Part 112: France
From the Diary of General Ivanov posted:
October 3rd 2150,
I found Fedorov with a gun in his mouth this morning.
I'm not sure I can blame him, last night was brutal; nearly a third of the men shot themselves overnight, unwilling to go on. But when I saw him like that, tears streaming down his face, blaming himself for our predicament...
I wish I could've let him find his peace. But I can't. I can't watch my friend die like that. I had to do something to save him.
So I did.
I told him the secret I'd been keeping. That I'd seen Lunar Corporation activity in Europe for a few weeks now, but hadn't mentioned it. Why bother? Their ship left weeks ago, and no one has seen them since. We've been getting many strange transmissions since the evacuation ships started leaving and I thought nothing of it. Presumably it's the fleets coordinating with each other and we're just picking up the echos due to our proximity. As time goes on, they'll become fainter, although we'll be long dead by the time they go completely silent. And the Lunar Corporation, peace lovers that they are, would never leave their own behind to die on this doomed rock. I assumed it had to be one of these echos.
But now? Now it's our only chance.
It was hard to talk Fedorov down, but this tale seemed to do the trick. He did made me promise that if we found nothing I'd kill him myself. I agreed. It's the least I could do for an old friend.
Truth be told, I don't really think we're going to find anything, but I can't let on about my doubts. The only things holding the men together right now are Fedorov and myself, and with Fedorov in such a state the burden falls squarely on my shoulders.
God, if you're listening now would be a good time for a miracle.
Briefing Video: video link
To say the mood in the Dynasty camp is down would be an understatement. Despondent. Morose. Fatalistic. Suicidal. Those would be more apt descriptors. But give some credit to Ivanov. He's trying to pick up the pieces and find something worth fighting for.
And found it he has. We'll need to move in our radar units to determine what exactly the LC is up to, but they are definitely busy here in France. Our only hope is that they're working on some sort of evacuation plan too.
This is all we get. Unarmed Radar units and 10 Urals with heavy lasers. Let's hope there aren't any air units.
For being only a few months away from destruction, Earth is still looking pretty good.
There are a series of LC Defender towers guarding the way towards our listening location. You would think with only lasers these would be hard to destroy, but you would be wrong. Just one volley from those two Urals melted the shields on the Defender and because defensive buildings carry ammo they're a bit easier to destroy with concentrated laser fire.
Plus we don't need to destroy them, just distract them long enough to get the Radars through.
Oh and I suppose we have to destroy the laser fence too.
The Radars took a little bit of damage, but are still fully operational.
Good
God
Yeah I think the LC are definitely up to something. This isn't some abandoned research facility. This thing is armed to the teeth and they do not look happy to see us.
The generals both agree. We'll need to capture the enemy's HQ to figure out what's going on. Additionally, if we shoot it we're liable to set off it's self-destruct mechanism, so uh let's avoid doing that.
It's been a while since we've had to build a base from scratch. Our location here is really, really bad though. We are completely exposed to the north, west and east and there's not much in the way of natural choke points.
While we build our base the Urals come back to have some fun with the Defenders (and now a Guardian too!)
We are winning this fight.
Really, really winning it.
So consider that a lesson in how you actually can destroy buildings with lasers, provided you bring a comical amount.
Well shit. Guess the LC really liked those towers. Prepare for an attack!
The air force is sent over from HQ.
Our base is fully operational and I start mining.
And most importantly, I'm going to build The Great Wall of France to try and keep the attacks coming from only 2 directions.
While scouting our Hans have run into an enemy Thunderer patrol. Quick fall back!
Wait why are we falling back? We outnumber them and our weapons are better. Open fire!
Okay now we can head back. Given that we just shot a patrol out of the sky I'm guessing the LC attack is coming any minute now.
Yep. Everyone ready to start shooting these Moon Girls out of the sky?
Yeah I think they're ready.
Let's check on how the Great Wall of France is comin....
Noooo! They stopped our construction of the Great Wall of France! You will pay for this Moon Scum!
Before we exact our revenge for the Great Wall of France we've got more pressing issues. Like attacks coming from both our east and west.
Oh come on. Attacks are now coming from the north too, and with our defenses pushed to the limit defending our flanks there's nothing stopping them from waltzing in and asking what's up.
Blowing up our Mines, that's what's up
Crions!?
CRIONS!?
