There's something that's been bugging me recently, a little question concerning Equestria Divided: what would it be like if it was decided to be a 4X game?

For those who don't know, 4X is a type of strategy game that focuses on four aspects:
Explore the world.
Expand your empire
Exploit your resources
Exterminate your rivals

Examples of 4X games include the Civilization and Total War series.

1232394 I imagine it could fit quite nicely, but I still feel and Age of Empire/Dawn of war style game would better exploit what the story has to offer.

1232394>>1232399
While I could see Equestria Divided as a game like Total War or Civilization, I do agree that there are better formats to tell the story behind the fighting and death. A story about betrayal and broken friendships isn't the same if you can't see the hurt in their eyes.

Honestly, ED might be better served by turn based strategy games, like XCOM enemy unknown and Fire Emblem.

1232394
I'm assuming you mean a turn-based 4X like Civilization (is it just me or are units in that game ridiculously slow?) and not an RTS even though in those games you do all four X's.

1232509
Although the fire emblem system may work best for interaction (and damn I love those games), the unit system may not. Not all units have a suitable "promotion", only some do.

Plus it doesn't leave much for tactics.

I'm more onboard with Dawn of War. I can imagine Moon and Star being the Chaos Marines.

1232394 I don't think there would be much room to "Explore" since the map is already so detailed.

1232394
I don't feel like Civilization works so well. Total War feels like it might be a good fit, but to be honest I personally get the feeling that the Total War series has gotten a bit stale in recent years.
I still like the concept of turn based strategy combined with real time battles though

About the Explore, they have already Equestria, former kingdom they know quite well, and I didn't get the impression the 6 factions are looking for expansion through griffon kingdoms, changeling hives, and beyond, at least not before one of them has vanquished the 5 others. I agree about the story, feelings and events behind it, something a Civilization type game couldn't give.
I think the best fitting types for ED would be Dawn of War, Age of Empires or Total War games' styles, like others said.

1232618
Don't you mean the Cult of Laughter? Moon and Star seem more Inquisition / Sisters of Battle.

1232780
He maybe meant it in the sense that M&S has a rather unrestrained and imprudent use of magic powers, placing Equestria and themselves under the threat of the Astral Planes' inhabitants.

1232874
I see where you're coming from.
I take it the Earthborn are the Imperial Armed forces in this situation?

1232881
It could also be compared to Warhammer Battles (medieval version of Warhammer 40,000).

1232881
Plus Chaos Marines have the slaves and the magic.

Imperial would be Earthborn, machine focus.

Cult would be Orks, blindly following a leader with their own intentions, creating their machines from "others". Orks could also be relevant to Whitegold because stealing, and to Everfree because of similar homeworlds

I'm not sure about Stormwing, not too researched on Warhammer stuff so I don't know a flight capable race.

If Equestria Divided were to be made into a game it would most likely be an RTS similar to COMPANY OF HEROES or STARCRAFT, Armies = Houses, Doctrines = Paths

What would Equestria Divided be like if it was a 4X game?

Then it would be like a 4X game, but Equestria Divided.

Reflexive properity has never let Trixie down in answering questions yet.
/start_command/run_sumg.exe/end_command/

I always thought that a Total War-like game of ED would be great fun, since you could make all those unique commanders give different bonuses for settlements/provinces they're currently stationed in. For example:
Lightning Dust raises morale/happiness of pegasi population by 15% and earth pony population by 5%, speeds up the training of Pegasi Auxillaries, Wing Cannoneers and Lightning's Finest, allows training of Elite Pegasi Auxillaries.

etc

But the way some of the factions work and their duality (M&S Banners, Earthborn Doctrines, Everfree Paths) really gravitates the whole ED concept closer to RTS games such as Company of Heroes.

1232509 I agree here, another such game I would put it down as would be something along the style of Valkeryia Chronicles which set a premium on creating a bond with even the minor characters (one facet that was sadldy missing from XCOM, all attachment to your 'unit' had to be fabricated by the player)

Although I believe that Equestria Divided was designed by Poor Yorik to be far closer to the Warcraft/Starcraft Model (as in original, not MMO)

1234548

Have you considered trying Medieval Total War 2 as a base engine? Its easily the most moddable of the Total War games, and some TRULY impressive stuff has resulted from it. Alot of what you're suggesting, with the RTS and paths, could in fact be implemented by using submods people set up for larger overhauls of the game.

The setting of Equestria Divided works the best with Total War because of the use of close-combat and ranged fighting. Company of Heroes style is more suited for ranged but considering how the Dawn of War series did close combat fighting it may work. However, Total War to me is a solid comparison as it allows for a more global game of waging war on multiple fronts but lacks the ability in my opinion to tell an immersive story other than simply, "Try to conquer Equestria."

I was thinking about something, just like this last night, while playing Stardrive, but a space one.. like Stardrive

Somepony could just take a civilization game, go into the program files, and then change all thee models of the real generals with ponies. Too bad most people that would know how to do that have better things then getting sued by Hasbro for making a work the glorifies what they have made.

1236100 Well it could be done. Modding doesn't step on Hasbro's toes. Only if you attempt to sell it will they step in. However, they wanted to they could tell everyone to stop as it is their IP but like other companies they hold back from having to issuing Cease-&-Desist to save cash.

1236100>>1236776
I've already modded my Civilisation 5 game with metric tonnes of pony mods.

... good times.

1236100
Maybe Hasbro didn't want to cease&desist / shutdown... but lawyers from outside left them either that choice or to lose property of MLP.

1237731 That's usually a pattern with Hasbro, it seems. They let the fans do what they want until they become legally obligated to defend themselves.

1233036

Yeah, I think that was the point.

Moon and Star: Mix between the Empire and the High Elves.
Earthborn: Empire and Dwarves.
Everfree: Wood Elves and Beastmen.
Cult of Laughter: Chaos, Undead, and Dark Elves.
Not sure what Warhammer factions Stormwing and Whitegold correspond to, they resemble Hellenic Greece and Renaissance Italy though.

