YMMV / Command & Conquer: Red Alert

YMMV page for the overall series:

• Command & Conquer: Red Alert Series

Red Alert:

• Accidental Aesop:
  • Smoking is bad for your health.
  • Beware of gaining the recognition of ruthless leaders. Sure, you may gain promotions and prestige, but you may also be thrown under a bus when you least expect it. Your fellow coworkers may be just as hazardous to your health, plotting their own advancement.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • In the Soviet campaign, did General Kukov truly botch the Chronosphere intelligence or did he purposely withhold info to set you up, similar to Seth's scheming in Tiberian Dawn.
  • Also in the Soviet story, was General Gradenko as incompetent as he appeared or was he secretly sympathizing with the Allies, as suggested by being declared a "traitor" by Kukov? Nadia even agrees, replying that dealing with traitors is "...my pleasure".
  • And, for the Soviet ending, was Stalin really going to reward the player when he said he would "personally see to it" that they were "well taken care of"? OR, was Stalin planning to have the player purged or Reassigned to Antarctica just like he did in real life when he demoted Soviet general Georgy Zhukov after the Battle of Berlin in World War 2?
  • Was Nadia's "punishment" by Kane in the Soviet campaign ending because she did call his future "foreseeable" (and thus thinking it may fail to happen)... or he was concerned she was The Starscream? Again, this is Similar to Seth's underhanded scheming in Tiberian Dawn. Her poison tea seems to suggest this as a possibility and perhaps Kane was concerned about a backstabber in his ranks.
• Awesome Music: Is there anyone who, having played the original game, can read the page quote for Red Alert without "Hell March" beginning to play in their heads?
• Common Knowledge:
  • The yelling drill sergeant in "Hell March" is widely reported to be saying (in German) "Die waffen, legt an" (roughly, "Weapons ready!"), but a look at the relevant samples from the sound library Frank Klepacki used indicates it's in English, not German (though there is disagreement on what, precisely, is being said.)
  • That each of the campaign endings lead to different timelines in the franchise - the Allied ending to Red Alert 2 and the Soviet ending to Tiberian Dawn. The latter case contradicts the fact in that Nod is a faction that works with subterfuge, when a canon Soviet ending would have Nod as a superpower that controls all of Europe. Furthermore, a pitch of the original Command & Conquer 3 shows that the Allied ending leads to both Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Dawn, with the timelines splitting happening some time later than this game's ending, and the Soviet ending is entirely non-canon.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Tank spam is a prominent strategy among both Allied and Soviet players alike.
  • A popular tactic among Soviet players is to build nothing but a massive force of heavy tanks and overwhelm their opponent.
  • The Allied equivalent is arguably even more potent thanks to their Light Tank costing $700 vs $950 for the Soviet Heavy Tank, and being very quick for a tank, letting a platoon of them rush past the frontline and pummel vital targets with their light-but-rapid cannons (Rocket Soldiers have higher DPS but being Glass Cannons and very slow, don't see much use). ^note A well-timed V2 rocket or Artillery shell can one-shot an entire squad The Medium Tank is also available when more staying power is needed, and while it only has a single cannon, it is still faster and less expensive than the Soviet Heavy. ($800)
• Complete Monster: Josef Stalin is portrayed as every bit the ruthless, paranoid dictator that he was in real life, but excludes any potential redeeming qualities he may have had and makes him even nastier in some regards. He builds up the Soviet military machine and invades the rest of Europe to establish his totalitarian rule over the entire continent. He orders his security officers to test Sarin gas on a town of innocent civilians and the player to kill the survivors and raze the village. He also personally kills his lieutenants for any failure, orders purges of his entire military staff on a whim, and largely destroys the countries he invades as he did with Greece. When the tide of war turns against him, Stalin uses his troops as sacrificial lambs to delay the Allied advance long enough so he can destroy the major European cities with his newly-developed nuclear missiles and force a victory.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • When playing as the Allies: Heavy Tank battalions. The basic Soviet tank already outclasses the Allied tanks, so you've got to rely on Light & Medium Tank swarms to take them down.
