OVER 9000!!!

To play Supreme Commander 2 well, and hopefully win, you have to get an advantage over your opponent. The advantage can be either of the following:

• a strategy which counters what your opponent has chosen – for example, finding out that he’s making gunships and making fighters to take them down
• superior micromanagement of identical or near – identical numbers of small units – for example, tanks versus tanks or unit arty versus unit arty
• outproducing your opponent – usually done by mass conversion, or superior management of expansion and unit production

I’ll leave the other two topics to other discussions; however today I’d like to talk more about the last advantage – managing your income and production, or what a lot of RTS people call “the economy.”

So, perhaps you’ve noticed that when you start the game, you are given some resources. The numbers next to the economy bar are the mass/energy income per second (if you haven’t figured it out yet). As you can see on the screenshot below, 6 seconds have passed, 6*1 = 6 mass income, 6*5=30 energy income (31 due to the fraction of a second).

Some mass and energy are available to start the game with.

It’s up to you to determine what to do with these resources. Contrary to what you might think, even at the very first 5 seconds of the game you are already making a choice and somewhat committing to a specific strategy.

For example, if you choose to make mass extractors and energy generators only, you’re investing into a mass/energy income “edge” over your opponent, who might in turn make research stations heavily and invest into a technological “edge” over you. It’s highly advisable to “follow through” with whatever you choose.

Case in point: I’ve seen a lot of people who started with no research stations panic and start “teching up” their ACU to counter an ACU rusher that they encounter. That is incredibly stupid! Why? If you’ve already invested in a “mass/energy” strategy, and you’re trying to catch up in research to someone who already has 4-5 research stations and making more. You can NEVER catch up to them if they’re a skilled player and push their strategy on you hard. They’ll have overcharge/teleport/etc. long before you do.

So, what do you do to counter a “tech” strategy with a “mass/energy” strategy that you’ve already committed to in the beginning few seconds of the game? You push your strategy. If the enemy techs his/her ACU, you can USE your mass/energy advantage and make point defenses and land units to counter their ACU. The game is sufficiently balanced to make both strategies viable, and an ACU rush versus a mass/energy income-based strat are usually some of the most interesting and intense games you can encounter.

Another mistake that I’ve seen a lot of new people make is not utilizing their production capabilities fully. It’s not surprising that Supreme Commander 2 (like any other strategy game) is very demanding on your brain – you have to constantly micro units around the map and manage production, while keeping an eye out on your mass, energy, and research income.

However, the game makes it a little easier for you by providing you with a tool to maximize your production capability – the idle engineer/factory sidebar.

Sidebar showing your idle engineers, factories, and ACU.

That is an extremely useful tool to maximize your production output. You have some mass and energy left over? Why not use an idle engineer and produce something useful like units that you can use to further your chosen strategy? You have enough factories to optimally use your resources, but have idle engineers or your ACU is idle (indicated by a yellow exclamation mark)? Use them to assist the factories! The ACU is a very powerful construction unit (twice as fast as regular engineers) and should be kept assisting or constructing as often throughout the game as possible. Don’t throw away your ACU in “Supremacy!” Even if the nuke explosion seems appealing, and can indeed be devastating in certain circumstances, the loss of your ACU can often be a considerable disadvantage to you for several other reasons as well.

You should constantly keep an eye out on your energy/mass and think of where it needs to be to produce the output needed to beat your opponent. Do you have an ACU rusher incoming? Have 500 energy/200 mass for a point defense at all times! No energy/mass? Pause your factories and/or engineers! I can’t tell you how often I have found myself in a situation where I’m doing landspam (mass production of land units to overwhelm my opponent with) and while I’m microing them on the frontline, I end up with 1000 mass and 3000 energy after a couple of minutes. If you are not “saving up” for an experimental unit or an expensive structure, having a lot of extra mass and energy unused is a considerable failure, because in effect you have an “edge” over your opponent which you’re not utilizing.

The overlay provides useful information on how much units cost and the time needed to produce them.

To be able to plan effectively and anticipate unit costs, including the potential “ratio” that you need to keep your energy:mass in (a little over 2:1 for regular units, about 3.5:1 for experimental units), you have to learn the “numbers.” Supreme Commander 2 is a time-and-numbers game in many ways. You might build an incredible economy (with mass conversion), but what good is it if you just don’t have the time to produce units with all the mass and energy you have?! Meanwhile, your opponent might have factories with increased veterancy which might pump out units faster and cheaper than you, even without mass conversion (unlikely, but possible on some maps with not much space such as “Geothermal Borehole”).

A very excellent website to learn the numbers from is this one. You should visit it often and thoughtfully study the differences in weapon ranges, damage per second, cost, time to produce, etc. of the Supreme Commander 2 units. I feel like the information I’ve learned there has made me a considerably better player than I would’ve been without it.

Overall, if you want to win, you have to optimize your economy and fine-tune it as you also battle on your frontline. That’s one of the most challenging things in Supreme Commander 2 – expert “micro” of battling units while expanding and managing your production and energy-mass-research “mix” and impeccable timing.

Even your ACU provides some income, comparable to 1 MEx, 1 PGen, and slightly less than a Research Station.

So, learn those numbers and manage your economy expertly and you’ll end up producing the necessary units to take down even the most challenging opponents. The rest is managing those units’ capabilities and utilizing them to their fullest.