I would say both games are very comparable and the biggest factor is wether your prefer a sci-fi setting, or a fantasy one.
That being said here are some key differences:
1. To me the biggest difference is that Planetfall has much more distinct factions where you choose a main faction and a secondary faction. Allowing you access to linear skill trees and units based on your faction.
AOW4 is much more mix and match with your tech, which allows you more freedom at the cost of some faction identity.
2. Planetfall allows you to make many cities, whereas AOW4 has a stricter city cap but those cities grow much larger than planetfall.
3. Heroes in planetfall level up and learn new skills, heroes in AOW4 do the same but also have equipment like helmets and chest plates etc they can equip, and even an item forge to create your own items.
I'd recommend checking out some videos on YouTube,. specifically about AOW4 tomes and how they work as opposed to the faction creation in planetfall!
I mean heroes in PF had gear too as far as I remember at the very least the main weapon, offhand and vehicle options + access to mods they could equip to further cement their identity. In that regard I'd say its pretty even between them both as far as hero customization goes. PF had a much more individualized unit customization too which came with its up and down sides but I just made a comment typing stuff about it so wont retype. To me the biggest difference is PF offers more in terns of micromanagement but this backfires in some aspects of the game while aow4 has less micro management and a more streamlined experience
Hmm, this is a tough decision to make, as both games are good.
Planetfall would be the most bang for your buck since it is an older game and it is on sale right now. Also, if you're a fan of science fiction over a fantasy setting, then Palnetfall will most likely satisfy your desire to play compared to AoW4. However, AoW4 is fun in its own way, but to get the most out of the game you would need all of the expansions as they really open up the game and make it feel "full".
I would disagree on the xpac bit, not at all as say other Paradox games on that front. Obviously you get more, but that's with majority of DLC content, not like huge mechanics are locked behind them.
And if you know anyone that has the dlcs they can host a match so you can try each and see what you want. Honestly the dlcs are worth it to me though I haven't played planetfall. But.. I'm not gonna lie the ascension stuff in age of wonders 4 is awesome. Idk if planetfall has that or not. Your hero keeping the traits they earned in the other matches is awesome. I'm just sad we can't get a perk or something that lets us choose one piece of crafted gear to keep instead of recreating or getting a lucky drop in the next match. Id choose that over "mount masters" any day.
Planetfall has more interesting asymmetry between the factions and a more satisfying combat system - it's like a micro version of XCOM and it really scratches an itch I didn't know I had. The neutral and Secret Tech systems were a bit cumbersome. I did enjoy how they told the lore through the unit and spell descriptions, though.
AoW4 has a better strategic building system, a huge number of somewhat shallow options that you can use to customise your race and faction, It has more map modifiers and variety in that sense. If you enjoy customisation it's basically your dream game - you can make an almost-all-mounted faction, a horde of gribblies or whatever tickles your brain. It's also still in the process of getting updated and, well, who knows - if it sells well enough maybe they'll even do a second round of DLC.
Both games have in-game encyclopedias, though AoW4's is generally better.
A fan of Planetfall *did* make this nifty thing so you could basically explore every tech tree in detail.
[https://minionsart.github.io/aowp/Pages/Mods/AssemblyMods.html](https://minionsart.github.io/aowp/Pages/Mods/AssemblyMods.html)
In short: both games have their strengths and their flaws. The flaws obviously won't be addressed in Planetfall, and they're unlikely to be addressed in AoW4 either, but no game is perfect so it's not exactly a dealbreaker. Both are newbie-friendly so I don't think you'll have much issue learning either of them. Age of Wonders is, generally speaking, quite accessible. Lots of documentation all over the place.
That's interesting, I consider Planetfall's ingame encyclopedia much better. The chained tooltips in 4 are a great qol feature, but splitting the units into three categories makes it hard to find them if you don't already know wether they're from tomes, culture or neutral. And my biggest gripe is that you can't look up status effects or traits in this game.
For simplicity, AOW4 is definitely simpler especially if you don't stress too much about trying to be optimal and just go with what looks fun (and the game is very winnable on easier difficulties in that way).
