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I've spend most of my time today playing Star Wars: Empire at War and the expansion Forces of Corruption again after 2 years.
Not many talk about this RTS anymore and I thought it would be time we have a chat about it!
As a Star Wars fan myself Empire at War has everything I wanted from a RTS. The most fun I've had was in Galactic Conquest mode and a build massive fleet of Star Destroyers.
The ground aspect of the game is a mixed bag personally. It isn't as much fun as space battles, but depending on the map and mood I enjoyed it.
Sadly the game story isn't canon anymore, including the expansion Forces of Corruption, which centered around Tyber Zann.
What did you enjoy about EaW? Let's discuss it here in r/games
For those interested, here is the Steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/32470/ The game is also available on GoG.
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I freaking love Empire at war, and I still play now and again.
That being said, the land based portions of the game isn't very good, the FOC expansion was incredibly unbalanced, Enemy AI spammed defilers like there's no tomorrow, and neither the rebel faction or Zann could match the Empires super star destroyer, and the Death star was (understandably) Game breakingly OP
Edited for spelling and grammar
Which is where the modding scene comes into play
From the clone wars, to Halo, the skirmishes for the game have been made better for everyone's tastes
That or broke the game hilariously. I remember z3r0x's unit addon bonanza and the empire in the galactic war mode was hilariously OP. Just hold Kuat until you can tech up to level 5 and then build your 3 Super Star destroyer fleets and demonstrate the might of the Empire all across the galaxy. Didn't even need the death star to conquer the world.
That being said, I loved all the Expanded Universe references.
U loved the mods that just made the ships 'realistic'. So that a SSD wud be the size of the map itself. Just warp it in and watch the sea of lasers melt literally everything.
The only one that could match the superstar destroyer was the rebel dildo bombers cheese that they send in like 50 waves . Though in campaign they only have that one fleet.
Yeh I got the feeling every battle didn't matter if you chose the empire and just smashed through any space defense and just bombed the planet. They where just WAY to strong in space combat.
Does anyone have any love for Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds?
Ahh, sweet memories...
Best thing: Star Wars AOE2 Worst thing: Star Wars AOE2
If that's what you wanted, you were going to be happy camper. If not, tough luck.
Thankfully, that's exactly what 12 year old me wanted.
With the Map Editor there were some insane MP maps going about, though.
I remember even playing simply style RPGs with a level up system, speeder bike races and game mods echoing DotA.
Jeeeeedi Fest
I recently bought it on GOG... All I can say is I hope they do a HD version a la AOE2, given the engine and all. It hasn't aged well.
There's a wide-screen patch floating around in the GOG comments. The graphics style means it hasn't really aged at all in my opinion.
It kept crashing on me sadly :(
Yeah, it does seem to crash fairly often, I've got into the habit of saving regularly.
I really hope that as well. It would be amazing!!!
That is one of my favorite games ever. A very underrated Star Wars title.
Who underrated it? http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/star-wars-galactic-battlegrounds/critic-reviews
Computer Gaming World
Computer Games Magazine
G4 TV
Game Revolution
And Game Informer, but GI's always sucked. It's been one of the few constants in the industry.
You think GI always sucked? I've always thought they've been pretty good.
How about Force Commander? Honestly the only thing I remember about the game is the Imperial March remixes released to hype it.
The metal imperial march music was great. I never got to play the game and have never seen it since. I sure miss the variety of rts back in the day.
Alright this is the perfect thread actually since I've spent the past year playing this game very intensely and I spent a good majority of my childhood playing both the base game and it's expansion.
The main appeal to me as a kid was just the ability to control and use the awesome ships we see in the star wars movies. The game just captivated me as a kid and seemed to be perfect. That was me as a kid, however.
Playing the base game now is just not as fun as I remembered it. The vanilla game seemed so shallow and didn't have much going for it. The campaign was alright but seemed to not have any real major highlights, the skirmishes are kinda boring and the same with the galactic conquest, which is really where you will spend most of your time. The ground combat is an awful experience and seems to take away from the real meat of the game which is the space combat.
The expansion added a lot of cool stuff but also seemed to break the game. While the base game was kind of bland, it seemed balanced enough to not give me as a child any real problems. The expansion on the other hand, added a new faction that was really just too powerful. The units and special abilities the Consortium had, made them annoying to fight and easy to win with. The expansion, however, turned out to the saving grace for the game.
after getting tired of the base game and it's expansion, I started to look for new ways to enjoy the game. This lead me to find one of the greatest, most dedicated modding communities I had ever seen. The amount of mods for the expansion are astonishing. There's mods that add new units, new factions, new maps, pretty much anything you could ask for.
