RTS Beyond all Reason (open source Total Annihilation spiritual successor)

[anvi]

Doing the World War scenario now. I failed it several times but I enjoyed them all at least. Usually the green kills all the others but then he conquers the whole map and owns me. I couldn't beat him because he had anti nukes and the mountains protected him from my artillery and stuff. Next time I went for him with T3 units and killed him but the yellow guy ended up killing me! I think usually if I wait a while the green guy kills the others and it's maybe easier to just kill him. I think I will win next time by making lots of Titans and just walking them in. I wasted a lot of money on the uber ships which defended my half of the map but they couldn't reach him so I lost. If I spent some of that on Titans that might work.

Also I built a plane sometime which was awesome and now I can't find it. Maybe it was the other faction. Gotta love this game and the big maps with lots of AI!

 

[spectre]

Yeah, I also struggle remembering where was what when it comes to units. Though If you're thinking about Air Fortress, I think that's T2 Core airship.
Stopped doing scenarios for now (even though they're great for gitting gud), mostly doing vs. AI skirmish with a friend and exploring the map selection. Good fun.
Seems like we can handle 3 easy AIs (nothing to brag about, but we're old people with jobs), maybe four, but it's a sweet spot for now.

 

[anvi]

Yeah I think it was the Air Fortress, I liked how it could attack anything and just go slow and steady. Some expensive units still can't attack air or something so it sucks having to build mixtures and keep them together. I prefer one big unit that can handle anything.

I won the World War map that way yesterday. So much fun! I must have lost 10 times before I finally nailed it, but I was enjoying trying things out. I built the huuuuge artillery in one attempt. It takes forever to build so I had to focus on it but I still ended up getting it done too late. It killed one of the enemy commanders in the first few shots but it takes lots of power to recharge and I ended up getting overrun by the green. I love using nukes too but that fails on that map. I usually just send in bombers to kill the anti nuke but its so well defended. In the end I won by just building lots of Titans. They walked under the water and just walked into his base and killed everything. I think 4 was enough to take out the main base. I also set them to walk in a zig zag path because all the defences shoot where the thing is heading. So dodging really works

Some of the the remaining missions seem too hard for me, I'll probably skip them. The next one is you vs like 4 AI that are all established. I have no idea how that's even possible. They seem to hold off though so there's probably some trick. But I always get overrun by a huge army of tanks when I'm still just getting started. The mission after that was easy though, it was like a Command & Conquer mission where you just control one huge unit and a healer Great game. Glad you are enjoying the skirmishes, that's what I usually play too. I love all the flexible options and nice map selection. Have you seen that you can change the water level?! So water maps you can remove all the water and it makes a lot of open space. And some maps you can lower it and it leaves little pools of water. Really nice option... I wish there was a "no navy" option though, that would allow for some fun stuff.

 

[spectre]

And some maps you can lower it and it leaves little pools of water. Really nice option... I wish there was a "no navy" option though, that would allow for some fun stuff.

When it comes to no navy, you could load up the Barbarian AI and look up the script to disable Shipyards for it. Should do it.
For the life of me, I can't find the option to adjust water level. Is it by script command? Gotta say, the UI for setting shit up is atrocious. Not sure why they turn on the cretinous autobalance crap by default,
I basically need to force game start with a command because somehow it's not kosher when I play with a mate. Still, we make do and the game itself is well worth it.

And speaking of the Barbarian, I remain thoroughly impressed by this motherfucker. It is even able to use terrain to evade radar detection.
Managed to hide an entire wave of units until the very last moment.
Another time he pinpointed my commander and nuked him on the spot. Really great if you need a refresher on basic health and safety.

I haven't tried the other games with chickens and drop pods, they looked unfinished on the videos, so I wasn't really in a hurry to test them, but they look fun for coop.
Speaking of which, Simple AI works great if you want something that just throws an endless horde of T1 and T2 at you. Pretty relaxing fun with 1,5 or 2 AI per player.

 

[luj1]

TA has always been prestigious

 

[anvi]

Yeah Barbarian AI is really good, I can beat the hard now but only on maps that I can get to him fast and hold him back. On big maps it just takes over everything and I can't keep up.

