It would be interesting to know why those polled believe that. I personally prefer to create my own race not because I'm interested in role playing, but because it allows me to play the game I want to play it. (And usually gives me some advantage). I'd actually prefer much more distinctive factions. (Really, factions a la MoM, but that's not on the cards.)

After rereading the OP a couple of times, I guess I don't really get what Draginol is trying to say. I think he segway-ed badly, because I'm not getting how the redoing of races is supposed to effect factions. Of course I want mixed kingdoms, but I basically want interesting, balanced factions right out of the box even more. Ultimately my fear, unfounded or not, is that there will be no difference between "race" and "culture", that an "elf" will always be a arrow slinging bandit type, a fancy swordsman or a mystical druid and never really "break out" of their hardcoded culture. Differentiate opposing forces by culture rather than race is a really bold move for a fantasy game, and frankly, I think that's a whole lot more interesting.

Actually, I do like the idea of consolidating the races down to two and instead making minor "subraces" out of those races with different attributes. Relying on player input during race creation without having solid, well-developed races, however, I don't think is such a great move. I might play around with making my own race, but I'd much rather stick with something well-made and well-thought.

In Civilization there's only 1 "race" (Humans) with dozens of factions.

In Galactic Civilizations there are 12 races each representing a faction.

In Sins of a Solar Empire, there are 3 races each with several different factions.

In Elemental, we have 10 factions which are made up of several races that are broadly outlined into natural and unnatural (Fallen) groups and then aligned between two philosophies (kingdom and empire).

That's a mouthful and is what we're looking to clean up. The question is, in what direction should we clean it up towards?

DFWAB. Don't Fix What Ain't Broke.

For me the most important thing is that the factions (not only the one that you play, but also the ones that you play against) should be really different - not just a diplomacy bonus or a research bonus, but different buildings, units, technologies etc. that encourage the player to use different strategies when playing different factions, which is good for the replay value. It's not important if the customization is done on faction level or on race level (although the ability to have cities of different races would be nice).

I'd strongly support the proposed idea of allowing many different races with the potential for mixed-raced empires and armies through conquest; this was a great feature in games like MoM and Age of Wonders that has since been forgotten.

A neat twist to go with this could be allowing a spell or racial/sovereign ability to massacre a conquered city's population. Perhaps a powerful necromancer could capture a city of Men and change them to Skeletons overnight? > Creating a newly designed race using Essence would be another one.

You cleaned it up pretty tidily right there. It really isn't all that complicated, except for how the word "race" is sloppy in modern terms but apt for a fantasy setting.

p.s. I'm trying suppress my paranoid fear that the marketing/multiplayer/modder conspiracy is steadily dumbing down the game. It's just hard sometimes.

I'm not real bent for the faction setup or anything, but if you strip it down to one generic human and fallen side with just the magic decided by what kind of channeler you picked, it's going to take a long time for modders to fill in the gap.

Of course, if the difference between one faction and the next is a couple unique techs, I'll miss my own shit about as much.  Civ style setups have always pissed me off.  Even when they end up playing differently because of an early advantage or something, it's still bland.

Then again, Civ is monolithic among the 4X crowd, so my viewpoint obviously isn't shared, so maybe everyone else will miss them even if they aren't significantly different sides.  In any case, I'm going to further my education in an attempt to create my ideal undead hordes and bury the land in reanimated corpses.

Edit: Assuming I like the combat system.  Forgot the all important qualifier, I need beaten with a wet noodle, or maybe a feather.

Taking a page from the game, Master of Magic, that trumps Age of Wonder, Warlords, Heroes, and all games in the same vein so far..

    5.1) High Men - With Paladins Rule
    5.2) Barbarians - Fast Growing, Axe Throwing, Berserk Hordes
    5.3) Nomads - Tough Rangers, Horsebowmen, Flying Griffins and Extra Gold
    5.4) High Elves - Extra Magic and Longbowmen
    5.5) Dark Elves - Magic Power Incarnate
    5.6) Lizardmen - Ideal for "Small" Land
    5.7) Halflings - Mighty Midgets
    5.8) Trolls - A Regenerating Army That You Can't Stop
    5.9) Klackons - Kill them on sight? You decide . . .
    5.10) Dwarves - Productive Workers, Deadly Hammerhands
    5.11) Draconians - Flying Firebreathers
    5.12) Gnolls - Least favorite!
    5.13) Orcs - A Well-Balanced Race
    5.14) Beastmen - Another Well-Balanced Race

Notice the variation of races and how the game has some fun with the canon races. I agree with the comments before that races with characteristics in their AI and Ethos makes for a colorful experience. You could get a similar effect also for factions based on psychological bio to guide their AI, however, races with specific units, ways of building would help guide and justify design.

As far as modding, I'm not into the idea of modding a race unless it's simple and interesting. Otherwise it's time wasted. It's a surprising amount of fun mastering each race and their querks, and basing your style of play on that. 

I've said this once before, but I'll say it again here.

The game needs distinct, separate factions. And no, simply adding something like "+1 to unit production" to a faction does not make it distinct. Unique abilities, unique items, unique units, unique buildings please. The different factions should play differently!

