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The Kingdoms vs. The Empires

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The Kingdoms vs. The Empires

from JoeUser Forums

BG22_Fire For beta testers, only the Kingdoms have been exposed.  The Kingdoms play much like a traditional 4X game.  You build city improvements to get benefits to your city. You train up soldiers hoping they’ll get better and better. It is a civilization based on laws and rules.

The Empire has taken a different path…

In War

Their soldiers don’t gain experience. Such a concept of thinking about individual soldiers is anathema to the Empire.

As such, there is no such thing as a veteran Imperial soldier. However, they can train up special, powerful units (Guardians, Enforcers, and Sions).  These powerful individuals will routinely demonstrate the inherent flaw in trying to train groups of soldiers to be more effective. Greatness is born. Not learned.

In Peace

There is no tradition of civics in the Empire. Moreover, the concept of bee keeping or fruit orchard harvesting and what not is completely foreign. The Empire looks at the Kingdoms with absolute contempt that they would waste time harvesting such things.

Of course, it also means the Empires can harvest fewer special resources in the world. To make up for this, the Empire can build hog farms adjacent to their farms. That’s real food. Pathetic Kingdoms.

The Empire also scoffs at the Civics concepts of markets. Deals are made on the basis of leverage alone. Instead of relying on institutions, the Empire relies on leaders of capitalism to deal with it. Players can build Financiers (until we have a better name, feel free to suggest a better one) who enhance the city’s money making.

Similarly, there is no formal education system in the Empire. Schools? Universities? These concepts are worthless. The Kingdoms foolishly entrust their futures to special interests. In the Empire, players can create Sage units who can be sent where they are needed to boost knowledge production.

There are no pubs in the Empire. No Inns.  Such decadence is forbidden. Prestige is generated by showing respect to those who have seized power such as statues to great figures such as Lord Kir-Tion and Curgen the Dred’nir.

In Magic

Again, letting something as important as magic be taught by a special interest is another weakness of the Kingdom that the Empire has no part of. The Empire instead has its own magic commissars – the Lore masters who study the ancient texts to discover the correct spells needed to dominate the world. These units can be built and sent where needed.

Adventuring? I don’t think so

The Kingdoms have an entire knowledge field called “Adventuring”. There is no such concept in The Empire. Adventuring implies a light hearted search for excitement. This is why the Empire has dominated the world, it has no use for pointless wandering.

The Empires focus on Domination. Finding and re-learning knowledge scattered throughout the world. 

The Kingdoms, dominated by cowardly men, like to stay in their schools and temples. The Empire, dominated by the races of the Fallen and the lone race of men with the strength to embrace the philosophy of the Empires (Kraxis) gain knowledge and strength from going out into the world and seizing it from others. Dangerous places have great knowledge and the Empire is particularly skilled in finding that knowledge.

The Empire will rule

The fact is, the Empires are the dominant form of social organization in the world. The Kingdoms, with their weak, so-called concepts of liberty, social contracts and obsession with the rights of individuals is an absurd, artificial creation that violates the laws of nature.

361,266 views 211 replies
Reply #101 from Elemental Forums Top

How does the empire rely on strong individuals, when it seems like the individual (in its society) is subsumed in the multitude? How does it sustain its oppression and "evil", when such a system would presumably cause massive rebellion?

 

You're looking at it the wrong way mate. Sure enough, if you tried to create the an Empire's culture in any real life country you can name there would indeed be a massive backlash, our society is progressive, nuturing and generally good, and theirs is evil?

 

I say not, it appears that way from the outside but it seems to me that their culture is more like a hyper-charged version of the animal kingdom. Animals don't begrudge the more successful members of their species and I'd imagine it would be similar in the Empires, it's not intentionally evil simply the way it is. The kingdoms encourage liberty, and wealth, but they also allow and in some cases encourage laziness and mediocrity. This is why there is no decadence in the Empires, with it comes complacency. The strength of the Empires is most clearly displayed in the fact that the mediocrity of the Kingdoms' population is destroyed through natural attrition and (for lack of a better concept) darwinism.

