Thoughts on the Talon Rework Thread - Red Alert 3 Paradox mod for C&C: Red Alert 3

Since the Talon Rework is rather extensive, I will split my analysis of it into several different sections.

Feel free to post your own view of the rework.

Economy: If purchasing a mini-Crawler is essentially the cost of teching up and purchasing a refinery, the cost of expanding seems rather high: making for three rather expensive refineries seeming to be the norm.

On the other hand, I like the independence that these three Crawlers might have as somewhat independent bases: and the decision to use them to attack, cutting off resource flow for more power seems interesting, but perhaps slightly counter-intuitive. Perhaps some minor way to make money from destroyed enemy units and infrastructure could compensate for this? The risk-reward factor would still be present.

Perceived Themes:

Generic- Early-game staples and ambush units.

Crusaders- Themed around escaping battle to avoid trading with enemies with a few more hold-the-line style units to cover them.Skilled at engaging/disengaging battles.

Inquisitors- Ambush/shock-and-awe theme. Strong base-razing. Borderline overkill on anti-infantry with flame-throwers: perhaps cost balances this out?

Evangelicals- Most units I have design concerns about are from this branch: it seems to have the least defined game-play of the three, seeming like a pile of sometimes generic support units.

Concerns:

Early Game- With the powerful Crawler available early in the game, I am somewhat concerned that the Talon would have too much rushing power, since players may have trouble dealing with that much armor backed up with rush army at the start of the game.

Said rush may cut off resource gathering, making it rather all-in, but that may just mean that it becomes an annoying cheese tactic. Some cost and tech time to arm the Crawlers may help with this potential problem.

Units:

(Not quite reviewing every unit.)

Pawn- How does the Pawn work? What prevents free-unit spams? What is the purpose of the unit? Does it come with a timer?

Footman- When would using this unit's secondary be preferable to using its primary weapon? Does it get a speed boost while it is active?

Baracuda/Cuirassier- Will these units be at all effective at flanking heavier armor? It would almost be a shame if they fell off in usefulness quickly when such things came into play. Also, with prop-disguising units such as these, are such props planned to be more common and/or randomized on Paradox maps?

Cleric- Are players meant to flank to counter its secondary? I'm curious as to the intended counter-play to the ability.

Priest- Does the stealth mean hiding in concealment?

Hospitaller- I'm somewhat concerned that this unit could become an infantry invalidator: albeit its power could be balanced by making it an expensive target that can be killed off quickly to counter this, and the death explosion may mean that there aren't many in a single battle to pick off.

Wrath- The combination of high speed and out-ranging anti-ground AOE seems to threaten the balance with kiting, even if its range is a tad short for artillery. Perhaps it should have only standard range unless flare-assisted? Huge range with flare would still work. There are also other ways to stop kiting, but its a quick way to pigeonhole players into over-specific strategies and invalidate units if it gets in.

Crimson Cardinal- Is its purpose to work as a general anti-armor combatant, and a base-razor like the Demo Truck, and to set up an ambush with bombs? Seems like a good concept, and it could help the generic prop-ambush units scale better into late game.

Priest- Meant to work well in a shock-and-awe tactic after appearing or unloading by a group of Infantry via transport/ concealment? Seems fitting for an aggressive play-style.

Archangel- Perhaps make it match the speed and turn rate of the unit it disguises as, if said rates are lower than its norm.

Lucifer- This unit's summary description is highly generic: is its role aside anti-vehicle vehicle up for suggestions?

Sanctuary Cart- When would one choose heal over blind in combat and vice-versa? Perhaps it would have less role overlap if its blind acted like the Hyrdofoil's jammer, targeting only one unit?

Calliope- Feels rather bland and its abilities seem to overlap heavily. Perhaps it could be made to give the general aura passively with the ability to ramp up the music- speeding up freindly unit movement speed in the area at the cost of disabling the normal buff after 7 seconds for 10 seconds?

Emissary Track- Some debuff theme could fit, but perhaps this unit could force degarrisons from fireport surface units and buildings upon impact from range. That might make its role stand out more. Is the secondary's purpose to drop Engineers on capture points and enemy bases at around Bullfrog drop speed?

Altar of Light- This unit could easilly be overpowered, but perhaps if the stun was breif and on a decent 10-secondish cool-down and lasted longer based on the proximity of units to it it could be balanced. If this is done, this probably shouldn't be very fast or durable: spamming them could become a problem otherwise.

Consecrator Track- Seems a bit of an odd choice to put it in the tech tree without flame: albeit perhaps this was done to help players neglecting the Crusader tree have flame units scale better into a sometimes vehicle-heavy late game?

Alchemist- Interesting risk/reward mechanic: makes for more game-play and counter-play than is usual for natoriously bland support units.

Aircraft: Why are there only two flying units now? Are suggestions for potential flyers possible if they fill a Talon-specific niche?

Mini-Crawlers only cost about 2000-3000 a piece, it will be common for a player to build two of them right off the bat(they won't take very long to construct). They're essentially refinery factories with no power cost, which is a balancing factor for the Talon, no power requirements.

