Building is an underestimated skill that many think is easier than tanking. Who hasn't seen a pro write ''building is for noobs who cannot tank'' ? The way i see it, anyone who says that hasn't achieved the supreme skill of building yet. Even though i agree that a super pro tanker will beat a super pro builder in 1v1 on many maps but there are a bunch of maps where a pro builder has the opportunity to beat a pro tanker who can't build (hjk6 and v3 rashowdown for example only to name a few). So In my opinion being a pro tanker isn't enough for being a legend in redalert your building skill should be as good as your tanking.
Being a Pro builder isn't just learning an effective building order but demands strategic thinking, good timing and experience. There are quite a few different build orders but they only differ at the very start.
a) CY'ing with 1 war
b) CY'ing with 2 war
c) CY'ing with 3 war
CY'ing with 1 war factory:
Is in many situations helpful if the map is small and the enemy can rush you so early with 3-4 tanks that you don't have your first tesla ready by the time he arrives. Note that after you stop his first rush attack to build the 2nd war factory right away because CY'ing up on 1 war factory isn't a solution on the long run.
CY'ing with 2 war factories:
is the most common way and most people use this. It doesn't mean that this is the best method. Remember a true PRO doesn't have a one formula for everything, you need to understand that timing is so important in Redalert and that you should learn all possible methods then use the one that suits the game situation the best. When you CY with 2 war factories you can't afford to lose any time while placing your first buildings because each second counts, you need your tesla ready as soon as you can before the enemy makes it to your base with his first rush.
CY'ing with 3 war factories:
can be very useful in some situations and maps. I don't recommend to build the 3d war factory right after selling the service depot. A better way is to make a tesla at start and see if you're getting rushed, if the enemy gave you some time and was a little late with his rush or is building then you make a quick 3d war factory to speed up your process of CY'ing fully up (10 CYs for max building speed).
These are the 3 most common Build starters. 1) However to become a pro builder you need to be good at choosing the right method for the right situation and to become FAST and GOOD at it. This is only the start remember that in a game when one is building usually it will turn to a long game. 2) The second skill you need to become a pro builder is to understand and learn the Key elements of building and 3) You need to learn how to proceed from there on in order to win the game. Most newbies who want to learn building get stuck here, they get the build right but discover they have no f*cking clue what to do next. It is of great importance to have a plan and i'll talk more in about this. In the next section i will discuss the key elements that one needs to learn to become a pro builder and after that a plan how to proceed after your startup build on 'limited money maps' and 'unlimited money maps'.
Key elements of Building :
1) Teslas
Tesla Positioning: The most powerful weapon of a builder. Teslas damage tanks and when you have enough they can stop any rushes and tank attacks. Its important to place the Teslas at the right position and not put them too close to each other. They should be apart so that when the tanks finish killing one, they need to drive to shoot the next one, in this period of time the tesla will have time to shoot the tanks. Also when the enemy shoots a tesla and you're placing a new one, don't place it next to the one he's shooting! put it somewhere where the tesla will still reach him but he can't reach. So i hope you're starting to get the idea by now. Another good way of defending with tesla is to put it behind other buildings, the enemy's tank will get scattered if he passes through the buildings to attack the tesla and he will do less damage to the tesla in some cases he won't even be able to reach the tesla and he will need to kill the buildings that are blocking him first so in that time your teslas would have done a lot of damage to his tanks. When defending your partner's CY on a 2v2 on P4 put ur first tesla behind his CY a little bit south if possible, in my experience this is one of the best spots at start because it is close enough to shoot enemy tanks and will not only defend partner's CY but also some of his war factories. Notice though that the enemy will now start shooting other buildings for example your partner's war factories that are placed at some position the tesla can't reach or they will try to outQ your partner's tanks and then it will be easy to kill your teslas, so your job as a builder is to get to a front position and start placing the new teslas next to your partners tanks and protect the front buildings.
