I agree with you entirely. My very recent GC as the Empire ended with me getting only 8 ingame weeks in and I was losing everything. Everything was scattered and I had no idea what to do. So I quit and started another GC as Empire again. This time, I sold as many ships as possible and bought nothing but TIE Defenders. Unfortunately, I've come to the conclusion that you just have to let a lot of your planets go for the first few weeks because there's nothing you can really do. So my strategy was: Buy a metric F***load of TIE Defenders and prepare for a hideously long slog through 50 weeks of just spamming TIE Ds. This strategy worked out very well for me and I highly recommend you do the same. Build fleets on every planet comprised of just TIE Ds. I strongly advise these fleets be at the very least 50 TIE Ds and then keep building them to reinforce your numbers. You have to spend every single credit you get until you're able to push back and take some territory. Once you secure a good choke point or intersection, then you can start building your infrastructure and that is when I started churning out SDs like they were going out of style.

As for ground battles, I find it best to spam AT-ATs and alway have a fleet of SDs in orbit for bombing runs and bombardments. Also I use probe droids A LOT because I am a firm believer of "If you've got a bad feeling about this, you're probably right." And as it turns out, there is usually an ungodly number of enemies when I send in my probe droid. There is a certain feeling of relief you get when you made a cautious move and didn't send your 7 SDs 2 Immobilizers, and 5 Tectors to their doom at the hands of 28 Imperial II frigates, 40 light carriers, 12 arquintens, and 15 tartan cruisers. Yeah, that was seriously what was on the other side...

For real how does the AI get the funds to make all those ships that quickly? THEY HAD JUST ATTACKED ME AND WIPED THEM OUT!!! LIKE HOW!?

Lol.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you that Lancers are your very VERY best friend in the whole wide world because the AI will spam carriers at you like ads on TV.

Originally posted by Chillstep Rabbit:

Oh, and I forgot to tell you that Lancers are your very VERY best friend in the whole wide world because the AI will spam carriers at you like ads on TV.

you can sell ships?

Yes. Use the middle mouse wheel to zoom in on the planet with the fleet you wish to have a look at and right click on them. The option to sell appears.

One of the worst things you can do early into an EaW campaign is try to play defensively. If you don't expand immediately (on week 1), you WILL be attacked, and you risk losing basic infrastructure on your core planets. The first thing you should do is gather all your forces into one fleet and one army (some larger factions like the Imperial Remnant and New Republic can get away with two of each) and start trying to flesh out your borders with other factions. When the enemy does attack, you'll be fighting at underdeveloped planets that you can afford to lose. You might get some bad starts from time to time and get blitzed immediately, but even on admiral difficulty this is rare.

If you're starting with 9 planets, it sounds like you're playing as the CSA or a similarly difficult faction. Starting with limited territory sucks! 2.3 has removed most defenseless neutral planets and gotten rid of the credit bonus for capturing systems, plus infrastructure is more expensive now. This all leads to a slower-growing economy that stops you from snowballing early. That makes early expansion all the more important. If you want an easier time, I recommend trying out a faction like the Pentastar Alignment or the Empire of the Hand. Both start fairly isolated with plenty of space. The CSA starts out competing with Zsinj, the Greater Maldrood, and the New Republic, and the PA and Remnant tend to make fairly aggressively inroads to that region, especially now that the Cuitric Hegemony isn't connected to the rest of Imperial space. If you don't win your war with Zsinj, you will be at a significant disadvantage.

Lastly, let's talk defense. As you might have noticed, battlestations have been significantly nerfed since 2.2. The Empress, Oto, and Validusia stations are much more fragile and don't stock as many fighters. Golan 3s and 2s remain fairly strong, but they've never been amazing on their own. This is for a reason, though: static defenses should be a last resort. If you don't have enough fleets to hold down all your fronts, fortifying key chokepoints can be useful. This is usually a mid-game problem when your economy really gets going and you start to need more fleets. Generally, 3-4 fleets is ideal by the end of an era-progressive campaign, and you're probably only just getting your second fleet up to full strength by this point, so stations can help. But building Golans in the early game is a huge trap: they eat up valuable income that should be going to new ships. The AI seems to have gotten better at accounting for stations when they attack, so you're much more likely to lose your investment if they attack a system protected by nothing but Golans. Don't try to hold every world! If they attack you, counter-attack them. Often, you'll get more out of commiting to a campaign than you would from protecting your borders elsewhere.

