Keep fighting the good fight, you internet stud. Don't let the Man keep you down.
"juts adds water"
u wot m8? Have you played more than 15 minutes?
There are more differences:
- New type of command: command infantry
- Coalitions
- Almost all nations got interesting new units (US Apache and French Mistral scout)
- 5 new nations
- Arty rebalancing. MLRS are now actually useful
- New Fire support infantry type.
- Amphibious ground units
Completely different metagame. Yes, because of all those points I write
before (and navy). If you ever know what word "metagame" means.
Probably not, because you only played 15 minutes.
And no, this couldn't be made into free patch. It's too much for free. If you buy bottle of juice in supermarket, you're not entitled for another free bottle of juice 1 year later.
As for paying for "same" game again.
It really SHOULDN'T affect game score. Lot of people trade in TF2 and Dota 2, and throwing some money for game is not really a problem. But that is inherit problem of this site. You should remove star rating because it's meaningless. You give it 2 stars only because it costs 40$
" I can think of only two games that did a good job of integrating ships into the overall game: Rise of Nations and Age of Empires III"
Seems you've never played Supreme Commander.
Anyway, the naval battle ranges have been scaled just as the air battle ranges. 120-mile-range aa missiles are shown to have only 10 kilometers, and so on. I'd say the sea battles resemble real world sea battles more than the air combat resembles real life air combat. But it's stil fun, which is what matters most.
What I really like in the Red Dragon campaign is how it
splits up the battlegroups from ALB. An ALB battlegroup had a bit of everything
– recon, infantry, tanks etc. Red Dragon splits these up into their own little
regiments, giving you an independent tank regiment on the overhead map that you can move
around separately to your support regiment or your air wings.
So rather than
the ‘macro’ strategic choices of ALB, Red Dragon gives you all of these ‘micro’
strategic choices instead. They’re little puzzles you can mull over as you
choose what forces to bring into a battle. If I see an enemy province with just
a tank regiment present with no AA, I can bring in my tank-killer helicopter regiment.
Alternatively I might be caught out in a province with just tank destroyers and
artillery and I have to work out a strategy against an infantry army.
The result is a campaign full of variegated battles of mis-matched units that, as I said, are great little strategic puzzles - kind of like bosses in Diablo III. If you want to pit a full battlegroup against another battlegroup, then head over to the MP or skirmish.
I have. I love Supreme Commander. And it's got good naval combat. But I don't think it integrates naval combat very well, aside from the ships that can crawl up on land. For the most part, naval combat in Supreme Commander is like naval combat in every other RTS: just another terrain type with its own units.
You apparently didn't read past the headline. But I do grant that you did a wonderful job refuting the headline of the review!
You apparently don't remember what you write in your review.
Where did you mention about amphibious units or about new nations? Where info about new fire support infantry? Where did you write about new apache and mistral scout? Where did you write about HE damage rework?
You only wrote about ships and new textures for map.
If I didn't read past the headline, how would I know that you dislike game for being 40$ then?
I do grant that you did bad job understanding my comment.
I thought his review was spot on
Well we are looking at campaigning for a WW2 game.
Totally agree with review. Eugene has used this as a cash cow from loyal airland wargame players without any real reward. One thing that really bothers me are trying to type out the flag labels instead of using chat during battle. Also there are hills/ mountains which do add something different but so was there in airland. The flat land is still very very snooker table flat. No undulations at all. I went back after one week of RD and played AL multiplayer. It was good to be back - really. Not Eugenes fault but the players seem much more apt to chat and discuss the game with plenty of banter thrown in rather than the reticence that I have experienced with RD.
TO EUGEN GAMES
From chatting with AL Players it is clear that a WW2 game with the same mechanics is much desired. I won't go into too much detail but the potential is as massive as it's fan base. Tigers, ME262s, Paratroopers (still missing in both games) et al makes the mind boggle. And please, you have improved on the indestructible buildings and that is great to see but...the bridges! They need exactly to be destructible! Trenches/pill boxes(feild fortifications) weather (has is and will always be a factor on the battlefield) must be factored in.
In summary RD took far to long to deliver despite the success of AL and I don't think it was worth the wait not withstanding any future improvements.
WW2 should be considered as a future release due to a potentially massive demand.
Please just stop reviewing games, find some other calling, but please stop this 'intentional low scores for click bait' crap. You're pushing the score averages down just because you want more ad-revenue.
How do you explain the games I like? And do you think I actually liked this game more than I said, but intentionally lied when I wrote about it?
Furthermore, are you complaining about the score we don't use the 7-9 range most common on other sites, or because you don't understand how our ratings work? I think you'll find the ratings policy linked at the bottom of the page, and specifically the FAQ it links, illuminating.
