This Feature is Deeper Than You Think in Empire at War

Empire at War recently recieved a new patch, so in honour of that we're doing another dive into some of the cut content in the game, this time focusing on the hero clashes. Only Vader and Obi-Wan made it into the release, but there's more in the code.

Official Patch Notes:

🔸 More From Corey 🔸

#RTS #EaW #EmpireatWar #Mods #CutContent

[philippobitz]

Han and Chewie being the "Vehicle_Steal_Team" has me picturing them hijacking AT-ST after AT-ST all on their own while Vader chases after them, slicing through the walkers to get to them, throwing his saber whenever they're on foot.

[austindixon]

I honestly thought that I had just been hallucinating when I remembered that feature

[ZephyrKitten]

Stuff like this and Dawn of War's sync kills are always some of my favorite parts of RTSes, the little flourishes the devs add to make the game feel more cinematic and more than just two sides of army men shooting at each other until one side falls down. It does often result in me zooming in to watch as my forces get run over by a tank due to my negligence, but it's worth it. Awesome video Corey, always love your stuff!

[pearcemiller]

The way Vader runs off like a kid who broke something after dropping Obi is hilarious. Also, I love seeing little details like these that you really elaborate on, thanks for the vid!

[Jin-]

Petroglyph were thinking ahead of their time. All the more reason why we need EAW2 😭

[Fallub]

Great video showcasing this lesser known stuff. Thank you.

[ryancarrell]

I have 500+ hours in EAW and I don't think I've ever seen a hero clash lmao

I'm very conservative with where and when I use my heroes, but I had no idea they even existed.

[thecatfather]

The fact they didn’t even try to make one for Yoda vs Sidious in Forces of Corruption is such a missed opportunity.

Though in hindsight, Revenge of the Sith didn’t exist yet, so Petroglyph could never have anticipated the need to make one.

[GavenJr]

I'm surprised so many people didn't know about this.

I always had to be paying attention to it, since Obi Wan usually ends up loosing without his invincibility ability being used on himself

[revanlord]

I always loved this little detail, the lightsaber duels, it was that solidified my opinion that ground combat wasn't that bad. That... and the Saber Tanks.

[elderliddle]

What if you tried to simplify it using hero tags and animations for the types of heroes meeting?

An example would be “Smuggler” vs “Sith”. It plays an animation showing them fight based on their tag matchup, but the heroes have their own unique stats they use in these clashes. A small code to calculate the winner would be all you need. Then you can add unique attack and defense modifiers that are unique to each hero.

For example in a Swotor Mod, you would have Jace Malcom as a “soldier” type hero with his own stats. When paired against a “Sith” type hero, he gains a damage multiplier making him more likely to win. The “Sith” type hero Malgus has his own stats, but only gains a multiplier against “Jedi” type heroes. So in this matchup Jace Malcom wins in most cases unless other units are assisting or buffs are active on Malgus.

[flyboymb]

The special fight animation of Yoda using his meth out ability and every soldier, Sith, and creature around him falling down dead.

[jacobaderholdt]

I played mp gc vanilla eaw game with a buddy i recently got into the gamd and noticed it, never realized just how crazy detailed the dueling was, this game is one of a kind man

[gordon]

Reminds me of the synched animations or matched combat of Total War (older) games. Interesting feature, but clearly a bit painful to implement, since every character will need their own animations and it can be very buggy. Even in the latest TWs matched combat was fairly problematic at times, I think Shogun 2 has the most fluid ones.
Granted, here it was just a one on one, so it's slightly easier to implement.

[TheAdmirableAdmiral]

I have actually seen the hero clash between vader and obiwan and always thought it was cool. I could have swarn yoda and luke had one with the emperor but now I am not sure if i misremembered that

[yissnakkjr]

it would be nice to see something like this return in some form in EAWX mods, even if they don't particularly vary. It'd just be nice to see jedi/sith heroes actually having clashes with one another rather than just wailing on each other wildly, even if they might end up using the same animations.

[TheAndrewJohnBennett]

I love learning more in-depth about one of my favorite mechanics in this game.

[AJadedLizard]

I wish EAW had more sophisticated ground combat like this just in general. If units would react to terrain, do things like go prone or take cover during shootouts, it would make firefights a lot more dynamic. _World in Conflict_ came out a few years later and absolutely blows the pants off what EAW does here, but it's interesting to see Petroglyph was experimenting with the same sort of ideas.

It also makes the Battle Cam make a bit more sense in ground battles, since it's otherwise only really interesting to use in conjunction with bombing runs. Now at least you can watch neat lightsaber fights, in addition to all the cool space battles it also shows you.

[БобБобов-лр]

You can troll Vader by forcing a clash near your med station, i even pulled it off in multi-player 😂.

[EthanKironus]

...how detailed is this game?! It honestly scares me. How does someone manage the ground battles and the space ones across a whole campaign at once???