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Somewhat unrelated, but I never understood why the Command and Conquer series wasn't as popular as Starcraft. At least Red Alert 2, I always thought was a vastl

Somewhat unrelated, but I never understood why the Command and Conquer series wasn't as popular as Starcraft. At least Red Alert 2, I always thought was a vastly superior RTS.

dudul 3y ago
I also loved red alert 2, and played it much more than starcraft. However, one possible reason is that starcraft had 3 factions. 3 very different factions. Yes, Allies and USSR had special units in RA2, but the differences were much more pronounced in SC. It made for very different possible gameplays and strategies. Also, maybe building on top of the warcraft brand helped. WC2 was pretty amazing back then.
- fakedang 3y ago
  That begets the question why Generals did not become such a hit multi-player game. AFAIK, the three factions in Generals (USA, China and terrorists) are quite different themselves in terms of play style. RA3 obviously tried to follow that pattern, and failed miserably.
boomboomsubban 3y ago
The economy seems far less substantial in C&C compared to StarCraft, at least from my memory. StarCraft has mining, gas, and unit caps. C&C has tiberium/money.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  For those unaware, Tiberium is the unit from Command and Conquer, while Money is the unit from Red Alert. --------- I've become strong-casual (1000 Elo) in Age of Empires 2 by the way. Juggling Wood, Food, Gold and Stone has far more strategic depth than just Starcraft's Minerals + Gas. Age of Empires 2 has less micro: in particular, there's no such thing as "spells" like Psi Storm. Furthermore, all units move much, much slower. Yes, Hera and Viper (trading for #1 and #2 spots in the world) both still clicks at 400 APM when fights start, but this is far away from Starcraft's insane 800 APM professionals (short-term burst of course, I think everyone has a long-term average of 300 APM). AoE2 has a high-skill ceiling for APM still, but strategic implications are far more important compared to Starcraft due to the slower speeds in AoE2. Cavalry in Age of Empires is the fastest unit, but Cavalry feel slower than Protoss Brood-War Carriers IMO. And then infantry crawl, and siege units and elephants (ie: Battering Rams) are extremely slow. With such slow movement, its far more important to decide that "moving out is a good idea", there's not as much APM dedicated to crazy things like Muta-micro, Vulture-micro (vulture / mine / siege tank pushes). It also means that there's more time to think about the implications of your attacks (while IMO, most Starcraft matches feel like they're won or lost by a well placed Psi Storm or other such micro-trick, like a good Lurker-dodge, a well placed Baneling, Scourge or whatnot). AoE2 still has Monk micro, Siege attack-grounds, and arrow dodging as far as micro-tricks go. So its not a dearth of micro, but its very much refreshing compared to the Psi Storm / Siege Tank / Mine pushes of insane APM that a typical Starcraft BW match has. ---------- AoE2 still has two very "swinging" situations. Monk conversions swing the game extremely, and Onagers basically shoot a Psi-storm like area-of-effect high-damage siege shot every 5 seconds or so. In both cases, a game can be won or lost in a matter of seconds (much like how one good Psi-storm can turn the tide of the entire match). But both Monks and Onagers are the slowest units in the game, and both are weak vs the cheapest Scout Cavalry (Onagers have minimum HP, while Monks take longer to convert scouts while Scouts deal extra damage vs Monks). So... if you scout out the opponent and keep track of these incredibly powerful units, then everything's pretty much predictable and less "surprising" than Starcraft. And that's a good thing IMO.
  - fbdab103 3y ago
    >...Starcraft's insane 800 APM professionals (short-term burst of course, I think everyone has a long-term average of 300 APM) From the few professional player videos I have watched, a lot of that looks like mindless, repetitive clicking. Some kind of Goodhart's law where because APM is important to be good, it gets internalized early. For sure, the professionals do need an elevated level of actions, but not the mass spamming I have observed.
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    >Juggling Wood, Food, Gold and Stone has far more strategic depth than just Starcraft's Minerals + Gas Does AoE have the unit caps as well? That's the resource I think is hardest to manage, though I think Warcraft handled it better with the upkeep. It made macro far more interesting when watching competitive play, as creating too many gatherers still hampered you beyond being unprepared for a rush.
    - dragontamer 3y ago
      AoE2 has a 200-unit cap, but almost every unit costs 1 to the cap. So you can have 200 Paladins (strongest unit in the game), while in Starcraft you can have either 33 Battlecruisers (strongest combat unit one-vs-one) or 400 Zerglings (weakest but most numerous). Exception: the unique unit "Karambit" from the Malay has a special ability where they count 1/2 population. So you can have 400 Karambits (much like Zerglings in Starcraft:BW)
MattRix 3y ago
I enjoyed Red Alert a lot but it still wasn’t nearly as good as StarCraft. It comes down to how each unit type felt more unique, and how much each individual unit mattered. The three totally unique sides helped a lot as well.

