Half-Life: Combine vs Zen

[Ryu]

While I don't actually have the kind of time required to create a compelling arguement either way and no real opinion in the matter, I just had to wonder, having just played half Life for the past... nearly 12 hours, assuming a fair compitition, would win in a battle: The Combine or the military of Zen.

The situation: a company of combine overwatch soldiers with competant air, artillery and armour support vs a company of zenian soldiers, also with competant support. Which would win?

[Darksider]

Didn't the Combine conquer Xen at some point, or the Nillanth was trying to get to earth to avoid being conquered by the combine or something like that? I seem to remember developer quotes that state that the Nillanth was afraid of the Combine.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Combine were already going on with their pan-universal conquest by the time we found Xen and basically lit an "INVADE ME!" sign up for Earth after we conquered Xen's space.

[Darksider]

still, whatever the Combine invaded Xen with, it Wasn't the overwatch. The Overwatch are just an occupation force with decent tech, rather than the Combine's dedicated army, which we have no knowledge of. They're really just a glorified police force. They might not do as well invading Xen without backup from the rest of the Combine

As for the OP, The Xen troopers are larger targets, and move much more slowly. Also that bee-cannon thing on their arms probably doesn't have as much range as a Combine pulse rifle, so their infantry are outclassed, but any battle would come down to each sides representative air, artillery and armor support. About the Xen we know nothing other than those flying things they use to drop soldiers, and of the combine we've seen nothing but a few light gunships, a massive walking machine which wouldn't stand up to tank fire (if RPGs bring it down, tank guns won't have a problem with it), and a light APC with some long range missiles. From the observed assets, the combine force would be vastly superior, but we really haven't seen enough of the vehicles, aircraft, and artillery of either side to make a decent debate out of this.

[The Vortex Empire]

All we know of the Combine's own military is that they crushed all Earth militaries in 7 hours. That's not quantifiable information, but if one human could take over Xen, I imagine the Combine could do it fairly easily.

[adam_grif]

All we know of the Combine's own military is that they crushed all Earth militaries in 7 hours. That's not quantifiable information, but if one human could take over Xen, I imagine the Combine could do it fairly easily.

Unfortunately character shields are not quantifiable either. That same human that took the Xen also beats the shit out of combine occupation forces.

[Gil Hamilton]

All we know of the Combine's own military is that they crushed all Earth militaries in 7 hours. That's not quantifiable information, but if one human could take over Xen, I imagine the Combine could do it fairly easily.

Gordon Freeman doesn't count, he's a physicist in a walking tank, therefore is unstoppable.

still, whatever the Combine invaded Xen with, it Wasn't the overwatch. The Overwatch are just an occupation force with decent tech, rather than the Combine's dedicated army, which we have no knowledge of. They're really just a glorified police force. They might not do as well invading Xen without backup from the rest of the Combine

It certainly wasn't the Overwatch; they are just patients running the asylum. We MAY get to see actual Combine technology when Ep3 comes out, because its reasonably clear that the message got back to base that the Overwatch had been beaten and they need to reinvade.

[Werrf]

All we know of the Combine's own military is that they crushed all Earth militaries in 7 hours. That's not quantifiable information, but if one human could take over Xen, I imagine the Combine could do it fairly easily.

Gordon Freeman doesn't count, he's a physicist in a walking tank, therefore is unstoppable.

still, whatever the Combine invaded Xen with, it Wasn't the overwatch. The Overwatch are just an occupation force with decent tech, rather than the Combine's dedicated army, which we have no knowledge of. They're really just a glorified police force. They might not do as well invading Xen without backup from the rest of the Combine

It certainly wasn't the Overwatch; they are just patients running the asylum. We MAY get to see actual Combine technology when Ep3 comes out, because its reasonably clear that the message got back to base that the Overwatch had been beaten and they need to reinvade.

My understanding was that the Overwatch were the Combine's earliest steps in incorporating humans into their combined-species military, that the seven-hour war was fought by striders, hunters, gunships and those walking crab-looking fellows we saw in the Citadel - and that the striders, hunters, gunships and crab-looking fellows were all that was left of the species the Combine had conquered in the past.

