Video Game / Mental Omega

Mental Omega APYR (Almost Perfect Yuri's Revenge) is a Game Mod for the Real-Time Strategy game Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. It details a re-imagined version of the storyline of Red Alert 2 and its expansion pack Yuri's Revenge, initially through a two-act story each containing a 12 mission campaign for the three major factions, leading to a grand total of six campaigns and 72 missions. The four factions of the game are the Allied Nations, the Soviet Union, the Epsilon Army (a re-imagined version of Yuri's faction from the expansion), and the Foehn Revolt (an original faction not based on the original game's factions).

In addition to the revamped story, the game greatly expands upon and re-balances all three of the original factions, giving them a plethora of new units in three distinct sub-factions for each, ala Kane's Wrath. The USA, European Alliance, and the Pacific Front are the Allied Nations. Russia, China, and the Latin Confederation make up the Soviets. Scorpion Cell, PsiCorps and Epsilon HQ comprise Epsilon. And finally Wings of Coronia, The Last Bastion and Haihead are collectively the Foehn Revolt. Each sub-faction has its own unique units and each focuses on different aspects of warfare.

Similar to the original installment of Red Alert 2, Mental Omega dives into a chaotic alternate universe that takes place during the 1980's. In 1946, Professor Albert Einstein created a prototype temporal displacement device called the Chronosphere that allows him to travel backwards in time. He attempted to avert the horror and bloodshed of World War II by assassinating Adolf Hitler before he seizes control in Germany (specifically on 20th December 1924, the day he was released from Landsberg Prison for organising the Munich Beer Hall Putsch). Unfortunately, the erasure of Nazi Germany as a world power eliminated a check on the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Soviet Union grew in power and began expanding aggressively into Eastern Europe, forcing Western European nations to band together and counter the growing threat of the Russian bear. After a lengthy and bloody war, the Allies were victorious, Premier Joseph Stalin was killed, and the USSR was occupied by the Allies and the United States of America to set up a European-friendly regime.

In the present year of 1982, the geopolitical situation of the world is at its most tense since the Second Great War. The Romanov regime in the Soviet Union has slowly turned against their former Allied puppeteers at the introduction of a man named Yuri as Premier Romanov's adviser. The Latin Confederation has taken power in the entirety of South America and Mexico, putting a hostile Communist organization right on the doorstep of the United States. And in the far East, Chinese Communists have been consolidating their control over China as the democratic Republic of China goes into exile, putting Asian capitalist nations like South Korea and the newly independent Japan in a tenuous situation. While Allied occupying troops are forced to withdraw from the Soviet Union, Premier Romanov initiates a buildup of the Red Army despite restrictions placed on it after the Second Great War, all with one goal in mind: to seek revenge against the Allied Nations.

The Russians begin their attack on the United States, believing them to be a great factor of success of the Allies in the Second Great War by supplying the Europeans weapons and supplies. Surprisingly, the American nuclear armaments and laser defense platforms are disabled, leaving conventional US military forces as the primary defense of the country. Meanwhile, the Russians launch an invasion on Europe, absorbing all territory along the way and forcing the Western European nations to once again unite and scramble their forces. And behind all this, Yuri and his shadowy special operations group PsiCorps silently start their own quest for world domination. The Third Great War has begun.

Currently v3.3 of the mod is available to be downloaded here and the dev team's website can be found here.

---

This game contains examples of:

• Ability Depletion Penalty: Courtesy of Red Alert 2 sharing a similar engine to Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, the Foehn Revolt's Blast Furnace has identical properties to the Firestorm Defense generator, including the penalty of being disabled until it completely recharges if you deplete it.
• Action Girl: Tanya for the Allies, Libra for Epsilon, Yunru for the Soviets and Eureka and Alize for Foehn.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • The entire Soviet faction. In canon, they haven't managed to win a single campaign, only clinging to life by mean of time travel. In the mod, they have all but defeated the Allies, something not even the time travel-enhanced Soviet in Red Alert 3 can do. If it hadn't been for infighting and the emergence of Epsilon, the Soviets would have eventually achieved their lifelong goal of World Revolution. This applies to them in gameplay as well: the rebalances the mod brings have once again made the Soviets a force to be reckoned with after Yuri's Revenge nerfed them to oblivion.
  • Numerous units have been rebalanced from the original game and some are more powerful than before:
    • The Epsilon Lasher tank now has a rapid reload mechanism which enables it to fire its first four shots twice as fast.
    • Another example is Tanya as her new laser rifle crushes troops and tanks with no effort.
    • Volkov and Chitzkoi the Soviet heroes of Red Alert 1 are given a massive makeover in this mod, the former now has a Tesla cannon and grenades that makes him much more powerful against vehicles and structures than his Red Alert 1 counterpart, while the latter is now essentially a Terror Drone on steroids.
    • The Tesla Tank (now called the Tesla Cruiser) takes the Apocalypse tank's place as Russia's most powerful tank.
    • The Apocalypse Tank wasn't weak by any stretch of the imagination, but by virtue of being reworked into a Stolen Tech unit, they've become absolute beasts - Tesla cannons that can obliterate vehicles and infantry alike, with range comparable to light artillery (allowing them to snipe base defenses), missile salvos that can chump entire squadrons of air units and can be periodically unleashed on ground targets for a burst of extra damage, and an aura that causes friendly infantry to regenerate health, too. On top of this, it has some of the toughest armor in the game, with speed that is merely average. The end result is the closest thing the game has to a One-Man Army - even more than the Hero Units. The only drawback is, well...they're Stolen Tech, so they can only occasionally be used.
  • A narrative version is Yuri himself; in the original game, he spends most of the expansion getting slapped around and having plan after plan thwarted by the Allies and Soviets, and his insurrection is taken down rather easily. Here, he spends the Red Alert 2 era running covert ops, playing everyone against each other, and amassing resources and developing tech, before going on the offensive in Act Two and wrecking house. Until the Paradox Engine shows up, anyway. Admittedly, he seems to have done something similar behind the scenes in the original game^note the entire premise of the expansion was that he already had his own secret supertech army while still manipulating the Soviets and was able to build an entire network of mind-control devices across the entire planet without anyone finding out until he was already ready to activate them, but here we actually get to see him build up his forces in the shadows.
• Adaptational Heroism: Yuri is depicted as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, thinking that the only way for humanity to be peaceful and progress is to strip everyone of their free will, rather than a Generic Doomsday Villain.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • In the reverse of the above, the Allies. They start the campaign getting their teeth kicked in by the Soviets, and spend the entirety of Act One and most of Act Two on the backfoot. Things change once they get the Paradox Engine, but everything up until then is spent desperately clinging to life.
  • Yuri falls here in a gameplay sense, at least in terms of balance. In Yuri's Revenge, Yuri's faction was infamously unbalanced; while his roster was smaller than that of the other factions, the few units he had were stupidly, hilariously broken: from his Slave Miners that turned economy war into a joke, to his infantry-slaughtering Viruses, to his broken Psychic Towers that, massed and protected, could blunt nearly any assault. Here in Mental Omega his faction has been both balanced and fleshed out - it's not blatantly-overpowered anymore, but has a ton of cool new toys and tech that ensure he's still fun to play, while being on the same level competitively as everyone else.
  • Wild animals no longer retaliate when fired upon, now all of them (including alligators, elephants, polar bears,...) will run away in fear instead. A far cry from the vanilla game where they'll go all the way to bite a Nuke Silo if they take damage but do not die from a nuke's fallout. This is to discourage players from attacking them, and unlike the vanilla game, they are now listed as non-targetable (alongside civilians) in skirmish maps.
  • Mirage Tanks were infamous in vanilla for being the Allied's best Master of All unit, with their exceptional range complemented by great damage against everything - their only drawback was fragility and a lack of anti-air. One the one hand, they can now be built earlier, at Tier 2. On the other hand, their weapon is only effective against tanks; firing at infantry will only mildly annoy them, and damage is subpar against buildings. They're also exclusive to the Euro Alliance.
  • Rahn has lost the ability to swim between 2.0 and 3.0 but has slightly made up for it with a more badass voice.
  • Snipers and Viruses have been hit with a double whammy to make them balanced for multiplayer games: they require full tech instead of only a Barracks and radar facility, and can't shoot as far or as quickly as they can in the vanilla game. Viruses got further nerfed by having their One-Hit Kill poison darts have both a cooldown and a delay before activating, meaning fast or dangerous infantry can still potentially damage or kill the Virus before dying.
  • The vanilla Floating Disc was an absolute terror in the skies, while the mod's Invader is now merely annoying, having significantly weaker firepower and armor, and can only drain power from one Plant at a time, instead from all of them. On the flip side, it's also cheaper and available earlier than before.
  • The Soviet Flak Troopers are now ineffective against infantry, making it no longer viable to field them exclusively without Conscripts or Attack Dogs. They are only effective against armor, both grounded and airbone, and are the weakest between equivalent units of other factions (although they are also the cheapest).
  • The Psychic Dominator does not have the ability to mind-control entire continents. It is, instead, just another superweapon, with the ability to mind-control large areas being left to Psychic Beacons, Psychic Amplifiers and the Mental Omega Device. In terms of gameplay, the Psychic Dominator now isn't activated immediately, unlike in Yuri's Revenge, and while it still keeps its ability to permanently mind control targets, its main purpose is now as a building destroyer (and the AI will use it accordingly, whereas in Yuri's Revenge it would use the Psychic Dominator to mind-control a group of units), with the mind control as a bonus.
• Adaptation Name Change: A lot of units and buildings from the vanilla game got renamed in the mod:
  • The Allies have Stryker IFV (from simply IFV), Cavalier Tank (Grizzly Tank), Stallion Transport (Nighthawk Transport), Battle Tortoise (Battle Fortress), Horizon Destroyer (Destroyer), Enterprise Aircraft Carrier (Aircraft Carrier) and Voyager (Allied Amphibious Transport).
  • The Soviets have Halftrack (Flak Track), Scud Launcher (V3 Launcher), Tesla Cruiser (Tesla Tank), Seawolf (Sea Scorpion), Kuznetsov Dreadnought (Dreadnought), Zubr (Soviet Amphibious Transport), Radar Dish (Radar Tower) and Repair Crane (Service Depot, which is only used by the Soviets, not the Allies).
  • Yuri's faction is now named Epsilon Army instead of simply being called after their leader. Their renamed units are the Invader (Floating Disc), Epsilon Adept (Yuri Clone) and Mandjet (Yuri Amphibious Transport).
  • The Latin Confederation is the only subfaction that keeps the vanilla name Battle Lab for its laboratory structure. Other factions instead use the name Tech Center (Allies)^note this serves double duty as a continuity nod, as Tech Center was the name for the laboratory structure in RA1, Palace (Russia), Atomheart (China) and Pandora Hub (Epsilon).
  • Yuri's Psychic Reveal scout power has been renamed Satellite Scan, since it now belongs to the Allies. The Allied Spy Satellite Uplink, which has become a tech building, is renamed Tech Satellite Hack Center. The Tech Airport, which now incorporates an airfield to hold four aircraft, is now called Tech Airfield.
• Adapted Out:
  • The Chaos Drone, Slave Miner, Chrono Commando, Psi Commando, Robot Control Center and Genetic Mutator were original units and buildings that were completely cut from the mod.
  • The only characters from the original game that still appear in the mod are Dugan, Carville, Romanov and the heroes.
  • Many vanilla skirmish maps got cut for being too asymmetrical and unsuited for multiplayer.
  • In the original, infantry will go prone the moment they are fired upon (including from a mere Technician). Naturally, this was cut here to maintain their fast pace.
• The All-Seeing A.I.: The AI is omniscient and can target any specific unit or structure, even ones that it isn't supposed to see, as you might notice if you have a Mind Reader. There's a reason why Gap Generators, despite their annoyance to human players, are useless against the AI.
• All There in the Manual: Due to cutscenes being beyond the modding team's abilities, most of the plot and character development is conveyed though scripted sequences within the mission and walls of text in the mission briefing and debriefing screens which are completely optional to read. Furthermore several plot points are also set up in the very optional Co-op missions. This makes some of the the plot points and their continuity with each other a bit hard to pin down. Luckily the Wiki has an article on the storyline with the missions being presented in chronological order.
• Alpha Strike: The point of Epsilon's main battle tank, the Lasher - pound-for-pound, it's weaker than other MBT's, but makes up for it by its initial volley being a barrage of four shots. As a result, it's best used for quick hit-and-run attacks, rather than a prolonged engagement.
• Anachronic Order: The 21th Epsilon mission Obsidian Sands was added in 3.3.2, while the one that directly precedes it, Machinehead, was made available in 3.3.3.
• Anachronism Stew:
  • The mission loading screens use the world map of 2002 from the vanilla game, which can't be realistically the same as the map of a world where the Second World War was fought between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union in which the Allies won.
  • Hysteria (Allied 18), set in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, features the Auditorio de Tenerife, which only began construction in 1997, thirteen years after the events of the game.
  • Power Hunger (Soviet 19), set in Shanghai, features the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV Tower, which was only built in 1994.
  • In various missions set in Japan, there are billboards advertising Future Diary, which was released in 2006, 24 years after the events of this game.
• Antagonist Title: In a sense, the "Mental Omega" the mod is titled after refers to both Yuri's ultimate plan to unite the world as one Hive Mind to eliminate all conflict and the means by which he intends to carry it out: the Mental Omega Device.
• Anti-Air: Most units that can fire on air units fulfil this role (more or less), since there aren't many units that can do so at the first place.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Starting from 3.3.5, key targets have markers to quickly notice them on the battlefield. This includes markers for mission-critical units during Escort Missions, and particularly lethal enemies (marked by blinking red skull) which should be avoided or dealt with very carefully.
  • Several late missions allow heroes to respawn if they fall in battle, allowing more freedom with using them and compensating for greatly increased amount of enemy forces.
  • In the final Epsilon missions, when Libra has to face Chrono Legionnaires, they have slight delay in their attacks, giving her a chance to react and either escape or kill them, as if they attack, it's One-Hit Kill.
  • Some missions slightly bend their rules on easier difficulties.
    • Peacekeeper (Epsilon 1) is normally a Timed Mission, as the goal is to prevent Americans from using their nukes against Russia, but on Casual difficulty the time limit is disabled.
    • Death's Hand (Soviet 24) normally ends in mission failure if Chitzkoi dies before he puts down Volkov, but on any difficulty below Mental, he may respawn exactly once.
    • Reality Check (Epsilon 23) has Libra decimating Chrono Legion, with its commander trying to escape and alert the main forces, and until then, uses Teleport Spam to avoid being killed. On Casual, the time is not limited, while on the other difficulties it's a Time-Limit Boss.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: It is only possible for one player to have one ecobooster or superweapon of each type, two Experimental Warpshops, one EMP Control Station, one Harbinger Tower, one Stalin's Fist, one Centurion, one Irkalla, two War Rigs, one M.A.D.M.A.N, two Orcinus Waveshapers, one Plasmerizer, one Boidmachine or two Iron Guards present at a time (heroes don't count since they are one-of-a-kind).
• The Artifact: Originally Foehn was planned to have a non-standard power plant in the form of the Windbelt, which also serves as their wall. It was removed and replaced with Windtraps and Bastion Walls before the release (it didn't work properly, can't block projectiles and came with balance issues), but is still present in the skirmish map FinAlize'd, where every tech structure is surrounded by four Windbelt posts, which can't be captured and block access to them until destroyed.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • Despite being better than in the vanilla game, the AI is still capable of things that no sane human would do, like ignoring a useful tech building right next to its base, or wasting 2500 credits to use Nanofiber Sync on empty space.
  • In some campaign missions, your units tend to be too eager to shoot on targets which are supposed to be mind controlled. In Human Shield (Epsilon 5) for example, you are not allowed to kill any enemy spies (as you need to mind control them for the objective), and mind controlling a Sniper is a very bad idea as the Sniper will then proceed to instantly snipe one of the spies, causing you to fail the mission. Likewise, in Scrapyard (Epsilon 3), a mind controlled GI will happily fire on the Engineers that you also need to mind control to capture the needed Oil Derricks.
• Ascended Extra: Unlike in Yuri's Revenge, the Psychic Dominator only serves as an offensive weapon, and does not replace the Psychic Amplifier as global mind-controlling devices. As a result, while only one Psychic Amplifier exists in the vanilla game, several of them serve as mission objectives in Act Two.
• Ascended Meme:
  • Harvester AI in Red Alert 2 is infamous for trying to harvest ore where the enemy has set powerful defenses on, leading them to be destroyed, one after another. The Act 1 Soviet campaign tries to excuse this by stating that harvesters don't get battlefield data and need their harvesting locations to be picked by the general.
  • In Epsilon Mission 2, "Accelerant", you have to bring support to a novice Russian general in order to break through a heavily-defended area. That general tries to attack with a massive amount of Rhino Tanks each time, which ends up with them being turned into scrap fairly quickly. This references how, in the base game, it is possible to win games as a Soviet player just by rushing and spamming Rhino Tanks; this strategy does not work on Mental Omega because main battle tanks are only good against other vehicles.
  • In the campaign, some enemy structures and bases are filled with explosive barrels, ostensibly to make it easier for the player to destroy them. It makes sense in the gameplay but not story (why is the enemy so stupid to place explosive barrels like that?). It became a meme among the community and the developers acknowledged it in the Dance of Blood opening (where the player's allied bases have a large number of barrels and fall like a breeze to the enemy):
  Our coastal defenses are too weak and full of barrels.
  • The problem with barrels is also acknowledged in Allied Special Op mission "Fullmetal", where the Allies reach the conclusion that Epsilon has no idea how store their barrels properly.
  They should really learn how to store these barrels properly.
  • Most of the Allies' problems and woes during the late Act One and early Act Two are due to their numerous miscalculations, to the point that 'We have miscalculated' and how the Allies' calculations are so bad also became a meme. Come Paranoia, a mission set in late Act Two:
  Our calculations are getting better! We believe we have NOT miscalculated this time.
• Asymmetric Multiplayer: In Fortress mode, a player gets a massive, sprawling territory with numerous tech buildings and defenses, and easily-fortified buildings at key chokepoints, while other players start as normal. The intent is for a one-versus-all mode where the group of lesser players must cooperate to overpower the lone, well-fortified player.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: Syncing your attacks with the right one of Frank Klepacki's pieces can result in a truly epic moment of gameplay.
  • An intentional example on the part of the dev team is the opening of Allied Mission 22 Insomnia which begins with what is basically the Normandy D-Day landings except on Antarctica set to this track.
  • The next mission Withershins opens with this track which was clearly intended to keep the high going As the Allied forces blitz through Epsilon outposts surrounding the Mental Omega Device.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Capturing a Tech Satellite Hack Center grants you full view over the battlefield (except around enemy Gap Generators). While intel is very important, if you lose the Tech Satellite Hack Center, then be prepared to have shroud reset over the entire battlefield, making it often not worth the risk. And, being a neutral structure, the Tech Satellite Hack Center does not provide a build area around it, making it difficult to fortify the area around it.
