Tiberium timeline, or Red Alert timeline?
Tiberium, no doubt. It's an actually compelling universe with stakes that still inspires many sci-fi settings to this day. Kane is still one of the coolest videogame villains of all time and Joe K is still in the Guinness Book of Records for his performance.Reddit Alert starts with the good guy getting removed from history, and turning the most bloodthirsty regime in human history into a funny caricature.
Tiberian Sun wins in absolutely EVERY fathomable way except fanbase size.That and the waypoint system is INFINITELY better in RA2 and the slightly more advanced engine features like garrisoning and the capturable tech buildings, but that could be backported by some github addict.
>>12723970>Kane is still one of the coolest videogame villains of all timeAgreed
>>12723970>>12723993"He who controls the past, commands the future. He who commands the future, conquers the past."—Kane
>>12724017>"The people believe what the media tells them to believe, and I tell the media what to believe. It's really quite simple."Joe wrote most of these since he was in charge of directing all the cutscenes. He also brought his actual personal gun for that one camera scene.How can one man be so incredibly based as far back as 1995?
>>12723967Wait a second, what the hell is this? A mod? OpenRA? What is that?
>>12723967Tiberium timeline definitely. Late cold war era warfare between NATO and a charismatic mastermind able to radicalize the entire third world for its enemy's failings to the backdrop of a sci-fi resource scramble turned runaway grey goo made for a very memorable setting. Even Tiberian Sun, despite some of its shortcomings, was still exceptional.Red Alert 1 was pretty good too, when it was at least partially serious, things like Tanya not withstanding. It made for a good alternate history where England, France, and Germany teamed up against the Soviet Union and America was mostly on the sideline because Europe hadn't committed suicide during WW2 and instead was just on the tail end of recovery from the great war. It wasn't until the expansions America even showed up in the form of General Carville as an advisor.RA2 completely did away with any form of serious storytelling though, despite being a better game than its predecessors. Yuri was too far out there and didn't have enough buildup and the majority of the cutscenes were comedies. It would've been better if the Soviets instead spent the early part of the campaign getting their special forces into place and disrupting the Allies while concealing their involvement, with Yuri not overtly shown until mid campaign and instead being the cause of how the Soviets were able to "convince" so many groups to rebel or how they were able to hide their involvement. Endgame could still be the same of Yuri slipping his chains after a lot of the groundwork was laid. Or ditch Yuri and go with the RA3 thing of bringing Japan in as a third faction since without WW2 and US involvement, they probably would've conquered China and most of Asia.
Not retro, but fuck me, i like how retarded RA3 gets because its the closest thing to a Metal Slug RTS. (Not counting the korean actual metal slug rts)
>>12724051Looks like an RA2 mod, possibly C&C Reloaded
Tiberium, it actually has some proper worldbuilding with a more cohesive timeline (RA3 being kind of a reboot doesn't help), Red Alert started off already being wacky and the sequels merely turned that up to 11, also all sorts of disjointed stuff such as Poland showing up as already having its post ww2 borders, or the soviets using both 80s Migs and WW2 prop planes, RA3 somehow feels less incongruent than that due to the whole game looking insane, ironically.>>12724171It's a solid game, people were too harsh on it due to the whole EA thing.>>12723970>The most bloodthirsty regime in human history.Nah, no way Stalin's Russia makes it even to the top 5. from the top of my head i can already think of:>The Neo-Assyrian Empire>The Aztecs>17th,18th century Swedish Empire>Cromwell's Commonwealth>Young Turks' Ottoman Empire>Croatia under the Ustase>Khmer Rouge CambodiaAnd a shitload of utterly debauched/short lived Chinese emperors that i can't be arsed to search their names rn.
Real talk. Is the story in this series actually good or is it just "good for an RTS"? Like, StarCraft 1/BW's stories are decent for an RTS when Metzen wasn't being completely retarded (50% of BW), but they're not what I'd call good stories.
>>12724343The Mongols killed 40 million in 162 years. The USSR and its vassal states (let's be honest, they were all puppets) did 100 million in less than 100 years.
>>12724372There's a difference between intentional killing and accidently causing famines because your economic ideas and management are terrible. Communist states were more destructive but not as murderous.
>>12724376Best to paint them as the most murderous for good measure anyway. Unlike hijinks from pre-industrial times, they're not history just yet, if you know what I mean.Red Alert completely fails to capitalize on the uglier side of the Cold War for senseless humor, despite the bold advertisements they made for the early titles.
>>12724359Not in all of them. IMO the only cohesive timeline is C&C1 > TibSun > Firestorm. After that the games don't really build upon the previous games and the rest of the games don't have continuity or are inconsequential. The world building and presentation in C&C1 and Tibsun is some of the best I've seen in videogames.
