YMMV / Supreme Commander

• Awesome Music: Jeremy Soule is awesome: Bellum Infinitus
• Breather Level: Mission 6, the final mission of Forged Alliance. Compared to the previous two missions before it, this mission is much easier primarily due to what the player is given at the start of the game (You gain a free base, two SACUs and even a Galactic Colossus!). This allows you to build up a large military force very early on and crush the enemy with ease.
• Broken Base: The second game, when compared to the first, is a split case between people who liked it for its accessibility and relative simplicity and those who detest it for being smaller in scale. The middle ground exists, but is not as prevalent as the other two camps.
• Game-Breaker: Since balance in Supreme Commander was something of an ongoing issue, quite a number of them:
  • The release version included balance issues that had been identified in the beta but not actually addressed, including the Cybran Mantis being ludicrously overpowered in the early game and the UEF Broadsword gunship likewise in the late game; both were nerfed repeatedly.
  • This only really let the ridiculousness of the Aeon become apparent, though; typically having the best or at worst the second best of every unit type. Aeon were all but impossible to beat on water maps, their submarines trading the useless deck gun of other faction subs for a second torpedo attack, and having a basic T1 tank that was amphibious; they also had a missile defence which couldn't be overwhelmed at all, a T3 artillery which was pinpoint accurate and fired twice, and the Harbinger, a Siegebot which had the best cost versus damage of any unit in the entire game. The Aeon superiority on maps with water was at one point so severe that all water maps were removed from competitive play.
    • Aeon T3 heavy gunships, the Restorer, qualify. Cheapest T3 gunship by an absurd amount, toughest T3 gunship, and fastest T3 gunship. Their durability and versatility makes fact that they have only half the air-to-ground firepower of the Wailer and the Broadsword practically a non-issue, especially considering how much cheaper they are.
  • The ACU destruct nuke used to be a completely normal nuke; it was nerfed because every game was ending in draw-by-commander-bombing.
  • AA weapons used to have no priority system of any kind, leading to a common tactic of building a gigantic number of cheap-as-free Air Scouts to support a Strategic Bomber attack; this effectively made air defence a waste of time.
  • An attempt to make the UEF T3 mobile sonar into something actually useful accidentally turned it into a ridiculously overpowered motor torpedo boat, requiring another patch to stop the ridiculous sight of flotillas of things which were technically buildings chasing battleships around.
  • Some experimentals, popularly termed "Game Enders" are this intentionally: Their obscene power is balanced by their immense cost and build time and that's not getting into (human) opponents definitely launching a desperate offensive to destroy/disable them.
    • Mavor: Can shoot anywhere on the map with extreme damage and exceptional accuracy. The shell can also pass through shields and destroy most buildings in one shot.
    • Scathis: A mobile artillery platform that rapidly fires low-yield nuke shells all over an enemy base. It has the range of the Mavor, but is terribly inaccurate.
    • Salvation: Rapidly shoots shells that break apart into 36 bomblets, causing widespread damage. Uniquely, this is the only non-experimental of the five.
    • Paragon: Free resources out of thin air. Never run out of mass and energy again!
    • Yolona Oss: Fires a special Nuke that needs two Anti-Nukes to destroy. Given the fact that this special Nuke takes only one minute to build and is cheaper than a regular Nuke, the opponent will need eight Anti-Nuke stations just to protect against one Yolona Oss, most likely causing them to crash their economy unless they’re an Aeon player who have already built a Paragon or more.
  • The Forged Alliance campaigns allows players to construct experimentals without having to wait until the final missions like the original game did. Very few of the missions have any real impetus to achieve objectives, thus many of the missions can be won by simply turtling in the base, getting your economy blazing, then constructing immensely powerful experimentals/nukes/artillery/whatnot, at which point the game becomes trivial as you steamroll through all the objectives. The UEF are the best at this tactic, as they can build a couple of the Mavor artillery pieces within about 2 hours and they will destroy every enemy building on the map in very short time, while still being able to build constant Fatboy experimentals that the enemy have no hope of standing up to. It's so incredibly easy that one can even steamroll all the enemy bases in the 4th mission (which is supposed to be a Hold the Line mission) before recalling.
• Good Bad Bugs: In the original it was possible to fire a nuclear missile and have it detonate right above your base. The reason? The missile collided with an aircraft. In some cases the aircraft that collided was owned by the same person who launched the nuke! No matter the side you're on either case this doubles as a Moment of Awesome and a Funny Moment
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The ending of the Aeon Illuminate campaign where the Princess ascends to the Quantum Realm and pacifies everyone in the galaxy of war. She then calls to Clarke and Dr. Brackman, ensuring the former that peace has finally come and the latter that symbionts are now free from both enslavement and being hunted by the Illuminate. The debriefing then as the UEF General send a message to the Princess hoping to see her again soon.
    • A side note of the final Aeon campaign is when Arnold, who was brainwashed in the other campaigns, captures Black Sun and gives Princess Burke control. He declares his loyalty has always been with her, even when Avatar Marxon destroys him.
• Les Yay: Considering the majority of the cast within the Aeon Illuminate is female, those who swear their devotion to Princess Burke can be more than formal. Crusader Rhiza also teases her Champion (the player), who’s confirmed to be female, joking about holding her hand while still a Knight.
