This is the transcript of "Advanced Tactics", the fifth Tutorial mission in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Uprising and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Commander's Challenge.
Mission script[]
Introduction[]
[The Guardian Tank, Hammer Tank and Tsunami Tank enters.]
- Guardian Tank: Back for more, then, Commander? In this particular lesson, we'll be going over some of the more-advanced play mechanics that'll separate the men from the boys.
[The Allied Spy appears from the right.]
- Guardian Tank: From earlier lessons, you should be aware of the Allied Spy and some of his capabilities by now.
[The Spy disguises into an Imperial Warrior passing by.]
- Guardian Tank: Spies can disguise themselves as enemy units. Only scout units--the Allied Attack Dog, Soviet War Bear, and Imperial Burst Drone--can detect disguised enemy units. Spies and Imperial Shinobi can also infiltrate enemy structures. When you infiltrate a structure, it'll impair enemy's base in various ways, which should give you the upper hand. For example, if you infiltrate their enemy Reactor, the entire base will power down for a while.
[The screen pans right over to an Imperial base.]
- Guardian Tank: Go ahead and infiltrate the Instant Generator by right clicking on it/moving your cursor over it and pressing the A/X button whilst your Spy is selected.
[Upon infiltrating the Instant Generator]
- Hammer Tank: Excellent, Commander! By infiltrating their Generator, you've brought down their entire base's power, which in turn powered down their base defenses. That will certainly make it easier to destroy their base! Stupid robots!
Primary Objective 1: Defend the Base[]
[The two Guardian Tanks move to the right while a group of four Tsunami Tanks approach the Guardian Tanks.]
- Hammer Tank: Oh no! It appears the Empire of the Rising Sun is sending in a force to destroy your tanks. You'll need to retreat your tanks back to your base. A clever way of doing that is to Reverse-Move them back to your base. This will allow them to continue attacking those enemy units while retreating to a safer location. To Reverse-Move your units, select them and press the D key on your keyboard. Notice how your cursor changed. Right-click on the target destination near your Construction Yard to order your tanks to retreat./, hold down the Right Bumper/R1 button and press the A/X button. Go ahead and have your tanks retreat to your Construction Yard. Another benefit of Reverse-Moving is that it keeps a unit's stronger front armor facing the enemy. Most vehicles are more vulnerable from the rear and flanks, so when you retreat from enemies using a normal move command, you'll turn tail and take more damage. Reverse-Moving allows your units' stronger front armor to take the brunt of the fire.
[Upon moving the Guardian Tanks back to the base]
- Guardian Tank: Good job, sir. Your units made it back and were able to whittle down those enemy tanks' health enough for your base defenses to finish them off. Had you issued a normal move order back to your base, your Guardian Tanks might not have fared as well. Incidentally, should the enemy catch you off guard with an attack, listen for audio cues from your Intel Officer and visual cues on Radar to tip you off. To jump to the most recent Radar event, just hit the Space Bar/press the BACK/SELECT button.
- Intel Officer: Enemy Commando detected.
[Upon jumping to the Radar event and spotting Yuriko Omega]
- Guardian Tank: Or to get back to your main base from anywhere in battle, tap the H key/click on the Left Stick/press the L3 button.
[After jumping back to the main base, the camera pans back to the right with the instructor tanks in view but a troop of several Imperial Warriors and Tankbusters emerge.]
- Guardian Tank: Ah, pants. It looks like the Empire is sending another attack wave, but this time they've come at us with infantry. Your base defenses are strong against infantry, but with that many of the blighters, I don't think it's going to be enough.
[The camera pans to another part of the battlefield showing Flak Troopers being run over by two Guardian Tanks and an Assault Destroyer Then an Apocalypse Tank runs over and crushes the Guardian Tanks while another Apocalypse Tank uses its Metallic Harpoon special ability to destroy the Assault Destroyer.]
- Guardian Tank: So, a good way to dispatch large quantities of infantry is to crush them with vehicles. Not all vehicles can crush infantry so it's good to familiarize yourself with the ones that can. Small vehicles like your IFVs and Riptides are examples of vehicles that can't crush. On the other hand, larger vehicles like Guardian Tanks and Assault Destroyers can crush a man like so many potato crips! What's more, some of the largest vehicles in Red Alert 3 are big enough to crush other, smaller vehicles. Anyhow - let's crush those robots!
- Tsunami Tank: Wait. You may wish to assign your tanks to a Control Group first. This is an important way of managing your forces. To assign units to a Control Group, select them, then hold the Control key and press a number key/and hold the X/square button while holding the Left Bumper/L1 button. Do this now, please.
[Upon assigning the Guardian Tanks to a Control Group]
- Tsunami Tank: Good. You may now select those units at any time by pressing the corresponding number key. You can also jump to the group by double-tapping the key/just by tapping the X/square button while holding the Left Bumper/L1 button. You can also jump to the group, or anything you have selected, by pressing the Y/triangle button. Now... please proceed with crushing my robots.
- Guardian Tank: Thought you'd never ask! To crush enemy infantry, select your Guardian Tanks and issue a move order behind the enemy infantry. You can also issue a Force-Move command using the G hotkey or using the Advanced Commands tab near the bottom of the screen. Issue a move command to the designated location with your tanks now.
[Upon issuing the move comand]
- Hammer Tank: Ew....
