Supreme Commander

I’ve witnessed the passing of many RTS games through my life. It started many years ago with the original Dune, a humble RPG\RTS that did great justice to the Frank Herbert novel. I’ve been a fan of the genre ever since and played through most major games that came out during that time. With each passing generation, the signs of evolution were very visible — the genre in itself began to borrow from other styles of play. The original Armor Commander was a great example of how the genre had evolved, and similarly, Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War changed the concepts of economy and brought tactical play into the mix.

Enter 2007 and we’re ready for the next step... and from what we’ve seen so far, Chris Taylor’s Supreme Commander (SC) takes on the leader role quite well. While it’s firmly based on classic RTS principles, SC has a sense of scale unlike any other.

The Long And Short...
Designed by Gas Powered Games, SC is nothing short of a dream come true for any armchair general. A spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, SC aims to live up to its predecessor in almost every way. The game plays out around the Infinite War — a conflict that has aptly been on for the last 1000 years between three factions of humanity — The United Earth Federation, Cybrans and Aeon Illuminate. Not surprisingly, the war is one of ideology.

The United Earth Federation is a group that rose from the ashes of Earth. Their only goal is to reunite humanity under one banner (much like the dictators of old). They lean towards tanks and artillery, primarily focusing on massive amounts of splash damage to fight superior numbers. However, what they have in toughness, they lack in direct fire-power and abilities.

The Cybrans are Symbionts — humans whose brains have been computerized and enhanced by cybernetic technology (one such upgrade is a downloadable AI... or is that a step back?). The Symbionts were previously oppressed by the UEF but rose to fight for their freedom and rights. Their units focus more on variety, adaptability and stealth. Not surprisingly, Their units are also the most unique with the greatest amounts of abilities: for example the Cybran destroyer can sprout legs and actually walk on land (albeit, rather slowly).

The final faction is that of the Aeon Illuminate — a religious order of humans that have taken up the philosophy, technologies and teachings of a highly advanced and (not surprisingly) now extinct alien race. These teachings are what they refer to as The Way. They now seek to bring all to this path — be it through peaceful means, or in this case, through force. Aeon Units are rather focused in their approach and design, with each one only doing what is meant for their roles. However, this focus allows Aeon units to hit the hardest, and also allows them to summon what is arguably the most powerful unit in the game — The Galactic Colossus.

You play the role of the Supreme Commander — a gigantic construction unit that can go onto the field and make entire bases, structures and even armies out of literally nothing save what resources are available. Your goal as part of the Infinite war is to essentially bring about its end. How that is done depends on which faction you choose.

Of Many Features And Sadistic AI
Supreme Commander comes with quite an offering of new features. It includes a somewhat different way-pointing system, which allows you to select and modify any waypointmove order given to a unit on the fly. Patrol routes can be changed in an instant and two formations can be set to arrive at the same location at the same time for a co-ordinated strike. Even better is the introduction of the ferry system. When a transport is given the order to ferry to a specified location, it will sit and wait at the pick-up point for units to take to the location. Once units are directed to the ferry point, they will automatically queue and wait for pick up at the designated spot. However, what makes it a particularly useful feature is that factory rally points can be assigned to a ferry point. Any unit built at that factory will automatically queue up and take a ride towards the front lines. Other transports can be set to assist that queue point, joining the primary transport in moving troops to the front line quickly and efficiently. Combined with the advanced way-pointing system, ferry drop locations can be easily shifted to keep up with the front lines without ever having to look at the base again.

Another addition is the capability to queue any build order in any factory. You can set it to just about any order you wish and in any number — and then have that entire build order repeat itself forever. By default, the build time for units is rather long — battleships take nearly an hour to build when unaided! To combat this, however, Engineers are given a special use in the game. They can be used to assist factories, adding their own production ability to that of the structures, building any unit faster than normal. A mess of T1 engineers can reduce that 57 minute build time to a measly five.

But even as the Battleship rolls out of your construction yards, and your tanks rush into combat, one can see that there is a sense of scale to each and every unit. Battleship guns are larger than the tanks, and logically do shit loads more damage. The larger the unit, the larger the gun it wields, hence the more the damage it does, and the greater the beating it can take. Larger units can quite literally step on and crush smaller units in their wake — be they friend or foe. Everything in Supreme Commander is scaled to what it’s supposed to do, or how tough it’s supposed to be.

During the beta, game AI was rather brutal... on Easy. It became incredibly tough on Medium and simply sadistic on Hard... and this is by using both tactics and excellent micro-management to defeat the player. The AI will often get an economy advantage if you’re not careful, will hit your defences with Experimental units rather quickly. At the same time, it conducts raids using naval vessels on near-shore mass extractors and structures to distract you while using flanking manoeuvres elsewhere, keeping your forces constantly occupied. However, this was during the beta. Checking the demo recently, the AI seems to have been rather downsized in terms of its aggressiveness. Whether it remains like this in the full version is to be seen.

All Roads Lead To War
This game is at its basic core, what war is all about. The scale of battle is mind-boggling at times. As the Supreme Commander, you can zoom out to any level; keeping an eye on a single skirmish as nothing more than strategic icons moving together… while at the same time keep an eye on the three or sometimes even four other skirmishes you have going on at various points on the map. The maps on which any of the games take place are massive. Armies of tanks and infantries roll across them just like real armies would, coordinating with other formations to arrive either at the exact same time or arriving in staggered attacks, depending on your plan.

