Command & Conquer: Generals: Difference between revisions

* [[Artificial Stupidity]]: Any player unit being shot at from outside its guard range will simply stay in the same spot and be killed, unless you activate retaliation in the options menu. Then, they'll chase after whatever is shooting at them and generally run into more enemy units.

** [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]: The AI relentlessly takes advantage of this with its ground-based AA vehicles by positioning them just outside of your air units' response ranges where their AA guns will fire with impunity as your helicopters just hover, doing nothing.

* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: A lot of units can go under this, due to [[Crippling Overspecialization]]. Case in point: the PRC Overlord tank and its [[The Same but More|elite counterpart]], the Emperor tank. Armed to the teeth, they are literally [[Military Mashup Machine|landcruisers]], but hey, these babies don't come easy: they cost a lot, are hard to maintain and are typically the first on any opponent's target list, are often slow and prone to [[Zerg Rush|Zerg Rushes]], which doesn't make suffering the fact that they're easy to counter any lighter for the one in possession of these crazy machines.

** And by extension, some of the [[Support Power|Support Powers]]. Here's one: the USA Propaganda Leaflet Drop. It makes enemies stop fighting for a mere minute, and it's not a total surrender. More often, pragmatic players would rather spend the Generals point on a [[Big Bulky Bomb|MOAB]]. The B-52 dropping the leaflets, on the other hand, is quite the bullet sponge, which comes in handy if [[We Need a Distraction|you need a distraction]].

* [[Bottomless Magazines]]: [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by one of the Gatling Tank crewman's quotes.

{{quote| I have ''many'' bullets to spare! -- '''Gatling Tank crewman'''}}

* [[Black and Grey Morality]]: The GLA, for all their talk, are horrible people and arguably the most evil faction the series. But on the other hand, the "good guys" aren't ''entirely'' altruistic on their part. The Chinese don't seem to have second thoughts about torching or nuking their way to victory if they have to, nor do they have second thoughts about blowing up large portions of their own cities or handing ''tactical nuclear weapons'' to terrorist turncoats. Also, one has to wonder how they're running their occupied portion of Kazakhstan if a general there defects and the GLA was able to convince mobs to burn down Astana and recruited several anti-China militiamen from an occupied fishing village in the first mission.

** It's even mentioned in the ''Zero Hour'' campaign that the Europeans eventually forced the Chinese to back down from nuking towns and cities infested with GLA terror cells.

* [[Curb Stomp Battle]]: The first mission of any factions campaign. First, the Chinese, after suffering a nuking by the GLA, launch an armored assault that wipes out the GLA forces around Beijing and takes their nuclear weapons stockpiles with very few losses. Then, in the GLA campaign, they launch their own armored assault, first destroying a small Chinese base mostly staffed by infantry with two bunkers with suicide bombers and technicals, then destroying a large Chinese base (complete with infantry, bunkers, tanks, and minigun turrets) in an armored assault, then finally blowing up the nearby dam, which drowns an entire Chinese armored battalion. In the USA's first mission, a large group of American tanks engages a large group of GLA ones and destroys all of them with zero losses on the American side. When another, equally large group of tanks starts moving towards the Americans, they're all instantly destroyed by an airstrike.

** The last one is pretty close to real life. During the Gulf War, not a single American tank was destroyed by an Iraqi tank, whereas the Iraqis suffered huge losses. The parallel was likely intentional since the mission takes place in Baghdad.

* [[Death From Above]]: Besides the [[Kill Sat]] below, the [[Support Power|artillery bombardment/airdropped explosives]]/faction-specific superweapons.

* [[Determinator]]: Even after going through several civil wars and having their asses handed to them by the two superpowers ''four times'', the GLA just. Don't. Freaking. Die.

* [[Final Boss]]: In the Generals challenge, PRC ubergeneral Leiang "Tigress" Leang, who has a base combining all three factions' units and structures. You start the mission racing the clock before she hits you with a simultaneous Nuclear Missile, Particle Beam, and Scud Storm.

* [[Foreshadowing]]: Defeat Gen. Kwai in ''Zero Hour'' and he'll mention the [[Final Boss|Tigress]] [[Curb Stomp Battle|squashing you like a bug]].

* [[From a Single Cell|From A Single Standing Foundation]]: ... a reduced GLA building can be rebuilt. See [[Multiple Life Bars]] below for a detailed explanation on that.

* [[Game Mod]]: Quite a number of have been made for it. ''Shockwave'' is one of the most popular out there.

* [[Nuke'Em|Nuke 'Em!]]: The PRC, as a whole, and Gen. Tsing Shi Tao in particular. He specializes in nuclear warfare, and when he isn't spamming nuke silos, he's steamrolling you with nuclear-powered tanks firing depleted uranium, or MiGs and Helixes dropping tactical nukes.

* [[No Kill Like Overkill]]: While it's understood that anyone can pull this off, there's one in-universe case where Tsing Shi Tao starts off his scenario by routing most of your advance guard with his artillery. When the two surviving tanks try to flee, he drops a ''nuke'' on them.

* [[Once an Episode]]: Each of the three campaigns in ''Generals'' features a dam getting destroyed and the water flooding some poor schmucks downriver. Seems the developers liked showing off the effect.

* [[Organization With Unlimited Funding]]: Any side can be this, even long after the supply docks run out:

* [[Punny Name]]: PRC Tank Gen. Ta Hun Kwai. [[Gratuitous Foreign Language|Broken Mandarin]] for "He (is) very fast."

* [[Refuge in Audacity]]: The whole plot involve an Al-Queda inspired organization managing to wage open war on American and China AT THE SAME TIME, using out of date weapons and [[Weaponized Car|converted civilian vehicles]] that wouldn't even scratch their intended targets in real life.

* [[Robot Roll Call]]: Drone technology is America's specialty. Typically, they're installed into American ground vehicles for a small fee, in exchange for added versatility and [[Misguided Missile|drawing attention away from the parent vehicle]].

** [[Surveillance Drone]]: The Scout Drones.

* [[The Starscream]]: Dr. Thrax, if you go campaigning. He intends to usurp control as GLA leader.

* [[Tank Goodness]]: Anything with the word ''tank'' on its name, while ''Zero Hour'''s Gen. Kwai is built around this trope.

* [[Tech Marches On]]: In C&C Generals and Zero Hour, the main attack helicopter for the USA is the Comanche. The games take place sometime in the [[Twenty Minutes Into the Future|2020s]]. When the games were released in 2003, the Comanche was still undergoing test flights with the intention of eventually being deployed as a support vehicle to the AH-64 Apache. In 2004, the Comanche program was canceled by the U.S. Army, and its budget was reallocated to UAV development.

* [[Technicolor Toxin]]: GLA's toxins are, in ascending order of lethality, Green, Blue, and Purple.

** The PRC Hacker infantry class is actually a [[The Cracker|Cracker]] for all intents and purposes,.

** The PRC's [[Gatling Good|Gatling guns]] have a "Chain Gun" upgrade, which is a misnomer; ''Gatling gun'' and ''chain gun'' refer to two completely unidentical weapons.

* [[Terrorists Without a Cause]]: The GLA's agenda. You're actually told in the GLA campaign that their motive is to drive out who they feel are imperialist aggressors, though beyond this their precise goals are unclear. Many real life terrorist organizations had an ostensible goal of liberating their homeland from foreign occupaton, so the GLA is not without real life precedent.

* [[Time Stands Still]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAjN0WAcwe4&feature=related In at least one cinematic] of the ''Generals'' campaign, especially when [[Stuff Blowing Up]] is involved. Complete with [[Orbital Shot]].