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 Hello and welcome to Shin Ghiren's Greed! A grand strategy game in the Gundam universe. It is set during the One Year War of the original series and during the events of the movie Chars Counterattack. We'll stick to the scenarios which take place during the One Year War. For those not very familiar with the Original Gundam: The One Year War was a huge conflict between the Earth Federation and the Principality of Zeon which sought independence from the Federation and fell to fascism. Both sides fought rather ruthless which included throwing Space Colonies at earth and the use of Nukes. Zeon pretty much wiped the floor with the Federation space forces thanks to the invention of Mobile Suits. The Federation space navy was set up for a big ship vs. ship battle and could not deal with numerous small targets. With those heavy losses the Federation was ready to accept a peace treaty dictated by Zeon. Said peace talks were busted up by a certain General Revil of the Federation who has barely escaped captivity and has firsthand seen how tattered the Zeon forces are and inspired the Federation to fight back against the vastly overstretched Zeon. Shortly after that a young man named Amuro Ray boarded the secret weapon of the Federation - The Gundam - to turn the war against Zeon into a different direction... A man whose destiny we will change, regardless of which scenario we choose. About the LP This will be a screenshot LP of one of the many pilot scenarios the game offers. We start off with a small mission and then take part as that pilot in the grand war. As this is a grand strategy game I will not do this turn by turn especially later in the game because at some point I want to finish this LP. That is also the reason why we are not doing the grand campaign itself it would simply take way too long. At certain points, you the Goon High command get to vote on greater strategic decisions. One very important vote will be at the end of this post. One important tidbit is that the game was only released in Japan and therefore is fully in Japanese. A language I do not understand. That means most of the dialog will be translated with the help of Google translate which is doing surprisingly well with this game. At least it throws out sentences that make sense and seem grammatically correct for me as a non-native English speaker. The Factions: Earth Federation The Earth Federation at the start of the game is in a bad position. At turn 1 they have already lost control over most of space, except for the Space Fortress Luna II and on earth a handful of territories remain under their control. Their starting army also consists only of tanks, planes and ships none of which can hold a candle to the numerous Zaku Mobile Suits the enemy has. The Federation is not hopeless though, they start with vastly more resources and income than Zeon. Their own Mobile Suit program will quickly begin to bear fruits and their early game suits are more powerful than anything the enemy can field for quite a while. For example the Prototype Gundam and Gundam can only be matched by enemy suits that are at the end of the Zeon tech tree. Now the easy solution would be to build nothing but Gundams, but the game introduced a mechanic that was not in older Ghiren Greeds - there is now a production limit per unit. So there can only be one Gundam and another one can only be built after that one gets destroyed. Which leads to a crippling problem the Feds have, the unit limits are not in their favor and they will have to build suboptimal units. (Which in the AIs case will be Aqua GMs. Oh god there will be so many Aqua GMs.) On the other hand, the Feds have many long range units. A trait the Zeons cannot really match. So if you want slowly rolling waves of artillery barrages, the Federation Grand Campaign might be your thing. Advantages of the Federation: + Generally slightly better Suits + Extremely good Suits for Aces + Generally better at long range + Most of their Aces have good stats + Better earth combat suits than Zeon + Access to good mobile suit carriers Disadvantages of the Federation: - Limited capacity for their good suits (which means there can only be one Gundam) - Their space suits are not as good as Zeons - Extremely limited amount of endgame suits - The HQ Jaburo in South America is under constant threat and if that one is lost it is game over - Zeon can and will contest the oceans without a good counter - The AI loves sending its Gundam Marines to Tibet Principality of Zeon In the Grand campaign your first duty as Zeon is to take over certain key objectives on Earth. Luckily or unluckily - depending on whom we play - in the Pilot campaigns Ghiren did his homework and this is already done. Horray! So Zeon. Zeon is a weird faction to play. Most of our fun toys are only usable in space, but space is almost fully under control. Our land based grunt suits are mostly inferior to the Feddies, but to counter that we get a dozen different aquatic suits. In the midgame when tanks have become obsolete, we get access to good tanks. So what I am saying is: Zeon is the land of weirdass suits that allow us to have fun in unconventional ways. In more conventional ways we could simply out produce the Feds and send wave after wave of Zakus after them as our quite high production limits allow that. In fact the only suits that are limited to 1 are pilot specific suits, but then there are usually three or four pilot variants of a suit. Our suits are also incredibly cheap. A grunt suit is half the cost of the Federation equivalent while an Ace suit costs a quarter of a Gundam. They won't hold a candle in direct 1 on 1 combat until the very late game, but who cares when you can just bring three more in. So Zeon will be a fun faction if you like human wave tactics or just want to do completely unorthodox stuff. Advantages of Zeon: + Very powerful space suits + Space is already done + Our HQ is in a very safe position, in space + Can out produce the Federation Disadvantages of Zeon - Suits are weak until the mid and endgame - Some of our Aces are lemons - Our earth based mobile suit carriers are a cruel joke So I keep talking about pilots and aces - and we need to vote on our main character, but before that let's take a look at two aces to explain their stats:   Meet Kamille Bidan and Gopp. The former is a DLC character and we will therefore never see him again. Gopp on the other hand got infamous in the predecessor to this game as he had straight up zeros in many stats and the others not much higher. So in the upper right we have the rank of the character. This will be important for us in the pilot campaigns. There are 12 ranks: Rank 12 大将 (General) Rank 11 中将 (Lieutenant General) Rank 10 少将 (Major General) Rank 09 大佐 (Colonel) Rank 08 中佐 (Lieutenant Colonel) Rank 07 少佐 (Major) Rank 06 大尉 (Captain) Rank 05 中尉 (Lieutenant) Rank 04 少尉 (Ensign) Rank 03 曹長 (Sergeant Major) Rank 02 軍曹 (Sergeant) Rank 01 伍長 (Corporal) Rank 00 一般 (Civilian) As we can see Gopp is an Admiral while Kamille is only an Ensign. This means that if Gopp was our main character he would have higher income than Kamille. But it also means, that he could recruit Kamille under his direct control, while this would not work the other way around. As a character can only recruit another ace that is lower rank than himself. This will give us a lot more flexibility if we select a character of high rank as our main character. Rank also influences who actually gets the boni of the first two stats, only the highest ranking officer counts, regardless of whenever the stats are higher or lower. The area of influence is also bigger the higher the rank. Speaking of stats in order from top to bottom: Command - gives general in combat boni to other units in range Morale - influences Morale loss and gain of other units in range. Morale is a general in combat