16 ms·
OpenRA
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoHas anyone built better AIs for this?
- logdahl 4mo agoI might suck but I found it really hard iirc :^(
- dogma1138 4mo agoAI in strategy games always cheats I haven’t seen a single game where the AI wasn’t built around cheating. Once you figure out how it cheats it’s usually a combination of resource multipliers, build time multipliers and not having a fog of war it becomes much essier to beat at any difficulty.
- invader 4mo agoOften, but not always. I hate the term "AI" applied to games, since AI means so many things and usually implies something smart, "intelligent". But in reality, it is more like a "bot" or a "computer player". And the main goal is not to be super-smart, but to be plausible enough and provide an appropriate challenge to the human player. There are some "fair" bots in games - like in my favorite turn-based Mechanized Assault and Exploration from the mid 90s. Computer players follow the same rules as the human ones - e.g., if something is not visible to the radar, the computer will not see it. The only "cheat" is the resource boost computer players can have on the higher difficulty settings, but it is totally optional. And as an experienced player, you always let the computer have it, since you want a challenge, and without that boost, it has no chance whatsoever.
- Sharlin 4mo agoReal-time strategy AI is absolutely AI in the standard Russell & Norvig sense of AI. There's nothing about the computer science concept of AI that implies "super-smart" or always trying to outsmart the player (rather than trying to be entertaining). Continuously shifting the goalposts of what "AI" is is, of course, a well-known phenomenon, giving rise to what's called the AI effect or Tesler's theorem [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect
- invader 4mo agoMaybe it is, given that the classical AI definition is so broad, it can mean almost anything. But for me, there's a fundamental difference between something that "tries to be intelligent" and something that "tries to appear to be intelligent". That is why I prefer to call them "bots" or "computers" - just to separate them from a shifting mess of definitions of what "AI" actually means. It reminds me of "Destination Void" by Frank Herbert, where the main characters were trying to build artificial consciousness and were struggling to define what it actually means.
- stephantul 4mo agoThanks for introducing me to the article! I’ve experienced this myself but didn’t know it had a name.
- ben_w 4mo agoNot always. For a lot of games it can be surprisingly easy to make an AI which beats the median player even when limited to just basic strategies, simply by not getting distracted by the gut feelings that humans have. Even for more complex strategy games like say Starcraft II where that's not enough, there's this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaStar_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaStar_(software)
- jtolmar 4mo agoThere's a whole scene around making bots for Starcraft: Broodwar, using an API (BWAPI) that doesn't allow cheating. They're quite good now, better than most humans. But the top bots still can't beat a pro, or even a high ranked ladder player.
- 9dev 4mo agoPitching in on this with a tangent - how good are LLMs with RTS games these days? As someone without friends into that genre, it’d be pretty cool to play eg. AoE II against a capable computer that play like a real human…
- HeavyStorm 4mo agoIt's improving but sota models are now too slow for a real time game. Training a specialized neural network would be more effecient.
- clates 4mo agoDepends on what you mean, LLMs can probably _make_ pretty good AIs. It'll have all the AI scripts in the base game, including the three iterations (base, FE, DE) all the user generated ones ( including barbarian ) and then able to consume the language schema. Rig up a baby model that takes the matchup during loading and hot swaps one of your pregenerated AI scripts. If you meant _playing_ raw based on LLM input - that's probably the wrong tool for the job. The latency for you to react to a mango shot is faster than a billion tok/s lol
- yard2010 4mo agoInstead of driving the agent with an llm, it might work to use the agent to hard code heuristics, and use some kind of a simulation to benchmark its skills? Then feeding the results back to the agent so it can improve the heuristics?
- egeozcan 4mo agoWhen I was a teen I was mostly writing RA2 custom map scripts and rules/units for my friends and watch them battle with my rules in internet cafes. When that was not possible, I was creating custom RA2 AIs, but it was very hard. These days, I'm having incredible fun developing good old AI scripts with LLMs, for my own vibe-coded RTS game. Just choose all AI players here to make them battle each other: https://egeozcan.github.io/unnamed_rts/game/ https://egeozcan.github.io/unnamed_rts/game/ I even let the LLM generate a tournament script to make AI scripts from different LLMs battle (headless): https://github.com/egeozcan/unnamed_rts/blob/main/src/scripts/tournament.ts https://github.com/egeozcan/unnamed_rts/blob/main/src/script... GPT-5.5 leaves all in the dust currently. I cannot beat most in the game I set the rules myself :) If you are like me, you can just make LLMs create your personal RTS game and also develop custom AIs. It's so much fun.