Reply #102 from Elemental Forums Top

I believe the words you folks are looking for is "a shattered urn" as opposed to "earn"

 

(I'm talking about goodie hut flavor text.)

WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #103 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Terran_242, reply 101

How does the empire rely on strong individuals, when it seems like the individual (in its society) is subsumed in the multitude? How does it sustain its oppression and "evil", when such a system would presumably cause massive rebellion?
 

You're looking at it the wrong way mate. Sure enough, if you tried to create the an Empire's culture in any real life country you can name there would indeed be a massive backlash, our society is progressive, nuturing and generally good, and theirs is evil?

 

I say not, it appears that way from the outside but it seems to me that their culture is more like a hyper-charged version of the animal kingdom. Animals don't begrudge the more successful members of their species and I'd imagine it would be similar in the Empires, it's not intentionally evil simply the way it is. The kingdoms encourage liberty, and wealth, but they also allow and in some cases encourage laziness and mediocrity. This is why there is no decadence in the Empires, with it comes complacency. The strength of the Empires is most clearly displayed in the fact that the mediocrity of the Kingdoms' population is destroyed through natural attrition and (for lack of a better concept) darwinism.

You also really don't have to look much further than the medieval era for a good example of how the empires work in game. Kings and nobles were born not made. If you were born as a serf, you stayed a serf. Nobility maintained there power by ensuring the serfs were always ignorant and weak. As soon as the rise of middle class started so did the decline of the all powerful nobility.

Reply #104 from Elemental Forums Top

I have a feeling that Fallen Sovereigns and Champions will still level, just not units, special units, or monsters.

 

I wonder if this means that Dragons don't level. Could a baby dragon still grow over time and gain new stats? (like in a post I made earlier)

Reply #105 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Terran_242, reply 101

How does the empire rely on strong individuals, when it seems like the individual (in its society) is subsumed in the multitude? How does it sustain its oppression and "evil", when such a system would presumably cause massive rebellion?

You're looking at it the wrong way mate. Sure enough, if you tried to create the an Empire's culture in any real life country you can name there would indeed be a massive backlash, our society is progressive, nuturing and generally good, and theirs is evil?

I say not, it appears that way from the outside but it seems to me that their culture is more like a hyper-charged version of the animal kingdom. Animals don't begrudge the more successful members of their species and I'd imagine it would be similar in the Empires, it's not intentionally evil simply the way it is. The kingdoms encourage liberty, and wealth, but they also allow and in some cases encourage laziness and mediocrity. This is why there is no decadence in the Empires, with it comes complacency. The strength of the Empires is most clearly displayed in the fact that the mediocrity of the Kingdoms' population is destroyed through natural attrition and (for lack of a better concept) darwinism.

This sounds about right. I would add, think, the Huns. As individual groups they simply fought amongst themselves for local territorial control, but when a True Leader emerged among them, one with a true vision of what the Huns could truly become, Attila, the combine "Empire" of the Huns became a force that not even the Roman "Kingdom", the Global power of that time, albeit somewhat in decline, could handle.

 

 

Reply #107 from Elemental Forums Top

The better word John Hughes is looking for is Neiztcheism or the idealology of the superman. *_*

Reply #108 from Elemental Forums Top

Aye, there are the people that fall in line (most), and the people that naturally excel (Ubermensch)

Unwritten are the people that fall through the cracks or die ... which is the "mediocrity" of the Kingdoms that is naturally weeded out among the empires due to a lack of compassion for the weak.

The Empire motto is utility, and in their philosophy your overall utility is determined at birth.

