One of my favorite strategies in Red Alert 3 (or any game in the C&C series) is to use guerilla warfare.
Now normally, guerilla warfare means going in, hitting hard, and coming out with the least number of casualties possible. While that is always great, sometimes you have to calculate the costs of war. For example, if I fly in with 5 mecha tengus, take out an engineer but get wiped in the process, well then my five tengus are not worth one 500 credit engineer then, are they? If, however, I go in and take out 5 engineers and a couple of light vehicles, well then that is swell, even if i get killed. Using the Honorable discharge secret protocol early on will enable your mecha tengus to explode kamikaze style in the event they are killed, causing more damage.
Now, these seems to be some kind of attitude out there on the interweb that going after one’s ores is very uncool. I for one think that that is bullocs! Crippling an economy is an essential warfare tactic. Think about it: you destroy their ore collectors, they build more, destroy them, they build more, destroy them…no monies. Enemy crippled, game over!
But so you are not left in this situation, here’s some way to protect yourself against such (ingenious) attacks:
1) Japan: Five mecha tengus hovering above your ore factory should do the trick until you get a defensive tower up. These guys can go on land or water and rule the skies against early units. If a soviet commander send in heli’s, advance on him to weaken him before he gets there. If he sends terror drones, they’ll either not make it or jump into your tengus (at which point you can rush to your repair bay).
Not protected...
2) Soviets: The soviets have two key features that can save them from these attacks.
a) They can create sentry guns which are surprisingly powerful against most light units (especially infantry). Two of these should do you right.
b) The soviet engineer can build a…um…shack?…to house a couple of flack troopers for anti air. Soviets dominate anti air so be sure to have any pesky Allies’ air routes thoroughly covered such that their planes are mush by the time they get to your ores or that they have to re-evaluate their strategy on the fly (which may lead to mistakes on their part). Also, never forget that the second your ores are in danger, activate their defensive shells.
Get two turrets up, a couple of dogs and a couple of peacekeepers and you're home free.
3) Allies: Prospectors seem to be generally tougher than most other collectors out there but really don’t offer much in terms of awesomeness (Japan has a turret on the back and soviets have a protective shell. Allies just became a command bay… whoopie). What the allies do have though is awesome dogs to take out any pesky infantry (or spies) and a turret that is formidable against both air and land light units. Be sure to have two turrets around your prospector and wall the prospector, turrets and refinery up, leaving a small entrance that is easy for your units to reach if needed and hard for other. Line up rocket launchers on the known flight paths to your base and sit back and relax knowing your ore is safe.
Protect them with everything you've got!
So, that’s about it then! Take this advice, go out and have yourself some dominating fun. Look for more RA3 strategy coming up!
Especially her...
