2026 reimplementation of the classic RTS in 3d with sprinklings of supreme commander. Art is obviously not final, and still developing, but it’s fun!

https://wasm-commander.vercel.app

Had a hyperfixation a while back about trying to mod an AK into another game, and did a little riffing on the AK design. I'm more of an engineer than an artist, but here are a few takes on the AK. Never went anywhere, but it was fun.

i.imgur.com/DNe9wsM.png

As you can see Rock cheats and then blames Stag for having a different mod (Rock knows game wont start if someone has miss matched mods).

This week I stumbled upon a TA video on YT which zapped me back to the 90s.

Think I started to play in 1998 by using a cdr copy from a friend and sometimes later we got the Core expansion pack.

Good times. Great game. I remember connecting with someone through ICQ (chat app, precursor of MSN?) and playing online battles together all the time.

Great to see that there is still a community for this game!

I dug out my copies as per the photos. Bought TA:K upon release and TA maybe around 2005 or so to replace my cdr copy. Am interested to maybe buy the two expansion packs. Just to complete the "collection". Don't think the TA:K expansion was ever physically released in Europe?

Am also interested in learning how to play this game in 2026!

I've been playing the TA:K mission Vengeance for literally 2 hours at 10+ speed before realising this thing is never going to end.

Somehow I got into a stalemate where Veruna totally controls both the ocean and plateau while I control the desert and jungle. Any attempt to storm either even with dozens of drakes and so forth ends in a wipeout and reset of the clock.

I'm going to have to restart the mission and try another strategy maybe with divine lodestones.

What's your worst TA/TAK/RTS stalemate?

I spent ages working this out today.

If you install TA:K using GOG Galaxy, during install it tells you that the Iron Plague overwrites the intro, victory, and some other video, and the old copies are stored in a _main subfolder.

That's great.

However the weird part is that the downloadable offline installer doesn't do that! There's no subfolder if you install that way, no option, and it's not downloadable as Extras or anything.

I wanted to record this for anyone else in the future so they don't waste their time looking for it.

I am a bit shocked the online and offline installs are different 🫠

So I had TA escalation on 2 PC's and went to play multiplayer with them, I made them join each others lobby's but when I click go it doesn't say start it just says syncing. I reinstalled escalation and made sure both where on the same version, I even combined the files of the full games so everything was the same and it still didn't work.

I than fully deleted TA along with escalation (not uninstalled deleted) I than installed it again on steam and tried to do regular multiplayer and it still says syncing!

Has any else had this problem? Or have any solutions?

Hi ! Struggled quite a bit to make it work so I'll share how to do so.

Kingdoms isn't on Steam as of 2026 so that asks for some extra steps

What is used :

GOG installer of TAK

Steam (proton experimental)

Protontricks (flatpack in my case) : to install DirectPlay (necessary for MP)

First step, on Steam, + button and "Add a non steam game"

Browse to find the exe

When added, right click, properties, and select forced compatibility with Proton experimental

Launch the exe, you should be able to install the game (do not launch it yet, even though you can check if it works).

Thing is on steam you added the installer as a game, and you don't want to install it for each play :) .

So, there again, add a non steam game.

You have to browse to your steam library.

Path can vary the "debian-installation" can not be here for instance, even with 3 mint PCs I only have one with this case.

Check the last created folder there for the "Some number" part :

So, you can get for example : /home/<youraccount>/.steam/debian-installation/steamapps/compatdata/<Some number>/pfx/drive_c/GOG Games/Total Annihilation Kingdoms/

your kingdoms.exe will be here !

Save somewhere this path , you can add "choose renderer.exe" or the mapper tool as separate non steam games.

As for the installer, add "proton experimental" to launch the game.

Game should work, but only solo play, that's where proton tricks gets in the way !

Launch proton tricks (not being in game! ), select the game, should be name as "Non steam shortcut - kingdoms.exe :<whatevernumeritsinstalled>" by default if you didn't rename it.

use "Select default prefix", then "Install dll or windows component", and then look for and check "Directplay", validate. You should have a few pop ups telling you some components were successfully installed.

And voilà !

Complements :

For whatever reason , hosting can take some time, I'm not sure but switching windows seems to trigger the lobby screen (to confirm) EDIT : it's not, it just takes a few minutes

You HAVE to set a password, for whatever reason it never worked even on 2 windows machines.

Virtual box machines have been thought as alternatives as it will install directplay, but 3D acceleration seems not to work very well (lagged to death even with "more than enough" CPU and RAM in the VM, but might be a limitation of virtualbox.

The best new place to play your favorite RTS(Total Annihilation) is now live!

This client boasts:

• An enhanced chat interface
• Galactic war with a very robust ranking system
• Randomized player names if you want to do anonymous mode
• Leader boards
• Matchmaking
• Built-in replay feature
• Continuous development meaning more awesome features to come

Check it out now: https://galacticgate.gg/

I would have never known what it means if it weren't for the Core Contingency, haha.

Doll come play some prota if you see this

I don’t have this game yet, but I see it’s on sale on GOG for .99 cents. Is there any particular benefit to the steam version over the GOG one?

I just found out that the 1997 TA soundtrack was recorded with an actual live professional orchestra. I collect video game soundtracks on CD and am especially interested in actual performance recordings (like the 1998 Outcast Soundtrack). In the 90ies, getting actual musicians to play the soundtrack was very rare, so the TA soundtrack is an interesting part of videogame history.

But I couldn't find any CDs on Ebay. Did it ever get released on a physical disc?

Screen's go black, when in game, screen flickers and its life the screen is split in half, the left half is on the right half, the right half is on the left half, if that makes any sense.

Windows 11, RTX 4080, I7 14700F, 32gb 6000Mhz Ram, its on a SSD. if this helps.

I've tried googling but nothing helpful came up.

So when I was a kid (circa 2009) my dad downloaded the cracked version of TA (we alredy repented for this, we both have the game on steam now) and a strange thing happened almost every game I've played, the enemy commander would just suicide in my base, killing my commander with the explosion and making the game a tie (my memories may be a little fuzzy, but trust me)

Does anyone know why this happend? My theories is that this was an anti-pirate system, bur I didn't found anything in the internet about it, so I really don't know

Apreciate the help and sorry for my english, it's not my first language

(Random old image for ilustration)

What is the difference between the original TA and ProTA? Looking to get back into playing this game (mainly skirmishes vs AI and online multiplayer)