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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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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 02:36 |
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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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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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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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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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Onmi posted: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. Cyflan posted: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. Pyroi posted:As much as Zeon has the cooler mobile suits, gotta go with Bright Noa. Maybe we can convince the Federation's designers to make a Gundam with a monoeye... In other news voting is over. Bright Noa - 9 (wedgekree; Viola the Mad; Zakrelo; RBA Starblade; Meaty Ore; wokow6, McTimmy, cokerpilot, Pyroi) Tem Ray - 2 (Justtoreadthanks, General Revil) Char Aznable - 8 (Bulborbish; Ibblebibble; Nea; RevolverDivider; Kaboom Dragoon; mcclay?; Deep Dish Fuckfest, Lynneth) Garma - 1 (mcclay?) Black Tri Stars - 5 (Rigged Death Trap; Arcanuse; habituallyred; Greader; Cyflan) So the sudden upsurge after the update makes us go with Bright Noa. One thing I wanna do that is not in the base game is making all the pilots available that are locked behind events that are simply not happening in the pilot campaigns. That would mean we get theoretically access to pilots like Christina McKenzie or Kou Uraki while Zeon gets access to all their newtypes. I hope nobody has something against this small game rule breaking. Another thing, because this is my first LP: Always feel free to post some constructive criticism. If there is none I will just keep on trucking thinking I am doing perfectly well. 
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Apr 3, 2022 22:47
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Bright update 01 - Escape from Side 7 The Goon High Command has decided that we will play as Bright Noa. Ensign in the Earth Federation Forces.  This time we will play on hard difficulty. I'm taking a risk here as the Federation is the weaker faction. Difficulty mostly decides on how much the AI will cheat. On Very Easy it has exactly the income it's supposed to. On the higher ones it starts cheating and actually gets more money the fewer bases it has. Hard means that we will see Doms, Gelgoogs and the like earlier than expected.  Before starting we also get the option to recruit bonus aces and their machines if they are not supposed to be around for this scenario.  Let's just say, I'm not taking any of these. This single Quebley would probably tear the entire Zeon force to shreds without effort.  18.09.0079 UC   The new mobile suit development base on Side 7 came under attack by Zeon officer Char and his troops.  The attack came so suddenly that the Federation was unable to mount any noticeable resistance.   Only due to the unlikely cooperation between surviving cadets and civilians was total annihilation avoided.   Ensign Bright who also survived the attack had to command this bunch of untrained amateurs  with only one goal in mind: Survive.  The game gives us a short outlier how our situation is. Side 7 has taken catastrophic damage and Char's Special Forces are on our tail. We on the other hand have the secret mobile suits of the Federation on board, which Char would love to inspect.  Our goal for now: Move White Base to the space fortress Luna II. Our losing condition: White Base gets destroyed.  The situation isn't too bad. We have four units and Luna II is nearby. The blue line that connects Side 7 and Luna II is a supply line and we move faster on that one, so by my estimation we will arrive in just two turns. Let's take a look at our units - we have seen those before in Rals campaign as enemies:  Bright Noa 19 year old Bright is our main character for this run. That means if he goes down we game over. White Base will be the unit we will put him into as it's the best battleship the Federation can offer us for quite a while. They are a good match: good captain, good ship. I take it. We have to be careful though. Under concentrated fire even a sturdy battleship goes down fast. His elite skill is needed because battleship captains are a bit worse at killing and therefore gaining exp. To gain ranks we have to aim to kills on enemy aces and battleship captains. Especially high rank ones like Gihren are a juicy target to rank up. One thing the story in the game glances over: Bright at this point is only technically in command. His superior officer Paolo is still alive. Badly wounded but conscious, so he's able to advice Bright on tactics and more importantly how to handle the crew. Bright doesn't have the patience to deal with the civilian crew yet. Paolo does. Skills: Scolding encouragement - can exchange his own fatigue for morale in surrounding units Elite - Gains 20% more EXP and Rank points  Amuro Ray and the Gundam will be our main attacker for most of the game. Best Federation pilot in the best suit. Again I take it. His skill set is one of the best in the game and as of now it is incomplete, but the 15% chance to use weapons is already incredible he will put out more damage than he should. I usually put him in the best suit available. Skill: Performance Unleash - Mech Limit +20% (generally makes us fight better) and gives him a 15% chance to use each weapon an additional time  Ryu Jose is new to us. He is a trained pilot and actually the only regular pilot we have that is neither a civilian nor died in Char's surprise attack. Because Amuro already got a bit of experience in the Gundam he leaves that one to him and stays with what he knows. Which is the Core Fighter. The Core Fighters strength is cheapness and mobility so it is a very bad match to Ryu who is not very evasive but rather defensive. Skills: Power of Friendship - +15% to all stats if a unit with the same skill is in the stack  Hayato is in the Guntank and our third unit... and scratch that. This thing cannot go into space and will therefore not be helpful for us. No, we cannot just catapult it out into space and let it move around by shooting. On earth it would be a solid artillery unit with a solid pilot. One thing to note is: If you are playing Amuros campaign he is the only guy you got competent at commanding battleships. Luckily here we have other options. *cough* Bright *cough* Skills: Persistence - Builds up fatigue slower and recovers faster from injured status after getting shot down.  