- wahnfrieden 4mo agoWere you familiar with my modding site RA2Factory?
- egeozcan 4mo agoYes! I downloaded a lot of shps voxels and map packs from your site! I think it was the beginning of 2000s? Anyway, a very delayed thank you!
- wahnfrieden 4mo agoAmazing! You're welcome. Yes it must've been around 2000, I was around 13-14 when I built Tiberian Sun Factory and then RA2 Factory. To be honest I didn't play with mods much myself because I was consumed enough with the joy of building tools (such as for INI editing and voxels) and the websites, and connecting with the community and other site/tool builders. I did play the vanilla games a lot though. I contacted the community manager at Westwood Studios and was granted the chance to visit once during a trip through Vegas. I remember him and others being very friendly, giving me a tour through the office, seeing the reality of the life of game testers, having some time with the Yuri's Revenge expansion before release, and being given some merch - a Dune II box, a C&C poster, which I still have in storage. Just to share some more of what I can recall from those days.
- singpolyma3 4mo agoDoes the project allow AI?
- tremon 4mo agoOld-skool AI, aka cpu opponent.
- apitman 4mo agoI know you meant player AI, but now I'm imagining an RTS where every unit is running a small reasoning LLM.
- doublerabbit 4mo agoIt's already in the works. NDA but the studio I gig at, their Ai love to send NPCs off cliffs. Because there is no collision between the sky and floor it determines that this is the quickest route. Even with zoning it does something you'll never think of. Using LLMs as NPCs can be hilarious to watch.
- _superposition_ 4mo agoI need to hear more. That or start my own NPC circus.
- dijit 4mo agoI just wish I still had the original games to use as content packs. Every time I've tried to install this previously, this was my wall :(
- tremon 4mo agohttps://cnc-comm.com/red-alert/downloads/the-game https://cnc-comm.com/red-alert/downloads/the-game EA released CnC and Red Alert as free downloads twenty years ago.
- liendolucas 4mo agoIf you play the original and then OpenRA you will be amazed how well OpenRA is balanced. As an example, while in the original game using allied artillery against soviet tesla coils was a dead sentence in OpenRA is great to be able to fire well beyond its range forcing you to come out of the base to defend it. They also added a ton of features which make the game truly enjoyable and fun to play. Well done OpenRA team!
- abixb 4mo agoTangential, but I got introduced to Red Alert C&C through various 'Hell March' videos by random fans of various militaries on YouTube. It's funny how it vibes with nearly every military you throw it over.
- cogman10 4mo agoI love using the RA OST for coding. The songs are fun and fast paced with low lyrics. It helps that this is a childhood favorite game of mine.
- OptionOfT 4mo agoTry the Doom ones.
- cogman10 4mo agoI'll have to give them a shot, but admittedly the nostalgia is almost certainly a big reason I love the RA OST (and starcraft as well). I didn't play enough doom to really love it in the same way.
- b112 4mo agoIt's the same backend, so it's a bit like a fun theme difference. I played Dune2 first, and like RA too.
- ionwake 4mo agobased, been playing this for months with my friend, over anything else. EDIT> My fav setup is to join a free empty server , set up 2 teams, 2 AI and 1 human vs 2 AI and 1 human. And then play with my friend. Great fun. The AI adds a bit of a randomness to the games. Easy smooth quick interface. Just perfect for a quick free RTS game with a friend.
- Tepix 4mo agoHas anyone turned it into a browser game?
- aktau 4mo agoNot sure about RA, but for RA2 see https://chronodivide.com/ https://chronodivide.com/
- scoopdewoop 4mo agoChrono Divide is insane. It is wild to see a single dev completely leapfrog every other team that spent years making RTS engines.
- patentlyze 4mo agoI've been using AI to replicate it for browser play. I'm able to get the mechanics down. But I can't get the graphics past RA1 level yet without killing the process power.
