History VideoGame / WargameRedDragon

* BoringButPractical: Most fighting is going to be done with cheap line infantry, cheap transports, mortars, and cheaper tanks like the base model Abrams and the T-72A. Using top-of-the-line units can certainly control the battle, but they are expensive and limited in number, making them a massive risk to expose and potentially lose. More numerous, more affordable units with decent stats that can grind more effectively.

** The Spike anti-tank missiles available to Israel and Finland notable aversion as well. They have enormous range and an extremely quick flight time.

* AttackItsWeakPoint: just like in reality, armored vehicles tend to have the bulk of their armor on their forward face; learning how to flank enemy vehicles to take advantage of their weaker side armor is an absolute must.

** USSR also use lots of cool [=APCs=], like BMP, BMD and infamously powerful BTR-90. One of the more effective means of locking down a town with AA infantry is to get a four-pack of Igla infantry in the model of [=BMPs=] with quadruple machine guns and a heavy autocannon. The missiles can deal with the planes while the rifles and the piles of automatic guns deal with the helicopters.

* BilingualBonus: each country's units will speak the language of that country--French soldiers speak French, Russians speak Russian, et cetera.
* BoringButPractical: Most fighting is going to be done with cheap line infantry, cheap transports, mortars, and cheaper tanks like the base model Abrams and the T-72A. Using top-of-the-line units can certainly control the battle, but they are expensive and limited in number, making them a massive risk to expose and potentially lose. More numerous, more affordable units with decent stats are far more cost-effective and less of a pain to lose.
* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: very cheap, very ''old'' units are available ''en masse'', if you want a lot of units on the field right now. All the REDFOR factions get access to the T-34 tank of WWII fame, but North Korea takes things a step further with the ability to field SU-76M tank destroyers, a unit that was obsolescent by 1945. (South Korea also has the option to field old M18 and M36 tank destroyers; the M-18 in particular is the fastest tracked unit in the game.)
** [[UsefulNotes/FinnsWithFearsomeForests Finland]] takes this even farther, with units equipped with weapons dating back to ''before'' WWII (The M/39 rifle and the Suomi SMG). Finland is also the only REDFOR nation that doesn't get the T-34, though they do get the British Charioteer, which is an upgunned conversion of the WWII Cromwell tank. They also have units that use the Lahti anti-tank rifle, from 1939, as a heavy sniper rifle.
** Yugoslavia has a post-war variant of the M8 Greyhound, a version of the M18 Hellcat (called the SO-76 Helket), a version of the M36 tank destroyer (called the SO-90 Džekson), the [=M5=] Halftrack, the Super Bazooka, a version of the MG 42[[note]]While the version was created after the war, it's almost an exact copy, just with a lower rate of fire and no anti-air sight[[/note]], the [=StG=] 44, and the Thompson Submachine gun. They almost qualify as a flashback episode to WWII.
** The British and ANZAC use the Bren Gun and the M1919 machine gun. All three Commonwealth nations make use of the Sterling (or in Canada's case, the C1) SMG, which was designed in 1944, with trial models seeing use during Operation Market Garden, though it wasn't until 1951 that it was officially adopted. It should be noted that, unlike the T-34, these aren't used by units meant to be cheap, ''en masse'' options, with most of the units using the Sterling and the Bren actually being special forces or elite shock units (the SBS, the NZSAS, the Royal Marines, the Gurkhas, etc. The only real exception is the Canadians, who only give the C1 to small weapons teams and their Pioneers, and the ANZAC Diggers also using the Bren). In fact, the only militia unit available to the Commonwealth, the British Territorials, don't use any of these, instead carrying the [=L1A1=] and M72 LAW. In fairness, the Sterling wasn't phased out until the mid-80's in most of the Commonwealth countries.
** [[UsefulNotes/IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles Israel]] has access to a post war version of the Sherman (granted, the version was first made in the 1970s, but the version of the T-34 used by most of the REDFOR factions dates to 1969, with the only exception being Yugoslavia's version, which is from 1977). Unlike with the T-34, it isn't a cheap tank meant to be used ''en masse'', but instead a cheap tank destroyer (or fire support vehicle. Due to a bug, it is labelled a tank destroyer, but is placed under the fire support filter when building a deck). They also have access to a version of the [=M3=] Halftrack, which they pretty much only use for their militia unit.

