Age of Wonders: Planetfall – Dev Diary #16: Colony Development Part I

[LennartGS]

Hi there, welcome to this week’s Planetfall Journal! Today we’ll take a deeper look at Colonies; This is Part, dealing with Colony structure and development.

Colonies

Colonies contain the population of one of the main races and are the main source of economic wealth for your empire, proving energy, knowledge, food and production. Colonies can cover up to five sectors; the Colony Center and a maximum of four annexed Province Sectors.

Kir'ko Hive Colony with a Colonizer beetle​

Acquiring Colonies

Your starting colony is placed in the sector where your ship makes planetfall. Additional Colonies can be founded using a colonizer, or taken from enemies. At the start of the game Various independent outposts may be found scattered on the planet.

Independent Outposts

Independent Outposts can be taken through force or by spending influence. When you acquire an outpost you have the option to:

• Turn into a proper colony
• Move it to a new location (a colonizer will appear)
• the population can be absorbed into an existing colony

Note to AoW3 Players: Independent Colonies play a smaller role in Planetfall. This is due to the interaction and prevalence of NPC Factions and more developed empire building mechanics. Still, conquering an Independent outpost is a great boost for your empire.

Approaching an Assembly Outpost​

Colony Center

The Colony Center is the heart of the colony.

• Here is where your colonists live, and the income from all annexed province sectors is gathered
• The Colony Center has a number of inherent economic upgrades to get your economy started independent of annexed sectors.
• All Units and Structures are produced at the Colony Center.
• Military Structures built at the Colony Core enable the production of higher tier units along with the associated research.
• Hold Colony Defense Upgrades
• When the Colony Center is taken over by an enemy, all annexed sectors are lost with it.

Production options for the Colony Center​

Colony Growth

To exploit the environment around your Colony Center, you need to Annex sectors as a Provinces. Annexing a sector will attach it to a Colony. The number of Sectors a Colony can administer is dependent on the number of Colonists.

Colonists Sectors

1-5 2
6-10 3
11-15 4
16+ 5

Sectors can only be annexed by a colony if they are within two sectors of the Colony Center,

as well as being adjacent to another sector of that same colony. Once attached to a colony, the economic potential of a sector can be harnessed.

Some sectors can contain a dominant structure, like a landmark or spawner which will need to be taken over by force or diplomacy before the sector can be annexed.

Annexing a sector is done by moving a unit onto the sector flag and choosing the ‘Annex Sector as Province to Colony’ button.



Sectors Features

There are many types of sectors, with different features that affect how they can be used

• A Clime (Arcadian, Fungal, Arid, Arctic and Ocean)
• A main Terrain Feature (Mountain, Forest, plains, etc). Both affect Resource yields and future exploitation possibilities.
• Locations: Landmarks, Dwellings, and Resource Nodes provide flat income, while other structures like visit sites, hazards, spawners have more strategic effects.
• Sectors can be owned by both Player Factions as well as by Non-Player Factions and marauders.

For more about the Sector System see this Development Diary.


Sector Exploitation

After a Sector has been annexed as a Province, it needs be Exploited by selecting one of the four economic types: Energy, Food, Production or Research.

• Sector Exploitation adds one Colonist Slot of the selected type immediately.
• Sectors containing Landmarks have a pre-set exploitation type.
• Increasing Sector Level through Research will increase sector yield and colonist slots pending matching Clime and Sector Features.
• Exploited Sectors can contain Sector Specialization Structures for additional economic bonuses.

Selecting an Exploitation Type for a Province Sector ​

Sector Level

The Sector Level increases the output of an Exploited Sector and makes the effects of any Sector Specialization Structures within it stronger.

• Sector Level is increased by researching the associated tech in the Society Research Tab, and subsequently building a Level Boost Structure in a Colony Center.
• Level Boost Structures upgrade the level of all Sectors with a particular feature within a Colony
• For example, one structure may upgrade all mountain sectors, while another upgrades all energy type sectors.

Tip: Focusing individual colonies on a particular resource type by giving multiple sectors the same Exploitation type is a valid strategy mid game. You only need to build the Level Boost Structures once per colony and also, the sectors themselves boost each other through percentage bonusses. However, don’t over specialize, since part your economy may collapse when losing a Colony.

Tip: A sector that doesn’t match with its clime or terrain will produce the same as one that is at the start of the game, however has less economic potential as the game progresses. Some of the faction have terraforming abilities. Plan ahead.

Sector Specialization Structures (SSS)

After an Exploitation type has been chosen, a Sector can be further specialized by building Sector Specialization Structures (SSS). E.g. a Production Sector can be specialized to provide benefits to Unit Production or Infrastructure Production.

• All SSSs are unlocked through Research. There are four per Exploitation type; two get unlocked at Tier 2, the second batch is found at Tier 8 in the Society Tree.
• An Exploited Sector can only contain one Specialization Structure. To build additional Specialization structures of the same exploitation type, you will need to add an additional sector of the that type.
• The bonus of an SSS scales up with the Sector Level of the sector they are in.
• An individual SSS can be built once per colony.

Civil Engineering is an Production SSS, as seen in the Production Development I tech group in Society Research​

Founding a New Colony

Expanding a new Colony will keep you busy for a while, but it is important to start looking for new land to build new colonies in. New Colonies require the production of a Colonizer Unit, which costs population.

Colonizers are now faction specific. Can you tell which is which?​

New Colonies can’t be founded adjacent to another Colony Center, and you’ll need to be careful not to setting on areas where other’s have claims on, as this might lead to war!

