Command and Conquer 4 Impressions

Command and Conquer 4 has a multiplayer open beta, if you were unaware.

I thought I’d give a rundown of my initial impressions, as the game turned out to be a surprise.

First, I came into it off enjoying Red Alert 3 and Command and Conquer 3 immensely, and both of those were pretty standard games for the franchise.  I expected C&C 4 to simply be an iteration on that, probably hearkening back to C&C 3 for aesthetic feel and resource gathering motif, while using the more streamlined power system from Red Alert 3.

I logged in, faced with a selection of single-player and multiplayer options, of which two were available: automatch and custom game.  Knowing that some changes were inevitable, I figured I’d attempt my tried-and-true approach to a rough tutorial in C&C multiplayer betas: start a private custom game all by myself, and just futz around for a while.  Sadly, EA opted to not allow that, demanding I supply at least one other real human before it would let me play.

Defeated, I hopped in the automatch queue.  After an interminable wait, where I got to really appreciate the bombastic orchestral theme music they had looping every couple minutes, I got into a game.  Everyone loaded up, the game started…and my entire team dropped, along with a good portion of the opposing team.  “Well,” I thought, “I’d intended this to be a learning match anyway, so I’ll just plow on through.”  When the match started, and as my team was disintegrating, I was given a choice of three classes: offense, defense, or support.  Well, maybe this is like the old C&C: Generals commander selection, of the factions introduced with the C&C 3 expansion, and didn’t really consider it again after choosing “defense”.  I then had to choose a spot on the map to deploy…well, something, I didn’t know what, and we were off.

It turned out I’d deployed a ‘crawler’, which is the in-game slang term for the new MCVs of C&C.  For old players, you’ll recognize the MCV as the core of your base in the old games; the place you’d set up first and build everything else around.  The MCV starts out mobile, ready to wander off to wherever you send it to plunk down and unpack.  I decided to unpack it right there; I had no idea what the hell was going on.  Looking around the UI, I found a place to start building units, with a number of options blocked off (requiring a tech unlock, apparently).  Being enough of an RTS player to know that not having something building is BAD, I began clicking randomly on units that looked reasonable, and started looking around for the ways I could unlock tech.

I never found them.  I also never found the resources I used to build units.  By this time, I was getting a bit frantic.  How was I going to counter anything if I couldn’t unlock whatever units were so tantalizingly hidden from me?  Where would I find the resources necessary to build new stuff?  Where were my structures?!

There aren’t any.  Late in the game, I realized that you’re not resource constrained.  You can freely construct units up to the population cap at any time.  Structures are restricted to the defensive crawler, and consist purely of defensive emplacements, such as bunkers, turrets, and shield generators.  If your crawler is destroyed, you’ll be able to re-deploy another in about 20 seconds.  The game is one by capturing and holding TCN towers, which generate victory points for your side (DoW2 player and CoH players will recognize this mechanic).  Killing opposing units also rewards victory points, as does picking up tiberium crystals and carrying them back to your base (these spawn at set points around the map and are clearly visible to everyone on their minimap).

The population cap (command points) is actually set per-side, so the devs don’t bother attempting to bring in another player when someone drops.  When a player drops, the rest of their teammates just get more command points to spend; there’s something of an advantage to the concentration of firepower this grants, even if you lose out on another crawler and whatever specials they brought to the table.

Oh, and those locked units?  You unlock those by levelling up your persistent “persona”.  Playing in ranked matches earns you points for whichever faction you played as, eventually increasing your rank and granting access to unlocks.  Fortunately, they start you out with access to bread and butter units, which counter every basic unit type in you’ll meet.  Levelling up expands your options; a rank one commander can be quite effective in any match.

They took the three basic tasks and unit types of C&C 3 (and almost every RTS) and divvied them up among the three classes.  The offensive class has access to a dizzying array of vehicles at relatively little cost.  This is good, as those vehicles are all they’ll be getting.  Defensive players get a bunch of infantry.  These are, as expected, slower than vehicles, but still pretty powerful.  They can also construct defensive emplacements which can be quite effective at stopping..well, anyone (I recently saw a GDI commander plunk down their crawler next to a node, upgrade it to project a shield, fill the shield with rocket turrets, place another shield generator beside that, also filled with rocket turrets, and then pump out rocket soldiers.  That nut wouldn’t crack).  Finally, the support crawler builds mostly aircraft, and accesses a number of global support powers, such as increased range/firepower for friendlies, summoned buildings, etc.  Interestingly enough, the support “crawler” actually flies, making it freaking awesome for dashing over to an undefended VP and quick-capping it.

It’s difficult to describe the feel of the game now…it’s not “traditional”, even less so than DoW2.  It’s got nearly an arcade-level pacing to it; nothing is ever slow and you’re never just sitting there: conserving units is a short term decision, rather than a long-term efficiency effort.  The only thing you lose when you lose a unit is the time spent building it; replacing it means more time without that unit available.  Heck, even that can be somewhat reduced as you can queue unit to build while your crawler moves, and up to 4 will be built to deploy when you unpack.

Most of the game is very mobile; even the defensive player has incentive to pick up and move over to concentrate forces with their ally.  For instance, I’ll commonly trundle my defensive crawler to a side VP, but one that can probably come under contention.  While it’s moving, I’ll queue up some units and a structure.  As soon as I arrive, I’ve got a small defensive force and a turret to back it up, with more on the way.  The next move is to surround the VP with turrets of various sorts, while waiting for the inevitable attack.

Eventually (and pretty rapidly), I’ve either been hit by the enemy, or they’ve decided to push some other VP, and I’m sitting here twiddling my thumbs (and capping tiberium when it pops, of course).  If I’m uncontested, I’ll up and move my crawler, along with my troops, and go help my teammates.  This is a pretty risk-free option; only a concerted push from the enemy players would knock out my structures and let them cap the point before I could get back there.  Given that, there’s a good chance the only thing I’ll lose will be highly replaceable buildings and some units by moving off, in return, I get a chance to help defend other points or even attempt a push for a new VP.

In fact, the arrival of a defensive crawler in a VP battle can be a turning point.  While bunkers aren’t terribly resilient, they’re cheap, free, and provide additional health to your units, making infantry substantially more survivable when placed inside.  Once, when I hit a higher rank, I rolled into the middle of a VP battle, where at least one ally was being hit by a couple offensive crawlers.  I unpacked directly in the middle of the fight, dropping turrets in infantry into the mix, and my MCV had a shield on it, absorbing incoming fire.  It went from a fight that looked like it might overwhelm the VP to a massacre of the invading force.

And it’s stories like the above that have kept me playing it.  Most RTS’s involve a pretty substantial time just getting into playing.  DoW2 was quick, and it still took 3-4 minutes before opening skirmishes got underway, and 10+ minutes before pitched battles began.  By contrast, it takes, at most, about 1.5 minutes for an unpacked MCV to hit the popcap, which means pitched battle are normal in under 3 minutes of play.  Big, defining moments happen with some regularity in games, even shutouts.

In fact, C&C 4 reminds me an awful lot of an ancient MMO called Shattered Galaxy/  Shattered Galaxy was one of the first free-to-play MMOs I’d ever seen, and was stupidly fun.  Comparing it to C&C 4, and knowing command and conquer plans to move into the free-to-play, online game market in a big way soon (they’re planning to do a facebook game of some kind with the series), I think Shattered Galaxy may provide something of an early precursor to what we’ll see; if so, I’m actually excited (I was, admittedly, pretty let down by the facebook C&C idea, initially).