Age of Wonders : Planetfall - Catch all

In my first game, I ended up fighting about 35 battles manually and saw a variety of fighting styles. It's a bit early to say, but so far I'm liking the tactical AI quite a bit. What's interesting as well was that there were times where enemies took up defensive stances initially, then broke cover to assault as I came in. It wasn't 100% predictable what they would do. I had several city assaults where they'd button up and make me dig them out, but I had a few there they rushed me as I came in.

I lost one city assault when I wasn't careful in my approach. They broke out, concentrated on my hero, and took her out before my assault got started.

The last city assault I did was super fun. I had 18 units attacking about 15 units, and it could have gone either way. They had two big mech units and a tough armored hero. I trapped the hero and one of the mechs with two tactical flaming airstrikes, and then used my hero's daemon ability to get the remaining mech to switch sides. That was the end of that. Their hero and one mech were on fire, and now I had control of the other mech in the middle of their defense. I think I only lost two light units, and completely wiped out their army. It was sweet revenge, too, as I had lost my first attempted assault on their capital earlier in the game.

That's some good reading, GB. Cant wait to play again after work.

It's possible, Tboon. I played through about AoW 3, I think, then left the series alone for a while. Endless Legend struck me as having a lot of new mechanics, but they could have come from AoW. Interesting.

I started a new game last night with the Assembly, medium world, 6 factions, Easy difficulty. I only got about 15 turns in before I had to stop for the night. This second game is feeling so much more comfortable than my first.

I'm on the road today through Monday, so I won't be able to play this for a bit. I'm looking forward to jumping back in when I get back.

As someone who is following this game but not very closely, how much of Planetfall is a more traditional 4X versus the exceptionally combat-heavy AOW3? The combat in AOW3 was by far the best thing but it wore on me a bit and other traditional 4X elements were a bit under-baked. City placement if even turned on was usually pretty sparse, researching new spells was okay but generally not very exciting and city-building was a bit underwhelming. Please do not get me wrong as I believe AOW3 to be a fine game with the best tactical combat ever in the genre. It just was a bit combat heavy in my opinion and wonder if Planetfall adds more of the building side to it?

So far the combat encounters haven't lasted longer than half a dozen turns. I imagine it may scale up some for multiple stacks all at once, but for the smaller encounters, it moves along pretty quickly IMO while still being interesting.

My first skirmish is winding down. I'm 8 turns away from getting the weapon of mass destruction victory with the Vanguard. My neighbor to the west through a big stack at my border city almost immediately after I fired off the weapon and the countdown began. I had buffed the city with a strategic operation to rain some extra death on my enemies which helped for sure. I also had 10 or 12 tactical operation points. I also use the Valkyrie tactical operation for the first time and it came in very handy. I tend to use the plasma strike.

I had an alliance with a neighbor, who broke it off when I neared the last step of the victory checklist, but then came back to me shortly after. It seemed a little weird.

So, if all goes well tomorrow I'll get a win in my first skirmish. Not sure if it was just luck of the draw, but many of my battles felt kinda samey. Moreso than I recall AoW3 being. Also, while I do like some of the updates to the game over AoW3, it didn't really capture me the way AoW3 did. Still, it's pretty fun. I wish they would add an option to make the buildings / special items on the strategic map stand out more.

Wow, the plasma defense system is a game changer. I'm a couple turns away from a doomsday victory and an enemy army attacks one of my sectors that only has a garrison. I think his army power was 3000. My colony was protected by the plasma defense system. I bided my time by moving my units away, then I called in a Valkyrie on the opposite side of the map after drawing them away. The plasma defense system obliterated them as I ran around the map, but he has 2 units that were rather impervious to it. My unit takes out one, the other is almost dead but he wins with 1 unit left. I wouldn't be surprised if it is nerfed.

It’s a moral victory because I stopped his army in its tracks and took my sector back the next turn. Doomsday victory ahead.

I hope to get far enough to experience the end game, someday.

Not sure if it was just luck of the draw, but many of my battles felt kinda samey. Moreso than I recall AoW3 being. Also, while I do like some of the updates to the game over AoW3, it didn't really capture me the way AoW3 did. Still, it's pretty fun. I wish they would add an option to make the buildings / special items on the strategic map stand out more.

