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That sounds like the system they use in Battle for Middle Earth 2 where you build farms to make money, so area control is necessary to build enough farms to sustain your operations. Mind you, the problem with BFME2 is the annoying unit limits.

Darth Wong wrote:That sounds like the system they use in Battle for Middle Earth 2 where you build farms to make money, so area control is necessary to build enough farms to sustain your operations. Mind you, the problem with BFME2 is the annoying unit limits.

It is, essentially. The metal spots are the size of a single small extractor and you end up littering the landscape with them. It's hard to hang onto them initially but your core base always has a supply. Where it falls apart is the end-game, where your massive Fusion reactors are cranking out huge power amounts and you can use that to fuel transmutors that turn energy into metal. This allows you to create a dense but volatile base that is mostly self-sufficent without the need for a large border with the enemy.

In TA that was the smartest thing. In TA:spring, the modern remake, the new metal system makes it very profitable to control area, and it's much more fair in my opinion. Sadly, Supreme Commander goes back to the old 'metal points' system, where you need to control these discrete points across the map. The worst part always was that the enemy knows where they are too so he can just set his gunships on a patrol path along them and wipe out your entire border's metal extraction efforts with minimal problem. It becomes more expensive in terms of time and money to replace lost extractors and install defenses along this long border than it is to simply upgrade the defenses of your main base (which you need to defend anyway) and harvest from there.

Also, metal extractors in supreme commander can upgrade themselves to a more efficent form. And if they are paired with 4 metal storage units next to them, they produce much more. This makes the safe and fully upgraded extractors in your base produce much more than the ones on your borders (which are constantly being replaced) and further diminishes your impetus to expand.

That's one of the current qualms with the game anyway. Artillery and raiding devices makes it hard to hold onto far-flung metal spots, there's no inherent advantage to one piece of dirt over another, and there are nice things like base-protecting shields that further enhance the already superior footing you have in your bases. It's the exact opposite of C&C, really. Big, epic fights between hordes tree-tall tanks that matter as much as a single infantryman and a few massive, building-sized robotic monsters with nukes, ballistic missiles, orbital guns and naval units trading fire at the same time.

Now, what I think they should do is just make it so when you start the game you automatically have a mid-tier economy going. I dislike the disingenuous irrelevence of the lower-level tiers in Supreme Commander. They're just obviously worthless compared to the Tier 3 units. It feels like playing Rome:Total War and having them start you off too poor to draft peltasts. If they sliced an hour of basebuilding off the front of every game session, you'd have some much more inspired gameplay, with really no loss.

I certainly hope someone makes a mod for SC which re-creates the Spring conditions, because while I liked some of the ideas in Spring I could never get into it because I always felt incredibly clumsy with the interface. (That, and I'm sorry, but the Spring graphics looked bad. Yeah, they were 3D and OMGSHINY, but they simply didn't look anywhere near as tight as TA. Yeah, it was an indie project, but that doesn't change anything.)

Now, what I think they should do is just make it so when you start the game you automatically have a mid-tier economy going. I dislike the disingenuous irrelevence of the lower-level tiers in Supreme Commander. They're just obviously worthless compared to the Tier 3 units. It feels like playing Rome:Total War and having them start you off too poor to draft peltasts. If they sliced an hour of basebuilding off the front of every game session, you'd have some much more inspired gameplay, with really no loss.

I have to disagree. I have played games where, because of the constant skirmishing going on early-game, it takes longer to tech up because you're pouring so many of your resources into fighting off the other guy. The ice map that they released for the beta is actually a pretty decently designed map.

I think the issue may be that it is simply too easy to get too many resources in many of the maps. Resource-poorer maps would encourage a lot more T1 action, and make T2 and T3 much more significant jumps.

I do, however, think that an additional "start with mid-game economy" option would be pretty cool. (TA was always about options and that's how it should be.)

In TA:spring, the modern remake, the new metal system makes it very profitable to control area, and it's much more fair in my opinion. Sadly, Supreme Commander goes back to the old 'metal points' system, where you need to control these discrete points across the map.

I'm not exactly sure it's "going back" as Spring was a completely homegrown product and completely unaffiliated with anyone who worked on Supreme Commander.

