Discussion VideoGame / OriginalWar

About the arabs I've got the theory, but it is nothing but speculation You probably noticed that Arab/Mercenaries factions seem to have their own story that we don't see, but which explains their place in story and changes through the game - the same way we observe (some version of) the story of Russians in American campaign. I was wondering why they put so much effort in this background characters (like marriage between women Heike and one of the sheikhs in the end of American campaign). My guess their were planning a expansion with Arab campaign in it (with main character being either Kurt or Heike) but it was scraped either because of low sales or because of 9/11 that happened few months after the premiere.

Already posted in specific thread on forum, but I will keep it here, as it's a vital part of the discussion.

Ok, so let's start with Five-Man Band.

I understand that it can be said that the game allows you to pick characters, so they are not forced into roles. But it should be also noted that in many missions player don't have such choice, being stuck with given characters or characters being in certain roles are given to player even if he/she didn't picked said character to his/her team for specific mission or rest of the game.

I'm also aware that not all of those characters are introduced from the start, but as far as I know, the Five-Man Band don't have to be assembled from the first second of work in question. And all of those people show before the game reaches 1/3 of campaign.

Also it should be noted that Alliance victory is canon, so desertion of MacMillan is how the plot was intended. This strenghten even more roles in Five-Man Band the characters listed below play.

So let's explain each character:

• The Hero: John MacMillan. This hardly needs any description. John is main character in American campaing. His actions are decesive to the plot. He's the player's character (even if it's an RTS game). His impact on the universe is one of the main reason things happen as they do. The plot pretty much revolves around his adventures and he's the leader of his team, no matter which flag he's under.
• The Lancer: Frank Forsyth. He and John are Heterosexual Life-Partners. Frank is the best shot of American forces (even unit representing him got buffed stats, so he's better than sole skill should indicate), giving him the extra edge lancer should have. While John is stoic, do-the-right-thing soldier and pretty much an idealistic guy, Frank is joke-cracking scout, who have no qualms with infiltrating enemy base and messing up with everyone there with crude or outright cruel saboteur "jokes". He's also the Ensemble Dark Horse of the game.
  • To further strenghten his role as lancer his behaviour during MacMillan's desertion should be pointed out. If John decide to desert, he can take five characters with himself from whole American forces. This include even his best friends, as they won't follow John by themselves. Cue Frank, who will go with MacMillan regardless if he was or not picked for the conspiracy. That means it's not only players choice to put him into The Lancer position, but also the game itself plays him as such
• The Smart Guy: Peter Roth. He's one of the brightest scientist in-universe, one of few people aware how much everything is messed up by time-travel and part of even more elite group of scientists aware how dangerous Siberite/Alaskite bomb can be. Being much less skilled in combat, while being one of best scientists and engineers the universe have also place him on this role. In case of desertion, Roth is forced to player - he doesn't need to be picked or won't join you during the mission, because it's his idea to desert in the first place. So that's second character who goes with The Hero regardless of player's choice.
• The Big Guy: Lisa Lawson. Lisa combines quality of 1st, 3rd and 4th class of The Big Guy. She's epitome of Amazon: big, strong, self-sufficient Badass. And while being one of the toughtest soldiers Americans can field, she also have Large Ham quantities, making her Boisterous Bruiser of the team. She's probably the only weak chain in Five-Man Band, because unlike other people in the assemble, she's not mandatory and/or added regardless of player's choice during the desertion. So if she's not picked by player, she won't follow The Hero to Alliance. But knowing this, it should be also noted that she's obligatory or non-choice character in almost all previous missions, so she's present with The Hero till desertion mission. And if MacMillan deserts and she's in his conspiracy, there is a special puzzle to pick her up, showing Conflicting Loyalty especially scripted for her, giving her much more special status than any other character that could be placed (with lot of shoehorning) as The Big Guy.
• The Chick: Joan Fergusson. The Heart and Love Interests for MacMillan and later she's Heart of the whole team. Non-Action Guy (she's one of the weakest combatants in whole game), who can easily land into Damsel in Distress. It should be also noted that her survival is secondary objective almost every time she's on field.
  • Just like Frank, even if she's not picked by player during John's desertion, she will join him regardless, so it's not just player's choice to put her into The Chick role.

I hope now it's clear why the Five-Man Band wasn't forced or shoehorned.

Now let's go with tropes removed or needlessly changed.

First of all, many tropes are changed for no real reasons. Either wording, word array or just how spoiler-cover is placed. What for? This not only is pointless, but in few cases add Natter. Or outright change trope into non-example, like with Army of One. The wording is also horrible, cutting out witty remarks of few different people and turing the whole article into dry, bland language. For no apparent reasons than self-proclamated "neutrality". As if the article wasn't neutral from the start and was even approved as such in Get Help With English.

