Is Total Annihilation as good as you remember? (Retrospective)

[@christaylor5613]

Thanks Zade and BadGhosts for doing such an amazing job putting together this huge video! Very impressive!!

[@ciscornBIG]

Wow!

[@jeramyneeley3351]

I love all the work you've done on games like Total annihilation and supreme commander. I hope you're doing well!

[@christaylor5613]

@@jeramyneeley3351 Thank you! I appreciate that very much.

[@marekkos3513]

niceeee

[@Triaxx2]

You can be sure you hold a distinction, TA's the only game I played until the CD cracked in the drive. Well done.

[@Indigo_Gaming]

Here you are making an hour and a half long video about my favorite RTS game ever, and you didn't even take me to dinner or a movie first. Great production values, sir!

[@JamesFaction]

except it isn't actually about TA as it is played today, it's just a promo video for BAR

[@Zade_95]

that is insanely reductive LOL

[@Zade_95]

Ay thanks mate!

[@JamesFaction]

@@Zade_95 but not overly reductive, since you say absolutely nothing about the progress with TA since 1999 and start talking about BAR instead.

[@KingOhmni]

@@JamesFaction What % of the video covers BAR? You should get out more.

[@BeyondAllReason]

Thank you once again for featuring us in the video! This brings so many warm memories, it is amazing how many of us share such silimilar feelings towards the legacy of Chris Taylor and Cavedog. Even after all these years, our core motivation remains unchanged: to capture the essence of the profound impact Total Annihilation had on us. This passion still drives us today. Hearing the maestro himself speak so fondly of BAR is beyond anything we could have ever wished for. It's difficult to express just how much that means to us. Hats off to you for creating such an amazing video, Zade :)

[@aaronmorgan1989]

Balls of steel on you boys, certified by THE Chris Taylor. So Cool

[@BeyondAllReason]

@@aaronmorgan1989 *CLONK* xD

[@jonhatton-brown]

2nd best game ever. Thanks for all your hard work in making it. ❤

[@kirktown2046]

Love me some BAR... I speak highly of it often... But hot damn does it need some enterprising people ot whip together a campaign and good UX. It's SO hard for me to get people to get into it if they haven't played TA or similar.

[@blackburn1489]

wow, Is there any video where Chris Taylor speaks or playes BaR?

[@Bobamelius]

TA aircraft completely ruined aircraft for me in every other RTS.

[@DuggyDarko]

This. I loved that they had actual dogfights instead of just sitting in place firing like a ground unit.

[@SuperHansburger93]

@@DuggyDarko Command & Conquer Generals had nice aircrafts too.

[@Unduplicatable]

I still have yet to see the realism these aircraft presented 28 years ago, in any modern game. Zero Hour was great, but they were so stuck to the realism of the Aircraft Field that if you didn’t have frequent control or at least queued control over them, they were too easily lost. Too much micromanagement for Zero Hour aircraft.

[@6StimuL84]

Exactly why I bought ta.;....Watching a demo, saw a freedom fighter do a barrel roll in a turn...and I was hooked.....

[@BadGhosts]

Thanks for having me!

[@gamemast15r]

All hail emperor Ghost! Fornicator of fine women and money multiplication expert!

[@mlgugb8965]

This is an excellent production. It's really long but it's well paced, doesn't drag on, doesn't belabor any points. We often see 3, 4, 5+ hour video game essays on youtube with very little actual analysis. Great mix of history, introspection, and developer commentary, with a captivating presentation.

[@Zade_95]

appreciate it! it was a blast to make

[@MrEricoze]

I am an old pc gamer but dude, TA opening is just the freaking best! I've seen a lot cinematics since, but that short intro, the music, bombers unloading, power station closing the panels, three(!!!) big berthas sending kilotons of literal death to the horizon! Pure awesomeness!

[@brettaberdeen]

10 year old me loved everything about this game. I even had my own moment of realising I need to moderate myself after playing for so long that the sun was rising outside and I had gone about 6 hours past bedtime without realising because I was so wrapped up in the game. Thank you for making this video and thank you to the team who made TA!

[@RocketCatRTS]

What an absolute beast of a retrospective video! Grats to you and BadGhosts for putting this together. Chris Taylor is always a pleasure to listen to, he's our excitable and zany RTS uncle.

[@Basjuh1984]

I still remember my first play of TA - my friend borrowed money to buy it. I remember very well the first time watching a 3D airplane making sharp turns and twists, and tanks actually having to make turns instead of having set angles and instant rotation. And the first shots with the Big Bertha… Amazing sights back then!

[@FoxtrotYouniform]

Dude, my first experience was almost identical. A buddy rts enjoyer of mine got his hands on the demo that let you play the first three story levels of Arm. We were both used to games like Dune on the Genesis or the Westwood C&C, and the way TA _felt_ blew us away. The scope and feel, the destructive joy of that first Bertha shot... but when we saw the Spider is when we fell in love with the game.

