AGE OF WONDERS: PLANETFALL

           Picking a faction in a 4X game usually

requires a lot of consideration. But this

time I didn’t even have to think about it.

My options were restricted to Space

Dwarves, Space Bugs, Space Americans or a group of stoic warrior women with an environmentalist streak who ride laser-packing dinosaurs. Was there really any choice?

The Amazons are clearly the best, but I’m

probably not giving the rest a fair shake.

Every faction has unique units, techs and

a playstyle that makes them all tempting.

The insectoid Kir’Ko, for instance, have a

penchant for psychic trickery, taking over

minds during the turn-based tactical

battles. But – laser dinosaurs!

My army of nature-loving warriors was

led by Sappho Tori, a premade character

that I tweaked only a little bit, providing

her a dinosaur mount straight away.

Named characters like Sappho are special

heroic units that lead armies, annex

territory and influence battles with

powerful abilities. When they level up, new

skills can be unlocked, letting you change

them into a legendary sniper or giving

them the ability to drive a huge tank.

Before I could send out this mighty

army of Amazons and stampeding

dinosaurs, I still had one more factiondefining decision to make: what secret

technology was I going to pick? These

special projects dole out flashy abilities

that can be used in combat and on the

map, as well as giving you a new path to

victory by letting you construct a

doomsday weapon. I went with the

biological nightmare that is the

xenoplague, which, I would quickly

discover, is really gross.

In Planetfall, years of isolation have

ended and the various human, posthuman

and alien factions of the universe

are once again travelling across space,

settling on forgotten worlds and

competing over territory. Despite the

stellar setting, Planetfall is not a space 4X,

as each game takes place on a single,

randomly generated world. Sappho and

her pals landed in an appropriately green

sector of the planet, surrounded by flora.

The map is a real treat. It’s a randomlygenerated

jigsaw full of sectors with meandering borders and special traits.

The result, at least using the default map

settings, is a world that’s got diversions

and shiny distractions at every turn,

egging you on to explore further, but still

manages to look coherent. Within a short

march from my colony, I found a mighty

river of magma, a dead city spread out

across an entire sector and even a

civilisation of intelligent fungi.

It didn’t take me long to get into

trouble. As well as the other factions to

contend with, marauding aliens wander

the map in search of fights. Like any good

tourist, I was heading over to the

aforementioned river of magma to soak in

the sights, but I was waylaid by a group of

angry plants before I could get there.

EXPLOIT WEAKNESSES

Fights take place on a separate tactical

map informed by the sector you’re in, so I

found myself in a dense jungle – the

enemy’s home turf. Age of Wonders 3’s

tactical maps were more like conventional

Medieval battlefields, broad and flat, but

Planetfall’s are much more elaborate and

put a greater emphasis on cover and line

of sight. There’s still more than a hint of

the older games’ combat systems, but the

sci-fi conceit and abundance of firearms

means that, at times, it’s equally evocative

of squad-based tactics games like XCOM,

though fights are much shorter.

Even with dinosaurs, it pays to take a

step back and assess the enemy. I

absolutely did not do that, but it’s still a

great idea. Enemies have various

resistances and weaknesses, all handy

things to know if you’re planning on killing

them. Quite a few of my units had more

than one ability, thankfully, giving my army

a bit of flexibility straight away. If an enemy

was weak against melee attacks, I could

send my pterodactyl in with its claws. If

they were weak against fire, it could shoot

them with lasers instead.

Operations really saved my bacon.

These replace Age of Wonders 3’s spells

and function pretty similarly. You research

new operations and then cast them in

battle or on the campaign map, buffing

units and colonies while harming enemies.

I was rather partial to the good old orbital

laser, but my alien plague came in pretty

handy, too. It poisons enemies and

spawns a horrible little parasite who can

join your army after the battle. In only a

handful of turns, I already had several fun

super weapons to play around with.

For reaching the magma river and

surviving a few battles – just – I rewarded

my army with an upgrade. Every unit can

be augmented with mods, giving them

new characteristics and abilities, like a

jetpack that makes the unit more mobile

in combat. Thanks to the xenoplague

secret technology, I was able to research

plague pods, giving my units the ability to

lob toxic projectiles at enemies.

Leaders can be enhanced even more

with weapons, gear and mounts. For my

basic rangers, it was an obvious upgrade,

but the mod system appears to be as

much about specialising, not just making

your units better.

Planetfall seems to have hit the sweet

spot when it comes to unit customisation.

Instead of making lots of tiny, incremental

tweaks, you’re adding a small number of

mods that can significantly change the

unit. It’s hard to get excited about a two

per cent damage boost, but the ability to

fly and a new weapon with lots of handy

effects? That’s a bit more exciting.

As well as exploring, I was expanding

my borders. Expansion in Planetfall is

methodical, and instead of growing your

borders through influence or culture, you

annex sectors, specialising them for

things like industry and agriculture and

then exploiting what you find there via

your colony. A higher population and

additional colonies let you control more

sectors and increase your reach. With the

Amazon empire growing, it was inevitable

that I’d bump into one of the other factions

that had made the world its home.

I’d already met the Growth, a

plant-based NPC faction. Marauding

plants might have beaten me up a few

times, but the Growth was actually very

friendly. NPC factions are indigenous and

aren’t competing in the 4X competition.

You can wipe them out if you’re feeling

particularly cruel, but since the Amazons

seemed pretty in tune with nature, I opted

to help them instead.

NPC factions dole out quests,

rewarding you with resources and favour.

The latter fuels diplomacy and

can be spent on demands, like asking an

NPC faction to leave a sector so you can

take it over, or buying unique units and

mods. In the Growth’s fungal city, I

purchased some bees, as you do.

This way you’re not locked into your

faction’s army. Through diplomacy and

trade, you can field whatever you want.

And if you prefer to fight, you can always

go and conquer a settlement and use their

buildings to make new troops, helpfully

shoring up any gaps in your own faction’s

roster. I only bought those bees, however,

and while they were very good bees, they

weren’t exactly game-changers. Good

mascots, though.

TALK IT OUT

Diplomacy between playable factions is

pretty familiar. You make pacts, deals and

trade via a diplomacy screen. They’re a

chatty bunch, always eager to give you a

call with an update on your relationship

status. If only this happened in reality.

“Hey mate, just wanted to let you know

that we’re still work acquaintances.”

Given there were also wandering packs

of NPC aliens looking for a fight, I didn’t

fancy adding a war on top of that, so our

relationships stayed pretty friendly. With

more time and colliding borders, I’m sure

that would have changed. I encountered a

few visual bugs, and parts of the UI are

sorely lacking clarity, but Age of Wonders:

Planetfall otherwise makes a very good

first impression. Like its predecessor, a lot

of the systems serve to prop up the

engaging tactical brawls, but it’s a broader

4X with more attention given to the

empire management and diplomatic side

of things. Notably, this doesn’t seem to

have a negative effect on the pace, at least

in the early stage of the game, which

moves along briskly despite all the

additional distractions.