I just want to say that, despite its flaws, the community of this game is awesome. Not only are they super friendly, but they managed to improve the game trough mods. Besides new maps and Legion, you have new units added in the form of the Second Wave mod, as well as TWO(!) new factions in the work by modders, as well as a effort by the devs to add things like shields and stealth in the future. It might not be as good as Ta or Supcom ever were, but it’s damm good tbh.
@@aricreech498 actually, a correction: there were two factions in the works: one named Union and one named Assimilators. The Union mod has stopped development for now, but the Assimilators mod is still going strong
if they were to add both blackops and nomad to ranked games i would go and steamlink my account ... but as it is now along with some ballancemembers appearantly having a stick up their cheeks ... ... naaahhh ....
Kyran Findlater Zero-K is basically a F2P Total Annihilation right now, but the devs are great and super responsive to community feedback like PA. Overall, PA and ZK are probably the best RTS games out there right now
I'm really bad at this game, but one of the main reasons I keep going back to it, is that it has one of the friendliest and most welcoming communities I've ever seen in a game of this catagory
I've played PA for quite a while now, with something like 1500 hours in multiplayer, ranked in the top 10, etc. I just wanted to thank you for making such an objective and and fair review! I love the game to death, but watching this was really eye-opening for why people might not stick with it. PA is very macro oriented, as you noted, but is also fast-paced at the same time, so it can definitely become a blur of information if it's not something that you've gotten a sense for. Really nice to see an outside perspective after being in the PA bubble for years.
This is definitely a problem I've had trying to get into TA clones, successors, and a lot of modern RTS's in general. Armies which take minutes to make evaporate in literal seconds if you take your eyes off them. The prolonged combat times of older games like TA is something I feel is terribly overlooked in newer game design.
I'll have to argue about the lack of micro, if you actually micro your units youll realise how much diference there is bettween unist, like microing bots around artillery or keeping formations keeping certain units outranging others. But yes if your playing over like 6 planets you can lose the want to micro a bunch
PA is not about APM, you need to play online to enjoy the variety of its gameplay and tactics. That's not at all like a SupCom though, on the ground it's all about your units placement and intelligence gathering, then on orbital stage you can go pretty much as you want thanks to the game insane variety of options. You can teleport kamikazes nuke bots on the ennemi planet, break an antiorbital blocus by shooting your units on their AO guns, take over a planet with nanobots.. The IA are pretty good but not at creating innovative tactics, if you want to see the weirdest moves you need to play online. Don't buy PA if you only turtle in Supcom though, PA is all about agressivity.
It is about being aggressive - 100%. Which I guess ties into APM inherently while not having it necessarily be the most important thing. I AM more of a turtler in RTSs though - so it probably stood out more to me!
@@Zade_95 "Which I guess ties into APM inherently" no ... what ties into apm is the use of active abilities and lack of QoL functions to control your army .. in PA even high level ranked players use less than 100 apm .. you can have about 50 to 70 apm and do more than well enough with it compared to something like starcraft or starcraft 2 were you may require about 200 as minimum .. then again even in starcraft if you are good enough in macro that ammount of apm is only ever realy required for the top of the top .. you may see apm use of 400 on some players but here is the thing .. that is not "effective" apm .. "It is about being aggressive - 100%" not true .. every TA like is about territorycontrol more than other rts games being aggresive in that case comes rather from expanding your production than constantly attacking your opponent (though it is in your interest to weaken your opponents production like in EVERY rts game) ... however you would want to consolidate your territory either by having units on there, defensive structures or a forward base .. but other than that the same rules of play aply to planetary annihilation as they do to supreme commander and total annihilation ... the only thing different with supcom is the use of shields on your base realy, that allow a bit more passive play .. heck the fact that your commander benefits from fighting through expierencegain is a reason to not be passive in that game either .. the reason you think PA is bout full on aggression is rather cause it´s faster paced compared to other TA-likes ..
@@MrTBSC You can also add the expandable units and the lack of strong defense options that force you into constant resource control. In supcom you can live of a few resources point and optimize your production for the lack of ressources ( up to a certain point ofc ).
@@wawa5379 t2 laser turrets and pelter artillery are good defensive options in PA .. AAturrets shred air especialy flak .. personaly i consider t1 pd and baseshields a bit too strong in supcom .. though in PA it´s a bit clunky to surround your PD with walls .. also full on turtling is generaly not a good idea in any game realy .. doesn´t mean you can´t be a bit passive in PA .. i would be carefull with the "expandable" units .. if you aren´t careful you can lose a army in a blink .. this game is vicious in combat ..
It is worth playing. trying to manage your planetary battle then realizing there is a moon heading your way and scrambling to evacuate in the next minute before it collides with your planet is kind of... unique.
I actually love the artstyle of this game. Always have. It is indeed a shame there are no factions however. 10:45 aren't all RTS about doing everything at all times?
Take a look at Zero-K. Its a hidden gem, when you see two good players go head to head it can be absolutely nuts. Rock solid engine and mechanics, really great controls and customization. Its THE perfect rts imo.
I find it amazing how many TA/SC fans haven’t tried the Spring RTS variants like Zero-K. The setup can be complex for regular Spring games, but the Zero-K developer really took a lot of the technical guesswork out of it
As someone who at one point was in the top 20% of Planetary Annihilation players, I'm going to give my two cents. Every video game genre has its tropes. For platformers it would be things like always moving from left to right, and so on. Planetary Annihilation is what you get when you take the book of RTS tropes and throw it out entirely. Unit caps, research trees, multiple factions, square maps, and so on are completely thrown out and the result is an experience that's very different which will end up being enjoyed by different people. Just as Zade misses factions and research trees when playing PA, I find myself missing the massive scale and relative simplicity of PA when playing other RTS games. The experience is so different that putting it in the same genre as something like StarCraft II almost doesn't make sense. That is why Planetary Annihilation has bread such a dedicated playerbase, we really can't find the same sort of experience anywhere else.
Any chance of a Review of "Grey Goo?" You'd like it as it has elements you mentioned in this review... 3 Distinct Factions that play differently to one another, Pick from 3 upgrades to alter each of your units, A Powerful endgame unit for each faction, And my personal favorite; the Soundtrack that has music that feels like a homage to that of the Command & Conquer series, and really gives the game character.
Good video Zade, stick with it and you'll flourish. I agree with the Kolonel, Grey Goo has some of the old Westwood Studios people behind it-who are also behind the planned remastering of the original C&C & RA. I got it recently and managed to play an hour or two before duty called. I'm looking forward to getting back to it. It should be right up your alley.
@@legionreaver If enjoyed the Command and Conquer games, you'll enjoy Grey Goo. My advice would be to watch the "Grey Goo Faction" trailers as that's what got my attention.
I have to disagree about the soundtrack with you, yeah tides of Steel isnt anything incredible but thats because it's the marching theme, mechanisms of war and destiny into darkness are some of the best tracks I've heard in a video game
When I first heard about this I remember loving the idea of the scale, when I actually got to playing it though, I don't know, I understand why you can't use entire planets for the battleground, but the planets really are just so very very small.
"you can't use entire planets for the battleground" .... but you litterally do .. i mean you can use them as planetbuster even .. if you mean by that to use larger planetoids ... you technically can (via mod iirc) .. but good luck with the hardware for it ..
Titans could have been a DLC but it did always seem as though they pushed it as a new title to get a clean slate for the steam reviews. Any plans to look at the warrior kings games?
I just couldn't get into it, something feels far more substantial with Supreme Commander. Combat escalates more gradually, and the steps to T2 and T3 feel dangerous and significant. Also the commander in supcom is tough enough to lead the charge in the early game, and you're hurting yourself not to. In PA the commander is so fragile it's just a liability. Could I suggest a video on Zero-K? It's based on Total Annihilation and brings some really great features to the table of RTS gaming. It's just not visually or audibly stunning because it's all done by volunteers. I recommend the campaign because it gradually introduces you to the units.
That's a good way to put. SC does feel like it has a lot more meat. I've had a lot of people asking about Zero-K - I'll definitely be checking it out at some point!
concerning supreme commander vs PA, I'd prefer being on a planet, not having to rotate a "planet" ratchet and clank style (one or two levels, Giant Clank walks around the globe like a moon, not flat land) and second, mini map; I tried PA, but it was just too confusing. Haven't tried Titans yet. SupCom 2 was way different than the vanilla game, as you have to upgrade stuff to get the cool stuff, one lab to do everything, spit out "fatboys" without T3 or experiment status bots, but also at half the life expectancy (and not all the fancy firepower that fatboys spit out, like a land battleship) basically TA and supcom are good, supcom 2, meh, PA, not so much, since you have to rotate the map/moon/planet so as to locate your factories, units built, etc. but that's just me
@@ebee-uz1oz personaly i take PA being PA than just another TA-clone .. sure PA IS lacking in areas but imho even without actual interspacecombat it´s like the furthest RTS could get featuring space- and groundcombat at the same time .. if it were just multiple flat rectangular maps with a orbital layer then it wouldn´t deserve its title, imho .. "supcom 2, you have to upgrade stuff" you have to upgrade and unlock by research .. however even in supcom FA upgrading is a huge part of the game .. you have to upgrade your factories to unlock a row of units that imo aren´t that different from their lowtierunits bar a very few exceptions .. you have to upgrade your massextractors gradualy to keep up with the tech and productionprogression .. and you have to even upgrade your commander for more efficiency be that in production, combat or utility .. PA has no upgrades whatsoever but a techprogression like its spritual predeccessor TA .. with building engineers that build advanced factories that build advanced engineertypes .. pretty straight forward .. (though you could argue building a advanced mexx atop of a basic one is this game´s way to upgrade, but it´s still only with metalextractors) also if you have issues navigating a sphere you may use polelock and cameraanchors ..
Couldn't have said it better myself. While I've sunk probably 2,000 hours into Supreme Commander I found myself unable to get through more than a few games of Planetary Annihilation. It felt shallow and hollow in comparison.
Thanks, This video really captures the 'meh, it's ok,' of PA:Titans. I remember how excited I was seeing its kickstarter videos. I prefer and enjoy TA the most of the series but hardly play it and many other classic RTS I used to love because SC just broke the world for me with strategic zoom. The part about TA I love is the planet types and the odd units. Why did I Love the CORE Sumo Swarm or ARM Maverick + Fido patrols? It was so much fun.
in galactic mode there is progression of your commander unit, after claiming/conquering worlds you can choose upgrades (like faster build speed, more hp, commander movement speed but also like new factories fe for bots or air units, enchancing your unit fe tanks etc) and more importantly there are pre-sets of skills of your commander at the start of your game, you can pick things like "bot general" or picking an upgrade to make your commander standalone op unit, it can be even so hillariously fast that it can skip map collisions, and walk at mountains/lava and whatnot saying that game completely lack progression or tech advancment is slighlty hurting, tho i won't argue that those are lacking from "normal" skirmishes and pushed out onto galactic conquer, but as i seen modding community is really big so maybe mods can fix it during the standard gameplay
Galactic conquest can be fun but in my experience it's rather easy...I set it to difficulty levels that get me consistently wrecked in the normal mode and the AI still just sort of durdles. Overdoing upgrades to your commander is hilarious though.
Yeah I know, I just didn't find it really engaging at all. I mean combined with something like Star Wars Empire at War's Empire at War mode it's completely boneless imo. Wasn't worth the set up, would rather just play standalone skirmishes. I get why some would like it though!
I can feel you, myself i found galactic conquest just dull and not very ballanced/designed overall with how op stuff you can do there, also one of the issue is how relatively short battles are at GC compared to pretty long loading times of the game, in huge scale skirmishes you wouldn't mind those but in quick, pretty fast paced conquest it feels more like a downside. Even tho i tought it was worth mentioning that simple progression is present in one of game modes, therefore i also mentioned mods (honestly i didn't check if there were tech ones but i am pretty sure there were). Anyway great video, cheers
Titans is honestly incredible fun. Suprised people didnt like it Titans also really just isnt about APM especially in multiplayer. Its about intel, predicting what the enemy will do, and managing the resources to win. Its about questions in multiplayer. "Do I build nukes or focus on antinuke" "do i leave the planet or stay my ground" "the enemy just left the planet, do I chase them and risk resources on them, or do i focus on clearing my own planet" the game also gives great ways to recover and comeback. Its really about stratagy and not APM (also mods bring factions, i personally dont care for them but they are there"
As a man playing this game in 2020, I find the way to make the game more dynamic and interesting is playing with friends on custom made maps, as well as agreeing on rules for what we can and can't do/build.