[@ancientgamer3645]

You can tell Chris Taylor played Panzer General because everything he mentioned about what he didn't like. Great game designer and programmer. Here's for you Chris: 👍👍💗

[@magnusred2945]

THIS GAME IS A HUGE FOUNDATION OF MY WHOLE LIFE! I learned so much computer stuff from installing mods

[@tau3457]

This game was the peak of OG RTS lanning. You knew the coax would 100% crash but you could rely on about 3-12 hour sessions. One night we all fell asleep and it miraculously stayed up. And we just kept gaming the next morning.

[@jonhatton-brown]

Likewise this game was the centrepiece of our lan parties. Shame it didn't have a Save button.

[@TheVanillatech]

@@jonhatton-brownWent to a LAN once with some older guys who were friendly enough, they did all the networking stuff as well as hiring the warehouse. They said on day one they were TA players, so I looked forward to that! All my friends and I played back in (in terms of RTS) was TA, and we'd HAMMERED it every weekend for a couple of years. As my vamp swarms were chewing up their entire team, I remember thinking ..... meh. They're never gonna play this again after this game. And I was right :(

[@vfrostbane225]

Im a bit of a younger whippersnapper. So my introduction to TA and all its successors was SupCom 2. and i loved it, i never understood why people didnt like it until i played the original games. Those games did everything i loved about SC2 and more. And just recently i found and got into BAR and ive been loving it, im not good enough to play with other people, but its incredible. As someone who wasnt there for it, who only showed up after the hayday of it all, this was such a great video to show me all the gaming history in something i loved. Thanks for the video, and good on the algorithm for showing me your channel.

[@MacCosmic]

You said it yourself, you played Supcon2 before TA or Supreme Commander. Expectations for a sequel was not imprinted. If SupCom 2 was released under another name/artwork but kept the same units/buildings, I think it would have done way better but since it had SupCom name. The BAR was set and when we got our hands on it you felt it was a bait and switch. I defended it's faults was due to "console" hardware limitations but hindsight is 20/20. 9/10 people who played both would rather play the "older" SupCom, even to this day. I personally think if Chris would have taken SupCom 1(think what they have done with FAF/BAR even with netcode/interface) and upgraded/improved AI, more unit commands/pathfinding, Unit formations with the same graphic and factions. Basically a game engine and UI update, People would have given it a better welcome then the current SupCom2 got.

[@julianpedersen9167]

@@MacCosmic Indeed. Chris Taylor et. al. managed to make pretty much the same game twice and somehow still be way ahead of their time for both. Chris Taylor comes off in this video as more-or-less done and ready to pass the TA/SupCom torch to the next generation; heartwarming though it is, I can't help but feel that it's a crying shame. The Achilles Heel for both TA and SupCom1 has, sadly, always been technical, and I feel that we are just *finally* getting to the point where consumer PCs can actually handle the kind of absurd scale that Chris and his team always strove towards in TA and SupCom. Pathfinding in particular is the nail in the coffin the games; SupCom quickly begins to choke really hard when big groups collide with big groups, to the point where an entire battlegroup will terminally traffic-jam itself -- a major dealbreaker when the core premise of your game is smashing gigantic robot armies together! -- and TA is just straight-up primitive (forgivably so, given it came out in 1997). It's so frustrating to see both those games having been so heavily crippled not by design choices, but simply the technology of their times. Chris Taylor might think it to be a bit too boring or safe, but I genuinely believe that literally straight-up carbon-copying SupCom:FA and/or TA with SupCom2's flowfield pathfinding algorithms implemented would be worth an entire re-release on its own. In another timeline, we would have gotten just that as Chris and co.'s final, triumphant swan song. But the folks at Cavedog and GPG have always kept their eyes way on the horizon, for better or for worse, and I'm still so grateful we got the games we did. Let's hope games like BAR and Zero-K will be able to cross that finish line in their absence.

[@Netherminded]

I remember renting Total Annihilation from the Auckland Public Library in 2002? It was revelatory after playing AoE and CnC. It felt like the next evolutionary step. I was so, so hyped when Supreme Commander was announced, though I wouldn't get to play it until five years after it released when I built my own PC. I think the influence of TA can be measured by how many projects attempted to remake it, expand it, and succeed it. A game totally worthy of this documentary treatment.

[@pauldraper1736]

Knowing that Chess, TA, and Foundation are connected makes me happy.

[@immorttalisarchive]

I'm really glad that my absolute favourite game since my childhood gets a video as thorough as this one to highlight it in the current day. I hadn't ever heard of BAR before this, so that's now on my radar as well!

[@aaronmorgan1989]

Beyond all reason feels so good to play, it's hard to play anything else now

[@Lazaruz81]

And it has hooded skulls ( at 3:51)

[@6StimuL84]

Love BAR but still need my TA FIX......

[@Frenzy80]

I used to take back in the days the CD with me in my CD-walkman and listend to the musik when I was going to somewhere as a kid. Thats how good this soundtrack was and still is!

[@Dermbogs]

Just started playing TA again and now I get too watch an hour and a half zade video about it at the same time, today's a good day!

[@petrowegynyolc7108]

Still have the original disc and listen to the soundtrack time and time again.

