Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of units"?

I have been trying to get into Supreme Commander: FA and so far having little luck. The reason for why I can't get behind the game is for 1 main reason:

I feel that there isn't really any strategy. Because the game focuses on huge scale winning the game appears to basically just boil down to making as many units as possible almost regardless of type and then throwing them all at the enemy until you win.

Will PA also suffer from this? Because I want there to be more strategy then just "make lots of units".

Also, will things be easy to manage? I have heard claims of there being "thousands of units" so it better be easy and practical to control the whole thing without being some kind of a StarCraft nerd who can play the whole thing using only the keyboard and at lightspeed.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

The strategy is thus: who can make the most units fastest that are better than the other guy's. In PA this might also involve who can launch an asteroid fastest. And you're not suppose to control individual units like in Starcraft, that's not the point. Macro RTS is about giant armies not about stutter-stepping.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

dude if you think forged alliance is just about getting more units than the other guy then your doing it wrong. i have been playing supcom since it came out and i still find new strats. to me forged alliance is the perfect rts. well balanced with amazing strategic potential.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

I am Ta:s player and i am also trying to get in SC:FAF. I saw more then 200+ tournaments/imba cup/randon games all from praisegugleourmaster. I saw so many tricks and tactics already that i almost dont want to play it anymore . Yea its massive game so its about producing units from start to end. But mostly its about how when you use them. I know it can look and feel like simply spamming and for some tactics/spam-friendly units it really is but trust me there is hell more behide it to micro. I cant even name them all(scouting/bombing/interceptors mechanics/preparing planing drops/tactical missiles/teching and getting eco up in right point/micro with commander/reclaiming/nuke-antinuke/etc. etc.) Spam is just 1 of many many things player must do to hold and expand his territory.
If you thing that players will just make huge army and roll over enemy how can it take more than 20 mins? Imo those are just newbie games where are most of the players focus on teching so "spam-kings"can win with easy and make it simply solution to play. Those are early games where is no1 to save/help allies just big fail on 1 side and end.

Point defences with units+commander in front are ultimate weapons vs spam/rush and it will stay there until you move your brain and come with something different.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

Troll detected?

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

How is this any different from say Starcarft? just because there are fewer number of units doesn't mean there isn't any focus on building them.

Mike

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." - General Omar Bradley
"War means killing and the way to kill is to get there first with the most men." - General Nathan Bedford Forrest

The beauty of TA and SupCom is that the player can truly be the supreme commander of a vast theater of war, responsible for creating the gigantic logistical and economic base to field an mighty army, developing the right balance of combined arms to counter your enemies, and directing combat on the front lines.

Other RTSes, to me, focus on individual heroics (micromanagement to defeat a superior force) on a small battlefield. However, heroes are few and far between and, by themselves, cannot win a war.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

I completely agree with this. Supreme Commander (and, I suppose, Total Annihilation) are unique in that they are strategy games. Strategy is more important than tactics. As opposed to every other RTS. Especially with the ongoing trend of RTS'es turning more and more into League of Legend-esque games.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

This has nothing to do with Supreme Commander. You can get the same feeling in any other RTS that has base and army-building.

The reason is simple: If your opponent totally outmatches your production because he has a far better understanding of how to pump out a big army fast, he will be able to simple overrun you, no matter what you do.
Strategy doesnt matter when you are getting outproduced. Thats true for any RTS.
The moment you can produce an equally big army however it really really matters what your actual strategy is.
So go and learn how to harvest the resources of a given map as good as possible. After you learned that you will win many games just by making lots of units. But you will meet people who also are very good with production, thats where it is getting interesting.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

GG Stack: "That's how you win this game, smother them with robots!"

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

I don't think its possible for there to be a trend of RTS because first off, there aren't enough RTS games being made for there to be a trend in the first place. I would definitely not classify League of legends an RTS or any other DOTA type gameplay to be honest. And Total Annihilation truly does capture strategy perfectly and even better than Supreme Commander which is also a great game and offers many strategies. I disagree with you about Supcom and TA being unique in that. Many other RTS games focus plenty on strategy and planning/putting thought into ways to win battles with a large range of options. Dawn of war 1 being amazing in strategy due to so many different factions with many different tactics. Another RTS that has great need for strategy would be World In Conflict and Company of heroes. I would say TA and SupCom are unique when it comes to scale and and universe. I would not say that larger scale by default means more strategy but I do agree that it correalates to a certain degree.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

Played all of the games listed here.

Something I think is applicable here is WiC multi player. Recall how the players were required to make a class choice in the MP version of the game? I believe that the Dev team were talking about having players make concious decisions to specialise in particular types of units at the start of games.