The various different factions should each be a unique experience (all 10 of them) as opposed to arbitrary bonuses. Even the "race bonuses" for each faction don't fully cut it. There needs to be a difference in training time, build time, perhaps City-Building will be balanced differently with each race, and Output of buildings could be different (Tarth Workshops +0.5 wood, Gilden Mines +0.5 ore).

Amount of food required per house could be different, housing level per house, expense per house ... all could be different. Level to which Prestige plays in population growth ... or how Prestige effects different aspects of game play (diplomacy, training speeds, recruitment) could be unique as well.

Essentially, Game Mechanics should work differently for each faction (even if the same race) ... and each race should also have its own unique quirks in stats and overall abilities. For instance, human units could train faster while Fallen units have more health, and each race having its own set of spells for each spell book (Fallen has burning hands and blazing soul, while Humans have Flare and Fireball).

Mixed race armies will make me happy.

As long as we can use each race's natural advantages together on the battlefield, and in the city...I'll beam.

Edit: I'd suggest the set direction, instead of increased moddability. I realize that you (Frogboy) are making a fair point - I always play my own faction, in one way or another. But I take inspiration from existing ones. Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that you can -always- increase moddability or offer additional assets at a later date, be it DLC or proper expansions. But you'll have a hard time to ever, ever go back and do the original lore and factions 'right' again.

So do those right from the beginning. Then you can consider taking a step back, release packages to increase moddability or the influence the player have on their looks, race, whatever.

Just my 2 cents.

So one thing that concerns me is the distinction between race and faction.  In most games like this (at least the big ones I'm aware of) you only have one of these.  In MOO for instance a race is the Psylons and there is no sub-faction of Psylons that are a little different.  In Civilization you have a country which is like your concept of a faction.  They are all made up of men but have some small differences.  MOM just has a race you pick and your leader separates races from playing the same.  You are separating what I usually think of as one thing into two and asking us to give our opinions without us having a good idea of what it really means.  Currently race doesn't matter at all when making a custom kingdom except for graphics I think.  I have a feeling some thinking about how this works in different ways.  I'm sure we all have ideas of what we think you intend but that may not be correct.  To make things even more messy you also have your sovereign/leader who also helps define your kingdom.

So for me at least I would like to know how you see each of these 3 entities defining your kingdom.  What I personally would do with these (at least on a first pass) is as follows:

Sovereign - defines personal skills for your avatar, leadership abilities and spell abilities.  I would also make him allied to a side in a more normal good/evil world.  Not sure if you could see Porcupine (or however you spell it) leading the fallen in your world or not for instance.

Faction - defines beliefs, politics and culture.  Examples would be Wood Elves and High Elves or Viking like men and Mongol like men.  Both are the same race but are very different because of their core beliefs, politics and culture.  Of course there is a problem in that these could also be different enough that they could be considered separate races altogether.

Race - defines physical abilities of each person in your kingdom and cultural limitations.  Cultural limitations being that you wouldn't see undead casting holy spells and physical abilities would stop you from seeing super strong goblins that reproduce slowly.

I'm not sure but if I were making a game I think I would at least think about combining the race and faction into one entity.  I'm not up on the lore yet of your game but I've heard mention of Ironeers being an offshoot of men.  Why not just call them another race at least in game terms?  If they share graphics with another race, that's fine.  The other I've heard about is Krax which are just evil men.  Instead of confusing matters just call them another race and through lore, graphics, similar abilities, etc show that they are just men.  I think you would get the same results and make things easier to understand.  Basically what I'm thinking of here is how MOO2 does things just that you would add another layer in the form of your sovereign. It's just that in your game you would have several races that are a little closer to each other in ability since they are the same race that had just changed slightly over time due to culture, environment or whatever.

Maybe I am alone in this but I do find the current system a little messy an unintuitive for some reason.  Perhaps if things were more fleshed out these feeling would go away.

OK... i'm on a time limit, but let me put a few points in...

BOTH are CRITICAL to the games success. Without the lore, your world feels weak. Without strong pre-made AI factions the game will fail because people want interesting factions to play against. Without strong customization the game also fails because everything feels the same.

You need as many factions as possible, with strong stories, quests, etc. At the same time you need strong customization. I don't need to be able to make Ents or Centaurs in the engine - these can be added through modding- but any kind of humonoid needs to be able to be created for sure. Tall, Short, Fat, Skinny, Races with snouts, and races with beaks, Long ears, short ears, whatever you want to make. Expansions and modding can add additional options (and the engine needs to be built to handle additional skeltons and animations etc.) but the engine should still be able to make large numbers of custom factions.

I also agree with the previous posts that say that we should make each faction a "race" at least within some margin. Your concept of "sub-races" you had originally planned WORKS for this. If you made Mancers as one type of man, Krax as another etc. it would prevent the Kingdoms from becoming boring. Maybe Ironeers are a little bit shorter and stockier than Mancers. Krax might have a different color skin, and have red eyes or something.... It wouldn't take much to classify them as different races or sub-races. That being said, 2 factions should be allowed that share the same race such as you had planned - just not ALL of the kingdoms.

Think about the real world. If China invaded Great Britain, the British people don't suddenly become Chinese. While both are human, they are different sub-races (at least in game-terms... I hope that didn't offend anyone) and can be visually told apart. Similarly if the Krax were to invade a Mancer city, their sovereign should have to deal with the consequences much more severely than another Mancer would if they were to invade.