Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 -- Soviet Multiplayer Specs and 
Strategies

FAQ by JoeMenthol (JoeMenthol@hotmail.com)
Version 1.0
Last Update: Jan 20, 2001

======================
REVISION HISTORY

Jan 20, 2000 (v1.0) -- First Release

======================

  This document Copyright 2001 by JoeMenthol, not to be duplicated or 
reproduced (in part or in full) for profit without the explicit 
permission of the author.  So there.



  This FAQ includes some important specs on Soviet structures and 
units, as well as some useful strategies for multiplayer battle.  It 
also includes rough time estimates (rough because I took these times 
with a crappy stopwatch while drunk).  I would recommend looking at 
PyroFalkon's TIME STUDY FAQ, as he did a much more detailed job with 
the times than I did.

  As far as I know all the information is more or less accurate; 
however, I am not 100% sure about the numbers I have listed for Soviet 
structural Strength and Armor.  If you are reading this and know for a 
fact that I am off in regard to this information or have any other 
comments or suggestions, go ahead and let me know via e-mail 
(JoeMenthol@hotmail.com) and I'll see what I can do.  Don't expect 
revisions any time soon though; just don't have the time.




 --=Contents=--

  I. Structures
 II. Units
III. Strategies
 IV. Fun Stuff
  V. End Notes

 --==========--




I. STRUCTURES

  Listed here are specs on Soviet Structures, including how much Power 
they use (or produce), their Strength and Armor levels, their Cost, and 
approximately how long they take to build (assuming you have sufficient 
credits, your base is not short on power, your construction yard is at 
full health, and your game speed is set to 5, and you have a speedy 
computer.  Times are accurate to .5 of a second). 


STRUCTURES
(Armor scale from 1-5, 1 being weakest.  Time is in seconds of course.)

Soviet Wall
 Power: 0
 Cost: 100
 Strength: 300
 Armor: 5
 Time: 5.5 

Soviet Sentry Gun
 Power: 0
 Cost: 500
 Strength: 400
 Armor: 4
 Time: 9.5

Soviet Flak Cannon
 Power: -50
 Cost: 1000
 Strength: 900
 Armor: 4
 Time: 20.5

Soviet Tesla Coil
 Power: -75
 Cost: 1500
 Strength: 600
 Armor: 4
 Time: 28.0

Soviet Construction Yard
 Power: 0
 Cost: 0 (3000 if you build an MCV, requires Service Depot)
 Strength: 1000
 Armor: 5
 Time: N/A

Soviet Tesla Reactor
 Power: +150
 Cost: 600
 Strength: 750
 Armor: 2
 Time: 8.5

Soviet Barracks
 Power: -10
 Cost: 500
 Strength: 500
 Armor: 4
 Time: 5.5

Soviet Ore Refinery
 Power: 2000
 Cost: -50
 Strength: 1000
 Armor: 2
 Time: 24.0

Soviet War Factory
 Power: -25
 Cost: 2000
 Strength: 1000
 Armor: 2
 Time: 26.5

Soviet Radar Facility
 Power: -50 
 Cost: 1000
 Strength: 1000
 Armor: 2
 Time: 13.0

Soviet Naval Yard
 Power: -20
 Cost: 1000
 Strength: 1500
 Armor: 5
 Time: 17.5

Soviet Service Depot
 Power: -20
 Cost: 800
 Strength: 1200
 Armor: 2
 Time: 11.5

Soviet Battle Lab 
 Power: -100
 Cost: 2000
 Strength: 500
 Armor: 2
 Time: 38.0

Soviet Nuclear Reactor
 Power: 2000
 Cost: 1000
 Strength: 1000
 Armor: 5
 Time: 20.5

Soviet Psychic Sensor
 Power: -50
 Cost: 1000
 Strength: 750
 Armor: 2
 Time: 21.0

Soviet Psychic Beacon (Just thought I'd throw this and the next one in 
here)
 Power: -100
 Cost: 1000
 Strength: 750
 Armor: 2
 Time: Do you really care?

