Best RTS ever ?

[Jiang Ziya]

Hi gamers,

I 've been following this game lately, and most reviews I read told me that this might be one of the best RTS ever, is it true ? what's make this game special ?

Thank you

[loudman2]

There are many reasons this game still warrants that praise. Depth - no other RTS even approaches this scale - either in terms of units, potential map sizes (which is where strategy comes into play, versus tactics), variety and the ability to be modded in almost any way. There really isn't much lacking to be honest.

Yes - it could benefit from being rebuilt for a 64bit world, and a few unfinished ideas could be completed, but overall, you will not find any RTS that compares favourably on any of those points.

[Scourge012]

Gotta agree with loudman2. The game was very forward-looking when it released in 2007. Most modern RTS games STILL lack features from Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance and would benefit from them. It's actually quite staggering how few have truly scaleable zoom with readable icons, units rosters that have BOTH upgrades (i.e. tanks that are better tanks) but also SIDEGRADES (i.e. units that might no be better than a predecessor per se, but open up different functionality or gameplay mechanic).

What is even better is that the core gameplay loop is pretty simple, so while there's lots of nuance, you can just hop in and start messing around versus the AI or play the campaign and within short order be making your own strategies and such. One of the best games ever made for sure.

[Jiang Ziya]

But, I heard that this also released on Xbox , isn't this being dumbed down and made easier for the masses because of this ?

[MostLostNoob]

Originally posted by Jiang Ziya:

But, I heard that this also released on Xbox , isn't this being dumbed down and made easier for the masses because of this ?

Those comments are referring to Supreme Commander 2, the redheaded bastard stepchild of the franchise that most either don't acknowledge that it exists or look upon it with great disdain.

[Jiang Ziya]

Originally posted by MostLostNoob:

Originally posted by Jiang Ziya:

But, I heard that this also released on Xbox , isn't this being dumbed down and made easier for the masses because of this ?

Those comments are referring to Supreme Commander 2, the redheaded bastard stepchild of the franchise that most either don't acknowledge that it exists or look upon it with great disdain.

But Supreme Commander and FA also on the console , but it seems those 2 are not as dumbed down as the second title ?

[Nikonos]

SC Forged Alliance is still the best RTS ever.
Sad in a way, since all these years could have been used to make RTS's better, but that never happened. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[Scourge012]

Originally posted by Jiang Ziya:

Originally posted by MostLostNoob:

Those comments are referring to Supreme Commander 2, the redheaded bastard stepchild of the franchise that most either don't acknowledge that it exists or look upon it with great disdain.

But Supreme Commander and FA also on the console , but it seems those 2 are not as dumbed down as the second title ?

Correct. The technical aspects of the original were stripped (such as unit cap) to make it run on the Xbox. But SupCom 2 had lots of baffling design decisions that made it an inferior experience. Just as an example, they made Aeon Illuminate...a faction of Alien worshipping zealots that were uncompromising in their desire to "make the galaxy learn our peaceful ways by force" suddenly had units that were named in a parodic manner instead of their more religious bent from the first game. THEN they also removed the Aeon navy from the SupCom 2. Full stop. Not a naval unit in their roster. Aeon had the identity of being the best navy, arguably, in the original. Just...holy crap, what a disaster.

Ironically, if SupCom 2 was not branded or designed as a SupCom game, it would have still been a good game! But it was a travesty that it infected this particular fictional universe.

[Bolt]