>>12724395>After that the games don't really build upon the previous gamesC&C 3 shows the world after Tiberium has nearly drained all of its resources, the Scrin harvesting fleet planetfall that's been hinted at since the first game and Kane realizing his plans of ascension once they arrive. Plays great, too.
>>12724403They forget too many things for my liking and the story doesn't have that much new to say. C&C1 was the world on the edge of apocalypse, TibSun was humanity fighting for survival. C&C3 seemed to about purging the world of tiberium at first but then it devolves into retreading C&C1 and TibSun story, Nod stealing nukes and Tiberium spreading again to habitable areas. It could have been more about the contradiction of needing tiberium while also needing to get rid of it, but that's only explored in the last mission and not a major theme of the story. The Scrin is like the only part that gets built upon. I mean it's all serviceable, but I wouldn't put it in my favourite video game stories.
>>12724471>Nod stealing nukesThey've always had them since they took over the remains of the USSR. They just had to use one on the GDI space station to scatter their high command, then gather their technology again in the confusion. Then they tricked GDI into ion cannon'ing Temple Prime to set off its underground Tiberium deposits and lure the Scrin harvesters in too early. Kane essentially schemed against GDI in order to scheme against the aliens.GDI grew too complacent after Firestorm, hence why their arsenal from that era was mostly decommissioned due to petty internal politics and over-budget reclamation efforts.It's the only game where Nod canonically wins, and it's the only sci-fi setting I know of where aliens invade Earth only to have their tech stolen and their forces kicked right out the door. It's absolutely kino.
Love Tiberian Dawn and Sun but the first Red Alert is my favorite setting in the series. RA2 and especially RA3 are shitty parody
>>12723967Short answer is Tiberium was always better and always the main focus.Now that's just in regards to the actual (westwood) story. Gameplay wise RA has been an improvent to Tiberium games. I love OG CnC but RA was more fleshed out and had a lot more variety. TS I kind of hate, I played that game for over 20 years on and off and I still don't feel like I understand how to play it. Very awkward but immersive game, one of the best soundtracks and a great story. RA2 on the other hand is the peak of CnC gameplay with a funny but kinda shitty story. This could even be argued for the EA games but I'm not a big fan of 3, both if them. For me personally when I first played these games I has the CnC and RA bundle and I found RA to be far more approachable and easy to learn.
>>12723970Almost had me before the pure reddit take for the last line.
>>12725152>there's no heckin capitalism in le spaec :DDie.
>>12725150Tiberium unfortunately shit the bed hard when 3 came out.
>>12725150>TS I kind of hate, I played that game for over 20 years on and off and I still don't feel like I understand how to play itWhat seems to be the problem? Do you mean campaign or online matches?
>>12725647Not him but TS is horrendously unbalanced in favor of GDI, and some game mechanics are such a hassle for the flow of gameplay that it influences what maps people play online.
>>12725683that's why I just made my own duel map to play, there's no good fucking mapsveterancy patch helps tremendously, but I think it doesn't touch firestorm
KANE LIVESPEACE THROUGH POWER
>>12725278>34.
RA is just a parody, and only the first two C&C games were good.
>>12725647Online play and skirmish, the campaigns are the only stuff I really play with TS. They are very fun.>>12725278I have a soft spot for Kane's Wrath, base 3 is dogshit but something about Kane's Wrath hits right especially that global conquest mode. The story was alright but it was 99% because it was just Kane. RA3 I'm more fond of just for the modding community around it, custom maps were fun back in the day and coop was fun when you could play with a real person, alone it sucks.
>>12726095What settings are you using for the skirmishes, and what map are you playing?Depending on the details you could be suffering from a skill issue or an inherent game balance issue. Nod's base busting super weapon is locked behind veins, GDI doesn't get one. GDI is completely cucked by good anti-air units so you can't keep up late game pressure with bombers unless you are a crack shot with the EMP cannon and your opponent clusters shit stupidly. GDI gets incredibly good early infantry rushes because of medic, but Nod having exclusive access to artillery means if they survive the initial rush the comeback potential is infinite.Firestorm helps a bit, but the Juggernaut is less spammable than artillery and the Cyborg Reaper you get with Nod has anti-air missiles that destroy vehicles and they have nets that hard stun groups of infantry that lasts something like 10 seconds with a 3 second cooldown and they just function as a "fuck anything you got, I win" button.Engineers capture instantly without fan made balance patches so don't be afraid to engi rush, especially if you have a medic. Capture any building on the edge and have a barracks ready to plop then build a parasitic base to cut your opponent off made of silos. Print more engineers, capture their con yard and sell it, you win.
