Galactic Empire (Canon) vs CIS (Canon)

Rules

• No Force Users in either side.
• CIS is not held back by Sidious.
• Both at the height of their capabilities (Canon tho)
• Each faction starts with equal number of planets in their control.
• Whoever surrender first loses, or if their forces cannot possibly equal the number of planets conquered of the other faction, then that would be considered a loss too.

Empire. Better base troops, better commanders, better weapons, best navy and overall vastly superior firepower.

CIS might have better elite troopers but that would be pretty much their only advantage.

Galactic Empire is going to get absolutely massacred in ground combat. Stormtroopers might be just as useless as B1s and there are SOOOO many B1s by comparison. Super Battle Droids, Droidekas, Commando Droids and numerous other models are going to stomp infantry wise. As far as heavier personnel, the empire only has the AT-AT with many weaknesses that can be exploited. The CIS can literally send suicide snail tanks to ram into its legs, causing it to trip and fall or aim at its neck which is a weak spot. Aside from this walker, the empire has AT-STs and AT-DPs. Scout walkers and walkers meant for policing towns and villages. Compare this with Octupturra Tri Droids, Hailfire Droids, OG-9 Homing Spider Droids and the CIS Super tanks. GE has nothing going for it on the ground. Absolute slaughterhouse for the confederacy. They are basically going against a less skilled Republic with no Jedi. They couldn't have asked for any better.

As for the space element, an ISD is about equalled by 2 Providence Carriers or a single Providence Dreadnaught (like the one Trench commanded) or 4 Banking Clan Frigates. Individually, ISDs stomp just about any confederate ship but there are just so many CIS ships by comparison. Empire doesn't even have a fighter advantage because they go for quantity > quality approach which the CIS absolutely excels at. One vulture droid is actually superior to a single TIE Fighter as far as equipment and, once again, there are soooooooooooooooooo many more Vultures by comparison.

The only problems are literally the Death Star and Super Star Destroyers. If the Rebellion could destroy the Death Star I see no reason why the CIS can't. SSDs are extremely powerful vessels but there are simply too many fodder CIS cruisers/frigates/carriers/destroyers that they can practically start suicide running the SSDs to oblivion.

No Palpatine holding the Separatists back is a big deal. Empire lose imo. Majority of their commanders are even more incompetent than any Tactical Droid. Thrawn and Trench are going to have a naval chess match though.

This.

The sheer power of a numbers advantage doesn't come into fruition so quickly until this kind of matchup happens. Even then, it's not like the empire has a qualitative advantage in every regard.

The only way I can see the Empire taking another advantage is the fact that there are no force users so there's no one to deny Thrawn's TIE Defender project save Tarkin. Regardless, this is just a small thing for the immense war this is going to be.

@void_reborn: Great post.

With no Palps pulling strings on both sides, how long do you think this war would last?

Or at least the main bulk of it.

@americanspeeddemon: How do you think the Empire would deal with the CIS numbers?

I think it would last about 2-8 years.

Reason being the CIS started out with a small portion of the galaxy compared to territory that was Republic controlled during The Clone Wars. The war may be less than 3 years because of the even amount of territory to begin with. With this differentiating from how the clone wars played out, the Confederacy is likely going to crush the empire in production speed and capacity. Output will be tremendous since they won't be relying on just the far outer rim worlds or planets like Hypori and Geonosis. Of course, the length of the clone wars being 3 years is a result of Palpatine's manipulation for everything to fall in place with his plan.

Realistically, the CIS might fight the empire in a war of attrition, putting their superior numbers to bear. This could result in it doubling the war length of time if not more.

Bump

@void_reborn: How good were the top-ranking CIS military officers?

I know Thrawn doesn´t compare to his Legends couterpart (or at least that I know), but did the CIS had guys like him?

Also , if it were up to you, how would you approach the war if you were the Empire? As in, which would be the most viable way to win against an unrestrained CIS? If there is any.

@payneintheass:

Canon Thrawn is actually pretty good if you compare him to legends. Really the only notable Sep commander is Trench.

@payneintheass: the CIS commanders were long shot below legends thrown, but still fairly good. Better than the clone wars commanders to be honest. Advanced strategies were needed far less though, as sheer numbers production speed was winning the war.

The republic was losing funding and support, it would have eventually been won through attrition. Palps and the jedi were the only reasons the CIS didn't run through the clones and claim total victory.

The empire generally used quantity and fear factor over quality. It was mostly just police work, minus the rebellion that was insignificant for a good amount of time. They didn't have near the training or versatility the republic had.

The CIS had superior numbers even over the empire on land. The numbers would still be dozens to one, which would be unwinnable with the worse training.

The star destroyers are significantly better than CIS ships, but the CIS yet again have a numbers advantage of a few to one. Both have comparable capital ships. The empire might have slightly better capital ship quantities though. For example Vader's executioner SSD.

The CIS have vastly superior fighter ships, so they crush them in that.

I think the empire's only shot is immediately crushing the CIS, but I doubt it would happen. If the battle goes on, CIS is winning by attrition.

@spinach: Yeah tbh I haven´t seen much of him in Canon yet, haven´t gotten around Rebels yet. Or read his mini series

I was interested in the Alliances book, might give it a chance someday.

Gotta give the Empire Sidious in order for them to stand a chance. The Empire basically collapsed when he was gone, and was held together by his sheer willpower.

Give the Empire either Vader or Sids, and give the CIS Grevious and Dooku.

