Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
- Location
- Mobile, Alabama
They might be worth taking together actually. If you rolled out the lasers in the Wingman drones first. It'd let you get them out the door now and then start the slow process of retrofitting the lasers into existing airframes.
It's bad, because preferably your artillery does the killing from a safe distance.
It's bad, sure, but it's good in that it only got this bad, as opposed to, say, the artillery actually getting overrun.
Than it certainly was fortunate that we caught those subs 60 klicks out from their launch point, their accuracy would have been much higher if they had reached their intended launch point.
BoSPaladin
The Paladin
This is explained by it being in yellow/green/red zones. The ion storms/ tiberium disrupts Ion cannon blasts. Also there's sometimes firing windows, the network doesn't cover every square inch of ground every second, it may sometimes take minutes or hours for a cannon to pass over an area.
Honestly, this seems weird.
Sure, we often see the lower ranks swarming in mass wave 'victory or death' attacks. And most of nods bottom tier and second tier stuff is intended to be cheap and replaceable. (buggies, bikes, scorpion tanks) But when not conducting global offensives they often use guerilla tactics. Stealth is one of their major tactical and strategic tools after all. That, and in the case of militants they often blend into/are recruited from civilian populations.
Case in point, one of Kanes favoured commanders (the nod player character in tib war 3) was known as the legendary insurgent.
I've said it before and I'll say it here again now. Nod doesn't feel like Nod currently. They don't feel like smart, cunning enemies, and they don't feel like the de-facto government for huge chunks of the planet. They feel like orcs. Attacking out of blind hatred and a need for 'Waagh!' But with little overarching strategy or objective.
I get there's political stuff happening in the background, that various 1st tier warlords want to prove themselves and claim the spot as Kanes right hand in a similar way to how Killian was. And there's religious dogma tied up in it for many warlords that they see GDI as 'The Enemy' who must be fought.
But, the first tier warlords attacking on their lonesome is very much out of character. Sure, GDI advances has meant militants are no longer cost effective so they're being retired. But what we're seeing is the top tier stuff, that normally attacks critical objectives while there's distractions elsewhere tying up GDI forces, are being used largely on their own, and attempting to play GDI's game in stand up fights. Perhaps a better usage of their manpower than poorly equipped militia's, but expensive for their industry.
Stahl and Gideon are the prime examples, but also Krukov is partly guilty of this. They're launching major attacks against GDI population centres/strategic locations in the case of our marv hubs. But, those attacks failing, leaves them weakened and makes them look bad. Sure there's the politicking of *attacked GDI Damaged X* But it's rarely meaningfully increasing the warlords own power, indeed, especially in the case of Stahl and Gideon the opposite seems to be happening as they lose soldiers and expensive gear to mixed results at best. In some cases the higher warlords are removing ambitious underlings by sending them at GDI, but this kind of implies that at least in some cases they're hedging their bets against the likelihood of the forces in question being destroyed or heavily weakened.
Earlier I understood Stahl. GDI building marv hub in my territory? Better remove it so they don't get a foothold in the area they can attack from or disrupt my mining operations. But then that failed, okay, unexpected GDI cranked out Marvs last minute to counter him. But, he's supposed to be, especially in south america, a noted brotherhood stronghold. Basically the ruling government. And South america is struggling majorly against tiberium. (look at it currently compared to the tib war 3 era map) and here Stahl is, sending soldiers across hundreds of kilometres of hostile yellow zone to try and attack GDI cities directly. Losing a whole bunch of valuable gear to do it. It's the exact opposite of what I expect from him. What would be better and arguably more 'useful' to Stahl would be attacking GDI harvesting operations and patrols. Like, he does the whole thing of shell games so GDI doesn't know where his troops actually are.... then he sends them on an attack run straight at GDI's main stronghold in the region.
Just keep smashing your skull against the brick wall Stahl and maybe he'll break through? With Bintangs success I'd expect him to spec into an airforce/navy in order to disrupt GDI shipping/trade to and from the south american blue zone. They export loads of processed tib/raw materials and import stuff they need. If he built up a local navy he could perhaps quickly gain local superiority and if he was able to cut or disrupt shipping in the atlantic region between west africa and South america he could possibly hurt GDI badly. Bombers, subs, small missile boats, larger battleships etc. Whatever. Point being, Nod/Bintang Navy recently chased GDI out of their region in a big way. I'd expect Stahl and others to focus on negating GDI's advantage in logistics. The fact Stahl is ignoring that in favour of armoured warfare through the amazon, already difficult terrain before the yellow zones... Is just baffling to me and it feels almost like 'game balance' or something of that nature to let Bintang have the identity of "Nods naval commander."