Soviet Psychic Amplifier
 Power: -100
 Cost: N/A
 Strength: 1000
 Armor: 5
 Time: N/A

Soviet Cloning Vats
 Power: -200
 Cost: 2500
 Strength: 1000
 Armor: 2
 Time: 49.0

Soviet Iron Curtain
 Power: -200
 Cost: 2500
 Strength: 750
 Armor: 5
 Time: 51.5

Soviet Nuclear Missile Silo
 Power: -200
 Cost: 5000
 Strength: 1000
 Armor: 5
 Time: 92.0










II. UNITS

  Listed here are specs on Soviet Units, including their Cost and 
approximately how much Time they take to build (assuming you have 
sufficient credits, your base is not short on power, your WAR 
Factory/Naval Yard/Barracks is at full health, and your game speed is 
set to 5, and you have a speedy computer.  Times are accurate to .5 of 
a second).
  I have not listed any special units except for the Demo Truck, as 
most of them either suck outright or have very little real value on the 
battlefield.  Libya's Demo Truck is, in my opinion, the exception, and 
I recommend playing as Libya so that you have this resource at hand. 

  
UNITS

  INFANTRY
(Time in seconds, of course)

Soviet Attack Dog:
 Cost: 200
 Time: 3.5

Soviet Conscript:
 Cost: 100
 Time: 3.5

Soviet Flak Trooper:
 Cost: 300
 Time: 5.5

Soviet Tesla Trooper:
 Cost: 500
 Time: 12.0

Soviet Engineer:
 Cost: 500
 Time: 10.0

Soviet Crazy Ivan:
 Cost: 600
 Time: 12.0

Soviet Yuri:
 Cost: 1200
 Time: 33.5



  VEHICLES (Land and Air)

Soviet War Miner:
 Cost: 1400
 Time: 27.0

Soviet Rhino Heavy Tank:
 Cost: 900
 Time: 21.0

Soviet Flak Track:
 Cost: 500
 Time: 9.5

Soviet Terror Drone:
 Cost: 500
 Time: 8.0

Soviet V3 Rocket Launcher:
 Cost: 800
 Time: 12.5

Soviet Apocalypse Tank:
 Cost: 1750
 Time: 40.0

Soviet MCV (requires Service Depot):
 Cost: 3000
 Time: 48.5

Soviet Kirov Airship:
 Cost: 2000
 Time: 36.5

Soviet Demo Truck (Libya):
 Cost: 1500
 Time: 24.0


  Vehicles (Naval)

Soviet Typhoon Attack Sub:
 Cost: 1000
 Time: 16.0

Soviet Sea Scorpion:
 Cost: 600
 Time: 10.0

Soviet Amphibious Transport:
 Cost: 900
 Time: 23.0

Soviet Giant Squid:
 Cost: 1000
 Time: 19.5

Soviet Dreadnought:
 Cost: 2000
 Time: 41.0










III. STRATEGIES

  Finally, the good stuff!  Using the above information you can easily 
design a base building strategy of your very own, but because I'm such 
a nice guy I've come up with one for you already.

  As anyone who has played RA2 multiplayer knows, speed is key.  
Therefore I have come up with a basic base building line-up to make the 
most of those first few precious minutes...



1.  Delpoy your MCV immediately.

2.  Begin building a Tesla Reactor.

3.  While the Reactor is building, grab all your units and move them 
off a little to free up space for structures.  (Look at your 
surroundings; if your base is in the bottom of a canyon or cliff be 
aware that your enemy may take advantage of this by running units up to 
the edge and firing on you from above in relative safety.  Is your base 
near water?  The Allied Air Craft Carrier is super-deadly to you, so 
you may want to build a Naval Yard or a crap load of air defense if you 
think you will be in range.  Hopefully the game will be over before 
your opponent can get that far along, though.  Also, know what country 
your opponent is playing as.  If America, beware Paratroopers early in 
the game.  If you really don't like your position you can always move 
your MCV before deploying it, but this takes precious time... your 
call)

4.  Place your Tesla Reactor and immediately build a Barracks.

5.  Place your Barracks and immediately build an Ore Refinery.

6.  While your Refinery builds, produce three or four dogs and set them 
aside.  Use this time also to place your other units in strategic 
defensive positions (such as bridges if there are any near your base, 
garrisoning buildings with your Conscripts, etc.), and looking for 
Crates.

7.  Place your Refinery and immediately build a Radar Facility.

8.  Place your Radar Facility and immediately build a Tesla Reactor 
(you will be dangerously low on power).  While this builds make one or 
two Flak Troopers for air defense against scouting Rocketeers and such.

9.  Place your Tesla Reactor and immediately build a War Factory.  
While this builds, start sending dogs to each corner of the map as 
scouts.  Keep your eyes open for Crates and Tech Buildings you can take 
over with an engineer, especially Oil Derricks.  Your credits will be 
running low at this point, and you will need all you can get.  If a dog 
gets to a corner unmolested, send it to another corner.

  Hopefully you will be able not only to find your enemy's base, but 
also take out a few of his pesky GIs in the process and (more 
importantly) clear up a good section of the map.

