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''Supreme Commander'' is a Computer Game of the Real-time Strategy (RTS) genre, developed by Chris Taylor 's Gas Powered Games and slated for release in Q1 2007. It was announced in the August 2005 edition of PC Gamer magazine and is referred to as the spiritual successor to Taylor's 1997 RTS release '' Total Annihilation '' which has been widely heralded as one of the great triumphs of the genre. STRATEGIC AND TACTICAL SCALE According to the PC Gamer article, ''Supreme Commander'' will be unique amongst the countless members of the RTS genre in that it integrates grand-strategy (" Risk -like") mode with real-time, individual, ground-level battles. This may sound similar to systems found in games such as '' Rise Of Nations '' or '' Total War '', but in ''Supreme Commander'' this integration will allegedly be seamless. It will be a matter of zooming in or out on the map to go from the god's eye view of the entire theatre of war, where icons represent armies, down to observing skirmishes amongst individual units. In the article, Taylor claims that "almost all modern RTS games do not actually employ strategy. In reality, they simply pit opponents against each other in resource wars, where the combatant with the most units wins". Not wanting to go into detail with the game not yet released, Taylor said that his goal is to appeal to an untapped audience who would appreciate the presence of actual strategy in his game. This will be accomplished by using the aforementioned scale of the game; finding a happy medium between serious war-gaming and ground-level carnage. Unit scale Unlike other RTS games, where units must be sized to fit reasonably on the screen, the zoom range in ''Supreme Commander'' will allow for diversity in unit size. Previews have confirmed that there are units so large that they merely ''crush'' smaller units as they travel and some will not even be able to fit on a single screen at the maximum zoom of average RTS games. The scale is large enough that ''Supreme Commander'' will feature sea and air battles as well as nuclear weapons at a realistic scale in addition to land battles. To accomplish this, ''Supreme Commander'' will use fully 3D terrain that is dynamically Tessellated as the camera is moved around. Both units and maps will also use Normal Maps in order to allow for a large amount of detail. Balance With such diversity in the size of units, one might expect the balance to be thrown off, making the game a race to build the biggest and most powerful weapons. However, the balance of units in ''Supreme Commander'' will be different than most other RTS games; the GameSpy article explains that, as with ''Total Annihilation'', ''Supreme Commander'' will be a simulation. What this means is that units will operate using true Newtonian Physics . Unlike most RTS games, where weapons are artificially limited in power or range to balance the game and use a die-roll function to randomly determine if a projectile successfully strikes its mark or not, ''Supreme Commander'' will use the natural weaknesses of units to keep things even. For example, a very powerful and accurate bomber squadron can devastate a base rather quickly. However, bombers must fly relatively slowly if they are going to accurately bomb a target. On the other hand, the enemy can defend with air supremacy units that can move very fast and would have no problem hunting down and destroying the defenseless bombers. Of course there are several other naturally limiting factors that come into play, such as the time and materials that go into making more advanced (and powerful) units. RACES magazine.]] In ''Supreme Commander'', three sides, which are all human, are engaged in an "Infinite War" of liberation and sought-after peace. The ''United Earth Federation'', who are the generic Human side, favours rolling tanks and armoured vehicles with wheels and caterpillars (treads). The ''Æon'' are humans who adopted the technology and philosophy of an Alien Race , and are obsessed with peace. Their units look slick and advanced, being seemingly weaponless—until you threaten them, in which case hatches open and wings split to reveal their arsenal. The Æon have mastered cloaking, and most of their ground units hover. The ''Cybran'' are humans with computers implanted into their brains (''among other augmentations''), allowing them to think more quickly and be controlled more easily. Though often mistaken for typical science fiction Cyborg s, the Cybran are not cyborgs in the traditional sense, and tend to be much closer to the concept of the Transhuman , possibly drawing influence from the Superbrights or the Superiors of the Orion's Arm science fictional setting. They fight for the liberation of their fellow Cybran from the oppressive old Earth Empire. The Cybran use "legged" units primarily, and own one of the only experimental units shown to the public — a massive six-legged spider-like machine armed with a potent heat laser, featured in the August 2005 issue of PC Gamer and in the Gamespy preview article. Another experimental unit, a UEF submarine aircraft carrier previously featured in concept art, has appeared in a screenshot. Although each race favors certain types of movement, they can occasionally use each others' technology — the UEF can sometimes use leg-based units, and the Cybran can use track-based units. At the time of the first previews, the United Earth Federation was designated the ''Terrans'', but this was later changed. MUSICAL SCORE The score for Supreme Commander will be composed by ''. REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
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