A few noob questions..

[gord9]

Hello All!

I am new to Empire at War and when I saw this mod I knew I had to give it a try. So far I am getting owned but it's been ALOT of fun! I just have a few questions about the mod if you don't mind answering that would be great.

- What are the differences in difficulty? I asked on modDB and was told it just effects some aggressiveness and cheats (like AI getting more ships). Just wanted to confirm if it's worth starting on easy or if I should stick with medium. I don't like games to be overly easy.

- I am not big on the ground combat. I like the space battles. That said, if I just auto-resolve all the land battles, do I still need to take troop types into account? Not sure what the game uses to auto resolve.

Those are my two questions I can think of. Any info would be great. The mod is fantastic!

Thanks!

[tlmiller]

Hello All!

I am new to Empire at War and when I saw this mod I knew I had to give it a try. So far I am getting owned but it's been ALOT of fun! I just have a few questions about the mod if you don't mind answering that would be great.

- What are the differences in difficulty? I asked on modDB and was told it just effects some aggressiveness and cheats (like AI getting more ships). Just wanted to confirm if it's worth starting on easy or if I should stick with medium. I don't like games to be overly easy.

- I am not big on the ground combat. I like the space battles. That said, if I just auto-resolve all the land battles, do I still need to take troop types into account? Not sure what the game uses to auto resolve.

Those are my two questions I can think of. Any info would be great. The mod is fantastic!

Thanks!

I can only speak to ground combat.  You will need a MASSIVE income to auto-resolve constantly, as you will take MASSIVE losses due to the incredibly high auto-resolve value of turbolaser turrets, and the AI's love of them.

[gord9]

Gotcha! Thanks! Maybe I will try some ground combat. So I assume I should build lots of turbolaser turrets if I want to defend a planet well and autoresolve?

[Senza]

Difficulty affects several things, mostly cheats, or anti-cheats. I checked the XMLs real quick, and for instance, on easy the AI has the same build rates as you, has a mere 2x multiplier to their credit income, and only does about 70% of normal damage, whereas on normal,  they do the same damage, build 20% faster than you, and get a 10x credit multiplier, which basically means they have unlimited credits unless you have beaten them completely into the ground. This effectively makes them more aggressive, since they can afford to build large forces more often, and by more often I mean they can literally do it constantly without caring at all about cost.

Autoresolve is very wonky. As far as I understand it, each unit has an autoresolve health value, and the autoresolve health total of the opposing forces is compared, and then some sort of witchcraft occurs, and then a result is generated from said witchcraft. The problem with autoresolve is that the autoresolve health values are totally arbitrary, so it's difficult to gauge how a battle will turn out unless you have overwhelming force, and even then you can get weird results like a single IPV-1 corvette somehow managing to destroy an opposing corvette despite the fact that it was alone against a fleet of multiple capital ships, corvettes, frigates, etc.

Personally, I would not recommend autoresolving land battles, at least not when you are on defense, since you will tend to lose, or take heavier casualties than make logical sense. On offense, go ahead if you want to, although make sure to bring overwhelming force and make sure that you can replace any losses quickly. The game never states it anywhere that I am aware of, even in vanilla, but if you build multiple structures of the same type on a planet, it will increase the build rate of any units produced by those structures proportionally.

If you're not autoresolving, my best advice is to try to gather as much information on the enemy forces as possible before going into battle, so that you will know what type of units to deploy first, and in what numbers. Learn the maps, and try to figure out where the AI likes to concentrate its forces, so that you can either avoid those areas, or hit them hard. Try to take landing zones quickly and land in force so that you don't get overwhelmed if the planet is well defended.

Also, in land combat you will tend to take at least a few casualties if the planet is well defended, use bombing runs and bombardments to destroy enemy strongpoints, some of the maps are very easily defensible, Carida is a really good example of this, if you try to go straight into the city portion with a head on assault, you are almost certainly going to take ridiculous casualties because of the sheer number of turbolasers and the dreaded capturable turbolasers (which for some reason have greater range and damage than normal turbolasers).

[gord9]

Great info! Thanks Senza!

I will try easy to get my feet wet and then try medium.

As for the land battles, I will also give them a shot. I have only played land battles in vanilla and found them kinda tedious. I have a feeling this mod might have made them better. Either way the space battles are so awesome that I just want to skip land battles so I can have another space battle! 

Thanks again. 