- tybnty 4mo agoOne of the comments from that page mentions a browser port available at: https://openra-web-fe.azurewebsites.net/ https://openra-web-fe.azurewebsites.net/
- rizsyed1 4mo agoThis is such a great game. Incredibly well-balanced and thought through.
- preetham_rangu 4mo agoFor anyone hitting the "I don't have the original game files" wall: EA released C&C and Red Alert as free downloads years ago. Just search "cnc-comm red alert download" , totally legit.
- geenat 4mo agoI wish they would release Tiberium Sun
- patentlyze 4mo agoIt's so hard for me to choose between Tiberium sun and RA2. Both are in my top 5 games of all time.
- Havoc 4mo agoNeed to try this at some point. The other open RTS - beyondallreason - is really good too.
- guilhas 4mo agoVery entertaining campaign
- patentlyze 4mo agoOpenRA is awesome. Whoever runs it, you're awesome! The player base is only slightly lower than when I used to play RA2 on dial-up like 20 years ago. I've boycotted EA ever since they ruined the franchise.
- spyware_suburbs 4mo agoSame, breaks my heart they ruined this franchise. It does make me happy that someone loves red alert as much as me and has made OpenRA.
- malux85 4mo agoWhen I was a teenager, I lived on a farm and our neighbour's were another adult couple. He was late 40s and she was late 50s, her name was Jane. Jane had an infectious laugh. She was always baking. She died her hair bright red. She drank too much wine. She didnt know much about the details of technology but she was intrigued by it, she read books and she volunteered to help as a teachers aide at the local primary school. And Jane had a secret, she was one of the best Red Alert 2 players I had ever seen. We'd have matches over dialup and she would totally wreck me in such a short amount of time. I couldn't figure out a strategy to beat her, it was different every time. I still have very vivid memories of Jane sitting in the corner of her farm house, big thick glasses on, glass of red wine, leading the comrades into war, and laughing as she bombed the allies into submission. If you met Jane on the street you would never ever guess that under that farmer's wife persona, lurked a dangerous and cunning war strategist. Totally unexpected and utterly fabulous. Love you Jane
- dice 4mo agoWe used to play RA on my friend's home network, which was thin net running IPX. The house rule was that if we'd collectively built enough units that the game started slowing down you had to attack. It was good times.
- apitman 4mo agoWhen it worked, IPX LAN was maybe the peak UX in multiplayer gaming. Moving everything to TCP/IP came with a lot of improvements, but we also lost important things. Reminds me of the move from Flash to HTML5.
- farbklang 4mo agoShoutout to one of my favorite OpenRA podcaster - watching the game is a lot less stressful than actually playing it: https://www.youtube.com/@CovertFlobert https://www.youtube.com/@CovertFlobert
- t0mas88 4mo agoOpenRA is great, it feels like a better version of Red Alert 2. The one thing I'm missing is C&C Generals and Zero Hour. Those were also really fun to play over LAN.
- alasano 4mo agoA better version of Red Alert 2 is insanely high praise.
- HelloUsername 4mo agoI agree, also unfair comparisons since RA1 and RA2 are really different games. Perhaps they meant C&C 2? Which is RA1.
- pooplord7 4mo agoI didnt check what makes OpenRA special but theres open source efforts to „remaster“ generals and zero hour. https://github.com/TheSuperHackers/GeneralsGameCode https://github.com/TheSuperHackers/GeneralsGameCode
- guptalog 4mo agoit's great
- ceejayoz 4mo agoI have such fond memories of this game. Editing the .ini files was a delight - I distinctly remember giving Tanya (with her incredibly rapid-fire guns) cruiser shells and having basically the entire map blow up instantaneously.
- zuzululu 4mo agowish there was OpenRA2 thats the one i been looking forward to
- spyware_suburbs 4mo agoSo someone loves red alert like me awesome.
- rvba 4mo agoIt is funny how StarCraft Brood War runs circles around C&C games - people still play it online, there are still 20k dollar tournaments in Korea... the game is just more fun to play and to watch. It received an official remaster too that was only a graphics update Meamwhile people make threads about RA what was a bad game even when it came out - "strategy" was to made few overpowered towers, then mass tanks and flood the computer with them. Mutliplayer was tanks + dogs, so the first shot of the enemy tank was wasted on your dog.
