Jeff: Speaking of nukes, how did you balance nukes, since everyone nowadays considers nukes to be the ultimate weapon?

Mark: Well, the Chinese has the nuke, which has the damage and the area affect of radiation. The GLA has a Scud Storm, which has the damage and releases biotoxins. The U.S. has particle cannons, which if you take the idea that this is twenty years in the future, means that we have space-based weapons platforms. Some people might say, “Hey, that sounds just like the ion cannon from C&C!” Well, we’re just thinking a few years ahead. You can target an area with the particle cannon, and it’s still active, so you can drag it around. This means you have the option to concentrate a large amount of damage on one enemy, or spread the damage around amongst smaller groups and buildings. We knew they wouldn’t be identical, and we set it up so they would be base crackers, not game enders. But if you get the final weapon and strong Generals powers thrown at you at the same time, while it’s not a game ender, it leaves a huge amount of chaos.