  • Stolen Tech units obtained by infiltrating a player of the same faction as yours are described to be a case of this trope. The Allied Quickshifter was a fairly advanced project that was cancelled due to limited funding (and the Soviet invasion), the Soviet Apocalypse Tank is too expensive to be fielded in sufficient numbers, and the Epsilon Dybbuk-Seizer is the result of an incredibly complex development process being trumped by a Mundane Solution, with the Foehn Ramwagon being the only unit of this group to not fall under this problem.
• Back from the Brink: Both the first and last missions of the Act 1 Allied campaign are about scoring a win against all odds in a battle which if lost would end the war in a defeat instantly. In fact one could argue that the entire Allied campaign is like this, with the player's efforts being mostly focused on preventing a total Allied defeat rather than going on the offensive, in fact every time the Allies gain any kind of an advantage over the Soviets, something unexpected happens to force them back on the defensive:
  • Repel the Soviets from Washington? The rest of the East coast is not so lucky.
  • Retake the Air Force Academy in Colorado? Well the Latin Confederation's invading from the south so you need those fighters to defend your borders rather than aid in retaking the USA from the forces already in it.
  • Retake the Mayport naval base and New York City? With the Bahama fleet destroyed by PsiCorps and the rest of the East Coast overrun it hardly makes a difference.
  • Destroy the Psychic Amplifier in Chicago? Your forces get nuked.
  • Destroy the Soviet MIDAS rockets and the mining facility from which they obtain the resources to build more? Too late, the Euro Alliance is getting overrun as well.
  • Build a Chronosphere? Gets nuked too, by a MIDAS rocket you overlooked.
  • Repel the Soviet invasion of the UK? The rest of Europe and most of the USA is conquered.
  • This also applies to Act 2, where the Allies fare a little better, yet still can't catch a break. Managed to retake most of Western Europe from the Soviets and Epsilon, and get them on the run? It was all a bait so that the London Fortress exposes a weakness that Epsilon exploits and forces the Allies on the run from that point onwards.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Both acts in the campaign.
  • Act 1 ends with the Soviets comfortably controlling Europe and the Americas, and the Allies being reduced to the London Fortress and some small pockets of resistance. On the other hand, the Epsilon is ready to develop its own army to defeat both factions.
  • Act 2 has a more absolute victory for the villains with the activation of the Mental Omega Device, allowing the Epsilon Army to control the minds of the entire planet. Only a few pockets of Free Humanity remain: the Foehn Revolt, alongside the remnants of the Allied expedition to Antarctica, who created a temporal distortion to "de-sync" themselves from the rest of the world; and a small garrisson of Soviets stranded on the Moon. Both are too weak launch any sort of resistance- At least, not yet.
• Bait-and-Switch: The first Soviet mission of Act II, The Raven, is at first presented as a remake of the vanilla Red Alert 2 mission Liberty, then just as you receive reinforcements and you feel like you're about to drive the Allies back, an Epsilon raven flies over one of your bases and the whole map goes dark as the superweapon countdown of your Iron Curtain turns purple, ending the mission.
• Baseless Mission: Wouldn't be an RTS without at least a few missions where you don't have control over a base.
  • The Allied campaign has Hammer to Fall (7), Wrong Side (8), The Gardener (10), The Mermaid (13), Bottleneck (17), Paranoia (20) and the Spec Ops Digital Demon and Convergence.
  • The Soviet campaign has Archetype (prequel), Golden Gate (2), Recharger (6), The Lunatic (10), Awake and Alive (14) and Heartwork (18).
  • In the Epsilon campaign, all Act 1 missions except Shipwrecked (4), Think Different (7) and Moonlight (12), plus Huehuecoyotl (14), Godsend (17) and Reality Check (23) in Act 2 and the Special Op missions Taciturn and Blood Rage.
  • The Foehn campaign has Nobody Home (1), Vanishing Point (5) and Time Capsule (Spec Op).
  • Co-op missions have:
    • Allies: Good Old Times (2), Impersonal War (3), Technologic (5), Blut Royale (7), Balance of Power (10), Panzer Ace (11).
    • Soviets: Burned Alive (2), Role Reversal (3), Ego Ergo Hax (7), Combustion (9), Cyberanatomy (11), Intoxicated (12).
    • Epsilon: Television Lies (1), Retaliation (2), Rainmaker (3), Brain Reset (4), The Cardinal (6) and Backbitten (12).
• Bash Brothers: Siegfried and Tanya develop a strong partnership over the campaign.
• Battle in the Rain:
  • The final mission of the Allied Act 1 takes place in the UK, and you can probably connect the dots from here.
  • Shipwrecked (Epsilon 4) also occurs during a heavy downpour in the Bahamas.
  • The 14th Epsilon mission Huehuecoyotl begins in a heavy rain in Zaragoza, Spain.
  • Take long enough to complete Heartwork (Soviet 18) and a downpour will start to fall.
  • In the Epsilon Special Op Blood Rage, it will begin to rain once you manage to pacify a berserk Libra.
• Beef Gate:
  • The Black Guard surrounding the Kremlin in The Conqueror (Epsilon 13). They're strong and your forces are limited enough that you're supposed to use them to complete your second objective instead of trying to break through them, likely suffering staggering casualties, to kill Romanov before you're supposed to (once you complete the second objective a Driller will arrive in the grounds of the Kremlin and the last objective is a cakewalk).
  • The Nuwa Cannons in the first part of Power Hunger (Soviet 19). The two halves of the mission take place in different halves of the map. In the first part you have only Morales (who will struggle to deal with the Nuwas seeing how he can't snipe their drivers), and they guard the bridges that lead to the portion of the city where the second part takes place. They're likely there so you can't use Morales to soften the enemy base and make the second part (which starts when you evacuate Morales out of the city and is a more straightforward build-and-destroy) much easier.
• BFG: Massive guns can usually be seen on the highest-tech units and structures.
  • Returning from Yuri's Revenge are the Allies' Grand Cannons, which are about as big as their name suggests. Their long range and high damage makes them a great choice to help hold off a naval assault, but are still vulnerable to siege vessels such as Soviet Dreadnoughts.
  • Chinese Nuwa Cannons are essentially treads built around a massive cannon; they have no turrets and the entire vehicle must rotate to change its target. That said, said cannon launches extremely powerful low-yield nuclear shells which make quick work of anything that dare set foot on the ground.
  • The Last Bastion is able to field an epic defense in the form of the Plasmerizer, which is bar none the biggest gun in the entire game.
• Black-and-White Morality: Heavily Zigzagged, especially compared to the original game.
  • The Allies are mostly still White: peacekeepers who are on the receiving side of the Soviet's wars of aggression, and are mostly just focused on protecting themselves and their allies. It's Zigzagged further with the Pacific Front, who turn mostly Black by betraying the Allies to side with imperialist China, with the exception of some outliers who remain loyal to the Allies.
  • The Soviets, by contrast, remain largely Black, but with a tint of Gray to them - they're still expansionist-aggressors who want to Take Over the World, but they at least, in theory, have an (in their eyes) benevolent motivation to do so (protecting the working class against the taint of Capitalism.) China, however, are pure Black, as they are ultimately imperialists who turn on the rest of the Soviets to make a play at world domination. This is also reflected in their arsenal, with the Soviets making use of more gruesome Cruel and Unusual Death weaponry, such as Tesla and Nuclear tech.
  • Yuri, in a major shift from his pure-Black Card-Carrying Villain status in the original, is more Black-Gray here. Where before he simply wanted to Take Over the World For the Evulz, here he genuinely wants to bring about world peace and prosperity - just as a result of mass mind control and military domination. Likewise, while his motivations may be somewhat sympathetic, his methods definitely aren't; not only does he have the most gruesome arsenal, with Virus weaponry and genetic mutation, but he's all-too-happy to employ Nuke 'em as a solution to problems, causing mass death in the process. Scorpion Cell turns A Lighter Shade of Grey when they join Foehn against Yuri, as while they're still terrorists, they're aligned with an unambiguously-good faction.
  • Foehn, the new faction, is mostly White. They are the last remnants of free humanity after Epsilon's victory by mind-controlling the entire planet with the Mental Omega Device, and their whole point is to resist the Epsilon new world order. The mostly part comes from the fact that they consist of the remnants of the Allies as well as the Soviets and whatever members of Scorpion Cell didn't get mind controlled.
• Bloodier and Gorier: This game is more violent compared to the vanilla game and on par with RA3: Uprising's Yuriko Campaign; corpses now leave puddles of blood whenever they're killed. Special mention goes to the death animation where an infantry killed by a Brute's fist, an Adept's PsiBlast, Wraith Raider's PsiWave, and Libra's modified PsiDarts in the campaign finale missions, will result in them being torn to pieces (complete with a blood splatter).
• Book Ends:
  • The Soviet Act 2 campaign starts and ends with the Soviet General getting mind-controlled after accomplishing his objectives.
  • As lampshaded in Babel (Epsilon 24), their conquest of humanity's minds started with an infiltration to disable a major Allied weapon, in this case the Peacekeeper nukes, and near the end they do it again, this time to disable the Paradox Engine's air-to-ground weapons.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Walls. Possibly the least flashy thing in the game, the only thing that walls do is preventing units and certain kinds of projectiles from passing through them. However, walls are very cheap and it's extremely important to block sneaky spies from resetting your shroud or unlocking the Purposely Overpowered stolen tech units for the enemy; it's a dead giveaway that a player is bad if he does not wall off his Construction Yards, radars, labs and superweapons in a multiplayer game.
  • Basic anti-vehicle and anti-air infantry are available right after you get a Barracks out, and are likely to remain relevant for much longer than that, due to their cheap cost and decent damage, even after you get access to tier 3 units.
• Call-Back: The briefing for the ninth Allied mission mentions that it takes place in a mountain pass where the Soviets were halted twice during the previous war. This is a reference to the second and fourth Allied missions from Red Alert 1 which took place on the same map and even carried over your base layout between the missions.
• Call-Forward: In Time Capsule (a Foehn Special Op mission whose events take place between the two Acts) you come across prototypes of several Epsilon units that become commonplace during Act Two, such as unnamed Invader prototypes that attempt to lift off, but end up crashing in the process.
• Capital Offensive: The Allied Act I campaign opens with a Russian invasion on Washington DC and ends with the last stand of the remnants of the Euro Alliance in London. And Act II opens with Moscow getting invaded by the Epsilon Army and ends with the Soviets liberating it and killing Yuri; later Rome and London are the targets of Epsilon raids. Singapore becomes this when the Russians and Chinese decide to negotiate their truce there, and then Bissau when Scorpion Cell betrays Yuri. Soviet Act II ends with the Soviets attempting (and succeeding) to retake Moscow.
• Cast from Money: With the exception of scouting powers and superweapons, the vast majority of support powers cost money to be used.
• Civil Warcraft:
  • Shipwrecked (Epsilon 4) has you nominally playing as PsiCorps, but the only Epsilon units that you have are a couple of PsiCorps Troopers and an Engineer. At the very beginning of the mission you'll need the magic skills of the Engineer to steal an American Construction Yard and the mission is essentially a USA vs. USA battle, with the UI and EVA being the only indicators that you're still technically playing as Epsilon; even the Initiate 'survivors' that emerge from Epsilon destroyed buildings are replaced by Allied GIs since Initiates don't exist until the 9th Epsilon mission.
  • In Side Effect (Soviet 4), you might notice some Soviet units that share your colour red but are not directly controllable... because they'll defect to the enemy Pacific Front forces when they launch the invasion.
  • In Unshakeable (Soviet 11) you initially play as Russia vs. Pacific Front but in the latter half will need to capture a Chinese Construction Yard and make use of it against Chinese and PF forces.
  • In Moonlight (Epsilon 12), although you are PsiCorps and the enemies Russia, your MCV has yet to exist and you use a Soviet MCV instead, alongside many Soviet buildings and units.
  • In The Conqueror (Epsilon 13), your forces consist of both your own units and Soviet units loyal to you that will betray the Russians once you complete the first objective.
  • In Ghost Hunt (Allied 16), the enemy Scorpion Cell forces have constructed a Psychic Beacon and are using it to mind control the local American forces. Or not. These Americans are actually Scorpion Cell fighters commandeering American equipment, and the Beacon is no more than a decoy.
  • In Awake and Alive (Soviet 14), Obstinate (Allied Special Op), Noise Severe (Soviet Special Op), Juggernaut (Soviet 17), Meltdown (Soviet 21), Dawnbreaker (Soviet Special Op), Brothers in Arms (Soviet Special Op), Fatal Impact (Soviet 23) and Death's Hand (Soviet 24) you face off against Epsilon forces, among whom are a large number of your own units mind controlled by the enemy. In The Great Beyond (Foehn 4) and The Remnant (Foehn 6), you have access to the Pacific Front and Chinese arsenals, while the enemy has mind-controlled Russians. Lizard Brain (Epsilon 16) and Nightcrawler (Epsilon Special Op) are reversions of this, with you playing as Epsilon and having access to mind-controlled Americans to use against the Allies.
  • In Time Capsule (Foehn Special Op), you face off against Scorpion Cell and Russia, with both yourself and Scorpion Cell using a significant amount of Soviet equipment. In the first three Foehn Origin missions where you use the Chinese arsenal (most Foehn units haven't existed yet), the main PRC army is one of the major enemies in all of them (although in the second one they quickly get mind-controlled by Epsilon). Blood Rage (Epsilon Special Op) takes place during the same period, but this time you're a third party to the Foehn-China conflict.
  • The following missions are more straight battles where (part of) both sides come from the same faction: Warranty Void (Epsilon 8), Digital Demon (Allied Special Op), Focus Shift (Epsilon 10), Trophy Hunter (Soviet Special Op), Dragonstorm (Soviet 12), Heartwork (Soviet 18), Power Hunger (Soviet 19), Thread of Dread (Soviet 20), Fullmetal (Allied Special Op), Obsidian Sands (Epsilon 21), Neuromancers (Epsilon Co-op 11) and Survivors (Epsilon Special Op). Cyberanatomy (Soviet Co-op 12) is a downplayed version: both you and the enemy are Soviets, but no unit is shared (you have Krukov and Reznov, they have standard units).
• Closest Thing We Got: In The Great Beyond (Foehn 4), the proto-Foehn forces are trying to capture one of Epsilon's Launchpads to escape to the Moon and avoid being mind-controlled if the Mental Omega Device gets activated. However, shortly after they establish a position near the Epsilon base, the Launchpad is suddenly destroyed. With no other way to escape from Earth, they instead resort to destroying the Epsilon base to build another base in there, as it's the furthest place in the planet from where the Device is located.
• Color-Coded Armies:
  • Colours are usually designated according to the main faction, that is: blue for Allies, red for Soviets, violet for Epsilon and teal for Foehn. In the campaign, the player always uses the main faction colour, and so do enemies and allies unless if the main colour is already taken by another commander; in that case they will take the following colours: cyan for Pacific Front, orange for Latin Confederation, tan for China (Singularity has China taking the red colour because Russia is not present) and green for Scorpion Cell.
  • This trope is interestingly invoked in the Soviet Act Two campaign. Russian and Latin Confederation forces pretend to be mind-controlled by Epsilon so that they can invade China, and to do so, they even change their faction color to violet, just like Epsilon-controlled forces.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: In skirmish matches, the AI has the entire map revealed from the start, gather money at a much faster rate, can train infiltrators (normally tier 3 units) right from tier 1, and if Mental AI Boost is turned on, when they build a unit they'll receive a copy of that unit from every Barracks/War Factory/Shipyard (depending on whether the unit in question is a soldier, a vehicle or a ship), and this includes hero and epic units, even though only one can be built a time. In campaign mode, they have 'base nodes' that allow them to rebuild any destroyed buildings even if there's no nearby building to provide build area (unless if they have no more Construction Yards or if that spot is blocked), and any Arsonist that you send into their base is bound to be discovered and killed after having placed some napalm charges, even if you try your hardest to avoid spy detectors.
• The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: Don't be deceived by the briefing of Firewalking, the 16th Soviet mission. While the Allies are supposed to be racing against you to capture the Psychic Amplifier, in practice the Allies and Epsilon only pay token attention against each other and spend most of the mission ganging up on you.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The buildings, V2 Launchers^note whose appearance here seem to take some nods from vanilla game's V3 Launchers, Ranger Scout Cars, Artillery, Heavy Tanks, Longbows, Mammoth Tanks and Mobile Gap Generators, which appear in the two prequel missions (Archetype and Television Lies) which take place a few years before the game proper and some other missions where outdated forces would make sense, are all taken from the Second Great World War. The American nuke silos, which you must sabotage in the first Epsilon mission Peacekeeper, also resemble the ones from the first Red Alert.
  • Missions that take place in the same place (like Huehuecoyotl and Intoxicated, in Zaragoza) usually share the same map layout, including roads, railways and indestructible props.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: All heroes and epic units (Centurion, Stalin's Fist, War Rig, Irkalla, M.A.D.M.A.N., Harbinger, Orcinus, Boidmachine) are immune to mind control, hijacking (for vehicles), Megaarena instant kill and crushing (for heroes), abduction, confusion, Blasticade, Chronoshift, Chronoboost, Iron Curtain, Charon Tanks and can't be completely immobilised by EMP.
• Crazy-Prepared: Yuri's various endgame defenses grow increasingly specific... and increasingly varied.
  • The shores of Antarctica and the area around the Mental Omega Device are littered with Dybbuk Hives, which send hundreds of Dybbuk-Interceptors to deal with enemy aircraft. These hives also send Invaders as a general defense, and two Hives in one of the special ops in Antarctica even spawn Irkallas. In Moscow, Yuri also has a few of these hives defending Moscow. These hives are in fact extremely complex tunnels connected via one network which could not have been built in such a short time, which meant that either Yuri had them built as soon as he learned of the Paradox Engine's existence, or he's always had them planned.
  • In Moscow, Yuri has built Spatha Defense Systems reverse engineered from the Allies' Gladius. Instead of being ICBM interceptors, the Spatha intercept attacks from space. Yuri predicted that the Soviets would install nuclear missiles on satellites to strike at Moscow. What drives this into Crazy-Prepared is that he installs these around the Mental Omega Device as well, even though (1) he has already planned for the Soviets to be distracted and not even learn of the existence of the Device and (2) the Allies have no such space weaponry. Indeed, when the Allies find the Spatha, they're dumbfounded.
  • Yuri installs Mental Dynamos around the Mental Omega Device. These structures generate forcefields that render the Device and key defenders invulnerable. He's smart enough to know that they would get destroyed eventually, so he hides one underground, something that isn't seen in any other campaign mission as key structures are always aboveground. This move proves crucial as it buys the Epsilon time to drive the Allies back.
  • To defend himself, Yuri builds a large number of Iron Curtain Devices to render the Kremlin invulnerable. That would be an obvious move. Then he goes one step further by making the Devices shield each other, so the Soviets have to destroy the Iron Curtains in a particular order. Then he goes one step further by making some of the Devices camouflaged and difficult to detect. Then he takes it further by having the final Iron Curtain be built into Volkov.
• Crew of One: Hijackers, Huntresses, Engineers or Ivan Cadets can enter an empty vehicle or hijack one from the enemy (in case of the former two) and instantly be in complete control of the vehicle.
