Template:WIP This page is a guide to Kenshi's world factions. If you don't want to be attacked everywhere you go, you gotta make some allies -- or, at least, not attack everyone. Note that some factions are hostile, and some relations-improving techniques, such as turning in bounties, will not work on them. Most cities and towns are run by more civilized factions, and the player's faction relations will determine whether they are allowed to enter and trade in that city, or whether they will be attacked on-sight by the powerful Samurai Gate Guards. The following information should help you survive these more civilized groups as you move through the world of Kenshi.
At -30 Relations, factions become hostile towards the player. At +50 Relations, factions become allied to the player. Some factions, notably various bandit factions and Manhunters will engage in hostilities with the player even if neutral. Any characters who witness the player faction committing a crime against their faction or their allies will also attack the player, and many will do so even if allied to the player faction.
The faction overview only displays current relations to the nearest whole number, though the meter on the display can show smaller increments. To monitor very small changes in faction relations the player will need to use other interfaces. The faction overview shown when hovering over a visited settlement on the map can show current relations with the owner faction to several decimal places, useful for watching very small changes to relations which may occur when the player helps or angers a faction even slightly.
Important Characters
Faction Pacifiers
Pacifiers are people found in the various bars of the world that you can pay a large amount of cats to in exchange for fixing negative faction relations.
Diplomatic Status
People with Diplomatic Status are usually not actual diplomats. They are characters that are important to their faction. Should they be attacked or imprisoned the player will incur the full wrath of their faction.
Harming Relations
Player can ruin relations with various factions in a number of ways.
Attacking a character will harm relations with that faction, and prolonged fighting with a very large number of a faction's members will eventually cause even neutral factions to become hostile. Relations will drop faster against higher-ranking members of the enemy faction.
Imprisoning a character in a Prisoner Cage and initiating dialogue will drop relations with that character's faction by 1. Imprisoning a character in a Peeler Machine will also drop relations with that faction proportional to the character's ranking, making it difficult to use a peeler machine to farm relation improvement through healing a character.
Attacking, Imprisoning, or peeling a character with Diplomatic Status will harm relations with that faction severely.
For some factions, establishing an alliance through dialogue will also severely harm relations with some of their enemy factions. For example, allying with the Skeleton Bandits, in addition to giving a large boost to relations with that faction, will severely damage relations with the Crab Raiders and Skin Bandits. Most alliances established this way will also cause the player's faction to become enemies with at least one other faction.
Improving Relations
Most factions have ways to improve relations through dialogue options. One of the ways to improve relations with big factions like the Holy Nation, the Shek Kingdom or the United Cities is to hand over bounties at respective police stations. Note that this typically severely hurts relations with that faction's enemies, as detailed above.
Relations can also be improved when the player bandages or repairs hurt characters of a faction. The amount of gained relations depend on importance of character to their faction. For example: healing a character with Diplomatic Status such as a faction leader can bring relations with that faction to from -100 to 5 in seconds. Healing non-important characters such as a Holy Servant will improve relations much less, typically around 0.01 relations for 100 points of healing. You do NOT need to be seen healing the character to improve your relations with the faction. Relations can only be boosted to 5 through healing, which is not enough to create an alliance but can be enough to make some factions no longer attack the player on sight.
Farming relations through purchasing slaves
Buying a character out of slavery will improve relations with that faction by 3-4 points. After the purchase, the freed character will either run away as if they were an escaped slave, or follow the character freeing them for a while. In either case the character can be picked up again, offered to a slave trader for a small payment, and purchased again to improve relations even more. Units from hostile factions behave strangely when freed: they cannot be picked up or knocked out, and player characters can engage them in combat but attacks will not hit. Farming relations with these hostile units requires the unit to be unconscious when freed, which can be done by forcing them into a recovery coma when first capturing them or stealth ko'ing them inside the prisoner cage before buying their freedom.
Selling the character into slavery does NOT hurt relations with that character's faction, and the method can bring relations with almost any faction up to the cap of 100, enough to ally most factions with none of the relations hits to related factions that occur with most dialogue-based alliances.
The cost of buying the slave's freedom scales with the total skill levels of the slave, with characters with no skills being worth about 1000 cats and most non-elite units costing upwards of several thousand cats. The player can expect to spend 50-300 thousand cats and about thirty minutes of micromanagement to bring a very hostile faction from -100 to the alliance threshold of 50 thousand.
Characters from slaver factions typically attempt to enslave any non-allied unconscious characters they see when not otherwise occupied with a task. They will not attempt to enslave their unconscious allies, though the player can still manually offer their allies as slaves to a slave trader. Depending on the faction, the player faction may also receive a small boost of 1-2 relations for every unit sold into slavery.
Slavers will strip all items and gear from a character upon enslavement, including death items like those found on Gurglers and Fog Princes. To have characters with death items enslaved without dying, the player must strip these items from the characters using the "unbutcherable animals" exploit: open the character's inventory while they are unconscious, wait for them to regain consciousness and stand up (they must have a goal other than "getting up" and must not be unconscious or playing dead), and then remove the death items from their "unconscious" inventory. A reliable way to force the character to stand up on regaining consciousness without playing dead is to put them in a prisoner cage.
After Harming Relations
As long as the player hasn't angered the faction by killing or imprisoning a faction leader or allying with a faction the pacifier faction doesn't accept, Pacifiers should be open to accepting money in exchange for improved relations. Where pacifiers can be found, and these conditions are listed in the Pacifiers page.
| Factions | <-80 | <-60 | <-40 | <-20 | <-10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shek Kingdom, Slave Traders, The Holy Nation, Traders Guild, United Cities | 100,000 | 75,000 | 55,000 | 35,000 | 15,000 |
| Anti-Slavers, Flotsam Ninjas, Hounds | 50,000 | 40,000 | 30,000 | 20,000 | 10,000 |
The pacifier increases relations the minimum amount for each range. A player with -90 relations with the Traders Guild would need to pay 100,000 Cats and then pay another 15,000 Cats in order to be at 0 relations. Pacifiers become "done for the day" after changing a player's relations and the player has to wait 2 hours before the pacifier will talk to them about relations again.
Becoming Allies
Many factions can ally the player faction, which may affect your relations with other factions. For instance, joining the Traders Guild will result in the Anti-Slavers becoming hostile.
Should the player ally with a faction, all locations owned by the allied faction will be green on the map, signifying an alliance. Members of the faction will generally act cordial to the player. Guards at gates will no longer search player characters, allowing them to pass without issue. Members of the allied faction will occasionally offer gifts such as food, and medicine should they notice the player injured. They will aid the player in combat against factions they are not themselves allied to, along with healing downed players. The faction's members will also ignore some - but not all - types of minor crimes committed by the player's faction.
Should the player's outpost be attacked the allied faction may rush to their aid. Should the player be allied to the Holy Nation, they will come to their aid if the Shek Kingdom launches an assault.
Ruining Factions
Players can attempt to destroy factions which they don't like by taking out their leaders. Killing or imprisoning faction leaders creates new World States which often result in Town Overrides. Overwritten towns are entirely new locations and any Player-Owned Buildings in Town are completely forgotten by the game.
Often, after killing faction leaders, the Homeless Spawns of that faction decrease in quantity. Sometimes, other factions become strengthened due to the power vacuum which the leader's death has caused. This results in "invasion" Homeless Spawns in zones which this secondary faction did not originally have claim to. This phenomenon is most noticeable after players have killed the Western Hive's Queen and the Southern Hive begins to invade most of the world.