GC strategy tips for share

[Cdodders]

But what are your border planets? In almost any scenario as the IR, you end up with all these holes in your territory. In Imperial Civil War, all but seven of your planets border enemies! Planets like Garos IV and Ord Mantell are all cut off from the Empire. You need something more efficient, or everybody will have larger fleets ready to grab your insufficiently defended systems.
The first thing to do is conquer lightly defended planets until your border worlds are few. The Pentastar Alignment and Empire of the Hand are in very good positions to do this, since the PA can have as few as three or four planets to defend by the third week.
What use are those 'light planetary defences' anyway? Say the PA sends both its star destroyers and an Immobilizer your way, which it can do fairly early on. For every single world it attacks, you lose the fleet and the thousands of credits you sunk into frigates and escort carriers. I never do any such thing as a 'light planetary defence.' It's wasteful. If any of my worlds can't defend itself from whatever the enemy can send, I don't defend it.

Light defence is useful for planets that are unlikely, rarely or lightly attacked, so I can focus my defensive builds/budget on planets that are frequently attacked and attacked by large fleets. Planets that are in a type of salient or have multiple hostile planets around it get priority for defence budgets, as are planets that get attacked frequently

I once defeated an EoTH fleet consisting of Thrawn, 2 or 3x ISD -II, and a myriad of smaller EoTH cruises with 2x Victory class, about 4x Strike cruisers, 8x Carrick cruisers and 6x Lancers. I was heavily outnumbered and outgunned but managed to kill Thrawn, the ISDs, some of the cruisers and forced the others to retreat. I considered that planet to be light to moderately defended with the Victory classes there

[tlmiller]

For defensive fleets, I like to have high utility ships.  An ISD-II with VSD-I's and several IPV's are a great defense fleet.  The VSD's deliver great damage for their price, while the ISD-II has a fantastic balance of firepower and shield strength, so that augmented with twin Hypervelocity cannons on the surface, a fleet like that can easily survive an attack by the IR (tons of ISD's) or the NR (tons of fighters) with the IPV's protecting your caps from bombers and the interceptors actively eliminating them.

[Darman]

In my personal experience, golon I's and small defenses are essentially worthless in actual real time play, they serve as more of a deterance than anything. The only time a defense is worth playing is if it is a heavy or capital shipyard. Otherwise. Just auto resolve or retreat and then use one of the attack fleets and destroy the whole invading fleet in half the time and if you time it right. You may catch their land invasion force as well

[Cdodders]

I find it a good challenge

[Revanchist]

When I play as the PA in FTGU I like to use a build I call the Executor Hunting Party. First, I like to fight them on my terms, over my own planets with HVGs. This generally means letting the SSD take the space over said planet. Then I move my fleet in for the kill. Drop in an Imperial Escort Carrier first (to make sure there are no untimely raid fleets). Next, bring in a Praetor, and an ISD. Behind them place your carrier line (usually 2x Acclamator and 2x Venator) followed by 2 IPVs. Set them to guard the Praetor, then energize PtW on them. This leaves you with 12 points, enough for3 VSD-2s and an Immobilizer.

Let the enemy come. Their initial fighter wave gets massacred by the IPVs. Any support craft are quickly neutralized by the Sniper (Praetor). Meanwhile, you send your TIE Hunter squad full-throttle toward the SSD, and when you spot it you fire the HVG. Once the support craft are neutralized, the SSD should just be in firing range of the Praetor. While it begins its long-range assault, send the 20 TIE Bomber squadrons you have at the SSD, backed by the 19 squadrons of A-9s to keep any fighters off them. Meanwhile your Vic-Deuces should be moving to a flanking position where they can divert all power to weapons. When the SSD closes to range, send in your ISD-2 as well. I have not lost a battle yet with this fleet.

