star trek empire at war mod

Pitting Star Wars against Star Trek in Star Wars: Empire at War

The ultimate sci-fi battle.

With the news of more Star Wars games on the way from developers other than EA , we're republishing this 2017 battle between the titans in the underrated Star Wars: Empire at War.

Trek Wars: Revival is a mod by Captain Kavok that lets you add Star Trek factions to Empire at War, Petroglyph’s excellent Star Wars RTS. So if you’ve ever wondered if a fleet of Galaxy-class Federation starships could take down a Star Destroyer—and, honestly, who hasn’t—you can play that scenario out in the game’s fast-paced skirmish mode. The perfect opportunity, I thought, to pit a selection of iconic Star Wars and Star Trek factions against each other in a series of epic space battles.

United Federation of Planets versus Rebel Alliance

Our first battle takes place above the desert planet of Tatooine. I begin by sending my shuttles to capture two nearby asteroids so I can generate credits. Doing so as early as possible is key to victory in Empire at War’s skirmish mode. The Rebels send a small team of X-wing scouts into my territory, but my station’s automated defences chase them away. When I have enough credits, I build a couple of Miranda-class starships to protect my asteroids. Growing bolder, the Rebels send in more X-wings, but I swat them away easily. 

I spend a chunk of my income on upgrading my base, which unlocks my first hero unit: Captain Kathryn Janeway, commanding the Intrepid-class USS Voyager. This was, of course, the first Federation starship to successfully explore the Delta Quadrant. The Rebels send in an assault frigate to attack one of my asteroid mines and I send Janeway to intercept. Then another handful of frigates appear near my base. The Rebels have mobilised an impressive strike force, and I’m lagging behind. A huge battle breaks out and I upgrade my base as it rages, bringing in Captain Benjamin Sisko of the USS Defiant—the ship the Federation designed to fight the Borg. 

It’s here where I make my biggest mistake. I build three Galaxy-class starships and try and sneak them through the battle to attack the Rebel base directly. But it’s surrounded by laser defence satellites and they obliterate my ships before I can get close. A costly error. Then the Rebels send in their own hero unit: Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon. Sisko and Solo engage in a dramatic dogfight, but the Defiant is beaten. Then the Voyager is scuttled by the mass of Mon Calamari cruisers looming near my base.

Things really couldn’t have gone worse. I accept defeat and watch helplessly as the cruisers pummel my HQ with laser fire. An embarrassing loss.

Galactic Empire versus Klingon Empire

The ice planet Hoth provides the setting for this battle. Immediately it’s clear that luck is not on my side. There’s one asteroid beside my base, but the next nearest is in the lower corner of the map. This makes it harder to defend. I kick things off by hiring the legendary bounty hunter Boba Fett and his ship, Slave I, to protect my station while my TIE fighters make sure no one tries to sabotage my mining operations.

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The Klingons, bizarrely, are not as aggressive as the Rebels. They haven’t attacked once. I utilise this quiet time to upgrade my base and build a fleet of three Acclamator-class assault ships. I also research reinforced armour to give them a defensive boost, which I’ll probably need later.

Then things kick off. The Klingons send in a swarm of D7-class warships to hassle me, but Fett and an accompanying wing of TIE fighters make short work of them. More Klingon ships arrive, including a mighty Bird-of-Prey. I build a dozen wings of TIE interceptors to deal with them, while I sneak my Acclamators behind enemy lines. Yes, it’s the same tactic I tried previously, but it’ll work this time. The Klingons send a few B’rel-class ships to stop me, but they’re no match for my armoured frigates. I reach the heavily defended Klingon base and begin my attack. I make a significant dent, but my Acclamators are being pulverised in the process. 

Time to bring out the big guns. I spend the bulk of my remaining credits to call in Grand Admiral Thrawn and his flagship, a colossal Star Destroyer called the Admonitor. My Acclamators are beaten, but before the Klingons can catch a breath Thrawn comes roaring in accompanied by Darth Vader and a wing of TIE interceptors.

My own base is taking heavy damage, but I’m certain I can destroy the enemy first. I send every available unit, including Boba Fett and the rest of my home defence force, to attack the Klingon HQ and soon the station falls. A great victory for the Empire.

