JackoDerp's Guide to Tiberian Dawn/C&C1 Online Multiplayer play. 2014 Edition V1.0(25/10/2014) If you want to play, go to www.cncnet.org and download it from there. If you're new to TD online, or looking to improve your game, I suggest you read this. This Guide should cover the majority of strategies that are used currently online. Feel free to paste this guide anywhere, as long as I am referenced to as the maker. This is a multiplayer only guide, I recommend you play the singleplayer missions (although concepts for those are a little different) because they are fun and challenging. This guide is built with intentions of playing on CnCNet, if its in the future or something and a new platform is running then some of this information might be slightly invalid. (Only slightly :P ) Contents: Section 1: Basic Concepts 1.0: Game Concepts 1.1: Faction Basics Section 2: Factions in detail 2.0: GDI specifics 2.0a: GDI Infantry 2.0b: GDI Vehicles 2.0c: GDI Aircraft 2.1: Nod Specifics 2.1a: Nod Infantry 2.1b: Nod Vehicles 2.1c: Nod Aircraft 2.2: Structures 2.2a: GDI only Structures 2.2b: Nod only Structures Section 3: Basic Strategies 3.0: Overall 3.1: GDI Tactics 3.2: Nod Tactics 3.3: Good General Build orders Section 4: In-game Scenarios 4.0: GDI vs Nod 4.0a: as the GDI player 4.0b: as the Nod player 4.1: GDI vs GDI 4.2: Nod vs Nod 4.3: Infinite Money 4.4: Large FFA games 4.5: Team Games Section 5: In-depth Tips and tricks 5.0: Unit Micromanagement 5.1: Engineers 5.2: Hidden units 5.3: Superweapons Section 6: Other Crap 6.1: Crates 6.2: Glitches 6.3: Starting Units 6.4: Visceroids -------------Section 1 - Basic Concepts ------------ 1.0: Basic Game The concept Behind Command and Conquer is simple, kill your opponent. This can be done by Structure a base, and then units and outsmarting your enemy and eventually defeat him. To acquire funds you need to harvest Tiberium, a weird green alien material that is toxic to humans and will kill you if you come into too much contact with it. 1.1: Faction Basics GDI - A UN-based Peacekeeping force set up to protect civilians from warmongers and to clean up tiberium before it spreads around the planet and kills everyone. On the battlefield, their job is to limit open space and strangle the map so Nod can't get around your units. Nod - A strange and ancient cult, lead by the prophet Kane, who utilise Tiberium in an attempt to enhance the human race, and eventually use it to create the path to ascension. On the battlefield, a smart Nod commander utilises his units to be a menace in open spaces and to ambush lone units or unguarded structures in Hit-and-run attacks. -------------Section 2 - Factions in Detail ------------ 2.0: GDI specifics ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2.0a: GDI infantry To train GDI infantry, you need to first build a Barracks, and then you can start producing from this selection: Minigunner Cost: 100 Weapon: Basic Assault Rifle (yep, not a minigun at all), Short range, low damage Prerequisites: Barracks Speed: Slow Health: Low Strong vs: Bikes, Light Units and Structures (in large groups), Minigunners, Rocket Soldiers and Engineers Weak vs: Any Flame Weapon (including Chem trooper), Grenadiers, Artillery/SSM/MRLS, and large groups of tanks (squishy squishy), Tiberium and Apaches Basic Description: These guys are your basic unit, you get them from selling Structures and are reasonably effective vs other infantry. Enormous groups of minigunners (like 20 or 30) can devastate Structures and light unit groups Grenadier Cost: 160 Weapon: Grenades, Short Range, Medium-High Damage Prerequisites: Barracks Speed: Medium Health: Low Strong vs: Infantry (Especially Groups), Bikes, Structures Weak vs: Any Flame Weapon (including Chem trooper), Artillery/SSM/MRLS, and large groups of tanks (squishy squishy), Tiberium and Apaches NOTE: Using groups of Grenadiers vs groups of enemy Grenadiers/Flamers will result in large casualites for both groups Basic Description: These guys pack a punch against Infantry and structures, and the splash damage is large. They move faster than most infantry But do a small amount of damage to local units when they die. Rocket Soldier Cost: 300 Weapon: Rocket Launcher, Medium range, Low damage to infantry, Medium-High damage to vehicles/Aircraft Prerequisites: Barracks Speed: Slow (slower than minigunner) Health: Very Low Strong vs: Vehicles, Aircraft Weak vs: Any Infantry, Flames, Artillery, Tiberium Basic Description: These guys are your best defense against Vehicles and Aircraft early-game, but you need them in large groups for them to really be effective. Keep them covered from enemy fire and they can do wonders for you. Engineer Cost: 500 Weapon: None Prerequisites: Barracks Speed: Slow Health: Very low Strong vs: Structures Weak vs: Pretty much anything with a gun, Tiberium Basic Description: These guys are there to steal enemy Structures and you can do some really annoying stuff with them (see 5.2) Commando Cost: 1000 Weapon: Sniper, Medium Range, Huge damage to individual infantry, no damage to anything else Secondary Weapon: C4, destroys Structures Prerequisites: Barracks, Advanced Communications Centre Speed: Medium Health: Medium Strong vs: Individual/small groups of Infantry, Structures Weak vs: Flames, MG weapons, large groups of infantry, Apaches, Tiberium Basic Description: These Badasses can 1-shot infantry out of their firing range, 1-shot Structures and be a real nuisance when you're not paying attention. Use Light MG units (buggy/humvee) or apaches to deal with them. NOTE: This guy won't autoshoot infantry, you have to click them manually to attack. 