Supreme commander (SC) RTS

H

HotStuff

Member
You can view the video of this upcoming game on amazon.co.uk Looks nice but have a look at the description of the game. EH....100 units per faction. Isn't COH difficult enougth to keep up with the strengths and weaknesses of all units vs strengths and weaknesses of enemy units?

Not to mention the fact there are three factions in SC as well, what a ridiculous amount of battle permutations that will create! By my calculations there will be over 161,000 different possible combinations of battle interactions between all units (If you wish me to post how I came to that number then I will explain the Maths).

Isn't this taking RTS just a bit too far?

I do like RTS but it seems obvious here that only the 'supreme master' players of this game may actually get a grip of this games complexity, meaning us part time RTS'ers will have no real chance online. Shame, will put a lot of people off!

What happened to the good old days of C&C which took a few hours to learn and the limited number of unit interationswas meant that it was easy enough to develop strategies based on their strengths/weaknesses and therefore compete with the die harders online?
 
SgtFury

SgtFury

Junior Administrator
Staff member
If its anything like its predacessor Total Annillation it isn't one of these paper scissor stones jobbies. But just a mass of stuff all going on at once. I tended to use robots and jets more than the vehicles. When you had them all set up in an arc and something wandered into their field of view seeing all the rockets homing in on it was tremendous :).
 
Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
I do see where you're coming from on this. I've been playing some CoH offline with Rojaws and I've noticed that CoH does seem to require a certain feel for "these sort of guys work against those sort of guys", which takes time and no little experience to develop. I've been playing RTS since Dune 2 so I guess I get an edge in having seen the type of gameplay one might require even if I've not yet got the timing or technique quite down yet.

However, I'm not sure that it's ever been a serious prospect to tackle the die-harders online for the more recent (say last decade?) RTS games. Starcraft, for example, is a seminal piece that clearly splits between those who know the strategies and those who don't. Ready for the 6 zergling rush? No? Then you'll be out of the game in the first 3-5 minutes. Age of Kings was no different. C&C never really caught me so I can't comment for that one.

These games can almost be played like chess, where research into how the game is played and what strategies one can employ is crucial to success once you pass a certain level of play. Chess provides a fixed board and a fixed number of pieces that work just so... it's not a bad analogy for the older RTS games, I feel.

I wonder if the designers are actually trying to blow the chess analogy out of the water and make the games less about following a specific tactical formula and more about ebb and flow of battle lines. I wonder if in Supreme Commander they aim to do away with the 6 zergling rush style of tactic in favour of battles that are as much about the relational positioning of your forces on the battlefield as they are about those unit's individual strengths and weaknesses.

I'll come back to Starcraft again, for a moment. So, ready for the 6 zergling rush? Great! You know how to use your builders as defenders and you've looked at the cost benefits of using barracks as barricades. Hey, maybe you've even realised that you can do a barracks rush as a semi-counter. But if you're a defensive player, as terrans, and the zerg go for guardians then you're fookered again. Maybe you've got missile towers up as a spotters, but guardians shoot 1 square further than missile towers. Put up some wraiths and they'll be taken down by the ultra-cheap scourge... just like chess, if you don't know the strategy exists you can't plan for it. You start to learn these over time, of course, and develop aggressive strategies of your own, but in games like Starcraft there is only one real option: attack, attack, attack, without mercy or pause. Every second spent farting around scrolling is a second your opponent has over you.

So, maybe we're actually looking to relax some of this off. Starcraft and games of its ilk require a fair quantity of micromanagement. More recently, there's been pushes to alleviate some of that micromanagement, or even make it impractical. CoH gives you squads so that you don't have to worry about the individual men -- reduction of micromanagement. Maybe SC is allowing for a flood of different types in order to deliberately overwhelm the micromanagement instinct of RTS players and get them thinking about grander strategy...?

Wandered around a bit there. My general thrust is that SC might not be a game to treat in the same way as we've played RTS in the past and if, as a byproduct of its design, I can stop needing to worry about whether unit X is at half health or not, or whether I'm exactly 4 squares away from this other thing, then I welcome the changes.
 
SgtFury

SgtFury

Junior Administrator
Staff member
See this is why I think I prefer WOW to Guildwars. (What does this have to do with RTS you ask, you'll see)
I have never been the type to worry about numbers or what is best versus something else. If I do it is only generalistic. So when I started playing GW and you had to have specific set of spells to counter another specific set it turned me off the game.
I think that is also what turns me off alot of RTS games like Warcraft III. I am not one of these people that will figure out the optimum build strategy for X. I will just go at it like a bull in a china store and hope for the best :)
 
Tetsuo_Shima

Tetsuo_Shima

In Cryo Sleep
You might feel a tad silly, then, when I mention that Ronin Storm made a thread about this in Spring. Not exactly hard to notice, either. I've been giving periodic updates when any news was released.

