The Realms Beyond

The Realms Beyond is a fantasy real-time strategy game developed and published by 50A Studios for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch. The game isn't just the first independent game published by the studio, but it also marks the first time the studio used their own engine, the D4 Shatteray. Revolving around a fantasy world, The Realms Beyond puts players in control of a multitude of familiar factions with several interesting twists of their own as they battle against each other in a bid for power.

It is released on the 20th of May, 2020, and had its first trailer announced in E3 2018. The game is set to have Command & Conquer style campaigns where each factions get to have their own stories in the world that is. Seasonal content updates are also planned, adding new factions and other things to come.

Gameplay
Played similarly to Age of Empires, The Realms Beyond has quite a lot of similarities towards the said game. Players play as one of the factions available within the game and are tasked with building an army to trump the opposing sides. Depending on the mode however, killing all of the enemies doesn't always equate to victory.

Players can build structures that support their faction's power from political to military. With enough political influence, players can persuade other factions to assist them in their quest or even absorb them into one's own fold, uniting two great powers. With a stable economy, recruiting soldiers, building other structures, and doing researches will cost you less resources. And with a strong military force, obvious things happen.

Political Influence
At the start of every game, a faction's political influence always starts at zero no matter what. How influential a faction is in the match can be seen in the factions' respective headquarters through the aptly-named Power Meter which measures influence through bars ranging from zero to a hundred percent. Political influence can be extended by giving a helping hand to other factions if they either ask you to be their ally or they accept your offer as friends. The meter will slowly go up as your relationship with the allied factions improve. Before accepting requests from their allies, players can smooth their relationships by clearing out hostile NPC camps that constantly plague the allies' territories.

A friendship can be forged either by sending ambassadors or the leader himself to the capital of the to-be ally. If the player's leader happened to have met the faction's leader in another place as well, then a coalition can be established too. Embassies can be built after the initial creation of the alliance, but only one can be built per faction. The embassy can be upgraded to accommodate more alliances to the point that it can become a League Camp.

In this newfound alliance, the player and allied factions can ask requests and assistances to each other. The player can ask for extra soldiers to reinforce their army and the allies can ask the player to lend some resources to them. While embarking on known quests, the player can invite the allied factions to join in on the quest at the cost of splitting the quest rewards for them. If the player's Power Meter is high enough though, the allied factions may accept the omittance of their rewards.

If the player's political influence reaches the maximum level, they have the option to offer their allies a hand in unity. If they do accept, then expect an entirely new kingdom to be under one's control. If they don't accept, then expect a substantial dip in the Power Meter. The latter can be avoided by opting to form a League however, which doesn't integrate the allied factions but allow for a number of benefits depending on who formed the league the first place. A faction can break away from the League if circumstances force them to and the initiator can in turn disband the league. As said, the creation of a league allows for the final upgrade of the creator faction's embassy to the League Camp. The League Camp maintains the group's solidarity and organizes treaties, deals and offers, requests, and benefits.

With enough political power, players are able to declare peace treaties among warring factions which may include one of their own allies or even utterly stranger factions they have yet to encounter in the map. Players with high influence have a greater chance of making friends with even those who don't favor diplomacy and asking for bigger favors. Hostile NPC camps may even be friendly to the player if they recognize the extent of his/her faction.

As mentioned before, the Power Meter can indeed go down when players start to ignore their allies and refuse their pleas. On the player's side, if an ally refuses their requests over and over again, the player can opt to cut off all ties with them. They will remain neutral, however, and they can re-establish their alliance sooner or later. On the AI's side, their reactions vary. Some may remain neutral just like the player, but some may also be so pissed off they instantly become hostile towards the players.

Backstabbing can be done by both the player and the AI, triggered somewhat randomly but based upon how they treat one another. Once either one of them betrays each other by declaring surprise wars or siding with their mortal enemies, then no amount of apologizes can re-establish the friendship that was established and the Power Meter will crash like a meteor. At best, the betrayed faction will have a neutral or semi-hostile relationship with the other one. Backstabbing a faction that is already in a league will automatically remove both the betrayed and the betrayer, leaving the league's leadership to another faction while demoting the League Camp to its previous state.

Relationships between factions are divided into some categories, which are:
 * Hostile : Utterly disdains each other and are practically at war.
 * Shaky : Not an open war, but both sides clearly don't like taking demands and sharing things.
 * Neutral : As long as they act civil, they're good with each other.
 * Allied : A substantial friendship has been made and benefits are sure to come.
 * Trusted : Brothers and sisters in-arms, an alliance made in heaven.
 * League Member : Fellow members of a grand council. All members' relationships are automatically promoted to Allied.
 * Vassal : A faction is fully integrated into another faction either through conquest or diplomacy.
 * Rebellion : The vassal states attempt to free themselves from their lord, inciting a civil war that puts the lording faction's political status with others on hold. If it succeeds, the lord will be forced to rebuild their faction in another place while the rebels claim their remnants. Attempts to re-establish an alliance between the two can happen but with little success.

The status of a political relationship is also affected by the faction leader the player is controlling. If the leader happens to be a warmongering warlord, then the player will find themselves more likely to be allied with fellow warmongers. If the leader happens to be an absolutely neutral person, then the player can literally ally themselves with any factions present in-game without a problem.

Since the position of leader is occupied by faction heroes and players can have more than a single faction hero in a match, players' leader is determined at the match's start. Players cannot change their leaders in the middle of a match. However, in the case that the leader do die in combat, then the player can determine the next new leader from a pool of heroes the player has trained or recruited. For factions with vassals or they who have recruited heroes from other factions, then it's not uncommon for a foreign hero to take helm of a faction between different races.

Territories and Settlements
The player starts a match with a hero, a few units, and a headquarter. Headquarter names vary from faction to faction but they all have the same function in the end. Headquarters act as the foundation of the player's faction. With the headquarters, players can build structures, recruit soldiers, do researches, and run the everyday life of their faction in general. Indeed, the loss of the headquarters will result in the player unable to perform production tasks until it is rebuilt.

The presence of the headquarters mark the borders of the player's territory which gradually expands as they build more structures and upgrade their headquarters. If the player upgrades their headquarters to the max level, then they have the option to fortify their the faction's capital. Fortifying the capital will grant the player a costly option to relocate all their walls to the boundaries of their capital. Though the initial payment is quite high, both new and old walls that the players build or have can be placed down for free for the rest of the match. This only applies for the capital, of course.

The capital acts as the primary political propeller for the faction. Should the headquarters or the embassy and league camp there fall, then the Power Meter will plummet until they're rebuilt. The destruction or siege of a capital may have political consequences as well, with allied factions possibly withdrawing their alliance in trade with the faction that sieges the capital out of fear or power.

There can only be one headquarters in a single match, but players can build town centers should they wish to expand their faction's territories and influence. Town centers can be upgraded in the same vein as headquarters but have less overall building health and border area. This is remedied by building structures within the set territory as long as there are available builders. Each factions have different town center identities just as their headquarters have so, setting each other apart.