Forged Alliance Forever

Re: What you guys think off this new RTS Etherium

2015-06-23T09:40:32+02:00

Anihilnine wrote:
thanks for the in depth reply. you have completely talked me out of trying this game

No problems! I must admit to being a little bit biased against it. It is a decent game, but not what I was looking for. It might be worth watching a let's play before you write it off completely.

i like the idea of weather just because it makes the game dynamic and i like the fact that your plans might get destroyed randomly and you have to react to that

Also important to note is that while there are 'only' three different maps per planet, and 'only' six planets, each planet has its own weather effect and the maps are designed really well to bring out the best and worst of the weather. On the map where the weather downs your air units, there's often separate islands you need to air-drop troops to, and on the map with sandstorms that damage non-armored units there are lots of pathways that only infantry can take.

i like the idea of the overhead space battle in a storyline point of way ... however really they would just bombard the enemy base with kinetic/mazer/whatever weapons and it would be done.

Yeah, that sort of thing's not possible. It's all ground warfare. There are some event cards and space ship attacks you can do in the campaign, but it's very simplified up there.

Statistics: Posted by ZenTractor — 23 Jun 2015, 09:40

Re: What you guys think off this new RTS Etherium

2015-06-23T09:26:02+02:00

thanks for the in depth reply. you have completely talked me out of trying this game

i like the idea of weather just because it makes the game dynamic and i like the fact that your plans might get destroyed randomly and you have to react to that

i like the idea of the overhead space battle in a storyline point of way ... however really they would just bombard the enemy base with kinetic/mazer/whatever weapons and it would be done.

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 23 Jun 2015, 09:26

Re: What you guys think off this new RTS Etherium

2015-06-23T09:17:47+02:00

Anihilnine wrote:
did anyone actually play etherium? should i bother?

I've gotten it and played it a fair bit (16 hours)
I wrote too much, but here; have an impromptu review:

Etherium
It's not like supcom. Not at all.

It's influences are much more likely Dawn of War and Ground Control.

Each map is segmented into 'zones of control', which you have to capture using special infantry units who get consumed to do so. Each zone can be a small, medium or home base node. The small zones have one building slot, the medium ones 3 and the home bases 6. Buildings are streamlined down to the essentials: unit cap increases, tech level increases, faction unique trait, command point increases, etc.

Resources are gained through building extractors on Etherium orbs, which are only present in some zones. There is an expansion building called the refinery you can place on a node that takes up a slot and increases the income generated by the deposit in that zone. Income is given every few seconds, based on the number of extractors and refineries.

Units are built in squads, but they function as single units: they only follow one order and stay very close together and all fire with the same range. Somewhat interesting is the fact that pretty much every squad is identical in it's stats: 100 hp and 3.33 dps (which may or may not be per unit, it's hard to tell). Units have HARD counters, with emphasis on the hard. Anti-infantry units deal double damage to infantry, as well as slowing them. Anti tank infantry ignore armor and deal double damage to tanks. Tanks have standard stats, but are armored so they take half damage from things without the armor-pen trait. Air units are starcraft style, not TA style: they hover in place and just shoot their targets.

The theming for the battles is that you have your fleets engaged in combat above the ground fight. As such your troops are build by being air-dropped in from low orbit. You can only build and summon reinforcements from zones which have a drop zone expansion built at them. It's a neat idea which works out... interestingly in practice. Essentially all units have the same very small build time. You can also reinforce units by putting them in a drop zone and paying the difference in cost for the missing units. They keep their veterancy.

There are two other things that make use of the theme of the game: the alternate win condition and command powers. You can build an expansion on your bases which is an orbital cannon, which shoots at the enemy fleet above. Might work, but usually won't. The command powers are things like orbital bombardment, which are very powerful but limited use. You can build expansions to get more command points more quickly, and also bank more of them to use at once.

The game has two really cool features: Minor factions and Weather Effects. These are what makes the game unique. The minor factions are like creeps, but you can bribe them to join your side, and then you can order them around. This equates to three extra units for free, that get rebuilt when they die. Supremely powerful. Bribing works by dedicating some of your expansions to bribe instead of their usual functions. So refineries can be turned into black markets, for instance, to bribe the raiders, or tech centres to bio labs to claim the parasite. All players compete to bribe the factions, and then the first to fill the bar gets the faction for the rest of the game. Alternately you can just destroy them to claim their zone and build whatever you like on it.

Weather effects are map dependent. There are 6 different things and they do strange things that change the way the game plays for a limited time. Examples are hurricanes, which massively damage air units and prevent reinforcements being summoned, or EM storms which disable command powers, or erruptions, which send rivers of lava to cut off regions of the map from ground-based troops. They're really well done and make a great impact on the game. They are semi-random, but one faction gets a timer for them, and can spend command points to activate the effect early.