[Senza]

Land battles in this mod are very, very different from vanilla. The maps are often larger, and with varied terrain. Land units in this mod tend to have higher damage per second than in vanilla but with less HP, whereas in vanilla things tend to die pretty slowly unless they are up against hard counters. It definitely takes some getting used to, and one thing that's really different from vanilla is that you are just going to have to accept casualties in land combat in ICW, and zerg rushing with a megaforce is usually still a strategy that works, but on some maps it's almost not going to matter how much you throw at a strongpoint, since even the AI can defend them reasonably well, even if they don't really mean to. Try to learn where the power generators are located on each map so that you can target and destroy them quickly, this isn't quite as hard as it sounds, since land maps are reused fairly often in ICW due to the sheer number of planets making a unique map for each one very impractical. Otherwise, you will have to deal with turbolasers attacking you in addition to enemy forces, which can make it difficult to gain ground or even move around the map.

And no problem. Starting on easy is a good idea, the AI are extremely aggressive on normal difficulty (they are still very stupid tactically, but when you can produce ships the way the AI does, it evens out some), I don't even really bother with hard, since normal is generally challenging enough for me.

[Vulcanus]

Welcome to the forums!

I would like to note that there are several built-in difficulty levers in-game. Those fighter upgrades from space stations can help you a great deal, especially if you play on Admiral, while Hyper-Velocity cannons make everything easier. You may choose not to use them for extra challenge or build multi-hyper velocity cannon- planets on strategic chokepoints on the galactic map to create kill-zones for the AI.

[gord9]

Once again I thank you for the info Senza. All very helpful!

[gord9]

Welcome to the forums!

I would like to note that there are several built-in difficulty levers in-game. Those fighter upgrades from space stations can help you a great deal, especially if you play on Admiral, while Hyper-Velocity cannons make everything easier. You may choose not to use them for extra challenge or build multi-hyper velocity cannon- planets on strategic chokepoints on the galactic map to create kill-zones for the AI.

Thanks Vulcanus. Much appreciated!

[Revanchist]

Welcome to the forums, always good to see a new face. I'll pretty well echo what everyone else is saying: start on Normal, that way you can see if you need it harder or easier. I actually find land battles fun in this mod: nothing is more satisfying than kiting an infantry rush with your commandos, setting up E-web and artillery forward command centers at choke points while you build up an army large enough to steamroll the opposition, executing hit-and-fades with fast-attack tanks, or ferrying troops into combat with your dropships to hold the line. Yup, I love ground combat, especially defensive combat.

When it comes to battles, whether ground or space, always get any capturable buildings or upgrades you can. Those upgrades can turn an outmatched fleet into a force that can take on much larger groups. Proper use of fighters and corvettes is also ESSENTIAL for space victory. The fact that ordinance doesn't bypass shields actually makes bombers MORE dangerous, as they can increase the damage of your entire fleet rather than kill them alone. This means that corvettes and fighters for screening are valuable assets to ensure victory. HVGs and/or Planetary Ion Cannons can also help in outmatched space battles.

It can be tempting to build defensive space units like Golan series platforms at every planet you capture, but generally these are a waste of money. The exceptions are "fortress worlds" (that can build 3s) and any choke points. These planets MUST hold, and thus any extra gun emplacements (for 0 population points at that) will serve you handily (especially when coupled with Ion Cannon heavy ships/bombers to strip shields).

That's all I can think of now.

[tlmiller]

It can be tempting to build defensive space units like Golan series platforms at every planet you capture, but generally these are a waste of money. The exceptions are "fortress worlds" (that can build 3s) and any choke points. These planets MUST hold, and thus any extra gun emplacements (for 0 population points at that) will serve you handily (especially when coupled with Ion Cannon heavy ships/bombers to strip shields).

That's all I can think of now.

Until later in the game when you have so much income it doesn't hurt to build them just so you don't have to look at them on the build bar...

[Revanchist]

Until later in the game when you have so much income it doesn't hurt to build them just so you don't have to look at them on the build bar...

Indeed.

[Pali]

Until later in the game when you have so much income it doesn't hurt to build them just so you don't have to look at them on the build bar...

Honestly, even then it's really just better to hit up a lvl 3 shipyard and toss another couple of cap ships into the build queue.

One thing I don't think anyone's mentioned, but can be overlooked - abuse the pause button, ESPECIALLY on higher difficulties.  I always play on Admiral, and it's been a long time since I've been on the losing end of a GC - but I could not possibly keep up if I didn't do most of my work while the game is paused (I've tried, it didn't work out well after 20ish weeks ).  On the campaign map, you sadly can't move units while paused, but you can issue build orders and take the time to overview your strategic situation and plan out your moves - waste time doing this while the game is in motion, and you will be outmaneuvered.  On the battle map, it's even MORE important, since here you actually can give orders while paused and some units move fast enough that targeting them while in play can be difficult (especially aiming for that one airspeeder before it escapes, or my pet peeve: the one system point on a ship surrounded by fighters).

