• Star Wars Rebellion Faq

May 13, 2004 100% Star Wars Rebellion - Support for the game and its editor RebED. I know there is a PDF out there of the manual but I can't find it. Anyone have it? The Star Wars: Rebellion Learn to Play booklet (pdf, 17.2 MB) serves as your introduction to the game. It is intended to lead you quickly into and through your first. Star Wars™: Rebellion The Galactic Empire’s Death Star™ sets a deadly course toward Alderaan™ while Star Destroyers deploy probe droids throughout the Outer Rim.

My first game ended with Imperial victory on round 6. I was the rebellion and didn't get my first objective completed until round 4 (destroy a star destroyer). The empire got lucky in that all their probes revealed the entire left half of the board. I had to retreat to Dantooine, the only planet they hadn't explored, which was immediately discovered (by a random decision no less) by a single assault carrier + stormtrooper, a scenario I dreaded when I first read the rules. Chatting after the battle there were a couple of things I surmised: -On round 6 I probably could've completed 4 or 5 objective cards at once, dropping the reputation track by to 8 or so. It really is difficult completing these things, especially the sabotage objective.

The empire's anti-sabotage card also lets them draw projects, you're fighting a war of attrition there.My biggest mistake was running when I did. A massive fleet + death star was coming to Rodia, my base, but I had done an excellent job taking out my opponent's ground troops. They would've hit my base with a single AT-AT which would've been obliterated. However they had enough heroes left to attack my other loyal planets, effectively cutting off reinforcements.The rebels' heroes are better and completing missions is easier. My opponent never opposed my loyalty mission knowing they would just subjugate anyway. That said the Empire has no fear of losing heroes and every rebel leader used to oppose is a costly decision.The Empire took Mon Calamari early allowing them to amass a huge force I couldn't maneuver around and attack.

It brought a tidal wave into the right half of the board. Thinking about a second game I've come up with the following strategies I want to test -The rebels need to split up. The Empire can cover so much ground that the worst situation you can find yourself in is being blockaded. Damn that 'loyal in a single region' objective, establish loyalty in Utapau and Mon Calamari as soon as possible. I might try establishing a foothold in Mustafar/Bespin and Mygeeto early game to force the Empire into splitting in half.I was doing my best when I kept hitting my opponent's ground troops. They overestimated the importance of air domination and at one point I had every planet from Nal Hutta to Coruscant clear of ground units. Unfortunately I underestimated my own air units and never once built a transport.

I'm thinking suicide runs of 1 transport + 4 troopers and breaking loyalty or sabotaging systems that give them AT-STs and AT-ATs.I think the 3-player version of the game is harder on the rebellion since they have to think hard about the order of leaders. My opponents were first timers as well but correctly surmised that their goal is to cover as much of the board as quickly as possible.

I'd like some thoughts and opinions from more experienced players. Sometimes it's better to sabotage systems that were subjugated (empire can't R&D sabotage off if it isn't loyal) This is especially useful if the empire is relying on subjugated systems to deploy forces in remote areas of the board. Sabotage and they had to waste time setting up loyalty instead. With the empire having to divide their forces among six places to start, it is often feasible for the rebels to start their initial pieces near the weakest empire position and land a strong enough ground force to occupy it. It can be very difficult for the empire to expel a rebel ground force on their system, considering the annoyances of having to transport the troopers.

Camping systems with a fighter if the empire only left ground forces is also effective. Since the tie fighters have to be transported, they can't get your fighter off without overcommiting which slows down their spread. When going for loyalty, rebel player should balance the icon value against the position of the system.

If it's easy for the empire to subjugate or blockade, it's not great to influence, unless you are forcing them to tie up a valuable unit like a star destroyer to do it. I think the problem of imperials randomly stumbling into the rebel base isn't really such a problem with experienced players.

Rebels will recognize if the empire has a strong enough force near the base to destroy it, and if so they should proactively move or reinforce it. If the force isn't big enough to destroy it, there isn't such a worry even if they stumble on it as you will probably have time to move before the full imperial fleet can arrive (and the time they spend moving toward you means fewer systems subjugated) Also, empire has to destroy your space and ground forces to destroy the rebel base (except with Death Star) so it is viable to focus your efforts in being superior in just one of those theaters. Sometimes I focus all of my attacks and sabotages on systems that make ground units, while establishing loyalty in those systems myself. If I'm pumping out troopers as fast as the empire is, they won't be able to destroy my base without committing huge amounts (which again means they are not effectively subjugating) or sending Death Star. In either case, you can move the base to avoid it.

