Planetary Annihilation: Titans

[doctorfrog]

Wingflier, I sometimes find my opinion clashing with yours, but no one can deny your passion for certain video games. Nice writeup.

I'm in an odd place, where I know I'm just not interested in buying or playing the game of PA as it stands, but still find it fascinating reading. It's interesting seeing how Uber wriggles their way out of the initial bork pie.

I'm probably giving it massive short shrift, but the flurry surrounding this game is similar to other quasimodo games that only became great once the die hard fans were given unfettered access to it and put it up for free on some forgotten backweb.

[kasnavada]

Still think main part of this shitstorm could have been avoided if they had given EA buyers (who paid substantially more than most KS backers!) the DLC for free too. The discount for the normal buyer is OK, but for EA buyers it is definitely a slap in the face. And I can understand their anger to a point.

Though as usual, on Steam the shitstorm is amplified ;p

Both setting prices that high for early access, and buying it at that very high price were really stupid moves though. Although you're right, that they should have made it available to them too - taking into account the higher price as a justification.

(I do buy some early access games but those discounted because the game ain't full mostly, or (the really few) AAA titles I'm rather sure won't disappoint.)

[Wingflier]

Wingflier, I sometimes find my opinion clashing with yours, but no one can deny your passion for certain video games. Nice writeup.

Thanks, that was a very nice thing to say. It means a lot.

In actuality, the titles inspired by Total Annihilation may be the games I'm most passionate about of all.

I grew up playing Total Annihilation. It was my pure and utter passion for most of my childhood. It practically was my childhood.

A lot of people say, "Oh, that's just nostalgia, we all have old games like that." But for it was a little more than that, because my childhood was somewhat of a living nightmare, and in many ways Total Annihilation was more than just a game for me, but an escape from a reality that was too harsh for my little mind to comprehend.

I think I'm going to do a video review of what I believe are the 3 best games that have been spawned from the original Total Annihilation series, which still have a thriving multiplayer community today.

They all 3 have a lot in common with the original game, but are unique, exciting, and innovative in their own ways, and for fans of the genre, I think a compare and contrast of all their strengths and weaknesses would be an interesting endeavor.

[Mánagarmr]

After having actually tried TITANS I must admit that it does tickle that old TotalA itch something fierce. The maps are still rather small (as they are spherical) perceptively, even though the actual space is quite large. The new units in TITANS really help shave off some of the issues with the unit scarcity, and the new Tesla unit coupled with changes to artillery units makes positioning, ambushes and devastation possible and helps defeat a simple blob tactic.


I'm still extremely disappointed with stationary defenses being excessively weak both in HP and in damage dealt. AA works just fine for the most part and provides adequate anti-air coverage, but land based defense towers are laughably weak and are mostly just a force multiplier when defending your base. You CANNOT rely on them. Perhaps if you also build walls, I've not yet tried this, but theoretically, the tall towers should be able to fire over the walls while preventing return fire from the approaching enemy.


Orbital combat is still something of an afterthought, but one of the titans is designed with orbital invasion in mind (it's a space battleship, neat!) and the new Helios unit allows for a solid foothold to be made even on a heavily orbitally defended planet since it's a mobile teleporter junction. You could land a small force with builders included on a planet with a strong orbital defense cover, but weak land forces and make a foothold. Also neat.


Overall, I honestly think it's a genuinely good game at this point. It also runs a HECK of a lot better than it used to, and I can now run the game on Uber settings with full AA and 175% superscaling without so much as a hitch in framerate. It still suffers intermittent crashing during mapgen, but the game itself has never crashed on me.


My experiences are solely from skirmish against the AI. I have NOT tried the SP campaign as that really doesn't interest me much.


All that said, I still think Uber are among the worst when it comes to PR and I genuinely think Titans should've been a free upgrade to everyone, because it does make PA a complete package. Without the new units, the balance is still utterly off. That said, I can understand it wasn't financially viable to do so, but man, PA just isn't good without Titans.

