What I'm noticing: Purity=Terrans, Harmony=Zerg, & Supremacy=Protoss

[El Caballerion]

Anyone else notice the similarities in these three affinities alongside their starcraft counterparts? Let me say that I have not played Starcraft 2, but ONLY the original Starcraft.

The Terrans are the classic human race. With the look of the recent blog on Purity, it seems like there will be many similarities between the two. They are the most conservative, and I assume, will be most familiar to newcomers to the game.

Now... I can only speculate on the next two, but since Harmony equals a more 'alienish humanity', with an 'emphasis on quick attacks' probably in large numbers, they seem more like the sneaky Zerg. I assume they will have plague effects, and will lose in large scale battles, though they will always have huge numbers.

The Protoss, with their shields and unorthodox gameplay, feed well into what we can expect from the machine-minded Supremacy faction. Expect expensive and strong soldiers and computer hacking from these guys.

Just speculation... anyone else see the similiarities?

 

[Lancor]

Yep, that's definately a resemblance art wise. Though I am not sure about the gameplay style. Supremacy could use cheap drones or cannon fodder infantry too while harmony could try to preserve as much life as possible instead of massive overwhelming tactics.

 

[AlpsStranger]

It's only natural, really. There's honestly not anything wrong with this kind of trope borrowing, at least not in my book.

 

[reddishrecue]

That's a very simple explanation.. I was thinking that be would look like civilization where the usual space characters like Germany, United States and Russia had additional civilizations added to them.

 

[Karl0413]

There is actually a term for this, it is called Faction Calculus:

With two factions, one faction—"Powerhouse" for convenience—will employ the Elite Army trope, relying on a small number of powerful units; the other faction—"Subversive"—will use faster, weaker, and somewhat cheaper units (depending on gameplay mechanics), but will usually not have to resort to the Zerg Rush any more than the Powerhouse will have to resort to the Tank Rush.

With three factions, the previous Subversive faction becomes "The Balanced" by moving up the power scale, while a new Subversive faction emerges. The new Subversives rely on weak, swift, massed units and special powers/dirty tactics such as stealth, deception or Mind Control. The Balanced, as suggested by its name, has become a balance between the new Subversive and the Powerhouse, not quite as powerful but not quite as weak either.

Examples: Atreides (Balanced), Harkonnen (Powerhouse), and Ordos (Subversives) from Westwood's Dune games. Starcraft's Zerg (Subversive), Terrans (Balanced), and Protoss (Powerhouse) are another Trope Codifier.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FactionCalculus

 

[Lord Shadow]

Interesting.

I'm not seeing but a passing resemblance to the StarCraft races, but personally, the affinities of CivBE remind me a bit of the factions in Supreme Commander. The United Earth Federation strongly resembles Purity, while the Cybran Nation (human-AI cyborgs) is Supremacy-like and the Aeon Illuminate (human separatists following an alien philosophy) is sort of in the vein of Harmony.

 

[Windscion]

Harmony looks more Vorlon to me.

 

[Aeson]

I would assume that there's not a big gameplay difference between the units. It makes it much harder to balance the game if you have large differences in strength.

Also, making a "swarm" faction in a 1UPT game would be a truly sick joke.

 

[Catalytic]

In terms of gameplay, I think the comparison to SC2 needs revision:

Protoss were the slow build time, powerhouse units. High unit costs, high survivability, etc. Everything we've read about Purity suggests that's the niche they'll be going for design-wise.

Terrans were the essence of dirty tricks. Their first tier units were ranged instead of melee. They had better detection, great flexibility, and if you used them right, you'd dominate: "Nuclear launch detected!" This sounds like what they're going for with Supremacy, with bonuses that stack, technology-based clutch abilities, etc.

I'm hesitant to comment too much on the Zerg - Harmony comparison because frankly, we don't know enough about Harmony. We don't know if they go with the cheap unit, huge, rapidly built, rapidly replaced army thing.

 

[Algeroth]

Yeah, what we know about Harmony isn't that they use massive numbers of cheap units, but fast, hit-and-run units.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Actually in terms of power, dirty tricks and numbers it seems

Purity= power (big guns, flying tanks+battleships)
Supremacy=dirty tricks (unit arrangement/synergy)
Harmony=swarmers (lots of land, fast moving units)

 

[Matthew.]

The analogy probably still works.

New supremacy blog says they will get the best use out of mixing specific units together (not completely new info) which is very much SC2's protoss. None of their units can simply be massed except perhaps stalkers and voidrays. For the most part, it requires several units working together.

Purity/Terran--straight forward middle ground.

Zerg/Harmony--as mentioned, probably won't go for the mass zergling route, but it is quite likely they will have some of that same flexibility, and the Zerg are very much a hit and run faction. The entire ling/muta strategy relies on hitting with one or the other, depending on what is currently in the area. Harass one base with muta, send lings to another.

 

[HottiePippen]

This trope is pretty standard, though; I don't think it's starcraft specific. For instance:

Purity = Marines
Supremacy = Covenant
Harmony = Flood

or

Purity = Marines (again)
Supremacy = Predator
Harmony = Alien

It's just the obvious 3 paths to have fast and swarming, advanced but small, and an in between ground.