Age of Wonders: Planetfall

Adventure Map & City Management

• If you're not sure which central building to start with, +15 food is always a safe option as it lets you pick up more sectors faster, and +10 research can help speed up early game techs too.

• Don't neglect your military, as the AI can field sizeable armies. This also goes for the "Military Infrastructure" buildings as they provide free guards for colonies which otherwise start as easy prey for wandering marauders.

• It's generally a good idea to specialize cities on two types of resources, and manual assignment of colonists to focus on what the city is good at can get you more bang for your buck once you've gotten used to the system. Check the city's surrounding sectors to see what kind of exploitation they're best suited for, and avoid creating low-level sectors.

• You can share food from one colony to the others (or sell excess food), but you have to manually set both the sharing and receiving colonies from the cities' Colonist Management menus. 40% of shared food is wasted by default, though this can be reduced with one of the food sector upgrades.

• Cosmite is the most precious resource, and securing Cosmite-producing sectors with Forward Bases ahead of time can be worth it if there's competition nearby.

• Having two or more scout units (auto-) exploring the map will always pay off as there are a lot of free pickups scattered around the map, including many floating in water.

• Right-clicking when you have individual units selected in a stack reverses the selection to all but those units.

• If you have a fast/floating/flying unit in your army, you can sometimes save some movement points on the adventure map by only selecting them individually to attack a neighboring enemy army. This still brings your full army into the fight, but only that unit will move to the hex they occupied afterwards. Just don't do this if they're guarding an "All units gain a level up" pickup.

Combat & Army Management

• Right-clicking during an action animation speeds it up. This also works with adventure map movement.

• Use cover whenever possible and avoid getting flanked (which can also happen through cover). Using beneficial abilities on friendly units turns the user towards their target as well, which can lead to unnecessary flanking if you're not careful with positioning.

• In most circumstances it's best to avoid stacking up units in combat as there are many area damage effects. The AI doesn't pay much attention to this, so look for opportunities to punish them for it.

• You can preview enemies' potential hit chances and damage by clicking them/their abilities and then hovering on one of your own units. This only works if their potential targets are within the attack range of their current position though.

• Staggering enemies is always desirable, especially if they're melee or have powerful Full Action abilities they can't use without full Action Points. Conversely, Stagger Resistance is one of the most useful traits to mod or learn for your units. Blinding is another desirable effect to inflict on enemies as it cripples their accuracy.

• Note the difference between "Full Action" and "Full Action (Continue)" abilities, both require full AP to activate but the latter also leaves one to use afterwards.

• Try to keep your main fighting units modded with the best modifications you have. Low-level units with strong mods can punch far above their weight.

• Physical damage tends to be a desirable damage type as few creatures resist it specifically, and physical firearms have some of the strongest modifications in the game, though their availability varies depending on your race and secret tech.

• At level 8, all heroes can learn "Modular Extension" that lets them equip an additional mod. It costs 8 skill points and heroes get 5 per level, so it can be worth saving at least three points ahead of time to be able to pick it up right away.