New Buildings & Changes

Bring on the new architect

Westwood has gone to great pains in order to keep TS from becoming a tank rushing fest like the previous games in the series. We all know that cheesy tactic was about as big a turnoff as Roseanne Barr in a miniskirt. (Sorry to put that image in your head) To combat this, a lot of thought and changes went into the buildings. There will of course be walls to keep out intruders - GDI uses concrete while NOD opts for fancier, power hungry laser walls. There will also be a number of other defensive structures. Making a reappearance from the original CnC is the fearsome NOD Obelisk, a powerful laser tower which can now shoot at air units as well. Another interesting one is the GDI Firestorm Defense System, which can deflect or absorb damage and transfer the power to a generator. The generator can be overloaded - sorta like when I tried to plug in 4 appliances and a hair dryer into the same outlet. NOD has their own special defense toy as well, the Stealth Generator, which can hide buildings! Both sides can make the powerful EM Pulse cannon which a huge range to shut down and stop incoming vehicles in their tracks.

Battle rages in a GDI base

More fighting outside a GDI base

Changes and Innovations

Aside from making new types of defensive buildings, Westwood is experimenting with other ways to discourage rushing. One major change was the effect of multiple buildings; building many of one type of building will no longer decrease construction time of your units. For instance, building several war factories won't make you tanks build any faster as in previous CnC games. There's no advantage to making extra construction facilities, which is a huge bummer.

To offset this, many buildings will be modular in order to accommodate newer technologies. In other words, you can pay money for add ons to your building to enhance their functionality. GDI Powerplants will have three add on spaces for additional generators to accommodate your extra power needs later on. Adding power this way will be advantageous because it saves valuable space in your bases. GDI will also have modular defense towers. These can be placed anywhere along a wall. The top of these modular towers can hold any one of three types of weapons: a machine gun for light vehicles or infantry, a rocket tower for heavier vehicles, and a SAM emplacement for anti air capability. The best part is that you can swap out different weapon types whenever you want. If your enemy changes tactics from infantry to air, slap on the SAM module onto the machine gun and the gun will be sold automatically for you.