[@jasonmain6398]

I played it in my portable cd player at school sometimes

[@bluedistortions]

Such an amazing soundtrack.

[@surronzak8154]

Me too, the first ever game my father bought with the firs computer we had

[@WinstonDreadmore]

I remember playing some isometric zombie survival game with the Total Annihilation disc still in my drive thinking "why does this crappy game have such an epic soundtrack?"

[@pivorsc]

Worth mentioning is TA Escalation Mod, adds shit ton of units (some direct copies from SupCom), and balancing, really fun

[@MsModeller]

This is one of my favourite games of all time. Using TA Conflict Crusher to create my mod packs to play multiplayer with my friends including the absolute massive titans. Using the Rumand race from MadTA, and the millions of units that you could get. TA will live in my heart as long as I live, and the soundtrack is forever in my soul.

[@Craftor298]

TA was a big part of my childhood and I still play it from time to time out of nostalgia, but there's something about this game that even BAR or Zero K don't have, there's something magical about it.

[@novaliam7088]

That music, nothing like it. : )

[@6StimuL84]

I agree....

[@Songbearer]

Totally badass soundtrack for a totally badass game

[@radiantfartcloud2041]

One of the best things that BAR has done for me is shedding light on what role different units fulfill. In TA, almost all enemies shoot out the same orange projectile, so I could not really tell them apart. For example, I never knew before that Hounds/Fidos are actually medium range artillery units that should not be charging into the enemy base.

[@v4skunk739]

Not true.

[@austinstoner1988]

​@@v4skunk739I think he meant not charging enemy units. But yeah fidos are awesome for static emplacement. So they definitely can charge a base. Have you ever tried total annihilation escalation?

[@6StimuL84]

Baloney there are 255 different weapons in ta.....and now even more.....

[@kathleendelcourt8136]

It's such a treat to see TA run on modern hardware. The battles and explosions are buttery smooth. I remember the obligatory slowdowns when the screen started to fill with units even on the fastest PCs back then.

[@MareSerenitis]

I still find myself impressed that I could copy TA's game folder from an old machine and paste it onto a modern machine - and it just works. No fussing around or anything.

[@SireSquish]

The first time seeing TA run on an Athlon processor was *chef's kiss*

[@TheVanillatech]

@@SireSquishI went from a Duron 1Ghz to a Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz and suddenly, I could play at 1440x900 with a 500 unit cap in epic skirmishes and things never really slowed down. It was like nothing else!

[@TheVanillatech]

I play pretty much every week, a few skirmishes to relax, on a 4K OLED 43" TV (in 1440p or it's too small) on huge custom maps with half a dozen AI's. Hilarious to think how bad the game struggled on my Pentium 200 back in the day...

[@Groza_Dallocort]

@@TheVanillatech 1 Ghz you was lucky then. I first played TA on a Pentium II 333Mhz processor, an Nvidia 2 card. can't remember the RAM but late 90s so not a whole lot there neither Some of the bigger maps took a minute or two to load

[@nerdmassa9086]

Jeremy Soule? NOW that's why the soundtrack is THAT FKN EPIC!

[@6StimuL84]

Yup.....

[@marble_orchard_spectre4363]

Such an underrated game, played this all the time as a young teenager and watching my army skirmish the enemy on their own while my fighters dogfight in the sky as I race to finish my big Bertha cannons to slug the enemy's base across the map was top-tier RTS

[@igorthelight]

Play some Zero-K or BAR to relive those moments ;-)

[@teoskrn1518]

Never played BAR, but I can confirm that Zero-k is worth checking out! It could use some more players too!

[@Ash_18037]

What? In no was was this game ever underrated! This and Age of Empires were the biggest RTS of the late nineties by far. Maybe you mean today people overlook because it looks old despite it still being a lot of fun?

[@OrinThomas]

I remember arguing with someone on USENET how TA was better than StarCraft. I'll die on that hill.

[@bartz0rt928]

I think they're so different that they're barely comparable. A former pro Starcraft player described that game once as a bunch of minigames that you all play at the same time. In TA, it's all about setting up production pipelines so you can focus on different things. They are the same genre, but about as different as you can get while still fitting the description of "gather resources, build army, fight opponent who does the same".

[@masterofthedeathwing2839]

good man, I salute

[@bluedistortions]

"we purposely made units stupid and control groups limited because.. because we did." If that's the case, don't have any automatic actions, and don't have any control groups. It's like running a day care for special needs toddlers with chopsticks glued to your fingers. TA's design philosophy truly is a strategy game, very freeing. StarCraft is an APM rock paper scissors game.

[@v4skunk739]

Same. TA is the goat RTS.

[@RidinSpinners36]

lol what? as much as i loved and played this game growing up, it is broken and unbalanced as shit compared to Starcraft. theres a reason starcraft left it in the dust

[@CommanderBohn]

Reminder that TA feels like a much darker Transformers and both Arm and CORE feel like grimmer, more morally ambigous Autobots and even more mercyless and heartless Decepticons respectively. Hell. CORE makes Decepticons at their worst look like Autobots at their best.

