Command & Conquer: Red Alert - Retaliation (1998)

I did play the counter strike missions back in the day but never had Aftermath, so much of this was new experience. I played everything on Hard. I started with the Soviet missions and did not care for the non linear structure because it made the minimal story even less coherent. It was more like a random collection of missions to showcase new units than an actual military campaign. The missions where they changed the weapons assigned to certain units were very interesting, but I did not like it when they made ridiculously high hp units. I lost the mission where they gave artillery the cruiser shell; I was not prepared to have to deal with that kind of range and they destroyed my refinery. I failed a lot of the missions the first time due to some kind of nonsense. The only two missions that gave me significant trouble where the one with the nuke Mig that completely wrecked my tanks and base, and the one with the orange traitors. I read a walkthrough to figure out how to deal with the nukes and it was about capturing the construction yard to the west and building AA guns. Not sure how the Mig died but I never even seen it the next attempt. Nuke mig was ridiculously overpowered. The other mission was difficult only because I went the wrong way, building my base in the small area north of their radar dome instead of the nice big open area with lots of money to the west. I wanted to challenge myself to win from that location so I kept trying it over and over until I finally won. There was very little margin for error. A couple times I lost because my only ore truck went too close to their Tesla coil. Another time I lost my construction yard and war factory, and was going to try winning with just rifleman. Then the boss rocket guy attacked and easily slaughtered dozens of rifleman. What the hell? So my very precise strategy was to scout the radar dome area with the spy then proceed to the enemy base as intended. Spending too long scouting made the dog glitch and sometimes kill the spy. Though it was possible to save the spy it was more important to ensure as many troops as possible survived the landing, especially the Tesla tank. I used the shock troopers to attack the enemy tanks with backup from my tanks, then used the tanks to destroy the defensive structures. Deployed the construction yard in the first available position then used one heavy tank as a decoy so the Tesla tank could kill the V2 in the south while the refinery was building. Meanwhile the other heavy had to destroy a tree near the choke point entrance in order to fit the refinery. Then the Tesla cleared the way to the radar dome while the two heavies got the money crates from the tech center, destroyed a couple more trees to make room and destroyed the sub pen. The ore truck had to harvest one tile of ore to fit the barracks, then made an engineer to capture their radar. The rest of the mission was about countering all the tricks. Built a flame turret west of the refinery to defeat Tanya and help the shock troopers hold the line. I was using them spread out to block vehicles but they took too much friendly fire damage from the tower, so I put them behind it and used the tanks to block. I needed two Sam sites near the construction yard and another two at the radar to stop air attacks. Then built a sub pen and pumped out five subs to slaughter the three destroyers. I built the sub pen in the northeast and it was constantly attacked by a hind, so I made another Sam site. Perhaps there was a better location for the pen. Then I put the war factory near the entrance to help create even more of a choke point and made a V2 to snipe their units and defensive structures. It was possible to get ore from near the enemy base without getting killed by the coil but it took micromanagement. I built 10 to 15 riflemen to take out the chrono tanks at the gems but they didn't spawn until after I had wiped out the enemy base this time. Same with tanya, odd. Regardless the infantry did help protect the ore trucks. I put a Tesla coil surrounded by concrete walls just west of my base entrance so it could kill the enemy ore trucks when their field ran out. I also made a dog specifically to kill that overpowered rocket guy.

The counter strike Allied missions were incredibly annoying with a lot of "fail if convoy trucks escape" and "fail if civilians die". I really did not appreciate failing the mission after spending 20 to 30 minutes setting up my base just because of 1 little thing that was extremely difficult to predict. Most of these missions took more than 1 attempt and after failing once I used a walkthrough to point out exactly what I had to do to avoid these cheap fail states. It was especially annoying when the trucks dropped nuke crates, though I needed to deliberately trigger them to beat 1 mission. For the other mission I expanded my base across most of the north part of the map to cover 3 exits with turrets and pill boxes. I built concrete or silos around nuke crates to quarantine them from accidental pickup. The Aftermath missions were much better. I failed the Chrono tank + Tanya commando mission because I tried to cram my base into the narrow area instead of putting it out in the open, which made it take too long to get money and set up defenses. Next try I put my construction yard right at the mouth of the narrow area so the refinery was closer to the ore while still allowing many of my buildings to be protected inside the choke point. The MAD tank mission was interesting with the Soviets controlling almost the entire map. I built a fleet of choppers to kill the mammoth tanks in the center 1 at a time, using a mechanic to keep all vehicles repaired. A few times my helicopters managed to kill the tank before it did the shockwave, though once I got spies in to reveal the area I destroyed the factory to stop the shockwaves altogether. Then it was a matter of picking off what I could with helicopters, cruiser and chrono tanks before sending light tanks and APCs in to clean up. I did find it better to use APCs instead of jeeps for the anti infantry group, and it was very annoying that the GPS satellite did not work in any of these missions. The most difficult mission was the one about defending a fake base until getting an MCV to make a real base. The timed part was not difficult at all but after that I was overwhelmed to the point where I gradually lost. There was way too much happening with scripted attacks that I could not focus my attention properly and suffered loss after loss. First of all I had to sell stuff, including some artillery, to afford a refinery since I did not yet know about the hidden money crates. Later I had to sell more buildings and units to replace my refinery when it was destroyed while my attention was elsewhere, and again to afford new ore trucks after I kept losing them. My light tank group slowly dwindled while the Soviet attacks did not let up at all and they had like 20 heavy tanks camping 1 ore field near my base. I restarted and the difference was night and day when I knew what to do. Before the timer was up I used my tanks to collect the money crates, destroy bridges and trigger the reinforcements inside their base to take out their airfields. I also made sure not to lose my mine layer and to place mines in choice locations to specifically counter their attacks, in particular the V2s on the ridge north of my base and that stream of heavies to the ore field. I kept on top of things and was able to kill their ore trucks with mines, and eventually win with a light tank rush to their construction yard.