Getting space superiority is harder to do - the empire's starting lead in space info is much more dramatic than their lead in ground. But the advantages of contesting space are greater mobility and the ability to take down the Death Star, making your fleet a mobile objective engine when it is not defending the base. In my limited experience I'd say that the Rebels are a little harder to play. This could just be psychological because of the fact they are outgunned everywhere. But it could also be that the Rebel has to perform some tricky timing. My thoughts in the abstract are that the Rebel needs to prepare for the end, not try a toe to toe fight.

Keep back a few surprises in combinations of missions/actions and moving the base. The Rebels must realize one important thing.

THE EMPIRE IS GOING TO WIN. Once you understand that fact, then you can focus on what you need to do. Delay, surprises, agile repositioning of the base, etc. In my opinion the Rebels have a tricky puzzle to solve. I think once we start to see some quality Rebel play, we'll see the Empire stumble. Until the Empire figures out the tricks of its own. I'm eager to give the Rebels a try (only played Empire so far).

It looks fascinating. I know it will take many plays as the Rebel to figure out all the combos and timing. But isn't this the whole point? Trying to solve the puzzle for the 'more difficult side'.

Then handing that puzzle to the other side? And hopefully this goes back and forth and we come to realize this is an amazing experience? I hope so anyway. In my limited experience I'd say that the Rebels are a little harder to play. This could just be psychological because of the fact they are outgunned everywhere.

But it could also be that the Rebel has to perform some tricky timing. My thoughts in the abstract are that the Rebel needs to prepare for the end, not try a toe to toe fight. Keep back a few surprises in combinations of missions/actions and moving the base. The Rebels must realize one important thing. THE EMPIRE IS GOING TO WIN. Once you understand that fact, then you can focus on what you need to do. Delay, surprises, agile repositioning of the base, etc.

In my opinion the Rebels have a tricky puzzle to solve. I think once we start to see some quality Rebel play, we'll see the Empire stumble. Until the Empire figures out the tricks of its own.

I'm eager to give the Rebels a try (only played Empire so far). It looks fascinating. I know it will take many plays as the Rebel to figure out all the combos and timing. But isn't this the whole point? Trying to solve the puzzle for the 'more difficult side'.

Then handing that puzzle to the other side? And hopefully this goes back and forth and we come to realize this is an amazing experience? I hope so anyway. Once the rebels get really good the empire player will have, not only to find the base and kill it, but doing so in a way that lets no opportunities to the rebel player to get their points!

So play a flawless game and this will become a puzzle on its own! Also I think the Infiltration mission is almost mandatory for the first three turns to put those Objectives 1 missions under to pile. Else, you'll never get to see Obj. 3 which are much easier, and get to Obj 2 sooner which are also easier than Obj.

1 and allow to blow the death star if it comes in your way, which you don't have any other way to do. And while doing this you get to choose between two Obj. 1 which one you get to keep. Mon Mothma is a beast for getting loyalty every turn. She hasn't been for me, but that's because the Imperials usually oppose her with Emperor Palpatine.

I think her success rate has been about 30-40%. At least then she's taking the attention of the Imperials' best leader, so that in and of itself is a small success. Last game I played as the Rebels I had 7 systems with Rebel influence by the end, was about to make my fourth Calamari cruiser and had taken Coruscant using two different cards (and different leaders) in the same turn to attack ground and space separately. My plan worked well because I didn't start any combat except by the uprising/strike team/insurrection cards, and used my units on the board to scatter around, complete objectives (like the one where you get Rep by having Rebel units in four different systems) and generally be a distraction. If you can keep the Emperor looking everywhere except where your base is, you'll win the game. Draw them out by scattering units and completing missions (in mid-game I'm attempting 6-7 missions per turn), retreat every chance you get and keep your base hidden.

I played Rebels for the first time last night and had a pretty good strategy. I considered several factors in deploying the rebel base. Find a place that is far from the Death Star and requires the most moves to get to. As a distraction, I carved out a region of the galaxy not near the true rebel base that just looked too juicy to pass up. They had spaceship building capacity, I build up a sizable fleet and ground force and dropped a generator and ion cannon on the 'distraction base' to make it look like I was trying to actively defend. The Imperial player took the bait and invested almost all of his resources in attacking and destroying this region while the true rebel base was left unmolested.

