STAR WARS™ Empire at War: Gold Pack

STAR WARS™ Empire at War: Gold Pack

Empire at War Expanded: Fall of the Republic 1.5 (Updated May 4th)
Alpharius May 3, 2021 @ 4:20am
A little feedback / observation reports.
Just a quick list of the things I want to talk about this master piece of a mod.

FYI, I didn't have this game before I have seen the workshop. I've played since forever but never had in on Steam. So one day I checked the workshop, wondered what could they've made I asked. And saw this mod. And I decided to buy the game on Steam aswell just to play this mod. And I will say this, it's became one of my favorite games all over again.

That said, I've a little feedback. I think I've played this game long enough to point a few things.


Artillery : I love them. If played correctly, a few artillery units can win you battles with enemies far outnumber you. You can even win massive battles without losing a single unit.

But their targeting is a little off. They attack with pinpoint strikes. Which sounds good but actually is not. Because they are so accurate, they always land their shots on the same spot. But they do not have target tracking. So they don't fire at the enemy pathway. They just fire at their location. And that's bad.

Maybe they can have a little spread? That'd both give the target itself some chance to luck out and come closer enough to actually hit the artillery back. But also give the artillery itself some chance to hit it's moving target. As it is now, AV-7 is having trouble landing a shot on a slow moving Octuptarras. And let me tell you, a slow moving target like that shouldn't be too hard to hit. I'd happily trade a little damage for a little spread.

Or perhaps let them calculate the target's path and shoot a bit more smartly? They hit a squad of droids but only the back ranks. The front row survives and no way the artillery is shooting them.

AI do not use the Artillery as much so I've no idea about the defending party about the artillery. And as such, not much to give feedback about.

Holding position : This one annoys me. And it was an issue in the original game too. So I set up a nice defense right behind the shield generator's beams. And the enemy comes and the only thing units behind the shield has to do is just wait and when in range, shoot.

But no, the units behind the shield just leave their position, go past the shields and get shot and die. And I've no hold position command to keep them in line. All I can do to stop them from moving is to mash the stop button.

I lose entire units and squads in battles where I shouldn't even loose a single trooper. And all because they just leave their position.

So maybe a hold position command? Or tweak around the units so they do not move a single step unless commanded? I'm fine with them waiting there like a group of idiots not fighting back at enemy because they are in range for this. Because I can deal with commanding them to return fire easily all the time.

AA Turrets : They are so good at anti infantry, I see no reason to build anti infantry turrets at all. And anyone who uses the infantry turrets to defend against troops, I say, do not know the game as much. A single AA can destroy groups of infantry, starting from single squads to commandos and even enemy heroes. It took only 1 AA turret to kill Grievous. And it did not take more than 10 seconds. And the poor general was so helpless he couldn't even run away.

As it is now, anti infantry turrets are unnecessary, when you have AA turrets. Sure you need to specifically command them to shoot, but I've no problems with that. Because I can defend a large area with a few AA turrets. They even do good damage to vehicles if there's more than one in a place. Heck, anti vehicle turrets are better at dealing with infantry then anti infantry turrets...

Base Defenses : First off, I have no idea, when I look at the map, where are my shields at. I build defenses only for the shields, I find turbo laser towers to be ineffective unless they are behind a shield generator. And unless I memorize the map itself, I just have to fly blind with my pre-battle arrangements. Maybe include shields separately on the map? I'd die to have the option to chose where I want to place them too but I guess that's just asking for too much.

Secondly, if my much unneeded turbo laser towers are blown off, the game considers my entire defenses are gone at the end of the battle. Even though I care only for the shields. And some maps have laser towers WAY FAR AWAY from the shield generators. Some of them aren't even within the base perimeters. So obviously, they get destroyed. And I have to build my shield generator back again even though it wasn't destroyed. And they take some time to build back up, meaning it leaves my planet rather defenseless UNFAIRLY. Because some of my planets are away from my fleets to protect and I have to rely on the ground units to defend. And the game just takes my shields away even though I did not loose them.

I appreciate having the option to build both the shields and towers with just one build slot, but I wouldn't trade my shields for some useless towers...