bonus Shooting - influences damage and accuracy of ranged attacks, so most attacks actually Melee - influences damage and accuracy of melee attacks Vitality - is a very small bonus to damage taken, also influences how quickly a character is available again after getting shot down Reflex - is a big bonus to evading attacks and generally the most important stat in a mobile suit ace At the bottom left we have how good an ace is with various unit types, in order from left to right: Mobile Suit, Mobile Armor, Tank, Plane, Ship At the bottom right we have individual skills the pilot has, and to be honest there are too many to list them all here. So let's actually meet the pilots whose campaigns we can play: Amuro Ray  Faction: Federation | Starting Location: Madras, India | Starting Rank: 00-Civilian Skill: Performance Unleash - Mech Limit +20% (generally makes us fight better) and gives him a 15% chance to use each weapon an additional time Amuro is the main character of the Anime and therefore has some of the best stats and skills in the game. Unlike the anime we have to deliver the Gundam successfully to Jaburo. This means we will be torn apart from the White Base crew but we get access to our own little strike team only consisting out of Kai and Hayato. + Our Pilot is one of the best in the game + Both of our wingmen are good - Due to our rank our recruitment options are thin (but even the low rank Federation pilots are mostly workable) - We won't have access to a ship captain for a while. Hayato can cover that job though - Extremely low income - The AI may lose Jaburo or other important bases while we are not around as we cannot cover multiple fronts Bright Noa  Faction: Federation | Starting Location: Jaburo, South America | Starting Rank: 04-Ensign Skills: Scolding performance - can exchange his own fatigue for morale in surrounding units Elite - Gains 20% more EXP and Rank points In the Anime Bright was the commanding officer of Amuro and commanding the White Base mobile suit carrier. A job he got after the actual commander of the ship was taken out of duty due to a Zeon attack. He is still commander of the White Base and like Amuro has to bring the ship and the Gundam to Jaburo. Unlike Amuro though he is allowed to keep his entire team around. This is essence an easier scenario of Amuros. + We start with good free starting units + Our starting pool of pilots is quite excellent + We can recruit even more good pilots - Our hero is a captain not a mobile suit pilot so he will have problems to gain rank and exp (despite the elite skill) - Bright has good but not awesome stats Tem Ray  Faction: Federation | Starting Location: Jaburo, South America | Starting Rank: 06-Captian Skills: Weapon Investigation - Gives research for enemy units when scanning an enemy (Useless as far as I know as we cannot use enemy research points) Doctors Degree - Can upgrade all combat related stats of an unit for free when parked inside a base Tem Ray is the father of both Amuro and the Gundam. In the anime he found his early demise during Zeons first attack on the site where the Gundam was stored, a fate we can change if we play as him. He is the head scientist of the federation, so if we play as him we not only have to take care of our lil squad but also the entire Federation research comes out of our personal budget. This would be awesome if he kept the research tree his faction had in the predecessor. (He could built EVERY suit in the game) Here he only has access to Federation suits and the feddie research tree is rather boring. + We can guide the research of the Federation + High rank, therefore good income and a huge list of recruits + Gigantic starting pile of money - The research budget comes from our personal income - Has rather terrible stats for a frontline mobile suit pilot and will probably die to a stray bullet Char Aznable  Faction: Zeon | Starting Location: USA, North America | Starting Rank: 07-Major Skills: Warfare Incitement - Can give surrounding units +30 morale in cost for fatigue Initial Stage Newtype - Has a special command to scan units and can use Newtype weaponry High Speed - Movement +1 Char is the rival of Amuro Ray and the best pilot on Zeons side. His starting scenario has him facing alone against the White Base and the Gundam crew, a task he is up to. He is not exactly loyal to the Zabi family leading Zeon so in the Anime he used the White Base as means to get rid of one of their high ranking commanders instead of capturing. A route we will not follow. + Starts with a high level + Extremely good stats + Rather high rank - There is a scenario win flag if Garma dies. This one may not properly clear so we may have to protect his rear end. Garma Zabi  Faction: Zeon | Starting Location: USA, North America | Starting Rank: 09-Colonel Skill: Radiance of the Family - Gains +60% rank points and recovers 2% HP and energy per turn Ah yes, the sexy poster boy of Zeon. Garma is a member of the ruling family and in the Anime found his demise extremely early thanks to bad intel while hunting the White Base. A fate we will certainly be able to avoid and after he takes out the secret Federation project his brothers and sister will surely respect him. + Can reasonably recruit almost all Zeon aces (thanks to his skill we can grind him to General and therefore the only person we cannot get is the big man Ghiren himself) + Pretty good income thanks to his rank - Rather bad starting stats and his stat grow is rather lopsided towards the end and concentrates more on support than actual combat stats - All his starting troops are planes. We will have to scrap his entire army The Black Tri-Stars    Faction: Zeon | Starting Location: Odessa, Eastern Europe | Starting Rank: 06-Captain Skills: High Speed - +1 Movement Three suit cooperation - +30% to all stats as long as two other units with the same skill are in the stack Ah yes, three Aces for the price of one. Well technically only Gaia is our hero, but we game over when one of them dies. Their campaign starts a bit later than the other Zeon heroes, so our first job is the defense of Odessa, taking the White Base there and then the man General Revil himself. The defense of Odessa is not too difficult because Revil mostly brings tanks. + All three aces we start with are good but not invincible + The three suit cooperation skill is incredible as long as we can keep them together +/- Starts a bit later, so better units are available for both sides from the beginning - Low income M'Quave  Faction: Zeon | Starting Location: Odessa, Eastern Europe | Starting Rank: 08-Lieutenant Colonel Skills: Shield user - 5% extra chance to ignore damage when in a suit with shield Negotiation Technique - Bases taken over by him lose 80% less upgrades The slime ball with the unpronounceable name. He loves nuclear weapons, despite them being banned. Sadly(?) in the pilot campaigns there is not too much opportunity to use them. Another thing he loves is looting artifacts. So generally, he is a bad person. He starts like the Black Tri Stars in Odessa trying to defend it against General Revil. + Huge starting army + High rank, therefore good income and recruit options +/- Starts a bit later, so better units are available for both sides from the beginning - Some Zeon aces are already dead at our starting date - While his starting army is huge, it mostly consists of old outdated units ? I have never leveled M'quave. Therefore I cannot say if his stats ever get out of the mediocre realm Now if you have played the game before, your keen eye may realize there is one Ace missing from the list of 0079 scenarios: Ramba Ral. The reason for that is pretty simple. I am unable to win his opening chapter reliably and if I do it is around turn 30. So attention Goon High Command! It is voting time! Decide which side you want to be on and choose our main character. (In Bold so I can see those votes easier.)
