Good game, but would have easily been twice as good with this missing feature...

[sp4mm]

SW: Rebellion's planetary allegiance system. (Yes, including the diplomacy missions.)

 

Doesn't anyone think its ridiculous that you can use a single squadron of troopers, or worse yet, Han Solo, to fly around the galaxy chain-capping whole planets?

 

When I compare EAW's starting scenario vs. that of Rebellion's, EAW loses horribly... and mind you I really want to love everything about this game.

 

 

Seriously, think about it...

--- SW: Rebellion ---

a) Empire starts with a more powerful force. (True to the canon)

b) Planet-to-planet movement takes a long time (a tad too long really) -- It is doubtful that either side will end up seizing every single planet out there before the game ends.

c) Planet-hopping is not a viable expansion tactic. Planets get pissed when you seize them by force, and if you don't leave a garrison, they will revolt.

d) The Empire, though having a stronger starting navy, has to seek out the Rebels, and the Rebels have plenty of places to hide... this type of cat & mouse behaviour is the core Star Wars element that I feel is sorely missing in EaW.  :-\

 

 

--- Empire at War ---

a) I presume that the starting forces will be far more equal, considering how the galaxy map plays out.

b) Planet-to-planet movement happens in a relative flash, the whole galaxy will be in non-neutral hands within minutes during a powerplayer match.

c) No need for a planetary garrison, planets that you have recently captured will just happily stay under your command, which augments the whole fast expansion mentioned in part b.

d) In EaW, Rebel planets are "hidden" from the Empire by default, but this won't matter at all when the galaxy is 0% neutral.

 

 

 

Food for thought?

[WhiteSkull]

well it has been stated sevral times that the speed in the demo is jacked up much higher then then retail, and as shown with mods can be even made slower if it is still to fast come next week.

[Darth Tyrant]

I have to agree with you.

[Erzengel]

You make a valid point, but I have to disagree.

 

While I think Empire at War could have more depth added to it (this is assuming the Demo is a good indication of the level of depth EAW has), I really don't think its required to make the game engaging and fun.

 

Honestly, playing in a large galaxy I found the allegiance system a bit tedius. I did not like the diplomacy missions at all, and with a few good diplomats you could sorta "Planet Hop," of course its not as fast, but I've taken entire sectors using Diplomats. For me, Rebellion lacked action in general, and EAW does not. I think EAW would be bogged down with diplomacy, and planetary allegiance. Were there other things that could have increased the depth? Yes. Are we even certain that planet-hopping is even possible in the final game? Nope. A counter to the planet hopping is that maybe every neutral planet is controlled by Pirates.

 

Lets not forget we're playing with a demo here, so we're not sure how things will end up playing out. They might have a counter planet hopping, and the Empire might start with a larger force.

 

Also, the game is very moddable. If you're not satisfied with the campaign settings, make your own. 

[sp4mm]

Are we even certain that planet-hopping is even possible in the final game? Nope. A counter to the planet hopping is that maybe every neutral planet is controlled by Pirates.

 

Lets not forget we're playing with a demo here, so we're not sure how things will end up playing out.

 

This had already crossed my mind when I wrote the post. Let's just say that even though I'm hopeful, I'm not very optimistic, but atleast there's the whole mod support thing -- which I hope ends up being all that they've hyped it up to be.

 

 

However, as for your point about diplomacy 'bogging down the game'... rethink that for a minute. Remember we're not talking about Rebellion's clunky interface here. One way of doing diplomacy missions would simply involve dropping a diplomat on a yellow diplomacy mission circle, rather than dropping an infantry squad onto the land circle.

 

Hardly much bogging there, for a whole lot of added depth.

[Darthscharnhorst2]

However, as for your point about diplomacy 'bogging down the game'... rethink that for a minute. Remember we're not talking about Rebellion's clunky interface here. One way of doing diplomacy missions would simply involve dropping a diplomat on a yellow diplomacy mission circle, rather than dropping an infantry squad onto the land circle.

 

Hardly much bogging there, for a whole lot of added depth.

 

Agree 100%  Even an abstract form of diplomacy would be better than none at all.  My ideas for a very easy and accessible approach:

1. Use the drag and drop mission mechanic that the droids and Solo use.  Let the Emperor and Leia conduct these missions.

2. Make the mission take a little time and possibly money to complete

3. Give it a very small but modifiable chance at failure to spice it up and add some randomness to the game or allow bounty hunters to disrupt it by killing diplomats or chasing off the "heroes".

4.  If you take a neutral planet by force there should be some form of repercussions either in the form of less generated money or not having access to the planetary bonuses.

 

Optional: In single player Neutral planets should have their own "neutral* garrisons and resist military occupation by both the Rebellion and the Empire. 

 

Check out the wish list thread for some posters opinions on this and other "missing" features.  The sad thing is that diplomacy seemed to be in the game at some point as some of the files in the demo elude to it.  As it stands now the Galatic Map is simply a starwars version of Risk which while fun, lacks true gameplay depth. 

Edited February 12, 2006 by Darthscharnhorst2

[Erzengel]

This had already crossed my mind when I wrote the post. Let's just say that even though I'm hopeful, I'm not very optimistic, but atleast there's the whole mod support thing -- which I hope ends up being all that they've hyped it up to be.

 

I've done a bit of modding myself. Nothing major, but from what I've seen we can do a whole lot with the game. People have been toying around with the ideas of creating the DS II, and from what I've been hearing, it sounds very cool.

 

However, as for your point about diplomacy 'bogging down the game'... rethink that for a minute. Remember we're not talking about Rebellion's clunky interface here. One way of doing diplomacy missions would simply involve dropping a diplomat on a yellow diplomacy mission circle, rather than dropping an infantry squad onto the land circle.

 

Hardly much bogging there, for a whole lot of added depth.

 

Thats true, but to be honest I wasn't even talking about Rebellions' interface. I didn't find it that annoying, in fact I enjoyed some parts of it, like the way the fleets were organized. In Rebellion diplomacy worked, in EAW, I really don't think it has a place. What I meant by "bogging down the game" was that Rebellion had diplomacy and very little action. It wasn't an RTS though. I'm not saying we should stop comparing Rebellion and EAW, but they are two different games, and if they are compared then we should take that into account. EAW is all action, and as such the gameplay would suffer because of diplomacy missions. In "A New Hope" the Empire didn't look like the type of organization that would use diplomacy anyways. 

 

I'm not much of a fan of the "Planet-Hoping" either, but I don't think diplomacy solves that, nor do I think diplomacy has any place in EAW. Thats just my opinion, though, and it seems to be in the minority.  ;D

[SirNuke]

You cannot planet hop around in the game.  All of the planets are controlled by either your enemy or pirates in the final, and it takes a while to raise enough funds to build enough defense that you can remove most of your garrison.  Don't judge the final game by the mods people have put together.

 

Regardless, you aren't one of the developers.  You haven't played the full game.  It's fine to say "Hey this would have been really cool", or "this is a great idea", but how can say that feature x would have made this game y times better?

[Nevets]

I think EAW is too much action, that is all it is. There is no down time, all click-fight-click-fight. This will get old fast. I want to be doing other things that would immerse me into truly believing I am controlling a galactic-wide government/Rebellion.

 

I want to be training luke to jedi master. I want to be running diplomacy missions and maybe the occasional sabotage mission.

In "A New Hope" the Empire didn't look like the type of organization that would use diplomacy anyways.

 

Who says the empire has to depend on diplomacy? The two sides don't have to be exactly the same, infact the shouldn't. The Rebel's should be encouraged to use diplomacy by having a better chance of being sucessful. Where as the empire could use something more up their alley such as propaganda. Would work similar to a diplomat, but much truer to imperial canon.

[Popcorn2008]

Yeah I agree with you, the only real downer to EaW. Im going to find it annoying to rush to control planets at the begining of the game before my enemy does, which will take the fun out of it, sort of.

 

That is the one annoying thing about the game.

[Erzengel]

Who says the empire has to depend on diplomacy? The two sides don't have to be exactly the same, infact the shouldn't. The Rebel's should be encouraged to use diplomacy by having a better chance of being sucessful. Where as the empire could use something more up their alley such as propaganda. Would work similar to a diplomat, but much truer to imperial canon.

 

No one. However, the poster said that he missed a diplomacy system like Rebellions' in EAW. I do agree that both sides should play very differently and that the Empire should not rely on diplomacy.

 

Like I said earlier, I don't think diplomacy has a place in EAW. Its not the type of game where diplomacy would really fit. Your absolutely right: its nonstop action. But its an RTS. The point of the game is to fight the enemy, and use military tactics to defeat him.

 

I hated hearing this, but it seems to be, ultimately, the only counter to this argument: The devs didn't want to make a Grand Strategy game. They didn't want to make Rebellion 2. They wanted to make an RTS, a genre that is basically all about fighting. They added onto the RTS, but its still an RTS.

 

Do I think they could have added more to EAW? Of course. Is diplomacy/planetary allegiance the answer? I don't think so, and I really don't think it would make the game a whole lot better.

[Guest]

From my experience (which isn't all that great so can ignore this post if you want to) going from the demo to the real game, there really isn't much different except for polished graphics different sounds and less glitches. This is of course the worst case scenario which I hope won't play out like most games usually do.

[Wiking_pff]

Well an XP system would make it even better.  ;D

[Megajames]

Xp for capships and customisable harpoint when they get to a high skill lvl.

But some of the mission in empire at war might be like dimplomatic.

But the general buyers are not going to be worried about dip's, all they care about is SD's and the deathstar

[Little.B]

Doesn't anyone think its ridiculous that you can use a single squadron of troopers, or worse yet, Han Solo, to fly around the galaxy chain-capping whole planets?

Don't know where have that from... Nearly every planet is either guarded by Imperial/Rebel or Pirate forces so you first have to bring your fleet in (and should first spy on the planet. Interdictors and Gravity Well Generators are very nasty thingies...). Then you have to bring in troops. Conquering a planet always takes a lot of troops (far more then the defending ones) and those "Raid Groups which can be used by the rebels are not that effective. They only force imperial players to guard all there planets with enough ground forces to counter a raid (which is not that big. Only four units plus heroes). If this is referring to the Millenium Flacon: Yes this baby is very strong but surely not strong enough to win a larger battle by it's own.

 

Planet-to-planet movement happens in a relative flash

On Tade routes: Yes

On normal routes: Not really

The death star: Say welcome to the Star Wars snail...

[Samheyn]

Guys... how many times activision and lucasarts and petro said that the demo was taken from an early built that didn't even have all of the features implented. I think this version is more like a "tech-demo" for what EaW is able to show in the full game. The built is from early december so that the guys from petro had 1 1/2 month to the final gold state. They even used the time after the demo release to polish the game. Also delphi said that the speed and balancing in the demo has been changed so that playing with only 3 planets and a fist full of units would be fun. You will never be able to kill a complete imperial fleet with only han solo & chewie in the full game

[kingdark]

Optional: In single player Neutral planets should have their own "neutral* garrisons and resist military occupation by both the Rebellion and the Empire.

 

i like this, could this not be done by simply adding pirates to each planet?

But then again, how would you order the defense forces to stay? also some planets would be joining the rebellion because they wanted too. look at atooine? the planet where luke grew up?

Some planets may be intimidated by a large force by the empire for example?

say that the neutral defenders have only 1 capital ship and some small destroyers.? and you have a fleet that is twice the size? dont you think the defenders would give up hope? i am having my doubts.. maybe it could be random scripted in that you can have a diplomacy option like when your fighting in space:

x

x

x

these forces want to betray their homecountry will you take over command or will you destroy them afterwards? something ike this.?

[sp4mm]

Don't know where have that from... Nearly every planet is either guarded by Imperial/Rebel or Pirate forces so you first have to bring your fleet in (and should first spy on the planet. Interdictors and Gravity Well Generators are very nasty thingies...). Then you have to bring in troops. Conquering a planet always takes a lot of troops (far more then the defending ones) and those "Raid Groups which can be used by the rebels are not that effective.

 

I see, and during a multiplayer match, just how would the neutral combat be resolved? Automatically? Second player plays the neutrals?

 

Again, it had crossed my mind that neutral planets may be inhibited by a few units... but I'm skeptical. Perhaps Lucas/Petro should have given players a demo that better represents the final product.

[Darthscharnhorst2]

I see, and during a multiplayer match, just how would the neutral combat be resolved? Automatically? Second player plays the neutrals?

 

 

I would imagine that mulitplayer would not include diplomacy or neutral garrisons and be more in the line of a "planet grab"  Now that I'm thinking about it, I guess Pirates are not included in multiplayer games for the exact reason mentioned above, unless Player 2 takes control of them in the battle. 

[sp4mm]

I would imagine that mulitplayer would not include diplomacy or neutral garrisons and be more in the line of a "planet grab"

 

The point is that multiplayer could have easily included plantary diplomacy -- it would not bog the game down and it would open the game up to the whole cat & mouse behaviour which is the essence of the two Star Wars factions.

 

 

Now I know that all this is too little too late for vanilla EAW. But I'm atleast hoping this can eventually be added either via an expansion pack, or some clever modding. (Though it would suprise me if the game turned out to be that moddable.)

[Megajames]

The cat 'n' mouse should be in the full game, the mods on the demo are good, but there is a lot that they hav'nt done

[Xenomorphine]

Even the Nazis used diplomats!

 

Am sure that I'm not the only one who remembers the 'TIE Fighter' missions where, after you had forcefully brought a settlement between two factions, a cinematic showed some sort of diplomatic talks arranged by the Empire who spoke during it of bringing peace between them.

[Megajames]

You have a very good point and I am not going to argue it

[Nevets]

Yea I am sure the empire used a lot of diplomacy, but they wouldn't have been a necessity like it was for the rebellion. The rebellion needed it, they didn't have the man power, technology and money that allowed the empire to rule through fear. They needed to resort to bringing planets under their control through words rather than occupation. Especially in the early stages of it that this game is suppose to represent.

 

It was such a big part of the rebellion, it sucks that you wont get the true rebel experience from the initial game, I still hope that they see there is a lot of demand for it and they will put it in.

[MerLock]

I prefer not to have to worry about diplomacy and revolts. Enough to worry about as there is with just trying to conquering the galaxy.