I sort of felt that way about vanilla AoW 3, it seems like Triumph saves the flavorful treats for the expansions. Maybe they wanted to make sure the basics worked before adding more exotic game elements, as they did with Eternal Lords. I hope that's the case, 6 factions doesn't seem nearly enough. AoW 2: Shadow Magic had an astounding 12 factions, mostly balanced.

Frankly, I'd love to see a remaster of that version.

I never got into any Age of Wonders game, would you guys recommend this? I love Civ, Endless Space, and other 4X

Balthezor wrote:

I never got into any Age of Wonders game, would you guys recommend this? I love Civ, Endless Space, and other 4X

Did you play AoW3 and not get into it, or just not play it?

If you never played it, I'd recommend getting the AoW3 collection, it's been pretty cheap and does benefit from having all the DLC. I'd recommend that over Planetfall.

I've actually never played AOW3. But I should have mentioned, I prefer scifi more than fantasy settings.

Balthezor wrote:

I've actually never played AOW3. But I should have mentioned, I prefer scifi more than fantasy settings.

Feels like Civ Beyond Earth, actually. With better combat.

I think I may be making sense of why this doesn’t grab me as much as AoW3. Part of it is that I have a hard time just memorizing stuff and part is that it’s cumbersome to try and gather the information about the enemy’s units because each one can have different mods. This means I need to click on each one and since I can’t just remember what does what I need to look at each one. Then I need to find my best units to counter them and maybe customize those mods. Also, when looking at a unit I need to hover over each weapon or ability to make sure I understand exactly what it does.

Again, part if just having a hard time committing it to memory. Part is my personality of wanting to make sure I’m preparing the best I can and being anal about it. Part is that the UI doesn’t kind of summarize everything to make it easy to gather the information. On paper the game has a lot of great features and has a lot to warrant making the effort to get into the game. There’s a lot to like.

Maybe I just need to get over some kind of hump. Sorry, I’m not trying to rag on the game - just frustrated that I’m not into it as much as I was thinking based on AoW3 and the dev diaries.

I tried on several occasions to get into Aow3, based on how much some people liked it, and how much I liked Master of Magic. Aow3 never took, and I think I tried for 3-4 hours and ended up giving up,

Planetfall though - I have already completed 4 campaign scenarios, and have over 10 hours in it - its very, very fun! Far better than Aow3.

Edit - just checked and its 19 hours so far

Razgon wrote:

Planetfall though - I have already completed 4 campaign scenarios, and have over 10 hours in it - its very, very fun! Far better than Aow3.

Do you know why you like Planetfall more than AoW3? Is it just that it's scifi?

The campaign is pretty fun - I like the lore. The battles feel quicker, and I autobattle quite a lot since I feel that the calculated risks are mostly spot-on. That makes for a faster game, which I like.

I also LOVE the mods you can attach to your units, basically letting you make your army as you wish, instead of having to rely solely on the ones given to you by the race.

Lastly, and this is a big one for me, the tech tree is wonderfull, and full of many interesting and diverse technologies, that actually are useful, and not just +1.2 percent damage.

I’m trying to relax a bit and let go of my compulsiveness to try and understand everything at once.

On a different note… does anyone else think the NPC factions request things too frequently? I’m thinking it is less of a problem to just kill them.

I had a crazy fun battle last night. It must have taken me 30 minutes. I started going for the doomsday victory because I’m boxed in and militarily I’m behind. I can’t really mount an offensive so I’m trying to turtle up and get to the doomsday counter. I get attacked by my neighbor and they have around 3500 power to my 3000. I have some colony canons or whatnot so that helps.

When it starts it looks like they are going to annihilate me. The have guys who do the AoE acid spit, a bunch of absorb pain casts, and basically outnumber me. They hit me hard early but I try and make use of my operations…giving my units extra shield for 2 turns, healing each round. Slowly I start to turn the tide and maybe lose half my troops and kill all of his. It was great fun.

I played the tutorial so far, so not much, but I think I like it so far. The art/graphics is appealing.