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Mar 24, 2022 22:44
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drat we dont get to pick the Gouf Troop? Shame. That being said I'm puttin a vote for them black tri-star boys. Rigged Death Trap fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Mar 24, 2022 |
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Mar 24, 2022 23:01
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Voting for the Earth Federation and Bright Noa He seems fairly balanced and gives us some reasonable things to start with and seems like he'll be more effective down the line as well. He also means that we'll have to be somewhat more careful in the field which makes for some more balanced play. But also more forces give us more flexibility and to adapt our playstyle. Early on he seems to give us a lot more options given decent starting forces so we're not on the back foot
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Mar 24, 2022 23:55
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Going to vote for Char Aznable, if only because I want to see his goofy helmet every update possible. Seems to be the best option to see the full Zeon campaign since we are missing out on Ramba Ral.
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Mar 25, 2022 00:04
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Throwing in a curveball vote for Tem Ray. If we decide what is researched, and have a higher rank, maybe we can keep the rest of the Federation from driving into a wall?
Justtoreadthanks fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Mar 25, 2022 |
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Mar 25, 2022 02:15
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Happy Litterbox, they are a CHAR
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Mar 25, 2022 03:09
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We gotta do Char
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Mar 25, 2022 03:24
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I'd rather beat in Char's face than be him! It's funner and therapeutic!
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Mar 25, 2022 05:41
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wedgekree posted:I'd rather beat in Char's face than be him! It's funner and therapeutic! I love Char, he's a terrible person in so many ways. Please kick the poo poo out of him, and do it with the full White Base crew. Sayla needs to be in on the poo poo-kicking action. Earth Federation and Bright Noa.
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Mar 25, 2022 05:56
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don't know much about the show, so Tri-Stars. Because they seem neat. 
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Mar 25, 2022 05:59
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Viola the Mad posted:I love Char, he's a terrible person in so many ways. Please kick the poo poo out of him, and do it with the full White Base crew. Sayla needs to be in on the poo poo-kicking action. Earth Federation and Bright Noa. in fairness, so is every depicted ace in the op except kamille and maybe the tri stars. well, amuro at this point in the timeline i guess just mostly sucks for being a teen who's going through it reasons, he hasn't become Full Cop Brain yet
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Mar 25, 2022 06:08
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Nea posted:in fairness, so is every depicted ace in the op except kamille and maybe the tri stars. well, amuro at this point in the timeline i guess just mostly sucks for being a teen who's going through it reasons, he hasn't become Full Cop Brain yet wait is Garma a lovely dude
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Mar 25, 2022 07:56
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Ramba Ral is my second choice. Ms. Ral is my first. But I guess I can still vote for the Black Tri-Stars.
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Mar 25, 2022 08:03
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Let's go for the package deal of Black Tri-Stars, it's triple the amount of aces as any other choice, so it's gotta be good! This was always one of those kinda games that sounded interesting but would require a few hoops too many for me to jump through to give a try. (Not helped that I haven't watched much Gundam, so I will just take the events of this LP as being the canon ones  )
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Mar 25, 2022 15:42
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I'd vote for Garma but since it looks like no one likes him, lets go with Bright Noa so we can see a full feddie campaign.
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Mar 25, 2022 16:09
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Viola the Mad posted:I love Char, he's a terrible person in so many ways. Please kick the poo poo out of him, and do it with the full White Base crew. Sayla needs to be in on the poo poo-kicking action. Earth Federation and Bright Noa. This. Screw mobile suits, more battleships.
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Mar 25, 2022 16:51
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KaosMachina posted:wait is Garma a lovely dude On the other hand, he has a shower scene in every show he appears in. Soo: Zakrelo posted:I'd vote for Garma but since it looks like no one likes him, lets go with Bright Noa so we can see a full feddie campaign. RBA Starblade posted:This. Screw mobile suits, more battleships.  . Battleships can be devastating. If they hit. Their hit chances are terrible. The AI will also try to steal all battleship slots from us. 
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Mar 25, 2022 17:42
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Sure, I'll go with the Black Tri-stars. Sounds like a fun time.