That's what my fondest memories of this game are. The modding community is the life blood of this game. I've spent the last year playing different mods for this game on my youtube channel, and I've been having such a great time. The game isn't a deep RTS and it doesn't have any really complicated aspects to it, but it does give you a chance to just play around with some of the amazing ships and weapons in the star wars expanded universe.
If I had to recommend some mods for this game, I'd recommend Thrawn's Revenge, and Absolute Corruption Mod. Thrawn's Revenge is to me the most interesting mod I've seen so far for this game. It's like the sequel we never got. It adds in a veriery of different factions, units and a new time progession system into the Galactic Conquest that makes it much more interesting. It takes place in the time right after the fall of the empire up until right before the vong invasion. The level of polish for this mod is just incredible. So far it's been my favorite mod because each of the factions seemed unique and enjoyable in their own way.
Absolute Corruption Mod is more of showcase of some of the coolest ships in the Star Wars Universe. It isn't structured around an almost story experience like Thrawn's Revenge. It seems to just add in a bunch of new units and changes some of the mechanics a bit. I've found it to be a lot of fun just getting to see some of the awesome ships in action. That, to me, is what this game is about. letting you experience these awesome battles in the Star Wars Universe.
So, is the game perfect? of course not. In a lot of ways, it's a forgettable game. The biggest selling point is the fact that it's a star wars game. Because of that, it has such a strong modding community that is dedicated to making it an awesome Star Wars experience. If you're a fan of the Star Wars lore, you should definitely think about trying out this game with some of the mods available. If anything, you can fanboy out on how awesome these ships can look.
Sorry to reboot a pretty old thread but you seem passionate about the game, and after spending a lot of hours in SWEAW, I've finally gone and bought FOC (because my new laptop doesn't have a DVD drive...).
I spent a lot of time with Steiner's Advanced Unit mod for EAW which changed the balance and gameplay quite a lot, and also Conflicts in Space (which is hilariously unbalanced looking back). I'm going to play FOC without mods for a bit to get used to the changes, whatever they may be, and then probably try both the two mods you suggested.
Are there any other exceptional mods to try, bearing in mind that I like the feel or SAU, and also will probably spend more time in skirmish battles than GC because I don't really enjoy land battles too much. If you can provide a compelling argument for GC I could be tempted, but I was never that good at the management side of it to be honest.
The galactic conquest in Thrawn's Revenge is really the most unique and interesting aspects of the game. Because of the Era System the developers specifically made for the mod, the campaign feels more like you are in the star wars expanded universe story. As you progress through the Eras, you and your opponents gain and lose access to different ships and units. For example, in Era 1, the New Republic has very old and weaker ship types and units available to them that are really just carry overs from the rebellion as the New Republic at that time was barelly founded. while in Era 5, they have access to the most advanced new weaponry developed by the New Republic in its later years due to going through a military modernization program. Meanwhile, the Empire in Era 1, is just coming from the defeat at Endor, but still holds a large and powerful military force. In Era 5, they have lost access to many of their more powerful ships and are using less capable, cheaper units to compensate for their losses in the later time period in the EU. The Era system progresses from the death of the Imperial Leader units, so playing as the New Republic, it is in your best interest to kill their leaders so you can progress through the eras to unlock more powerful units, while as the Empire, you want to protect these heroes to prevent yourself from becoming too weak. One thing that makes this system work is the fact that the Hero units are also some of the most capable units in the Empire, so it isn't in the Empires best interest to just leave them sitting around doing nothing staying out of danger. This Era System gives the galactic conquest campaigns a deeper aspect to them that really revitalized the game for me. It makes playing as any of the 4 factions a lot more dynamic and gives you an overarching goal to achieve. In most mods and the base game, the tech system is more inconvenient than enjoyable. Replacing it with the Era system makes it much more organic to the game and puts you in control of your progression. Instead of waiting around until you get to the next tech level, you now have to earn your progression. You have to defeat your enemy to progress. The Skirmish mode has a good variety of ships available to it, but it isn't the selling point of the mod. I recommend you try out the galactic conquest on it, and see how you like it. I enjoy it so much more than the base game and far more than FoC since it ruined a lot of the balance to the game. I don't find the management to be too complex or anything in the galactic conquest, so I'm sure you just need to get antiquated with it more. Petroglyph Games tends to make RTS games that are far more simple and accessible than most other games in the genre. One thing i will point out is that if you hate the ground combat with a burning passion, this mod is not going to change that at all. The ground combat is just as bad as ever, but the added improvements to the over all game make it way more worth while. When you get tired of FOC, give the mod a try, as I still find it to be the most enjoyable and I keep coming back to it. Most other mods seem to build off of vanilla FOC which is disappointing in a lot of ways since, in my opinion, FOC broke a lot of the game. The Consortium broke the balance of the game by being very powerful. Thrawn's Revenge is one of the only mods that truly feels complete and seems to build itself more as a new game than a re imagining of FOC.
