C&C3 Demo

[Uraniun235]

The SP nuke was also about ten times more powerful and wiped out a whole screen.

Not quite a whole screen, but it was powerful enough to just about decapitate a large base.

[Covenant]

About the demo: Makers of SupCom: This is how you make a demo that gets you additional customers, instead of scaring them off like yours did.

You mean like how I was interested in SupCom and the uninspired demo lowered my opinion of it, and I think C&C is a bit silly but this demo actually makes me want to play it? I've already played more C&C3 than SupCom.

Me too. And I was in the SupCom beta and had access to all the factions. I'm getting more of a thrill out of this one map than all the SupCom maps, and I can play a quick game and then go do something else, and not need to spend ages waiting to get to the fun parts. Plus, I know what the fuck I'm clicking on.

"What's group ten?"
-'I'm the Juggernaut!'
"Well, I guess that solves that."

[Covenant]

Ugh. I played as GDI against the medium comp and utterly rolled it over, stomping the hell out of it. Panthers early on beat the snout out of Nod dudes, even the rocket infantry. Worked my way to getting Zone Troopers, Mammoth Tanks, and then it was basically all over.

Nod has a lot of things that kill infantry, but if GDI doesn't build much in the way of infantry then Nod's advantage seems to shrivel and disappear. They have several tanks that are good versus infantry and several infantry that are good versus infantry. Versus my unit-crushing tanks, it just wasn't a threat.

As Nod though, I can't even put up a defense. The amount of rocket troops it takes out a tank is too high, and those GDI APC trucks just rip my guys apart. I could go for a Battlemech rush as Nod, but it seems pretty strange. Stealth Tanks are nice, but a bit down the tree for an anti-vehicle weapon.

It's my theory that Nod is specifically set weaker in the Demo than you might expect in the real game, just to make them a bit easier to dismantle and have fun with as GDI. I don't see many Nod defenses against a tank rush and the rocket troopers they have perform just awful against them. There's no 'force move' button that I can see, but even when manually moved they do a good job of crushing infantry hordes. I know that's a C&C time-tested fan favorite, but either I need more than like two men with my anti-tank team, or I need them to be as cheap as milita. Tank crews roll right over my guys. Even the blank hands get massacred by base defenses.

The suicide squads are okay, but they cost 800 bucks. I could nearly buy an entire tank for that. Hrm. I hope it's specifically set that way. Else they really need to work on balance. It's not broken or anything, it's not like we're supposed to have access to Nod, really. But it seems remarkably more difficult on non-easy to win than it should. Especially when GDI basically can't lose.

[D.Turtle]

You mean like how I was interested in SupCom and the uninspired demo lowered my opinion of it, and I think C&C is a bit silly but this demo actually makes me want to play it? I've already played more C&C3 than SupCom.

Exactly.

By the way: I just found out that there are two attack-move commands:
'A' and right click - only enemy units and defensive buildings are attacked.
'F' and right click - enemy units and buildings are attacked.
Quite nice, I always hated that you had to manually command your units to attack every building in C&C.

And I suck at this game, I can't even defeat the AI on hard, he just completely overruns me (did they implement the cheating AI again, as in all other C&C games so far?). Though I do utterly massacre him on medium - there is quite a big difference in the difficulty between those two levels.

The grenade guys are amazing against buildings, but they always run in front and are driven over by the enemies tanks...and then they don't prioritize infantry over tanks
Those NOD kamikaze troops are crazy if you have no proper anti-infantry weapons.

Question: What kind of build orders are you trying?
I'm currently (not very successfully) trying something along refinery and outpost, power, barracks, refinery, tank building. And the AI still out-produces/out-resources/out-builds me.

It should also be quite possible to pretty much eliminate base building in this game (by using the GDI reinforcement powers as a basis for a mod).

It's my theory that Nod is specifically set weaker in the Demo than you might expect in the real game, just to make them a bit easier to dismantle and have fun with as GDI.

Didn't the Dark Crusade demo have something similar with the Tau?

(Snip) There's no 'force move' button that I can see, but even when manually moved they do a good job of crushing infantry hordes.

What do you mean with 'force move'?
That they attack the enemy while moving forward? Don't they do that already (if the unit is capable of shooting while moving) if you just give a normal move command?

