Supreme Commander is a computer game of the real-time strategy (RTS) genre, developed by Chris Taylor's Gas Powered Games and slated for release sometime in 2007. It was announced in the August 2005 edition of PC Gamer magazine and is referred to as the spiritual successor to Taylor's 1997 RTS release Total Annihilation, which has been widely hailed as one of the great triumphs of the genre .

Story

In the Quantume Age of 2018, scientists from Earth began experimenting with "quantum tunneling", which allows transport of living matter through great distances. However, tunneling is prohibitively expensive since one tunnel requires the energy output of up to 25 fission reactors. The focus on conventional space travel has ran into problems since the travel just isn't fast enough. In due time, scientists finally perfect the technology with the teleportation of a single atom of cesium in a lab. And the first off-world teleportation moved a milligram of iron into Mars. They then slowly started working up the food chain from insects to mammals like mice and monkeys. The first human "tunneled" happens in 2062 when a group is sent to Neptune's moon Triton to further explore interstellar travel. A quantum tunnel transport takes .26 seconds.

The galaxy slowly begins to be colonized through a variety of tunnel networks, radiating from Earth like the spokes of a wheel. By 2284, 16 colonies have been created now known as the Prime Worlds and by 2316 each of these begin their own expansion. 210 years later, 110 colonies begin their expansion as well. Alien life at this point was yet to be discovered.

By 2663, there are now more than 400 self-replicating colonies and the empire is having trouble regulating them. Small scale wars develop between colonies and the Earth sends Colonial Command forces to stamp out the resistance. These pacification operations continue to grow. What the Earth doesn't realize is that some of these rebellions are being started by Colonial Command Commanders unhappy with current events and/or greed for power of their own. The Earth Empire is slowly losing its iron grip on its colonies.

Despite all the turmoil, expansion continues, with Earth claiming control of as many as 1,280 systems at its peak. The Colonial Command is stretched to its limits because of unrest along the frontier.Historians mark 2819 as the beginning of the Infinite War. The last loyal remnants of the Colonial Command have retreated back to the 16 Prime Worlds, abandoning the rest of the galaxy to anarchy. Much of the Quantum Gate network is destroyed by various factions pushing their own agendas. Many worlds that relied on the Empire are lost, as are the technology and science that may have been in development. It is during this time that 29th-century combat takes on a new face. A single man in a self-sufficient commander suit can arrive alone on a distant world and create a massive army of robots, tanks, ships and planes within hours of arrival, using only the native mass and energy of the planet. Whole worlds are laid to waste in battles between these commanders and robotic armies. It is believed the Infinite War is lasting as long as it is because of the inexhaustible nature of these "Supreme Commanders" and the fact that they were never envisioned on such a massive scale.

The Earth Empire finally crumbles and a new government comes in vowing to reach out to the worlds abandoned as the empire collapsed. This United Earth Federation offers stability to troubled worlds. Meanwhile, the Aeon Illuminate suggests that worlds accept "The Way" or destruction. And the Cybran Nation fights trying to free their brothers from the oppressive human way. Now the battle lines are drawn and the sides clearly defined. There is no room for compromise, no room for mercy. No room for anything but the complete eradication of anyone who oppose their conflicting and unwavering beliefs. Finally, it has reached a turning point. You are the Supreme Commander and only you have the power to bring the Infinite War to an end once and for all.

The fate of the galaxy is in your hands.

Gameplay

According to the PC Gamer article, Supreme Commander will be unique amongst the countless members of the RTS genre in that it integrates grand-strategy("Risk-like") mode with real-time, individual, ground-level battles. This may sound similar to systems found in games such as Rise of Nations or Total War, but in Supreme Commander this integration will allegedly be seamless. It will be a matter of zooming in or out on the map to go from the god's eye view of the entire theatre of war, where icons represent armies, down to observing skirmishes amongst individual units.

In the article, Taylor claims that "almost all modern RTS games do not actually employ strategy. In reality, they simply pit opponents against each other in resource wars, where the combatant with the most units wins". Not wanting to go into detail with the game not yet released, Taylor said that his goal is to appeal to an untapped audience who would appreciate the presence of actual strategy in his game. This will be accomplished by using the aforementioned scale of the game; finding a happy medium between serious war-gaming and ground-level carnage.

Unit scale

Unlike other RTS games, where units must be sized to fit reasonably on the screen, the zoom range in Supreme Commander will allow for diversity in unit size. Previews have confirmed that there are units so large that they merely crush smaller units as they travel and some will not even be able to fit on a single screen at the maximum zoom of average RTS games. The scale is large enough that Supreme Commander will feature sea and air battles as well as nuclear weapons at a realistic scale in addition to land battles.

