Sub-Factions: How many?

There is no "neutral" faction. What I think they mean by that is the default standard races we have now. Since the titans are tied to your subfaction, if you stay "neutral" AKA don't pick a side, you won't get a Titan.

In other words, it sounds like you start as the neutral faction, and then pick a sub faction which gives you additional benefits.

Cool. That's kinda what I thought. Thanks for clearing that up.

Its really ridiculous that they try to push this "oh there's now three factions per race" bull crap. I only recently found out that there actually aren't even any new factions at all, but that they are simply research choices given to each race. My suspicions are that other than the titans, the loyalists and rebels wont be very different from each other. This suspicion stems from the fact that they dared to tell the said fib.

I don't think they ever said there would be 9 factions, even if there are technically. They said there were 2 new subfactions per race, but some forum users took that as 9.

If you look at the new interview, there are quite a few hints that they will differ in ways far beyond the titan.

It has always been said that you start off with the standard race, then at some point, via the research you do, you become a rebel or a loyalist.  The only way to stay as a vanilla original faction is to stop researching.  Since everyone else will still be researching, you eventually will have to continue or you will be exterminated by superior forces.  So at game start, there are only 3 factions, by the end, assuming everyone has done research, there are 6 factions.

So...friends with benefits.  I see.

You forgot to indicate how many players in the figure you created. Anyways, the non loyal/rebel unresearched standard faction cant be considered a faction by itself if thats what you mean.

Ill be sure to check thanks.

What?  It doesn't matter how many players there are.  You can only choose from three factions.  Through research you can only branch off into one of two sub factions of the three main factions.  Therefor, at best, there are 6 factions in play late in the game.

One instance I was referring to was right on this site. Go to gameplay, then features.  Right there!  First bullet.

To be honest I wish you would just choose it from the beginning.

What would be nice is if you did not have to join any faction tech.....that would make it nine faction routes.

I wouldn't be surprised if that becomes an option (in case you want the AI to pick a particular subfaction), and it could probably be modded to be so. But I think the option to be neither and then pick one as the game progresses is an important feature.

I really would like to be able to choose which subfaction the AI is going to play before the game starts. It would make for more customizable single player games, which would only add to the overall Sins experience if you ask me (yes, I like playing single player games a lot aswell, besides playing online).

I also had another idea as well. perhaps this would remove the randomization of Diplomatic Inclination would be to have that be effected by which subfaction you chose.

There's a new relationship factor specifically added to represent the factional hate.