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The AI will take advantage of the above system. In addition there is another system of public opinion in which the core worlds will already have a set building layout and their own level of loyalty to each faction. Depending on what actions are taken (i.e bombing civilian buildings, successful military action, failing to subdue an uprising, successful diplomacy action from diplomats), loyalty will increase or decrease which can cause the planet to flip sides.
Space combat does boil down to mass production as each side benefits the most from simple numbers and there is no splash damage. Rebels can spam Neb-Bs with fighter escorts to absolutely dominate the enemy. Empire will have to spam carriers with escorts + lancer frigates and then later on they get the best fighter in the game in the tie defender in which case lancers aren't really needed.
Outside of the core worlds, there are whole bunch of uninhabited planets. You can ship buildings to these worlds to setup your own outposts on them that will logically be completely loyal to you. The downside is that it takes many many in-game days (aka turns) to complete this and to do it faster you'll want to flip the loyalties of the core worlds on your side.
The AI isn't exactly amazing but its ability to micromanage + the obscure and obtuse mechanics of the game (you're never given the actual numbers on what certain stats actually do and you don't know the success rate of a given mission) allows the AI to beat the average player if they make too many mistakes or are too idle. The AI's biggest weakness is the space combat since it doesn't really ever build a death stack and a competent player can easily stack 5-8 shipyards and get a superfleet going. The player will have to be careful though as mass ground invasions will likely blow up civilian buildings (aka mining facilities and refining facilities) which will drop loyalties across the system so care must be taken to avoid collateral damage (but on the other hand successful invasions of defended worlds will usually improve loyalties.
There's also a whole bunch of other star wars EU stuff you have to keep in mind such as the force. Force essentially just adds to whatever skill check is needed and for certain characters like Luke if the force gets out of hand he basically becomes an unstoppable kidnapping, sabotage machine who when teamed up with Han and Chewie can basically go around the entire galaxy faster than anyone blowing everything up. Vader by default can basically stop any action provided he has been designated a rank (exception is super force Luke). And of course other characters can awaken their force powers randomly as the game progresses. All characters regardless of stats will be captured if left on a planet or fleet and it is destroyed or captured the conventional way.
Following on the EU stuff, certain characters will only be able to do certain things. Palpatine can stay on his throne at Coruscant to keep loyalty high in the system (and he can be tasked with recruitment). Certain characters can do research (and this is the only way to get new units and buildings). Likewise only like a few characters can do diplomacy which is critical to gaining planets non-violently.
Planetary shields and guns are ridiculously powerful. Shields prevent bombardment while guns shoot at anything in the planet's orbit attempting any action against the planet. While planetary slots are limited, it takes a very powerful death stack fleet to actually crack a planet which has two shields and two guns present.
TL;DR The AI is okay, main difficulty is simply the obtuseness of the game's mechanics. You can play the game in ways that mass production barely matters (sabotage and subterfuge tactics), Map painting can help you win but its rarely a good idea unless you are capturing core worlds. The sooner you get control over an entire system the better. Mass colonization is powerful but takes forever. It is more optimal to simply start uprisings and take over the core first. The game can be played with specific objectives (Capture rebel leaders\Empire leaders and their HQ to win or in an HQ annihilation format (only downside is the Rebel HQ can move easily while the empire HQ never moves) so in either case painting the map isn't actually required at all especially in the latter mode.
If you are fine with a very complex and obtuse game with very bad graphics and UI (with the upside being that it does simulate EU events quite well and the overall theatre properly even if the empire is missing several thousand star destroyers and ships). Then this is the game for you. If you want something a bit easier to understand while having roughly the same mechanics and a scripted single player campaign, then consider empire at war which has ironically the same mechanics as Rebellion but misses out on the loyalty mechanic and heavily dumbs down sabotage and subterfuge to just 3 or so characters able to do it (and they almost always succeed with zero counterplay). Also the space combat graphics don't look terrible.
It has horrific micromanagement problems - if you want to gather intel on every planet, then you will be assigning that order to every individual spy agent, every time that you wish to gather intel - so you might be instructing 150 espionage droids to gather intel on 150 separate planets, 1 at a time, every 30 or so in-game days. There's some missions which automatically continue til you tell them to stop - diplomacy being the main one - but these will also just continue even if you cannot actually benefit from them, and checking whether there's any point continuing is a manual process outside the routine updates. Your individual planets need to be instructed individually too; no bulk-ordering 10 different planets to all make 6 TIE fighters.
But despite that, I do strongly recommend Rebellion and still fire it up at least once or twice a year. It has probably the best intelligence gameplay ever released in a 4X; you have no idea what assets an enemy has or where they are unless you manage to find out, either by blundering into them or by performing espionage missions to get intel. The diplomatic support mechanic is also very clever, and the very asymmetrical sides were relatively unique at the time too. It's worth buying at the full £5, and at 60% off it's worth having just to look at the espionage mechanics.
There's nothing quite like it out there. Definitely shines in MP but the AI isn't that bad I don't think, it'll put up fight if you put it on Hard
Rebellion's UI was considered clunky even by the standards of the time, at least for a big-budget title with a huge IP behind it; the game reviewed poorly back in 1998 and the poor scores were largely down to most reviewers complaining about the 'utterly confusing' or 'byzantine' interface that needed a half a dozen clicks to perform any given action. I actually think modern audiences have been a lot more forgiving of it than the market was when it was released tbh, possibly because it at least does space 4X in a very different way than we've gotten used to.
I think it also suffered from the inexplicable decision to be faux-real time rather than turn based; the awkwardness of the UI combined with the enforced daily 'turn timer' (despite 4 speeds) made it quite challenging to get everything you wanted to done sometimes, and probably contributed to reviewers' frustrations with the game.
It's another game which could benefit from a remake, particularly one which wasn't afraid to put some serious macro tools in (and possibly a Paradox ledger-style interactive spreadsheet or two).
It did feel like an actual SW simulation which we will never see in a licensed game again.
It was so unique ... more like a boardgame in a way. I would love for this to be redone in a modern way.
After 25 years, I'm used to the foibles and fiddleyness, but it wasn't an unusual or difficult play to have an espionage mission going on every planet you owned, or sending a probe droid to every planet on the Outer Rim just like Empire Strikes Back, and having to repeat these over and over, one droid at a time is really bloody awful (and takes in-game days to just dish out the orders for, too).
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/187645/star-wars-rebellion
Out of the thousands of board games, this one is currently ranked at number 10, as it is hugely popular and acclaimed by many table top gamers.