Regardless, the original question of Xen vs Combine has already been answered - the Nihilanth's forces were only in Xen in the first place because the Combine had forced them out of their home. So Combine has already won that particular battle.

[Darksider]

I have a hard time believig that the hunters, gunships, and striders could defeat the entirety of Earth's military in seven hours. Hunters obviously aren't immune to bullets, and the gunships and striders can be taken down by RPG fire. They must have had something else to throw at us.

[Gil Hamilton]

My understanding was that the Overwatch were the Combine's earliest steps in incorporating humans into their combined-species military, that the seven-hour war was fought by striders, hunters, gunships and those walking crab-looking fellows we saw in the Citadel - and that the striders, hunters, gunships and crab-looking fellows were all that was left of the species the Combine had conquered in the past.

Regardless, the original question of Xen vs Combine has already been answered - the Nihilanth's forces were only in Xen in the first place because the Combine had forced them out of their home. So Combine has already won that particular battle.

I doubt this. Striders, hunters, gunships, et cetera just aren't that good. They strike me very much as toys the Overwatch were given by the Combine to keep the plebes in line.

[The Grim Squeaker]

I have a hard time believig that the hunters, gunships, and striders could defeat the entirety of Earth's military in seven hours. Hunters obviously aren't immune to bullets, and the gunships and striders can be taken down by RPG fire. They must have had something else to throw at us.

Well, the ability to port in forces anywhere would be a crushing strategic advantage, when your entire logistical chain and HQ just got wiped out while you're fighting hundreds of miles away, then nothing else really matters.
I still favour the theory that the Combine forces seen are just the equilevent of local militia.

[TC Pilot]

Regardless, the original question of Xen vs Combine has already been answered - the Nihilanth's forces were only in Xen in the first place because the Combine had forced them out of their home. So Combine has already won that particular battle.

The question was who would win in a fight between "equal" forces of Xen and Overwatch troops. I have a hard time believing the Combine had anything but overwhelming quantitative superiority over the Nihilanth.

Based on my rather sketchy memory of HL1, I'm going to say that the Xen military would win in an equal fight against the HL2 Overwatch. Those armored giants could tank direct artillery strikes, whereas the best the Combine have to throw against Freeman are downed by RPGs. Standard soldiers, IIRC, are also hardier than Combine soldiers, though I can't exactly vouch for the effectiveness of their bug sprayers.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Still, both sides, even if the Overwatch is only a garrison force mostly composed of local species co-opted with Combine technology, have the ability to use portals to sneak attack one another, which can at least give a decisive edge in a battle, even if your force isn't ultimately able to decimate the other so easily. Think of it like a load of Striders and Gunships appearing immediately over Edwards AFB with no warning whatsoever. They'd certainly make an impact and reduce the other side's advantage by effectively closing it off from being played.

[Grif]

Still, both sides, even if the Overwatch is only a garrison force mostly composed of local species co-opted with Combine technology, have the ability to use portals to sneak attack one another, which can at least give a decisive edge in a battle, even if your force isn't ultimately able to decimate the other so easily. Think of it like a load of Striders and Gunships appearing immediately over Edwards AFB with no warning whatsoever. They'd certainly make an impact and reduce the other side's advantage by effectively closing it off from being played.

IIRC Judith Mossman or someone said that, once on Earth, Overwatch forces were effectively reliant on local transportation. They are only able to use portals to teleport from their dimension to ours, but are unable to utilise local teleportation techniques.

Which leads to the first third of Half-Life 2 where Kliner perfected his local teleportation tech to enable the resistance to transport people without going through the hazards of sneaking out of the city.

[Darth Smiley]

The Combine attack on Earth wasn't a war; as the name implies it was effectively a decapitation strike. Taking a look at the development book ("Half Life 2: Raising the Bar"), there are a bunch of elements of backstory that aren't really elaborated on in-game, but clearly there if you know where to look. One of the most important aspects was the aftereffects of the Resonance Cascade; namely portal storms. All of the Xen wildlife that randomly teleported into Black Mesa, wasn't limited to Black Mesa. These creatures showed up everywhere, and started killing people - from headcrabs to bullsquids to barnacles, humanity's place at the top of the food chain went down the toilet.