2.0b: GDI Vehicles To build GDI vehicles, you need to construct a Weapons Factory first, and then you can produce from this selection: Medium Tank Cost: 800 Weapon: Large Tank Cannon, Medium-Large Range, High anti-armour and Structure damage, low infantry damage Prerequisites: Weapons Factory Speed: Medium-Low Health: High Strong vs: Vehicles, Structures Weak vs: Aircraft and large amounts of Infantry Basic Description: The Heart and Soul of the GDI Army, These guys are the most effective anti-armour Unit in the game (More cost effective than mammoth tanks against armour) and will wreck pretty much any vehicle without too many problems. Watch out for large groups of Rocket Soldiers (try to squish if you can) and Obelisks of Light. It's lack of AA makes it easy prey for Orcas. Humvee Cost: 400 Weapon: Basic MG, Short-Medium Range, Low armour/Structure damage, medium damage vs Infantry and light units Prerequisites: Weapons Factory Speed: Fast Health: Medium-Low Strong vs: Small Groups of Infantry and Light units Weak vs: Heavy Armour, large groups of Infantry/Light Units, Aircraft Basic Description: GDI's Light scout unit, you may need a few of these to keep up with Nod's Light units early on or to help deal with annoying Infantry (such as engineers or commandoes). Will get totally owned by anything even remotely well armoured. Cannot Squish infantry. APC Cost: 700 Weapon: Basic MG, Short-Medium Range, Low armour/Structure damage, medium damage vs Infantry and light units Prerequisites: Weapons Factory, Barracks Speed: Fast Health: High Strong vs: Infantry Weak vs: Heavy armour, Aircraft Basic Description: This guy is like an armoured Humvee, except it can Squish infantry, as well as hold 5 of them inside it. Watch out for these, as they are often used to rush engineers into your base and steal important structures (see 5.2) Very effective at squishing infantry, but not often used for that. Mammoth Tank Cost: 1500 Weapon: Dual Heavy tank cannons, Medium-Large Range, very high damage vs Structures and Vehicles, low Damage to infantry Secondary Weapon: Dual Rocket pods, medium-Large Range, Very high damage vs Infantry, medium Damage to Aircraft NOTE: The rocket pods will not always fire, see 5.1 for help on dealing with this problem. Prerequisites: Weapons Factory, Repair Bay Speed: Slow Health: Very High, will slowly self-heal (for free!) up to Half health. Strong vs: Everything Weak vs: Large Groups of anti-armour units Basic Description: The Ultimate Multi-purpose tool, and the Bane of Nod units everywhere. But being expensive, they are slow to build and you won't have that many of them, but they are very effective against pretty much anything. MRLS (Mobile Rocket Launch System), Also known as "Rocket Launcher" Cost: 800 Weapon: Multiple Rocket Pods, Medium/Large Range, Very High damamge to infantry (especially Groups), Medium-High damage to Aircraft Prerequisites: Weapons Factory, Advanced Communications Centre Speed: Medium-Slow Health: Low Strong vs: Infantry, Structures, Aircraft Weak vs: Armoured Units Basic Description: Not particularly useful, due to its low armour and high level technology requirements, but is occasionally Useful lategame vs large groups of Infantry. Harvester Cost: 1400 Weapon: None Prerequisites: Weapons Factory, Refinery Speed: Medium Health: Medium Strong vs: Tiberium (I guess) Weak vs: Vehicles, Aircraft Basic Description: These Guys harvest Tiberium and make you lots of $$$. Occasionally you need to squish a few infantry with them They are unarmed so make sure you keep them well defended, and note you get one every time you build a refinery. MCV Cost: 5000 Weapon: None Prerequisites: Weapons Factory, Advanced Communications Centre Speed: Slow Health: Low Strong vs: Nothing Weak vs: Basically Everything Basic Description: Use these guys to deploy into Construction Yards and build bases. Because they are so expensive and late-game It's quite rare to see one built in-game, but keep them protected when moving them around. 2.0c: GDI Aircraft Orca Cost: 1200 Weapon: Missile Pods, High armour Damage, Medium Structure Damage, Low Infantry Damage Prerequisites: Helipad Speed: Fast Health: Medium-Low Strong vs: Vehicles, Aircraft Weak vs: Any form of AA, Infantry Basic Description: Orcas do high damage to unguarded armoured units, but die quickly to reasonable Anti-Air. You can target enemy helicopters on the ground and they are capable of air-to-air combat. Chinook/Transport Helicopter Cost: 1500 Weapon: None Prerequisites: Helipad Speed: Fast Health: low Strong vs: None Weak vs: AA, anything whilst on the ground Basic Description: Almost like a flying APC, it carries 5 infantry and is often used to exploit poor AA and sneak Engineers or Commandoes behind enemy lines. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2.1: Nod Specifics (NOTE: If any units/infantry etc are shared between Nod and GDI you will need to read their entries from their respective GDI sections) 2.1a: Nod Infantry To train Nod infantry, you need to first build a Hand of Nod, and then you can start producing from this selection: Minigunner (see GDI Unit Section) Rocket Soldier (see GDI Unit Section) Engineer (see GDI Unit Section) Flamer Cost: 200 Weapon: Flamethrower, Short Range, HUGE infantry damage (as well as anything around its target), medium damage vs Light units and Structures, low damage vs Armoured Units Prerequisites: Hand Of Nod Speed: Medium-slow Health: Low Strong vs: Infantry, Structures, Light units (if they get close) Weak vs: Flame weapons, heavy armour, Tiberium, Apaches Basic Description: Flamers are faster infantry (for some reason) and will annihilate large groups of infantry without much effort. They cause quite a lot of damage to local units when they die, so avoid using large clusters of flamers. Commando (see GDI Unit Section) Chem Warrior Cost: 300 Weapon: Chem sprayer (basically like a flamer weapon), Short range, Large infantry damage (as well as anything around its target), medium damage vs Light units and Structures, low damage vs Armoured Units Prerequisites: Hand Of Nod, Temple Of Nod Speed: Medium-slow Health: Low Strong vs: Infantry, Structures, Light units (if they get close) Weak vs: Flame weapons, heavy armour, Apaches Basic Description: Very similar to flamers, except a lot of their details (including their weapon attack) are a shade of Green. These guys are also immune to Tiberium Poisoning (except blossom trees) so they can go anywhere. 