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Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

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"RA2" redirects here. See also .

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is a 2.5D real-time strategy computer game by Westwood Studios, released in 2000 as the follow up to ', another game in the Command & Conquer series. The Allies and Soviets return in the game, and units and some structures from the first Red Alert make a reappearance. The game features better graphics, multiplayer and a continuation of the Red Alert story. However, unlike the first Red Alert, it does not feature connections to the ' storyline.

Contents

Characters

Allies

Soviets

Storyline

[Spoiler warningSpoiler warning]: Plot and/or ending details follow.
The story takes place after the events of Red Alert, in which the Allies are assumed to have won. In Red Alert 2, Stalin has perished, and the Allies have appointed Alexander Romanov as their "puppet" to maintain peace, stating that "although an aristocrat and a member of the Communist party, Romanov was an advocate of peace". However, Romanov has other plans. Using the outbreak of a civil war in Mexico to send Soviet troops there, he, along with his aide-de-camp Yuri and loyal general Vladimir, assembles there an invasion force and launches a surprise assault on the United States. After retaliation with nuclear missiles fails due to Yuri's sabotage by means of psychic technology, President Dugan of the U.S. orders a defensive, and at the same time masses together with the old Allied powers. This is where the campaigns pick up. In the Soviet campaign, the attack on the United States succeeds, despite moments of political upheaval within the Soviet Union as Yuri replaces an "ill" Premier Romanov who is then apparently murdered by General Vladimir. Eventually, it becomes clear that Yuri is responsible for all of this, and Yuri is crushed by the player, who assumes the title Premier of the Soviet Union and, in effect, the world. In the Allied campaign, the Soviet invasion is squashed, with an Allied invasion of Moscow removing Premier Romanov, and peace rules again, until Yuri enters with his own army (in the expansion Yuri's Revenge).
Spoilers end here.

Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge

is the expansion pack for Red Alert 2, released in 2001. It features a whole new faction: Yuri's psychic army. Yuri does not have his own single-player campaign, but he is playable in multiplayer and skirmish mode. The game also features upgrades to general game balance, and gives individual voices to each unit in the game.

Controversy

Westwood found itself in a storm of controversy regarding Red Alert 2 after the events of September 11, 2001 attacks, due to the contents of both the game and its packaging, despite the fact that Red Alert 2 was released before the attack on the Twin Towers. In the first mission of the Soviet campaign, you are required to destroy the Pentagon, and in a later mission, capture the allied battle lab at the base of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, once the battle lab is captured a psychic beacon is built between the twin towers, the player must then defend the psychic beacon for a given amount of time to complete the level. Destroying the two World Trade Center towers in that mission made a crate from each of the towers appear. One crate contained funds for building more units and the other made all of the player's nearby units stronger. In addition, the original packaging for Red Alert 2 had a hinged cover that would open to show a scene of New York City under attack by Soviet forces, with the Twin Towers in the center of the image. Westwood immediately pulled all remaining copies of Red Alert 2 in the original packaging from stores, and retooled the box art before reissuing the game. (Note that the game is not 'outdated' by the attacks, as it takes place in an alternate history.)

Game Structure

Red Alert 2, like the other Command & Conquer games, has only one resource, money. Money is obtained from three sources, Ore (Red Alert 2), Gems (Red Alert 2) and Oil Derricks (Red Alert 2). This is notable, because it is one of the few games in its genre that use only one resource. In contrast, Starcraft has two resource types, Warcraft 2 has three resource types, and Age of Empires has four resource types. Money is obtained from ore or gems by harvesting the material with a Soviet War Miner or an Allied Chrono Miner. The resource is then brought back to the Ore Refinery (Red Alert 2) where it is converted to money. To get money from an oil derrick, a player must capture the structure with an Engineer (Red Alert 2), which rewards the player with an initial bonus followed by a steady stream of income. Oil Derricks do not provide a very large cashflow; mining is the primary source of income for players.

