Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Getting started

2012-10-23T18:45:27+02:00

spending time on microing your units can be very effective, for example giving a bomber an attack order for enginiers or keeping high-range units distanced to the enemy forces.
but, this only applies to some circumstances, often simple move orders do the job and you don't have to watch every little move, you better ensure your economy doesn't collapse, it should grow properly on most maps (you can use micro as an advantage, but you will be outnumbered with inferior eco or strategy)

Statistics: Posted by Myxir — 23 Oct 2012, 18:45

Re: Getting started

2012-10-23T18:41:23+02:00

Well in my experience its simply not the case, I know what I want to do with my economy so it doesn't take me much time/thought to manage it. With units you have to be constantly reacting to the opponent, so takes up far more of my time.

Statistics: Posted by Softly — 23 Oct 2012, 18:41

Re: Getting started

2012-10-23T18:06:47+02:00

I believe what he's trying to say in 6 is that the high-level play he's seen seems to focus more on fine-tuning your economy than micromanaging the actual fighting, i.e. being clever with scouting/flanking etc, thus making it play more like an economy simulator than an RTS, and that this doesn't seem very appealing to him.

Statistics: Posted by Kel — 23 Oct 2012, 18:06

Re: Getting started

2012-10-22T20:28:55+02:00

Yes, what on earth do you mean by 6? Micro-management of your units is crucial, and if just sitting and waiting for t3/exp was better than t1 then we would effectively have a no rush whatever game. T3 and Exps still come along just only in more evenly matched games.

Statistics: Posted by Softly — 22 Oct 2012, 20:28

Re: Getting started

2012-10-22T17:53:23+02:00

1. you need FA only

2. all work

3. if you play with very slow PCs and very hard laggers it will lag (if you are one of them it will lag always ofc),if not it won't
the games you describe happen only on very big maps or very nooby players

4. forget that one

5. there are several UI-Mods like "Gaz-gui" you can find them in the forum

6. what?

7. experimentals are not broken (until a top player tells me that im wrong with this lol)
aeon are micro intensive but can maybe be the strongest faction if microed correctly, however atm there is nobody who actually CAN micro them PERFECTLY

Statistics: Posted by ColonelSheppard — 22 Oct 2012, 17:53

Re: Getting started

2012-10-22T16:09:19+02:00

Seeing as there is no "introductions" thread, I'll post here instead.

I've played TA since it was released for many years (not competitively, however). Later I've jumped the ship on TA:Spring community bandwagon for some multiplayer action, seeing as there was no hope of proper TA sequel and TA became a pretty fringe game except for localised LAN tournaments. Over Spring I've played mostly NOTA, TA-inspired modification with particular focus on flexible strategy, mobility, teamwork & map control.

Then came the Supreme Disappointment (pun intended), ridden with bugs, performance problems and generally poor community support - having played the base game for 2 months and a half over GPG.Net with random people, I've decided to finally shelve the game and forget any and all TA-derived products due to small multiplayer base, non-existent customer support and dwindling interest.

Out of nostalgia, perhaps, I've finally decided to check up on Supreme Commander and see if it got any better, mainly because I got out of the loop with TA:Spring community and found to my horror & surprise that I'm no longer welcome there (let alone scarcely anobody plays NOTA to begin with). My inquiries are as follows:

1. Supreme Commander, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance. Do I need both of them to play all 4 factions over multiplayer, or is stand-alone expansion enough? I rented my old installation disks to a friend when I was done with the game, and never played FA to begin with.

2. GOG.com vs Steam. As far as I understand it, you need FA patched to 3603 (beta) in order to install FAF. Would GOG.com copy be compatible? I hate Steam with a passion, and sadly physical distribution is not an option either.

3. Game performance, network optimisation. Does it get any better with FA, let alone FAF? Original SupCom left in my mind horror visions of team games played at -6 speed and below, after an hour of multiplayer match. I still remember 3+ hour matches taking forever, until one of the people quit or got nuked.

4. I've heard about some kind of "Multicore optimisation" for FA client, in form of modification of game executable. Is that thing included in FAF already? Is it compatible with FAF? Does it bring any improvements? Where is it available exactly? Any possible caveats?

5. Game widgets and addons. Is there a definitive list of allowed game modifications? Are there any "AI assist" widgets, to automate most mundane tasks (such as building mexes or assisting unit/building production)?

6. I've watched quite a few "high-level" FAF team matches, and universally in all of them the streaming player focused 70% (or more) of his attention to annoying micro-managing of engineers and general economy, commanding armies with most basic move/patrol/hold orders in the zoomed-out view.

On the top-right score chart, "macroing" players seemed to attain highest scores and consequently become a biggest threat by the mid- and lategame, regardless of how little (if any) attention they diverted to the frontline, reconnaisance or diversionary tactics. Frankly speaking, it felt & played like a singleplayer economy simulator, rather than a proper RTS game in multiplayer environment.

Is this how competitive environment looks like in team matches and/or bigger maps? I'm appaled I don't see this kind of thing only in 1v1 matches and small maps (wasn't game supposed to be more interesting with t3/t4 available rather than t1/t2 spam? why is macro actually "microed" instead of the actual combat action?).

7. Aeon. My brief impression is that they're considered a "gimped" faction with broken experimentals and extremely micro-intensive combat units. Is that actually true? Out of all factions, their line up of available units & tactics seems most diverse and interesting.

I'd like to play them exclusively and improve, yet I'm given a rather negative vibe that I'll soon learn to regret this decision (Cybrans come as my second favourite, and I hear similar criticism about them).

Statistics: Posted by Demo — 22 Oct 2012, 16:09

Getting started

2012-10-20T01:53:29+02:00

Greetings, programs. Impressive!

Total Annihilation is the best, ever. I just had to say that out loud.

I played SupCom and FA a little when they came out but time and life got in the way. I stumbled upon word of Planetary Annihilation last week and got a little excited about playing again. That led to discovering that this place. I am just about to start downloading and looking around. I want to double stress to anyone not already totally familiar with FA and FAF - read the wiki! If like me your first impression about the web site was that it was a bit short on details, there is a reason for that. It is in the wiki. And it looks very cool indeed.

It has been a chore to get this far. My only windows box had a few years of dust on it. XP had 110 "critical" updates for me to slog through first.

Statistics: Posted by Genjokoan — 20 Oct 2012, 01:53