TBS Age of Wonders: Planetfall - AoW gone to space

[vota DC]

What happened to the big Epic Triumph campaigns? The AOWIII campaign was kind of weak,

Different programmers have different skills.

"Campaign" is about creativity and imagination. It is not based on skills. More on talent I think. And decent IQ level for both sides.
And you want deep, interesting, non-linear story blah blah blah ... in what ? in 4x strategy game with advanced tactical battles?

lol

despite all we have background stories why some factions doing some things ...

Map design and writing, still you need to master triggers and other stuff.

 

[orcinator]

Finished the first non-tutorial Vanguard campaign mission, and it was beyond boring. Basically i've ran around the map with a few stacks completing "kill this stack of neturals and get a pile of crap as a reward" quests for 80 turns and thats it. The AI didn't attack me once even though i was at war with one if them for like last 40 turns(picked max difficulty too). Will probably uninstall if the next mission is the same.

Yeah the first mission is basically just a continuation of the tutorial. Second mission actually requires you to fight some people (though it lets you win via map control which is really easy when you can ally with two or more players).
The issue with the campaign is that the maps are randomly generated and the AI doesn't really like waging war unless you're its direct neighbor so it's common to just be left alone until you're ready to fight someone.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

AI doesn't really like waging war unless you're its direct neighbor

Looks like the casus belli thing is working too well.

 

[Sloul]

I didn't try it out yet, but maybe in the settings, put multiple (hard) AI in a team against player. That should do the trick.

 

[exe]

So not only do they only have 2 map campaigns, but those maps are randomly generated? Thats peak lazy

 

[Alpharius]

Finished the first non-tutorial Vanguard campaign mission, and it was beyond boring. Basically i've ran around the map with a few stacks completing "kill this stack of neturals and get a pile of crap as a reward" quests for 80 turns and thats it. The AI didn't attack me once even though i was at war with one if them for like last 40 turns(picked max difficulty too). Will probably uninstall if the next mission is the same.

Yeah the first mission is basically just a continuation of the tutorial. Second mission actually requires you to fight some people (though it lets you win via map control which is really easy when you can ally with two or more players).
The issue with the campaign is that the maps are randomly generated and the AI doesn't really like waging war unless you're its direct neighbor so it's common to just be left alone until you're ready to fight someone.

Idk, after 30 turns of bug extermination in the second mission i think i've had enough. Some evil Borg AI did declare war on me pretty early but it didn't attack and didn't even react in any way after i've razed two of its sectors. It seemed to have had one colony against 3 of mine on 25th turn.

Btw the campaing so far was so strategy that i built barely any units and used almost none of the stuff ulocked from tech, spending all resources on buildings that allowed me to get more resources that i never needed. Units received for participation award quests were more than enough for battles. Also the commander with life steal chainsword and bonus move on kill is so strong that he could have won most battles by himself.

So it seemed like campaign would have been better off without any base building and tech tree, lol.

 

[Raghar]

So they copied the ranged system from AoW3, added cover. And they copied class skill and units, and calls them secret techs.
I remember that in AoW3 the only two ranged units that could do full damage on max range were also EXTEREMELY squishy.

Now in current game we can see ranged is used by nearly everyone, melee sucks (because while it's shield penetrating, shields doesn't matter much, and high armor typically require two hits instead of one.)

Imagine they would make combat in style of DoW2, original version, and either turn based or with pause. Lasers would be flying, machineguns would hold enemy advance, and armored tyradoton with laser weapons would be resistant to machine gun fire, flank them, and stomp machinegun nest along with all other enemies.

Yea, that would be fun game, where developers did proper terrain and weapons feels like weapons. Current status of AoW is bland game.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

melee sucks

Unless your Commander is a melee unit, in which case he basically cleans the other side on his own.

 

[Van-d-all]

While the pseudo campaigns are lackluster, the missions actually get some variety around the time you get to Amazon's second map, because there actually are some scripted events in this game. In said mission for instance, a broken terrraforming unit keeps changing the sector biomes at random. Further on, first Syndicate mission has altering weather changing sectors from Arid to Arctic and backwards, and their second mission is 75% water but has shitloads of teleporters plus starts off with entire espionage branch researched. While it seems like the whole campaign is just one huge tutorial, and the game sure has some flaws (GUI & AI) I still find it to be the most fun 4X released since AoW3...

