Supreme Commander (video game)

This article is about the video game. For the commander of a nation's military forces, see Commander-in-Chief.

Supreme Commander
Supreme Commander box art
Developer(s)	Gas Powered Games
Publisher(s)	THQ
Designer(s)	Chris Taylor
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
Release	EU: 2007-02-16 NA: 2007-02-20 SKorea: 2007-02-22 AUS: 2007-02-23
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer

Supreme Commander, sometimes shortened to SupCom, is a real-time strategy computer game designed by Chris Taylor and developed by his company, Gas Powered Games. The game is considered to be the spiritual successor to Taylor's 1997 game, Total Annihilation. which was ranked by Gamespy as the number one real-time strategy game of all time. First announced in the August 2005 edition of PC Gamer magazine, the game was released on February 16, 2007, in Europe and on February 20, 2007, in North America.

Supreme Commander is focused on using Armoured combat units to build a base, then upgrading units to reach higher technology tiers, and conquering opponents. Set in the future, the player can command one of three nations: the Aeon Illuminate, the Cybran Nation, or the United Earth Federation. Supreme Commander was highly anticipated in pre-release previews, and was received well by critics, with an average of 87 out of 100.

Gameplay

Supreme Commander centres around the 'Armoured Command Unit', or ACU. These mech suits are designed to be transported through quantum gateways across the galaxy and contain all the materials to create a 30th-century war machine from scratch. All units except Commanders and Subcommanders are robotic.

All units and structures belong to one of four technology tiers or 'Tech' levels. Upgrading structures and producing advanced engineers allow the player to produce higher Tech units. The first Tech is available at the start of the game and consists of small, relatively weak units and structures. The second Tech expands a player's abilities greatly, especially in terms of base defences and shielding. The third Tech level has very powerful units designed to break the defences of the most entrenched player. The fourth, "experimental" Tech level includes massive constructions that take many resources and a lot of time to construct but can turn the tide of battle.

Interface and controls

Players often had a difficult time controlling everything going on in Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander's "spiritual predecessor". In order to help players with this and to make the game more appealing to casual gamers, the game uses a number of labour and timesaving features. Factories still under construction can have items added to their queue; by holding the shift key, players can view all the move and construction orders they have issued, and, once placed, construction orders are seen as faint green outlines, without the need to hold down the shift key. Idle construction units can be selected by type. The game also uses a number of optional overlays that help the player take in information at a glance. The Intelligence overlay shows the range and type of every radar, stealth generator, jammer, and sonar; the Economy overlay shows the mass and energy consumption or production of every unit on the screen.

Another notable feature is the ferry system. Typically, the use of armoured personnel carriers and other transports in games is awkward at best; it requires a lot of effort from the player compared to the reward. In other RTS games, it is often more efficient to construct a temporary base for unit production at the target location. In Supreme Commander, air transports can be ordered to use ferry routes. Other units can be way pointed onto the ferry beacons, automatically shuttling them to the other end of the route. Combined with the ability to issue detailed orders from factories, a player can produce units far behind the lines and have them automatically ferried to the front.

Supreme Commander natively supports multi-monitor displays and split screen on one monitor. Players can view the entire map or track a specific unit on it. However, no audio from secondary displays is played.

Resource management

There are two types of resources: Energy and Mass. Energy can be obtained by reclaiming organic debris or by constructing power generators. Mass can be obtained by constructing mass extractors on mass deposits and by building 'Mass Fabricators', which consume a great deal of energy. Mass can also be obtained by "reclaiming" wrecked units, rocks, and trees. Both resources can also be generated by certain unit upgrades. Each player has a certain amount of resource storage, which can be expanded by the construction of storage structures. This gives players reserves in times of shortage or allows them to stockpile resources.

An adjacency system allows certain structures to benefit from being built directly adjacent to others; energy-consuming structures will use less energy when built adjacent to power generators, power generators will produce more energy when built adjacent to power storage structures, and factories will consume less energy and mass when built adjacent to power generators and mass fabricators/extractors, respectively. Players must balance taking advantage of the adjacency system and spreading their structures apart, so as to not make them an easy target - threats from projectile splash damage, inaccurate weaponry and friendly-fire damage from exploding buildings are reduced in relation to the empty area present.

