Very true. It makes me think some form of Combined or Tohaa force will reach or be near earth someday. So only White Company, Khanate, Earth Bastion, Ur forces, & fleshing out O-12. There is not alot left unless future events shake things up. Where was this? I don't remember hearing anything about another Yu Jing force.
It was a joke about the other nationalities that make up Yu Jing having their own sectorial armies like the Japanese did. I think the Laotian sectorial army has about as much chance of happening as the Khanate or Chaaksa sectorial.
I can see Earth Bastion being a NA-2 sectorial but with a mix of PanO and Yu Jing along with other new units from the most influential minor countries of Earth. Maybe we will get to see some Nigera or USA troops/unit with the Hyperpowers. I don't know if any part of Haqqislam would make it in though they could be but I'd rather get PanO/Yu Jing + Minor Nations. I think with Dashat it has taken the Khanate sectorial units and given them a home. So I can see no Khanate coming in the future unless CB has good unit ideas for that area of the planet. Politics is a pain of a roadblock to common sense ideals or actions. The backlash is obviously going to be huge from the global community not to mention the space powers (O-12 & etc). That is my only guess as to why they haven't done so in the universes lore. It could have ended up as everyone vs Yu Jing and could eventually spell doom for the Empire. Think Germany fighting mostly alone in WWI against a Russian front & British/France front.
There is a timeline advance coming up. Maybe by the time the war against the Combined actually gets to Sol the people of the Solar System will have gotten so sick of being ignored the whole system will have unified, seceded and defected to the Antipodes. No Earth Bastion Army, just Dog Defense Force. As for units being removed, I still think it will just be a few obsolete mercs, the Kazak Doctor and its redundant friends and possibly the Taquel Officer. More "holding pattern" updates on OOP Sectorials so the rules remain relevant and the player base stays healthy for an eventual profitable re-release of several brand-new models with existing demand seems like better business sense than annoying your customer base and driving down demand for FLGS leftover inventory in exchange for saving Gutier three hours changing all the keywords into N4-speak.
More or less, reality is, in universe, it has been shown a fully militarized PanOceania can defeat Yu Jing quite easily as shown from the second neocolonial wars and PanO is more militarized now than back then so even though there are more distractions, mostly by CA on Paradiso and the reason why PanO did stop was a combination of O-12 pressure and waning support from PanO citizens to the war effort, when in the Japanese secession support was quite high. Most of O-12 decisions are in Yu Jing favor including most crucially the resetting of the clock to pre first neocolonial wars territorial status at the end of the second neocolonial wars (were PanO had taken over most of Yu Jing shared territory and was bombing the capital planets from orbit), half of it is skilled Yu Jing politicians half of it is denying PanO even more power, Yu Jing know fully well their survival is tied to the O-12 and renouncing it openly is an invitation to disaster, like it or not while Yu Jing is the second biggest power, they are no match to PanO vast resources, I have said it before PanO does not control 1 more planet (Yu Jing home world is a binary planet), they control 3 star systems with all the resources this brings in. Yes, for many it seems it does not seem at surface level logical why Yu Jing would be so "timid" and follow O-12 resolutions, especially when PanO is clearly acting the way it did, but to overthrow a political shielding they used successfully so often and their survival has depended on it at least once, for a loss that is more political and frankly ideological than territorial it makes no sense.
Earth bastion being an NA2 featuring pano and yu-jing would follow the trend of some NA2 being "operation verb-noun: the sectorial", like how Dashat is a Red Veil mix and Forco the Icestorm one, but for Operation Kaldstorm.
