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So I went to hang out with my friend who I havent seen in a long time and he had red alert 3 so we played a couple campaign games so I could get a hang of the interface. It's a little weird instead of the hotkeys being letters they're F1-F9 on corresponding to a 3x3 square on the building's command grid. I can see how that could be useful but it's so much different that it took a little bit to get used to. Then we started playing some skirmishes with eachother.
Generally speaking it seems a little odd, Allies have to wait for the entire build time in their MCV and the building just pops up, soviets start the build on MCV then it builds up on the ground slowly. Empire is similar except they get these cores that you build from your MCV and can plant anywhere without any range restrictions unlike the other two. Then once your Core is built it slowly morphs into the building you wanted to place. This means Soviets and Empire are able to get their buildings attacked during build but Allies cannot. The range issue is that for Allies and Soviets you can only build within a certain range of your other buildings but the Empire can just drive their cores to where ever they want to build something and plant it.
The main problem with this is in the early game Empire can plant 4 refineries and just go mega economy while the other two races can't. Normally in an RTS you'd think this means you're behind attack wise, but playing my friends I was able to not only go 4 fast refineries with Empire but also put together a decent infantry ground force to run around their base and harass them, and then the infantry was strong enough that if they had spent money on stationary base defenses I could skirt around and take cheapshots at buildings and beat what infantry they had, 2 out 3 games I was able to kill power cores and one refinery with this tactic.
So basically heres how it stands after my play: Empire of the Rising Sun (Japanese) have the easiest time gathering extra money early, I was able to in every game force them into building base defenses extremely early and kill a few buildings on top of that while I was expanding early. And then I was free to out tech my opponent and contain them to pick them off at my leisure. It seems a mite imbalanced but I'm unsure on if this is just because my friends suck or general imbalance or even a combination of both.
Oh and RA3's big shiny feature is the naval battle similar to Supreme Commander where most of the maps have large amounts of water and the water game is supposed to play a large part in the game. With the Empire I was able to build several mini subs(tier 1) that while not moving are undetectable and destroy anything in the water very quickly. I didn't exploit the naval battle very well because it was outside of my comfort zone and these subs made it so that with the advantage I had early I could just camp the entrances to the water with subs and kill anything that tries to build in the water effectively making sure that I didn't even have to deal with naval battles.
Now don't get me wrong RA3 was fun as hell but I just can't seem to get over the fact that Empire seems a bit powerful, their only real weakness is lategame they seem to be slightly behind in power they dont have any huge as tank that you can mass up and make it an easy win like the soviets apocalypse tank. You have to mix your forces more strategically which was a bit of a problem since I was new to the game I would put them on the ropes and have trouble knocking them out. But if you exploit all their advantages in the early game this really doesn't become an issue as even if you struggle to finish them they have little chance for recovery.
Has anyone played this enough and gotten deep enough into it to tell me if there are counters to these? It seems that in the hands of a top player they would be able to abuse the Empire features to an even further degree in the early game just killing people on frustration alone by taking the entire map and keeping them pretty much trapped inside their base until they can tech high enough to roll over their base defenses.
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Avilo on these forums is pretty good, hopefully he can chime in here and explain the meta.
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Well, basically I have to say that your comments are pretty much completely wrong.
Empire are the weakest faction in any game type at the because of a number of reasons, but largely because their refineries cost 2500 (!) Only way that you are going to get away with putting 4 refineries down early on is if your opponent's don't attack you whatsoever. Also their cores are very vulnerable in transit making their method of expanding pretty much a liability a large proportion of the time. You say that Soviets and Allies can get their buildings attacked while building, while Allies can't (instant pop up) and Soviets can just cancel their structure if necessary. And it's not as if you don't have a large deploy time when the core arrives at it's location (you do).
Compare this to the Soviet expansion system where you can just build a crane and then drive the MCV all over the map, while teching, building base defenses or whatever. You shouldn't really want to be building more than one refinery at a time anyway after the first 3 minutes of the game.
