truefeel
06-02-2006, 03:09 PM
Ok, as I have much time now and not really know what to do with it, I will type up kinda ALL my knowledge about the game ONLINE (not vs. AI), in an attempt to boost up your skill about the game aswell.
Chapter 1 : Yuri's revenge
1.1 How it works
1.2 What can you expect online
1.3 general tips/tricks/additional information
1.4 the allieds:
...1.4.1Allied tactics
...1.4.2BOs
...1.4.3favourite allied maps
...1.4.4others
1.5 the soviets
...1.5.1 Soviet tactics
...1.5.2BOs
...1.5.3favourite soviet maps
...1.5.4others
1.6 the yuri side
...1.6.1Yuri tactics
...1.6.2BOs
...1.6.3favourite yuri maps
...1.6.4others
...1.6.5 why overpowered ?
1.1How it works
YR online is full with players of all different skill levels. One time you play against a n00b, the other time you get owned by a player much better then you and the other time, you can find somebody which is equal skilled in the game. That last group of people is the most interested to play with, but also the most rare of them all. If you find one, try to keep in contact with that player, so you can set dates for more games. If you can do that, you can train your reflexes perfectly. against a n00b, you don't have to go to the edge, instead, you can own him with almost no skillfull playing. against a better player, you can learn alot if you pay attention, but you also have less time to improve a bit, cause he can and will defeat you as fast as he can. That's why you better want to hook up with players of same skill. Don't only play with them though; in order to learn new, better things, you need to play with better players. Although you can't really know in which game they are (I'm talking about custom game), you can predict it a bit: in games like Tour Of Egypt, you rarely encounter good players. Good players also will play most of the time official maps. Lastly, the biggest chance you will find one is in Clan Matches, so if you want to get into a clan and be prepared to loose in exchange for better skill, you should join those games from time to time.
1.2 How to play online
In order to play good, you need to know how people play alike. People who play very defensive are the most easiest to beat on most maps. What you then is either making tanks and taking the biggest part of resources on the map; this has a double effect:
-You can build more units then you can normally.
-He will run out of resources faster, discreasing his chances of getting enough units to stand up vs your units.
Alternative, you can also rush him. Don't do rushing mindless though. Going for his miners will be the best chance to end it quickly.
Next you have the mindless rushers. Those are the players which know the basic of the game, but micro badly. They will just send their units to you without any planning. Your objective is then to have a sentry ready to place and having fodder. With that, you own him perfectly.
Then you have the players who know how to play. They plan good and know how to micromanage. They know perfectly the basics and how to use them. Those are the players which will be very hard to crack.
1.3 general tips/tricks/extra information
When the map is loading up, ALWAYS check the minimap for a moment. See where your opponents are and were you start. Also carefully look were the resources are been situated. Many people don't do this, but it can be helpfull.
USE THE HOTKEYS!!! Using them makes that you're playing faster then without. Especially on small maps, they are very important. They can save you critical seconds.
Here's what surtenly is needed:
Q - Main Building tab (Flicks the Tab to the First One)
W - Defense tab (Flicks the Tab to the Second One)
E - Infantry tab (Flicks the Tab to the Third One)
R - Units (Tanks, etc) tab (Flicks the Tab to the Fourth One)
T - Select that/those certain units in your view (click it twice selects all of that/those certain units on the map)
S - Stop (Stops what that current unit was pre-ordered to do)
X - Scatter (Scatters all units selected in an attempt to not be run over)
N - Next unit (Goes to next unit on the map)
D - Deploy (Deploys all select unit if they haeva secondary function/units inside)
G - Guard (Orders units to "Guard" an area)
CTRL + 1-9 - Create Team
1-9 - Select Team
A - Ally with chosen side
M - Previous unit (Goes to previous unit on the map)
P - Select all units with an "Attack" ability (excludes miners) on the screen (click twice for all units on map)
H - Home (Takes you to your base)
K - Repair (buildings only)
L - Sell
Z - Waypoint (Creates WayPoints for chosen units)
B - Beacon (Places a beacon)
alt + click one of your tanks - to put your tanks in a compact group
Spacebar - Go to last action announced or beacon placed.
alt + click on enemy infantry - to run them over
CTRL + F1-F4 - Create Map Bookmark
CTRL + SHIFT - Attack Move
WAYS TO USE HOTKEYS:
-A faster way to get your MCV deployed at the start of game is to do "N,D", N for "Next Unit" and D for "Deploy"
-A faster way to place building is to push the "Q" or "W" depending on what building you wish to place and click on the battlefield where you want it
-Make Teams of Units (1 team for Rocketeers, 1 for Fodder, etc) to select the group push the number you assigned to it (cntrl + number) adn to flick to the part of the map those units are on, push the "Team Number" twice
-Whenever you wish to view your base, just push "H"
-Whenever you hear "Unit Lost" or "Miner Under Attack" just push Space-Bar and your screen will flick to where that message came from
-Create a Map Bookmark of your opponent's base and push F1-F4 (depends which one you assigned it to) to instantly go to that location
-Use CTRL + SHIFT to move away and have units stop to attack anything in range, good for IFV's
Consider this as a basic for every game !
Next part is miner microing. This kinda different for all sides, but like hotkeys very important for all sides. It's basicilly keeping your miners as close as possible to the closest ore cell. I will discribe this later in the specific section of this topic in bigger lines.
Something also important, and 90% of all players don't do this, is when getting short on money putting tabs on hold. On maps like blood fued where your only income is ore and where you need to go straight tanks, you'll get very soon out of money if you don't watch your income and OUTCOME of your money. What you do is simply: you watch your money (WHILE still using miner micro); if you go below like 700 credits, put the building that is in progress on hold. This means your chance to get so low on money that your tank production stops, decreases very huge. When you see that a miner is going to depose the ore at the ore refinery, inmediately continue to build the building. On maps like blood fued, you'll most likely are going to flirt with the "insufienced funds line", but if you do this trick well, along with good miner micro, you'll never get below the needed money to produce tanks.
Next up is rushing. to start with, many people claim it's a cheap tactic. do NOT believe this. basicilly, if you get rushed, it's your own fault of not making enough units begin game to hold it off. rushing is preferable for soviets, but also for yuri and allieds. It can discribed as this: getting as fast as possible a bigger number of a type of unit then your enemy has, and using that type of unit as fast as possible on a correct way.
In other words, only do this when you have obvious more units (so don't try it with one tank advantage, unless you really think you can handle it) then your enemy begin games (use the hotkeys and miner control !!!). Best way to rush is to not make an ore miner from the WF. Risky as it is, it can really make the difference in favour of you. When you attack, do it right. Always use fodder (see next paragraph for further information about this) and try to kill his tanks first when they are in a vulnerable position. Do not rush in like a madman, instead go for his weak spots.
ok, now let's talk about fodder:
Fodder is to protect other units, most of the time tanks. In most of the time, you use cheap fodder, like dogs or conscripts or GI,... . You may want to prefer the first (so the dogs), as they are fast. You put your fodder in front of your tanks and attack your enemy in that way. You let the enemiess tanks fire on the fodder and shoot with your tanks the enemi tanks away. I want to notice that ctrl+shift is good when your enemy is also using fodder. that way, your fodder will attack his fodder, meaning that his fodder will die faster and so giving you a fodder advantage and so increasing your chances to win.
Next is the home advantage:
When your building your tanks as fast as your opponent does and your opponent wants to rush you, you will have some points were you can make advantage of:
Keep a low tech structure (pillbox, sentry gun or gattling cannon) ready to place (!!!do not place it yet !!!) and keep your tanks within base perimeter. When the tanks comes to attack yours, place that defence structure right between the enemy tanks and your tanks. your opponents tanks will shoot at that structure, giving you a big time advantage.
If your building as fast as your opponent, remember then that on the time his tanks arrive at your base that both out of his and your WF a tank comes out. Your tank can inmediately join your other tanks, while his tank not. same for fodder. make use of this !
Make use of terrain objects. When you have a good deal of basic tanks, you can try to let your opponents group of tanks split by things like trees, buildings,... . The less his tanks are concentrated, the less you loose tanks. that is if you keep your tanks packed enough...
stretch your bases. With that, I mean place your building so that you get faster control over the map. This putting your buildings in a line which goes to the dezired direction, mostly choke points (base advantage!) and ore fields.
Always scout the map and your enemy base. For yuri, this by making brutes, for soviets and allieds, this is by making dogs.
This goes faster with the hotkeys (!!!) and with placing waypoint. When your barracks is ready, place a waypoint in the direction were you want your dog/brute to go. Knowing the map early is very important. Not only you discover tech buildings and choke points, but also you can see what your enemy is doing and so being able to counter it. If your scout units are able to survive, use them later as fodder.
