===== OBELISK COVERT OPERATIONS WALKTHROUGH ===== v1.01 October 3, 2002 Created by Arc (arc@planetcnc.com) September 28, 2002 http://www.planetcnc.com/obelisk http://www.freewebs.com/ccfz == Global Defense Initiative == 1. Blackout 2. Hell's Fury 3. Infiltrated! 4. Elemental Imperative 5. Ground Zero 6. Twist of Fate 7. Blindsided == Brotherhood of Nod == 8. Bad Neighborhood 9. Deceit 10. Eviction Notice 11. Tiberium Strain 12. Cloak and Dagger 13. Hostile Takeover 14. Under Siege 15. Death Squad 1. Blackout -------- Get the $2000 from the church then get the commandos to the power plants at full health. The MCV will arrive, stop it so you can avoid the turrets when you are ready to start setting up. Back to the commandos, have them switch off and cover each other while blowing the plants up. Only one needs to survive though, two is a bonus. Now use their sight to expose the left part of the map and set up the MCV. The key is to get 3 Refineries going as quickly as possible while establishing a fundamental defense of a few tanks, grenadiers, and maybe an Advanced Guard Tower. The commandos should remove the turrets in the Tiberium field and one of them will probably be killed by the minigunners but make sure at least one stays alive. That one will go on to fend off about 100 enemy soldiers while taking exactly 0 damage. The Advanced Comm. Center should go up without a reg Comm Center, as the Ion Cannon is important for hitting the Obelisk and draining their credits slowly. As the defense is stable and the harvesters begin to start rolling your credits up around 2000 start building Helipads. By this time a Hummer should have gotten close enough to their base to see where the major buildings/units are. Airstrikes should take out one Construction Yard (though it will be rebuilt by the other) and also the Hand of Nod if there is a large, expensive group out front. After you have toyed with them enough you should have a large squad of tanks/grenadiers that should split up and block the 2 routes to your base. At this point attacking one of their harvesters is a good idea to clear their base of enemies and cripple their funds. Your units should handle what they have very easily. The engineer raid may come around this time, but the commando is still alive, so have him ready to guard your old MCV route. He will have no trouble with 5 engineers if you are controlling. At this point you will look like Scipio Africanus as you have 10 Orcas ready and 2 legions ready to attack the entries, simultaneously. This attack from three sides will absolutely crush the large base, just clear the SAMs as best as possible with the ground units, then watch as all 3 teams join up to obliterate the Advanced Power Plants and Refineries. Now you can finally stop ignoring the small base in the Northwest. Send the Orcas to take out the Obelisk, despite the SAM sites. Then use your joined ground team to destroy all but the Temple of Nod. Once you attack it the super nuke will launch, probably destroying your Weapons Factory and Maybe C-Yard as well if you don't sell quickly, but it shouldn't matter now. The other base may have popped up again in skeleton form, but the tanks/Orcas can easily handle mere buildings. A harvester might be sitting in some Tiberium; an Airstrike might take care of him or else you can send the Orcas to finish them off and end this long but routine mission. 2. Hell's Fury -------- What is great about this mission is that it shows how a smoke signal can be more useful than 50 tanks. Anyway take your boys right and take out the turrets while fending off gunners. Watch out for the flamers as you move far enough into their base to get reinforcements. Usually the rule is to capture whatever is worth more than the engineer, but you might want to take the Hand of Nod here. It doesn't really matter. Once you have established the base and stopped the odd streamline of gunners running towards the area like the ice cream man is in your base, you have a choice. Most people will tell you to work as quickly as possible to build an Orca to get the transport helicopter, load it with grenadiers/engineers, and send it to Delphi's signal to take out the Power Plants before the Temple is built. However as usual I like to make it as challenging as possible without being impossible, so I took my sweet time. Whenever you have a base I will tell you to build 3 Refineries. Also put an AGT at the bottleneck point. Once you have 3 Refineries you will profit from the field right of your base and can build a strong team of tanks/grenadiers to stop the constant teams of recons. Also send a hummer to check the whole bottom half of the map and have an APC or two in your group to stop the commandos that will inevitably arrive. Finally the nuke strikes, targeting the AGT and hitting your units if they are in poor position. Just to be extra daring I didn't start the Power Plant assault until my harvesters had to go to the midfield Tiberium, exposed to bike attacks. Now I finally launched the transport chopper with an unusual dogleg first directly over one SAM, then moving right while it is still in the shroud to avoid a SAM from the top left base. 3 Grenadiers is enough to take out the top turret, then blow open the concrete/chain fence so the engs can slip through. Building a barracks in the area is a good idea. I would keep one plant, sell one, and destroy the other 4. Then put some gunners on the spots. I held off on the Temple for a while. First I wanted to get their harvesters. Send your whole team to the middle and pummel the first harvester, Nod will then send an enormous but light army of up to 100 units, but it's full of recons/buggies/flame tanks. I ended up with about 10 tanks left, which I then moved to the other Tiberium field to take the other harvester out. Nod was still trying to resupply so I was able to make an initial assault on the pathetic powerless base. My units didn't survive but I took out a few things, including the Airstrip. In your base you should have another group of 10 tanks/grenadiers each that can join up. Hopefully you rebuilt the AGT since another nuke strike can come if you played my style. The new group can take out most of the remaining scraps while your all infantry team finishes off the remaining buildings in the top right corner. Bring the APC along for the group of infantry hanging out at the cliff trying to reach your Temple killers. Overall this might take a few restarts but just save before fighting the flametroops and navigating the transport and the mission barely registers as difficult for a good general. 