Ra3 and Ra2 tactic with Kirovs

[TonyP7]

I have always liked those happy zeppelins :) but I was wondering is it best to build alot of them and hope that they make it to the enemy base or build few and give them a mix of cheap and expensive units to protect them? I tried both. the first one is the easiest. but Kirovs are not cheap and many of them dies on the way. The second works sometimes. Do you maybe got another tactic and want to share it with the others?

Feel free to post them here :D

[KageNoOni]

Hello, kind of new myself, but I've started learning with the soviets myself. One thing I noticed about Kirovs is that they have to get directly above a ground target to drop bombs, making them rather vulnerable. I'd probably go with some 'copters since they can move to the more dangerous ground targets more quickly, and begin attacking immediately, instead of waiting as the slow Kirov positions itself over the target, taking hits the entire time. The unit is a bit cheaper, it's fast, and has those little bombs it drops are pretty lethal against most ground targets. The combination of those bombs and the machine guns makes it effective against the majority of ground targets unless they're specifically anti-air. Of course, if your opponent is making an anti-air answer to your Kirovs, you should probably switch to a ground approach to make those units useless.

[TonyP7]

In Ra3 if you are going to go all Air then Kirovs, Migs and Twinblades that carry tanks is a leathal comintion :)

[SEA-106]

If you're playing against someone even slightly good at Red Alert 3, Kirovs will most likely be a waste of money.

In extremely rare situations, a surprise kirov can do a lot of damage, but that will rely upon your opponent not scouting it before it reaches his base. And if a tactic relies upon the failure of your opponent, then it isn't likely to work well.

[TonyP7]

then how about attacking the front base and sneaking kirovs at the top? some peapole only build base denfenses at the main entrance to the base. Kirovs is an air unit too so it can fly over hills and suprise attack the Powerplants and refeineries

[stephanovich]

Never ever build them unless you have already basically won the game.

[TonyP7]

Ok I shall remember that, but one last thing. if your enemy attack with 5 kirovs and 5 apocolypse tanks. what would you attack first?

[stephanovich]

The tanks. Kirovs are slow.

[TonyP7]

yeah but in Ra3 they got jet engines soo why not use the tanks as destroying ani-air and be shot at while the kirovs destroy the rest?

[stephanovich]

Tanks in first to keep the apocs away from your AA.

[TonyP7]

Apocs uses grinding and make quick work of any tank (or building) what now?

[gearmaster7]

geez dont be so mean. Anyway im just going to presume you arent a total noob and actually mixed some anti air in there and nobodys gone for a navy. Im also presuming both you and I have t3 and realatively large economy. Im also presuming ive seen your kirovs since those things are pretty easy to spot

Soviets- i would definently take out the tanks since they are the first to get into action and gastro burners are useless, maybe lock them down with tds or apocs secondary and use v4s to annihalate them. Natasha can also snipe/bomb them before you even reach my base. Bullfrogs spam or migs easily take out kirovs since both are fairly cheap, in fact migs do 2X damage to kirovs. 4 can easily wipe them off the map.

Empire- All you need is yuriko omega for this really

Allies-once again the commando takes out the tanks. apollos plus ifvs take kirov, easy see.

[TonyP7]

Sometimes alittle bit of everythink also work :) because in Ra3 every unit has a spesial abilety.

and gearmaster7 I am sorry I didn't mean it like that, I was just looking for tips. I played against someone and they used kirovs and Apocs and he grinded up all my denfeces and bombed the ground units. I didn't ment it in a negative way. sorry if it seemed that way :(

[SEA-106]

Probably not a bad time to point out that a single infiltrator in a tech lab will destroy kirovs and disable apocs. Spies/shinobi can be difficult, and often unviable, to use, but it doesn't hurt to keep an eye out for oppurtunities.

Seriously, though, by the time someone has 5 apocs and 5 kirovs, the opposing player will likely have at least some migs/apollos/tengus. They can take down kirovs independently, while either an anti-ground air unit can kill apocs without opposition, or they can be dealt with more directly by tier 3 tanks or anti-tank infantry.

Honestly, not many players would build a kirov/apoc army without anti-air to defend them. Considering the joint cost of these units though, even if they did build anti-air units, they are unlikely to have build enough to defend against your forces. Take out the anti-air units, then pummel them with an airforce.

[TonyP7]

Shiobies are EPIC love them :) Shuriken, katana and smoke bomb. Still useful in the future. one shot tesla troopers. that is inpressive.
And jet tengues can take the kirovs then transform. If you use them with strike-VX then you can hurt the Apoc too :D

