teukros

Doesn't each character card have a flag for being active / not active at the start of each new game? On a related topic, RebEd lets you modify the chance for recruitment success (too bad you can't speed it up). But in a game I started a few days ago, Mon Mothma has a Leadership of 100 and according to RebEd this gives her a 100% chance for successful recruitment. But by turn 133 all but two of her recruitment missions have failed. Gah. All she has managed to do so far is recruit Drayson and Orrimaarko.

Now it's my turn to apologise for not posting earlier, I just moved this past weekend and internet service was finally restored this afternoon! I love shields. Just can't get enough of them. Really, really can't get enough of them! One per planet doesn't seem to be enough, there have to be two. Three if you want some insurance against sabotage. But how on earth can you build that many per planet? It's impossible. No matter which side I am playing I always run into a supply bottleneck, because in the first hundred turns or so there is no other option than to have your construction yards build more construction yards! And then training facilities because it takes so damned long to build troops. And then shipyards (especially if playing the Rebs for X-Wing fighters and Corellian Corvettes). Of course by this time it is taking twice as long to build anything as it should because there aren't enough mines or refineries to supply everything. Having your construction yards make mines and refineries a priority is fine except that building _them_ adds to the undersupply - overutilisation problem and it means that you are not building other things that need to be built, like shields! The long and the short of it is, unless you have already pulled so far out in front that your opponent has long since conceded the game, you are going to have worlds which are vulnerable to planetary bombardment. If your opponent never bothered a world except to invade it, well that would be great. With advance warning scrap all mines and refineries at the target system, otherwise he only has so many troops and those troops he just landed will not be used elsewhere for a very long time. But even the Alliance can't win this game by playing all nicey nice. The biggest and baddest wolf, whose slash and fades slash deepest, will often win. Incidentally my model is as follows: For every sector, one system with two const. yards, two training facilities, two shields and one planetary battery, a second system with two const. yards, three shipyards, two shields and one battery, and a third system with two const. yards, five shipyards, two shields and one battery. With a half dozen or so regiments per production system of course. These are minimums, although of course all eight shipyards never get built until the supply problems are (mostly) ironed out. Ideally the other controlled systems in that sector will each have at least one planetary shield generator, but who is going to have the time to build them? :-/ teukros

Hey irwoodhouse, looking forward to your post about game balance! Re: the Corellian gunboat: when I am playing the Rebs I love the things. You've got Gunboats, who needs A-Wings? Heck, I've wondered what a Rebel fleet consisting of nothing but Gunboats would be like! Throw in a half dozen carriers full of X-Wings (just in case the Imperials get silly and build SSDs or Death Stars) and that's all you need! Except for planetary bombardment that is... The thing about the Gunboats is that they are not available until the late mid-game. I still don't know how the Rebel player did it the last game I was playing but it was something like turn 250 and he sent eight Corellian Corvettes into the Sessawenna sector. I almost had a heart attack. Luckily I had considerable advance warning and was able to turn them all back with my fleet (leaving Coruscant temporarily undefended) and a couple of Carracks. Yes the Corvettes may have been a feint to draw my fleet away from Coruscant but this was so early in the game I was gambling that the Rebs had nothing else besides the damned Corvettes! Besides, the Rebel player IMO should have used those Corvettes right away for sweeping the Rim and using their planetary bombardment to blow away any Imperial bases there. As I've already said, one of the things about the CVTs that drives the Imperials to distraction is their planetary bombardment rating. Since in the game the Reb Starfighters are not allowed to move through hyperspace to Imperial controlled (or blockaded) systems, the Corellian Corvette seems to be well suited for Slash and Fade missions. teukros

If the Imperials started with about three times as big a navy and five times as many troops, or if Imperial troops were significantly cheaper to build, that might be cool. Or maybe if the Empire started the game with every one of its character cards on the board (is it possible to do this with RebEd?), freeing up Lord Vader and Palpatine to do stuff other than recruiting for the first 300 turns, the Alliance would have to spend most of the game playing catch-up. The way it is now, the Alliance has all the advantages, and there are no long term Imperial advantages to balance them. I've experimented with modifying different things in different ways but I just can't get a good balance. No matter what I do the Empire seems to be blued, screwed and tattooed. No matter which side I play - when I play the Alliance I have a _significantly_ easier time.