Heroes : The idea of losing a hero permanently is lost on me. I'm sure there is a good reason for it. And that's why I won't argue about it. But can I atleast request a sub mod that changes permanent deaths to cooldowns?

As how it is right now, I never deploy my heroes on battles out of fear they're gonna die. And that's just sad. I play on hard difficulty all the time so all my battles are on massive scale. Ain't no way they are going to go through it. So I'm not deploying Admiral Yularen on the space battles when I loose 10 Venators every battle as business usual. And that's just sad. Same goes for the jedi down on the planets.

And it's equally sad to kill Dooku in a planet battle where I stumbled on him without much defenses on his side. He dies and that's it. It doesn't feel satisfying. Also sad because the AI doesn't really care for it's heroes neither and just throw them away as if they are just a cannon fodder.

Story-wise it doesn't make sense neither. If I kill Dooku - Kill Grievous - Choose Mon Mothma (Which I always do choose her - I know, I'm a sucker for the Jedi order...) then it should mean the Separatists are done and it's just a quick mop off for the rest of the game.

Also will we be getting Ahsoka as a Republic hero? You aren't gonna pull a fast one on us and put Jarjar as a hero instead and call it a day are you? :warmage:

Could use Cad Bane on the Sep's side too. Seps hire a lot of bounty hunters after all, it's even used as voice lines in a lot of other games. Like Anakin mocking Dooku, saying he's hiding behind Bounty Hunter's skirts. And where is Savage Opress? They ARE coming yes?

And why doesn't Grievous use Malevolence as his flagship? I'd love to fight with/against him on a more powerful warship than a ship even I don't use after some time in the game.

These are the things I can talk about for now. If anything else comes to mind, I'll post here again.
Last edited by Alpharius; May 3, 2021 @ 4:22am
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Showing 1-7 of 7 comments
Cooler12351 May 3, 2021 @ 4:53am 
I will only Go over the Points I'm pretty Sure i saw a Dev say It.

Holding Position: There is Not really anything that can be done against it, because if you lower the agression the Units will Not shoot, but also don't move by their own.

Base Defense: The Game counts it as destroyed If all TLs are destroyed, probably because it is based on the TLs And Not on the shield.(?)

Hero Deaths: I know EaWX only with perma Deaths, which i find also cool.
If you want a submod consider to do it yourself instead of waiting for it.

Tano will come, but Last Time i Heard about her process only the head was Finished.

Grievous can use the Malevolence as flagship If He is Upgraded to it.
Angelic-A May 3, 2021 @ 10:27am 
Artillery - Artillery should stay as it is imo. Its pinpoint accuracy on where the enemy was when it fires, plus the travel time of the projectile, is the main thing balancing it out. It's strong against slow units like AT-TEs, Octuptarras, as well as large groups of Infantry, but if it tried to lead the shots it'd either get a whole lot more powerful, or unreliable, depending on how the AI reacts to it, especially unreliable if it has a spread.

Holding Position - There's a button you can press to cancel all move orders on the unit(s) you have selected, but it's still an issue with keeping them where you want them. Cooler explained it better than I could.

AA Turrets -I think this might be a bug? I'm pretty sure AA turrets aren't meant to target ground units at all, which is probably why their damage is so high.

Base Defenses - The team has mentioned having a ground map similar to AotR's, where you can zoom in and see information like you said, and also move around units and structures.
Though I do find Turbolasers to be very useful, just like any other type of turret you should stack infantry in front of it to soak damage.

Heroes -

Perma Death - Corey has said this is to avoid spamming heroes, especially on the AIs side. I've found that it's pretty easy to keep heroes alive if you place them well. Treat them as support ships, there to provide their combat bonus, not to deal or tank damage.

Killing Heroes - Personally, it's a big achievement for me. If I see a hero on the battlefield, my entire strategy changes to focus them down because unlike all other units, the AI can't just build another hero.