[@fuggles2kUnification]

This is something of a failure of the lore vs games as Arm were not robots, they were people in vehicles fighting against the evil machines. This is why the EMP missile for Arm didn't affect arm, but did core and then vice versa the neutron missile.

[@rendedspace5606]

​@@fuggles2kUnification No, they were basically meat sacks packed into life support tubes at this point. Near the end of the war the ARM had to start making quite a few concession for cybernetics and bionics to make up for the limitations of squishy humans. To say nothing of the specialty units like some of the walkers having things like spider neurons genetically inserted into the 'pilot'. At the end they were essentially just an endless army of heavily cyberized clones with bits of other animals stuffed in to compensate for human limitations. At the end of the war ARM soldiers were about as human as a WH40k Magos Biologis.

[@brianfhunter]

@@fuggles2kUnification - Clones, but still, humans... you can notice that every arm unit has a cockpit.

[@MrChongkahtze]

​@@brianfhunterwhoever operated the peewee sucks man...

[@MrTBSC]

@@brianfhunter ... their ships don't though, they have no "cockpits" or commanding stations .. if ships are operated by humans or clones then their design makes no sense ... they are literally just a cannon put on a floating platform ... .... really i wouldn't give it too much thought anyway ...

[@FinalDragoon63]

I'm another one of those people who got their first PC and was introduced to the series (in my case, Kingdoms which still holds such an incredible place in my heart) its hard to not look at a genre I love and not yearn for that same feeling TA:K gave me. It makes me real happy to know that this love for TA and TA:K is so widespread.

[@aircraftcarrierwo-class]

Total Annihilation was a big part of my gaming childhood. Great game for its time that aged fantastically well for what it is. The music continues to be awe-inspiring.

[@Vanessaira-Retro]

Total Annihilation is one of my all time favorite RTS'. I remember accidently discovering that I could have a different music CD in when playing this game. So I remember one of the first CDs I burned in the late 90's was one loaded with progressive trance in a way that would play the music depending on the situation. Was always enamored with that.

[@symmetricat188]

Oh, my, the music! "Attack!!!" & "Forest Green" still give me goose bumps. Every historical battle is in here, from Marathon to Hastings to Waterloo to Verdun & beyond. Jeremy just took them all, shook 'em up nicely, & the result was astonishing. A call to battle, triumph, sacrifice & despair. To glory, ablaze. Greatest RTS soundtrack ever.

[@vee-bee-a]

Yes! More love to my beloved Total Annihilation! Nobody knows this game where I live, this damn sewer‑hole of a town.

[@DailyCorvid]

*_Skeever-Hole of a town_* Petition to hold TA over Skyrim as the most influential 3D game of the century.

[@surronzak8154]

Same, I tell them it was the best RTS of the time, and still one of the best, with so much units, but they don't know it, a shame

[@64-Bit_Dragon]

Great to see a brief Zero-K feature! Game is a lot of fun and although the community is small we're open to new players and getting a good match is still quick and easy!

[@Zade_95]

zero-k mentioned :O

[@GreySectoid]

For me TA was and is the pinnacle of the genre, and easily my top-3 games of all time. Incredible effort by the devs to bring us this masterpiece.

[@biggysmith]

what a video! excited for the future of these games. great job guys!

[@Zade_95]

thank you mate!

[@bartz0rt928]

A lot of people have been down on Planetary Annihilation, but I've had a lot of fun with it over the years and I think it's a worthy entrant of the "children of TA" pantheon. The most epic thing I've seen in it is such a classic TA moment: a massive battleship fires a broadside at a commander on shore, but the salvo instead hit a squadron of planes that just happened to fly by at the right time. What the guys behind BAR have done is something really special though. I've taken a look at Spring games now and then over the years and was always put off by how janky it all was, but they have really made it into something that manages to live up to my rose-tinted nostalgic memories of playing TA on the LAN at my friend's house in high school.

[@C3lticlord]

massive video! love TA and TA:K

[@axiomshift1361]

I remember going over to a friends house and seeing total annihilation being played for the first time. My mind was blown away

[@strataseeker2981]

TA is so very near and dear to my heart. It was the first game I worked to customize my PC to play it better. The first one I had LAN games. The first one where I entered the mod community. The first time I learned creators names on. This is a wonderful retrospective and beautifully put together! And Yea, BAR is the successor I waited for, and that I spent an absurd time playing last summer.

[@1989ElLoco]

Haven't had time yet to watch 1,5 hour. But 1,5 hour on TA is well deserved, what a game it was! One of the best ever made for me. Supreme Commander is still a bit better, but also has a different pace. Having such a good memories on TA. Simply epic, and way ahead of it's time. Above all it gave you the feeling of being in an insane epic war. Having tons of units on the field helped, as well as the music, the explosions the different size of units etc. Etc. Some may disagree, but I think Planetary Annihilation is a worthy successor and even innovates further on the formula. This with orbital units and (multiple) sphere maps. It runs smooth as butter and recently got a balance update with a new unit.

