Supreme Commander: Warfare on Land (PC)
GameSpy speaks with the team for an in-depth look at land warfare in Supreme Commander
By Dave ‘;Fargo’; Kosak | July 8, 2005
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Land combat is pretty straightforward in most real-time games, where you try to amass overwhelming numbers and send them at your enemy. The same is true in Supreme Commander, but there are a couple important caveats to remember when thinking about land combat in this game:
- The maps are very big.
- Tanks are very slow.
As Chris Taylor puts it, “you can’;t just build in Moscow and click on Paris.” Air units and even certain naval units can traverse the massive Supreme Commander maps quickly, but the biggest guns that you can produce in bulk will have to travel across the land. So the question becomes: how to get them there?
Transporting your heavy units is a big part of Supreme Commander. The huge flying transports we mentioned in our preview can carry over a dozen small infantry robots or a pair of heavy tanks each – you’;ll have to build a whole wing of them to quickly move an entire squadron of tanks, but the ability to transmit that much force all over the board will be worth it.
There are plenty of ways to use ground troops to surprise the enemy. Taylor was so excited he was practically drooling as he described invading an enemy beach using submarine troop carriers. They’;d breach the water like great whales, then slowly open while taking heavy artillery fire from shore batteries, until at last your tanks and troops would pour out. Don’;t want to mess with submersible transports? Some factions may be able to build amphibious tanks that would simply claw their way out of the sea.
If you are making the long trek across the land with a huge ground force, you’;ll need to protect it. A whole array of support vehicles will be available to all factions. Radar jammers will obscure your radar signature, mobile flak cannons can provide protection against aerial assaults, and mobile shield generators can deflect incoming fire.
Static offensive and defensive placements will naturally factor into Supreme Commander, so once your army does arrive at an enemy base, expect to pound your way through his defenses. All factions can build walls and defensive towers. The alien-like Aeon faction has some particularly nasty technology: walls that appear flat will suddenly come alive as hidden guns fold out to crush your assault.
As for artillery, the arsenal in Supreme Commander runs the gamut. Smaller artillery pieces are mobile and can move around the battlefield, settling down into a bracing position in order to fire. Mortars are also available, which will lob shells high in the air – this is perfect for battling enemies that are close but behind an emplacement or high terrain. As you’;d expect, the biggest of the big guns are obscene – enormous static cannons capable of hurling massive shells across the map. They may not be accurate, but they can keep firing as long as you can keep them supplied. Keeping your base and your forces hidden from these beasts is essential.
As with all the units in the game, the three different factions in Supreme Commander each have their own look and ‘;feel.’; Earth forces look the most conventional, with lots of wheels and tracks. The half-man half-machine Cybran race prefers devices that walk (such as the massive experimental spider shown in many screenshots.) The Aeon’;s, meanwhile, prefer sleek smooth metallic designs, and many of their land vehicles hover in order to move.
Regardless of your strategy, naval, nuclear, or air warfare probably won’;t finish your opponents off. You’;re going to eventually have to bring in the land troops to mop up.
Supreme Commander: Warfare at Sea (PC)
GameSpy speaks with the team for an in-depth look at oceanic warfare in Supreme Commander
By Dave ‘;Fargo’; Kosak | July 8, 2005
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During our demo (and brief hands-on time) with Supreme Commander, by far the unit that stole the show was the Battleship. As mentioned in our preview, it dwarfed land units. It was massive. It bristled with guns: 4 AA guns, an anti-air phalanx machinegun, and multiple turrets bristling with cannons intended for shore bombardment. A battleship could fire it’;s explosive ordinance several miles inland – you did not want one of these lurking off the coast near your base.
This led us to believe, initially, that sea combat in Supreme Commander was simply a matter of being the first to crank out Battleships. Wrong … wrong. There’;s a whole naval simulation at work here, and there’;s various strategies with regards to how you’;ll compose your fleet.
Let’;s take that Battleship, for example. The cost of building one is phenomenal, and it’;ll take a lot of time to get one into the water. Once there, it has very little defenses against submarines and torpedoes. And its main guns, while among the most powerful in the game, have a slow firing rate that may not be ideal against smaller ships – other ships would be more cost-effective. No, the Battleship isn’;t the end-all of naval warfare: it’;s more like the ultimate artillery piece, super-powerful against certain targets but something you still need to protect.
Sharing the sea with the Battleship are cruisers, destroyers, and frigates. Each carries a different weapon compliment, so just like in real life they all have their own uses. Cruisers, for example, are mobile missile platforms: use them to target specific targets far inland or as an anti-aircraft screen. Destroyers carry more depth charges than the other ships, so it’;s ideal in anti-sub warfare.
The original game design called for both minelayers and minesweepers, but the team recently removed them from the game because they slowed down the action too much. Supreme Commander is about grand strategy and over-the-top destruction, not slowly clearing a channel of explosives before moving in.
Of course, aircraft carriers also make an appearance. These enormous ships are important because (as explained in our section on air combat) aircraft in Supreme Commander need to land and restock periodically. By parking your aircraft carriers close to the enemy shore, you’;ll be able to project your airpower deep into his territory.
Submarines? Oh yes. A whole compliment of subs is available, each with different armaments. Attack subs are monstrous beasts who can deliver heavy torpedoes into the hulls of ships. Anti-sub subs are smaller, cheaper, more maneuverable submarines whose armament is designed to take out attack subs. Supreme Commander is a simulation, so there’;s no reason you couldn’;t send the cheaper anti-sub submarines against ships, but their light torpedoes likely wouldn’;t do as much damage before the destroyers blew them out of the water.
