The Prisoner's Dilemma and RTS Balancing (Red Alert 3) | Game Design Analysis

[@xyhc-cnc]

Some additional points since this video is blowing up: Arguments can be made that soft counters allow countered units / builds to still maintain a tactical viability even when countered (so that the outcome depends on which side makes less mistakes, micros better, and the specific scenario), whereas hard shut-downs could suck the fun out of a match-up. However, on a macro, strategic level, not being able to hard counter something that’s immediately game-ending is certainly problematic. A quirk with many Allied builds is that when improperly countered, such builds don’t simply subject the opposing side to a setback - Rather, they can kill their opponent straight up (It’s why Cryocopters are especially frustrating to go against and makes you feel utterly powerless when a counter isn’t fully prepared; Also think Turret pushes and Javelin laser lock). Then comes the “fun” aspect of the game: Cheese builds are called “cheese” for good reasons - The general playerbase doesn’t enjoy going against such builds. When it comes to “commit to the exact soft counter or die”, a cheese build takes away the defender’s agency / freedom of choice almost entirely. While on a high skill level (where people are capable of carrying out soft counters perfectly), the win rates may be “balanced”, such a “balance” certainly comes at the expense of a perceived fairness. (Hence, Nash Equilibrium is generally deemed undesirable for a competitive game.)

[@thibs2837]

I think the stats at the beginning show clear the allied as clear Inners ^^ The % of wind on each maps

[@ImaginaryNumb3r]

Do you follow Starcraft 2? Recently, a Terran build has created exactly the same against Zerg, where you open up with 2 Command Centers and you only leave your opponent bad options from here on out. You get rushed? -> It's easy to defend if you depot-wall. You don't get rushed? -> Surpass the Zerg in economic might. I 100% and completely agree that you need multiple ways to punish an enemy build and have some sort of counterplay. Why do I know this? I'm the creator of the One Vision mod for Kane's Wrath. I talk from painful experience.

[@suddenllybah]

basically, counters exist to allow you invest less in a build to defeat another. ... and I don't think you can get away with building just one hard counter unit against infinite the thing it hard counters. (even if it's a air unit against enemies that can't attack air, they can easily splash a few of the air counters to kill your unit, or they just ignore your damage.)

[@greatoztv4200]

To some degree or another, cheese builds need to exist, provided they're counterable without over-committing to defense because otherwise, another faction may legitimately just have an overall stronger or easier to play mid/late-game. Not to mention the psychological aspect. There's also the implication that if a cheese build fails or doesn't get enough damage, the cheese player is behind in something, whether it be tech (can't defend a specialized counterattack), economy (the longer the match goes, the worse it gets), or army value (can't defend a brute-force counterattack).

[@greatoztv4200]

@@ImaginaryNumb3r Which TvZ build? 3CC builds are usually done by Terran because Terran doesn't think they can get enough economic damage done with a 2CC opening and are more confident in the later stages of the game. Zerg can very easily out-greed Terran. Many Zerg builds also often make blind counters to common Terran openings such as extra Zerglings or Spore Crawlers.

[@sovokus3022]

So. I watched entire video and left two comments. What can I say? You deserve your grade, that's for sure. You helped me in understanding of balancing from actual developer perspective, something I truly need to hard punish infantry spam in my map. Also, this is one of the most helpful video I have ever seen in KZbin apparently (no jokes). And you also popularly explained why games die, and why RA3 is "fair and balanced". Also now I get why I don't really want to play against pros, but if I want to learn - I must. Thanks for such great content throughout these years.

[@xyhc-cnc]

cool, thanks for watching!

[@sovokus3022]

Thanks to you!

[@sovokus3022]

(if only I could sleep now, 05:46 AM after all...)

[@xyhc-cnc]

@@sovokus3022 oh no

[@xyhc-cnc]

@@sovokus3022 Try imagining a story in your head where you are a main character. It's an infallible trick for me to fall asleep with

[@OneSybert]

Amazing video! Well thought through and put together! This feels like the first properly nuanced explanation of the "allies op" outcry that is often seen. Most other explanations I've read are surface level and not accurately describing RA3's balance. Also, super interested to see your balance mod played out in some matches.

[@namngo2165]

Balance mod made by a real game design specialist would be great (at least I want to see more Empire units got used) I'll be sure to watch those matches if possible ^^

[@MrDrury27]

This reminds me a lot of the "What is Balance" video by the Team Fortress 2 youtuber HiGPS. He illustrated the same problem using a variant of Rock Paper Scissors with only two elements as an example. If you can only choose between Rock and Paper, picking Rock never makes sense as you can at best draw and at worst lose, where with Paper you can at best win and at worst draw. Playing against Allies often feels like being a Rock player in this situation - assuming you and them are of equal skill, staying alive is the best outcome you can hope for, and winning is more a matter of the Allied player making a mistake than you outplaying them at their best. AFAIK HiGPS isn't a trained game designer (and it shows, no hard feelings), so it's pretty interesting to see this phenomenon examined through the more holistic lens of game theory.

[@Blox117]

allies is overpowered because yall play the game wrong.

[@Blox117]

imagine half your argument is "everyone who doesnt agree with me is a noob, also i made up a bunch of math and put it on a curve and i looked at game theory on wikipedia"

[@Voron2115]

@@Blox117 woah everyone play in that game for 14 years straight in wrong way so they didnt come up with idea how to deal with allies to get at least 50 on 50% win rate 1vs 1 . Also told that for top players who say that cryogedon if just broken. Same abilities was removed from SC2 for example for being op.

[@Kronosfobi]

@@Blox117 You can cross-examine RA2 and RA3 to see the problem. In RA2, Allies *are* the strongest faction. Rocketeer spam is usually the way to go. Their Prism's are the only artillery in the game that can instantly destroy buildings, do splash damage to units, slow down said units, and cant be countered besides killing them. Meanwhile Russian V3's rockets are relatively easy to dodge and can be shot in the air. Their Infantry and artillery game are top notch. They also have two broken structures in the game. One of them is called ''Spy Sat'' which uncovers the entire map, constantly. The other is the ONLY BUILDING in the game that is made to counter that technology. And both are exclusive to allies. HOWEVER, despite these advantages RA2 balance at least gives you a chance to fight them. Flak trucks for example (RA2 versions of Bullfrogs) deal tremendous amount of splash damage to Rocketeers. Terror Drones (RA2 versions were a menace, RA3 versions are not as big of a threat) could drop your army to half in a minute if allowed to. Siege choppers were both airborne AND artillery units that was more effective to use than V3's. Soviets also in the game had the upper hand in navy with their infallible squids. Yuri (RA2 version of the mutually hated enemy) had outright a different playstyle. RA2 by the time it got Yuri's Revenge (despite the faction being strong) had way more balance between Allies and Soviets than RA3 ever did, both Uprising and original included. Your argument here was merely an annoyance, you didnt even make any points to counter the video. Have fun with all that salt mate.

[@Blox117]

@@Kronosfobi soviet tanks is also much better than all allied tanks. wow so OP!