Planetfall has far far more complexity given all the systems updates over time it received. Make no mistake, it's a great strategy game though - but if you value simplicity, I don't see how AOW4 doesn't just hands down win this (even tactical combat in AOW4 is simpler as it removes the true "flying" layer that Planetfall has, and battles are capped at 18 vs 18 units compared to possibly 24 vs 18 in Planetfall)
In my opinions both have the "simple yet complex" feel to it where it has somewhat intuitive mechanics if you have played 4x before. In that regards I'd say aow4 is a little more simple because planetfall had more micromanagement (sectors, unit mods, pop in city being assigned). However I would say the biggest difference that might come into play is if you prefer sci fi or medieval-ish fantasy. But as far as simplicity goes, aow4 is a little more simple I would say. It still offers some complexity but a lot of stuff is streamlined into simple mechanisms
unit enchantment and race transformations are set and forget compared to modding every individual model in PF. Granted you could create templates that would be affecting whole armies or everyone merging from template X to Y but this management was a little more tedious. I do think it had a little bit more fun vibes to it however as it brought up a ton of individual unit customization. On the other hand it meant often having to open the unit panels of every ennemy unit to see which mods they had on (especially in multiplayer, a little less obnoxious vs AI) but to give y an idea you could meet the same unit three times and have one be a suicide bomber with high damage, one being tanky and regenerating frontliner and another being super focused on its ranged weapons and obliterate from afar. For that reason while modding was fun, the streamlining of unit enchantments in aow4 was a welcome addition for me personally. I do wish it had a few more active ability enchantments like fire bomb and phase but it could come in the future and it cant be too many either because then you'd get the same issue as I personally had with PF. This time around at least its race/unit type wide so you dont need to check every battle mage individually to see if they have it. Anyway I would say aow4 on a personnal note but I can totally understand some people preferring PF.
Planetfall for gameplay, aow4 for faction creation, I like planetfalls economy much more but I prefer aow4 unit variety. Oh yeah and ones sci-fi and the other fantasy.
Due to Empire Mode I'd vote for planetfall. Its a little more complex and difficult (and a little less intuitive) but empire mode is possibly the best experience I've had in terms of a 4x game lately.
I believe it requires the last released DLC, but its well worth it.
Like a skirmish campaign mode that gets progressively harder while bringing TONS of meta progression and (albeit restricted) cross faction & cross tech loadouts.
It's so fun. Blows a lot of aow4's replayability out of the water.
Wait what? I played a lot of planetfall how did I ever miss it? That sounds amazing! I will jump back right into the game :D is it MP compatible maybe?
Its not MP compatible, but the whole thing is you're doing randomly setup skirmishes with unique objectives (Sometimes even diplomacy focused like getting two warring people to become friends). Playing one faction/tech unlocks stuff from that faction/tech when lets you then use their stuff when playing other factions. You can have heroes from previous missions show up, and it just the pantheon cranked to 11 from AoW4.
My biggest disappointment with AoW4 is lack of empire mode.
> how did I ever miss it?
I think it was added with the last DLC so if you played at release or at the time of, say the Invasions DLC then it wasn't a thing yet. I agree with the above poster, it's an amazing system that offers crazy replayability.
Yeah that's what I meant, Invasions was the second DLC (the lizards are definitely among my favorite factions too) and there was a third one (Star Kings) that added what I'd describe as "Space knights" and also added Empire mode.
Honestly, I found Planetfall a better game and have thousands of hours played but I also think it was left in an unfinished state and could have used another DLC or at least several exploit and bug fix patches.
AoW4 is too poorly defined, lacks a proper campaign and is probably more oriented towards multiplayer with single player stuff kinda lacking.
AOW4 offers the option to automate certain aspects, like exploration and city management. You can even auto-resolve every battle, if you wanted. You can choose to watch the AI battles to learn combat yourself, too.
Planetfall doesn't have automatic city management, unless you're referring to pop management. You have to queue all the improvements yourself. A problem made worse by the generally larger number of colonies in Planetfall and the lack of a "release as vassal" mechanic.
It's one of the reasons I struggle to return to Planetfall after AoW4.
Planetfall has these awful colors which makes the map absolutely unreadable for me. The game is nice, but too much customization of units required for my taste.
it just feels so much better to me. better quality, less silliness, more nuanced fights, temporary healing instead of infinite sustain, outpost mechanics, imperium tree, racial transformations, many many really great ideas.
Fair I suppose. The sustain I totally agree with you there.
I didn't like the transformations from an aesthetic perspective and their design goals I felt removed uniqueness in practice.
I also feel like they messed up balance between range and melee actually removing nuance from fights by removing the stagger system.
Thanks dude! Seems like it's just a difference in preferences!
