After the People's Liberation Army had come to the rescue of Europe and destroyed the GLA terrorists that had occupied several German cities, the future looked promising for China: With the United States in isolation, the wrecked European Union at the mercy of Beijing's policy makers and the GLA driven back into obscurity, the Middle Kingdom had become the de-facto leading superpower of the world. But when the fighting came to an end after almost a decade of constant warfare and tens of thousands of brave soldiers sacrificed in battle, the damage China had sustained was still considerable: The sealed-off atomic crater in Tiananmen Square was still a visible scar in the country's national psyche and the destruction of the Three Gorges Dam had flooded several cities along the Yangtze River including Shanghai, not to mention the loss of the most important hydro-electric power plant which necessitated the rapid construction of several new nuclear plants. The Party government had gone into excessive lengths in order to keep the population disciplined, engaging in large-scale country-wide propaganda operations to maintain a facade of total invulnerability which allowed China to accomplish a literal miracle and delay the fallout of an economic downturn for the duration of the total, all-encompassing war effort.



The risky gambit payed off: The majority of the 1.4 billion population endured the hardships with seemingly unshaking resolve. Such gallantry did not go unnoticed by China's neighbours in the South-East. They too bought into the elaborate ploy that the People's Republic had become an invincible juggernaut whose progress could never be hindered. In addition, many positions of their governments had been covertly infiltrated by Beijing's agents long before the war ended. Thus, China met little to no political resistance when it came forward with the creation of a supranational commonwealth to fully represent the interests of Asia on a global scale in 2031. The original proposals refered to this new organisation as the "Socialist South Asian Nations", or "SSAN" for short but the name didn't catch on: 2030s China had developed to a point where it no longer resembled any definition of socialism, instead mixing elements of thinly veiled state capitalism, Asian nationalism, traditional philosophy, technocratic social engineering and fanatical state-worship into a distinctly Chinese system. Eventually, the new entity was dubbed the "Greater Asian Peoples Alliance", which grew to include most of continental Asia between the Russian Federation, the ambivalent Republic of India and the war-torn Korean Peninsula which had erupted into open conflict soon after the American retreat. Predictably, the GAPA was not conceived on fair terms and was largely skewed in favour of Beijing, allowing China to recover from the aftershocks of the global war on terror just in time for the global African resource rush in 2037.

Awesome update is once again awesome. I totally love the look of the Jammer Tower, now I don't have to leave ECM tanks in behind my defenses to provide protection to my bunkers and gattling cannons. Once again the team has totally surprised me.

Whoops forgot to ask my normal few questions.

1) Will this upgrade be available as soon as you can build Prop Towers, or will we have to reach the same tier as ECM tanks?

Also people, feel free to listen to this epic song while reading the lore portions. It kinda adds to the experience.

Wo xi.huan Zhong.Guo de gushi. Zhen youyisi! (Sorry other pinyin readers I don't have tone marks on my keyboard )

On the note of music!

Haha The Party is no longer The Communist Party of China I see

It's kinda like in '1984', where everyone just calls it 'The Party' because there simply is no other.

Ahh. Isn't it also because in the Vanilla-Lore, China is never referenced to as Communist and the Communistic-themes of China are left ambiguous other than the ingame logic of propaganda?

Sort of, yes. They never went full-on "glory to the communist party" in their in-game rhetorics but their imagery still carries the theme. By the time this update is set, the only thing remotely communist about them will indeed be their
symbology. Historically, the colour red has actually been the traditional colour of China even before that. In RL, China's leadership started moving away from die-hard Maoism after the 1970s too and this is essentially an extrapolation.

I think its a little funny that you put down: "the new Chinese century" *cough* dick cheney *cough* *cough* Report *cough*

Apart from that, I must say very nice update! I see you guys do your home work(as always)and put together a very nice update. This is one fan that was happy and enjoyed it a bit. I have a little commect though. I did seem a little "outsider" PoV for my liking but still enjoyed it.

I am looking forward to hearing more from the Chinese back story. I like to hear all the back stories.