Another weakness of the empire is their tech system, where you are required to level up your buildings individually to advance tiers. Now, this is a problem as you have to pay for each structure, you can't build any units while it is levelling up, and you don't get any extra hitpoints for the structure when you advance a tier. So if your opponents are clever enough to target your key structures (which is often quite easy with the various 'general powers' in the game) then you can be screwed over in terms of tech quite easily.
Another major problem is that the dominant race at the moment is Allies. Allies have a pretty much insurmountable advantage over the empire due to the fact that they can just dominate with an early airfield from start to finish. Empire just don't have a good answer to a vindicator followed by a bunch of apollos when their mech bay comes out so late comparatively. Oh, and empire infantry has no anti-air and is weak anti-infantry (peacekeepers > emp inf).
This is not to say that the empire are completely useless, rather they seem just a bit unable to keep up at this point in time. I've probably overdone it with listing all the Empire weaknesses, the other two races obviously have weakness as well. Empire do have the best lategame though in the Shogun Battleship, which pretty much owns everything. So if you can get to that point they certainly have the advantage.
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Ive been playing this game quite a bit, and I must also disagree.
To expand like that means you would be destroyed by harrassment. Soviets will terror drone ure miners, japs will send their tengus at your miners and without rushing to anti-air against allies means your gonna be absolutely boned anyway.
Currently, Japan is the weakest race, with allies being actually physically impossible to beat on some maps if the allied player knows the correct build order for the air rush.
Soviets aint bad and stand a decent chance against allies if they can pull it into the late game and mass some migs to negate the allied airforce.
Still, the allies have a couple of bullshit powerful things up their sleeves which makes them the strongest team (They have a support power combo which is basically like a starcraft nuke with only a 3 second timer to get your troops out the way, doesnt cost a thing and is ready to use again in 1 minute)
Also, the allied building style is the best. They can build buildings without them being vunerable to attack, and they appear instantly. Great for queing a base defense and then poping it up when ure opponent comes into ure base. The allies can also do the same MCV trick almost as effectively as the soviets.
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So basically my friends just suck?  Because I had no problems kicking them around today with Empire and I had never played the game before.
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On December 17 2008 17:20 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:So basically my friends just suck? Because I had no problems kicking them around today with Empire and I had never played the game before.
No. He must be abysmal bad if he lets empire get 4 refs without any kind of harass whatsoever.
Most people harass from start to finish of the game. Allied players do it with an airfield and adv. aeronautics support power giving their aircrafts effectively 50% more payload of bombs, better hp and speed usually followed by a pure Peacekeeper push. If he doesnt feel confident he'll throw a few javelin soldiers in just to make sure that push gets to your base. There is almost nothing you can do about it. Mecha Tengus (Jet Tengus in land form that are supposed to be Empire's anti-infantry unit) can stop about 5 maybe more peacekeepers (depending on your number of them). but when peacekeepers get in range Tengus just melt like butter. You can garrison a number of Imperial warriors in empty buildings and that actually works quite well for some time, but then again he'll just push in dead-on with peacekeepers in riot shield form or just bomb with vindis.
Soviets have other tricks. 2-3 rax man spam seems unbeatable with empire. Conscripts while cheap and weak, in large numbers rape imperial warriors before they reach their target with bansai. Flak troopers deal with mech units and buildings as well as air units.
Sov warfactory can make 2 good units from the start: the Terror Drone and the Sicle.
Terror Drones can either get into your vehicles (think: harvester) and without an imperial dock or mecha bay you wont be able to remove the infestation. Their second mode locks down your units and they stop moving/attacking/gathering etc. can only target ground units(vehicles).
Sicles have the option to "flea jump" over obstacles and are very effective harassment unit.
If the sov player wishes (and it happens often, like 1/2 of the games played) he rushes to T2 and can build migs/twinblades that can carry units and are ffective harassers and the hammer tank.
Empire to stop this has very few options. IMO he must be a very good experienced player(Jozha or foxboxx?) or must know it's coming. And usually when doing a PP-rax-rax-ref-ref-pp empire build your scout is late as hell, so it's a toss up between getting an oil derrick or scouting the enemy!
