Age of Wonders: Planetfall

Maybe you're thinking of getting Planetfall instead of Age of Wonders 4 because it will be cheaper after that game launches, especially in a sale. You may see some of the negative reviews talking about "cheating AI," "tons of bugs," or that the game is just nebulously "missing" something. Let me attempt to give a recommendation for this game based in reality and say who this game is made for and what the game actually is. Buckle in, because this game is very complex and there is a lot to talk about regarding the game itself and what people are saying about it.
Age of Wonders: Planetfall has more in common with Heroes of Might and Magic, Total War, and Warcraft 3 than it does with Civ. If you're looking for a game where you slowly build up an empire with a huge economy, this isn't the game for you. The strategy layer largely exists as an excuse to make for fun, deep, and interesting tactical battles where a lot of different factors are at play which can honestly be overwhelming for new players. No sense denying that; there is a large learning curve to both this game and Age of Wonders in general, as you will need to understand things like flanking, morale, a large variety of different status effects, action points, overwatch, and there's even more than that, and the tutorial does a bad job of teaching you. So if you are looking to pick this one up, be prepared to have to spend a lot of time just learning, especially if you're unfamiliar with the genre.
The graphical fidelity is good, but the animations are AA in quality. I don't blame the devs for it, though, and you'll be playing the tactical battles sped up most of the time anyway.
For the strategic layer, some complain that it is too simplistic. This is intentionally so; this is a game about building units and using them to fight battles, which is the interesting part. No one plays Civ for the battles, everyone knows Civ's combat system is boring, but nobody cares because that's not the point of the game. You should think similarly about Planetfall's combat vs strategy layer: the strategy exists for you to have fun in the fun part of the game without the game being an unconnected series of battles like most wargames. It's actually an advantage that the economy is so easy to get a handle on, because it means you'll be taking more fights and thus be having more fun while playing.
As for the XCOM comparison, a lot of people will say XCOM is "Deeper." What I think they mean is that it's more satisfying, in large part because XCOM has a lot of "I win" buttons like grenades, double-attacks, high damage criticals, all with snappy cinematic animations and high lethality that gets you attached to your individual soldiers. Planetfall isn't trying to achieve that same goal; you're leading entire armies. I would argue Planetfall is more complex than XCOM, and deeper, too in the later stages of the game when you're juggling resistances, status effects and how to deal with them, and even the Stagger mechanic, which can shut down armies that aren't prepared for them. Adding to this complexity is the size of the battles; in XCOM you at most manage 6 squad members, while in Planetfall you will sometimes be managing 18 or even 24 depending on the battle, some of which have even more abilities and nuances to understand than XCOM's units.
Regarding a lot of the negative reviews: a lot of them, and I do mean a LOT of them are people with a serious skill issue problem, as I don't even play Multiplayer (and thus don't use their hyper optimized playstyles) and am still able to win the game on the highest difficulty against multiple opponents consistently. When you get good at the game, you need the AI to cheat so it can keep up with you, as you can manually resolve battles and the AI cannot, which I cannot overstate the importance of.
Another complaint people have is about the auto resolve being better than the player at fighting battles, and honestly this is just completely false. Autoresolving leads to you losing a lot of units early on, which can completely kill your momentum/tempo into winning a match. Again, this is a skill issue, and it's one of your biggest advantages over the AI, who aren't allowed to manual resolve and thus maximize their early game progress the way you are, even when they build and summon a ton of units from minor factions.
