In the 2nd Age of the Genesys Project you will find similarities with the previous age as well as some changes to Domains you are playing. One of the biggest for Humanoids besides technology, guns, and vehicles is Political Influence.
Lets take a look at what it does and how it works.
Breaking it down- For Humanoid Factions- Political Influence determines what Battleplans you will have access to in the 2nd Age.
Moving into the 2nd Age
As factions in the Humanoid Domain leave behind the 1st Age, there are political changes that can help move your faction forward and change how your faction plays the game. This is Political Influence which is a Class Option for your Level 3 and 5 classes.
Political Influence
Taking this option for your class represents members of the class taking a part in your factions political (government) establishments. Political Influence grants you multiple opportunities to gain access to new Battleplans and options when playing your games.
New Battleplans
The best part is that these battleplans do not cost any points for your game, you simply select the one that have access to through Political Influence. You don't even need a class with the Political Influence in the game to use the Battleplan, it becomes part of your faction.
What happens to the old ones? Generic Battleplans from the Core Rules are still available for the same point cost. The ones you like to use from your domain though generally have more efficient versions in the 2nd Age and will require Political Influence to get.
There are loads of new Battleplans available for Humanoids are gained through your Political Influence allowing a 1 selection per point of Political Influence.
Here are some examples:
Aristocracy: In Games where a Class Level is restricted to “One squad only” you may take 1 additional squad.
Controlled Economy: Reduces the point cost of a single squad for the game.
Imperialism: Grants bonuses to Progression Points for the game
Militaristic: This allows for squads to be upgraded to War Veterans for bonuses to Coordinated Attacks/Defenses
Nationalism: You may enhance another Battleplan of your choice by 1. (this is added to an existing battleplan to make it better!
While we will not lay them all out other options include, Free Markets, Theocracy, Professional Soldiers, Bureaucracy, Anarchy, Meritocracy, Indoctination, and more.
There are even a few advanced forms as well like Magocracy, Cyberocracy, Plutocracy, and Technocracy.
So how does a class gain Political Influence?
Any Classes that provide Political Influence are involved and contribute. To determine the Political Influence of your faction, use the Class with the highest Command Characteristic to determine how much Political Influence it has.
All other Classes with Political Influence grant an additional +1 Political Influence regardless of what their Command Characteristic is.
So while you may not want to really dive into the political realm of your humanoid factions, this gives you the opportunities to really create and customize the Battleplans you will get to use in the game.
Of course there are traits that can add to and modify all of this as well.
The other Domains? Well you know me better than that. Of course they have their own expanded options as well. The Fey for instance gain access to Battleplans dependent upon the Spheres they have access to, but we will get more into the other domains in the coming weeks.