Campaigns with fewer factions are often harder just because the AI has fewer opponents to attack. Endor Aftermath has, what, 3 factions? 4? And it's a small map, so your economic options are limited. Sounds like your starting forces are pretty weak. So yeah, a hard GC with a hard faction is going to be... hard.

What do you think has actually changed since 2.2? I genuinely can't figure out what you were doing before 2.3 that made it so much easier to win. I'm still getting the sense from your responses that you're trying to play a super passive, turtley strategy, but that was a recipe for disaster in 2.2 as well, heck that was a bad idea in vanilla Empire at War in 2006. Trust me, I remember playing it as a kid and trying to cling to every inch of territory while garrisoning and building up all my planets. It didn't work when I was 10, and it doesn't work in Thrawn's Revenge in 2019.

Other possibility: you keep talking about trying to defend on ground. Are you trying to protect every planet with ground structures, or worse actual units? Because... wow, yeah, that is going to get you killed. It's such a massive waste of resources that it boggles the mind. Ground units should spend as little time as possible on the ground, imo. Your armies are at their best in large stacks that follow your fleets around. Building lots of factories for defense used to be pretty strong, but the AI is way better at coordinating ground assaults now. They bring more units faster, and they land them all properly. But even in 2.2, that kind of investment was a waste outside of vital chokepoints. Factories you aren't actively using for either production of defense are as good as burning credits.

I apologize if it sounds like I'm picking your gameplay apart, but I am genuinely confused. I don't doubt that you were doing something right in 2.2, and I can't for the life of me figure out how it worked.

What is a good starting strategy? I love the whole idea behind Thrawn's Revenge and want to be able to play the game. Thrawn is my favorite character. What is a good starting map for new players? What are some good first moves?

Originally posted by griffiths4:

What is a good starting strategy? I love the whole idea behind Thrawn's Revenge and want to be able to play the game. Thrawn is my favorite character. What is a good starting map for new players? What are some good first moves?

The Pentastar Alignment on any of the era-progressive maps is a good place to start. They have a powerful starting position, a strong and diverse unit roster, and many good heroes. I wrote a big long comment about early-game strategy in this thread, and plenty of other details in other comments. Read them for a better picture. Basically the best strategy is to group your forces into a few large fleets, usually just one at the beginning (though large factions like the Imperial Remnant can support 2 at the beginning). Once you group up your forces, you want to go on the offensive. Take some land early on so you can get your economy and borders established. Build up your capital ship and carrier muscle first. Do NOT try to play passively and/or rely on static defenses early on (i.e. Golans, HV Guns, etc.). You can focus on building up once you get established.

And most importantly, remember that you should not expect to win every battle. Running away and ceding territory is infinitely preferable to losing a major engagement early on. One of the biggest noob traps in both Thrawn's revenge and vanilla Empire at War is thinking you should be securing every planet, when in reality the front is going to be fluid and change hands frequently until you can eliminate the enemy forces in the region and push them back.

Keep your infrastructure to a bare minimum unless you're setting up a ship-producing planet, an army-producing planet, an economic planet, or a defensive planet (which you should only do in the mid-game after you're established, and even then only on major chokepoints you can't spare ships to protect). Remember, the more copies of a building you have on a planet, the faster it will produce units associated with that building. For worlds not dedicated to these purposes, don't bother building anything except a level 1 shipyard and a local government building (varies by faction, but has identical effects).

Jeez, apparently I really love writing walls of text about how to play Thrawn's Revenge. I hope I was able to help.

right now im playing through an art of war, cruel admiral new republic from era 1. last run it was maldrood from era 1. the trick to dealing with higher difficulty is just really utilizing your resources. if you build heavily into navy but lack the ground forces to take planets in a certain area, it might still be a good idea to attack. attacking lets you destroy the enemies ability to build up fleets and gives you time to build your economy and infrastructure before committing to expand your territory. in the mean time you roving fleet(s) can extract a heavy toll on the enemies credit pool, and ability to field effective and threatening fleets.

fleet composition is also important. a fleet of 20 isd's will prolly get wrecked by 10 tiny little quasar carriers. every ship has a role to fill. having a variety of ships to perform all of these rolls is how you win a battle.

heroes decide battles. it is better to lose a whole fleet, or a planet than to lose a good command hero. tier 2 and 1 command heroes can easily turn the tide of a battle in your favor because of the major combat buffs they give your units. losing one of these high tier commanders is unacceptable!

