'Kashyyyk: Islands' is MEME LEVELS of unfair for the Empire, especially on Hard...

[Solumn Trade]

I play on hard mode all the time. There is one map I just cannot seem to beat as the Empire: 'Kashyyyk: Islands'. This is my list of three things that makes this map so obnoxiously hard, and makes me wanna play "In the Hall of the Mountain King":

1. Unbalanced air power. This is a huge problem to unpack, so I'll go step by step why the Empire gets screwed in that department.

First off, The Empire's Ties spawn behind a group of buildings, so the first thing the Empire AI has to overcome is realizing they have to fly upwards or to the side to avoid them. This means you basically have to fly the Ties yourself. Which is bad, because you'll only be able to fly one at a time. The Rebel fighters, on the other hand, spawn in a very clear area, and their path is unobstructed.

Second, now that we've gotten past the borked spawning placements, let's move onto how map design screws over the Empire's airforce. What is incredibly irritating about Islands is all these bamboo shoots and tall pointy buildings that take up all your airspace. The map's maximum height is not very high, and I swear the tallest structures can still hit even when flying at maximum height. This combines with the Empire's incredibly tall vehicle design to make very, very little room to fly around. Strafing runs are incredibly short, because as soon as you point down to fire, you have bob and weave and immediately pull back up, and be met with the map ceiling. It's ridiculous. While flying is obnoxiously restricted on all SWBF1 Classic maps, 'Kashyyyk: Islands in particular just so claustrophobia-inducing it's insane.

In order to have any room to make a really good strafing run, you basically have to fly to the very edge of the map, and fly back. However, this might not be an option for all people, because for some reason the game doesn't do well at maximum draw distance, which is why 'Geonosis: Spire' crashes all the time for people. 'Kashyyyk: Islands' has a ton of water features, and foliage to render. Because I had to turn down the graphics for 'Geonosis: Spire' because it's bugged, I didn't then want to turn around and make it higher for 'Kashyyyk: Islands'. I might have to, though, if I plan on beating this map. In the map's defense, I do believe the reason why you are so restricted in map height is because aircraft would be so overpowered if you could fly as high as you could in Battlefield. However, this unfairly gimps the Empire in particular, due to their obnoxiously large panels that serve no other purpose but to catch you onto map geometry...

Finally, let's go over the vehicle design, beginning with the shapes we mentioned before. Put simply, Tie's are flying boxes, whereas letter-Wings are nice and flat, able to take the most advantage of the minimum airspace given to pilots. This gives Rebel fighters a distinct advantage in dogfights, because they have more room to move. Granted, AI is AI, but also AI is AI, which means while they are dumb, they also don't miss very often on Hard difficulty.

This plays into the next bit, which is the mechanics of the fighters themselves. The Empire's Tie fighter has no missiles, and the Tie Bomber, for some reason, separated the bombing weapon from the control of the pilot, and has given it to the co-pilot. This is bad, because the AI co-pilot does not know when to drop the bombs strategically, they will just drop them as soon as they see an enemy, wasting the run and forcing a reload. It also seems missiles have no effect on Hard mode, as they literally are about to hit the enemy, and then decide to veer off course randomly. The best way to use Tie bomber, it seems, is to pilot it yourself and switch seats when you need to bomb. Which often ends up in you crashing, because of the dumb map geometry you have little room to fly over.

While not much could be said about the X-wing besides advantages previously mentioned due to missiles and geometry, compare the Tie Bomber to the Y-wing. The Y-wing's pilot can fly the ship AND use the bombs, AT THE SAME TIME. While not usually useful when controlled by a player, the Y-wing's secondary turret IS A FRIGGIN' SNIPER, WITH 360 DEGREES OF COVERAGE. This means you absolutely stop whatever feeble attempts you have at giving your incompetent AI air support, and focus ALL ATTENTION on the Y-Wing. Most often the best way of dealing with the Y-wing is to not allow it to take off. However, it spawns pretty quickly, meaning your already difficult job of trying to destroy the Rebellion is made that much harder by constantly having to make sure the Y-Wing cannot take off. In fact, your best option is to probably STEAL the Y-wing, and that can win you the map on 'Normal' difficulty, but on 'Hard', well, we'll cover that in our next point.

2. Map Design. Besides the horrible problems the Empire's Ties have with the spawns and the map geometry, there are other elements to consider for the ground combat.

Naturally, Rebel troops are camouflaged, which naturally makes this harder for any Empire human player, though I don't think it has too much influence on Empire AI. The bamboo forest that separates the furthest Empire command post from the center of the map is incredibly annoying, because you can't tell which bamboo are solid, and which are not without memorization. This means you can be shot by AI snipers with no way to see them, because an ethereal bamboo shoot is in the way. Because the command post beyond the bamboo forest are so far away, the Empire AI typically don't want to spawn there, because the other posts are closer. This leads to it being taken by the Rebels. Sadly, it doesn't matter if the Empire AI take the closer posts or not, which I'll explain.

