The other day Postal popped into discord. You might remember him from such things as Postal's Guide to Core on the forum. Or he might have kicked your ass in an online TA game years back while chatting in complete sentences to you.

He has a large archive of TA game recordings from years of playing, roughly 2004-2014. He's decided to start playing them back while recording to video and commentating on them live. He has a few on his youtube channel so far.

Even the quickest skim of his Guide to Core will give you an idea of how deep his TA knowledge is. His commentary at all stages of the game is both insightful and entertaining.

See the first episode here, and be sure to like and subscribe.

During the Gamesbeat summit 2019 Chris made an appearance to announce his new project after years of anticipation! Not only a new game but a new company too;

"His new company, Kanoogi, shares its name with a new cloud-based gaming platform that Taylor has developed himself."

A bit about the new game from the article;

"Intergalactic Space Empire is a real-time strategy game, and can be played on any online-capable device that can run a modern web browser. It’s built in C++, running on a cloud-based virtual machine, and is a deliberate throwback to an earlier era of video games, featuring 2D graphics, a single map, and a top-down environment.

Notably, its graphics are rendered locally on the player’s device, as opposed to the Google Stadia approach of doing all the work in the cloud and sending it to the player as a video feed. However, the game itself runs in the cloud, and takes up no space on the local device being used to play it. According to Taylor, the player will never have to install or update Intergalactic Space Empire; it’s meant for fast-paced, drop-in, drop-out play."

So there you have it. Not TA2 (although no one expected that) but it's a much need interesting and fresh take on the RTS genre.

It's time for a tournament! 2018's TA:Escalation tournament is coming up, and you can register in this thread.

If you're not familiar with TA:Escalation, it's one of the most played, still under-development TA mods. Wotan, TheRegisteredOne, and the rest of the community have been working on Escalation for years (nearly 18, depending on how you want to count), and it shows. If you've played ESC for years, or you've never heard of it before, the tournament is open to you.

Did I mention the current prize pool is $160?

Sign up today!

The creator of Total Annihilation, Chris Taylor, did an AMA on Reddit. It's finished now, but the questions and his replies (as "The_Big_GameDev_AMA") are still up, and it's also mentioned he may come back to answer further questions.

I thought this very much worth mentioning here just because it's Chris Taylor, and that Total Annihilation is mentioned first in the rather impressive list of games he created.

It's also especially worth mentioning here because of this quotable quote by Chris in one of his replies:



The third reason (as if you need 3) is that he's also answering about the new cross-platform "zero-friction" RTS game he is working on. This might be the main reason why he did the AMA, but he's in a reflective mood about his illustrious game design career.

Read it all on reddit here.

One of our resident programmers has been hard at work on an ambitious project here at TAU. While still in early stages and a work in progress Armoured Fish has made great progress with his new Robot War Engine (RWE).

The aim of the project is clear and precise; to create a replacement for the TA engine, without limitations (such as unique unit limits and weapon limits for example).

The engine is also open source which is something the community desperately desired for the original game. Meaning that anyone has access to the full source code and we aren't going to be limited to trying to hack the exe to make changes!

You'd be forgiven for thinking this gif below is just TA, however it is in fact two commanders in an eternal struggle within RWE!


You can follow the exciting progress in his thread here and even download and test it for yourself to help hunt for bugs.

I'm pleased to announce that TA Universe now supports HTTPS.

The web has evolved considerably since TA Universe first started, and in the modern world it's becoming increasingly important to secure our data and communications. To help achieve this, websites across the internet are adopting HTTPS. HTTPS builds on top of HTTP, the communication protocol of the web, by encrypting the data sent between your computer and the server that the website runs on. Practically speaking, this means that sensitive details like your forum password (or your private messages with that lonely Zeus Kbot in your area) can't be read or altered by potential eavesdroppers as they travel across the net.

HTTPS is currently an optional feature. You can start using it today by visiting https://www.tauniverse.com/, but existing links, bookmarks and references in your browser history will still point to the plain old HTTP version. Look for the padlock in your browser's address bar to see whether HTTPS is enabled.

Once we're sure that everything is running smoothly, we'll move over to HTTPS by default, so you'll always have a secure connection.

After the most used TA discord server recently going down out of nowhere, with people being kicked, I decided to start a TAU one to avoid this situation again! There's a link to the new server at the top of TAU to avoid any confusion.

Discord is essentially a chat room for anyone not aware. It's a great way for the community to come together to talk and discuss anything to do with TA. Balance talks, matchmaking or even off-topic.

There is also a private channel for TA the more known modders and developers to be able to discuss or help their developments with each other.

