Sins Forums
Will rebel factions start the game like everyone else or will they each break off of their respective empires after a certain period of time? To me I would prefer if the rebel sides started later in the game after you have an empire, since they should naturally have to fight to break away from their parent faction rather than start "free"
Its based on research. So it develops at a certain time into the game.
From what the Devs have said it seems like you still pick regular TEC/Advent/Vasari as usually, but he moment you research a rebel or loyalist tech (which could technically be never) you've basically decided to play as that subfaction. A little bit like governments in Rise of Nations it sounds like, except with a heck of a lot more influence and you can't change your mind after you've decided.
Well so who do you fight against then, it seems silly that your entire empire(you) can choose to rebel. Obviously some should remain loyal to the main faction. The point of a rebellion is to fight for your freedom, if you have a near galaxy wide empire and then decide to rebel that entire empire should not suddenly just switch sides to the rebels.
I don't really understand what you are trying to say. You fight against whomever you opponents pick as their race and subfaction. Keep in mind each Sins battle is basically just a very small part of the giant war going on, therefore when you choose a faction you just bring your section of space to either the loyalist or rebel camps.
This is from the lore section of the website.
The loyalist members of the Trader Emergency Coalition adopt a policy of isolation, focusing on enhanced defenses to ride out the rest of the war. Those who rebel against the coalition take on a purely militant view, coming to the opinion that the only way to bring peace is by ultimately crushing all who oppose them - especially xenos.
For the first time in their history, the war creates a schism in the Advent Unity. The loyalists seek to continue their policy of revenge against the Traders, and to assimilate all others to the Unity’s influence. However, others amongst the Advent suspect that a corrupting influence from within has diverted the Unity from its proper destiny.
The divide created in the Vasari Empire is less pronounced, but just as severe to their people. With the Vasari now practically frantic to move on to new space, the loyalist faction abandons cooperation and decides to take the resources they need by any means necessary. Having accepted the need to work together, the rebel faction feels that their best chance for survival is to work with the other races and bring them along to flee the approaching enemy.
I think it would be cool to have the option to set which AI players will play as Rebel and which will play as Loyalist (and possibly which would be Neutral). This would ofcourse be definable before the game has started (in the same window where you select the AI difficulties and play styles).
When the Americans rebelled they had to fight the British empire with whatever resources and forces that were willing to help their cause. In sins rebellion it should be like that, if you research a tech that causes you to rebel your empire that you had founded should then turn against you with the exception of a few planets and ships. You then have to fight an uphill battle against your former empire plus whom ever else is out there.
For example lets say you have 50 planets under your control, then research a tech that causes you to be a rebel faction. After that tech is researched you get lets say 10 planets with the lowest allegiance to your former capitol planet to join your side and the remaining 40 remain with the "parent faction" Taking whatever resources those 10 planets that you now have you must somehow fight to establish your faction and prevent yourself from being crushed by your brethren and other players. Rebellions are hard.
But that's just the thing, you don't control the entire TEC/Advent/Vasari empires, just a small portion of it. One mere planet to start out with. The only empire you found is whatever colonies you conquer after the game starts. Thus you are clearly the head of state/lead psyonic/warloard of your sector and I don't think its unrealistic that the planets and fleets under you control would fight for whatever side you yourself supported. To use your own historical illusion, rather than controlling the entire patriot movement or British Empire, you just control 1 state and have to choose who to support.
Besides, if this happened everyone would either A. become a rebel while they still control 1 planet or B. just stay loyalist as that's clearly far easier and gets you lots of unique bonuses as well. If for gameplay reasons only this will never happen.
Not necessarily. The TEC loyalists are determined to just wait out the war, why would they attempt to crush the TEC rebels when they are focused on annihilating the Advent and Vasari anyways? The Rebels are not fighting for independence, they just disagree about how to fight the war. Just because the Rebels broke away doesn't mean we can assume the two sides are completely hostile to each other.
Well, I see what your getting at... The expansion is called Rebellion, so the rebellion should take place while you are playing the game. And seeing as how theres no campaign, it should be a game mechanic. On the other hand, the last expansion was called Diplomacy and I dont really think there was any diplomacy going on. 
The current picture of things is that eventually you can focus your faction to a particular gamestyle or being more flexible. This trading of strengths and weaknesses should give plays more strategic options without a huge affect on the overall balance of the game.
However, theres not much info as to how you cause the faction change. My understanding is that you will research to cause this change, but who knows if there are other consequences? maybe some unloyal planet splits off and starts its own faction, controlled by an AI. That would be cool, but we dont know.
I want Neutral Titans!
Would be nice if all factions gained several different ships besides the titans.
Or what? The turkey gets it again? 
It seems the rebellion concept is mostly to add sub-factions and create more variety (which is fine for me). As usual with Sins, the lore is there but the story is ultimately yours. My rebel factions will be fleeing to uncontrolled sectors to set up bases of operations for their rebellious cause, only to discover other factions have done the same. Egads, maybe a loyal fleet has come to crush our hopes for freedom..yadda yadda yadda.
However, one interesting game mechanic could be if you "destroy" an enemy planet but it's still dominated by the culture of the former owner, a rebel (or loyalist?) faction spawns on it and resists culture for a short period of time (assuming you're only destroying the government and not all of the inhabitants).
I would like to see the Rebel TEC get their own version of the pirate Cutthroat with some interesting abilities, perhaps giving up a TEC cruiser to get it. So long as the rebels from other factions traded an old cruiser class for a new kind as well.
Even so, we are getting corvettes and a new capital ship for each faction. And I think the rebels will be getting their own versions of some ships.
LPDM
So with Rebelllion research if you research one item, then another item becomes unavailable? Neat trick
I think it should be based on planet culture. factors such as planet protection, distance from capital, trade, culture, diplomacy etc are not adequate for the planets needs than they should splinter off and you can then choose which one to side with (rebel or loyalist) Kind of like an empire tw method.
Just throwing around some ideas.
I wouldn't mind if part my of territory rebelled against me especially at the end of the game. For example: I'm playing a large map with 100 planets and I just finished wiping out my enemy. Now, that's a lot of planets, I'm going to get to the point where I wipe out all resistance and move on, leaving just a dead planet behind. The perfect place for rebels to go.
Other planets of my empire notice the growing movement and decide to be a part of it. So they rebel against me.
When I play a game against the AI, I always designate a planet to be a shipyard, what if that planet rebelled? They now have the means to create a fleet.
I also wouldn't mind the opportunity to annex other territories. What if I was Vasari and a group of TEC rebels decided to join me? I never liked the idea of destroying everything and bombarding a planet every time I wanted to conquer. Why rebuild when I can just take what is there?
That's just me throwing out my thoughts.
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