Command & Conquer: Generals / YMMV

YMMV page for the overall franchise:

Command & Conquer

Generals:

Accidental Aesop: The third mission of Zero Hour's Chinese campaign is widely regarded as one of the toughest missions in the game. A huge reason why is because there is a time limit, and the units available to build are restricted to the lower tier tech levels with no aircraft or support powers available (other than calling in minefield airdrops). The story explanation is that China is agreeing to exercise restraint to appease international opinion while liberating the city of Coburg from GLA occupation, due to the fact that China had already used a nuclear missile to wipe out the GLA presence in Stuttgart. But the GLA have no such restrictions, and will absolutely hammer you with everything they have, including powerful weapons like SCUD launchers and Rocket Buggies (China lacks a Fragile Speedster unit and this mission has no MiGs, which doesn't leave many good options to destroy these things). The sordid takeaway from all this is that following restrictive rules of engagement against an enemy that has no morals will only cause massive casualties on your side that could have been avoided in the first place. And more often than not, a huge chunk of the city will end up destroyed anyway.
Aluminium Christmas Trees:
- The "forbidden city" style roofs on China's structures are generally seen by most players as unrealistic. And while you don't see them on actual military bases, The Chinese National Defense Ministry's Headquarters◊ matches that particular style of architecture, if not the color scheme, to a T.
- The ECM tank is loosely based on a Cold War Russian vehicle called the SPR-1, which can jam the fuses in modern mortar rounds.
- The idea of a truck launching a ballistic missile sounds crazy, like something made up for video games, right? Well, these things exist in real life and were used to carry short-ranged nuclear missiles (though the ones used in Iraq carry conventional warheads instead). In fact, it's based on the MAZ-7310, which really is armed with SCUD missiles.
- The Chinese Nuke Cannon (a self-propelled howitzer firing tactical nuclear shells) sounds awesome but unrealistic. But it's actually based on the American M65 atomic cannon, which could fire the W9 nuclear artillery shell. In fact the in-game cameo for the Nuke Cannon is incredibly similar to the picture of the real life 1953 test. It should be noted that the W9 had a yield of 15 kilotons, exactly the same as the Fat Man dropped on Hiroshima, so the weak explosion seen in-game is obviously there for game balance.
Awesome Music: Here.
Breather Level: There are a number of them in Zero Hour.
- In between the island-hopping madness coupled with required diverted defenses of the third GLA mission and the climactic showdown in the final GLA mission is a linear puzzle-based mission involving two teams of troops that need to overcome various obstacles, with little initiative on the enemy's part.
- In between the Timed Mission with limited units and abilities that is the third Chinese mission and the final mission that involves fighting the GLA's main base and their captured USA base is a simple territorial control mission where spamming Helixes renders it trivial.
- This can happen in the Generals challenge depending on which General you select to play as and what order you face everyone else. You may end up fighting the likes of Granger, Kwai, and Dr. Thrax later in your run, all of whom have more predictable attack patterns and open terrain than that of the other Generals.
Broken Base: Depending on who you ask, Generals is either one of the strongest entries into the franchise (if not the strongest); good, but not on the level of the mainline games (excluding Tiberian Twilight); or a failure that deviated incredibly from the established Command and Conquer formula while not managing to surpass other RTS games with similar gameplay.
Crosses the Line Twice:
- One of Dr. Thrax's lines when defeated has him state he plans to kill himself for losing. What makes it hysterical is how casually and plainly he says it.
Dr. Thrax: "I am defeated. Now, where is that cyanide capsule?"
- With quick reflexes, it's possible to capture the SCUD storm in the 1st USA mission and deploy it on Baghdad as the triumphant "mission succesful" music plays, to the sound of dying civilians, and Lieutenant Eva saying you are victorious, and not, say, you are going to spend the rest of your life in Prison.
Demonic Spiders:
- This is what the GLA's Rocket Buggies are for. Especially for China players, which have no unit fast enough to catch them as they run away (except for the MiG). They come, stay out of range of all of your weapons, blast their entire payload of rockets at one of your units (likely killing it), and then run away like assholes. Then they repeat it a few seconds later. Grrr.