My 2 main issues where lack of unit diversity from there being no factions and also the fact that every hunk of rock plays basically the same terrain is a non factor
@@Zade_95 There's a lot of player-made map packs out there that add a lot more terrain. The random planet maker is pretty terrible, but I've seen stuff like ring platforms surrounding a planet to elaborate facilities with wrecks everywhere.
but how is that any different to any rts ever? in most games you have either water or lava blocking you if naval is not a thing in them .. and in most rts games you don´t have any terrain affecting your units bar a few ... lava and water planets however do exist in PA ...
@@Sifer2 oooof what was it ... i don´t exactly remember the wording but due to copyright and other legal reasons they can´t just copy the mod into the maingame .. otherwise if that weren´t the case i´m pretty sure the modcreators themselfes would have been more than happy if it were part of the maingame and it could have been so long ago ..
Despite it's issues. I always enjoyed building up an army, then sending in a vanguard at an enemy planet, establish a small foothold, then build a gate so i can teleport all of my forces through and steamroll the enemy base.
Planetary Annihilation has one thing I love the most: Co-op control over a single army. Great feature, it lets group play become very interesting as each team can have members focus on different aspects of economy or unit development.
13:45 If you like uncertainty I have a game for you... it is called Planetary Annihilation, FFA sausage fest. It is FFA with 32 players on an entire solar system. The very reason you claim this game is not for you is the very thing in this game that you might have missed. If you like NOT being efficient, pulling off casula, funky strategies with unusual units... You just missed the very thing you were looking for. Try again. Play A nice FFA with ~10 people on a solar system. Make temporary alliances with your enemy when one of those players, left alone on his planet, is on the verge of becoming a demi-god. Send cheezy armies of boom bots to snipe the enemy commander. Suicide with your moon on the last planet where everyone is, so that you don't let anyone be a winner more than you are a looser with everyone else. Build phase gates or send your units torugh the sky to colonise a gas giant... and play exclusively in space while your commander abandon the ground to live in a space fortress... Mechanically speaking, compared to most strategy games I've played, you have more options and more variety. A faction is a skin. An unlock or research tab only exists to slow down the game. Maybe you cam too late for the game to be casual, who know. I had a great time fucking around and doing retarded things in FFA. Had a blast I could not have had otherwise. Remembers me that time where I had to abandon my doomed planet seconds before it exploded... to be restarting from zero on an almost empty planet while the other factions were great, powerful and fighting each other on their corner of the solar system... only for me tot ake over my planet, build an army of advanced fabricators and at the lest moment, make a last minut, quickly built death start... That was dumb, that was cheezy, that was great. Confusion, lack luster information and on the fly adaptation to the new situation is what made the game for me.
I see your point - but to be 100% honest a 32 FFA sounds like hell to me :P I've talked about this a lot in other videos, but I'm really not a fan of PvP in RTSs. Becomes an APM-fest which is a) not something I'm good at and b) not something I find fun. I much prefer to PvE with friends. It's just personal preference, I get everyone likes different things! But I do agree - a 32 Player FFA game on PA would certainly have some uncertainty!
@@Zade_95 APM doesn't help in a 32 players FFA. your starting point does. Micro and other nonsense doesn't help when you really have to turn the tides. Crazy strategies become viable. Migration and blowing up your spawn planet suddently become very appealing. Using your troops to lure one's army into another so that they fight each other and let you alone... crazy plans like those... :) Also, it's not theorical, within the time I played PA, there were a lot of games like those. Many planets, many people... I talk about this because from what you say in yout video, I really feel like you never experianced this part of it. The result being, you miss on what I believe to be a big chunk of the PA experiance. The very reason I started palying this game was because of a reviewer like you made a review about the game, and even if his review was quite negative, he talked about this aspect of the game which is the reason why I bought it in the first place. I'm not here to say PA is the best strategy game I've ever played, but it is the only one, with its planet mechanic to offer me such a game, where each planet is its own microcosm. The closes I got from that was on maps with water, in games where transporting troops over seas is fucked. In PA, the gap is wide enough to separate those environements, but the deployment process is effective enough so that you can still invade them without the bloac path finding nonsense... and it's not 2 player made environements, it's really "for each planet it's environement", with 2 players fighting each other with storng naval units while on an other planet a 12 people FFA with spam ground units.
+Zade So the art style is designed to be cartoony probably so that the game will actually run; and it in my opinion and because of the theme that they are going for just makes it more fun to be honest. While different factions are kind of neat the main thing is what functionality; what types; and to a certain extent how many units a RTS game has; and it may be a bit lacking in both a certain level of functionality and to a lesser but noticeable extent variety (the fact that there does not appear to be a SAM site is a bit of an oddity) though remember the developer is supporting mods. Nothing really stands out in the sound design? Are you kidding me.!? So not the explosions? Not the music? Not the effects? Not all the different little sounds the robots make? This is where you really lost me because in all honesty for lack of better words...common...if only because they are all of such quality and there is so much there that if it does not stand out to you; then I need to ask; are you sure that you are playing the right game?:) Lastly, honestly the game mechanics and gameplay are and is so cool as well as it having a map editor that if you are board by it then I have got to ask: is there a game your playing that lets you have land, sea, air, and space battles in an entire universe or something? WTF?;)
Having become a more recent fan of the TA likes, I have subsequently bought and played almost every one of the these great games. Here's the TLDR version: PA is the most accessible of the bunch so far. Full version: As of 2020, it now has a great tutorial to get you up and running quickly. The Galactic War is a basic campaign that starts you with one of many limited loadouts of Tech (Something someone forgot to mention)* and as you progress through the campaign you complete and enhance your loadout of available units with more starting loadouts to unlock when you defeat an enemy faction. *Unless this was added in after this review The only issues I have is with the base game's AI, it can be known to 'cheat' and when playing against multiple AIs on a team, they all cluster together in the same base rather than branching out. Also, this game leans harder into the macro side of RTS gameplay and always favours aggressive and proactive expansion of your bases. Turtling and micromanaging units just does not work here. You CAN make a base that is well defended but it's never going to be impenetrable forever thanks to the larger variety of super weapons and Titans available. Plus you are going to need more resources for the Upkeep and you cannot do that on one square mile of planet and the metal points within it. HOWEVER, there are now lots of mods available to improve these issues if you so choose, plus mod packs to improve the visuals to add some personality to the units (Look up the More Pew Pew mod to see what I mean). This game is constantly improving with time and I believe it's worth a look if you are a fan of the previous TA like games.
Me too - from what little I played of it. I think it's more of a 'benchmarking' game now to test CPUs :P But perhaps I'll check it out again one day :)
ashes needs bots/infantry and tanks for its groundplay .. being all about hovercrafts that don´t even have any advantage over water or lava made it so incredibly monotone .. the researchtree simply is boring they may as well better not have implemented it ... also didn´t like the idea of having one immobile commandcenter that needs to be destroyed .. however i do like the way ashes implemented gaining territorycontrol and how you have to keep it ...
Ashes was a weird game, took me forever to figure out who did what, even the expansion, eventually I stormed through the game, and beat it. isn't Ancient Space supposed to be like command and conquer types,....only building in space?
I originally backed the game, and bought it because I thought it looked super cool. When I got to play it however, I realised I had the exact issues that you mention. I haven't followed it for a long time now so it is sad to see not much have changed.
As someone who really enjoy's RTSs, but have not played them in years, this is exactly what I wanted to know. I played PA when it first released and while it was enjoyable in the short run, after the new lust wore off I found my self going back to SC. I was wondering how it had improved in the years since. Thanks a ton!
ummm the guy who you put steve thompson´s name over is bob berry the (iirc) ceo of uber and envelope .. you can see steve thompson at 4:19 also correction: kickstarterbackers did NOT need to buy the titans upgrade, they got it for free ... players who bout in the alpha or beta phase of the game on steam and on release would have to ..
Ah, yep, you're totally right. That's my bad! My apologies on not being clear about people getting it for free if they were Kickstarter backers, I should've added a sentence in there
Fair review, but I can't help but feeling it's a call made way too early. The diversity (and genius) in this game runs so much deeper than different looking units. It's all about learning your units, setting up your army composition and managing simultaneous macro-strategy with micro-managing your troops. With all do respect, the gameplay shows someone playing this game without something even resembling a clue about what they are doing and at that point i suppose there is not much to go on except what you've adressed in this review. However, the fact that the maps are spherical combined with the numerous strategies one might choose and the even more possible counters to said strategies, this is an RTS still unchallenged in terms of inventivness. Also, one of the greatest things about this game is the awesome community around it. I wish you would play it a bit more, hang around the PA Academy discords and get some pointers from the very skilled and friendly people there, because based on this you missed one hell of a game :)
Is that a specific Discord? My limited google skills are turning up a blank. I think the scope and range of strategies make this a wonderful game, but I'm a HIGHLY inexperienced RTS multiplayer gamer.
I get what you're saying - and thank you for writing this out! But for me, as someone who plays a lot of games and has a finite amount of time to spend with each one, I don't have the time to play for hours and hours to hope that once I've learned some more strategies and such I'll actually enjoy it. If I'm not hooked on the core gameplay within 10 or 20 hours, then it's not a game for me - and a developer shouldn't expect players to push through something they're not a fan of because 'it get's better once you get good'. Hell, most people wouldn't probably only give a game they're not hooked on an hour, or two, before uninstalling or refunding it :P What I'm saying is that the people who are going to go that extra mile, learn from better players, and put more work into getting good, are the ones who are going to be hooked in those first few hours. And in this case that's not me! But I hope based on this review, people can decide for themselves if they're going to be into it or not based on my experience - because in the end, that's what I'm trying to achieve! :)
@@Zade_95 I hear you. There are some many games trying to catch players attention these days which leads to patience getting shorter. I just felt compelled to show another side of the coin since PA:Titans definetly deserves a bigger playerbase. :) Thanks for good channel, keep it up!
in that case you wanna play the orbital wars mod for FA ... don't know if it's up to date with the newest fafversion though ... problem is ... it's no PA ...
If you ask me, the problem with PA isn't the lack of diversity. In fact, if it weren't for its other problems, it would be my favorite RTS by far because of how simple and to-the-point most of the mechanics are. The problem is that it's an RTS on a scale never seen before by another game ever, but it's built like an RTS to be played on a Supreme Commander map. If you want to make a game that plays across an entire solar system, you need to build a game around that concept; not just remake another game and upscale the map size. There are only very basic tools that aid you in managing the scale (such as drag-selecting over the horizon to cover the whole planet, or the picture-in-picture cam) that feel like they've been adapted into an already established formula, instead of creating the entirely new systems required for such a grand play area.
I see what you mean, like I said in the video I found the multiple planets to be overwhelming, despite the PiP cam and a couple of other management tools. It would be a hard thing to do, but I wonder if I'd found it more manageable if there were better tools implemented!
Fighting simultaneous battles on multiple spherical maps with swarm tactics, map destruction and super weapons. Sounds great but it’s a near nightmare to control well. Not to mention that before the stand alone patched version breaking a planet with anything but an orbital collision/nukes was near impossible, the defenders advantage was such that your troops would die as they arrived. On a fully occupied orbital body.
Thats why you can make your own small maps with low incomes and have fun with the game and you can control everything. I agree that the default scale of this game is too overwhelming. I usually make my own maps and make FFA lobbies with small packed games.
Bringing up PA:TITANS in the modern day and not bringing up the Legion mod? Dude, while rating a game with mods tacked on may seem bad, Legion is enormous as a mod-it adds an entire faction, with its own style, and as such it is insanely popular-practically a part of the game now!
@@Zade_95 Damn, I musta missed that! I was looking through the list, and trying to see if it was brought up after you mentioned how the single faction felt limiting for you.
This is my first video of you, but the way how you play RTS games is commendable. I really dislike the focus on hyper active esports most RTS games have nowadays and that they lack flavor.
A lack of different factions is such a dealbreaker for a modern RTS. Whether it's a game with wildly different ones like Starcraft or one with smaller differences like Age of Empires, nobody likes mirror matchups.
all a matter of budget though ... basicaly with your stance you are dooming any small developer trying even their slightest on a rts ... having 3 to 4 factions with differing units and unique playstyles requires a huge ammount of ballance and lots of assets when you consider games like starcraft ... and people also want their campaign .. preferably with all factions which also means extraefford again .. i mean you are comparing a game that had a cost of about 9 million (and only made 2.3 million from kickstarter) made by a rather small devteam vs one who´s budget easily rivals that of summerblockbuster movies made by a huge company ... the new upcoming AoE 4 will very likely also have a higher devcost than PA had ...
You can say what ever you want about this game , but for sure its more epic then Supreme Commander and Total Annihilations , because of the planetary systems.I think Planetary Annihilation is actually , what Supreme Commander 2 should be.I wish they make PA2 some day , with next gen graphics , better looking units and more factions Ps.The soundtrack of Planetary Annihilations is one of the best soundtrack I have ever heard
well there is a factionmod that ads the legion to the game ... the problem with your suggestion is this would require even a higher effort of ballancing with what little resources PA inc. has available to them ...