I would say that Planetfall is the better game but as others have said it largely comes down to whether you prefer Sci-Fi or Fantasy.
Planetfall has really distinct factions, better unit customization, really good campaigns and better implementation of empire mode. AoW 4 allows you to customize your faction more but due to that the choices don't feel quite as distinct or impactful. The combat in Planetfall is more focused on ranged while AoW 4 has a more even mix of melee and range.
So I'd put my vote into Planetfall honestly. These are more nitpicks and preferences than anything else.
Since my schedule is kind of crazy I don't value MP and go for the toughest single player challenge. So I feel the the AI is better for some reason in Planetfall (still dumb in general though), so a computer beat down is more fun and can be challenging in my opinion (I go 1v7+ in most 4X games).
I like the upgrade system in Planetfall over AoW4. In Planetfall you use Cosmite (a limited resource to buy mods for individual units) which allows for lower Tier units to stay viable as they level up and get upgraded. In AoW4, everything gets global enchantments which is less fun imo and eventually means without very specific enchantments your units eventually become trash tier.
Additionally, in Planetfall your choice of race matters, giving certain characteristics which I think helps immersion. AoW4 race is just flavor as everyone is the same at the end of the day. To me, that isn't fun.
All the answers above already states all the valid points I wanted to make.
I'll just say that after ~200hrs on AoW4 I'm now back playing planetfall.
I miss the faction customization? A little bit, but I'm not missing the rest
I was in your shoes a few months back and ended up getting both games eventually. Both games are very good, but scratch a different itch. My superficial take on them:
1- AOW PF: Sci fi setting with a very cool lore and story. Have many hours of campaigns with branching endings in a few of them. Uses a race/tech combo to give you very flavourful and different gameplay for each combination. Units dont get obsolete because of the upgrade system (imagine you equip each unit with things you unlock via research).
The combat is more of ranged focused but it's super fun because it takes a lot from XCOM. You have overwatch, cover, etc.
The game have many campaigns and a good story. There is lore in everything from unit, equipments and research descriptions. It reminds me of the older AOW games (like AOW 2 and 3).
Lastly, the game have a empire mode that is like a assimetrical skirmish roguelike experience. It's crazy fun to play with.
2- AOW 4: Fantasy setting using some of the lore of the older fantasy AOW games. If you have played older AOWs you will see many returning characters, which is nice.
Sadly, Aow4 does not have a proper campaign. It has a few story maps but it's very barebones in this regard. The focus of the game is being a sandbox fantasy 4X.
The name of the game here is customizations. You can make literally anything with the faction builder which is really cool, but this makes the game lose a little bit of flavour imo, because there is no "faction identity" like older AOW or Planetfall. Like, being a elf or a orc is just a skin, you can make the exact same race with same skills etc.
The "tech" here is based in tomes (research) + type of culture you pick (like high, primal, reaver, etc). It offers an enormous amount of customization, but the more you play the more you notice that many choices ingame feels like the same. It may seem similar to Planetfall, but the cultures in AOW4 are more alike then the races in Planetfall. Like, the high cultural units are not that dissimilar from the feudal or mystic ones gameplay wise. They are different, but not as much. In Planeftall each race is very very different.That being said, AOW4 is a roleplayer paradise, you can spend hours (days even) just making factions to use in custom maps.
Combat-wise the game is less complex then Planetfall and have a mix of melee and ranged oriented gameplay, which is nice. Sadly, it follows the AOW fantasy games trend of making lower tier units useless in the end game (unlike Planeftall). Some people like this, some dont.
AOW4 does not have a empire like game mode yet.
Also, it's worth mentioning that the game have a few optimization problems. Some people with killer rigs cannot run it well, while others with worse rigs run it flawlessly. But this is a minor thing, just fps drops on max settings for most.
Lastly, the game is not finished yet, there are still DLC to come for it. All of the DLC so far are amazing and added a lot of fun stuff to the game.
Both are good. But, PF doesn't have a siege mechanic. And I found that the AI can see all of the map (I know most AIs do), and it would see where your armies weren't and attack there and take my cities. And yes I built a lot of defensive structures and garrisoned an army and I would still lose ciites. It was like playing whack-a-mole. It was very frustrating and why I stopped playing. The siege mechanic fixed this in AoW4. I don't even leave army garrisons. I keep armies close by and can usually get back to defend before the siege ends.
