Oh hell we've been warned but the SWGB forums suck so I'm posting
Given my previous statement on how I play here's my strategy. This is NOT for Multiplayer and you might have to make changes as you change your game parameters.
You begin a game with 3 workers, a scout, and also a shuttle if you are on a space map. First I send the scout to look for food sources and try to get bantha and nerfs. I send 2 of the three workers to collect carbon and the third builds a prefab shelter and either an animal shelter or food store, depending on how many nerfs/bantha I find. IF I have the shuttle it scouts too.
I then start pumping out workers as fast as I can. Yhe first 16 are divided between food and carbon. If I find enough bantha/nerfs I won't put workers on food because animal shelters, given enough banthas, can produce a lot of food. I might make both structures if I need to.
Next I need to pick a place for my first centralized carbon collection area and put up a place for that. I'll continue to pump out workers until I have 8-10 on carbon, 3 on nova, 3 on ore, and a variable amount on food, depending on bantha, up to ten.
After my work force is in place, I will start researching tech level 2.
At some point after my work force is in place, and as soon as I have the carbon, I put up a power core near my food store/animal shelter (or both) and the build a troop center.
When tech 2 is researched, I get some more workers and start building walls right away. I try to strategically place them for:
1) Maximum protection
2) Most efficient use of space
3) minimum use of ore.
Note that on some maps, like forest and jungle maps, there are a lot of trees and forces can only get to each other on the ground by way of narrow paths. This makes building walls extremely easy. Make sure you can build a gate at these walls, not only to get out, but to attract the AI. Some portions of paths are even too narrow for a gate.
While some workers work on walls, another builds a war center and a jedi academy, and I try to get all the upgrades I can from the places I've built. #1 priority is upgrading to troopers from recruits. #2 then becomes resource collection enhancements for food and carbon. #3 are all the upgrades in the war academy except for mech plating.
Build a jedi when you can, and send him to get holocrons. At this point your scouts should have been looking for and found several holocrons (five total). Note that sometimes holocrons show up near your base and inside your walls. Go for the ones outside your walls. I feel you'll be at a significant disadvantage if you don't get at least three. Four is ideal, and five if you want a holocron win (but that ruins the fun of building the army and blowing everyone up!
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While the walls go up, I also build gates at what I suspect to be good places to expect an attack. The AI likes to attack gates so just put up 2, maybe 3 if you really need it. Put two laser turrets at each gate and put three troopers in each. With three troopers in a turret, the turret fires four times instead of one. Don't ask me why you only need three troopers.
You got to keep things building all at the same time at level two, as this level requires everything to be highly coordinated. When you have the resources and the right upgrades, to level 3.
Getting to level 2 quickly is not a priority, but level 3 is. So if you can put off going to 2 in order to make getting to level 3 quicker, do it. In fact its probably best.
At level 3, your super duper A #1 first most important priority is to build a research center and research Accu-Ion Accelerators. this will up your turret power by 225%. Next upgrade will be hvy walls, and third upgrade will be medium turrets. This combo at any gate should be able to resist just about any land assault another tech level 3 force can throw at you, asside from perhaps pummels. I recommend a few jedi knights to take care of pummels (which you can research for now). After these upgrades, I recommend resource enhancements on all areas except nova. By now your holocrons should be pumping out nova automatically and if you have at least 3, you will have no more nova worries the rest of the game. I keep drilling for nova because eventually you may have to buy ore rather than mine it.
At this point, my strategy diverges depending on who I play. Either I have a land strategy or an air strategy. Air races are the Rebels, Republic, Naboo, and Wookies. Land forces are trade federation, confederacy, empire, and gungans. Another way to look at it is if the race has "shield modifications" as an upgrade for air units, thats an air strategy race.
I play random factions so If I get an air race I'll make two airbases. If I get a land race I'll build two mech factories and a heavy weapons factory. I'll also make sure my anti-air troopers are upgraded and maybe put in a few trooper upgrades while building anti-air turrets and at least one fortress. These should be at or near the gates. At least air anti-air per gate, but two would be optimal for mobs of bombers.
To shore up my defenses at level 3, shield generators at the gates are excellent and highly recommended. 80% of attacks will be stupid squads wandering up to your gates and shooting at your turrets and walls causing 1 point of damage a shot. This will be annoying but can add up over time. With shields, no damage effects the turrets or walls and damage to shields regenerates automatically so you don't have to worry about it. Only pummels, bombers, artillery, blaster cannons, and air cruisers can cause a dent in shields.
At this point you should research anything in your research center and proceed to tech level 4. Your defenses should be pretty solid. Just keep an eye out for massive waves of troops, rogue air forces, and pummels (damn pummels!).
