Spring RTS

[Sotha]

I happened to bounce on this the other day.

 

http://springrts.com/

 

Basically it is a free RTS engine without assets for windows and linux. There are a plethora of game assets for it made by other people. Since I used to enjoy Total Annihilation years ago, I tried briefly the Zero-K (which should be similar) game with it. There is no campaign but I basically tried a multiplayer game against a bot and, of course, got my ass whopped. Too many years, too rusty in RTS'es.

 

Interesting stuff and I'm sure it is plenty of fun against real people. Has someone played this? Which game mods do you prefer? I saw there are several Total Annihilation inspired games for it, difficult to choose.

 

Oh, and a video I found:

[jaxa]

Check out 0 A.D.: http://www.moddb.com/games/0-ad/

[Sotha]

So I've been playing Zero-K for some battles so far.

 

I've started to wonder why on earth I never really got into RTSes. This is great fun. Mostly I've played online in some 6vs6 team games on a server that is newbie-friendly. This game indeed delves deeply on strategy.

 

You need to figure out which units to produce, when and how. How and where to start? Which direction to expand? Balance between static defences and mobile units. How much anti-air, assault and artillery units to keep you army balanced against anything the enemy might throw at you. Choosing which units to combat which enemies. Reconnaissance: check what the enemies are cooking in order to counter their next move. Function cohesively with your teammates units to make a push towards the enemy. Know when to retreat to avoid losing your units: sometimes you just have to abandon an outpost, only to reclaim it a few minutes later. Try to flank to their bases to destroy economy buildings. Try to strike a balance defending your main base and your conquered metal extractors. Know where to fight: sometimes it is worth to make an expensive push so that you can conquer an area in which a great battle took place. Whoever gets the area can collect a lot of free metal from the wreckages, giving you an immediate edge.

 

In contrast to other online games, the game gives each player an ELO-rating which matches the player skill. The game autobalances teams as per the calculated ELO ratings of individual players in a way that the predicted game outcome is as close as 50% team A winning team B as possible. This results in very even, tight and interesting games.

 

The game has an unlock system which lets you buy factories and units as you progress in skill and experience: this helps avoid newbies choosing too difficult units to play with. The unlockable things are not *better* than the units initially available, they usually just need more complex tactics and strategy.

 

The units seem to be very well balanced: not one units excels agains everything. It is more like rock, scissors and paper: each unit is a bane for other unit, but some other unit is very effective against the first unit.

 

The game also punishes porcupine defense and rewards aggression. While defensive buildings are more cost effective, choosing a correct mobile units can destroy them without breaking a sweat. A few missions ended when porc defening player was blown to smithereens by nuclear bombing (after surgically removing the anti-nuke facility he had.) Aggression is rewarded with faster growth and better economy. And the team that has the economy has more units and that is the winner. Aggression, of course, also has the risk of you losing your units in a stupid fight.

 

Yep, I definately recommend trying this if you are into RTSes.

[Serpentine]

I spent a good bit of time working on Spring and various related bit in its very early days, but there were some questionable choices being made and poisonous people, when I ran short of time I quietly just backed out thinking it was going nowhere. So I'm always surprised when it comes up (quite often!).

 

Going to give Zero-K a go a bit later, seems interesting.

 

If you ever spot Supreme Commander + Expansion on special (the exp improved a _lot_ of things), give it a go. Not SupCom 2, that's terrible like everything else SE touch. Anyway SupCom has a strangely fun and interesting SP campaign, I'd say the most enjoyable since Red Alert (1). MP can be really good, but you need friends or to play ladder... not too sure that's for everyone.