Supreme Commander- RTS of Unprecendented Scale

So you’ve been playing through your Real-Time Strategy games and are starting to get bored with the same thing over and over. You want something bigger, better, more complex. Well, Gas Powered Games has given us Supreme Commander, an RTS of unprecedented scale. And I mean enormous; you don’t make a base of a few buildings, you use dozens, and hundreds more in resources farms. You don’t build a couple tanks and send them to wipe out the enemy. You build strategic missiles and long-range artillery to soften up the enemy, then move your army of 200 units into their base. Supreme Commander (popularly called SupCom) is unbelievably large, and sets a new standard for RTS.

A rather small base, with a resource farm on the left. Bases can be set up anywhere and grow many times this size.

The story takes place in 3844 A.D., after humans have colonized much of the galaxy. After several events, three factions emerge: the United Earth Federation, trying to restore order to the galaxy; the Cybran nation, a group of human-AI cyborgs trying to liberate their brethren; and the Aeon Illuminate, humans taught “The Way” by an alien race and trying to spread their beliefs throughout the rest of mankind. You start in any battle with an Armored Command Unit or ACU. This is the base unit, and allows you to begin construction of all other units and buildings. The ACU is supported by engineers, who can build more buildings but at a slower pace. Air, land, and naval factories produce units, while mass extractors and power generators produce resources. Mass is used in the building process, and energy is used to run buildings and units. Resources are stockpiled in storage, but if you run out, you don’t stop building. The more resources you use that you don’t actually have, the slower you produce units and buildings. Factories can be upgraded from Tech 1 to Techs 2 and 3, allowing production of better units and better engineers, who can build higher level buildings. Overall, each faction can produce around 30-40 different unit types and around the same number of different buildings. At a low level, each faction’s units perform about the same, but at the higher levels they diversify. Each faction also gets three unique experimental units which can easily turn the tide of battle, but are very expensive to produce.

The camera has excellent zoom capabilities, and zoomed all the way out looks like this. each symbol means something different, and each represents a single unit or building.

SupCom’s single-player campaign gives each of the three factions six missions. While it doesn’t seem like much, each mission expands several times, and can last several hours. In the first few, the player is confined to low level units, which can prove quite boring. The only way to defeat your enemy is to build large numbers of units and continually throw them at the enemy. In the last two missions, you gain access to Tech 3 units and buildings, allowing you to come up with your own strategies. The skirmish and multiplayer modes make up for this, with many maps and options to play with. The maps range in size from 5km x 5km to 81km x 81km. The largest maps are perhaps the biggest even seen in RTS, and can take many hours to complete. SupCom also has in all probability the most nuclear explosions per round in any game. To win, you must destroy the enemy’s ACU, which explodes in a nuclear fashion. Nuclear missiles are also the best way to destroy the enemy’s base. However, every attack has a defense, and nuclear missiles can be stopped.

Each faction's nukes explode differently, this happens to be a Cybran ACU being destroyed.

So, if you are experienced with RTS’s and are looking for something more, check out Supreme Commander. It does have a steep learning curve, so I would only recommend it for experienced players. The scale is enormous, and allows players to come up with multiple strategies so that no game ever plays the same way. An expansion pack, SupCom: Forged Alliance , has also been released for expanded gameplay. For those tired of traditional RTS’s, SupCom brings a whole new definition and level of play.