As scouting is important, antiscouting is also important. Making extra scout units, which you will use then as antiscout units, is really worth the price. If you can succesfully antiscout your enemy by denying that his scout units gets to see your base, your opponents will not be very sure anymore to do and with that, you can make more succesfull suprise attacks. You can increase the succes of antiscouting by putting the antiscouts on choke points. Also: when you're scouting, don't just click on the dezired spot, but CTRL+SHIFT click on the spot. This has an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that your dogs can kill opponents dogs which pass straight next them. The disadvantage is that when the opponents dog is out of reach of your dog, your dog will chase that dog. So you need to redirect him. Overall, the advantage is bigger then the disadvantage, so use it.
A few other things you will need to know: contrary what you would expect, war factories, barracks, etc. do NOT double the build speed of the units, so building a second war factory does not give you twice as fast rhinoes, though more war factories do reduce buildtime, each one with 20%. That 20% is not discarded from the original, but from which buildtimes you currently have. E.g. say you have 2 war factories, so buildtime is 0,8. You build another one. 0,8 -20% = 0,64 etc. I'm not 100% sure if the same numbers are used for the other production buildings, but my guess is that it is the same.
To go further on this I will be noting throughout this tutorial at certain points the buildtime of units/buildings/... . I'm not gonna do that in seconds b/c that is not really reliable. I will be using the amount of credits that unit costs as a reliable time unit, providing you do not run out of money and also providing you only have one war factory, ceteris paribus. So for example, a rhino takes 900 (credits) BT (buildtime). Some units though have buildtimemultipliers, which makes them build longer then their cost would say. e.g. a unit costs 400 credits, so normally he takes 400 BT, but the unit has a buildtimemultipier of 1.5, so the time actually needed to build one is 600 BT. I'll be describing a few of these units in the respective sections (1.4.4/1.5.4/1.6.4)
For the rest of additional information, I would like to stress on this: Cheating on the RA2/YR server is forbidden! if you cheat, your opponent can easily make the necessary screenies to post it on the xwis forums, resulting that you will get a 16,32 or permanent serial code ban. Also think if it that it is not a way to make fun or to get a good ranking. Cheating is disrespecting other players who play fair. Under cheating is far more then the use of special programs. bug exploit also falls under cheating. For further information, go to the strike team website. I also want to stres on that if you encounter a cheater, make the necessary screenies (again go to the strike team website of what you exactly need to have on picture) and post it on the xwis forums.
For the rest, play wise. Don't get angry if you're loosing over and over. You will get better. Also don't flame. It makes nobody better. Also don't just kick people out of your games. Give them a fair chance.
1.4 the allieds
Allieds are nasty to play with. They are very weak early game, but so good late game. Your problem is when playing allieds is to minimize the disadvantages of allieds early game. That means handling rushes. What you do then is not going defensive then. You go all out agressive so you can pressure your soviet/yuri opponent, while you tech up. Combining going very agressive and teching up is difficult. I will try to make it for you a bit easier.
1.4.1 Allied tactics
What you do depends on the map. However, there's a pattern for the same type of maps. Before we go into this, I'd like to give you an idea about the allied countries. I ranked them from good to bad:
AMERICA: This is the best allied country. That paradrop you get is very, very usefull. Not only b/c it simply gives you free units, but also b/c you can get those free units everywhere on the map (providing your opponent doesn't see it coming). Use that paradrop well, and you can turn the ie or even win the game.
KOREA: This side is equal to america on resource maps. Many players use Back Eagles wrong and just mass 8 of them and go for the CY. Be wise and don't do that. Black Eagles are used to kill tanks. It's basicilly a harrier, but then with free upgrades. Unlike a harrier, a black eagle is in many situation enough to kill a particular unit. For instance, your opponent has a deso bomb (flak track with inside desolators). You wish to kill the flak track, with the desolators, with aircraft. As any other country, you need 3 harriers (2 to kill the flak track and one to kill the desolators). As korea, you need only 2 (1 to kill the flak track and another one to kill the desolators). Keep that in mind
Great Britain: This side has the best anti-desolator unit. It eliminates the danger of a walking deso. It's also a good fodder killer. Don't underestimate this side.
France: Not that good like other countries. Most new players want to use this side cause you can turtle with this side, which is basicilly wrong. You need to sacrifice other things in order to get that 2000 credit cannon, which is not all too good. You can get easily rushed when trying to turtle with this side. My advice is not to turtle with this side and use the cannons as offence. Try to basewalk to your opponent (basewalking is stretching your buildings to the enemy) and then place some grand cannons in range of the opponent base and start killing his buildings. Not always good, but difficult to crack when you use it right.
Germany: The tank destroyers has not much use. Their are not very fast and when the enemy brings in fodder, your chances to win will descrease dramaticilly. They are good though for anti-rushing, but that's it. You're better off with sticking onto grizly's.
Got to make an edit with this one, as I recently found that tank destroyers are being build faster then grizzly tanks, raising the value of tank destroyers. How much this has effect at a strategies is unkown to me and I will have to test this properly before I can say anything about it. See 1.4.4 for more details about this.
Now for the tactics:
americas triple midgame attack: A powerfull attack, when used right. It's simple: tech up to radar, while building tanks AND some (dog)fodder. Then stop building buildings, except ore refineries, and start making rocketeers, while continueing building tanks. When the paradrop is ready, you move your tanks to the opponents base. Pick the spot which is the most vulnerable for tanks. If he comes in with tanks, then you stay to fight. You also send your rocketeers to a spot were there is no AA (preferable the miners) and drop on the same time your paradrop right next some unprotected buildings (if there are garrisonable buildings next to those buildings, you garrison them!). It's attacking at 3 points with 3 different types of attack, making it your opponent very hard. When done good, you will have serious advantage. Be sure you keep attention on all 3 attacks, but preferable, to your tanks. When they start loosing, retreat them. Don't keep them fighting. This tactic is all about pressuring and out-microing. Practice this tactic good, it's not very easy to do it perfect.
Rocketeer rush: !!! only do this tactic vs any other allied side !!! . This is a risky tactic and can only work on small to mediumsized maps. You skip WF, so you can get radar earlier. make 1 or 2 more barracks after that, while pumping rocketeers out. when having enough, you attack. Kill his power first, so that patriot missiles are useless. then WF, so he can't build IFVS anymore and then lastly the barracks. then the rest. This tactic is risky and you need to scout fast and good in order to see if it's worth to do this tactic. If it is worth, you can do it.
Grizly rush: Do this only on small maps. It can be done vs soviet and yuri, but it's more preferable vs allieds. Only do this on small maps. When you get WF, do not make miner(s). start building tanks instead. Begin also a new ore refinery. After that, you can either build a radar and then sell your CY, or sell CY right after the second ore refinery. In both cases after CT-sell, you start making fodder.
I also give you the advice when facing a soviet player who also wants to do a tank rush, you make for each grizly you make, one fodder unit. Rhino's and Grizly's are been build on the same speed, while rhino's cost 900 and grizly's 700. Rhino's are better then Grizly's, so you need to catch that up with one or other way. My way is making extra fodder, cause 700 (grizly) + 200 (fodder)= 900 (rhino). After MCV sell, you make more fodder. Always have more fodder then your soviet opponent as allieds.
BF+mirage push: This is quite simply the best mix the allieds have to counter soviet late game and I can tell ya, when you get a sizeable force of those, you basicilly win. Your problem: to get late game with enough grizly's to survive until you have get those mirages and BFs.
You make every BF 4 GGIs. Then you put in 1 BF an extra GGI and in the other 1, 1 seal. the seals are to make deso bombing and deso walking useless. In RA2, making mirages was practically useless cause of deso bombing. Now in YR, deso bombing has become very difficult with seal BFs. Keep the mirages just in front of the BFs and attack that way.
GGI-IFVs/mirages/prism tanks.
This is the late game counter against yuri forces. Although it's so difficult to get late game, you should do your best to do that. You tech up fast while surviving with a couple of GGI-IFVs. When you made it to battle lab stage, you mass prisms, GGI-IFVs and a handfull mirages. You use them like this: mirages to counter lashers, masterminds and gatt tanks. Prism tanks to counter gatt tanks and magnetrons and the GGI_IFVs to counter floating disks. Keep in mind that a good yuri player will try to bring in a slave miner as fodder. If he brings that in, try to move around the yuri force and with that outrunning the slave miner (which you should try to kill).
seal-IFV: This one you use for sneaking in. you use then in combination with other attacks, so that the enemy attention is being diverted. You should use it while a tank battle is going on. Then he most likely doesn't have any or vry few units in his base and you can C4 a couple of buildings
water-outsplit tactic:This is the most powerfull, complicated and versatile tactics allieds have. It's used on naval maps with a land route to the soviet player (yes, it's a tactic vs soviets). You're preferable america. Your goal is to tech up fast. Get naval yard as soon as possible, build some destroyers and grizly tanks+fodder while getting quick the other reachable resources. This must be done quick, else you run out of resources and then the soviet player can just overthrow you with a rhino-force. Build 1 extra WF before hitting battle lab. Then bring out your best miner microing, you will need it. Build more and more ore refineries until you have enough miners on enough ore/gemfields to mass produce things, then build an ore purifier. While doing this, build quickly dolphins and watch out for dreadnoughts. Also build Mirages, BFs and the needed infantry for it. Building a spysat can really help spotting that fast dreadnought, but then you're building on 5 things. If you're getting beneath the 1000 credits, put 1 or 2 tabs on hold until you have again money. I managed to build 6 things a time on South Pacific without needing to put something on hold with miner microing and having everywhere on my side of the map mining operations, so it normally should also work for you.