Planetfall has 8 factions and 7 "Secret Techs," which are supplementary tech trees that can radically alter your playstyle for a given faction- thus, there are technically 56 different ways to play the game just from tech tree choice. Your faction choice affects your Secret Tech units as well; for example, a warrior monk Light Bringer might be a foot infantry for one faction, but for another, it might be a flying unit with different abilities entirely to consider. There are also a ton of minor factions who you can ally with and use their units and upgrades, further making each run feel unique and different, and this is where the 4X part of Planetfall really shines I think. Again, however, the fun comes from training and customizing units, through a unit modding system that allows you to tailor units to encounters if you like at the cost of a limited resource called Cosmite, which you will be fighting tooth and nail for every source of it you can find. Unit mods dramatically change how a unit works, both by increasing their stats AND changing how the unit behaves, from giving them debuffs and resistances to giving them other effects like AoE attacks, chain attacks, armor melting, and more, so getting as many of them as possible is your strategic goal each game. Mods are also the key to using units both from your roster and from minor factions and secret tech, as you can mix and match mods from different sources to create different, interesting combinations.
Some people also say Age of Wonders 3 is a superior game. This is patently false; Planetfall fixes a lot of Age of Wonders 3's issues, including exploits like experience stacking on heroes to break the game, as well as design flaws like a lack of production and research overflow. Yeah, in Age of Wonders 3, if a unit costs 100 production, and you have 90 production in that city, the unit will always take 2 turns to make, meaning every production cycle you are 'wasting' 80 production. It's bonkers they never patched that. Planetfall's Cosmite resource also fixes AOW3's end-game issue where the only units worth training are deathstacks of your strongest units, while Planetfall promotes the use of combined arms by having a more economical frontline backed up by support units. The only thing AOW3 does better is offer a cheap power fantasy, and an actual fantasy setting. Don't get me wrong, I love AOW3, but Planetfall is just the better game at this point in time.
So... who is this game actually for? If you liked Heroes of Might and Magic's gameplay, I'd say it's worth giving a shot. If you liked Warcraft 3 and like turn-based games, I'd say to give this a shot, too. If you like Total War, and like turn-based combat, you will also feel at home here. I think saying this game is for XCOM fans might be a stretch even despite the superficial similarities in the combat system, and saying this game is for Civ fans is probably just foolish even though both are technically 4X games.
Really though, you should get this game if you like turn-based battles with a lot of complexity, choice, and systems to master. And that's all I can say since I've reached the character limit. Hopefully I've convinced you by now, or given an honest assessment at the very least.

In view of the upcoming Age of Wonders 4 game, I wanted to write a review of Age of Wonders: Planetfall. The gameplay is incredibly addicting and the graphics are top notch. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world where players must lead their faction to victory in a quest for survival.
One of the things that sets this game apart from others in this genre is the depth of the customization options. Players can choose from a variety of factions, each with their own unique abilities and strengths. The game also features a robust tech tree, allowing players to research new technologies to give them an edge in battle.
The game's combat system is also well thought out and offers a lot of depth. Players can choose from a variety of units and weapons, and the game's AI is intelligent enough to provide a challenging and satisfying experience. The game's multiplayer mode is also a lot of fun and a great way to test your skills against other players.
Another great feature of Age of Wonders: Planetfall is the map editor. This allows players to create their own custom maps and share them with others. This adds a lot of replayability to the game and makes it a lot of fun to explore different scenarios.
In summary, Age of Wonders: Planetfall is an excellent game that offers a lot of depth and replayability. It's definitely worth picking up, but my tip is to wait until it's on sale. If you're a fan of strategy games, don't miss Age of Wonders: Planetfall
I would be happy if you follow our AWG Curator

A great game I should have tried earlier; Age of Wonders 4 led me here.
I avoided this game because it was so unlike Age of Wonders 3 - the whole sci fi thing didn't really do it for me so I didn't bother and kept playing 3. Now 4 is out with its 'everyone wins a prize - you can be whoever the f you want' I decided to give it a go.
Actual meaningful factions with diverse differences and restrictions. Actual interesting side plots and stories providing an overview of worlds (not so much the campaign though but I digress). Actual meaningful decisions. Age of wonders 4 is still ok and I still play it, but it's rather soulless. This is the game I now play when I want things to feel unique (truly unique and not in the 'everyone is unique just like you' way).
