So, thoughts on the game?

[Saracen 16]

Regardless what I do, I can't take out the Allied bases with the exception of the lower right, which makes it impossible for me to capture the media stations.

 

Waveforce worked for me. I know you said they don't seem to work, but they do. Failing that, Blow up EALA! That gave me some motivation

[Nmenth 289]

I beat that mission using only Jet Tengu, VX Choppers, and Sea Wings (aside from the required engineers and Sudden Transports to move them with).

I'm surprised seeing that anyone had trouble with that mission, after I finished it, I was feeling that it was exceptionally easy...

[rEdaSbLood 1]

yea and support powers helped alot too

[Castleman12 0]

I don't think I even played that mission, for some reason i played it once, failed, and it moved me to the next one >.>

[Nmenth 289]

I just replayed it on hard difficulty using only Jet Tengu, VX Choppers, and Sea Wings to complete the mission. I never upgraded my Dojo, Mecha Bay, or Docks to the final tier. The most I built of any unit type at a time is 6. It took 46:50 to beat.

[hagren 0]

How? There are Athena cannons, Apollo fighters, mirage tanks, hordes of rocket troops and IFVs, spectrum towers and guardian tanks. I have not enough cash to repel the attacks, let alone capture the media stations.

[Nmenth 289]

How I won EotRS mission 6 as mentioned above:

Well, I must admit, I did train some Imperial Warriors and Tankbusters too, but only to garrison the three buildings between the water and EALA.

One Warrior and two Tankbusters per building (I only needed two of them garrisoned at a time). These guys will repel most ground-based attacks incoming on the north side of your base. The south entry point was a little harder, they did destroy I believe three buildings from there over the course of my game. I secured it with one Wave-Force Tower and one Defender VX, once constructed, they will do a fairly good job against ground attacks (don't switch the Defender into AA mode).

The Allied base right next to my own was low priority, in early game, I just used my garrisoned infantry to shoot anything in range.

As soon as the Allied airbase was listed as optional objective, I made an engineer and Sudden Transport and took it, probably within 100 seconds of it being announced.

By the time the Observatory Cannon objective was announced, I had Final Squadron, I used it four times on the cannon to destroy it without breaking a sweat.

When the amusement park objective came about, I flew two choppers around the Allied base and leisurely took it out.

The real nuisance was when they brought in Century Bombers, but after I constructed six Jet Tengu and left then hovering in my base, the Allies would not bring their aircraft in close enough anymore. Every time I spotted an incoming bomber, I would chase it a short ways and then return to base whether it yet lived or not. The computer doesn't hold off on its sorties for repairs, so over time, the bombers will die anyway.

Once I had the funding and time to make four choppers and four Sky Wings, I took all my aircraft along the southern cliff. When the Apollos came, I dropped my choppers down to Striker form and moved my Sky Wings to the back, then let them come. I'd lose a Jet Tengu every so often, and I'd immediately rebuild it and send it back to the same location, never exceeding a total of six Tengu at a time. When the Apollos were significantly thinned and I had pushed to the edge of their base, the Cryos attacked my Strikers, but that didn't concern me, shrunken or froze Strikers aren't dead Strikers. When the Cryos were all shot down, I took my Strikers back to the air and with my Jet Tengu on guard for new Apollos, I annihilated the Allied base with my choppers and Sky Wings.

With that base gone, base defense was easy.

The rest of the mission took some time, but followed the same basic strategy throughout, the VXs were for high priority anti-air IFVs, the Sky Wings were for high priority anti-air Javelins. Once all anti-air units are dead, I picked off the remainder and replaced any units I lost (Jet Tengu were sadly used as decoys, but they died in honor).

For the Allied bases, I'd use Final Squadrons and Balloon Bombs to hit annoying buildings. The last base was particularly annoying, so I used a Sudden Transport and engineers to steal-sell their Construction Yard and one of the Airbases, but I suspect using engineers in this way on a mass scale would actually be a very effective tactic on this mission.

Once the map was devoid of any breathing Allied unit or standing structure, I captured the media centers.

With the exception of the ground attacks on my base from the south in early game, I still found the mission to be fairly easy.