[@ydp868]

One point I'd like to make is the problem of special abilities. In RA3, some units have special abilities that actually 'do things' and have huge impact on the battlefield, as opposed to units that have second abilites that just give flat stats or do nothing at all. And most of the good, game-changing special abilities (blackhole armor, shrink ray, emp etc) are on Allied units. Allied units are so versatile precisely because of these specials, while Soviet and Empire units have very boring abilities that do very little. This is especially true if you compare the tier 3 units of each class. Soviets are supposed to rule the land and Empire the water, but in reality Allies beat them on both land and water because Allies' tier 3 units all have super impactful special abilites while Empire and Soviet don't have any. Black hole armor and EMP missile can single handedly decide the flow of a battle; naginata's torpedo ability and shogun's charge are extremely clunky abilities that might as well not exist due to how difficult it is to use them effectively. Similarly, on land the utility of Athena's aegis shield and mirage tank's cloaking field are miles ahead of soviet v3's aoe missile toggle and apocalypse's useless tractor beam. Sure an army of apocs will beat an army of mirages head on, but who will actually engage like that in actual play? Athena and mirage are much better as a late game army in combination with infantry than soviet units ever could be.

[@Ricardo7250]

Imo it was kinda stupid for the devs to try to balance factions based on land, air and water. What they should have looked at, instead, was the power climb and how well the factions can handle each stage of the game. There would be no problem and making Allies T3 OP if the climb to get there was steeper, but what we got was Allies being able to set the pace of the game from the start with their rush builds. Meanwhile, why isn't Soviet early game stronger? Seems to me that should have been their whole point. Empire could have been the best T2

[@vladimirtchuiev2218]

As a disclaimed, I haven't played RA3 beyond the campaigns, so I can't directly comment on the balance of the game. What I did play is Starcraft 2, and I must say, while you focused on the problem of specific counters to specific builds, its not that of a big issue per-se, but the second part that after countering you only equalize the game. Zerg is the most reactive of the 3, but Zerg needs to be kept in check in all times or they will over-run you either with crushing economy + numbers or by fielding many devastating high-tech units and a forest of static defenses so that becomes more of a dynamic of the Zerg trying to get and keep it's golden economy and Protoss /Terran trying to disrupt as much as possible via harassment and/or timing attacks. To compare it to RA3, instead of giving more counters to each army, I think it may be better to strengthen the mid-late game options of the other armies.

[@xyhc-cnc]

Very interesting implications. Thanks for the insight!

[@greatoztv4200]

I also play Starcraft 2 and completely agree.

[@realah3001]

Ew st*rcraft fan

[@1InVader1]

Imo most of the problems with cheese in RA3 come down how low economy the whole game is. Getting an expansion in RA3 is insanely high risk and effort compared to SC2 and because the 2 starting mines is all you have by the time the opponent comes for you, losing even one is critical - not just the mine, but the harvester as well. The entire worker line is 1 unit, and if it dies, your income goes from 100% to 50% instantly. This would require a way more substantial rework of RA3 than just rebalancing the units/adding new ones, but I think it would lead to a lot more manageable game to balance in the longterm as well. One-shotting production buildings with crypcopter+vindicator is another problem, idk what to do about that. Usually in other games this kind of cheese requires commitment from the enemy and if it doesn't work out, they're way behind in economy and development, because they spent all their money on the cheese. Since the cryocopter requires tier 2 + battle lab, they can switch to producing other Tier 2 units any time (and most of them are powerful). It would probably also be a good idea to separate these upgrades like in Blizzard games, so that you can't easily switch builds. Allies have 1 upgrade tier almost for all units (+ battle lab). With Empire the tank and infantry upgrades are separated, so there's some level of commitment required there. In fact allies have this kind of flexibility even on the units themselves - guardian tanks are so good they're still a key unit with the laser even in super-late game, just like cryocopters. A lot of these units fit into a supporting role in any build, other RTS games don't have this.

[@harrylee9289]

I was a Soviet player and spent 8 years hanging around pvp section of this dead game. I'm glad that someone debunk the key point of RA3 balance issue. I always say that 95% of the game Allies player could win if they made a right decision at a right time. Others only wining chance is to wait for Allies player to make mistakes. Well, 5% of the totally matches I played, or view were excellently performed where Allies player did nothing wrong but still lost. Like you know, to me it's 5%.

[@Khaybar007]

Very well done as always.

[@kakoiniksvoboden]

I'm so glad an actual game designer has a look at this game. I love it and want it to prosper and completely agree, that it needs some changes, in order to survive another decade. The video itself is also top, with all those examples from actual games. Big like!

[@Marinealver]

Prisoners Dilemma is best interaction with only one on one encounters. If you really want to study the interactions with groups of players look up Wizzards Duel sometimes called 3-way duel or truel. But often when it comes to faction balancing, it sort of boils down to Faction Calculus which sort of reduces to no more than 5 balanced Factions with other Factions taking on either a heavier or lighter role of one of the 5, or by splitting up the branches of the faction such as making one side have heavier air units while another faction that would be a mirror if it weren't for a swarm style air units.

[@sovokus3022]

1:06 I actually catched this issue in my own "game" (custom map for Warcraft 3). If I will grossly oversimplify, one player turned one unit into complete disaster, that I can't patch for literal days (and yes, development of custom map in WC3 needs much less time, so in fact I don't really know what to do now since there is 100% WR strategy that you can always use. Even cryo rush isn't so oppressing). So yes, this statement is completely true and I can say it from my own experience. P.S. Sorry for littering comments

[@sourcerpanman]

I freaking love this video as it's so amazingly well put together.... but it also means a lot of statistical adjustments for the game I am currently building.... thank you so much!

[@torchictwentyone]

I have never thought about red alert 3 so deeply in my life

[@Templarfreak]