I'll say again. Stahl doesn't feel like the ruler of nod in south america, the government in control of the yellow zone. He feels like an orc constantly pushing for waagh for fun. Sure he's got flashes of insight like pulling back when GDI pressure got too heavy, but why attack at all then? This shouldn't be a surprise to him. It comes across as clumsy.
Gideon, I fully expect what we got from him. He's a religious zealot so going attack attack attack feels perfectly in character for him. Also, with him being more and more penned in, it makes sense he's making attempts to try and push out with his harvesting likely being disrupted by GDI patrols/marvs and his territory shrinking.
Besides that. Just nod in general. The assassin warlord who's been playing spy games and assassinations while working from deep in a yellow/red zone and practically untouchable? Classic nod. The spanish warlord engaging in small scale skirmishes, dropping mortars on GDI in shoot and scoots where they fire rounds then run away before GDI can respond or the like? Fine. Or look at the attack earlier on in the quest where Nod attacked a harvesting op, cut off the troops guarding it and destroyed them all when cut off from support? It caused an escalation of the treasury funding the military more so didn't have much of a lasting impact but was classic nod. it was a weak target, they attacked and crushed it and was an unquestioned victory for them.
Nod going on brazen all out attacks does happen as we see with the capture of the tactitus, but it was a clear and absolutely critical objective. I'm failing to see the benefits of attacking random cities/strongholds and how they'd be worth the expenditure.
Sure, there's some warlord jockeying going on, and they're testing out weapons and so on. But look at Nod India. They've barely lifted a finger save delivering weapons to other warlords, and with their likely major industry and the favours they've earned, are probably in the running to if not have a commander as the overall Nod General, then at least be a major faction within Nod, precisely because they haven't burned away strength and resources bashing their skulls against GDI Fortress walls.
I guess my biggest source of confusion summed up is. It's been 9 years since GDI won the war, and GDI absolutely won that war. Kane went into hiding and sure there's been some critical stuff that needed doing (tacitus mainly) but Nod retreated against GDI as they were losing/had lost the war. And since then.... Nod has been in the worst of both worlds.
They haven't hidden, they've been constantly launching attacks and engaged in low level skirmishes, the skirmishes I could explain away as insurgents (again why is discretion counting against a warlord?!) but the major failed attacks , repeated at that are just weird. Stahl did a major attack, failed. lost a bunch, and now he's attacked again.
Sure, we expect the 'warlord dogpile' to be incoming but half of nods doctrine is distractions and massive attacks on every front precisely so GDI can't slap them around individually.
Either avoiding fights. Or major attacks all at once. Nods warlords actions up until now has been neither (with some critical objectives occasionally on their own in lightning raids which is entirely in character but was a Kane attack)
Arguably, some of the Most nod like behaviour we've seen has been from the Qatarists. (betrayed by nod/Kane they worked with GDI as Killian did) And the middle east warlords/defector warlords. Who like Hassan/Marcion and so on either worked with GDI to cement their own power within the brotherhood, or who when seeing the way the wind was blowing abandoned Nod/Kane to save their own necks.
- Location
- his hidden lair
Even Stahl lost a Redeemer, we can probably build entire Predator battalions in the time it takes a warlord to replace something as high end a redeemer. And before we dig ourselves a deeper hole discussing the merits of MARVs… we just saw superheavy vehicles be the decisive factor in two battles.
The problem is we didn't have heavy armor in South America. The fact Stahl was deploying battalions of Purifiers and Avatars and we didn't have any Mammoths to respond is probably the biggest GDI failure here. Yeah, our recon assets need substantial improvements, but the heavy metal faction ran headfirst into a fight where inexplicably they decided to leav the heavy metal at home so as to give Stahl a handicap.
The problem is we didn't have heavy armor in South America. The fact Stahl was deploying battalions of Purifiers and Avatars and we didn't have any Mammoths to respond is probably the biggest GDI failure here. Yeah, our recon assets need substantial improvements, but the heavy metal faction ran headfirst into a fight where inexplicably they decided to leav the heavy metal at home so as to give Stahl a handicap.
staplesdex2
CLASSFIED
I think they're the Auroras from CnC Generals.