* ClownCar: Infantry transport vehicles are somewhat abstracted; they either can act as transports, or they can't, with no regard to capacity. This can occasionally lead to silly moments like a 15-man Marine squad piling out of a six-seat Humvee, or a 10-man VDV squad debussing from a BMD (actual passenger capacity, four). Occasionally inverted as well; a two-man ATGM or Recce team will take up the entire passenger space in a Chinook helicopter.
* CoolPlane: Now with anti-ship missiles! Ranging from the Eurofighters to A-10 Warthogs to Su-27PU. If the're was an attack/fighter plane that a nation hyper-theoretically had or experimented during the 80s or 90s chances are its in here.

* GuideDangIt: Most of the game, as the tutorials are extremely short basic text descriptions for the kind of game you'll be playing.

** Chinese Yubeiyi and North Korean Juckwidae are 15-man units with assault rifles or submachine guns available in large quanitites, keeping with the "popular militia" organization they have.

* MultinationalTeam: A key mechanic in deck-building is the ''coalition'': for instance, 'Eurocorps' (France and West Germany), 'Commonwealth' (Britain, ANZAC, and Canada), or 'Eastern Block(Poland, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia). At the cost of forcing the player to choose from the countries' unit lists, the coalition option unlocks country-specific prototypes and in some cases provides additional bonuses. They tend to be slightly more well-rounded than a single-nation deck, at the cost of less total deployment points, and fewer units per slot (e.g. Canada on its own can have 20 hardened Airborne units per slot, but in a coalition it only gets 14 per slot).

* OneStatToRuleThemAll: Armor penetration is the most important stat in the game, especially given the numbers of armored vehicles and tanks. 16 AP is generally considered the number that makes or breaks an anti-tank weapon or gun, as that can one-shot the 2 armor often on transports that otherwise make them resistant to small-arms fire.
* PainfullySlowProjectile: [=ATGMs=] travel quite slowly and you could easily make out their progress, but only in comparison to high-velocity cannon rounds streaking across the battlefield. Of course, this is TruthInTelevision--missiles are slow compared to sabot shells, and whether or not your unit would be able to ''do'' anything about that missile trail heading toward them is another story entirely. ''If'' the ATGM unit gets taken out or loses line of sight, the missile will almost always veer off course, meaning that an ''extremely'' fast response ''might'' be able to save the targeted vehicle.

** The Israeli Maglan is a notable aversion as well. Their anti-tank missile both has an enormous range and an extremely quick flight time. By the time a player is aware of the incoming missile, it's too late to evade the Maglan's shot.

* RareVehicles: Tons of the damn things. To name a few; North Korea can field the T-90S as mentioned above. America has access to the [=COMVAT=], a Bradley variant with a modified main gun (and no [=ATGM=] launcher) that - whilst apparently very popular with testing crews - never made it out of the prototype stage. Canada has the Chimera, a monster of a tank destroyer that may never have seen production due to mechanical issues with the weight of the vehicle versus the strength of its engine.

* UsefulNotes/SouthAfricansWithSurfaceToAirMissiles: South Africa is a DLC country.

* SplashDamageAbuse: low-hovering helicopters are vulnerable to explosion damage, and killing unwary helis with aerial bombs and artillery shells happens occasionally. Against particularly careless enemies, even weapons like the 165mm HESH shell from the [=M728 CEV=] or a rocket barrage from a gunship helicopter will do the trick, if you target them correctly and account for dispersion.

* VideogameFlamethrowersSuck: [[AvertedTrope they do not.]] Sapper/engineer units and some specialized infantry carry napalm weapons, which are especially deadly in urban fighting and can kill tanks at short range.
** Napalm artillery deserves special mention, the TOS-1 Buratino can wipe small towns off the map.
** Zig-zagged on some special forces, such as USSR Spetsnaz and Chinese Lijian-90. They carry thermobaric rockets, which are essentially long-ranged flamethrowers that also deals heavy damage on enemy infantry and light vehicles. These are the most efficient anti-infantry units in game, but are defenceless against armoured vehicles (As they don't carry anti-armour rockets used by normal infantry). Which means they are rather situational and often not worth the investment.
* VillainsActHeroesReact: Is the case with the 3 BLUFOR campaigns, where the player has to withstand a communist assault with limited defenses before turning the tables with late arriving reinforcements.

