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Hello and welcome to my first Modreview for the game “Star Wars Empire at War” and its addon “Forces of Corruption”
Today I want to test the mod which is in some kind my mod “Republic at War”
Since I am a member of the modding group some could shout that my review might not be as good but because I do not like myself when I am given a bad review I will also try to give constructive criticism
Since I am PR-Manger of RaW as well but don’t want to spam this review with this stuff there will be an extra video.
Let's start
Republic at War is a mod, by the American modder nicknamed "z3r0x" which has also been created the mod "z3r0x's FoC Addon" in versions 1.0-3.5, and was founded 2007.
RaW is for FoC Addon available in the version RC1.1 since 5th June 2011.
The host platforms are amongst others Moddb.com and Gamefront.com and you will find those webpages within some seconds by searching with your default searching engine.
In addition to the mod itself, there is the possibility to download a manual in high resolution and low resolution and also there is a zip-package with the new versions of the installation instructions and troubleshooting guide.
It is recommended by the staff to use these also.
Furthermore, there is next to the native English version an about 750MB large German version. Additional language packages such as Spanish, French or Russian are planned.
Unlike other mods, the installation is relatively cumbersome and have not been solved optimally. The downloaded RAR archive is 1.3 GB and after successful unpacking about 3.1 GB large.
If you have problems with the installation you should read the manual or read the guides or visit the mod-homepage "everythingeaw.com" and ask
There is also the possibility to add me in Skype and thus to obtain a live support in English and German.
Installed RaW it will not be possible without AI problems to play other mods like AotR or even FoC.
After a successfully installation, which is not showed as such by a popup window or similar you will be able to run RaW with shortcut on the desktop.
It follows a specially created splash screen
and some new intro videos, which stands out from many mods to be exceptional.
Once in the main menu, you immediately notice the revamped UI. The buttons are now painted in a deep red and placed centrally on the monitor
In the background you can watch the GAR and the CIS at the Battle of Coruscant, which reminds of EP3.
By clicking on the icon of the Gal. Republic and the CIS you get to the unmodified credits.
The button for the tutorials is unnecessary for the reason, because they are not playable, which makes even the rather strange text suggests of the individual tutorials.
The same is with the SP. Camp., because the consortium has been removed from the mod.
Playing skirmish you have to make sure that you have not selected the official maps, but the costume, since only so new features can be played in RaW. This applies both, land and space maps.
It should be noted that under the modified maps there are new maps like Christopsis or Kessel.
Unfortunately, there are still some flaws, since we have not removed some of the icons on some maps of the empire and the rebels.
Also new GCs are created, which all have different victory conditions.
The GC “Fall of the Jedi” is playable only with the Republic because there is an Order 66 event, which is very good, but only one event with a few lines of the Chancellor's speech and a pixelated video very “little”.
The loading time of the GC is different from PC to PC and can take longer or shorter.
It pops up a window with a small text about the current situation and formulates the victory conditions.
Pausing the game now allows me to eyplain the mod without any attacks by the AI and major laggs.
It is also noticeable here once the new galaxy is slightly darker than the original and the also completely new GUI, which, although not different from the function, but now appears smarter and more modern in my opinion.
Also available is the Droid logbook with details about the game and some statistics.
The Techtree has been adapted and just has one little issue.
The pity is that there are some missing planet icons in summary.
The immovable white box in the minimap is a mistake that cannot be solved because of the game engine.
The Star Wars fan will love to see, that the 70 planets were plotted canonical, and not just somewhere random like in the original
Also, the canonical trade routes were overtaken and marked in colors.
The planets are distributed equitably among the two rivals, so that the CIS has systems in the Core and the GAR has systems in the Outer-Rim.
The construction and station limit was slightly revised.
The Teching-system of the two factions is the same as the Empire, but now you cannot built all these research facilities somewhere, but a total of only nine planets.
The same it is with the capital ships like the Venator-class Stardestroyer and the Providence, which are buildable at a certain tech level, only a total of 17 planets.
In order to protect the most important planets, it is possible for a lot of money to build planetary Turbolaser towers, which are recharged every 20 seconds and can destroy even the Malevoance with one shot.
