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NEW BATTLEGROUNDS THE CLONE CAMPAIGNS EXPANSION FOR STAR WARS GALACTIC BATTLEGROUNDS
Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (Microsoft) is my favorite real time strategy game. The adaptation of its engine by
Lucas Arts to the Star Wars universe, in the form of
Star Wars
Galactic Battlegrounds, was a development
that I welcomed, as a fan of the movies from the very beginning as well as of
the game system. The result is a good
game, one that incorporates the most important refinements of The
Conquerors expansion to The Age of Kings, as well as the ambience
of Star Wars. Coinciding with the release this month of Star Wars
Episode II: Attack of the Clones, LucasArts has also released an
expansion to Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds titled, appropriately
enough, Clone Campaigns. It
does not represent a really major development of the existing system, as The
Conquerors did for The Age of Kings, though it does add units and
capabilities to the game; its main purpose is to add two new sides drawn from
the new movie, the Of course too, there is the merchandising element to the
picture, and the neither Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds nor the new
expansion exists in an economic vacuum.
The right hand sells movie tickets, and the left hand sells games, and
the synergy to build a better profit meets somewhere in the middle. But what can I saw? I’m a fan. Not that I am about to indict anyone for that, as I saw Star
Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones the first weekend it was out, and
actually bought Clone Campaigns the day before. I was a most eager consumer of both film
and game. For the veteran of Galactic Battlegrounds, Clone
Campaigns is extremely accessible, with no major mechanical changes. There is one change that has less of an
impact than one might expect, and that is raising the maximum limit on units
in play from 200 to 250. In general, I
believe, the limit only matters if the player sets it at 175 or less, and
that the lower the limit, the tighter the constraints on strategy. However, at 200 or above, the limit
becomes, from most perspectives, infinity.
I find it unlikely that, at least when playing against computer
opponents, a player will find it necessary to eliminate units to make room
for those with a higher-priority purpose, such as getting rid of carbon
collectors in favor of combat units.
In a sense, the larger force allowances in Clone Campaigns
simply reinforces a principle already fully in evidence in the core game. There are a lot of additions to the technologies that
players can research, including giving previously rather passive buildings a
new research role. For example,
defensive shield generators can become more robust and resilient, and even
power cores, previously used solely to increase the efficiencies of
activities around them and permit shield generators to function, can be
enhanced when the owner reaches the higher levels of technology. It is even possible for a power core to
produce a power droid, which performs an identical role, though at lower
strength and range, with the benefit of some mobility. There is also an entirely new class of combat unit, the
cruiser, produced at fortresses at the Tech 4 level. Cruisers are a kind of aerial unit,
frustratingly slow both in terms of movement and the rate of fire of the main
batteries. But when they get to the
target and actually fire upon it, the potential for damage is massive. Cruisers also have a habit of wrecking the
area around the target as well, which means that a player should be very
careful when employing them in concert with short-ranged ground units that
might get caught in the blast area. Clone Campaigns introduces one
completely new class of combatant, aggressive animals. The Confederacy can breed them at their
animal nurseries, Nexu specializing in attacking workers, Acklay for opposing
enemy troopers, and the Reek, suited for demolishing buildings. The Confederacy and Republic both have unique aerial
units, produced at fortresses. The
Confederacy’s are the winged, insectoid Geonosian warriors, capable of
engaging other air units, but really potent against ground troopers. On the Republican side, fortresses produce
Jedi starfighters, functional fighter bombers that shoot slowly, but fire a
homing missile, and can benefit from research and upgrades geared toward Jedi
knights and masters in general. Veteran enthusiasts of the system should be aware from the
beginning that Clone Campaigns is not to Galactic Battlegrounds
what The Conquerors is to The Age of Kings. That supplement introduces five new
civilizations, one very important new rule-----for reseeding farms-----and
numerous new capabilities and units for the original nations, in all a highly
important package of refinements. Clone Campaigns cannot aim for the
same level of improvement, to start with because most of the truly vital
enhancements were incorporated into Galactic Battlegrounds in the
first place. Additionally, the Star
Wars supplement adds just two new nations.
Then again, the real world offers plenty of opportunity for new
civilizations even after The Conquerors; I would love to see the
medieval Russians, Incans and perhaps an African empire, such as Even with these limitations in mind, Clone Campaigns
is a good addition to Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds. It does serve the movie by expanding the
game environment to include the settings and sides of the two most recent
movies, and from the purely gaming perspective, it is a enhancement, albeit a
relatively modest one. |
