Alderaan - The Civil War
About The Civil War - Warzone
The Civil War is one of three Warzones currently available in Swtor. This Warzone is located on the frozen tundra planet of Alderaan and can be accessed by players above the level of 10. The main objective of this Warzone is to control the turrets in the center of the map and protect them as they fire upon the enemy ship. Once your faction gains control of the turret you will want to protect the flag at all costs and prevent the enemy from capturing it and turning it onto your factions ship.
If you are familiar with battlegrounds or any sort of instanced pvp combat (which you should be if you've played an MMORPG in the past five years) then you will almost immediately grasp the concept of how this works. The most important thing is fighting the enemies off of the flag and preventing them from capping it. Even if you're dramatically outnumbered and there is no way you'll kill everyone attacking you, protecting the flag will vastly benefit your team.
The Civil War is a fairly small Warzone (despite the size of the map below) and is easily navigated without a speeder, which is what they call mounts in Swtor. Republic Players start on the southern end of this map and Empire players start on the northern end. Once the Warzone starts speeders will appear in the control room. Right clicking on the speeder will send you on a very quick ride down to the battlefield where you can immediately engage the enemy.
Once the game starts and you click on the speeder you will be taken to your factions "safe zone". The enemy can't get you here, but if you stay here for too long you will be removed from the Warzone. Immediately in front of you is the middle objective, which is where the biggest battles generally take place. Off to the left and right are other turrets, generally both of them have smaller battles taking place throughout the game. Each faction has straight access to the middle turret and one side turret. Each of the two factions have access to opposite side turrets.
Winning The Civil War
The main objective of The Civil War is to destroy the enemy ship. You can do this by controlling as many turrets as possible for as long as possible. In order to gain control of any one of the turrets you will first need to interact with the objective's control point (Right click on it) to gain control of it. Once your faction has control of the turret it will fire upon the enemy ship, dealing periodic damage to it over the course of the game. Each turret does the same amount of damage to the enemy ship and holding two or three turrets does not do any additional damage for controlling multiple nodes. (What I mean by that is say holding 1 turret does 5 damage every few seconds, holding 2 will do 10 damage every few seconds; not 15 damage or anything above that).
The Civil War is most commonly won with two bases or nodes. There are tons of different mathematical combinations you can take into account when it comes to this Warzone; if you hold both bases from the start of the game until the enemies are down to 200 points and say the middle base wasn't captured until 1 minute in by the enemy team and due to that your team is only at 575 resources. You could technically lose a base now and still win with a single base.
Since there are so many different ways you can win this Warzone you have to learn how to adapt on the fly. If you know you can win with just a single base you will want to use a method called turtling. This means pretty much your whole team heads over to one base and guards it, almost making it a guarantee that you win. There are other methods of winning this type of Warzone as well. You could technically win with just a single base if you keep the other two bases constantly in a state of changing/conflict.
Below is a detailed picture of The Civil War Warzone; the same picture/screen you see when loading into the Warzone. To enlarge the picture left click it.
Above anything else what will help you win The Civil War is communication. Being able to switch between bases and have help arrive in time to save a base under attack will make the biggest difference when it comes to winning. A team with little to no communication will almost always lose compared to a team with great communication. Keep this in mind when it comes to playing this Warzone; letting your team know that "middle needs help" could change the tides.
The Civil War Tips
- Always fight on the flag; preventing the enemy from capturing the nodes wins the game
- Focus on taking out healers if they are guarding the nodes, or CC them long enough to kill who they are healing
- The middle node is one of the harder ones to take
- If you are out numbered and clearly not going to win at a node AoE the "flag" and keep the enemy team off of it for as long as possible.
- In the little underground area below the center node there is a speed power up
- Communicate! Talking with your teammates will always help you win the game moreso than never saying a word the entire time!
- In your factions ship on the far left and far right hand sides there are two speeders that will spawn when you have control of either the right or left turrets, respectively. Taking either one of these speeders will take you directly to the right or left bases. Keep this in mind if a base is under attack and needs immediate assistance.
If you are unfamiliar with how Warzones work... In the sense that this is your first ever MMORPG and you have never played other games like World of Warcraft, Warhammer, or any other game with instanced Battlegrounds that have capturable objectives, you will want to take a look at my Warzone Basics Guide.
The Civil War Screenshots
The Civil War Videos