Oh damn its asdf! I watch your stuff on Youtube! Fancy seeing you here.
Hey, you're the dev for Awakaning of the Rebellion right? I recognize your name because I've been meaning to give that mod a try. I'm really looking forward to it. I really like the idea of missions within the galactic conquest.
I played vanilla EaW and FoC back then but you actually made me want to return back to the game with your text! Are there any go-to sites where I can get the mods you suggested?
Mod DB is pretty much be the best place to get mods for this game. There's a lot of released mods and under development mods. They also show you which ones are being updated.
http://www.moddb.com/games/star-wars-empire-at-war-forces-of-corruption/mods
As someone who grew up playing Star Wars: Rebellion, EaW was kind of a let down as an RTS. Yes, it was graphically superior but it was dumbed down and way too scripted compared to Rebellion.
Boy, the money I would pay for a Rebellion remake.
Remember, It's star wars.
So it would have to be made by EA.
They don't really do RTS anymore.
To be fair: no major studio does. RTS is essentially dead.
And I still enjoyed C&C3 (we don't talk about 4) or The Battle for Middle Earth games with a Star Wars paintjob, either would be nice for the ground battles in a new Empire at War.
Honestly, C&C 4 was a pretty okay game in its own right. It just wasn't a freaking C&C game.
It's a shame base-building RTS games don't seem to be as common these days. I'd kill for a updated Empire Earth (I or II, we don't talk about III), or Rise of Nations (And god, Rise of Legends was fun), or Tiberian Sun...
Agreed. Empire Earth III should go die in a fire. Empire Earth I needs some AI balance changes, easy was hard as balls. II I think nailed exactly what I wanted from the game, I loved the territory aspect of the game.
Definitely why I said remake rather than reboot.
In any case, Rebellion is such a niche style of RTS that anyone who undertook the concept of a remake would probably have to be someone who wanted to do it justice in the first place.
Ahh! Everyone talking about some of my favourite RTSs that I grew up with.
I was a BIG fan of Star Wars Rebellion. It got wrecked by the critics, so it is good to see others whom also share the love for this game. There was just something about it, that it put you in the seat as Commander of the entire Empire (or Rebellion). You built your ships, troops, conquered planets, used your heroes on missions, collected resources; for all of its faults I still think it is one of the best RTS conquest mode type of games.
Star Wars: Empire at War I always felt was a great update to Rebellion. Greatly improved graphics, and while I felt that the conquest map mode was a bit more streamlined and dumbed down, the ground and space battles were immensely improved. Much more love from fans and critics alike resulted in an expansion, which I also liked.
Battle for Middle Earth 1 & 2. I was introduced to this game years after it came out and still fell in love with it. I LOVED the campaign in the first one where you follow the storyline from the movies. The epic battles at the end of two towers and return of the king that you get to play through were executed perfectly. Challenging and exciting at the same time. And the War of the Ring mode in BFME2 was very reminiscent of the Galactic conquest mode of EaW and Rebellion. I still to this day re-install and play this mode.
Empire Earth I & II. While I do agree it is a weaker version of Age of Empires, it makes up for it in sheer size in attempting to capture all related epochs of human civilization, as well as number of nations. The HOURS I spent playing this game...I just couldn't get enough of it! I have always wanted to give III a try but it got so thrashed by critics and fans alike, that I would almost rather just reinstall II and play that again.
It is truly a crying shame that the base-building RTS games have gone out of style:(. That the f2p facebook Clash of Clans have taken over. I have tried them but they just don't have the same level of depth and strategy, and those f2p mechanics of time gating all of your actions for hours and days, are just too incredibly frustrating.
As someone who played Star Wars Rebellion as a kid, Empire at War felt a little shallow. Love the concept, but just could never get into it, especially the ground combat.
Rebellion certainly had its flaws, but I enjoyed it immensely. It always felt oddly gritty and realistic, maybe that's just nostalgia talking. It did let you build death commandos and use them to assassinate Rebel scum.
The ground combat was horrible. A squad of "citizens" shouldn't be able to wipe out Stormtroopers or armored vehicles.
A group of stone age teddy bears managed both so it's not exactly unprecedented in the franchise.