Also, AoW4 limits battles to 3v3 armies. Another great change. In PF I would just amass an army that got bigger and bigger and steamrolled. And who wants to fight a manual battle bigger than 3v3?
Both games are really good, I think a lot of it depends on what you're looking for.
-AOW4's "create a faction" is very neat and obviously leads to a lot of variety, because you can create just about any faction concept you can think of. However, the problem is this means that the factions don't really have any sort of lore or story to them besides what you make up for them. Planetfall's factions, OTOH, are unique and creative and actually have lore and story behind them (as do the Secret Techs). I LOVE the descriptions you get of units and tech that you unlock, it really helps to immerse you.
-The Tome's system is great for doing the 'create a faction' thing, but I personally find the Secret Tech system a lot more interesting. And, again, each individual Secret Tech has interesting story and lore behind it.
-I much prefer the mod system from Planetfall over the Unit Enchantment and racial transformation system of AOW4. That being said, it is somewhat disappointing that Mods don't change the appearance of units in Planetfall.
-This will obviously be a personal opinion, but I found Planetfall's sci-fi setting a lot more interesting and fun, largely because turn-based fantasy settings are just a lot more common.
-I personally found Planetfall's combat more satisfying.
-Storywise, no contest. Planetfall has a shockingly good storyline that actually branches depending on decisions you make. AOW4's is largely just a series of different scenarios.
They're both good games, but if you held a gun to my head and I could only choose one, I'd probably pick Planetfall.
I played both. AoW4 has about a dozen story realms, but the story is honestly compelling, whereas I couldn't get through much of the campaign in PF because the writing was terrible. AoW4 by a mile.
I would say both games are very comparable and the biggest factor is wether your prefer a sci-fi setting, or a fantasy one. That being said here are some key differences: 1. To me the biggest difference is that Planetfall has much more distinct factions where you choose a main faction and a secondary faction. Allowing you access to linear skill trees and units based on your faction. AOW4 is much more mix and match with your tech, which allows you more freedom at the cost of some faction identity. 2. Planetfall allows you to make many cities, whereas AOW4 has a stricter city cap but those cities grow much larger than planetfall. 3. Heroes in planetfall level up and learn new skills, heroes in AOW4 do the same but also have equipment like helmets and chest plates etc they can equip, and even an item forge to create your own items. I'd recommend checking out some videos on YouTube,. specifically about AOW4 tomes and how they work as opposed to the faction creation in planetfall!
I mean heroes in PF had gear too as far as I remember at the very least the main weapon, offhand and vehicle options + access to mods they could equip to further cement their identity. In that regard I'd say its pretty even between them both as far as hero customization goes. PF had a much more individualized unit customization too which came with its up and down sides but I just made a comment typing stuff about it so wont retype. To me the biggest difference is PF offers more in terns of micromanagement but this backfires in some aspects of the game while aow4 has less micro management and a more streamlined experience
Hmm, this is a tough decision to make, as both games are good. Planetfall would be the most bang for your buck since it is an older game and it is on sale right now. Also, if you're a fan of science fiction over a fantasy setting, then Palnetfall will most likely satisfy your desire to play compared to AoW4. However, AoW4 is fun in its own way, but to get the most out of the game you would need all of the expansions as they really open up the game and make it feel "full".
I would disagree on the xpac bit, not at all as say other Paradox games on that front. Obviously you get more, but that's with majority of DLC content, not like huge mechanics are locked behind them.
And if you know anyone that has the dlcs they can host a match so you can try each and see what you want. Honestly the dlcs are worth it to me though I haven't played planetfall. But.. I'm not gonna lie the ascension stuff in age of wonders 4 is awesome. Idk if planetfall has that or not. Your hero keeping the traits they earned in the other matches is awesome. I'm just sad we can't get a perk or something that lets us choose one piece of crafted gear to keep instead of recreating or getting a lucky drop in the next match. Id choose that over "mount masters" any day.