Removed or changed in the wrong way:

• The Atoner. Did you ever play the game as Alliance, not to mention finishing it? It's a drastic change from "main motif" to "ending". Especially when it now makes no sense in context.
• Awesome, but Impractical. Arab weapons are this both in-universe and gameplay-wise, so I don't really understand why this was removed. Action Bombs, motorised ballistas, mounted flamethrowers, battle mammoths... All of their weapons looks and sound cool, but are extremely weak in comparison with traditional guns (the ballista being probably the biggest offender - ballista vs heavy machineguns, rocked launchers and lasers?)
• Bittersweet Ending. The edit is so egregious that it outright borders with Complaining About Games You Don't Play. For anyone familiar with the game, the first version would be ok. Now it's tweaked in such way that it indicated Soviets preveiling if Americans didn't mine Siberite (they collape like in real world and don't even bother with the strange green rocks in Siberia) and Alliance destroying main vein (instead of Arab faction)... which is comically missing the agendas of every faction involved and how the game ends.
• Harder Than Hard. Now the Army of One is non-example and shortened so much that it's hardly descriptive of what's going around.
• Infinite Supplies. This is averted whole game, never zig-zagged. The sole fact that your units are finite makes this trope averted every single time. Then resources are visibly finite in 2/3 of missions and in the rest they are also finite, but simply spawn for some time. After cetrain point of every single mission is reached, crates with resources stop spawning. And as with Army of One, everything is needlessly shortened, making it again hardly descriptive.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!. Single discovery allows you to build AI-operated defences. Second tech in this branch allows you to build (en-mass, if you have sufficient supplies) AI-operated vehicles. They are fully operational by themselves and doesn't need any supervision of humans (not counting maintance of vehicles, as AI-operated defences can be repaired by AI-operated construction unit). Knowing this you must also add to that the simple fact that everything of this is possible with resources and know-how of 2000's. I hardly recall that we build a single AI unit, not to mention creating numerous of them. This combined with how easy it's to attain AI units is clearly a case of Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!.
• Love Makes You Dumb. Why this was even touched? Now it makes no sense at all.
• Non-Entity General. Nice the part containing characters' traits and explaination why this trope is averted was cut, making it indescriptive non-example.
• Non-Indicative Difficulty. This was already discussed in Get Help With English and was proved valid. More - it was even described in article in a way explaining the trope.
• Protection Mission. Why this was removed? Out of all missions Joan is on field or can be fielded, almost all of them add secondary objective about keeping her save and alive for the mission. Same goes with Burlak's tank, which goes even further than Joan, because you not only have to take care of it in Russian campaing, but also when Burlak joins Alliance in American campaign. Instead, this was added to Hero Must Survive, which isn't true - the game won't end nor will anything bad happen in macroscale if either Joan is killed or Masha destroyed. That's why this was in two separate entries. So the trope is misused or we've got again case of Complaining About Games You Don't Play.

First, in the interest of full disclosure: I have played the game, and completed the US/Alliance route. For this reason, I have let most of the text stand.

One of the biggest issues with the page when I looked at it was a clear lack of proofreading; that is to say, spleling^note It's a joke, don't take this typo seriously and grammar both needed to be looked over. For the most part, this was not a problem, but every so often I would run into an ambiguous sentence and I had to make a judgement call on what it was supposed to say. If there are any mistakes in my changes, correct them (but do try to avoid reverting wholesale).

As for the spoiler tags, I adjusted many of them because they were either too revealing or just plain inconsistent. Sometimes one particular plot element would be discussed freely, and then a few rows down the same elements would be blanked out. I tried to make the spoilers tagging consistent and unrevealing in such a way that they still remained tantalizing, but I will admit to not being clear on the proper way to use them.

Next, writing tone. Here we are at an impasse: you wish to include gushing statements, I prefer drier statements that are terse and descriptive. I can not think of a way to resolve this, aside from bringing in more contributors. You should probably take a look at the Word Cruft article.

Finally, the tropes. The problem is that you don't seem to have read some of the descriptions for the tropes. Some of the tropes are shoehorned, others are completely irrelevant to the example. Let's go over them:

• Five-Man Band: This is completely arbitrary. You can choose which characters to bring on a given mission, and the story never treats those five as an actual, insular group. In fact, two of those can die in their first appearance with no consequences to the plot.
• The Atoner: This is probably a victim of my attempts to fix the grammar. Regardless, this trope refers to a character, not a theme (motif is something else that I don't recall right now).
• Awesome, but Impractical: This was poorly worded, and I assumed that the one who wrote that was referring to how impractical the setup was in real-life terms. Do rewrite it and put it back in, but consider first if there is a better trope for this.
• Bittersweet Ending: This was one of the major sections that I had trouble rewriting, and I expected someone would complain. The grammar was off, the spoiler tags inconsistent, and I haven't seen most of them, so I went in mostly blind. Once again, do correct it.
• Harder Than Hard: This refers to a difficulty level that is typically unlocked, has an idiosyncratic name, and offers a greater challenge than the previous highest difficulty level. Either put the example under a different trope (I moved it to Army of One because I didn't want to remove it completely) or remove it completely.
• Infinite Supplies: This is zig-zagged. The description even makes a point of noting that ammunition never runs out, which is significant since there are other RTS games where ammo is treated as a semi-finite resource. I did not know supplies are finite; that can go in the description.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: These are not actual A.I.s; they are automated machines. They are not sentient. The trope refers to impromptu creation of a sentient machine. This is not that trope.
• Non-Indicative Difficulty: The GHWE thread simply helped with the grammar. I'm gonna leave this one for now because I'm kinda fuzzy on the specifics.
• Protection Mission: This was removed because the example did not match the trope. Missions of this kind involve defending something from constant attacks; the missions with Joan for the most part simply specify that she mustn't die. I think I put most of this under Hero Must Survive? However, even if the game goes on without either Joan or the tank surviving, this is still not an example of this trope.