- GLA Tunnel Networks can contain and transport 10 units between each gate. They also heal units inside the tunnel back to full health in seconds at no cost. Be on the lookout for one of these near any important locations in multiplayer.
  - And God help you if your opponent is storing units in a battle bus in one of these, maximizing footsoldier capacity in a tunnel network.
- General Alexander's EMP Patriot Missiles, which have the ability to (temporarily) disable any vehicle that they hit. But, in the case of aircraft it's a One-Hit Kill. They also can cause splash damage, allowing them to disable/kill multiple units.
Fridge Brilliance: The USA's fusion reactor has control rods. Fusion reactors don't have to use control rods due to their fundimental differences^note-unless they're really fission-induced fusion reactors and "cold fusion" is just branding, that is.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Dr. Thrax. He's easily the single most popular out of all the new Generals introduced in Zero Hour, thanks to his psychopathic, yet comedic personality. He proved popular enough that he was the only general from the game that was going to reappear in it's cancelled sequel Command & Conquer (2013).
Game-Breaker:
- Superweapons (the USA's Particle Uplink Cannon, China's nuke, and GLA's Scud Storm) can take down anything at any location once their timer counts down. Their timer is visible to everyone, but most people disallow them in multiplayer matches because unlike all other CNC games, you can technically build as many as you want.
- American Humvees full of Missile Defenders. Ask any competitive player.
  - Humvees full of Pathfinders (American snipers) may count for Chinese players. It's like having five extra machine guns on the Humvee, except that they all have insane range and One-Hit Kill. Now watch your Hackers fall like leaves as the USA shuts down your early-game economics...
  - Alternatively, putting Pathfinders in General Granger's Combat Chinooks. Friggin built-in fireports!
  - General Shin Fai's Assault Crawlers. Overpowered Infantry in a Self-healing Transport with fire ports for said infantry equals Curb-Stomp Battle.
- Overlords with Gatling guns counter everything, literally. Emperor Overlords do the same thing while healing faster than Wolverine. Maybe massed artillery if you can gather them in time, and that's an if.
- Nuke MiGs can easily slaughter anything in the entire game—or would, if it weren't for American point-defense lasers, Chinese ECM, and the GLA's good ol' fashioned hiding. It takes a while to obtain their deadliest payload, as their nuclear rocket upgrade must be purchased at a Nuclear Missile Silo.
  - ECM itself can practically render any missile moot, making half of the USA and GLA arsenals useless. Unlike PDLs, they have no limit.
- USA's Aurora Bomber. Despite their high cost and requiring a Strategy Center, they can be a complete troll plane once you can amass enough funds to continually make them. The way they work is that they have one bomb that is extremely powerful, and fly too fast for any of the turrets to take them out before dropping the bomb. A single one can take out another USA player's power plant or supply drop. Continuous harassing can make it impossible for them to rebuild enough units to fight back against you. So, while you continue to stall them, you can build up an army big enough to wipe them out in no time. Yes, you do have to keep rebuilding the bombers since they can get hit after dropping, but it's still quite egregious.
- Fast players can bring the trolling further by repeatedly forcing their Aurora to attack the ground around enemy's defenses (but not letting the Aurora drop its bomb) to distract them from the main attack group.
- The Aurora Alpha, which is essentially an Aurora taken up to eleven.
- Maybe this is just a Game-Breaker for the single player campaign, but with the Chinese it is possible to take Black Lotus and her army of hackers and cripple the other side by leeching all their money and disabling their equipment.
- Very little can beat a squad of fully upgraded Comanches. They can get anywhere fast and they're decked out to take down infantry and armor alike. Their armor can withstand impressive damage for an air vehicle, and if there are seven of them together, the opposite side better start praying, because all of them unleashing Rocket Pods together means a Macross Missile Massacre that equals a superweapon with a ONE MINUTE cooldown. Only a big cluster of massed anti-air defenses can even hope to stand a chance against such a force. As if it wasn't enough, they're relatively inexpensive, don't need the airfield after they're built unlike planes, and they build reasonably fast.
- Available only in one mission in Zero Hour is the American naval fleet. The quickly regenerating bombardment from the battleships would be enough, but then there's the aircraft carrier. It produces an armada of Raptor fighters for free, and holds over ten of them. Suffice to say, you'll probably complete the mission using them well before you build up your own base later in the mission even on higher difficulties.
