Okay first batch of screenshots: to put this in perspective: the map being played has 2 ore mines in the main base, one very close by that's at the sea, one to the north on land, and then 2 that are very far north at sea. There's a hospital and some buildings in the center, and an oil derricks just off the center from those (they're blocked by cliffs so its a decent walk). There's also observation posts near the oil derricks and directly south. These let you see an area around them if you capture an engineer.

One note: I put the settings on extra high for these, but the game was chugging since I have a 7600GT. It plays fine on medium. Also extra high is pretty suck anyways, since they seem to have turned the bloom or hdr onto max on the buildings (seriously).

First screenshot is an Apollo aircraft escorting some Vindicator bombers to bomb a sea based ore refinery at the closest expansion. The Japanese have little drones to place their stuff without having to pay for a crane, so they get snarky and place fast expansions all over the place. You bomb these suckers mercilessly.

Action shot of the Apollo hovering (shh :p).

An Allies vs Allies game where his bombers bumped into mine while mine were heading to bomb a power plant. I had an Apollo sitting close by and lit them up.

Sea combat! This Japanese guy did some good harass with his antitank infantry (the Rising Sun ones can burrow), but my bombers managed to inflict a lot of damage on him (spending thousands on anti-armor infantry that can't hit air will do that). He took to the sea to try to win via quick teching to Shogun battleships, but I had already anticipated that and built mass dolphins and a few hydrofoils. The green blob to the left is a recently sunk Tsunami tank. The dolphins are pursing the remaining two and the hydrofoil is set to weapons jamming mode (the green grid thing) which disables a units attack. I thought I had an action shot of me pursuing cruisers and battleships, but I was wrong. :/

This is one of the first tier general abilities: surveillance sweep. It lets you quickly scout an area without having to send your aircraft there. Nice for spotting targets (its cooldown is fairly long though).

Timebonb is another general ability. If you have ground or navy troops close by, you can place a bomb that does a fair bit of damage. I used it to blow up a power plant in one shot. Oh, and this general ability has three levels and this is the weakest (it's area of effect is a lot smaller than it looks, I think).

Mass mirage tanks clean up his last expansion. This is what happens if you let the Allies tech and get a massive economic lead.

The next guy I played was Soviet. He straight teched to the equivalent of tier 3 and turtled to two base (this is idiotic since it's easy to take a third expo and a 4th one... by the time he could do any damage I had 6 ore mines secured, he took out two but it doesn't matter when you have another 4 running and the two oil derricks). He did however blow up all of my Vindicators with his MiG antiair fighters very, very quickly. Fortunately I had a group of Javelin soldiers close by and they took out all four MiGs.

Some multigunner IFVs and cryocopters chilling in my base. I initially thought he was going to apocalypse tanks, and cryocopters shrink stuff down (I think... or they freeze it and the description is off) so they can be crushed more easily. They're good for disabling the superior ground units of the Soviets and the Rising Sun.

He actually went MiG/Kirovs. Kirovs have an afterburner ability that does damage to the Kirov, but I don't think he used them. I got a picture of a Kirov blowing up a ton of my stuff, but I appear to have took another one over it. Oops. I snuck Tanya into his base with an IFV and blew up his battle lab, super reactor, his ore refinery, his ore miner... and then he sold all his buildings. Tanya actually runs into the buildings and it turns bright red. It detonates in about a few seconds. Note: I hate using Tanya in principle, but this guy was asking for it.

While I didn't get a screenshot of the Kirov in action, I did get a periphery screenshot of their charred remains after winning. I thought it looked quite good.

Trying to take good screenshots has made me realize just how much screenspace is taken up by icons and the sidebar. It makes it kind of difficult to get a good action shot. -_-

I'll try to get some more up later today (after I sleep).

zer0das

United States8519 Posts

August 29 2008 18:26 GMT

#22

Okay, this time I tried to use the shiny effects that I typically never use because the game is over long before then.

In this screenshot, I had ferried over a bunch of Javelin soliders and some peacekeepers using a Riptide ACV. They are amphibious and can take out a decent number on infantry on their own. Usually I'm the other end of stuff like this, because I prefer bombing.

This is the Athena Cannon's shield ability. I suspect it lets them take a ton of damage. I'm not entirely sure since Athena Cannons seem next to worthless to me (they die in like two hits and their range seems to suck).

