GWJ Strategy Club Game 3: Age of Wonders Planetfall (COMPLETED)

Welcome to the first strategy club game of 2021- Age of Wonders Planetfall! We'll be playing this game from Jan 1 - Feb 28 2021.

Decription: Age of Wonders: Planetfall is the new strategy game from Triumph Studios, creators of the critically acclaimed Age of Wonders series, bringing all the exciting tactical turn-based combat and in-depth empire building of its predecessors to space in an all-new, sci-fi setting.

Steam store link

Sound off if you're in and feel free to share your victories/defeats/tips and tricks.

If you're new to the club, please check out the main link here.

Picked this up on Steam Sale, so consider me in. Been having fun with both BT and ES2 so far

Welcome aboard! I'm of course am in too though still need to download it after deleting some stuff. Curse of a 500GB hard drive.

I'm in, working on the tutorial. It looks pretty cool.

About to load this up and give it a whirl. I'm completely new to the AoW franchise so this should be interesting.

I'm in, although I'm going to wrap up Tyranny with the CRPG club before firing it up. I've played a bit of Planetfall before, and my main takeaway is that it is very combat oriented, so prepare accordingly. This is not a 4x game where a lot of time is spent building wonders or playing passively.

Will play tomorrow, too drunk.

Got it through Humble at some point. Tagging for now.

It's been a few months since I played this, so I fired it up from the tutorial and it makes a lot more sense that it did the first time. Having a ball with it.

I'll jump in on this, and recommend that everyone plays at least one or two of the "story" campaign missions. they provide a very good oversight of how the game and each of the factions work, while giving an actual goal to work to. I think I did almost all of them in the time I've put into the game, and it was very enjoyable

Downloaded it today and I'll be firing it up this evening.

I'm in! This one I've really been wanting to play for a while now, so I should be able to actually finish a gaming group game for once!

Between the Steam sale and new VR games, my CFO/SO will have my hide soon... With that in mind, is there a DLC that would increase my enjoyment of the game more than another (I believe someone mentioned Revelations somewhere) or do I just go barebones core AoW:P? (I do own the deluxe edition from Humble Monthly.)

Always wanted to join one of these, plus I’ve been looking for a reason to play this since I bought it, so I’m in.

I'm in too. I have the deluxe version from a Humble Monthly, will probably play without any additional DLC (unless someone here has a must-have recommendation?). Looking forward to jumping in with Planetfall over the coming weeks.

Wow really digging it. Seems like a good mix of Civ, Stellaris, and a little XCom. Currently doing the vanguard but am excited to play the space dwarves.

Feels like Age of Wonders Sci Fi. I do like the mods and equipment. I need more time to see if I feel there is a significant gameplay difference. I have just done the tutorial and a practice game till it ctd.

I'm in as well, hoping to play a few games. I played two games with the recent update, just enough to feel comfortable with the "easy" setting. Next time up I want to shift to "normal" difficulty mode.

I really like the meta game Galactic Empire mode thingie.

Started the campaign on Normal difficulty. I'm still playing through the first tutorial missions.

Are most people playing the campaign or the free form game type?

PWAlessi wrote:

Started the campaign on Normal difficulty. I'm still playing through the first tutorial missions.

Are most people playing the campaign or the free form game type?

I'm learning as I go, so I finished the tutorial and doing the "Practice World" as we speak. I'll just keep following the campaign unless someone here suggests to do otherwise.

I'm not sure the campaigns got all that much acclaim, tbh. Especially the first one. But I know some people like them. At some point I'd like to go back and play them, but I think the furthest I got was a few scenarios into the first one. The Galactic Empire mode is quite fun, and that's what I've started with when I came back to the game recently.

PWAlessi wrote:

Started the campaign on Normal difficulty. I'm still playing through the first tutorial missions.

Are most people playing the campaign or the free form game type?

Back when I played last year, I did the tutorial mission in the campaign, the two Vanguard missions, and then stuck to free form. Haven't played since April, so I haven't tried the galactic empire mode.