One has to note though; each of these formations can range anywhere from a few dozen skirmisher units, to hordes of units of various sizes — up to and including Experimental units, each of which is truly unique in design. The maximum unit cap possible is several thousand, and with the maps being several kilometres square, it makes for truly unique battles in all three spheres of combat. Oh wait, not only are there three spheres of combat, however, but three dimensions as well. Each aircraft travels at a predetermined height; with Gunships and Fighters being the lowest, while spy-planes and bombers fly higher up where AA guns have difficulty reaching them. The result, when combined with the physics engine, is the fact that missiles and anti-aircraft fire now actually have to travel to their destination targets in 3D space and then impact to register a hit. Each projectile is calculated with its own trajectory, chances to hit or miss, etc. This is true of nearly all the weapons and units in the game however — even on land or sea. Direct-fire lasers can’t penetrate high ground to shoot at a bunch of hiding units, while indirect artillery has a chance of missing due to ballistics.

(Strategic War)3
Warfare has never been as intense as I have seen in this game, especially in terms of Naval Warfare. While C&C: Red Alert and Red Alert 2 did have submarinebattleship warfare, the depth of implementation here is amazing. The Naval battles alone are worth watching, if only because of the sheer thrill of seeing two gigantic battleships duke it out at range, and then bringing their fleets into direct conflict as aircraft trade fire above. At the same time, below the blue, a similarly high-paced battle takes place between submarine groups; each one struggling for supremacy and a chance to destroy the opposing battleships. Even as this goes on, the nearby peninsula has a wildly different scene: massive formations of tanks, siege robots and artillery duke it out across a crater-filled landscape. Each side is constantly re-enforced by a steady stream of transports which ferry units straight from the factories and into the front lines. But even as the land units duke it out, a titanic battle is being fought above them in the air as formations of fighters struggle to take control of the skies.

However, at the same time from one side of the peninsula Cybran destroyers hit the shoreline, legs emerging from its hull and touching down on the sandy beach. They rise up from the sea, walking onto land and blowing away tanks and infantry with impunity. That is of course until they are blown sky high, as from the other side of the Peninsula a Fatboy slowly rolls onto shore. Its four, triple-barrelled guns rival those seen on the battleships as the massive rounds tear through everything nearby. At the same time it continues to produce more and more tanks from the maw in front, allowing it to further turn the tide of battle into its favour. But even this is futile as a nuclear strike is detected from the enemy base… and, less than a minute later, the entire peninsula is nothing more than a massive, radioactive field of white as every single unit is wiped out. Another minute goes by and new units and re-enforcements arrive at the scene via transports and begin their run to the enemy base before they can send out their units to retaliate once more. The game of chess continues on, despite the devastating loss.

It’s scenes like these that would make any game exciting. But it’s the fact that many of these scenes take place simultaneously across many battle fronts that make Supreme Commander a truly unique experience from start to finish. Each game is a complete war in itself, with commanders being the armchair generals pitting their skills in tactics and economy.

Eye Candy Store!
Chief amongst the praises that Supreme Commander gets is the incredible amount of eye candy it offers; especially if one is observing a game in progress. It is one of the few games that has dual monitor support — a significant boon for Strategy fanatics everywhere. The function allows you to keep one monitor as a primary strategic display, showing an overview of the entire map while the other display shows the battle scene as it unfolds in front of you. The models are beautifully crafted, while the FX is top-notch and in the case of the strategic nuke detonations… simply amazing. No other game can claim to have the same impact when it comes to a nuclear detonation — except perhaps DEFCON, but the horror that game instils is different to the sheer awe Supreme Commander’s nukes inspire.

The surprising part however, is that despite all this, the video card requirements aren’t as high as many would have feared. Similar to Dawn of War, the camera is fully controllable. While dual monitors aren’t required to run the game, it’s actually recommended to try and use it if at all possible. The additional display frees up the need to zoom out all the way, more often than not leaving you just staring at a bunch of icons as they move from one corner of the map to the other.

Not Everything Is All Bright And Rosy, Sadly
As good as the game is, however, there are some gripes and misgivings one may still have about it. The first is the User Interface which takes up a significant percentage of the view, and limits what you can see of the actual battles on screen. The best option is to have another monitor to help out in such cases; but it isn’t one that everyone can afford.

At the same time, despite their being optimisations to the AI, it still causes any single-core processor to crawl. This game is very physics heavy, and as such needs the second core to run properly. While having a good graphics card can compensate for it quite easily and lets you play multiplayer without a problem, playing against the AI will still be a headache.

Another problem that is more personal than anything else, is the fact that the game economy is tough to master. Not building the right combination of buildings in the start can utterly crash and freeze your economy in the start, ending the game right there while your opponent races on to better technology.

Final Thoughts
All things considered though, Supreme Commander is a must-have title for anyone that loves the RTS Genre. Even if you aren’t really interested in RTS, but love watching giant armies duke it out in ever-constant war, this game is definitely for you.