Review of All 12 Generals from a Balance Point of View, Best and Worst Ones, including Balance Suggestions Options

[Alias]

The Reaper is already one of the best units in the game, and Kwai one of the best generals.

[Shock]

Kwai does not need artillery. The rest of his army was built to deal with the fact that he doesnt get any Arty, so yeah...

[Guest_Vintorez_*]

Kwai does not need artillery. The rest of his army was built to deal with the fact that he doesnt get any Arty, so yeah...

I have to disagree entirely, sorry. Even giving him a very underpowered, and overpriced artillery would be better than giving him none. Other than super weapons, artillery strikes, and possibly the Razor bombers, he has nothing that can counter heavy base defenses, or chokepoints. such as narrow bridges. where the enemy can hide artillery behind a wall of tanks and AA vehicles, and bombard him without worry.

The best example is against General Alexander. A single EMP patriot can, essentially, kill an Emperor. In a PVP match this would be even worse, because the player could manually target each of Kwai's tanks individually (while the AI isn't smart enough to have each EMP patriot manually target a separate vehicle). The EMP patriots can also down a plane or chopper in 1 shot, making his Razor bombers nearly as useless. Spamming tank hunters wouldn't work either, because all Alexander would have to do is hide a few pathfinders behind her Patriots.

In a map narrow corridors and chokepoints, it's even worse - a single EMP patriot could literally hold an entire horde of Kwai's best tanks at bay, forcing him to have to waste a Nuke or an Artillery Barrage to destroy a single base defense - it's just nowhere near balanced, sorry. You shouldn't have to resort to General's powers or Superweapons as your only option for destroying a base defense.

Leaving him with no artillery harkens back to the unmodded ZH, where Generals like Granger and Kassad were simply given no tanks. It gives the game a sloppy and unpolished feel. Even giving them a single underpowered tank was a huge improvement.

But of course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

This post has been edited by Vintorez: 19 Nov 2012, 21:34

[Zeke]

he has nothing that can counter heavy base defenses, or chokepoints. such as narrow bridges. where the enemy can hide artillery behind a wall of tanks and AA vehicles, and bombard him

Well as Kwai, you early game units should be able to prevent this from happening in the first place.

The EMP patriots can also down a plane or chopper in 1 shot, making his Razor bombers nearly as useless.

I actually don't get this part, because even in VZH (and in almost every mod I've ever played) EMP patriots have (at least from all the matches I've seen) never been able to properly target jets. Whenever I play SupW Gen, I always almost lose because of those damn bombers because EMP patriots simply can't hit them. I always have to quickly build up avengers to defend but by that time all my defences have been burned away, and that's at 50k vs the AI, I assume in a 10k PvP it'll be a lot harder to defend. Plus unlike Migs you can't PDL Razor Bombs

Spamming tank hunters wouldn't work either, because all Alexander would have to do is hide a few pathfinders behind her Patriots.

Pathfinders need rank 3 to be unlocked, tank hunters are available at the start. Yes Alexander has sufficient anti infantry weapons early game, I'm just pointing out that this argument is really weak.

From my experience as SupW Gen the thing that always gets me is Kwai's flame weapons. Razors and Warmaster tanks are extremely effective at destroying buildings especially with black napalm.

This post has been edited by Zeke: 19 Nov 2012, 4:26

[Stalker]

Kwai is in a great disadvantage on maps with bridges and narrow paths, especially vs Superweapon General. Only 1 EMP Patriot beats a horde of tanks.

It looks more like a game of a Rock, Paper, Scissors to me. I guess you just shouldn't have a chance as Tank General against a turteling Superweapon General. Still, this makes Kwai the weakest General (next to Kassad) to me. I think Tank vs SupW is Shockwave's biggest balance problem.

[Guest_Vintorez_*]

Kwai is in a great disadvantage on maps with bridges and narrow paths, especially vs Superweapon General. Only 1 EMP Patriot beats a horde of tanks.

It looks more like a game of a Rock, Paper, Scissors to me. I guess you just shouldn't have a chance as Tank General against a turteling Superweapon General. Still, this makes Kwai the weakest General (next to Kassad) to me. I think Tank vs SupW is Shockwave's biggest balance problem.

Yeah - if anyone wants a real challenge - play a 1-1 skirmish (or a pvp) with Kwai vs. Alexander, and limit super weapons to 1 - so that neither side will have an advantage in super weapon numbers - not to mention the Alexander AI is bugged and builds 5 particle cannons within 5-10 minutes of the match.

Well as Kwai, you early game units should be able to prevent this from happening in the first place.

I suppose that is possible in PVP. In skirmish vs hard AI I don't see that happening, since the AI will have the EMP patriots up within just a few minutes of battles. In smaller maps, I suppose you might be able to rush in a few Battlemasters and Gattling Tanks to cause some damage, however if that doesn't work you're pretty much cooked from that point onward.

I actually don't get this part, because even in VZH (and in almost every mod I've ever played) EMP patriots have (at least from all the matches I've seen) never been able to properly target jets. Whenever I play SupW Gen, I always almost lose because of those damn bombers because EMP patriots simply can't hit them. I always have to quickly build up avengers to defend but by that time all my defences have been burned away, and that's at 50k vs the AI, I assume in a 10k PvP it'll be a lot harder to defend. Plus unlike Migs you can't PDL Razor Bombs

From my experience, if an EMP patriot hits a plane while it's in a turn immediately after having released it's payload, then it doesn't get downed in one shot, but otherwise a single EMP patriot will still kill it in one shot. In skirmish mode, I always lose at least 1 Razor Bomber when attacking Alexander's defenses.