Reply #109 from Elemental Forums Top

Incidentally, holy crap this is an amazing analysis and synthesis of Nietzsche's Overman

http://greatliteraryworks.blogspot.com/2009/11/nietzsches-idea-of-overman-ubermensch.html

 

Reply #110 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting TCores, reply 99

Quoting Anomander, reply 96I wonder how Rome would have advanced without its experienced and veteran legions?

Two ways:

1) The same way Sparta advanced: by not having "green" troops at all.

2) The way Athens fought: use master strategists and geniuses. Out-maneuver them and incinerate their ships with the focused power of the sun, respectively.

Hmmm I wondering where you're getting your historical info from. Sparta DID use green troops, namely non citizens and the more famous Helots (slaves). They also defeated the Athenians, despite their military geniuses. :P

 

So I repeat, how can an Empire advance militarily if their units stay as raw recruits despite combat experience?

Reply #111 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Anomander, reply 110

Quoting TCores, reply 99
Quoting Anomander, reply 96I wonder how Rome would have advanced without its experienced and veteran legions?

Two ways:

1) The same way Sparta advanced: by not having "green" troops at all.

2) The way Athens fought: use master strategists and geniuses. Out-maneuver them and incinerate their ships with the focused power of the sun, respectively.

Hmmm I wondering where you're getting your historical info from. Sparta DID use green troops, namely non citizens and the more famous Helots (slaves). They also defeated the Athenians, despite their military geniuses.

 

So I repeat, how can an Empire advance militarily if their units stay as raw recruits despite combat experience?

Genetically created super soldiers.  I don't think this writeup suggests "raw recruits".

 

Also, as for the question people are trying to answer in this thread... "Tycoon" and "Magnate" are the only ones in which the definition seems to match the description given, but nobody seems to like either of them.

Reply #112 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting KellenDunk, reply 111

Quoting Anomander, reply 110
Quoting TCores, reply 99
Quoting Anomander, reply 96I wonder how Rome would have advanced without its experienced and veteran legions?

Two ways:

1) The same way Sparta advanced: by not having "green" troops at all.

2) The way Athens fought: use master strategists and geniuses. Out-maneuver them and incinerate their ships with the focused power of the sun, respectively.

Hmmm I wondering where you're getting your historical info from. Sparta DID use green troops, namely non citizens and the more famous Helots (slaves). They also defeated the Athenians, despite their military geniuses.

 

So I repeat, how can an Empire advance militarily if their units stay as raw recruits despite combat experience?
Genetically created super soldiers.  I don't think this writeup suggests "raw recruits".

 

Also, as for the question people are trying to answer in this thread... "Tycoon" and "Magnate" are the only ones in which the definition seems to match the description given, but nobody seems to like either of them.

 

I thought that was the Empires 'special' units...not the bulk of their forces.

Reply #113 from Elemental Forums Top

Well, the "Special" units are genetically trained super soldiers ... while the majority of the HOARD are stronger than your average human mook.

One way to look at this is that all Empire units "raw recruits" are actually veterans in disguise.

Another way to look at it is that the Empire are like the Orcs, and the Kingdoms are like regular humans (think Imperial Guard without the Dictatorship) just trying to eek an existence and learn how to fight.

Orc talks to level 1 human ... Learn to Play

Orc talks to level 5 human ... hey brother!

Orc talks to level 15+ human ... Haxxors!! You PWN ME!!! :(

Reply #114 from Elemental Forums Top

@ Kellen Dunk ... I like Magnate, although I think Vizier might be better. I am hazy on the specific definition of magnate, although it seems to imply a certain amount of social mobility*?

*Tycoon as well

Reply #115 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting John_Hughes, reply 105



Quoting Terran_242,
reply 101

How does the empire rely on strong individuals, when it seems like the individual (in its society) is subsumed in the multitude? How does it sustain its oppression and "evil", when such a system would presumably cause massive rebellion?

You're looking at it the wrong way mate. Sure enough, if you tried to create the an Empire's culture in any real life country you can name there would indeed be a massive backlash, our society is progressive, nuturing and generally good, and theirs is evil?

