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I always turned this into a base-building mission; it was quite fun fending off mild raids from all over and working my way around the map.
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Mar 21, 2020 19:58
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Radio Free Kobold posted:I always turned this into a base-building mission; it was quite fun fending off mild raids from all over and working my way around the map. Yeah, same here, this is a really fun one that fits NODs playstyle perfectly. Plus it is a nice touch that CABAL has to actually build up parts of his base, so you have a small grace period to build your army, and are rewarded with swift action if you zero in on the Con. Yard for capture/destruction early. Also interesting to see actual NOD civilians for once too, a rare sight. As for the whole Serbian Wolf thing from the briefing, that lightly touches on Slavic's backstory, which really is only detailed in the C&C Bible that came out around this time. Its actually pretty interesting as it gives some good insight on how and why Slavic became the person he is.
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Mar 21, 2020 21:17
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I believe the "Bible" came out in 2001 or so, which is why I won't be talking about it. Also, because it contains massive spoilers, so it'll be a while before I actually mention it.
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Mar 22, 2020 05:11
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Jobbo_Fett posted:I believe the "Bible" came out in 2001 or so, which is why I won't be talking about it. Ahh, it came out later then I remembered, my mistake.  Won't mention any more of it in any case.
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Mar 22, 2020 05:26
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UED Special Ops posted:Ahh, it came out later then I remembered, my mistake. No worries, as long as it doesn't get posted a reference to it won't make much of a difference.
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Mar 22, 2020 05:28
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FS NOD 09: Core of the Problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2dX0PqIrAQ Core of the Problem  The end is near! This final attack, in conjunction with GDI forces from the East, is the final stand of humanity against the tyrannical, and borderline insane, AI! GDI will be attempting to capture 3 control stations from their direction, while NOD forces must capture the remaining 3 in our sector. Once this is accomplished, the firewall defenses surrounding CABAL's core will shut down, exposing his core to our attacks. Do not fail the Brotherhood! PEACE THROUGH POWER!  Unknown.  Location: Unknown, Unknown Objective: Destroy CABAL's core! Briefing: This is it Commander! Take out CABAL fast and hard: No mercy and no surrender. Find a way to get inside his defenses and take out the core. GDI forces are distracting CABAL and now is the perfect time to crush CABAL once and for all. DATA LINK CLOSED. Author's note: Not quite sure which version of the final mission I prefer, but it all feels a little anti-climatic.   Name: Anton Slavik Aliases: Unknown Affiliation: NOD Occupation: Faction Leader within the Brotherhood of NOD [The Black Hand of NOD] Voiced/Played by: Frank Zagarino Rescued from certain death by Oxanna and a handful of trusted troops, he immediately murders the traitor responsible upon return to his command vehicle. Along with CABAL, he sets out to defend his holding(s) in Egypt from Hassan's forces. Kills Hassan the Betrayer. Is forced to bail out Vega at the behest of Kane, if only because the ship he was flying contains the Tacitus. Is captured alongside Oxanna by GDI forces lead by Commander McNeil. Lives for Kane; Dies for Kane. Captured and converted Commander McNeil's brother, Jake. Survived the 2nd Tiberium War and currently the leader of the Black Hand of NOD. Vying for power against other NOD sub-factions in a bid to become its leader.  N/A  The End of the Firestorm NOD Campaign Spoiler warning for those who have not watched the video yet. CABAL is defeated, and Slavik has taken his rightful place as the leader of the Brotherhood of NOD. While it will most certainly take time for NOD to regain its strength, the Brotherhood will await the return of their messiah, Kane, for he lives in death. I have completely forgotten about the ending to the NOD campaign approximately 3 times, and I'm always catching myself thinking "Oh drat, this is actually super cool and I want to know more now." Definitely my preferred ending vs the GDI side of things.  Name: Anton Slavik Aliases: Unknown Affiliation: NOD Occupation: Leader of the Brotherhood of NOD [formerly the leader of the Black Hand of NOD] Voiced/Played by: Frank Zagarino Rescued from certain death by Oxanna and a handful of trusted troops, he immediately murders the traitor responsible upon return to his command vehicle. Along with CABAL, he sets out to defend his holding(s) in Egypt from Hassan's forces. Kills Hassan the Betrayer. Is forced to bail out Vega at the behest of Kane, if only because the ship he was flying contains the Tacitus. Is captured alongside Oxanna by GDI forces lead by Commander McNeil. Lives for Kane; Dies for Kane. Captured and converted Commander McNeil's brother, Jake. Survived the 2nd Tiberium War and currently the leader of the Black Hand of NOD. Vying for power against other NOD sub-factions in a bid to become its leader. Becomes the leader of the Brotherhood of NOD following the successful completion of the Firestorm campaign.  Name: Kane Aliases: Caine, Jacob; al-Quayym, Amir Affiliation: NOD Occupation: Unknown Voiced/Played by: Joseph David Kucan The ending to the NOD campaign raises a whole bunch of questions as to who really is Kane? Or, better yet, "what" is Kane? Is he an alien that came to Earth with advanced technology, hence why he has been rumoured to exist for centuries? Is he a sentient AI that managed to brainwash and create his own series of doppelgangers in order to gain control of the world? Is he an egotistical maniac that simply managed to use NOD's resources to create CABAL and a cloning facility? The world may never know...