Kai and his Guncannon on the other hand is an artillery unit that can go into space. If it wasn't so expensive, the Guncannon would appear everywhere later in the game. It's solid at moving around on the map and brings damage. Kai is a surprising good pilot for just being the wing mate of the main character. In the anime, he struggles at first, thinking that he's just cannon fodder for the army. He quickly picks up how to handle the Guncannon though, figuring out that his unit is way more accurate at shooting when he's crouching on all fours on the ground instead of standing around like a giant target. He also uses unorthodox tactics like sneaking up to enemy units and shoving them down cliffs. In the game he is fast, he shoots well, overall extremely solid. Sadly in this version of Gihren's Greed he doesn't develop any newtype powers. So no super newtype Kai Shiden for us. I usually have him in a powerful suit either commanding his own stack or having him as partner to Amuro. Skills: Emergency Maintenance - Recovers 1% HP at the beginning of every turn  In the anime Bright was very careful and only unwillingly let Amuro deploy. We aren't that Bright. All units charge! Kai and Amuro will go for the enemies command ship while Ryu tries to take out the mobile suit carrier. Meanwhile we will not take part in this battle and try to escape to Luna II ASAP. While all three Federation pilot campaigns start in this spot there are slight differences: - In Amuro's campaign you only get control over the Gundam itself. White Base and your team mates are AI controlled and will not help you in this phase. - In Tem's campaign he is on his own at first after clearing out Side 7 with his Prototype Gundam. White Base and Gundam appear after a turn. In this one both Tem and Bright must make it to the goal. Kai was able to scan the enemy ship. So let's take a look:  It's a Musai class cruiser with Char's second in command Dren in the pilot’s seat. These things make the main bulk of Zeon's space force. Compared to White Base they are a bit flimsy but they are cheap. We can't see all of Dren's stats or the attack values of the unit. That is because we have turn 1 and the AI has not yet invested any money into intelligence. This will change. Intelligence is a thing the AI is very diligent about. It won't send out spies though.  The battle Ryu vs. a troop carrier goes worse than expected. I thought that thing was unarmed. Oh well, no harm done.   Kai and Amuro on the other hand do way better than expected against Dren. One enemy ship less to care about. It also means that Char's Special Forces have lost their command ship and he has no mobile base to return to. The ship also had two units in its hangar. Those are now ejected from the ship and their HP is set to 50% of what it was before.  The enemy turn isn't very eventful. Just a few units moving around and no attack incoming. It's two Zaku IIs and another weird looking Zaku.  We, on the other hand, play this very aggressive. Amuro and Kai will take out one of the Zakus while Ryu tries to figure out how good that weird Zaku is.  We were also able to scan the enemy unit. Yeah, just a reminder those Zaku IIs are not very good.  Well, Ryu and we now know: The other Zaku is super powerful! Reminder: Never engage again without superior numbers.  The Zaku II on the other hand was overkilled. In fact the HP bar was empty long before it could get out all its attacks.  On the same turn we arrive at port!  Space Fortress Luna II: An asteroid originally moved into earth's orbit for mining and construction of space colonies.  Dodging Char's pursuit, White Base is finally able to arrive at Luna II.  The Federation, though, was unable to provide White Base with support and ordered the crew to make it on their own to Earth.  With the Federation not being helpful the inexperienced crew had no choice but to rely on their own abilities.  New mission goal! Move White Base to the spot that allows us to descend to Jaburo in South America.  We are now directly south of Luna II. The game was nice and moved our units next to White Base. So into the hangar they hop, and we start our journey.  Two very uneventful turns later we arrive at the supply point near Jaburo. One thing I want to point out is that the green hexagon brings us to South America. The other ones bring us to other places on earth. The one above it should bring us to North America while the lower one you can barely see can bring us to Australia.  As we end the turn we are informed that Char's troops have been sighted. There is one change to our mission goal: We have a limited time window to make our descent. We have five turns from now on. If we fail to do this we may end up god-knows-where.  With how well our last encounter did go I decide to send out everyone again. Kai and Amuro have proven that them working together is overkill. So I have Kai go for a Zaku on his own. The Zaku cannot counter his attack from range so he should be relatively safe. Bright gets to attack as well this time. Amuro meanwhile goes for the differently colored Zaku and scans him.  Meet the Red Comet. His stats are ludicrous compared to our team. His Zaku II also isn't just a mere Zaku II. The Zaku II Char Custom is pretty good compared to the regular version. It has a significant HP boost and twice the combat mobility of the regular version.  Sometimes characters talk to each other before combat. In this case Char is mocking Amuro.  One thing the game doesn't model is Amuro's inexperience and floundering around for a bit. So he's able to bring Char to critical health in the ranged phase already. The melee phase goes as one expects: Amuro shreds Char's suit in a missing screenshot to pieces.  Char realizes that the Gundam is a monster. Right he is!   The other encounters go our way. I did honestly not expect to knock out his enemy, and neither did I expect Bright to hit. Especially with the penalty of fighting an unscanned unit.  On the enemy turn the remaining Zaku goes for White Base while the enemy ship tries to fire on Amuro.  Both encounters go well. Bright only takes minimal damage while Amuro dodges all incoming shots.  On my turn I move White Base to the goal hex while firing like a madman.  We also managed to scan the battleship. Dren sure is back quickly! It's a slight disconnect between gameplay and story. We were not supposed to kill Dren on the first encounter so it's supposed to be the same ship.  