Goddamned Bats:
- The USA Chinook is a supply helicopter that happens to be a troop transport as well, making for an epic early-game harassment tool.
- The GLA ability to rebuild their structure when destroyed if left in the "hole" state may count as an in-universe example. In actual gameplay it doesn't matter that much, except when you're using a one-shot superweapon or support ability, like the Nuclear Missile or the Fuel Air Bomb.
- Combat Cycles from the GLA Demolitions General comes with a Terrorist riding it by default. Meanwhile the Stealth General AI, and only the AI, can build them as well by virtue of a build button hidden from the humans. The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard!
- GLA suicide units in general. They're incredibly easy to deal with, but god help you if you let one of them through your defenses...
Good Bad Bugs:
- GLA Bomb Trucks can be disguised as vehicles. Any vehicle, from a tiny forklift to a giant battleship.
- If a GLA terrorist dies to a pool of Anthrax Gamma, their models will still be reskinned yet they will T-pose instead of doing their regular death animations.
- Sometimes airplanes are shot to death, leaving a burning wreck... that's still circling in the air around the same point.
- Playing as China, firing an artillery strike alongside a nuclear missile will cause the artillery shells to be destroyed by the nuclear blast.
- If a Chinese Supply Truck has a Sneak Attack tunnel appear underneath them it will effectively catapult the supply truck across the map, allowing it to be sent either to an enemy base or inaccessible parts of the map.
- If a Combat Chinook has a vehicle and a single infantry unit (most likely a missile defender) inside of it, using the Force Fire command (Holding Ctrl and clicking) will have both the infantry and the vehicle units open fire at the target location. If that's not enough, Humvees who also have firing ports can have their occupants attack as well. Mixed in with being able to carry two humvees and the Combat Chinook can practically level almost anything on it's own.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- The first US mission features a battle in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq. The game was released in February 2003, and the Iraq War and the Battle of Baghdad occurred a month later.
- The nuclear bomb blowing up in front of the Forbidden City in the intro? In October 2013 Muslim Uighur separatists attempted to detonate a car bomb in front of the Forbidden City. The bomb didn't explode, but the vehicle caught fire.
- The war the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) waged in Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2019 was shockingly similar in many ways to the GLA's modus operandi, including them frequently deploying chemical weapons, making extensive use of over-armed technicals and VBIEDs, overwhelming a large army and making off with its stash of American weaponry, threatening to destroy a dam, having cells and recruits all around the world, and China closely watching the situation. Thankfully, the situation hasn't completely replicated the events of Zero Hour—ISIS hasn't eviscerated Europe or driven the United States into isolation, and were in fact crushed by international intervention fairly quickly- but it's still notable.
- The GLA origin, traced to regions as far reaching as Kazakhstan and "Aldastan" (The game's version of Tajikistan) draws parallels to Xinjiang separatist groups terrorizing China (with the worst attack being the 2014 Kunming Knife attack), which the Chinese government worked so hard to stamp out. Unlike the game however, it never erupted into a full-blown war, and the US is not on the Chinese side, due to allegations of human rights violations towards the Uyghur minorities committed by the Chinese government, and as well as their efforts to stamp out extremism border on destroying their culture and replacing it with their own (which Tibet and Inner Mongolia are also facing).
- The end of the Zero Hour GLA campaign sees the U.S. dealt a humiliating defeat by the resurgent GLA and withdraws its troops from Europe. Come 2021, and that's eerily similar to the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the subsequent takeover of the country by the resurgent Taliban, complete with US military hardware falling into terrorist hands.^note
- The events in GLA Mission 3 about riots in Astana might be too similar to actual riots in Kazakhstan in 2022.
- The GLA extensively utilise weaponized anthrax for combat. This is a case of Ripped from the Headlines, based on the 2001 anthrax attacks, which happened a week after 9/11, and then widely blamed on Al-Qaeda or Saddam Hussein's Iraq. However, later on it was discovered that the attacks may be been perpetrated by a rogue US microbiologist with little connection to the aforementioned organizations.
