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[Robsoie]

About Total Annihilation

I played some skirmish and i was quickly reminded by trying that the AI is very very weak in Total Annihilation skirmish mode and put up nearly no fight.
Here's an old article explaining what was going on for the default AI and how it got broke in official patches up to the bad AI there is now :
https://www.tauniverse.com/articles/tutorials/ai.html

On my first test battle on the Comet Catcher map (it's a very simple one so there's nothing too tricky for AI pathing), but without even seriously trying i kicked the AI very hard without absolutely any trouble, it was barely making any units.

Years ago there was 2 custom (and non cheating) AI that were noticably stronger.
http://aicentral.tauniverse.com/files/MostlyHarmless16.zip
and
http://aicentral.tauniverse.com/files/QuellerTACC17.zip

I installed Mostly Harmless (just put the AI folder from the archive into your Total Annihilation directory).
Then played on the same Comet Catcher map as before.

After starting to build up myself and expand my metal gathering thing (and solar panels), my radar around the map center started to catch some enemy around  (the original AI never really tried to leave its overall starting area somewhere in the upperright part of the map) , i sent a couple of peewee (the most basic "kbots") that got themselves in the receiving end of many missiles.

Started to gather my peewee legions and my commander helped by 2 additional construction bots  made some basic turrets near my map center (as i had placed several factories here, trying to keep the center map for myself) but i was too late, a huge amount of enemies robots and vehicles assaulted the map center, i put a brave defense with my many peewees (and some rocket bots) , destroying many attackers but the enemy was just overwhelming in firepower and annihilated my troops and defenses in the end.

I had took a bit too much my time to build up my armies, i was still used to the "do nothing much" original AI

Lots of fun, and so very heavily recommended to use Mostly Harmless for an actual challenging fun skirmish mode if you play OTA (original Total Annihilation, not a mod).

[Iduno]

Thank you for all of the information on STALKER.

Do I want Jupiter Hell?

I didn't like JH much-- and, if my memory serves properly, I hit Colonel Baron of Hell in DRL.

This is at least a few versions back. I found the view cramped, the action felt slow, the 4-directional movement bugs me (if you're looking at videos, it does visually support diagonal movement... but it's mechanically two steps), and as a result of the last two combined, combat less dynamic. Gone is the feeling of juking around corners to dodge bullets, despite there still being a slight mechanical advantage to do so.

Frankly, if it didn't come with the history of DRL, I probably would've looked at it, thought it looked vaguely interesting, and left it in the middle of the pile of "Things I'll never get around to."

Thank you. That's what I was wondering. It looked too polished (no pun intended), like they were making up for something.

About Total Annihilation

I played some skirmish and i was quickly reminded by trying that the AI is very very weak in Total Annihilation skirmish mode and put up nearly no fight.
Here's an old article explaining what was going on for the default AI and how it got broke in official patches up to the bad AI there is now :
https://www.tauniverse.com/articles/tutorials/ai.html

On my first test battle on the Comet Catcher map (it's a very simple one so there's nothing too tricky for AI pathing), but without even seriously trying i kicked the AI very hard without absolutely any trouble, it was barely making any units.

Years ago there was 2 custom (and non cheating) AI that were noticably stronger.
http://aicentral.tauniverse.com/files/MostlyHarmless16.zip
and
http://aicentral.tauniverse.com/files/QuellerTACC17.zip

I installed Mostly Harmless (just put the AI folder from the archive into your Total Annihilation directory).
Then played on the same Comet Catcher map as before.

After starting to build up myself and expand my metal gathering thing (and solar panels), my radar around the map center started to catch some enemy around  (the original AI never really tried to leave its overall starting area somewhere in the upperright part of the map) , i sent a couple of peewee (the most basic "kbots") that got themselves in the receiving end of many missiles.

Started to gather my peewee legions and my commander helped by 2 additional construction bots  made some basic turrets near my map center (as i had placed several factories here, trying to keep the center map for myself) but i was too late, a huge amount of enemies robots and vehicles assaulted the map center, i put a brave defense with my many peewees (and some rocket bots) , destroying many attackers but the enemy was just overwhelming in firepower and annihilated my troops and defenses in the end.

I had took a bit too much my time to build up my armies, i was still used to the "do nothing much" original AI

Lots of fun, and so very heavily recommended to use Mostly Harmless for an actual challenging fun skirmish mode if you play OTA (original Total Annihilation, not a mod).

I remember getting to the point with human opponents where you had a noticeable impact on the early game if you built a solar collector before you built a metal collector or the other way around. And also that the ARM's flash tanks were the only unit they ever really used because they were the only particularly good units, and CORE needed to get to tech level 2 before they could survive long enough to fight back. The asymmetric combat was interesting. And also that walking your commander around an opposing base d-gunning everything was a fun strategy. 2 commanders exploding in someone's base left it a great target (but also requires turning off commander death = victory).