I tried Scavengers and Raptors mode a lot. I always wanted something like this but they never do it how I want. Raptors was quite fun but I defended well for a while and then he sends some huge thing to wipe out my base. Not fun. But maybe if I have an AI help me we could win. Scavengers is the same kind of thing but harder. I tried with 3 Hard AIs helping me and we still lost a few times in a row. At the end it sends huge units which are impossible to beat unless you and the allies all had a good game, which is kind of impossible with the constant attacks. But you can win if you set the scavengers area to be a small part of a big map and you take everything else.

The water level you do when you set up the match. Click Adv Options and then it's on the first page (Other). About an inch down Water Level, starts at 0 and you can raise it or lower it

 

[anab0lic]

TA is easily top 5 RTS ever made and this is pretty much the remake every lover of that game has been dreaming of. Taking the best of TA and splicing in a few things SupCom did well, a true passion project by the devs and it shows.

Best RTS in development right now and its not even close.

If this doesn't bring the RTS genre back from the dead, nothing will.

 

[anvi]

Omg I beat the Raptors finally. Took several attempts... Fun!

 

[anab0lic]

4 vs 4 tournament featuring Chris Taylor as a panel member - Creator of original Total Annihilation.

 

[ArchAngel]

TA is easily top 5 RTS ever made and this is pretty much the remake every lover of that game has been dreaming of. Taking the best of TA and splicing in a few things SupCom did well, a true passion project by the devs and it shows.

Best RTS in development right now and its not even close.

If this doesn't bring the RTS genre back from the dead, nothing will.

TA was never the most popular type of RTS. New versions of Age of Empires is one that keep it alive.
And new Starcraft game might give it more life

 

[Tweed]

I loved all the crazy shit they put in TA, building shit like the Big Bertha was impractical, but a load of fun.

 

[spectre]

Well, the Big Bertha got an upgrade in BAR, there's a high ROF gatling version which requires an absurd amount of resources to build and an even more obscene amount of energy to sustain that rof.
There's plenty of fun to be had. Not all of the stuff is feasible in pvp (and you don't really want to dilly dally vs the highest tier AI either), but you can even "terraform" the land with nukes.
It ultimately depends on the plasticity settings on a map, which hills can be levelled, but I've seen people dig legit lakes which could support naval units inside them.

I was really happy to see that TA's aircraft behavior was mostly retained in BAR. It was really special cause in other rts air units are basically ground units that don't clip on the terrain.

Also, there seems to be an influx of players and youtubers, though a lot of peeps I've seen just play 8v8 which I'm not too keen on. Feels a bit too much like a moba,
with each guy basically having his own lane to hold.

Whatever the reason, that's good for BAR. I think it's been helped a lot by relic shitting the bed with CoH3, so people can just come to this game that's not only free, but also pretty much feature complete,
balanced and NOT starcraft and NOT AoE.

 

[ArchAngel]

Well, the Big Bertha got an upgrade in BAR, there's a high ROF gatling version which requires an absurd amount of resources to build and an even more obscene amount of energy to sustain that rof.
There's plenty of fun to be had. Not all of the stuff is feasible in pvp (and you don't really want to dilly dally vs the highest tier AI either), but you can even "terraform" the land with nukes.
It ultimately depends on the plasticity settings on a map, which hills can be levelled, but I've seen people dig legit lakes which could support naval units inside them.

I was really happy to see that TA's aircraft behavior was mostly retained in BAR. It was really special cause in other rts air units are basically ground units that don't clip on the terrain.

Also, there seems to be an influx of players and youtubers, though a lot of peeps I've seen just play 8v8 which I'm not too keen on. Feels a bit too much like a moba,
with each guy basically having his own lane to hold.

Whatever the reason, that's good for BAR. I think it's been helped a lot by relic shitting the bed with CoH3, so people can just come to this game that's not only free, but also pretty much feature complete,
balanced and NOT starcraft and NOT AoE.

Yea I noticed 8v8 is very popular. It is the most casual version of PvP where when you lose it is always other 7 players fault :D

 

[anab0lic]

New meta...

