NA-2 is not a faction. It's a group of Mercs along with JSA. I don't know what the player base of JSA looks like, but I can't imagine it's any smaller than Tohaa. Toss NA-2 out the window for these events and give JSA that position. As for all the Mercs, let them choose what faction they want to play for. That's how they would do it in the real world. They would decide whose money they would want to take. Maybe the want to stick with JSA? Maybe Spiral Corps would want to stick with Tohaa? Tohaa losing players to NA-2 because of Spiral Corps was felt. A number of Tohaa players wanted to play Spiral Corps, but because if the rules we were told in the beginning they chose to give up Spiral Corps to play regular Tohaa. I personally will always be a Tohaa player. I own Druze, StarCo, Spiral Corps, and I have almost enough to field the Foreign Company. There are some times I think it would be fun to play a Merc company supporting Tohaa. If I could toss a random game playing one of my other Merc armies during the event I would be all for it.
I think it could be a bit different but following your idea. It could depend on the setup, for example, the setup here is that Novvy Bangkok is an Ikari place, so this time, Ikari is a main faction, and the rest of NA2 chooses its faction as you say. Maybe JSA is always a faction in its own, or maybe you join it with PanO, Haqquislam, Nomads... any of the ones that help them uprise. The important thing here is that you can give the NA2 factions a bit of main role depending on the setup of the campaign, and keep the rest free to choose.
Soon (TM) Depending on what the announcement will be, that may be the way to handle Mercs. https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/y-faction-but-playing-x-army.35157/page-2#post-297375
As the NA2 high commander, I agree. We've been pushing for NA2 players to be able to register for whichever faction they choose, or to be more fluffy, have them assigned as per the story of the campaign, for example if during this campaign PanO enlisted the assistance of the Ikari Company, then registering as an Ikari Co player would score your points for PanO, and give you access to the PanO forums. It wouldn't make sense to have ForCo fighting ForCo on behalf of the Combined Army.
Frankly, doing this mid-campaign would totally blow for the NA2 players that have actually been working together and doing well.
We'll see, hell, I'm not playing mercs right now because I wouldn't have been able to pick a faction (and because Mike made a great speech for O-12)
With the ability for folks to play a list of their choosing on their account, we essentially get the MERCs in any way we want. Granted it means your stuck with a faction for the campaign and cant flip flop around.
Agreed, it would be way better if any NA2 player (minus JSA) could just "sell" it's services to other factions. They could even be allowed to switch mid-campaign, if there is a higher bidder.
I don't think that's great solution @theGricks, considering how many people play more than one faction, making them choose one and one only will cut into their fun, and when people try to work out the narrative later on it will be a lot more confusing... There's already a little bit more ludonarative dissonance now that O12 is a faction too. They're the highest authority in the sphere, bound to keep the peace and settle disputes with the minimum of bloodshed. In the gameplay they're basically just another dog in the fight. That means that when they say they want to take a zone, in character it's treason to fight back, and not a lot of people are willing to do that, so it shuts down defensive actions to all but the few people who're willing to play the game mechanics rather than RP... Realistically, I think the solution to this issue has been and gone In the first two years with the secret objective system. If every faction was given a clear narrative objective to achieve then the points and holding zones would become secondary to doing the thing and rping... Looking at just game mechanics, the weighted scores are wrong again. Pano,209 ariadna 238, nomads 237 all score 3 points for a win. Haqqislam has 208, but scores 4. 13%less registered players than the top two gets 25% more points than a faction with 1 more than them...
The puntuation i think it works, at least at phase 1, by "pronostics", maybe they do not expect so many Haqquislam players? I don't know
I feel like the scoring is set manually with population expectations...I thought maybe it would be automatic based on the population number...but I dont think that is happening...
What should happen is everyone should be able to register for the campaign a week before it is scheduled to start. that way the scoring can be set based on actual numbers and not proposed. It also allows for participants to get into the the RP before the action starts and set the narrative for the campaign.
Yeeessssss, open the registration and forums early. It also allows for command structure to be set BEFORE the campaign.
Even in this campaign, it was pushed back a couple of weeks, it was the perfect opportunity to take advantage of this. Let the teams interact as opposed to acting on the fly. Command structure for the new factions (O-12 this year, JSA last year, etc) could be organized and set. For Mercs, it would provide time for them to contract out there services and their points be allocated to their "contracted faction'. This would add a huge development to both the fluff and the gameplay.
Or have less "factions" as such, like work out the alliances beforehand (hyperpowers vs lesser nations or something like that) I'll be running a narrative campaign locally and that's the direction I'll be going, ask the players and set up the politics at the beginning
That still leaves O12 and CA hanging, but if it's combined with some kind of separate system for them then it would be a lot better... Who knows, maybe there will be some civil war in N4 that splits the human sphere into two sides that will set it up for next year...
Depending on how cynical your interpretation of the political situation in the sphere is, you might not consider them anything other than another dog in the fight. Well, or they're overstepping their authority and tyrannically oppressing the citizens of the Sphere. Sure, but better not make it secret because people are going to find it out anyway, and you have to go through the trouble of filtering it through these faction leaders, which takes time and puts the factions on unequal footing because not every faction leader is as on top of things (honestly the idea of a faction leader is kind of weird and should probably be jettisoned). This happens every time, but I think it's a consequence of BoW/OTT's interface, which isn't very flexible.