2.1b - Nod Vehicles To build Nod vehicles, you need to construct a Airstrip first, and then you can produce from this selection: Light Tank Cost: 600 Weapon: Light Tank Cannon, medium-short range, Moderate Vehicle/Structure damage, low infantry damage Prerequisites: Airstrip Speed: Medium Health: Medium Strong vs: Vehicles (to an extent) Weak vs: Heavier armour, Rocket Soldiers, Aircraft, Obelisk Of Light Basic Description: These look like Nod's main unit, but in reality they are only a support unit, ineffective against most targets (especially medium/mammoth tanks) it is highly recommended that they are used in combination with other units. However they are one of the few Nod units that can survive being Nuked, can be used to squish infantry in an emergency Recon Bike Cost: 500 Weapon: Missile Pod, short range, moderate vehicle/Structure damage, high aircraft damage, low infantry damage Prerequisites: Airstrip Speed: Very Fast Health: Low Strong vs: Lone Vehicles (of any type), Aircraft, Unguarded Structures Weak vs: Infantry, large groups of Vehicles Basic Description: Nod's real main unit, cheap and good anti-armour units, lots of these can be devastating to lone units and poorly defended structures. Often used vs harvesters to harass enemies (especially GDI). Perfect hit-and-run Unit. Cannot squish infantry. Nod Buggy Cost: 300 Weapon: Basic MG, Short-Medium Range, Low armour/Structure damage, medium damage vs Infantry and light units Prerequisites: Airstrip Speed: Fast Health: Low Strong vs: Small Groups of Infantry and Light units Weak vs: Heavy Armour, large groups of Infantry/Light Units, Aircraft Basic Description: Nod's Light scout unit, often used in tandem with recon bikes to help deal with infantry. Is very similar to a GDI humvee except it has lower armour but is cheaper. Artillery Cost: 450 Weapon: Big High-explosive shell cannon, long range (but inaccurate), high Infantry, Structure and Light unit damage, Low armour damage Prerequisites: Airstrip Speed: Very Slow Health: Very Low Strong vs: Infantry, Structures, Light units Weak vs: Armour, Aircraft Basic Description: Extremely Dangerous unit, when allowed to fire. It is inaccurate, but its attack does huge damage on light units, Infantry and structures alike. Extremely good support unit (useless on its own). Does not fire on fast moving units moving around it. very slow-moving and very poorly armoured, you must keep it protected for it to be any use. Flame Tank Cost: 800 Weapon: Dual Flamethrowers, Short range, Enormous Damage to Infantry, Structures and Light vehicles, Low damage to armoured units. Prerequisites: Airstrip, Communications Centre Speed: Slow Health: High Strong vs: Infantry, Structures, Light units Weak vs: Armour, Aircraft Basic Description: Extremely powerful when used appropriately, will annihilate groups of infantry, light units and structures if ignored. Quite slow-moving, but well armoured, is often used as a "brute force" weapon to get through heavy defenses. Stealth Tank Cost: 900 Weapon: Small missile pods, medium-short range, reasonable damage to vehicles, structures and aircraft, low infantry damage Prerequisites: Airstrip, Communications Centre Speed: Medium Health: Very Low Strong vs: Harvesters, Unguarded Structures Weak vs: Infantry, Vehicles, Static Defense Structures Basic Description: The Ultimate Troll Unit. Is effective against anything unguarded that can't shoot back. Whats more, its invisible when idle, so there could be one right under your nose and you wouldnt be able to see it. Very useful in behind enemy lines or in unguarded Tiberium Fields, Quite expensive though. SSM Launcher Cost: 750 Weapon: Large Rocket, long-range, high damage to infantry and light vehicles, low damage to armoured units and structures Prerequisites: Airstrip, Obelisk Of Light Speed: Slow Health: Low Strong vs: Infantry, Structures Weak vs: Vehicles, Aircraft Basic Description: An incredibly annoying unit used to taunt the more defensive players. Its weapon range is the longest in the game (even more than Obelisk or Advanced Guard tower) and so they are often used to sneak quick shots on defensive structures or stationary units. Back them up with units or your enemy will quickly dispose of them. APC (see GDI entry)* MRLS (see GDI entry)* Harvester (see GDI entry) MCV (see GDI entry) *Instead of Barracks you need Hand of Nod, Instead of Advanced Communications Centre you need a Temple Of Nod. 2.1c - Nod Aircraft Apache Cost: 1200 Weapon: Heavy MG, Short range, eviscerate Infantry, Structures and Light Units, low armour damage Prerequisites: Helipad Speed: Fast Health: Medium-Low Strong vs: Infantry, Structures Weak vs: Vehicles, Aircraft Basic Description: Imagine a Orca with an MG. Can take a few hits from AA. In my opinion its a little overpowered vs structures, and can cause havoc when fighting GDI. Chinook/Transport Helicopter (see GDI entry) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2.2: Structures This Covers all structures except static defenses and superweapon Buildings Construction Yard (see MCV for certain details) Cost: N/A (selling value is $2500) Prerequisite: N/A Health: Medium-Low Unlocks: Power Plant and Overlay-fence type things Additional Information: You need this to build anything at all, the most important building in the game, and hard to replace so keep it safe! Is often the first target for almost any enemy attack. Power Plant Cost: 300 Prerequisite: Construction Yard Health: Low Unlocks: Advanced Power Plant, Barracks/Hand Of Nod, Refinery, Repair Bay Additional Information: Provides power for your base, you will need multiple of these in larger bases. Certain buildings won't work and Production will be slowed if you don't have enough power. Barracks/Hand Of Nod Cost: 300 Prerequisite: Power Plant (note if you only have advanced power plants those are also counted) Health: Medium-high Unlocks: Basic Static Defense, Helipad Additional Information: Allows you to train infantry (see sections 2.0a and 2.1a) Advanced Power Plant Cost: 700 Prerequisite: Power Plant Health: Medium Unlocks: None Additional Information: Provides 2x the power at more than 2x the cost, has better armour. However the extra cost, whilst minimal, usually means I just build two normal power plants instead Refinery Cost:2000 (sell value $300) Prerequisite: Power Plant (note if you only have advanced power plants those are also counted) Health: Medium-High Unlocks: Weapons Factory/Airstrip, Tiberium Silo Additional Information: Provides a free harvester so you can go harvesting tiberium for $$$. They build as fast as a $600 so you can get a few refineries up and running quite quickly. Stores $1000 worth of Tiberium in each Silo Cost: 150 Prerequisite: Refinery Health: Low Unlocks: None Additional Information: Stores $1000 of Tiberium, rarely required/used. Weapons Factory/Airstrip