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https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/dev-diary-2-affinities.1566287/ New dev diary is out! This one offers a close look at the Empire Tree, which gives you economic bonuses compared to the combat bonuses and new units you'll get from Tomes. E: page snipe, here's a look at some new units:  
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Jan 26, 2023 17:17
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I wasn't expecting Palantir's as a core mechanic. Looks good! Gerblyn, did you get then to put that charm spell in the diary just for me?
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Jan 26, 2023 17:50
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I just need to know if there’s a giant spider unit I can control. AoW3 had multiple kinds of big spider, and I fully credit the success of our kingdom to the hardworking Big Spiders that make it the safe wonderful stinky goblin cave that we all know and love.
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Jan 26, 2023 17:55
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Taear posted:It's wild to me that Planetfall made my absolute least favourite version of Age of Wonders (rushing with loads of cities) into the primary mode of play. Hasn't really been my experience. Like yeah I'll rush to three cities asap but after that I think you get a lot more value out of building up the existing ones to have 3+ sectors. Not to mention focusing on getting later cities from neutrals and enemies.
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Jan 26, 2023 18:21
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Looks like a really fun system for evolving your people throughout a campaign. I do hope it’s balanced in such a way that you aren’t incentivized to/able to pick up a lot of everything. Having to focus on 2-3 affinities maybe to see their end-game techs sounds better.
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Jan 26, 2023 18:29
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Anno posted:Looks like a really fun system for evolving your people throughout a campaign. I do hope it’s balanced in such a way that you aren’t incentivized to/able to pick up a lot of everything. Having to focus on 2-3 affinities maybe to see their end-game techs sounds better. It seems like it, but it could go either way. Your affinity affects how quickly you research things on the Empire Tree, so while it's possible to go for a smattering of all affinities you can max branches out quicker if you commit. What I like too is that it looks like you have some society traits that are mutually exclusive, but you're still able to mix affinities. So while Chosen Uniters can't also be Ruthless Raiders, your Imperialists can be Triskelli fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jan 26, 2023 |
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Jan 26, 2023 19:17
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Triskelli posted:It seems like it, but it could go either way. Your affinity affects how quickly you research things on the Empire Tree, so while it's possible to go for a smattering of all affinities you can max branches out quicker if you commit. What I like too is that it looks like you have some society traits that are mutually exclusive, but you're still able to mix affinities. So while Chosen Uniters can't also be Ruthless Raiders, your Imperialists can be The fact that you are not locked in at character creation is pretty interesting I think. Not sure how much 6 Affinity is versus the total you get in a game but just not having to choose your entire Spell list before the game begins opens some fun choices.
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Jan 26, 2023 19:30
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Triskelli posted:It seems like it, but it could go either way. Your affinity affects how quickly you research things on the Empire Tree, so while it's possible to go for a smattering of all affinities you can max branches out quicker if you commit. What I like too is that it looks like you have some society traits that are mutually exclusive, but you're still able to mix affinities. So while Chosen Uniters can't also be Ruthless Raiders, your Imperialists can be Yeah I guess it’s just hard to tell how significant any of the numbers are (and that probably isn’t even figured out totally anyway). Like obviously it’ll go faster, but if I could, idk, get one point of X affinity at the start of the game, never really worry about it the rest of the game and still get most of the skills, that would be bad, to me. But I can’t imagine that’s how it’ll end up balancing out.
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Jan 26, 2023 19:37
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I remember liking AoW3, but I think I kinda cooled on it because higher tier units were just universally better and you could spam cities like mad if you allowed founding them. Does Planetfall address either of those? I like founding cities but I feel like they should be fairly infrequent things.
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Jan 27, 2023 03:59
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It does but it honestly goes too hard the other way, where masses of cheaply modded core/T2 units just win out through sheer efficiency against the high tier stuff. It's a shame, too, since a lot of high tier units are cool as gently caress but either the game ends before you use them or they get prohibitively expensive to deploy. I don't think I ever truly found a use for the Dvar tanks because of this.
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Jan 27, 2023 04:01
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toasterwarrior posted:It does but it honestly goes too hard the other way, where masses of cheaply modded core/T2 units just win out through sheer efficiency against the high tier stuff. It's a shame, too, since a lot of high tier units are cool as gently caress but either the game ends before you use them or they get prohibitively expensive to deploy. I don't think I ever truly found a use for the Dvar tanks because of this. Honestly that sounds good to me, I like using piles of common troops with the occasional centerpiece unit mostly as a flex. I might keep an eye on AoW4 then.