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Mar 25, 2022 18:55
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I cant seem to find a video of the dub for the relevant scene but https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqv9G3MHC0E&t=57s Do recommend anyone not familiar with the boys listen to this just to know how they sound.
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Mar 25, 2022 21:11
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Char. Look at all these souls held down by gravity.
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Mar 25, 2022 22:08
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Viola the Mad posted:I love Char, he's a terrible person in so many ways. Please kick the poo poo out of him, and do it with the full White Base crew. Sayla needs to be in on the poo poo-kicking action. Earth Federation and Bright Noa. Fourthing/fifthing this.
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Mar 25, 2022 23:18
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Excuse me, but I'll have you know that Char has never betrayed anyone in his life! He said so himself!
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Mar 26, 2022 01:30
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Char or Garma, the one good Zabi
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Mar 26, 2022 02:02
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I can't help but go with Char. Sorry about what's gonna happen Garma. Blame it on the misfortune of your birth.
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Mar 26, 2022 02:57
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Kaboom Dragoon posted:Excuse me, but I'll have you know that Char has never betrayed anyone in his life! He said so himself! That wasn't Char, that was Quattro Bajeena, who is clearly not Char Aznable.
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Mar 26, 2022 03:19
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Bright Noa, while I enjoy Char, I would rather see us play as a ship commander, and I am a Bright fan.
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Mar 26, 2022 05:18
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Intermission 01 - Ramba Ral This time we are playing as Ramba Ral. Or rather, I will show why we do not do an entire campaign as Ramba Ral and explain some mechanics while we're at it. Our friend Ramba is one of the most experienced aces in Zeon's army. He already served when the Zabis were not yet in power. In game this is reflected by a high level and having some of the highest stats on Zeon's side. In the anime he was after Char and Garma, the third major antagonist to face Amuro and the Gundam. That is where we start the game.  Welcome to Shin Gihren's Greed - Ramba Rals Scenario!  10.06.0079 - At the orders of Vice Admiral Dozle Zabi a battleship rushes through the atmosphere.  Its target is the Federation's Operation V. Its Trojan Horse and Mobile Suit.  Only two days ago Garma Zabi, Commander of Zeons Earth forces was killed in battle with the Trojan Horse.  Before we can start we get a small talking section in which Ramba asks if there is any news. One of his wingmen informs him that they have found a ship that is not in Zeon's identification tables. It must be the rumored Trojan Horse. Hamon, Ral's wife/lover/girlfriend (the show is never clear on their relationship), notices that this might be a good chance to avenge Garmas death. They discuss whether to engage with it, but they are bound by Vice Admiral Dozle's orders.  This screen tells us our mission: Avenge Garma Zabi! Take out the suits and ship of Operation V. In the lower right corner this is specified as taking out the Trojan Horse. Mind that it does not specifically call out to destroy the suits - so we'll concentrate on the ship. There is also our defeat condition: our ship being destroyed or Ramba Ral being killed in action.  We also get informed that the Trojan Horse is fleeing from North America which is a Zeon stronghold. The high command is also warning us to be careful as they do not know how strong Operation V is. How nice of them! They should know better at this point though. The Trojan Horse has defeated one of Zeon's aces and took out most of his team. Garma, a member of the ruling family and army commander was killed by them as well.  Now this is our starting situation. We are in Alaska and to be honest I am not sure if this is actually where Ramba and Amuro clashed. This means we are far away from territory where our troops, or enemy troops are. One benefit we have is that the cities nearby are already under our control and we can park units on them to regain health and energy. We have a Zanzibar Battleship and on board are four mechs.  Let's take a look at the hero of the hour. Ramba in his bog standard Gouf. In the upper left we have a value in percent that pretty much decides on how good a pilot will be in that machine. It goes from 100% to 200% and I am not sure exactly how it is calculated. In the PS2 Gihren's Greed this meant that stats are capped after a certain value. Here it feels more like a multiplier. On the center left we have the stats of the machine. From top to bottom they are HP - Pretty self-explanatory Speed - The higher the better, we need all the evade we can get Movement - How far the unit can move on the map per turn. Mind that this can be lowered or raised by terrain Supply - When this runs to 0 we can no longer shoot or move. Moving and attacking reduces this Supply consumption - The amount of supply we lose when we act To the right of that is a weird graphic that shows where a unit can move and shoot. The Gouf for example can move on ground, but not in water, air or space. It can shoot at air units though. Generally I am ignoring this unless I am specifically searching for a unit that can go into water or space. At the bottom are the attacks a unit has. We have a rather weak ranged attack that is also unreliable and two melee attacks that actually hurt. The problem with melee is that it is resolved after ranged combat and can only be used against units that also fight on ground or space. His skills are Close Combat - Gives a 30% chance to get another melee hit in (So his 50x2 and 70x1 may turn into 50x3 and 70x2 respectively) and 10% better hit chance Guerilla Tactics - Gives +10% to all combat stats when fighting in desert, forests or mountains. Also gives +15% evade to all units in his area of influence and makes him more difficult to scan which is a moot point against the AI. Bravery - Gains morale faster while his enemies lose after an encounter. Also gives units in his area of influence extra 30% accuracy and additionally +10 morale if said unit is male. I haven't talked about morale yet, but you start with 0 and then it gradually builds up over the campaign until shot down. It's a general stat boost. I've already explained pilot stats. Generally though Ramba is an excellent pilot with only one exception: His reflexes and therefore his evade rate is lower than desired. His three skills may evolve into even better variants on higher levels but these are great.  