So the AI on recruit has less income and builds slower than a player would under similar circumstances.

However, every faction on the map has starting fleets and armies. While individually they aren't substantial, consolidating them into singular forces makes them formidable opponents especially when led by a hero. These 300 pop fleets you're seeing at the beginning of a campaign are those starting forces, however the AI on recruit will find it difficult to replace losses due to income and build time debuffs.

As the Republic your goal is pretty simple and straight forward, pick your battles carefully and trade well. You don't need to "win" so much as prevent the AI from winning without losses. Destroy a few ships and retreat if you know you can't actually win the fight.

Note that some ships are capable of preventing retreats if they're present on the battlefield which is why picking your fights is important. For the CIS these are DH-Omnis, large ships that resemble a ball with its halves connected by a large bar. These are still valuable targets as they require a capital shipyard to replace if destroyed and can make your life easier in the short term.

Beyond that you need to secure territory and prevent the enemy from consolidating while building up your own economy. The stronger your economy the easier it will be to expand your fleet and replace combat losses.

You should consolidate your own fleets and begin raiding their fleets in hit and run tactics. You should be able to win with evenly match fleets. Their are a number of tactics you can use. The most popular is to use a decoy ship to split the enemy fleet. Their are plenty of choke points in the galaxy, control those and enemy doom stacks cant even move. If your skill at planetary defense, you don't even need orbital defense and let the cis invade your border worlds. This will save you tons of credits and allow you to concentrate on your game and have fun.

Consolidate your own starting forces into one fleet in north and one in south. Start pushing s/sw with your north fleet and conquer the whole s half of the map which should be done by turn 50 at the latest even if you play slowly. Avoid attacking their large fleets at start, conserve your resources and pick other planets to assault. When attacking in space, wait they will eventually come to you and then you deploy a nice battle line with point-defense pickets up front. After destroying that (use you bombers, except on lucrehulks!) finish off their station.

Abandon outlying worlds in general when attacked, retreat those forces as they will be useful to have.

Build tax offices everywhere, some planets like coruscant can have two. And build trade ports with planets that have 4 or more trade lanes.

Put all your ground units not used for offense in chokepoint worlds (carida, yinchorr, etc.) and build large factories and shields there. Onderon and Kashyyk are great also, easy to hold. I don't even build anything in space there usually. Artillery and UT-ATs and AT-TEs are important with a couple of LAATs, defend around one or more repair station(s) and build some scanners to extend your field of view for the arty. I usually do not defend chokepoint worlds with infantry except those built from pads, well maybe one unit to grab points on map faster.

Bascially do the same on offense with same composition of forces, defend around a repair station and when they run out of troops assault them and bomb them using a hero with "Ping scan" ability. I rarely have losses on offense both on ground and in space (except CR90s and cheap infantry bult from the pads that I keep as a meat shield around my AT-TEs).

Let the CIS break themselves against those ground defenses while you conquer in the s/sw. Later on build valors where you can and station venators there and use your bombers, this with a HV gun will easily break 1500+ popcap enemy stacks even if you only have a 2-300 stack to defend with or even less.

When attacking basically move same forces from planet to planet i.e. move your "towers" forward...never stop building, never stop attacking.

Build up Mon cala early on with valor+golan II and venators and CR90s and victories when you get those, they will waste alot there which will take pressure off from the core. Keep your capital ships within the green healing circle of the valor when defending.

Later on in say 20-30 turns start recruiting heroes like tarkin and build up their fleets. I usually have one stationed on the planet between onderon and kashyyk and when they invade those worlds I ambush them. Another fleet at the planet south of yincorr, same ambush setup there. Carida I garrison with larger and larger fleets but usually only with a hero from the academy building (planet with a star symbol) as stationing heroes at the front line is a risk as you are not always able to retreat.

Ah well you'll figure it out :)

Use pause alot. Use Stop to make units hold ground and not run off to get killed (space and ground).

Easy really. Even on hardest with Cruel AI.

Also, when they start using those giant walkers magnapurras octos or whatever they are called, the UT-ATs, artillery and rocket infantry will slaughter them so no worries even if they have 30+ stacks of those. Same units will also kil their gunships and you always have your LAATs for support if needed. oh yes, and when invadign always load up the LAATs with inf and capture pads ASAP so you can deploy a max army.