APMs don't always win, it's what you do with your APMs. And there are so many different units that give you different paths to victory, I don't see the lack of unit upgrades as a problem, as there are so many different units. And the mods, don't get me started on the mods.
Another reason for keeping the same units for everyone is it makes it easier to balance than say juggling between 4 distinct races like there is in Warcraft 3.
primarily it was budget reasons .. yet even with a second faction ballancing that large a unitpool would not be easy . intrestingly enough though they added one more unit to live, which is the striker .. basicaly a vehiclevarriant of the dox assaultbot and in the PTE they added what i think is a fighterbomber called the horsefly ... and it looks like a A-10 warthog .. because ...
The game desperately needs factions, although to be fair Total Annihilation didn't really have factions as the difference between Core and Arm Core was just the look. I think they could have done something special with planetbuster weapons. -Faction A can build a Death Star as it is the big imposing faction with large units. -Faction B is more of a fast unit faction that builds a planet busting missile silo. -Faction C is a fanatical suicidal faction with cheap units and their planetbuster is a doomsday device so in essence they build a base on an enemy held planet and turtle up with the sole purpose of destroying it (and their own base as well).
Yeah I agree - same with TA. The reason I don't really reference TA much is that I hardly played it. I only first touched it for the Supreme Commander video actually - so that's why that game is my main reference point. Yeah, do that, add like 6 more Titans for each faction, and we're getting somewhere!
you guys are focusing on the big stuff too much, factions more than anything need differentiation in their bread and butterunits, not just the endgameoptions .. and imho supcom itself while having factions does not a good job of differentiating them ... wanna have a good example of a game (that's not starcraft) that differentiates its factions? command and conquer: tiberiumwars the deathstarweapon/catalystring is tied to the metal planet planetbusting nukes are asteroids with halleythusters attached to them and for planting planetbusting bombs you have the ragnararok that drops a nuke into a planetcore ... but honestly considering the varying difficulty of each and what you have to sacrefice to get them work i don't see why these should be split between factions .. i'm also rather against planetbusters that are not tied to a planet in some way ... as in how do you want to stop the faction that builds a planetbusting missilesilo on their homeplanet when it is locked down ? or if the faction with the deathlaser was also able to build it on any planet they want? but the suicidefaction has to go to the enemy planet in order to bust it? kinda bit unfair ... the idea of halleyable planets or the deathlaser metalplanet are assets that act as goalpoints to rush torwards or compete over .. and believe me one thing .. if your opponent isn't utterly stupit you only get to bust a planet with a ragnarok when you already have a clear advantage ... otherwise it's pretty difficult to get one up to even get to the point were you have to hold it for a minute ...
Everyone's talking about AAA rts games, but can you spare some love for Zero-K? More closely related to TA than supcom or PA, but boasting about 100 units that stay relevant from minute 1 to minute 30, and a lack of enphisis on the starting Commander.
"Zero-K? More closely related to TA than supcom or PA" ..... i´m sorry but what??? zero-k last i played it is even more limiting in building structures and units compared to the other 2 games ... imo it could not be any further from the TA-likes ... may as well rather take a look on the mod of ballanced annihilation which is used on the spring engine like zero-k is .. zero-k even uses spring TA models to my knowledge were the team of ballanced annihilation went and recreated all the models from TA ... addendum: the guys who make ballanced annihilation now retitled it to BAR (for beyond all reason appearantly .. okey) by interest: www.beyondallreason.info/ bare in mind it´s a work in progress ..
I understand that Zero-K is not DOTA, and why the Coms were nerfed... but I still miss being able to do crazy shit with my Com upgraded in a way that no other unit had the similar set of strengths... (for instance : fairly mobile and tough artillery doubling as a front-line constructor)
oh boy i was so hyped seeing the kickstarter trailer, i was in awe. but then i played it and... yeah, no variety among units, no factions, only two tech levels... i knew it of course, i followed the updates. but only when playing did i realize how dull it was. playing FAF i like building my base in a certain way to get certain adjacency bonus, i like to build armies of loyalists (cybran t3 bot) and not bricks (heavy T3 "bot") because i think they look cool, are faster and humiliate aeon colossi, but here, nothing. generic tank or larger generic tank ? what a choice... but what killed it for me was actually the terrain generation. for me a RTS requires you to be able to plan you defenses, and to think about how to defeat your opponent's defenses. again FAF does this perfectly because there is so many angles of attack that no one can hope to cover them all. but because we're fighting on mini-planets defense in itself is impossible. defend one location ? that's okay, i'll go around it. defend an other one ? i'll go around it too, i mean you can literally do around the entire world in twenty seconds, the only way to be somewhat safe is to wall yourself in 360°. long story short the only way to play is to attack, attack and attack again. whoever outclic his opponent and harass him more wins the add-on added some variety in units, but didn't fix the core problem, and in the end it just made we want to play FAF again 😅 which to this day remains the best RTS ever made.
You glossed a bit over the single player mode Galactic Conquest, which for me is a highlight feature. I really like how it restricts your tech, and can lead to some memorable games. It's not very difficult or complex but I have gotten consistent enjoyment out of it. Being really weak at something and figuring out how to make it work is fun. I just wish they embraced this idea more fully and instead of one monoithic faction, gave us asymmetric factions with different strengths and weaknesses. I think I need to try the mod you mentioned, see how it feels. Also it turns out spherical maps made for vastly different gameplay. Choke points rarely worked and digging in to defend a base/planetary beachhead was much more difficult. Also portals exist. Kind of a crazy game. So glad it exists. Really cool game with strong tech underpinning it (smoother play experience than supcom's aging engine). So much potential. I hope to see another RTS carry the torch one day.
Personally I found the conquest mode super shallow, and not worth playing in my opinion. Maybe I didn't get far enough, but there's very limited progression and every planet was just another skirmish battle without any real variety, at least for me. Much prefer the mode's implementation in Star Wars Empire at War - probably my favorite version of that style of gameplay!
@@Zade_95 shallow is a fair description. I enjoyed the occasions where you'd need to take a naval world without a navy, or a multi planet system without orbital or air units (only the transport to move workers). But these highlights were rare, as the levels are mostly randomly generated these interesting circumstances would only rarely happen unless I chose to ar least partly force it myself (for example by refusing air tech, or choosing a starting loadout that does not include any tech2 or maybe no factories at all). It's fun when you have to get creative with the game, but the randomly generated levels can too often just be brute-forced in boring ways (few/no problems cant be solved with t1 bomber spam). I feel like weaknesses and restrictions can make Galactic Warfare more compelling, but the feature was underdeveloped, and maybe a lack of meaningful escalating counterplay in the game as a while meant there wasn't a need to use every tool unless you made reasons to use them.
I feel too many RTS games have pushed towards high competitive gamers, but like Zade, I like to build cool bases with some friends and launch stupid strategies. We still go back to playing SupCom every so often.
IMO th map layout of PA is by far its greates contribution to the rts genre. if some game could take that idea and include a more traditional army system then it would be one of the best.
I like to think of the Legions' mods backstory as a canon prequel to the lore of the galactic war campain. MLA wins and shuts down for their task is completed until "the awekening" takes place wich without a common enemy to fight against shatters the MLA into the factions of Galactic war. Just thinking about wich machines the machine liberation army liberated when all they "want" in "life" is battle. Fight for the right to fight?
PA will always have a special place in my heart, it did a lot of innovative things right. Circular planets, orbital and interplanertary warfare over an entire system, pathfinding of large groups that works well and superweapons that feel great to use, among other things But there's a but, a few but's in fact. As you raised the single faction is quite meh, the popcorn-y nature of the units in the early game mean a split second of inattention can lose you your army, which doesn't leave much room for greater strategic thinking and instead you end up exploiting the (in)attention of the enemy. Presentationwise SupCom just felt "better" more polished, even if SupCom can be somewhat too ponderous at times (pathfinding in SupCom can be aresenine in the extreme and games can take a looooooooooooong time to pick up steam).
Yeah I agree mostly - PA did what it did well, while I found managing multiple planets overwhelming, that's more of a personal thing that mechanical, which was actually done pretty well. I'm with ya, SupCom presentation does just feel better. More alive, more personality!
One last advantage SupCom had, was that it had Steve Jablonsky's OST, and my fucking god, did that sell the theme and feel of that game. PA's soundtrack is ok, but nowhere near as Capital A Awesome
@@elonwhatever steve jablonsky???? .... errr it rather was jeremy soule (spelling?) that did the music for supcom as well as total annihilation ... so who is and what does steve jablonsky have to do with supcom's music?
I strongly dislike PA, primarily because the camera just isn't suited to spherical maps. I'd much rather have a looped projection than a true sphere. While I backed PA, I regret it. The scale was functionally far lower than SupCom, units were just too large relative to the maps
You kind of missed the point of this game, which is the massive shared army battles. My clan used to play big 5v5 matches where each team was in control of a single massive army. You'd have one guy working on resource production, one buy leading the units in battle, one guy on production, one guy managing the base on the moon, etc. etc.
I have to agree the game's without alot of depth but I play a large number of RTS games, huge fan of the genre, and it's Total Annihilation style gameplay and overall spectacle are an excellent break from the vast ocean of samey RTS titles.
everything you said is right. its really a game which works when you are in the right situation for it. i never played PA in a competitive mindset, my thing is just to get 4/5 friends, boot up a multi planet map, boost the economy to crazypants, and duke it out with gigantic armies that can cover entire planets. this is what i feel is the main apeal of the game, the casual gigantic clusterfuck that PA and ONLY PA can deliver on, throw legion for variety, and a bunch of crazy players, and you can get giant orbital fleets on one side, thosands of nukes on another, and an all consuming nanite swarm on another.
i buy it when it came out thinking itd be like dawn of war dark crusade but it was sadly disappointing as there was no hero upgrade system that made the hero feel like my captain
... ummm no ... look at the ammount of units that one PAunitpool offers .. throwing in the ability to create multiple variants of any unit in any way would have been a nightmare to ballance and increase the learningcurve drastically .. not to mention it would have been quite intensive on the budget .. also .. how succesful was forged battalion itself? .. yea, neat concept ... but it had not much else to offer and the way to get more customisationoptions was ..... bad .. ...
Great video. I agree with it being overwhelming when you have multiple planets. I hate when i dont get to another planet fast enough and it gets completely locked down so quickly. Whenever i play i usually only have 1 massive planet. Otherwise its too much.
Thank you man - I appreciate it! 100%, I'll be reviewing W3 reforged when it comes out, and I'll undoubtedly go back to the first two games in the series sometime as well
I love this game so much. Friend and I did an FFA with 4 ais as well today. Both of us didn't expand enough. He got overrun, but I held on and bombarded the other ai on my planet (there were originally two, one died) with artillery when they moved closer, holding off space battleships with Catapult missile launchers, building more T2 bots and t1 everything, until they moved off-planet and SMASHED A MOON INTO ME. There was still another ai remaining too. Get the Queller AI mod. This was bronze level ai- normally easy to defeat, but I made a bunch of errors and waited too long to kill them until they had a shitload of defense and offense. It goes Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Uber, and Uber is fairly hard to defeat. The default ai is not all that good in comparison, but can still bother you on higher difficulties. Massive ai battles are great. Massive multiplayer battles are great. Smashing planets into each other is great. 10/10 game, would blow up planets with a massive laser again. I mean, I'll do that tomorrow.
Glad to hear you're a fan of it - like I say at the end, I don't think it's a bad game, just not the game for me. Always happy to hear people are having fun! :)
Honestly, i love PA to bits. In fact, i would prefer it to pretty much any other RTS i've played, and that is because of two things: command automation and rock-paper-scissors dynamic between different forces available. Also, not in a single other strategy game was i able to construct fortifications out of wrecks of an enemy base under fire.
