STAR WARS™ Rebellion

Star Wars: Rebellion is a game like no other. With either a giant but fractured Empire or a ragtag but mobile Rebellion at your fingertips, you need to conquer the galaxy using fleets, armies and special agents. Before you know it, you're thinking like the movie counterparts and sending hundreds of probe droids to unexplored planets or sending Leia Organa on diplomatic missions to persuade planets to join you. Both sides have their special characters, but with most Imperial characters excelling in Leadership and most Rebellion characters in Diplomacy, you'll fall into the expected playstyle of your faction before too long. If you're lucky, Luke, Darth Vader or the Emperor will spot a potential for the Force in a character, allowing them to train that character in the Jedi arts. Sometimes, this means Chewbacca or Thrawn ends up with Force Powers, leading to all sorts of hilarity. The game is real-time, which means that sometimes you're waiting for minutes before something happens, sometimes things happen so quickly you hardly have time to react. Thankfully, you can alter the flow of time. A friendly protocol and astromech droid filter your messages and can take over some of the more mundane tasks of running an Empire/Rebellion (like maintenance and mining). The space battles can be fought by hand and are a bit clunky, but once you figure out how they work, it's a joy to see your Star Destroyers tear the Rebel frigates a few new holes. The downside is that the computer will quickly figure out when they're outmatched and turn tail. Thankfully, Interdictor cruisers can be researched to negate all warp drives. The graphics are not great, the controls may not be user friendly and the game may be too slow and unwieldy for some. But it's also the only game that will allow you to build several Death Stars and massive fleets of Star Destroyers, allowing you to crush the Rebel scum once and for all. And for that, it is great.

I own three discs of Star Wars Rebellion (Supremacy as some in Europe may know it by). Three discs, because since the game came out 17 years ago I have poured innumerable hours into it and worn out two of them. I was one person to request GOG add this game to their library, and thought it would be a cold day in hell before that wish came true. I love this game. I don't know why: it's not graphically pretty; the space combat is limited, slow, and ugly; and it can have a sharp learning curve with the mines/refineries/maintenance points management. But if you spend time with it, it is charming. It is a delight to have your noghri commandos assassinate Lando Calrissian, Chewbacca, Admiral Ackbar and more. It's glorious to stave off a formidable fleet from Coruscant. It is invigorating to research Interdictor cruisers and catch a marauding (or massive) rebel fleet and obliterate them because they cannot jump to lightspeed. It is addicting. For me it was my first "one more turn" experience (in this case, "one more day"). If I had fleets in hyperspace, en route to rebel planets, I needed to see their flights through. And then again and again and WHOA it's 3AM. Don't get me wrong, it's fun playing as the rebels, however 3PO's voice is annoying compared to the diabolical red droid the Empire gets. He reminds me fondly of HK-47 from KOTOR. Anyway, so pumped this game is on here. Amazed that my request came true. I'm hoping that with Rebellion in digital form, maybe some modders will give it new life. I know modding Rebellion is not easy as it is a limited game engine, but let's see! Oh yeah, making Thrawn an admiral of a super star destroyer with Pellaeon as commander, scouring the outer rim or sitting on Coruscant......HNGHHHHHH Thanks GOG! <3

This one - wow. One of my all time favourites - ever since I first encountered it in 1999, it has been permanantly installed on all of my machines. Every year, an annual game of both Empire and Rebellion. Had nearly every character as a jedi. Alas, never Thrawn. Hard to master, but well worth the time. A real trip into Star Wars Legends, before the dark times, before the Disney. Alas there's no Mando and Grogu. But you can see the effort that they're putting in with links to little bits of lore in here - the Ghorman Massacre rates a mention. Essential for any Star Wars lover.

I played this when it first came out and it was the first 4x game I played, it still is probably the best to my mind because it is more than an economy grind and the occasional space battle... If for example you invade opposed planets then you start to alienate others in the surrounding sector. If you attack shipyards and other civilian buildings you get resentment but destroy the enemy's ability to build or mine... You can run sabotage or assassination missions and have agents for decoys which increase the chance of success at the likely cost of agents... Garrisoning planets lets you keep them, but you could have agents incite a violent uprising that doubles the garrison cost and can loose you the world whilst making you loose money and unable to produce ships... All ships have unique roles, even after they should have been supplanted, there is genuinely no useless ship if you use them right... In a nutshell, it is not just about force like empire at war or so many other strategy games.

Spies, sabotage, assassination, kidnapping, secret production and research planets on the outer rim, planetary invasions of Wookiee shock troops, and pouring probe droids towards the rim in search of the Rebel's hideout... Just make sure the other person can't see your screen!