* VeteranUnit: there are five levels of veterancy: Rookie, Trained, Hardened, Veteran, Elite; each level comes with some sizable but not game-breaking buffs to accuracy, rate of fire, and resistance to shock. Unlike in most games, however, you can often choose to buy higher-experienced units from the start: you'll just have less of them per card. (Would you prefer two rookie A-10s or one elite?)

* ZergRush: Can be done with lots of small ships or cheap tanks. Its effectiveness has been toned down somewhat in recent patches; in the past, "spam T-55s and T-34s" was a popular option.
** Of particular note is that, due to the game necessitating actual logistics management in the form of fuel and ammunition, throwing so many weak and cheap units at the opposition as possible in order to make them run out of ammo is a perfectly viable tactic. After all, the most modern tank in the world is still just a fancy lump of metal if that cannon can't fire. The aforementioned T-55 and T-34 spam strategy used this ammo drain as it's primary strategy.

The main addition to this version of the game is the introduction of [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfNavalWarfare naval combat]], although it stays more to the littoral side of things. The biggest ships available are the Japanese ''Kongo'' class destroyers for BLUFOR and the Soviet ''Udaloy 2'' and ''Sovremenny'' class destroyers for REDFOR. There are larger ships on the strategic map that don't show up in battle. They are the USS ''Enterprise'' for the Americans and the ''Kuznetsov'' for the Soviets.

!!This game contains examples of:

* GuideDangIt: Most of the game, as the tutorials are extremely short basic explanations for the kind of game you'll be playing.
* HomeGuard: Reserve troops, like West German Heimatschutzen or British Territorials, are available troop options, for when you need a lot of low-cost troops to hold urban sectors. Mostly armed with a very poor assault rifle and launcher. The US doesn't field reservists, but to make up for it, they have a bizarre lack of guided missile troops and recoilless rife troops outside of overspecialized decks.
** Strangely averted with Danish/Swedish reserve troops, as they get an MG. While the swedes get sort of screwed over (armed with bolt action rifles), the Danish have a submachine gun. Korean reservists get, at most, a rifle and a Super Bazooka, but they deploy in stacks of dozens. If you get them in groups of four and park them in buildings with their transports around for cover, they can lock down a city, but they're helpless against flamethrowers and grenadiers.

* UsefulNotes/KiwisWithCarbines: New Zealand, along with New Australia, is a new playable country.

** It has to be noted, though that land units' ranges are close to accurate, following in lin with the games soft-core simulation tendencies.

* StraightForTheCommander: Like in the prequels. Doing so nets you a lot of victory points, as well as control of a key map sector.

** Napalm artillery deserves special mention, the TOS-1 Burantino can literally take out small towns two units. A ring of fire indeed

''Wargame: Red Dragon'' is an RTS game released by Eugen Systems in 2014, the sequel to ''VideoGame/WargameAirlandBattle'', itself a seqel to ''VideoGame/WargameEuropeanEscalation''. This version of the game changes the setting from the European front to East Asia, and includes Chinese, Korean (of both flavours), Japanese, Australian and other forces in that sphere of influence. The gameplay is built around commanding a combined-arms force of forces from either side, choosing your arsenal from a vast array of pretty much every unit fielded by the in-game nations. The game has multiplayer matches from 1v1 to 10v10, as well as a campaign mode playable in 1v1 or versus the AI.

* AwesomeButImpractical: In addition to the notes on the first game's page the resource requirements for most MLRS systems and heavy howitzers have been raised to prohibitive levels. More recent patches have extended the aiming times for most artillery systems.

* BadassIsraeli: Israel is available as a DLC nation, and they are a very potent force, particularly on recon and with anti-tank weapons. The Maglan recon unit has an extreme range on their anti-tank weapons, and with their excellent detection range they can spot and kill most ground vehicles on their own. As mentioned above, they also have access to the APC version of their Merkava tanks.