In Colonies Part II We’ll be looking at: Food, Production, Colonist Management, Happiness, , The HQ and City Defenses

 

[LennartGS]

Oof, I guess it's Dvar, Amazon, Kir'ko, Vanguard, Assembly and Syndicate?

Correct!

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if this building is only available if you have a Ruins sector in your controlled sectors for that colony, as otherwise it costs production and energy for no yield:

Yep, the features need to be present within the colony or the option won't be available.

I am curious to know if Kir'ko reproduce like ants/termites or like other insects?

There are clear castes within the Kirko's; workers, warriors, queens.
The Tier 4 carries their eggs
But then the ravenous eats humanoids and poops out an instant larva

So, for example, if one colony can cover a total of 5 sectors, why is it better to have one colony with 5 sectors than 2 colonies with 1 and 2 sectors? Or why not just put a colony in every single "empty" sector that allows for one? It's more of a rhetorical question, I assume you've taken measures like economic buildings being very dependent on sector exploitation and not giving much on their own but I'm still curious how this is balanced.

Question: is 1 colony with 4 sectors (for example) more profitable than 2 colonies with 2 sectors? If 2 colonies are much more profitable, then city spam is inevitable...
At least you blocked brand new city spam strategy like numerous colonies with 1 sector only.

The wide vs tall colony building has been on our mind since inception, still it needs constant balancing and evaluation.
Structurally we have addressed sprawl it like this (next to the adjacency rule)

- Economic Sector upgrades within a colony boost multiple sectors at once. When having lots of smaller cities, you need to build multiple.
- Colony defenses cover all sectors in a Colony, when building new colonies you need to start over building defenses.
- Sector Specialization Structure Bonus Stacking: E.g. Large cities build units faster *and* at higher default XP.
- New colonies have a minimal inherent starting income. (your first colony, the HQ, gets a boost)
- Production Carry Over. The greatest advantage of going wide is in AoW3 terms is having multiple production queues, this is lessened by having Production Carry Over to the next Queue item.

 

[LennartGS]

Lots of good questions. Will try to answer as many as I can.

Nearly makes me forget that the planetfall twitter announced a Kir'Ko diary today

The twitter account referred to questions for the Kir'ko Video, not a dev diary!

What about the SSS, growth, colonist distribution, happiness, production and buildings are they different only in look or are there very distinct differences between the races in the gameplay mechanic?

The main economy / colony development tech tree is shared between factions. Doctrines, Ops a couple of special racial buildings are the exception but make a big difference on flow. Your economic development might radically be changed if you have the ability to break mountains for example.

Will/Can we have the ability to share production with other Colonies (as well as food)? I presume we will still have the 'use energy to rush production' option, but that had other penalties. With futuristic transport options, it doesn't seem out of place for there to be production sharing to boost low production colonies.

There is food sharing to avoid deficits, not production. The system is a bit of a black box though.

How will absorbing population into an existing colony work if its a different faction?

They get assimilated in the population. It's abstracted just like the race-less refugee camp pickups in AoW3.

Nice update. If you get vision on another leaders colony, will it be obvious how they have specialized their sectors? Perhaps by having knowledge of what a certain factions SSS buildings look like? Or does that sort of info require operations research?

If you have vision on a sector, you can tell all features including exploitation type, level and the specialization structures built there

(If it's anything like real bugs they probably don't want to put their Queen on the frontlines, but it's a lot more fun for battles to imagine they make a good support troop, perhaps producing armies on the go?)

Most Tier IV's have a support function in Planetfall

Does the Sector mater for the placement of the colony center? i.e., is the centers yield affected by the climate and terrain it is place in?

Yes. You can research Clime X Adaptability techs to increase happiness/yield. Badlands are totally blocked for settlement at the start of the game, except for the Dvar.
All races have an initial favored terrain which slighly affects combat morale, not an economically favored terrain. (we avoided that to make starting positions and gameplay not too one dimensional)

Diplomacy said you can trade Provinces around. What happens if the receiving empire has no city with spare capacity nearby? Or no city in range?

The Sectors can be in an "Unconnected" state, meaning they don't provide income but are owned by a player.

A colony center lays claims into every sector surrounding it and it's provinces, but only up to two steps away Each center can only lay claim to 4 sectors.

A Colony sector can only *own* 4 province sectors in addition to the center sector. It will claim any adjacent sector. Claiming ≠ O

Can sectors be shifted around between Colony (Centers)? Like a established colony center, upgrading it to a type (maybe building a 3S building) and handing it off to a newly founded center?

Yes it is possible to transfer sectors at a cost & duration (both from your own as well as stealing them from enemies)

Can their specialisation be changed?

Yes after demolishing the existing sector base you can change exploitation. Should be able to sell individual buildings, but just noticed that is broken in current build

Can provinces be unclaimed?

Not sure what you mean here; but there will be treaties between player making them immune to each other's claims so they can settle next to each other with out penalty.

Can you loose resource nodes if enemy armies occupy them?

The income of occupied nodes disappears. Individual nodes can't be owned. Only sectors have owners.

Since Colonies can annex Sectors up to 1 Sector away from Colony Center, can a Colony Centre annex a Water Sector and then annex a Land Sector not adjacent to the Colony Center? If so then would a bridge be built over the Water Sector?

Yep you can build a colony to occupy both sides of a strait. No bridges though. Water bases are truly water based - they need seafaring / flying units as defenders.

 

[LennartGS]

Thanks Destrada, there is not going to be a Dev Diary to day, but something else in about 30 mins which you might enjoy