To accomplish this, Supreme Commander will use fully 3D terrain that is dynamically tessellated as the camera is moved around. Both units and maps will also use normal maps in order to allow for a large amount of detail.

Balance

With such diversity in the size of units, one might expect the balance to be thrown off, making the game a race to build the biggest and most powerful weapons. However, the balance of units in Supreme Commander will be different than most other RTS games; the GameSpy article explains that, as with Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander will be a simulation. What this means is that units will operate using true Newtonian physics. Unlike most RTS games, where weapons are artificially limited in power or range to balance the game and use a die-roll function to randomly determine if a projectile successfully strikes its mark or not, Supreme Commander will use the natural weaknesses of units to keep things even. For example, a very powerful and accurate bomber squadron can devastate a base rather quickly. However, bombers must fly relatively slowly if they are going to accurately bomb a target. On the other hand, the enemy can defend with air units that can move very fast and would have little problem hunting down and destroying the defenseless bombers. Another example is the advantage of holding high ground; projectiles fired from artillery based on a hill would be assisted by gravity in damaging the enemy. These physics will also come into play with respect to hits/misses of projectiles. For example, a tank rolling and firing will have a lower hit rate than one that is stationary while firing.

Other naturally limiting factors will come into play, such as the time and materials that go into making more powerful and advanced units.

Factions

In Supreme Commander, three sides, which are all at least nominally human, are engaged in an "Infinite War" (i.e. a total war) of liberation and much sought-after peace.

United Earth Federation

The United Earth Federation is the generic human side and seeks to re-unite humanity and restore the old Earth Empire from which they developed after a protracted period of dissolution. They favour rolling tanks and armoured vehicles with wheels and caterpillars (treads). At the time of the first previews, the United Earth Federation was designated the Terrans, but this was later changed.

Aeon Illuminate

The Aeon Illuminate is a quasi-religious order who have adopted the advanced philosophy and technology of a highly intelligent extraterrestrial species. They are on an obsessive mission of peace, which is to be achieved through the conversion or coercive assimilation of the rest of humanity into their ways. Their units look elegant and sophisticated, being seemingly weaponless—until you threaten them, in which case hatches open and wings split to reveal their arsenal. The Aeon have mastered cloaking, and most of their ground units hover.

Cybran Nation

The Cybran Nation is composed of Symbionts, humans whose brains have been computerised and enhanced with implantable technology, including most importantly a downloaded mutual AI (in addition to various other augmentations). This allows them to think more quickly and more precisely, to be more perceptive, to have greater and more accurate memory recall and to be more easily controlled. Though often mistaken for typical science fiction cyborgs, the Cybran are not cyborgs in the traditional Borg-like sense, and tend to be much closer to the concept of the transhuman, possibly drawing influence from the Superbrights or the Superiors of the Orion's Arm science fictional setting. They fight for the liberation of their fellow Cybran from the oppressive United Earth Federation, which fears their unrestricted potential and treats them as human computers and general technical labourers, due to the seamless ease with which they interface with technology. The UEF seeks to maintain the position of inferiority and service of the Cybran to natural humans, whereas the Cybran Nation demands emancipation and a society of their own in which they would not be forced into a frustrating reliance on humans. The Cybran use "legged" units primarily, and own one of the few experimental units shown to the public — a massive six-legged spider-like machine armed with a potent heat laser, featured in the August 2005 issue of PC Gamer and in the GameSpy preview article. Another experimental unit, a UEF submarine aircraft carrier previously featured in concept art, has appeared in a screenshot. All races will have their own set of these so-called "super-units" to counter each other. Although each race favours certain types of movement, they can occasionally use each others' technology — the UEF can sometimes use leg-based units, and the Cybran can use track-based units.

Features

At E3 2006, Chris Taylor presented in-game demonstrations of Supreme Commander. One of the features shown was support for dual-head video cards, allowing two separate views of the map on two monitors connected to the PC. Also shown was some advanced unit orders, including dynamic relocation of waypoints and "time-coordinated assaults". The graphics engine is fully three dimensional, in contrast to the early screenshots that suggested the terrain might be stored as a flat texture, similar to Total Annihilation.

Musical score

The score for Supreme Commander will be composed by Jeremy Soule,http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0815819/ the same person who created the score for Total Annihilation and Kingdoms. Mr. Soule's music is available through directSong.

Awards

At E3 2006, the game won the following Game Critics Awards: Best Strategy Game.

References