The game runs perfectly on Linux: i5 7600K @ 5hz, Nvidia 1070, 24 gig 3000Mhz ram. Settings at ultra with vsync and it never deviates from a solid 60fps.

This is my favourite 4X game. It absolutely nails the fundamental component of the genre: meaningful decision making. Before you even start a game, you are deciding what combination of race/secret tech you are going to use. When the game starts, every single turn demands interesting and engaging decision making on your part.
Its complexity can make the game seem daunting; you have to be in the mood to do some learning if you want to try it. But, once you get into it, learning all of the intricacies of the game's systems, races and secret techs becomes addictive and satisfying as you feel yourself getting better.
The tactical layer may seem like Wish.com XCOM at first - I admit this was my initial reaction. But you eventually realise that it's not trying to be XCOM, and it succeeds greatly at what it is trying to be. You soon learn which mods from which weapon tech trees are really important, so you recognise your own and your enemies' power spikes, and what to watch out for. AOE mods are fairly impactful for example, which can turn your regular soldiers into crowd controllers.
In my opinion, balance is pretty tight - I have never felt that anything myself or the AI have played has been overpowered or underpowered. All of the races and secret techs have a ton of interesting stuff to offer, and they all play out quite differently. You could kind of compare it to Endless Legend in that regard.
Diplomacy is not overly complex but it does have some features that I will sorely miss whenever I play Civ next. For example, when grievances/casus belli are created, they become a tradeable item for the aggrieved party. What this means is that if someone you have a good relationship forward settles you (i.e takes a sector adjacent to one of yours), you can offer to trade your casus belli against them for an amount of energy. Another helpful feature is War Coordination - if you have a defensive pact or alliance with someone, you can spend influence to tell them where to attack/defend. Provided you are not too far away from one another, this can be very useful for consolidating your forces.
I could probably keep rambling but TL;DR it's really really good and offers a completely fresh experience compared to the staples of the genre, just be prepared to learn or you may end up confused and frustrated.

Initially I skipped this one, because of the sci-fi setting. AoW for me needs magic, orcs and elfs. But I picked it up anyway because I was so hyped for AoW4, and I’m glad that I did.
With only 20 or so hours in PF and AOW4, I cannot yet make a really deep comparison, but superficially, the pros of PF are IMO:
- the ability to create unique builds (in AoW4 every player can unlock all tomes, making everyone the same tech-wise).
- the ability to create new units by adding mods. AoW4 has race transformations and unit enhancements, but they apply to all units, or at least all units of a certain type, and again, with no cap, so everyone can just take them all.
- campaign feels like an actually cohesive story so far, where I take my leader from one map to the next.
The one gripe I have with this game is the tutorial voice over, which I find quite annoying. Just don’t use it, you’ll be better off watching a random YouTube tutorial if you’re just stating out.
My 20hrs aren’t nearly enough to do justice to all the options that this game has to offer, and I’m not even using any expansions yet. Will be playing a lot more of this in the next year or two!

I have to admit: my initial impressions of this game weren't that positive. The world map has some muddy textures and that strategy game disease where the 3D models look really good when zoomed in but not during the 95% of the game that you spend zoomed out. The factions don't seem very inventive or well drawn, relying on sci-fi tropes that fit in the uncomfortable position of being too worn out to feel novel but not worn out enough to feel retro. The tech quotes - the reason you remember the names Miriam Godwinson and Nwabudike Morgan - don't manage to elevate the material either. Tech tree quotes in strategy games were originally lifted from the poetic epigraphs that launched each chapter of Dune and served largely the same purpose: providing a contextual window that invoked a larger scale of the unfolding events. But here, the tech tree quotes don't manage that. They're all things like, "When you want something to smell like bacon, be sure to shoot lasers at it! -- Flex Beamfinder, Laser Research Technician, LaserCorp" So even though I was a fan of the earlier Age of Wonders games I was ready to write this one off.
