Capital Ship Tactics: How to Destroy Much Larger Fleets in Empire at War

Today we examine how small fleets can defeat much more powerful enemies, using Star Wars Empire at War.

The game featured is called Empire at War: Thrawn's Revenge, and is one of the Empire at War Expanded series. It is one of the most popular Star Wars Empire at War real time strategy mod currently. Created by CoreyLoses, Thrawns Revenge is completely FREE and can easily be downloaded via the Steam Workshop. Got something to say about Thrawn's Revenge? Or Star Wars Empire at War in general? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!

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[EckhartsLadder]

We do tutorials, let’s plays, mod spotlights, live-streams and more on EcksToo! Consider subscribing!!

[Baleur]

I really enjoyed having a dog teach me how to win in a space ship video game, with smooth jazz accompanying us.

[callumliddell]

Eck “you need a mix of ships to absorb damage”

Me spamming just Venators with no support

[kalajel]

"Okay, you guys fly ahead and get blown up, then we'll drop out of hyperspace and flank them."

"Wait... what?"

[SkepticalChris]

“If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him.
If he is in superior strength, evade him.
If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him.
Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
If he is taking his ease, give him no rest.
If his forces are united, separate them.
If sovereign and subject are in accord, put division between them.
Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected .”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

[solinvictus]

Bit embarrassed to say, I just throw all my ships at the enemy, thanks for this Eck!

[arkham]

I can just imagine Ecks as an admiral

"Sir the enemy just destroyed out freighters!"

"That's alright, let's just deploy our y wings. Their carriers are squishy so lets go ahead and run with that."

[misterballistics]

This is a real military concept refered to as 'defeat in detail'. Basically, you're outnumbered 2 to 1, but since the enemy spreads out and isolates their assets you are able to fight the entire battle 3 to 1 in your favor. So really, while this may seem kind of like just gaming the AI, it is a real world tactic that has won more firefights than we'll probably ever know.

[timothynikiforovs]

Ackbar "order our fighters to target their shield generators"
Rebel officer "but sir, proton torpedoes cannot penetrate shields in this mod"
Ackbar

[-narendraputra]

I like how people are so tactical while my strategy is just: overwhelm them with numbers we have more men than their bullets

[superkamiguru]

This strategy was actually used by Napoleon. He'd send a decoy force to attack an area, which would divert the enemy main force, then he'd take the place he initially wanted to take, pulling back his decoy forces if he could. This is how he won in Italy, despite being outnumbered by ton having to face both Austrians and native Italians. He most notably used this tactic while invading Piedmont, where he won in a battle of 37, 600 French vs 60, 000 Italian and Austrians.

[bryanadvincula]

Why do i love these it makes me feel like Grand Admiral Thrawn

[supersplat]

Dont forget the greatest tactic, just throw SSD's at them

[amazoncouch]

Great tactics, but from one EAW player to another, here's a tip: you can hold Ctrl+[a number] to create control groups, for example, you can press 1 for capital ships, 3 for fighters/anti-fighters etc

[zakiducky]

This is basically defeat in detail, a very effective military tactic. Cool to see it applied to strategy games.

[casbot]

So you studied the _art and culture_ of the AI?

[Raven-necg]

Nice strategy. This reminds me of Admiral Gar Stazi’s same tactics in the Legacy I comics. He did this exact same thing to extremely great effect against the Imperials ships. Sacrificed a lot of ships though.

[Finn_]

I always have a ship that can spawn in starfighters in the corner of the map, then I send my starfighters at the enemies. It works 75%
(I only play vanilla tho)

[BlackMethos]

I'd call that "Divide & Conquer" what you did there.
Pretty basic actually, but easy to forget it's even an option.

[iamwill]

Personally i prefer to use corvette to scout and pull all fighters and the faster cruisers into the furthest corner then as the first fighter swarms r almost in range I'll send my scout to whichever corner will keep it out of range of weapons and the main fleet. This tends to cause the fighters, light cruiser(and below) to be in opposing corners with the capital ships scattered in the center. This allows me to deploy corvettes and carriers to take out fighters and then my cruisers and capitals to take out their lights then move systematically from both side to hit enemy capitals. All the while my bombers bypassing everything to take out capital ship shields and engines while being covered by my fighters. This way only ships at risk r 1 or 2 corvette scouts and each of the ship types face there preferred target types...keep up the amazing work guys! love the channel and the mod!