History VideoGame / OriginalWar

* MirroingFactions: Both sides of the trope come in force after Powell takes over the American side, with the Russians commenting that he's as ruthless as their own superiors [[spoiler: and a large number of disillusioned Russian and American forces defecting their sides and teaming up to create their own faction.]]

* NotSoDifferent: Both sides of the trope come in force after Powell takes over the American side, with the Russians commenting that he's as ruthless as their own superiors [[spoiler: and a large number of disillusioned Russian and American forces defecting their sides and teaming up to create their own faction.]]

* ColourCodedArmies: Each faction has its own unique color. [[NominalHero Americans]] [[BlueIsHeroic are blue]], [[RedScare Soviets are red]], Arabs are yellow and [[spoiler:the Alliance is [[HopeSproutsEternal light green]].]]

* ThePrecursors:

* SympatheticPOV: American campaign runs on this trope for the first half - you are supposed to root for what is basically a military outfit of time-travelling looters, just because they are the underdog against AlternateTimeline Soviets and wear blue. Amusingly, the Soviet campaign manages to reverse it (without villifying Americans) by making it crystal clear the high command is a nasty combination of heavy-handed brutes and politically appointed idiots, who run the show by making life of everyone else as pitiable as possible.

* WarriorPoet: John [=MacMillan=] is in the same time capable soldier and a perceptive thinker, constantly pondering about the whole situation going around in truly philosophical fashion. This also lampshades [[spoiler: his eventual defection to the idealistic Alliance]].

* NonIndicativeDifficulty: The in-game description calls the American campaign easy and good for new players. This is true... [[MetaphoricalTruth from a relative perspective.]]

* TheProtagonist: John MacMillan qulifies for the game as a whole as he is the only Character to play a major role in both Campaigns.

** He is also a major Character in Russian campaign wherehe serves as th main antagonist and arch-rival to Burlak who serves as TheProtagonist in Russian campaign. Also igf Burlak switches to Alliance MacMillan will share this position with Burlak.

* BlackDudeDiesFirst: Andy Cornell lasts a single scenario as a non-playable character before being unceremoniously killed off offscreen. [[spoiler:Unless you make the right choices with [[ChekhovsGunman Berezov]], in which case Cornell may be revealed to have survived the suicide attack against the Russians and he will be able to escape back to your side.]]

* BusCrash: A number of characters in the American campaign are killed offscreen such as [[spoiler:Ron Harrison and [[OldFriend Jeremy Sikorski.]] Andy Cornell looks like another example at first, but will survive if the right choices have been made]].

* BusCrash: A number of characters in the American campaign are killed offscreen such as [[spoiler:Ron Harrison and [[OldFriend Jeremy Sikorski.]] [[BlackBestFriend Andy Cornell]] looks like another example at first, but will survive if the right choices have been made]].

* BlackBestFriend: Andy Cornell is an OldFriend of John [=MacMillan=].
** BlackDudeDiesFirst: ... and lasts a single scenario as a non-playable character before being unceremoniously killed off offscreen. [[spoiler:Unless you make the right choices with [[ChekhovsGunman Berezov]], in which case Cornell may be revealed to have survived the suicide attack against the Russians and he will be able to escape back to your side.]]

** Vehicles might be powerful, but unlike infantry, but due to their size they can't get into thick forest, pass cramped defense positions or use narrow mountain paths.

* MightyGlacier: The Soviets' playstyle. Almost all their vehicles trade speed for all-terrain heavy tracks, sturdy armor and bigger guns. Their faction-specific infantry weapon, the heavy rocket launcher, was found to be too heavy for fast movement, so it goes with heavy body armor as a way to compensate for already low mobility.

* PacifistRun: One of the secondary objectives during [[spoiler:your desertion from the Americans in the Alliance branch]] is to avoid killing anyone, as your opponents [[spoiler:are your fellow soldiers and friends.]]

* ShootTheMedicFirst: Subverted. Due to the way how game mechanics work, unless you have some great tactical advantage (like having snipers and enemy doesn't), you will die trying to reach any medics behind the soldiers that are riddling you with bullets.

* BusCrash: A number of characters in the American campaign are killed offscreen such as [[spoiler:Ron Harrison and [[OldFriend Jeremy Sikorski.]] [[spoiler: [[BlackBestFriend Andy Cornell]]]] looks like another example at first, but will survive if the right choices have been made.]]