So how does it play?
Kinda okay? I guess?
I'm not a fan of the hard-hard counters. It makes fights very much a 'if you have the right units you win, else you lose'. Also given the way tech levels unlock units it makes anti-personnel infantry the only units that matter in the early game. And the early game is the only game that matters because:
Map control is everything. Literally everything. The one resource that decides the game is build space. Since you're so limited in build space, you often have to decide between getting up one extra tech rank and getting three more units. If you own more of the map, you can simply get both.
Minor factions are great, and the weather's great.
The campaign mode will be familiar to those who played Dawn of War, and I think it's fairly well done, except that it's not multiplayer.
As far as I know the ranked scene is ded, but don't count me on that. I'm in Australia so matchmaking hardly ever works here.

Statistics: Posted by ZenTractor — 23 Jun 2015, 09:17

Re: What you guys think off this new RTS Etherium

2015-06-23T06:43:19+02:00

did anyone actually play etherium? should i bother?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/245370/

Statistics: Posted by nine2 — 23 Jun 2015, 06:43

Re: What you guys think off this new RTS Etherium

2014-04-19T19:11:35+02:00

Anaryl wrote:
Are these just pre-rendered mock ups ?

That's what it looks like. They remind me of the early images of supcom, like this one:
http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/art ... 354393.jpg

and this one:

http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/art ... 353971.jpg

That should give you a rough idea of how similar these images will be to the actual game... as in, I would be surprised these images have more than a glancing similarity with the final game.

Statistics: Posted by FunkOff — 19 Apr 2014, 19:11

Re: What you guys think off this new RTS Etherium

2014-04-19T02:31:52+02:00

Is this a flow-economy system like TA and supcom, or is it C&C/SC-like?

Statistics: Posted by da_monstr — 19 Apr 2014, 02:31

Re: What you guys think off this new RTS Etherium

2014-04-18T20:28:00+02:00

Are these just pre-rendered mock ups ?

Statistics: Posted by Anaryl — 18 Apr 2014, 20:28

Re: What you guys think off this

2014-04-18T14:19:42+02:00

A little + stuffs about Etherium

For now there will be 3 factions

At least i think its bether then some new rts out there.

Facebbook https://www.facebook.com/EtheriumRTS

I think they are really grab some Supreeme commander ideas from what i have saw on them foruns.

Statistics: Posted by LittleInferno — 18 Apr 2014, 14:19

Re: What you guys think off this

2014-04-11T18:59:15+02:00

I agreed they Too plastic and toyish ..
1 thing i now its already bether then PA ,bether then FAF its just impossible for the next 20 years any rts beat us:)
They are say this will be the best rts off new generation ,but even iff its too soon to say or now the basics like the most important (economy ),i dont belive in this game has the best rts to the new generation market.
But lets wait June 2014 and see that we are right like we where right about PA ....
When i see a good tryler without gameplay well its never good.

The good thing its that is only to pc since they now the power that PC has..........

Statistics: Posted by LittleInferno — 11 Apr 2014, 18:59

Re: What you guys think off this

2014-04-11T18:02:37+02:00

I doubt it's going to be anything good, but I sincerely hope it is. Hard to say before more information is released.

Statistics: Posted by Blodir — 11 Apr 2014, 18:02

Re: What you guys think off this

2014-04-11T10:56:48+02:00

I'm with Mozart on that one

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 11 Apr 2014, 10:56

Re: What you guys think off this

2014-04-11T10:14:43+02:00

Can only judge the graphics now, and the unit models look same as in supcom2 / PA
Too plastic and toyish to believe they are actual war machines.

Statistics: Posted by Mad`Mozart — 11 Apr 2014, 10:14

Re: What you guys think off this

2014-04-11T08:53:20+02:00

It looks pretty dense, as in; probably not as huge in scale as supcom.

Statistics: Posted by Szakalot — 11 Apr 2014, 08:53

Re: What you guys think off this

2014-04-11T06:51:30+02:00

How can anyone think anything of this without knowing what the economy is like? Any information about that?

Statistics: Posted by SeraphimLeftNut — 11 Apr 2014, 06:51

Re: What you guys think off this

2014-04-10T22:52:56+02:00

I am a sucker for sci-fi rts; avoid fantasy and period base (modern and past), so I will be keeping an eye on it. One issue for me is how modable a game is. I have not seen a response from such just a question asked in their forum. Made on the Unity platform so there is that.

Statistics: Posted by The Mak — 10 Apr 2014, 22:52