Is there any mod that makes ground combat not shit?

Is there any mod that makes ground combat not shit?
Any recommended mods for an Imperial playthrough?
Or should I just give up and install Universe at War?

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For campaigns you don't want to use any mods because they either disable campaigns altogether or simply break them.
That's because campaign scripting is very strict on units and planets.
Just use the campaigns as tutorial for learning the game.
Play Rebel and Imperial first, then the Zann Consortium campaign from FoC.

Then grab yourself Thrawn's Revenge mod and go to town, and yes it makes ground combat better.

EaW actually has several complete overhaul mods available. The ones I have are Thrawns Revenge Mod, Republic at War and Old Republic at War.

Try them out. Thrawns Revenge is definitely the recommended one by the fanbase though.

IIRC there are a few others as well, and I remember one of them the goal was specifically to fix ground combat. Some of the ignore ground combat and focus on making space even better though.

I think this game needs a modern sequel.

Nope, thats why you use the Death Star senpai

Thrawn's Revenge is for all intents and purposes EaW2.
It adds new features, it has much better visuals, volumetric particle effects (while EaW only had 2D sprite effects), more factions, more planets, more everything.

>Nope, thats why you use the Death Star senpai
Enjoy your 0 income and dead economy.

OK I'm going to fool around in vanilla a bit then install Thrawn's.

Does EA even own a strategy studio anymore?

Play through the campaigns in full, they're pretty good.
Not to mention it's really mandatory to learn some of the game's mechanics, especially for Zann Consortium and Rebels. Just don't pussy out, they're not long.
And the Zann campaign has an absolutely amazing last mission.

EA disbanded their RTS studio after Generals 2 was hated by every single tester with no exception. And that was after retooling the game from scratch twice because testers didn't like it. 3 times the testers said its shit so they gave up, cancelled the game and cancelled Tiberium as well while they were at it after CnC4 flopped.

How do you fuck up so badly? Why was EA so hellbent on trying to casualize the genre? Why did they choose giving up making them all together instead of letting the devs make an actual good game? Do they want to be hated that much?

EA only cares about casual profit bucks and AAA blockbusters.
Also blame SC2, since that's why EA cancelled the real CnC4 which was still a good year away from being finished and repurposed their Chinese-market CnC Online game into what we know as the final product CnC4. They literally just took the finished models and assets from real CnC4's cutting room floor, slapped all that shit into the Chinkshit and had the audacity to call it CnC4. They also gave Kane nonexistant budget for cutscenes and 2 weeks timeframe to rig them up.

>We can't accept money from people who genuinely like video games

What the fuck is their problem?

Also EA are pure scum for that C&C4 act.

Who thought it was a good Idea to give every Zann ground unit shields? They aren't balanced at all.

>What the fuck is their problem?
Being literal jews.

>Also EA are pure scum for that C&C4 act.
They are, but I still partially blame Blizzard for putting pressure on EA. If Blizzard didn't put SC2 release date intentionally right next to CnC4 thus scaring the shit out of EA, then EA wouldn't have cancelled the real CnC4 and instead released the retooled Chinkshit in its place almost a year earlier.
Not to mention that Blizzard also split SC2 into parts, and I'm 100% sure that part of the reason for that was releasing it intentionally sooner to stomp out CnC4.

Zann units are paper tigers. The only ones with shields from what I remember without upgrading them are the Droidekas. Also don't use campaign as a form of judging balance.

I remember watching a Gamespot video of this in 2005. I assumed it was going to be as satisfying to play as Dawn of War.
They dropped the ball hard on ground combat, it simply doesn't feel good and the maps have a bothersome artificial layout.
I wish we weren't stuck with this as the definitive 3D Star Wars RTS.

Also how is Petroglyph still in business? I haven't played anything after Universe at War (which I liked a lot) but I'm aware of a long string of failures and that Weta-designed RTS that cratered instantly.

Oh wait I played their Demigod clone during a Steam sale... And I just remembered Demigod. Jesus.

Grey Goo is very good, just didn't have marketing pull. Play it and form your own opinions instead of being memed by SC2 shills you retard.

not him but i kinda don't wanna play it without reading the thrawn novels. is that feasible to do in 2-3 months or are there like 30 of them with unrelated plots?

