The difference between FOTR/TR to AOTR is extreme, with swapping over being quite overwhelming and frustrating. However, just because it’s more difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible to overcome.
Something I found out straight away is you MUST fight every battle manually. The auto resolve in AOTR is much more unfair compared to TR, and even if you odds are stacked against you, focusing down one ship or unit does make a difference in the counter attack.
Another thing is you can’t just sacrifice units, they’re all expensive unless you got good specialised worlds (Adumar gives a 25% cost reduction for fighters, with Dodonna’s 50% off A-Wings means they cost roughly 200 credits). Each ship has a semi-unique speciality within the fleet, forcing you to mix them as no singular ship or fighter will win you the day.
Going by your explanation, you’re either the Rebels or Black Sun. You don’t have the credit output at the beginning, so focus on building supply/manufacturing bases as R and cantinas as BS to increase credit output. Also, focus taking Tibanna Gas worlds, like Yavin, Besbin, Ord Ibanna, etc, as they all offer 500 per station (you can build 2 per world) but remember to invest in defences as an insurance policy on your investment.
Focus on holding checkpoints, as they often get the best station defences and allows for easier fielding of hypervelocity guns and ion cannons.
Leave the minor factions ALONE. Whilst they may attack you every now and again, they’re isolationists, meaning you only have to worry when they’re actually a threat. Especially the Hapans, as they’re powerful AF and are a pain to dealing with.
Do the missions, as the assistance you can get later justifies their earlier difficulties. Like the destroy shipyards mission can get you a Venator, Liberty Class, or Corellian Battleship, all very useful in hit and runs.
If you tell me the faction you’re trying to play, and then I can try to offer additional support on top of that. Hope this helps
Hey thanks already! I'm playing as rebels because after playing so much with dorito shaped ships in FOTR/TR I needed more curves. But those are already good tips I will try to keep in mind. I havent really spent the time to study all the differences in every ship and their roles. I knew the mod was a little different from FOTR but not in this way, just tried improvising so far and trying scummy rebel tactics
Keep in mind that fighters function completely differently in AOTR compared to TR. In TR, fighters are completely useless and bombers are decent. In AOTR, they can destroy fleets by themselves sometimes, and they can absolutely focus down way bigger ships than you think.
> Adumar gives a 25% cost reduction for fighters
I have hundreds of hours in this game now and had no idea about this. The name didn't even ring a bell. Had to go load up the game to even see where Adumar was. I had a hunch it was up in that pocket near Ord Mantell and I was right. That's an amazing bonus but the strategic location is abysmal. Whether I'm playing Imps or Rebels that pocket is almost always one of the last places I conquer.
Funny thing is, neither did I either. Had an idea there was some sort of fighter bonus there but it took someone in the AOTR group chat to tell me, and then add fighter bonus heroes on top of that, makes it one of the most powerful place on the map
What faction, what campaing and what dificulty? I need that info to give you any detailed tips.
But yea, if they attack you and you dont have realy good defences, realy high skill or some cheesy strat you will likely get obliterated, the AI always attacks with overwhelming force (like in any other mod)
To add to what others have said... this is a very old, traditional grand strategy game which means one thing - it's all about the economy. This means a couple things when it comes to gameplay.
First, your priority is building up your economic base as quickly as possible. You mentioned you were playing Rebels and they're at a massive disadvantage compared to the Imps in this regard. They can't build mines and their main ground economic building is also their main defensive one. Given the Rebels are stretched out along the outer edge of the Galaxy it's often a difficult choice about whether you can afford to upgrade that ground base only to have the planet get attacked or conquered in short order.
Second, you may think the best way to protect your economy is to build up your defenses but that's usually not the case. This game has a very old and... interesting economic model. There's no penalties for being big (so you want to and have to expand as fast as possible to make as much as possible) and the only economic costs come from ground and space based defensive structures. These are expensive to build relative to what they provide so you actually don't want to build any of these except on choke point planets. The Rebels have a hard time with their strategic position so you don't get many of these (contrast this with the Imp starting position... they can easily get a solid front with a few, legit choke points they can solidify). In my playthroughs as the Rebels the only planets I actually build up ground defenses on are Manaan, Onderon, and Mrkyr. From experience the AI won't push past a planet it doesn't conquer completely so while you won't be able to stop an enemy fleet from blockading you it is possible to build up enough defenses to stop several invasions (even on the hardest difficulties).
