A rough introduction to the C&C3; mod Crimson East, giving some info on story setting, goals, and release plan.

Posted by Phosphorus.Walrus on Jan 7th, 2020

What is Crimson East?

It is a mod for C&C3 that takes players to the Asian theatre of Red Alert 1’s conflict, to once again do battle as either the Allies or Soviets. Storyline missions for both these factions is the ultimate goal of this mod.

Explain the setting.

Stalin’s mention of taking lands from the Chinese and Europeans in an RA1 cutscene and Danang being stated as one of many Soviet bases of operations in the game’s instruction manual, serves as the inspiration for this setting. China is on the back foot, Europe is still in jeopardy, and efforts in the UN to galvanise the rest of the world against the Soviets bears fruit, with more nations joining on the side of the Allies. What occurs after is the Allied attempt to push into Vietnam, North Korea, and China. To bolster the Chinese, ease off pressure on the European front, and to establish another possible avenue of attack into Russia.

The Factions.

Since the setting isn’t Europe, the makeup of both the Allied and Soviet factions will be a bit different. On the Allied side is the United States of America, the Republic of Korea, and Japan. On the Soviet side are Russia, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Vietnam.

To further emphasise this makeup, Doctrines will be introduced to coincide with each of the 3 nations on either side. Taking the form of an upgrade from the Construction Yard, activating a doctrine will unlock unique weaponry, upgrades, and a veteran unit type. More on this in a later post.





Why China isn’t part of the Allies?

An assumption is being made here that the China in Red Alert is the People’s Republic of China, a communist nation. There would be distrust for them among the Allies in a world where it was communism that kicked off the Second World War, and so they might be an ally against a common enemy, but not part of THE Allies. Why this assumption? It has to do with Tiberium Dawn, and China being categorized as a disenfranchised nation that was being influenced by Nod. As the last great communist nation post-war, it would make sense why they’d end up that way.

So what role does China have then? You’ll have to wait and see.

Releases

The plan is to release a public build each time the mod reaches 50% faction completion, until version 1.0. What does 50% faction completion mean? For example, the first release will include all common Allied units, defence structures, and support powers + the first round of Doctrine additions (1 new weaponry plus upgrades/support powers). Second release, will include all common Allied structures + second round of Doctrine additions.

With that in mind, here is the release plan:

Build 0.2 – Allied common units, base defences, support powers + Allied doctrine additions #1

Build 0.4 – Allied common structures + Allied doctrine additions #2

Build 0.6 – Soviet common units, base defences, support powers + Soviet doctrine additions #1

Build 0.8 – Soviet common structures + Soviet doctrine additions #2

Build 1.0 – General polish + doctrine additions #3

Build 1.1 and up – Storyline missions and maps

Screens

That's it for this rough introduction. More specific information will be provided in later posts, so keep an eye out for those as well as lore articles from time to time. Thanks for reading!

Until next time.