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Mar 22, 2020 21:25
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Darn shame that this is the last we'll see of the Brotherhood of Nod. Man, such a cool bunch of villains. And that Kane guy, too, I guess we'll never really know the answer. Ah well. On to the next (and my favorite!) game!
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Mar 22, 2020 22:11
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Yeah, the NOD version of the final mission is way harder then GDIs', you start with less money, have a much harder map to navigate, and have to deal with a smattering of CABAL controled GDI units. Least killing the Core Defender is super easy if you lure it over one of the weak bridges north of your main Tiberium site and then blow it up. Also really like how this map and the GDI one overlap a bit, really helps sell that whole two pronged attack setup. Also a very subtle touch is that the various Tiberium lifeforms never attack any of CABAL's units or buildings, which ties into its' experiments with Tiberium lifeforms hinted at earlier in the campaign. As for the Elite Cadre, in any other context, they would be really great, the firepower of a Cyborg at about half the price, while still being fairly tanky. Shame that vs the units CABAL throws at you they are not that great, but at least flavor-wise it is really cool that even the elite of NOD are being thrown into the fight. As for why you can't build a Waste Facility, my guess would be that even with the Firestorm walls up, the toxic gases would still damage them and could probably open up a hole in the defensive perimeter around CABAL's Core after a few strikes. And yeah, love the NOD ending, even if it does reuse a bit of video from Slavic's speech from TS after he has defeated Hassan. Just from start to finish, Frank Zagarino knocked it out of the park playing Slavic, probably one of the best in the series to date.
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Mar 22, 2020 22:35
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Going off what you said in the mission, the impulse to spice up the climactic mission by putting it on a bigger map with more enemy bases to kill doesn't really work as intended. It just turns the game into a slog where if you can survive the first twenty minutes it is obvious you have won, and the only question is if you have to slog through bases and defences with an effectively infinite blob of units for half an hour or more. The core defender helps, having a threat that has a chance to actually turn the tables on you spawn for free once you've almost won, but kind of comes off as a too obvious cheat. And, once you know it exists, you can just plan around it, by spinning your wheels and making an invincible army. Time limits could also work to make things difficult, but plenty of player hate the very concept of time limits. Ideally, you could make a suitably elaborate AI that doesn't crush the player immediately with its massive base, but ramps up the aggression/subtle cheating as time passes and the player captures ground, but I've played a lot of RTS games and nothing really comes close to that ideal. Perhaps trying to design a single game system for epic single player battles of a small force against a much large one, and for multiplayer where both players start from nothing is always going to have to make messy compromises.
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Mar 22, 2020 22:36
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mr_stibbons posted:Going off what you said in the mission, the impulse to spice up the climactic mission by putting it on a bigger map with more enemy bases to kill doesn't really work as intended. It just turns the game into a slog where if you can survive the first twenty minutes it is obvious you have won, and the only question is if you have to slog through bases and defences with an effectively infinite blob of units for half an hour or more. The core defender helps, having a threat that has a chance to actually turn the tables on you spawn for free once you've almost won, but kind of comes off as a too obvious cheat. And, once you know it exists, you can just plan around it, by spinning your wheels and making an invincible army. You're getting at some of the problems that RTS games, as a genre, really struggled with and I think eventually led to their downfall. The whole "If you can survive [long enough to turn the tide] you've won", the issues with the AI, and so on.