[Stark]

I suck pretty hard at it too: I struggle against the medium AI. I usually get a refinery/power/barracks then get another crane and spam out defences (since med seems to rush very often with tanks) and then go for upgraded tanks (which seem to rule NOD tanks). NOD seems weaker but is apparently in an unfinished state in the demo.

I actually enjoy that the AI often defeats me in battles by concentrating on the periphery: the two spikes near the starting base are often almost constantly raided, and they appear to scout the corner tiberium even when they're not using it themselves. The ability (with a few cranes) to prebuild some turrets, then deploy a base and drop all the turrets is pretty neat too.

[Beowulf]

If you're having difficulty against a given AI level, give the AI a bit of a handicap until you can beat him, then slowly get rid of it again.

[LaserRifleofDoom]

Yeah? Grenadiers can clear a building out with one shot. I just discovered that.

Fuck.
I hated that in Generals. I could garrison a building and the chinese or GLA would need a tank to clear it effectively at point blank. But all it took was one ranger with a flashbang to empty my building from beyond my guy's firing range.
Clearing a building should never be easy.

[Stark]

If you're having difficulty against a given AI level, give the AI a bit of a handicap until you can beat him, then slowly get rid of it again.

It's the speed of the builds etc that get me: I always have piles of money because building a dozen infantry or whatever costs nothing and takes 20 seconds. I'm slowly getting used to having huuuuuge queues.

[Covenant]

Force Move: the old C&Cs let you do a 'force move' the same way you could 'force attack' them to shoot at the ground. This was the way to tell your guys "hey run over these infantry kk lolz" and ruin their day. I'm fairly certain this existed. I remember doing it anyway.

If you're having difficulty against a given AI level, give the AI a bit of a handicap until you can beat him, then slowly get rid of it again.

It's the speed of the builds etc that get me: I always have piles of money because building a dozen infantry or whatever costs nothing and takes 20 seconds. I'm slowly getting used to having huuuuuge queues.

It's a nice change from waiting several minutes just to finish a non-fodder unit in supcom. I can crank out Mammoth Tanks at a fair clip, though the Avatar mechs hurt pretty hard. They're good but they're not THAT good. The real issue are the upgrades. Gets expensive! But can send an engineer into them and repair the sucker, which rules.

[Covenant]

Finally won as Nod. Skipped infantry altogether, rushed straight for tanks. Ended up winning by spamming flame tanks and sending them around the flanks. The Flamers may not do much against enemy tanks, but they do enough to a building to make it troublesome for them, and I ganked their MCV with about 8 flametanks and an airdrop of mines right onto their tiberium field.

[Shinova]

and I can play a quick game and then go do something else, and not need to spend ages waiting to get to the fun parts.

To be fair, if you're that busy with life you shouldn't be playing games at all.

Plus, I know what the fuck I'm clicking on.

"What's group ten?"
-'I'm the Juggernaut!'
"Well, I guess that solves that."

On the flip side, CnC3 doesn't tell you how many of what kinds of units are in a group, while supcom does.

EDIT: Whoops, brain fry. Cnc3 does tell you what kinds of units and how many. My bad. Well, that just puts it in the same level as supcom anyhow.

[Covenant]

and I can play a quick game and then go do something else, and not need to spend ages waiting to get to the fun parts.

To be fair, if you're that busy with life you shouldn't be playing games at all.

Oh snap! What a witty observation! Actually, the 'doing something else' could be playing a game as the other side, a new map, or any variety of things besides waiting for my tech-up to complete to the point where I can actually build some units that matter or I care about. Really, look, what's the entertainment value or game value to making we wait that long to get access to moneylords and nukes? Why not just let me do, like CC& does, a little bit of upgrading and get to the good parts? I want more tank porn, less buildup filler. Or could I at least get a montage to speed it up? We get it. I build small things. Then middle things. Then slightly bigger things. We're all waiting for the climax anyway.

You could gut SupCom down to making T2 and lower units appear in groups of 10 like infantry, T3 units be build like tanks, and T4's build like actual units we care about. Toss in some nukes, shields, and walls, and there you go. Now that's a game!

Plus, I know what the fuck I'm clicking on.

"What's group ten?"
-'I'm the Juggernaut!'
"Well, I guess that solves that."