I agree with most of the negative criticism, the game lacks variation and character, controlling multiple planets is very overwhelming, BUT the game is just so much fun - microing your units actually does matter a lot once you know which type of micro make a notable difference on battle results - everybody said this already but I'll say this again: the game has a very friendly community. love you guys - doing "everything at once" feels way more satisfying here than in most other RTS, because of the nature of resource management and mainly metal in this game. this is the main appeal for me. in most RTS you have one or two key choke points where all the battles happen at a time, and it might transition to new points over the course of a game. in this game, you have countless engagement points even 5 minutes into a match. having to manage battles in so many different locations at the same time feels so incredibly satisfying once you can actually pull it off. I understand that this level of practice and training is too much for people who just want to play RTS casually at their own pace, but for people who are willing to be more tryhard about it, planetary annihilation is a treat, there's always so many things to do, and things that actually matter and impact the outcome of the match. this is the zero-downtime zero-flowchart game, you constantly have to adapt quickly and made decisions + execute them nonstop. it's great if you just look at the graphics, then yeah all matches look same-y, but if you look at the mental processes players go through to decide which actions to do, each match is very much unique. this game is really not about the graphics and more about the player interaction in games. I do think it would attract more crowd if it had more variable and fluffy graphical stuff in it, various factions, etc, but it really wouldn't make the main game's appeal any better as it already excels in that regard - the "do everything everywhere all the time" aspect
This was a really good video. I backed the game up and I never regretted it. It tries to invovate the RTS genre in a very fresh way. However the critique in the video is right imo. So many planets are just too much to handle. Also the artstyle is too toy-ish for me. And a huge pet pieve is that the commander has so little hp. The water also feels like blue land, since you can build almost everything on it. A version 2 of the game would be nice, I would definitely buy it haha. What is your faf user name btw?
Hey if you ever feel inclined to revisit the game, you should check out the legion mod :) Adds a completely new faction. Wish theyd incorporate it into the main game
I thought it'd be a great fresh RTS sup com style but it had very few sup com style elements I loved. But the lack of faction diversity killed it for me... no personality, no factions, no story, bland units, the fact that you mass produce them just don't make you care at all about them (you care about your expensive units in sup com). Howard Mostrom is a great composer that does fine ost, the ost in SupCom 2 was fire and this one a bit less inspiring but still pretty good.
I was upset calling something an update being sold as a new game is like claiming your neighbor down the road inovated and replaced their house is your house being remade
Very good review and I'm glad you took the time. The lack of diversity sounds key, and you explained it well. In TA, the diversity was stark and one of the things that made the game so playable and intriguing. It was great fun unlocking the secrets of each unit via gameplay and theory-crafting, and it kept on going as new units were slowly released. The superiority of Arm vs, Core was seriously debated even amongst top players, and I was one of them back in the day. It went back and forth, unit by unit, tactics blending into discussions of overall strategy. Great game, my favorite ever, incredibly replayable. I wish Supreme Commander had intrigued me as much, but I found it a complete dud in comparison. TA2 was just ... okay. There will probably never be another to match the preposterously overlooked original ... at least without a ton of love and money. By the time it comes out, I will probably be too old to play it without getting my arse kicked by any random kid spamming baloney on his phone at the same time. :D
I was an original kickstarter backer for Planetary Annihilation and I gotta say the initial release really was a huge disappointment... I'm less salty about it these days and sometimes I'll spin up a game or two on it and it looks like devs are still supporting it even up to this year but that sour taste from that extremely disappointing release and flunked promises has always left a sour feeling over the game.
Also note: Everyone who bought Planetary Annihilation in Early Access did not get Titans for free, they had to pay full payment even if they owned the original. It was later that they gave a discount for Titans if you owned the original.
@@Zade_95 If i remember correctly, Starcraft 2 Wing of Liberty turned free to play with Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void left as DLC. that is, story locked behind DLC...
I mostly just play galactic war because that has upgrade paths in the form of winning gets you a choice of 3 permanent upgrades. But also because when fighting bots, I can do all the neat base building before I go for the kill. I get what you mean though about the game, as it's especially true if you play ranked. playing ranked is nothing but an efficiency competition. So I stick to galactic war, or sometimes the occasional co-op/FFA vs bots with some friends
@@EntropyWins no factions, no basic/advanced style factories (even if zk factories offer low and hightierunits in one factory, the number of hightierunits per factory are like .. one or 2 ?).. the game with its economy on average limits you to 2 factorytypes and 2 factories in general .. you rarely get to control 3 factories well cause of how expensive it is to build one except the first that is free ... in TA even with controlling rather few factories overall compared to other RTS you were to build any of them so long you had the aproppriate economy to run them and they offered unitsets that made the factory generaly usefull on the battlefield .. ZK however went and specialised too much were for example even on waterheavy maps naval gets outshined by hover and amphibious factories to the point were the naval factory is not even desirable in teamgames .. factorysets in ZK are less bout preference than rather what you have to use with the terrain of the map .. in short TA offered you actual greater choice even if it was unballanced back in the day (samson rush f.e.) were as ZK heavily limits you in what you can build and effectively use .. having unitsets per factory is not a bad idea but it should rather have been unitsets that make a factory generally usefull like have some form of amphibious or hoverunit for any factory, something capable of tanking, a cloak or stealthunit etc ... but because of its factoryphilosophy i can´t look at this game as any kind of successor .. at best as a spin-off .. PA may have no factions but it stays true in the factory philosophy of its spiritual predecessor .. translate PA to a rectangular map it IS a faster paced TA ..
Even with Titans it seems like a stripped down version of Supreme Commander. It's a perfect example of "3.6, not great, not terrible". It lacks so much. This is stripped down to the bare essentials. Supreme Commander 1 and 2 are both still available for purchase and are cheap, and have so much more than this. This feels like a demo.
I'm not sure I entirely agree on the diversity of units within the available faction. While PA doesn't have quite the depth of sea/land/air units that SupCom does, it's not as simple as you make it sound - and it does have orbital and actual multi plannar battles and is not limited by SupCom's 4 Gb memory cap so you can play MUCH larger games. TA, SupCom and PA each have their strengths and I'd never just play one. TA still is the best in Art direction (even tho graphics are dated now) plus sound design, music and has metal maps (that you can build extractors anywhere). SupCom has 4 tiers of units and a greater array of depth in sea/land/air battles and the best UI of any game. It's just much more interested in making it easier to play than other games. And PA has no unit cap I know of and has a reasonable array of sea/land/air units plus orbital, movement between worlds and the ability to destroy worlds.
I respect PA much more than I like it. It really doesn't tickle that part of me that loves RTS games but it does some really cool things that no other rts does. They set out to make an RTS with huge scale where you can smash planets into each other with no publisher, and that's exactly what they did. Turned out not how I would've preferred but in a world where every company is just shamelessly turning it copies of what's popular I respect that
Yeah, Orbital Warfare just sounds very cool on paper but translates poorly in a mouse+keyboard fast-paced RTS... (I have some hope that a PA spiritual successor might pull it off in VR though !) P.S. : See also Swords of the Stars 2 vs 1 for an example of multi-planet warfare working worse than single-planet...
I have to say, playing this game at first was trippy. I was used to the flat tactical map of Supreme Commander, so the scale and 3D feel to everything was quite disorienting.
Perhaps the best version of TA-like RTS atm is the passion project called Zero-K. You can find it for free on steam and imo in terms of gameplay it blows every RTS out of the water.
Biggest issue I have with PA is that it's wildly unbalanced. Mexes and other buildings die to just about anything like they're made of paper, there's no artie or bomber unit that is better at killing bases with high HP because all the buildings are like made of tin foil, even point defense. The Commander especially just dies from a handful of tanks in an instant.
err no that´s not unballanced that´s the general ballancephilosofy which is like in TA were buildings were also rather quickly destroyed .. and yes there ARE artillery and bombers made for antibuilding ..
I love the game as the ultimate "spectacle" RTS. No other game where you can crash a Moon into your opponent to blow them up. Only thing that bothers me besides lack of other factions is that multi-planet maps tend to start lagging unless your running on a NASA server. That, and try hards will always spam nukes.
depends on how large and how many spheres you add to the system ... and if lategame 5 or so players spammed their air and orbital with units clouding the surface .. "try hards will always spam nukes." tryhards or noobs if you play multiplanet nukes will be always a thing .. that or omegaspam
We're working on a great Supcom-ish game - well more of a new iteration/evolution of Spring RTS / Balanced Annihilation... It's not finished, hell it's even hard to play-test it through Git and symbolical links... but! Check out the website (in progress) on www.beyondallreason.info/
well the uncertanty is still in it because there are tactics like planet-smaching and mass air,gound,orbit marine then there are difrent ground factories and there are driffrent Building Speed and Energy drain fromm diffrent builders
I stumbled upon this game in 2014/2015, while I won't gone that far to claims that I love this game, but it's quite enjoyable and I even got my buddy to buy it and play together from time to time. I definitely LOVE the soundtracks though, and Prepare for War along with Tides of Steel are my morning alarm ever since. I too was concerned about the lack of factions, and had came up with some concepts of four factions based on what information about the supposed factions the "campaign" can offer. If only I know how to make proper mod.
I just want to say that, despite its flaws, the community of this game is awesome. Not only are they super friendly, but they managed to improve the game trough mods. Besides new maps and Legion, you have new units added in the form of the Second Wave mod, as well as TWO(!) new factions in the work by modders, as well as a effort by the devs to add things like shields and stealth in the future. It might not be as good as Ta or Supcom ever were, but it’s damm good tbh.
"TWO(!) new factions in the work by modders" might you explain what this project is named so i can go check it out?
@@aricreech498 one is named Legion, and the other I forgot the name, but you can find more about it on the discord server
@@aricreech498 actually, a correction: there were two factions in the works: one named Union and one named Assimilators. The Union mod has stopped development for now, but the Assimilators mod is still going strong
The modders took over the game and unjustly banned a bunch of people for talking about them shadow removing posts and stuff.
God knows somebody has to make updates to the game cause the actual devs obviously won't
SC-FA never died, it became legendary with mods ;)
Very true!
if they were to add both blackops and nomad to ranked games i would go and steamlink my account ... but as it is now along with some ballancemembers appearantly having a stick up their cheeks ... ... naaahhh ....
gyle!
@@MrTBSC Or... they just want FAF to actually play like FA
this game also has the most lovely kind supportive player base of almost any competitive multiplayer game ive ever played
I've heard that from a few people actually - it's good to hear!
Check out Zero-K , also really nice.
Kyran Findlater
Zero-K is basically a F2P Total Annihilation right now, but the devs are great and super responsive to community feedback like PA.
Overall, PA and ZK are probably the best RTS games out there right now
Honestly, I've always felt like that's because the various fiascos pushed everyone who wasn't patient and forgiving away.
to be fair, FAF for Supreme Commander is also kind.. I suck at the game but they were helpful, accepting, etc.
I'm really bad at this game, but one of the main reasons I keep going back to it, is that it has one of the friendliest and most welcoming communities I've ever seen in a game of this catagory
Awesome to hear - a great community can really make an experience
I've played PA for quite a while now, with something like 1500 hours in multiplayer, ranked in the top 10, etc.
I just wanted to thank you for making such an objective and and fair review! I love the game to death, but watching this was really eye-opening for why people might not stick with it. PA is very macro oriented, as you noted, but is also fast-paced at the same time, so it can definitely become a blur of information if it's not something that you've gotten a sense for.
Really nice to see an outside perspective after being in the PA bubble for years.
Impressive!
Thanks for the kind words - I always do my best to stay unbiased in a review, so that's great to hear!
All systems used for ranked only use one planet right?
Benjamin Whelan there are some multiplanet systems, but generally top-tier play doesn’t use much orbital.
@@nimzodragonlord You should update these statements bra, 2 orbital oriented maps in ranked still :P
This is definitely a problem I've had trying to get into TA clones, successors, and a lot of modern RTS's in general. Armies which take minutes to make evaporate in literal seconds if you take your eyes off them. The prolonged combat times of older games like TA is something I feel is terribly overlooked in newer game design.
I'll have to argue about the lack of micro, if you actually micro your units youll realise how much diference there is bettween unist, like microing bots around artillery or keeping formations keeping certain units outranging others. But yes if your playing over like 6 planets you can lose the want to micro a bunch
PA is not about APM, you need to play online to enjoy the variety of its gameplay and tactics. That's not at all like a SupCom though, on the ground it's all about your units placement and intelligence gathering, then on orbital stage you can go pretty much as you want thanks to the game insane variety of options. You can teleport kamikazes nuke bots on the ennemi planet, break an antiorbital blocus by shooting your units on their AO guns, take over a planet with nanobots.. The IA are pretty good but not at creating innovative tactics, if you want to see the weirdest moves you need to play online.
Don't buy PA if you only turtle in Supcom though, PA is all about agressivity.
It is about being aggressive - 100%. Which I guess ties into APM inherently while not having it necessarily be the most important thing. I AM more of a turtler in RTSs though - so it probably stood out more to me!
@@Zade_95
"Which I guess ties into APM inherently"
no ... what ties into apm is the use of active abilities and lack of QoL functions to control your army .. in PA even high level ranked players use less than 100 apm .. you can have about 50 to 70 apm and do more than well enough with it compared to something like starcraft or starcraft 2 were you may require about 200 as minimum .. then again even in starcraft if you are good enough in macro that ammount of apm is only ever realy required for the top of the top .. you may see apm use of 400 on some players but here is the thing .. that is not "effective" apm ..