Shifting Teslas: When Tesla fighting, a pro builder will use several teslas and command them to shoot a target at the same time, this way the target will get hit by several Teslas and destroyed quicker. This is very useful in Tesla fights, you select 2-3-4 Teslas and shoot the enemy Tesla with them.
To do this you click on the first tesla, hold down the shift button and click on all the teslas you want to group then you can release the shift botton for example click tesla1, hold shift, click tesla 2, tesla 3, tesla 4. Now you have them grouped and you target the enemy Tesla. With time you will learn to be quick at tesla fighting and push the enemy till he surrenders.
Tesla south advantage: From South teslas have one square range fire advantage. So when Tesla fighting a Pro will use this advantage and push the enemy from a South position.
2) Power Supply
Its so important to have enough Power for your teslas. so i recommend always to have more advanced powers than you really need just in case the enemy attacks them. When you notice your power is barely enough for your teslas and the enemy is attacking them, cancel whatever you're building and start building powers right away. Don't place the new advanced powers where he is already shooting! put them somewhere in the back of the base where he can't reach.
3) Infantry or rocket men
To have a solid defense teslas alone won't stop a good rusher because it takes a pro only 2 tanks to kill a tesla. What u need is many infantry or rockets to support your tesla. place the infantry there where they will do most damage to the rushing tanks. Remember to scatter them when tanks try to smash them
4) Scouting
Scouting is a must for every player its so important for the builder to have a view over the map if possible on all 4 corners, the mid and the sides. The reason is to find out if the enemy is building or tanking and if he's tanking to see where he is coming from to attack you and to focus your defense there before he reaches you. Most of the times you will notice if you see any tanks near his base when you managed to scout him or when his tanks are trying to squish your grenadiers thats a sign that he's tanking. Another reason to scout the map is for taking control over the map ore/gems in limited money maps.
5) Money management
When you're building you need good money because a solid defense is expensive. I recommend to make an ore truck at the very start. On unlimited ore maps a good time to build the second ore refinery is after you are fully built. On gem maps the second ore refinery must be built sooner a good general rule is that don't let your cash get lower than 2000-3000 so when your cash gets low around that margin do the second ore refinery. If you're total newb there are some tutorial on this site about money management, read them first.
6) Engenieers
I know you're nodding your head and i have to disappoint you if you thought building is easy. Building isn't something for lazy people and if you chose building over tanking thinking its easier than you should rethink your options again. So in order to defend the enemy attack beside tesla and infantry you need to save your important buildings with engineers. Something pro's like to do is to put a few engineers next to the CY, Tesla and Ore refinery. Once you know which building the enemy is going to attack you get your engineer ready and tell him to repair that building. Remember to repair teslas with engineers. It takes time to master the engineer skill but it is for me one of the most important skills in this game.
7) Repair
Repairing your buildings is so imporant. Most of the times your engenieers won't even make it in time to fix your building if you dont repair it first ! I cant stress enaugh how important it is that you have the repair key prepared to repair the building the enemy is gonna shoot. Repair Teslas, CY's, Powers, Ore refinerys, even silos! By repairing you dont only save the building but you gain time, the more time you have the more you can invest in your defense and building teslas. Use the hotkey 'T' for fast repair, every pro builder should use this hotkey for fast repair.
8) Sell
Not only to piss the enemy off, when the building he's shooting is almost dead, you should sell it right away. This will give you money that you will need in many maps to re-invest in new teslas and building. Specially a CY is a building that will give you lot of cash when sold. Selling buildings is also important when the enemy destroyed the builder's ore refinery and he has no money to build a new one. Its so important you sell the buildings you need the least in this situation. Do this fast and build a new Ore refinery! Dont sell the teslas if you're getting rushed! Sell a cy instead and a war factory for example. In other situations when your base defense is solid and your ore refinery gets migged, dont sell CY'S in this case, Sell the buildings u need the less for example the extra teslas you have. Use the hotkey 'Z' to sell a building.
