Republic at War, a Galactic Conquest Guide

Overview

Hello and welcome, in this guide you will be introduced to Galactic Conquest in the Star Wars Empire at War mod called “Republic at War” or “RaW” which you can find on the Steam Workshop, or at moddb.com. Links can be found in the end of this guide description and at the end of the guide.I will give tips, tricks, instructions and useful information on how to deal with certain difficult situations and challenges that will arise during your gameplay. The scenario I’m focusing on is the Galactic Conquest map called “The Clone Wars” on Hard difficulty, 10k starting credits and starting tech at 1. So all information may not be useful if you choose to play a different scenario, but a lot of the general stuff will. I hope you will find this guide helpful, and if you do, consider leaving a like or constructive comment if you want me to expand upon the guide or write another one.These abbreviations can be useful to knowCIS=Confederacy of Independent SystemsGAR=Grand Army of the RepublicRaW=Republic at WarEaW=Empire at WarFoC=Forces of CorruptionUseful links to the mod and related stuff.Steam Workshop: Link Moddb RaW Page: Link The Official RaW Discord: Link [discord.gg]The Official RaW 1.2 manual: Link The RaW Website: Link [republicatwar.com]

Explaination of the Galactic Map and your Opponent

As a basic introduction of the CIS and what their strengths/weaknesses they will have major space fighter superiority during the majority of the game due to their large amount of dedicated carriers such as the; “Lucrehulk”, “Droid Carrier”, “Supply ship” and several other warships that can have smaller fighter supplements. So fighter spam will be a frequent problem that I will talk more about later in different sections. The superiority may change at tech 4-5 when you get improved fighters and will be able to start mass-production of Venators.

Early game the CIS is quite weak with non-impressive groundforces that consist of simple “B1 Battledroids” and “Crab Droids” as the most common threats, they are not very dangerous. But on the other hand, the CIS have quite a lot of cheap and powerful Frigates for space battles that generally pack a bigger punch than the Republic counterparts, sometimes along with enormous swarms of fighters. So space battles may be harder if you are not prepared. Commando raiding will be your most efficient way to gain planets which will bypass space entirely and allow you to easily take specific planets you want with the Republics Jedi heroes that excel at land combat (and some even in space). After a successful commando raid the space station will be destroyed, and the AI often sends it’s fleet, or parts of it away, opening up a great opportunity to take space as well.

Late game the CIS will still have large and powerful ships, but the Republic will have the most versatile one (Venators, ISDs), and the best fighters, V-Wings and ARC-170’s which are both very strong fighters, and ARC-170’s multitask as bombers. Space superiority will depend entirely how many ships you have and how you use them.

AI cheating.
The AI is fairly known to do a few things a player would not be able to, a common example people complain about is their ability to bypass planets, and attacking planets with no direct hyperspace route (this is however false, every planet has a “radius” around them, any planet within this radius can be traveled to. The same goes for the player, you can take a fleet and drag it away from the planet, once the line going from the fleet you are holding to the planet they are stationed goes away this circle ends). (I am not fully aware on how much the AI cheats after the 1.2 update but it does appear to cheat to some degree, it does not use the UI for example, and I doubt it requires a building to produce it’s vehicles). This was a bit confusing to understand at first, but was easy when you learned how the AI does things. But the AI would be extremely easy to beat if it played 100% fair, and is still fairly easy on hard right now if you learn the overall tactics required to beat the AI and counter it’s behaviors. I remember when I first played the mod and got overwhelmed by the aggressive AI tactics, today I find the AI to be pretty dumb strategy-wise when it’s attacks fail. Why I lost was mainly because I tried to defend too much, bought units that were not really useful for the situation and didn’t know what to do to get back on my feet.

And the RaW team is always working on balance and fixing issues with the mod so later versions may look different in regards to balance and AI difficulty.

General Tips & Tricks

Commando raiding
A lot if not nearly every land hero and some other special units like Clone Commanders, ARC’s BX Series Commando Droids and more have a special “star” on them in the GC map. This means they can commando raid other planets; which means they can bypass all space stations and blockade fleets and immediately start a land assault or autoresolve the land battle. This can be used to destroy a space station, hypervelocity gun or take a planet without having to engage a superior fleet. And once a planet is taken all space stations and structures gets destroyed. I believe the max amount of units that can commando raid at the same time is two. This though, can be bypassed by just sending the units to the planets space and stack them up and just start a land battle like normal by dragging them down to the “land circle”.

