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WHAT IS COMMAND & CONQUER?
Command & Conquer, abbreviated C&C and later known as Tiberian Dawn, is a 1995 real-time strategy computer game developed by Westwood Studios for MS-DOS and published by Virgin Interactive. The game was the first in the Command & Conquer series, which later included a prequel and five sequels. On August 31, 2007, Electronic Arts, the current publisher and owner of the series, made the Windows 95 Gold version of Command & Conquer freely available for download from their official website, to mark the 12th anniversary of the franchise.
Set in an alternate 1995, Command & Conquer tells the story of two globalized factions: the Global Defense Initiative of the United Nations and the ancient cult-like quasi-state organization, the Brotherhood of Nod. The factions become locked in a mortal struggle for control over a mysterious resource known as Tiberium that is slowly spreading and infecting the world.
Met with acclaim by consumers and critics, Command & Conquer was released for seven separate platforms along with becoming the initiator of the popular Command & Conquer franchise, and today generally is considered as the title which defined and popularized the modern real-time strategy genre, and one of its quintessential titles.
GAMEPLAY
Command & Conquer's gameplay mechanics will typically require the player to construct a base and then acquire a flow of resources, in order to fund the ongoing production of various forces to assault and conquer the opponent's base. Command & Conquer features around 50 different units and structures. Virtually every type of structure in the game acts as a tech tree node, and additional units, structures and special abilities become available to the player as new structures are built and placed. Access to advanced units and abilities can be temporarily blocked if the required structures are destroyed, or if they are not being provided with adequate power by the supporting "power plant" structures.
All structures available to the player are built on-site at a "construction yard" building, which can either be already deployed on the battlefield as the mission starts or begin as a large-sized mobile construction vehicle ("MCV"), which is capable of deploying itself into an aforementioned construction yard at a suitable location of the player's choice. As a structure is being constructed, resources will steadily be deducted from the player's credits counter until construction is finished. When the construction yard has finished building the new structure, the player can select a spot next to a pre-existing structure in order to place it, where the prefabricated building will rapidly begin unfolding in a distinctive manner. Base defense is provided by specialized defensive structures, as well as fortification in the form of sandbags, wire fences and concrete walls. Later on in the game, the player can build lethal defensive structures like guard towers with machine guns or rockets, gun turrets, or the iconic "Obelisk of Light" of the Brotherhood of Nod.
While the two sides largely mirror each other in regards to tech trees and unit types, each has a distinct strategic preference. GDI units are intended to be sturdy and are often more powerful than their Nod counterparts, at the cost of being more expensive and having slower movement. GDI forces also have access to air and naval support. Stationary defenses include the guard tower and missile armed advanced guard tower which can engage ground and air targets. Conversely, Nod's units are cheap and fast, at the cost of withstanding less punishment. Nod forces are made to avoid direct engagement as much as possible, relying on hit-and-run tactics, active camouflage and guerrilla warfare to gain the advantage. Nod also has access to limited air support and naval support. Stationary defenses include the anti-tank gun turret, the Obelisk of Light laser guard towers and the surface to air missile (SAM) site.
Tiberium, the game's sole resource (except for the occasional money crate), is acquired by specialized "harvester" units which bring their cargo to a "refinery" structure and which in turn will convert the crystals into usable resources, expressed as credits. The Tiberium itself requires storage space in the form of "refineries" and, in the case of excess, "storage silo" facilities. Deposits of Tiberium are able to slowly regenerate and proliferate on the battlefield if not depleted beforehand, and can also cause nearby plant life to mutate itself into so-called "Blossom Trees". Blossom Trees seed Tiberium spores to their surroundings, and once one or several are present on the battlefield Tiberium deposits will regenerate themselves on the map indefinitely.
Single-Player
Command & Conquer features two story-driven single-player campaigns which together consist of a total of 50 missions. The player is required to complete about 15 missions as either GDI or Nod to end a single-player campaign successfully, however the missions can differ depending on the route of conquest the player takes throughout the campaign, which allows for a higher replay value with each playthrough. Most of the mission briefings in the single-player campaigns are presented in the form of a full-motion video which features live actors, with the two campaigns together having over 60 minutes worth of FMV material. Campaign mission objectives range from complete destruction of enemy forces to selective destruction, special operations or objective defense. Some of the missions of C&C first innovated various twists to the standard RTS single-player formula such as limited or no base building, and mission-specific rewards for goal completion. A common bonus reward for the GDI faction for example is the availability of the "Airstrike" power after the destruction of all SAM sites on the map, though if the computer is GDI, airstrikes would be available to it from the beginning of the mission, regardless of any anti-air missiles the player possesses.