Yeah, some of these updates will have a more omniscient, documentary-style POV to them, but we will definitely do other ones with a character-based narrative akin to the Orlov story as well. Fun fact: The Orlov story actually started out as a complete afterthought. Andre asked me to post the GLA tunnel update and come up with a little bit of a story introduction. Off the top of my head, I decided to use Orlov as an insert character for the reader and then decided to use this style for the entirety of the GLA update series.

Did the trade agreement between India and China have any effect on China's relationship with Pakistan?

That's...admittedly something we haven't put any thoughts into, as it goes around a few too many plot corners. I mainly included that trade agreement bit as a detail for the people who've been speculating about
the fate of India in our story a while back. As you can see, it still exists and so does Pakistan (their intelligence agency was name-dropped in one of the Orlov updates), so no Indo-Pakistani nuclear war here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dVsWI94OAs

Very cool. So many good campaigns could be made out of this story line. (Sigh) wave of nostalgia thanks to aeroth, I miss those beautifully made Gen/ZH campaigns. Ooooh the sound of the Chinese War Machine.

"I did not think the United States would be defeated so easily. I do not understand why the United States allowed this to happen. This will not stand, China will make things right. The GLA's treacherous use of our resources against the Americans has caused great embarrassment for China. They must pay for their insolence. They believe the day is theirs, but they celebrate too soon..."

Ah the memories...

Nice surprising, early update. I guess now we won't have to leave an ECM tank with our defenses anymore. Perhaps this could be useful against both of GLA's MRLS style artillery units given the fragile things somehow survives all other sorts of assault. Ofc Russians would still mow down like nothing has changed. Do they detect stealth? Then they probably could be worth the risk.

That tower sure looks like one hell of a contraption, love those tiny banners for some reason. Love the description of the tower, looks very carefully written by the Ministry of State Security. xD

The lore on the other hand is extensive and answers a lot of questions. That's so much info in one little update! So Seoul got annihilated by the North or is just the Chinese propaganda? India is alive and kicking signing trade deals with China? And it (along with Sri-Lanka) has the ECA overseas colour? Japan is sitting there alone with increasing military budgets? And perhaps most surprisingly, Pakistan hasn't volunteered to sign up for SSAN/GAPA or do they have that thing for the US when the US are isolationists now? China hasn't reached towards Indonesia and that part yet?

Now we finally know how China eventually survived the backlash of the GLA wars. The whole propaganda operation definitely was one hell of a gambit. The formation of GAPA on the other hand sounds wonderfully engineered with delicate mix of propaganda, advertisements, government infiltration etc. The new system of state capitalism, Asian nationalism, traditional philosophy, technocratic social engineering and fanatical state-worship into a distinctly Chinese system sounds really interesting. The last part about GAPA getting skewed by Beijing made me chuckle!

P.S. - if memory serves right China had one unit less then US and Russia back in 1.5. Is the gap between US and China now two while gap between Russia and China remains one? Just curious.

Nope, no stealth detection on these things. You'll have to use Troop Crawlers for that. As for the Jammer upgrade, it's a really useful addition and it also looks very cool in game with that nice ECM aura effect. Be careful not to place too many structures/units under one Jammer Tower though: If you do that, the missile deflection may actually backfire on you when it blocks a ton of incoming missiles that subsequently miss the tower but smash into all the stuff around it. That obviously isn't a crippling downside that makes it useless, but it is something you have to consider when placing them.



Lots of interesting questions there and I'll try to answer them:

- The Korean war is not a Chinese fabrication. The moment the US pull out of Asia in-universe, North Korea tries to seize the opportunity and attack the South. They have the larger army while the South has better equipment, but is obviously weakened now that their main ally just decided to hightail it. But who knows, maybe the South will gain its second wind and push them back across the border? This is, however, just a minor detail that won't be further addressed within the grand scheme of things. In any case, Seoul is indeed gone. Interesting RL factoid: If it ever comes to a full-on escalation between the two Koreas, Seoul would likely be razed by an onslaught of conventional artillery. The North may or may not have nukes (along with the necessary launch systems), but what they do have is over 50 years worth of artillery production pointed at that one city, ready to go off the moment someone in Pyongyang is feeling adventurous. Do note that North Korea is not a part of the GAPA. China is obviously smart enough to keep that particular loose cannon out of its alliance for the time being.

