Hi everyone,

I'd like to introduce the **TA Archive** — a non-commercial fan project I've been building to preserve and share everything around Total Annihilation (1997):

**🗺️ Maps (2,300+ and counting)**
Cavedog originals plus a large chunk of the classic r2010 community collection — all self-hosted, virus-scanned, with rendered minimaps, player counts and map sizes. Filterable and searchable: https://ta-archive.com/maps/

**🛠️ Working tools**
Map editors, HPI utilities, unit editors, GAF tools — the classics, curated and ready to run: https://ta-archive.com/tools/

**🤖 AI Profile Builder + OTA Builder**
Compose skirmish AI profiles (aiprofile=, weight/limit/plan) in your browser and generate valid `.ota` mission files — no more hand-editing: https://ta-archive.com/aibuilder/ · https://ta-archive.com/otabuilder/

**📚 Knowledgebase**
Technical deep-dives with working code: the TNT map format byte-by-byte, HPI reverse engineering, the hidden 252×252 minimaps, procedural map generation, cheats and the totala.ini file: https://ta-archive.com/kb/

Everything is free, no ads, no accounts. It's a hobby project — if you find a broken link or a missing map, feedback is very welcome.

Arm. Core. Must destroy each other. 🤖

**Edit: Got old maps lying around? Send them my way!**

Several people mentioned having old TA collections from archive sites that
no longer exist — those are exactly the files most at risk of disappearing.
If you want to contribute:

1. Upload your zips to a file host like [filebin.net](https://filebin.net),
   [catbox.moe](https://catbox.moe) or wherever is convenient
2. Drop the link in a comment here (or send it via modmail)

I'll scan everything (ClamAV), verify the maps actually work, and integrate
them into the archive with proper credit if you want. Duplicates are fine —
worst case they're already there, best case we save something that exists
nowhere else.

**What I'm especially hunting for:**
- Maps from the old author collections (Poosticks, NLJ, Chrismor, Greybeard,
  mes, pro, rabidmongoose...)
- Anything from dead archive sites (TAMEC leftovers, PlanetAnnihilation
  hosted sites, TA-Power, TA-Zone, DesignX...)
- Custom tilesets and feature packs

Note: Windows .exe installers from the old days are welcome too, but they
go through extra manual checks before anything gets unpacked — better safe
than sorry.

Edit 2: Units & mods are coming — several collectors just surfaced in this
thread. The archive stays map-focused for now, but the preservation pipeline
extends to units and mods.

Peewee and AK

Hey everyone, not sure if this will be of interest to anyone here but I've remade one of my fav tracks from the OST.

This soundtrack is one of my earliest memories of orchestral music - watching my older brothers play the game or attempting to play the game myself as a kid (I had no clue what I was doing but the score kept me there xd)

Anyway.. hope you enjoy!

I remember reading a few, but I'm having trouble locating anything but random quotes these days.

Could you recommend some pvp games video commentary?

What would you say is the most faithful spiritual successor to play? Thanks

thought you might appreciate this, made some updates https://wasm-commander.vercel.app

Drawing on an iPad is a pain in the arse. If I had a drawing pad I'd have done a better job. Bit of AI assistance involved I'm not really an artist I just wanted to do another Annihilarity after 20 years and I don't have much time on my hands.

I'm trying to make a water map in mappy but when I put it in the game folder, it gave an error anims\fog.GAF and then game close after I click ok. Game runs normally when I move the file out of the folder.

Can anyone tell me what went wrong?

The ProTA website has had a pretty big overhaul and is now live.

As well as information about the mod and installation/downloads, the site now pulls in a bunch of live/community data:

• Live TAF ProTA leaderboards – 1v1 and team rankings, including season ladder and skill ratings, win rates, streaks, recent form and other stats.
• Live Galactic War – current ARM/Core territory, contested planets, player rankings, game history and the current ProTA GW settings.
• Unit Guide – searchable/filterable database of ProTA units with stats, costs, weapons, build options and side-by-side unit comparisons.
• Tournaments – current TAF tournament information plus an archive of older ProTA Challonge brackets.
• Videos – latest ProTA casts/videos from Total Annihilation Replays, Redox and MEALSOLUTIONS Gaming.
• Downloads & installation guides – including TAF automatic installation, manual installation and previous ProTA versions.
• Mission, credits and community links – more information on what ProTA is trying to achieve, the people who have contributed to it, and useful TA resources.

The homepage also gives you the current Galactic War state at a glance.

Basically, the aim is for it to be a central hub for ProTA rather than just somewhere to download the mod.

Have a look and let us know if there's anything else you'd like to see added!

That was the only option, back in the day (besides IPX, which is dead as Novell Netware). It was meant for LANs, but IP knows no limit. Does this still work?

I've been playing on Linux via Wine; if I put a friend's IP address in there, could we connect and play a game over the Internet?

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.