This is amazing to see TA on HN.

I grew up playing Total Annihilation in the 90s because my cousin worked for Cavedog and got us a CD for free. It is still one of my favorite games to this day.

So many great memories with that game, countless hours playing with my brothers, getting up early to play before school, asking my parents for extra chores to earn more computer time.

Games aren't the same anymore.

I still have the original game and expansion packs. Highly recommend playing it.

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.

I really enjoyed TA back in the day. And I still remember the fantastic music background which dynamically changed if you went into battle. Starcraft was released after and it looked so ancient compared to TA in my view. But all my friends played SC at the time so it took over.

I always love RTS games and am sad to see how they've largely disappeared.

some of my first experiences 'hacking' were modifying .ini files for command and conquer to make a new version of the game for my friends. it was... very unbalanced

Not to mention "Buy 1 game, 2 OTHERS can play against/with each other for free"

I had the most intense battles with my brother, even well into our 30s when we only met a few times a year.

It is sad that there never really was a successor that was as good. They could have lifted the 255 units limit, made the game more balanced, added a few more maps and units (but not too many), enhace the graphics (but keep it 2.5D, I do not want 3D in this kind of games) and make connectivity easier.

Cavedog released a fantasy game after that, which I wanted to like, but it was crap. And the Command & Conquer games were never for me. Tried them but never felt them.