Quick Review: Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

Unless you've been living under some rock, you'd know Red Alert 3 was released recently. If you know me, you'll also know that I'm a fan of the EA LA age of Command and Conquer games - but let's face it, after the abominations that were C&C2 and RA2, any improvement I would've seen as a godsend.

Red Alert 3 turns up the craziness a few notches - loads of units are amphibious - and naval warfare is BAAAAACK. If there's anything that I notice - it's that the scissors-paper-stone philosophy that's been creeping around RTSes is a lot more pronounced in RA3. I haven't felt the need to keep such a varied unit base in a C&C game before, of course that could be my skills improving a little bit - but there's no denying there's a greater focus on micro, with nearly every unit having some skill that get be triggered by the 'F' key - which using correctly will get you out of a lot of sticky situations.

The campaign is rather short - 9 missions each side, no intertwining storyline, no canonical ending (apparently) since all the sides seem to just kill everyone else at the end of the game, which is reminescent of the Generals story, where nothing seems related. That being said, they did hide a few pleasant surprises in the story - and if you look around and pick pieces up here and there, you can build a timeline of the missions - since some things don't conflict with each other - but it doesn't help that there is no canonical ending, since they all end similarly: death to all the enemies. (If history is any indication, the Allies ending is usually the one considered canonical. Heh.) I would've liked a intertwining campaign, but hey, the missions are fun, and you get to play with the 3 commando units of the 3 factions at some point. (Not to mention a certain Empire of the Rising Sun campaign-only epic unit.)

They've also introduced the concept of disables/suppression where certain units can immobilize or disable other units (and sometimes make them more vulnerable to damage) - which stops you from relying too much on small numbers of powerful units, or at the very least, make you pay attention to the battlefield.

Me being me, you know which side I favour. :D Empire of the Rising Sun FTW!

The Empire is the only side that doesn't have an airfield. :D And this is why:

And at the press of the 'F' key later:

(The screenshots have been downscaled from 1680 by 1050 to 1280 by 800 to save space - no reason to put super large screens to make a stupid point, and yes, I did lower the shadow quality - although it was unnecessary, I was too lazy to change it back.)

I don't think any C&C fan should pass up on this instalment, the skirmish mode is fun (with the 3 varying AI per side to keep you interested for slightly longer than usual with their varied strategies - you still kick their asses though). The fact that there are three locations units can be in (air, land and sea) although makes you plan a little more with what units to bring around and which units to keep - which makes both attacking and defending and interesting endeavour.

Short Announcement About Posting Regularity

There's a good chance of me not posting anything (not even photos or short rants) the last two weeks of November since I have exams (which I really need to do well in this time) and I have to move out as well. I already have the whole of next week planned out - and I intend to end with a nice long post - which will be about something random - so prepare to be partially surprised. UPDATE: That long post? Cancelled due to studying for exam.

Photo: Dead Bulb

Several days ago, the bulb in my room died. One that had faithfully served me the past few years. That night, I noticed that it began to flicker erratically. As I was telling chewxy that, my room was suddenly engulfed in darkness - the only light source being my computer monitor.

And so, in the middle of the night, I went outside to salvage a light bulb from the living room so that I could continue my studies in peace. That bulb is also a Philips, but it's only a 14W CFL. Now, I've replaced it in its rightful place in the living room. In my room now is a PHILIPS Tornado 24W CFL - and it's nice and bright. :D (The photo is using illumination from this new bulb, of course.)

Photo: Mini Dice, Take 2!

Yes, I know this seems like a repeat of this post about dice.

Of course, two years later - I don't use dice for decision making any more. I've learned that planned consumption is significantly more rewarding, not to mention, I don't eat out quite as much as I did in 2006. Of course, my subjects are a lot harder this semester than they were that semester.

I realise after I took the photo that I should've shown you my full sized dice set instead - but I guess we'll leave that for another day when it comes time to show you more dice - which could the day after tomorrow, a week from now, a month from now, a year from now - or maybe even: NEVER!

(The photo didn't turn out as I intended - I focused the camera on the wrong die, not to mention I probably shouldn't have put the 4-sided die in front, and put something a little more round instead. Oh well.)

Optimizing 'Coin Pressure'

Don't know what I mean by coin pressure? Click here to read the previous post. Now, there are two possible things you might want to do with your coin pressure.

The first case is that you want to maximize your coin pressure. Why would you want to do this? Get rid of the change you are carrying of course. This is easily achieved by merely carrying a lot of change around - but most of us don't carry a coin purse, or anything that can hold substantial amounts of change. So what is it you can do to maximize coin pressure?

What you can do - is to always carry around a fixed set of coins and notes. Your meals would usually not exceed 10 dollars. (If they do, then it might be time you stop caring abount coin pressure and start caring about wtf you're eating.) This means that you should carry around enough change to pay anything from $5 to about $15 (just in case there was a want or need to splurge on drinks, dumplings, soup, or whatever nonsense was.)

Let's simplify the problem to just carrying $4.95 in coins - you can carry a $5 note and a $10 note to make sure you can cover the ranges extremes at $5 and $10. To be able to cover every possible change situation from $0.05 to $4.95, in Australian coins:

• 1 x 2 dollars
• 2 x 1 dollar
• 1 x 50 cents
• 1 x 20 cents
• 2 x 10 cents
• 1 x 5 cents

This is obviously a very specific case, since there's not many 1 cent coins in circulation in Australia (if any) - so in order to maximize coin pressure, you only need to carry 8 coins in total. Very manageable for most wallets (unless you don't have a coin pouch or holder).

If you live in a country where there are no $2 coins or notes, and you do still have 1 cent coins, then to cover $0.01 to $4.99 you would need to carry:

• 4 x 1 dollar
• 1 x 50 cents
• 1 x 20 cents
• 2 x 10 cents
• 1 x 5 cents
• 4 x 1 cents

13 coins - which could pose a problem. But if you live in Malaysia - you have RM1 notes! (and 1 sen coins are gonna get phased out eventually anyway, but 5% taxes at food places make it annoying.) And if you have $1 notes, you then only have to carry 9 coins - which is again manageable.

Of course, this guide is only good if you happen to have a huge stack of coins at home and want to get rid of them - if you keep reloading your wallet from your stash like this, you'll see to drop in size quickly enough. Obviously, this guide only works if we assume coins are in some decreasing order of size (barring the Australian dollar and two dollar coins). It's entirely possible that this is not always true (for example, the US nickel, 5c, is a lot larger than the US dime, 10c, and there's that 25c coin that'll just annoy your math if you're used to 20c coins.) - just adjust accordingly.

The second case is that you want to minimize your coin pressure (or in other words, create a change vacuum.) Why in the world would you want to take change? There are various reasons - number 1 - you need the change, since the notes you are carrying are way too big. This usually happens if you're walking about with 50 dollar or 100 dollar notes - which are almost always too big to spend on anything small (sub-$10).

It's pretty simple to achieve - carry around very big notes, or if you feel like turning your friends into portable ATMs (that are sometimes difficult to collect from, like malfunctioning ATMs ;) ) - carry around a credit card, preferably one from the same country. Don't want to get caught up in messy exchange rate risk now, do we?

(Note: Look - no photo. What did I tell you about me not maintaining any trend?)