The campaign follows the conquest of the intergalactic crime lord, Tyber Zann, and his underworld organization, the Zann Consortium between the events of the destruction of the first and second Death Star and right up to the climactic theft of the Eclipse, an Eclipse-class dreadnought. Tyber Zann corrupts planets with his Defilers in order to obtain information of the other two factions, sabotage, and to gain credits. In the campaign, Tyber also tries to unlock the secrets of an ancient Sith holocron, which Silri later uses to find the ancient Carbonite Sith Army.
Galactic Conquest gameplay remains very similar to the original Star Wars: Empire at War with a few major changes. The Zann Consortium's new corruption element is a new feature which provides bonuses to the competing factions in addition to the benefits provided to the Zann Consortium. Units produced from Cantinas and using bounty hunters to neutralize heroes cost significantly less on corrupted planets. As an additional bonus to Rebels, smugglers do not expire on corrupted worlds. Also, the original Death Star no longer appears, being replaced by the second one after being destroyed in the original game. The same goes for Red Squadron, which has been reformed into Rogue Squadron. Alderaan is now an asteroid field. Rather than being mod-only, as in the first game, the Executor now is fully playable in Galactic Conquest mode, and is the most powerful combat unit in the game. Also, when a faction wins the war (e.g., all enemy planets are captured/destroyed, both enemy leaders are killed, etc.) there is no end cutscene; the game instead skips immediately to the credits, unlike in the last game. However, this may be due to the fact that, unlike in the last game, there is now only one story mode (Zann Consortium) and thus one end cutscene for both the story and Galactic Conquest, which, in the case of the latter, may not be an appropriate ending based on the way the player won the mode.
Skirmish has been changed slightly, while still keeping to the original game. One major difference is 3 faction battles, and the ability to fight the same faction (mirror battles).
Land skirmish battles feature a new base building mechanic – outposts. Outposts can be captured like buildpads. Once captured, outposts build one of 3 structures, depending on the faction. The Mining Facility and Hutt Palace can be built by any faction while the other structure is unique to each faction: Repulsorlift Jammer (Zann Consortium only), Uplink Station (Rebellion only), and M-68 planetary magnapulse cannon (Empire only).
Space skirmish battles are also similar to Empire at War, with some differences. When an outpost is captured by the Zann Consortium, it can build a Venator-class Star Destroyer instead of the Interceptor-class Frigate that the Rebels and Imperials get.
Mulitplayer has advanced since the original game, bringing in new maps and new teams. Players using the same version as you appear in blue, orange for password only games and red for locked games.
While many critics and gamers welcomed the new expansion, some decried it as being overly buggy—one particularly glaring bug that was pointed out often was the announcement of a ysalamiri cage constructing when an enemy fleet was incoming. Also, Garm Bel Iblis's "shield flare" ability can glitch and cause the particle to remain for the duration of the battle. Both of these glitches were fixed in the 1.1 patch.
A less noticeable but equally glaring error was where only the cannon barrel of the Imperial Bp.2 Anti-Infantry Turret would rotate when targeting and firing on a nearby enemy, but in the base game the entire top of the turret rotates properly, leaving few possible explanations.
There was even a bug where, in campaign, the player loses his or her main characters and cannot continue. This was fixed in a patch.
- Strategically position buildings and units on a planet to protect key choke points
- 5 new buildable structures during skirmishes
- Land transport units for all factions
- 3 way Space, Land, and Galactic Conquest battles
- Ship and space station repair
- Ability to pass by systems undetected using bribery
- Interior missions
- Death Star II can fire on capital ships and planets.
- The Zann Consortium is able to build some enemy unit types after acquiring them in a piracy mission.
- Capital Ships can perform orbital bombardments. Orbital bombardment can be purchased in land skirmishes like bombing runs. Player must wait for bombardment in land tactical battles.
- Infantry bunkers able to hold several units.
The following items were cut from the final version of the game, but are still mentioned in some of the game files. Some of these items are restored via mods.