Yeah, odds are that if you start playing that one, you'll be tied up in it until it's done while your other games sit unplayed.

Not good signs there. A tactical combat game with bad combat is doomed to failure.

Start small, complete it, then build on it. Gradual progression as you stabilize each version.

RTS's do have a tendency to do the whole "here's something really important but it's only guarded by two soldiers" kind of thing a lot.

I do remember the bit in Red Alert 2 where you had to protect (or destroy? I clearly can't remember it that well) the Statue of Liberty.
Really wish they'd bring Red Alert 2 here, it was one of the best RTS's. I loved trying to infiltrate your enemy with spies to get hybrid units, or using Yuri to capture an enemy MCV and build a whole second base. I'm sure I had a game where I ended up with Yuri, Allied and Soviet units :D

Doing fine although ElTerprise is still suffering from a truly terrible case of Ninja giftitis. Which caught me flat footed earlier today.
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You know how there are some games which you keep playing and replaying, again and again and which you never seem to really tire of, even though you've played so much you know every single bit and map by heart?

Dark Souls is that game for me.

I know she was with family for the weekend, so maybe it was today as well, so maybe we will see her tomorrow.

Red Alert 2 was a lot of fun. The story and the units were a little silly (and it was the start of the games becoming more American over Allied), but it was a lot of fun and the gameplay was quite solid. There was no mission to protect the Statue, it was part of the opening mission, but the Soviets destroyed it. Sadly I hear that the third Red Alert games were just horrible, going for eye-candy more than anything else.

Yeah, it's a shame because I thought it might be quite good, and the story, characters and graphics are all quite nice but the actual gameplay is just a slog. But I think I'm probably at least half way (hah! see what I did there? ;) ) through it so hopefully I should be able to beat it before I lose patience and give up.

See that's the sensible approach, but as soon as I start thinking of stuff I think of all the other things I'd like to do and how they invariably require a lot more effort and skills which I lack. I've already had to tell myself at least twice that I'm going to make a traditional ASCII based roguelike and it doesn't need to be 3D...

Ninja gifting is terminal, you never recover once you have the bug. :-)

I do know how it is to have games you can play over and over again. The original C&C games (before EA destroyed them) we are talking about are some such games for me. I have played them so many times, but I still have lots of fun playing them again.

After clearing the standard titles, Generals was a nice change of pace.
The storyless structure of Zero Hour threw me off, made it less interesting to play for long periods.

No, you're right, the story did get ruined by the aliens being added. It was a mess at times beforehand, tech levels jumping back and forth, things like that, but once they decided on that and shifted 3 and 4 to that storyline, it was done.

Bad storytelling on their part. They wanted the mission to feel like it had big stakes, but the first mission would be a tutorial-type. You can't have both.
Being reminded of the big JRPG question of why the first town is always the smallest. You'd think it'd be the largest since it's surrounded by the weakest monsters.

As for the landmarks, it sounds like a stupid design choice on EA's part. I like the idea of any structure being destructible, considering the artillery shells, missiles, bombs and other explosives flying around.

Oh the story and the units were more than a little silly, they were completely ridiculous, and that's why I loved it. I still quote the audio taunts sometimes (the ones you got by pressing the F keys)... XD
"If you give up now, I promise amnesty for you and your men!"

That's the one I'm thinking of. Never played the third one yet, last C & C game I played was Generals, and while that was ok I didn't find it brilliant....

Gather round children and listen to my tale.

When I was 13 we went on a historical field trip, which included one of us trying on some roundhead armour complete with helmet.

I mostly remember two things. One was the weight, and the other was that people used to be much smaller back then. Because even though it was a bit big, it wasn't all that big.

And I was the shortest in the class.

Quite possible. But it would be definitely unusual if she's missing tomorrow as well...

I think part of the not destroying American landmarks is due a bit to Americans attitude to such things and EA. Hence why you are fine destroying foreign landmarks (London during the alien campaign), but never American landmarks, unlike when it was Westwood and you could destroy most building (like in Red Alert 2, where as the Soviets you got rewarded for destroying US landmakrs).

I used to do that with a lot of SNES games.. FF 5, Link to the Past and Seiken Densetsu in particular. Could still pick up any of those games and play them start to finish and have fun. And the first Fire Emblem on GBA (the first one they released in the West anyway) which I must have won about 7 times.

-laughs- Another dull game to clear. Hooray.
Take it in pieces if you have to, get it cleared so you can throw it on the corpse pile and move on to something better.

My thoughts would be start small. Go with what you know, what you can do, then build on it. Whenever you get ideas for heavy modification, write them down, but don't implement. Use that saved list as something your brain can look at and be satisfied that you didn't let the ideas wither away.
After you've got the basic version fully produced, go back to that list of ideas and prioritize which ones would improve the game the most, remembering all the while that EYE CANDY DOES NOT MAKE A GAME BETTER BY DEFAULT.

C&C 3 was build with the same engine as Generals (I think), but it was not really that good. It was the usual America in danger and GDI was really just America saving the day, then for some random reason aliens invade and it all just became a mess. The original two C&C games had a very global feel to them, even though they were still mostly American, it was not that noticeable as it took place all over the world. The story just became ridiculous, trying to tie everything into a big alien plot.

But remember that people come in all sizes, so maybe you just had a short guys armour. :-)

Hopefully. The place is not the same without here here.

The concept does have a certain pandering spinelessness to it, something done to keep ridiculous blowhards from saying EA is somehow anti-American or some such bullshit.