• Curb-Stomp Cushion: The whole war in Act 1. The Allies lose, but they put up one hell of a fight.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • The whole story is this compared to the vanilla game; as dark and serious as Red Alert 1, if not more. The mod takes itself much more seriously, the camp elements are downplayed, weapons of mass destruction like the MIDAS strategic nukes are used quite liberally, and there's the fact that The Bad Guy Wins since Epsilon succeeds in activating the Mental Omega Device, mind controlling almost all of humanity save the Foehn Revolt, (which manage to use the Paradox Engine's wreckage to shift their base at Point Hope, Alaska out of sync with the rest of the planet) and whatever individuals are strong willed enough to successfully resist its effects.
  • The situation gets largely better for your side when you go through campaigns of Red Alert 2 and 3 (including expansion packs). In Mental Omega each side fails a number of objectives (even as you finish the mission). And infighting (played straight for Soviet and Epsilon, less explicitly for Allied factions who don't actually war each other, only Foehn with yet few subfaction characteristics don't fight each other, nor can they afford to).
• Darkest Hour:
  • Act I ends with the Soviets triumphant, as they conquer most of the USA and continental Europe leaving what's left of the Allied forces either holed up in the UK behind an anti-ballistic missile shield or otherwise too disorganized and afraid of the Soviets' MIDAS rockets to fight back. Oh and just to make things worse Yuri's Epsilon Army is almost ready to come out of the shadows and challenge the now weakened superpowers. And then Act II begins with Epsilon taking over Moscow and Washington DC and launching multiple successful attacks against the Allies and Soviets across the globe, culminating in the destruction of the Allies' London Fortress, forcing them on the run.
  • The ending of Act II: The Mental Omega Device activates despite the Allies fighting tooth and nail to destroy it but failing all the same, Norio and Siegfried are killed by Libra and Rahn respectively, the latter sacrificing himself to chronoshift the wrecked Paradox Engine to Point Hope in the hope that the Allied Survivors and the nascent Foehn Revolt can use it to shield themselves against the Device's effects, which include mind controlling the Soviet General, being just named Premier of the Soviet Union, and his forces after thy succeed in liberating Moscow and killing Yuri, rendering their victory a moot point. For all intents and purposes Epsilon has won and their version of the world is one where everyone is mind-controlled into a hive mind by the Mental Omega Device, with the ones that resist its effects being herded into grinders en masse to be killed and made useful to the hive mind as raw resources, with the only hope for the world left being the fledgling Foehn Revolt and the handful of Soviet forces still on the Moon and out of reach of the Mental Omega Device.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Since the mod takes place in 1982 instead of the original's 1972, it wouldn't make sense for Albert Einstein (an important character in the original game) to be still alive, having been born in 1879. His role in the story is instead fulfilled by his apprentice Siegfried.
  • US President Michael Dugan and Soviet Premier Alexander Romanov survive the events of both the vanilla game and the expansion. Here Dugan is killed in the Latin Confederation attack on San Antonio, Texas early in the game, and Romanov is killed when the Epsilon Army conquers Moscow from the USSR.
• Decomposite Character:
  • In the original game Yuri had access to Boomers, a Master of All submarine that was available from tier 1 and can both fight well in ship-to-ship engagements and serve as a heavy anti-ground artillery unit with its long-range ballistic missiles, all while costing the same as and being available much earlier than the artillery ships of the other factions. Needless to say it was overpowered by design, and in the mod it has been split into three different units: the Piranha (a light tier 1 sub that takes the Boomer's position on the tech tree), the Nautilus (a heavy tier 3 naval engagement sub which has the Boomer's torpedoes) and the Resheph (a heavy tier 3 artillery sub that inherits the Boomer's long-range bombardment capability).
  • Yuri's Psychic Radar, a structure that provided radar and tier 2 access and sensed movement of enemies coming nearby, was split into the Radar Spire, which only provides radar and tier 2 access, and the Mind Reader, a base defence which serves the latter purpose.
  • The original Amphibious Transports were functionally the same between all factions, with the main difference being the paintjob. In the mod, they are only similar, not identical (the Allied Voyager has a rocket launcher, the Soviet Zubr has a flak cannon, the Epsilon Mandjet is unarmed but fast, and the Foehn Watercat can benefit from Spinblades).
  • While the original Tech Outpost (which functions like a Service Depot with a missile battery which allows it to defend itself from enemy infantry, light vehicles and aircraft) no longer exists, its role has been split between the Tech Base Expansion Post (which repairs vehicles around itself) and various tech defensive buildings.
• Death or Glory Attack: The Allied counterattack against Epsilon, endind up with their main base in Antartica. The massive attack forces they bring are practically all they have left, as they no longer have the London Fortress.
• Defog of War: Aside from normal scouting, every side has its own method of removing shroud from the map: the Allies have a spy satellite, the Soviets has a spy plane, Epsilon has a scout raven and Foehn has a Recon Sortie. Additionally a neutral Tech Satellite Hack Center building can be captured to defog the entire map, however losing it will reset the former owner's shroud.
• Demoted to Extra: Several examples due to the game's sweeping changes.
  • The Apocalypse Tank still exists as a buildable Soviet unit, but as the Soviet stolen tech reward for infiltrating a Soviet tech lab.
  • Yuri Prime as a unit no longer appears in campaign OR skirmish, with his role as an elite mind control unit taken up by the expensive, weaker Epsilon Elites. He only appears as a boss-like hero in Purgatory Challenge.
• Developer's Foresight: Several exist across the various missions (particularly penultimate and finale ones) to prevent a Dungeon Bypass, or otherwise to make sure canon events play out as they are intended.
  • In Side Effect (Soviet 4), part of the local garrison would go rogue and side with the invading Allied forces once they arrive. If you know about this upfront and try to attack them before it happens to weaken your enemy, they would go rogue immediately.
  • In Bad Apple (Allied 5), if you manage to avoid meeting the lost taskforce and land directly on the southern shore, likely in attempt to clear everything out before the timer even starts, the Psi-Beacon would activate immediately and without warning, failing the mission instantly.
  • In various Act 2 missions, Psi-Beacons are rigged to self-destruct when you try to capture them: whoever owns it, have prepared to not let it fall into enemy's hands. This is done because logically, the Beacon should let you mind-control the enemy forces instead of fighting them.
  • In Hamartia (Allied 24):
    • A vast group of mind controlled Russian and Latin Confederation forces will level the Boomerang division base to the south, and the Soviets will send an MCV to rapidly build a base there. A player actually has enough time to build forces and prevent the Soviets from building their base. However, as long as the Soviets have no Construction Yard, a new Soviet MCV with a wave of armored reinforcements will spawn to keep rebuilding this base.
    • Mind controlled Allied forces will attack the player's base from behind, with Lionheart bombers severely damaging the player's Construction Yard. Normally, intel states that the Construction Yard has been damaged and must be chronoshifted back to the Paradox Engine to keep it from being destroyed, but if the player manages to protect the Construction Yard with a Force Shield, the Construction Yard is teleported away anyway. This time, the intel text states that the enemies have gotten too close for the Construction Yard to be safe. The player can't even relocate his Construction Yard by using Chronolift: the Chronolift will not work on it.
    • It is still possible to finish off the Epsilon defenders and directly attack the Mental Omega Device. Because canonically, the Allies lose, the tower can be brought down to 70% HP but cannot take any further damage. The player does get a free Domination support power if he manages to pull this off.
    • Throughout the mission, the player can teleport in reinforcements from the Engine via support power. In the final part, however, the Allies are supposed to be on their last remaining forces making a desperate final push. To reflect this, the support powers then become unusable after 60 uses, though as an Easter Egg the player can then chronoshift in one barrel.
    • If you somehow save the light-blue Weather Controller that is placed the closest to the Epsilon bases (even though Libra is expected to quickly take it out), the mind-controlled Barracuda squadron that would destroy the light-blue Weather Controller in your base will target the one you saved first, then the one in your base. Furthermore, using Force Shield to make one of their bombardments ineffective, another one will spawn almost immediately afterwards to ensure the building is destroyed.
    • To ensure they destroy the Weather Controllers, the Kirovs and Barracudas that spawn off-screen to target them take drastically less damage until they reach the Weather Controllers.
  • In Fatal Impact (Soviet 23), the innermost three Spatha Defense Systems are in a heavily defended fortress. If the player decides to strike any of them with a nuclear missile, an off-map Iron Curtain will shield the Spatha and render it invulnerable.
  • In Death's Hand (Soviet 24), the Hands of Ereshkigal cannot be damaged. If they are somehow destroyed before their scripted destruction, the player loses.
  • Since both the Allied and Epsilon finale missions take place in the exact same battle, it is the only mission that pits Player Character vs Player Character. The AI here is thus coded to imitate the strategies of actual players, namely spamming air units. In Hamartia (where you're the Allies), the Epsilon AI will spam Invaders and Basilisks (and Thors, Rocketeers, Kirovs, Wolfhounds and Vultures in the defense stage). In Babel (where you're Epsilon), the Allied AI will spam Thors or Warhawks.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • The Allied Nations were confident in that, no matter what the Epsilon threw at them, the Paradox Engine's Time Freeze would turn them into sitting ducks for long enough to break any kind of opposition. When Libra shows up with a Chrono Backpack in Hamartia (Allied 24), rendering her immune to the Time Freeze, they are a bit surprised.
  • Similarly, the Soviet Union relied most of their later campaign against the Epsilon with the knowledge that Yuri cannot mind-control cyborgs. It never occurred to them that, while Yuri cannot control their minds, he can control their bodies via psychokinesis. He shows that by gaining complete control of an immobilized Volkov, and then Libra, through the Mental Omega Device, controls all the cyborg units owned by Russia and China.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Never forget to wall off your labs, because stolen tech units invoke this trope: while they are always more powerful than the normal units for the cost, if your opponent is not a complete newbie he will wall off his Construction Yards and lab(s) and station dogs and other spy detectors around the base, requiring a serious effort from you if you want to unlock a stolen tech unit.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: In order to keep many assets like voxels, SHPs, voiceovers and cameos exclusive to the mod, all of its MIX archives (containing these assets) are corrupted in a sophisticated way so that the game itself can still read them but MIX editor programs cannot open them, rendering them inaccessible to would-be thieves, unless if they know enough about hex editing to be able to successfully extract the files.
• Distant Prologue: The prologue missions Archetype (Soviet Special Op) and Television Lies (Epsilon Co-op) take place ten years before the start date of Act One proper.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Each country in the vanilla game differed from each other through a single exclusive unit, building or ability. In the mod, the concept of countries has been reworked into subfactions that share the same general theme and tech tree, but each subfaction has their own unique hero and a significant amount of unique equipment that lead to very different playstyles even within the same faction.
• Drought Level of Doom: Neuromancers, the 11th Epsilon Co-op mission. Each player only has two Oil Derricks, while the ore fields not controlled by the enemy are extremely small, and you'll constantly feel wanting for money. Many players hate this mission for a reason.
• Dueling Player Characters: The final missions of the Allied and Epsilon campaigns, which depict the battle for the Mental Omega Device, pit the two player characters of these campaigns against each other. In a bit of Artificial Brilliance, the opposing commander tends to employ a very player-esque strategy: mass air units.
• Dungeon Bypass: The 'standard' way of beating the Epsilon Special Op mission Taciturn is to chase the Chinese Agent to the final Russian base and then kill him just before he escapes into the nearby tunnel. Unless if you head to the opposite direction of the first base; on the other side of the river, you'll find a Tesla Cruiser ready to be mind controlled, then sent to intercept the agent's path and kill him. It isn't easy by any means (there's no way to sneak the Tesla Cruiser to the path without alerting other enemy units, so if you send the Tesla Cruiser too soon it will be destroyed before it can kill the agent, while if you do so too late he'll escape), but successfully pulling this off allows you to complete the mission in record time.
• Easter Egg: As of 3.3.5, they now exist in all campaign missions. These can range from humerous moments to outright helpful such as giving you additional crates of money, buffs, veterancy or one off units for the mission.
• Early Game Hell: All of the Challenge maps, but the Superweapon Challenge is the most striking example. You have 22 minutes to disable all the superweapons or spam enough Raccoons and Signal Inhibitors so that your base is not obliterated in a barrage of destruction. After that, it's not much different from any other challenge.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: There were significant differences between the different versions of Mental Omega.
  • 1.0 was largely a unit overhaul, with minimal lore changes and only a handful of Epsilon campaign missions added later, focusing on Yuri's actions during Yuri's Revenge.
  • 2.0 was more fleshed out and featured an actual, full-length campaign for Epsilon, but this time acting as a direct sequel to the Soviet campaign in vanilla Yuri's Revenge.
  • 3.0 is the current incarnation, featuring a full rewrite of the Red Alert 2 storyline from the very beginning, with full, interwoven campaigns from all sides, plus bonus (and completely canonical) side missions.
• Easy Level Trick: In missions where the enemy does not start with a base but will eventually send an MCV, you can intercept it to have one less enemy to deal with, and make the mission much simpler. For example, "Bleed Red" (Allied 1) has a Soviet MCV appear, alongside a small batallion, soon after you get control of the entire base, and "The Raven" (Soviet 13) has the Allied send three MCVs to different points in the city - at the very least, the teal and cyan MCVs can be destroyed with the few tanks you have, leaving you with only the blue base to deal with.
• Enemy Civil War:
  • From the perspective of the Allies and Epsilon, China is currently in the middle of one between the People's Republic of China communist government and Tibetan separatists. Then Yuri exploits it to divide the Chinese and the Russians by supplying the PRC loyalists with a Psychic Beacon and then helping the separatists capture it, in the process pining its capture and subsequent destruction on the Russians, resulting in the civil war expanding to China vs. Russia and shortly afterwards China vs. the Pacific Front.
  • The Pacific Front is also divided between the ones who wish to aid the Euro Alliance and the USA and those who wish to remain allies with China.
• Enemy Exchange Program: It's possible to make use of enemy units by capturing their production buildings with Engineers, abducting them with Drakuvs and Chrono Prisons (the former of which also allows you to reverse engineer and train more of them), or mind controlling them. In version 3.0, infiltrating an enemy Construction Yard used to allow you to build a slightly more expensive 'stolen' version of the corresponding MCV from War Factories; this was removed in 3.3.
• Escort Mission: A staple mission type in RTS games.
  • Allies:
    • Panic Cycle (mission 11): escort a Battle Tortoise transporting KI scientists to the SteinsTech lab after a Chronoshift error.
    • Bottleneck (17): escort the Paradox Engine containing the survivors of Epsilon's raid on London through the Gehenna-infested Isles of Scilly.
    • Gridlock (Special Op): the first part involves escorting an MCV (which is AI-controlled and rather heedless of danger) to the designated spot so it could deploy.
  • Soviets:
    • The Lunatic (10): escort a remotely-controlled Kirov Airship making its way to destroy a Psychic Beacon.
    • Noise Severe (Special Op): escort 3 POW-carrying Drakuvs to the Chinese along the Sino-Russian border as brainwashed Russians are out to get them.
  • Epsilon:
    • Focus Shift (10): escort the Topol-M unit containing the last of the Soviets' MIDAS missiles.
    • Lizard Brain (18): escort 5 prototypes of Yuri's new weapons into safety as the Allies launch an attack that you have no chance to defeat. Unlike most cases, you can control the prototypes.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: Invoked. The Epsilon Act 2 Ending portrays the activation of the Mental Omega Device and the brainwashing of nearly all humanity in a positive fashion despite the implications. It's a clear example of how twisted the Epsilon's morals are, to be able to consider the situation as an opportunity, rather than a problem.
• Ethereal Choir: The Soviet soundtrack has a couple of examples namely "Banished" and "Vigilante" as well as the game's remix of "Hell March".
• Evil All Along: The Pacific Front, as it turns out, was in bed with China all along, their failed invasion of Vladivostok was a failure on purpose to at least create the illusion of activity while they and China secretly made schemes of their own. Downplayed in that several members of the PF are outraged by this and wish to continue helping the other Allies.
• Evil Tower of Ominousness: A late 2018 teaser image revealed a blurred tower belonging to Epsilon that's easily the tallest building sprite/model in the game. It's the 3.X redesign of the Mental Omega Device.
• Faction Calculus: All four factions take up different tactical styles depending on which sub-faction you're playing as.
  • The Allies are generally Cannons (formerly Balanced before the introduction of Foehn) with the USA being slightly more Subversive (relying on faster Fragile Speedster units, air superiority and surgical strikes), the Pacific Front being Powerhouse (preferring to turtle then steamroll with a Battle Tortoise blob), while the Euro Alliance being fully Balanced (favouring defence, heavy firepower and units that reward micromanagement).
  • The Soviets are generally Powerhouse, with Russia being Balanced (relying on versatile Tesla technology and mobility), the Latin Confederation being slightly more Subversive (with preference for guerrilla tactics) while China is the Powerhouse to the max (with access to heavy war machines such as the Qilin Heavy Tank, the Nuwa Cannon and the Centurion Siege Crawler).
  • Epsilon is generally Subversive, with HQ being more of a Powerhouse (having access to cutting edge military tech such as the Opus Custom Tank, Colossus and the Aerial Fortress Irkalla), PsiCorps being Balanced (relying on its versatile mind control tech and strong navy with Marauders and Epsilon Elites) and Scorpion Cell being the most Subversive (favoring cheap, spammable and Weak, but Skilled units, potent chemical and biological weapons to wreak havoc and troll the enemy in general).
  • Foehn appears to be generally Balanced (relying on powerful, wacky and very expensive units) with the Last Bastion being Powerhouse (focusing on holding the line with units like the Sweeper and Mastodon), Wings of Coronia being Subversive (with mobile hover units and powerful aircraft), and Haihead being Balanced (focusing on getting close and personal to swiftly destroy enemy installations).
• Failure Is the Only Option: In Time Capsule (Foehn Special Ops), you can find an Epsilon Refinery that, instead of having its own ore miner, is worked by Slaves. In case you thought it would work like the Slave Miners in Yuri's Revenge, where destroying it would free the slaves, it's not the case here. You cannot save them - not only your units will shoot at the Workers on sight, but if you destroy the Refinery instead, they are immediately turned into Brutes.
• Fake Difficulty: While most missions are already difficult by themselves, Mental Omega 3.0 is worse because Ares did not have save/load fuction (this was later restored as of patch 3.3.3). Most Epsilon missions, being baseless, make this particularly blatant.
• Fallen States of America: Zig-Zagged. While the Soviets launch a full-scale invasion of the United States and deal several heavy blows, such as destroying Chicago with a MIDAS, and eventually conquering it, their major administrative buildings, such as the Pentagon and the White House, were left intact, if under Soviet control. And then Yuri shows up, mind-controls the Soviet occupants, and destroys the Pentagon to leave space for a Psychic Beacon.
• False Flag Operation: PsiCorps' mind control abilities make those very easy. And then in Act Two the Soviets copy this tactic by pretending to be mind controlled by Epsilon so they can invade China without repercussions.
• Fission Mailed:
  • Allied 6: Beautiful Mind. We've destroyed the Psychic Amplifier and Chicago is liberated... wait, why is the alarm sounding? Is that a nuclear missile? Did all our forces get vaporized?
