Different factions in a wargame - should they have the same stats or be different?

You might not like my answer, but it's that you can do either.

One example of a game where you have no variance in faction abilities is Axis & Allies. It's a classic for a reason. They do it very well, and it tends to be quite an engaging game. One thing to note about this game is that there are starting scenarios and you always use those. The factions don't simply start from nothing and build up.

One example where there is variance is Rune Wars. Once again, a fantastic game, but it has somewhat of a different feel than A&A due to this. The variance allows for starting from nothing and each player building up differently and having more replayability from that setup.

I think what it comes down to is how you want your game to feel. Both come with their own balancing and 'fun test' challenges, but both have been done well. Like I said, that's probably not the answer you wanted, but its your game. :)

It sounds like you're making great progress on your game. Keep it up. :)

-Alex

I think that there's a lot to be learned on this topic from the RTS game world. Let's look at three largely popular games in their day (Command and Conquer 3, Age of Empires 3 and Supreme Commander), and how well they fared in initial reaction and continued playerbase.

Command and Conquer 3 came out the same week as Supreme Commander. Both were comparable in graphical capabilities, and both were "build a base, destroy the opponent" type games. Both were well-received, although SupCom was rated just a hair lower by a few websites (with accusations flying that they had been paid to write a more positive review to boost sales of C&C). As a result of their good ratings, both received an expansion (Though SupCom's was a standalone expansion).

Command and Conquer 3 had limited resources, three very asymmetrical factions, and waged war on a small scale. If you wanted to learn how to play the game, you would often focus on learning one faction at a time, then learn the other factions. The hype around the game's release was huge, and it attracted a wide variety of players, but it's hard to find players to play with nowadays.

Age of Empires 3 had somewhat limited resources (with ways to develop infinite resources), had 6 largely similar factions, and also waged war on a relatively small scale. The largest differences were in the power of certain units, and in the unique units that each faction received (for example, instead of standard cannons, the Portuguese could build "organ guns", which fired multiple times and were cheaper, but moved slower, dealt less damage per shot, and were a bit unwieldy). Since these differences were minor, it was fairly easy to switch between factions, though they were different enough that some players had strong preferences for one over another. The game was well received, and had two expansions, which presented factions that were largely different from the base game. The game is occasionally played today on Game Ranger.

Supreme Commander had unlimited resources, three largely similar factions (with the exception of a few factional tweaks, such as experimental units and unit HP vs. maneuverability), and waged war on a massive scale. Switching between factions was fairly easy since they were largely similar, though the small differences did take some skill to navigate and use properly. The game was largely unheard of, since it came from a small publisher, so its initial sales weren't as high, but thousands of people continue to play the game today in the game's mod scene "Forged Alliance Forever", as well as through Steam.

What can we learn from these examples? It appears that games that play on a larger scale tend to play with more similar factions, while smaller-scale games can have more leeway for variation.

Also, we learn that even even for games with relatively large scale, it's important to present some variation, though it doesn't need to be extensive. For example, you could pick two units from each faction that you'll make a hair different - maybe make them more powerful or unique in some way, incentivizing the player to use those, but not go overboard since if you just build that one type of unit, your opponents can easily build a counter.

Finally, it appears that hardcore gamers prefer largely similar factions, and that those players will continue to play for a long time, while making it about small scale conflict and unique factions may only attract casual gamers, who are excited with the game until the hype drops.

Though Warhammer seems to defy that... Huh... Meh, take it for what you will.

I learned a thing or 2 by analysing RTS.

Suggested guidelines:

1 - What about... who is the back bone in each army?

Keep that one the same. Not like Dune2000 where the combat tank is different for each faction.
Thus at least 1 unit will never change in stats per faction.
All other units (that all provide a support) dance around in stats.

2 - Adjust stats the same.

One gets +25% damage, one gets +25% health (this is balanced in a way).
One gets +25% range, one gets +25% speed. Although, range and speed factors depend on your game mechanics. And perhaps you have more stats to play with.

***

Of course, if you are worried about balance issue's. There are medkits against this.

3 - Make sure that each unit has an unique job. PLUS. There is time to adapt.

This can only be through (natural and/or mechanical) RPS. And this goes well with limited resources per turn. Plus, players need to travel to the other player with forces, while the other player can build the right units for a counter. And not one unit can do the fight alone.

In short, if you manage to make the RPS effects bigger than an unbalance through stats. The game balances itself through game play. Give players time to react on an attack. Take away reaction time from the attacker when there is new defence. "Cheaper" defence structures amplify this effect.

4 - If you still have 2 units with the intention on the exact same job.

Make sure the difference is HUGE between them. In such a way that a new RPS is born for the other factions to deal with these.

5 - Each faction has the exact, same, amount, of choices. And the exact same part has adjustments in stats. Example: Army A and B both have 9 units each. From which 4 randomly picked units have one of the 4 stats adjusted.

All right, that helps to give more specialized advice. If each player has only a handful of units, and makes selections at the beginning of the game, perhaps instead of having "factions", perhaps present the players a few technological upgrades that they can pick before the game, which can apply a bonus to certain units. If you let players choose three or so tech boosts via a drafting system beforehand, and you have 20 possibilities, you could greatly expand replayability.

Overall, it would save you design time, since you won't have to balance an entire faction against another but instead you can balance tech upgrades against each other.

He mentioned the first unit and the most expensive unit to be a standard. You first do play tests on these 2 for balance tests. All other units in between would be troubled fighting one and stronger against the other.

Can't seem to find the blog right now :|
It was one of my first to read regarding this topic.

It all sounds very interesting, really seems like a game I'd want to play for sure. :)

An old videogame that perhaps might help a little might be Gladius.
I don't know if you heard of it, its available only on PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube.

Here you controll teams of gladiators in a fictional world, they hail from four different regions.
The gladiators are all different classes and uses a bit of a rock paper sizzors system, its a turn based game.

Heavy gladiators beat medium, medium beats light, and light beats heavy due to being difficult to hit. Ranged and arcane classes dont get a bonus or weakness against other classes here.
They all have different skills too, with some overlapping ones.

It's probably still quite different from what you plan to do, but it just seems like something that might help give new ideas and such. Either way its a great game so theres that too. :)

I know I’m late getting onto this subject but I wanted to opine on the differences and variation of factions and their units because I had the same quandary.

There are so many ways to go about this and people have already given a lot of examples of the subject matter it really boils down to the differences in aesthetics/theme versus actual crunchy stuff like stats, abilities and etc.

Take a game like Tom Clancy’s End War where the three factions are pretty much the same in stats and functionality with the major differences in aesthetics. The crunchy differences are very subtle in this game such as the USA favoring long range engagements and their units tend to be a little more balanced where as the EU favored speed and uplink capture efficiency and Russians tend to be beefier and hit harder. Overall the strategy aspect of TCEW was very rock-paper-scissors esque in a subtle crunchy variation.
Then as someone mentioned before Command and Conquer has both aesthetic and stat line differences to the point that the three factions play different therefore necessitated a different play style and strategy. Another example of this is Starcraft where the stats and unit abilities truly give each race a play style identity. Such as Zerg emphasizes swarm and rush tactics, the Terrans emphasizes turtling and flexibility and the Protoss emphasizes on powerhousing and late game steamrolling.
That being said the question maybe is what you’re looking for as a variety in the game I say do a little bit of it all. Have a noticeable difference in aesthetics, themes, stat lines and play styles with each faction. As for a tabletop example of this look no further than Warmachine/Hordes.

Olson185 made a good point on the level of scale can determine how much variation of factional differences your game allows. I believe the smaller the scale the more attention to detail you can emphasize on real stat differences, abilities, special attack and whatnot.