Warfare

Supreme Commander uses a "strategic zoom" system that allows players zoom out far enough to view the entire map on the screen, at which point it resembles the minimap, denoting individual units with icons large enough to be seen. Players can also zoom in close enough that the larger units such as battleships fill most of the screen. This system allows Supreme Commander to have vast units and maps.

In most RTS games, units must be sized to fit reasonably on the screen. This imposes minimums and maximums to unit and building sizes for the game to remain playable. For example, Act of War had to use two entirely separate zoom scales in order to implement realistically-scaled naval units. In Supreme Commander, a battleship dwarfs submarines, much like a real-world situation would - an American Iowa class battleship is almost five times as large as a German type 212 submarine. To accomplish this, Supreme Commander uses fully 3D terrain that is dynamically tessellated as the camera is moved around. Both units and maps also use normal maps in order to allow for a large amount of detail. Late into the game, the larger "experimental" units, such as the the UEF's "Fatboy", a massive mobile factory, can actually crush other units.

What sets Supreme Commander apart from other RTS is its hit-calculation engine — it uses a Newtonian-based engine instead of a rock-paper-scissors one. In a rock-paper-scissors engine, hit chances are calculated through the use of probability tables. With a Newtonian-based engine, each projectile is tracked individually to see if it impacts a target. Accuracy depends on maneuvering, speed, angle and intervening terrain.

AI

Supreme Commander features unusually varied skirmish AI. There are the typical Easy and Normal modes, but there are three variations on Hard: Horde AI will swarm the player with lower level units; Tech AI will tech up as fast as possible and assault the player with advanced units; and the Balanced AI attempts to find a happy medium.

Despite the variation available, Supreme Commander's AI suffers from the typical problems that plague RTS AIs. No AI understands placement as well as a player does, and it cannot adapt to enemy strategies as well as a player. This can be exacerbated because of the importance of proper structure placement for purposes of base defence. Furthermore, the AI will sometime use tactics that are best described as bizarre; the AI does things like sending empty transport units to the player's base or using non-upgraded commanders as combat units while attempting to defend.

In spite of its flaws, the AI in Supreme Commander can be quite challenging to defeat to those without plentiful experience in the genre. The AI will scout to determine its course of action. It will build effective clusters of defences and artillery rather than placing them randomly across the map. It will even airlift ground units into enemy territory where the anti-air defence is weaker. It also sends its units in complex ground-sweeping patterns rather than the usual RTS-AI style of building a mass of units and sending them directly at the nearest enemy unit.

Campaign

The single player campaign consists of eighteen missions, six for each faction. The player is an inexperienced Commander who plays a key role in their faction's campaign to bring the 'Infinite War' to an end. Though there are fewer campaign missions than most games, each mission can last some time. When players accomplish objectives, the map is expanded, sometimes doubling or tripling in size, and new challenges are revealed.

Each campaign takes the player through most of the same planets and similar missions, but from the perspective of the faction that is being played. Each mission is a critical engagement between the rival nations that could alter the balance of the conflict through failure or success with the final mission for each faction resulting in a free-for-all on Earth, attempting to seize control of Black Sun.

Setting

Factions

Main article: Factions in Supreme Commander

File:Cybran Monkeylord.jpg

The Cybran Monkeylord featured prominently in previews of Supreme Commander.

The Supreme Commander universe features three fictional factions. Each is represented as possessing great zeal and differing ideas on the future of humanity as a whole.

The Aeon Illuminate draw their roots from the Golden Age of expansion of the old Earth Empire. The descendants of the first humans to encounter alien intelligent life, a peaceful, yet highly advanced, society known as the Seraphim, who first introduced colonists to their philosophy, known as "The Way". Due to escalating paranoia and xenophobia among the Old Earth Empire, however, conflict soon broke, driving the Seraphim into extinction. The colonists of the alien planet, claiming to be "disciples" of the Seraphim, soon founded a civilization, supposedly based upon their teachings. In a twist of irony, the Aeon Illuminate soon began a zealous assault on the galaxy, intending to "purge" all those who did not share in their beliefs.