I say not, it appears that way from the outside but it seems to me that their culture is more like a hyper-charged version of the animal kingdom. Animals don't begrudge the more successful members of their species and I'd imagine it would be similar in the Empires, it's not intentionally evil simply the way it is. The kingdoms encourage liberty, and wealth, but they also allow and in some cases encourage laziness and mediocrity. This is why there is no decadence in the Empires, with it comes complacency. The strength of the Empires is most clearly displayed in the fact that the mediocrity of the Kingdoms' population is destroyed through natural attrition and (for lack of a better concept) darwinism.



This sounds about right. I would add, think, the Mongel Hordes. As individual groups they simply fought amonsgt themselves for local territorial control, but when a True Leader emerged among them, one with a true vision of what the Mongels could truly become, Ghangis Khan, the combine "Empire" of the Mongels became a force that not even the Romans "Kingdom", the Global power of that time, albeit somewhat in decline, could handle.

 

 

ehm, I wasn't aware that the Mongols fought the Romans... The Huns and Goths yes, but not Mongols.

I still think this social conflict between the Empire and Kingdoms sounds a bit naf. Maybe I'm a bit jaded by reading too much fantasy drivel but personaly I'd appreciate something much more if it was plausible, and this frankly isn't yet.

Perhaps it's just that I appreciate some degree of historical equivalence, i.e. that technology and society in a fictional setting broadly match those in history, e.g: JRR Martin's Song of Fire & Ice is broadly believable as an equivalent of the renaissance world. The current imaginings of the empire do sound rather like they have been coloured by Nietzche - modern, bourgeois and industrial philosophy.

My issue, if you will, is not that this is all wrong ro offensive, its just that it doesn't make sense. I find the narrative too close to history in some senses, and then wildly divergent in others. The inconsistency is the issue. Tolkien, for example, got around this by making the Orcs completely different, with their own inidividual and radically different kind of ethnicity and society.

I'd suggest making the Empire more different to make them more believable (less human, less similar to historical examples and hence less prone to historical/modern comparison). 

Reply #116 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Anomander, reply 110
So I repeat, how can an Empire advance militarily if their units stay as raw recruits despite combat experience?

And I repeat, the Kingdoms don't have combat experience either! For standard units there is no combat experience in the game right now.

People are having an entire conversation about the Empire being handicapped by not having something that the other side doesn't have either. What they can't do is create a "veteran" unit during the training process, which with the proper techs the Kingdoms can. But they get elite units that the Kingdoms don't get to make up for that.

Reply #117 from Elemental Forums Top

I like the Empires the way they are

As in, I'd like for the *functional* lore to be adhered to as close as possible when it comes to making massive game mechanics like (how the empires function).

Reply #118 from Elemental Forums Top

My issue, if you will, is not that this is all wrong ro offensive, its just that it doesn't make sense. I find the narrative too close to history in some senses, and then wildly divergent in others. The inconsistency is the issue. Tolkien, for example, got around this by making the Orcs completely different, with their own inidividual and radically different kind of ethnicity and society.

 

Again I think you're looking at it from the wrong side, I think it makes perfect logical sense. Modern society doesn't test the human race at all, not like it used to. We're settling in to a soft, squishy medium right about now because for the last 5 generations or so life has been getting progressively easier, and the 100,000 or so years before them were easy compared to what we went through before advances like agriculture. There is a surplus of food in developed countries (has been for  ages) which removes the greatest force for competition, that of mating rights (more food >> more people >> more potential mates). We no longer have a society like the fallen because we no longer need it this is where the kingdoms are progressing towards sociologically, back in the neolithic phrases like "more fish in the sea" would be unfathomable, there really weren't.