In almost every mission in the single player campaigns (except the first three of each one), the computer is given a huge resource advantage over the player, and always starts out with fully operational bases with all structures already built, and armies ready to attack from the beginning of a mission. The player however, usually starts out with nothing but an MCV and a handful of troops, and has to build everything from scratch, thus making the first ten minutes of a mission the most difficult. The computer also has an advantage in unit and building costs. It costs the computer 10 times less than the human player to construct or train any unit or building, meaning the computer has almost unlimited resources. For example, the computer can sell a barracks, and from the money brought in by that alone, it can build another barracks, an Obelisk, and a Tiberium refinery. Another financial advantage that the computer has is that if even a partially filled harvester unloads at a refinery then all of the computers financial reserves are replenished. The computer also has the ability to construct buildings anywhere on the map except near the player's own initial base, whereas the player cannot construct any buildings except in very close proximity to his/her other buildings. And of course the computer has the known advantage of speed and Micromanagement, it can give a hundred orders in a second to all units on the map at the same time, whereas the player can only handle one selection at a time. All this, and many other computer advantages, serve to make the campaigns more challenging and give more playing time. The computer does have a disadvantage though, it attacks in small groups instead of committing all of its forces at the same time like the player.
Five "secret" missions are included on the Command & Conquer CDs, and can be accessed by providing the word funpark as a command line parameter. In the original DOS release, The Covert Operations expansion pack (which updated the game version to 1.20) was required to access these missions. The DOS C&C 1.22 patch also unlocks the funpark parameter and the 'Untamed Land' track. According to the release notes of patch 1.02 of the Command & Conquer: The First Decade compilation pack:
“ Creating a shortcut for Command & Conquer and adding on 'funpark -cd.' (without quotes) to the end of the 'Target' will allow the funpark missions to be accessed when the user selects 'New Game' from the Command & Conquer in game menu. ”
Note that the -cd. parameter is added to activate the game's inbuilt No-CD system, which is used by the First Decade compilation pack.
Multiplayer
The original MS-DOS release features multiplayer with up to four players, which was a rarity at the time, and supports play over network, null modem and modem. Multiplayer over an internet connection was added in the Gold Edition/Windows 95 Edition release of Command & Conquer, which sports several other improvements over the original DOS version.
As a result of changes to the IPX protocol libraries for the Windows XP and Windows 2000 environments, however, network play through this method has been rendered unavailable, except for matches that are played over parallel or serial link. Westwood Studios released a patch that disabled the game's LAN function to prevent the malfunctioning protocol from crashing the game on startup. This problem was later solved when an alternative version of the patch was released by a community member.
Story
Command & Conquer is set in the late 1990s after a meteorite crash lands near the river Tiber in Italy. The impact introduces an alien substance to the world dubbed Tiberium, which becomes of unprecedented value due to its unique property of leeching precious metals from the surrounding soil and crystallising them. However, the process also causes emission of extremely toxic gases.
An ancient and quasi-religious secret society, known as the Brotherhood of Nod, proves to somehow have foreseen the potentials of this new substance, and reveals itself to have been investing in the development of technology to harvest the Tiberium crystals ahead of the established scientific communities. They soon control almost half of the known supply of what has become the most valuable commodity on the global trade markets, and use these assets to sustain a rapidly growing army of followers worldwide under the leadership of a charismatic and self-proclaimed messianic figure, who is known only as Kane.
Following a series of relentless international bombings which culminate in the destruction of the fictional Grain Trade Center in Vienna, a wave of mass panic and fear begins to sweep the globe. These acts are ultimately attributed to Brotherhood of Nod terrorists and their leader, Kane. The United Nations Security Council realizes Nod has systematically begun with the unfolding of a centuries-old plan for world domination, and sanctions the G7-based Global Defense Initiative task force to intervene on its behalf, inadvertently setting a conflict in motion that will escalate into a modern world war.
The main overbearing plot during the game itself revolves around Nod's media manipulation trying to discredit GDI, to persuade the U.N. into cutting GDI's funding.