[Cdodders]

An Executor with the rest of the cap filled with crimson command Victory-II star destroyers work well

[Shiakou]

How effective is a fighter/bomber swarm against SSDs? Say I get attacked with two SSDs with gunship support, can I win if I defend with fifty squadrons of X-wings covering fifty Y-wings? Or B-wings, since fighter swarms were what they were originally designed for IIRC.

[Mat8876]

Fighter swarms are a good idea but it's a better idea to send in ships with equal or more fighters than pop cost.
E.g. Equal being Assault frigate being 2 pop has 2 fighters
      More Quasar fire 3 pop 4 fighters.

[Carnivore Jacques]

A question occurred to me the other day: when should you not build an SSD? Say you're able to do so. What sort of circumstances would have you decide not to build one?

[Mat8876]

Only build a SSD when either your Capitals can't do the job or if you have the enough credit income (not to get mixed up with how much you have).

[kucsidave]

Only build a SSD when either your Capitals can't do the job or if you have the enough credit income (not to get mixed up with how much you have).

even i couldn't told it better.
i mean, i playing now as IR in AoW, and i have a few tips how to max out both your income, and production rates.
#1: If you have a planet with 100 or more base income make sure it have 5 Tax collection agency so you will have a planet with 1100 credit/week for one 100 base income planet. for a 130 base income, you will have a 1430 credit from 1 single planet every week. If you have to destroy a few baracks or so in that planet, then do so.This will give you the economy to support a large production rate
#2 most people makes the mistakes, of that if they built out a planet as a frontline one, they shall not change it a bit after they gained the next planet. Do not be so naive!!!! Why would you need a hipervolicity gun(hvgun from now on) in a planet what is far behind your lines??? It gives you back a decent amount of credits if you sell it, + you will have a slot to build into, so you can have an extra production structure or credit income in place of that useless hvgun.
#3 do not build everithing everywhere! what i mean with this, do not have 1 barracks, 1 light vehicle factory and so on in every planet. You will do it much better to have theese concentrated. i mean have a barracks planet, where you only build barracks, a light vehicle factory planet, and so on. Just make sure that you know wich planet is wich, so it is recommended that you write it down to a paper first, and you use the same planets always, so after some time, it will be a routine for you to where to click if you need something.
#4 if a planet is able to build up to capital shipyard it doesn't mean that you have to build it up! Sometimes you do it much better to build it up only to heavy frigate yards. Why would you spend all your much needed credit to build up a capital yard, when you can not use it if it's done, cuz you have no credit left...+ if you don't havew credits, you can not build capitals even in your existing ones.
#5 ALWAYS keep an eye out for the discounts! ONLY BUILD SSDs in KDY!!!! it really is matter if you have to spend 40k credit or just 28k credit!
this is the most important thing of the 5.

If you keep theese small pointers in mind, at late games you will be unabble to spend your credits. My income is much greater than how i can spend it(or need to spend it.) For example i got back the money i spent for an ssd before half of it were built, and i even built some ISDs in the meantime somewhere else...

[Prince Xizor]

One of my tactics would be for example:


Say Coruscant, Kuat and Byss where in a triangle formation.

Byss was the one facing out to the rest of the galaxy while Coruscant and Kuat where out of harms way.

I would amass a large fleet at Byss and just defend that in the safe knowledge that as long as Byss was held, Coruscant and Kuat would remain untouched.

Hope you found this helpful!

[Carnivore Jacques]

Indeed, Xizor. Planets such as Byss in your scenario I often call 'fronts' or 'front lines' - the analogy is clear, I hope.

Now, what are some good ways to counter phalanx commandos? Would any of you sacrifice some mining facilities for the sake of defending backworlds that may or may not be attacked by the EotH player? Do you place garrisons there? If so, what units are in such garrisons and how much money do you spend on them usually? Would you move troops from the front lines to retake a world taken by said commandos?

[tlmiller]

I actually keep "garrison fleets" that I keep on all my front line planets once I can afford it.