Cost: 2000 Prerequisite: Refinery Health (Weapons Factory): Low Health (Airstrip): High Unlocks: None Additional Information: Allows Vehicle production (see Sections 2.0b and 2.1b) The health difference between Weap and Airstrip is actually very important (as we will see in tactics Section) The time between finishing a unit and it being dropped off at the airstrip depends on how far west the airstrip has been placed. Repair Bay Cost: 1200 Prerequisite: Power Plant Health: Medium-High Unlocks: None Additional Information: Can (slowly) repair damaged vehicles, or sell surplus vehicles. Extremely useful but rarely used. Communications Centre Cost: 1000 Prerequisite: Refinery Health: High Unlocks: Advanced Static Defense, Superweapon Building Additional Information: Provides a Radar screen Helipad Cost: 1500 (sell value $150) Prerequisite: Barracks/Hand Of Nod Health: Medium-High Unlocks: None Additional Information: Allows Helicopter production, comes with a helicopter. Is built at a rate of a $300 building, which is very fast Sandbags, Chain Link Fence, Concrete Wall Cost: 50,75,100 (respectively) Prerequisite: Construction Yard Health: Very Low, Low, Medium Unlocks: None Additional Information: Due to a bug in the unit code somewhere, sandbags/chain fence/concrete walls are not treated by unit AI as an enemy, so a player has to manually tell units that can shoot it to do so. Any explosive type weapon can destroy fences/walls etc. This is useful vs APC/engi rushes. Walls can block tank shots giving you a small amount of extra cover with certain units/structures. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.2a and 2.2b - Faction-only Structures Other than the Unit production structures, both GDI and Nod have 3 unique structures only they can build, of similar type. Those are: Basic Static defense, Advanced Static Defense and their Superweapon Control Building For GDI these are: Basic Defense: Guard Tower Cost: 500 Weapon: Heavy MG, Medium-short range, High infantry damage, medium light unit damage and low armour/structure damage Prerequisite: Barracks Useful against infantry, but needs to be backed up with armoured units against anything else Advanced Defense: Advanced Guard Tower Cost: 1000 Weapon: Multiple Rocket pods, long range, devastates groups of infantry, high damage vs light units and air units, barely scratches heavy armour. Prerequisite: Communications Centre Very good vs infantry and most Nod units, as well as air units. Needs anti-armour support and requires power (although it doesnt use much) Superweapon Control Building: Advanced communications centre Cost: 2800 Superweapon: Ion Cannon Prerequisite: Communications Centre The Ion cannon is a handy weapon used to strike precise targets as part of an assault (such as obelisks) Very power-hungry and requires Power for the Ion cannon to charge And for Nod you can build: Basic Defense: Turret Cost: 600 Weapon: Medium anti-armour cannon, medium-long range, most effective vs armoured units but not much use against anything else Prerequisite: Hand Of Nod Not a particularly effective anti-tank structure, you would be much better off with 2 rocket soldiers. Advanced Defense: Obelisk of Light Cost: 1500 Weapon: Red Laser of Death, long range, 1-shots individual infantry and very high vehicle damage. Prerequisite: Communications Centre Has very high damage, but poor health, weak to large groups of infantry/light units. Most effective behind chokepoints and when protected with other units, like artillery, ssms and flamers. Very Power-hungry, and needs power to function. They are expensive, so don't try to build like 10 of them. Superweapon Control Building: Temple Of Nod Cost: 3000 SUperweapon: Nuke Prerequisite: Communications Centre An extremely cool-looking building, the Nuke is quite a powerful weapon and can be used in many wonderful ways. Very power-hungry. Power is required for the Nuke to charge up, but once fully charged can be launched on low power. ----------------------------------Section 3: Basic Strategies and Tactics----------------------------------- 3.0 - The basics Your goal is to out-do your opponent, and one of the easiest ways to start with it to play with a better economy. This is a simple concept that can get quite complicated in detail. The bottom line is ONE REFINERY IS NOT ENOUGH. You cannot support any sort of unit production on just one refinery, simple as that. You often need 3 or 4 to ensure you have enough money. If your economy is suffering you could invest some time into swatting some enemy harvesters. Be careful when building lots of refineries, they drain money very quickly. I would only suggest in-game to build a new refinery if: 1. You have more than $2000 left lying around 2. Your economy is very slow (unit production draining cash) 3. You have less than 3 refineries. The only exception to this is either at the start or if its end-game and all the tiberium is gone. You can afford to stop unit production for maybe a minute to allow new refineries to be built Another thing you must do is keep producing units, to ensure you can keep on top of anything your enemy might throw at you, and out-producing your enemy can give you a huge advantage. You must also produce "smartly". That is being the right sort of unit in the right amounts. (for example, as Nod, if your enemy starts spamming infantry some flame weapons would be a good idea, rather than only bikes) And you must pay attention to what is going on, because sneak attacks (such as stealths or APC's) are very dangerous if un-noticed, or if your harvesters are getting killed and you don't see, the effects are catastrophic (dude, wheres my money?). When building helipads, its important to remember they drain money very quickly, so, unless your economy is booming, you may need to halt unit/building production for a minute to get enough helipads for whatever. Also remember to protect your important buildings from attack, things like Construction Yards, Vehicle Factories and Power facilites (if you have lots of Obelisks or Advanced Guard Towers) or you will have a lot of problems Also - Scouting Vision is very important, specially vision of the enemy base, because it allows you to see what theyre building, giving you a good indication of what they are going to do, its also equally important to