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An intensive deep dive into what remain the Pinnacle of the real time strategy genre, and why I believe it might just be the greatest spectator game every created and most strategically interesting game that currently has an active community.
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Notes -
Just play it to get the feel. A smallish map with enough space to get used to the expansion portion of the game, which in my book is the most important stage. You'll notice that because the actual action takes place in the gravity wells of individual planets, and the gravity wells are connected by hyperspace lanes, there are obvious choke points which you will want to control, and if you can rush there and establish a beachhead, that allows you to eco in relative peace.
Then you'll notice that the game cares very little for individual units. It is based around fleets. This means the game is not very APM reliant. You don't need to tell each individual unit what to do, just add them to a fleet and they will basically behave as a cohesive force. You'll still want to know the hotkeys, but again, you don't need to be constantly adjusting things. If your fleet is getting it's ass kicked, there's literally a dedicated button you can push to order a full retreat to a safe system.
The outcome of battles will be determined almost completely by your fleet size/composition vs. the opposing fleets' size and composition, although where the battle occurs also matters. Micromanaging the battle will only marginally increase your fleet's efficacy.
So fleet composition is king.
Fleet positioning is queen.
But don't worry too much about that at first. There's a comprehensive wiki that will help you out later to optimize your fleets. Just go with the basic idea that the Capital ships are the backbone of a fleet and determine their strategic value, you always want an ample supply of disposable frigates to absorb damage to protect the more valuable elements, and then decide if you want to fight from extreme range (launching bombers), middle range (missile frigates) or you want to punch the enemy at close range (cruisers, usually). Or throw together a huge, expensive doomfleet that does it all at once.
After figuring out the basics you should load up one of the HUUUUGE maps to see the most impressive thing about SoaSE: the scale. It lets you zoom in on the tiniest little fighter ship, then zoom out to see the entire map consisting of multiple stars systems and 50+ planets, seamlessly. You can view the action from any angle you like. The UI can be as minimalist or as detailed as you like. It basically fulfills my Ender Wiggin fantasies. Observe your fleets fighting in beautiful detail or stay at a great distance tracking them through abstracted icons.
And unlike some RTS/4X games, there genuinely CAN be multiple flashpoints going on in disparate parts of the map at once. You can have a raiding party pillaging behind enemy lines, and your main fleet fending off a pirate attack, and your small advance fleet traveling to an adjacent star system to take on the local planetary militia and establish some forward bases/colonies. Since you don't need a high APM to manage things, you can generally maintain focus on the larger strategic picture.
The big map will take hours of time to complete, and you'll get to see the whole tech tree, including the endgame techs that are mostly intended to hasten victory along. My favorite being the Death Star-esque railgun that can kill entire planets from across the map.
So overall it is more slow paced than SupCom appears to be, although you can change settings that make resources more plentiful and thus you get fuckhuge fleets moving around earlier. But that's what I tend to like. The chaos comes to a head when the players have committed to their respective strategies, built increasingly large and numerous fleets, and the question only becomes when and where the pitched battles will kick off.
As stated there are definitely galaxy-brained anime strats that are enabled by late-game techs, but you are more likely to feel like Sir Francis Drake or Chester Nimitz deploying your fleets wisely and pulling off stunning victories by picking the right time to flee and the right time to make a stand.
That is perhaps the one downside, its all 'naval' battles, so there's no division of tech between land, sea, and sky, no establishing air superiority, or hiding under the ocean. But I've never, ever been bored due to lack of variety in strategic options.
There's also a victory condition where you are given a capital ship that, when it dies, you lose, which you'd presumably like if you like SupCom's approach.
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