Thrawn's Revenge - A mod for Star Wars, Empire at War

News

Realignment

Changes to the Pentastar Alignment, and some new directions for 2.2With the first release of Ascendancy available, I've started to shift some of my focus back to ICW and getting 2.2 off the ground. Since doing so, I've made a few shifts to the plans for that release. In the previous update, we explained a few of the major focuses for the upcoming version....Realignment...The most drastic changes related to the four playable factions in 2.2 have to do with the Pentastar Alignment; for the last few versions, while they have had some interesting aspects they've lacked some of the feeling of cohesion other factions had, and the plan with this release is to address that. The initial plan for unit expansion in the Alignment was to use the Corporate Sector Authority as sort of an unofficial ally for them, and expand their content using CSA assets. However, despite the appeal of the corporate ties aspect, the fact that the CSA was usually under Zsinj's direct control makes this a bit problematic and not ideal. So while we still keep access to the CSA units for the Alignment when you control the CSA worlds (and extend the same privelages to Zsinj), we're also expanding the core roster for the Alignment as well:New Units: Gladiator, Procursator, Secutor, Bellator.Most of these ships have pretty self-explanatory frigate-cruiser-capital carrier roles, which ties into the "obscure Imperial ships with a focus on fighters" motif the PA currently has. The only outlier is the Bellator, as an SSD, which will be available in eras 3+ on Kuat and Fondor. We're mostly happy with the current SSD setup for the Pentastar Alignment, where they get two at the start and have to make them last, however we felt they could use a bit more firepower as the game goes on, and a better incentive to progress eras. ...An Empire Divided, A Galaxy At War...As it says in the previous update, one of our initial plans was to create a GCW galactic conquest in 2.2, however on further review we feel our efforts would be better spent elsewhere; art assets would be better directed at fleshing out the factions as they currently exist, where necessary, instead of creating several units for a single-use GC. With the defreezer seeming to be funtioning without any issues, instead of creating a scenario that ultimately would end up fairly similar to those in the base game, we can use that time to create scenarios which can take advantage of more planets or more active factions. ...

Thrawn's Revenge: Unification

Quick updates on Imperial Civil War 2.2 and Ascendancy 0.9, as well as an announcement on branding changes.This news post covers information for both mods, but it's been a while since we've said anything about Imperial Civil War so we'll start there. There have been several questions about what's happening with 2.2. We've had a few bits and pieces available to test on our forums for a while now, however our focus has been on finishing the first release of Ascendancy. With that coming next friday, I'll move back to splitting more equally between the two as we accumulate feedback and make decisions for the future versions of Ascendancy. There have been other causes for delays, most prominently that my copy of the program needed to rig for Empire at War (necessary for adding the new PA and EotH units, as well as any Original Trilogy era content for that GC) was screwed up by Windows Update in a way that seems fairly insoluble without reformatting this computer which I don't really want to do, though I've managed to make other arrangements which should solve the problem. Secondly, the main prompt for this post, is the decision to have a minor rebranding of Ascendancy. Ascendancy has been officially renamed to Thrawn's Revenge II: Ascendancy. This may seem pretty trivial, but it's meant to address a few things which have come up rather frequently. It makes it easier for people searching for the mod to find it. It used to be a little odd that every outlet for Star Wars: Ascendancy was called Thrawn's Revenge. Our site, forums, facebook page, youtube channel and twitter all just said Thrawn's Revenge, which has made it a bit more challenging for new people to find information and made Ascendancy seem tacked on as opposed to being in the same "series." With the new name change, this should hopefully be resolved.The other main prompt for this change has to do with content. Before, Ascendancy and Imperial Civil War were essentially perceived as two parallel mods that just happened to be made by the same team, when in reality Ascendancy is, if not the sequel, then as close as that term can possibly come, which should again help with people who are new to the mods, or are coming to one mod from the other. While there are a few differences in what's included, notwithstanding the obvious changes from the fact that they're based on different games, the content being covered in each is heavily based on and influenced by the other, and Ascendancy is essentially an extension of what we wanted to do in Imperial Civil War in what we honestly felt was a more suitable engine. So, hopefully that clears up the divide between the two mods and explains a bit; if you're waiting for ICW2.2 we hope you'll give our initial work on Ascendancy a try, and if you're waiting for for Ascendancy we hope you'll enjoy ICW2.1 in the meantime. Finally, I want to reaffirm that Ascendancy is still scheduled for the first release on Friday, February 7th. Until then we've been posting our test games on youtube, which we've all been enjoying and getting pretty good feedback on, so it seems likely we'll continue doing that for previews as we add new content for both mods.  As ever, we're always looking for ways to improve, so if you have any feedback, suggestions or requests for Thrawn's Revenge (either one) feel free to let us know.Thrawn's Revenge ForumsThrawn's Revenge I: Imperial Civil War on ModDBThrawn's Revenge II: Ascendancy on ModDB ...