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I agree with above (Latham), your friend must have been playing with his feet. Empire have it the hardest at the start but get good at lategame (unless they have been harassed too much), and Allies peacekeepers plus air is just devastating. I played in the beta for quite a while and it seems to me that in order to defeat air rush your forced to build static defense and pump out a lot of anti air units and even with that it requires a lot of micro. But rome wasent build in one day, and i cant remember any game being balanced right of the bat, after some fixes the balance issues will be void.
I really like RA3 though and think it could be great for progaming in some time, i bet we will be seing it at WCG next year. Its really easy to follow for spectators and easy to get into but damn hard to master. There are alot of BO's, rushes and plenty of room for creativity, I think blizzard should note the vissuals for SC2 since they really nailed how a 3D game should look like in order to be used as an e-sport.
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i dont know about Empires been good in mid/endgame, their anti-air is atrocious
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The sad part is, static defenses are worthless in EvA (and to a lesser extent in EvS and mirrors) because they deploy over an hour. On small maps like Beta Battlebase or Infinity Isle this spells certain doom for the empire player. The manspam gets to your base before the turret deploys fully.
You're better off getting a tengu out then a defence turret as japs. Besides, upgraded vindis rape turrets. 2 vindis can kill a full hp basic turret and 3 an advanced one and then, they come back with new bombs, because with adv. aeronautics they recharge bombs roughly 3 seconds at an airfield.
in 1.05 (at least I think it was 1.05?) Tengus got buffed in air encounters. They deal 23dmg as opposed to 18dmg in Jet Tengu monde. That REALLY(this is no sarcasm) helps to with allied air rushes, because apollos aren't so intimidating any more. As long as you have more tengus in the sky then there are apollos you can feel pretty confident(besides it all comes down to micro anyway - apollos can get a speed boost in returning to base with an active skills and jet tengus, when they're damaged can turn back into Mecha tengus and run to the factory to get repaired.)
The real problem now is dealing with a vindi/cryocopter rush becuase the allies can make an airfield before a refinery and you cant make a mecha bay before a refinery. In addition, jap barracks don't provide any stable AA unit until tier 3 (1 can argue that burst drones work well but they kamikaze into enemy units and cost 300...)
But overall I feel the japs are the funniest faction to play as, due to their mobility and units. Once you get past the early stage difficulties the Empire really starts to shine with units like Tsunamis, Chopper VXs, Rocket Angels, King Onis, Yuriko Omega and Shogun battleships!
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Okay I was trying to remember what it was I was doing and here it is as closely as I can remember it:
Power plant
Dojo Core
Refinery(x2)
Dragonfly(scouting)
Add several infantry and a couple tank busters to queue (roughly 4/3)
Mecha Core
Refinery
Start Pumping Tengus
Upgrade Dojo to II
The timing on the fourth Refinery wasnt really stable so I can't remember where it was I stuck it in, but looking at some of the maps it wouldnt even really be possible to grab that fourth refinery anyway. When the last infantry unit would come out I'd send them over to go harass a bit and see if I could kill a powerplant or a refinery make them spend money on base defenses etc
From there I would work towards a tier 3 dojo to get some rocket angels and add some of the other Chopper VXs to the mix as well as some tsunamis. The reason I liked this strategy so much is except for the tsunamis almost the entire midgame army at this point is extremely mobile and able to dodge around and harass some more as well as doing real damage if possible, as well as being rather strong against a naval force with some micro on the Rocket Angels as well.
It seems to be weak vs the Ally air rush like you said but it at least seems semi viable to me that someone better than I could take it further, it worked rather well vs soviets and against an empire mirror I didnt make quite as many infantry early in favor of getting more tengu (lucky strategy cuz I didnt knwo what I was doing)
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On December 18 2008 05:55 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
Okay I was trying to remember what it was I was doing and here it is as closely as I can remember it:
Power plant
Dojo Core
Refinery(x2)
Dragonfly(scouting)
Add several infantry and a couple tank busters to queue (roughly 4/3)
Mecha Core
Refinery
Start Pumping Tengus
Upgrade Dojo to II
The timing on the fourth Refinery wasnt really stable so I can't remember where it was I stuck it in, but looking at some of the maps it wouldnt even really be possible to grab that fourth refinery anyway. When the last infantry unit would come out I'd send them over to go harass a bit and see if I could kill a powerplant or a refinery make them spend money on base defenses etc
From there I would work towards a tier 3 dojo to get some rocket angels and add some of the other Chopper VXs to the mix as well as some tsunamis. The reason I liked this strategy so much is except for the tsunamis almost the entire midgame army at this point is extremely mobile and able to dodge around and harass some more as well as doing real damage if possible, as well as being rather strong against a naval force with some micro on the Rocket Angels as well.
