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TBS Age of Wonders: Planetfall - AoW gone to space

cvv

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The Immigration Crisis DLC, nice.

The Premium Edition only 35 jewro RN? Ok. Done.
 

thesecret1

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I still can't believe there is no underground in the game, like what the fuck. This is some massive fucking decline that doesn't seem to get brought up.
 

Zboj Lamignat

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It did get brought up many times, same as other things that are gone or completely dumbed down compared to AoW3. It's just that when you visit steam/paradox forums now it's literally just a couple of deranged parrots repeating how the game is awesome and sectors are amazing.
 

cvv

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Been playing for a few hours. I'm not ecstatic about the sectors but in a SF setting I don't mind a bit more macro-oriented gameplay. Same way I didn't mind when they macro-ized Anno 2205.

So far I'm enjoying the game. As usual a fantasy setting is more intuitively engaging, with dragons, swords and fireballs instead of carbonized electronvoltaged pseudoplasma and polyoxidantive laseromatic crystalization. Ridiculous technobabble has been always a problem for SF settings, even for Alpha Centauri and MoO back in the day, no way around that (altho MoO handled that best IMO). Otherwise it's fine.

My only problem is there's already too much shit happening on the overworld map, it takes effort to pick out various PoIs from the terrain. And we still have 2 DLCs to go, which will add even more nodes and ruins and who knows what else. It's gonna be a clusterfuck.

I like the music, that was always a strong asset for the IP, the vanilla campaign is fine. But the game really shines in customizing units and experimenting with synergies between factions/secret tech. I don't suppose Planetfall will have the same lifespan as AoW3 but if it's a couple of dozen of hours, it'll be my money's worth.
 
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Zboj Lamignat

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Ok, so they're adding literal space furries, including a helmet wearing squirrel that attacks with toxic acorns. Yup, they're definitely past giving a fuck about this one already. Also, it's yet another race/faction with "unique" mechanic of "stay close together for a bonus, disregarding all the aoe attacks that literally everyone has". Zzzz.
 

Dwarvophile

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Dec 1, 2015
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Ok, so they're adding literal space furries, including a helmet wearing squirrel that attacks with toxic acorns. Yup, they're definitely past giving a fuck about this one already. Also, it's yet another race/faction with "unique" mechanic of "stay close together for a bonus, disregarding all the aoe attacks that literally everyone has". Zzzz.

Yeah, that's the problem I had already with AoW3, the gameplay is great but their lore & art doesn't make sense. They are the Larian of 4x.
 

Absinthe

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Jan 6, 2012
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Wasn't a problem in AoW 1 though. And AoW 3 had the same writer as AoW 1.
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
AoW had a very cleverly structured campaign which surprised you at every turn. The writing and lore was never anything to write home about, but starting as the keeper of light and ending up resurrecting the god of the undead is one hell of a journey.
 

Zboj Lamignat

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The lizards are ok, but their trademark infiltrator unit is a typical gimmicky pos that's useless past the first dozen of turns (and it's not like it shines during that period) and costs cosmite upfront on top of that.

The furries are completely zzzzz, the only interesting part is the fast movement mod you can by from them after the first relationship threshold.

The random world events, one of the indicators that they are now back to selling features from AoW3 as paid dlc, are pure fucking cancer though. At best they're irrelevant, at worst you can get event on like turn 20 that will completely ruin your game permanently terraforming your sectors to fungal, for example, at random and then adding harmful anomaly on top of that. You also get stuff like random unit cloning in combat. Having a nice face off with an equal opponent? Gee, it would be a shame if his tier 4 got randomly cloned, wouldn't it. I don't know what happened with these dudes' ability to design games, but it seems to have taken a big hit.

I'd like to see the invasion, but it didn't fire for me, despite finishing a game on turn 130-something, playing on a large map.

If you play lizard promethean btw, their purifier is melee. Bretty gud synergy with some of the promethean unit mods.
 

cvv

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Don't like the lizards much tbh. They seem weak and squishy and their main schtick seems to be the spy game which is a) undercooked and b) uninteresting for me personally.

The furies are pure fucking cringe. Who writes this shit?

I like the world events, maybe because so far most have been good to me while fucking up my enemies. Your example does sound nasty tho.

Still haven't seen the invasion, on turn 60 now.
 

Zboj Lamignat

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Lizards shine as game goes on, their later units are much better. But yeah, they seem to be a bit all over the place with stuff like spying, infiltration/abduction, aquatic affinity etc., none of which is developed properly. They're better than heritor though - which are obviously a full faction that was cut down for snowdindus-didn't-provide-funding reasons and doesn't synergize with anything.
 