Our Zanzibar-class battleship is under command of Hamon. Man, I hate the Zanzibar. It is the only all-terrain battleship Zeon gets and it is terrible. Its HP and evade are lower than other battleships but I can live with that. The real bummer is the weaponry. Two out of its three weapons can only hit air targets and they are not reliable or damaging. The pilot on the other hand is very workable. Good ranged attack, ludicrous evade for a battleship captain. The former is needed, the latter is a bit wasted on battleships, but hey, she can jump into Mobile Suits as well. Her commanding stats are pretty good as well. There is one problem with those though: They do nothing right now as her rank is civilian. She would need some promotions before those start affecting other units. Her skills are: - Power of Love - According to the gamefaqs guide that lists skills this increases her stats by +10% if a love interest is in the same stack. How the game decides a love interest I do not know. Let's just assume that is Ramba. - Charm of a woman - Male characters in her zone of influence have +10 morale (useless as of now she has no zone of influence) and gains rank points 10% faster. (uh, yeah.  )Let's take a look at the other machines and wingmen we have.  Here we have Clamp in a standard Zaku II J which is currently equipped with a sniper rifle. This machine is bad. Just look at the low evade and HP. Its saving grace is that it is one of Zeons few units with an attack range of two. But anything that looks at it funny will make it explode. For Clamp himself, he is serviceable. Half a Ramba, in essence. His skills are: Artillery - When attacking at range 3 or more +10% hit chance (not happening with the current Suit load out) Power of Loyalty - If a senior officer is in the same stack +10% to all stats (Not sure if this means higher rank ace in general or just Ramba)  Cozun in another standard Zaku II J, this time equipped with an assault rifle. Which gives him more movement and slightly more evade. Despite that he is in constant threat of exploding. The offense options now include melee and more varied attacks. For the pilot himself, he is clearly in "meh" territory. His skills are: - Covert Action - 10% more difficult to scan. Useless. - Power of Loyalty - See Clamp  Acous has the same machine as Cozun. Like him he is just "eh." His skills are: - Reconnaissance Tech - 10% higher chance to successfully scan. Now if he only had a suit that can do that. - Power of Loyalty - See Clamp  Our opposition is unknown for now. We know though it is a carrier with three units on board. As long as an enemy is unknown we take a noticeable penalty to hitting it. We have two ways of making an enemy known: we scan it, the chances of doing that are rather middling and only battleships and certain units, mostly those of which a faction can only produce one of, can do it. The other one is going into melee, which automatically scans a unit. Those who know a bit of Gundam know what we are facing though. It is a White Base carrier, the Gundam, a Guntank and a Guncannon. Before we engage there is a thing we have to do though. The units we currently have can switch between different modes.  Shown here is the third type of Zaku II. It gains a Bazooka instead of an assault rifle which has the same damage output but a slightly higher chance to hit at the cost of mobility and evade. Not a great tradeoff. We will go with the sniper rifle instead because we need the extra range.  Ramba's Gouf gets modified from his close combat variant which has an extra melee attack into this more mobile version, for a simple reason: we cannot go into melee with the enemy carrier.  Our attack plan for this turn is very simple. Ramba and his crew hop out of the Zanzibar and attack. This is where the extra range of the sniper rifles will come in handy as otherwise we would not be able to engage the enemy as we cannot move far in the mountainous terrain. Hamon meanwhile parks her ship on top of the northern city and also fires at the enemy.  Unexpectedly the enemy counterattacks Ramba instead of Hamon for no damage at all. Meanwhile our combined attack takes off one eighth of their HP. Also pictured: Ramba in his Gouf doing nothing as he cannot reach the enemy - the other two Zakus were already done shooting when I took the screenshot.  On the enemy turn the Federation acts similar to us, they unload everything and start shooting at our carrier. We get the option to defend or counter. Hidden under the prompt is another enemy stack, two long ranged units that also engage us.  As we can only counter at one range, defending is the way to go. It was worthwhile as the enemy takes out a good chunk of our HP. These enemy units hurt.  The plan for the next turn is pretty simple. Move in and take out that carrier. Also, the enemy unit is now colored which means we identified it. Hamons scan command worked on it. So let's take a look.  Meet the Gundam. It is truly a monster. It has four times the HP and Speed of our Zaku IIs and is even outclassing Ramba's Gouf. It is also highly accurate and has enough firepower to take out several Zakus per turn. There is only one possible reaction to the words "Gundam sighted":  Amuro, the pilot of the Gundam may only be Level 2 at this point but he is already outclassing all three of our wingmen and this will only get worse as he levels up. We cannot see his skills because he is an enemy unit, but I know that his skill set starts out very good and gets completely bonkers at maximum level. So our reaction to "Amuro sighted" should be: This is only one of the four units the Federation has deployed here and we are already outgunned by it alone. I will show off the other three units later - but let's assume for now that we are fighting unknowns of equal strength.   Our next engagement with the carrier goes much better. We were actually able to take out a good chunk out of their HP. Actually this is going way better than my usual Ramba Ral attempts - despite the penalty from the carrier being unscanned. The hit rate RNG is on our side. During the enemy turn Hamon and the carrier fire at each other for negligible damage. The Gundam's action though is attacking Ramba's crew. We decide to defend instead to counter.  But to no avail, while the Gundams ranged attacks mostly miss. Amuro charges into melee range and slices Acous Zaku apart. Luckily melee attacks can only target one enemy so he did not get a chance to put his sword into another Zaku. While I am pondering how to deal with this blow, on the next turn I get interrupted by a story scene.  Ramba claims that we have enough combat data and we should retreat using a flash grenade. After that, he is pondering if we were fighting amateurs because the enemy did not act like a professional army. Technically I have to agree. Amuro and friends are level 1. They are a one man army though. Several one man armies. Also goddamn Ramba. We almost had them! We needed just one more turn!  We get info that the enemy’s carrier, the Trojan Horse, has disappeared and Zeon is unable to find it thus far. Our official goal is regrouping.  Our grand retreat was one hex and positioning Hamon behind Ramba. Oh well, we are where we started minus one Zaku.  On the next turn we get the order to move our Zanzibar to Vladivostok.  Because I'm a psychic I moved towards there on the last turn already. As one will quickly realize, this will take a few turns.  