Another poor soul whose HP bar runs out long before it's done with all animations. Also pictured on the right: A laser coming from off-screen. That's Bright's support fire. I'm not sure if support fire has damage or hit penalties. It sure feels that way.  Dren bites the dust again. This is getting silly.  The game informs us that we made it successfully to Jaburo and sortied units will be put into the hangar automatically. At the bottom is a remark, that this is the course of history has been changed. In fact, in the anime Char was able to delay White Base's descent so that they did not arrive in Jaburo. Instead they descended onto North America which is Zeon controlled territory.  After defending against Char's attack White Base made it into the atmosphere.  Their destination is Jaburo, the heavily fortified headquarters of the Earth Federation Forces.   They seek safety and asylum with the Federation, but a new trial awaits them.  We are congratulated by this Feddie that we made it to Jaburo. Despite this, he has to inform us that our crew knows too much about Operation V to roam around freely and capital punishment awaits them if the information gets out. It would be a shame to lose a competent crew. They would be able to avoid imprisonment if they were to join the military, and he asks us if we can persuade them to enlist.  With this guy it's best to always just nod and agree to what happens. But what happens if we say no?  Well, we go to military trial as well.  We are charged for using the Federations top secret weapons without permission.  The White Base's crew and Bright are imprisoned.  While Bright evaded the death penalty he never saw combat again. So yeah so let's not do this.  A wise idea he says. We are informed that we are now an independent unit within the Federation forces.  The game confirms the bit about being an independent force. Bright is now leading the Operation V forces and all pilots and suits of the secret project are now under his command. For his achievements he's also promoted to Lieutenant. We also get 30000... uhh, Brazilian Real. (As a note: They are cheap bastards. Amuro actually gets the same amount.)  Our new right-hand-man introduces himself and is surprised that Bright is so young.  We get new mission parameters - Victory condition: Total Federation victory - Losing Condition: Bright is killed or Jaburo falls into Zeon’s hands.  Welcome to Jaburo girls and boys! We are now free to do whatever we want with no clear mission goal. We will probably be forced to defend this place for a while as there are already enemies nearby. Okay I lied we are not completely free to do whatever we want. While it may make sense that we cannot assault Zeon's headquarters Side 3 directly there are a lot more places plot locked to the Federation player. Like the entirety of space. I will go into the specifics of that in the next update which will be a state of the world update. Before I end the update let me introduce the remaining Operation V forces that made it back together with Bright, Amuro, Kai and Hayato.  Job John - His job in the series was being the guy who does everything. Watching prisoners, greeting guests, moving suits around outside of combat. Kind of being the right hand of the captain. In this game he can actually move suits to combat. His stats aren't exactly great and never will be but he will make a middling suit better than it is. Skills: Emergency Repair - Recovers 1% HP at the beginning of every turn  Sayla Mass - In the series she mostly worked as communication officer on the White Base's bridge. She only got a few chances to get into a mobile suit and didn't do that well due to lack of experience. This is mirrored in the game. Her starting stats aren't good but the important ones go up pretty high and her commanding abilities are also good. But she would need to rank up for those to count. I usually put her in a high speed suit like the Gundam. Skills: Scolding Encouragement - Can increase surrounding units morale at the cost of Fatigue  Fraw Bow - She never had a combat role in the series and mostly continued doing civilian work like taking care of the children aboard White Base. So uh yeah, her stats are terrible. But even a bad ace is better than no ace. Skills: Heroine - Male characters gain 15 morale  Mirai Yashima - In the series she was the navigator of White Base. Due to having a civilian pilot license she was the best fit for navigating the ship. Here, while her stats are somewhat disappointing for now, she has an S rank in commanding a battleship. So yep, she will get command over a second battleship when we get one.  Oh also: Ryu is back! He even got a new core fighter!  So the war is on and there are way too many red dots on that map. That was Bright's introduction chapter. It's pretty easy and short. Maybe a bit too easy - it seems easier in this run than it is usually. Normally these battleships and Zeons don't blow up like piñatas when you just look at them. Before the next update I probably have to go shortly into the state of the world and our options for attacking Zeon. I will also post the notable units available to us and the aces we can recruit so you guys can theorycraft an army for me. Happy Litterbox fucked around with this message at 00:31 on May 1, 2022 |
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Apr 12, 2022 23:19
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Meaty Ore posted:I personally would try at some point to steal data for the Big Zam, build one, and put Sleggar in it just for the karma. From the sound of things though, the game doesn't allow that sort of shenanigans, which is a drat shame. In the grand campaign you can spend money to send out spies. If your spy level is high enough you gain enemy tech exp and have a very low chance per turn to steal a blueprint from the enemy which you can then research with a high enough enemy tech level. Now the problem with that is that the chance is rather low and every single researched enemy unit. It may have awesome stuff or you are just stealing a terrible plane. Second way in the grand campaign is actually sending out your spies. They will return after a turn and allow you to select one of three units which they try to steal. All three may be trash or there may be something useful in it. The third way is actually available to us. When we take over an enemy base all units in their production queue will still exist and will be produced for our faction. Which we then can request from the AI. Depending on what the AI is currently producing we may get a Big Zam or knowing the AIs production priorities it will be... uh interesting stuff. LJN92 posted:Don't you mean Side 3?