- India is indeed in good enough shape to sign deals with China. However, the colour choice is not meant to imply any sort connection with the ECA aside from a membership in the Commonwealth Of Nations as in RL.
I just felt like highlighting them to add a different colour and because unlike in-universe Korea or Japan, India would be an economic superpower, albeit not interested in taking sides with either faction during the war.

- Japan, much like South Korea, was taken by surprise when the US packed up and left. They too rely on the Americans as a powerful military/strategic partner. Thus, it wouldn't be surprising if Japan decided to ramp up it's Self Defence Forces in the event of both a Korean war - with the North apparently winning at the time that picture was created, no less - and nearly all of continental Asia under Chinese control. In fact, it does actually create an ironic twist when you consider that Japan used to be in control of all these places when they still had their 'Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere' until WW2.

- Right, Pakistan hasn't joined the GAPA. Possibly because they didn't fall for the deception and obviously have too little in common with the Chinese to think of them as benevolent partners in this scenario. After all, they are in an tricky position, sitting right between China, India, Russia's backyard and the Middle East, which is probably a total political clusterfuck by the end of ZH. As for Indonesia, it just seems like China hasn't set its sights on that part of the Pacific region (yet), so they're off the hook. One thing that also needs to be considered is that both Pakistan and Indonesia do not share the same aspects of 'traditional philosophy' as China and its friends, making their assimilation a bit more difficult.



We mainly changed the name because GAPA just has a better ring to it as an acronym than SSAN. Then there's the point about China not actually being socialist, the issue that outright calling your geo-political power bloc 'socialist' in the 21st century would be an instant short-hand for every US right wing pundit to brand you as 'the red menace' and lastly...the fact that the name 'Socialist -South Asian- Nations' needlessly adds a strictly defined geographical limit to an organisation that is obviously just a faux-legitimate front for an expansionist hegemony!


I'm not entirely sure but for one, we weren't adding these new features with the goal of evening any numbers. We just added them because a.) they're cool and b.) the old factions just HAD to get SOMETHING new in 1.7 as well.

Love the Lore behind General Jin, him becoming a Party-zealot, and I like the description of his forces. I like the idea of having ECM jammer towers, but I must now ask a question. Why is everyone concerned with the Chinese doing trade agreements with India in the lore? In RL, Chine, India, Russia, and Brazil all became a BRIC collation, due to the sheer amount of power they hold collectively on the World stage. So why would Pakistan get into a nuclear war with India just because Chine and India are doing trade agreements.
But for a ROTR question, are tomahawk cruise missiles affected by the ECM?

Not sure if it affects the bigger missiles right now, but you'll be able to find this out by yourself soon enough.

Tell me about it! Reminds me of all the times when a stupid ECM Tank deflected some incoming missiles on a Battlemaster next to it, only to make the poor tank go nuke boom and taking the ECM with it as well lol.

I am certain the Jammer upgrade is gonna look really cool in-game, like I said it looks like one hell of an interesting contraption. What I am cynical about is it's possible redundancy. Propaganda towers are quite fragile so upgrading them sounds like one hell of a risk. So long we've been doing this ECM business with ECM tanks. ECM tanks can actually run away if the opponent is tank rushing/spamming howitzers or something like that, they can also EMP down vehicles. Plus the Banshee ECM has a cool name! Ofc it's a bit strange to see a Chinese unit getting named after Irish spirits but I love how Banshees are implemented in games so no complaints.

Anyway overall I think I am mostly gonna stick with my old Banshees. It's sad since the upgrade looks so cool visually. I am afraid unlike the Bradley, I can't call this a "noticeable" addition that adds a new dimension to the gameplay. Okay I'll be honest, I am almost tempted to say "necessary" instead of "noticeable" but I'll refrain myself.

Yeah the old factions had to get something. It's just that I did once get outta character on purpose and directly asked if the older factions would get new units and the answer was "yes". Mix-ups are sad.

