Supreme Commander 2: Best RTS Ever, or Falling Short?

Micromanagement is key. This is what has dictated who wins and who loses in Real-Time-Strategy (RTS) games for, well, forever. Or at least since they were invented. The winner is the one who can micromanage better. In other words, whoever knows more about the different troop choices, what strategies counter what strategies effectively, and what unit a unit can and can't efficiently do is the deciding factor in any RTS. Which is a pretty daunting task in Supreme Commander 2. You, the general, control literally hundreds of units, separate them into platoons, and control the way your troops fight (do you want them to go on the offensive, and only kill enemies that get in their way, or soldiers that proudly defend your base, killing everyone foolish enough to launch an attack at you?) on three fronts: earthen combat, naval combat, and sky combat. Thankfully, Supreme Commander 2 makes this task easier on you in several ways: giving you only three different factions to choose from, an intuitive mapping system, using intuitive tech trees to make sure you get to play the way you want to, only 3 resources to keep track of, and using three different fronts for the battle.

The factions are a major part of any RTS: each one should play radically different from another, with its own strengths and drawbacks. Supreme Commander 2 nails this idea on the head: The three factions (UEF, Cybran, and Illuminate) all are unique. The UEF (United Earth Federation) uses massed firepower, along with long range artillery support, to completely overwhelm their enemies. The Cybran (Cyborg people that want to assimilate the other races) use elite troops and gigantic killing machines, along with powerful air and naval units, to pound opposition into the dust over time. The Illuminate (Scientologists with guns) have an unusual naval advantage: they have no navy. Instead, all of their units (with the exception of Harvog Assault Bots) can traverse water. This leads everybody to choose one of the three factions and play differently.

In an RTS, as previously stated, knowledge is power. However, something that is almost as important, if not as important, as knowledge is knowing the terrain. With up to 1,000 units in play at once, Supreme Commander 2 needs to have big maps. And it does. With maps spanning hundreds of kilometers, Supreme Commander 2 really needs a good way to keep track of everything. Thank goodness it does. Not having a good mapping system for the game would make it a pain to both navigate the world and guide your armies to victory. Without a good mapping system, this game would never be any good to anybody except the extremely tolerant. Well, I for one am very happy the mapping system delivers. The armies are not only color coded, to show what units are who's, but each one has a different symbol attached to it (in the army's color) to make sure that you can distinguish what units are what, on a field of hundreds.

Another regular part of an RTS is the research, tech, or, in one case, the worship tree. This is seamlessly integrated into Supreme Commander 2, and each army has different choices that make it beautiful to play and make your army into, well, your army. The choices range from health upgrades, to shields, to unlocking new units like the Megalith II and the Universal Colossus.

What's also great is that in Supreme Commander 2, you only have three resources to keep track of: mass, energy, and research. Mass and energy are used for building units and buildings, and research is the resource that fuels your tech tree.

The idea of having three different wars to fight (naval, land, and air) is not alien to the RTS genre. But, Supreme Commander 2 executes this idea perfectly. Different units have different capabilities (some units can only hit air units, some can hit ground and naval units, some can hit everything) which makes the battle not only more strategic, but also more interesting to watch.

All in all, this adds up to be the best RTS I have ever played.

Verdict: 5/5

-Simon