And that is why if I could travel back in time, I'd give George however much money he needed to keep it as the Wookies that fought the Empire not the Ewoks.
...
That would have been much cooler.
Endor should have been Kashyyk, the Wookie homeworld. It was established after ROTJ but wookies were used as slave labor for the construction of the Death Star II. Everything that Endor was, could have been Kashyyk instead with a wookie rebellion. GL decided to appease the child demographic with the Ewoks.
I've never seen citizens take out stormtroopers unless the unit was severely depleted
I'm waiting for somebody to make Star Wars Rebellion 2, some day.
Star Wars Rebellion was an amazing game. I wish they would remake or revisit the game at some point. I got it on GOG and it was still really entertaining to play even today.
I agree! I still boot it up and go to my Death Star save game. Nothing like destroying a planet and watch loyalties go down galaxy wide!
Dealing with "Death Star Politics" was always really entertaining because of the effect on system allegiance. When I was younger I remember it taking me so long to make any progress in the game. I had a few that must have last into 4 or 5 thousand days. This last game I played I had most of my ships unlocked and was running around smashing the AI by around 500 days.
Really wish someone would look into doing a new or updating the old Rebellion. Such a great star wars strategy game. It also felt a lot more "Grand Strategy" similar to Crusader Kings 2 or so than Empire at War.
Agreed! It had an interesting economy and the loyalty index mechanic was interesting.
I even liked how it let you use your characters for missions and command spots
The characters were probably one of the best parts. I liked how people would level up as you used them for certain mission types and sometimes people would be force sensitive etc. Really neat system.
I am so glad this comment exists.
I've tried to get into Empire at War and its expansions several times, a few attempts were even several months apart. I could never get into it. At the same time, I still play Rebellion on occasion and would love a proper sequel.
Rebellion was a lot of fun. It felt pretty epic but was incredibly slow. The space battles were just okay (I don't think there were actual ground battles). Never felt very strategic to me... or maybe the strategy just never clicked for me.
The strategy was more in maneuvering your forces around the Galaxy than in the individual battles. It also gave you the opportunity to destroy ships via saboteurs rather than having to engage them in battle.
nothing like pissing off your empire playing friend by blowing up his brand new super star destroyer with a sabotage mission
That's why you put Imperial Fleet Troopers aboard your Star Destroyers even if they were just sitting in orbit at the time.
This is why every rebel ship got a regiment of sullustans on them. Best detection in the game iirc.
i loved that game, it has to be one of the best games I cannot bring myself to play anymore. I remember in addition to everything else the net code was pretty bad and it might randomly crash on us while playing and lose everything since the last save, but multiplayer was so awesome.
I think what I liked so much was how much effort was put into making it feel like Star Wars, rather than just retell the story exactly, so you didn't know who could become a Jedi or where the rebel base was...
It was alright didn't really live up to rebellion. I didn't like the reenforcement mechanism for space battles since it removed large fleet engagements. The ground battles have already been touched on.
I removed the population caps on the space maps and it slowed to a crawl so it was probably a capability decision as much as it was a gameplay decision.
Quite tempted to play it now with pop caps removed as it can probably handle enormous engagements with the help of modern CPUs and GPUs (that being said it would look daft given the rather small size of space maps).
How were you able to remove the pop caps? Is there an option for it?
It's been literally years, but I think you can pop into the xml files with a text editor and change the population values of all your ships to zero. Then even when you spawn more as reinforcements, your population size doesn't go up.
I love the game, but when i'm playing the GC i'm always thinking how much better it would have been if the time progression was turn based rather than real time. It really is impossible to manage warfare across so many fronts and battlefields when the time is going fast as it is. It doesn't help that the pause function doesn't let you give orders either.
That's my main complaint with the game anyway, and it really ruins my enjoyment with it. I have a few niggles with the land and space combat, but none of those affect the game so deep to the roots as that.
One of my favorite games of all time. Sure it's not the best game in the world but I find it to be very fun. Especially when you throw on some neat mods, like x3r0x which added a crap ton of stuff from the rest of the star wars EU.
x3r0x was definitely, and still is I guess, my go to mod for FoC. So good. There are a lot of good mods in the works still, but they haven't had releases in ages. Rise of the Mandalorians, comes to mind.
you had to play every single battle for yourself which got repetitive after a while. auto resolve would just kill your whole fleet. at least that was my expierience.
I loved the ground combat, problems and all. It's approach was far better at melding tactics and strategy than most other games: taking and holding territory with the army you brought along rather than being able to build whole new armies on the spot. If the enemy AI had been better and the strategic pace were more manageable, it could have made for a grueling challenge to actually conquer the galaxy. As it was, it was a fun and refreshing take.