block enemy scouts from seeing your base or your enemy can do the same. Good scouting can prevent an APC rush from succeeding because youve seen it early and prepared for it. Also note you can judge when a Nod player has an airstrip by seeing the image of the plane clipping through the shroud as it comes in to drop the unit. If the planes are flying over your base its even easier to judge how many units they have. Remember the concept that the more of a type of factory you have, the faster you build with them (i.e. if you had 2 weapons factories you would build tanks a lot faster) 3.1 and 3.2 - Good Faction-specific Strategies 3.1 - GDI Tactics GDI are a simple faction to play effectively, but theres a small area of improvement that the elite players make up with smart plays. The thing about GDI is their units, whilst more powerful, are also slower and more expensive than Nod's units, meaning GDI players will have to play more defensively. GDI also have the (strange) handicap of a really poorly-armoured weapons factory (I think its made out of cardboard?), making it an easy target for Ion Cannons, Helicopters, Bike rushes, whatever. So a GDI player's priority is to make sure they can protect their weapons factory long enough to produce enough tanks to get them through the game. My favourite way of doing this is by hiding 6-9 rocket soldiers behind the top of the building (see 5.3). This gives you very good defense against Air Units and against vehicles, and makes it a lot harder for Nod to break you down. GDI players need to be smarter with their units, because they have less of them, usually. Once you can secure the majority of the tiberium on the map you should be able to win fairly easily as long as you don't do anything stupid. A GDI player can cope better without a weapons factory than Nod can without an airstrip, although its still hard to win without heavy armoured units, it requires some good infantry micro and clever tactics. It was mentioned at the start that GDI need to limit open spaces in order to deal with strike forces formed of light vehicles, do this effectively by controlling the choke points on a map, a good Nod player wouldn't dare take on a force of medium tanks in a small space. If you are attacking with a small number of heavy units, or if your enemy has a lot of rocket soldiers, its a good idea to bring along some grenadiers to pack an extra punch, and some rocket soldiers to help with removing their armour. 3.2 - Nod Tactics Nod are a little more complicated to play effectively but once you get the basics a Nod player can become extremely dangerous. A Nod player's job is to ensure that open spaces are under their control, this often includes large amounts of tiberium. They do this by building multiple light units, mostly Bikes and Buggies and generally patrolling open areas looking for lone vehicles, but mostly Harvesters, so that they can cripple their enemies in their pockets. The Golden rule of Nod: DON'T SPAM LIGHT TANKS ONLY -> YOU WILL LOSE. Only use them as a minor support unit in groups of light vehicles. Nod also rely on mistakes from their opponent when targetting their base, especially unguarded entrances or poorly defended critical structures (such as their weapons factory, a prime target) but they must be quick, once an enemy reacts to your attack you have to be fast or you risk losing a lot of units. Nod players can dominate the land with less units or with a poorer economy by picking their hit-and-run targets well. When defending as Nod you have to take into account what is attacking you, if it's lots of heavier units (mediums, or worse, mammoths), you will need all the anti-armour you can get (rockets, bikes, obelisks, whatever) and ambush your enemy. If it's lots of light units then you have to focus on ensuring they won't attack, simply by moving a similarly sized force into where they are going to move can scare them away and allow you to harvest tiberium uninterrupted. Sometimes splitting your units into 2 groups works well, have one group focus on harvesters and draw enemy attention, and then when they react have the other group snipe in on their important structures. You can effectively play a good Nod game without building any infantry. 3.3: Build orders When you build the majority of your bases, it is important you string out your buildings towards Tiberium, if your refineries are closer you will make your money much faster, but if you're doing this as GDI watch your buildings, you may get bike sniped, you could use some barracks scattered around the place for fast defense. When it's time to add your 2nd vehicle factory is usually after your 5th or 6th refinery, assuming your economy is good. GDI and Nod - (note for Nod replace barracks with Hand of Nod) This is a basic, reasonable, all-rounder build that works on most maps: Power, barracks (build a few minigunners and scout about, and block enemy scouts), 2 refineries, weapons factory/airstrip, normal power plant and 3rd refinery. Remembering to build units constantly when your factories come in. After that just build refineries and power plants when appropriate. Later into the game if its still fairly evenly poised build a advanced comm centre/temple of nod so you can use your superweapon to mess up their important structures. The fast rush build (works better as Nod) Power, barracks (build 3 minigunners and put them as scout defense), refinery, weap/airstrip, refinery, weap/airstrip, power and then you sell your construction yard for the sweet extra $2500 that you can convert into more units. Make sure to attack your opponent and cripple them early or you will lose! If money runs out again sell one of your airstrips/weaps. Heavy Economy build Power, barracks (build about 10 minigunners), 4 refineries, power, barracks, weap/airstrip, 5th refinery then 2nd weap/airstrip If you get rushed early you will need your 2nd barracks to produce infantry fast enough to try and fight them off. Once your 2nd vehicle factory is in you should be producing units much faster than your enemy with a better economy, at which point you should be able to overwhelm them or completely control the map, either should do. Helicopter rush build (works better vs GDI) Power, barracks (build anti scout as usual), refinery, 4 helipads, 2 more refineries and then