"It is about being aggressive - 100%"
not true .. every TA like is about territorycontrol more than other rts games
being aggresive in that case comes rather from expanding your production than constantly attacking your opponent (though it is in your interest to weaken your opponents production like in EVERY rts game) ... however you would want to consolidate your territory either by having units on there, defensive structures or a forward base .. but other than that the same rules of play aply to planetary annihilation as they do to supreme commander and total annihilation ... the only thing different with supcom is the use of shields on your base realy, that allow a bit more passive play .. heck the fact that your commander benefits from fighting through expierencegain is a reason to not be passive in that game either ..
the reason you think PA is bout full on aggression is rather cause it´s faster paced compared to other TA-likes ..
@@MrTBSC You can also add the expandable units and the lack of strong defense options that force you into constant resource control. In supcom you can live of a few resources point and optimize your production for the lack of ressources ( up to a certain point ofc ).
@@wawa5379 t2 laser turrets and pelter artillery are good defensive options in PA .. AAturrets shred air especialy flak .. personaly i consider t1 pd and baseshields a bit too strong in supcom ..
though in PA it´s a bit clunky to surround your PD with walls ..
also full on turtling is generaly not a good idea in any game realy .. doesn´t mean you can´t be a bit passive in PA ..
i would be carefull with the "expandable" units .. if you aren´t careful you can lose a army in a blink .. this game is vicious in combat ..
You can't really Turtle in Supcom unless you're fighting AIs. Supcom is all about being aggressive, too.
This channel is underrated. Good job man
Thank you mate!
It is worth playing. trying to manage your planetary battle then realizing there is a moon heading your way and scrambling to evacuate in the next minute before it collides with your planet is kind of... unique.
I actually love the artstyle of this game. Always have. It is indeed a shame there are no factions however.
10:45 aren't all RTS about doing everything at all times?
Fair enough! More factions would be sweet :P
Take a look at Zero-K. Its a hidden gem, when you see two good players go head to head it can be absolutely nuts. Rock solid engine and mechanics, really great controls and customization. Its THE perfect rts imo.
Planned! :)
it lacks of spheric maps
Wow, thanks for this comment/recommendation. Looks awesome, never heard of it.
I find it amazing how many TA/SC fans haven’t tried the Spring RTS variants like Zero-K. The setup can be complex for regular Spring games, but the Zero-K developer really took a lot of the technical guesswork out of it
A real gem with a good player base
As someone who at one point was in the top 20% of Planetary Annihilation players, I'm going to give my two cents.
Every video game genre has its tropes. For platformers it would be things like always moving from left to right, and so on. Planetary Annihilation is what you get when you take the book of RTS tropes and throw it out entirely. Unit caps, research trees, multiple factions, square maps, and so on are completely thrown out and the result is an experience that's very different which will end up being enjoyed by different people. Just as Zade misses factions and research trees when playing PA, I find myself missing the massive scale and relative simplicity of PA when playing other RTS games. The experience is so different that putting it in the same genre as something like StarCraft II almost doesn't make sense. That is why Planetary Annihilation has bread such a dedicated playerbase, we really can't find the same sort of experience anywhere else.
Any chance of a Review of "Grey Goo?"
You'd like it as it has elements you mentioned in this review...
3 Distinct Factions that play differently to one another,
Pick from 3 upgrades to alter each of your units,
A Powerful endgame unit for each faction,
And my personal favorite; the Soundtrack that has music that feels like a homage to that of the Command & Conquer series, and really gives the game character.
Good video Zade, stick with it and you'll flourish.
I agree with the Kolonel, Grey Goo has some of the old Westwood Studios people behind it-who are also behind the planned remastering of the original C&C & RA.
I got it recently and managed to play an hour or two before duty called. I'm looking forward to getting back to it. It should be right up your alley.
@@legionreaver If enjoyed the Command and Conquer games, you'll enjoy Grey Goo. My advice would be to watch the "Grey Goo Faction" trailers as that's what got my attention.
There's four distinct factions.
Thank you! I'll see what I can do :)
Sounds like the people have decided - I'll see what I can to fit it in at some point!
I have to disagree about the soundtrack with you, yeah tides of Steel isnt anything incredible but thats because it's the marching theme, mechanisms of war and destiny into darkness are some of the best tracks I've heard in a video game
That's fair - soundtracks are very subjective!
true
When I first heard about this I remember loving the idea of the scale, when I actually got to playing it though, I don't know, I understand why you can't use entire planets for the battleground, but the planets really are just so very very small.
The planets are VERY small, but having them too large would be worse imo :P
"you can't use entire planets for the battleground"
.... but you litterally do .. i mean you can use them as planetbuster even ..
if you mean by that to use larger planetoids ... you technically can (via mod iirc) .. but good luck with the hardware for it ..
The planets can be very big but people start creting 2000 units and your pc start to burn big planets are a bad idea
I disagree on some points. Micro management is definitely there.
Edit: in fact the guy who micro manages beats the spammer.
I dont think thats right
Eeeh not so sure about that.
Few things survive enough omegas, or enough ants, or enough slammers etc.
actually he is right. but of course if you have more units you have a better chance of winning
If you dont mocro the enemy can nuke your entire army doesnt mater if you have 50 or 300 ants
@@h1tsc4n40 I saw your profile picture and was really confused.
I mean, I didn't comment that
Titans could have been a DLC but it did always seem as though they pushed it as a new title to get a clean slate for the steam reviews.
Any plans to look at the warrior kings games?
I did get that feeling :P I haven't heard of them before, I'll look them up!
I love Warrior Kings.... Wish they could be refined just a bit but the originals are great fun.
I just couldn't get into it, something feels far more substantial with Supreme Commander. Combat escalates more gradually, and the steps to T2 and T3 feel dangerous and significant. Also the commander in supcom is tough enough to lead the charge in the early game, and you're hurting yourself not to. In PA the commander is so fragile it's just a liability.
Could I suggest a video on Zero-K? It's based on Total Annihilation and brings some really great features to the table of RTS gaming. It's just not visually or audibly stunning because it's all done by volunteers. I recommend the campaign because it gradually introduces you to the units.
That's a good way to put. SC does feel like it has a lot more meat.
I've had a lot of people asking about Zero-K - I'll definitely be checking it out at some point!
Oh yeah Zero-K
concerning supreme commander vs PA, I'd prefer being on a planet, not having to rotate a "planet" ratchet and clank style (one or two levels, Giant Clank walks around the globe like a moon, not flat land) and second, mini map; I tried PA, but it was just too confusing. Haven't tried Titans yet. SupCom 2 was way different than the vanilla game, as you have to upgrade stuff to get the cool stuff, one lab to do everything, spit out "fatboys" without T3 or experiment status bots, but also at half the life expectancy (and not all the fancy firepower that fatboys spit out, like a land battleship) basically TA and supcom are good, supcom 2, meh, PA, not so much, since you have to rotate the map/moon/planet so as to locate your factories, units built, etc. but that's just me
@@ebee-uz1oz personaly i take PA being PA than just another TA-clone ..
sure PA IS lacking in areas but imho even without actual interspacecombat it´s like the furthest RTS could get featuring space- and groundcombat at the same time ..
if it were just multiple flat rectangular maps with a orbital layer then it wouldn´t deserve its title, imho ..
"supcom 2, you have to upgrade stuff"
you have to upgrade and unlock by research .. however even in supcom FA upgrading is a huge part of the game ..
you have to upgrade your factories to unlock a row of units that imo aren´t that different from their lowtierunits bar a very few exceptions ..
you have to upgrade your massextractors gradualy to keep up with the tech and productionprogression .. and you have to even upgrade your commander for more efficiency be that in production, combat or utility ..
PA has no upgrades whatsoever but a techprogression like its spritual predeccessor TA .. with building engineers that build advanced factories that build advanced engineertypes .. pretty straight forward ..
(though you could argue building a advanced mexx atop of a basic one is this game´s way to upgrade, but it´s still only with metalextractors)
also if you have issues navigating a sphere you may use polelock and cameraanchors ..
Couldn't have said it better myself. While I've sunk probably 2,000 hours into Supreme Commander I found myself unable to get through more than a few games of Planetary Annihilation. It felt shallow and hollow in comparison.
I always found the music a highlight. Especially with how dramatic it can get around the super cataclysmic weapons.
Thanks, This video really captures the 'meh, it's ok,' of PA:Titans. I remember how excited I was seeing its kickstarter videos. I prefer and enjoy TA the most of the series but hardly play it and many other classic RTS I used to love because SC just broke the world for me with strategic zoom. The part about TA I love is the planet types and the odd units. Why did I Love the CORE Sumo Swarm or ARM Maverick + Fido patrols? It was so much fun.
Thanks for watching!
in galactic mode there is progression of your commander unit, after claiming/conquering worlds you can choose upgrades (like faster build speed, more hp, commander movement speed but also like new factories fe for bots or air units, enchancing your unit fe tanks etc) and more importantly there are pre-sets of skills of your commander at the start of your game, you can pick things like "bot general" or picking an upgrade to make your commander standalone op unit, it can be even so hillariously fast that it can skip map collisions, and walk at mountains/lava and whatnot saying that game completely lack progression or tech advancment is slighlty hurting, tho i won't argue that those are lacking from "normal" skirmishes and pushed out onto galactic conquer, but as i seen modding community is really big so maybe mods can fix it during the standard gameplay
Galactic conquest can be fun but in my experience it's rather easy...I set it to difficulty levels that get me consistently wrecked in the normal mode and the AI still just sort of durdles. Overdoing upgrades to your commander is hilarious though.
Yeah I know, I just didn't find it really engaging at all. I mean combined with something like Star Wars Empire at War's Empire at War mode it's completely boneless imo. Wasn't worth the set up, would rather just play standalone skirmishes. I get why some would like it though!
I can feel you, myself i found galactic conquest just dull and not very ballanced/designed overall with how op stuff you can do there, also one of the issue is how relatively short battles are at GC compared to pretty long loading times of the game, in huge scale skirmishes you wouldn't mind those but in quick, pretty fast paced conquest it feels more like a downside. Even tho i tought it was worth mentioning that simple progression is present in one of game modes, therefore i also mentioned mods (honestly i didn't check if there were tech ones but i am pretty sure there were).
Anyway great video, cheers
My pleasure :)
Titans is honestly incredible fun. Suprised people didnt like it
Titans also really just isnt about APM especially in multiplayer. Its about intel, predicting what the enemy will do, and managing the resources to win.
Its about questions in multiplayer.
"Do I build nukes or focus on antinuke"
"do i leave the planet or stay my ground"
"the enemy just left the planet, do I chase them and risk resources on them, or do i focus on clearing my own planet"
the game also gives great ways to recover and comeback. Its really about stratagy and not APM
(also mods bring factions, i personally dont care for them but they are there"
Those graphics are nice
They are!
ADR I disagree, it just seems like everything poofs out of existence with the same generic explosions
Because is made of the same materials so it makes senses
As a man playing this game in 2020, I find the way to make the game more dynamic and interesting is playing with friends on custom made maps, as well as agreeing on rules for what we can and can't do/build.
True, limiting units add a Great deal of variation! Love this game!
My 2 main issues where lack of unit diversity from there being no factions and also the fact that every hunk of rock plays basically the same terrain is a non factor
Agreed - the water is the only thing that really effects gameplay
@@Zade_95 There's a lot of player-made map packs out there that add a lot more terrain. The random planet maker is pretty terrible, but I've seen stuff like ring platforms surrounding a planet to elaborate facilities with wrecks everywhere.
The developers really should just take the Legion mod, and make it official with some extra polish. Since an extra faction does help a lot.
but how is that any different to any rts ever?
in most games you have either water or lava blocking you if naval is not a thing in them .. and in most rts games you don´t have any terrain affecting your units bar a few ... lava and water planets however do exist in PA ...
@@Sifer2 oooof what was it ... i don´t exactly remember the wording but due to copyright and other legal reasons they can´t just copy the mod into the maingame .. otherwise if that weren´t the case i´m pretty sure the modcreators themselfes would have been more than happy if it were part of the maingame and it could have been so long ago ..
Despite it's issues. I always enjoyed building up an army, then sending in a vanguard at an enemy planet, establish a small foothold, then build a gate so i can teleport all of my forces through and steamroll the enemy base.
Planetary Annihilation has one thing I love the most: Co-op control over a single army. Great feature, it lets group play become very interesting as each team can have members focus on different aspects of economy or unit development.
This is an amazing idea
It should Be in something like command and conquer
13:45 If you like uncertainty I have a game for you... it is called Planetary Annihilation, FFA sausage fest. It is FFA with 32 players on an entire solar system.
The very reason you claim this game is not for you is the very thing in this game that you might have missed.
