Greetings, fellow Command & Conquer fans; I release now the latest version of the New Horizons mod for Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge, that being Version 14 (which supersedes Version 13-A). As always, I highly recommend reading the articles on the previous releases to learn more about what’s new, should you be interested.
What’s New:
4th New Campaign Mission
The 4th completely new campaign mission is now available. Whereas the previous releases (Versions 13, and 13-A) brought about massive new items, including the Horror Mode(s), as well as a vast amount of new units/buildings/animations, special effects, etc., this release is centered around the new campaign mission. Some time ago (years), I did say that actual-numbered-index full releases would (as opposed to sub-versions with various suffixes) be based on something major, such as a new playable country or a new campaign mission, so here it is.
For those of you already familiar with the first two New Horizons campaign missions, you will know that these missions take place in Our timeline (rather than the standard alternate-reality Red Alert universe), with the traditional factions of ‘Allied vs Soviet’ being superseded by the NATO vs CSTO factions. The missions released so far set the player in command of different scenarios on the side of the CSTO faction, based in the 1st quarter of the 21st century. NATO has launched a full-scale invasion of CSTO-member countries, and it is up to You to tip the odds against the aggressor. Mission 1 (Operation: Dark Dawn) takes place in western Belarus during quadrennial ‘Zapad’ defensive military exercises. You have control of a small Russian military delegation carrying out an inspection of a Belarusian border post when NATO forces crash through the border. Your mission there was to escape eastwards, to prevent being surrounded. Mission 2 (Operation: Pacific Storm) took place pretty much on the other side of the planet, on one of the Kuril Islands, at the eastern extremity of the Russian Federation. Here, you had to repel the American Pacific Fleet, preventing them from breaking through to the mainland (which could be done with 2 alternative endings, one of them resulting in rendering the island uninhabitable). In Mission 3 (Operation: Evacuation), players were tasked with the defense of the southwestern quadrant of Kaliningrad from combined NATO forces attacking the city whilst ensuring an evacuation of civilians.
Now, onto Mission 4, Operation: Convoy. This mission takes place in the northeastern region of Syria, somewhere near the M4 highway. Since 2011, Syria has been in a state of conflict due to literal armies of NATO-backed terrorist groups (backed, defined in terms of weapons support, logistics, financial, political, and even media/'documentary' whitewashing), to the extent that Syria officially requested help from the Russian Federation in 2015, which managed to prevent the collapse of Syria (into a pseudo-Islamic 'caliphate'), and turned the conflict around completely. In this mission, you will initially be in charge of a small unit tasked with securing a convoy as part of the Russian Reconciliation Centre for Opposing Sides in Syria (R.R.C.O.S.S.), which conducts various peacekeeping efforts and assists with humanitarian aid. With the outbreak of major hostilities around the world, this particular convoy is tasked with returning to Khmeimim air base, essentially withdrawing to a safer place. In order to get there, you must guard the convoy to a local airfield, where an An-124 transport plane is located.
Making this segment of the mission was quite challenging; after all, there aren't exactly many convoy missions in the C&C games! But this mission isn't merely just an escorting mission. Once you have guarded the convoy to the local airfield, this is where the mission becomes somewhat open-world; although you have made it to the battered airfield and found the transport plane to be intact, you cannot simply fly to home base just yet. It turns out the airfield was raided by terrorist groups, and along with stealing the aircraft fuel tankers, they have taken the pilots hostage! From here, it is up to you as the player to decide what to do. There are many possibilities, ranging from friendly encounters with S.A.A. (Syrian Arab Army) units to hostile encounters with foreign illegal occupation forces, along with their terrorist proxies. But the primary objective, in order to complete the withdrawal by air to Khmeimim, will be to recover the aircraft fuel, as well as the location of the pilots, which will need to be taken back to the plane.
Screenshot from the mission;
Given that players will have very limited resources and means at their disposal, players will have to manage what they have accordingly and choose their battles wisely.
There are many hidden things in this map ('easter eggs'), which may not all be properly discovered in several playthroughs. I have not yet made a skirmish version for this map, as I did with the colossal 3rd mission map, though I may consider doing so in the future.
New Stuff?
As mentioned, with Version 14 do not expect much new, as this release focuses on an entire new campaign mission. That said however, there are some new Mission 4-related items, which it is possible to use as props (for all you custom map editors out there).
Firstly, very much in line with the context above, you will notice the Typhoon-K armored transport used by Russian military police (M.P.) in Syria in such convoys in real life.
Here is an example of a real one in Syria;
And here they are represented in-game, at the beginning of the 4th mission;
Secondly, fuel trucks. Fuel trucks have been added in 2 variants: one based on the Kamaz trucks already available and another on the M35 trucks, also already available. I haven't bothered taking screenshots of these, as they look exactly as you would expect and are derived from a selection of already available units in the mod.
Last but not least, I have updated the model for the K-9 'Thunder' self-propelled artillery. Previously, I had used an open-sourced model, but I decided to make my own model so that it looks like an actual representation of the real thing.
Here is a picture of one in real life;
Here is my updated model of them in-game;
To Summarise
Normally I would now go into other improvements, such as User Interface Enhancements, other Model & Visual Overhauls, AI Enhancements, and other miscellaneous stuff, but for now that is all. Or at least all I can remember is what I did for this release. Bear in mind that Version 13 and 13A were fairly wide-ranging, and as recently as the last release, various rebalancing had been done, taking into account the new features (again, please refer to previous releases to see all the newest).
I sincerely hope that wherever you are playing from, you enjoy the new campaign mission as well as all the stuff from previous versions. As always, have fun!
Command & Conquer Westwood Fans
Red Alert 2 YR: New Horizons
C&C: Yuri's Revenge
C&C: Red Alert 2
