OOC 18+ The Eternal Cycle

Hey folks. Sorry it took me so long to
Post but I hoe you guys liked it. Appreciate the posts from Signus and Shaded. I’ll post again after Aethalia does.

Hopefully not too soon because I’ve been on a bit of a Star Wars kick lately and I picked up Empire at War on steam last night and I’ve really enjoyed the tutorial missions. A really nice blend of Starcraft, Star Trek Armada and Rome Total War. Just the thing I was looking for since I’m also listening through Heir to the Empire for the first time. I gotta be honest, it’s a better Episode VII than The Force Awakens was and I loved The Force Awakens. I’m gonna play the crap out of Empire at War over the weekend and once I’m done with the base game it looks like there’s a lot of mods for it. Can anyone recommend any? Thrawn’s Revenge maybe for those awesome Nebula class Star destroyers I keep seeing pictures of on YouTube? Or a Clone Wars mod so I can play with the Venators and OG Y-wings from Revenge of the Sith? I know this is an old game and there’s a lot of Star Wars fans here so I thought I’d ask. I apologize for going off topic but if you guys don’t hear from me for a couple of weeks this is why.

I’m also not sure if I posted this but I got married back on the 4th and I’m happy to report that my partner is the same comforting person she’s always been now that she’s my wife. That’s been a nice non-change in a year of sudden and vitriolic change for I think everyone.

Congratulations on the marriage, man. Wishing you a lifetime of happiness...or something that conveys the same message but is less cheesy.

As for star wars fans @Drahkma we summon thee!

So unless anyone objects, we'll let the evening play out and once people can't think of anything else to post I'll jump to morning. Also, @Aspen were you still planning on joining? If your character is unique in regard to the rest of the party, I'm certainly willing to make an exception to the current cast limit.

And congratulations @Simus on the marriage! I remember you mentioning you had gotten engaged, and I'm glad it panned out for you. Best wishes.

Simus said:

Hey folks. Sorry it took me so long to
Post but I hoe you guys liked it. Appreciate the posts from Signus and Shaded. I’ll post again after Aethalia does.

Hopefully not too soon because I’ve been on a bit of a Star Wars kick lately and I picked up Empire at War on steam last night and I’ve really enjoyed the tutorial missions. A really nice blend of Starcraft, Star Trek Armada and Rome Total War. Just the thing I was looking for since I’m also listening through Heir to the Empire for the first time. I gotta be honest, it’s a better Episode VII than The Force Awakens was and I loved The Force Awakens. I’m gonna play the crap out of Empire at War over the weekend and once I’m done with the base game it looks like there’s a lot of mods for it. Can anyone recommend any? Thrawn’s Revenge maybe for those awesome Nebula class Star destroyers I keep seeing pictures of on YouTube? Or a Clone Wars mod so I can play with the Venators and OG Y-wings from Revenge of the Sith? I know this is an old game and there’s a lot of Star Wars fans here so I thought I’d ask. I apologize for going off topic but if you guys don’t hear from me for a couple of weeks this is why.

I’m also not sure if I posted this but I got married back on the 4th and I’m happy to report that my partner is the same comforting person she’s always been now that she’s my wife. That’s been a nice non-change in a year of sudden and vitriolic change for I think everyone.

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Well good for you with your marriage, mr marriage man! In all seriousness, though, congrats.

As for SW mods, I'd definitely recommend Thrawns' Revenge. The team is great, the content is great, really delves into what happened after the Emperor died (the first time, anyways). Difficulty spikes tremendously on Captain and Admiral difficulties, compared to vanilla. There's also tons more worlds, factions and units all with legends lore and difficulties.

Another mod I'd recommend is Phoenix Rising. Definitely more commanding an entire army feel to it than individual units, and the strengths and weaknesses are even more loyal to lore than TR.

For example, a single star destroyer can wipe out a small to medium rebel fleet in combat. Which, lore wise, is pretty accurate. Rebels typically tried to avoid taking on even a smaller (Victory/Gladiator) type destroyer because of the sheer firepower and fighter superiority they held, unless they were sure they had the jump on them. Same goes for ground combat. A squad of fully upgraded stormtroopers will mop the floor with lightly armoured rebels 9 times out of 10. An artillery barrage (from either side) will seriously fluff up anything it hits. You can even strafe enemy formations, though the bombers do much less damage against structures now.

The only thing is battles take much longer both in space and on ground.

For Clone Wars content- Republic at War is fun but difficult, especially near the endgame, where the ai spams you with lucrehulks.

the TR team is working on a clone wars mod, but it's still very early access.

Considering the trouble I’m having as the Rebels on a medium difficulty campaign I find that terrifying.

Right now I’ve completed the first four missions and have put off starting the fifth. About eighteen planets are in play, looks like a bit less than half the galaxy. Ground assaults aren’t too bad so long as I’m fast with defenses and careful with invasions but I’m having big problems in space. Even though I have nine planets and the Empire has seven they’ve got more money and ships than I do and they’re much stronger. I don’t have anything that can take victory class Star destroyers in a straight fight and the empire has fleets of up to eighteen of them parked over two of my planets. Assault frigates are the biggest ship I’ve got and I need at least a two to one advantage to slug it out. I don’t have the pop for that. My best answer so far is to just throw X and Y wings at those monsters and hope to kill two or three before I lose 50 squadrons. Being outnumbered, outgunned and with no capital ships, my basic strategy is to build up a fleet, hit the weakest imperial world I can find and invade it. Whittle them down planet by planet and just leave their huge fleets alone. I can’t take them on so I’m trying to starve them. This has worked so far and I was actually able to take Kessel yesterday with just a raid force. The only thing saving me is the AI is insufficiently aggressive. They like to blockade two or three of my planets and just sit there, occasionally trying to send in ground troops which I can handle. I figure that eventually all their ports will be gone and I’ll have the pop room and economy to grind them down. Then I’ll do the Kashykk mission, open up the rest of the galaxy and start this all over again but with fleets and armies ready.

is there a better strategy I can use? Did I wait too long to go after planets now that all the empire worlds are dug in and well garrisoned? Am I supposed to fight the Empire in space like the UNSC fought the Covenant? Only with a significant number advantage and with horrific loses with the full knowledge that I’m alive only because the enemy doesn’t feel like chasing me down? Or am I just inexperienced and don’t really know how to play yet? I can always start over of course but this kind of strategy and fast paced space battle gives me an existential thrill that the Total War series hasn’t been able to. I prefer to stick it out. Any advice would be appreciated.

Well I can't remember if vanilla Kessel is as valuable from a credit perspective as it is in mods, but that's a good way to build up your fleets. For taking on the more fortified planets, you probably are going to need to do some hit and run attacks. Destroy as many imperial ships as you can while keeping your own ships as far back as possible. Y-wings with X-wing escort works best, unless they have Tartans, in which case you'll need to commit some heavier ships. For ground I'd suggest getting a few of the MPTLs' since their torpedoes pretty much wreck anything they hit in base game, then lighter T2B tanks and infantry to mop up any survivors.

I usually do just fine with ground battles. T2B’s, T4B’s and MPTL’s handle just about anything. Space battles are so tough I think because I’ve been doing them wrong. The AI spams victory’s and broadside frigates. In theory, I should be evenly matched with assault frigates, Y wings and X wings for escort and if I have superior fleet pop I should win. My two biggest problems are I send everything in one big fleet when I should probably keep ships and starfighters separate and I don’t know when to run. Vanilla doesn’t let you choose which ships you start the battle with so you get an unfocused mess of everything that gets slaughtered. Then drip feed reinforcements into and it becomes a total loss. The best tactic would probably be to send in big fast ships to kill the broadside frigates, retreat with the one or two that survive from the dozen I send the engage with the fighters in a separate battle. Otherwise I fight a pitch battle with superior numbers and still lose.

I think I can post something up after work. No promises, but I'll do my best.

Looking forward to it.

I've ended up writing Murtagh as much more of an arse than I planned to. Ah, well.

Every group needs one. At least that's what I hear.

So my work got shut down due to COVID again, so I should be able to post a little more frequently. Will we be moving on to morning soon?

Who we still waiting on for posts? I need @Drahkma to post.

I do need to post as well.

Hopefully that encourages us to get moving. From what I read of Dusk, Nightfall, and What Lurks in the Dark, this should be an exciting venture!

So here's the plan. No rush, but after @Simus posts and whoever needs to post after him does so, we'll transition to night/early morning and meet with the jarl before we head out to the bandit camp. Sound good?

Sounds good to me. Catching up now.

So is everyone just getting their needed responses up and posting for their characters going to bed? Because I'm pretty much out of the running 'til we move on.

Same for me. I don't mind waiting though. Wasn't @Aspen interested in joining, way back?