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axeil
Feb 14, 2006


Welcome to this Let's Play of The Earth 2150 Trilogy! I'll be playing all three games in the series: Earth 2150, The Moon Project and Lost Souls. I've still got my copies of all the stuff that came with the games so as the thread goes along I'll try and post some bonus updates about the manuals, box art, Prima guides that came in the box, etc.

I also will be posting all the in-game cut-scene videos and game music. The cut-scenes can be a bit :effort: but the music is great. My hope is this LP can be a definitive look at the series and give people insight to three amazing games they probably haven't played.



The Earth 2150 Trilogy is a series of three games made by TopWare Interactive/Zuxxez Entertainment AG, two game companies from Poland. There have been some other games to come out of Poland recently like The Witcher Series and The Call of Juarez Series but the Earth 2150 Trilogy predates them by a number of years.

The first game, Earth 2150, was released in June of 2000 and was revolutionary. It was followed by two sequels, The Moon Project, released in March of 2001 and Lost Souls released in October of 2002.

Why was the first game revolutionary? Well other strategy games at the time looked like this:



But Earth 2150 looked like this:



The game claims on the box it was "The First Real-time Strategy [Game] with Total 3D Warfare!" This is definitely true total bullshit as proven by the existence of earlier games like Total Annihilation, Dark Reign and the Myth series, but hey, late 90s/early 200s advertising. The game does stand up well compared to to C&C Tiberian Sun and Starcraft: Brood War which were very popular headline RTS franchises at the time. Earth 2150 had a real day/night cycle, dynamic weather, 3D deformable terrain and a fully customizable army. The C&C franchise would not go to 3D until Command & Conquer: Generals, about 3 years later. Warcraft did not go 3D until Warcraft III in 2002. Starcraft did not go 3D until Starcraft II in 2010. Neither Starcraft nor C&C have incorporated day/night and customizable units the way the Earth series did. Warcraft III did do some pretty neat things with unit regeneration and day/night cycles though it's not quite the same as how the Earth series used it. While the big name RTS franchises didn't have these features, smaller RTS games like Outpost II and Enemy Nations did have customizable units. Dynamic weather is still a relatively rare feature in the RTS genre. This game was definitely cutting edge for its time and still seems pretty revolutionary from a gameplay perspective today.

So why didn't everyone play it? As far as I can tell there were four reasons:

1. The original developer, TopWare Interactive went bankrupt in April of 2001, a month after the second game in the trilogy, The Moon Project was released. As a result the series did not have the best bug testing and there are still weird bugs to this day. Support was almost non-existent.
2. The game was made in Poland so there was little exposure here in the States. This was made worse because...
3. There was little effort put into publicizing this game. I think the only reason I bought this game when I was a kid was because C&C Tiberian Sun was too expensive and this one was on sale. Places like Best Buy and Circuit City had all sorts of advertisements for C&C Tiberian Sun and Starcraft/Warcraft but I didn't see any advertisement for the Earth series.
4. Other good RTS games from much larger publishers came out in 2000. Shogun: Total War (EA) and Ground Control (Sierra) were released weeks after Earth 2150. They were both very well received and the Total War franchise has gone on to be an RTS juggernaut. That's some pretty stiff competition for a brand new franchise from fairly obscure developers.

To illustrate this issue: It took me months to find Lost Souls when it came out in 2002. I think I ended up getting it from some weird game site that I no longer remember. This is despite the fact it's a fairly strong title and has a much more engaging campaign than The Moon Project does. If I could barely find this game then what hope did they have of selling this to someone with no stake in the franchise?

But not to worry Internet, I'm going to be bringing the Earth experience to you.



Yes! GOG has the Earth Trilogy for sale here: http://www.gog.com/gamecard/earth_2150_trilogy. The game is really cheap and you'll love it. There are some issues with running it at modern resolutions though, so check the support forums. I'm running at 1280x960 and things are okay.

Tech Support

- If the games crash when you go into the construction center, set the resolution to 1680x1050x32 or lower. You can also try using the OpenGL render option.
- If the game crashes when trying to make a profile, turn off Data Execution Prevention in Windows.

Still not working? Trying to mod something? Your best bet is probably opening up the .wd files in the game and playing around with those. Except the mod tools no longer work. Not to fear! TwelveBaud has fixed WDPackager to work on x64 systems. This will let you pack and unpack files from Earth 2150's proprietary .wd format. You can find it here: http://twelvebaud.net/WDPackager.zip



Earth 2140, a previous game from TopWare details an eight-year war between the United Civilized States (UCS) and the Eurasian Dynasty (ED) following a UCS invasion of the ED-controlled British Isles. In 2148, a desperate retreating ED army launched a barrage of nuclear weapons at UCS positions near the North Pole. The explosions were so intense that the orbit of the planet was destabilized and life on Earth would soon perish due to the orbital instability. I have no idea if that's actually possible but it's a really unique take on an apocalypse. The ED and UCS are now gripped in a final struggle to gather enough resources to build an evacuation fleet.

But a forgotten moon colony from the early years of the 21st century has re-appeared. Calling themselves the Lunar Corporation (LC), they have tentatively allied with the UCS and also seek to escape the planet. Only 183 days remain until Earth becomes uninhabitable. Who will escape?

There's also a ton of words in the manual about each faction's history. I tried to summarize it as best as I could and fix any continuity and translation issues I noticed.



History

Founded in 2050 by Colonel Siergie Zugij following a global thermonuclear war in 2048. The Colonel amassed power by venturing out into Mongolia after the bombs fell and combining his knowledge of secret Russian military sites with the manpower of the local Mongolian families. This culminated in a marriage to a chief's daughter and Colonel Zugij changed his name to Yaga Zi Khan. In under a decade he controlled most of the uncontaminated areas in Asia and his son christened the empire the Eurasian Dynasty.

The Khan gave the highest priority to military research and due to their control of old Soviet military bases, they possessed a large nuclear stockpile. In 2140 the ED's arch rivals, the UCS invaded the British Isles. This gave the ruling Khan, Tiao Thi Zhe Khan a reason to achieve his dream of an ED-controlled South America. The war dragged on for years, bankrupting the empire and angering the people. The Khan's cousin, Kata Mae Zhe Khan instigated a riot which destroyed the Khan's super cyborg-soldiers. Without them he was powerless to defeat the UCS and the internal unrest and was deposed and executed.

The change in government did not help in the war and in a desperate retreat in 2148 Kata Mae Zhe Khan gave the order to fire nuclear weapons at UCS positions in the North Pole, which lead to the orbital instability that dooms the planet.

Arsenal

The ED's focus on military technology has, paradoxically, made it the most backwards of the three factions. The main ED force is made up of large tanks using 21st century rockets and anti-tank weapons. There are rumors the ED has been working on some sort of heat laser but most people do not take the rumors seriously. The ED also is the only nation left that possesses a conventional nuclear stockpile. Based on the actions of the Khan in the previous war, I doubt they will hesitate to use them.



History

In the early 2000s the US suffered a stock crash and economic recession more severe than the one seen in the 1930s. :tinfoil: This lead to an increasingly bellicose foreign policy and a belief that all other nations were gunning for America and merely waiting for an opportunity to attack. A minor dispute in 2048 with Greater Russia provided the spark that would ignite the world. In the ensuing nuclear war, all European and Asian powers were completely annihilated. The US missile defense system shielded it from most of the damage but the US government collapsed in the chaos.

