I feel like the units lack... "soul"

It also makes it that much more spectacular when your supposed "hardy" units get shattered like a piece of glass by the blue laser from an Annihilator. None of the weapons in PA feel more powerful than the others because almost everything 1 hits everything else already.

To be honest, TA and SupCom always felt pretty soulless to me. PA gets away with it because of the general art style of the game with more vibrant colours, and it doesn't bother me as much here and in fact I've grown accustomed to it.

But I grew up playing games like Command and Conquer, with human troopers and such that had things to say when you clicked on them, and that alone puts them in a while different ballpark.
Fastforward in time, and I zoom in at battlefields in Empire: Total War and every other TW since, and I see soldiers in frantic melee's that are motion-captured where the fight goes back and forth between them untill one makes a mistake and get's the blade rammed through is body. Some of them are quite elaborate.

Even in more traditional RTS there are games that ooze personality and soul out of every pore, like Dawn of War. The combat animations, the things space marines and other races yell as they engage the enemy, the things they say as they are simply moving locations and the way they say it, the quotes on the main menu out of 40k lore...
"Even in death I still serve", "It is better to die for the Emperor than live for yourself", "To admit defeat is to blaspheme against the Emperor", and other such classics... Man, that is the epitome of cool.
There is a conviction, a motivation that cannot be denied, will not be denied... There is a true sense of a universe that knows nothing but eternal war.

PA will always pale in comparison to that. Having big numbers is cool, but a machine for me will always lack personality.
In Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, the Necrons don't do anything for me either, with the exception of a single unit, and that is mostly because they are silent. My favourite unit of that race are the Flayed Ones, because any unit that will wear the skin of it's enemy is instantly awesome. Sadly it's the only thing that makes them stand out.

I think most people would argue that R2-D2 has a personality and all he does is beep. Similarly, once you get used to which units make which sounds, you get the sense that the units in TA have a personality too.

That being said, I have a lot of favorite quotes from units ranging from CnC to Warcraft, but I don't think there's much PA can do in this regard. Giving each unit a voice would just be... weird, but they should definitely each have a distinctive sound at least. Even in Starcraft you can tell which building you have selected by the sound it makes when you click it.

It going to be interesting to see what we get when ubers starts to polish things out. As far as soul goes, i absolutly love the inferno. The turret looks good and seeing the tracks or "grousers" moving make the unit very eye apealling IMO.

This feature annoys me the most in games though. You have to actually like the voice. There are some games where I straight up turn all sounds off.

FWIW, I think part of the problem is you're zoomed out so far 90% of the time that you never even see the unit art. TA you were stuck zoomed in far enough to see all the nice artwork 100% of the time; you felt more connected. I'd be interested in what you guys have to say about the soul/personality of SupCom units in comparison to TA and PA.

Overall, I understand what krakanu is talking about. I think the reason we don't see the "souls" of the units like in TA is because of the difference of scale. In TA, a squad of 50 units in the beginning of the game was kind of a lot of units. In PA, 50 is almost nothing. TA is micro compared to PA, which is why you felt more "connected" to the units.

The Annihilator was such a badass unit in TA, and I think a unit like that could work in PA. Neutrino said they're looking to add a layer of polish before proceeding (something like that), so hopefully we'll see cooler models, animations, and sounds. That's why TA has always been so cool to me.

I love Corridor Digital! Node needs to do a Planetary Annihilation LAN party.

IMO, the problem with SupCom is that all the units were out-classed by the experimentals. It's hard to get attached to a T1/T2 unit when you have to compare their appeal to a gaint mobile factory with 4 battleship cannons or a walking spider with a mega-death ray mounted on top.

However, if I stick with the example of defensive turrets (lets go with UEF since I played them the most). The T1 PD (does it even have a name?) is boring but that's not really an issue. The Triad is interesting in design but it doesn't have the sense of power when compared with the Sentinel from TA. However, it is unique in that it does less dmg to smaller units (the trio of shots spread out a bit). The T3 turret, the Ravager, is interesting in that it kills units with a hail of gunfire rather than a single powerful shot. I also like the giant gatling gun aesthetic it has going on and the chain gun sound effect as it cycles through the rounds is a nice addition.