Finally, I am editing in good faith. I was the one who created the original (heh) article, and I would thank you not to make assumptions about me, rude or polite.

You changed numerous entries that were proofed by Get Help With English forum thread, where they were corrected and everyone understand them. Making them now impossible to understand. Same attitude goes with spoilers. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.

It's me and few other people who created this article who prefer the witty tone. And if I recall well, the whole TV Tropes site is based on being in such tone. And you probably mean the other contributors who already did their share in this article?

• Five-Man Band. Explained above and waiting now for validation in specific forum thread. And all characters aside MacMillan and Burlak in their specific campaigns can die without repercussions, because it's that kind of story.
• The Atoner. Then you are reading every single trope word-by-word, instead sticking with general definition. Sure, go ahead with "trope misuse" accusation, but the point is that if you want to follow the definition word-by-word, nothing but works tailored to definition will fit. Making 95% of trope using a misuse. This can be attributed to faction, because that's what the faction is doing - atoning for "sins" of every single member.
• Awesome, but Impractical. Reword how. I love when people are all "Uncle Good Advice", because something is different than they want it to be. The trope was descriptive enough to explain it, but sure, if you really insist, I can rewrite it.
• Bittersweet Ending. So if you were unable to correct the entry by yourself, not to mention even understanding what it was about, why you even tried to change it? Or doing it alone, where there is whole community dedicated to help in such situations? More, if you are familiar with work in question, why not sticking with it's plot? Instead you invented entirely new ending for three factions. You still want to insist you played the game?
• Harder Than Hard. The game have difficulty setting and going with anything else than the easiest mode is Exactly What It Says on the Tin of the trope. Not to mention how the difficulty curve goes off-chart pretty fast. But point taken, this should be merged with Nintendo Hard.
• Infinite Supplies. Supplies, fuel and units are entirely finite, making the whole game based on averting this trope. The fact that ammo is the only infinite resouce is a minor case of playing the trope straight. So if you really want to put is as anything else than aversion, it should be double-subverted.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!. They are AIs. The game calls them as such, the characters refer to them as such and they don't need any outside programming before each action, making them as sentient as it gets for vehicle being capable of driving itself and maintaining military mission requiring far more sophistication than spy drone.
• Non-Indicative Difficulty. No, it also helps to correct misuse of tropes. And was accepted.
• Protection Mission. Again, you are wiser than mods on GHWE. The trope was discussed and accepted. You are the only person who is agains it, shoehorning it into different trope, creating a misuse.

The assumption is pretty simple - you came back after a year and revert half of the article into your own concept, no matter how far away it is from the actual game, it's plot and tropes in it. More, you show a pretense of know-it-all guy, who clearly keeps messing with things important to game plot and showing general lack of any knowledge about work in question. Creator or not, your edits are pointless messing with tropes and your excuse about "grammar corrections" brings us even bigger mess. This time with word array and changing of game plot into something not just hardly recognizable, but clearly taken from the thin air. As far as I'm concerned, your edit could be simply cut to actuall grammar check, approved in GHWE and by this way any wrongly used trope would be also cut out with no qualms. Instead of all that you just came and put back the same things you placed a year ago, messing with tropes added since that time. And grammar mistakes? They are still there. In your own edit.

I mentioned that I created the original article only to demonstrate that I am editing in good faith.

You are overstating the purpose of GHWE. Though they help with trope sorting, they can not be expected to know all minutiae of every work that comes their way, nor can they be expected to be without fault. From what I can tell most of the descriptions you wrote pass muster if you don't know the context of the text.

I apologize if my advice about fixing things yourself came across wrong. On most Wikis, you are encouraged to attempt to fix things directly rather than bringing it up elsewhere. I was trying to encourage you to do so, not sound snappy.

A witty tone is not entirely discouraged from what I've seen, but since the last post I looked up How To Write An Example, and the old version of the article does not seem to conform very well to this style.

I am uncertain what you mean by grammatical errors. On my latest pass I only found two sections that seemed in need of a rewrite, or needed clarification. The article is perfectly legible, and the examples are clear without being crufty. There are a few sentences that are rather strained, and I think I let a few minor mistakes slip through, but overall the article is fine; the bulk of it is based on what others wrote, and I left as much intact as I felt was reasonable.

Let us go over the tropes one more time:

