Influenza Posted November 27, 2001 Share Posted November 27, 2001 Wow, I gave up on this thread a long time ago. The reason? No one seems to read what I say. It's like I'm talking, but everything I say just gets ignored. Darth_Nixon: TA is twice the game AoK is, and its engine is three times as powerful as AoK's. Also, what do you mean by "location"? I see you live in Australia, but what does that have to do with anything? In fact, one of your game magazines, PC Powerplay, included the SWTA Starter and Fighter packs in their most recent issue. Try finding it at a news-stand...it's on their CD. And you can buy TA for $7 US, which includes the original game and its two expansion packs. Go here if you're interested, which I doubt, considering your tone of voice. Frogspit, and Nixon: I ran Total Annihilation on a P133 with 32 MB of RAM. That's lower than AoK's minimum requirements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest BountyHunter Posted November 27, 2001 Share Posted November 27, 2001 I played TA a while ago and enjoyed it very much but that was then this is now. (I hear there are still places you can play online) I think the Dark Reign 2 engine would have been great as far as 3D goes. The problem you run into with any StarWars game are the diverse amount of and size of mechs, buildings, troops etc. Otherwise At-Ats would be no bigger than a trooper. Everyone would need at least 20" flat screen monitors and 64mb video cards as the maps would be HUGE and the amount of troops on a field at any given time would be monstrous. Then you start to get into all the different camera angels/views, line of sight. You would have to 86 alot of crap out of the game to make a smooth running 3D Star Wars RTS. I'm sure all of this has been said but I'm new to these boards and dont have time to read everything...sorry If I repeated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest crd_polaris Posted November 27, 2001 Share Posted November 27, 2001 Not to sound rude, but you are making judgements about the AOK engine and graphics before you have even tried the game. I own TA and I hate the resourses, the graphics are tacky, and the engine has never beat me on any senario. The gameplay is kind of boring because there isn't much depth to the game like there is in AOK. SW: Galactic Battlegrounds would have been a cheap ripoff if Cavedog would have made the game. Ensemble studios has the top of the line RTS graphics, and AI systems. TA has a third class AI. Even Blizzard Entertainment and Westwood have second class AIs. AOK has the best damn AI you will ever find. If you don't believe me try playing two computers on a random map, with 200 pop on the hardest AI. The comp still beats on that level and I've had the game for a year and a half. As for the graphics... The graphics are great. They aren't cartoony. The ACTUAL game looks a lot smoother in person then from a screen-shot. Force Commander was 3D, but the graphics sucked in my opinion. SWGB is just right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Influenza Posted November 28, 2001 Share Posted November 28, 2001 I have SWGB. The graphics are cartoony. I'm sorry, but I can't take half the animations in SWGB seriously. Have YOU played the game? If so, how can you call Darth Vader's (and all the Jedi/Sith's) attack not-cartoony? He flings himself up in the air, does a little dance, and then lands again. WTF is that? Not to mention the horribly animated AT-ST. They may call it a "chicken walker", but that doesn't mean it has to walk like a chicken! I really want to cry every time I see the AT-ST walking. The AT-AT looks great; why couldn't the same be done for its little cousin? You call AoK's AI the best in the genre? I'll call your bluff. I've never been beat by this AI, even on Hardest. It's simple, really... just hole up and wait for it to run out of resouces. Granted, it takes a while, but it isn't too hard to do. And on a similar note, 3rd party designers can design their own AI's for TA. Try playing against a Bloodthirsty AI...I guarantee, it WILL kick your ass. BAI is definitely the hardest AI I have ever played for ANY RTS. And what do you mean by "boring gameplay"? TA is far faster-paced than AoK, by several degrees. You will never see a serious attack in AoK until Tech3, whereas in TA the action is nonstop from the beginning. Trust me, I've played both games for a while, both against the AI and online. SWGB is rather slow...wait 'till you've got a mass of aircraft, assault mechs, and mech destroyers, and you're set. Of course, that takes around an hour or so, and all the while you're just sitting there really, building defenses and harvesting resources. By contrast, TA attacks can happen from the get-go. We use this same style in SWTA, and it's much more enjoyable (and that's an honest opinion, all biases set aside). The potential for tactical maneuvers and strategic