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Jan 27, 2023 04:04
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OwlFancier posted:I remember liking AoW3, but I think I kinda cooled on it because higher tier units were just universally better and you could spam cities like mad if you allowed founding them. it solves both problems very aggressively t1 unit spam isn't actually optimal play but it's certainly valid and has its own advantages. if you're far enough into the game where it matters past "what feels better to me" you've gotten your money's worth. if you wanna spam out t3s that's a bit harder to pull off but more "optimal" once you have them (however much it matters if you aren't in the pvp scene) ninjewtsu fucked around with this message at 07:40 on Jan 27, 2023 |
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Jan 27, 2023 07:37
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It's honestly kind of surprising to me how divisive Planetfall's scaling is; one of the most common complaints I've heard about AoW 3 was that it often descended into T4 spam, and that lower tier units were either useless or marginally useful for creeping the first few turns.
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Jan 27, 2023 07:40
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ninjewtsu posted:it solves both problems very aggressively What does it do with cities?
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Jan 27, 2023 08:33
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Just wanted to pop in and say how insanely excited I am for more Age of Wonders! I have close to a thousand hours played just on Steam for AOW3 and Planetfall, with Planetfall being my most played game ever. When development was announced as done on Planetfall I was hoping for more games from the team and I can't wait for AOW4.
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Jan 27, 2023 10:14
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Splicer posted:I wasn't expecting Palantir's as a core mechanic. Looks good! It's just a happy coincidence! I wrote it before we talked about that  CommissarMega posted:It's honestly kind of surprising to me how divisive Planetfall's scaling is; one of the most common complaints I've heard about AoW 3 was that it often descended into T4 spam, and that lower tier units were either useless or marginally useful for creeping the first few turns. I'll tell you a secret: strategy game fans are never happy about anything  . But seriously it just went a bit far, we had a big issue at one point that we didn't know how to encourage people to use tier 3 or 4 units after they'd invested so much into T1 and T2 ones.Part of the problem was the game's economy asked you to pay cosmite for each upgrade on each unit, which encouraged players not to make new units as much. The fact that T3 and T4 units had cosmite income probably didn't help much either (though it was needed to ensure players didn't end up with so much cosmite that the costs became meaningless)
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Jan 27, 2023 10:34
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Gerblyn posted:It's just a happy coincidence! I wrote it before we talked about that
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Jan 27, 2023 11:01
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Higher difficulties in the Empire mode resolved the "tier 1+2 armies" problem for me, especially on Invasion maps where I needed tier 3 stuff just to be able to hold the line, tier 4 stuff found a way to the battlefield in time to be useful, and I've also made great use of Empire mode tier 3 stuff when I could rush it out via the unlocks. Fully modded tier 2 stuff seemed generally the optimal choice to me for most fights, with tier 1 spam (with 1 or 2 mods at the most) being how you get poo poo done early, but not something that scaled particularly well.
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Jan 27, 2023 12:49
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Gerblyn posted:I'll tell you a secret: strategy game fans are never happy about anything Yeah, as an old HoMM fan, I prefer higher tier units being bombs. The announcement got me back into Planetfall this week knocking out some more Empire mode stuff and I can count on 1 hand the number of higher tier stuff I actually built. I had a stack of dinosaurs in one game but those were almost entirely purchased with Empire points. The last game I built one Avatar and it was the first unit to die in the climactic fight because I forgot to equip it with mods. Actually that might be a good way to incentivize building those higher tier units is if mods costs were waved on them if added when they were being built. Still it just takes so long to get there and they really don't function that much better than lower tier ones with mods and veterancy. Another problem is the tech tree is very uneven so if people do beeline them that could be an issue. The action economy is probably what kills them the most, as each unit has very limited AP and giving higher tier units better AP would have been a good way to balance them beyond just bigger numbers and/or some extra ability.
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Jan 27, 2023 13:26
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For me the best thing about the planetfall unit system is that my starting army gets to meaningfully participate right up the end of the game. Which is basically the issue in that if you ask two players what they want of a 4x you'll get three mutually incompatible answers.