  • Allied 11: Panic Cycle. The Russo-Chinese forces are repelled, the Chronosphere is secured, and the Soviets don't have any MIDAS bombs anymore so they can't nuke it from afar. Your forces are cheering after this crucial victory... when you suddenly see a rocket fall. On the Chronosphere. At the very moment the mission ends. It's one of the two MIDAS bombs the Allies didn't find during Allied 8: Wrong Side, the same one launched during Soviet 9: Road To Nowhere. Mission Accomplished.
  • Epsilon 10: Focus Shift. Surely Yuri thought by helping the Russians in escorting the last MIDAS rockets would re-earn their trust so he can return back to the Kremlin? No, the Chinese would have none of it. And as soon as you think the MIDAS is safe in a hidden tunnel, it collapses with the MIDAS inside it.
  • Soviet 13: The Raven. You successfully defended your HQ in Stalington from the American rebels, and reinforcements are coming? No. You hear a voice inside your head, a raven flies over your base, radar goes offline, you lose vision of your base, the Iron Curtain cooldown timer changes colour from red to purple, and the last thing you see is vivid images of Yuri in your mind before you fall unconscious. Oh, and the Pentagon you valiantly tried to protect is destroyed anyways, to make place for a Psychic Beacon.
  • Epsilon 17: Godsend. Your Epsilon task force made their way through London, neutralising the Allied defences on the way, and the target, the SteinsTech Hangar is in plain sight and unshielded? Too bad, the Paradox Engine is unleashed, and the Epsilon force is exterminated.
  • Soviet 20: Thread Of Dread. You captured the Mainframe and think that now you got the Chinese experimental technology? Nope. Another MIDAS rocket (the same one from Focus Shift), and your forces are vaporised.
  • Split Seconds (Epsilon Special Op) starts off in a very standard way. You take out a Chinese outpost and start building your base, you hold out the initial Chinese attacks until they suddenly evacuate so that you can focus on the Pacific Front base, your actual objective. Suddenly, your base is attacked by a squadron of Harbinger prototypes, and you can do nothing against them. Instead, Epsilon decides to bring two more proselytes and retry the following day - this time, making sure you have Gehennas and Oxidizers to stop the Harbingers.
• Flying Brick: It takes a lot of firepower to take down a Harbinger, Irkalla, or the Paradox Engine; and to a lesser degree, Thor Gunships and Kirov Airships.
• Flying Saucer: Epsilon has a thing for stereotypical UFOs, with the Invader, Ruiner, and Irkalla being based of the concept.
• Foregone Conclusion: Long before the Foehn Revolt's origin was revealed, the lore behind their units heavily implies that they are the sole survivors after Yuri conquered the world. More specifically, the Phantasm MLRS lore states that the Mirage Tank's technology was among those lost after the Battle of Antarctica, late in the Allied campaign. All a pretty clear indication that Epsilon was going to win the war and activate the Mental Omega Device.
• Foreshadowing: In the fifth Act I Allied mission, you have to destroy Soviet Topol-M platforms containing MIDAS rockets so that they cannot nuke whichever victory the Allies get. In the post-mission briefing, you are noted that two of the platforms that were destroyed did not have rockets on them. You get a crude reminder of it in Allied Mission 11 Panic Cycle, with the Chronosphere getting nuked as the Allies did not see it coming.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The end of Soviet Mission 13 The Raven features an ending where Yuri (or an Epsilon Adept) is peering into your mind directly, brainwashing you. In the immediate next mission, "Awake and Alive", one of the units is the General, with a unit-marker simply and eloquently labeled "YOU". And your objective? RUN.
• From Bad to Worse: Hamartia (Allied 24), true to its name. At first, everything goes fine, but then then Libra arrives unexpectedly, forcing the Paradox Engine to activate the Time Freeze prematurely... only to realise that Libra isn't affected by it. The situation would only go downhill from there: the need to recharge would slow down the advance, allowing the Epsilon to bring the reinforcements and wipe out most of the expedition forces; the Paradox Engine gets sabotaged, shutting down all its weapons systems and reducing effectiveness of the Time Freeze, which, in turn, leads to a failure of the final Death or Glory Attack. Then Libra attacks again, dealing the crippling blow to the Paradox Engine. As the last ditch attempt, the Allied Commander sacrifices his life ramming the Mental Omega, wrecking the Paradox Engine, but damaging the tower... which only buys the time for the few survivors to escape, with Siegfried staying behind to ensure that they would make it, and being killed by Rahn.
• Game Mod: Of Yuri's Revenge. The amount of modifications in each version have increased to the point Mental Omega is getting closer to becoming a total conversion than a simple mod.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Dragonstorm (Soviet 12) takes place at the same time as the Epsilon co-op mission Brain Reset, during which Yuri shuts down Russian access to his tech. Appropriately enough, a first few minutes into Dragonstorm, you will no longer be able to build Cloning Vats or Psychic Sensors.
  • The mod does an outstanding job of preserving continuity both in story and in gameplay, with rosters and gameplay elements only being introduced once the story calls for it. The biggest example is probably Epsilon Act One; since Act One is roughly analogous to pre-Yuri's Revenge Red Alert 2, Yuri is still posing as a Soviet advisor, and the vast majority of Epsilon's unit roster doesn't exist yet (hell, until mission 6, they don't even have an MCV prototype, and it takes until the end of Act One before it's even operational). As a result, almost all of Epsilon's Act One missions involve covert operations and guerilla warfare, supplementing early Epsilon units like the PsiCorps Troopers and the Virus with buildings and units overwhelmingly from the other factions. It's not until Act Two that Epsilon steps out of the shadows in a narrative sense, and it's right around then that they finally start getting more of their toys to play with.
  • In Hamartia and Babel, the final Allied and Epsilon Act Two missions, the Player Characters of each of these factions are pitted against each other. Thus, the particular base these characters control use a different kind of tactic than the rest of AI opponents, and one that is favoured by human players against the AI itself: massing air units, such as Thors, Warhawks, and Rocketeers for the Allies in Babel, and Invaders and Basilisks for the Epsilon in Hamartia.
  • Chrono Legionnaires never gets available for mass production in campaign, both because they are elite forces whose numbers are limited, and because Siegfried is afraid to risk the Chrono Backpack to fall into Epsilon hands.
  • In campaign, the MCV is treated as rare and expensive tech, never available for mass production... except for one time in The Remnant (Origin 6), where both Allied and Soviet MCVs are available explicitly due to Revolt combining the tech and and breaking the previously established restrictions.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Dogfighting is completely disabled and all jet aircraft, including those that are described on the official website as fighters, can actually only attack ground units.
  • If a subfaction-exclusive unit is an improved version of a standard unit (like Russian Shock Troopers and Akula Subs), then only the improved version is available in skirmish, no matter how often the standard one is used in the campaign.
  • For obvious purposes, the numerous Russian units extensively used in the Epsilon campaign by PsiCorps when they still served the Soviet Union are not available to Epsilon in skirmish. The same thing applies to PsiCorps Troopers, Giant Squid, Cloning Vats and Psychic Sensors, which are used by the Soviets before Yuri shuts down their access to his tech in the mission Brain Reset.
  • Latin Confederation Battle Labs are described as more of a hideout, storage and assembly facility than a research lab, and there is no big science hidden inside it. In the game, they cost an obscene amount of credits and power equal to the Russian Palace.
  • In King of the Hill game mode, activating the Psychic Beacon at the centre of the map will cause it to mind control everything owned by enemy players, including heroes, psychic units, beasts and robots that are immune to mind control, to enforce its purpose as the objective of the mode.
  • The number of transport slots taken by a unit depends more on its tier and transport capacity than its actual size (with some exceptions). For instance, while a Bison Tank (a tier 1 MBT), a Tigr APC (a tier 1 APC) and a Plague Splatter (a tier 3 artillery catapult) are all roughly of the same size, the Bison only takes 3 slots while the Tigr and Plague Splatter take 6 each, equal to a Seitaad Ballista, which is nearly twice as big as the former vehicles.
  • Yunru will always be complaining why she isn't in the Centurion when selected, even in Foehn's Origins campaign, when the Centurion was destroyed shortly before it began.
  • At several points in the Campaigns, enemies are shown using Iron Curtains that turn a single target permanently invulnerable until they are destroyed. The player can never achieve such a thing in gameplay.
• Gang Up on the Human: In general, the enemy AI prefers to focus their attention on humans than on other AIs, unless the other AI in question is too near and too immediate of a threat, or there's an enemy AI between a human and another AI, or if the humans have been too weakened. Sometimes in an FFA game an AI located directly opposite of you on the map will nonetheless decide to attack you, the enemy farthest from them. Some notable sub-examples are:
  • Firewalking, the 16th Soviet mission. In theory, you are racing against the Allies to capture the enemy Epsilon Psychic Amplifier before it can activate and mind control both armies. In practice, the enemies never fight each other outside of scripted events and the occasional Allied paradrops in the Epsilon base (which are still much less frequent than paradrops on your own base). Every single attack they send from their bases will target you, and even if one army encounters the other on the way to your base, they won't fire on each other.
  • In the Superweapon Challenge map, if you're partner with an AI and not able to spam enough Raccoons to shield yourself, at the 22 minute mark^note the enemy superweapons' 10-minute cooldown doesn't start until 12 minutes have passed the enemy AI will drop all of their superweapons right at you.
• Garrisonable Structures:
  • Many civilian buildings and Soviet Battle Bunkers can be garrisoned by the basic anti-infantry and anti-vehicle infantry of all factions, where they receive a bonus to range and damage and can't be attacked by most conventional weapons, but can't fire on aircraft and are vulnerable to units that can clear garrisons. Garrisonable structures (except Tech Concrete Bunkers, Concrete Fortresses and Battle Bunkers) can only be repaired by Engineers and nothing else, and will force the occupants to leave if crippled. The Epsilon Tank Bunker is similar, but can be occupied by a turreted non-hover vehicle which is only vulnerable to Death from Above attacks.
  • The Bio Reactor can be garrisoned by all infantry (not just basic ones) who cannot fire from it but instead cause it to generate more power.
  • Tunnel Entrances (which only appear in the campaign) can be garrisoned by units and are all connected to each other, so units can enter and exit from any entrance. No one can fire from any of the tunnel entrances.
  • In Bounty Hunt mode, there are the Tech Supply Bunkers, which generate crates around it when garrisoned by any infantry. In the Soviet prequel mission Archetype, the Guard Towers can be garrisoned to remove shroud in a large area around them.
• Going Critical: When a Nuwa Cannon, Nuclear Reactor, Tech Nuclear Plant or Atomheart (which has a small in-built nuclear reactor) is destroyed, it will violently explode and spread radiation in a considerable radius around it.
• Grey Rain of Depression: Allied 12: Sunlight, given what happened in the previous mission. As it takes place on the south coast of Britain, it also falls under British Weather.
• Guide Dang It!: Thread of Dread (Soviet 20) becomes far less frustrating if you manage to disable most of the Tactical Nuke Silos the enemy has. Fortunately, three of the silos are left without power if you destroy the Windbelts surrounding them. Unfortunately, the game never mentions this, so you have to find that out either by accident or by looking at a walkthrough.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose:
  • The 11th Allied mission Panic Cycle. If you fail to defend the Chronosphere, it's Game Over. Even if you succeed, the Soviets nuke it anyway, with a MIDAS rocket you overlooked, and then proceed to roll over Germany and France.
  • The beginning of the Act Two Allied campaign is one thanks to Epsilon. If any of the Psychic Amplifiers in Africa and Europe is activated, the London Fortress falls without Yuri's forces ever setting foot on the city. If they are destroyed, then the London Fortress is left defenseless and can be destroyed from a Chronosphere ambush.
  • The final part of the Act Two Soviet campaign is also one for Epsilon. Yuri teleports to Moscow so that the Soviets go after him instead of the Mental Omega Device. If Yuri stops them on their tracks, there's one less problem for him, but if he fails and dies, it's not much of a concern anyways, for the Mental Omega Device will activate and the Soviets will fall to mind-control. The latter ends up happening.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • In the Allied ending, Siegfried uses the recently recovered old Chronosphere to teleport the wrecked Paradox Engine to the Point Hope to save at least some remnants of the Allied expedition force; unfortunately, Siegfried has to stay behind to ensure that the teleportation would be successful. Just as the Paradox Engine departs, Siegfried gets shot in the back by Rahn; instead of his usual death animation (being teleported away), we actually see his corpse, showing that yes, he's gone. He leaves behind enough research notes to be used by those who would come after him.
  • For both the Allied and Foehn endings, the Allied Commander and the Paradox Engine is a Double Subversion as it initially seems to have been a Senseless Sacrifice, for the Paradox Engine's ramming of the Mental Omega Device merely delayed its activation, but it ended up providing the time needed for The Revolt to use the wreck to temporally displace their bastion at Point Hope from the rest of the planet, allowing them to avoid, at least for a while, the global mind-control.
• Hero Must Survive: Usually averted. In the campaign, if you lose a hero, then the hero isn't assumed to be killed, but instead evacuated from the battle and cannot fight anymore. Except if a hero plays a central role, then losing the hero means an automatic Game Over:
  • Tanya in the first part of Eagle Fly Free (Allied 2), Heaven and Hell (Allied 4), Convergence (Allied Spec Op), Hammer to Fall (Allied 7), The Mermaid (Allied 13), the first part of Obstinate (Allied Spec Op), Paranoia (Allied 20) and the first part of Hamartia (Allied 24).
  • Siegfried in Convergence (Allied Spec Op), The Mermaid (Allied 13) and the first part of Hamartia (Allied 24).
  • Norio in Digital Demon (Allied Spec Op), Convergence (Allied Spec Op) and Paranoia (Allied 20).
  • Boris in Archetype (Soviet Spec Op 1).
  • Volkov in Recharger (Soviet 6), The Lunatic (Soviet 10) and Fatal Impact (Soviet 23).
  • Chitzkoi in Meltdown (Soviet 21) and Death's Hand (Soviet 24).
  • Morales in Archetype (Soviet Spec Op), Happy Birthday (Soviet 3), Exist to Exit (Soviet 15) and Power Hunger (Soviet 19).
  • Yunru in Ego Ergo Hax (Soviet Co-op), Nobody Home (Foehn 1), Kill the Messenger (Foehn 2), Tainted Empire (Foehn 3) and Time Capsule (Foehn Spec Op).
  • Reznov and Krukov in Awake and Alive (Soviet 14), Intoxicated (Soviet Co-op), Cyberanatomy (Soviet Co-op) and Brothers in Arms (Soviet Spec Op).
  • Libra in Dance of Blood (Epsilon 19), Machinehead (Epsilon 20), Unthinkable (Epsilon 22), Reality Check (Epsilon 23) and Babel (Epsilon 24).
  • Rahn in Huehuecoyotl (Epsilon 14), the first part of Divergence (Epsilon 16), Metaphor (Epsilon Co-op) and the first part of Nightcrawler (Epsilon Spec Op).
  • Rashidi in Scrapyard (Epsilon 3) and Killing Fields (Epsilon 9).
  • Malver in Singularity (Epsilon 11), the first part of Divergence (Epsilon 16) and Survivors (Epsilon Spec Op).
  • Yourself (the Soviet player character) in Awake and Alive (Soviet 14).
  • The Aerial Fortress Irkalla in Godsend (Epsilon 17) and Meltdown (Soviet 21).
  • The Paradox Engine in Insomnia (Allied 22), Withershins (Allied 23) and Hamartia (Allied 24).
• Hold the Line: The second half of Act 2 is this for Epsilon. The Paradox Engine's activation forced an immediate halt to Yuri's imperialist ambitions, and the Allies and Soviets (as well as the Foehn Revolt) started beating Epsilon handily (with their only notable victory being ensuring Libra's landing on Earth, with every other victory merely buying time). Thus, the objective of conquering the world of the first half of the act quickly became "hold off long enough until the Mental Omega Device is activated".
  • Some individual missions also require the player to defend the area until either a timer runs out or all enemy waves have been defeated. Examples include Road Trippin' (Allied 3) and Juggernaut (Soviet 17).
• Hopeless Boss Fight: In some Baseless Missions there are certain enemy units that are supposed to be avoided and never fought directly since your units are useless against them:
  • Thor Gunships and Siegfried in Rainmaker (Epsilon Co-op 3). Each player has a few Epsilon Adepts, Pyros and Tesla Troopers, and most enemy units available for mind control are light infantry with limited AA capabilities. Engaging either a Thor or Siegfried himself is a quick way of asking for defeat.
  • Nuwa Cannons in The Gardener (Allied 10). You only have a Technician, a Tsurugi Powersuit and a few basic soldiers, and must avoid these enemies at all costs since your units can do jack against them.
  • Gyrocopters in Singularity (Epsilon 11). Let the enemy veteran units detect you, and you'll have to face Gyrocopters with Malver, a Virus and a PsiCorps Trooper, none of whom can hurt air units.
  • Wolfhounds in The Mermaid (Allied 13). You have Siegfried (who is a Chrono Legionnaire in this mission) and Tanya, and taking too long or destroying one of the landmarks in Warsaw will cause the Soviets to send Wolfhounds against you.
  • Nuwa Cannons in Power Hunger (Soviet 19). Although Morales receives a (substantial) rate of fire buff, he cannot snipe, let alone even damage the Nuwa Cannons guarding the bridge leading into municipal Shanghai. Morales is hence at their mercy should he be sniping on the bridges they are guarding, since infantry and radiation were never good friends to begin with.
  • The Paradox Engine in Unthinkable (Epsilon 22). Unlike the other examples, you must face off against the Paradox Engine near the end of the mission, and your anti-air weapons won't be able to shoot it down before it uses the Time Freeze and destroy your base. If you bring it down to critical health, it will just use Time Freeze sooner.
  • The Hands of Ereshkigal in Death's Hand (Soviet 24) cannot be damaged under normal circumnstances, and will slowly destroy all the bases you and your allies have. They effectively work as a time limit, since only killing Yuri takes them down.
  • In Hamartia (Allied 24), while Libra can be stopped in the third and final stages (although it will take a considerable death toll from your army, or exploiting AI flaws), she will always come back - furthermore, using Chrono weapons against her will make her deploy her weapon-disabling gravity field. It's completely impossible to kill her in the second stage since you only control Tanya and Siegfried, who don't have anywhere near enough firepower to take her down, and are in return one-shotted by her darts.
• I Should Have Been Better: The Allies get into a near-Despair Event Horizon in Hamartia (Allied 24), when they realize that the Paradox Engine is not enough to stop the Epsilon.
• Immune to Mind Control:
  • Increasing resistance in Soviet occupied (and mind-controlled) St. Louis suggests that some of its citizens are No Selling the Psychic Beacon's influence.
  • A notable example is the Chinese agent who discovered the secret of Russia's MIDAS rockets, or lack thereof, during the period between Act 1 and Act 2, in the Epsilon special mission Taciturn. Yuri doesn't want the secret to be revealed yet and orders an Adept to mind control the agent, who reacts by shooting the Adept dead, forcing you to chase him down through Russian bases (who will fire on you, but are not aware of the agent's identity) and kill him before he could leak the secret.
  • Heroes, mind controllers, capital siege ships, robots and beasts are immune to mind control for reasons varying from training to resist it, to cybernetic implants making them immune.
  • Downplayed with aircraft, which normally cannot be mind controlled but for a different reason: no mind controller besides the Stolen Tech Dybbuk-Seizer can target flying units. When on the ground or in an airfield, they can be mind controlled like normal.