As you progress into the game, you will probably buy all of the mini crawlers and possibly extras to help with income.

Pawns are a free unit spam. You only get a few every minute though.

Aircraft have been explained by OSB on the wiki.

You seem to have missed the basic dynamic of the Talon; you are supposed to use all the trees together. They aren't semi-exclusive or even really cost prohibitive to pursue; heck, playing any kind of economy game at all means you're going to want at least 3 refineries, and as having a mini-crawler unlocks the low-tier stuff from that tree. Also, having all the mini-crawlers means unlocking all the build menus, reducing the bottleneck caused by the long unit build times.

As far as tech trees, I view decisions such as which mini-Crawler to prioritize teching up, which ones are on the front lines and which ones are playing Refinery as play-style decisions among the Talon: one may have all the Crawlers, but their positioning and the money put into them could still make for tactics centered on one tech path.

Of course, another aspect of them is that if the Crawler on attack fails, the others are still bases with which to launch alternate attacks: and using a more rounded army from all of the Crawlers would still be a valid tactic.

Will long unit build times be a global thing for Talon units? One of my initial thoughts of the Talon system was that they would bring a Crawler as close as they can for comfort to construct units near the battle-zone and eliminate travel time: but long production time would encourage more behind-the-lines production.

Will their less expensive stuff have lower cool-downs to encourage this kind of forward base reinforcements style, or are the long build times universal?

From what I remember, ALL your units are built from the Master Crawler, and all take long times compared to other units to build - the bottleneck will be there anyways, because all your units only come from one building and it'll take a while to get to the battle zone, but you'll just have more overall 'menus' from which to build multiple units at once.

Just a thought on the Pawn as I had a similar question, I would think the main reason not to just spam pawns forever is that it would lock up your infantry que. The Talon seem to have very powerful infantry that will be much more useful than pawns, so you would not want to spam pawns so you could use your other infantry. I think one of the main balance factors for the Pawn will be build time because of this.

The Pawn isn't built; they spawn at intervals for free, probably increasingly fast as you tech up. They're job is nothing more than to give you some bulk to make up for how few real vehicles you have/can manage effectively; you send them in constant waves to enemies, camp them around tech buildings and mini-crawlers, and just distribute them around the map. They are Auxiliary-bad, but they drop no Grist for the Protectorate and give no experience to anyone else, cost you absolutely nothing, and there is never, ever a negative penalty for losing them. They exist for nothing more than making up for the fact you have to group your other units.

I've got to admit I'm finding certain aspects of the redesign a bit baffling too.

1. There seem to be quite a lot of units that are now suicide based, which runs quite counter to the long-build times, high cost, micro to keep your forces alive style of the rest of the Talon. - fanatic, priest of judas, crimson cardinal and hospitalier are all short-range, explode on death units, and the cardinal has the added ability to add an extra bomb to all the things that are intended to blow up. This either prohibts using more than a few of them in a force, or favours demo-truck tactics. - rather expensive demo trucks, but it'd be unsafe to use them any other way lest they start killing each other and your more valuable units.

If we want fragility and power then going more down the route of death-buffs, so that you're not sending them off to blow up in the enemy's face but keeping them back and using them to make your own units more powerful when they get killed. One explode-on-death infantry would be fine, maybe two, but 4 is excessive.

suggestion for example the hospitalier - rather than exploding on death, when he sees his tank ruptures he empties all of it against the target he was firing on, before it blows up in a much smaller explosion killing only him. Only have a large explosion if, if possible, he is squished or sniped.

2. anti-infantry (and garrison) over-kill - all the generic units, the knight errant, Champion(?), priest, hospitalier, dragoon walker, possibly a few more are all infantry butchers. And infantry aren't going to pose much threat to the super-heavies either.
equally - over-reliance on infantry. I count 12, to the allies 8, not including scouts or commandos.

3. lacking much AA and any other aircraft to support, the Lazarus is going to be quite vulnerable up there. This is especially true in games other than 1v1, as the enemy will have invested in some AA (it could be argued that in 1v1 they won't have if the lazarus is the only talon aircraft)
Especially if it's going to do what aircraft are mainly used for and cross impassable terrain. Otherwise it's stuck floating above the ground forces for protection.
It doesn't need much support, just something capable of flying alongside it.

4. The footman's secondary only works on stunned units. I've scoured the list, the only stunning effect I can find in the entire Talon Army is Lady Maria's secondary. If the footman's secondary is only going to be used by then, it's frankly redundant, as you won't need it that late in the game!
I'd suggest possibly giving the footman's primary weapon a chance to stun, possibly increasing with veterancy. It'd give more reason to include them in a mob of free pawns, and providing an ability to mop up infantry when deployed in numbers. It'd be reasonable that the chance was lower against battlesuits than infantry, and possibly increased against animal scouts (seeing as they have the nasty ability to stun all your footmen with their secondary)

Edited by: The_Mr_Z