Total Annihilation: Battle Tactics

Battle Tactics is the second expansion for Total Annihilation. It adds 100 short missions, four new units and six new maps. Cavedog designed it for players who were new to real-time strategy. It also suits players who want a quick battle instead of a game that lasts for hours.

Release

On 8 July 1998, Cavedog announced that Battle Tactics would be released on 20 July 1998. Some store pages today give 30 June 1998 instead. The expansion needs the original game. Richard W. Smith designed it, and Kellyn Beeck produced it.

Battle Tactics uses version 3.0a of the game engine. The readme warns that saved games from versions before 3.0 do not work with it. In multiplayer, players with Battle Tactics can only play against players who have Battle Tactics or version 3.0. You should not install older patches or The Core Contingency over it.

100 Missions in Four Lengths

The missions are grouped by side and by length. In the game, the four lengths are long, medium, short and very short. Cavedog's announcement called the shortest group "quick".

Length Arm Core
Long 5 missions 6 missions
Medium 10 missions 13 missions
Short 17 missions 20 missions
Very short 14 missions 15 missions
Total 46 missions 54 missions

You can choose any mission from the start. You do not need to win one mission to unlock the next, and you do not need a cheat code.

Many mission descriptions give an expected playing time, from 5 minutes to 60 minutes. The groups overlap. For example, some "very short" missions are listed at 20 or 30 minutes, and one long mission, Com Pattern Five, is listed at 20 minutes.

How the Missions Play

Most missions are about fighting, not about building an economy. You often start with a fixed force and a clear goal. In 54 of the 100 missions, on Medium difficulty, you have no Commander at all.

For example:

  • In Zipper Attack, you lead a large group of fast Zippers against a well-defended Core base.
  • In Com Pattern Five, you draw groups of Core units into the range of your battleships and cruisers.
  • In Charging the Line, your Commander must race back to safety.
  • In The Ravenstein Run, the Core Commander and an escort must cross a river to reach a base.

Battle Tactics was also the first time that the Acid and Crystal worlds of The Core Contingency appeared in single-player missions. In the game data, 6 missions take place on Crystal World and 2 on Acid World. The most common world type is the green one, with 25 missions. The readme also lists new panoramas for the Acid, Crystal and Urban worlds.

Four New Units

Cavedog called these the four bonus units of Battle Tactics:

Unit Side Role
Stunner Arm A missile silo whose electromagnetic missile affects only Core units
Neutron Core A missile silo whose neutron missile does not harm structures or Core units
Phalanx Arm A mobile flak vehicle
Copperhead Core A mobile flak vehicle

Cavedog also offered the four units as free downloads before the expansion shipped: two on 10 July 1998 and two on 17 July 1998. The two flak vehicles were meant to protect columns of units from Brawler and Rapier gunships.

Like The Core Contingency, Battle Tactics also includes the units that Cavedog had released as free downloads. Two of them first appear in the Battle Tactics data: the Arm Shooter sniper Kbot and the Core Leviathan battle submarine.

Six New Maps

The readme lists six new maps for Skirmish and multiplayer:

Map Size Description
Aqua Verdigris 12 × 12 An Acid World map with Dragon's Teeth fortifications
Brilliant Cut Lake 15 × 15 A lagoon on Crystal World
Canal Crossing 16 × 17 Four beaches of equal size where two rivers cross
Coremageddon 13 × 20 A maze of metal walls, good for ambushes
Metal Gridlock 20 × 20 Five linked squares that form defensive forts
Wretched Ridges 12 × 12 High ridges around defensive areas, with light forest

Reception

Reviews were weaker than for the other games in the series. GameSpot gave Battle Tactics 6.9 out of 10 and criticised how little new content it had.

Sources