 

[anvi]

I still find it to be the most fun 4X released since AoW3...

AoW3 is still better?

 

[Van-d-all]

I still find it to be the most fun 4X released since AoW3...

AoW3 is still better?

Depends, but in most areas, yes. AOW3 has more unit types (class x faction vs. faction + tech); classes are a lot more impactful than techs because they have whole mechanics around them (eg. necromancy); GUI is more intuitive. But Planetfall has unit mods, that give loads of unit variants; mostly ranged combat with destructible cover is more tactical than forming lines; city aspects are more civ like, with assignable pops and food sharing; sectors make wide rushing city spam a bit less crucial & anomalies give some sector wide flavor. Plus personally I like SciFi setting more, but at the end of the day AoW3 has two expansions and more polish still. And of course AoW3 has mods like PBEM Balance or Empire Building.

 

[Harry Easter]

So I guess, we wait for patches and expansions, until it is worth a try?

 

[Raghar]

I still find it to be the most fun 4X released since AoW3...

AoW3 is still better?

Amazon units:

T1:
Flying scouts.
Bowmen.

T2:
Laser lance rider.
Bio specialist.
Tree with light laser cannon.
Large flying raptor that has massive laser cannons aimed against ground for bombardment, and even smaller cannons for long range and AA than scout.

T3:
TYRADOTON WITH short ranged rapid firing laser cannons, and tail swipe. Slow as hell, and tail swipe can damage friendlies. Probably needs to be used with some smarter tactics and not like behemoth that can obliterate everything (like mauler from Armageddon Empires where while easily obliterated, it had accuracy range and packed massive punch).
Animal with long range acid mortar on his back capable with decent direct fire. Acid mortar can be replaced by shock cannon as mod.

T4:
Plant queen.
(You'd laugh when you find what upkeep it uses.)
I used it only once during whole 50 hour random map attempt. It exploded relatively soon in battle when everyone concentrated fire on it, and it was the only unit lost.

3 "secret tech" units.

In comparison in AoW3 elven units:

T1:
Awesome squishy elf bowmen.
Squishy armored with shield elf swordsmen.
Initiate with storm bolt.

T2:
Completely uninteresting armored pikemen. (But with upkeep of T1 unit and first strike.)
Lightning caster.
Unicorn rider.

T3:
Gryphon rider.

Then we have class units, which were differentiated after several patches so they no longer have identical stats for everyone.

Scout.
3 T2
2 T3
1 T4

Current AoW units are kinda meh. Dunno if it's because they are using 6 units per army as during AoW3 when they should use more, or if they are simply meh designed. I felt like there are too few unit types in AoW.


Heroes:
AoW3:
Hero has slots for both hands, helmet, pantsu desu, armor, his favorite golden gryphon, and two magical trinkets. Also inventory for loot.
Hero levels gives him massive skills like Thunderstorm, or regeneration. With decent equipment hero can support and brutalize enemies as part of army quite well.


AoW:
Hero equipment is abstracted into primary weapon, backup weapon, and three mods. Riding unit would replace main weapon by normal weapon of that unit. I never understood why they can't carry hero primary weapon.
Lets look at this example. An amazon melee hero would mount the same mount as Laser lance rider (aka raptor), with main weapon of Laser lance rider. Which is great because main weapon of Laser lance rider can shoot at range and it has quite powerful shot that require only 1/3 action. Now he's riding, thus his mount would be able to carry second main weapon so should be able to switch from ranged lance, to his in close combat more powerful glaive. And when mount is down, he should be able to retrieve his glaive and use the same loadout as he used before he had the mount.

Hero levels give hero + 10 percent increase in damage, or accuracy and critical rate, or few small stuff. To be able to have mount, he must spend 5 skill points for T1 and T2 mounts, additional 10 skill points for T3 mount.
While some people were saying proper support leader is no longer an option. I think Vanguard hero can be made into decent support hero. The trouble is other factions are far less tailored for unit support than vanguard, and there are not enough options to create even gimped support hero for flavor from heroes of other factions.

Well, I'm not sure why they allowed main leader to survive killing shot, in AoW it was explained by wizards reforming theirs bodies (or teleporting to before killed) during complicated process in the secret chamber of theirs massive expensive long build time wizard tower. In AoW it happens kinda for free and without explanation. (Well, I didn't play campaign yet.)

