Supreme Commander

Supreme Commander, like its spiritual predecessors, Total Annihilation and Spring, begins with the player solely possessing a single, irreplaceable construction unit called the "Armored Command Unit," or ACU, the titular Supreme Commander. Normally the loss of this unit results in the loss of the game (Skirmish missions can be set for a variety of victory conditions). These mech suits are designed to be transported through quantum gateways across the galaxy and contain all the materials and blueprints necessary to create an army from a planet's native resources in hours. All standard units except Commanders and summoned Support Commanders (sACU) are self-sufficient robots.

All units and structures belong to one of four technology tiers, or "Tech" levels, each tier being stronger and/or more efficient than the previous. Certain lower-tier structures can be upgraded into higher ones without having to rebuild them. The first tier is available at the start of the game and consists of small, relatively weak units and structures. The second tier expands the player's abilities greatly, especially in terms of stationary weapons and shielding, and introduces upgraded versions of tier one units.

Supreme Commander is set in the 39th century where humanity is able to travel through the galaxy quickly using a quantum gateway, which is a portal opened from the fabric of space leading to a designated location potentially light-years away. All of the colonies created by quantum-travelling mankind were governed by the Earth Empire, until the events that created the Cybran Nation and the Aeon Illuminate caused the empire to fall, and the Infinite War between these factions began.

The Supreme Commander universe features three fictional factions. Each is represented as possessing great zeal and differing ideas on the future of humanity as a whole.

Lead designer Chris Taylor believed that most modern strategy games were actually real-time tactics games, simply because they operated on too small a scale. His stated intention with Supreme Commander was to create a game that was strategy-focused by virtue of scale. Chris Taylor has stated that customizability was one of his goals for Supreme Commander, and that the game would ship the development team's tools if possible. The latter goal was not achieved. They did put their map editing tools in the game files.

Supreme Commander makes extensive use of two technologies relatively unused in video games prior to its release, namely multi core processing and multi monitor displays. When detecting a multi-core processor, the game assigns a specific task, such as AI calculations, to each core, splitting the load between them. Supreme Commander is one of the first games to specifically support dual and quad core processors in the game.

Supreme Commander was highly anticipated. Large videogame sites wrote many previews: GameSpot wrote eighteen, IGN wrote eight and GameSpy five. The Seton's Clutch map was frequently featured, as early as September 2005. This battle was between the UEF and the Cybran, showcasing a Monkeylord annihilating UEF tanks.

At E3, it was revealed that the Aeon had a base to the southeast of this map, which was used to launch strategic nuclear missiles on the UEF base. Supreme Commander won several notable awards before it was released, all of them connected to E3, including the GameCritics Best Strategy Game award and IGN's Best Upcoming PC Game award. Other awards were received from GameSpy, GameSpot, GamesRadar, Voodoo Extreme and 1UP.