Comments on: Topography, the silent killer

By: DeadMG

DeadMG — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 21:20:04 +0000

To the OP- use Cartographic view? This is a complaint from many patches ago, use Cartographic.

By: Gryphyn

Gryphyn — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:09:12 +0000

Since we got on the topic of engineers, I have trouble with the selection of engineers. I know you’re supposed to be able to hit ctrl + period or some similar key combination (I forget the keys exactly as I’m not home to look in the manual files) but I’ve never gotten them to work right.

Can someone explain the engineer selection controls to me?

By: Engineer

Engineer — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 16:30:30 +0000

Life: You are right! A mix of T1 and T2 engineers should are able to build any T1 or T2 structure and should be able to be ordered to do so. That has annoyed me many times and would seemingly be a simple fix that would reduce some of the micro. And we all want to reduce micro, right?

By: Life

Life — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 13:42:22 +0000

You’r right !
I’have a suggestion for another article or just a reaction.
I’m french so be indulgent about my english :)

There’s a thing that bug me sometimes. It’s about mixed engies like T1 + T2.
If you select a group of engies mixed like that, you can’t build anything why the “structure bar” do not show a mix of the structures that can be built by both of these engies ?
If there’s a T2 engi mixed with 5 T1 engies you would have been able to build a T2 pgen then the T1 engies would start assisting the structure that is being built.
When your base is full of engies mixed together it’s alway a unnerv to select one type of engi at a time, then assist manualy an other group, this is unnecessary micro i think.

What’s your opinion ?

By: LucusLoC

LucusLoC — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:11:34 +0000

i do use a second mon, and i set it to topography. it helps a little, as at least now i can see where i need to zoom in to have a look-around. but as i said earlier, you cant really tell if your looking at a hill or a valley, unless its really pronounced. in that case you would be able to tell anyway from the regular map. its nice to see that GPG actually realized that you needed a topography map, but its current implementation leaves much to be desired. . .

@meddish: your idea sounds good. . . if one guy wanted to play “sim city” in the sup com world. maybe i can get a friend who doesn’t like rts to give it a try against the comp. maybe my girlfriend. she has not tactical or strategic sense, but she is better at managing stuff. as it stands now, all my friends that play would want to be the ones in the commanders chair.

By: eckhard

eckhard — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:40:03 +0000

to the article writer :

maybe you should check out a 2nd monitor and enable topographics on it ?!?
i use that since some months and now i know exactly where defensive points will shoot into hills…

By: Gryphyn

Gryphyn — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 12:54:08 +0000

I think the ability to have multiple people controlling each side would add an incredible aspect to the game, especially if you have a large group of friends who enjoy playing, but only 8 max are allowed in a game, fewer on most maps. Sure, there may only be 8 spots, but with two people per spot, now you’ve got a 16 player game. The required computational resources are increased due to the additional networking, but not as much as having 16 seperate players, since you technically have the same number of units for the engine to keep track of as a standard game.

I know I’m probably in the minority here as a casual player who doesn’t have time to devote to playing online; my friends and I enjoy teaming up for a comp stomp about once a week. When you have four friends playing, you can play a 4 on 4. With five friends, a 5 on 3 is much to easy. But with this method, as the number of allies grows, we can just double up and keep playing.

In a comp stomp, the best part is communicating with your buddies, coordinating attacks, that sort of thing. This would be just what the doctor ordered. (I think TA Spring had this.)

By: Baddox

Baddox — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 05:15:28 +0000

The idea from AoE where two people control the same exact units would, I think, work very well in SupCom, to the point that it would surely be considered cheating if it weren’t specifically sanctioned. Just think, one guy controls the early build order until 2 land factories are built, then each person takes a land factory and starts building their own engies. One guy focuses on the rest of the build order (economy mostly), while the other guy micros the early T1 push. Two players acting as one would surely be able to dominate a single player, since the two-player side could micro those early T1 combat units so well while still keeping the economy going back home. All that said, it may not work out, since in AoE2 it was an absolute nightmare unless you had VERY good communication with the other guy. I tried it once at an AoE2 LAN party, with a guy I didn’t know who was sitting on the other side of the room, it was a nightmare having to type stuff to him–we wasted so much time and resources on duplicate buildings (martkets, blacksmiths, etc.)–but we did manage to hold off the Goth Rush for quite a while, until our teammates got wiped out and we ran out of gold. End rambling.

By: MeDDish

MeDDish — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:34:09 +0000

well LucusLoC id suggest u get into 2v2 maps….. me and a mate play well together… i normaly go econ… and turtle the hell out of both of our bases and he just builds and attacks… al i have to do is keep positive mass…. and lots of it… and he just has to keep spending it… so if im @ +100 mass hes @ -110 mass…. its great when u look @ the scores @ the end…. he spends like 2.5x what mass he produced… and i wasted sooooooo much mass….. (that all went to him anyway)

takes a diffrent type of thinking…. and good team mates… oh and u NEED live chat… typeing just doesnt work…
also what works well… is ill give him SCU’s then upgrade another 2 and give him another 1… etc etc…
also id like to see the option (think its in AOE) where if u both choose the SAME color… u both can control the same units and the same resources…. made some intresting games in the past because u had 1 base and 2 pplz working on it… giveing u twice the micro!

By: LucusLoC

LucusLoC — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:50:28 +0000

Sorry about the not commenting, i saw the post about the topography map and decided i had to give it a try (didn’t even know it was in the game, guess thats what the manual is for. is it even in the manual?) anyhoo, the build order was kinda a bust. actually that’s kinda what i find frustrating about the game, its very econ centric. i love going out and managing my troops and building forward fire bases, and i love the scale. but too often i find myself winning on the front lines, and horribly loosing on the econ side, which means that i loose the game cause my opponent managed to get out a t3 arty and kill my base, even though i was constantly pushing him back on the map. the problem is that there is just no real reward for having map control. i guess what i really want is a war of attrition, not one where there is a single decisive blow that is impossible to recover from. such as your opponent getting t3 arty when you don’t quite have enough to over run his base. or a decisive blow that takes place on the battlefield. that would be ok with me. but getting t3 arty for-the-win just means that you beat me in the econ. especially if you got your t3 while i was grinding away at your base defense. i guess thats why i liked Rise of Nations so much. octopus strat was mandatory in that game. there just really isn’t incentive in this game to do it. it is much more efficient in this game to turtle your main base, never expand and put the resources that you would have put into defending satalite bases into your econ. maybe ill write an article about that.

and your right, the current topography map sux. a lot. you still have to zoom in half the time to see if its a hill or a valley.