Once his massive fleet began arriving on the borders of my distraction base, I started running missions in those adjacent sectors to try to bait the Imperial player to counter them with his own leaders. Once he dropped his leaders, he couldn't deploy his units out of his sector which delayed his final attack.

I really didn't care if I was successful in these missions as the real goal was to delay him attacking my distraction base and keep the ruse alive. He finally attacked the distraction base with a massive force and I held him off for a couple of combat rounds before I retreated to a safe system. By this time, he had spread his units all over the map and his massive force, fresh from victory after destroying the distraction base, was too far away from the real base to be a threat. Now that the ruse was up, I redeployed the space and ground elements back to the main rebel base and decided that I could hold it if I really needed it. If the Imps are focusing on military conquest, they have to use a lot of their actions to do so. This gives the Rebels a lot of unopposed actions. Sabotaging systems is great.

If you keep it to subjugated systems, it's harder for them to clear it. Don't choreograph your moves.

If it looks like you are trying to complete goal X, the Imp player is going to counter goal X. If it looks like you may be trying to complete goal X, Y, and Z at the same time, he's going to have to counter all of that (using up all his actions and stalling his advance), or he's going to have to let something go. Know your objectives. Don't just work on the objectives in your hand, work on all objectives.

Think of the timing of your missions. Sabotaging good production planets right before the build phase is good as stopping an AT-AT or Star Destroyer from being added to the build que is great. On a non-build phase though, target forward staging bases where he wants to deploy stuff. If he deploys stuff to rear bases, it will take him time to move it to the front line. Look for combinations of missions that can give you big advantages.

You want to force the Imp player to be reactive to your actions, not the other way. While the Rebel forces are smaller, you still need to be aggressive and keep trying to throw the Imps off their balance. Mon Mothma is a beast for getting loyalty every turn. She hasn't been for me, but that's because the Imperials usually oppose her with Emperor Palpatine. I think her success rate has been about 30-40%. Yea, Loyalty has not worked for me either. I need to pair her with some one else.

Use her in systems where you have a Rebel unit or two. That gives her two extra dice. I took Sullust that way on the first couple turns of the game. Launched a strike team, won the ground battle, then played her to convert it to Rebel, with bonus dice because I had boots on the ground.

Converting a planet in the Imperial backfield, like Sullust or even Corellia, can really throw off the Empire's plans. Making them waste turns moving their fleet backwards, or into territories where they know your base isn't, can buy the Rebels valuable time. As the empire, I'd rather move an extra system than block Mon Mothma. That way I take a rebel system AND I eliminate a potential location for the rebel base, AND I get the leftmost production of that planet, while also placing the fleet in (typically) a better position. I think it's a mistake to send the Emperor on defense missions.

Star Wars Rebellion Faq

As the Empire, you need to move more than the rebels, while still doing missions of your own. I typically only oppose one rebel mission a turn, and it tends to be things that are going to help me with another mission - for instance, sending Vader to counter Mon Mothma makes it easier for Tagge to capture her later in the turn. Mon Mothma is a beast for getting loyalty every turn.

She hasn't been for me, but that's because the Imperials usually oppose her with Emperor Palpatine. I think her success rate has been about 30-40%. If you're trading a Mothma activation for a Palpatine activation every turn, that's a win for the rebels (especially if you get a 30% chance of a loyalty thrown in).

The Empire's leader activations are more valuable than the Rebellion's; they need to move their ships if they're going to win, you just need to stall them long enough. If you let rebels fulfill their loyalty mission every turn, they will easily complete 2 or 3 points of objectives. If tying Palpatine up for most of the game buys me one extra turn, it's probably worth it. Definitely worth it if it buys me two. The fact that it means fewer rebel troop deployments is also good. Early turn fleet movements aren't that great. You can rule out some base locations, but there's a good chance you are going to draw the probe card for it anyway.

It also depends on the situation. If Mothma is grabbing a system with great resources and you don't have the means to subjugate it in this turn of the next, opposing is much more attractive. Sometimes Mothma may try to influence an imperial system to make it subjugated and therefore eligible for incite revolts from another leader. That's probably worth opposing too, especially as you get to roll against the revolt even if you failed to stop the loyalty. Mon Mothma is a beast for getting loyalty every turn.