[@yosharian]

I think you dramatically undervalue the writing and story that underpins the game's mechanics. Arm and Core have been fighting against each other for millennia, using technologies that have actual thought put into their lore. For example, I remember reading in the manual how the flamethrowers used by in-game units don't need oxygen to function, which is why they work on maps that have no atmosphere. The energy shells fired by T3 artillery like Big Bertha are actually described in the same manual, giving background on how they function. I remember reading that damn manual cover-to-cover over and over, and being fascinated by it. It really captured my imagination. I always found endless skirmish maps to be relatively uninteresting compared to playing through the actual campaigns and experiencing the game's mechanics that way. Many of the missions have thought put into them and aren't just plonking you at one end of a map and telling you to clear an enemy base. Defense of Larab Harbour for example. Just because *you* didn't appreciate that experience doesn't mean it wasn't vital to many players' enjoyment of the game. Lastly, what I will say about skirmish gameplay is that TA had a map editor that was very easy to use, and I spent many, many hours creating my own 'me against the world'-style maps where I would start in a fortified location and have to defend against waves and waves of enemy attacks from multiple enemy commanders until I had the firepower to push out and destroy them all. That was one of my favourite ways to play the game, especially using Core who had the Krogoth super-unit available to them. Building row upon row of T3 artillery to defend against their attacks was very satisfying.

[@chefnerd]

BAR is *the* new standard in RTS - at least in my book.

[@vinceb8123]

Especially regarding command options and hotkeys

[@anteep4900]

Indeed. Every other attempt at a TA successor is clunky and just horrible to play.

[@volodymyr_budii]

I hope it isn't, because at lest for me the game is just too fast paced - everything is made out of glass and dies in a moment, and even a single cheapest bot coming through can do extremely annoying damage to eco, and all of that is annoying to manage for me even with my SC2 past and over 1.5k hours of FAF which gave me some really good APM - majority of RTS players just do not have so much. It definitely works well filling the niche of such active players, but it should not and can not be the standard. Area commands though are really convenient and I would definitely like to see more of them, like in upcoming RTS - Sanctuary: Shattered sun.

[@vinceb8123]

@@volodymyr_budii no way you have a Sc2 past and think BAR is too fast paced?! Maybe at the pro level 1v1 but i don't feel like that at all.. stuff like being able to give patrol commands out of the lab etc make it so low apm friendly

[@volodymyr_budii]

@@vinceb8123 In SC2 max I had is Diamond 3 with protos, which is still more APM than majority of players, especially if you take supcom player base. Patrols do not protect form this issue completely, since you usually can not afford them spread out in early game, and in later game I often have to drag all units to the front lines for push or defense. Miss microing bots is also an option that happens regularly. That is unless AI in those scenarios is much stronger than most regular players

[@jamesabernethy7896]

Total Annihilation, Age of Empires and Command & Conquer were all terrific games. The gameplay was fun and the music was AMAZING. Supreme Commander was a strong successor with some great aspects, but TA was still the best. The feeling of nostalgia surrounding this is great. Me and my brother would have played this on our first PC on a 17" or 19" CRT monitor. I need my sleep but my older brother would stay up in the dark with the sound off to play the game and I never knew a thing.

[@joostvandijk6901]

No need for this video: The answer is YES it is still that good as we can remember. Can something be even better; The answer is: BeyondAllReason! Small edit: Still did watch the video and it is absolutely amazing. It does the original TA right in every way. And very cool to see Chris Taylor talking about it's development.

[@m4shermanfan225]

13:48 is an awesomely funny drop of "I AM INVINCIBLE!"

[@BrandanLee]

I adore Total Annihilation. As a kid growing up in a trailer in the middle of nowhere AZ, my PC was vital in the 90s to having fun. And I probably put 1000 hours into that game in my teens. Even though I don't make RTS games like TA, the visual communication, audio feedback, and that tactile feedback of realtime physics and unit behavior -- I remember that feeling and those lessons in design, and transport a lot of that to my work on games in radically different genres. Easily one of the most influential games on me as a designer. The interviews with Chris and deep dive into development in this video were a treat. I had no idea what making games was like back then. Now that I do interviews like this are like... ahhh, I gotcha. War never changes. XD

[@xieliming]

29:32 to be fair to C&C: tanks’ projectiles are simulated including their turrets and they attempt to lead their shots which is why they can miss or do less damage via a glancing hit. Lots of vehicles depend on turn speed including those with hitscan e.g. humvees’ machine gun turret has to turn to face enemy to fire, independent of the vehicles’ facing. Damaged vehicles will also move slower or malfunction e.g. stealth tanks low on health will flicker stealth off. It’s not just vehicles that have simulations aspects, infantry take less damage when they go prone from being under fire but move slower, SAM sites take less damage when they aren’t exposed etc. Westwood did a surprising amount of simulation for the time. You can read this in the source code which is now public. Warcraft 1 and 2 are far better examples of what you were trying to contrast to e.g. you cannot dodge arrows from archers or axes from axe throwers. As Chris Taylor indicated in your interview, C&C was awesome inspiration and he took the simulation to greater heights

[@senecauk8363]

Great vid- I've always struggled to find an indepth retrospective on a game I remember so well. To this day, the soundtrack takes me back to when I was 12...