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Mar 22, 2020 22:46
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Radio Free Kobold posted:You're getting at some of the problems that RTS games, as a genre, really struggled with and I think eventually led to their downfall. The whole "If you can survive [long enough to turn the tide] you've won", the issues with the AI, and so on. Yeah. I used to be a great fan of RTS games, and when they first started falling off I was quite disappointed, but looking back now I can see that the classic formula had some flaws baked right in the foundations, and am happy with some of the games that have filled their space. If this isn't the appropriate thread for this topic , I'll leave off.
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Mar 22, 2020 23:19
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Yeah, that's... sure an ending. There will certainly be a lot of words on that a couple threads into the future. Anyhow, I always preferred the Nod version of this mission to GDI's (although if you go the boring route and mass Titans anyway there isn't really any difference). It feels a lot more like the climactic final battl, moreso than anything you got in vanilla. I'm also glad there's no time limit - it might not be legitimately difficult, but for me CnC singleplayer was always more about winning in style than being efficient.
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Mar 22, 2020 23:37
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anilEhilated posted:Yeah, that's... sure an ending. There will certainly be a lot of words on that a couple threads into the future. At least 4 threads, I think!
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Mar 22, 2020 23:40
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Oh, you're one of those. mumblegeneralsisnotarealc&cgrumble
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Mar 23, 2020 00:07
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What about renegade??!!?
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Mar 23, 2020 00:23
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Slavvy posted:What about renegade??!!? Yeah that's factored into the 4, if I include one for mods as a breather/intermission between series entries.
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Mar 23, 2020 00:35
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anilEhilated posted:Oh, you're one of those. Generals is absolutely a real C&C game. In fact, it is one of the best ones. Your opinion is wrong.
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Mar 23, 2020 02:42
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Yeah that's factored into the 4, if I include one for mods as a breather/intermission between series entries. It's funny... I played a ton of the first 4 C&C games and also played an enormous number of custom maps/mods in other games (Duke3D, Half-Life, StarCraft, etc) during the same time period, but somehow I never even slightly dabbled in the mapping and modding scene for C&C. I am very curious to see how some of those turned out.
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Mar 23, 2020 02:51
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Radio Free Kobold posted:Generals is absolutely a real C&C game. In fact, it is one of the best ones. Your opinion is wrong. It's the best for all the wrong reasons but yeah. Jobbo I thought Renegade was next up in the line.
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Mar 23, 2020 04:20
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HardDiskD posted:It's the best for all the wrong reasons but yeah. I forget, did I say Renegade next? Cause if I'm following the timeline of game releases then its RA2...
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Mar 23, 2020 04:36
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I forgot about RA2 
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Mar 23, 2020 05:02
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HardDiskD posted:I forgot about RA2 
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Mar 23, 2020 05:17
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HardDiskD posted:I forgot about RA2 Heretic, Kane would be ashamed by your lack of faith. 
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Mar 23, 2020 06:18
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Radio Free Kobold posted:Generals is absolutely a real C&C game. In fact, it is one of the best ones. Your opinion is wrong. It's a fantastic game, but it's not C&C. It has more in common with Blizzard's titles than Westwood's.
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Mar 23, 2020 09:12
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Thanks for finishing Firestorm for us, Jobbo!Radio Free Kobold posted:You're getting at some of the problems that RTS games, as a genre, really struggled with and I think eventually led to their downfall. The whole "If you can survive [long enough to turn the tide] you've won", the issues with the AI, and so on. Generally it feels like the only RTS games that ever really stood the test of time in sense of gameplay were the ones that dispensed with the base vs base shenanigans, stuff like Ground Control and Myth,
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Mar 23, 2020 10:01
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PurpleXVI posted:Generally it feels like the only RTS games that ever really stood the test of time in sense of gameplay were the ones that dispensed with the base vs base shenanigans, stuff like Ground Control and Myth, Of course, the AI doesn't ever really take advantage of that but multiplayer SupCom is a glorious thing to behold; it really puts the strategy back into RTS. Apart from that, I feel the Total War formula works pretty well - pre-built armies clashing on otherwise isolated battlefields. Anyway, looking forward to RA2 - we're at the series' peak now and it doesn't end just yet.
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Mar 23, 2020 10:15
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I'm curious, how would a ton of dug-in tick tanks do against the core defender? Maybe with some rocket infantry support.