genius is still there (probably more so, because of the ability to fire-while-moving), but the fast pace makes things much more fun. It's hard to explain...it's one of those things that you just know, yet can't put into words. Just try SWTA. Please. You can't argue with me until you do. And not against the AI, against a player, like me. If you're actually willing enough to give it a try, PM me and I'll work things out. This goes to everyone here...if you're a true Star Wars fan, I think you owe it to yourself to try SWTA out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clefo Posted November 28, 2001 Share Posted November 28, 2001 I really don't give a **** about Animations or engines or "When the Action Starts".. My main thing is: Is it fun SWTA and GB are both very fun games to play.. But my verdict goes to GB because I find that it has more depth than TA and that its more addicting to me.. Don't get me wrong TA is a great game and SWTA makes it better.. I just find GB more fun... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
safire Posted November 28, 2001 Share Posted November 28, 2001 I think that TA was a great game for it's time. It's problem was that the ARM and CORE were too similar. I have never played SWTA, but it looks cool. Yes, it's not as "in depth" as SWGB, but it doesn't have lucasarts developing it either. I loved the absolute carnage that was produced from TA battles, with heaps of dead units littering the map. This made for some interesting shifts b/c your rear units had to go around the dead front units, not just over them. And then your workers could come and collect the carbon from the dead units...that was an excellent idea on cavedog's behalf. The air - sorry, but the aok, aoe, starcraft, dark reign, earth 2150, dune, c&c, c&c red alert, etc engines have nothing on the way that cavedog did the air. Your air units actually flew and landed and flew and turned around and did another strafing or bombing run (w/ the exception of my fav unit the brawler, they were VTOL airplanes). It looked realistic and the air was air, not just units that hovered really high off the ground. Sure, when it boils down to it the enjoyment of the game is the major factor and we all enjoy swgb. I just wished that they incorporated some of the better aspects of TA - firing on the run or in midflight, the carnage left behind after a raging battle, and some other features. And TA:Kingdoms, don't even mention it. Cavedog had it's Kingdoms, Lucasarts has it's force commander. The end. Now Dark Reign - that had some good points (not DR2, but the original). You could tell your units to go scout and they just went everywhere searching stuff. THAT WAS A BLOODY COOL FEATURE!!!!! Then there was the Rift Generators.... "Templar disturbance detected." You feared when you heard that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Lambda07 Posted November 28, 2001 Share Posted November 28, 2001 Don't understand much of programming, but could the 'firing-when-moving' be implemented in a patch or add-on? or its something to do with the engine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Darth_Nixon42 Posted November 28, 2001 Share Posted November 28, 2001 Granted, Dog fights would be great fun, and i agree that they should have implamented it into the SWGB game. But TA is still has NOTHING on the AOK engine. The point was made that the AI within TA was pretty ordinary, and i would have to agree. It just dosn't compare No disraspect for you infuenza, but when i had my craptop (laptop), yes i could run TA, but it was up there with some of the chopiest and horrible graphics I had ever seen. Where as i AOK ran perfectly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Influenza Posted November 28, 2001 Share Posted November 28, 2001 Lambda: not without getting the source code to the engine. That feature is hard-coded into the engine, and the only way to fix it would for LA to get their hands on the source. And that isn't likely to happen without a large sum of money on the table . Nixon: again, please read my posts. Specifically, the reasons why the TA engine is superior to the AoK engine (it was my first post in this thread). I've said it before, but since I doubt you'll read it, I'll say it again: anything the AoK engine can do, the TA engine can do too, and better. And there are tons more things that the TA engine can do, that the AoK engine cannot. I really suggest you learn the engines of the two games before making comments on them. Just play SWTA...it's that simple. Play, and you will see the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedi_Knight Posted November 28, 2001 Share Posted November 28, 2001 I am surprised that no other rts games have the search and destroy mode that dark reign had. that was cool Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EndSub Posted November 28, 2001 Share Posted November 