But then I actually started getting into the game's tactical layer and I have to say: it is just completely fantastic. It looks a little bit like XCOM (the Firaxis one) with its discrete action points and half/full cover system. However given some of the game's changes it feels like a more refined version of the XCOM formula. Units have three action points instead of two, and there's a intermediate "graze" result between hit and miss that helps even out the randomness. Also key to the system is the idea of inflicting "stagger" on your opponents. A staggered opponent loses an action point and usually exits any defensive modes it has. Staggering a unit one time prevents it from using an ability that requires all three action points (e.g. shooting its sniper rifle), while investing the resources needed to stagger it three times prevents it from acting at all. Some units have stagger resistance, while some units are very good at staggering others, but only if they e.g. get to melee range. It all plays out very naturally, and within half an hour of starting up the game I was organically discovering ways to use one unit's grenade power to disable an enemy unit's melee overwatch so that a third unit could move away from its attacker safely.
The units in the game itself are really well designed and expressive, The Kir'ko sniper unit is similar enough to the game's other snipers, but it can enter overwatch after moving in a way that other snipers can't - a really small change that reinforces its identity as a guerrilla unit. When you get the Vanguard scout unit, you can see how it feeds back "intel" to your other units in a way that other scout units don't and that informs how you understand the Vanguard and its combat doctrine. The Syndicate has practically disposable "indentured" units. It all comes alive in a way that you can't really see unless you can see how the units function together.
A final thing I have to commend Triumph for: the combat animations aren't too long and there's a button you can press to fast-forward through them. This is great. Every game of this type should do that.

In my opinion most of the reviews I have read seem to be written from the perspective of a player who mostly plays against bots and didn't experience the epic battles that occur when playing against human players.
Therefore I will write about my experience which consists mostly of games versus real players.
Bots versus human players
PvP (player versus player) matches are in my opinion where this game shines, since real players always try to adapt to your strategies.
If they know what they do they make your game challenging and will always try to surprise you.
Any strategy in this game can be countered in some way, so you need to continuously adapt to your enemy in order to win.
Bots on the other hand become very predictable after a short amount of time.
They always spam infantry, buy a ton of faction units and then just attack you at first sight over and over again, even if your defenses are way too strong.
They don't come up with surprising strategies, don't adapt, don't raid weak units or undefended cities with invisible units, don't flank your cities with fast flying units, etc.
As soon as you know how to exploit the bot's behavior, playing against bots in any strategy game becomes very boring.
Diplomacy options
Do not play this game for its diplomacy options, since the strength of the game does not lie in its diplomacy-system, but in its complex and thrilling battles.
Some of the diplomacy mechanics such as compliments, insults and opinion only work with bots, which may abruptly decide to go into war with you for no apparent reason anyways.
The other diplomacy options are quite simple: You can trade resources and equipment, share vision and form a non-aggression pact or even become allies.
If you break a pact or attack without "Casus Belli" (the resources you need for going into a war) you lose popular support, which can significantly weaken your armies and cities by reducing their morale.
As soon as you have at least one "Casus Belli" it is enough to go into war without a loss of popular support.
There is an operation which you can easily research in the first rounds of the game that enables you to get a guaranteed Casus Belli against a chosen enemy.
That way there is no actual way to prevent the enemy from going into a war with you early.
Replayability
While the game overall has "only" 8 races and 7 Secret Technologies (including those from the DLCs) to choose from, they all feel and play very different and have their own strengths and weaknesses.
Together with the perks you can choose in the beginning and by trading with the neutral factions to mix and match mods and units, there are enough options to make every game individual.
I love experimenting with the endless combinations and strategies that these options provide and I find it thrilling to try to come up with a way to counter my enemies' strategy and surprise them.
Complexity
The game is very complex and hard to learn for beginners with its many mechanics and complex battles.
For a new player some battles could potentially become frustrating due to the fact that any mistake can cost you units or even the whole battle, especially when a strong army attacks your base.
