Iraq?

[chucklez]

Why is everyone ranking Iraq so highly? Yeh, I'm a noob... so tell me why Iraq are so good.

[Statalyzer]

The desolator's ability to deploy and cover a huge area of cells at once makes it great for damaging a lot of units at once. It also forces your enemy out of position because of the long range. If he's getting burnt by the very edge of the radiation, he'll have to either attack the desolators or else pull back.

[Daishi]

Basically they're the only Soviet nation that can fight the Allied tech tanks, which they do by stuffing desolators in flank tracks and closing in on the enemy ranks, then deploying as the flak tracks are destroyed. All mirages and prisms in a wide radius are then subject to a meltdown. This trick works against Yuri mixes too. And they're as good as ever in Soviet wars, although Cuba may be equally good due to the lack of light vehicles in those battles.

In addition, they have the awesome Soviet early game at their disposal, meaning that they can tank rush to stay on top of any allied opponent. Because Iraq can combat the Allied late game and still enjoys a powerful early game, it's the second strongest nation in the game, far behind Yuri.

Edit: Stat beat me to it...

[chucklez]

Cool. I best get started on learning the game more thoroughly then!

Thanks for tips.

Edit: Hope you don't mind; I'll probably be asking a lot of questions about a lot of crap in the next few months. Bear with me! :)

[Daishi]

I live to answer them.

[Statalyzer]

And they're as good as ever in Soviet wars, although Cuba may be equally good due to the lack of light vehicles in those battles.

If you are in a 2v2 war in which at least one enemy is Soviet, the Cuba-Iraq combo is probably stronger than Iraq-Iraq. If facing two Allies you should probably both be Iraq.

Basically they're the only Soviet nation that can fight the Allied tech tanks, which they do by stuffing desolators in flank tracks and closing in on the enemy ranks, then deploying as the flak tracks are destroyed

It's good to keep a few on the ground with your tanks also, so you always have some ready for a ground fight. At the least they are good fodder that can do some damage to tanks with their gun, or kill a lot of enemy fodder. Plus they can walk forward and deploy to move an enemy out of position or delay an attack.

Suicide flak tracking is the more potentially deadly use, don't get me wrong, but I'd keep a couple on the ground as well. Especially against Yuri, who can otherwise just mind control the flak and then grind $3500 worth of your units. Against mind control, keep all desos on the ground most of the time.

[yuri777]

Desolators can be built in the early game where infantry rule the battlefield.
Desolators can deploy radiation which anhilates infantry. It's not that hard to understand.

[Commander Handsome]

Desolators can be built in the early game where infantry rule the battlefield.

Is that a joke? Infantry rarely rule anything

[Avapodnaught]

Is that a joke? Infantry rarely rule anything
Is that a joke? have u ever seen a one two air paradrop from usa plus airfield (that can happen in many different ways, but most dangerous when ur not paying attention... )

[truefeel]

While tanks are indeed the most important units in the game, infantry do play a huge role in the game. fodder, para's, sneaked-in infantry to blow up buildings,... .

They can determine the game for you.

[apple23]

if you want a game where infantry rule the battlefield, go play generals. Inf definately DONT rule the field in generals either, but they play a MUCH bugger role and are WAY more potent than the infantry in RA2.

The alternative is to play one of my very popular Inf WARZ maps. :D

[jo_2]

Something I like doing with Desolators:

once I've crippled the enemy defences, I send around 10-20 desolators to his base, then make the mass deploy all together and fire at the ground, poisoning all the land inside his base. Then I go back to base and watch while everytime they try to build a unit it dies as soon as it leaves the barracks or war factory.

this one only works on the original ra2 though, back then when you used the force fire you could poison land for HOURS. not anymore in yr

[Statalyzer]

I thought that was a bug in RA2 that was fixed by the same patch that fixed the "Soviets get free infantry if they wall off their barracks" bug.

[jo_2]

Yes, it was removed by the patch, but it was still fun doing, plus gave Iraq a huge advantage. Not sure if it helped game balance though... just like the cloning vats issue.