Controlling your armies
I was watching a friend of mine play a SupCom match the other day and something struck me about his style of play. Although he expanded fairly quickly and had decent economic management skills, one aspect of his play was decisively noobish – his control (or lack thereof) of his armies.
I observed silently for a while, and noticed that essentially every time he gave a movement order to any of his units, he would select ALL of them to give the order to. What ended up happening was streams of single file units going in every direction, since he had factories set up at various places on the map. Even when ordering an attack, he would simply select every single unit and give them a move order into the enemy base. On many ranked maps, this will typically result in some units going through neutral controlled bases, and almost inevitably ends up sending units at the enemy one or two at a time.
I hopefully don’t have to tell you how bad this is. Even if you don’t use formations per se, it is well worth it to let your units collect in groups, and then order them into the fray. The difference between hitting your opponent with one unit at a time and ten or twenty at a time is enormous, and should be taken advantage of in every possible situation.
Watching the match got me thinking, though. Although there is a formation move order, it isn’t really smart enough that you can just select a bunch of widely separated units, give a move order, and expect good results. Would implementing AI smart enough to do such a thing really be that hard? This is just the kind of strategic level control that people might want in the future if it becomes possible to play on very large maps with thousands of units per side.
Anyway, at least in the short term, the moral of the story is to spend a little time managing your units. It is worth it.
May 9th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
I’m not a supreme commander pro, but that’s usually the way I play. What is the correct way to manage armies and to attack easier?
What I sometimes do is let unit regroup near the enemy, and then shift+right click multiple targets.
May 9th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
If units are far apart, you probably want to select them separately and give move orders. When ordering an attack, I usually just give a move order into the enemy base (no attack order). I’m not saying this is always the best way to go, but it usually works pretty well. If your units are already in good order, you may want to use formation move, but keep in mind that this tends to slow down faster units like siege bots, which means they spend more time in range of T2 point defenses before they reach firing range.
May 9th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Also, I understand that the pathfinding AI is already one of the major proc guzzlers, so it’s possible that’s why some of the more advanced control commands don’t work so well.
May 9th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Different movements, formations, and any combination of orders are used for different things. For instance, one must be careful of moving a combination of mobile arty with another unit, especially if using the formation attack (control + shift + click). The artillery may fire at their maximum range but this will cause the rest of the formation, sometimes in the range of enemy defenses, to halt. This can also cause the entire formation to move until each unit is in range, causing the artillery’s range advantage to be lost.
Instead of going over worst case scenarios, let me outline what each movement/formation command is useful for – in my experience of course.
Move (regular click) – useful to get units to a point ASAP. Not the best for attacking, but causes less pathing issues. If you try to formation move all the time the units will waste time getting into a formation when you don’t really need them to be. This is also a good movement tool if you want your units to be spread out, without having to use assist units and so on.
Formation move ( shift + click ) – while having your units selected, this will have your group move to a point in formation. The first thing this command does is gets your units into formation. This is a key point to mention because it can have extreme effects depending on the units selected. If you have multiple units that are far apart from one and other, they will attempt to meet and create a formation at a central point. If any of these units are in the middle of an action, say attacking, they will begin their new course immediately. There are a few units which this would be particularly bad for – ships, t3 arty, planes – because it would lessen their combat effectiveness ( by turning their weapons away from the enemy). All of this being said, the formation move is an extremely useful command. If your units are in place and simply need the next objective, the formation move can be an essential “hole puncher” through enemy defenses. Because the units will continue to move while they are firing it is effective in closing range to otherwise fortified positions. You must be careful though as the formation keeps the units tightly packed and great targets for a bombing run or artillery.
Formation Attack – This is the total destruction command, meaning that with every target the units will stop and fire. Yes this is great if you plan on inflicting massive amounts of annoyance, but not too effective at winning a battle. Lets take this scenario into consideration. You have 4 siege bots attacking a small outpost, you place them on attack move, and they begin to march. The enemy has three turrets. The first being a tier two PD, the second a SAM site, and the third a tier two PD. You siege bots fire at the first target they come into range with, being the first PD, and quickly destroy it. Unfortunately they then move onto the SAM sight while the point defense puts a beating on your siege bots. Finally after the closer target is destroyed the point defense is taken down. I would not recommend you use this mode unless you are funneling in units from all directions, or want the march to be more destructive but less effective (waiting for artillery to finish, or a missile to land).
Regular attack – Simply right clicking on an enemy unit or structure will cause your units to immediately fire upon the target. I find this extremely useful, especially when queued, to take out critical base structures (shields, mass fabs, PDs). I am not quite sure what an attack click does without a specific target, but it is safe to say that the units will not move in formation.
** Notes**
Moving in formation means more than just the shape your units travel in, but the speed at which they travel. Your units will only travel as quickly as the slowest unit, often meaning that faster units will have their strengths taken away.
It might be advised to break your attack in multiple stages. Collect your units with regular move, attack with either formation move or formation attack, and select targets when you are in range. You may also quickly select specific unit types for specialty tasks, such as having siege bots rush through the shields to deactivate them, or faster units to run rapidly into the base causing the turrets confusion (and friendly fire!). In all likelihood though it is the number of units that will win the strategic battles, but a few tactical moves can make or break sensitive tactical skirmishes, such as Cyde Wey’s move on the opponent’s economy farms.
Any Questions?
May 9th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
In summary
Formations (Attack and move)
+ higher unit concentration, run over defenses more quickly
- slow, large targets for nukes, tactical missiles, artillery
Regular (Attack and move)
+ fast, spread out, easy
- low unit concentration, easily picked off by defenses
Assisting – causes current units to encircle selected units in a ring of protection. This may ironically leave the “protector” units out in the open.
May 10th, 2007 at 2:02 am
the wors problem is IMO the lack of the same fire commands as in TA..
fire and hold fire is not enouhg… :(
where did manuver, return fire go? :(
May 12th, 2007 at 7:43 am
I like your explonations Maelos thank you! But how do I do a Formation Attack/ Attack Move?
June 21st, 2008 at 2:07 pm
ive tried many differenet attack combinationsto defeat aeon basedefence but none of them work,if someone has one ,could u let me know