I also heard when I watching twitch: "How could they shot that armored helicopter with a shotgun?" "Don't question it, it's a game, it should be fun, it's not supposed to make any sense."

So yea. It's kinda game.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Well, after playing a couple turns it should be very clear to anyone that this is much more of a 4X game than any previous entries and, as such, the campaign is mostly an afterthought and barely more than an overblown tutorial. That said, vanilla AoW3 campaigns were terribad while both add-on ones were really good (and I'm saying this as someone who almost never plays campaigns in this type of game) so I guess campaignfags can still have some hope with the inbound dlc.

Back to my impressions, I'm trying really hard to like this game, but it's really a one step forward, two steps back sort of deal. The game is definitely better than out-of-box AoW3 was, but I would have a very hard time arguing it's better than AoW3 is currently.

1. The strategic map just feels... boring. Sectors are boring, the only way to spice them up are the special ruins that are rare and not that impactful. In AoW3 you wanted those special buildings for your support or pikemen, here it's just "eh, yeah, I guess". There's also very few of them and they are totally random so you're usually completely out of luck if you want to get the void one while playing the void tech. The cities have waaaaay too few buildings/upgrades and they are all just boring, I think this game is worse than nu-civ when it comes to that and that is really damning, I also think Planetfall sets the new record for city idle time where you just spam units even if you don't really need them or energy/research, because there's just nothing to build. Getting back to the map itself, it's just dotted with one-time pickups and monster nests every two hexes, the "shrines" or the "mines" - none of it feels exciting. You remember how AoW3 had upgrades that let you get so much more out of the map POIs? I'm yet to find anything like that here. The game also needs more than one strategic resource.
2. I don't really have anything against any of the factions, they all have their own feel and seem worth trying (I mostly played vanguard, syndicate and assembly by now). However, the utter lack of meaningful mechanical differences between them is sorely disappointing. AoW3 didn't really have much of that either, but there at least necro had its own pop system with unique ways to grow it. The fact that assembly uses food exactly the same way as everyone else not only seems lazy, but is also rather moronic. Though there is some cool stuff, like how syndicate can turn t1 and t2 of other races into slaves and apply same buffs that apply to their core slave units.
3. The graphics are yet again very poor when it comes to readability, although it's now much easier to distinguish different types of units at least. But the UI and the general qol is just poor and the game does a very poor job at providing necessary info. The campaign gives you a good idea of what I mean, it just spams you with literally tens of "go there, kill that" quests (and I don't mean the "participation award" quests, which are cancer indeed) with little rhyme or reason - good luck with having a clear mental path of what should you prioritize and why or even know why the hell are you doing this particular thing. The UI reminds me of Stellaris way too much and I guess that's not a coincidence. Oh, and de-selection upon zooming out is absolutely infuriating, especially when you do it when deciding which sectors to upgrade.
4. Performance-wise the initial loading screen is really bad (and installing on ssd doesn't help) like I already mentioned, but later the loading times/world generation times are good although not as good as in AoW3. Oh, speaking about world generation and graphics - what i got very often was a world where majority of it was just completely flat plains dotted with ugly-ass assets (upon zooming in really close they are supposed to be ruins I think) - it can look shockingly bad.
5. The combat is again the meat of the game and is very nice. The overall leveling up and skill gaining is declined from AoW3, but thanks to number of units and all the mods (which are really varied and interesting, there's very little "spam useless shit" here) you can yet again come up with a number of interesting combos, synergies and tactics. It's fun. The three main changes are: cover (works in a typical nu-xcom fashion), to-hit chance is back (yes, even for melee attacks) and a lot of weapons/units now have overwatch, which makes defensive play more interesting. Oh, and the flying units are back to being actual flying units, which is incline I guess, although due to much bigger emphasis on ranged combat it doesn't matter as much. Couple of buts:

- For me, this game had one mission: increase the stack size back to 8 or even expand it to 10. And, of course, they kept it at 6. Why, oh why. Yet again, some interesting support units will just not be used, because there is just no justification for taking them over raw firepower outside of strategy-larping.
- The game features two basic types of weapons: high damage, single shot and low damage, multiple shot. However, unless I'm missing some weird meta, all the game mechanics are just working directly against the first type. Hit chance (miss once and your turn is completely wasted), chance to apply status ailment (once versus up to trice), overall lack of mobility and utility. The worst part though is the ubiquity of staggering attacks (which cause action point loss) - it's just way too easy to "stunlock" sniper-type units.
- The game is highly schizophrenic, because on one hand it features multiple mechanics that promote keeping your units close, but at the same time the aoe attacks are just every-fucking-where from the very start. Seriously, aoe was a pretty rare stuff in fantasy AoW, but here almost every shit-tier unit has a way of doing it. So it feels rather counter-intuitive.