She hasn't been for me, but that's because the Imperials usually oppose her with Emperor Palpatine. I think her success rate has been about 30-40%. At least then she's taking the attention of the Imperials' best leader, so that in and of itself is a small success. Last game I played as the Rebels I had 7 systems with Rebel influence by the end, was about to make my fourth Calamari cruiser and had taken Coruscant using two different cards (and different leaders) in the same turn to attack ground and space separately. How do you attack the same system twice in one turn? I thought that having a leader in that system prevented you from activating it again? Only have a couple games in, but this doesn't sound right to me.

Mon Mothma is a beast for getting loyalty every turn. She hasn't been for me, but that's because the Imperials usually oppose her with Emperor Palpatine. I think her success rate has been about 30-40%. At least then she's taking the attention of the Imperials' best leader, so that in and of itself is a small success. Last game I played as the Rebels I had 7 systems with Rebel influence by the end, was about to make my fourth Calamari cruiser and had taken Coruscant using two different cards (and different leaders) in the same turn to attack ground and space separately. How do you attack the same system twice in one turn? I thought that having a leader in that system prevented you from activating it again?

Having your leader in a system prevents your ships in that system from moving out (other than with retreats), but it does not prevent future activations. You can activate a system multiple times, or activate a system that you put a leader in previously for a mission. Note if you are used to other games with similar activation mechanics like Twilight Imperium 3 or RuneWars, this rule is a little different in Rebellion than in those other games. Mon Mothma is a beast for getting loyalty every turn. She hasn't been for me, but that's because the Imperials usually oppose her with Emperor Palpatine.

I think her success rate has been about 30-40%. At least then she's taking the attention of the Imperials' best leader, so that in and of itself is a small success. Last game I played as the Rebels I had 7 systems with Rebel influence by the end, was about to make my fourth Calamari cruiser and had taken Coruscant using two different cards (and different leaders) in the same turn to attack ground and space separately. How do you attack the same system twice in one turn? I thought that having a leader in that system prevented you from activating it again?

Only have a couple games in, but this doesn't sound right to me. I don't remember the names of the cards, but I used Han Solo to lead a strike team of ground units from the Rebel base to attack the 2 stormtroopers on Coruscant. He brought in Darth Vader to oppose the mission, which failed, but Darth got to command the Imperial ground forces, and lost. Next mission was Ackbar leading a fleet of ships from the Rebel base to take on the lone TIE and assault carrier over Coruscant.

I don't remember the name of the card, but it allowed the Rebels to move ships only (no ground forces) to any system and engage in combat. Basically the space version of Han's card. Darth defended since he was in the neighborhood, but I won that battle, too.

In more conventional terms, you could do it if you had two different fleets in range of a system, and for whatever reason, you wanted to bring them in one at a time. So plant Leader 1 in the target system and move fleet A into that system. Then later in the turn plant Leader 2 in that same system and move fleet B into that system.

Set shortly after the events of the Battle of Yavin in Star Wars: A New Hope, Star Wars: Rebellion represents LucasArts' first attempt at a strategy game involving the popular space saga. As either the Rebellion or the Empire, it's up to you to command your side to victory against the computer or a friend via the Internet. In the course of your game, you might try to conquer as many as 200 planets in the Star Wars universe.

In order to do so, you must effectively manage a variety of factors such as construction of new facilities, appropriate number of garrisoned soldiers, and use of task forces in certain situations. You'll also guide your side's 30 characters on different missions, deciding who might be best for each. For instance, the Rebellion might do well to assign Princess Leia on a diplomatic mission and Han Solo on one of espionage. Most of your favorite characters from the original trilogy of Star Wars films are present, with a few new ones as well as some who were introduced in books by the likes of Timothy Zahn and Kevin J.

If you've ever wanted to take control of Garm Bel Iblis or General Daala, now's your chance! For battles, you have a variety of ships available for either side, including 15 capital ships and four starfighters for each side. As the Empire, proper positioning and usage of your Star Destroyers, TIE fighters, TIE bombers - even the Death Star - could be enough to crush the Rebellion's Mon Calamari cruisers, Corellian gunships, X-wings and B-wings.

The battles of Rebellion occur in real time and offer you a choice as to their implementation. You have the option to either let the AI take over and hope that your predetermined strategy is enough to overtake the enemy, or you can take matters into your own hands by controlling the units manually as you assig targets to your task forces and fighter squadrons.

