Army Management in Age of Wonders Planetfall Age of Wonders Planetfall guide, tips
Last update: 16 August 2019
Despite the fact that Age of Wonders: Planetfall allows player to win through diplomatic channels, there is no option to remain a pacifist (you will have to battle with someone from time to time, even with neutral units or factions). For this reason, it is necessary to familiarize yourself with the methods of managing the army - you can read about it in this chapter.
Army composition
As mentioned in the Army Commanders and Heroes chapter, each army can consist of a maximum of 6 units - army commander and 5 subordinate units. An army commander can be either a hero or a regular unit, but for obvious reasons it's better to have some additional special abilities. So, it is better to have an army commanded by a hero. All units available in a specific army can then be modified (as described in the chapter "Modifying units") and developed (this in turn is described in the chapter "Gaining experience") - both these mechanics significantly influence the strength of individual units, and thus the entire army.
Building new armies and troops recruitment
Building armies in Age of Wonders: Planetfall is much easier than in Total War: Three Kingdoms, quoted several times in this guide. Each unit on the world map is treated by the game as a separate army - so there is no need to create new armies from a special menu or develop technologies to increase the limit of armies available. Units are recruited into the army in an equally simple way - just select the unit you are interested in and order it to enter the field occupied by the army to which the unit is going to be assigned. If there was a vacancy in the army, the unit will be integrated to it.
If you want to get rid of a unit from an army, there are two ways to do this. The first one is to cancel the unit - it can be done from the level of the unit window (activated after clicking on the portrait of a given unit), by clicking on the "X" button in the upper left corner of the mentioned window. The second way is to withdraw a unit from the army - to do so, select the army and then click on the blue icon above the portrait of the unit you are interested in. Choose the place where the unit will go, and simply click on the proper spot. This will disengage the unit from its previous army.
Healing injured troops
No matter how good strategist you are, your troops will sooner or later be injured in battle, significantly reducing their effectiveness and increasing the chance that they may simply get killed in the next battle. To accelerate the regeneration of their lost health points, you can use the Field Medicine hero's ability to restore 6 health points to all units in the hero's army every turn, or set up an army on the Forward Base, which also accelerates regeneration.
Tips
Finally, a handful of advice on army management, here we go:
- All units have their own living and maintenance costs. Initially, these are only small amounts of energy, but with time these values increase. Additionally, costs of raw materials increase, especially Cosmite. That's why it's worthwhile to carefully create more troops and armies to avoid bankruptcy. In other words be reasonable.
- If you have some unnecessary, low-value troops, the best way is to get rid of them - this will reduce the cost of maintaining the army.
- Armies can be commanded by any unit, but heroes perform better in this role because of their special abilities. Heroes will not be able to wreak havoc with the most technologically advanced troops. Despite that, their special abilities will increase the effectiveness of other units or give them access to powerful skills.
- Conduct regular technological research and replace obsolete units. Even experienced and modified units will not be able to win against an enemy who simply has more technologically advanced troops.