Factions

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Faction Pages:	Meshwesh	Hyksos	Kush

FAQs

Factions

What are factions?
T8 introduces Factions. When you leave Welcome Island, you must decide which you belong to. This will affect where you start. The three factions are:

• Meshwesh in northern Egypt
• Hyksos in central Egypt
• Kush in southern Egypt

The fourth "faction" is Desert Nomad which is attained if a player has been removed from a faction.

Do I have to choose a faction or be involved in faction game-play?
Yes, you have to choose a faction to leave Welcome Island. No, you do not have to be involved in much of faction game-play. When you are not learning technologies, you will not interact with the faction system at all. If you are concerned about not having "region" chats, form a guild of your neighbors to get a neighborhood chat.

How does tech knowledge transfer when a faction earns the loyalty of a Uni that has a previously unknown tech?
As in previous tales, techs are researched in specific universities and these unis have very strict security rules. If a faction earns the loyalty of a uni that has a tech the faction did not previously know, as long as the that uni is loyal to the faction, members of the faction can go to that uni and learn the tech. If the faction loses control of the uni, then members of the faction can no longer learn the tech at that uni. of course, they can share their knowledge with anyone on a one-on-one basis, and they can independently research the tech if they put in the required effort.

What does it mean to be kicked out of a faction?
Elders can remove any player from a faction without cause, including other Elders. Once a player has been removed, that players becomes a Desert Nomad.

How do I change factions?
To change factions, a player must be invited by an Elder into a different faction.

Just to be clear, except for geographic position, any special things about the factions?
Nothing relevant to normal play. This system is meant to augment how the tale works now. It is not altering every system, but this is designed to address the tech tree rush and the use of ET over regional chat, and create a meta game that can be played in the background. So, even if you don't want to be involved in donations for techs, you can help by earning the loyalty of regions for your faction. The regions really are just now used to denote factional territorial control.

Regions

What about regions? How do they interact with factions?
There are 50 regions, covering the entirety of Egypt. Each faction starts in a different part of the map. Each faction is based in 3 regions, aka their "home regions". When your faction "controls" a region (including the first 3 that are always loyal to the faction), your factional chat extends to cover that region. If you are in that faction, and you're in a region that your faction controls, you get your chat tab. If you're not, its akin to Hinterlands.

Elders

Who are Elders and what can they do?
Test of the Demi-Pharaoh is replaced with Test of the Elder. Elders are elected by the factions and can:

• Kick anyone from a faction (including other Elders), making the kicked player a Nomad.
• Invite players from other factions, as well as Nomads.
• Use kick or invite a total of 8 times. An invite is used even if the invited player declines.
• Elders choose which "modifier" a faction will research each month.

Technologies

Have the way universities work changed?
Yes and No. There are the same total number of universities available for each player as in T7. However, universities can be loyal to specific factions, and each faction has one complete set of Unis in its home regions which is eternally loyal to the faction. You cannot learn techs from universities which your faction does not control.

I am interested in unlocking technologies and making sure my regional guild has ALL technologies unlocked. How can I help?
In previous tales, to get access to technologies—someone has to unlock the tech at a University. In T8, there is an additional way: your faction can earn the loyalty of the scientists at a university, by giving tribute to the region. If your faction is successful at earning the loyalty of the scientists, then all members of your faction will have access to techs that university has seen unlocked. Members of the faction that previously had the loyalty of the university will lose access to the tech unless THEY were the ones to originally unlock the tech (and so have access to the tech at their home region universities) or they can earn back the loyalty of the scientists.

If other factions unlock techs, how can I learn those techs?
You can either learn the techs from someone who has made the run to learn that tech (and belongs to the faction that controls the region the university is in), or you can wait until those who like unlocking technologies in your faction unlock the tech. If you like unlocking technologies, you are welcome to put in the effort. The more universities a faction controls, the cheaper research becomes. There are 13 capture-able universities across the map for each discipline (worship, art, leadership, etc.). Universities retain knowledge they have learned. By capturing another faction's University with techs which haven't been unlocked by the capturing faction, players can learn it from the captured University.

How does tech knowledge transfer when a faction earns the loyalty of a University that has a previously unknown tech?
As in previous tales, techs are researched in specific universities and these unis have very strict security rules. If a faction earns the loyalty of a uni that has a tech the faction did not previously know, as long as the that uni is loyal to the faction, members of the faction can go to that uni and learn the tech. If the faction loses control of the Uni, then members of the faction can no longer learn the tech at that uni. of course, they can share their knowledge with anyone on a one-on-one basis, and they can independently research the tech if they put in the required effort. If the faction researches a tech while in possession of the uni, then the uni "learns" that tech and any factions that subsequently control that uni will be able to access the tech.

Will all Unis in a faction know everything that faction knows, and therefore if any Uni changes hands, the faction which gets the Uni will know at least as much as the one it captures the U from?
Correct. Consider that Unis are one-way stores of knowledge. They won't propagate the knowledge to other Unis, but when a tech unlocks for a faction, all Unis controlled at that moment get a copy of the tech. A Uni will resync its tech, so if the faction researches a technology that the Uni does not know, the uni will acquire that technology and retain it. But if the uni flip flops between a couple of factions, it will slowly accumulate a mixture of the techs that both factions have researched while in possession of the uni.

What happens when a faction loses all Unis which know about a given tech?
Each faction will always have universities in its home area, which cannot be captured. If a faction researches a tech, it will never lose access to that tech.

Is information about who contributes to tributes (that is, earning loyalty of unis for your faction) public?
No, you can not see who gave what. You can only see a number for how much a regional guild has put into convincing the scientists.

How often can Universities change hands?
Weekly. Tributes are calculated once per earth week.

Tributes

What are tributes?
Tributes are donations to a region in an attempt to gain the loyalty of the unis in that region. Each (earth) week, tributes reset (CONFIRM?) and players in each faction have the opportunity to donate to earn loyalty for the region they want control of. What is the difference between a faction gaining control of a region and earning the loyalty of a uni? No difference. These are two different ways of saying the same thing: a faction offers tribute to gain control/loyalty of a region's universities. The tribute required by region A will be different than the one required by region B. The tributes will also change between week one and two.

Miscellaneous Information

What are faction-specific "modifiers"?
In previous tales, each Egypt region had to unlock techs by progressing down a tech tree that was identical for all regions. In Tale 8, each faction has its own tech tree. These trees are identical but in two ways.

• 1) The tech trees are almost identical, how you unlock the techs in the tree might vary from faction to faction. These will be the same techs we are used to unlocking through research.
• 2) as the techs become more advance, you get a few faction-specific modifiers. Note these modifiers are not as big in scope as techs. These modifiers are "minor perks ... they are not meant to cripple you if you dont have them"—Malard (Discord). This is separate and new from the techs that we have been used to.

An example might be the following. Tech: Viticulture tech unlocks buildings and access to growing vines for wine. Faction-specific modifiers: Grapes grow 1% faster. There is more than just the normal Unis. There is a faction-specific Uni, with faction specific modifications or mods. Elders decide which mod you can work on each month, and over the course of the game, each faction will become more diverse. The mods will need to be donated to and unlocked, like techs. So for example, chariot frequency is a tiered mod. You can only advance it once per month, at the exclusion of other mods. So you could end up pushing hard and having a faction that is really efficient at using chariot stops. But another faction is really good at test unlock speed, i.e. the time between when the timer starts and ends. Those are not learned—you inherit them for being in the faction. Make sure your elders pick wisely :smiley: consider there are 18 possible advancements in the faction tree. These are minor modifications. They are not meant to cripple you if you don't have them. The mod trees are identical, but how you unlock them is not. Also, it is not possible for one faction to unlock all of them. The Elders must choose wisely. If you're slow about it, you could lose an unlock period. If it takes you 2 months to unlock, then you've lost one of your mods. They will range from raft sailing distance, to chariot speed, to slightly better quality of items produced on an anvil.
The only thing I CANNOT do in another faction's region is learn their techs? And hear the faction chat?
Correct. Well, depends what laws you pass, as a faction. 90% of this mechanic change is a layer on top of the existing game. Faction selection is important, but no different than if you were in LoR or OE. Guilds still exist. You could have a guild across factions. More Elders can be elected, but how often is not yet disclosed.
Tell me more about Chat channels
If your faction controls the region you are standing in, you will see your faction chat channel. If you want to guarantee that your faction chat never goes away when you're at home, there is one obvious way to make it happen. (Live in one of the three areas permanently controlled by your faction)
Tell me more about earning the loyalty of a region.
Tributes are calculated once a week (seven earth days), and tributes change once a week. Tributes are different per region as well. If the region is not contested, you could win it by adding just 1 resource to the scales. If there is a tie, the defender wins the tie. A Uni loyal to your faction can teach you anything your faction has researched plus any additional techs it picked up while in other factions

• So, here is the big twist I guess: the more regions you control, the harder it is to capture additional regions. To hold all 41 regions in one faction, would be very difficult and expensive, as your donations are valued less. if you control no regions, your donations are more valuable.

