Poll: TOTAL ANNIHILATION: those who remember the good old days

[BrEnNo1023]

Wow! Spooky! I just played a bit of Total Annihilation yesterday for the first time in many years! I found a stash of old CD-ROMs at my parents' house, and that was one of the forgotten gems I dug up, along with Space Quest, Transport Tycoon and The 7th Guest.

haha! yeah, Transport Tycoon was fun too, in a simple time-consuming sort of way. i played it without AI opponents though. The way they build their railways is maddening to the point that it disgusts me to see them earning money from the passengers that could be travelling on my perfectly logical, faster railroads.

The fastest way from one city to another is a direct route, NOT seven hundred circles and zig-zags. so i turned them off and played solo. it's nice having a monopoly.

 

[BrEnNo1023]

Never heard of it, was it an arcade game?

well, here's the run-down. It had a (relatively short and simple) story campaign, but it was deep - focusing on the transferring of consciousness from mortal flesh to immortal machines. the ARM decided to keep their humanity and (oh hello Brave New World!!) the CORE transferred their minds into one big single consciousness and made machine bodies and set out to destroy the non-conformist ARM. they fought for millenia after millenia, consuming entire galaxies of resources, and YOU as the commander get to control the final days of the battle, chasing the opposing army's commander from planet to planet, pushing them back to their homeworld and ULTIMATELY ending the war and bringing peace through the total annihilation of either side.

Soooooooooooooo in short...no, it's not an arcade game

 

[tman_au]

I loved it and I don't know why Supreme Commander was blasted so badly by the various game critics.

 

[cowbell40]

I got it in a safe cubby right next to my computer. In fact, I see it right now. Absolutely love it.

 

[BrEnNo1023]

I still have my copy of it and I still play it. It fits in extremely nicely with my game play over graphics argument as it is still one of the best real time strategy games compared with the hundreds of extremely lame games that companies continue to pump out. Supreme commander is good, TA is better.

i find no fault with the graphics actually. the simplicity is what makes the game so good, and the attention paid to the little details (eg: all the parts of a destroyed aircraft falling to the ground, momentum pushing the parts in the direction the aircraft was moving) were small, but very effective in adding to the realism that we don't see in newer games.

pity the AI is so stupid though, that's the one thing that lets it down, other than the fact that multiplayer doesn't exist anymore (curse you, cavedog)

 

[BolognaBaloney]

Amazing game, I still play it on and off. One of the best rts games.

 

[BrEnNo1023]

... and the rest was filled with Brawlers. Lots and lots of brawlers. Enough to wipe the entire map clean in one fell swoop.

lol i can totally imagine that.

Hawks are more my style for skirmishes. a couple of hundred of those and you're laughing. they're faster and more manoevrable, and they can take down other aircraft easier, if the AI decides to build heaps of aircraft and send them on patrols. (i've tried air-to-air combat with brawlers.. it's not fun )

 

[|SE| Tyr]

Gods I loved that game. We used to LAN the hell out of it along with CS. It is hands down my favorite RTS of all time. I think I used to play it on a P 233 with an 8 mg graphics card that my budy gave me.

 

[RufusMcLaser]

I absolutely loved the late stages of the game, when I had a few Bertha cannons set up and could bombard every inch of the map at will. There's nothing quite like heavy indirect fire support.

The game engine's use of actual 3D models (a new thing at the time) allowed for lots of niftiness. I also loved the air transport units- they could pick up nearly any unit in the game and haul it wherever you wanted. And you could actually see the carried unit dangling below the airframe! Too cool.

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

... and the rest was filled with Brawlers. Lots and lots of brawlers. Enough to wipe the entire map clean in one fell swoop.

lol i can totally imagine that.

Hawks are more my style for skirmishes. a couple of hundred of those and you're laughing. they're faster and more manoevrable, and they can take down other aircraft easier, if the AI decides to build heaps of aircraft and send them on patrols. (i've tried air-to-air combat with brawlers.. it's not fun )

You should try it some time, its pretty amusing. You're right, though, Brawlers do suck at air to air combat. I was playing a game of TA last night, I was playing ARM, against 3 CORE opponents. As I normally turtle in TA, the game had gone on for just over a half an hour, when I started getting shelled by a T3 artillery battery. So I sent off some phoenixes and some brawlers to take it out... Only to have the phoenixes shot down by AA fire and most of the brawlers taken out by none other than a plasma shell from the artillery battery I was trying to take out. I was not impressed.

 

[(whitty name here)]

I still have my copy of it and I still play it. It fits in extremely nicely with my game play over graphics argument as it is still one of the best real time strategy games compared with the hundreds of extremely lame games that companies continue to pump out. Supreme commander is good, TA is better.

i find no fault with the graphics actually. the simplicity is what makes the game so good, and the attention paid to the little details (eg: all the parts of a destroyed aircraft falling to the ground, momentum pushing the parts in the direction the aircraft was moving) were small, but very effective in adding to the realism that we don't see in newer games.

pity the AI is so stupid though, that's the one thing that lets it down, other than the fact that multiplayer doesn't exist anymore (curse you, cavedog)

There was a patch you could get and it made the AI more agressive. Problem is, the one I got, it made the AI feel that rape was a difficulty. Still one of the best RTS's out there. That was back when games were made to be really good not money machines.

