I wasn't around yesterday, so here's a rather lengthy breakdown of several points.
QUOTE (SpiralSpectre @ 19 Aug 2012, 13:18)
Gawd Recon Kit should be useful... like lifesaver useful. So does this function the same way as GLA's Radar Van's scans in-game?
So how does the Spy Plane power work? Same as that one from RA2? I assume they can detect stealth? Is that part with ECM missile jammer storyline fluff or is it in? Love that little "hood" on it's back.
The lore part has been pretty enjoyable. Finally we once again get to hear more about those GLA monuments that were talked about a lot before. I chuckled reading the incident gave birth to a award winning press photo. A historical city in Bavaria... you guys sure chose a very fitting place for the whole incident.
The Crawler scan is technically an 'artillery' in the sense that it 'fires' a long range beam at a target area, which is subsequently revealed for as long as the Crawler keeps scanning that part, allowing you to reveal a certain area permanently.
The moment you build an Airfield, it comes with a support power (called in just like a general power) which flies in, sweeps across the selected area several times and reveals things. As far as I remember, it does have a missile jammer.
By the way, the ideas for these two additions actually came by accident if you will: The Hunter and I were playing a game on Swiss Mountain, but instead of a serious PvP (which I just plain suck at), we set this up like a mission: He was playing as the GLA and spread across the entire map, making absurd use of tunnels, stealth and traps on a map that HEAVILY favours the GLA in such a context while I was playing as China and tried to just root him out. What followed was a three hour slog where he decimated every single one of my attack forces, sent rebel ambushes to capture my stuff and I literally had to resort to annihilating entire areas, including whole villages, with Nuke Cannons and Hans. After that, we both came to the conclusion that China -was- heavily lacking in the stealth detection department and that the sluggish Crawler simply wasn't suited to respond quickly, so we added these two features to give China some more immediate detection methods.
As for the story, it was actually the original ZH campaign which placed this particular incident in Coburg, so I just grabbed the detail and ran with it. EA obviously didn't put that much thought into it and put some GLA monuments on that map, but I recognise my exploitable metaphors when I see them, so that's how we got there.
QUOTE (Panzer4life @ 19 Aug 2012, 16:06)
Love the update, and the lore about Mongolia peacefully integrating with China is a nice touch. However, are we going to see a Chinese invasion into Siberian Russia?
Not yet sure whether they are going to do that at some point, but they do have the necessary land border now.
QUOTE (Knjaz. @ 19 Aug 2012, 18:51)
Niice.
Two questions, though.
Will the amount of available spy planes increase with the amount of airfields built?
And... will China keep it's global recon general power?
Regardless of how many Airfields you build, you only get one power.
And yes, these are just additions, they do not replace anything.
QUOTE (blgmgl @ 20 Aug 2012, 4:06)
WTF? Mongolia peacefully integrating into China? Never in my life!
We Mongols would rather stick to Russia just like we did in early 20th century when we restored our independence from Manchu Empire (read Qing Dynasty).
BTW, that would be a good story development. Since Russia was always interested in keeping some buffer zone like Mongolia between itself and China, next thing Russia could attempt is to "liberate" Mongolia from China thus sparkling direct conflict between Russia and China. Or there also could be some rebellion inside Mongolia against Chinese rule supported by GLA (however, in Mongolia GLA would not receive much support I believe).
I know it's just a game and I tried to stay out of politics. So don't blame me!
Fair point, but remember that this is a distant, futuristic storyline that may develop in ways that wouldn't necessarily seem plausible today. We're not going for realism, but interesting scenarios: A peaceful integration of Mongolia into China may seem unlikely to us today, but as a story bit that explains why China found it necessary to order a ton of AWACS planes, it should be a lot more interesting than the usual "hardware X was no longer up to date / faction Y started an arms race" kind of justification you see with many mods that try to have a trace of a story. What we do try however is to maintain a degree of internal consistency with our story, meaning that while not exactly realistic according to RL, it's still plausible within the confines of the game's setting and that's what matters.
QUOTE (SpiralSpectre @ 20 Aug 2012, 5:52)
Yeah that part of the story is indeed surprising but maybe Mongolia agreed to integrate cause China has been surprisingly nice with them. While after the ZH events and specially after forming of GAPA, China also managed to establish themselves as unrivaled superpower in Central, South and South-East Asia. All of these had their effects I guess. Ofc maybe I didn't find this that surprising cause Mongolia's integration was already mentioned in the forums earlier.
P.S. - Just wondering, I am not that familiar with modding world but has there ever been a mod story in history that has been discussed this thoroughly? ROTR even makes the original ZH story sound far more sensible, something EA probably never planned/bothered it to be.
Exactly. The Mongolian situation was first implied in the Meet Jin/Jammer Tower update where it had the revised map of East Asia. The moment we posted that, it became canon and in some cases, we do decide to return to such one-shot details and develop them further in render descriptions rather than full story updates.
And yes, I do not recall a whole lot of other mods that develop their settings and scenarios in such a way. For one, I generally try to be sufficiently explicit about locations and timespans: Important events have proper dates to establish a chronological order and we refer to actual countries by name rather than making liberal use of vague catch-all terms. And then there's also the thing about having two narrative styles: Some updates are written with an impersonal, omniscient narration in order to give a broad insight into things that ma have happened over the span of several years (e.g. The East is Red) while others use a more personal style and describe situations as they happen (e.g. The only Easy Day was Yesterday; one of my personal favourites because I felt that the story portion turned out really well if I may say so)
QUOTE (__CrUsHeR @ 20 Aug 2012, 6:31)
China in Rise of the Reds is a unified mega power for me is the faction with the best story so far, but the history between Russia and the European Alliance promises.
Right now, the global perspective of Gens/ZH/the aftermath and the interwar period is pretty much exhausted and well-covered as far as our story is concerned. From now on, you will be seeing A LOT of stuff that is either directly connected to the Russo-European War or the actual development of the ECA after ZH.