  • When playing as the Soviets: Apache helicopters. Because the Soviets dominate the air, the Allies are the ones who have good Anti-Air units in the form of Rocket Soldiers & Destroyers. The Soviets, however, only have one mobile AA unit: the Mammoth Tank, whose missiles are actually specialized to kill infantry, and thus aren't that effective against Apaches. This is especially noticeable in the mission "Liability Elimination" where you face Apaches for the first time in the campaign but you only get 2 Mammoth Tanks with no way to build more. It's likely for this reason that the Rocket Soldier is available to the Soviets in multiplayer.
  • The Soviet Missile Submarines introduced in the Aftermath expansion.^note Likely introduced to help the Soviets compete with the Allied Cruisers. These subs can fire powerful missiles that have far range and are more accurate than the shells from the Allied Cruiser (and just as damaging). They can easily decimate an entire enemy base if they are not prepared for them. As a bonus, the subs are stealth units (like their sea-centered cousins) and can sneak up or sneak away from a fight. The downside is that they are slow and expensive. But just two or three missile subs can be a nightmare for any player on the receiving end due to their power, range, and accuracy.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Soviet attack dogs. While they are Fragile Speedsters and can be killed quite easily, they have the ability to One-Hit Kill any infantry unit. Rifle infantry can handle them without a problem if they are standing still, but since infantry can't shoot while moving, attack dogs can pretty much pick them off while they're doing so. And, the attack dogs really become problematic in the Allied campaign missions where you must keep Tanya alive. Since Tanya must be manually told to attack (instead of automatically firing on units that get close), she can be easily killed by attack dogs while you're preoccupied with other things or just simply trying to target the dogs since they're so fast.
  • The Mine-Layers, especially the Allied version which lays anti-tank mines. The anti-tank mines can easily pick off your tanks and thin their ranks as they are simply wandering around the map. It's even worse when your Ore Truck runs over the mines and gets damaged or destroyed since this could cripple your economy. While the mines themselves can be taken out by manually firing upon the ground, it's a real hassle to do so.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • If you tell a grenadier to change targets halfway through his throwing animation, he can throw his grenade a ridiculously long way, especially in the MS-DOS version of the game. With the use of radar, you could get him to throw it across the map.
  • The Tesla Coil seems to do more damage than the developers originally intended, with its lightning hitting multiple times per shot. This may have contributed to the weapon's popularity and later proliferation into other roles.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In this timeline, Ukraine is an independent nation from the Soviet Union yet still on the same side of the war, and you can play as Russia vs Ukraine in Skirmish mode. Come the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, however...
  • The European Allies vs The Soviets conflict in this game hit closer at one point due to tensions between NATO and Russia being severely strained in 2024 from numerous territory disputes.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In November 2019, a 1 million strong colony of cannibal ants that had been trapped in a Soviet nuclear bunker escaped when Polish scientists installed a ramp for them to get out. It Came From Red Alert, anyone?
• It Was His Sled: It has become well known in the CnC community that Kane was pulling the strings of the Soviet Union in their respective campaign. Same thing with Nadia giving Stalin poison tea as she did with another officer earlier, General Gradenko.
• Joke Item:
  • The Allies Gap Generator. They just simply hide structures and units by creating artificial black shroud on the map. That being said, they don't fool human players or the A.I. at all. If a smart opponent has a powerful enough attack force, the Gap Generators are a minor annoyance at best and any "ambushes" can be swept aside with ease. Gap Generators also consume a lot of power. That being said, in a long high-level match, one of these is the only way to create a Fog of War to conceal what you're building out of your main factory, allowing you to switch tactics in secret, unless you get scouted. The mobile version, on the other hand, creates a suspicious moving Fog of War that can instantly alert an enemy player that you are mobilizing units even if they don't know what units they are.
  • The Radar Jammer is even more useless. It needs to get up to an enemy's Radar Dome in order to short out the enemy's Radar, but this can be done simply by destroying enemy Power Plants or destroying the Radar Dome itself.
