It’s been a long time coming, as you will see, but REDLINE is getting much bigger very soon!
With REDLINE: Payday, our upcoming third expansion, the Solar War will be getting a little more crowded as our new Mercenary and Industrial factions will be added to the game to fight alongside the existing CPM and UNE factions!
This is a huge addition to the game as it doubles the number of playable factions and in so doing opens the gameplay up quite a bit to allow players to build more types of decks and battle in more ways that fit their favorite playstyles. In many ways, the addition of the Merc and Industrial factions fully completes REDLINE as we originally intended and makes the game more of a complete whole that it has been before.
But how did we get here and why did it take so long to add our new factions? (Which are super cool by the way!) Read on to find out!
EARLY GROUNDWORK
From the beginning of REDLINE’s design and outset, we always intended to have at least four factions within the game. While the focus of REDLINE’s story was the conflict between the United Nations of Earth and the Crimson Pact of Mars (the Solar War) the world was always big enough for more factions within it. If you go back and read the REDLINE Story which details the timeline of events leading up to outbreak of the Solar War, you will notice space based mining operations and private mercancy groups were vital to the start of hostilities. Mining companies were instrumental in providing many of the valuable rare earth metals that helped power the advanced technologies of the day while mercenaries were used by all nations to advance their agendas in secret as tensions began to rise with the increased exploration of space. Their inclusions in the timeline were no accident.
So while the seeds were planted from the start, we also faced the challenge of designing a game with the right size to be successful. As we planned on kickstarting the Core Set we were very careful to give REDLINE the best chance to fund. It is very easy to overdesign a game with too many moving pieces or expenses that drive up your funding goal and in turn make meeting it harder and harder. A lot of cool games never get made on Kickstarter for being too ambitious. Because of this we made an effort to show restraint with the creation of the REDLINE Core Set by limiting its scope to the CPM and UNE factions only. Then, IF the project funds and finds success we can look at ways to grow the game after that. Slow and steady wins the race, right?
So with the support of our players, the Core Set funded. Afterwards we felt the best way to support REDLINE at the time was by introducing new cards into the CPM and UNE factions to give players more ways to grow their collections and expand on new ways to play. With the introduction of our Siege and Battle of Neom expansions we gave our players a host of new cool efreets, exciting mechanics and engaging missions to play with along with the introduction of our multiplayer REDLINE Scramble format which is a blast to play.
Having expanded the card pool for the CPM and UNE it was clear that if we intended to add new factions to the game that now would be the best time to do so in order to keep the number of cards for each faction as close to parity as possible, or else if we kept waiting the CPM and UNE would feel much too big and the new factions much too small to be competitive with each other.
Luckily, we had planned for this since day one, as we purposely left a lot of design space alone when creating the playstyles of the CPM and UNE. Many common card game mechanics such as resource ramping, graveyard interactions and more were left out of previous REDLINE card designs as we wanted to save those unique abilities for the Merc and Industrial factions when they finally got their introduction. Now, with the addition of REDLINE: Payday, players will be able to use these new abilities and more to help dominate the battlefield while exploring fun and exciting new strategies!
LOCATION: BRAZIL
Once we knew Payday was going to finally introduce our new factions to the game we set to work to create the cards along with the setting and story simultaneously. While our first expansion, REDLINE: Siege, was very much a continuation of the Core Set as it included many cards and ideas we didn’t have room for in the Core Set, we wanted future expansions starting with Neom to advance the REDLINE universe. We did this by crafting more the story hand in hand with themes and mechanics of the set. As the Battle of Neom was our way to add urban warfare to REDLINE’s gameplay we set it during a massive invasion by the CPM to gain a foothold on Earth within the shining mega city of Neom that put the UNE on its heels.
Because Neom was heavily urban focused, it only made sense for Payday to be as much of an opposite as possible. A rural setting was identified early then as the natural follow up and since one of the new factions was going to be industrial it would provide the perfect location to aggressively strip mine for minerals. This exploitation of the environment for personal gain became a great way to frame that faction as slightly villainous and would allow the mercenary group to be a little more heroic when opposing it.
