Supreme Commander 2

Okay, so color me surprised, but I loved Supreme Commander (and Forged Alliance). Why then, did Chris Taylor's Gas Powered Games have to dumb down the economy in version 2 of the game so much? I understand modifying the game a bit, that's the way it goes. Supreme Commander, however, was about controlling strategic points in the game. You couldn't have a prayer of winning if you just took over 4 mass points. No way, no how. The other person would always obliterate you. The game was about strategic map control. After 6 games...

Now, not so much. After I lost my first match. No biggie, except for how I lost. The guy had 4 mass extractors and 4 power generators. My shielded, buffed (research) land units were obliterated by 4 defensive towers. Don't get me wrong, you could turtle in the old game, but it wasn't very effective. You couldn't maintain the economy of replacing units lost vs being made. You couldn't maintain your shields without power, you had to watch what you were building or your economy would crash, especially as a turtle. I had a friend who had the world's nastiest turtle in the original game, he even came in second in a number of tourneys. I'm used to killing a turtle.

The trick is, I'm used to a turtle having a severely limited economy. I'm used to the turtle having to fight harder to maintain unit parity.

One thing I will smack up GPG over is the new "research tree" stuff. I can understand wanting to get rid of the throwaway nature of units, but it's far too easy now for someone that's doing almost nothing map wise to power up their units. There is no associated rise in cost here. Bing! the units have more health, shields (don't get me started on regeneration...), with zero cost, all at once. In the old game, upgrading your units meant spending mass and energy.

I tested this theory. I played against a friend whom has won tournaments and went turtle twice. Once was a commander rush (standard tactic in tourneys, where matches are usually decided in less than 4 minutes really) and the second was a more traditional steady attack. I was able to not only hold off both attacks, and indeed even win, while holding only the initial territory from landing. The final test, well, he won, but I did nothing. I didn't even build artillery. I still managed to build experimental units and put up one heck of a fight.

Now, if you didn't play the original game, it was frentic. Many matches were decided, as I said, within 4 minutes (in 1v1) from start. The game was difficult, especially in multiplayer, when you first started. Why? The tech levels, you didn't just get them magically, you had to take time and mass and energy to get them.

Now some people might say "but you have to build research structures!" Meh. There's not much to that. I got tons of crap built while building multiple research structures. The trick is, there's only a tiny (a fraction of the original) cost to it.

Don't get me wrong. Supreme Commander 2 isn't a terrible game. My problem is that they've dumbed it down a lot. How much? Well, to the point where playing the isolated turtle is almost better (in fact probably is better) than being the expansionist attacker on many maps.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go turtle a bit for some easy wins. 3 out of 5 this time Chris.