  • The Allied Thief can steal half of the opponent's credits if it enters any non-defensive building. However it has no weapons or armor of its own, and unlike the Spy he cannot cloak. He also costs a whopping 500 credits, meaning not only do you have to hope your opponent has more than 1k in the bank at the time (just to break even) but it also makes spamming them unfeasible as the costs start stacking up. If you wanna cripple your opponent's economy, harassing Harvesters is much easier (and ironically much safer). Later games would fold the Thief's ability into the Spy.
• Low-Tier Letdown: The Allied Thief was maligned for how difficult it is to use them without resorting to outlandish tactics such as an Engineer rush or Chrono-shifted MCV, followed by placing a Barracks to start training the Thieves. As a result, in Red Alert 2, the Spy was given the Thief's ability to raid credits in addition to their other skills, making the Spy even more valuable and allowing theft to also be stealthy.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Nadia, this tea is excellent." On this note, some viewers have noted in some form that Nadia's tea is so good, it's to die for.
    Nadia:Thank you, I made it myself.^note This is a well-remembered exchange between Nadia and anyone she served poisoned tea to. Fans joke that the poisoned tea only works when she says that line (and if there's a table they can crawl over)
  • "The foreseeable future? Comrade chairman I am the future." ^note Kane's only audible line, used as the final line in the Soviet ending.
  • "Their weakness is power, black-out the base and nothing will stop you." ^note Stavros, giving a big hint on how to beat the first Allied mission.
• Moral Event Horizon: The Soviets. They cross the MEH roughly three seconds into the first cutscene of the first game. Or more accurately, even before the game begins which you learn of within the first three seconds of their first cutscene, where Stalin and his subordinates are discussing the effects of Sarin gas upon a few unfortunate civilian "test subjects". Right before ordering you to raze a Polish village to the ground and kill everyone that inhabits it. They get worse as the game goes on.
• Older Than They Think: Red Alert 1's second expansion pack, The Aftermath, introduces many things that a lot of people think came in with Red Alert 2: Tesla Tanks, uncrushable Tesla Troopers (here called Shock Troopers), Demolition Trucks, chrono-capable vehicles (Chrono Tanks in this case) and more. And even Cyborg infantry, which many players think debuted in Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun: the Soviet Super-Soldier Volkov is a cyborg.
  • The Tesla Tanks are even older than that: they were actually introduced in the first expansion pack, Counterstrike, although they were special units that only appeared in select Soviet missions, and they used the Radar Jammer's sprite.
  • The Retaliation collection on the Playstation features General Carville as the Allied Mission Control, before most people would recognize him in his role in Red Alert 2.
• Padding:
  • Allied mission 7, "Sunken Treasure" is a follow-up to the previous mission where you set back the Soviet Iron Curtain project. A transmission was traced back to a submarine base and you are to infiltrate a Radar Dome and take out the Sub Pens. While this presumably is a key setback to the Soviet Submarine presence, the mission feels like a side quest that diverts you from key events like the Allied Chronosphere test and the pressing issue of the Soviet Nuclear program. It doesn't even have its own live-action briefing, instead using a text-only synopsis that a number of other Allied missions use.
  • Soviet mission 7 "Core of the Matter" diverts you from the European theater to deal with an Allied infiltration of a Soviet nuclear reactor. The reactor is about to meltdown and you must restore cooling to avert the disaster. On the plus side, it does have a live action briefing, and the people briefing you even lampshade this by wondering if sending you is a good use of your talents.
• Paranoia Fuel: The Soviet campaign in the original is filled to brim with this. EVERY single Soviet character is looking for the chance for their own advancement, and that means Anyone Can Die at a moment's notice. And there's Stalin, who is the same paranoid lunatic he was in Real Life that we see does the same purges he was infamous for.
• Polished Port: The 2020 remaster features improved graphics (with the option to switch to the classic graphics with a push of the space bar), customisable controls, unit queuing, unlockable behind the scenes footage, and a huge soundtrack that even allows you to play with Tiberian Dawn's soundtrack.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Having to severely bust up a building before you could capture it with an engineer can be seen as rather pointless by some. It didn't help that computer players would often sell a structure as it reached the red, meaning all that work would be for nothing. This would be the first, last and only game in the series to have this mechanic outside of optional rules for multiplayer.