I have done most of what you've suggested

Originally posted by molchåmor:

I've built tax offices where ever possible, captured choke points and start to build massive fleets at them, build up my ground invasion force with a jedi or 2 leading them. Build those defensive space stations to help defend key stations. But the second I push with a single fleet, and leave my choke point, they attack with a fleet of like 300-1000 strong. And somehow even if I get back in time, I always lose. So IDK anymore.

On another topic you're telling me to abandon the planets on the outer rim/sections of the map? But what about the pop cap? And other stuff? I know the Heroes will re-spawn, but IDK. I can try it.

Also what's up with being spammed from the AI about these stupid missions? Especially when I'm trying to move a fleet or do something.... Rather annoying and has already cost me more then a couple of planets cause it TP's me like half way across the galaxy to something IDC about. Can I turn this feature off so I can just play the GC?

Originally posted by Zindith~TTV:

I have done most of what you've suggested

I've built tax offices where ever possible, captured choke points and start to build massive fleets at them, build up my ground invasion force with a jedi or 2 leading them. Build those defensive space stations to help defend key stations. But the second I push with a single fleet, and leave my choke point, they attack with a fleet of like 300-1000 strong. And somehow even if I get back in time, I always lose. So IDK anymore.

On another topic you're telling me to abandon the planets on the outer rim/sections of the map? But what about the pop cap? And other stuff? I know the Heroes will re-spawn, but IDK. I can try it.

Also what's up with being spammed from the AI about these stupid missions? Especially when I'm trying to move a fleet or do something.... Rather annoying and has already cost me more then a couple of planets cause it TP's me like half way across the galaxy to something IDC about. Can I turn this feature off so I can just play the GC?

In general, Heroes do not respawn. Only heroes with specific respawn mechanics will do that. If you want to relocate them to safer territory you need to dismiss them from the political tab on the build bar and rehire them somewhere else. Not all heroes are tied to this though so you will need to clear a path back home for someone like Anakin and Obi-Wan.

Popcap can be increased by building a Golan Colony on a planet. You can only build one per planet and if you have a trade station it will replace that so choose where you build them carefully.

As for those missions... there's probably a way of file editing those away but I don't know how, that said you gain rewards for completing them. Some powerful units like the A6 can only be obtained from mission rewards. Plus some missions will integrate a Republic Sector Force planet alongside the units that happen to be on it.

While you can simply ignore them I'd recommend actually looking at what they're asking you to do and what they offer in exchange. Some of them are as simple as sending probes to a specific set of planets which is low effort and low cost in exchange for something you might find useful.

On the topic of battles though... Hard to really say what you can be doing better on that front without knowing how you're fighting those battles. 1000+ pop fleets though... I'll be honest if you're fighting those on recruit you really aren't doing well at all huh. The only conceivable way I can imagine that happening is if you didn't destroy a single ship in the entire campaign.

Alright so I finally got a good game going. Making really good headway. However now I got a new issue. I have almost 70K credits, however most of the ships, troops, upgrades that I can buy/recruit are grayed out even though I have PLENTY of credits, and enough Pop to support them. So honestly at this point I'm starting to think it really is horrible/♥♥♥♥ coding on the part of the Dev(s). I hate saying this, but even when I FINALLY have a good run, the mod is like NOPE, DENIED!. I have a screen shot and can record if necessary. But yeah this is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying. Can someone help me fix this bug, if not I am so done with this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mod, and the Dev(s) need to fix this ♥♥♥♥ NOW! This is SOOOOO Unplayable.

If ships are greyed out that usually means you're running out of crew to build them. That shouldn't affect ground units or research though and is not an issue I've ever seen reported before.

Well at this point I no longer give a ♥♥♥♥. One issue/bug after another...... Yet the Mod CAN work and somehow doesn't? It just seems fishy, like something else is needed to make it run properly and that something isn't public knowledge. Which IMO is stupid and shouldn't be a thing. IMO the Dev needs to at the BARE min look into this.

Yeah no, there is no bug. It is just one of the advertised features of the mod that is both very straightforward and explained in detail in the in-game help windows that you're tripping over.

What is it with people recently coming in and swearing the mod is bugged and demanding devs "fix it" when quite clearly they just don't understand how the mod (or the base game, as many of the mod's quirks stem from the base game) works?

It is okay to not like an element or to have questions but to come in, demanding that the devs make it like you want it to be, because obviously it is bugged if it isn't how you imagine it, that is no longer good faith engagement. That is the mixture of obsession and conceit. There's a word for that. Karen. You're a Karen.

