Yeah, it would definitely suck if they showed the other factions now and all those had were repaints of the human faction...What I like from what I've seen so far is that the factions appear to have a lot of different units. For examples, so far they've been showing pretty much only the humans and they have several different types of infantry, bikes, flying bots, ground bots, mechs, tanks and they haven't even shown the last tier units yet. I don't know if these include units you get from the secret tech. Considering that each unit also has unique weapons and abilities and there are also individual unit upgrades this can make the combat and the military part of strategic gameplay very interesting.
Yeah, it would definitely suck if they showed the other factions now and all those had were repaints of the human faction...
But the way I see it is that combat has always been AoW's forte. Big, epic battles that feel like something out of LotR. While we're obviously going to lose the LotR-ness, I feel that so long as they don't screw up combat too much, it'll still be at least a 7/10.
If I were you, I wouldn't get my hopes up. Age of Wonders 3 was very much a dull fucking barebones game on launch that required several patches and expansions to become decent-ish. And that was before Paradox got in the mix, so if you ask me there are very good odds that Planetfall is going to be a barebones launch where you have to shell out for ton of DLC to make the game playable. As tempting as it may be to assume the Triumph will have learned from their mistakes and do better this time around, the Civilization series parallel is getting a bit strong here, and so I feel compelled to note that Civ 5 was also a worse launch than Civ 4's rather bad launch (with Civ: Beyond Earth and Civ 6 doing even worse), so take my advice and whatever you do: do not fucking pre-order or buy the game in the first week of launch. Wait and see if it's any good.I'm not sure about it either, but let's not get overboard. If you liked aow3, which you did , the chances of it being 0/10 for you look really slim.
I just hope that the snownigger overlords won't turn it into a barebones launch that then gets revamped 57 times over 6 years and raped with dick armour DLC.
Age of Wonders: Planetfall – Dev Diary #14: The Unit Module System
Hi there, welcome to this week’s Planetfall Journal! Today we’ll take a deeper look at the Unit Mod(ule) system which allows you to create your own customized arsenal of units. You can upgrade weapons, install bionics or even infect your troops with alien parasites, all for the greater good of course.
Unit Module System Purpose:
- Units Modules allow you to tailor your arsenal to shifting threats.
- Make lower tier units relevant in the end game by giving them mods of increasing strength.
- Mix and Match: An elegant way to fuse abilities originating from Secret technologies, and NPCs to units from your main faction (and vise versa).
- Replay Value: There are a huge amount of combinations possible - you’ll discover things that we as developers have never thought about and that we then have to nerf (A Kirko Xenoplague Frenzied has up to 21 different mods available from Faction and Secret Tech for example!)
So, why Mods and not a unit construction system? This question was raised in the forums and it’s a good point to raise in this journal. There is a lot of fun, crazy and creative stuff possible with unit mods; but we specifically didn't go for a unit *construction* system for Planetfall as this would blur the lines between unit categories – and between units and heroes. For this game we made a large set of units with clear functions, personalities and art styles, which you can develop further in multiple directions, but with some constraints coming from their role and faction origin. Treating every base unit (of which there are 100++) as a mere "chassis", would undermine this.
Mods are organized in 2 base types
You can mix and match any type. You could make a versatile jet pack marine or a glass cannon, with adding three offensive mods on a single unit. For example, going all in on laser mods would all you to make a unit that negates armor, sets units on fire and has a chance to Disintegrate tier 1 and 2 units with each shot.
- Offensive Mods. Increases accuracy, add status effects on enemies, change damage channel. All offensive mods give a stacking base % damage bonus to all the unit’s attacks; in addition to other bonusses.
- Defensive Mods. Armor, shields, healing abilities, auras, movement abilities. All defensive mods give a base bonus to Armor, Shields, or Health depending on the technology type and individual mod.
Mod Origins.
Mods are a game mechanic that lets you synergize between your choice of Faction, Secret tech and NPC relations.
Weapon Group Mods: These contain your bread and butter weapon augmentations. Weapon groups are dominated by a single damage channel (laser=thermal), but weapon groups also contain mods that allow you to change damage channel. For example, the Volatile Infusion Bio mod changes the damage type from biochemical to Thermal and adds Burning.
- Laser: Shield Breaking, Blinding, Burning, Disintegration.
- Bio: Armor Melt, Slowdowns, Infections.
- Arc: Stagger, Bouncing Projectiles, Anto-Mechanical
- Kinetic: Anti-Organic, Bleeding, Smart Bullets
- Psionic: Buffs, Debuffs, and Mind Control
- Explosive: Various Payloads augment projectiles. Example:
Faction Mods: These mods emphasis the core abilities of the faction. For example, the Kirko can mutate their carapace armor, allowing them to cloak, or grow glands that spray assailants with damage or the following:
Secret Tech Mods: Secret Mods are generally part of a bigger gameplay theme in which mods interact with Operations; For example, Xenoplague mods insert mutant parasites into their hosts, these parasites can then be strengthened using combat operations, granting their hosts regeneration and other buffs.
Dwelling Mods: Mods transfer some of the abilities of the NPC units into mods so they can be used by your units. Like your marine can be made to extrude Psychoactive Plant love Pheromones.
Unit Variant Manager
The Unit Variant Manager allows you to track all the unit variants you have fielded. You can see the number of units using a template and you can disable or renamable their visibility in the production list. It is also possible to do mass upgrades and mass disbands using the Variant Manager.