  • The need for silos to carry harvested ore before you can convert it to actual cash makes a return from and is just as annoying as it was in Tiberian Dawn (though at least this time they only take up one map square rather than four). Notably, while the Tiberium games kept using silos for story purposes, Red Alert completely dropped the need for silos after one game.
  • Thieves being a separate unit from the Spy. Unlike Spies who appear as an enemy unit, thieves remain completely visible to enemy players and defense alike, can't defend themselves and only have one purpose: to steal money from heavily defended Refineries. Generally by the time you can safely deliver one to a refinery, you could have just leveled the base and won anyways. Every game since then has given the Thief's ability to the Spy instead.
  • The fact that Tanya must be manually told to attack units and she won't fire on units that get near her unless they attack first. This makes her a very easy target for Soviet attack dogs that can One-Hit Kill her if you're not paying attention or if you cannot get her to kill the dogs herself in time. ^note Their fast speed makes them difficult to target. This can be very problematic in the Allied campaign missions where you have to keep Tanya alive and you end up failing due to a random cheap kill from a dog. Subsequent games have let her fire at enemies automatically to avoid this problem.
  • Super weapons affecting only one unit. After this game they always affect a group of units rather than a single one, and (in the case of the Chronosphere) can be used on enemy units to dick around with them. This is also the only game where the Chronosphere spawns an invincible, permanent Chrono Vortex. That being said, using Chronoshift on a key target like an MCV can be very useful for surprise attacks behind enemy lines via proxy War Factories and/or Barracks, even allowing Thieves to steal credits and recoup your investment. The Iron Curtain even has niche uses such as offering protection for a M.A.D. Tank which is one of the slowest vehicles in the games and unlikely to survive under fire.
• Scrappy Weapon: The Nuclear Missile Strike can be performed multiple times by Allies or Soviets, unlike in Tiberian Dawn, but the power of the Missile is much weaker than it was before, having barely enough yield to take out a pair of power plants, or "vaporize" a group of infantry. Its lack of a warning does not help offset the fact it'll only scorch the paint on a group of tanks and you still need to wait for a missile to be readied for launch and spend 2500 credits to build the silo. The sequel overhauled superweapons into more fearsome effects while giving the Allies their own unique Weather Machine to create violent storms that rival Nuclear weapons, making superweapons much more useful for breaking stalemates.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: The two expansions packs are significantly more challenging than either of the base game campaigns, most of which stems from almost all missions throwing you wicked curveballs at every turn that make your skills at playing the game mostly irrelevant while forcing you to rely on Save Scumming instead.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Workmen" sounds similar to "Ratfinks, Suicide Tanks, and Cannibal Girls" by White Zombie.
• That One Level:
  • Allied Mission 10. After the defection of Major Kosygin, Stalin decides to launch four nukes at various European capitals. What follows is a two part mission to capture the Soviet nuclear launch command centre and disable the nukes. The first part starts off okay with a traditional base building mission until the command centre is revealed (usually when the GPS satellite is launched) and Von Esling briefs the player, telling them they have one hour to complete the mission. From there, the timer starts and the player must capture the command centre with Engineers. The second part of the mission commences immediately after. The player has limited time (as in whatever was left on the clock when the command centre was captured), three engineers, two spies, a medic, and a handful of riflemen with which to capture the four control terminals. The Soviets have the base staffed with mostly riflemen, but there are dogs and grenadiers at strategic points, who can tear through your squad in no time and there's a flame turret at the northwest corner and a tank hanger at the far south. The spies are practically dead weight, as there's no buildings for them to infiltrate and the dogs will tear through them (unless you cheat and arm them, which turns the mission into a joke) and the engineers are required to complete the mission, as they're the ones needed to operate the computers. Even Save Scumming can only help so much. The second half of the mission, however, becomes significantly easier if you know that sending a unit to the room at the very bottom of the map filled with Mammoth tanks will give you access to Tanya.
  • Allied Mission 13. This time, you have to manage two teams to plant explosive charges on power generators scattered throughout an underground facility. There are fire towers in the way which only the engineers can disable at specific spots. Once again, spies are dead weight, but the worst part of this mission compared to Mission 10 is that you don't have access to Tanya.

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