China is to RoTR as Soviets is to YR Options

[Inst]

I'm wondering if anyone has the same feeling, but China is quite similar to the Soviets of Yuri's Revenge. In Yuri's Revenge, the cool parts of the Soviets (Cloning Vats, Yuri) was moved off to its own faction, making it relatively boring compared to its RA2 incarnation. The Soviets did get the Siege Chopper, which functions as an interesting Rocketeer variant, but otherwise the Soviets became boring, although I hear that in the modern pro play, Soviets are the strongest side.

With the removal of Neutron Shells, China is a rather straightforward faction that specializes in brute force operations. If you say, look at the Zerg of Starcraft, they weren't simply an outnumbering force, but emphasized mobility (zerglings, hydralisks were reasonably fast with upgrades, nydus canals gave incredible mobility) and expansion capability.

I understand the need of game designers to emphasize the difference between the Chinese and Russian factions; the Russians are supposed to be more high-tech than the Chinese, but the RoTR Chinese are almost lower tech in feel than the GLA. I mean, you gave them a MiG-21 / J-7 as a bomber, and the MiG-21 costs more than a MiG 1.44.

How about some newer kit? If, as the storyline goes, the Chinese are a major superpower, their technology should have improved as well, so why not, as in real life, remote-controlled drones? The Chinese dominate the military drone market because the US is loathe to export drone technology. Or how about a J-20 as a limit 1 unit that specializes in late-game reconnaissance and interception? Or we can go the same route as in Yuri's Revenge, and give the Chinese cheap, spammable helicopters (WZ-19)?

[Inst]

China wasn't the horde race in ZH, though. The reason Hordes don't work for China is that most Horde races tend to be econ-focused, i.e, the strategy is to get map control, get an econ advantage, then pump out tons of cheap units out at the enemy. The actual ZH horde race was the GLA; Scorpions counter almost everything on the ground in sufficient numbers, and with map control you could just spam Scorpions at everything. When that stops working, spam buggies, spam scuds, etc.

Economically speaking, China was between GLA and the United States. The United states spent 3200 per supply point, while the GLA and Chinese spent 2100. But the GLA had cheap workers and could spam workers around to seize map control and force the opponent to attack them to break their supply stash spam.

Unless, say, you want to give China half-priced horde dozers, China doesn't work well as a horde army. You have to remember that micro aside, 1 strong unit is equal to 2 units of the same cost but power, so hording is illusory.

Another complaint I'd make is that Hoppers are overpowered compared to Battlemasters. 8 hoppers beat 5 battlemasters since hoppers have a better statline for cost than battlemasters. The ideal is that hoppers are used to inject horde bonus into battlemasters, not hopper spam working on its own.

This post has been edited by Inst: 10 Jan 2019, 23:53