From the ashes came 12 former US States who believed self-interested and greedy politicians were responsible for the immense pain and suffering of the past half-century. Lead by so-called philosopher, Richard Bowman, the states acted to set up a new government which would not be subject to the whims of corruptible individuals. The government created by Bowman and his acolytes was run by an absolute minimum of bureaucrats chosen by lottery with terms lasting only a few months. This form of government became known as Stochocracy and despite some growing pains the nation was kept at peace for decades thanks to highly specialized computer systems that would advise the lottery winners on how best to proceed. These AI improvements were also spread to the home and business and by the early 2100s computers had intertwined themselves in all aspects of society. It was assumed that lottery winners merely needed to give their seal of approval to the AI's "advice."

This changed in 2134 when a computer engineer named Jonathan Swamp became Minister of Defense. Swamp had been involved in coding the government AIs and knew their full potential. Due to this, he was given full access to the military administration processor, GOLAN. He made changes to GOLAN, allowing himself to run simulations of military encounters with the ED all over the planet. But these changes resulted in a number of unforeseen glitches, culminating in GOLAN's decision to send UCS mechs to the British Isles.

GOLAN's systems were improved during the ensuing war with the ED and the citizens of the UCS praised the computer and believed it was the only thing that had saved them from utter annihilation after a series of early ED victories. Near the end of the war the ED launched a massive barrage of nuclear missiles at UCS bases in the Arctic Circle to cover their retreat from the continent. By January of 2150 it was clear to UCS scientists and scientific AI that the Earth's orbit had been permanently destabilized by this bombardment and it would be only about half a year until the planet was uninhabitable. This knowledge was incomprehensible to GOLAN and the AI's attempt to find a solution to save Gaia ended up destroying its circuitry. Fortunately the newest version of GOLAN was ready to lead its people in the attempt to make an escape fleet. GOLAN II was not only a military AI but also was given complete control over every element of the UCS government. No one would be able to tinker with the AI like Swamp had done ever again.

The UCS was contacted in late 2149 by the LC about a possible alliance. GOLAN II was still mulling over the possibilities when General Fang, a hero from the War of 2140, volunteered to be an emissary to the new faction. It remains to be seen what, if any action the AI will take with the LC and their proposed alliance.

Arsenal

The UCS army is entirely mechanized, with human commanders in place only where absolutely necessary. The UCS also has mastered the science behind anti-gravity flight and the earliest prototypes are now being tested at the Stanford Weapons Lab. The Stanford Weapons Lab also created the plasma gun late in the War of 2140. The energy weapon should allow UCS forces to carve their way through any ED formation. GOLAN II also has issued a report saying the plasma gun can be used in conjunction with the UCS orbital satellite network to fire plasma blasts anywhere on the planet.

UCS scientists have not yet made any report on their progress with this proposed counter to the ED's nuclear arsenal.



History

John Fisher was obsessed with space flight since he witnessed the space shuttle launch at the age of 5. His dreamy nature did not translate into academic achievement and in the 1990s NASA rejected his application to work as an engineer on the International Space Station. But John Fisher had some influential friends. In early 2002, John Fisher announced that with the backing of 10 anonymous donors he was founding the Lunar Corporation, a private spacefaring company. By 2014 due to budget issues related to the economic downturn in America, NASA's operations were privatized and merged with the Lunar Corporation. In 2025 on the anniversary of his denial for the ISS job, Fisher announced his plan for the construction of Orbital City I, a permanent colony in space. Fisher noted in his speech that it would be superior to the International Space Station in every possible way. Historians would agree Fisher's spite and bitterness over the NASA rejection caused him to focus on Orbital City I to the detriment of other space-related projects, but it would turn out to be a wise calculation.

When Orbital City I opened in 2034 the situation on Earth had grown quite tense. Wealthy citizens from around the globe paid exorbitant sums to acquire small apartments in Orbital City so as to escape from the turmoil on the ground. With the LC's coffers overflowing the company began its next plan: a fully functional moon colony. The Moon colony, known as Luna was up and running only a few weeks before the the thermonuclear war began on Earth. Once the missiles started flying, all residents of Orbital City I were evacuated to Luna and John Fisher was given control over the colony as its president. The Moon was not such a great place to live though. Wealthy, pampered individuals were not used to the grueling physical labor and harsh conditions and by 2052 the colony was in open revolt. Fisher was removed from power as his declining health made him incapable of fully dealing with the rebellion. The new administrator was ruthless and bloodthirsty and when the rebellion was finally pacified, the LC government had all participants shoved out of the colony without their space suits, a particularly painful death.

The response was outrage and horror. In the upheaval that followed the government was reformed and the maxim "personal worth is based on the benefit one brings to society" quickly became the slogan of the remaining colonists. The government took on a matriarchal tilt after a number of very successful women leaders, most notably the Prof. Atomi Hakura. She discovered a large number of extraterrestrial artifacts in 2061 and by 2070 she had unlocked the secret of rapid terraforming. She promised that her terraforming project would give Mars "a climate no different than on the mother planet we left behind." Even more surprising, she promised the terraforming would be complete by 2190.

By 2150, Mars had seen its temperature increase by 15°C and LC scientists believed that by 2170 there would be enough water to sustain human life with the assistance of respirators. The LC had already begun preparations for their move to Mars years ago, but surveyors indicated there were not enough resources on the moon to construct the needed evacuation fleet. After almost 100 years, the Lunar Corporation would be returning to Earth.

Arsenal

The LC has no conventional military, having fought no true wars since the Uprising of 2052. As a result they have no military commanders and no sense of tactics or strategy. However, their discoveries have made them the most technologically advanced faction vying for control of Gaia's few remaining resources. Additionally, the LC unit voices are all done by women, so presumably they're an all-female army. I always thought that was cool. Unlike ED and UCS units, the LC has developed regenerative metals, allowing their units to repair damage in the field.

Rumor has it their terraforming efforts on Mars have yielded insights into how to control the weather. However the only evidence to suggest this is a report from an ED expeditionary force. They claim a heavy snow began mere minutes before an LC assault on their position.


With that all said, let's get started and have some fun! Look, even the manual wants you to have fun! :3:

















































































































































axeil fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jan 9, 2016

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axeil
Feb 14, 2006


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCwR1h82HiA

Whoa. Pretty exciting intro. We'll be starting with the LC as the LC have the quickest of the three campaigns, for reasons that will soon be apparent. They also have no navy and a minimal number of unit chassis, making unit construction simpler than the UCS or ED.



We begin with General Fang (as played by me) sending an outline of a proposed alliance to the Defense Manager of the LC, Sombra Shattan. The UCS has provided General Fang's personal anti-gravity vehicle and the General himself as a sign of good faith. The General also insists if the LC agree to the alliance he will lead the troops from the front :black101: General Fang looks pretty awesome so far.



Defense Manager Shattan agrees to the alliance with the UCS! He also is now a Soul Partner (whatever that is), however she cautions that she has little knowledge of battle. It's a good start though. GOLAN II (and the UCS President) have seen a bold move early in the war payoff quite handsomely. I'm sure General Fang will have a fearsome force at his disposal now with the might of the LC warmachine behind him.





