Seraphim is a very interesting faction to play. The Bomber is amazing destructive fun if you learn how to control it. Let it go after targets on its own and it will always turn the wrong way and get shot down it seems. The experimental walker gets veterancy super fast and has an insane regen rate. It goes up in a ball of electrical fury, which is a great kamikazee weapon if you can bury it in your opponent’s base before getting killed, but it sucks if you get wacked near your own units. The Super Nuke experimental is game-breaking powerful. We always excluded it multiplayer because if you get one up it can launch at a rate of 1 missile per minute, and anti nukes can’t keep up. Its fun to watch it hit though.

Certain Seraphim units rock, like the T2 chicken walker, and the naval cruiser. I believe Sera has the strongest shields in the game. The T3 tank isn’t the best unit out there, but bang for buck is the best, meaning you can spam them like crazy. I always enjoyed playing Seraphim because they were so quirky, but they have some big weaknesses you have to be careful of.

I agree with ElMeanYo about the formations. I would like more input into how my units form up, which direction they face.

Also agree with the “money up front” model. (Instead of M/E, I’m just going to call it cash, because that really is what it is now.)When queueing up units, say you want three tanks, an AA and an artillery, it wants all that money up front. Fair enough I suppose. But when it is done with that queue, it starts over and I believe it then wants all that money up front again. If you don’t have it, it auto pauses. Seems like they could smooth this out.

Similarly with structures. In SC1/FA, you could pick an engineer or two and give them a whole string of commands, like build AA defense in 30 different places, and then leave them at it. Maybe it takes a very long time because you’re short on cash. Here you pay up front, and so you can chain together your structure build queue, but really you’re only going to get three or four tops before it won’t actually build what you’re asking it to. In the end it requires a lot more babysitting of your factories and units.

That being said, because of the streamlined nature, I find I rarely need that many engineers at all, so unlike SC1 where I might have 20 or 30 toward the end of a large game, here I may only have 3 or 4, and they really aren’t that hard to babysit.

The experimentals are wacky fun, and the crazy things that happen as a result make me laugh. The Noah Unit Cannon firing a stream of 20 tanks to your front door is nuts. The Aeon Loyaty Beam is insane.

I just noticed the other day that there aren’t scouts anymore. You don’t need spy planes anymore, since the maps aren’t as large I guess. Someone I played has the option to add a camera to the bombs its planes drop. That’s cool.

Also my buddies and I had a problem over the weekend after the last patch. For some reason we couldn’t join each other’s or most pick up games on Steam. It just said “unable to join.” We found that if you use the steam client to join though, it worked perfectly. Rather than hosting with a passworded game, just leave no password and set the game to “private” so it doesn’t show up on the in game server list, and after you have the server up have everyone else just click your icon in the steam client and hit join. Cake.

Positives:
- Tech Tree. I wish SC1 had this.
- Better graphics.
- Runs smooth, much better than SC1 did out of the box.
- Large variety of experimentals, still having fun trying them all out.
- Path-finding much improved.

Negatives:
- Can’t queue up buildings or units that you don’t yet have the money for. This is a big one. Some (ppl who didn’t like SC1) might see this as a positive. I think it removes some of what made SC1 unique in the RTS world.
- Can’t set facing of unit groups (maybe you can somehow and I missed this).
- Little variety for base-building such as different levels of shields and guns.
- Skirmish AI is brain-dead.

So Supreme Commander 2 is on the way and I shall start playing it as soon as I rush through these last three missions of Forged Alliance.

It uses steam for multiplayer, so its no wonder it crashes after you’ve cracked the game. Pay for it, then give it a shot.

Cyde, the UEF backpack nuke comes in extremely handy in all the FA campaigns. Many things later on that are supposed to be a challenge are easily handled with a few billy nukes.

My impressions of SupCom 2 so far: Streamlined. Everything not related to destroying your opponents has been stripped out to make it easier for players to handle. Myself, I greatly enjoyed all the economy management, but found proper econ management to be so important that someone unable to handle it was unable to enjoy the game completely.

SupCom 2 removes all of this. Yes, you have mass and energy, but very little requires energy to run anymore, they simply become units of currency to purchase your units with. Have enough M/E in the bank? Swipe your debit card and drive off in your new tank. The focus is now completly on unit creation and tactics.

The new research tree is a welcome change. No more Tech rushing. There aren’t as many units, since you upgrade what you have over time with additional firepower, health and armor. Experimentals aren’t game enders, but are just big and powerful units that can cause a lot of damage, but can be destroyed pretty easily if you’re not careful.

It definitely isn’t an expansion to SupCom, it is a sequel in its own right. It runs wonderfully, graphics are awesome (battle carnage! Wow!), and offers an improved experience in my opinion. Multiplayer through Steam is a breeze, as is patching. The game even supports Voice Chat through steam, which is nice.

No multiplayer save that I can see, but it seems multiplayer games will be shorter since all the sim city aspects are gone.

Overall: Awesome, and I hope it brings many new players into the SupCom universe.

Man, I tried my friend’s retail game, not brothered with steam, but applied no-cd patches.
Host Multiplayer – game crashes, exits.

The units, and buildings are bigger and faster – or the maps, and the weapon ranges are smaller.

And by the way: “Supcom 1 haters, it’s so lame you like SC2″ ;) :P :D

I’ve completed half of the missions in Forged Alliance so far. It seems like the missions are the same regardless of which faction you play as? If that’s the case, it’s kind of disappointing that I can only pick the faction for a new level that I’ve already beaten the previous level on. Had I realized this decision was so permanent, I would have picked a bit more carefully at the beginning (instead, I just ended up with UEF).

Kind of strange that I don’t get to play as the Seraphim in the campaign? It seems like that’s the majority of the new content in the expansion, yet I’m not getting to play around with any of it.