While you were all doing this, you didn't forgot to harras with your paradrop, eh ?? good. Remember that if there's an tech airport on the map, you should grab it to get double pararop.
When you have enough dolphins, make 4 carriers and maybe an aegis cruiser. When you have enough infantry for the BFs, build rocketeers. Also begin building harriers now.You're mostly behind on tank production, but that's ok. Keep them in your base. Now it's time to bring on pressure. Use the carriers on his weak point, which are escorted by the dolphins and the rest of the destroyers. Use the paradrops on the back of his base, harras flak tracks with harriers and strike his miners on top of that with rocketeers. He will have to spend huge sums of money on AA. you can make it even more difficult with kilkling his radar and then using the paradrop. That way he will also not be able to make flak troopers. Kill any deso with the carriers. If you have enough money, make a second AFCC and build your 2 AFCCs full with harriers. Now you will also be able to kill WFs and such and harrasing his tnaks even more. The harrasing is essential, b/c if he gets desperate and use all of his units on your base, you will be glad that you waken his army first before jumping into battle.
Germany defence: The tank destroyer is not much used, but they can have some use. They are good for defending against somebody who attacks quite fast, but doesn't rush. What you do is making grizlies until you have radar. Start making Tank Destroyers (5-7 should be enough), some rocketeers,a seal-IFV, work on your economy and tech up further.you keep a pillbox ready.When the opponent comes out to attack you, keep your tanks in his attackline. If he sees that your tanks are ready on one place, he might try another. Make sure that you keep your tanks near enough to his tanks. When he then does actually make the attack (and most likely on your tanks), place that pillbox right in front of your tanks (yes, you need to keep your tanks in your base perimeter). His fodder will die most likely quickly, but see on it that that seal-IFV is close enough to kill fodder anyway. Use ctrl+shift for your complete group of tanks. Your grizlies will stay moving and attacking, but your tank destroyers will have to stop for attacking. However, with your base-advantage, you have surtenly the upperhand.
france Grand Cannon crawling:
A good tactic for an otherwise not so good country. Many new people think that France with their uber-cannons is the best country. It isn't. Cannons are too costly and actually too vulnerable for defence. You will also most likely get rushed before you can get one up. What you do instead is making tanks, tanks and tanks. To hold off the rush and to be able to tech up. Once you have a good force and a good economy running. you can either make a new MCV and get that one as near as possible to the enemy base (don't forget that you need your army for that!) or you stretch your base as close as possible to his. This has much to do with base advantage.Keep a Grand Cannon ready. Most likely your enemy will try to stop you from getting really close with your MCV to his base. When you can't get any further (and don't think about sacrificing your army, if it gets too dangerous to come any closer, don't get closer. Save your army, you will need it), deploy your MCV and deploy that Grand Cannon. Your opponent might see it coming and attacks, but for that, plz refer to the part "general information". In other case, your opponent will be forced to get back. Now stretch your base further and further and keep building Grand Cannons along the road. Destroy his base and his army with this tactic.
Ok, allied Tactics are done for now. Those are somewhat the most used. However: if you come into a situation were you think that an other tactic, would be better fitting, then try it. With falling and getting back up, you learn the right tactics for each situations;).
1.4.2 Allied BOs
Before I actually post the BOs, I will first explain it:
"What's a BO ?" would many ask. A BO means Build Order. It tells which buildings you need to build in which following up. It's used to get the most out of it in a game. BOs are, very important. Maybe even more important then microing.
BOs depends on what map you play. However: in a group of maps that have the same tactic, the BOs aren't much different.
I will give you an index; in BOs, who use shorten names for some buildings.
CY=Consctruction Yard
PP= powerplant
rax= barracks
ref= ore refinery
WF= War Factory
Lab= Battle Lab
SMALL MAPS BOs
With small maps, I really mean small maps, like blood fued or dune patrol. Were you're with your tanks to your opponent in a matter of a couple of seconds.
-Deploy CY
-PP (place into the direction of the nearest ore field)
-rax --> 2 dogs for scouting. (place rax further into the direction of the ore field)
-ref (place as close as possible to the ore field)
-WF ---> (!!!no miners!!!) straight grizly tanks (place WF into the direction of the second nearest ore field)
-ref (place further into the direction of second nearest ore field)
-ref, sell second ref (place as close as possible to second ore field)
-PP
-radar ---> make 1-2 rocketeers
-sell CY ---> use fodder, make more fodder units and then attack your enemy.
An other could be:
-Deploy CY
-PP (place into the direction of the nearest ore field)
-rax --> 2 dogs for scouting. (place rax further into the direction of the ore field)
-ref (place as close as possible to the ore field)
-WF ---> (!!!no miners!!!) straight grizly tanks (place WF into the direction of the second nearest ore field)
-ref (place further into the direction of second nearest ore field)
-ref, sell second ref (place as close as possible to second ore field)
-PP
-radar ---> make 1-2 rocketeers
-ref
-WF
-PP
-Lab ---> make units; depends on wat side your opponent is.
-Sell CY
Fast GI rush:
-Deploy CY
-PP
-rax ---> make 1 dog (for scouting) and like 15 GIs; now deploy the first 3 GIs around your base so that the opponent will not be able to see your base. (when the GIs are ready, send them along the edge of the map to the opponents base and strike fast)
-Radar (2 rocketeers and 1 plane) (use the rocketeers to kill possible desos, the plane ditto)
-war factory ---> 1 miner, then tanks
-sell mcv
NOTE: this is all out and requires alot of practice. If your opponent manage to see your base, inmediately abord this BO and go further on an other one.
MEDIUM MAP BOs
Maps of medium size are IMO the most fun for allieds to play. BOs really are different for each map. I'll take a few for country swing (Country Swing is a great example).
AMERICA BO
-Deploy CY
-PP (place into the direction of the nearest ore field)
-rax --> 3 dogs; on country swing you place near the middle entrance and one to your entrance(!This is anti-scouting!), the last is for scouting. Then 2 GIs, garrison in buildings or place them at
-ref (place as close as possible to the ore field).
-War factory (basewalk to the gems): 1 miner if you happened to got scouted, 2 miner if you didn't got scouted
-1 or 2 refs (good positioned at the ore field); you need to get your total miners on 4.
-radar (basewalk further to the gems) ---> 4-5 rocketeers; stop making buildings until those rocketeers ready. When paradrop is almost ready, move to your opponent and perfom the americas triple midgame attack. Do as much damage as possible.
-war factory (basewalk to the gems)
-PP
-ref (as close as possible to the gems)
-battle lab (if 1vs1, basewalk to other ore field)--> make 1 BF with 4 GGIs and 1 seal; then straight mirages. Do alot of harrasment if you haven't won yet.
The BO stops there in 2vs2 situation. In 1vs1 situation, it goes further:
-ref (basewalk to other ore field)
-war factory (basewalk closer to ore field)
-ref (as close as possible to ore field)
then you decide what to do.
KOREAN BO
-Deploy CY
-PP (place into the direction of the nearest ore field)
-rax --> 3 dogs; on country swing you place near the middle entrance and one to your entrance(!This is anti-scouting!), the last is for scouting. Then 2 GIs, garrison in buildings or place them at
-ref (place as close as possible to the ore field).
-War factory (basewalk to the gems): 1 miner if you happened to got scouted, 2 miner if you didn't got scouted
-1 or 2 refs (good positioned at the ore field); you need to get your total miners on 4.
-radar (basewalk further to the gems) ---> 1 rocketeer and 2 eagles; stop making buildings until those eagles are ready. When first eagle is ready, inmediately target a tank with it. When second eagle is ready, target the same tank, except when he has made flak tracks. If it's only 2, target 1 flak track and when the other eagle is loaded, kill the other flak track.
-war factory (basewalk to the gems)
-PP
-ref (as close as possible to the gems) ---> 2 more eagles
-battle lab (if 1vs1, basewalk to other ore field)--> make 1 BF with 4 GGIs and 1 seal; then straight mirages. Do alot of harrasment if you haven't won yet.
-one more AFCC and make 1 more eagle. 5 eagles kill 1 miner at a time, or a war factory, or a flak cannon.