Taking a closer look at Vladivostok I see two big problems incoming: a) That circle of six hexes blue with a silver one in the middle. That is a Federation base. It is where the Feddies produce and deploy units. Vladivostok is inside its direct defense perimeter which means the AI will send out units from the base to hunt down our units that get close. That in itself would not be a problem if it was not for the second point. b) There is a two stack of enemy units lead by what seems to be a tank. The tank itself is not a problem our Zakus munch on that like a Gundam does on Zakus. Circle of life, baby! The problem is that the tank has moved out of the base. This means that a certain turn threshold has passed. Now, why is this important? Gihren's Greed has a rule that the AI does not move on the world map for the first few turns which allows the player to bring their units in the grand campaign or finish most intros to the pilot scenarios without getting disturbed. The AI will now move freely and attack us while we are still in intro mode. These two points combined mean that we need to be clever to land in Vladivostok, else the Federation sends the entire far eastern defense after our single Zanzibar. Technically the Zeon AI is now also active, but the Beijing base is not high on their priority list and the nearest Zeon base is in Odessa anyway. Additionally we are still in pilot and not commander mode. This means we cannot produce additional troops. So the battle is on: Two Zakus (+ a Gouf + a Zanzibar) vs. the entire Federation. We'll take a look at that another time though. I'll say this much though, this is the part of Ramba's scenario that is alright. The time limit you have to take out the White Base is incredibly strict. One extra turn would make this less dependent on whether the RNG rolls completely in your favor and more a game of "keep Ramba alive under the onslaught of the Gundam." Before we close out: Here are the stats of the units we were not able to scan. I took those screenshots in Amuro's Campaign so their rank may not be accurate.  This is the Trojan Horse, aka the White Base, under command of Bright Noa. Bright is one of the better battleship captains in the game; he starts at low level though. The ship itself at first looks similar to our Zanzibar. It's just a tiny bit better in every regard, except for offensive firepower. This thing actually hurts if it hits and it's better at that than us as well.  Kai Shiden in the Guncannon. This is essentially a long range mobile suit. While it is not a Gundam it is still a monster and the range is huge. We have nothing that can counter this beast. Our units get attacked while moving in and even when in close combat it can still counter reliably. With Kai there is the ideal pilot in it. He may have low stats at the moment but he turns into a ranged expert and can actually evade.  Last of the bunch: Hayato in the Guntank. Veterans of the PS2 Gihren's Greed will probably remember this thing fondly as it's one of the best early game units. Here it's just a budget Guncannon. It still hurts on range but it cannot really move, evade or fight in close combat. Even in long range combat it is slightly worse. It is still dangerous though. The pilot Hayato is an odd bird. While he does perfectly well as range specialist his stats in the endgame are more akin to a battleship captain. In Amuro's scenario he is one of your better options for that as he got an "A" at commanding ships. Not having an S is slightly disappointing though.
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Mar 26, 2022 15:33
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Hoo boy, this game. I tried to play a bit of the Zeon grand campaign and quickly realized that I couldn't get anywhere after about ten turns or so.
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Mar 26, 2022 19:03
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Koorisch posted:Hoo boy, this game. Intermediate voting results: Bright Noa - 6 (wedgekree; Viola the Mad; Zakrelo; RBA Starblade; Meaty Ore; wokow6) Tem Ray - 1 (Justtoreadthanks) Char Aznable - 8 (Bulborbish; Ibblebibble; Nea; RevolverDivider; Kaboom Dragoon; mcclay?; Deep Dish Fuckfest) Garma - 1 (mcclay?) Black Tri Stars - 5 (Rigged Death Trap; Arcanuse; habituallyred; Greader; Cyflan) Voting will go on until I post the second Ramba Ral intermission which will probably in the middle of next week.
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Mar 26, 2022 20:42
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I wish to vote Garma, but considering things, I must go for Char. This makes me sad. I am sad. So 
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Mar 26, 2022 22:53
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It's time to FINALLY ride the rainbow with Bright Noa's story.
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Mar 26, 2022 23:24
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Adding my futile vote for Tem RayHappy Litterbox posted:Said peace talks were busted up by a certain General Revil of the Federation who has barely escaped captivity and has firsthand seen how tattered the Zeon forces are and inspired the Federation to fight back against the vastly overstretched Zeon. Happy Litterbox posted:Earth Federation
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Mar 27, 2022 00:08
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Got big on Ghiren's Greed on the PSP. Really enjoyable, comparatively this one seems like it's maybe a bit older but has different features.
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Mar 27, 2022 02:51
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Gimme my Bright!
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Mar 27, 2022 03:44
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IIRC Ramba and Amuro fight somewhere in Central Asia in the anime.
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Mar 27, 2022 04:15
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Ibblebibble posted:IIRC Ramba and Amuro fight somewhere in Central Asia in the anime. That's true, but their first encounter is just after Garma's funeral. White base sets off from across the Pacific, Ramba reenters Earth in the Zanzibar, and they fight the white base team for a bit. In the anime, it's poorly placed, because you have the white base leaving Seattle to cross the Pacific, fighting the skirmish against ramba ral (and having the hilarious moment of no one knowing what lightning is), then they break off. Ramba continues to Asia, and the white base loops back to Canada, and has the episodes with Amuro's mother and the chill Zeon guys that plant bombs on the Gundam. Only then does the white base attempt a second crossing of the Pacific (encountering Cucuruz Doan along the way), and then to central Asia, where they fight several more times. In the movies, it's a little more streamlined, as they don't have that first aborted crossing, and they encounter Ramba in the north Pacific on their first crossing attempt, after dealing with Amuro's mother. Unless you're commenting about the fact that we're in East Asia right now, and not central Asia. Then you can ignore my info dump.