* MauveShirt: In both campaigns there are a handful of characters that aren't by any means part of the main or even secondary cast, but you can keep moving them between missions in reliable fashion. This means you stay in control of their skill development, making them much more precious than randomly-generated RedShirts you can get assigned. If they happen to be half-decent mechanics, all that better.

%%* ActionGirl: Lisa Lawson.

* BlackDudeDiesFirst: Andy Cornell lasts a single scenario as a non-playable character before being unceremoniously killed off offscreen. [[spoiler:Unless you make the right choices with [[ChekhovsGunman Berezov]], in which case Cornell may be revealed to have survived the suicide attack against the Russians and he will be able to escape back to your side.]]

* BusCrash: A number of characters in the American campaign are killed offscreen such as [[spoiler:Ron Harrison and Jeremy Sikorski.]] [[spoiler:Andy Cornell]] looks like another example at first, but will survive if the right choices have been made.]]

* DisasterDemocracy: In the American campaign. [[spoiler:After General Harrison dies, the troops cast a vote for the new commander of their mission (seemingly ignoring military protocol and the chain of command) and the incompetent Powell is chosen as commander instead of [=MacMillan=], TheHero.]]

* EnemyExchangeProgram: You can capture structures of other factions and use them to produce vehicles or provide equipment normally available only to that faction. This is a core part of the gameplay: a building with nobody in it can be said to belong to ''nobody''. It is even invoked in the campaign, where certain missions depend on you capturing a base from the enemy--or buying one from the Arabs--in order to obtain the necessary resources for an attack on the enemy's main base.

%%** Powell is a non-Russian example.

* GuideDangIt: If [[spoiler:you decide to defect to the Alliance]] in the American campaign, you get told you can bring up to five other characters with you. However, [[spoiler:in reality you can go up to seven, as two characters will always join you at the end of the mission if they are alive.]] Also, [[spoiler:Lisa Lawson]] is especially difficult to bring along with no outside knowledge, as the sequence to recruit her is highly specific, and there is no indication in-game of what it is.

* LateCharacterSyndrome: Common in both campaigns, with characters unimportant to the plot being added constantly to ensure, in theory, that you always have enough troops to complete a level, even if you lost most of them in the previous one. [[spoiler:If you choose to pursue the Alliance route, most characters from the other side of the conflict will join up in later missions.]]
* ALighterShadeOfGrey: Americans from the original timeline, mostly by the virtue of not being oppressive totalitarian state sending unwilling conscripts 2 million years back in time.

** Remote-operated vehicles. Pretty bad early on, but at level 10, a mechanic can operate a fleet of 10 vehicles, each acting as if it were being driven by level 8 driver, outperforming AI-operated vehicles by a large margin while not endangering any drivers since they are safely back in base.
* MauveShirt: In both campaigns there are a handful of characters that aren't by any means part of the main or even secondary cast, but you can keep moving them between missions in reliable fashion. This means you stay in control of their experience point assignments, making them much more precious than randomly-generated RedShirts you can get assigned.

* MildlyMilitary: Justified, since all the troops in the past (sans maybe Arabs, but they've sent mercs anyway) are fully aware they are stuck and their superiors won't be even born for the next two million years. And just like in the novel providing the [[IncrediblyLamePun original]] idea, the erosion of morale and just anything resembling proper military structure kicks on overdrive the moment each side of the conflict realize they came from {{Alternate Timeline}}s.
%% Is it? This was a couple of ice age cycles ago, wasn't it?
%%* MisplacedWildlife: The near arctic is way too far north for terror birds and pre-Neanderthal "apemen"

* NoCampaignForTheWicked: Everyone gets a campaign except the Arabs. A fan-made campaign was later created for Arabs using remaining data and ideas from the dev studio.

* PlotHole: Since the game was rushed and various elements didn't make it to the final product, including the Arab campaign, the entire sub-plot related to the mercenaries can cause a headache.

** Whoever created EON/TAWAR and implicitely brought Siberite/Alaskite to Earth in the first place.

** In-universe, at least some of the characters were still born in the radically changed timelines, obviously ending up doing different things. This causes some serious confusion when they meet friends and colleagues from the alternate timeline.
** In the Soviet timeline, Trotsky became the successor of Lenin, and Stalin is completely unheard of. This means [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge the Great Purge]] never happened. Hitler is also unknown.

