Total Annihilation

When the new sixth form was built, everything was new and shiny. We had these weird computers that were built into the desks. They flipped up like laptops, revealing a sort of basin in which there would be a keyboard and mouse on a metal shelf. They were cool, and the novelty lasted longer than we thought, but they were a pain whilst in 'desk' mode. Your pen would rip through your paper as it crossed the groove where the lid met the table. By the end of the year, everyone's essays tended to have little punctures across the bottom. On a Friday afternoon, me and my friends had a 'free' lesson. Most of year 12 did, actually, so the sixth form was usually very empty. Everyone went home, obviously, except people who caught buses, which made up my friend group. Everyone but Ian, but we usually convinced him to stay with us. Not today, however, because he had arrangements with his girlfriend to go and copulate.

"You're shit, Ian. Just stay for one game."
"No."
"You're shit, Ian"

The desk computers weren't very good. The most recent game we'd got to run on them was Vice City, but it was barely playable. A couple of weeks prior, I'd managed to install "Total Annihilation", and that was where we spent most of our time. All our games were installed in the public drive, but naturally they were hidden. You had to be in the know to know, you know? Public/Drama/Year12/stanislavski/, if I remember rightly. Classroom B14 was the only room with 6-seat rows, so it meant we could all fit in a line and pretend we were on university challenge or something. It was quarter to three, so we had about 45 minutes to get a game in.

There was, from left to right,

Patrick,
Me,
Bason,
Ben,
Sam.

There was en empty seat nearest the door where Ian would usually sit.

The splash screen appeared on our monitors with a rumble. The menus in this game were so epic, every click was an explosion and every panel was a grimy slab of metal. Most of our games were real-time strategy games. Age of Empires was another favorite, but I never liked it much. Something about Total Annihilation made it much more visceral in comparison. More realistic. In a game about robots, that's pretty good going.

"What colours are we gonna be?"
I was cyan. I'm always cyan, cyan is so fucking cool.
"I'm cyan."
"You're always cyan."
"Cyan is so fucking cool"

Next was sorting out allegiances. Set allegiances, or none, or real-time. Ben didn't like allegiances, because he was always sure that we were plotting against him.

"No allegiance"
"Real-time"
"I don't want allegiances! They're shit!"

All allegiances allowed you to do was share resources and count as a single player on the victory screen. Sam had a habit of siding with the best player in the game and dedicate himself to building windfarms. He wasn't great in the heat of battle, and much preferred the quiet life of a robot farmer.

We eventually chose real-time, after promising Ben we wouldn't all side against him.

"We ready now?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah."
"Fox holes?"
"Dark side"
"We had Dark side last time, I want an ocean god damnit!"
"Naval is gay"
"Naval isn't gay"
"I think naval is a bit gay"
"Just go with Continent, it has everything"

There were a lot of maps in Total Annihilation. Some you never played, but it was nice knowing they were there. Some lacked any water at all, which forced you to rely on air and land units. Maps with water meant you could build shipyards, which constructed the most powerful units in the game. The drawback, of course, was that ships don't fare too well on land.
The corridor outside was quiet now, and everyone was ready to begin. Then the door opened.

"What are you doing?"

It was Mr Copland, the head of sixth form. He had a beard, and he was cool. He was in his early 30s and looked like a friendly bear.

"Just essays and stuff, sir"
"That doesn't look like an essay to me, Tom"
He was right. A map selection screen looks very little like an essay. You wouldn't be wrong if you said that it doesn't look like an essay at all.

"It's total annihilation." Patrick admitted defeat.

We weren't really allowed to play games. Apparently the IT technician had told the teachers that it breaks the computers, which is bollocks.

