This vs Planetary Annihilation Titans, and new player experience

[Dr. Nosa Beesy]

Hi all, I'm wanting to get into an RTS, so I'm wondering this or PA: Titans. I'd like to play some singleplayer and then jump into multiplayer. What would that be like as a new player? And in this game, what would be the best way to prepare for multi-player? Skirmish? Campaign? The first game's campaign? I've never played an RTS like these, I've only played Stracraft-style games before... Thanks!

[Crenando]

Personally i would go with PA or other RTS games. Inb4 the FaF shill brigade.

[Dr. Nosa Beesy]

Originally posted by Binyot:

Personally i would go with PA or other RTS games. Inb4 the FaF shill brigade.

I appreciate the answer. Why would you say PA over this?

[Crenando]

Originally posted by Pan_Rozum:

Originally posted by Binyot:

Personally i would go with PA or other RTS games. Inb4 the FaF shill brigade.

I appreciate the answer. Why would you say PA over this?

Mostly it's cuz i'm salty about the direction FaF is going at, but also cuz i've heard planetary annihilation is closer to Total Annihilation than Supcom is in eco and tier system. But honestly i'm more inclined to pick neither FA or PA. Last i 've heard PA is more or less dead and while its eco and tiers are like TA it doesnt hold a candle to TA gamplay wise.

I hate to say it, but RTS is a dead genre, you're best bet is to play old RTS games you've havent played.

[Dr. Nosa Beesy]

Originally posted by Binyot:

Originally posted by Pan_Rozum:

I appreciate the answer. Why would you say PA over this?

Mostly it's cuz i'm salty about the direction FaF is going at, but also cuz i've heard planetary annihilation is closer to Total Annihilation than Supcom is in eco and tier system. But honestly i'm more inclined to pick neither FA or PA. Last i 've heard PA is more or less dead and while its eco and tiers are like TA it doesnt hold a candle to TA gamplay wise.

I hate to say it, but RTS is a dead genre, you're best bet is to play old RTS games you've havent played.

Thanks for the input!

[Red Spot]

FA is moar basic compared to PAT. If you are new to RTS, go FA. PAT will overwhelm you and on a grand scale it will become quite laggy.
Interplanetary combat is awesome though, specially if you can take out your opponent by sending an other planet at their homeplanet :)

[SchnitzelTruck]

Originally posted by Pan_Rozum:

Thanks for the input!

He hasn't even played PA and he starts out his answer whining about shills. You can safely disregard him, he's just really salty.

My vote would be FA. It feels like more of a traditional RTS where PA stuffed a bunch of things into it in an attempt to be groundbreaking and new. I will never be able to get into PA purely because of spherical maps. As a new player to the genre FA will probably be more fun as some of your starcraft skills will be applicable.

PA generally has faster gameplay in my experience unless you're doing some huge mutli world map. FA is a bit slower unless playing multiplayer on smaller maps where build orders and every couple seconds actually matter.

The only way to get good at multiplayer is to play multiplayer and learn from your mistakes after getting your ass handing to you repeatedly. Also having friends who are better than you and learning from them. Playing singleplayer will never prepare you for multi.

I believe FA also has a more active mutliplayer presence than PA, however the vast majority play on a 3rd party server.

[trognollop]

"The" answer is of course Total Annihilation, you can still get it here or on GOG, still an active community playing Escalation and a couple of the other community mods/hubs.

Supreme Commander was sort of the sequel to TA but never really had the same feel, still fun though. and Planetary annihilation was more or an indie spin of of TA, also cool but you really have to have been a TA nerd to get it....

TA will feel "clunky" if you've played new RTS but it is worth it still due to great balance in economy vs fighting (ie a well executed raid will cost you to put together but you can inflict a crippling shot on enemy economy and gain an edge... every unit is "important" whereas Sup Comm (FA) and PA you invariably end up spamming units)

also Zero K, spin off from TA and was free on here recently.... they kinda went overboard on all the different units in zero k though.....

[Dr. Nosa Beesy]

Interesting, thanks all!

[Shenmue est vie]

In general, Supreme Commander FA is viewed as the best RTS of all time, and from my own experience, I tend to agree since its deepness has yet to be matched. There is so much different strategies and tactics to win the game that your mind is easily blown away if you manage to do what you have anticipated. Watching at others playing or replays is also something often fascinating to do.

The counter part is that the game is pretty hard to master as the economy system is very punitive to begin with. Some subtilities like the importance of reclaim or engineer support might imply some discouraging micro management and sensible knowledge of the meta.

Another possible drawback is that FA encourages you to be so agressive and pro-active that you're observing less your units and the scenery than small icons on the map during the whole game. But I guess same goes for PA somehow.

FA has also framerate issues with huge number of units.

About TA, I can say it has a better campaign than FA. But both feel lackluster in comparison with Starcraft. The point of these games is defo skirmish over campaign.

FA also features great explosion/shoot effects and sounds although TA's old sound design has still something more impacting, typically echoing and so satisfaying.

Visually, Supcom is still a beautiful game nowadays. TA graphics were mindblowing at the time (especially the snow maps) but they didn't aged so well for me.

Can't say much about PA tbh as my knowledge is quite limited there. I wanted to know to more about the game and google just lead me there.

[Dr. Nosa Beesy]

If I wanted to play a campaign to learn the game, should I play the first game's campaign, or the Forged Alliance campaign? Or just skirmish vs AI?

[SchnitzelTruck]

Originally posted by Pan_Rozum:

If I wanted to play a campaign to learn the game, should I play the first game's campaign, or the Forged Alliance campaign? Or just skirmish vs AI?

Base games campaign assumes you're new and will slowly walk you through things. Forged alliance campaign assumes you know what you're doing. The downside is the base games UI is absolutely awful.

You can learn the basics well enough by skirmish

[Dr. Nosa Beesy]

Thanks

[Antineutron]

if you do FA multiplayer, you should play it on FAF due to it having like hundreds of times more players than steam multiplayer, and better balance (plus UI mods that improve control you have ingame by far)

inb4 anti FAF shill brigade

[Zierus]

I own and play both. In comparison go with Subcom. I is less laggy and generally the better game.

[Ceejay]

Also you have the 3 different armies in supcom, 4 in fa to get used too, each with their own strengths and weaknesses which all add to the game and replayabilty...vs PA which basically has 1 faction.

Personally I cannot get away with PA, i just find it boring to play and I play a lot of RTS's, i know some people do like it, which is fair enough, each to their own but honestly I bought it early access, a decision which I regret to this day, and actually put me off buying early access games (till subnautica that is).

Also if you like rts games, may I recommend sins of a solar empire, which also has some great total conversion mods like Star Trek Armarda III :)