1240294
In which way do you see the Cult sharing similarities with Dark Elves?
About House Stormwing, I imagine they partly look like Bretonnian Knights, with the flying pegasi as elite troops like said Bretonnian Knights, and the ground ponies as non-mounted troops, though the non-mounted ones in the Warhammer army share more the state of House M&S's slaves, I think.
I don't see real equivalent for House Whitgold in Warhammer, more like a small mix of assassins, wizards, tricksters, ....

1237609
Good boy Gelly. Just keep doing that and maybe we will have a solution to this problem that I am making.

1237731
Take it from Trixie, a part of the Hasbro empire, Hasbro is evil and only wants to make money as easily as possible. This would of course mean ridding copyright laws into the sunset.

To me; Equestria Divided would work best as a XCOM type of game, where you fight small skirmishes with specialized customizable squads, instead of large epic battles.

ED might also work well as a Isometric RPG similar to Baldur's Gate, Fallout, and Planescape Torment. And perhaps Diablo 2; if the storyline took place in a area infested by the the Cult. Of course; the problem with a RPG is that you'd have to develop almost a entirely different game for the Pegasi, Hyppogriphs (if they exist), and Griffins who'd come to think of it, would probably be fun to play as in a game similar to the classic 'Spyro the Dragon' series.

I think a sort of hybrid battle for middle earth 2 style might wok best, base building, unit abilities, heroes- so on and so forth.

Age of Empires would be a good style. Mixes of units, buildings, tech trees, and resource gathering all in real time. It also has Ages (Tiers) that divide when things are available. A well constructed system overall.

*wishes there was an Equestria Divided MMORPG game.

Guess I'll share my opinions over here

Out of all the Grand Strategy game, Total War's mechanics amuses me the most, possibly due to the switch between turn-based campaigns and real-time battles. Crusader Kings II has an RPG aspect to it, I like that. But I don't really like the system. Maybe it's because I've played Total War so much.

There will be times when campaigning in Total War that auto-resolved battles would lose. But if you, the player took command of the battle, then it could be won. Vice versa can happen, I know. Auto-Resolve is all about the balance of both sides. But hey, isn't more satisfying when you managed to win even though your army is outnumbered by your enemies' by more than 3-to-1? My most satisfying victory is in Napoleon Total War: Egypt Campaign. When I managed to wipe out the British in Cyprus with my ragtag-of-an-army. Almost got wiped out, but Victory over almost impossible odds is luxurious. Most of the credit are to the cannons, those giant shotguns. I felt glorious in front of the computer screen.

Total War mechanics with some RPG, but not bound to politics. Maybe Mount and Blade in a huge scale? I felt strange after trying to mix those two together. It would have to either be Grand Strategy map in real time, which I have no idea if they are ever going to change to it, or an Open World in turn-based, which is a bit ridiculous. But a game of Grand-Strategy/City-Building Simulation mixed with Open-World Action/RPG is what I'd like to see!

Unfortunately, my experience with RTSes with multiple "factions" that have completely different units, buildings, technologies, etc. is fairly limited: StarCraft 1, Age of Mythology, and WarCraft 3 are the only ones I've physically played (although I have watched a lot of gameplay analysis of StarCraft 2). AoM in particular might be a good model for an ED system, as each of the four civilizations have three major gods/titans that tweak the bonuses, units, and tech paths available to each civilization, which PY introduced with some of the factions (House Earthborn has a Lightning Assault or Devastating Force option, House M&S can either be aligned with Celestia or Luna, etc.). However, the large amounts of flying units might make the game share more in common with the StarCraft games.

3899353
Now that you've mentioned flying units, are there any strategy games that featured an actual air space like War Thunder for the battlefield? I mean, it would be weird controlling units that can move on three dimensions, that is all sides. But wouldn't it be cool? I just hope it won't be as complex as Hearts of Iron...

3899736
Don't quote me on this, but I believe the Homeworld series made use of space battles in 3D. For simply flying units on a 2D map, however, 3D movement wouldn't have to be ridiculously complicated.

The way I see it, a normal flying unit could have three heights that it could toggle between: high-altitude, mid-altitude, and low-altitude, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, flying too low or too high could grant more bonuses than penalties, but consume the unit's "energy/mana" over time, to reflect how in real world military tactics how dangerous it could be. Run out of energy/mana, and the unit returns to mid-altitude until it can recharge its abilities.

A similar thing could be put in place with submersible units: certain naval units can "submerge," which gradually consumes the unit's energy/mana, but makes the unit harder to spot.

3900116
Saw the gameplay, and I must say that it is similar to what I've imagined. The only complexity in the way would be camera movements, remember that it's not an open space (Literally) like Homeworld.

So normally, they fly in mid-altitudes. Although, some flying units are very different. Euphories are drugged, so they should be able to last longer in high altitudes. Seraphs get the opposite, their wings' fragile nature wouldn't make them last long up there, unless those wings have some kind of magical resistance to them. Hoplites and Lightning's Finests would last long up there as well, but not as long as the Euphories since they don't do drugs, or do they...?

Flying Cities would be able to move as well, albeit very slowly depending on how much of the city is being moved. They would turn to ice after prolonged time in high altitudes left unchecked, or snow clouds if that's what they want.

There are so many things to consider!

i know one strategy game that uses asymmetrical armies is the Dawn of War series, its not a 4x strategy, but it if you look at Dawn of War 1, each army has completely unique buildings, upgrades, units and heroes. Some even have unique game mechanics.

The orcs for example, use this resource known as WAAAAGH! which you gain by building units and WAAAGH banners. The orcs focus on having a lot of units (around 3x more then the other armies, heck their builder units have squads of like 10 compared to the normal 1-3) swarming them while getting assistance from certain heavy special unis like the warchief unit. So you get WAAAGH from building units and fighting which then allows you to build more powerful units, when the WAAAGH bar is full you can build your most powerful units.

But then you have races like the Necron, which have a single building to build units, everything else is for upgrades. Their Monolith is their main building. The necrons start off slow, with slow building speed, however once you start capturing strategic points and building stuff on them you start speeding up your building speed, imagine them like an ancient race "Waking up", they have just awoken and they take time to get back to their full strength but when they do their own HQ becomes an awakened monolith which can move around and teleport with 4 giant canons on all corners and a giant laser beam that can shoot giant explosive lasers in any direction. WHILE STILL SPAWNING UNITS WHEREVER IT IS! Imagine having that in your base for a second. However getting to that stage takes awhile, also necrons start with VERY little compared to other armies and are very slow in general. With a small unit cap. Their low numbers gets balanced out with their ability to come back to life when they die sometimes, however this isn't enough to keep them alive forever and so they have to work hard to get that endgame power they have.

