We've seen it happen again and again; a community goal occurs, pitting the Empire against the Federation, only for the Federation to get twice or more the number of supporters compared to the Empire.
It's understandable why; people see the Federation, and they imagine United Federation of planets, from Star Trek; a peaceful Coalition, rather than the capitalistic oligarchy it truly is. They see the Empire, and they envisioned Caesar's Legion from Fallout, rather than the much more complicated thing it truly is.
It seems self-evident that the Empire has a serious image problem. To make this even worse, the Corvette and other Federation ships are generally much more fun ships to own than the Imperial options, which serve much more stylistic or utilitarian purposes.
How can you fix this? In the past, things have been balanced by setting different goals for the opposing sides, but that ends up feeling unfair to one side, and even to the Empire, feels needlessly biased.
But how can this be fixed? Better rewards for the Empire side? Perhaps the Empire needs to invest its resources into improving it's somewhat subpar ships, to give them a better Fighting Chance in the conflicts they seem eager to enter.
One way or another, things can't keep going this way forever. When civilizations have everything against them, as romantic as it may be for them to continue fighting on, they tend to collapse instead, and that leaves us with a smaller and less interesting universe.
I sure hope we see new and better means of getting people behind them in the near future; not just for their sake, but for the sake of the game as a whole.
It's understandable why; people see the Federation, and they imagine United Federation of planets, from Star Trek; a peaceful Coalition, rather than the capitalistic oligarchy it truly is. They see the Empire, and they envisioned Caesar's Legion from Fallout, rather than the much more complicated thing it truly is.
It seems self-evident that the Empire has a serious image problem. To make this even worse, the Corvette and other Federation ships are generally much more fun ships to own than the Imperial options, which serve much more stylistic or utilitarian purposes.
How can you fix this? In the past, things have been balanced by setting different goals for the opposing sides, but that ends up feeling unfair to one side, and even to the Empire, feels needlessly biased.
But how can this be fixed? Better rewards for the Empire side? Perhaps the Empire needs to invest its resources into improving it's somewhat subpar ships, to give them a better Fighting Chance in the conflicts they seem eager to enter.
One way or another, things can't keep going this way forever. When civilizations have everything against them, as romantic as it may be for them to continue fighting on, they tend to collapse instead, and that leaves us with a smaller and less interesting universe.
I sure hope we see new and better means of getting people behind them in the near future; not just for their sake, but for the sake of the game as a whole.