Bombing run and orbital bombardment
Bombing runs requires bombers to be in orbit of the planet. Since bombers may not be acquirable as separate units you generally need a carrier or ship with a hangar that can spawn bombers in order to get bombing runs during land battles.
Orbital bombardments requires a ship to be in orbit, I’m not sure if it has to be a capital ship or just a frigate but something like that. A hero like Grievous is extremely powerful during Commando raids because of this, since he has a capital ship/Providence carrier during space battles it allows him to send orbital Bombardments and Bombers even during stealth raids/commando raids; use this ability wisely.

Minor heroes & special units
You are probably familiar with heroes, but if you’re new you may not know that you can buy some special “minor hero” units at specific locations as well as limited units that can only be bought on special planets or buildings.

Republic
Kit Fisto = Mon Calamari – Tech 3
Luminara Unduli & Shaak Ti = Yavin 4 – Tech 3 & 4
Barriss Offee = Ilum – Tech 2
Aayla Secura = Dantooine – Tech 3
Clone Legions = Kamino – Tech 5
Wookie Warriors = Kashyyyk – Tech 3
Stealth Corvette = Corulag/Raxus Prime – Tech 3 + lvl 2 space station
Imperator Star Destroyer = Kuat – Tech 5 + lvl 5 space station
Corellian corvette = Corellia – Tech 2 + lvl 2 space station
N1 fighters = Naboo – Tech 1 + lvl 1 space station
Pride of the Core = Kuat – Tech 4 + lvl 4 space station

CIS
Sith Acolyte = Korriban – Tech 4
Supertank = Geonosis – Tech 5
BX Commando Droid = Mechis, Foerost, Saleucami, Fondor, Geonosis – Tech 2
Nantex fighter = Geonosis – Tech 2 + lvl 1 space station
Sabaoth Ships = Hutt Palace, Nal Hutta, Ryloth, Tatooine – Tech 1
Malevolence = Minntooine – Tech 3 + lvl 4 space station

Hotkeys
By holding leftCTRL and pressing a number ranging from 1-9+0 while controlling any number of units will make it so that whenever you press the number you used along with CTRL+# you will instantly take control of those. This is useful in space especially, since the AI control everything at once while you have to micromanage things. But by having (for example) frigates in one group, capitals in another, fighters, anti-fighter corvettes and so on in quick access hotkey groups you can swiftly move around units without having to find them and direct them manually which is generally a problem during larger space battles against the AI. This can still be used in land combat as well of course.

Planetary Advantages & Priorities

Here is a list of important planets according to me, and why:

• BESPIN: Provides a lot of income, but more importantly a 25% damage bonus to Venators which is a huge boost to their firepower. The Republic will want to keep it (they start with it) in order to maintain this bonus and high income. While the CIS will want to take it to cripple the Republic’s most versatile and powerful capital ship.
• MYGEETO: Insane income if you fill it with mining facilities, and at tech 3 a nova crystal mining asteroid that provides a large amount of Credits. Very important planet in order to expand and maintain you expensive army and war machines.
• KUAT: Can build Capital ships and “The Pride of the Core” which is a huge ship that the Republic can build. It’s the Republic’s “Super Weapon” in space combat and counterpart to the CIS Malevolence.
• MINNTOOINE: Can build Capital ships and “The Malevolence” which is a huge ship that the CIS can build. It’s the Confederacy’s “Super Weapon” in space combat and counterpart to the Republic Pride of the Core.
• RYLOTH: Just like Bespin, but the damage bonus applies to Providences which is the CIS counterpart to Venators. It has less income though.
• SALEUCAMI: Provides a 25% damage bonus to corvettes and fighters. This planet alone can affect which side has the fighter,bomber and small ships advantage in space battles. Which can often determine the winner. A big ship will go down if it is not protected against bombers and fighters. This planet is one of the reasons people complain about CIS fighter spam. They start with this planet and have a huge amount of fighters but along with this bonus they become even worse.
• MECHIS III: Has a huge amount of building slots and is such a huge pain to take after being fortified with flak cannons and defenses. Limited view due to ashes and it provides free units to the CIS during land combat. Take it early with a Commando Raid to avoid a pain in the ass later.

Defensive Strategies & Methods

Base Layout
Use this feature to place your units and structures in ways you find the best. I try to keep all structures safe in one area and hold bottlenecks to that area, if possible, for easy defense.

