Updated Impressions
We were able to sit down with a skirmish map on the fertile soil of the doomed planet Alderaan, where Rebel forces were forced to defend themselves from an Imperial ground assault, complete with the huge walker armors first featured in The Empire Strikes Back. As it turns out, the general idea behind combat between the game's various units goes a step beyond rock-paper-scissors. Every unit in the game will have a "counterunit" that can defeat it easily (so there won't be any individual "superunits" you can churn out exclusively to win), but every unit in the game will also have a favored enemy unit it will be extremely effective against.You'll see this represented onscreen; units firing on their favored enemies will kick up noticeably larger explosions--a clear visual cue that you're doing something right (or, if your units are getting hit by their counterunits, a clear cue that you need to change up your strategy quickly). These combinations should be largely intuitive; tanks crush infantry and artillery units decimate tanks, though there will be at least a few unique counterunit setups. For instance, the mighty Imperial walkers can be brought down by tying up their legs with cables from speeder ships, again, just like in The Empire Strikes Back. To give you a better sense of what works and what doesn't in battle, you'll be able to select a camera view that locks onto specific units and intelligently follows them into battle, focusing on both the units and the enemies they fight.