The South American Pact-What would it look like as a faction?, The South American Pact-What would it look like as a faction? Options

[InterestedPlayer]

So, I remember reading about the South American Pact in one of the updates. Thought I would ask what people think it would look like as a potential future faction, if such as thing were to happen down the road, and if SWR had the time and energy to devote to making a new faction. I think it would be interesting, since some South American nations are client states of the USA and have export versions of our tech (like Colombia) while other nations are either independent (like Brazil) or explicitly anti-USA and have a mix of Russian and in-house technology and weapons (like Venezuela). Some even have past histories as European colonies or still are under theoretical European jurisdiction. If they united into this pact they could pool these different technologies to potentially make a formidable military force.

To start off, I think they would have (obviously) a mix of Russian, American, and European small arms, as well as a mix of Gen 1-3 American aircraft and Gen 1-current (export version) Russian aircraft, in addition to some domestic aircraft manufactured in Brazil and Argentina. Also, they have a mix of Russian, American, European and domestic helicopters.

As examples:

Colombian Galil
 Colombian_Galil.jpg ( 14.17K ) Number of downloads: 36


Colombian F-16
 Colombian_F_16.jpg ( 53.6K ) Number of downloads: 16


Colombian Black Hawk
 bl_hawk2.jpg ( 45.45K ) Number of downloads: 16



Venezuelan AK-100 series
 chavez_ak.jpg.1000x297x1.jpg ( 64.88K ) Number of downloads: 16


 AK_103_2.jpg ( 10.54K ) Number of downloads: 11


Venezuelan SU-35
 Venezuelan_SU_35.png ( 33.36K ) Number of downloads: 11


 Venezuelan_SU_35_2.jpg ( 7.1K ) Number of downloads: 9


Venezuelan MI-8/17
 Mi_17Helicopter.jpg ( 32.54K ) Number of downloads: 17


Brazilian Imbel IA2
 ia2.jpg ( 82.75K ) Number of downloads: 15


Brazilian AMX Fighter
 Brazilian_AMX_Fighter_Bomber.jpg ( 31.57K ) Number of downloads: 22


Brazilian Eurocopter
 PV11247.jpg ( 65.03K ) Number of downloads: 22


In terms of ground vehicles, they have Gen 1-4 American tanks and light armored vehicles, as well as Gen 1-current (export) Russian vehicles of the same nature. They could also have their own unique tanks and other vehicles that take the best features of Russian and US design and put their own spin on them.

Their navy I think would probably follow US or Western design, but would reflect a unique South American take on things like aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers etc.


So, what do you guys think the South American Pact would look like as a hypothetical faction? Please let me know.

[MARS]

It's already difficult enough to come up with unique ideas for 5x3 factions. Adding a sixth is beyond our capabilities. This starts with the basics: What sort of distinct playstyle would the SAP represent? We've already covered the core elements of RTS factions with the US as the balanced faction, China as the spammer, GLA as the guerilla, Russia as the steamroller and Europe as the ranged defender. There wouldn't be much of a point in having an SAP faction if it only turns out to be a GLA-esque stealth/hit&run faction with modern tech. And that's just the gameplay dimension. Visually, there wouldn't be much military hardware to base our designs on because ROTR is explicitely against the idea of factions using weapons that they first had to buy from Russia/America/Europe etc. The GLA, being a non-state faction, is obviously an exception but as long as there aren't any interesting aircraft, tanks, vehicles etc. of native South American design, the faction would either feel like an incoherent mishmash of foreign designs OR a convolute of pseudo-Southern designs that are entirely fictional. In other words, the whole thing would look incoherent and jarring and there really isn't enough potential for a new faction, especially once our five current factions are broken down into 15 (!) sub-factions. Wanna give them advanced guerilla tactics? Already covered by GLA Terror Cell. Wanna give them amazing hacking and recon abilities? That's China Secret Police. Highly mobile, stealthy infantry units operating in conjunction with light vehicles? USA Special Forces.

[X1Destroy]

What about..... shoot, shoot some more, shoot more at them......Oh, they're dead? Oh well. Hey, we're under fire!!! Arhhh, we're too slow and too fragile......