Planetary Turbolasers
A land-built structure that allows for powerful defense in space. Build them at all available locations when you have the Credits for them. Focus fire on dangerous ships with Hangars, Proton torpedoes and so on.

Space Stations
They offer a lot of units and defenses for a quite a low cost. Buy all upgrades available to improve your units performance on that planet in the current, and coming Space battles on that Planet. You get more levels of upgrades the higher level your Space station is. The way I go about using the station itself is taking out shield generators using their concussion missiles, after that all guns can fire on the attacking ship. A bonus tip is that a damaged hardpoint on your station can be repaired by clicking on it, just keep in mind it can be expensive so make sure you don’t go into poverty because you are repairing all of them at once.

Land is your friend in defense
Land is a lot more predictable and you can often estimate if you can win by looking at yours, and the enemies units and taking the map into consideration. You can rush landing pads and force the enemy to retreat and lose. Spamming the hell out of build-pads will generally make weak vehicles and infantry useless for the enemy. Buy good units to hold your planets and not “cool” ones. Examples of these effective units are: Saber tanks, ARC troopers, Heavy Squads and LAATs. You get a lot of bang for your buck and they can generally repel most attacks if used wisely.

Keep in mind that any build-pad structures you build will stay to the next time you fight on that planet. So if a AI unit is hiding somewhere and ain’t attacking you can build structures and prepare defenses for the next assault before finishing the game.

Offensive Strategies & Methods

Commando Raiding
By taking a stealth fleet to a planet and starting a land invasion, or taking 2 or less units and dragging them to the “Commando raid” circle on a planet you can bypass space stations and blockade fleets entirely. Use this to take planets with large fleets and lvl 5 space stations

Preperations & Bomber/bombardment support
During offensive land battles make sure to have a capital ship with hangars in orbit to receive Bomber & Bombardment support.

Walkthrough

When you start as the Republic you should avoid space battles and direct assaults. You should be defensive with all offensive attacks being commando raids. You will have to take it slow until Venators are available for space, and Heavy gunner squads, LAATs and saber tanks for land (+ heroes).

Right from the bat, seconds after you start, send Mace and Yoda to take Mygeeto. You will need funds, and Mygeeto is the place to get it. Build barracks and fill the other slots with mining facilities. After that, Saleucamai, Fondor, Minntooine and Mechis are good choices of attacking.

Try to bunch up your Venators and other better ships into one or more stronger fleets. Do NOT spread out in an attempt to keep all planets. Use these fleets as quick reaction units to repel the AI from planets they have breached and taken Space. You got to be quick with this to prevent land units from coming and claiming your planet. The Venators should not be lost under any circumstance, do your best to use them, but still not risk losing them. Use Acclamators and their shield ability to absorb damage and cover them.

Build land defenses early on on all core planets and other important ones that you plan on keeping in the long run. Light vehicle factories are cheap and effective so having several can be advantageous. Spamming AT-RT’s is very effective and they can cap landing points, swarm their spawn! And make sure to buy the bonuses! When you get Saber tanks they are also very effective at swarming and overwhelming your opponent, and perform better than AT-RTs.

Research tech at all times. You got to keep up with the CIS and get your Venators asap, Heavy squads and LAATs (these are examples of preferable units, Venators however is a MUST imo) in order to take ground and keep it afterwards.

If you find yourself to losing space battles because of CIS fighter spam, make an additional raid on Saleucamai (like mentioned earlier) to weaken their fighter strength. Good ships against fighters and bombers are Carrack Cruisers and Dreadnaughts.
You can see “Point defense Cannons” on some ships, these are anti-fighter/bomber cannons, so ships with these can be quite effective at taking out fighters as well, or at least defending themselves from them. Make sure to read “Strengths and weaknesses” tool-tips that appear when hoovering your mouse over a unit so you use them against the appropriate enemies.

Over time, just keep up the production of units, taking new planets, and fortifying your important ones. If you take too many planets without getting much new units you may find that you have too few to defend yourself and will end up in a constant “take & lose” spiral that’s hard to get out of unless you slow down and keep your defenses on par with your offensives. This happened to me as the CIS when I took the entire core, the Republic constantly attacked the planets and I had been too quick and didn’t have enough units to keep, take back, and attack planets at the same time. To solve it I had to call back my offensive fleet and go on full defense until my space stations, Hypervelocity guns and defensive fleets were built up to the point where they could hold planets independently. Don’t be afraid to spend money, and avoid piling it unless you’re saving for the PotC or Planetary turbolasers.

