Cowbell

Finished up my first galactic conquest today. Imperial, Empire At War, medium difficulty. Probably significant : I cranked down the galactic game speed to the minimum (IMO, maximizing your effectiveness requires that you be able to actually -think- and thoroughly twiddle your economy). I won on day 18. Controlled more than 1/3 but less than 1/2 of the galaxy. I didn't even realize it was that quick until I went back to check. I did it by accidentally (pure luck) catching Mon Mothma on Naboo (is it just me or does the Rebellion -really- like Naboo? They kept harrassing me during the main campaign, and they had mega factory presence there during the conquest) during a ground attack. There's that 3 planet cluster with Naboo, Tatooine, and some other planet. I sent in my assault fleet with my Emperor-enhanced ground assault force. As I engaged on Naboo, I saw Mon Mothma show up in the little preview window. Battle was easy and even though I gave them every oppurtunity to retreat, they didn't. Mon Mothma was apparently hanging out in a factory and refused to leave :/ The thing is - it was strange. a.) that battle should have been -hard-. They had no less than 6 factories on the planet. Every single slot was pumping out tanks (just m2b's). Even with my considerable forces + Emperor, they could have swarmed me and forced me to retreat. b.) why the heck wouldn't they retreat practically immediately if Mon Mothma came under attack? I kind of wanted to continue the conquest because I was happily crushing the Rebels wherever I went. I'd like a little more challenge, although I suspect hard would be too much of a pain int the a$$ for me. Still. This is just a great great game. I'll just have to do some tweaking to squeeze a little more challenge out of everything.

Do not underestimate.......the power of 3 ion cannons. I too found the Rebel campaign ridiculous once the Empire starts attacking in earnest. However, the solution is actually pretty simple: - make sure you have as few border planets as possible. For each one, build 3 ion cannons. Yes. 3. With 3 ions, you will be able to fire roughly every 20-30 seconds. This will stop nearly any Imperial Fleet, period. - backing up those defensive ion cannons, all you need is corvettes and Assault frigates. Forget fighters, forget nebulons. MAYBE keep some y-wings in reserve. - Your assault fleet can actually be pretty simple. 6-8 assault frigates, 6-10 corvettes and 4-6 marauders. It's large-ish, but you really only need one of these. Pour all the rest of your pop cap into giant defensive fleets babysitting the ion cannon border worlds. The key to the assault fleets is the Marauders. If it's visible on the map, they can hit it. You setup your frigates and corvettes as pure defense and you veeeeery slowly creep forward until you can see the space station. From then on, the marauders can just chip away eternally. As long as you're not engaging a monster defensive fleet, your frigates should be able to handle any incoming hostiles. *spoiler below* The triple ion cannon thing is so nasty that I think I was actually able to beat a mission I was intended to lose. When they send that monster fleet against Alderaan with the DS, I actually -won- the battle. Final Imperial losses were like 6 ISDs, 15-20 victories, and uncountable smaller ships. The ions were able to keep them massively suppressed. So even though it was dicey for awhile, I ended up winning the battle with only maybe 50% fleet losses. Of course, the DS then proceeded to toast Alderaan, but that's a different story

So I've done some adjusting of my strategy, with great results. Basically: - Ensure that you I never have more than 3 "front" systems. This allows me to allocate a full 1/4 of my pop cap to each of 3 planets, with the final 1/4 used for my assault fleet (w/Antilles). - On each front system, 3 ion cannons, full size space station. Space forces are assault frigates and corvettes only. I keep around a small reserve of y-wings to be able to send for ground support. - Move in 2 fleet jumps. Meaning, set your attacks up so that you can go in with your assault fleet, and then when you win, you can warp in a second fleet from one of your front systems. The idea here is that the planet that 2nd fleet is coming from no longer needs defenses, so you can double up for the inevitable counterattack while waiting for the ion cannons to build. - Assault fleet is assault frigates, corvettes and marauders. Frigates and corvettes are pure defense while the marauders take space stations down safely out of range. Quite easy to escape with no losses. - Always attack ground immediately after taking space. - No ground troops on ANY planet. Just 1 bigass assault army that moves around as needed. Space defenses should be so sturdy that you never have to worry about losing (we'll see). - All space fleets and ground fleets have a field commander. These boost your effectiveness by a TON. It seems to me that once you reach some kind of peak point, things get easier. I have way more income than I can use now and the triple ion-cannon defense stops pretty much everything. Getting a lot more fun

I'm no rookie to RTS's, and I appreciate a good 4X game. But this....this is way hard. Too hard. I'm playing the Rebel campaign on medium and I am just getting smoked left and right in space combat. I can't tell if I'm trying to go places I'm not supposed to, or if I'm just clueless when it comes to combat. For example : I'm on the mission where I'm supposed to fly all the way across the galaxy to do some mission (mission 5? 6?). I'm teched all the way up. I can build a HUGE fleet - something like 4 assault frigates, 4 nebulon B's, 12 Y-wing squads, 8 corvettes, a fleet commander, Antilles, and a handful of marauders. I can't even make much of a dent in the Kuat system. Utter annihilation. I can usually take out the imperial forces at Mon Cal or Kashyyk, but shortly thereafter is a huge counterattack that I have no hope of stopping. It's just....crazy. Am I just supposed to -not- be attacking these systems and sneaking raid fleets through? I mean, I've had to defend a few times at Alderaan against mega attacks (ISD, 8-10 victories, endless Acclamators, etc) - the only way I've survived those was through judicious use of the ion cannon. It just feels like the numbers are fundamentally flawed. It seems that no matter how much I spend, I can send the entire contents of my fleet on attack and just get crushed repeatedly. I've read all the tactics (corvettes vs. fighters. marauders to standoff space stations. nebulons and assault frigates vs. tartans. use the Y-wings as precision scalpels, etc, etc). Nothing seems to work. What am I doing wrong? Should I just give up and not try to conquer anything beyond my little corner of the galaxy and sneak raid fleets everywhere? Ech. A few suggestions would be great. It's disappointing to be hit with yet another Battle-of-Endor that I have no hope of repelling.