3. Infiltrated! -------- This one is pretty routine once you have re-established your base. The beginning takes some quick clicking though. Sell the Refinery immediately or the mission is lost. Repair the northern Guard Tower and crank out a few grenadiers to get the guys in the middle of your base. Target the flametroopers quickly before they cause extensive damage to your buildings (repair money can cost you the mission too). Build a Refinery instantly and hope you can place it where the old one was before the turret shows up there. Now with the leftover scratch continue repairs, especially on the northern Guard Tower. Bring home your old harvester from the field, the Refinery will be shared. Have the harvesters gather from the stuff close to your base, as you need to quickly establish a few tanks on defense. If the concrete wall gets a hole in it near the Guard Tower, you'll also need an APC or else the lone engineer raids will get by the Guard Tower. Also get a hummer to discover the Tiberium in the two corners, and then suicide him as far into the Nod base as possible. Once you have about 10 tanks (grenadiers don't work this time) to withstand the light armored attacks and another Refinery (3 harvesters always), it is time to start building the Orcas. Four was enough for me. Send them to take out the harvesters, as there is no gigantic rush from the computer this time. This will take a while since there are 2 harvesters and they will be rebuilt until there is no money left. Keep doing it while watching/building your tanks and make sure the Guard Tower never goes down. You are then ready for the initial rush which should destroy many of their units and a few structures but will probably be destroyed eventually. Have your second wave built up, and send the Orcas on the new harvesters because Nod probably sold some structures before you finished them. The second wave should crush the leftovers and clear the SAM Sites, allowing Orcas/Air Strikes to join in as you finish off the rest of the base with ease. Everyone plays this mission pretty much the same way since the map is mostly featureless. 4. Elemental Imperative -------- This is easier than Nod Mission 1. If you want to do the boring old way you group everyone but the commando as unit 1 and him as 2. Then go north and use the hummer to distract the flame tank while everyone else kills it. Continue moving northwest, using the commando on soldiers and tank on tank. You will get to the bridge battle. Focus first on the SSMs, then fight the tanks as you slip your commando through and take the 2 crates. Now a much more fun way and a way to practice for Blindsided is to take just a commando and a tank. I would take just the commando if it weren't for the sandbag barrier. Anyway send them northwest, avoiding the flame tank. The tank is only there for the sandbag wall, so use the commando on the 3 bazookas. Then just run the tank straight through the light tank, stealth, and infantry and keep firing at the sandbags until a hole is made. It will be killed soon after, probably taking out some flametroopers accidentally. Now the commando should just ignore the tanks and take out the infantry. Avoid getting run over and keep moving him into the slot by the river, and the tanks will actually go back to their original places, leaving the commando with a sliver of red health. The transport chopper will have arrived so maneuver it over and get the commando in and up quickly, as the stealth will come for the transport. On the hill, carefully snipe the bazookamen, then go down to the plain. You could stay up north and avoid detection, but I chose to have the commando outrun the 4 missiles that are fired at him and laugh as you take the crates. 5. Ground Zero -------- This mission would be very easy if it weren't for a mere flame tank. Group your grenadiers and minigunners separately. Send the grenadiers north, taking out the bazooka and gunners. Try to keep your guys at full health. Now continue sending both groups north. Avoid the Tiberium as you go up the very right edge of the map. Once you get to the open space left of there stop. This is one of the trickier parts of the Covert Operations. The generic walkthrough gives the brilliant advice "destroy the flame tank." Don't try it. Group everyone but one minigunner together. Send the one gunner left of the cliff's edge. The flame tank will follow him. Quickly run the rest of your group up the north trail while also doing your best to manage the gunner distraction. Should your northern team make it through a Buggy may attack when you aren't in position, but it's ok to lose a unit or two. The important thing is that the flame tank returns to its original position and leaves you alone. Now send your team left and then take the lower passage through Tiberium. Hug the cliff to avoid losing health. Now quickly move left and shoot open the fence around the research buildings. Get the 3 delegates out and run to the southern passage. A nuke will bomb the place and 2 flame tanks will finish off some poor civilians. Fortunately they should leave your main group alone as they take out a few infantry. At this point they need to stay put And you must focus on the reinforcements. You have a hummer and some bazookamen. The bazookas are worthless. Take the hummer south and clear out all of the infantry in the area. The hummer should have at least 3/4 health when more reinforcements arrive, which includes your savior the Medium Tank. Send everyone up the same north path as before and again stop before the flame tank. Leave everyone but a hummer and the tank behind the right cliff line. Then position the tank in the center and draw out the flamer with the hummer. Circle your tank while