Red Alert 2, like all Command & Conquer games (Except , which uses the traditional model where the structure that produces units must be selected then the unit to be built must be chosen), uses a system where a sidebar on the right side of the screen is used to select what will be built. The unit will then appear at the entrance to the appropriate structure. The construction of buildings follows a similar pattern, where the building is first built by selecting it on the sidebar, then after the building time is complete, the building is placed, where it appears almost instantly. This is unlike the pattern of building in most other games in this genre, where a specialized unit must construct a building gradually on the location where the building will be placed.

Buildings can only be placed within a short distance of other friendly buildings, which is critical to gameplay as it prevents the player from simply building all over the map. As a result, bases in Red Alert 2 are often fairly compact.

To accelerate unit or structure production in Red Alert 2, the player must build more of the structure where the unit is built, or in the case of structures, deploy more Mobile Construction Vehicles. This is another characteristic of the Command & Conquer series of games.

What the player is allowed to see in Red Alert 2 differs from other RTS games. In a classic RTS, such as Starcraft, Age of Empires or Warcraft, once a player has explored the area, and his or her units have left the area, all the players will be able to see is the terrain. Any enemy structures that lie within the explored area are visible, but only as static images; the present state of the structures is not shown. Terrain that is not actively being observed by a unit or structure is blanketed in Fog of War, which prevents the player from seeing what is happening in the area. In all Command & Conquer games, except Command & Conquer: Generals, there is no fog of war, only shroud. Shroud disappears after a unit has observed the area once, and then the terrain is fully visible from then on even if the observing units have left. The only way to create shroud is to use a structure called a GAP Generator.

Gameplay and Balance

Like previous Command & Conquer games, the two factions in Red Alert 2 have unique armies with their own strengths and weaknesses. To achieve victory, a player must play to his or her faction's strengths and exploit the other faction's weaknesses. The primary advantages of the Allied forces are:

Military Intelligence: The allies can build two structures which function in an intelligence role: The GAP Generator, which blankets the surrounding area in shroud, making it impossible for the enemy to see what is in the area unless he or she explores it with land units, and the Spy Satellite Uplink, which allows the player to see everything in the game arena, except where shroud is being generated by the enemy. Once the Allies have constructed an Allied Battle Lab (Red Alert 2), they can produce a unit called the Mirage Tank (Red Alert 2), which disguises itself as a tree when it is not moving or firing its weapon.

Mobility: Almost all the Allied land units are very fast, while the Soviet units are slower. This gives them an improved ability to use guerilla tactics, as their units can destroy an undefended target of opportunity and escape before the enemy can bring reinforcements to the area. The Allies can build an helicopter that does not appear on enemy radar that can transport up to five infantry units around the battlefield, called the Nighthawk Transport Helicopter One of the allied superweapons, the Chronosphere can teleport groups of units around the battlefield.

Air Power: The Allied air force consists of Harriers (Red Alert 2) and Rocketeers (Red Alert 2). Although both units are vulnerable to Soviet air defences, their high speed and, in the case of the Harrier, high firepower, allows them to strike targets of opportunity, or if the player using them is prepared to take losses (These units are very expensive to offset their offensive capabilities), even well defended targets can be destroyed using Harriers. Rocketeers are more useful against other Allied players, due to their extreme vulnerablity to Soviet anti-aircraft fire.

Efficient Ore Miners: The Allied ore miner, the Chrono Miner (Red Alert 2), has the ability to teleport back to the Ore Refinery (Red Alert 2), cutting its travel time in half. To compensate for this, the Chrono Miner can only carry half the load of the Soviet War Miner (Red Alert 2), which must drive both to and from the ore fields, so although both types of miners collect ore at the same rate, the Chrono Miner can retreat instantly, or be moved to any Ore Refinery on the battlefield instantly, as soon as the Ore field it was mining becomes depleted. When a lot of miners are working on an ore field, traffic jams at the Refineries will result, but this problem is far less prevalent with Chrono Miners than War Miners, because all traffic is moving away from the refineries instead of both towards and away. Generally, a Soviet player must build 1 refinery for every two to three War Miners, while 5 or 6 Chrono Miners can work from one refinery.

