I'm curious, is it possible to tweak the rulesmd.ini file to make the techs available again?
I've commented out the ForbiddenHouses lines, but oddly this only works on Soviet missions. For some reason, in any Allied mission, capturing soviet techs do not reappear.
Anytime, and definitely it's been a very refreshing experience, you don't see the level of effort in these mods too often!
About Sun Temple, hmm.. I have to admit I have not seen any other unit besides the spy, maybe a blunder on my part. Where does it spawn initially?
As soon as the map starts the camera would pan to the spy, and I think either because of no radar or the camera spazzing out due the map being smaller than the screen resolution, I never noticed I had another unit.
I assumed it possibly bugged out on me the same as the other mission in Cuba; let me try again so I can make sure!
Edit: indeed, it was just a huge blunder on my part. I didn't read the final line of the mission text, and it never even occurred to me to try and select the sniper!
Personally I would suggest giving it a different color like red, to make it a bit more clear - this also comes again to changes made like snipers not automatically taking shots, which I agree gameplay wise for the Fox and the Hound mission where it's explained, but in this case another thing that makes it harder to piece together. Though yeah, my bad!
Very very cool mod, I greatly recommend giving it a play!
That said, if you don't mind me pointing out a few things:
Overall it's very clean and you can absolutely see tons of effort has been put into it, the mission texts, objectives, etc.
The maps look very well made, it's a treat to see some the original scenery be expanded and they look very natural and convincing. I really like how the different missions propose their own answer to "how would I flip this mission on the other side?"
Many little details like Yuri building being under construction off of the map's limits during the war time are also a brilliant touch.
However this may be personal preference, but gameplay wise they don't match too well the tone of the original maps. They feel oddly puzzle-y and, like make other fan mods, tend too much to be extremely challenging. Right from the first missions the AI starts spamming Tesla Tanks and Desolators, or Rocketeers in the soviet campaign. Techs are off the scale almost immediately, and even Apocalypse tanks appear way before you have to destroy the prototypes.
Way too many stealth missions, which were already a sore thumb in the original RA2. The soviet mission in Yucatan for example, is literally impossible - you start with a spy and you are surrounded by dogs; after bashing my head at it for half an hour, I had to give up and skip it. The mission in Paris is an unnecessarily long and tedious maze made with sandbags and fences. The final soviet mission also is another long and tedious walk that makes for a very anticlimactic finale. (The mission in Cuba also fails immediately upon starting, surely just a bug though.)
The funds available for defending against the swarms of tanks are barely enough most of the time, unless you're a very seasoned player. The par times are also ridiculous, but they really aren't anything more than flavor and I know how much of a pain they are to test out and balance, so it's not much of an issue.
I think also too many of the maps are just an immediate counter-offensive on the canonical mission, which adds to the feel of frustration the flipped campaign progression gives, that being that you're constantly losing; I think many of these could have been more fun as a direct mirror for the other faction - e.g. the soviets needing to set up a beacon in Washington as they have in St. Louis, maybe with some slight variance.
Also, some of the changes seem confusing and I think are just flavor that really don't need to be. The Iron Curtain being a secondary objective for destroying the Apocalypse tank prototypes is clever, however it just spamming the curtain over the tank feels gimmicky and annoying. The prototype tanks having immense range also doesn't make much sense.
And finally, the worst sin of all: disabling the techs from capturing enemy buildings. Half of the fun and entire premise of the strategy of the RA2/YR campaigns is that you can capture enemy tech and combine to your heart's content. This cuts it in half and severely limits the scope of the game.
I think overall this mod gets more inspiration from Tiberian Sun style of brutally punishing stealth-y/puzzle-y campaign than classic RA2YR "build and destroy" maps; also, this is probably thought with experienced players in mind which always look for a fresh new challenge. This is purely personal preference, but I much prefer that original style - looking at the premise and description of this mod, intuitively one would think it would be closer to the latter, and that it tries to emulate the original missions only, well, flipped around. So just as a headsup I think the former is instead more what the modder went for and going in with that in mind makes much more sense.
It sorta reminds me of the maps that the original authors of The Forgotten Empires had done for AoE2 HD, which were somewhat criticized by the fans for it, before going back to a more classic, and much more polished, style of campaigns for the African Kingdoms expansion later on.
All in all, still, great job! :D
1024 64c version: :)
Img694.imageshack.us
Plus is 64c instead of 32..
I think I can make it bigger :)
Thanks! :D I like very much how the background turned out, too :)
Thank you! *hugs* It took me 3 months ^^
Nope, the setup doesn't contain the apoc one :) As a RA2 fan and 3D artist I absolutely HAD to make this pic ^^
Textures are really good! :)
That's a pity I can't have that model, mine sucks :(
Moddb.com
AND is a repost >(
I meant this:
Media.moddb.com
Yeah, I used Google SketchUp
Remember that this model is mine (except for the crane).
Remember that this model is mine and you can not post its mods. If you want I can post my better model. (https://www.deviantart.com/download/182893938/apoc_tank_wip_by_banderi-d30w1v6.png)
Banderi
Federico joined
This member has provided no bio about themself...