• Five-Man Band: Once again, this is a completely arbitrary example. The game does not treat the group as special. The story does not treat the group as special. If you look at the current page for the trope, you will see that this sort of misuse is addressed.
• The Atoner: I think I only changed a few words? Not sure what the big fuss is. I think Heel Realization or My God, What Have I Done? might be better for this, though. I'm not entirely clear which particular "defection" trope is best.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Just explain how it looks awesome but isn't really all that useful gameplay-wise.
• Bittersweet Ending: As I have already mentioned, on a Wiki you fix things when you see them. The old description was a complete mess, and I felt that it was better to change it than to leave it as it was. Work with me here; the old version was insufficient, and so is the new one. Help me think of something better.
• Harder Than Hard: Glad we sorted that one out. If you wish to include the long rant (sorry, calling it as I sees it), put it under That One Level in the YMMV tab, and give a brief description of the scenario as an example in the main space.
• Infinite Supplies: Double subversion, it is not. Subversion, not really. Is there such a thing as an indecisive aversion? I think "mostly averted" will do here, actually. Ammunition is kinda a big deal to have an infinite amount of.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: Is this mentioned in the Russian campaign? Then just say so. In the American campaign, this is not a plot point. It's simply autonomous functionality from what I recall; the vehicles are no more sentient than a Roomba or factory robot is. Artificial intelligence does not necessarily mean sentience in the real world; rather, it refers to programming that is supposed to emulate intelligence in some way. The trope, however, has to do with sentience arising spontaneously and accidentally in a machine. If the parts were built specifically for sentience, it is not this trope. A good test for this is to see if a character is created when the machine is turned on.
• Non-Indicative Difficulty: This one is a simple test: is the American campaign harder than the Russian, is any difficulty setting harder than a higher setting, and is the combination of these two tests what you would expect? If no, then the difficulty is non-indicative.
• Protection Mission: This is one of those examples where the description is perfectly fine outside of context. Look at it this way: are there any missions where the enemy makes a point of attacking a particular object or location that needs to stay intact or secure? If yes, mention that mission. If no, then it is not this trope.

I let the old article stand for a year and a half because I was hoping other contributors would wish to help out as well. When it became apparent that few people were interested in doing so, I decided to put action to my words (thoughts) and fix the problems myself. If my edits were insufficient, it was my hope that somebody else would correct me in turn, and with a bit of luck the cycle of edits and corrections would lead to a good article.

When editing on Wikis you need to be bold; don't be afraid of what others may think or do. Writing on a Wiki is a collaborative process, and articles often change shape drastically over the course of their existence. No article is owned by an editor or group of editors; you need to remain open about other people's work, and trust that they are editing in good faith.

Once again, I ask that you assume good faith. It may not be a pillar here, but it's a good principle to hold to anyway. Look it up on Wikipedia if you're unfamiliar with it.

This is not any other wiki.

Then go read aloud your edit in Love Makes You Dumb. If that's legible, then this discussion is pretty much pointless. Explain me something, because it's clearly beyond my level. You went on editing, creating some mistakes in the process. What's more important, you are aware of that. Yet you insist that you did the good job, because... you changed old mistakes into new ones? What kind of logic is this?

• Five-Man Band: Then you never played the game, end of topic. Sorry, but if you insist with so much eagerness that those characters aren't treated in any special way by the plot nor recognise how much they interact between themselves and how those interactions drives the plot. It's obvious you never played the game in the first place. Or somehow were able to completely ignore it's plot.
• The Atoner. They be better if anyone have My God, What Have I Done?. And none of characters had. They simply realise all the wrongness in their missions, as the game heavily plays on "military vs intelectuals". And being atoner requires Heel Realization, so we land in Department of Redundancy Department. Again, go play the game, then edit article.
• Bittersweet Ending. So you changed few minor grammar problems into mess that have nothing in common with plot of the game? That's how you correct things? Plus your entry is proving that you have no idea how the game ends, clearly messing the endings.
• Harder Than Hard. If it was case of just one mission, it would end in YMMV as That One Level. But from what I've understand from that entry was that that specific mission was just an example how the game escalates with difficulty level.
• Infinite Supplies. Hence how it was handled - averted, description why averted and bulletmark about the ammo.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!. It's called as such in both campaings, which you should know after reaching half of each of them. And the AI units perform task by themselves, without folliwing any kind of "things to do list" programming. If going more specific is a must, then it can be easily put under Grew Beyond Their Programming.
• Non-Indicative Difficulty. Yes, it's much harder no matter what you do and how you play it, not to mention difficulty setting (easy American campaign is still harder than hard Russian). You should know that after playing the game. Which you didn't.
• Protection Mission. Sorry, but the objective is called "Protect X" (where X stands for either Joan or Burlak's tank). This is final prove that you didn't play the game.

At this point I find this discussion pointless. You keep talking about things that should be more than obvious with someone who at least reached half-point of any campaign. Which rise a question how you are suppose to write about the game or how were you able to create the article in the first place, as all I have is your word about it and it's more than apparent that you have no idea about the game's plot and basic mechanics. This makes you unreliable and that means your edits are invalid (as if having nothing in common with game in question wasn't enough). All you just achieved was convincing me that you never actually play the game.

If no article has ownership, then why you return with exactly the same entries you were trying to push last year? You were expecting that no-one will notice?

And this is not The Other Wiki, so stop reffering to it.

Hmmm, Rysio, would you mind toning down a bit? Accusing someone of not having played the game, regardless of veracity, is usually not the tone of discussion we desire to host here.

... even if edits made by troper are counter-productive and against the content of the work in question? Because this is Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch when you do such thing. Those edits are egregious cases of completely missing the plot of the game or it's mechanics on so basic level that anyone who played the game for more than five minutes should know better, not to mention claiming to finish it.