@kingfrieza:

I think the empire's only shot is immediately crushing the CIS, but I doubt it would happen. If the battle goes on, CIS is winning by attrition.

Indeed, this seems the more possible outcome.

I always saw the CIS as a weak faction, but it is funny to realize that, (at least in canon) without Palpatine behind, they would most likely be the strongest faction in the Galaxy.

@payneintheass:

Hes quite well done in rebels, his mini series is an adaption of the first book Thrawn, so i would recommend reading it first(i think its the best out of the trilogy), as for the new trilogy, i really enjoyed them, but i'm a massive thrawn fan, i hold them up as equal to if not better than Zahns. Thrawn is very good focusing on his rise in the empire, Alliances is still good but can be slower at points because it deals with a dual story line of the prequels and OT, Treason i also enjoyed but whether or not you enjoy it is entirely dependent on how much you liked the previous two books as it draws on characters and elements from both.

Also theres a new trilogy coming out, first book this year i believe, detailing Thrawns origins in the Chiss Ascendancy.

@redshift_bacon:

How good of a militrary tactician Grievous was really?

@spinach: Well the canon trilogy is also written by Zahn himself lol, so that´s probably why it has consistent quality.

@payneintheass: tbh no idea, but probably better than a random droid.

Are you asking as far as Legends? If so, he was VERY good. Possibly even better than Trench himself.

Also, I'm pretty sure Shaak Ti said Grievous's strategy was without flaw, when he utterly decimated republic forces on Hypori.

Although, Jedi battlefield commanders weren't exactly the best sooo take that with a grain of salt.

The top-ranking CIS military officers were few but I'd say at least 3-4 impressed me. I forgot their names but Grievous and Trench stand out obviously. I think the problem for the Empire is really the fact that Thrawn is one of a kind. Nobody else in the GE can match at his level or even close to it. The empire's incompetent officers, moffs and admirals were in greater number than the dumbest of the tactical droids.

If it were me I would protect the Death Stars at all costs. Keep blowing up high production worlds of the Confederacy. I'd have Thrawn in charge of his own SSD and major fleet of the faction. I think ground battles would soon become a losing battle. I'd station half of the troops to the worlds closest to separatist territory in hopes of not losing too much right at the start as we race to destroy their production. The other half would be sent to the deep core. The CIS went straight for Coruscant before, they can do it again. I'd have imperial intelligence monitoring the shortcut hyperspace lanes to the core worlds and invest in methods for anti-CIS such as making EMP grenades standard equipment for every stormtrooper and even missiles for TIE fighters when engaging vulture droids in dogfights. There should also be more war machines made, modifications done to the AT-AT and AT-ST to make them more war capable.

Obviously, all of this would take a lot of time. I think it would be incredibly difficult for the empire to pull a win against the CIS if Palpatine is uninvolved. The CIS have too many advantages and the Empire's advantages are inhibited by many of their own problems and simply being unprepared for a faction that was putting everything into a large scale war.

Also I think Vader vs Grievous and Dooku would be interesting if you wanted to add it. It's more fair than Palpatine and Vader and it also adds that layer of diplomacy, frontline command and possible lightsaber conflicts.

Vader, Thrawn and Inquisitors vs Dooku, Grievous and Magnaguards sounds very fair in my opinion. For their factions, I mean.

@void_reborn: Yeah the battle is about Canon CIS, otherwise I'd obviously list him as a strategic advantage. As it stands in Canon, he has done next to nothing impressive.

@redshift_bacon: But, but, but the Malevolence! Grievous used it so effectively.. It's not like he totally blew the project and let it get destroyed first day of service or anyth- ohhhh...

..

oh no..

@void_reborn: That was my first thought about Grevious's Canon strategy too hahaha

@void_reborn:

Are you asking as far as Legends? If so, he was VERY good. Possibly even better than Trench himself.

About Grievous, I was mainly asking about canon, since , as you can agree, he never struck me as some tactical genius, I mostly remember him running away in the last minute, lol.

(Legends) So Hypori is when he fought Mundi, Ti, Secura, etc.

But I cannot remember or picture the Battle of Duro, I wonder if there´s a canon equivalent to that Battle, or to Durge´s Lance altogether.

Also I think Vader vs Grievous and Dooku would be interesting if you wanted to add it. It's more fair than Palpatine and Vader and it also adds that layer of diplomacy, frontline command and possible lightsaber conflicts.

Vader, Thrawn and Inquisitors vs Dooku, Grievous and Magnaguards sounds very fair in my opinion. For their factions, I mean

At the moment I´m just more interested in the military aspect of Star Wars, that´s why I didn´t include them.

Also , to finish, do you think the CIS would be able to find out the weakness of the Death Star? And even blow it up like the Rebels did?

@payneintheass:

Also , to finish, do you think the CIS would be able to find out the weakness of the Death Star? And even blow it up like the Rebels did?

You see, if you asked me this back when Rogue One hadn't released, I wouldn't have known the answer to this question because I assumed it was a very stealth-esque covert mission that got the Rebels the plans for the first Death Star but something went wrong and they ended up getting chased by Darth Vader and the Star Destroyer.

Now, though, having watched Rogue One, I think everything the Rebels pulled there is fully within the capabilities of the CIS, especially with a couple of commando droids. Now, without Vader, it will be even easier to secure the plans. Considering the Rebels sent a smaller force to Scariff, the CIS might send a full invasion force instead. Now I don't know what difference it will make or if it will even be beneficial to send a larger army, but I think they can make it work, especially with ground advantage. AT-ACTs should be no problem.