C&C Red Alert FREE Download

[Andrew]

Download Red Alert for free!

EA is giving out allied and soviet disk for free!!!!

Too bad they are not giving out the expansions. That would have totally kicked butt. I want to play the ant missions!

[Kirby Gotenks absorbed]

Red alert 1?

In my opinion, EA can't be trusted, they'll probably include a virus with the download or something similar to that.

[gunner154]

Not surprised, not keen. I've already beaten Red Alert :P

I would be tempted if the AI were better, and no longer allied against you at the start though.

[Khan]

Good on them for giving it out but surely everyone with a computer owns a copy now. Everyone should finish it as a requirement to play other video games.

[Andrew]

I would be tempted if the AI were better, and no longer allied against you at the start though.

You mean through the campaign or skirmish? In skirmish you can press ctrl+a (?) to ally with the ai.

Good on them for giving it out but surely everyone with a computer owns a copy now. Everyone should finish it as a requirement to play other video games.

I completely agree. I have several disks of it laying around that I've had for years. Difficult to find them though.

[Sneakgab]

Many people simply lose things such as these discs after possessing them for such periods of time. Some didn't even hold PC's back when one had any reasonable possibility of obtaining a copy in normal stores.

Considering how rare physical copies of old games get, it can be quite nice classic enthusiasts (or anyone wanting a good game considering how cr@p games have been getting recently) when things become free-ware.

Of course, in SA, such is the case of our internet situation that downloading such freeware would be much more expensive than physically purchasing it.

Bleg, speaking of such matters, that video hidden on the page from the given link was quite an ambush for me...  >:(

Of course, it would be unreasonable to give such odd consideration to minority cases like my own so...

[gunner154]

Skirmish. No, the moment you try to ally with them, they'd ally with all the other computer players. And all the other computer players would ally against you.

My mistake. They don't ally against you at the start of the game. They do after one of the players has been annihilated.

[Sneakgab]

Besides that, a free for all is different to an alliance. An = aggression against all is different to an alliance.

Sounds like the developers just wanted to give a bit of a boost for a player against multiple comps in the forms of a temporary alliance till 1 is eliminated.

[Andrew]

Oh, so you can ally with only 1 AI until another AI is destroyed, then you can't ally with any other AI?

I rarely did the AI ally thing, so I don't remember much. I only remember the AI would send their troops to your base even if allied which made it impossible to build up your base.

[gunner154]

Basically, once you do anything with alliance, you would become their only enemy (and your ally would have no enemy, though their units have a tendency to randomly attack your units for a second every now and then).

The same occurs once one AI is eliminated. They would ally against you. Their units no longer fought among themselves, and all of them would throw everything at you.

[Andrew]

Downloaded and burned. Finished Allied Campaign last night.

Now on to soviet campaign. :)

Still a great game. Even with outdated graphics. I'll probably finish soviet campaign, then play a couple skirmishes and then stop playing.

[Sneakgab]

What about multi, wouldn't that be the most entertaining? Especially because, if  recall correctly, the AI in that game was ridiculously bad. I remember the AI filling it's base with flame turrets and building way more tesla coils than it could ever hope to have power for.

If i get RA again I will probably try playing it multi. I remember one amusing match where I noticed a level with 2 or 3 tiny ponds in it and having already devised a plan suggested this to my brother. One pond near my base (if I remember correctly) was just big enough for a dock and space for a boat or two. Then there was another pond quite far to the right of his base. I promptly teleported a cruiser there with the chronosphere (which was followed shortly after by another) which pretty much destroyed most of his base and guaranteed my victory since he (thinking it was basically an all-ground map which shouldn't have naval units) had no idea what was going on. His look of bewilderment was amusing.

If i find the game it will probably be very cheap but finding the game at all will be a problem (for those of you who have already forgottendidn't read my earlier post, downloading it isn't an option for me).

The only problem with RA was harvesters. Harvesters basically force rushing tactics since 1 tank will decide the game if you don't send anything. I think that with V2s and cruisers (for maps that allow them) turtling ultimately isn't an option, though I'm not sure if the soviets (or anyone) had good enough mobile AA to protect their V2s from air attack.

If RA had a different resource system such as those in Blizzard games or maybe something similar to TA (mines basically) it would be perfect. The resource center idea forbids turtling as expansion is a must but also allows one to pursue strats other than rushing (like at least playing defensively long enough to mount a more complicated strategy).

[gunner154]

The AI has a habit of throwing all its starting units (if any) at you at the beginning, as far as I can remember, apart from the unfair alliances.

Soviets barely had mobile AA. As far as I can remember, only the mammoth tank and the rocket soldier had mobile AA. But the Soviets only had rocket soldiers in multiplayer, which probably helped for balance.

[MrFlibble]

In the campaigns, the Allies have Rocket Soldiers as mobile AA, and the Soviets have the Mammoths. In multiplayer, the Soviets have both Mammoths and Rocket Soldiers, and those Mammoths do quite a good job at countering Allied Longbows, especially in groups. In Aftermath, the Allies get the Chronotank as a vehicle with AA capability.

[Sneakgab]

''The AI has a habit of throwing all its starting units (if any) at you at the beginning, as far as I can remember, apart from the unfair alliances.''

