The rest of my demo was spent fighting off one such angry faction, the Vanguard, which you can see in the video above. Fair reaction, but what the hell did you people expect forming an alliance with trash zombies who tinker with biological weapons on the side!? Predictably, diplomatic relations took an immediate nosedive, and suddenly every other faction wanted me dead. If my faction survived for 10 turns, I would win the game. I also got a demonstration of their 'Doomsday Tech', whereupon the developers triggered a planet-wide bombardment of lethal parasites. From what I saw of The Assembly's tech, they thrived on scavenging the remains of those defeated in battle to bolster their research and knowledge, while also manufacturing bioweapons to poison and wither away enemies. Luckily, Age of Wonders: Planetfall features a full campaign to take you through the basics of each faction and learn the ropes of how to grow your fledgling group expand your territories, customize your troops, and build out your tech trees for both as a military force and for societal advancement. In my time with the demo, I was placed in the tail-end of a high stakes match already in progress - and it was a lot to take in. I was also happy to learn that while multiplayer will still be a thing for both PC and consoles in Age of Wonders when it arrives on August 6th, you'll be able to engage your way - either playing at the same time in the turn based format, or making your moves before stepping away from the game while your opponent is alerted to your turn, and is able to respond at their leisure, which is always a huge boon for those who don't have hours at a time to invest in their planetary domination. Expanding through the hexagon-tiled planets allow you to amass an army, indulge in diplomacy, or set off some real doomsday weaponry. For those not familiar, the Age of Wonders series has shed its fantasy skin to get crazy sci-fi in this new iteration, and blends the 4X turn-based strategy genre (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) with tense and meaty battles reminiscent of X-COM.

Age of wonder planetfall faction guides