Dev Diary #20: The Yuuzhan Vong, Remastered
The Yuuzhan Vong caused 365 trillion casualties across the Galaxy and brought down the New Republic. They are a major adversary in Age Of Legends, and now they're being remastered...
Welcome to Dev Diary #20! This is consistently the type of post that readers and subscribers enjoy, and today’s 20th issue I think will be a particular favorite. Because today we are turning to the faction who are, more than any other, the major enemy in Age Of Legends.
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The Yuuzhan Vong
Back in the early days of what was then called the ‘New Jedi Order Compilation’ mod the Yuuzhan Vong had a bare minimum ground and space roster, enough to play with, but not enough to provide a fully-fleshed out gameplay experience. Thanks to the generosity of the Vong Invaders Expansion Mod that changed, and they grew into a completely developed, well-rounded faction.
In the lore, and in the mod, they rely to some extent upon various types of collaborators, namely the Peace Brigade, but also on some others, to help guard captured worlds behind the lines, to hunt the Jeedai, and to raid New Republic territory. At the moment, you simply build a special space structure to access this, and thus unlock various Peace Brigade or Ylesian Republic buildable units.
But I’m no longer satisfied with that: the Vong would not build new technological ships. They just about tolerated their vassals using machinery in order to help the invaders subjugate the Galaxy, but even then they reacted violently to some Peace Brigade tech. There is just no way that the Vong would ever construct new conventional space units, and I wanted to reflect this in the mod.
So… the way in which the Vong player can access these collaborator forces is being changed.
The Vong Collaborators
In v1.34 there is now a new, non-playable faction, the Vong Collaborators, which will be used as the umbrella faction, in many different ways, to represent the various allies of the Yuuzhan Vong; the Peace Brigade, the Ylesian Republic, and some other vassal groups that sided with the invaders.
The Peace Brigade
The collaborationist militia and mercenary-style force which fought for the Yuuzhan Vong, the Peace Brigade infiltrated planetary governments, hunted for Jedi, served as second line garrison forces and fought for the Yuuzhan Vong. They believed that the Vong were most likely to win the war, and that they would be in a position of power in the post-war Galaxy under Yuuzhan Vong rule. The Peace Brigade are going to undergo some exciting changes…
In the current build of the mod, the Peace Brigade are represented by buildable space and land units, each requiring special orbital or ground structures. The buildable land units will remain as in the current mod. But the space units will now use the same system you can currently find for the mercenary forces in Zsinj’s Empire.
Once the Yuuzhan Vong have won a certain number of victories, the Peace Brigade will be unlocked, giving the Vong player access to buildable ‘spawners’ that summon a randomised group of Peace Brigade space units in battle.
The buildable spawners are cheaper than regular units, they are ‘built’ in just a few seconds, but they can only be used once. They also incur an upkeep cost.
In battle the Peace Brigade units will fight alongside you, but they will not be under your direct control, instead belonging to the ‘Vong Collaborators’ faction, with a faction color similar to the Vong’s but different enough to differentiate the two.
Ylesian Republic
Once the Vong achieved their conquest of Hutt Space, and the fracturing of the New Republic, they set up a puppet, collaborationist galactic government based on the planet Ylesia. This attracted various disaffected New Republic politicians and even some military forces who believed that, with the fall of Coruscant, the War was unwinnable and Vong domination was inevitable.
The Ylesian Republic incorporated the Peace Brigade as their armed forces, and in the mod they also have the opportunity to incorporate some limited ex-New Republic assets and forces representing those who believed the Ylesian Republic, and not the Galactic Alliance, was the legitimate successor state to the New Republic.
Again, I am not satisfied with how this is currently represented in the mod. At present the Ylesian Republic is basically just a space station, with a few New Republic-style capital ships hidden behind it. I want to do something much more exciting…