For a start, army trooper grenade launchers aren't really anti vehicle.
In terms of the empire having limited AT infantry, that's deliberate, imperial tactics are supposed to be more about heavy vehicles. Stormtroopers make good buffer troops ahead of your vehicles but don't expect them to win on their own.
If rebel AT is a problem, combined arms is indeed good, and you might also want to try using missile jamming or point defence systems. The occupier, juggernaut and AT-AA are all good in this respect. The AT-DT also provides a cheaper artillery option which might help you.
Imperials don't get 'interesting' stuff because this is less their style, they don't hijack vehicles, they build bigger ones. They do have stealth units which can be extremely useful.
Finally, I would recommend making good use of bombing runs against centres of enemy resistance and always bringing along engineers to fix up your vehicle when damaged. Remember that defending forces are finite so you don't need to be in a huge hurry to advance.
Hope that helps, happy to answer any questions you have, but we are pretty happy with the balance of imperial ground forces right now. You might have a different perspective once you've played as the rebels too.

I've found that 3 units of Imperial T2 hovertanks works well- keep them moving and dancing around the infantry and their longer range guns will take down the Rebs. Veers for his bonus can tank a lot of shots, and support from the hovertanks can usually beat most things- just dont take the whole army on at once- hit the edge of the army and then fall back with your speed and range. Rendlii planet in the Core usually gets an early improvement on the Imperial factory and then you can pump out hovertanks for the rest of the game.

I appreciate the response and help. Maybe it's because the AI over-uses these units that I find a bit too potent, making the issue seem larger than it actually is. I hope you don't consider this just whining - I'm just trying to express some concerns and maybe learn how to not suck :)

I've actually tried the missile jamming field a few times from the AT-AA but it didn't seem to work, or had too small of an area of effect, so I just stopped trying - I assumed maybe they were considered rockets or something else that weren't effected by the jamming. I'll definitely be trying this again - thank you!

The AT-DP has been getting more use too,and they seem to be a great response, though requiring LoS to hit is something I'm still working on (gotta move that camera around a lot more often)!

I've also been trying the SPMA-T(sp?) but have been really quite dissatisfied with it. Quite expensive, you only get 1 (the tool-tip says 2, though), slow in all aspects ( slow set-up / takedown, fire rate, etc.), and vulnerable to all sorts of damage. I counted how often it fires it's weapon and it's once every 20 seconds..Ouch! Combine that with an AI that is never standing still and they tend to miss most shots. Is there a command to force fire so I could skill shot them? That might help...

I do still have some concerns though about the flexibility / potency of the Rebellion's infantry. Mostly now it's that their tier 3 anti-tank infantry that's already very effective at anti-tank/air duty, they also comes with 2 teams of anti-infantry mortars. Like you mentioned, I tend to use my Stormtroopers as a screen for my expensive toys, but those mortar teams really do chew away at my infantry, and from a safe distance that I can't often react to.

Finally, just recently the AI has taken Naboo from me and they use crap tons of the Naboo speeder vehicles (I forget the name of them - Flash something?), which have become the newest pain in my butt because they get crap tons of them in every unit (looks like 6 per!!) and these things just devastate infantry from a long distance! Going to have to take back Naboo ASAP, it seems.

Originally posted by assam60:

I've found that 3 units of Imperial T2 hovertanks works well- keep them moving and dancing around the infantry and their longer range guns will take down the Rebs. Veers for his bonus can tank a lot of shots, and support from the hovertanks can usually beat most things- just dont take the whole army on at once- hit the edge of the army and then fall back with your speed and range. Rendlii planet in the Core usually gets an early improvement on the Imperial factory and then you can pump out hovertanks for the rest of the game.

Thank you :) I'll need to start implementing more of them, I think. I can make the T3 version of them too, though I haven't had a chance to try them yet

I do think this is more about the ai choosing to spam these units than the units themselves, particularly the tier three infantry is really expensive so its not viable to play this way as a human.

The TX-130 Saber tank (which I'd previously called the T2) from the automated factory is a better all rounder than the T3 anti-armour tank- its faster, can kill infantry better and still is good for anti-vehicle and buildings. The trick is to secure an Imperial Repair Station big-pad for them to scoot back to, and to rotate the lead tank round to the back once it starts taking damage. 3 units or so grouped together are pretty good for scouting around and killing targets and buildings - just keep them moving. (Rebel scout bantha riders with immobilising ion grenades are their bane)

Thanks for the replies / advice guys, I greatly appreciate it!

I managed to knock out the Rebels tier 3 tech center (and again after they rebuilt it) so I kinda sorta fixed the problem of having to face swarms of those SpecForce Vanguard anti-armor troopers, and finished my Empire campaign (the R-E full one - whew that took a while).

I've since then started up a Rebel game with the same campaign to see how the opposite side fares (so far, them starting with Thrawn has been tough in space battles, but I've beat them back on ground defense a few times on Mygeeto).

