Whats all this about: This page has a couple of command & conquer sketches. C&C
universe is pretty diverse so I will focus on main factions only
Last Update:
Dec 2021 - couple of tanks from Generals
May 2020 - more red alert stuff
Apr 2020 - added a section about factions, started adding red alert stuff
To do list for future:
- add generals and zero hour units
To do list for future:
- add generals and zero hour units
I also have a page on Dune 2000 (which is another RTS game made by westwood studios during the 90s RTS craze) If you enjoy the stuff in this page there is a good chance you would probably enjoy my Dune page too
Anyone remember the 1999 RTS game Machines - Wired for War? Guess what? I have a page on Machines too.
Speaking of 90's Rts stuff I also have a Dark Colony page. DC was more obscure compared to westwood games. It was more like warcraft 2 in space.
Aaaand guess what? Another RTS, I have a Populous page where I try to mix Populous the Beginning with an Age of Empires sort of technology tree.
Command & Conquer was released by Westwood in 95 and is probably "THE" game that started the RTS craze of the 90s right before Red Alert and Warcraft 2.
The plot is set sometime in the near future where the Earth becomes contaminated by a mysterious valuable substance called Tiberium. Two major parties attempt to gain control of tiberium, The Global Defense Initiative (GDI) attempts contain it and the Brotherhood of Nod, a cult led by the enigmatic figure only known as Kane, which seeks to harness it.
Other games in the C&C universe;
Command & Conquer (95) (also refered to as Tiberian dawn) - this was the thing that started it all.
Red Alert (96) set in an alternate universe where the Soviet Union wages war with the
Allies. (which is probably what most people remember command & conquer for) while using the same graphics as the first, RA had much more units and naval warfare.
Tiberian Sun (99) It was the time when Starcraft took rts genre by storm and westwood was developing a game to revolutionize rts games with many promised features that never came. Instead it brought an ugly mixture of 2D sprites for infantry and voxel blocks for terrain and vehicles. It was around the days when EA was taking over westwood and the release was delayed twice or so and I actually lined up in front of the store (twice or so), waiting for it to open the doors so i can could grab a copy.
Red Alert 2 (2000) This was where they took the TS engine, hacked it to work slightly differently, improved the visuals and made the game twice as fast. C&C multiplayer was always about rushing but this one took it to the next level by introducing the concept of building 3,4 tanks and rushing towards enemy cons yard with good chance of winning.
Renegade (2002) - was a fps game with but it allowed players to see the world of the first C&C from 95 from the eyes of a commando. You could build tanks and drive them in fps, making it the grand father of EA's battlefield series.
Generals (2003) - They introduced 3 different factions (usa, china and middle eastern terror cell named gla) each with completely different gameplay styles, moved away from the classic C&C formula, and gave opportunities for crazy creative rushes. As a C&C fan I would vote for the Generals "Zero hour add on" to be the best c&c game ever made.
Tiberium wars (2007) - returned back to the original C&C roots similar to Red Alert 2 with better graphics. It was quite good and proved that there was future to C&C. However every other C&C game made after 2007 wasnt as good as any of these games.
The year is 1995, some meteor crashes into earth, reveals an alien substance named Tiberium. This substance leeches metals and other heavy minerals out of the soil, concentrating them in crystals, It also has a deadly effect on the environment and all carbon-based life, transforming and adapting flora and fauna to its alien nature. Good economic value but bad carbon tax.
GDI acts as the good guys while Nod acts as the enigmatic bad guys. GDI treats Tiberium as a dangerous but economically valuable product as well as a scientific anomaly, the Brotherhood sees it as the dawn of a new age entirely. Moreover, Tiberium is considered by Nod to be the greatest catalyst for human evolution, and thus a highly sacred substance. As such, they are much more willing to directly use Tiberium in potentially unsafe ways.
GDI (Global Defense Initiative)
Colour: Gold makes them look rich
Alignment: usually good guys
Leader: Bunch of fat ass generals and politicians
GDI was officially formed on 1995, in accordance with the United Nations Global Defense Act as a united military force for global peacekeeping. with the initial goal of preserving world order by combating global terrorism, in response to the rise of the Brotherhood of Nod and its efforts to gain power in unstable, third-world nations. GDI eventually outgrew its original mandate to become a world government.
NOD (The Brotherhood of Nod)
Colour: Red and black, typical evil tones. Nod units were blue while buildings were red in the first C&C game.
