[hyl]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

Alternatively, you can allow infantry to do the clearing....IE assault urban combat style...in addition to artillery or air power

If you meant by the combat drop with chinooks, then i am against that. Slowing down your own resource gathering , while at the same time the risking losing your chinook (1200 is not cheap) because they can't handle rockets that well, is hardly strategical. Also with some micro management you can evacuate the building before the chinook can clear the building while leaving the chinook stuck defenceless and most likely killed.

Originally Posted by Tiresias

IMO China got the short end of the stick since hackers generate credits slower and are infantry (meaning they die fast) instead of buildings. No to mention that the system as a whole means that end-game bases are pretty much stocked with supply depots and black markets, making it less like a military base and more like an industrial center

Hackers are the worst of the bunch, but that was the risk of using china. Because their units were more meant to rush (gattling tanks are one of the better early game units and dragon tanks could decimate buildings on their own). But hackers are the most easily bought, because they are cheaper than the others.

Originally Posted by Tiresias

And having weapons that can instantaneously kill garrisoned troops pretty much drops the value of infantry since they die fast in open terrain, reducing the fight into pure vehicle battles.

Infantry are supposed to be weak and are only used at the beginning and mid game as support. They are not meant a means to turtle so that the game will become a stale untill the guy with the most destructive superweapons wins.

Originally Posted by Tiresias

Pretty much what Cosmic Eagle said. Besides, what I prefer to avoid is weapons that instantly kill garrisons. In fact, the best way might be that ALL weapons can harm garrisoned infantry but at a slower pace, while specialized weapons (flames, toxic, bunker buster, artillery) kills at a much faster rate. Very fast, but not "holy shit did ten of my veterans just die because of two dinky flash-bangs" fast.

If they kill things at a slower pace, then the unit that is doing the clearing is most likely killed before they can even clear 2 infantry inside. Considering that some maps have tons of buildings and 1 building can house 5-10 soldiers, then what is the point of using building clearing units before they can accomplish anything.

Originally Posted by Tiresias

And at least change flash-bangs with frag-grenades (seriously, killing people with flash-bangs? )

Probably for balancing issues, because if it were actual grenades then rangers could also take on vehicles. They needed an excuse so that it would only defeat infantry.

Originally Posted by Tiresias

The tac-nuke thing never happened to me, so that's a rare case. In any way, Raptors are way more reliable than Migs since they have more missiles and Migs pretty much suck at killing aircraft since the firestorm effect was designed with ground-attack in mind.

In generals (not zero hour), 1 mig with 2 missiles with explosion damage type from blacknapalm killed 1 raptor instantly. You still needed 6 raptor missiles to kill 1 mig because of the armour upgrade that migs can get. The migs were superior in the air and better than raptors on the ground because they did more damage and cause firestorms.

edit: migs were also cheaper than raptors and the china airfield was also less expansive than the USA's airfield. The only reason why i would ever build an USA airfield in the first generals game was for aurora bombers and those choppers (forgot the name).