Sub-commander is way overpowered

[Prince of Autumn]

After I won my fisrt battle, which took nearly an hour, I found a sub-commander. Of course, I downloaded the tech, but now my games are less than ten minutes long.

By the time I've begun to set up my advanced ebergy factories and metal extractors, the enemy commander is dead. I don't even get the chance to fight.

I feel like this throws off the games balance. Please discuss

[Captain Sardonic]

Depends very much on your loadouts and difficulty level. I took the General Commander (starts with two sub-commanders and two tech slots) and trounced the AI on normal. It didn't hurt that I found a third sub-commander during the game. I'm currently playing a new game on hard with the same loadout, and was having a hard time making progress until I found basic air tech and developed some AA capability. I could defend my own base and econ just fine with laser and AA turrets, but my sub-coms were slow in building any kind of AA and usually got hammered by AI bombers until I could provide a diversion and lure the AI into my air defense network.

It's all about the loadouts and tech drops.

[zgrssd]

Originally posted by Captain Sardonic:

It's all about the loadouts and tech drops.

And the difficulty is not to be underestimated. Maybe my sup com is just hampered by my selection fo skill, but he seems to be running on normal difficulty.
Wich is a problem as hard and absurd AI build nukes, but normal builds no anti-nukes.

Originally posted by Prince of Autumn:

After I won my fisrt battle, which took nearly an hour, I found a sub-commander. Of course, I downloaded the tech, but now my games are less than ten minutes long.

By the time I've begun to set up my advanced ebergy factories and metal extractors, the enemy commander is dead. I don't even get the chance to fight.

Why are you even trying to tech up that much? The game pace is fast. Commanders can be killed by properly used T1 units. Flame tanks in particular are deadly vs AI.

With my flametank rush I can kill every Normal or Hard AI that spawned on the same planet in under 10 minutes. Only absurd is fast enough in orbital to escape me so far, if spawned far away.

They are a distraction. And with the right tech they can beat even one level harder AI. But Sub Commanders are not by any means OP.

[Captain Sardonic]

Originally posted by zgrssd:

Wich is a problem as hard and absurd AI build nukes, but normal builds no anti-nukes.

Looks like the sub-coms stay at normal even if playing against hard AI opponents. I'm playing a new GW on hard with three sub-coms, and got stalemated when the AI started building anti-nukes while my allies and I were building our own nukes (it was a low-metal system, which limited my team's econ severely). I managed to get an anti-nuke up and running, but one of my sub-coms didn't think to do that and got all his energy and storage nuked from across the system.

[zgrssd]

Originally posted by Captain Sardonic:

Originally posted by zgrssd:

Wich is a problem as hard and absurd AI build nukes, but normal builds no anti-nukes.

Looks like the sub-coms stay at normal even if playing against hard AI opponents. I'm playing a new GW on hard with three sub-coms, and got stalemated when the AI started building anti-nukes while my allies and I were building our own nukes (it was a low-metal system, which limited my team's econ severely). I managed to get an anti-nuke up and running, but one of my sub-coms didn't think to do that and got all his energy and storage nuked from across the system.

If they build nukes themself, they should build anti-nukes - eventually.
It is just that anti-nuke has a lot lower priority then nuke for the AI, so it only appears after 2-3 nuke launchers of thier own.

Maybe it was just the lack of basic air and bot tech that hampered my AI so much it could not operate on hard effectiveness?

[Captain Sardonic]

Blame the lack of basic air more than the bots. I can tear it up on hard and basically let my sub-coms win for me if I'm patient and have basic air and/or basic vehicle tech for AA. Though I have noticed that the sub-coms don't pump out as many AA vehicles as they should to deal with the AI's tendency to spam air units. If my team lacks basic air but has vehicles, I just crank AA units and set them to deploy along the AI's main line of approach. Between that and getting flanked by at least one of my sub-coms, the AI usually goes down fairly easily.

As to anti-nukes, all it would take would be for the sub-com AI routines to set anti-nukes as a higher priority than offensive nukes (as opposed to the inoffensive nukes that aren't terribly opinionated and are likely to invite you over for tea and biscuits). The AI rarely tries to nuke me until my own nukes are under construction, so I just got into the habit of building 1-2 anti-nukes around my main base (with overlapping coverage areas) and make sure there's room to build another 2-4 nukes under their protection. That almost always does the trick unless I get attacked by the dreaded PA Lag Monster.

[FancyMelon]

I named my war "The Third Melonic War", due to it being my third campaign. It was in the hardest difficulty, and the first battle was a hellhole. Then I found a sub-commander. I added him. The first two wars took much longer, since I didn't use any sub commanders. I tried it this time around, and was disappointed by how overpowered it was. It started building before the commander even landed, built up an army, I joined with a much smaller army, and we creamed the enemy. Guess what comes next? Another sub commander. I'm still currently in the third war, and the battle is going on right now. I currently have four sub commanders. I plopped my commander in the middle of one of their bases, and one of the two enemy commanders are down. I have done nothing whatsoever. I find it very overpowered.

[Cabz]

Ik this thread is old but I do agree that sub coms make the game much easier, I have 5 atm without he sub com loadout and all my games end within 10 minutes or less on relentless difficulty. I think you get them when you want to have an easy game. Oh and I forgot to mention, I just land in and do nothing, not even move into one of the bases, having 5 sub coms preoccupy the ai seems to help keep me safe