Therefore it is important to not try to play perfectly when first playing the game. Try to understand and work with the basics and core mechanics and go deeper as you find out more and more about the game.
Game Balance
The game adressed a lot of the balance issues that it and its predecessors had, as I mention in the section "Comparison to Age of Wonders 3" below.
Every faction and secret technology now feels viable and no faction or secret technology is automatically countered by another.
Any strategy can be countered, therefore you have to adapt to your enemy.
This ensures that you can't "just play that one strong strategy over and over again and win", since your enemy can always adapt to it.
Player count
I would recommend a player count of at least 3 players, ideally more.
That way you have to adapt to multiple enemies and can use some of the diplomacy options to strengthen yourself and another player against a leading enemy.
It also prevents the very uncreative (but valid in 1v1) strategy of sending their whole army at once to destroy you, since they will have to defend their base from another player at the same time.
Comparison to Age of Wonders 3
AoW Planetfall addressed many of the very critical balance issues they had in AoW 3 (see my other points in this section).
Feeling
It is still Age of Wonders, but with a sci-fi feel.
Races: Comparable, but with sci-fi looks and mechanics, e.g. Amazon => Elves; Dvar => Dwarves; Assembly => Undead
Gameplay: Comparable, but improved and with new interesting mechanics.
Unit Tier Levels
AoW 3: High Tier Units are mandatory to win a battle.
AoW Planetfall: Low tier units are extremely much more useful, especially since they can be improved via mods. But high-tier units now are hard to research, are expensive and might only be seen if the game goes super-lategame.
Explore Sites
In AoW 3 all you had to do is farm dungeons to get massively overpowered items and huge resistances or even immunities to many damage types => Those who ignore Dungeons lose the game, no matter what units they have.
In AoW Planetfall fighting dungeons feels even harder. While the rewards are very useful you still need to think if it's worth the costs (often losing multiple Units).
Getting Units
In AoW 3 things like necromancy and mind control effects were highly overpowered, since an experienced player could get tons of elite units simply by fighting their way to the other players side of the map and then overwhelm them.
In AoW Planetfall you can still get some units on the way, especially with Xenoplague (comparable to the necromany class), but you can't easily get high-Tier units that way. Also the influence mechanic allows defensive players to get many units in a short time as well. This addresses the issues AoW 3 had.
Mods/ Unit Upgrades
AoW 3: Some factions and races could get a bit of bonuses on their units via specific techs and spells, but there weren't many options.
AoW Planetfall: Upgrading units with various mods and using those to adapt to the enemy is now a core mechanic and makes the standard units much more interesting and flexible.
Spells/ Operations
Aow Planetfall: Covert Operations bring a whole new way of fighting your enemy to the game. However you still need to build units to defend yourself.
All operations cost energy (your main resource, comparable to money), so you should only use them when necessary.
In AoW 3 spells could be used much more frequently with less costs, especially with spellcasting races and classes.
Damage Resistances/ Armor/ etc.
AoW 3 had many ways to gain percentual resistances and even immunities, sometimes making you nearly immune to some strategies, which made many factions and classes unplayable in my opinion, such as the frostlings or goblins, which focus on one single Damage type to which you could easily build up immunities
AoW Planetfall has balanced resistances a lot with the many patches they released. Also no race there is bound to one single damage type.
Overpowered races/ classes/ secret techs
As in most games necromancers were highly overpowered in AoW 3 for many reasons and you ALWAYS had to have some way of countering undead Units in your builds, or you would lose if the enemy turns out to be a necromancer.
Meanwhile some races in AoW 3 were simply countered by nearly everything, or just weren't strong enough.
In AoW Planetfall it's still the necromany-like race (Assembly) and secret tech (Xenoplague) which sometimes feel a little more powerful than others, but not in such a degree that you need to always be worried about them or need to always have a hard counter against it in your strategy.