Part 6: Bonus Update: Crater HQ Capture

Part 6: Bonus Update: Crater HQ Capture



We ended the map within striking distance of the HQ. What if we went for the capture instead of the wipeout?



Little wrinkle in that plan. If you can't tell from the animation, the mech is missing the capture option when moving over the enemy HQ. Apparently mechs can't capture HQs, only infantry! Good thing I didn't end up relying on that option, what with not being allowed to use infantry on that map and all.



I was very confused at this point, and thought maybe I'd imagined being able to capture the HQ as a victory condition altogether. So I decided to keep experimenting. First I finished capturing the enemy base.



What I wanted to do was build an infantry here, so I could prove to myself that it was possible to do an HQ capture on this map.



Unfortunately, it's not possible to build on captured bases in this game. It makes sense from a realistic point of view - capturing enemy territory doesn't automatically mean you can recruit their citizens or re-tool their machines to produce your equipment, after all - but it was pretty jarring after getting used to having that ability in later games.



Here's another little quirk. The Blue Moon team is getting 7000 G in income each turn. We have 3000 G from captured cities, 3000 G from the three bases each player starts with, and 1000 G from the HQ. But wait - we just captured one of Blue's bases! Well apparently the bases and HQ don't actually provide income, the map is just hard-coded to give each player 4000 G on top of the amount from cities.



I kept playing around for a few more turns. There's a loaded APC in the upper-left that's bringing down an infantry to capture the HQ. But what we're seeing here is something you're not likely to experience in normal gameplay - there's a cap on funds at 99999 G.



Later on I captured all three enemy bases, just to see if only one of them was glitched, but they're all still providing Blue income.



I did eventually get an infantry down to start capturing the HQ.

Music: HQ Capture



Capturing the HQ plays a short sound effect and results in the enemy CO getting kicked out, rather than a single soldier. The CO even has the same face shown in the battle-summary screen at the end of the last update.



The CO then grows a surrender flag out of his head somehow, before we bomb him again to get rid of him for good.



The map grays out again, but with the different victory condition.



Everything else is the same from here. Of course while getting this extra footage, I screwed up my save states so our new score for this map is 29 turns. Oops again.