So, I had some experience with Ground Control long before I bought it from GOG. I first played the demo before release and it blew me away, a few years later I managed to grab a physical copy pretty cheap (probably at a time when it was already available for free as a part of the GC2 promotion - lucky me :P). Anyway, it's a game that I always loved from the first moment I tried it. The presentation, the atmosphere and the gameplay - everything is just awesome about it. But oddly enough I never got around to beat it until a few days ago and it occurred to me why. It's exhausting and sometimes frustating as fu...

This was actually my second approach with the GOG version and probably my fourth or fifth one in total. A few missions in it occurred to me that the game isn't really that fun. It's too slow, not tactical enough and most of the time really not that challenging (playing on normal here). There are just these moments where you can suddenly lose a whole squad (or a single important vehicle like artillery), which basically forces you to start over due to the way the squad system works (a squad that has gone KIA is gone forever, right?). The maps are too huge and the key to victory is approaching things very carefully and systematically - combined with the lack of in-game saving it's pretty darn tiresome. Normally I love a lack of saving in RTT games but these missions are just too darn long.

My biggest problem is the AI or the mission design. The AI rarely has the initiative, more often than not you fail because you accidentally moved into the range of an enemy squad or turrets that can do serious damage to your entire army within moments (like Templars killing your tanks out of nowhere, artillery decimating your troops or an air assault that most of your army is defenseless against). It does get interesting sometimes when you have to react quickly, re-align your squads, use your special weapons etc. but it kinda happens too rarely. There are a few awesome missions but all in all the game either bored or frustrated me. Things get better in the second campaign (which I totally wasn't expecting, I actually thought you can only play as Crayven in single player mode, at least in the base game) but it's still not the awesomeness I expected from this game.

Anyway, I was wondering whether others feel similarly about the game. The 4.5 star average rating suggests that most people love this game the way I did before I really started asking myself why I never beat it until this week.

Also, I just started the Dark Conspiracy campaign (which I never played before) and I must say that it starts out rather well. I'm a few missions in and the mission design so far is pretty good, much better than most stuff in the base campaign. I'm hoping that it will remain this good and get even better later on.

Edit: Okay, just played mission 5 (and failed when several enemy aerodynes came out of nowhere and killed my snipers in one strike). First mission for the Phoenix faction and holy cow, their units handle like cows! I think I'm actually gonna read the manual and familiarize myself with the Phoenix units and special equipment before I give it another try. ._.

Also, a cutscene began playing just as my troops encountered some enemies and I barely managed to save them by giving them orders on the minimap. Wow, this does not bode well for the campaign.

The funny thing is that the negative points you mentioned are strong points for me. You permanently have the feeling that you are a small group constantly being threatened. There is danger at every corner, and if you make one mis-step, you lose your precious units. That can be frustrating as hell, sure, but finishing the mission on a higher level than Normal is extremely rewarding.

Also, you don't actually lose units that get killed. You'll have the same units for the next mission, but they'll lose all experience and bonus points. So, GC1 does not become as unplayable as Homeworld when you lose too many units by the end of the mission.

WRT the AI, well, this game came out when processing power was severely limited compared to today. Naturally, you cannot expect the same level of smarts from such an outdated AI. However, the game is still being worked upon, but I don't know if that applies only to multi-player or the single-player as well.

Here is the link: http://www.gcvets.net/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=7203