TLDR: Expand early and often, don't sit around trying to build up, and do not build static defenses in the early game. They will not be worth it.

Originally posted by Playerjjjj:

One of the worst things you can do early into an EaW campaign is try to play defensively. If you don't expand immediately (on week 1), you WILL be attacked, and you risk losing basic infrastructure on your core planets. The first thing you should do is gather all your forces into one fleet and one army (some larger factions like the Imperial Remnant and New Republic can get away with two of each) and start trying to flesh out your borders with other factions. When the enemy does attack, you'll be fighting at underdeveloped planets that you can afford to lose. You might get some bad starts from time to time and get blitzed immediately, but even on admiral difficulty this is rare.

If you're starting with 9 planets, it sounds like you're playing as the CSA or a similarly difficult faction. Starting with limited territory sucks! 2.3 has removed most defenseless neutral planets and gotten rid of the credit bonus for capturing systems, plus infrastructure is more expensive now. This all leads to a slower-growing economy that stops you from snowballing early. That makes early expansion all the more important. If you want an easier time, I recommend trying out a faction like the Pentastar Alignment or the Empire of the Hand. Both start fairly isolated with plenty of space. The CSA starts out competing with Zsinj, the Greater Maldrood, and the New Republic, and the PA and Remnant tend to make fairly aggressively inroads to that region, especially now that the Cuitric Hegemony isn't connected to the rest of Imperial space. If you don't win your war with Zsinj, you will be at a significant disadvantage.

Lastly, let's talk defense. As you might have noticed, battlestations have been significantly nerfed since 2.2. The Empress, Oto, and Validusia stations are much more fragile and don't stock as many fighters. Golan 3s and 2s remain fairly strong, but they've never been amazing on their own. This is for a reason, though: static defenses should be a last resort. If you don't have enough fleets to hold down all your fronts, fortifying key chokepoints can be useful. This is usually a mid-game problem when your economy really gets going and you start to need more fleets. Generally, 3-4 fleets is ideal by the end of an era-progressive campaign, and you're probably only just getting your second fleet up to full strength by this point, so stations can help. But building Golans in the early game is a huge trap: they eat up valuable income that should be going to new ships. The AI seems to have gotten better at accounting for stations when they attack, so you're much more likely to lose your investment if they attack a system protected by nothing but Golans. Don't try to hold every world! If they attack you, counter-attack them. Often, you'll get more out of commiting to a campaign than you would from protecting your borders elsewhere.

TLDR: Expand early and often, don't sit around trying to build up, and do not build static defenses in the early game. They will not be worth it.

Actually i'm the New Republic. I prefer to be the good guys. I only play the Empire when I feel like having some smexy ISD's on my side and SSD's

Originally posted by Playerjjjj:

One of the worst things you can do early into an EaW campaign is try to play defensively. If you don't expand immediately (on week 1), you WILL be attacked, and you risk losing basic infrastructure on your core planets. The first thing you should do is gather all your forces into one fleet and one army (some larger factions like the Imperial Remnant and New Republic can get away with two of each) and start trying to flesh out your borders with other factions. When the enemy does attack, you'll be fighting at underdeveloped planets that you can afford to lose. You might get some bad starts from time to time and get blitzed immediately, but even on admiral difficulty this is rare.

