Hey this was great stuff! The rabbit hole goes deep, here's a few(?) random additional notes: Campaign can be played in coop mode with shared control. There are heaps more maps that can be played just by clicking on them on the website. A lot of maps are used across games on the Spring engine (now renamed to Recoil) and haven't necessarily been specifically made for ZK. There are a few mods that radically change the game into something else like Zero Wars, Arena Wars, Future Wars, etc. There is a truly *staggering* amount of options and powerful commands in the game and I was still learning new stuff after years of having played the game, like you can effortlessly have structures built on a perfect terraformed spire or hole for instance. There occasionally are regular type tournaments while it's been a long time since we've had a round of Planet Wars. I've in the past played as the leader of one faction and it was a ton of fun! Doing diplomacy with another faction, agreeing to a temporary truce, planning strategy, planning who will take offensives where, etc. The resources gained are spent on various infrastructure on the planets (each planet representing a playable map) that show up in battles taking place there. One of the downsides with PW was that having bad players in your faction taking the slots for attacking/defending in a battle was a liability and you were better off having a handful of great players stay awake a long time hogging as many of the battles as possible. There's been design documents and whatnot for reworking it all to a better system it's just a ton of work that takes several ages, again it's been a long long time since the last round took place.
Thanks for making this video. Never heard of Zero-K before. Downloading it now. Should tide me over until I can get a new PC and buy Sins of a Solar Empire 2 =D
Hehe, ZeroK is a LOT older than BAR, but they share life blood. There's a great long history of this community building up these games all because they love them!
I wanted to like it, but when the enemy were perfectly kiting on the easier difficulties, I quit. Let me learn the game first before adding very high level stuff like that, that the AI can pull off perfectly. Plus, I hate that everything dies so fast.
You should use the fight command, that makes all your units auto kite too. Micro is fully automated for moment to moment juking from all sides - it's part of the unit balance.
@@WingedVictory Yeah. The reason the enemy has perfect kiting micro is that, unless you deliberately try to micro, so do all of your units at all times. It's actually an equalizer between you and the AI. Instead of the AI being deliberately hobbled on micro, your units get to micro themselves too.
I wouldn't call this the best rts ever. It's definitely the most convoluted one, though. It feels like the developers had no-one to tell them to stop adding more mechanics to the game. Supreme Commander works because it has that balance of macro knowledge, diverse units, and a fair bit of fantastical rules, like not having to worry about that damn connected power grid bullshit, or choosing the right vehicle for the right terrain, that one's a big turn-off for me. Interesting how you didn't mention that unit types have different capabilities when on different terrain. I'll repeat what I put on my steam review; It feels too competitive for it's own good. It's too much Red alert 3 micro, and not enough Supcom macro.
It's complicated in different ways. Supcom has more to manage in the economy, and the adjacency bonuses. Zero-K is more about building an army that works and outmaneuvering the opposition.
Despite Zero-K looking and playing similar to Total Annihilation, I still can't get into it. Same goes to BAR. Units either die like ants unless you build them in swarms and some units are very fast and deal unexpectedly lots of damage to buildings. TA lacks some QoL mechanics, but somehow for me feels much better to play. And I'm talking about vanilla version.TA and SupCom managed to strike fine balance to have nice play session.
Hey this was great stuff!
The rabbit hole goes deep, here's a few(?) random additional notes:
Campaign can be played in coop mode with shared control.
There are heaps more maps that can be played just by clicking on them on the website.
A lot of maps are used across games on the Spring engine (now renamed to Recoil) and haven't necessarily been specifically made for ZK.
There are a few mods that radically change the game into something else like Zero Wars, Arena Wars, Future Wars, etc.
There is a truly *staggering* amount of options and powerful commands in the game and I was still learning new stuff after years of having played the game, like you can effortlessly have structures built on a perfect terraformed spire or hole for instance.
There occasionally are regular type tournaments while it's been a long time since we've had a round of Planet Wars. I've in the past played as the leader of one faction and it was a ton of fun! Doing diplomacy with another faction, agreeing to a temporary truce, planning strategy, planning who will take offensives where, etc. The resources gained are spent on various infrastructure on the planets (each planet representing a playable map) that show up in battles taking place there. One of the downsides with PW was that having bad players in your faction taking the slots for attacking/defending in a battle was a liability and you were better off having a handful of great players stay awake a long time hogging as many of the battles as possible. There's been design documents and whatnot for reworking it all to a better system it's just a ton of work that takes several ages, again it's been a long long time since the last round took place.
Thanks for making this video. Never heard of Zero-K before. Downloading it now. Should tide me over until I can get a new PC and buy Sins of a Solar Empire 2 =D
Yeah, I'm not really famous tbh
Great video. The delve into the history of early Spring was impressive, I'd think it would be hard to find and get right.
Damn right, commenting for engagement.
Game's great
sad that auditory of this game 10 times smaller then BAR(
also rusted warfare is very similar
I've actually just got that on the sale! Thanks, looking forward to playing it.
@@MBGamingReviews just get some big update. so
this kind of look like beyond all reason.
They are forks of the development but yes they very similar BAR is more polished but Zero k is more customizable
@@nealreiersen6823 i would love zero-k to get work but i dont think there is enought space for both.
Hehe, ZeroK is a LOT older than BAR, but they share life blood. There's a great long history of this community building up these games all because they love them!
3:14
@@DerpyHoovesy so is rusted warfare
I wanted to like it, but when the enemy were perfectly kiting on the easier difficulties, I quit. Let me learn the game first before adding very high level stuff like that, that the AI can pull off perfectly. Plus, I hate that everything dies so fast.
Why aren't you a hardcore gamer with 20 years of constant PvP experience bro? Just get good at the game bro.
You should use the fight command, that makes all your units auto kite too. Micro is fully automated for moment to moment juking from all sides - it's part of the unit balance.
@@WingedVictory Yeah. The reason the enemy has perfect kiting micro is that, unless you deliberately try to micro, so do all of your units at all times. It's actually an equalizer between you and the AI. Instead of the AI being deliberately hobbled on micro, your units get to micro themselves too.
I wouldn't call this the best rts ever. It's definitely the most convoluted one, though. It feels like the developers had no-one to tell them to stop adding more mechanics to the game. Supreme Commander works because it has that balance of macro knowledge, diverse units, and a fair bit of fantastical rules, like not having to worry about that damn connected power grid bullshit, or choosing the right vehicle for the right terrain, that one's a big turn-off for me.
Interesting how you didn't mention that unit types have different capabilities when on different terrain.
I'll repeat what I put on my steam review;
It feels too competitive for it's own good.
It's too much Red alert 3 micro, and not enough Supcom macro.
It's complicated in different ways. Supcom has more to manage in the economy, and the adjacency bonuses. Zero-K is more about building an army that works and outmaneuvering the opposition.
Despite Zero-K looking and playing similar to Total Annihilation, I still can't get into it. Same goes to BAR. Units either die like ants unless you build them in swarms and some units are very fast and deal unexpectedly lots of damage to buildings. TA lacks some QoL mechanics, but somehow for me feels much better to play. And I'm talking about vanilla version.TA and SupCom managed to strike fine balance to have nice play session.