Articles - Star Wars: New Order mod for Star Wars: Empire at War: Forces of Corruption

Main factions

Main factions are those ones which are (or will be) playable in skirmishes, sandbox-typed Galactic Conquests and scenarios. The main factions are classic: Empire and Rebellion, but depending on the timeline those factions are transformed into other ones which were in certain periods of time in Star Wars Expanded Universe. Our mod has 5 in-game eras at the moment, so, for example, Empire is reorganized at era 4 into Imperial Remnant and Rebellion - into New Republic.

Each faction (not only main ones, btw) can be also divided into smaller subfactions which could be not absolutely affilated with their dominant faction, but anyway they will replace it in certain scenarios.

Galactic Empire/Imperial Remnant

Subfactions:

• Isard's Government
• Thrawn Confederation
• Dark Empire
• Crimson Empire
• Maw Command

Alliance to Restore Republic/New Republic/Galactic Alliance

Subfactions:

• Jedi Order Remnant
• Clone Rebellion
• Hapes Consortium

Minor factions

The minor factions are playable, but can't be presented in era-transiting Galactic Conquests.

The first additional minor faction to come is 'Separatist Holdouts'. It is planned for version 0.6, so you will get an opportunity to clash battle droids with Imperial clones in 'Reconquest of the Rim' campaign or skirmishes. Their forces will be based on traditional CIS droids with a mix of pirate units, hutts and separatist troopers.

Separatist Holdouts

Subfactions:

• Dellso Uprising
• IG-88 Droid Army (possibly)

After the separatists side will be implemented into the mod, we will work on 'Warlords' side, a mix of imperial (and not only imperial) splinter factions, such as 'Zaarin Government', 'Zsinj Empire', etc. This side will be one of the main participants of Imperial Civil War campaigns. Each scenario will present different splinter sides, so the faction leaders and assortment of heroes will be varied in each scenario. The basic units of this side will be same as for Empire, but with some changes in roster.

Warlords

Subfactions: all non-mainstream imperial remnants and also some non-imperial factions (such as Duskhan League).

Those were all planned playable factions for today's status. After all of them will be added to the game, another sides may get possibilities to be presented.

Idle Factions

Some worlds at galaxy map will be garrisoned by an idle faction - 'Hostiles', non-playable side consisting of independent forces, pirates, slavers, etc. Another idle faction might have it's own AI to conquer another planets, this one will be 'Rogue Imperials' side which will be vastly presented in Imperial Civil War conflicts.

Rogue Imperials

Subfactions: all weak non-mainstream imperial remnants, lacking ability to gain enough power to fight with greater factions.

Hostiles

Subfactions: independent forces, pirates, slavers, etc.

WARNING: MENTIONED ABOVE INFORMATION CAN BE CHANGED IN FUTURE !

Thank you for reading and following us!

New hero system

From the very start of our mod we pay much attention to heroes, their roles and characteristics to provide better gameplay experience and conformity to Canon. In original game and many other mods heroes are represented pretty boring: unlimited respawn (or lack of it), template bonuses and (frequently) a rather strange choice of them. So, we try to change that in New Order.

A lot of information was examined about heroes before adding them to the mod: books, comics and articles with their appearances - all this was done to get the feel of those characters and to better represent them in New Order.

Heroes in our mod are the most high-ranked and/or talented persons. Main complication was the lack of candidates. Alliance is low on suitable personas on almost all eras. As for Empire - it has them in excess up to late Imperial Civil War, and the choice largely collapses afterwards. We had to find different ways to solve this problem, but it only gave us an occasion to think about some new mechanics.

What can our heroes do to benefit their factions now?

• They still have combat and/or economic bonus. In first case the forces gain certain superiority if a hero is present on the battlefield. In second case the planet, on which a hero resides, gain additional income and/or boost for production.

• Many fleet commanders got so-called 'Flagship bonus'. All heroes showed different skills using their ship. With this bonus, those hero's ship will be more effective in the battle.

• Each hero has his own special bonus. Through this bonus using certain heroes in certain conditions can be more effective. Assortment of these will be really impressive. Working on them is really interesting, but is equally hard. Only half of our heroes have such bonuses now, but we're slowly working on increasing the number of those, who already have it.

