Empire at War Has a TON of Cut Content!

Empire at War, like many star Wars games, is chock full of cut Star Wars content, and I've tracked most of it down.
Editing by MarMarBunBun
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[@tupe444]

I'm guessing that the extra factions and political control would have been fairly intertwined, where the more that the planet's natives support you, the more you can get out of that planet.

[@kabob0077]

8:15 Knowing who formed Petroglyph I think it's that they ran out of time, Westwood was like the Bungie of RTS games, they defined (and MADE!) the genre and pushed limits and since Petroglyph is ex-Westwood I think they had a lot of ambitions for this game and not enough time to fulfill them.

[@RadicalEdward2]

5:00 Tanya is an homage to Petroglyph’s history with Red Alert since Petroglyph was founded by original members of Westwood Studios prior to being bought out by EA.

[@RadicalEdward2]

My guess is she was cut because the reference would have been too on the nose and they didn’t want EA coming for their knee caps.

[@RadicalEdward2]

5:31 the Shadowclaw miiight be a very far reaching reference to the Brotherhood of Nod from Command & Conquer which prominently featured a black hand (referencing the Black Hand). However the name could also be a reference to how the Allied faction’s insignia is the eagle/falcon which had black talons. This would be symbolic to how she was used primarily for covert operations with her being the “claw in the shadows”

[@lostfan10000]

This actually solves a mystery I did notice when I was younger. I always wondered why the Nightsister rancors didn't eat their targets while the generic ones from the base game did. Very cool to finally have an answer. Great video!

[@slushg3326]

Now Rancors eat their targets in FOC too. Unsure about the night sister unit yet since I haven’t tested that one since the patch.

[@AceUzumazi]

Nightsister:"My Rancor seeks flesh!" Petroglyph guy:"Sorry Nightsister, we had censor Rancors eating people." Nightsister:"But he's so hunger!" Ewok Handler: "Hey can I still strap bombs to these furballs?" Petroglyph guy: "Oh hell yeah!" 😂🤣

[@Venator-Class_Star_Destroyer]

Imagine the more modern Empire at War format mixed with the more complex Rebellion. That would be SO GOOD!

[@alduintheanti-dragonborn]

Here's hoping that when they make Empire at War 2, Petroglyph is given plenty of time to work on their game and all the resources they could need.

[@demonicaxeman7264]

Not to mention that if we get the game sequel, the mod community will have a field day adding much more than they can right now.

[@alduintheanti-dragonborn]

@@demonicaxeman7264 Considering they made a game made in 2006 look as if it were made nearly 2 decades more advanced than what it is, I can't wait to see how great they'll make the sequel.

[@vin1785]

@@demonicaxeman7264 indeed all tho thrawns revenge and fall of the republic is fun ground battles is a slog for me

[@kabob0077]

5:09 Kyle being regulated to Skirmish Only is... _Disrespectful._

[@michaelandreipalon359]

I'll say.

[@kabob0077]

Hang on... Can we retcon the Penguins into Canon?

[@michaelandreipalon359]

We already got hot choco, what's to deny a certain kind of penguin to actually have originated from some obscure Star Wars galaxy planet?

[@kR-qj7rw]

i mean someone writing the high republic books broight urai fen's species into canon, force sensitive bird like big humanoids but lets be honest theres deep cut references and then theres unreleased only in the code penguin pwan'ii native sci fi penguin people

[@thesmilyguyguy9799]

Yes

[@cptshelly]

I mean if we can get holiday special content made canon , there's definitely hope.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

@@cptshelly Only the interesting content though, like Chewbacca's family. The cringey rest is rendered apocrypha.

[@Drave_Jr.]

Note that one of the planets they had plans for was Hapes, meaning they planned to add the Hapans, an independent faction, to the game. They'd probably be who the ally mechanic was meant to work for

[@CoreyLoses]

I don't think the inclusion of Hapes or Lwhekk points to them planning either the Ssi-Ruuvi or Hapans as an actual faction at any point.

[@Drave_Jr.]

@@CoreyLoses Like you said, alliances were a thing they were planning, so it's not out of the realm if the homeworlds for some major factions being in the game points to it

[@kR-qj7rw]

im more surprised bakura and lwhek were on like me alongside a bunch of people that missed the 90s books would have been introduced to such things in eaw, staring at the lading screen and planet descriptions you just learned of random stuff way easier than reading books or on the internet. EAW did a lot to introduce a bunch of gloop shittos to more casual audiences

[@InvictusMatrix]

Perhaps they weren't a physical faction like the Rebels, Empire and Consortium. I'm thinking they would've had neutral units that only spawn in battles, but they could influence the credit income of their planets based on their relationship with whoever owns them. If they really liked you, they'd boost the planet's income and support you in space and ground battles. If they hated you, they'd lower the income and side with your enemies.