- Two of China's units are the Hacker and Black Lotus, which specialize in hacking buildings to disable them (and the latter extends it to vehicles), and also provides funds by hacking the internet (which can be boosted by putting a Hacker/Super Hacker inside) to steal funds and channel it into their war economy. From the late 10's and through the new 20's, cybercrimes have become more rampant, and large numbers of those attackers originate from China. While many of them are involved in running financial scams, others have been accused of being backed by the Chinese government in their efforts to interfere with foreign elections and steal trade secrets from foreign companies.
- The ending of Chinese campaign in Zero Hour might touch the heart of Chinese nationalists not offended enough to play this game due to how the in-game Chinese managed to won the hearts of EU.... except, the real-life China is not on good terms with the real-life G7 after they have shifted their policy to a pro-active one back in 2015, due to the former's passive-aggressive behavior towards the latter (and also because of the increased trade disputes under the Trump administration). Furthermore the cancelled sequel would render this moot in-universe as the EU broke off from China (known as APA), due to wanting independence from them (something that China would never tolerate) and their implied disgust at their excessive brutality towards civilians. This, alongside the unflattering portrayal to 5 of APA's commanders^note might be a sore spot for the Chinese nationalists should the game be released.
Heartwarming Moments:
- Finally being able to give the GLA workers shoes and their response to it is pretty heartwarming:
  Worker: Thank you for the new shoes.
- The final (vanilla) campaign cutscene for the USA is pretty heroic, uplifting, and inspiring.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Let us count the ways, shall we?
- When the first game came out it was criticized for being more like a Blizzard RTS game than Command & Conquer. The game's lead designer Dustin Browder would go on to become the lead designer for StarCraft II.
- Generals purports to take place in the 2020s, featuring a number of pricey high-end American units that were either in development, on the cusp of deployment, or already deployed. Fast forward a few years, and a number of them have been cancelled due to budgetary concerns (among other things).
  - F-117 Nighthawk: AKA the Stealth Fighter, it was retired in 2008 in order to free up a billion dollars for more F-22s.
  - F-22 Raptor: Originally meant to completely replace the older F-15 Eagle (of which there are 250+ as of 2010), but the cost of the program (and lack of a threat with a significant air force) caused the Department of Defense to end procurement at only 187 fighters.
  - RAH-66 Comanche: Rather than replace the Apache entirely, the real deal was a stealthy scout helicopter meant to work in teams with Apaches. Also cancelled because of cost overruns.
  - In Generals, the Americans field a main battle tank called the Crusader, with a next-generation tank available named the Paladin. In fact, the U.S. Army did develop vehicles using these names ... but they were self-propelled howitzers. What's more, the real, Vietnam War-vintage M109 Paladin is the current howitzer fielded by the U.S. Army—it's the XM2001 Crusader that was intended to replace it, were it not for the fact that it too had been cancelled for neither being mobile nor precise enough.
- Generals also depicted the Chinese air force of the 2020s as primarily using Mikoyan-Gurevich fighters—no model name given, but very clearly based on the MiG MFI, 1.44, and 1.42 series. This series was developed as a response to America's Advanced Tactical Fighter program (which resulted in the F-22), but didn't make a maiden flight until 2000 due to lack of funding for almost a decade—and by then the project had already been cancelled, since 1997. However ...
  - ... As of 2012, China is working on its own domestic answer to the American F-22 and Russian PAK FA: the Chengdu J-20. The J-20 officially entered service with the PLA Air Force in March 2017, about a decade before the time period when Generals is supposed to happen. Experts have noticed the similarity in design between the J-20 and the MiG 1.44. Maybe China's leaders really have been playing Generals despite the ban!
- Chinese vehicles could be upgraded with propaganda loudspeakers. In the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Russians use trucks with TV screens to broadcast Russian nationalist propaganda◊.
- It turns out loading up a humvee with rocket launchers is a valid strategy in real life too. A memetic video from Ukraine’s Kharkiv offensive showed an assault on a Russian held village by several Ukrainian humvees. The gunner of one vehicle, an American volunteer, requested a reload of 50 cal ammo, but due to the language barrier ended up being handed SEVERAL rocket launchers to fire at the Russian occupied buildings. This kind of fast moving hit and run strategy is all too familiar for American players.