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Apr 17, 2022 14:19
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Bright update 02 - Relevant Federation Units & Aces This is a bit of a dozey update as there is no action, just stats, but it will be a very good post to keep in mind if I mention a mech or an ace and won't show the stats off. It also gives us a feeling for which of our units will be good and which die horribly for a good reason. Units: Gundam line   RX-78 2 Gundam aka Gundam - Cost 3750 - Unit limit 1 We have met this powerhouse before and know how powerful it is. A thing I haven't shown off yet is that this unit can switch to a different weapon loadout where it drops the laser rifle for a bazooka, which does more damage but hits less often. On average the damage total is equivalent, so I mostly stick with the rifle because the bazooka also lowers the unit’s mobility and therefore its incredible survivability. One thing to add is, now that we are fighting on earth: It is one of the few units we have that can fight in water which will be handy in several cases. Another thing is that this unit is limited to only one. So if we or the AI controls a RX-78 2 there will not be another one. It is also ludicrously expensive.  RX 78-1 Gundam aka Prototype Gundam - Cost 3525 - Unit limit 1 This is essentially the Gundam we know with a different paint scheme. It loses a bit of HP and has no bazooka mode but shares all other traits of his brother. Like the Gundam there can only be one, but there the game allows a prototype and a regular Gundam to exist at the same time.    RX 79[G] Gundam Ground Type - Cost 1350 - Unit limit 15 Now we are getting into the territory where our mobile suits are no longer invincible monsters. The Ground Type is quite a step down from the real Gundams. Less mobility and less HP mean a lot less survivability. The second Gundam we saw going up in flames in Ramba's campaign was one of those. The big thing with this unit is that it has three different weapon loadouts. The melee variant we see here. There's also a rocket launcher variant which loses a melee attack and gains a range two attack instead and a sniper variant which has three range but loses all other weapons. Versatility is its strength. It will probably be our early game workhorse as it's cheap. We will compete with the AI for the 15 build slots though. In Amuro's campaign it's the unit he gets assigned to after reaching Jaburo. So no real Gundam for you in that one. GM line  GM - Cost 425 - Unit limit 70 Meet a unit that is almost as terrible as a Zaku. There is some worth in this one though. It is incredible cheap and we will never run into the unit limit. So it is perfect for impromptu replacements in the middle of a battle.   GM Custom - Cost 1025 - Unit limit 20 This is quite an upgrade over the regular unit. We can make this thing work. Sadly it is more than twice as expensive as the regular unit and almost as expensive as the better Gundam Ground Type. One thing this unit has going for it is that it can switch into a flying mode. It has no offensive and no in-combat mobility so it's a sitting duck, but it can be used to transport the unit around difficult terrain.   GM Ground Type - Cost 925 - Unit limit 40 This unit at the first glance looks like something in between the GM Custom and the regular GM. What it actually makes it worth it to build is that it has a second weapon loadout with a two range weapon. So it can hang out in the back and annoy enemies. Again the point cost is a bit prohibitive because the Gundam Ground Type is in a similar range but in a pinch, this one can do. In Amuro's campaign Hayato and Kai start out with one of those each.  Land Warfare GM - Cost 550 - Unit limit 40 To be honest, I never build one of these. I think it has less movement penalties in mountains and forests though. Might be a good cannon fodder unit though. Honorable mention to that two range weapon.  Desert GM - Cost 550 - Unit limit 40 A unit that gets no penalties in desert. Yay! The battle for the deserts of Egypt and the Levant will be a hard fought and bloody one. We would need something better than this for that battle though.  Aqua GM - Cost 575 - Unit limit 70 One of our few units that can move freely in water. It's not great but it will make the numerous Zeon submarines sweat. Sadly Zeon has a huge variety of weird aquatic mobile suits and this one is not up for the task to fight them. Dropping a few of these on a submarine when no real Gundam is around might be worth it sometimes though. Artillery Units  Guntank - Cost 1900 - Unit limit 15 We have one of those already and it's a solid artillery unit. It's incredibly slow and a sitting duck in combat though. So it main job will be hopping out of a battleship shoot a few rounds and then return to the hangar. The cost of this thing is extremely prohibitive though.  Guntank Mass produced model - Cost 450 - Unit limit 40 At the first glance it looks just like a flimsy version of the Guntank and it is. But look at the cost. We get four of those for every real Guntank. So if we want to employ a wave of artillery mechs this is our choice. Veterans of the PS2 Gihren's Greed know these units very well as you get it way earlier than the Gundam and it's similarly cheap there.  Guncannon - Cost 1925 - Unit limit 12 We can't build many of those due to the low limit and the high cost but this is by far the best artillery unit we can get right now and it will probably stay relevant until the endgame. It's not without problems though it runs out of ammo quickly and if targeted by the AI will explode quickly. It's pretty good if you are careful with it. Which I'm usually not. Ground units  T61 Main Battle Tank - Cost 175 - Unit limit 90 Tank goes vroom, tank goes boom. Yeah this thing is trash. It's mostly here to show off what a grand campaign player has to deal with. This is the best ground unit he has for quite a while. They have a gamey use in the endgame though: Just place them at a base entrance so the enemy cannot enter. You can produce them quicker than the enemy is able to blow them up. We will not use that tactic though.  