Starcracf II VS Supreme commander

[Pilotasso]

Well this is not a SIM but I had nowhere else to put this thread so:

 

I have been playing Starcraft II and I leave here my personal review comparing it to Supreme commander.

 

First of all, those who are considering purchasing this game beware that it WILL tax your system resources heavily. I have it maxed out and it will eat my RAM, all 4GB of it. Its kinda slow to load too.

 

You need to tune up your PC to avoid crashes and system freezes, even overheating your graphics card (happened with me when engaged 32XAA, first time it did)

 

If your wondering how many cores it uses, they are 4 threads, but 2 of them might just squeeze onto 1 core. So this is for triple core, dual core minimum. My CPU usage is about 40%, during multi AI races large fights.

 

The game is DX9, just like Supreme Commander. If you ask me the graphics are on the same level. And this is a 3 year gap between the games launch. The AI is nothing special. You either loose or win by making as many units as possible in the shortest time then your adversary (the game concept and gameplay features makes this a requirement and you even get awarded for being fast, which is kinda dumb). Thats it. Not much of a strategy. And not much an evolution ever since Dune RTS back in 1989.

 

Supreme commander supports many many more units and much bigger maps (albeit with a crash bug when the 2 are true). Sup com is also tactically much more diverse and rich than StarcraftII.

 

For Solo Play I have to say Supreme commander is light years ahead of it. You can make the fights so that the enemy wont cheat its production rate and attack you while your still building your first structures. In StarCraftII either the enemy kills you first or any of your AI alies will destroy the other side way before you even had time to gather 1/10th of the needed troops. Resources are kinda scarce. building a second base for the minerals takes too long... So I just spent frustrating several hours trying to get into a large war without seeing any action myself. meh... :ermm:

StarcraftII also has less gaming modes than StarCraft I, both in solo and multiplayer. Appalling considering its been more than 3 years in the making.

 

In Starcraft II the maps can easly get filled with units the size of your fist.

It is the same as Starcraft I but with some more units and special abilities.

 

 

I used to make LAN parties with the previous iteration, and I have fond memories of it (we skipped university classes for it and played nearly 24h straight, peeing on bottles, eating pizzas etc) :D

But StarCraftII has no LAN play, only internet. That sucks and 50% of my interest for it drops right there.

The game comes with a map editor but frankly I already got bored playing the title altogether.

 

So in short, it will put your system to its nees craving for more resources but it wont offer you anything more than other lighter titles of this genre.

 

 

 

 

Heres my resumé of the evaluation:

 

Pros:

-Nostalgia

-not easy to master

Cons:

-but not much of tactics. Build as many as you can and faster to win.

-No LAN boooooooooooooo.

-less gaming modes than its predecessor.

-some gameplay aspects and options could have been better thought to make it more playable.

-Skirmish mode becomes repetitive after just a few battles.

-there are already other RTS out there making this one look dated (even when comparing to old 2D titles).

-and heavy system load while at it...

Edited October 3, 2010 by Pilotasso
Typos

[winz]

So in short, it will put your system to its nees craving for more resources but it wont offer you anything more than other lighter titles of this genre.

You sure? I've a three years old computer, yet I'm able to run it at high settings.

 

-but not much of tactics. Build as many as you can and faster to win.

That's why SC2 starting to become the biggest RTS e-sport, because it doesn't involve tactics and is only about building more units faster...

 

Starcraft II is the best and most polished clasicall RTS to date. Comparing it to something it never ment to be is pointless.

 

For Solo Play I have to say Supreme commander is light years ahead of it. You can make the fights so that the enemy wont cheat its production rate and attack you while your still building your first structures. In StarCraftII either the enemy kills you first or any of your AI alies will destroy the other side way before you even had time to gather 1/10th of the needed troops.

The only AI that cheats in SC2 skirmish is very hard and insane, while only insane cheats in resource gathering. The rest of them don't. The very easy AI takes for ever to build up. If they beats you, then you got outplayed. It's similiar to when you get shot down in flamming cliffs. It's hardly the AIs fault.