Play some Starcraft 1, C&C Generals Zero Hour, Age of Empires 2, Dawn of War, then report back. Supreme Commander got scale and a lot of issues. To me it's not a real RTS title because of a variety of reasons:
-bugs & issues that aren't bugs but affect the core gameplay
-neither proper UI nor tooltips (for almost all aspects of its gameplay)
-bad AI that can't even rebuild from scratch
-veterancy poorly implemented (just +HP & +HP regen; none of the experienced units get better at their task or receive access to unit-type-specific upgrades of user choice)
-population pooly implemented (everything costs 1 population, T1 attack bot just the same as endgame experimental; thus actual mass battles turn into experimental spam and economy boosting to do so)
-experimentals aren't nearly equally useful and some not really functional (construction-capable experimentals can't construct on the move and neither can they produce batches of units at once, lol)
-lack of proper unit control options & UI overview elements for combat, construction, economy (Examples: 1) combat: no option to restrict mobile artillery units and T3 artillery structures from picking up unintended targets so that they focus on base def, shields, eco structures and factories instead of wasting their barrage on mobile units that they'll most likely fail to hit anyway but what might hit my / allied units; 2) construction: an infotext next to the cursor would be helpful that calculates for all engineering units that I've currently selected what the remaining construction- / repair time and the resource drain per resource type would be if my mouse is over something they can assist and I select assist; also tooltips on any missile construction or any construction progress do not indicate the total or remaining cost and time; 3) economy: there are no simple lists to sort simply what project or structure drains the most of which resource type and by which values to see where things are going wrong; there's no option to restrict engineers that are on attack-move or patrol from tasks they're NEVER intended to perform)
-lack of unit variety (most units are just copy&paste concepts of the ones of other factions as well as of those of lower tech tier instead of something new and unique) and -efficiency (damage modifiers depending on who attacks what with what aren't a thing): there's a whole bunch of issues buried here
-adjacency as a game concept that torpedos itself: completely seal off a factory from all sides for maximum adjacency & adjacency is bypassed and ignored by units assisting a factory & adjacency only works best with T3 structures, making the lower tech ones obsolete once more becaues you can't upgrade structures to grant better values at that and save some construction space; tooltips also fail to provide any insight what benefits from which adjacency by which values and actually there should be a limit so that the sealing off a factory nonsense stops being a thing; adjacency should also not be bypassed by assisting units because that's how the game works: you assist what you want constructed, the resource-efficient waiting game is outplayed by fast counter-construction; also there's no adjacency for naval units
-most units become irrelevant later on
-even the strategic icons were poorly implemented - LOUD installed better ones
The only thing unique to Supreme Commander, so far, is the option to have build patterns. The gameplay is mostly about getting a good economy and what to spend your construction speed on without ruining your resource flow. Actual direct combat feels extremely frustrating compared to other RTS titles: on the one hand proper unit control is impossible due to a variety of reasons, like delayed reaction, weird unit movement and simply a lack of UI elements to properly assign what I want to assign. Also there are all kinds of flaws, like overkill damage, bad default target priorities, aircraft meant to defend an area chasing enemies into their base etc. etc.

[Scourge012]

You are entitled to your opinion of course, but I find all those "issues" to be non-issues. I played ALL those other titles, and far more, upon release, as well as Supreme Commander. SupCom improved on all dimensions of RTS upon its release. Each game listed has its own reasons why it is a classic, but none combine or compare to how SupCom handles RTS mechanics.

I see people gripe that "most units become irrelevant" later on...and I gotta ask, how? Some units do get "upgraded" in that there's a better tank for example (If you can mass produce Pillars, you don't need to produce UEF's T1 tank for example). But every faction has a T1 unit that is worth producing till the end of the game. For UEF that mobile artillery is always worth its modest cost. The extra AOE damage it does really makes a different in Tech 2 and 3 exchanges to be part of your army. Same with the UEF T1 bomber. Napalm damage over time always a good thing in later engagements.

Units come out of my surrounded T3 land factories just fine, though the first few like to play bumper cars, yes, but that's the "learning" path-finding system for ya.

Lack of proper unit controls? Seriously? Give me one, just one RTS where you can command two different speeds of units, in two different groups and ORDER them to arrive at a destination at the same time. Heck, name one where they have an ETA on when they get there, forget the convenient "get there at the same time order." It's so easy to coordinate assaults and automate transportation from a central base to the front with the ferry system...a system no other game has to this damn day that I'd take SupCom controls any day of the week. SupCom is the only game where I can order a land army and an airforce across the map and have them arrive at the same time to wreak havoc together without me microing the hell out of that movement.