[@Kdub09swm]

Wow, good work guys. That was really awesome. TA was core part of my childhood, and is still one of my favorites. i would play with my brothers all the time. One of my brothers used to play on "above Crude Water" he would build up defense and i would try to knock them down. I used to listen to the soundtrack all the time when i was little.

[@stephenhartley2853]

im not sure id say this is the best rts ever but i certainly think its the biggest jump forward the genre has ever seen. the tactical aspects and ballistics are superb especially by 97 standards.

[@TheVanillatech]

Has to be a matter of opinion, which RTS is "best", from Dungeon Keeper to Warcraft III to Starcraft to Total Annihilation and Rise Of Nations, the genre has such a spread of mechanics and gameplay ideas, but TA definitely stands tall and offers something unique which has still yet to be replicated, let alone exceeded.

[@eljay9253]

Chris Taylor doesnt get the recognition he deserves! Dungeon Siege 1 (and 2 to a lesser extend), TA and SupCom were the pinnacle of their genre. After all those years, TA has aged very well and SupCom is still the pinnancle of the RTS genre. The soundtrack of TA........................................absolute bliss. For me Taylor should be mentioned among the greatest visionairs in the industry OF ALL TIME! Amongst the likes of Miyamoto, Carmack, Molyneux, Newell, Meier etc.

[@IceXuick]

Fully agree - CT and many of his team which played a crucial role.

[@theman47145]

I was always a huge fan of TA, SC and also SC2 after I got used to the differences. His passion and vision comes across well in these videos.

[@TheVanillatech]

TA certainly, and Dungeon Siege 1 was pretty visionary, if limited by modern hardware of the time. SupCom was passable, but definitely not as groundbreaking as TA. Then again, what is?

[@Tclans]

I still love Total Annihilation. And I love Beyond All Readon nowadays. 57:04 'Infogrames'* 1:03:14 Strategic zoom, wasn't it Homeworld who did that? I can remember spamming the spacebar to get an overview en get back into the action. Two of my most fondest memories regarding TA are one visual element and one gameplay element. The visual element I like so much and this is coming from a massif Red Alert 2 fan, whenever you plonk down a building it isn't a carbon copy of another one. No, it is rotated ever so slightly. And I love the randomness of it, it gives a somewhat rugged feel like they quickly constructed the buildings instead of some neat subburb. The gameplay element I like so much, is the projectiles als physical objects. This shines whenever you take a Big Bertha, use force fire and aim right in front of its pylon, the turret will use the rotation angle but the depression can't be met and somehow it raises the gun barrel and (I don't know the percentage) shoots lots further than its normal firing range.

[@txdmsk]

TA was an amazing technological marvel. I did not understand how back then such a complex game could exist. It was a colossal step up from anything else on the market back then.

[@Mr_Waffle.]

Great video, takes me back. I remember for about a month straight when I came from home school I'd boot this game up in Skirmish mode and put Nirvana - Nevermind in the CD drive and play the same map over and over, trying to do it perfectly

[@fn202taescvods8]

Thanks for doing a video on TA! The community is alive and well on TA Forever. I upload videos on my channel of competitive PvP in the current versions of TA (Escalation and ProTA)

[@V2pointoh]

TA lives on my personal fav games of all time. Been playing that since I was middle school.

[@ShredTraining]

Loved this game as a kid. The music has always been one of my favourites. I still listen to it regularly.

[@networkgeekstuff9090]

A game that in 1997 managed to give me believably behaving air units was a feat itself and I loved it for that. Imagine how much math all that intertia, tilting and turning of a swarm of planes generates for a pentium 90Hz that was the minimum requirements for this game at the time.

[@TheVanillatech]

Dude, I struggled with a Pentium 200! How did you managed on a P90?!?!?! I remember playing a friend (he had a P166MMX so not too shabby) and we both had to turn off shading and shadows after our unit counts approached maximum. He had gone air units and I figured I was probably going to lose the game, so I fired a NUKE directly into his production and the impact of the nuke, the amount of destruction and subsequent math that had to be done, actually CRASHED his PC and he disconnected and I won. Think about it. Nuked in original TA were so powerful they turned off your PC...

[@lucianosschlieper]

ahahahahahaha nice@@TheVanillatech

[@networkgeekstuff9090]

@@TheVanillatech Simple, a pre-school kid has no concept of what is an FPS slideshow and how it was meant to be played. :D 640x480 and only playing early single player campaigns that were really low unic counts. :D

[@TheVanillatech]

@@networkgeekstuff9090Yeah I know what you're saying. You don't need 40fps to play an RTS game. But even on my P200, the third Core mission (when you have to save the transports and destroy all Arm units), was pretty sluggish! I remember going to a friends house when I was at school, took my PC so we could play C&C over null serial link. When I got there he had a P75, and I remember Quake was unplayable (to me at least) on his rig, yet he played it as if it was "normal" to have 7-11fps. And C&C wasn't smooth either! I guess you're used to what you're used to! Quake 1 ruined me in terms of what I demanded from performance, as I took that game seriously. But sure RTS games don't require 120Hz / 120Fps in order to enjoy! :D

[@Zsteel]

This game was my childhood, I can still hear the intro even after all these years in the back of my mind the words, the sounds, the animations and that epic music. How much time did I spend on this game, enough that the skirmish and campaign disks broke from over use.

