Unclear Description: Faction Calculus

Looking at the current Faction Calculus page, there's a rather.......well, lets just say inaccurate description of how things work, mostly on the front of Powerhouse vs Subversive.

If someone who did not understand RTS games first saw it, they'd simply see it as Elite Army vs Zerg Rush. This is, by and large, incorrect, and mistaking a common correlation with causation.

Powerhouse factions in an RTS or other strategy game, are defined by their high cost-efficency, ability to mass powerful armies, and preference for overwhelming power.

Subversive factions, on the other hand, favor traits such as harassment capability (often done through long-ranged high speed units), stealth, speed, and utility spells, at the cost of the same raw power that the Powerhouse faction has.

Many games tend to give the Powerhouse faction higher cost units with greater singular power, but this is not a mandatory part of such a faction's gameplay. Instead, it's a simple "cue" where "This faction's units are stronger, but slower" is made more noticable through more expensive units.

For example, Command & Conquer: Generals has it where the United States is undeniably the Elite Army faction, yet China is classified as the Powerhouse. While Battlemasters aren't as expensive or individually powerful as Crusaders, China has higher overall cost-efficiency and is better suited to throwing tank against tank until one side runs out.

I'll toss my hat in because I was the one who originally overhauled the description. I'll post the original at the bottom of the post. I overhauled it because in its original format, the page was IMHO illegible; it kept noting that factions would become defined as different playstyles as more factions were added, the Powerhouses become the Balanced and then the Balanced becomes two factions and it always goes this way, you'll never have a Three Faction game with the Horde or Cannons, and if your game has more than five factions you can't apply this theory to them. I opted for a simple straightforward "here's the five common playstyles and generally how they work and compare with each other."

That said, I agree heavily that the page still needs an overhaul. A major problem with that, though, is that it's impossible for anyone not familiar with RTS gameplay to contribute or even fully understand the page, because it's examples are so terribly written, many just listing the factions of a game and assigning them a playstyle without any explanation of how or why they fit the playstyle. My main experience with the trope is for Starcraft II's Co-op mode, where there was an argument over Nova being the Subversive or the Powerhouse; as she is a Ghost agent (read: invisible assassin supersoldier) in charge of a Spec Ops team, someone kept arguing she's the Subversive, but in practice she's the Powerhouse because she commands units with superior stats to Raynor and Swann and powerful damaging abilities, but her army size is limited.

That said, I truly question if the five-playstyle Faction Calculus stuff is really a theory of RTS games, or just something someone made up here. I looked around Google briefly and everything I found discussing the theory is quoting or copying our explanation. So first I think it's important to establish if this is actually a theory of gameplay used widely, and not just something TV Tropes users came up with and other people started referring to. From there we can look at actually establishing what types of playstyles there commonly are and what defines them.

---

Two Factions:

With two factions, it will be the USSR vs. NATO, Allies vs. Nazis, Humans vs. Orcs, Elves Versus Dwarves, or the USA vs. an unspecified terrorist organization (who are most definitely not Middle-Eastern). One faction — "Powerhouse" for convenience — will employ the Elite Army trope, relying on a small number of powerful units; the other faction — "Subversive" — will use faster, weaker, and somewhat cheaper units (depending on gameplay mechanics), but will usually not have to resort to the Zerg Rush any more than the Powerhouse will have to resort to the Tank Rush. Historically, the Evil Empire is typically the Powerhouse faction, but in keeping with current real-world trends, it's becoming more common for the "Good Guys" (including the US or NATO in real-world settings) to be the Powerhouse while weaker, decentralized non-state bad guys play as the Subversives.

• Examples: Allies (Subversive) vs. Soviets (Powerhouse) in Command & Conquer: Red Alert. In the Tiberium games of the Command & Conquer series, the factions are GDI (Powerhouse) vs. Brotherhood of Nod (Subversive).

Three Factions:

With three factions, the previous Subversive faction becomes "The Balanced" by moving up the power scale, while a new Subversive faction emerges. The new Subversives rely on weak, swift, massed units and special powers/dirty tactics such as stealth, deception, or Mind Control. The Balanced, as suggested by its name, has become a balance between the new Subversive and the Powerhouse, not quite as powerful but not quite as weak either. Typical Subversives include The Undead, terrorist organizations, WWII Russians, and the morally ambiguous.

• Examples: Atreides (Balanced), Harkonnen (Powerhouse), and Ordos (Subversives) from Westwood's Dune games. Starcraft's Zerg (Subversive), Terrans (Balanced), and Protoss (Powerhouse) are another Trope Codifier.

Four Factions:

When a fourth faction is introduced, the Balanced splits in two; The new Balanced and the Cannons. The Balanced moves towards the Powerhouse in a Magic Knight fashion, while the Cannons specialize with more Squishy Wizard and Glass Cannon units. With this split, the power field has become close, and factions grow alike.