Big Tray - Cost 5525 - Unit limit 10 This is the most expensive unit the Federation can build right now and is the mirror of Zeon’s Gallop. We will see the AI build a few of those as those usually accompany an offense with a high rank admiral in it. For us it's not to useful due to cost and lack of aces to put in. It's also surprisingly flimsy. Air units  Sabrefish - Cost 225 - Unit limit 60 This is a multirole fighter the Federation has. Which means it can fly in air and space. We probably will not build any of these due to lack of offensive power. It gets an honorable mention here because we will end up with a few of those despite not building any. The AI loves to put aces into these death traps so if we recruit an ace they will bring one of these fighters for free. Battleships  White Base - Cost 4250 - Unit limit 1 There can only be one White Base and it's ours. For now it's by far the best battleship either side has. Additionally it can go into space and earth which only a few ships can manage. This thing will probably accompany us till the end of the game. This means the AI never gets to use one. Hah!  Pegasus Class - Cost 4050 - Unit limit 8 This is a slightly worse White Base. We will probably build one of those as we need more battleships. Those eight build slots will be in hot competition though. The AI loves to send these things on suicide missions. Federation Aces Let's talk about two aces before we get into the meat of possible recruits. Meet our high command:  Johann Abraham Revil - Rank General - Historical unit: Magellan Class battleship - Ananke - Current deployment: Big Tray, in transit from Jaburo to ? Meet the current leader of the Earth Federation Forces. Revil was around during the first major encounter between Zeon and Federation, The Battle of Loum, where his flagship got destroyed and he was taken prisoner. He fled imprisonment just in time to give a speech that prevented the federation from surrendering and fired up their fighting spirit. Or how our resident poster General Revil said: The Federation leadership are all pussies. He is not. Ingame he is awesome. His commanding stats are in the sixties, his combat stats are pretty high with the exception of melee, but I want to see the battleship that tries to knock an opponent out with a sword. As a general he has a huge area of influence to make those stats in the 60s really count. For now he is only level 7 so those will only go up. Having him fight near us will be a huge boon. PS2 veterans may remember him for being able to ride in a mobile suit to battle and developing newtype combat abilities at high level. He sadly cannot do this anymore. Skills: Scolding Encouragement - Can boost surrounding units morale by ten at the cost of fatigue Offensive Commander - Units within area of influence gain +15% accuracy War sensibility - Can use the special command perception to scan units at 1 hex range (this is actually a newtype skill. huh)  Gopp - Rank General - Historical unit: None, he hides in Jaburo - Current deployment: Big Tray, Jaburo Gopp is a bit of a mirror to Revil. He was considering surrender after the Battle of Loum. Unlike Revil he does not lead the Federation from the front but got the nickname Mole of Jaburo for never leaving the base. In the older Gihren's Greed games he was a bit of a joke character for having straight up zeros in almost all stats actively making other aces in his area of influence worse. Here he is actually useful like he supposedly was in the original material. As he is the one guy who knows how to navigate the nightmare that is Federation bureaucracy and has the right connections to get things done. Him fighting nearby may still be a boon or a penalty depending whether other aces nearby have higher stats than him. His skills are not terribly useful to us. Skills: Security Maintenance - Bases lose less development if he's the one capturing them Self-defense Technique - 2% HP recovery per turn, scan avoidance +10% and 5% higher chance to use shields (Which battleship uses shields?) Recruitable Aces One thing I want you to know: We need to snatch aces early if we want them. Not only do they get more expensive over time, there is another thing that may prevent us from recruiting them: An ace can only be recruited if they are currently deployed in a unit somewhere (it's more that we buy a unit that accidently comes with an ace than the other way around). The AI will prefer to put certain aces into certain units, if said unit no longer gets constructed because a better version is available the ace never gets deployed again. This mostly affects low rank aces but who is affected is always a bit random. To me it always felt like the cutoff point is the RAG-79 Gundam Marine Type, which is coming up pretty quickly. Aces can have a few statuses: - Currently deployed, they are in a unit and somewhere on the map. This means they can be recruited by us - In transit, the AI has decided to move a unit from one base to another it will appear in two or three turns at their destination. We don't know where and when it will appear though - Injured, cannot be placed in a unit for a few turns - No deployment, the pilot is currently in a pocket dimension and can be assigned to any unit. This is the most aggravating status an AI pilot can have because we cannot recruit them if they hang out there - Not available/Dead/Missing in action means that the pilot cannot be deployed by any means. For the first two the pilot doesn't even show up in the pilot list, internally the game tracks though if a pilot got killed. These three statuses can only be set and unset via events which won't happen in the pilot campaign.  