[Frumple]

Stealing commanders with air transports will forever the Best Thing, I think. First you steal it, then you drive it straight into the biggest concentration of enemy stuff and Boom, hohoho.

But yeah, if you can get them working definitely check out the mods. Iirc one of the big ones added ubiquitous gigantic artillery and it was great

[Iduno]

Stealing commanders with air transports will forever the Best Thing, I think. First you steal it, then you drive it straight into the biggest concentration of enemy stuff and Boom, hohoho.

But yeah, if you can get them working definitely check out the mods. Iirc one of the big ones added ubiquitous gigantic artillery and it was great

Haha, D-gun goes brrrr.

[Akura]

Stealing commanders with air transports will forever the Best Thing, I think. First you steal it, then you drive it straight into the biggest concentration of enemy stuff and Boom, hohoho.

Didn't know you could do that. What happens if you self-destruct your air transport while it's carrying the enemy commander?

Only mod I remember playing long enough to actually remember playing was a Star Wars one.

[Mephisto]

I enjoyed getting the modded unit pack and then installing all of them. Most were probably shit but I liked paging through all of the 3x2 pages to see what others had made.

[Robsoie]

Noticed that Queller AI should be more advanced than the Mostly Harmless one, as the latest MH is a lot older than the Queller AI.

With Mostly Harmless i played a 2vs2 on Comet Catcher and noticed my ARM ally was overworking nicely while the 2 CORE enemies were doing very few.
My ARM ally just attacked both CORE ones and utterly destroyed them all. I just helped when my ally went to the 2nd CORE AI base, but i was surprised how relatively passive the 2 CORE enemies have been there.

Removed Mostly Harmless AI and redid the same battle with the Queller AI, this time the ARM AI ally and its direct CORE opponent where duking it out roughly at mid distance of both bases, while i was toying around with units, the 2nd CORE AI came directly for me, and obliterated my attempts at resisting.
Oh i managed to block the first wave but lost all my kbots in the way, my reinforcement were less numerous than the AI one and they crushed me

And that on medium difficulty only.

So it looks like the best choice for improved AI (when using non-cheating AI, as you can also download cheating ones if you want) for original (at least unofficially patched for my case) TA is the Queller AI, it's just fun.
But both are very very very much better than the default AI that stall itself so much it can barely build a few units while you have already legions of them.

A good way to install mods is to just copy your (not modded, and not unofficially patched yet) Total Annihilation directory, as it seems several TA can coexist this way without problems.

the 4-directional movement bugs me

Was this one for a possible console release (due to joypad/stick diagonals being possibly a problem) ?
DoomRL (and every roguelike/similar i played) works so right with 8 directions.

[Akura]

Can't get Total Annihilation to run. It's the same problem I had with War Wind: my monitor loses the signal from my graphics card.

PRE-EDIT: Nevermind. I was able to get it running through DxWnd. Took a while, eventually figured out that I had to check the box labeled "Acquire admin caps" under TA's profile. Otherwise, trying to run it would do literally nothing at all. Still can't get War Wind working though - it runs but all I get is a black screen with sound. Might require more tweaking with options I lack the intelligence to fully understand. It's just like playing with console emulators all over again...

[Robsoie]

Should be of some help for some people here,
Here's some how to (at least for window 10) install Total Annihilation Escalation with the GOG TA

- Install the GOG Total Annihilation
if you already did (and didn't modded it yet or unofficially patched it yet) make a copy of the installed "Total Annihilation" directory and name it "Total Annihilation Escalation" )
if you already modded your GOG Total Annihilation, rename it and reinstall from the GOG Installer as you want an untouched TA for Escalation

Put this "Total Annihilation Escalation" folder in C:\ directly so you obtain C:\Total Annihilation Escalation
(this is so you will not have to change path in the dxwnd file later)

- Download latest version (for now it's TAESC_GOLD_9_2_0.rar ) , don't get the hotfix.
http://taesc.tauniverse.com/?p=downloads

- Open TAESC_GOLD_9_2_0.rar (with 7zip by example) , go into the "Install Main Files" folder.
Take everything that is there and move it to your C:\Total Annihilation Escalation\
overwrite files of the same name
ignore the other folder (yes even the one "for window 10" because a later fix will be more advanced and better)

- Download the ddraw fix (ddraw-fix11a.zip) from there :
https://www.tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46048
Open ddraw-fix11a.zip , go into the "Escalation" folder of it and move the 4 files (aqrit.cfg, edraw.dll, pdrawl.dll and TAESC.ini)
to your C:\Total Annihilation Escalation\
Overwrite files of the same name.