:effort: Oh. The LC army consists of nothing more than 5 Lunar-class scout vehicles. Fang's anti-gravity tank could crush these scouts before they could even say boo. The LC will need to make some serious technological advances if they have even a prayer of defeating the ED and escaping from Gaia. For now we'll need Fang to help support our nascent army. Fang is extremely strong in the early game though. We'll be okay.



A new message from High Mentor Alia Tiolan! Wow, the LC must really trust General Fang to put him in charge of resource procurement. Let's see how much the LC needs.



:stare: 500,000 CR? But, we only have 5,250 in our HQ right now... This might be tougher than we thought. (Author Note: the UCS and ED require 1,000,000 CR so the LC gets off easy here).



And with that the countdown to the destruction of Gaia begins. You have 183 in-game days to build your spaceship. It sounds like time is tight, but if you fight efficiently you'll be able to make it off the planet with plenty of time to spare. Now, at this point you can jump into missions by clicking on the globe to the right of the screen. Before we do that though, let's take a look at our HQ. We'll be coming back here after every mission, so it's a good idea to familiarize ourselves with its layout and features.

LC Headquarters



Spaceport - This is the most important structure in the game. If you are dumb enough to click on auto-destruct you will lose the campaign. You must defend the Spaceport at all costs! Losing it will doom the LC. If the need arises you can pull 5,000 CR out of the Spaceport. But that is 5,000 CR less you have to construct your ship. You can also put in 5,000 CR at a time. Once the spaceport has 10,000 CR a supply ship will come down to send the credits up to the orbital docks, permanently removing the money from the game and also advancing the escape ship production.



Main Base - The LC constructs all units from the Main Base. It's more expensive than the UCS and ED factories but can mount more weapons and as a result can usually defend itself.



Solar Battery - The LC uses solar power being the peace loving hippies they are :v:. The solar battery is needed to keep LC bases running when the sun isn't out. As you can see here, this battery is 100% charged. It will begin losing charge at night when the Solar Power Plant shuts down.



Solar Power Plant - Like I said, the LC uses solar power. Unlike the other 2 factions, the LC power grid spans the entire map. However, Solar Power Plants are very expensive as you need to build all 10 solar panels next to the plant to ensure maximum output.



Mine - This mines for minerals (those white shiny dots on the ground). As you can see in the screenshot, I've turned this mine off to demonstrate the power function on buildings. Any building in the game can be turned on or off. If the enemy knocks out some of your power grid, turning off non-essential buildings may be the only thing that saves you from defeat. LC mining is yet another thing that's different from ED/UCS mining. The LC merely needs to drop a mine on top of a resource patch to begin extraction while the ED and UCS require units to either mine the minerals themselves or carry raw materials to a refinery.



Research Center - Our last pre-built structure. All LC research originates here at the Research Center. You may build an additional 2 Research Centers to speed up research, something we may invest in later on in the game when we are at a severe tech disadvantage. While we're here, let's take a look at the Research screen.

Research





Here you can see the research screen. The only things we can research right now are two updates to the Lunar-class scout we encountered earlier. Only ammo upgrades will apply to units in the field, so since we don't have much of an army there's no downside to spending some money now for the chassis upgrade. This is one disadvantage the LC has over the other 2 factions. The ED and UCS can upgrade weapons and chassis designs on units. This allows them to, in theory, carry one unit from the start of the game to the finish. We probably won't see any LC units do that.

Construction Center



Here it is. The main thing that makes Earth 2150 so drat cool. This is the Construction Center. When you begin the game, you have no units to build that can shoot people. Let's change that by designing our own unit. I picked the Moon m1 because the Lunar m1 will be obsolete once we finish researching that chassis upgrade. The Moon m1 is a pretty good general unit for the LC. We'll probably be building a lot of these.



This is the customization part of the Construction Center. Up top you can see the equipment that is mountable on your selected chassis. The 20 mm chaingun isn't that great, but the rocket launcher isn't half bad. The banner is a fairly confusing mess. Allegedly it raises unit experience level which should improve destructive power, sight line, firing range, speed, resistance and reload time, however I've noticed none of these things when I've played. It could be that the effects are very tiny. In light of their general uselessness, I won't be using banners all that often. In the dropdown menu below the unit name you see we can give the unit different scripts. The only major change is regular/simple/advanced and the script allows more complicated or simplistic commands to be given. For now we'll stick with the default script.

Also, do you see the name field there? If you all would like we can give each new unit type a unique name instead of the generic "chassis type, revision, weapon" names. Please give me faction-relevant suggestions and I'll try and incorporate them into our army. I am not naming our entire army "Dongs mk 2 jizzflinger" or anything like that.



There we can see the Moon mk1 R I added to the Construction Center. I also added a Phobos-class detector to our civilian unit list. These will be good for finding any cloaked enemies. The Mercury-class resupply vehicle is usually a better choice for reconnaissance due to its price, build time and speed.



Speaking of the Mercury, let's build one. Except right now we don't have a Supply Center for it to dock with. The LC really isn't good at this whole war thing. Right now if we were attacked our Lunar m1s would have no way to reload once they depleted their rockets. Let's fix that by calling in an Aerial Supply Center.





The last major difference between the LC and other two factions is how construction proceeds. The ED and UCS use construction vehicles while the LC just drops their structures in from space. The structures are vulnerable while being air-lifted in and if they take even a few rocket or other anti-air hits the space cranes you see here will be forced to drop the structure and run, leaving you out 100% of the resources invested in the building. I'm not kidding, even a very weak rocket or two will blow these things up, they have the lowest HP in the game at 50 and no armor.





With that we have our Aerial Supply Center. The Supply Center requires an attached Mercury-class resupply vehicle so I've attached it here. You can select a re-supply speed (slow/average/fast). Since we only have one supplier we'll stick with fast. Slow gives you a single Mercury for each military vehicle, which is insane and is almost never useful. Average has one supplier for a few vehicles and Fast is a single Mercury for every tank on the field. Air units will fly back to the Supply Center to re-supply, so you don't need to worry about them. Also we don't have any air units right now. Once again, the LC is not good at this "war" thing.





Like I said earlier, we can put weapons on some of our buildings. I throw a rocket launcher on the Supply Center in case the ED try something. You can never be too careful. :ninja:





Here you can see another neat thing Earth 2150 does: vehicle lights. All vehicles come with lights that you can either turn to auto, on or off. We'll stick with auto for now but it might be useful to keep changing the lights in mind if we end up in a bad storm or need to make a sneak approach. We're almost done here at the LC Headquarters, we're just missing one structure.





And that structure is the Headquarters. The HQ building allows you to automate research, building defense upgrades, general defense (fairly useless) and unit design. I'll probably stick this guy on general defense or building upgrades since I'd like to have more control over unit design and research.

So with all that done, how do we get to the battlefield?



Why with the Jupiter Transport of course. The Jupiter is a weird mix of unit and building in that it's tied to the Landing Zone and can move from battlefield to main base. But it has no offensive capabilities and just has a lot of HP. If it somehow gets destroyed the LC will get annoyed and send General Fang another one. The transport is mainly used for shuttling units between the main base and battlefield like so.