A lot of the time when I played SC:FA online this was the general way the game was played anyway without being forced to do so. You go air, I'll go land etc. and a lot of it was based on your location on the map. It will be interesting how this all pans out in PA as the scale is just going to be something else.

EDITED: Because I can't type coherently anymore.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

That's what I liked about FA, I wasn't locked in, if I needed to change my Strat, nothing stopped me from doing so allowing me to be way more flexible. I want to see this stay in PA.

Mike

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

I have yet to play an RTS where having more bums on seats was not advantageous.

That said, I typically played FA from a tactical perspective, ie the goal of the game is to control the battlefield with your ACU, and have more units shooting the enemy than can shoot back at you. There’s an awesome amount of tactical depth in this. However, my padawan focused more on the strategic elements of the game, with sneaky build orders and nasty surprises.

Oh, and if you’re only playing against the AI, you’re not really playing supcom.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

I've been playing supreme commander 2 in skirmish mode, and all i can really do is build as much robots as i can. all the enemy does is send out 3 robots, then 9 after they get destroyed, and then it keeps going on like that.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

First up supcom2 is horrible, secondly skirmish mode isn't a great place to find strategy.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

strategy will be more apparent in PA because of the basic premise of the gameplay, having to disperse to multiple planetery bodies will change the gaemstyle from its supcom and ta predecessors, being forced to pick and choose which planet and when to attack will force a greater level of grand strategy rather than just swamping you enemies in peewees

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

That's my point. RTS'es are becoming... Well, non RTS'es.

Dawn of War 1 was still a nice game. Dawn of War 2 was more like League of Legends. Command & Conquer games were nice for some time. Then 4 happened, which was more like League of Legends than a Command & Conquer game.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

I do see your point, and though it isn't a massive genre (in size or popularity) there is definitely a trend developing with the new 'RTS' games that are coming out of late.

And there is evidence of this on the forum already that suggests that these kind of games are popular. In fact, Uber have admitted themselves that the format for the game they are making is not trendy at the moment and not popular with the publishers. Hence the Kickstarter campaign.

A game can be all of the things people are describing here and still be an RTS - I assume all of you here know that it stands for Real Time Strategy. So yeah DoW1 and DoW2 are both RTS games and both fill a niche in the market. Scale does not define if a game is RTS or not.

Having played and enjoyed games like Ground Control, WiC, and DoW2, it is possible for me to speak with a reasonable breadth of experience. They are all good games in their own right but the format that they work to just wouldn't fit on this kind of scale. The reasons these kind of games are becoming popular are as follows:

1. Squad/command point based games are smaller and this yields several advantages...
A. Games are over faster. They can be played within this magic 15-30min window most people are prepared to sit down and play for. This is generally because the emphasis is not on base building, rather high level unit management and veterancy to gain strength.
B. Graphics can be 'nicer' and units can be more detailed and better animated as a result (I suppose this is a generalisation but I believe it to be mostly true).
C. Players get straight in to the action from the start and this is good for quick play.
D. Not everyone wants to build bases and manage an economy (sad but true).
E. Because there are less units on the field the player is drawn in to the action on a more personal level. That and engagements are fast and frequent. Each unit generally has special abilities to go along with it's roll and the player also has to manage these.

2. Any game format that sells well is popular with the publishers.

I don't believe that simply because a game is smaller scale that it is easier to make. Or for that matter easier to make good or that it should be more popular. All of these games are good in their own right. TA, SC and their piers just have a very different goal when it comes to how they approach the RTS genre.

The less units a player has at his disposal, the more valuable they become. Particularly in a game like DoW, where the space marine units are so expensive that losing a single squad can mean the difference between winning and losing. Veterancy increases the value of these units even further. The result is that the player has a high degree of control over a smaller number of more valuable units.

The emphasis in a game like SC is obviously not on individual unit value but on the effectiveness of an army as a fighting force and the ability, through a well managed economy, infrastructure and logistics to overwhelm your enemy with larger numbers or more advanced, better organised and more effective combinations of units.

It's what I would call the total package. You control every aspect of your game and that is what makes these kind of games great. You are responsible for every part of your success or failure on and off the battlefield. Unfortunately it means that these games can take considerably longer. So be it. The scale of PA means that games are likely to take longer than ever before. In fact, that is one of the main objectives! People vote with their money and that is why we're here and Uber are making the game.

I don't see why the action in this game can't rival that of a smaller, squad based RTS. I don't see why the battles on an epic scale cannot be cinematic in the same way. But if I am honest, I was happy with the format of PA's predecessors and as long as PA lives up to it's ancestors pedigree then I'll be happy.

I wouldn't take back my pledge, even if the end result was less than what we all hope for. The fact is that we have given Uber the chance to make something awesome.

Re: Will there be more strategy then just "make lots of unit

what... other than make lots of units? I thought it is about it