this is a very well-thought-out video, and for the most part, i agree with everything except how you break blanace down into the proactive player is always going to be the strongest and more overpowered. while, yes, one faction in any RTS being the best at being proactive can cause problems, it does not inherently always do so. making a faction more proactive than another is an explicit design choice one can make as a means to differentiate the factions and make a wider variety of how the game is played. in the case of RA3, it does do the opposite. but it does not always do the opposite. StarCraft: Brood War is an excellent example of this, with Zerg Mutalisk timings against Terran. Terran has several different options to *react* to this *proactive* move of the Zerg, and each of them has different strengths and weaknesses. however, if the Zerg *does not* do this, the Terran actually has a much easier time deciding on what they should do, because, generally, the Marine/Science Vessel combo is objectively the strongest against Zerg. due to Mutalisks, you can decide to make Missile Turrets, Valkyries, or Goliaths, instead of Marines, and by doing so you provide a basis for your infrastructure to switch between different tactics more quickly and easily, you do not *have* to go for Marines to counter the Mutalisks, and if you did, then you'd likely have a harder time switching your tactics on the fly, and, indeed, we do actually see that in BW, Terrans that put a lot of investment into bio have a harder time switching to mech, but Terrans that build up to and invest in different air counters can still reflect the mutalisks and then have infrastructure to provide that option to switch. to be clear: the Zerg for the early stages of the game are still *100% in control* of the game, they have the vision, they have the map control, they are forcing the Terran to react with anti-air, they have almost every control-based factor in their favor. and yet despite having this proactive grip, Terrans are often the ones that leave the early stages of the game with the upperhand. now, why do i say that about the infrastructure? well, Valkyries and Goliaths require an Armoy, and Armories are where you get your Mech-related upgrades. Goliaths take Factories and Valkyries take Starports. by going Goliaths, you build Factories and an Armory or potentially two, and now you have provided your mech with a light production basis. if you go Valkyries, you are still providing some infrastructure basis for mech. going Valkyries does also mean you are providing a technological basis for Marine/Vessel as well, so, even by doing Valkyries, if you DO want to stick to the best plan then you have actually also set up some infrastructure for that. why is that important? because we do indeed sometimes see Terrans do a major tech switch from the Marine/Vessel style into the mech style, even though the Marine/Vessel style is stronger and they may even have the basis of infrastructure to fully-commit to it. this switch ends up allowing Terrans to take a major proactive advantage against a Zerg, because Tanks and Vultures with Spider Mines takes a very different approach that a Zerg may not have their own infrastructure available to respond to than Marine/Vessel does. Zerg has already invested into a Spire, but a Spire is not very useful against Mech. so now they have this infrastructure that isnt contributing anything for them. so as you can see, despite this more proactive nature that the Zerg has for the early-game, it ends up being that later on Zerg actually ends up more on the backfoot and having to end up playing more defensive. even if the Terran does go for the Marine/Vessel style, it can be very difficult to keep the pressure on the Terran instead of on you. even though Vessels definitely do have a lot of very strong counters, that the Zerg already has the infrastructure for, it can be a very tricky composition to deal with. and, ultimately, if a Zerg simply leaves a Terran completely alone, they will almost always go for that Marine/Vessel composition. this ends up making a much staler game and will always give the Terran the proactive advantage from that point forward. and, really, we get down to what an RTS game is closer to at its core. always vying for the proactive lead. in ANY RTS game, taking a proactive lead and making your opponent have to react to you always give you a distinct advantage, no matter what. but in an idealized RTS game, when the game is relatively equal, or even decently in the favor of the proactive player, there are options for the reactive player to turn the game around and become more proactive. it DOES come down to, yes, needing proper counters in your game. *however,* breaking it down into it being counters vs a proactive faction being the reason that faction is stronger or not is not really the full picture, here. a faction can be more proactive, still have counters, and still be stronger, or be proactive, not have counters, and still be weaker. realistically, i think it just cant be broken down into this simple basis. proactiveness, in an ideal situation, only really determines who is controlling the pace of the game, and not necessarily who the stronger or more overpowered faction is. like i said, everything else about the video is definitely very good, especially the proposed balance changes, there is frankly no reason why these tech paths should be so restricted for Soviets and Rising Sun tbh, and i dont have any real concern about them design-wise. Archer Maidens in particular were a much-needed addition with Uprising for very similar reasons that you propose, as they give very much-needed early anti-air that Rising Sun pretty much entirely lacked otherwise. if im understanding right, they STILL dont really give Uprising good early AA though? which is a pretty big shame, but the idea on paper i really liked about Uprising.

[@suddenllybah]

So it sounds like Allies don't actually have to commit to any particular build. So you can bluff one thing, and then build its counter's counter.

[@minhducnguyen9276]

That's Because their units often have dual purposes. And this is because they have such powerful abilities that make them worth almost as much as two units. Riptide is a troop transport but it also has very high DPS for the cost. Guardian tanks had mid tier damage and mid tier armor but they also have a laser designator that can boost the damage of allied on painted targets. This means if any of these units failed at one role they can still serve in another role making the switch between builds a breeze. Not even empire can match them in this level of flexibility. Because while tengus can change between air and ground mode they are still in essen damage dealers that specialized against light armor, having more of them just means you have more DPS and that has diminishing returns.

[@Operbot]

I like when someone meddles with game theory and applies it to real world situations. Good job, mate

[@ThatOneMan830]

This vid popped up in my vid, and man, the first time back to this channel in a long time and wow. This was super intriguing to see and even a bit vindicating because of how I once asked under one of your vids about why cryocopters and the like weren't banned from tournaments. The balance patch you're making sounds like it may give a huge shakeup, the kind the game will need.

[@ProtonCannon]

Red Alert 3 Turns 14 years old. Oh god... I am so old.... AHEM Thank for the video man really good to see someone explain this in such a deep level. I am really REALLY rooting for your balance patch to be a success!

[@tauIrrydah]

Reminds me of Starcraft 2, when I started multiplaying with a friend years ago, I quickly realised how completely outclassed I was having not memorized the 'perfect' openers.

[@somacruz10]

That's why I don't like sc2 competitive

[@The-jy3yq]

It's mostly about macro doesn't matter how well you microed that Reaper and how many workers you've killed if you have the same 12 SCVs at home with only Barracks as your infrastructure About cheeses: they're kinda unfair in that case But if there were no cheeses every game would just devolve into capital ship battles or the Siege Tank warfare straight out from SC1 (which has even worse examples of cheese(4 pool -30 MMR kekeke)) also doesn't really matter if you've got your perfect opener if you don't know what you're doing a solid plan with a lot of place for maneuvering and a solid realisation of said plan makes up for an easy win Of course you could just go Void Raying or Cannon rushing or Stalker pushing or Siege Tank pushing every game, but where's the fun in that? come on, try something new just don't forget to pre-plan that new thing

[@razorback9999able]

Protoss cheese is so unfair to fight against. Going for macro, but forgot to scout? One cannon rush and it's GG.

[@khanlikestoogivebigsucc7375]

​@@razorback9999able isn't scouting supposed to be a thing you always do?

[@minhducnguyen9276]

​@@razorback9999able The difference is a cannon rush is a huge commitment, a cryocopters rush isn't. A cannon rush requires a lot of resources committed early in the game if it's scouted and countered the protoss players take a massive hit to the economy making them vulnerable to counterattacks. A cryocopters rush even if repelled doesn't leave the players vulnerable to counterattacks. Allied air units are so versatile they can be used for both offense and defense. Even the AI understands this if you cover your base with AA they'll just pull back their aircrafts after losing the first one and only target your units outside of your AA coverage. This is where you can see the difference in the game dynamic. The protoss players have to take risks with the cannon rush while with the Allied players, if they fail it just means both sides are forced into a standoff and Allied players have no issues with it because they are a late game faction anyway.

[@rektbiich4585]

I LOOOVE THIS CHANGESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Amazing suggestions. Like you said, allies arent op just because of 1 cheesy build, they r OP because they dictate the game and decide whatthe enemy will do ,and they r op because they r the only faction with answer to ANYTHING(even cryogeddon) . Other factions just dont have good answer. Athena outclass other artilery due to her versatility , making her useful not for one ,but for 2 things. Same with almost every freakin other allied unit. Their ,,bad ones'' are still decent. Like in other games- why would u pick a character that does one thing good, when you can pick one ,that does many things good , making it versatile and reactive to any situation. Its like the devs wanted allies to be the best faction

[@worsecloneeverever3780]

I mean ea is an american company so why not make the allies the best there america

[@randomguy-tu4we]

0:32 XYHC: "all three factions can win with relative consistency" Soviet: goes red for everything, even the ladder win rate

[@AlongCameASpider]

Mental Omega Balancing is kinda about opening up options as well. But because everyone has so many options Allies are actually weak in that mod because Allies doesn't have the numbers to back up their situational effectivness.

