One of the things that confuses players the most is factions, and surprisingly there’s not much information about them here yet, so I’ve decided to take it upon myself to make this guide. Let’s get to it.
Index.
1: What is a faction?
2: Why should I join a faction?
3: When, and how should I join a faction?
4: War, huh, yeah. What it is good for?
5: Loyalty? Forget that. I just want cards!
1: What is a faction?
A faction is Tyrant’s guild/clan/group system. It’s a place people can chat, help each other out with their decks, and have wars with other factions. A faction’s level determines how many members it can have, and the more faction points it earns, the higher level it becomes. Faction level and loyalty determine what cards you can buy from the rewards shop, and factions are ranked by the amount of faction points they have. Faction points can only be earned through wars.
2: Why should I join a faction?
If you read #1, you should have even more questions than you came in with! Isn’t that great?! Now let’s start getting them answered. First of all, factions can be a lot of fun. You meet new people, get to chat with them, and don’t have any moderators to ban you if your conversations get a bit inappropriate :P. More experienced members can give you some ideas for your offensive/defensive decks, and build them in the arena to provide some feedback on how well they work. It’s in your faction’s best interest that all of their members are capable players, so some people will actually want to help you.
Factions participate in wars regularly (at least the smart ones do), and since the stamina bar can’t be used for anything except wars, it will help both you and your faction if you participate in them. You specifically, by letting you buy special cards from the reward section of the store in addition to extra exp/gold. I think getting to smash other factions into the ground is its own reward though.
3: When, and how should I join a faction?
While you can technically join a faction whenever you want, to really be useful and make use of being in a faction, you should probably be at least level 6-8. Better yet, be finished with the 66 main missions (probably around level 14-15), and you will have no problem joining great factions. As of this writing, someone level 12-15 can easily join a serious faction, and 20-25 is enough for a top 10 faction. The reason you don’t want to join a faction at level 1 is because the main activity in factions is fighting wars (explained later), and if you can’t win at least 50% of your fights, you’re probably going to cause more harm than good during faction wars.
As for how to join one, that’s quite easy. In the forums, you can usually find a topic where someone’s trying to recruit, or check the pinned topic to see some of the smaller and newer factions. Either fill out whatever little form they provide, or just give some basic details (tyrant level, arena points, maybe mission progress, etc), and they’ll probably invite you. If you don’t see any factions you like in the forums, you can make your own topic and provide some of that same information, maybe give some specifics on the kind of faction you’re looking for. You can also try asking in the kongregate chat, or applying to random factions in the factions tab of the game. If you’re given a link to click in order to join a faction, click on it and it will open the game in a new window or tab. Then click on ‘factions’, to see if you’ve been accepted or if your applicant has been sent. If you’re accepted, you’re all set.
4: War, huh, yeah. What it is good for?
Absolutely NOTHING! Well, actually in Tyrant, war is more than the usual macho fest of “Hey, look at us! We beat you! We’re better than you!! Hahahahaha!!!!!!!” that most games have. War is actually essential for your faction’s rank, growth, and the growth of how many cards you can buy from the rewards store. A faction can declare war on factions of the their level /-1 (/-2 from level factions level 6 and above). Wars last for 6 hours, and while a war is going on, both factions can take turns attacking the other faction’s defense decks at random for 10 stamina per attempt. If the attacker wins, his (or her) team gets around 20 points. If the defender wins, his team gets around 20 points, and if the attacker surrenders, the defender’s team gets around 10 points. Because the defenders work the same way as they do in the arena (you go first, and the AI plays for the defender), the attackers usually win. Winning nets 10 exp, 30-70-or-so gold, and 1 point of loyalty. Successfully defending (see: doing nothing and having a stupid or unlucky attacker) also nets you a point of loyalty. Additionally, long after this topic was made, a ‘surge’ mode was added. Winning a surge gives a 20 point bonus, but the defender takes the first turn, so it’s generally more difficult to win. Surge mode should generally be avoided in close wars until your card pool is more developed, but feel free to experiment in wars where the outcome is clear already. At the end of the 6 hours, the team with the highest point total wins. The winning team gets faction points depending on how many faction points the opposing team had, and how that compared to the winning team (higher point total = higher winnings, losing faction above or about equal to winning faction in rank = higher winnings than winning against a much lower-ranked faction), and the losing team loses about 1/3rd as many faction points as the winners received! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, losing is bad!
5: Loyalty? Forget that. I just want cards!
If you’ve explored the entire store, you’ve found the faction rewards section, and might have been interested in joining a faction because of the cool cards you can get. As much as you might like to quickly join a high-leveled faction and just buy the nice cards, it’s not so simple. During wars (explained above), you get 1 point of loyalty for winning attacks or defenses. However, once you leave your faction (or get kicked out for some reason), your loyalty resets to zero. Since the highest rewards in the shop need a whopping 2000 loyalty, you should try to find a faction you feel comfortable with. Also keep in mind that as of this update, the highest level faction is level 9, so once again, you should try to find a faction you actually feel like staying in to help it grow. Basically what I’m saying is: if you want those cards, you’ll become loyal whether you like it or not! Also, the more competitive factions tend to kick people who make no contribution to the war efforts, don’t log in for days without telling anyone anything, or are otherwise a waste of space. Either be an active participant that is good and/or trying to improve, or become everyone’s friend so they’d feel too guilty about kicking you out ;). Whatever you do, you should probably tell your faction (especially your leader) if you plan to be gone for a few days.
Fin.
So, that’s that, for now. That took a while, but at least it gave me something to do while waiting for energy. You’d better appreciate this! /shakes fist menacingly/.If any part of this is confusing, or you have other faction-related questions, suggestions for additions, words of thanks, etc., let me know.
