Illyriad is one of those MMOs that crops up every now and then from seemingly out of nowhere to mark a major milestone for the otherwise unassuming browser kingdom sim: It marked its fifth anniversary in 2015, released an API that lets its players make their own content in 2016, and this year it has a large-scale Faction Outposts update that applies a new factional allegiance system and makes huge numbers of additions – all before it marks 15 years of operation in the new year.
Calling this update sizable is no meager boast: The patch has added 155 new locations across the map, over 15,000 new words of lore, 88 new sub-regions, and perhaps most directly important, a way for players to eventually ally with factions through interactions at the titular faction outposts.
Players can uncover one of these new outposts and then either employ diplomacy, engage in warfare, or in a later update establish sovereignty over them, all in order to earn faction ranking that will be applied in a faction AI update planned in the near future as well as introduce some PvP to the game. So while establishing a foothold in these outposts doesn’t appear to be immediately important, it’s the first step in a much larger system coming to the MMO soon.