• Some heroes can be lost irretrievably. To compensate that, the new mechanic of limited replacement was implemented. It means if you lose an admiral in a battle you will receive another one, but the list of replacements is quite short.

• Two systems are implemented to prevent collection of many heroes in a certain battle.
  The first system is based on ranks. If two grand admirals and two ordinary admirals participate in a battle you will receive only the maximum bonus of those grand-admirals plus the max bonus of those ordinary admirals.
  The second system is based on a conflict between heroes. Of example, Octavian Grant has a conflict with other heroes of the same or lower rank, so both he the second "incompatible" hero will not provide any bonuses. Moreover if you have 3 or more such heroes, this can even cause decrease in effectiveness of your forces in a battle.

A long-awaited option for most of our followers will be an opportunity to buy dreadnoughts for your heroes (it concerns both Imperial and Alliance heroes). But be careful - after loosing a hero on this new ship, it won't be restored (if a hero can be resurrected, he will revert to using his usual flagship). Dreadnoughts are not effected by hero's bonuses.

As you can see, the changes in hero mechanics are really global. We also have to balance them all. Heroes are balanced on many factors - power of the flagship, command bonus in a battle, ability to resurrect and minimum amount of such survivors.

We have also faced an issue of lacking of portraits for some heroes. At this moment we try to fix this problem by making our own portraits for them. One of our teammates, vovagete, draws great portraits for those heroes made in comic style. Her pictures are really impressive :)

Thank you for reading and following us!

Original text written by Sudno
Imperial Entanglements Box Art by Darren Tan
Tol Getelles art by vovagete

Galactic Conquest

Galactic Conquests in the mod will be divided into several types:

• Multi-era sandbox GC
• Single-era sandbox GC
• 'From the Grounds Up' GC
• Galaxy-scale scenarios
• Local Scenarios

Multi-era sandbox GC is such a type of GC where players will fight in a duel between two main factions on the whole galaxy map (except some scenario or local planets). This GC will contain all standard heroes for both sides replacing each other after death or era transition. The two main factions are Alliance and Empire, as only those two sides that were active throughout all the timeline of the mod.

Single-era sandbox GC is a similar type to the above one, but it will be locked to a certain era. The other difference is that minor playable factions might be available.

'From the Grounds Up' GC is a type where each player starts with only one planet.

Scenarios (Galaxy-wide, local) are GCs where gameplay will be built on a certain amount of scripted events, missions, bonuses, timers, etc. Scenarios can be also characterized by asymmetric balance of power for each faction, and the difficulty may vary depending on which side you play.

Existing and planned examples

Talking about variety of GC types, let's take for example our first finished scenario - Operation Strike Fear. It takes place in Tion Cluster and describes the conflict between Empire and Rebel Alliance. The main objectives for imperial side is to conquer 4 major rebel bases and do not allow their ISD to be destroyed, as rebel side must repel imperial attacks and to keep occupied at least 1 major planet or to annihilate imperial ISD. Each faction also has reinforcements, either increasing or decreasing difficulty, depending on how much time passed. The assortment of available units is also restricted, as it is a local conflict and both factions can not deploy too much forces there.

Another example which is planned to be presented in upcoming releases is 'Thrawn's Campaign'. Unlike the above mentioned campaign, this one will be Galaxy-wide, with some additional planets unique for this GC. We're also planning some missions for this GC, the capture of Katana fleet for example.

Ideas for another GCs

We're intending to add all (or at least most of them) described scenarios mentioned in the list below. It is important for us to know which events are most desirable by our community to give the priority to such campaigns. That's why I decided to make a poll with all interesting events from Legends (reliable to Imperial period) which could take thier places in our mod.

List of proposed scenarios:

• Reconquest of the Rim
• Great Jedi Purge
• IG-88 Droid Revolution
• Kamino & Dellso Uprising
• Operation Skyhook & Yavin Blockade
• Shadows of the Empire
• Rebellion regrouping after Hoth
• Zaarin Insurrection
• Zann's Rising (Forces of Corruption)
• Return of the Jedi (pre-battle of Endor)
• Fall of the Empire & Coruscant Campaign
• Hunt for Zsinj (Bacta War, Post-Zsinj campaigns)
• Imperial Civil War (Massacre between Warlords)
• Operation Shadow Hand
• Daala Campaign
• Orinda Campaign
• Empire Reborn / Disciples of Ragnos crisis
• Restored Empire Crisis
• Black Fleet Crisis
• Second Imperium Crisis

And now I would like to ask our community about any thoughts concerning all those potential GCs, please don't hesitate to express your opinion in comments or in our Discord. It could be a great pleasure for us if you could suggest as more ideas as possible. Ideas about missions, proposing GC types for certain campaigns, unique units or heroes in certain events, ideas about interesting mechanics, bonuses, features, etc.