I thought I was done for. The same enemy as before rolled up with a force larger than the last one and had a +1000 power differential. His bastards like to vomit destruction and my metal constructs don’t like it. Once again things looked bleak out of the gate as he hits hard and protects his guys with absorb pain. He had 17 units to my 9.

Again, slowly things turned around. Some of my guys with grenade attacks stagger him once he gets in range and can’t be quite as deadly. His numbers dwindle and I’m still standing with 6 units. It sure felt like I lost more. I guys when he destroyed my 4 towers it felt liek a lot of death but didn’t hurt my unit count. I can’t really take another attack. I can’t build up fast enough.

I just got the doomsday victory in my second skirmish game - medium world size, 6 players, opponent level normal. I played as the Dvar - Synthesis secret tech. I mentioned earlier that I got boxed in, so I couldn't expand that much. I got 3 colonies, so just enough to go for the Doomsday victory. I managed to stay friendly with one neighbor, but the other pretty much hated me all of the time. I had to beat back his attacks 5-6 times down the final stretch.

How often do people fight the battles manually? I was pretty much fighting all of them except for some of the final ones where I had a decent power advantage, because a 3 stack vs 2-3 stack battle can take a long time. The battles have been a selling point in the series, but I think maybe I need to be more selective because these games become a serious time investment when fighting so many battles. Maybe I should quicksave, try auto battle and then if I think I need to do better play it out. The only ones I lost were when they attacked an undefended sector with a much larger force. I played many of those out too just to try and weaken the enemy as much as I could.

I didn't know you could join armies together until just recently. I guess entering and clearing locations will be easier now.

I'm on the second campaign map. This time I went wild with building colonisers and land grabbing. I wonder if it's like Civ6 in this respect.

I'm back home now and resumed my second skirmish game, with the Assembly. Internally, things are going better in this second game, but I can see that the AI factions are slightly more aggressive and competent at this level.

One thing that I noticed is that they claim sectors fairly aggressively. I haven't been doing that yet, but am starting to think that I should be.

I’m kind of getting a rut (as much as 3 skirmish games are considered a rut). I expand until I run into neighbors. See that they have 3 stacks of armies running around together. Decide I’m going for the weapon of mass destruction victory and avoid fighting.
1 stack each, great!
2 stacks each, still pretty fun.
3 stacks each, arggg I don’t want to bother.

robc wrote:

I’m kind of getting a rut (as much as 3 skirmish games are considered a rut). I expand until I run into neighbors. See that they have 3 stacks of armies running around together. Decide I’m going for the weapon of mass destruction victory and avoid fighting.
1 stack each, great!
2 stacks each, still pretty fun.
3 stacks each, arggg I don’t want to bother.

I'm enjoying the big battles quite a bit. I'm currently in a back-and-forth war with the Kir'Ko. They crushed the defense so easily in one of my cities. Then my reinforcements arrived and launched an assault to take the city back. We slaughtered them all, taking out two heroes in the process, and only lost 3 units in the fight. Now I'm set to drive north into their lands to see if I can grab one of their cities.

Their initial attack on my city was impressive. They had a lot of psionic weapons and troops. They could move, then teleport forward and then fire or attack all in the same turn. It was crazy fast. I lost 11 or so units and only managed to take down three of them.

I had no idea how I could beat them on our assault, but my melee units that replenish health when they attack were the trick. Full out charge, get hit hard on the way in, then eat the enemies and replenish health on the next turn. Worked great. Fun times.

This will sound blasphemous but is anyone on the PS4 version? The PC hardware requirements look much steeper than expected and I heard optimization is not quite there yet. I’d probably be receptive to some laid back console turn based goodness if they have made the right adjustments and concessions for the format (I.e. readable text, UI scaling options, etc.)

Regarding colonization and expansion...

I think this part of the game could use some work. I feel like I've made some of these decisions willy-nilly and it hasn't really hurt me (on the middle difficulty level). For my first colony I typically go food at first since the faster your population grows the faster the colony expands. But I keep my first colony fairly balances out.

There are a couple things that drive where I want to expand.
1) If I see where the enemy is coming from I want to get land that halts there expansion in my direction.
2) I want to grab the provinces that give me bonuses, like a building that gives +5 food or something.
3) It helps if you can group a certain terrain type in a province so you don't have as many things to level up on a per province basis. This doesn't seem to work out as much as I usually hope for.
4) I will go sub optimal later, especially is I need to ramp up my energy income.