You gave me all that bullshit last mission and now I figure we're going to take it a little easy but nope here you assholes are with Crions. Which can one-shot most of our units. Wonderful.
Thankfully they can't shoot helicopters so we'll be using those to clear them out.
While our air force is busy shooting at Crions and our ground units scramble around to keep the Crions from getting a good shot off I decide we should probably invest in some defenses. I think towers surrounding the whole base should work.
Or they would work, if they didn't kill our Gruz.
And from the west comes yet another LC attack. We've been under assault for close to half an in-game day now.
After a brief pause overnight the attack resumes in the morning. There's a lot of shots being exchanged here.
But it looks like we're going to come out on top!
YOU GET AWAY FROM THE GREAT WALL OF FRANCE
SAVE THE WALL BOYS! FORWARD!
Our beautiful, incomplete Great Wall of France. It's been desecrated by these Lunar savages.
There is only one remedy.
Artillery.
So much artillery.
This is like the last mission except without a time limit and easier in every single way.
Well except for the Crions.
Where are they getting those things anyway? They're expensive as hell and take forever to make.
We've knocked out most of the defenses but we're unable to make any headway with those Crions shelling us.
I think it's time we consider upping our arsenal.
To nukes.
Also, note that the Bomb Bay will take approximately 16 hours to research. Given that's clearly a bug I'll be "helping" that research along.
We also finally get authentic artillery. Considering how much more cost-effective our mobile artillery is (no reload cost) I'm not sure I'll ever be using it but hey, it's there if we need it.
I suppose the canon explanation for why I get access to this stuff now is that the General Command held all the nuclear launch codes and artillery canons. Now that they've left we've been able to acquire them for ourselves, probably through capturing those Missile Control Centers last mission.
We're still chipping away at these Main Bases but it's only a matter of time.
And we're in!
Only to immediately be countered by a massive LC force.
Hmm...that seems, really, really suspicious. I just blew up the majority of their production buildings.
30,000 CREDITS!? Good lord. There's not much of a point in building this this mission because at that price, I'm better of just doing this:
Urals with double Ballistic Missile Launchers. It costs 13,600 credits a pop making it the most expensive vehicle in the game but dear god is it worth it.
Back in the LC base we've destroyed the counter-attack, allowing us to once again shell everything in sight.
Losing a Xyrex plant is big. Not sure they'll have enough power now.
And if the Xyrex wasn't enough, the Solar Batteries will be.
Still not enough? Okay what about the Solar Plants themselves?
They're still not out of power? What the hell are they doing here that could require that much power?
We'll knock out some more Xyrex plants just for kicks at this point.
I'm convinced they've got a perpetual motion machine running somewhere. I've never seen a base with this many power plants continue to run after they've all been destroyed.
They mined the whole area dry too. The deeper we get into this base the more questions I have.
There's the HQ. Once we have it we'll hopefully know what's going on here.
Also, DO NOT SHOOT AT IT. Seriously. It's an auto-loss. Ion cannons are okay but anything else and you will lose the mission.
And given how trigger-happy the LC are we're going to make sure they don't end up shooting it either by clearing out all these defenses.
Well, well, well look at that. A giant group of LC units just magically appeared next to the HQ. So now that we have clear evidence of the CPU cheating...
I do some cheating of my own and destroy all these units with the destroy unit command.
I'm okay with infinitely respawning units if it's somewhat reasonable. A human player is always going to be better than an AI, there's no way around that. However, there is no universe in which 45 Crusher hE and Crions magically spawning is reasonable. That's bigger than my entire army right now. Ignoring how long it would take to actually build that, it's also going to go way over whatever units limit the LC has.
Poor form Reality Pump. Poor form. (Reality Pump is the Earth 2150 developer)
And with the enemy's cheating ways countered and all the surrounding buildings destroyed we're safe to capture the HQ.
Looks like we're headed to Poland. Maybe while we're there we can tell Reality Pump to make their AI a bit more fair
I wonder how many of those units were cheated in by the LC...
There they are. The crown jewels of our army. Four nuclear-tipped missiles, ready to deploy anywhere in the world.
I have a feeling we're going to need them.
Our army is ready. We're going to find whatever it is the LC is working on and take it. Whatever this project is, it's our only way off the planet. And given that this is going to be our last mission, everyone's heading over there.
Let's do it!
Next time: Our final Eurasian Dynasty mission ever: Czechoslovakia.