Which RTS Game do you most identify with

FA was the last RTS I worked on.

most likely starcraft 1, i modded that game the moment i learnt how to do hex editing and what not, and it is still my favorite rts to this day. That said, i think it would be a waste to bring elements from the starcraft series into what is essentially a continuation if not a re-invention of the classic TA and its wonderful destructive goodness

and to those of you who think the economy in SupCom or TA is hard, play an Anno Domini or The Guild type game

voted C&C cause all 3 universes were fun to play.

I'd add Zero K to the list, but it zero's out the previous poll votes : /

Warcraft III and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.

I'll just vote 'other' then.

Otherwise I would vote for either Kingdoms or Red Alert 2. There is probably quite a bit of nostalgia there but now that I think about it those two games are similar in ways. They both have extreme unit variety which is definately in Zero-K. Interesting because I never explicitly noticed this before.

TA was good at the time too but I was spoiled for UI by the time appeared Supcomm. Supcomm's UI was bad by comparison to even what was in Spring at the time.

Well... Hmm... No, I'm going to cop out and do this the easy way. I hope Uber doesn't mind me sharing the fan letter I wrote them with the general public. :3 (My first fan letter TBPH.)

Hello... A bit cliché but it works. This isn't a question, it's more of a semi-lengthy thank you letter. In 1997, I was 10 years old. And I was introduced to a game that shook me to my core. It was unlike any other game I had ever played. That game was Total Annihilation. It touched my soul and literally DEFINED games for me and cemented RTS games in general and Grand Scale RTS game in particular as my own personal genre. I have spent thousands of hours on it. Slaughtering million of bots and destroyed countless buildings. I was almost immediately put into the framework as an ARM Commander, fighting the grey-area evil CORE. I have sent scores of Thunders through the skies, legions of peewees thrashing through enemy bases. Big Bertha's pounding the enemy trenches, Guardians and Rocket Towers keeping the enemy at bay from my base. All the while Jeremy Soules outstanding music like March Unto Death (My favourite) or Under Attack, Warpath, Brutal Battle, Charred Dreams and Fire and Ice revving my heart and my mind, providing the beat to sharpen my economical and tactical thinking and strategic deployment and planning.

What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines, escalated into a war which has decimated a million worlds. The Core and the Arm has all but exhausted the resources of a galaxy in their struggle for domination. Each side now crippled beyond repair, the remnants of their armies continue to battle on ravage planets. Their hatred fuelled by over four thousand years of total war. This is a fight to the death. For each side the only acceptable outcome is the complete elimination of the other.

That is recited from memory with the amazing John Patrick Laurie's outstanding narration and his mission narrations. I bought Total Annihilation again just now to play it again for the first time in a few years. Maybe the fifth or sixth time I buy the game and it's still worth it. I remember that intro since the first time I saw it 15 years ago clear as day. The Heavy Laser Tower coming on-line and starting to shoot. The Arm Commander coming into view and swinging around next to that Bulldog tank. The music starting to rev up into the epic battle theme that is is. The A.K.s running around to the peeper passing over the radar. The peewee opening fire and the squad of Bulldogs pounding some hapless Core unit. My favourite is the trio of Thunders coming in and you hear the bombs scream and light up before they totally demolish a Core Heavy Plasma tower and just barely missing a line of Punisher long range artillery. Then all up to the cam-over on Core Silencer nuclear silo and the Core commander swinging around and blasting you with his Disintegration Gun to reveal the title card.

I still regard it as one of if not THE best game intros ever devised. Mr. Laurie's (My sincerest apologies if I misspell his surname.) narration is still one of my favourite parts of the game and I am so very grateful for his return to Planetary Annihilation. But as all eras, my TA days closed after around five years or so. Then I heard about Supreme Commander and later Forged Alliance. I felt as if my prayers for a TotalA sequel had been heard by the Gaming Gods, for even as a child of 10, I wished for a sequel to TA. And SupCom delivered on a scale I had not dreamed of. I quickly became a Cybran fan and regular. My favourite unit is still the Tech 2 amphibious destroyer, Salem Class. Yet another batch of hundreds of hours where put into it.

SupCom 2 is a fun multi-player game but it's not SupCom for me. More of a simplified spin-off. So yeah, not a huge fan of SupCom 2. And now... I hear about Planetary Annihilation. I watch the trailer and it is as if the Gates to the Holy Paradise itself has opened and the Choir Legion is singing the hymns and I am reverted back to my fresh 10 year old self all those years ago. Mr. Laurie's voice I recognised instantly and I fell in love with your game. And not only that, for the longest time I feel like I can truly give back something for all the joy you and your co-workers have given me. Your games have been a defining part of my gamer life and I would not be the same 25 year old gamer that I am today without all of you. I will try to scrape together every dime I can lay my hands on to support this game to the fullest. It won't be the 10 000 dollar one but it will be high. I can promise you that. You deserve every dime of it.

From my heart and from my soul, I thank each and every one of you. From the frozen lands of Sweden, this lone man thanks you all from the deepest emotional crevice he can muster. Thank you one and all. Especially Mr. Laurie for his amazing voice talent. Total Annihilation would be the same without him and I hope he becomes just a big of an atmospheric icon in Planetary Annihilation. Thank you all and good luck on your eagerly awaited game.

- [IRL Name Retracted], The Pastmaster.

TL;DR, TA.

^^^ I agree with this post entirely.

why didn't you also work on supreme commander 2? producer decision?

No, The Core Staff at Uber Left During the Development of DemiGod, founding Uber not too long after that if I recall correctly.

Mike

I love Homeworld 2.

well actually command and conquer red alert, but I loved all sequels and also I loved TA. Supreme Commander was quite awesome for their features, but I had the feeling that TA and SupCom had never so much fame as some other games.

Starcraft I was my first RTS, and one of my first games. Naturally I spend a lot of time on both Starcraft I and II.

I get most of my TA influence from my brother, who I played with alot around the house, we would spend hours building massive defensive walls and amassing units.

We also played Earth 2150: Moon project. That game was amazing, you had large tech trees, and everything you researched you could add to your units and BUILD your own units within the game!

I have also played all of the C&C games, and C&C generals ZH was probably my favorite gameplay wise. (Not so much story wise.)

We also loved to play Age of Empires 2.

I think i played almost all the RTS games on the pc.

The ones i played a lot and enjoyed the most:
Total annihilation
Age of empires 2 (also with conquerors expansion)
Age of mythology (but hated the even lower pop limit then age2)
Dawn of war 1 and all its expansion packs.
Supreme commander 1 and forged alliance.

Correct. Bob and John were working on Demigod while I was working on FA.

I left before SC2 existed in any form.

Now I'm even more confident about PA

I appreciated TA for its technological supremacy. It came out a year BEFORE Starcraft and was to RTS what Half-Life was to FPS, and in that regard I think it's one of the most underrated games of all time. It was groundbreaking.

But I can't say it has any sort of emotional connection to me. The only RTS game that ever struck that nerve for me was this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChRWSpodc3A

Such a great intro.

Speaking of Homeworld, anyone know what the deal is here:

I voted command and conquer, because it was my first real RTS (the original Tiberian Dawn) and then RA2:YR stole countless hours of my life. By the time I'd gotten into TA, it was actually via Spring... and the size of the battles totally had me hooked. Then I picked up SupCom and liked it, but there was some core things I missed from Spring.

This game could be Spring with planetary orbits and they'd probably have me sold, but I like 99% of everything I hear from Uber.