General Fang's anti-gravity ship is now inside the Jupiter, ready to head to whatever battlefield we decide to go to. The Jupiter transport can also hold 5,000 CR in case you need an emergency infusion of cash on the front lines.



Our research is complete, so it's time to head out and select a mission.



Sneaking in behind ED lines to mine some minerals? Sounds risky! We all know General Fang likes to be bold, so we'll start off with that one!



Earth 2150 has some kick-rear end music. Each mission I'll upload a track until we run out of tracks for each faction. For now here is the LC main theme and the LC ambient theme. See you next time with our first field mission!





Bonus Recruitment Video - Are You From the Moon? :downs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztQpkAK72pk

axeil fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Jan 6, 2013

axeil
Feb 14, 2006


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPR-mJ_IBwk

LC News reports what we all know. Gaia is dying and there's no hope unless we get our evacuation ship built. We'll be seeing more updates from LC News as we play along in the game. They even do weather reports!



We start out with a landing zone and a single Lunar m1 20mm. Uh, shouldn't the LC be giving us more stuff if we're going behind enemy lines? I know, I know, they're getting their military up and running but this seems like a suicide mission. Let's bring in some of our units from HQ to help out.





We get our mission briefing from High Mentor Tiolan: get in, get out and for the love of Gaia don't get caught. We'll do our best High Mentor.





That Lunar m3 upgrade is well within our budget, so while we wait for the Jupiter to show up, let's research it.





With the arrival of General Fang and the "honor guard" the scouting can being. The Lunar m1 20mm will take the Northeast and Fang and his group will search the Southwest. While searching they come upon city ruins. Probably destroyed in one of the many UCS-ED battles. Such a waste of life :smith:





Oh bloody hell. The ED have spotted us. Defense Manager Shattan warns us and informs General Fang that the LC war machine is in no way ready to help us. We're on our own out here, and now that ED have found our scout it's only a matter of time until they find General Fang and his units. Without resources and a base they're doomed against the heart of the ED military.



Our poor little Lunar m1 20mm :(. She fought so hard against overwhelming odds. She's the first Sister of the Lunar Corporation to die at the hands of the Eurasian Dynasty, and I doubt she'll be the last. We'll always remember you! :patriot:





While Dynasty forces swarm the Northwest searching for the rest of the LC squad, Fang is able to lead his team to the mineral deposits. They're in a well defensible area, with high cliffs to the Southeast, an impenetrable mountain range to the immediate West and a high slope on the North side with a choke point. General Fang thinks they can defend this spot, but only if the ED waste their time searching in the Northeast.



High Mentor Tiolan is relieved that we've found the mineral region safely. Sadly, I don't think she knows yet that we've already lost one soldier. Defense Manager Shattan must be dreading breaking that news to her :(





General Fang wastes no time in setting up his base. The Solar Power Plant should be well defended against the mountain range and the central placement of the Main Base will allow it to defend all areas of the base if needed.

The ore Transport Refinery is the LC building that sends resources to the Spaceport. It will move things over in chunks of 2,000 CR. Since we need 20,000 CR we'll need the transport to make 10 trips.



Our upgrades to the Lunar chassis are complete. Let's hope we don't need them.





General Fang orders his force moved up to defend the choke point at the base of the hill. He also orders the mine turned off to save resources for the spaceport. With just under 30,000 CR they can't afford to mine much for defense.





General Fang's my orders turn out to be a terrible mistake. The ED scouting party has sneaked in through the pass to the Southwest. With no defenses operational, the tender Mine and Transport Refineries are vulnerable. The ED units are tough and with the Lunar scouts dropping like flies there may not be enough time to save the mines and the mission.





General Fang uses the few remaining resources at his disposal to outfit the Main Base with weapons. It works, but the price paid is dear indeed. Of the original 5 Lunars and General Fang only Fang and one Lunar are in combat shape. The Lunars are out of ammunition and without reinforcements the inevitable Dynasty assault will wipe them off the map.





Fang allows the mine to power up for a few hours to mine the resources needed to make a few Moon m1 Rs. It won't be enough, but hopefully it can help stall until the LC can send reinforcements.





Here we see the LC's regenerative alloys at work. In only 10 minutes one of the badly damaged Lunars has regained 10 hit points.



Waiting out the ED in the mining base won't work. The LC is outgunned, outmanned and outclassed in every way. The only possible chance they have is by taking the fight to the Dynasty. General Fang sets out to try and find the ED base and do whatever he can to stall them from making a push on their mining operations. On the way he encounters another scout group headed for the LC camp.





Fang has stumbled upon a lightly defended ED mining operation. I quickly wipe away the few towers guarding the bridge and attack the ED power supply head on. The Dynasty's power grid was always their weak point. Without the power plant the mine and refinery will have to shut down and the time it will take to get them back online may be just enough time for the LC to finish mining for resources and get out.

But it was not to be.





The LC cannot hope to defend against 2 ED battle tanks and a Taiga chaingunner so Fang rushes back to defend the base.

At this point I actually am seriously worried I'm going to lose this mission. It rarely takes me so long to find the resources and I've never had the ED scouts discover me until I've at least gotten half of the 20,000 CR I need. Also my attempts to give this game a more coherent narrative and give a better idea of how it plays have kept me from doing things like building 30 Moon M1 Rs before things even start and cheesing the mission.





Damage to the base is extensive. The ED tanks have managed to destroy one solar cell and all of the LC units in the area. The Main Base is starting to run low on ammo and so Fang decides to build more Moon m1 Rs. 3 won't be enough. Hell, 30 may not be enough at this rate. The Ore Transport Refinery has only sent 20% of the resources they need. A desperate Fang begs Defense Manager Shattan for authorization to use the HQ to build units or abort the mission. There is no way he can hold off another ED assault on his own.







Shattan is a pretty smart lady though. She okays Fang's request and also informs him that from here on he's to have total control over the LC HQ's resource allocation, within reason. (So no pre-building a massive army when there's no indication from the mission briefing you'll be up against a large army or researching every tech). I rejoice that my constraints on this mission have been lifted and start work on 5 Moon m1 Rs, a new landing zone closer to the base, and an upgrade for the bullets in our 20 mm chainguns.





Of course I have no units that use chainguns, so I add a Lunar m3 20mm to our unit list and deploy one to the Western part of the river surrounding the ED base to see if there's a crossing our anti-gravity units can use. I don't think the Dynasty knows all LC units hover yet. Their ignorance shall be their downfall.





At the halfway point in the mission we've finally finished building the reinforcements at the Main Base so I ship 'em over.



Another ED attack wave approaches our base, this time from the North. Unfortunately our reinforcements won't arrive in time so we'll need to hold out for a few minutes. This Lunar m3 20mm is very brave, charging off into certain death like that. Good one kid :patriot:



General Fang gets an idea. With the Moon m1 Rs on the way, he can afford to slip out of the base and go on the offensive again. It looks like there's only one bridge connecting the ED base to the area the LC is operating in. If Fang can blow the bridge it will take weeks to repair and in the meantime the LC will be safe from any attack. It's a risky move, but we all know that General Fang likes to live on the edge.