Next were the ant missions. These were very difficult because the scout and warrior ants were fast and did surprising damage to vehicles. It was shocking how easily 1 or 2 could destroy an ore truck, and I lost quite a few. I had to restart the 3rd mission because the scientists never spawned and I was overrun. Now that I could gas the nest right at the start I built concrete walls along the north of my base to funnel ants into the gas for instant kills. That way I only had to defend against the west, using a couple pillboxes and infantry behind 2 layers of concrete. It was a struggle to figure out which units worked best on the ants with tanks being worn down by strong melee attacks and infantry being slaughtered by fire ants. I ended up using a mixed force of medium tanks, riflemen and a medic. I occasionally used a lone V2 to kill stationary ants. With the infantry in front I found that many ants fumbled their path finding while trying to get at the tanks, allowing me to get by with minimal damage; especially after I captured the Soviet base and got paratroopers to replenish killed rifles. I managed to beat the final underground mission on the first try despite losing most of the infantry I was given. Then I did a few more skirmish matches but did not find much difference. There were a lot more maps, including some cool ones like real world locations. I did an Allied vs Allied on the Italy map with me starting around Rome and the enemy in the northwest corner. I fortified the tree line north of me leaving only a narrow entrance while building a cruiser and couple destroyers to wreck their base. Unfortunately my ground defenses could not hold up against their entire army and I almost lost my base. I did lose my refinery, trucks and factory, but there was no way for them to threaten my fleet. Shame the AI did not use naval units. I did not see much point to play more skirmish matches, even going against more than 1 AI would not be that difficult given how much they spread out their attack forces.

The new units were interesting. I liked the general with silenced gun which was just like the traditional commando; much better than Tanya and a better choice for a buildable unit. Tesla tanks were awesome against everything but were glass cannons. I did not like how they made the V2 redundant by out ranging gun turrets, though the V2 was still better at front loading damage and out ranging Tesla coils and destroyers. I wonder if they should instead get the shorter range of the shock trooper with double shots. That would give them more of an anti infantry niche instead of infringing on the v2. They should also require a tech center or maybe even the iron curtain. Shock troopers countered both armor and infantry but were too slow and expensive to be of much use. I could see them being decent when combined with APCs or used to block key points, but they still died easily to any anti infantry weapon. I did not use the MAD tank at all. The Soviets already have plenty of tools to pick apart enemy bases though I could see these tanks being useful in a sneak attack for mass destruction, or maybe combined with shock troopers to counter a mass of tanks. The missile sub was similar to the cruiser only with less range and better accuracy. A great unit that paired well with the normal sub to give another option for attacking enemy bases; better than migs if the base had air defense and is close enough to water without a navy. The mechanic was great to have in base for free repairs, and even better put in an APC to fix tanks in the field. While a cool extrapolation of the medic mechanic, I question the balance of free repairs. It kind of trivializes using a squadron of choppers to wipe out the enemy as it is fairly easy to prevent losses. Without a mechanic it would cost money to use choppers so there would be some incentive to find a more efficient way. The medic is balanced by just how easily infantry die while most vehicles are much less likely to suddenly die. Maybe mechanic repairs should cost money just like the service bay. The chrono tank was very cool, reminding me of the stealth tank. They were glass cannons and a bit unhandy with slow speed and turning, but could cause a lot of damage by teleporting. Enough of then could easily take out any building to cripple the enemy, even if it was a suicide mission. Even better if they could hold out long enough for the teleport to recharge and get back for repairs. I would change it to require the chronosphere; I was very surprised to see that they could be built without it! The last unit, the demolition truck, I never used unless it was given for free. The Soviets easily countered them with Tesla coils and migs, while they also had enough other weapons to not need to risk using them against an Ally base. The stealth APC was another cool unit that I would give to the Allies with chronosphere as requirement and make very expensive. It would of course need to lose its rockets for the normal machine gun.

8.0/10