Or course it is possible to upgrade existing individual units in the field and a premium cost. This temporally places a status effect on the unit, reducing its damage and disabling all of its mods for a short time..
Unit Variant Presentation
Unit variants can be given a unique glyph and name to go with them. Each Mod Origin has a set of icons associated with it. A system will suggest a name and icon that fits a unit (the AI will use this too), this will help you identify units in the field.
Hero Items
Heros can also be equipped with standard Issue mods and weapons, in addition to those they can also find unique mods in that can only be equipped by heroes. More on Heroes and their equipment in a future journal!
Age of Wonders: Planetfall – Dev Diary #15: Promethean Secret Tech and Doomsday Victory
Secret Technologies
Next to the main faction, players select a Secret Technology at the start of the game. Secret Technologies are experimental, forbidden research projects that originated from the collapsed Star Union.
These Tech groups unlock additional Units, Mods, Ops and Doctrines, as well as powerful Doomsday Weapons, which form the Tech Victory of the game.
Secret techs actually are secret at the start of the game; you’ll only start to see which techs other players have when they deploy their weapons.
The first tech we’ll be looking at in Detail is Promethean.
Promethean Background
The Star Union deployed the Promethean Division to cleanse worlds of empire-destabilizing threats. PyrX was originally developed to immolate planets infested with Xenoplague, but it was rumored the tech also saw use against worlds with contamination of a more ideological type. The mere sight of the Promethean emblem instilled terror.
The Promethean Division was established in reaction to outbreaks of Xenoplague, an out of control bio weapon developed by TerraTech Industries. The Prometheans developed a secret tech called PyrX that could ‘purify’ planets from this Xenoplague. PyrX gas was pumped into the atmosphere, and once it was saturated, a catalyst reaction was triggered causing a cascade of fire which engulfed the world. This would lay waste to the surface, destroying all life, and making a clean slate suitable for terraforming on the fertile ashes.
- Deploy weapons of mass destruction
- Settle in inhospitable places
- Shield units and colonists from Armageddon
Prometheans operated from Phoenix Vaults; massive underground complexes, completely isolated from the rest of the planet. After the planet was purified, the Prometheans would re-emerge, rising from the ashes to rebuild in the name of Star Union.
Seeing the potential of this devastating power, the Star Union started to employ the Promethean division for a wider range of applications. This lead to the development of more specialized technologies, as the Star Union used the Promethean division to ‘purify’ rebellious colonies, alien nests and other places of opposition.
But that is all history, Promethean Divisions with their bunkers were well suited to survive the great collapse. Now they must rebuild and face the threats that linger in the ruins of the Union.
Units
Promethean Units are good at exterminating biological life and shield units from thermal and biological damage.
- Plasmoid: These are fire drones that can teleport into groups of enemies to use their point blank fire weapons to incinerate them.
- Purifier: Flame throwing exterminators.
- Aegis Tank: Projects shockwaves (kinetic for a change). Effective against air units. Has fallout shields that protect all adjacent hexes. These shields can be boosted with seperate ability.
- Phoenix Walker: Huge, armored walkers that spray the battlefield with firestorms.
Techs
- Phoenix Flash Strike (Strategic Operation) Localized PyrX deployment; engulfing a sector in fire; damaging all units. Changes Sector to Badlands. Damages units with Thermal Damage
- PyrX Absorption Panels (Unit Module) When standing in Fire, the unit heals faster and does increased damage.
- Phoenix Colonization Protocols (Doctrine) Ignore effects from Sector Hazards and Badlands Clime.
- Pyrx Bomb (Tactical Operation) Spreads a choking cloud in target area, lowering damage and accuracy; the cloud detonates in the next turn causing thermal damage. (See gameplay stream). This basically is the Doomsday Effect at a small scale.
- Phoenix Defense Protocols (Doctrine) Units get defensive bonus within domain and Colonies have a big bonus on Strategic Op Defense
Updated Research Interface!
Doomsday
Doomsday is the tech victory of the game. The type of doomsday is determined by the player’s chosen Secret Tech, some are actually nice and not weapons of mass destruction. All doomsday weapons trigger over the same number of trigger stages, allowing rival players to recognize and counter the process.
- Research Initiation Phase
- Build Three Doomsday Structures in the provinces of three individual Colonies; in the Case of Promethean, these are called PyrX Refineries.
Two PyrX Refineries build in Colony Provinces
- After constructing the first structure you have the ability to launch doomsday operations which target enemy cities. As you build more structures, the effect of these colony operations is strengthened. In the case of Promethean this Operation is called is the PyrX Fumigation Procedure.
- Then you research and launch the Doomsday Finisher Operation, in the case of Promethean this is the Planetary Purification, which targets the entire map with the effects of PyrX Fumigation.
The atmosphere fumigated with PyrX Clouds
- As the power of the Doomsday builds, you’ll need to defend your Doomsday structures for 10 turns. If a player captures one, then the timer is paused. If the player then manages to raze the structure, the Doomsday stops all together; and the Finisher finisher needs to be re-launched once you have the re-acquired 3 structures.
- When the counter hits 10 the Doomsday triggers. The planet’s surface turned to ash and victory is yours. Hurray!
the wish to see amazons next is quite understandable ... check the orcinator's complains about boobs with man facesShow us the dwarfs already