* ShootTheMedicFirst: Subverted. Due to the way how game mechanics work, you will probably die trying to reach any medics hiding behind the soldiers that are riddling you with bullets.

%%** Quite a few moves of [[GeneralFailure Powell, Platonov and Pokryshkin]] in the campaign.

* ActionGirl: Lisa Lawson, among others. The game isn't lacking for strong female characters.

* AlternateUniverse: The Americans in the first timeline go back in time to steal Siberite, the catalyst for cold fusion, creating a timeline where they are dominant. The Soviet Union from the second timeline sends people back in time to counter this, and meet the Americans from the first timeline. Rather than creating a StableTimeLoop, a third timeline is created where everyone fights; the choice of campaign determines the events in this timeline.
** Glimpses of the Soviet homeworld include Trotsky coming to power instead of Stalin, Hitler never raising to prominence and implicitely no UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, no Warsaw Pact, no Berlin Wall, no fall of the USSR (obviously), and a crisis or war where "North China" (suggesting the Communist North and Kuomintang South became reality) was supported by the USSR.
** Elements from American and Soviet campaign don't match up. Certain important characters are killed early on, while other inexplicably survive till the very end and numerous tiny details suggest the two campaigns aren't just a separate timeline, but verse.
* AndroclesLion: [[spoiler:Berezov]] is a human example. If you don't kill him and he doesn't escape your custody, he will allow [[spoiler: Andy Cornell]] to escape when he is taken prisoner by the Russians.

* TheAtoner: One of the main reasons for [[spoiler: the creation of the Alliance is everyone wanting to do something good for once, instead senslessly killing each other for resources]].

** Hovercrafts. It is awesome to have a vehicle that can cross deep water and not get slowed by the mud and shallows. It still cannot go up a slope, though, so it can be "imprisoned" in a river with high banks, and it is as useless in mountains and forests as any other non-caterpillar, non-bulldozing vehicle. It cannot carry a lot of weight so it has low armor, low firepower, and cannot be used to carry supplies.
* BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler: Not literal, but Cornell can return and become a playable character long after you might expect to see him.]]

* BagOfSpilling: Notably averted. The most valuable resource of the game are the people under your command. As the game progress, their skills are improved and they can be always selected for the next mission, as long as they are kept alive. Also, at the start of each mission, players are free to assign roles to the selected characters, thus equipping them with the most useful gear. And if a mission returns to an old base, the structures build by player will remain on their spots.
* BaselessMission: Many missions, especially the American ones. Your objective is either to survive, capture the enemy base, infiltrate it or [[spoiler: [[StealthBasedMission flee with your fellow defectors from your former allies' vast armies]] if you decide to defect to the Alliance.]]

* BlackDudeDiesFirst: ...and he lasts a single scenario as a non-playable character before being unceremoniously killed off offscreen. [[spoiler: Unless you make the right choices with [[ChekhovsGunman Berezov]], in which case Cornell may be revealed to have survived the suicide attack against the Russians and he will be able to escape back to your side.]]

* BittersweetEnding: No matter which side you stick with, there is no HappyEnding, as the nature of the time travelling involved ensures there is no going home.

** [[spoiler: The Alliance]] ending is the most optimistic one. They [[spoiler: subdue or outright wipe out Arab troops and then force the remaining sides of the conflict (the Americans and the Soviets) to surrender, after which try to "build a better future"]].

* BusCrash: A number of characters in the American campaign are killed offscreen such as [[spoiler: Ron Harrison and Jeremy Sikorski. [[OldFriend Andy]] [[BlackBestFriend Cornell]] looks like another example [[BlackDudeDiesFirst at first]], but he will be revealed to be alive if you make [[AndroclesLion the right choices]].]]
* CaptainSmoothAndSergeantRough: General Ron Harrison is a ReasonableAuthorityFigure, with good commanding and tactical skills, taking great care for his men. Colonel Arthur Powell, on the other hand, is HotBlooded jerk that would rather let new soldiers die than provide them with any help.

** Frank Forsyth is indeed a great scout, and one of the funniest commentators in the game.
** Inverted with [[spoiler:Paul Khattam]]. He betrays the Americans for the Arabs, but he does not appear in the game again.

* CoolBike: All Arab vehicles are bikes. They can be wheeled, tracked, both, and even [[FlyingCar airborn]], making them the only vehicles capable of going over deep water.

