Of the games made in the past decade, Supreme Commander is probably the most similar to what we’re doing with Ashes of the Singularity. Its creator, Chris Taylor and I have been friends for years (I picked up his backyard chicken hobby and he picked up my beekeeping hobby). Chris also made my favorite game of all time, Total Annihilation.
A few years ago, Stardock worked with Gas Powered Games to make Demigod. Demigod started out as Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance and evolved into the final game. If you haven’t played Demigod, I recommend it. It is excellent. Demigod never took off like we hoped. Timing wasn’t on its side. It was the first stand-alone commercial MOBA. It was also the last non-free to play MOBA (it was $39.99 when released) and League of Legends quickly overtook it.
Setting up Supreme Commander
Game setup
When the player sets up a game of Supreme Commander, you get to pick amongst various types of AIs. AI is something we’re very passionate about here. As I type this from Stardock East, we have the AI developers of Civilization III, IV, V and GalCiv I/II here. From a replayability stand point. giving players lots setup options makes the single player part of the game more compelling.
Elegant main game UI
Like a 4X, Supreme Commander gives you and readout of how the other players are doing
Very clear, pretty paths.
Strategic Zoom
There are a lot of very good features in the Supreme Commander UI that I think should be standard in RTSs:
Please post in the comments section the UI elements of Supreme Commander you think are key.
Gameplay
Gameplay is unique to each game. Supreme Commander, like Total Annihilation, has a lot of gameplay elements we really love which include:
This is just scratching the surface but these 5 things help define what is essentially a sub-genre of RTSs.
There’s been a lot of debate on the forums on strategic zoom. This is because we are trying to avoid the kind of strategic zoom in Supreme Commander. Specifically, we don’t want to zoom out to a sea of icons where players end up playing most of the game from there.
Why the resistance?
Because in the long-term we expect (as the hardware gets better) to have maps far beyond even where ships in 1.0. We want to use 1.0 as the time to come up with another way to zoom out and get an abstracted view of the battle field. Turning individual units into icons won’t work because we’ll be dealing with thousands, possibly tens of thousands of units.
We will have a zoom out mode (or secondary monitor support) for a war room where the entire war can be abstracted. But
Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance
Ashes of the Singularity: Pre-Beta
How to make it a war, not a battle?
One of our biggest struggles is that we don’t want the game to be purely about cranking out tons of units and throwing them at each other. Unit composition, resource access, positioning should all be crucial factors.
What do you think?
I finally figured out how to solve this. But
Frogboy thank you for bringing this matter which is really the main key for the success of AOTS.
The elegant and intelligent structured on supreeme commander fills like a glove the space in AOTS, even not the same ideas but if you guys think in something like that ,its already a fantastic touch.
We really need something bether then only have units fight because thats easy to do (i think ).
So what we need is complex strategy ,Supreeme commander its the only game that have that
(Air Warfare,Land Warfare,Naval Warfare,Faction-Specific Strategies,Kill Strategies,T1 T2 T3 T4,artilhary to all kinds ,nukes to all kinds, teleporters,telelasers, hives, so many options i cant tell ,but you now what im say)
This is wy all players will forever remenber Total anhilation and SCFA and we are always talk about this its a fact.
Its on hands of your staff work on this important points.
Work .
-Elegant main game UI
-Bether economic system
-Find a bether way to alowed players make bether use and understand the energy builds
-I think if we have ways to make mass extractors wy not be able to make ower power building it ?
( personally do not like the way we get energy right now, takes out the tactical effect on the game,( remenber that eco simcyty its a way of thinking in a variety of tactics like in Supreeme commander) .
This have to be in AOTS along with lobby/ ranking system 1v1 and Global/ Vault to maps, mods, patches/ Streaming (Twitch,Youtube,Hitbox) / replays/ Avatars/ Tutorials/ Tournments/
Just the fact you guys are think in this or will think if its possible with ower bit help ,make me think i buy the right game.
