Athanasios Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 With the recent demo, with EaW's brand new 3d graphics and it's special abilities, i just couldn't stop of recalling Force Commander; an exellent ground RTS game, with some major flaws, that drop it to the history. I'll mention below the pros and cons of FC and let you comment how EaW confronts them. I'll just mark with (*) the feature that are not included in EaW and with (+) those included or enhanced. Some are based on the demo but most are based on the confirmed info. Obviously we're talking only about the ground battles/features, although i don't doubt that FC could do great job if they included space battle as well. So, here we go: Star Wars: FORCE COMMANDER PROS 1. HUGE, very well designed maps (* - judging from demo) Who cannot remember of every single map, how long it was taking simply to rush from one corner to the other and how well they were designed? Endor map, volcaninc map, Coruscant map, each one was unique. 2. Special abilities All ground and air units had special abilities, exept for Tie Fighters, Tie Bombers and Lambda shuttle, which could turn the side of a battle. Stun ability for stormies, stealing of enemy vehicles for infils, rockets for reb heavy tanks and more. 3. Full, 360 degree rotable camera with 100% zoom level (*****!!!) Although the graphics were obviously polygon-made at close zoom, yet, each unit/building was well looking from any angle. You could see the horizon while being able to control your forces and you didn't have to break your neck trying to look "below the monitor's top" to see what's coming. 4. Troop carrying ability of most vehicles/buildings (*) The maximun carrying capacity of the biggest vehicles/buildings was 6 troops. A very tactical feature, allowing to steel enemy vehicles (only for infils was this), buildings, turrets etc. Also allowed the player to move a small troop force safely to the hot battle area. Also, when a battle were taking place within a building, the player could see the health status of his troops and the enemy and so, to decide if he will re-try to capture it or not (noone would try to capture a reb base full of veteran -see below- infils). Best good-looking carrier was the Lambda shuttle; it just pulled off and landed very quickly and was a real eye-candy, while being able to reach the unload area fast. 5. Air units on the ground (*) In FC you could build an air-base and bring down from space Tie fighters, Tie Bombers, Snowspeeder and Y-Wings. Very tactical units especially to stop marches and quickly inflict great damages either to unprotected buildings or units. 6. Veterancy - experience points for units (***!) Each units could advance up to 3 veterancy levels, with the indication of 3 red lines by its name -see below- showing this. The units became more hard to kill, could shot with greater accuracy and was a real trouble when garissoned in a building (a single 3-level veteran stormy needed 3 soldiers to get killed when garissoning a turret - max 2 enemies inside). A feature that just brings you closer to your forces and you don't regard them as "one of the bunch"... 7. Naming units (* - judging from demo, not sure) Just an eye-candy which, accompanied with the exp. points mentioned above, allowed you to play in a more "Commandos series" style. Obviously, with no exp. points, this feature is kind of useless. 8. Great, well-driven story line You simply can't descrive how unexpected and well-designed the whole campaign was made. Two brothers, stormies in the begining, one becoming an imperial officer and after a while turns to the rebels. I still remeber this "turn to rebs" mission; 7-9 veteran stormtroopers (each one had a name), loyal to you, free you from the prison and then you struggle to reach a rebel evacuate point with those stormies.........just fabulous......... CONS The most important flaws of FC, that actually ruined the continue of the game were: 1. Little variety of units - techs (+++) The units were too few for only 2 factions in the game. Also, the empire was made too strong. And finally, the techs were actually 4 upgrades for tanks and shields. 2. Unbearable lag on multiplayer (+ ?) The most major reasons, in my humble opinion, that the game was left apart. The devs paid no attention to this feature, no tourneys around, no contests and such. The mp community "died" after a while... 3. No modding available (+++) Which could revive the game and fulfil its lacks which was the techs and units. Maybe you couldn't make tech trees since this wasn't in the game-code, but you could make a bunch of units and buildings. Well, feel free to comment. Personally, i'd like to see all PROS from FC implemented in EaW and not to expect an x-pack to see them included... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Sitherino Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 Do we really need all these comparison threads? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huntmaster Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 Eh, probably not. Heard them all before Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athanasios Posted January 25, 2006 Author Share Posted January 25, 2006 Do we really need all these comparison threads? They're called "constructive critisism"/feedback and some devs out there do pay attention on them, more than you do. And Huntmaster, please post the link of where you found the exact same post, or another with the exact subject and the exact summary of features. If you have nothing to add related to the topic, then just leave the thread as it is and it will disappear from the page after a couple of days.....*sigh* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wedge2211 Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 Add to Force Commander's cons an awful, awful camera system and an awful, awful reinforcement system. 3. Full, 360 degree rotable camera with 100% zoom level (*****!!!) You DO know that you can rotate the camera 360 degrees in Empire at War by holding CONTROL and the middle mouse button, then dragging the mouse, don't you? That's been said about fifteen bazillion times on these forums, it just wasn't covered in the EaW tutorial and doesn't appear on the key list. You can zoom right into units and get a new angle on the battlefield whenever you want. You can also center the camera on a unit by selecting it and pressing "C," pressing "C" again will let you pan the camera around that unit. That's everything you wanted, it just wasn't very prominently advertised. 7. Naming units (* - judging from demo, not sure) I noticed that the Imperial starships in the Vergesso asteroid field had names in their droid tooltips--I assume there's some way to name vessels. That would be a useful feature: you could more easily keep track of units and fleets, especially in a galactic-scale game with many, many ships spread throughout the map. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CondorFalco Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 I think that there are files in the data folder which have a list of names for the Capital Ships, and from here you can edit them, but I have not seen a way ingame of editing the names yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan Gaarni Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 Condor, actually, there is a file for each type of capital ship where you can put in ships names for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admiral Sith Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 Theres one thing you forget about Force Commander, while the Campaign maps where great the Skirmish mode was horrible and still leaves me with nightmares Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilhuf Posted January 25, 2006 Share Posted January 25, 2006 I saw the FoCom reinforcement system as innovative. Field Commanders had to actually capture and hold objectives, showing the Imperial Quartermaster that they could actually win (expressed as command points). This allowed players to requisition more units, deploying them from orbit. None of this 'build a unit in a combat-zone-deployed-factory' nonsense that is typical of so many RTS games. And I think it's great that Athanasios has outlined his take on both the positive and negative aspects of FoCom. If the camera and multiplayer networking timeout issues had been fixed, FoCom would have been a pretty good game. It's also my opinion that FoCom is the most underrated Star Wars PC game. Meanwhile, almost seven years later it will be interesting to see how FoCom and EaW compare. Another similarity between the two: both games use landing zones for reinforcements. I'm sure there are more. Definitely a letdown that there will be no troop-transport vehicles in EaW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athanasios Posted January 25, 2006 Author Share Posted January 25, 2006 Add to Force Commander's cons an awful, awful camera system and an awful, awful reinforcement system. You DO know that you can rotate the camera 360 degrees in Empire at War by holding CONTROL and the middle mouse button, then dragging the mouse, don't you? That's been said about fifteen bazillion times on these forums, it just wasn't covered in the EaW tutorial and doesn't appear on the key list. You can zoom right into units and get a new angle on the battlefield whenever you want. You can also center the camera on a unit by selecting it and pressing "C," pressing "C" again will let you pan the camera around that unit. That's everything you wanted, it just wasn't very prominently advertised. Wedge, first; relax . We discuss here we're playing box. Now, i think you didn't not understand my statement about the camera. Well, the demo is indeed worth it's download time, BUT! The ground camera angle is a bit steep, in the way that you cannot see much of the horizon from high altitude (zoom out). Ofcourse you can zoom in and see the horizon better, but this is not good for tactical management. This was my first "complaint" after the demo was out and it's one of my questions at the coming FAQ. I know that you can double-press "C" and rotate around a single unit (as you pointed) but the point, in a middle of a hot battle with your troops screaming here and there for the upcoming matching forces, i don't see it very "helpful" to have to click to a unit, then see the horizon in the aspect of that single unit; besides, this is more closely to the movie-camera, it's like pasarella of a unit, pointless in the middle of a battle. There must be freedom to rotate the camera no matter the zoom level, just like the space one. And yes, the devs and many moderators got tired of advising people how to zoom in/out and how to rotate the camera. Yet, i was the first one (at this forum), long before those announcement about the control were made, that tried and said some people how rotate/zoom feature works. No offence taken. As Wilhuf mentioned, there are more similiraties than i mentioned between FC and EaW, such as the reinforcement points. Major battles (on mp) were played along the bunkers (that, if controlled, gave you command points), as will happen with EaW. But the mp wasn't simply a "fight for bunkers", since way more tactics were seen to conquer the enemy; besides, what to do a bunker, when your base is capture and all the reinforcements will be unloaded next to your base (and probably destroyed)? For the skirmish maps, as Admiral Sith said, contrary to the campaign ones, they were kind of small and "plain"; yup, it was one of the reasons that ruined the mp gaming. The problem is that all the pros of FC could be implemented in EaW, but they weren't. And worse, we don't know if they can modded and so, included; apparently, most of them seem impossible to mod (ie. veterancy, carry ability etc) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowsfm Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 cons to fc even my new computer(which is a weak computer these days,) thats better then my computer from 7 years ago, still cant play that game with good frame rate, and it freezes on the, capture luke level. the upgrades where instant, and upgrades and veterency was only good if you have both. multyplayer rushing. no x-wing pros using units from the mission before. day and night time. swoops are cool. the tanks are the best of any rts. my opinion the story was good. the battles where fun to watch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lukeiamyourdad Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 Thread reopened. I don't see any reason to close this thread as long as it doesn't degenerate into random bashing. Carry on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wedge2211 Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 Athanasios, you don't have to be centered on a unit to pan the camera if you use [control] + [middle mouse button]. I think that gives you everything you're asking for, but I could just be misunderstanding you... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Athanasios Posted January 26, 2006 Author Share Posted January 26, 2006 In ground combats you can rotate the camera for a certain zoom level but you keep looking in a steep angle. Only at close zooms you can see some horizon. in space there's total freedom on the camera issue. Btw, as shadowfish said, FC had day & night combats/maps..............i thought EaW had this also...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wedge2211 Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 Out of curiosity, what advantages do you get from being able to see the horizon? It's impossible to issue any good commands from that view, and if you're looking for a good perspective on a battle, there's always the cinematic camera. Hit space till you find a view you like, then just hold the spacebar down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Sitherino Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 Yeah, I'm gonna have to go ahead and close this since it's just cycling back to bitching about stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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