[@EmperorNiko]

4:47 I always took that "Leah" misspelling as a reference to how Dodonna calls her Princess Leah in ANH instead of a mistake. But that just might be my own love of adding in-code references and jokes that sees that. To add to the Tani "Cathar-Bothan" thing. Her concept art from Dan Miller shows a much more horse-dog looking Bothan which they made more feline in the later versions.

[@013wolfwarrior]

Huh... I thought Bothams were supposed to be goat people...

[@TheRevan1337]

Bothans are dogs :p

[@kR-qj7rw]

bothans are furries they literally look like either dogs or cats or horses depending on art

[@BirbarianHomeGuard]

All I want in life is Imperial Venators.

[@SuperExtremeTNT]

Stellaris new dawn mod you can build them and build imperial acclimators, for AOTR has 3 when you start but u can't build them.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Hence Thrawn's Revenge. Stellaris feels too big while AotR is too ingrained with the Disney Alt-universe.

[@larry-three8225]

My mod, Alliance at War has them. ':^)

[@SuperExtremeTNT]

@@michaelandreipalon359 For me personally i prefer the canon approach with sprinkles of legends ships and vehicles. I just like creating cool fleets with nice ships.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

@@SuperExtremeTNT Good point, but I still prefer continuity purism, no matter what.

[@veresdon4732]

5:26 Merchant_freighter isnt entirely cut and appears in Yavin mission right at the end in Consortium campaign

[@jaredmitchell568]

Please do a video on the cut content on eawx mods, I would love to hear the ideas and concepts you and the team had. Cut content and bets content is super interesting to me

[@jjd13579]

Would be cool to see the video that you suggested at the end with content that you had to cut from EAWX!

[@SixshotRevan]

The now-defunct "Ultimate Empire at War" mod added Admiral Daala and her Star Destroyer The Gorgon into the game. One thing I found in the mod's XML code was that there were files for the other 3 Star Destroyers Daala commanded in the novels, but they hadn't been enabled. After a little tinkering, I had the ISDs Basilisk, Manticore, and Hydra working as unique, non-respawning units in Galactic Conquest. I was too much of a noob at the time to read the game's code without a mod unlocking it for me, so I never knew if this was cut content for vanilla EAW or for the mod.

[@kabob0077]

3:49 Honestly that would make sense given how often he seems to show up in the field on small raids and stealth ops... Also, can we just talk about how often we've had to rescue him? Because I think he really should stay back instead of being in the field so much.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Well, he is like his father.

[@Alex-ji6ob]

I’d love to see you cover more cut content from other star wars games

[@Fallub]

What a cool bunch of information. Great video.

[@TheRealAldrius]

I'm pretty sure there was also cut sith content too, for the ending of FOC there were models for the Sith, if Petroglyph did make EAW 2, I do hope they expand on that story line and bring the ancient sith back.

[@kR-qj7rw]

That's not what cut content is.. That's just a expansion/sequel bait none of it is cut content because that wasn't something the game planed to have Its a hook for a next game or expansion nothing that was intended for being playable

[@JefferyCheney]

There were also graphic enhancements which got left out, such as the ability to have independent light sources attached to objects. In theory, these would have operated independently from the global light source, being the sun. The code for these has values for intensity, color and falloff which indicates it would have been used for things like street lamps, emitted light for laser beams or explosions etc. There are also some shaders in the game files that are incomplete or unused...though the code for some of them indicates that they were just leftover from a shader library that, presumably, Petroglyph had purchased as a foundation for their own shaders. More of a failure to clean up files than content intended for the final game.

[@Kaloshen]

Farseer is that you?! sup nerd.

[@Kaleesh_General27]

This was super interesting! I’ve been playing since 2007 and I’ve been playing thrawn’s revenge since you first started it and I didn’t know all but one of these things- the rancor one

[@HardmodeEnabled]

@coreyloses 5:25 it was used in the game, I believe either the Death Star intel mission in FOC or some other part in the campaign, you cant control it - but I remember this asset was 100% in the game, I think it was used as scenery somewhere as well.

[@veresdon4732]

yeah it appears in that yavin mission right at the end and supposed to be destroyed by player

[@dichsedichse]

Yea, you can even see it in the clip at 0:08

[@JIMvc2]

@@dichsedichseI just noticed it. Wow 😯

[@austinbaccus]

The thumbnail is great. Caught my eye right away.

