Countdown to Open Beta - Features and Gameplay

[Greek_fire19]

Thanks Epistolary Richard! that cleared a lot of things up, and it sounds fantastic. Does this mean that individual Rebel states can be more aggressive and launch attacks on your cities?

[Epistolary Richard]

The rebels will be as aggressive as they ever are - possibly more so as the team has put effort into rounding them out into proper sub-kingdoms rather than just being a simple bump in the road to empire.

The 'alliance' between a faction and a nearby independent city is primarily in place to influence how the faction reacts to other factions that may endanger their own interests in that area. While there are trading relations and cultural affinity, that has never historically prevented warfare erupting!

So, conflicts between yourself and your 'allied' city can certainly happen without invalidating your overriding interests in the area. Even if Rome is having difficulty with the Sicilians for example, they still wouldn't be prepared to allow Carthage to take the island - it would be too much of a threat to their homeland security.

Equally, should you choose to impose your control over the city more directly by invasion you can expect them to defend their homes vigorously.

Ideally we would have had myriad different factions to represent all these societies and your diplomatic relations could be as complex as with any other faction - alas there are limitations that simply prevent that. We can simulate some aspects of it in other ways, which is what we're doing. You should always remember that the open beta is only going to be able to include a prototype version of some of these new game features. There'll be lots more exciting work and development to do once the open beta has been released before a final version - and then beyond that - in other mods that choose to pick up these ideas and focus on them more.