[@alexanerose4820]

Glad to see someone mentioned that mod. While I'm a soviet player , Foehn, or particular, Heihead with their giant robots with the Arena ability and "nuke tank", made me accept being a two timer that would willing go through hell to make them both happy

[@aloe7794]

This is an incredible video, I loved your in-depth analysis of the game's units strengths but also focusing on motives of player's in-game choices it really opens up my eyes for how balance in other rtses could be viewed as (like per say, in starcraft 2)

[@ydp868]

It's sad that Uprising ended up being such a balancing nightmare with OP units because there were some genuinely good ideas there. The archer maiden and mortar cycle deserve to be included in the base game. The gigafortress should have been a REPLACEMENT for the Psionic Decimator, as the Empire's ultimate weapon. It's a perfect fit for the Empire's unorthodox and versatile military doctrine - a superweapon that can transform and move to adapt to the situation, at the cost of being unable to hit targets from afar like the Proton Collider or Vacuum Imploder.

[@dr.robertnick9599]

So what you are saying is: Soviet and Empire are playing rock paper scissor, while the Allies are playing Tic-Tac-Toe and they always do the first move. (If you play Tic-Tac-Toe correctly, the first to move will always draw or win, if the other player makes a mistake)

[@xyhc-cnc]

Great illustration! To be more precise, Allies have the option of playing Tic-Tac-Toe, and hence a player who is serious about winning has no reason not to play the game that way (Assuming they are skilled enough to pull off these builds while making minimal mistakes. You still see players using such builds lose quite a lot, but RA3 involves so much micros that some mistakes on both sides are inevitable. It is Tic-Tac-Toe in the sense that once Allies have committed to certain builds, other players have only one possible way to survive and cannot pull any responses that'd grant the defender a definitive advantage).

[@Gurren813]

Even against the AI, Vindicators are the most annoying things ever. Every building needs AA defense or else it's just gunna get bombed to bits. Even worse is when you have complete AA coverage and you just see the Vindicators swirling around their airfield because the AI's decision to attack is based solely on "Does it have AA around it?"

[@Duchess_Van_Hoof]

Ah, the Pokémon gen 4 Garchomp dilemma. The best counter to a Garchomp was another Garchomp. And you can only hope to break even if you do not use one.

[@Ricardo7250]

This happens in Injustice 2, a fighting game where characters based on long range attacks (Dr. Fate, Starfire, Green Arrow) can keep moving back and doing these safe attacks that will charge their special meter while the opponent is forced to duck/jump over while trying to close the distance. Then, if they are too careless about geting close, Starfire/Dr. Fate... will have close range moves that are good frame-wise and will punish those attackers, linking it into a combo that can send them back once again. Games like Street Fighter counteract this problem by making zoning characters (like Guile) require holding a button for a certain amount of time before being able to do these types of moves, which makes it more unreliable as opposed to being able to dictate the direction of the match every single time.

[@atmosdwagon4656]

Takes me back to 2012 when I applied something akin to Intransitive Balancing analysis to Nethack, when I was still in University and taking Economics as an elective. My purpose was explaining the non-numerical advantages that each role possessed for their preferred strategy of Ascension, and why certain paradoxical "hard" classes had some of the best performances in Ascension races between players. Nethack is a game of risk management that is roughly broken up into four stages. (Early-Level Gambit, Mid-Level Descent, Pre-Gehenna high-Level, post-Gehenna high-Level) Normally, you have all the time in the world to effectively beat each stage of the game in order to move onto the next part, with an overarching meta-goal experienced players call "Building your Ascension Kit". This "kit" is a set of items to prepare you for the biggest challenges the game has to throw at you from the moment you go to grab the Amulet of Yendor in Gehenna. So crude efficiency in class features (which are one of the few things completely in the player's control and not RNG-oriented whatsoever) normally dictates which classes are easiest to Ascend with. However, when the game is subject to time-constraints via acing conditions, the typical "meta" classes tend to fall behind "harder/risky" classes because of specific early game gambits available to them. This is because for highly experienced players who regularly Ascend, they recognize that the early game is actually the most difficult and influential part of the game. Successfully pulling off one of these gambits enables them to play much more freely and aggressively int he mid game, which in turn, leads to better times in late game, where all classes basically play the same with little variance.

[@slowjamsliver7006]

Really highlights just how deceiving stats, and points can be if you do not fully understand the problem.

[@ultraomega2383]

Great content, intellectual and entertaining commentary about my favorite game.

[@InfiniteLegoWorks]

Thank you for producing this video. Just recently started playing CNC titles in general, but the balance education is useful for games I'm more experienced in.

[@squishymusic9723]

Very good video, and I anticipate the king sputnik mod or balance patches, I don't even play RA3 multiplayer but I religiously watch sybert and it would be new and interesting content. My own thoughts for balancing allies which I don't think is brought up much is in their later game units, I think their tier 2 and 3 units are too well rounded. Their artillery can counter support powers, their destroyer can counter any high damage micro play, and their T3 ship can shutdown any base or ground forces. From my perspective it locks down any tactics or advantages from the other teams. They either need to be altered or moved around. IMO the dreadnought could take the emp, or the apocalypse take the blackhole armour.

[@popsicleman8816]

Hard agree on allies having amazing late game. They have the easiest time reaching t3, have the best t3 artillery, best t3 tank, and 2nd best (but comparable) capital ship. Additionally, they have the best tools for dealing with enemy high tech units, in the form of cryos, athena cannons, or even vindis. Compare that to the abysmal late game of soviets. They get an artillery that can't hit anything that can move, or only do weak splash damage useful mostly to kill infantry. They get an overpriced, slow tank that almost never sees play for a good reason. They get a capital ship that again can't kill anything that moves and has 0 self defense ability (ram, emp peel by another aircraft carrier). And finally, they get a slow moving blimp that seems tailor made for feeding veterancy to enemies. It feels like whenever I see allies vs non-allies, there's an invisible counter ticking down until non-allies player has to win the game by. Granted most 1v1 games rarely get there, but it's a significant issue since it's not like allies t1 is weak. So they also now get another tool in their toolbox of just playing a slower paced game until they win with better late game units.

[@squishymusic9723]

@@popsicleman8816 I find it frustrating when you examine the individual units and each one of them has a level of OPness which would be ok in another faction, they each have their OP units that make it fun, but it feels like the allies were given such a tool box! But things like, why are multigunner turrets devastating against infantry, when they can be manned by a peacekeeper, or spy as well, and be made even more powerful as an anti infantry. It would make more sense surely that the basic turret was poor against infantry and unable to target the air, without infantry upgrades.

[@DoctorPhileasFragg]

The devs forgot to apply their philosophy of making the specialized units the best in class and the all-rounders middling, to the Allied faction.

[@tasovac975]

One thing that could use an actual change is the multigunner turret. Instead of it being just super powerful, it could have a base damage the same as a javelin, which would be half, and then the current power after you put a javelin inside. Would make plenty of sense and force Allies to diversify their army and not spam turrets.

[@somacruz10]

My nightmare those turrents. Good vs infatry and tanks and air at same time. Plus can be build safetly.

[@trazyntheinfinite9895]

Today i learned this game still is relevant..... to 5 people.

[@julianfan5794]

That is an interesting concept. I wonder if the prisoners dilemma applies to other video games, like the fighting games (smash bros, street fighter) where you get even less time to answer with the right response to whatever an opponent throws at you

[@ngkn2008able]

Looks at For Honor, yes, prisoner dilemma works there. The attacker decides how the fight will be. At least the game is improved a lot now and defender gains more than 1 way to counter.

