Discussion Main / FactionCalculus

Doesn't the entire Aliens Vs Predator setting fit into this?

Is it me or this can be better defined by crossing it with Competitive Balance? As it is, while the difference between Powerhouse and Cannon is as clear as the difference between Mighty Glacier and Glass Cannon, however Subversive and The Horde seem to be The Same, but More Specific. At first sight, the difference between the latter two seem to be "uses cheap, weak and fast-produced units" and "uses cheap, weak and fast-produced units to only execute a very specific task".

Why does this page even exist? It shares the exact same conceptual space as A Commander Is You, only that page has the granularity needed to describe things with enough detail that you'd actually be able to understand what a faction does reading the entry. To start with the obvious, as written the Subversive and Horde factions are almost exactly the same. The distinctions are very strange and don't map to any strategy theory or even anything you'd find in reality.

It also isn't clear how to classify factions in most games. Take something really iconic - the Zerg. Obviously they're going to be Horde or Subversive. Sounds like Horde because, come on, they're a Horde of Alien Locusts and they are a pretty extreme example of quantity over quality. However, they also have two abilities specifically listed in Subversive - taking control of other units and summoning more units, and according to this page if a game has three factions one of them is probably subversive. But wait! They also have really good damage for their cost but are squishy, so does that actually make them Cannons?

But it isn't just a problem of most factions being able to be described as multiple of this page's types, the labels are also so broad they aren't going to capture the much more important aspects of factions that would actually tell you what factions do. Take Advance Wars for example. 90% of the commanders would count as "balanced" despite being significantly different. Andy has no strengths or weaknesses and repairs stuff, Javier has good ranged defense and an affinity for com towers, Adder is fast, Olaf makes it snow, Sonja can see in fog of war, and all five of them fall under "balanced" in this framework. A faction in a made-up game that used only medium cost air units would be "balanced", as would a faction that relied on poison-spitting snakes and druids that summon bears, as would a faction that relied on hiding underground until enemies get close enough for the close-range attacks.

This page isn't in need of repair so much as it just needs to be scrapped and folded into the "numbers" section of A Commander is You. It describes games in a way that is not internally consistent, with descriptions that are so broad a faction could easily fit into literally half of the possible categories, but are also so vague they don't give you an idea of what a faction even does.

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Unclear Description, started by DrakeClawfang on Jan 1st 2017 at 4:51:01 AM

Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Unclear Description, started by DarthWalrus on May 26th 2017 at 9:59:23 PM

The old description was better at explaining how the process started and transitioned between games.

The new description, just says subversive is spamming units, but that is horde.

Why did you change from 5 doctrines to 2 instead?

There need to be a Turtle calculus. Plenty of factions followed this tactic: ECA from Rise of the Red, Human in Grey Goo, British in Company of Hero, European Alliance in Mental Omega, Terran in Starcraft.

I find the opening for this page rather confusing and badly written. Descriptions for the different factions change between the different types of balance but usually just to describe how the new faction is different. The page also makes constant comparisons to real life governments and organizations, which mean nothing — presuming the comparisons are being made because of how many games organize the faction types, the examples list will cover this fine. Stating these comparisons in the intro without context is just going to make a reader wonder what all these governments and races mean to defining the trope and factions. The various faction types can be described without having to draw these comparisons, and a reader can read them and draw their own parallels to games they've played to understand what is being said.

I made a sandbox showing a much simplified version of this layout, giving the faction profiles directly with much less reading and unnecessary comparisons to governments or fantasy factions.

How about tabletop games factions such as in Warhammer, Warmachine, Infinity etc

Truth in Television. Add or not?

NATO (Powerhouse/Elitist) vs. Warsaw Pact/USSR (Horde/Cannons).

Compare the M1 Abrams or Leopard II to the T80, it's clear that the NATO tanks are far more powerful, but at the same time more expensive. At the same time, Warsaw pact tactics focused on invading the West while NATO ones focused on defending Europe from the inevitable invasion.

Britain (Powerhouse) vs. America (Subversive)

The better-trained and better-armed British vs. the Pragmatic Americans who relied on knowing the lay of the land.

Nazi Germany (Elitist) Imperial Japan (Cannons) USSR (Horde) USA (Balanced/Economic) France (Subversive) Britain (Turtle) Italy and China (Pariah)

The Nazis had powerful tanks and better-trained infantry but lacked numbers, the Japanese did well on the firepower front, as well as speed, but never really got much armor on anything not named the Yamato, the USSR just had the most people other than China, whose sheer lack of armor-defeating weapons make it the Pariah, Italy was also rather Pariahish, America had the economic edge with it's massive Industry and overall good, reliable everything, Britain mostly relied on sitting behind Radar, France, being Partisans, were subversive by nature).

UN forces (Elitist) vs. China and North Korea (Spammer)

No matter how much you say human waves didn't happen, it was still a largely infantry army with minimal armor or air support relying on it's population against an elite force with offshore artillery, air support, and tanks but lacking in numbers in comparison.

So just recently, I've added the opposing factions from the Witcher books and video games, including the Nilfgaardian Empire (Powerhouse), the Northern Kingdoms (Balanced), the Scoia'tael (Cannon), and the monsters/Wild Hunt (Subversive). It's just that I thought that they should be added as examples, considering that the Witcher series is all about war and politics, despite its title referring to a simple-yet-mutated monster hunter named Geralt of Rivia.

That, and I found the factions far more interesting than Geralt. Geralt is just one man compared to all of those opposing factions that their respective members.

This is from the three factions entry:

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3: Allies (Balanced), Soviets (Subversives), and Empire of the Rising Sun (Powerhouse)

I was about to change it to Soviets (Powerhouse), Empire of the Rising Sun (Subversive) as it struck me as far more obvious that the other version but then I thought I may be looking at it wrong. Is anyone against this?

I find it funny that they consider the Scrin under "balanced". That's really not what half the multiplayer audience thinks. Half the matchmaking rooms are filled with "2v2 NO SCRIN"

Why are there so many examples where people don't specify which faction is each type? If you don't explain, than your example is meaningless.

Proginoskes: It's important to note that the Faction Calculus analysis of Magic: the Gathering is completely screwed when you expand your scope from Creatures to spells in general.

• Red does direct damage, strength at the cost of durability, and Explosive Overclocking: very much Cannon-like.
• Blue, aside from having the most inherently-elusive creatures, specialises in removing and barring opposition from the field and manipulating the terrain to make its creatures even more elusive, like a Subversive faction.
• Green does have the most high-power, high-toughness, high-cost creatures, but it also has the most of best tools for Horde-making, and pretty much the only tools to surprise your opponent by turning your Horde of vanilla 1/1's into a Horde of 6/6 tramplers.
• White remains fairly Hordelike, but is more defense-oriented than any other example on the page, frequently wanders into Powerhouse territory, and is the king of alt-win besides. Verdict: Balanced.
• Black's creatures tend to be weak, yes, and have specialised abilities, yes, but those abilities and Black's other spells tend to focus on (a) bringing stuff back from the dead, (b) killing the other army with very little effort [deathtouch] and/or deader than dead, or (c) permanently weakening opposition, all of which promote Horde tactics.