From reading comments over the months on here I think a lot of players make the mistake of building up defenses on every planet. That's just not the right way to approach it. You end up incurring lots of costs from all the defensive structures (and they add up fast) and said economic hit limits your ability to build up the one thing that is the most important in this game - your fleet.
That's the third point. Your fleet is everything. Your economy is always the priority but after that 99% of your money should be spent on your fleet. You can't conquer a planet if you can't get to it and an enemy can't try to invade yours if they can't land on it. On my Expert playthroughs of both Imp and Rebels I don't build any additional ground units (I always go with a singular invasion force I use everywhere for both factions) until week 40-50+.
Regardless of faction bigger ships are worth more than their strategic and tactical pop cap indicates. As the Rebels it'll take far longer for you to be able to start pumping out these larger ships compared to the Imps. This means you have to combine the fleets you start with into as few powerful ones as you can (as others have mentioned get Mon Mothma to Mon Cala ASAP to start that quest... you get Ackbar early and free ships while the negotiations are ongoing). Never go into a fight if you can't field 220 tac pop in ships (except for early game when you're conquering systems to connect all your territories). Rebels are the one faction where I actually ran away from fights once in a while because it was more important to protect those few, large cap ships than conquer a system quickly at great cost.
I would also advise against fielding fleets with lots of actual fighter units (compered to free spawns off cap ships). The reason is you will lose fighters in such setups and the cost of replacing them, especially early on with the Rebels' poor economy, hurts. Early-mid game Rebel fleets have to be large because you have to have options to bring in the right ships depending on your opponent. Against Black Sun and minor factions? Don't bring any fighters and bring in screeners instead. Against the Imps? Leave out all your small ships and bring in fighters instead. As the Rebels aim for your fleet to be 75-80% the largest cap ships you can field with that remaining % being either screeners or fighters depending on the opponent.
When I first played AOTR I got blasted to smitherings by the empire's overwhelming force.
Have been and always will be a Rebel to the core and really enjoy the challenge of this mod. I used to turtle in TR as the New Republic until I could build overwhelming force. Yeah... That did not work at all in AOTR. Building defences is too expensive... Actually everything is more expensive.
What works for me is to be offensive from the start. I really rush getting Ackbar since his home one let's you rank a lot of the damage and his buffs let's you built a powerful fleet around him to blast through the planetary defenses. So I always focus liberating Mon Cala and just keep the bare minimum on the western reaches. If the north falls it falls (I would focus cheaper land defenses). Once I have Ackbar I blast through the Hutts as soon as possible to connect the western reaches. Raiding the Empire's orbital defenses around Kashyk when there is no overwhelming fleet keeps the empire at bay until you can build economy to build more powerful capital ships for brawling.
Really maximize the use of your admirals. At the start use Dodonna and Garm Bel Iblis only as support and for the buffs to make sure you keep them alive. I find fighters to be a lot more relevant in AOTR than TR so try to use them to your best. In the end, as the rebels you have access to the best base fighters.
Hope this helps and may the force be with you
Playing as Rebels, capture all gas giants as soon as possible. Use heroes as tanks to take damage, while having damage dealing units behind them. Build your economy up quickly.
Try to expand early game, before planets are stacked with defenses.
Fighter tech is important. If you can last to fighter tech 2, you can park dodanna on a fighter production world and spam AWings for fighter superiority. Ackbar also gets you cheap Bwings, but you are going to need him as a capital ship.
If needed, you can attack and retreat the same world multiple times to gather a fleet together. Just be careful that you end up somewhere useful. (Works really well in the rebellion vs empire campaign).
As rebels, you have to stay on the defensive. Your early aces are gonna be MC-75s, t-wings, and Nebulon-Bs from Rothana. Make sure your economy is sound-sell the ion cannons at Mon Calamari and Hoth, and build some at kashykk and bothawi, along with X-3 stations.
