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Supreme Commander Interview
We chat with Chris Taylor about his gigantic game fetish.
by Dan Adams
September 30, 2005 - Fans of Total Annihilation have been waiting a long time for something to come storming out of Chris Taylor’;s Gas Powered Games that at least resembled the old timey favorite. Lucky them! GSG has been hard at work on creating one of next year’;s craziest RTSs. It sounds huge, people, and something that any RTS fan will want to keep an eye on. Obviously, there were a lot of questions that needed to be answered about the aptly named Supreme Commander and who better to ask than Chris Taylor himself?
IGNPC: What was your motivation for creating something this big? From everything we’;ve seen and heard about the game up to now, it’;s… well, gigantic.
Chris Taylor: Well, I like big. That’;s my personal bias. When I play any kind of strategy game, I always want more room because I want lots of units. When I saw those Rome: Total War ads, I started saying “Oh, oh, big is good!” You know, someone’;s figuring it out. That’;s been my bias. When I was in high school we liked Risk so we took a ping pong table, took the net off, and covered the entire table in cardboard and drew to scale the Risk board and then added on land to create this gigantic Risk game. You know, because Risk just wasn’;t big enough! So that’;s where my head has always been. I wanted bigger maps, more units in the fight, and then I wanted scale differences like with the spiders from some of the screenshots. Smaller units can go under their legs and even be stepped on. To me, it gets more interesting when you move away from an abstraction of a board game and move into the big and small all combined together in one experience.
IGNPC: Do you think that’;s where RTSs need to go? You think it’;s a problem that some RTSs have with such small unit counts?
Chris Taylor: I avoid, whether I believe in this ethically or not, maybe for Karmic reasons, trashing anybody else’;s game or talk about what they’;re doing wrong. I don’;t think there’;s a wrong answer. I just think big is a lot of fun. If you saw this one saucer right now, it’;s called the Tzar at the moment, it’;s kinda like Independence Day and you can have these huge transports land in the Tzar. So you’;re flying this gigantic crazy saucer over a body of water and you get to the other player’;s base, detach the transports to fly them in, and then you can fly the Tzar in. If you can talk about an experience and it sounds exciting and refreshing and different you know you’;re on the right track.
IGNPC: So what kind of technical considerations did you have to make to allow for so many units of so many different sizes?
Chris Taylor: Well, what you’;ll find is that if you architect something from day one to do these things, the problem is a lot smaller. Of course, if the engineers heard me they’;d look at me like I’;m on drugs. They had to jump through some pretty big hoops and these are some really smart guys. In fact, some of these guys worked with me on Total Annihilation, so they know what kind of guy I am. They know that I want stuff that just isn’;t in the comfort zone.To be able to click across the world and to get these units to start moving instantly means there has to be a very sophisticated pathfinding solution. Everything about the game really did have to go up a notch in order to facilitate this experience technically.
So were there technical considerations? Sure, but none of this is the kind of thing that you could really add in after the fact so when we put out our screenshots there wasn’;t a fear that someone would run back to their RTS team and say “this is something we have to put in,” because you can’;t do it.
IGNPC: Just not possible.
Chris Taylor: You have to engineer everything. We’;re talking about stuff like progressive level of detail on your terrain mesh, the way you handle the sound, and the way you need to be able to zoom in and zoom out. Also the way the units move and work, the formations, and everything really need to be thought out from the beginning.
IGNPC: So how is the scale going to affect gameplay? How are players going to control all this stuff? Are smaller units going to be able to hurt larger ones will larger ones even be able to target those that are smaller?
