New survey and game comparisons

[The Mentat]

There’s currently a survey about Planetfall and AoW3 (a link is in the game launcher) and the first questions offer a variety of choices how enjoyable different aspects of the two games are. Later questions also refer to other games and this inspired me to look to some older discussions on this forum again - and write down in more detail in which parts other games may have an edge over Planetfall.

(I have to admit, in the end the following wall of text got a bit longer than I originally thought…)



1 World Map

This is a quote from the „Brainstorm on AoW 4“ thread:

I always found the world at Planetfall boring and I never figured it out why (maybe because I didn’t play that much) but since I reinstalled the AoW3, I finally understood why. Because it doesn't feel organic. It feels too arbitrary as a level design.

In the classic AoW series we get to see the organic rivers, beach, then plains. High mountains covered with forests, snow happening, and each of them has buildings or delves randomly generated. This felt good. I hope you will keep it for the fourth game.

I totally agree with this. Graphically Planetfall might be better but it doesn’t feel natural (like if you would look out of a plane). There are just too many shifts between climate zones. AoW 3 maps are more enjoyable to look at and have much more flavor (and the decodence mod even improved it with the autumn theme).

Conquest of Eo looks also way more natural:

Source: https://conquest.spellforce.com/


A reason for this issue is probably the decision to make the sector output dependent on climate and terrain – so it’s mechanically necessary to have many different climate zones close to each other. Imho the better option would be to use something like natural anomalies (as in Endless Legend) to define the ressource output of a sector. This would also allow more variety (in output quantity).



2 Story

Planetfall was sometimes seen as an attempt to bring back the spirit of Alpha Centauri (where Beyond Earth mostly failed). And regarding the unit construction mechanic (mods in PF) it imho succeeded. But an important part of Alpha Cenauri was also the story: the concept of an isolated colony in an alien environment. Leaders with distinct personalities and ideologies could face these difficulties with social and economical policies in very different ways.

That said, for an AoW game (mostly played on random maps) the story of Alpha Centauri would be imho too restrictive. A current game that manages to create very different stories (based on player decisions) is Old World. The story is primarily generated through events. These events depend on the main characters traits and his relations to other persons (heroes in AoW) or families (neutral factions in AoW).

Source: https://www.spaziogames.it/old-world-provato/


Stellaris might also have these kind of events (Nerdfish mentions it in the thread „Adopting Stellaris systems to create the best AoW4“).

It’s important though that the events don’t just work like the anomalous sites in PF. There you just read through mini-stories which get repetitive after a while. Instead the events need to connect with each other to cover a whole game: Events may change the relation to heroes and factions, affect the reputation or lead to new character traits (a hero might get sadistic and finally turn completely evil). It could enable the leader to be a Rogue, Theocrat or Warlord not only through its units but also through its decisions.



3 Choices

Choices are of courses usually a good thing but PF tends to offer such a huge number of choices that it can easily overwhelm new players. Personally, I prefer to choose between 3 or 4 different options than between 15. I’ll try to explain this further with the example of the tech tree but it also affects the hero skills (and to a lesser extend the unit abilities).

If a relatively new player wants to make a meaningful decision about his next research they have to read through a lot of descriptions. In comparison, an experienced player either has already a detailed plan (IE made the decision already before the game even started and just waits to get there) or picks just the first one he likes. I guess only a small number of players would actually check all the available techs (and most likely not enjoy it too much).

On the other hand, instead of a tech tree, the game could offer a choice between 4 randomly picked techs. This way it’s easy to compare them – and it provides a player with the feeling that they have made a meaningful - and possibly optimal choice. Randomness also means that something unexpected can happen and games need some degree of unpredictability to feel alive.

Of course in MP too much randomness can be an issue. Being able to handle ramdomness is however also an ability that seperates a good player from a bad - as long as there’s actually a way to deal with bad luck (as it is similarly possible to prepare for unlucky misses in combat). The simplest solution would probably be a reroll mechanic (at the cost of some gold or mana) or possibly even better a redraw mechanic as in Old World.