still firing at the flamer and the tank should quickly be destroyed with no damage coming to you. Now get everyone up to the northern Tiberium area and do the same thing with the hummer/tank on the 2 Flame Tanks. The hummer still should be at least 1/2 health. Finally everyone unites and you make 4 groups, vehicles/grenadiers/bazookas/delegates. Lead with the tanks and follow closely with the infantry with the delegates trailing. The 2 hummers should clear all of the infantry for a while. But watch out for a surprise rear attack by 2 bazookas. I sent the grenadiers back to take them out. Soon you will run into a group of infantry supporting a light tank. Send the hummers/grenadiers at the infantry and use your tank/bazookas on the light tank. A hummer may get destroyed at this point but it's no problem this far in. The last big threat is a surprise flame tank, but the tank and well positioned bazookas make it just a scare. Just keep advancing and taking out the remaining scraps until you reach the smoke cleared area. Then it's finally time to set the delegates free and get them to the bluff where the transport chopper will pick one up and take him stage right. Alarum, fanfare, exeunt. 6. Twist of Fate -------- First you need to move your tank down to the rest of your guys, because it's taking damage. The Engineers will be shredded, just start joining the land group and the air group. Once the enemies are destroyed, sell the right Guard Tower. The extra minigunners are extremely helpful. You have to move extremely quickly northward. Lead with the vehicles and take out the first group. When you reach the 2 tanks, have the Orcas focus on one and your other group on the other. Keep moving quickly and take out as much of the northernmost squad as possible, hopefully leaving just the tank which your Orcas can get. When the MCV arrives, get it down to the smoke signal quickly and try to avoid damage from the Nod Apache. Build Power, Barracks, Refinery. Expose the Tiberium left of your base so the Harvester doesn't go wandering. Work towards a Weapons Factory, Repair Bay, and Adv. Guard Tower. Always send a Minigunner or Technician to the northeast corner of the map so you don't have to worry about Airstrikes. Put the AGT at the entry to the little Tiberium patch above your base. Get a good collection of Med. Tanks built up while maintaining your base. You then need to take the middle base. Take the northern passage again and hit the Power Plants along the northern part of the base. Then you should go to the northwest corner of the map and take out those 2 Power Plants as well. You will suffer losses, and expect a large counter attack. I tried for a very long time to do this without sandbagging, but it just takes too long to do. You need to buy time to get credits. So use a Hummer to scout their base in the southwest corner. There's actually only 2 routes, so get as close as you can for now and seal them off. Then you can take the middle base. At some point Nod will start firing Nukes at the AGT. You can sell it when you hear the warning message, or if you're really cheap you can use the nuke cheat. Save the game when the explosion occurs but before the flash, then exit c&c (thanks Maarten!). Anyway the middle base will fall fairly easily if the Obelisk is offline. Knock out the SAM if you need Orca support. The middle will now become your primary base. You'll need 2 Refineries (for the magical total of 3), and a Hand of Nod/Airstrip. Also get an Adv. Comm Center if you don't have it yet. You need to uncover Nod's base at this point, so you can cut off the Harvesters. It will probably take about 3 Stealths, so build them. Use your Orcas on any Nod units waiting at the sandbags if possible. Then sneak the Stealths in from both entries. Use one at a time and you should uncover the whole base, and one can probably make it back out. Then close the sandbag barrier into their entry points. Try to get the Harvesters outside, because Nod will spend the money rebuilding them even though they can't collect. Now that you have won the economic battle, the mission is basically won. But you need time. The Ion Cannon becomes a big weapon here. Meanwhile, start building a gigantic Light Tank army. Whenever the Ion Cannon is ready, hit the Obelisks along the east side of their base. Also, you may want an Orca army. I used a group of 7, but by the end of the mission I found I didn't really need them. When you have the huge Light Tank army with some Flame Tanks supporting, you are going to perform a siege. When the Obelisks stop being rebuilt, move your group to cover the entire right side and northern point of the base. The tanks should automatically fire on the SAM Sites and the units all along the cliff. Eventually Nod will not have enough credits to rebuild the SAM Sites. Then you should either use the Orcas on the Power Plants, or just rush the base with everyone, starting with the Power Plants in the south. The Ion Cannon might have taken care of all the Obelisks anyway though. The siege will filter out many of the units that were waiting inside. Cleaning up is pretty easy. Unfortunately you only get Airstrikes yourself when all the SAM Sites are destroyed, which is about 1 minute before the end of the mission. 