| Title | Planetfall: Suppose they gave a doomsday and nobody came? |
| Author | Tom Chick |
| Posted in | Game diaries |
| When | March 17, 2021 |
By order of the Wasila Combine -- heck, let's go ahead and make this a religious thing as well -- and by the will of the Promethean god, we're going to uncork our PyrX refineries (pictured) to flood the atmosphere with toxic gas..
I grabbed this game on sale over at GMG because I was enjoying reading these playthroughs, and I just went through the tutorial, and the game feels so… cluttered to me? I’ll probably appreciate the UI more as time goes on, but I can definitely see why this thing bounced off so many people.
I enjoyed it my first time through on release, but only for about 15 hours. Came back after reading Toms articles and loving it!
The balance between building units and structures feels a little wonky to me… I always end up without enough stacks. I’m getting used to it and it is starting to feel better.
It is also complicates with a variety of resources and tons of units. Takes awhile to get used to
The initial learning cliff, followed by the subsequent Advanced Learning Himalayas of Modding, are a huge barrier to entry for many players in this game.
I do have a plan to help folks get into the game. Basically, focus on one faction and one secret tech until you form some clue and then branch out from there. How can you do this with the least pain? Here’s a specific path to climbing the learning cliff:
Play the initial mission of the first (Vanguard) campaign up to the point where you know how to make and mod units, and how to found colonies and exploit sectors. That will only take an hour or so.
Then play some skirmish missions with the game flow set to “Relaxed” as the Vanguard with the Promethean Secret Tech. The Vanguard is the most straightforward faction to learn and the reason you start with Promethean is they have one mod, Tier Two in the Promethean military techs that gives you the Purification Doodad mod (not actual name). Why do you care about the Purification Doodad Mod? B/C it’s the counter to the main thing that will F you up in this game: nasty status effects from all the crazy enemies and their complicated mods and abilities. The Purification Doodad is a one use per battle mod that heals you and clears status effects, and is a great answer to “Oh crap the CPU just blinded/poisoned/stunned/traumatized/gently-touched me! What do I do?” You purify that crap and kick their butt. You don’t need to know how the enemy did what it did or the precise counters. You don’t need to know mod synergies or complex combos or tactics. Just purify and kill.
Basically, play Vanguard Promethean, research the Purification Doodad ASAP and put Doodads on all your dudes. Build whatever units seem cool to you - if you have enough raw power, plus the purification as a counter to badness, you can stomp the CPU. Don’t worry about other mods or complex unit/mod combos.
As you play, you will learn the Vanguard and Promethean units and mods and can then start putting together better and more complicated armies. Once you’ve got those down, then change either the faction or the Secret Tech (so you have at least partial continuity) and learn some new tricks. For a long time, you will still run into the enemy and say “OH NO THEY JUST DID BAD TO ME!” but eventually you will learn that most factions and secret techs have their own combos, synergies and counters.
That’s my basic plan to come to grips with the learning curve.
So in the face of catastrophic global warming, the nations of Planetfall failed to come together and use joint action to solve the problem?
This seems historically accurate. Working as Designed, masterfully authentic AI.
If you want a 4x game that has an AI that will kick your butt, the master of magic mod, caster of magic, that came out last year will be happy to oblige.
Official MoM DLC, in fact.
Also, things I learned: 1994 game Master of Magic now has DLC.
To be honest, I can’t remember grand strategy game where this hypes endgame does not turn out to be a flop. The game is usually decided in midgame. I love Europa Universalis 4, but there endgame usually consists of seeing what percentage of the world can you paint before the endgame, cause you really crush all the big boys in the midgame or perish. Civilizatoon games often have promise of ideological world war but I haven’t seen it either.
So, any examples?
Shogun 2 Total War (or however they styled it) has “Realm Divide” where once you get powerful enough all the remaining factions line up with you or against you. IIRC it was somewhat divisive (har har) at the time but I think it was pretty successful.