28, 2001 The Thread That Will Never Die......... Danm, who the hell bumped it this time!?!?!?! My two arguments against TA were: A) Bland Landscapes. B) Unit Detail Lacking Because Of Top Down View. And I was wrong about A....very wrong......the landscapes in TA can be VERY detailed..... But B is where I am right, and where suggesting that the TA should have been used for GB is absurd. Unit detail in TA is very lacking because you can only see the top of them. Now this is fine in games like TA where you have never seen the unit in all its glory, but I can you imagen watching that last jedi battle in E1 from a birds eye view? no? me neither. The TA engine had some sweet bonus, the things people keep bringing up are units fireing while moving. This allows unit speed to actully matter as they can dodge attacks and such. It is one of the coolest features of the TA engine and I am surprised that it hasn't been put in other games. but the 'waiting around' and that TA's gameplay is better because it is Go-Go-Go right from the start is bull**!t........ Personally I will take Aok's gameplay over TA's ANY DAY. in Aok you have to manage your resources carefully, In TA just plonk down some Moho Mines, build zillions of builder bots, build zillions of factories, then build zillions of guys then attack........works particularly well on metal maps.... feel free to challenge me on this one, you would no better than I: Aok has ALOT more battle field tactics than TA.....in TA I just grab my big ass army and send them over. In Aok you have mange your army ALOT more...... TA has its good points.....Aok has its good points......I like Aoks better....some like TA's.....where all intitled to our opinions, and there all on this thread....so before anyone new bumps this thread, READ IT! because all your questions will be answered.....and some of your arguments will be de-railed......then, if it hasn't been said once, twice, twenty times before, post it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Wettis Posted November 28, 2001 Share Posted November 28, 2001 Hehe, I love this topic. I might actually get SWGB, it seems like fun. The demo was ok and since most people say it's been improved on a whole lot it might be good. The AoK engine is horrible technically, but pretty good pure gameplay wise. The best feature of the AoK engine has to be the formations, how are they implemented in SWGB? Now over to SWTA, I think it's better because it has more action and still has room for lots of tactics. IMO, the actaul battlefield tactics are better too because of the superior TA physics engine. It works a whole lot better than the AoK engine on ranged weapons. Anyway, I think I'll play both games, SWGB seems fun and SWTA's awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EndSub Posted November 29, 2001 Share Posted November 29, 2001 Ok, you say that the battle feild tactics are better because of the 'the superior TA physics engine'. What is that suppossed to mean? In TA its about what you build (and since you never run out or resources.....) not how you fight your battles..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jediaoe Posted November 29, 2001 Share Posted November 29, 2001 christ somebody just end this thing, its already made and we can't change anything about it so nobody complain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Wettis Posted November 29, 2001 Share Posted November 29, 2001 jediaoe, why debate anything since "it's already made". It's an interesting topic and a good and friendly debate, so just SHUT THE **** UP WILL YOU EndSub: TA uses a realistic 3d physics engine while AoK uses an unrealistic 2d one. This makes TA battles more interesting and the outcome more uncertain. A good example is melee units in the AoK engine, when the animation starts, it has already hit. Ballistic weapons suffer from the same problem, but not nearly as much. TA ballistic weapons on the other hand are much more realistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DinoDoc Posted November 29, 2001 Share Posted November 29, 2001 I think that, despite its virtues, TA:K is a huge strike against the use of the TA engine in any other retail game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest General Crespin Posted November 29, 2001 Share Posted November 29, 2001 Can we end this horrible thread yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Influenza Posted November 29, 2001 Share Posted November 29, 2001 No, we cannot. Because unlike you, some people actually have things to contribute to the conversation. This topic has evolved into a debate over the TA and AoK engines. Since you don't seem to know anything about the two, leave the debating to those who do. Because every time someone says "can't we close this?" or anything like that, it just bumps the topic up to the top. And then even more people start their ignorant TA bashing, and