I Talked to Gul Dukat

A few days ago we posted the first episode of Gul Dukat's Let's Play series for Imperial Civil War. He's put out the second episode, which includes a ~25 minute discussion with myself about both Imperial Civil War and Ascendancy, as well as just general modding talk for SoaSE and EaW. ...

What You Can Do in 2.2

We've been very adamant that we wouldn't be doing any major updates to the mod past 2.1. We lied. This post has a rundown on what kind of new things you can expect to find in the next version, which is turning out to be more than just the little patches we were promising....Improved Models and Skins...One of our primary goals in the last few versions has been to redo out of date or un-optimized content, ranging from entire redesigns as with the majority of the Empire of the Hand, to smaller model optimizations like with the Clawcraft. We're continuing on with that goal in 2.2, using models and skins we've been developing for our Sins of a Solar Empire mod, Ascendancy. So far in 2.2, the most prominent of the reworks are the Strike Cruiser, which has been entirely remodelled with a sleeker design, and the Bothan Assault Cruiser and Assault Frigate, the models for which have been significantly optimized, and the textures for which have been entirely redone....Bugfixes and Balancing...We're also focusing on tracking down and eliminating some bugs, many of which we addressed with our mini patch beta addressed, such as the crashes when you tried to change eras after a faction was already eliminated. This also includes reworking some of the ship rigs where bones faced the wrong way, like the Venator. We also have the defreezer by Pox and Fregge, which adresses the unit selection bug and allows us to re-enable galactic AI for minor factions in GCs, so Hapans and other groups are able to attack you....Particle Rescaling...One of the changes people ask for most often is for us to scale down the particles for Turbos and Ions, because they have a to obscure the ships behind them, and be larger than the things they're shooting out of. So, we've both reduced particle sizes by 50%, and sped them up considerably. The latter change is meant to reduce the amount of particles on screen at any time, which should improve performance without really sacrificing anything....New GC Scenarios...We're doing at least one, maybe two new Galactic Conquest scenarios. The first one is a scenario which expands the mod back in time to cover the original timeperiod of FoC, the pre-Endor stages of the Galactic Civil War. This will be a medium sized scenario with new planets, and time period-appropriate units....New Units...Along with the Galactic Civil War GC units, there'll be a few new units for other eras in this release as well. Most of these will be split between the Pentastar Alignment and the Empire of the Hand. These include the Gladiator Star Destroyer for the Pentastar Alignment, and the Alaria for the Empire of the Hand. The Alaria was designed for Ascendancy as a supply ship, so the version in ICW will be a heavy carrier refit for the later eras. We'd also like to include another capital ship for the Empire of the Hand, depending on how quickly it gets completed. we have a thread dedicated to discussing the nature of the Pentastar Alignment and what should be done with them on our forums as well....New Feature: Diplomatic Planet Influence...Smallpox has been working on creating a new system for the mod, which adds a non-military option to convert planets to your cause. We've put out a test version for the base, unmodded Forces of Corruption game to get a sense of how people feel about the system, what should be added or changed, and whether or not they would like to have it added to Imperial Civil War, along with any bug reports/performance issues it causes. Click here to go to the thread and download it, and please give any feedback you have, even if it's just to say you do or don't like it. Guests are able to post, so you don't need an account to respond to threads....And more?If there's anything else you'd like to see, we encourage you to post your suggestions on our forums. We're definitely going to be doing Let's Plays of Ascendancy as we get closer to release for that, so I'm playing with the idea of doing one for ICW as well, if that's something anyone would be interested in....Follow the mod...Forums - Facebook - Youtube ...