* CosmeticAward: Subverted. The medals you get in the end of each mission for secondary objectives and most importantly, finishing without a reload? They contribute to the post-mission experience pool, meaning more points to assign and spread over skills. And they make a ''substantial'' difference to the size of said pool.

* DirtyCommunists: Soviet ''Trotskyists'' from an alternate timeline, but the trope is played pretty straight.
* DisasterDemocracy: A bizarre case happens in the American campaign. [[spoiler: After General Harrison dies, the troops cast a vote for new commander of their mission, instead of simply following military protocol and chain of command. What makes it weird is the fact Powell would take over in standard situation (he's 2nd highest ranking officer) anyway, but instead you have soldiers ''willingly voting on that jerk'' for no apparent reason and he barely wins over [=MacMillan=] by just a handful of votes]].

* EasyLogistics: Mostly averted. Vehicles may run out of fuel unless using [[AppliedPhlebotinum Siberite/Alaskite engines]] and each individual base has its own resource pool--supplies have to be transferred from one outpost to another manually. Ammunition, however, is not a game resource, and its availability and distribution amongst characters is glossed over.
* EnemyExchangeProgram: You can capture structures of other factions and use them to produce vehicles or provide equipment normally available only to that faction. This is a core part of the gameplay: a base without defenders can not be used for anything, and can be quickly captured by a lone engineer. It is even invoked in the campaign, where certain missions depend on you capturing a base from the enemy--or buying one from the Arabs--in order to obtain the necessary resources for an attack on the enemy's main base.
* EnemyMine: The Arabs and Americans become allies due to their mutual war with the Russians [[spoiler: but the Arabs betray the Americans as soon as they learn how the Siberite works from them.]]
* EveryCarIsAPinto: When their life bar becomes red, vehicles stop, catch on fire, and their life descends slowly until they explode.

* FlyingCar: Arab "hovercrafts".

** Powell is a non-Russian example.

* GuideDangIt: If [[spoiler: you decide to defect to the Alliance]] in the American campaign, you get to bring up to five other characters with you. Only that [[spoiler: it's seven, as two characters will join you regardless if picked]] - and those two are most likely first choice of every player. Also, [[spoiler:Lisa Lawson]] is especially difficult to bring along with no outside knowledge, as the sequence to recruit her is highly specific, and there is no indication in-game of what it is.
* HeroMustSurvive: Losing either [=MacMillan=] or Burlak is an instant game over.

* HeteroSexualLifePartners: John [=MacMillan=] and Frank Forsyth, which is {{Lampshaded}} several times. [[spoiler:If [=MacMillan=] defects to the Alliance, Forsyth will join him even if he isn’t inducted into the conspiracy.]]
** Burlak and Belkov on the Russian side become the same. [[spoiler:If [=Burlak=] defects to the Alliance, Belkov will eventually join him even though he isn’t inducted into the conspiracy.]]

* LateCharacterSyndrome: Common in both campaigns, with characters unimportant to the plot being added constantly to ensure, in theory, that you always have enough troops to complete a level, even if you lost most of them in the previous one. [[spoiler:And if you choose to pursuit Alliance route, most characters from the other side of conflict will fall under this trope.]]
* ALighterShadeOfGrey: Americans from the original timeline, mostly by the virtue of not being oppressive totalitarian state sending unwilling conscripts 2 million years BC.

** Americans have this going for them. They start with worse weapons, weaker vehicle chassis and early vehicles are solar-powered[[note]]While they don't need fuel, they deplete their battery pretty fast and only recharge when inactive; the engine itself is pretty slow and can only power-up lighter versions of wheeled chassis, which can only drive over flat terrain and have very limited combat application due to small amount of weapon options[[/note]]. But in the end of the game, they have access to ''the'' best chassis, their AI research is more advanced than the Soviet one (thus giving them better stats to AI-controlled units) and their faction-specific weapon, the sniper rifle, is a bane of infantry and human-operated vehicles - it has the longest range, can put humans down with just one shot and is the only way to [[SnipingTheCockpit instantly knock vehicles from combat]].
** Mechanics can operate via radio vehicle fleet equal to their skill and each vehicle acts as if mechanic in question had effective skill-2. Pretty bad early on, but at level 10, a mechanic can operate a fleet of 10 vehicles, each acting as if being driven by level 8 driver, outperforming AI-operated vehicles by a large margin, while not endangering any drivers, since they are sitting back in base with remotes.
* MauveShirt: In both campaigns there is a handful of characters that aren't by any means part of the main or even secondary cast, but you can keep moving them between missions in reliable fashion. This in turn means steady and controlable leveling up, making them much more precious than randomly-generated RedShirts you can possibly get assigned. If they happen to be half-decent mechanics, all that better.

