AoW4 Factions, 22

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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Not sure what syrons are supposed to be other than cheesy super-elves from beyond the moon, so never paid them any attention. In practice though, their caster focus suits me just fine. Combined with mystic potential and wizard king casting, I fell into an easy rhythm cycling buffed spells to blast through fights. Their description turned into one of the more philosophical ones too, and not a little apropos of gaming escapism. I'd still rather have elves though.

AoW4 Factions, 21

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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I wanted to build a giant's faction around brute force, with nasty ogres wading into fights and just hacking away at targets until they drop... and that's exactly what I got. Probably the least complicated faction I ever played. Like the primal halflings, being pretty tough they got a lot more use than others out of their primal buff stacks. They remind me of those cops from Idiocracy somehow. Ah, that's enough o' yer bullshit, sir.

AoW4 Factions, 20

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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When giants got introduced, I couldn't help playing up the comparison of my ruler to his subjects' size. And what could be funnier than a bunch of little frogs hippity-hopping around their dear leader? Making them evil and carelessly murderous would pair well with an imagined, slightly incompetent sibilance to their chanting, punctuated by random hops. I also wanted to try combining shadow's ice and necromancy with chaos' fire. It went... not great. Still, little frog mages hiding behind my legs blasting enemies with random temperature gradients were both amusing enough and aptly chaotic, and if it lacked synergy at least this odd couple pairing was flexible.

AoW4 Factions, 19

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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I wanted to make some bugs. I made some bugs. Other than the hive mentality I was weirdly uninspired by them. Imperialists, adept settlers, etc. made for explosive early expansion. Powerful, but not my style. Never played them again.

AoW4 Factions, 18

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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I had a dragon aspect left over and wanted more nature/chaos interplay, so a bunch of happy-go-lucky halflings seemed about right. In practice though they ended up more brute-force oriented than I'd expected, getting a lot of use out of their Primal stacks. Elusiveness and quick reflexes combined with materium defense buffs but little nuking let fights drag out long enough for those stacks to come into play repeatedly. First-turn draconic vitality then runesmiths piling on the enchantments instead of nuking just drive the strat further in that direction. Strategically, a nice middle ground faction with a bit of everything, steady as she goes. Kinda love the concept too, can really picture the moment of wonder, glimpsing their new overlord through the brush, skittish little savages marveling at the possibilities.

AoW4 Factions, 17

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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I wanted a good-aligned chaos faction and realized I hadn't made any elves in the freewheeling, treetop-singing spirit. The type to awaken ents with their chatter. More satisfying than my previous feytouched, combining chaos, nature and mystic summoning made for easy instant armies, and I've found myself replaying them more than most. Less nuke-oriented than other astrals because spending every round's spell on support spells works better for their random mutt and merc mishmash lacking synergy, so little chaos fireballing either. Power-leveling summons, plus piling chaos after-combat freebies atop nature territory freebies means they rarely need to recruit at all, at least during the earlier of the four X phases. The usual summoner caveat applies double, though: mind your mana upkeep.

AoW4 Factions, 16

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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This came from leafing through various options for whatever I hadn't played yet. So, yes, astral dragon + random panthers. There is something appealing though about a bunch of ethereal Cheshire Cats, probably because it's an opportunity to downplay both tiger roars and a dragon's sheer bulk for a nuke-happy strategy. I think I ended up investing very little in materium after the initial production bonuses.

AoW4 Factions, 15

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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For the life of me I couldn't think of a better slant on moles than the "dug too greedily and too deep" routine, mostly because it's impossible to write anything about moles that doesn't center on digging. And hey, I wanted more Lovecraftian horror. The mental invasion thing just doesn't mesh with my preferences though, so this ended up being just another single-win faction.

AoW4 Factions, 14

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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Well, can't have wolf without a little big bad, can we? The concept and execution meshed well for once, an aggressively-focused faction tactically with lots of free units and growth to fuel steady strategic advance. Lots of churn, rapid hero leveling, and pretty adept at taking down large prey with plentiful buff-debuffs and the pack tactics bonus. Another of my favorite combos. As far as the flavor text goes, all due respect to Lynn Margulis but I just ain't buyin' it.

 

(These guys await more replays whenever Triumph implements some shadow/nature magic tomes.) 

AoW4 Factions, 13

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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More fair folk hauteur, though with a slightly nicer angle. I wanted an order-aligned elf faction with a crowd-pleasing champion leader for some reason, made them feytouched with wolf worship to make them more appealing, thought they'd be my favorites and I think I still ended up playing them exactly once. It's just not me, the whole man of the people orderly thing.

