Age of Wonders: Planetfall

I am having quite some fun with Planetfall and I am not even a big 4x gamer, mostly rpg, tbs and fps, I think that speaks for the game's qualities. I think the setting, art style, music and character designs are well done and compared to many modern games finally very "gamey" again, means we have a colourful and unrealistic setting with dinosaurs with lasers instead of bleak grey environments with current or past gen weaponry and technology, proper sci-fi so to say. My problem as a non 4x veteran is the UI which feels cluttered and unnecessarily complicated, but then, other 4x are like this too or worse. Diplomacy is a bit flawed as well, the A.I changes its opinion on the fly and it might be possible to be attacked right after signing a peace treaty. And again, I read that many strategy games struggle with the diplomacy part. The AoW series caught my interest because of the mix between 4x and turn based strategy. I love the old and new Xcom series and tbs in general, so battles in this game are great fun to me. It works almost exactly like it does in X-com which helps players who have played this type of strategy games. I would say the game is well worth checking out. Give it a try even if you are not a 4X gamer, it is not as dry as Crusader Kings or other Paradox products. Oh, the store page did not list it but the game supports gamepads. No achievements on GOG though.

While for me, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri still remains the definitive sci-fi civilization type game, AOW Planterfall is a much better game than the more recent Beyond Earth. It flows very well , has good atmosphere and most of all is fun to play. I've had no tech problems so far as a few others have mentioned.

When the only criticism I can give after 24 hours of constant mayhem is 'Game is too big' you know its good. So far tried most starting factions/races, lots and lots of content. Sea battles, air units, post-apocalyptic feel all over, great NPC factions, possibility of real diplomacy and peace victory, runs even on my aged laptop (though took a solid 30 mins to boot up at first). Very, very looking forward to trying some multiplayer. Minor issue is manual exploration, addressed it on Paradox Forums already, and maybe the lack of even smaller maps.

AOW: Planetfall brings the old Age of Wonders magic to a new sci-fi setting. The atmosphere, music and gameplay are as addictive as always, and the game has that "one more turn" feel. However, the AI is still as dumb as in the older games, meaning that games are mostly about you building your own empire, rather than a real challenge against another empire, even on the hardest difficulty. Campaign missions mostly have you running around the map from one easy battle to the next, each time getting great rewards that help you also clear the next mission easily. This stays fun for a while, since the gameplay and music are good, but can also get tedious after enough repetition, particularly since it takes such a long time for units to move around the map. For citybuilding the game really should implement some kind of automated governors - in large maps this aspect of the game can get tedious as well. At least I have not found this function if it exists. In any case, I recommend the game, particularly for those new to the Age of Wonders series, as they will have more challenge. The asking price feels a bit high though, so it may be a good idea to wait for a sale.