The secret to success is making sure you have enough units in space that can be called upon for reinforcements. Land maps are also extremely small, which diminishes the strategic options, as there is typically only one direction to travel. This keeps battles to a fairly small size - not what you would expect from a movie series with 'wars' in the title. In land battles, the game restricts how many units you can use at any one time. Having both space and land battles is an ambitious design element, but there are some drawbacks to both phases. The map's size ranges from 8 to 43 planets, depending on the difficulty, as players decide which units to create and what worlds to conquer or defend.
Star Wars: Empire at War tries to rectify this situation, combining positive aspects from earlier Star Wars titles, borrowing elements from other strategy games, and incorporating some newly created features for better or worse.Įmpire at War takes place on a star system map with real-time events. Though the Star Wars license has seen its fair share of strategy games, none has evolved into a bankable franchise for LucasArts.