AoW4 Factions, 12

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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I wasn't quite sure what to make of the eldritch update's various gameplay changes, so just as when dragons launched I fell back on orcs as generic minions just as I did for my first dragon. Their aggressiveness worked well with the extra unit summons and crowd control, and a bit of order-affinity support kept it all together. Uninspired concept, but I like the way it plays. And nothing says faith in a higher power like chanting, gibbering, maniacal, bloodthirsty savages.

AoW4 Factions, 11

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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When the fairies came into play it prodded me to revisit elvishness, more from the edgy, haughty Feanor-grade immortal angle. This "trader at the gates" setup, for its neutrality, actually works quite well for showing a faction's default attitude, much as in #5, the goblin example. Another unfocused faction in terms of affinity, but I remember it working better than others. With the resource bonus from talented collectors and nature expansion bonuses they grow better, and can go offensive or defensive with shadow or materium. The extra naga mobility just doubled(trebled?) down on their adaptability. I can't remember whether this or the other elvish description using the word "eschatologic" came first. I tend to fixate on elvish immortality too much over their other traits, but the poetic weight of endings and beginnings is hard to ignore.

AoW4 Factions, 10

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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Like I said, dragons don't particularly inspire me, and this faction was made just so I could play around with an order dragon. Goats too, for some reason. Didn't like making it, didn't like playing it, can barely remember it.

 

Well, they can't all be winners. 

AoW4 Factions, 9

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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Wolves! Thank you, finally, they put some damn wolves in the game! I was also surprised to find a text box in the last faction creation window, so these guys are the first to receive a description right from the start. I wasn't ready to get back into character bio blurbs though, so I ended up over-playing the repetitive verbal reinforcement. I also merely rehashed my old City of Villains dominator's bio, but 'yknow what? That's ok. That is oh-kay. I also got into a flexibility kick for a few factions around this time, so their affinity's all over the place. Not quite as satisfying from a roleplaying perspective. Effective though, even if it's not easy scrounging enough Imperium to make it worthwhile.

AoW4 Factions, 8

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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I'm not too keen on dragons as a fantasy trope, so didn't know what to do with this next one. But the hoarding game mechanic fed me an easy gimmick, especially for an earth dragon. I'm just a material dragon boy in a material mammal world. The "wow, birds are dinos?" angle was again too hard to resist.

AoW4 Factions, 7

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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Ah, my first dragon. AoW4 rulers need not be the same race as their factions, and in the case of later ruler types like dragons, giants or eldritch abominations, they flat-out cannot be. So it was a nice chance to play an evil orc faction, ignoring Triumph's trendy noble savage reinterpretation of orcs for some good old-fashioned death cult stuff. As with all these early factions the flavor text was added long after the fact, but I like the way it came out. I've done this sort of call-and-response cult leader routine for a couple of others. It suits the "awakened ancient evil" pretty damn well if I do say so myself. All-out necromancy also meshed well with dragon powers making up for the early weakness of relying on skeletons, once I learned not to bankrupt my mana pool raising too many of them.

AoW4 Factions, 6

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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Those like myself who grew up reading The Lost World and watching The Flintstones still hold a sense of amazement at the confirmation of the dinosaur>bird lineage. It helped that dragons were put into the game around this same time for an extra big lizard tie-in. On the battlefield, these are some nasty hard-hitting pretty pollys too, so long as I time the first strike salvo correctly. Muskets and astral nuking. Big badda-boom. For a bonus, the dragonkin transformation (extra crits as they lose health) also rewards a death-or-glory charge.

(edit: Looking back on this now, I don't like how much the flavor text ended up sounding like my elvish factions. Oh well. It's probably the antiquity angle skewing my affectations.) 

AoW4 Factions, 5

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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I was in the mood for some evil factions after my first dwarves and halflings, so some rampaging barbarian gobbos really hit the spot. I do remember I avoided the necromancy side of shadow magic with them, but went heavy on banshees as support every time. Now I keep picturing them tossing that trader in a big stew pot like in old cartoons.

AoW4 Factions, 4

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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These guys were unexpectedly fun, though I only played them a couple of times. To get the most out of their culture bonus to adjacency and their support units' AoE, I ended up splitting them into a couple of tercios every fight. Like all the early factions, the bio was written years after, when I was apparently in a parochial mood.

AoW4 Factions, 3

AoW4 has managed the odd feat, unequaled since City of Heroes, of inspiring me to not just write up a character bio but constantly create new factions and give them all more or less whimsical flavor text. So here they are, one by one:

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My next couple of factions were heavily defensive tactically, with this one working best as trench warfare with healers shuffling behind it. Weirdly, strategically it's one of the more aggressive since order/materium lacks many of the others' freebies, thus needing to establish itself, and benefits from a wide vassal pool for rallying. It's not easy for me to get into the Lawful mindset, or at least to treat it as anything but evil, but I like the affirmation here, and the call-and-response dynamic rapidly establishes a leader at the podium.