Patch One Content Thread

As we've said, we're updating some of the art content and maybe adding some units in the upcoming patch while the gameplay changes are in beta. So, here's the new Strike Cruiser in Imperial Civil War. ...

[Beta] Imperial Civil War Patch 2.15 Released

This is still a beta version. We're posting this to make sure everything works, so please report any bugs, as well as if issues haven't actually been resolved; since this is a new way for us to do patches, it's possible the files weren't collected properly.What's new in this patch, and then the one after that.[Download Imperial Civil War 2.15]To install, paste the Data folder over your Imperial Civil War Data folder to replace old versions of the included files.Major Changes in 2.15Selection Bug FixWith the defreezer utility, included in the download, you can now "defreeze" save files which have hit the bug in EaW which makes units uncontrollable after a certain amount of time in a GC.Minor Faction AIBecause of the fix to the selection bug, we have re-enabled AI on the Galactic map for all factions in the progressive GCs, including minor factions. If this causes problems, we may have to revert this change in the next patch.Survival Mode ChangesTargeting algorithms for the AI in Survival Mode have been changed so that waves target your ships before the shipyard. We've also reduced the damage bonus item's effectiveness, which was previously way over the top for testing purposes because we forgot to change it.Galactic Conquest AdditionsThe New Republic has been added as a playable faction in the 'Imperial Civil War' progressive GC.Era Change FixWe have fixed an issue which caused the game to crash if you tried to change eras after a faction has been destroyed. Until we can find an alternative solution, this does mean that for now, even when you take over all the planets, the game won't post the victory screen.Other Minor ChangesMajestic range increased, added Plex soldiers to Pentastar Alignment, fixed Imperial hero spawning in Shadow Hand, and planet accessibility in PA's FTGU.We have one more major patch scheduled for ICW 2.1 this summer, which is already partially in testing but includes some pretty big things, so we don't want to change too much at once.In the Next PatchDiplomatic Influence SystemSmallpox has been working on implementing a new game mechanic, where you need to maintain political control over your planets and sectors via Diplomats, meaning military conquest is no longer your only tool. This is currently in the testing phase to make sure everything functions as intended.New Units, Models and TexturesWe've decided to hold off on the model updates for the next patch, so I can do everything at once because of some modelling program issues. However, this will include the new models and skins for the Strike Cruiser, Assault Frigate, and Bothan Assault Cruiser, potentially with a few others. We also may have one or two new units in this patch, which we'll post later.Pentastar Alignment Survival ModeOnce we're sure the mode as a whole is where we want it, we still hope to add a PA version of Survival mode. ...

Patch Status

We mentioned that we wanted to get a patch out relatively early in February, but there were a few things which delayed that. The first was our website going down for several weeks. More importantly, there were only a few minor issues that would have been addressed, whereas the more major changes have required some other developments. As it is, there are five main things the patch will attempt to address when it comes out.1. Many of you may be familiar with the unit selection bug in FoC; this is an issue which, when a certain amount has happened in a GC, causes the game to stop letting you select and control your units, making the game unplayable. As this was an issue with the base game, there's nothing mods can do to fix it directly. However, Pox has been working with Fregge on a new tool to rectify this issue by editing save files, which you can download by clicking here. With respect to the patch, this opens up a few possibilities for us. One of the reasons we've had to disable the AI of different factions in several GCs was to mitigate this issue. Now that it's not an issue, we're exploring the options of re-enabling galactic AI for several minor factions.2. In the Era-Progressive GC's, there's also an issue where if a faction is destroyed before an era change, the game will crash. We're experimenting with some things to address this issue as well. The tough part here is that there are so many possible combinations and it takes a few hours of playing to get to the point where you'd experience it, so this is something we'll be keeping track of after the patch to see if it is in fact resolved.3. We're still experimenting with getting the New Republic into the Imperial Civil War GC as a playable faction. There are issues with making them use the proper story files in this GC for reasons we haven't been able to determine, so we're still working on that.4. There is currently an issue with the multiplayer lobby because of an old entry in gamecontants which references a server message that Petro took down years ago. It's a simple issue to fix (replacing http://www.petroglyphgames.com/eawmotd/ with http://216.120.238.87/EAWMOTD in GameConstants.xml) however Gamespy is shutting down, so fixing this doesn't really solve anything. Several mods have started promoting the use of the tunngle Virtual LAN service as an alternative, so we're gonna jump on that as well, with details here.5. Finally, there are a few unit visual updates and optimizations we'd like to get into the mod for this patch, especially on the side of the New Republic. These include the Assault Frigate, CR90 Corvette, and Bothan Assault Cruiser. Possibly the Nebulon-B as well. I've also been playing with the idea of adding one of the new EotH units from Ascendancy into ICW, however since it's more of a utility ship it's harder to say whether it'd even be useful in ICW.This should be coming soon. I'll get some screenshots of the last bit up as we go. -Corey ...