I simply call Whitecroc a liar, who goes all Miles Gloriosus about his completion of the game, while having no idea how the story is resolved nor the mechanics work. The only exeption is how he describes grass mechanics, but I also recall how heavily it was covered in press when the game was released, as it was quite an achievment to create so good Geo Effects back in 2001 (hardly any RTS got them as good as Original War up to date)

I know this isn't Wikipedia. That does not mean that assuming good faith is automatically invalid. AGF is used in spirit on any number of Wikis. I was using it to illustrate a point.

Love Makes You Dumb is one of the sections I didn't touch because it scanned more or less okay at a quick glance. I've fixed two typos, added a missing definite article and changed two words which, while grammatically correct, can be confusing if you're not familiar with their use. I also moved a period outside a pothole, because I could.

At this point I don't believe there is anything more for me to say. I have explained my edits more times than I can count, and each time I am accused of editing in bad faith, of not having played the game, and of being a wet blanket. (I will concede that last one).

Clearly, this discussion is not going to resolve itself. I could do what I did last year and let the article be in the hopes that someone else with more experience will come along, but I'd rather find a different way of conciliating this. Is there a recommended way to proceed?

I doubt there is any civic way to resolve this, as the discussion was the only one around. And it shows something if you are again accussed of having no experience with the game. I'm not just sure what is that something.

Also nice knowing you create even more edits in the meantime, heavily changing whole article and making it even futher away from the actuall gameplay, eroding the last funny bits too.

Pistols at dawn. You pick the location.

Rysio, accusing people of lying is not acceptable tone. Stop it, please.

Anyhow, I feel that White's arguments are more convincing here. Maybe it would help if someone breaks down how a certain scene works in order for us to figure out how the example works.

I'm out. This reach the point when not only using civic way leads nowhere, but also the to the point where the article in question is already so changed that now it would be just a pointless Edit War, with two pre-prepated text so far away from each other's content that there are hardly any matching points exept trope-listing. The new version is dry as wood and misses the game content so much it could be called "How I imaigine my own game, similar to the Original War". But I Know When to Fold 'Em - if mod says he support some point of view, then that point of view can very fast turn into sacred cow, making any further edits impossible. Guess we depleted all the means to resolve this and now the choice is simple:

• backing down
• or edit war

As final note about this I want to point out that most of today's edits are soaking with grammar and vocabulary mistakes and if I recall well they were justified as "mistakes removal". Not to mention cutting out a lot of stuff for no reason exept drying the article even more, often over-editing entries proven as correct in terms of language and trope usage.

Apologies for the flippancy above, I'm quite tired and a bit of impulsive childishness slipped through. I was trying for a peace offering.

I'm trying to work with you here. You are obviously not happy with the state of the current article, and I am not satisfied with knowing that the article is not satisfying to someone who knows the game better than I do. (Did that make sense?)

The biggest point of contention seems to be the Bittersweet Ending—since I am mostly unfamiliar with the endings, I wouldn't know what to change about the current description. I was trying to be constructive when I rewrote that section, for reasons I already mentioned, but you seem to find my editing so repulsive you can't even tell me what's wrong.

My issue is pretty much straighforward. You butchered the whole article for no apparent reason. Your edits change nothing in terms of adding anything new. Instead you removed a lot of stuff, writting down with mistakes you suppously were removing and turning the whole article into dull, bland, quasi-laconic... thing. Not to mention that you used all the time I've spent on this apparently pointless discussion to edit the article over and over, steamrolling it few times, so nothing stands as it was just yesterday. Because why bother with the discussion, if you can just go on edit rampage. And what for? If your edits actually change anything, I could understand and justified them. But all you did is rewording, often leading to completely missing the point of the game and previous description.

Have a nice day.

I've removed Word Cruft and, taking your criticism to heart, done a few brief passes on the article to work out kinks in the wording. This is all part of the editing process.

I've opened another topic. I would value your feedback.

No feedback will be given. You first trampled over the article and now want feedback how to repair it? Are you insane?

This is all you will get from me:

• Action Bomb: Arabs love to strap apemen with explosives. Or brainwash them into driving exploding vehicles...
• Action Girl: Lisa Lawson.
• The Aloner: Tim Gladstone, a scientist, who arrived as first time-traveller and spent a year alone.
• Alternate Timeline: Contrary to popular believe American and Soviet campaigns are not set in the same timeline. What happens in one of them has nothing to do with events of second and vice versa.
• Army of One: Check Harder Than Hard below.
• The Atoner: One of the main motifs for Alliance.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Most of Arab weapons. Come on, motorised ballista?
• Bad Boss: For both campaigns! The American general Ron Harrison is actually a Reasonable Authority Figure, but gets quickly replaced by Arthur Powell, a stubborn Jerkass. The Russians have it even worse with Major Platonov and his belief in We Have Reserves.
• Baseless Mission: Many American missions are these. Your objective is either to survive, capture the enemy base, infiltrate it or run away with fellow characters from the main forces if you decide to defect to the Alliance.
• Bittersweet Ending: Really, no matter which side you stick with, the final outcome is far from typical Happy Ending, mostly thanks to Fridge Logic. In case of win:
  • Americans will secure their mission by evaporating all opposition with Siberite bombs and then they will proceed with original assignment. Then... well, they can only die. In this time line future, America will oppress the whole planet and the Soviet Union with stalinism ideology will still exists.
  • Soviets will evaporate all opposition with Alaskite bombs and then... well, they can only die. In this time line future United States are too weak to stop new Russia (as Soviet Union collapsed) from invasion.
  • Arabs will blow up Siberite main vein, which will lead to Earth-Shattering Kaboom. There is no future in this scenario, at least not for Earth.
  • Alliance ending is the most opimistic one. They either destroy (Arabs) or force to surrender (Americans and Soviets) other sides of the conflict and then abandon all missions. Sure, they are still Trapped in the Past, but they just want to live their lives instead of mindlessly following orders from superiors who won't even be born for next 2 million years. The final outcome is close to Earn Your Happy Ending. In this time line future, neither America nor Russia got the upper hand and probably no invasion will happen.
• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: Ron Harrison and Arthur Powell.
• Colour Coded Armies: Each faction has its own unique color. Americans are blue, Soviets are red, Arabs are yellow and the Alliance uses light green.
• Command & Conquer Economy: Buildings not only need your direct orders, but also require characters inside to actually work. Laboratories need scientists, while garages and factories are operated by mechanics.
• Conflicting Loyalty: As the game progress, it's more and more apparent for the characters that their objective is not as noble as they thought at the beginning. This ultimately leads to creation of Alliance, made by deflected scientists of both sides.
• Cool Car: American morphing chassis, a mix between a tracked and wheeled chassis, utilising the speed of its wheeled mode when moving on plain ground, and switching to tracked mode when encountering more difficult terrain. While very durable, thanks to it's special ability it's also very fast, so anything build with this chassis turns into Lightning Bruiser.
• The Cynic: Cyrus Parker.
• Defog of War: Radar and snipers work this way. It's a really good idea to build a single radar vehicle, preferably AI controlled.
• Easy Logistics: Averted. Vehicles may run out of fuel unless using Siberite/Alaskite engines and each individual base has its own resource pool - supplies have to be transferred from one outpost to another. Guns have unlimited ammo, however.
• Enemy Exchange Program: You can capture structures of other factions and use them to produce vehicles or provide equipment normally available for the enemy. This is actually a plot point in American-Arab relations.
• Everything Fades: Averted. Corpses remain where they fall, grass can regrow and explosions leave permanent craters. In 2001 game.
• Five-Man Band: Americans seem to follow this trope
  • The Hero: John MacMillan
  • The Lancer: Frank Forsyth
  • The Smart Guy: Peter Roth
  • The Big Guy: Lisa Lawson
  • The Chick: Joan Fergusson
• Forced Level-Grinding: There are two ways to beat each level and the game. The first is to take your time with every mission, gaining as much experience as possible with every single character under your command. The second is to just win missions and then restart the whole campaign halfway through because your characters are laughable wimps. Training your scientists in combat skills is not an option. It's a must.
• Fragile Speedster: Arab's hat. While in most cases it's their main weakness than anything else, when their vehicles are packed with explosives, this turns into a serious thread to your troops when on open ground.
• Friendly Sniper: Frank Forsyth. That is - if you equip him with sniper rifle.
• Garrisonable Structures: Almost all buildings, but only barracks, sand-bags and manned gun positions work as typical garrisons, allowing characters inside to shoot at opponents.
• Gambit Pileup: Happens, when people from three different timelines decide to go to the point of divergence and tamper with history.
• Geo Effects: Bushes, trees and buildings realistically block parts of your line of sight. Hills and upper ground allow you to see for longer distances. Trees block your vehicles and building spots, unless you bulldoze them. Rought terrain and slopes block wheeled vehicles from passing. Shallow water and mud slows units considerably.
• Green Rocks: Alaskite/Siberite, no doubt.
• Guide Dang It!: If you decide to defect to the Alliance in American campaign, you have to pick up five characters, who will join you for the rest of the game, making it really tough choice. What you don't know at that point is that Frank Forsyth and Joan Ferguson will join you regardless of your picks. The kicker? They are probably the last characters you won't pick by yourself. And taking Lisa Lawson with you in this mission is nigh impossible without reading somewhere how to do it.
• Harder Than Hard: If current mission is unbeatable, don't worry. The next one will be even worse. American campaign has probably the best examples of this trope. In one of late missions right after the start you have to get to your base on the other end of the map. On arrival you find out that the base is almost completly razed. While you are busy rebuilding and repairing, the enemy have already a steady attack force, driving (yeah, with tanks) toward your location. After pushing them off and off, researching quite a lot, gathering loads of resources and building bunch of your own vehicles you actually have to attack 2nd best fortress designed in-game, tearing it to the ground. With conventional weapons. And here comes the best part - all of that with just TWO characters. One of them being a scientist.
• Hero Must Survive: Losing either MacMillan or Burlak is an instant game over.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: John MacMillan and Frank Forsyth, which is lampshaded in few missions. If MacMillan betrays, Frosyth will join his side even if you didn't picked him into your conspiracy.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Arthur Powell. But he's such a Jerkass it's really hard to spot.
• I Call It "Vera": Burlak's custom-built tank is called Masha. Bonus points for the Americans thinking it's his girlfriend.
• Infinite Supplies: Oh how averted... in some missions you not only don't get supplies from the future, but also from bigger bases in "present", being forced to conserve what you get at start. Every. Single. Crate. Sometimes it's even necessary to dismantle your vehicles to get enough supplies for needed buildings or sufficient defences.
  • But you can never run out of ammo.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: Both Americans and Russians research and use unmanned defences and vehicles controlled by AI, producting them en-mass. 2 millions years BC, using supplies sent from early 2000's.
• Instant Militia: Played with. Each character can be equipped with a rifle or faction-specific weapon as long as you have access to any barracks or armoury. The actual performance of such soldier is based on his or her combat skill. If there is no place to get better weapons, non-soldier characters will use handguns.
