so i’ve already kinda designed a faction, which can be found here for those interested:
i would say that my faction is a fairly interesting 1 gameplaywise. but anyhow.
when making a faction you need to do a few things:
A) what is special about this faction historically? this will form the base line identity of your faction
B) what did the faction do well? and what did it not do so well, and how do you plan to implement that into your design?
C) economic specialty, every faction has some sort of unique aspect in terms of economy, be it faster shipments, free settlers or banks, everyone has a specialty.
D) you cant have multiple units performing essentially the same task, esp if are available in the same age. there is a reason factions with skirms usually get crossbowmen, because it gives them an early game option to stop infantry but Xbows are meant to be replaced by skirmishers towards the lategame. similarly how often do you see french players use hussars outside of age 2? id say pretty much never
these are the core tenants for making a good faction i think, ofc along with the faction actually has to have enough units to make a roster. i do not agree that houses cant do anything other than population, but truth be told then by now enough gather houses exist.
also just saying but i actually think france is pretty bad design wise as a faction, they are simply way too flexible, having access to every major units and buffs to litterally all of them. only minor weakness they got is anti cavalry.
now let me use my faction suggestion as a platform to exemplify some of my theories:
A) Denmark-Norway is a major naval faction and also had a strong focus on ranged infantry with some okay to good cavalry. so from this its obvious the faction need at minimum 1 unique ship type (frankly it could have like 3 if it wanted to), the faction also need unique infantry as well.
B) DN often did not perform terribly well in melee with infantry, so the unique musketeer has poor melee stats, to compensate it is a little cheaper but as a price DN doesn’t get Xbows. the idea is that you mass these Landsoldat the same way you do with crossbows in the early game and then use pikemen to actually deal with cavalry for protecting other units, they are still held back early game by higher cost and only standard musk range and stats. later on you get access to a unique skirmisher and slowly your Landsoldat start to become better and better at stopping melee units, slowly transitioning you towards a more classical approach but they will always perform worse than musketeers vs cavalry. now there are other aspects to the faction obviously but this is probably the most interesting i feel for general gameplay/balance.
C) they lategame can cow in a way similar to India, tho getting food rather than exp. id also expect there to be unique techs related to fishing for the faction, perhaps something like getting food from whales.
now these where just my ideas related more or less to my own faction design, but i do think i hit the nail on what makes a faction interesting while staying balanced and making sense. there is no fluff units but on the other hand the faction has most roles filled.