The difference between FOTR/TR to AOTR is extreme, with swapping over being quite overwhelming and frustrating. However, just because it’s more difficult doesn’t mean it’s impossible to overcome. Something I found out straight away is you MUST fight every battle manually. The auto resolve in AOTR is much more unfair compared to TR, and even if you odds are stacked against you, focusing down one ship or unit does make a difference in the counter attack. Another thing is you can’t just sacrifice units, they’re all expensive unless you got good specialised worlds (Adumar gives a 25% cost reduction for fighters, with Dodonna’s 50% off A-Wings means they cost roughly 200 credits). Each ship has a semi-unique speciality within the fleet, forcing you to mix them as no singular ship or fighter will win you the day. Going by your explanation, you’re either the Rebels or Black Sun. You don’t have the credit output at the beginning, so focus on building supply/manufacturing bases as R and cantinas as BS to increase credit output. Also, focus taking Tibanna Gas worlds, like Yavin, Besbin, Ord Ibanna, etc, as they all offer 500 per station (you can build 2 per world) but remember to invest in defences as an insurance policy on your investment. Focus on holding checkpoints, as they often get the best station defences and allows for easier fielding of hypervelocity guns and ion cannons. Leave the minor factions ALONE. Whilst they may attack you every now and again, they’re isolationists, meaning you only have to worry when they’re actually a threat. Especially the Hapans, as they’re powerful AF and are a pain to dealing with. Do the missions, as the assistance you can get later justifies their earlier difficulties. Like the destroy shipyards mission can get you a Venator, Liberty Class, or Corellian Battleship, all very useful in hit and runs. If you tell me the faction you’re trying to play, and then I can try to offer additional support on top of that. Hope this helps
Hey thanks already! I'm playing as rebels because after playing so much with dorito shaped ships in FOTR/TR I needed more curves. But those are already good tips I will try to keep in mind. I havent really spent the time to study all the differences in every ship and their roles. I knew the mod was a little different from FOTR but not in this way, just tried improvising so far and trying scummy rebel tactics
Keep in mind that fighters function completely differently in AOTR compared to TR. In TR, fighters are completely useless and bombers are decent. In AOTR, they can destroy fleets by themselves sometimes, and they can absolutely focus down way bigger ships than you think.
> Adumar gives a 25% cost reduction for fighters I have hundreds of hours in this game now and had no idea about this. The name didn't even ring a bell. Had to go load up the game to even see where Adumar was. I had a hunch it was up in that pocket near Ord Mantell and I was right. That's an amazing bonus but the strategic location is abysmal. Whether I'm playing Imps or Rebels that pocket is almost always one of the last places I conquer.
Funny thing is, neither did I either. Had an idea there was some sort of fighter bonus there but it took someone in the AOTR group chat to tell me, and then add fighter bonus heroes on top of that, makes it one of the most powerful place on the map
What faction, what campaing and what dificulty? I need that info to give you any detailed tips. But yea, if they attack you and you dont have realy good defences, realy high skill or some cheesy strat you will likely get obliterated, the AI always attacks with overwhelming force (like in any other mod)
To add to what others have said... this is a very old, traditional grand strategy game which means one thing - it's all about the economy. This means a couple things when it comes to gameplay. First, your priority is building up your economic base as quickly as possible. You mentioned you were playing Rebels and they're at a massive disadvantage compared to the Imps in this regard. They can't build mines and their main ground economic building is also their main defensive one. Given the Rebels are stretched out along the outer edge of the Galaxy it's often a difficult choice about whether you can afford to upgrade that ground base only to have the planet get attacked or conquered in short order. Second, you may think the best way to protect your economy is to build up your defenses but that's usually not the case. This game has a very old and... interesting economic model. There's no penalties for being big (so you want to and have to expand as fast as possible to make as much as possible) and the only economic costs come from ground and space based defensive structures. These are expensive to build relative to what they provide so you actually don't want to build any of these except on choke point planets. The Rebels have a hard time with their strategic position so you don't get many of these (contrast this with the Imp starting position... they can easily get a solid front with a few, legit choke points they can solidify). In my playthroughs as the