If you're starting with 9 planets, it sounds like you're playing as the CSA or a similarly difficult faction. Starting with limited territory sucks! 2.3 has removed most defenseless neutral planets and gotten rid of the credit bonus for capturing systems, plus infrastructure is more expensive now. This all leads to a slower-growing economy that stops you from snowballing early. That makes early expansion all the more important. If you want an easier time, I recommend trying out a faction like the Pentastar Alignment or the Empire of the Hand. Both start fairly isolated with plenty of space. The CSA starts out competing with Zsinj, the Greater Maldrood, and the New Republic, and the PA and Remnant tend to make fairly aggressively inroads to that region, especially now that the Cuitric Hegemony isn't connected to the rest of Imperial space. If you don't win your war with Zsinj, you will be at a significant disadvantage.

Lastly, let's talk defense. As you might have noticed, battlestations have been significantly nerfed since 2.2. The Empress, Oto, and Validusia stations are much more fragile and don't stock as many fighters. Golan 3s and 2s remain fairly strong, but they've never been amazing on their own. This is for a reason, though: static defenses should be a last resort. If you don't have enough fleets to hold down all your fronts, fortifying key chokepoints can be useful. This is usually a mid-game problem when your economy really gets going and you start to need more fleets. Generally, 3-4 fleets is ideal by the end of an era-progressive campaign, and you're probably only just getting your second fleet up to full strength by this point, so stations can help. But building Golans in the early game is a huge trap: they eat up valuable income that should be going to new ships. The AI seems to have gotten better at accounting for stations when they attack, so you're much more likely to lose your investment if they attack a system protected by nothing but Golans. Don't try to hold every world! If they attack you, counter-attack them. Often, you'll get more out of commiting to a campaign than you would from protecting your borders elsewhere.

TLDR: Expand early and often, don't sit around trying to build up, and do not build static defenses in the early game. They will not be worth it.

Golans was one of my methods. When I started a new game I made two level threes at Sullust hopeing it'll help defend but since I didn't attack mustifar the entire fleet they have is sent to Sullust so instead of fighting smaller frigates I had to go up against 7 star destroyers(counting heroes) victory star destroyers and more. My fleet doesn't stand a chance.

I tried attacking at the start but since the mod is more difficult now then it was before it's not easy. I attack Mustifar and prepare a ground invasion but they send a fleet which forces me out then they attack the planet I retreat too leaving that planet defenseless and since im out of credits I couldnt make a shield generator or anything and only had two soldiers and one T2-B tank....I liked it better when this mod was balanced.

I've noticed on both the Recruit and Captain difficulties, the AI will blitz you around week 8 and never relent until you stop them. If you are unable to, or at least in my case, you just lose everything. I do agree with hitting them early and establishing well defined borders, I just feel like you leave yourself open. That's just my turtle half talking though. I always take a defensive stance just to see what they are going to throw at me, and then play around their weaknesses.

Also yes, Golans are dumb and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone. They are just a big cash bins to throw away when you could be spending the money on more powerful ships, or beefing up what you already have. I agree as well on battle stations not being so great after the nerf. I usually build them in the center of my territory or as a desperate move to stall the enemy's advance while I build a fleet and or gather nearby forces for a counter attack.

In my opinion, you can play defensively, or offensively. For me, it's like asking "Do you want to hunker down and prepare for the worst, then when it's over and the enemy has broken against your walls, strike back like the fury hell hath no? Or do you want to wage a brutal campaign from the get go and target one front to go down? Yes they will go down quickly, but you leave your flanks exposed."

Both strategies have risks to them. Defensive can backfire and you won't be able to counter attack. Offensive can backfire because well...like I said above. If you can fight on two fronts at once while being really aggressive, then awesome! You've got a good advantage!...

Until those dern rebel scum come out of the wood work and steal all your win pudding >.>

In anycase, I'm fairly certain we can all agree that speed is the key and lots of it!

Originally posted by Wubba lubba dub dub!!:

Originally posted by Playerjjjj:

One of the worst things you can do early into an EaW campaign is try to play defensively. If you don't expand immediately (on week 1), you WILL be attacked, and you risk losing basic infrastructure on your core planets. The first thing you should do is gather all your forces into one fleet and one army (some larger factions like the Imperial Remnant and New Republic can get away with two of each) and start trying to flesh out your borders with other factions. When the enemy does attack, you'll be fighting at underdeveloped planets that you can afford to lose. You might get some bad starts from time to time and get blitzed immediately, but even on admiral difficulty this is rare.