The shortest distance one has to walk between command posts is the post closest to the post that spawns the Rebel aircraft. Despite having the high ground, the Empire has no barricades to use to defend against the Rebels, and if the AI doesn't balance its force distribution just right, the Rebels will easily take the post. This is still perhaps the easiest post to take, since two Dark Trooper jumps can get you there. Taking this post also denies the Rebels their air support, but it's only temporary, since Rebels will typically take the far post beyond the bamboo forest, and won't have as much problem with the buildings as your Ties did.

But this post will not win you the game, and in fact might make you lose faster, even if you hold all the other posts. Why? Because for some reason, the post prefers to spawn your troops into the open and surrounded, to be gunned down by entrenched Rebel troops, despite having a safer place to spawn them next to the capture point itself. The post apparently does not have different spawn points for Rebels and for Empire when the post is taken, which it DESPERATELY needs.

So, what if instead you try to take the Town Hall from the nearest command post across the river? Well, for one, the place between it and the nearest command post has some of the same problems the bamboo forest has, since it too has bamboo that has questionable physics to them, and yet is open AF. Funny enough, this particular post the Empire actually gets barricades along with the height advantage, but they are USELESS, because the slope is so extreme that you can't get a safe angle downward, without going in front of the barricades. But if you do that, you not only expose yourself, but your enemy has the benefit of grass to conceal them, meaning the AI can see you, but you can't see them. By the time you are able to push out of this mess, and capture the Town Hall (which, btw, has a longer capture time than other posts for some reason), the enemy will have captured either of your other posts, or even both.

So, what if you try to take the town center first? Pfft, HAHAHA! GOOD LUCK WITH THAT! You see, the major problem of this map is just how close the three central posts are to each other, and the BS regarding how your team spawns vs. how the enemy spawns. The central post is flanked by either of the other posts, and the enemy spawns practically on top of it from the other posts. Moreover, for some stupid reason, the capture area itself is tiny, and out in the open with ZERO cover. And if you accidentally step out of that space, the entire capture process RESETS. I've tried even landing a Tie Fighter to give me additional cover, but no dice.

I'll give one more brief mention about the water on the map. You can't shoot into it, and the Rebels are the ones who often get covered by it. Moreover, one particular class seems to be able to abuse it the most, due to their height...

3. FRIGGIN' WOOKIES!!! If you didn't start playing 'In the Halls of the Mountain King", now would be a good time. It seems no matter how hard I try, and how much I attempt cheese, this is one thing prevents ALL of those attempts. Let's elaborate, shall we??? The NORMAL Rebel Wookie Warrior is considered a 'special unit'. These natural spawning Wookies? THEY ARE BETTER THAN THAT.

For some reason, their bowcasters seem to fire alot faster, and do more damage. But I can't tell, because you can't tell them apart from normal Wookie Warriors on the fly! And instead of a grenade launcher as a secondary, they have a ROCKET LAUNCHER! Remember how much I complained how the air power was unbalanced earlier? Yeah, so, even if you overcome ALL THOSE OTHER PROBLEMS, you can have a ton of rockets suddenly appear outta no where and blow you to bits if they are tired of your existence!

They have more health, and it takes three POINT BLANK Dark Trooper shotgun blasts to kill them, and they only take two shots to KILL YOU, and sometimes ONLY ONE. So, you have this unit that has more health, more damage, and can engage infantry and vehicles equally? A super unit, essentially? Okay, that's fine, at least the don't outnumber us...OH WAIT THEY DO! Because they are a planet-based unit, they get to spawn ON TOP of the Rebel forces that already exist. So, the enemy gets free defense of their command posts, and those posts are all clumped together, while they are able to send out sorties to take out Empire command posts one by one, meaning each Empire command post has to deal with a larger and larger wave of enemies, and none of those lost posts can be retaken easily because you essentially have to go around or through the BIG F-OFF VILLAGE first!

And the absolute worst thing about these Wookies? THEY ARE FREE, AND DON'T COUNT TOWARD THE REINFORCEMENTS COUNTER!

My final thoughts:
Do not play this map on Hard as the Empire without friends, and do not play this at all against human Rebels. If I were to make changes, spawning at the central posts would have to be re-worked for when the Empire controls them, the maximum height of the map should be raised, and if that can't happen, give the Empire AT-ST's instead of fighters. Granted, this is an old game, and it's unlikely to get an update for the sake of historical integrity, but dang if someone remakes this map, please take these things into account!

This map is a lot more balanced during Clone Wars, but that's because CIS is ridiculously powerful to begin with. But the Empire is a joke on this map. If you play as Rebels, you have a relaxing game of 'Bomb everything with the Y-wing' on your hands.

[AnthonyBF2]

gitgud

[Solumn Trade]

Originally posted by AnthonyBF2:

gitgud

Okay, show me how you beat it.

[Cosmic Heavy]

ill try to do it tonight and tell you what i find out. do you use controller or keyboard + mouse?