:gonk: Oh god this is not what I had in mind when I came up with this idea! Fang is pretty strong but 9 tanks versus 1 Fang is getting a bit close to what I think is okay. Keep in mind, if Fang dies, you die since you are Fang.



So I get the hell out of there.





General Fang is unable to attack the pursuing units. It's do or die time for the new LC recruits. If they can't hold this off that's not only it for the mining operation, but also spells the death of General Fang not even a week into his leadership of the LC military.



But the women of the LC perform admirably, killing every last Dynasty tank to a man and not taking a single casualty. I'm proud of you girls!





With spirits boosted by their recent success, Fang convinces everyone that he can blow up the bridge this time. He works on that while the Moons blow up another badly arranged scouting party.



Halfway there...



Success! To add insult to injury, there was a tank sitting on the bridge that fell into the river when the supports gave out. And Fang is able to blow up another tank before it goes careening off the edge. With the bridge destroyed this mission goes from "almost losing" to practically over. Bridges are really important to destroy in most cases when you're the LC. You need to rely on smart tactics like that to ensure your inferior military doesn't get overrun.





With the bridge out, Fang can sneak into the back of the base and harass the ED units and power plants there without worry of a reprisal on the LC base. He'll keep running in and out of there for the rest of the mission trying to destroy anything he can.







But before he can the last transport arrives and High Mentor Tiolan orders Fang to retreat. Once again, bad communication LC Celestial Counsel! With the bridge out Fang can take his time withdrawing from the Urals and ensure he sends every last credit to the spaceport. There's still almost 5,000 CR left.



He also uses some of the excess funds at HQ to research more bullet upgrades.





With all units safely returned home and all resources exploited, it's time to end this mission (by clicking on the globe).



:stare: Look at that unit disparity. I wasn't joking when I said the ED will roll over you with their superior numbers if you let them. They also managed to research 7 techs to my 3. This could be problematic.



General Fang has received a summons by a Sheela Merlan to report to ACME Laboratory to allow LC scientists to analyze his anti-gravity tank. After a tense battle like the Urals it'll be nice to have an easy relaxing mission.

Nothing could possibly go wrong with this.

Right?



This update I'm featuring one of the best tracks in the game. And so early on too! This is one of the three songs that plays during daytime when you're the LC. Enjoy!

axeil fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Jan 6, 2013

Dr. Snark
Oct 15, 2012

I'M SORRY, OK!? I admit I've made some mistakes, and Jones has clearly paid for them.
...
But ma'am! Jones' only crime was looking at the wrong files!
...
I beg of you, don't ship away Jones, he has a wife and kids!

-United Nations Intelligence Service

It's really nice to see someone tackling the games. They're seriously underrated, espcially the way units can be customized.

It'll be interesting to see how your self-imposed limitations change the campaign. I'm used to researching EVERYTHING before I end a mission, so this will be very interesting.

axeil
Feb 14, 2006

Dr. Snark posted:

It's really nice to see someone tackling the games. They're seriously underrated, espcially the way units can be customized.

It'll be interesting to see how your self-imposed limitations change the campaign. I'm used to researching EVERYTHING before I end a mission, so this will be very interesting.

Fun fact about the game: your cpu-controlled opponent has the entire tech tree open at the start of the game and research will carry over from mission to mission. That means if you do absolutely nothing on the first mission and the cpu has infinite credits they can research every tech in the game from the start. My worrying over the ED getting 7 techs to my 3 at the end of the update is completely legitimate.

I'm hoping I don't get completely outclassed in the midgame. But if I do the gameplay will be more exciting so it might be a blessing in disguise.

UCS Hellmaker
Mar 29, 2008
Toilet Rascal
Earth 2140 was released into the states in 96ish. I had bought it in an army navy store and it was the only reason why I knew this awesome game existed. Earth 2140 is on GOG and comes with the original DOS version which is HARD as poo poo. The AI in that will do anything and everything to steamroll you and some of the missions are almost nightmarish even on easy.

Do you plan to use the OperationX Mods for lost souls or moon project? While kinda cheaty because they didn't get balanced as much they add quite alot to the game as a whole and would be perfect for a Lost Souls run because that game is more of a mission pack if anything else.

I will always love my Spider and Hellmaker units from 2140 :allears:

Ilanin
May 31, 2009

Smarter than the average Blair.

axeil posted:


The game claims on the box it was "The First Real-time Strategy [Game] with Total 3D Warfare!" This is definitely true, and the game becomes more impressive when you compare it to C&C Tiberian Sun and Starcraft: Brood War which were the kings of RTS at the time. Earth 2150 had a real day/night cycle, dynamic weather, 3D deformable terrain and a fully customizable army. The C&C franchise would not go to 3D until Command & Conquer: Generals, about 3 years later. Warcraft did not go 3D until Warcraft III in 2002. Starcraft did not go 3D until Starcraft II in 2010. None of these franchises have incorporated day/night and customizable units the way the Earth series did. Nor have any tried to do dynamic weather. This game was definitely cutting edge for its time and still seems pretty revolutionary from a gameplay perspective today.

This is nonsense. Total Annihilation and Dark Reign were both 3D games and released in 1997; Homeworld likewise and it appeared in 1999. Myth:TFL and Myth II, with their destructible terrain features, also both came out pre-2000. Outpost II and Enemy Nations had customisable units and were released in 1997-8; and of course outside of real-time games the original Master of Orion introduced the concept back in 1993. The day/night cycle, I think the Earth series might have been the first time it appeared outside seriously simulationist wargames like the Battleground series (though those were much more mainstream back then). Tiberian Sun was largely regarded as dull, derivative and behind its time because Westwood made very few attempts to incorporate any of these new features. Earth 2150 definitely beats Tiberian Sun quite easily. Unfortunately...

quote:

So why didn't everyone play it? As far as I can tell there were a few reasons:

I'll give you another reason, or at least the reason I didn't play it. Earth 2150 was released May 22, 2000. So, great, I'm looking to buy a new strategy game, and I'm walking into a games shop in summer 2000. What are my choices? Well, there's Earth 2150 - but there's also Shogun: Total War (June 13, 2000) and Ground Control (June 1, 2000), two genuine classics which rather trumped its appeal.

I remember playing the demo and thinking the plot was interesting but the game lacked tactical interest, so having someone else to play it for me seems like a good deal. I'll be watching.

axeil
Feb 14, 2006

Ilanin posted:

This is nonsense. Total Annihilation and Dark Reign were both 3D games and released in 1997; Homeworld likewise and it appeared in 1999. Myth:TFL and Myth II, with their destructible terrain features, also both came out pre-2000. Outpost II and Enemy Nations had customisable units and were released in 1997-8; and of course outside of real-time games the original Master of Orion introduced the concept back in 1993. The day/night cycle, I think the Earth series might have been the first time it appeared outside seriously simulationist wargames like the Battleground series (though those were much more mainstream back then). Tiberian Sun was largely regarded as dull, derivative and behind its time because Westwood made very few attempts to incorporate any of these new features. Earth 2150 definitely beats Tiberian Sun quite easily. Unfortunately...


