I mean, let’s be honest here; wouldn’t it be more fun to actually have time to position your various units so that each can use their unique strengths in the most effective way?
Imagine getting full use of the special/magic/hero powers of the special units, where you can put some thought into what spell to use and which target is most suitable. Think Rise of Nations — sure, it’s nice to have the Generals, Spies and Commandos doing their cool stuff, but that is usually at the expense of losing control of your moronic tanks and machine gunners, who got slain by a helicopter without having the common sense to move while you were sending your commandos to blow up strategic buildings.
Or how about simply being able to zoom in? Most games boast impressive 3D engines with beautiful graphics — but who has time to zoom in and enjoy the carnage of Dawn of War? By the time you’re done watching, your entire unit has been wiped out and the enemy has probably captured at least one of your resource points.
There’s precious little of that sort of thing going on in TA. But still, there’s something special about running the 10 AI players/5,000 unit patch, create a clean 640×640 skirmish map and start from scratch on the hardest setting with all AI players allied against you — and still emerge victorious, simply because you were able to get the absolutely most out of each single ‘bot you have at your disposal.
Every move is carefully planned and executed. Every unit doing exactly what it should, when it should, even retreating for healing right before it blows up. I wish, I wish I could get that kind of control over Dawn of War, Battle for Middle Earth II and all the other great games of today.
Unfortunately, the strategic element is out the window the second the units make contact. It quickly degenerates into a disorganized mess, and the question is: why? It doesn’t cost a dime for the developer to make the speed slider useful. I mean, it’s just assigning more values to a slider that’s already in place! Instead of “Fast-Normal-Slow”, why not make it a 20-step scale? Those who don’t want it can just not use it. But for us slowpokes who enjoy the strategic challenge, it makes a huge difference. So please, could someone give me a worthy replacement for TA? Cuz the pathfinding bugs that occur once you have 1,000+ units on screen is driving me friggin’ nuts.