In my now-finished Empire game I started using the basic tier 1 heavy weapons Imperial Army troops en mass as fodder with a support platoon to keep them alive longer, up ahead of my big stompy vehicles, and usually with 1-2 tier 2 Stormtrooper anti-vehicle units. This worked very well at knocking down turrets, smaller swarms of infantry and shielded vehicles, and also cut down on losses of the expensive and the very-long-time-to-produce big stompies that are further back in the line firing over everything.

I still think there's a bit of jank among the Empire's ground forces, but I plan to do another Empire game in the future now that I'm sort of a 'veteran' to really have a solid opinion. It's definitely not as bad as I thought with my initial post!

As of now I think I have 3 primary complaints:

1) The walkers that the Empire use, particularly the AT-AT, get stuck frequently and become non-responsive.

This is compounded on a lot of maps that simply don't have enough navigational room for them, and often times the AT-AT won't fire when turning. I assume this is more of a base game bug so there's not a lot to do about it, but dammit if that isn't frustrating when your AT-AT is literally facing something, but won't fire at it (even when it's not being chain stunned by those stupid Tauntaun riders!)


2) The Empire just doesn't seem to be good at defense.

I think this might be partly due to the Rebels having longer firing ranges among most of their units, so often times they can just sit out of range and snipe (and their sniper units are very accurate and deadly). I suppose this might be a design choice, and I do like asymmetrical factions, but I often felt like I had no chance to win even when I had a large garrison force.


3) Most of the Empire's final tier ground units just don't seem to be worthwhile. Especially early on, until you're really dominating, they are too expensive (the unit + building chain), they have lengthy recruiting times, and feel too 'fragile' (small units, they die just as easily as other infantry, and you're afraid to lose them).

The tier 1 and 2 infantry can, for what I need them to do, outperform the Shock and Deathtroopers (and you don't have to worry about losing them since they are expendable units). Shocktrooper heavy weapon teams are pretty awesome in the right situation (oh that dakka..), but they often just get plinked away by a Rebel sniper squad or mortar team that are out of range. I still am not quite sure what Deathtroopers are for except to look sweet!

The Arc Hammer droid troopers also felt very underwhelming, with the Phase 2 being the best of the bunch, but still not really worth writing home about. And I think the Phase 3 ones might be broken? They stutter fire their arm lasers, which doesn't seem effective against any target, and only fire their missiles at extremely close range.

The tier 3 hovertank feels like a downgrade compared to the tier 2 one (I forget the names of them, sorry!). The tier 3 one does good damage against vehicles and buildings, but it doesn't feel like it's any better than the tier 2 version, which is good against vehicles, buildings AND infantry, and it's faster too!

The only tier 3 unit I can think of that I really prefer to use is the AT-ST with smart missiles, and those are awesome, I just wish the cooldown for the smart missiles wasn't so lengthy!

Sorry for the massive write-up! But, I felt I should give my (hopefully constructive) feedback/ criticism. Once I start up another Empire campaign in the future (or with my current Rebel campaign) I'll probably refine my thoughts even further, but for now this is all I've got!

PS. I'm really enjoying this mod, contrary to what you might think after reading all of this!

Originally posted by assam60:

The TX-130 Saber tank (which I'd previously called the T2) from the automated factory is a better all rounder than the T3 anti-armour tank- its faster, can kill infantry better and still is good for anti-vehicle and buildings. The trick is to secure an Imperial Repair Station big-pad for them to scoot back to, and to rotate the lead tank round to the back once it starts taking damage. 3 units or so grouped together are pretty good for scouting around and killing targets and buildings - just keep them moving. (Rebel scout bantha riders with immobilising ion grenades are their bane)

Thank you for the advice! I tried a few units of the T3 hovertank and felt pretty meh about them, so I went back to pretty much exclusively using the Saber tank due to how effective and flexible they are.

I have to ask, are these hover tanks supposed to be slow for a certain period after entering combat? It seems like they often get stuck / are unable to move / become unresponsive to movement commands for a certain period of time after firing and I can't figure out why! I try to set up hit and run attacks, but it doesn't work when they lollygag for like ~5 seconds!

I think its mainly pathing issues- Since I deploy Sabers in groups of 6 (on a fairly slow laptop) when I click for the unit to move away from an engagement, the ones at the back with clearer pathways move first and the ones at the front (who may be bunched up) seem to stall. And one always seem to freeze- sometimes from being hit by ion fire, sometimes for no reason that I can see. Microing sometimes helps (or at least makes me feel better) but usually I can micro the other tanks to provide covering fire as I then try to move the 'stuck' tank.

Am I right in thinking that only the Tier 1 Army Support unit is the only Imperial unit that can medic or repair vehicles? I've not spotted it in any other tiers of unit?

Pretty much, I think there might be some elite troops with medics but can't remember which units off the top of my head. Army support troopers are well worth having throughout the game.

Off the top of my head I believe the Imperial Officer team (the unit that drops with 1 ground squad + 2 TIE fighters) has a mechanic / repair dude in the squad, as well as the unique Army Trooper commander unit (I forget the name of him) that drops with 3 squads that I recall having medics and mechanics in them.

Also you have the Occupiers (T1 heavy or medium vehicle) that can build repair pads on them!

On the Rebel side I think it's only the Sullustan infantry and C3PO + R2D2 can repair vehicles