- Download this version of DxWnd :
https://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/files/Latest%20build/v2_03_56_build.rar/download
Create a new text file and copy paste the following into it :

Code: [Select]

[target]
title0=Total Annihilation Escalation
path0=C:\Total Annihilation Escalation\TotalA.exe
launchpath0=C:\Total Annihilation Escalation\TotalA.exe
module0=
opengllib0=
notes0=
registry0=
ver0=1
coord0=0
flag0=1048742
flagg0=138969433
flagh0=16
flagi0=205520896
flagj0=4096
flagk0=268435460
flagl0=0
flagm0=0
tflag0=0
posx0=0
posy0=0
sizx0=1920
sizy0=1080
maxfps0=0
initts0=0
winver0=7
maxres0=-1
swapeffect0=0
maxddinterface0=7
(if you moved the "Total Annihilation Escalation" directory somewhere else than i suggested, change the path in the text up there accordingly.)
Save the changes and rename the .txt extension into .dxw

Extract "v2_03_56_build.rar"
In the extracted folder, right Click on dxwnd.exe -> Properties -> Compatibilty tab and set the compatibility to Window XP Service Pack 3, then OK

Launch dxwnd.exe, click on File -> Import and select your self made .dxw file then OK.
Wait a few second and a button with the name "Total Annihilation Escalation" will appear.
If you have "Total Annihilation Escalation" path correct as i suggested before, the button will be green, if not you did something wrong, check your paths.
 

Click File -> Save to make it so you don't have to reload the .dxw file every time you'll launch DXWnd.

You'll launch Escalation by double clicking on the green button, it should work with no problem with window 10 this way.

If you want an improved AI for skirmish, refer to this thread :
https://www.tauniverse.com/forum/showthread.php?t=46159
the file you want is at the time "AI Profiles Pack v2020.04.30b for Escalation 9.2.zip"

Move the file "AI Profiles Pack v2020.04.30 for Escalation 9.2.ufo", the "aE" and "gamedatE" folders directly to C:\Total Annihilation Escalation\
(it should overwrite nothing)

[Robsoie]

After wrestling with the Queller AI on Total Annihilation it reminded of something i always found very annoying : how the fog of war works with Total Annihilation and the unit AI.

DO NOT play skirmish vs AI with Options -> Fog of war set to "True" unless you're a masochist, set it to Permanent instead (so already explored areas do not disappear again in the fog).

You'll thank me later after noticing that opponent AI units (without a radar), will shoot at your units beyond the fog of war, because they play as if fog of war was set to Permanent even if it's not (while your own units can't do that of course without building one of the highest end building that you'll never build because games are usually decided before coming to that point).

Sure with the default AI it's not much of a problem because that AI is pathetic and is unable to build anything that can be threatening and even this advantage will not helpt it, but playing with an actual good AI profile like the Queller AI one and you'll throw your computer through the window

[Frumple]

Stealing commanders with air transports will forever the Best Thing, I think. First you steal it, then you drive it straight into the biggest concentration of enemy stuff and Boom, hohoho.

Didn't know you could do that. What happens if you self-destruct your air transport while it's carrying the enemy commander?

It's been a while, but iirc it still goes boom

Suiciding your own commander like that is also a thing you can do in some circumstances, heh. It usually didn't really, uh, help. But it was great when it did.

Haha, D-gun goes brrrr.

Getting past the d-gun always was the biggest problem, yeah. Still, it was possible, and when it worked... just perfection.

[Mephisto]

Ironsmith Medieval Simulator has a bit of a meh name but it actually looks pretty good. That's not what I want to talk about right now, though.



The MS Paint hammer and anvil are animated. Someone likes modded Minecraft.

[Iduno]

https://www.gog.com/game/the_dark_crystal_age_of_resistance_tactics

Is there any chance that game is good?

[Kagus]

Suiciding your own commander like that is also a thing you can do in some circumstances, heh. It usually didn't really, uh, help. But it was great when it did.

I've seen this done in SupCom team play, it was fantastic.

A player was just about knocked out of the fight, and somehow managed to sneak their commander right in behind the enemy commander. Enemy commander tries to run away while this suicidal jackass just trudges closer with a giant "SHOOT ME, BITCH!" sign on it.

[Frumple]

Yeah, I once spent most of a Spring match chasing someone else's commander around with my own. It didn't, like, win or anything, but I'm remarkably terrible at TA/Supcom style non-co-op multiplayer so it was probably a bigger contribution than I would have managed otherwise