Story-Wise - Keep in mind that, in RotS, the CIS fell apart so quickly not because Dooku and Grievous died, but because Darth Vader cut down the rest of the CIS command *and* sent out the signal to shut down all active battle droids. *And* Separatist holdouts still remained a major issue for the Empire for years after!
This is represented in the mod as well, if certain CIS heroes die then they gain Gizor Dellso, one of the Geonosians that maintained a holdout on Mustafar, as a hero.

Other Heroes- Ahsoka is on the way, I'm unsure if they would add bounty hunters for the CIS considering the amount of heroes they already have, but it'd be a nice mirror of the Republic's command staff system.
Also, considering the short amount of time Savage actually served Dooku, I don't know if he'll make it in, as much as I'd like it.

Grievous' Flagship: Grievous has a tier system for his flagships, I'm pretty sure it's between a Recusant, Providence, Recusant Destroyer, Providence Destroyer, and a Subjugator. You can pay credits to upgrade him, and if his ship is destroyed then rather than dying his ship drops the next tier down.
This might apply to ground battles as well, because I killed Grievous multiple times in one playthrough before, but that might have been a bug that's since been fixed.
Last edited by Angelic-A; May 3, 2021 @ 8:57pm
Alpharius May 3, 2021 @ 11:03am 
Originally posted by Angelic-A:
Artillery - Artillery should stay as it is imo. Its pinpoint accuracy on where the enemy was when it fires, plus the travel time of the projectile, is the main thing balancing it out. It's strong against slow units like AT-TEs, Octuptarras, as well as large groups of Infantry, but if it tried to lead the shots it'd either get a whole lot more powerful, or unreliable, depending on how the AI reacts to it, especially unreliable if it has a spread.

Holding Position - There's a button you can press to cancel all move orders on the unit(s) you have selected, but it's still an issue with keeping them where you want them. Cooler explained it better than I could.

AA Turrets -I think this might be a bug? I'm pretty sure AA turrets aren't meant to target group units at all, which is probably why their damage is so high.

Base Defenses - The team has mentioned having a ground map similar to AotR's, where you can zoom in and see information like you said, and also move around units and structures.
Though I do find Turbolasers to be very useful, just like any other type of turret you should stack infantry in front of it to soak damage.

Heroes -

Perma Death - Corey has said this is to avoid spamming heroes, especially on the AIs side. I've found that it's pretty easy to keep heroes alive if you place them well. Treat them as support ships, there to provide their combat bonus, not to deal or tank damage.

Killing Heroes - Personally, it's a big achievement for me. If I see a hero on the battlefield, my entire strategy changes to focus them down because unlike all other units, the AI can't just build another hero.

Story-Wise - Keep in mind that, in RotS, the CIS fell apart so quickly not because Dooku and Grievous died, but because Darth Vader cut down the rest of the CIS command *and* sent out the signal to shut down all active battle droids. *And* Separatist holdouts still remained a major issue for the Empire for years after!
This is represented in the mod as well, if certain CIS heroes die then they gain Gizor Dellso, one of the Geonosians that maintained a holdout on Mustafar, as a hero.

Other Heroes- Ahsoka is on the way, I'm unsure if they would add bounty hunters for the CIS considering the amount of heroes they already have, but it'd be a nice mirror of the Republic's command staff system.
Also, considering the short amount of time Savage actually served Dooku, I don't know if he'll make it in, as much as I'd like it.

Grievous' Flagship: Grievous has a tier system for his flagships, I'm pretty sure it's between a Recusant, Providence, Recusant Destroyer, Providence Destroyer, and a Subjugator. You can pay credits to upgrade him, and if his ship is destroyed then rather than dying his ship drops the next tier down.
This might apply to ground battles as well, because I killed Grievous multiple times in one playthrough before, but that might have been a bug that's since been fixed.

I'm good with how the artillery is. I just thought they could use a little tune up. It was a feedback after all.

I do not know if turret thing was a bug but you can do it in the OG too. Infact, the AA's there were much more effective because they also had splash. Best way to deal with Garm Bel too! It's almost like cheating even. You should try it. It's quite amusing. Some vehicles aside, they can even be a better option than an AV turrets when dealing enemy vehicles.^^

Ye I have to remember that this is an old game so I should keep my expectations low on some mechanics like hold position and stuff...