[gearmaster7]

yeah, i also kindof acted like a jerk. anyway shinobi are pretty good way of taking down kirov, since theyre practically untargettable with that smoke bomb. therotically apoc/kirov is not a hard combo to beat but ive heard this complaint and ive never really experianced the combo, so maybe its harder than it looks. Ive barely faced kirovs(but used them to great effect), apocs ive also encountered but i usually encounter them as soviets so usually i can take out their apocs with mine. with allies i just spam mirage and shrink the apocs. Kirov is not really hard to defeat either. I remember one of my first game it was a 3v3 on a water map called aon(best map ever). I took out my opponent with a yari rush and teched up. Later in the game we took out my other opponent with a bunch of shoguns and rocket angels. But not before the biggest shogun battle ive ever seen(10 something shoguns vs 7something shoguns and a few odd naginatas and skywings). But it was the orange players who gave us trouble. He expanded like crazy and even though it was a 3v1 this guy was good and managed to hold out for a long time. For some reason he would make groups of 5 kirovs and send them towards me, like every time. I hadnt learned to expand yet so i pretty tight on money but after a while spamming seawings you can still get big armys. I used to have shoguns but then a rogue kirov destroyed my mainframe, a refinery and my only t3 naval yard and a psionic decimator before i managed to retreat my 25 some seawings. you woundnt believe how many kirovs my seawings destroyed. At the end when we made the final push, i abused one of the skywings greatest strengths(namely it has so much armor that when you get a mass of them they can plough through everything) i mean seriously my opponent had something like 50 bullfrogs(but very split up) taking on my 33 skywings and my skywings came out on top with only losing half of my force

[SEA-106]

No offense, but you may want to split that ^^ into paragraphs. That wall of text is really hard to read.

[gearmaster7]

ok ill remember that for next time, its nice to see a active forum again instead of a old one that barely got a post a day

[commander_3]

I love ra3 (:

[m4dn3ss]

Couple of Cryocopters, shrink the Apoc tanks and they become useless. As for the Kirovs, if you're soviets and you have a Kirov try to sneak it behind an enemy base.

[Flaming_Fox911]

I rarely use Kirovs, as mentioned before, they are extremely slow and vulnerable to AA. What I would do is prep a couple of Twinblade/Apocalypse Tank Pairs, reinforce them w/ Bullfrogs and/or MIGS, then start an air raid.
Off Topic: Should tanks picked up by twinblades fire at enemy aircraft and/or ground units?

[SEA-106]

No. Such a situation would be greatly overpowered. Lorewise, I doubt that a tank being carried that high in the air, without an advanced computer to aid its weapons, would be able to hit any object. For closer objects, they would also need to swivel down their turret, which they cannot do in their situation.

[That_Swedish_Guy]

Plus the fact that the recoil would probably crash the Twinblade.

[Commander_McNash]

Have Kirovs ever worked good?

So far I always have felt it has been one of the most useless units at C&C, it's simply too slow and expensive, instead of bombs I would have armed them with autocannons, now that would have made some real damage!

[Bobug]

in ra2 kirovs were good, in ra3 theyre like paying to recreate the hindenburg disaster

[Diablo]

I like to spam Mirage tanks and shogun battleships :o

no really, it's never good to bulk up on one unit unless you're playing some specific custom game

[dky.tehkingd.u]

Kirovs tended to work a bit better in RA2 because there were fewer AA units in that game.

Basically if you had a crapload of Kirovs you pretty much won unless your opponent had a couple of Aegis Cruisers or had the foresight to spam AA way ahead of time. But in RA3 it's easy enough to shoot them down with just a few out of the larger range of dedicated AA and support units like the Hydrofoil (dedicated AA plus weapon jam), Apollo (dedicated AA, high speed/ammo capacity), Javelins (AA plus super ROF), etc.

[gearmaster7]

actually kirovs are very hard to take down with allies, i would like it if apollos did 2x damage like the mig.

[Heron]

Kirovs in RA2 were good because really good anti AA weapons weren't easy to find, for one, and you can get into a problem dedicating the AA when your opponent bluffs by sending in a horde of Rhinos they have beforehand.

Kirovs in RA3 were hampered by a ton of anti AA weapons.

[StormWolf]

In some of the RA2 missions I just spammed a bunch of Kriovs so they were in a giant clump and raided the enemy bases. In RA3 they have become to brittle and go down easily with all the counters there are for them.

[m4dn3ss]

In RA3 the Kirovs are better, HOWEVER, there are more counters to it

[TonyP7]

I feel in Ra3 they are often killed by other sovjet players, because their bullfrogs and flacktrooper are easy to use togheter with the bullfrogs spesial abilety to take down the kirovs

[Raos]

^ It's the easiest to kill Kirovs as the Empire. Mecha Tengu, Rocket Angels, Strikers, and Yuriko all make it quite easy.

[TonyP7]

and giga fortresses. wooohooo they sure got some firepower. btw Allies got the cryo lazer to freeze the kirovs. are they realy that easy to kill?
make more badass escort ---> escort destroy base --> kirovs half-way there XD

[Raos]

Unless you use the ridiculously expensive Multigunner Turret/IFV, Cryo Legionnaire combo you can't freeze Kirovs.

Uprising doesn't have multiplayer so it doesn't really count. Since most of the time the AI isn't smart enough to make use of the advantages in Uprising anyway.

In my opinion the Kirov would be a more useful unit if it was $500 cheaper. It would still be plenty easy to kill but in the rare occasions were it is useful it would be a far less costly investment.

[dky.tehkingd.u]

In RA3 the Kirovs are better, HOWEVER, there are more counters to it

Really? I think they're about the same, damage-wise, speed-wise, and health-wise. Also cost-wise (in absolute credit value, at least), if I remember my RA2 unit costs correctly. All of these are kind of hard to compare though due to the different mechanics of the two games. But yes, Kirovs do tend to go down more easily in RA3 due to the abundance of AA options.

[You_Lose112]

Kirovs suck,they just rank up my apollos. Centuries FTW.