The Warhammer Total War series have a chaos invasion where they dump a bunch of bad guys on you, it’s fine, but not particularly good.
(I know you said “grand strategy” which I don’t think Total War counts as, but IMHO neither does Planetfall.)
Brian Reynolds’ Colonization comes to mind. A game of Colonization was basically a set-up for flooding the map with hostile units in the end, and those units didn’t have to be created or controlled by an AI player using the same rules as you. The AI that would attack you in the end didn’t have to grow an economy or fight for territory or research a tech tree. Instead, it had its own system for how many and which units would be part of the final onslaught, and your task as a player was to prepare yourself.
Dang, I might have to go reinstall Colonization. Again.
Yes! Excellent example.
Wait, why doesn’t Planetfall count as “grand strategy”???
-Tom
Some people define “4X” and “Grand Strategy” as separate categories while others (me) consider the two categories to have substantial overlap.
This is fantastic advice. Well reasoned, Sharpe!
+1 for Caster of Magic. Such a wonderful update to one of the absolute classics. Been playing it for years, and Seravy has kept improving it over time to the point that the updates he made for the paid version are absolutely worth it. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
+1 for Shogun 2. Far and away the best Total War game (non-Warhammer division; I haven’t touched those, don’t hurt me) and Realm Divide remains arguably the best 4X endgame I’ve enjoyed.
I’ll throw Imperialism II out there as having a decent-but-not-great endgame. Usually you just snowball it and bury the AI under your economic engine (which, tbf, is the entire point of the game) but the times I’ve had things stay close into the endgame it’s been delightfully tense.
Yeah, I dunno, for whatever reason I put Civ-like TBS (where I include Planetfall) as “4X” and Paradox-like games as “grand strategy”. It’s probably a poor distinction to make.
Man, when did Slitherine evolve from rivet-counting weirdos into the pure-of-heart guardians of PC strategy games?
MoM (on GOG at least) now comes packaged in a neat little launcher that lets you easily launch the (excellent) community patch, Caster of Magic, or the final official version from Simtex.
That just warms my little heart.
Sometimes my “doomsday” (tech) games have ended with the AI rushing me and attempting to destroy my doomsday machines. In a couple cases, it was a close thing, though I won both times. So for me, the endgame works as designed – about half the time.
But the other half the time I have the same experience Tom did – I get the doomsday weapon, and my outclassed AI opponents (on default difficulty) don’t do much about it other than declare war. I don’t really mind, as by then I’m ready to move on to the next planet in my Empire.
Yeah, those are good examples. Total War Three Kingdoms has something similar. It’s still likely that you’ll overwhelm your enemies at the end, but you get your three grand alliances emerging at the end.
As for terms, I think “empire builder” is a good one. Other terms are tainted with connotations. Like it’s not 4x if there’s no exploration and AI is not dumb.
Back in 1994 Brian Reynolds had already discovered that good empire building game doesn’t have to be a symmetrical zero-sum battle royale.
Reminds me of the two apocalypse factions in Fall From Heaven 2. They got bonuses to tundra/ice/“ash” that made normally worthless terrain into tolerable terrain. Advancing their wonders gradually transformed the rest of the world into that terrain, worthless to anyone else.
Or I guess that can go back to the pirates faction in Alpha Centauri constantly pushing to melt the ice caps.
As the resident Triumph fanboy, I have to say doomsday victories are my least favourite :(.
I’m looking forward to @tomchick weathering a void bringer invasion, Those can turn nasty, fast.
Such a great design. I’m not sure if it’s clearly “grand strategy” but AI War (and its sequel) comes to mind as another case where the end game does not disappoint becuase the entire design is fundamentally asymmetric.
I think we could jazz up the end game while still maintaining some form of symmetry, or more accurately, fairness in terms of Ai opponents.
I was a big fan of the realm divide from Shogun 2, less so the chaos invasion.