Star Wars Empire at War: Forces of Corruption

Zach Goodier

As a longtime Star Wars fan, and a fan of the original Empire at War (a RTS game of galactic conquest controlling the Empire or Rebellion), I was dying to delve into this standalone expansion to the epic strategy game.  In Forces of Corruption (FoC), you get an entire new faction to play as: The Zann Consortium.  Lead by Tyber Zann, you control the mercenaries, outlaws, and master criminals of the galaxy.  However, in doing this, the developers violated one of the cardinal rules of any strategy game: keep the factions balanced.

The leader of the Zann Consortium, a relentless man who wants it all.

Right off the bat, you get a new campaign for the Consortium.  The campaign itself is very good, with some interesting add-ons to the established Star Wars lore.  The new units draw from expanded universe material, while adding some new material, as well.  The campaign isn’t all that long, but it does a good job of keeping the game exciting, while still leaving you room to experiment, and more or less do things your way at your own pace.  The ending does a great job of setting up for more story possibilities down the line, but odds are we won’t be getting those in any hurry now that Lucasarts is owned by Disney.  The new units for all factions really do a good job of livening up the original game, and ads some more tension and conflict to the galaxy.

Silri is a Nightsister who has trained in the use of the Dark Side, she handles most of the Force stuff, and she can summon rancor in battle to fight for her.

Now both the Rebels and Empire get some new toys and heroes, but the main element that has changed is the addition of the Zann Consortium (ZC) to the factions, which has somewhat disrupted the balance of Galactic Conquest and multiplayer.  For starters, the ZC has the “Corrupt” ability, allowing them to establish criminal networks on enemy planets to siphon credits, as well as allow the ZC to see all enemy units on the ground and in orbit at all times (which the Rebels and Empire need to build units to do, and temporarily).  This ability requires money, but it doesn’t take long for the income to surpass the initial expense, plus the Rebels and Empire can’t get rid of it without using heroes and spending a ton of money, just to have the ZC corrupt it again within 5 minutes (and there is no defense against it).  This can really hinder Rebel economy, and even cripples the Empire.

The yellow fog represents corruption.  This is obviously the very start of the game because if it were later literally EVERY planet would have it.

The ZC’s units are definitely the most expensive out of the factions, but with all the ways of supplementing income, it really isn’t very noticeable.  This is hurt even more by the fact that the ZC has the most overpowered units in the game, with land and space units that can almost single-handedly dominate the battlefield.  In space, it’s mass drivers and special weapons that bypass shields. On land, it’s tanks that cover both ground and air threats with startling efficiency, and only a couple rivals that can really put them down.  There is some attempt to preserve balance, but it doesn't entirely work.

Normally, any place where a Super Star Destroyer and the Death Star II were would be considered a no-fly zone, but the Consortium has some REALLY powerful ships.

All in all, the Zann Consortium is rather unbalanced next to the other factions.  In theory, the idea of a new faction could introduce some complexity and choice to an already rich universe, and the feel of working with a different faction is very enjoyable.  However, when you try to go back and play the classic factions, you quickly realize that the scales are tilted in the Consortium’s favor, and if you could let the game run out with AI’s running all three factions, the Consortium would win about 80% of the time.  This really hinders the game as the other factions, since it quickly becomes clear that the ZC is the favorite, and their abilities allow them to harass you with relative impunity, costing you a great deal of time and resources to fix the messes they create.  There is no counter to this for the other factions, and it makes the entire game suffer.  I highly recommend downloading mods that rework the existing game, allowing you to eliminate the ZC, or at least add units or tweak the gameplay in ways that re-balance the game.  If you do that, you have a real winner here.

Good:

-New Units and Heroes

-New campaign that ads to the Star Wars universe and lore

-New gameplay elements allow a different approach to galactic conquest

Bad:

-Balance of power disrupted in favor of the Consortium, making all gameplay as the original factions somewhat tedious and frustrating. 

Scully Rating: 7 out of 10