Command & Conquer

RA1 was really quite fun back in the day... but playing it again now (even in 3D)? It's rather been-there-done-that.

@explain exactly how you will code that
Big obvious hills of any height according to the map specs. No player calculations involved, tanks fire with direct line of sight (not parabolic) - hitting targets on the hillside facing them and no targets on the other side of the hill. They know enemies are on the wrong side of the hill when tank shots explode harmlessly against the ground. You can either charge over the hill or use indirect fire from missiles/artillery/aircraft. You can retreat tanks over a hill to get out of a fight you're losing.

Aside from tanks, you also want to put your snipers at the top of hills (direct line of sight attack) and maybe put vulnerable buildings/units in a wadi (flanked by hills on their side)

I agree, P1nkalicious. Total realism isn't exactly feasible. But sheltering some tanks out of direct fire behind a hill? Modern warfare basics

@I agree EA has done their due diligence - see their tag line in these forums "action-packed modern warfare" not innovative new ultra realistic warfare
-Yes, because "action-packed modern warfare" means inferior Starcraft II clone. Real life "Modern Warfare" is definitely not simplistic or "light weight." It is, however, quite "action-packed." Above all, it is fast and offense-oriented.

@I could possibly agree with you if they were making a brand new game, a new IP - maybe something like "ultra-realistic fighting RTS" for new players. But this game is called Generals 2
-That might be a good idea. Make the full Generals game with "gritty realism" for PC and a simple arcade one for iPhone. Generals 2 and Generals 2 Lite

The "untapped RTS consumer base" for EA here are swing RTS consumers whose default position is ambivalence towards the C&C/RA/Generals franchises - who may or may not buy Generals 2 at the end of the day depending on whether they think Generals 2 offers them something interesting. If they've done their due diligence, EA should have crunched their numbers with market research by now. Based on EA public statements so far ("gritty realism"), I doubt their conclusion was that they should try taking on Starcraft II (and near future expansions) head-to-head.

The simple truth is, the die-hard fans of ye olden days C&C/RA are going to buy Generals 2 no matter what. It's the wider RTS consumer base that Generals 2 needs to attract.

Seriously? We have made the wrong innovations recently, therefore we must stop innovating and instead remake only oldies from the 1990s? That's a doomed franchise if there ever was one

@RA3 and C&C 4 probably made less cash than COH and WiC but I bet the margins weren't that great, don't kid yourself neither COH or WiC approached anything like the old C&C games and starcraft numbers.
-How do you know the profit margins for CoH and WiC? Also, the old C&C games and original Starcraft faced a different market where the only RTS games were Starcraft/Warcraft, Age of Empires, and C&C/RA. It's a more crowded RTS market now

@That being said RA3 and C&C 4 were the two C&C style RTS games that strayed the furthest from the successful formula. The formula I like and you want altered, the formula that captured a global fan base, the formula that made westwood and earned EA millions of dollars.
-The Age of Empires/Empire Earth franchises stuck with their previously successful formula too and both are now gone. Traditional C&C/RA gameplay, which was cutting edge within the hardware limitations of the 1990s, has been on the downhill at least since RA2. In the meantime, Blizzard has established a dominant position with arcade style RTS with Starcraft II. Generals 2 doesn't stand much chance if I plays like an inferior Starcraft II.

What's more, the simple slugfest gameplay which oompah favors can be accomplished within a larger sophisticated and realistic game engine. Simply have some "flat" skirmish maps with no terrain features, no elevation, and lots of resources close at hand. A player can then easily have a match that involves nothing more than setting some waypoints and pressing build buttons back at base. These maps might have exciting names like "Featureless Desert," "Empty Plains" or "Parking Lot"

The market demand trend in RTS games with a real life analogue has been towards *more* realism not less. The Starcraft and Warcraft settings can be wacky because they are so distant from any meaningful real world reference. EA should learn from the failure of the Age of Empires and Empire Earth franchises (not to mention C&C4). At the same time, franchises like the Total War and Company of Heroes are thriving because they provide more realism, often even at the cost of very interesting strategies or steeper learning curve. EA Games needs to grab this niche before someone else does with a Company of Heroes: Modern Warfare. EA has an edge with the CC Generals IP, but that won't last forever.

So, I would recommend that EA does NOT go for a cartoony/arcade game feel for CC Generals 2. I am very in favor of vehicle cover and smart infantry tactics. I would also recommend some genuinely urban maps with very restricted movement for tanks/heavy vehicles and cat-and-house battles among winding alleys and boobytrapped houses.

