[Stormkeeper]

Apocalypse tank pushes to be exact. I used garrison structures full of rocket infantry, laser artillery and mirage tanks, tho. With some air cover thrown in for good measure. I've not played the soviet side, but they do look pretty promising.

[IceFire]

Seems like the Apocs are really tough customers this time around.  They were mean before but mostly in the amount they could dish out rather than by how much they can take.  Seems like now they can do both.

[Stormkeeper]

Yea. And thanks to Generals, Apocs can roll over lighter units. They can even tractor beam units running away. Oh yes. You can perform the chicken maneuver just like in C&C3. Same key too. (D).

Played another match, this time as EotRS. Amusingly, the word Jap is censored.

Kinda weak early game, but late game the Japs pretty much own. Staved off another Apoc rush, this time solely with tank hunters burrowed in the ground. Tank hunters really hurt. The King Oni is pretty respectable, but in all my rushing i never got it to charge down anything. Built Yuriko, but forgot to use her. Used the Rocket Angel, spiritual succesor to the jump jet trooper. She *owns*. Two modes of firing, one fires normal rockets, the other uses a paralysis whip. The whip pretty much freezes anything in place. And even when the unit is frozen, it can still be destroyed. So I set 5 to use the whip, the rest to use rockets, and no air unit got past them. Pretty damn amazing.

Navally wise, the EotRS is very well equipped. They have two types of subs, one used for AA duty, the other a regular run of the mill sub. They have a dedicated torpedo destroyer, and a battlecruiser. The battlecruiser can ram enemy ships, but its usually so far back it doesn't get to use this ability. The torpedo destroyer can fire a spread of torpedos with its ability, which is pretty handy in a tight spot.

All in all, this is pretty much a Protoss race. Expensive and late game, but oh-so-unstoppable.

Oh yes. You can order them to hold position. The rules of engagment are hidden away in the UI, you have to open a small panel to access them. Short cut keys still work. Same as C&C3 shortcuts.

[IceFire]

Excellent about the rules of engagement.  I started using those allot in C&C3...its really nice to be able to have those definitive levels of what a unit or a group of units will and will not do.

About the censorship...apparently "Jap" is considered quite offensive in Japan and so its discouraged in many communities from making use of it. It comes up allot in the WWII flight simming community so thats how I know.  I think its probably best we discourage its use at HLP as well. Just a heads up.

Thanks for the analysis about the Empire faction.  I look forward to playing with and against them...I like all three factions quite a bit actually.  I'm partial to the Allies but the anime factor and the whole transforming units thing with the Empire faction sounds like its allot of fun to play as well as being quite subtle and challenging to play with.

[CP5670]

I hope they support this game the way they did with C&C3 and not like KW. The long awaited KW patch came out recently and not only does it not fix the existing bugs in the initial release, but it screws up a wide range of gameplay-related things. It seems unlikely that there will be another patch given that the development team is tied up with RA3 now.

As for the censor, EA filters a big range of words in all of their games, although it's trivial to bypass. It's actually pretty hilarious what they have included in there. (some that come to mind are christian, islam, bush, laden, pinko, commie and mohammed)

[BloodEagle]

Generals censors the word 'idiot', as well as many other words that couldn't possibly be interpreted as offensive.

[Stormkeeper]

The EotRS is *quite* fun to play. For one, my opponent was chasing my Striker choppers with apollos, and I transformed them to their land variants and ka-blammed them out of the sky, leaving my opponent rofling and in a slightly wtf mode.

[IceFire]

Well I got my beta key a few days ago and its pretty good.  The software is unstable and has a bunch of bugs....to be expected at this stage....but the gameplay is allot of fun.  Its slower than C&C3 and rushes can be easily countered if you've planned ahead and done some scouting (knowing what the enemy is going to throw at you is key).  No more unit spamming...if you spam tanks then he just builds anti-tank, air, or navy.  If you spam air then he builds anti-air from ground, air, or navy.

I like how the navy aspect is there but I really love the air force options and there are air units from early to late game which is great.  I've played mostly as the Allies so far and the Vindicator is available very quickly...the Vindicator functions a bit like the old Harrier in that it flies to target, drops bombs all in one toss, and heads back to base.  Its enough to ruin a small tank rush on their own if not properly defended and even in the late game they can be useful in tackling larger units in a pass or two.

My favourite is the Century bomber...those guys are awesome!

[Stormkeeper]

They're kinda slow though, and its AI needs tweaking. It doesn't return until it drops all its bombs or is ordered to, so it generally gets shredded by flak.

[IceFire]

They're kinda slow though, and its AI needs tweaking. It doesn't return until it drops all its bombs or is ordered to, so it generally gets shredded by flak.

True that...you have to ride herd over them a bit.  The slowness really isn't a big issue...they are big, slow, and tough.  But yeah...the AI needs a bit of work still.

[Stormkeeper]

Rocket Angels rock something awesome. I stopped 24 Kirovs in their tracks with those darlings.

[IceFire]

Rocket Angels rock something awesome. I stopped 24 Kirovs in their tracks with those darlings.

Good lord....24 Kirovs but not a single Bullfrog in sight?

[Stormkeeper]

No, they were there. MiGs too. I built nothing but Rocket Angels that round

[BloodEagle]

Command & Conquer: Red Alert will be released as freeware this Sunday.

[IceFire]

No, they were there. MiGs too. I built nothing but Rocket Angels that round

Weird.  Usually that means you get destroyed...single unit tactics in RA3 don't work.  Which is good.  But I guess the guy didn't have quite enough AA to fight back with.  Oh well

[TrashMan]

How dissapointing.
The more info is revealed on Red Alert 3 the more I see just how bad it will be.

They've gone with the terrible cartoony, over-the-top design, the "each unit must have player-activated special abilities" and "hot babes" wallpapers.

All respect I had is gone...crushed.

[NGTM-1R]

Red Alert was never truly serious. You somehow thought it was, the problem's on your end.

[IceFire]

Red Alert was always over the top...this one seems more serious than RA2...but still over the top.  Anyone remember the Tesla coil equipped Eifel Tower...that was hilarious

Or giant squids.

The babes thing is a bit over the top but whatever.  The cast looks pretty good overall actually and the gameplay is allot of fun.  Each unit having a secondary mode really makes things interesting.  You can fight your way out of a numerically disadvantaged position using good unit tactics and combining primary and secondary modes.

Try it before you decide to hate it...hopefully there will be a demo at some point closer to release.  Then you can see if you dislike it.

The Beta is going well...it has allot of bugs...but this is beta territory so you'd expect that.

[Stormkeeper]

Ah I remember that mission. Shows you the defensive potential of the French.

[NGTM-1R]

I actually preferred the old Eva.