Christina McKenzie - Rank Ensign - Historical Unit: RX-78 NT Gundam Alex - Current deployment: Sabrefish, Madras In the anime series she was the test pilot for a Gundam that was supposed to replace Amuro’s aging Gundam. She only saw one combat deployment against a terribly outmatched Zaku. Her statline is similar to Sayla's mostly concentrating on evading and shooting. Skills: Heroine - Male units nearby get a morale bonus  Kou Uraki - Rank Ensign - Historical Unit: RX-78GP01 Gundam Zephyranthes - Current deployment: None Kou is the main character in the anime Stardust Memories where he is mostly remembered as a bland character that is simply not as good at combat as Amuro and saved by his post OYW mechs. He is normally exclusive to Tem Ray and the Grand campaign. I can't tell if he ever gets good in this game, his starting stats are not promising though. Skills: Mecha Fetish - 2% HP recovery per turn, higher chance to scan enemies, faction gains enemy technology exp when scanning (The latter I have never seen that higher than 0 in a pilot campaign so it's not useful)  Shiro Amada - Rank Ensign - Historical Unit: RX-79[G]EZ-8 - Current deployment: Ground Type GM, Northern India Shiro is the main protagonist of Gundam 08th MS Team, which has the roles of a usual Gundam anime reversed. He is stuck in a standard suit fighting aces. He does surprisingly well keeping himself and his team alive but never makes it to true ace status. Skills: Hot blood - Higher morale gain, lower fatigue gain and returns faster into battle after getting shot down.  Jack Bayard - Rank Ensign - Historical Unit: GM - Current deployment: Guntank, Torrington He is a character that was only featured in video games. If I remember correctly he was a rather middling ace. Skills: Tactical Cooperation - +5% to every stat if a unit with the same skill is in the same stack. Can stack up to 25%.  Sleggar Law - Rank Ensign - Historical Unit: Core Booster - Current deployment: Sabrefish, Jaburo Sleggar was a late addition to the cast in the original Gundam joining the White Base crew as a fighter pilot. He had some odd relationships to the other characters especially the female ones. In this game he is an ace with good starting stats. Skills: Feminist - Female characters in his stack gain +5 morale as does he himself  Chuck Keith - Rank Ensign - Historical Unit: GM Cannon - Current deployment: Not deployed Chuck is the Wingman of Kou in Stardust memory and I cannot remember him actually doing something. As he's Tem Ray/Grand campaign exclusive I cannot tell if his atrocious stats ever get good. Skills: Tactical Cooperation - +5% to every stat if a unit with the same skill is in the same stack. Can stack up to 25%.  Phillip Hughes - Rank Ensign - Historical unit: GM(?) - Current deployment: Sabrefish, Torrington If I got this correctly he's the wingman of the main character in the Blue Destiny side story. He is one of our many sidekick characters that have rather middling stats. Skills: Tactical Cooperation - +5% to every stat if a unit with the same skill is in the same stack. Can stack up to 25%.  Alpha A. Bate - Rank Ensign - Historical unit: GM Custom - Current deployment: Sabrefish, Jaburo I love this guy’s name. He is another Stardust Memory character and is part of the B team there. In this game he is actually around during Amuro’s UC 0093 campaign but he is not recruitable. Skills: Tactical Cooperation - +5% to every stat if a unit with the same skill is in the same stack. Can stack up to 25%.  Maximillian Burger - Rank Ensign - Historical unit: GM Cannon - Current deployment: T61 Tank, Torrington Oh boy this poor man has the worst starting position. Starting out in a tank. He only appeared in video games and is part of the White Dingo Team in Australia. Skills: Tactical Cooperation - +5% to every stat if a unit with the same skill is in the same stack. Can stack up to 25%.  Matilda Ajan - Rank Ensign - Historical unit: Medea transport plane - Current deployment: Medea transport plane, Jaburo Matilda appeared in the anime quite a few times. She supplied the White Base numerous times and relayed hopeful messages from Jaburo to them while they were stuck in North America. She also acted as a possible love interest for Amuro. In this game her downfall is that she only has an S rank in planes. I'd rather see her in a battleship. Skills: Supply Raising - Recovers 4% EN at the start of each turn (this is surprisingly useful as it prevents a unit from running dry and not being able to move anymore) Woman's Charm - Male characters gain 10 morale and gains rank exp 10% faster.  Bernard Monsha - Rank Ensign - Historical Unit: GM Custom - Current deployment: Sabrefish, Jaburo Ah Monsha, he is a complete rear end in a top hat in Stardust Memory for no apparent reason. He is actually not incompetent which is mirrored in his stats. Fun fact: He is another ace that is shown as being part of the Federation in the UC0097 campaigns. Skills: Tactical Cooperation - +5% to every stat if a unit with the same skill is in the same stack. Can stack up to 25%.  