Command & Conquer:Red Alert - Westwood Studios A few hints and tips by James Judge @~Continued from last issue SOVIET STRUCTURES CONSTRUCTION YARD Your first and most important building that allow you to create further buildings for your base. It is constructed from an MCV and is, really, the centre of your base. Given that it has light armour you should protect it as best you can - place it in the centre of your base so enemy units have difficulty reaching it, make sure that it has air cover surrounding it and that there are a couple of units and/or a turret/Tesla coil nearby to pick off the odd nuisance. As soon as you can you should look to building another Construction Yard because if your primary one is wiped out early on in the game you will be left with very little to continue your battle, and no means of adding to it. Strangely enough, though, this building has the greatest resistance to nuclear bombs out of all the available structures. Rarely will a nuke take the building into the yellow health zone, and even two in a row won't destroy the damn thing. They'll just make the surrounding landscape look dirty. Oh yeah, the more Construction Yards you have, the quicker buildings will be built. POWER PLANT These are the workhorse buildings of your fledgeling base. Without power none of your defences will work and construction of other buildings and units will progress slowly. It's therefore important to make sure that you have more than enough power plants to go around as these are quite often the first target for a ground-based assault. Try to keep at least two or three plants more than you really need and as soon as possible upgrade to Advanced Power Plants. ADVANCED POWER PLANTS Are the big brothers to power plants. As soon as possible build these in preference to the small structures. However, if you do ever run out of power building a standard power plant is quicker than an advanced one and will, therefore, get your defences back on line quicker. The trouble with these are that they have little armour, so don't group them together in your base. A nuclear strike followed by a few well placed rockets from V2s will have your base's defences crippled with no juice what so ever. By spreading them around the base enemy units will have to work to get to them and one nuke won't be able to damage (or destroy) three or four buildings at once. ORE REFINERY The second workhorse of your base, and one of the most important. As soon as you can, get one up and running. You'll get an Ore Harvester in with the bargain and it will start getting you money ASAP. The refinery needs to be on the edge of your base, as near to a supply of ore as possible. You must give it room so that, when you've got three or more harvesters, the harvesters don't get jammed and just sit around doing nothing at all (as continually happens to me). When playing a skirmish mission the computer AI seems to like building about five of these buildings. The reason for this isn't apparent to me as I find that one seems to suffice for the ordinary multi-player game. However, if there is a lot of ore to be had and you end up with six or more harvesters then building a secondary refinery is good as (a) your first may have been swallowed by the outer edges of your base, (b) it lets two harvesters unload ore at once and (c) if one is destroyed you've still got another. Defend the buildings religiously as although they are easy to replace, when one is destroyed you can lose up to 2000 credits in one foul swoop, which isn't clever. The armour of the building is light so don't expect it to stand up very long against a large attack or a small one coupled with a nuke... ORE SILO These small and easily built structures become necessary the more ore you collect. Each is able to store 1500 credits and you'll soon find the need to build three or four through a long game. As with the Power Plants, don't group these together as they are easily destroyed and losing three lots of 1500 credits is plain lunacy when it could have been avoided. BARRACKS The first building that can make you some offensive units, namely infantry. Not much can be said except that these aren't needed to win the game - rarely do I build a barracks and if I do it's to unlock the ability to create Kennels and Flame Towers. The more barracks you have the quicker units are trained, but they are easily destroyed. KENNEL These small, incredibly cheap buildings provide only one use - to train dogs. Like Barracks these aren't needed to win a game, so shouldn't be high only your list of priorities unless you are suffering invasions from Spies or lots of low-powered Infantry. WAR FACTORY The building that will make the majority of your army as it builds all ground based units except infantry. Therefore it is necessary to build one as soon as possible and to defend it rigorously. As with Barracks, the more there are of this structure the quicker units will be built and I recommend building two of these at the early stages of the game to create a healthy vehicle force that can be put into use either offensively or defensively. Not terribly draining on power and cheap later on in the game, if you are left with nothing else to build, an extra Factory wouldn't go amiss. However, if power or credits are at a premium these can be some of the first buildings to be sold off if the need arises - just make sure you have one left building your army. SUB PEN These buildings need to be fully submersed in water and build your only naval fleets - LSTs and Submarines - and also repair them. If you're playing against an Allied commander who's known for using Cruisers to good effect then it is imperative that you have a good supply of Subs going about the waterways of a map. For this reason Sub Pens should be built quite soon after you've got your basic base up and running - War Factory, Tech Centre and a few defences, for example. AIRFIELD Cheap buildings that provide access to your air force. Soviets rule the air, basically, and because of this an Airfield should be built ASAP. This will give you access to things such as the Spy Plane and Paratrooper (both of which are abilities that, after use, take a while to regenerate, so the preparation for these should be done quickly). I usually build one after I've got my Radar and War Factory up and running. Then I can build my airforce at a later point in the game but still access the Spy Plane from more or less the word go. The only problem with Airfields is that each successive plane you build must have its own Airfield on which to land. Therefore large air divisions take up a lot of space on your base. HELIPAD A helipad builds and reloads helicopters for you and every time you build one a Hind helicopter is thrown into the bargain. Hooray! Any mission against a halfway competent adversary will facilitate the need to have air units, so building a few