Edited October 5, 2010 by winz

[Total]

Supreme Commander 2 offers more depth, but a shallower learning curve.

 

Supreme Commander 2 is geared more for very large battles on multiple fronts.

 

The main problem people are having with Starcraft 2 is the same problem they had with the original Starcraft once people had been playing it for a while:

 

Unlike many other RTS games, Starcraft 2 is not about building a bunch of units, clicking them to a point on the map, and watching them fight.

 

Starcraft 2 makes you focus on your ability to macro your base and forces while micro'ing your units. Send a ball of Terran Marines at my Protoss squad and just watch as my High Templar rips them a new one. Other RTS will hold a formation of sorts. In Starcraft 2, it's up to you to position your units to where they need to be AS THEY ARE FIGHTING.

 

Now, I will be the first to admit that I hate the whole "rush with 2 units" crap that's goig on, but if you have good macro skills and know how to micro, then the cheese rush can be countered most of the time.

 

Starcraft 2 and Supreme Commander 2 are two totally different games with two totally different goals. They are both in the RTS genre and that's where the similarity stops. Starcraft 2 requires you to use the keyboard just as frantically as your mouse. It's not a "sit back and watch the batttle between two massive factions unfold" kind of game.

 

It's like comparing FSX to LOFC2 for air to air online play. Yes, they're both flight sims, but FSX is not designed for that.

 

I enjoy the unit level action requirements of Starcraft 2 myself. Supreme Commander 2 didn't change much from the first except the whole tech tree bit and it didn't take long at all to tier all the way up. Too quickly imho. They made it friendly to new players and didn't worry about challenging the vets in that area.

 

Supreme Commander 2 is a great game for zooming way out and controlling mass armies while the auto build features keep you from having to macro your base.

 

Two different games - which is good :)

[Grimes]

I wouldnt exactly put them on the same page in terms of the type of RTS games they are. Sup com is a more macro intensive game that is about building a large army and throwing it at the enemy. There are plenty of tactical decisions at play within SupCom in terms of unit composition and placement, but it is at a much slower pace than Starcraft2. SC2 on the other hand has alot more micro intensive gameplay involved. It doesn't matter if the enemy has superior numbers, if you use your units special abilities to your advantage you can win the day.

 

The point of SupCom is to tech and macro up to the experimental units. So that when you attack or get attacked you have these massive units that can tank a ton of damage while also dealing it. Not a whole lot of clicking is needed for this sort of game. The most you need to do in a battle is to choose what to focus fire on. Unit special abilities generally consist of turning power on or off.

 

The point of Starcraft 2 is to attack with a well balanced attack force designed to counter whatever the enemy is using against you all the while building up reinforcements and other needed assets as you skirmish and wear down the enemy. "Uber-micro" is needed with the combat in Starcraft 2. Choosing to build high templar (which only have special abilities and CANT attack) can play a huge factor in certain fights.

 

There are a TON of differences between the two games, honestly it depends purely on what you prefer. Massive slow battles or smaller, faster, micro intensive battles.

 

I'm not sure what you are complaining about with the SC2 game modes... just check out all of the custom games out there. The SC2 world builder is one of the best in the business and we can create some truly unique gameplay. I've even seen some FPS style games being made with it.

 

Aside from the campaign (which is EPIC) SC2 isnt really meant for solo gaming. Get online and use your practice leagues. Or do co-ops against the AI.

 

MP in starcraft 2 is where its at. Just watch any of these shoutcasts.

http://www.youtube.com/user/hdstarcraft?blend=2&ob=4

[Pilotasso]

Points taken, however I disgaree that Sup com is a slow pace RTS. Choose Setons clutch map with 4 enemy AI's with 2 allied. Its as fast and furious as it can be. (whats great about sup com is that you wont run out of resources after 45 min of play. All you gotta do is to protect your conquered resource places on the map properly).

I also disagree that Sup com is all about making alot of units. I have won battles using Submarines only againts a vastly numericaly superior enemy. Its great because it has a naval component, and you can choose tactics and pace of battles by balancing out map type and size and number of factions and victory conditions. Starcraft offers less in this front. Have to try Stars campaigns and multiplay one of these days.

