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Conquer Planets With Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds

Factions

There are six factions, or groups, in the game. Here’s a close look at each of them:

Galactic Empire
Vader

The heavies in the original trilogy of Star Wars films, the Galactic Empire is just as fierce in Galactic Battlegrounds. They have legions of stormtroopers and Sith Knights at their disposal, and their attack vehicles include TIE fighters, TIE bombers, and the mighty, 4-legged AT-AT walkers. Their spaceships are not as heavily armored as those belonging to other factions, so they tend to excel with ground assaults.

Bonus: 5 percent discount on upgrades to heavy mechs
Unique technologies: Walker Research; Altered Bargains (reduces fees for trading resources)
Unique unit: Dark trooper

Trade Federation
The Emporer

Like the Galactic Empire, the Trade Federation, who were the heavies in Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace, have strong ground assault capabilities but weak spaceships. While their tall, thin droids aren’t very sophisticated, they pack a powerful punch when they swarm an opponent. They also have access to Sith Knights.

Bonus: No need for prefab shelters
Unique technologies: Fusion extractor (adds 50% boost in ore mining); Neimoidian Endorsement (buildings cost 5 percent less); Insider Trading (research costs 10 percent less); Market Control (no resource trading fees)
Unique unit: Destroyer droid

Royal Naboo
Naboo

Queen Amidala leads the Royal Naboo, who, as in The Phantom Menace, have strong air forces and can summon powerful Jedi Knights to assist them. They don’t have very strong heavy weapons and mechs, however.

Bonus: Nova collection happens 10% faster
Unique technologies: Advanced Engine; Battle Armor; Shielding; Taxation
Unique unit: Royal crusader

Gungans
Gungan

The Gungans thrive underwater and their unique unit, the Fambaa shield generator, provides mobile defenses that offer greater protection for their ground troops than what’s available to other factions. Their air attacks are weak, though, and their Jedi Knights are not very powerful.

Bonus: Can build prefab shelters underwater with the Utility Trawler
Unique technologies: Creature Training; Creature Armor; Farseeing Binoculars; Faster Growth Chambers
Unique unit: Fambaa shield generator

Rebel Alliance
Leia

The Rebel Alliance has superior air power, as shown with their unique unit, the airspeeder, and strong troops, but their assault technology is weak. They trail only the Galactic Empire and the Royal Naboo in their strength with Jedi, however.

Bonus: Farm droids can carry 5% more
Unique technologies: Tougher Armor
Unique unit: Airspeeder

Wookiees
Wookiee

The favorites of many fans because of Chewbacca, the Wookiees are another faction that’s very strong in the air and on the ground, although their Jedi Knights are weak compared to the Rebels, the Empire, and the Royal Naboo.

Bonus: In tech level 3, carbon collection is 5% faster
Unique technologies: Self Regeneration; Jetpacks; Forest Vision; Wookiee Ingenuity
Unique unit: Berserker

Thanks to Prima Games, we have a few tips and tricks straight from their official strategy guide for Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, by Steven L. Kent. If you want more great information that will help you win your galactic battles, be sure to pick up a copy.

Official Strategy Guide available from Aspyr

The Early Rush
One of the time-tested strategies in real-time strategy games is the early rush. Players build up through the first stage of evolution quickly, assembling as large an army as they can in the hope of catching opponents off guard. As they prepare to evolve to the next level, they send their army out, knowing they will gain some advantage by evolving to the next level and possibly researching a technology.

While early rushes sometimes result in disaster, they encourage aggression. You can win single-player scenarios with the “gotta build the perfect town” mentality, but you’ll fight epic wars. Scenarios that should take 15 minutes will take hours if you give your adversaries time to build their forces and resist you. Fights that could have ended quickly come down to dull wars over resources and lengthy sieges.

Tip: Build prefab shelters early, because this game does not let you make homeless workers.

Tip: In the trading world, what enemies think of you does not matter as much as what you think of them. To make a very agreeable trading partner, completely obliterate an enemy by destroying his turrets, defeating his workers, and razing every building with one exception: leave the spaceport standing. Now change his diplomatic status to “ally” and send cargo hovercrafts to his spaceport. This provides a great source of nova crystals.

Fog of War
You may have noticed that most of the map is covered in black. Game designers refer to that blackness as “the fog of war.” The fog goes away once you pass through an area. There are two levels of fog, however. The first level represents unfamiliar territory and completely blocks your site.

You map areas by passing through them, but your map doesn’t update automatically. While the map doesn’t turn dark once you leave an area, your view of that area remains static. If you pass through a wilderness, the map continues to represent it as wilderness until you visit the area again. In the meantime, your enemies may have moved into that spot and constructed three spaceports, two heavy mech factories, and a war center, but it still looks like empty space on your map. When you pass through that area a second time, you clear away the second level of fog, and the map updates to reflect any changes. So don’t think areas are empty just because they look empty on your map.

Hotkeys
Hotkeys are keys that you assign to one or more units. Hitting that key works like selecting those units with your mouse. The advantage is speed.

Say you sent an army of 15 troopers to guard one side of your compound just as an invading force enters the other side. Normally you would need to scroll through the buildings searching for that squad of 15 troopers. But if you have hotkeyed that squad, simply press the hotkey, then tell your troopers where to attack.

To hotkey one or more units, drag your cursor over an area to select everybody in that area. Should you select unintended units, hold down the Control key (Apple key) and click on their picture in the task bar to remove them from the group. Once you have selected the unit or team you wish to hotkey, press the Control key (Apple key) and one of the numbered keys along the top of your keyboard. You only get 10 hotkeys, but you can reassign hotkeys any time you wish.

Hotkeying celebrities offers certain advantages. Yes, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Darth Vader make good fighters, but you fail if they lose all their health. Hotkey “hero” characters so you can check their health status or send them away from a battle.

Cheat If You Must

Stumped? Then you may need some help, thanks to the cheat codes that are commonly placed in most videogames. They allow you to, well, cheat and change the rules. This sometimes includes activating bonuses, unlocking secrets and new levels of gameplay.

To enable any of these cheat codes while playing, press the “Return” key on your keyboard, which will bring up a chat box. Type a code and press “Return” again to activate it.

skywalker or tarkin	Automatically win the game
simonsays	Summon Simon the Killer Ewok. You can summon as many Simons as you want, and they will happily wreak havoc on your foes.
forcecarbon	Get 1000 carbon
forcenova	Get 1000 Nova
forcefood	Get 1000 Food
forceore	Get 1000 Ore
forcebuild	Build Instantly
forceexplore	Reveal Entire Map
forcesight	Remove Fog Of War
darksideX	Automatically eliminate another player, where “X” is the number of the player you want to banish to the Dark Side.

Preliminary SPECS
Mac OS X version 10.1 or Mac OS 8.6 or higher

333MHz PowerPC G3 processor or higher

64MB of RAM

CarbonLib 1.4 or higher

4x CD-ROM