I am forced to defend it again . Wettis is right: AoK does not have a physics engine. Ranged units simply shoot their weapons, and the engine draws the pixels in a line towards the target. Things like elevation, obstacles, etc are not taken into account because the weapons are simply drawn on the screen; there are no calculations after the weapon is fired. Since the only ranged units in AoK are archers and artillery, this isn't very noticeable. TA, on the other hand, doesn't stop with simply drawing a weapon's path. It constantly calculates speed, trajectory, and position through the entire flight, and is always checking for collisions. If a weapon's flight intersects a harmless tree, that weapon stops right there and detonates. It doesn't magically pass through the tree like in AoK/SWGB. Same thing for rocks, walls, mountains, and even other units. I don't like the way units in SWGB can shoot through walls AND other units. If there's a line of ATST's in front of an ATAT, a Rebel Trooper should not be able to shoot through the ST's at the ATAT. So you see, AoK doesn't have a physics engine. Things just happen without much explanation or "reality" checking. That's a direct contradiction to the definition of a game engine: a set of rules and behaviours that define and regulate the way objects behave and interact in a game. AoK definitely has an engine, but not a physics engine. As for why this matters: read safire's post about fire-while-moving, unit speeds vs. weapon speeds, and dogfights. These things are only possible in a game with a physics engine. And all these things add infinite possibilities and tactics to the game. EndSub: many of the things you say about TA's strategies and tactics reveal that you aren't a very good TA player. Because if you tried 99% of the things you describe against a competant player (or even the Bloodthirsty AI I mentioned earlier), you'd see that they aren't the truth. Simply massing units and throwing them at the enemy is not how you win TA games. You win them through efficient production, unit control, and proper use of use-specific units. You might have pseudo-infinite resources (you actually can run out of them, you know), but how you spend them and balance your intake and outtake largely determines how you fare on the battlefield. I could express the same complaints you have about TA with regards to AoK. In AoK, all I have to do is build 10 Assault Mechs and 20 Advanced Fighters, then slowly march them through my enemy's base. Where is the strategy in that? Now, I realize that this wouldn't work against a competant, competetive player. Maybe it's time you realized that all the complaints you have about TA strategy simply dissolve when you play against another player instead of the (admittedly) lame Cavedog AI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
safire Posted November 30, 2001 Share Posted November 30, 2001 From my last post in this LONG thread, you might think that I am a TA fan and hate swgb or AoK or AoE... Not true - I own all of them (own, no CD rips). I even own TA:K and Dark Reign. I love swgb - the tie fighers screeching noise, the AT-AT walkers and laser sounds just bring a smirk to my face everytime. So, not all of us that think highly of the TA engine are anti-swgb. I love it, play it when time permits. As someone mentioned, TA Kingdoms did hurt the TA engine being used by others. I can't deny that, it had bugs, ran slow with many units, and just didn't work well. Someone else mentioned that the game has been created an put an end to this thread. True, but we are still allowed to discuss. Why not strive for a possible SWGB II where you see the wonderful features from all rts games. Every engine has something to offer - though I am not a huge fan of the Myth, Dark Reign II, Shogun 3d rts engines. It doesn't make for quick fun IMHO. But that is a perfect example of my next point - Everybody has different tastes and it will always be the case. I though Dark Reign was an awesome game when the AoE, TA, DR rts battle started. Look at movies - everyone is yelling about Harry Potter or Anakin Skywalker or Frodo and who is best. All I can say is that Lord of the Rings is going to be awesome. But I digress. Think of the good in everything and maybe with enough word from consumers a newer RTS game will be even more spectacular. In defense of AoK - I love the resource management compared to almost all other rts games. This brings an aspect to the game that has no equal (well, considering most, not all rts games). To progress through the tech levels or ages like that is cool, it's great actually. Spaceports or Trading - a concept that is sweet. TA didn't have that (can the engine do it - don't know, not an expert on manipulating engines). A need for houses/prefab shelters is a good concept, it makes sense that you need places to house your people. I guess Starcraft and Warcraft