In addition to the core action and strategy elements described above, LucasArts has also included some other 'nice touches.' For instance, be prepared to deal with traitors who might secretly sympathize with the enemy, or zip through space at double-speed when Han Solo and his Millennium Falcon are on a mission. Luke Skywalker might even learn some unsettling news that will disable him for a while should he and Darth Vader ever meet one another. With all of these inclusions, it might be difficult to keep track of who is who and what is what.

For this reason, a comprehensive encyclopedia is included within the game as well as a 176-page game manual and a quick-reference poster. (Who ever said taking over the galaxy would lack complication?) It had to happen eventually. The only thing LucasArts loved more than pimping out its Star Wars franchise, was staying on the cutting edge of technology. So when galactic conquest simulations became the new buzzword, you could have bet dollars to doughnuts that you'd be seeing a galactic conquest simulation Star Wars game. This is that game.

Actually, this is a better fit than most genres Star Wars has tried to squeeze into. These are the games like Masters of Orion and Space Empires - simulators requiring you to start small in funds and equipment, and best your opponent in securing both to seize control of the galaxy. In fact, many of the technologies or ships in these games borrow, often liberally, from the Star Wars films.

So a game with the benefit of the license should do gangbusters, right? Well, in terms of content, the game offers pretty much everything you can expect and a few extra bonuses on the side. First, the expected: You can play as either the Empire or the Rebellion, in a galaxy you can define by size and AI difficulty (the largest galaxy is near 200 planets) Each planet you capture offers limited space for building mines and factories, which collect ore and convert it into points, which then go toward building structures or units. Distant, barren planets can be colonized by your forces. 'Core' systems with populated worlds have the additional factor of their inhabitants to consider. If they like your side, things will be naturally easier for you, and harder for your foe to subvert you. If they prefer the other team, you must garrison troops there to prevent uprisings, losses from piracy, and work stoppages at your mines and factories.

Planets that support the other side more fervently obviously require more troops to keep things operating and 'civil.' Next, the unexpected: There aren't as many differences between the two sides as you would think, but those that exist are certainly true to the films. Each side has a number (decided by the size of your universe) of recruitable heroes that are vastly better at varying skills than regular 'buildable' units. The Rebellion generally has better diplomats and espionage agents, while the Empire has better military commanders. The primary purpose of these heroes are to either include in land or space garrisons, thereby boosting their defense and effectiveness, or to send on a number of missions that include Recon, Assassination, Kidnapping, and Diplomacy.

Recon for both sides is the primary source of information about enemy activities and their strength on specific planets. A recon mission on a planet you own will uncover enemy agents operating there, or incoming enemy fleets, with the amount of information retrieved dictated by the percentage success of the mission.

Diplomacy is the only way to change the minds of a planet's population toward your side. It's cheaper for you in the long run, since repeated diplomacy missions can raise support so high that you don't even need garrisons anymore. However, they take up an officer's valuable time, and like real diplomacy, do run the risk of getting mired and having no effect. The rest of the missions are pretty self-explanatory, and often one operation feeds into another. While some characters are just good soldiers, others are crucial to the success of either army. New ships and war technology, for example, can only be researched by specific characters. If they're out of the picture, their benfactors are in trouble.

It's quite a rush to have one of your probes suddenly find Lando Calrissian doing ship research on one planet, send out a perfect mission to bag him, and drag his sorry ass back to a planet you've set up as a jail - knowing you've dealt a measurable blow to the enemy. There's a lot to enjoy about Rebellion, which is why its so frustrating when we get to the disappointing. First, the AI is pitiful, even on the hardest setting.

I played as the Empire against the Rebellion; who benefit from a mobile headquarters. By the end of the game (some thousands of game days later), the Rebel HQ was right where it was at the beginning of the game. The AI enjoys pumping out miserable and cheap ships that form into sequentially-numbered fleets (giving you an idea of how many ships are out there), who then fly into orbit where they encounter a single medium-sized enemy ship, turn ass, and flee.

Your own AI can be set to manage your garrisons or productions, and is barely capable of either. Expensive, overpowered troops get built and assigned to routine garrisons, and any available space is assigned to new mines or factories - regardless of if you need them or not, regardless of if you need the space for other production facilities. So, let's assume that you actually manage to hustle a pal to play against you in multiplayer, fixing the problem of dummy AI. You still have some incredibly poor design decisions to overcome. The most obvious is the decision to have the game take place in a 'sort of real-time' system instead of pure turn-based. Running a galaxy is not an easy task in any way, and you're required to take care of a lot of micromanagement without much of a break to help. Worse yet is the inexcusable possibility that you may need to walk away from the game for more than a day.