Fast forward a few years. Cities have swelled with immigrants, seeking safety from the deadly creatures out there. The cities are tightly patrolled, and no one has a way of making things better. Then, poof. In every city around the world, a massive chunk of the city center just...disappears. And in its place is a Combine Citadel, stocked to the bring with synths. The fight for the cities was over before the defenders even knew what the hell was going on. To be sure, human troops probably COULD have put up a fight...if they had ever been given a chance to do so, or there hadn't been nigh-limitless Combine troops streaming into the heart of every city. But they weren't, and there were. It should be noted, though, that the Combine can't teleport from somewhere on Earth to somewhere on Earth; and that they need the disturbance of a Resonance Cascade to even teleport from their home universe to ours. So once the war starts, they can't really use teleports tactically or even operationally, but that first strategic teleport is all that's really needed.

Also, I question whether you could consider those armored giants (Gargantua, I think) an actual member of the Xen military, any more than the Bullsquid was. Even so, I think an even fight between Xen and Combine forces would be close. We've only really seen a few of the Combine toys; we know the Transhuman Arm of the Combine Overwatch was to eventually be integrated into the larger combine forces, but that there are many other creatures in the Combine army. Striders and Hunters, at least, would do an excellent job, using their mobility to make up for what they lack in firepower.

As to the theory that the Combine forces are just local militia, this is confirmed in-game. In one of Kleiner's broadcasts in episode one, he mentions that the destruction of citadel portal somehow shut down the combine portal network, leaving the combine forces on earth "cut off" from the larger combine. This implies that the forces on Earth, while still formidable, are at least beatable, while the larger Combine army is not. Likewise, Eli Vance mentions that if they fail to launch the satellite the result would be the Seven-Hour war all over again..except for only seven minutes. Essentially, if the full combine army ever attacks, Earth is screwed.

[Zixinus]

I think people downplay the weapons that the Overwatch have because they judge them according to gameplay standards. For one thing, Hunters were supposed to be immune to gunfire and pretty much everything else but kinetic force and perhaps their own darts. They changed that to allow general vurnability for gameplay reasons and balance. Same with the helicopters: if they couldn't be taken down by RPGs, the player would be fucked all over.

Plus, consider that it took several RPGs to take down an organic heli. An armoured heli could withstand several attacks, including damage from its own explosives. The Combine had small little cars that could fire rockets.

Then there is the Suppression thingy, that is the Instant-Vaporising Death Ray From Above. While unable to penetrate deep, it could make mincemeat of open armies.

Also, remember that the Stalkers have the same thing. They too could withstand several RPG hits and were virtually immune to almost anything else (except being banged by something heavy from the gravity gun and plasma ball thingy). And they have a similar secondary attack that is essentially a deathray (although this is disabled mostly ingame for obvious reasons).

The ground forces have good communication between each other and have a lot of experience with headcrabs and other Xen critters. So the Combine have a pretty good advantage here, but I have forgot much from HL1.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Damn, I forgot about the making of book. My copy is somewhere over with my 'rents, but I do remember a lot of backstory that didn't make the cut, since it would bog down gameplay. There were also other units hinted at that didn't get incorporated that may or may not have been Overwatch, though we may see these in Ep. III.

I also got the impression that the likes of the Barnacles and Gargantua were local wildlife that got deposited on Earth at random, rather than actual Xen forces

[petesampras]

We MAY get to see actual Combine technology when Ep3 comes out

I'd be surprised if we ever see an episode 3.

[Commander Xillian]

To answer the questions here with the fewest words:

No. The Combine is Multi-Universal, not counting our dimension. They could have damn-well poured in millions of Striders as light infantry, and saved much more powerful units for their own useage. Hence, not present. The truth is we have no clue how powerful the Combine truly are, but we must assume that a) They made a decapitating strike b) out gunned us c) overwhelmed us and d) that the infrastructure damage by hostile Xenian lifeforms was sever enough to warrant no nuclear retaliation.

As for the "Crowding in the cities" bit, IIRC the events of the seven hours war took place not long after the resonance cascade, less than a month if my memory serves. But don't count on my ability to remember the times precisely.