[@CoreyLoses]

Thanks!

[@ilovemonkeyos]

Boy do I want a “definitive” or “Director’s Cut” version of EaW now.

[@slb797]

It did feel like they intended to do more with Xizor. Perhaps they even hoped to get back to him in whatever was supposed to come after FoC

[@zdravkobuljan6931]

Corey, Any way to add the Futures from the Star Wars Rebellion/Supremacy game? I think the energy function was in the old game the auto repair, so some ships could fix them up during battle to fire again or restore shields, but its forever if been inside the code. Overall the older game had some nice ways to micro manage like you had to build fighters extra for the Capital ships, and had to wait till they replaced over time same with ship damage, so if your ship is damaged over a planet without shipyard it wont be repaired till you build one.

[@myriad9597]

4:46 Could this have been intended as a subtle refrence to command and conquer red alert(The allied commando, also called tanya.)? Petroglyph did have a fair few folks from westwood working there, no?

[@skipper2285]

Thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to make this. I can easily understand the developer tradeoffs involved. From a gamer perspective, you can anticipate playing a game indefinitely or you can play a game. If the only way a dev can stay deving is to allow you to play the game, then at some point inspirational and aspirational tradeoffs will occur. Then the question becomes: "Will we include the cut content in updates?" That can depend on many things. If a large number of people are playing the game, will the update significantly change gameplay, and thus (at least among the vocal player base) cause outrage and backlash? If so, save it for 2.0. Oh, no 2.0 because other projects and my children are hungry? Sorry. Enter modders like you to save the day!

[@markjerue9734]

This happens a lot with mods too. Let's say you want to make the perfect mod with everything you want in it for your strategy game of choice. Well, that'll take you potential years by yourself and require lots of code and art - chances are you might be able to do one but not the other. So you want help. But to get help, you need to get folks interested - and to get folks interested, you gotta have an imperfect, playable version released. So its a catch 22. To make the perfect mod, you need to release an imperfect mod.

[@kabob0077]

1:11 So something like an MG team in Company of Heroes but with an E-Web or something?

[@michaelandreipalon359]

That looks exactly it.

[@kabob0077]

@@michaelandreipalon359 Now I want a Star Wars game in the style of Company of Heroes .. Preferably set in Legends, because that allows for more possibilities in gameplay and story since I don't see Disney wanting an RTS in their version of Canon...

[@michaelandreipalon359]

@@kabob0077 Ehh, feels too grounded and limiting. Star Wars shouldn't be that.

[@demonicaxeman7264]

I have a lot of gratitude towards the mod creators of "Thrawn's Revenge." The latest update is awesome. It's more challenging because every cycle credit payment has to be allocated to maintain your fleet, which I think is realistic. They got rid of the political aspects like choosing between Mon Mothma and Borsk Fey'lya for elections which to be honest, does not truly interest me in a galactic conquest. And you don't have to deal with an unexpected enemy fleet attack from behind you when you are already attacking an enemy system in progress. And finally, I love how the small frigates rotate in chaos when destroyed.

[@BrownFoxWarrior]

Would absolutely love to see a fleshed out Empire at War 2 with quality of life changes, new units, etc. though I really don't trust any company in these days to not screw it up somehow.

[@kabob0077]

1:51 Brother, you are pinned there!

[@richyrich7260]

Corey, this is your chance, make the Penguins Canon in your mod. DEW IT!

[@richyrich7260]

Or at the very least, make a submod pleeeeeaseeeeeeeeee

[@martinsolis4197]

The Empire at war demo came out a few months before the game was released and it had a demo campaign that you saw in teh files. Pretty late in development it seemed that the venators were the default cruisers instead of the acclimator.

[@miniaturejayhawk8702]

The V-wing was already in rhe original. However it belonged to the pirate faction. Also its funny how the consortium had venators but the empire didnt.

[@zaleost]

I assume this was mostly as its role was already filled by the Victory SD and they wanted to keep the rosters as streamlined as possible.

[@kR-qj7rw]

thatthing about the consortium having venators caused so many people to think the criminals were just loaded with clone wars tech lamo

[@kabob0077]

6:49 Shame but neat idea, would the mechanics for him be first to buy him gets him until he dies then he's up for grabs?

[@hanifloka130]

Question is, how many of these cut contents did you and the EaWX team restore for all of the EaWX mods? Also, can the Rancors in EaWX eat people?