Chris Taylor: The gameplay is emergent. The whole thing is a simulation which means there’;s no dice rolling or randomness which is important. Scale is intuitive for the player. If the tiny little tank is shooting at the huge spider you know the spider doesn’;t really have anything to worry about. The spider has this giant laser beam on it that cuts through all these tanks and the tanks will blow up the minute that the beam touches it cause the beam is almost as thick as the tank, you know? So there’;s definitely an intuitive relationship between the units of different scale.In terms of control, it’;s exactly the same. You click on the spider you tell it to move. The example I gave with the Tzar is probably the best because the Tzar has these two transports in it. How do you get the Tzar to pick up the transports? The same way you pick up the other units with the transport. It happens to be the Tzar is a transport carrying a transport. So it’;s all intuitive.Now if you wheel mouse out or zoom with the keyboard, you’;ll see that the entire strategic view of the war plays exactly like it did when you were zoomed in. You can drag select, right click to move, set a formation, and more so there’;s no differences between the views.
IGNPC: So if these units are so big and you’;re planning on having so many of them on screen, how big are these maps exactly?
Chris Taylor: We actually had an interesting map balance conversation today about it and what’;s happening is that we find if you play the game on a smaller map, 512 by 512, you find that you kind of just turn a corner and boom, there’;s your opponent. So you’;re fighting a lot sooner with tanks and more traditional lower level tech units. Now if you get up to one of these big 2k by 2k maps, and we go up to 4k by 4k, because these maps are insanely large, you’;ll find that suddenly your nuclear submarines play a more important role as do your long range bombers so the game moves to the next level.You’;re not going to want to just pump out a few tanks and just drive them over to the other guy’;s base if it’;s a big continent. It’;ll take so long, it’;s just not effective so you’;ll need to load them into a transport and fly them over even if it’;s all land. You’;ll need to get over there with a construction unit and build a quantum gate that allows you to push units through to the other side of the map. Your strategies definitely change. Different people will enjoy the different game experiences.
IGNPC: Well then considering the scale of the maps and so many battles going on with so much movement, how are players going to keep track of things? Will you use AI generals or a lot of automation?
Chris Taylor: Well you’;ll actually find that when you zoom out that the whole problem scales down and now all the sudden you have a group of icons and you’;re back to boom, boom, boom “I’;m done.” Now there is a wonderful command and control system with cool estimated time of arrivals for great coordinated attacks on top of that.
You grab a fighter group and give some commands, maybe some waypoints and an attack destination, then move off and grab some tanks hold the shift key down, and click on the same destination point, which is obviously lit up, and kaboom, you get a coordinated attack where everyone shows up at the same time. You know it’;s so awesome.
If only Eisenhower had that he could have organized the entire war in twenty seconds. Forget nine or ten months of planning! All kidding aside, you don’;t need to have multi-leveled command structure where you have all of the things like privates up to generals to command this many units. We do have a base commander though that will do a lot of things in your base that you’;d like to do if you were there. What would you do if you were in a base? You’;d repair your damaged buildings or if they were completely destroyed you’;d probably go and put them back. The base commander will take care of all these things for you.
IGNPC: And he’;ll be able to prioritize things in an intelligent way?
Chris Taylor: Right, if you do nothing and just stick your base commander in the base he’;ll operate autonomously. But if you say to him “these five structures are important,” he’;ll put them ahead of the others. When you design this stuff it’;s like you’;re one step away from the 747 interface going “well it’;s just an airplane” and there’;s buttons everywhere. You really have to step back and take a walk and take a fresh look at it. People aren’;t necessarily interested in that kind of complexity. They just want smart and practical design. We want it to be where people can take the manual, throw it away, and be able to play.
IGNPC: While we’;re talking about bases, how important are they? Is it the traditional go out and hunt for resources and build up a infrastructure type of game?
Chris Taylor: Absolutely and it uses a lot of my philosophies about resources. I don’;t want to micromanage my resources gathering. So you secure resources and then you’;ve got that income if you can hold them. We’;ve streamlined a lot of it. We do want to focus most of the player’;s attention on the front line but there is that guns and butter relationship where there needs to be a weak spot so players have something to go attack as well as defend. So you’;ve got both scattered resources and those you can develop inside your base. That makes it possible to turtle for a while but you’;ll probably lose to an expansionist in the end.