Upon your return, you'll be damn lucky to remember everything that needs to be done on each specific planet. I had some scribbled notes after one session like 'Bolster defense at Coruscant' and the cryptic '2 officers to Mon Cal' but they made very little sense by the time I had returned. There was simply too much to keep track of. To attempt to offset this, your galactic map (which you will play mostly the entire game from) has many options to highlight planets that meet specific factors - like a toggle for planets with shipyards, or a toggle for planets with idle production facilities. They're moderately helpful, but only one filter can be active at a time, and they don't cover all the possibilities you would need (like a planet with weak defenses).

But the major problem is that the real-time system means you can't pause the game to toggle through your deficiencies and correct them accordingly before moving on - pausing throws up a big 'Game Paused' screen over your view and stops all input of commands. Another painful design element is the interface itself. Your standard screen is the entire galaxy, color-coded by faction ownership, with C-3PO or his evil double as your 'assistants.' They, and your planets, harass you through an in-game email system, which alerts you of everything from an enemy fleet attacking somewhere, to one of your regional governors taking a dump. The messages are categorized among production, diplomacy, etc, but the more planets you get, the more messages you'll be bombarded with throughout the game's days. Again, you can't pause game time to sort through them.

The main galaxy screen is divided into multiple sectors with ten to twelve planets each, and selecting a sector opens a slightly more detailed window of these planets. Selecting a planet opens up another window detailing what's on or orbiting the planet. From there you get separate windows for fleets, garrisons, etc. Here's the kicker - only two windows can be open at a time (to facilitate 'trading' between the two). Clicking a new window replaces or removes the original. It's literally like a DOS shell version of Windows, with extremely limited functionality.

You can fold windows down to a taskbar on the right, allowing you quick access to them, but the two active window limit still applies. If you're imagining moving windows around your galactic desktop and cascading them in order - forget it. Still, even if you could do this, it doesn't change the fact that the entire game is played through static windows and popups. If you're ready to let out a whoop and a cheer because a window has appeared telling you you've captured Darth Vader, you might like the game. If you require something a little more 'immersive,' well, no. Ground battles are simple affairs of random chance, unless you stack the deck ridiculously in your favor.

You can even the odds with pre-assault orbital bombings (usually at the cost of popular support), but it ultimately comes down to who has the greater number of stronger units, who will still take unexplained casualties from one 'dug-in' squad. Once you think you've amassed a force worthy of the planet's defenders, you simply click a 'ground assault' selection and instantly receive the results of your attempt. Space combat has the option of following a similar approach, or you can choose to take control of these battles as the commander. You will then be taken to a 3-D representation of space with some awfully poor models for the ships of both sides. Even here, your options are rudimentary, and basically consist of ordering the fighters to attack fighters, and the capital ships to attack other capital ships. There are a couple of maneuvers and battle plans that don't mean a damn thing, and the only real advantage of this mode is the ability to tell your ships to concentrate their fire on one larger ship - which the AI would not even consider if you chose the quick resolution option. There are a couple of other little niggles as well that either make the game sound that much cooler or that much more of a headache, depending on what kind of player you are.

First are the absolutely KILLER travel times. Sure, the ships have light speed, but that doesn't change the fact that you're looking at forty to seventy days of travel before your ships reach their destinations. From one system to another across the galaxy - around 150. It offers some strategic thinking, and pretty much nullifies the ability to play a reactionary game, but it's still a hefty punch in the nose.

You can increase the speed of the game to 2x normal, but at the result of getting hammered with messages and likely losing track of the rest of your universe. So any long trips pretty much mean sending your fleet out with a 'Godspeed' and forgetting about them until a message announces their arrival. Also, the game requires you to capture two leading heroes from the opposite side and hold them to win the game. This almost certainly ensures that you will have to capture the ENTIRE GALAXY to win. Otherwise, they'll always have new places to hide, and it doesn't do any damn good to get a message from your probe that someone important was spotted on Planet X when it will then take 59 days for your strike team to get there. Rebellion has some fantastic ideas, and one benefit of the Star Wars license is that it makes for a shorter learning curve than most similar games, if you've seen the movies.

You'll be more familiar with the tech and the terms. And, through time and persistence, you can build the Death Star and start blowing up every planet in your way.