• Examples: Warcraft III's Human Alliance (Balance), Orcish Horde (Powerhouse), Undead Scourge (Subversive), and Night Elf Sentinels (Cannons). Battle Realms Dragon Clan (Balance), Wolf Clan (Powerhouse), Lotus Clan (Subversive), and Serpent Clan (Cannons).

Five Factions:

The fifth faction, The Horde, completes the circle by being a mix of the Powerhouse's power and the Subversive's numbers. The Horde doesn't have very powerful units. They're probably better than the Subversives' and worse than the Cannons', and it's only through sheer numbers that the Horde will win. The Horde takes the Zerg Rush aspect of the Subversive as its only tactic, but they won't need any other tactics. Numbers will suffice. The Subversive, having lost their numerical superiority, will compensate with further special powers, making basic Subversive units weaker than basic Horde units, but no longer used as much for Zerg Rushing.

• Example: The Rise of the Reds mod for Command & Conquer: Generals: Zero Hour has the USA (Balanced), the Russian Federation (Powerhouse), the European Continental Army (Cannons), the Global Liberation Army (Subversive), and China (Horde).

Six or More Factions:

At this point, there are no established conventions. See A Commander Is You for the many variations that occur at this point.

edited 24th Aug '17 8:14:52 AM by DrakeClawfang

Sorry I didn't notice the reopening. My bad there.

In my opinion, the best solution would be to simplify Faction Calculus to only have 1 real axis.

Unskilled, but Strong and Weak, but Skilled, with factions existing on a linear scale between the two. I'll use an example of an RTS below, then how an entry could look.

The Empire boasts a large, powerful army of assault forces with great cost-efficiency, whereas the Rebellion's forces tend to be less powerful for their cost, but faster, and have access to various tricks such as stealth, crowd control, and long range. The Republic's forces generally lie in the middle, being powerful, but not as powerful as the Empire's, but still having a few tricks of their own, but not as many as the Rebellion.

The Empire - The Republic - The Rebellion.

As for more complex sub-types such as Factions specializing in long range or close range, such as 40k's Tau and Chaos respectively, or those with huge hordes like China in Rise Of The Reds or elite, smaller armies like the Order of the Talon, those can be noted in A Commander Is You (since currently the two tropes overlap excessively)

This asymmetric design, where raw power is faced by cunning and trickery creates multiple factions with different playstyles and assymetric design......whereas simply making four Zerglings equal to two Marines or one Zealot without really making any side better at anything only manages to create the appearance of assymetric play, without really creating any. Hence why Starcraft II moved Protoss towards being a Powerhouse faction centered on deathballing their tanky, cost-effective units, Zerg has fast forces, global mobility, and multiple angles of attack, and Terran is a balance between the two extremes.

edited 11th Oct '17 5:31:21 PM by DarthWalrus

~@Drake Clawfang ~@Madrugada

I really need to learn how to do this more effectively.

Sounds good to me for the Weak, but Skilled vs Unskilled, but Strong dichotomy.

And I just realized you replied. God I'm an idiot.

I'll get right to work banging together a first draft.

Man, I am awful at writing tropes. Still haven't come up with anything.

WIP Now

In Strategy Games — whether turn-based, real-time, or 4X — or tabletop wargames, when there are different factions, these will (usually) have different advantages, disadvantages, and play styles to entertain the player. With a low amount of factions, there are clear, fundamental differences, but as the factions grow, the differences subside, until eventually the sides are not polar opposites as much as points on a gradient line between two extremes.

At the core of Faction Calculus are two sides. The Unskilled, but Strong Powerhouse, and the Weak, but Skilled Subversive.

• The Powerhouse - Power and Efficiency. Powerhouse armies typically consist of powerful units with great durability and attack power. Pound for pound, Dollar for Dollar, their forces are flat out stronger than their opponents and in a head on meatgrinder, they'll come out on top. What abilities they do have tend to be things like HerdHittingAttacks, temporary power-ups, heailng, and other things that make them even harder to beat head on, or a few tools oriented towards forcing their opponents to fight them head on.

• Subversive - Speed and Techique. Subversive armies can't handle Powerhouses head-on, atleast not without simply having a bigger army where their they overcome the fact that their troops are weaker for their cost via out-spending, but realistically, that's not going to work as plan A. Intead, Subversive forces use a combination of burst damage Hit-and-Run Tactics, striking at their opponent's vulnerable supply lines, support units, and artillery, leaving traps, or otherwise "cheating" to get the upper hand.

The contrast between the two playstyles allows for a more varied game than strictly Cosmetically Different Sides and mirror matches. The Subversive player will have to play around the Powerhouse's greater power using his techiques, while the Powerhouse needs to predict and counter the tricks and traps of the Subversive player's forces to bring his strength to bear.

As the number of factions increase, they typically get dropped somwhere on the Power-and-Subversion gradient, with A Commander Is You mixed in to represent various "Gimmicks" added to factions ranging from Numerically superior or inferior forces, ones suited towards long-range or close-range, as well as even economic advantages.