What happens if a Uni changes factions when some donations have been made to it?
The (faction's) home region Uni holds ALL donations. All other Unis are proxies. You can donate into any Uni (that you control) and it syncs it with the master donation list. You do not need to set up a camp around a specific Uni if you don't want to.
Is it safe to assume that an Invite is not a steal, and the Invited party needs to accept to join a different faction? Also, assuming it has to be accepted, is the Invite "lost" if the invited player rejects the invitation? Obviously a Kick is a unilateral decision on the part of an Elder
Correct, an invite is just that, however it is considered USED even if it is not accepted
if you're in another faction's controlled area, do you see their chat?
No. That would defeat the whole purpose of faction wide chat.
Can you learn, get kicked, join a new faction and teach those techs?
You don't need to leave to teach someone else, but your faction's rating will go down, more on that later. You can only learn from Unis that are in your faction. So if you are a Nomad, that's an end to your tech learning ability. Being a Nomad is effectively being kicked from the game. (It only applies to Unis. Schools are neutral.)

How does advancement work?

Apophis - Discord #general at 5:05 PM 06Apr18

Ok, I will explain this mechanic, because it's critical

Players start at zero faction 'points'

Every time they do anything positive for the faction, they are given a message that they have done something favored by the faction.

That means they are given positive 'points'.

Once they hit a threshold, they are eligible for promotion, and their bar turns green.

Once they are promoted, their points are reset to zero.

If you sit on your butt and do nothing - not a single donation or point or anything - for a full week, you are at risk of demotion. This is ONLY true if you are not an Initiate.

The Faction leaders expect that people who are promoted to a position of leadership should continue to assist the faction in some way.

Points are only reset if you are promoted.

You are only demoted if you have zero points (Associate-Patriarch) or less than zero (Initiate-Patriarch).

Negative points are not reset.

You must climb out of that hole with good deeds.

Otherwise, you will continue to be demoted until you hit Apostate.

Apostate means nothing right now.

However, the following things are moving with regards to Apostate:

1) We are adding the ability for Elders to ban Apostates without using one of their eight bans. We're still discussing how to balance it. We're looking at giving Apostates a grace week to get out of their hole before allowing Elders to freely ban them.

2) Laws that affect the rights of Apostates are fair game. The Faction leaders will Faction Veto any law that restricts Initiates, but they will freely allow any law that restricts Apostates.

You are not an Initiate by choice. You are an Apostate by choice.

You clicked through a yes/no that specifically asked you if you were sure that you wanted to perform an action that was contrary to the desires of your Faction leaders.

You reap those rewards.

see Chats/Faction and Apostate Status for more on this topic.

How do laws work with factions?

[5:45 AM] Malard: a law is applied to the citizens of a faction

[5:46 AM] Malard: and/or the regions under the control of that faction

[5:46 AM] Malard: so for example, if the kush made a law that said all Kush citizens may take other peoples straw from flax hammocks

[5:46 AM] Malard: it would only apply inside the regions under Kush control at any given moment and would be a privilege of Kush citizens(edited)

[5:47 AM] Malard: if the law said, All citizens

[5:47 AM] Malard: then anyone who is in Kush territory could do it

[5:47 AM] Malard: however a kush citizen could not do this in neutral or hyksos/meshwesh territory

--Malard, Discord: #general. 2018/02/26.

Faction Progress

As you contribute to your faction your Personal Progress indicator will change.

To check your Personal Progress go to your faction's Great Hall, or a Chancery built by your faction, and select Personal Progress from the menu.

Faction Rewards and Penalties (Apophis: Discord #information at 11:20 AM 07Apr18)

Factions require work in order to continue reaping their rewards. Every player has a faction standing, and a faction rank. Faction standing is a point total based on what you do. It can go down or up, depending on if you do things that are favored or not favored in your faction. The game will tell you when you have done something favored or not favored for your faction.

The color of your bar indicates where you stand.

Info	Progress Bar State
Sand Colored: Zero faction points. If you are at this level and are at a rank higher than Initiate, you are at risk of being demoted the next time promotions/demotions occur.	insert screenshot
Blue Colored: Positive faction points. You have done something that makes your faction happy, and are not at risk of demotion. However, you have not done enough to be eligible for promotion.
Green Colored: Positive faction points. You have done enough to be eligible for promotion.
Red Colored: Negative faction points. You have angered your faction in some way. Be sure to gain faction points to undo whatever things you have done before promotion, or you are at risk of being demoted the next time promotions/demotions occur.

When you are promoted, your progress is reset to zero, or Sand Colored. This means you must do something the next week, or you may be demoted back to your original standing.

When you are demoted, your points are not reset to zero. You must earn yourself out of the hole you have dug for yourself.

Negative points are only awarded if you do something the faction leaders particularly dislike, like teaching technology to someone from a different faction.

There is a faction rank below Initiate called Apostate. Apostates are almost outlaws in the faction. If you are an Apostate for two weeks running, you will be eligible for removal from your faction by any of your faction Elders without using their bans. In addition, factions can pass laws restricting your faction interactions. Factions can not, however, prevent Apostates from regaining points and getting back into the good graces of the faction.

Caveat(?) Malard Oct. 4, 2018 @Sahira you lose a small % each week