Factions

Everyone in the world belongs to a faction. Factions are hostile, neutral or friendly to each other, and each one keeps a reputation score for you.

The factions

• Infected: the zombies. Hostile to everyone, always.
• Military: armoured soldiers who hold bunkers and police stations and patrol the cold and alpine islands.
• Raiders: bandits in towns and industrial parks, patrolling the arid and volcanic islands. They prey on survivors and scavengers and raid your home.
• Survivors: the outposts, their traders and residents, refugees on the road and the companions you hire.
• Scavengers: looters who pick over bodies and avoid trouble. Raiders hunt them.
• Wildlife: the animals.

How factions see each other

Rows are how a faction feels about the faction in each column. Hostile factions fight on sight, so you can sometimes let soldiers and zombies, or Military and Raiders, wear each other down.

Towards →	Infected	Military	Survivors	Raiders	Scavengers
Infected	—	Hostile	Hostile	Hostile	Hostile
Military	Hostile	—	Neutral	Hostile	Neutral
Survivors	Hostile	Neutral	—	Hostile	Neutral
Raiders	Hostile	Hostile	Hostile	—	Hostile
Scavengers	Hostile	Neutral	Neutral	Neutral	—

Your reputation

Each faction except the infected and the wildlife keeps a score for you from −100 to 100. Below -25 it is hostile and attacks you on sight; above 40 it is friendly; in between it is neutral. Scores drift back toward where they started by 2 points a day.

Faction	Starting score	Starts as	Can become
Military	-40	Hostile (-40)	Friendly
Survivors	10	Neutral (10)	Friendly
Raiders	-60	Hostile (-60)	Neutral at best
Scavengers	0	Neutral (0)	Friendly

What changes it

You…	Change
Kill one of its members, and another member sees or hears it	-30
Kill one of its enemies, and one of its members sees it	+5 (at most 4 times a day per faction)
Trade with its people	+1 per 100 value traded
Give it a gift	+1 per 50 value given

Witnesses

A kill only counts when it is witnessed. A living person within 50 tiles of the kill is a witness when they saw you or heard you in the last 7.5 game minutes (5 real seconds), or when they were a squad mate of the victim within 20 tiles. Credit for killing a faction’s enemy needs a member who actually saw it. A quiet kill with nobody around costs nothing.

Provoking scavengers

Scavengers are neutral until you hit one. Then every member within 15 tiles of it turns on you for 60 seconds. This does not change your reputation by itself.

Territory

Every raid site has an owner and a strength. A new world draws the owners by site type:

Site	Owner
Town	Raiders 75%, Scavengers 25%
Bunker	Military 100%
Industrial park	Raiders 75%, Scavengers 25%
Police station	Military 80%, Scavengers 20%
Hospital	Raiders 33.3%, Scavengers 66.7%
Lab	Raiders 75%, Scavengers 25%
Space station / launch site	Raiders 75%, Scavengers 25%
Airport	Military 100%
Nuclear power plant	Raiders 75%, Scavengers 25%

Owners start at 50%–100% strength. Every 3 days the territory shifts: a site may fall to a challenger (Raiders 42.9%, Military 28.6%, Scavengers 28.6%) with a chance of 35% × the owner’s weakness, and a site at 0 strength always falls. The new owner starts at 40%. A site that holds regains 10%.

You can weaken an owner: each of its members you kill at the site costs it 10%, and each member of a patrol from that site 5%. A weaker owner also guards the site with fewer squads.

Outposts

The outposts belong to the Survivors at 60%–100% strength. Only the Raiders can take one. Their pressure on an outpost is 25%, plus 25% for every raid site on the island they hold. Each shift the pressure wears the outpost down, and an outpost at 30% strength or less may fall (60% × the pressure).

A taken outpost is held by a Raider guard squad of 2–4 (Rifleman 40%, Close quarters 40%, Heavy 20%). The Survivors may take it back each shift (35% × the Raiders’ weakness). Killing a guard there weakens the Raiders by 15%; killing a Survivor at their outpost weakens them by 10%. A Raider-held outpost has no trader.

Villages and towns

Some intact villages and towns are held by the Raiders and Survivors: 30% of villages and 50% of towns start held, at 50%–100% strength. Which faction holds one depends on its island: every raid site and outpost a faction holds there makes it more likely. Ruined villages and towns, farms and hamlets are never held. Each shift a held village or town may be taken over (25% × the holder’s weakness) or abandoned (10% × the weakness), and an abandoned one may be occupied again (25%). A new holder starts at 40% strength.