Alignment: evil
Leader: Kane the messiah or madman
The Brotherhood of Nod (often shortened to Nod or the Brotherhood) was a popular, global, religiously developed movement devoted to the guidance of the elusive and charismatic figure of Kane, and the extraterrestrial Tiberium substance that arrived on Earth in 1995. Nod was targeted as a terrorist group by the GDI, for actively using the dangerous tiberium substance to fund a military-industrial complex in impoverished regions, primarily Africa, and pursue total domination over the world's peoples and resources. Nod's chief asset is its near monopoly on the Tiberium harvesting industry.
TIBERIUM UNIVERSE FACTIONS
I wont go into detail as there is a shit ton of lore on the internet about C&C stuff.The year is 1995, some meteor crashes into earth, reveals an alien substance named Tiberium. This substance leeches metals and other heavy minerals out of the soil, concentrating them in crystals, It also has a deadly effect on the environment and all carbon-based life, transforming and adapting flora and fauna to its alien nature. Good economic value but bad carbon tax.
GDI acts as the good guys while Nod acts as the enigmatic bad guys. GDI treats Tiberium as a dangerous but economically valuable product as well as a scientific anomaly, the Brotherhood sees it as the dawn of a new age entirely. Moreover, Tiberium is considered by Nod to be the greatest catalyst for human evolution, and thus a highly sacred substance. As such, they are much more willing to directly use Tiberium in potentially unsafe ways.
GDI (Global Defense Initiative)
Colour: Gold makes them look rich
Alignment: usually good guys
Leader: Bunch of fat ass generals and politicians
GDI was officially formed on 1995, in accordance with the United Nations Global Defense Act as a united military force for global peacekeeping. with the initial goal of preserving world order by combating global terrorism, in response to the rise of the Brotherhood of Nod and its efforts to gain power in unstable, third-world nations. GDI eventually outgrew its original mandate to become a world government.
NOD (The Brotherhood of Nod)
Colour: Red and black, typical evil tones. Nod units were blue while buildings were red in the first C&C game.
Alignment: evil
Leader: Kane the messiah or madman
The Brotherhood of Nod (often shortened to Nod or the Brotherhood) was a popular, global, religiously developed movement devoted to the guidance of the elusive and charismatic figure of Kane, and the extraterrestrial Tiberium substance that arrived on Earth in 1995. Nod was targeted as a terrorist group by the GDI, for actively using the dangerous tiberium substance to fund a military-industrial complex in impoverished regions, primarily Africa, and pursue total domination over the world's peoples and resources. Nod's chief asset is its near monopoly on the Tiberium harvesting industry.
I will stick to Tiberian dawn and Tiberian sun in order not to get lost among all these games. I may add stuff from other C&C games if I have time in the future.
Infantry units in Tiberian Dawn dressed as regular military personnel. However they were upgraded for a more futuristic look in Tiberian Sun. GDI recycles and repaints equipment from colonial marines in aliens movies while Nod gets fashion victim scarlet stormtrooper looks for their infantry. Not surprising considering they had Michael Biehn and James Earl Jones for cinematic briefings of the game
Infantry
Infantry units in Tiberian Dawn dressed as regular military personnel. However they were upgraded for a more futuristic look in Tiberian Sun. GDI recycles and repaints equipment from colonial marines in aliens movies while Nod gets fashion victim scarlet stormtrooper looks for their infantry. Not surprising considering they had Michael Biehn and James Earl Jones for cinematic briefings of the game
Recons
Recon bike rushes in tiberian dawn were incredibly overpowered due to the fact that maps were small and bikes extremely fast. Also fun fact - harvesters and mammoth tanks could crush bikes by moving over them. which was an ability that was removed from later games.
However all recon units in Tiberian sun were absolute trash that it was just a fantasy to build any of them. Using infantry to scout was a much popular tactic as infantry were cheaper and quicker to produce without waiting to build a war factory.
Harvesters
Harvesters are one of the first things that come to mind when you think of C&C (and dune) games. They have these catchy designs that resemble single minded, greedy insects that rush to tiberium fields to bring home money or die trying. Tiberian Dawn Harvesters are my favourites right next to the turtle look-alikes from dune.
Aircraft
Aircraft in C&C games where mostly trash due to low HP and weak
weapons. Best you could hope for was to hunt harvesters with rocket gunships and that would have cost you much more time and money compared to the damage you could inflict.
C&C Generals and Zero Hour changed this by making planes and gunships powerful while keeping things balanced with good mobile anti air options.
Orca bomber - These where decent. Little on the slow and expensive side but it was the strongest GDI late game high tech unit and it used to drop bombs before reaching targets, ideal for carpet bombing locations.
Orca transport - This thing is used to drop vehicles behind enemy lines. carry all + disrupter drops were ideal for suicide runs. shame the build cap on mammoth made carryall + mammoth drops useless. In fact it made the mammoth useless altogether.
