Supreme Commander Comments by Alec Meer

Yup, I was stating it very generally, especially in my original comment, which was a one line throw-away comment with a winking ;) smiley at the end!

Technically, it could also be argued that real life could also be boiled down to statistics and numbers :P I wasn't trying to say there was no difference to real-time and turn-based games, just making a comment that came to mind on the back of a post about a different topic :P

As to Dark Reign, I kind of agree with Ryuken - the terrain graphics DID feel a little awkward. I could always tell where the hills were, but not always whether they were going up or down :P Id love to see a new Dark Reign game though, that was more true to the original than DR2... my overriding memory of DR2 was being fairly hopeful through the first few missions - thinking that I was working through the grunt units, and would get to the fun, exciting units like in DR1 soon - and then slowly coming to the realisation that there WERENT any more units. The engine and all was pretty good for the time, but it didnt have all the elements that made DR1 so good.

""""""Stated generally enough any statement can be made true!...and content-free. By that trivial argument, Katamari Damacy is all about stats too. There is an important difference between strategy games which show you die rolls, strategy games which try to hide that they use die rolls behind the scenes, and the few strategy games (TA, SupCom, Homeworld, Sword of the Stars) which use other mechanisms that allow for "emergent" behaviour.""""""""

This was precisely my point. There is difference with the term "stats" in videogames. It would be ridiculous to state everything is purely stat based in regards to such mechanics as dice-rolls, and the generally stat dominated TB genre. In SC, you're generally watching things blowing up, not worrying whether this type of terrain has -2 defense on a particular unit, or that unit has a +4 attack against that unit.

It appears that I overreacted and agree with both of you. Apologies for failing to spot irony.

"What do you mean only one factory of one type cold be producing stuff? You could build multiple factories of the same type, queque unit production, and generally not limit yourself to particular build options."

You could but only one Infantry factory f.e. executed the infantry queuing (you have to select a primary Infantry factory or Barracks, like in C&C).

DR1 isn't easy to get now but it is possible to play it on XP. More help/directions here: http://dr-mission-series.7p.com/instruct...

SPEC GUIDE


Ok guys, about the type of rig you need for this game, first off in all honesty I have heard mixed responses from all types of various configurations, I have seen people with crap rigs tell me it runs great and people with good rigs tell me it chugs late.

The truth lies somewhere in between.

First off I will tell you right of the bat it is a FACT that this game does NOT eat up your ram!

1 GiG is plenty and you can still play the lesser maps with 512 even!

As long as you have a 6600GT or better your GPU will NOT be an issue, but the game won't look pretty on it, nor will it be the cause of your chugging if you lower the settings enough

CPU this is your bottleneck, if you are going to upgrade for this game their isn't even a shred of room to argue about it. The game is CPU limited.

If you have a single core CPU you will be able to play 1 vs 1 games that don't go over around a few hundred units fine.

Dual core is what this game is about, I know you may have seen benchmarks with dual cores before showing minimal performance gains, but this game especially latter into the game will give you gigantic performance leaps.

If you have any dual core, at least a 6600GT and 1 gig of ram their is nothing in this game you wont be able to do given you adjust the settings properly


Dual cores like the 3800x2 are pretty cheap now so it won't set you back really.

I've been planning to build a new rig for this game, and that's pretty well in line with what the developers recommend. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

''''''''''You could but only one Infantry factory f.e. executed the infantry queuing (you have to select a primary Infantry factory or Barracks, like in C&C).'''''''''

Whoops, I thought you were referring to TA. My bad. He,he,he........

'''''''DR1 isn't easy to get now but it is possible to play it on XP. More help/directions here: http://dr-mission-series.7p.com/instruct...

I'll have to find it somewhere.

"Resource collection and micro-management was stripped down to a bare, self-regulated minimum, in favour of war on a massive scale."

Did the author even play TA? The game was hugely resource cantered, revolving almost entirely around map control and effective coverage of the metal patches. If you stayed in your base and didn't cover the map, or manage your metal effectively (never producing more than you could store) you would be completely crushed.

He's talking about mindshare and amount of management. The importance of resource collection was not stripped down; the amount of players' time it took up most assuredly was. Compared to other mainstream RTSes before and since, you don't have to do things like produce, assign and shepherd harvesters/SCVs/peasants, you don't have to worry about resources being depleted, and you only have to juggle two resources. You plonk down metal or energy production, and it takes care of itself until someone actually attacks.

This games looks like a remarkably average run-of-the-mill RTS which seems to innovate precisely nothing.
After the genius of Company of Heroes, we should all expect better.

"He's talking about mindshare and amount of management. The importance of resource collection was not stripped down; the amount of players' time it took up most assuredly was. Compared to other mainstream RTSes before and since, you don't have to do things like produce, assign and shepherd harvesters/SCVs/peasants,"

Well, you did get a constant, automatic resource stream yes, but the resource management focus was simply shifted elsewhere – you had to be continually producing new construction units, and continually assigning the existing ones new tasks. And I would say that the bulk of a competitive players' time would be spent doing this. He'd be building metal extractors at various corners of the map, working on getting that geothermal plant up (assigning more and more construction units as time went on) then the moho metal maker, and so on. In TA you never reach a plateau where you can say "lets just focus on building units from now on", as the Eurogamer quote implies – you have to be continually expanding, faster and faster – and you can always use more resources or more construction units.

"you don't have to worry about resources being depleted, and you only have to juggle two resources. You plonk down metal or energy production, and it takes care of itself until someone actually attacks."

You have to worry about your own resources being depleted, and any metal you produce over and above your capacity is wasted, so the challenge is never allowing your metal bar to completely fill (or empty). That's pretty hard when you're continually undertaking new projects, and the resource demands are continually increasing. Also, in the early game metal is very much at a premium, so absorbing rocks or wreckage can give you a decisive advantage.

There isn't any point where you can just forget about resource production.

"""""""This games looks like a remarkably average run-of-the-mill RTS which seems to innovate precisely nothing.
After the genius of Company of Heroes, we should all expect better."""

Seems? From what distance are you viewing it from?

This game has gargantuan maps (can take units 10 minutes to reach the other side in some instances).

Physics play a role in gameplay. No, longer is weapon damage/range based entirely on random stats. Bullets actually have momentum, and obey gravity.

A streamlined interface that makes running an army easier. Hell, almost everything can be automated it seems. You can even setup transport routes whilst you're conducting war.

The ability to zoom out to extreme distances, and quickly zoom back in.

Advanced a.i. programming, and diverse a.i. behavior which can be adjusted by the player.

The ability to conduct war on land, sea, and air.

Now tell me, does CoH, bless it's soul, possess any of this?

Easy there, man. Please breathe before feeding trolls.