Kij0t

I gave it a 2. Have not played it since release. Will only appeal to SW fans. Its not even that good a game.

You need to be more specific and provide details if you expect some kind of useful answers.

Good going mistrider... But yes, the AI cheats. It has been posted about multiple times.

Boba Fett is too weak other than to do a Seismic Charge pass against their fighter screen and then pick off any survivors. You need more than 2 tartans to destroy Han fast enough to protect your weaker ships from him. So, yes, the Falcon is very powerful, specially at the beginning.

EAW did a great thing for me: it inspired me to dust off Rebellion. Recommend you do the same.

If it wasn't Star Wars, the game would flop. The AI, at all levels of difficulty and accross all planes of gameplay (strategic and tactical) is horrible. The land battles are tedious. I enjoy the space battles, but since its rare to get the MP game to connect...EAW is sitting on a shelf.

As I stated, I wasn't aware that Red Squadron was there. Auto-resolving when you are fighting nothing but corvettes and you have a full fleet shouldn't be a problem. Even if I hadn't lost because of the DS, my argument against auto-resolve stem from ridiculous casualties sustained via it, not because I lost the game (I was aware that death of DS = defeat).

I tried my first GC game today, choosing the 43 planet scenario that starts at tech 3 with the all planets divided between Rebel and Imperial ownership. (As a note, don't play this as your first scenario. It is overwhelming since you start with many planets under your control. If you you want to do a large map nonetheless, I recommend the "Empire at War" scenario".) I set the game to Hard and chose to play as the Empire. At the outset I paused the game so I could inspect the state of the empire - fleet sizes and distributions, garrisons, infrastructure, etc. After redeploying some of my fleets, I began to produce Probe Droids to try to locate sizable Rebel fleets for immediate action. Coruscant began to build a research center to produce Tech Level 4. On my early hit list were the planets Mon Calamari and Sullust. I already had command of Fondor and Kuat, and I wanted to deny the Rebels the ability to produce (eventually) the Mon Cal cruisers. Once my probe droids had performed their missions, I collected most of my ships into 2 fleets; the rest were maintained as defence fleets on border planets. I ordered my 2 battle fleets to secure the space over Sullust and Mon Cal. After two brilliant battles, I had space control over both. Lacking land forces to invade the planet right away, I left behind some ships at each of these planets and redeployed the fleets elsewhere to continue the conquest. This proceeded until the Death Star was finished. By that time I had produced sizeable land forces as well. Any planet with a strong garrison was destroyed, weak ones were conquered. Eventually I had taken control of all Rebel planets except for Yavin IV. I massed my fleet and began a battle against the large Rebel fleet that remained there. Once victorious, I destroyed the planet out of spite. At this point, there were no systems under Rebel control. However, I myself did not control any of the Asteroid fields created by my Death Star. (I didn't think these would have to be controlled.) The game was reduced to me hopping around these asteroid fields chasing a Rebel fleet that, magically, kept getting bigger even though the Rebels had a) no income and b) no time to build ships. I was getting a little peeved at this point so I began to make use of the Auto-Resolve function. The game ended when I sent the Death Star and my fleet into another (what I thought) minor battle with the Rebel fleet. My fleet contained 3 ISD, supporting Tartan Cruisers, and a few Missile Cruisers. The enemy fleet contained two of Assault Frigates, some Neb B Frigates, and fighters and Red Squadron (I did not notice this). I hit auto-resolve, lost the battle, and the Death Star was destroyed, resulting in a loss. Lessons Learned/Observations: 1) Do not, ever, at all, for what ever reason, use auto-resolve. The results are often illogical and fatal. For example, how does an Assault Frigate defeat an ISD? How do Rebel Troopers and Plex Infantry manage to kill 5 AT-ATs before losing the battle? 2) Near the end of the game, I had some kind of fleet over most of the Rebellion planets (blockading them I assume, though I don't know if that matters any game-wise). I was attacked once, in the early beginning. I don't know if this was because the Rebel fleet was dispersed and I destroyed it without my knowledge. Overall, the game was very dull and the strategic layer unsatisfying. 3) The most enjoyable part of the game were the small scale space battles involving 2-3 Victory Star Destroyers and some cruisers vs 4-5 Neb Bs and X-Wings and Y-Wings. When the battles got huge I tended to auto-resolve. 4) I was never affected by any smuggling or bounty hunting. In fact, little was done by the Rebellion to interrupt my plan: Except for my ship building planets, I put filled most planets with mining centers and even pulled all of my troops and ships from garrisons to be deployed to the front line. Even the battles weren't difficult. 5) It is possible that this scenario is very favorable to the Empire, and this would explain many of my points. My main point is to warn people to not Auto-Resolve. Don't do it.

When engaging a Rebellion fleet with a Mon Calamari (or God forbid more) the crucial tactic is to isolate them. Mon Calamaris do not have a Shield Generator hard-point, thus you cannot destroy their shields. In addition, their special ability is to strengthen their shields. They are a very tough ship to take down. The biggest threat to Imperial capital ships is not from the Rebellion capital ships but from 1) Y-Wings and 2) Missile frigates. A large compliment of TIE Fighters with supporting cruisers must engage and destroy Y-Wings while the Capital ships focus their fire on the larger vessels. Meanwhile, TIE Bombers engage the Mon Calamari ships. After all threats to the Imperial ships have been dispatched, all vessels focus fire on the Mon Calamari. If you attempt to take the Mon Calamari down first, the ship will soak your damage and you will be pounded to dust by proton torpedoes. (This information is from the release version of the game)

No ships take part in land battles aside from Bombing Runs (conducted by Y-Wings and Tie Bombers) and Land Speeders (not ships, but hey.) Tech Level 1 is the Acclamator Class which can deploy 3 fighter and 1 bomber squadrons. After that comes the Victory Class which deploys 5 fighters and 2 bomber squadrons. Lastly, the Imperial Class Destroyer can deploy 10 fighter and 3 bomber squadrons. Needless to say, Destroyers are the backbone of any fleet and must be escorted by Tartan Cruisers for anti-Fighter support and missile boats for point-attack against large targets. (This is all from the release version of the game)