R/C Naval Combat

Thanks for the warning.
I have C&C Decades. Have had a lot of fun with that in the past. Now I am running "Vista" (UGH), and have not tried to install Decades on my new computer. So Decades is just collecting dust.

The Starcraft 2 Beta is a good time sink, as is Mechwarrior 4 which was just released for free with the expansions and add-on mech-packs.

Starcraft, another one of my favorites . . .
Never played Mechwarrior.

Now if only I had some time to kill . . .

Knight4Hire, I have Decade also, ran well on XP SP1, 2, and 3. Now running on Windows 7, although some of the older games crash when I try to run them. Researching workarounds and I'll post when/if I find them. Possible fix is setting emulation mode to Windows XP for all the executables. I'm going to look into Mechwarrior 4!! Played the original, I did Failed a class in college because of Mechwarrior I did! (Before I was in the Navy and cleaned up lol).

Knight4Hire, I have Decade also, ran well on XP SP1, 2, and 3. Now running on Windows 7, although some of the older games crash when I try to run them. Researching workarounds and I'll post when/if I find them. Possible fix is setting emulation mode to Windows XP for all the executables. I'm going to look into Mechwarrior 4!! Played the original, I did Failed a class in college because of Mechwarrior I did! (Before I was in the Navy and cleaned up lol).

I haven't played C&C since the original. What is so bad about this one?

It's not a RTS game. It's a tactical game with a mobile 'base' that you can pack and unpack, that makes units and (sometimes) defensive turrets. The unit cap is rediculously low (around 10 units) and the enemy has no such limitations. There is no resource gathering, no base building. In short, it's not what C&C players have come to enjoy over the 15 years weve been playing. Call it a RTT (Realtime Tactical), but they really FUBAR'd the last game of the series. My opinion is borne out by the review from most of the major gaming mags. I think PC gamer rated it in the 50's (out of 100). Unfortunately, I didn't read the reviews first, because I'd been buying C&Cgames foreverand just got excited because they were all so good.
*I say you can 'sometimes' build turrets because only the 'Defender' base can do that. The Offense base can't, and the Support base can't. You have to pick one, which only allows you certain abilities and certain units (Defender only gets infantry, Offense only get vehicles, Support only get aircraft). This would be cool if you wanted to play multiplayer all the time, but I like playing RTS games (if this was one) by my lonesome, enscounced in the Nerdcave. On that note, there's no solo skirmish play against an AI (one of the best features of previous C&C games), and to play at all you MUST log on to EA's servers, even if you're playing the solo campaign.

I had my most fun with Tiberian Sun when my boys were in their teenage years. Back then you could use a cross over cable and link two computers. My youngest son thought that being NOD was the greatest. He could not understand why dear old dad always beat him. Like the time he sent all of his missle troops chasing one of my jump marines. The lone jump marine lead his troops into an ambush. A pack of wolverine desended from the north and group of Titans came up from the south. He felt that it was well worth the loss because he had found my base. What he did not know, is that it was my satellite base, the one I wanted him to find. He kept send his troops into my death traps in his attempts to attack that base. While my real base lay undefended, building and growning.

Ah, I miss those days. . .

Indeed. The lack of LAN play really irks me. I loved playing Red Alert (and RA2) and Yuri's revenge. K4H - I have found that there is a patch that needs installed... patch 1.03 which resolves some of the issues. Installing it tonite and will post results.

Appreciate the warning, I had thought about getting SH5. Getting tired of the DRM that people feel necessary these days.

If you like your games like C&C Starcraft2 (Which I am one of the beta testers for) et.al. then don't try Supreme Commander. It is so far beyond the scale of any of C&C or Starcraft2 and is truly epic.

I absolutely love Supreme Commander & SC: Forged Alliance; and as soon as Kat's not watching I'll be picking up Supreme Commander 2 which was just released.

Be warned, you need a pretty beefy machine for this series. But the graphics are outstanding, the scale is mind blowing, and the amount of units in play at any one time is unreal...

Seriously worth a go if you like these sorts of games.