On the flip side, CnC3 doesn't tell you how many of what kinds of units are in a group, while supcom does.

EDIT: Whoops, brain fry. Cnc3 does tell you what kinds of units and how many. My bad. Well, that just puts it in the same level as supcom anyhow.

Actually, it's superior to Supcom in that the units have nice big pretty icons and vocal retorts when I click on them, so instead of seeing 'chunky polygon blob #12' I get "Dude with a Rifle." Which would tell me he's a rifleman. I'd say that even TA's units had more individual flavor than SupCom's. I've been ragging on it for a long time now, so sniping at me about it is perfectly fair, but it's just a very little thing. How hard would it be to hire one guy for each faction and run their voice through a modulation thingie or add some effects? It doesn't need to joke with me the way Blizzard's critters do, but the fact that their tanks just go "whuchunk" when I click on them seems to show me they care so very little about that aspect of the game, and it shows.

[Shinova]

Oh snap! What a witty observation! Actually, the 'doing something else' could be playing a game as the other side, a new map, or any variety of things besides waiting for my tech-up to complete to the point where I can actually build some units that matter or I care about. Really, look, what's the entertainment value or game value to making we wait that long to get access to moneylords and nukes? Why not just let me do, like CC& does, a little bit of upgrading and get to the good parts? I want more tank porn, less buildup filler. Or could I at least get a montage to speed it up? We get it. I build small things. Then middle things. Then slightly bigger things. We're all waiting for the climax anyway.

Well there's your problem. You're teching up instead of being highly aggressive and you wonder why the game seems so slow. As awesome as the late-game stuff are, it's entirely possible and frequent to end the game in short spans of time if you're playing small maps.

You can probably end CnC3 games within a few minutes if you were serious about it.

You could gut SupCom down to making T2 and lower units appear in groups of 10 like infantry, T3 units be build like tanks, and T4's build like actual units we care about. Toss in some nukes, shields, and walls, and there you go. Now that's a game!

You mean like Dawn of War or Company of Heroes? If I felt like playing that kind of RTS, I'd play those games not Supcom.

Actually, it's superior to Supcom in that the units have nice big pretty icons and vocal retorts when I click on them, so instead of seeing 'chunky polygon blob #12' I get "Dude with a Rifle." Which would tell me he's a rifleman. I'd say that even TA's units had more individual flavor than SupCom's. I've been ragging on it for a long time now, so sniping at me about it is perfectly fair, but it's just a very little thing. How hard would it be to hire one guy for each faction and run their voice through a modulation thingie or add some effects? It doesn't need to joke with me the way Blizzard's critters do, but the fact that their tanks just go "whuchunk" when I click on them seems to show me they care so very little about that aspect of the game, and it shows.

I don't play Supcom for personality. I play it for the feel of an army of cold and raw steel marching forth and blasting each other and the ground they're standing on to pieces. Waves of metallic death and nuclear hellfire. There's a different kind of personality to supcom. If I wanted the typical personality, I'd play Dawn of War, which curb-rapes CnC 3 in terms of personality. Or I'd play Company of Heroes for the unit feedback and dynamics.


Now I don't see what everyone finds so great about CnC 3 aside from the story. Everything this game does, there's another game that does it way better. Except for the story, as previously mentioned.

[Covenant]

You mean like Dawn of War or Company of Heroes? If I felt like playing that kind of RTS, I'd play those games not Supcom.

Exactly. And I do! And I like them. And it frustrates me when SupCom could easily have done any number of things differently to make my game experience with it a lot more fun, and they didn't. Some of those things--like refusing to deploy tank squads as squads, and making me build piles of individual retard tanks--can be seen as design decisions. Others, like the lack of flavor, personality, and so on can only be interperted as laziness.

Yeah, I know, they'll probably give you downloadables. How about instead of giving me downloadables which may or may not unbalance the gameplay, they just spend more than 10 seconds designing tanks and such for each side? It may not bother some people, but it does bother me. And the reason for that is that they failed to make the advanced army controls you'd expect from a game with hundreds of units all at once. If you look at C&C infantry the same way you look at a light tank in SupCom, there's hundreds of units in some of my battles too. But they're way more full of fluff.

It's obvious that SupCom is a product not designed for me, but I wish that the reason that my demographic was abandoned wasn't out of a creative lack.

