Overview
If you’re new, want strategies, or just tired of the AI constantly beating you over and over until you beg for it to stop, this is the tactical retreat for you. Just post your questions in the comments section and I’ll try my best to answer your question. Even lore-related stuff that you might be wondering about. Also, please tell people about me. I have too much time on my hands now. I need work. This guide will continuously update and if you guys have tips of your own that are not listed, I’ll put it in.
Basic Gameplay Tips
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1!!!. Save constantly in new saves. I cannot tell you the number of times I thought, “I can save a little later,” and then my game crashing, (or wanting to basically travel to the past in-game to prevent a disaster), which destroyed my motivation to keep playing. Saving in new saves is also better than saving in already existing saves. I’ve also encountered a problem where I saved my present game in a old save, then that save got corrupted and I had to start from an older save.
Double clicking on a unit will select all units of that type in your field or view. This means that if you have a specific number of units, but see less than that amount, then you will only select the amount you see.
EX: Total: 18 TIE squadrons, in view: 8 TIE squadrons. Double click a TIE fighter squadron. Total selected: 8 TIE squadrons
Click your mouse, hold, and drag it to make a box over the units you want to give orders to.
Pressing (ctrl) + (middle mouse button) will allow you to change your camera angle of the battle.
(Space bar) will change your view to a cinematic camera of the battle.
Pressing (ctrl) + (A) will select all your units in space and ground battles.
Selecting a group, type, or singular unit, then pressing (ctrl) + (any number) will then allow you to easily select that group again by simply pressing the chosen number, i.e shortcut to controlling units.
EX: Selecting some stormtrooper squads then pressing (ctrll) + (1) lets the selected troops to be quickly controlled again by pressing 1.
Change your arrow keys for moving around to WASD. After playing Shogun 2, I have realized the value of using the letter keys to move and the mouse for controlling my army. Middle mouse button is okay, but the arrow keys are more awkward to use than WASD.
I recommend pausing the game constantly, unless you’re a veteran and understand the game or want a challenge, because otherwise, you do not know how the A.I handles itself. Since Empire at War is an RTS game, it is a real time strategy, meaning that every second you are letting the game continue without pausing because you are reading a unit bio, is the enemy scheming and preparing your crushing demise. Every second is another percent closer of a warship being constructed. Every minute is another factory or training facility finished and ready to pump out troops and vehicles.
General Tips for all Mods and Base Game
1. Pause the game at the very beginning and look at all available assets (Units, heroes, buildings, planet advantages, credits).
2. Destroy buildings that will rarely or never see battle, such as turbo laser towers and other defense structures on Coruscant, back or well-embedded planets that will just waste credits.
(Steps 3-8, do in any order that is the most acceptable or at convenience to you)
3. Place hypervelocity cannons and shore up defenses at key intersection planets, which are planets that are the “crossroads” into groups of planets. It is best to have a few fortress planets fending off invasions than spending the money and units to defended every single planet equally. Ideally, the fortress worlds would defend the system while the planets that are being protected produce units and/or credits. Refer to GALACTIC SCENARIOS for an in-depth explanation.
4. Make as many credit producing buildings without running out of money to possibly invest into defense and units.
5. Consolidate ships and small groups into several main fleets or system defense fleets. Planets with a few ships will not be enough to fend of a enemy fleet, so grouping them is more efficient and effective.
6. Take over isolated enemy planets that are inside of your spheres of galactic control. What I mean by this is to conquer the few possible enemy planets within a group of planets the majority of you control, i.e the consolidation of systems when advantageous.
7. Abandon planets that are too out of your way to defend and destroy all buildings, except for the credit building(s), on that planet and retreat the forces there. If you cannot retreat your units safely out of the system, wait for the enemy to attack and just retreat or attack a enemy planet and retreat. The retreating units will travel to your nearest friendly planet, no matter what.
8. Destroy the credit building(s) left on the surface only when the enemy attacks it, so that you can avoid a ground battle and gain credits from destroying a structure. You can check whats profiting and costing you by hovering your mouse over the number of credits you make.
Galactic Scenarios
Legend:
/ – : Hyperspace lanes
Italics: your planets
bold: enemy planets
Example 1: Elaboration of General Tips: step 3
Planet 1
Planet 2 — Planet 4 — Planet 5
Planet 3 /
In this basic scenario, imagine planets 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all your planets and 5 is the enemy’s. Planet 4 is the only friendly planet that can safely protect all 3 planets it is connected to. The enemy may be forming an invasion fleet and landing force at planet 5, so you should shore up defenses at 4 to protect 1, 2, and 3. Fortifications include SPACE STATIONS, SHIPYARDS, HYPERVELOCITY OR ION CANNONS, GARRISON FLEET and land force, turbolaser towers, and any buildings that can contribute troops or SHIPS in the mod you are playing in. You may be asking, ” why not just fortify all 4 planets on the ground instead of investing a lot into planet 4?” Well, having one heavily fortified planet instead of all 4 is vastly cheaper than the latter, because distributing large amounts of credits among all 4 planets to slightly increase their defenses is very costly compared to their usefulness. Besides that, there may only be a small amount of building slots on them, so credit or unit facilities sharing slots with defense buildings decrease the efficiency of the rear planet’s designated role. Speaking of which, 1, 2, and 3 should have clear roles in what they are providing to you. Play to a planet’s strength, as in if it can build mining facilities or have cloning vats, and if it doesn’t have one, just try to make it a credit producer or less of a burden.
AOTR Mod Guide
UNDER CONSTRUCTION