Supreme Commander Gold Edition

Yup, now it's finally possible to play online on Forged Alliance Forever with this version. The update was released in May 12 2022 on their github page. So, all those reviews complaining of "no FAF" need to be updated. As for the game itself, I'm one of the "heretics" that never played Total Annihilation (as of writing this review, I still haven't. Sue me). Personally, it's one of my all time favorite RTS games. There's no population cap, you just keep pumping units until you win or lose. The scale of things here is also amazing, your commander is huge and the initial T1 units are tiny, while most T3 are much bigger. This game taught me that I need to attack fast and hard if I want to win, turtling (making a well defended base) is hardly a good strategy in this game. You have to expand and attack on all fronts, if you're not attacking, you're going to be attacked and it won't be pretty. If you don't expand, the enemy will. Losses are inevitable. Send small armies to harass the enemy while you build up a huge one to really wipe 'em out, because the enemy sure as hell is making one while harassing you. Shift-clicking to queue orders is essential. Don't be afraid to leave a T1 builder creating huge walls of metal and/or energy storage. I don't consider myself "good" at the game, I am challenged by the normal difficulty AI on skirmish maps. I avoid playing online because holy hell I don't want to suffer a humiliating defeat! Also because I enjoy the biggest maps, where the game can last hours and hours, and that keeps my full attention while entertaining me.

Have a physical copy. Registered on steam. With FAF spent over 1000h in the game. Multiple modes. Phantom X. Survival. Checkers. In game live streams. MODS...mods, and even more mods. Scale is unprecedented and not encountered since. Do you know why it is CPU heavy? Cause EVERY projectile is simulated. Ever wondered if heavy T3 stationary artylery can take out an aircraft? Yes, it can if it flies in the path of the projectile. Nothing like a starting nukle hiting enemy bomber and blowing over your base ruining your day. The game modes are awesome. You get bored of convential 1v1 or xvx? Play something else! Community keeps it alive. ELO rankings if you want to go ladder. Or just non ranked fun. Maps scalling from 5x5 to 40x40. Fanboys will scream Starcraft 2 but let's be honest - no better game came out since. Recommend full heartedly. Phantom player for ever.

This is the best RTS of all time. However, you should beware that as of writing (June 2020) it doesn't work with the community multiplayer replacement "Forged Alliance Forever." Unfortunately this is due to technical limitations of GOG and the permission of Square Enix. The Steam version will work with FAF, so buy it there if you want to access FAF.

While the game is lacks optimizations for CPU (especially if AI is present on a large map), it presents many features that make it nearly unique in its genre (seamless strategic zoom, very diverse factions). There are also quirks that can make the game a little bit frustrating, such as pathing (I'm looking at you bumper-ball Aeon engineers!), but overall it's a decent strategy game that still keeps its place at our LAN-parties (eh, for more than 10 years already). Every fractions has a different approach to weapon design that shapes its the strategy (e.g. Cybrans sacrifice many defensive capabilities for ones that are more suitable for guerilla warfare). Also low-tech technology does not get entirely obsolete during late-game which adds even more variability. For instance, T3 AA sacrifices AOE damage for accuracy so T1 bombers may actually have better damage overall damage output for the same amount of resources unless the AA is complemented e.g. by T2 AA which would shred through those bombers almost instantly. This variability may present a few gotchas to new players (e.g. tactical missile defense structure varies greatly in effectivity between factions); however, it also makes more strategies viable in multiplayer games. There's an active community around the game (FAForever) that still keeps providing balance patches, maintains repository with mods and maps, and it is even facilitating ranked multiplayer games. Some of these mods fix the original game's issues. Some of these mod such as a new AI (Sorian AI) that partially solves CPU-heavy management of the AI are already included in FAF by default.