Yazan Gable - Rank Ensign - Historical Unit: GM Light Armor - Current deployment: Sabrefish, Jaburo Look at those stats, look at his level, and gasp in excitement. This guy is great. In the series he only appeared in Zeta and ZZ Gundam as antagonist and he is a man of many facets. He is a psychopath who loves to engage in combat, is clever enough to realize his commanding officers will get him killed and gets them into accidents but on the other hand he's refusing to do war crimes and is condemning them. In ZZ Gundam he becomes a bit more of comedic relief character and I have memory of him riding on a flying pig towards the horizon, but I was told that that isn't actually part of ZZ Gundam. Skills: Martial Arts - Melee weapon usage rate +30% and Melee damage +10% Persistence - Lower fatigue and morale gain. Returns faster after getting shot down  Yuu Kajima - Rank Ensign - Historical unit: RX79-BD1 Blue Destiny Unit 1 - Current Deployment: Sabrefish, Torrington Yuu has several pre- and after combat talks all of them amounting to "...". Statwise there is some potential there but otherwise he's not very exciting, just like his talks. Skills: Tactical Cooperation - +5% to every stat if a unit with the same skill is in the same stack. Can stack up to 25%.  Raban Karcs - Rank Ensign - Historical unit: Zaku II F2 - Current deployment: Guntank, Jaburo Another Stardust Memory character where he gets blown up right in the beginning. His stats kind of mirror that he never got anything done. Skills: Tactical Cooperation - +5% to every stat if a unit with the same skill is in the same stack. Can stack up to 25%.  Adam Stingray - Rank Master Sergeant - Historical unit: GM - Current deployment: Sabrefish, Madras Adam is another video game only character. In other Gihren games he had actually okayish stats. Here his starting stats are kinda meh. Also we finally ran out of ensigns! Skills: Tactical Cooperation - +5% to every stat if a unit with the same skill is in the same stack. Can stack up to 25%.  Chap Adel - Rank Master Sergeant - Historical unit: GM Cannon - Current deployment: Sabrefish, Jaburo Chap is part of the B Team in Stardust Memory and unlike his teammates not a dickbag. Like his teammates he too makes it to UC 0093. Skills: Tactical Cooperation - +5% to every stat if a unit with the same skill is in the same stack. Can stack up to 25%.  Karen Joshua - Rank Master Sergeant - Historical unit: RX79[G] Ground Type Gundam - Current deployment: Ground Type Gundam, Madras Karen is part of the 08th MS Team and therefore a wing mate of Shiro Amada. Despite her low rank she starts out in a competitive mobile suit and has good stats. So she might be a rough diamond and a good ace with some levels. Skills: Scolding Encouragement - can exchange her own fatigue for morale in surrounding units  Summona Fulis - Rank Master Sergeant - Historical unit: GM - Current deployment: Sabrefish, Torrington The third character from Blue Destiny and by far the worst out of the bunch. Skills: Tactical Cooperation - +5% to every stat if a unit with the same skill is in the same stack. Can stack up to 25%. One little notice, this is where your recruitment list in Amuro's campaign would begin, he cannot recruit master sergeants or higher.  Terry Sanders Jr. - Rank Sergeant - Historical unit: RX79[G] Ground Type Gundam - Current deployment: Ground Type Gundam, India on his way to Odessa The third member of the 08th MS Team. Like Karen he has quite good stats for his rank. A bit more defensive than I'd like but good nevertheless. Another rough diamond. Skills: Bad Luck - Scan rate +10%, returns one turn faster after getting shot down, +5% shield use rate  Eleodore Massis - Rank Sergeant - Historical unit: Hover Truck - Current deployment: Hover Truck, Madras Fourth Member of the 08th MS Team. Unlike the others he never got a Mobile Suit instead he was on reconnaissance duty in his silly truck. I'm not entirely sure what we would need a tank ace for, but we could recruit one if we wanted to. Skills: Reconnaissance Technology - +10% chance to scan an enemy successfully  Michel Ninorich - Rank Sergeant - Historical unit: Hover Truck - Current deployment: T61 Tank, in transit Final member of the 08th MS Team. In the anime he keeps writing letters to his girlfriend and rings every death bell he can find. Oddly he never dies though. In the game he has terrible stats and is the one ace without any skills. Funnily enough the AI loves to deploy him in terrible units. Right now he is in the death trap that is the T61, but I see him deployed in a Ball regularly. In other ace related news:  Amuro leveled up to gain his second skill: Battle Talent - Experience gained +20%. So yes, aces gain new skills over time. That means most aces up there will fill out those empty slots and gain better ones over time. So all those aces that only have tactical cooperation will gain something more interesting over time. I don't know who gets what though. So dear Goon High Command. I need an army and I want you to design it! Set are two units: Bright in White Base and Mirai in an additional Pegasus Class. That gives us two carriers that each can carry nine units. Filling them up completely might be a bit too expensive for our current funds of 42000 Brazilian real. So I'd recommend handing me two full stacks of units two work with. A stack has six units in it. The front row which consists of three units which can melee (and be a victim of melee) and a back row of three units that will be shot at significant less often. With Amuro, Kai, Job, Sayla, Hayato, Fraw and Ryu we have seven aces so we would need five more from the list to fill my quota. We also need quite a few units in addition to the Gundam, Guntank, Guncannon and Core Fighter we got for free. Mind that we can put whoever in those, Amuro doesn't need to be a Gundam pilot. This won't be a vote more a make a wish thing.  Dear Goons who do you want to see in which unit? I will see that your wishes are fulfilled within my constraints!