But still, the lack of original vehicles is still a major problem for a new faction

This post has been edited by X1Destroy: 7 Jul 2013, 6:18

[Pepo]

sap can be a mix between different playstyles.maybe similar to the empire of the sun in ra3 but without stupid mechas.basically a jack of all trades faction

still i remenber reading that zh only have 15 ai capacity

and for the vehicles,they can be invented

[MARS]

Jack of all trades would already be the US. They have good infantry, good vehicles and the only thing they sort of excel at is their air force. Overall, their forces have decent stats, useful abilities, decent economics (can produce in decent numbers despite the high-tech label) and they can employ a broad variety of tactics from defensive forward basing over combined assault to mass air raids. AI capacity actually -isn't- the problem we have here because the sub-factions aren't treated as such by the game's code.

[Admiral FCS]

sap can be a mix between different playstyles.maybe similar to the empire of the sun in ra3 but without stupid mechas.basically a jack of all trades faction

still i remenber reading that zh only have 15 ai capacity

and for the vehicles,they can be invented

It's not the AI slot that's the problem (ROTR only uses 5), but again it's the faction diversity that matters. There's only so much elements in an RTS (or in any games TBH) that can make different factions distinctly different, and with this game not being Planetary Annihilation or its forerunners, diversity is a must. As said above, all current factions contain a mix of real-life weaponry and fictional special weapons that gives a distinct advantage/disadvantage while playing, and honestly, everything's been put to use. Adding another "mixed style" faction is fairly pointless.

[Pepo]

i think that if serious thinking was put on doing sap,the end result will be a unique faction.there are some games (soulstorm) that have many factions that each one feel different

[MARS]

A thing you have to consider is that we're also bound by the conventions of our setting. This is a mildly futuristic military setting that has been extrapolated and exaggerated from the real world. This leaves us with a lot more 'cans' and 'cannots' than a fantasy or distant future sci-fi setting where the laws of nature/science as well as the politics and military doctrines can be a lot more varied.

[X1Destroy]

More than 5 different factions with different styles is possible if only the mod wasn't focused of unique gameplay.

In the case of Soulstorm, it isn't about diverse game play, but different unit designs and background. Space Marine, Chaos and Sister are basically the same, with some minor differences.

It isn't a game where every faction have a different way of playing, so we can't compare ROTR with it.

[MARS]

I suppose Soulstorm is less about gameplay diversity and more about recreating all the iconic factions of the 40k universe for fans to play with. When translated to a more grounded modern military RTS, this is exactly the mistake made by countless other projects on ModDB: "Herpaderp, we're gonna add USA, Russia, China, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Saudi-Arabia, Pakistan, India, Taiwan, South Korea, North Korea, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Italy and about ten others by simply replicating their military inventory lists from Wikipedia and calling it a fun game"

*project spends three months in hibernation, posts an untextured WIP render of a T-72, then dies*

[X1Destroy]

That is the truth, even if such a game like that ever existed, it would be boring after a while, when you realized that everyone and everything are exactly the same thing with different skins, voices and flags.

Sadly, RL have always been like that. It won't change, unless we got an alien invasion.

That kind of theme should goes with games like BF or WIC, where everything have the same stats with different models, all for the sake of ballance and team play, cool explosion are all that's matter.

This post has been edited by X1Destroy: 7 Jul 2013, 10:43

[Shiro]

The only mod that I know of that successfully created ideas for 8 official factions (and somehow continues to create more and more by fans) is RA3: Paradox.
There we have:
- Allied Nations with crazy, part non-lethal science, airforce and versatility (RA2 Allies and/or USA in Gens)
- Confederate Revolutionairies with guerilla tactics, stealth generators, high amounts of mobility but bad units that may be improved over the game (essentially RA1 Allies, Nod and/or GLA)
- Soviet Union with steamroll tactics, solid industrial base, kinda expensive but can streamline their productions to reduce costs, but heavy on one-purpose units (Any GDI iteration and/or RA1 and/or RA2 Soviets)
- Empire of the Rising Sun with the most versatile units, unexpected unit behaviour, heavy distinction between ground and air, a few suicide unit options and heavy late-game units (part GLA, strongly Scrin)
- Order of the Talon is totally class over mass, with all their units being very strong on the defense and good in all other stats expect maybe speed and completely mobile, but also crazy expensive (inspired by Any RPG Ever)
- Atomic Kingdom of China has clone armies that don't gain experience, turrets that do gain experience and always buys units in bulk due to a production bottleneck, while guns are super-lethal but short-ranged (inspired by Tower Defense games)
- Mediterranean Syndicate is reasonably fast, good on the damage and very high on range, but actually bothers with real economics; on the plus side, they can build entire cities on the fly (inspired by Sim City)
- Electrical Protectorate has units build instantly with the armour made of wet cardboard; it's the most terrific spammer faction ever (inspired by Tower Defense games, except they are the mobs)

As should be visible, Paradox already went out of its way to constrict itself to classic RTS faction designs and threw some crazy other stuff into the mix. Paradox gets away with this by being a cultural melting pot of absolutely everything that can somehow be fired into the late 1960s, if history was written by super heroes and mega villains. This by itself implies that RTS games do not have that many design options by default and thus quickly run out if too many factions are present. It's the reason why games such as Starcraft have the classic 3 faction set-up and CnC too only has had 2 or later 3 factions.