[Wingflier]

I'm still extremely disappointed with stationary defenses being excessively weak both in HP and in damage dealt. AA works just fine for the most part and provides adequate anti-air coverage, but land based defense towers are laughably weak and are mostly just a force multiplier when defending your base. You CANNOT rely on them. Perhaps if you also build walls, I've not yet tried this, but theoretically, the tall towers should be able to fire over the walls while preventing return fire from the approaching enemy.

In fairness, the game itself doesn't really promote the "Turtle Style" of say Balanced Annihilation or the Supreme Commander series.

In fact, I don't even think you can build metal converters (which, in the previous titles, and to those who are unfamiliar with the game, convert energy, an infinite resource, into metal, a finite resource) in Planetary Annihilation, which somewhat epitomizes the design structure of the game. Namely, you are MEANT to expand, meant to play aggressively, meant to smash planets into other players. I just don't think the Sim City style that Supreme Commander often boiled down to in a multiplayer scenario was ever part of the design goal. To that end, there's no reason to create defenses so powerful that they can endlessly defend a base on their own, in lieu of some superweapon like an ICBM or a Titan assault. It would be counter-intuitive to the way the game is meant to be played.

Overall, I honestly think it's a genuinely good game at this point. It also runs a HECK of a lot better than it used to, and I can now run the game on Uber settings with full AA and 175% superscaling without so much as a hitch in framerate. It still suffers intermittent crashing during mapgen, but the game itself has never crashed on me.

I agree, it's a genuinely good game at this point. I may not have thought so at release.

And yes, you really need Titans to receive the full experience

[Mánagarmr]

In fairness, the game itself doesn't really promote the "Turtle Style" of say Balanced Annihilation or the Supreme Commander series.

In fact, I don't even think you can build metal converters (which, in the previous titles, and to those who are unfamiliar with the game, convert energy, an infinite resource, into metal, a finite resource) in Planetary Annihilation, which somewhat epitomizes the design structure of the game. Namely, you are MEANT to expand, meant to play aggressively, meant to smash planets into other players. I just don't think the Sim City style that Supreme Commander often boiled down to in a multiplayer scenario was ever part of the design goal. To that end, there's no reason to create defenses so powerful that they can endlessly defend a base on their own, in lieu of some superweapon like an ICBM or a Titan assault. It would be counter-intuitive to the way the game is meant to be played.

I see you never played Forged Alliance. Try to turtle in that game and you'll end up dead in a hurry. Massfabs (mass converters) are extremely inefficient and expensive so by the time you got your sustainable economy up, you're already drowned in bots and tanks from your opponent who did the right thing and expanded+built more tanks. One of the biggest changes from SupCom to FA was to move T1 massfabs from T1 to T2, severely delaying their construction, while reducing the amount of mass they produced and increasing their energy use and cost of construction, leading to a longer payback time and higher upkeep. In addition, Mass Extractors were made far more efficient and cheaper so the optimal strategy was to claim as many mass points as possible and upgrade (and defend) existing mass points, instead of just turtling behind shields with a massive massfab farm.

I agree, it's a genuinely good game at this point. I may not have thought so at release.

And yes, you really need Titans to receive the full experience

Yeah, i may not agree with their financial or marketing decisions on how to release this and what price point to put it at, but there really is no denying that this is a pretty worthy successor to Total Annihilation. I still think Orbital is a bit of an afterthought (but more useful now than it was in stock PA) and Naval is most of the time 100% useless due to map layouts. But TA had that problem too. Small lake in the top right corner? Don't bother with naval. Just build a Big Bertha instead. It's a nice option to have.

I've easily beaten the AI over and over and over on Normal. It seems to be very unaggressive and expands very slowly. So I'll be ramping up the difficulty and see how well the AI fares on higher difficulties. I've heard rumours that it's really daft on the really high difficulties as it overvalues its commander in combat and thus gets itself killed very easily in skirmishes.

[Wingflier]

I see you never played Forged Alliance. Try to turtle in that game and you'll end up dead in a hurry. Massfabs (mass converters) are extremely inefficient and expensive so by the time you got your sustainable economy up, you're already drowned in bots and tanks from your opponent who did the right thing and expanded+built more tanks. One of the biggest changes from SupCom to FA was to move T1 massfabs from T1 to T2, severely delaying their construction, while reducing the amount of mass they produced and increasing their energy use and cost of construction, leading to a longer payback time and higher upkeep. In addition, Mass Extractors were made far more efficient and cheaper so the optimal strategy was to claim as many mass points as possible and upgrade (and defend) existing mass points, instead of just turtling behind shields with a massive massfab farm.