I could go on but I'm running out of time. But if your looking to see Asymmetrical armies then look at the game Dawn of war 1. Also Dawn of war 2 focuses more on unit combat but less building and such so i personally find it less good but you can still look at it if you want, its just the armies are less unique then DoW1.

DoW doesn't focus on politics and such however, so only use it too see strategy and unit variation examples. They have i think 8 or 9 different armies in the first game all unique from one another and they all seem pretty balanced so if you want to talk unit variation and stuff its a good place to start.

3904883
And that is why I've been waiting for that type of game. Something that involves BOTH Strategy and Tactics !

The only game concept that I liked, but I've only seen the gameplay, is Knights of Honor. Its concept is very simple; Age of Empires II with a Grand Strategy Map, at least that's how I see it currently.

Hmm, Dawn of War uses the squad system for infantries just like Empire at War. Both are set in very distant futures. Since most of Equestria Divided units would engage in melee, there's no reason to separate the units into small squads unless it's a small operation. We are talking with possible battles of more than 20K from each sides here!

It'll be more fitting if one infantry unit would consist of a platoon, a number around 15 to 30. But if we want to keep the number of the units in the selection tab low, then a company would do, 80-250. I just love Total War, huh

What I'd like to see unfold is the logistics part, the speculation of how Stormwing would fail due to logistics by 2032372 really intrigued me back then. I don't want any discussions of the topic here, but what I'm trying to say is that logistics and administrations are almost more important than the actual combat themsleves.

Not sure if there's any out there that focuses on these topics whilst preventing them from becoming a disaster.

I'm gonna have a think of a good concept for these factors... Hope I don't go mad

3904940 I was using dawn of war mostly as an example for unit variation, of how some games can be well balanced yet have VERY different armies. Since ED games are going to have to be like that it came to my head for a base when it comes to unique units and such. However game play wise id like to see a game have the politics, culture and such while still having the war like strategy. You can't have battle only because armies like Earthborn and Stormwing would win, however having other means of winning would let armies like Whitegold, who focus more on diplomacy, to win. Its just when it comes down to units and variation, dawn of war came up as a good example. so 4x asymmetrical strategy is what were looking at right now. Because ED is just perfect for that. there are two games that come to mind, Civilization, however that's a more simplified (yes, I'm saying civilization is simple...in a way) and then there's another game i don't remember the name of, il edit it in later when i find it again but apparently every general and such in your army was important, they all had personalities and such and it was just as important to deal with them and run your nation as it was to be able to conquer and defeat your foes. I think however the military part was more statistics then the strategy you would get from most battle focused strategies.

One problem in all of this, if anybody is going to make a game like this their making the perfect strategy game. Which is hard, really hard, to do. lets face it, probably wont happen. however talking about it is still fun. I really like strategy games Civilization(is it not obvious now?) for its diversity, how its not just the war that's the focus. However i like games like Dawn of War for its diverse combat system. With each army being different. I hate real time strategy games that focus on combat and both sides are exactly the same.

Also another thing. It should be noted that sadly the thread were yorick had posted the number of units in each army is gone, however i don't think each battle could have 20k soldiers on each side, i mean if I'm correct Earthborn was in the 200k number of units, 20k is still a pretty large number if you think about it, however it is clear they would have more then just "squads". In a game perspective though it can get pretty difficult to manage a battle when there's 5k soldiers all fighting at once. But i did see some games do it and it does look cool. It be interesting its just ED has a lot of diversity and strategy when it comes to the units each army has that being unable to effectively control all these unique units seems like a really bad thing. You wouldn't just plan strategic positions you would plan which type of unit will do what during the battle. I had an idea with the Euphories and the Smiling dolls that would be hard to see or appreciate if you had 5000 soldiers at once. basically in my version of ED, the smilling dolls float ever so slightly off the ground, and are very light, they don't even get hurt from falling high distances, so a strategy the cult uses sometimes is to have Euphories carry Smiling dolls and then drop them. The dolls drop fast but suddenly stop before hitting the ground and somehow, don't get hurt from it. then they quickly spread out and kill whatever is nearby due to how they attack. It can be devastating but i wouldn't be able to coordinate this correctly with thousands of units at once. Sure large scale battles would be cool and i can picture it in my head but that would be for the BIGGEST battles.

Kinda reminds me a bit of Lord of the Ring battle for middle earth. Once again using squad systems however at the end of one of the evil campaigns you take on the enemies main base, they have THOUSANDS of soldiers in there and hundreds of building to create more, they get thousands of special reinforcements and have almost all the good hero units in there defending it. the only way you can take it is to build a equally sized army with hundreds of siege weapons and thousands of soldiers. It surprisingly worked really well and felt like one of those large scale sieges where one massive army tries to take a major stronghold. However most of the game has more smaller scale skirmishes escalating into bigger (but not massive) battle later on near the end. Which can consist of hundreds of units. Their cool and amazing, however there should be moments were you can coordinate smaller battle and skirmishes so that you don't focus more on the general broader tactics focusing more on "having this many of this to counter this" without actually getting close and coordinating your units.
For example, during one battle i could be charging down a small group of enemies with 3 normal infantry, 2 archers and 2 pikemen. Then enemy cavalry shows up, due to the small numbers of units we have i can quickly see this and order my pikemen to go into a defensive position between my units and their cavalry, doing so devastated them and so i could easily win after. If i had 4000 units, where around 1000 of them are pikemen, and around 1000 cavalry units came charging at us, i wouldn't be able to organize ALL my pikemen in time to counter it. However, i would have around x number of archers to fire at them once they get into the battle, and because i had enough archers and pikemen i could take them out AFTER they already charged us. I had prepared beforehand.

