[Supreme Commander Size Comparison
Amancio Mccrae
- The SupCom factions have no navy to speak of due to FTL limitations, but once they learned that the Imperium had FTL-capable ships, each planet could get their own non-FTL defense fleet up and running within days, again because of those in-game build times being canon.
- Going Exterminatus on worlds attacked by the UEF, Aeon, or Cybrans wouldn't help. The only humans they field on a given battlefield are in their Armored Command Units, the rest are replaceable AIs. Those ACUs are capable of quantum recall (aka, instant teleport to another planet).
- ACUs are shown in-game to resist psychic attacks. Princess Rhianne Burke, who is strong enough to mind rape the entire human race couldn't mind control a single commander, even with all her power focused on him, while his ACU was active.
Assuming the space vessels haven't been retconed the Galactic Empire's navy in its prime is a reasonable match against (or in many ways superior) to Imperium Vessels. The balance of naval battles more than compensates for the fact that Imperium v Empire is space marines vs storm troopers (and Empire Storm Troopers are imo equal to or better than IG storm troopers or kasrkin)
Never played anything from Supreme Commander, but, just judging by your post, you're probably forgetting that the Imperium sort of has infinite resources. That's pretty much the only reason it's still going, in fact. Whatever the Commanderverse has going for it, I'm fairly certain that even it can't stand up against a practically infinite number of Imperial Titans - which, when you get right down to it, is exactly what they would be up against if this went up to full-scale warfare.
The only reason that the Imperium isn't completely dominating the setting it's in is because it's up against other factions which have equally limitless reserves (the Tyranids and the Orks, who both reproduce, in various ways, though battle, and the Daemons, who are literally infinite in number), have technology beyond their reckoning which protects them in various ways (the Eldar can use the Webway to skirt around the Imperium's forces, but could never win in a full-on, protracted engagement; the number of Necrons active in the universe is unknown, but those that are active have some of the most powerful tech in existence and the ability to reconstitute fallen soldiers in their Tomb Worlds), or simply aren't considered important enough to curb-stomp out of existence yet (Tau).
The real problem with facing off against the Imperium of Man, for any opponent, is that they just have more stuff than you do. Failing time-bending technology on the scale of the Time Lords or literal omnipotence on the part of the defenders (e.g. the Watcher or his sixteen billion clone characters from the various comic book universes), there really isn't much any force from any setting could possibly do to fight back against a united offensive from the entire Imperium.
The one setting I've read of that could actually face the Imperium toe-to-toe would be the Alliance worlds in Dan Simmons' Hyperion books, and that's because it basically is the Imperium.
2705806
Just picking up on the titan things. Yes one vs an army they might be able to win, altough against an Imperitor class it would need more than an army. But then again, remember that the titans come in legions to, the largest of which can be 40-50 engines strong. Coupled with the fact that they have Skitarii, tech guard, robots, mechanicus tech, tanks, and all variations of the 13 barrels of hell that is the baneblade, you get the idea. And that's not even taking into account the IG, the SM or the inquisition.
There are some Imperial vessels that are supposed to be even bigger than Executor-class Star Destroyers, though, so there is that. And that's purely a size comparison, rather than one of firepower.
Imperial Navy ships regularly carry enough ordinance to be able to carry out an order for Exterminatus - complete annihilation of the planet. The Empire needed the Death Star for that, so it's not much of a stretch to imagine that Imperium ships, while perhaps not too much larger than their Empire counterparts in most cases, actually have more firepower at their disposal.
I agree weaponry is more important than mass. The big point of comparison is destructive power:
in KOTOR the planet Taris was 'destroyed' by a Sith fleet. Of course destroyed doesn't mean the same since the planet was recovering by the time of SWTOR.
It does take a Death Star to completely annihilate a planet.
Everything comes back to scale. I'm tempted to say the Empire fields more vessels per engagement than the Imperium does but I only really know the Star Wars movies, whereas my knowledge of 40k fleet engagements are limited to the 5 on 4 battle from the Gaunt's Ghosts 'The Saint' Omnibus.
Supreme Commander's resources are even more unlimited. They have a population that is nearly equal to the Imperium's, but needs far, far fewer soldiers. Couple that with the fact that they can use literally ANYTHING for resources, including the broken husks of both their destroyed warmachines and those of the Imperium, and that their production is faster by an order of a magnitude...