At tech level 4, research efficient buildings at a power core, and from there just upgrade everything in the research center (starting with shield walls and the turret upgrades) and either the mech factory OR the airbase, depending on the strategy path. Researching troop improvements isn't bad either if you have a squad of anti-air picking off rogue air units or you want a fallback in case your troops have to evacuate the turrets. Note that most strong air factions also have an upgrade to reduce the cost of the air units, that should be researched first. Rebels also have air speeders which rock, and should be used in conjunction with the rest of your air forces.
Once I have everything upgraded its time to build my army!
My air armies consist of 15 fighters and 15 bombers, 6 blaster cannons, and 8-10 jedi masters, as upgraded as I can get (with wookies I settle with regular jedi). The jedi are meant to protect the cannons and the cannons are for air turrets. Fighters are to protect the bombers and take out ground units and bombers are for buildings. If the land forces prove too strong and take out my cannons and jedi too easily, instead of building more cannons I'll make more bombers and sacrifice them against the enemy's air turrets. I'll then mop up the base, which is pretty easy once the air turrets are gone. I start with the airbases, hvy weapons factories and troop centers (places that generate anti-air) and then the command center. From there its simply a mop up job.
If I'm using a ground faction I'll make ten strike mechs, ten anti mech mechs, and ten assault mechs. I'll also make 4-6 anti air mechs from the heavy weapons factory. I used to make pummels and artillery, which you can do, but I find useless because assault mechs take care of everything. Then my tactic is to simply steam roller the opposition. Attack EVERYTHING with the assault mechs, and use the strike and anti-mech units for mop up of close range pains. Ten strike mechs do a good job on jedi, and waste troops and workers in nanoseconds. Anti-mechs kill anything else bothering you in seconds. The Assault mechs are good on everything but should concentrate on buildings. I've also noticed the AI doesn't upgrade the range of turrets very often, if at all, so strike mechs can take out turrets and fortresses as their range is JUST outside those building's ranges.
On a rare occasion I'll note I "rolled" a map and a faction which just don't work well, for example a land faction and a jungle map with narrow paths that a large army can't pass through. If thats the case I'll just hunker down and build a monument, or if I'm lucky, get all 5 holocrons.
Typically I go for the elimination win and sometimes will deliberately not go for the fifth holocron, though I leave that option open just in case.
Notes:
1) The strongest air forces are the rebels. Use X-wings for air superiority, y-wings to bomb buildings, A-wings on troops, and air speeders for mechs/hvy weapons. Instead of building air forces as above I build ten each of these. This combination is deadly.
2) The strong ground force is the empire. You can often get away with not building anti-air mechs because heavy assault mech (AT-ATs have anti air capability when upgraded. Also all their mechs are extremely strong after upgrading, but be careful as air speeders eat mechs for lunch (Rebels Rule!!!!
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3) Shield generators protect gates, but other walls need the shield wall upgrade (tech 4) to be shielded, even if they are in the shield generator radius.
4) against the AI, troopers on offense suck. Even in the campaigns I never have any success with troopers if I'm given the option to use Mechs. I only use trooper units in turrets to increase their number of attacks, and even then if you wanted to use any other type of unit, a jedi or worker, you could!
5) If you get attacked by anything more than a small squad of mounted and regular troopers before tech level 3, your in trouble. Large squads can bring down your walls and then your turrets and then you are just dead using this strategy, because you have no units yet. Take your time getting to level 2 but rush to level 3 after that.
6) Researching rotational bearings so that your turrets have no minimum range is useful in case you have resources to spare and are waiting for other research. If your walls fall, your turrets can still fire on the enemy and hopefully kill them before your turrets die. Also, researching troop improvements also helps if you get sieged and your walls crash and your turrets are taken out. The troops will ungarrison and begin shooting. The more they are upgraded the longer they will last for a last ditch effort, and the longer they last the more time you have to build more units to mount a counter attack.
7) save often! Also every time I save I save into a different file. sometimes I like a random map so much but its so hard that I have to start over a few times to win it and I at least want that original file.
8) Building a spaceport is only necessary if you run out of ore, which I often do, but then you don't need it right away. Sometimes if you want to ally with one of the AI players, you'll need to give them tribute. You'll need to work into your strategy whether you want to do this, but I've gotten into the habit of ignoring the "threats" the AI has given me and just wipe them out
9) Altering the settings of the game even by a little bit changes the dynamics of any strategy. If I introduce a third AI or up the pop to 125, I can easily get overwhelmed as the game will have more units than I can handle with my basic defenses. I'll admit its easy to get into a rut, but the articles on SWGB strategy are few and far between and the sites are hard to search, unlike places like this
Okay I promise not to say another word on this in this forum! Email me if you'd like to talk some more about this.
I guess that says a lot about me, eh.