If you're starting with 9 planets, it sounds like you're playing as the CSA or a similarly difficult faction. Starting with limited territory sucks! 2.3 has removed most defenseless neutral planets and gotten rid of the credit bonus for capturing systems, plus infrastructure is more expensive now. This all leads to a slower-growing economy that stops you from snowballing early. That makes early expansion all the more important. If you want an easier time, I recommend trying out a faction like the Pentastar Alignment or the Empire of the Hand. Both start fairly isolated with plenty of space. The CSA starts out competing with Zsinj, the Greater Maldrood, and the New Republic, and the PA and Remnant tend to make fairly aggressively inroads to that region, especially now that the Cuitric Hegemony isn't connected to the rest of Imperial space. If you don't win your war with Zsinj, you will be at a significant disadvantage.

Lastly, let's talk defense. As you might have noticed, battlestations have been significantly nerfed since 2.2. The Empress, Oto, and Validusia stations are much more fragile and don't stock as many fighters. Golan 3s and 2s remain fairly strong, but they've never been amazing on their own. This is for a reason, though: static defenses should be a last resort. If you don't have enough fleets to hold down all your fronts, fortifying key chokepoints can be useful. This is usually a mid-game problem when your economy really gets going and you start to need more fleets. Generally, 3-4 fleets is ideal by the end of an era-progressive campaign, and you're probably only just getting your second fleet up to full strength by this point, so stations can help. But building Golans in the early game is a huge trap: they eat up valuable income that should be going to new ships. The AI seems to have gotten better at accounting for stations when they attack, so you're much more likely to lose your investment if they attack a system protected by nothing but Golans. Don't try to hold every world! If they attack you, counter-attack them. Often, you'll get more out of commiting to a campaign than you would from protecting your borders elsewhere.

TLDR: Expand early and often, don't sit around trying to build up, and do not build static defenses in the early game. They will not be worth it.

Actually i'm the New Republic. I prefer to be the good guys. I only play the Empire when I feel like having some smexy ISD's on my side and SSD's

The New Republic starts in an unusual position: two divided sections of territory with the Eriadu Authority between them. It's been a while, but in general the principles I described are the same. You need to move fast and kill the EA before it can build up. They're a strong faction, and 2.3 has only made them stronger, but with the NR's fighter superiority you can do it. Unify your western forces under Admiral Nance; his tier 2 bonuses will help you immensely. The east will be harder to hold, but you need to be pretty aggressive and at least secure the area around Kessel. Mon Calamari is vital to your success: it can build the MC80b at a great discount, one of the most efficient capital ships in the early game. Once you get enough of them to beef up the eastern fleet, you can start pushing into the EA and smash them between Nance and Ackbar. Counterattacks from the Remnant are inevitable, but as long as you can hold Mon Calamari and take over EA territory, you'll be in a good position afterwards.

Originally posted by Playerjjjj:

Originally posted by Wubba lubba dub dub!!:

Actually i'm the New Republic. I prefer to be the good guys. I only play the Empire when I feel like having some smexy ISD's on my side and SSD's

The New Republic starts in an unusual position: two divided sections of territory with the Eriadu Authority between them. It's been a while, but in general the principles I described are the same. You need to move fast and kill the EA before it can build up. They're a strong faction, and 2.3 has only made them stronger, but with the NR's fighter superiority you can do it. Unify your western forces under Admiral Nance; his tier 2 bonuses will help you immensely. The east will be harder to hold, but you need to be pretty aggressive and at least secure the area around Kessel. Mon Calamari is vital to your success: it can build the MC80b at a great discount, one of the most efficient capital ships in the early game. Once you get enough of them to beef up the eastern fleet, you can start pushing into the EA and smash them between Nance and Ackbar. Counterattacks from the Remnant are inevitable, but as long as you can hold Mon Calamari and take over EA territory, you'll be in a good position afterwards.