The Imperium's resources are nearly limitless. Supreme Commander's resources are literally limitless. The Imperium takes centuries to build their most powerful weapons, the Supreme Commander nations can build their's in minutes.
The problem here is that the Supreme Commander factions can simply spam their most powerful units. The Titans would be brought down by sheer weight of numbers and attrition, especially since if any of them were destroyed, they could be reclaimed for resources, making their situation that much worse.
In the time it takes to destroy a single Fatboy, Spiderbot, or Galactic Colossus, three more can be built. They take seven minutes to build, at most. If multiple engineers (basically builder tanks) work on them, it takes even less time.
Baneblades would be nothing to the UEF. Their Fatboy mobile factory is easily the size of 10 or 12 Baneblades, with many times the firepower. The Fatboy II is smaller and less powerful (probably only double or triple the size of a Baneblade, with firepower reduced proportionately), but can be spammed even more easily since it's also less complicated and resource intensive to build. Even a few of their Rockhead tanks could take on a Baneblade when fully upgraded (they have three barrels, extended range, and personal shields).
Consider this for a moment: tanks the size of Leman Russes are considered infantry/cannon fodder in Supreme Commander. Less so in the first game, but still. Hundreds of them can be built in minutes since, as I said, building a single Rockhead takes 19 seconds.
The problem there is that they have very few Executors, while battleships are the mainstay of the Imperial fleet, with numbers comparable to Imperial and Imperator-class star destroyers. Consider that said battleships are far larger and more powerful than said star destroyers, and you have a major problem for the Star Wars universe.
2705970
Yes, the tanks can be spammed, but at its highest level, the Imperium can do things like that as well. Just look at Armageddon or Krieg. Both worlds produce tanks and then send them to die instantly, rolling off the production line and getting smashed apart as they do. On Kreig they managed to keep this level of production up for 500 years before finally winning and moving onto the rest of the universe.
This really comes down to are we talking pre or post Horus Heresy.
Post heresy I can see Imperium having a hard time, although its still hard to beat trillions of troops.
Pre-heresy though, where Titans were fielded in their hundreds, Space Marines in their tens/hundreds of thousands. On mars you had hundreds and hundreds of super-heavy tanks being thrown into the grinder to allow the space marines to get away with some new armour.
Yeah, that many marines? Things are fucked.
You're talking hundreds of titans against hundreds of thousands of near-instantly replaceable Experimentals (I don't know why they're called that, there's no indication that any of them are actually experimental...), and millions of Space Marines and tanks against equally numerous tanks and assault bots that can be replaced in less than thirty seconds.
The Imperium would be facing an army that effectively never changes in size, or only grows if it does change, no matter how many losses it takes, because of its ability to replace losses as fast as (or even faster than) they take them. And this is assuming that the SupCom armies would remain exactly the same as in the games. This isn't taking into account the fact that the UEF, Aeon Illuminate, and Cybran Nation would adapt to Imperial tactics and technology, and do so within weeks thanks to their nanolathe technology, while it would take the Imperium months or years to do the same, assuming they did at all.
Emperor help them if any of the SupCom factions get Warp travel. That would eliminate their only disadvantage, inferior FTL technology: their FTL is instant, but extremely power intensive to the point that sending large fleets across interstellar distances is unfeasible. This is why they have ACUs with quantum recall and nanolathe tech in the first place, because sending large armies simply isn't possible with a quantum jump that only has one jump gate. Now if you have one on each end, then that changes things. Then FTL becomes so cheap that it's cost effective to export grain using it.
I suppose that you can summarize it like this: the Imperium can maintain fast production. Supreme Commander factions don't maintain it: it gets faster over time. The more time they have to build, the more fucked the Imperium is.
2706123
OK, here's the scenario.
Taking Exterminatus out of the equation, you have a war where each side is matched numericaally, assuming we have the imperial army on the planet. You then get space marines deep striking/teleporting behind your lines and destroy the production planets, meaning they can't produce another tank in 19 seconds. Space Marines excel at surgical strikes, while the Imperial army, and later the guard, is bred to die, so they would take the punishment until you get a legion or two landing and destroying your supplies.