A Scenario

[Prince Xizor]

So I recently reinstalled this mod, after installing Ascendancy for SoaSE: Rebellion. And I must say, I've been having a lot of fun with it once more, but I've ran into a bit of bother while trying to take this planet. I keep getting my *** kicked  \

So I've tried my best to explain the outcome of the battle in words, and as I saved before I began the assault, I simply just reload. But however, here it is.

I'm playing as the IR, and I descend upon the planet with all my ground forces, after a rather difficult battle in the space above. So I send forth my legions of doom to crush the Republic scum! (Nah not really). I just send forward a bunch of guys who probably don't even know what they've signed up for. But anyway, back to the battle! There was this one point I kept trying to take, that was essential for landing more troops. But I kept getting beaten back and annihilated whenever I tried to take it.

I can't remember the enemy units, but the ones I sent into battle were:

5 companies of Stormtroopers
2 companies of 2-M Saber-class Repulsor Tanks
3 Century Tanks
And 1 Juggernaut

If anyone could provide some sort of tactical plan for defeating the Republic, bearing in mind the information I have provided is rather limited (sorry), but my brain seems not to remember writing this, I'll perhaps go back to the battle and see what other info I can give.

Cheers!
Xizor.

[tlmiller]

Several solutions.

1.  SPMA-T.  Set up a company of SPMA-T as close to the area as you can without them getting attacked, deploy, then move forward with your expendables slowly.  SPMA-T has great range and can hit the T2-B/t3-b/t4-b's that come out to crush your cannon fodder.  At the same time, soon as you see what's attacking you, run forward with Century tanks to attack MPTL's (which are the most deadly).  They'll probably get killed also, but MPTL's are fairly weak close up so moderate losses are perfectly acceptable, ecspecially given how affordable the Century Tank is.

2.  If you're in Era 4+, just say "F it" and replace everything except the 2M with XR85 droids.  Expensive, but just rush the opponent with a few XR85's and they'll fall back unless it's airborn assault.

[Grimnak]

Very good advice.  I only imagine he's fighting on one of those worlds that only begin with three population as starting forces, which is admittedly challenging.  I do not play IR, but I may be able to elaborate on tlmiller's advice a bit.

If in fact you are limited to three population and are not in Era 4, I would probably bring out one company of SPMA-Ts, one company of century tanks, and one company of Stormtroopers (to capture the landing point, obviously).  If there are Airspeeders or V-Wings (which the NR tends to field), then the SPMA-Ts may have to be substituted with AT-AAs (anti-air is a must for those scenarios).  If there are any air threats, bring out your AT-AAs first and camp your starting location until the air threats have died down.

[Pali]

If all else fails, the reality of ground assaults in EaW is that the defender can have however many buildings with their garrisons as well as 10 units - which means that even if it is incredibly costly, you can send assault after assault to wear down those defending units and eventually defeat the enemy.

The NR's weakness on the ground is that, on a unit to unit basis, most of the NR's ground units (particularly vehicles) are inferior to those of the IR in a head to head.  A T3/4 company is weaker than a single AT-AT or an XR-85 company, and will lose in a straight up fight against them.  The exception is the air units, particularly the V-Wings, which can be countered with AT-AAs or directed mass fire from other units (you specifically order a mass of ground units to shoot an air unit; this works well with most ground units unless you're being truly swarmed) - and none of those air units are garrison units, which means that buildings won't spawn them in battle, so any you encounter are built units that can be destroyed in "raid" attacks to diminish the enemy's defenses.  Before you invade, probe droid the planet so you know exactly what it has on the ground to attack you - if it only has factories, you need anti-armor.  If it only has barracks, you need anti-infantry.  If it has both, you need a mix.  If it also has garrison units, then you may want to use raid-style tactics to whittle them down - since the AI isn't big on holding its units back for a coordinated assault, if they've got a lot of fast air units, just dropping a couple AT-AAs with some stormies to guard them and blowing away the air units they send then retreating to re-invade with other units is a worthy strategy.  Just remember that the IR's units excel at what they are designed to do, but are not that good at what they aren't - the NR's are more multi-purpose, so while the NR can get away with spamming a single unit type (a buttload of freerunners is nigh-unstoppable), the IR really does need those mixed forces supporting each other.

While ground battles can feel incredibly expensive, remember that it takes losing 6 AT-ATs to equal losing a Star Destroyer - a tough ground battle is almost always going to be less of an expense than a tough space battle.  You can afford ground assaults with heavy losses far more than you can space assaults with heavy losses.