The Chronosphere is back, and it's as expensive and not worth as ever (3000 ore). But I got one here to see the pretty rift effect. Actually they might be pretty useful for transporting carriers since they're sooooo slow.

And finally, I decided to try using the gap generator mode of the mirage tanks (which presumably cloaks units)... on all of them! And I used shield mode on the Athena Cannons. Surprisingly my game didn't slow down much.

I'll be covering Rising Sun stuff next, since I feel like I'm reaching to take pictures of new stuff as the Allies.

zer0das

United States8519 Posts

August 29 2008 19:23 GMT

#23

Next wave! This guy had no clue what he was doing despite me trying to help him, so I was able to get pictures of every unit in one game. Not many action shots though.

This a drone (or core, or egg) that holds a refinery that I'm placing at expansion. The Rising Sun builds every single one of their buildings by popping one of these out and then placing it anywhere they please. It allows for neat strategies as well as for some very fast expanding. It's balanced out by the fact than a refinery costs 500 more ore (which is a ton) than the Soviet or Allied refineries, and the power plants are 1000 ore (200 more than the Soviet or Allies). Fast expanding everywhere chugs a lot of power... also if you catch a core before it unpacks, it dies very quickly.

A mecha drone unpacking a factory in my base.

The mecha Tengu form (ie, ground). It's good at killing infantry, it moves quickly, and it costs 800 ore.

The Jet form. It's pretty weak, but upon further analysis 4 of them can take out an Apollo anti-aircraft fighter... if they are actually firing at it. They're even faster when in this form.

The main form of Rising Sun anti-air is a helicopter on the ground (yeah...). It's pretty fragile and moves very slowly. It kind of looks like a raptor too. Or maybe a chicken.

The infinitely better chopper form. This thing cleans up armor with its rockets, but it's fragile.

I used a general ability to get these tank busters. They can burrow underground (as in this screenshot

) so that they're invisible but you can see their hats. Good for ambushing. The general ability lets you place a group of them anywhere that you have vision. Good for harassment.

The Rising Sun navy! Easily the best fleet, but the Allies can overcome them with good tactical play and some air power on the side. The biggest ship is the Shogun battleship- it has awesome range and damage.. it can beat a carrier 1v1 easily. The second largest ship is the Naginata cruiser. It can fire torpedos and is almost as durable as the battleship, and almost expensive. It's probably the single best ship to ship unit. Then there's a Tsunami tank (these suck against navies but you can build them from a dock and get on land and wreck stuff), the Yari Sub (cheap, cheap unit that's a good compliment to the cruiser... it does good ship to ship damage and can suicide). Last is the sea wing: it does anti air when in the water (but it's vulnerable to air while doing its job), but also can become a support strafer. I'm not a huge fan of the sea wing (I prefer mass Tengus), but that might because the Allies' hydrofoil is way better at wiping out all air. Airpower can usually overcome a Rising Sun fleet, but it takes some work since they can be building cruisers and battleships from a dock and Tengus from their factory.

Other misc. ground units that I haven't gotten screenshots of: King Oni (the mech) which burns through armor really quickly. It has a really strong secondary that causes it to move even slower than Apocalypse tanks. I think like 3-4 of these beat off a large amount of guardian and mirage tanks of mine, because I didn't run away. The tank looking unit is waveforce artillery (more on that later), The flying units are Rocket Angels... they're like Rocketeers from Red Alert 2, except they're a whole lot better (and female). They are tier 3 anti-air and anti-armor. They die quickly, they're expensive, but they do soooo much damage. I managed to kill off a Soviet massing apocalypse tanks with nothing but them.

This is Yuriko, the Rising Sun commando unit. She can levitate tanks and kill them in seconds. Seriously. Very fragile, but if you don't bother to take her out she can wipe out legions of tanks. She does have to be stationary while lifting a tank though (or she'll drop it without doing a lot of damage), so she's quite vulnerable.

And finally waveforce artillery in action! It kind of reminds me of a prism tank, without the massive overpowered splash damage. It takes a while to charge up, but there's also a secondary mode that does less damage and fires faster. I think it took 3 shots to wipe the construction yard. Seems strong, but it's slow and dies quickly.