[@nemesis1st]

That part of code is not commented out, like in FoC, but I didn't use rancors enough to confirm it actually works, technically it should

[@nemesis1st]

Something something, entirely forgot about tag, which we're actually using now hehe

[@Seriona1]

I think the one thing I wanted most but never got was the ability to build Marines which can board enemy ships during space battles and capture said ship for your faction.

[@justinhess2747]

Definitely would be interesting to see more of the energy mechanic fleshed out. Might get the Ssi-ruvi into the game more smoothly.

[@JIMvc2]

Don’t forget it’s easy to enable the Executor in the game and in skirmish. For those who don’t know. There’s a full model of the Eclipse in the game files.

[@zaleost]

I actually remember being very disappointed when I'd realised that the Eclipse only existed in game for the final campaign mission after thinking that it would be a new unit for the Empire. Seeing as they still listed it under the Empires new units in the game manual.

[@JIMvc2]

@@zaleostI made the Eclipse available for skirmish and GC. Wasn’t difficult to swap out the build model to the fully functional model.

[@cptshelly]

2:00 why do i feel like nothing else in the video will compare to the penguins

[@PenguinofD00mxxx]

Wow, that's a lot of potentially cut mechanics I never knew about.

[@luizviniciusvieiraalexandr4979]

Ah yes the Venator my beloved.

[@arthasmenethil9957]

Ima need a little more explanation on these energy pools for ships. So if this pool runs out, the ship is stunned? Temporarily I assume. Does it regenerate like shields? Are weapons stopped from firing or do they just do reduced damage? Or are they not affected? Is this something that most modders remove in their mods?

[@CoreyLoses]

Energy has a recharge rate on every unit. The weapons stop firing I believe. You can't disable the system. The values in both base game and mods tend to mean you don't ever notice it happening.

[@arthasmenethil9957]

@@CoreyLoses So are the pools so large you rarely see it run out or the recharge rate is so fast? This was by far the most surprising fact in the video for me. With the amount I've played this game I'd think I'd have heard of this before.

[@MindTheGag]

As I remember, and I modded EAW a little a long time ago, too, energy played a role: It revealed it's importance with imperial ships that could overcharge/-clock their turbolasers, shields would drop and after the ability ended turbolasers would fire more scarcely because of energy depletion. You had to pull a ship out of battle for a while to regenerate sufficient energy and thus the firerate of turbolasers or shields at all. Ion lasers where the ones that not only did shield damage, but also energy damage when shields where down. The Mon Calamari Cruiser had the ability to boost it's shields, for that to work properly anytime as in EAW it also boosted energy regeneration. To put it clear: Turbolasers and shield regeneration needed energy, when a ship ran out of energy it's shields began to drop.

[@Abygoneage]

In my opinion, this game has become too simple for it's own good. Add 1-2 additional resources for campaign complexity (Ship Crews are pretty much a non factor, which confuses me why it's even in the mod). Ground combat should maybe have a "Ammo Capacity" Mechanic, where infantry and possibly Vehicles work on that "Energy" system you were referencing with the ships. Add a Tech system (Economy, Military, Infrastructure) so there can be different Avenues of approach for each campaign, Similar to Total War games. Maybe add a leveling system to heroes ? instead of making them OP from the Start. The game is just way too simple and it's a constant rinse and repeat, I am unfortunately often trying to convince myself to enjoy the game since It's the most recent Star Wars RTS. It's been 20 whole years since it's release, Have the developers just release every single tool for modding.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Granted, said simplicity does make it more comfortable on our busy lives, compared to the Rebellion predecessor.

[@Abygoneage]

@@michaelandreipalon359 true but it needs to have some measure of replayability. Since if the combat was supposed to be the focus of the features, it's sorely lacking. These added features could be a sub mod if they don't want to drastically change the game that much.

[@alexmauney9705]

Ammo would already turn the extremely slow ground combat into a slog unless you transform it into a Dawn of War/CoH style combat system where infantry is far more prevalent and battles are scaled down. It’s a shame the ground combat is so boring in EaW given it was made mostly by former CnC devs.

[@M-elephant7777]

I always thought it was weird that Leia wasn't the tech stealer in the game. Great video!

[@thimovijfschaft3271]

I started laughing out loud when T-posing Dodonna appeared on screen

[@MalevolentSpirit234]

Asserting dominance over the Empire

[@mattparker9726]

7:49 YES! I think this would make holding certain planets MUCH more interesting, and can be implemented in much the same way as the Nhogri assasins, limited by X amount of units. Yub yub Commander!

[@_Dovar_]

One of the best Star Wars games to exist.

[@happalula]

the game was awesome and i still wish to see a successor...

[@olliesloane151]

For whatever reason the idea of rancors eating people absolutely terrified me more than anything else as a kid. I loved Star Wars but I refused to watch episode 6 because of it. I'm not sure why I was like that but I know I would have at least appreciated that change lol.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Still would love to see that patched back to FoC.

[@CoAndCoLaptopAccount]

Great video!

[@mattparker9726]

5:49 Please put her in as a playable Hero unit for the Hutts. PLEASE COREY SHAKE IT UP PAP!.

[@ImJustPeter]

I really hope that one day we can get an Empire at War sequel...

[@MatthewChenault]

Can we take a moment and reflect on the fact that the ending of Forces of Corruption was a massive tease at a sequel expansion or a sequel game?

[@CommanderBohn]

We could've gotten Kyle Katarn in Empire At War...

[@CoreyLoses]

He was there, in skirmish.

[@CommanderBohn]

@@CoreyLoses Dear God I'm sad now...

[@mattparker9726]

So Corey when are we getting a penguine model in Thrawn's Revenge??

[@tirubius739]

DUUUUUDE that game was my life in my childhood. Seeing now that it could have been even better hurts. Please God let Petroglyph survive long enough so that Mickey Mouse lets them do a part 2.

[@Mothrix_]

Wait which version of E@W is shown in the beginning?

[@MarMarBunbun]

That's forces of corruption, the only dlc expansion, it's part of the campaign/story mode

[@hamishsewell5990]

Love Empire at War. Really needs a remake of a sequel

[@WellWisdom.]

Thank you.

[@kabob0077]

7:10 Ah this scumbag...

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Be grateful he's most likely dead. (Surprising how he's referenced in the movie Free Enterprise.)

[@kabob0077]

@@michaelandreipalon359 At least Vader gave him what he deserved...

[@michaelandreipalon359]

@@kabob0077 True, true, though Xizor did get his revenge later on with the end of the Empire.

[@paulrasmussen8953]

You can bet if petro gets the green light fir a sequel they will take another look at these mechanics

[@apoolofwomen]

The remaster we desperately need

[@geneonkerensky7450]

ooh! Interesting!

[@hanskywalker1246]

Does anybody know how to increas the capacity in space battles?

[@valruhn9213]

👍🏻

[@kingrex3411]

Gonna be honest, I don't think they should release a sequel to this game. I think it'd be better and easier to instead release more expansion packs, add more mechanics, fix more bugs, overall modernize the game more and even add more avenues for existing mods to expand.

[@Skyhunter826]

To do something like that they'd have to build any entirely new game so they could use/make a new engine that would allow them to "modernize" the game in any significant way

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Not exactly a new game, more like another Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. Difficult, such a concept, but not impossible.

[@justinlast2lastharder749]

No really? Cut Comtent? The Master of Modding for this game telling us there are so many additional resources? You're blowing my mind dude, blowing my mind! ;) 😂

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Seeing these occasionally restored by modders is nice, but really, I'll prefer Petroglyph slowly but surely officially restoring the useful bits themselves in a manner similar to Halo: The Master Chief Collection since the rough years that got launched. Also, I'm against the camp of it getting a sequel. Today's gaming is so full of long awaited sequels getting diminishing returns.

[@blahblah7720]

the real dream would be for the source code to leak on the internet in full.

[@Kolljak]

I want them to remake this game so bad. i dont even care if they shove disney starwars into it. just give us modders the framework of a 2024 - 2030 engine remake.

[@kalskirata42]

Petroglyph needs to re-enable Rancor eating in FoC. censorship is for stupid people

[@CoreyLoses]

I don't think you know what regulations are

[@kalskirata42]

@@CoreyLoses ah yes, because animating 10 polygons with 2005 graphics is soooo realistically gory and brutal and rotting our kids' brains. those regulations were made by people who don't even know how a wood fireplace works, let alone modern computer tech.

[@CoreyLoses]

It's lovely that you have your opinion, but Petroglyph doesn't get to say what is or isn't valid for the ESRB decisions to be.

[@laverniustucker8198]

I just wanna play "Revan's" and Yuuzhan Vong in TR:ICW

[@lordrevan571]

Go play rogue squadron and learn how to pronounce Ri-ken

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Far as my ears can tell, it was pronounced "Rai-can".

[@lordrevan571]

@@michaelandreipalon359 Think depending on the mission he'll pronounce i either Rai-can or Ri-ken, but I blame that more on just bad audio from back in the day.

[@KyberGaming47]

Just me or did that penguin scratch its butt and sniff it🤣🤣🤣