* UsefulNotes/CanucksWithChinooks: This iteration of Wargame adds several prototype units, that were phased out or rejected due to the end of the Cold War, to Canada's arsenal. Prominent examples include the TH-495, an IFV that was passed over in favour of the LAV III (and in part to the Oliphant scandal), the Canadian Airborne Regiment infantry (a regiment that dissolved due to the 'Somalia Scandal') and the Wolverine (a highly mobile, close range SAM vehicle, ideal for escorting fast moving columns). Canada stars in two coalitions; NORAD (with the United States) and the Commonwealth (with the UK and Anzac). The king of this trope, however, is the Chimera heavy vehicle, which never got past the blueprint stage[[note]]In fact, it may not have ever been meant to be built, since it may have simply been made as part of a challenge for officers at a design school[[/note]], and can ruin ''tanks'' with its ludicrous 120 mm smoothbore cannon.

* DeathOfAThousandCuts: For balance reasons, "HEAT" type anti-armour weapons will inflict at least 1 points of damage when it hits a target, even if the target's armour cannot be pierced. (The other type of anti-armour weapon, kinetic, cannot inflict damage on a target if it cannot pierce its armour. To compensate, the armour-piercing value of kinetic weapons increase as you move closer to the target.) This,together with the fact that all land units, except the non-combat unit FOB, have at most 10HP points means even the most heavily armoured mordern tanks can only take 10 hits from HEAT weapons (such as infantry RPG, the main gun of some tanks, all ATGM)even the said weapon is hopelessly outdated. This makes it dangerous for tanks to go into forest or towns, as even a few militia squads have a reasonable chance of scoring a few hits on a modern tank with their otherwise harmless rocket-propelled grenades.

* MeatShield: Infantry squads usually come with some sort of anti-tank weapon and a machine gun, but can't use both at the same time. The recommended tactic when fighting infantry in towns or forests is to advance your own infantry in front of their fire support, tying them down while allowing your vehicles free shots.

* PainfullySlowProjectile: [=ATGMs=] travel quite slowly and you could easily make out their progress, but only in comparison to high-velocity cannon rounds streaking across the battlefield. Of course, this is TruthInTelevision--missiles are slow compared to sabot shells, and whether or not your unit would be able to ''do'' anything about that missile trail heading toward them is another story entirely. ''If'' the ATGM unit gets taken out, the missile will almost always veer off course, meaning that an ''extremely'' fast response ''might'' be able to save the targeted vehicle.

* UsefulNotes/CanucksWithChinooks: This iteration of Wargame adds several prototype units, that were phased out or rejected due to the end of the Cold War, to Canada's arsenal. Prominent examples include the TH-495, an IFV that was passed over in favour of the LAV III (and in part to the Oliphant scandal), the Canadian Airborne Regiment infantry (a regiment that dissolved due to the 'Somalia Scandal') and the Wolverine (a highly mobile, close range SAM vehicle, ideal for escorting fast moving columns). Canada stars in two coalitions; NORAD (with the United States) and the Commonwealth (with the UK and Anzac). The king of this trope, however, is the Chimera heavy vehicle, which does not exist, and can ruin ''tanks'' with its ludicrous 120 mm smoothbore cannon.

*** AI is terrible when it comes to supplying their forces in the field. While they will sometimes repair and rearm some units, for the most part they prefer just to call in more units. They are ''especially'' bad when it comes to refuelling, meaning that most battles eventually result in the map being littered with vehicles that are undamaged and have almost full ammunition stocks, but aren't actually doing anything because they've run out of fuel. Again, this happens regardless of how many supply units they have in their deck. To make things worse, trying to refuel their vehicles will usually result in them moving the vehicle away as soon as it has any fuel, meaning it basically just wastes the fuel and stops a few meters from where it was. If you want to play skirmishes, get used to managing both your logistics and your allies.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: While most of the infantry command squads are only regulars, the East German Fuhrungstrupp are considered shock troops, and as such fire more accurately and can move faster than any other command squad in the game.