True, but I feel more like I'm walking through a minefield than actually facing a thinking enemy force. I only feel any kind of danger or tension while I'm advancing myself (with very few exceptions throughout the campaign). I've played quite a few RTT games over the years and almost all of them either gave the enemy more initiative or at least simulated it much better via scripts (or simply had more interesting mission design). I'm okay with passive AI from time to time but to me the AI in Ground Control was just too passive throughout the entire campaign. Just as a reminder: "normal" is the third out of four levels, the only higher one is "hard" and the one selected by default is the lowest one. I think normal is actually the one where the balancing is "fair", while all other ones give one of the two sides a handicap. Just saying, because you made it sound like "normal" is one of the lowest settings. Okay, that's good to know. I was pretty sure that you permanently lose your whole squad so I never even accepted a result where I lost one. Well, I probably lost one when I first played the full version and only remembered some sort of notable penalty. I guess it's not that bad after all but well, I'm still too proud to accept losing a whole squad. :D The CPU power argument is invalid. I see people using it often for all sorts of old games but it's usually bullcrap when it comes to AI. It's about the developers having been unable to conceptualize a good AI, not having too little CPU power at their disposal. Dynamically giving a few formations waypoints based on the positions and movement of the player's units is almost trivial stuff in terms of necessary CPU time, setting good rules for it is the problem. Older real-time strategy/tactics games that featured a more active AI with even more responsibilities (such as commanding even larger forces and base building) should be prove enough. Interesting. I probably won't try it myself anymore as right now I just want to finish the addon campaign and move on to GC2. But interesting that the game is still being modified by the community after almost fifteen years.

Ah, sorry, I mixed that up. Same here. That's why it took me ages back then to actually finish the game, and why I never finished Dark Conspiracy. I always wanted to get "my" squads to the mission end safely. Well, the thing is that some people *do* expect miracles from a game that old. There is this thread somewhere here where someone complains about the "poor graphics" and the low visibility distance - aka fog. Well, I can only say to that that the game is almost ancient and at the time it was at the cutting edge of computer graphics. The fog is a way to oversome the limitations of the game's engine. I did speak with Ninja Prime from gcvets.net about that, and he told me that his bunch are trying to get hold of the game's source code. With it, it should be no problem whatsoever to push the boundaries.

WRT the AI scripts, maybe there's a way to manipulate the original mission files to differently place waypoints or make the AI act more aggressively.

GCvets: Well, seeing your critizisms of GC1, GC2 should be right up your alley. Its gameplay is frantic, to say the least, and you should experience have a moment of boredom. The graphics are top notch as well, especially for that time. That being said, I was disappointed by that game as it was the polar opposite of GC1's gameplay.

Okay, people accusing the game of bad graphics are just morons. It's one of the earliest RTS games in full 3D and it's most definitely the best looking one from its time. Heck, you can easily find 3D RTS games by bigger and more experienced studios released two or three years later that look worse or at least not much better. And throughout the entire history of video games I have seen few games with such a love for detail. So many details the majority of players won't even notice, especially in case of the structures. It's absolutely amazing.

As for the fog - I don't get the complaints. I set it to the max and I'm blown away by the incredibly high view distance. I think you can actually always see more than half the map then (and let's face it: the maps are HUGE), including units and buildings. Yeah, sounds like with GC2 Massive went in exactly the direction I expected it to. Especially since World in Conflict was also a pretty fast and brutal experience (and I loved it). If GC2 is indeed somewhere inbetween it should easily become one of my favourite RTT games.

I love this game and i wish there were more like it. I am not going to say it is perfect, there are flaws. The AI is terrible, it can't shoot unless the target is right in front of it and it can't drive unless its in a straight line over smooth terrain. These can be a real pain when some of your missions are timed. The mission design could use some work, too many of them are just 'destroy the enemy base' and there is only one mission where you can't land in force, which is probably my favorite since you have to plan what squads go where.

That being said, I like the slower pace of most missions so its more about moving and positioning your forces for maximum effect. I like that you need to scout out terrain ahead of you otherwise you are asking to be ambushed. I like the combined arms nature and how you can't just do all tanks or all infantry or all support, you need all three to beat the missions.

I also like the story, the two factions can be a little cliche but i like that the 'good guys' are not the other faction but rather the grunts on the ground who do the actual fighting. I like Major Parker, i like Deacon Stone. I like the mystery of Krig-7B and the alien doomsday weapon.

So yeah there is a lot about this game i like. The flaws are annoying and if they put you off i can understand that, but its not just nostalgia that i like this game there is something very good here, just there are some bad stuff with it.