Choose Your Side!

We know a lot of you  like to claim you support specific factions, but other than your borderline-creepy attempts at roleplaying, we've rarely seen solid proof of it. Luckily, we've turned the logos of the main factions into handy forum avatars, so you can all continue posting while knowing who exactly you're supposed to hate or be friends with. In order to use them:1. Right click the one you want, "copy image url,"2. Go to your profile page, 3. Go to the modify profile dropdown, and then click "forum profile"4. "Specify avatar by URL" and paste5. Save. ...

Imperial Civil War 2.1 Released!

This requires a fully patched installation of Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption.Uninstall all previous versions of Imperial Civil War before installing.For Those New to Imperial Civil WarNew Era-Based Tech SystemPlay as the New Republic, Imperial Remnant, Pentastar Alignment or Empire of the Hand with dozens of new units and heroesConquer Hostile Non-Playable Factions, Including the Hapans and Yevethans14 New Galactic Conquests Scenarios18 New Skirmish MapsOver 70 New Planetary Maps for GCOver 100 New Space Maps for GCRedone Particle Effects and GUISeveral All-New Gameplay MechanicsMajor Changes in 2.1Features a new Survival gameplay mode where you fight off waves of enemy ships.Imperial Civil War GC: Play as the Remnant or Pentastar Alignment in this era-progressive GC to control the known GalaxyNew Units and Structures: Bu'direch, Visvia, V-19 Torrent, LucrehulkRedone Units: Vigilance, MTC, Clawcraft, MassiasVarious Bug FixesFor full information on the content in Imperial Civil War, please read the manual:[Download Manual][Download from Mod Database - ZIP][Download from Mod Database - Installer]If you are having trouble running or installing the mod, please post in our tech support board. Make sure to check the manual as well as existing threads for the answer to your question before posting.The Future of Imperial Civil WarAs we've said in the past, 2.1 will be the final full version of Thrawn's Revenge: Imperial Civil War. That being said, we still intend to support and release some updates for the mod. This will include a few new units, as well as some visual reworks which will hopefully also help to improve performance. At the moment, this is scheduled to include units like the Consen Dropship for the Empire of the Hand, and redone versions of the Bothan Assault Cruiser, new Shipyard skins, and a few other things. Once we have more feedback on Survival mode, we'd also like to update the map for it and release a version of it for the Pentastar Alignment, as well as include a version of the Imperial Civil War GC scenario for the New Republic (we originally intended to with the initial 2.1 release, but the New Republic refuses to play nice with the story scripts). Our main focus going forward is going to be for our Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion mod, Star Wars: Ascendancy, which will be the source of our updated models. I know this will come as a disappointment to some people considering several of those people have sent me messages to insult me for it, but the addition of mountains of new units or factions at this point would hinder basic game functionality, and the mod is already pretty massive. With these updates, while we will be trying to flesh out some areas which may be lacking or add what makes sense, our main goals will be to polish what is there. We feel we've essentially accomplished the core of what we set out to do with ICW and are ready for some change.I would personally like to thank the amazing team I've been lucky enough to be a part of for the last 8 years for their hard work, as well as the outspoken and dedicated fanbase who has supported us throughout development. I'm looking forward to working with all of you to polish ICW and to launch Ascendancy!If you have a question about the mod, suggestions for future versions or would like more information on the mod, please follow us on our forums, Facebook page or Mod Database profile. ...