- Aachen 4mo agoPeople say the same about AoE 2 compared to 1, yet I enjoy 1 a ton (my partner and I regularly play it) and found 2 annoying and couldn't get into it. Might it not just be that some people like RA better than your favorite game? SC having the status it does in Korea has other causes than only being a good game. I wouldn't argue football is better than some other sport because fifa holds a tournament with prize money that many people watch
- hard_times 4mo ago[flagged]
- gehsty 4mo agoAh man I remember playing Red Alert against my friends online where you had to put the other persons phone number in and (I guess??) you made some kind of direct network connection. No idea if it was billed as internet or what!
- html5cat 4mo agoOpenRA is amazing. Sort of related, recently discovered a great remake of Heroes of Might and Magic II: https://ihhub.github.io/fheroes2/ https://ihhub.github.io/fheroes2/
- celaleddin 4mo agoNice! There is also VCMI, an open-source engine for Heroes of Might and Magic III: https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi https://github.com/vcmi/vcmi
- tomaytotomato 4mo agoWhy do I hear this music every time I see Red Alert being mentioned? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfMw0NKqFek https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfMw0NKqFek
- blintz 4mo agoReminds me of 0 A.D. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_A.D._(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_A.D._(video_game)). The usual problem with an open-source game is the art/music, but this looks pretty decent.
- jonbaer 4mo agoAs a developer on the game (0AD) I must say I find it way more relaxing than RA and Starcraft(n) and easier to manage with only 4 basic resources. As for the AI challenge on all of these games it comes down to how fast you analyze random terrains and the most optimized opening build order - something they (RTS) all share in common.
- bloqs 4mo agoI heard that the Red Alert 2 source code is officially (while unannounced) lost, which is why there has been no remaster. Is this true?
- CursedSilicon 4mo agoEA showed they had Red Alert 2 tapes in the archive when they did the C&C Remaster stuff back in 2018-2020 The Mental Omega folks are also known to have a complete archive of everything which is why their "mod" is such a technical achievement above what the game engine can normally do
- amatecha 4mo agoRelevant: "Game Preservation Best Practices: A Real Life EA Case Study" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISZ17cQBdS8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISZ17cQBdS8
- mikepurvis 4mo agoTimely. I just downloaded Augustus last night and played a bunch of Caesar III with the assets for $5 from GOG. Interestingly Augustus is itself a fork of Julius, where Julius intends to replicate original behavior including bugs whereas Augustus adds a number of QoL improvements like better parking control for the walkers. Anyway all that to say, open-source engine remake projects are awesome.
- Schlagbohrer 4mo agoDid anyone else expect Scarab of Ra from the title?
- dang 4mo agoRelated. Others? OpenRA – Classic strategy games rebuilt for the modern era - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42823667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42823667 - Jan 2025 (122 comments) OpenRA – Classic strategy games rebuilt for the modern era - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37553193 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37553193 - Sept 2023 (169 comments) OpenRA: Red Alert, Command and Conquer, Dune 2000, Rebuilt for the Modern Era - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28511076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28511076 - Sept 2021 (199 comments) OpenRA Release 20210321 (and new website) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26533422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26533422 - March 2021 (10 comments) OpenRA: An open, cross platform and expandable implementation of Command&Conquer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23342320 - May 2020 (3 comments) OpenRA: Classic strategy games, rebuilt for the modern era, open source - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14065021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14065021 - April 2017 (1 comment) --- (p.s. reposts are fine after a year or so; links to past threads are just to satisfy extra-curious readers!)
- sourcecodeplz 4mo agoi was about to say with AI there are a lot of new games being published, even web ones. but this one seems to be in the works for a while
- emil-lp 4mo agoThis is possibly related EA Open Sources Command and Conquer: Red Alert, along with other games https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43197131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43197131
- robtaylor 4mo agoHave they cleaned out the racists, trolls and general scumbags from the 'community' ?
- CursedSilicon 4mo agoWould be nice if they finished Tiberian Sun/Red Alert 2 support. I only complain because I put in over $1,000 USD as part of a crowd funding campaign to do just that ...13 years ago :(
- rrr_oh_man 4mo agoWait, Tiberian Sun is not working? In what sense? I'm sure I played with walkers, visceroids, giant ants, mole tanks, and hovercraft.