• Justified Tutorial: In both campaigns, the main character lands in a different situation than was expected by higher ops, so explaining some basics of gameplay is connected with the actual storyline.
• Late Character Syndrome: Pretty common in both campaigns with characters non-important for the plot. And if you choose to pursuit Alliance route, all characters from the other side of conflict will fall under this trope.
• Love Makes You Dumb: If you botch Lisa Lawson's recruitment during MacMillan's deflection to Alliance, she will berate you for loosing your head over a chick, abandoning your superiors and real friends. And then she will open fire at you. Even if everything will go smooth, she will still consider MacMillan's choice flaved by his affection toward Joan.
• Mecha-Mooks: Humans and apemen are strictly limited in numbers, but each faction has access to a (depending on resource availability) potentially unlimited amount of disposable unmanned vehicles: AI units for Russians, remote-controlled for Arabs, both for Americans.
• Mighty Glacier: Soviet's hat. Almost all their vehicles trade speed for all-terrain heavy tracks, sturdy armour and bigger guns. Their faction-specific infantry weapon, heavy rocket launcher, was found too heavy and thus slowing soldiers down, so it goes with heavy body armour as a way to compensate for already low mobility.
• Nintendo Hard: Most of missions tend to be like this. Having 6 characters under your command is almost like hitting unit-limit in all RTS games.
• Non-Entity General: Averted. The American protagonist, John MacMillan, is something of a Warrior Poet, while the Russian Jurij Ivanovich "Burlak" Gorki is more of a Boisterous Bruiser.
• Non-Indicative Difficulty: The in-game description calls the American campaign easy and good for new players.
• Non-Standard Game Over: The American campaign can finish before it even starts for real, if you refuse to enter EON. For the Russians, staying loyal to Platonov when given a chance to betray or usurp him has... unpleasant... consequences.
• Nuke 'em: Staying loyal to either side of the conflict leads to developing a Siberite/Alaskite bomb. It may be used by the player.
• Oh, Crap!: Happens frequently as newly-arrived time travellers rarely land where and when they were supposed to. The first mission of either campaign involves a lot of careful sneaking around enemy patrols. And it gets only worse.
• Our Time Travel Is Different: EON/TAWAR don't have any kind of control panel. It sends anyone and anything you put inside (and fits inside - it's no bigger than a regular doors) exactly 2 million years into past. With accuracy of 4-5 years. In a radius of 15 miles around its stand in the "present day". So just imagine how gathering your troops and resources (they are sent from the future) looks like. And it works only one way - to the past. Not to mention you need Siberite/Alaskite to even run it.
• Pacifist Run: One of your secondary objectives during desertion from American forces is this, as your enemies are your fellow soldiers and friends. There is also a special puzzle if Lisa Lawson is in your team, as she won't go with you unless you neutralize soldier standing next to her, doing it without killing him and not letting her see you in action...
• Protection Mission: In the American campaign if Joan is on the field, one of the secondary objectives is always to make sure she's alive. In case of Russian campaign, it's Burlak's tank...
• Reinventing the Wheel: Zig-Zagged. Most upgrades will stay researched between missions, but some will have to be researched second time and then they will too be passed to next missions.
• Ridiculously Fast Construction: Somewhat justified. The speed of construction depends on skill and number of engineers or mechanics involved, while most of their job is combining prefabricated elements.
• Rock Beats Laser: Laser-based weapons can tear down any kind of vehicle in their range. Strangely they do almost no damage to humans and apes, so you can simply take down laser turrets even by dismantling them. Providing they are not covered with some real firepower. Also, you can kill drivers in vehicles when your characters are equipped with sniper rifles, and then easly retake those vehicles.
• Shows Damage: Damaged buildings combine this with Damage Is Fire. After sustaining enough damage, structures will become unusable smouldering ruins. If you don't repair them, they will burn to the ground.
• Slap-on-the-Wrist Nuke: While Siberite/Alaskite bomb isn't a classic nuke, it's portrayed as something much, much more powerful. Being the most powerful weapon in-game, it is able to take nothing bigger than a dense-packed medium-sized base.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: While not a happy stroll in the park in any way, the American campaign is much more idealistic than the Russian one, where several important characters are unceremoniously killed off (including Burlak's brother and MacMillan's Love Interest, not to mention Tim Gladston in just first mission), and remaining loyal to your Bad Boss earns you a firing squad rather than his respect. If you decide to follow it, the Alliance route is more idealistic than staying loyal to either of the sides.
• Soviet Superscience: Soviet tanks at the beginning. Then Soviet time-displacement technology, teleportation and probably out of all mecha armed with all-kind-of-possible-weapon build like a factory, not in a factory. Not to mention being build 2 millions years ago by bunch of car mechanics.
• Starting Units: In some missions, you start with vehicles which you are able to neither produce nor fuel...
• Stealth-Based Mission: At least one is obligatory stealth if you are even thinking about finishing it. That's right. A stealth mission in RTS game. And you would be suprised how well it is made.
• Take a Third Option: The Russian victory means they invade United States in the present day, while the American victory creates an Alternate Universe where they oppress the whole planet and the USSR still exists. To avoid this, Peter Roth hopes for both sides' scientists to cooperate in understanding. The Arabs have their own third option as well, although a rather... extreme one.
• Trapped in the Past: EON/TAWAR only goes in one direction. All characters are aware of this.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: It's an RTS, right? So all I have to do is build som... oh shit, is that a tactical shooter? A stealth mission?
• Video Game Caring Potential: Every human unit in the game is a unique individual with RPG-like stats, and when they die, they are Killed Off for Real. It is often better to deploy inferior remote-controlled or computer-controlled vehicles just to avoid risking your precious soldiers.
  • Not to mention risking missing the dialogue, which is often hilarious.
• Videogame Flamethrowers Suck: Heavy guns does more damage and don't require to get so darn close.
• What Could Have Been: For unknown reason the original plot was heavily changed, What you got in game is military expedition on both sides with lots of weapons, fighting equipment and trained soldiers. The original premise was that the Americans sent back miners, geologists, sciencists and few hunters and gave them just the basic survival equipment, with no professional soldiers to aid. And they get hard beating from Soviet well-fitted and trained armed forces, being there just to protect the Siberite/Alaskite from those damn capitalists. Just imagine how hard it would get in such setting. One of old concept arts is used as background in American campaign menu.
• Worker Unit: Every single character can be equipped with engineering equipment (as long as there is an operating stockpile), allowing him or her to build and repair structures and carry crates. Americans may also use apemen as pack-mules and to help construct or repair, but human or AI-controlled construction vehicle is required to start building.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Trailer for the game should get a special mention. Americans pull a risky raid for supplies from the future, loosing one of them, only to find out later that the crate they fight for was full of Coca-cola cans. Then the whole game, plot-wise, is like this.
• You Require More Vespene Gas: Crates represent resources sent from the future and they are used for everything. With proper technology, you can find oil deposits and later Siberite/Alaskite, using them as fuel for your vehicles and power generators. There is also energy, produced by said generators or solar panels.