I don't play Supcom for personality. I play it for the feel of an army of cold and raw steel marching forth and blasting each other and the ground they're standing on to pieces. Waves of metallic death and nuclear hellfire. There's a different kind of personality to supcom.

I can vouch for the fact there's a lot more flaming destruction in a game of C&C than you'll get in SupCom. While you may not be flinging volleys of nukes back and forth, Nod's nuke or GDI's ion cannon creates an extremely satisfying amount of flash, and between the flamethrowers, rocket barrages, airlifts, railguns, beams and hails of gunfire I'm not sure what you're really lacking in terms of 'blasted terrain'.

The only thing you're not getting from that is the feel that you're commanding soulless automatons, but I wouldn't consider SupCom's lack of soul much of a bonus. You could always turn the voices and music off and turn on some kind of Wagnerian Operatics.

So, I counter back, what does SupCom offer? Zillions of units? Perhaps in the sense that the tiny speck you're told is a tank is a unit, sure. I call it a glorified infantry peon with fewer special abilities. In that sense SupCom's not pulling in numbers that are that huge. Back-and-forth annhilation? Getting ion-cannoned is pretty impressive, and across-the-map shelling by artillery is pretty impressive as well. Brutal battles? Mammoth tanks versus just about anything ends up looking pretty hellish.

Perhaps the ability to command a vast army with intelligent unit controls? That, I fear, is the real issue. SupCom's ability to do that is woefully inadequate. It's basically jury-rigged at best. C&C gives me an actual tactical planning mode as well as far more behaviors, including special movement orders to utilize armor facing bonuses. I'm not even sure if units in SupCom have armor facing modifiers, which reward complex strategies like sending my attack bikes back around behind the enemy tank column to exploit their weaker rear armor.

So while C&C may not be the best game for any one of those reasons, it gives me a real fun story, yes. But it also gives me a lot of personality and good unit feedback, as well as technical innovations like summonable airlifting, planning modes, and armor facing. It's a nice advancement of the traditional RTS style, and one in the right direction. Low micro, high violence, and excllent accessibility.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

So, I counter back, what does SupCom offer? Zillions of units? Perhaps in the sense that the tiny speck you're told is a tank is a unit, sure. I call it a glorified infantry peon with fewer special abilities. In that sense SupCom's not pulling in numbers that are that huge. Back-and-forth annhilation? Getting ion-cannoned is pretty impressive, and across-the-map shelling by artillery is pretty impressive as well. Brutal battles? Mammoth tanks versus just about anything ends up looking pretty hellish.

No, what SupCom offers is scale. I admit I've gotten too used to being able to see everything to the point that I've found myself constantly trying to zoom out more while playing CnC3. I think this particular feature has garnered different reactions. Some feel it has sorely detracted from an immersive experience and some feel like it's an unimpressive feature slapped onto an unoriginal product. I personally enjoy the ability to see everything at once. Being able to see the whole picture provides me the sense of being a general. I lets me evaluate the situation in a very short period of time, which is a luxury considering how much attention players are forced to give to the small details in most RTS games.

It's funny how I'm experiencing in CnC3 some of the same disappointing sentiments expressed towards SupCom. It's the same old thing with flashy graphics. It's still relatively fun, however, and their cinematics are the best. I'm glad they kept the cool story lines and silly characters; ever since Generals came out, I was afraid they were about to abandon them.

[The Yosemite Bear]

BTW is there anyway to repair garisonable buildings?

[Darth Garden Gnome]

BTW is there anyway to repair garisonable buildings?

Only way you can repair those are with engineers.

[Stark]

No, what SupCom offers is scale. I admit I've gotten too used to being able to see everything to the point that I've found myself constantly trying to zoom out more while playing CnC3.

People like me have demanded more zoom-out for a decade. This is not new, SupCom didn't invent it, and I figure 80% of the crazy RTS types don't like it (just as you suggest).

I think this particular feature has garnered different reactions. Some feel it has sorely detracted from an immersive experience and some feel like it's an unimpressive feature slapped onto an unoriginal product.

Have people REALLY said stuff like that? There is no downside to being able to zoom out to any arbritary distance. SupCom did nothing imaginative here, it just showed up the genre as laughably myopic. Are you sure you're not just villifying anyone who doesn't like SupCom?