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Jan 27, 2023 14:26
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I do get weirdly attached to my starting shitlings. I still remember the tier 0 militia guys in an AoW3 human rogue game that I 'retired' as garrison, who later managed to hold a fort against an event driven higher tier unit onslaught.
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Jan 27, 2023 14:35
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OwlFancier posted:What does it do with cities? Plantelfall mostly solves AoW3s city spam (combining picking up neutral cities with founding new ones) by doubling down on founding your own cities and properly balancing itself around that. There are still neutrals to pick up, but they are more rare and the resource needed for them is kinda a trickle. The game expects you to found your own cities, but building colonizers costs Cosmite (the same resource you need for mods and advanced military units - pretty much your core military resource), and the costs scale up with each colonizer you build. This means you need to balance expansion with an eye on your timing in terms of when you want/need to project proper military power and makes the roi on that one extra colonizer very poor if you misjudge this. Edit: Arguably, Planetfall's system is a little too well balanced/strict. I've found I almost always end up developing exactly 4 cities with standard map settings (the capitol, 2 founded cities, 1 neutral settlement), but then 4 cities feels pretty good as a default and has kinda become the industry standard since Civ5. Autsj fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Jan 27, 2023 |
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Jan 27, 2023 14:37
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my dad posted:I do get weirdly attached to my starting shitlings. I still remember the tier 0 militia guys in an AoW3 human rogue game that I 'retired' as garrison, who later managed to hold a fort against an event driven higher tier unit onslaught. 
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Jan 27, 2023 16:20
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Tier 3 units are really important in Planetfall on higher difficulties, I think they’re in a great place, balance-wise. Don’t forget you can reduce cosmite costs with the cosmite amplification lab research sector specialization. My unit producing cities usually go for one research sector for the amplification lab, one energy sector for the cheaper unit upkeep specialization, one production sector to be able to build fast with the specialization for extra armor on production, and the fourth sector is either an orbital relay to deploy to the front lines faster, an ocean sector if I want to make naval, or, if I’m rich enough to afford it, a second production sector to produce units even faster.
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Jan 27, 2023 18:51
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The AoW4 FAQ was updated today: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/regularly-updated-f-a-q-upd-27-01-23.1566405/ Looks like the game will have dire penguins and dragons both. Rapidly approaching a likely GOTY.
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Jan 27, 2023 19:15
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Hell yeah, Dire Penguins My only wish is that they can evolve into a Tier 3 or 4 Dire Emperor Penguin unit or something this time so I can cackle and feel good about including them in a doomstack
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Jan 27, 2023 19:25
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I think the biggest struggle with getting T4 units in Planetfall was just that they were competing for precious research time with mods. You could theoretically rush T3 and T4 units, but quality mods helps your armies *now*, and can turn your Heroes into powerhouses. More high power units in a stack gets the most out of your heroes, but I generally had more heroes than I could afford full stacks up for quite some time. I think my strongest T4 rushes were usually getting them from minor factions
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Jan 27, 2023 19:28
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Hawgh posted:The AoW4 FAQ was updated today: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/regularly-updated-f-a-q-upd-27-01-23.1566405/ quote:the score is composed by Age of Wonders veteran Michiel van den Bos GOTY already confirmed.
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Jan 27, 2023 20:10
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TheDeadlyShoe posted:I think the biggest struggle with getting T4 units in Planetfall was just that they were competing for precious research time with mods. You could theoretically rush T3 and T4 units, but quality mods helps your armies *now*, and can turn your Heroes into powerhouses. Really helpful to rush production on and supplement a garrison in an emergency when the rest of the army is too far away.
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Jan 27, 2023 20:22
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I picked up AoW1 from GOG because it was literally $1.19. I never played it before, and I'm delighted to report that it holds up really well!
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Jan 27, 2023 21:32
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99pct of germs posted:GOTY already confirmed. Hell yea, the Age of Wonders soundtracks are always great.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:10
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WarpDogs posted:I picked up AoW1 from GOG because it was literally $1.19. I never played it before, and I'm delighted to report that it holds up really well! I genuinely believe it could be reworked into a mobile game of some sort without changing much and it'd just work. e: Conceptually, presentation and mechanics-wise I mean, not in the sense that actually making a mobile clone would be easy work my dad fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Jan 27, 2023 |
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Jan 27, 2023 22:10
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Is auto battle a legitimate way of playing these games? I own Planetfall and dig the factions in that game but I can't stand the combat. I never liked it. There's too oomph to it and it always felt like that if you didn't strategically use every ability and meticulously plan out every move you'd get rolled even by the most basic enemies and I'm not really into that sort of thing. I'm into the overworld settlement and production stuff more than anything.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:32
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You can - it just means you're on an even basis. You'd want to play at lower difficulty / world intensity than you would otherwise. Fortunately you can watch a replay of the autobattle so you can still see your units doing their thing.