4 Cities and Exploration Sites / Dungeons

The Mythical City Upgrades you can get from explored dungeons in AoW3 are in PF basically replaced by Landmarks and Exploration Sites. However, some of the PF Landmark-buffs overshadow the military bonuses from Exploration Sites and at the same time their buffs affect usually a large number of units. This makes the planning of production cities in PF imho less interesting than in AoW3. In AoW3 it feels great to create a city that can produce Archers that are buffed by two Mythical City Upgrades or Armored Infantry with Killing Momentum and Enchanted Armor. In PF it’s sometimes just about getting two Landmarks in a city, and then all units are better.

Additionally, as some Landmarks are so strong, it can make the game also a lot harder if you‘re unlucky with the Landmarks around your starting position.



5 Quality and quantity

Probably most players enjoy the early game in PF (and many other 4X games) more than the late game. I think this is mainly due to the fact that in the beginning it really matters. You care about every unit. Losing a hero in a battle is a huge setback.

In the late game this is often different: Sometimes it’s clear that the AI can’t keep up (so good AI is of course essential). Sometimes the AIs primary forces are defeated but it has still so many units that it creates large and very tedious city battles (using auto combat often means losing units which is bad when there’s another AI to fight). So, regarding the AI it would be imho preferable if there were overall less units but just around two strong armies to create challenging fights.

Finally, the same is also true for the player. With 40 units spread over 7 armies it’s hard to care about every unit. (And if you do, a single late game turn will take around 2 hours.)

In my opinion there should be a way 1) to keep the numbers smaller (EG a way to use city production to upgrade units?) and 2) to reward units that stay alive for many fights (EG no XP cap). This way every fight provides additional motivation.

 

[coodav]

LAND

A reason for this issue is probably the decision to make the sector output dependent on climate and terrain

There is no need to wonder. They stated clearly what their goal was. In brief, each sector type was to be made equivalent, and workers were to be eliminated. They wanted two things; 1) to equalize the relative value of land, and 2) to eliminate mid-late game worker slog. Which made a lot of sense at the time.
Think of the last time you landed on a CivBE random seed, in the barren ice sheets of Antarctica, with three alien nests outside your door. You could kiss that game goodbye. In this world, you could just pick "research," on your first sector, and basically be on equal footing to everyone else.

And in that same vein, the big complaint of most 4X games was dealing with a zillion builders on turn 100+. Games just froze. Builders needed to go. So out went the bath water, with the baby.

And it did most of what it promised, but made the world somewhat sterile. Not entirely of course. Some maps are just gorgeous:

So, you know... it isn't quite that straightforward. But the maps did forever-after resemble a checkerboard.

But I think that the sector approach is still workable. I just think that they badly need to finish the concept. If you could plan a city out fully, and develop better automation, I think enabling a sector system with potential upgrades could be a massive convenience lategame. It just can't blow up the game like it does now:

Hitting the wall

So I was playing through new builds in Empire Mode, searching for the 'one build to rule them all.' I was playing against four allied commanders, who were all basically surrounding me, and I was looking for a short game. Regardless, despite my...

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That was poor implementation.

Either way, I think maybe a middle-ground would work. You can have semi-standard sectors, but allow for micro-level improvements. You could do it with quests, anomalous sites, NPCs, or investments. Obviously they would have do better than they have so far. I mean... anomalous sites... they are ROUGH. So when the game gets bogged down, let the cities and sectors manage themselves, and get to macro problems. A resolution to this problem exists.

STORY

The story is primarily generated through events.

I don't think we have a disagreement here. The story blew. In point of fact, there were no meaningful decisions, with the exception that you started the second map of each pair with carry-over hero equipment. If you made the most of it, the second map was usually a joke, you were so OP. Whatever the thought process, the story was weak, and gameplay was broken and unbalanced, so much so that any reasonable alternative would be better than what we got. 3/10 except the expansions. They were 6/10.

I would watch out for this though. More decisions = more problems. What happens if you kill everyone? Or betray them? Or they betray you? How will that work go-forward? This is impossibly hard to get infinite results from unless you have some next-level pick-your-path like Divinity Original Sin. I swear, they thought of absolutely everything in that game. The game probably has two trillion possible paths, and all can work.

It would be cool if they got this right, but I am thinking that they need a whole new direction. Maybe you have some epic Empire-mode styled system instead of a campaign? Maybe roll it out over 100 games. It would be cool if a story always continued developing, the longer you played:

The word on Empire Mode

I just got through maybe my 100th Empire Mode game, and man, this thing could be really cool. There are some HUGE glaring flaws, but it is so easy to see the potential of this thing. If they are going to take this further, there are a few...