7. Blindsided -------- The theme of this mission is pretty obvious, one man vs. the world. Snipe the flamethrower immediately and move left. Snipe the closer Bazooka, then get the other one. Restart if you take damage. Go study the northern passage just a bit, but avoid the Harvester and Turrets. Now go back left and take out a guy or two on your way to their base. This is tricky because you have to kill guys while you are on your way to blowing up the Turrets, or else they will shoot you. The infantry that emerge from the Turrets and SAM Sites are the commando's biggest threat of the mission. Clear out all the infantry before you take out the SAM Sites, and hope that every man is killed in the explosion. With the SAM Sites down, 5 Engineers arrive to help. Capture the 3 Adv. Power Plants, Airstrip, and Hand of Nod. Leave the Comm Center alone! Sell 2 Plants and build an Artillery, then sell the Airstrip. Build a Flamer, 2 Engineers and as many other units as possible, then sell the Hand. Make three groups (Commando, Artillery, Infantry) and start moving east. Put the Commando on the passageway to the left of the Tiberium, where he will be ambushing the enemy soon. Then take the Artillery up the northern passage, keeping as close to the water as possible. Once you see the 2 Adv. Power Plants, destroy them. Leave everything else alone. Infantry will make a pathetic charge through the Tiberium where your Commando is waiting to pick all of them off. Now start attacking the base right away. Take some technicians as targets along with your Flamer and expose as much of the base as possible, incinerating enemies still inside. Then take all your Minigunners and attack the Obelisk, ignoring the Turrets. While this is going on, rush the Commando and Engineers through. Capture the C-Yard immediately, but wait for the Harvester to be in the Refinery, or else the mission is lost. Hold back the Harvester until you take out the Turrets. Also send someone over to take out the Comm Center from the first base while you capture and destroy the remains of the second base. Be very aware of a possible enemy Transport Chopper raid that includes 2 Commandos. Use the Artillery or at worst, Commando if it arrives. Once you control the south bank your own Transport Chopper arrives, along with Air Strikes, which will be your main weapon. You'll need Engineers. Get 2 or so and have the Commando, Flamer, and Bazookaman go across on the first expedition, once the smoke signal has been lit. Have another 5 fresh guys ready to be transported right after. Have the Commando cover the Engineer while he captures the Hand. If the Silos in the north have Tiberium, capture them too. Quickly destroy the Turrets and seal off the entry with sandbags, but keep your infantry outside. Explore the 2 routes to the enemy bases as much as possible, because eventually you'll have to sandbag them in to get Tiberium. Again I don't like sandbagging, but you won't have an Airstrip for a while, so you have to buy time. Get rid of the enemies that were at the north bank, then keep your guys as far south as possible to avoid possible SSMs/Apaches. I ended up with just the Hand. Get all infantry into the third base. Use Air Strikes on the weak shelled tanks and do whatever you need to in order to move the sandbag barrier away from your base and closer to theirs. This might take a long time. I used the Transport Chopper to put a few guys down and got it out right away. The key to winning the mission is halting all of their Harvesters. Eventually your Harvester will start running out of Tiberium. You will have to be able to build a new Refinery. But you cannot do this until the east Tiberium is safe. The main trouble is Stealths. Take your Commando back to the south bank while your Flamer and other units (in my case, one Bazooka) try to fight up to 5 Stealths. They should be hanging around your base walls, so what I did was force fire with the Flamer, and follow the smoke trail. Eventually I got them all, but had no infantry left besides the Commando. I was also fairly low on credits. In order to get the new Refinery, I had start building, sell the 2 Adv. Power Plants, Comm Center, and then the Refinery. If you just sell the Refinery without starting construction, you will lose credits and could lose the mission. But once the Refinery is running and safe, you are in great shape. Start gathering, your goal is an Airstrip finally. The Apaches might chase, so have some Bazookas around and take out both of them. Otherwise they are extremely annoying. Keep using the Air Strikes and opening up more of the field while this is happening. Once you have established the usual minimal defense team, build a Stealth and Artillery. The Artillery should handle the cluster at across the lake. The Stealth needs to uncover the whole map. Most important is the northeast base. It is surprisingly weak. By now you should have sandbagged both enemy bases off, but other tanks will still be out on the battlefield. In the northeast base, have the Stealth fire at the far right SAM Site. They should be desperate enough to sell it. Hide the Stealth. Then take a raid team of Commando, 3 Engineers, and Flamer in the Transport Chopper. Stay right to avoid the SAMs. Land and capture the C-Yard and a Silo. Build a Hand right next to the Yard. Use the Commando on all the infantry lurking, and an Air Strike on their Hand if you want. Or just destroy it normally, because it is too close to the Turret. Open up a sandbag to let the Harvester in the Refinery so you can capture that as well. But look out for the Turret, it can hit it. Remove the 2 southern Turrets, possibly with tank support. Then clean up the rest of the base, and kill the other Harvester if it's in the area. You also need to get rid of the left Turrets, but watch out for them blowing a hole in the wall and letting a bunch of tanks in. Capture the Comm Center and sell it if you have one still. Build a few Flame Tanks, then use your army to remove the rest of the enemy units on the field. Now you just have to deal with the fifth base. It was surprising easy for me. First I used 2 Air Strikes on the C-Yard and Adv. Power Plants, they should all be destroyed. This knocks off the Obelisks. I still had a sandbag left in their base from earlier. I love destroying bases from the inside. Hence I built a Hand, instantly made it primary, and built 2 Engineers. Capture and sell the Airstrips, because you probably cannot get a tank flown in before the Strips are destroyed. The infantry that come out do a remarkable job of finishing at least 4-5 of the tanks. Then take the tank army and start coming in from the east entry. Also build more tanks, because you have 2 Harvesters working. While you take out the remaining building and a few tanks, your new group should come and take the southern entry Turrets. With all the Obelisks offline the only remaining defense will be a few wounded Gunners and Technicians. Kill them all. Your Commando doesn't have to survive the whole time, but I think it feels better to have him personally