This post has been edited by Vintorez: 19 Nov 2012, 21:35

[Guest_Vintorez_*]

Alternate idea - restore the Adv. Ecm tank's range so that it outranges base defenses, but rather than letting it just infanitely take buildings offline - give it a manually-selected ability (similar to Black Lotus) which lets it temporarily disable a building for a few seconds, and has to be recharged after each use.

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EDIT - Or simpler solution to the whole Kwai vs Alexander issue - just make Razor Bombers immune to EMP so they can't be one-shotted by Alexander's EMP Patriots.

This post has been edited by Vintorez: 9 Dec 2012, 3:24

[RodentDung]

I think the Alexander blond woman is a good faction cause of her incredibly effective Patriot defense, best troops and excellent command center strikes. The nuke China general is medium cause his nuke hits a wide area but can't destroy stuff like Scud sites, and his tanks & troops are mediocre and he has the fantastic Chinese hackers of course. Granger seems weak cause his planes get shot down easily. General Leung (deadly Tigress woman) has a wide array of destructive power in every department especially her napalm launcher, strong hammer arty with good range, decent planes, gatling guns, decent tanks, hackers, and the brutal Earthshake superweapon and so she's definitely a strong faction though I've only tried her clan in one battle so far.

Ironside (Westmoreland) seems to be the extreme weakest from what I've experienced. Basically his tanks are like eggshells and any enemy vehicle, even light trucks, can easily destroy his tanks within a few seconds. Songbirds have fluttered onto his tanks and crushed them without meaning to. In return, the tanks are unable to damage enemy vehicles (or songbirds) more than a millimeter or so of health off their bar and even that requires that they stop cause they can't move & fire which is unrealistic cause modern tanks have gun stabilizers and lasers for aiming to neutralize the bumpiness of the ride. The howitzers cost a General Point, but they are short range and are very lucky to get off even a single shot before being destroyed cause the enemy vehicles easily outrange howitzers (which is odd cause they can shoot with accuracy over 30 kilometers away in reality if a recon vehicle or tank has a laser sighting on the target) so they are a waste of money and GP. The only way Ironside can try to survive is with his decent turrets and weak Black Widow bomber but that is too frail and can barely scratch enemy vehicles so it costs more than one bomber per enemy vehicle destroyed and he has no choppers to add to the bill. The Black Widow is basically an expensive paper airplane with a loud PA announcement emitting from it saying "Shoot at me!! Shoot at me!!" The turrets are only a temporary defense until the enemy outranges them and destroys them for free. His troops drop immediately upon contact so they are little more than.... songbirds. I think he has a superweapon but I've never survived long enough to use it cause it costs a staggering $5000 and then a long wait for it to charge so my base is destroyed before it can fire. I think I'm gonna dodge Ironside which is unfortunately cause I like armored vehicles both historical and modern.

I haven't tried the terrorist cells yet cause I prefer US & China stuff but I will try them someday to learn their dark secrets. I have a strong non-interest in joining something as evil as ISIS so I think that may be why. The new scavenge general will probably be interesting though.

[FabulousPug]

In my opinion, Laser general is just too good to be a no
2. Laser this laser that - everything is high damage - 100% accurate. And on top of that come the planes.

Scavenger general has some funky and interesting units, although I find his version of bike/buggy hybrid too weak. But then again he's got some crazy fat tanks plus good artillery and crates everywhere which makes for a fearful force.

Thrax has too much toxin spill/spray units which makes every battle blue or pink - poweful but not my taste

Ironside is underpowered at least vs AI, can do almost nothing what a vChina can't do better, for example.

Granger would be ok if he had. beefier planes and not the paper everyone else also has. Though I'm still not sure in what aspects is his super mega ultra aurora better than a normal one o.O

Alexander is one of my favorites just cause I like to fat weapons striking everywhere. Her teleporting tanks are also my favorite

Leang could be overpowered like Townes is imo, cause of the great artillery and the most OP flying unit ever - the little chopper of machine gun death. Also her defenses can be considerable if she chooses to turtle a bit.

Kwai is imo just strong until the enemy gets to tech up. After that it's just a matter of time before artillery wipes the floor with his face.

Fai is quite strong, with good early rushing and great late economy, it is hard to beat him
Can rush, fight 'normally' and spam whatever he likes with the huge cash flow from hackers.

Tao is good but I wouldn't say better or as good as vChina. Has lots of stuff to counter groups of units but the problem is in microing so you don't kill off half your own army in the process.

Kassad isn't strong enough to go toe to toe with others, so he relies on hijackers and similar stuff to get the upper hand. Difficult to be effective as Kassad as much planning is needed for success. Imo AT guns should have longer range and a wider targeting angle while his little tanks could get some kind of speed upgrade or anything that would make the more hit'n'run style.

Juhziz is good and satisfying to play, could make many rage quit at online play lol.

This is from my point of view, it certanly doesn't mean it is correct generally.
My favorites must be Alexa's teleport tank, stealth bikes, buritos, demo traps on wheels, basilisks, laser artillery ..

Imo Townes should be a little less powerful as he seems to be just too good both in offense and defense

[RodentDung]

FabulousPug your impressions are almost the same as mine. I only think that the infantry general (Fai?) is helpless vs Thrax because I could not beat Thrax (on Hard) with both Fai and the baby hamster Ironside.

I also like Alexander the best cause of good all round units and best superweapon due to shortest recharge timer which helped me beat the deadly Leung.

I haven't played the terrorists or the creepy Laser guy yet cause they seem a bit too evil for my liking. Oh I tried the bombs terrorist once and got completely owned by the Nuke general cause he had like 6 or 8 nukes plus numerous nuke trucks destroying my base and the bomb terrorist had no answer except to whine about his mail order degree.

Someday in the next 10 years, I might or likely not, win an Ironside vs Thrax fight.