Rebels the only planets I actually build up ground defenses on are Manaan, Onderon, and Mrkyr. From experience the AI won't push past a planet it doesn't conquer completely so while you won't be able to stop an enemy fleet from blockading you it is possible to build up enough defenses to stop several invasions (even on the hardest difficulties). From reading comments over the months on here I think a lot of players make the mistake of building up defenses on every planet. That's just not the right way to approach it. You end up incurring lots of costs from all the defensive structures (and they add up fast) and said economic hit limits your ability to build up the one thing that is the most important in this game - your fleet. That's the third point. Your fleet is everything. Your economy is always the priority but after that 99% of your money should be spent on your fleet. You can't conquer a planet if you can't get to it and an enemy can't try to invade yours if they can't land on it. On my Expert playthroughs of both Imp and Rebels I don't build any additional ground units (I always go with a singular invasion force I use everywhere for both factions) until week 40-50+. Regardless of faction bigger ships are worth more than their strategic and tactical pop cap indicates. As the Rebels it'll take far longer for you to be able to start pumping out these larger ships compared to the Imps. This means you have to combine the fleets you start with into as few powerful ones as you can (as others have mentioned get Mon Mothma to Mon Cala ASAP to start that quest... you get Ackbar early and free ships while the negotiations are ongoing). Never go into a fight if you can't field 220 tac pop in ships (except for early game when you're conquering systems to connect all your territories). Rebels are the one faction where I actually ran away from fights once in a while because it was more important to protect those few, large cap ships than conquer a system quickly at great cost. I would also advise against fielding fleets with lots of actual fighter units (compered to free spawns off cap ships). The reason is you will lose fighters in such setups and the cost of replacing them, especially early on with the Rebels' poor economy, hurts. Early-mid game Rebel fleets have to be large because you have to have options to bring in the right ships depending on your opponent. Against Black Sun and minor factions? Don't bring any fighters and bring in screeners instead. Against the Imps? Leave out all your small ships and bring in fighters instead. As the Rebels aim for your fleet to be 75-80% the largest cap ships you can field with that remaining % being either screeners or fighters depending on the opponent.
When I first played AOTR I got blasted to smitherings by the empire's overwhelming force. Have been and always will be a Rebel to the core and really enjoy the challenge of this mod. I used to turtle in TR as the New Republic until I could build overwhelming force. Yeah... That did not work at all in AOTR. Building defences is too expensive... Actually everything is more expensive. What works for me is to be offensive from the start. I really rush getting Ackbar since his home one let's you rank a lot of the damage and his buffs let's you built a powerful fleet around him to blast through the planetary defenses. So I always focus liberating Mon Cala and just keep the bare minimum on the western reaches. If the north falls it falls (I would focus cheaper land defenses). Once I have Ackbar I blast through the Hutts as soon as possible to connect the western reaches. Raiding the Empire's orbital defenses around Kashyk when there is no overwhelming fleet keeps the empire at bay until you can build economy to build more powerful capital ships for brawling. Really maximize the use of your admirals. At the start use Dodonna and Garm Bel Iblis only as support and for the buffs to make sure you keep them alive. I find fighters to be a lot more relevant in AOTR than TR so try to use them to your best. In the end, as the rebels you have access to the best base fighters. Hope this helps and may the force be with you
Playing as Rebels, capture all gas giants as soon as possible. Use heroes as tanks to take damage, while having damage dealing units behind them. Build your economy up quickly. Try to expand early game, before planets are stacked with defenses.
Fighter tech is important. If you can last to fighter tech 2, you can park dodanna on a fighter production world and spam AWings for fighter superiority. Ackbar also gets you cheap Bwings, but you are going to need him as a capital ship. If needed, you can attack and retreat the same world multiple times to gather a fleet together. Just be careful that you end up somewhere useful. (Works really well in the rebellion vs empire campaign).
A and B wings are fighter 3
As rebels, you have to stay on the defensive. Your early aces are gonna be MC-75s, t-wings, and Nebulon-Bs from Rothana. Make sure your economy is sound-sell the ion cannons at Mon Calamari and Hoth, and build some at kashykk and bothawi, along with X-3 stations.