[@Ben13KZ]

Thank you for bringing this iconic game back! I used to play a lot of this at my childhood yet I could never remember the name of the game. Now almost 20 years later I could finally recognize the game i played.

[@ghost-rv9vy]

Damn? 1:32:00?? What a treat. You deserve more than 45k subs. I've watched every video since your Dark Reign retrospective and gone back and watched older stuff too.

[@Xeonzs]

Still holds one of the most cherished spots in my heart, even thought the first RTS I played was command and conquer red alert and tiberian sun, then got addicted to red alert 2 and yuri's revenge and stronghold crusader and then my god supreme commander and forged alliance came along, so good, oh and let's not forget company of heroes, now I occasionally play BAR with some friends, but I personally like the slower pace and economy of Total Annihilation and supreme commander more than modern games.

[@metanoia6335]

There is a modding scene and a community built around one mod also still alive for TA called Total Annihilation Escalation which greatly expands on the original with a massive number of new units, new tech levels like t3 and t4 experimental units, balancing patches, new maps, a lively multiplayer community and dedicated multiplayer client and continued updates even now.

[@MajesticDemonLord]

Can we just take a moment to talk about how absolutely incredible the soundtrack is. All throughout the video, it was being played and its still epic.

[@aluinie]

Thanks for the great video guys. One of the best RTS games ever made and a timeless classic

[@l0rf]

Have some engagement for that massive nostalgia wave in the beginning. Basically my childhood in gaming.

[@l0rf]

And huge props to the BAR guys. I think they were early access ready two years ago, but clearly, they have standards in excess of mine. And I'll happily buy their game in steam when it comes out, probably through their site so they benefit 100%.

[@rkrehe20]

listening to the soundtrack on the way to school is a core memory. made life epic

[@SirArtanis7]

This was an amazing video, i don't think i really thought about a full historical breakdown of Supreme Commander like this. I at least played a little Total Annihilation, though that was mostly because i recall the box art from when i was younger. Something in my mind kept it there for a long time and i got it a few years back, i realized while playing a little that i got a little to used to modern games telling me what to do because, i figured out that i could build buldings and units around mission 4 or 5... i want to restart the campaign and relaern what i was supposed to learn...

[@Zade_95]

thank you mate!

[@Wobling]

I love Chris Taylor, he's so passionate and positive.

[@Zade_95]

i know right, total lad

[@bigdawgs557]

Loved the Brawler unit, such a badass plane

[@lordcabello]

God did i love TA! I will deffinately be checking out BAR!

[@8Paul7]

Great video. I remember playing TA as a 10 year old kid and eventhough I never loved it as much as CnC, RA or WC3, I respected it and always loved its soundtrack. One of Soule's best.

[@legomacinnisinc]

Man, I remember hanging out on the TA Spring forums back in the late 2000s. Never really did much on there but it was my first online community that I hung out in. I remember poking abound the Balanced Annihilation threads and I didn't realize that BAR came directly out of that. Also really cool to see Chris Taylor talk about everything that he did. Great inspiration for any aspiring game designers.

[@AcuraAddicted]

It's brilliant. The amount of variation and freedom given to you to complete missions was outstanding! For example, I could even use the Commander for fighting many times (and in some cases solely to complete missions). I loved the setting, the physics, terrain, game mechanics, graphics, everything! Yet it was straightforward enough to get into, unline the later developments in the same universe (Supreme Commander), which I couldn't even play at all.

[@felipepereira214]

TA: Kingdoms is a very fun game; I highly recommend for those of you who didn't play it yet to give it a try. I only discourage the Iron Plague expansion because it's campaign is unnecessarily hard, the fifth faction, Creon, is totally unbalanced and the new units for the other factions are mostly useless. Maybe that's the last straw in the camel's back for Cavedog being out of business.

[@MarcABrown-tt1fp]

"TA Kingdoms" *Shudders....

[@euphoricbliss6699]

TA will always be my favourite strategy game. Thanks for this great in depth video about it dude! 👍

[@CrassSpektakel]

The amazing thing about Total Annihilation: It works even better on modern computers. Recently I played it on a 65 inch display with 3840x2160 pixels and 5000 Units per Team with four teams. And it just amazingly worked!!!

[@entorwellian]

I replayed the original and Core Contingency a few months back and they 100% do hold up. The units are more memorable in it than SupCom, Planetary Annihilation, Ashes of the Singularity and all of the other games that followed after it. Having said that, I'm really looking forward to Beyond All Reason.