This in turn makes a 6th faction that is unique in most regards very difficult. ROTR has a different design philosophy by being more grounded in reality and thus doesn't have all that many crazy ideas turned weaponry and even those that are mostly belong to the super maniacs like Aleksander, so they get a pass.

[The General]

I doubt that it South American countries would get their own faction, as they mostly have Russian or old Soviet military weapons, vehicles and aircraft.

And to be honest, i think there's more potential in Balkan Union ( a fanfiction that i'm making ) than S. American Union, but i am aware that the chances are almost completly non-existant. However i do have an idea how would BU look like as a faction, as Serbia produces some of it's own military weapons, aircraft and vehicles. Not to mention that this clash between major powers leaves all other countries out of the conflict, so unless that changes there is no real reason for any new faction to be added.
This is a mod for an old game, and SWR already has less time to further develop it, so i doubt they will be adding any new factions. They have real life work to do, and with all that we should be happy that they decided that they'll finish this mod no matter how long it takes.

[TheCeLL]

IMO China would be more of a jack of all trades.

USA excels at air, but its tank force isn't as great.

China has decent air, decent tanks, and decent infantry.

[X1Destroy]

If anything, China is the strongest in Artillery.

USA armor is very good, because they're not lacking in mobility at all while still packing a big punch. The lack of a super heavy tank is a good thing for them.

[Pepo]

this thread has gave me an excellent idea for a fanfic call army of others, speaking about the militaries of secondary countries.may try it one day

[Kalga]

this thread has gave me an excellent idea for a fanfic call army of others, speaking about the militaries of secondary countries.may try it one day

Ah... you beat me to the punch there

But seriously I was thinking about writing a fanfiction listing the military inventory of the others.... by using units from previous SWR mods like Shockwave and down graded weapon systems from ROTR (you know, keeping the whole thing plausible)...

... wait a minute. This sounds like a easy way to create an expansion pack to ROTR!

*gets shot to death by angry mob of SWR fans for promoting "EA-ish" idea*

This post has been edited by Kalga: 7 Jul 2013, 19:12

[Pepo]

hahahaha kalga.

more than speaking about the inventory,i would speak about strength and battles.for example sap: it has a newly formed army that is support by own country armies.sap military is mostly composed of poor people living in shanty towns.theit equipment is mostly russian,althrougth they have develop some of their own,like the jaguar tank. recently,sap forces invaded the fakland islands and have figth some border battles against nau forces
*final versions will be longer,this is a summary

[InterestedPlayer]

It's already difficult enough to come up with unique ideas for 5x3 factions. Adding a sixth is beyond our capabilities. This starts with the basics: What sort of distinct playstyle would the SAP represent? We've already covered the core elements of RTS factions with the US as the balanced faction, China as the spammer, GLA as the guerilla, Russia as the steamroller and Europe as the ranged defender. There wouldn't be much of a point in having an SAP faction if it only turns out to be a GLA-esque stealth/hit&run faction with modern tech. And that's just the gameplay dimension. Visually, there wouldn't be much military hardware to base our designs on because ROTR is explicitely against the idea of factions using weapons that they first had to buy from Russia/America/Europe etc. The GLA, being a non-state faction, is obviously an exception but as long as there aren't any interesting aircraft, tanks, vehicles etc. of native South American design, the faction would either feel like an incoherent mishmash of foreign designs OR a convolute of pseudo-Southern designs that are entirely fictional. In other words, the whole thing would look incoherent and jarring and there really isn't enough potential for a new faction, especially once our five current factions are broken down into 15 (!) sub-factions. Wanna give them advanced guerilla tactics? Already covered by GLA Terror Cell. Wanna give them amazing hacking and recon abilities? That's China Secret Police. Highly mobile, stealthy infantry units operating in conjunction with light vehicles? USA Special Forces.