Look, if you're not willing to work with me, can you at least recommend someone else who can? I don't want to leave the article in such a sorry state if you claim that that is the case.

Also, don't be intimidated by the moderator. A moderator's function is not to hand out judgement, but to ensure that a discussion remains constructive. I do not claim to know the story any better than you; in fact, what is being requested is a description of what the scenario I'm botching might be.

Guys? I am not a moderator. I would have an orange tag saying so if I were.

I have some difficulty working out who's right here partly because your posts are long.

I used moderator in the "third party" sense. But I was also tired when I wrote it.

This is not about moderator. This is how this guy came around and keep on editing the page for the sake of editing it. No new content, just rewritting the existing entries so they suit him, no matter how far away they are from game lore, mechanics and pretty much reality. This. Is. Vandalism. And I'm sick of watching how he turns the page into bunch of nonsense, with constant crying for help. If something isn't broken - don't try to fix it. Especially when you have no idea what are you doing. Instead he fucked up the page, went on cry how no-one loves him and his edits and sired even more edits to sooth his sorrows.

This drive point home and since no-one seems to care, I wait another 12 hours for mods attention. Then I will revert the page myself to the state before Whitecroc came around. His edits hardly made sense to game content and mechanics while adding nothing new. Just twisting existing page beyond any sense.

Potatoe Jesus anyone?

Who? You still haven't told anyone specifically what is wrong with my edits. A blanket accusation of not respecting the lore or being a wet blanket or trampling on your work is not constructive.

You wouldn't happen to know the person who wrote the bulk of the page, would you? Myrth, I believe he is called here? He levelled the exact same accusations at me, once again without telling me what, exactly, I'm messing up with my edits.

Rysio Pysio and I have discussed this matter thoroughly via PM, and have been unable to reach a compromise. I will attempt to find a third party who has played the game as my next step.

Note: I haven't played the game. So I can't speak to most of them, but a few seem straight forward.

Instant A.I.: Just Add Water! seems like it would be easy to square away... the trope isn't about "there is AI" it's about AI spontaneously coming into existence. If someone designed it, or tried to make it, then it's not this trope.

Harder Than Hard... well, it looks like you had that one squared away.

Something just occurred to me. Rysio Pysio, have you played the original (heh) language version, or the English one? I've only played the latter, so there might be some discrepancies caused by the translation.

Hey I know this topic is probably over, but If you look for another person to judgement, I played this game multiple times (in Polish) and it still remains one of my favorite. I lack both time and resolve to analyze whole game (and I'd rather not judge grammatical side of things) but I think I could help with some conflicts. Nice to see, not everybody forgot this excellent game.

Told you already - I won't work with you. Your edits were pointless fromm the start and now you're trying to cover this by reworking them even more. Turn the article to it's state before you went on rampage. That's the only way you can contribute after all the mess you created.

I'm giving you time till noon, London summer time. Then I'll simply report your actions as vandalism.

Very well. I suppose my apparently inaccurate edits will have to stand, then.

EDIT: As you say. At least I tried.