"Have you installed it onto the computers?"
"Yeah."
"That's not on, is it?"
"No."
"You're going to have to turn it off."
"But the damage is done, sir. Can't we just finish our game?"
"Your last game ever."
"Yeah. That's pretty sad, isn't it? Let's just have one last game."
Mr Copland was smiling, which is why we knew he'd let us play. He was awesome. I don't know if he still teaches there. I don't think he does.
"Alright, we'll have one last game."
He dragged a chair out from the last space on the row, and logged in.
"Are you playing with us?"
"Total Annihilation?"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."

It was pretty odd. For the first ten minutes it all felt a little awkward, but once Mr Copland had sworn out-loud (at the loss of a vehicle factory) we all felt able to do the same, and normal conversation continued.

The most important thing about the game was the inclusion of a "commander". Back in 1997, when the game first released, it was the defining aspect of the experience. Chris Taylor, the designer, had said something like 'We want you to feel like you're on the battlefield. We want there to be one unit that gives you presence. That's the commander'. He's your first unit, the trunk of the tree from which your whole army will grow.

We begun the match spaced out randomly across the map, the fog of war shrouding the unexplored land like... fog. I had just begun to construct some solar generators to support my base, when I received a message in the private chat log.

Ben: Do u want to alli with me

I didn't reply until I had built my first metal extractor.

Tom: yes but i dont want to farm. if you some1 to farm go and alli with sam
Ben: i dnt mind but hurry cos i got copland on my radar

Ben's Peewee scouts had stumbled Mr Copland's base, and the prospect of battle so early was pretty inviting. I accepted Ben's request and my map screen turned from a black space with a single spot of life, into a black space with two spots of life. Ben had headed north with his scouts, and was located on the other side of the map from me. That would make reinforcements tricky.

"Are you red, Ben?"

Ben had just begun attacking Mr Copland's extractors, which was a stupid thing to do.

"Maybe."

He began to mass-produce tanks and send them towards Copland's little green base. They came at the rate they were built, one after the other. Jeffy, that's what they're called. All of Total Annihilation's units have silly names. Peewee, Jeffy, Hammer, Jethro, Betty. It almost makes them darker, like when the military gives its own weapon's of destruction cutesy names.

"You shouldn't send them out single file", I said, "Save them up then rush him.""Are you two allied?"
"No."
"No."
"Yes you are."

I began to laugh and the secret was out. "Are you guys allied?"

"I'm allied with sir"
"Me too"

Both Bason and Patrick had formed up with their politics teacher, who hissed "Shh!"

"Sam you've got to join us, for fairness" said Ben.
"I don't know who I'm siding with yet."
"Come on Sam, join the Axis. You can Mussolini"
"What about Hirohito?"
"Or him"
"Okay then."

This is bad news, because that leaves Ben and I in a very difficult situation.

"Don't be a dick, Sam!"
"Sorry man. I'm Hirohito"
"Fair enough."

Just as we lost Sam's loyalty, we found his base. As usual, he'd been stockpiling resources through wind farming and little else. Patrick had sent a rather large squadron of bombers towards Sam's wind-farms, and my scouts were reduced to rubble. The rubble was subsequently turned into more resources by Sam's builder robots. The map screen was growing with detail, and between us Ben and I had uncovered everyone except Patrick, who had sent more bombers our way.

"Found you!"

He had found us. Thankfully, I had built an awful lot of anti-air towers because Patrick loves planes a little too much. They made short work of his bombers, and that was that. But our cover was blown. I had begun to amass Rockies, laser totting tanks designed to maul structures like Patrick's base.

"I was saving these for later, Pad, but seeing as you've gone ahead and tried to piss on my bonfire..."
"You're rushing me with tanks?"
"...No."

I right clicked back on my base and my little tanks did 180s and returned home. How could I be so predictable? I began to think of other ways to hit him. He probably had anti-tank robots ready for me, so I needed something more. Could I send my commander? Don't be stupid, Tom.

