Age of Wonders: Planetfall by Triumph Studios

How many heroes can get an Empire level-up – just two per planet? I deployed at least 4 heroes on my planet, but only two leveled.

In fact, one of my two leveling heroes died in the epic end-of-game battle I mentioned. I forgot to use the operation that could have revived her on the strategic map the next turn. But she still leveled up and is apparently ready for use again.

Bah I seem to have encountered the same game stopping bug that Razgon mentioned. Turn 58 of a skirmish game, end turn, the game purrs through part of the enemy turn and then just hangs. I tried restoring the autosave and a couple of earlier saves from that turn and 1 turn prior, no good. I could go back further but that really trashes my flow and I have no certainty that would fix it. I also tried restarting the game and also a full reboot of my machine. I guess that particular game is borked for now.

Any word on the timing of the patch they are working on? This has all the hallmarks of a memory-leak type bug/hang. Doesn’t kick in until the game gets into the midgame or later, with a lot of units and a big war going on.

I’ve been playing a ton of this lately and really enjoying it, but there are definitely some major details of the economic system I don’t fully grasp. For example:

Can anyone explain the actual, practical meaning of the economic indicators on the zoomed out map? I.e. what does it mean to have two lightning bolts for energy, or two gears for production, as opposed to one? And does that impact the main colony itself and its central economic structure?

Also, is it better to have two of two specific sector types attached to a colony, or to spread around to all four?

Hello vinraith, here’s a primer on sectors.

Sectors add to the production of a colony but you must first Annex them to the colony, and then you must also Exploit them (build an exploit in the sector for a particular resource.) Once you have an exploit built, if you’ve researched the upgrade tech, you may then Specialize the Exploitation, and also Upgrade the Exploitation.

What does an Exploitation do? It produces a certain amount of a resource, based on the type of the exploit. For example, a basic Energy Exploitation will produce 10 Energy per turn for your colony.

What do the symbols in the sectors mean? Those are bonuses. Each symbol adds 1 to the level of the Exploit for that resource. For example, if you built an Energy Exploitation in a sector with 1 Lightning Bolt, it would increase the level of your Exploitation from 1 (for a “naked” Exploitation with no bonus) to 2. If you built that same Energy Exploitation in a “double bonus” sector (two lightning bolts) you would get a level 3 Exploitation. Each level of Exploitation increases the yield of the resource. I believe level 2 Exploitations produce 20 energy instead of 10 and level 3 produces 30 (IIRC).

These Exploitations can also be Upgraded if you researched the right techs, up to 2 times total, and the max possible Exploitation is level 5. So if you build in a “double bonus” sector, your Exploitation starts at level 3 and can be upgraded to the max of 5. That’s why double bonus sectors are good.

In addition to this, you can Specialize a sector. For example, research sectors can be specialized for civilian or military research, which provides a bonus for that type of research.

In general, double bonus sectors are best but if you really need a resource, build on a single bonus sector. Try to avoid no-bonus sectors (keep in mind a sector that is “no bonus” for some resources will be single or double bonus for other resources and plan accordingly).

You can only have 2 Exploitations of the same resource per colony and there are several possible specializations. Some specializations will work well together (like the Food Farm Spec and Food Export Spec work nicely together to create a “Food Exporting Colony”) but others are entirely up to you - I often build only 1 Production sector per colony, either Military or Civilian depending on what i plan to use that colony for.

In general, if you have colonies placed where you can grab multiple double bonus sectors, that’s great but you also want to produce the stuff you need.

In the long run, energy is by far the most important resource but it’s also arguably the LEAST important early as you can get by via selling your battle rewards in the early game. However, early on you also need at least some research to get to the cool toys. Depending on race, you may also need food badly. Vanguard have a great doctrine for food for all colonies so they have less food need but some of the other factions are food-hungry. And of course, once you get your economy off the ground, you need production to build all the crap you need.

My general rule of thumb is to figure I will expand to 3 cities in the first 10-12 turns, building 1 via colonizer and grabbing one via influence. I try to scout so that I can find good spots with double bonus and I plan my first three cities depending on what good bonus sectors are available. Generally speaking, I want a food city, a research city, and an energy city in the first three, with perhaps one or two of those adding Production as they grow. Later cities I probably want energy, if I can get it. On a medium map, you can do quite well with 4-5 cities, 3 is a bit tight, and 6+ is great if you have the room but don’t over-expand.

I actually like the economy in this game.

