Tactical Takeover.net
eSports Commentary
Supreme Commander – Forged Alliance Forever
Sit back & watch some of the best players in the world do battle with their Commanders – the greatest RTS game ever made!
Exciting Games
One of the comments I get over and again, is something like:
“What an amazing cast, great game. Thanks!”
The real secret is the great game! If the game’s bad, no matter how much effort I put into the cast, it’s still gonna suck, and verge between boring and painful.
Picking “very castable” games is definitely worth something, but still depends on the players to begin with.
Player Skill
The skill level of the players in Supreme Commander Forged Alliance Forever (aka FAF) is way higher than it ever was.
Back when I first began to play (day 1 release ~ 15 years back) the skill was clearly all beginner.
Within 2-3 years the tournament winners & Pro players were very skilled, but are easily outmatched by todays Pro.
In my opinion, ranks have moved up appx 300-400 points!
True Skill
FAF uses the Elo rating system – a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in competitive games, including chess.
Each player is assigned an initial rating, and their rating changes after every match based on the outcome and the rating of their opponent.
A win against a higher-rated opponent leads to rating gains, while a loss to a lower-rated player results in rating deductions. This system helps maintain a dynamic and accurate representation of player skills over time.
YouTube Casts
I began casting SupCom FAF games as an experiment, just to see if my hardware could handle it really – at 4k.
Next thing I’m casting a 2nd game, and a 3rd, and before I know it, I figure I quite like it!
Early 2023, I create a dedicated channel – Tactical Takeover. It surpassed 1,000 subscribers 3 months later.
A credit to the community for supporting me, especially those first few “likes, subs & comments” – all content creators understand!
Casting on YouTube
Creating Forged Alliance Videos with eSports style commentary casts is something that surprised me more than anyone! I never thought I’d enjoy it. I Thought I’d get nervous, or sound boring, or otherwise mess up & hate it.
After plugging in my new graphics card (last year) I decided to test if I could cast a game in 4K. The answer was obviously yes, and I discovered, accidentally it was a lot of fun to do.
(Perhaps I do still show myself up though!)
Game Style Variations
It didn’t take me long to realise why none of the main casting channels do commentaries for 1v1 games – fewer people wanna watch (it’s probably about half, if picked a random month, and cast the best 1v1 & best 6v6).
I decided to reserve the 1v1 games for patron members, that way those who really do love the game, and my casts, and also want to support the channel get the bonus content, and everyone else doesn’t miss out.
Forged Alliance Forever Logo & Website Link.
Legal note: The “FAF” logo is copyright (c) and property of FAFOREVER.com
For more information – see the disclaimer here.
Where can I get more info on the game?
Supreme Commander Forged Alliance is a standalone game, and is available on Steam (online game store).
Once you have bought Forged Alliance, you can play on FAF servers (Forged Alliance – FOREVER) completely for free.
A couple of my favourite casts
Easily one of the best “Average Joe” games I’ve ever seen, and certainly the best 1036 rated game that’s ever been cast. I was sent this, so even better! Click to find out why!
This was one of the earlier videos on the channel, and to date is both the most popular, and the most liked game, getting over twice as many stats vs the norm.
Other channels & interests that I have.
This was my first “proper” YouTube channel, focusing entirely on DCS World.
It was the first channel that became YouTube partnered, and also the first to be offered sponsorships.
Fox 3 Simulations – Fox3Simulations.com
My second “proper channel” initially became for “everything else”. As content mixing is bad, and the HOI4 content was by far the most popular, the channel since become focused on Hearts of Iron 4 (a ww2 RTS game).
So far, It’s mostly tutorials I have done, including a video with over 1,500 likes!
Games with Brains – GamesBrains.com
My 3rd “proper channel” was setup in 2023, and surpassed 1,000 members in April – focusing entirely on casting Supreme Commander games (aka FAF).
My eSports style commentary goes down well with a fantastic subscriber base, who are very generous & supportive.
Tactical Takeover – TacticalTakeover.net
My oldest passion, and newest channel! Flight Simulation, with Internet Flight Rules, which is becoming my 4th “proper channel”. Setup Mid-July 2023, at time of writing just 2 weeks ago!
xPlane 12, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 (and perhaps a touch of DCS!) I have flown flight sims since ways back when MFS 3.0 was the thing, and I remember getting a copy of 5.0 when I was young, and then 5.1 (these numbers may mean little/nothing to people of today, but 5.1 added TEXTURES to the ground, where previously it was just a solid green mass!)
Flight simming allows me to be laid back, and share what knowledge i’ve picked up, both with real world flying (i got both flying & gliding scholarships) plus my cockpit flying with British Airways pre-2001 who always let me sit in for landing. It’s a set of memories I’ll forever cherish, and share with people on Internet Flight Rules youtube channel.
YouTube Content Creator Coaching.
Having setup 3 YouTube channels that I’ve monetised, and now working on a 4th, I like to think I know the basics on how YouTube works. If you are a budding content creator, who’s either new to YouTube, or just needs some help, coaching & advice to get monetised and improve beyond, then I’m here to help.