If you like NOT being efficient, pulling off casula, funky strategies with unusual units... You just missed the very thing you were looking for.
Try again. Play A nice FFA with ~10 people on a solar system. Make temporary alliances with your enemy when one of those players, left alone on his planet, is on the verge of becoming a demi-god. Send cheezy armies of boom bots to snipe the enemy commander. Suicide with your moon on the last planet where everyone is, so that you don't let anyone be a winner more than you are a looser with everyone else. Build phase gates or send your units torugh the sky to colonise a gas giant... and play exclusively in space while your commander abandon the ground to live in a space fortress...
Mechanically speaking, compared to most strategy games I've played, you have more options and more variety. A faction is a skin. An unlock or research tab only exists to slow down the game.
Maybe you cam too late for the game to be casual, who know. I had a great time fucking around and doing retarded things in FFA. Had a blast I could not have had otherwise.
Remembers me that time where I had to abandon my doomed planet seconds before it exploded... to be restarting from zero on an almost empty planet while the other factions were great, powerful and fighting each other on their corner of the solar system... only for me tot ake over my planet, build an army of advanced fabricators and at the lest moment, make a last minut, quickly built death start... That was dumb, that was cheezy, that was great. Confusion, lack luster information and on the fly adaptation to the new situation is what made the game for me.
I see your point - but to be 100% honest a 32 FFA sounds like hell to me :P I've talked about this a lot in other videos, but I'm really not a fan of PvP in RTSs. Becomes an APM-fest which is a) not something I'm good at and b) not something I find fun.
I much prefer to PvE with friends. It's just personal preference, I get everyone likes different things!
But I do agree - a 32 Player FFA game on PA would certainly have some uncertainty!
@@Zade_95 APM doesn't help in a 32 players FFA. your starting point does. Micro and other nonsense doesn't help when you really have to turn the tides. Crazy strategies become viable. Migration and blowing up your spawn planet suddently become very appealing. Using your troops to lure one's army into another so that they fight each other and let you alone... crazy plans like those... :)
Also, it's not theorical, within the time I played PA, there were a lot of games like those. Many planets, many people...
I talk about this because from what you say in yout video, I really feel like you never experianced this part of it. The result being, you miss on what I believe to be a big chunk of the PA experiance. The very reason I started palying this game was because of a reviewer like you made a review about the game, and even if his review was quite negative, he talked about this aspect of the game which is the reason why I bought it in the first place.
I'm not here to say PA is the best strategy game I've ever played, but it is the only one, with its planet mechanic to offer me such a game, where each planet is its own microcosm. The closes I got from that was on maps with water, in games where transporting troops over seas is fucked. In PA, the gap is wide enough to separate those environements, but the deployment process is effective enough so that you can still invade them without the bloac path finding nonsense... and it's not 2 player made environements, it's really "for each planet it's environement", with 2 players fighting each other with storng naval units while on an other planet a 12 people FFA with spam ground units.
+Zade
So the art style is designed to be cartoony probably so that the game will actually run; and it in my opinion and because of the theme that they are going for just makes it more fun to be honest.
While different factions are kind of neat the main thing is what functionality; what types; and to a certain extent how many units a RTS game has; and it may be a bit lacking in both a certain level of functionality and to a lesser but noticeable extent variety (the fact that there does not appear to be a SAM site is a bit of an oddity) though remember the developer is supporting mods.
Nothing really stands out in the sound design? Are you kidding me.!? So not the explosions? Not the music? Not the effects? Not all the different little sounds the robots make? This is where you really lost me because in all honesty for lack of better words...common...if only because they are all of such quality and there is so much there that if it does not stand out to you; then I need to ask; are you sure that you are playing the right game?:)
Lastly, honestly the game mechanics and gameplay are and is so cool as well as it having a map editor that if you are board by it then I have got to ask: is there a game your playing that lets you have land, sea, air, and space battles in an entire universe or something? WTF?;)
Having become a more recent fan of the TA likes, I have subsequently bought and played almost every one of the these great games.
Here's the TLDR version:
PA is the most accessible of the bunch so far.
Full version:
As of 2020, it now has a great tutorial to get you up and running quickly. The Galactic War is a basic campaign that starts you with one of many limited loadouts of Tech (Something someone forgot to mention)* and as you progress through the campaign you complete and enhance your loadout of available units with more starting loadouts to unlock when you defeat an enemy faction.
*Unless this was added in after this review
The only issues I have is with the base game's AI, it can be known to 'cheat' and when playing against multiple AIs on a team, they all cluster together in the same base rather than branching out. Also, this game leans harder into the macro side of RTS gameplay and always favours aggressive and proactive expansion of your bases. Turtling and micromanaging units just does not work here. You CAN make a base that is well defended but it's never going to be impenetrable forever thanks to the larger variety of super weapons and Titans available. Plus you are going to need more resources for the Upkeep and you cannot do that on one square mile of planet and the metal points within it.
HOWEVER, there are now lots of mods available to improve these issues if you so choose, plus mod packs to improve the visuals to add some personality to the units (Look up the More Pew Pew mod to see what I mean).
This game is constantly improving with time and I believe it's worth a look if you are a fan of the previous TA like games.
Love your stuff. Can't wait for the next one . Great work
Cheers! Appreciate it :)
What about Ashes of the singularity?
it felt "soulless" to me, back when it came out , no idea how it is now
Me too - from what little I played of it. I think it's more of a 'benchmarking' game now to test CPUs :P
But perhaps I'll check it out again one day :)
ashes needs bots/infantry and tanks for its groundplay .. being all about hovercrafts that don´t even have any advantage over water or lava made it so incredibly monotone .. the researchtree simply is boring they may as well better not have implemented it ... also didn´t like the idea of having one immobile commandcenter that needs to be destroyed ..
however i do like the way ashes implemented gaining territorycontrol and how you have to keep it ...
Ashes was a weird game, took me forever to figure out who did what, even the expansion, eventually I stormed through the game, and beat it. isn't Ancient Space supposed to be like command and conquer types,....only building in space?
@@ebee-uz1oz
so more like conquest: frontier wars? ... eh .. whatever it is the fact that it doesn´t have even LAN multiplayer is a turn off ..
@@MrTBSC is conquest frontier wars fun? i think i played it for five seconds months ago. well, it is an older game.
I originally backed the game, and bought it because I thought it looked super cool. When I got to play it however, I realised I had the exact issues that you mention.
I haven't followed it for a long time now so it is sad to see not much have changed.
As someone who really enjoy's RTSs, but have not played them in years, this is exactly what I wanted to know. I played PA when it first released and while it was enjoyable in the short run, after the new lust wore off I found my self going back to SC. I was wondering how it had improved in the years since. Thanks a ton!
M pleasure, glad I could help and thanks for watching;
ummm the guy who you put steve thompson´s name over is bob berry the (iirc) ceo of uber and envelope .. you can see steve thompson at 4:19
also correction:
kickstarterbackers did NOT need to buy the titans upgrade, they got it for free ...
players who bout in the alpha or beta phase of the game on steam and on release would have to ..
Ah, yep, you're totally right. That's my bad!
My apologies on not being clear about people getting it for free if they were Kickstarter backers, I should've added a sentence in there
Fair review, but I can't help but feeling it's a call made way too early.
The diversity (and genius) in this game runs so much deeper than different looking units. It's all about learning your units, setting up your army composition and managing simultaneous macro-strategy with micro-managing your troops. With all do respect, the gameplay shows someone playing this game without something even resembling a clue about what they are doing and at that point i suppose there is not much to go on except what you've adressed in this review. However, the fact that the maps are spherical combined with the numerous strategies one might choose and the even more possible counters to said strategies, this is an RTS still unchallenged in terms of inventivness.
Also, one of the greatest things about this game is the awesome community around it. I wish you would play it a bit more, hang around the PA Academy discords and get some pointers from the very skilled and friendly people there, because based on this you missed one hell of a game :)
Is that a specific Discord? My limited google skills are turning up a blank. I think the scope and range of strategies make this a wonderful game, but I'm a HIGHLY inexperienced RTS multiplayer gamer.
@@ChromeDrakeGaming discord.gg/NbyXqq
@@jnsl1982 Very much appreciated. Cheers!
I get what you're saying - and thank you for writing this out!
But for me, as someone who plays a lot of games and has a finite amount of time to spend with each one, I don't have the time to play for hours and hours to hope that once I've learned some more strategies and such I'll actually enjoy it.
If I'm not hooked on the core gameplay within 10 or 20 hours, then it's not a game for me - and a developer shouldn't expect players to push through something they're not a fan of because 'it get's better once you get good'. Hell, most people wouldn't probably only give a game they're not hooked on an hour, or two, before uninstalling or refunding it :P
What I'm saying is that the people who are going to go that extra mile, learn from better players, and put more work into getting good, are the ones who are going to be hooked in those first few hours. And in this case that's not me!
But I hope based on this review, people can decide for themselves if they're going to be into it or not based on my experience - because in the end, that's what I'm trying to achieve! :)
@@Zade_95 I hear you. There are some many games trying to catch players attention these days which leads to patience getting shorter. I just felt compelled to show another side of the coin since PA:Titans definetly deserves a bigger playerbase. :)
Thanks for good channel, keep it up!
While a fun game, it's no Supcom. If it was Supcom, but with orbital mechanics, then it might have been the next 'perfect' RTS.
'It's no Supcom'
Sums up the review right there
in that case you wanna play the orbital wars mod for FA ... don't know if it's up to date with the newest fafversion though ...
problem is ... it's no PA ...
Uber Entertainment has since become Star Theory, which is the studio behind Kerbal Space Program 2. I feel that there is something going on here lol.
well the devs seem to be very intrested in making games that are about spacetravel, living in space and building space colonies ..
Yeah when I realized that I was like
👀
If you ask me, the problem with PA isn't the lack of diversity. In fact, if it weren't for its other problems, it would be my favorite RTS by far because of how simple and to-the-point most of the mechanics are. The problem is that it's an RTS on a scale never seen before by another game ever, but it's built like an RTS to be played on a Supreme Commander map. If you want to make a game that plays across an entire solar system, you need to build a game around that concept; not just remake another game and upscale the map size. There are only very basic tools that aid you in managing the scale (such as drag-selecting over the horizon to cover the whole planet, or the picture-in-picture cam) that feel like they've been adapted into an already established formula, instead of creating the entirely new systems required for such a grand play area.
I see what you mean, like I said in the video I found the multiple planets to be overwhelming, despite the PiP cam and a couple of other management tools. It would be a hard thing to do, but I wonder if I'd found it more manageable if there were better tools implemented!
Fighting simultaneous battles on multiple spherical maps with swarm tactics, map destruction and super weapons.
Sounds great but it’s a near nightmare to control well.
Not to mention that before the stand alone patched version breaking a planet with anything but an orbital collision/nukes was near impossible, the defenders advantage was such that your troops would die as they arrived. On a fully occupied orbital body.
Yeah managing it all gets really janky and overwhelming really fast. Works best on one or two planets imo
Thats why you can make your own small maps with low incomes and have fun with the game and you can control everything. I agree that the default scale of this game is too overwhelming. I usually make my own maps and make FFA lobbies with small packed games.
Bringing up PA:TITANS in the modern day and not bringing up the Legion mod? Dude, while rating a game with mods tacked on may seem bad, Legion is enormous as a mod-it adds an entire faction, with its own style, and as such it is insanely popular-practically a part of the game now!
I talk about Legion around 12:30 :)
@@Zade_95 Damn, I musta missed that! I was looking through the list, and trying to see if it was brought up after you mentioned how the single faction felt limiting for you.
This is my first video of you, but the way how you play RTS games is commendable. I really dislike the focus on hyper active esports most RTS games have nowadays and that they lack flavor.
Thanks brah, I play how I enjoy to play and won't apologize for it 😅
A lack of different factions is such a dealbreaker for a modern RTS. Whether it's a game with wildly different ones like Starcraft or one with smaller differences like Age of Empires, nobody likes mirror matchups.
all a matter of budget though ... basicaly with your stance you are dooming any small developer trying even their slightest on a rts ...
having 3 to 4 factions with differing units and unique playstyles requires a huge ammount of ballance and lots of assets when you consider games like starcraft ... and people also want their campaign .. preferably with all factions which also means extraefford again .. i mean you are comparing a game that had a cost of about 9 million (and only made 2.3 million from kickstarter) made by a rather small devteam vs one who´s budget easily rivals that of summerblockbuster movies made by a huge company ...
the new upcoming AoE 4 will very likely also have a higher devcost than PA had ...
Yeah it caught me off guard big time. Feels odd not having them!
