Got the expansion? Post your first impressions!

lukeiamyourdad · October 24, 2006

You know the point of this thread

Got the expansion? Post your first impressions right here!

darthcarth · October 25, 2006

Awsome way better then excpected i just got through a few mission in tha campiagn now to try skirmish

SaintVezner · October 25, 2006

I have only played a very small amount of the campaign, but it does look fun.

I also played a little bit of a SP GC Game as the rebs. Let me put it this way, I was attacked at Yavin by an Imperial fleet consisting of Thrawn, Piett, Moch (I didn't even know the Arch Hammer was in this game! w00t!), and another regular ISD. Yeah, my fleet of 8 frigates with some fighters got owned! I loved it!

Otherwise, I have played two online skirmishes. I think it's safe to say that the online skirmish games are tons better than what you get in regular EaW. The new ships are pretty cool and...oooo, B-Wings are UBER AWESOME!

Final comment is that I LOVE the replay feature. I've been wanting that since I bought regular EaW.

Put simply, Petro hit a home run with this expansion IMO. Good job guys!

Executor1608 · October 25, 2006

Campaign is F'ing Awesome!!!! It's fun!!! I played a long time now and I don't think i'm even half way through it has so much. Definately worth the money and then some!

Doomgiver3 · October 25, 2006

i think i'm 25% through with the campaign but not sure, it is great haven't tryed gc yet so thats what i'll try next

Rust_Lord · October 26, 2006

I didnt bother to start the campaign yet but tried out each faction on land and in space. I want to test all the new units. Unfortunately the Executor is not available in skirmish. However, this game rocks. It is so much more improved than I thought. Even the AI seems alot better. The relatively minor changes and additions create very different game play overall.

The repair platforms are great as is the ability to repair your station.

A quick thought on the changes and new stuff:

Interceptors replacing TIES = Interceptors are double the cost of TIEs but eat Xwings for breakfast.

Phantoms= Not much more than a gimmick since they have low firepower and cant attack while cloaked.

Victory SD= Price dropped dramatically and now available at tech 3 - great idea

Defenders= Utterly deadly

Thrawn=Costs more than Piett and is avail at a lower tech (?) but kicks butt.

Dark Troopers= Utterly awesome. Vulnerable to plex but they slaughter infantry, heroes and 2 phase 2's took out 2 MPTLs in about 4 seconds!

The Imps get a few anti-MPTL devices which is great and not unbalancing because the rebs get their own new good stuff...

BWings=Obviously not as good as defenders but still great. Unfortunately they dont get the ion special ability which means Ywings are not redundant.

MC30=As i expected this ship is NASTY. Fires a 6 or 12 torpedo salvo (probably 6 for each functioning torp launcher) destroying any hardpoint in one go. Its also very fast but is expensive. This will be the Executors nemesis.

Ass Frigate=Like the VSD, price and tech dropped....good move.

Rogue Squadron= Very good but not as good without Luke's lucky shot.

Yoda and Luke=These guys are freakin awesome. Yoda is nucking futs. I thought the Empire had the advantage on the ground with Dark Troopers until I used these guys. This pair combined with Garm wiped out the Empire without any support.

As for the Consortium; the first few posts stated they were unbalanced but in skirmish I dont think they are. Their units have the potential to inflict huge damage but the PG devs werent kidding when they said they were not tough; given their units and upgrades are slightly more expensive and I think they are pretty balanced. They dont take much damage and you only have to knock out a couple of hardpoints on their ships and they have lost most of their bite. However Zann and IG88 were both quite powerful because of their special abilities. IG88 corrupted the systems of about 4 squadrons of TIE bombers and an Acclamator whose torps were headed for my starbase and sent the torps spiralling out of control!. It was brilliant! The Vengeance frigates are great to get behind cap ships then open up while they struggle to maneuver to return fire.

On the ground various aspects of the consortium impressed me. The destroyers and tanks are good and the ewok handler is great if you can get him to work...to use him effectively he has to be in the front line and can be easily killed. The nightsisters and witch hero are great since the rancors take out ATATs in three hits but are themselves not invincible which I was worried about. With the MDU, MAL and destroyers only able to fire when stationary I found the consortium great for defence but I had trouble going forward...not a criticism of the ZC but more of my limited XP on how best to use them. Overall they are pretty good but they havent been thoroughly tested yet as far as balance. Looks okay though. I was suprised when Urai Fenn defeated Vader in melee combat though! And the bombardments were very apt for each faction but surprisingly expensive; effective without being "instant victory" type weapons though.

Valter · October 26, 2006

The expansion has surpassed all of my expectations. Great job Petro, pat yourselves on the back for a job well done.

EmperorJello · October 26, 2006

You can easily get Executor in skirmish by uncommenting a line or two in one of the XML files.

As for my impressions: I've only played GC, but it's excellent so far. Fighters still have an annoying tendancy to be overpowered: if Ackbar's ship can't scratch my SSD, then how do a few Y-wings bust the shields down to half and blow up 4 hardpoints?

But balance is a lot better. The Empire is finally doing what it should be able to do in the last game--steamroll enemies. The Rebels are finally being annoying buzzards and skipping through defenses, and the Consortium is just plain annoying. This is good.

I'm kind of underwhelmed with Executor. She's a gorgeous ship, but the hardpoints are so far apart that she can't really shoot anything. Something needs to be done about the range on that... Thrawn is fabulous, though, and the DSII is beyond compare.

I'm pleased at the voiceacting for Thrawn. The VA in TIE Fighter was subpar and did the voice all wrong, but the Thrawn voice in FoC is passable.

The new landmaps are fantastic. I was impressed when I had Vader waltz up to a ysalamiri tree just to see what would happen, and he got eaten by Vornskyrs. Hah! Whoops, there goes my Super Star Destroyer... but it was hilarious.

I haven't touched the campaign yet, mostly since I just really wanted to play the enhanced Empire. I suppose I should try the campaign, if only to see Eclipse.

lordzack · October 26, 2006

The campaign is great, I've corrupted about a quarter of the galaxy. Watching Jabba getting pwned by the Zann Consortium was great. I love Droidekas.

I checked out the Galactic Conquest and have to say the AI seems alot better, which is good. The Zann Consortium corrupted Mon Calamari and then blew up my Barracks! I retailed against they're base on Shola, but got half my force killed. I can't wait to try Yoda. I'm going to try the Empire too, and try to build the Executor.

mattwild · October 27, 2006

Excellent all round. I'll list some bad points for the guys there to improve on for the next expansion (please?):

- Too many ground battles, not enough space

- Some ground battles unneccessarily repetitive and long, such as the Imperial Archives raid

- Dathomir got a bit boring after a while because it's too long

- Not enough Thrawn I think

But what a bloody excellent last fight that was. I was down to a single Keldabe, the Merciless and a tiny number of support ships when the SSD came in. Still managed to win thankfully. That was a brilliant battle, thankyou Petro!

Now for another expansion!

DCorris · October 27, 2006

I got it today, but I'm sorely disappointed with it.

I am already stuck on the campaign because of a bug (its in the tech help forum)

I like having the new units and some new maps, but there's really hardly anything for them in the end and i think the consortium is a little overpowered in the campaign.

It had so much potential that could of been used to improve it, and its missing really stupid things too.

Why cant it have the galactic conquest missions from EAW vanilla? they may only let the normal two, but id rather that and the few in there. It couldn't of been that hard to put them in there, or let you access them. There should of beena few more in my opinion, maybe one with al the planets and you start off with just one planet per side.

Why aren't the two normal campaigns in there, would it of been too hard to simply disable the new units so you cant use them, so I don't have to restart the whole thing to play them?

How come a bunch of units have tiny descriptions? and the general AI wile playing in skirmish seems dreadfully dull, unless I've never noticed before.

When i downloaded a mod for EAW vanilla, i use to enjoy playing through the campaign with new units, gave it a new spark, but now that the campaigns and a few things are separate its not going to work out the same way.

on a good note, i like the whole corruption thing, its very good, though i think the bribery to get past places is going to get annoying, you could attack at the heart of anywhere now, its a pity they didn't come up with something for the rebels, I think they could of used something like this for the normal game.

I have a few more things, but I'll leave them for now, let other people get there opinions in here.

lordzack · October 27, 2006

Well, those problems about the campaigns apply to every expansion in existance, so you shouldn't get so upset. It would've been convienent, though. And they should have had the original Galactic Conquest maps.

FunSolo · October 27, 2006

theres only one thing i really dislike: the lengh of the campaign.... thats supposed to be a joke.. it gotta be one. otherwise i dunno whats goin on in their minds.

when all the real action begins (where u get access to the eclipse, silri disappeared with the holocron and all that stuff) the game ends... i was like "uh, thats it? eh, there gotta be more..."

and i wished there would have been more missions like the last one, with temporary alliances and more fightings against the black sun and so on and on.

the only problem i had playing the campaign was, the money at the beginning, cause the empire and the rebels got rid of the corruption pretty fast each time, so i had a lil trouble building my empire up. but when i established it on enough planets it was pretty easy, till the end.

maybe it will become better in gc games afterwards, but if i had bought this game just cause of the campaign i would be pissed off like hell.

Crezzer Fett · October 27, 2006

The expanison is great in my oppinon. I havn't played Campaign yet but played many hours of Galactic Conquest. The new units for the rebels and imperials are great. I like the re-scale of Home One, and oh...the Executor .

EmperorJello · October 28, 2006

I just finished the campaign. I agree that it ended very quickly, but it was satisfying enough all the way through. The Empire kept attacking me with large fleets between missions, so I got to have a lot of fun space action.

I was expecting FoC to be terrible and I was expecting to hate the Consortium, but I was pleasantly surprised for both. I'll still only play as the Empire, but the Consortium campaign was definately enjoyably playable.

EDIT: It terms of gameplay and continuity, the expansion is far far superior to the original.

EmperorPalpa · October 28, 2006

I have a questions for you (i'm from Poland and here FOC will be realased at 10 November):

1. Is the Eclipse normal moving unit or background unit like the death star ?

2. Can Darth Vader and all Sith/Jedi heroes kill all troop squad by one slash ?

3. How can i get Executor ?

4. If the Eclipse is "normal" how many hardpoints it have ?

I'll be very happy if you will answer some of the questions.

ImpElite · October 28, 2006

first off, welcome to the forums, EmperorPalpa!

Second off, I don't have FOC yet so I can't really answer your questions

HerbieZ · October 28, 2006

Great stuff, finished the campaign yesterday but

Does anyone know what the end was all about, all i get was Silri stealing the holocron and walking into a big cavern full of Dark Trooper phase 1's encased in carbonite then it ended.

As for your questions palpa, the Eclipse is useless. You only get to use it in the last mission and it has no hardpoints and it's static. Big disapointment on that front.

EmperorPalpa · October 28, 2006

Thanks guys but i'm not so new (first time i opened this site about year ago but i only watch posts.) This's sucks !!! I thought Eclipse will be the most powerful unit. I hope someone make this unit "normal" (i love this beautiful model).

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Image:32035.jpg

EmperorJello · October 28, 2006

Well, we've already known that Eclipse wouldn't be useable outside that last mission. It's not like there's a pressing need for her, anyway, she's terribly overpowered.

I have a questions for you (i'm from Poland and here FOC will be realased at 10 November):
1. Is the Eclipse normal moving unit or background unit like the death star ?

2. Can Darth Vader and all Sith/Jedi heroes kill all troop squad by one slash ?

3. How can i get Executor ?

4. If the Eclipse is "normal" how many hardpoints it have ?

I'll be very happy if you will answer some of the questions.

I. She's on the map, but she has no hardpoints and can't move. She just has a superlaser.

II. I imagine so. I saw Yoda flip through a squad of stormtroopers and kill them with one spin.

III. You have to 'purchase' Lord Vader from a Level 5 Space Station at Tech Level 5 for 15000 credits.

IV. None, see above.

Jack of Blades · October 29, 2006

I havent got the full game yet but i did play the demo and i must say it rocked!!!i i didnt see even half of what there will be in the real game.you guys areso lucky to have it but i will join your ranks soon.

SaintVezner · October 29, 2006

I'm loving FoC. I have been playing the campaign slowly so that I can enjoy it longer. Most of my time has been spent playing a SP GC game and also playing an occasional MP skirmish game.

SP GC is SOOOOO much improved now when compared to regular EaW. I'm playing as the Rebs and the empire and consortium are giving me a run for my money on medium difficulty. The Empire is actually building ISDs and the consortium is corrupting both Rebel and Empire planets left and right all while sabotaging us to no end. I am also under constant attack, which makes it difficult to maintain a strong fleet. I love it because it is actually a challenge now!

The MP skirmish games are also very nice. I love playing Reb vs Emp vs Consortium. So far I think things are pretty balanced and I LOVE being able to save a replay of the battle.

I just have two complaints so far: 1) what happened to Kyle and Mara? 2) When Boba drops a sonic bomb in space battles, the graphic for the rotating bomb remains on screen even after it detonates. This isn't a game stopper but it is annoying, especially after boba dropps multiple bombs.

Petro, FoC gets a 9 out of 10 in my book. You guys did an EXCELLENT job!

jasonirma · October 31, 2006

This is probably the single best expansion I've played in any platform. Very, very nice job, Petro. I just hope it brings many more people back into the mix and the community! This game is really good off-the-shelf!

***The graphics performance is definitely better (and it wasn't too bad before) giving the "Battlecam TM" (previously known as cinematic mode) a cooler look. Still wish the camera had better centering performance, as it still sometimes picks a completely esoteric unit not actively in combat to focus on. Still, there were some real treats. On a land battle, my ground forces were kicking the heck out of a structure, so I popped it into "Battlecam TM" (btw, was the TM really necessary in-game? It looks a bit tacky) when the camera pulled out and gave this very nice wide-angle view of the structure going KABOOM. Very nice. In space the Battlecam does great as usual especially when it occasionally would allow a large vessel's undersurface to ominously glide over the top of the screen like in the SW movies. Also, space perspective (especially in regards to making big ships "look" massive) really shined.

***Some "space weirdness" still exists where fleet groups seem to have problems organizing themselves into a formation and moving forward. Small ships still fly around aimlessly in the group until the larger ships move forward. Occasionally I still see the "zipping small vessel" phenomenon seen in EaW where one or two ships (TIE or equivalent) warp around at sub-light speed in wide ellipses while formations settle out. But pathfinding seemed smoother in some ways once all ships were underway.

***The bigger maps are incredible in their depth, especially in Battlecam view. Honoghr has very nice peaks and valleys, for example. But what dropped my jaw the most was the space map over Yavin was littered with debris from the DS explosion, including much of the chassis preserved, but obviously decimated from Rogue Squadron. Watching THAT in cinematic mode was amazing and very immersive. My suggestion would be (especially for the expansive ground maps) that there be many more reinforcement points or higher caps. On Honoghr, I was routinely being routed by a very powerful Empire force relative to the groups I could drop on the surface at any one RP (3 total troops (made up of 2 hero units and 1 other unit)). I had amassed a considerable landing force orbiting from above, but ended up with only 3-6 units on the ground at one time. They would get "diluted" by the sheer scope of the land and made it veritably impossible to gather enough build points and bombing runs to win.

***I love the corruption storyline. When I first heard of the expansion, I thought, "Bummer--they could have picked up any part of the EU or original sextet of films, but instead they're creating canon with which I'm not gonna be familiar." I read with interest as the expansion continued to unfold on sites like this one and IGN. But, now, getting into the campaign mode, wow. Very fun, very canon, and very cool back story. Corruption is definitely a blast and a totally new way to play. I felt very, very impressed by the new niche Petro developed here. And I have to say they should be proud (this is, after all, a very tough group to impress ).

***The new ships are great. I love the buzz droids for reasons I can't articulate (maybe it's their sounds?). However, they seemed lackluster occasionally when ships appeared to travel through their cloud of influence. I wouldn't see them actually doing damage to things like Tartans, for example. They're most effective against small fighters and bombers (as you'd expect). I like the balance overall, and really have to think ahead about which units are going to be effective.

***Love the heroes. Much like the book Darth Bane which recently came out (which, btw, is an EXCELLENT read), this game produces a very engrossing protagonist (Zahn) who is nevertheless a bad guy. I like the bribe function particularly, as this has resulted in some fun stuff on ground battles. Bribe, unlike Force Corrupt, doesn't result in loss of HP and therefore amasses pretty sizeable troop strength over time. And I like how the bribe amount varies depending upon the item you're trying to corrupt. If you go into battle with little financial reserve, you won't be able to say, bribe that AT-ST to your side. Very good feature for balance.

***New icons denoting terrain/weather/etc related issues (such as troops moving through water, etc) are awesome. Still wish we could get an "idle unit" icon somewhere so that I could redeploy them on an attack run. The interface needs to show which units are actively engaged in battle and which aren't.

***Battlecam still has some trouble with angle of view on ground (still starting far too overhead). Would like to see that pin to an angle that allows a forward field of view from a unit's perspective. I know that I can use the Battlecam to view a single, specified unit, and from there to change the angle in any direction I choose, but really the cinematic benefit of being able to rotate from unit-to-unit by pressing the spacebar in usual Battlecam format is what makes it fun. It allows for scene switches that sometimes are unpredictable and offer views I wouldn't have thought to look for.

I think this deserves a 9.3-9.5 rating on IGN. It's not quite a HL-2-equivalent gameplay, but man, as RTS goes, this is next to perfection. Great, great work .

jasonirma · October 31, 2006