In 1v1s this is certainly true, at least among players that know what they are doing. But as the game's player size grows, and there are more people to distract the opponent and defend each other, self-sustaining bases become much more viable.

There certainly becomes a point where expansion is no longer necessary, and breaking a base of umpteen shields and T3 defenses is nigh impossible without some kind of massive superweapon. I personally think this is crappy design, but that's just my opinion. It leads to stalemates of games that can sometimes drag on for hours, where most PA games, even with multiple planets, are pretty fast-paced in my experience.

Naval is most of the time 100% useless due to map layouts

I haven't found this to be true. In online multiplayer there is an "Earth-like" planet archetype which usually has more water than land (or a similar amount of both). Naval has become an extremely cost-efficient way to dominate those planets. Most bases seem to border the water (because they start there), and a few Destroyers with their long-range artillery attacks can absolutely wreck an entire city. It's much easier to defend land than it is against sea, so I've won several games simply by defending my base from land attacks with my Commander, some defenses, and a small array of units, while winning the sea battle and guaranteeing the game.

The stock AI is absolute SUCK even on the hardest difficult, it is not a challenge at all. I'm a little confused because I remember playing the original PA less than a year ago, and some of the tougher AI options were absolutely brutal. I don't know what happened. On the bright side, there are some player-made AI algorithms still being ported to Titans that should be a lot better.

[Mánagarmr]

Ah, well, that explains it. I never played team games much. I find them stale and boring, as you'll have 1 or 2 players actively fighting the opposition, and a third player in the back building a Paragon. Whoever gets their paragon up first wins. Preeeeetty boring. I stuck to FFAs or 1v1s for the most part, as I found the game worked best with those setups.

[Aklyon]

That would require an aeon player though, or at least a third. All of my recent team games have been 2v2v2v2, me & a friend vs pairs of adaptive AIs (who adapt nukes to solve all their opponent problems eventually). Sometimes we do well and get interesting combinations of base-smashing, like fatboys with heavy gunship & Soul Ripper support.

[Wingflier]

For you my dear friend:

1. War Turtle Mod - It seems a like-minded player had a similar distaste for the game's mediocre defenses, and decided to make a mod in order to address it.

2. Queller AI Mod - An incredible rework of the vanilla AI to make it act more tactical and more human. It can even be used in multiplayer (so your friends can fight against it). The only downside is that it isn't supported in Galactic War campaigns.

You don't need to download these individually, both of them are located in the PA Mod Manager program through the click of a button after it's installed.

Enjoy!

[Mánagarmr]

Might pick up Queller. The stock AI is lacking.

[Aklyon]

Its both mod and pun title. I like that War Turtle.

[Mánagarmr]

Yeah, okay, I'm starting to get a bit ticked about the out of memory crashes. Anything with more than 3-4 AIs and 2-3 reasonably sized planets will crash and burn after 10-15 minutes of gameplay. That's a bit annoying.

[Aklyon]

Its not A PA:T image, but this is the most recent thread for this style of rts, and I thought you guys might get a laugh out of it. This time in our SupCom; Forged Alliance match, tarran and I played against two AI on a team. The closer of the two (Red) was a threat for sure, even if it seemed too focused on trying to t1 rush long after it was getting denied by tarran's point defense and ACU.

The further away AI (Green Derp) did this. And with only minor exceptions (like throwing transports at us), only that.

[Mánagarmr]

Its not A PA:T image, but this is the most recent thread for this style of rts, and I thought you guys might get a laugh out of it. This time in our SupCom; Forged Alliance match, tarran and I played against two AI on a team. The closer of the two (Red) was a threat for sure, even if it seemed too focused on trying to t1 rush long after it was getting denied by tarran's point defense and ACU.

The further away AI (Green Derp) did this. And with only minor exceptions (like throwing transports at us), only that.

Stock game? No mods?