My Ideal Land Battle.

[Nevets]

I know some people aren't satisfied with the land battles in EAW and that got me thinking of what would be my ideal land battle.

 

Beware tho, just some ideas I thought of, probably not able to be put in the actual game and some may not even make sense at all, haha.

 

To make the battles more star warsy:

 

1) maps need to be bigger....much bigger.

 

2) deciding where to build bases and structures is a must.

 

Contact:

 

Where the the opponents base is on a planet is not given. You either need to send a probe droid (bothan spies if you are rebel) down to discover its exact location or send a landing party down. The landing party could then set up a small makeshift base of operations. This can be quickened if the planets indigenous population is on your side (This is assuming diplomacy is in) because there is a good chance that they will help build it and even allow you to take up residenece in their settlements. During this stage speeder bikes (perhaps the rebels could use swamp speeder, barc speeders, or a number of other things) would be very useful, you can send them in quickly to search out enemy movements. Giving them sniper abilities could also be a fun addition; they would be able to dismount and use a sniper rifle to take out some enemy troops before they know what is going on, and then get out of there before they can attack. Imperial infiltrators and rebel saboteurs could also be very useful in this stage.

 

The Battle:

 

If you decide to set up base your best option would probably be a full out classic battle. Both sides know the other is there and have been building up to prepare for the coming battle. Both sides are waiting for the other to strike, or for their moment to strike. Once it starts all hell breaks loose.

 

The other way to have a battle is if you can manage to find the enemy's base and they don't see you scouting you could send in your forces for an attack before the enemy even knows what hits them.

 

The bases:

 

Staying true to lore (I think at least), most the imperial bases in the core would be seeable to the rebels, since it would be common knowledge to the galaxy where they are located (like Carida). The bases in the outer rim would be will hidden by the empire (like Endor) and the rebels would need to search it out. The Rebel bases would be hidden on all planets.

 

The main rebel base:

 

A major focus of the movies was the rebel base. The empire did its best to find and destroy it and I think the game needs to focus more on this. The Empire should be trying to find this and destroy it before the rebels have time to evacuate the base. This could give the Death Star more of a stragetical purpose. While destorying the main base wouldn't bring an end to the Rebellion it should certaintly weaken them severly. Soldiers health should go down, heroes could be lost, and ships would become weaker due to breaking down of the rebellion network making maintence of ships tougher.

 

These are all things that I think would make the game feel more like the movies. But adding a lot of this would be near impossible and would add a lot of mircomanaging to the game (not such a bad thing for some of us). But hey I'm tired and just throwing out some ideas.

[DragonShadow]

Me likes...

[Nevets]

Another thing that would add a more star wars feel, but would be really hard to put in, would be simultaneous land and space battles.

 

Almost all battles in Star Wars have a land and space battle going on at the same time. Would add tons of depth to have a space battle going on you have to send some troops to destroy the hypervelocity gun so that it will be easier to take control. Or organizing an evacuation of your base below and using the ion canon to disable ships above to allow for a retreat like in the battle of hoth.

 

It would be hecktic of course, but you would definitely get that star wars feel. When switching between you could have that classic star wars star wipe and change of music between those of land battles and those of space. What I'm not sure many players would like is that when you switch from one or the other the computer would need to take control of the other. You could have a message box telling you what events are happening in the other battle, so you can managing accordingly, like "Commander: ISD under heavy attack, immediate attention advised!".

 

Something else to contemplate is that maybe they could create a 2 player joint campaign where one player would manage the space battles and the other land battles.

 

another crazy idea.

Edited March 10, 2006 by Nevets

[MajorPayne]

The problem with that Nevet is that you might find the screen overly cluttered if its split in any way to accomodate more than one mode simultaneously.

 

Also what I would like to see is far more in the way of Imperial garrisoning (if this is even a word!!) of troops. I mean the imps had literally millions of troops at their disposal. Plus a ranking structure might be useful and soldier experience is still amust. From experience comes better troop aim, higher health amounts, better LOS and other small items to help enhance the troops (as you can tell I'm more of a troop man myself, than vehicles). Also as already suggested, maps need to be far larger, with perhaps, a capability that allows the player to physically place bought buildings onto the planet maps instead of having them specifically placed ready.

[Spiralarchitech]

I have to say i like pre built bases it saves me time having to buil one on my own and even if i could the AI would have no chance as it would probaly be impenetrable.

 

But i agree slightly bigger maps would be welcome as 1vs1 maps are cool but 2vs2 or more it starts to get a bit crowded.

 

I would like to see an improvement with infantry combat, at the moment its fairly static i would like the ability to make soldiers go prone for extra defence and for a second ability seek cover in wooded terrain or long grass making them harder to see, p.s. need a scatter key (as in C&C) to make infantry scatter in different directions.

 

Also explosions in space are excellent i think land vehicles could use a extra oomph in the explosion department.

[Nevets]

The problem with that Nevet is that you might find the screen overly cluttered if its split in any way to accomodate more than one mode simultaneously.

 

Yea, there are a couple reasons that this would be really tough or maybe impossible to pull off, but I do like to imagine what the ultimate Star wars strategy game would be like.

I have to say i like pre built bases it saves me time having to buil one on my own and even if i could the AI would have no chance as it would probaly be impenetrable.

 

Prebuilt bases are dine if you want a quick online game, but what I was hoping for was more a chess type game that takes a very long time to play, where the placing of your structures is a matter of winning or losing.

[Evaders99]

I've always liked to command full assault - where you have forces both in space and on the ground. Like when you need to take out the ground defenses firing at your fleet, or try and capture the a certain Senator from Naboo while your fleet is a distraction...

 

I wouldn't mind just having one player do both. A small minimap for both that you could toggle between to load the full ground or full space map. There has to be a good way to move units between ground and space though

[noian]

A simple way to have both at once is to disable space battles, and use the mod that allows space units on land, get rid of pop cap/command post system on land (or switch it to 35), and just have 2 bases for each side (invaders base is either the starship or some camp). There would be starships and land battles at once. Both sides can use it as artilary, disable timer on bombing runs, rename it orbital bombardment, and only have it if there are bombers on the map or a starship and the wait time will be how long it takes for the bombers/starships to get there/set up another run.