While this does make a good measure of sense for why they seem to be acting this way, it's O-12 setting the precedent that Yu Jing territory can be ceded to local violent political movements that would be ringing alarm bells. With O-12 unable to ensure Yu Jing sovereign rule over their territories and allowing foreign militaries to intervene in local politics there's not much reason for the State Empire to abide by their rulings in other areas besides the stranglehold it has on transport and ALEPH. This is not a reason to remain completely obedient to O-12 from the YJ perspective. It is a reason to start clandestine operations to replace ALEPH in Yu Jing territory with a more controllable AI, seize the Circulars and break out the world-eating WMDs if it looks like anyone is trying to exploit that ruling again, because O-12 is not going to do the one job you pay its taxes for. I can see Yu Jing sticking with O-12 for the long haul, but I don't see them ever fully trusting the organisation to protect them again. If there's an Uprising II, it will probably be fought with redirected asteroids, hacked cargo ships and total conversion bombs, because for a society like Yu Jing the State is a priority above all other concerns. The Uprising was also a little out-of-character for the other factions; if I recall the general balance of power was that PanO=Everyone Else In The Sphere. Weakening the most powerful member of your impromptu coalition by about 10% of land and manpower and separating it into a state relying entirely on the near-monopolistic hyperconsortium for protection seems dumb for the Nomads, Haqqislamites and Ariadnans.
It was more a situation of been caught completely by surprise and slow to react to a rapidly evolving situation that was predetermined, it is a bit out of character that so much was staged and they did not notice, but it can be waved in the firm belief Yu Jing have for their panasian cultural coherency blinding them to the situation, after all their ultimate goal was to integrate the Japanese back to the rest of Yu Jing and to do that they had given them much freedom of movement. More or less the rest of the powers viewed it in a mixture of self interest and promises/ deals done with the "to be formed" new power, I think Yu Jing will be more coherent and more careful after this one, the one who should be more worried as per my previous comments should be PanO, they had very little to gain and were way too easy manipulated into doing what they did, if I was in hexahedron I would be start cutting heads...
Maybe I'm an outlier, but I personally see a lot of the changes to armies in the last two years, as well as things like ITS bonuses, as live Beta testing of changes they were looking at for N4. I would be quite surprised if there aren't balancing steps taking what they have learned into consideration when it lands.
@psychoticstorm Thank you for the long explanation. It does clear things up and puts them in prospective. I still think that when CB does get around to the Earth Bastion Force it should be PanO Yu Jing mixed with minor nations as @Sedral pointed out. Basically sense some of the NA-2 Merc sectorials have been a mixture of two factions (Dashat=Haqq+Yu Jing, ForCo=PanO+Nomad, StarCo=Nomad+Ariadna) having a Hyperpower Hour set seems possible. Especially when PanO and Yu Jing control a large amount of the Earth's land and population that would fill the ranks of the EBF.
Why would Earth Bastion Army be a PanO + YJ NA2 when it's one of PanO's own planetary armies? It's more likely for it to be released alongside a Martian force for Yu Jing than it is for the two to be combined. Based on Hawkwood's availability, I think the PanO + YJ NA2 will end up being White Company, with maybe a touch of ALEPH.
I totally want an Antipode sectorial. Maybe some of them get ahold of some Tohaa armor and advance intellectually. At least enough to use guns. (or bows!) Aleph gives me my kill-bots, but I still need a werewolf army.
Good point. That might be what CB is planning. Guess I got it wrong. My bad. I'll be excited if CB did make White Company PanO+Yu Jing+Aleph. I like Antipodes but as for a sectorial it would take some thinking to get enough units to fill it out. I'd personally be just as happy with more Antipode sculpts.
This is something I never understood: people complained and complained about Factions growing too big, with too many Sectorials and many redundant profiles. And then you had Tohaa, the Faction with less profiles, where each one had a purpose, there was very little redundancy and it was clear each ones purpose and how they complemented each other (ironically, the redundant profiles are some the newest ones). But people ALSO disliked that and they didn't sell well. WTF. And now Tohaa's been ditched to make room for ANOTHER generic human army, because it looks like we didn't have enought of them.
Tohaa has a very distinct visual design that appeals to some, and is quite ugly to others. In addition, their rules are often different and confusing for players used to other, more straightforward (dare I say well-written?) factions. Furthermore, they're largely irrelevant to the lore of the rest of the Infinity universe, only appearing when a specifically Tohaa agenda is brought up, and CB's even given up on shoehorning them into global campaigns. That intelligent profile design is pretty much Tohaa's one universal saving grace, it just isn't enough to overcome the questonable choices surrounding the rest of the execution of the Tohaa concept. They need a real re-examining along the lines of what the Shasvastii got when they're returned to active production.