II had the same thing. I also like the formation abilities that are integrated into the AoK engine. But this engine has it's flaws, especially pathfinding. TA engine brings a lot to the plate. One thing that TA:K did well was the options you had with units. Take the archers - you had three options of what to shoot. Lots of peeps on this board are requesting "force abilities" for the Jedi. How force pull/push/jump etc works into an rts beats me, but the TA engine has a good system for it. At least it is better than the way that Jedi/Monks convert. Air - hover vs real moving air units, even the brawlers would float back and forth in their vtol state. The air of TA is implemented better by far. Even water units seemed to move more realistic than AoK. Yes, I agree the view of TA wasn't the best angle. Oh, TA's patrol was also awesome. You took a worker, set him to repair and told him patrol this area - anything inside of there would get repaired by him. Believe me - this rocks the pants off how swgb does it. Tell your medic/worker/repairer to patrol an area and all your units get healed/repaired. In battle, this was so incredibly helpful instead of taking droids and clicking R on everything one by one. The physics engine for projectiles that influenza refers to is better than AoK's non existant physics engine. The projectiles from your heavy ships and artillery looked so much cooler than the artillery/cruiser/cannon/bomber shots. You actually did BOMBING RUNS, not just send bombers to hover over a building. It was cool. The building queue system has no equal - take your commander and build 3 solar panels, mine, cannon, etc all over the map and he'd walk there and do each thing. swgb has a queue system but the buildings have to be practically next to each other. Imagine this, game starts and you click on your worker, hold down shift and queue one prefab shelter, scroll to the other side of your base and queue an animal nursery, scroll next to the command center and queue a power core, then scroll to another place on the map and queue a food processing center, scroll next to some trees and queue a carbon collecting center, and lastly click on a tree and let go of shift. Your worker is already busy building the first building and will do everything else in turn. Now you can manage the other stuff you need, it's beautiful. Dark Reign has some amazing features that has not been shown in any recent game. Click on a scout and tell him to go roam the map and he did. The aggressive states were also handled better than most games I've played. Yes, AoK has a good aggressive/defensive/stand ground system, but Dark Reign had some sweet settings. I remember that one option was that when hurt too bad in a fight, it would fly that unit back and go repair. Same with ground units going to a "hospital." Starcraft - wasn't the best engine ever built or the best graphics, but the game was incredibly well done. Someone commented on there being no tactics in TA - whatever. You can hit your enemy's base from your own with big bertha artillery guns... you can send a big nuke bomb. You can build anti-nuke counter measures. And that doesn't even hit your mechs or tanks or air... the game required lots of tactics. Same person said there are just more options in swgb then swta...well, duh.. swgb was created by lucasarts, swta by some fans. Take all the swgb units and races and put it in the TA engine, then compare. Ok, that's enough from me.... just remember that you voice your opinion and in turn others are allowed to voice theirs. So those who like a different engine or features specific to that engine are allowed to speak. This isn't a Taliban controlled world where different opinions aren't allowed. Laters.... Shall I start a new thread on why the Dark Reign engine should have been chosen???? Kidding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EndSub Posted November 30, 2001 Share Posted November 30, 2001 Those are alot of good points about why the engine should have been used. especially about the planes. I cringe everytime I see those bombers stop. But I am going to stick to my guns and say that there are more battle field tactics. Now I admit it, I have only played Cavedogs bullsh!t AI. But you can't say that big berthas and nukes require tactics. Nukes are point and click and Big Bertha's are even worse, just build them and the enemy gets soar. What I am talking about is when robot meets robot. Now I have said it once, you would know better than I, to me it seems that there is not alot of unit countering and that one unit can take another on pretty much as good as the next. Sure there are AA bots, but how much better can they shoot down air than all other bots? and I still don't see what the physics engine has got less to do with battle feild tactics than you say. OK units can strife shots, thats cool, but they automatically do it. And the line of