Your commander has the most powerful weapon in the game. The D-Gun. It's a one hit kill on any unit, but it uses your energy resources to fire. If your commander dies, he takes out everything within a one mile radius with him. Its a lethal attack, but costs you the game's most valued unit. Players call this Combombing, and it doesn't pay off half as well as you'd expect.

"Bason's out"
"What?"
"Bason's out. He's dead."

Bason wasn't very good at this game, but it was nice to know he was gone anyway. He got out of his chair, his screen flashing "DEFEAT" and came to see what was happening on my screen.

"Patrick he's building a gun."
"Fuck off, Bason!"
"I'm helping my team!"
"What kind of gun?"
"A big one."
"Fuck off!"
"Its got blue on it."

Big Bertha had blue on it. Big Bertha was a huge level 3 gun that could fire across the map. Each shot would take out your average robot, but it cost a lot to maintain. Total Annihilation was the first 3D RTS, and that meant more than pretty visuals. Every shot, every piece of shrapnel is calculated in real time and bounces around the map realistically. Patrick was very lucky in that his base was behind a mountain, rendering Big Bertha useless... on him. As soon as the cannon was finished, it began automatically chipping away at Sam's windfarm. Copland was defending it, but Ben was keeping the heat.

"Tom I need some air support, if you've got any?"
"Nope. I have Bertha though. She's helping you now."

If Bertha was a woman, she'd be really sexy. And really tall.

I thought "Fuck it." and sent my Rockies towards the mountains. They pushed upwards, weaving in and out of the trees and around the hills. They were half way to Patrick's base when they met his own tanks, Bulldogs. My Rockies outnumbered his Bulldogs 3 to 1, but each level 2 Bulldog was a lot tougher than one of my level 1 Rockies. One by one my Rockies fell, and a few Bulldogs scraped through the smouldering remains. They were headed straight for my base.

"Bertha! Stop dicking around with Sam and defend my base!" I said to my computer.

Right clicking on my cannon allowed me to turn off her auto-fire and select the incoming bulldogs. Pop. Pop. Pop. Thud. Thud. Thud. There were five left...

"Reload you stupid gun!"

Pop. Pop. Pop. Thud. Thud. Thud. Two left. Shit. Big Bertha is so big that she can't fire very close to herself. Its her blind spot, and the two Bulldogs were in it. They chipped away at my cannon like lumberjacks at a redwood. Timmmbbbeerrrr.......

"So long, Big Bertha!"
"You're a dick, Patrick."

With the fall of my cannon came the fall of my empire. My Commander sat amongst the solar generators, waiting for the Bulldogs. THHHWWUUUUMMPP. That's a D-Gun, by the way. It took out a tank and two of my own generators. The surviving tank circled around my clunky commander until he had enough energy to fire a second D-shot. And I missed.

"This is tense shit right here."

The tank continued to twirl around me, firing rockets and chipping at my health.

"Tom."
"What Ben? I'm very busy."
"Tom!"

A third D-shot brought down the Bulldog. Panning the screen to the north, I saw what looked like a million AK robots swarming over the hills. Copland had sent in his troops.

"I'm out, man. Copland's heading your way."
Ben was dead. I probably shouldn't have stopped Big Bertha helping him. Patrick had been quiet for too long, and I could tell that he was amassing something. Probably planes.

"Sorry Tom."
"I forgive you, sir."

AK robots were everywhere. In a tide of green they reduced my solar farm to dust, and my commander stood helpless. They circled him and opened fire. He spun around trying to aim at any individual unit he could see, shaking under the weight of the gunfire. It was over for him, and subsequently, me.

"3. 2. 1."

Its hard to count down to the death of a commander. Its always a little bit off. Maybe it takes some time for him to realize he's dead.

"1."
"1."
"BOOM!"

Boom. A flash of red. All the AK's were gone with their target. All I had left was a wind tower I had built somewhere far away. The game doesn't actually force your defeat until all your units are gone, so I had to surrender. My chances at global domination through wind-farming were low.

DEFEAT