The BO stops there in 2vs2 situation. In 1vs1 situation, it goes further:
-ref (basewalk to other ore field)
-war factory (basewalk closer to ore field)
-ref (as close as possible to ore field)
The meaning is to keep picking off as much units as possible. I wouldn't go more then 5 eagles, except if you have the money. Though the range of destruction between 1 eagle and 5 eagles is big. 1 eagle kills on flak track/drone. 2 kill rhinoe. 3 a barracks or a battle lab. 4 kill 2 rhinoes and 5 is destruction for the more armoured buildings. Also: when he puts up flak cannons, always go around them and keep picking off units. When retreating, also go around AA. Let him spend much money!
I'll keep this on hold for now and continue right to the soviet side
1.4.4 Others
Grizzly Tank: In Yuri's Revenge, grizzly tanks build slower then their cost given. Normally and in RA2 they have a BT of 700, but YR added a multiplier of 1.5, ending in a 1050 BT. To be honest I'm completely clueless why the creators did so and to be more honest, the one who was behind this idea was an idiot. Why? check 1.5.4, "Rhino Tank".
Dolphins: dolphins are the best naval units. The reason why is that they can damage multiple units in one shot. What you do is simple: if your opponent has amassed alot of subs, you make multiple small groups of dolphins, then you attack: you let each group attack a sub in the back of the opponents formation. Spread the groups evenly to maximize damage. That way all of his subs that are in the path of the sonic weapon, take damage.
Recently Apple very cleverly found out that Dolphins do more damage from up close then afar. Infact, a dolphin at point black range does almost 3 times more damage then a dolphin at maximum range. Use that given to your advantage and if you have alot of dolphins, get them right next to your opponents units to inflict maximum damage.
Tank Destroyer: Most tanks have added buildtimemultipliers, building those units slower. Now it turns out that the Tank Destroyer is NOT in possession of that and as such, they can have a numeric advantage over others, providing you can handle it economic wise. They have a BT of 900, contrary to a rhino, which has BT of 900*1.3=1170. If you calculate the percentual difference inbetween those BTs, (1170-900)/900, you'll get to an exact 30%, so a tank destroyer builds 30% faster even though it costs the same as a rhino. To keep up, a soviet player would need to build more war factories. Say he builds one extra war factory, which means an additional buildtimemultiplier of 0.8. 1170*0.8=936. Same calculation as before: (936-900)/900= 4.3%. So even though that the soviet player has one more war factory, the allied player still builds faster, although it gets to an almost irrelevant difference. If you ever happen to be germany, it could be wise when you have a radar to switch to tank destroyers and not to build an additional war factory. That way you save money and time in teching up, OR you could use the additional advantage to outnumber your opponent, providing you can deal with desolators and fodder. I also have to note that, even though you would not say it, tank destroyers do very little damage to Terror Drones, so be carefull when switching to tank destroyers.
1.5 The soviets
Soviets are more the "old school" sides. Nothing complicated about them. No really special units. No late game like allieds/yuri have. What they do have is the good old armour, which in this game really excells for them. Soviet players are mostly die-hard rushers. It's all about getting tanks as fast and soon as possible. With a good reason: rhinoes are the best basic tanks in YR and RA2. In YR, they have the extra advantage of being made as fast as the less powerfull grizzly/lasher.
So is it all about making a bunch of tanks, attack and win the game? Of course not; any decent player, either a soviet, yuri or allied player, knows how to take down easily a mindless rusher. It might work against less good players, but against the better players it's all about using the mind. Fast reactions, split-decisions, good BOs, a strong Tank Control, that's what needed to fight the good players.
1.5.1 soviet tactics
I'll do this a bit the same as the allieds; I'll first rank the soviet sides from the best to the worst
IRAQ: obviously the best country, only second to yuri in YR. Iraq has that bit extra what makes them so powerfull midgame and actually makes them able to fight allieds late game: the desolator. The deso is an infantry and light vehicle killer. On top of that, it has a good armour, which makes an almost perfect fodder unit. It's only weakness practically are drones, late game allieds (and allieds air, but using a few flak tracks beats that) and late game yuri's. For the rest, you have a powerfull tool to destroy the opponent and in many situations it's the only unit that is capable to counter certain units.
CUBA: A lot less already then Iraq. You suddenly have to miss out the only unit that can beat units like magnetrons, mirages, etc. In soviets against soviet combat, that disadvantage is not really much, but against allieds or especially yuri, you gonna get heavy problems.
Neverthless, you get the terrorist, maybe in usefullnes less then the deso, but still a very good unit when used right. Putting 5 terrorists in a flak track, ride them to your opponents base, pray you don't get caught, unload next to a critical building like a war factory and bomb it to smithereens, is really nasty. Also tryable against mirages.
Libya: Same as cuba, but this time you got not such a good unit. The demo truck, although really powerfull, is weak considering armour and speed. It can still be used against mirages, but you'll need heavy tank control and luck you do enough damage with it.
Russia: The last and this time also the least soviet country . The tesla tank is expensiver then the rhino and less effective. So naturally, this is the weakest country. It still has use though in soviet against soviet, as it has the (a bit limited due it's low range) ability to kill effectivily infantry ( so in most cases in sov. vs. sov., fodder). But for the rest, nothing good.
You hear me coming: try to be Iraq as much as possible. What you can do is in teamgames to be Cuba. I'll get on that later in the tactics section.
On to the tactics:
Like allieds, much depends on the map. Though unlike the allieds, things are less complicated. Though, expect alot of "small tactics". Most tactics will be with the side Iraq, the most played soviet side.
rhino tank rush:
as simple as it can get. Used on small to medium sized maps. You make no miners, make some tanks and attack. Not just attack. Attack at his WEAK points. When you go to his base, strike fast the place where his tanks are not located. With luck, he did not see your tanks coming and having a free kill on something like an ore field full with miners can instantly decide the game. Use fodder like dogs and conscripts
miner-drone tactic:
This is one against other soviets. When you built your wf, inmediately build one drone. go close (but not to close) to your opponents refinery, wait until a miners comes up. Just when the miner gets on the refinery, drone it. During that 2 seconds the miner is on the refinery, it will not attack.
tank-drone tactic:
simply put the same as above, but instea of the miner, you drone his first tank. If you were really fast, the drone killed the tank before the opponent could do something about it.
anti-drone tactics:
As you see, drones are very frustrating.
What I mostly do against it is making CONSCRIPTS. most people make a sentry on front of their war factory, but what they don't know that a sentry is mostly not enough to keep a drone of from droning a tank. My personal favour is conscripts. The advantage is that they are MOBILE and can be used later on as fodder. 4 conscripts should do it. When facing a person who masses drones, make 20+ conscripts. Though keep yourself a drone handy, as the opponent might use desos.
what also can help is using miners, but that's only recommended very late game when all ore is gone.
If you can't do it on the ground, then, well, do it from the sky! Siege choppers are really good against drones. Though again that's for late game.
tank-fodder tactic:
Can also be used in a rhino rush. Simply put, make a sort of infantry; I would recommend using conscripts when u don't have to much money. When you have a bit more money, dogs are ok and when you really have the money, desos+tesla troopers. Team your tanks (for example make them team 1 (ctrl+1)) and your fodder apart (for example team 2 (ctrl+2)). Keep your fodder always in front of your tanks, except when the opponent puts up sentries/pillboxes.
anti-mirage tactic no.1 :
Have a good tank force. You'll need it. Make a flak track and put 5 desolators inside, team the flak track. Now mix up the flak track with your rhinoes. Attack now with your rhinoes the mirages.
While the mirages are attacking your tanks, bring in the flak track. When the flak track gets killed, INMEDIATELY deploy the desos. the mirages will get heavy damage from the radiation already, and b/c they take damage, they are no longer disguised, which makes that rhinoes automatically target them.
Be carefull with seal-GGI BFs. Move up the flak track from the angle where the BF(s) don't get the flak track.
Note: the opponent might try to kill the flak track with the desos inside before you get the chance
to use it (with eagles/harriers/splitters/...). What you can do is making MULTIPLE flak tracks. when you putted the desos inside, mix the flak tracks so he does not know which flak track is the rea one. The others are decoy.
anti-mirage tactic no.2:
(cuba tactic) Same as above, but you use 5 terrorists now. What also can help is using some conscript fodder so that the terrorists can get close enough.
anti-mirage tactic no.3:
(all soviet tactic) Same as first anti-mirage tactic, but you use this time conscripts with ivan bombs it. Use like 5 flak tracks full of them.
anti-mirage tactic no.4:
This is my special one. It involves having a nuclear powerplant and alot of tanks. Try to get the fight right next to yor nuclear powerplant. When his mirages are really close to your nuclear powerplant, force fire it. when it gets destroyed, your tanks will suffer damage, BUT HIS MIRAGES ARE DEAD. If he used all of his mirages and you still have alot of rhinoes, you won the match.
