Captured population

[Myr]

In Age of Wonders 3 winning a city left said city with its original inhabitants, allowing for the recruitment of other race's units with the! option! to replace the population with those of others under the players control.

I was wondering if this will remain the same or if it will change.

Why would it change?
My thoughts are as follows:

Research. Age of wonders 3 had its research entirely based on the class research tree. From what we have seen so far, it seems to be a more racial research tree.

Units. In Age of Wonders 3 the most important units were gained through a class. Units were generally the 'same' with some racial tweaks and flavors. In Planetfall we see a total of 12 racial units and only 4 secret tech units, with secret tech replacing the class.

Synergy. The Kir'ko as one example, seems to be very reliant on racial synergies such as swam shields. I have to wonder if foreign units would actually benefit them and would it be fair and or balanced to have them be the one faction that does not ever want foreign troops?

So far my opinion is that captured colonies should immediately change to accommodate the victors culture. Not only for the reasons mentioned above, but also to preserve the uniqueness and importance of the choices made by the player as to what the player wants to play.

I'd like to invite other peoples opinions on the matter.

 

[Fenraellis]

Well, we already know the following at least:

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.

Essentially, we can make a real colony(no mentions of migration, for or against), or remove it from the map, turning it into population(by some calculated amount), or a colonizer(again, no mention of faction identity for this, but it's implied it would match the outpost's faction).

How these options would carry over towards capturing an established colony of another player, we also do not know.

Overall, though, it has been directly stated that we would have access to colonies of the other core factions, and we would even have some degree of limited access to their faction technology research as well. I personally hope it's very limited access(as in, maybe up to Tier 3 technology, except for unit research going up to perhaps tier 6 or 7), but I digress, as I've gone over that point ad nauseam.

I do understand your concern about Kir'Ko synergy with units of other factions, in particular due to having their Swarm Shield trait, as well as multiple Tactical Operations directly related to interacting with that unit trait. I mostly feel like it's a tactical choice of a given player, though, for if they want what units of another core faction, NPC faction, or even Secret Tech will bring to them, and ultimately is going to come into effect as a decision even regardless of interacting with other factions. Simply by the fact that there is likely not a single Secret Tech which doesn't contain at least one non-faction-represented unit. Either by having one or more Mechanical units like Promethean(and probably "-sis", though they may be Cyborgs), some sort of genetic monstrosities like Xenoplague, or extraplanar entities like Psynumbra.

Amusingly enough to those that have complained about it(in regards to Kir'Ko, at least), Promethean is the only Secret Tech we've seen so far, for which we know for sure there actually is a unit of the faction representing for one of their units.

 

[Myr]

Well, we already know the following at least:
Overall, though, it has been directly stated that we would have access to colonies of the other core factions, and we would even have some degree of limited access to their faction technology research as well. I personally hope it's very limited access(as in, maybe up to Tier 3 technology, except for unit research going up to perhaps tier 6 or 7), but I digress, as I've gone over that point ad nauseam.

This part I did not know. It is interesting though. I have to wonders if that other factions research would benefit our own core units. If so, it would be a strong advantage to keep other factions colonies as they are, somewhat punishing monocultural play. On the other hand, if not, I wonder if one would even want to research their tech at all. I presume that due to the limited access to those foreign units, one might want to focus the research on things that benefit units that are more easily available.

The other concern I have is module tech. I find the thought of equipping my newly acquired (for example) Vanguard Troopers with my researched Kir'ko Poison Excretion module, or the other way around, my newly Aquired Kir'ko units with smart payloads or even space suit modules a bit.. weird.

 

[Fo Ren G]

I think Kir'ko faction Mods are generally restricted to Kir'ko units only? Such as Adaptive/Stealth Carapace had a restriction of Kir'ko and Light units, if I remember correctly, where as Vanguard 'Rocket Turret' was not restricted to just Vanguard units.

 

[Tomipapa]

Overall, though, it has been directly stated that we would have access to colonies of the other core factions, and we would even have some degree of limited access to their faction technology research as well. I personally hope it's very limited access(as in, maybe up to Tier 3 technology, except for unit research going up to perhaps tier 6 or 7), but I digress, as I've gone over that point ad nauseam.