 

On the perfomance front, Sup com can deal with more data because its threads are better distrubuted across the cores. I have much better perfomance in Sup com, though I have optimized Starcraft to run smoothly now (no page file=BAD).

 

Cheers.

Edited October 6, 2010 by Pilotasso

[3Sqn_Sven]

My biggest upset with SCII is the instability. I have a good system and ever since the latest patch every second online game I play crashes. Out of ~150 games, about 20 have resulted in crashes, which count as a loss. As most of those have happened since the patch, I am barely playing it now merely 6 weeks after buying it.

[Grimes]

Its slow pace in terms of time to complete a match. Its fair to say a 1v1 in SupCom can last at least 30 minutes easily. In SC2, unless both sides show 0 aggression the entire time reaching 30 minutes isnt the status quo.

 

Two factors of SupCom make it a "slower" RTS. 1. Size. 2. Physics. In SupCom, on some of the bigger maps it could take units 15 minutes to get from your base to the front lines! Everything takes alot more time because of the size of the maps. Weapon physics are probably the biggest difference between the two games. SC2 has a very linear sort of weapon logic.

 

Fire-> Hit Target. There is basically a 0% chance that when something fires its weapon that it will miss.

 

SupCom actually has some random variables at play. Artillery is the best example, especially the long range pieces. When a weapon fires it might not always hit its intended target.

 

There was a fascinating article on gamasutra written by someone at Relic (they make Company of Heroes another REALLY good RTS). Basically the article discussed the possible shortcomings of CoH's competitive gaming scene. One of the items listed was the way the game handled projectiles and damage. A tank shells damage was based on where it it the target, which isn't controlled at all by the player. Starcraft on the other hand is incredibly well defined in player input. The player must have a great level of control over their units to be successful. Thus they must have more skill. Relying on an uncontrollable skill such as the AI tanks aiming takes more of the player out of the equation, thus winning at the game takes less micro skill.

[leafer]

Pilotasso,

 

I tried both and love Supreme 2 but I can't get into Starcraft 2 for some reason. I would like to suggest Sins of a Solar Empire over both. It's the best RTS I've played.

[Total]

This is coming from someone who played the board game of Risk over 30 years ago and has been RTS'ing since lol.....

 

Best RTS I ever played was Dark Reign 2. The chief complaint (other than it was "too hard") was that the path finding of the units wasn't as good as Starcraft's, but that in itself brought in a whole new path for a player's micro skills. It was one of the first that offered a rotatable camera as well as zoom in.

 

Matches we generally fairly long as everything was expensive and took a while to build. While the pace might have seemed horribly slow to most, it was well paced for the kind of game it was. It was not a game where a small skirmish won it. It was not a gaem where you built a massive army and fought it out. It was skirmish, then battle, then some skirmishes, etc It went back and forth until someone made a grave error in their strategy.

 

Couldn't get into SOASE though. I tried, but I (unintentionally) kept comparing to Homeworld: Cataclysm and SOASE kept falling short lol

[leafer]

Dark Reign 2! The best RTS of its time and it's the only RTS I kept coming back to.

 

I agree that Sins, unlike Homeworld, is not for everyone.

[Udat]

Total Annihalation was the best RTS ever in my opinion. Waaaaaaaay ahead of it's time, and extremely well made.

 

World in Conflict is really good as well, really intense, and the entire macro-part of rtses just cut completely away.

[martinistripes]

You either loose or win by making as many units as possible in the shortest time then your adversary

 

You don't know how happy that makes me that I didn't already buy it. I like strategy, not mindless eye candy.

[Pilotasso]

Its a good RTS (despite the critics Im playing it quick battles) and adds to the options you can choose from, but TBH there are better offers out there (at least for my taste). In sequence of UDAT's pots, supreme commander is from the same authors of total anihilation and basicaly looks and feels like a sequel even though the universe is different.

 

Sup com 2 is out but me thinks 1 is tatcically more interesting. 2 is more eye candy.