• Innocuously Important Episode: Two Act Two Special Ops missions end up as this:
  • Obstinate involves the Allies in Cannes trying to retrieve two K.I. Operatives and discover what information about the Paradox Project was leaked to the Epsilon. To their relief, it was just data about a prism conductor weapon, nothing particularly major. To their horror, this gives the Epsilon a way to disable the Paradox Engine's air-to-surface weapon systems at the worst possible moment, and leave it completely helpless against Libra.
  • Backbitten involves the Epsilon trying to destroy the Paradox Engine's spare battery. They succeed, and the Allies, upon discovering it, are understandably annoyed because it means the Paradox Engine will require frequent stops to recharge, but since it does not render the Engine useless, they aren't too bothered about it. This both gives the Epsilon time to turn Libra into a seemingly-unstoppable threat, and gives them the knowledge of the Engine's Pocket Dimension, leading them to the opportunity to sabotage the aforementioned Prism Conductors.
• "Instant Death" Radius:
  • Most objects that happen to be on top of an activated Foehn Blast Trench is instantly destroyed.
  • In Reality Check (Epsilon 23), Libra can be upgraded to have a passive particle field which will damage enemies near her. At max level it will just about instantly kill most infantry and destroys lower tier vehicles in about two seconds. Regardless of which upgrades the player chooses for Libra in this mission, she will have the maxed out particle field in the next mission, Babel.
• Instant-Win Condition:
  • As is typical for an RTS, many campaign missions work this way - it doesn't matter if 95% of your army is dead and your base is in cinders, the moment you capture, infiltrate, or destroy the critical structure or unit, the victory is yours.
  • The titular Mental Omega device is a Psychic Beacon on a global scale. If Yuri finishes it, the world is done. By the end of the Epsilon campaign, his mounting defeats also means it becomes his only win condition, though at the end they manage to come out on top.
• Interface Screw:
  • This is the reason why certain colours are not selectable for players in skirmish games, like khaki (because it blends too well to the minimap and makes the player's units hard to spot on radar) or black (because it will turn the player in question's superweapon countdowns invisible over a black background).
  • Before Version 3.3.5, the Special Op mission Noise Severe put you (as Russia) against Russian forces mind-controlled by Epsilon, and to add to the confusion, both you and the enemy share the colour red. This was eventually deemed to be too confusing, even for this trope, and the mind-controlled forces now use a darker shade of red.
• Invincible Minor Minion:
  • Spy Planes, Hunter-Seekers, Recon Drones and other supersonic jets (used to deliver certain units) fly too fast to be hit by anything.
  • Flame Towers in the Soviet prequel mission Archetype. You control Boris and Morales, who normally attack buildings by using their laser designators to call in an airstrike. Since the mission takes place 10 years before the proper game when the Soviet air force has been dismantled and yet to be rebuilt, neither hero can actually attack the towers.
  • Weather Crystals in Regenbogen Challenge and Dybbuk Hives cannot be damaged by anything.
• It's Raining Men: All factions have access to paradrops by capturing a neutral Tech Airfield. Within each faction, the USA has access to Airborne and Bloodhounds (the former drops GIs and Guardian GIs, the latter drops Humvees and Stryker IFVs), Russia has Tank Drops for Hydra Cannons and Tank Killers and Terror Drop for Terror Drones, and the Last Bastion can paradrop Sweepers.
• It's Up to You: 3 notorious examples in the Soviet and Epsilon campaigns:
  • Juggernaut (Soviet 17): The Chinese troops are little more than roadblocks, their camps chock full of barrels and will not stand against the relentless Epsilon onslaught. Be prepared to do the bulk of the dirty work - at least your allies gave you access to their Sentinels.
  • Dance of Blood (Epsilon 19): Similar to Juggernaut, the Epsilon defenders garrisoned near the shore crumble once the Chinese Navy gets within firing range. It gets much easier once your "superweapon" safely arrives from space.
  • Unthinkable (Epsilon 22): The large PsiCorps base stationed between you and the Allies will fall like flies when the enemy arrives, and you have to do the heavy work almost all by yourself. At least this time you have another ally that still does its job.
• Jump Scare: The end of the opening mission of the Soviet Act II "Operation: The Raven" involves getting blindsided by a first-person cutscene of being mind controlled by Yuri (or rather Yuri telepathically communicating to you through the Epsilon Adept that's doing the mind control).
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Yuri uses his psychic powers to erase the memories of two MIDAS bombs from Soviet command, allowing one of them to be used to destroy the Chronosphere after the Allies were led to believe that the Soviets had no more.
• Last Stand:
  • The final Allied Act 1 Mission "Sunlight". After the fall of continental Europe and North America, the remaining Allied forces make their final stand in the English Channel and southeastern England, defending the Gladius System from the Soviets as it's the only thing left standing between the Soviets and them nuking London and securing their victory.
  • The entire second half of the Act 2 is this for the Allies. After being lured out of Europe by Yuri, his Epsilon forces destroy the London Fortress and forces the entire Allied army on the run. All those massive forces the Allies are seen deploying in the missions after "Godsend"? That's all they have left.
• The Last Dance: The Finale of Act 2 serves as a Swan Song for both the Allies and the Soviets, as we see both factions at their best before their ultimate defeat by Epsilon Forces.
• Lights Off, Somebody Dies: The 13th Epsilon mission The Conqueror. First, you have to sabotage the power source in Moscow during a military parade, then the main Epsilon force will arrive at the city and you're tasked with seizing the Russian Topol-M platforms and killing Premier Romanov.
• Limited Loadout: All jet aircraft can only carry a limited amount of ammunition, which must be reloaded at airfields when depleted.
• Made of Explodium: Barrels and ammo crates explode rather violently when destroyed. In the campaign, if you see barrels standing next to buildings, these buildings and nearby units will easily fall to a few bullets.
• Master of All: Averted with a vengeance. Preventing this situation is a key goal of the mod's sweeping changes - no matter how good any given unit is at any given role, they will always have weaknesses, and there are no standard units that can do everything. There is an exception, however: Stolen Tech units come very very close, being high on power and cost-effectiveness, but the only way to get them is to infiltrate an enemy Tech Center - something any player worth their salt will try very hard to prevent, for this very reason. As a result, only extremely skilled players (or players with less-than-skilled opponents) will see these units very often.
• Marathon Level: The loading screen for Fatal Impact (second to last Soviet Mission of Act 2) helpfully warns you "This will be a long one. Be prepared". They ain't kidding.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The Spatha Defense System created by Epsilon is a more advanced version of the Gladius Defense System the European Alliance had. The spatha is a type of sword that replaced the gladius in the Roman Empire.
  • Hamartia (Allied 24). 'Hamartia' is a literacy term derived from the Greek verb 'hamartanein' which can mean "To err" or "to miss the mark". In Greek Tragedy the term could refer to either a mistake or reversal of fortune (depending on the interpretation) that leads to a character's downfall. True enough, things go south fast for the Allies culminating in their defeat and the activation of the Mental Omega Device.
  • Babel (Epsilon 24). The mission name refers to the biblical Tower of Babel, a large tower made possible by its builders all sharing one language. God stopped its construction by making everyone speak different tongues and thus be unable to understand each other. Here, the name refers to the Mental Omega Device, which Yuri calls "Babel reborn". As opposed to the Tower of Babel, the Device brings all people into "one mind" by mind controlling everyone on the planet.
• Mêlée à Trois: By the start of Act 2 it is Allies vs. Russia vs. China vs. Pacific Front vs. Epsilon. And then the Foehn Revolt joins the fray. For individual campaign missions there are:
  • In the second phase of Time Capsule (Foehn Special Op), you are caught in a crossfire between Russia and Scorpion Cell, which are both hostile to you.
  • Puppet Master (Allied 14), in which the Psychic Beacon controlling the Soviet forces in Rome is destroyed by an Akula Sub causing them to become a Wild Card in the mission that otherwise would've been a straightforward Allies vs. Epsilon fight. That is until they succumb to the Psychic Amplifier's effects.
  • In Fallen Ashes (Epsilon Special Op), the Soviets have been fighting a pocket of American remnants for a while when your Scorpion Cell forces intervene.
  • Firewalking (Soviet 16), which is an all-out three-way battle between your Latin Confederation forces, the American rebels and PsiCorps within the ruins of Chicago, although both enemies are much more keen on attacking you than they do each other.
  • Thread of Dread (Soviet 20) is a three-way fight between Yunru's Foehn army and allied Chinese forces, the Epsilon taskforce sent to capture their technology and the player's Latin Confederation army. Unlike the preceding example, the other two sides do bother to attack each other.
  • Fullmetal (Allied Special Op) takes place when you intervene in the Enemy Civil War between PsiCorps and Scorpion Cell, neither of which are friendly to you.
  • Subverted with Nightcrawler (Epsilon Special Op). Although it happens when the Allies attack you while you're busy subjugating Scorpion Cell traitors, the Allies and Scorpion Cell forces will not fire on each other.
  • Survivors (Epsilon Special Op) starts when your forces, consisting of Scorpion Cell remnants not under Yuri's control, infiltrate a Scorpion Cell army which has already been enslaved, at the same time as an Allied attack. Initially this mission is an aversion, as the brainwashed Scorpion Cell fighters will not fire on you until you're detected, but once that happens this trope is played straight in full force.
  • The first three Foehn Origin missions are all three-way battles between Yunru's Foehn army, the main PRC army (which is no longer friendly to Yunru) and the PsiCorps. Blood Rage is similar, only replace the PsiCorps with Epsilon HQ and there's also Libra, who has gone berserk, will attack everyone else and must be sedated; that being said, you'll only have to fight PRC forces in this mission, since the Foehn base is out of the way.
• Missed Him by That Much: In Unthinkable (Epsilon 22), Yuri just BARELY manages to Chronoshift away to Moscow in the Old Chronosphere before the Paradox Engine's Time Freeze activates, allowing the Allied invasion force to overrun the Epsilon defenders and capture the Old Chronosphere for themselves. Had they engaged it even a minute or two earlier, they'd have had Yuri dead to rights.
• Money Multiplier: Each faction has an economy booster that works like this in practice: the Allied Ore Purifier increases the value of ore harvested, the Soviet Industrial Plant makes vehicles cheaper, the Epsilon Cloning Vats creates clones of trained infantry, and the Foehn Reprocessor creates money from killed enemies.
• Monumental Damage: A staple of the Command and Conquer series, especially in the Red Alert series.
  • Act 1 Casualties:
    • Statue of Liberty (Bleed Red) - destroyed by Soviet Dreadnoughts. Converted into a Statue of Yuri at some point before the end of Act 2.
    • World Trade Center (Bad Apple) - destroyed offscreen during the Russian occupation of NYC.
    • Eiffel Tower (Recharger) - vaporised by a Mercury strike after Volkov converts it into a massive Tesla Coil.
  • Act 2 Casualties:
    • The Pentagon (Awake and Alive) - demolished to make room for a Psychic Beacon controlling Stalington.
    • 'The Witness' obelisk (The Cardinal) - Yuri's European Psychic Amplifier is built right on top of it.
    • St. Peter's Basilica and the Colosseum (The Cardinal) - Both locations are devastated but NOT destroyed at the start of the mission. Repairing the Colosseum with an Engineer yields several money crates.
    • Auditorio de Tenerife (Hysteria) - zigzagged: it is surrounded by Bloaticks which will most likely destroy the structure, although that can be averted.
    • The Parliament and Big Ben (Epsilon Ending) - destroyed by Epsilon attackers decimating the remnants of the Allied resistance in London after the Mental Omega Device is activated. The Sydney Theatre is heavily damaged but not destroyed as well.
  • There are also several other landmarks which are present in the other campaign missions which could be destroyed should you wish.
• Mook Horror Show: In Reality Check (Epsilon 23), the Allied enemies make several comments on how powerless they feel when Libra starts to massacre them. One Navy SEAL even comments he should have stayed in London.
• Multiplayer-Only Item: Downplayed with stolen tech units, Spies, the Chronosphere, Chrono Legionnaires and Secret Labs.
  • It is impossible to infiltrate labs in the campaign, and therefore, unlocking stolen tech units the standard way is impossible as well. Stolen tech units are only buildable in missions that specifically allow you to do so.
  • Spies and Chrono Legionnaires cannot be trained and are only available in extremely limited numbers (usually for completing mission objectives), so you aren't able to use them the same way you can in skirmish/multiplayer.
  • While Secret Labs appear in both the campaign and skirmish maps, the multiplayer Secret Lab, which unlocks the Rejuvenator, is quite different from the campaign Secret Lab, which always gives a specific unit depending on the mission (for example Warhawks in Beautiful Mind).
  • Allied Gap Generators, though still buildable in single player skirmish games, are completely useless against The All-Seeing A.I..
  • The Chronosphere, the Allied support superweapon, appears in three missions (not counting the old Chronosphere from the previous war). In both of these, it serves as a mission objective and does not actually allow anyone to teleport vehicles around the map. The Chronoshift support power only appears very late in Allied Act 2, courtesy of the Paradox Engine.
• Mythology Gag: There are numerous references to other Westwood Studios and Command & Conquer games in this mod.
  • From other Red Alert games:
    • The Foehn Great Tempest superweapon is visually similar to the Soviet Vacuum Imploder from Red Alert 3.
    • The Athena Cannon from Red Alert 3 is recreated as a USA unit in this mod.
    • Morales is Natasha Volkova's Spear Counterpart, sharing her ability to snipe the pilots out of vehicles.
    • Kanegawa Industries was originally an Empire of the Rising Sun defense contractor from Red Alert 3.
    • The Allied Harbinger Gunship from Red Alert 3 is now summoned by a Wings of Coronia support power to bombard a selected area of the map.
    • The 'Kremlin's Heart' skyscraper from Red Alert 3 (renamed the High Command Heart Building) makes an appearance in The Conqueror (the 13th Epsilon mission), set in Moscow. Destroying it causes a Wolfhound to emerge, a reference to the 8th Empire mission in RA3 where the destruction of the Kremlin's Heart causes a Twinblade carrying the Soviet Time Machine to escape.
    • The PsiCorps Magnetic Beam Support Power resembles the Red Alert 3 Magnetic Satellite. It's a controllable beam that affects vehicles and infantry with Power Armor. It only differs in that the Magnetic Beam does not pull units out of the battlefield.
    • The Centurion Siege Crawler is an unused unit from Red Alert 2 and Red Alert 3, and the basis for the Soviet Reaper in Uprising.
    • Siegfried is based on the Chrono Turret, an unused unit from Red Alert 2.
    • The Wormqueen's ability to be healed by Tesla weapons is based on the Shogun Executioner's ability to do the same in Red Alert 3.
    • The Borillo's official description mentions that while it was in development, there was a suggestion to make it fire paratroopers, but it was shut down as inhumane (something that the Bullfrog from Red Alert 3 can actually do).
    • In Time Capsule (Foehn Special Op), the only ore patch in the Epsilon research complex is mined by Workers instead of Ghost Miners, referencing the Slave Miner from vanilla Yuri's Revenge (which didn't make it into the mod).
    • The Reaper Corvette's description mentions a prototype amphibious boat armed with Tesla coils before being equipped with its actual weapons is a reference to the Stingray from Red Alert 3.
    • The SteinsTech Hangar bears more than a passing resemblance to the Sigma Harmonizer building in Uprising.
    • The Soviet General becoming Premier of the Soviet Union in the Soviet epilogue is something that happens to the Player Character at the end of all (non-canon) Soviet campaigns of each base game.
    • The briefing for Allied Special Operation "Convergence" mentions that Allies were forced to retreat from Australia after its east coast was attacked by Yuri's ballistic submarines (Reshephs). It's a reference to Allied mission "Clones Down Under" from vanilla Yuri's Revenge, which involves defending Australia from said attack (with Boomers instead of Reshephs). Similarly, the Epsilon Epilogue depicts Sydney as a major cloning facility, although the Cloning Vats are located where the Allied base was located in said mission.
  • From the Tiberium games:
    • A world domination-seeking N.G.O. Superpower led by a bald goatee-ed individual. Are we talking about Nod or the Epsilon Army here?
    • A multi-national organization dedicated to fighting a world domination-seeking N.G.O. Superpower led by a bald goatee-ed individual and their insignia contains the image of a predatory animal. Are we talking about GDI or the Foehn Revolt here?
    • The Foehn Blasticade defensive superweapon is the Firestorm Barrier from Tiberian Sun. The challenge that features an indestructible Blasticade takes its name from the Firestorm Barrier itself.
    • The Mercury Satellite is very similar to the GDI Ion Cannon.
    • Tanya now has a laser gun, just like the Nod Commando from Tiberium Wars.
    • The Foehn Shadray Torch Tank is almost the same unit as the GDI Disruptor from Tiberian Sun (by extension, this also makes it a reference to the Dune 2 Atreides Sonic Tank).
    • Both the Epsilon Basilisk and the Salamander are based on Nod units of the same name from Tiberian Twilight.
    • The Foehn Great Tempest superweapon, mentioned above, also has many similarities to the Scrin Rift Generator from Tiberium Wars.
    • The Epsilon Risen Monolith greatly resembles a Tiberian Dawn Nod Obelisk of Light, while its name and function come from a support power in Tiberian Twilight.
  • From Generals:
    • The Soviet Scud Launcher is a reference to the GLA unit of the same name.
    • The Demolition Truck now uses a voxel heavily based on the Convoy Truck from the 6th GLA mission in Generals.
    • Radiation's color was changed from Sickly Green Glow to orange, just like radiation in Generals and also to distinguish it from Epsilon's chemical weapons. Similarly, China is the subfaction that specializes in radiation warfare, just like Generals China.
    • Colonel Morales has the same Sniping the Cockpit ability as Jarmen Kell.
    • The Deception Challenge is inspired by Prince Kassad's ability to cloak everything he owns in his Generals Challenge.
    • The Chinese General Xiurong Wu uses unused quotes from China's Infantry General Shin Fai.
    • The Apocalypse Tank's ability to heal nearby infantry is inspired by the Chinese Propaganda Tower, which could be installed on Overlord Tanks.
    • "The Conqueror", the first Act 2 Epsilon mission, involves breaking into a military parade, just like what GLA does in the introduction of Generals. Both parading factions use the color red, to increase the similarities.
  • From the Dune games:
    • The Foehn Windtrap is named after and looks almost exactly like the power plants in Westwood's Dune RTS games.
    • A unit that is virtually the same as the Ordos Deviator from Dune 2000 and Emperor: Battle for Dune, right down to the name, used to be an Epsilon Stolen Tech unit before it got moved to the Foehn Revolt and renamed Irritator.
  • From earlier iterations of Mental Omega:
    • Death's Hand (Soviet 24) has a deliberate typo in the intel report when the Kremlin gets destroyed ("This is bad, Comrade! Yuri is no longer Kremlin!"), referencing the infamous debriefing for penultimate Soviet mission in the version 2.0 of the mod, which contained the same typo.
    • In Hamartia (Allied 24), during the underground cave stage, if you destroy a row of three Hedgehogs instead of going straight into disabling the final Dybbuk Hive, you come across a Time Machine, referencing how the plotline of Mental Omega 2.0 involved the Epsilon stealing a Time Machine to bring Yuri back to the present.