The base is important. It’;s a sci-fi game so the idea is that a base looks cool. There’;s also something called an adjacency bonus. There’;s a smart way that you can build your base to get bonuses than someone who distributes their base over a wide area. What that means is that if you have a factory and you have energy production capability and you put those right beside your factory you get a lot more of a bonus than if you had set them around other places. What that means is the player who wants those bonuses is going to put buildings a lot closer together but that makes them more of a target. We love where strategy offers trade-offs where you may get something great from it, but there’;ll be some other penalty to pay later in the game.
Strategy is the thing, yeah? It’;s also the thing that I just haven’;t felt like there’;s been a lot of it. Instead, RTSs are a click fest to grab resources and be really sharp and throw as much stuff as your opponent as possible so that it turns into a wrestling match where you want to pin them to the mat early on. To me that’;s not war game strategy.
IGNPC: Does that mean that factions are going to be significantly different than so that people are forced down different strategy paths?
Chris Taylor: We have a bit of a philosophy about factions where we don’;t want them to be radically different. We want them to have peculiarities, specialties and tricks but we don’;t want them be so different that you get frustrated that you not only have to learn your faction but the one you’;re fighting against. It’;s also very time consuming and expensive to balance factions that are radically different. I’;ll leave it there. I might get in trouble if I go too much farther.
IGNPC: But each side is going to have at least some different units?
IGNPC：
Chris Taylor: Yeah in other words it’;s not a skin job. With the lower level units there’;s a lot more similarity. Once you get up into the tech tree and into the experimental units they completely diverge.
IGNPC: Are these sides also going to have their own super weapons as well? I’;m assuming you like big explosions as well.
Chris Taylor: Right! For Supreme Commander all three factions have a very different incredibly powerful set of these Godzilla like units. Everyone will be rubbing their hands saying “Muahaha! Wait till they get a load of me!”
IGNPC: One of the big things about Total Annihilation was that there were all of these downloadable units. Is that something you’;re hoping to add to Supreme Commander at some point?
Chris Taylor: Yes. But what we’;re probably going to do is not make a commitment as to when we’;re going to provide these downloadable units and instead surprise people with them every now and again. That’;s the only change that I want to make there. You know if something went wrong with development and before you had to have it done by midnight you’;d kill yourself trying to finish.
IGNPC: So now that you don’;t have a set date, you can spend the extra time on it and not worry about the delay cause nobody knows it’;s coming anyway.
Chris Taylor: Yeah, but I also think it’;s kinda mysterious and fun to check the website and see if one’;s up there.
IGNPC: OK then, how is the campaign going to work? Is it story-based or more like the Risk style game you were talking about earlier?
Chris Taylor: Story! We have a great story. We have a wonderful fiction we’;ve been working on including a whole history that has evolved the galaxy into the state that it’;s in. So it’;s completely explained right from the minute the player puts his CD-ROM into the computer. It continues throughout the arcs of all the campaigns. Really cool central characters that drive the narrative.
IGNPC: Can you tell us a bit about the story as it stands right now?
Chris Taylor: Yeah, I’;ll give you a quick overview. It all begins very simply as the Earth we know today decides to colonize into the system and the rest of the galaxy. Traditional means are developed and colonization isn’;t going very well when scientists make a breakthrough and create quantum tunneling. Quantum tunneling is down past the superstring level so these guys are mapping out all of this theoretical physics and they discover that all the matter in the universe is connected. If you have enough energy you can push through one of these tunnels and appear anywhere that you want but the further away that it is, the more energy it takes. There’;s a whole timeline with its development from pushing a monkey through it all the way up till they can colonize the galaxy.So it goes great, there are people everywhere and mankind prospers but what happens is standard fare. Groups start to feel more autonomous, so the Earth faction is trying to keep its colonies and the entire galactic organization. It falls apart into anarchy and everyone is dying before the player even comes along.Out of this emerges three factions. The Earth, the Cybren and the alien faction we call the Aeon. These are the factions the player plays. You get in the game, hear the back story about what happened, you hear about Dr. Brackman, the crazy alien faction, and you join one of these guys to help end the infinite war.
We try to make the player feel important. You walk into the room and you’;re a trainee to become one of these supreme commanders and they look at you and say “You’;re the one.” If you can’;t do it we’;re f*%$@#d.