 

[Cyberarmy]

That was glorious to watch

 

[Lagi]

that was amazing!


but is it a valid strategy, why he cannot just swarm t3?

 

[spectre]

but is it a valid strategy, why he cannot just swarm t3?

IMO, he's gotten extremely lucky the other team did no scouting, that earlier razorback raid earlier could easily fuck him over.
So yeah, valid as long as you get on a team that lets you play cities skylines for 30 minutes straight.

At this point he probably could have swarmed with anything, but this exploits the fact that people don't really factor in much air defense. Not sure if a fighter swarm would be enough to whittle this down enough to make a difference,
abductors being tough and firing EMP and all that. You'd probably need massed flak cannons. Once done it's rather quick to deploy, and then there's the undeniable cool factor.

 

[anvi]

I like playing this against AIs. The players are too tryhard.

 

[ArchAngel]

New meta...

That was truly Beyond All Reason tactic that will only work in these low level games. But fun to watch.

 

[ArchAngel]

I like playing this against AIs. The players are too tryhard.

I tried a few games 1v1 vs medium AI, he beats me every time. Its multitasking is beyond my ability to stop him. I do rushes, destroy good chunks of economy but he already rebuild it on some other part of the map..
But I can beat Simple AI now :D

 

[anvi]

Yeah I can beat the hard AIs but only maps where I can pin them in a corner and stop it from expanding. Some maps I manage to build defences in front of him and then get tech 1 planes to stop him expanding at the side and that works. But if he expands in more than 1 direction then I can't keep up!

I like the Raptors and Scavengers mode the most though. Build a wall with strong defences across the entire front and one gap to funnel all the enemies into one spot where they get blasted. Hopefully stop any getting through to your side of the map.

 

[ArchAngel]

Yeah I can beat the hard AIs but only maps where I can pin them in a corner and stop it from expanding. Some maps I manage to build defences in front of him and then get tech 1 planes to stop him expanding at the side and that works. But if he expands in more than 1 direction then I can't keep up!

I like the Raptors and Scavengers mode the most though. Build a wall with strong defences across the entire front and one gap to funnel all the enemies into one spot where they get blasted. Hopefully stop any getting through to your side of the map.

From my experience AI likes to attack from multiple directions.

 

[spectre]

I like playing this against AIs. The players are too tryhard.

Well, I've seen some videos where people go all reeeeeeeee when you do something they don't like, like open with an air factory.
On the other hand, there were plenty of games labeled "chill" or "casual" in the lobby, unfortunately most were 8v8.
It's not all bad, played with some random aussie dude and we had a blast.

I typically play coop with two of my mates, one struggles against medium AI, with the other, we have good fun beating hard BARbarian... or it whooping our asses hilariously.
Like that time when it casually unleashed a Ragnarok on us and had enough fucking economy to keep it on sustained fire until we folded.
There were a bunch of pretty swingy games, where the bot would just pummel one of us, while the other could break through and get their commander.
The AI is really surprising, sometimes it acts like a complete dolt, standing there and taking a beating. One time I managed to nail it at around 12-minute mark with
a torpedo bomber raid and it just stayed there in the water.

The game is really scaleable ArchAngel you can fine-tune the AI by choosing the right map.
Starting with Medium, the barbarian can be a real pain in the ass, it will sneak behind your lines with every opening it can find.
It does a great job dodging radars, it even hugs the map edges like a motherfucking pest.

You basically need to contain it through checkpoints, and it's not always possible for all maps.
I've noticed that if it's mixed terrain, the bot's logic goes tits up and you can easily push it out of the water. Unless it's commited to water expansion, then it's the other way round.
So, if you play on something like High Noon, the AI gets more manageable. I quite like Folsom Dam. Desert Triad can also be nice pick to get some practice,
because the three pillars are unreachable without air transport, so you can immediately tell where the bot will and will not be able to go.

Unfortunately, very few maps are well suited for 1v1 and even with 2v2 sometimes there's just too much ground to cover.
Solos can't be choosers, so perhaps warm up to adding a bunch of simple AIs on your side.
That or stick with the scenarios. They can seem a bit dry, but as you master them they do a decent job of guiding you where you need to be to skill up.