I really don't see a big difference between points and patches - you can achieve the same effect by spreading out the metal points, while at the same time retaining the ability as a mapper to make certain areas richer or poorer.

The worst part always was that the enemy knows where they are too so he can just set his gunships on a patrol path along them and wipe out your entire border's metal extraction efforts with minimal problem.

I don't think that argument holds a lot of water given how dirt-cheap and effective the air scouts are. Even without the predetermined metal patches, a few scouts would instantly reveal where the enemy's metal extractors are and from there it's trivially easy to send in the gunships to exactly where they need to go. If you can't handle a few gunships coming in, you either need more interceptors/AA (and probably radar) or you've simply expanded beyond your ability to defend and control.

"Conquest is easy; control is not."

And if they are paired with 4 metal storage units next to them, they produce much more. This makes the safe and fully upgraded extractors in your base produce much more than the ones on your borders (which are constantly being replaced) and further diminishes your impetus to expand.

Those metal storage structures cost a fair chunk of resources. Doing that for a couple of extractors makes sense because you want to be able to store a healthy reserve, but doing that for all extractors would be a chunk of resources that I think would be more profitably allocated to either directly upgrading the extractors or investing in more energy production or even more combat units.

However, they're so easily whacked by raiding forces that it takes way too much effort to maintain them. I think harvesters are LESS frustrating, since then I can at least build defensive structures around my one resource patch without needing to armor an entire side of the map.

This sort of thing seriously slows the game down; you're effectively killing the feasibility of light, quick raiding forces and forcing every confrontation into a heavy-armor showdown. Light raiding is already very effectively hampered by the tech-1 defense structures.

I forgot to note that in Total Annihilation, the smartest thing was not at all to go straight for a tight fusion/moho super-base and porc the fuck out of your position. (Come on, any TA fan should know that we called it "porc-ing", for porcupine) The high-level competitive play was very much centered around constant raiding and skirmishing and expansion. Area control was certainly advantageous in TA.

The metal stores ARE expensive. That's why it's annoying--it makes your core base so much more useful than your far-flung bases. In TA I made it a point to decentralize, and I found that often saved me a lot of grief. SupCom makes it hard for me to play the way I'm used to. I think it's excellently made, it seems rock solid for what they want to do with it, I'm just offering some personal differences. A quickstart option would indeed be fun.

Sadly, I'm a rusher myself. I slap down some raiding units, tear out the closest econ expansions I can find, and move forwards. I'm an old-time Zerg player and try to replicate that when I can. As you say it's much more effective, and I rarely even need to start making Mohos because I've already strangled their economy from the beginning. That or died, so it becomes a non-issue. I'm still struggling to adapt my strategies to SupCom. The units are very strange to me, so it's hard to figure out what I should be using for the job. Even though I rush, I always find myself outnumbered, outresourced, and outresearched. The learning curve is a bit unexpected.

I suppose with air scouts as cheap and useful as they are, being fully scouted is inevitable, sadly. Just a lot of things frustrate me in SupCom. Base defenses seem too robust, the top-tier units seem too dominant (if they can get fielded), air power seems too weak except for gunships with seem too strong. But it really boils down to the fact that this game accurately represents a kind of war that is balanced and such, it's just not the war I wish I was fighting. I'm sure people felt the same way about Tanks and Planes in WWI. I'm not sure if that means the game is actually unbalanced, or if the balance is just extremely unconventional and I'm looking at the wrong way. I lean towards the latter.

The criticisms of Spring are, of course, completely justified. SupCom's graphics are a step up but I still think they're a bit too bland. I'm on the wrong side of the fence on that debate, I like fewer, more flavorful units. I never liked all the zillions of units (many very similar) in TA. I felt it weakened the theme for each side. I really wish Aeon used little flying saucers too. Not just Czars.

Anyway, I recommend everyone should try it. Love it or not, it's very different from C&C types and from Starcraft types. At it's best, it's very good. At it's worst, it's still pretty good.

I do agree that it feels a little too much like once you hit T3, you just have to crank out a ton of assault bots and throw them at the enemy. I don't mind the T3 assault dudes being really powerful, but I do wonder if maybe they're a bit too inexpensive.