The Cybran Nation (originally called the Recyclers) is composed of Symbionts, humans whose brains have been computerized and enhanced with implantable technology, the most important being the mutual AI (in addition to various other augmentations). They fight for the liberation of their fellow Cybran from the oppressive United Earth Federation. The Cybran Nation is led by the brilliant-yet-eccentric Dr. Brackman, the chief designer of the cybernetic technology behind the Cybrans, as well as a father figure to them.

The United Earth Federation (or 'UEF') is the faction representing the interests of a united, Earth-based government. The UEF developed from the ashes of the Earth Empire, and now seeks to reunite humanity and restore Earth's control over the galaxy. Their society and military tactics resemble modern society more than the Cybrans or Aeon do. Their acceptance of a variant of slavery and ideology of forced unity lends a darker side to the faction.

Plot

Template:Spoiler Supreme Commander opens with the player learning the knowledge that humanity has discovered the technology called a "quantum tunnel" which allowed humanity to quickly spread out across the galaxy. A government called the Earth Empire was created to govern the newly founded colonies.

In 2592 A.D. a scientist named Dr. Gustav Brackman joined an A.I. and a human brain. The resulting cyborg-like human was named a symbiont. Volunteers were recruited to be turned into symbionts. In exchange for becoming a symbiont, a person received a solid position in society of the Earth Empire, since symbionts where valued throughout the galaxy for the A.I.'s ability to assist thinking and computer interfaces. However, Dr. Brackman caved to government pressure and installed a secret loyalty program. This program would enslave the symbionts in case of a revolt.

Dr. Brackman, and a small group of his children then fled to a distant system and founded a colony, which applied for independence. The Earth Empire sent troops to maintain order in the colony. In response, the loyalty programs of the symbionts were deactivated, and they revolted and fought the soldiers. The colony founded the Cybran Nation and vowed to liberate their enslaved brothers and sisters.

Around 2590 A.D., following a failed colonization effort, the E.S.S. Starjoiner arrived at the planet Seraphim II. There, Captain Trent Smith of the Starjoiner encountered intelligent life. The Biologist Dr. Jane Burke spoke with the aliens, called Seraphim, and was introduced to a religion called the Way. The Way was a form of peace and love so advanced, it changed Burke's perspective of the universe. However, Captain Smith attacked the aliens due to xenophobia and, after being overwhelmed by the Seraphim war machines, his scientists engineered a biological weapon that drove the Seraphim extinct. No contact was sent from Seraphim II for over 100 years. Then, a group of worshipers following The Way, called the Aeon Illuminate, announced their existence to humanity. The Earth Empire set up a quarantine and cut off communication with Seraphim II. Within a year, all contact was lost with worlds within ten light years of the quarantine zone. The Aeon attacked the Earth Empire, and gave all captured civilians a choice: join The Way or die.

The Earth Empire collapsed. The United Earth Federation rose, phoenix-like from the ashes. The UEF had only one goal - unite humanity at all costs.

Since that time, the war between the three factions, dubbed the Infinite war, has raged for over 1000 years. The UEF is stretched thin, the Cybrans are outnumbered and outgunned, and the Aeon C-in-C is stirring unrest. However, the UEF is building a planet-killer called Black Sun. Each side can modify it to their uses and each has their own plan to use it for victory. The Cybrans plan to use it to destroy the quantum network, while the Aeon Princess seeks to use it to enlighten every human in the galaxy. The player decides which faction to play as and what course it will take. Template:Endspoiler

Development

Chris Taylor believed that most modern strategy games were actually tactics games, simply because they operated on too small a scale. His stated intention with Supreme Commander was to create a game that was strategy-focused by virtue of scale. Chris Taylor also has publicly stated that his goal for Supreme Commander was for it to be the most customisable RTS ever made, and would have liked to ship the team's development tools with the game itself. The latter goal was not achieved.

Supreme Commander makes extensive use of two technologies relatively unused in video games prior to its release, namely multi core processing and multi monitor displays. When detecting a multi-core processor, the game assigns a specific task, such as AI calculations, to each core, splitting the load between them.

On February 6, 2007, a demo for Supreme Commander was released. It includes a tutorial, a portion of the single-player campaign, and a two-player skirmish map called "Finn's Revenge" in which the player can fight against a easy, medium, or hard Cybran AI. Of the three factions, only the Cybran Nation is playable in the demo.

The score for Supreme Commander was composed by Jeremy Soule, who is most famous for his compositions for the Guild Wars series, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Jeremy Soule also composed the music for the game's spiritual predecessor, Total Annihilation.

Reception

Pre-release

Prior to its release, Supreme Commander was a highly anticipated game. Large gaming websites devoted a lot of previews to the game, with Gamespot writing as many as 18 articles on the —then unreleased— game. IGN wrote 8 previews, and GameSpy 5. Commonly, previews and presentations featured a battle on the Seton's Clutch map which was used frequently for promotion purposes by THQ, as early as September 2005. This battle was between the UEF and the Cybran, showcasing a Monkeylord annihilating UEF tanks. At E³, it was revealed that the Aeon had a base to the southeast of this map, which was used to launch strategic nuclear missiles on the UEF base. Previews of this kind proved to be unrealistic in a multiplayer setting, as a game between two human players rarely makes use of a Monkeylord or the large battleship fleets showed in the previews.

Supreme Commander won several notable awards before it was even released, all of them connected to the E³. This includes the GameCritics Best Strategy Game Award, IGN's best upcoming PC game award,, and IGN's Editor's Choice Award. Other awards were received from GameSpy, GameSpot, Games Radar, Voodoo Extreme and 1UP. Supreme Commander has won no notable awards after the release of the game.

Post-release

The first review of SupCom was written by Dan Stapleton of PC Gamer. He praised the versatility of the strategic zoom, and expressed his loathing of the next game that wouldn't feature it. The dual-screen mode was highly regarded, the mission design was praised, and the emotional presence of the story was also recognized. However, a few points were bumped due to its system requirements. It scored a PCGamer Editor's Choice Award at 91%.

One of the earliest online reviews after the game release was written by Alec Meer on Eurogamer. Innovative new features such as the multi monitor support are praised in that review, and the scale element makes a positive impression. Meer remarked though, that SupCom "feels like hard work", and that with the emphasis on enormity, details are overlooked. Still, an excellent rating of 9/10 was awarded.

This isn't so much a strategy game as a thrilling and unrelenting action extravaganza. — --Charles Onyett, IGN,

IGN rated Supreme Commander with the outstanding rating of 9/10. Particularly the intuitive and helpful strategic zoom and base automation were praised, though the steep hardware requirements and naval pathfinding issues were found less appealing - whilst they would find their way to their designated target point, their routes were not always the most efficient. IGN UK, however, was less positive, while still awarding a great rating of 8.9/10. The issues addressed by its international counterpart were deemed more severe, and the reviewer was not impressed by the interface, finding the amount of control it gives over the game lacking.

Your heart can only sink at the sight of a truly brilliant game become virtually unplayable. — --David Kvasnicka, GamePro,

Conversely, the review in the Australian version of GamePro voiced a negative opinion on the game, giving Supreme Commander a rating of five out of ten. GamePro assessed Supreme Commander as an over-ambitious game, with performance (measured in frames per second), even on high end systems, as a major negative point. The reviewers observed that the game gradually slowed down while playing, and that this process accelerated when using the 'shift' key view.

Overall, reviews of Supreme Commander were generally positive, with the game having a score of 87/100 on Metacritic.

See also

• List of Games for Windows

External links

• Official Website - Currently requires Flash 8
• Official Forums
• Fan sites as listed by Gas Powered Games
• Supreme Commander at IMDb

Wikia

• Supreme Commander in wikia