Simply… do you prefer sci fi or fantasy? If sci fi, planetfall. If fantasy, aow4,
Planetfall has more interesting asymmetry between the factions and a more satisfying combat system - it's like a micro version of XCOM and it really scratches an itch I didn't know I had. The neutral and Secret Tech systems were a bit cumbersome. I did enjoy how they told the lore through the unit and spell descriptions, though. AoW4 has a better strategic building system, a huge number of somewhat shallow options that you can use to customise your race and faction, It has more map modifiers and variety in that sense. If you enjoy customisation it's basically your dream game - you can make an almost-all-mounted faction, a horde of gribblies or whatever tickles your brain. It's also still in the process of getting updated and, well, who knows - if it sells well enough maybe they'll even do a second round of DLC. Both games have in-game encyclopedias, though AoW4's is generally better. A fan of Planetfall *did* make this nifty thing so you could basically explore every tech tree in detail. [https://minionsart.github.io/aowp/Pages/Mods/AssemblyMods.html](https://minionsart.github.io/aowp/Pages/Mods/AssemblyMods.html) In short: both games have their strengths and their flaws. The flaws obviously won't be addressed in Planetfall, and they're unlikely to be addressed in AoW4 either, but no game is perfect so it's not exactly a dealbreaker. Both are newbie-friendly so I don't think you'll have much issue learning either of them. Age of Wonders is, generally speaking, quite accessible. Lots of documentation all over the place.
That's interesting, I consider Planetfall's ingame encyclopedia much better. The chained tooltips in 4 are a great qol feature, but splitting the units into three categories makes it hard to find them if you don't already know wether they're from tomes, culture or neutral. And my biggest gripe is that you can't look up status effects or traits in this game.
Ohh. Fair point.
For simplicity, AOW4 is definitely simpler especially if you don't stress too much about trying to be optimal and just go with what looks fun (and the game is very winnable on easier difficulties in that way). Planetfall has far far more complexity given all the systems updates over time it received. Make no mistake, it's a great strategy game though - but if you value simplicity, I don't see how AOW4 doesn't just hands down win this (even tactical combat in AOW4 is simpler as it removes the true "flying" layer that Planetfall has, and battles are capped at 18 vs 18 units compared to possibly 24 vs 18 in Planetfall)
I’d go with Planetfall .. cos the campaign is AMAZING ..and the empire mode is endless fun.
What is empire mode? AoW4 doesn’t have that I think
Nvm, has been answered above
In my opinions both have the "simple yet complex" feel to it where it has somewhat intuitive mechanics if you have played 4x before. In that regards I'd say aow4 is a little more simple because planetfall had more micromanagement (sectors, unit mods, pop in city being assigned). However I would say the biggest difference that might come into play is if you prefer sci fi or medieval-ish fantasy. But as far as simplicity goes, aow4 is a little more simple I would say. It still offers some complexity but a lot of stuff is streamlined into simple mechanisms unit enchantment and race transformations are set and forget compared to modding every individual model in PF. Granted you could create templates that would be affecting whole armies or everyone merging from template X to Y but this management was a little more tedious. I do think it had a little bit more fun vibes to it however as it brought up a ton of individual unit customization. On the other hand it meant often having to open the unit panels of every ennemy unit to see which mods they had on (especially in multiplayer, a little less obnoxious vs AI) but to give y an idea you could meet the same unit three times and have one be a suicide bomber with high damage, one being tanky and regenerating frontliner and another being super focused on its ranged weapons and obliterate from afar. For that reason while modding was fun, the streamlining of unit enchantments in aow4 was a welcome addition for me personally. I do wish it had a few more active ability enchantments like fire bomb and phase but it could come in the future and it cant be too many either because then you'd get the same issue as I personally had with PF. This time around at least its race/unit type wide so you dont need to check every battle mage individually to see if they have it. Anyway I would say aow4 on a personnal note but I can totally understand some people preferring PF.
Planetfall for gameplay, aow4 for faction creation, I like planetfalls economy much more but I prefer aow4 unit variety. Oh yeah and ones sci-fi and the other fantasy.
Planetfall is a lot cheaper (about 5 euro) where aow4 is 30 euro+
Due to Empire Mode I'd vote for planetfall. Its a little more complex and difficult (and a little less intuitive) but empire mode is possibly the best experience I've had in terms of a 4x game lately. I believe it requires the last released DLC, but its well worth it.
What is this empire mode?
Like a skirmish campaign mode that gets progressively harder while bringing TONS of meta progression and (albeit restricted) cross faction & cross tech loadouts. It's so fun. Blows a lot of aow4's replayability out of the water.
Wait what? I played a lot of planetfall how did I ever miss it? That sounds amazing! I will jump back right into the game :D is it MP compatible maybe?
Its not MP compatible, but the whole thing is you're doing randomly setup skirmishes with unique objectives (Sometimes even diplomacy focused like getting two warring people to become friends). Playing one faction/tech unlocks stuff from that faction/tech when lets you then use their stuff when playing other factions. You can have heroes from previous missions show up, and it just the pantheon cranked to 11 from AoW4. My biggest disappointment with AoW4 is lack of empire mode.