9) Bookmarks
Based on popular belief, many players think that Bookmarking is only useful for tankers. WROOONG! A pro builder would use a bookmark on his war factory for example to CY up, and a second bookmark where his defense is happening. This will increase the speed of defending and the speed of deploying his CYS. An other example would be to put a bookmark in the back of the base to build Power supply there and bookmark 2 where he is doing defense. On maps like p4 the builder would expand to the enemy's base and use the second bookmark for example on that area to switch between CYng and expanding towards the enemy.
a) Bookmark1 on War factory - Bookmark2 on Defense area
b) Bookmark1 on Back of your Base - Bookmark2 on Defense area
c) Bookmark1 on War factory - Bookmark 2 Towards enemy Base (In this example you will have to re-setup bookmark2 everytime you get a little closer to the enemyBase when building towards him)
10) Map Scroll
Although Bookmarks are a must, replacing them over map scroll is a big mistake. Because when using bookmarks you don't see what's going on over the whole map. Its very important to look and scroll around the map to see if the enemy is attacking you and how far he is from your base. This is very crucial at the beginning to see if the enemy is coming to rush you, with how many tanks and from which side. With that information you can place your Tesla at the correct position and use your infantry and tell them to move where they are needed.
11) Offensive/Passive play
What many unexperienced builders do wrong and don't know is the passive role they get stuck in. Defending is so important but spending the whole game in a passiv state only keeps you at distance of achieving your goal of winning the game. As a builder you should play an offense style, trying to enter the enemy base or to make him weak by pushing with teslas and tanks/v2s. Its bad though to get too offensive and to ignore the defense as a good opponent doesn't like to be pushed around the whole game and will try to attack and get into your base aswel. A Pro builder will learn to switch between Offensive and Defensive play using bookmarks. I'd recommend a 60%-40% balance (Offense-Defense).
12) Tanking
Once you have successfully defended the first/second attack, your base is secure and you are fully built, you should start tanking. You should decide now what units are most suitable for your situation: V2s, Heavy Tanks or Mammoths. Build them at max production speed!
V2s: Basically once a builder is fully built (Sometimes before that) he will make more factories till he has 5 of them and start producing v2's at max speed. V2's are good in long games and a builder should only start building them if his defense (Teslas and partner tanks) is solid enough to defend the enemy tanking attack. Otherwise its better to produce heavy tanks in situations when you are defending in a 1v2 situation or your partner has lost many war factories and doesn't have enough tanks to defend with your teslas. However when you know your Teslas and partners tanks can handle the attack of the enemy you should do v2s before the enemy does them, this will give you advantage in a long game since you can push early when the enemy didn't stabilize yet or is starting to CY up.
V2s shouldn't be placed too near to enemy teslas and in a tesla fighting game you should always move your V2s to the best position where they can reach enemy teslas. I see so many players build v2s but just park them in the back of the base or near the war factory without using them. A Pro builder knows exactly where to put the v2s and when to move them and when not. A good way to shift v2s is to bring them to the area you're tesla fighting and once they're there you should select them all and hit the ''S'' button. This will avoid your front v2s getting too close to enemy Teslas and getting zapped. After the front v2's have the best possible position to shoot, you can select the v2s that are behind and bring them closer to the v2s in the front to keep them compact.
Heavy Tank: specially when Hybrid building heavy tanks are the best choice, but in some situations also when doing a full build (10 CYS). As i mentioned earlier when the teslas can't stop the enemy attack alone and you have not stabilized or your partner's tanks aren't enough to stop the enemies then you should make heavy tanks instead of v2s.
Mammoth Tanks: Mammoth tanks are powerful and in my experience a good weapon when playing against an allies. They are not only good to defend air attack (Helis) but are far stronger than medium tanks. I've found mammoth most useful in 2v2 games against two Allies. I don't recommend Mammoths in a long 1v1 or 2v2 game against soviets unless the enemy is tanking aswel and you have some advantage over him. The downside for Mammoths is that you need 12 war factories for maximum production speed, plus mammoths move very slow on ground.