Anyway now that that part is over I'll go over to the fun part. =)

Yeah North Korea just keeps adding whole new dimensions to the term "rouge nation". Good call having the Chinese leave them outta GAPA. On a relative note, RL China has to keep comparatively good relations with "junta" governments like Zimbabwe, North Korea and countries with "highly influential military" like Pakistan for diplomatic and influential reasons but yeah they might actually leave such volatile, undependable states out if they wanna expand their borders, and expanding the border pretty much what GAPA has practically done.

Yeah if Pyongyang actually presses the red button and US is gone Seoul wouldn't have much of a chance. Ofc starting another Korean war would also have a crushing blow on North's ever weakening socio-economy. Again they might not care enough to hold back in post ZH settings. And yeah Japan would definitely sh*t themselves if US leaves and Korea wars start.

So I guess India is pretty much neutral in most parts. I like the sound of economic-superpower. How China deals with their super neighbour, specially in trades or how they choose to help the friendly governments of Nepal or Bangladesh in border situations would be interesting. Personally I can see Sri-Lanka jumping in GAPA more willingly then say Vietnam, Philippines or Bangladesh. However yeah post ZH China can ultimately control all of South and South East Asia perhaps minus India. Like they say, "when in water, you can't wrestle the crocodile".

Pakistan always had a special relation with both US and China and geographically they are in one really funny position. So yeah I guess they won't, or perhaps won't be able to, join GAPA. Or maybe China wouldn't wanna assimilate a state that would take stationing a lot of troops and investing billions to stabilise under post ZH state of world and return of GLA (who are at least five times more dangerous than RL terrorists).

As for Indonesia, Malaysia and such... they probably won't hold out forever. =)

Yeah renaming SSAN to GAPA is an excellent call IMO. ZH China would have no need to further complicate their agenda by naming the organization as a socialist organization. It would also make the assimilation of some countries even more difficult. Again, like you said, there is no need for a strict geographic limit for an organization mainly aimed at fax-legitimate expansionism.

I should perhaps point out that this is a global upgrade, meaning that the moment you purchase it, ALL Speaker Towers including future ones will always include the Jammer. You pay for it once and get something that remains useful against every missile-heavy opponent for the rest of the game. Sure, it's not as useful as the ECM Tank which is mobile and can downright paralyse enemy vehicles, but hey, the Towers do their thing, you won't have to micro-manage them at all and what more can you expect, really.

Pretty cool...though in the Zero Hour timeline there already was a second Korean War that ended in a US/South Korean victory, according to Alexander's profile.

Fairly good call on India...IRL India has good relations with the US and Russia, and is hostile to China. I can see them being neutral during the war due to their ties to the US, Russia, and Europe and therefore not wanting to become involved.

I'd also have thought that the US would have withdrawn their troops from Europe (after the GLA invasion) and much of the middle east (after the GLA defeat there; we can assume that the widespread use of cold fusion power by the US has made them nearly entirely energy independent) but would have kept a few outposts in East Asia to keep an eye on the Chinese and Russians should things go awry for US interests there.

Fair point, but IIRC, one of the ZH videos does state that "the US influence now reaches no further than their own borders" or something like that.

As for Alexander's profile, yeah, that's actually something I noticed after I had already prepared the draft for this update. It does mention her being a logistics staffer during the "Second Korean War", but then again, said "war" might as well have been just an extended series of border skirmishes that eventually amounted to nothing for all we know. Truth be told, South Korea would probably stick to the division of the peninsula because a unification under their rule would basically chain them - a rising local power with a very modern economy - to a dead body. The US on the other hand wouldn't go as far as knocking out the Kim regime because the inevitable infighting would probably destabilise the entire region even further. Sooo...let's just say there was a few weeks of fighting along the DMZ, but at the end of the day, none of the parties really wanted this thing to escalate into a major war in China's backyard, the UN once again gave in to North Korea's blackmailing attempts and the outcome was basically status quo ante bellum.

You know, it's just that - given what I got used to expecting from you guys (which again perhaps was a communication mixup), I wouldn't expect the only new addition to a faction to feel redundant and give you the feeling "it's trying to fill an already filled niche and doing a somewhat cheap job at it". Like I already said, I kinda expected something that can easily be marked as noticeable and different from what we already have. If possible something that adds a new dimension.