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CHOICES

On the other hand, instead of a tech tree, the game could offer a choice between 4 randomly picked techs. This way it’s easy to compare them – and it provides a player with the feeling that they have made a meaningful - and possibly optimal choice. Randomness also means that something unexpected can happen and games need some degree of unpredictability to feel alive.

Seems that you are saying the game is basically on rails, and you can either pick one of maybe three avenues to go down, tops. In point of fact, it is really one obvious path at a time. Say you are the Kir'Ko, and you are against the Dvar. You are going psionic. Well... unless you are stupid. You just have to worry about a conversion to robot or secret tech units, which mitigate your damage. So you just may have to flip to hacking or something if they go all-in on robots. Both are basically a foregone conclusion.

So yeah, I get it. In their defense though, the system is made more flexible than that. What they did here was to make a hot-swappable mod system that can be interchanged with relative ease. This is based on the primary limiting factor; Cosmite. Under the game setup as it is, you never lose your cosmite investment in a unit. So say you have three T2 upgrades. You can swap out those upgrades for absolutely anything, so long as the total number of upgrade tiers is 6. It just costs energy. So that means you can do two T3 upgrades, 3 T2 upgrades, or 1+2+3, without paying cosmite. You just have to pay an energy penalty. That is absolutely huge, depending on the place you are in the game. You can swap out for your anti-dvar gear to clear a landmark, then swap back when you finish. And this can have a real impact on how units interact.

I personally think the system is decent, but they need to give comeback mechanics more of a role. If your big army gets beat... well... you better find a secret cosmite stash, or you are toast.

CITY EXPANSION CHOICES, LANDMARKS, AND UNITS

In AoW3 it feels great to create a city that can produce Archers that are buffed by two Mythical City Upgrades or Armored Infantry with Killing Momentum and Enchanted Armor.

Yes, there were unit mods and synergies that made some units dominate. And yes, I remember city landmark combinations that made some utterly absurd units:

Yes, that is 18 armor, base. With AOE reality break. Dar. So yeah, this could throw things out of whack, especially if you have the perfect early-game type-synergy for taking your landmark(s). So it may be that combining landmark benefits is a lot for a game to take. But there are practical things you can do. Perhaps make a fourth mod slot dedicated to city advantages. A special mod slot that can take one landmark power, or something. Or maybe you can have one of the four main types, if you go to a city with them; armor, energy efficiency, morale, resistances. You can get more if you travel to location. It would benefit exploration and risk.

Which brings me to the poor implementation of the system. Say you have a typical mod researched. You can put that on any compatible unit, regardless of their location in the world or home city. But this won't work with city upgrades. You can never get them, ever.

So say you take a unit to clear out a Promethian Forge. That unit travels to location, beats down the defenders, and gets it online. You can now build +2 armor battle suits, but it applies ONLY to new units. Units not born to the upgrade are locked out of upgrading their armor, period, end of story. Why on EARTH can't an existing unit get that bonus?

This was a bad answer at the time, and it still is. There should always have been an answer to this, to upgrade units to city maximums, get a fourth slot, or make mods that can take city mods. Whatever. Just allow the units to be competitive late-game.

So yes, agree.

QUALITY/QUANTITY AND GAMEPLAY

Probably most players enjoy the early game in PF (and many other 4X games) more than the late game.

Boy, isn't that just the raw truth.

The problem with lategame land management is that it is a major investment without much gain. It's basically a mini-game that really only impacts early game development. In the early game, each move point matters. Late-game development is bottlenecked from the opposite side, population. You can easily over-build. It feels increasingly hollow as the game goes on. Still though, this is bad conceptualization, it is not inevitable.

The obvious answer to this is to allow scaling effects that make it compatible with lategame. Things like founding cities that automatically include basic buildings, or having builders integrated directly into a city, so the city itself just uses their 'charges' or 'points,' or whatever automatically as needed. Or a governor. Things like that.