• N.G.O. Superpower: Yuri's Epsilon Army becomes this by the start of Act 2 with bases in North Africa, Antarctica, Totoya Island and the fricking Moon. Not to mention having conquered Moscow and thrown Russia into chaos.
• Nintendo Hard: A staple of the mod (for the record, the skirmish Easy AI is harder than the vanilla Brutal AI).
• No Campaign for the Wicked: Zigzagged and downplayed. While all factions have campaigns, in the Allied, Soviet and Epsilon campaigns the subfactions that betray you (namely Pacific Front, China and Scorpion Cell) are playable in a very limited capacity (although their units are sometimes available in limited numbers when playing as other factions), unless if you go out of your way to capture a Construction Yard instead of simply destroying it when facing these factions:
  • The Soviet campaign has a grand total of two missions where you play as China (Ego Ergo Hax, which is a Baseless Mission with a very limited number of Chinese units, and Eclipse, which allows you to play as the actual Chinese faction, base and all). While you do have a Chinese base in Think Different (Epsilon 7), Unshakeable (Soviet 11) and Kill the Messenger (Foehn 2), in all these cases you're taking over a hostile Chinese MCV, and technically you're still playing as PsiCorps, Russia or Foehn.
  • Similarly, in all missions where you play as Scorpion Cell (except Survivors), you have no MCV and only limited access to their low tech units.
  • Pacific Front has it better than China and Scorpion Cell, as there are missions where you properly play as them (Hypothermia and Insomnia), plus the Baseless Missions The Gardener and Paranoia as well as temporary access to their tech in Relentless, but this is still vastly dwarfed by the number of missions where you play as the USA or Euro Alliance.
• No Canon for the Wicked: A significant aversion, in contrast to the C&C series as a whole. While in the base game only the Allied campaign was canon, all missions from all campaigns in Mental Omega, including Special Ops and Co-Op missions, are canon, some of them being concurrent with or directly affecting missions from another campaign. For example, in Road to Nowhere (Soviet 9), you have to defend two MIDAS platforms so that one of them can fire an ICBM at the Black Forest to destroy the Allied Chronosphere. In Panic Cycle (Allied 11), you see one of those very missiles exploding over the Chronosphere in the very end.
• No Experience Points for Medic: Units only gain experience from killing enemy units or taking it from the units that they mind control; as a result, support units like Medics or Defenseless Transports like Stallions or Mandjets never gain experience (although repair units can destroy Terror Drones infecting friendly vehicles, that does not count).
• No Fair Cheating: Several missions have triggers which causes instant game over if the player tries to go off the rails through cheating:
  • In Unthinkable (Epsilon 22), you're supposed to get crushed by the Paradox Engine before the timer runs out. Somehow defeating it or letting the timer run out (which isn't possible without modifying the game or using side programs) triggers an anti-cheat measure, causing you to instantly fail the mission.
  • In Fatal Impact (Soviet 23), it's not possible to destroy all Spatha Defense Systems without upgrading Volkov's weapons first to make him able to bypass the Iron Curtain. Somehow doing so anyway fails the mission instantly.
  • In Death's Hand (Soviet 24), somehow destroying the (normally invulnerable) Hands of Ereshkigal before removing Iron Curtain from the Kremlin leads to an instant mission failure.
• Non-Combat EXP: Infiltrating an enemy Barracks/War Factory makes all of your units produced from that structure subsequently spawn as veterans (even if they're paradropped or otherwise not trained from the building itself). Capturing a neutral Tech Academy, Heavy Machinery, Aeronautics, Defense Bureau or Military Docks does the same thing for infantry, ground vehicles, aircraft, base defences and ships, respectively.
• Non-Entity General: Generally played straight, but is averted in several cases:
  • Allied Commander directly speaks to his forces in the final cutscene of Hamartia (Allied 24). He perishes at the end of it.
  • Soviet General gets mind-controlled at the end of The Raven (Soviet 13). The following mission, Awake and Alive (Soviet 14) has him fleeing the city, and he's actually present on the map as a hero unit, marked by huge "You" marker; obviously, having him dead fails the mission. Finally, he personally appears in the Soviet epilogue (once again marked by a "You" marker), being just named Premier of the Soviet Union, where he gets mind-controlled by the Mental Omega Device, this time permanently.
  • Psi-Corps Proselyte personally shows up at the end of The Conqueror (Epsilon 13), together with Yuri to take over the Kremlin. He also shows up at the closing cutscene of Babel (Epsilon 24), talking to Libra. Similarly to Soviet General, he's explicitly marked by a huge "You" above his head.
• Non-Indicative Name: The single player missions that are not part of the main campaign are collectively called under the umbrella of 'Covert Ops', including something like Obstinate, a long, drawn-out battle where both you and the enemy have large bases. It's possible that the name is an homage to the Covert Ops. expansion of Tiberian Dawn.
• Non-Standard Game Over:
  • Go on, destroy the Rocket Launchpad in "Gridlock" even when you were told to not do so! Your forces get annihilated as a result.
  • In Version 3.0, if you lose any of the Gladius nodes in "Sunlight", a MIDAS would impact on your base a few seconds later, destroying everything.^note In Version 3.3 onwards, you just get a standard game over.
• No-Sell:
  • Neutral Power Plants, Wind Power Plants and Nuclear Plants, due to their security features to prevent sabotage, cannot be infiltrated by enemy spies or drained by Invaders.
  • All robotic units are immune to mind control, hijacking, poison weapons, and radiation.
  • All hero and epic units are immune to mind control and confusion rays. Epic units are also immune to hijacking.
  • Brutes and infantry with Power Armor are immune to Attack Dogs and Spooks. Cyborg infantry (Volkov, Chitzkoi, and the campaign-only Cyborg Vanguard and Space Commando) take it a step further by also being immune to the Terror Drone's leap attack (forcing it to use its laughably weak claw attack instead).
  • Wormqueens take no damage from Tesla weaponry, and is even healed by said weaponry instead.
  • In Babel (Epsilon 24), Libra's chrono backpack makes her immune to the Paradox Engine's Time Freeze, allowing her to move in frozen time.
• Not Playing Fair With Resources: Don't waste your time harassing the AI's miners. They gather money much much faster than you anyway (which, in practice, will never result in them running out of money in an ordinary game). However, you can send spies or Invaders to their Ore Refinery to do unlimited cash withdrawals.
• Nuke 'em: The Soviets are very fond of their MIDAS bombs using one to destroy Chicago and another to destroy the Chronosphere.
• Obstructive Foreground: A lot of missions (notably Singularity) make great use of trees and other props to artificially hide Attack Dogs and Terror Drones from the player so they can suddenly jump on and insta-gib a critical infantry unit (usually a hero, spy or engineer) when the player doesn't expect it.
• Obvious Rule Patch:
  • To prevent Epsilon players from being able to have unlimited funds by mutating cheap friendly infantry into Brutes and sending them to Grinders (just like how Yuri players could do such a thing with the Genetic Mutator in Yuri's Revenge), all genetic mutation weapons and support powers (Dybbuk-Evolvers, Geneburst and Rahn) are incapable of damaging friendly units, not even by force-attacking them. Before Patch 3.3.0, they could turn friendly units into Brutes, but these mutated Brutes only gave 1 credit when sent into a Grinder.
  • On a similar vein, in the original Yuri's Revenge, a Yuri player could get infinite money with an Industrial Plant, as a Grinder would give money equal to a unit's original cost, even if the Industrial Plant gives a discount. To avoid this, Grinders now only give half the unit's original cost.
  • In Patch 3.3.5, Soviet Tier 2 and Tier 3 infantry were prevented from being sent into a Field Bureau, after an exploit was discovered that allowed the player to send their own infantry (such as Pyros, Tesla Troopers or Desolators) and keep the ability to train them even if the Field Bureau is sold or destroyed.
  • Patch 3.3.4 specifically prevented Drillers from being built in Thread of Dread (Soviet 20) in order to get rid of an Easy Level Trick: capture an Epsilon base, use one or two Tactical Nukes to get rid of Terror Drones and Windbelts, then send a Driller filled with Saboteurs and Engineers to the back of the Foehn base to capture the Mainframe. This forces players to break through the nearly impenetrable Foehn base, with a staggering number of Hammers, Iron Dragons, Sentinels, Flak Cannons, and favourable terrain that will make a frontal assault impossible without huge casualties, as well as four (!) Tactical Nuke Silos that at least prefer to strike the Epsilon enemy over you.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: The loading screen in "Awake and Alive" is distorted. This, together with the uncertain location and the also ominous unique background music, it adds on the fact that your character is being mind-controlled by Epsilon.
• One-Hit Kill:
  • Vehicles the size of an MBT or bigger are capable of crushing infantry, instantly killing them, though that doesn't work on hovering, heavily armoured infantry, cyborgs or heroes. The biggest vehicles (Battle Tortoise, Centurion, Stalin's Fist, Scavenger or M.A.D.M.A.N.) can also crush smaller vehicles and walls, although there are some infantry that are still immune to them.
  • A vehicle hovering over water will instantly sink if frozen or immobilised by EMP.
  • Any infantry units, no matter how much HP they have, are food if attacked by an Attack Dog, Spook, Terror Drone, Duplicant or Chitzkoi. The exception is when a Terror Drone tries to attack Volkov, Chitzkoi, the Cyborg Commando or the Space Commando: it cannot bite them and must resort to its weak claws.
  • When a Duplicant, Tanya or Chitzkoi enters an enemy garrisoned building, all occupants inside are toast.
  • Fly over an active Blasticade, and any aircraft except Harbingers will instantly crash.
  • Charon Tanks instantly kill any unit they can target, no matter how tough.
• One-Man Army: Every hero unit in the game can be this if properly micromanaged (the only exception being Yunru, as she can't damage units). In the campaign, Libra is this to a greater extent. While every baseless mission using heroes is adjusted (e.g. fewer defenses, enemy does not train new units) so that it can be reliably completed, every mission featuring Libra has her going against entire armies and bases on her own. In Reality Check (Epsilon 23), she single-handedly demolishes several Allied bases on her way to the Mental Omega Device. In Hamartia (Allied 24) and Babel (Epsilon 24), her presence deters the Allies from directly attacking the Mental Omega Device, even with the Paradox Engine, especially because her newly-acquired chrono backpack makes her immune to the Time Freeze.
• One-Woman Wail: Epsilon's soundtrack has several examples of this.
• Original Character: None of the mod's characters (except Dugan, Carville, Romanov, Yuri, Tanya, Boris, Volkov and Chitzkoi) appeared in the original games.
• Perspective Flip:
  • The Heavyobject Challenge is like the average match versus AI in Unholy Alliance mode where you just toy with the AI using all kinds of stolen tech and bombard it with support powers and superweapons, except that this time it's you who are on the receiving end.
  • In a first for the campaign, Hamartia (Allied 24) and Babel (Epsilon 24) showcase the same conflict, while playing as each one of the sides involved. Certain events depicted in one of the missions are not shown in the other (e.g. In Hamartia you are told someone sabotaged the Paradox Engine's weapons, which Siegfried assumes was the Proselyte's work. In Babel, you see said sabotaging in action.
• Piggybacking on Stalin: Yuri had no real loyalty to the Soviet Union or its ideologies, he only used them to gain the resources necessary to make an army of his own.
• Player-Exclusive Mechanic: Stolen tech units. While the AI knows how to use spies, they never infiltrate labs and never get to build stolen tech as a result, unless if you're playing in a challenge which allows the AI to build or otherwise use them without having to infiltrate labs.
• Please Select New City Name: After the Soviet conquest of America, the USA is renamed the SSA (Soviet States of America), with its capital at Stalington (formerly Washington, D.C.).
• Power Up Letdown: As like in the vanilla game, sometimes a crate might end up housing a toxic cloud, an explosion that blows up the unit that picked it up, or reshroud your whole map.
• Properly Paranoid: In-story justification for why only a limited number of Chrono Legionnaires is available to the player, and more can't be trained, is the risk of Chrono Backpacks falling into Epsilon's hands. This is exactly what happens when one of them gets mind-controlled, which allows Yuri to equip Libra with a Chrono Backpack in Reality Check (Epsilon 23), rendering her immune to the Time Freeze when she confronts the Paradox Engine in Hamartia [Allied 24). It only goes downhill from there.
• Protection Mission: A staple mission type, and favourite of the series.
  • Allies:
    • Zero Signal (mission 9): capture and protect five Radar Domes from the previous war that maintain contact between the Euro Alliance and Pacific Front.
    • Panic Cycle (11): the second part involves the protection of the Chronosphere and SteinsTech Laboratory.
    • Sunlight (12): the last stand of the Allies in Act I as they protect the Gladius System which shields the UK from a MIDAS attack.
    • Hysteria (18): defend the Bio Reactors captured in the 1st half of the mission.
    • Stormbringer (19) and Relentless (21): the first part of Stormbringer and the second part of Relentless both involve protecting a Weather Control Device.
  • Soviets:
    • Peace Treaty (5): defend the Psychic Beacon deployed in the Busch Stadium until it is activated.
    • Eclipse (Special Op): an optional objective is to bring the Technician to the designated Robot Ops Control Center; when that's done, the Technician must be protected for 150 seconds so he could hack the enemy Future Tanks X-0.
    • Road to Nowhere (9): defend the last (actually, no) Topol-M missile launcher from Allied troops scrambling to destroy it before it is launched at the Chronosphere and SteinsTech Laboratory in the Black Forest.
    • Combustion (Co-op 9): after the Napalm Storage is captured, it must be protected until reinforcements arrive.
    • Unshakeable (11): defend the Kanegawa Industries Assembly and Seismic Stabilizer from the angry Chinese scrambling to keep their involvement with Pacific Front forces a secret.
    • The Raven (13): defend the Pentagon and White House from American rebels.
    • Juggernaut (17): defend the Congress of Singapore as the Russian and Chinese leaders are negotiating a peace treaty from hordes of Epsilon forces.
  • Epsilon:
    • Moonlight (12): capture and protect the rocket launch bays in the Leninsk Cosmodrome.
    • The Cardinal (Co-op 6): the final part involves defending the Psychic Amplifier before it can activate on the enemy forces.
    • Mind Over Matter (Co-op 7): your Psychic Beacons must be protected until you defeat the enemy Latin Confederation attack.
    • Dance of Blood (19): protect the landing pad before Libra can arrive on Earth from space.
    • Machinehead (20): once you capture the four Airbases, you have to protect them from an incoming Foehn attack until you can build the required 16 Foxtrots to strike at the Centurion.
    • Blood Rage (Special Op): the second part involves protecting the Field Bureau for 8 minutes as your Infitrator is preparing a sedative.
    • Nightcrawler (Special Op): after you capture the Psychic Amplifier, it, alongside at least three of five Psychic Beacons, must be protected for 15 minutes until the Amplifier can activate.
    • Unthinkable (22): Yuri's old Chronosphere has to be protected from the invading Allies until the Paradox Engine arrives.
  • Foehn:
    • Nobody Home (1): once Yunru is brought to the Mangla Dam lake, she'll stand there waiting for a transport and has to be defended from pursuing Chinese and PsiCorps forces.
    • Tainted Empire (3): the Adapted Tech Center has to be protected from an incoming Chinese attack once Yunru reaches it.
    • The Remnant (6): The wrecked Paradox Engine must be protected until repairs are completed. Interestingly, the timer here is variable: a 15-minute preparation period, then 4 hours for the actual repairs. Both timers are drastically reduced every time materials are delivered.
• Random Number God: The unit given by a Tech Secret Lab is chosen completely randomly from the tier 3 monster tanks of each subfaction. If you're unlucky, you'll get your own monster tank from it, with the only benefit is that you can build it earlier instead of having to tech up to tier 3; or you get a Catastrophe Tank when playing as Foehn, which can't really take advantage of the Catastrophe's customisability (no Foehn infantry can be put in the Catastrophe and fire out); or you get a Megalodon or Mastodon, but are unable to use them to their full potential due to the lack of Megaarena or Nanocharge. On the other hand, if you, say, get the Catastrophe or Battle Tortoise as Epsilon, you can place Adepts inside them for a truly disgusting combination.
• Rare Candy: The Elite Reserves support power causes all Soviet Tier 1 and suicidal units in a period of time to be created as Elite.
• Rate-Limited Perpetual Resource:
  • Ore drills, which are found in the middle of most ore fields and cannot be destroyed, continuously pump out ore on the ground, though one harvester is usually sufficient to match the speed at which the ore is replenished, so expanding out is still important. Gems give more credits when collected but are never replenished.
  • Tech Oil Derricks and Tech Deposit Banks provide a slow trickle of income to anyone who captures and owns one. The Oil Derrick is by far the most common tech structure in the game (each skirmish map has a minimum number of Oil Derricks equal to the maximum number of allowed players), while the much rarer Deposit Bank provides double the income. Although these structures don't provide a lot of money compared to mining, they can provide a clear economic advantage to players who can capture and protect them, especially in the late game when ore and gems become scarce. In Oil Control mode, where there's no mining, Tech Oil Derricks and Deposit Banks are invulnerable and become the primary source of money. In Bounty Hunt mode, where there's also no mining, they are replaced by Tech Supply Bunkers, which are also invulnerable and generate crates when garrisoned, among which money crates serve to provide income.
  • Each economy booster structure (Allied Ore Purifier, Soviet Industrial Plant, Epsilon Cloning Vats, Foehn Reprocessor) provides the same amount of income as a Tech Oil Derrick, but is expensive and limited to one each per player. The Reprocessor (the only one among the four that provides direct income in addition to the above) generates money when the owner's units kill enemies, and thus cannot run out until the game is won or lost.
• Regenerating Health: All heroes, miners, MCVs, aircraft (except Stallions, Invaders and Draco Drones), artillery ships, Medics, Brutes, Duplicants, Abrams Tanks, Charon Tanks, Hailstorms, Tesla Cruisers, Stalin's Fists, Nuwa Cannons, Drakuvs, Masterminds, Tyrants, Colossi, Bison Tanks, Megalodons, Mastodons, Gharials and stolen tech units, as well as every unit upon reaching elite rank, can automatically regenerate their health over time.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: Act II ends with Epsilon victorious, as they succeed in activating the Mental Omega Device and bringing most of the planet under mind control, except for Yunru's Revolt and the remnants of the Allied Paradox Engine Expeditionary Force, which use the wrecked Paradox Engine to put Point Hope, Alaska out of sync with the rest of the world, shielding them from the effects of the device and protecting them from further physical attacks until they are ready to strike back at Epsilon and hopefully take back the Earth.
• Remixed Level: Mental Omega takes many plot points from the vanilla game and twists them; as a result, quite a few missions in the mod bear more than a passing resemblance to vanilla missions:
  • Some are remade versions of vanilla missions, only harder, and sometimes with additional/modified objectives or twists:
    • From vanilla Red Alert 2, we have: Eagle Fly Free (MO Allied 2) to Eagle Dawn (RA2 Allied 2), Side Effect (MO Soviet 4) to Home Front (RA2 Soviet 4), Beautiful Mind (MO Allied 6) to Last Chance (RA2 Allied 4), Recharger (MO Soviet 6) to City of Lights (RA2 Soviet 5), Road to Nowhere (MO Soviet 9) to Chrono Defense (RA2 Soviet 7) and Panic Cycle (MO Allied 11) to Mirage (RA2 Allied 10).