100% agree about the troops. Troops and planetary morale are the real keys to winning the game (and developing the Rim)!

Right. Nothing hurts worse than to have an Imperial I 90% constructed and then along comes a small Rebel fleet which wipes out your shipyards AND your 90% constrcted SD...

The Alliance *MUST* build several medium transports. This is not optional. It is mandatory! There is no other way to develop the Galactic Rim as quickly and as aggressively as it has to, to, er, make life miserable for the Empire. In the midgame, when the Alliance fleet consists of Neb-Bs, carriers and Corellian Corvettes, these transports are the only option for transporting troops. Unless you want to waste money building obsolescent Dreadnaughts. Or unless you want to build the Bulk Transports which I argue are also a waste and should NEVER be built for the following reasons: The Alliance already has a half dozen or so Medium Transports which were used in the development of the Rim. It might as well continue to use them in its military campaigns. The Medium Transport is slow, but so is the Bulk Transport (100 vs. 90). The Bulk Transport costs 2.4 times as much but only carries three times as many troops. On the other hand, losing six regiments is a lot worse than losing two regiments! And the Medium Transports have laser cannons for fighter defense. Have you ever been the Imperial player and seen a large group of enemy Medium Transports _attack_ your TIEs? I have. When the endgame rolls around, the Alliance will be using its Mon Cals and Liberators for transporting troops and will have no need of either Medium or Bulk transports. So why waste money on Bulk Transports?

One Imperial I SD plus six TIE squadrons costs 130 construction points. Three Nebulon-B FFs plus six X-Wing squadrons costs 132 construction points. Which side would you bet on? I thought that the Neb-B was an IMPERIAL design for crying out loud!!! And weren't Corellian Corvettes sold to both (er... all) sides?

I like the idea. But would LucasArts give us all of those campaigns for one low price? Maybe it would be more realistic to hope for a Rebellion II: The Clone Wars tie in to be released around the time of the next movie. Six months later, a Rebellion II expansion could be released which would cover the events from the destruction of the first Death Star to the Alliance occupation of Coruscant. Then finally, an expansion which would cover all of the events post-Endor.

As if the Rebs didn't have enough advantages. Diplomatic advantages. Neb-Bs. Reb Starfighters. That git, Skywalker! Bah! Now it's those damnable, fast and cheap as dirt Corellian Corvettes that are driving me insane! In the past when I have played against the computer, the computer-controlled Alliance has built ten or so of the Corellian Corvettes and then sent them out, SINGLY, to bombard Imperial worlds! Each Corellian Corvette has a bombardment of one! They come in and find a world with a lot of Rebel agitators where Imperial troops are helping to maintain order, they blow the troops away with their short range laser batteries (!) and then you have a Rebel uprising on that world. I swear there was one time that I had a world with one shield generator on it, this Corellian Corvette comes along and starts blowing away my mines and refineries left and right. And this resulted in Rebel agitation increasing in every world in the Sector! (?!) Two or three Imperial worlds went into uprising as a result! In the game I am playing right now the Rebels are sending groups of the damned things clockwise and counterclockwise around the Rim in sweeps. Making it damned hard to develop the Rim. The Empire is waiting for its shipyards to finish building VSDs but would like to have a dozen or so Carrack Light Cruisers for its own Anti-Rebel sweeps around the Rim. The problems with the Carrack are that it costs twice as much as the Corellian Corvette and that it is much less effective against enemy Starfighters. So the Rebels can crank their Corellian Corvettes out as fast as they can, and rest assured that the damned things will remain effective (in the anti-fighter role) until the end of the game. The Rebel player likes to use small, fast fleets of three Neb-Bs, one Escort Carrier, three Corellian Corvettes and 12 Starfighter squadrons, which he then multiplies as necessary. So he might attack an Imperial world with nine Neb-Bs, three Escort Carriers, nine Corellian Corvettes and 36 X-Wing Starfighter Squadrons, with a slow fleet of Medium Transports right behind it. Ouch. If any "wet work" is necessary he softens the target up with that criminal Solo and/or that git Skywalker and after the Imperial troops are blown away and the Rebel troops have landed, the Rebels send in about ten thousand diplomats to brainwash the population into supporting the Alliance... all before the Empire can organize any kind of an effective response. What's a poor Emperor to do? teukros