Chapter 1 : Yuri's revenge
1.1 How it works
1.2 What can you expect online
1.3 general tips/tricks/additional information
1.4 the allieds:
...1.4.1Allied tactics
...1.4.2BOs
...1.4.3favourite allied maps
...1.4.4others
1.5 the soviets
...1.5.1 Soviet tactics
...1.5.2BOs
...1.5.3favourite soviet maps
...1.5.4others
1.6 the yuri side
...1.6.1Yuri tactics
...1.6.2BOs
...1.6.3favourite yuri maps
...1.6.4others
...1.6.5 why overpowered ?
1.1How it works
YR online is full with players of all different skill levels. One time you play against a n00b, the other time you get owned by a player much better then you and the other time, you can find somebody which is equal skilled in the game. That last group of people is the most interested to play with, but also the most rare of them all. If you find one, try to keep in contact with that player, so you can set dates for more games. If you can do that, you can train your reflexes perfectly. against a n00b, you don't have to go to the edge, instead, you can own him with almost no skillfull playing. against a better player, you can learn alot if you pay attention, but you also have less time to improve a bit, cause he can and will defeat you as fast as he can. That's why you better want to hook up with players of same skill. Don't only play with them though; in order to learn new, better things, you need to play with better players. Although you can't really know in which game they are (I'm talking about custom game), you can predict it a bit: in games like Tour Of Egypt, you rarely encounter good players. Good players also will play most of the time official maps. Lastly, the biggest chance you will find one is in Clan Matches, so if you want to get into a clan and be prepared to loose in exchange for better skill, you should join those games from time to time.
1.2 How to play online
In order to play good, you need to know how people play alike. People who play very defensive are the most easiest to beat on most maps. What you then is either making tanks and taking the biggest part of resources on the map; this has a double effect:
-You can build more units then you can normally.
-He will run out of resources faster, discreasing his chances of getting enough units to stand up vs your units.
Alternative, you can also rush him. Don't do rushing mindless though. Going for his miners will be the best chance to end it quickly.
Next you have the mindless rushers. Those are the players which know the basic of the game, but micro badly. They will just send their units to you without any planning. Your objective is then to have a sentry ready to place and having fodder. With that, you own him perfectly.
Then you have the players who know how to play. They plan good and know how to micromanage. They know perfectly the basics and how to use them. Those are the players which will be very hard to crack.
1.3 general tips/tricks/extra information
When the map is loading up, ALWAYS check the minimap for a moment. See where your opponents are and were you start. Also carefully look were the resources are been situated. Many people don't do this, but it can be helpfull.
USE THE HOTKEYS!!! Using them makes that you're playing faster then without. Especially on small maps, they are very important. They can save you critical seconds.
Here's what surtenly is needed:
Q - Main Building tab (Flicks the Tab to the First One)
W - Defense tab (Flicks the Tab to the Second One)
E - Infantry tab (Flicks the Tab to the Third One)
R - Units (Tanks, etc) tab (Flicks the Tab to the Fourth One)
T - Select that/those certain units in your view (click it twice selects all of that/those certain units on the map)
S - Stop (Stops what that current unit was pre-ordered to do)
X - Scatter (Scatters all units selected in an attempt to not be run over)
N - Next unit (Goes to next unit on the map)
D - Deploy (Deploys all select unit if they haeva secondary function/units inside)
G - Guard (Orders units to "Guard" an area)
CTRL + 1-9 - Create Team
1-9 - Select Team
A - Ally with chosen side
M - Previous unit (Goes to previous unit on the map)
P - Select all units with an "Attack" ability (excludes miners) on the screen (click twice for all units on map)
H - Home (Takes you to your base)
K - Repair (buildings only)
L - Sell
Z - Waypoint (Creates WayPoints for chosen units)
B - Beacon (Places a beacon)
alt + click one of your tanks - to put your tanks in a compact group
Spacebar - Go to last action announced or beacon placed.
alt + click on enemy infantry - to run them over
CTRL + F1-F4 - Create Map Bookmark
CTRL + SHIFT - Attack Move
WAYS TO USE HOTKEYS:
-A faster way to get your MCV deployed at the start of game is to do "N,D", N for "Next Unit" and D for "Deploy"
-A faster way to place building is to push the "Q" or "W" depending on what building you wish to place and click on the battlefield where you want it
-Make Teams of Units (1 team for Rocketeers, 1 for Fodder, etc) to select the group push the number you assigned to it (cntrl + number) adn to flick to the part of the map those units are on, push the "Team Number" twice
-Whenever you wish to view your base, just push "H"
-Whenever you hear "Unit Lost" or "Miner Under Attack" just push Space-Bar and your screen will flick to where that message came from
-Create a Map Bookmark of your opponent's base and push F1-F4 (depends which one you assigned it to) to instantly go to that location
-Use CTRL + SHIFT to move away and have units stop to attack anything in range, good for IFV's
Consider this as a basic for every game !
Next part is miner microing. This kinda different for all sides, but like hotkeys very important for all sides. It's basicilly keeping your miners as close as possible to the closest ore cell. I will discribe this later in the specific section of this topic in bigger lines.
Something also important, and 90% of all players don't do this, is when getting short on money putting tabs on hold. On maps like blood fued where your only income is ore and where you need to go straight tanks, you'll get very soon out of money if you don't watch your income and OUTCOME of your money. What you do is simply: you watch your money (WHILE still using miner micro); if you go below like 700 credits, put the building that is in progress on hold. This means your chance to get so low on money that your tank production stops, decreases very huge. When you see that a miner is going to depose the ore at the ore refinery, inmediately continue to build the building. On maps like blood fued, you'll most likely are going to flirt with the "insufienced funds line", but if you do this trick well, along with good miner micro, you'll never get below the needed money to produce tanks.
Next up is rushing. to start with, many people claim it's a cheap tactic. do NOT believe this. basicilly, if you get rushed, it's your own fault of not making enough units begin game to hold it off. rushing is preferable for soviets, but also for yuri and allieds. It can discribed as this: getting as fast as possible a bigger number of a type of unit then your enemy has, and using that type of unit as fast as possible on a correct way.
In other words, only do this when you have obvious more units (so don't try it with one tank advantage, unless you really think you can handle it) then your enemy begin games (use the hotkeys and miner control !!!). Best way to rush is to not make an ore miner from the WF. Risky as it is, it can really make the difference in favour of you. When you attack, do it right. Always use fodder (see next paragraph for further information about this) and try to kill his tanks first when they are in a vulnerable position. Do not rush in like a madman, instead go for his weak spots.
ok, now let's talk about fodder:
Fodder is to protect other units, most of the time tanks. In most of the time, you use cheap fodder, like dogs or conscripts or GI,... . You may want to prefer the first (so the dogs), as they are fast. You put your fodder in front of your tanks and attack your enemy in that way. You let the enemiess tanks fire on the fodder and shoot with your tanks the enemi tanks away. I want to notice that ctrl+shift is good when your enemy is also using fodder. that way, your fodder will attack his fodder, meaning that his fodder will die faster and so giving you a fodder advantage and so increasing your chances to win.
Next is the home advantage:
When your building your tanks as fast as your opponent does and your opponent wants to rush you, you will have some points were you can make advantage of:
Keep a low tech structure (pillbox, sentry gun or gattling cannon) ready to place (!!!do not place it yet !!!) and keep your tanks within base perimeter. When the tanks comes to attack yours, place that defence structure right between the enemy tanks and your tanks. your opponents tanks will shoot at that structure, giving you a big time advantage.
If your building as fast as your opponent, remember then that on the time his tanks arrive at your base that both out of his and your WF a tank comes out. Your tank can inmediately join your other tanks, while his tank not. same for fodder. make use of this !
Make use of terrain objects. When you have a good deal of basic tanks, you can try to let your opponents group of tanks split by things like trees, buildings,... . The less his tanks are concentrated, the less you loose tanks. that is if you keep your tanks packed enough...
stretch your bases. With that, I mean place your building so that you get faster control over the map. This putting your buildings in a line which goes to the dezired direction, mostly choke points (base advantage!) and ore fields.
Always scout the map and your enemy base. For yuri, this by making brutes, for soviets and allieds, this is by making dogs.
This goes faster with the hotkeys (!!!) and with placing waypoint. When your barracks is ready, place a waypoint in the direction were you want your dog/brute to go. Knowing the map early is very important. Not only you discover tech buildings and choke points, but also you can see what your enemy is doing and so being able to counter it. If your scout units are able to survive, use them later as fodder.
