Community brainstorm AoWP

[Leon Feargus]

I´m copying this from the thread I made in the Steam Planetfal discussions section, because it might make more sense here and get a bit more traction.

There´s still a long way to go untill release, so in the meantime I thought it might be nice to assist the devs by offering our brain-nuggets. I figured that if we can think of a thousand and one features for Planetfall, be it from a tiny status effect to an entire race, then if even just one of those features gets implemented we have done a good job. But mainly... it will keep us busy and engaged.

So, have fun everyone!!!

Edit:
In case the devs use this thread as a source of inspiration, I thought I would make edits to this first post to capture other small threads with ideas that might otherwise be forgotten.

- https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...tion-battlefield-interactive-objects.1111971/

 

[Leon Feargus]

Considering there is a miss chance that, if I understand correctly, can trigger on ranged attacks, I am thinking of a tech that allows for Holographic Projections. It should be a rather cheap tech that can be used to momentarily confuse the opponent.

Description:
- Select the Holographic Projection ability.
- Select a target friendly unit.
- Select 2 hexes adjacent to the unit.
- The unit will move to 1 of the hexes and the projection will move to the other.
The projection is the mirror image of the original unit and cannot be distinguished by the enemy. However, the projection cannot attack, only move.
When taking incoming fire, the attack will miss.
When attacked in melee, the projection will disappear.

I think this would encourage some interesting decision making for all players involved. The opponent will have to choose to either engage one of the targets and possibly waste an action or wait it out. But the initiating player also has to choose because as soon as they attack with the original unit, they give up on the decoy.

 

[Dwarfurious]

Dvar's armor covers their glorious beards, so the armor should have beard designs on them. Clearly these would indicate rank, like a medal or chevrons or big hats would for others.

 

[Thrake]

Dvar's armor covers their glorious beards, so the armor should have beard designs on them. Clearly these would indicate rank, like a medal or chevrons or big hats would for others.

That's so old-fashionned. The new trend in dvar are holowgraphic beards, always clean even after crawling in mud, does not take fire with flamethrowers and does not look messy whenever you lost your razor in the last skirmish. Fully customizable in a glance and can be displayed over the armor.

 

[Destrada]

Can we have rogue robots as a playable race? I like the idea of one of the things that brought down the Star Union being a spontaneous awakening to sentience among its machine servants.

 

[LennartGS]

I can say we've got a Robot NPC faction called the Autonom.

 

[Destrada]

I can say we've got a Robot NPC faction called the Autonom.

Not as a playable faction, though? Sounds like something good for an expansion later.

 

[Leon Feargus]

I can say we've got a Robot NPC faction called the Autonom.

Cool.
I propose to change the name to Autonomata, it´s a combination of autonomous and automata (or Autonomaton for the singular automaton).
It may be a bit long but unfortunately Autobots is probably already trademarked and Robomous sounds silly.

 

[Gloweye]

Not as a playable faction, though? Sounds like something good for an expansion later.

Define playable...

Compare it to a Dwelling from AoW3 - you can't start as one, but you can get it into your empire and use them.

 

[Destrada]

Define playable...

Compare it to a Dwelling from AoW3 - you can't start as one, but you can get it into your empire and use them.

Think the Silicates from Space: Above and Beyond.

 

[mr_stibbons]

Can we have rogue robots as a playable race? I like the idea of one of the things that brought down the Star Union being a spontaneous awakening to sentience among its machine servants.

I have a feeling that one of the class themes is going to be a not-quite-undercontrol AI. So you can live through the AI uprising yourself!

 

[Chikanuk]

Hope to see a hive race. Not as pure enemy, but as unique race with unique mechanics and recruitable units. For example regular soldiers have highest morale if they under Overlord unit(s) influence, have low base morale if they not, and suffer damage\debuff if their overlord die. Maybe queen\princess unit, who have overlord ability and can spawn weak units. "Living weapons" or mix between biotech and regular tech will be good too.
It case of -"how hive-mind race can have settlement with different diplomacy" - every hive can be independed hive-mind, ruled by queen and\or few viziers\generals.

 

[Fluksen]

Hope to see a hive race. Not as pure enemy, but as unique race with unique mechanics and recruitable units. [...]