Slept on this, and sounds fair enough. I mainly meant this as a hypothetical discussion piece. To be fair, I'm not sure the SAP would want to intervene in these conflicts between the GLA and the other 4 factions or tangle with the USA. I just thought it would be interesting if they were another side, although I'm not sure where there interests would lie.

[InterestedPlayer]

Ah... you beat me to the punch there

But seriously I was thinking about writing a fanfiction listing the military inventory of the others.... by using units from previous SWR mods like Shockwave and down graded weapon systems from ROTR (you know, keeping the whole thing plausible)...

... wait a minute. This sounds like a easy way to create an expansion pack to ROTR!

*gets shot to death by angry mob of SWR fans for promoting "EA-ish" idea*

Expansion pack sounds fine to me!

[InterestedPlayer]

hahahaha kalga.

more than speaking about the inventory,i would speak about strength and battles.for example sap: it has a newly formed army that is support by own country armies.sap military is mostly composed of poor people living in shanty towns.theit equipment is mostly russian,althrougth they have develop some of their own,like the jaguar tank. recently,sap forces invaded the fakland islands and have figth some border battles against nau forces
*final versions will be longer,this is a summary

Sounds about right; I think there was some tension between Argentina and England again over the Falklands last year, so that's pretty plausible.

[__CrUsHeR]

hahahaha kalga.

more than speaking about the inventory,i would speak about strength and battles.for example sap: it has a newly formed army that is support by own country armies.sap military is mostly composed of poor people living in shanty towns.theit equipment is mostly russian,althrougth they have develop some of their own,like the jaguar tank. recently,sap forces invaded the fakland islands and have figth some border battles against nau forces
*final versions will be longer,this is a summary

Actually this idea that the whole army of the SAP were a basis of armaments outdated of the epoch of the Cold War is not fact, Brazil has great potential and if you need to produce modern military equipment the country has the technology, however the basis of the military industry is deteriorated by incompetence of past governments that have accepted the lobbies of north American industries.

The Brazil dominates eg nuclear technology, has large reserves of uranium and enriches the material.

Countries such as Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia have an army that is actually antiquated basing on the things of the old Russia and follow a model of organization inherited from the Soviets and lack of adequate technologies to develop national armaments. However would be interesting as a faction.

While there poverty and social inequality in Latin America as a possible military alliance of SAP could improve this situation by at least in the military area - Brazil has the fifth biggest GDP in the world and invests too little in its army 1.5% of its GDP , if necessary eg invest 5% would be a military power and could produce together with the other countries of America produgiosos military equipments as the EU does for example.

This post has been edited by __CrUsHeR: 7 Jul 2013, 20:35

[Anubis]

There is actually a way to add South America or Eastern Europe for example as part of the game. It would come under the flag of mercenary armies. To those that played Warcraft 3 - think of the mercenary camp. To the others the idea is like this - a tech(neutral) structure where you can hire/train/build a few units.
In this case you could have such a mercenary camp and once you capture it you could chose between say South America or Eastern Europe or any other say region (and it wouldn't need a new upgrade).

One could ask what would this bring that factions don't already bring.
Well for one they would bring a very important tech structure on the map that players would really be interested in for the duration of the entire game. A second bonus this would bring will be most visible in version 2.0. From what i can understand factions such as the Chinese Secret Police won't have acces to heavy firepower, something that you could gain by capturing such a mercenary camp. You can do alot of stuff with such a system, but this means alot of work into new assets, more codding etc. And no one is getting payed for this.

[__CrUsHeR]

Hmm the idea is good, the Action of War High Treason you too have a good example of how to use mercenaries in a modern war.

However I do not think that Eastern Europe or SAP would serve the USA for example with mercenaries.

[Anubis]

USA has pin-point accuracy weapons. You can easily add area of effect units with the mercenary armies which would complement usa troops and their point damage. You can also add infantry and heavy transports for example that would complement usa tank general. Like i said - a balanced (in terms of options) mercenary theme could bring lots of diversity to many of the factions, since each of them has a specific theme, while mercenaries would have a little bit of everything depending on the region. For example South America could bring stealth-guerrilla-speed oriented mercenaries which would be something Russia, ECA or USA don't have at all. East Europe could offer a more armor/firepower oriented unit palette that would complement factions like China, GLA and/or ECA.
Like i said - this would be alot more interesting once 2.0 is out and factions will start having a much more theme oriented arsenal.

This post has been edited by Anubis: 7 Jul 2013, 21:01