Had a LAN together with 10 friends last weekend. We played BAR. What an absolute amazing game!! 1000s of units, AI and large scale battles - No lagging, No crashing… just ran smooth all the time, even on old crappy gfx cards with 4gb memory. Wow!
Highly recommend trying. We disabled tech level 2 and 3 the first rounds, then just 3 and finally ran everything. A nice way to start without being overwhelmed:)
I have a few friends who keep inviting me to play BAR, and I really want to like it, but I just don’t think I’m built for rts at this scale. There’s just too much stuff and too much going on at once and I get stuck reading tooltips instead of building or manouvering and get run over. I guess I have more of a 4x brain, I need time to think.
Love beyond all reason and have put many hours into that game but physically can’t play it due to RSI. I want to play it so bad Ive switching to doing all my computer work left handed to fix it and it seems to be working.
Gog has TA and you can still play it, and stil multiplayer with some fiddling. Supreme Commander is good too. I think you can swap out AI engines on TA but never tried it.
IMO Supreme Commander failed to capture the original game’s soul. You had a sense of an epic battle going on when playing. I think it was because it always devolved into playing all zoomed out, watching tiny strategic icons moving across the map, blinking and disappearing. I can’t even tell you what any of the units looked like because we almost never see them. The fact that they gave generic names to units and structures such as “level one point defence turret” didn’t help either.
BAR does a much better job of keeping the player zoomed in and into the action, seeing and feeling so the cool details of the battle going on. Heavy plasma batteries blowing up chunks of advancing armies and terrain, lasers blowing up individual targets in rapid succession, sending debris flying everywhere, this was all what TA was about.
The game is all about skirmishes. If you’ve ever played total annihilation or supreme commander, matches’ length are close.
On small maps, anywhere from 15-40 minutes. Huge maps can take way longer
The customization in this game is great so games can be as small or large as you’d like. I’ve set up games that take as little as 15 minutes. The campaign also starts off with small games that take about half an hour. It was my first RTS so I’m sure it took me much longer as I wasn’t familiar with the general strategy of those kind of games.
I gave this a go today. Honestly, the game felt annoying and I didn’t last more than 2 skirmishes. The troops don’t defend themselves like in any other RTS (unless you give hold command), they just stand there with zero fucks to give while enemies kill them, so the game becomes a micromanaging hell. This also means that baiting tactic does not work, like in any other RTS. As soon as slightly larger battles begin, my troops constantly get stuck or hit wreckage. What’s also annoying is that whenever you get units under attack alert, the radar/map does not highlight where it’s happening
At this point, even 9-bit armies feel superior
EDIT: Tried out scenarios and second scenario got bugged. I explored the entire map and could not find a single enemy unit (destroyed them all), but the game didn’t end. The supposed task was to kill the commander, which I did.
I understand that, but if a third-party was to make a mod that restores the old names, I don’t see how they could possibly be held legally liable for it.
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I have a few friends who keep inviting me to play BAR, and I really want to like it, but I just don’t think I’m built for rts at this scale. There’s just too much stuff and too much going on at once and I get stuck reading tooltips instead of building or manouvering and get run over. I guess I have more of a 4x brain, I need time to think.
Love beyond all reason and have put many hours into that game but physically can’t play it due to RSI. I want to play it so bad Ive switching to doing all my computer work left handed to fix it and it seems to be working.
Community built, actually free, AND is an incredibly good game all round. It excells beyond all reason!
https://www.beyondallreason.info/
I played Total Annihilation many years ago w/friends at a LAN party… good times (I always sucked at it, the name described my fate well :P)
Looks fun!
Gog has TA and you can still play it, and stil multiplayer with some fiddling. Supreme Commander is good too. I think you can swap out AI engines on TA but never tried it.
BAR looks fun.
IMO Supreme Commander failed to capture the original game’s soul. You had a sense of an epic battle going on when playing. I think it was because it always devolved into playing all zoomed out, watching tiny strategic icons moving across the map, blinking and disappearing. I can’t even tell you what any of the units looked like because we almost never see them. The fact that they gave generic names to units and structures such as “level one point defence turret” didn’t help either.
BAR does a much better job of keeping the player zoomed in and into the action, seeing and feeling so the cool details of the battle going on. Heavy plasma batteries blowing up chunks of advancing armies and terrain, lasers blowing up individual targets in rapid succession, sending debris flying everywhere, this was all what TA was about.
Don’t you dare slander SupCom, best game, I’m very unbiased
Making your own AI variations was one of the coolest things about SupCom.
We used to hide copies of Snipes on the school network and play it on their LAN during programming class. No GPU required.
Seen the large scale wars on youtube. I am scared of trying it because i dont have time
The game is all about skirmishes. If you’ve ever played total annihilation or supreme commander, matches’ length are close. On small maps, anywhere from 15-40 minutes. Huge maps can take way longer
The customization in this game is great so games can be as small or large as you’d like. I’ve set up games that take as little as 15 minutes. The campaign also starts off with small games that take about half an hour. It was my first RTS so I’m sure it took me much longer as I wasn’t familiar with the general strategy of those kind of games.
How the hell did you get ten friends to play the same game?
Have a yearly gathering: lan, skiing and beer! … been having it the last 15 years 😊
Can I come? next year?
I gave this a go today. Honestly, the game felt annoying and I didn’t last more than 2 skirmishes. The troops don’t defend themselves like in any other RTS (unless you give hold command), they just stand there with zero fucks to give while enemies kill them, so the game becomes a micromanaging hell. This also means that baiting tactic does not work, like in any other RTS. As soon as slightly larger battles begin, my troops constantly get stuck or hit wreckage. What’s also annoying is that whenever you get units under attack alert, the radar/map does not highlight where it’s happening
At this point, even 9-bit armies feel superior
EDIT: Tried out scenarios and second scenario got bugged. I explored the entire map and could not find a single enemy unit (destroyed them all), but the game didn’t end. The supposed task was to kill the commander, which I did.
Is it similar to games in Spring engine?
It is a fork of Spring engine, called Recoil, so yes.
Okay, thanks! It felt similar so good to know. I like the idea of spring, so will definately check it out closer!
Love BAR! I usually play with my son’s against AI or watch pro streams. Such a great game.
Where can I get
851 friend for LAN play? :(I should really re-install that…
+1 bump for bar
I wish someone made a mod for this game that restored the names of the units and buildings to all their Total Annihilation equivalents.
The naming was something that had to change due to copyright issues, though the original TA creators have given their blessings to the project iirc.
I understand that, but if a third-party was to make a mod that restores the old names, I don’t see how they could possibly be held legally liable for it.