 

[BrEnNo1023]

I still have my copy of it and I still play it. It fits in extremely nicely with my game play over graphics argument as it is still one of the best real time strategy games compared with the hundreds of extremely lame games that companies continue to pump out. Supreme commander is good, TA is better.

i find no fault with the graphics actually. the simplicity is what makes the game so good, and the attention paid to the little details (eg: all the parts of a destroyed aircraft falling to the ground, momentum pushing the parts in the direction the aircraft was moving) were small, but very effective in adding to the realism that we don't see in newer games.

pity the AI is so stupid though, that's the one thing that lets it down, other than the fact that multiplayer doesn't exist anymore (curse you, cavedog)

There was a patch you could get and it made the AI more agressive. Problem is, the one I got, it made the AI feel that rape was a difficulty. Still one of the best RTS's out there. That was back when games were made to be really good not money machines.

I have a pretty good units mod installed, called the Units Compilation Pack (or TAUCP - download it if you haven't already, lotsa great new units and AI settings etc). I haven't quite yet tested out all the different AI settings yet, but there are heaps of powerful units to go crazy with

 

[BrEnNo1023]

... and the rest was filled with Brawlers. Lots and lots of brawlers. Enough to wipe the entire map clean in one fell swoop.

lol i can totally imagine that.

Hawks are more my style for skirmishes. a couple of hundred of those and you're laughing. they're faster and more manoevrable, and they can take down other aircraft easier, if the AI decides to build heaps of aircraft and send them on patrols. (i've tried air-to-air combat with brawlers.. it's not fun )

You should try it some time, its pretty amusing. You're right, though, Brawlers do suck at air to air combat. I was playing a game of TA last night, I was playing ARM, against 3 CORE opponents. As I normally turtle in TA, the game had gone on for just over a half an hour, when I started getting shelled by a T3 artillery battery. So I sent off some phoenixes and some brawlers to take it out... Only to have the phoenixes shot down by AA fire and most of the brawlers taken out by none other than a plasma shell from the artillery battery I was trying to take out. I was not impressed.

hahaha if the artillery had killed a fair few of your units beforehand, it would have had the extra accuracy (veteran) to attack an air target luck would have had a fair amount to do with it too

but it does happen. usually when battleships get enough kills, they can just cut aircraft down out of the sky, but only if it's a slow plane, and it's travelling in a straight line toward the ship. i could have a line of 6 or so Auras (long-range destroyer that comes with the TA Unit Compilation Pack mod) with say, around 30 kills each, and they can easily pluck aircraft out of the air. it's quite entertaining to watch too.
but not if they're your planes, and you're trying to save your base from long-range artillery rape. that's happened to me a few times too. but it's all fun and games in the end.

imma go check out the last level of the ARM campaign right now, actually.

 

[(whitty name here)]

Not always a GOOD thing. Sometimes units can ruin a game. For example, there was a user made factory called something like the bioproduction facility. It took 100 energy and metal to produce the ultimate krogoth that was cloaked, had a 30x 30 radar range, cloaking, and produced over 12000 metal per second. Thats just an example the factory could build something like 8 different stacked bots. Mods have to be taken in proportion and also need to be chosen wisely. Since they are user created some people just create the most deadly unit possible as quickly as possible. No fun. Get moderate mods or none at all.EDIT: Stacked mods can be fair. They just need exponential time, energy and metal. Not the "I make death faster than a lvl 1 kbot" units. The Guardian of Steggu and Ultimate Krogoth were fair because they took F'ing forever and if the match went on that long then there should be something there to end it.

 

[BrisingrSverdar]

I personally don't like most of the mods people created. In most cases they just make mods that are used because they are overpowered. There are not many times thats mods are actually fair. Which is a problem because some mods are pretty cool looking but so overpowered no one wants to play against them.

Personally I saw stick with the regular cavedog units. Maybe the unit limit increased but thats about it.

TA was so easy to mod but the people don't often make good mods for it.

 

[BrEnNo1023]

Not always a GOOD thing. Sometimes units can ruin a game. For example, there was a user made factory called something like the bioproduction facility. It took 100 energy and metal to produce the ultimate krogoth that was cloaked, had a 30x 30 radar range, cloaking, and produced over 12000 metal per second. Thats just an example the factory could build something like 8 different stacked bots. Mods have to be taken in proportion and also need to be chosen wisely. Since they are user created some people just create the most deadly unit possible as quickly as possible. No fun. Get moderate mods or none at all.EDIT: Stacked mods can be fair. They just need exponential time, energy and metal. Not the "I make death faster than a lvl 1 kbot" units. The Guardian of Steggu and Ultimate Krogoth were fair because they took F'ing forever and if the match went on that long then there should be something there to end it.

having ridiculously overpowered mods ruins any game really. upsetting the balance isn't fair, and it's a shame when people actually make mods like the bioproduction facility.
having ultimate units that take 15 minutes to build however is quite fun and satisfying because you need to make use of your normal units to defend yourself while making one or two of those bots like ultimate Krogoths.

the TAUCP unit pack i downloaded doesn't include those units you mentioned, but has an advanced factory of some sort with units similar in purpose and build time to the krogoth. the unit pack is completely balanced and fair and having it installed on my computer means both me and the computer can use it.

still, it's always fun turning off all the mods and playing the way the (unfortunately long-dead) designers intended! there are some seriously awesome units in the normal game alone, like the ARM Mavericks, or the CORE krogoth..they're all you really need.

 

[BrEnNo1023]

sleepy thread is sleepy

 

[Jandau]

I remember the good old days, but as far as I recall, TA was an OKish RTS that favored spam tactics, had bland and poorly differentiated units/sides and the downloadable custom units (while an innovative concept) were one of the largest clusterf**ks that I've seen in my life.