I forgot that doctrines are social techs; operations are military, right? and the basic economy techs seem to be all the same?
I’ve been mixing up depending on what the nearby sectors are like- if there are couple of two food sections nearby than I do production or tech and if not I start with food. It also depends on whether I take an extra large starting colony
I don’t understand what to specialize sectors in - that is, if I’m trying to ‘play to the terrain’. I usually go for whatever I have 2 of the same resource icon.
I find the society techs interesting, and I enjoy deciding among them. I find the combat techs pretty same-y and boring. I just shrug and pick one.
I’m not sure what you mean by Economy Techs - if you are referring to the Social Techs, yeah I think those are the same for everyone by design, so everyone can build up their empire. Note that even withing the society stuff you have a lot of decisions to make like going espionage, having more ops points and doctrine slots, or expanding various types of sectors and upgrades - you can’t do it all, not until the very, very late game in my experience. And I believe the top section of Society Tech is indeed unique itself to each faction, too.
Syndicate Society Tree:
But there are Strategy Operations (overworld map stuff), Tactical Operations (combat stuff), and Doctrines (“global enchantments” that don’t require upkeep but need a doctrine slot). Those are all unique to the race within each racial tech tree.
Syndicate Military tree:
I believe that between the goodies unique to each faction in the Society Tree as well as the Military Tree and all the completely unique per faction units (unlike AoW3 there are no shared units any longer) we have some very powerfully defined lines between the various factions while maintaining a level of symmetry that allows for a balanced experience (theoretically). Just my two cents.
I think this part of the game could use some work. I feel like I’ve made some of these decisions willy-nilly and it hasn’t really hurt me (on the middle difficulty level). For my first colony I typically go food at first since the faster your population grows the faster the colony expands. But I keep my first colony fairly balances out.
There are a couple things that drive where I want to expand.
- If I see where the enemy is coming from I want to get land that halts there expansion in my direction.
- I want to grab the provinces that give me bonuses, like a building that gives +5 food or something.
- It helps if you can group a certain terrain type in a province so you don’t have as many things to level up on a per province basis. This doesn’t seem to work out as much as I usually hope for.
- I will go sub optimal later, especially is I need to ramp up my energy income.
Sometimes the UI doesn’t make is easy for me to see what would be the best. I need to zoom out and hover over things.
I haven’t planned ahead too much for this, but after getting the techs to level up a province, some techs unlock cool things to specialize provinces - like discounts on troop production. I feel making smart use of this can be important if I bump up the difficulty past the middle.
I do feel the pace of research and building things to so quick that I don’t need to smartly prioritize things because I never really need to wait much. If colony improvement X only takes 3 turns to build , then why not just build it for the small boost? I mean, I know that might not be optimal, but if I don’t have something else pressing I usually just build things that give some type of economic benefit. I will skip military production buildings in provinces I have no plans to build in. I also wait for the happiness buildings until I need them.
Thanks for the Bulwark tips guys, all good points. I didn’t see any Dvar mods, other than enhanced trencher fortifications, that jumped out at me, nor any Xenoplague. Maybe I should have picked a different secret tech for Dvar.
I could imagine some races getting different versions of the exploitation techs, and even race-specific buildings as in Civ.
I would be into that for sure - maybe it’s something they can do with one of the planned expansions.
There’s a mod (Firearms line, I believe, which is part of Dvar’s tech package) that boosts your RANGE, which IMO is the best stat to buff in the entire game. Putting those on your Bulwarks allows them to hit everything your Trenchers can hit. It’s nasty.
My fundamental problem is that I start playing for a while, then eventually one or more AIs declare war on me, and then eventually attack me with like 3 armies over 1k each. I could not afford such armies at that point in the game usually.
I had this problem in AOW 3 and the solution was always to try and hold off contact with other factions as long as possible. So I had to be really careful with scouting. I’m still in my first game in Planetfall but I was able to compliment one of the two neighbors I met and keep them content for a while. The Kri’ko guy hated my guts from the start regrardless. He’s dead now. :)
Thanks. I have that on my list. I probably should have researched it sooner. Any recommended Dvar defensive mods?
Does anyone know what the numbers circled with a red/brown background in the bottom left of each of the unit choices in the build list mean. I thought it would make sense if they were the number of each unit I’d already built, but I absolutely do not have 5 Vanguard Engineers or 3 PUGs. There’s no tooltip that I can tell, and the number doesn’t match anything on the unit card.
I’ve never noticed them before, and am playing campaign (whereas I’ve mostly been playing scenarios until now), so I don’t know if I’m just not observant, or if they just got added with a patch, or they’re supposed to mean something for the campaign.
I think it’s the number of new mods the unit can use since last time you opened the manage screen for it? or maybe since the last time he modified it? it’s new mod since something but I’m not sure what
Wow @Piemax2 how did you figure that out!
It seems to be the number of mods available for each unit. But only if you haven’t opened the unit up in the modifier/customizer screen. As soon as you go to the “Manage Mod” screen and open the unit up the numbers goes away in the unit build queue.
Oddly it doesn’t show up in the list of units in the “Manage Mod” screen, which seems like where it would be most relevant.
A bit of a tangent, but I felt like Rule the Waves 2 has an interesting approach to that. You can have a decisive fleet battle that wins the war for you, but the wars themselves are less decisive, strategically. You win the war and gain some reparations and new colonies. A good portion of the enemy’s capital ships are on the bottom of the sea. But now you need to spend more of your budget to defend the new colonies and maybe the government doesn’t see your vanquished foe as much of a threat anymore so they may cut your funding.
Add to that ships that rapidly become obsolete and the decisive advantage you got by sinking a few of their battleships can erode over years of peace, and economically weakened foes that have a grudge against you can later team up to pose more of a threat.
That’s a very different sort of game though.
Indeed.
Although all the mechanics you mentioned sound intriguing.
Just in case it helps anyone…
A sector with an explotation starts as level 1.
It can then be upgrades 2x with the right tech, such as Food Development tech and build the Food Sector Level.
It can then be upgraded with via the terrain such as researching the Fertile Plains Exploitation and building the Fertile Plains Sector Level.
Lastly, the clime can be upgraded, such as researching the Fungal Exploitation tech and building the Fungal Sector Level.
If you want to be able to level up a sector to it’s max (5), you want to stick with these combinations
Arcadian Climate (Food Or Energy)
Fertile Plains (food)
Forest (food)
Mountain (energy)
Ruins (energy)
Arctic Climate (Knowledge or Production)
Fertile Plains (knowledge)
Forest (Production)
Mountain (Production)
Ruins (research)
Arid Climate (Energy or Production)
Forest (production)
Mountain (production or energy)
Ruins (energy)
Fungal (Food or Knowledge)
Fertile Plains (Food or knowledge)
Forest (food)
Ruins (knowledge)
I do like the scouting/vision options in this game compared to AOW3, but I still have issues with the fact that the AI has full map vision at all times. The new options like deploying monitors and building forward bases help, but the AI can still put a 3-stack together, avoid your army, and perpetually hit you wherever you don’t have enough defense. Sure, it makes it harder, but I find it damn aggravating especially when fighting a multi-front war.
I do like that there’s fewer armies compared to AOW3, but that kind of exacerbates the problem: In order to fight their megastacks, I need a megastack. But if I move my megastack to one location, I’ll immediately get sniped in another. The AI shouldn’t have to rely on these cheats, especially when they have the same expanded suite of scouting tools that the player does. Overall, I’m really enjoying the game, but this particular aspect grates on me.