Romulan Star Empire versus Rebel Alliance

Above the planet Naboo the next battle begins. I send my Talon-class scout ships to scope out nearby asteroids, one of which is already contested. A brief skirmish breaks out between my ships and a squadron of X-wings, but I win and claim the rock as my own. I spend my first trickle of credits on a couple of Hawk-class cruisers, the kind the Romulans use to patrol the Neutral Zone back in their own universe. As usual, the Rebels send in a few X-wings to scout my territory, but they’re easily dealt with. 

I recruit Romulan hero Tomalak, commander of the Deranas, a D’deridex-class battlecruiser. This thing is enormous, and suddenly I feel unbeatable. The Rebels begin to throw frigates at me, but my upgraded base’s defences and Buzzard-class cruisers are doing a good job of keeping them at bay. While they’re distracted there I collect the rest of my fleet together. I recruit another hero, Sela, who TNG fans will know is the daughter of an alternate universe Tasha Yar. She commands another huge Warbird, making my fleet look nicely intimidating. It’s time for an assault. 

I send scout ships ahead to locate the Rebel base. While I do so, Han Solo and a squadron of X-wings attack my fleet. Solo puts up a good fight, and manages to drop the shield of Sela’s ship, but the sheer power of my armada is too much. The Falcon explodes dramatically as my scouts reveal the enemy base, setting the stage for the final assault. I move every ship I have towards the Rebel station.

It puts up a fight, but it hasn’t been upgraded much and in minutes it’s falling apart and spewing flames. I watch as my Warbirds tear the base apart and earn a glorious victory for the Romulans.

United Federation of Planets versus Galactic Empire

Coruscant, capital of the galaxy, is where the final skirmish will take place. I kick off as usual by sending shuttle scouts out to set up mining facilities on asteroids. I grab a few on the edges of the map, but in the centre I see a tantalising trio of rocks in close proximity. I send a Miranda-class ship in to investigate, but the Empire already has firm control of it. That’s serious cashflow for them, and bad news for me. So I decide to switch up my tactics and try something new. I focus entirely on base upgrades until I’m able to build Galaxy-class ships, then I begin creating my armada. 

I don’t bother with upgrades or anything else. I just keep building Galaxy-class starships. Every time I reach 4,000 credits I build one, and repeat. After about ten minutes I’m commanding seven of the beasts, each of which has its own squadron of shuttle fighters. And now it’s time for a bit of shock and awe. I recruit Federation hero Jean-Luc Picard of the Enterprise-E who leads my fleet of Galaxies towards the enemy base.

The Galactic Empire sends a cluster of Star Destroyers after me, and a thrilling conflict breaks out. Lasers and phasers crisscross the battlefield as the Destroyers and Galaxies trade blows and swarms of smaller fighters dogfight around them. It’s terribly exciting. 

Two of my Galaxies sacrifice themselves for the cause, bursting into flames and exploding against the stars. Picard survives the ambush and takes the lead once again. I push forward through the front line towards the Imperial base. Laser defence satellites cause me some problems and drop a few of my ships’ shields, but I reach the station and begin an all-out assault. The sight of my ships circling the Empire’s base and pummelling it with photon torpedoes is a beautiful one, and eventually it begins to break apart.

I can just picture Picard on the bridge, calmly asking for a damage report, secretly celebrating a successful mission. A solid win for the Federation.

The results

Well, I was going to use the results of these battles to determine if Star Wars or Star Trek was the better space-faring franchise. But in the end it was a draw: Two wins for Star Wars, two wins for Star Trek. And there’s something beautiful about that. I’m not sure what exactly drives Empire at War’s fairly unpredictable skirmish AI, but it was a lot more aggressive in the first fight, utterly mauling me with a huge armada—and this was only on medium difficulty. 

This is a fantastic mod with an impressive attention to detail. I love how it changes the HUD to look like Star Trek’s LCARS computer interface. And the sound effects, especially the Federation’s phasers and photon torpedoes, are spot on. If you want to give it a go yourself, search for Trek Wars: Revival on Mod DB. There’s just something fundamentally entertaining about watching iconic ships from these two series fight each other, trading blows in the infinite vacuum of space.

If it’s set in space, Andy will probably write about it. He loves sci-fi, adventure games, taking screenshots, Twin Peaks, weird sims, Alien: Isolation, and anything with a good story.

I love that Jake Solomon is following his life sim passions, but just give me a minute to mourn XCOM

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Thrawn's Revenge - A mod for Star Wars, Empire at War

• Imperial Remnant
• New Republic
• Empire of the Hand
• Pentastar Alignment
• Minor Factions
• Weapons System
• Galactic Conquests
• Other Changes
• Screenshots

Every Faction Coming to Thrawn's Revenge!