- The fact that China is not only an anti-heroic expy of the Soviets from the Red Alert series, sharing their signature color of red and having green as the color of all their vehicles and aircraft is this due to having literally every land vehicle being primarily colored a metallic green, in Red Alert 3, double so when it's expansion pack, Uprising had their campaign depict them from a sympathetic POV (albeit the difference is that China is heavy-handed and brutal in handling conquered territories compared to the RA3 Soviets).
Iron Woobie: The GLA Worker. Hungry, overworked, and bereft of shoes. Forced to build entire terrorist camps with just a hammer and his hands. Also forced to search mines manually with a metal detector. One gets the feeling his heart may not entirely be into this whole war thing. Likely to get blown up or sent to blow himself up, set on fire, irradiated, sniped, or vaporized by having a nuke dropped on him. And that hammer is heavy.
Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales:
- The game was very popular among Chinese gamers and internet cafes in spite of the official ban, thanks to pirated, fan-translated copies. It helped that the Chinese faction is depicted as powerful enough to take on the USA, spamming Rule of Cool weapons such as nuclear missiles, gattling guns, and flamethrowers, and many of the stereotypes (such as 1960's Red Guards fighting with modern jets and tanks) are seen as Narm Charm than deliberately offensive.
- The game was also very popular in Muslim-majority countries such as the Middle East and Indonesia despite the GLA being an obvious "totally-not-muslims" Middle Eastern Terrorists caricature, where PC gaming and internet cafes were just blooming, and pirated copies were common, as the game was never officially released in the region.
Moral Event Horizon: The ending of the 1st GLA campaign and in the first USA mission for the GLA.
- The GLA Campaign itself is just one Moral Event Horizon after another. In the first mission, they launch an armored assault against a large Chinese force camped around a dam and fishing village. After wiping out two Chinese bases and contracting the help of the local village militia, they blow up the Dam, causing a massive flood that not only destroys the Chinese armored columns, but also half of the village they were supposed to "liberate". In the second mission, probably one of the most disturbing in a strategy game, they slaughter entire villages and steal the U.N. aid meant for them. In their third mission, they incite a riot in a Chinese held city and arm the mobs, leading to the slaughter of the Chinese garrison and the destruction of most of the city, all so they could loot it while it burns.
- One cut mission had the GLA slaughtering villagers with anthrax (released as DLC). They still do that in the game, only instead of villagers, it's two entire cities.
- Another cut mission had them attack a Chinese embassy that also served as a makeshift hospital.
- They immediately cross it when you launch the game: China's campaign (chronologically the first one) opens with them detonating a nuclear bomb in the middle of Beijing.
Nightmare Fuel:
- The numerous GLA atrocities:
  - The eerie music and desolation in the aftermath of the nuking of Beijing (that's the first mission in the entire game).
  - The GLA casually massacring destitute civilians and razing their homes to steal the UN humanitarian aid intended to help them.
  - When the Chinese forces retake a town overrun by the GLA in the third Chinese mission, one Chinese soldier points out the GLA massacred everyone in the town.
  - The GLA campaign in the base game, and the ''first'' mission in Zero Hour, show the GLA using at least two Soyuz rockets laden with Anthrax on major cities, likely killing millions.
- Death by Anthrax. The units just turn green/blue/purple (depending if it's (in order of lethality) Anthrax Alpha, Beta or Gamme) and struggle while making horrible choking noises and screams.
Dr. Thrax: "You can tell they are *chef kiss* just right, when the flesh falls off the bone!"
- Dr. Thrax himself, although Played for Laughs in his challenge mission due to hamminess and sheer sociopathy, is implied to be an existential threat to human civilization due to his sadism to the point 3/5ths of the US campaign in the expansion revolves around stopping him personally and GLA cells defect and assist the USA just to stop him. His challenge mission is particularly bleak too, being set in a heavily polluted abandoned village filled with leaking, damaged toxin bunkers, and it's implied that the soldiers on the ground are permanently damaging their health.
- General Tao's challenge map is even scarier than Thrax's. While Thrax is comically awful, Tao is just sane enough that his violently unhinged obsession with radiation just comes out as creepy. The tone is immediately set when a couple of tanks are nuked in the intro, and you realize that he has more than one missile silo minutes later. No camping out and bulldozing with a horde of tanks here, you go into the irradiated hellscape to destroy the silos or you are dead.