So this is a developer-side issue. What is really happening is that you have a series of mini-games within the game, which are badly designed. Here, Flagship just ran out of time and creativity. Take tactical combat, which was arguably the best mini-game integrated. It has such an impact on the game, that it is hard to imagine doing without it. There were times it just defined the game:

Sinsling v THE WORLD - Post Mortem

In short: I told him so, even if he told me so. Let me explain. The video ended with a bit of a cliffhanger. I think it is very likely to go Sin's way... with maybe 75% likelihood. Here is the deal: Sinsling wins if he takes out 4 of the 12...

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Still, just look at Civ VI to see how you can do without it. It is a trade-off. And there are many, including trade, artifacts, research, diplomacy.

When these are done well, they make the game. When poor, they drag it down. For instance, tactical combat in AOW was a big deal. It was fairly well conceptualized, so much so that it defines the game. Not so much with the other mini-games. Think of how well covert operations work in the game. Spoiler, they don't:

AI covert operations are broken

I was going through the doctrines with TreborTheTall (good work by the way), and noted that there weren't any covert operation threads in the top few sheets. My guess is that this is because on the scale we typically use for most games, they are...

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The point of the game -

So I went back to playing a few other 4X games, and I wanted to share a thought that came to me. Specifically, I went back and played Civilization: Beyond Earth, which came out in 2014, between Civilization 4 and 5. In hindsight, it game me a...

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There is only one answer to these issues: get a studio that has a lot of creativity, good talent, and a budget. Hopefully Flagship can do AOW 4, without the IMMENSE shortcomings of Planetfall. The community definitely wants it.

 

[The Mentat]

They wanted two things; 1) to equalize the relative value of land, and 2) to eliminate mid-late game worker slog.

With 1) you mean to equalize the overall occurences of ressources, right? Because „equal value of the land“ sounds like all sectors need to have the same value (which is currently not the case).

I just like to add that this doesn’t make the current link between ressources and climate/terrain necessary. For a future game there could be other ways to spread ressources evenly while relying still on more homogeneous land maps.

To clarify my issues with the graphics:

Planetfall maps can look great but they have so many details and objects that it can feel sometimes a bit exhausting. Workers/builders would just make it worse. So from a pure graphical perspective I would even say, forgoing them was a good decision.


STORY

Maybe you have some epic Empire-mode styled system instead of a campaign?

My suggestions actually weren’t referring to the campaign but indeed to a game mode that adds more story content to random maps.


UNIT UPGRADES

So say you take a unit to clear out a Promethian Forge. That unit travels to location, beats down the defenders, and gets it online. You can now build +2 armor battle suits, but it applies ONLY to new units. Units not born to the upgrade are locked out of upgrading their armor, period, end of story. Why on EARTH can't an existing unit get that bonus?

I think there could still be some issues. For example does a unit that gets upgraded in a city with a Promethean Forge lose its upgrades from its original production city? Or can you just move a unit from city to city and collect all the production bonuses? I’m not in principle against the option to upgrade units but it needs to be implemented carefully...


QUALITY / QUANTITY

The obvious answer to this is to allow scaling effects that make it compatible with lategame. [...] Or a governor. Things like that.

Yeah, regarding specifically city quantity these are two reasonable options. Scaling might be hard to balance though because it most likely leads to snowball effects. The problem with a governor is that it’s decisions would still be suboptimal (similar to the current AI city development), so many players would probably avoid it. However, the vassalisation mechanic for cities from AoW3 has some similarities to a governor and might bypass the issue: As a vassal the city can no longer be used for production but the income from other sources could be based on the population (instead of infrastructure) and even higher than if you controlled it regularly (with the reasoning that the population is happier). So this might also be a way to remove the micromanagement when you conquer a lot of cities.

 

[coodav]

With 1) you mean to equalize the overall occurences of ressources, right? Because „equal value of the land“ sounds like all sectors need to have the same value (which is currently not the case).

No, I think the second was right: they wanted to make the value of all land effectively even. Accordingly, any sector you pick is just a rock-paper-scissors selection, which you can maximize, based on what others do. Accordingly, say your neighbor picked research first, and you scouted it. If you switch to production, and rush to them, you may just catch them with their pants down. Based on how actively you scout, and your natural advantages, you should have an answer to anything they do.

And what do you mean by "resources?" I mean in AOW-PF, the only difference you are probably looking at is +10 production on a sector, if it has a mine on it. That isn't really all that huge. They REALLY went out of their way to level the field. This was a key design decision, which changed everything. No, the way they approached land was very specific, and very symmetric.

*if you are talking about cosmite, toss out everything I said. That resource is king of all, and unfortunately generates the biggest flaw in the game. This is basically antithetical to the entire system they are generating. It's an inconsistency. Maybe an oxymoron.

Planetfall maps can look great but they have so many details and objects that it can feel sometimes a bit exhausting. Workers/builders would just make it worse. So from a pure graphical perspective I would even say, forgoing them was a good decision.

I think I understand your thoughts. And I agree. I would just say that if they integrated the tiles a bit better, and made roads and enhanced roads (enchanted / railroads / high speed) more flexible, then it would really help. Those are easy small fixes.

Also, enhancing the tiles more actively by quests would be cool. Imagine having the autonom put a robotic factory boost in a normal sector. That would be cool, and more accessible than acquiring their main base. Unless you think that it is fine where it is.

But say that foregoing all workers was good the next time you can't get a road across a simple sector, and are forever walking through two mountains that can't be ever be bridged despite the fact you can fly to other galaxies.

Or can you just move a unit from city to city and collect all the production bonuses?

Yeah, that seems nuts. It would benefit active players who attack early, but damn, that seems like it would quickly make units OP. And if units die, then it kind-of blows your wad. I think just given them one or two slots for city upgrades. Then pick the best. Maybe three?

The problem with a governor is that it’s decisions would still be suboptimal (similar to the current AI city development), so many players would probably avoid it.

Remember that governors just pick from a build order that you pre-select. It isn't typically self-governed, though a few games do that. I think a 20 item long build que that actually worked (instead of the current badly broken system) would be a big deal.

The vassal idea is good too. I'd like to see how that works. If you want to mute city spam, this is a great way of doing it. I suppose you could stage this, for instance allow a certain number of cities to come under your control, based on your civil research or race relations.

 

[Ethorin]

Mmmmm. I will say, after I got a mod that provided A. more initial cosmite income, and B. put cosmite income in more places, the game felt much better than with the vanilla(you get 5 cosmite income base and any more will be coming from random nodes on the map somewhere).

Also, I will say, I liked the ability to make breadbasket cities that then made growing new cities much faster. But if I could make one change, it'd be to have cities able to provide MORE stuff globally. I think more 4X games should borrow from Fallen Enchantress's City Upgrades, lots of factionwide bonii means the value of a new city when you go from 1 to 2 isn't too much greater than gaining a new city going from 5 to 6, or 9 to 10, or 19 to 20. Even if you are developing stuff.

 

[AwesomeLion]

For me it was always that AoW3 felt and looked more fantastical and wondrous (beyond AoW3 being a fantasy setting) while Planetfall felt more mechanical- like it didn't feel like a world you wanted to explore and experience, but more like a "board to beat". One felt like an adventure, other felt like a game.

 

[coodav]

Yeah, that was kinda the big issue. Fact is, all of the quests, anomalies, and landmarks were completely separate systems, were not balanced, and did not build on themselves. It starts with the fact that all PVE sites were zero-risk, even as early as 20 turns into the game. Even poorly executed meta strategies were utterly overwhelming to the AI, even with T3-4 units. Basically, you could walk-through any landmark or enemy almost as soon as you could reach them, which threw the game into the air. If you were 2 spaces from a silver / gold landmark, or beside an early-game opponent, they were basically yours, and imbalanced the game more than anything else could have.

A lot of these systems just made being lucky on the draw that much more important. That seems to be the opposite of what they wanted. Unintended consequences of their game's core concept.

I think they should have slowed it down - staged the developments, and made the mods weaker. For instance, use quest 'strings' that give landmark values over time. Say you have to beat up a group of units for a 'forge part.' Then attack a spawner occupied by opponents to use that part. Then research how that forge part fits, and you get a bronze landmark. Whatever. Just make the exploration, and the enhancements of your city a process.

I mean, in the O.G. Master of Magic, to get a node online, you had to 1) beat the defenders, 2) summon a spirit, 3) move the spirit to the node, and install it, without getting it killed. That would often allow you to summon tougher creatures necessary to beat more powerful landmarks, as a base spearman or bowman wasn't killing a gold dragon - ever. It was a process, and it took a while, especially without powerful mods. Currently, it feels like the combat minigame is so OP compared to the other systems, that it doesn't work as intended. It made the game shallow.