My thoughts:
- The graphics upgrade is nice. But tbh, the original graphics aren't that bad if you play at a half decent resolution and it's zoomed out appropriately. On this game, they have zoomed in more than usual and so the comparison between new and old is more extreme than it otherwise would be. Still, it's nice.
- Why have they not improved the AI? I don't see an excuse for this. I understand preserving the original for the sake of nostalgia, but keep it as an option with the new AI programmed also. It's actually even worse than the original on RA, because they have included custom maps with limited build space/ many bridges that the AI just can't deal with. So, even on 'hard' they just sit there, get clogged up and don't do anything. This annoyed me a lot, since they have access to much better AI engines in the more recent games that EA now own, it's just laziness.
Still. I paid money for it, so who am I to complain?
The AI has changed, its harder now. I now notice the AI is doing some micro managing of units, scattering from grenades, not approaching my base after I place a guard tower, instead hovering close to base but out of range of guard tower. Placing bazooka troops manually just out of range instead of just walking up to me, targeting vehicles specifically with bazooka instead of nearest unit.
Balance seems changed as well, in the original grenadiers murdered bazooka men as expected, but now enemy bazookas can sometimes match them one for one. But instead of a balance change it might just be a buff for the AI to make game harder. I am playing on normal so I wonder if casual is the old difficulty.
Also enemies dont suffer from same path finding issues as me. In addition they defenitly cheating but I cant remember if the cheating was in the original game as well, basically I observed during missing gdi 7 I think it is, they were pumping out new infantry extremely fast to the point I needed something like a 4 to 1 kill ratio in my favour. Also more then they could reasonably afford with their one harvester. So I then destroyed a wall to make a new entrance to their base, and got an engineer up there and had a guard tower pre built. Stole the nearest building which was a full silo, and immediately placed the guard tower, before i did this I notice the hand of nod was in range, so the idea was to kill their infantry before they could do anything, there was already a group of infantry there, so it was carnage early on both sides, as I had to place units there to be used as cannon fodder to protect the buildings I was popping up. Eventually I had complete control of the area, and I kid you not every 2-3 seconds a unit was popping out of the hand of nod, I had 2 barracks and I was producing slower. Most of these units were also flame troops or bazooka men so not the cheap 100 cost mini gunners. Whilst watching all this go on, their silo's were almost empty, the single harvester came back and filled its refinery and 3 silos in one load, its supposed to be 700 money from one load, but the enemy for 5500 from it. I cannot remember if they cheated like this in the original game, but the AI is definitely changed. However the AI is not as good as many modern RTS, where the AI is too good in my opinion, in this game its still very beatable. As the AI is cheating on money though I took advantage and captured all these filled silo's.
But overall i am enjoying it
Also a screenshot of my custom track list, the music in this game is awesome.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd....387/FFD72483182D9F23A13640E0B428872F43A0DA11/
The one thing that annoys me with the game is I do prefer the old sound effect's these sound more artificial. I cant find an option to use the legacy sound effects.
seems to use cloud save games as well which is nice to have between windows/linux.