I have a suitably beefy i7 64-bit CPU, backed up with 2 Radeon 4870 1GB graphics cards operating in crossfire mode. I don't think that they've made a game (yet) that it can't play. My only problem is the occasional problem with Win7 not liking a game.

Ahh yes, Supreme Commander. I spent years of my life playing Total Annihilation, SupCom's spiritual predecessor, and I still have it installed on my computer. Both SupCom and TA have a unique rate-based resource system and mass-production economy that makes far more sense to me than smaller-scale games like StarCraft and C&C. In fact, Total Annihilation was originally released about the same time as StarCraft. It was a vastly superior game, with actual 3D units, support for user-created units, and extensive mod-ability; only a better marketing scheme and brand-name recognition allowed Blizzard and Starcraft to win out.

My brother recently tried out Supreme Commander 2. Alas, he says they finally compromised their principles: the rate-based resource system is gone, and the game now follows a more tradition tech tree for upgrades and new units. Much of what made the original TA and SupCom great has been removed from the new SupCom II, all in the name of reducing minimum system requirements. I will try the game out myself, once final exams are over, but I do not hold out much hope. It seems too many companies are willing to sacrifice quality in order to earn a few more bucks.

I hope it's better for you than C&C4 was for me. I was actually angry and feeling robbed.

Tuggy, SC:Forged Aliance will make your system chugg. I have the same specs.

One, it is dual monitor. Meaning each monitor can watch different sections of the map

Two, its graphics are absolutely insane. Everything looks absolutely crazy.

Three, each side can have like 1000 different units not counting buildings. And the maps are so epic, having several thousand unit battles isn't uncommon.



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I heard Supreme Commander 2 wasn't as good. How disappointing is that? They say its build to make epic battles more common. Donno.

Question: who else here plays Distant Guns II: Jutland, or its prequel, Distant Guns: the Russo-Japanese War at Sea? Gascan and I are huge fans, and specifically built our most recent computers to play Jutland. These games are highly detailed naval fleet simulators, covering the greatest naval battles and campaigns of the battleship age. If you thought SupCom: FA was large-scale, just wait until you see the whole Grand Fleet arrayed before you in its splendor, guns thundering and shells howling overhead.

Most recently, I commanded the British 1st Battlecruiser Squadron, the 2nd Battle Squadron, and the 3rd Battle Squadron late 1914 in pursuit of a few German battlecruisers that had bombarded the coastal town of Scarborough. I successfully intercepted SMS Seydlitz and SMS Von Der Tann in the pre-dawn twilight, and was pounding them senseless with my battlecruisers' massive 13.5-inch guns from 6,000 meters away when one of my scouting destroyer squadrons spotted a contact bearing north-east. Next thing I knew there were full broadsides of REALLY BIG shells dropping on my lead destroyer every 2 seconds, and through the twilight fog I saw a lot of muzzle-flashes and a long line of smoke. Thus began the desperate race between my single division of modern dreadnoughts and the entire High Seas Fleet. An hour after sunrise, I had managed through careful maneuvering and judicious torpedo-attacks to open the range to 15,000 meters, and only lost two battleships and two battlecruisers. Harwich Force came up from the south and contributed its cruisers to the delaying action, holding the bulk of its destroyers back for a massed torpedo attack should the situation deteriorate further. Alas I had to save the game and go to bed before the battle was resolved, but I'll finish it up in a few weeks once finals are done. I've got the rest of the Grand Fleet racing south from Scapa Flow as quick as it can go, to intercept the High Seas Fleet as quick as it can, and my exhausted cruiser squadrons detached specifically to shadow the High Seas Fleet should the realize their danger and turn for home.

I love Distant Guns and its sequel, Jutland. Their graphics may seem crude compared to games like Silent Hunter, but games like Silent Hunter don't have 50+ ships on-screen at a time, with hundreds of individual shells and splashes and huge clouds of smoke. It is a truly awesome experience to see the silhouettes of twenty battleships in a gorgeous morning twilight, barely visible through the North Sea fog, and you get that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as you realize they're only 10,000 meters from your own vastly-outnumbered line of battle. One well-played fleet action in Jutland or Distant Guns is very nearly as satisfying to me as a battle day with my VU; no other computer game I have played can make such a claim.