Star Wars: Battlefront II/Galactic Conquest Mode

Galactic Conquest mode is a new mode of gameplay where you take control of one of the four factions and battle for control of the galaxy. There are 13 planets to start with, and when a base planet is captured, it becomes neutral and does not count to the amount of planets you own. Use credits from winning battles and occupying planets to purchase new units and one-time use bonuses. All battles on planets are fought in conquest mode, while space battles are in assault format.

While Galactic Conquest has quite a simple set of strategic rules, it is fun to play and essentially creates a "campaign" of instant-action battles.

Bonuses
Bonuses can be purchased for anywhere from 200 to 800 credits. All are one-time use and you can only have three at a time.

Energy Boost

 * Cost: 200 credits
 * Use: All your units energy meters(not health meters!)replenish faster.

Garrison

 * Cost: 200 credits
 * Use: Adds 30 troops to your reinforcements count when it hits 30, giving you total of 60.

Auto-turret

 * Cost: 200 credits
 * Use: Guards your command posts with destroyable auto-turrets.

Bacta Tank

 * Cost: 400 credits
 * Use: Replenishes the health of all friendly units over time.

Supplies

 * Cost: 400 credits
 * Use: Gives you the ability to hold more...well...supplies.

Sabotage

 * Cost: 600 credits
 * Use: Damages all enemy vehicles upon spawning in.

Enhanced Blasters

 * Cost: 600 credits
 * Use: Amplifies the power of all blaster-type weapons.

Combat Shielding

 * Cost: 400 credits
 * Use: Gives your units extra health upon spawning in, denoted by the flashing part of your health meter.

Leader

 * Cost: 800 credits
 * Use: Activates that faction's playable hero character for that planet.

Unit Cost
All non-commander units and non-elite units (assault droids, rebel smugglers and the like) are 1000 credits. The Clone Commander, Imperial Officer, MagnaGuard, Bothan Spy, Wookiee Warrior, Dark Trooper, Jet Trooper, and Droideka are all 1800 credits to recruit.

Fleets
Fleets get you around. When one of your fleets occupy the same space as an enemy planet or fleet, a corresponding battle starts. before battle, any applicable bonuses can be activated. All bonuses work in planetary battles, but only sabotage, bacta tank, auto-turret, and combat shielding work in space. If at any time you attack a planet, or take part a space battle, and are defeated you will lose your fleet. You can build a fleet whenever you need one. If you have no fleets on the map, the first one is free. However each subsequent fleet added to the map at the same time costs an extra 1000 credits to build (so 1000 credits for the second fleet, 2000 credits for a third one, etc. So try not to lose many battles, or get used to having only one or two fleets on the map!

Plantetary Battles
Planetary battles start when a fleet occupies the same space as an enemy planet. A confirmation screen, which is a close-up view of your fleet outside the planet, will come up. Press psx: X (or mouse click the button) to continue. The attacker, then the defender will choose a bonus. Then the battle starts. The object is to capture all the command posts or eliminate all enemy troops. When you do either, its victory, same goes for the enemy. There are always 150 reinforcements to start with, which can be added to by the Garrison bonus. There are usually 6 command posts on a planet, but Kashyyyk has only 4, Geonosis has 7, Mygeeto has 5. Once you have either won or lost the battle, the aftermath screen will come up, showing how many credits each faction earned. Once the planet overview is up, you can continue with more battles.

Space Battles
A space battle starts when two opposing fleets occupy the same space. This type of battle is more used as a way of defense than offense. By winning and destroying an enemy fleet, you prevent a possible threat to a planet. This starts off like a planetary battle, everyone chooses a bonus. When the battle starts, most units find themselves in the hangar, or sometimes in the innerts of the ship. Make your way to a starfighter and use the controls found on the controls page. After you've won or lost, the credit screen comes up. It's a flat 300 credits for a win, and 100 for losing. Be careful, because if you've lost, 100 credits will help you very little in constructing a new fleet!

Types of Ships
Multi-Purpose Starfighters: Jack of all trades, master of none. These ships perform well in attacking other starfighters and capital ships. However, the two other specialized classes are better at both areas.

Scout Class Fighters: This class is more armed towards dominating ship-to-ship battles, but are hardly, if at all, effective at attacking a capital ship.

Bomber Class Fighters: These heavy-hitters are aimed towards capital ships. However, with no lock-on weapons, these ships will have to score a hit the old-fashioned way in a dogfight.

Attack Transport Class Fighters: These ships pack lots of weapons, and the biggest ship in this class seats six! These are designed for raids, and anytime you can land one of these in an enemy hangar, you can spawn units from it. These are very slow.

Space over Planet Battles
If you attack a planet with an enemy fleet on it, a battle in the space above the planet ensues. You fight in the exact same way a space battle is usually fought (see "Space Battles"), the only diffrence is the planet you are fighting over is in the background. If the attacker wins, the defender's fleet is destroyed, and the attackers then assault the planet in the same manner as a planet battle (see "Planetary Battles"). Should the attackers win, they take the planet.

Strategy
The various star systems on the galactic map are connected by jump routes. By controlling and successfully defending key junctions in this system of pathways, you can block off enemy access to entire areas of the map. Planets control inhabited systems, while fleets are needed to control uninhabited ones. Additionally you can park a freindly fleet over a freindly planet to make it that much harder for the enemy to capture and wrest control of the system away from you.

Depending on whether you prefer fighting space or planetary battles you can tailor your strategy around this. Let's say you are playing in expert mode, and you know that if the enemy invaded one of your planets it would mean fighting a very tough battle for your faction to win (for example you are playing as Republic and defending Polis Masa, which is a very tough map for the Republic). In this case, you probably want to leave a fleet in orbit around that planet and you probably want to move the front line away from Polis Masa as soon as possible.

On the other hand, if you are confident that a planetary battle would be easy for your side to win (for example you are playing as CIS and defending Dagobah, where the CIS has a strong positional advantage on that map) you might prefer to have no fleet guarding the planet. In essence you are welcoming the enemy to try and invade a planet you think is easy to defend. So it might be convinient to leave Dagobah as a front line system as you concentrate on capturing other parts of the galaxy.

In this way you can economize the number of fleets on the map, and try and block the enemy access to areas with difficult planets while keeping the easily defensible planets on the front lines where most battles will be fought.