I think I am getting the hang of it. Playing as The one that has alot of Chiss in it's ranks. Can't remember the name off hand. Slowly expanding. Got about 3 or 4 huge fleets so far. What planets I don't use for productions have mines on them. Not leaving garrisons on most of them. My chokepoints have huge fleets. Not putting up space defenses either. Just shipyards and the credit enhancer thing. Put about 10 squadrons of each fighter type in my fleets.

Originally posted by griffiths4:

I think I am getting the hang of it. Playing as The one that has alot of Chiss in it's ranks. Can't remember the name off hand. Slowly expanding. Got about 3 or 4 huge fleets so far. What planets I don't use for productions have mines on them. Not leaving garrisons on most of them. My chokepoints have huge fleets. Not putting up space defenses either. Just shipyards and the credit enhancer thing. Put about 10 squadrons of each fighter type in my fleets.

The Empire of the Hand, by the sounds of it. They're a good choice for learning the game as well. Your basic strategy sounds good. Hard-building fighters can be pretty hit or miss, but if it's working it's working.

Originally posted by ;3140616601483240395:

right now im playing through an art of war, cruel admiral new republic from era 1. last run it was maldrood from era 1. the trick to dealing with higher difficulty is just really utilizing your resources. if you build heavily into navy but lack the ground forces to take planets in a certain area, it might still be a good idea to attack. attacking lets you destroy the enemies ability to build up fleets and gives you time to build your economy and infrastructure before committing to expand your territory. in the mean time you roving fleet(s) can extract a heavy toll on the enemies credit pool, and ability to field effective and threatening fleets.

fleet composition is also important. a fleet of 20 isd's will prolly get wrecked by 10 tiny little quasar carriers. every ship has a role to fill. having a variety of ships to perform all of these rolls is how you win a battle.

heroes decide battles. it is better to lose a whole fleet, or a planet than to lose a good command hero. tier 2 and 1 command heroes can easily turn the tide of a battle in your favor because of the major combat buffs they give your units. losing one of these high tier commanders is unacceptable!

Then losing my Home one admiral (the old guy not Akbar) was a bad thing. Sure in the end I took down their big fleet but I lost alot of mine and one hero

Losing Ackbar is rough, but the NR is blessed with some pretty strong heroes. I think Natz is a tier III and he also has a Home One type, so you aren't out of the game. NR also gets better and better as the eras progress (if you're playing one of those GCs) so the tend to have a rougher start than other factions.

Originally posted by groove machine:

Losing Ackbar is rough, but the NR is blessed with some pretty strong heroes. I think Natz is a tier III and he also has a Home One type, so you aren't out of the game. NR also gets better and better as the eras progress (if you're playing one of those GCs) so the tend to have a rougher start than other factions.

Yeah I lost NR. The empire had me trapped and I couldn't retreat with him so I stood my ground

Finally broke thru and won a game with The New Republic. It was one of the smaller maps with 3 other opponents. Took a while to get going but once I did it went pretty well. Have to get your fleets up to between 200 and 300, Have about 10 squadrons of each type of fighter in your fleets.Have plenty of Capital and support craft in your fleets too. Eventually work up to at least 5 of each type.

Originally posted by griffiths4:

Finally broke thru and won a game with The New Republic. It was one of the smaller maps with 3 other opponents. Took a while to get going but once I did it went pretty well. Have to get your fleets up to between 200 and 300, Have about 10 squadrons of each type of fighter in your fleets.Have plenty of Capital and support craft in your fleets too. Eventually work up to at least 5 of each type.