As far as this game goes, I'm really looking forward to the strategic side of things. Battle For Middle earth was simple, but I really liked the way you could mix and match squads of units depending on the offensive/defensive situation, and they would all execute their attacks at roughly the same time. In SC, I'm hoping that if you create a squad of, say, Brawlers, Hawks and Vulcans (apologise for using TA terminology here), youll be able to make it a simultaneous attack from all three, rather than in CnC where you find your tanks rolling in and getting mauled while your anti anti-tanks are busy lumbering behind, stuck in a traffic jam. A bit more of that kind of co-ordination aspect wouldnt go amiss.

Oh, and chik-ching! preordered! 8)
 
pHatBambi

pHatBambi

In Cryo Sleep
[Mod]I've cleaned up this post to remove off topic threads. I've also locked the previous thread that Tetsuo has referenced above.

Please use this topic for further discussion of Supreme Commander.[/mod]
 
H

HotStuff

Member
Good interview and this game just looks amazing. The ability to easily see everything at the touch of a button does sound like a major step forward for RTS.

It looks like it will require a pretty powerful machine to run it - I say that because even the interview with in game footage looked a bit glitchy in parts.

Never mind perhaps by then Intel's new Kentfield quad core chip will be out.

I will need more convincing if I am to buy this. I have been put off by the complexitiy of COH.
 
PsiSoldier

PsiSoldier

Well-Known Member
Probably won't need that much of a mega powerful machine.

Um, yeah, apparently once you set things like troop transport routes you can make them permanent so it reduces micro-management and stuff...
 
pHatBambi

pHatBambi

In Cryo Sleep
Hotstuff get onto TS with CoH and we can go through a comp stomp together.

I'll help get you up to speed if you want.
 
Tetsuo_Shima

Tetsuo_Shima

In Cryo Sleep
GameSpot said:
GS: A lot of people are wondering about what sort of PC you'll need to run the game, especially since the battlefields are so large, there are so many units, and everything is modeled.

CT: No question that a game of this nature will require a PC that is well suited to pushing lots of juicy visuals and has a beefy enough CPU to handle the advanced AI, but as we have seen in the past, machines are getting more powerful all the time, and by the time Supreme Commander launches, the average PC sold will likely run the game quite well. I will say, however, that this was a tough decision, but an important one, because we wanted to create a truly next-generation experience and wanted to fully utilize the latest in graphics and processing technology to make that happen.
Click to expand...

It would appear that you are right HotStuff, you might need quite a machine to run the game. Id say, given the sheer amount of automated micromanagement and the need for good AI where effective strategical decisions are concerned, the processor might be the component that takes the brunt of the hard work. In that case, you'd best hope the ol' Kensington comes out sooner rather than later.

Personally, I was hoping that this game would have a relatively low system requirement, since Total Annhilation was quite economical (until you had about 800 units on the battlefield). However, it appears that that would not be such a safe assumption. I'm glad I bought me ol' wonderbox now, maybe just maybe it'll handle it decently.
 
BiG D

BiG D

Administrator
Staff member
Are you even allowed to be releasing beta screenshots and details like that?
 
PsiSoldier

PsiSoldier

Well-Known Member
Showing nothing more than what was shown in trailors :)
Details? I just got them from looking at the thing... Unless you don't have eyes, it's nothing you can't get from the trailors.
 
H

HotStuff

Member
What is your machine PSIsoilder?
What resolution were you running at?
What graphic settings?
What was the ave fps (use fraps for this).

It's just that "my machine runs it fine" is quite subjective.

thanks
 
PsiSoldier

PsiSoldier

Well-Known Member
Well, the machine I ran it on was.

1024MB RAM
nVidia 6600GT 256MB VRAM
3.0Ghz Pentium4
Some crappy integrated soundcard
(got a few cracking noises, but I get them in most hi-detail sound thing anyways.)

I was running it at medium, it's pretty much impossible to play with AI on high, beucase AI takes so much more resources.

Anti Aliasing x2 also.

Average FPS was 100-120, it went down to 70 when I had 7 or so spiderbots firing their laser at the same time with 1000's of troops around them :).

EDIT: I can play hi-detail online, without AI.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top