Here some picture on what you like most on this rts styles, for me Supreeme commander and Anno 2055 without think just to give the feedbck has a gamer what i buy..
very nice and interesting. I am looking forward to seeing how the 'positioning' as you call it will make it different. Perhaps like Sins separate battles spread out over a system map? Though for Ashes, perhaps it will be something akin to 'regions' instead of systems, but the same idea behind it, some areas will be bottle-necked and have difficult access to resources and the foes, or to allies as the case may be. While other areas will have small scouting vessels perusing the 'front' to get placement intel on rivals. Or get shot down. Or have rival 'jammers' give 'false info' to the scouts to deliver back to our side, in effect leading us to believe something is either safe when it isn't, or hazardous and deadly, when we are simply being mis-directed to somewhere where there is nothing at all. Delaying our troop re-inforcements to the correct place at the correct time? This is all conjecture of course, but you make it sound interesting enough for me to sort of make up what I think it 'might' be. Looking forward to seeing the game, best of luck on it.
Sincerely,
Teal_Blue
Frogboy,
Setting up Supreme Commander:
1) I also think that single player is a great addition to strategy games, but to date, the only game I know where the AI is capable of actually outwitting you is Ultimate General: Gettysburg. Even the AI in FAF is only functional because of massive cheating on the AI's part.
Fingers crossed that AoTS doesn't go the way of Rome 2 Total War!
Elegant main game UI:
2) One item that stands out heavily to me is how "apparent" events are on the UI. For example, the mass and energy bars on FAF are very bright and bold. If you stall either of these, the numbers will flash and turn red, quickly attracting your eyes to the bars because your peripheral vision will pick up on the flashing.
Currently I feel that AoTS lacks this. The resource bars blend so well with the entire UI's color.
I hope this example is clear. Another example is unit icons. In FAF, I feel that every unit you might want to build is pretty obvious when looking at it's picture in the factory build que. A tank looks like a tank. In AoTS I feel that the icons for units in factories are fairly similar to each other, and not as blatantly obvious as to what is what.
3) I like the hot key lay out right now, in that you press "Q" to select economy buildings, and then press the subset keys once again to select which resource building you want. Really frees up the keyboard. The problem I see with this is that I can't quickly que up several resource buildings, then a factory, and then a SMARTY system with just hotkeys. Since you 1st press "Q" to select resource buildings, you can no longer press hot keys to select the other building tier types, as other keys are now hot keyed to the various economy buildings. Hope this makes sense.
I hope we will be able to individually map units and builds to keys in the future
4) I find the way a meta group displays what is it comprised of rather confusing with the "star mechanic". Right now I think a Sins of the Solar Empire approach, where the actual unit number is displayed, would be more intuitive. Maybe make a zoomed out meta unit an icon and have it function like the fleet bar on the side of a planet.
5) Is there a limit to how many units a t2 and t3 unit can command? Because whenever I have had multiple t3 units paired with many t1 and t2 units, I could never make 1 big meta group. The game always made me 3 meta units, one for each t3 unit.
Gameplay:
6) I agree with all points
7) Please allow us to build buildings and units even when we are stalling metal. This kind of cuts into the flow of things right now.
8) Please consider some form of reclaim mechanic. This is such a unique game play feature as it perpetually creates critical regions all over the map. This allows for more interesting game play in the long run because even if you play a map hundreds of times, you can still have a unique game because somehow some usually forgotten part of the map acquired a lot of reclaim and became a critical battleground. I always thought of it as "mobile capture points", or making strategic map points organically.
9) Right now I feel that it is a tad bit to easy to begin cranking out T2 and T3 units. I would like to see a longer transitional period.
10) Games are over much to quickly by capturing points. I have won games without ever actually engaging the AI. And many times I have had a brief skirmish somewhere and that was it.