It's funny how I'm experiencing in CnC3 some of the same disappointing sentiments expressed towards SupCom. It's the same old thing with flashy graphics. It's still relatively fun, however, and their cinematics are the best. I'm glad they kept the cool story lines and silly characters; ever since Generals came out, I was afraid they were about to abandon them.

It's called 'taste'. I'm curious to see what does better, myself.

[Vympel]

Alyeska and I played SupCom multiplayer for several hours earlier today- two maps, coop against two Challenge and then one Supreme and one Challenge AI. The strength of SupCom is definitely in the multiplayer, but the single player is dull as paint.

Which is why I'll surely prefer C&C 3 when it's released.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

No, what SupCom offers is scale. I admit I've gotten too used to being able to see everything to the point that I've found myself constantly trying to zoom out more while playing CnC3.

People like me have demanded more zoom-out for a decade. This is not new, SupCom didn't invent it, and I figure 80% of the crazy RTS types don't like it (just as you suggest).

I don't see how whether the idea is new or inventive has anything to do with implementation. My response was simply aimed at Covenant's question as to what SupCom offers, not what SupCom has invented. But of course if there is another game that has offered this sort of scale and zoom feature as you appear to implicitly suggest, please let me know what game this is that I've been missing out on.

I think this particular feature has garnered different reactions. Some feel it has sorely detracted from an immersive experience and some feel like it's an unimpressive feature slapped onto an unoriginal product.

Have people REALLY said stuff like that? There is no downside to being able to zoom out to any arbritary distance.

Yes, people have REALLY said stuff like that. Peruse the other thread and you will find people saying the game feels like an 'ants' game in the context of immersive gameplay and even Mike has retorted that the zoom feature was nothing impressive in what he feels is an unoriginal game. If I'm somehow misconstruing these complaints, then feel free to show me where I'm wrong. Of course, these are merely some complaints among other complaints.

SupCom did nothing imaginative here, it just showed up the genre as laughably myopic. Are you sure you're not just villifying anyone who doesn't like SupCom?

What? You think anything I post about SupCom is based on vilifying anyone who doesn't like it? No, Stark. I'm only vilifying you. I've said nothing about the creativity of SupCom or of its ideas. So what is this other game that makes SupCom's zoom feature so last decade?

It's called 'taste'. I'm curious to see what does better, myself.

In terms of what? Sales? Ratings?

[Covenant]

I think any game with a minimap would be considered an all-out zoom feature. That's what they become in SupCom when you pull it way far out--just little symbols on the minimap. I can give people orders to move to other map locations and such, so really all SupCom did different is a MacroMap. I think that was a really nice thing to add, but it's just removing the arbitrary camera distance. You can change that in a buncha games via modding. And RTS's like Homeworld had a free-roaming camera that was an infinite zoom, along with a MacroMap.

It was my issue that they felt like ants, but that's because there was no real sense of scale. This is something I and others in the Beta forums brought up, and preceeded their shift to a more 3/4ths camera angle than top down. The new camera angle helped.

The problem was, look at your units from above. Do you get a sense of scale? of course not. Look at them from the side, or from ground level, looking up. Sense of scale? Definately? But we never see towering monkeylords stomping over our heads, as tanks and such thunder under trees and cannonfire. We just see little pewpew lasers and spiderbots and they explode like they're made of tinfoil. The big berthas don't sound like big berthas, the tanks don't sound like they're firing potent energies, and it just seems small. You need to actually zoom down and rotate it to get a sense of 'bigness' to any of the units.

And this is done by improperly scaling some units (the small ones especially, they look like toy cars), bad sound design, and in part the zoom feature. When given the option to zoom as far away as possible, there's really no reason not to. At that point you don't see ANY combat or ANY sense of scale and it's just little dueling symbols.

[Shinova]

So, I counter back, what does SupCom offer? Zillions of units?

It offers what TA offered, only better. Two things, actually.

1. the space. Oh, thank goodness the space. Homeworld is the only other game so far that doesn't make me feel like I'm trying to maneuver in a box. Every other RTS feels cramped. You can't take advantage of the terrain, and there's no feeling of a vast battlefield. And in supcom you can actually HIDE stuff and be really sneaky. A tiny game like cnc 3 or Dawn of War doesn't allow for this. Oh, and intelligence is so much better here.