As the CIS you have some choices and I generally think it’s less streamlined in how to go go forward. this is largely due to how the CIS have their planet clusters quite separated from one another and very spread out, they can afford to lose a lot of planets here and there while still having their main “industry planets” like Geonosis and Hypori safe, these planets have a fairly large distance to the surrounding planets, which means that enemies can’t attack them from anywhere (planets close enough to each other doesn’t require lanes to travel), so by keeping Tatooine and Hypori well fortified the CIS planets in the outer rim will remain safe. If the player chooses, they can also build large fleets at Mechis or Minntooine, so there’s a lot of options, whilst as the Republic you will probably lose if the core worlds are taken, and if a single one of them is lost, the CIS can attack any of the others due to their close proximity to one another.

What I do recommend however, is to immediately start building up Mygeeto and Muunilinst. The reason is the one I have mentioned all over this guide, Mygeeto provides tons of income, and since the CIS spawns with it they have an economical advantage. But there is one problem, Mygeeto and Muunilinst are very isolated planets and hard to get reinforcements to, and none of them can build capital ships, so they can be quite easy prey for Venators. To defend them you will have to build armadas of Munificents and Recuscants to compensate the inability to receive new capital ships other than those that spawn there. Also have strong land defenses, personally I like to spam Droidekas along with Commanders for range and HP bonus. If you would be forced to defend on land, upgrade the Droideka shields and build turrets on all pads to strengthen your defenses. Swarm their spawn instantly to force them back. This may not always work depending on what units the attacker sends.

Along with building this defense you should prepare an attack on Bespin to weaken the Republic Venators (Bespin has a Venator damage bonus), and gain additional income. Commando raid or full invasion doesn’t really matter.

I really don’t know much more to say, I usually just build up my fleet to the “south”, at Hypori, Ryloth and Geonosis, as well as at Utapau, Eriadu and Sullust before advancing upward until I own the majority of the Galaxy. The only other planets I tend to care about are of course Mygeeto, and Minntooine (for the Malevolence).

Very useful units for the CIS are HMP airwings, AATs, BXX Commando Droids (sabotage/taking out factories on land, and anti-infantry) and snailtanks.

TL;DR / short version

RaW is so different from vanilla EaW that conventional strategies in EaW GCs may not apply here like having fortress planet walls (like mentioned earlier there is a radius around planets, everything inside it you can travel to, so clusters of planets can usually all travel to each other, you rarely see this because lanes are faster) You can have “walls, but since the aforementioned radius is quite large you should hold planets connected to long lanes, and take all planets that are grouped up in clusters. The AI will usually have a larger amount of units and credits than you and you will have to adapt to this by being efficient and planing. Don’t try to hold all your planets if you feel like you can’t handle it. If you can’t, and still try, everything usually falls apart slowly. Defend key planets and routes. Mygeeto, Bespin, Salecuamai, Ryloth, Kuat and Minntooine are a few important planets to take and defend. They have vital bonuses to you, or your enemy that you need to deal with. Remember that Mygeeto is the best way to get credits by far.

Few important points to keep in mind

• Use commando raiding
• Use the planetary layout feature to improve defenses
• Don’t buy cool units, buy the useful ones you actually need
• Use discount heroes generously (Dooku, Palpatine and Gunray)
• Don’t defend useless planets with bad bonuses at the begining when you can’t handle it
• Take, and make sure to keep planets with good bonuses
• Research quickly to not fall behind
• Buy planetary turbolasers (ideally with number 4 on the list)

FAQ, information, Credits

Q: Where can I find the mod/website/community place?

A:
Steam Workshop Mod: Link
Modb RaW Page: Link
The Official RaW Discord: Link [discord.gg]
The RaW website Link [republicatwar.com]

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Q: How can I level up tech?

A: You build a reserach facility and purchase tech upgrades.
Alderaan, Anaxes, Bothawui, Cato Neimodia, Corulag, Coruscant, Ithor, Muunilinst and Naboo are the planets you can build Research Facilities on.

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Q: Will there be more updates to RaW?

A: Yes.

I will continue to improve and expand the guide when I have time and will to do so, any criticism is welcomed.

Ask questions in the comment section and I will answer them if I can, they can be about anything regarding RaW.

Thanks for reading!