13) Speed
Something all Pro's agree on is that he who builds the most units the fastest wins. This is also true for a builder. The builder must be fast in defense and in getting fully built. Another thing he must be fast at is his tank production (v2s) when in a long game. Generally many tankers are very fast producers in the first 10 to 20 mins of a game but the longer the game gets the weaker their production. The builder is a master in not only short games but in long games aswel. For a builder the fun really begins when the fun stops for tankers. When the game turns to a long game the builder will show his strength in indurance. As a pro builder you gotta outproduce the rest of the players in a long game. This is a skill that will take the most time to develop but with time and practice every committed builder will get there.
14) Iron Curtain & Nuclear bomb
those two buildings are essential in every pro 2v2 but also in 1v1. The Atomic bomb is used by many pro's to destroy the enemy's v2s in a long game or his Advanced power. The iron curtain serves for a similar purpose but its not only limited to that. So basically you place a tesla near the enemy's v2's and put the iron curtain on the Tesla before the v2s shoot it, this will make your tesla live longer and kill many enemy v2s. You can also use the Iron curtain once you enter the enemy base put it on one tesla and proceed crawling in. You get the idea.
15) Chinook
In a Chinook attack the builder may use engineers to capture the enemy's building and aggressively destroy his CY's and ore refineries with teslas. When they capture the enemy's building some pro's also aim at the enemy's Power supply in the back of the base and once the enemy notices that he's being attacked its very hard for him to defend due to low power supply. Many use the Chinook engineer attack as a last resort to turn a loss into a win but it can be used successfully way earlier in a game. A builder should be aware that other builders like to use this powerful technique aswel and therefor prepare a solid defense against chinook attacks. Typically a player who hasn't been noticeable in game for a few minutes is preparing a chinook attack therefor a chinook master will prepare the chinook attack bit by bit and minimize his absence in game to remain unnoticeable.
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So now with all this information you need to learn by applying this in your game and by watching the pros. Dont worry though im not leaving you clueless and will give you some ideas how to proceed when you're fully built.
1) on Gem maps:
a) Long term goal : Your long term goal is to get in control of the gems in the map, because the player who has the most money will win in a long game.
b) Actual goal: So with your long term goal in the back of your mind (and it is has priority) you need to try to win the game earlier by defending the enemy attack and countering. Your goal is to make the opponent weaker bit by bit or by crushing him with one strong counter. It depends how strong the enemy is and how failed his rush attack was. Builders aren't necessary pro tankers but a Pro builder should learn to produce tanks like a tanker and use these to supplement his teslas because defending your base the whole game won't make you win.
A combination of the long term goal (Money&map control) and short term goals (successful defense, countering and pushing the enemy) are an essential strategy for every pro builder. Whatever is done in the game is to accomplish this goal.
Note that if the other player is building too than you should spend as little time as possible at the start on defense and focus instead on being offensive.
2) on Infinite money maps:
Those maps are a lot easier for building and the basic idea is simple. Push push push !
depending on what map you're playing, i ll take p4 as an example to illustrate how to proceed once you're fully built.
once the enemy's rush has been stopped. the next step to take is to build toward's the opponent's base and push as hard as you can. make sure your tank/v2 production is at max speed. As you move forward with Advanced powers toward the enemy once you're close enaugh you should start tesla crawling to weaken the front player. Another option is to enter their base from north. Which ever suits better the situation. there are two ways of winning:
a) you push the enemy so far behind till you reach his ore refineries and cy's then finish him.
b) you sneak into his base without him noticing (or notices too late) and kill his cy's + ore
you'll want to try both.
Remember this guide doesn't cover every single aspect in depth. Part 2 of this tutorial should be part of another guide maybe but the basic ideas of it should give your imagination a boost ;-).Building is such a highly individual skill that making more general assumptions is tough. However, the general ideas and elements of pro-building should be more clear by now.
Good luck.
Mafia (originally posted on 22/2/2017)
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