Artillery aren't supposed to do pinpoint target snipes, which is seems that's what you want them to do...but if for some reason you want them to only attack certain types of targets you can queue attacks and also give attack region commands. I.e. if my enemy has a line of generators I want to take out, but I want the Artillery to ignore the other stuff in the base, I just draw the attack region around the generators and put their fire mode down from "attack all." It's very convenient.

As far a factions being copy and pasted...I mean, I guess? All factions have a tank. But one faction has it be a long range all terrain tank (Aeon), UEF has a proper tank that has more limited range, more damage, but can't go all-terrain. Oh and I guess Cybran has no T1 tank and instead has a high efficiency DPS "medium" bot. They all have T1 artillery vehicles, but they each have different niches. Aeon's is high precision, rate of fire, low splash. UEF has huge splash damage/power. Cybran's stuns enemy units and later in the game (if you bother to keep producing them) they can make a REAL difference against heavy hitting higher tech units because those units having to recharge their weapon after being stunned...really suppresses their fire.

I think maybe the biggest criticism your points raise here is that many of these control issues and differences between the factions asymmetry are not communicated well in-game. Most of these tips required me to read the paperback manual on the way home from the store.

[loudman2]

I have to concur that most of those points are indeed non-issues - and most all of them have been directly addressed in one or more mods over the intervening years. None of the games mentioned were ever free of their own share of bugs & issues that affected core gameplay. UI design is subjective.

The original AI was indeed rather weak - but certainly better than many other RTS games, and has nothing to do with the game itself. Many RTS genre games today simply cannot afford to develop themselves, and often don't even include an AI at all. There are now several much better AI available for SCFA.

Issues about veterancy, unit count, experimental and overall unit balance are, likewise, issues that don't speak to the game design, and have also been addressed and/or rebalanced via many different methods - personal taste comes into play here - and one mans feast is another mans famine on those topics.

Unit variety or 'factional diversity' are related issues - and in the end it comes down to the physics engine of the game. SCFA, unlike many others, actually has multiple forms of weapons - but essentially two (beams and projectiles) whereas almost all the others have either a simple hit-scan mechanic (with no projectile involved) or a simple projectile-only mechanic. You can depict different weapons with visuals - but the underlying mechanics are all the same - at least in SCFA, beams and projectiles behave differently - and are subject to the physics engine, which is handily sidestepped by most other games. In the end, every RTS game comes down to skins painted on top of the damage mechanism. Real variety is a myth therefore, and can only be created thru statistical differences and visuals.

SCFA also employs an 'armor' mechanic that can render different levels of damage from weapons depending upon the armor listed on the target and the damage type specified on the weapon involved. That's head and shoulders above most any other RTS, but Hollow is correct in the respect that it is not widely utilized in SCFA - and it should be. While it would be nice to go a step further, and have facings involved, with unique armor values, that would be costly indeed performance wise.

Adjacency is a concept that's almost unique to SCFA - few other games have any mechanism like it, either because they don't have the scale to make it worth implementing, or just don't. Is it implemented effectively in SCFA ? Visually - yes - since it's something you can see directly and not abstracted. Gameplay wise it has a few wrinkles in that it does impact pathfinding. Again, there are other ways to approach it, for example LOUD abstracts the idea by removing the storage units from the game, and putting upgrades on the buildings that would normally receive benefits from such things. This does eliminate most of the visual aspect - but directly addresses the gameplay and performance issues involved.

Anyhow - it's always been clear to me that SCFA is the most complete RTS out there, not only in scope and size, but in forward thinking and feature set. Almost everything is already in place, or the structure exists to put it into place, which the vibrant modding community has seen to over the years. There will always be more to want for it - indeed - and being part of it has been quite rewarding over the years.

[loudman2]

With respect, Starcraft and Warcraft deftly avoided dealing with any of the issues you've brought up by confining their games into small maps and highly restrictive unit counts. It's worked well for them, but while their performance may indeed be smooth - the focus is purely upon tactical acumen - there is no room on even the largest map for anything approaching 'strategic' in scope - in fact, it's barely operational level - the options available are simply far too limited. Exciting - yes. Quick - yes. In Depth - only briefly.

