284 replies to this topic

[Blodo]

The divide can be argued over, but if we're basically talking about the scale of the battle we're working from, how many other such games do you know operate on a scale of battle above a small pocket of the battle like a C&C game?

That is exactly my point, and if you didn't have to worry about feeding your children in that money controlled barbarism that is the Western Free World, and concentrated on the subject at hand instead of trying to adapt to the crowd and screw someone out of their money - you would already knew that.

Homeworld could probably be accounted as a true RTS - it all comes down to scale I suppose. The only other game with so much scale, magnitude and planning involved is Total Annihilation. The third one will be SupCom. It's pretty much a genre that deserves it's own acronym and dodgy little description, because you don't consider micro there like in CoH. Instead you concentrate on where to hit the enemy from, what are his vulnerabilities and the successful cooperation of all your elements. In the heat of the battle microing single units isn't necesarry because the battle involves hundreds of other units and the one using all his advantages to counter his enemy properly wins - not the one who can click and point the mouse faster.

civ4 would probably be a good example. iconic abstract pikemen kicking modern armor tank butt yeah!

Actually, guess what. Civ4 had that fixed. The battle outcomes were less randomised so the chance of the battle above being won by the pikeman is rather null in Civ4. Civ3 however still had those kinds of inanities.

[duke_Qa]

its all about the semantics. strategic is quite often used in the same situations that tactical can be used. most people know what strategic means, but not that much for tactical.

[Blodo]

Tactics is basically what you would call micro. Strategy is the long term plan of the game. Since most of the "RTS" games out there focus mostly on micro, they are tactical games. SupCom will focus less on micro and more on the strategy hence it should earn the title of RTS.

[Nemoricus]

Wow, this is one cool looking game.
*Adds to wishlist*
I can't wait.

[lecrae]

wow that looks amazing i will definately be getting that

[Calamity_Jones]

of course you will be!

[Ash]

That is exactly my point, and if you didn't have to worry about feeding your children in that money controlled barbarism that is the Western Free World, and concentrated on the subject at hand instead of trying to adapt to the crowd and screw someone out of their money - you would already knew that.

Well, at least I don't have to worry about feeding my children due to poverty, Comrade(!) Nor do I have to worry about being carted off and shot for sedition. Oops, sorry, even reading this has probably put you in jeopardy. Suggest you catch the next flight to England, along with whatever's left of the Polish population which is still IN Poland and isn't currently down my local JobCentre.

Homeworld could probably be accounted as a true RTS - it all comes down to scale I suppose. The only other game with so much scale, magnitude and planning involved is Total Annihilation. The third one will be SupCom. It's pretty much a genre that deserves it's own acronym and dodgy little description, because you don't consider micro there like in CoH. Instead you concentrate on where to hit the enemy from, what are his vulnerabilities and the successful cooperation of all your elements. In the heat of the battle microing single units isn't necesarry because the battle involves hundreds of other units and the one using all his advantages to counter his enemy properly wins - not the one who can click and point the mouse faster.

Though I imagine there's a bit of micro goddage involved in TA, even if not as much as, say, RA2. However, you can't tell me there's no final objective to be had in DoW.

Tactics is basically what you would call micro. Strategy is the long term plan of the game. Since most of the "RTS" games out there focus mostly on micro, they are tactical games. SupCom will focus less on micro and more on the strategy hence it should earn the title of RTS.

So, you don't have a plan when you start a game of DoW? Granted, the Necrons are majorly strategy-free (it's just march, rush, get some troops killed, build more troops, then use the Resurrection Orb then wow! You have twice as many men!!)

[Blodo]

Well, at least I don't have to worry about feeding my children due to poverty, Comrade(!) Nor do I have to worry about being carted off and shot for sedition. Oops, sorry, even reading this has probably put you in jeopardy. Suggest you catch the next flight to England, along with whatever's left of the Polish population which is still IN Poland and isn't currently down my local JobCentre.

Oh yeah, I remember. Poland is actually moving to Great Britain today and we will all steal your jobs!!!!11 Polish cops are on the streets already, just wait till our politicians start screwing you over. But I suppose we like hanging around barbarians and warlords since just as we reach our hands over to Germany, we do the same with you British warmongers.

