Essential Guide #12: Beginner's Guide to Age of Legends
Age of Legends (AoL) is a mod with 47 Galactic Conquest scenarios, 21 playable factions, 100s of heroes and 1000s of playable units. Where should you begin?
Welcome to Age of Legends!
In this beginner’s guide I want to keep things simple for new players, to ease you into the mod before introducing all of the many new goodies (and thousands of units) that Age of Legends has to offer. First of all, subscribe now for all the latest news and tips. Don’t miss a thing:
What Is The Age of Legends Mod About?
The mod aims to be a definitive experience to the Star Wars Galaxy in the decades after the Battle of Endor, as it was told in the Expanded Universe continuity (now called ‘Legends’ – hence the mod’s name). You don’t need to have read hundreds of books or comics to be able to follow events though: each scenario comes with a clear and concise explanation of what is going on.
In this period of galactic history, the Rebel Alliance turned into the New Republic, the Empire splintered into various warlord factions until it was eventually reunited into the government known as the Imperial Remnant, and the two sides of the Galactic Civil War came to an honourable peace treaty which left the New Republic in control of most of the known Galaxy.
Six years later, an invasion by the Yuuzhan Vong – aliens from another galaxy – plunged the Galaxy into a conflict even more devastating than the Clone Wars. A huge swathe of the Galaxy was conquered, many of the New Jedi Order were lost in battle, and the New Republic was destroyed. Out of the ashes, a Galactic Alliance was born uniting almost every remaining government. This Alliance defeated the Yuuzhan Vong and restored peace for a decade or so. (The events following the Yuuzhan Vong War are covered in an expansion pack for Age of Legends, called the Rise of Caedus.)
In Age of Legends, you can play as each of these major factions, and countless minor factions as well if you want a greater challenge. But as this guide is for beginners I’m going to focus on how to begin your journey through this period.
What Should You Play First?
The mod has nearly 50 Galactic Conquest scenarios, like the campaign map of the Total War games, and each covers a different period in galactic history. These are ordered chronologically, using the Star Wars calendar system of dating years as ‘ABY’ (after the Battle of Yavin).
If you want to start by simply looking around, try a space skirmish map, but be sure to make sure you select a Mod Map to access all features the mod has to offer. Set the AI difficulty to easy and you can progress through the tech levels quickly to see what ships are available for each faction.
But the main action of the mod is in the Galactic Conquest scenarios. If you want to play these chronologically, you can simply load up the first scenario, 4 ABY: Truce at Bakura, and dive in.
4 ABY: Truce At Bakura (Rebel campaign)
You will find the Rebel Alliance in the days after the Battle of Endor confronting the menace of the Ssi-ruuvi, while the Empire consolidates its forces after the devastating Alliance victory. The advantage to starting here is that almost all of the Rebel ships will be recognisable from the films: X-wings, Y-wings, Mon Calamari cruisers.
You’ll also get to encounter a new faction not available in any other mod, the Ssi-ruuvi, as well as the Hutts and a single breakaway Imperial warlord faction called Zero Command. The downside to this campaign is that it is quite difficult: the Rebel player is sandwiched between two powerful factions.
9 ABY: The Thrawn Campaign (either Imperial or Rebel campaign)
This is a great scenario to try if you want an iconic, and easily recognisable, Imperial playthrough. You start with a single Star Destroyer, the famed Chimaera, waiting for a mysterious Imperial leader to arrive from the Unknown Regions. He takes control of the remaining Imperial forces, and soon you will find half of the Galaxy under your control at the start of the campaign.
This campaign is very evenly matched 1v1 conflict between Imperial and New Republic forces, with many recognisable ship types. So you won’t be overwhelmed trying to figure out what ship does what if you aren’t very familiar with the Expanded Universe, and you won’t face a really asymmetric challenge.
If, however, you’re bored of basic Empire v Rebel/New Republic campaigns and want something completely original…
25 ABY: Vector Prime (New Republic campaign)
This is the moment at which the Yuuzhan Vong first arrive in the Star Wars Galaxy. You will find yourself commanding a small New Republic force, augmented with smugglers from the Outer Rim, and a handful of Jedi heroes, facing this new menace. This is a great introduction to a totally new period of Star Wars history, and because the campaign is a small size map, you won’t be completely overwhelmed by the scale of it.
You can also check out my dedicated guide to defeating the Yuuzhan Vong here, as they use some totally unique defensive and offensive technologies.
Alternatively, you can pick a faction you like the sound of (the Mandalorian Clans, the Hutt Cartel, the Chiss Ascendancy etc.) try them out in skirmish and then just dive in to one of their Galactic Conquest campaigns. Each campaign description tells you how difficult the campaign is for each playable faction in that scenario.
There are also a growing number of ‘what-if?’ Infinities scenarios. One depicts a Dark Empire led by the Reborn Emperor, facing off against the Yuuzhan Vong in 25 ABY instead of the New Republic and the New Jedi Order.
Dynamic Galaxy Mechanic
One of the text tooltips that appears when you first load a campaign explains this mechanic in full, but if you want some head’s up, keep reading.
In Age of Legends the galaxy is a dynamic place, full of smugglers, pirates, innocent civilians, merchants and traders, hostile alien races, marauders and more. In space battles, there is a chance that other factions will appear on the tactical map. They might fight alongside you, or your opponent, attack both of you, or else flee the battle (as civilian ships will attempt to do).
This makes every battle completely different, but if you don’t like the sound of this, you can turn this off when you start a campaign by clicking on the big red cross on the land build bar. Simple.
Invasion!
One of the unique features of AoL is the Invasion mechanic. If you load any campaign before 25 ABY, move to the top/north of the galactic map and you will see the planet Helska IV. If you want to mix-up your campaign, you can have the Yuuzhan Vong invade early! This can be a fun end-game challenge if you’ve conquered the map (galactic conquest campaigns don’t ‘end’ in AoL, to enable this mechanic to function), or if you want some mid-game chaos to shake things up.
Alternatively, if you want to play a historically accurate game, you can simply choose to not activate the Invasion.
Future releases will further expand this, to add additional faction options for the Invasion mechanic, so depending on the conditions you might have Ssi-ruuvi, Yevethans, Killik or Vagaari incursions, or full-blown invasions from the Dark Empire, Yuuzhan Vong or Empire of the Hand.
General Tips
- The New Republic and Galactic Alliance have a lot of local build options. Click on worlds like Mon Calamari, Corellia, Sullust or Hapes to see a stack of new ship types available for construction.
- Join the Discord server here. We have a friendly, active community of regular players who will be happy to help.
- The AI on ‘Hard’ difficulty is hard! Take some time to explore a faction’s roster and test things our before doing a full, proper playthrough as that faction.
- Lots of the scenarios cover quite obscure conflicts like the Chiss Civil War, or the border wars between Imperial warlords. These are great fun so don’t be put off if you aren’t familiar with them: each scenario comes with a clear introduction.
- The mod typically has 2 major updates a year. These are both advertised well in advance so that you don’t risk losing a save game.
Player Tips
Regular players on the Discord have also volunteered some excellent suggestions:
Many scenarios will give you unique, un-buildable and therefore irreplaceable units (thanks Ikari!)
A strong economy is essential to victory, says Kozaa79. He also advises that…
Super Star Destroyers look imposing, but aren’t invincible, and won’t win every fight.
Joel McFly has an excellent base game tip I wasn’t aware of. Press Ctrl + click three times on a unit to select all units of that type (NOT class). This is really helpful: if you select one bomber type and Ctrl + triple click, all bombers of all types will be selected.
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