Sub-Plots
Command & Conquer features two sub-plots based on the two playable factions of the game, to make one overarching plot. Commanding the Global Defense Initiative's troops, the player becomes instrumental in eliminating Nod's European forces. Under the command of General Mark Jamison Sheppard, the player completes a range of missions ranging from securing a beach to rescuing civilians and scientists to defending GDI bases from Nod assaults. The player will be taken to battlefields in various countries of Europe such as Germany, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and more. A major plot element in the campaign is an international scandal caused by a Nod media manipulation that makes the world believe GDI deliberately attacked and destroyed a civilian village, killing children in the process. This leads to a cut in GDI funding, forcing the player to play several missions with limited forces. Finally, the player besieges the Temple of Nod in Sarajevo, Bosnia, which Kane uses as his main base of operations.
As a new recruit to the Brotherhood of Nod, the player initially performs tasks for the Brotherhood's second-in-command, a man known as Seth. After Seth attempts to deploy the player in an operation against the United States' military without Kane's approval, Kane kills him and thereafter issues commands to the player directly. The player is entrusted with the mission of driving GDI forces out of Africa through the use of both conventional and unconventional warfare. In order to give Nod a decisive advantage in the conflict, the player is ultimately assigned to gain control of GDI's space-based ion cannon, and establish Nod's Temple on South African soil. The campaign ends with the entire African continent coming directly under Nod influence and the Brotherhood being ready to commit themselves to achieving the same with Europe. The conclusion of the campaign allows the player to choose a historical landmark to destroy with GDI's successfully hijacked ion cannon to shatter GDI's public image. Potential targets include the White House, the British Houses of Parliament, the Eiffel Tower and the Brandenburg Gate.
Development
The creation of Command & Conquer has been characterized by its developers as being a culmination of work at Westwood Studios which had been in progress for several years, with development on C&C having begun in earnest in early 1993. According to former executive producer and Westwood co-founder Brett W. Sperry: "Command & Conquer was the net result of the Dune II wish list." With Dune II becoming the blueprint for the real-time strategy genre, it would subsequently lay the foundations for C&C itself as well. Also according to Sperry, "With Dune II, a commercial and critical success, it was time to build the ultimate RTS without the "leg up" from a license like Dune, and thus Command & Conquer was born. I was fanatical about calling the game "Command & Conquer" -exactly like that- because to me, it perfectly expressed what you did in the game."
The original concept of the Command & Conquer fiction was created by Brett Sperry, Eydie Laramore and Joseph Bostic. Unlike its predecessor Dune II, Command & Conquer was originally intended to be a high fantasy game featuring wizards and warriors. However, due to the political climate of the early 1990s, and the events of the Gulf War in particular, the developers felt that a contemporary war environment would be more accessible. According to Westwood co-founder Louis Castle: "War was in the news and the threat of terrorism was on everyone's mind. That definitely had an effect on the fictional world of C&C, though a parallel universe was created to avoid dealing with the sobering issues of a real war." "We wanted to make it a contemporary war for a contemporary world, with contemporary politics. At the time, Brett [Sperry] had said that it seemed to him that the next wars won't be fought nation-to-nation, but fought between Western society and a kind of anarchistic terror organization that doesn't have a centralized government. It turned out to be very prophetic". In an interview, Kane actor Joseph D. Kucan mentioned that the Brotherhood of Nod faction was an invention of Eydie Laramore in particular, with the two of them having extensively discussed biblical metaphor and imaged backstory.
The Tiberium substance was introduced to replace the spice from Dune II as the mined resource for building and expanding, with Louis Castle stating: "It solved one of the fundamental problems we had with making an RTS, which was that we wanted to have a central resource that everybody was fighting over. Dune has spice, which made perfect sense—and it was also used when we came to the idea of Tiberium. It became the anchor of the C&C universe because people were arguing over a limited resource that represented wealth and power." The original concept of Tiberium was inspired by the 1957 B-movie "The Monolith Monsters".
The music of Command & Conquer was composed and produced by Westwood Studios' former sound director and video game music composer Frank Klepacki. The original soundtrack can be listened to on his web site, along with various cues that were cut from the game, most of which are also present on the discs of the DOS version and the expansion pack.
