| “ | Are you impressed with the modifications to my tanks, general? - Kwai, showcasing the Emperor |
” |
The Emperor Overlord Tank was an improved model of the Overlord tank developed and used by Chinese General Ta Hun Kwai.
Background
The child of the 2013 Emperor Program, like the original Overlord, these massive tanks could simply roll over smaller vehicles, crushing them beneath their treads. Armed with twin 140mm cannons, the Emperor Overlord was not to be underestimated.[1]
General Kwai, knowing the effectiveness of propaganda during battles, modified his Emperor Overlord so that each of them are equipped with a pre-installed Speaker Tower. Unlike the original Overlord, the Emperor, even with the Speaker Tower installed, still has enough room to install a Gatling Cannon, improving its effectiveness against both infantry and aircraft. Compared to the regular Overlord, this Gatling Cannon is placed further down the tank's chassis, effectively increasing its range against targets in front of the Emperor Overlord. However, the Emepror Overlord cannot be upgraded with a Battle Bunker, possibly due to General Kwai's preference of tanks over infantry.
Upgrades
Unit
The following upgrade must be purchased individually for each tank.
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Gatling Cannon | When purchased, provides the desired Overlord with a gatling cannon, effective against infantry and aircraft. This cost $1200 per tank. |
Base
The following upgrades are purchased at various buildings.
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Uranium shells | Increased damage of the Emperor Overlord's main gun by 25% and spread residual radiation. | Purchasable by Ta Hun Kwai and baseline China's Nuclear Missile Silo for $2500. |
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Nuclear tanks | Increased the Emperor Overlord's movement speed significantly. | Purchasable by Ta Hun Kwai and baseline China's Nuclear Missile Silo for $2000. |
The Subliminal Messaging upgrade does not affect the speaker tower of the Emperor Overlord tank.
Tactics
The slow-moving, while advanced and impressively armed Emperor Overlord epitomized the basic approach of the Chinese army: overwhelming firepower. In order to maximize effectiveness, these tanks were ideally used in mixed divisions, with flank protection from other units. Flank protection was essential, as the turret turn speed was lacking. But it didn't lack in anything else from then on.
Counters
The Emperor Tank had no counters save the Rocket Buggies, whose extremely long range and speed allowed them to do massive damage to the behemoth and avoid counter-attack. Artillery units and the ECM Tank are capable of disabling it completely at a very long range. Jarmen Kell, a specialized sniper working for the GLA, could kill the driver without destroying the tank. Thereafter, any infantry unit could claim the tank for their own side. Also, aircraft were recommended as well, for hit and run tactics only. This strategy is especially useful for USA.
Resourceful GLA commanders might also consider massing and/or mixing units such as the Hijackers, Scorpions, Bomb Trucks (with disguise or cloaked by GPS scrambler) or Terrorists riding on combat cycles. At worst, a hit and lure tactic can bring these behemoths into a pack of demo mines. The perfect counter for these monsters however is a deployed Nuke cannon armed with neutron shell. This will make a short work of any vehicle, even turning the tide of battle. Fully loaded Battle buses with RPG-troopers were also quite deadly against them. While they could easily decimate lone main battle tanks on their own, they are quite vulnerable to massed tank assaults. General Townes uses large groups of his own smaller yet equally powerful Laser Tanks to take out Emperors. General Alexander's EMP Patriots also can disable them and turn them to scrap metal in a matter of time.
The best strategy, however, was to simply prevent the deployment of these monsters via various means. This can be done by attacking Kwai's economy or vital structures required to deploy them early on in the battlefield. This will hopefully delay the arrival of the tanks, if not prevent them from emerging into the battlefield inevitably.
If all else fails, fighting against Kwai's massive war machines with overwhelming amounts of main battle tanks would suffice, if not suffer inevitable casualties.
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- ↑ Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour manual. Los Angeles, California: Electronic Arts Los Angeles, 2003.