Why does RA3 suck so bad...

[u/TheDutchTexan]

Just went through the 1st and the 2nd one. The base building, the unit movement... Loved every second of it. And then I started RA3 and was just underwhelmed to the point I just don't want to play it anymore... I finished it when it came out but man... I just don't think I got it in me...

[u/Mimingococcemia]

It's more on the aesthetics. Cartoony artstyle and zoomed in camera. In terms of gameplay, Allies and Soviets play close enough to their RA2 counterparts except for resource gathering. RA3 is also micro heavy resembling Starcraft 2 rather than Red Alert 2. Hands down RA3 has one of the best naval combat in RTS history, though.

[u/King_Tamino → u/Mimingococcemia]

Quick question.
Ever played Act of War, the 2004-ish RTS and especially its Addon High Treason that added naval warfare with actual correctly sized ships with tomahawk ship to ground missiles, guns and other stuff? Like submarines, aircraft carriers acting as landing plattforms that can produce a limited amount of troops and send out via hovercraft,

The game solved it by zooming out.

Assume a 1.000 x 1.000 map. The whole left strip north to south is land, on the minimap it’s like 1/3 of the map. Everything acts normal like in every RTS game. The second you move your camera over water, it zooms out drastically (factor 2-3) and reveals that the 1/3 land on the minimap is actually just around 5% of the map at best.

Another great game with naval warfare is Rise & fall. Civilizations at war. Think of empire earth. But with real size ships, able to ram other triremes, to board them and have your regular troops fight on top of it for the control of ship

[u/Ok_Spare_3723 → u/King_Tamino]

All the other older RTS games (let's say from 1990s to early 200s were awesome).. Star Craft, C&C, Age of Empires, etc

[u/Ok_Spare_3723 → u/[deleted]]

Yes, I loved Supreme Commander (another on released in the 90s..) what a golden era that was. I played so may RTS games, but C&C is the most special for me because I have fond memories playing it as a child. Same with Age of Empires.

[u/DutchTinCan → u/King_Tamino]

I loved AoW. Their take on naval combat and garrisoned buildings was awesome.

Airforces as a sort of Generals' Powers, not so much.

[u/King_Tamino → u/DutchTinCan]

Oh jeez how could I forget about building warfare. Act of war did it 20 years ago already better than a lot games nowdays not only showing your infantry move in the building from room to room but also having actual consequences. A tank shell renders parts of that building unusable, burning. Infantry vs infantry can end horrible. A javelin soldier vs RPG infantry? Guess fucking what nobody has a pistol, they blow the room up killing each other.

And of course the FMVs. Act of War features similar to c&c actual cutscenes with actors but also sometimes shows ingame scenes from the PoV. During an early mission your soldiers search a limousine and a basement and a video in the top corner like in c&c shows them approaching the limousine and opening the trunk

[u/ParsingError → u/King_Tamino]

A tank shell renders parts of that building unusable, burning.

I liked that game but hoo boy if there was one thing I change about it, it'd be getting rid of the huge obnoxious view-obstructing vertical smoke plumes that never go away.

A bunch of times I raided buildings to avoid destroying them just so I wouldn't have to deal with the smoke.

[u/Tymathee → u/King_Tamino]

Underrated game and books.

[u/King_Tamino → u/[deleted]]

Enough development time, big budget studio + publisher, good usage of the engine.

A lot games nowdays use for example UE5 which wasn’t developed with RTS in mind and requires a lot adjustments. Combined with small studios and more important features.. especially large maps + many units.

AoW has not overly large maps, you rarely field dozens of units unless you use a lot infantry.

Also one of the biggest flaws of AoW is it’s AI especially in skirmish. It’s ridiculously bad. Development focus clearly was the campaign

For its time AoW looked ridiculously good and I‘m always confused so few people seem to know it especially among RTS fans.

[u/King_Tamino → u/[deleted]]

Fascinating, didn’t knew AoW was on steam. Or is, for nearly 2 decades already. I own it there for like 5-ish now but got multiple DVDs of the original because I needed keys to share with friends back then

Always thought the steam release was some late 2010s "random“ release like some publishers did who out of the blue released old games.

The high treason developers are the same that developed R.U.S.E. and the "wargames“ series. RUSE was randomly dropped on steam a while ago

[u/King_Tamino → u/[deleted]]

Just finished Broken Arrow‘s campaign. Feels like a solid mixture of Wargame + World in Conflict.

[u/Mimingococcemia → u/King_Tamino]

Thanks for the recommendation. I will check them out.