Factions

## Factionsets

Just as the original Age of Empires 3 has different civsets (named by fans as "Cultures") in the main game – Europeans, Natives, Asians and Africans(in the DE) all play differently in several critical areas of the gameplay.

Its hard to perceive what truly constitutes a "Culture" in AoE3. The best defining feature of a Culture in the official releases of AoE3 is the unique age-up mechanic that is shared among all civilizations belonging to the same Culture – Europeans had Politicians, Native-Americans had Tribal Leaders, Asians built Wonders and Africans made Alliances. Another good defining feature of a Culture, is the Hero unit – Explorers for the Europeans, Warchiefs for the Natives, Monks for Asians and Kings for Africans. There are also unique features that aren't shared between other cultures, for example, Europeans have Royal Guard upgrades and access to Factories, Natives had the Firepit(In TWC)/Community Plaza(in DE), Asians had the Consulate-Export System, and Africans had the Cattle-Influence System. There are other unique mechanisms, though its difficult to pinpoint these as decisive defining features of a Culture in AoE3. How a civilization has access to Outlaws and Mercenaries, for example; an unique naming system for unit upgrades (But Native Americans share those with Africans). Some cultures also have a shared unit roster, in which some of these shared units is combined with a civ's unique unit roster – like the Europeans and Africans; while some cultures have a shared unit archetypes instead, in which each civ roster is unique but share common roles to other units from other civs (Natives and Asians).

So the official games define culture as having the following features:

* An unique Age-Up Mechanic shared between all civs of the same culture;
* A starting Hero Unit Type, which may or not be unique for each civ of the culture, but share at least the same mechanics;
* A Wild Card Culture mechanic that makes playing the game considerable different from other cultures;
* Different forms of access to different features (notably Outlaws and Mercenaries);
* Different Upgrade Systems (most often in the naming system only, but also different upgrade buildings/functionalities);
* A roster of units/archtypes shared amongs the culture civs.

## List of Possible/Confirmed Factions

The following factions are either proposal factions (that either loosely fit the mod's setting to appear or have some kind of plan to implement) or confirmed factions (which work has already formally began on them). Pages for factions that are not confirmed should display the ideas/proposals for the factions, whereas pages for factions that are confirmed should display the current concept and work in progress.

### Galactic Superpowers

Each Galactic Superpower has its own unique Age-Up Mechanic, an unique use for the Sector Command building.

* Galactic Republic(confirmed)
* Confederacy(confirmed)
* Galactic Empire(confirmed)
* Rebel Alliance(confirmed)
* First Order(confirmed)
* New Republic(confirmed)

### Type-I Galactic Civilizations

* Geonosians
* Gungans(confirmed)
* Trandoshans
* Twi'leks
* Wookiees(confirmed)

### Type-II Galactic Civilizations

* Onderonians
* Royal Naboo (confirmed)
* Sullustans
* Umbarans

### Type-III Galactic Civilizations

* Bothans
* Corellians
* Kuatti
* Mandalorians(confirmed)
* Mon Calamari
* Zygerrians

### Galactic Underworld

* Black Sun(confirmed)
* Hutt Clans(confirmed)
* Lok Revenants
* Pyke Syndicate
* Zann Consortium

### Galactic Megacorps

* Trade Federation(confirmed)
* IG Banking Clan
* Techno Union
* Commerce Guild
* Corporate Alliance