When comparing Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War vs Supreme Commander, the Slant community recommends Supreme Commander for most people. In the question“What are the best LAN party PC games?” Supreme Commander is ranked 12th while Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is ranked 50th. The most important reason people chose Supreme Commander is:
If there is a large building in between the line of sight of the player and the target, your units might hit the building instead. To compensate you can use artillery or missiles. However this type of full scale simulation is at the expense of CPU power.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Easily practice the game when not playing over LAN
There is offline play available, meaning you can play single player in order to practice for LAN play. LAN as well is offline, as it uses a local connection. So overall, there is no need for an internet connection in order to play the game how and when you want.
Pro Easily accessible to any skill level
A smart AI allows for difficult games thanks to the natural reactions that the enemy can have in game, which keeps the player on their toes. Where it allows for any skill level is the fact that the player can change the difficulty level, which will make for an easier or even more difficult game, depending on what the player choose to set it on.
Pro Large hectically fun matches
Up to 8 players can play in a game, making for what can be hectic and large matches thanks to the possibility of the amount of each players forces.
Pro Expansions and mods
Dark Crusade and Soulstorm are just two of the beautiful expansions this game has(the best ones, in my opinion).
Also, a mod like Ultimate Apocalypse (for Soulstorm) brings the game to a totally new style
Recommended to play the original game first, to learn playstyle, and then play Ultimate Apocalypse so you can notice all the changes that this wonderful mod has made.
This mod is worth all the game+2 expansions by itself. Look for it on ModDB.com.
Pro Can run on older PCs
As this game is quite old (having been originally released in 2004), it runs well on older PCs.
Pro Simulation of every shot
If there is a large building in between the line of sight of the player and the target, your units might hit the building instead. To compensate you can use artillery or missiles. However this type of full scale simulation is at the expense of CPU power.
Pro Massive battles with plenty of outcomes
Battles can involve hundreds of units. This allows for even experimental units that can single-handedly take out entire armies due to their sheer size. This way there is room for experimentation in what can works, or just to see what outcomes they have.
Pro Unlimited zoom increases visibility
You don't need a mini map to get an overview of the Battlefield: simply zoom out using the scroll wheel. If you want to "jump" somewhere else just zoom in to that exact spot.
Pro Authentic real time economy
When you spend resources on a building, they are not spent instantly but rather over the course of building. The same goes for collecting. Your buffer is small so try to match your spending rate with that of gathering.
Pro Rewarding, high skill cap
This game can satisfy you for hours. It offers a high level of play that not only takes a long time to attain but is also very rewarding when mastered.
Pro Advanced command system
By holding the shift key, you can see the commands you gave as an overlay on the map. Drag and drop commands to adapt them whenever you have to.
Pro Fundamentally different factions that are well balanced
Each faction in the game will have different abilities, units, transporters or stations that are unique to that faction. While one faction will have an advantage of a hovering engineer, another will have the advantage of a driving engineer, each being prone and un-prone to particular kinds of attacks. Somewhat like a rock paper scissors scenario where it will all balance out in the end. This way it keeps each faction feeling unique, but at the same time disallowing any to have too much of an advantage over the others.
Pro Asynchronous tech system
Upgrading one factory doesn't magically upgrade all the others. Decide wisely how much you spend on advancing in tech. Low tech spam can sometimes still be an option.
Cons
Con Some LAN/Internet games don't start.
Some games just get stuck into a loading screen(transferring badges screen) and won't start. If you can see this screen for more than a couple of minutes, just let the host close the game and try again.
After this screen a Loading The Map screen should appear and it can take even 5 minutes if somebody is using an old PC, but the first screen is the "bugged" one.
Con Large and not optimized
Size of the game+expansions+mod is about 10 GB. Also the game is quite aged but it is not best optimized and in 8p LAN matches it could stutter.
Con Stand-alone add-on Forged Alliance needed for stability
Vanilla game has balance issues, which is why it is recommended that the user installs the add-on, Forged Alliance.
Con Steep learning curve and need for planning involved
Supreme Commander takes a while to pick up and learn how to play well. Since everything in the game happens slowly, you need to plan.
Con Developers abandoned the game
However there is great community support in which they have released patches in order to fix outstanding bugs as well as support hosting a map vault where players can download community made maps to use in the game. There is also a matchmaking lobby tool available here, which makes finding online matches to play pretty easy.
Con Large battles with a poor CPU is not recommended in 4v4
The game can slow down significantly in large battles and on huge maps when there are a lot of players. This is especially the case for those using lower-end PCs.