As scouting is important, antiscouting is also important. Making extra scout units, which you will use then as antiscout units, is really worth the price. If you can succesfully antiscout your enemy by denying that his scout units gets to see your base, your opponents will not be very sure anymore to do and with that, you can make more succesfull suprise attacks. You can increase the succes of antiscouting by putting the antiscouts on choke points. Also: when you're scouting, don't just click on the dezired spot, but CTRL+SHIFT click on the spot. This has an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that your dogs can kill opponents dogs which pass straight next them. The disadvantage is that when the opponents dog is out of reach of your dog, your dog will chase that dog. So you need to redirect him. Overall, the advantage is bigger then the disadvantage, so use it.
A few other things you will need to know: contrary what you would expect, war factories, barracks, etc. do NOT double the build speed of the units, so building a second war factory does not give you twice as fast rhinoes, though more war factories do reduce buildtime, each one with 20%. That 20% is not discarded from the original, but from which buildtimes you currently have. E.g. say you have 2 war factories, so buildtime is 0,8. You build another one. 0,8 -20% = 0,64 etc. I'm not 100% sure if the same numbers are used for the other production buildings, but my guess is that it is the same.
To go further on this I will be noting throughout this tutorial at certain points the buildtime of units/buildings/... . I'm not gonna do that in seconds b/c that is not really reliable. I will be using the amount of credits that unit costs as a reliable time unit, providing you do not run out of money and also providing you only have one war factory, ceteris paribus. So for example, a rhino takes 900 (credits) BT (buildtime). Some units though have buildtimemultipliers, which makes them build longer then their cost would say. e.g. a unit costs 400 credits, so normally he takes 400 BT, but the unit has a buildtimemultipier of 1.5, so the time actually needed to build one is 600 BT. I'll be describing a few of these units in the respective sections (1.4.4/1.5.4/1.6.4)
For the rest of additional information, I would like to stress on this: Cheating on the RA2/YR server is forbidden! if you cheat, your opponent can easily make the necessary screenies to post it on the xwis forums, resulting that you will get a 16,32 or permanent serial code ban. Also think if it that it is not a way to make fun or to get a good ranking. Cheating is disrespecting other players who play fair. Under cheating is far more then the use of special programs. bug exploit also falls under cheating. For further information, go to the strike team website. I also want to stres on that if you encounter a cheater, make the necessary screenies (again go to the strike team website of what you exactly need to have on picture) and post it on the xwis forums.
For the rest, play wise. Don't get angry if you're loosing over and over. You will get better. Also don't flame. It makes nobody better. Also don't just kick people out of your games. Give them a fair chance.
1.4 the allieds
Allieds are nasty to play with. They are very weak early game, but so good late game. Your problem is when playing allieds is to minimize the disadvantages of allieds early game. That means handling rushes. What you do then is not going defensive then. You go all out agressive so you can pressure your soviet/yuri opponent, while you tech up. Combining going very agressive and teching up is difficult. I will try to make it for you a bit easier.
1.4.1 Allied tactics
What you do depends on the map. However, there's a pattern for the same type of maps. Before we go into this, I'd like to give you an idea about the allied countries. I ranked them from good to bad:
AMERICA: This is the best allied country. That paradrop you get is very, very usefull. Not only b/c it simply gives you free units, but also b/c you can get those free units everywhere on the map (providing your opponent doesn't see it coming). Use that paradrop well, and you can turn the ie or even win the game.
KOREA: This side is equal to america on resource maps. Many players use Back Eagles wrong and just mass 8 of them and go for the CY. Be wise and don't do that. Black Eagles are used to kill tanks. It's basicilly a harrier, but then with free upgrades. Unlike a harrier, a black eagle is in many situation enough to kill a particular unit. For instance, your opponent has a deso bomb (flak track with inside desolators). You wish to kill the flak track, with the desolators, with aircraft. As any other country, you need 3 harriers (2 to kill the flak track and one to kill the desolators). As korea, you need only 2 (1 to kill the flak track and another one to kill the desolators). Keep that in mind
Great Britain: This side has the best anti-desolator unit. It eliminates the danger of a walking deso. It's also a good fodder killer. Don't underestimate this side.
France: Not that good like other countries. Most new players want to use this side cause you can turtle with this side, which is basicilly wrong. You need to sacrifice other things in order to get that 2000 credit cannon, which is not all too good. You can get easily rushed when trying to turtle with this side. My advice is not to turtle with this side and use the cannons as offence. Try to basewalk to your opponent (basewalking is stretching your buildings to the enemy) and then place some grand cannons in range of the opponent base and start killing his buildings. Not always good, but difficult to crack when you use it right.
Germany: The tank destroyers has not much use. Their are not very fast and when the enemy brings in fodder, your chances to win will descrease dramaticilly. They are good though for anti-rushing, but that's it. You're better off with sticking onto grizly's.
Got to make an edit with this one, as I recently found that tank destroyers are being build faster then grizzly tanks, raising the value of tank destroyers. How much this has effect at a strategies is unkown to me and I will have to test this properly before I can say anything about it. See 1.4.4 for more details about this.
Now for the tactics:
americas triple midgame attack: A powerfull attack, when used right. It's simple: tech up to radar, while building tanks AND some (dog)fodder. Then stop building buildings, except ore refineries, and start making rocketeers, while continueing building tanks. When the paradrop is ready, you move your tanks to the opponents base. Pick the spot which is the most vulnerable for tanks. If he comes in with tanks, then you stay to fight. You also send your rocketeers to a spot were there is no AA (preferable the miners) and drop on the same time your paradrop right next some unprotected buildings (if there are garrisonable buildings next to those buildings, you garrison them!). It's attacking at 3 points with 3 different types of attack, making it your opponent very hard. When done good, you will have serious advantage. Be sure you keep attention on all 3 attacks, but preferable, to your tanks. When they start loosing, retreat them. Don't keep them fighting. This tactic is all about pressuring and out-microing. Practice this tactic good, it's not very easy to do it perfect.
Rocketeer rush: !!! only do this tactic vs any other allied side !!! . This is a risky tactic and can only work on small to mediumsized maps. You skip WF, so you can get radar earlier. make 1 or 2 more barracks after that, while pumping rocketeers out. when having enough, you attack. Kill his power first, so that patriot missiles are useless. then WF, so he can't build IFVS anymore and then lastly the barracks. then the rest. This tactic is risky and you need to scout fast and good in order to see if it's worth to do this tactic. If it is worth, you can do it.
Grizly rush: Do this only on small maps. It can be done vs soviet and yuri, but it's more preferable vs allieds. Only do this on small maps. When you get WF, do not make miner(s). start building tanks instead. Begin also a new ore refinery. After that, you can either build a radar and then sell your CY, or sell CY right after the second ore refinery. In both cases after CT-sell, you start making fodder.
I also give you the advice when facing a soviet player who also wants to do a tank rush, you make for each grizly you make, one fodder unit. Rhino's and Grizly's are been build on the same speed, while rhino's cost 900 and grizly's 700. Rhino's are better then Grizly's, so you need to catch that up with one or other way. My way is making extra fodder, cause 700 (grizly) + 200 (fodder)= 900 (rhino). After MCV sell, you make more fodder. Always have more fodder then your soviet opponent as allieds.
BF+mirage push: This is quite simply the best mix the allieds have to counter soviet late game and I can tell ya, when you get a sizeable force of those, you basicilly win. Your problem: to get late game with enough grizly's to survive until you have get those mirages and BFs.
You make every BF 4 GGIs. Then you put in 1 BF an extra GGI and in the other 1, 1 seal. the seals are to make deso bombing and deso walking useless. In RA2, making mirages was practically useless cause of deso bombing. Now in YR, deso bombing has become very difficult with seal BFs. Keep the mirages just in front of the BFs and attack that way.
GGI-IFVs/mirages/prism tanks.
This is the late game counter against yuri forces. Although it's so difficult to get late game, you should do your best to do that. You tech up fast while surviving with a couple of GGI-IFVs. When you made it to battle lab stage, you mass prisms, GGI-IFVs and a handfull mirages. You use them like this: mirages to counter lashers, masterminds and gatt tanks. Prism tanks to counter gatt tanks and magnetrons and the GGI_IFVs to counter floating disks. Keep in mind that a good yuri player will try to bring in a slave miner as fodder. If he brings that in, try to move around the yuri force and with that outrunning the slave miner (which you should try to kill).
seal-IFV: This one you use for sneaking in. you use then in combination with other attacks, so that the enemy attention is being diverted. You should use it while a tank battle is going on. Then he most likely doesn't have any or vry few units in his base and you can C4 a couple of buildings
water-outsplit tactic:This is the most powerfull, complicated and versatile tactics allieds have. It's used on naval maps with a land route to the soviet player (yes, it's a tactic vs soviets). You're preferable america. Your goal is to tech up fast. Get naval yard as soon as possible, build some destroyers and grizly tanks+fodder while getting quick the other reachable resources. This must be done quick, else you run out of resources and then the soviet player can just overthrow you with a rhino-force. Build 1 extra WF before hitting battle lab. Then bring out your best miner microing, you will need it. Build more and more ore refineries until you have enough miners on enough ore/gemfields to mass produce things, then build an ore purifier. While doing this, build quickly dolphins and watch out for dreadnoughts. Also build Mirages, BFs and the needed infantry for it. Building a spysat can really help spotting that fast dreadnought, but then you're building on 5 things. If you're getting beneath the 1000 credits, put 1 or 2 tabs on hold until you have again money. I managed to build 6 things a time on South Pacific without needing to put something on hold with miner microing and having everywhere on my side of the map mining operations, so it normally should also work for you.