I finished the first few campaign maps and am having a lot of fun, though I’ll admit they feel a bit too long. Just when you think you’re done, you get assigned 10 more quests. Maybe I’ll hop over to conquest mode now that I know what I’m doing.

Also, I read there’s a cool multiplayer mode where one person plays an empire and the others must ally to take the central player down. Sort of like Dead by Daylight but as a strategy game. Anyone interested in trying it out?

I'm loving the game, but between work and stress and ADHD I would not be a reliable player in MP. Maybe a better time will come along.

Having had a bit of experience from when the game first came out, I find I'm finally clicking with the systems and pace and able to roll with it. Great fun. In my practice game, I had mostly stabby bois but I converted my leader to laser weapons and paired each of the Void blade units with a self-healing enhanced shooter squad and they just rock together. Combined arms really works.

Started up a standard game, no DLC, large imperial world with 7 opponents. I’m about 35 turns in and so far so good, even though I feel like I have no clue what I’m doing. My commander:

IMAGE(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1756934505086313783/A2A07F2497D468C8AA898C2B01253F9A4333CF25/)

I’ve been at war with the Spacers since just after planet fall. They were inhabiting a really cool structure next to my starting colony so I attacked them. It’s mostly been an offensive war, but they have hit back a few times where I’ve had to defend.

I think I’ve developed my territory fairly well, just need to upgrade more and expand.

IMAGE(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1756934505086313627/B61975E4C472C1781F82245E311C38964156B5FD/)

This colony in the south has been hit hard by wildlife attacks so I’ve had to reinforce with an advanced military infrastructure and satellite defense.

IMAGE(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1756934505086313941/825BD9D66A387FAB2A01762AB88253BFA368E775/)

I’ve ran into several of my neighbors and so far have managed a good relationship with two that’s turned into non-aggression pacts, and hopefully an alliance in the near future. I also ran into one of my own created commanders from a previous game, which I have to say was pretty cool. Next goals will be finishing off the Spacers and bringing my tanks online. There are lots of hostiles outside of our colony borders so we’ll need a heavy escort for any colonizers.

Nice write up Glycerine! I’m currently debating if I switch over to conquest mode. The campaign has far too many side quests that after awhile get annoying. I’m also so busy chasing them that I don’t get a good feel for how well I’m doing in expansion.

I played Planetfall for a few hours awhile ago, but just to refresh my memory, started up the campaign again and did the Leave-6 mission. It was largely unevenful, as the computer wasn't really interested in fighting. Making friends with the other vanguard groups was fairly easy, and a few compliments here and there were enough to get me the alliances I needed to end the mission. It was also a good opportunity to remind myself of the controls, like how so many things are done with right click, or cleaning up environmental hazards requires a unit physically on the impacted space.

This time I took my own advice and tried to build more units than buildings (and tried to keep them relatively upgrades so I didn't get caught on the wrong side of the power curve). Still don't have a great idea what techs I should be targeting, but I'm not playing on hard so it may not matter.

Anyway, I'll probably just move onto a standard game now that I remember how to play.

My game is progressing, though now that my armies are larger I’m starting to really hurt on energy. I’ve exploited a couple sectors accordingly and built the upgrade to reduce unit maintenance, but with four full stacks roaming the map plus all my garrisons I’m still down to making about 40 a turn, which isn’t nearly enough. I guess it’s time to expand again. Is it better to colonize or create sectors? Man I feel so lost, but having fun none the less. I wish their was a way I could upgrade my assault troopers to use laser weapons, best I’ve come up with so far is electrified ammunition. I’ve noticed their seems to be more build options when you first found a colony, but they are gone after the initial production is complete, why is that? So many questions.

Anyone have tips on when to decide I’m “done” with this title? The main campaign is boring me to tears and the conquest mode seems so open ended that I’m looking at Paradox levels of time commitment.

You're not alone there, though I didn't even make it past the first tutorial mission. I figured I'd give it one more shot but honestly, I don't have enough gaming time to waste on something that doesn't grab me. I see no shame in dropping it if I can't find enjoyment in it.

Hey, if you don't like it, you're done with it. No problems there.