It will be interesting to hear from you :)

Timeline

• Era I: 19 BBY - 13 BBY

The Empire is formed, but it hasn't yet acquired it's full power. Conflicts on distant fronts with Separatist remnants are still raging, and the new authority, led by the Emperor Palpatine, are engaged in exterminating the Jedi, as well as everyone helping them. Empire is still using forces, inherited from the Republic, but new technology is making it's way. The Rebellion is an organization consisting of local militias and resistance forces undermining the positions of the Empire and hiding the Jedi from the eyes of the Emperor and Darth Vader.

• Era II: 12 BBY - 0 BBY

The Dark Times have come. Empire rules the Galaxy through the fear, it's immense forces imposing Emperor's will or crushing those who refuse it. Facing the growing leviathan, numerous resistance movements are organizing into single entity to become the Alliance. "Operation Strike Fear" scenario will take place at the end of this period.

• Era III: 0 ABY - 4 ABY

Rebel forces won a series of victories and now openly battle the forces of the Empire, gaining strength.
To compensate, the Empire is developing new weapons while trying to suppress the increasing number of worlds joining the Rebel cause. Striking from the nowhere and gaining resources, troops and materiel from sympathizers, the Alliance is preparing to make it's decisive move against the Empire.

• Era IV: 5 ABY - 11 ABY

Emperor Palpatine and his right hand, Dart Vader, are dead, the Empire is in disorder and bears great losses. The Alliance, reorganized into the New Republic, captured the Coruscant and forced the Empire and warlords into Deep Core of Outer Rim. While the imperial leadership is demoralized, battles for the throne are fought, and the imperial officers and politicians alike announce their independence and battle between themselves and the remains of imperial authority.
In certain years of this period, the Empire is reorganized to figth the common foe under the leadership of Grand Admiral Thrawn and the reborn Emperor Palpatine.

• Era V: 12 ABY - 31 ABY

The Imperial Civil War is over: admiral Daala united struggling warlords forces, but is unable to inflict a major defeat to the Republic. Her cause is carried on by next imperial leader, Grand Admiral Pellaeon, who fights several campaigns, but Imperial Remnant still loses it's forces and worlds, which forced him to sign the peace treaty between the Empire and the New Republic. However, the peace in the galaxy does not last long, as new threat looms over the galaxy - the bloodthirsty Yuuzhan Vong, destroying everything in its path. The galaxy is united in every way to repel the uninvited guests.

• Era VI: 32 ABY - 40 ABY

The war with the Vongs caused enormous damage to the galaxy. It would seem that there is no reason to fight on the ruins, but over the years new conflicts, perpetrated by Lumiya and Abeloth, will lead the galaxy into a new chaos - the Second Galactic Civil War, followed by emergence of Lost Tribe of Sith.

We would also like to point out that Scenarios are planned for each era, and some of them, to properly portray the events, will be made into full Expansions with it's own features.

Era system

I would also like to say a few words about our new system of era changing in general scenarios.

The vanilla tech levels are now called "eras", and replace each other depending on the time spent in the game. So, the longer you play in the Galactic Conquest, the further your era will move forward. This does not apply to story Scenarios, which take place in specific eras.

In skirmish, you are still forced to purchase the upgrade to a new era, but we are thinking about applying our new system too.

Thank you for reading and following us!

Hello, everybody! The first concepts of our mod appeared in 2006, but the progress passed pretty slowly through these years. Plans are growing, but our small team cannot deal with them as quickly as it could be. So, we have decided to ask some help from Moddb community.

Primarily, we are looking for Mappers and 2D & 3D artists, but any other assistance is welcome too. Also, we are in need of Testers. By the way, if you have some interesting ideas, suggestions or any other thing which could help to make this mod better, feel free to tell us.

If you're interested in assisting or joining our team, please, contact us! Thanks in advance :)