We had plenty of heavy metal, a GDI armored division is kind of the definition of heavy metal, we just don't have enough in every place on the planet at every time of the day to stop an epic unit. Stahl's entire thing is being good at picking his battles, if we'd had a superheavy Mammoth regiment or a MARV hub in the area he would have just picked somewhere else, not run headlong into it. The time we gave him a bloody nose in Colombia was because the dice favored us massively, not because he made a bad operational call or because we spammed MARVs at him. Our MARV fleet was incomplete and him rushing the hub before we could finish the fleet was the correct call, we just happened to roll an 80 when he rolled a 12 or whatever it was.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
Yes, let's part them. Here and there, a bit everywhere.
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I do have a question about the Redeemers we seem, does anyone have any idea why none of them so far have used the Rage Generator in a battle against us? It is one of the most deadly weapons Nod can use against GDI"s armies which makes it somewhat odd to not see a single one use it against us.
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BoSPaladin
The Paladin
Pre tib war 1: Nod acted as a collection of business interests investing heavily in high tech and supporting warlords throughout the third world. Culminating in a clash in tib war 1 where GDI decided nod was growing too powerful and acted against them, tensions and proxy wars boiling over into open conflict.
Between tib war 1 and 2 as governments collapsed Nod stepped in to take control of vast sections of the globe becoming the de-facto government for numerous collapsed countries. Allowing nod to quitley build a power base with some warlords like Hassan informing for GDI and many of the warlords engaged in inter-warlord strife and otherwise attempting to secure their positions. With nod busy fighting itself/in many cases providing at least some semblance of order to places GDI couldn't reach or wasn't interested in. Ending, with the start of tib war 2 when Kane returned from death to unite the warlords and lead them in a major attack against GDI in order to fulfill Kanes plan.
Between tib war 2 and 3. Nod/Kane went quiet in order to recover from their losses and gather strength and prepare for the next war. So quiet in fact that GDI was shifting the budget away from the military and towards the economy/tiberium abatement. Kane/Legion during this period conducted a series of quiet attacks and fermented the rio insurrection. Indeed once Kane had caused the rio insurrection, brought Marcion to heel and inspired the brotherhood to rise up with the explosion it was time for Legion itself to go to sleep. So the brotherhoods actions looked like nothing more than minor warlords, and not Kane or a major Warlord rebuilding nod. So that, when Kane attacked the Philadelphia GDI would be caught by surprise, unprepared.
Post tib war 3, sure Kane/ Nod did some stuff. But it was very far from the constant warfare we've seen in this quest post tib war 3. In point of fact During Kanes Wrath many nod Missions are highly secretive and require or make heavy use of stealth and often as in the case of the australian catastrophe leave no witnesses alive to tell of Nod. A notable exception being the battle for the tacitus which was of critical importance to Kane. (here it went differently in quest, but the same broad strokes apply)
As kane says. GDI thinks Nod wiped out, as it should be. With Nods inner circle/ the marked and its top tier safely hidden until GDI was on its knees needing Kanes help with the TCN and willing to cut a deal.
View: https://youtu.be/O0KEptJPJRg?t=1963
Here things are certainly different, as indeed it should be. And Gideon/Stahl/Krukov would make very fine wartime leaders to varying degrees with differing strengths. But, again. Nod lost the war, and rather than going silent as Kane had, or acting defensively they're being much more aggressive. There are reasons for this to be sure. But we see with warlords Like Reynaldo or others, that playing defensively/ performing assassinations and similar low cost stuff is indeed an option.
They make sense for wartime leaders/actions. But, this is nominally, if not peacetime, then what should be a period of reduced activity, where Nod normally rebuilds/stockpiles/reconsolidates in the post war periods. And as is, the current actions by the warlords are neither big/powerful enough to do lasting serious damage to GDI (some have come close and GDI has gotten lucky with dice rolls) but, in the same breath, the forces they're throwing away aren't cheap enough to make them expendable or their loss entirely painless.
I can see how and why Nod would have acted this way, and even why they have continued/will continue to act this way. The thing is when they attack multiple times to little result it does begin to raise some questions.
- Location
- Mobile, Alabama
Not all tech was distributed in the breakup. Also there are currently warlords we know nothing about and areas we have only glimpsed. There might literally be a warlord lurking in the Indian subcontinent or Africa whose bit is all rage nonsense all the time.
- Location
- his hidden lair
You act like he had a bunch of choices. Do you think Stahl launched his cruise missiles 80 miles beyond their effective range because he wanted to? That having achieved deep penetration and extensive surprise he didn't go after the best target he reasonably could (and it was a mediocre target to begin with). So yeah, making the Warlord react and limiting his options is incredibly valuable. Especially when the odds of Stahl being willing to run the same breakthrough he just did against Mammoths are slim.
