(PC)

Here's the walkthough for "Star Wars Supremacy"

Yes it's a Star Wars game. And, yes, it's a strategy title. As many of you have found out, however, it's also bloody hard work. Andrew Borelli attempts to explain all.

Reviewed: PCZ #64, 68%

Supremacy is one of those funny games you either love or hate. For the Star Wars aficionado or the space opera grognards, there's really one heck of a game here. But, sadly, many people are turned off by the quirky interface and mountainous volume of resource management before they get to the meat of the game. Given a chance, the seasoned Supremacy player can lose whole days playing this game. But, truth be told, Supremacy can be overwhelming for the beginner, especially after watching the AI pound another one of your planets unopposed. Here we'll attempt to clarify some of the more murky details of gameplay which you'll need to understand in order to succeed. We'll also provide you with the necessary foundation you'll need to build a solid overall strategy. Supremacy is too non-linear to try and pin down the one tactic that always works. The game always starts in an almost completely random fashion, so you must instead know how to adapt proper basic strategies in order to capitalise on winning situations ancover from poor ones. That's what we hope to provide here. With patience, practice and a little luck, you'll be on your way to galactic dominance. Probably.

The basics

The biggest complaint most gamers have with Supremacy is that the long-winded interface makes the game cumbersome and unplayable. Getting used to it is the first step. Firstly, remember that you can drag-and-drop anything you want from one window to another, as long it is a legal move, and there's usually more than one way to move something around. The trick is to figure out the quickest way to get it there on the screen.

For example, let's say you've got five squadrons of TIE fighters on Coruscant and you want to move them to a fleet orbiting Chandrilla, a nearby planet. You could open up the system defences window and click on the fighter tab to see all available fighters. Then you could click on the fleet where you want to send them to bring up the fleet window. What then?

Well, if you like you can drag-and-drop each TIE fighter from Coruscant over to the fleet window.

This is perfectly valid, and the fighters will move to the fleet. Or you could click on each fighter with the CTRL button depressed, selecting as many as you want. Then you could right-click the screen, bringing up the unit menu. The final step would be to select Move and click on the fleet in the other window. Ta-da!

Either way, the fighters are on their way. You can use the same principle when you want to move characters, ships, ground units or whatever. (And remember, troops and characters don't need starships to move from one friendly planet to another, although in some cases it certainly is quicker.)

One thing you don't have to do is repeatedly use the Show Idle function of the GID.

Early on in the game, you should have a good mental picture of where your important stuff is.

While Show Idle is a useful assistant, it's a wasted step if you already know where things are.

If you're getting overwhelmed, ask your agent to help you.

The agent

Most of you will probably want to handle resource management yourself.

If you're uncomfortable with constantly having to manage facilities, or if this is your first time in a larger galaxy and you're getting overwhelmed, let your agent do it for you; don't worry, we won't tell anybody.

Keep in mind, however, that the agent probably won't handle things as quickly or as efficiently as you can by doing it yourself.

Take heed of all the advice (and there's a lot of it) your agent has to offer.

Read it all over once just to get a feel for what's going on, then you can decide whether you want to continue receiving advice, and if you want verbal cues later on as additional messages pour in; and lots of them will.

Pay close attention to incoming messages. Some of them are very routine, but others are vitally important. You especially want to take note of when training facilities, construction yards and orbital shipyards are free for additional tasks, when there's trouble on one of your planets, when units arrive at their destination, and when something happens to a character.

Finally, do take time to skim over the manual. Yeah, I know, real gamers don't do that.

Deal with it. In all seriousness, give the manual a quick look. It's actually pretty well-written, and describes a lot of the important stuff in detail.

Getting down to it

The first thing to remember when you start a new game, regardless of what side you choose, is that you're probably outnumbered. It might seem weird to think of the Imperials as lacking ships, but remember: Supremacy does not mimic what you remember from the movies, so unlearn what you have learned.

Supremacy randomly creates a new world whenever you start the game, so check out the galaxy on the GID.

See where your important characters are (for the Alliance, mostly everyone begins on Yavin), the size and location of your fleets, and where your facilities are. Does the enemy have friendly planets dangerously close to your own? Is there an opportunity to take or sway a facility-rich neutral right off the bat?

Are you badly outnumbered in one system? Analyse where you need to expend resources, and where the enemy might be caught off-guard.

Identify where your construction yards are and immediately begin constructing more. This is time-consuming, but it's vital to your survival.

In the meantime, begin a two-fold campaign of expansion: first, rush your best diplomats to the nearest planets containing facilities and start swaying them to your side. At the same time, take the orbital shipyards you do have and begin constructing fighters (Rebels) or small capital ships (Imperials) to defend your planets and hunt for or even harass the enemy.

Once you've got the planets that actually contain facilities on your side, get those new facilities to work cranking out ships and ground units. Try to bunch up facilities on several planets; six shipyards spread out aren't as useful as six on a single planet. This makes for a tempting target to the enemy, but that's why you'll want to protect your resources (more to follow on this). Plus, as soon as you can build advanced facilities, don't be afraid to slowly scrap the old ones one at a time and replace them with advanced models.

While that's going on, you'll want to explore the Outer Rim, either by sending probes or by sending transports filled with units. The latter is preferable if you've started with transports, or managed to build some quickly, because you want to begin colonising good prospects (ie planets with large amounts of resources and energy) for the purposes of mining and facility production.

Eventually your core worlds are going to be strapped for energy and you'll need to send new facilities somewhere else.

Don't ignore neutral planets that have no facilities. While these planets can wait to be swayed, you'll want to send diplomats to these worlds as soon as possible. As either side, it's bad if the enemy gains a foothold in a system where you've got the bulk of your resources. Besides, remember that you can always construct facilities on one world and send them somewhere else by using the Destination command, so these worlds will become important soon enough.