Not only that, but tank warfare hugely revolves around elevation - the tanks that can shield itself behind a hill has the advantage

A airship that automatically launches drones to provide an umbrella of air cover around tiself, like a mix between the command ship from Avatar and the Protoss Carrier from Starcraft. Could either be like a giant helicopter or giant VTOL aircraft.

A tank that launches attack/suicide drones from a ramp on the back

USA as drone heavy spammy faction. Russia in expansion?

Unless, in a strange twist, the US is the spammy quantity-vs-quality faction. with drones

It's even red white and blue.

For the EU: Political Officer. After the Zero Hour campaign, EU might have them to guard against GLA infiltration

I suggest the civilians be integrated into gameplay only into certain game modes. "Refugee Defense" (several camps around the map. one team defends, other attacks) or "City Occupation" (occupying checkpoints and penalized for collateral damage) for instance. As a player, sometimes you'll want the realism but other times you just want to blast the heck out of the map

that seems to be the challenge of making units for this time period - taking these awesome unit concepts and keeping them grimy and realistic enough in execution that they don't end up as cartoon caricatures of themselves

That the US shouldn't be portrayed in the game as a depressed but peacefully insular place. Rather it should make at least some sort of appearance on the warpath

Command & Conquer: Generals 2: Urban & Social Development would be a very boring game.

Idealistic/remilitarized EU & a bitter robot USA would be an interesting contrast

I mentioned this in another thread - High Tech American Civil War for the expansion! It would be great to have some fighting in American suburbs or a cityscape

The US is the primary market for the C&C games. We also have more of an idea of the direction the US developing towards for the next generation of military tech (subject to change). So while EU can be basically a spiffy looking version of the modern Western military (tanks, helicopters, riflemen, manned air support), the US by the 2030s is supposed to be 50% drones, heavy in stealth aircraft, have some first generation powered exoskeletons, and have things like smart sand and remote surgical theatres and rods from god

what about small brown water units? swift boats, zodiac craft, water planes, minisubs

If the world in the 2030s is changed enough that NATO is dead and the US is off the world stage, then maybe the Geneva Conventions don't have so much force behind them anymore either

So the competition heats up...

There are already plenty of advertising formats that expire. TV Commercials are seen when they run and then stop being seen. There's a pretty famous product placement ad where a villian threw superman through a coca cola billboard (destoryed billboard). Ads in papers expire when people throw out that issue. At least in a game context, the signs might show up in game after game - so you get repeat views from the players even if the billboards can be blown up

Another issue is that Bioware probably would need to set up some system to screen the billboard ads that make it into the game. So no pornographic ads or ads for Starcraft. They could just pass the costs on to the customer though (companies that want advertising)

There are other ways to deliver nuclear weapons besides missiles

This might be more a US thing, but what about a Rods from God unit?

One issue, for good immersion, maybe the graphics guys would have to make 3 versions of every advertising sign: with English script, Arabic script, or Mandarin script respectively

Not a unit per se, but I'd really like to see those big victory banners replaced. Like at the end of the US campaign, the in game animation was suppose to slowly zoom in on the US flag while heroic music plays, but the whole thing was blocked by a banner with pictures of mountains and bigs letters telling you that you're victorious

The real life US goal is 50% drone military by 2030s - but these kind of goals tend not to happen on time. However in the generals universe, where the US general budget is probably down in the dumps from all the upheavals in the world, but maybe military reform is high priority, it's possible. If the US is a faction, suggest they be 50% automated, including things like smart sand.

Suggest as units...
Lightning II (top tier fighter-bomber)
Ghost Hawk (stealthy transport)
Marine (standard infantry guy)
Ranger (first generation powered exoskeleton guy. Chain guns)
Delta Force (sneaky wetsuit wearing special forces guys who scouts around and marks things for airstrikes by B1 Lancers. Can move through any terrain, including water)
Army Sniper (sniper, comes in a pair with spotter and gunner)

Luckily for the premise of the Generals series, there are plenty of terrorist groups with goals that don't end with expelling foreign troops on any particular soil. The LRA, the KKK, al-Shabaab, Communist Party of India, AUC. Many of the most exciting ones anyways

@"In the near future, world leaders are mere seconds from signing a global treaty and bringing an end to war as we know it when a devastating terrorist attack rips through the peace conference, killing all in attendance. In a world left with no politicians, diplomats, or activists, only the Generals remain."