Somewhat unrelated, but I never understood why the Command and Conquer series wasn't as popular as Starcraft. At least Red Alert 2, I always thought was a vastly superior RTS.

dudul 3y ago

I also loved red alert 2, and played it much more than starcraft. However, one possible reason is that starcraft had 3 factions. 3 very different factions. Yes, Allies and USSR had special units in RA2, but the differences were much more pronounced in SC. It made for very different possible gameplays and strategies. Also, maybe building on top of the warcraft brand helped. WC2 was pretty amazing back then.

fakedang 3y ago
That begets the question why Generals did not become such a hit multi-player game. AFAIK, the three factions in Generals (USA, China and terrorists) are quite different themselves in terms of play style. RA3 obviously tried to follow that pattern, and failed miserably.

boomboomsubban 3y ago

The economy seems far less substantial in C&C compared to StarCraft, at least from my memory. StarCraft has mining, gas, and unit caps. C&C has tiberium/money.

dragontamer 3y ago
For those unaware, Tiberium is the unit from Command and Conquer, while Money is the unit from Red Alert. --------- I've become strong-casual (1000 Elo) in Age of Empires 2 by the way. Juggling Wood, Food, Gold and Stone has far more strategic depth than just Starcraft's Minerals + Gas. Age of Empires 2 has less micro: in particular, there's no such thing as "spells" like Psi Storm. Furthermore, all units move much, much slower. Yes, Hera and Viper (trading for #1 and #2 spots in the world) both still clicks at 400 APM when fights start, but this is far away from Starcraft's insane 800 APM professionals (short-term burst of course, I think everyone has a long-term average of 300 APM). AoE2 has a high-skill ceiling for APM still, but strategic implications are far more important compared to Starcraft due to the slower speeds in AoE2. Cavalry in Age of Empires is the fastest unit, but Cavalry feel slower than Protoss Brood-War Carriers IMO. And then infantry crawl, and siege units and elephants (ie: Battering Rams) are extremely slow. With such slow movement, its far more important to decide that "moving out is a good idea", there's not as much APM dedicated to crazy things like Muta-micro, Vulture-micro (vulture / mine / siege tank pushes). It also means that there's more time to think about the implications of your attacks (while IMO, most Starcraft matches feel like they're won or lost by a well placed Psi Storm or other such micro-trick, like a good Lurker-dodge, a well placed Baneling, Scourge or whatnot). AoE2 still has Monk micro, Siege attack-grounds, and arrow dodging as far as micro-tricks go. So its not a dearth of micro, but its very much refreshing compared to the Psi Storm / Siege Tank / Mine pushes of insane APM that a typical Starcraft BW match has. ---------- AoE2 still has two very "swinging" situations. Monk conversions swing the game extremely, and Onagers basically shoot a Psi-storm like area-of-effect high-damage siege shot every 5 seconds or so. In both cases, a game can be won or lost in a matter of seconds (much like how one good Psi-storm can turn the tide of the entire match). But both Monks and Onagers are the slowest units in the game, and both are weak vs the cheapest Scout Cavalry (Onagers have minimum HP, while Monks take longer to convert scouts while Scouts deal extra damage vs Monks). So... if you scout out the opponent and keep track of these incredibly powerful units, then everything's pretty much predictable and less "surprising" than Starcraft. And that's a good thing IMO.
- fbdab103 3y ago
  >...Starcraft's insane 800 APM professionals (short-term burst of course, I think everyone has a long-term average of 300 APM) From the few professional player videos I have watched, a lot of that looks like mindless, repetitive clicking. Some kind of Goodhart's law where because APM is important to be good, it gets internalized early. For sure, the professionals do need an elevated level of actions, but not the mass spamming I have observed.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  >Juggling Wood, Food, Gold and Stone has far more strategic depth than just Starcraft's Minerals + Gas Does AoE have the unit caps as well? That's the resource I think is hardest to manage, though I think Warcraft handled it better with the upkeep. It made macro far more interesting when watching competitive play, as creating too many gatherers still hampered you beyond being unprepared for a rush.
  - dragontamer 3y ago
    AoE2 has a 200-unit cap, but almost every unit costs 1 to the cap. So you can have 200 Paladins (strongest unit in the game), while in Starcraft you can have either 33 Battlecruisers (strongest combat unit one-vs-one) or 400 Zerglings (weakest but most numerous). Exception: the unique unit "Karambit" from the Malay has a special ability where they count 1/2 population. So you can have 400 Karambits (much like Zerglings in Starcraft:BW)

MattRix 3y ago

I enjoyed Red Alert a lot but it still wasn’t nearly as good as StarCraft. It comes down to how each unit type felt more unique, and how much each individual unit mattered. The three totally unique sides helped a lot as well.