I just posted my Beginner's Guide to Scouting in Age of Wonders: Planetfall on youtube:
In this video, I cover some general tips for all 6 of the scouting units, and then breakdown what each of the 6 scouts excels at.
General Tips:
1) Turn on movement preview, which can be found under the world UI portion of the options tab in the main menu, to create a secondary green movement circle that shows you where a unit can reach in a turn if they were to go to a hex within the blue movement circle.
2) If you zoom out all the way out on the strategic map and hover the cursor over a hex in a sector that is still mostly in the fog of war, then you can find out a lot of valuable information about the sector. It is a great way to find spawners and settlements. This technique can be used on the first turn without moving a single unit to find a guaranteed settlement of your starting race, which has to spawn within three sectors of your HQ.
3) You have until the end of the 6th turn before the spawners spawn their first unit.
4) Slowly uncover the fog of war by moving one unit at a time, one tile at a time. Click on a unit’s movement points above the unit’s portrait to select it individually.
5) You can use forward bases to get vision and to build roads on unexplored sectors. Influence is required for most peaceful interactions, so building forward sectors is only worth doing in evil playthroughs.
6) Pickups give a huge boost to early game economies
7) You only need one adjacent unit and some influence to buy a settlement, so scouts are ideal for that. Keeping a single scout in a growing colony is an easy way to annex the colony's sectors when it is ready to.
8) If you split a scout off by itself, hug the coast line as much as possible! It is rarely worth risking the scouts life without a coast. Try to leave enough movement points to hide in the water (or land from sea creatures) or in the mountains from the marauders that come from spawners, as all are enemies stay on land if they spawn in land, and stay in water if the spawn in water.
The 6 Scouts (4 flying, 1 floating, and 1 amphibious):
- Flying – no terrain penalties, all come with farsight (+1 vision), 10 % harder to hit by most weapons (The dodge modifier from flying does not apply when attacked by another flying unit.)
Assembly – 25 hp - 1a0s - cyborg, comes with basic defense, once per battle heals target 20 hp. prime rank gives: overwatch
Amazon – 30 hp - 0a0s - animal, starts with evasion (50% harder to hit, instead of 25%) 2 types of attacks: laser repeater (air to air, which mean +33 % dam to flying), and swoop (single attack w/ stagger) prime rank gives: evasion
Kirko – 35 hp - 2a0s - biological, basic defense, 2 types of attacks: gunk shot, and ravage (both are repeatable) gunk shot is air to air. High damage output. prime ranks gives: critical.
Vanguard – 30 hp - 1a0s - mindless, and mechanical, basic defense, target assistance give +35 accuracy to shots against the target, therefore an amazing support skill all throughout a game. Only attack is the laser repeater, which is air to air. prime rank gives: evasion
- Floating – mountains cost 8 (so you have to go around them) unlike flying, can take cover
Syndicate – 30 hp - 0a1s -biological, universal camouflage, arc bolas can immobilize (can’t move, but can perform actions), defense mode: shields up (give +2 shields), escape module (once per battle, when a units health drops below 0, heals 15 health and teleports away) flanker (+25 dam when flanking) = awesome combat unit. prime ranks gives evasion
- Amphibious (w/ expedite movement) – mountains cost 10 instead of 12, forest costs 6 instead of 8, ruins, rivers, lava 10 from 16.
Dvar - 40 hp - 2a0s - mechanical, can prospect a sector , has useful grenade throw for stagger, also heavy unit (does not turn to face flankers, when flanked), eat dust refill movement points and can blind adjacent units. mechanical. Amazing at scouting and in combat in the early game. prime rank gives: evasive.
In this video, I cover some general tips for all 6 of the scouting units, and then breakdown what each of the 6 scouts excels at.
General Tips:
1) Turn on movement preview, which can be found under the world UI portion of the options tab in the main menu, to create a secondary green movement circle that shows you where a unit can reach in a turn if they were to go to a hex within the blue movement circle.
2) If you zoom out all the way out on the strategic map and hover the cursor over a hex in a sector that is still mostly in the fog of war, then you can find out a lot of valuable information about the sector. It is a great way to find spawners and settlements. This technique can be used on the first turn without moving a single unit to find a guaranteed settlement of your starting race, which has to spawn within three sectors of your HQ.
3) You have until the end of the 6th turn before the spawners spawn their first unit.
4) Slowly uncover the fog of war by moving one unit at a time, one tile at a time. Click on a unit’s movement points above the unit’s portrait to select it individually.
5) You can use forward bases to get vision and to build roads on unexplored sectors. Influence is required for most peaceful interactions, so building forward sectors is only worth doing in evil playthroughs.
6) Pickups give a huge boost to early game economies
7) You only need one adjacent unit and some influence to buy a settlement, so scouts are ideal for that. Keeping a single scout in a growing colony is an easy way to annex the colony's sectors when it is ready to.
8) If you split a scout off by itself, hug the coast line as much as possible! It is rarely worth risking the scouts life without a coast. Try to leave enough movement points to hide in the water (or land from sea creatures) or in the mountains from the marauders that come from spawners, as all are enemies stay on land if they spawn in land, and stay in water if the spawn in water.
The 6 Scouts (4 flying, 1 floating, and 1 amphibious):
- Flying – no terrain penalties, all come with farsight (+1 vision), 10 % harder to hit by most weapons (The dodge modifier from flying does not apply when attacked by another flying unit.)
Assembly – 25 hp - 1a0s - cyborg, comes with basic defense, once per battle heals target 20 hp. prime rank gives: overwatch
Amazon – 30 hp - 0a0s - animal, starts with evasion (50% harder to hit, instead of 25%) 2 types of attacks: laser repeater (air to air, which mean +33 % dam to flying), and swoop (single attack w/ stagger) prime rank gives: evasion
Kirko – 35 hp - 2a0s - biological, basic defense, 2 types of attacks: gunk shot, and ravage (both are repeatable) gunk shot is air to air. High damage output. prime ranks gives: critical.
Vanguard – 30 hp - 1a0s - mindless, and mechanical, basic defense, target assistance give +35 accuracy to shots against the target, therefore an amazing support skill all throughout a game. Only attack is the laser repeater, which is air to air. prime rank gives: evasion
- Floating – mountains cost 8 (so you have to go around them) unlike flying, can take cover
Syndicate – 30 hp - 0a1s -biological, universal camouflage, arc bolas can immobilize (can’t move, but can perform actions), defense mode: shields up (give +2 shields), escape module (once per battle, when a units health drops below 0, heals 15 health and teleports away) flanker (+25 dam when flanking) = awesome combat unit. prime ranks gives evasion
- Amphibious (w/ expedite movement) – mountains cost 10 instead of 12, forest costs 6 instead of 8, ruins, rivers, lava 10 from 16.
Dvar - 40 hp - 2a0s - mechanical, can prospect a sector , has useful grenade throw for stagger, also heavy unit (does not turn to face flankers, when flanked), eat dust refill movement points and can blind adjacent units. mechanical. Amazing at scouting and in combat in the early game. prime rank gives: evasive.
Last edited:
.png){kind=avatar}
