This revised campaign attempts to capture this explosive conflict with modern Imperial and Republic warships – full details of which will be given in Parts II and III respectively. It soon became clear in the development stages that the challenge with this campaign was the economy – and how to balance the economies of both opposing sides. We now have a standardised method for determining the amount of starting cash in any given campaign. Bonuses are given for each type of planet controlled by the faction in question, with significantly greater cash bonuses for Core worlds than those on the outer rim. To this base sum is added about 2 month’s cash reserves based directly from the faction’s weekly income. A severe maintenance penalty is then applied for the military construction cost for all fleet combat units – the bigger your military, the less cash you get at the start.
The Imperial War Machine
The Imperial economy is the simpler model, so let’s take a look at the numbers. The Imperials start with only 2 core and colony worlds, 4 mid rim, 8 inner rim and 6 outer rim worlds, giving a starting cash bonus of $145,000 (with core worlds contributing much more than rim worlds). The Imperials have a reasonably large trade fleet, mostly centred on Chazwa and Svivren, comprising mostly of Action IV Mark IIs, BBF-1’s, CTF-1’s, and Super VIII Bulk Cruisers, with a handful of armed Action IV Mark III’s. Freight carrying armed transports, such as the Lambda-a & b, as well as the more heavily armed Sentinel and Sentinel Mark II tend to be located on military worlds more for their assault capabilities than their revenue generating ability. Even with the huge trade fleet on Svivren, the Imperial economy was still a meagre $17,000 per week compared to the $22,000 for the New Republic, and a further source of revenue was required for the Empire to have sufficient economic muscle to instigate a major conflict. The solution was simple, in the 3 years prior to the assault, it was assumed that Thrawn’s meticulous attention to detail would ensure a strong economy, and so many Imperial worlds have been heavily industrialised, with the majority of space and land slots filled with construction yards, barracks, defensive systems and mining facilties to boost the Imperial war machine.
So despite the Empire having fewer planets than the New Republic, it has a higher weekly income, if only by a fraction. This contributes a further $168,000 to the starting cash reserves. The penalty for this industrialisation and the massive military build up is a large maintenance bill of $213,000, leaving the Empire with a paltry $100,000 starting credits.
Diplomatic expansion
The situation for the New Republic is more complex. With a number of Alliance military victories, such as the taking of the Core Worlds, and the destruction of rogue warlords, such as Zsinj, the New Republic has been focussing diplomatic efforts to expand its membership, with considerable success, with the political leadership successfully persuading the Bimms to join the Republic only days ago. In addition to leaving many worlds relatively undeveloped and with little focus on infrastructure, this has stretched the ageing merchant fleet to the limit, with craft such as the 20 year old Gallofree Transports and Quazar Fire Bulk cruisers and a few captured Imperial transports unable to meet the demands of an expanding republic. Even and the recent addition of new freighters such as the MCF-1 and the heavily armed YT-2000 has not helped much as these are more suitable for smuggling operations and moving high value gemstones past customs stations than the bulk transport of goods to support major interstellar trade routes. The New Republic has taken the drastic step of cannibalising some of its older warships to make much needed cargo ships. CR90s, EF76 Frigates, Mark I Dreadnaughts and even Liberty-class Star Cruisers have been gutted and pressed into freight duties. While these ships maintain their military grade shields, they only possess skeleton crews and, at best, will only have defensive armaments, if any. Worse still, these ships do not have the damage control parties needed to survive long exposure to enemy fire, so loss of these ships would have high impact, as their freight carrying ability is considerable, and furthermore their home port of Sluis Van must be protected at all costs. It should also be noted that unlike the Imperial fleet, which has tended to separate military worlds from trading ones, most Republic worlds carry both military fleets and a range of small merchant vessels in orbit.
Overall, this has given the Republic a well needed cash injection, with the added benefit of removing older ships from military service and thereby reducing the fleet maintenance bill at the same time, giving a healthy $200,000 starting credits at the beginning of the campaign.
The Future for Economic development
The high level of industrialisation on most Imperial worlds leaves little room for further economic expansion, and while some planets are almost totally undeveloped, such as Honoghr and Trogan, there is good reason for this – development of these worlds will only bring very limited benefits. The Empire will be looking to its military forces to find new sources of income, and Grand Admiral Thrawn has located a number of vulnerable planets that should be easy to capture and exploit.
For the New Republic, some hard choices must be made. While the cash reserves will be vital to boost a weakened military, some effort must be made to quickly increase the level of industrialisation on some of the safer worlds, and to build up the limited military construction facilities to defend the Republic from the predations of a Grand Admiral.