In particular examples, all that has to be shown is a straight line, delineating Powerhouse (on the left) to Subversive, on the Right. Since this reworked trope is so simplistic, it should be understandable without much more elaboration.

edited 25th Jan '18 4:56:28 PM by DarthWalrus

Failed attempt at notifying tropers.

edited 25th Jan '18 4:58:33 PM by DarthWalrus

I'm bad at this.

edited 25th Jan '18 4:58:23 PM by DarthWalrus

Fourth Tim'es the charm? (Pls delete these)

edited 25th Jan '18 4:59:35 PM by DarthWalrus

~Drake Clawfang

~Madrugada

At this point is it even a trope, or a form of "calculus"?

It's a definitely recurring theme across almost all RTS and even most TBS games.

Command and Conquer's GDI and Nod are the archetypical examples of Powerhouse and Subversive respectively, GDI's heavier tanks were more effective for their cost than Nod's light tanks, and that's before we get into each faction's respective recurring "Advanced" tank, the Mammoth Tank and the Stealth Tank.

Protoss are Powerhouse, Terran are Balanced, and Zerg are Subversive in Starcraft II. Protoss use a tanky "Deathball" of powerful units to smash enemies. Terrans have an open pile of basically every option from huge human-wave assaults that mow down the enemy under a endless tide of lead, ponderous yet powerful armored advances, and multiple rapid harassment options, while Zerg mostly rely on squishy, fast, and supply inefficient/bursty units, speed, and yes, lots of We Have Reserves because they're the Zerg.

. Warcraft III goes Horde-Alliance-Scourge-Night Elves, End War goes Russia->USA->Europe, Dawn of War has Necrons>Orks>Imperium>Spehs Marines>Tau>Elfdar/Dark Elfdar (I don't play Do W, but it's an approximation I hope is correct) It's a repeating theme that exists, same as Short-Range Shotgun, Shotoclone, and whatnot.

As for calculus, it sort of does. Imagine the "Baseline" faction (Which may or may not actually exist) as 0/0. Faction Calculus posits that, if we assume X as Power and Y as Techique, all Factions will exist more or less along this curve, where as Power goes up, Techique goes down.

Also, I like the word Posit. Propose would be more accurate, but Posit just sounds so..... mathy.

edited 25th Jan '18 7:41:18 PM by DarthWalrus

Blizzard called it 'non-linear balancing' back when Starcraft first innovated it, as one to one no unit stacks straight up against another but as a collective things balance out.

Before that you had Warcraft and Warcraft where every faction had the equivalent unit with the exact same stats outside of 1 or 2 special units. You still see this in games like Civilization VI where every civ only has 1 unique unit and 2 unique traits but other than that they are exactly the same.

edited 25th Jan '18 9:40:58 PM by Memers

A question. How do we compare "ninja" subversive to "mass horde" subversive?

Example: Night Elves vs. Scourge. Night Elves use small elite forces with a lot of magic and mezzing, while the Scourge use ghoulswarms.

The undead were basically the Zerg Rush faction, lots of cheap expendable units and many ways to keep using them after they died. As well as had some Stone Wall tanks to draw threat from the smaller units.

Night Elves were the expensive specialists, lots of skills and required more micro but had normal hp levels.

Orcs were the brutes, expensive high damage high hp units that you wanted to keep alive most of all and had limited ways of doing that.

Humans were normal across the board. Not too micro intensive, not too expensive units and had ways of keeping them alive.

>A question. How do we compare "ninja" subversive to "mass horde" subversive?

Atleast in my revision, "Mass Horde" wouldn't be classed as a Subversive trait. It's a common trait to tap onto the Subversive faction, as higher power units tend to be better at powerhouse tactics even outside of cost/power ratios thanks to the fact that they lose damage output more slowly (2 8 attack 80 health units vs a 16 attack 160 health unit......once one of the smaller ones is dead, the other one can't keep up the DPS race by itself), and if they're not bigger, squash themselves into large formations more easily, while multiple weak units are better suited to multi-pronged attacks. Even so, "Horde" Powerhouse factions, like Dawn of War's Orks and Command And Conquer's China do exist, which calls into question whether Numbers=Subversive is Causation or Correlation.

"Mass horde" or "Swarmer" factions would be something to class under A Commander Is You, because right now those two tropes overlap stupidly heavily. (The top section is basically the current Faction Calculus trope by itself for crying out loud)

edited 10th Apr '18 6:11:10 PM by DarthWalrus

Perhaps I'm missing something here, but what *is* the difference between Faction Calculus and A Commander Is You? Would any information get lost if Faction Calculus was simply cut?

Currently? They're being misused really.

Faction Calculus: Statistical difference in factions on a power/trickery axis (Misconstrued to Elite Army vs Zerg Rush)

A Commander Is You: Different "Gimmicks" for a faction to base itself around.

Honestly, I should probably just go ahead and make the change now. Procrastination sucks.

edited 10th Apr '18 6:10:04 PM by DarthWalrus

Goddamnit.....I haven't played all these games. Re-categorizing them is going to take a long time.

Clock is up; locking for inactivity/lack of consensus. No action is to be taken on the basis of this thread.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman