Reviews - Rmag

AotR is one of the best mods available for FoC right now, by far the best for a galactic conquest, though it doesn't have as many shiny new toys as some mods. It's best features are:
* A new tech system.
* A far more in depth (If slow) economy with governors, trade routes, and real financial decisions (Do i build another Victory Class I Star Destroyer to help push Admiral Ackbar out of the inner rim planets, or do I invest in my land army to expand where the Rebels and Black sun are weakest?)
* The AI is Brutal, though i'd be happier if they didn't get stacks of free units.
* Individual planets MATTER. As the empire you star with around 10 planets and 9 intersections (Space only sectors connecting regions of space) Borealis can have an asteroid mining base hosting tie fighters, on the surface you can produce the highest quality Storm Troopers available. Byss has ancient sith relics you can uncover to train dark jedi, Kuat can produce powerful Star destroyers, and so on.

All that said, it is far from perfect. It has some flaws as well...
* It's a bit finicky to install. The installer ends with "Hold on you arent done yet! You have you install the AI... Backup this folder, move this folder, rename this folder." Unfortunately it references a folder that doesn't exist. I tried to do as close as i could, which caused the game to crash frequently even after removing the mod. After reinstalling the entire game and mod, i just ignored the special instructions because they seem to be from an older version of the mod. Everything seems fine.
* The AI is difficult, but it feels unfair. It is aggressive, if not intelligent. They get stacks of free units and they know which systems are undefended. So working as designed i suppose? But its frustrating playing against an opponent who ignores to rules you have to follow.
* There's no manual or anything for all the changes and new features. I don't even think there's a basic change log from vanilla. You have to stumble around for a while trying to figure out where and how to build various ships and units, sometimes the scripted missions/events don't seem to trigger but for all i know i'm missing a minor detail in activating them. The Strong against Weak against tooltips are wrong.
* Space combat doesn't feel tactical. Yes the ships you send in matter, but managing the actual battles is boring and feels pointless.
* Land combat is still pretty bad. You still just find the OP units and spam them.

So yeah. That's kind of a review. I got around 15 to 20 hours of fun out of the mod, up to week 60ish as empire, and 30ish as black sun. If the mod gets some polish, updated AI, and maybe a manual... I'll probably be back for a full galactic conquest. And if you haven't played the mod, i absolutely would suggest giving it a try.

All it seems to do is add a couple game breaking units that are just clones of previous units, with extra weapons. Pretty special effects, thats all. And you can get similar or better effects with any of the desura CnC3 mods.