Thanks for that awesome guide. One question. You mentioned buying a city in the first 10-15 turns with influence. Do you mean one of the “settlements” I occasionally see? Or the home city of the Growth, Autonom, etc? I suppose you just click on the city to get the option to buy it?

Settlements is what I mean - you need to move a unit up to the settlement and try to move unit onto the settlement - this won’t cause an attack but will instead open up a dialogue window. Attacking is one of the options but paying influence to “buy” the settlement is another option.

Purchasing one of the home cities is a different process entirely and requires you to get to the max reputation with that faction and have a colony nearby with room for a sector. The price is high but it can be worth it b/c the home cities come in as pre-built level 5 Exploitations, often with other bonuses. That’s something to consider for the mid to late game.

But buying a regular settlement is a very solid way to get yourself started. The RNG will automatically provide you with a settlement of your faction within a few sectors radius of your capital on start - you just have to scout well to find it. The base cost for an initial settlement of your faction is 45 influence which you can usually afford by turn 9 or 10. You do want to have some troops to help defend the settlement while it builds a militia building b/c the base guards are crappy. Just 1 or 2 tier 1 troops, even scouts, can help your baby colony survive until it upgrades its militia. (This is on “average” enemy settings - on higher settings you need to be even more careful.)

Thanks, that’s really helpful. Do the sector bonuses for the sector containing the colony itself matter? E.g. if I’ve built the colony in a double food sector is it better to build a central biofarm there?

Yeah - I ran into it a third time now. Rather ridiculous to keep playing with that particular bug around.

No smoke without fire.

I have never gotten this, on turn 130 games.

But at least two of you have…:(

I’ve gotten it too. It’s related to the latest patch, never got it previously.

Sector bonuses do nothing for your colony core, no.

I haven’t had the freeze bug yet, but there’s supposedly a fix for some such issue (“stuck on opponents are moving”) in the open-beta branch now available on Steam. A dev posted this yesterday:

You can switch over to our Open Beta branch in Steam which has a fix for this issue. Once you’ve made it over you should be able to continue your game.

This fix apparently solved the issue for the player reporting it. Link to the thread here: AoW: Planetfall - Stuck on 'Opponents are moving' | Paradox Interactive Forums

I’m not sure if @Sharpe and @Razgon and others here are seeing the same issue or something else, but the open beta might be worth a try.

Double bah now I ran into a second bug - twice now in my current (restarted) game, have gone to play a tactical battle and the game has crashed at the point where the Tactical battle screen typically loads. I’ve never encountered this before. And it started happening as I got into the mid game with somewhat larger battles.

Hopefully the patch will reach full release shortly.

Triple Bah!! I downloaded the beta patch and tried my game further and after a few turns ran into the same crash upon entering the tactical battle screen. Grrr.

Sounds like the universe really doesn’t want Sharpe to play Planetfall. :(

-Tom

Fight the universe @Sharpe

My part of the universe wants @Sharpe to play! The Spockverse is on your side, Sharpe.

It’s taken 100 hours of gameplay, but I’m finally starting to grok this game. Watching those Black Arrow “advanced gameplay” videos has really helped. He’s not necessarily an expert player, but he explains every decision he makes, and he often thinks of stuff I don’t. E.g., he pointed out that a mod that debuffs an enemy on each hit works better on a repeating weapon than on a one-use weapon like a sniper rifle, since the latter inflicts only one debuff. Why didn’t I think of that? Also, even when he doesn’t know something, the commenters on his YouTube videos correct him. E.g,. they pointed out that overwatch has one less range than the normal range of your weapon. I didn’t know that.

The series I’m watching starts here. He’s playing on Very Hard, 12 opponents. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rjhL6X1dyc&t=189s

Jesus there are a lot of bugs in this still - recent game, around turn 30, and suddenly colonizers doesn’t work anymore…!

Edit : Quitting and reloading fixed it.

Double edit : This “bug” wasn’t as much a bug, as me being an idiot! Sorry!

That’s new!

Thanks for reminding me - That one part may be me who was an idiot. I am sorry, but I do think someone may have parked a colony close to where I was planning to use my colonizer in fog-of-war area. I mistakenly thought the game had an issue, since I’d seen something like that before, and reloaded a save a few turns earlier.

Sorry! Sorry Lennart! I hate when people spread false stuff on the net myself, so I really don’t want to be one of those! Amended my original post as well so all can bask in my idiocy! Forever!