GALACTIC MAP

Choosing Your Invasions

The way to win a galactic conquest is to constantly invade enemy planets whilst keeping the ones you already have firmly under your control. To do this, you will have to choose your target planets strategically. If you choose to invade a planet that is easily accessible from many different enemy planets, then you will have a hard time keeping control of it. So the best way to advance in the game is to target planets that are cut off from the rest of the enemy territory. However of course, some planets you have to target will not always be completely cut off. Just choose wisely and do not strike for the heart; you need to be subtle.

Defending Your Territory

The EaW AI on the galactic map seems to be reluctant to move its fleets away from a planet which has not yet been conquered on the ground. So the enemy fleets will hover above the planet until another army can be sent down to invade, and will not budge until the task is complete and the planet is completely invaded. This means that your rearguard planets will not be harmed, something you can take advantage of. Since your rearguard planets will not be threatened, you can completely empty them of troops and send these to the front. You also will not have to bother building up defences such as shield generators and turbo lasers. Instead you can keep the ground spots to build mining facilities thus strengthening your economy. Or you can build production facilities, to build advanced units to use in your war effort.

On your boarder planets, you will have to build up some defences to have any hope of keeping them under your control as the enemy will try to push you back. To protect from space invasions, a large space station is advisable. It allows you to build more advanced ships and it is very powerful in itself for holding the enemy back. A few capital ships and Tartans/corvettes is also a good idea. If playing with the rebellion than building Ion Cannons makes a great defence. They can completely disable any large Imperial capital ship for a long time while your space units go in for the kill. When attacking, Ion cannons are very frustrating as they cannot be countered and will even make your Imperial Star Destroyers completely inoperable during the battle.

On the ground, Shield Generators and Turbo lasers make up a great defence. Shield Generators will make bombing runs and artillery assaults (provided you buy the upgrade) completely useless. Turbo lasers will make short work of any ground units and can even be quite effective against T-47s when playing as the Empire. Do not forget to build a few barracks and factories so that you have moving units to win the battle with.

Raiding

Raid is a special ability only available to the Rebellion. It allows a player to make a small force of units and deploy them on an enemy planet, without the need for taking out the enemy ships in orbit. It is a very small group of units that you are allowed to attack with though, so choose them wisely. A group of T-47s, MPTL, T-4Bs and infiltrators (to capture build pads) would be the best choice. You will have no bombing runs or reinforcements to assist you; you will have to conquer the map with the small amount of units you have. This is why the Raid ability is best used on planets where you know you will have the assistance of the local population such as Kashyykk or Mon Calamari.

SPACE BATTLES

Space Turrets

While battling it out in space, you might forget about space turrets. These show up on the map as grey squares and you can claim them by moving a fighter or bomber squad near them. You can either build a Laser Cannon or a Missile Launcher. Laser Cannons are great anti-fighter weapons while Missile Launchers are better suited for attacking capital ships. They are really useful in skirmish mode, where plenty of them can be built on the map. They are also often situated next to mining facilities so they are ideal for protecting them.

Attacking Capital Ships

Most capital ships in EaW have many individual systems such as shield generators, engines and turbo lasers. When you attack a capital ship, you will be able to target one of these specific systems. If you click on the ship in general without targeting a hard point, then the unit will choose a hard point itself. If you order a number of units to attack the target generally then they will all choose a different hard point to shoot at and will not necessarily concentrate on the same one. This is not very advantageous; ideally you will want all the units you have chosen to attack the same hard point for maximum effect. As the wise Pellaeon said, scattered fire will not achieve anything. The two most important hard points you will want to destroy are the shield generator and the hangar. However, you will have to do so with either Y-Wings or TIE Bombers; their torpedoes will ignore shields and will damage the hard points directly. By destroying the shield generator, you will instantly drop the shield which reduces the time and the effort it will take to destroy a capital ship because you will not have to drain the shield energy before hurting it.

The other essential hard point, present on Imperial capital ships only (and all space stations) is the hangar. Hangars are dangerous because they continuously create fighters and bombers which help in deciding the course of the battle. When a squad of fighters or bombers has been taken out, more come out from the enemies hangars. This is especially true on space stations were regeneration is infinite. Imperial Star Destroyers will eventually run out but this is not the case with space stations. So to end the annoyance once and for all, destroying the hangar is the way to go.

