PART 3: Types of Territory | Hytale Gang Wars

DISCLAIMER: This series is speculative and based on pre-release information, Minecraft, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. This is not to be taken seriously; this is just for fun.

Heyo, I'm back with part 3 of this massive 6-part series of Hytale gang wars.

You know what's funny about GTA San Andreas gang wars? Most territories have the same number of enemies with the same arsenal of weapons regardless of size or strategic importance. A residential neighborhood in Idlewood is defended by as many Ballas armed with AK-47s as a well-developed part of Verona Beach.

I'm not gonna enumerate the many reasons this doesn't make sense from a realistic point of view other than overkill defenses in small territories and weak defenses in big or important ones. But if Hypixel Studios wants to be funny and do this for a few factions that aren't important to the story, I'm fine. Bring on the memes.

Anyway, the same faction can have multiple different-sized camps, as shown in various Trork media.

One of the first Trork screenshots shown by Hytale in "Get to know Hytale's NPCs".
This looks like a medium-sized village to me.

In the "Trork Awakened By Rain" clip, a Trork is shown going into a tent-like structure with a campfire. Although there's a wall in the background, I still think this is a small territory because it's not as large or complex as the other Trork camps.

Scaraks also have various territory types as shown:

Concept art from Hytale

I want to take territories a step further by talking about specialized types of territory for certain tasks, allowing the player to take advantage of a friendly faction's hospitality or take away an enemy faction's ability to fight a certain way.

Note that some factions may not have all of the following territory types, particularly Scaraks and Varyn's faction.
Scaraks have worker units and don't use weapons besides their own body parts, so I think a factory is unlikely.
Varyn would have no use for business or festivals because he can just steal stuff and his minions have practically infinite morale because they have no emotions and care only about killing, not their own safety. I imagine his territories would mostly be open fields and places associated with dark magic.

Generic Territory

This is a simple territory that varies in size and strength. Medium to large territories may have basic survival facilities and items, including houses, walls, weapons, and farms (except for factions like Kweebecs, which don't eat like animals), while small territories may only contain a campfire and maybe a tiny house. Think of a Minecraft village with no libraries, blacksmiths, or similar specialized buildings.

They usually won't have anything special similar to the territories below and are mostly used by the faction for resting, eating, and general village life.

Taking this type of territory doesn't yield anything special besides reducing faction morale and allowing the player to use the taken territory as a base.

(By the way, decreasing morale should reduce stats slightly and weaken faction AI, such as making members run away more often or use more predictable attacks.)

Medical Facility

This is the first thing I thought of when thinking about territory types since I was thinking about Pokémon Centers. Besides, Outlanders have priests, and I think Kweebecs also get along with each other fine considering how they learn about their own history from Treesingers. They're not like generic villains who don't care about losing henchmen while doing their evil plans.

Because Hytale is a fantasy game, I think medical facilities will usually come in the form of shrines where factions worship Gaia. Healing magic is often associated with holiness or light in RPGs, similar to how Jesus healed a lot of people in the Gospel.

I'm not quite sure what a medical facility would look like in a non-religious faction, though. Maybe they would look like the hospital wing in Hogwarts, the magical school in the Harry Potter series? (Ghean agreed with this.)

Anyway, obviously, players can use this territory to heal themselves or their friends. It would also be interesting if this territory sells items that grant helpful buffs to the user or target.

Raiding a medical facility would not only allow the player to steal medical supplies, but I'd imagine it to temporarily suppress the faction's ability to buff itself or remove debuffs. There are a lot of ways to do this: the faction could have their healing spells weakened or disabled, or debuffs like reduced stats and poison take longer to cure.
I even thought of reducing the defensive stats of all faction members.

Notes from Ghean: "[Kweebecs'] med bays would probs be beds of branches and leaves so they can rest...[and the facility would be] filled with medicine from local ingredients that are effective for their kind," she said.
So I guess Kweebecs would specialize in herbal medicine. I remember Shadrok asking about others' ideas about Kweebecs based on other plants, so these Kweebec variants would work as medics too.
Alternatively, if Kweebecs don't benefit from medicines that benefit humans, could fertilizer be used to heal Kweebecs? lololol good luck taking the smell

Business Center

Like a giant market, this is where faction members trade goods with each other and other sentient species.

I imagine that business centers will mainly offer food, seeds, and building materials, plus certain items that the faction specializes in.

I'm not sure if these factions will have business centers, but I imagine Trorks to sell a lot of meat and weapons, while Outlanders would sell animal hides, camping tools, and dark magic-related objects.

Raiding a business center would give different items depending on what the faction sells. This can be done stealthily similar to GTA San Andreas's burglary missions, or by taking it over completely, temporarily reducing the quality of equipment used by faction members (though not affecting the quality of loot they drop).

Festival Center

We don't know for sure yet if factions celebrate festivals besides real-life holidays like Valentine's Day or Christmas (in official Tweets, but I'm not sure about actual gameplay), but I like to imagine factions having fun every once in a while, like when Trorks slay a lot of animals to host a meat-eating festival. Besides, Hypixel Studios staff like having fun; Simon's building a home gaming room, and many staff like traveling the world.

For friendly factions, the player can help organize and participate in festivals to improve their friendship with the faction...and maybe take some selfies and memes. This may also temporarily raise their stats.

Raiding a festival center would greatly decrease faction morale, more so than a generic territory. This may vary, however, depending on how much the faction likes festivals.

However, this can greatly increase hate when targeting a fun-loving faction.

Legacy Gaming (formerly The Game Gurus) has some amazing ideas for holidays in Hytale.

Military Base

This is a combat-focused territory where faction members are trained and combat equipment are stored.

Naturally, it is heavily guarded with sturdy and strategic defensive structures, as well as numerous and frequent patrols (except for factions that don't take defense seriously).