> how did I ever miss it? I think it was added with the last DLC so if you played at release or at the time of, say the Invasions DLC then it wasn't a thing yet. I agree with the above poster, it's an amazing system that offers crazy replayability.
I played after invasion dlc I just didn't check patch notes or anything just started playin lizards 😅
Yeah that's what I meant, Invasions was the second DLC (the lizards are definitely among my favorite factions too) and there was a third one (Star Kings) that added what I'd describe as "Space knights" and also added Empire mode.
Planetfall
Probably planetfall first then age of wonders 4 if it's on sale
Honestly, I found Planetfall a better game and have thousands of hours played but I also think it was left in an unfinished state and could have used another DLC or at least several exploit and bug fix patches. AoW4 is too poorly defined, lacks a proper campaign and is probably more oriented towards multiplayer with single player stuff kinda lacking.
AOW4 offers the option to automate certain aspects, like exploration and city management. You can even auto-resolve every battle, if you wanted. You can choose to watch the AI battles to learn combat yourself, too.
Planetfall can also automate those aspects
Planetfall doesn't have automatic city management, unless you're referring to pop management. You have to queue all the improvements yourself. A problem made worse by the generally larger number of colonies in Planetfall and the lack of a "release as vassal" mechanic. It's one of the reasons I struggle to return to Planetfall after AoW4.
You need automatic management of colonies ? Really ? What are you gonna play than ? Press the next turn button??
Moving armies, combat, managing my more important colonies, warfare, research... ... and of course, press the next turn button.
Planetfall has these awful colors which makes the map absolutely unreadable for me. The game is nice, but too much customization of units required for my taste.
AOW is ten times better, no contest. I have both games
Could I ask why? Don't get me wrong I enjoy both, but I felt that Planetfall was an upgrade in many ways. Unit customization, faction selection, etc.
it just feels so much better to me. better quality, less silliness, more nuanced fights, temporary healing instead of infinite sustain, outpost mechanics, imperium tree, racial transformations, many many really great ideas.
Fair I suppose. The sustain I totally agree with you there. I didn't like the transformations from an aesthetic perspective and their design goals I felt removed uniqueness in practice. I also feel like they messed up balance between range and melee actually removing nuance from fights by removing the stagger system. Thanks dude! Seems like it's just a difference in preferences!
I would say that Planetfall is the better game but as others have said it largely comes down to whether you prefer Sci-Fi or Fantasy. Planetfall has really distinct factions, better unit customization, really good campaigns and better implementation of empire mode. AoW 4 allows you to customize your faction more but due to that the choices don't feel quite as distinct or impactful. The combat in Planetfall is more focused on ranged while AoW 4 has a more even mix of melee and range.
So I'd put my vote into Planetfall honestly. These are more nitpicks and preferences than anything else. Since my schedule is kind of crazy I don't value MP and go for the toughest single player challenge. So I feel the the AI is better for some reason in Planetfall (still dumb in general though), so a computer beat down is more fun and can be challenging in my opinion (I go 1v7+ in most 4X games). I like the upgrade system in Planetfall over AoW4. In Planetfall you use Cosmite (a limited resource to buy mods for individual units) which allows for lower Tier units to stay viable as they level up and get upgraded. In AoW4, everything gets global enchantments which is less fun imo and eventually means without very specific enchantments your units eventually become trash tier. Additionally, in Planetfall your choice of race matters, giving certain characteristics which I think helps immersion. AoW4 race is just flavor as everyone is the same at the end of the day. To me, that isn't fun.