It seems to be weak vs the Ally air rush like you said but it at least seems semi viable to me that someone better than I could take it further, it worked rather well vs soviets and against an empire mirror I didnt make quite as many infantry early in favor of getting more tengu (lucky strategy cuz I didnt knwo what I was doing)
That BO is not bad, but has some flaws. On the internet allies start with either PP/Airfield/Ref2x/rax or just bluntly start out with a rax just like sovs do. Either way I think your infantry wouldn't get to the allies base before he has a few dogs out(even if it's a small map, he'll see your infantry and just bomb them or put up a multigunner turret). Most sovs start with a rax/pp/2xref/warfactory build or some variation of it. The only other build that they do is a crane build(crane/pp+rax/2xref/warf+pp) so either way bears will be out scouting.
I dunno how much money you have left after building the mecha bay, but normally it's not much (in the range of 500-1000 credits I should say?) so another refinery costs 2500 total so you'll be waiting for 4 full harvester rounds before getting that core out. That leaves you without any kind of units to defend. Sicles/Terror Drones/Vindis should be pouring into your base by the time you have your 1st tengu out(maybe I'm exaggerating a little bit, but you WILL have trouble defending your harvies without early Tengus) You start your Tengu production way too late. Tengus are vital to your success as Empire. I always queue 13-15 right off the bat. After I get about 4-5 I go in to harass with them, usually aiming for their harvesters. This is the time to chose. Either you will harass successfully and actually score a harvy kill (which WILL put your enemy way behind economically) or you won't. If you do kill a harvy you have 2 options: 1) tech your mecha bay to lv2 to get tsunamis and VXs out or 2) expand while you have the momentum. You can do both but I think the lack of cash will severely hamper you.
If you don't kill a harvy, get about 8 tengus out then upgrade your mecha to lv 2.
The point of upgrading your mecha and not your dojo core, is that with the mecha bay you get much more bang for your buck. Tsunamis are great harassers because they're the only tank that is amphibious and it can run over infantry (that's your 1st unit that can do that!) and you get the versatile VX chopper.
If you upgrade your dojo too soon you only get Shinobis which are worthless against tier 2 allies/soviets(tanks and air!)
Now what you need to do is, harass his harvies while trying to keep his number of tanks down to a respectable number so you can defend if he tries to push in.
Always mix in tankbusters with whatever your main attack force consists of.
Tier 3 is VERY hard to reach for as Empire. In addition of the 3K credits nanotech mainframe you also need to upgrade your production buildings individually (1 whole minute + 1000 credits!!!)
Which is a huge time waste. You need to pump those VXs and tsunamis to stay competitive with the allies/russians. When russian MiGs hit the sky, you can abandon all hope of getting your VXs into the sky. MiGs just murder tengus and choppers because of their splash. If he gets about 8 MiGs you mostly want about 1/4 of your choppers in the air, the rest fending off the migs.
When (and if!) you hit tier 3, don't get over zealous. Your artillery sucks ass compared to V4s and Athenas and King Onis while looking good, aren't as effective as you may think vs a mass of T2 tanks.
Anyway if you'd like to play online to see how it all works out PM me.
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Ive never moved into tech 3 during a ranked game (im an empire player)
You are far better off spending that 4k on refineries and getting a strong economy.
As Empire, your going to try to counter his build rather than set the pace.
Dojo shouldnt be upgraded as shinobi are not worth their price except in special circumstances (man spam)
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speaking of RA3 , I'm planning on getting the game soon..what's the best way to go about playing it so I can get up to a decent level quickly? =p
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RA3 is so much more interesting than RA2 was.
I too thought empire was powerful at first due their insane expanding speed and possible early proxy raxes, but after playing awhile they started to lose the advantage in my eyes as I discovered all the options other factions had.