If you cannot manage three measly resources in a strategy game no strategy game is suitable for you. Even "dumbed down" total war games usually have tens of resources to manage so go figure. Paradox or Slitherine games I recommend you not to even look at you will have a heart attack.

Regarding crews the "resource management" if you can even call it that is to build 2 or 3 cloning facilities (you start with three planets with this capability) and that's it. You never have to worry about it again as you should always have a big surplus.

Originally posted by NickRhinstein:

Yeah no, there is no bug. It is just one of the advertised features of the mod that is both very straightforward and explained in detail in the in-game help windows that you're tripping over.

What is it with people recently coming in and swearing the mod is bugged and demanding devs "fix it" when quite clearly they just don't understand how the mod (or the base game, as many of the mod's quirks stem from the base game) works?

Then explain to me why reloading an earlier save allowed me to build both ships and ground units again? Not to mention do research again? If my game wasn't "Bugged" as you claim, then loading one of my back up saves would have done nothing for me. In fact it probably would have been worse. Who knows.

However as Molchamor puts it. There's a lot of resources to manage and such. Not to mention you need ship crews for your ships. Which I had plenty of cause I built the needed buildings for them and had around 80-150 ship crews every cycle. So no resources where no problem for me. It was as I stated before, that the game was somehow bugged for me. But thankfully I saved multiple copies of my game and loading an earlier version fixed my problem.

So verbally harassing me and calling me that name was way out of line. I don't post/submit bug reports unless I know I have run into a bug/issue. So keep your toxicity to yourself. If you see something you don't like, move on. No need to comment on it/attack someone because you see something you don't like/agree with.

Hi not read everything in detail but there is also an issue "framework crash" rarely occuring (never had it myself and I have 3.2k hours in this plus the hours in the CD version). This will prevent items from being built. You can search this and the TR and AOTR steam mod forums for "framework crash" or even google "eaw framework crash" for more info to find out if this is what you had or not.

Remember the base game is 15 years+ old and there are issues that no mod can fix.

Reloading a save will resolve either of these two issues i.e. if it is indeed a popcap or crew issue you had reloading a save will allow you to build again (as you discovered) until said limit is reached again and then you will have the issue again (very easily resolved by building stuff that raises either popcap as golan colonies for popcap or cloning vats/crew training building to raise crew cap.

Originally posted by molchåmor:

Hi not read everything in detail but there is also an issue "framework crash" rarely occuring (never had it myself and I have 3.2k hours in this plus the hours in the CD version). This will prevent items from being built. You can search this and the TR and AOTR steam mod forums for "framework crash" or even google "eaw framework crash" for more info to find out if this is what you had or not.

Remember the base game is 15 years+ old and there are issues that no mod can fix.

Reloading a save will resolve either of these two issues i.e. if it is indeed a popcap or crew issue you had reloading a save will allow you to build again (as you discovered) until said limit is reached again and then you will have the issue again (very easily resolved by building stuff that raises either popcap as golan colonies for popcap or cloning vats/crew training building to raise crew cap.

Never heard of a "Framework Crash". Thanks for this information. Will DEF look into this, and see weather or not this was indeed my issue or not. But as I said when I reloaded an earlier save, it fixed my issue. So no harm no fowl. So if it turns out to be a "Framework Crash", then as you said nothing I can do but load an earlier save. At which point just a good practice to continue making multiple saves.

As for raising Crew income, or Pop Cap. Yeah I had plenty of both. I made sure I wasn't overlooking anything as a possibility. And that it was indeed a bug/issue. But in the end I'm only human and make mistakes all the time. I'll keep an eye out and try to figure out what my issue is.

Thanks again for the help though.

Originally posted by Azihar:

You should consolidate your own fleets and begin raiding their fleets in hit and run tactics. You should be able to win with evenly match fleets. Their are a number of tactics you can use. The most popular is to use a decoy ship to split the enemy fleet. Their are plenty of choke points in the galaxy, control those and enemy doom stacks cant even move. If your skill at planetary defense, you don't even need orbital defense and let the cis invade your border worlds. This will save you tons of credits and allow you to concentrate on your game and have fun.

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but how do you use a "decoy ship?"

Originally posted by Cheetah724:

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but how do you use a "decoy ship?"

It's just deploying a single ship on the field via the fleet's pathfinder slot (the box in the upper left of the fleet window when zoomed on a planet).

Then using either what's in that slot or deploying another ship on the field once a battle has started to distract the enemy then deploying the rest of the fleet when you seen an opportunity to deal the most damage for little risk.