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May 1, 2022 00:36
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The state of the world update is off to proof reading and I played the next update already, but I'm not happy about how that one turned out. Not gameplay wise (even if it was hilarious that I somehow lost Amuro one turn in) but more that I realized while writing, that the way I made my screenshots was suboptimal. It was a bit hard to gather what is actually going on. So I'm gonna redo that one. Sorry for the delay.LJN92 posted:[...]Eeeh not really. He had a crush on her, but not only is she implied to be much older than him, but she had a fiancée too.[...] RBA Starblade posted:Recruit Yazan and if it's in the game give him his big stupid space manta mech
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May 17, 2022 14:57
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 02:36 |
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State of the world - Turn 07 Over here in South America is our headquarters Jaburo. If Jaburo falls it's game over. The AI tends to just hand this base over to random Zeon troops while we are not looking so it's important that we keep this thing clear from any immediate threats. Sadly the location isn't in our favor, it's right next to the sea which means Zeon can easily sneak in with aquatic units. Let's take a look at the base proper:  The hex that is currently occupied by the yellow Big Tray unit is the base tile. We need to keep Zeon away from that one at all costs. Jaburo is a nightmare to navigate. All territory is hills so there is no easy way to move forward. Also there are all these rivers, they cannot be crossed by land based units but aquatic units can move freely in them without fear of getting counterattacked. Zeon loves its aquatic units so those rivers will turn into a nightmare for the defender as there is always a chance of some sneaky unit capturing the base tile causing a game over. I hate Jaburo, regardless of which side I'm playing. It's hell.  North America is firmly in Zeon's hands. The bad news for us is that it's incredibly close to South America and Jaburo and Zeon has two bases there constantly producing units. Especially New Yark is a problem because it's aquatic units can hop over to Jaburo in one turn. Compared to San Francisco it's a bit more difficult to reach and the base itself isn't that great for an attacker in terms of supply and navigation. San Francisco on the other hand is in constant risk of getting recaptured by Zeons coming in from Hawaii. On most campaigns I'd put up a vote which region we should attack first but North America needs to go. Asap.  Europe is firmly divided into east and west. On the east side we have Zeons main resource base Odessa while we control Belfast in the west. While taking out Odessa quickly will put a damper on Zeons production (well maybe not with our difficulty setting) and helps our AI, we cannot do this right now as Odessa is plot locked and we are not allowed to enter it. Belfast on the other hand is only accessible via sea and is therefore pretty defensible. Sooner or later Zeon will out-tech us with marine units and Belfast will fall, and that is a problem because it's incredibly difficult to reconquer.  Asia again is divided. We control Madras in the south while Beijing is under Zeons control. Madras is a surprisingly difficult base for Zeon to take and it takes some serious forces to take it away from the AI. Beijing on the other hand is difficult to defend and will change owner pretty often. Beijing is usually one of the first targets the Federation AI goes for and we will probably see Revil or Gopp starting a big assault. Most of the time it's not successful though. Fun fact: If we were a Zeon pilot this base would start under Federation control.  The vast lands of Africa have only one base in Kilimanjaro. Supply lines to eastern Africa are difficult to maintain and the defender is therefore at a great advantage. In northern africa we usually see huge battles at the Sinai peninsula as it's the only land bridge between Eurasia and Africa and the AI tries to funnel units through there while it's inside the defensive perimeter of both Kilimanjaro and Odessa. One thing to note about Kilimanjaro is that the Zeon AI loves to deploy it's big mobile armors here. That means if we are gonna fight the Big Zam it will be here or in space.  Australia has only one base, Torrington. We hold that one for now and the AI will use it to harass Hawaii. While Hawaii harasses Torrington. Usually the AI can hold this one pretty well. If you are a Zeon player this base is pretty low on your priority list as it's far away from anything but Hawaii.  Hawaii is owned by Zeon and I hate Hawaii it's usually a huge meatgrinder. It takes forever to take and if you have taken it the AI loses it right away again. On the other hand leaving Hawaii in Zeons hands means it can endanger San Francisco, Torrington and Beijing.  Into space we go! Luna II is the only place untouched by  West of Luna II we have Solomon. Solomon is Zeon's mirror to our Luna II. Zeon will continuously build up forces there until it reaches a threshold and sends everything out for Luna II. Usually taking out this base is the hardest battle for a Federation player. Sadly Solomon is plot locked before we take back most of earth.  Southwest of Solomon we have A Baoa Qu. This is where the final battles of the original series were fought. This base is plot locked until we take over Solomon.  The moon's capitol Granada is also in Zeon's hands. As usual with all space bases we cannot take it before we have reached a certain point in the plot. Also mind that neutral hex east of it. That is Von Braun. A hugely lucrative territory to take over. Usually neither AI cares about those neutral territories. In the grand campaign it would lower our public standing to take those over, which may lead to riots. As pilot we can just take those over and nobody cares.  Finally in the far far southwest is Zeon's headquarter Side 3. Side 3 is usually a hard battle as Zeon masses it's mobile suits and aces there. I haven't talked about it before, but for every newly researched unit you get one copy for free in your HQ. For Zeon that means they are deployed here, regardless of what kind of unit it is. So it will not only mass space units here but also earth based ones which will not go into combat. It also takes Zeon three turns to redeploy a unit from here to earth. But before we can think of taking that one over Zeon must have lost all other space bases.
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May 21, 2022 19:46
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