Supreme Commander

[Krill]

Anyone got it yet? How does it play? What is it like on you computer? What speci s your computer? How does it compare to Total Annihilation? And other similar questions.

[LordShiva]

Tabbi has it.

[Nubclear]

I have the demo.
My specs: AMD 64 4000+, Geforce 7900GT, 1GB Ram.
The demo runs fine for me and I experience no slowdowns.

But others who have far more powerful systems than mine have reported large slowdowns, and thus don't purchase it just yet.

[The diplomat]

I am enjoying the demo. It seems like a really fun game. My comp specs are Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz, GeForce 7950 GT OC and 4 Gb ram. The game runs super smooth on 1280x1024 screen resolution.

I like the "economic model" where if you run out of resources, your production will slow down a lot. It forces the player to expand and protect your resources before building too large an army. You can also increase your production speed a lot if you have a large number of engineer units that you all set to assit your factory. Set 10 tech 2 engineers to assist a land factory and you will crank out heavy tanks really fast provided you got the resources.

Land, air and sea units all play a distinct role. You definitely want to build AA guns and interceptors to protect your units from enemy bombers or you will be sorry. Likewise, you better knock the enemy's air defenses before sending your bombers in. But I definitely like how your destroyers can actually crawl on land. Once the destroyer crawls on land, it becomes a great artillery platform.

One thing to keep in mind is that you lose the game if your Supreme Commander unit gets destroyed (by the way, the nuclear detonation when a SCU explodes is very satisfying). In some ways, the game isn't about destroying the enemy base, it is about destroying the enemy SCU. You can have the largest army in the world but if you are foolish to leave your SCU unguarded and it gets ambushed and it gets destroyed, you'll lose. When playing the AI, you can definitely take advantage of this. Attack the AI with a large army, the AI SCU will try to rebuild it's land factory that you've destroyed and it will get creamed by your overwhelming force. You'll win even though the AI still had a sizeable base with good defenses. On the other hand, this is probably a good thing because it prevents the game from getting tedious. Because let's face it, if you have a large enough army that can cripple the enemy and destroy the enemy SCU, then you've basically won, there is no need to drag the game out by destroying every last enemy building.

The AI has 3 difficulty levels: easy, medium and hard. You can definitely tell the difference between the levels. On easy, the AI is very passive. It will not build strong defenses or attack with large numbers. On medium, the AI is not overly aggressive but it will build good defenses. You'll immediately notice "maginot line" style defenses with stretches of barricade walls and clusters of point defense guns behind the walls. On "hard" the AI builds large clusters of point defense guns behind walls, it's base will bristle protective shields and point defense guns and it will aggressively attack you with land, air and sea units.

[Nubclear]

One thing to keep in mind is that you lose the game if your Supreme Commander unit gets destroyed

Note that this is a limitation of the demo, and the full game lets you turn this off if you like.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Tacc

One thing to keep in mind is that you lose the game if your Supreme Commander unit gets destroyed

Note that this is a limitation of the demo, and the full game lets you turn this off if you like.

that's good to know. I look forward to playing a game with that option turned off.

[Jamski]

I rushed to buy this while they were still pricing it up in the store. Excellent excellent fun, runs fine on my AMD 3600 / geforce 7800GT / 1GB RAM machine in 1200x1064 res. Had some crazy multiplayer fun today. Buy this game if you like RTS games.

[Krill]

I got it today, and I kinda like it atm. Though the pathing algorithm sucks ass.

[The diplomat]

I got the full game. Playing on big maps really makes a difference. There lots of room to strategize. It really feels like military planning in the real world where you have land, air and sea operations in different regions.

[FrostyBoy]

Game is fun, but Interface is far too big. Big like SMAC, I don't like that, I need to see as much of the game screen as possible.

[DrSpike]

Gamespot said quite a few nice things about this - seems to be getting solid reviews generally.

[Jamski]

1st patch delivers.

Unit balance and optional smaller interface. GG GPG.

[Kuciwalker]

Is it a clickfest or can it be played at a slightly more leisurely pace (particularly in this grand strategic mode)?

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Is it a clickfest or can it be played at a slightly more leisurely pace (particularly in this grand strategic mode)?

I would not say it is clickfest for 2 reasons:

1) you can pause and issue commands
2) you can queue up movements, attack orders. for example, I can tell a group of units to move along specific waypoints, attack a specific target then move along a specific waypoint. I can tell units to automatically patrol along specific waypoints. You can drag waypoints if you need to adjust them. So for example, if you discover that waypoint 2 is a bit too close to enemy defenses you can simply drag waypoint 2 to where you would prefer. Overall, this allows you to create military plans as elaborate as you want them to be. You can also queue up building constructions and enable "infinite build" if you want the factory to build a queue forever. So, I don't think there is any reason to be clicking stuff non stop.

I would also add that if you play on a large map, you'll have more time to think because it will take time for units to reach there destination.

[The diplomat]

I am playing the game on a 22 in. wide LCD at 1680x1050 resolution. The game looks absolutely awesome!!