For some reason though I dont really like playing allied despite their insane air and superior way of building, so it's mostly soviet for me.
I use bear scouts to flaks/sickles most of games, sometimes rushing for twinblades.
At least on lower levels of play the balance is decent.
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All they need to do is make those stupid russian imba crawling mother fuckers that are able to kill your miners in one hit, get rid of their swimming capabilities and put a choke in every base so you cant abuse with those hell spawns.
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On December 23 2008 02:31 Xeris wrote:
speaking of RA3 , I'm planning on getting the game soon..what's the best way to go about playing it so I can get up to a decent level quickly? =p
Get to know the basics, then pub a little (or more precisely: automatch a little), then get a few skilled friends and a clan and play with them to get better.
I switched to soviets too. It's just so disheartening to play empire vs a cryocopter rush -.-
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On December 23 2008 03:15 Latham wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2008 02:31 Xeris wrote:
speaking of RA3 , I'm planning on getting the game soon..what's the best way to go about playing it so I can get up to a decent level quickly? =p Get to know the basics, then pub a little (or more precisely: automatch a little), then get a few skilled friends and a clan and play with them to get better. I switched to soviets too. It's just so disheartening to play empire vs a cryocopter rush -.-
Infidel! I'm going to have the game soon and am still going to play Empire
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This sort of post is like a 14 year old bragging[lying] about how he was #5 on SC ladder and how mass archons rulezz.
Fuck what this site has become.
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On December 23 2008 06:05 naventus wrote:
This sort of post is like a 14 year old bragging[lying] about how he was #5 on SC ladder and how mass archons rulezz.
Fuck what this site has become.
What the hell are you talking about?
If the OP: he posted his first impressions, everyone's entitled to that, and we started a discussion -.-.
If about me: 1st of all: go !@#$ yourself. 2nd of all: Maybe what I wrote came out as "bragging" but I, along with the others just shared options and commentated on his initial impression(we actually have games played online). Anyway I'm just keeping this topic alive so we can discuss RA3 related things here or even play a game together sometime. It's all in good spirit, don't get so worked up about this thread -.-.
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On December 23 2008 06:05 naventus wrote:
This sort of post is like a 14 year old bragging[lying] about how he was #5 on SC ladder and how mass archons rulezz.
Fuck what this site has become.
Which post? I specifically said that I'm no good at RTS and that this was most likely because my friends are bad. I was presenting it asking for what people thought of the Metagame. I'm more worried about what this site has become from posts like the one above
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On December 23 2008 02:31 Xeris wrote:
speaking of RA3 , I'm planning on getting the game soon..what's the best way to go about playing it so I can get up to a decent level quickly? =p
Play some skirmishes with the computer with each faction till you get familiar with what each team has to offer.
Go online and play 1v1 ranked automatches. Youll find that youll be an above average player within about 10 games, because everyone fucking sucks on RA3.
With regards to team selection, Empire is fun, but they get a very rude deal in games vs allies. The cryocoptor rush is something that is impossible to stop if the allied player executes it properely. That can be quite frustrating. And they dont have diverse strategies. Your basically going to build a warfact and spam tengu for the first half of the game.
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so i used the website can you run it ...even tho my video card inst up too par can i still play it smoothly online cause i really wanna buy this game but my desktop just broke down and its pretty much dead.
CPU
Minimum: Any Intel Core Duo machine; [Single Core] Intel P4 2.2 GHz (P4 2.6 GHz for Vista) or better; AMD Athlon 2100+ (Athlon XP 2800+ for Vista) or better
You Have: 2 processors running - Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5750 @ 2.00GHz PASS
CPU Speed
Minimum: Single Core Pentium 4 2.2 GHz for Windows XP / 2.6 GHz for Windows Vista
You Have: 2.00 GHz Performance Rated at 3.89 GHz PASS
System RAM
Minimum: 1 GB
You Have: 3.0 GB PASS
Operating System
Minimum: Windows XP Service Pack 2 or higher or Windows Vista (32-bit version only, 64-bit is not supported)
You Have: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition, 32-bit (Build Service Pack 16001) PASS
Video Card
Minimum: DirectX 9.0c compatible video card. NVIDIA GeForce 6800 or better, ATI Radeon X800 or Better
You Have: Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family () FAIL: Sorry, your video card does not meet this minimum requirement.