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Mar 23, 2020 11:54
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Crazy Achmed posted:I'm curious, how would a ton of dug-in tick tanks do against the core defender? Maybe with some rocket infantry support. Probably slightly worse then an equal ton of Titans thanks to the Tick Tanks worse cannon. Pretty sure the super laser the Core Defender fires would be enough to two shot even a deployed Tick Tank, as similar laser weapons deal 100% damage across the board regardless of armor type, and I would assume the same holds true for the Defender's laser.
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Mar 23, 2020 12:14
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Crazy Achmed posted:I'm curious, how would a ton of dug-in tick tanks do against the core defender? Maybe with some rocket infantry support. Not that great, probably. The Core Defender's laser one-shots just about everything, so digging in your Tick Tanks won't matter too much. Artillery is fairly good against it, but then again artillery is fairly good against everything.
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Mar 23, 2020 14:20
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mr_stibbons posted:Time limits could also work to make things difficult, but plenty of player hate the very concept of time limits. Ideally, you could make a suitably elaborate AI that doesn't crush the player immediately with its massive base, but ramps up the aggression/subtle cheating as time passes and the player captures ground, but I've played a lot of RTS games and nothing really comes close to that ideal. https://store.steampowered.com/app/40400/AI_War_Fleet_Command/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/573410/AI_War_2/ They're asymmetric strategy games where the AI gets more powerful depending mostly on how many systems the player(s) have conquered, and the player(s) only need to destroy the AI's homeworld to win, so the broad strategy is to capture as little territory as possible while still becoming strong enough to open a path to the homeworld and overcome its heavy defenses. Sindai fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Mar 23, 2020 |
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Mar 23, 2020 15:05
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I can't believe Kane is loving
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Mar 23, 2020 17:50
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Kane... Kane lives in a bacta tank?
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Mar 23, 2020 18:05
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FS XX: The Campaign Maps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MZK8K7vK2M The NOD Campaign Maps Another long video that tries to go through the major components of each NOD Campaign map. Due to the complexity of the map editor, I can't show off as much as I would like, because the UI is rather complex. Apologies to those who dislike that. All previous locations, but together! Location: Around the World by Daft Punk Objective: Show off maps to the audience. Briefing: Going through every map from the Firestorm campaigns to view hidden details and behind-the-scenes triggers. Author's note: Why can't I get KOOL ADE to work?  Some interesting tidbits, but otherwise nothing too crazy to see in this finale.N/A N/A
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Mar 23, 2020 18:15
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Sindai posted:I bet you'd be very interested in AI War 1 and 2 because they are literally exactly that: Personally I never enjoyed that approach, enemy power that scales with what the player does(whether that's their level in an RPG or how much money they have or whatever) just seems to penalize the player for actually engaging with the game. At least if it was scaling-over-time, then it would just encourage the player to be more efficient with any given moment of time spent, but... yeah, absolutely not a fan of that other approach in any game.
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Mar 23, 2020 20:38
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AI war scales slightly with time and heavily with specific actions you take, meaning most of the difficulty is managing your aip on the way to the goal. Losses come from overreaching.
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Mar 23, 2020 20:50
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Yeah AI War is built completely on the concept of you wanting to become a threat while not being overtly a threat. It's a neat idea.
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Mar 23, 2020 21:23
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PurpleXVI posted:Thanks for finishing Firestorm for us, Jobbo! Myth, now there's a fantastic series that got done dirty.
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Mar 23, 2020 21:31
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PurpleXVI posted:Personally I never enjoyed that approach, enemy power that scales with what the player does(whether that's their level in an RPG or how much money they have or whatever) just seems to penalize the player for actually engaging with the game. At least if it was scaling-over-time, then it would just encourage the player to be more efficient with any given moment of time spent, but... yeah, absolutely not a fan of that other approach in any game. The enemy power doesn't really scale with your own. Many of the things that increase your power alert the ai, but a lot of ai progress comes from decisions like "do I knock over this enemy system and eliminate the threat or bypass it because I really just want the goodies two planets down?" It's more that it inverts the usual video game logic of "all bad guys must die" than it having level scaling.
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Mar 23, 2020 21:43
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Chronojam posted:Myth, now there's a fantastic series that got done dirty. Wow, I haven't thought of that series in a while, now I wanna watch those fmv intro movies to the different levels.
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Mar 24, 2020 15:03
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 09:21 |
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 Click here for thread Its happening!!!!
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Apr 1, 2020 21:02
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