** The ANZAC [=ASLAV-PC=] has ''"Cook the man sum eggs"'' written on the side of it.

** The British and ANZAC use the Bren Gun, and British use the M1919 machine gun. All three Commonwealth nations make use of the Sterling (or in Canada's case, the C1) SMG, which was designed in 1944, with trial models seeing use during Operation Market Garden, though it wasn't until 1951 that it was officially adopted. It should be noted that, unlike the T-34, these aren't used by units meant to be cheap, ''en masse'' options, with most of the units using the Sterling and the Bren actually being special forces or elite shock units (the SBS, the NZSAS, the Royal Marines, the Gurkhas, etc. The only real exception is the Canadians, who only give the C1 to small weapons teams and their Pioneers, and the ANZAC Diggers also using the Bren). In fact, the only militia unit available to the Commonwealth, the British Territorials, don't use any of these, instead carrying the [=L1A1=] and M72 LAW. In fairness, the Sterling wasn't phased out until the mid-80's in most of the Commonwealth countries.

** [[UsefulNotes/FinnsWithFearsomeForests Finland]] takes this even farther, with units equipped with weapons dating back to ''before'' WWII (The M/39 rifle and the Suomi SMG), while Yugoslavia has a post-war variant of the M8 Greyhound, a version of the M18 Hellcat (called the SO-76 Helket), a version of the M36 tank destroyer (called the SO-90 Džekson), the Super Bazooka, and the Thompson Submachine gun. Finland is also the only REDFOR nation that doesn't get the T-34, though they do get the British Charioteer, which is an upgunned conversion of the WWII Cromwell tank. They also have units that use the Lahti anti-tank rifle, from 1939, as a heavy sniper rifle.

** [[UsefulNotes/FinnsWithFearsomeForests Finland]] takes this even farther, with units equipped with weapons dating back to ''before'' WWII (The M/39 rifle and the Suomi SMG), while Yugoslavia has a post-war variant of the M8 Greyhound, a version of the M18 Hellcat (called the SO-76 Helket), a version of the M36 tank destroyer (called the SO-90 Džekson), the Super Bazooka, and the Thompson Submachine gun. Finland is also the only REDFOR nation that doesn't get the T-34, though they do get the British Charioteer, which is an upgunned conversion of the WWII Cromwell tank.

** [[UsefulNotes/IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles Israel]] has access to a post war version of the Sherman (granted, the version was first made in the 1970s, but the version of the T-34 used by most of the REDFOR factions dates to 1969, with the only exception being Yugoslavia's version, which is from 1977). Unlike with the T-34, it isn't a cheap tank meant to be used ''en masse'', but instead a cheap tank destroyer (or fire support vehicle. Due to a bug, it is labelled a tank destroyer, but is placed under the fire support filter when building a deck).

** The most powerful artillery pieces in the game tend to carry only one or two shots before they need to be resupplied, making them useless for suppressive fire, or if you need an actual artillery barrage.

** The British and ANZAC use the Bren Gun, and British use the M1919 machine gun. All three Commonwealth nations make use of the Sterling (or in Canada's case, the C1) SMG, which was designed in 1944, with trial models seeing use during Operation Market Garden, though it wasn't until 1951 that it was officially adopted. It should be noted that, unlike the T-34, these aren't used by units meant to be cheap, ''en masse'' options, with most of the units using the Sterling and the Bren actually being special forces or elite shock units (the SBS, the NZSAS, the Royal Marines, the Gurkhas, etc. The only real exception is the Canadians, who only give the C1 to small weapons teams and their Pioneers, and the ANZAC Diggers also using the Bren). In fact, the only militia unit available to the Commonwealth, the British Territorials, don't use any of these, instead carrying the [=L1A1=] and M72 LAW.

** USSR also use lots of cool [=APCs=], like BMP, BMD and infamously powerful BTR-90. One of the more effective means of locking down a town with AA infantry is to get a four-pack of Igla infantry in the model of BMPs with quadruple machine guns and a heavy autocannon. The missiles can deal with the planes while the rifles and the piles of automatic guns deal with the helicopters.