    • From vanilla Yuri's Revenge, we have Golden Gate (MO Soviet 2) to Time Shift (YR Soviet 1), Neuromancers (MO Epsilon Co-op 11) to Tomb Raided (YR Allied 4) and Earthrise (MO Soviet 22) to To the Moon (YR Soviet 6).
    • From the previous 2.0 version of the mod, there are: Singularity (3.0 Epsilon 10) to Duality (2.0 Epsilon 6), Paranoia (3.3 Allied 20) to Paranoiac (2.0 Allied 3), Backbitten (3.3 Epsilon Co-op 12) to Jealousy (2.0 Epsilon 6) and Withershins (3.3 Allied 23) to Scarlet Twilight (2.0 Allied 9).
    • From other Command & Conquer games, there are: Combustion (Soviet Co-op 9) to Jarmen Kell and the Forty Thieves (ZH GLA 4) (its pre-release name was 'Morales and the Forty Thieves'); Obstinate (Allied Special Op) to The Shark and the Lure (RA3 Allied 2); and the Heavyobject Challenge to the Boss General's Challenge in Zero Hour.
  • Others are nearly identical to vanilla ones in terms of objectives and layout... except that this time the roles are reversed between you and the enemy: Bleed Red (MO Soviet 1) to Lone Guardian (RA2 Allied 1), Red Dawn Rising (MO Allied 1) to Red Dawn (RA2 Soviet 1), Bad Apple (MO Allied 5) to Big Apple (RA2 Soviet 3), Peace Treaty (MO Soviet 5) to Free Gateway (RA2 Allied 8), Death From Above (MO Soviet 8) to Deep Sea (RA2 Allied 7), The Raven (MO Soviet 13) to Liberty (RA2 Allied 6), Dance of Blood (MO Epsilon 19) to Escape Velocity (YR Soviet 5) and Stormbringer (MO Allied 19) to Weathered Alliance (RA2 Soviet 10).
• The Remnant: The Foehn Revolt is composed of Pacific Front, Chinese, Scorpion Cell defectors, and recently European and American remnants combining their tech together with Yunru's unique technologies she initially designed for China to be independent of the Soviet tech base, to create a brand-new fourth faction. Foehn's 6th mission is even named after this Trope.
• Resource-Gathering Mission:
  • In the first part of Scrapyard (Epsilon 3), Rashidi tasks the Proselyte to gather 10,000 credits by capturing Oil Derricks.
  • The primary objective of the Allied Special Op mission Fullmetal is to accumulate 250,000 credits (which is easier than the alternate way to complete the mission, which is to defeat all enemies).
• Retcon:
  • In version 3.0 Epsilon had access to chaos gas technology in the form of the Dream Weaver and Deviator. In version 3.3, the Dream Weaver got repurposed into the Bloatick, and all mentions of chaos gas tech were removed and replaced by the confusion ray, one of the weapons of the newly-introduced Foehn Revolt, with the Deviator being repurposed into the Foehn Irritator.
  • Previously, Epsilon had access to plasma-based weaponry, which was used by Basilisks and Colossi. During development of version 3.3.5, they were replaced by psychic-based weapons instead. Otherwise, their function remains the same.
  • The rebel forces in Tibet (where two Act I missions take place) were originally called ROC Rebels (remnants of the nationalists who lost the Chinese Civil War). In version 3.3.5, they were changed to Tibetan separatists, which, for the time it takes place (1982), make a lot more sense.
• Rule of Symbolism: The last hope humanity has to avoid permanent mind control for all time is the Foehn Revolt's last stand against Epsilon, on a military base at Point Hope, Alaska.
• Running Gag: During Act Two, it's often seen that Epsilon keeps placing barrels near every important building they have, allowing enemies to make their bases explode like firecrackers in a few shots. It leads to the Allies wondering if they even know how to store barrels.^note Not that the Allies themselves or the Soviets are much better It reaches its conclusion in Withershins (Allied 23) when the Allies realize the Epsilon seems to have learned to not put barrels all around their base.
• Schizophrenic Difficulty: The difficulty levels of each campaign mission vary wildly with no way of knowing which ones are the hardest until you've already played through the game or asked someone who have done so.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: Thanks to Libra's power, the Mental Omega Device can mind control cyborgs (except for Chitzkoi), which were valued by the Soviets because they could avoid such effects.
• Sequential Boss: Reality Check (Epsilon 23) culminates in Libra facing Norio (who's much stronger than usually) in climatic battle with several stages. At first, he fights alongside Rocketeers. Then he sends them away, but starts calling for regular Cryospears and Hunter-Seekers to wipe out Libra. Then he adds regular Lightning Storms (yes, plural) and Mercury Strikes into the mix, forcing Libra to constantly be on the move.
• Shout-Out:
  • One billboard in Heaven and Hell (Allied 4) alternates between showing CATS and "All Your Base Are Belong to Us".
  • Another billboard in Sunlight (Allied 12) advertises the website of one Stuart Ashen.
  • After the Paradox Engine arrives at the Isles of Scilly in Bottleneck (Allied 17), a squad of Harriers scouts enemy positions, and you are treated to this line:
  The path is now revealed. Many Harrier pilots died to bring us this information.
  • Revolution Challenge: both the map design and the speech offered by the enemy commander at the beginning resemble the ones from the mission In Utter Darkness in Starcraft II Wings Of Liberty.
  • Some of the maps are named after Stands and arcs of Jojos Bizarre Adventure, including Crazy Diamond, Stone Ocean, Battle Tendency and Stardust Crusaders, there's a road roller that looks like the one DIO smashed Jotaro with, and the Foehn Revolt has a support power called Golden Wind.
  • Units often quote song lyrics:
  Stormchild Pilot: Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening.
  Yunru: Here I go again… on my own.
• Siege Engines: There's at least one land unit per subfaction except Last Bastion^*Athena Cannon, Prism Tank, Hailstorm, Scud Launcher, Buratino, Centurion, Magnetron, Plague Splatter, Stalker, Shadray Sonic Tank, Tarchia Cannon and one ship per faction^*Aircraft Carrier, Battleship, Dreadnought, Akula Sub, Resheph, Leviathan that outrange base defences and are good against buildings. Each faction also has an anti-structure aircraft^*Barracuda, Kirov, Basilisk, Quetzal although out of these four, only the Quetzal actually outranges anti-air defences (and even then, it attacks using a targeting drone that must fly directly over the targeted structure, during which it is extremely vulnerable).
• Skewed Priorities: A certain enemy Borillo in "The Cardinal" is spinning around during the entire mission. Even if you are attacking it (and therefore will only attack you when it's facing one of your units).
• SNK Boss: The "Challenge" maps feature the human player in 2v3 skirmish battles against the AI (whereas the player can be partnered with the AI or another human player). The enemy AI, however, has several tricks in its sleeve, such as Tech Nuclear Plants on start, to give the enemy team an unfair advantage against the player team:
  • Freedom: The enemy can use constant Paradrops containing Tier 1 and 2 vehicles. Mercury Strikes are also frequent, and enemy Athena Cannons have a permanent firepower boost.
  • Timekiller: Enemy infantry and vehicles move drastically faster and will do much more damage.
  • Regenbogen: Random weather effects that all harm the player team in some way or form, such as sending up to 30 Hunter-Seekers at their base, or applying a Supressor effect on almost all their units. Also, Hailstorms and Black Eagles slow down the target on hit.
  • Battlecity: A small group of Super Apocalypse Tanks^note Robotic, amphibious Apocalypse Tanks with 7.5 times their health is sent to the player team every few minutes. Also, there are six Stalin's Fists and some regular Apocalypse Tanks, all Tesla Cruisers and Volkov are under a permanent Overcharge and each shell fired by Rhino Tanks are tesla-enhanced.
  • Moltencore: The enemy occasionally Paradrops Syckles into the player team bases. Mortar Quads and Desperate Drivers make the ground catch fire, and the Motor Ambush support power also spawns Pyros. Also, Catastrophe Tanks are built with a free Desolator inside.
  • Ironwall: Enemy defenses are ocassionally made invulnerable (the effect only stops happening after all the old Iron Curtains are destroyed). Qilin Tanks, Nuwa Cannons, Sentinels and Armadillos give a short invulnerability effect on friendly vehicles when destroyed. The enemies have access to Cyborg Vanguards, Iron Dragons, and a special Centurion Siege Crawler with a black coat, increased health and range for its loaded Eradicators.
  • Purgatory: Enemy Lasher Tanks and Masterminds are amphibious. The enemy has a "Mind Control Impulse" support power that can mind-control miners, robots and animal unit. Yuri himself occasionally appears, with a permanent defense boost and the ability to permanently mind-control units and buildings. Also, each enemy base has a Dybbuk Hive that is only disabled when the enemy player is defeated.
  • Contagion: The players have their Hospital and Machine Shop destroyed by Bloaticks before they can build anything. Toxic tunnels are present near the players' Construction Yards, and constantly create poison clouds. Speeder Trikes leave poison on a hit, and barrels create poison clouds when destroyed. Also, special Toxic Invaders patrol the map, that infect units that are hit by them, making them create poison clouds on their position until destroyed. The central enemy base has three Cloning Vats, and is guarded by Rashidi.
  • Ascension: All enemy infantry has a permanent defense boost. Occasionally, a "Golden Armada" composed of an Irkalla (with increased health), Basilisks and Salamanders will assault the player bases. Also, each of the enemy bases hase two Cloning Vats.
  • Madness: Enemy Cyclops Walkers, Megalodons and M.A.D.M.A.N. have increased health and a permanent Megaarena. Occasionally, two M.A.D.M.E.N. will spawn at the same time.
  • Firestorm: The enemy bases are protected by a Blasticade that does not require a Blast Furnace to activate, and creates a Great Tempest in the center of the map when active. All enemy aircraft has a Quetzal Shield effect, and can get past their own Blasticade. Tornadoes protect the entrances of each enemy base. Also, the enemy can use Knightfall anywhere on the map, and starts with a Harbinger Tower each.
  • Ouroboros: The enemy bases have several Plasmerizers and Boidmachines.
  • Aberration: The enemy bases start on random locations. Your tech level changes constantly, locking and unlocking higher tier units. The enemies have access to Chrono Prisons, and a unique support powers that sends Lionheart Bombers.
  • Revolution: A parade of Soviet units with Elite-level weapons is in the players' way to the enemy bases, which are also guarded by stolen tech units. The enemy sends several campaign-exclusive units, such as a Topol-M, Cyborg Vanguards, Reznov and Krukov, to attack the players, as well as Kirov Command Airships that drop mini-nukes.
  • Deception: The enemy is permanently cloaked (buildings included).
  • Endurance: All enemy units are under a permanent Nanocharge effect. All enemy buildings are under a permanent Nanocoat Regulator effect. Also, each enemy base has two Reprocessors.
  • Heavyobject: The enemy can produce all stolen tech units, as well as the Cyborg Commando, and their bases are protected by campaign-exclusive buildings such as the Eiffel Tower.
  • Watercube: The players have greatly restricted building space. Also, the enemies have occasional Epsilon unit reinforcements.
  • Superweapon: Each enemy base has one of each offensive superweapon, as well as two Nanocoat Regulators and a Tech Maintenance Center.
  • Heroslayer: Every once in a while, the enemies will send waves of every hero unit that is available in Skirmish, as well as Reznov and Krukov. More copies of these hero units patrol the outskirts of each base. Also, each enemy has Psychic Towers, two Tech Hospitals and a Tech Academy.
  • Gladiator: For each player, one type of unit (or base defenses) will get randomly jammed once in a while. Enemy bases are protected by several Signal Inhibitors, Nanocoat Regulators, Apocalypse Tanks, Seitaad Ballistae and Salamanders.
  • Judgement: The player's Tech Hospital and Tech Machine Shop are destroyed by a Missile Strike when the map starts. There are six stones in the map. If the enemies get them, half of your forces are destroyed, but if you pick them, the enemy's units are all destroyed.
• Snow Means Death: In Reality Check (Epsilon 23), when Libra kills Norio, the snowfall starts.
• Stealth-Based Mission:
  • Television Lies (Epsilon Co-op 1). Each player has a PsiCorps Trooper, and must not reveal their presence to the Allies lest the mission be compromised.
  • Peacekeeper (Epsilon 1), technically. A large part of the mission consists of leading a mind-controlled Spy into the enemy Missile Silos. In practice it's usually a better idea to mind control some Abrams Tanks to bulldoze a way to the Silos, since otherwise you aren't getting through the dogs.
  • The Gardener (Allied 10). You have a Technician transported by a Tsurugi, and you must make your way through a city while avoiding Chinese Qilin Tanks and Nuwa Cannons that will curb stomp the Tsurugi with zero effort if they see you.^*That said, one KI Scientist equips the Tsurugi with a potent anti-tank weapon, and a Guardian GI can be rescued from a mining base, both of which can be used to fight off Qilin tanks. Just don't try to fight the Nuwas.
  • The Conqueror (Epsilon 13), the first part. Your invisible Shadow Tanks must sneak through the city of Moscow, past Soviet forces, avoiding Tesla Troopers and Borillos in the process, to the Nuclear Reactors next to which barrels have been planted, to destroy them and let your main army arrive.
  • Survivors (Epsilon Special Op). You're playing as a rogue group of Scorpion Cell fighters who remain free from Yuri's mind control and are infiltrating another group who have already been enslaved, but who do not suspect you. If you do any of the following: having any of your unit enter a Mind Reader's radius (with the exception of Malver, as Mind Readers cannot detect cloaked units), approaching the PsiCorps base, attacking a brainwashed Scorpion Cell unit, or capturing any building that belongs to them or the Allies, you'll be detected. Because of the mission objectives you will have to be detected sooner or later, but doing so while not ready to fight off the Epsilon loyalists is suicide.
• Strategic Asset Capture Mechanic: The tech building mechanic (structures that cannot be built but are instead pre-placed on the map and can be captured by Engineers) is expanded from the vanilla game, with the addition of buildings that provide full map reveal, initial veterancy, support powers and free units as well as defensive structures which, unlike standard ones, can be captured and do not attack until an Engineer does so. Unlike in vanilla Red Alert 2, tech buildings do not provide build radius around themselves as a rule, except the Tech Base Expansion Post (which exists explicitly for this purpose). The King of the Hill skirmish game mode revolves around a Psychic Beacon, a special neutral building which is always located at the exact centre of the map, cannot take any damage, provide passive HP regeneration for all of the owner's units, and will end the game in victory for any player that manages to hold on to it for 20 minutes straight.
• Suicide Attack: In the 11th Soviet mission Unshakeable, once you discover that China is secretly allied with Pacific Front and plotting against you, the Chinese will first start to sabotage the Seismic Stabilizer from inside and later open fire on the Stabilizer itself, even if its destruction would lead to an earthquake that will bury the surrounding area with them inside it.
• Suicide Mission: Operation: Road to Nowhere (Soviet mission 9) is this from the Allies' point of view: they are using the unstable Chronosphere to send troops into Western Siberia in an attempt to destroy the last two MIDAS rockets stationed there, and every single European soldier sent to the middle of Russia during this mission is aware that they'll never survive to return home.
• Suspicious Videogame Generosity: In the 17th Soviet mission Juggernaut, the whole map is revealed from the beginning and you are given 15 minutes to prepare your defences. And you are going to need them, since you are surrounded and the enemy is relentless in their attacks.
• Tactical Superweapon Unit: Epic Units are units specific to certain subfactions that boast massive firepower, are heavily armored, and self-repair, requiring heavy focus-fire to destroy. As noted under Contractual Boss Immunity, they are also immune against most effects such as mind control and hijacking. Only one can be built at a time, they require tier 3 technology, they take a lot of time to build, and are very expensive. Not all subfactions have an epic unit; notably, the Allies don't have even one.
  • China: The Centurion Siege Crawler. A massive walking artillery outranging every static defense except the Last Bastion's Plasmerizer. It chews apart defenses and buildings for breakfast, and it is armed with missile batteries to shoot down enemy aircraft. It can also carry up to three passengers who can shoot at enemies from inside the Centurion.
  • Epsilon HQ: The Aerial Fortress Irkalla. A gigantic flying UFO armed with six dissolver beams and three "supernova" cannons. It does poorly against buildings, but takes out groups of units quickly. It can target both ground and air forces, and is excellent at establishing territorial control, or otherwise used as a defensive weapon. Its biggest weakness is that it moves slowly, and since it is an air unit, it cannot be repaired.
  • Haihead: The M.A.D.M.A.N., short for Mutually Assured Destruction Mechanized Area Nullifer. A bomb truck on steroids, it is unconventional in that it lacks any weapons on its own. However, when it self-destructs it can take out an entire base and is the equivalent of multiple superweapons striking at once. Once it starts the self-destruct sequence, it cannot be stopped, even if the M.A.D.M.A.N. is destroyed.
  • Wings of Coronia: The Harbinger. A large plane dropping plasma bombs on an area. It is deployed from the Harbinger Tower and can take out a chunk of a base in a few hits, while its bombing runs lasts an absurdly long time. The player cannot control the Harbinger, so it cannot avoid defenses nor change targets.
  • Last Bastion: The Boidmachine. The only epic unit that doesn't confront opponents directly, it starts charging once deployed into a stationary artillery. Once fully charged, the player can shoot a massive plasma bomb at an area, taking out almost any vehicle caught in the blast. Additionally, it can quickly set down M.A.D. Mines which are invisible and just as deadly to vehicles, effectively setting traps on routes or even ambushing tank blobs. Its range covers as much as half the map depending on its position.
• Tank Goodness: Being a Command & Conquer Game Mod, it is inevitable. Mental Omega features a colourful group of Main Battle Tanks (one per subfaction) including but not limited to tanks that fire flashbangs^note USA's Bulldog Tank, hover tanks^note Pacific Front's Kappa Tank and tanks with independent drones instead of turrets^note Wings of Coronia's Draco Tank. Furthermore, each subfaction has heavy late-game vehicles that are often called "monster tanks" although five of them aren't actually tanks (Pacific Front's Battle Tortoise is a massive IFV with firing ports for infantry inside, the Chinese Nuwa Cannon is a massive cannon on tracks, the PsiCorps's Mastermind is a massive brain on wheels, Hailhead's Megalodon is a walker and the Wings of Coronia's Pteranodon is an aircraft).
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • The Allied sub-factions surprisingly enough don't like each other at all, the USA despising the Euro Alliance and the Pacific Front nations for abandoning America when it was invaded. Both the Euro Alliance and the Pacific Front in turn see nothing wrong with stealing America's laser technology which they later use to build the Gladius Anti-Ballistic Missile System which ends up saving the remaining Allied forces in the UK, and Mercury Weapon Satellite because at that point they viewed America as defeated no matter what. Made even more pressing in the final Allied mission of Act 1, where the combined remnants of the American and European forces make a last stand in the British Isles.
  • The Soviets aren't as united against their capitalist enemies as they may seem. Towards the end of the story, the People's Republic of China and the USSR go to war as China attempts to gain the upper hand over the Russians. Even the Latin Confederation, otherwise loyal to the Russians, uses Epsilon's conquest of Moscow as an opportunity to take over Western Europe rather than coming to Russia's aid.
