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Red Alert Add-on CD: Total Destruction, The Madness of War

Produced by: Strategic Sales Corporation

This is the worst example of "shovelware" I've ever seen.

The CD contains 103 maps for Red Alert, and a "rules.ini" editor.

The editor is written in delphi, and is buggy.  You're far better
off using a text editor to directly edit rules.ini.
One version of rules.ini comments what all the entries are.

The maps are real horror.  The design is terrible, and they are
clearly not play tested.

Westwood provides tips for designing good maps on their web site.
Whoever designed these "Total Destruction" maps made it a point
to ignore all the tips.

Many, if not all of the maps are duplicates.  There are summer
and winter versions of the same map.  I did not go through all of
them, but I found a duplicate of 75% of the maps I checked.
I checked several dozen maps using Westwood's map editor.  I
wouldn't be suprised if there are really only 52 or so
unique maps.

All of the maps I checked had an excessive amount of ore/gold.
Such maps will degrade quickly to massive, brute force battles.
75% of the ones I checked had over $1,000,000.

Half the maps I checked were composed entirely, or nearly entirely
of gems, mainly placed in corners.  This also eliminates
many clever tactics.

90% of the maps had less than 8 player starting points.
50% of the maps had no starting points at all.
When attempting to play such maps, Red Alert often isn't able start
players in an acceptable position on the map.  Half the games we
played resulted in at least one player with units stuck behind trees
and/or without a construction vehicle!

Most of the maps are horribly unbalanced.  Players might start on
tiny corner islands completely filled with gems, without any clear
area to deploy a construction yard.  Some players start in easily
defendable and rich areas, while others start on impossible narrow
or poor areas.

In conclusion, we played a dozen multiplayer games with 2 or 3 players
without one playable and balanced game.  In contrast, we have played
a hundred or so games on the original maps, without ever
having similar problems.

The CD is entirely without merit.