Tom, when Airland Battle went on sale a few months ago your review convinced me to pick it up. I only played it for a few hours, but i enjoyed it so much I immediately preordered Red Dragon. Now, do you think it's worth it to jump ship to Red Dragon (no pun intended), or should I stay on Airland Battle? I spent only about 40 dollars in total so i won't b e too disappointed if I wasted money. I only ask you this because you seemed to be such a fan of ALB the first time around.
It depends on what you're looking for. The naval stuff is a really a non-issue. It brings nothing to the table. But the option to 1) change the speed, and 2) determine which deck a computer plays are both really nice new features. If neither of those matters to you, stick with AirLand Battles. Also, if you're in it for the single-player campaign, definitely stick with AirLand Battles.
Red Dragon is mainly for skirmish players who want the extra features.
Doesn't integrate well? I guess I don't know what you mean by that, so I'll just say 'Pshaw'. :-) I don't think you're giving the naval combat in SupCom: Forged Alliance nearly enough credit.
Supreme Commander has a large range of ships that can be game-winning by dominating the land (e.g., long-ranged destroyers and battleships, plus guided-missile cruisers) and air.
SupCom also has a nice range of amphibious units that make coastal assault/defense a key element, even when the map allows you to reach your enemy over land. In addition to the walking ships you mentioned, many of the most powerful land units can travel along the sea floor, and there are speedy hover units that act as great harassers and counters to torpedo defenses. Most of these amphib. units are much easier to counter if you can use naval power to first spot and then destroy them, so you pay a serious price if you neglect or are driven from the sea.
I'd argue that SupCom's well-integrated naval combat is clearly demonstrated by its most-played map ("Seton's Clutch", the one in the trailer with the big isthmus). A quick google for replays would show you that this map is well known for its various strategies on different sides and the trade-offs that come from players pushing land vs. sea vs. air.
On larger sea maps, navies are absolutely critical and the sheer size of the battle space puts SupCom in a class of its own in terms of simulating the deployment of battlegroups against an unknown enemy lurking out in the great big sea. (No other RTS has allowed me to experience Midway-like engagements where battlegroups can be separated along an atoll--for good reason--and I have to guess whether enemy movement to the south represents a feint or the vanguard of a major task force).
Smaller maps are equally well integrated, where a single early destroyer or cruiser can grant land or air superiority, but also a huge investment, big risk, and a big target for your enemy (much like our modern navies where one ship represents so much power and also such a central target).
I love RoN, but RoN's naval combat is terribly spammy and hollow by comparison. RoN naval combat has far less tactical space and the units mostly amount to 'sea tanks' that you throw en masse at the opponent, which is very different from SupCom where there's an emphasis on stealth/intel, weapon (in)accuracy vs. ship maneuverability, and beyond-visual-range engagement that requires good use of combined arms (i.e., various ships plus torp. bombers, gunships, and scout planes).
I'm most interested in the multiplayer, so neither of those matter very much to me. For now I think I'll stick with Airland Battle and get some more time out of that, then.
I appreciate that you were willing to review it and give your opinion not just on its own merits but as a previous fan of the series, compared to the other reviews of this game. That made a big difference for me.
- "1) change the speed" aka virtual "active pause" is a game changer for me as a skirmish lover. It does not works perfect, but still better then nothing.
- "2) determine which deck a computer plays" adds a variety to skirmish games as well.
19 reviews Metacritics, 18 give the game a score of 7.0 or higher, Chick, as always, rates it like 3 points lower than anyone else to stir things up and to attract visitors.
I don't know who the one is that we need to feel most sorry for, Chick for his actions or the one at Metacritics allowing Chick to abuse the system.
It's a sad world out there....sigh.
I have to wholeheartedly agree with this review. They had a good thing going with the Airland Battle. Loved the added airpower. Loved the strategic campaign map. Loved the handling of strategic assets (navy included) by spending resource points. Loved the random events. I thought the air assets could use more tweaking (they appear too fast, so I’d make it a two step process where you’d request them to come closer which would then take some time and for a certain time you’d have them at a few seconds notice after which they’d go back to their more distant rally point or something) and there was actually a huge bug with the strategic AI where it couldn’t attack or respond to areas behind it. E.g. the Soviet Zhukov-2 campaign was seriously maimed because of it - from the description you can see that it was supposed to include an East German mechanized division from Denmark joining in, but since the AI couldn’t handle it, it was cut out. Also, the naval landings were lacklustre if you land below them as they’d never respond to your movements across the map.
But, instead of all that, they introduce this naval command and conquer nonsense with destroyer sized ships duking it out in shallow waters. If only auto-resolve would give out results in a more fair manner so I’d never have to fight those few naval battles in my campaigns I really dread from.
Since they didn’t add any more campaigns (although initially they promised more to come IIRC), the game turned into an MP slug fest while the developers are grinding their money dishing out unit packs.
I hope they come to their senses and make a new game in some other theater with SP campaigns. Middle East comes to mind.
to be fair they did add the 2nd korean war sp campaign post release. for free too. this campaign is being actively modded. see the eugen forums for more info.