[hunter5]

I was under the impression the seven hour war only lasted 7 hours was because Dr. Breen surrendered earth.

[Commander Xillian]

I beleive that is part of the case, but according to some in-game dialogue (which I vaguely remember) earth was overwhelmed, and the Combine were about to totally exterminate humanity were it not for Dr. Breen surrendering for Earth. Also, another pin in the side of the previous idea involving the City-only fighting, is that Breen was shown reaching out to a large portal. In the middle of a forest.

[Ryu]

People, please. Throw aside the combine's overwhelming quantitive advantage, we're looking at an engagement between a company-scale engagement (100-150 soldiers) with a dozen or so vehicles.

Xen would have a couple dozen grunts, a couple dozen more vortigaunts, maybe a dozen controllers. For support, all I know for air support are those transports, but their armour support, (gargantuas) would be damned nice. They also have an energy cannon for artillery, even though we only see it once in the game.

The combine overwatch would be a large number over standard overwatch soldiers, and a small squad of elite overwatch. (the white-suited soldiers) This is, of course, a big assumption in believing that the elite soldiers would appear at all, but the same goes for Xen controllers. As far as support, they had hunter-choppers, (lightly armoured, but resilient and with overwhelming firepower) gunships, hunters, and stalkers. (The crabs we have no data for, discount them for now.) Their artillery is the suppresion device, which was quite the energy cannon... but couldn't hit a damn thing. (If I'm forgetting anything, let me know.)

Finally, because these are really annoying:

No "gameplay balance" arguements ("they only seem this way..." "their guns only suck so bad..." "these soldiers are only pathetic..." "...for gameplay balance, so discount everything everyone knows about them.", we have no data but the game, so the game is law. No discounting it for any reason. If a xen energy weapon does twice as much damage as a combine one, you can't scream "well, that's just for gameplay, the combine one could really be much better" because there is no "really." It's a game, that's the "really" and it "really" is exactly as the game says unless otherwise stated in a canon source overriding the games. (Which does not exist.)

[Commander Xillian]

Agreed there Ryu, althought I've always fancied the Overwatch Elite as something akin to Space Marines in terms of their skill. And if anyone has beaten Half-Life 2 on the Hardest difficulty, I wouldn't be surprised if striders (Which take somewhere around seven hits with an RPG to kill) were the bane of the Garg's, thanks to that nifty charging-dick-cannon thing. Also, I deduced from Dog's fight with the Strider that they are quite nimble, and as I've seen from their tunnel runs in City 17, these guys can move it.

[Admiral Valdemar]

That charging bit in the chapter "Follow Freeman!" is pretty scary, when a Strider just appears in a tunnel and crosses it, taking it apart, quicker than you've ever seen the fuckers move before. They're also not exactly the biggest targets, even if tall, and on higher difficulty, they are insanely more difficult to take down, especially in packs. I imagine the finale to Episode II is hell on a higher setting.

[Rye]

Still, both sides, even if the Overwatch is only a garrison force mostly composed of local species co-opted with Combine technology, have the ability to use portals to sneak attack one another, which can at least give a decisive edge in a battle, even if your force isn't ultimately able to decimate the other so easily. Think of it like a load of Striders and Gunships appearing immediately over Edwards AFB with no warning whatsoever. They'd certainly make an impact and reduce the other side's advantage by effectively closing it off from being played.

Uh, it's a key point of HL2 that the Combine don't have the portal technology that the Nihilanth and Vortigaunts had, or even that Kleiner had. I rather suspect that the Combine was stuck with "brute force" larger portals that it could yank open over major population centres and push in the citadels. At no point do you get a Combine equivalent of Xen forces teleporting in like you do in Black Mesa, just the mysterious growth of the citadel and that portal Breen opens up. All the rest (headcrab deployment, for instance) is done with missile delivery system.

I suspect this means that while the Combine may have invaded Xen, which would be the border-world between us and them (and wherever Race X came from in Opposing Force), it makes me wonder if they just bypassed it entirely once the dimensional barriers became sufficiently "corroded" or otherwise weakened, hence why the Nihilanth hiding in the border-world was a good move on his part.