It sounds super punishing and interesting, but with how fucky modded games can get, having the safety net of laws being optional would be nice. Also yeah as people have mentioned Parades sound like a fun idea, would really be neat if they utilized less useful animals in the parade, so having all your cats and other useless nuzzling critters would feel a lot better.

Rinklestein

Arg! Too much good stuff to choose from. Can't I just pay you extra to add it all?!?!?! D:

PunkyRoo

I’m a huge fan of the idea of parades, balls, and parties as your pawns go into higher tiers. They could have so many unique requirements in order to host them like X amount of lavish meals, Y amount of cocktails, Z amount of drugs for the after party. Or specific animals for parades. Additionally, I like the idea of having those events come with the possibility of intrigue between attending royals and potential assassins. Maybe even a mystery who-dun-it type quest. I think that those style quests could fit into a larger framework of that great hierarchy notion. Where you have lots of other nobility above you and around you so you have to play the game to advance your own pawns. Or assist other nobles in causing scandals for nobles you don’t like/want to get out of your way.

A Quasi Doctor

I like the idea of the Caravan guild and assassins guild and the like. But I feel like those ideas need not be tied to this particular mod. Perhaps they could be their own modules and those guilds could be tied to a random faction on world gen? Or their own bespoke factions

I agree with Yonkers that the 'Classical' mod set a new standard when it comes to factions and interactivity. I hope something similar can be found back in Empires: less of a static 'honour dump' as reward and more favour currying, earning psycasts, sustaining a titled pawns for buffs... A sniff of actual politics, perhaps? Or, looking at 'Rimcities', meddling in the affairs of Empire-owned cities to gain your prestige? At least, they could use more of an active participation in the world. Going forward on this, the Empire always felt like it had to be something big and prestigious. Like the 'Vikings' faction mod, having custom made ultratech bases that display their wealth, royalty and archo/psytech power would not hurt. You should be impressed by them and want to join into their prestige. A new recreation/event-type: parades! Once you become a freeholder, you get to see the stellarch wave its hand at his beloved denizen (you!). Now hopefully no enemies show up to sabotage this on your land... I've personally never had too much interest in the prestige armour due to psycasts being rather simplistic, but now that Psycasts expanded is out, I wouldn't mind seeing the eltex resource being expanded on. A new energy source or defensive turrets (starcraft pylons)? More gear? And titles. Psycast level awards are the least. Permits are nice to have. But that's precious few in return for having one of your pawns do less and less overall. I wouldn't mind seeing more 'map-wide' powers. Thoughts are: ability to select royal decrees on your now Empire-owned private plot (similar to the buffs in 'Classical'?). Weather control with cooldown. City-wide archotect auras (pest control, immunity stimulation, small consciousness reduction for enemies/boost for allies, etc...)

OneWyrdRaven

I think expanding on the empire being split into 2 opposing factions seemed like the most compelling idea, with some kind of unique and well thought out quests associated with each. Anything other than hosting guests, building pointless monuments and " here look after my prized turkeys for 15 days" would be a breath of fresh air.

Ennek

I wasn’t sure this would ever be a thing after you guys said you didn’t want to make a faction mod for the empire, but I’m excited to see how it goes.

Eevee Chad

I’m a big fan of the deserters faction which is a big threat to the royals and the assassins society that work in the shadows. Makes for good lore and adds to the story-telling. I would like to see the assassins be neutral and work for whomever pays them. That would be cool. Another feature I really liked seeing was the terrorism feature where deserters can bomb/kidnap/murder royals and pawns. More buildable pieces, weapons, hairstyles, and clothing options are always cool to see too!

Dom Speziale

I really like the direction of royals interacting more with each other, both inside your colony and with royals outside. Really liked organizing balls etc. for royals. One thing that royals are missing now, especially with psycasts expanded, is rewarding every level of nobility. Perks can be strong but I really liked the concept of passive perks. Organizing festivities like balls could also work very well, maybe higher level festivities could be reserved for higher level royals at every tier, increasing the quality of the festivity the more royals attend. Maybe even have a requirement for the number of royals with a specific title that have to attend. This could also finally make freeholders useful, at the moment there is no difference between a freeholder and a pawn without a title. When freeholders are allowed to attend these royal festivities, and improve the rewards you get from these festivities, that would finally make them useful. Not mentioned but one thing that has been missing from Rimworld imho, is clothing beauty. Every textile has a beauty factor, but this does nothing for clothing. Nobles caring about someone's beauty and the beauty of their clothing makes a lot of sense. This again could tie in very well with nobles interacting more, and with organizing festivities. I could imagine this being hard to make work, especially with all (your) other mods that add apparel. Maybe an easier implementation would be apparel market value, with the armor values subtracted to simulate expensive clothing while making sure armor doesn’t count. This could finally make noble spider silk clothing from insectoids expanded useful. Royals are my favorite way to play Rimworld, so I’m really looking forward to this. Thank you for all your awesome mods.

Pim Kartner

That list was so expansive, every option seemed like it would fit well for what I'd like out of this mod. Looking forward to see what makes the initial cut!

All of those notions are lovely. Why you gotta make this so difficult? But I'm very excited about this direction. I really enjoy the mods which introduce new aspects, but what gets my heart rate up are these types which take an existing system and fleshes it out in a more meaningful way that really influences the story in this story generator. As always, your work is greatly appreciated; and thanks for allowing us to be a part of it.

Trevellian

I would like the Royal Tax Collector to be non-optional - they are far too nice at present. You WILL pay the tithe or the Empire becomes hostile.

Cato

Damn, that's a lot of good ideas. Really hard to keep the number of votes down. Looking forward to seeing the result!

Phraxius

In regards to the Prestige Royalty weapon concept, considering it will probaly use Eltex when VE-Psycast is installed, they need some kind of extra advantage to be worth it. Maybe the usual Psycaster-bonuses or let them cause e.g an additional kind of damage dealt which scales with the victims psychic sensitivity.

RedHook25

All sound amazing but I mostly voted for things involving new gameplay features and quests involving you being a leader and the guilds. I think your VE Classical mod is a new golden standard for factions. They have their own unique ally mechanics that feels really rewarding. I ended up uniting all 3 and it truly feels like I run a huge empire now. More of that is absolutely welcomed. RPing as a noble back stabbing other nobles to get ahead running army's and managing a kingdom or feeling their rath if you turn on them. Things that make The Empire feel like a real empire. You never really get to see them do much outside of them landing shuttles. Their towns look as advanced as any other town you never get to meet other nobles or get a sense of you actually being apart of something greater then your own settlement. They are just any other quest giver except they give out better gear. I think improving this should come before cosmetic things. Good luck, I'm sure what ever the final product is will be amazing.

A hard vote, for sure

The Dragonborn

Quite a lot of ideas in there, but... not voting for all. Still, this does feel "needed" and I am quite curious what are the top ten notions once this is done. Some of those I consider to be downright requirements... and some I consider to be practically punishments. And some need some tweaking or elaboration. Perhaps that will be ironed out later. Also, on another idea, this is a nice show to fill in the "quiet time". Even just a show of "look how we're working" can really help with the wait. No, not telling what to do, just what I enjoy. And despite knowing that this mod might not come out for maybe three months... it's nice to see you guys are considering things. Perhaps we will see this mod in next month's roadmap.

Stim

I really enjoy the thought put into figuring out new ways to enjoy Rimworld! I even see variations of ideas I suggested! That is a great feeling. I wanted to talk about Honor though, as a game mechanic, because it is showing up here a lot. I feel honor in the game is trying to represent a certain gravitas or bearing of a character in a fairly direct and simple way. The Honor stat, or really score, is an attempt at gamifying a social system at inevitable loss of parts of that social system - that's just what happens when you take something social and turn it into a mechanic. I feel like gamifying Honor even more by turning it into a form of currency that can be spent, traded or sacrificed for greater rewards, ect, takes it even further from its attempt at creating a living social system. I get the desire to make a more robust numbers game, but I wonder to what point? When you shine a light somewhere it usually gets darker somewhere else. Just putting out some thoughts. Keep up the amazing work!

Tyler Brown

Similar boat. Always imagined that the wizards with planet-spanning shuttles and incredible cybernetics were just giving you stuff they had lying around as thanks for taking-on infestations or raids that could and would easily destroy your entire colony but might scuff the gold carvings on the exterior of their marble palaces. "Oh, no, the locals were torn to ribbons by megaspiders? Good thing they traded us all that gold and all those slaves (who are going into labor and trooper squads) first!"

Artemis Martin

The amount of notions that have my interest is incredible, despite the fact that if all you did was have the deserter you ally with give you a discount card for 5% off milkshakes at a restaurant thirty tiles away: it would still have infinitely more impact than in the base DLC. Overall, I agree with what others have suggested: Ascending to High Stellarch is just . . . off, even with the caveats proposed. I think the best way to amend the process while maintaining the idea would be one of 1. A simple reflavor. You don't become a Stellarch, but you become one of many "Sophian Heirs", in the same way that many crowns were competed for by royal bastards, those born out of wedlock, and third-youngest children who just outlived their seniors. 2. Royal Weddings or such that may arrange a wedding between your aspiring Stellarch and a direct descendant of the Stellarch, so as to introduce royal blood into your colony and cause some extra drama. 3. A process not to become A high stellarch, but THE high Stellarch, with the development of your pawn akin to the ending ship or archocentipede. Heavy implantation to look like the Stellarch, match their biocoding, resource and labor-intensive apparel, etc. Understanding the accumulation of favors, structures, and honor are already something to work on, 'sacrificing' a pawn from your colony for the sake of this project would feel pretty satisfying.

