So, I've never really played RTS games, my only real experience is with Soldiers Heroes of WWII and R.U.S.E. I haven't played Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander orany of the like+ (I know, how dare I?) so there's a couple of things I don't really understand. The commanders being the main one. What's their role? Just as an avatar? Or as an actual unit in game (the one that constructs buildings)? Maybe both? As you can tell, I am a COMPLETE noob, drawn in to this game by the planetary annihilation, if you will (oh look he made a joke).
They are like the most important piece on chess, if you lose him you lose the match, with an explosion sending every unit sky high too. He acts also as mobile building unit wich can build anywhere, like a "command center" but being able to also obtain resources, repair, and so on. He can build basic buildings wich allow the creation of higher tier constructors leading to even more advanced buildings, factories, defenses, and all that.
I recommend the OP goes on YouTube and searches for FA casts by praisegugleourmaster. He does a very good job of explaining what's going on. But yes, the short answer is that the commander is the starting unit who is very powerful and can build an infrastructure, but if he dies it's game over.
To learn more about the FA Mythos, read this. The Infinite War by DotsWarlock Most SupCom community Members pretty much accept his work as Canon and while it's not directly related to TA/PA, it follows all the main themes like the Commander/ACU and the act of building an army on site as opposed to transporting them and such. Mike
Thanks for the replies, starting to look up TA and SupCom gameplay and wiki articles and learn about them. One other question, do the different Commanders have an different in game abilities? Or just different appearances?
In TA the two commanders were identical, and could both build basic structures and shoot things with a relatively weak gun. They also had a Distintegration Gun which would kill anything in a short range. In FA the four commanders had a better standard gun and were more able to fight off low-level units, but the D-Gun equivalent (known as overcharge) was comparatively less powerful. In FA the commanders had different health and different upgrade possibilities too.
This includes him completely throwing supreme commander 2 story line out the window (units and gameplay remain the same). We all also think, a) he should publish this stuff, and b) his story should have been the supcom2 campaign instead of the lolfest that is the current campaign.
Also, TA is available on GOG for a decent price. It's old, but it's definitely worth playing, especially if you install one of the balance mods, like twilight. TAUniverse has several guides for getting the perfect TA setup. And if you just don't have any extra cash, you can always play Zero-K for free, which is based off of TA and has several Supcom elements, as well as some of its own unique features.
Balanced Annihilation is also free (based on the Spring Engine, like Zero-K) and gives you a good (if more modernised) idea of what Total Annihilation was about. And Supreme Commander can probably be gotten from budget bins for under 5$.