2. So many different ways to kill the enemy. Seriously. CnC 3 does not come even close. Dawn of War and company of Heroes don't come as close either. You have sea, air, land. You have nuke barrages, stealthed firebases, teleporting commanders. You send land forces across the water or drop them by air. Or forego all that and just siege, and I mean properly siege, a base from afar. Very few RTS games give the feeling that you're actually sieging someone.

Perhaps the ability to command a vast army with intelligent unit controls? That, I fear, is the real issue. SupCom's ability to do that is woefully inadequate. It's basically jury-rigged at best.

I still don't understand why people are having problems with controlling their units.

C&C gives me an actual tactical planning mode as well as far more behaviors, including special movement orders to utilize armor facing bonuses. I'm not even sure if units in SupCom have armor facing modifiers, which reward complex strategies like sending my attack bikes back around behind the enemy tank column to exploit their weaker rear armor.

Here's the difference between supcom and cnc 3 in regards to what you're saying. Attacking vehicles in the back in cnc 3 is effective because of a numerical modifier that arbitrarily makes rear sides weaker. Of course, Cnc 3 tanks and vehicles can turn on a dime so that's not all that great.

Attacking stuff in the back in supcom works because of turning speeds. Big, strong stuff turn much slower than lighter stuff, so you can exploit that lack of maneuverability. Only siege bots can still turn on a dime, and you can deal with those by out-ranging them with several other units. And if you get higher, Monkeylords and GCs do have slow turning speeds, so you can exploit their lack of maneuverability.

So while C&C may not be the best game for any one of those reasons, it gives me a real fun story, yes. But it also gives me a lot of personality and good unit feedback, as well as technical innovations like summonable airlifting, planning modes, and armor facing. It's a nice advancement of the traditional RTS style, and one in the right direction. Low micro, high violence, and excllent accessibility.

Again, CnC 3 has a separate planning mode, while supcom doesn't have a specific planning mode but its robust and versatile base control system allows you to do just that anyway. And armor facing was done way better by company of Heroes so cnc 3's not doing anything new there.

[Pelranius]

Anythyng: 512 RAM and a Geforce FX 5600/5800 (can't remember which one)

The more I hear about C&C3, the more me likes. Makes me almost want to download the demo on my college laptop, but fat chance of that.

[Shinova]

I think any game with a minimap would be considered an all-out zoom feature. That's what they become in SupCom when you pull it way far out--just little symbols on the minimap. I can give people orders to move to other map locations and such, so really all SupCom did different is a MacroMap. I think that was a really nice thing to add, but it's just removing the arbitrary camera distance. You can change that in a buncha games via modding. And RTS's like Homeworld had a free-roaming camera that was an infinite zoom, along with a MacroMap.

It's the frame of reference. You can frame a fleet of ships in the same way you can frame a force of ground units. Not to mention it makes planning large maneuvers much easier.

It was my issue that they felt like ants, but that's because there was no real sense of scale. This is something I and others in the Beta forums brought up, and preceeded their shift to a more 3/4ths camera angle than top down. The new camera angle helped.

The problem was, look at your units from above. Do you get a sense of scale? of course not. Look at them from the side, or from ground level, looking up. Sense of scale? Definately? But we never see towering monkeylords stomping over our heads, as tanks and such thunder under trees and cannonfire. We just see little pewpew lasers and spiderbots and they explode like they're made of tinfoil. The big berthas don't sound like big berthas, the tanks don't sound like they're firing potent energies, and it just seems small. You need to actually zoom down and rotate it to get a sense of 'bigness' to any of the units.

I get a sense of scale when I look at my units from above. But that's probably cause I can actually comprehend depth, rather than merely just height and width, and because I can measure scale also as a product of distance rather than simply how big something looks from up wherever.

[SWPIGWANG]

As a commanding player, you can never zoom out far enough(until it covers the entire map)! Zoom out solves some of the most CRITICAL problems of RTS games of sistuation awareness and control. (Homeworld would be completely unplayable without it....TA suffers heavily due to lack of it)

People that dislike it play games to watch stuff happen, not command troops. They should play real time battle watching.