I think you are talking about the Kir'Ko and that is a race that's in the game: http://aow.triumph.net/forums/topic/aow-planetfall-collected-knowledge/#post-272251

 

[Chikanuk]

I think you are talking about the Kir'Ko and that is a race that's in the game: http://aow.triumph.net/forums/topic/aow-planetfall-collected-knowledge/#post-272251

Oh, thx for this link, miss this info for some reason. Yes, maybe they will be my sort of race. Hope to see more info about this race soon. And all over races in general.

 

[NewNameNeeded6]

Hi, I'm a longtime fan, so I'm here to share my opinion. I am probably gonna be pretty negative in some aspects, but bear with me and feel free to disagree.

One of the main things that bothered me in AoW3 (which I liked), in contrast to AoW:SM (which I loved), was that although the battles were hugely improved, the strategic potential and creativity on the main map was pretty limited because:

1.conquest and map control became way too dependent on cities (you can't raze or occupy mines, there's really no reason for a garrison to leave the safety of the town. You can only expand by owning more cities), which ultimately lead to reduced amount of skirmishes and more doomstacking (your goal is always to take the enemy city - not his resources or mana relays) so your troops just need raw power on the battle map
2.I might be alone here, but the map scale was a bit weird for me. All your cities were at most 2 turns away from your next city, which kinda made units having high movement or forestry kinda redundant compared to AoW:SM, not to mention the vision range was pretty low for your units, which is, again, a consequence of there being relatively little point to skirmishing behind enemy lines;
3.terrain had relatively little importance - units could cross mountains without mountaineering and units just turn into boats on water (why freeze water for crossing when you can just wait an extra turn for free? Why have mountaineering when you don't really gain anything from it, or build forts on chokepoints?), which, though balanced, makes things quite boring;
4.above ground spells had relatively little impact on the game, ultimately feeling underwhelmed by the power of my all-powerful wizard. I wanted see more things like poison domain, summoning of evil woods and pestilence clouds, enchanting units with speed spells and all that jazz.

So what would I actually like to see in the new game? Well, related to my prior points:

1.you should be able either effectively disrupt your opponents economy with a small party of units, either by making resources be located farther from cities (so the garrison can't just pop outside the town for a turn without risk), or or there being other points on the map to capture for strategic benefit (dwellings were pretty cool, but ultimately pretty useless unless you invested heavily in them. Maybe they could provide special resources the devs mentioned on another thread?);
2.increase vision range to be almost on par with movement range in normal circumstances;
3.new planets I assume probably provide new hazards, so it would be cool seeing some terrain features that require a different approach (oh look, a super magnetic stone field, we can't have planes flying across this small patch of land, or some electric mist that ruins complex electric equipment, that just so happens to lead to the enemy resource site. Doesn't that require an interesting strategic approach? Just don't do what Civ:BE did and make it meaningless once you get some tech.)
4.I would love to see players able to change the land in some way. Maybe I could make a neuro-toxin generator? Some electro-static-shield thingy? Artillery emplacements to harass anyone approaching that ridge? Giving tanks special modules, allowing them to move much faster?

Anyway, just thought I'd share my thoughts for once. Love you guys, keep up the good work!

 

[Leyrann]

1.conquest and map control became way too dependent on cities (you can't raze or occupy mines, there's really no reason for a garrison to leave the safety of the town. You can only expand by owning more cities), which ultimately lead to reduced amount of skirmishes and more doomstacking (your goal is always to take the enemy city - not his resources or mana relays) so your troops just need raw power on the battle map

Sectors will probably change this, as you can just pick off a sector and add it to your own city if the opponent doesn't defend it, so he'll have to come get that sector back.

2.I might be alone here, but the map scale was a bit weird for me. All your cities were at most 2 turns away from your next city, which kinda made units having high movement or forestry kinda redundant compared to AoW:SM, not to mention the vision range was pretty low for your units, which is, again, a consequence of there being relatively little point to skirmishing behind enemy lines;

Here too, I suppose sectors will increase map scale, as they limit where you can build cities (you can't build one in every sector).

3.terrain had relatively little importance - units could cross mountains without mountaineering and units just turn into boats on water (why freeze water for crossing when you can just wait an extra turn for free? Why have mountaineering when you don't really gain anything from it, or build forts on chokepoints?), which, though balanced, makes things quite boring;

I disagree here; yes you can cross mountains, but by going two tiles per turn (compared to what, 5 or 6 with mountaineering?) they were still well defensible, and in my opinion this is more realistic.