You can say what ever you want about this game , but for sure its more epic then Supreme Commander and Total Annihilations , because of the planetary systems.I think Planetary Annihilation is actually , what Supreme Commander 2 should be.I wish they make PA2 some day , with next gen graphics , better looking units and more factions
Ps.The soundtrack of Planetary Annihilations is one of the best soundtrack I have ever heard
They should add unique units, super weapons and buildings to specific commanders to make it more lively
well there is a factionmod that ads the legion to the game ... the problem with your suggestion is this would require even a higher effort of ballancing with what little resources PA inc. has available to them ...
APMs don't always win, it's what you do with your APMs. And there are so many different units that give you different paths to victory, I don't see the lack of unit upgrades as a problem, as there are so many different units. And the mods, don't get me started on the mods.
Another reason for keeping the same units for everyone is it makes it easier to balance than say juggling between 4 distinct races like there is in Warcraft 3.
I agree with you there!
primarily it was budget reasons .. yet even with a second faction ballancing that large a unitpool would not be easy .
intrestingly enough though they added one more unit to live, which is the striker .. basicaly a vehiclevarriant of the dox assaultbot and in the PTE they added what i think is a fighterbomber called the horsefly ... and it looks like a A-10 warthog .. because ...
The one big feature missing from Planetary Annihilation is a proper story mode.
The game desperately needs factions, although to be fair Total Annihilation didn't really have factions as the difference between Core and Arm Core was just the look. I think they could have done something special with planetbuster weapons.
-Faction A can build a Death Star as it is the big imposing faction with large units.
-Faction B is more of a fast unit faction that builds a planet busting missile silo.
-Faction C is a fanatical suicidal faction with cheap units and their planetbuster is a doomsday device so in essence they build a base on an enemy held planet and turtle up with the sole purpose of destroying it (and their own base as well).
Yeah I agree - same with TA. The reason I don't really reference TA much is that I hardly played it. I only first touched it for the Supreme Commander video actually - so that's why that game is my main reference point.
Yeah, do that, add like 6 more Titans for each faction, and we're getting somewhere!
you guys are focusing on the big stuff too much, factions more than anything need differentiation in their bread and butterunits, not just the endgameoptions .. and imho supcom itself while having factions does not a good job of differentiating them ... wanna have a good example of a game (that's not starcraft) that differentiates its factions? command and conquer: tiberiumwars
the deathstarweapon/catalystring is tied to the metal planet
planetbusting nukes are asteroids with halleythusters attached to them
and for planting planetbusting bombs you have the ragnararok that drops a nuke into a planetcore ...
but honestly considering the varying difficulty of each and what you have to sacrefice to get them work i don't see why these should be split between factions ..
i'm also rather against planetbusters that are not tied to a planet in some way ...
as in how do you want to stop the faction that builds a planetbusting missilesilo on their homeplanet when it is locked down ? or if the faction with the deathlaser was also able to build it on any planet they want?
but the suicidefaction has to go to the enemy planet in order to bust it? kinda bit unfair ...
the idea of halleyable planets or the deathlaser metalplanet are assets that act as goalpoints to rush torwards or compete over .. and believe me one thing .. if your opponent isn't utterly stupit you only get to bust a planet with a ragnarok when you already have a clear advantage ... otherwise it's pretty difficult to get one up to even get to the point were you have to hold it for a minute ...
Everyone's talking about AAA rts games, but can you spare some love for Zero-K? More closely related to TA than supcom or PA, but boasting about 100 units that stay relevant from minute 1 to minute 30, and a lack of enphisis on the starting Commander.
How have I never heard of this game. I would have jumped on this years ago
I've had a few ask about it - I'll check it out sometime soon for sure!
"Zero-K? More closely related to TA than supcom or PA"
..... i´m sorry but what??? zero-k last i played it is even more limiting in building structures and units compared to the other 2 games ... imo it could not be any further from the TA-likes ...
may as well rather take a look on the mod of ballanced annihilation which is used on the spring engine like zero-k is ..
zero-k even uses spring TA models to my knowledge were the team of ballanced annihilation went and recreated all the models from TA ...
addendum: the guys who make ballanced annihilation now retitled it to BAR (for beyond all reason appearantly .. okey)
by interest:
www.beyondallreason.info/
bare in mind it´s a work in progress ..
I understand that Zero-K is not DOTA, and why the Coms were nerfed... but I still miss being able to do crazy shit with my Com upgraded in a way that no other unit had the similar set of strengths... (for instance : fairly mobile and tough artillery doubling as a front-line constructor)
oh boy i was so hyped seeing the kickstarter trailer, i was in awe.
but then i played it and... yeah, no variety among units, no factions, only two tech levels... i knew it of course, i followed the updates. but only when playing did i realize how dull it was. playing FAF i like building my base in a certain way to get certain adjacency bonus, i like to build armies of loyalists (cybran t3 bot) and not bricks (heavy T3 "bot") because i think they look cool, are faster and humiliate aeon colossi, but here, nothing. generic tank or larger generic tank ? what a choice...
but what killed it for me was actually the terrain generation. for me a RTS requires you to be able to plan you defenses, and to think about how to defeat your opponent's defenses. again FAF does this perfectly because there is so many angles of attack that no one can hope to cover them all.
but because we're fighting on mini-planets defense in itself is impossible. defend one location ? that's okay, i'll go around it. defend an other one ? i'll go around it too, i mean you can literally do around the entire world in twenty seconds, the only way to be somewhat safe is to wall yourself in 360°. long story short the only way to play is to attack, attack and attack again. whoever outclic his opponent and harass him more wins
the add-on added some variety in units, but didn't fix the core problem, and in the end it just made we want to play FAF again 😅
which to this day remains the best RTS ever made.
Would love a Total Annihliation remaster!!
Me too!
I'm terrible at RTS games, but PA:T has been a great start for me. It just clicks really well for me.
Glad to hear it! Hope you keep having fun with it :)
You glossed a bit over the single player mode Galactic Conquest, which for me is a highlight feature. I really like how it restricts your tech, and can lead to some memorable games. It's not very difficult or complex but I have gotten consistent enjoyment out of it.
Being really weak at something and figuring out how to make it work is fun. I just wish they embraced this idea more fully and instead of one monoithic faction, gave us asymmetric factions with different strengths and weaknesses. I think I need to try the mod you mentioned, see how it feels.
Also it turns out spherical maps made for vastly different gameplay. Choke points rarely worked and digging in to defend a base/planetary beachhead was much more difficult. Also portals exist. Kind of a crazy game. So glad it exists.
Really cool game with strong tech underpinning it (smoother play experience than supcom's aging engine). So much potential. I hope to see another RTS carry the torch one day.
Personally I found the conquest mode super shallow, and not worth playing in my opinion. Maybe I didn't get far enough, but there's very limited progression and every planet was just another skirmish battle without any real variety, at least for me.
Much prefer the mode's implementation in Star Wars Empire at War - probably my favorite version of that style of gameplay!
@@Zade_95 shallow is a fair description. I enjoyed the occasions where you'd need to take a naval world without a navy, or a multi planet system without orbital or air units (only the transport to move workers). But these highlights were rare, as the levels are mostly randomly generated these interesting circumstances would only rarely happen unless I chose to ar least partly force it myself (for example by refusing air tech, or choosing a starting loadout that does not include any tech2 or maybe no factories at all). It's fun when you have to get creative with the game, but the randomly generated levels can too often just be brute-forced in boring ways (few/no problems cant be solved with t1 bomber spam). I feel like weaknesses and restrictions can make Galactic Warfare more compelling, but the feature was underdeveloped, and maybe a lack of meaningful escalating counterplay in the game as a while meant there wasn't a need to use every tool unless you made reasons to use them.
I feel too many RTS games have pushed towards high competitive gamers, but like Zade, I like to build cool bases with some friends and launch stupid strategies. We still go back to playing SupCom every so often.
ok can you tell me 10 RTS(*) games that are frequently played in tournaments these days?
@@MrTBSC I don't think they're are 10, I didn't say it was a sucessful push.
This is exactly why AoE4 will never be as loved as AoE2.
IMO th map layout of PA is by far its greates contribution to the rts genre. if some game could take that idea and include a more traditional army system then it would be one of the best.
I like to think of the Legions' mods backstory as a canon prequel to the lore of the galactic war campain. MLA wins and shuts down for their task is completed until "the awekening" takes place wich without a common enemy to fight against shatters the MLA into the factions of Galactic war. Just thinking about wich machines the machine liberation army liberated when all they "want" in "life" is battle. Fight for the right to fight?
PA will always have a special place in my heart, it did a lot of innovative things right. Circular planets, orbital and interplanertary warfare over an entire system, pathfinding of large groups that works well and superweapons that feel great to use, among other things
But there's a but, a few but's in fact. As you raised the single faction is quite meh, the popcorn-y nature of the units in the early game mean a split second of inattention can lose you your army, which doesn't leave much room for greater strategic thinking and instead you end up exploiting the (in)attention of the enemy.
Presentationwise SupCom just felt "better" more polished, even if SupCom can be somewhat too ponderous at times (pathfinding in SupCom can be aresenine in the extreme and games can take a looooooooooooong time to pick up steam).
Yeah I agree mostly - PA did what it did well, while I found managing multiple planets overwhelming, that's more of a personal thing that mechanical, which was actually done pretty well.
I'm with ya, SupCom presentation does just feel better. More alive, more personality!
@@Zade_95 Shame they fucked up the "release" so badly, it lost them a lot of the community and a lot of goodwill.
One last advantage SupCom had, was that it had Steve Jablonsky's OST, and my fucking god, did that sell the theme and feel of that game.
PA's soundtrack is ok, but nowhere near as Capital A Awesome
@@elonwhatever steve jablonsky???? .... errr it rather was jeremy soule (spelling?) that did the music for supcom as well as total annihilation ...
so who is and what does steve jablonsky have to do with supcom's music?
I strongly dislike PA, primarily because the camera just isn't suited to spherical maps. I'd much rather have a looped projection than a true sphere. While I backed PA, I regret it. The scale was functionally far lower than SupCom, units were just too large relative to the maps
I feel ya, getting zoomed in made things tough!
As a very minor YT content creator I maybe shouldn't be so stoked as to having my message featured... but thanks... means a lot... :D
;)
No worries my man :)
You kind of missed the point of this game, which is the massive shared army battles. My clan used to play big 5v5 matches where each team was in control of a single massive army. You'd have one guy working on resource production, one buy leading the units in battle, one guy on production, one guy managing the base on the moon, etc. etc.
Sounds funny!
I have to agree the game's without alot of depth but I play a large number of RTS games, huge fan of the genre, and it's Total Annihilation style gameplay and overall spectacle are an excellent break from the vast ocean of samey RTS titles.
Bro wait, you just have 8100 subs? I thought you have way more than 100k because of this high quality content. Keep up the good work!
Thank you man, that means a lot!
Pretty late, but the guy you introduce as Steve Thompson is actually Bob Berry. Hard to believe the KS launch was 8 years ago.
Yeah my b my b!
everything you said is right. its really a game which works when you are in the right situation for it. i never played PA in a competitive mindset, my thing is just to get 4/5 friends, boot up a multi planet map, boost the economy to crazypants, and duke it out with gigantic armies that can cover entire planets. this is what i feel is the main apeal of the game, the casual gigantic clusterfuck that PA and ONLY PA can deliver on, throw legion for variety, and a bunch of crazy players, and you can get giant orbital fleets on one side, thosands of nukes on another, and an all consuming nanite swarm on another.
Sounds like fun! I agree, it is unique in how it does things, that's for sure!
i buy it when it came out thinking itd be like dawn of war dark crusade but it was sadly disappointing as there was no hero upgrade system that made the hero feel like my captain
The game would have been amazing if they had worked with the creator of Forged Battalion, a very underated RTS with an innovative faction creator.
... ummm no ... look at the ammount of units that one PAunitpool offers .. throwing in the ability to create multiple variants of any unit in any way would have been a nightmare to ballance and increase the learningcurve drastically .. not to mention it would have been quite intensive on the budget .. also .. how succesful was forged battalion itself? .. yea, neat concept ... but it had not much else to offer and the way to get more customisationoptions was ..... bad .. ...
Great video. I agree with it being overwhelming when you have multiple planets. I hate when i dont get to another planet fast enough and it gets completely locked down so quickly. Whenever i play i usually only have 1 massive planet. Otherwise its too much.
Thank you! Yeah I ran into that a couple of times, much preferred games on one planet
Just found your channel a week ago and I'm loving the content. Also can you do a video on the warcraft rts series? Would appreciate it!
Thank you man - I appreciate it!
100%, I'll be reviewing W3 reforged when it comes out, and I'll undoubtedly go back to the first two games in the series sometime as well
Ever tried Warzone 2100 from back in the day? It's abandonware now but the community keeps it up to date.
