Galactic War

Introduction

Galactic War is a roguelite campaign for Planetary Annihilation. Starting with only a small amount of tech you battle your away across the galaxy to uncover more, fighting increasingly tough and numerous opponents until you defeat the three enemy factions. Defeat bosses in specific systems and you’ll unlock new starting loadouts which you can use in future campaigns.

This guide will help you pick the right difficulty, explain the factions and unlocks, and also guide you through adding more maps.

Difficulty

The higher you set the AI difficulty the greater its eco modifier, economy handling and general intelligence will be. Normal uses a different set of maps from the other difficulty levels, with far less multi-planet systems.

Factions

• Legonis Machina
• Foundation
• Synchronous
• Revenants

By choosing a colour in the lobby you are choosing a faction. The faction you select will not appear in your war. The only difference between the factions are their boss systems and loadouts, so choose a faction whose boss you wish to avoid, or whose loadouts you have already unlocked.

Loadouts

Your starting loadout determines what units you have access to from the start of the war. You start with one loadout unlocked: the Vehicle Commander. Seven loadouts remain locked. You will unlock them by defeating particular faction bosses.

Each faction has multiple possible boss systems. At the start of a war, one system is selected for each faction. You may not always encounter a boss tied to a locked loadout.

Galactic War Overhaul

Once you’ve played enough Galactic War you might want to increase the challenge, or simply inject more variety into your game. The Galactic War Overhaul mod adds the following:

• Faction personalities
• Customised enemy/sub-commanders
• Eight new difficulties suitable for anyone from a new player to a veteran of the game
• Reduced sub-commander power so they won’t carry the game for you anymore
• Adds the possibility of multiple factions in a system and an FFA occurring
• Add support for shared army enemies
• Bosses are distinctly more difficult than surrounding systems
• Added planetary intelligence to allow you to make meaningful decisions on the galactic map
• Randomised spawns so maps remain fresh on replay
• Uses all game modes:
  • Bounty mode
  • Land anywhere
  • Sudden death
• You can give the enemy tougher commander units
• Option to give yourself more starting neutral systems
• The AI uses tech card buffs
• Guaranteed loadout to unlock every war
• 13 new loadouts
• Unlocks Galactic War’s biggest planetary systems
• Adds a new faction
• 109 new tech cards
• Multiple AI opponents to choose from

Installing

Go into Community Mods from the main menu. Click the Available tab and search for “gw”. Select Galactic War Overhaul and choose to install it.

Using the mod

In the Galactic War lobby you’ll find you have new difficulties available to you.

Difficulties

Where an item is greyed out it means the setting is specific to each Commander, not the difficulty level.

The difficulty in Galactic War Overhaul scales higher than the base game and higher difficulties assume you have unlocked better loadouts. The number of enemy Commanders will scale much higher than in the base game, so if you select a large galaxy make sure your PC is up to the task.

This mod introduces an option called Easier Start, which allows you to add more neutral systems at the beginning of the war to increase the amount of free tech you receive.

Factions

Play as whichever faction you find hardest to beat so that you don’t have to face them. Remember that your sub-commanders will play according to faction preference, so make sure to provide them with the necessary tech.

While each faction has a preference in how it plays, each Commander within that faction will play slightly differently.

Legonis Machina Focuses on land units The closest faction to the skirmish AI

Foundation:

• Focuses on air and naval units
• Can often be the easiest faction to face early

Synchronous:

• Uses a balance of all unit types
• A jack of all-trades but a master of none

Revenants:

• Focuses on orbital units
• Harder to beat on multi-planet systems

Cluster:

• Focuses on basic units
• Features different commanders