Banshee - This thing was meant to be made from stolen alien tech. Fast and powerful, ideal for picking harvester or suicide cons yard assaults. too expensive.
Orca fighter and Harpy were total trash.
Long Range and Support Vehicles
Nod was way overpowered with dead accurate artillery and subterranean apc. the sound of drilling and a rush of adrenaline as you try to guess where an apc full of engineers will surface and ruin the game.
An official patch tried to counter engineer rushes by making building walls quicker so people could fence their cons yard with walls asap.
Dead accurate artillery spam made the game unplayable until accuracy was decreased to allow GDI units to reach and counter them.
Main Battle Tanks and Mechs
GDI has state of art firepower and armour. Nod lacks in firepower but makes up in agility and stealth which require players to ultilize hit and run guerrilla tactics instead of direct confrontation.
Stealth tanks were pointless due to low armour.
Medium tanks were replaced by Titan mechs that could shoot over walls.
Light tanks were replaced by tick tanks that could deploy underground and turn into turrets.
The iconic flame tank design was replaced by an electric shaver that travelled underground.
Mammoth tank was replaced by a giant mech Mammoth mech MK2 that was useless due to build limit
Soviets are defeated and a puppet named Romanov is is placed to lead the soviets. Once again the Soviets get out of and launch an attack on the United States. With the aid of his powerful psychic Yuri, Premier Romanov is able to avert the nuclear retaliation of the Americans and invade the US.
An expansion to Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge, was released in which the powerful psychic Yuri tries to achieve world domination. Secretly during the war with the Americans, Yuri has been constructing his own army across the globe and he turns on the Soviets which result in the Allies and Soviets having to ally against Yuri.
There is also a Red Alert 3, but that is the result of EA screwing everything it touches so i wont even go into that.
ALLIED FORCES
Colour: Blue, typical good guys
Alignment: good
Leader: Bunch of fat ass generals and politicians
Will add some description if I can lift my lazy ass
SOVIET POWERS
Colour: Red, what did you expect?
Alignment: evil
Leader:
Will add some description if I can lift my lazy ass
IFV - This was the first time they made a vehicle use the weapon of the crew you place inside. High speed makes it ideal for engineer rushes.
Flak Truck - mobile anti air and apc that can transport 5 infantry units.
Gatlling Tank - does more damage as its barrels spin faster and faster until the game is playable
Robot Tank - not really a recon unit due to its tech requirement but it was so useless I couldnt find any other category to place it. Its name suggests it may transform into a robot but naah, its just a remote controlled drone that can float over water puddles. useless... The main concept behind it was to have a unit that cannot be mind controlled by Yuri, but its pretty useless.
Terror Drone - great rush unit, high speed, kills infantry and dogs with a single leap, attaches itself onto tanks and ore trucks and eats them slowly, ejects the debris and ready for more once the target is destroyed.
Chaos Drone - Gives out funny smelling gas
Chrono Miner - Allies are smart enough to use chrono technology to teleport ore trucks between fields and refineries but not so smart to utilize this tech in any other tank :)
War Miner - has a mounted machine gun turret to defend itself from infantry but is useless against armoured gang bangs. Flame turrets and flame thrower infantry was one of the Soviet trademarks in the first game. Shame they removed all flame weapons for the second game. Would have been cool if they added a flame thrower or a tesla turret instead of the machine gun.
Slave miner - A mobile ore factory that deploys slaves when it reaches the ore field. Blow the factory and the slaves uprise.
Rocketeer - Pretty cool death animation as the jet pack gets out of control.
Harrier - Your average fighter
Black Eagle - Probably added to gain some favour from the Korean online gaming scene
Spy Plane - Reveals parts of the maps.
Mig - used as tactical bomber. Shame as you dont get to do dog fights between migs and harriers. (another reason to love C&C generals)
Floating Disc - Retro sci-fi for Yuri.
Kirov Airship - So strong that you get an announcement to start preparing AA defenses whenever someone builds a Kirov.
Night Hawk - Allied Troop transport undetectable to radar
Siege Chopper - Interesting fantasy of a helicopter turning into an artillery. Would have worked nice if the helicopter was fast enough
RED ALERT UNIVERSE
Sometime around 1940s, Einstein makes a time machine, goes back in time to kill Hittler before he rises into power. The absence of Hittler allows Stalin's Soviet Russia to grow extremely powerful and invade Europe (RA1), European nations come together and form an alliance to defeat Soviets.Soviets are defeated and a puppet named Romanov is is placed to lead the soviets. Once again the Soviets get out of and launch an attack on the United States. With the aid of his powerful psychic Yuri, Premier Romanov is able to avert the nuclear retaliation of the Americans and invade the US.