[@Arcterran]

I remember seeing Generals also had a fairly popular community balance patch and the most drastic effect was to nerf USA rockvee spam IIRC I think i get what you are getting at with the prisioners dillemia but I want to make sure i’m understanding you correctly because I think some of that conversation dilluted your point a little, I think its valuable but I wanted to be sure I understood you correctly TL:DR High level strategy in RA 3 is effectivley a rock paper scissors game, the allies are effectively playing with all three tools at almost any given point but Empire/Soviets are only using rock and paper, especially at the early game, which is where the prisoner’s dillema strategizing comes into play (allies running Paper every time) and it limits AvE and AvS matchups in the midgame because of the nature of allies to dictate how the strategic tempo will go, had we effectively given E and S Scissors (I.E your proposal) that would at make allies not nearly as oppressive. Would that be a fair summary of what you were trying to get across or did I misunderstand you somewhere?

[@Voron2115]

Generals had even more bizare balance then RA3. USA even didnt use any other unit from their roster except for humvee and rocket solders. And thats allow they to dominate the game. What a balance

[@robbert6923]

Well done on the analysis!

[@hannabelphaege3774]

Honestly, a healthy metagame is always going to involve players bitching and moaning for a few weeks after a patch. You never really know how things will shift when a large community gets a hold of them. It's better to have a little instability than a stagnant game

[@Honzik207]

When you are talking about only one soft counter option, it reminds me of Uprising challenge mode, where in late game the tactic is Empire VX spam

[@danielsurvivor1372]

Not necessarily younglin I beat almost all Uprising challenges WITHOUT chesse. And by cheese I mean, turret/base rush, empire barracks rush, any barracks rush, any AIR Vehicles spam(besides MIGS/Apolos/Tengus to protect myself from enemy air cheese), and no Grinder spam. Yep, almost all challenges are possible with land vehicles, sea vehicles, infantry spam from your base and not by expanding barracks near enemy. And if you ask, yes by it's possible I mean it's possible to get gold medal/time in challenges without cheese. I kinda abandoned my challenge because irl stuff and I got tired of trying to use every single non cheese unit(yes I didn't just spam tsunami tanks, I spammed variety of vehicles with support vehicles or infantry)

[@Honzik207]

@@danielsurvivor1372 then I admire your skill in this game, sadly I am not good enough to beat them so Empire VX spam it is

[@Leiska86]

Something must be missing from the equation if at top skill levels Allies cannot convert their overwhelming meta advantage in the early game into a significantly higher win rate. It seems to me that a successful soft counter doesn't make the game state even, but rather non-Allied favoured at least to some extent. I cannot think of another explanation. This isn't a refutation of the claims in the video. I know very little about RA3 theory and couldn't comment on its game specific strategies anyways, but it seems to me that on a game theory level, this analysis has to be incomplete.

[@xyhc-cnc]

Agreed. I do think the ample number of non-pro Allied players are dragging the faction's win rate down tho. The statistics are from a very new server, so more reliable data can be acquired after a few months, especially after the new Allied players have gotten more practice.

[@avanishd6501]

7:08 XYHC saying sus isn't something I thought I really needed to hear

[@robertdickurkelthethird4983]

I hope you will make more of these game design vids they're amazing

[@CrumpetsNBiscuits]

This game was so good. One of my crowning achievements was finishing this whole series, together with the commander challenges, all under par time for 100%. Did it like a year ago.

[@lutajucientropija6643]

if you want see a balance version of the the cryo copter, I would suggest looking at the one in mental Omega.

[@ИванПетьков-щ3ъ]

Thank you for such deep lecture about game design! Hope cryos are only a dream and I will wake up once.

[@xyhc-cnc]

"Who knows what nightmare we have created"

[@tomas-jw9zh]

more theorys plz :(

[@zhaoyun255]

Man, I would say if the mod could include the Yuri faction, that would be so funny considering how broken Yuri's economy was. (I mean turn the Initiate into Brutes and send them to the meat grinder was one of the greatest trade off I have ever seen)

[@WonderlandGhost]

Nah man, turn your slave miners into em, they instantly respawn, the make 5 for 1250 from thr brutes, you can get like 10 in a area easily and that's a massive amount of money that Cost you just building the miners you'd already likely build

[@The-jy3yq]

Yuri was broken for other reasons Allies were all about good infantry, low tank HP, Chronoing, usage of map vision and flying units (also a red string of aggresive defence with GIs, GGIs, Grand Cannons and Prism Towers) Soviets were all about mediocre infantry(Desolators are extremely powerful though), BRUTE FORCE with tanks, le funny suicidal trucks and even more funny Terror Drones (also a red string throughout that their power(electrical) needs a while to get going (Stalin's reforms)) Whilst Yuri was all about...FUCK YOU infantry (Viruses and Brutes who are Attack Dogs that also chew through everything(albeit at a higher price)), FUCK YOU strong units (Mind Control lmao), FUCK YOU hordes of un-mind controllable units (Terror Drones are made out of paper and Robot Tanks are horrendously underpowered (pun not intended)) Oh, the money on the map is running out? Huzzah! *Warning: Genetic Mutator activated* _UAARAGH_ * sounds of Grinder * Oh, you think you're safe with your army? *BE ONE. WITH YURI* (fun fact: both Super Weapons of Allies and Soviets need a while to even do something (Iron Curtain only kills infantry which doesn't really do much) whilst Yuri has both of them working instantly (and doing much more than the Nuke or the Lightning Storm(either high damage on connecting buildings or a mind control of up to 9 units) or just being a "fuck your infantry" card) Oh, you're trying to build Kirovs? Well, guess what, Yuri has _the_ best land anti-air in the entire game! (that is more than twice better in damage than his AA defences lmao) Oh, you thought that your forces are safe with your surgical strikes on Masterminds? * Construction complete. * 200 thousand Yuri Clones are ready with a million more well on the way. Navy was weird for both of the factions in og RA2 (although Soviets had it a wee bit better, Subs did more damage, Scorps were better at AA and Dreadnoughts both could defend themselves and sieged better) and then YR came out and Yuri had the ultimate fuck you ship - Boomer (ironic, isn't it?) that didn't really care about air(unless Yuri was already losing a whole lot and has let the Soviet flood the sky with airships), was better than any other unit in water engagements, shot faster moving(albeit less damaging) missiles than a Dreadnaught and was irresistable to Giant Squids invalidating it

[@zionarra853]

As a Skirmish only scrub who just fights Brutal AI 1 v 2/3 for fun. I always found the Allies to be the weakest due to how slow they take to expand their base (only 1 construction tab unless you build another MCV) and tech up (battle lab and research), i.e. they have slow 'macro'. I intuitively thought that it was similar for the competitive scene with for example. Empire being the "Zerg/Rush" faction. Quite funny to be proved wrong after watching the competitive scene and this video illustrates it succinctly.

[@ThePlayerOfGames]

Baked in subtitles! Nice!

[@Nemesis_T_Type]

RA3 is definitely the best spectator game from CnC franchise but it still boggles my mind why Uprising doesn't have multiplayer.

[@JaceTan-90]

Well said analysis. Guess that's why videos like Bryan Vahey's video with RA2 content is still appealing....

