Anyone playing empire at war?

from GalCiv2 Forums
Passing time for galciv 2 to be released, has anyone been playing star wars empire at war?
If so how do you find the game to be?

I know that its not meant to be a sequel to rebellion/supremacy, but I can't help feeling that the depth of supremacy makes it a better starwars strategy game.

Empire at war is still good for a short game but I'm getting tempted to start a game of rebellion instead to get that star wars gaming fix. (Though I've read that the AI is very weak..)

I wanted to ask opinions on this in the EAW forums but I fear that anyone who offers any negative comment about the game gets their head bitten off and in the ensuing argument the whole point is lost.

So.. anyone have an opinion on empire at war?
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
The tactical combat is too chaotic in my mind, it just ends up being about who has the numbers. It doesn't have the same feeling as other RTSs like C&C Generals. And because that section lacks base building and other normal RTS things, you'd expect that the combat would be more strategic to keep the fights interesting. The rest of the game just feels like it leads up to the tactical combat situations, so it's more than a little problem.
WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
EaW isn't that bad, really. It's fun. It's probably not as good an investment as, say, Starcraft. Or Moo2. Or Galciv. But it's still fun.

And yes, the AI in rebellion is lame. Even on hard. The only way to get it reasonably strong is to volontarily cripple yourself at the start.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
My 7 year old liked it! Sort of explains it really. typical RTS select all the units send them over to attack type thing.
Graphics and cinema mode is quite nice. IMO, Homeworld 2 is far better.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I'd separate EAW into two games - the space and the land.

Space battles have a much greater degree of strategy in them - a smaller force can wipe out a much larger one depending on their use of their fighters (ie: any missle based weapon completely ignores shields - why not use it to take out a shield generator). Land battles are for the most part just about masses... or having the abiltiy to bomb the crap out of your enemy (I've found that just setting up a unit of artillery and sitting around then scouting when I have bombing runs just takes time... but means I don't lose any units).

The most annoying feature - fighters constantly respawn from capital ships, starbases respawn their defenders, on planets the local populations constantly respawn, and when you attack a planet your enemy basically builds an unlimited amount of troops making extremely difficult for you to fight them (if they just removed the respawning thing... the game would be so much better).

For the most part I do like the game. When you separate it from the land battles its a much better game - you actually have some form of supply lines (though I think that Conquest: Frontier Wars had a much deeper/better system - if you haven't played that game before find a copy... I think its a rival to StarCraft) and the space battles are pretty fun (too bad you're limited in the amount of units you can have in a given fight).

What would have been perfect is if production and battles went on at the same times (instead of time freezing for the galaxy whenever you're in a battle)... and allowing you to supply unlimited troops to any location if you could produce them.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Land battels suck they are very haotic. I love the ideea of space battels but their is something missing here too because i would've really liked to see more ship diversity( more star wars ships would have benn nice). The tech tree is just too short. And like the others said the thing that you cant bring at least the half of your fleet in battel at once really sucks especially when you attack a lev4 or 5 starbase defended by a strong enemy fleet.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
oh i've forgot the rebells suck!!!(the empire has more money better ships the fighters and bombers respawnfrom capital ships ...)
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
im sure you dont know how to use the rebels. its all about hit and run tactics and retreating if the enemy overwhelms too much.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
After playing EAW I get the impression they skipped the beta testing.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
After playing EAW I get the impression they skipped the beta testing.


Ditto... considering that they've already had 2 patches for the game for gameplay adjustments (balancing)
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
just get gal civ 2 and you wont have to worry bout buying another strategy game for a long time

plus Homeworld 2 is such an amazingly better game than this, really if you want a good RTS space game get it instead of EAW there is really no comparison
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
Why would I want to buy another disappointing half finished StarWars game. The last one I bought was it for me(KOTOR 2). The last StarWars game that was finished and fun was KOTOR 1 and that was only because BioWare wouldnt be bullied into releasing it early and ruining their stellar reputation. KOTOR 2 wasted an excellent bad guy and many story lines werent finished. Every other StarWars game since including FPS's were lame except Republic Commando which was kind of fund. I hate Lucas Arts if you cant tell.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
The problems of tactical battles rears it head once again.The A.I is crap at the tactical level.What interest does a game hold long term when you never lose a battle and win the game with ease.Reminds me of Rometotalwar, good fun for a few weeks, then gets boring due to crappy A.I.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
@ Brigiton : If you're interested... a group of KotOR 2 fans is working on a mod to put all the unfinished storyline stuff back in the game.
Link
Gotta love what those guys are doing....

PS : This is for all the HK 47 lovers out there.
Link Funny voice fragment.

And a VG Cats episode (comic) labeled.. Coolest.. robot.. ever! Link
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
I played EAW on Medium on the largest Galactic Conquest map and won. Took me over 20 hours, but it wasn't what I was expecting. The AI attacked me a lot at the beginning, but once I managed to take about 1/3 of the galaxy, it stopped attacking me.

I since started a new game on the same map but on the Hard difficulty. Nearly the same thing is present. The AI attacks me a lot, but I eventually manage to take 1/3 of the galaxy and the same thing seems to happen. Although I must say, the few land battles I faught were much harder than the land battles on Medium. I've been clicking "Auto-Resolve" a lot in this game though.

When I tried the same map but changing the setting to start at Tech Level 1 in stead of Tech 3, the AI was killing me. I didn't stand a chance against its massive fleets of Tartan and Acclamator Cruisers. I'm talking fleets consisting of 50 of each unit. This was on Hard too. I think there might be something wrong. I'll have to come back to that game after I think through how I can go about preventing my massive fall.

It's definitely not the best Star Wars game like the hype made us believe it was. It's a decent game to play to waste a few hours.
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
In its current state it is somewhat flawed, but the true potential for EAW is through modding and TC's. Though other then this it is still a decent game.
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
You can read what I thought of it over here Link

Personally I liked it and there is ALOT of played to be had in the skirmish mode I really didnt like the campagin at all

Be sure to check out the instant actions in space and ground they play completely diffrently from the rest of the game and remind me of an older RTS like C&C 2 (not generals)
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In its current state it is somewhat flawed, but the true potential for EAW is through modding and TC's. Though other then this it is still a decent game.


This makes me wonder, if a star wars game needs to modded or have a TC to start being fun ... why not grab GalCiv 2 and mod it to star wars, that way you start with a fun game and maybe make it better (and if you get sick of modding half way through you still have a great game to boot)


Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
EaW space battles are not too bad and very nice to look at, but I just didn't find much depth to the game. The land battles become a horrible grind pretty quickly...

I do think the platform for a good game is there, and I'm expecting good things from the mod community to make the game more interesting and challenging.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I've played the game demo and it's pretty good guys.And,yes the AI is not the best of the world Compare with Disciples 2 and jump off the cliff to save yourself.............