I'll give you another reason, or at least the reason I didn't play it. Earth 2150 was released May 22, 2000. So, great, I'm looking to buy a new strategy game, and I'm walking into a games shop in summer 2000. What are my choices? Well, there's Earth 2150 - but there's also Shogun: Total War (June 13, 2000) and Ground Control (June 1, 2000), two genuine classics which rather trumped its appeal.

I remember playing the demo and thinking the plot was interesting but the game lacked tactical interest, so having someone else to play it for me seems like a good deal. I'll be watching.

Wow I just got owned on video game history. I'll update my OP to reflect this.

edit: OP updated. Thanks for your corrections!

UCS Hellmaker posted:


Do you plan to use the OperationX Mods for lost souls or moon project? While kinda cheaty because they didn't get balanced as much they add quite alot to the game as a whole and would be perfect for a Lost Souls run because that game is more of a mission pack if anything else.

I'll be playing the vanilla games but these mods sound interesting. I checked out the website and it looks like they add a ton of content.

axeil fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Dec 21, 2012

SpruceZeus
Aug 13, 2011

How does Earth 2160 compare with this game?

Young Hegelian
Aug 27, 2012
General Fang,

Having completed my study of "The Lord of the Rings," I have determined our best course of action is to invest in deus-ex-machina ghost army. Please look into this in the future.

Xoxo,

Sombra

advokat
Nov 17, 2012
I remember this game! It was fun. I was fairly awful at it. I don't remember too much else, but maybe this time I'll find out how it all ends.

UCS Hellmaker
Mar 29, 2008
Toilet Rascal

SpruceZeus posted:

How does Earth 2160 compare with this game?

Not as good. The graphics are very pretty and they improve on some things but the ai is just crap. And to me it always felt like I was just building tons of things to attack the ai and never getting anywhere. If you don't build anti air defenses fast and early its so easy to get killed because the ai will use air forces fast and early

One thing it did well was much each race much different then they are now and very specialized. ED is one large base that is like a classic moon base where everything is connected by nodes and tubes. LC is based on towers of 5 modules that are air dropped in from orbit. UCS is similar to how it is in 2150 where it is built from a drone that makes each main building. Each building then upgrades to add a new part to make it specialized such as much or unit production.

Its a nice game but not nearly as well done as the 2150 series. And 2150 is radically different from 2140

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous
OK, I laughed at the "Lord of the Rings" part way more than I should have. I'll be following the LP closely.

Loxbourne
Apr 6, 2011

Tomorrow, doom!
But now, tea.
All three campaigns for all three games? That there's a lot of content you're promising us, axeil!

I got into E2150 late with Lost Souls, and later tried the Moon Project. The oppressive atmosphere of Lost Souls, and the grim feel in general, got to me and I never finished either game. I did have a lot of fun with Moon Project's skirmish mode, though.

General belief among the fanbase when MP/LS were released was that the Eurasian Dynasty were heavily overpowered thanks to the instant-kill-on-overheat mechanic for lasers, and the way their basic cannons could ignore the other factions' shields. I'll be interested to see if that bears out over the campaigns themselves.

One thing I do remember is that the game could never keep straight just what was happening to Earth. The in-game events and text implied the Earth has been knocked into an orbit closer to the sun, and this will make the surface too hot to be inhabitable. That's just about plausible but then...well, we'll see. Things get melodramatic.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
I didn't know what to expect from the Lunar Corporation, but "space hippies on granola" was not it. Then again, all-female faction with a male main character in a game made in the 90s...

Koorisch
Mar 29, 2009

axeil posted:

Fun fact about the game: your cpu-controlled opponent has the entire tech tree open at the start of the game and research will carry over from mission to mission. That means if you do absolutely nothing on the first mission and the cpu has infinite credits they can research every tech in the game from the start. My worrying over the ED getting 7 techs to my 3 at the end of the update is completely legitimate.

I'm hoping I don't get completely outclassed in the midgame. But if I do the gameplay will be more exciting so it might be a blessing in disguise.

So THAT'S why I got my rear end handed to me so fast, the little buggers out-reseached me! :argh:

I really want to see you finish this game since I've been trying to play it without succeeding, mostly to the enemy just smashing me with a tsunami of troops.

axeil
Feb 14, 2006

Loxbourne posted:


Game mechanics spoilers


There may be something coming up to show off how overpowered that particular mechanic is. Or there might not be. Don't wanna give away too much :wink:

That said, I think I've promised this thread close to 100 updates between all three games. We're gonna be here for a while. The series gets stronger as it goes on in my opinion and I enjoy playing each subsequent game more than the one that preceded it. The darker tone of Lost Souls I think fits in better than Earth 2150's weird mix of serious and "I'm gonna learn 22nd century military tactics from Lord of the Rings :downs:" silly. Plus The Moon Project adds a lot of great units the first game really should have had like dedicated anti-air weapons.

The game does play really fast and loose with its canon. In the manual the founder of the Eurasian Dynasty is referred to as a Colonel and General several times. Oh and then later manuals contradict what was put in the first one. I'm doing my best to make it all sensible but apologize in advance if something inconsistent slips through. If you're willing to forgive a few continuity errors and a pretty crappy translation the background in the manuals is top-notch though.

And yes, the enemy will absolutely roll all over you if you let them. I'm playing through on average difficulty and as you all saw last update, I'm already being challenged on the first real mission.

I'm going to try and get an update out this evening since I'll be heading home for Christmas in a few days and I'd like the thread to have more than 2 updates before I leave for a week.

axeil fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Dec 21, 2012

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous
The colonel/general thing is easily explained. He was a colonel. Everything blew up. Suddenly, he was a general and if anyone said otherwise :commissar:

Mzbundifund
Nov 5, 2011

I'm afraid so.
I'm a little confused with how the money works. It sounds like money goes to three places - the HQ, where it is used to build units and research, the existing base for the current mission, where it is used to build structures and upgrade them, and the spaceship construction, where you need to gather half a million to win the game. Is this correct?

How do you determine where the money goes, and can you move money between categories freely?

Koorisch
Mar 29, 2009

Mzbundifund posted:

How do you determine where the money goes, and can you move money between categories freely?

Yeah, the minerals are mined through two different mining buildings, one which just sends the minerals straight to you (the Mine for LC, Refinery for the UCS and two buildings for the ED since they are less advanced but can be fixed so it can give you money really fast) and the other one automatically sends in a flyer to drop off them at the Spaceport when it's full (the Ore Transport Refinery for LC, Transport Base for ED and Ore Transport Base for the UCS).

You use the money you keep instead of sending to space as building/research money and try to balance the spending/sending quota since as you might notice, the world is going under and you need to leg it to the closest hospitable world.

Also, the reason the LC only need 500k is because they mined the poo poo out of the moon! :v:

vv No, i think they even say it in-game or in the manual that the LC mined the moon, although this might be a spoiler?

Koorisch fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Dec 21, 2012

Ilanin
May 31, 2009

Smarter than the average Blair.
My assumption was that it was because since they were starting from the Moon, they didn't need as powerful a rocket motor or as much fuel since Lunar gravity is one-sixth Earth gravity...but your version is probably more likely to be what the writers were thinking.

