Factions

One thing that has always fascinated me about Real Time Strategy games are the way factions are set up. I dislike playing RTS, because you have to upgrade your base and fight at the same time, but the way factions are balanced interests me. This is more pronounced in science fiction and fantasy games, and was first mastered by Starcraft.

We had Protoss, superior psychic aliens who had expensive, powerful units. We had the ravenous swarm of the Zerg, who like large numbers of cheap soldiers. The Terrans were kinda in the middle on unit cost vs. strength, but they had other things to seperate them from the other two. So, how do I take my love of factions with different units, and do something constructive with it?

Well, I can't write a story about it. "Techpirate Hijack Bot Number 543 (with rocketfeet upgrade from Chop Shop) screamed as the MethMonster Drill Wurmz (with metal digestion from the HiveShack) ate its face." doesn't come out well. Although it is hilarious.

Write out a ridiculous paper covering unit development and comparisons for a game that I don't have the financial power to make correctly? Well, that seems like fun. And it will confuse my only readers (hi mom!). It will also take forever. Meh.

Constructive is out, then. I will then describe a few factions for a crazy world my brain can come up with.

MethMonsters: Well, ole Billy added the wrong chemical to a batch of meth, and it exploded, opening a hole in space-time. He is now the mutated leader of a swarm of confused mutated animals and people. Redneck bugmonsters!

TechPirates: The reason no one has nuked Billy. TechPirates have cool robot toys and are just as slimy as normal pirates. I would make them have the most expensive units, as they are cowardly criminals who send robots to actually fight. Being attacked by bugmonsters has lowered the amount of time they spend screwing up the rest of the world.

Lizard Men: Ravenous lizard men from Venus! Hmm... I think I'd better stop.