Dunno if any of that made sense but basically, having a game like Battle for Middle earth were both large scale epic battles and smaller skirmishes are available would be perfect for ED, so that large sieges and such which are to be expected can still feel like large sieges, taking down walls and barriers, getting into the strongholds, stuff like that, while smaller skirmishes and battles are also available, which in ED, i highly doubt there are ONLY large battles. The game does a good job at making both strategic quick decisions but also large massive battles feel both very satisfying in different ways. Maybe its because the squads are small enough but have enough variety for strategic choices but also have enough passive stats to make the less organised large scale battles feel like having those pikemen is still better when there are horses around even if you couldn't position them right. Plus the squads still have like 15 soldiers in each one and there's massive or no limit to how many units you can have, which makes large scale battles possible.

As one can see, though i like the politics and stuff from certain strategy games, I've played more battle focused games, so expect me to talk more about battles and strategy in battles and such from both real time and turn based perspectives, and personally in the end id prefer a battle focused strategy over a political one. But having both a battle and political strategy game would be really cool.

3906271
This kinda reminds me of my whole dilemma of the definitions between "Strategy" and "Tactic". The former being large projects such as nation building. The latter being focused on smaller things such as the actual battles themselves. Total War combined those two together, which is why the series is my favorite [Too bad my current PC couldn't handle the newer games]...

RTS is realistic for modern warfare and beyond since they all have telecommunications which would makes sense that they are taking orders of their commander, the player. I don't really like it when the setting's doesn't have any telecommunications, but still have an RTS gameplay, unless the game tells you how [telepathy comes to my head first]...

You have to remember, not only each units are different, but each forces fight differently too. You can't really expect the cult to fight in open battles, it's not their style. They rely on subterfuge, keeping their low profile, and be unleashed when the time is right. So they would mostly fight small skirmishes, large ones would be rare, or none at all if the player is really good. Gameplay-wise, they would be different, as would the other five factions...

Now, I have an idea for the grand strategy part. It would be centered around government. I'll be using my speculations on each factions.

Moon and Star - Absolute Monarchy = Principality ,de jure, Shining Armor, would be weird if Constitutional.

Earthborn - Federal Aristocracy = Government centered in Appleloosa, do they have democracy?

Stormwing - Stratocratic Hegemony = Neither junta nor dictatorship.

Whitegold - Plutocratic Republic = Society of Canterlot Nobles, as in the Roman Republic kind.

Everfree - Theocratic Confederation = Pretty sure Fluttershy would want a Unitary State.

The Cult - Theocratic Council = The Prophets.

3907097 First things first, you seem to be a big fan of Total War, and this seems to be a good base to work with, so mind recommending one of the total war games for me to check out? considering steam has the Christmas sale going on i could easily afford one of them and check it out.

Also i know very well each army also fights differently, i actually had ideas for some of them. The main one i thought about often was Whitegold

Whitegold would be a highly diplomatic faction, war is their last choice in any matter. They prefer to stay in the background and simply manipulate their enemies in their favor.

+ Key strengths
Highly self sustainable early on.
Can quickly build and improve their cities.
Easy to keep their people happy with riches.
Highly Versatile due to mercenaries
Quickly gains money and valuable items due to a unique starting trait (will go into more detail below)

- Weaknesses
Cannot expand much (go into detail below)
Highly reliant on trade routes and alliances later on for economic reasons.
Extremely expensive buildings and units, upkeep stays relatively high at all times.
Somewhat unpredictable military units (Detail Below)
Inner struggles (Poor undercity (what is it called again?), mafias and gangs, inner power struggles.)

One major thing that effects most of these is a key structure they start with. Be it a wonder from civilization or a part of an HQ from a dawn of war like games. in the end, they should start with this. Whitegold has a major cave system full of crystals, gems and many many valuables. This cave gives them a major gold boost early on plus if there are any, most basic and possibly some rare gems that they can trade or use (money or making some of their unique gem structures to increase happiness or living conditions among other things). This cave systems is their key point, without it Whitegold would suffer. Most of Whitegolds buildings and units are more expensive then normal due to their more "Grand" designs, keeping them in good condition also takes more then normal. However this cave system more then makes up for it allowing them to quickly build up their main city, giving them a major lead early on.

However, like all natural gem caves, they eventually run out. Ok so this cave system is so huge it doesn't really "Run out" until a very long time. But it does start taking more on more resources to get something out of it. Meaning the longer the game goes, the less reward you'll be getting from these caves. This plus the high upkeep of the buildings you made and paying your units means you cannot survive solely on this cave system. Eventually you'll have to build trade routes and alliances to make sure other factions see you as an ally and not a threat and help sustain your army. Preferably have a strong military partner to help defend you whenever you get attacked by someone.

Now for Expanding, the high cost of everything makes making a new city VERY costly. Also, without the Gem Cave being there, most of the gem resources they use to make their more grand and special buildings cannot be built, and so happiness will drop VERY quickly. (Nobles need their fanciness). Due to all of this, trade routes must be established (or in this case simply routes) between each of your cities to make sure you can distribute your resources from one city to the next. This cost money, they need to be guarded in case of either bandit attacks or other factions due to how important they are, which cost MORE money since you have to hire mercenaries, then hire more units to transport them. Though in the long run having more then just your main city is pretty much a must in any strategy, expect to have 3 or 4 cities at best with a small territory. You simply can't afford to many of them unless you have a lot of factions backing you up.

Now for the military. Whitegold, though quite capable of taking military action if required, will prefer not too. Simply for one reason. They have few original units from their own faction. Most of their military is made of mercenaries. Now we all know Whitegold needs money to maintain itself. And its units are no exception. Every mercenary unit cost more then any other equivalent unit from any other faction. This means Whitegold has too not only manage its buildings right, they also have to manage their units salaries. Having too many units will take its toll on their economy.

Another thing to note about the units is, they are all hired guns, all trained in a different way compared to faction specific units. Whitegold did not train these men into specific roles. And so, even though you hired two gun ponies, both will be different. One might be a little faster but the other more accurate. Sure they both use guns and act like range units but in the end they can both serve slightly different purposes due to this difference. This is both an advantage and a curse. Its versatility means you might get some really good groups of units. However its randomness can hurt you if you get the wrong kind of unit at the wrong time. One must be careful when going to war or using violence because you never know for sure if you'll be prepared to go through with it till the end.