Construct and conquer

As soon as you can, try to build up one or two planets in each system with at least two or three construction yards. Then select other planets and start sending new training centres and orbital shipyards there. (You'll need more construction yards after a while, but you'll also need other facilities first.)

Naturally, capital ships are best at this, but at the start they can't be everywhere.

Basically, never let a facility lay fallow. Keep on top of everything, or have your agent do it. In the beginning, you need to be producing the right equipment at all times. Stop building and expanding and your opponent will crush you like a grape under a sandcrawler.

Once you've got sufficient numbers of troops and ships, the temptation will be to overrun undefended neutral worlds, but try to resist doing this. Sure, you'll take the planet, but (especially on higher difficulties) there's a good chance an uprising will occur and you'll have to tie down troops and characters to quell it. While it still might be worth the effort to invade a planet rather than sway it diplomatically, consider carefully the consequences of your actions. Getting tied up putting down uprisings all over the place while your opponent continues to expand is the surest way to

get wiped off the map early in the game.

Do, however, group forces wherever and whenever you can. While you must keep some fast ships and fighter groups around to screen against a raid in a system, you want to create one or two powerful groups consisting of good capital ships, lighter �screening' ships and as many fighters as you can carry. If you intend to start invading planets, don't forget to take at least three units of ground forces with you. //end stop//

Resources

Resources are the key to this game. Without them, new units and facilities don't get built, damaged capital ships aren't repaired and fighter squadrons don't get replacements.

Resources are the reason you want to send diplomatic envoys anywhere you've got a shot at swaying the population. The more planets that are on your side, the more resources come pouring in. Naturally, the closer these resources are to the core, the more units you want to dedicate to defending them; if the enemy blockades a resource-rich planet, your raw resources aren't going anywhere.

Of course, you'll need mines and refineries to harvest these resources and make them useful. Identify planets rich in raw resources, colonise or sway them, then send plenty of mines and refineries there.

Mines and refineries are vulnerable to orbital bombardments, so consider shield generators if they don't already exist on your resource-rich worlds. They can also be sabotaged, so keep some troops and fighters on the planet as security forces. (Naturally, you can also sabotage or bomb your opponent's resources - hint, hint.)

Imperial players take note: when you get a message stating that smuggling is taking place on a world, that means some of your resources are being diverted to the Alliance player!

There are two ways to combat smuggling: either send a diplomat to increase your popularity on that world, or start building TIE fighters (because they're cheap and can be built quickly) and send them to the planet in question.

Special Forces

Special Forces units can make the difference in Supremacy, but many players find them impossible to use at first.

Too often, the wrong combination of units and characters spells disaster, resulting in the loss of SpecForces or, worse, dead or captured characters.

Remember that the Special Forces aren't sufficient on their own. Firstly, SpecForces units are nowhere near as large as their ground force counterparts, so don't think of them as a whole army. Secondly, they don't work very well unless a competent character is leading them.

When you decide to send Special Forces out on a mission, make sure your intelligence about the target is updated.

If the target is very heavily defended you might not be able to carry out your primary mission until a secondary one destroys some of the defending units. Assuming the target is defended, send an average of six to ten SpecForce units on the mission, along with one or two characters who are good at espionage and/or combat. Use one of the characters and about half the SpecForces as decoys (don't know how to do this? It's in the manual!), and use the rest to actually complete the mission. If the mission is still failing, chances are the target is too heavily defended. Try an espionage mission (again, use decoys) followed up by some sabotage runs against defending units.

Then try your mission again. Remember: sabotage is a wonderful tactic both sides will want to employ, especially against capital ships. Capital ships take a long time to build until your production really gets rolling; destroying some of your opponent's capital ships early on forces him to waste time producing more and leaves his worlds open to attack. (Similarly, you can cause the enemy a lot of grief by immediately targeting his construction yards - if you can find them.) Only Imperial Commandos (Imperials), Infiltrators (Rebels) and a number of the characters can perform the sabotage mission.

Research

Research is another critical function in the game. Research happens automatically in each field (facilities, starships and ground troops) as long as you have one of each type of construction facility located somewhere.

However, this process is very slow and completely random until you get R&D-capable people to work. This is critical for both sides: the Rebels need more powerful capital ships, while the Empire needs better fighters. Both sides will want strategy-enhancing ships like Interdictors or CC-7700s, and more efficient transports. Immediately identify which characters are R&D-capable as soon as they come into play and get them to work.

Leaders

As soon as you've got a new character in play, check out what he or she does best. If the character has good leadership abilities, get that person assigned to a fleet quickly. Leaders can and will make the difference when fleets duke it out or when you're invading a planet. Even outmatched forces will do better in combat - assign Daala as a commander and watch how much longer those puny TIE fighters stay alive.

Even if there are no fleets or ships nearby, or if you've got no use for a character at a particular moment, don't be afraid to assign him to a planetary garrison command. Your ground troops will do much better if the enemy shows up, and if you have a commander assigned to the planet your fighter garrison's performance will be similarly improved.

A few simple but effective Star hints that you should take into consideration.

Practise on the easy setting first - it's easier to understand the interface this way.

Switch off C3PO. In fact, get rid of all the 'droid noises, which are more irritating than the interface.

Select the Very Slow time setting - this gives you more time to think about strategy.

Make good use of the encyclopedia - it's the best way to increase your knowledge of the 'other' side.

Don't rely on your knowledge of the films. A lot of the events in the game match those of the films, but they don't always conclude in the same way.

Clear your mind of Hollywood � this is different.

Spend time learning about the different ships, troops, facilities, planets and characters. They're all good for different things, and they're not always true to the films.