11) Air is rather underwhelming, and due to lack of icons, rather hard to find sometimes, even with the empire tier on the left
Strategic Zoom:
12) I am eager to see your solutions to this without icons! Personally I wouldn't mind icons on meta units. I don't mind icons at all as a general in actually would essentially be dealing with icons anyway. Just blocks or what not representing brigades, divisions, armies etc.
Cheers!
To make the game feel more like a war and less like an ever-escalating battle, you need to entice players, force them really, to play the game like they are conducting a war. I recommend watching "WWII From Space" on Netflix, a documentary that does a great job of giving a high-level war-scale picture of WWII once the U.S. got involved.
1. Strategic objectives. This isn't just about gaining access to more resources so you can build more units. Defensive outposts to control choke points. Central and advanced command posts to initiate quick strikes or large pushes. These are largely factors of map design. If you liberate a local force they can provide you with some resources or intelligence (think "quest reward"). The North Africa campaign in WWII was partially to help battle-harden allied troops (veterancy).
2. Multiple campaigns. A ground campaign allows you to occupy important strategic locations. Most of the game right now is centered around that. But there is also an air/artillery campaign to soften targets, destroy resources and capabilities, reduce morale, and disperse the enemy. There is an intelligence campaign, such as observational intelligence (RADAR, drones, satellites to track troop location, size, and movement), human intelligence (location of key strategic leaders, knowledge of tactics, strategies, and technology, active espionage). Information warfare offers new ways to gain intelligence, disrupt capabilities, and conduct espionage. There is also a political/diplomatic campaign to conduct allied wars by sharing resources, troops, equipment, intelligence, and technology, and also counter-diplomacy to disrupt enemy alliances. You coordinate with your ally to hold position A while you push to position B so you don't lose your supply line.
3. Multiple fronts. I don't mean fighting two enemies at once, though I'm sure that may be part of it. Forces are deployed and utilized according to certain strategic objectives and the forces' capabilities. A slow but sturdy force can be used to halt enemy advance, meanwhile a small mobile force takes out supply lines. A third, mobile offensive force strikes the enemy at their flank. While these combined are tactics in a larger battle, it increases the scale of the battle far beyond two every-growing blobs circling each other to figure out which is stronger.
It actually may be worth considering hiring a military consultant or historian to get an idea of just how complex war gets on a large scale. If you are focusing the game on a single primary objective, namely head to head combat of ground units, it's going to feel more like a series of escalating battles.
Give a specific icon for group size or meta unit size and a specific icon for engineer and tier 3 units that are not in a group/meta unit.
Every unit under tier 3 that is single or in a group that is below a specific size, don't show. Have a ping ability to be able to locate these units when necessary. Although it seems unlikely that you would be using small groups or single units very much.
This is what makes any war game, rts or otherwise, worth playing. this is the fusion of strategy and tactics. But few games have done this well. World in Conflict, was one of the first games that I played that started dealing with this. However I believe it is the War Game series that did it the best. And I think the only game, where the attacker was at a major disadvantage to the defender all things considered.
By the way, I love how you guys use vision in this game!!! Reminds me of the above mentioned games.
A quick question about AOTS: when the units get destroyed will we see Wrecks (destroyed units stick around) it will be cool i hope soAnd another question for tatsujb: the last 2 pictures that you added about SC updated graphics, witch mod is it?
We do plan to have wrecks but not until later during the beta.
Very good post tatsujb.
Right now the FAF best RTS service , so many options in this game that make it almost perfect.
I wonder if we ever will again look something like this.
At this time the only game or service that exceeds FAF is Springlobby NOTE with the new release of version 100 is undoubtedly better than faf in game options, which have way bether options in the gameplay more units and positioning of the units is unique because we do the trajectory of the units something that had never seen before wonderful.
But in the Lobby really faf still is the best.
Now we will just have to wait to the new commander on RTS AOTS
I like What I'm seeing so far, and my only real concern atm is what yous are going to do with the "strategic zoom" or your version of it, My suggestion would be make it just like the sup com strategic zoom except as you zoom out large clumps of units would turn into single icons that represened where your army's are, I will draw up an example of my idea soon.
I believe the Camera is one of the most important parts of a large scale RTS and it must be done right, if you do put a cap on the normal cam zoom distance it should be fare enough out to see an entire battle, or your entire base and its surroundings.
I think restricting the camera so people are not zooming in and out all the time would be a big mistake, let people do what they want, restrictions are not always a good thing, if you beside that there must be a cap on the cam for players that are new or uninterested in zooming out, at least give us an option somewhere in options have a button "hard core UI mode" that removes all the restrictions.
What the cam is like will make or brake the game for me...
P.S. Good work so far and I look forward to seeing this game develop.
Cheers Avitus12
Hi Devs,
Please make sure Aces has build templates like SC/FA had being able to make templates was a nice feature in SC/FA.
Thanks OverRated
OverRated I won't speak for the devs, but based upon Alpha gameplay, I think build templates don't actually make that much sense. I loved that about SC/FA, but I don't see it necessarily being a good fit for this game.
Well eviator not every one has your point of view do they.
No. That's why I said "I think" and "I don't see". L2read
I can see why eviator doesn't think build templates are a good fit (well at the moment at least) but they won't hurt the game if they are in. I only ever really used build templates in FA for mass extractors + mass storage but I did use that template ALL of the time!
I've only had a few AI skirmishes so far in AOTS but the game looks very promising indeed and looks FAR more promising than PA did at the same stage of development.
I've had one CTD do far, other than that the game has worked pretty well.
Totally agreed. Strategic zoom is key to making SupCom the game it is. I want to be able to zoom out and view the whole map. In many cases I do it as an easy way to get an overview of the war but also to be able to easily move to a specific region based on mouse pointer. So, I use the scroll wheel to zoom out, view the theater, move the mouse pointer to the area I need to pay attention to and use the scroll wheel to zoom back in on that location.
Using zoomed out icons don't bother me a bit. I understand why AOTS wants a change but don't lose the strategic zoom. It's one of the key differences between SC/FA and every other RTS. That "view from space" type of feel is key.
AOTS is the first game since FA that I have real hope for as a true successor to FA. FA is, what 8 years old now and it's still the only RTS of its kind and in my mind it has yet to be surpassed by any other. AOTS could well be it. I am really looking forward to it.
Early in the alpha, my opinion was "let's see what the devs come up with". Now, after playing on a fairly large map and getting lost, not knowing where my units were in relation to distant objectives, my bases, and my other units, I think a full map view is necessary. I literally do not care how units are represented, I just need to know where my units are.
As far getting your units lost I think one great little ui button should be added and that's the idle engineers ui button, I know there one on the top left on the unit side but when there's a lot going on at once,its handy just to click a button and cycle through your engineers
The limited zoom really needs to go.... When I can only fit 5% of the map in the camera, it is not a good thing! It feels like starcraft
Ditto.
We are working on an abstract map view mode (full map zoom out).
bottom line the current gameplay isn't final ergo not representative ergo can't base your judgments off of that. templates can olny ever be practical. why not have this convenient UI tool you can hide it somewhere in the engine if it's not all that used. this begs the question : what it the dev's standpoint on adjacency?
We don't plan on any adjacency bonuses with the Post-Human race.
Frogboy, with that comment and a bit of play on the alpha version, you have won my full support The game as a whole looks pretty damn good/interesting, but the zoom was going to kill it for me. You just set my fears to rest!
Exactly. Back in the days of C&C (going WAY back now) that was just fine. Supreme Commander changed all that with its strategic zoom. Now there's no going back. I don't want another Starcraft. Once you've played SC you're spoiled.. everything less than that just pales by comparison.
Awesome! Best news of the day. Now I really can't wait!
This game is going to set a new standard. I remember when SC came out it was one of the main benchmarks used in new video card reviews. I believe Ashes will be one of the main games used in DX12 benchmarking.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
