Supreme Commander 2

[SoBe Clock]

Well, Supreme Commander 2 is almost here, and I have been following its progress, so I decided to make a discussion thread about it.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/war-reignited-supreme-commander/61009
^^^^ Trailer

Some key features of the first game in case you haven't played it.

-A truly massive RTS with a high unit count. Every army could have up to 1000 individual units on the field at once, depending on what you set the unit limit to.

-Monstrous units, even the tiniest of units were as big as trees, and experimental units, the ultimate war machines, dwarfed the regular units.

-Huge maps, the maps could get up to 81km x 81km in size.

These things allowed for truly massive battles. The first game was not without it's problems though

-Very high system requirements. Try playing 6-8 players with the unit count for each army set up to 1000 on a huge map. It will bring even really tough computers to a crawl.

-Balance issues. The game is pretty balanced in many ways, however, experimentals in Supreme Commander and Forged Alliance could be game breakers. Moreso than that, someone who could work the economy well could get really powerful units out non the field in no time and they would always crush new players. This deterred some people  from playing.


I'll go over the main differences from the first game and expansion to supreme commander 2.


Supreme Commander 2 has better graphics, the game looks a lot nicer. At the same time, it has  lower system requirements than the first game, so more computers will be able to run it and it won't choke most computers when the unit count goes up and above 1000.

Supreme commander 2 has a simplified economy. I'm not entirely sure exactly how it's simplified, but I've heard that it's simply a lot easier to manage, putting less focus on juggling your economy, allowing for more of a focus on actual battle. Also the economy is more balanced now so it doesn't allow people to get their toughest units out in no time flat. With it being simpler and more balanced, this will allow for a not as high learning curve, and will allow everyone a chance to compete and make the elite players not able to completely crush everyone in no time flat. This I like, because I find battle, whether I'm turtling up or going on the offensive, to be much more fun than worrying about making and upgrading all of my resource buildings and storage, which can be tedious. Also I was never as  good at getting a really robust economy up in no time flat so it was hard to compete against certain players online.

I've heard that adjacency bonuses for buildings are out, which allows for more free form base building.

I've heard there are two levels of experimentals now, lesser and greater experimentals. The lesser ones can be built earlier than the greater ones, but are much weaker.

The unit veterancy system has been upgraded to be more in depth. How, though, I'm not sure.

There is a tech tree now. This means no more upgrading every building to tech three, rather you just research new technologies and they get applied to everything on the field. This removes the need for upgrading everything individually, and removes the problem where old units that could never be upgraded became useless.

The game is much more balanced. Experimentals are just as useful as they always were, but armies are also very useful. A simpler and less exploitable economy makes it harder to get high level units out as quickly as some were able to do it in the first game.

Story driven campaign. The first game and expansion were not really story driven, and just focused on the politics of war rather than people's stories. This time around we have a cast of actual characters that have stories that tie together.


Overall it sounds better than the first game in every way and I can't wait for it. I pre-ordered it the other day and I'm picking it up Friday the fifth. (It comes out on the second) One thing you should know, it operates through steam. This isn't a bad thing because the steam server browser system rocks and it makes updating the game really easy. Also then you get steam achievements.

If you've been looking for a new RTS, or if you were a fan of the first one, I say definitely pick it up. Even if you had some issues with the first game, this sequel has addressed most issues people had with it, so it may still be worth checking out for you.