Tweak the premise a little bit. It's not very likely that every politician, diplomat and activist in the world would be at at one conference. Also, there's already a global treaty bringing an end to war (except defensive war): the Kellogg-Briand Pact, as paired with UN membership requirements. It doesn't make much sense for anyone to further sign away right to defensive war. Suggest the conference be a disarmament conference instead

i'd like to see infantry (excepting things like snipers) come in small squads that look and move believably. So field battledress for EU infantry and something cheap for GLA. As for movement, they shouldn't stay in tight sycronized formation like sardaukar, but rather some start running first and they kind of drag out

greenpeace?

what about just the build animation for EU buildings are airdrops, instead of rising from the ground? Similarly, GLA buildings could be assembled out of corrugated sheet metal / mud bricks. US ones are built by assembly drones.

The question is: could the AI handle these game mods?

what about having terrain features you can occupy? like an outcropping of rocks or a ditch?

also realistic explosions - so a little more thrown dirt and black smoke and a little less orange fire

They would have to rename it to something more intimidating than Shanghai Cooperation Organization

It wouldn't be able to happen today, but at the time of Zero Hour, EU countries had basically demobilized completely and it wasn't a GLA 'invasion' so much as a general uprising of the oppressed ethnically middle eastern demographic throughout europe. All they had to do was overthrow their local police and some barebones US bases, with the help of some foreign fighters who flooded in through greece. So now in CC Generals 2, Europe is remilitarizing in a big way

I do agree that GLA shouldn't be a pure NGO and still have these kind of resources - but it's explainable if the GLA already runs a whole bunch of 3rd world countries/unstable regions, even if officially there are still non-GLA national governments

Maybe something like the giant manned command and control gunship from Avatar. Might be too much like a superunit

A "Minimum UI" option

True, players have only so much micromanagement attention to give - I just think micro would be more fun if in took the form of 'spot the sniper' & 'watch out for IEDs' than speed activating a slew of special abilities like in tiberian twilight

maybe the body can be a simplified model

If Bioware is okay with having a China faction and almost certainty having the game banned in China, then it should definitely go all out and have China, after saving the world in Generals 1, now go evil in some big way.

I would also really like for the campaign to, at some point, explain and make sense of the old Zero Hour GLA campaign in europe. Basically, instead of it being an invasion, it was more like a general uprising of disaffected and second-class ethnic Arab populations throughout Europe which was armed and organized by the GLA. The newly mobilized EU should definitely carry out some form of backlash against these ex-GLA minorities - something that would make Nelson Mandela weep. Segregation camps? Military policing in ethnic neighborhoods? Deportations? It would keep the EU from being a boring 'pure good' faction.

Capture the Warlord: Every player gets a super slow prisoner transport vehicle (prisoner transport apc for EU, armored limo for GLA) that respawns at your construction yard if destroyed. Every once in a while, a neutral warlord and a few bodyguards spawn somewhere on the map. Players have to nab him and defend their prisoner transport while driving it back to base. You can attack enemy prisoner transports to steal the warlord away. Capture a set number of Warlords to win. On urban maps, this could be a lot like black hawk down

Refugee Defense: There are a couple refugee camps around the map with lots of civilians inside each. You have to keep them alive against ever increasing waves of enemies, employing different strategies.

Storm the Compound: super fortified compound in the middle of the map. you have to storm it to kill the Warlord inside before the time runs out. based on seal team 9 storming the bin laden compound, but a lot better defended

Assassination: every player has a leader. EU Official for the EU. Cell Leader for the GLA. the location of every leader is permanently revealed to all other players, even if he takes shelter in a vehicle or bunker. kill a players leader to defeat him, making his remaining structures abandoned and his units stay on the map but become uncontrollable

Mercenary: you start with a bunch of well defended buildings for training units/researching. you don't gather resources or build new buildings. instead you get resources by fulfilling periodic missions like intercept/protect that convoy, neutralize the sniper, deliver supplies, rescue the prisoners.