Lustful Man Hugs
Jul 18, 2010

This game reminds me a lot of Warzone 2100 in a lot of ways. Were they made by some of the same people or something?

axeil
Feb 14, 2006

Koorisch posted:

Yeah, the minerals are mined through two different mining buildings, one which just sends the minerals straight to you (the Mine for LC, Refinery for the UCS and two buildings for the ED since they are less advanced but can be fixed so it can give you money really fast) and the other one automatically sends in a flyer to drop off them at the Spaceport when it's full (the Ore Transport Refinery for LC, Transport Base for ED and Ore Transport Base for the UCS).

You use the money you keep instead of sending to space as building/research money and try to balance the spending/sending quota since as you might notice, the world is going under and you need to leg it to the closest hospitable world.

Also, the reason the LC only need 500k is because they mined the poo poo out of the moon! :v:

vv No, i think they even say it in-game or in the manual that the LC mined the moon, although this might be a spoiler?

Nope, not a spoiler. The manual basically says they mined the poo poo out of the Moon so they only need half as much as the ED and UCS. The manual also implies the LC had been preparing for a move to Mars anyway with all the terraforming they were doing to the planet. That's probably another reason things are cheaper for them: they've already built a lot of what they'll need.

The resource allocation works pretty much as you said. Except you also can do mining at your HQ. This is how I got the resources to research upgrades and build those Moon m1 R's that saved my rear end in the last mission. One interesting way to cheese the game is to mine out the HQ and then send over the credits with the transport vehicle. After you do that, you give them all to your Ore Transport Refinery and you still get credit for mining out the minerals from the level you're on.

For extra fun you can take those minerals out of the Spaceport and send them back to the mission area. While this will let you beat all the "send x amount of resources to Spaceport" missions you'll ultimately fail the campaign if you keep taking resources out of the Spaceport. In fact, I'm fairly certain that if you only send resources on the missions where you have to send resources you actually won't send enough to the base. You need to be doing some extra mining on the side to get over the top. And if you run out of missions and you still don't have enough credits you'll lose. I always thought "you beat all the missions but didn't manage your economy properly so you lose" was a pretty clever way to prevent this kind of mission cheesing.

I have the Prima Strategy Guide at my parent's house so I'll have to check the totals from there and see if you actually have to do bonus mining or not over Christmas.

edit: I just checked and if you only complete the gather resource missions you'll be 160,000 CR short. That's pretty drat short of the 500k you need.

axeil fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Dec 22, 2012

Koorisch
Mar 29, 2009

axeil posted:

Nope, not a spoiler. The manual basically says they mined the poo poo out of the Moon so they only need half as much as the ED and UCS. The manual also implies the LC had been preparing for a move to Mars anyway with all the terraforming they were doing to the planet. That's probably another reason things are cheaper for them: they've already built a lot of what they'll need.

Yeah, they are just air-dropping in the buildings since they already made them up on the moon or in space, that's why you see the tether-ships.

axeil posted:

The resource allocation works pretty much as you said. Except you also can do mining at your HQ. This is how I got the resources to research upgrades and build those Moon m1 R's that saved my rear end in the last mission. One interesting way to cheese the game is to mine out the HQ and then send over the credits with the transport vehicle. After you do that, you give them all to your Ore Transport Refinery and you still get credit for mining out the minerals from the level you're on.

Yup, I knew that but I haven't played it in a bit so my memory was a bit spotty, although I don't know if the other groups can still research while you are on your main base and not in a mission.

axeil posted:

For extra fun you can take those minerals out of the Spaceport and send them back to the mission area. While this will let you beat all the "send x amount of resources to Spaceport" missions you'll ultimately fail the campaign if you keep taking resources out of the Spaceport. In fact, I'm fairly certain that if you only send resources on the missions where you have to send resources you actually won't send enough to the base. You need to be doing some extra mining on the side to get over the top. And if you run out of missions and you still don't have enough credits you'll lose. I always thought "you beat all the missions but didn't manage your economy properly so you lose" was a pretty clever way to prevent this kind of mission cheesing.

I have the Prima Strategy Guide at my parent's house so I'll have to check the totals from there and see if you actually have to do bonus mining or not over Christmas.

Yeah, I love the idea that you can't just spend willy-nilly, you actually have to keep your guys together and try to keep them alive to gain veterancy so they don't suck, didn't know there was a Prime Strategy Guide for this game, I'm pretty interested if there is something interesting in it!

Dr. Snark
Oct 15, 2012

I'M SORRY, OK!? I admit I've made some mistakes, and Jones has clearly paid for them.
...
But ma'am! Jones' only crime was looking at the wrong files!
...
I beg of you, don't ship away Jones, he has a wife and kids!

-United Nations Intelligence Service

axeil posted:

I always thought "you beat all the missions but didn't manage your economy properly so you lose" was a pretty clever way to prevent this kind of mission cheesing.

Although the game is really forgiving in this regard which is really nice. Would it be spoilery for me to explain why?

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

I really love how Fang just casually drops that he has a sweet alien grav-tank in his opening message. Cool dude.

Alkydere
Jun 7, 2010
Capitol: A building or complex of buildings in which any legislature meets.
Capital: A city designated as a legislative seat by the government or some other authority, often the city in which the government is located; otherwise the most important city within a country or a subdivision of it.



SpruceZeus posted:

How does Earth 2160 compare with this game?

Unit customization/research was trimmed down/simplified. Oversimplified really, but it was still there and a major part of the game. The three factions still have very different feels for bases and units, which is still good. Overall a competent, if shallow RTS.

"Shallow" describes the characterization between the three factions as well. The ED is a bunch of Russian flavored Fascists, which is okay. The LC is an amazon/matriarchal nation where all men are nasally grognards, with the exception of the executive/ruling council which are all secretly old men. Oh, and the UCS evacuation ships somehow managed to fall into a space warp between Earth and Mars and everyone died except for the war-mechs which show up several years later to cause problems for both of the other factions.

Jabor
Jul 16, 2010

#1 Loser at SpaceChem
LC was always my favourite faction, but I didn't get anywhere near completing the campaign. Keen to see where it takes us, by the sounds of it it gets a lot more interesting than just covert mining missions.

axeil
Feb 14, 2006




We've been contacted by Sheela Merlan, the LC's chief researcher here on Earth, about research on the anti-gravity tank General Fang brought with him to the LC. So let's head over there and test it out.



While we're over at ACME Labs we're going to research that bullet upgrade we missed last mission. This should let us level the playing field a bit next time we run into ED units.





Gen. Fang arrives and moves his tank into the research base so they can compare it with the Moon m1 that Progress Manager Merlan thinks is so superior to Fang's tank. Of course she's wrong because Fang's tank is awesome and nothing beats it (except swarms of Eurasian Dynasty units).



Wait a second is that...is that the Weather Control Center the Eurasian Dynasty rumors were talking about? It's not a hoax. Holy poo poo. We have to get that on the battlefield! Sheela better talk to Sombra and tell her we need that thing now! We have weather to control and battles to win! :science:







Of course we smoke that Moon m1 in the race. Nobody's faster than Fang :smug:



:stare: Well that last bit wasn't weird or creepy at all Sheela! I'm sure you've got plenty of Moon-men back on Luna.




General Fang's tank can stand up to these puny 20mm guns even if there are uh 12 of them firing on him at once.