As the PA, I keep 1 Hailfire, 1 AT-AT, 2 Century Tanks, 1 IFT-X, 1 AT-AA, 1 A9 Floating Fortress, 1 AT-PT, a Pentastar Enforcers and a Storm Commando, moving them as needed to make sure that even if someone gets past my defensive fleet, they're not going to take the planet without MASSIVE losses.

I also keep the same fleet on some of my most important worlds once I have tons of income.

[Thrawnizator]

Well still didn't played all possible sides of all scenarios, but pretty much every scenario I've played so far can be win in the same way.

First thing of all I decide how large perimeter I want to defend. Of course preferably the bigger the better (more income), but that is not always possible depending on a side... Sacrificing some isolated planets is required price of such approach. At key locations I always keep very large fleet, fleets which pretty much cannot be defeated by AI. My offensive arm are fighter squadrons. IMHO best fighter in the galaxy bar none is Furion. It can chew through everything. For Empire of course Tie-Defender. With Republic/Rebels it gets a bit dicey because to efficiently deal with capitals 2 fighters types are required.X-wing can do a lot of damage in a swarm, but swarm of B-Wings will obliterate everything... except enemy fighters. Now on routes where I want to expand just spaming fighters. There is nothing AI can throw against 100 Furions/Tie-D and survive (offense&defense alike). Defeats are rare. Got stuffed couple times but not because of superior AI but because for example pack of Lancer frigates parked under Golan platform and it is not possible to target that scum before obliterating Golan platform. And when dealing with defense platforms fighters are ripped to shreds.

If anyone want to have fun with 'fighters first' policy word of advice - target all anti-fighter units ASAP or die. Corona frigates are truly nasty opponents! 


When defending a planet with enough fighters I always keep same routine when dealing with big guns: 1. Destroy Engines. 2. Destroy Hangar. 3. Obliterate target 4. Find next victim and repeat 1-3. Works every time... except some ships without Engine(s) HP he, he.

[tlmiller]

When defending a planet with enough fighters I always keep same routine when dealing with big guns: 1. Destroy Engines. 2. Destroy Hangar. 3. Obliterate target 4. Find next victim and repeat 1-3. Works every time... except some ships without Engine(s) HP he, he.

The reason the Chaf cruiser is my absolute least favorite thing to see attacking me when I'm the PA...

[Lord Xizer]

Indeed, Xizor. Planets such as Byss in your scenario I often call 'fronts' or 'front lines' - the analogy is clear, I hope.

Now, what are some good ways to counter phalanx commandos? Would any of you sacrifice some mining facilities for the sake of defending backworlds that may or may not be attacked by the EotH player? Do you place garrisons there? If so, what units are in such garrisons and how much money do you spend on them usually? Would you move troops from the front lines to retake a world taken by said commandos?

IDTs work well against commandos...and nearly everything else

[Carnivore Jacques]

AT-AAs are quite effective against IDTs. I had once believed otherwise because they are terrible against V-Wings. It's practically their only job, but they still can't nail the NR aircraft.

Another scenario I'm not sure how I would resolve:

You're playing Shadow Hand as NR. You lose the Corusa Rainbow, and most of the core. You still have Ord Mantell, i.e. the Empire is still split in two and the New Republic is still entirely contiguous. Can you win at this point?

[tlmiller]

Yes...but it ain't easy.  And it's going to be expensive if you catch Pally in Space instead of on the ground.

[Lord Xizer]

AT-AAs are quite effective against IDTs. I had once believed otherwise because they are terrible against V-Wings. It's practically their only job, but they still can't nail the NR aircraft.

Another scenario I'm not sure how I would resolve:

You're playing Shadow Hand as NR. You lose the Corusa Rainbow, and most of the core. You still have Ord Mantell, i.e. the Empire is still split in two and the New Republic is still entirely contiguous. Can you win at this point?

What are you worried about? You're armored in plot! Wait for a plot bunny to appear and the IR is guaranteed to lose.