Though I imagine there's a bit of micro goddage involved in TA, even if not as much as, say, RA2. However, you can't tell me there's no final objective to be had in DoW.

Yeah, it's called "Destroy the enemy HQ" I'm talking however about the manipulation of units on the grand scale, and that you don't have to micro every last one of them to win, but you have to use your strategy sense to overcome the enemy.

So, you don't have a plan when you start a game of DoW? Granted, the Necrons are majorly strategy-free (it's just march, rush, get some troops killed, build more troops, then use the Resurrection Orb then wow! You have twice as many men!!)

A build order ain't really a plan in the strategic sense. Either way what I'm talking about is the scale of the operations. The grand scale is the strategic scale, meanwhile the smaller is a tactical one. The game industry is just using it all wrong, especially with how the RTT genre generally is thought as the "no factories just units" style games, which is a bit bullshit since games like CoH are evidently a RTT.

[Calamity_Jones]

In TA every unit was disposable, you didn't micromanage any individual units, save from build commands and maybe shooting the commanders D gun... that's about it. Hell, with build commands you could select a construction unit, queue up 200 buildings, and set another 5 constructors to guard it. Base built.

In TA you could set and infinite number of factories to produce an infinite number of units, providing you didn't exceed the unit cap (that everyone gets to 5000 patch for, making it very unlikley ) you'd have an endless army. Now, you couldn't always just simply swarm in, the enemy could of course produce an equally large army, and there are defences that can waste a whole group of units instantly. The Arm annihilator for example could happily sit there with a fusion power plant fuelling it and eradicate a swarm of 200 kbots from a healthy distance. Get 5 in a row with some laser towers for spotting... nothing gets through.

There's artillery that can shoot about 10 screens away, but even a range like that is sometimes not enough to cover a whole map.

The game has strategy on a grand scale because distances and ranges are realistic, units mean nothing and emphasis is not on resource. Once you've seen a group of berthas pounding core scum into fragments on the other side of a map, a heavy tank shooting a distance of a hundred meters or so will seem very unsatisfying

[Silent_Killa]

Just got my hands on the beta... quite nice even in this stage. Laggy though, my comp isn't top of the line anymore, but it's still on the upper end of things. I had to turn off shadows in order to play in the late game.

Gameplay wise it's basically TA but bigger and better. Very defensive game, artillery is extremely important, resulting in a lot of battles taking place in no man's land. Being a player who loves aircraft I was a bit dissapointed in the fact of the absolutely ownage tier 3 AA and the fact that there is no tier 3 ground defence.

[Blodo]

From what I could gather from various sources the beta still wasn't completely optimised, that means it may still run exceptionally faster. Either way we demand screenshots, Killa

[Ash]

Yes we do.

[OmegaBolt]

Need to upgrade.. gfx card.. so £40 for the game then £200 extra just to play. What a deal.

[Silent_Killa]

*cough* Take your own screenshots *cough*

[duke_Qa]

Public Beta for those who sell their souls to me...


well not really, but we got public beta at fileplanet/gamespy right now.

for the idiots out there who are barely able to click the mouse:
http://www.fileplane...en/landing.aspx

now, i will be busy while waiting for a download spot or finding a torrent, patenting the PaySoulPal, the brand new interactive soul-selling program which emulates blood signatures with kid-numbers.

[Hostile]

*cough* Take your own screenshots *cough*

You have linked to me a most excellant pic of nikki cox
http://www.spikedhum.../nikki_cox.html

I am forever indebted to you.

[Silent_Killa]

lol... s'pose that is better than Supreme Commander... but you can have both if you manage to put distractions aside for a bit and use the search feature

[Avalon]

Did anyone play the beta which was out on fileplanet?
My pc died playing it on the lowest settings lol. And then when the battles started it was even more horrid.

[duke_Qa]

to put it mildly the game needs a bit of optimising. makes my brand new computer crawl quite easily.

[Ash]

It's the AI...and yes, it does need optimising and final tweakage.

If you play PvP with no AI it won't lag.