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 theAmazon 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.
Fraser BrownLEADERS CAN BE ENHANCED
EVEN MORE WITH WEAPONS,
GEAR AND MOUNTSAgeofWonders: Planetfall
PREVIEW
Every unit can be upgraded,
but leaders get the best gear.Orbital laser strikes are
good for the environment.