AT-ST's plus AT-AT....how close do you think an AT-ST's can stand? close enough to have no gaps? Now shooting threw walls.....THAT is cr@p. but the point still stand. shooting through units isn't really that bad. Sure it could have been handeled better, but It doesn't really take away from 'battle feild tactics'. Resources: I have NEVER ran out or resources on metal heck. and sometimes I go abit short at the beggining on non-metal maps, but once I get some metal storage up, and have more moho mines, I don't go short. But like I say, maybe its because the AI sucks and can't stop me. Maybe one day I'll play one of you guys. then we can see if my tactics suck, and all my Mines get blown up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
safire Posted November 30, 2001 Share Posted November 30, 2001 EndSub - great post. I'm not here to say TA is the ultimate of rts engines. I just think that some are arguing when they are totally clueless about what is being said (no, not referring to you). I love swgb and the whole counter-unit is great, it makes for an awesome game. I don't really want to compare swgb to swta as it is currently, that's not fair. You have lucasarts going against a few ta fans. Take the units/races from swgb and put it into a TA engine. You'll still have bounties counter jedi, mech destroyers countering mechs - etc. Having the ARM and CORE in TA was sort of lame b/c 85% of the units were almost exactly the same, except the brawlers (can you tell I like brawlers). True the berthas and nukes require little else then a single mouse click and that was a dumb reference for tactics - my bad. But I think if you take units/civ like in swgb and place in a TA engine, you'd have similar tactics. Resource management - I already agreed that AoE had/has the best resource scheme. Makes the game so different. Dark Reign, Starcraft, C&C series are all the same - dumb. TA is somewhat similar, but needing to have energy and metal depots to keep more of each was a cool concept, no? The battlefield - it was awesome when after a battle, you saw the wreckage of mechs, tanks, and stuff... all littering the battlefield forcing your units to go around - sheer beauty. Then, you could go collect the metal from dead units - sheer brilliance. I liked that part of the epic battles in TA, it seemed like a massive scale battle - not just 100's of units facing against each other. Wouldn't it be cool if after an epic battle in swgb you were able to send a few workers to collect carbon/ore from the AT-AT wreckage? Now, recovering food or nova from dead troopers and jedi would be lame, but you get my point. Physics engine is important... should you be able to shoot over a wall with storm troopers? No, unless it is a pathetically low wall. Should you be able to lob your artillery over? Hell yeah. And the air thing is part of that, the bombing runs. Shooting while moving can have a major role in battlefield tactics... think about your faster strike mechs firing while circling some AT-ATs real fast... AT-ATs are too slow to really shoot and hit everytime...makes the speed of units a major factor in fights... Right now your strike mechs or faster units run, stop, fire... rinse and repeat. That's lame - ever had a group of PeeWee's running around some enemy tanks, beatiful. PeeWees are weak armor but if used properly could lay into some heavy weapons... tactics right there. Cheap units can last longer than just being mauled. The AT-ATs behind AT-ST - don't know what to say there...I didn't understand from the beginning... Why can't you hit someone in the second line of attack... You ought to be able to, AT-ATs stand a bit higher than AT-STs and it's not like there is a wall of them. So, no clue what to say. The drawback to TA is the non-uniqueness of races, TA:K did show that you could have unique races. All I want is for the next SWGB to have flying units like TA, scouting like Dark Reign, and resource management like AoK. Is that too much to ask for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
safire Posted November 30, 2001 Share Posted November 30, 2001 Just realized that the whole research thing doesn't exactly exist in the TA games - hmm, I'd miss that. Is something like that a possibility influenza???