What if the access for other units/technologies would depend on how many colonies of that race do you own? Owning one would mean only basic units/tech, while having more would increase the availability of higher tier units/techs. Of course there would be a limit for what you can achieve, so you would never get access to the highest tiers even if you own many colonies. Also there should be some empire wide happines penalty when you add new races to your empire to balance the thing that you gain more versatile armies compared to pure racial armies.

 

[Fenraellis]

This part I did not know. It is interesting though. I have to wonders if that other factions research would benefit our own core units. If so, it would be a strong advantage to keep other factions colonies as they are, somewhat punishing monocultural play. On the other hand, if not, I wonder if one would even want to research their tech at all. I presume that due to the limited access to those foreign units, one might want to focus the research on things that benefit units that are more easily available.

The other concern I have is module tech. I find the thought of equipping my newly acquired (for example) Vanguard Troopers with my researched Kir'ko Poison Excretion module, or the other way around, my newly Aquired Kir'ko units with smart payloads or even space suit modules a bit.. weird.

In my preferred consideration, as I said, it would only be a few tiers of normal techs, with more tiers worth of unit techs. As such, they would likely be researched more for their niche combinations(low tier mods can still be quite useful, circumstantially, after all, and are very much less expensive!), than for their raw power.
Of course, in the case of certain faction combinations, viable options might be extremely limited, but maybe there is the case where researching tech from a secondary faction allows a player to add diversity to their Secret Tech units, which themselves might be largely ineligible for a given faction's tech(they are already lacking weapon tech synergy in many cases).

Both are Kir'Ko technology, and neither work for Vanguard, but both would work for Amazon on at least some units(depending on the classification of Amazon creatures without a rider, for the second one), I would imagine. Assembly units, too, for the first one. Perhaps Syndicate even has some Heavy Biological or Animal units sitting around in their slave pens.

They would also work for any NPC Factions which match the prerequisites, such as Growth for Heavy Biological, or Paragon for Cyborg.

Anyway, Smart Payloads was Explosive Weapons only as a Dvar tech, and I know the space suit modules one was a shot in the dark.

Personally, part of the fun of a faction actually comes from the limitations, and what synergies they can provide, given sufficient experimentation. In Age of Wonders 3 terms, it would be how Sorcerers, Archdruids, Necromancers and Theocrats could all enhance Support units, but Sorcerers did it to the most extreme degree(although Healing was quite nice, too), whereas the others could all also enhance other unit types in some fashion. Thus provided different synergies for different races' core units, and even dwellings, when combined with specific classes.

For Planetfall, part of the fun will be figuring out just what neat combinations of mods can be done combining tech of a particular core faction with another faction's units. Likewise, sometimes even just a selection of low tier mods from another faction, or few, might open up some surprisingly different play styles with a given core faction and Secret Tech setup.

Just think about that. It's six by six base setups for Factions and Secret Techs, requiring a theoretical thirty six games just to see what can be done there, then another factor simply for having access to all of the different secondary factions and NPC Factions in combination as well.
Barring playing somewhat overloaded maps, the odds of getting all of the secondary Factions and NPC Factions within your empire in a single game will be very low. Even meaning just one Faction/Secret Tech combination game is unlikely to experience all it can do, likely requiring several for each combination. That alone allows for a fair bit of potential replay capability just for the sake of fiddling with things! Well, that's likely more for certain kinds of players, but even somebody just playing one Faction would have quite a few games ahead of them before they truly have experienced every combination available to that core Faction selection.

The Devs have also directly suggested that, at least on normal maps, you will not have all NPC Factions represented on a single map. Make of that what you will.

**Special Note: Once upon a time, it was mentioned that certain Landmark Sectors would also provide particular special technology unlocks. This hasn't been mentioned since, so the system might have been scrapped, for one reason or another. If it's still in, and depending on the relative rarity of said sectors(I'm thinking at least comparable to Hearts in AoW3), that adds in even more circumstantial variables!

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

It was suggested elsewhere that the AoW3 racial governance mechanic be adapted into racial research points to be used in that races research tree.


