Artistic Forces/Stick Figuroids

"Let's go working and fighting together!"

- The voice when the Stick Figuroids is selected in the Campaign mode. The Stick Figuroids are one of the factions in Artistic Forces.

Description
The origins of the sapient race of stick figures known as the Stick Figuroids are natively descended and populated in Stickos, a presidential chiefdom that is continentally located somewhere in the western hemisphere of the earthlike, Kepler-esque exoplanet known as Animatopia many years ago. Initially, the stick peoples were once considered a peaceful, handy and supreme beings on Animatopia, and their societies are wisely kind until they were being suppressed by many oppressors like most fascists, hegemons and tyrants. The majority of the Stick Figuroid population is now born in captivity, and are forced to work for them and their empire entirely.

Due to that kind of oppression, they are looking for a faction that defends their personal freedoms and fights against various kinds of oppression, such as fascism, tyranny, imperialism and even dictatorship. Together they have established theirs as a single organizational entity to engage the civil war or war of liberation against their enemies, and combat what is oppressive to them in order to achieve their heroic goals. With this and its militia, which is made up of civilians who supplement their military forces in case of emergency, they really want to have forcing labors, growing larger communities, building cities and towns, maintaining freedom and justice for all, and keeping the peace. On the other hand, they seek the industrial revolution and disdain fascism as an oppressive far-right ideology because of imperialism, which caused the entire world to be hegemonically conquered or taken over, and being hostile to their freedoms.

Despite being nowhere near as technologically advantaged as many technologically superior factions, the technological level of their military force is almost far from the advancement. So they mainly emphasize working tools, hunting weapons, workforce, thermobaric weapons, ad hoc weaponry, trench warfare, classical warfare, high mobility, attrition warfare, hit-and-run tactics, and most importantly vitalizing and purchasing the prominent arsenal of classical and powerful US military assets, ranged from World War I to Vietnam War. This adds to their arsenal with biplanes, airplanes, jet-powered aircraft from the early jet age, first generation MBTs, light tanks, semi-automatic rifles, machine guns, pistols, and so on.

History
TBA

Strategy
Compared to the rival factions, the Stick Figuroids are a much worth, more numerous, more fortifiable, and more versatile but glass-cannon-type faction because of siege weaponry, especially their long-range and artillery units. On the other hand, despite being a glass cannon faction, they are very useful to their defensive and offensive capabilities for stopping their enemies from sieging their base with fortifiable defenses, purchasing upgrades, and highly attacking enemy bases with their siege tactics in order to become quiet strong compared to the other factions with highly offensive tactics, such as the brutishly ferocious and dreaded Totalitarian Empire, the enormously monstrous Kaijin Gundan, the devastatingly aggressive Oarcks, and the heavily frontal CCS. Most of their weapons, vehicles, aircraft, including those from the early jet age, and vessels, most especially the American military assets that are ranged from World War I to Vietnam War, are absolutely outdated, old, and long abandoned by the American military. However, these military assets are importantly required for the Stick Figuroids via military contracts to strengthen their defensively stronger military reserve and organization. So with the help of their private military contractors, they have been extensively recycled, obtained, revitalized, and modified for militarizing and arming themselves for battle as their military force, capable of protecting their freedoms and combating their enemies. Speaking of mobility, their infantry units are highly mobile enough to either move on foot via Running Footwears or ride on their folding bicycles once an upgrade has purchased at the Equipment Warehouse (or Arsenal Market when upgraded), and some of their vehicles can also maneuver faster with High Mobility Engines and Improved Tank Maneuvering upgrades, simply bought at the Industrial Workshop.

The Stick Figuroids claim to personally defend their freedoms, and liberate suppressed peoples and territories from oppressors, especially imperialists, fascists, hegemons and tyrants, who have taken over these. In reality however, collateral damage was of little concern to the Stick Figuroid commanders as they factually believed in the absolute righteousness of their protective and defensive cause.

Tactics
The Stick Figuroids are known for hunting, incendiary, thermobaric, utilized and improvised weaponries, high mobility, hit-and-run tactics, classical warfare, trench warfare, workforce, military reserve, attrition warfare, and siege tactics as their main military tactics. In addition, they have a variety of siege units to raid enemy bases.

The typical Stick Figuroid infantry is usefully equipped with outdated weapons, specifically the American-made ones, and often have either little or more training, although the Stick Figuroids employed overburdening numbers and the element of surprise to challenge and defeat their foes similar to those strategic ways from World War I up to Vietnam War.

Many of the Stick Figuroids' defenses are provably fortifiable to defend their bases from being besieged by their enemies in an overwhelming way, like the Blockhouses, which are used for defending infantry from enemy attacks, including anti-infantry units. Sometimes, the military buildings of the Stick Figuroids do not require power. However, in reality, any of their structures needs more power to provide and operate a lot more, such as the Supply Warehouses, Refineries, Oil Refineries, and Lumber Mills. With these power-providing buildings, each of their production buildings train and build units faster.