[Solumn Trade]

Originally posted by HD Heavy:

ill try to do it tonight and tell you what i find out. do you use controller or keyboard + mouse?

Keyboard. It's cool someone else is gonna try and see how ridiculous the map is for Empire on Hard. Also, I didn't have Jedi enabled. On my galactic conquest, in the end the only way I was able to proceed was by blowing Kashyyyk up.

[Jerroser]

Quite a few of the maps are fairly unbalance in favour of one side or another. In some games even if the player is working their ass off destroying anything in sight while getting hardly any deaths, their side can sill loose by a large margin.

[Dark_Phantom]

We've done it in speedruns for fun. It is beatable, just in the realm of "needs perfect RNG".

It's so much fun.

[Solumn Trade]

Originally posted by phantom567459:

We've done it in speedruns for fun. It is beatable, just in the realm of "needs perfect RNG".

It's so much fun.

Do you have any videos explaining what RNG I should be looking for, or if I can influence how the map plays out?

[Barricade24]

Something I've noticed while playing hard difficulty is that enemy seems to focus their forces on the closest command post. In the case of Kashyyyk Islands, the Empire can steal another command post almost as soon as the battle begins. If you take a Dark Trooper from the command post that doesn't have any fighters and is on the main island you can take that post almost immediately if you're lucky. I'd say after you've captured that post, it's mostly a matter of playing defensive and keep the Rebels off your post.

You can use this strategy for the CIS as well, granted it is much easier for them because the Destroyer Droid is great at capturing and holding posts.

[Solumn Trade]

Originally posted by Barricade24:

Something I've noticed while playing hard difficulty is that enemy seems to focus their forces on the closest command post. In the case of Kashyyyk Islands, the Empire can steal another command post almost as soon as the battle begins. If you take a Dark Trooper from the command post that doesn't have any fighters and is on the main island you can take that post almost immediately if you're lucky. I'd say after you've captured that post, it's mostly a matter of playing defensive and keep the Rebels off your post.

You can use this strategy for the CIS as well, granted it is much easier for them because the Destroyer Droid is great at capturing and holding posts.

I see. I might have tried that once, but I probably wasn't getting good RNG. Still though, I stand by my statements, and I don't think this disproves it, nor do I think you were trying to. It's sad that certain maps required to be played a very specific way in order to beat them on hard. I beat Geonosis regularly on hard, but it's dumb because it always ends the same way: Sitting in an AT-TE and killing pretty much the entire enemy team by yourself. Sadly, Kashyyyk: Islands don't even have that crutch.

[Dark_Phantom]

The crutch has generally been kill as many with the X-Wing or TIE fighter as you can (as in get the TIE Fighter and drive to the X-Wing before they spawn if you're brave).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ARt-sz_4E

Dlemmor/Gundark is generally who you want to watch for top individual map play. You can see even he is struggling with how fast the reinforcements are being picked off on his team, but eventually having only one CP catches up to the AI.

[Solumn Trade]

Originally posted by phantom567459:

The crutch has generally been kill as many with the X-Wing or TIE fighter as you can (as in get the TIE Fighter and drive to the X-Wing before they spawn if you're brave).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ARt-sz_4E

Dlemmor/Gundark is generally who you want to watch for top individual map play. You can see even he is struggling with how fast the reinforcements are being picked off on his team, but eventually having only one CP catches up to the AI.

Thanks alot. But I do like how his struggles validated my observation of just how unbalanced this map is, lol.

[Solumn Trade]

Ten troops. That was the difference between victory and defeat!

[Cosmic Heavy]

So ive played a little bit of islands here and there. The reason its so hard is the combination of expert difficulty and poor a.i flight for cis and empire. I also have a theory that if you join a faction, the other team's a.i is made more difficult to compensate for the human player. Battles seem to favor whatever team im not on, weather or not I partake in battle or not. Advice, don't play on expert. Also, cool gameplay video phantom.

[Solumn Trade]

Originally posted by HD Heavy:

So ive played a little bit of islands here and there. The reason its so hard is the combination of expert difficulty and poor a.i flight for cis and empire. I also have a theory that if you join a faction, the other team's a.i is made more difficult to compensate for the human player. Battles seem to favor whatever team im not on, weather or not I partake in battle or not. Advice, don't play on expert. Also, cool gameplay video phantom.

It was more of a humorous observation of the map's difficulty, rather than a rage piece. If it was a pure rage piece, my observations wouldn't be so accurate. Truth be told, I did know that the posts to the north and south of town center needed to be captured quickly, and I actually was already starting the match by destroying the star fighters and landing at the first post without seeing this video. I didn't however try to land on the roof and capture the posts from there. I think I would've eventually figured it out, but at that point you wonder if you are even having fun anymore.

Cheesing for fun is one thing, but when it becomes ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to beat a map, well, it achieves meme status.

[Spartan1207]

haha kashyyyk is nothing against hoth ;D