[whartung]

TA is the only game I consciously went out to buy a faster machine to play. Upgrading from my 133MHz to a 400MHz so I could run more units in TA.

I rarely played TA vs other people. It was always either the PvE scenarios, or skirmishes.

Against multiple AIs I would strive to take out several of them, leaving one time to build up. Then the game would quickly devolve into "hose on hose" combat where my automatic production with bottomless resources would push out toward the oncoming bot army fueled by their infinite resources.

You could see on the large map how well you were doing based on how close the hose front of clashing machines was to whose base. But that was necessary to open up space to create special armies and other techniques to get around the hose, and flank the base.

All while being blasted to splinters by bots and Berthas and Brawlers and everything else.

But get a good Goliath drop into the rear, and it's just glorious spectacle.

The whole thing, in the end, was spectacle. The sounds, the shrapnel, the rocking of the maps when some wandering commander would wander into the wrong area. Like getting winged by a far off Bertha and giving chase to enact revenge upon it.

And a special Flea scenario is hilarious fun.

Loved that game.

[taplayer]

I set a scenario against multiple AIs on the large metal map. The only way to survive was to quickly construct barriers between the buildings to seal off your base because the AIs weren't programmed to destroy barriers. Then came the job of hunting down the AI commanders (I played killing the commander kills all of his units otherwise it was impossible to win).

Great game!

[blindriver]

I got the largest metal map and created a basically impenetrable base, and then left the game running overnight.

It turned into a huge battle between the highest level of units and it was so much fun, but even then the AI wasn't extremely challenging.

[moffkalast]

You know, just the other day I dropped back into RA3 for a few hours and left wondering why they set every map up so that everyone runs out of resources 15 minutes in as the collectors go empty, so nobody can really do much. Makes for battles that are really limited in scope for seemingly no reason.

Hose vs. hose sounds epic af.

[whartung]

Al (most?) of the other RTS games are very resource constrained. So, you have to focus on tight unit mixes, concentrate on individual battles, doing micro, and running about.

TA is more a game of raw tonnage, not of finesse and subtlety.

As the same time, original TA is notorious for not being finely tuned or balanced. And I'm sure that's much more important in PvP.

But in PvE flinging two industrial powerhouses against each other, where subtlety is replaced by 100, throwaway, Flash tanks, it's just a different play experience.

[samplifier]

Bullet hell, or rather bullet heaven. TA was the first game where I saw the PC struggle during big battles and it was a pleasant experience, unlike the lag in multiplayer games where I mainly played against people across the pond.