I for one love super-units/Experimentals as an idea but have always found them a little bit disruptive to play. To clarify, I don't exactly think they are unbalanced; it's just that my experience is that many games in the TA family devolve into who has the most super-units at the higher end. Anyway, rather than go on about that, I'd like to put forward an idea of how to incorporate Super-Units without creating that problem. My suggestion would be to use a system of Cores. Essentially, each of these would provide the foudnation for a super unit. The cores would be hidden around the map necessitating players to explore and possibly might need digging up out of the ground in some cases (Hell, one cool option is that blowing up chunks of planets could expose the Cores). Once you've found a core, you turn it into a super-unit of your choice. obviously these units should be pretty harsh - downright scary would be my preference. The nice balancing point would be that if you use the unit and it dies it becomes a core again, meaning if you use the unit unwisely, you're handing your opponent an opportunity to throw it straight back at you. Using this system, you can effectively limit the number of super-units running around in the game and provide players an incentive to explore, not to mention it would be a pretty interesting game mechanic in and of itself. As for fluff, you could always say the Cores represent unique power sources left from when humanity was still around and are now a technology that the commanders can't duplicate but that can still be used by them to power large scale technology. Hope you guys like the idea and I would love to see what you guys think.
I have a feeling it could turn into a big mess at the start-game where you'd want to protect cores for later. If they were randomly hidden, they'd be pretty much impossible to find on a planetary scale.
I think that could be a fun game type even if it's not part of the standard game type. It sounds like fun to me.
I'm not saying this is a good idea (and it's been mentioned before in a similar incantation), but it's certainly one that shows more promise over the standard "hurr durr giefs us supah units".
It sounds a bit like the AoE relic system. Except instead of giving gold, it acts as a unit cap for super units. I'm not a fan of unit caps. Maybe as a game option, but not as something standard. Super units are their own beast. Even their name demands that they should not be treated like normal units, just as a Commander is its own design problem. It'll take time to see what works well and what breaks.
