This game is a real time strategy (RTS) game and spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, one of my favorite games ever.

It has giant battles of hundreds of units instead of having to micro-manage/click 1000x to trigger a bunch of different unit abilities like in StarCraft and Warcraft III.

I've been playing the demo at 1920x1200 on my Laptop and it is a very demanding game, processor wise (dual-core highly recommended)

Anyway, this is going to rock on a projector over DVI, anyone else looking forward to it?

-Allen

Yes I am going to take advantage of the 2 screen view with 2 23" Viewsonic Wide screen monitors.

I am going to be home in 3 days from this deployment and will be building my new vista computer

I've played the demo a couple of times. Not sure if I'm going to buy it yet. It runs like crap on my 2 year old computer (Athlon 3200+ @ 2.4 GHz, 2GB RAM, 6800GT). And games take a LONG time to play. A skirmish against the computer can easily take 2+ hours.

Also, some of the units are wacky. The "Plan B" submarine (I think that's its name), for example, takes over 83 minutes (!!!) to build.

I'll probably pick it up when it gets cheaper in a few months. I'm more looking forward to C&C 3.

I'm looking forward to this game as well. I like the longer missions. I think the dual screen is prety neat. I'll pick this up for long term play and I'll get C&C3 for a quick weekend run through.

I've played the demo a couple of times. Not sure if I'm going to buy it yet. It runs like crap on my 2 year old computer (Athlon 3200+ @ 2.4 GHz, 2GB RAM, 6800GT). And games take a LONG time to play. A skirmish against the computer can easily take 2+ hours.

Also, some of the units are wacky. The "Plan B" submarine (I think that's its name), for example, takes over 83 minutes (!!!) to build.

I'll probably pick it up when it gets cheaper in a few months. I'm more looking forward to C&C 3.

It requires a very modern computer to play well. I play it on my e1705 Dell Laptop which has a Core Duo (dual core HIGHLY recommended), 2gigs of ram, and a 7900gs videocard (dx9 videocard required, being high-end highly recommended).

To make stuff build faster, you have to have the economy to support it, and throw a ton of engineers/support command units at it to make it build faster. Don't just have one thing build one thing, it will take forever, as you've noted.

A fleet of fully upgraded SCU's can crank out monkey lords in just a couple minutes.

-Allen

It requires a very modern computer to play well. I play it on my e1705 Dell Laptop which has a Core Duo (dual core HIGHLY recommended), 2gigs of ram, and a 7900gs videocard (dx9 videocard required, being high-end highly recommended).

To make stuff build faster, you have to have the economy to support it, and throw a ton of engineers/support command units at it to make it build faster. Don't just have one thing build one thing, it will take forever, as you've noted.

A fleet of fully upgraded SCU's can crank out monkey lords in just a couple minutes.

-Allen

I'll be building a new PC when I get tax returns. However, this game sure seems poorly optimized. People have reported that when it starts bogging down, if they save and restart the game, everything is smooth again. Sounds like bugs to me.

I understand how the economy works. However, unit balance is just not there, at least in the demo. I can create a few of the "experimental units" much faster than I can create a strategic missile launcher or artillery. The submarine that I mentioned before is just really messed up. I can create a Tech 1 sub in 2:00 (without any assistance) or the Tech 3 sub in 83:00. Even with a dozen Tech 3 engineers helping, it still took forever (and it wasn't even that great of a unit).

After a few patches, this game should be pretty good. Maybe the retail version (coming out today or tomorrow, right?) already fixes some of this stuff.

I'm not sure I understand what the issue is regarding performance. I installed this on my son's comp (which has my hand-me-down hardware) with an A64 3000+, 6800GT, 1GB and it seems to run well enough at 1280x1024 and the default graphic settings. I noticed he also built some of the higer tech level units in a reasonable amount of time. It looks like you need to take care to have a substantial mass and energy generating capacity in place before taking on these high level units.

I also don't understand the issue about performance. It's running great at 1920x1200 with everything turned up to max on my overclocked C2D E6600 at 3.25ghz, 4GB DDR2 ram and 8800GTX video card. And in the "unoptimized" Vista 64 no less. :)

It also runs fine on my old Athlon 64 3200 with 1gb ram and a 7800gs agp card, and can work on my even older Athlon XP/6800 system as long as I drop the res down a bit.

Grabbed the retail version at Circuit City last night ... it's on sale for 37.99 and I ordered online/picked up in-store.

The video review over on GameSpot says that the game bogs when the units start to crank out.

I have a mid-range system (2 gig ram, geforce 7800, amd 3200) and I had about 300-500 units in my armies and it bogged down. Zooming out to the big map makes it playable, but it was choppy at times. I would issue orders and it would be several seconds befor the unit would start moving

I'm not sure I understand what the issue is regarding performance. I installed this on my son's comp (which has my hand-me-down hardware) with an A64 3000+, 6800GT, 1GB and it seems to run well enough at 1280x1024 and the default graphic settings. I noticed he also built some of the higer tech level units in a reasonable amount of time. It looks like you need to take care to have a substantial mass and energy generating capacity in place before taking on these high level units.

I guess I now have to qualify my statement on performance. Now that I have it installed on my machine with 7900GT's in SLI and reading the framerate with FRAPS, I'm getting fps in the teens (however, I don't have an SLI profile for it so I doubt it's running in SLI). It is playable with those framerates though.

As mentioned, the game runs OK for me, until I start getting into the 300-400 unit range. Also, the demo may not have been as optimized as the release version.

IMHO, the problem with Total Annihilation was the fact that you can crank out so many units without having any control issues. Although liberating and fun, the game devolved into building as many units as you can (usually of one type) and send them marching towards the enemy to what amounted into a pretty light show. I hope Supreme Commander doesn't make the same mistake and requires some semblance of tactical control.

That, to me, is every RTS.

Tho in TA I did build a much more "diverse" army......use the missle guys to hit distant targets, then use gun guns to guard the missile guys. I never really did a "build 200 tank-things and rush"....to me thats like playing a fighting game and winning with the same move over and over.

Sure, you *can* do it, but why WOULD you...

This games CHEATS... :D :D :D . regardless what you do the AI will always build faster. I replayed a game and look at what the AI did. It builds a lot quicker then you can and it never falters. There is no built in fudge factor to the AI when it comes to building. Been playing for 3 days straight and only won once. The AI was winning but I sent in a massive air strike with bombers and a lot of level 2 and 3 gunships and took out the AI commander.

The AI in this game is good but not great. I was pleased that it will actually build and use all units and structures in the game unlike Total Annihilation. Almost every game I have played with the AI on some version of hard they have tried to nuke and experimental unit me to death. I am unable to out produce them in the beginning but once I spam out support commanders upgraded with resource allocation they have no chance. This is definately a worth while TA successor.