The final main problem is their inner struggles. M&S has the slaves and the inquisition, Earthborn has the unicorns. Whitegold has everyone. Whitegold is quite capable of destroying itself. As its leader, you have to manage the nobles to prevent them from overthrowing you and destroying you from the inside, from assassination attempts to power struggles, its a diplomatic battle within your own borders. Another major issue are the slums. Thousands of poor ponies all looking for a way to survive, which builds up to an extremely large number of bandits, thugs, gangs and problems. You have to try your best to make sure the slums are kept in a bearable state as to avoid rebellions and other nasty problems like the cult gaining too much influence within your own borders. However due to the expensive Upper city, you can't afford to spend too much on the slums or risk loosing everything you've built up. The slums are in a condition that would require too much money to fix and so you must do your best to keep it from going out of control while using the least amount of resources possible.

Though i pointed out a lot of Whitegolds weaknesses, they do have their own strengths. I wont go into MUCH detail at the moment but heres a quick rundown on them

One, you do NOT mess with them early on, even with unpredictable military it will be stronger then anybody else out of sheer sustainability. They could replace thousands of their soldiers with the money they have early on. You must wait until later to defeat them military wise when they need to be more conservative with their money.

They have the best infiltration unit ever, the NIghthooves, extremely skilled at infiltration missions. sabotage, assassination, you name it, they can do it. Whitegold might not be strong with sheer force but they can definitely break you apart from the inside. One must be careful while dealing with Whitegold in fear of seeing his own army break apart without ever knowing for sure exactly WHAT hit them.

Though they have their own diplomatic struggles, outside of Whitegold they are the strongest and most charismatic diplomats in all of ED. The only other person that can compete with both diplomatics and charisma at the same time would be Princess Cadence herself. And most of the higher members of Whitegold can compete with her, and lady Rarity herself can outright demolish her in most debates. One does not want to fall into Whitegolds traps when it comes to smooth talking and diplomatic debates. You might want to watch out that your high general of your army wasn't convinced into betraying you, or you might find yourself with a few hundreds of traitors demolishing your food supplies or trade routes. Or anything else for that matter.

Whitegold is a faction for those that prefer to stay in the shadows WITHIN the sunlight. If you get what i mean. They stay back and let others do all the dirty work while they keep their hooves clean. You'll be the center of many alliances and debates however nobody would suspect that your the one that bribed those bandits to raid that Earthborn village, or that your the one that poisoned one of M&S high diplomats. You use your amazing great start to set up quickly and discourage early attacks and quickly force or trick others into trusting you. Then when the time is right you poke your nose into everyones buisness, searching for a weakness to exploit and then use your diplomatic skills to... lightly nudge things into your favor, never doing anything major. Whitegold prefers to be the ally of the winner and simply be a part of the victory and not be the one to have dealt the final blow, as to not attract any attention to themselves.
In short, for those who prefer to use diplomatic and infiltration tactics, focusing more on managing your own faction while slightly altering the actions of other factions to help you, without going into a full scale war unless absolutely necessary. For those who prefer to be discrete and silent over brute force and power.

This was how i pictured Whitegold working in general. Its not perfect and there's plenty of room for improvement, I'm open to any suggestions for balancing or new ideas or alterations of the ones I've shown to see how good this can become. I'll post my ideas of the other factions later. The fact that i got to finish this is surprising me enough as it is. But what do you guys think?

Also, for the governments....i'm gonna have to do some research on what all those words mean, i only understand Monarchy (King, queen, royalty, a successor kind of style, though in a weird way there's Twilight in the background we need to consider and high inquisitor trixie as well which has A LOT of influence in M&S).... and i think i get what Council is (a group of leaders that come together to make important decisions, like the prophets). I l was thought my politics class in french so most of these names are unfamiliar to me.

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I'm not sure on the recommendation because I've only played a few of their games, and the only that I seriously did was Empire: Total War. So I can't really give a good recommendation, but I the newer games would be obviously preferable, depending on your PC too of course. Shogun 2 should be a good start. Anything less than Medieval 2 is old, even Empire is old, 2009..!

I've read that Rome 2 had very different campaign elements. As it seems there are players who find it hard that most of their battles are sieges. I think you can imagine what the map looks like. It is also weirdly unrealistic. For example, you built a barrack in let's say, Fillydelphia. And for some reason, you can train troops in let's say, Colterado...

Still, I'm giving it a chance. I'm getting a new PC soon to play some of the newer games...

Before delving in to the actual gameplay, it should also be determined when the game is started. My proposal, a story mode on the origins of the five factions as an introduction and tutorial, save the Cult for DLC. Then the actual game itself would be in one huge map with all the factions ready for war. Custom Scenarios would be a great option with "Historical" Scenarios, if you know what I mean...

On Resources, I haven't really taken that into account much, never thought Equestria Divided would last more than a lifetime or two. I like your idea of less resources from mines as time progresses. Realistically, there should be an option of expanding that particular mine so that more minerals would come out of it. And of course, the expansion price would increase as the mine gets larger. And the larger the mine, the harder it is to be managed...

Wood would also be harder to find as time progresses. Earthborn obviously had to rely on the Everfree for their sources of Wood, unless they have huge tree farms. Wood Quality should be taken into account as well. Everfree would be the best quality of wood available, but cutting one would mean facing the wrath of the tribes...

Food should be another problem too. I can see Earthborn specializing in farming, thus they growing and having more food than they need to feed the entire population isn't impossible. Planting on the same soil is never a good idea. Should we assume that these ponies know Crop Rotation..?

Husbandry should be taken into consideration as well. Many animals are cared and domesticated by the ponies. I doubt that the ponies knew Selective Breeding though, but if someone managed to figure it out...

On Expansion like you've said, Whitegold's situation is rather strange. They would use a lot of their resources on keeping Manehattan up. The city is a cultural fantasy, with pretty much everything available for the nobility. The most interesting part is the fact that Whitegold kept the Undercity up. The slums must have been of great use to Whitegold, other than being an ideal first line of defense against besiegers...