Well, we all know how hopeless AI's are. The ones in Starcraft that are reputed to be better than most require 5000 minerals and gas at start up to put up a decent fight (as this initial amount becomes less significant as time progresses, you will notice how the AI becomes more and more pathetic till they are eventually swept aside easily regardless of the number of opponents so long as your forces and base are in somewhat reasonable condition). That is 100 times the amount the player starts with (though the player starts with quite a measly amount). 5000 minerals and gas is enough for ALOT (obviously). Even though they might not be able to utilize it immediately, that is still obviously a pretty hefty boost.

So basically, without absurdly unfair advantages, AI's are simply no challenge. This actually generally goes for many genres. It is too bad it seems the progammers (or whoever is involved) are apparently incapable (not that I blame them, the task does seem very difficult) of creating AI's with reasonable skillstrategic ability that can do something other than using an initial boost to rush you (and then wither) or just generally throw random units at you.

Particularly poor AI's can be seen in the Warlords Battlecry series. They don't even wait to form groups of units, they seemingly just send them off of their many production lines directly to their deaths at your base. Every now and then cluster do seem to emerge somehow though (AI or chance?)

Though RA's AI's were the most fantastically stupid with the flame turret fields and whatnot. They simply take the cake for dramatic stupidity with flair.

Yes, I didn't say so earlier as I wished to avoid being argumentative at the time, but I'd say that trying to turtle up with longbows against a V2 and mammoth squad pretty much wouldn't work. If the enemy brings many V2's with them (let's say 10, since fighting someone who wants to turtle will allow much time for harvesting and production) then the micro required to use his longbows so that they strike simultaneously and at different targets (the V2 at most would only be damaging the base in a siege situation which should take a while so considering the nature of such a situation focus fire would be much less useful than splitting your apaches so that they don't waste shots... which actually maximizes focus fire anyway so nevermind all that :P). Even if the player had the micro required for this (numbering your apaches and setting them at different distances to the group cluster so as to compensate for different start times due to lag for micro neccessary to give orders might help) it would still take an amount of helipads (in this large scale battle situation) which would be probably take up to much space to be feasible.

Of course, the player could set his longbows on the ground instead of providing helipads (for now) if their sole purpose up till now was to take out V2s.

Even then, the unstoppable (for someone who doesn't attack and generally virtually defeat his enemy by the time of the construction of it's facility and it's subsequent generation) nuke should be able to put an end to much of the longbow.

You might have gotten a warning showing where super weapons will land though. If that's the case, then never mind that.

The attacker could even bring just 1 V2 at a time. If he did that then every time the longbows assualted they would bear the brunt (even if only for the timespan required to launch a single missile) of his mammoth force.

As  for the mammoths being attacked.... well, obviously the longbows would have no chance.

After all that you could always set up base there and build some AA.

There is also only the iron curtain. You might only be able to make 2 or 3 mammoths invulnerable but that should still be enough to eventually destroy the base (2 or 3 mammoths probably destroy faster than the enemy can build unless he built a rather absurd number of conyards... which would obviously not be effective. The money advantage gained there would probably be enough to simply crush his base and units with tanks).

Well, now that I think about it, they can also build while your iron curtain recharges (silly me). But still, at least you can cause a lot of damage like this. Almost akin to having another super weapon. So against the allies at least (as a soviet might employ a similar strategy, rendering the effect negated), this should result in a cash advantage against a turtle. Eventually, the turtle should be defeated.

So turtling like this at least seems like it would ultimately lead to defeat. They may be other turtling methods though.

Soviets turtling against soviets would probably bear similar results.

Clearly, if there is sufficiently nearby water, the Allies can put an end to any turtling.

Even without sufficiently near water, I recall that rocket soldiers might have had more range than flame turrets, and teslas would not be overly effective against them. I do not recall what units the soviets had that were effective against infantry. They had the yaks but they would be going up against the allies only mobile AA units so it might seem a bit unreasonable if they were to win (although, considering the limited usefulness of the yak as is maybe not so much so). Even, then you can still set up base with static AA if necessary.

So all in all it seems that turtling should theoretically not be very effective.

This being the case, the harvester system is not necessary to prevent turtling (if it was, that would mean that bases could become unassailable with little input during attacks, which would most probably be a flaw in itself with this kind of remedy not healing the lack of the option of direct attack on an opponents base in such a case).

And so, it seems it would be nice if the harvester system were removed in favor of a system that wouldn't cripple strategic play any time either (or both) player/s felt like it.

Many a person has insulted and labeled newbs those who wish to select option for invulnerable harvesters as turtling enthusiasts. And yet most games without harvesters do not seem to suffer from turtling. (TA,AoE,WC3,SC,e.t.c).

Of course, with indestructible harvesters, their numbers should be kept down.

Much better would simply be replacing the harvester system. It seems constricting and not conducive (perhaps even counter-conducive? if that's a proper word/term) to strategy.

Of course, the harvest system do have a ''nice feel'' to them. Still, not enough to compensate for the relative disadvantages it bears to other resource systems and something that probably wears thin after a while.

[NodFan]

WOW RED ALERT makes me remmember the good times its awsome how you can now play the full game for free :) by the way will there be a free demo for RED ALERT 3

[gunner154]

I'm sure there would be when the time comes. Tiberium Wars had it...

[NodFan]

Lolz tiberium wars demo was fun i just wish i had the full CD version of it but still i will get RA3

[gunner154]

Well, it was a fun demo, yes, but it never appealed to me as much as the various Dawn of War demos.

[NodFan]

LOL ;D