We have been pleasantly surprised at how this has worked out because it gives us the opportunity to look at seeing if we have time to do something we have wanted to do: Develop the RACES further.
The Kingdoms are made up by a single race (Men)
The Empires are made up of three races presently (Men, Trogs, Urxen).
However, with the reality being that people seem to much prefer to create their own factions, it may make sense for us to return to TWO pre-made races (Men and Fallen) and then use the resources saved to put in more content to let people make their own races.
So in the Faction creation screen, you would have a “Race” tab where you would design what they look like along with a very simple Strength and Weakness list.
Illustrating the point
One of the things we thought we would have to wait until a sequel would be to let players mix their races together when they build up their kingdom or empire. Right now, you capture a city, all the people simply become your faction (and its corresponding race).
So even if you made a race of those Avatar blue guys, when you capture a city from Pariden, the city would remain populated by Men. You would then be able to created a mixed army where they all have their strengths and weaknesses and visually look different. So you could create a true “Last Alliance”.
Now, the trade off is that the 10 factions would be made up of only 2 premade races (Men and Fallen) but there’d be enough assets available then to let players create their own Orcs or Dwarves or Elves or Space Smurfs or what have you and then let players create a mixed empire.
So Men might have a +1 bonus to say Economy. Fallen might get a +1 bonus to their attack rating. Then players could also create (for instance) Elves who get a +1 to the range of their archers or any number of other differences plus they would visually look different. From this, in post-release we could explore other ramifications.
What do you think?