** The British and ANZAC use the Bren Gun, and British use the M1919 machine gun. All three Commonwealth nations make use of the Sterling (or in Canada's case, the C1) SMG, which was designed in 1944, with trial models seeing use during Operation Market Garden, though it wasn't until 1951 that it was officially adopted. It should be noted that, unlike the T-34, these aren't used by units meant to be cheap, ''en masse'' options, with most of the units using the Sterling and the Bren actually being special forces or elite shock units (the SBS, the NZSAS, the Royal Marines, the Gurkhas, etc. The only real exception is the Canadians, who only give the C1 to small weapons teams and their Pioneers, and the ANZAC Diggers also using the Bren). In fact, the only militia unit available to the Commonwealth, the British Territorials, don't use any of these, instead carrying the L1A1 and M72 LAW.

* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: A patch note indicates that the ability for the AI to smash your units despite not having scouts has been removed. This doesn't stop them from sending out multiple fighters that occupy the same space, swamping your aircraft. Wonder why you 170 point F-15C just got taken down by a 65 point MiG-21? It wasn't a single MiG... it was 5-6 of them all flying in exactly the same space, as the AI can spam them faster than you can send out planes manually.
* ClownCar: infantry transport vehicles are somewhat abstracted; they either can act as transports, or they can't, with no regard to capacity. This can occasionally lead to silly moments like a 15-man Marine squad piling out of a six-seat Humvee, or a 10-man VDV squad debussing from a BMD (actual passenger capacity, four). Occasionally inverted as well; a two-man ATGM or Recce team will take up the entire passenger space in a Chinook helicopter.

* DeathOfAThousandCuts: For balance reasons, "HEAT" type anti-armour weapons will inflict at least 1 points of damage when it hits a target, even if the target's armour cannot be pierced. (The other type of anti-armour weapon, kinetic, cannot inflict damage on a target if it cannot pierce its armour. To compensate, the armour-piercing value of kinetic weapons increase as you move closer to the target.) This,together with the fact that all land units, except the non-combat unit FOB, have at most 10HP points means even the most heavily armoured mordern tanks can only take 10 hits from HEAT weapons (such as infantry RPG, the main gun of some tanks, all ATGM)even the said weapon is hopelessly outdated. This makes it dangerous for tanks to go into forest or towns, as even a few militia squads have a reasonable chance of scoring a few hits on a modern tank with their otherwise harmless RPGs.

* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: A patch note indicates that the ability for the AI to smash your units despite not having scouts has been removed.

** Taken to extreme measures with the North Korean B-5, it drops one bomb, but said bomb can basically obliterate anything caught in its a blast radius.

* CanucksWithChinooks: This iteration of Wargame adds several prototype units, that were phased out or rejected due to the end of the Cold War, to Canada's arsenal. Prominent examples include the TH-495, an IFV that was passed over in favour of the LAV III (and in part to the Oliphant scandal), the Canadian Airborne Regiment infantry (a regiment that dissolved due to the 'Somalia Scandal') and the Wolverine (a highly mobile, close range SAM vehicle, ideal for escorting fast moving columns). Canada stars in two coalitions; NORAD (with the United States) and the Commonwealth (with the UK and Anzac). The king of this trope, however, is the Chimera heavy vehicle, which does not exist, and can ruin ''tanks'' with its ludicrous 120 mm smoothbore cannon.

* DeathOfAThousandCuts: For balance reasons, "HEAT" type anti-armour weapons are guaranteed to inflict 1 points of damage on the target when a hit is scored, even if the weapon cannot piercing the target's armour (The other type of anti-armour weapon, kinetic, cannot inflict damage on a target if it cannot pierce its armour, to compensate, the armour-piercing value of kinetic weapons increase as you move closer to the target, while HEAT weapons have constant armour-piercing value at all distances) This,together with the fact that all land units, except the non-combat unit FOB, have at most 10HP points means even high-end modern tanks can die rather quickly to a few infantry squads with outdated weapons, or a swarm or museum piece vehicles such as T-34 or Su122 (both have HEAT main guns) if it cannot kill the enemy before they start firing or retreat from the situation.

** Zig-zagged on some special forces, such as USSR Spetsnaz and Chinese Lijian-90, carries thermobaric rockets instead of RPG used by other infantry squads. Thermobaric rockets are essentially long-ranged flamethrowers which also deals heavy damage on enemy infantry and light units. These are the most efficient anti-infantry units in game, but due to not having any anti-armour weapon, they are defenceless against armoured vehicles, unlike normal infantry. Which means they are rather situational and often doesn't worth the investment.