Supcom expansion announced!

[Stark]

I don't know about "nobody". I think a big part of it is that the main base represents this big pinnacle that can be reached: overrunning the enemy's defenses, storming in, and laying waste to the enemy "city" is really a pretty awesome way to end the game. Or, even better, bombing the missile defense system into rubble, and then nuking the shit out of the enemy base. It's good and visceral and definitive, and rewarding. (Rewarding is important in video games.)

Contrast with something like "you held these patches of land for x minutes! you win the game!", which doesn't have quite the climactic ending. Even crushing the enemy's army doesn't quite hold the same thrill as razing all his big structures does.

I think it would be more accurate to say that nobody likes having to deal with the SimCity aspects of base building placement.

I guess that's fair: bases per se aren't bad (whole games revolve around them after all, like TA and Warzone) but the constant attention it requires (even though there are clear 'optimum' placements/orderings) isn't so flash. It's endlessly amusing to me that Supcom for all it's bullshit still requires huge piles of micro, and even invents new forms of base micro (ie, the 'we didn't give you a tac missile UI element because we hate you' thing).

However, in my experience by the time someone's base is directly under threat they've lost anyway, and lamer players will disconnect before actually being defeated. And why do you use your non-standard rolling-eyes thing? Don't you like the yellow one?

[Covenant]

You can sometimes come back from being pushed to your base, assuming you have decent shields and perhaps a battery of artillery which with to throw back your enemies.

However, the T4 units really crush bases pretty handily on their own. And nukes are really not worth their cost whatsoever. I'm happy with that, as I don't want to play BASE COMMANDER anyway, but it just further marginalizes the role my base plays in the fun without removing it's dire need to be protected.

To me, these games boil down to a FPS/Shooter analogy. Everyone loves shooting, right? We love missions where we are sent to kill a zillion badguys with a ton of guns, ammo, and so on. We also like it when we get to sneak and cap guys with pistols or choke them. What does fucking EVERYONE hate? Escort missions. My base is just a big whiny hostage. I can't go without it, and I need to keep it protected. I can assign some of my attention to defending it, and thus do BETTER and win, and winning is fun. But I'd rather if it took care of itself (Ashley from RE4) at least within reason, and ideally to disepense with it altogether.

I'm not sure if anyone else really wants to play a game without bases, but I sure do!

[Stark]

What I've wanted base-wise (ie, economy, research, industry etc) for a decade was a MoO style slider interface coupled to area-defined output. What I mean is, sliders to distribute 'spending' (resources and constructors) and instead of 'drop factory', a more SimCity/Dungeon Keeper-style '4x5 factory with 20 output and one assembly line per 2 width' idea. Allocating footprint and resources could be a relatively advanced, complex thing which is actually easier to manage instead of 'build 4 power build metal build fac go go go'. You'd be able to buff your industrial output by extending a factory with a few clicks, without even looking at it, while using more specific templates for firebase defences etc. This would seldom require you to actually look at your base (it indeed wouldn't even have to be on-map).

But this is a genre where 'attach powerplants for discount' is a groundbreaking change, so...

[Laughing Mechanicus]

If I was going to implement a new base building system in a game which has the shear scale of Supreme Commander I would do it thusly:

When you start the game both you and your opponent have a fully operational base already constructed to a pre-set layout (the map editor would be hard coded to force the designer to leave a certain area of space around the starting points for this layout plus expansion). This base already has static defenses and all the buildings you will need throughout the game, as well as resource generation buildings. You can add additional capacity to this base with a single click on the new factory/airfield/supply point/whatever icon but this is the only base that can perform any of these functions.

You can head off into the map with you constructor units and build other bases to secure parts of the map, but these act purely as defensive strongholds and rally points. They can be upgraded in various ways (better defensive weapons, radars etc...) and you can assign units to automatically defend them. Ideally you would tell your main base 'Forward base X must always have 8 tanks and 32 infantry defending it' and your base would automatically construct those units and deliver them there to replenish losses. The AI controlling these doesn't need to be very smart as all it has to do is intercept incoming enemy attacks and inform the player that shit is going down here (verbally for fucks sake! Supreme Commanders near total lack of any verbal warnings fails).

Now each of these bases provides a certain area around them giving you control over some part of the map, which gives you access to whatever you happen to have inside that territory - one shot bonus resources, technology, tunnels, specialised buildings etc... you wouldn't be able to destroy these bases, rather you would fight to capture them (including your infantry needing to go street to street to finish off the capture).

Basically a bastard child of Rise of Legends and Company of Heroes.

[SAMAS]

That kind of dovetails with an idea I had to allow players to pre-set their bases before the match even begins.

[Uraniun235]

However, the T4 units really crush bases pretty handily on their own. And nukes are really not worth their cost whatsoever.

Ehh, depends. It's possible to throw up a wall of point defense and artillery that'll bring down even a spiderfucker, the fuckerbees (T4 gunships) can be brought down with a swarm of fighters and T3 SAMs, Fatboys are easy prey for strategic bombers, Hugbot even more so thanks to his incredibly slow movement. Nukes can certainly come into play against someone who's pretty heavily fortified; yeah, you can throw all that mass and energy into an attack force, but you're going to be facing your enemy's army who will itself be backed up by the defense grid.

After enough time, Supreme Commander doesn't place quite as much value on total territory controlled as a function of map resources extracted as it does on the territory you can use to throw down fusion reactors and metal makers, so it's possible to find yourself in a situation where going for big artillery pieces and nuclear weapons might be more productive than trying to overrun the opponent's army with a sufficiently huge army to take down both his army and his base defenses.

[Darth Wong]

Supreme Commander was instantly heralded as a genre re-defining classic

It was until we acutally got a chance to play it...

That's the thing about heraldry; it is nothing more than advertising.

Maybe later this year they can release another expansion pack. Supreme Commander: With Personality.

[Stark]

Nobody remembers the old Warzone 'attack maps', where during the campaigns you sent a squad of dudes in a transport to a map somewhere else in the world. You had an LZ (or several) you could use, but only if they were secure and the transports could be intercepted on their way in, and the transport had travel time to and from the zone. The UI allowed you to control everything about your off-map main base (production, research, loading transports etc, but no building) and the map you were on was also freely buildable. Flight time and cargo space was the limiting factor. They were neat: nice short sharp battles, you didn't have to manage a base but had all the base functionality, and a transport load of trucks could throw up a firebase pretty quick.