• Moral Event Horizon: Avatar Marxon never showed any sympathetic qualities due to his attempts to usurp Princess Burke and order even the player to murder civilians. In the Aeon campaign, he crosses further by declaring his wish to use the Black Sun on his enemies and blows up Arnold when he gives control over to the Princess instead. By that point, even the Princess herself wants him gone for good.
• Nightmare Fuel: The scream that the Seraphim T3 bomber yells as it drops its payload can be quite terrifying.
• Porting Disaster: Even though the new control scheme worked well enough, the X-box 360 simply couldn't handle the first game and it turned into a stuttering mess with frequent pauses and the occasional crash. The reduced graphics on the sequel prevent this.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The Aeon Illuminate campaign of the original game is rather depressing, with the epic soundtrack not helping one bit. The first couple of missions folllow the Knight being ordered by Avatar Marxon to butcher civilian populations in UEF and Cybran territory. Even when you're finally allowed to stop by becoming Princess Burke's Champion, you're still targeted by those who are pissed off at you for destroying their colonies whether you're involved or not. It does not help that unlike the other campaigns, where the enemy commanders’ deaths are well-deserved, theirs are agonizing at best with the exception of Avatar Marxon and his followers (One example is Leopard 11 simply trying to recall when defeated in the UEF while his screams are included upon his defeat in the Aeon campaign.) Once the Princess finally has enough and orders the Illuminate to stand down, she still nearly gets overthrown by Avatar Marxon, forcing you to kill many of his insane subordinates. Finally, the turned Zachery Arnold manages to capture Black Sun for the Princess, only to be killed by Avatar Marxon for defying him, causing Princess Burke to order you in a rage to finish him off once and for all. And in the end, it requires the Princess to sacrifice herself to reach into everyone's hearts so that the war could finally end.
  • In Forged Alliance, Dostya's death in Mission 4, being betrayed by Hex5 - a Cybran turncoat who joined the Seraphim and the Aeon fanatics and turn against the rest of humanity. She's one of the more decent characters in the original game and is one of the few competent and loyal allies that still fight alongside you throughout half of the expansion while most other characters either died or became turncoats. Her death devastates Dr. Brackman probably as much as it does the player, and there's nothing you can do to prevent it. The only consolation, which is only available if you play as a Cybran commander, is that you could recover her destroyed ACU at Dr. Brackman's request.
• That One Level:
  • Mission 4, Objective 3 of Forged Alliance. You never get a clue or a hint that your base is going to be attacked from all sides until you complete Objective 2 and see that you're surrounded and attacked by endless waves of T2 and T3 Seraphim Units, forcing you to start all over from the beginning if your base construction was very minimal AND you forgot to make a save beforehand.
    • Apparently, there was ONE clue, but so faint many missed it: During the opening briefing, there's a map of your LZ (landing zone) showing Dostya's position, yours and several other Seraphim positions surrounding you for several seconds. All in pretty much the EXACT same placement when Objective 3 happens... apparently the other objectives simply misled us.
    • And contrary to every other level in the campaign where a UEF player can just build a Mavor, sit back, and just tell it where to shoot to end the mission, on this level building a Mavor will work against you as the cost will leave you vulnerable, and it cannot do anything to defend you.
  • Mission 5 of the Forged Alliance campaign, forcing you to build your starting base conventionally with no bonuses from wreckage or a starting base while gunships and patrols harass you as you try to build up your base. When you finally destroy the first enemy base, you're than forced to fight against waves of T3 units and Experimentals while having to fight your way into a heavily defended enemy base. The final objective forces you to deal with multiple experimental assaults mixed in with massive strategic bomber strikes and hordes of T3 units that you have to fight against.
  • The final missions of the first game can all count as this.
    • The UEF final mission starts with the player forced to rescue a Black Sun component guarded by multiple enemy warships, then you are forced to seek out and destroy an Aeon base and the final section becomes a desperate Hold the Line mission where you have to fight off large Cybran assaults and an especially massive Aeon assault.
    • The Cybran final mission starts off with a Timed Mission where you have to destroy an Aeon CZAR before it can hit the Black Sun defences, which transitions into a Marathon Level as you have to fight your way from objective to objective in order to capture buildings.
    • The Aeon final mission starts off well enough, but it quickly turns sour when you are forced to defend the Black Sun Control Centre from a Cybran Commander (whose initial attack has a Monkeylord) and afterward defeating him, you need to fend off attacks from Avatar Marxon which include a massive naval fleet with a Tempest battleship! Did we also mention that Avatar Marxon has a massive base surrounding his ACU?
• The Woobie: Princess Rhianne Burke has the worst things happen to her. Despite all of her intentions to create peace in the galaxy, she's always the center of political struggles and vengeful UEF and Cybran officers who try to kill her for crimes committed by the rest of the Illuminate. She sees many of her friends and closest supporters die or turn on her, some of them right in front of her. Worst of all, she's forced to perform a Heroic Sacrifice in both the Aeon ending of the first game and in the expansion just to see the bloodshed finally end.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: One side of the camp believes this of the sequel, which did away with much of the economic complexity, added a research element while greatly reducing unit variety, and has significantly weaker graphics than the original or Forged Alliance.