Overall, just roll in the dlc. Remembering how it looked with AoW3. I definitely see a potential for this.

 

[Sloul]

- The game is highly schizophrenic, because on one hand it features multiple mechanics that promote keeping your units close, but at the same time the aoe attacks are just every-fucking-where from the very start. Seriously, aoe was a pretty rare stuff in fantasy AoW, but here almost every shit-tier unit has a way of doing it. So it feels rather counter-intuitive.

Disagree with that part.
It promotes doing it on a few occasions, but on the basis that maybe you're going to take some aoe = choice, risk & consequences.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

C&C, sure, that's nice, but it just feels overblown into both directions to me. I really wouldn't say "few occasions", there are multiple buffs that benefit from sticking close together from the very start and vice versa with the damage. How many units in fantasy AoW had aoe attacks? It was pretty much reserved for high-tier stuff. Here t1 vanguard starts with granade, t1 amazon with aoe blind (absolutely bonkers), t1 kirko with vomit, t1 syndicate with chaining arc gun, dvar even have t0 scout with aoe. It's p crazy.

 

[fantadomat]

If i read one more time about AoW3 this day,i will fucking kill somebody....like Zboj for example!

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Dude, lay off the booze, we're talking about age of wonders here. Age of empires thread is the other way.

 

[fantadomat]

Dude, lay off the booze, we're talking about age of wonders here. Age of empires thread is the other way.

Citation needed

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Dude, lay off the booze, we're talking about age of wonders here. Age of empires thread is the other way.

Citation needed

Here's the citation: you're a drunk Bulgar.

 

[fantadomat]

Dude, lay off the booze, we're talking about age of wonders here. Age of empires thread is the other way.

Citation needed

Here's the citation: you're a drunk Bulgar.

And you are a person that wants to be a drunk Bulgar....aka barbarian .

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Dude, lay off the booze, we're talking about age of wonders here. Age of empires thread is the other way.

Citation needed

Here's the citation: you're a drunk Bulgar.

And you are a person that wants to be a drunk Bulgar....aka barbarian .

Nah, Barbarians know no nationhood. Anyone can apply. Except maybe Swedes of the present day.

 

[Galdred]

So they copied the ranged system from AoW3, added cover. And they copied class skill and units, and calls them secret techs.
I remember that in AoW3 the only two ranged units that could do full damage on max range were also EXTEREMELY squishy.

Now in current game we can see ranged is used by nearly everyone, melee sucks (because while it's shield penetrating, shields doesn't matter much, and high armor typically require two hits instead of one.)

Imagine they would make combat in style of DoW2, original version, and either turn based or with pause. Lasers would be flying, machineguns would hold enemy advance, and armored tyradoton with laser weapons would be resistant to machine gun fire, flank them, and stomp machinegun nest along with all other enemies.

Yea, that would be fun game, where developers did proper terrain and weapons feels like weapons. Current status of AoW is bland game.

didn't AoW already had cover? I remember units being much harder to hit on city walls, or if there were obstacles between the shooter and the target.

 

[Citizen]

didn't AoW already had cover? I remember units being much harder to hit on city walls, or if there were obstacles between the shooter and the target.

Yes! AoW3 had cover and before it AoW:SM had cover and even friendly fire. So, nothing new actually. They just highlighted it with nuxcom-style shield icons in planetfall i guess from the screenshots

 

[thesecret1]

I found the game a disappointment of sorts. I mean, no underground layer? Really? But ok, let's see what more is th- Oh. Sectors. So I can't bottleneck shit with a fort or anything of the sort, since positions of cities and forward bases are hardcoded. Great. The campaign doesn't even have a gradually updated map that shows each side's conquests, something that I loved in AoW3. On the flipside, they independents are handled significantly better now, but that alone really isn't enough of an improvement to offset the negatives. Also, spacers are one massive meme