take out the last man. 8. Bad Neighborhood -------- Deploy the MCV immediately and build Power Plant/Hand of Nod/Refinery/Airstrip. Get a Buggy, then start on another Refinery. Have the Buggy search a bit north, then find the eastern Tiberium field. Then let him sit on the bridge to take care of the civilians trying to make a smoke signal in your base. With the 2nd Refinery going, build a light tank and minigunner to take care of the first GDI that approach. Get enough Power Plants, then build a Comm Center and finally an Obelisk. Fortunately the Harvesters work very quickly on this mission. Now you need to get a Stealth and discover the whole map. There's no need to build up an army yet. Save up for another Obelisk for when the Ion Cannon hits. The Stealth needs to find the huge Tiberium Garden up north and then infiltrate the GDI base from the south. It should go undetected, so look around at almost the whole base. Go to the top right corner and blow away the fence to get the 2000 credit crate. This practically wins the mission. Start building the Temple while watching out for the APC raid. A Flame Tank will help but isn't needed. Get the Stealth to a safe lookout post and then drop the bomb so that it takes out the C-Yard, Weapons Factory, and Barracks at least. Sell the Temple and built a 3rd Refinery right after. The rush of infantry should all run right into your Flame Tank/Obelisk combo. Have a good light tank army of 8-10 built up to take out the Mammoths that are starting to chase your Harvesters. Now you will be overflowing with money and all that's left is a base with power but no units. Use Artillery to get rid of the Guard Towers, then rush Light/Flame Tanks at the upper left AGT. It looks much more intimidating than it is. Now target the Adv. Power Plants while under fire until the power is low. Then you can clean up the rest with little trouble. 9. Deceit -------- There's some neat psychology in this one. Get out of the Grenadiers way before killing them. Explore south a bit but always stop before the Guard Towers. Then go back up north with the Commandos covering each other. There are a lot of infantry in the area. Watch out for ambushes in the trees. Keep searching the area and killing off all enemies until you find the sandbagged area. When a Transport Chopper lands there, capture it, and get the crate. Then move south, and bring the chopper with you like you did the Engineer. Save the villagers and get the other crate. Then move west and expose the lower 3 Guard Towers. From there move up the cliff's edge until you see the north. Your base is here, but you need to expose the northwestern part of the map as well, so do that. Then start the base. Repair everything and get a Hand of Nod. Then the psychology comes in. You feel very confident after destroying the whole battlefield of infantry and your base is blocked, so you think you can slowly build up. But you need to start sandbagging immediately. Block the lower edge of your base first to prevent the Engineer raids, then start working northward as fast as possible. Have Bazookas and the Apache remove the Towers, and block the route that your Commandos took to go north, along with 3 bags where the Towers were for the minute. Then hurry northward with the line, as enemy tanks are already coming at you. Block off the east bridge, then the north one, and you are secure for the moment, so reopen where the Guard Towers were. Having the Refinery building as soon as the east bridge is blocked. Wait for the Airstrip later. While you wait for some credits to build up, have the Apache take out a few enemies around your base and continue sandbagging all game. Leave the big group at your southern entry alone. Repair if the Ion Cannon hits. Eventually you can get the Airstrip. You'll need to scout more terrain, especially the north part. When you block off the northern Comm Center, capture it. This is a key part of the mission due to its location near the Tiberium, and enables Stealth/Flame Tanks. Build a Stealth immediately and you can uncover All but the very inside of the GDI base. Also it is extremely important to sandbag eastward and block the easternmost GDI entry by the two Towers, as a large force will jam up there. You should eventually lock their innermost base entries as well to cut their Harvesters off. You will have sandbags at basically every important cliff. Then when it's all clear, build 2 Refineries next to the Comm Center. Suddenly you will have tons of credits, so its time for the Temple of Nod. Make sure you have enough power. Also you need to have scouted all of the GDI base, possibly with Turrets at the end of your sandbags. When it's ready, target the Adv. Comm Center, and the Power Plants/Weapons Factory should go down with it. Don't destroy the C-Yard, because you want to capture it. Get rid of the Guard Tower right next to it, then fly in some Engineers and take what you can. Then I put an Obelisk in the center of the base, which clears a lot of structures and units. Also a Weapons Factory next to it helps, so you can build Medium Tanks to draw into the Obelisk. Once again the base should be reamed from the inside, although the power might come back online so watch out. You have so many credits that a large strike force should be available by now to sweep the countryside and obliterate the 2 big armies still lurking. 