I might as well go ahead and point out the obvious - there has been so many comments on this thread yet most of them was about the lore. People barely talked about the towers, even when they did it was "formal comments" or indirectly pointed out the ECM tank usage. It just hasn't stirred the crowd.

Overall this addition has probably been a bad call mate. Sorry.

Hey hey, "hostile" is a mean word. I would rather define RL Indo-China relation as "competitive".

However it is a point that it is pretty beneficial for US's interests that this so called hostility remains and if possible escalates. Better not go deeper in this matter.

Oh no, it's all good. I can see your reasoning. After all, this really is just an upgrade to something as banal as a Speaker Tower that will later be exclusive to one faction. Obviously, we weren't expecting this to cause as much excitement over something new as, say, the navy, the GLA air force or the Bradley. It's one of the smaller additions we had in mind for the generals but because of that, we came to the conclusion that it would be one that we could as well add now without causing too much of a shift in gameplay. If I was just a regular fan, I too would be more enthused about an actual unit than this, simply because it's not exactly flashy in the way something else would have been. But as you may understand, juxtaposition is important when trying to build up tension and anticipation. Can't just fire away the awesome stuff every weak, gotta break it up with more subtle/less spectacular additions every now and then.

Since this was pretty much a mid-week update is there still going to be an update this friday/weekend? Also is this and the Bradely is all that's going to be new for China for the former and the latter for the US in 1.7?

Revealing in advance whether there's going to be another update in the same week? Now that would be boring, eh?
As for the other question: Yes, these are the only noteworthy additions to the old factions since this release is mostly about the new GLA.

looks like 1.7 is close now

Or Maybe not.

Maybe your wrong

Wut?!

Well, I guess can't wait for it

In that case: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eVi-3bwG0I&hd=1

Love this Speaker Tower ability,they were always vulnerable so this is gonna be useful addition.
It would be nice to see this Generals Gat Cannons with this upgrade . . . Or not,it already can deploy mines . . .

Really the only reason I used Speaker Towers was for the repair of my Dozers when repairing defenses, and placed by my airfields for quicker repair of the MiGs. Don't get me wrong, they are brilliant when portable either on a ((((HELIX)))) or Overlord. Oh and the flying whale, that has a decent amount of HP to help compensate the lack of CAS from something else which I shall not mention seeming as I already have.

I now this has no real ingame meaning but does the GAP-A (hehe GAP!) fill the Chinese ranks? if so would be cool to have sounds bits from diffrent parts of The GAP-A

Actualy given the lore stuff about china and GAPA it would actualy be cool if ingame you could build some sort of alliance center ( sort of like the mercenary outpost in act of war for who played that game ) where you could get a army drop ( for a huge price ) from one of the allies. Then again this would be a cool feature for all factions... at least for me.

PS : Btw is it just me or does this GAPA sounds alot like one of the retarded control laws like ACTA - no insult intendede btw - the retardede part is just about the content of the laws not their naming.

Ha ha ha...Actually I just thought, SOPA and PIPA lol.

ACTA,SOPA,PIPA and er...GAPA.

I like the lore about Korea, and yes in the event of a Northen Invasion, Seoul sadly ,would be reduced to rubble. By 2040, there is almost a century's worth of guns pointed at the capital and they probably would overrun the Northern Part of South Korea very quickly through sheer weight of numbers. But then again, the South has also been preparing for years for such an eventuality and the technological edge would soon start to show. I also seriously doubt, China would be interested in helping North Korea openly (being the new world peace-keeper) but they might encourage them covertly, in fact, a lack of Chinese support for the grumpy little State would probably cause the N. Koreans to get desperate and attack their Southern cousins. In reality, the reason China maintains contact with North Korea is two reasons.

1) A buffer state between China and the United States.
2) They don't want millions of illiterate and starving peasants pouring over their Southern Border if North Korea goes tits up.

