Octopus Overlords

A Sci-Fi TBS by the Age of Wonders... YES INDEED!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTHxBqqNONA

My son pointed this out to me. I meant to look into it and post, but you've beaten me to it. As I said to my son, it could be good, I like sci fi, although AoW is not my favourite 4x fantasy franchise.

Out of what they announced, this game I'm most interested in, for sure. I really enjoy the AoW series, it'll be interesting to see what they do with a new theme.

I've really liked the AoW series, so I'm intrigued by this too. That said, unlike others, I haven't ended up sinking much time into these games. Though I feel like it's about time to take another run throw AoW III while I wait for Planetfall.

AoW 3 is one of my favorite games, so I’m in day one.

Hope it’s better than Civ: Beyond Earth. I’m waiting for a good spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri. Or I can see if my copy of Alpha Centauri works on my PC. Bring on the mind worms!

$iljanus wrote: ↑Sun May 20, 2018 9:13 pm Hope it’s better than Civ: Beyond Earth. I’m waiting for a good spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri. Or I can see if my copy of Alpha Centauri works on my PC. Bring on the mind worms!

Same. Alpha Centauri remains my all time favorite game. No TBS game has ever come close to replicating the perfect storm that AC nailed.

Considering that the AOW series has always emphasized tactical combat, I wouldn't count on too much similarity to AC.

I'd definitely give that a try. I think Shadow Magic was peak AoW for me. By the time 3 came, I had so many other games to play that I never put much time into it.

Am I thinking of another game, or was Age of Wonders the supposed spiritual successor to Might and Magic? If they are going to do that in space, I'm in.

Hyena wrote: ↑Mon May 21, 2018 1:58 pm Am I thinking of another game, or was Age of Wonders the supposed spiritual successor to Might and Magic? If they are going to do that in space, I'm in.

I think you are correct, but think you meant Master of Magic.

Alefroth wrote: ↑Mon May 21, 2018 2:04 pm

Hyena wrote: ↑Mon May 21, 2018 1:58 pm Am I thinking of another game, or was Age of Wonders the supposed spiritual successor to Might and Magic? If they are going to do that in space, I'm in.

I think you are correct, but think you meant Master of Magic.

Dear God, yes, that's what I meant. Thanks. Been a long day, and it's barely 1:45...

There was another one fairly recently that was supposed to be the spiritual successor. But it was panned pretty hard.



At least that's my recollection. I never heard that AoW in any incarnation was supposed to replace MoM.

The original AoW was absolutely touted as a spiritual successor to MoM, but I don't recall if it was the developers or the fan base who put the idea forward.

GreenGoo wrote: ↑Mon May 21, 2018 8:28 pm The original AoW was absolutely touted as a spiritual successor to MoM, but I don't recall if it was the developers or the fan base who put the idea forward.

I remember it being presented that way by the devs, and I'm sure many fans were eager to go along with it.

I never undetstood the praise for Master of Magic, to me it was a game with great concepts but brain dead do-nothing AI... it was more of a sandbox to play in than a proper game. Reading about the game now it seems there was a 1.3 patch at some point that fixed this? I must have shelved the game by that point and never turned back.

I loved the original Age of Wonders because it had character customization, diverse races with varying alignments, spells and tactical combat that was engaging enough without being too complicated. I also liked the fairly simple city management... cities were placed on the map in varying fixed sizes and you just had to spend gold to upgrade them to a level equal to their size, so a smaller size 2 city could only be upgraded to level 2, while a size 4 city could be upgraded all the way to level 4.

I tried AoW2 but didn't like the more complex city building/upgrading aspects.

AoW 2 had some issues. AoW: Shadow Magic fixed most of them.

Daveman wrote: ↑Tue May 22, 2018 8:00 am I never undetstood the praise for Master of Magic, to me it was a game with great concepts but brain dead do-nothing AI... it was more of a sandbox to play in than a proper game. Reading about the game now it seems there was a 1.3 patch at some point that fixed this? I must have shelved the game by that point and never turned back.

Yeah, Master of Magic took place in a whole different gaming era. It was truly groundbreaking for its time, and quite atmospheric compared to other strategy games. But above all, it pre-dated our intense online communication regarding the ins and outs of games... so it took longer for most people to realize just how little the AI resisted, and just how large the "clearly-best-builds." I went back and played it again maybe a year or so ago (totally patched) and it was fun for a playthrough. But by today's standards, it has little replayability. We expect WAY more today.

Before half life, enemies in shooters ran straight at you until you killed them or they ate your face. Master of Magic was released 4 years before Half Life. And that was back when a system that was only 1 or 2 years old had to be completely upgraded if you wanted to play games released in the current year (i.e. games were improving fast).

If Master of Magic had brain dead ai, it was likely just a product of the times. It seems unlikely that anything released that year would have been any better.

I have never played any AOW. Does AOW3 hold up today and worth checking out? How steep is the learning curve?

Yes it holds up, I'm currently playing through the campaign right now.

The learning curve is more shallow than your typical 4x, as the focus is on combat so the city management is pretty straight forward.

A number of Youtubers including Das got demo copies of this and have been posting videos of it.

Looks really solid, and sounds like they've updated and deepened the campaign component as well as made the combat fit the sci fi theme.

Can't wait to try it soon.

Sepiche wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2019 5:01 pm ...sounds like they've updated and deepened the campaign component as well as made the combat fit the sci fi theme.