Most Wonderful Sound:
- The "Arm the Mob" upgrade for the GLA doesn't just have their Mission Control say "Upgrade Complete" when researched.
Angry Mob Leader: "AK-47s for everyone!!!" *crowd cheers*
- "Particle Cannon ready." "Our nuclear missile is ready, general." "We can now use our Scud Storm."
  - The GLA Advisor's nuke launch callout is spectacularly rewarding after going the effort of capturing a Command Center or dozer and building one.
- "Congratulations, General. You have been promoted./Well done General, you have reached a higher rank!"
Not the Intended Use:
- The Aurora micro trick mentioned above.
- Patriot Missiles can be micro-ed into attacking multiple targets in one salvo. Normally this would not be of much use if not for the EMP Patriot exclusive to the Superweapon General. One turret alone can keep an entire tank horde at bay.
- One common tactic China players use against the GLA is to send their Supply Trucks to run over every Worker they came across to stall early-game developments. On that note, the USA's Chinook also doubles as a troop transport, which usually results in unexpected early-game Ranger raids from USA players in multiplayer.
- The Listening Outpost can be press-ganged into service to stop Rocket Buggy attacks, if only because it's the fastest ground unit available to China.
- Your Nuclear Battlemaster about to die? Just drive it to the nearest enemy...
- Due to how building construction works in the game, you can put a cheap building under a patrolling airplane to makes it waste its payload and return to base.
Scrappy Mechanic: This is the first C&C game that doesn't limit construction to a grid. While this means that buildings can be placed more precisely, it's also at the mercy of how level the terrain is. Given that the terrain is also created without grid limits, this creates more problems than benefits; most of the time you won't be able to build where you want to simply because the ground is just slightly uneven. At least there are no restrictions to where buildings can be placed relative to your existing structures, something that cannot be said for the future game Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars.
Spiritual Adaptation: Many missions reuse aesthetics, themes and plot points from Black Hawk Down in the GLA and USA campaign. Particularly notable in the second USA mission, which although set in Al Hanad, Yemen, features a US military (complete with rangers!) rescue of pilots ejected from downed helicopters (Comanches in the game instead of Black Hawks) shot down by insurgents in a town in the desert. The second GLA mission as well features terrorist insurgents attacking UN convoys to steal humanitarian aid while massacring the civilians who the aid is intended to, exactly like the start of the movie. The first half of the second USA mission in the Zero Hour expansion even involves protecting humanitarian aid convoys into Mogadishu itself!
That One Level:
- One GLA mission has you holed up on a narrow mountain track while under constant attack from USA air units and armor. It wasn't enough that the jets can One-Hit Kill Stingers in a single salvo, they're sent out 4 at a time, sometimes replaced by Auroras, and they'll even send the occasional fuel-air bomb. And even worse, once you eventually have enough defenses to stop turtling, they... stop attacking due to a lack of money.
- The final Chinese mission in the base game, compared to the others. You start with a column under attack from the GLA, have to use what's left of your forces to destory a small GLA base nearby then build your own base on top of that one with limited supplies (there are oil derricks, but they're far from the base and within range of attacking GLA units) under constant assault from GLA troops, so God help you if you lost too many units in the initial assault. And due to a weird quirk in the terrain, defenders often aren't able to attack the GLA. Then come the Rocket Buggies... then the SCUD Storm (which isn't revealed to you on the map unlike the other levels)... then the SCUD Launchers...
- The final Chinese mission in Zero Hour is also difficult, but for different reasons. The good news? There are far more supplies in your starting vicinity, you get access to the Internet Center for more money, there are many more tech structures in the map, and plenty of abandoned American vehicles for you to take over. The enemy bases are also revealed to you via the Internet Center's upgrade, which shows the enemy Command Centers, and the enemy Superweapons aren't far away from them. The bad news? The GLA took over the main American base, which not only warrants the threat of death from above, but also plenty of Pathfinders which will slaughter your infantry relentlessly. They also won't wait for long to send everything they have for you early in the mission. Both the captured American base and the main GLA base are heavily fortified, requiring a steady steamroll offensive that will require a CEO's paycheck worth of money.
