I loved it, I bought all the expansion packs! (127)
44%
I played it a few times, it was ok. (70)
24%
I added 500 more units to the game from the modding community, this game was a masterpiece! (44)
15%
Never heard of it. (31)
11%
Barely remember hearing about it way back when. (18)
6%
290 total votes
Your vote: Have you ever played Total Annihilation?
(Vote): Never heard of it. (Vote): Barely remember hearing about it way back when. (Vote): I played it a few times, it was ok. (Vote): I loved it, I bought all the expansion packs! (Vote): I added 500 more units to the game from the modding community, this game was a masterpiece!
Remember how HUGE the modding community was for this game? I think it was technically the first RTS to ever allow easy and dynamic modifications. It came out a year before Starcraft and it was still better for customization. You were able to go online and download big unit packs and sometimes even entirely new tech levels.
The modding community is still alive and well with new mods still coming out... lol I have no idea who has the time to make them but oh yeah they're still making new ones. Cavedog (the creators) died shortly after the final expansion pack, but the game lived on just fine without them and was constantly being improved by its fans.
Please tell me someone has heard of this: http://springrts.com/ This is taking TA to the next (or current) level. I highly recommend you all check it out if you haven't heard of it already. And it is free.
On March 14 2012 06:51 Erethorma wrote: Please tell me someone has heard of this: http://springrts.com/ This is taking TA to the next (or current) level. I highly recommend you all check it out if you haven't heard of it already. And it is free.
I was just going to bring this up. The Spring engine was originally designed to recreate the gameplay of Total Annihilation. There are several game out now that use this engine, but the most successful one currently is probably Zero-K. You can download Zero-K for free, and the game just recently passed the v1.0 threshold.
That game was awesome...it had the most devastating tech tree that was actually difficult to move up (takes a loong time to build a big bertha). But when you do, its so destructive and amazing. Especially the experimental weapons.
Secondly the music was the best music I've ever heard in a game. The AI wasn't perfect but definitely one of the most memorable RTS games ever
My friends and I played this a lot. We even had the fantasy version, even thought it was so much worse haha. I remember building epic defense and teching to the Kragoth like every game XD. I had absolutely no idea that there was a huge modding community for this game, wish i still had the game.
I got pretty into TA, I made my own units, maps and tools for modding. It used to run like shit at the time on a 300 MHz Pentium, I ran it a few years ago and it's impossible to control at max speed since everything runs too fast . The Boneyards feature was also way ahead of its time - persistent territory control multiplayer matchmaking? Shame Cavedog went under.
My favorite RTS of all-time. I remember playing on T.E.N.(Total Entertainment Network) and Mplayer, the first service that I can remember that had voice chat.
Some of the maps were so damn big that games would go on for hours, and since you had unlimited resources and could have unit caps of up to 5000, it really was total annihilation, all out war.
The physics for the game were so far ahead of its time for an RTS game it's crazy. The way you could manipulate units and use terrain to your advantage was so cool. Making cheap structures to protect important ones from artillery fire, or using unit wreckage to shield your army.
Nukes were truly devastating and there was nothing quite like a Krogoth protected by an army of tanks and vamps storming a base.
What was the expo called? A part of me remembers 'Buzzsaw' which was effectively a fully auto Big Bertha
Quick google said it was in 'Core Contingency' addon which I had. I would loved to go back in time and play that game properly, I was a comp stomp nub back in the day with lines of plasma cannons and a fleet of tac bombers.
On March 14 2012 07:02 R1CH wrote: I got pretty into TA, I made my own units, maps and tools for modding. It used to run like shit at the time on a 300 MHz Pentium, I ran it a few years ago and it's impossible to control at max speed since everything runs too fast . The Boneyards feature was also way ahead of its time - persistent territory control multiplayer matchmaking? Shame Cavedog went under.
They had that in Red Alert II, which I found quite enjoyable. A shame no modern RTS has taken this concept. I miss the old Westwood Studios
They called it World Domination in RA 2. The community of top players back in RA 95 had our own system of sorts, which was called Global Domination. Such memories and fun times to be had.
Loved it. Got all the big unit packs. My fav mod unit was the gun-toting maverick. I even tolerated TA Kingdoms. Still play SupCom: FA. SupCom 2 was godawful. This series could have been so much bigger. But not a viable E-Sport because the units were too small and the scale too large.
I just remember trying to build every single unit ever. Big Bertha was such a good unit haha. And I loved all of the air units. I was so bad, but it was stupid amounts of fun.
Has even a shittier AI than BW. But goddamn, the music.. and the huge giant spiders killing everything in their way fuck yeah I love the TA modding community.
Man it was an excellent game I must have wasted far to much of my childhood. I can remember my computer couldn't run the big maps properly. I loved the attrition war feel you got from it. The air warfare was surprisingly epic. I haven’t played a RTS that has as good/fun air warfare element. Most games including Broodwar the feel of the air units is basically just ground units but in the air. The TA units flew and did bombing runs and even got into dog fights awesome fun.
On March 14 2012 06:55 rANDY wrote: I played TA online for about 5-6 years, was one of the best in the world, still play from time to time
This is the site most of the best TA replays get uploaded to/reviewed if anyone is interested http://tadrs.tauniverse.com/
Pshaw, you're a scrub :p
But for reals, TA is the best RTS ever, IMO. The only place it lacked was in the UI a little.
No way. Red Alert 95 is the best :p Much more skill-based imho.
Sadly, there was no YT around back then to capture the games, but just imagine speeding up the production to where tanks build in fractions of a second, no waypoints, you have to Q (which is holding Q selecting the tank you want to attack, and then selecting the ground where you want your tanks to move to -- the point of this is otherwise your tanks stand still and get shot, when you Q micro your tanks have the chance to evade enemy fire), also you have multiple MCV's / CC's so your buildings also build in fractions of a second which means placing turrets / tesla coils down everywhere and clicking on the repair button and targeting each one, etc. etc.
Games got pretty absurd in APM requirements, especially since there was no supply cap so it wasn't uncommon to have 100+ vs 100+ tank battles for 30+ minutes, as well as hundreds of turrets / coils. Sooo much fun.
Decent demo imho (still on the slow side though).
Now we are getting there (check how fast tanks start to build near the end..)
Endless battles, explosions and devastation. All to the tune of some amazing music
+sing +atm +atm +atm ...
Those were the days
Played it with a friend a lot when I was younger. One of the first PC games I had. I was, and still am, rubbish at it. Tried the spring engine version, but couldn't really come to terms with the GUI... perhaps it's the power of nostalgia that kept me from enjoying it :p
I remember massing a TON of these small fast jets that landed when they were not moving. So after massing all of these jets i selected them all and started attacking the enemy. When I accidentally deselected them. Suddenly my screen was just being spammed with these super fast jets and me trying to single click them to regain control.
I was a RTS noob but the amount of hours I spent on that game was incredible.
Sadly, there was no YT around back then to capture the games, but just imagine speeding up the production to where tanks build in fractions of a second, no waypoints, you have to Q (which is holding Q selecting the tank you want to attack, and then selecting the ground where you want your tanks to move to -- the point of this is otherwise your tanks stand still and get shot, when you Q micro your tanks have the chance to evade enemy fire), also you have multiple MCV's / CC's so your buildings also build in fractions of a second which means placing turrets / tesla coils down everywhere and clicking on the repair button and targeting each one, etc. etc.
Games got pretty absurd in APM requirements, especially since there was no supply cap so it wasn't uncommon to have 100+ vs 100+ tank battles for 30+ minutes, as well as hundreds of turrets / coils. Sooo much fun.
Wow, was never aware it was played like that! That's cool. Shame now if I ever go back to that for a laugh I'll know how to play properly Like when I looked at a Master of Orion 2 guide and henceforth never built anything but MIRV missile spamming ships
Sadly, there was no YT around back then to capture the games, but just imagine speeding up the production to where tanks build in fractions of a second, no waypoints, you have to Q (which is holding Q selecting the tank you want to attack, and then selecting the ground where you want your tanks to move to -- the point of this is otherwise your tanks stand still and get shot, when you Q micro your tanks have the chance to evade enemy fire), also you have multiple MCV's / CC's so your buildings also build in fractions of a second which means placing turrets / tesla coils down everywhere and clicking on the repair button and targeting each one, etc. etc.
Games got pretty absurd in APM requirements, especially since there was no supply cap so it wasn't uncommon to have 100+ vs 100+ tank battles for 30+ minutes, as well as hundreds of turrets / coils. Sooo much fun.
Wow, was never aware it was played like that! That's cool. Shame now if I ever go back to that for a laugh I'll know how to play properly Like when I looked at a Master of Orion 2 guide and henceforth never built anything but MIRV missile spamming ships
Haha I used to play TA with my dad. He really was into all the modding shizzle, I was 12 back then, I think. Man, this game was so amazing. First RTS I ever played. It got awfully laagy on the old CPU, tho... :>
I love playing TA with my friends, but we're all scrubs so we only play metal maps for maximum extractors!
I always loved building naval units though. I really sucked at controlling the units, so navy was easier for me to deal with I guess... that and nuke silos. Heh.
Yeah this was the game that got me into RTS. I used to play endless hours of it with my brother using our crappy computer that could hardly run the big maps haha. Soooo good. The music is unmatched. So many fond childhood memories =D
Loved this game. Played on boneyards with my dad and we were the first ones to go gunships. I think the best part was the time it took guns to track and travel time of the weapons. Flea >> commander :D
On March 14 2012 14:58 Golgotha wrote: is this easy to get setup and play on lan? some of these old games are a real pain to get working on lan/MP. is it just like BW?
GameRanger is an easy solution to make it work on LAN or tunneling to other people, but the game itself takes a bit of work to get running. I don't remember the URL, but there's a site that'll give you a walkthrough of how to set it up.
Krogoth.... I remember getting like 50 adv aircraft construction works to pool on that shit.
I loved playing on core metal worlds lol, it was like playing fastest map possible.
I think I was like 8 when i played TA vanilla on my good old Pentium 3 600MHz with like 128mb ram and a 8MB video card (it was the bomb back then my dad ran a computer store).
We installed it in the computer labs at high school, played LAN during lunch with mates was the shit back then.
Technically it was a wonder, to this day i cant imagine how the hell it worked without accelaration, full 3d and physics and the resoultions up to the point no one had the monitors to display it :D
Probably one of few most technically innovating games in industry the quake1 of rts you may say. Funnily proper 3d was not implemented for years after this game in other rtses .Starcraft came year after this, red alert 2 and rest was all 2d the next first fully 3d rts was war3 i belive. There was also some mecha rts a'la Mechwarrior RTS but i forgot the name.
Played this back when I was casual. I just loved playing on the all-metal maps, massing lots of static D against comps and watching the carnage.
I also fucking loved the intro video. Who's with me?
What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines escalated into a war which has decimated a million worlds. The Core and the Arm have all but exhausted the resources of a galaxy in their struggle for domination. Both sides now crippled beyond repair, the remnants of their armies continue to battle on ravaged planets, their hatred fueled by over four thousand years of total war. This is a fight to the death. For each side, the only acceptable outcome is the complete elimination of the other.
If ta:spring isn't your cup of tea, try supcom: forged alliance. The official servers went down, but the community had already pretty much migrated to FAForever, http://www.faforever.com/
For those who didn't see the gameplay, here are some cool huge scale battles just for the explosion and (pirates of the carribean) soundtrack :D
Jeremy soule does the best video games musics. It's not even debatable. Look for the soundtrack on YT, it's golden. You could even put the game CD into your player, the tunes were readable on a hi-fi :p
This game was so freaking good. It's with this that I started to play 3/4 hours a day against my dad when I was 6 ahahaha And everything was freakiing imbalanced, the Krogoth would have made the reaver his bitch :p
On March 14 2012 19:58 writer22816 wrote: Played this back when I was casual. I just loved playing on the all-metal maps, massing lots of static D against comps and watching the carnage.
I also fucking loved the intro video. Who's with me?
What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines escalated into a war which has decimated a million worlds. The Core and the Arm have all but exhausted the resources of a galaxy in their struggle for domination. Both sides now crippled beyond repair, the remnants of their armies continue to battle on ravaged planets, their hatred fueled by over four thousand years of total war. This is a fight to the death. For each side, the only acceptable outcome is the complete elimination of the other.
Easily most epic intro video. Usually I would skip these, but TA's one never.
The mechanics, racial diversity and resulting strategy from SCBW make it a much better game (indisputably the best RTS ever), but the awesomeness of TA is totally undeniable. Best soundtrack for any RTS and in many ways ahead of its time.
On March 19 2012 03:36 Mortality wrote: The mechanics, racial diversity and resulting strategy from SCBW make it a much better game (indisputably the best RTS ever), but the awesomeness of TA is totally undeniable. Best soundtrack for any RTS and in many ways ahead of its time.
I would say that Total Annihilation was just as good as StarCraft. In fact, TA did a lot of things that were ahead of it's time and it completely changed RTS games.
Yeah.. Big Bertha hah, I loved turtling there and watching how waves of enemies got decimated. Yet my most beloved oldschool, non-SC RTS was KKND2: Krossfire.
On March 24 2012 03:02 beamer159 wrote: Hey, Total Annihilation is on sale this weekend at gog.com for only $2.99! If you ever wanted to play this game, now is a better time than ever.
On March 24 2012 03:02 beamer159 wrote: Hey, Total Annihilation is on sale this weekend at gog.com for only $2.99! If you ever wanted to play this game, now is a better time than ever.
On March 24 2012 03:02 beamer159 wrote: Hey, Total Annihilation is on sale this weekend at gog.com for only $2.99! If you ever wanted to play this game, now is a better time than ever.
My first pc game i played was Total Annihilation when i was 5, i loved that game so much. I'd build forts with Dragon's Teeth and stationary defences all the time. Also don't get me started on the soundtrack, its so beautiful
Just wanted to inform myself, if this is known here.
It lost very little appeal in the meantime because it solved the problems of drawing 3d terrain and having units consisting of polygons so well.
It feels more like a bare engine, though. The ai is bad, the unit pool is very symmetric and the story is plain and confusing. The Soundtrack is on par with the one from Dark Reign. So I don't know why it is being hyped and has scores above 9 of 10. It just gets most basic stuff done really well.
On March 14 2012 07:41 Fealthas wrote: Im considering buying it. Also am wondering why isnt it free by now? Company crashed so why is game not free?
Well, there are laws. If a company disappears, the copyright is still being held by someone.
On March 16 2012 02:54 scaban84 wrote: Are there any good unit mods for Forged Alliance like there were for TA? I am curious if there are any mods that make SupCom2 not so terrible.
If you check out Forged Alliance Forever there are a few mods with other units/buildings and so on featured there. Then there are more on top of that. I don't even know how many there are since I never looked into it.
I think I also end up in the noobs that camped with dragon teeth and static defence against the AI. Its spiritual follow up in Supreme Commander's zoom is still something I wonder why other games aren't emulating all that much. It feels very similar and improved upon TA, yet doesn't retain interest after a while for some reason.
I used to love it when the music went to battle mode when your 100 vs 100 unit armies started blasting the shit out of eachother.. And this also bring back memores of frustration over the fact that unit wrecks blocked shots from the units behind them.... seeing all those sweet grenades explode and repositioning your units could be frustrating to say the least...
One thing that TA did so well was navy, this is one place where Supcom FA actually improved the gameplay. The interplay between submarines, surface ships and air only exists in this game.
I came from the TA/Supcom/SupcomFA route of RTS rather than the War/StarCraft version. I enjoy SC2 immensely, but I am also a massive fan of TA/FA. The mechanics of FA greatly mirror that of TA as well, which is good.
I still have my TA + Expansion(s) discs, if we can get it working. Hamachi?
Does TA:Spring still work as well? I played that when it was early in production, the deformable terrain made for epic battles.
On August 10 2012 18:16 FXOUnstable wrote: Ah, good old TA my gateway drug to RTS games, also loved supcom/supcomFA too bad they arent around much anymore
There's a reasonable resurgance at www.faforever.com - We have our own client, etc. Be sure to hunt someone from TL down if you're in there (there are a few of us) and we'll help you back into it. For some reason the community isn't always that nice to new players, but you can generally find a newbie oriented game at all times.
the problem with supcom/FA was that its so badly optimized and ate computer resources like mad. Also every units every shot had a calculated trajectory and had to actually hit something to do damage, totally awesome in theory but when you got to hundreads of units fighting eachother all with massvie and complex attacks it ment you could not micro your units at all. I mean this game was released in 2007 and i got a decent rig with an I7 and for larger games i still fall short.
If this game would have actually worked i would have still played it, nothing like having a long drawn out fight culmitating in someone getting a giant death robot that anihilates everything. There's something special to a game were you can build an infinite resource generatior and its actually not imbalanced
edit: when i mean you couldn't micro i didn't mean it was to hard i ment that they didn't respond to commands fast enough and sometimes you only got a part of the army moving due to running out of cpupower
Yeah, this can still be an issue. It can be mitigated by lowering the unit cap. 500 units per person is usually more than enough unless the game lingers on t1 for too long. A number of the FAF community are interested in getting that more optimised, but it appears to be inside the engine.
As long as it's just versus people, though, it's not so bad. 2v2s - 4v4s on the smaller maps are generally still fine. Setons makes the problem worse as it's so chokey that more time is spent building up massive armies.
On the smallest maps, though, even 6v6s are viable, and are incredibly good fun.
On August 10 2012 18:16 FXOUnstable wrote: Ah, good old TA my gateway drug to RTS games, also loved supcom/supcomFA too bad they arent around much anymore
There's a reasonable resurgance at www.faforever.com - We have our own client, etc. Be sure to hunt someone from TL down if you're in there (there are a few of us) and we'll help you back into it. For some reason the community isn't always that nice to new players, but you can generally find a newbie oriented game at all times.
Oh nice, I don't think I have my installer anywhere any more though is it standalone? or do I have to buy a new copy. When i played I was pretty competent top 100-150 consistently on ladder so I'm sure ill be able to pick it up again.
On August 10 2012 18:16 FXOUnstable wrote: Ah, good old TA my gateway drug to RTS games, also loved supcom/supcomFA too bad they arent around much anymore
There's a reasonable resurgance at www.faforever.com - We have our own client, etc. Be sure to hunt someone from TL down if you're in there (there are a few of us) and we'll help you back into it. For some reason the community isn't always that nice to new players, but you can generally find a newbie oriented game at all times.
Oh nice, I don't think I have my installer anywhere any more though is it standalone? or do I have to buy a new copy. When i played I was pretty competent top 100-150 consistently on ladder so I'm sure ill be able to pick it up again.
What was your name? I played against alot of aussies on ladder
On August 10 2012 18:16 FXOUnstable wrote: Ah, good old TA my gateway drug to RTS games, also loved supcom/supcomFA too bad they arent around much anymore
There's a reasonable resurgance at www.faforever.com - We have our own client, etc. Be sure to hunt someone from TL down if you're in there (there are a few of us) and we'll help you back into it. For some reason the community isn't always that nice to new players, but you can generally find a newbie oriented game at all times.
Oh nice, I don't think I have my installer anywhere any more though is it standalone? or do I have to buy a new copy. When i played I was pretty competent top 100-150 consistently on ladder so I'm sure ill be able to pick it up again.
What was your name? I played against alot of aussies on ladder
Main Account I used back then was SiN_ Mainly played in supcom as I moved onto college a few months after FA came out. That kills your gaming time
On August 10 2012 18:16 FXOUnstable wrote: Ah, good old TA my gateway drug to RTS games, also loved supcom/supcomFA too bad they arent around much anymore
There's a reasonable resurgance at www.faforever.com - We have our own client, etc. Be sure to hunt someone from TL down if you're in there (there are a few of us) and we'll help you back into it. For some reason the community isn't always that nice to new players, but you can generally find a newbie oriented game at all times.
Oh nice, I don't think I have my installer anywhere any more though is it standalone? or do I have to buy a new copy. When i played I was pretty competent top 100-150 consistently on ladder so I'm sure ill be able to pick it up again.
What was your name? I played against alot of aussies on ladder
Main Account I used back then was SiN_ Mainly played in supcom as I moved onto college a few months after FA came out. That kills your gaming time
If i Remember correctly you were between 2200-2000 rating?
On August 10 2012 18:16 FXOUnstable wrote: Ah, good old TA my gateway drug to RTS games, also loved supcom/supcomFA too bad they arent around much anymore
There's a reasonable resurgance at www.faforever.com - We have our own client, etc. Be sure to hunt someone from TL down if you're in there (there are a few of us) and we'll help you back into it. For some reason the community isn't always that nice to new players, but you can generally find a newbie oriented game at all times.
Oh nice, I don't think I have my installer anywhere any more though is it standalone? or do I have to buy a new copy. When i played I was pretty competent top 100-150 consistently on ladder so I'm sure ill be able to pick it up again.
What was your name? I played against alot of aussies on ladder
Main Account I used back then was SiN_ Mainly played in supcom as I moved onto college a few months after FA came out. That kills your gaming time
If i Remember correctly you were between 2200-2000 rating?
I'm trying to remember the ELO I mainly ignored it but it was definitely 1800+, I think I fluctuated between 1800-2100 ish
Although I just found supcom/FA on steam for $20 excellent timing to force me to get all my work for this weekend all done before the download finishes!
I still dont understand how they managed to make this game fully 3d with optional ridiculous resolutions no one could afford 3 years past its release. With no hardware accelerator! Thats like technological revolution beyond belief.
On August 10 2012 18:32 Noak wrote: ... Also every units every shot had a calculated trajectory and had to actually hit something to do damage, totally awesome in theory but when you got to hundreads of units fighting eachother all with massvie and complex attacks it ment you could not micro your units at all....(
I have to disagree. This was both good and theory and in practice. Listen to what TLO said about this in his interview on TBO's twitch channel. When you get to the point that you have 100's of T1 units fighting, the micro shifts from controlling individual t1 units to positioning squads of units, where range and focus fire become more important. Also at this stage you would have individual T2/T3 units in the battle where it would be very useful to individually micro those. Air micro in this game is simply insane, but extremely rewarding if you are better than your opponent.(even between players who have played for the last 5 years there are still significant gaps in ability between players) If you like slower micro you go straight to T2 navy, where you have time to dodge individual shots, play with stealth, shields. Here the interplay between submarine warfare and air becomes pretty complex and very important. (while you are doing all this make sure not to forget to take care of your economy, ie, this game is not for those with low APM and the inability to multitask) No matter how fast you are and how big your brain is, this game will take you to the limit of your abilities, where you will find yourself completely emerged in battle and your victories will be sweet, while defeats will leave you in a lot of pain. (All this doesn't apply to noob games, where supreme commander turns into two players trying to figure out how to play for a few hours as the battlefield gets filled with hundreds of units waiting for orders and the cpu begins to struggle more and more)
It seems like every supcom thread has some one saying: "the game is dead" "Too bad it isn't around anymore" Maybe this is true in comparison to starcraft or starcraft 2, but in this case most RTS games were never even born. Supcom FA never died, I have been able to find a game on GPGNET and now on FAF any day over the last 5 years. If Supcom FA is dead anywhere then it is definitely dead in the US (players here seem to need someone to tell them that they are playing a good game, so that when they are playing it they can feel like they are playing a good game). In Europe this game has always been strong, on any day during the last 5 years if you were to login to gpgnet/FAF during a European Evening you would have a whole bunch of different games available to join. If you logged in during European morning however, you would have some problems, even on some weekends.
I programmed an AI for the Spring version as a school asignment couple years ago, was fun to do, one of the rare time i was like "eh already over ? " when i finished my asignment :p
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2010/03/taheaderimg580px.jpg)
looks kinda cool lol
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6DHud.jpg?1)