Played it originally when it came out, and then again recently with a friend before Gamespy nuked their servers.
It's a fun, but very flawed game. Like everything Petroglyph has ever made, really.
Yeah, it was a mixed bag. I played some of the galactic conquest and campaign and found them okay-ish. Destroying planets with the Death Star was a lot of fun!
Soon I settled into just playing repeated space matches. They were pretty cool, especially when you got a huge fleet of Star Destroyers or Cruisers. Nothing special from an RTS standpoint, as it was mostly a case of the side with the most guns wins, alongside a bit of rock-paper-scissors and basic resource gathering on small maps. But it was the only game that let me play out the space battles from the movies. Like a lot of Star Wars games, it was sold by the IP and the music.
There is a tonne of potential for an improved sequel, with better ground battles and 3D space battles a la Homeworld. Unfortunately the likelihood of a licensed AAA RTS being released for the PC in this day and age is zero to none.
I liked Empire at War, and still play it from time to time.
I wasn't a fan of the ground combat, but I did enjoy the space combat... even if it was a bit two dimensional (heh).
I really enjoyed b-lining for a death star and then just blowing everything except one planet up. I will rule the cinders!
Empire at War was a fun game for sure. Like others have said, the ground combat wasn't the best - it was poorly paced, and there was a sense that it took a backseat to space. Space itself felt pretty solid - visceral, and with a wide range of unit types. The cinematic option just just a waste of space, and the fact that everything took place in on a flat, 2-D plane meant that formations and orientation of ships weren't that important. Still enjoyable though.
I see people bringing up Rebellion and Galactic Battlegrounds. Am I the only one who enjoyed Force Commander?
I loved playing EAW but it was not a great game. Space battles were fun, galactic conquest was OK, and land battles sucked. Space battles were also fairly shallow affairs, with hero units being startlingly OP.
Forces of Corruption added some cool stuff, but it didn't do much to address the flaws in the game.
Oh this game is a BLAST! I've spent like >5000 hours on this game. I don't think I will ever get tired of it. I'm a dev from the mod Awakening of the Rebellion, and I've poured three years of my free time creating content for this game. Doesn't seem like I'm going to be stopping anytime soon. They really need to make a sequel with a modern engine so us modders don't have to work with old tech.
The nodding scene really made that game for me. Particularly "Phoenix Rising" and "Thrawns Revenge". . PA for computer crushing space battles and a way more authentic Star Wars feel, TR for some amazingly well crafted and balance campaigns.
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i agree
I loved the game and the story. I thought it was very unique and I have wanted to start a gamedev project to build something similar.
Multiplayer was excellent and I remember there being tons of great mods for it! Shame there isn't another Star Wars RTS as this was great for me after Galactic Battlegrounds
I really enjoyed Stargate: Pegasus chronicles mod. It has only space skirmish right now but it is still fun. Too bad we were not able to make multiplayer work with a friend due to some router issues.
There are no official Stargate games AFAIK so modding is fan's only hope.
I finished the Imperial playthrough of EaW, remembered feeling very anticlimactic in the Endor battle, where you just scuffled for five minutes with a symbolic rebel fleet before the Death Star wiped out all resistance. Boring ending.
I bought Forces of Corruption but felt the playthrough as the "yellow" team was very hard and I got stuck about five missions in, never went back. Can't say what it did wrong, I guess the tech and ships of the Corruption team didn't feel like "Star Wars". Felt more like Star Trek.
I recently found out about this mod. The video got me very interested, but I haven't played it yet. It seems to make the game much deeper and more strategic.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed the game. The mods are great too. I loved what they did with the Republic at War mod but they made the AI so damn hard it seemed. I could never win.
Does the editor works with the Steam version now?
I loved it because of star wars, but in the basic infantry would stand and shoot at each other for ages with little damage being dealt.
It was pretty cool that they allowed the license to be used for this type of game. It was released after RTS' were on the decline and grand strategy games were still a relatively niche genre.
I wish they would have made a sequel because the concept was really cool. Just improve the land battles and add more depth to the grand strategy element.
Loved eaw, hated foc expansion. All the original content they came up for foc was terrible. It's too bad, because they did also add in some decent content to the rebellion & empire, but the new corruption race was just awful (and overpowered).
yes it was but the mods really fleshed out the game
I like Empire at War but Forces of Curroption is crap. Its too unbalanced and things happen to your units too fast to react in time. Its a pain in my ass every time I play. I have to fight the damn thing just to maintain 3 planets. I'd be amazed if anyone ever got any further than I did.