Upkeep isn't a new concept in strategy games, but managing the upkeep itself is another thing. That should be an option too, when managing forces that is. Whitegold would have the most problems out of this. Their military would be based mostly on mercenary contracts. And if by any chance they hire individuals in a large scale, that would be a mess for upkeep. Each mercenary has different contract pays, and different set of skills. So it would be a bit hard on both the military and the finance side...

Internal Struggles are mostly due to the governmental structures. To see the problem clearly, we would need to establish the governmental structures and how they work...

Hmm, I'd rather prefer Cadence being able to best most Whitegold Diplomats, but not the Mistress herself...

Diplomacy is what the player would be spending his/her time most if playing Whitegold. Using the Nighthooves to uncover, blackmail, deceive, assassinate, etc., everything to destroy their enemies. Whitegold is generally hated by everyone due to their espionage, but they couldn't do anything to Whitegold due to the diplomatic / personal factors...

3924989 Real quickly before i read everything, i highly HIGHLY disagree with the cult being DLC, removing one of the main 6 factions just removes so much from the world of ED that we can't really afford to do it. If it came down to it, custom factions would be DLC, like the Caravan.

Now lets assume the game itself starts during the AD era (After Division) or so, so after all the factions were made and such however their not as advanced as we see them now, their base stuff (Earthborn hates unicorns, Cults worshiping the laughing mare, M&S is racist as always, etc etc) is still intact but they dont have their military advances and buildings and such, and so their territory aren't as big as they are on the map (This one to be exact which btw i have the program to interact with the map if we ever need to for visual clarification.)
Now Earthborn would probably have some of the most.... nature like resources? Equal or slightly less to Everfree. Like wood and food. ESPECIALLY food. For the wood, i doubt the Everfree is the ONLY wood resource left. But your right, the magical properties of the Everfree Forest would make the wood high quality. The problem though is, one of my ideas of Everfree was that the Everfree forest itself is its own "Faction" to say. As in there's natural wildlife and it can think for itself. Sure your the tribe leader and you can tame and ask the Everfree forest and its inhabitants to help. However your not ever in 100% control of it. So lets say Earthborn tried to cut down some Everfree trees, they would have to be ready for Ents and Timberwolves and stuff coming out of the forest attacking them, which are not even controlled by Everfree. The Everfree is its own living being and so you have to face not only the Everfree Tribes wrath but the Everfree forest itself too. SO they would probably prefer to go after other forests first before trying the Everfree one.

Its clear however if things go like they do on the map, then Earthborn uses up their forest much more quickly then any other group (and eventually start living in a desert from what it seems, Earthborn might have to be careful about this so as to not destroy their only method of growing food, or is there a way to grow food in the desert as well?) So early on sure they don't need it as much but later, oh later they really need to attack Everfree. Or take resources from others, like territory with forests in them and such. Which shouldn't be a problem later considering how big of a powerhouse Earthborn can become military wise.

Now i don't get what you mean by planting on the small soil, however crop rotation (with a little research) would make perfect sense, they lack the magic that unicorns normally bring so they need to find a different way to maintain their soil, and crop rotation would help a lot. However, if they have animals, i feel they would use Mixed Farming. So instead of just rotating their crops, they would also take care of animals and use their resources to either help grow their crops or help then in an economic way if ever required, focusing on both at once can be difficult but we are taking about a majority Earth Pony faction here, they are USED to hard work and taking care of things like crops and animals.

I'm useless in husbandry, i don't understand animals well enough to be of much use here (or most of these subjects actually but hey quick research can normally do wonders but animals, that's a long term project XD) however with quick research once again, i doubt they would use Selective Breeding, they understand animals as being equal to them, so forcing them to breed with certain animals.....yeaaa doesn't sound right for the ponies to do that.

Now for the Undercity, first when you have gangs upon gangs of crooks and such all over the place, word will go around quick, its like, your own personal gossip center. Whitegold could take this to their advantage, another is something i brought up awhile ago where if everyone who's desperate doesn't go to the cult, end up going there, you'll find many unique and interesting stuff coming into your territory that you can "burrow" from your citizens to see what you can make out of it (Example: Weapons or creations built by other factions). There's probably other things like how the nobles could look down upon them and feel better about themselves, making the nobles happier, population control, as long as Whitegold controls the situation there's plenty they can do with the large number of desperate people down there. And you can make money too if ever somepony rich enough can pay the enormous fee to get in, you get a small boost in your economy right there. Small little things that can pay off in the long run if you keep it.

You got the whole upkeep idea down perfectly, too many mercenaries would have a huge toll on their military and economy, from the randomness and the cost. However we still have to take into account how early on, Whitegold can EASILY afford thousands of mercenaries due to their gem mines.

Once again the governmental stuff i don't get right now and would need some explanation before i can understand exactly whats going on. However Whitegold would be something where its.... "Democratic" as in the high nobles and such would vote for their leaders, so not the whole faction itself but just the higher diplomats and such, don't know what that's called exactly. However it seems like it can be more then just one, where Rarity was married to the leader and when he died she instantly gain the title of being their High Mistress, so it seems like having a family tie with the leader gives you the right to be the next one if anything happens to the last, so maybe there's some sort of "Monarchy" in a way however when all the leaders die or there's something like a vote of confidence that happens, then the leaders can change then as well. Of course this is all handled by the rich nobles and anybody who's poor cannot take part in these decisions. Like old school anything, there was the rich and the poor, the middle class did not exist.

lets say that Cadence can easily hold her own against most Whitegold Nobles, however, Due to most Whitegold nobles being born, raised and thought in diplomatic and such, and with the Division came the importance of such things, Whitegold has the most skilled diplomats in all of Equestria, and even though people like Cadence and AJ can hold their own against most, some of the higher ups and best can be equal against Cadence herself due to how they lived their entire lives and survived purely due to their diplomatic skills. While nobody can beat the Mistress, only slow her down at best.

But yes, Whitegold is a highly diplomatic focused Faction compared to the other races. Nobody can truly trust Whitegold however nobody should be able to prove that they where the cause of said thing happening in said place causing said problem. Its for those that like to talk their way out of situations and talk their way to victory, with infiltration and stuff playing a large role, over using brute force.

I found that every faction has a play style. I'll list quickly what I THINK each one would be like and go into more detail later.

Earthborn: Quickly Expanding and High military focus, using natural resources to expand and destroy any who oppose them with brute force. CANNOT use magic.