 

But I digress, because of what was done to the Fallen to make them "better" they were locked in this pre-civilised, natural paradigm. Competition is still at the heart of Fallen society in some form or another but they have developed along that line because of the pressures they faced with living in large groups during and after Titan rule. Long story short(er) there is a general consensus that superiority cannot be trained (those kingdom fools are "training" dogs to play like men) but created. Superior specimens, just like the animal kingdom appear and thrive naturally, this is the way of life, either you excell or you don't. Can't change it lol.

 

I think the Mongols fought the Byzantine Empire which pretty much was the eastern Roman empire.

Reply #119 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tridus, reply 116


For standard units there is no combat experience in the game right now.

This is true probably, and I don't like it. It makes no sense that the units won't gain XP at all. Battlefield XP should be in. Having a system like that opens up new strategic & tactical possibilities. [We've talked about this already.]

Reply #120 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tormy-, reply 119

Quoting Tridus, reply 116

For standard units there is no combat experience in the game right now.


This is true probably, and I don't like it. It makes no sense that the units won't gain XP at all. Battlefield XP should be in. Having a system like that opens up new strategic & tactical possibilities. [We've talked about this already.]

It's not true "probably", it's true. You can fire up beta 1 and look. :P

Most likely it's just not in yet. Brad also mentioned troop morale in another post, and that doesn't exist in beta 1 either.

Reply #121 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tasunke, reply 114
@ Kellen Dunk ... I like Magnate, although I think Vizier might be better. I am hazy on the specific definition of magnate, although it seems to imply a certain amount of social mobility*?

*Tycoon as well

But a vizier is just a high ranking advisor. What's he to do with money?


Again I don't know how you think of capitalism but when I think of Tycoons I don't see vertical mobility in this guy's life he was born into wealth and maintains his power over others through money.  Magnate and Tycoon are both suggested with dictionary definitions by the persons who posted them.

Reply #122 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tridus, reply 120


Most likely it's just not in yet.

Let's hope so. :)

It's perfectly fine if the Empires cannot recruit veteran troops from their towns. It's perfectly fine if the Kingdoms can. However, all units & creatures including the mightiest beasts should be able to gain XP on the battlefields. It's perfectly logical. No lore/setting can change this fact, since it wouldn't make any sense, if it wouldn't work like that.

Reply #123 from Elemental Forums Top

I have to agree with the comment earlier on the post that it's worrying that now the Empires and Kingdoms seem to be so tightly defined that this will be the main dividing line and not the factions. 

Nothing wrong per se with such as a set-up as presented here, but I think it would have been better if one of the Factions would have worked and thought like this, instead of creating One Tight Empire, out to rule the world.

Also, if you want to make a kind of non-individualistic society, it could have been cooler to make it more extreme (this is both a game and a fantasy game), like taking inspiration from the world of insects (ant mentality), or something inspired by the Borgs ... This is more just like a human society, it's not very clear how they think even after this long description actually: 

For example, it doesn't make any apparent sense to say that they scoff at markets and individualism and then say that they instead have "leaders of capitalism". Eh? Even the most left of all European lefties have to acknowledge that capitalism (however good or bad) is based on exactly that: the summing up of free individual decisions (a market).

By the way, gaining experience for your units is a game mechanism which is fun. A pity if its now scrapped from half of the game just because the evil side doesn't like progression in the famous "lore" section.  

If this means that 5 out of 10 playable factions will not value "experience points" nor "buildings" I'm afraid I don't like it much.

With this set-up it also feels like the game is steered towards a single dual conflict: basically good versus evil (whatever the details, for me at least, not respecting the individual is certainly not "good"). I would prefer something more advanced than that.  

Yes, I know it can be modded. v_v     

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Reply #124 from Elemental Forums Top

So can a Kingdom never grow to be an Empire?

Reply #125 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting the, reply 123
By the way, gaining experience for your units is a game mechanism which is fun. A pity if its now scrapped from half of the game just because the evil side doesn't like progression in the famous "lore" section. 

x_x