Zboj Lamignat

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Well, as funny as it is, they can actually do that part, although in practice their aquatic affinity mostly means better mobility with water around compared to other factions.
 

Raghar

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Who writes this shit?
Products of democratic education. Old writers were self-educated and were able to be critical to authorities. Modern people are willing to take money and shut up, and are too social to be decent writers.

Socialistic writers were deranged, which funnily prevented them to fall under... you have easy money don't screw it up by doing something radical. They believed on the other side of fence is grass greener, and if fence disappears they would have lots of money and live like upper 1/1000 behind the fence, which fueled theirs writing.
 

Citizen

Guest
Giving it another try since I bought the season pass on a release day in a drunken stupor, core gameplay is okay but god why does it look so eye-cancer, especially the strategic map
 

Edija

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Giving it another try since I bought the season pass on a release day in a drunken stupor, core gameplay is okay but god why does it look so eye-cancer, especially the strategic map

The unit design is 80% trash from an artistic standpoint, the new "joke" furry mini faction is just that, the recorded audio is cringe and they could've saved money on it, and last but not least, the animations are just poorly done. It could've been a good game if they actually hired some talented modelers and animators and toned down the cringe writing. No one expects this to be on Alpha Centauri levels of exposure and writing but really...
 

Zboj Lamignat

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the animations are just poorly done
That's being extremely kind. The animations aren't poor per se, shitload of them seems to be completely missing :lol: The game has stuff like turreted vehicles with turrets having no animation at all, so it's just facing one way and shooting lazors the other or dying units just frame freezing and then appearing dead on the floor. It's one of the most wtf aspects of the game and what makes the aaa pricing it has a huge joke.
 

Edija

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
the animations are just poorly done
That's being extremely kind. The animations aren't poor per se, shitload of them seems to be completely missing :lol: The game has stuff like turreted vehicles with turrets having no animation at all, so it's just facing one way and shooting lazors the other or dying units just frame freezing and then appearing dead on the floor. It's one of the most wtf aspects of the game and what makes the aaa pricing it has a huge joke.

The same question remains as when Age of Wonders 3 came out - why go 3D when you're going to half ass it? Stylized 2D would look so much better, especially since it could give the newer games some identity of their own and not only generic age of wonders game in space/not in space. The bad thing about it is that I really like some things, the planet choices, the conqueror mode where you face of against one stronger player. They have some really good ideas and than they do halflings or furries, I don't get it. Age of Wonders 3 looked bad but it at least had the gorgeous hand drawn style map when you zoom out, this has nothing.
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
They go 3D because they don't understand their audience. They think that by making their game in 3D, they are going to attract more customers, but that's not necessarily how it works. Interest in whatever you are doing is not solely based around a sketchy checklist you can go through and tick random boxes.
 

AdamReith

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is.
That's an interesting subject and I wonder if they really think that.

I'd probably be 300% more likely to reinstall AoW3 if it didn't have the awful 3D where everything looks like cheap Chinese toys that just float everywhere weightlessly.

For example I think of those icey pikemen and compare them to something like the highman avenger in AoW1. There's just no comparison in terms of appeal or sense of something powerful. That's not even taking into account AoW1's excellent blood effects.
 

Zboj Lamignat

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Giving it another try since I bought the season pass on a release day in a drunken stupor, core gameplay is okay but god why does it look so eye-cancer, especially the strategic map
Speaking of the strategic map, my absolute "favorite" are the ruined city assets. If the rmg rolls a lot of flat terrain (especially arid/desert) dotted with these then the game looks absolutely shocking. Reminds me of those late 3d panzer general installments that were prosper on steroids.

That's an interesting subject and I wonder if they really think that.

I'd probably be 300% more likely to reinstall AoW3 if it didn't have the awful 3D where everything looks like cheap Chinese toys that just float everywhere weightlessly.

For example I think of those icey pikemen and compare them to something like the highman avenger in AoW1. There's just no comparison in terms of appeal or sense of something powerful. That's not even taking into account AoW1's excellent blood effects.
AoW3 had huge problems with readability, Planetfall makes it much worse, especially on strategic map. Tactical maps look pretty good actually, but there's just too much clutter so you need to rotate the camera constantly and I avoid flying units solely because the ui makes using them a huge pain. The only improvement they made is that at least most units are ugly, but visually distinct, so you can pretty much always tell what is what without the need to click on everything.
 

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