Primary Objective 2: Use Advanced Unit Commands[]
- Guardian Tank: Seeing as how that Rising Sun base seems intent on taking us down, let's go over some ways to get your units to protect your base without being drawn out by the enemy. All of your units can be set to different stances, which affect their behavior. All units start off in Guard Stance, meaning they will auto-acquire enemies that come within their attack range, and pursue them for a short distance if they try to flee. Once the dust settles, your units will return to their original positions. We need to have some of our units on defense for our base but not pursue our enemies. To do this, we need to put them into Hold Ground Stance. First, select one or more of your tanks. Now click on the Advanced Commands panel in the bottom right of your screen next to the unit portrait. As you can see, this panel reveals some additional controls for your units./Now open the Command Menu and take a look at all the available stance options.. Select the Hold Ground button to change your units' stance.
[Upon changing the units' stances to Hold Ground]
- Hammer Tank: Simple as that, you've just changed your units' stance. Keep in mind that no matter what stance your units are in, any orders you issue will always be followed. Stances will only affect how units behave when not under your direct control. Now, take three Guardian Tanks, not counting our field-instructor, and move one to each of the three designated locations and put them into Hold Ground Stance.
[Upon moving the tanks to the designated locations and have their stance set to Hold Ground]
- Guardian Tank: Perfect. What say we also set upt some base defenses? Each faction has a coupe of its own base defenses. The Allies have Multigunner Turrets, for example. Select the Support Structures tab in the Sidebar, build a Multigunner Turret, and/Open the Command Menu, navigate to your Support Structures queue, and build a Multigunner Turret. Then place it near your tanks.
[Upon placing a Multigunner Turret]
- Guardian Tank: Multigunner Turrets change weapons if you put different infantry into them, though the rocket launchers they use by default should be handy in most cases.
- Hammer Tank: You can also build walls from your Support Structures queue. To do so, build and place one wall segment, then build and place another along the same row as the first. You'll see the build grid show green to indicate where you can form a solid wall. Careful, though. Each wall segment costs you, so longer walls are more expensive. Walls are useful for blocking smaller forces, like those pesky Engineers always trying to steal your structures. Go on and try building a solid wall at the front of your base.
[Upon placing two wall segments that form a long wall of multiple segments]
- Guardian Tank: Capital. Now if the RIsing Sun attacks, we'll have some extra defenses waiting for them that they on't be able to draw away from our base. And here they come!
[The base is attacked by groups of Mecha Tengu attacking at all three entrances of the Allied base.]
- Guardian Tank: As you can see, they've decided to retreat back to base, but your Guaridan Tanks stood their ground and didn't continue after them. Had your Guardian Tanks followed them back, they most likely would have been destroyed by the Empire's own base defenses.
- Tsunami Tank: Yes, the Empire's base defenses are quite impressive. You may need to use combined arms to defeat them. In fact, if you depend overmuch on just one or two types of units, you are bound to fail. Thankfully, it is easy to manage multiple units at once. Try selecting all your combat forces on the battlefield using the Q key/double-tapping the X/square button.
[Upon selecting all units on the battlefield]
- Tsunami Tank: Good. Notice you have multiple unit types in the contextual tab in your Sidebar at right. One type of unit in your group will always be selected. To cycle between unit types, simply tap the Tab hotkey. Try this now./that when you open the Command Menu, you have multiple unit types selected. If you wish to reduce your selection to just one unit type, highlight it in the Command Menu and press and hold the A/X button. If you wish to reduce your selection to just one unit type, highlight it in the Command Menu and tap the A/X button. You may navigate to different unit types in the Command Menu to use their special abilities or change their stances. Or, without opening the Command Menu, simply hold the Right Bumper/R1 button while tapping the up button or down button to cycle between unit types. Switching unit types in this fashion makes it easier to use your mixed group's special abilities, without deselecting the group. We should briefly touch on Waypoint Mode, for it's useful. Waypoint Mode lets you queue up move or attack orders. To use Waypoint Mode, hold the Alt key/Left Bumper/L1 button while issuing move or attack orders as normal with units selected. Your units will complete the orders in sequence.
[Upon queuing actions in Waypoint Mode with selected units]
Primary Objective 3: Survive While Suppressed[]
- Tsunami Tank: Now, earlier we had mentioned how directional armor comes into play during battles. Another type of armor bonus your units can receive comes from an automatic reaction to enemy fire called suppression. Suppression only affects infantry units. When infantry units become suppressed, they go prone on the ground and continue firing. Suppressed infantry are slower but more resistant to damage. Send your infantry into that square there and attack that garrisoned structure.
[When the Javelin Soldiers fire at the garrisoned structure and are attacked]
- Tsunami Tank: Banzi! As you approached the structure, your units came under enemy fire and some of them were suppressed as a result of the enemy attacks. Due to this suppressed position, your units could absorb more damage and in turn deal more damage to that enemy structure, allowing them to destroy it.
[The Tsunami Tank fires at the Hammer Tank.]
- Hammer Tank: Ow! What was that for?!
- Tsunami Tank: That... was for my robots...!
- Guardian Tank: Well, good job, Commander. You now know some of the advanced tactics that'll surely make you a worthy adversary on the battlefield.
Conclusion (Red Alert 3)[]
- Guardian Tank: And would you believe it? There are still more advanced tactics and commands for you to learn. Just dig into the options screen for a complete command list. But do that on your own time. This lesson's over, and there's only one more left. We're heading over to it now.
[The three instructor tanks fire confetti and then split off.]
Conclusion (Uprising/Commander's Challenge)[]
- Guardian Tank: Now get out there, and knock some heads together!! Go on, what are you waiting for, a fancy ending with a sappy montage?! As for you, boys...? The truce is off!!
- Hammer Tank: Finally!! You jerks!!
- Tsunami Tank: Shut up!!
[The three instructor tanks leave while firing at each other.]
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