These reasons would no longer stand. With the Americans gone, that's one issue solved and a war helps wipe out a significant portion of the other problem. Draconian but elegant. Also, if the North wins (doubtful) China would be able to force political hegemony over Korea and if the South wins (More likley, I can see other allies stepping in here ala. Australia, New Zealand and Japan), the borders will remain unchanged (as Mars said, South Korea doesn't want to be tied to the economic sinkhole that North Korea is) and GAPA suddenly looks a lot friendlier to the South as they will need economic help rebuilding their shattered country. Faith in the US would have also been shaken so I don't see them turning to the West anytime soon. Either way, the ultimate winner would be China. The only potential backlash would be Korean refugees fleeing North but China being the economic super-power it is can now probably handle it.

Something minor that I noticed while reading ModDB comments. Jin is japanese (Chinese doesn't have a "J" sound) closest would be Tsin or Chin.

Lin could also be an alternative in case you care about those details

You're right, no sound is really similar to the way Jin is generally pronounced by Westerners in Mandarin (Jin is typically pronounced like the alcohol "Gin".) In Mandarin at least, it's more like a strong "Geee" sound with the next closest being "Jooo" (in the case of words staring with Zh). Without tone marks and an understanding of them it is hard to imagine it.

But no reason why the name can't stand. Jin was a name for an Ancient Chinese Dynasty around the 11th Century I beleive and the word Jin in Mandarin (depending on tone marks and pronouncication) can mean either "enter" "be near" or is a measurement for weight. Also the names I believe are pre-determined by Alpha generals?

Actually, there is the last name of Jin (it means "gold") in mandarinEDIT: Mandarin. My cousin sister's family has that last name. But anyways, I digress.

Once again, this is an awesome update. Totally love the lore, and really, no more need to be said with the more detailed friends who's left comments already. Great job team.

As I am Chinese, please forgive me for the poor English grammar.
In fact, I think "Jin" is the Chinese pronunciation (pinyin) of the Chinese character "金", and in my country it is a familiar (I'm not sure if I use this word correctly) family name.
By the way, "Tsin" is the Enlish pronunciation of the character "静" which is not used as a family name in China. "Chin" is for "秦", it is a family name.

Thanks for all the positive comments on the lore, guys. Really appreciated.

As for the name, you'll have to consider that this particular general is based on one of the old, unreleased alpha generals, so he was meant to be called Jin since before Generals was released; it's not something we chose to call him.

just to keep this all =

your a poo head and the update was a dumb bumb!



rofl jokes

Oh let's just forget about it. What's done is done. Ofc I ain't taking back anything, I still stand behind what I said earlier.

Anyway if you guys wanna build up tension and anticipation then it's your call. How and in which order you present your work is entirely up to you. But perhaps I should add that the latest addition has actually downed my anticipation by a good amount instead of raising it.

However as always I highly appreciate your confidence that you wanna build up tension meaning you have the belief you'll be able to answer the expectation. I however feel inclined to ask a question I rather not ask -

Do you guys believe you'll be able to keep all factions have pretty much the same depth gameplaywise and will you be able to make sure all factions have almost equal appeal after the ECA release?

The thing is I don't suggest cause you guys don't like it... right now I am pretty tempted to suggest that you guys should consider changing the mod to a total conversion and trim the factions that are gonna end up being dead weights in the final release. You know - factions that none would actually use with much interest and that would only serve as punching bags in the long run.

Lack of CAS alongside lack of aerial transportation to be precise.

Nice update, and a decent, meaty lore on China.
BTW, on a fairly off-topic note, will the next version finally have a GUI-based launcher like in Shockwave?

So when the US pulled out what happened to their alliance with Australia, and Japan?

I say they pretty much got abandoned. Looks like Japan is sh*tting itself and increasing defense budgets now that US is gone and another Korean wars broke out.

But perhaps later Japan will try to somehow get in US's new North American trade treaty pact.

Apart from WW2, I can not say or think of any good points coming out of having USA troops in AU.
So, I dont not think the AU loosing USA troops having any real lost or long term lost.

Yes it will and the new launcher software will also be windows7/vista compatible

It's very likely that an alliance of sorts remains with the US and their Pacific/Indian Ocean allies to act as a counterbalance to China and Russia but I'm not sure that the US would be keeping large amounts of troops outside their borders until their military's return to the world stage during the Africa land rush.