With the bigger themes falling into place we thought Latin America would be an ideal setting for Payday as we haven’t seen much of it within the game and it had plenty of lush green rainforests that would look great on some REDLINE cards. In addition, Brazil was a founding member of the technologically advanced BRIMEA (Brazil India and Middle East Alliance) organization that helped to create many of the technologies used in REDLINE but had all but disappeared with their massive exodus into space to escape the Solar War. The power vacuum that followed their escape would leave the peoples they left behind defenseless against any aggressors. The UNE’s struggle to police a world too big for them has always been a small subtheme of theirs that we haven’t given as much of a spotlight as we wanted. So placing Payday in Brazil would give us a chance to show what parts of the world look like far removed from the UNE. To be more accurate, Payday takes place during the Battle of Neom when the UNE and the world’s focus is squarely placed on the massive confrontation there.
This distraction is not lost on would be aggressors like the predatory Drihl Co mining company led by their CEO, Thaddeus Smart, who realizes the opportunity a distracted UNE provides. As such, Drihl Co won’t be satisfied until they mine out every grain of rare earth ore buried in the unprotected Amazonian river basin.
Opposing, Thaddeus Smart and Drihl Co are the plucky and daring mercenaires who belong to the Shamrock Mercenary Company. When we first starting creating the mercenary group for Payday, we didn’t have much of an idea where to begin when creating their appearance and backstory. But when our early efreet designs came in for them, they all had a green camo scheme with white and orange livery that looked like the Irish flag at first glance. Using that as a starting point with that we created Shamrock as an Irish themed group of daredevils lead by the calculating, Fool Killer, a hardened veteran who always has Shamrock’s financial health in mind.
It also helped that luck was always going to be one of the core attributes belonging to the Mercenary faction. So having our first merc group being closely associated with the luck of the Irish in name and appearance fit nicely! Happy accidents!
NEW FACTION DESIGN
We knew when creating the new Industrial and Mercenary factions that we wanted each new set with them going forward to focus on a specific company or organization within the larger banner of each group. This would allow us to explore different corners of the REDLINE universe while the CPM and UNE factions stayed as the constant focus. At the beginning of the set design, we had no grand plans for our first merc faction as mentioned and for a time, the Lunar Wolves or Suns of Saturn mercenary companies who were featured heavily in Battle of Neom were considered for Payday. But we didn’t want to retreat on old ground which is why we settled on Shamrock to be first.
Having new groups to create for each new set will be an exciting way to explore some of the nooks and crannies within REDLINE. Future industrial groups could include construction companies or factory centered businesses while pirates, gangs and militia can all make sense under the banner of the mercenary faction.
As for their look, we always want each faction to have its own unique style and personality. The UNE faction if you have noticed is a little modern modern day military in appearance with efreets that look high tech and sleek. This is opposed to the forces of the CPM who are designed to be a little more spacey in their appearance with efreets that have harder edges and look more rudimentary or crude.
For the design of the Industrial efreets we obviously took heavy inspiration from modern day tractors and trucks. All the new Industrial efreets in Payday are dirty and rusty with large glass cockpits for operators to easily see their worksite and armed with a variety of industrial tools such as augers, chainsaws, cranes and wrecking balls. Powerful tools that can often be used as deadly weapons in a pinch!
Meanwhile, the efreets of the Mercenary faction are a bit of a mixed bag. A catch all if you will. Raiding the scrapyard for parts and salvageable efreets is a large part of their gameplay and so their efreets can have a variety of appearances as they use whatever is on hand. They will be fun to explore in the future as they give us a chance to make some cool Frankenstein efreets out of heavily modded favorites.
A NEW DAY
We know it is hyperbole to say, but REDLINE: Payday is in many ways a new beginning for REDLINE: Tactical Card Combat. The addition of two brand new factions brings the game back full circle to its original vision and sets the stage for new stories to be told and ways to play going forward.
Come back next week when we dive into the new mechanics that Payday brings to each faction. As you’ll see, the Mercs and Industrial corporations have quite a few new tricks up their sleeves!
