|
|
 |
The following is from Gamespot.com: The Galactic Empire is an awesome force in the game. Although each civilization is well balanced against the others, there is just something about fielding an army of enormous AT-ATs that makes the Empire king of the galactic hill.
The Empire is also immensely strong on artillery and siege
weapons, although its fully upgraded heavy AT-ATs make such weapons redundant. Where the
Empire is weak is in air units. Its TIE fighters and TIE bombers are weak, lacking the
shields that other civilizations have to shore up the inherently low hit points of
starfighters. In addition, the Empire does not get the final tech level-four upgrades to
their starfighters. Yet what the Empire lacks in air power, it more than makes up for in
Force power. |
 |
The Empire is not subtle. It is a civilization that values brutal frontal assaults. Its
strengths are thus troopers--the basic military units of the game--and mechs, which are
the hard-hitting armored cavalry of Battlegrounds. These two types of units generally make
up the backbone of any army in this game, and with its overwhelming strength in these two
categories, the Empire is a devastating opponent in battle. The Empire's civilization
bonus is, naturally, a 5 percent discount on upgrades to heavy mechs. They get two
civ-specific technologies--one, Walker Research, further enhances its dominance in mechs,
while the other, Altered Bargains, reduces any fees for trading resources. This second
tech no doubt refers to Darth Vader's famous betrayal of Lando Calrissian in The Empire
Strikes Back. 
In Battlegrounds, mechs are even more important than cavalry are in Age of Kings. Mechs
really are more powerful than troopers, due to their higher number of hit points and
better damage potential. Moreover, they can be used as troop transports. The Empire
receives the full line of mechs, which consists of three lines: strike mechs, assault
mechs, and mech destroyers. Strike mechs are swift units with long range and high hit
points. However, they don't do significantly more damage than troopers. Assault mechs are
AT-AT class armored units--they have enormous numbers of hit points, do major damage, and
sport superheavy armor. In comparison, the regular stormtrooper has 30 hit points, does
five damage, and has one armor for ranged attacks, while the AT-AT has 275 hit points,
does 18 damage, and has nine armor to ranged attacks. The AT-AT can be further upgraded to
heavy status to get more hit points and greater damage potential. Moreover, there are more
tech upgrades for mechs, thus making them even better. The Empire, as befits its image in
the movies, is clearly powerful in the mech category. Its AT-AT is almost unparalleled in
destroying buildings and ships. The third category of mech is the mech destroyer, which
are basically antimech units. They do greater damage to mechs but aren't as good vs.
troopers and other units as the other mechs are. The Empire gets all mech upgrades,
including all armor and attack upgrades. 
The Empire is clearly strong in mechs, and it's also good in troopers. The Empire gets all
troopers except for the advanced heavy mounted trooper, and it gets all trooper tech
upgrades, such as increased speed, hit points, attack, and armor upgrades. Its unique
unit, the Dark Trooper, drawn from the original Dark Forces first-person shooter, further
reinforces the Empire's proficiency in ground forces. The Dark Trooper is researched and
built at the fortress and is a resilient trooper that is better than a strike mech. It has
more hit points, easily more than double than that of a regular heavy trooper, yet it
retains its superior range, does more damage, and has better armor. Its upgraded version
is even stronger.