While you were all doing this, you didn't forgot to harras with your paradrop, eh ?? good. Remember that if there's an tech airport on the map, you should grab it to get double pararop.
When you have enough dolphins, make 4 carriers and maybe an aegis cruiser. When you have enough infantry for the BFs, build rocketeers. Also begin building harriers now.You're mostly behind on tank production, but that's ok. Keep them in your base. Now it's time to bring on pressure. Use the carriers on his weak point, which are escorted by the dolphins and the rest of the destroyers. Use the paradrops on the back of his base, harras flak tracks with harriers and strike his miners on top of that with rocketeers. He will have to spend huge sums of money on AA. you can make it even more difficult with kilkling his radar and then using the paradrop. That way he will also not be able to make flak troopers. Kill any deso with the carriers. If you have enough money, make a second AFCC and build your 2 AFCCs full with harriers. Now you will also be able to kill WFs and such and harrasing his tnaks even more. The harrasing is essential, b/c if he gets desperate and use all of his units on your base, you will be glad that you waken his army first before jumping into battle.
Germany defence: The tank destroyer is not much used, but they can have some use. They are good for defending against somebody who attacks quite fast, but doesn't rush. What you do is making grizlies until you have radar. Start making Tank Destroyers (5-7 should be enough), some rocketeers,a seal-IFV, work on your economy and tech up further.you keep a pillbox ready.When the opponent comes out to attack you, keep your tanks in his attackline. If he sees that your tanks are ready on one place, he might try another. Make sure that you keep your tanks near enough to his tanks. When he then does actually make the attack (and most likely on your tanks), place that pillbox right in front of your tanks (yes, you need to keep your tanks in your base perimeter). His fodder will die most likely quickly, but see on it that that seal-IFV is close enough to kill fodder anyway. Use ctrl+shift for your complete group of tanks. Your grizlies will stay moving and attacking, but your tank destroyers will have to stop for attacking. However, with your base-advantage, you have surtenly the upperhand.
france Grand Cannon crawling:
A good tactic for an otherwise not so good country. Many new people think that France with their uber-cannons is the best country. It isn't. Cannons are too costly and actually too vulnerable for defence. You will also most likely get rushed before you can get one up. What you do instead is making tanks, tanks and tanks. To hold off the rush and to be able to tech up. Once you have a good force and a good economy running. you can either make a new MCV and get that one as near as possible to the enemy base (don't forget that you need your army for that!) or you stretch your base as close as possible to his. This has much to do with base advantage.Keep a Grand Cannon ready. Most likely your enemy will try to stop you from getting really close with your MCV to his base. When you can't get any further (and don't think about sacrificing your army, if it gets too dangerous to come any closer, don't get closer. Save your army, you will need it), deploy your MCV and deploy that Grand Cannon. Your opponent might see it coming and attacks, but for that, plz refer to the part "general information". In other case, your opponent will be forced to get back. Now stretch your base further and further and keep building Grand Cannons along the road. Destroy his base and his army with this tactic.
Ok, allied Tactics are done for now. Those are somewhat the most used. However: if you come into a situation were you think that an other tactic, would be better fitting, then try it. With falling and getting back up, you learn the right tactics for each situations;).
1.4.2 Allied BOs
Before I actually post the BOs, I will first explain it:
"What's a BO ?" would many ask. A BO means Build Order. It tells which buildings you need to build in which following up. It's used to get the most out of it in a game. BOs are, very important. Maybe even more important then microing.
BOs depends on what map you play. However: in a group of maps that have the same tactic, the BOs aren't much different.
I will give you an index; in BOs, who use shorten names for some buildings.
CY=Consctruction Yard
PP= powerplant
rax= barracks
ref= ore refinery
WF= War Factory
Lab= Battle Lab
SMALL MAPS BOs
With small maps, I really mean small maps, like blood fued or dune patrol. Were you're with your tanks to your opponent in a matter of a couple of seconds.
-Deploy CY
-PP (place into the direction of the nearest ore field)
-rax --> 2 dogs for scouting. (place rax further into the direction of the ore field)
-ref (place as close as possible to the ore field)
-WF ---> (!!!no miners!!!) straight grizly tanks (place WF into the direction of the second nearest ore field)
-ref (place further into the direction of second nearest ore field)
-ref, sell second ref (place as close as possible to second ore field)
-PP
-radar ---> make 1-2 rocketeers
-sell CY ---> use fodder, make more fodder units and then attack your enemy.
An other could be:
-Deploy CY
-PP (place into the direction of the nearest ore field)
-rax --> 2 dogs for scouting. (place rax further into the direction of the ore field)
-ref (place as close as possible to the ore field)
-WF ---> (!!!no miners!!!) straight grizly tanks (place WF into the direction of the second nearest ore field)
-ref (place further into the direction of second nearest ore field)
-ref, sell second ref (place as close as possible to second ore field)
-PP
-radar ---> make 1-2 rocketeers
-ref
-WF
-PP
-Lab ---> make units; depends on wat side your opponent is.
-Sell CY
Fast GI rush:
-Deploy CY
-PP
-rax ---> make 1 dog (for scouting) and like 15 GIs; now deploy the first 3 GIs around your base so that the opponent will not be able to see your base. (when the GIs are ready, send them along the edge of the map to the opponents base and strike fast)
-Radar (2 rocketeers and 1 plane) (use the rocketeers to kill possible desos, the plane ditto)
-war factory ---> 1 miner, then tanks
-sell mcv
NOTE: this is all out and requires alot of practice. If your opponent manage to see your base, inmediately abord this BO and go further on an other one.
MEDIUM MAP BOs
Maps of medium size are IMO the most fun for allieds to play. BOs really are different for each map. I'll take a few for country swing (Country Swing is a great example).
AMERICA BO
-Deploy CY
-PP (place into the direction of the nearest ore field)
-rax --> 3 dogs; on country swing you place near the middle entrance and one to your entrance(!This is anti-scouting!), the last is for scouting. Then 2 GIs, garrison in buildings or place them at
-ref (place as close as possible to the ore field).
-War factory (basewalk to the gems): 1 miner if you happened to got scouted, 2 miner if you didn't got scouted
-1 or 2 refs (good positioned at the ore field); you need to get your total miners on 4.
-radar (basewalk further to the gems) ---> 4-5 rocketeers; stop making buildings until those rocketeers ready. When paradrop is almost ready, move to your opponent and perfom the americas triple midgame attack. Do as much damage as possible.
-war factory (basewalk to the gems)
-PP
-ref (as close as possible to the gems)
-battle lab (if 1vs1, basewalk to other ore field)--> make 1 BF with 4 GGIs and 1 seal; then straight mirages. Do alot of harrasment if you haven't won yet.
The BO stops there in 2vs2 situation. In 1vs1 situation, it goes further:
-ref (basewalk to other ore field)
-war factory (basewalk closer to ore field)
-ref (as close as possible to ore field)
then you decide what to do.
KOREAN BO
-Deploy CY
-PP (place into the direction of the nearest ore field)
-rax --> 3 dogs; on country swing you place near the middle entrance and one to your entrance(!This is anti-scouting!), the last is for scouting. Then 2 GIs, garrison in buildings or place them at
-ref (place as close as possible to the ore field).
-War factory (basewalk to the gems): 1 miner if you happened to got scouted, 2 miner if you didn't got scouted
-1 or 2 refs (good positioned at the ore field); you need to get your total miners on 4.
-radar (basewalk further to the gems) ---> 1 rocketeer and 2 eagles; stop making buildings until those eagles are ready. When first eagle is ready, inmediately target a tank with it. When second eagle is ready, target the same tank, except when he has made flak tracks. If it's only 2, target 1 flak track and when the other eagle is loaded, kill the other flak track.
-war factory (basewalk to the gems)
-PP
-ref (as close as possible to the gems) ---> 2 more eagles
-battle lab (if 1vs1, basewalk to other ore field)--> make 1 BF with 4 GGIs and 1 seal; then straight mirages. Do alot of harrasment if you haven't won yet.
-one more AFCC and make 1 more eagle. 5 eagles kill 1 miner at a time, or a war factory, or a flak cannon.
