Finding your Voice
Factions.
Here are the factions: the aggressive conquest Klingon guys.
The evil insectoid hive mind who build stuff and/or have loads of cheap soldiers.
The researchers who are probably robots and you usually pick because they can be competitive at anything.
The diplomacy/espionage ones (humans, or The Greys).
You know what I’m talking about.
The selection screen isn’t about picking a bonus; it’s an invitation to inhabit these characters.
Take the Heartless Artificer.
So alright, she’s the reflavoured growth option.
Except that her downside is lower production…unless you sacrifice that population.
To choose to kill those people.
To play the part.
Better still, you get to define that part, not just go through its motions.
SMAC’s Deirdre andEndless Legend’sRoving Clans were already committed to an ideal, set on a specific path.
Zephon’s are characters starting at a crossroads.
Some literally are, in fact.
Is he a champion sharing his luck, or a monster using his elite army to rule forever?
“She has survived cancer.
She has survived ZEPHON.
And she will survive this.”
Each leader gets research options to mitigate their problems too - the scavengers' reduce the morale penalties.
Does that make his story a fall from grace, his nobility worn away by compromises and rationalisations?
Everyone gets their own subplots too, with multiple choices revealing secrets or testing your character’s beliefs.
I didn’t even think of second-guessing what the game outcomes would be from those decisions.
It is unfortunately more lacking in diplomacy than I’d hoped.
You are told what influenced their decision, but onlyafterthey make it.
You might pick the side thats not a natural ally, different technologies, or try a mutator.
One of those makes demoralised units switch sides, another penalises uniform armies.
One turns dead units into “deformities” hostile to everyone.
Comebacks are possible too.
The bastard came back, partly regenerated, and started hitting me again.
Humanity on a tightrope being sawn at both ends, every remaining figure a defiant thread.