Tr 3.0 & fotr 1.0 overview.

Feature OverviewVisual Effects Updates ...

Imperial Civil War 2.3.4 Released: Bringing 4X Mechanics to Empire at War!

2.3.4 Release live on Steam: http://bit.ly/2eBaUOcQuote- New mechanic: Planet influence levels- New mechanic: Chief of State Elections (New Republic- New environment sets for land & space, space maps being updated with new assets- Fighter Rebalancing (Dogfights should be faster, all stats adjusted)- Pirate hero and fleet recruitment added for Zsinj- New fighters: Missile Boat, XG-1, TIE Terror, TIE Oppressor, TIE Aggressor, TIE Sentinel for Imperials Aggressor Fighter for Mandalorians- New units: Repulsor Sled (Eriadu), BARC Speeder, Adz Destroyer (Maldrood), Beta Cruiser WIP (Hapes)- TIE Avenger has proper model now- Instant Action improvements: Hapan faction now supported- Galaxy Art edits: Particle updates, camera moved slightly, travel route line thickness edited- UI modified to support more button space, new galactic filters for political events- Support ended for multiplayer GC- Fixed AI bugs in skirmish (will now capture mines and upgrade)- Fixed several crashes on galactic and battle initiation- Many other changes and fixes ...

Feature Preview: CIS Government Mechanics

We've spoken about our new galactic influence and government mechanics a bit already, having looked at both the influence system and the New Republic's government setup with Chief of State elections. Today we're taking a look at the CIS' government mechanics, which involve gaining the trust of the member corporations for extra heroes, ships, and even territory. ...

Imperial Civil War 2.3.3 Released

Hello and welcome to the release overview for Thrawn’s Revenge: Imperial Civil War 2.3.3. This release includes a reworking of some galactic-level scripting, new models, a new gameplay mode, and much more, but before we get into the overview, there’s a few other things to note first. As usual, the update will mean saves from 2.3.2 will not be useable- we keep instructions on how to make a backup and have had a warning of the release date ingame on several menus for the last month, however since we know there will be people who didn’t read that, we have also released a backup version of 2.3.2 on Mod Database for the Steam version. There is also a copy of 2.3.3 there for people who want that instead of the workshop version, for whatever reason (and as a backup for when 2.3.4 is out).Video version:This is also the first release of 2.3’s cycle for non-Steam version, specifically Disk and GoG. There are several things to note about this, since it’s one of the things I’m asked about all the time, and quite often, along with many other modders for EaW, harassed about. The Steam version of Empire at War has several patches that Disk and GoG do not have. These patches from Petroglyph addressed engine issues that impact stability and the capabilities of the game pretty heavily, and releasing the mod at all for other versions has necessitated stripping out a lot of content in order to try to make sure saves will work, especially. It was not possible for the GoG or Disk versions to save in Art of War and Empire’s End, so those maps will not be available outside of Steam. Unit VOs and map preview images also use up RAM space on the galactic map, and make it more likely that saves will also fail to load in other maps, so they too will remain only for the Steam version. The GoG / Disk light version of the mod will be linked in the description, but it is being provided as-is. The game goes on sale on Steam for $5 fairly regularly, so while we understand that’s not possible for everyone, the reality of the situation is that until and unless the Disk and GoG versions get patched, we will never be able to provide the exact same features we can in Steam.Download [Steam] Imperial Civil War 2.3.3 Download GoG/Disk 2.3.3 Light VersionThat being said, it’s time to go over the major changes for 2.3.3. The biggest new addition is a new game mode, instant action, which we announced recently. In this mode, you can build up custom fleets of whatever composition you want for each faction and fight it out, even disregarding pop cap. Right now, the mode only supports playing as the Empire and is only Empire vs New Republic, but that’s just while we work on expanding it and fleshing it out. Eventually, it will allow battles involving every possible faction in the mod, simultaneously. It can be accessed from the galactic conquest menu. There is setup phase where the factions won’t fight, which can be ended by clicking the tactical cam button (which is not a permanent solution, just for now)- New Mode: Instant Action / Fleet Battle (Empire Beta)- New/Updated Models & Textures: AT-AP, ARC-170 AT-TE, Victory Star Destroyer, Allegance, Venator, LAAT, Praetor- New Galactic Conquests: Corporate Acquisitions, Deep Core Conflict- New Unit: BTL-B Y-Wing (CSA), Swift Assault 5 Hoverscout (Maldrood)- Attempt at some GC AI performance optimization (stagger freestore servicing)- Revamped planet defection events, fixed several issues with progressive GCs/Shadow Hand scripting- Z-layers for ships now randomize over a larger range- New Reinforcement Point indicators for CSA, Pentastar, Hapes- Changed planet selection ring collision- Fixed cloud texture for low-orbit maps- Some updated icons- Various other balance adjustments and minor bug fixesWe’re also working towards finishing the beta for Fall of the Republic, our Clone Wars mod, which will hopefully start October 31st. If you would like to report bugs for 2.3.3, please do so in the Discord server linked in the description. ...

FotR: Progress Update, Beta & Release Date

Today we've got a quick progress video going over what's left for the first release of Fall of the Republic! The short version is that units ans heroes are basically done, and the primary work is in UI edits and galactic conquest/story elements. We're hoping to start the beta on October 31st. For more in-depth breakdowns, see the video. ...

Imperial Civil War 2.3 Released - Steam Version

Imperial Civil War 2.3Today, the Steam version of the mod has been updated from 2.2.5 to 2.3. The link for the workshop can be found here for those who are not already subscribed: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1125571106After we've had a chance to respond to any initial issue reports, we'll make the necessary changes to be able to post a version on ModDb to support non-steam versions of the mod. Like with 2.2, this will necessitate the removal of custom VO and map preview images, along with some other things like that. We strongly recommend people play the Steam version where possible.The main goals of 2.3 were to clean up some elements of 2.2, while also putting down the ground work (haha) for some changes that we're starting to flesh out in 2.4. The first steps of our ground reworks have been implemented, changing how a lot of squad sizes work, infantry loadouts, unit ranges, movement changes, and plenty of other changes and stat tweaks (MMTs shouldn't be shredding everything quite as much, for example) as we build up to completely redo projectiles and armour/damage modifiers on ground and in space for 2.4. We have some major ground mechanic changes in discussion on top of that which we'll be starting to experiment with in 2.4. There's also been the start of some economic and planetary development changes, built around helping to slow down snowballing and nerfing blitzing strategies to allow longer campaigns to remain interesting, including the introduction of the local planetary capital/garrison buildings (major government features to come). But, here's a non-exhaustive list of 2.3's changes.New playable faction: Corporate Sector AuthorityThe CSA has been upgraded from non-playable to playable, and can be found in most progressive Galactic Conquests along with a couple era specific ones, and has their own From the Ground Up setup as well. Because of game limitations where we can only safely have 17 faction slots (including non-playables, and some coded factions like neutral that are more functionality things), we've had to downgrade the Yevetha from playable to non-playable and group them with the Independent Forces faction that represents a lot of the much smaller groups, since their slot is best used for some other more unique, less Imperial-clone factions we've spoken about in other news posts (some playable, some not).New Mechanic: Era SelectionOn top of some script cleanup to flesh out the era changes a bit more and eliminate some bugs, we've added the option to select which era you start in for Galactic Conquests, adjusting starting points accordingly. In the future, we'll have evrsions of the maps which allow you to choose starting eras while keeping more even starting territory (so you can play the New Republic with era 5 ships, but without starting with more territory). Obviously, since some factions didn't exist for the whole timeline, some factions will not be able to start in later eras.AI UpdatesWe've already done a whole news post about this, so I won't cover it too much here, but we've also done some pretty significant changes for galactic and tactical game modes, including three new difficulty settings using the Cruel AI modifiers. We've also tried to clean up certain functions to make the AI run more smoothly and improve ingame performance. The issue where certain factions would not land a significant amount of their troops has been solved as well.New Galaxy ArtWe've modified Lord Enpremi's galaxy model and shader setup to fit the mod's aesthetic, so that's what you'll be seeing when you're conquering or liberating worlds.Tactical MapsOn top of a bunch of new maps, including some shared with Phoenix Rising (another great mod developed by our own evilbobthebob), most existing tactical maps have had a series of updates and fixes. New UnitsVigil, Victory II Frigate (like in Battlefront II), Imperial II Frigate (Rand Ecliptic), TIE Punisher, Jumpmaster (Dengar's Punishing One), Bulwark I, Bulwark III, Citadel, Invincible Cruiser, Recusant, Mankvim Interceptors, IRD & IRD-A, Gozanti, PX-4 Mobile Command Base, T-Wing, Espo Soldiers, Strikebreakers, JX40 Jailspeeders, Airskimmers, GX20 Hovervans, A-A5 Speeder Trucks, K-222 Aero Interceptors, Persuader (Snail Tank), Espo Walker, Repulsor Scout, BattledroidsRedone ModelsPraetor II, Munificent, Dreadnaught, Nebula, Endurance, Secutor, Procursator, Gladiator, Y-Wing, Snowspeeder, Juggernaut, TIE Crawler, AT-TE (animations)And plenty of other small changes.Into the FutureAlthough 2.3 has just been released, we've already got several things underway for the upcoming versions. This will also involve a new way for us to handle release structure. Rather than year-long development cycles, in order to make sure things stay consistent and to get changes out faster to players, we're hoping to make the scope of each release more focused and get versions out to players more frequently. While the Hapans becoming playable will mark the 2.4 release, there'll be several 2.3.x versions adding and updating new content. In order to facilitate this, we'll be maintaining a constant testing team on the Discord server for the mod ( https://discord.gg/t3WJugG ), which will get the new versions every few months/weeks, and then the Discord server as a whole will have access for testing in the week before any release. We'll consistently be looking for people to add to the testing taskforce from the Discord as well, so if you want to track mod development, that's the best way to do it.Early focuses in 2.3 patches will include:- Mon Calamari art updates- New units (ie Assertor, VT-49 Decimator)- Tactical space map art updates (environment lighting and low-orbit maps)- Economic overhauls- Continued ground emchanic changes- Space and ground projectile reworks- Balance patchesI'll also be running community matches on my youtube/twitch channel 2-4 times per month. The dates for these will be posted and updated each month ingame, the first of which will be next Tuesday, streamed on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/coreyloses . On top of Imperial Civil War, we're also working on a Clone Wars mod which is approaching release as well, Fall of the Republic. I'm currently running a preview playthrpough for the Republic on that channel as well, which can be found here: ...

13 Years Part I - Imperial Civil War: Preparing for Beta

June 6th (or 8th, depending on how you want to classify things) marks the 13th anniversary of Thrawn's Revenge! Today we're going to be talking about the next release of Imperial Civil War, the 1.0 version of which came out way back in 2010, but first I'd like to thank everyone who's supported the mod over the last 13 years. Some people may have come more recently to the mod, and I know there's still some out there who've followed since basically day one, but either way, we appreciate you all! I also personally want to thank the other members of the Thrawn's Revenge team. Some of whom, similarly, have been around for a short time and some since the first months of development. The mod wouldn't be anywhere near where it is today without all of your contributions, and it's been an absolute pleasure and privilege to work with this team for so long. That current lineup between all of our projects, in order they appear on Discord while I'm writing this, is Benjin, Slevered, Valerie, Pox, OzWolf, Slornie, Caesar's Legion, ConnerJB, David, DarkJedi, Hexodus, evilbobthebob, Inertial, Revanchist, Max, Jorritkarwehr, Kalo, MrPuertorican, and Rogue. Also a shout out to those who've been on the team in the past but since moved on (most of whom still just hang out in the team Discord anyways). As the title says, though, this news post is about the upcoming beta for 2.3. In this news post, we're going to outline what 2.3 contains, a little bit of what's next, and how the beta process is going to work (with some rough release dates). On Thursday at 5pm EST I'll also be doing a livestream with some testing and answering questions during the last phases of beta prep, which you'll be able to watch at https://www.youtube.com/coreyloses/live . The Video will be available right after. We'll also have the 2nd and 3rd part of this anniversary news post covering Ascendancy and Fall of the Republic respectively this month.Imperial Civil War 2.3The main goals of 2.3 were to clean up some elements of 2.2, while also putting down the ground work (haha) for some changes that we're starting to flesh out in 2.4. The first steps of our ground reworks have been implemented, changing how a lot of squad sizes work, infantry loadouts, unit ranges, movement changes, and plenty of other changes and stat tweaks (MMTs shouldn't be shredding everything quite as much, for example) as we build up to completely redo projectiles and armour/damage modifiers on ground and in space for 2.4. We have some major ground mechanic changes in discussion on top of that which we'll be starting to experiment with in 2.4. There's also been the start of some economic and planetary development changes, built around helping to slow down snowballing and nerfing blitzing strategies to allow longer campaigns to remain interesting, including the introduction of the local planetary capital/garrison buildings (major government features to come). But, here's a non-exhaustive list of 2.3's changes.New playable faction: Corporate Sector AuthorityThe CSA has been upgraded from non-playable to playable, and can be found in every progressive Galactic Conquest along with a couple era specific ones, and has their own From the Ground Up setup as well. Because of game limitations where we can only safely have 17 faction slots (including non-playables, and some coded factions like neutral that are more functionality things), we've had to downgrade the Yevetha from playable to non-playable and group them with the Independent Forces faction that represents a lot of the much smaller groups, since their slot is best used for some other more unique, less Imperial-clone factions we've spoken about in other news posts (some playable, some not).New Mechanic: Era SelectionOn top of some script cleanup to flesh out the era changes a bit more and eliminate some bugs, we've added the option to select which era you start in for Galactic Conquests, adjusting starting points accordingly. In the future, we'll have evrsions of the maps which allow you to choose starting eras while keeping more even starting territory (so you can play the New Republic with era 5 ships, but without starting with more territory). Obviously, since some factions didn't exist for the whole timeline, some factions will not be able to start in later eras.AI UpdatesWe've already done a whole news post about this, so I won't cover it too much here, but we've also done some pretty significant changes for galactic and tactical game modes, including three new difficulty settings using the Cruel AI modifiers.New Galaxy ArtWe've modified Lord Enpremi's galaxy model and shader setup to fit the mod's aesthetic, so that's what you'll be seeing when you're conquering or liberating worlds.Tactical MapsOn top of a bunch of new maps, including some shared with Phoenix Rising (another great mod developed by our own evilbobthebob), most existing tactical maps have had a series of updates and fixes. New UnitsVigil, Victory II Frigate (like in Battlefront II), Imperial II Frigate (Rand Ecliptic), TIE Punisher, Jumpmaster (Dengar's Punishing One), Bulwark I, Bulwark III, Citadel, Invincible Cruiser, Recusant, Mankvim Interceptors, IRD & IRD-A, Gozanti, PX-4 Mobile Command Base, T-Wing, Espo Soldiers, Strikebreakers, JX40 Jailspeeders, Airskimmers, GX20 Hovervans, A-A5 Speeder Trucks, K-222 Aero Interceptors, Persuader (Snail Tank), Espo Walker, BattledroidsRedone ModelsPraetor II, Munificent, Dreadnaught, Nebula, Endurance, Secutor, Procursator, Gladiator, Y-Wing, Snowspeeder, Juggernaut, TIE CrawlerAnd plenty of other small changes. So, now you're probably wondering how and when you can play it. The beta will be proceeding in three phases, allowing us to open it to progressively more people while keeping the testing pool a manageable size.  This time, we'll be handling the testing process through our Discord server, which can be found here: https://discord.gg/t3WJugGPhase IThe first phase will be, fittingly, the most limited pool of people, where we'll hopefully be able to quickly nail down an idea of where the biggest rough edges that we've lost track of are. We try to keep this as limited as possible, because it's the phase where bugs or unfinished content are going to be easiest to find and fix, and we'd rather deal with the actual work than spend all the time managing tech support for people. This phase will include directly selected people based on the Save Crash Taskforce from 2.2 where we had a set of volunteers tracking specific bugs, and we'll be pulling in other people from the Discord as needed. This phase will start Thursday June 13th.Phase IIBy this point the obvious rough edges will hopefully be found and sorted, and we'll be able to expand the pool a bit to find the more hidden issues. This testing pool will be run from the Admiral's Lounge on the server, which is available to everyone with the rank of Rear Admiral and above, from the experience system based on activity. Spamming for experience will not be tolerated- spammers will be banned from the beta, or the server as a whole. We're doing this for actual feedback and people who decide to actively make our lives more difficult just so they can play a bit earlier are not the kind of people we expect it'll be productive to work with on that. The tentative date for this to start is Thursday, June 28th. If things go really well or really poorly in Phase I, that could be pushed up or back as needed.Phase IIIAfter Phase II has gone on for a bit, we should be ready to expand to the final phase of the beta, at which point it'll be available to everyone on the server. Assuming everything goes smoothly, this should give us a final 2.3 release date, when it'll be pushed to the Workshop, ofThursday, July 11thKeep in mind, this is all tentative and can change however it needs to based on scheduling, what bugs come up, family emergencies, unexpected dance recitals, or any other factor. Then, after we've had enough feedback to catch initial problems and apply patches, we'll work on compiling a version for download from ModDB for other game versions.  Throughout 2.4's development, we'll be able to push automatic workshop updates for the Steam copy as we go, but more details on that later. Hope you guys are looking forward to the release, that's all for now. ...

AI Updates & New Cruel AI Setting | Thrawn's Revenge & Fall of the Republic News

In a game as singleplayer-oriented as Empire at War, having a good AI, which supports the intended gameplay loops of the mod is crucial. Today we’re going to talk a bit about what the AI currently does, how we plan to develop it further, and an extra option we’re adding in 2.3. As always if you prefer a video version of this news post it can be found here:    While everyone would say they want a “better” AI, and we’ve talked in the past about certain improvements, we want to take this opportunity to talk about exactly what we mean by better. With 2.2, we began to overhaul the AI in about every possible way. Step one in that was to remove as many avenues for cheating as we reasonably can- on easy (Recruit) in 2.2, the AI makes fewer credits and builds more slowly than the player, on medium about the same as the player and on hard, the modifiers are only enough to help make them remain active as their territory is removed for more experienced players (1.5x credits).While some basic tactical AI improvements were made with 2.2 (the primary one being to make ships come out from sitting under their station, which is an abusable feature in the base game and most mods) a lot of the focus on 2.2 was on the galactic level, determining the basic rules and desires for building up their structures, their economy, and their budgeting for larger projects (like massive Star Dreadnoughts). This also came with unique AI types for various factions- the Empire of the Hand has a more isolationist AI, preferring to build up before attacking in era 5. The Pentastar Alignment also remains somewhat isolationist unil era 3. The other Warlords have their own AI (with Eriadu getting its own more reckless AI in 2.3, which should help the New Republic’s AI survive in the really early eras, whereas currently they struggle because of how spread out they are).      Evilbobthebob, who in addition to developing our AI for Thrawn’s Revenge, is the developer of Phoenix Rising, another mod with a lot of unique features and the same AI components we’re talking about here (you can find PR on the Steam workshop here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1235783994 ) has continued with more of these optimizations for the galactic level of the AI within 2.3, and the longer term economic changes in the mod are also being developed with the AI in mind. In 2.2, the AI would typically want to build Hypervelocity guns/Ion Cannons on as many border planets as possible, which worked out well in most maps, but in some where their territory was more thinly spread or smaller (like the single-planet start maps), the AI could often end up building too many along their border and not leaving enough room for proper economic or production structures, so this has been adjusted appropriately and is something we’ll be keeping an eye on. Another issue is that with how mining facilities are structured, on those smaller maps the AI often has to spend more slots on economic structures at the cost of defense, so to reduce that burden we’ve shifted more of the economic power into space, bumping up the values of trade ports and reducing the per-planet cap on mining facilities to 2 from 3. There’s other more in-depth changes coming to the economy and even galactic government mechanics in 2.4, so we’ll talk a bit more about that in a future news post.Tactically, we plan to continue to make as many adjustments to improve AI behaviour as we can, along with doing things to diversify fleet and army compositions. Part of this work involves steps that are part of overall ground and space combat updates. Thrawn’s Revenge is an old mod, with a lot of work from over a decade ago, which means there’s some older bits of the mod which carry over older mistakes. Between 2.2 and 2.3, we’ve been trying to go through and standardize, expand, and update the things like the AI Combat Power values (which tells the AI roughly how strong a unit is) and category masks (which tells the AI what role it fills). There’s a new carrier category, for example, which for smaller carriers, will tell the AI that kind of unit needs to stay back- they’re for deploying fighters, not for engaging directly. This kind of work will be ongoing, but we’ll try to be as explicit with AI changes as possible, since that’s a lot better for people to understand changes than just saying “we made the AI have 20% more betterness.”   That brings us to our second major part of the update, being additional options for players. If given the choice most people would say they want an AI which acts exactly like a human, but while we agree with that for tactical behaviours and other kinds of 4X games, Empire at War, as anyone who plays multiplayer GC will likely have experienced, is not set up in a great way for a purely human and fair AI. Our goal with not just AI but economic systems and even other parts of the game like events (for example, the Yuuzhan Vong and other emergent factions) is to make sure the game goes as long as possible while still having some form of challenging component, which is why some form of cheating AI is necessary. In games like Europa Universalis and Stellaris, you have things like Aggressive Expansion and Overextension and Truces which allow a faction to rebuild between wars, but in Empire at War, it’s all war, all the time, and winning one key engagement can mean you take half the galaxy before they can even complete a new capital ship. While there are some background mechanics that may be somewhat similar to those from EU that I mentioned added to the mod where possible in the long-term, AI will always factor into the equation. It is, after all, a tool and a game mechanic as much as an opponent.To this end, we have introduced a new optional set of extra difficulty levels, beyond Easy, Medium, and Hard. If people prefer to stay on the more even-footing of the 2.2 AI (plus the additional logic-based improvements), that will be the default you start with. However, once you get ingame, there is an extra option available, to enable the Cruel AI. This will enable higher levels of AI income and production more similar to the bonuses that you may be familiar with from mods like AotR or RaW, which will allow them to more easily rebuild and continue to push back for longer. While we’re increasing their production capabilities, we won’t be giving them free spawns of units outside of areas where it’s supported narratively, however. In the future it’s entirely possible we’ll be able to offer additional ingame options for other things based on similar principles, as well. I use a similar set of bonuses in my preview LPs, and another youtuber, EckhartsLadder, who has been given a preview copy of 2.3, has been struggling against it in his recent streams if you’d like to check those out as well by clicking here.   That’s going to do it for our look at the AI for now, though. Starting in a couple weeks I’ll be starting my Fall of the Republic (our Clone Wars mod) preview playthroughs on Corey Loses as well, but in addition to that there should be a couple more regular news posts coming out in the next few weeks, including an overview of ICW2.3 and its testing process, the CSA’s We Could Be Heroes post, and the next Vision of the Future post, looking at another new faction. ...

Thrawn's Revenge

Thrawn's Revenge is a full graphic and gameplay modification of the computer game, Star Wars: Empire at War. Set in the years following the Battle of Endor, and outside the original game's timeframe, Thrawn's Revenge is based around the conflict between the newly founded New Republic and the Imperial Remnant as they fight for control of the galaxy.

New factions

Each faction features a variety of new land and space units, as well as many new era-specific heroes created especially for the mod.

• New Republic - With the Emperor dead at Endor and the Imperial Fleet in disarray the Rebel Alliance, in accordance with its founding treaty, convened a Constitutional Convention to determine the form of a restored Galactic Republic. Featuring a range of new units from an array of different cultures each with their own benefits and weaknesses.
• Imperial Remnant - When Palpatine was killed at the Battle of Endor, and his second Death Star destroyed by the Rebel Alliance, it started a chain of events that led to the fragmentation of his Empire as numerous Imperials fought to take his place on the throne, or fled with their forces to carve out their own mini empires.
• Empire of the Hand - Secretly founded by Thrawn after he was exiled from the Chiss Ascendancy, the Empire of the Hand was established in order to explore and pacify the Unknown Regions and protect the galaxy from the many and varied threats residing there.
• Pentastar Alignment  - When the Emperor’s death at the Battle of Endor caused the fragmentation of the Empire, Kaine, a native of Sartinaynian in the Braxant sector, transferred the Oversector capital and base of operations to the New Territories along with most of his forces.
• Minor Factions - Multiple minor non-playable factions have been included, each with their own unit set, to add new flavours and challenges to the game.

Improved gameplay

• Era system - The original tech-tree system from vanilla Empire at War, whereby the player researches or steals technology to gain access to new and better units, does not exist in Thrawn’s Revenge.  Instead the mod is structured around five discrete eras covering the years after Battle of Endor (4 ABY) up until shortly after the Pellaeon-Gavrisom Treaty (19 ABY), with allowance for technology up to the start of the Yuuzhan Vong War (25 ABY).
• Updated combat system  - Thrawn’s Revenge uses a representative system to assign appropriate weapons to different units and balance them according to, where possible, their canonical armament.
• New maps and scenarios - Thrawn’s Revenge includes thirteen original Galactic Conquest campaigns spanning the fifteen years between the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY and the Pellaeon-Gavrisom treaty in 19 ABY.  With a mixture of single-era, multi-era, historical and “Infinities” campaigns, you can explore many of the conflicts that were recorded during those years.
• Many other changes - Multiple other tweaks, changes and additions have been made to the original Star WArs: Empire at War game. 

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STAR WARS™ Empire at War: Gold Pack