[@Cythil]

I have to say, it is nice to see that someone has the same view as me when it comes to how to balance an RTS. (Also applicable to some other games). I generally think that each action should at least have two viable counter responses. And those have two viable counter responses. This creates a dynamic game where you have to always adapt. Where the one taking action first will not always dictate the flow of the game. Naturally this is just a rule of thumb and one needs to look at how to apply this philosophy. Having also options for suboptimal counters that are less viable, but still viable, may mix things up even more. I do feel that I should study more of how designs of fighting games works, since they play around with a lot of similar concepts. It is not the sort of game I play. But they're clear similarities. Like micro is analogous to being able to pull of technical moves and doing them quickly. But the macro being how you can set up opponents in to traps and dictating the overall flow of the game. Due to how fighting games have had more experimentation and quicker iteration cycles overall, I do think the strategy field can actually learn a thing or two from it.

[@Darkademic]

Great video. I've been working on the balance for OpenRA: Combined Arms for a couple of years now, it's so much fun. It has five main factions (Allies, Soviets, GDI, Nod, Scrin) and twenty subfactions so it's a big challenge to balance and I've certainly wrestled with some of the stuff you raised here, though this definitely casts a new light on it. If you want something different to look into I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on CA, but regardless thanks for the interesting content.

[@WonderlandGhost]

What's openRA?

[@Darkademic]

@@WonderlandGhost OpenRA is an open source engine for creating RTS games like C&C. The official OpenRA download includes Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert and Dune 2000 rebuilt using the engine. Combined Arms is built on the OpenRA engine and basically merges Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert and then adds tons more stuff.

[@WonderlandGhost]

@@Darkademic that's really cool! Where can ya down load it?

[@openracombinedarms]

@@WonderlandGhost Replied before, but KZbin must've deleted it because it included disguised links. This is the CA KZbin channel, which has links to download, and OpenRA itself has a website that's easy to find.

[@WonderlandGhost]

@@openracombinedarms thank you!! That's actually really helpful and I'll check that out here soon 😊

[@sovokus3022]

4:40 literally any T4 except for Monkey King in Supreme Commander.

[@whateva1983]

omg, great video. can't wait for RA3 to receive a real rebalance after 10+ years.

[@novaman6894]

Thx, XYHC, for the video and analysis of the game's balance (or rather i say unbalance or OPbAllince =) ) My first game experience was murky, i was playing "turtle and eco, endgame in rush". Yeah, strategy is sucks but first exp'. Some years have passed, I found some guide video of yours (rush tactics, unit guide) and was like "wait, i was playing suck". Yeah, as the result, the second experience was a way better. I had never seen problems with balance before Allies' superiority in all. Vindics, Appolos and, ahhh, cryos are turning skies in some non-flying zone. Seas magically becomes the area of carriers (with air, thx that not cryos) and amphibious destroyers. I will keep silence about the land with a lot of trees. I was like "what? I'm circled (ellipsoided) in 3 dimensions!". Uprising just proved my thoughts. Thought that Allies are so OP (da, cryo? You little...cheezy scientist) Even your video approves that "ants" on seven level of minds make an opinion that cryo rush or even any other rush of Allies (that can be supposed as support of cryo rush, 'course how without it?) create a nightmare for even "game giants" (i'll keep silence 'bout "ants"). As the result: no enjoy, abondon the game. I have seen some videos of Sputnik mod (thx for video i found more other differences with vanilla as migs on tier1, for example) it is fair that every player that play non-Allies faction can come up with some new countermeasures, not to waste expensive resources for defending turrets (prepared to meet the cryo rush, fail the defences to jav-reptide rush and give up from nowhere appeared cryo) and fully attend the attention for expansions and military growing. The way better when all factions are more-like balanced in time and resource management, no early (vindic) spam but reconnaissance and small skirmishes. Thx, XYHC, for the video of vanilla's OPbAllience and commentaries below video. I'm not alone in my thoughts anymore. And remember, long live His Majesty and Excellency The Mightiest Sputnik!

[@xyhc-cnc]

Long live King Sputnik!

[@Blox117]

do you speak english? this doesnt make a lot of sense

[@novaman6894]

@@Blox117 sorry for my english, mate. I'm self-taught. That's the reason why there a lot of mistakes that created misunderstanding.

[@Blox117]

@@novaman6894 thats ok

[@MADNIKstudios]

Finally someone with a higher than room temperature IQ in the C&C Community. Maybe the subreddit has poisoned my mental image, but it is refreshing to see someone capable of performing robust analysis and adopting a nuanced position on things. Someone who clearly has a half-way decent handle on game design.

[@xyhc-cnc]

Thanks! Yeah the C&C subreddit is dumb dumb ;)

[@kanalight2898]

Very good video. Watched the whole thing and i don't even play command and conquer! (Beat the campaings twice thats about it). I love when people analyze things in games, you had teached me how to evaluate game balancing more. The prisoner dilemma was use adequately for the exposition of your point. Cheers!

[@xyhc-cnc]

thanks for watching! Did not think people who don't play competitive c&c would be much engaged. Glad to hear you liked it!

[@cleanerben9636]

This was actually a really helpful video thank you

[@RainStorm148]

though i play starcraft, i totally understand your arguments. some units have way too much value when properly mirco'ed. combined that with your faction having a wide array of early game cheeses (that may or may not be difficult to read) and sometimes you get tired of it when you're on the receiving end. especially when tech trees are different across factions. moreso if the game allows you to hide your tech structures elsewhere on the map.

[@minhducnguyen9276]

Having no unit cap doesn't help it either especially in the case of allied units when combat units often have the abilities of support or siege units. Like competitive matches often see Allied massive guardian tanks, javelin troops and peacekeepers as the core. Guardian tanks is a mid tier armor and mid tier damage tank, javelin is an anti air and anti armor infantry unit and peace keepers are highly effective anti infantry units. Combined together they are already a well rounded army but if you take their special abilities into consideration they can cover every role. Guardian tanks laser designators boost damage of every allied units on painted targets by 50% and by 100% when upgraded and the only drawback is the tanks can't fire when using them. Peacekeepers can use shields to significantly increase their armor, grant immunity to some anti infantry units at the cost of not being able to attack while moving slower and javelin can turn on their laser sight, increasing range and DPS at the cost of not being able to fire on targets for a moment between switching targets. What makes it even more op is all of these 3 abilities are toggled ability and not active ones which means they only have a brief cool down between switching modes. They are like Terran Bio on steroids. The more marines using stimpack the more energy medivacs have to spend on healing but for RA3 allied, all it cost to double the DPS of your entire blob is for a few tanks to not be able to fire.

[@DavidGuild]

You used a lot of words and I still don't think Prisoner's Dilemma applies here. RA3 is definitely a zero-sum game and PD is definitely not. I mean what does "cooperate" even mean? All the things you talked about are just different strategies . Some might be strongly or weakly dominant, or hard to scout, or whatever, but that's all normal zero-sum game theory. The essence of PD is the fact that it's non-zero, which again _doesn't apply_ here. Recall that an equivalent formulation of PD is that each player has the option to gain X value by destroying 2X value from the other player. The "dilemma" is that doing so is a global net loss, and both players end up worse off. But there's no such thing in a zero-sum PvP!

[@xyhc-cnc]

Good points. Looks like you are evaluating PD in a strictly economic sense. I don't think you can consider any RTS games zero-sum tho - One player's gain is by no means equivalent to another's loss. Also, the use of PD here is purely to examine the counter system between builds (or rather, PD / Nash Equilibrium is a counter system you don't want to end up with), and gains / losses merely represent the favorability of responses towards a specific action by one's opponent. "Cooperate" here refers to any strategy other than the one specific cheese counter, that does not result in an equal winning chance (Basically in RA3, one gets an almost guaranteed loss unless they carry out a very specific response to cheese, without having a way to punish the cheese & gain an upper hand, which is exactly what happens to your opponent in PD if you chose to "defect"). Basically, the point here is not whether the player interactions result in a drain in the economy (although clashing your armies in an RTS certainly results in a global net loss). The point is really the favorability of one's options given their opponent's choice to cheese.