An expansion to Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge, was released in which the powerful psychic Yuri tries to achieve world domination. Secretly during the war with the Americans, Yuri has been constructing his own army across the globe and he turns on the Soviets which result in the Allies and Soviets having to ally against Yuri.
There is also a Red Alert 3, but that is the result of EA screwing everything it touches so i wont even go into that.
ALLIED FORCES
Colour: Blue, typical good guys
Alignment: good
Leader: Bunch of fat ass generals and politicians
Will add some description if I can lift my lazy ass
SOVIET POWERS
Colour: Red, what did you expect?
Alignment: evil
Leader:
Will add some description if I can lift my lazy ass
Recons
Recons in RA2 are AA at the same time. This seems to be a good choice as most recons units are useless late game but by making them mobile AA you get to save them for later on (specially when kirov spam starts)
IFV - This was the first time they made a vehicle use the weapon of the crew you place inside. High speed makes it ideal for engineer rushes.
Flak Truck - mobile anti air and apc that can transport 5 infantry units.
Gatlling Tank - does more damage as its barrels spin faster and faster until the game is playable
Robot Tank - not really a recon unit due to its tech requirement but it was so useless I couldnt find any other category to place it. Its name suggests it may transform into a robot but naah, its just a remote controlled drone that can float over water puddles. useless... The main concept behind it was to have a unit that cannot be mind controlled by Yuri, but its pretty useless.
Terror Drone - great rush unit, high speed, kills infantry and dogs with a single leap, attaches itself onto tanks and ore trucks and eats them slowly, ejects the debris and ready for more once the target is destroyed.
Chaos Drone - Gives out funny smelling gas
Harvesters / Ore Trucks
Harvesters in RA universe are called ore trucks coz there is no tiberium and the resource is now "Ore" instead. Works exactly the same way as tiberium but doesnt kill people when they step on it.
Chrono Miner - Allies are smart enough to use chrono technology to teleport ore trucks between fields and refineries but not so smart to utilize this tech in any other tank :)
War Miner - has a mounted machine gun turret to defend itself from infantry but is useless against armoured gang bangs. Flame turrets and flame thrower infantry was one of the Soviet trademarks in the first game. Shame they removed all flame weapons for the second game. Would have been cool if they added a flame thrower or a tesla turret instead of the machine gun.
Slave miner - A mobile ore factory that deploys slaves when it reaches the ore field. Blow the factory and the slaves uprise.
Aircraft
Air units in C&C games are mostly useless and not much different here apart from the outstanding Kirov bomber.
Rocketeer - Pretty cool death animation as the jet pack gets out of control.
Harrier - Your average fighter
Black Eagle - Probably added to gain some favour from the Korean online gaming scene
Spy Plane - Reveals parts of the maps.
Mig - used as tactical bomber. Shame as you dont get to do dog fights between migs and harriers. (another reason to love C&C generals)
Floating Disc - Retro sci-fi for Yuri.
Kirov Airship - So strong that you get an announcement to start preparing AA defenses whenever someone builds a Kirov.
Night Hawk - Allied Troop transport undetectable to radar
Siege Chopper - Interesting fantasy of a helicopter turning into an artillery. Would have worked nice if the helicopter was fast enough
Tanks
If you wanna do tank rushes this is your game. Even the heavy tanks move so fast you could easily pull a 3-4 heavy tank rush and catch your opponent unprepared.
Again as an early days westwood rts tradition the tank designs are not consistent and all over the place. So ı decided to add a simple rule, russian tanks are more square shaped while allies use a slightly more rounded chassis
Rhino - Soviet MBT. I kind of miss the old double barrel heavy tanks from RA1. Wonder why they decided to go with a single barrel one for RA2.
Grizzly - Allied MBT. Not as good as the soviet counterpart but still fast and strong enough to rush with 3 - 4 and win the enemy cons yard.
Prism - Allied tank armed with an energy beam. Prism tanks can damage multiple enemies at once. Pretty good stuff.
Mirage Tank - Dunno how it manages to do it but it turns into a tree. Optic camo or something. Hideo Kojima stuff.
Tesla Tanks - Shockie!
Lasher - Yuri's MBT. Looks cool. Has this anti mine sort of meat grinder thing in front.
Mirage Tank - Dunno how it manages to do it but it turns into a tree. Optic camo or something. Hideo Kojima stuff.
Tesla Tanks - Shockie!
Lasher - Yuri's MBT. Looks cool. Has this anti mine sort of meat grinder thing in front.
Master Mind - Giant psychic brain sealed within a tank. Can mind control enemy units.
Apocalypse Tank - Mammoth tank with a new name.
aaand some tesla trooper done some time ago, totally irrelevant to the line ups or the art style in this page but still C&C related so I dump it here.
