Rescue Raiders

One tactic I stumbled on by accident is to drop paratroopers on top of the enemy's Time Machine. It's tricky dodging all the missiles AND hoping the missiles don't take out the paratroopers. But if you get enough in there, apparently you take control of their Time Machine and nothing will come out for a LONG time. But when they eventually do (assuming you don't use the opportunity to use a van to blow up their base), they'll be sending out a massive force. As if it is equivalent to how many they would have sent out normally, but all at once!

First of all, very happy to join this community and Raider Rescue definetly the best action/real time strategy game in apple 2 era.

It's been almost 40+ years since I played it. The challenge is to figure out keyboard function. So far, I've identied a few obviouisly.

T - Tank
E - Engineer
D - Ambulance ?
A - Anti-Air missle vehicle.
Space - dropping solders from helicopter

I believe I missed a lot. Please help. TYIA

The missiles, were excellent artillery.

fun fact, if you drop men low enough they won't deploy their parachute, their blood splatter can kill other troops and vans!

the best way to deploy soldiers was to load the heli, build more men, release the men while on the ground so they are one big block and hold the release button, then keep repeating it so it moves as a massive white block down the battlefield and can even kill tanks until they use the anti-personal shot

This is the best game I’ve ever played on Apple II+ clone. Most of modern realtime war strategy games may be inspired by Rescue Raiders I believe. Simply thumb up! :-)

one of the early premises of real time strategy genre

Hundreds of hours of gameplay on this as a 8, 9, 10 year old. The gameplay was fascinating for it's time - build / deploy troops along the battlefield and find ways to utilize the paratroops by picking them up and strategically placing them at the various checkpoints and bases along the way. You create the troops by spending hard earned currency - and they proceed to march the long march across the entire battlefield. with Skill you can pickup troops and deploy them behind enemy lines to help pave the way. Your chopper can also be used as a offensive gunship - but watch out for enemy hazards (their helicopter, rocket troops, or balloons mounted on cables to knock you out of the sky. The last 100 yards of the map were toughest as your troops take forever to march there but the enemy can pour on their defense - necessitating the pickup and paratrooping of your soldiers to the end of the map in a frantic end-game of action.

The game was reproduced by 360. It was called Armor Alley.

I played this on my original Apple IIc. If I remember correctly there was no way of saving your mission so I just let the Computer run to continue another day. Also my Joystick was completely analog so good luck trying to find the middle of your stick when trying to fly and not crush land the Helicopter. The Gameplay was awesome and the Idea behind it was new at the time. I wonder why this sort game was never "reproduced".

You oversee the complete "Battlefield" in the top line of screen. (last picture)
From your Base on the right side of the Battlefield you send Your Units trying to conquer the Base of your opponent on the left. Units mean Tanks, 5 man
Troops, 2 man Troops (specialists), Rocket Launchers (against enimy Heli).
There are Bases on the Battlefield that you have to conquer first by destroying rebuilding and manning them. With time you get money to build new Units, The Heli you fly has the highest cost of course.

Longest session I played this one from start to finish took 14 hours. I still love it.