10. Eviction Notice -------- I'm going to use the sandbag tactic in this mission for a few reasons. It is kind of hard to beat without them for one. But the two main reasons are that sandbags make the Tiberium situation an interesting issue, and more importantly sets up a crushing tactic that will turn the momentum completely around, but that will come later. Group 4 Flame Tanks together and then the rest. Send 4 at the Mammoth while moving the others eastward to the village. Hopefully you can keep 4-5 Flame Tanks alive. Send one Flamer in a circle around the area to scout and have the others immediately start charring the village. The spot you want to deploy is the peninsula in the southeast corner. Pick up the crates as you burn; the third one is in the oil rig. After the Power/Hand are built, do not build the Refinery yet. Immediately start building sandbags to guard the west and north. GDI will only leave you alone for a few minutes. Block the west first but leave a sandbag to build off of northward. Get it as far from the southern Tiberium as possible, because that's the first place your Harvester will go. Once the entries are blocked for the moment, build the Refinery. The credits are going to be used on more sandbags. Uncover more of the terrain as possible, especially the northeast part. Next you want to extend the sandbags to enable your Harvester to get the other patch near your base and then eventually the northeastern huge garden. Unfortunately GDI units will get trapped fairly close, especially at the northern entry. So you are going to have to build an Obelisk to clear them out, with support from whatever small army you've built up. Sell the Obelisk immediately after or it will get an Ion Cannon. Get another 2 Refineries to help gather, and build a Temple. The army you are building up will actually not come into play until the very end, but you are going to be rolling in credits. Most important is to build 3-4 Stealths. 1-2 should uncover all of the map except for the GDI base. Getting inside the base is the key to the mission, in a very similar situation to Cloak & Dagger. You have to enter from the southern entry, even though the other one looks easier. There's only a single lane between the Guard Tower and Mammoths, plus 3 AGTs are right there. Be sure the Harvester isn't coming through or you will be spotted. Charge through and hopefully there will be a bit of red health left. Navigate your way slowly northward through the base, avoiding enemies as much as possible. You want to get to the northwest corner. Unfortunately the Stealth cannot survive to see the C-Yard, but it's in the northwest corner. The nuke should be ready, and this is where you want to hit. Any other spot hit will be rebuilt. Take out the 2 AGTs as well with the nuke. Then move the Stealth into the corner and expose that part. Now comes time for the brilliant tactic. Sandbag your way into their base, and block off the cliff you just took, but not their base entries. You want to build an Airstrip in the very northwest corner of the map, out of reach of enemy tanks. Since the area cliff is now blocked, the Stealth can kill the one Adv. Power Plant, but GDI will have power. Now the genius comes in. Build an Obelisk behind the middle of the sandbags. From this spot it can destroy the Weapons Factory, APP, Comm Center and both Refineries, as well as every unit that comes at it. If you have the money/power, build a second one right next to it. Also get some tanks from the new Airstrip and go destroy the southern part of the cliff, especially the Adv. Comm Center. GDI will have low power. This will make them quite angry, and many of those units on the battlefield will turn back and walk right into the Obelisk(s). Just keep repairing and maybe use concrete walls. Then bring out your new army to finish off the rest of the base (Barracks) and capture the Silos. It's an odd strategy because you assault the base, then fight on the battlefield. Your original army can now come out as you sell the sandbags and clear the enemies who are surprisingly unresistant. 11. The Tiberium Strain -------- This is a cool propaganda mission. Just take the Flame Tanks and start moving south, killing the infantry easily. Try to avoid damage. Take the south bridge and send the 3 Flamers at the Hummer. Its gun is pathetic. Now take the left route and kill off the various GDI infantry as you approach the village. Leave the buildings alone or you fail. Send your Flamers at the cluster of civilians, making sure to incinerate all of them. As you move to the southern corner you reach the first challenge of the mission. First get the Hummer on the left side with the Chem. Warriors, then send the Flamers after the Medium Tank. You could lose one or two, depending on if you can convince it to focus on your Chems. Once it is gone another Flamer arrives and has to take down a transport chopper reinforcement of 5 infantry. Join up back at the bridge that goes east. Avoid the north, it's just guard towers. Take out the 2 civilians, then deal with the second challenge, another Medium Tank. Again convince it to focus on your Chems and get another Flamer once it's destroyed. I managed to finish the mission with 2 wounded Flamers and 6 Chems, so have that or more. Follow the only path available and kill everyone along the way. In the southeast corner is a tempting Comm Center, but just kill the troops around it. Then move through the big Tiberium field, as your Chems are unaffected by it. Kill the Hermit's Hideaway lone civilian on the way. Then you are at the toughest part of the mission. There are 2 Hummers and about 20 infantry that will storm out of the base when you get close, and then 2 more Hummers appear from the right. You have to kill them all. Creatively, I decided to leave the Flamers out of the way and let the Chems spam the base. Get the Hummer, then take out as many troops as possible, which should be most of them. Then let the Flamers finish off the scraps. Now the mission comes down to a dogfight between Flamers and Hummers, with the Flamers easily winning even if in red health. With all enemies defeated it is no challenge to first go northeast and destroy the 2 Biolabs, then finish off the 3rd in the upper left part of the base. Just don’t go too far left into the guard towers. A brilliantly eerie video clip ends the mission. 