The Rebellion.
This campaign is hard. Much harder than the Empire. The Black Sun will beat the Empire into a bloody mess and then use their remains to ruin you. You have only a little bit of time to prepare for that, and I really do suggest preparing.

My first steps were abandoning Hoth and The Kamino area. You heard me. Abandon them. Sell everything that isnt generating money in both space and on the ground. Gather every single unit you can possible gather in that area and punch through to Kamino by going through Intersections. Heres where you could differ from me. After I did this, I went straight to Kuat. I knew that it would give me a Mandator, and I broke the planet and got the mandator. I use the available cash from the abandoning and the sack of Kuat to buy Quasars. I used Raxos Prime

These are your life blood. Buy them. Getting Mon Mothma to Mon Cal will give you plenty of Capital ships to start. With just Quasars you can easily defeat any push from the Empire and slow the Black Sun down in most battles. I cannot stress enough. BUILD QUASARS.

I slowly sold ships that I considered "useless" to build Quasars. The repair ship, Nebulon Bs, Any loose fighters, Bulk Cruisers, anti-fighters. Basically if it wasnt a Capital Ship or a Quasars, you dont need it.

Crush the Corp Authority.

Wall up at Kashyyyk and Kessel in the south. Wall in the north at Muunalist When I saw wall, I mean Maxed Space station with x2 XQ-3 Defense Platforms. I should warn, these are not enough to win against the Black Sun. Even with 12 Quasars as a defense fleet. But you will make them bleed badly. As long as you target Shield generators, your defenses can generally destroy ships very quickly. Move your Quasars behind your stations, and when yous fighters are all gone and youve destroyed the last ship without shields, Retreat. Combine your Acbar and Mandator into the retreated Quasars move back in and smash whats left.

Repeat often.

From Your northern border push down into the Empire until You have the Cores. Turn into the New Republic. Draw a Line at Byss, Corellia, Onderon, Kashyyyk, Kessel until you have all the eco buildings built.

Congrats, youve won. At this point youll be making upwards of 25k+ a week. Grind the AI out with your superor Capital Ships and Fighters.

TLDR Tips
-Concentrate your ships into a location. Be mobile and be prepared to lose in space but not to lose ships.

-Quasars are your friend.

-Y-Wings are good fighters. X-Wings are good bombers. Use them to punish everything.

-The Black Suns fighters are stronger than yours. Accepted it. Make them bleed ships.

-Draw your lines and plan ahead.

-You have an absolute ton of stealth units. Strike recently taken planets. They will usually have little left there for an easy victory.

-Do not let the Black Sun corrupt your planets. They will jump over your Walls at the first opportunity.

-When you find the Executor, sink it immediately. Believe it or not. Alone the Executor will fall to 12 Quasars. And it will stay in the battle since the AI sees the Carriers as easy prey for the Executor. Just keep your Quasars out of range and victory is yours.

-Even if a ship doesnt have an engine, if it takes enough damage it will be destroyed if you retreat. RIP Admiral Acbar.

-You do not get a mission to recapture Admiral Acbar. Be aware. RIP.

-Only build an Ion Cannon on a single planet. And only if you are getting MC60s or above as reward. Sell immediately afterwards.

Issues
-The Black Sun, as others have said, are absolutely insane. You will never have fighter supremacy. Ever. Nearly every fighter/bomber they spawn are shields with concussions. And they will absolutely tear through everything you have.

-the Lucrehulk is a freaking frightening ship. Not only is it durable, but it spawns a literal ungodly number of fighters and as far as I can tell, they are unending. If you see a Lucrehulk against you, YOU MUST TAKE ITS SHIELD DOWN. Just one of them are enough to tear through a Level 3 Space Station, and both XQ-3 Defense platforms.

-The Autoresolve functions seems to favor the Black Sun. I dont think the Empire won a single large scale battle the entire game. It just lost planet after planet.

-Pod Walkers will be the bane of any sort of ground battle. They are actually long range near artillery with their main gun.

-Do I need to mention the power of Air Units? With Rogue Squadron and the Rebel Commanders air units you can take any planet that doesnt have Turbolasers. AA turrets? Irrelevant. A single salvo will destroy them. At-AAs? Same applies, just takes 2 instead.

