Factions

Faction Relationships

In Rimworld, one of the key gameplay features is the raids by enemy factions. When a new world is generated, the various factions within the world are made with it. These factions will have varying relationships with your colony, and all of them may be your enemy from the start. As time progresses and your colony accumulates more wealth and grows larger, it may be a good idea to attempt to improve these relationships to even eventually have an ally to call upon in the worst of times.

Improving Relations

There are multiple ways one can improve their relations with an already ally or an enemy. The easiest, though more expensive, method of doing this is to contact them on the Comms Console and give them 300 silver for a +13 goodwill boost. Secondly, there is the ability to take one of their fallen faction members and take them in as a guest and heal them. Returning a faction member in “good health” to the edge of the map and effectively to the faction members will improve the relations a bit.

Destroying Relations

There are several ways for one to make an enemy out of a faction, most tend to be unintentional. First, when you call for reinforcements from a faction, this greatly damages relations, making it a last moment, “I’m about to die” choice to make. There is also the way to absolutely obliterate any good relations you have with a faction by attempting to arrest one of the faction members in your colony. This will immediately make them be considered an enemy and can be difficult to recover from, be it an accidental miss-click or intentional to get that really good herbalist. Finally, there is the normally accidental way, getting one of the faction members caught in crossfire. If one of the projectiles from your colonists hits another person, the faction will blame you and then consider you an enemy from then on until you can somehow repair your relations with them.

Events

A faction’s relationship with you in the game will determine how they interact with your colony, be it anything from just passing by to a full-scale attack.

Raids

Of course, one of the things that an enemy will do is attempt to raid your colony. The more they do it, the stronger the attacks become as time progresses. For a detailed explanation as to what can happen, visit the page Raiders.

Faction Assistance

Normally, this event will only occur if the player triggers it by asking for help in the Comms Console. This event is when a friendly faction is asked for help with an enemy attack. They will then spawn in a varying amount of troops near the edge of the map, and will proceed to make their way to your base. The moment one of their enemies is spotted, they will begin to enter defensive positions and fire upon them. After a period of time, they will then leave the map. Allied Factions can also send military aid every once in a while to help you out, and you will not lose any relation points or silver when they do.

Travelers

This is when a friendly or neutral faction’s members pass by the colony on their way from one end of the map to the other. The only time they spend on the map is walking from one end of it to another to then leave the map. Nothing special about that.

Visitor(s)

This is when a group of people or a single person makes their way from the edge of the map where they spawned to your colony to just mill around there for a while and then leave the way they came. It is believed that this actually has no impact on relations with the faction, but can be nice if a common enemy attempts to raid you while they are there.