Occupation: two teams have compete to garrison and hold a bunch of Checkpoint structures around an urban map to gain points. if a Checkpoint is destroyed, you have to repair it before garrisoning. you get extra points for repairing damaged civilian buildings and defeating randomly spawned insurgents while you lose points for killing civilians and doing collateral damage. First one to reach a certain number of points win

Armageddon: superweapons are cheap, unlimited, and buildable early in the game. The players nuke each other into oblivion and relatively fewer and scattered units fight desperate running battles while superweapons rain down around them

faction flags sounds awesome, especially a modified EU one

I agree, no transformers please. just completely breaks the realism

But the US is really down on the ropes in the CC Generals universe, so maybe it's still got a strong tech advantage in some areas but are now behind in others. So maybe strong in stealth, special forces, drones, maybe some exoskeleton stuff, airpower, spacepower - weak in everything else. The EU has some great top-of-the-line stuff but not nearly as much strategic lift. Also, in the Generals universe at least, the US & China have been at war for decades fighting the GLA while EU is spinning up its defense policies for the first time. They don't have a element of hardened veterans

Yeah in the Zero Hour timeline, it seems like sometime between now and the 2030s, China stalled/abandoned its current big lead in weaponizing lasers and the US far surpassed them

at least as of 2011, Russia has cheaper manned aircraft (more suitable for export) but US has better top end stuff - and the two are focusing their R&D accordingly. Apparently the US has something called a "stealth hawk" which was requested for the Bin Laden raid but denied.

If Bioware want to make different 2030s Russia and China factions, it might be more plausible for Russia to be the mass cheap manufacturing faction while China has pretty mediocre troops but some high end capability in the areas they are currently developing: lasers, railguns, EMP, and cyberwarfare especially.

As I understand it, the things that real world China didn't like about Generals 1 was it having the China faction blow up a bunch of its national landmarks and then nuking various towns and cities (Astana didn't stand a chance). It's really tough since the real life Chinese censors would probably need any China faction to be 100% good guys, which would make a really uninteresting campaign.

So going by real world military expenditures... Russia? India? South Korea?

I'm really against a private security corporation being a faction... the GLA is already an NGO that fights with asymmetrical tactics so it could very easily become GLA-but-hitec. Also, while GLA has a kinda understandable motive (arise, ye oppressed ppls of the world and blow stuff up!)... corporations really are profit seeking entities who need to sell stuff such that their revenue is greater than cost. Even the most reckless private security corp would prob understand that fighting a supraregional military alliance like the EU on the battlefield entails practically 100% risk of the business going down in flames. Seriously, just hire some lobbyists

i think dawn of war has this exact same thing... and Tiberian Twilight went a little too far with this mechanic

EU units:
-Land Warrior (basic infantryman. stronger but quite a bit more expensive than counterparts from other factions)
-Heavy Weapons Specialist (guy with a first generation exoskeleton carrying and can set up an really big/heavy weapon of some short like mini-artillery. there a video somewhere of a scrawny MIT guy wearing an exoskeleton prototype and swinging around weighty missiles and ammunition boxes like its was nothing)
-Special Commando (can move across any terrain, climbing/swimming)
-Railgun (tank destroyer, could be mounting on a tank or some lighter vehicle)

GLA unit: Paramilitary (a late game high end infantry unit. elite praetorian kind of guy, in black with a beret. like saddam's Fedayeen)

Eurofighter II? Please do better than the real EU, no corny names like "Dassault nEUROn"

wouldn't mind even the somewhat futuristic vehicle/building designs if they toned down the sparkliness of the chrome a bit (and the orange on the buildings under construction). The EU tanks in the trailer looked just a tad out of place in the world of those beautiful middle eastern buildings

As for tanks, it could be that anti-armor tech has advanced enough that it makes sense for tank designers to trade some armor for a more speed (so less armor plate). So these light tanks are more meant to be immune primarily to smaller arms fire

ppl will vote for more features rather than less... but honestly, cinematics are flash and nostalgic but it's the gameplay that ultimately makes or breaks a good game. So if possible, definitely suggest spending more effort/budget on gameplay rather than cinematics

most likely USA will come in an expansion pack. The EU fills the near future western military role, but USA would be like a further future western military with lots of drones, a few human infantry in first-generation powered armor, absolute ridiculously top notch aircraft

Unit Ideas

GLA:
-Sympathizers (a few immobile villagers/migrant laborers around a bunch of tires. when enemy units are in a certain radius, they light a tire fire to alert you of their presence. Basically they get a wide sight radius seeing the enemy so long as there are enemy in a certain radius. Enemy gets some sort of downside if attacking them because they're killing civilians)

Bioware should really play its niche - which is the gritty modern/near modern setting. Blizzard has fantasy/scifi with warcraft/starcraft. Total War has the ancient historical setting.