[@chrisjonesy]

Love this still playing at 55

[@impelau]

Heh. A good day. My childhood game was Supreme, and probably because for me it is "The one" - when I played BAR, I saw a game that is less serious, less large-scale, it is not a planetary operation, but a separate skirmish for a front line with all the same aspects. IMHO Supreme took the logical next step (apart from those places where he reduced the variety of units and abandoned terraforming or the skeleton of technology) - SCALE. Huge robots, huge explosions, huge distances, it's often just a design, but it makes all the salt of the feeling from fifty-kilometer maps for me. I'm interested and now I'm going to look on the channel for what you think about the Shelter that they plan to make an heir, apart from aspects like the fact that events take place on the destructible interiors of the Dyson sphere. They promise a lot.

[@andrewfernie3528]

I remember getting this among other games as part of a bundle with our old family PC way back in 1999. It took me a while to get to it and I had no manual to figure out how to play it, but I got hooked. Before long my friends were playing it too. It's one I'll always remember. I even used to have backups of the free units on the TA website.

[@AmosDohms]

Having discovered BAR long before TA or Supreme Commander, I think it's really cool how I could recognize most of the units in the TA footage you showed. Definitely seems like the most modern successor to the original.

[@StyxAnnihilator]

Played Total Annihilation a lot at that time, also the expansions The Core Contingency and Battle Tactics, still have original boxes close to mint condition. Favorite game mechanic were that flying transports could lift enemies, including the commander. XD. Second part of my nick is partially a tribute. EDIT: Most games I play without its music, after done campaigns or similar (see those more as a tutorial).

[@DrKiBs]

Damn, I forgot this game has one of my favourite soundtracks of all time. Since the disk had Redbook music, got plenty of time in the cd player in the car.

[@jankucera8505]

I remember Chris Taylor talking about programming in TA2 and its problems. Very nice.

[@DM-rw6fq]

God this takes me back. I remember playing this when I was a kid, probably the first RTS I ever played and definitely one of the best.

[@BFDSURVIVOR]

I dint expect to see my name at the end for the patron but yeah this was a great video I never played TA but after watching this makes me feel like I missed out. You both did a great job on this video.

[@BadGhosts]

Yo! Thanks for checking in man

[@Zade_95]

thank you

[@mogendo]

The successor is alive and well in the free to play BEYOND ALL REASON That needs more exposure.

[@Tyler-zl6yw]

I found this game ages ago by sheer luck and it became my obsession for years as a kid. Great work CaveDog and team. I was so happy to see it stand the test of time and get its kudos as one of the best games ever! I still play a skirmish or campaign every so often!

[@Enforcer_WJDE]

TA was insane. Back in the day my buddy and i had a session that started around 10pm and lasted until around 6am. It was over when the first nukes went flying, i had more defense missiles and more nukes than him and had air superiority.

[@PetroIv20]

I remember that days playing TA, great memories. And you know what? This game is still nice to play in 2024. And the music, no THE MUSIC, it is just something outstanding. I am so glad to live that great time.

[@WolfDogNH]

This was my all time favorite RTS.

[@Quecojo]

Great video! TA and SA are some of my all time favorite games.

[@musingmike6713]

Oh man I loved this game so much! It was my first purchased PC game back in 97 and I actually came up with the idea of the Warrior unit for the Arm when I was just a kid. It was so long ago that I don't quite remember how that happened but I do remember being so proud of myself.

[@Elucidus4]

Had no idea Zero-K or BAR existed, been trying to scratch that itch for a long time. Thanks for this video.

[@TheVanillatech]

Years ahead of it's time, and totally unexpected, TA is one of a handful of games (Quake, System Shock 2, Warcraft III, Shogun Total War) that has ALWAYS been installed on every single PC I've owned since the 90's, to this day. In fact, just yesterday I played through the Core Contingency again, only now I play on a 4K OLED 43" TV (in 1440p) and I've added a handful of changes (much more aggressive AI, an increase to unit cap in skirmish, and excellent map packs) to the game. But thats it, the game still holds up today. It's just as intense and unique as it always was. It stood alone in the RTS world from the beginning, and did it's own thing. I remember the only thing that frustrated me about the game was that PC's of the era had a hard time running it. I had a relatively great PC back in 1996/7, a vanilla Pentium 200 which ran anything from Quake to Carmageddon to Tomb Raider at smooth framerates. But TA was very power hungry, even at 640x480 with shadows and shading off, multiplayer games could get choppy. As the years went on, my friends and I we never stopped playing. When we finally all had Pentium 3 550's in the early 2000's, that opened up a different generation of TA. Then again, with the first Core 2 Duo CPU's, we could play in 1080p with 500 units on the larger maps, and it became even more epic. And now today, it's so amazing to play on a 4K TV in 1440p with absolutely EPIC battles with thousands of units on screen. Supreme Commander failed to capture what TA had. We all dreamed of TA 2, but neither SupCom or Planetary Annihilation, while both decent games, come close to replicated what TA is. And that's truely all we wanted, was a revisioning and streamlining of an already perfect game. Same way none of the Dawn Of War sequels captured the original Dawn Of War's gameplay and magic. Maybe one day, I live in hope! :D