These are important because the AI often attack the critical systems with large fleets.
Furthermore, the mining system gets more realistic.
Mining facilities are only buildable at about 11 planets.
However, there are still some ways to get credits. On planets like Dantooine, you can build farms, which also heals infantry on t he field, on planets such as Bespin gas refineries, Endor arenas.
Furthermore you can build listening-stations, which act as Bothawui in vanilla and outposts but caused by a bug, they have no function yet.
As CIS, there are also anti-repulsorlift generators, which makes many vehicles of the Republic unusable.
All planets have brand new canonical bonuses like producing Recusant ships much faster on Minntooine.
In the German version of all the planets texts were revised and rewritten so that they fit better in time.
Also we wrote new unit texts in detail, resulting in some that the text is larger than allowed by the monitor.
At the beginning of a GC battle a hologram of a clone or Count Dooku come up and speaks briefly to one.
The Republic and the CIS got both new space station where you can buy bonuses for new combat system. Including one for example is “Advanced garrison”.
The models, except for hunters, have the original scale factors.
The hardpoint system was used mostly good and some types of weapons are new to you, and seem perfectly logical to be on the model.
The new AI requires to win and to suffer the least possible losses, a new tactic and is thus even on level "Easy" is a challenge.
The special abilities of the ships were extended and if it was possible provided with new icons.
The ability of the ship itself was well adapted and it is always logically, that it exists.
Visual effects such as the red circles at strengthening the weapons were removed, but were in other places new designed such as the SPAH-T laser of the Venator or the ion gun of the Malevolance.
Missiles and torpedoes now have both the behavior that they are immune to shields and fly right through them.
Shields, apart from a few units are still quite ineffective, since they go away very quickly, if for example a unit obtained fresh from the hyperspace onto the battlefield.
The strange of each ship is generally interpreted fairly. However, you need already in the easy level about 3 Venators to knock out a Providence.
At the beginning of land battles also the hologram appears.
Barracks and factories produce each upgrade options.
Again, a new tactic is needed, which leads to a successful victory.
The scale factors are good as well and the special abilities are also well done here.
A major disadvantage is that many units are either too strong or too weak. This applies to regular units and heroes.
In skirmish, there are now Buildpads on which you can now choose between several structures and buy one of them.
These structures allow the production of many heroes, and squadrons, but also the construction of Stardestroyers or the "Pride of the Core."
On the battleground you can buy depending on the building many tactical bonuses and exclusive units that are not in the GC and also have special abilities such as a portable shield generator.
Playing as CIS it is even possible to build a heavy siege mortar which destroyes everything in the wide environment.
With the addition of new planets new maps were absolutely necessary.
These were created by using canonical sources, and have lots of new extras and new props. An example would be the bridge town of Cato Neimodia.
Considered important planets have also new maps such as Naboo.
. It should be noted that it is possible even with the new maps to plot the buildings and units in a tactically better place if you want.
In most maps civilian AI vehicles were driving around and after killing them the player must be by money.
Because of this vibrant maps it can often come to laggs.
Each unit has new voices that have been taken out from the movies.
Thanks to the series of TCW, it was possible to create a wide variety in good noise-free quality.
Most 3d models and textures were made specifically for this mod and the most important models such as the Venator or Malevolance are high-poly models, which in turn can lead to stuttering on old systems.
Texture errors or modeling errors are hard to find.
Now a few nice facts.
RaW 1.1 - Has 8012 files.
- 182 Maps
- 3660 models and animations
- 7 new movies
- 1812 textures
- 1692 new language files
- 2h 56min 27sec music soundtrack
- 16 707 strings in the text file and 259 versions
The balance between the sides was sought, but has not found perfectly.
The AI itself is a nice challenge even for the old rabbits.
However, it is a powerful new system needs to play without laggs.
Was tested with a notebook, Acer Aspire 5742G Intel Core i3 (1st gen.) 4Gb RAM and Nvidia GF420M with a resolution of 1366x768 pixels.
Recorded with Fraps and Audacity.
I hope you liked my review and please give feedback and comment More videos in English and German will follow soon.
With greets Anakin_Sklavenwalker