There is no doubt, the performance issues of SCFA can indeed cause these large games to go on for very long times - and the unit balance of the original game, with it's 'game-enders', does indeed encourage one to bypass the bulk of the game in a mad dash for the super units, but those flaws too - are addressable, and have been addressed -- by various means and mods - that very ability is what keeps SCFA fresh and vibrant, and evolving, in a way that Starcraft and Warcraft cannot lay any claim to. To that end, if you want quick pure button-mashing action you play Starcraft and Warcraft, where APM is where it's at - and you practice the winning meta until you have it down. Trying to fit SCFA into that point of view is a mistake - it's not designed that way - and never was. A lot of direct comparison is made in this regard, but none of it is valid.

SCFA, as a larger more strategically oriented choice, is a game with a far wider application - and a much wider choice of configurations, not all of which show off the game for what it is - but that's the key thing. As the modders have solved or corrected the basic deficiencies, and expanded it's horizons - the myriad of choices has expanded right along with it.

As for the comments about FAF, I can't say anything - they have their goals, and as a developer myself, I have my own issues with their direction - but direction they have - and that's a good thing - like it or not. They have a substantial userbase that they cater to that appreciates their efforts - day in and day out. They have a large collection of maps and mods that they make available to the entire SCFA community, whether you participate or not - so faulting them is faulting anyone that wants to support whatever community they wish to support. Their position and attitude has nothing to do with the scope or capability of the game itself, and they are not the only option out there.

[Bolt]

Originally posted by Scourge012:

Artillery aren't supposed to do pinpoint target snipes, which is seems that's what you want them to do...but if for some reason you want them to only attack certain types of targets you can queue attacks and also give attack region commands. I.e. if my enemy has a line of generators I want to take out, but I want the Artillery to ignore the other stuff in the base, I just draw the attack region around the generators and put their fire mode down from "attack all." It's very convenient.

No, I don't want them to snipe things but to get rid of 4 issues:
1) stop them from trying to attack mobile units that they'll most likely miss with their ballistic delayed impact attack
2) stop issue #1) from happening so that my own units don't get friendly fire (most often happens with UEF T2 cruiser in naval chase where the cruiser fires missiles at the fleeing navy and my advancing gets hit, yet I can't disable their weapons (because there's only the choice of either all weapons or none but not for the individual weapon systems) or gunships & bombers will kill them anyway) -or- I have to let the enemy escape because of my own units unit stupidity that I can't stop without losing units the other way (air attacks)
3) have the artillery units not waste DPS on units they're terrible against: mobile units will be missed most likely, stationary units will eat lots of overkill damage - a lot of wasted DPS in both scenarios
4) have the artillery units auto-pickup the targets other units struggle to reach and deal with due to range and lack of burst damage: turrets, shields, eco structures, factories so that the basic army performance is functional when it comes to a combined advance of different unit types; imagine bringing anti air and it'd start picking ground units preferably - same kind of facepalm situation as with artillery currently: core targets ignored; T3 artillery babysitting is an issue because of this flaw, where even the T3 artillery structure starts picking units as targets instead of base structures
Another special issue is the move order. Once I order any unit to move it drops its target. Even if it is a unit with a turret and turret units are meant to keep on targets while being mobile - SupCom / FA somehow forgot that or didn't care about this. As T1 & T2 artillery can attack on the move but auto-targets wrong and drops their assigned target(s) when moving despite being able to attack on the move this means I can either leave them standing at a spot, get shot at but deal damage to the correct targets, or move them and they'll pick up all the wrong targets and either scenario is making me facepalm. Either they get shot or they act stupid. These are my choices. I can't dodge incoming fire / bombing / gunships / reposition without them acting stupid and dropping their targets. These are the issues behind that point.