-Ion Cannon I have found to be more of a money drain and a mild nuisance than actually useful.

The Empire

this is easy mode. Seriously. You should have the campaign wrapped up by week 40.

Starting Steps.
1. Sell everything that is costing money for upkeep besides a building to build infantry, AT-ATs and Artillery. which would be the starting factory on Byss and the Starting barracks on Cardia.

2. Build all of the ISDIs on Kuat. Order some Artillery on Byss. Que up some Stormtrooper aids. 3 or 4 should do.

3. Gather all of your fleet that you can possible grap and immediately push for Fondor, and from there into Bakura and right after that Hypori. A lot of people say go for Hoth in order to get your Executor. This is wrong, well not wrong, but not best. The main threat of the game is the Black Sun. If you take its southern planets fast enough, they will be severely hampered. Only leave a single ship over before moving on. Start with the smaller craft, Lancers and Carracks, and then move on to Acclamators. Retreat if the rebellion attacks into your single craft left. Its better they have the planet then the Black Sun.

4. while you are destroying the space stations. Be gathering your ground troops. Once you have 2 Artillery begin taking planets. Use Veers with arty and youll be able to crack any ground base.

5. Taking the Southern area will give you both Thrawn and the Executor. Turn your fleet north. the Rebellion will have likely taken a planet or two from you. Take them back.

6. The line for the Empire is Kessel, Onderon, Kashyyyk, Corulag, and Bilbringi. Once there. Dig in and begin producing every single Eco building everywhere. As you do, produce the Empire Ton-Falk. Do no upgrade to anything except the Air Supremacy version. Its the only one you need. Any ship damage will come from your ships.

If youve gotten here, youve won. At this point youll be making about 30k a week. Station 12 Ton-Falks over each of your border planets with Max Space Stations, 2 Golan Is and a Hypervelocity gun on the ground and the 4 different factions youve trapped in the north will have issues breaking that. The 4 factions being, Hapes, Black Sun, Rebellion, and Corp Authority.

I used Allegiances as my main battleship backed with Ton-Talks and Thrawn for his 15% boost to all ships in order to grind everyone into dust planet by planet.

I also built the Death Star only to not use it. I only wanted the Arc-Hammer for its Dark Troopers.

TLDR
-You have Darth Vader and several heros in decently powerful ships. Use them like the battering ram they are.

-You will never have fighter supremacy early. Accept it. All you have to do is destroy the enemy ships and enemy stations before your ships die. Sounds like stupid advise, but it works.

-Your starting ships are enough to defeat the entire southern portion of the galaxy. Just be smart with them.

Issues
-Have I mentioned the Black Suns fighters?

-A Lucrehulk can nearly kill an Allegiance. I had 2 of them fighting a single Lucrehulk and I still almost lost an Allegiance. Just Wut Mate?

-The rebels without becoming the NR are a joke. I dont think the AI knows how to properly make the most of them. I was tempted to let them take the three needed planets to become the NR, but I was certain the Black Sun would get the planets instead.

I don't have time to make an alternative guide right now, but I would just say that you make a fair few points that i disagree with - in other words, for any newbies reading there are many ways to win which are greatly debatable. For example i certainly wouldn't abandon the Hoth area and I think the rebellion is definetly easier to win as.
Not wanting to be rude, just politely pointing out that there are many alternative ways to victory which might be easier.

You arent being rude.

Anyone reading hes right. There are mutliple ways to win. I just posted the way I won which worked very successfully as I didnt lose a single planet I actually attempted to defend.

I agree with General Brooks strategy on the Hoth area - securing Bespin should be the primary focus for your forces in that area (apart from moving mon mothma). Bespin allows you to build orbital Gas mines that generate a ****tonne of money. If you're feeling ballsy you can also try taking Bakura, which will allow you to build Bakuran Destroyers. That's more of a late game objective though.

Alias is right about the Black sun fighters though - the best counter is to engage the fighters with x wings and then surround the fighter swarm with braha'tok and correlian gunships. Let the concussion missiles do the rest.
:)