- CursedSilicon 4mo agoIt's half-implemented in OpenRA's engine and then spread across a bunch of mods that attempt to augment as much of the game in as possible
- relex 4mo agoI Love this project, works on Mac, Linux & Windows!
- l7l 4mo agoOpenRA is awesome. However playing it online, for me felt highly toxic for me. I heard this a lot in the community.
- GalaxyNova 4mo agoI love OpenRA! Play it every weekend with my dad.
- 999900000999 4mo agoOpen RA2 also exists. I think RA2 is significantly better and the peak of what an RTS can be. Say what you want about EA, but they not only tolerated Open RA, but they straight up opened sourced the older games. More publishers need to do this. I wouldn’t even mind a crowdfunding effort( give the proceeds to charity) to release the source for other games.
- totetsu 4mo agoI must have paid for a various copies of RA2 5 times over the years. I imagine they got enough monitization from those old titles.
- LeoPanthera 4mo agoRA2 is still available on Steam, and despite its age runs with only minimal issues on Windows 11. It works on Linux too, but it works a lot better if you add the cnc-ddraw DLL and change the launch options to: WINEDLLOVERRIDES="ddraw=n,b" %command%
- 20k 4mo ago>Say what you want about EA, but they not only tolerated Open RA They also don't have a choice though. There's nothing illegal or actionable about OpenRA. At most EA could have potentially forced them not to refer to CnC on the github, but even then its not clear that that's enforceable
- 4mo ago
- derrida 4mo ago"ENGINEERING"
- elivoncoder 4mo agomy buddy and i would direct connect our ps1 with link-cable and face the tvs away from each other for red alert. long live openra!
- jimbob45 4mo agoShill alert: https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/39394/Command__Conquer_The_Ultimate_Collection/ https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/39394/Command__Conquer... It’s $6 for every C&C ever made right now.
- tosti 4mo agoThat's rental. It's on sale for $0 on the archives and the high seas.
- SubiculumCode 4mo agoAre CC RA and Dune basically the same games?
- SubiculumCode 4mo agoJust read up. I missed an era.
- addozhang 4mo agoSometimes, UI is also part of the classics.
- hunter-gatherer 4mo agoPlayed OpenRA a few years back, and as an 80s/90s kid played the original. OpenRA is great in my books. I've linked this before, but I suggest watching some.of the competition replays of OpenRA from the "five aces" YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmywk-96Irk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmywk-96Irk).
- kodefreeze 4mo ago[dead]
- hopefulobject 4mo agoPlayed the game, very fun! Keep up the great work.
- kodefreeze 4mo agoThank you, it's very early, we wanted to understand how interested people would be so building in the open.
- kevinten10 4mo ago[flagged]
- kodefreeze 4mo agoWe are building a command & conquer style RTS. If you're interested in taking a look at our very early demo of the game play, please check out: https://warpact-rts-9221.web.app/ https://warpact-rts-9221.web.app/ And join our discord to follow along!
- kevinten10 4mo ago[flagged]
- OoooooooO 4mo agoWould never have thought I would see OpenRA here on HN. Great project, great game.
- a96 4mo agoTry the search :)
- aBahadir 4mo agoWell done!
- v3ss0n 4mo agoAlso there is opendour renegade called Renegade X with UE3 ENGINE And really fun
- cookiengineer 4mo agoFor people that love OpenRA: some friends and me started to play the Continue Mod a lot more recently. It's tons of fun, the mod author basically rebuilt zero hour with actual real weapon stats, vehicles, ships, infantry etc. It's tons of fun, and runs in wine, too. Typical quirk is that the profile folder has to be setup before running it (same bug as with old generals.exe versions). But can be played easily with wireguard over the internet. [1] https://www.moddb.com/mods/generalszero-hour-continue https://www.moddb.com/mods/generalszero-hour-continue
- rballpug 4mo agoDOS box that runs RAID disk drive partition. Scaling text, renders over wlan0.
- pachevjoseph 4mo agoThen why are you giving it?
- martin1b 4mo agoThere is an OpenRA mod called Combined Arms. It is incredible! Been a C&C fan from the beginning, but prefer the originals. Combined arms gives me the feel of the originals with the features of the latter versions. The AI can really be brutal if you suck like me, unless you turn it down. Lots of fun.
- spiritplumber 4mo agoThis is ridiculously fun