There are many issues like this in the game, especially when it comes to the UI that offers fewer options for unit control than competing RTS titles. In fact: I can monitor and control a group of units better in Dawn of War than I could in SupCom / FA because it only shows me a single icon and the amount of units with no alternate view option in case I actually want the details and not just the broad strategic info. SupCom / FA forces me to be at the scene so that I'm screen-bound to one group to see its status while in Dawn of War I could toggle through multiple groups at multiple fronts and see at a glance who should retreat / which group is getting a lot of damage compared to which one does well. The thing is: the game calls itself "Supreme Commander" but the ACU is a clunky, vulnerable, slow moving, slow turning disappointment that can't even fend off T1 aircraft like it does in the intro, so you best hide it underwater. The AI just doesn't exist, there's rampant unit stupidity and the UI doesn't really allow you to control anything well and neither gives you proper info on most things. What works best is ordering your units around, and even that has issues with forced unit formations (too many units in a formation group = shield bubble units in formation get a formation spot so far behind that they shield none of the front row units), units getting stuck (bugged pathfinding), units bumping other units into impassable area or outside of shield bubbles, units being ordered outside the playable map area (aircraft detection- and attack prevention; also for transport drops), event-update issue on engineers (trying to pick up already completed tasks instead of skipping to the next), spamclick unit movement manipulation (floating bomber / unit efficiency increase)...
I want to like the game but I always end up either annoyed or bored. Definitely needs a sequel with proper design with features like working pathfinding, stopping units from attacking the ground, proper tooltips, indicators, mechanics they put some thought into instead of mashing them into the game and leaving them like 50% functional (formations: only 2, yet enfored; adjacency: no ingame info, no limit which means better cover all sides even if that seals off your factory and T3 only relevant; unit upgrades that make it impossible to control the unit; in-unit unit construction that can't produce units in batches and neither on the move: you get stand still experimentals or construction-capable experimentals that you can't use properly to construct), balance, faction-specific units (not just in looks, SYNERGY), unit variety that is so that units all have their specific jobs they can perform best instead of having a variety of copy units each tech tier, research wouldn't hurt as long as it's not done in a stupid way like SupCom2 did it that just makes things better by vast amounts while not offering any new options due to upgrades, proper veterancy that turns experienced units into leader units, buffing those of similar type around them with increased values while also making them slightly better at their core task(s). etc.

Discussing the game is hard: Either you're specific but then throw pages upon pages at another about the what, how and why or you're less specific and misunderstandings / assumptions mislead and make you post what long text you tried to avoid anyway.

[loudman2]

I suppose, in the end, it comes down to what you desire from your entertainment - if you like tight little firefights, you'll love Starcraft and Warcraft. If you want an operational or strategic scope, you'll play SCFA on a large map with thousands of units (not a couple of hundred) and you'll investigate the various options that address the performance issues so you can do that in a 2-3 hour window.

On the subject of unit balance and mods - we cannot compare the two - the unit set of SCFA is vast by comparison, and it has a great deal of overlap - which is a plus for many - and a curse in the balance area, since mods are notorious for having no balance concept - in fact, the original unit set suffers it's own. No - without question - the unit balance in SCFA is not the best.

Again, and I cannot help but point this out again, the much greater modding vista of SCFA allows that to be easily addressed - and it has been, in many forms. That, of course, gets lots of pushback from some quarters - the usual hue and cry being 'but thats what the designers intended'. No - it wasn't. The designers wanted an open world, not restricted by initial design.

Having been up and down this code for over 10 years now, I can attest to the fact that a lot of the unit development was 'seat of the pants - we'll fix it later' - the bulk of the work went into creating what is arguably the most open, moddable RTS out there - even today - with framework for almost every conceivable type of environment - and all of it - with a few exceptions - exposed for modification (including the targeting issues alluded to by Hollow).

So, going back to my original point - if you want a polished, balanced, refined RTS, with a limited scope - then the 'Craft' series games are for you. If you fancy yourself someone with a wider point of view, who wants to command an army of many hundreds over a vast battlefield, then SCFA is where you'll go - all of them have 'warts' - but all of them have their value.

[Nikonos]

Well, if it's all subjective I'll choose Peggle as the best RTS ever, because it does a lot of things Starcraft and SCFA can't do (and I love Grieg).
Who needs objectivity when we have strong feelings.

[Kamui]

The core game is top 3 RTS i've played. The UI could be better but it's not something that ruins the gameplay. Too bad the community isn't close to the quality of the game.