* MildlyMilitary: Justified, since all the troops in the past (sans maybe Arabs, but they've sent mercs anyway) are fully aware they are stuck and their supperiors won't be even born for the next two million years. And just like in the novel providing the [[IncrediblyLamePun original]] idea, the erosion of morale and just anything resembling proper military structure kicks on overdrive the moment each side of the conflict realise they came from {{Alternate Timeline}}s.
* MisplacedWildlife: The near arctic is way too far north for terror birds and pre-neanderthal "apemen", at least in this date. RuleOfCool is clearly at play here.

* MythologyGag: If Frank Forsyth locates supply crates, he can audiably hope for them to contain cans of Coke. When the game was still in development, the story from the trailer was about [[spoiler: a group of Americans fighting a skirmish against Soviets over supply drop. After barely escaping and and losing one of theirs, they find out the crate was full of Coca-Cola cans]].

* NoCampaignForTheWicked: Everyone gets a campaign except the Arabs.
** A fan-made campaign was later created for Arabs using remaining data and ideas from the dev studio.

* PacifistRun: One of your secondary objectives during [[spoiler: your desertion from the Americans in the Alliance branch]] is this, as your enemies [[spoiler: are your fellow soldiers and friends]].

* PlotHole: Since the game was rushed and various elements didn't make it to the final product, including the Arab campaign, the entire sub-plot related to the mercenaries can cause a head-ache. And then, of course, is still the basic premise of ''how'' exactly Americans were planning to transport Siberite to Alaska and keep it there.

* RichardNixonTheUsedCarSalesman: In-universe, at least some of the characters were still born in the radically changed timelines, obviously ending up doing different things. This cause some serious confusion when they meet "their" friends and colleagues from alternate timeline.
** In Soviet timeline, Trotsky became successor of Lenin and Stalin is completely unheard of. This leads to entire slew of people killed during [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge Great Purge]] left unmolested and be prominent figures in Soviet history. Hitler is also unknown.
** Even in American timeline, Vladimir Putin never became Russian president, since Yeltsin's presidency ended with a close to civil war turmoil.

* ShootTheMedicFirst: Subverted. Due to the way how game mechanics work, unless you have some great tactical advantage (like having snipers and enemy doesn't), you will die trying to reach the medic behind the soldiers riddling you with bullets.

** Quite a few moves of [[GeneralFailure Powell, Platonov and Pokryshkin]] in the campaign.

* FrazettaMan: [[DependingOnTheArtist Depending on the artwork]], the apemen’s appearance can vary from almost neanderthal to chimp-like or orangutan-like. Gladstone identifies them as ''Homo pekinensis'' (a variant of ''Homo erectus'') which wouldn't come into existence until [[SomewhereAPaleontologistIsCrying one million years later.]]

* TakeAThirdOption: The Russian victory means they invade United States in the present day, while the American victory creates an AlternateUniverse where they oppress the whole planet and the USSR still exists. To avoid this, [[WideEyedIdealist Peter Roth]] [[spoiler:attempts to get the scientists from both sides to defect, forming the Alliance.]]. The Arabs have their own third option as well, although a rather... [[EarthShatteringKaboom extreme]] one.

** In Soviet timeline, Trotsky became successor of Lenin and Stalin is completely unheard of. This leads to entire slew of people killed during https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Purge left unmolested and be prominent figures in Soviet history. Hitler is also unknown.

* PlotHole: Since the game was rushed and various elements didn't made to the final product, including the Arab campaign, the entire sub-plot related to the mercenaries can cause a head-ache. And then, of course, is still the basic premise of ''how'' exactly Americans were planning to transport Siberite to Alaska and keep it there.

* RegeneratingHealth: Downplayed significantly. As long as any character has above 2/3 of total HP (so it stays "green"), it will ''slowly'' regenerate to full value. Dropping below 2/3 (yellow) will prevent that effect and require a medic to heal back.