Picking battles is well and good when you have room to maneuver and a bevy of targets to choose from. That's not what we saw here. Stahl literally got cut off, and would have been incredibly vulnerable to a a long drawn out battle against heavier GDI assets. Forces more capable of pining Stahl in place would have let other garrisons send reinforcements and bought time for our airpower to sweep south. We caught his hand in the cookie jar and he just slapped us with the other hand because we couldn't make a fight of it.
Stahl could have far more heavily punished our attempt to cut him off, but the moment the way was clear he pressed back into his territory rather than pursue. Given how risk adverse Stahl is, and how we had next to nothing nearby that could have stopped Stahl from further disrupting that division- it seems pretty implied that Stahl's number 1 priority was getting the hell out of dodge, and that he would not have fought that break out action if he could. Stahl can be brought to battle, Stahl can be caught out of position, and Stahl can overextend. But that means fuck all if Stahl can concentrate forces as he likes and brush aside any force we can rapidly muster. Especially since the odds of our airpower being preoccupied intercepting cruise missiles is only going to increase from here on out.
The Hallucinogen Grenades use an artificial fungus which I believe was created by whoever is in India, considering their specialty in engineered life.
Honestly I think it's Kane needing GDI slowed down and burning the Brotherhood to achieve that. Every die and Resource we spend on tanks to deal with his mooks is one less we have to spend on snowballing our economy harder, or Tib abatement, or space evacuation, or whatever else. The Brotherhood is losing more than the GDI is, but we're still being noticeably slowed down when they keep swinging at us. The Brotherhood is rapidly being spent and is in the weakest strategic position they've been in.... ever? They really shouldn't be attacking us and should go underground to lick their wounds instead, but Kane needs them attacking us as a distraction or else we snowball so hard that we're strong enough to tell him to get fucked and his master plan is ruined.
The Brotherhood's always just been an asset to spend in service of his larger goals, and when his plans call for a strong Brotherhood then he's fine shepherding a strong Brotherhood. But if his plans call for using the Brotherhood's corpses as speedbumps to slow down the GDI then he'll do that too. If Kane says it's time to go fetch some skulls, then everyone's got to go fetch some skulls even if it doesn't make a lot of strategic sense for them personally. Kane doesn't care if Stahl or Krukov or Gideon come out holding the short straw, he just needs GDI slowed down and burning some assets now to do that is worth more to him than saving those assets for use later.
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Sailor_Skarro
The Lurker
Personally I think it's a mix of what Cryo said, low-key desperation as the Red Zones continue to creep very slowly closer, and the Warlord Pissing Contest so that the top dog can get a shot at being Inner Circle.
Tactical Airborne Lasers is a first generation tech and they will be limited to gunpod-style external mounts.
The only way to get better ones is to start with the first generation though, of course
Medium bomber, actually, I believe. Think F-111, or a midget B-1B.
Perfectly capable of hitting battlefield targets as well as strategic missions.
Do the ZOCOM recon drone project.
Then pack some into your artillery shells and mortars and fire them for recon.
Look up the wiki page for the SR-72.
That will give you an idea of what a hypersonic military aircraft probably looks like.
No it isnt.
Cousin airframes yes, but they are not the same plane.
If nothing else the performance envelope and mission ranges are very different.
Its worth noting there are two additional factors in play here.
1)Pre-War Red Zones had never been more than 30% I believe.
Then Kane lured GDI into blasting Temple Prime, leading to the sudden expansion of RZs out of Sarajevo and the gutting of everythung from Central America to the Levant. On top of this the Scrin show up and drop Growth Accelerators everywhere.
Now Red Zones are >50% of the Earth's surface area, and Nod have lost 50% of the area they previously controlled in less than a decade, along with a whole chunk of infrastructure.
Never mind the people.
They are hurting, and a bunch of these displays are for internal consumption to prove they're doing something, because in Nod authority is derived from perceived effectiveness.
2)After previous wars GDI has generally retreated behind their BZ borders, rebuilt and largely ignored much of the world, allowing Nod to rebuild and regenerate in pesce.This time we've not. Instead we're actively pushing forward in slow but regular campaigns into YZs that Nod considers theirs. And we've got no sign of stopping.
Has Ion Cannons ever been used successfully during the quest?
Big Stick of Doom was ether absent or useless during every battle.
An Ion Cannon was used in the Northern Campaign.
Huh. Missed in all the text.
Now it's 1 to 1 for on-screen success/failure.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
This is why the FB-22 comparison: It's a spin-off of a high-end interceptor airframe in a 'regional bomber' or strategic bomber role.
Which in turn informs how far the airframe can be expanded without making an entirely new aircraft.