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Influenza Posted November 30, 2001 Share Posted November 30, 2001 Excellent points all around. Glad to see some intelligent debating, instead of the mindless "TA SUCKS!!" that started this topic. (And on a side note...is it just me, or has this site been really slow lately?) Let's start by saying that I, too, do not believe that the TA engine is the ultimate RTS engine. Things like upgrades (which can be done, but it is VERY hack-y and doesn't play very well), class-specific damages (TA allows unit-specific, but not class-specific damage), restricting unit fire-arcs to straight-ahead only (again, can be done, but it's ugly), and distinguishing repairing from healing are things that TA does lack. But I do believe that, as a computer science student who fully understands the capabilities and roles of game engines, the TA engine is pound-for-pound the best RTS engine out there. Also, let me clarify the rather bad ATAT/ST example. What I meant to say is this: if there is a line of units, solidly packed, in front of another line of units of the same height which does not extend further outwards than the first line, how should a blaster be able to travel through the first line to hit the second line? In TA, such a situation would result in weapons hitting the first line (provided they are line-of-sight weapons, not ballistic) instead of the second line as intended. This isn't a major issue, but I meant it to show another example of the TA physics engine. safire: very good posts . To expand on the whole nuke/bertha idea: sure, creating 5 nuclear silos, stockpiling warheads, and watching the ensuing nuclear winter doesn't take much skill. But you're playing against an AI. Here are some statistics to show you that actually using a Bertha/Nuke takes incredible skill: One nuclear silo, unassisted, takes around 5-6 minutes on the fastest game speed. Since most MP games are not played on +10 speed, silos can take as long as 10-12 minutes to construct. And that's provided you have the required income to be constantly working on it. Berthas, on the other hand, take around 4-5 minutes in a typical game to construct. Once you construct your silo, it's still another 90-120 seconds to build an actual nuke. And once you get that nuke, you have to go scouting your enemy's base for vital structures, because any good player will set up radar jammers to block you from scanning. Same thing goes for scouting for Bertha targets. You'll need a good handful of air scouts to see far into your enemy's base, since they are very fragile and easily shot down by AA. And these scouts will show up on your opponent's screen and radar, giving away the fact that you're planning something big. Only the best players scout the enemy often enough for the act to seem inconspicuous, so chances are your enemy will KNOW something is coming. Let's say you find a nice, juicy target. You tell your nuke to fire away, and grin as the little X moves across the radar. But suddenly: it disappears well short of its target! Crap, that must mean the enemy has an anti-nuke system, which is cheaper, builds faster, and produces anti-nukes faster than your silo! What to do? Well, chances are you'll scout for their anti-nuke and hopefully take it out with some long-range bombers. All the while praying that your opponent isn't pissed off that you're trying to hit him with nuclear weapons and trying to find YOUR silo to destroy it with HIS bombers. Now, for the Bertha. Berthas are very inaccurate. Once you find a target, chances are it'll be around 15-20 seconds before it's destroyed (right away if you're VERY lucky). All this time your enemy will be seeing Flying Plasma Shells of Doom spraying over his buildings, and since he can use the shells' trajectory to calculate where they're coming from, rallying his bombers to take out your Bertha. Or, if you're lucky, he'll have a Bertha of his one that he'll use to fire at yours. Lucky, because it will be a while before his hits yours, so you'll have a chance to bomb his first . If you're lucky, your nuke/Bertha will hit its target before the enemy has a chance to realize what's going on. In that case, good job, you at most just destroyed a unit lab, or a fusion power plant, or maybe the enemy commander himself! But since no smart player actually puts more than one fusion plant, unit lab, or other important structure on the same screen, you just spent a hell of a lot of resources to destroy something worth 1/10 the cost. So you see, using nukes and berthas effectively against a good player is far more difficult and strategy-needy than anything you do in SWGB. And BTW...no one EVER plays Metal Heck, or any other metal map. So it's pointless to use that as an example. It would be like judging the gameplay of StarCraft when all you ever play is Big Game Hunters. It's just stupid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
captain_drake Posted November 30, 2001 Share Posted November 30, 2001 IS THIS TOPIC STILL GOING!!!! i saw this topic back in october look i never played ta but it's too late now to wish for it to be made like it ok Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
safire Posted November 30, 2001 Share Posted November 30, 2001 drake - maybe you should read the posts before commenting on them. You'd see that we aren't asking them to remake swgb. Or if this thread bothers you so much - IGNORE it and read other ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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