• Teleport Spam: In Reality Check (Epsilon 23), when Libra attacks the last Allied base, its commander appears on the battlefield personally, equipped with a Chrono Backpack. Rather than confronting Libra, they teleport around, making it hard for Libra to attack. Fortunately, Libra has a Chrono Backpack on her own at this point.
• Tempting Fate: In the 22nd Epsilon mission Unthinkable, at the beginning, you'll be told that the outermost part of Epsilon HQ, which is built on concrete slabs, should last long enough. Then the Allies attack and they waste no time taking advantage of the numerous explosive barrels in that area to blow up the base in less than a minute.
• Theme Naming:
  • All missions from Act 1 are named by existing songs.
  • The Allied Act 2 missions show a theme in their naming, leading to going insane and the eventual defeat. First they get Stone Cold Crazy, Hysteria, then Paranoia, then Insomnia, Withershins and finally Hamartia, which means the fatal flaw that leads to a tragic hero's downfall.
• Time-Limit Boss: In Reality Check (Epsilon 23), unless the mission is played on Casual, you have limited time to kill the Allied Commander on the last base before he gets extracted by the Paradox Engine. He doesn't attack, but uses Teleport Spam to protect himself, while Libra keeps being attacked by the constant reinforcements.
• Timed Mission:
  • The following missions simply have a timer, and you are not allowed to let it run out, or you lose: Peacekeeper (Epsilon 1, Normal and Mental difficulties only), Beautiful Mind (Allied 6), Fallen Ashes (Epsilon Special Op), Firewalking (Soviet 16), Noise Severe (Soviet Special Op), Paranoia (Allied 20), Gridlock (Allied Special Op), Dawnbreaker (Soviet Special Op), Brothers in Arms (Soviet Special Op), Fatal Impact (Soviet 23) and Kill the Messenger (Foehn 2). Puppet Master (Allied 14) will become this if you let your Psychic Beacon get destroyed.
  • In Think Different (Epsilon 7), once you capture the Chinese Construction Yard, you have 80 minutes to achieve your objectives before the main Chinese army arrives. If the timer runs out, you won't lose just yet, but defeat is inevitable.
  • In Unshakeable (Soviet 11), as long as you discover the collusion between China and the Pacific Front, the Chinese will activate the self-destruction sequence of the Seismic Stabilizer, which must not be destroyed. No timer is displayed to you, but if you can't secure the Stabilizer before the self-destruction completes, then be prepared to restart.
  • In Moonlight (Epsilon 12), after 120 minutes, Russian reinforcements will come after you. You can still complete your objectives and beat the mission after that, though you'll obviously have to defend yourselves against the massive Russian army as well.
  • After you destroy the Nuclear Reactors in The Conqueror (Epsilon 13), the Russians will start to evacuate their Topol-Ms away. Your objective is to mind control all of them with Adepts before any one of them can escape, so you can't take your time here.
  • In The Mermaid (Allied 13), shortly after Tanya's laser rifle gets recharged, you have 15 minutes to evacuate both her and Siegfried before Russian Wolfhounds arrive to hunt them down (and neither of them can fire on aircraft; that being said, you can still win if you're very close to doing so already).
  • Stone Cold Crazy (Allied 15) involves intercepting all ten of Epsilon's Kamaz trucks before they can escape; needless to say, as soon as a Kamaz arrives, you need to hurry to destroy it.
  • 25 minutes after Bottleneck (Allied 17) begins, the Paradox Engine will arrive and before that, you are given a squad of Chrono Legionnaires to erase all the Gehenna Platforms and assorted Epsilon AA defences around the Isles of Scilly to clear the way for the Paradox Engine. As soon as it arrives, any Gehenna Platforms still alive will focus their firepower on it and eventually bring it down, so if you hadn't managed to erase all the Gehennas during the first 25 minutes, you have to quickly search for them and destroy them before the Paradox Engine is destroyed and you look at the defeat screen.
  • In Meltdown (Soviet 21), the enemy has a Psychic Dominator which can only be destroyed after you have destroyed or captured their the Iron Curtain and secured the Aerial Fortress Irkalla; while you lack access to a Construction Yard. If you don't hurry, the Psychic Dominator will eventually destroy your makeshift base.
  • Some time after Death's Hand (Soviet 24) begins, Yuri will unleash two Hands of Ereshkigal, which are invincible, can only be temporarily disabled by infiltrating a Psionic Converter, and will eventually destroy your allies' bases and then your own, meaning that you can't take your time despite the lack of an official timer.
  • In Babel (Epsilon 24), the Allies will set their Weather Control Devices to deep charge to strike the Mental Omega Device from afar. If the player does not destroy all weather controllers before they are fully charged, the Mental Omega Device will be destroyed.
  • The Remnant (Foehn 6) has a soft time limit in the Mental Omega Device's second wave, as its effect begins to mind control anything it can get its hands on - buildings, robots, air units... eventually nothing will escape the device's effect, but the effect isn't globally instantaneous. When it's triggered, you only have a limited amount of time until your own mind-controlled forces steamroll over the Paradox Engine.
• Time Stands Still: The Paradox Engine's defining trait is the ability to freeze time in a massive area around itself — along with anything hostile caught in the field.
• Tipis and Totem Poles: Allied mission 17 (Bottleneck) features a totem pole which you can destroy as part of an Easter Egg, which will cause the EVA to call you out for wasting your time with 'totem gods' (in the UK, of all places). It does, however, trigger an Easter Egg that gives you an Armor crate and an Elite Dreadnought.
• Trial-and-Error Gameplay: Singularity is a mission where there's one specific way to win and dozens more to lose. If you don't follow a series of very specific steps, don't expect to complete this mission. Babel's penultimate stage works on a similar principle, although it's way more lenient in that only one Infiltrator has to survive.
• Units Not to Scale: Downplayed. While nowhere near the realistic scale compared to Tiberium Wars, infantry units are now noticeably smaller compared to their vanilla counterparts and vehicles are now slightly scaled up, making them akin to Metal Slug in terms of unit scaling.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Two final Epsilon missions, Reality Check and Babel, have some major shift in their gameplay:
  • Reality Check has the player controlling only Libra, who must navigate though maze-like map while being constantly pursued by the enemy, and slowly upgrading her powers and unlocking special abilities. The second phase of the mission has her obtaining the Chrono Backpack and adds Teleport Spam to avoid the Chrono Legionnaires into the mix. And then the mission culminates into multi-stage boss battle against Norio. Levels like this rarely comes in strategies, let alone in Red Alert.
  • Babel starts relatively normally, but one of the last objectives involves traveling through Paradox Engine using up to three Infiltrators, depending on what you did in the previous stage, while solving various puzzles and avoiding dogs and robot tanks.
  • Reality Check and Time Capsule have Easter Eggs involving a Stalker Commando that briefly change the gameplay. For Reality Check, for instance, he puts Libra in a Bullet Hell-like minigame.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable:
  • The first objective of "Recharger" (Soviet 6) has you take Volkov to the Eiffel Tower to destroy a heavily-defended outpost, until the tower gets destroyed by a Mercury Strike. With multiple Snipers watching over the bridges, it is meant to discourage the player in trying to break through. It is not impossible to break through, however, and destroying the outpost without charging the Eiffel Tower is possible. However, doing so will make the mission softlock when you try to have Volkov charge the Tower, as the Mercury Strike that would destroy it never occurs.
  • The first objective of "Ghost Hunt" (Allied 15) involves capturing an abandoned Allied MCV with your only Engineer to then build a base. There are two defeat conditions at this stage: your Engineer getting killed, or the MCV being destroyed. However, there's no defeat condition in case you use your Engineer to capture one of the many abandoned US vehicles on the map. The mission goes on like nothing happened, but you cannot progress any further.
• Universal Driver's License: Hijackers, Huntresses, Engineers and Ivan Cadets can drive every vehicle if they can get inside them.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: The Allied Super Thors, Soviet Black Centurion Siege Crawlers and Epsilon Hands of Ereshkigal are only present as special 'boss' enemy units in challenges and missions; you never get to use them whether in skirmish nor in the respective factions' campaign.
• Veteran Unit: Combat units can gain experience by killing foes and get promoted once the total cost of their kills exceed 4.5 (for Veteran rank) and 9 (for Elite rank) times their own. When a mind controlled or spawned unit kills an enemy, 75% of the gained experience would also be given to the the mind controller or spawner.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The Chinese Hero Yunru is described as a girl prodigy scientist as militarily valuable as Einstein. The name Yunru is a mix of real name and Internet pseudonym of a student of the Class of Gifted Young of University of Science and Technology of China, which is exactly a class for scientific prodigies (only those under 16 can join). Needless to say, the intelligence of and resource for her in Mental Omega is greatly exaggerated (nor is USTC a military university).
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: In the 14th Epsilon mission Huehuecoyotl, you can find random civilians standing about ignoring the mayhem going on. Why not put them to use by having Rahn turn them into Brutes, draft them into your brute army and throw them against the enemy?
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment:
  • In the 13th Allied mission The Mermaid, you have the option to destroy iconic Varsovian landmarks like the the Sejm buildings or Ujazdów Castle if you so desire. The Soviets will respond in kind by sending Wolfhounds against you (for the record, none of your units can hurt anything in the air).
  • In the Epsilon mission The Conqueror, if you attempt to destroy any structures around Moscow (Besides the Nuclear Reactors) during the first part of the mission will alert the Soviets, that results in Premier Romanov being evacuated early after 2 minutes. However, you can still kill every enemy unit during the first part but not while you playing in Mental difficulty.
• Violation of Common Sense: In the Foehn mission Kill the Messenger, the PsiCorps Psychic Beacon gives you a time limit before your forces get mind controlled, but VOLKNET nevertheless advises against destroying it and simply focus on your objective of securing the Ironwing. And you should heed that advice: destroying the Beacon (which is no easier than completing the main objective) will remove the time limit, but PsiCorps will get angry and call for a massive wave of reinforcements, and their initial target is nothing other than your own base, making it not worth it.
• Washington D.C. Invasion: The very first Allied mission tasks you with defending Washington D.C. from the Russians. The first Soviet Act II mission reverses the roles, with you being the Russian occupiers of the city and the enemy being American rebels.
• Weaponized Landmark: The sixth Soviet mission has Volkov attempting to turn the Eiffel Tower into a giant Tesla coil; unlike what happened in the vanilla game, this doesn't last long.
• Weapon of Mass Destruction: The offensive superweapons of each faction: the Soviets have a simple nuke, the Allies and Foehn use Weather Control Machines to create storms, and Epsilon uses the Psychic Dominator to create a massive, destructive psychic blast. In the campaign, the Soviets use the MIDAS strategic nukes, whose capacity for destruction far exceeds that of normal nukes and can be witnessed firsthand by you in missions like Beautiful Mind and Thread of Dread.
• Weather-Control Machine: Four examples:
  • The Allied Weather Controller, obviously; it creates a massive, highly damaging lightning storm over a given area when activated.
  • The Euro Alliance Thor Gunship, which utilizes a miniaturized Weather Controller to precisely direct lightning strikes.
  • Also from the Euro Alliance, the Lightning Rod; it serves as a temporary "beacon" that attracts lightning strikes, which it uses to boost the player's power generation and the attack capabilities of any nearby Thor Gunships, and can be used in conjuction with the Weather Controller to increase the odds for the Lightning Storm to damage a the same area.
  • And last, but not least, the Foehn Tempest Architect; when activated, it unleashes the Great Tempest, a massive windstorm that is even more damaging than an Allied Lightning Storm.
• We Have Reserves: In the end of Fatal Impact (Soviet 23), Soviets bombard the outskirts of Moscow with multiple nuclear missiles from the orbit, obliterating all forces dispatched in the area, including their own, without even bothering to order them retreat.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: With only two exceptions where the Soviets don't have much time to act, they aren't particularly concerned when Chitzkoi dies. "We can rebuild Chitzkoi. We have the technology."
• What the Hell, Hero?: In the 13th Allied mission The Mermaid (in which you play as Siegfried trying to rescue Tanya from a prison in Warsaw), if you decide to destroy the Ujazdowski Mansion or the Sejm buildings, the EVA will call you out on alerting the Soviets of your presence in the city (who will proceed to send Wolfhounds against you).
• Wham Episode:
  • Soviet Act Two, Mission One, The Raven. After a grueling defense of Stalington, fighting off wave after wave of Allied assaults, you finally get reinforcements and it seems like you can finally take the fight back to the Allies. Then the camera cuts to your main base where a raven flies overhead, you lose radar, your Iron Curtain turns purple instead of Soviet Red, and Yuri (or one of his adepts) begins to Mind Control you. Epsilon have made their move, and the next mission, Awake and Alive hammers it home that the war is most definitely not over.
  • Epsilon's counterpart mission, The Conqueror, also qualifies (especially because YOU get to trigger the Wham): as the Soviets celebrate their Act One victory over the allies with a huge, annual victory parade, you - as Epsilon - have to sneak units through the city, cutting off power before launching a massive assault while the city devolves into chaos. This is how Yuri makes his grand appearance, and it's even more epic since YOU'RE the one who pulls the trigger to make it happen.
• Wham Shot: The Time Machine, briefly present in a cutscene in Reality Check (Epsilon 23) and in an Easter Egg in Hamartia (Allied 24), completely throws Yuri's background (and supposed divination abilities) into question.
• Wind Is Green: The Foehn Revolt's main gimmick is their ability to manipulate wind and their faction color is a dark turquoise shade of green.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Once the Soviets figure out Yuri's betrayal he decides to end the pretense and attack them with his new army directly.
• You Have Researched Breathing: Infiltrating a Pandora Hub with Epsilon gives you the Dybbuk-Seizer... Which is just a Dybbuk with three Adepts inside it. Even the unit description lampshades how ridiculous it is that you have to go through all that trouble for such a simple design.
• You Require More Vespene Gas: Credits (needed to build all units and buildings or use most support powers) would be gold. Power is, well, power: it is produced by power plants and required by many buildings; having power demand exceed power supply would result in production speed being cut in half, most base defences malfunctioning and support power cooldowns being put on hold. Population is exclusively used by jet aircraft: you can only have at most 4 jets per airfield in your possession.
• Xanatos Gambit: Yuri always plans for every contingency and has a back up plan for any situation, he wanted to steal Soviet technology, but the Soviets wised up and restricted Yuri's access to their technologies once their prototypes started missing, so he mind controlled Allied spies to steal the Soviet tech for him anyway (in the process shifting Soviet suspicion from himself to the Allies), later when the Russians started suspecting him for real, he tried to earn back their trust by saving their last MIDAS bomb, but when that didn't work he decided to just end their alliance and attack them directly as he has already gotten what he needed from them.
  • The Soviets also pull a smaller one against the US forces, their plan is to build several Psychic Beacons in major US cities and then expand their influence to cover the entire continent using a Psychic Amplifier they've built in Chicago, the plan can go either one of two ways, either the Americans commit most of their remaining forces to destroy the Amplifier but fail and it activates, securing the entire continent for the Soviets, or they succeed in destroying the Amplifier in which case the Soviets detonate a MIDAS bomb in the city, wipe out most of the remaining US forces and make victory through conventional means all but inevitable.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: The Allies and Epsilon start playing a mean game during the Act II missions. To sum it up: Yuri attempts to seize the London Fortress by constructing a Psychic Amplifier in Rome (The Cardinal), and the Allies counter him by chronoshifting a strike team into Rome and successfully destroying said Amplifier (Puppet Master). Yuri pulls a fast one on the Allies by building another Amplifier in Morocco to draw the Allies' attention away (Ghost Hunt) from a Soviet salvage operation in Germany which is attempting to dismantle an old Chronosphere, seizing the Chronosphere (Divergence) and using it to Chronoshift the Aerial Fortress Irkalla into London to destroy the SteinsTech Hangar there and drive the Allies out of the conflict entirely (Godsend). The allies countered by prematurely deploying the Paradox Engine and destroying his taskforce, only for Yuri to then block their escape by setting an ambush for the Paradox Engine in the Isles of Scilly (Bottleneck). The Allies neutralize the ambush with the newly trained Chrono-legion and EVEN recharge the Paradox Engine using YURI's Bio-reactors on Tenerife (Hysteria). Yuri is forced to bring his trump card Libra earlier than expected (Dance of Blood). Later, Yuri then threatens the Pacific Front's newly-developed Weather Controller with brainwashed Russians (Stormbringer), and then ups the ante with a Psychic Amplifier + 2 Tactical Nukes (Paranoia), only for the Allies to neutralize BOTH threats. Yuri manages to destroy the Paradox Engine's spare battery (Backbitten). Following the conquest of one of Yuri's strategic locations + major comms junction (Relentless), the Allies find Yuri's base in Antarctica and begin to make their way to the Epsilon Headquarters (Insomnia). As the Allies charge deeper into Antarctica, Yuri goes into the Old Chronosphere to complete one final project before the Allies can reach him (Unthinkable). It is only later that the consequences of this event are revealed to be far greater than anyone realized: Yuri successfully reverse-engineered a stolen chrono backpack (Reality Check) for Libra to use, which allows her to No-Sell the Paradox Engine's signature Time Freeze.
  • Arguably, the entirety of the final Allied (Hamartia) and Epsilon missions (Babel) are one big game of Xanatos Speed Chess.Yuri proves better at the game and wins.
    • The Allies destroy all the Mental Dynamos which generate a forcefield on the Mental Omega Device, only for the forcefield to remain powered (Withershins). They realize that there is one Dynamo hidden underground, and are forced to send in Tanya and Siegfried to destroy it.
    • The above buys time for Libra to arrive at the Mental Omega Device and wipe out one-third of the Allies' forces, while also wrecking every Allied backup base on her way there.
    • Libra clears a path to the Device and eventually is ready to activate the Device and place the whole world under mind control. The Allies use the Paradox Engine's Time Freeze to stop the activation. As mentioned above, Libra is unaffected and successfully defends the Tower, but the Allies manage to buy time to rethink their strategy.
    • The Allies have to wait for the Engine to recharge (impliedly, this is also a consequence of having their spare battery be destroyed in Backbitten), and turn to Plan B: set their Weather Control Devices to deep charge to strike the Tower with storms. The Epsilon manage to destroy the Devices with a combination of Libra and mind-controlled Soviet reinforcements. In response, the Allies clear out an elevated platform and regroup there while recharging the Engine for a final strike.
    • What the Allies did not know, is that during all the chaos of Allied bases falling one by one, the Epsilon have already sent Infiltrators inside the Allied Conyards, allowing the Epsilon to sneak spies onto the Engine and disable the Engine's prism cannons. By the time the Engine is fully charged, it has no weapons but its Time Freeze systems, and thus has no firepower to push through the Epsilon's defense and Libra.
    • The speed chess is so strong here that the only thing that undermined Yuri's efforts is a Spanner in the Works: neither side appears to have accounted for and even expected that a third party (the Revolt) would contact the Allies in the middle of the fight. This leads to the surviving Allies teleporting the damaged Engine to Point Hope, culminating in the Revolt escaping the effects of the Mental Omega Device and thus there being a hope of fighting the Epsilon in the future.

---