Stormwing: High risk, High reward faction. Having a smaller population and army compared to any other faction, they must make sure every shot counts, for those looking to play a fast and powerful faction however you must be careful using them because every mistake is 10x more punishing for them then any other faction.

Whitegold: Diplomatics, using stealth and infiltration over brute force, and will talk their way to victory with bribery and smooth talk, good for those who like to manage their own faction while only nudging the other armies into doing what is most beneficial for them. For the more "pacifist" players who like to stand back and stab someone in the back instead of going all out.

Everfree: Natural, Uses the nature to its advantage, slowly expanding its territory with the Everfree forest, playing this faction is unique due to you not having full control over everything, you follow the forest, and it lives just like you and will grow just like you will. Its like having an ally at all times, you work together but you don't control it. Incredibly defensive faction.

M&S: Religion and Magic, In this one you must keep your ideology at all cost, to make the supreme race. Highly Magical, Religion plays a large factor with this race, religious symbols and large amounts of faith plus using the lunar cycles to your advantage all play a part in this race. Diplomatic wise one must watch for the religious beliefs of its citizens and military wise one must use that faith and turn it into power, based on the sun and moons cycle. (a little hard to explain this one)

Cult: VERY different from the rest, this faction is EVERYWHERE, for those who like to micromanage large number of units everywhere, you do not have your own territory and base, instead you have small establishments all over Equestria, in everyone's factions, you must stay hidden and grow slowly, spreading your influence everywhere and strike from the inside, using fear and conversion to destroy their foes from the inside. Their style is very different from the rest considering there's no "Main HQ" in a way, and they are more spread out everywhere instead.

Anyways my time is running out and that's about everything i had to say, so what do you think?

3925828
Well, it'll be more money if the Cult is a DLC...

Besides, I didn't mean they don't exist. I meant that the DLC would fill in the gameplay gaps and add new features that would make the Cult playable and enjoyable respectively...

You see, the Cult is just so different from the rest of the five. They traverse in the shadows, keeping a low profile amidst the whole war. Like, even Whitegold would have to use their Nighthooves to track them down. I imagined that the player would be using a separate map. Maybe a modified version of the subterfuge map, but we'll get to that later...

Starting after all the factions have assembled... it would prove to be an interesting gameplay. You get to build them up. And with the all the events, it's up to the player what they would do. Well, to not go make some drastic changes, the player should also be controlling his/her own player, not the faction leaders...

Everfree and the tribes shared a symbiotic relationship, they live together. The timberwolves and the ents alone won't be enough to protect the forest no longer, the tribes need to help as well. The tribes protect the forest as it expands. Then the creatures of Everfree are separate from the tribes...

I think the landscape was already like that actually. Appleloosa has an orchard, which means there's an underground water source nearby. Of course, this goes to every Earthborn settlement. If they aren't near any rivers, then the Frontiers folks just have to rely on underground water...

Selective Breeding goes into Genetics, the subject I find highly unlikely to exist in Equestria. Now on Crop Rotation, do you think the Earthborn used feces [poop] as fertilizers? I find it likely, as it would give a reason the racists and the upper crusts to disgust them...

Yes, the Undercity would be their first information hub then. I think Fleur would have a group of spies who would keep their ears open in the Undercity, reporting anything useful to her.

So that's where the money went early on. It was spent on making Manehattan a paradise, so visitors would pay a tremendous fee to enter, and possibly stay there.

On first sight, Whitegold seemed like an Aristocracy or Plutocracy. But on second thought, Rarity is the head of both the organizations that made Whitegold, the Nobles and the Trade Union. She might have the most authority within the council. So in a way, it might be an Autocracy. The whole council thing might just be one of her schemes, a curtain for her to exercise her powers...

Rarity was already the head of the Trade Union before she killed Blueblood. When Blueblood died, she obviously had other plots that made herself the head of the Nobles...

I would have to review my speculations on these a bit...

3927187 I'm against DLC in general unless its been a little bit since the games been released. If it takes away from a game im instantly against it as well (which in ED, loosing one of the main factions to play as seems like loosing a lot, i mean each group is already so different from one to the next that the Cult has a very unique style that i can see working in the long run.) TBH the caravan seems even harder, considering they have this whole underground hidden society feel going, they might have to have their own map for it, or that circus one, stuff like that. The cult however, lives within the borders of the other factions, their style would be VERY different yes but, i can see it working, lets not forget there are also neutral areas the cult can start off in while their influence spreads into other territory, its a long subject to debate lets worry about it when i post how i think the Cult would play.

Its interesting to start right after they were built since, it keeps the whole main idea of each faction there however it gives room for the player to make his own scenarios. We don't want to simulate the story of ED, that would be the campaign modes role, instead we want to simulate how being a part of ED would be, even if it goes off from the main story at one point. When playing Skirmish mode in Civilization, i don't try to follow history, Gandhi was a military genius and the Persians were Sea merchants. Germany died out during the Roman Era while the Indians went at war with Greece. That's one of the key points in these kind of strategy games, to make your own scenarios. We need to keep that in mind.

Its true the tribes would need to defend the forest as well, however that doesn't change the fact that the forest is quite capable of defending itself and one must use caution when taking its resources, though if you plan your attack correctly, it can be easy to defeat these instinct driven creatures, hence why one must also be wary of the tribes who are much more organised and can work with the forest to create a very dangerous combination of units that can really punish anybody who dares to attack the Everfree forest. Its just that you can't simply send a few ponies to cut down the trees there, they would need soldiers to defend them as well making it harder to take their resources, however, is the risk worth the reward? If you succeed well enough you gain high quality wood and if its not Earthborn, you can even research its magical properties to see how it works and to see how it may help your own army. Its just dangerous because Everfree forest territory is defended naturally and is also Everfree tribes territory.

I never thought of underground water sources to allow them to grow food. Guess it is possible after all. But wouldn't it be harder and require more resources to build these farms? Another problem is where did they get all the wood for their buildings and such? I doubt they could have gotten ALL of that off of the Everfree forest alone. I think there were more forest, places like Appleloosa would still be in a desert to begin with however maybe the more Easter parts of their territory would have forest and such, and after capturing them they took all its resources and built their cities and war machines, requiring them to move on to allow them to continue to grow.

