Online Game
Setting up a game
Multiplayer games of Planetary Annihilation are hosted on a server in the host’s selected region. You will be prompted to select a region the first time you host a game. Multiplayer games are not hosted on your computer. Planetary Annihilation uses a client-server model, so a player’s computer and Internet connection do not impact other players.
Single-player games may be hosted on your computer or one of the cloud servers, depending on the specifications of your machine. You can force local or remote hosting if desired. See the Local Server setting in the Global Game Settings of the guide for more information.
Uploading server mods
If you are using any server mods and hosting a multiplayer game, or your computer isn’t powerful enough to host a local server for skirmishes, you will automatically upload them to your cloud server as an anti-cheat mechanism. The speed at which this occurs is dependent on your upstream bandwidth and the size of the mods.
Lobby
The individual who creates a lobby will be known as the host. Only the host can change a lobby’s settings. If a host leaves the lobby a new host is selected based on who has been in the lobby the longest.
Each colour represents one army. Player count recommendations for maps are actually army count recommendations. Game Mode can be set to Free For All or Team Armies.
Free For All means every player is their own army.
Team Armies places each army into a team. In this mode there is a second option: share army. It is a button on the right-side of each army. When clicked all the players in that team become a single army, with as many Commanders as there are players. The army is only defeated once all its Commanders are killed. Beware using the “select Commander” hotkey in this mode as it will select all Commanders on the team. Humans and AIs cannot exist together within a shared army.
Dynamic Alliances allows you to ally (and un-ally) during the course of a game with other players. Breaking an alliance with someone breaks it both ways. You cannot see alliances between other players. This option is only available when game mode is set to Free For All. The AI will never propose or accept an alliance.
Sudden Death Mode means a team is eliminated when it loses any of its Commanders. It is only available when the game mode is set to Team Armies.
Bounty Mode enables an eco boost for every army killed. If an team is a shared army you must kill the last Commander in that army to claim the bonus. When the last Commander on an army self-destructs the bounty goes to the last player who damaged it.
Sandbox enables the use of dev options such as unit spawning. Controls for this can be found under Settings – Keyboard – Dev.
To the right of each army is its economic multiplier. By default this is set to 1.0. Changing it to 0.5 would give an army 50% of their normal income while setting it to 2.0 would give it 200%. You can set this anywhere from 0 to 5, both for players and the AI.
You can create new systems for use in the System Editor from the main menu, there are also map packs available via Community Mods.
When you load a system, or when first joining a lobby, you will see a rotating graphic in the system area as well as next to your name. Only when both these loading icons have disappeared will you be able to start the game, or select ready. When players join your game they will be greyed out while they load and you will see the loading icon on their row.
Only the host can launch a game, and they can only do so once every player has clicked the ready button. Once they have done this a green tick appears on their row. Any changes to the lobby’s settings by the host removes the ready state from all the players. When you are in a ready state you cannot make any changes to your setup.
You can change your primary colour and also which Commander you will spawn in as by left-clicking. Set your default commander through the Armory on the main menu. Some Commanders may be unavailable to you.
The host can add one or more AIs in the lobby. AIs on your team are supported, but not in shared army mode, nor will the AI use or respond to dynamic alliances.
AI difficulty controls how well they manage their economy, their micro level, which player it focuses attacks on, and how smart its threat decision making is. The AI doesn’t cheat at any difficulty level, though you can assign it an eco boost if you so desire. There are also mods which make the AI even tougher.
Once you have your lobby setup, change the top-right setting from PRIVATE to either FRIENDS or PUBLIC depending on who you want to join. FRIENDS is tied to your in-game friends list, not your Steam friends.
Joining a game
Multiplayer – Custom Game will take you to the server browser. From here select the game you wish to join and click Join Game in the bottom right-hand corner.
When joining a game with server mods you will automatically download them from the server. The speed at which this occurs is dependent on your downstream bandwidth and the size of the mods.