so i've been paying alot of attention to red alert 3 lately. i like what i see.

anyway, i've never been big into RTS games. i used to own warcraft 3 and enjoyed playing the story mode somewhat. i bought cnc3 when it came out after enjoying the demo. so i've been looking at this one for a future purpose.

my thing is, i've never been into playing RTS games in multiplayer. i've just could never figure out how to play it properly. maybe i'm just slow and retarded, or maybe i just have never been trained in the art of micro. so i was wondering how easily has it been for others to get into multiplayer rts games? i know multiplayer is a big part of cnc games. i think battlecasting is a great idea. i've just never been able to quite get my head around it.

so for people playing the beta, how difficult is red alert 3 to understand? how difficult is it to play? and i just doomed to being an fps player for the rest of my life? is my brain the size of a grape?

i need answers damnit! so i couldn't figure out anywhere to go for this kind of stuff. wanna see what community rts players like you guys would say and what kind of advice you'd give.

I'm not in the beta, so I can't comment specifically on RA3, but it shouldn't be too different to the previous red alert games, which are fairly simple to play (I played RA1 when I was about 7 years old) but quite difficult to master. If you want to know more you should be able to pick up red alert 2 fairly cheaply, I'd recommend getting that since its an amazing game (its my favourite C&C game ever) and it should help give you a reasonable idea of what 3 should be like.

I'm in the beta. You'll be overwhelmed at first, but with a little practice you should be able to figure out all the tactics used. When I last played the beta around 3 weeks ago (I got bored and stopped) it was incredibly unbalanced, with certain units and strategies being able to utterly obliteratre the enemy. It's all about scouting first, then attacking their weakness by building many units. Base defenses aren't as useful because with special abilities its easy to counter them. The one thing I  hate about the game is that its very repetitive and there's not much variety.

There are some really good players but they aren't too common.

Speed is pretty important....

Yeah RA3's multiplayer (also in the beta) feels similar to all the previous C&C and RA games, you build as fast as you can to a quick demolishing unit and swarm the enemy, aggressively taking over resource sections at the same time, in C&C 3 I'd just build 2 barracks usually, one producing anti-infantry and the other anti-vehicle then set the rally point to the enemy starting zone and watch the fun, RA2 it was T1 tanks, RA1 it was getting to MiGs as fast as possible and bombing their construction buildings as quickly as possible. This series really is a rusher's fetish.
I can't really compare my situation to yours, I was playing the original C&C via dialup with a friend across town every night for a year and a half, personally; it feels like home, from an outsiders' perspective... you'll probably get the same experience you did in C&C 3, fun singleplayer, okay skirmish mode and multiplayer a daunting prospect.

About rushing - yes its a really common tactic, but most servers explicitly ban it in their server name's, because the game sucks when its like that.

wow/ didn't expect these responses. they're good.

i think my biggest problem is just doing things fast in these kind of games.

RA3 seems tailored for competition... I'm still stuck on the fact that the ore refinery is built next to a bucket of ore and the collector just moves a short distance; I can't get over this thing. In the original RA the ore would grow, now? what happened? Before the battle began some people collected all the ore and conveniently put them in a machine container that automatically fills collectors that roll onto it?? what kind of stupid thing is this? I just don't get it. Most likely a decision to make RA3 competition friendly. Though this is a multiplayer beta, thus no background story. But still.