[Graushwein]

First of all I think it is great that you wanted to express your opinion to others. Here is the link here.

That being said I take issue with this, "I'm not interested to know that someone, somewhere, had one different game : it's just hiding the very great majority." The way I read it says something like this, "I'm right and have weighed every aspect of the game and it is not good. Don't bother trying to debate this, you'll be wrong." Thats just the way I read it. There is much I could say about this but I try not to argue with people who don't leave room for other people, either their opinions or their preferences. What's the point?

"Many will disagree, or provide counter points, but frankly, it doesn't change the core of the argument."
From reading the core of your argument is that this game is not strategic, correct?

"Its all about scaling. Exponential scaling. Nothing bright, the one who has the most wins, end of story."
Thats why the countries of the world is afraid of China's military might. But then again there are many "exceptions" where the less powerful overcame the economically superior foe. This happens occasionally in supcom as well, on all ends of the spectrum. I could show you at least a half dozen of these on gamereplays.org. But as it should be, this is hard to pull off because its hard to outwit / maneuver an economically superior foe.

Anyways about the meat of the post, this may not be the game for you.

I find that it is the game for me because I don't like twitch or UBER MICRO games. Sure Dawn of War is great, but I don't want to cause an aneurism by just trying to win a fun game. For me its too Tactical and involves even less strategy. Its a game of who can hard counter the other's forces the quickest while micro'ing every battle? There is also a big difference in game flow from SupCom to the ones you mentioned also, RoN and AoE2. Preference for the speed of play, amongst other things.

About how you claimed that strategic gameplay does not exist in the game. IMO either you're not seeing it or you have a different concept of what strategic means. Building forward factories on open palms is strategic. Trying to hold the middle in Fields of Isis is strategic. Especially trying to maintain air dominance is strategic. Whenever I watch high rated replays I see strategy all over the place. When a commander breaks off a small part of his force, which is headed to the front line conflict, and instead goes outside of the way to hit the mex's and power behind the front lines. If you don't choose to do strategic things with the game, that's not the game's fault. Its still there.

Now there are some maps that are not strategic, but indeed tactical. Winter's Duel, Sentry Point, Theta Passage, and partially Finn's Revenge as well as Salt Rock Colony. These maps are so small that you can't get much more out of them. IMO these maps equate to Dawn of War and Warcraft.

As far as balance goes. Yes there are imbalances, this will always be the case, but they will diminish. Little more than a month has gone by. Not even Blizzard was exempt from the release rule. T3 Siege Bots need to be less of an I-Win button and more expensive to get T3 factory. IMO it was a design choice that was made to let the resources increase at a compounding rate. I'm not sure on whether this was right or not.

As far as your 3 stages, what RTS doesn't fall into that category when you reduce it to 3 phases? Sure but what about scouting? That is a big part of this game along with many other things. Simplifying a description of something does not make it more simple, it just makes the statement less true for the sake of brevity. Not to say that this statement isn't reasonable, it is just less accurate the more you cut out of the equation.

Graushwein

[Ender]

I believe that SupCom has the most STRATEGY of any current RTS.

When you play a game like C&C3 for an extended period of time, you learn that to counter something you pretty much just throw tanks at it. Getting your tanks there faster and in more numbers than your opponent isn't strategy.

Never before have I heard from players discussing after their game the ramifications of their decisions to build or to not build that early air factory and it is a discussion point because decisions like that in SupCom are so far reaching. It's those decisions that make this game more intelligent and interesting than any other rts out there.

[NexXus_]

Some of these topics are covered in my tutorials and primers, but the game is strongly strategic, even on small maps such as Finn's Revenge. I watched a game where a player's ACU was being bombed in the lower right small island, and he went to go walk in to the water, where the other player had submarines waiting with torpedos.

That's far from massing.

However, I do in fact play games where it is an economy rush to T3. Are these games played by solid players who scout the opponent and attempt to be creative? No. I am seeing more and more games where players are electing to upgrade their Air Factories first for fast gunships when in an air dominance mode.

Plenty of strategy, and the map is like a game of chess. I think it's fun!

[two40]

Originally Posted by xTc-NexXus__

Some of these topics are covered in my tutorials and primers, but the game is strongly strategic, even on small maps such as Finn's Revenge. I watched a game where a player's ACU was being bombed in the lower right small island, and he went to go walk in to the water, where the other player had submarines waiting with torpedos.

that was mentel and unconq in one of their matches last week. top move by mentel.

[Leaf]

Tractor, you are very guilty here of the same crime that most of the journalistic world is, simplification and exxageration. You simplify the game (you're PHASES notion, not entirley incorrect), then exxagerate the problem (90% of games go this way?)

At this point you might find it interesting that 95% of statistics are made up and unfounded.

However, the above is not even the key problem with your post, it is just about excusable, the problem is this...

"Many will disagree, or provide counter points, but frankly, it doesn't change the core of the argument." WRONG, funadamentally and iressistably WRONG. That is not inviting debate, that is telling anyone who has read that far "You can quibble the details all you like, I am correct in my core argument." I suggest you stay out of politics...

Moving on to the argument presented in the original post by Tractor.

You are to a point, correct. You're idea on "phases," although probably not the most accurate description of basic gameplay timelines, I've seen worse, so fair enough.

The problem is that horrible 90% figure you threw around, very unwise not to mention undermining your own argument. I myself have in part at least, abandoned the phases idea in gameplay. Do not misunderstand, I still tech, I still go into the usual territorial fight in T1, much is the same, but with a sharp awareness that "Only One Casualty matters..."

T1 Gunships...
T1 Bomber rush....
T2 Gunship rush...
T2 TML strike...
T3 SAB Drop...

Those are just a short list of what has already been discovered in terms of "quick kill" strategies and tactics. Some, like T2 Gunship rush, have already lost some effectivness as players adapt. They're all becoming more common and more will doubtless will be discovered. We are merely 2.5months in to this games multiplayer lifespan, that's about 90 days...I can't help but feel that you haven't really given the game time to mature...

This is a community in development, as well as a game very much still in development, yet here you are insisting that it is a poor RTS, not because of bad design or crappy interface or anythingt concrete likle that, but because of the core strategy being employed online, ignoring all variations, exceptions, surprises and devices available OUTSIDE that core basic strategy.

I'm not endorsing the banning/erasing of unfavourable or poorly argued posts, I'm just stating that there is a reason it was erased, it is poorly argued, but argued with enough politeness and alleged knowledge of the game that some poor passer by might credit it with more then 30seconds of attention.

THAT, is why you were rubbed out from history...

[Blizzard2]

I totally disagree with tractor, but I think that the main problem is not his post , but the fact that he was banned for this post. It was not provocative and even if I think there were false, there were argument.

Well it was the same problem with the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons, the post was not very good but the response was over-exaggerated.