start hounding enemy harvesters with your helicopters, while this is going on build yourself an airstrip/weap and start producing units to deal with any ground units your enemy might have assembled. Heavy infantry build (for GDI) - suggested and used by White. Power, Barracks, Barracks, refinery, refinery, weapons factory and then expand as normal The "I don't need no weapons factory" Build used in GDI vs GDI quite a lot - Originally Used by Lovehandles Power, barracks, 5 refineries, power, barracks, refinery, barracks. After that just keep building barracks, refineries and power plants up the map towards the enemy base. At some point when you have more than $4000 mid-game build 3 or 4 helipads and start harassing vehicles with them. My Preferred GDI build is a variation of the heavy econ combined with the all rounder build Power, refinery, barracks (build 3 grenadiers and block scouts), refinery, refinery (start building 7-9 rocket soldiers), weapons factory, power. When the weapons factory is down place the rocket soldiers (like I mentioned earlier) behind the top of the factory to sort of hide them behind it. If you start coming under attack build a 2nd barracks and prepare to defend your weapons factory like crazy (not your construction yard, your weapons factory), at this point its more important to be building tanks than to be able to build new buildings. If you are not under attack yet, then build some more refineries, using the criteria I mentioned earlier to give you an indication of when. By this point you should have plenty of units available, so start spreading them around to tiberium fields close to you so you can harvest from them. It's also important you have plenty of infantry around to help your tanks deal with enemies, because the slow start of this build gives you an initial unit deficit. And my preferred Nod build is a bit of a reverse: Power, refinery, hand of Nod (with scout defense), airstrip, then 2 or 3 more refineries, power plant and then expand as before. Or, if you skip Hand of Nod, when your airstrip goes in build 3 buggies, to deal with scouts, and then stop until your 4th refinery has gone in and start building bikes/buggies as required. This build allows for a small quick rush or to quickly harass enemy harvesters Those are the main build orders you are likely to see and/or use on cncnet online. ------------------------------------Section 4: In-game Scenarios-------------------------------------------------- 4.0: GDI vs Nod A lot of the stuff in GDI vs Nod comes under the GDI and Nod strategies section 4.0a - I am GDI As a GDI player facing (what you can assume is) a GOOD Nod player, you have to understand the beginning of the game is going to be quite rough. And to begin with, there are 2 ways to go about it: 1. Go defensive and protect important structures with infantry until I can get some tanks out 2. Go offensive and get lots of vehicles early Option 1: follow either the "all rounder", "heavy econ" or my preferred build order to start with, making sure you have a reasonable amount of tiberium to get started with and let Nod come to you. At some point in the game if you have done it right you should be able to expand out to other sources of tiberium to pull in more money. Use your tanks to defend your harvesters from probable attack. Start to expand around the map and eventually limit your Nod opponent by cutting off some of his tiberium (simply stick some tanks in his tiberium fields) and siege the base. Then just build up enough tanks and overwhelm him and you win. Option 2: Try the early tanks build I suggested for Nod but first start by building humvees. Lots of them. Once you have about 8 start building a couple medium tanks every so often. If your Nod opponent hasnt started attacking you/your units look to instigate some minor skirmishes between groups of units when your tanks are coming out. The Job of the humvees is to keep up with the bikes and take the hits while the mediums shoot them down. With a majority of humvees and tanks you can hound some of their harvesters with minimal risk of being attacked. Whats more, your opponent mightve been scaremongered into building something armoured to try and counter the humvees, this is exactly what you want to happen. As soon as your Nod opponent begins spamming light or flame tanks that is your cue to build as many medium tanks as possible, and watch as your mediums simply munch through his armour and into his base, at this point you can remove all of his critical structures with minimal interferance. If, during the game you lose your weapons factory build 2 extra barracks and lots of grenadiers and rocket soldiers to defend, and then start re-building your weapons factory to ensure you don't lose it again. In GDI vs Nod infantry alone isn't enough to win Should the game drag on its a good idea to get an advanced communications centre and use your Ion cannon to soften defenses when you attack. Watch your weapons factory, it will die to a single nuke attack on it. Also watch for stealth tanks, many Nod players like to try and use stealths on important buildings as the game wears on, should he do so, build 3 or 4 humvees or some minigunners if you have no weapons factory and spread them about to deal with them. 4.0b - I am Nod Assume that you are facing a GOOD GDI player who knows what he is doing. Since most GDI players will go defensive, a good early economy game as Nod can set you up for some heavy biking mid-game. Or you can exploit their early frailties and bike super-early. Either way, you either need to get a good snipe on their weapons factory/construction yard (either is good, Both is excellent) or, if their base is too well defended, start to hound their harvesters. The more open the map is the easier this will be. Should your GDI opponent be building lots of humvees early its important you dont focus entirely on light tanks. You definitely need a few but not so many that they become your majority unit. Use flamers, buggies and artillery appropriately and defend them with bikes to deal with infantry. Build 1 or 2 flame tanks if you think you really need them. Ensure you always have plenty of bikes however. If the game should drag on and your GDI opponent is still holding his own, Build a Temple of Nod and nuke out his weapons factory. 