12. Cloak and Dagger -------- Have your Stealth expose all of the battlefield, but avoid any fighting. Don't get too close to the Adv. Guard Tower in the middle of the map. Once everything has been scouted it's time for the slippery sneaking into the GDI base. Split the Mammoths and stay on the outside right edge as you advance up to the northern entry. Then park as far left as possible and blast all the fencing around the MCV. Deploy the Construction Yard adjacent to the left Power Plant. Now here is where all the dreams are obliterated and a true understanding of the map evolves. I have tried everything imaginable, but because of the GDI tank you have no choice but to sandbag. The secondary storyline of the mission is that GDI was foolish enough to not enough credits to have a Refinery in an area swarming with it, and you perform a brilliant inverted siege, actually trapping them -outside- of their own base. Even with the tank trapped, it's just impossible to hold off all those other tanks while trying to knock out the AGTs. So once the base is closed, the Stealth gets to fire at will on all 5 Adv. Power Plants. The 4th one will knock the AGTs offline, so the 5th one is safe to go after. Then you can start building your small supporting force. Keep the Power Plant/Hand of Nod out of the regular Guard Tower's way. Build 2 Bazookamen and an engineer. Work your way left with the Bazookas. Start with the top left Tower using the Bazooka placement technique so that they fire on their own, then do the same on the other Tower. Now get the immobilized tank and sell the 2 sandbags cutting him off. By now your Construction yard has probably been hit with an Ion Cannon, but don't repair it. Go destroy the Adv. Comm Center (you can't capture it). Then send the engineer to the other C-Yard, and sell your original one. You might get another engineer when you sell it. Now you have a choice. Some people like to build up with a Refinery and capture the Weapons Factory once the Guard Tower is cleared, but this strategy isn't really wise. I choose to capture and immediately sell the Factory, and build 3 Apaches. The only unit on the map that can defend itself from the Apaches is a lone bazookaman, who will get at most 1 shot off before being torn up. Send the Apaches at the Guard Towers, then the light vehicles and infantry scattered around the map. The heavier vehicles will take a bit longer, but it doesn't matter when they have no counterattack. Remember to get the last Adv. Power Plant at the technology center. Then send your infantry to start cleaning out the Adv. Guard Towers around the base with help from the Apaches. Leave the Silos and Tech Center till the end to be sure power stays low. Guard against engineer raids if you got rid of the sandbags. Using this tactic, the casualties were 71 for GDI and 4 for Nod, which I can list. A technician died from friendly fire, my bazookaman killed the other accidentally while hunting civilians, and I sent 2 wounded minigunners through Tiberium. If you do this style try to have 0 deaths. 13. Hostile Takeover -------- Take a good look at the church with your Flame Tank, then start moving out. Expose the Medium Tank on the bridge and destroy it with the Bazookas. Keep moving and discover the mini-base. Sell the Comm Center immediately and build a Bazooka and 2 Gunners, then sell the Hand. Now you have to deal with probably the hardest part of the mission, fighting 2 Medium Tanks and a Mammoth with this pathetic group. Split up the Gunners and Bazookas. Send your Gunner team to attack, then put your Bazookas in the corner cliff to target the tank after the fighting starts. Keep evading getting run over with the Gunners and bring your Bazookas over to help fight the other two tanks. The Bazookas should survive if they don't get hit with a missile. Now expose the Mammoth on the southern bridge, but leave him alone and take the bridge a bit more north to find your fallen base in the west. Start repairing and get a Power Plant going while sending out the Harvester. Make sure he stays fairly close to the base, out of the way of the AGTs in the north. Fortunately the GDI units are confused and do not attack you for a while, so leave them alone. Start building the usual base until you get an Airstrip and Artillery. Send the Artillery to the bottom left corner, where he will soon play a critical role. Now get a few units together and remove the Mammoth on the bridge, you need that spot. You are temporarily secure, but you have a lot of work to do. As your Harvester brings in the credits, get up to a team of 7(!) Engineers, 4 Bazookas, and a mixture of 7 Flamers and Minigunners, emphasis on Flamers. Also as you build a few tanks, unfortunately this is another mission where you pretty much are required to build sandbags, because you need to be focused on the next 'covert' part. After your team of men are out of the base, block off the 3 bridges and the northern passage, which is already partly blocked by a GDI tower surrounded by sandbags. Also send some flamethrowers to the left part of your base where the smoke signal was, to prevent the occasional Engineer raid. Finally you are ready for the good part. Have the artillery destroy the 2 Guard Towers. Destroy the fencing, and find the 3 Transport Choppers. Capture all 3, then load everyone in. You're going to land back at the church you saw at the start of the mission. Do that, and destroy the church for 2000 credits, which you should use to build up your tanks. If you don't have sandbags around your base at this point, a bunch of angry GDI tanks will come and crush you. Don't go too far north yet. Send a sacrifice north to expose the Guard Towers, then use the Bazookas to take them out. Don't cross the bridge yet, as there are 2 more. Send another sacrifice and do the same deal. Now merge the infantry and engineers into 2 groups. You might have a Rocket Launcher guarding, but it's not actually a problem. Rush your infantry in first, in the direction of the Barracks. The Flamers should suicide themselves and all the infantry on both sides will burn up. Your Engineers should be racing in afterwards, completely free to capture whatever. If possible, take the Barracks and Weapons Factory right now, but once you capture the C-Yard the mission is won. I build a Barracks quickly in my base before selling the Yard and whatever else I captured. The theme of this mission has been revealed as the importance of realizing a weakness in an opponent's base defense. However, you will see about 9 Mammoths and many other tanks knocking on your door. Just keep building your army, with a few artillery. Also, you are going to need more Engineers. Get them and send them to the still wide open GDI base. Capture all the Power Plants so that the AGTs go offline. Meanwhile, in my case a group of 5 Mammoths were at the southern bridge, and one Artillery slowly pounded them all to dusty death. You will find that while you have sold GDIs base away, their large group of tanks in the center has slowly disappeared, because they have no reinforcements. Whenever you're ready, open up a bridge and finish whatever is left, then perform an extremely easy base assault. Take the silos if you want. There's nothing to worry about at this point. 