I have not actually!
I love this game so much. Friend and I did an FFA with 4 ais as well today. Both of us didn't expand enough. He got overrun, but I held on and bombarded the other ai on my planet (there were originally two, one died) with artillery when they moved closer, holding off space battleships with Catapult missile launchers, building more T2 bots and t1 everything, until they moved off-planet and SMASHED A MOON INTO ME. There was still another ai remaining too.
Get the Queller AI mod. This was bronze level ai- normally easy to defeat, but I made a bunch of errors and waited too long to kill them until they had a shitload of defense and offense. It goes Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Uber, and Uber is fairly hard to defeat. The default ai is not all that good in comparison, but can still bother you on higher difficulties. Massive ai battles are great. Massive multiplayer battles are great. Smashing planets into each other is great. 10/10 game, would blow up planets with a massive laser again. I mean, I'll do that tomorrow.
Glad to hear you're a fan of it - like I say at the end, I don't think it's a bad game, just not the game for me. Always happy to hear people are having fun! :)
Honestly, i love PA to bits. In fact, i would prefer it to pretty much any other RTS i've played, and that is because of two things: command automation and rock-paper-scissors dynamic between different forces available. Also, not in a single other strategy game was i able to construct fortifications out of wrecks of an enemy base under fire.
Glad to hear it! Like I said in the review, I don't think it's a bad game, just not be me. Pleased to hear when others are into it :)
And yet there are games that do these two aspects even better...
@@BlueTemplar15 I would very much like to see an example!
@@user-qb2de4gn3g What about Zero-K/Spring ? ;)
I agree with most of the negative criticism, the game lacks variation and character, controlling multiple planets is very overwhelming, BUT
the game is just so much fun
- microing your units actually does matter a lot once you know which type of micro make a notable difference on battle results
- everybody said this already but I'll say this again: the game has a very friendly community. love you guys
- doing "everything at once" feels way more satisfying here than in most other RTS, because of the nature of resource management and mainly metal in this game. this is the main appeal for me.
in most RTS you have one or two key choke points where all the battles happen at a time, and it might transition to new points over the course of a game.
in this game, you have countless engagement points even 5 minutes into a match. having to manage battles in so many different locations at the same time feels so incredibly satisfying once you can actually pull it off. I understand that this level of practice and training is too much for people who just want to play RTS casually at their own pace, but for people who are willing to be more tryhard about it, planetary annihilation is a treat, there's always so many things to do, and things that actually matter and impact the outcome of the match. this is the zero-downtime zero-flowchart game, you constantly have to adapt quickly and made decisions + execute them nonstop. it's great
if you just look at the graphics, then yeah all matches look same-y, but if you look at the mental processes players go through to decide which actions to do, each match is very much unique. this game is really not about the graphics and more about the player interaction in games. I do think it would attract more crowd if it had more variable and fluffy graphical stuff in it, various factions, etc, but it really wouldn't make the main game's appeal any better as it already excels in that regard - the "do everything everywhere all the time" aspect
When 90% of your investment went to the soundtracks lol
This was a really good video. I backed the game up and I never regretted it. It tries to invovate the RTS genre in a very fresh way.
However the critique in the video is right imo. So many planets are just too much to handle. Also the artstyle is too toy-ish for me. And a huge pet pieve is that the commander has so little hp. The water also feels like blue land, since you can build almost everything on it.
A version 2 of the game would be nice, I would definitely buy it haha.
What is your faf user name btw?
Thanks mate, appreciate it! I actually don't remember, it's likely Zade, or Zade_95
Hey if you ever feel inclined to revisit the game, you should check out the legion mod :) Adds a completely new faction. Wish theyd incorporate it into the main game
they can't due to legal issues
I thought it'd be a great fresh RTS sup com style but it had very few sup com style elements I loved.
But the lack of faction diversity killed it for me... no personality, no factions, no story, bland units, the fact that you mass produce them just don't make you care at all about them (you care about your expensive units in sup com).
Howard Mostrom is a great composer that does fine ost, the ost in SupCom 2 was fire and this one a bit less inspiring but still pretty good.
I think the game is designed for you to just grab a group of friends and just have some fun beating the crap out of each other
I was upset calling something an update being sold as a new game is like claiming your neighbor down the road inovated and replaced their house is your house being remade
something something starcraft 2
Yeah not the greatest move imo!
Very good review and I'm glad you took the time. The lack of diversity sounds key, and you explained it well. In TA, the diversity was stark and one of the things that made the game so playable and intriguing. It was great fun unlocking the secrets of each unit via gameplay and theory-crafting, and it kept on going as new units were slowly released. The superiority of Arm vs, Core was seriously debated even amongst top players, and I was one of them back in the day. It went back and forth, unit by unit, tactics blending into discussions of overall strategy. Great game, my favorite ever, incredibly replayable. I wish Supreme Commander had intrigued me as much, but I found it a complete dud in comparison. TA2 was just ... okay. There will probably never be another to match the preposterously overlooked original ... at least without a ton of love and money. By the time it comes out, I will probably be too old to play it without getting my arse kicked by any random kid spamming baloney on his phone at the same time. :D
Thank you, glad you felt I did it justice
I was an original kickstarter backer for Planetary Annihilation and I gotta say the initial release really was a huge disappointment... I'm less salty about it these days and sometimes I'll spin up a game or two on it and it looks like devs are still supporting it even up to this year but that sour taste from that extremely disappointing release and flunked promises has always left a sour feeling over the game.
I wasn't in on it personally but I didn't hear many good things about the launch, that's for sure!
Also note: Everyone who bought Planetary Annihilation in Early Access did not get Titans for free, they had to pay full payment even if they owned the original.
It was later that they gave a discount for Titans if you owned the original.
Riiiiiiiip
Hmm I do would like to hear your opinion of Starcraft Broodwar/Starcraft 2...
One day for sure. I've never played a Starcraft game before (i know, I know), so it'd take a bit of work!
@@Zade_95 :my_most_SHOCKED_face:
@@Zade_95 If i remember correctly, Starcraft 2 Wing of Liberty turned free to play with Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void left as DLC.
that is, story locked behind DLC...
I mostly just play galactic war because that has upgrade paths in the form of winning gets you a choice of 3 permanent upgrades. But also because when fighting bots, I can do all the neat base building before I go for the kill. I get what you mean though about the game, as it's especially true if you play ranked. playing ranked is nothing but an efficiency competition. So I stick to galactic war, or sometimes the occasional co-op/FFA vs bots with some friends
Yeah I feel ya!
You forgot about Zero-k! :) Now there is the true successor to TA. Not quite on the same level as FAF even though it has some real cool UI controls.
Hahahah I knoooooow. One day!! :P
"the true successor to TA"
it could not be further from a "true" successor ..
@@MrTBSC please do explain
@@EntropyWins no factions, no basic/advanced style factories (even if zk factories offer low and hightierunits in one factory, the number of hightierunits per factory are like .. one or 2 ?)..
the game with its economy on average limits you to 2 factorytypes and 2 factories in general .. you rarely get to control 3 factories well cause of how expensive it is to build one except the first that is free ...
in TA even with controlling rather few factories overall compared to other RTS you were to build any of them so long you had the aproppriate economy to run them and they offered unitsets that made the factory generaly usefull on the battlefield ..
ZK however went and specialised too much were for example even on waterheavy maps naval gets outshined by hover and amphibious factories to the point were the naval factory is not even desirable in teamgames ..
factorysets in ZK are less bout preference than rather what you have to use with the terrain of the map ..
in short TA offered you actual greater choice even if it was unballanced back in the day (samson rush f.e.) were as ZK heavily limits you in what you can build and effectively use ..
having unitsets per factory is not a bad idea but it should rather have been unitsets that make a factory generally usefull like have some form of amphibious or hoverunit for any factory, something capable of tanking, a cloak or stealthunit etc ...
but because of its factoryphilosophy i can´t look at this game as any kind of successor .. at best as a spin-off ..
PA may have no factions but it stays true in the factory philosophy of its spiritual predecessor .. translate PA to a rectangular map it IS a faster paced TA ..
@@MrTBSC Great explanation, thanks!
Even with Titans it seems like a stripped down version of Supreme Commander. It's a perfect example of "3.6, not great, not terrible". It lacks so much. This is stripped down to the bare essentials. Supreme Commander 1 and 2 are both still available for purchase and are cheap, and have so much more than this. This feels like a demo.
Awesome work, glad my feeling towards PA back in the day weren't alone. Can you do one on World in Conflict? God I miss that game.
Thank you! Boy, do I have a surprise for you:
ua-cam.com/video/VixISZ6ca2s/v-deo.html
@@Zade_95 oh my god thank you! A true gem!
I liked the original PA. I've never tried Titan.
I found it to be quite fun but I preferred the atmosphere of SC.
I'm not sure I entirely agree on the diversity of units within the available faction. While PA doesn't have quite the depth of sea/land/air units that SupCom does, it's not as simple as you make it sound - and it does have orbital and actual multi plannar battles and is not limited by SupCom's 4 Gb memory cap so you can play MUCH larger games. TA, SupCom and PA each have their strengths and I'd never just play one. TA still is the best in Art direction (even tho graphics are dated now) plus sound design, music and has metal maps (that you can build extractors anywhere). SupCom has 4 tiers of units and a greater array of depth in sea/land/air battles and the best UI of any game. It's just much more interested in making it easier to play than other games. And PA has no unit cap I know of and has a reasonable array of sea/land/air units plus orbital, movement between worlds and the ability to destroy worlds.
I respect PA much more than I like it. It really doesn't tickle that part of me that loves RTS games but it does some really cool things that no other rts does.
They set out to make an RTS with huge scale where you can smash planets into each other with no publisher, and that's exactly what they did. Turned out not how I would've preferred but in a world where every company is just shamelessly turning it copies of what's popular I respect that
Yeah, Orbital Warfare just sounds very cool on paper but translates poorly in a mouse+keyboard fast-paced RTS... (I have some hope that a PA spiritual successor might pull it off in VR though !)
P.S. : See also Swords of the Stars 2 vs 1 for an example of multi-planet warfare working worse than single-planet...
I have to say, playing this game at first was trippy. I was used to the flat tactical map of Supreme Commander, so the scale and 3D feel to everything was quite disorienting.
Man, so that wasnt just a bug but they really did remove the ability for planets to form huuuge craters instead of just exploding. That sucks.
Perhaps the best version of TA-like RTS atm is the passion project called Zero-K. You can find it for free on steam and imo in terms of gameplay it blows every RTS out of the water.
to me it rather blows with its philosofy ...
Biggest issue I have with PA is that it's wildly unbalanced. Mexes and other buildings die to just about anything like they're made of paper, there's no artie or bomber unit that is better at killing bases with high HP because all the buildings are like made of tin foil, even point defense. The Commander especially just dies from a handful of tanks in an instant.
I did find things died SUPER quick, like really quick. Deliberate choice I guess?
err no that´s not unballanced that´s the general ballancephilosofy which is like in TA were buildings were also rather quickly destroyed .. and yes there ARE artillery and bombers made for antibuilding ..
I love the game as the ultimate "spectacle" RTS. No other game where you can crash a Moon into your opponent to blow them up. Only thing that bothers me besides lack of other factions is that multi-planet maps tend to start lagging unless your running on a NASA server. That, and try hards will always spam nukes.
depends on how large and how many spheres you add to the system ...
and if lategame 5 or so players spammed their air and orbital with units clouding the surface ..
"try hards will always spam nukes."
tryhards or noobs if you play multiplanet nukes will be always a thing .. that or omegaspam
It does have a heck of a lot of spectacle - that's for sure!
There's a mod that gives you 2 factions now, there's the legion, then the uhh... idk, but it's basically an "order vs rebellion" kinda thing
We're working on a great Supcom-ish game - well more of a new iteration/evolution of Spring RTS / Balanced Annihilation... It's not finished, hell it's even hard to play-test it through Git and symbolical links... but! Check out the website (in progress) on www.beyondallreason.info/
That looks sweet man!
just call it a TA-like .. i mean it´s obviously TA .. with a attempt to expand and ballance it ...
well the uncertanty is still in it because there are tactics like planet-smaching and mass air,gound,orbit marine then there are difrent ground factories and there are driffrent Building Speed and Energy drain fromm diffrent builders
I stumbled upon this game in 2014/2015, while I won't gone that far to claims that I love this game, but it's quite enjoyable and I even got my buddy to buy it and play together from time to time.
I definitely LOVE the soundtracks though, and Prepare for War along with Tides of Steel are my morning alarm ever since.
I too was concerned about the lack of factions, and had came up with some concepts of four factions based on what information about the supposed factions the "campaign" can offer. If only I know how to make proper mod.