4.1 - GDI vs GDI GDI vs GDI is usually a bit of a mess, often there are lots of grenadiers, medium tanks and orcas scattered all over the place. Both players are usually quite defensive and games can be quite long. The Golden rule of GDI vs GDI is this DEAL WITH ARMOURED UNITS FIRST. If you have enough infantry lying around then dealing with everything but the armour is easy. The only exceptions to this rule is you're dealing with their weapons factory, in which case removing that is top priority. If your enemy has no armour, then either you do the same and out micro-him or you start to build lots of mammoth tanks, those can deal with anything competently. If you play the "I don't need no weapons factory" strategy getting an early advanced comm centre (and using the subsequent ion cannon) can get rid of their tank production quite quickly. If both of you have gone for early tanking, the game becomes about territory and who can generally convert the most tiberium into tanks. Build mammoths only when orcas start attacking your tanks, because pound-for-pound mediums are better than mammoths. 4.2 - Nod vs Nod Nod vs Nod is a different kind of mess, theres only usually one or 2 types of units, but there are lots of them. Lots of times you will skirmish bikes with enemy bikes over tiberium and each others harvesters. If you are down a bit on units early in the game, sticking a few artillery in your groups of bikes can make a huge difference as their damage vs light units is insane, and an unsuspecting Nod biker might lose a few units more than he would expect should he attack you. A few lights in a group of bikes is never a bad idea either, because if your enemy attacks you his buggies will do squat vs your lights. Build a huge extending spider base and grab as much tiberium as possible. Here is an idea setup if you are the defender: |xxxx| |xxxx| |xyyx| Where your enemy attacks from the north, if you block in a way like this where x=bike/buggy, y=light tank and z = artillery, |yzzy| an enemy bike/buggy attack will be easy pickings Often in Nod vs Nod its a very good idea to get units early, using the fast units or all rounder build is recommended. If you successfully pull off a heavy economy build you will be at a huge advantage but the chances of that working is quite small. If it somehow goes into lategame then a Temple Of Nod becomes a necessity, use it to either Nuke his light units, his base where it hurts (power, conyard, whatever) or on top of his last tiberium field (all tiberium in the area of effect from the nuke will be destroyed) for best effect drag his units out to the tiberium field first and then Nuke both his units and the field hahaha. Watch out for stealths, they should be easy to deal with once they do pop up but you never know when..... 4.3 - Infinite Money NOTE: I do no condone the playing of maps where you start with infinite money and I think its a stupid idea. If you come up with a bozo who plays infinite money, here is what you do. (Look for some douchebag called Svere or SvereBozz or something, he always does this crap) 1. Play as Nod 2. Follow this build order: Power, Hand of Nod (build flamers and scout until you find enemy base, make sure they don't see yours), 7 or 8 helipads, refinery. 3. If you successfully find their base (importantly their conyard) with your flamers, then you're in business. If not, send your harvester to take a look around until you find their construction yard. While this is all going on build as many airstrips as you can. 4. Apache the crap out of the thing until it is destroyed. Should your opponent ragequit at this point, then your work is done. If they haven't, apache their power supply or their barracks until they can't do anything. THEN you win. Note this tactic also works against MULTIPLE players, so do your work and show these idiots the hard way that infinite money is bad for you. 4.4 - Big-ass FFA Games (3+ players) In case you're wondering what FFA means, it means "free for all" which basically means you shoot anything that isn't yours. FFA games can be quite fun, and quite challenging for some. When I play FFA I try to hide under the radar a little and let everyone else fight it out. Or just rush the guy next to me -> More tiberium for me yay! Superweapons can be very useful in FFA, especially when people are attacking each other, you can influence battles between other players how you want it to if you do it right, I once nuked two other player's bike armies whilst they were fighting each other, and nobody suspected a thing :P But the key component in a successful FFA game is Tiberium Control. with 4 or 5 players it goes very quickly and having those few extra tanks/structures/whatever makes you much more of a force You won't always win FFA games, often the odds are stacked against some players, who get attacked from 2 sides or whatnot. Even if you play a perfect game sometimes you still won't win. Oh well. 4.5 - Team Games (usually 2v2) Due to a strange bug with cncnet5 coding, we cannot get 6 players in a single game, so most team games are usually 2v2 or 3v2. Regardless of your Opponent factions, heres how you should play based on you and your partner's faction Both GDI -> Play like GDI, Defensive, maybe have one player infantry spam and the other tank spam. Both Nod -> Rush HARD, remember in 2v2 supressing/destroying just one player on the other team gives you a huge advantage Nod+ GDI -> Cater for each other's weaknesses, Nod lacks Heavy Armour and GDI lacks Fast AA, so give each other a supplement to fix that and play it smart, more like GDI is probably best As always in any team game communicating with your teammate is important, if an APC or helicopter is coming, or you need a co-ordinated Nuke attack, planning with your teammate makes everything a lot easier. ----------------------------Section 5: Tips and Tricks----------------------------- 5.0 - Unit Micromanagement Good micro skills are extremely important, here is where you will use most of it: 1. (GDI) - Microing infantry around your vehicles, mostly into enemy bikes and away from their flames/grenadiers 2. (Nod) - Microing minority units through your groups of Bikes/Buggies - This is very important in Nod vs Nod with Artillery 3. Helicopters around enemy AA, you can only select airbourne helicopters