I like using defensive turrets as examples because they all have the same purpose, kill units before they get in range to kill you, or maim enough to make them go away. Since the ideas behind them are so simple, it is imperative for games to find ways to make them more interesting and inject a soul into them. TA and CnC have done an excellent job at not only making them interesting, but giving them aesthetics that turn them into formidable terror weapons that show they are not to be trifled with.

Yeah, you can't beat Dawn of War for personality, that game oozed atmosphere from every pore.

PA will never be TA because you pull back to strategic view. Unfortunately the strategic view and unit personality will never mesh. I like some of the units more than others, but it doesn't have The Can or FARK and it never will, because they'll primarily be icons.

A thousand times this!

Let's just be honest - does anyone spend more than the first 5 minutes of a game zoomed in? I know every game I play i'm zoomed out looking at the strategic view the entire time. It's the only way to manage multiple expansion and battle fronts. Which does make me sad - I actually spectated a game the other day just to see the visuals up close. It's the tragedy of PA that the gameplay demands a level of zoom and focus that actually prevents you from taking in any of the scenery. I don't know what can be done about this, seems like an issue of scale.

if you want your units to have personality ... put smilies on them ...
on a serious note ... i dont know ... i dont realy care too much about each invidual unittypes personality but its function and intimidationfactor ... because lets be honest who doesnt get that "ooohhh ****" moment when he sees how vanguards are ripping through his walls or a whole botarmy getting obliterated in seconds by t2 bomberswarms out of nowhere ... this are things i happen to catch when i zoom in for more direct unit control ... to me it is not so much about the units themselves but about the moment of what is happening ... that said there are some units that i like designwise such as the kestrel for instance or t1 aabot
but that is rather personal preference ..

They are war machines designed for war. Nothing else. That combined with the way they're manufactured should give you the expectation of soulless automatons of destruction. Not sure why you'd expect a graceful elegant swan with a death ray.

I hope that eventually we could add in unit "voices" our selves. The unit voices in games like Sins of a Solar Empire were pretty cool and you could tell what type of ship from which faction just from the little blurb the unit says when selected. Even the Pirate faction ships (which are hard to get control of) had their own unique voice acting.

Isnt units gonna have voices ? i thought that was the case.

But yeah they need to last longer in combat, and definitely have personality.

I giggle like a little boy, every time i think about Mammoth Tank from C&C i love that freaking thing.

Or the Tesla tower.

Im sure sounds well help as well, to say sounds are lacking atm would be an understatement.

Cant wait for some meaty explosion sounds, some meaty laser sounds and other firing sound.

Lasers sounds as in those your hear like in Terminator from the future scenes. thats meaty laser sounds.

Also im hoping and exciting units will actually have a move sound no ?. like hearing engine, hearing legs and so forth.

Of course they dont have Souls.... they are ROBOTS... duh... ;-P

A game with personality\soul goes a long, long way beyond its gameplay to soar into greatness.

See StarCraft, Team Fortress 2, and Dawn of War. I'm sure everyone else can think of a different game that has something for them to latch onto and think about.

And yeah, while it's hard for PA because they are more or less soulless machines, but if I remember the background and lore.. well, these machines do kind of have an ideology even if it is just the commander. We need the TA announcer and a fresher look at unit designs and animations.

And if you're looking at Tanks, well, if you ask me even some real world tanks can look like works of art at times.

Compare M1 Abrams, to T90, to Challenger, to Leopard II, or look at an AMX-13 or AMX-50...
... now look at the ye olde Panther, Pershing, T-44, M4 or T-34. A tank design will progressively change based on the war scenario, the technology available, the politics and the people using them.

The "Ant\metal whatever" right now seems to be based on a modern MBT. That does not really reflect on how MBTs are supposed to be used. Personally I see ants as swarming units, since they are T1/low tech, I think it would be more prudent to design them more around the swarming tanks of history, like the M4, T-34, Pz. IV or even T-54.

The only machines that seem to have an ideology are the commanders.
The other units are just mindless drones, created for one purpose - to destroy whatever the commander says is the enemy.
As such, commanders are basically the robot equivalencies to Hitler.
...
WAIT WHAT THE FU-*gets nuked*

So where are the paintings of scenery and expertly-given speeches?

Another point to Godwin.