Zarel wrote:Warzone's unpopular. Among the people who do play it, though, it's not necessarily underrated.
Define underrated. And I don't think unpopular is the right term...
obscure would be better.
Zarel wrote:
And the factions were really quite unique. Compare to SupCom, where every faction is exactly the same, with only a few differences.
I won't deny that the factions in Starcraft were extremely diverse. Same could be said for Universe at War (though it was gimmicky).
But honest to God, I get sick and tired of people saying the factions in Supcom are "the same". Actually, it's just the f*****g opposite. The only exact similarities are in certain buildings like nuclear missile silos and anti-missile defenses; sh*t that doesn't need to be unique.
Otherwise the units are extremely unbalanced (ironically) and very different; one on one speaking without tactics taken into account.
Tech 1 is when they're the most similar, I won't deny, but the rest they vary greatly.
Play the game for a good length of time and you'll realize this.
To summarize:
UEF are heavily armored, arguably the slowest faction, have high arcing turrets (giving them terrain advantage), are in between the two extremes of Aeon and Cybran when it comes to artillery, they have more support/utility units than other teams, and they just have the most brute force in general. Their turrets however conversely turn rather slowly making them more easily strafed or kited.
Cybran tend to be fast on average over the other teams, and they have a lot of multi-purpose units (their cruiser has the same firepower as their destroyer despite being primarily an AA weapon, their destroyer can walk on land, their Tech 1 AA can shoot ground, their Mantises can help with construction, and I could go on), as well as having the best missile weapons overall. Their artillery is imprecise but has a high-yield, allowing them to rain indiscriminate destruction. They have some EMP weapons, and the most advanced stealth. They have no mobile or personal shields, and the only shield they do have, their stationary one, while cheap, is weak. This combined with their lower armor than most other teams means they're the most easily destroyed. Conversely all their tech 3 planes have stealth, and they're the only team to have mobile stealth field generators, and their stationary stealth field generators are cheaper and have a larger range. A lot of Cybran direct-fire weapons are precise and hit instantly, but fire in straight beams so terrain can seriously effect them negatively. Interestingly all Cybran amphibious units do not hover or float(not counting engineers), but drive under water, making for some interesting stealth strategies.
Aeons are just the opposite of the Cybrans in most ways: Their units are all single purpose, even more so than other teams, for instance all other teams have AA on their destroyers and frigates and battleships (though light), but the Aeon do not. So at Tech 1 they have a unique AA only boat, and their Tech 2 cruiser has the most potent AA but the weakest direct fire gun (Seraphim cruiser has no direct fire gun, but we'll get to them.) Whatever an Aeon unit is purpose built for it
excels at, to put it simply. Their units generally have low-rates of fire but very high initial shot damage...this means that they're the only faction where mixing tech 1 defenses at Tech 2 might be a good idea, or with their AA mixing Tech 2 Flak with Tech 3 AA missiles because their T3 AA reload slowly (but are powerful). They also have a lot of hover units, giving them a massive advantage on water maps. They have the second most advanced shields in the game, but their armor is average overall. Really depends on the unit.
The Seraphim are the bizarre faction...some say they combine Aeon and Cybran, or Aeon and UEF...they have a lot of multi-purpose units to make up for their slightly lower unit selection, and they have some units that really are halfway between the equivilents on other faction's tech levels...these units, being the Tech 2 Assault Bot and the Tech 3 Seige tank, are extremely cost effective. Overall though it's hard to describe them.
Mind you I got the game late so I had it with all patches and I mostly play the expansion. I know Vanilla Supcom unpatched is unbalanced hell but I can tell you one thing Forged Alliance is a great game. They refined all of the issues in the original.
But trust me when I tell you this; the factions are not the same. They use completely different tactics. The supposed "similarities" between the factions are a mere illusion, trust me on that. The only place where the units are mostly similar is on Tech 1, and even then there are some differences.