[@DavidGuild]

@@xyhc-cnc I think RTS games (or any 1v1 game, really) are kinda by definition zero-sum? One player wins and one loses; you can model intermediate states as probabilities but they still have to sum to one. That's not to say there isn't some interesting game theory to examine here - there absolutely is, and I think you touched on some good points. But I don't think the PD analogy works. You'd have to posit some goal besides "winning" to get out of the zero-sum game, and that's a deep pit full of spikes and snakes and such.

[@xyhc-cnc]

@@DavidGuild I was more talking about unit trades, eco harassments, base damage, etc. Basically all the economic exchanges that lead up to the final win/loss result. But I see why you said "zero-sum".

[@Rbum4]

You left out one broken piece of lategame allied tech: cryogeddon. Activating it in the middle of an army, even when the opponent is fully prepared, spells certain death. Cryogeddon needs a flare to signal its arrival, just like so many other support power who are all on a hefty delay.

[@xyhc-cnc]

5:26

[@Rbum4]

@@xyhc-cnc oh, okay, i missed that while watching. but why "we don't talk about cryo" when cryo really needs to be talked about, if you want to balance allies? oh well never mind, already forgot the context of the video, sorry.

[@scifidino5022]

10:55 That Cryocopter pilot is an Ace Combat protagonist

[@dachi1910]

ratio + allies balanced (khay made that meme cus of what I said xd)

[@xyhc-cnc]

oh I thought Dutch said it

[@o-geeogerio3182]

The Allies (especially in RA3 & Uprising) are basically the equivalent of Gilgamesh from the Fate franchise - both have arsenals that define their OP status which let them stand out against their enemies but, because of their exploitable weaknesses, they are also far from invincible with the right opportunities given.

[@pubcollize]

Speaking of balance - your mic's quality is too low for the volume level of background music you went with.

[@Eboreg2]

That whole thing about Allies being slightly underpowered but oppressive when used right kind of reminds me of carriers in Steel Ocean. Good carrier players were incredibly oppressive but also incredibly rare. In fact my attempts to get into carrier gameplay caused me to respect a carrier player that single-handedly wiped my team instead of get frustrated at it despite the fact that getting an enemy carrier player at high tier was an almost certain loss.

[@rafaelgiangan3022]

l love how you play and discuss red alert3 bro it helps me alot keep it up bro😊

[@xyhc-cnc]

thanks!

[@ReddFiveOhOh]

I feel like I've seen this kind of game balancing phenomenon get described in a number of different ways. First time I've seen the Prisoner's Dilemma get used to illustrate it, though. I always think the term for this sort of issue is over-centralization, but I have very limited knowledge of the actual terms and mechanics.

[@customink1576]

I dont know if this was pointed out but I like that it sort of plays into the in-universe explanation as well - The Allies were being pushed back hard in the setting and by the time of the Allied Campaign we get all these neat little goodies that must've helped even the playing field by the time the Soviets were pushing into Brighton Beach. So they went for a "defect" build to give them a chance against their overwhelming opponents just so they have a fighting chance, which is why they end up winning the war. Just a minor thing I noticed.

[@otherplans427]

I've had this video in my watch later list for so long, finally watched it and found it to be really eye-opening :) I didn't like RA3 either when it launched, but I don't think I ever thought of it as a SC competitor. Most people I knew were disregarding C&C because SC is the RTS that Koreans play and because it's so balanced and all that... I bet none of those people ever considered RA3 as a serious RTS either. Kinda sad for the devs, really. All that work poured into it and people don't even notice

[@xyhc-cnc]

It is rather sad. The devs were quite invested in the game too. Fantastic game.

[@troy3423]

I don't think it's just that you have to be reactive to allied players but also that their special abilities and command upgrades are broken. The soviet magnetic satellite is trash, terror drone upgrade is meh, and the only good upgrade is at the bottom of the tree. Allies have so much cryo bs that they can freeze a refinery within 4 minutes of the game. No losses, just 1 vindicate bomb. Top to bottom, their units DPS and special abilities are drastically better than soviet and still decently better than empire

[@kasin4444]

Thanks to your vid. Now I realize that S.H.R.I.N.K. beam have its alternative title. Meme aside, this is really mind-opening and edutaining vid. Thanks man!

[@30Salt]

This is how I felt about dota 2 meta changes but honestly it keeps the game alive and I'd much prefer that than a dead game.

[@BlitkriegsAndCoffee]

A lot of your points ring pretty hollow to me here. 1) Even in SC2 - one of the most aggressively patched and esport heavy RTS games ever made - there is still often only 1 viable counter to certain builds. 2) A rushing player dictates play and forces the opponent to adapt and counter, this is not exclusive to RA3. 3) As others have noted, the winrates aren't particularly bad, far better than several far more popular games. 4) The ants and giants analogy doesn't really bear out in my experience. Most experienced players adapt within a week or two, usually a month at most. SC2 tried this for years and saw no real shakeups. More important is to have a playerbase large enough that the 'ants' can spend time learning from each other and start getting better. Creating a middle ground between the two for players to climb. I'm not even opposed to a patch, but getting user Buy-In on a community patch is damn near impossible. Sure early Docks sounds fun for Empire, but I'm also struggling to think of scenarios where they wouldn't want to open docks before WF every time then. Even less sold on Soviet Airfields coming at the same time as Allied Ones. (Soviets really just want T1 units that actually feel dangerous and fun to use) If you are going down the balance patch route and you really see these rushes as a problem why not try something more radical like moving Advanced Aeronautics to be a lvl 2 unlock?

[@cpt.mystic_stirling]

This is the conversation RA3 needed ❤❤

[@the7thsection]

I still remember when the flak troops were nerfed this hard - everyone on the ladder did flakdrops via twinblades, especially on Temple Prime back when noone ever destroyed the houses near the ref spots - people were butthurt and so the flak dude was gimped. I still find the whole situation pretty hilarious tbh

[@agustaafkalashnikov1429]

Dimonnn The Yellow Soviet : OP? Hold my vodka.. 🔥🔥

[@nicolinrucker5181]

It sounds so weird to hear that pro's don't want balance changes.

[@awawawaawawawa2321]

I just wanted to share some of my thoughts I dont think the counter model of rush, eco, turtle works as well for strategy games, for the most part, i think turtle is obsolete and not really treated as a valid strategy The main dilemma can be simplified between two choices, choosing to invest in units/structures for offense and defense, choosing to invest in upgrading (wether this means teching up, exapnding your cash flow, etc). So basically immediate battlefield control, vs future battlefield control. Invest too heavily in one and you risk getting punished. Turtling isnt really that viable a strategy since rushing kinda also counters turtle, having more units on the map allows you to better establish initiative in map control allowing you access to points of interest like oil dericks, or mines etc. as well as strategic choke points. This is also the reason why i think defensive structures arent really seen as often in competitive play especially in red alert 3 as they lack the flexibility units can offer. This coupled with other problems like having a blind side (the opponent just has to adjust there angle of attack abit and they can circumvent base defense) help incentivize more proactive approaches to combat. I also find your example of prisoners dilemma with allies interesting, im not sure i understand it very much but from the examples youve shown its clear allies have initiative in dictating the way a game goes and their opponents are just stuck playing reactively to whatever allies do.