Military bases spawned near other territories may not have training facilities, instead being focused on defending those territories.

This is a valuable territory when it belongs to a friendly faction as it will usually contain well-equipped units, maybe with better AI than other faction members.

Besides making combat easier in general, running to a military base while under attack might divert enemy attention away from the player and towards the faction members while the faction members deal continuous damage to the enemy.

Raiding this territory may yield unique equipment, lore books similar to Skyrim, and tactics books telling the player how a faction fights. It may also temporarily lower faction members' damage, attack speed, and movement speed.

Books may be written in faction-native languages that the player can't understand, which can form the basis for a quest to learn about these languages. (Or maybe just raid more territories? lololol)

Factory with Warehouse

This is where the faction produces and stores its items--pretty straightforward. However, I imagine it to be defended roughly the same as a military base since they might be storing valuables here.

Raiding this territory obviously yields a lot of items, but I imagine the most unique loot here would be crafting recipes for unique items--this fits the factory theme.

Accessing this territory may require a lot more friendship than a military base, but it can yield the same rewards as raiding. Perhaps the faction members can even teach the player new crafting recipes through word of mouth.

Libraries can function as similar territories to a factory/warehouse except they contain more books and spellcasters. Friendly faction members who work as librarians or writers may be willing to share faction lore with the player. Magic items such as wands and enchanted physical weapons may be crafted and their recipes may be available here.

Dark Shrine

This territory is specific to factions that use dark magic, such as the Outlanders. It is defended similar to a military base, except stronger and with more mages than physical attackers.

Because of the heavy concentration of dark energies in this territory, dark magic is more effective in this territory--it deals more damage and inflicts worse debuffs, for example. If Hypixel Studios is crazy, dark shrines may even lower the damage dealt by light magic.

In addition to faction members, it may also contain monsters, which may or may not be Varyn's minions.

Stealth is difficult in this territory because mages can magically detect players such as with the arcane eye spell, which is basically an invisible floating security camera.

Raiding this territory has the same rewards and inflicts the same debuffs as raiding a military base, along with dark magic-related items and equipment.

Dark shrines may be a frequent point of interest in evil playthroughs as they may allow the player to learn and improve their skill in dark magic and commune with the forces of darkness.
Alternatively, in good playthroughs, the player may initially befriend evil factions to gain valuable information about dark forces that can't be obtained through interrogation or conquest, then destroy those factions.

Main Base

Finally, the place where the faction does the vast majority of its activities. This combines most (if not all) of the features from the previous territories.

The main base is often large with sturdy and elaborate structures, especially at the "capital building", the equivalent of a king's or queen's castle. It has incredibly strong defenses and frequent patrols all throughout, especially inside and near the "capital building" (though not to the point where it's impossible to sneak around unless influenced by the player).
(Note that "building" can be replaced with "chamber" for subterranean factions, and similar words depending on where the faction lives.)

A main base may even contain a faction boss, though not all main bases may have bosses. Defeating this boss may be required to completely take over the territory.

If there is no boss, the conditions for victory may be different from simply killing everything. They could be stealing a valuable artifact, destroying or seizing an important structure, surviving for a REALLY long time, or rescuing a prisoner...then escorting that prisoner through huge numbers of powerful ambush troops.

Stealing and seizing missions allow Hypixel Studios to design ways to make these goals challenging, not just by putting enemies all over the place. It can be as simple as putting puzzles, death traps, parkour courses, or a combination of them in one nerve-wracking course.

Destroying a base can eventually lead to an "escape" objective similar to "End of the Line" or several chapters in Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest. This can be followed by an epic collapsing or exploding animation when the escape is successful. (I bet this would REALLY push Hytale's block tech to the extreme. Imagine if all blocks have realistic physics.)

The explosion scene in "End of the Line".
Footage from GTA Series Videos

I bet escort missions will annoy players, especially when escorting an NPC that is either weak, has Stormtrooper aim, or is unable to fight. The player would have to constantly switch between defending themselves and defending the NPC, especially if the NPC doesn't know how to run away or attacks too aggressively.

After all, in Genshin Impact versions 1.3 and 1.4, players RAGED at Spiral Abyss floor 11-2 where they defended a structure against hordes of faraway ranged attackers.

A simple way to defend an escortee is to surround it with tanky friendlies or durable blocks. Ranged attacks ensure that enemies are taken down before they get too close to the escortee. (It would be nice to be Ningguang right now... Her Jade Screen blocks projectiles and she can attack from a distance.)

I talked quite a lot about main enemy bases, so how about friendly ones?

Maybe main bases can deny entry to the player until they have reached a very high friendship level, especially if the faction is highly protective of a secret found in the base.

Or, if the base is accessible at a low friendship level, maybe it would be the source of a LOT of faction quests. This is also a good substitute for player-made bases (though I encourage Hytale players to build their own bases).

(If Hytale has a fast travel mechanic, I bet players would often fast-travel here.)

My Blog Updates

Sorry for not posting this at 12:01 AM GMT+8 like I usually do. My younger brother is busy with a lot of school work this December and I attended a Bible study and worship service.

I read Hytale's 4 latest blog posts, by the way. I've already drafted a 5000-word-long post, but I still have a lot of cleanup to do and I need time to review others' analysis videos. I can't promise an exact release date for that but I hope to get it out before Christmas.

By the way, shoutouts to Shadrok, TheLividLion, The Game Gurus, Hytale News, and Kweebec Corner for their theories and analyses. They've got better Wisdom (Perception) than me lololol
Edit, December 25, 2019: I admit, it's a bit too late now to post that analysis since many other analyses have been done and it's a pain in my butt to do quality control when I have so many other things to do for myself and my family.