[tlmiller]

Honestly, even then it's really just better to hit up a lvl 3 shipyard and toss another couple of cap ships into the build queue.

For me, it's better to build the golans because then I don't have to keep looking at the icons on the build bar.  It irks me to keep seeing those icons there.

[Pali]

For me, it's better to build the golans because then I don't have to keep looking at the icons on the build bar.  It irks me to keep seeing those icons there.

Hah, fair enough.

[Revanchist]

Honestly, even then it's really just better to hit up a lvl 3 shipyard and toss another couple of cap ships into the build queue.

One thing I don't think anyone's mentioned, but can be overlooked - abuse the pause button, ESPECIALLY on higher difficulties.  I always play on Admiral, and it's been a long time since I've been on the losing end of a GC - but I could not possibly keep up if I didn't do most of my work while the game is paused (I've tried, it didn't work out well after 20ish weeks ).  On the campaign map, you sadly can't move units while paused, but you can issue build orders and take the time to overview your strategic situation and plan out your moves - waste time doing this while the game is in motion, and you will be outmaneuvered.  On the battle map, it's even MORE important, since here you actually can give orders while paused and some units move fast enough that targeting them while in play can be difficult (especially aiming for that one airspeeder before it escapes, or my pet peeve: the one system point on a ship surrounded by fighters).

Yes the PAUSE button is amazing good especially as mentioned on the Galactic scale. It lets you take stock at the beginning of where the chokepoints are, where the redundant fleets can be consolidated into a battle-ball, where the cap shipyards are, what planets will be used for vehicle & infantry production, and what the rich planets are to use for income. I've been weaning myself off using it in battles, and now generally only use it at the beginning of land battles to issue deployment orders and such.

[gord9]

Wow great info guys!!

And yeah I tried the land battles and they are SO much better in this mod then vanilla. So I think I will keep playing them.

I started a game in the Zsinj campaign as Zsinj. Tried easy. So far so good. I think his starting fleet is quite powerful. There seems to be only two ways into his zone and I have 5 plus imperial star destroyers at each point and Zsinj has his SSD as well. The Replublic threw a massive fleet at me and we were able to destroy them with minimal losses. They send piece meal fleets at me now with little effect. Not sure if they are putting together another big fleet or not. Just putting together a land force to assault Coruscant.

On that note, how can i tell if I can get to a planet or if the enemy can get to me? Is it just the lines connecting the planets that show this? Just want to make sure I can't get attacked from a direction I don't have covered.

Thanks again for all your info. Much appreciated!

[Vulcanus]

On that note, how can i tell if I can get to a planet or if the enemy can get to me? Is it just the lines connecting the planets that show this? Just want to make sure I can't get attacked from a direction I don't have covered.

Just the connecting lines.

[gord9]

Thanks again guys!

A few more questions if you don't mind....

Can I save anywhere? I know from experience with other games that have an overhaul mod, sometimes the devs recommend saving at particular times to prevent corruptions etc, just wanted to see if it was ok to save whenever (in land battle, space battle, while fleets travel between planets, etc).

Also, what kind of 'secondary' ships should i be putting in my fleets. As I mainly play 'Imperial' factions I seem to just want to build SD's, but I am guessing it's important to have frigates and corvettes as a screen?

I think Easy was 'too easy' so I restarted as the Pentastar Alignment on 'Captain'. So far so good!

Thanks again for your help!

[Senza]

Really, it varies a lot by faction, but generally you'll want to have either corvettes (or lancer frigates if you're IR) supporting your main capital ships. I know that a lot of the guys who play PA religiously swear by the victory cruisers as opposed to star destroyers, with a Praetor behind them sniping stuff from out of range of return fire.

It varies a lot by era too, especially if you're playing as the NR, since they change a LOT from Era 1 to Era 5. Really, I would encourage you to experiment with fleet configurations for whatever faction you're playing with. Think of a ship type you'd like to use, and then base the rest of your fleet on what you will need to cover the weaknesses of that ship type. I.E. if I want to use Tectors as IR, since they have no fighters at all, I will want to support them with lancers and some sort of fighter carrying ship, perhaps Venators, or maybe escort carriers, and possibly have smaller ships behind them to provide fire support, like, say, Strike Cruisers.

And yes, you can save at any time, except I think when you have a battle pop up and haven't yet chosen whether to autoresolve or do it normally.