They probably use the manure as fertilizer, that's actually one of the main reasons you would use Mixed Farming, it gives you a natural source of Fertilizer which can be quite helpful money wise, also the animals give natural resources for trade if ever Earthborn needs to trade, and they would have plenty.

Early on Whitegold REALLY wants to make Manehatten a giant imposing city, one you don't want to mess with early on as to give them time to set up Nighthooves and "Rats" within their enemy ranks so that when they fall off in power later on they can still discourage attacks with their infiltrated units, also they can then worry less about building and more about maintaining their cities once they finished building already. It also helps with early happiness so you won't have to worry about anybody trying to kill you in your sleep for the first few months/years (probably years).

To be honest about Whitegold, its probably a Plutocracy, an autocracy would require Rarity to rule with indefinite power, where nobody could question her authority, however i feel like even though shes the leader, the other nobles can still get rid of her power if they can convince others to go against her. If it was an Autocracy she could simply order some soldiers to publicly murder that noble and nopony would ever be able to question her. However she can't do that, she would have to have him assassinated and such. So it might be a "hidden" Autocracy, where in a way everyone knows that if they try to betray her they won't wake up that night, however its not "Officially" an Autocracy, unlike things like the Nazi and Hitler, which were CLEAR Autocracies, SO officially their Plutocratic however maybe in the background, its actually an Autocracy with Rarity having immense amount of power within the shadows.

3927352
OK, here's what in my mind for a while, Main Menu...

As we all know, the Main Menu is where the first impressions would be. I have an idea of the meeting of the three tribes. But instead of arguing, they would be in deep silence as the dark, ambient background music plays...

The whole DLC issue I bought up was due to the following: Playable Factions, or rather, Starting Factions. Choosing the tribe's flag would pan the camera to the selected flag, and on the flag are the their descriptions. Unicorns would be Moon and Star, Pegasi would be Stormwing, and Earth Ponies would be Earthborn. After the faction has been chosen by the player, their short theme would play, and the flag would burn away, transforming into the banner that would be used throughout Equestria...

M&S, Earthborn, and Stormwing fit in easily with this, but where would the others go? That's why those three would easily fit in as the Starting Factions as options are obvious...

For Whitegold, I have an idea for the meeting table. After unlocking the faction by eliminating it once, the table would be choosable. Whitegold is unorthodox from the three by the fact that the faction is not about racial, but about bits, money. Their mercenaries-oriented military would also make playing with them after playing those three a bit challenging. And can't forget all the schemes and plots that is an annoyance to players. As they play, they would feel the irony weaving the same things that harassed them in their previous saves...

I'm not sure about the Tribes and the Cult yet. But I'm sure I'll figure something out!

3927799
For the Tribes, id have a door or window that would have the forest outside of it, and when you unlock them it slightly opens, clicking it would then pan into the door or window opening and show the forest with some of the tribe ponies walking out, possibly animals and such as well to represent them being within their own "world" with the forest. They wouldn't be at the "meeting" that's for sure.

For the Cult, maybe have a dark corner somewhere, and when choosing it you see the face of pinkie or something slowly move out of the shadows smiling with eyes blinking in the shadows. Or possibly, within the crowd there would a few who would turn and stare at the screen and start smiling, clearly showing their insanity while also demonstrating how they would hide within the ranks of their own enemies waiting to strike.

Instead of just the banner opening there has to be some sort of animation as well after the banner burns away or while its burning or something.
M&S we see Twilight and a few unicorns horns light up creating flashes of magic around them, possibly have inquisitors or we could maybe see the moon and sun rising and setting in a set of windows behind them. To show their focus in magic and the Sun and Moon.
Earthborn you'd see AJ "Stand up" and have soldiers ready their weapons, bringing canons and such to show their military advance and might.
Stormwing We see RD Fly up with a bunch of Pegasi only to come barreling straight back down quickly in formation. To represent their speed and organisation.
Whitegold, Going with your theory of where they start, you could maybe have rarity sitting in the middle and then suddenly some Nighthooves would appear in the shadows behind her while she counts her money. Representing both the importance of money and the infiltration units.

Also the idea of unlocking these more difficult to use tribes seems like a good idea, still against the cult being DLC, and always will be simply because id be against not letting people use one of the main factions, even if their different. (that'd be like removing the US or Russia in a WW2 game or something, their there but you can't play them unless you pay more $? yeaaa people hate it when you do something like that) but i DO see where your coming from. Instead make it that you have to unlock them (maybe the last one) since then people would be use to how the game works and such and would have tried many different strategies, plus they saw how the Cult works so then they would have a general idea of how to use them. In a game maker way of looking at it sure the Cult would be difficult to implement but lets face it, were talking about a game that would have the perfect simulation of a real war, with Managing your own faction to war tactics and strategies, to economy, to political, to EVERYTHING. It be pretty amazing to see that actually exist. We've got some games that come close but not perfect. So at this point i'm making these ideas with the mindset that a perfect strategy game COULD exist at this very moment.

3933302
Seriously, I thought the image was big when I put it in there, what happened..?

Ha! Those were similar to what I thought! The only problem with those are; where to choose them? I love your idea for the Tribes'. After unlocking them, one of the windows wouldn't be snowing, but dark, like a forest. How about after the doors burst open, the snows covered the camera, then it changes to the Everfree Forest with their introduction...

I really love your idea for the Cult's, better than mine in fact! How about a little mini-game? The player who unknowingly unlocked the Cult would sooner or later noticed that in the shadows of the crowds, there are faces of insanity hidden. They would pop up and fade away. If the player clicks on one of the faces, that pony would leap to the camera. Just little jump scare, then the Cult's introduction...

On animations, it should be less than 30 seconds if we just want an epic short intro. I'm not sure whether it should be like Medieval 2 Total War: Kingdoms' introduction animations. I mean, those are really good, and I have no problem watching them multiple times. It's on YouTube, so you should be able to go and find out how it is...

Here's a thing that should spice things up a little bit, what would Equestria Divided's Character Creation look like..?

I'll come up with my opinions later. For any who notices this, would be glad to share some opinions on this...