>Thrawn novels
Thrawn's Revenge encompasses so much more than just the Thrawn stuff. They named it like that because that was the initial focus point of the mod before it grew into the gargantuan it is today that can easily be called its own game.

It basically encompasses the entire general EU all the way from right after Ep6 to end of the Galactic Civil War.
In the new version they will also be adding scripted story events to their new Galactic Conquest scenarios.

As it is right now though TR doesn't have any story stuff so it's not like you need through all that material, you just won't know some of those ships/units/vehicles or hero characters.

And to add to what I said here and answer your question about the novels.
There's a total of 7 Thrawn-related books in the EU, I'm not counting the shitty new one made for the (((Didney))) cartoon since it has no bearing on the EU canon and is completely unrelated.
What you really want to read as a beginner is the Thrawn Trilogy though, the first 3 Thrawn novels made and the very novels that basically kickstarted the EU in the first place with their overwhelming contributions.
They're as follows:
Heir to the Empire -> Dark Force Rising -> The Last Command

>you just won't know some of those ships/units/vehicles or hero characters
yeah, that's what's ticking me off. there's also the factions. who the fuck is the empire of the hand for example. i heard the novels are decent and i don't want to read blurbs on the wiki

There's no campaign or story it's just tons of extra units, MP/skirmish maps, factions etc.

There are 5 Thrawn novels you'd want to actually read if you felt the need to for this.

Thrawn Trilogy and Hand of Thrawn duology.

That said, Thrawn's Revenge also encompasses shit that isn't even in books but from RPG stuff.

You'll be fine with just those Thrawn books though.

choice. thanks lads.

Thrawn will get his own games once Disney gives him his own movie trilogy after the Rey-Finn horror is over

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Remember me, Sup Forums?

Roger Roger

"Also how is Petroglyph still in business?"

Grey Goo gave them breathing space and some people buy the "8-bit XXXXX" series.


I just want Universe at War 2 but the rights belongs to sega, and we all now how sega is today.

i still remember the clacking sound stormtroopers' boots made when you issued a move order. this was also one of the first rts games i played where the units automatically assumed some type of formation when you moved them. i thought that was the tightest shit. blew my mind

>An exact copy of aoe2 with diffrent skins
>More fun to play than aoe2

How the fuck did they manage to do it?

To know what Empire of the Hand is you'd need to read the Hand of Thrawn Duology and the book that comes right after that, but to be able to grasp that you'd need to read Thrawn Trilogy first as well as some other major books that Thrawn Duology references. It's a very deep mine user, and once you go in there's no turning back.

So for now just stick to Thrawn Trilogy.

If you're curious about the rest, the other ones are:
Hand of Thrawn Duology which consists of:
Specter of the Past -> Vision of the Future

Then there's the Survivor's Quest book set directly after events of the Hand of Thrawn Duology and acts sort of as epilogue to that.

There's Outbound Flight, a prequel that also has Thrawn, set between events of Episode 1 and Episode 2 of the movies.

But to be sufficiently prepared for Thrawn's Revenge and all its stuff, you'd basically need to read all of the above + the following (this is also basically chronological order):
The Truce at Bakura (happens literally right after Ep6, Thrawn Trilogy is directly after this)
All of Stackpole's X-Wing novels
All of Allston's X-Wing novels
Anderson's Jedi Academy Trilogy (Jedi Search -> Dark Apprentice -> Champions of the Force)
I, Jedi
Callista Trilogy (Children of the Jedi -> Darksaber -> Planet of Twilight)
Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy (Before the Storm -> Shield of Lies -> Tyrant's Test)
The New Rebellion
Corellian Trilogy (Ambush at Corellia -> Assault at Selonia -> and Showdown at Centerpoint)
The Hand of Thrawn Duology
Star Wars Union (a short comic series about Luke and Mara's mariage)
Fool's Bargain (short prelude to Survivor's Quest, with SQ being right after this)

This is the bare minimum to understand most of the stuff shown/referenced in Thrawn's Revenge.

AoE2 clone, solid but EaW is better overall.

I actually asked Westwood (I refuse to call them Petroglyph because for all intents and purposes all the important people from Westwood still work in Petroglyph and the company didn't change much) why they took UaW from Steam and they said it was SEGA's decision after GFWL went down. They want to revisit the game and remove GFWL among some other improvements but they can't get SEGA to let them do it, so if you want someone to bitch to, go to SEGA.

It also had flying units.

It's not an exact copy.
It's literally more advanced than AoE2.
Formations are more intricate than AoE2.
Shield system
Air units
Units (and Towers) actually being divided into ground-to-ground, ground-to-air and air-to-air
Power/Energy system
Stealth system
Transparent volumetric shadows instead of flat black shadows (something that even AoE2 still hasn't eliminated, they only enabled transparent shadows for buildings and not even all of them, units and other buildings still use flat black projected shadows)
Herding system for animals, so you can choose to herd them in a special garrison building for constant (but slower) food generation instead of just killing them to harvest their corpses.
8 actually diverse factions with completely different unit rosters and architecture (vs AoE2 only having 4 different architectures and all units except the unique faction units being copypasted across all factions)

All in all SWGB was a major step up from AoE2, it was AoE2 on steroids.

I love that game. Thrawn's revenge makes it even better.

Much better than empire at war.

Neat. Thank you very much. Saved it to remember it.

2 questions. What to read first, Thrawn Trilogy or Hand of Thrawn?

And since you know your Star Wars stuff. What is the best version of the OT trilogy to torrent in HD?

This was my first RTS and the little blurbs the empire units said when you issued orders are still drilled in my mind

Trilogy.

Hand of Thrawn requires you to have knowledge of basically everything between Thrawn Trilogy and Hand of Thrawn Duology because it was written much later.

Also I forgot to mention the Dark Empire comic series, which you should read after the first of X-Wing novels (Isard's Revenge). It's universally agreed that Dark Empire is one of the lowest points of writing in the EU but it's still a mandatory read for story reasons and considering one of the tech levels in Thrawn's Revenge is built entirely around that period.

As for movies.
The Despecialized versions are generally the best.
You get best of both worlds, as in high clarity image of the Blurays, but none of the cancer changes that was added in DVD and Bluray versions.

For Star Wars (A New Hope) currently latest Despecialized is 2.7
For Empire Strikes Back it's 2.0
For Return of the Jedi it's 2.5

You can find all 3 on MySpleen, which is a private tracker for older movies as well as rare versions of movies, including edits like the Despecialized versions.
I can give you an invite since it's currently Freeleech so you could download it without worrying about seeding.

Can you invite me? [email protected]

>despecialized

Yeah that's the thing. I only saw the original versions once each on VHS when I was a kid. Then the 1997 versions came out and whenever I watched it on TV it was the 1997 edition being broudcast. Then I bought the 2004 DVD's and have just been watching them ever since. So that's the version I am used too.

I kinda would want to see the original releases untouched as a comparison to see all the things changed and decide what's better. But the 1997 and 2004 versions are the ones I grew up with.

Are there any HD versions of the 2004 versions? Or is it just original or the shitty BD's?

Feels like there is no definitive version. I appreciate the invite to MySpleen though. I don't know if I will take it. Do I need to be seeding absolutely all the time after free leech is over?

There are no HD versions of 97 or 2004, other than whatever HDTV upscales that were broadcast on TV.
You've either got the DVD versions of them, or you go for the official Bluray which is all of 2004's changes + even more cancer on top.
Trust me, you DON'T want anything that isn't Despecialized, Lucas has been raping the movies with each subsequent re-release. Despecialized IS for all intents and purposes the definitive version.

As for MySpleen, as long as you only download shit during freeleech periods (which are every holiday season, every summer and every big holiday basically) then you will never have to seed since you will never rack up any download. But if you were to download stuff outside of freeleech then you'd just need to keep your ratio at 1.0 and that's all you'd need to do.

I take it you're not then?

Nah that's not me.

And that really fucking sucks there is no HD version of the 97 or 2004. Man it sucks I don't want to download 3 versions of all three films. I found some other edits on KAT and TPS but they are autistic fan edits that add a whole lot of extra shit.

Yeah alright I will take the MySpleen I guess and get the Despecialized. I guess it will be quite nostalgic watching the original versions again first time since I was a kid.

Do you need my email?

All I want to do is press "a" to attack move. Why can't I have this.

>Do you need my email?
I do, don't wanna risk getting banned for posting link in public. They're pretty strict about that.

As for the movies, tell me why the fuck would you want to watch the specialized versions to begin with? You do realize they only added cancer like Vader shouting NOOOOOOOO in Ep6, pointless CGI animals and shit in Ep4, CGI rocks to hide R2D2, actually WORSE lightsaber effects (I shit you not) and generally worse image quality overall.

Do give the email tho.

I gave you an invite man since I'm feeling generous, if you waste it then it's on you.

Only keep planets that have zero chance at being invaded like Coruscant and its surrounding planets.

Thank you very much kind man

It's more prudent to nuke planets with little ground slots for buildings or planets that are so heavily defended it's not worth it to invade. What you're doing is still very suboptimal.

[email protected]

I don't want to watch the BD version at all. They look fucking atrocious. But it's the only way to get the scenes added in 1997 and 2004 in HD. Unless I just rewatch the OT in 480p and everything else in 1080p. I just recently hunted down 1080p copies of all the Clone Wars series and want to give the series a watch through ending with the movies.

I dunno, maybe I will end up liking the original version the most. I can't really remember much from it to be honest. As I said before I grew up with the 2004 version so that's the OT I am used too.

>[email protected]
Got ya, just sent you an invite.

>But it's the only way to get the scenes added in 1997 and 2004 in HD
But they didn't add anything other than shit or change existing scenes. Trust me, you won't miss any of the CGI cancer effects after watching Despecialized.

Oh and you can see changes for Despecialized here, it's from older version of the ANH one but it gives you an idea what to expect:
plus.google.com/u/1/photos/109609428403596349302/albums/5932164278535972945?sort=1

Thanks, signing up right now. Also thanks for the comparison shots. Been looking for something like this to compare the versions all week.

My favourite thing about Despecialized is the overall more natural color palette that isn't the oversaturated popping one from the special editions.
That and Han shooting first.
Removal of CGI and better lightsabers are just a bonus.

Happen to have any more invites my dude? I'd really appreciate it.

Nope.

To be honest ground is still shit. I'm not sure about Thrawn's Revenge since I jumped ship from the modding community after RaW. btw TR for Imperial, though there is really no big campaign mode except Awakening of the Rebellion, but could never find an English Patch for the dialogue. The base campaigns are all really fun however, especially the Zann Consortium, even though they're borderline broken.

Whats wrong with RaW?

Not him but nothing really, it's just the mod has been in development hell for ages now and the 1.2 version which was supposed to come out forever ago still isn't out and the devs still keep making empty promises of it being worked on with nothing to show for it.

Ah, that sucks.

Let me start off by saying it is very faithful to the Clone Wars and it is extremely well done from a graphical and technical standpoint.

That being said my single biggest issue was the balance. Even after the patch, fighting against the CIS as Republic was just tedious af. The AI would just build 50 Lucrehulks and Providence carriers and wreck your shit. Then on ground, you would get blitzed by AATs, Droidekas, and Super Battle Droids. Ya Republic Pod Walkers were hilariously broken, but it really killed the fun when your Acclamator Cruisers did nothing.

Not to mention a bunch of game crashes and lag that would make GC run at about the speed of a snail. Oh ya also the Land Maps are huge as hell. Maps like Tatooine and Naboo were snorefests due to the extreme size of the maps, but you couldn't autoresolve. Oh god don't autoresolve.

The merciless AI is my main problem with RaW. I don't know if it's just blatantly cheating or if they simply gave it a Chessmaster-tier scripting. Either way it's bullshit.
The biggest problem is that if you don't use their AI scripts, then the AI doesn't work at all and it's not even using new units so there's no middle ground.

1.2 was supposed to improve a ton of shit including the maps and AI but it never came and still isn't out despite devs on ModDB saying its coming "soon" for months now.

I say stick to Thrawn's Revenge and Awakening of the Rebellion for now.
AotR for ep4-6 time period and TR for post ep6 stuff.