Those both seem like big positives to me.

Sepiche wrote: ↑Fri May 17, 2019 5:01 pm A number of Youtubers including Das got demo copies of this and have been posting videos of it.

Looks really solid, and sounds like they've updated and deepened the campaign component as well as made the combat fit the sci fi theme.

Can't wait to try it soon.

Really looking forward to this.

I'll give it a go too!

I'm struggling to be interested in this because, at first glance, it seems like a reskin of AOW3, which I enjoy enough to play, but not buy a second time. What jumps out at you guys?

Freyland wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2019 2:15 am I'm struggling to be interested in this because, at first glance, it seems like a reskin of AOW3, which I enjoy enough to play, but not buy a second time. What jumps out at you guys?

Spaaaaaaaaace

Freyland wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2019 2:15 am I'm struggling to be interested in this because, at first glance, it seems like a reskin of AOW3, which I enjoy enough to play, but not buy a second time. What jumps out at you guys?

I shared those same worries that it would be the same game under the hood, but watching those videos put a lot of that to rest in my mind. The campaign mechanics seemed a lot deeper and combat had a lot of interesting tweaks to embrace the sci fi elements, and help balance ranged vs. melee.

And yeah, by nature I like sci fi settings more than fantasy.

Sepiche wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2019 10:17 am

Freyland wrote: ↑Tue May 21, 2019 2:15 am I'm struggling to be interested in this because, at first glance, it seems like a reskin of AOW3, which I enjoy enough to play, but not buy a second time. What jumps out at you guys?

I shared those same worries that it would be the same game under the hood, but watching those videos put a lot of that to rest in my mind. The campaign mechanics seemed a lot deeper and combat had a lot of interesting tweaks to embrace the sci fi elements, and help balance ranged vs. melee.

And yeah, by nature I like sci fi settings more than fantasy.

I prefer fantasy, but I'm a big enough AOW to give this a go.

SPPppaaaccceee!

But seriously, if it's just a reskin, then I will probably pass, but if it were just a reskin I'd expect it to have been released much earlier, as development costs and time would be significantly reduced, so I expect a bit more. Maybe I'm expecting too much.

That said, Sppaaaccceee!

It snuck up on me, but this is out tomorrow! Can't wait.

So, I picked this up. Will try to let impressions trickle in in the next few days.

Newcastle wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2019 2:17 pm So, I picked this up. Will try to let impressions trickle in in the next few days.

Looks pretty cool from the reviews I read, another game for me to buy and then not play lol!

Been looking for something that would scratch that Alpha Centauri itch. Civ:Beyond Earth didn't really do it for me but perhaps this will. The Strategic/tactical game play looks pretty interesting.

The only thing I hated about AoW 3 was the apparently scripted events that required specific strategies in order to make progress. I'm talking about the death stacks that the AI would send at you on turn X. It limited the viable strategies too much.

If they've removed that - or at least toned it down - I'll be first in line.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2019 8:54 pm The only thing I hated about AoW 3 was the apparently scripted events that required specific strategies in order to make progress. I'm talking about the death stacks that the AI would send at you on turn X. It limited the viable strategies too much.

If they've removed that - or at least toned it down - I'll be first in line.

Any word whether this was removed/toned down? It was not much fun in AoW3.

Anyone know if this is windows anywhere? Xbox/PC license in one?

I'm guessing it's probably the larger randomly spawned monster stacks you guys didn't like from AoW3?

There are still monster spawners that send out stacks, but at normal difficulty I haven't seen any particularly powerful ones yet, although they may ramp up as the game goes on.

There are a few new mitigating factors in Planetfall to counter spawns like that though:
1) Better garrisons - There are multiple upgrades for cities (which, with the new annexation system, affects territories attached to the city as well) which increase the strength of the garrison troops that spawn when a city is attacked. They start being about the same strength as the random spawns, but one upgrade is usually enough for them to easily fend off attacks. There are also turret upgrades which add defensive turrets.
2) Spawn locators - "Operations" now take the place of spells from AoW3, and one of the first strategic operations you get is one that will locate the closest unexplored monster spawner to the city the operation is run in. That makes it much, much easier to locate possible threats to your cities before they start sending out spawns
3) Army strength indicators - One game changing addition to the Planetfall is that each stack now has a value representing it's relative combat strength, so it's much easier to gauge the power of spawned stacks and either have some idea of whether your garrison can fend it off, or route a strong enough stack over to beat them
4) Planet strength setting - There's an option in game setup that sets the relative difficulty of the planet you're on. I haven't messed around with it extensively, but it looks like it tones down the strength of NPC factions, spawners, marauders, etc.

On the whole I'm loving the game. It's got a million little improvements over AoW3 from UI to balance and mechanics, and the sci fi setting is to me a breath of fresh air over AoW3.

There's also a fantastic MP system in it where you can seemlessly switch from playing a game directly connected to everyone to a pitboss system that lets players put in their turns on their own time and receive alerts through Steam when it's your turn to play.

I'd love to get an OO game or two going once everyone gets comfortable with Planetfall.

I think my son (age 28) and I are going to play it for my birthday (September 5) so I'll let you guys know when we will be playing.

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Fri Aug 09, 2019 11:30 am Anyone know if this is windows anywhere? Xbox/PC license in one?

Not on the list here:
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/xbox-play-anywhere