IGNPC: No pressure.
Chris Taylor: [Laughs] Yeah exactly! You look down at your shorts and you’;re like “no pressure.”
So the idea then is that you start right up against the ropes. You got teleported into the ninth round and you’;re getting the snot beat out of you. They’;re right at the home world of the faction in question and you fight your way back and beat the other two factions down. We tried to create a nice big background for the game.
IGNPC: And what do you have planned on the multiplayer side of things?
Chris Taylor: Well there are a couple of things.One of the great new features in multiplayer is cooperative mode. So any friends or father/son combo can play through the entire single player mission arc together as a team. And you know what, that’;s kind of obvious in a way but again, it’;s one of those things that if you don’;t think about it at the beginning of the process it’;s a harder problem to solve. We’;re really excited about that. We’;re also going to let players record the entire stream of a game so you have a complete replay file in single and multiplayer.
IGNPC: Good. There’;ve been a few games that have tried co-op by now and done an OK job with it, but most seem almost a bit tacked on. I’;m glad to hear you’;ve come into that thinking about it from the start.
Chris Taylor: Yeah and it’;s fairly standard stuff aside from that. Eight player games and a lot of innovations… almost too much to talk about because there are a lot of little things that add up to big things like the ladder system, but I just remembered we’;re not supposed to talk about that right now. We’;ve left the reservation.
IGNPC: The reservation wasn’;t very homey anyway. Where do you see the future of real-time strategy moving? With a game this big it’;s hard not to think massively multiplayer, as improbable a success as that might be.
Chris Taylor: You know, I have a hard time imagining an huge multiplayer strategy game. I like to play Battlefield 2 and be one guy in a big battle environment. But for strategy games, the core experience is a contest between two people to see who’;s the clever strategist. I actually see this type of game being around for a long time. Come back a hundred years later and you’;ll still see two people squaring off. The graphics are going to change as will the interface but it’;ll still be two people.
IGNPC: So it’;ll still going to be chess.
Chris Taylor: Yeah, still going to be chess, exactly. And though I’;m sure there will still be many attempts to turn it into a massively multiplayer game… what was the big Sony game?
IGNPC: Sovereign. Maybe you’;re right, they couldn’;t really get that one to work.
Chris Taylor: It’;s really hard! You could be the best guy in the world and you lose because you’;re playing with random people that have totally different levels of skill and it would be really frustrating. How do you work around that? If you’;ve played Battlefield you know it’;s every man for himself with teammates, but you can still have fun if other people aren’;t any good. That’;s just how it works. You see your name at the top of the list and you don’;t really care if your team won or lost you just say “I’;m at the top of the list!” So it’;s very egocentric and I guess that’;s why I think it’;s going to be hard to pull off as an MMO. That’;s why I’;m not really burning any brain cells trying to figure that one out.
IGNPC: So when do you think your game is going to end up hitting store shelves at this point?
Chris Taylor: The end of next year. That’;s not a throwaway, we’;re very dedicated to getting it out before Christmas, we just don’;t have a date set yet.
IGNPC: What do you think people are going to enjoy the most about this experience?
Chris Taylor: I think it’;s going to be when they first create their base and zoom out and see their tiny little base on this gigantic map and say “Oh my god! This is crazy!” And when they zoom in and realize in about the first twenty minutes of the game that zoom feature is something that they can’;t play without. Everyone here who’;s played the game in the office go back and play other RTS games when they come out they immediately want to zoom out. But you’;re limited. It’;s like you hit your head on the ceiling. It’;s like once you’;ve zoomed out it’;s a tough needle to pull out of your arm especially when you get into naval battles and you work with these gigantic battleships and aircraft carriers and you realize you want to zoom out just to fram them right around where it’;s comfortable and now the tanks are tiny so you really need to change the level of zoom to accommodate the scale differences in these units. That’;s going to be the thing that makes people go “Wow.”
IGNPC: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us about this Chris, we really appreciate it.
Chris Taylor: No problem, glad to know people are interested!