Video Card Features - Minimum attributes of your Video Card Video RAM: Required - 128 MB , You have - 358 MB
Video Card 3D Acceleration: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Video HW Transform & Lighting: Required - Yes , You have - Yes
Vertex Shader Ver.: Required - 2.0 , You have - 3.0
Pixel Shader Ver.: Required - 2.0 , You have - 3.0
Video Card Driver Version (DirectX)
Your driver version number is: 7.14.10.1409 FYI: Your video card driver version is provided for your information, but it is not part of this analysis. But proper video card driver versions are important to the proper operation of your product.
Sound Card
Minimum: Yes
You Have: Speakers / Headphones (SigmaTel PASS
Sound Card Driver Version
Your driver version number is: 6.0 FYI: Your sound card driver version is provided for your information, but it is not part of this analysis. But proper sound card driver versions are important to the proper operation of your product.
Free Disk Space
Minimum: 10 GB of free hard drive space, 12 GB for EA Link
You Have: 157.9 GB PASS
DVD
Minimum: 8X or faster DVD-Rom Drive
You Have: TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-L632H ATA Device PASS, but the Speed could NOT be analyzed.
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I suggest for some advice u could go to Gamereplays.org. It's the RA3 site with forums and a huge collection of VODS with commentary about strats etc. They also have a huge collection of replays and host various tournaments. Besides that, all the best RA3 players post there and give help to starters.
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On December 23 2008 08:23 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:Show nested quote +On December 23 2008 06:05 naventus wrote:
This sort of post is like a 14 year old bragging[lying] about how he was #5 on SC ladder and how mass archons rulezz.
Fuck what this site has become. Which post? I specifically said that I'm no good at RTS and that this was most likely because my friends are bad. I was presenting it asking for what people thought of the Metagame. I'm more worried about what this site has become from posts like the one above
The OP and it did sound that way. "I can't get over the fact Empire seems more powerful", e.t.c. It's not a fact and there isn't the slightest chance that Empire is too good and apparently you haven't even played with the other races against your friends to see if you'll beat them just as easily(or you just haven't thought about moving your MCV and building 4 cheaper refineries).
What you should've learned from starcraft is that a few games against noobs in no way show you how the game is actually played or what imbalance there is, so obviously wrong comments do look like "mass archons rulz, because I beat my noob friends with them every time", even if he says his friends are noobs that still doesn't make this "fact" any less wrong.
Though there was no need for both of you complaining about "what this site has become!!11!1"
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+ Show Spoiler +On December 17 2008 14:18 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
I just can't seem to get over the fact that Empire seems a bit powerful, emphasis on different parts of the sentence gives different meanings? and just ignore naventus, you're all falling for his troll trap
RA3 seems to be pretty good. I always liked the RA and CnC franchise and I have all of their games. Personally I enjoyed RA2 regardless of any imbalances or "lack of this and that" or whatever.
I've been reading up on it as much as I can, looking at reviews/comments, strategies/techniques, and on the units/structures/capabilities etc. I usually try to learn as much about a game before I play it so that I don't feel completely lost when I do get into it. Of course there's nothing to compare to the actual experiencing and learning from game play. I really want to get it as soon as possible now though I don't think I will be able to for a while.
One thing I absolutely loved about RA3 previews is their rendering of water. My friend and I joked that their water looked more real than real water. 
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United States47024 Posts
On December 23 2008 23:52 lololol wrote:
The OP and it did sound that way. "I can't get over the fact Empire seems more powerful", e.t.c. It's not a fact and there isn't the slightest chance that Empire is too good and apparently you haven't even played with the other races against your friends to see if you'll beat them just as easily(or you just haven't thought about moving your MCV and building 4 cheaper refineries).
You read one word, but miss the one after? "I can't get over the fact that X seems..." expresses an OPINION. How is it not a fact that he THOUGHT Empire was more powerful?
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are there any Red Alert 3 community sites such as TL or Gosugamers? O_O!
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EPT