2.increase vision range to be almost on par with movement range in normal circumstances;

Disagreed; this just isn't realistic. You can see like 4 or 5 km away on flat land, but you can travel like 40 km a day; the numbers in earlier AoW games were already mitigated for gameplay purposes, and they made sense. In fact that's why scouts are important; you can use them to make sure your army doesn't get surprised and assaulted out in the open by a strike force.

3.new planets I assume probably provide new hazards, so it would be cool seeing some terrain features that require a different approach (oh look, a super magnetic stone field, we can't have planes flying across this small patch of land, or some electric mist that ruins complex electric equipment, that just so happens to lead to the enemy resource site. Doesn't that require an interesting strategic approach?

Kind of want to disagree here as well from a science point of view, but it does probably make for good gameplay.

I would love to see players able to change the land in some way.

YES!

 

[NewNameNeeded6]

Sectors will probably change this, as you can just pick off a sector and add it to your own city if the opponent doesn't defend it, so he'll have to come get that sector back.

That sounds pretty cool.

I disagree here; yes you can cross mountains, but by going two tiles per turn (compared to what, 5 or 6 with mountaineering?) they were still well defensible, and in my opinion this is more realistic.

I suppose I wouldn't have a problem with all units being able to cross mountains if there were other terrain features (like the ones I mentioned further down), this just bothered me in AoW3.

Disagreed; this just isn't realistic. You can see like 4 or 5 km away on flat land, but you can travel like 40 km a day; the numbers in earlier AoW games were already mitigated for gameplay purposes, and they made sense. In fact that's why scouts are important; you can use them to make sure your army doesn't get surprised and assaulted out in the open by a strike force.

My main reason for some sort of vision range change is that in AoW3, early game there's independents roaming about that kill your scouts, which makes them expensive to replace, and late game your units end up clashing too suddenly for my taste. IMO, you should be able to see your enemy before either of you can engage each other, which was the case in SM. Besides that, there is realism in the fact that your units can withdraw while keeping their army in sight.

 

[Bob5]

There are ways to circumvent losing all your scouts. Parking them above rivers or mountains works very well for me. The common scoundrels only have 2 hexes of movement range on mountains, way less than the vision range of most scouts. Warlord Scouts have 3 vision range (4 with Scout Training), Floating units like Wisps and Spy Drones have 4 vision range on the surface layer, and Flying units like Crows and Cherubs have 5 vision range on the surface layer. It's funny that you on one hand say terrain has too little influence, yet don't realise how you can take advantage of it to keep your scouts alive. Cherubs even have a decent chance of surviving encounters with the stacks of 3 Lost Souls.

I personally prefer the AoW3 system. You can get ambushed if you're not careful, but if you scout well ahead you can avoid most of that.

 

[Leon Feargus]

Here are some more of my ideas:

Return Fire (unit ability):
When this ranged unit is attacked from range it will spend action points to shoot back. During the next turn its action points will be reduced. This should basically work exactly the same as the retaliation system for melee units.
Extra Action (unit ability):
This unit has 4 actions points instead of 3.

I think these abilities will make for a nice combo. Maybe the Extra Action can come from an Insuline Injection module.

The sci-fi scaffolding (destructable terrain):
Units can take cover behind the scaffolding but if it gets destroyed it will come crashing down with a load of buckets of high-tech paint and whatnot causing damage to all adjacent units.

 

[Destrada]

Here are some more of my ideas:

Return Fire (unit ability):
When this ranged unit is attacked from range it will spend action points to shoot back. During the next turn its action points will be reduced. This should basically work exactly the same as the retaliation system for melee units.
Extra Action (unit ability):
This unit has 4 actions points instead of 3.

I think these abilities will make for a nice combo. Maybe the Extra Action can come from an Insuline Injection module.

The sci-fi scaffolding (destructable terrain):
Units can take cover behind the scaffolding but if it gets destroyed it will come crashing down with a load of buckets of high-tech paint and whatnot causing damage to all adjacent units.

Return Fire sounds like a reasonable idea. I play Infinity, so shooting back is a "Yes, please!" for me.

Not too sold on the idea of extra action points. Seems a game-breaker.

The scaffold sounds just plain fun.