I have yet to conquer more than one planet

Try the Bacta War map as The New Republic. I lost a little ground to begin with but I got it back.

Originally posted by Wubba lubba dub dub!!:

Originally posted by griffiths4:

Finally broke thru and won a game with The New Republic. It was one of the smaller maps with 3 other opponents. Took a while to get going but once I did it went pretty well. Have to get your fleets up to between 200 and 300, Have about 10 squadrons of each type of fighter in your fleets.Have plenty of Capital and support craft in your fleets too. Eventually work up to at least 5 of each type.

I have yet to conquer more than one planet

Try starting a GC in era 4/5 as the NR.

Btw if your wondering about the New Republic it's actually A LOT easier then what most people think cause while you do start off split up and you will definatly lose a decent amount of territory including Bothawai at the same time you the only faction that has acess to one of the most powerful things in Thrawns Revenge the boarding shuttles which you also can build one right at the start and start stealing ships which is super amazing as long as you mincro them and try not to get them killed while trying to use them when you can cause when you steal a ship it's your and you don't have to do anything like pay for it plus you can get some really nice units that you'd normally wouldn't have access too like ISD's,Acclamators,Dreadnaughts,Venators even things like the almighty Secutor,Torpedo Sphere or Allegence though interestingly not the Lucerhulk or Invincible which I do hope that those become boardable in the future as of right now you don't really have a reason to take ships from CSA as much as say the IR ,EA,GM or PA but back on subject playing as the New Republic isn't that bad once you release that while you know your going to be attacked and lose planets you can chose and decide which planets you want to hold while also preparing to go on the offensive yourself as the best defense is a good offence and a great place to attack early on is the core so you can kill the Imperial Remnants leader so you can tech up and get access to more powerful units and lastly don't forget to go for worlds which are high income or can give you discount to certain units if you enlist the company like Brental,Corsaunt,Correlia,Fondor,Thyferra,Thanos,Antimaridius,Kuat,Sluis Van,Bonadan,Etti,Kessel,Nal Hutta,Das Shiocia(Sorry for spelling error here) ect.

Nearing the end of an IR run now, starting era 1 on normal. It's certainly a little more challenging than 2.2, but in a way I like. In 2.2 I could blitz through the map while rarely getting counter attacked, game over by turn 30-50 if I wanted even on some of the larger GCs. With 2.3, I started having to defend on the ground on multiple fronts while advancing on one or a few fronts with my fleets/armies. Never lost a defensive ground battle, although came close a few times (I enjoy smashing wave after wave of enemy ground troops against my defenses and garrisons). May be time to up the difficulty... and try turning on the hard button from the start... but even now it's turn 95 and I've only got about 2/3rds of the galaxy, roughly.

Long story short, if one has it on normal, I'm having trouble seeing how it could be so difficult, unless one is making serious tactical and strategic mistakes, or not taking advantage of certain patterns of the AI (like if you get a notification that a planet with one of your fleets is about to get attacked, it's usually a good idea to immediately retreat that fleet prior to engagement, and try to counter attack once the enemy fleet has split up/retreated; if they're attacking your fleet, it means they think they can win). If on Admiral and/or with the hard AI button on from the start, I can't say, but I can see how you could get overwhelmed in some circumstances.

I will disagree with some other posters about not keeping troops on the ground, at least vs AI. Well balanced, properly positioned (usually 4 infantry, 2 heavy tank, 1-2 light anti-infantry tank and 1-2 arty) defensive armies on a few key worlds, along with production buildings and their garrisons, as well as turrets, have allowed me to smash army after AI army while concentrating my fleets and AT-ATs for offensive actions. Did mean keeping enough credits in reserve each turn, which did slow offensive geared production down a bit, but that wasn't a huge issue since I mostly focused on seizing lightly defended world first, and my fleet losses were correspondingly light.