The game's content easily fits on a single CD-ROM. However, each box of Command & Conquer contained two CD copies of the game, immediately making multiplayer gaming possible with only a single purchase of the game (although each disc featured different single-player campaigns). Westwood Studios advertised this on the packaging with the slogan "A second copy, so you and your friend can destroy each other". This resulted in Command & Conquer becoming the first RTS game title to feature competitive online play, and this is considered the most pertinent outside factor in the success of Command & Conquer.
Releases
Since Command & Conquer's initial success in 1995, versions of the game have been released for many different platforms over time.
Command & Conquer: Gold (a.k.a. Command & Conquer: Windows 95 Edition) is a re-release of the original game for Windows 95 and above. It features an improved interface similar to that of its prequel, Command & Conquer: Red Alert, but the core engine was left completely untouched. The new game engine runs at a resolution of 640×400, twice that of the original's 320×200 MCGA resolution. A resolution of 640×480 is also available, but it should be noted that in this mode the graphics are centered rather than scaled, distorting the game's aspect ratio. The Covert Operations can also be installed with C&C Gold. A Macintosh version of the game shared most elements with the Windows 95/Gold version, making it share its 640×480 screen resolution and better GUI graphics compared to the various console ports. The PC version of "The Covert Operations" add-on can be installed on the Mac as well, by copying the two files from The Covert Operations disk starting with "sc" to the C&C folder, and then increasing the game memory. The method of manually copying these "sc" files works on the Windows 95 version as well.
The game's Sega Saturn port appears exactly like the original MS-DOS release. This version can be played with either English, German, French or Japanese in-game voices by changing the system's language setting accordingly, although the FMVs remain in the language that the release was targeted for (English being the most widely spread one, as the others were exclusively distributed in their respective countries). The PlayStation port is near identical to the Sega Saturn version, but it featured five missions exclusive to this port. The game is incompatible with the PlayStation's link cable however, precluding the possibility of multiplayer modes. The Covert Operations is included. This version has also been released on the PlayStation Network in Europe. Both versions have stereo music, as opposed to the PC version's mono music, with the Sega Saturn version using actual CD audio.
The Nintendo 64 version updated certain graphical elements to 3D, though the terrain texture remained the same. The game offered an optional high-resolution 640×480 mode and a MIDI rendition of the PC version's soundtrack. The videos were removed due to cartridge storage constraints, and replaced with either static images accompanied by the cutscenes' audio tracks, or with cutscenes converted to real-time 3D scenes. This release did not include The Covert Operations, but did have four new missions which were called Special Ops.
Released as freeware
To mark the 12th anniversary of Command and Conquer, EA has released Command and Conquer: Tiberian Dawn for Windows as freeware. You can download it from [HERE] or you can download it from GameSpot UK by going here: http://uk.gamespot.com/command-and-conquer-the-first-decade/downloads/command-and-conquer-free-game-6178099/
Expansion Packs
The Covert Operations
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| Covert Ops Boxart |
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| A screenshot of the N64 version of the game. |
Special Operations
The Nintendo 64 and PlayStation versions each have a set of additional extra missions called 'Special Operations' unique to their release. They have since been extracted by fans for use on the PC version.
Sole Survivor
Sole Survivor was a multiplayer spin-off of Command & Conquer. It featured a deathmatch-style game in which each player controls a unit of the original C&C game and travels around the game arena collecting crates to increase the unit's firepower, armor, speed, attack range and reloading speed. Sole Survivor was often compared to a first-person shooter, however played with a bird's eye view of the arena. It featured no single-player mode and the multiplayer had no hints of a storyline, and the game was omitted from inclusion in the Command & Conquer: The First Decade compilation pack released in 2006.
RECEPTION & LEGACY
Command & Conquer was released to universal acclaim in 1995, and the game's runaway success during the mid-1990s has often been credited with originally having defined modern real-time strategy as well as having played a significant role in popularizing the RTS genre with the wider gaming audience.
In 1996, Computer Gaming World ranked Command & Conquer as the 48th best game of all time, stating "Not quite as complete as design of Warcraft II, this still sets a new standard for great multiplayer play combined with good back story told through top-notch cinematics." In 2002, Computer and Video Games included it among the "games that changed the world".
1997's Command & Conquer Gold was nominated at the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' first annual Interactive Achievement Awards in the category "Computer Strategy Game of the Year".
Open Source Re-Implementations
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| OpenRA's C&C mod main menu featuring a shell map as in C&C: Generals |
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