GROUND BATTLES

Defence

Hopefully you will have followed the previous advice and have built shield generators on your planet. If you have then the first thing you will want to do is withdraw all of your units under the shield. Then, if you can afford it, upgrade the shield so that it can withstand artillery fire. By default, it will repel laser fire and bombing runs, which is great in itself, but if the enemy comes at you with rockets, you are going wish you paid the extra cash for the upgrade. When you get an idea of the direction from which you will be attacked, move your units towards it, close to the edge of the shield. Have your artillery units stay back enough as much as their range will allow (you will want them to be able to strike at the base of the shield.) and move your other units in front of them to protect. If fighting the enemy AI, which are not very bright, then you should be able to make short work of the attackers. Now some planets, perhaps even most of them have the power generators outside of the shield radius (not very realistic is it?) leaving them vulnerable to attack. As you know, if they get destroyed, your shield will drop. You can either take measures to insure that does not happen by moving units to protect it, or hope that the AI will ignore it and charge through the shields mindlessly (which is often the case).

Like in space, you will find build points on ground maps. You have six choices of structures to build: anti-infantry turret, anti-vehicle turret, anti-aircraft turret, bacta tank, repair yard and sensor node. Out of all of the turrets, the most useful one is the anti-infantry turret. Firstly and obviously it is the best for dealing with troops. Troops are everywhere, and on planets where the local population is against you, anti-infantry turrets will be most helpful. They can also cause significant damage and kill heroes pretty quickly. Furthermore, they are not as useless against armour as you might think and actually quite effective. And as for maps, where you play as the Empire and the rebels have a few T-47s flying around then instead of building AA turrets, try out anti-infantry turrets. Once they have been built, use them to target the overhead T-47s. You will notice that it causes as much damage as an anti aircraft gun. My point is anti-infantry turrets are great all round for any defensive purpose against any unit, and so it is wise to choose it over the other two options.

As you move further up the map, towards the enemy base, do not forget to build repair yards and even bacta tanks (if you have heroes on the field.) You can nurse your units back to full health as you push further up, insuring they do not get destroyed. Sensor nodes are pretty useless in my book unless you manage to build one close to an enemy base, which will uncover the shroud protecting it, thus enabling you to conduct bombing runs.

Offence

Earlier it was mentioned that the best defences to have are shield generators and turbo lasers. But what happens when the enemy has both of these available to him? You go straight for the power generator. Once it is destroyed, both the shield will drop and the turbo lasers will be inoperable (as well as the imperial magna pulse cannon which, by the way, is another pretty good defence). But what if the power generator is inside the shield or if the generator is protected by the turbo lasers and/or the shields? Well this is the worst case scenario but you will find that it can happen. In both situations, you will want to destroy the turbo lasers first as they will stop you from getting close to the base or to the generator. In order to this, you will either have to conduct a bombing run on each of the towers or rush the tower with a group of units. If you decide to use the second option, then you might lose a few units in the process but that is a small price to pay. Once you have rushed and positioned your troops close to the tower, it will be unable to fire on them, and you will be able to make short work of it. After this has been done, you will have to penetrate the shield and go for either the shield generator or the power generator. It does not matter which as destroying either will bring the shields down. Having to go through the shield is much more complicated and you will have to find an ingenious way to do so. I.E head through first with shielded vehicles then follow through with your artillery units; when you are under the shield deploy your artillery and start creeping towards the generator. The enemy A.I will not always be good at protecting the edge of its shield, so you can take advantage of that.

OTHER USEFUL TIPS

When playing as the Empire, having an interdictor in each of your fleets is great for stopping retreats and finishing off forces once and for all. Make sure they are out of harm?s way though.

When playing as the rebels, use the T-47. It is a great unit that is very difficult to counter. A group of them can win your battles single handed.

Make use of your heroes. They give you an edge in the most difficult battles.

When pressed for money, make use of your heroes to drop the cost of building units and structures.

When using the bombing run on a structure, do not position your target reticule on top of the structure but slightly in front of it for maximum damage.

Something I have recently noticed. When a T-47 makes a tow cable attack on your AT-AT, have it target the air speeder and the latter should abort its cable attack.