What was Total Annihilation really like?

[rcdraco]

[rant]I remember back in Total Annihilation, playing through the campaign, granted, only to level 5 or something, but the game was fun for me, because I could take a few units, and maneuver them around to tactically take down the enemy. Moving my 2 team of tanks onto a base, or having kbots chasing down a builder. That game was fun, my main question is, why doesn't Spring bring that back? That was the real fun part, I hated having 100 units that I had noclue how to use, and having to command a huge army just to take down a little fort. Even on Starcraft LAN parties, I could just build a few small bases and use all sorts of micro tricks, and have fun playing it. I frankly can't stand to play Spring because it's centered around massive battles with too many units for me to have to manage.[/rant]

[Dragon45]

Total Annihilation could have bigger battles than Spring ever could, simply because its engine was far simpler.

63x63 Color Chaos with 5k unit limit wooooooooooooooooOOO!!!!!!!!!!

[CarRepairer]

nvm

[Sleksa]

[rant] I could take a few units, and maneuver them around to tactically take down the enemy.

Moving my 2 team of tanks onto a base

on Starcraft LAN parties, I could just build a few small bases and use all sorts of micro tricks

[Day]

l2p

[KDR_11k]

This thread needs more Char.

[Gota]

This thread needs Gota!!!

[Peet]

This thread needs Gota!!!

No thread needs Gota.

[rattle]

[Boirunner]

No thread needs Gota.

[SwiftSpear]

The micro-macro debate will never end, with so many strong opinions. But you brought it up so here it is again.

What you described is the reason I like spring. I don't find joy in microing units faster than the other guy, moving my rocket robot out of range, then back in range, then out of range. This is called Hydrahopping in Starcraft and it's a clear and widespread example of RTS micromanagement.

But I do enjoy the thrill of knowing I've made the right decision in which tanks to build, telling them where to go, building the right defence in the right spot, managing my econ, holding the best metal spots, and so on. It's the decision-making process that I and some others enjoy. The joy of decision-making of a turn-based game without the obstacle of being slow with the mouse, while having the action of a realtime game.

I'm still not very good at the game and still learning what each unit does so I still make a lot more wrong decisions than right. It takes a lot of hours of play before your brain knows the long list of which unit/structure is good for which purpose. And that is a good reason to expect better from gold star players. But the journey of getting there is fun, win or lose.

But hey, you made your own mod. I'm sure you made it the way you like, so get people to play it

Hydra hopping is one thing... but it's not like spring doesn't have it's own versions of that, just different since you can fire while moving.

I mean, rocket bot skirmishing is definitely micro.

I think this is a little bigger than macro vs micro, this is an issue of tactical combat vs strategical combat. Not that spring doesn't have a fair share of both, but it really leaves the player who prioritizes tactical too much vs strategical out to dry.

[rcdraco]

Maps are even designed more on the idea of the huge armies, and holding higher ground seems to mean less and less for range reasons, and more for just stopping the enemy from getting over them to see your base.

[SwiftSpear]

Maps are even designed more on the idea of the huge armies, and holding higher ground seems to mean less and less for range reasons, and more for just stopping the enemy from getting over them to see your base.

It's not just maps, it's everything. Factory assist is designed so unit production scales with economy growth, fast unit build times, powerful turrets, and slow speed mobile combat. It's all idealized for creating larger more epic playing environments.

[Caydr]

Although it's true that TA allowed larger maps, the practical unit limit was actually lower than the 5,000 some mods allowed. If you had more than x number of units, pathfinding just turned off, basically. Moreover, because of the all-software renderer, you can have the most powerful graphics card in the universe and it won't increase performance whatsoever. Everything's CPU-dependent, so you need a fairly modern computer to even be able to handle a large number of units at a playable speed.

On the other hand, LOS drawing was 300 million times better.

[pintle]

I could take a few units, and maneuver them around to tactically take down the enemy.

try xta

[det]

I could take a few units, and maneuver them around to tactically take down the enemy.

Sounds like the difference between playing a simple AI vs an intelligent human. From what I remember of OTA, Spring has a lot _more_ micro. Is skirmishing with hordes of samson really that hard? Or dancing hawks back and forth?

[pintle]

Alone, the fact that spring units dont fire through each other makes micro/positioning more important than OTA

[manored]

I think that for strategy and tactic to be both important into a same mod they would need to happen in diferent timeframes... like, a strategic action would take "days" to happen while a tactic one would take "hours" thus allowing you to tactical manage all of your forces while having the strategy happen... Something like in Rome Total War: You have the strategic part, that its turn based and its where you make troops and move troops, buildings, diplomacy, etc. And then 2 armies wage battle the tactical part comes on: the game changes to real terrain instead of a map, real units instead of a representation and you move your squads tactically across the battlefield in real time in an attempt to maximize your victory... And the tactic part altough extremlly important happens in a minimal amount of time if compared to the supposed 6 months that pass with each turn.

[kiki]

Wow, manored, I have never played rome total war, but that sounds like a genius game design.

[manored]

IT IS! :) The only bad thing about the game is that there is a max limit of troops in a single battle but it is rarely achieved.