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Mar 27, 2022 11:21
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Ah Gihren's Ambition/Greed, a franchise I have much love and history with. These days most of the playthroughs I see are narrative-driven playthroughs with wild stories. Shin Gihren is a sad game, it's not bad at all, but they were clearly attempting to use DLC to prop the series up and just... didn't have it happen.
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Mar 27, 2022 14:29
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General Revil posted:That's true, but their first encounter is just after Garma's funeral. White base sets off from across the Pacific, Ramba reenters Earth in the Zanzibar, and they fight the white base team for a bit. Don't forget the version from The Origin. They confront Garma in L.A. (also Amuro's home is near the US/Mexico border) then head south toward Jaburo, detouring around the west side of the Andes due to Zeon AA coverage; the attacks by Ramba Ral and the Black Tri-Stars occur along the way. Flows a lot better and makes more sense given that they were supposed to be headed for Jaburo in the first place anyhow.
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Mar 27, 2022 16:25
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Intermission 02 - Why we are not playing the Gouf Troop Welcome to our scheduled flight from Anchorage to Vladivostok. Due to unforeseen war activity we have to take a small detour towards Japan. We are sorry for the inconvenience.  There are tanks rampaging through the city, we are therefore forced into a holding pattern over northern Japan. We could attack the tank, but with the offensive power of our Zanzibar it would take several turns and there are Federation reinforcements on their way. One of their Medea transport planes is already here to intercept us.  The Medea is nothing to write home about. It has no staying nor attacking power. At least the Feds have found a job for their numerous plane aces. Hi Antonio Callas!  Welp, as expected here are the reinforcements. Luckily for us it's just a few planes which are not particularly good. They are from the turn 0 starting stock of the Federation. Reminder that those are the only kind of forces a Federation grand campaign has in the beginning; they cannot build anything better. In this mode they have access to better stuff. Also pictured, the tank rampage has decided to go to greener pastures. If we got into its range it would have stayed in Vladivostok. Meanwhile in the   A random Federation scout found a lonely Zaku and engaged. Doan and his outdated unique Melee-Zaku stood no chance against the plane and was destroyed. We now have to find a new name for Doan's Island.  Looking at the stats of said plane, it's a mystery to me how that happened. While the Cucuruz Doan Custom Zaku is not very good, it should survive. If we are doing a Zeon campaign I will build one of those because its attack animations are hilarious. (Reminder to myself: figure out how to do the battles in a gif.)  Meanwhile in space: The Zeon high command has decided to move the remainder of the earth landing troops towards Luna II. I'm curious as to how this will go as Luna II is very well defended. I'm angry too, because those troops could descend onto east Asia and would be nearby.  Back in Vladivostok my ruse worked and we can fly towards our destination. Luckily the Federation positioned no troops directly north of us. Otherwise, the zone of control of their units would have hindered our advance.  The Federation have now mobilized even more troops to stop us. But all the damage the Zanzibar takes now doesn't matter as long as it doesn't get destroyed.  At the end of (nearly) every single turn is something that annoys me and is placed here so it can annoy you as much as it does me: The Federation attacks the Zeon base in Hawaii. The Federation rarely brings enough troops to actually take it. Go away with your single submarine and two balls! According to the numbers on the left Zeon outnumbers you five to one. At least you brought an ace, but we have one too. Hawaii is usually a big meatgrinder. The defenders have ground based units on the central island while the attacker comes in with water based units. So while the attacker cannot enter the island or gets quickly blown to pieces, the defender isn't really able to throw the attackers completely out unless he competes on building many water units. Pure water units also have a ludicrous movement range of like 15 hexes so Hawaii's central location in the pacific means it's only one or two turns away from a lot of other bases. Right now it is under Zeon control and San Fransisco can send reinforcements quickly while the Federation has Torrington in Australia and Beijing in immediate range. So even if it flips control the battle will rage on just with the defender and attacker role switched. It may just be a feeling but Hawaii seems to be high up on the AI's priority list. Back to our scheduled programming:  Our battered down Zanzibar is retired and we get a Gallop land battleship instead. While I'm eh on the unit itself it has full HP.  Let's take a look: it's slow as a snail in combat and will not evade anything. That HP pool is also very small for a battleship. At least it has firepower. And range is something Zeon rarely brings. I will probably not build any of these during our full campaign because it is ludicrously expensive for what it is.  Ramba and his troops are informed by M'quave's underlings that the Trojan Horse changed directions and we will resume the hunt.  It is now on the world map again in Mongolia. Not too far away, if we could only get rid of our pursuers from Beijing.  We make our way north, away from all those Feddies while attacking enemies we outrange. Thank god for that range three cannon.  After a two turns meddling with the Beijing defense we are already at half HP. This is not going well.  This city here is the reason why we are going north instead of straight west. See how the city further south has no connection to any other city that Zeon controls? Well as long as there is no supply line that city wouldn't recover our health and energy, and we need recovery badly.  Most of the pursuing force has turned around. These numbers we can handle way better.  Especially if we continue to take them out. That is one plane less.  We are going west! So is our prey though. Or rather they're going southwest. Far away from us. Stop running and stay here!  We are engaging more silly planes. See that bomb to the left of our Gallop? I forgot that certain Feddie bombers actually have ranged attacks. However that works if they just open a hatch at the bottom to release them. I guess they are far enough up that earth's rotation helps them. At least, that is how I screw up my landings in Kerbal Space Program.  Oh hey, the Feddies are now attacking New  West we go! More importantly though: Gundam sighted! Correction: Two Gundams sighted! There is a Ground Gundam in sniper mode to the left.  