[hagren 0]

Hm. I also could wipe the first base and take over the tower, respectively the observitory quite easily, but no units were enough to repel the attacks (Athena cannons, century bombers, hydrofoils, rocket troops, spies, guardian tanks, mirage tanks etc.) long enough, respectively to even scratch the other bases, and I used more VXes than you. Also tried multiple waveforce artilleries/towers. I'll try out garrisoning, perhaps that is going to give me an edge. It seems the enemy AI I encountered has an overly zealous commander

[Nmenth 289]

I wish you could save replays on campaign games...

[hagren 0]

I wholeheartedly agree

 

EALA, don't forget to add that next time!

[rEdaSbLood 1]

SPOILER********

 

 

i captured the naval base that's right above where you start. moved up the west river with shogun battleships, took out artillery like nmenth did with support powers, and then focused my co-commander on the enemy's powerplants. waveforce artillery and athena cannons rushed into the airfield base to the southeast.

 

(dont know how to do the spoiler text coverup)

[Nmenth 289]

(dont know how to do the spoiler text coverup)

Under the Insert Special Item list, or if all else fails and that proves too difficult, it's 'Spoiler' followed by '/Spoiler' in brackets of course.

I'm sure some kind mod or admin will fix it for you.

[rEdaSbLood 1]

i tried out the spectator mode today for the first time. 2 allied hard vs 2 soviet hard vs 1 empire brutal.

-game was pretty even, soviet dominating offensively and empire expanding constantly.

-allied seemed to dominate the air though

-only soviets got to build super-weapons

-noticed heavy use of v4 by soviets

-empire used infantry only, which only proved well in defense

-tank-buster strategy empire used: every time enemy fires, plunge into the ground to reduce/eliminate damage

-game had to be ended before anyone was completely defeated.

 

even the brutal AI seemed simple-minded compared to the things you see done by actual people. not very good at improvisation

...

 

still don't understand how you had trouble though...did you beat it yet? maybe better use of your co-commander would help?

[Nmenth 289]

maybe better use of your co-commander would help?

I ignored my co-commander from the beginning to the end. He was a distraction for the enemy, accomplished nothing objective-wise.

Truth be told, I almost never gave orders to my co-com throughout the entire game, it wasn't necessary, the game wasn't that hard.

[rEdaSbLood 1]

well that's just it, its a great distraction...

[hagren 0]

At places the co-commander was helpful, but not in this mission.

[Nmenth 289]

How fast is it running? I was playing my game with below recommended graphic settings, running at about 1/3 real time. Just installed a new 1 gig graphics card and now running at full speed, it seriously changes the game play.

 

...I might have to replay through the whole game now to see what it was supposed to be like, I didn't realize just how much of a difference it makes. Maybe RA3 isn't as easy as I thought it was.

[hagren 0]

And I just said "The heck with it!" and changed difficulty to easy

Was piss-easy that way, but still a great game. I hate it when strong titles are ignored or misjudged. It deserves respectable sales and a good reputation

[rEdaSbLood 1]

well yea i played it on easy :lol: ...but i still wooped arse...

 

too lazy for hard...

[Alphabear 11]

hard was fun

[Luk3us 63]

There are some very annoying parts about SP. Like how the game LOVES to take control away from you to go look at something stupid. FFS I don't give a **** about some stupid thing arriving on the map or whatever... The amount of times that has happened... UGH>

[hagren 0]

The unskippable in-game cutscenes are a bit annoying as well, altough I dig them.

[Gben 20]

So yeah, I finally finished the game tonight. RL tends to spread things out, so it makes it feel like value for money. I'm not complaining.

As said previosly, the AI co-commanders seem to perform unevenly... sometimes they do all the work while I'm turtling, and other times they seem incapable of building a power plant. I never noticed but perhaps it's a dynamic of 2v1 at any given time instead of the expected 1on1. I can see the appeal of human co-commanders but the AI didn't 'work' for me. I would prefer an optional extra campaign in co-op mode rather than a standard co-op mode.

 

I listened to the audio CD well before I was halfway through the soviet campaign. So I really enjoyed it. I like Frank's remix of HM - I hear some people complain - but why all the fuss. Red Rock I think is my fav track, but the menu music is really great for the atmosphere.