The BO stops there in 2vs2 situation. In 1vs1 situation, it goes further:
-ref (basewalk to other ore field)
-war factory (basewalk closer to ore field)
-ref (as close as possible to ore field)
The meaning is to keep picking off as much units as possible. I wouldn't go more then 5 eagles, except if you have the money. Though the range of destruction between 1 eagle and 5 eagles is big. 1 eagle kills on flak track/drone. 2 kill rhinoe. 3 a barracks or a battle lab. 4 kill 2 rhinoes and 5 is destruction for the more armoured buildings. Also: when he puts up flak cannons, always go around them and keep picking off units. When retreating, also go around AA. Let him spend much money!
I'll keep this on hold for now and continue right to the soviet side
1.4.4 Others
Grizzly Tank: In Yuri's Revenge, grizzly tanks build slower then their cost given. Normally and in RA2 they have a BT of 700, but YR added a multiplier of 1.5, ending in a 1050 BT. To be honest I'm completely clueless why the creators did so and to be more honest, the one who was behind this idea was an idiot. Why? check 1.5.4, "Rhino Tank".
Dolphins: dolphins are the best naval units. The reason why is that they can damage multiple units in one shot. What you do is simple: if your opponent has amassed alot of subs, you make multiple small groups of dolphins, then you attack: you let each group attack a sub in the back of the opponents formation. Spread the groups evenly to maximize damage. That way all of his subs that are in the path of the sonic weapon, take damage.
Recently Apple very cleverly found out that Dolphins do more damage from up close then afar. Infact, a dolphin at point black range does almost 3 times more damage then a dolphin at maximum range. Use that given to your advantage and if you have alot of dolphins, get them right next to your opponents units to inflict maximum damage.
Tank Destroyer: Most tanks have added buildtimemultipliers, building those units slower. Now it turns out that the Tank Destroyer is NOT in possession of that and as such, they can have a numeric advantage over others, providing you can handle it economic wise. They have a BT of 900, contrary to a rhino, which has BT of 900*1.3=1170. If you calculate the percentual difference inbetween those BTs, (1170-900)/900, you'll get to an exact 30%, so a tank destroyer builds 30% faster even though it costs the same as a rhino. To keep up, a soviet player would need to build more war factories. Say he builds one extra war factory, which means an additional buildtimemultiplier of 0.8. 1170*0.8=936. Same calculation as before: (936-900)/900= 4.3%. So even though that the soviet player has one more war factory, the allied player still builds faster, although it gets to an almost irrelevant difference. If you ever happen to be germany, it could be wise when you have a radar to switch to tank destroyers and not to build an additional war factory. That way you save money and time in teching up, OR you could use the additional advantage to outnumber your opponent, providing you can deal with desolators and fodder. I also have to note that, even though you would not say it, tank destroyers do very little damage to Terror Drones, so be carefull when switching to tank destroyers.
1.5 The soviets
Soviets are more the "old school" sides. Nothing complicated about them. No really special units. No late game like allieds/yuri have. What they do have is the good old armour, which in this game really excells for them. Soviet players are mostly die-hard rushers. It's all about getting tanks as fast and soon as possible. With a good reason: rhinoes are the best basic tanks in YR and RA2. In YR, they have the extra advantage of being made as fast as the less powerfull grizzly/lasher.
So is it all about making a bunch of tanks, attack and win the game? Of course not; any decent player, either a soviet, yuri or allied player, knows how to take down easily a mindless rusher. It might work against less good players, but against the better players it's all about using the mind. Fast reactions, split-decisions, good BOs, a strong Tank Control, that's what needed to fight the good players.
1.5.1 soviet tactics
I'll do this a bit the same as the allieds; I'll first rank the soviet sides from the best to the worst
IRAQ: obviously the best country, only second to yuri in YR. Iraq has that bit extra what makes them so powerfull midgame and actually makes them able to fight allieds late game: the desolator. The deso is an infantry and light vehicle killer. On top of that, it has a good armour, which makes an almost perfect fodder unit. It's only weakness practically are drones, late game allieds (and allieds air, but using a few flak tracks beats that) and late game yuri's. For the rest, you have a powerfull tool to destroy the opponent and in many situations it's the only unit that is capable to counter certain units.
CUBA: A lot less already then Iraq. You suddenly have to miss out the only unit that can beat units like magnetrons, mirages, etc. In soviets against soviet combat, that disadvantage is not really much, but against allieds or especially yuri, you gonna get heavy problems.
Neverthless, you get the terrorist, maybe in usefullnes less then the deso, but still a very good unit when used right. Putting 5 terrorists in a flak track, ride them to your opponents base, pray you don't get caught, unload next to a critical building like a war factory and bomb it to smithereens, is really nasty. Also tryable against mirages.
Libya: Same as cuba, but this time you got not such a good unit. The demo truck, although really powerfull, is weak considering armour and speed. It can still be used against mirages, but you'll need heavy tank control and luck you do enough damage with it.
Russia: The last and this time also the least soviet country . The tesla tank is expensiver then the rhino and less effective. So naturally, this is the weakest country. It still has use though in soviet against soviet, as it has the (a bit limited due it's low range) ability to kill effectivily infantry ( so in most cases in sov. vs. sov., fodder). But for the rest, nothing good.
You hear me coming: try to be Iraq as much as possible. What you can do is in teamgames to be Cuba. I'll get on that later in the tactics section.
On to the tactics:
Like allieds, much depends on the map. Though unlike the allieds, things are less complicated. Though, expect alot of "small tactics". Most tactics will be with the side Iraq, the most played soviet side.
rhino tank rush:
as simple as it can get. Used on small to medium sized maps. You make no miners, make some tanks and attack. Not just attack. Attack at his WEAK points. When you go to his base, strike fast the place where his tanks are not located. With luck, he did not see your tanks coming and having a free kill on something like an ore field full with miners can instantly decide the game. Use fodder like dogs and conscripts
miner-drone tactic:
This is one against other soviets. When you built your wf, inmediately build one drone. go close (but not to close) to your opponents refinery, wait until a miners comes up. Just when the miner gets on the refinery, drone it. During that 2 seconds the miner is on the refinery, it will not attack.
tank-drone tactic:
simply put the same as above, but instea of the miner, you drone his first tank. If you were really fast, the drone killed the tank before the opponent could do something about it.
anti-drone tactics:
As you see, drones are very frustrating.
What I mostly do against it is making CONSCRIPTS. most people make a sentry on front of their war factory, but what they don't know that a sentry is mostly not enough to keep a drone of from droning a tank. My personal favour is conscripts. The advantage is that they are MOBILE and can be used later on as fodder. 4 conscripts should do it. When facing a person who masses drones, make 20+ conscripts. Though keep yourself a drone handy, as the opponent might use desos.
what also can help is using miners, but that's only recommended very late game when all ore is gone.
If you can't do it on the ground, then, well, do it from the sky! Siege choppers are really good against drones. Though again that's for late game.
tank-fodder tactic:
Can also be used in a rhino rush. Simply put, make a sort of infantry; I would recommend using conscripts when u don't have to much money. When you have a bit more money, dogs are ok and when you really have the money, desos+tesla troopers. Team your tanks (for example make them team 1 (ctrl+1)) and your fodder apart (for example team 2 (ctrl+2)). Keep your fodder always in front of your tanks, except when the opponent puts up sentries/pillboxes.
anti-mirage tactic no.1 :
Have a good tank force. You'll need it. Make a flak track and put 5 desolators inside, team the flak track. Now mix up the flak track with your rhinoes. Attack now with your rhinoes the mirages.
While the mirages are attacking your tanks, bring in the flak track. When the flak track gets killed, INMEDIATELY deploy the desos. the mirages will get heavy damage from the radiation already, and b/c they take damage, they are no longer disguised, which makes that rhinoes automatically target them.
Be carefull with seal-GGI BFs. Move up the flak track from the angle where the BF(s) don't get the flak track.
Note: the opponent might try to kill the flak track with the desos inside before you get the chance
to use it (with eagles/harriers/splitters/...). What you can do is making MULTIPLE flak tracks. when you putted the desos inside, mix the flak tracks so he does not know which flak track is the rea one. The others are decoy.
anti-mirage tactic no.2:
(cuba tactic) Same as above, but you use 5 terrorists now. What also can help is using some conscript fodder so that the terrorists can get close enough.
anti-mirage tactic no.3:
(all soviet tactic) Same as first anti-mirage tactic, but you use this time conscripts with ivan bombs it. Use like 5 flak tracks full of them.
anti-mirage tactic no.4:
This is my special one. It involves having a nuclear powerplant and alot of tanks. Try to get the fight right next to yor nuclear powerplant. When his mirages are really close to your nuclear powerplant, force fire it. when it gets destroyed, your tanks will suffer damage, BUT HIS MIRAGES ARE DEAD. If he used all of his mirages and you still have alot of rhinoes, you won the match.