Scrolling a bit to the side we can see Odessa. Allied territory is nearby! So are allied troops! Yay!  We are catching up and got rid of the units following us. Another piece of good news: One of the Gundams disappeared. It's now safely tucked away in the belly of the Trojan beast.  We are finally in firing range! All cannons fire!  Not too much effect though.  Stop running away! God drat it Bright, give me the fight I deserve! Something in the back of my head whispers: "Do not pursue Lu Bu." But I decide to ignore it.  Well it is time to use a game mechanic we have not used before. While we are in pilot mode we cannot build new units. (Man, I wish I had some Doms right now. But alas.) What we can do though is requesting control over an unit for a single turn. It doesn't even cost much. We have 30200, uh, let's say Canadian Dollars so those 122 for control over a Magellan tank is like nothing.  We have requested the control over everything vaguely in the area, attack with everything that can hit the Trojan Horse and move everything not in range further east. Note the unit in the upper left that is not dark grey. That is M'Quave who outranks us and therefore we cannot request his help.  Hey we actually got control over an ace. Hi Tokwan! He is part of the group which couldn't attack the Trojan Horse this turn and is attacking the Ground Gundam together with an unnamed Gouf pilot.  After shooting at the Gundam, which does not retaliate, they rush in.  The Gouf strikes first taking out a good chunk of health from the Gundam, and then our allied ace comes in with his Desert Zaku and actually fells the beast. It has happened! A Gundam has fallen! The beast is not invincible!  Out of all the options presented the Trojan Horse has decided to counter the Acguy under water. Our combined force has reduced them to half HP. While Bright not only forgot that he does less damage to opponents under water, he also misses.  It is now the Federation's turn and we have already lost control over all the units we requested control over. So we cannot decide if they will defend or attack. One thing about the AI though, it will always counterattack if it can. Our Gallop will defend for one simple reason: Gundam sighted! And it's coming for us! Hayato's Guntank and Kai's Guncannon ignore us for now and go for the Zaku Mariner to the west. Hey, I didn't realize there were Doms around. M'Quave, hand those over! The Zaku Mariner is out of its element and gets shot down while the Dom takes some damage.  Well it's Amuro's turn and quite frankly I did not expect him to blow us up in a single round of combat.  The Gallop getting destroyed is a game over condition. But Hamon has a ace in her sleeve: she keeps the thing running with a spare engine and turns it into... this thing.  The Gallop with tanks on top (where did those even come from?) is even worse than the original. But we are still in the fight and that is all that counts.  We are requesting all the troops again and tuck our ejected Zakus back into the safety of the Gallop.  Ramba on the other hand does something else. Our hero goes for the kill! (I would have sent in the Zakus as well, but they did not have enough range.)  Our combined forces under Ramba attack... and fail to take out White Base again. A sliver of health remains. Next turn we will get it.  On the Federation turn Bright runs away again and Amuro comes for Ramba together with his two wingmen. The Guntank and Guncannon hit him several times reducing his HP to half. After that Amuro rushes in, whiffs the first strike, gets his second sword slash blocked by Rambas shield, but his third attempt leads to a direct hit.  The Blue Giant has fallen.  Due to the death of our Hero the mission has become impossible... Let's go back a turn. Shall we?  This time we park Ramba's Gouf in the Gallop as well.  Nothing else about our attack plan changes.  Despite lack of Rambas firepower White Base goes down. Random number generator, please.  While our initial mission target is down the turn continues.  Amuro really seems to love attacking Ramba, he goes for him despite him being parked safely in a hangar.  Surprisingly enough the Frankengallop did hold unlike the Gouf or the original Gallop. Now the game reacts to White Base going down.  Our troop confirms that the Trojan Horse has gone down and report that to Dozle while giving each other a clap on the shoulder for a job well done.  Ramba gets a promotion to Lt. Colonel, Hamon goes straight to Major and the rest of the crew go up one rank. We also recieve 20000 bucks.    We also recieve information that the other Project-V suits were abandoned and we were able to capture them netting us some extra money.  Oh we also get the units themselves. Finally a new suit for the recovered Acous. Our next step would be clean up duty around Odessa, entering the base itself and now that we entered commander mode finally building an army. But that will probably take another few turns so we would be able to get going on like turn 20 - 25. It is now turn 18, which is my fastest run of a Ramba campaign.  Oh yeah, remember the space battle I mentioned at the beginning? The AI has decided to go all in and send the Solomon fleet as well. It is going badly. Zeon has lost several aces there already, including the Black Tri-Stars and admiral Dozle. Gihren himself is barely holding his flagship together. Our forces on the other hand were only able to shoot down one Federation ace and with how badly this is going I have to assume that several high ranking Federation captains are around including General Revil. Taking a close look at Luna II itself you can see that the Feds have switched over their production capabilities to mass produce mobile suits and that is the final nail in the coffin for Zeon's offense here. Battleships do not deal well with mass suits. So that is the introduction to Ramba's campaign. It has some issues. For one it takes way too long. We are at turn 20. The grand campaign has a time limit of 100 turns and we would have squandered a fifth of that already. Luckily the pilot campaigns have no time limit. This is mostly thanks to White Base being coded to run towards Odessa, which is a blessing in actually winning this. Without the additional firepower there we cannot do much. But that also means we are not very involved in part II of this opening chapter. We mostly just cruise along and wait until M'Quave and his defense squad take out our enemy. All other campaigns have a way shorter introduction, are more involved and more fair.
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Apr 2, 2022 22:48
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That frankenGallop kinda looks like the Gallop's cargo unit with the Gallop's thrusters welded on, and some tanks on top of it. Weird. Especially since the Gallop you had didn't even have the cargo unit.
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Apr 2, 2022 23:12
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