 

I felt several opportunities were missed in the characterisation of the central characters. Because there was only limited airtime, they really need to exagerate them, or reduce them to archetypes. I was *SO* dissapointed that Ackerman died so early in the campaign. Wether good or bad, his overtop acting really suited the medium. It reminds me of the rumoured plot line of a war-mongering US country invading the world making them the bad guys. I think this was a perfect opportunity in this alternative timeline for the US President to go on a rampage... but I guess with Bush it's too close to home. I feel this is a tragically missed opportunity. How many more classic lines like "send those commies back to their mommies" could we have endured. At least this could have been more developed in the other timelines as the ultimate enemy.

 

There was no real bad or ackward acting, they made the reading less obvious, even though it was still present.

I was appaled at the triple briefings, FMV -> intel officer -> map recon -> ingame info.

 

I liked the concept of the black turtle, but they failed miserably to represent in the game mode. The backgrounds needed to be done better, or added better background animation.

 

I still feel most confortable with the allies build order and the air supremacy. I could never get used to the Soviet build technique. I would continually click a building and then skip off to battle before realising I needed to return to place the building so it would start to construct. The empire model was pretty straightforward, but I continued to forget to expand as I destroy bases. It was only when the I saw my co-commander doing it - that I remembered I could/should. What I found lacking was the 'select dormant worker' button for the empire, so that any nano core that was waiting for deployment could be selected. kinda like I haven't figured which button in Kanes Wrath I can pick to automatically select the engineers, so I can zoom in on them in the big map (it was Q in TW)???

 

I found the straightforward flight/robot modes of the empire were something I could handle much better than the special powers of the other factions, I never felt comfortable understanding the nuances for the other factions.

 

I really struggled with quite a few of the empire missions: defending the shrines, and invading usa from memory. I liked the suprise appearence in the last empire mission, but the final extended cut-scene was a waste of time. I share saracen's disdain for capture the flag final missions.

 

BUT MY BIGGEST GRIPE CONTINUES TO BE THE TEN SECOND FINALE MOVIE.

I want a big climax, worthy of the ORC campaign movie in WCIII. That was worth playing the campaign for. I want something worth the effort to greet me at the end, not a tawdry choice between a date with two gals. What they should have done is (like the end of C&C1) given you a choice with an alternative ending movie like (C&C3) but like your FIRST choice eternally to your profile/achievements. And why didn't the empire gals get the oogly eye treatment???

 

Alright, I've rambled on enough now, I'm not going to even spell-check this. Beware!

 

I enjoyed the game, the 7's and 8's out of 10 I've seen some rankings seem about right. This is superior to C&C3, and whatever the next game is, I hope is even better!

 

Peace, love and mung beans.

[alleylee 0]

i finished the game, and i have to say, it's a pretty dam good game. mind you, those unskippable cutscenes are annoying, and the units looks like it's a kiddie's game, the sex appeal as gone just a bit too far, but otherwise, it's still a decent game. What worked well for those 1 unit "stealth" missions is the fact you have secondary abilities. The units are pretty dam balanced too... I mean, even more so than CnC3. In CnC3, i usually just play GDI, upgrade like hell, and just try to push forward with infantries mostly, like rocket troopers, riflemen, and zone troopers. That usually gets the job done. I sometimes will get snipers, maybe grenadniers to clear out buildings, but you can easily rush your enemies with just infantries. In CnC3, it's much much harder, since there is a lot of naval... and usually only heroes, engineers and scouts can travel on water (and spies for allies and jap).

My personal note on the movies is that it's just what Red Alert series live up to be. I mean, RA2 and YR's movies were cheesy as hell, but it works for RA series. I had a feeling they purely concentrated on trying to get the "co-commander" thing to work, the naval, and the game balance, and it's decent.

 

As for the mission you guys were talkign about.. i just told my co-command to build up a sizable force, and keep on bashing at them. Eventually, i can waltz into their base. Using your co-commander to keep on bashing away only works half the time.. The odd case is they die out casue of a small counterstrike sortie...