If you feel overwhelmed by the bot's micro, I'd say up your electronic warfare game. For starters, you need to give yourself more visibility. Just radars are not enough, build some scouts and send them on patrol patterns.
The AI is very crafty at hiding, and all sorts of hills will block radar (as you can probably see on the overlay). It may seem that the enemy units are coming out of nowhere, but they still need time to get there.
Setting up jammers will also make a lot of difference, especially if you want those static defenses to last a bit longer.

 

[ArchAngel]

I like playing this against AIs. The players are too tryhard.

Well, I've seen some videos where people go all reeeeeeeee when you do something they don't like, like open with an air factory.
On the other hand, there were plenty of games labeled "chill" or "casual" in the lobby, unfortunately most were 8v8.
It's not all bad, played with some random aussie dude and we had a blast.

I typically play coop with two of my mates, one struggles against medium AI, with the other, we have good fun beating hard BARbarian... or it whooping our asses hilariously.
Like that time when it casually unleashed a Ragnarok on us and had enough fucking economy to keep it on sustained fire until we folded.
There were a bunch of pretty swingy games, where the bot would just pummel one of us, while the other could break through and get their commander.
The AI is really surprising, sometimes it acts like a complete dolt, standing there and taking a beating. One time I managed to nail it at around 12-minute mark with
a torpedo bomber raid and it just stayed there in the water.

The game is really scaleable ArchAngel you can fine-tune the AI by choosing the right map.
Starting with Medium, the barbarian can be a real pain in the ass, it will sneak behind your lines with every opening it can find.
It does a great job dodging radars, it even hugs the map edges like a motherfucking pest.

You basically need to contain it through checkpoints, and it's not always possible for all maps.
I've noticed that if it's mixed terrain, the bot's logic goes tits up and you can easily push it out of the water. Unless it's commited to water expansion, then it's the other way round.
So, if you play on something like High Noon, the AI gets more manageable. I quite like Folsom Dam. Desert Triad can also be nice pick to get some practice,
because the three pillars are unreachable without air transport, so you can immediately tell where the bot will and will not be able to go.

Unfortunately, very few maps are well suited for 1v1 and even with 2v2 sometimes there's just too much ground to cover.
Solos can't be choosers, so perhaps warm up to adding a bunch of simple AIs on your side.
That or stick with the scenarios. They can seem a bit dry, but as you master them they do a decent job of guiding you where you need to be to skill up.

If you feel overwhelmed by the bot's micro, I'd say up your electronic warfare game. For starters, you need to give yourself more visibility. Just radars are not enough, build some scouts and send them on patrol patterns.
The AI is very crafty at hiding, and all sorts of hills will block radar (as you can probably see on the overlay). It may seem that the enemy units are coming out of nowhere, but they still need time to get there.
Setting up jammers will also make a lot of difference, especially if you want those static defenses to last a bit longer.

I tried water scenario, I lost vs simple AI on it :D, some others were more manageable. And yes I did a few of me +2 AI vs 3 AI games, my AI mostly did little and I had to defend them. Still at least their lane AI mostly didn't try to backstab me all the time and I could just mostly fight 1v1.
But it is irritating how fast AI seems to recover even from big loses of buildings. Maybe he uses a lot of resurrection bots or something. Those are stupid units and should not exist.

 

[spectre]

IIRC the water scenario actually has an equivalent to the hard Barbarian. Look back to previous page cause we talked about this with anvi.

The AI builds bases a little different than a human, basically a lattice of everything, spreading like cancer.
So it doesn't really take much of a hit unless you drop something that matters, early on, a cluster of extractors is important,
but later on losing a factory is what slows you down. Or nuclear power plants.
If it's already setting up Advanced nuclear and T2 metal makers, a few extractors isn't really a setback.

Yep, the AI uses rezbots a fair bit, especially on hard, and frankly so should you. They're really handy cause they're quick to build, easily repair and reclaim and also cloak by default.
Call it stupid if you must, wreckage being valuable resources that's just lying around is a concept that goes back to Total Annihilation.
Rezzing it is just an option, but I often prefer just to reclaim it.