Speaking of finding enemy submarines, sonar works underwater similar to the way that radar works above land. You can have your subs emit sonar pings to see other objects, but these pings will give away their location to any listening devices. As with everything else in Supreme Commander, keeping your force hidden until you use it is one of the most important strategies in the game.
Of course, there’;s also nuclear submarines. A nuclear sub can build and carry a whole array of nukes. It’;s one expensive piece of hardware! But just as in real life, it allows you to project nuclear force nearly anywhere on the map from a platform that the enemy has a real hard time tracking.
Naval warfare is made even more interesting with the addition of structures that can be built on-- or under – water. The design team hinted at floating or submerged factories or power plants. Although the specifics are still being worked out and play-balanced, the crew at Gas Powered Games is playing with the idea of basically allowing a player to build almost his entire base underwater. Suddenly ruling the waves takes on a new importance.
Because Supreme Commander takes place in the far far far (far) future, the team is also able to play around with bizarre technologies. For example, several of the Cybran ships can partially submerge – they drop most of the way down into the water, creating a lower profile that’;s hard for other ships to hit. Of course, when they do this, they’;re bigger targets for Torpedoes. Other ships can actually lift themselves up onto skids and hydroplane across the water. This has the opposite effect (making them a bigger target for other ships), but allows them to move many times faster than a conventional navy.
And finally, you have the experimental super-units. A submarine aircraft carrier?! Yes, you can build it. Imagine having a couple of those surface off of your coast behind your defenses, open up, and spew out armadas of fighters and bombers. Ridiculously over the top? Oh yes – welcome to Supreme Commander!
Supreme Commander: Warfare in the Air (PC)
GameSpy speaks with the team for an in-depth look at aerial warfare in Supreme Commander
By Dave ‘;Fargo’; Kosak | July 8, 2005
The Supreme Commander team will always side with fun over realism, which is certainly the case with air combat. So even though the game takes place in the far future where giant robots slug it out on alien planets, air combat itself takes a few pages from the history books. The design team structures air combat more like World War II (with slower planes, pilots that would dogfight, and heavy bombers that had to be escorted) as opposed to modern air warfare (where pilots would push a button to launch a missile miles away from the target, then veer off and zoom away at several times the speed of sound.)
As a result, except aerial combat in Supreme Commander to be just as crazed and intense as the Battle of Britain or the skies over the Normandy invasion.
Numerous aircraft types will be available: Scouts, fighters, bombers, anti-fighters (used for air superiority), torpedo bombers, gunships… There isn’;t any weapon that the designers are afraid to strap some wings to.
All of these different craft have tradeoffs with regards to how much they cost to build and what kind of weapons they carry. Scouts, for instance, are dirt cheap, super fast, and have virtually no weapons but a great line of sight. Assuming the enemy hasn’;t ramped up his air defenses, a couple of these can tell you all about his base. Map information and enemy buildings scouts reveal will continue to be displayed in shades of grey long after the plane has been shot down; you can mouse over these areas to see how old the information is.
Anti-fighters are also inexpensive, because their armament is limited. They’;re fast, maneuverable machines with machineguns as their primary attack. Their job is to sweep the skies clean so you can bring in the big guns. Like the gunships! These massive (and expensive) gun platforms can dish out serious damage with pinpoint accuracy, but you need to protect them from enemy aircraft.
Is your enemy relying on naval power? A whole wing of torpedo bombers are a great way to remove even the monstrous Battleship from the map, if he’;s not smart enough to protect it with an escort of cruisers.
Bombers, meanwhile, are devastating against land targets. Large and slow, they’;ll line up near a target, swoop in, and unload a stream of enormous bombs. A single bomber will leave a line of explosions up to and over his target. A whole wing of bombers, filling the screen, can cover a base with explosions. They, too, should be protected if you want to use them for more than one bombing run. The best part about bombers is that they have some degree of auto-targeting. You can order them to a region, then allow them to pick their victims – important factories and power plants, especially if they’;re already damaged, will be the first to go and you can concentrate your attention elsewhere.
All aircraft have a limited range and ammo. In between attacks they’;ll have to land at a friendly airbase. And the maps are huge! For this reason, if you want to use airpower, you can’;t just click on the enemy base far away and wait for victory. You’;ll want to build a series of airbases moving closer and closer to his territory. Naturally, this is where aircraft carriers come in handy: a mobile airstrip that you can park in his back yard? Hook me up!
It’;s a sign of the brutality of Supreme Commander that your fighters also have an alternate attack where they kamikaze themselves into enemy structures.
Each of the three factions in Supreme Commander has a few tricks up their sleeves when it comes to air power. The Cybrans specialize in stealth – most of their aircraft don’;t have a radar signature, although they’;ll still show up on your map once your units make visual contact. The Terran forces from Earth use just the opposite approach: they have technology that’;ll spam tons of false radar signatures. The Aeon faction, which has incorporated alien technology into their arsenal, has actually developed true cloaking technology. This makes their aircraft invisible to both radar and the naked eye … at least until they start firing.
As with everything else in Supreme Commander, air combat is also taken to the extreme: It’;s possible to build a flying aircraft carrier. Of course it’;s ridiculous… but it’;s cool. And, knowing the Supreme Commander design philosophy, it’;ll probably look awesome when you blow it up.