10. Place your War Factory.




  There, you have your basic base, and it only took about two minutes 
and thirty seconds!  At this point you have some options, depending on 
how your enemy's base defense looks.  If you feel lucky quickly build a 
Demo Truck and run it up to him, looking to either take out a War 
Factory or Radar/Power (both will make him blind and give you the 
advantage briefly).  You could go for a Refinery, but keep in mind that 
the explosion WILL NOT destroy a Chrono Miner even if it happens to be 
at ground zero.  When he rebuilds his Refinery he will have not one but 
two miners working for him, plus any others he happens to build with 
his War Factory.

  If you go the Demo Truck route, throw everything you have at him.  
Set your War Factory rally point inside his base, queue up a couple 
more Demo Trucks, and send most of your tanks up to protect the 
Trucks/clean up the aftermath.

     *NOTE*  If you build Demo Trucks, always, I repeat, ALWAYS set 
your rally point away from your base.  All it takes is one Harrier Jet 
to fly over and hit it with a missile to take it (and a good chunk of 
your base) out.

  If you don't feel quite so frisky I would suggest immediately 
building two more War Miners.  This will take a while and you won't be 
able to do too much in this time other than look for more crates and 
think up plans of attack.  Twiddle your thumbs, press C on your 
keyboard or F9 just to be cool, but when those Miners are done building 
you'd best be producing units and building base defense/advanced 
structures as fast as you can.  Units are more important than 
structures though, so if you only have enough credits to build tanks or 
a Battle Lab, go with the tanks.

  Speaking of tanks, if you get in a tank battle, keep your units 
moving the whole time.  This can be done by setting a circle of 
waypoints around your enemy if you have time or moving them manually.  
As long as your units are moving some of your enemy's shots will miss, 
giving you a significant advantage.

  Something else to keep in mind... When an Amphibious Transport or 
Flak Track with units inside it is destroyed, the units inside are not 
lost.  They aren't, in fact, even damaged.  USE THIS!  If you can't get 
a Demo Truck to your enemy because he keeps blowing them up with jets 
put it in a Transport.  This way you have a much better chance of 
actually getting it there.  Better yet, put several Demo Trucks in a 
Transport(s); the combined blasts of two Demo Trucks will take out a 
Construction Yard instantly, and three will take out just about 
anything.  It's like you're lobbing little Pinatas of Nuke-Death at 
him.

  Flak Tracks or Transports full of Yuris are fairly effective against 
groups of tanks, but very expensive and not really worth the time 
unless you are in a very close game and you need to surprise your 
enemy.  Don't try this against large groups of GIs, you will get 
slaughtered.

  Most people overlook how important power is.  If your enemy has a 
disgusting number of Prism Towers, your first priority in a base raid 
is to take out his power.  This will render his defenses useless.

  Speaking of base defenses, did you notice in the above section that 
Sentry Guns require no power?  Keep this in mind and spread them around 
liberally throughout your base; who knows when a spy might sneak in and 
take out your power?  Sentry Guns will stave off attacks while you 
correct power failures.










IV. FUN STUFF


  This doesn't affect your game play, but it's kind of fun.  When in a 
multiplayer battle you can taunt your enemy by pressing F5, F6, F7, F8, 
F9, F10, F11, or F12.  Each of these keys corresponds with a pre-
recorded voice message.  Some of the taunts are cool, some are dumb.

  If you want, you can go into your Westwood\RA2\Taunts folder and 
browse through them all.  If you are looking for a specific country's 
taunts, look for file names which have as their fourth and fifth 
letters as the first two letters of your country (for example, 
tauam01.wav would be American Taunt 1, as denoted by the "am".  The 
file tauli04.wav would be Libyan Taunt 4.  Get it?)

  However, if you don't like one of the taunts, you can replace it with 
any .wav file!  Just make sure to rename your .wav with the name of the 
taunt you want to replace and put it in the Taunts folder.  Now when 
you play a multiplayer game you will have your very own customized 
taunts.

  Keep in mind that your opponent will not hear your taunt unless he 
also has modified his folder in the same way you have, but it's still 
amusing for you.  Be creative!  One of my keys plays the opening of 
Cops.

  "Bad boys bad boys, whatcha gonna do?..."










V.  END NOTES


  That's all for now.  Comments and suggestions welcome, send to 
JoeMenthol@hotmail.com

  If enough good ones come in I will update and give the senders 
credit, so please give the  name/alias you wish to be referred to as 
with your e-mail.

  Victory to the Soviet Union!!!
                               --JoeMenthol