The white empire faction are the only ones who even do anything. Like I said I attack one planet,win once,they counterattack and I lost two battles. What doesnt help is the building speed for ground units takes a damn eternity and by the time I finish the first batch I started BAM invasion and lose in minutes. I though Awakening of the Rebellion is unfair but this version of Thrawns revenge is going up to the second spot of unfair mods

Also in my current GC I'm doing very well. My TIE D strat payed off in a big way. Can't get rid of EA tho because of the Saijo invasion crash I keep experiencing. Only enemy left besides them is the CSA and I'm currently pushing them hard with 3 fleets of ISDs and a Super.

Originally posted by Chillstep Rabbit:

Also in my current GC I'm doing very well. My TIE D strat payed off in a big way. Can't get rid of EA tho because of the Saijo invasion crash I keep experiencing. Only enemy left besides them is the CSA and I'm currently pushing them hard with 3 fleets of ISDs and a Super.

I managed to beat the entire game of Thrawns revenge as the New Republic but that was three updates ago. Now I cant even get past the beginning and you're telling me there's now a crash with one of the factions....I miss the old version...

Originally posted by Wubba lubba dub dub!!:

Originally posted by Playerjjjj:

The New Republic starts in an unusual position: two divided sections of territory with the Eriadu Authority between them. It's been a while, but in general the principles I described are the same. You need to move fast and kill the EA before it can build up. They're a strong faction, and 2.3 has only made them stronger, but with the NR's fighter superiority you can do it. Unify your western forces under Admiral Nance; his tier 2 bonuses will help you immensely. The east will be harder to hold, but you need to be pretty aggressive and at least secure the area around Kessel. Mon Calamari is vital to your success: it can build the MC80b at a great discount, one of the most efficient capital ships in the early game. Once you get enough of them to beef up the eastern fleet, you can start pushing into the EA and smash them between Nance and Ackbar. Counterattacks from the Remnant are inevitable, but as long as you can hold Mon Calamari and take over EA territory, you'll be in a good position afterwards.

The white empire faction are the only ones who even do anything. Like I said I attack one planet,win once,they counterattack and I lost two battles. What doesnt help is the building speed for ground units takes a damn eternity and by the time I finish the first batch I started BAM invasion and lose in minutes. I though Awakening of the Rebellion is unfair but this version of Thrawns revenge is going up to the second spot of unfair mods

I agree that building new ground units is tedious, but the NR should have enough vehicles to last them for a while if you unify them into one army. Remember, the more copies of a building you have on a planet, the faster units associated with that structure will be built. A planet with 7 light vehicle factories will build light tanks much quicker than a planet with one. Generally you want to centralize ground production on a few worlds, each dedicated to one type of unit. But because the NR starts in such a precarious position, you might want to wait until the mid-game for that, assuming you can keep enough units alive early on to not need constant replacements.

Aww, cheer up <3 I'm sure Corey and his team of *cough* dedicated devs are working super hard to get all the bits tidy and non-buggy-crashy ^-^

Of course, there is the matter of those darn lone vindicators suddenly having the emergency retreat ability and accidentally flying into your planets...

Originally posted by Playerjjjj:

Originally posted by Wubba lubba dub dub!!:

The white empire faction are the only ones who even do anything. Like I said I attack one planet,win once,they counterattack and I lost two battles. What doesnt help is the building speed for ground units takes a damn eternity and by the time I finish the first batch I started BAM invasion and lose in minutes. I though Awakening of the Rebellion is unfair but this version of Thrawns revenge is going up to the second spot of unfair mods

I agree that building new ground units is tedious, but the NR should have enough vehicles to last them for a while if you unify them into one army. Remember, the more copies of a building you have on a planet, the faster units associated with that structure will be built. A planet with 7 light vehicle factories will build light tanks much quicker than a planet with one. Generally you want to centralize ground production on a few worlds, each dedicated to one type of unit. But because the NR starts in such a precarious position, you might want to wait until the mid-game for that, assuming you can keep enough units alive early on to not need constant replacements.