Sometimes the UI doesn't make is easy for me to see what would be the best. I need to zoom out and hover over things.

I haven't planned ahead too much for this, but after getting the techs to level up a province, some techs unlock cool things to specialize provinces - like discounts on troop production. I feel making smart use of this can be important if I bump up the difficulty past the middle.

I do feel the pace of research and building things to so quick that I don't need to smartly prioritize things because I never really need to wait much. If colony improvement X only takes 3 turns to build , then why not just build it for the small boost? I mean, I know that might not be optimal, but if I don't have something else pressing I usually just build things that give some type of economic benefit. I will skip military production buildings in provinces I have no plans to build in. I also wait for the happiness buildings until I need them.

Just in case it helps anyone…
A sector with an explotation starts as level 1.

It can then be upgrades 2x with the right tech, such as Food Development tech and build the Food Sector Level.

It can then be upgraded with via the terrain such as researching the Fertile Plains Exploitation and building the Fertile Plains Sector Level.

Lastly, the clime can be upgraded, such as researching the Fungal Exploitation tech and building the Fungal Sector Level.

If you want to be able to level up a sector to it’s max (5), you want to stick with these combinations

Arcadian Climate (Food Or Energy)
Fertile Plains (food)
Forest (food)
Mountain (energy)
Ruins (energy)

Arctic Climate (Knowledge or Production)
Fertile Plains (knowledge)
Forest (Production)
Mountain (Production)
Ruins (research)

Arid Climate (Energy or Production)
Forest (production)
Mountain (production or energy)
Ruins (energy)

Fungal (Food or Knowledge)
Fertile Plains (Food or knowledge)
Forest (food)
Ruins (knowledge)

Well, I think I’ve played enough of it for now. It did play quite a bit (my hours are overstated since I’ve left the game up many times when not playing - wish I’d stop doing that). I played the tutorial and part of the first campaign. Played 3 skirmish games on medium map with normal difficulty - all ended with me winning by doomsday weapon. I started a 4th and realize I’m just not feeling it. Maybe I just overdid it to quickly.

What it does right

I do think each faction has nice touches, or maybe its the path with the doomsday weapon that give it the nice touches - not sure. In any case each game I played had something about it that was cool - like generating new units from the plague your units can spread.

I like the provinces and how they limit where the cities are. Annexing sectors give enough flexibility as to what direction to expand and focusing on a particular resource.

The sector improvements can be used to specialize sectors in an interesting way.

Of course they still do the battles well.

What I’m not crazy about

I actually prefer the random research in AoW3. It makes me adapt without overloading. Part of this is related to the Planetfall tech tree. With the unit mods there is just too much choice without me being able to easily evaluate what would be best for the situation. Do I want this unit or go down this path to get this mod? I don’t know.

I kinda wish there were more ways to specialize colonies. I feel like I got a good taste with what is there, but I want more ways.

I just don’t like how the campaign map looks. It’s busy without it being easy for me to see what I want.

Due to things like unit mods I feel like it is just too much work to figure out what has what, and what I need to do to prepare for what the enemies have.

One thing I really should have tried in my last game I quit on was to slow down the pace. Make research take longer so I don’t feel like I’m getting barraged with constant choices. I can see how that is a plus for some people, but I like things more measured. A part of me feels like there is something I can do to rejuvenate my interest, but maybe letting some time pass is the best thing.

So I think they actually did a good job with what they did - not a bad game by any means. Maybe just not what I was looking for. Sometimes I’m just too hard to please and I focus on the things that bug me - that’s my fault. I just can’t seem to change my way of thinking. I wish I could inject @Scott_Lufkin 's positive vibe in me and be able to focus on the good and find ways to enjoy what things are.

I'm still playing and having a lot of fun with this. I'm in the middle of my second skirmish game, now embroiled in a war with a Kir'ko faction. I love the strong connection between the strategic game and the tactical game. (Stuff you do in the tactical game has a huge impact on the strategic game, and vice versa.)

We'll see how it plays out as I go higher in the difficulty ranges, but so far this is one of my top five strategy games.