Basically a more guided racial governance system with more player influence (E.g. modified by research buildings and sectors) and choices.

I support this idea as it scales very well for larger and longer games.

If somehow you are able to have 5 Vanguard and 5 kir'ko cities over the course of 150 turns then, imho, you should absolutely be able to access higher tier research from both.

And on smaller maps, quicker games, it will never ever be an issue.

 

[Leon Feargus]

Just think about that. It's six by six base setups for Factions and Secret Techs, requiring a theoretical thirty six games just to see what can be done there, then another factor simply for having access to all of the different secondary factions and NPC Factions in combination as well.

Not to mention the high likelihood of future game expansions adding additional factions and/or secret techs and/or NPC´s.

Barring playing somewhat overloaded maps, the odds of getting all of the secondary Factions and NPC Factions within your empire in a single game will be very low.

This could be a nice steam achievement.

 

[Fenraellis]

Ah, I knew I was forgetting something, BBB. That was one of the more solid ideas, even if I'm still not entirely sold on full access to the tree. As an example, if it takes something like one city per tech level beyond three, then it would still take eight cities of the same secondary race to unlock everything up to tier 10, while still at least allowing all of the Tier 2 units(except the naval unit) before further cities are required. That's not an inconsequential amount, indeed, but it would be possible. Five seems low, but I tend to prefer specialization, so favor locking it behind a greater number, but I suppose researching another Faction's tech also inevitably sets back your own faction-tech research(which would have been farther along by that point), so there is that definite trade off.

 

[Tomipapa]

If somehow you are able to have 5 Vanguard and 5 kir'ko cities over the course of 150 turns then, imho, you should absolutely be able to access higher tier research from both.
And on smaller maps, quicker games, it will never ever be an issue.

Giving acces to higher tier research of other races will create some inbalanced situations, and besides that factions will lose some or most of their unique features. I think it is safe to assume every faction is designed the way that they are good at x thing and bad at y thing. If a faction can eliminate their y with using mods or researches of another factions, that could easily lead to an overpowered faction. And as i said the faction would also lose a part of their uniqueness.

 

[Myr]

I very much see the appeal of combining, mixing and matching stuff together. What I would like to avoid is the AOW3 phenomena that some turns into the game the race I chose to play no longer matters. Recruitment is done where it is most convenient and that is likely a city I captured due to its proximity to further points of interest. At such a point, even if I were to pick for example, goblins I am sure to have mostly orcs, humans, elves or whatever I happened to conquer due to having their cities closer to where I need the units to be.

At this point the only thing that still mattered was the class choice. While replacing the populace was possible there was no gain in it and the option was always declared as evil.

That is something I hope can be avoided for Planetfall. I would like it very much if the loss of 'identity' of what I wanted to play as, as the game continues, could be avoided. Don't get me wrong. I am 100% fine with neutral faction units and dwellings and neutral tech, but it gets rather dull when something starts as a goblin vs elf battle and evolves into a goblins and elves vs goblins and elves due to both players acquiring the others population at some point.

 

[Fenraellis]

I agree with the both of you, and in a way consider accessing other faction's tech akin to accessing another class's tech in AoW3. We already saw what happened with freely trading magic in AoW2, and how it eventually could homogenize things in a game. Although Faction Tech specifically makes at least a little sense to gain a little bit of, if you have them in your empire. It's not Secret Tech, after all. That said, it's not your core faction.
That's why, if they do add it in, I hope it's very limited, and if it can be expanded, then only a little bit further from that.

Ultimately, we'll see what they do, and I hope it flows well into the system so it's useful when utilized well, but not effectively mandatory, to be inclusive of other factions.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

Giving acces to higher tier research of other races will create some inbalanced situations, and besides that factions will lose some or most of their unique features. I think it is safe to assume every faction is designed the way that they are good at x thing and bad at y thing. If a faction can eliminate their y with using mods or researches of another factions, that could easily lead to an overpowered faction. And as i said the faction would also lose a part of their uniqueness.

Well the whole point of the mod and secret tech system is to mitigate your weaknesses or double down on your strengths.