The Stick Figuroid units are cheap and quick to produce, but some of them in their arsenal are expensive or slower. Once the Cheapies protocol is unlocked, then all of their costs are reduced to be cheaper. Their siege machines and crewed weapons are improvised and assembled with whatever spare parts the Workshop happened to have at hand. As their military assets, their weapons, vehicles, aircraft, and vessels are usefully recycled and based on the real-world classical American military weapons, equipment, and technology of the 20th century from World War II to Vietnam War. Their vehicles, aircraft, and vessels can also be produced in vehicle production buildings (Motor Pools for light and transportable vehicles and Armor Depots for tanks, armored artillery, and heavy vehicles), aircraft production buildings (Helidromes for rotary-wing aircraft and Airdromes and Airstrips for fixed-wing aircraft), and Dockyards respectively. Also, the Stick Figuroid commanders (or they should be called chiefs) may usually buy more upgrades off the Equipment Warehouses (or Arsenal Markets), Research Facilities, and Industrial Workshops to strengthen and improve units, making their performances better and even stronger. If the Stick Figuroid forces are fully upgraded on the battlefield, they can be quite strong and powerful. Whatever weakness the Stick Figuroids cannot compensate by extra upgrades, they probably do so with much useful tactics, as well as the stronger ones just like their heavy tanks for example, in order to achieve victory in battle. As the Stick Figuroid forces are highly versatile and mobile, especially running footwears, folding bicycles, high mobility engines, and improved tank maneuvering for infantry and vehicles, respectively, their faction excels classical, trench, and attrition warfare, especially hit-and-run tactics, early modern military tactics, and classical multipurpose weaponry. However, they lacked guided missiles, including surface-to-air and anti-tank guided missile launchers, despite being technologically improved but disadvantaged.

The Stick Figuroids are mostly specialized in trench warfare as they build up trenches in the battlefield and charge on the enemies aggressively. This type of land warfare utilizes the occupied lines largely comprising military trenches, in which troops are better protected from the small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery.

Technological level
The technological level of the Stick Figuroids is almost far from the technological advancement despite being a faction with some technological disadvantages even though they lack surface-to-air and anti-tank guided missile systems. Thanks to their researchers, they possibly and certainly utilize working tools, hunting, thermobaric and incendiary weapons, improvised weaponry (including the utilized ones), and an arsenal of classical and powerful US military assets, especially ones from World War I to Vietnam War, that are vitalized, recycled, and purchased via contracts to get their technology improved.

Veterancy ranks
The Stick Figuroids have veterancy ranks that are inspired by the rankings of the U.S. Military.

Sub-factions
The Stick Figuroids have only one sub-faction, which consists a group of adventurers and expeditioners.

Expeditionary Adventurers
The Expeditionary Adventurers utilizes the adventurous and expeditionary tactics anywhere in the battlefield, including high mobility and trench tactics.

Commanders

 * Chief President Marky Henryson: President of the Chiefdom of Stickos and the commander-in-chief of the Stick Figuroids
 * Chief Marshall Rudolf Chapman: Supreme Chief of the Stick Figuroids
 * Chief General Hammy Bluford: Stick Figuroid Expeditionary Chief
 * Chief Major General Thomas Hunter: Stick Figuroid Hunting Chief
 * Chief Brigadier Alain Becker: Stick Figuroid Assault Chief
 * Chief Colonel Henry Stedman: Stick Figuroid Exploration Chief
 * Chief Lieutenant Richard Bennis: Stick Figuroid Mechanized Division Chief
 * Chief General Leonard Radisson: Stick Figuroid Chief of the Defense Force in Moodley Island
 * Captain Cecil Pendleton: Stick Figuroid Captain of the Defense Force in Moodley Island

Agents

 * Sergeant Stet Huntsmann: Bow Expert of the Stick Figuroid Defense Force in Moodley Island
 * Dr. Ego Toppers: Healer and Medic of the Stick Figuroid Defense Force in Moodley Island
 * Colonel Laurence Leonard: Terrain Commando (hero unit)
 * Major Calvin Hamill: Explorations Commando (hero unit)
 * Stanley Stickmann: Communications officer (announcer)

Factional theme
Electronic dance music with orchestic American WWII-era basis is all used for the themes of the Stick Figuroids.

Trivia

 * The appearance of the Stick Figuroids are based on the stick figures that are closer to the human anatomy as seen the sketches of Igor Cheban and Mary Langewisch (known online as Fragile Glory Impressions) on YouTube.
 * This faction is basically influenced by and based off the U.S. Armed Forces from World War I to Vietnam War.
 * Their factional emblem is drawn after a petroglyphic stick figure, located at the prehistoric Leo Petroglyph in Leo, Ohio, USA.
 * The Stick Figuroids' gameplay is seemingly inspired by the USA from the Company of Heroes series, King and Baron from Medieval Warfare mod for OpenRA, Humans from the Warcraft RTS titles, the Western civilizations from the Age of Empires series, and America from Rise of Nations.
 * Their improvised and traditional weaponries for self-defense and their military force known as the Stick Figuroid Militia are a reference to the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution that usually reads the following: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
 * The Stick Figuroids are one of the few factions with many characters and units, including the announcer himself, that are voiced by Axl Jet Baños, the creator and director of Artistic Forces, with the next three being the Freaks, Puppetoids, and the Dongwuren Dynasty. This is a prime example of the Descended Creator trope in which a crewmember, executive or even the creator for a medium makes an appearance in a part that would ordinarily be cast as an actor to portray a role of a character or a narrator despite being a staff member.
 * Some theme music of this faction are the arrangements based on the compositions made by Waterflame (real name: Christian Mejlænder Krogsvold), the Norwegian music composer who is responsibly known for making musical titles, most notably Glorious Morning, Everyday Heroes, Village Up North, Final Battle, Field of Memories, Flight, and Glorious Thunderstorm.