So far it seems to be working out but im about to start the first ground battle. I just hope those tanks that look like giant tie maulers doesnt cause me trouble again...

Different GCs and different starting eras have different difficulties. If era 1 start as the New Republic is too spread out for you, you can start in era 2 and you're a lot more established (Eriadu is entirely pushed out of the rim by then). If you move that era slider up one, it seems like everything you're finding frustrating would basically disappear, except for the Saijo map crash, which we're looking into.

There are 20 galactic conquests, and within the main 3 of those galactic conquests, the progressive ones, there are 5 different starting periods with factions at various levels of establishment. We have a variety of skill levels among the player base, so, just like how we have different GCs to allow people with different PC strengths to enjoy the mod, different starts provide a different level of challenge. That's also why there's 6 difficulty levels. On Easy, the AI is making half as many credits as the player, and builds at half the speed, while on Cruel Hard, they're making a lot more and building a lot faster. If you start in era 2 as the New Republic, the Eriadu Authority is no longer dividing your territory. We do want to adjust the actual starting forces since the NR is a bit low, but there's plenty of other levers for players to adjust their experience at the moment as well.

It's a similar situation we run into with system performance, where people will run Empire's End and complain about lag when there's 19 other, smaller GCs which will run way better on weaker computers- if people go in expecting all 100 starting locations and setups in the mod are going to be tailored to them, you're bound to run into several that aren't. If you keep beating your head against them expecting that to change instead of trying to find one more suited to what you're looking for, you're only going to get frustrated. Ideally we'll be able to communicate more of that more clearly ingame, and polish more bits of it, but finding the best way to undertake that is a challenge unto itself. We're also working towards making a second version of the progression maps where the factions are more grouped together and the starts aren't based on canon locations, so people who find split starts more difficult and for whatever reason want to play in era 1 specifically as opposed to era 2, they'll be able to. We also have worked to make Easy more Easy (they attack less than before, they make far fewer ships than before, they build slower and make fewer credits than before) but that's all the kind of thing that takes a few iterations to adjust, because it's hard to get an immediate 1-1 result between intentions and what the end effect is. In 2.2 there were a lot of acses where the AI just legitimately didn't know what they were doing. Part of why defending in 2.2 was so much easier was because the Warlord factions *literally were not capable of landing most of their unit types in ground battles.*

Also, for the people trying to say that the update somehow introduced new issues like that and they never exist in the initial launches of other mod versions, you're kidding yourself or you just haven't been around for the initial release of basically any game or mod. Every new release has bugs or other unintended consequences, and takes a couple weeks to iron out issues like that. It happens with other mods, and it happens with every version of Thrawn's Revenge as well. It even happens with AAA games.

For the first few weeks of 2.2's release, the game would crash to desktop on most era changes, but just like what we're doing with 2.3, people report the issues and we iron them out. That's also why we're moving to more frequent releases, so they're more small-scale and any problems that arise, we can narrow down more quickly. We had the exact same response with people in the initial weeks of 2.2, where people would say "♥♥♥♥ this new version, give us 2.1 back" but once those initial growing pains are gone, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would want 2.2 over 2.1, and the same will be the case with 2.3 compared to 2.2 given time to just iron out the kinks. It's quite frustrating to be honest- we spend a ton of time working on this *free* mod and while we're perfectly open to feedback, the vitriol some people seem to direct upon release because there's issues that require feedback or iteration to sort out, it's kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ to be honest. For people who enjoyed the last version and are having issues in the new one, it's usually pretty easy to identity where the frustrations are coming from and to address them once people have stated them- instead of just immediately trashing on it, all we ask is that people take some of the trust we hope we earned with their enjoyment of the mod in the past, lay out their feedback, and give us time to sort it out rather than just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on us because the free mod isn't immediately to their liking.