Well 'suppose play strategies differ with each person. I don't rely on Turbo Lasers much. Stationary targets are bad if they don't have shields in my play. I either turtle up when defending or blitz through and deny any landing points. Depends on the units I have. I just want my shields stay. Wouldn't care if I didn't get laser towers. But, then again, that's just me.

Well I wasn't going to go too deep in the story. And if it's decided then it's decided. I'd love to talk more about the lore and story but this ain't the place. Having a hero on support on space is not good at all, for me anyway. Oh well 'suppose I'll just be quiet and never use them.

As for Savage, ye I wasn't really expect him neither when I said it, but I would welcome him any day. Same goes for Darth Maul.

I wouldn't mind if the AI kept spamming it's heroes and rush them on me, but I get the point.

Lastly I didn't know I could upgrade Grievous' ship. I thought I could only switch between two ships..
Last edited by Alpharius; May 3, 2021 @ 11:05am
Alpharius May 4, 2021 @ 9:25am 
Addition.

Saber Tank's new laser beam passes through base shields and hits enemies. Was it supposed to do that?

Field Bases have.... I think a rally point...? right in front of them. And the AI considers it as a hostile target and shoots the ground. Zooming in closer where they fire at, I can see a small doodle flag barely noticeable. They are aiming at that and not at the base. And since it's the AI we are talking about, they get stuck there even when other hostile targets are firing at them.
Angelic-A May 4, 2021 @ 9:35am 
Originally posted by Gorgutz:
Addition.

Saber Tank's new laser beam passes through base shields and hits enemies. Was it supposed to do that?

Field Bases have.... I think a rally point...? right in front of them. And the AI considers it as a hostile target and shoots the ground. Zooming in closer where they fire at, I can see a small doodle flag barely noticeable. They are aiming at that and not at the base. And since it's the AI we are talking about, they get stuck there even when other hostile targets are firing at them.

The Saber Tank doing that isn't intentional, I'm pretty sure that nothing is supposed to fire through a hostile shield.

As for field bases, the flag is used to indicate infantry that spawned from the infantry "unit," a mechanic used to reduce lag. Could be that the AI thinks there's infantry there, when there isn't, possibly something to do with how the Field Bases spawn in infantry?
Alpharius May 4, 2021 @ 10:34am 
Originally posted by Angelic-A:
Originally posted by Gorgutz:
Addition.

Saber Tank's new laser beam passes through base shields and hits enemies. Was it supposed to do that?

Field Bases have.... I think a rally point...? right in front of them. And the AI considers it as a hostile target and shoots the ground. Zooming in closer where they fire at, I can see a small doodle flag barely noticeable. They are aiming at that and not at the base. And since it's the AI we are talking about, they get stuck there even when other hostile targets are firing at them.

The Saber Tank doing that isn't intentional, I'm pretty sure that nothing is supposed to fire through a hostile shield.

As for field bases, the flag is used to indicate infantry that spawned from the infantry "unit," a mechanic used to reduce lag. Could be that the AI thinks there's infantry there, when there isn't, possibly something to do with how the Field Bases spawn in infantry?

Ye base shield was a surprise. But the saber tanks are little better now.

And for the flag,

https://imgur.com/xVmAZB7

here it is. Right where the scout's laser ends is the flag. Barely visible but there. It doesn't always drop. Only from time to time. So maybe it's as you say. But the AI goes all the rage for it. See how it ignores droideka...?
Angelic-A May 4, 2021 @ 12:39pm 
Originally posted by Gorgutz:

Ye base shield was a surprise. But the saber tanks are little better now.

And for the flag,

https://imgur.com/xVmAZB7

here it is. Right where the scout's laser ends is the flag. Barely visible but there. It doesn't always drop. Only from time to time. So maybe it's as you say. But the AI goes all the rage for it. See how it ignores droideka...?

Yeah, that's how the AI's targeting tends to work, they don't like to change targets.
You might make a separate post about this as a bug report so the devs can have an easier time seeing it.
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