14. Under Siege -------- Building sandbags seems like the natural thing to do, but doing it the proper way gives us the good warfare lesson of abandoning a base to save the men within. Immediately sell every silo, along with all SAM Sites except the one near the airstrip that is always targeted. Start arranging 3 even teams that will defend against the invasions. I put the flame tank on the left side, which has 2 turrets instead of one, which will make it the important side later. Now find the Stealth and take him out the northern way. Have him take a look at the left part up to the GDI Units, then go back over the northern ones and down the very far right side to see that column. Then go down to the southern part of the map and get the money out of the church. I know the map can still be won without it, but there's no need to make it harder on you. Now continue scouting the map, and finally take the Stealth to the left edge of the GDI base. Shoot through the concrete wall, then kamikaze your way through the base, exposing as much as possible. Again, it all comes together later. Now you have to refocus on the situation. Build as many light tanks as possible, which should be 5. Repair your SAM when it gets airstriked. Now sell the Repair Bay, and against normal logic, the Construction Yard. This yields enough for another 4-5 light tanks. You could have low power, so sell the Comm Center since it's useless, and try to get another light tank. Then you won't have enough money, so sell the Airstrip. Then build 10 minigunners with the 1000 credits. Your Adv. Power Plant isn't worth maintaining due to the bomb repair costs, so sell it before it gets destroyed anyway. Build a few more gunners, then sell your other power plants. Build 3 more minigunners (they'll be slow without any power), then sell the Hand of Nod. Now your base should consist of something like one SAM Site, 4 turrets, 1 Temple of Nod, 13-14 Light Tanks, a Recon, a Flame Tank, an APC, an Artillery, and LOTS of minigunners. Divide them evenly and now you are ready for part 3. Keep the infantry slightly back behind the tanks right now, there's plenty of room in your now empty base. Then rotate between the 3 groups drawing in a few lighter enemies with a light tank. The Hummers, Rocket Launchers, and a few infantry will chase you right into your waiting light tanks. At best you shouldn't lose more than a couple minigunners if they are out of the way. Now you have to deal with the 3 teams of 2 Mammoths, a tank, and a lot of grenadiers. This is probably the best drama building before a huge battle in the game. It's finally BONZO GONZO time. The left unit should now engage the GDI forces, then draw back into the base to get turret support. Immediately switch to the right side and manage that battle as best as possible. The northern units should be confused and try to move down to the left side. Remember the simple principle of 'if it can be destroyed, destroy it.' Target one tank at a time and repair turrets should they get damaged. The flame tank becomes a huge factor as a legion of grenadiers come in as a group. Toast them. The right unit should be finished first, so group them up with the northern team as soon as possible to fight that battle. Finally they should all be grouped together to finish off the wounded soldiers coming in. The surprising thing about this battle is that the light tanks hold up really well. only 3-4 should be lost. The harvester may come at you pathetically, be sure to decimate it. now quickly take either a technician or minigunner and send them northward for a possible airstrike attack that you don't want to hit your tanks. Now you can take a breather and marvel at what you just did. But there's still work to do. You still have your nuke! You can either target the Guard Towers or the main part of the base, depending on how many Light Tanks survived. Infantry are done for the day. 8 Light Tanks left over is more than enough, so for a satisfying bombing take out the Yard, Refinery, and Power Plants. Then incinerate the vengeance seeking survivors. Now you can take your Light Tanks and take out the 4 Towers that look much more fierce than they are, especially since they will possibly be sold when damaged. Then finish the Weapons Factory and Adv. Power Plant and congratulate yourself on turning around the hopeless scenario. 15. Death Squad -------- Group the 2 Stealths and head northeast. Expose the Guard Towers but go past them until you are as far right as possible. Then blow away a few portions of the concrete and take the passage on the right side. Blow another section out in the upper tier and send the Stealths through one at a time. Take the first one up past the Mammoth and position it near the trademark rock where you will eventually be able to fire at the Adv. Comm Center without the AGT firing back. Bring the other Stealth to the same spot. Now go back for the other group. Move them to the Guard Towers and have the 3 Bazookamen take them both out. As the GDI commando comes out, try to have your commando fire on him first. Then send either the commando or flame tank against the regular Comm Center and take it out. This should send the frenzy of GDI units at you. Send whatever units you have left (probably just Light Tank and Buggy) down to the original starting point's cliff where they get to be heroes that fend off as many as possible knowing they are about to die themselves. Once most of the GDI troops have moved beyond the concrete walls, have your Stealths begin their assault. The GDI will continue to chase your other units, and the mission ends the moment the Advanced Comm Center falls.