Access to other races has been a calling card of the series forever.

Remove that and we have the boring system of endless legend.

Edit: I've just realised the obvious. One can have racial access wih racial tech access!


It *could* be enough, depending on how the core faction units okay and if there is decent enough synergy with the secret tech and the secondary race.

For example if promethean dvar is how you start, is promethean still relevant when you get 5 kirko cities?

Because imho if it isn't that is arguably worse than homogeneity.


Also if you can access the units then the homogeneity argument still stands, regardless of racial tech.

Also, @Myr your experience differs from mine.

I go into an aow3 game looking to do something particular and if a conquered race doesn't support that then I migrate them.


For example I might want to have flying stacks by the end game.

Any orc city I find is likely getting migrated.

Any hafling or elf city survives.

I do think a reworked racial governance model would give us a bit more flavour from racial tech and actually reflect the situation on the ground.

If somehow you stared with just DVAR but ended up with only Amazon cities, but many of them, why wouldn't you, logically, be able to access their tech?

I think a simple proposal like (research points of empire)*(.1 for every city of race owned. Cap it at 0.8 so your original race will always produce more research )

Wouldn't apply to your own cities. They'd always be *1.


That way the most research you'd ever get would require 8 kirko cities and be capped at 80% of your max.

Your one dvar city you started with would still be producing 100% research.

In other words it would always be more efficient to research your own race tech regardless of number of cities owned, but you'd have to work pretty hard at maximising alien tech research.


Given what we've seen if the game so far, I get the very very strong impression that, functionally speaking a sector now is equivalent to a city before, and a city now is more like 5 old cities joined together.

In other words there will be far far fewer cities in planetfall than we are used to.

Edit: @Fenraellis good point likening it to access to class tech in aow3.

The solution I'm proposing here is a strong soft cap meaning full access to another tech tree would only happen if someone was, realistically, actively prolonging the game, playing an XL map with slowest growth but faster research etc.

And imho one ought not to design around that!

 

[Fenraellis]

I would counter that Faction (choice) + Secret Tech (choice) + NPC-Faction Techs (semi-randomly available, plus depending on diplomacy) + possibly Hidden/Landmark/Site-Reward Techs (completely randomly available) gives pretty decent variety. Even just low tier techs of other Factions seems like enough to me, personally, if anything from secondary Factions came into play(which it has been said it will). Or at the very least, heavy investment in a secondary faction to unlock somewhere between "more" and "all" of their tech tree. Developing Racial Governance in secondary races took some effort, after all.

On an unrelated note:

If somehow you stared with just DVAR but ended up with only Amazon cities, but many of them, why wouldn't you, logically, be able to access their tech?

I propose that you can always migrate colonies to your Leader's Core Faction, even if you no longer have cities of said Faction, for one reason or another. This would represent being able to rally independents of your Faction 'from the countryside' until they represent a majority population in a given colony. Presumably it would require the maximum time frame for Migration, or some time frame based upon population size(current population value divided by two, for example).

This would prevent the situation you just mentioned where somebody loses their Core Faction for some reason, but still is otherwise in an economic position which allows them to contest the game. But if they can can only deeply research the Core Faction, they would likely be rather crippled, and thus not actually be able to contest in reality.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

Sounds like a good idea.

 

[HousePet]

Each faction's military tech tree contains faction units, defensive mods and some strategic/tactical commands.
Getting access to those wouldn't be too game changing, as you won't necessarily have the right weapon techs to mod the base units.

One important thing to consider is that if you are going to keep other faction colonies and not migrate them, then you are effectively trying to reunite the Star Union. That option shouldn't be made sub optimal, because rebuilding the Star Union is a critical point of the setting. (I'd also like to see it as an alternative victory condition somehow, as its the opposite of the Doomsday victory.)

The question is obviously 'how is the tech going to be handled?', and I haven't seen any bad suggestions so far. (But that may be a lack of feel for the game mechanics.)

 

[The Masked Man]

Well I personally want to purge and devour everyone that isn't an insect as penance for enslaving my kind.

I just hope that keeping with a single species population isn't like crippling yourself.