Artemis Martin

Love the more interaction, violent and non-violent when you have a noble. Love the idea of fracturing the empire more, both into warring factions and simply sub-organizations with their own agendas. Love the idea of the hierarchy system meaning (.. I assume and hope?) having a specific liege lord with their own enemies, allies and goals instead of being a 'generic empire noble'. However unless the fracturing is done deep enough that being a high stellarch really just means ruling over those 2 settlements over there and the remains of the wrecked cruiser in orbit, I'd really prefer the ranks to be kept at count: It being that easy to get a non-trivial rank and it being possible to have one of your 3 dudes living in a hut in swamp in an obscure rimworld somewhere being a leader (nevermind someone high up) in an organized interstellar empire is a big immersion breaker for me. I always liked to imagine the ranks were more cosmetic and 'honor' being more 'favors owed' the nobles use to buy stuff/services/soldiers from the locals due to their dysfunctional system and would like to keep doing so..

Toilailee

I mean lore wise it seems like the Empire is strongly based off the Byzantine, it would be kinda cools to see a counter empire based of the Caliphate or the Sassanid. making it really more a shattered empire in the middle of a civil war or something along those's lines You could add a mechanic that expands on the permits making it more like a political sway kinda like KOTOR light and dark aligning to the Emperor or Shah/Caliph. More of if there are deserters where are they deserting too? it kinda implies a cold war or war of states. One of the options mentions kidnapping nobles it would be kinda cool to expanded on non-lethal weapons with some spacer tech stun guns

I don't know if it was listed, but I'd like more ways to "buy" honor. I think only being able to use gold and slaves (and Eltex) is a bit limited. Like perhaps trading high quality art, instruments, royal clothing etc, or if you use Vanilla Brewing Expanded you could trade Ambrandy. Just more ways of buying honor that isn't only mining/combat/trading earned.

Nols

Having royals vomiting to eat more while historically accurate seems primitive to spacer-tech civilizations Maybe instead a bionic stomach that increases the amount of food that can be eaten in one meal so your royal would eat several meals and not eat again for several days Along with a tongue bionic which savors and multiply the taste so a lavish meal would give a larger bonus and last longer but survival meals and normal meals would taste terrible

seems cool.

In my play with Psycasts Expanded, it seems that there's very little reason to advance in the Empire hierarchy. Since Psychic Focus lets you level your casters very fast without neuroformers, you're better off just bestowing each of your pawns as yeoman/freeholders to let them start levelling, and then never give them any more honor - all the psychic powers with none of the noble demands. Since most people who want to play Empire Expanded will probably want Psycasts Expanded too, this interaction should be considered. If honor always seems most useful when distributed equally among everyone, you're mechanically encouraged not to engage with the hierarchy or go for the high ranking titles, which is at odds with the whole concept of the Empire. A fun idea would be to figure out a way that this existing system, which encourages equality, could be preserved for deserter-aligned players, while the Empire-aligned players are encouraged, within the psycasting system, to focus on dumping as many neuroformers into one dude as possible. This would make Empire and Deserter playthroughs feel very different, with the former having a small number of incredibly powerful psycasters, and the latter having a large number of moderately powerful psycasters.

Man, this is some really great stuff - It was really hard to not vote for all of it. However, I think I limited it to the stuff I want most. Like @Mod Zero said, I don't see much point in having pawns become the Stellarch. In fact, I don't think you really need to have your pawns advance beyond Count - getting there takes plenty of time and that feels like the highest possible rank you could achieve while still living out in the Rim. I think the most appealing thing for me are the new quests and guild systems, as well as any new furniture, armors, clothes, and hairstyles. More content to make the Empire fleshed out, and the presence of the Deserter/Reformist faction to make rebelling seem more appealing and to enable you to fight Empire troops while still being loyal to them.

Wilhelm Fiore

Personally I don't particularly like the idea of "becoming the stellarch" - at that point it's a very different game. What I would like to see instead is having a pawn "rank out" of the colony - but them doing that would bring benefits. So, - you need a minor noble for the option to be available - basically "a successor" that becomes the ranked-out pawn's vassal - and is seen by the empire as the new "leader" (even if your settlement itself disagrees), - add a "liege" system, within the grand hierarchy - and if you "rank out" a pawn, you're near-guaranteed to stay within their own feudal hierarchy, - the ranked-out pawn "favors" the settlement and their successors - so e.g. might be willing to turn a blind eye to crimes, or let you use permits more often. - bonus: your relation to the empire is a product of the personal relationships of the entire feudal chain from your direct liege all the way to the high Stellarch. Also, please keep the empire shattered, and not as powerful and important as it likes to think it is. So e.g. let them not have a truly functional bureaucracy - they don't know you have eltex or deserter armor (or even actual deserters) until a loyal empire noble sees them, for example. And those can even turn a blind eye if they like you enough and don't like their lieges.

Mod Zero

I don't think I've ever been so inspired by a VE mod. This sounds like it will be right up my alley. I'm most interested in the laws, decrees, and the servitor-equivalent punishment. I love the idea of an overbearing Empire, but which will grant all kinds of wealth and benefits if you can put up with their imposition. Close behind these, the other options which excite me are the more social ones. I want to host a ball for my peers and betters! I hope I can appoint slaves as waiters, and give them little tuxedos and bowties.

Jack

Very difficult not to vote for a ton of these. I think all around the quests and events sound the most interesting to me.