- The third GLA mission in Zero Hour is island-hopping madness incarnate. You start off the mission capturing an isolated Particle Cannon, which you'll need to power up by capturing Fusion Reactors on the next island. You're required to defend both of these from air attacks, with the occasional armor paradrop. Lose either of these assets, and you lose the mission. There's a mountain pass that's impossible to get through without using the Particle Cannon to raze it to ashes, which means there's a lot of downtime in between advances. It gets better once you acquire the proper GLA base to the north, but it's a serious slog with the enemy harassing you throughout.
- The Generals challenge against Alexis Alexander is consistently encountered near the end (save for exceptions such as with the path as General Juhziz) for good reason. Her base is located on a large island on the opposite end of the map, protected by her signature EMP Patriot Missiles. There are many more scattered throughout the entire map, which is an archipelago maze. This makes the possibility of using air strikes very costly. One other method of assaulting her base head on is to capture the Supply Depot to the northwest, which also requires a bit of island hopping or aerial transport, then use captured Chinooks to mount a transport assault. The only other way to deal with this mission is to use many Superweapons and abilities to destroy her structures, namely her Airfield and Fusion Reactors, in a war of attrition (one can capture her rather isolated Particle Cannon on the starting island, but it has a very long timer). No matter how you slice it, it's slow going. All the while the threat of her own attacks casting a shadow.
- The mission against General Tao is less railroaded, but no less deadly. Tao almost immediately activates an inert Nuclear Missile Silo, with an alarmingly short timer, right inside his main base, necessitating an early assault. There are many hazards in the map, with two nuclear trucks that will explode upon destruction (one is thankfully located in Tao's own base, the other is next to a valuable Tech structure that reduces the cost of units). The constant radiation puddles that appear every so often don't help with logistics. The mission with Tao is never the first mission in a Generals challenge run for a reason.
- The mission against Prince Kassad is also never the first mission in a Generals run, but more because the entire level is Goddamned Bats incarnate, which is perfectly in character for Prince Kassad's stealth motif. Every one of his structures is cloaked, which makes dealing with his defenses scattered around the map tedious. He has not one, but two functional bases with the works that are divided by an impassible river, which takes more time to steamroll over. There's a section of the map that contains some valuable Tech structures...isolated in a mountain where the only ground entrance is swarming with Demo Traps. There are additional Demo Traps around the lower fields. Detection for every army is obviously a must. Lastly, while your starting supply field is larger than most missions, the only other supply dock that isn't made for the enemy is located close to Kassad's northern base. The result is a huge slog of a mission to defeat the narcissistic Prince.
- The Dummied Out missions with Generals Fai and Juhziz may be that way for a reason; for the former, his base is extremely fortified with Bunkers, Gatling Cannons, and walls with few resources on the map (and whatever resources are present are crowded by structures and other doodads, making it more difficult to place Supply Centers close by). The only passages to his base are bridges, all of them heavily guarded. And he has an active Nuclear Missile Silo. For the latter, the map puts Prince Kassad's Demo Traps to shame; expect to see them everywhere, and there is also the threat of Terrorist Combat Cycle attacks which can bypass the cliffs that would otherwise protect your base. If you aren't using the American Chinooks to fly over said traps to the supply areas, you'll have to carve your way through the jungle of IEDs.
Unintentional Period Piece: Despite being set in 2013, the game's The War on Terror references place it firmly at the Turn of the Millennium. Among many things, the US military utilizes many experimental vehicles that it never adapted, while the Al-Qaeda stand-in Global Liberation Army represent the fear of terrorism US society experienced back then, including utilizing weaponized anthrax that was in real life discovered to be the work of a rogue US weapons researcher.
Vindicated by History: While the Command & Conquer title and the obvious The War on Terror connections keep being sticking points, there are many fans who conclude that the game itself is actually very good.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Take just about any faction unit at all: lots of its quotes are subtle messages of, well... overblown fanaticism.
USA Paladin: Enemies of the free world!
GLA Rebel: Our way is true!
PRC Red Guard: Foreign devil!
What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: The American main battle tanks are named the Paladin tank and the Crusader tank. This could be a subtle comparison of The War on Terror to The Crusades.
The Woobie: GLA Workers. You can make their work easier by giving them new shoes, thus making them more efficient and motivated workers.

YMMV / Command & Conquer: Generals

Edit Locked

Generals: