Star Wars: Empire at War

[malmapus]

Basically on Sat, I saw an ad on Yahoo.com for it. Downloaded the Demo and got hooked. So bought it yesterday and have been playing getting even more hooked.

Of course have to be spreading order through the galaxy for the Empire, crushing this pathetic rebellion in the process :D. Least until a couple of Mon Calamari cruisers came to a battle *sigh*.

But yeah so far love the game, AI seems solid as I have had a few battles where it was pretty close call. Looking forward to my first Death Star :D

[Hatalles]

1. I had a different reaction after playing the demo...

There was a time when I rushed to buy any game with the LucasArts' Golden Man on the cover but in recent years (a decade+ ?) I'm wary of anything associated with the logo. With the exception of the Knights of the Old Republic (and to *some* degree Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, the storyline put aside), IMHO, every SW title LA has put out has been a disappointment. But enough about LA...

I was planning on buying Empire at War before I tried the demo. I've played my fair share of RTS and enjoy the genre but don't consider it my favorite (or one of my favorite) genres. That said, I've long been a HUGE SW fan so I hurried to DL the demo the day it was released.

I found the space combat to be a whole lot of fun but a bit awkward... perhaps I was expecting something a little more immersive (I'm still waiting for brand new followup to Tie Fighter CD) -- it just felt too "2-D" -- I knew what the system was going to be like beforehand, that we wouldn't have total camera freedom, but I was still expecting space combat to feel a whole lot different than land battle.

Which brings me to the ground... I like the whole idea of capturing the orbit first, then moving planetside and aerial bombardments (you need to have bombers in orbit) are awesome. However, the AI (at least in the demo) was strange -- they just kept coming at you non-stop! *BUILD* *ATTACK* *BUILD* *ATTACK*. And are all the ground maps the same for each planet? For example, the Tatooine ground map in the demo -- is that what you get, every time you enter Tatooine or do the ground maps change?

I may give the game another shot somewhere down the line just because I'm a SW nut...

[malmapus]

2. Yeah, just finished first campaign

Was kinda bummed in the end. Seems like the rebels were just building en masse and sending them out, so ended up having a fleet to just hit space stations to take them out and leaving a ship in orbit so that they could not build stations anymore, then once space was secured I could invade at my leisure and not worry about building up too many defensive fleets.

Was disappointed with Imperial Star Destroyers too in a way, felt the Victory class in the game had more "oomph" fire power wise since could divert their shields to guns for a boost. Wish they let the ISDs do that too (instead they get tractor beam!), but after I upgraded my fleets when I got the ISD tech and phased out the VSD just seemed battles went longer and I was fighting roughly the same smaller class of ships (frigates, corillian corvettes, everything under a Mon Cal class).

Wondered why they never put the SSD in the game till I played a bit, lol would be no room for the bloody thing on those maps, well it would fit I guess but could hardly manuever heh.

[Hatalles]

3. Re: SSD

Hehe... how did they get the Death Star in the game then?

[malmapus]

4. It kinda shows up in the background in space

Only get to use the super laser on a planet from the Empire's perspective (didn't let it go unescorted so don't know if it will get attacked by rebels in space, I asumme so..might try playing rebels next go around).

It's cool though, have the whole countdown as it's slowly coming into the scene till it get's in range of the planet.

[Atmashine]

6. Tie Fighter

is the most awesome game ever made. Well, for me anyway. Have you tried Republic Commando? It's worthy, for being a newish LucasArts game.

[malmapus]

8. Tie Fighter, loved that game!

I think I still have that joystick that came with it around here somewhere too heh.

[Hatalles]

12. Most certainly LA's greatest Star Wars game.

I went through the same sort of thing with Commando as I did with EaW -- was toying with the notion of purchasing it until I played the demo. The marketing was wonderful and the Ep 3 hype was in high gear... I loved a lot of the little things -- team-based maneuvers (though it was way too simplistic), visor wipers, the personalities of your squad mates, hologram briefings, and I totally loved the radio chatter. What really put me off was the gameplay... firepower seemed very weak, the levels seemed much too linear (demo), but most importantly, it was nowhere close to being as polished as other FPS released around the same time. HL2 and Splinter Cell (for spy/stealth elements) both did it better for me.

I think the problem is that LucasArts doesn't give its developers the time they need to put out a high quality game -- too often are these games forced to release to make a date with high sales potential.

[The Revolution]

13. I loved TIE Fighter!

That was a great game. X-Wing Alliance was really good too.

[CabalPowered]

5. I like it as well. Although I think AI is a bit weak.

I beat medium in my first game. I haven't tried hard yet but I'm hoping it's a lot more challenging. I also hope that the increasing AI doesn't just grant more credits and cheaper builds but actually has better strategy.

[malmapus]

7. Was your opposition just building more mines?

I'm not sure if I saw this because of what I was doing. My first move is to deny the enemy the space around their planets then just invade at leisure while maintaining a ship or two in orbit.

But afterwards while I was moving in, I noticed that an insane number of mines were being built on these planets. Not sure if it just realized it couldn't do much with an army or what.


EDIT: What I would GIVE for the option to obital bombard a planet.

[CabalPowered]

9. I tried to find pinch points and keep a good fleet there

I constantly had r2 out stealing tech and built as many mining stations I could but didn't expand too far. Sent han out to pirate planets and racked up some cash and then starting building the monster fleet. I then consolidated all my fleets and heroes and started pounding planet by planet. I found it very helpful to separate my space systems from my ground systems. Move the space fleet in and the ground right behind. My ground fleet was large enough to autoresolve most ground conflicts so I can't say mines were much of a problem. Once I had the monster fleet, it didn't take long to conquer the map.

At some point they'd attack an open planet but I'd let them take out the space station and return with my fleet immediately and crush them. And then onto the next planet. The assault on Coruscant required a good size fleet and the ground battle was challenging but I had ton of reinforcements. I played galactic conquest, empire at war, not the campaign.

Have you tried the campaign? Is it fun?

[malmapus]

11. Yup did campaign first then moved on to Galactic conquest

Campaign was pretty fun, I wouldn't say missions were very challenging though for Empire, with rebellion felt like it was a little bit more. But as Empire I, had trouble with a couple rebel fleets I let get built up in the down time between missions but that was it.

Yeah, I play Empire. Start off with an ok fleet when doing Galactic conquest. Espicially with a few missle frigates, I form 3 smallish fleets and go around taking out space stations, leaving one ship behind so that the rebels can't build it back. Then after I control space, it's pretty much just build up my planets then an army and hit rebel planets at leisure, I'll gain a few techs so that I can get my AT-ATs and just mass produce them.

I'm surprised how well this works at all difficulties, thought for sure with Hard it wouldn't. Funny thing is with higher ones I think rebels try raiding more, but my small fleet orbiting the planet they come from catches the ships when they take off (I think they only aren't seen by the planet they target). Only thing with hard was that I found the planets having a bit more resistance. But nothing a determined Imperial assault couldn't handle.

[TheBaldyMan]

10. sry, it has the 'kiss of death' of any game in my book : RTS

never hooked me from C&C onwards. Too much clicking and dragging and the units never do what you want them to do.