:gonk: Okay now Sheela is starting to sound a little...excited. And High Counselor Korlan is intervening and sending her to a Harmony Center. What the hell is a Harmony Center? It sounds rather Orwellian. Anyway, let's go blow up some UCS mehcs.




Yeah! Look at it explode! It may just be some drones that don't fight back but blowing up stuff is always a good time.



:frogsiren: Oh my god she's definitely hitting on us. And being hauled away to the crazy bin. But the LC are going to work on building a tank just like Fang's so at least this isn't a total waste. Now let's leave this place and never speak of it or it's creepy chief researcher again.



Except that Weather Control Center would be rather nice...Maybe we can ask High Counselor Korlan to go easy on Sheela. Controlling the weather is worth getting creepily hit on by a Moon-lady right? Right? :smith:



High Counselor Korlan has signed the documents making the alliance between the UCS and LC official. She just needs us to deliver them to a UCS base in the Arctic for the alliance to come into effect. Sadly it looks like the Eurasian Dynasty may have set up shop in the area. We'll need to be careful on this next mission.



Since this update was all at night, here's the first night theme for the LC. Sounds kind of creepy.

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous
I assume LC should start missions around early morning in order to be able to charge the batteries. Or do they come precharged?

Pierzak
Oct 30, 2010

axeil posted:

This is probably the third most famous Polish-developed video game series after The Wither Series and The Call of Juarez Series. It is much better than Call of Juarez.
[...]
3. The game was made in Poland. Seriously, look at the list of games to come out of Poland. There's The Witcher Series and a whole bunch of crap. Also Gears of War 3 which I didn't realize was Polish until now. I don't think people put much effort into looking at Polish games and with that sort of library I don't really blame them. Remember at the time of Earth 2150's release most of the games on that list weren't even announced yet.
Go gently caress yourself, man. Like there wasn't a huge amount of crap pumped out in the US or Japan, not to mention other countries not known for game industry. Everything is mostly crap on the internet. And even if that list is horribly incomplete, there are quite a few good games on it. The Witcher just had better marketing and brand (it was a guaranteed success, the Witcher books were huge in Poland back then). And since I never heard of Earth 2150 back then, its marketing must've been really lovely. Let's hope it was because all the money went into developing the game ;)

And what's that Call of Juarez you speak of? :haw:

Also, please tell me that huge number of screenshots isn't just 2 updates, I barely started reading and I'm already getting glossy-eyed :ohdear:

Pierzak fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Dec 22, 2012

axeil
Feb 14, 2006

Pierzak posted:

Go gently caress yourself, man. Like there wasn't a huge amount of crap pumped out in the US or Japan, not to mention other countries not known for game industry. Everything is mostly crap on the internet. And even if that list is horribly incomplete, there are quite a few good games on it. The Witcher just had better marketing and brand (it was a guaranteed success, the Witcher books were huge in Poland back then). And since I never heard of Earth 2150 back then, its marketing must've been really lovely. Let's hope it was because all the money went into developing the game ;)

And what's that Call of Juarez you speak of? :haw:

Also, please tell me that huge number of screenshots isn't just 2 updates, I barely started reading and I'm already getting glossy-eyed :ohdear:

I think you bring up a good point about games developed in countries that aren't the US/Japan. Being from the US, I typically don't hear about games unless they're made either here in the States or over in Japan. You're probably right that there are lots of good Polish games out there aren't on that list on Wikipedia because well, Wikipedia is not the be all and end all of human knowledge. My point wasn't so much, "Hey guys Poland sucks but this one thing to come out of it was good!" Rather it was, "At the time of release (and even today) Poland was not an area we saw lots of games come out of so it didn't have much of a chance to compete against more well-known franchises here in the States." Reading over what I posted I realize it came off a bit dismissive/assholish towards Poland so I've amended my statement to more clearly express my point.

As for the huge number of screenshots, right now we have 3 updates plus the OP. Most updates are not going to be nearly as long as the first two since I needed to explain a bunch of mechanics there.

axeil fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Dec 22, 2012

T1g4h
Aug 6, 2008

I AM THE SCALES OF JUSTICE, CONDUCTOR OF THE CHOIR OF DEATH!

I'm just gonna echo the Warzone 2100 comparison from earlier, this game is giving me the same sort of vibe for sure. Frankly, I consider that a good thing, because Warzone 2100 was one of my favorite RTS timesinks back in the day, loved the hell out of it. The campaign on this tho... I'm fairly certain I'd lose. Horribly.

Pierzak
Oct 30, 2010
OK, that wasn't so bad. Definitely keep the text though, multiple screenshots without text get stale really quickly. Will keep watching.

Nuramor
Dec 13, 2012

Most Amewsing Prinny Ever!
It was compared to Warzone 2100 a lot during development. I can recall an article in a magazine doing a side-by-side comparison between the two games, but please don't ask me for specifics. It's been far too long since then.

Luigi's Discount Porn Bin
Jul 19, 2000


Oven Wrangler

axeil posted:

Warcraft did not go 3D until Warcraft III in 2002. Starcraft did not go 3D until Starcraft II in 2010. None of these franchises have incorporated day/night and customizable units the way the Earth series did. However, Outpost II and Enemy Nations did have customizable units. Nor have any tried to do dynamic weather. This game was definitely cutting edge for its time and still seems pretty revolutionary from a gameplay perspective today.
WC3 definitely had a day/night cycle that influenced sight radius and interacted with certain game mechanics - Night Elves had certain powers that only worked at night, for example.

axeil
Feb 14, 2006

Luigi's Discount Porn Bin posted:

WC3 definitely had a day/night cycle that influenced sight radius and interacted with certain game mechanics - Night Elves had certain powers that only worked at night, for example.

I never played WC3 so I didn't know that. I'll edit the OP based on this new info. Thanks for the correction.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry
Is home base automatically running its mining facilities when you're gone, or do you have to spend time there to supervise?

Alkydere
Jun 7, 2010
Capitol: A building or complex of buildings in which any legislature meets.
Capital: A city designated as a legislative seat by the government or some other authority, often the city in which the government is located; otherwise the most important city within a country or a subdivision of it.



Glazius posted:

Is home base automatically running its mining facilities when you're gone, or do you have to spend time there to supervise?

The home base/front runs simulatneously while you play in the battle. You can switch views at any time, or even have multiple cameras on the screen at once. It's just that the home base is very dull and only has a very limited amount of resources (just enough to get you started). The home base resources will generally be dry by the end of mission 3 or 4. Especially if you just sat there on missions where you were victorious and mined the map dry.

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Cugel the Clever
Apr 5, 2009
I LOVE AMERICA AND CAPITALISM DESPITE BEING POOR AS FUCK. I WILL NEVER RETIRE BUT HERE'S ANOTHER 200$ FOR UKRAINE, SLAVA
Oh my god, I'd forgotten about this game. A much younger me was quite engrossed by its complexity and I wasted many hours at it. And I truly mean wasted because I was never any good. I tried to play through the campaigns several times, but always ended up abandoning for some reason or another.

I tried the demo of 2160 years ago, but don't have much memory of it. It's currently on sale on steam for $2.49. Is it worth the price?

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