If you have been hanging around here recently, you are no doubt aware that TA's 20th Anniversary was on the radar for this year and that date has finally arrived today (or very soon depending on where you are)! It’s hard to believe, but 20 years have come and gone since the greatest RTS game ever launched in the fall of 1997. For many of us that was a lifetime ago, and for some it was even before their life even began. The world was much different then. The Internet in the form of the ‘World Wide Web’, and so ubiquitous today, had just started out a few year prior and was accessed via dial up modems at 28.8bps. Browsers like Netscape and net providers like Earthlink and AOE ruled the webs. PC’s were powered by 1st gen Pentiums blazing away at speeds of 100MHz with 16MB RAM, and on CRT monitors that, at best, could display 1024x768 on ‘interlaced’ mode. Yes, the world was different and much has changed, but TA was born then, and two decades later it is still going strong thanks to a stalwart community of new players, old modders, and die-hards alike who truly love this game.

With the 20 year anniversary in mind, we had major aspirations earlier this year for a coming together of the community for 'one last hurrah' in the form of new content, and even some modernization, for the venerable TA Platform to continue on for years to come. Sadly, this did not materialize to the extent that we had hoped for, but nevertheless quite a lot of effort was still made toward this endeavor:

Just recently, Project Lazarus was launched by ArmPrime and looks to make TA unit compilation and management a much easier task for aspiring unit pack creators. Not to be outdone, Armoured Fish, is taking the bold task of developing a whole new RTS gaming engine under the subtle guise of Robot War Engine.

Meanwhile, Admiral_94 continues to crack the mysteries of TA’s engine solving long thought ‘unsolvable’ bugs and quirks resulting in an ever more stable and capable gaming environment. Shelby, one the newer modders in the TA community, has expanded his Secret Focrces Mod and is now on the verge of a new release. Vohvelieläin, has also chipped in of late with TA Zero Alpha 4b and continues to work away on this truly unique and ultra-high, production quality offering.

Lastly, with TA:Escalation, we recently released our Beta 8.5, and with it, dozens of new units and refreshes that you can all enjoy right now and with so much more to come. This version for us, more than any other, has set the mark for a truly balanced, and just as important, entertaining release for a widespread and still growing(!) community the world over. To that end, TAG_Venom, Harry, Race, and many, many others have worked tirelessly to add new and improved battlefields and contribute to the Community Gaming Ladder also.

Quite a bit for a ‘dying’ game no doubt, but as always there is still much to do if we are going to keep TA alive and well for another 20 years… And while, over the past 6 months, our plans did not go as far as we sought or dared, that certainly does not mean that we have deviated from our stated goal of making TA better than ever. There is still so much more to do, and even better, so much already in the works. Best of all, there is always still the opportunity to chip in and do your part, however big or small. There is no reason why a 20th Anniversary can’t last more than a day – why not a season with x-mas around the corner or even something more grand like the ‘Year of TA’!

As always stay tuned – there is a lot more coming

HAPPY 20th TA!!!

Toward the end of this month (September 23rd or 30th depending on what source you cite), Total Annihilation will turn 20 years old at last! It has been an amazing run in the lead up to this incredible milestone and not just for TA. Several other games (i.e. Starcraft, Planescape, Age of Empires) are turning 20 and, even better, also being re-mastered! As many of you already know, some of us have been deeply involved in attempting to do the same 're-master' for TA. 5 months ago we previewed a vision of what this might look like in glorious 4K (see below) along with a massive set of expansions in the hopes of gathering a widespread community effort to make this happen. Vohvelieläin has also done same with his vision for a TA prequel and Shelby keeps plugging away with his growing mod. Behind the scenes folks like Admiral_94 and xpoy have been tweaking away making the venerable TA Engine run better than ever. Moreover, the online gaming community remains strong with a host of dedicated players and big games or 1v1s more or less when you want them. Players like venom, fcalt, Race, and others are even stepping up with tons of new maps specifically designed for big game play along with a great new 1v1 ladder.

To say this community has done a fantastic job would be an understatement, but there has been, and remains, so much left on the table with so many talented folks still sitting on the sidelines. TA as a community (and TAU) thrives on creativity and participation and from many out there those aspects have been too quiet. We all know time is a crucial component - we all have separate lives and obligations from school, work, relationships, spouses, kids, and even other games. Still, for some of us there is always some little time for this platform and in that time there a million different ways to make the game that much better. Whether making a new map, a slight unit enhancement, some cool art, a DLL fix, an AI update, or even a whole mod. There is still much life in this game and there should be every bit as much in this community. There is also still time to do something for the BIG 20th - even a preview of what you are planning is more than enough. The key is always 'something' though - a spark to keep the flames of TA going on and perhaps even the very flare that ignites even greater lights to shine once again.

C'mon, stop lurking and get busy guys