The Soviet forces, on the other hand, have the following advantages:

Tanks: The Soviet Rhino Tank (Red Alert 2) is the backbone of the Soviet army. It is more expensive than the Grizzly Tank (Red Alert 2), and does not move as fast, but its surperior armor and weapons make up for this. To engage a Soviet force of Rhino Tanks using only Grizzly Tanks with no other advantage (For example, if the Grizzly Tanks are on high ground or are supported by infantry, they will fare better) is a foolhardy tactic for an Allied player. Once the Allied player has constructed a Battle Lab and has begun producing Mirage Tanks, this advantage lessens.

Anti-Aircraft capability: While the Allies have the only fast-moving attack aircraft in the game, the Soviet forces have surperior anti-aircraft weapons than the Allies. Allied air units tend to move en masse, and because almost all Soviet anti-aircraft weapons do splash damage, a deceptively small number of anti-aircraft weapons can inflict costly losses to an enemy's air force. If the enemy player chooses to invest too much money in an airforce, except in prolonged games, the Soviet forces will be able to overrun the allied player with tanks.

Cheap infantry: The Soviet Conscript (Red Alert 2) is 1/2 the price of the Allied GI (Red Alert 2). Once a Cloning Vats (Red Alert 2) has been constructed, the player recieves one free infantry unit for every one that is built, effectively halving the cost of infantry. Once the Cloning Vat has been built, a wide range of infantry tactics that were formerly prohibitively expensive are opened up to the Soviet player. For example, the Conscript will only cost 50 dollars, and because Conscripts, with multiple Barracks, can be built at a rate of over one per second, large armies can be ammased quickly and used to support tanks.

Siege weapons: The Soviet army can build the V3 Truck (Red Alert 2), a portable long-range missile launcher that outranges all defensive structures, even the French Grand Cannon (Red Alert 2). If an enemy has invested a lot of money in defensive structures, they will be vulnerable to Soviet attacks.

Mods

In-game screenshot.
Enlarge
In-game screenshot.

Red Alert 2 is a popular game for modding. Hidden within the ra2.mix (ra2.mix\local.mix\rule*.ini) is a configuration file called rules.ini. This file can be extracted using a tool called the XCC mixer and edited after extraction. The rules.ini is constructed in such a way that it is very easy to modify; no programming skills are required. There are tags which refer to the strength of a unit, such as its hit points, which can be modified with the program.

It is also possible to create whole new units. There are other .ini files such as the art.ini and ai.ini which allow for further modification.

Final Alert and Final Alert 2

"Final Alert" the map/mission editor for "Red Alert 2" was originally programmed by Matthias Wagner. In the early versions of Final Alert users were able to access various "extra" bits of code from Tiberian Sun that had accidentally been left in Red Alert 2, when the Tiberian Sun "engine" had been converted into Red Alert 2. These extras included the ability to create tunnels and railway lines which do not exist in the original Red Alert 2

After creating Final Alert, Matthias Wagner teamed up with Westwood to produce an "improved" version of Final Alert. Westwood endorsed this new version of Final Alert and made it official, but they insisted that access to the "extra" code be removed.

Later, Matthias Wagner created "Final Alert 2" with access to the extra code re-enabled; this version was not endorsed by Westwood.

XCC WOL IRC Server (XWIS)

In 2005, control of online play for Red Alert 2, and a number of older C&C games was passed over from EA to XWIS, a well-established community run server that now organizes the ladder, and with the help of a community reporting scheme, bans cheaters. The server is sponsored by the EA Germany Community Team, and cheat reports are handled by the Strike Team.

Trivia

See also

External links

 ' by Westwood Studios'''
Games

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Factions

C&C Universe

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