of these is the way to go at about midway through the game. You only need one Helipad to build numerous helicopters, however, only one helicopter can be reloaded at once and the process is not automated. You need to select a chopper, tell it to move onto the helipad and repeat for all your copters. This means a lot of work and long reloading sessions for a large airforce. However, this can be cut down with the building of multiple 'Pads and allows you to regularly harass the enemy with bombardments from above. Easily destroyed though, so don't group them and defend them well if air warfare is your cup of tea. However, if you've got plenty of planes then concentrating on Helicopters can be a waste of time and money - decide which to use and stick with them. The only real plus is that you get a Chinook in multi-player games, which is an aerial APC. SERVICE DEPOT This structure lets you do three important things. The first is build new MCVs to create more Construction Yards. Although they are expensive - it's well worth it. Secondly it allows you to build and reload Mine Layers. Finally it allows you to repair vehicles and air units. This is invaluable as repairing a unit is only a fraction of the cost of building one, so it makes far more sense economically to continually repair your units than just let them provide easy kills for your enemy. Having only one seems to be sensible, but if your playing style means that you suffer a lot of damage, but few actual casualties, then a secondary Depot may be useful as it'll provide a higher turnaround for repairing units. This structure is very useful and important, so should be built ASAP once you have gotten your primary defences installed and an army being created. RADAR DOME Lightly armoured but highly useful, this structure provides an aerial view of all of the discovered terrain and is invaluable for highlighting where ore is and, more importantly, where the enemy is attacking from next. Unfortunately it can't see through the fog of war, so is only really useful (if the option has been selected) if you're an Ally with satellite capabilities. Not a massive loss of destroyed, but an inconvenience. TECHNOLOGY CENTRE Another of the obligatory structures to build as it allows you to construct the more advanced units and buildings such as Mammoth Tanks and Tesla Coils. Should be built ASAP. FLAME TOWER The defence of a poor base. These structures are slow and inaccurate as well as only being really effective against enemy Infantry. They have heavy armour though, so take quite a beating, and don't drain too much power so when your Teslas go off line these'll still be squirting away. A word of warning - when destroyed they explode, damaging nearby units and buildings, so if you decide to use them, give 'em room. TESLA COIL The best in in-base defence, these coils of death spurt out enemy frazzling lightning at a scary rate. They suck up a hell of a lot of power, though, so expect to build an Advanced Power Plant for every Tesla you want and also ensure that you do have plenty of surplus power. Otherwise as soon as one Plant goes off-line then your whole defence falls apart, leaving your base open to ground attack. If this does happen one way to regain some Coils is to quickly sell off one or two - reducing the power required to power your base. Anyway, Tesla Coils have a really large range and one blast from these will destroy Infantry and lightly armoured vehicles, as well as bringing most other vehicles (apart from Mammoths) well into the yellow health boundary. Therefore one should be built soon after your Tech Centre is up and running. Afterwards keep planting these around your base so no part of your perimeter isn't covered by the radius of at least two coils. This seems excessive, but if a large ground attack happens the Teslas will really help you concentrate on other things, and they can also work as a good early warning device - they make an unmistakable noise and have a range greater than most vehicles, so if you hear a Tesla go off always flick back to your base instantly. Teslas also provide the best defence against Thieves and Tanyas - with three or four coils then even an APC full of Tanyas will do little or no damage. Take care of these babies as they will save your neck more than once, and against a computer AI you need not do anything else - a bank of Teslas can often stop the computer AI in its path. SAM SITE These are your only air defence. They are cheap and don't take up too much power (especially compared to Tesla Coils or the Ally equivalent, AA Guns) and have an OK range. Once enemies start using air power a good coverage of these will prove to be a necessity and they work well in pairs and coupled with Mammoth Tanks. They can destroy Migs, but due to the speed of the aircraft you'll need to have quite a few of these structures. They are best against helicopters, as they provide a slower-moving target and two SAM Sites will quickly eradicate a helicopter in a matter of seconds. Don't cluster together and concentrate them mainly around the important buildings of your base. Eventually try and ensure complete base coverage of SAM Sites, but to start with a couple should suffice. IRON CURTAIN These structures drain power like no-one's business and provide you with the ability to make a unit or structure invincible for a short amount of time. The time and money needed to use these structures make it slightly dubious in my mind, however making a Tesla invincible while it picks off legions of the enemy is always fun, or driving an invincible tank through a mine field will ensure a few sullen faces on the enemies' behalf. Because of their expensive nature protect them well, but don't be scared to sell them if your base falls under attack and you run out of power - Teslas are more important in the long run. MISSILE SILO These seemed to be a great method of attack when I first started playing Red Alert, however the nuclear bomb that you do end up with is pretty poor. It won't destroy any important buildings straight off and is almost useless against ground troops (except for Infantry). However, the Nuke is the perfect method for softening up an enemy base before an air or ground strike. I recommend building one of these as quickly as possible so that you'll at least have a nuke up your sleeve whenever you want it. The more Silos you have the quicker the nukes are prepared. BARBED-WIRE BARRIER Cheap, takes no power. It gives you the ability to funnel Infantry and non-tracked troop towards ground defences such as Flame Towers and Tesla Coils. Infantry can't destroy this barrier but Tanks and other vehicles, however, can. So, for more heavier forms of persuasion use Concrete Barriers. CONCRETE BARRIERS Need to guide a unit of enemy tanks to a glut of Teslas? Well, this is the way to do it. Enough said, really. @~More hints next issue - o -