[@xyhc-cnc]

Turtling was specifically discouraged in RA3 by design (for good reasons), hence rushing became much more prevalent here. It's the case for many other competitive RTS as well. Nonetheless, "rush eco turtle" is like RTS design 101. Turtling could also describe simply keeping your army in your base, ofc

[@benjaminparent4115]

I agree with that, in AOE2 the differences between turtling and eco simply doesn't really exist, if you "turtle", often your only way to win is to outeco your opponent with either more town center, or civilization bonus that allow you to steam roll your opponent in the end game. In reality in aoe2 "turtling" is a reaction play from a player choosing eco realising that its opponent is going to be aggressive and building defenses. Building defenses for a attack that will never come is actually a bad play, and just another way form of floating ressources. The Goth are notorious for that if you play against them you need to be on the offensive and defeat them before they reach their endgame otherwise you are toast. In high ELO match they have insane 40 minute+ win rate of 82%, yet their overral winrate is close to 50%.

[@easyyo6784]

this was a good video well done.

[@kabob0077]

0:18 The Allies absolutely TRIVIALIZE Commanders Challenge they're so OP. I can use only Aircraft Carriers and kill almost everything on the map, even the maps with tiny PONDS can have Aircraft Carriers and Assault Destroyers pumped out in large numbers.

[@kulhimmet3674]

I know almost nothing about game design but I wondered something: at 2:26 why you multiplied the Build Time with 15 and DPS with 10?

[@xyhc-cnc]

Because different stats offer different benefit values. You obviously would not simply add 100 credits and 4 seconds of build time together to represent the cost of building a character. There exists a conversion between cost and benefit values for each stat. You'd estimate that by starting with a baseline character that's straight forward (e.g. In Slay The Spire, the "Strike" card costs 1 energy and simply does 6 damage. Hence, the benefit value each damage point provides is equivalent to 1/6 energy). In my case, I chose Conscripts as the baseline, since there's minimum sunk cost / situational benefits involved with them. Conscripts cost $100 and takes 4 seconds to build, while they have 100 HP and 10 DPS. Now that you pointed it out, the formulas I got didn't push the costs and benefits of my baseline character that close. But this was done for a test so I didn't scrutinize over the exact factors to multiply each stat by. Plus, there's the massive opportunity cost where if you're building Conscript, then you're not building Bears that serve SO many purposes and excel far more at anti-infantry. So the calculation really cannot be perfect.

[@razorback9999able]

"The Allied faction is OP" Protoss: First time?

[@PerennialSash]

This was really cool.

[@areoants9453]

10:55 Explaination: the Cryocopter fell on a non-critical area, allowing him to stick the landing

[@Billy-sm3uu]

TLDR: 1. With perfect play on the main tactic branch, fractions are about balanced 2. Allies have the initiative to select tactic branch 3. Allies are high reward low risk, Soviets & Empire are low reward high risk on alt tactic branches 4. Soviets & Empire need more options

[@leoneldiaz78]

If more flexibility for sov is needed what if sov players could have their hammer tanks start with an extra weapon as soon as they leave the war factory? Just pay 1/4 the unit who's weapon you want as an extra cost (since you can already do this with a crusher crane this really just a quality of life improvement) but you need the appropriate tech first. Here's an example. Maybe the allies are doing a strange multigunner with peacekeeper/cryocopter push and you want anti armor and anti air You could build a Hammer tank with a bonus bullfrog flak turret for only $225 more Or let's say you imperial is going imo warrior and tsunami tank. You could pay an extra $250 to have your Hammer tanks to come with a stingray Tesla coil. That roughly doubles their anti armor damage while letting them one shot infantry. You would need a naval yard first though to unlock the this because you need to be at least able to build stingrays.

[@vip878]

Yo, I want to join RA3 community and play your mod so much, where can I get in contact with players?

[@xyhc-cnc]

Play the beta version here: drive.google.com/drive/folders/104BLFCvGsqC_xt8YtJl4dxC6ZcP0fXSo?usp=sharing You can find people to play with on my Discord Server. Link on channel page.

[@greatoztv4200]

Could you do a video on the balance changes of King Sputnik and what they are for?

[@nocomment3294]

great video but i my opinion calmer background music with a lower volume might make listening more enjoyable. other than love your clear and concise explanation and as a non native speaker the subtitles help me greatly.

[@Kikematamitos]

Depends of map

[@YuriYoshiosan]

APC + Zone Trooper in Tib 3/KW is like IFV + Tankbusters but better in performance (worse in price point because of tier 3 requirements)

[@SeekerMissile]

how do you even play ladder of RA3? I thought EA dropped the game.

[@tuck295q]

I think there are racial bias issue with the game in real life too. The game is made in US and the consumer base is heavily based around western countries. So guess who the fanbase has a hard on mostly to? Allies. Every balance patch took every single strongest point other two factions have. Like by the end of the game cycle, even Shogun Battleship is weaker than Aircraft carrier because people are really salty that they lose to Empire having to try to survive to tier 3. Edit: sc2 - most played race in championship league - terran RA3 Corona mod made by Chinese dev - China…. -_- Generals - Laser and superweapon generals. (USA)

[@mrtee3988]

Now all you have to do is add mysogyny and homophobia to your theory somehow.

[@atifarshad7624]

Okay, then explain why in RA2, Soviets and Yuri were the OP factions?

[@tuck295q]

@Minh Nguyễn dude, even in RA2 Allied is OP. Aegis, prison tank, battle fortress. The only faction that somehow come out alive is Yuri and yet people never complain as much bc the game is not as viral in the esport media as much as 10 years ago. In SC2, guess which faction is most OP. Terran. Closest to human so why not.

[@tuck295q]

@@atifarshad7624 To be fair, RA2 is not as popular esport or go in social media as much as said Starcraft and starcraft 2. So guess which faction most pro play the most in championship league in SC2? Terran. And then there’s a Corona mod, guess which faction is OP. China. 🤣

[@atifarshad7624]

@@tuck295q you clearly haven't seen RA2/YR being played at pro level. Yuri is easily is the most OP faction in YR and Allied vs Yuri is the most imbalanced matchup. Watch some pro games from cncnet ranked ladder and then you will see

[@spikethedragon341]

one key, Allied Air forces are too cheap, and comes too early Everything else involving non air units is generally fine.

[@atifarshad7624]

RA3 might not be the most balanced rts game, but it's still hundreds of times more balanced than RA2/YR. Seriously I wish RA2 players took balance issues more seriously, because I prefer RA2 to 3 overall, although I still like RA3.

[@khankhomrad8855]

Would it be correct to say that intransitive mechanics are more evident when a game doesn't receive many, if any, balances after a while? Or maybe that meta shifts just take months if not years? I might be entirely wrong but it seems to me as a casual RTS observer that metas tend to form, stagnate and then after something like 6 months to a year without a game receiving any updates a new meta might emerge from players making more use of units that were previously thought of as not that good, or that can now work better under the current meta.

[@aierce]

If someone sucks at an aspect of the game, macro for example, that enemy faction is good at, then that person will claim OPness

[@xyhc-cnc]

11:10