Depending on why you gave up the original SupCom, FA may very well earn you back for a longer stay! If you do end up picking it up, make sure you let us know what you think.

holy crapmagic, that was fun. i played 2 games.

i have to say, the ai is significantly improved. i was playing stripmine or whatever, against 3 ai. the agressive ai showed the most improvement. in the old sup com, it would explore a few attack types, and when those failed it would simply go into econ building. i never really ever felt *harassed* by them. the new ai? relentless. my outlying mass points were under constant aerial assault, and the chock-point to my base was so covered in wreckage that you almost couldn’t see the ground. the stream of tanks was so constant that i could not even get an engineer out to reclaim, so i sent one instead to clean up all the aircraft that littered my platue.

now granted, the ai’s strat probably wasnt *smart*, but it certaily was *fun*. and that, imo, is the important part. and he did manage to punch holes into my defenses, and do damage to my econ.

grabbing outlying mass is essential, as the cost to build a mass fab/power is basically more expensive than securing a mass point. yeah! no more giant mass fab farms! pluss, now each mass point becomes a hotly contested location, so setting them up as forward fire-bases and getting them under shields becomes paramount. wow, i’m actually spending mass to shield a mass point because its more economically viable than building mass fab farms. . . *this* is what sup com is about. i had ferry points all over the place moving engins and troops to weakened places. i had my 4th of the map saturated with airpower (air to air *and* air to ground) not “just in case they send an air experimental” but because i actually needed it to protect my mass points and map control. i was constantly replacing fighters (and mass points. . .). t1 was in full production throughout the game because it afforded cheep cannon fodder and a useful deterrent to raiding engins on back mass points. i wound up mostly using t2 to airlift and raid their mass points, while i sacrificed t3 and experimentals against their man base (this works best when you do it at the same time. . .) t3 arty is not a game winner either, as shields are very effective against it. it took *three* of them to beat though *light* sheilds.

because of the nature of the game now, it is even more essential to keep a patrol of scouts well forward of your base, to see any incoming experimental before it gets close enough to do real damage. most of them seem to fall fast enough to swarms of fighters/gunships. that is not to say they are underpowered though, the still do a lot of damage to outer defenses, and if you *don’t* see them they could very well punch a hole straight through to your main base. the balance itself really hasn’t changed much actually. what has changed is that they have a viable, economic use now. they are cheep enough and fast enough to get 1 or 2 together for an assault, yet weak enough to actually be able to do something about (kinda like how cybrain was all along).

overall: way more action over the entire map, more emphasis on moving the lines forward, less on base building. way less. getting those forward mass points secure is critical. shield them if you have to. its worth it. if you are thinking about building a mass fab, don’t. build the equivalent mass in assault bots, then go take one from your enemy. i predict the doom of the massive lines of pd, in favor of small clusters of pd around vital mass points. lots more t2 arty all over the map. ferry points everywhere too. the ai is still retarded, but it is way more fun. GPG, you get an A+ for listening skills. there is still work to do, map editor is MIA, topography map still sux, still hard to tell if pd is blocked by hills, units still continue to shoot at unhittable targets, etc. but its still 100% more fun than vanilla, because 80-90% of your time is spent on the battlefield where it belongs, not back at your base setting up shielded farms and anti air. bases are way smaller and more manageable. completely blocking off chock points is not really a good idea anymore.

there does not seem to be any game ender unit either. and econ seems to be suitably limited so that you probably will not see huge swarms of experimentals anymore. unless your not dong your job and taking undefended mass points of course. but then that would be your fault wouldn’t it?

/end another long and opinionated post

Aeon and Seraphim would of course have a some serious advantages here since using their T1 hover units they could attack from any direction and could secure all three outer islands fairly easily. However even just a few Cybran Jesters would wreak havoc on isolated hover units, and if the UEF got to T2 and built even a couple Riptides all those advantages would transfer to the UEF. Getting to T2 on this map is the challenge, you could really only do it if both players cooperated by allowing some down-time.

The best part about this map is its ability to test your skill at responding to enemy moves. The map is so small that you have almost no time cushion to respond the choices your enemy makes. T1 radar is absolutely key and should be the first target for raiders and Jesters.