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Jan 27, 2023 22:39
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Jimbot posted:Is auto battle a legitimate way of playing these games? I own Planetfall and dig the factions in that game but I can't stand the combat. I never liked it. There's too oomph to it and it always felt like that if you didn't strategically use every ability and meticulously plan out every move you'd get rolled even by the most basic enemies and I'm not really into that sort of thing. I'm into the overworld settlement and production stuff more than anything. You can but the tactical battles are fully 1/2 the game. You're kinda psyching yourself out here, they're really not that hard.
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Jan 27, 2023 23:14
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Jimbot posted:Is auto battle a legitimate way of playing these games? I own Planetfall and dig the factions in that game but I can't stand the combat. I never liked it. There's too oomph to it and it always felt like that if you didn't strategically use every ability and meticulously plan out every move you'd get rolled even by the most basic enemies and I'm not really into that sort of thing. I'm into the overworld settlement and production stuff more than anything. Generally wouldn’t recommend it. Fights are by and large The Point of these games. Empire building and research are relevant insofar as they impact the tactical combat layer. Civilization it is not. Also you’re overestimating how punishing the combat is.
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Jan 28, 2023 00:04
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Splicer posted:What if t3/t4 units used a separate cosmite+ *cackles in Paradox* Hear me out: ghost cosmite. Edit: Autoresolve in Planetfall is really useful but I tend to at least fight out early battles with units/empires I'm unfamiliar/rusty on. That way when you're playing battles later on you're not going "how does X work again?"
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Jan 28, 2023 01:20
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Hawgh posted:The AoW4 FAQ was updated today: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/regularly-updated-f-a-q-upd-27-01-23.1566405/ Ah, but can I build a Dire Penguin faction?
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Jan 28, 2023 03:19
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Dire penguins are locked behind the highest evil affinity.
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Jan 28, 2023 08:32
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OwlFancier posted:What does it do with cities? colonizers are pretty cheap at the start of the game but each one you build increases the cost of the next one by 10 cosmite. if one dies before settling or i believe if one of your cities gets razed the cost goes back down by 10 cosmite. unsure if the game keeps track of which ones you built and which ones you got by bribing/conquering indies for these purposes. basically settling your first few cities is cheap and easy and then you pretty quickly hit a "this isn't a good idea anymore" wall on cost. general wisdom is between 2 and 4 colonizers is where you should stop (i usually stop at 2) Jimbot posted:Is auto battle a legitimate way of playing these games? I own Planetfall and dig the factions in that game but I can't stand the combat. I never liked it. There's too oomph to it and it always felt like that if you didn't strategically use every ability and meticulously plan out every move you'd get rolled even by the most basic enemies and I'm not really into that sort of thing. I'm into the overworld settlement and production stuff more than anything. it's a legitimate way to skip smaller fights once you don't care to fight them anymore but if you exclusively autobattle and play strat game only it's just not gonna be as fun as other offerings. cutting out half the game will do that, the tactical combat is "the fun part" - the strategic map is taking the place of the between missions management minigame in xcom. if you follow some basic rules about staying at the edge of your opponent's engagement range before the big clash and keeping the action economy in mind during the clash you should be fine vs ai, but you can go much deeper than that if you want to which i'd guess is the part of it you're seeing. if you aren't doing pvp you're probably overthinking it but hey, if it's not fun for you then there's probably not a magic argument that will change your mind. may be worth giving it another go while trying to keep yourself limited to focusing on positioning instead of the various ability details (you'll get some rude surprises but if your positioning is decent you don't really need anything besides "shoot gun at that one" and maybe heals), but if it doesn't work out then there's other fun games out there. ninjewtsu fucked around with this message at 10:11 on Jan 28, 2023 |
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Jan 28, 2023 10:09
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