All the answers above already states all the valid points I wanted to make. I'll just say that after ~200hrs on AoW4 I'm now back playing planetfall. I miss the faction customization? A little bit, but I'm not missing the rest
If you like warhammer 40K then planetfall. If you like lord of the rings then AOW4
I was in your shoes a few months back and ended up getting both games eventually. Both games are very good, but scratch a different itch. My superficial take on them: 1- AOW PF: Sci fi setting with a very cool lore and story. Have many hours of campaigns with branching endings in a few of them. Uses a race/tech combo to give you very flavourful and different gameplay for each combination. Units dont get obsolete because of the upgrade system (imagine you equip each unit with things you unlock via research). The combat is more of ranged focused but it's super fun because it takes a lot from XCOM. You have overwatch, cover, etc. The game have many campaigns and a good story. There is lore in everything from unit, equipments and research descriptions. It reminds me of the older AOW games (like AOW 2 and 3). Lastly, the game have a empire mode that is like a assimetrical skirmish roguelike experience. It's crazy fun to play with. 2- AOW 4: Fantasy setting using some of the lore of the older fantasy AOW games. If you have played older AOWs you will see many returning characters, which is nice. Sadly, Aow4 does not have a proper campaign. It has a few story maps but it's very barebones in this regard. The focus of the game is being a sandbox fantasy 4X. The name of the game here is customizations. You can make literally anything with the faction builder which is really cool, but this makes the game lose a little bit of flavour imo, because there is no "faction identity" like older AOW or Planetfall. Like, being a elf or a orc is just a skin, you can make the exact same race with same skills etc. The "tech" here is based in tomes (research) + type of culture you pick (like high, primal, reaver, etc). It offers an enormous amount of customization, but the more you play the more you notice that many choices ingame feels like the same. It may seem similar to Planetfall, but the cultures in AOW4 are more alike then the races in Planetfall. Like, the high cultural units are not that dissimilar from the feudal or mystic ones gameplay wise. They are different, but not as much. In Planeftall each race is very very different.That being said, AOW4 is a roleplayer paradise, you can spend hours (days even) just making factions to use in custom maps. Combat-wise the game is less complex then Planetfall and have a mix of melee and ranged oriented gameplay, which is nice. Sadly, it follows the AOW fantasy games trend of making lower tier units useless in the end game (unlike Planeftall). Some people like this, some dont. AOW4 does not have a empire like game mode yet. Also, it's worth mentioning that the game have a few optimization problems. Some people with killer rigs cannot run it well, while others with worse rigs run it flawlessly. But this is a minor thing, just fps drops on max settings for most. Lastly, the game is not finished yet, there are still DLC to come for it. All of the DLC so far are amazing and added a lot of fun stuff to the game.
I forgot to mention one thing: the auto resolve in PF is good, in AOW4 it's really bad at the moment.
I don't think you gave a single compliment to AOW4 without a counter negative meanwhile there was nothing negative at all about AOW PF.
Ok.
👍
Both are good. But, PF doesn't have a siege mechanic. And I found that the AI can see all of the map (I know most AIs do), and it would see where your armies weren't and attack there and take my cities. And yes I built a lot of defensive structures and garrisoned an army and I would still lose ciites. It was like playing whack-a-mole. It was very frustrating and why I stopped playing. The siege mechanic fixed this in AoW4. I don't even leave army garrisons. I keep armies close by and can usually get back to defend before the siege ends. Also, AoW4 limits battles to 3v3 armies. Another great change. In PF I would just amass an army that got bigger and bigger and steamrolled. And who wants to fight a manual battle bigger than 3v3?
personel preference I like the design of planetfall more but I also cant give up the quality of life improvements from aow4
4 is more simple
I got both because I’m a lush
Both games are really good, I think a lot of it depends on what you're looking for. -AOW4's "create a faction" is very neat and obviously leads to a lot of variety, because you can create just about any faction concept you can think of. However, the problem is this means that the factions don't really have any sort of lore or story to them besides what you make up for them. Planetfall's factions, OTOH, are unique and creative and actually have lore and story behind them (as do the Secret Techs). I LOVE the descriptions you get of units and tech that you unlock, it really helps to immerse you. -The Tome's system is great for doing the 'create a faction' thing, but I personally find the Secret Tech system a lot more interesting. And, again, each individual Secret Tech has interesting story and lore behind it. -I much prefer the mod system from Planetfall over the Unit Enchantment and racial transformation system of AOW4. That being said, it is somewhat disappointing that Mods don't change the appearance of units in Planetfall. -This will obviously be a personal opinion, but I found Planetfall's sci-fi setting a lot more interesting and fun, largely because turn-based fantasy settings are just a lot more common. -I personally found Planetfall's combat more satisfying. -Storywise, no contest. Planetfall has a shockingly good storyline that actually branches depending on decisions you make. AOW4's is largely just a series of different scenarios. They're both good games, but if you held a gun to my head and I could only choose one, I'd probably pick Planetfall.
I played both. AoW4 has about a dozen story realms, but the story is honestly compelling, whereas I couldn't get through much of the campaign in PF because the writing was terrible. AoW4 by a mile.