with team group button (i.e ctrl+number) 4. Stupid Harvesters that are going the wrong way/ too far for tiberium etc - microing your harvs well can do wonders for your economy, and on maps with dense tiberium microing your harvesting into the right shape allows you to place new buildings faster in the right places 5. Units across bridges - Bridges are 1-tile wide and when moving large numbers of units across (especially as Nod) they often try to find the "shortest route" and end up going around miles away. Nod players can exploit this by sending bikes to deal with units that are lost this way, so be careful. However the main use of Micromanagement is to make sure you counter enemy units with the right unit sending your grenadiers vs lights while your mediums shoot their rocket infantry is going to get you anywhere. The best way to improve your micromanagement is practice, it won't come straight to you. 5.1 - Engineers I've said a few times now about Engineer rushes, and I will now explain in detail how annoying they are and the best way to try and deal with them. Engineers can instantly capture any building to your side. Combine that with either a APC (that can almost drive through certain defenses) or a Chinook (simply fly over the defenses) and suddenly you have an instant CY stealer. There are entire strategies and build orders that depend entirely on engi rushing people (which for the good of everybody, I haven't told you). Nothing is more annoying while you're playing than when out of nowhere an engi snipes in and steals your construction yard and then they sell it for a cool $2500 that they then use against you ¬_¬ Heres how you can try and deal with them: As GDI: Build 1 or two guard towers around your conyard, and build a couple humvees. Don't build grenadiers because the APC will just squish them. Using enough micro skill you can shoot the engi(s) when they pop out of the apc/helicopter, either that or sell your conyard and use the extra money to assume map dominance or rush your enemy as fast as you can. As Nod: Its a bit easier as Nod, because you can use bikes and buggies to intercept the APC before its in your base, assuming you can see said APC, then most of the time the APC (and engi with it) dies before it even get close to your base. Or if you have an obelisk of light up and running, then killing an APC with an engi with it is no problem :P 5.2 - Hidden Units No I'm not talking about invisible units (i.e. the Stealth Tank). When I say "hidden units" I mean hiding units behind buildings and trees where it almost completely hides them. I mentioned earlier about doing this with rocket soldiers behind a weapons factory, you can also do this behind the tops of refineries, power plants, the Hand Of Nod and a couple other places. I've hidden Rockets, Grenadiers, Artillery, Flamers and a couple other things behind buildings to ambush enemies, with moderate effectiveness. Hiding Rocket Soldiers is very effective vs helicopters. 5.3 - Superweapons Both the nuke and Ion Cannon are extremely dangerous when used appropriately. If against GDI Weapons factory is #1 target, but a frequently used strategy is to use either superweapon in tandem with 2-4 helicopters on a player's construction yard. Simply put: Helicopter at it, then Ion/Nuke it. When playing as GDI vs Nod and you have several weapons factories, DON'T PUT THEM NEXT TO EACH OTHER, a nuke could take them all out at once, and that would be pretty bad. In Nod vs Nod nukes can be used in a variety of ways, sometimes to hit grouped power supplies, depowering things like obelisks, and then you can just walk in wthout any problems. Other times to hit all their Light vehicles and take them all out at once -> same result as before Or to nuke their tiberium so they run out of money :P If somehow you acquire both GDI and Nod technology, having both a nuke and the Ion Cannon is incredibly powerful :P Also the Ion Cannon charges faster than the Nuke does. ----------------------------Section 6: Random Crap --------------------------------- 6.1 - Crates Crates in C&C online are usually bad things. Sometimes they give you money (yay), sometimes they reveal the whole map, or hide it all, or they might give you a nuke, ion cannon or airstrike, nice right? Well sometimes they also destroy the unit that picks it up, sometimes it drops a nuke on where the crate was, or even worse, it picks up an exploding crate that has a chance of crashing the game..... yeah. The other bad thing is sometimes when a player has no base they find a crate and it gives them a mcv, oh look, another chance. This is bad in FFA when a player has "died" and they get a mcv in a crate and try to exact revenge on their killer, while they are busy dealing with someone else. That would kinda suck. 6.2 - Glitches There aren't many exploitable glitches, but here are some I have previously used 1. South Advantage - Units firing from the South gain a 1-tile range advantage. This is extremely useful with infantry and artillery, it allows artillery to fire on Obelisks and advanced guard towers without being fired back on, only works in certain tiles below said structures (figure it out for yourself) 2. Sandbagging - Blocking units in with sandbags and walls, this is only really a problem in singleplayer (its cheaty as hell) but it is useful in stopping APC rushes on occasions 3. Sandbag Selling - Selling Units with sandbags. Yes you read that right. If you build a sandbag, and then put a unit to the left of it, sometimes when you click to sell the sandbag you sell the unit instead. If you have a repair bay then vehicles are easy to sell, but sometimes people have enabled Undeploy MCV, which means you can't sell your conyard normally so when rushing with that setting on I've sandbag sold my MCV a few times. 4. Random Ion Cannons - This bug occurs on some maps with civilian buildings on them, where for some reason an AI is given a recharging Ion Cannon Powerup, and they use it on player's buildings ingame. Most targetted buildings are: Obelisks of Light, Advanced Guard Towers, SAM sites, refineries (only with harvesters loaded), airstrips. Be careful of these maps. 6.3 - Starting Units Most players in multiplayer tend to start with zero units, as it often gives the best games. Anything less than about 6 units is reasonable, anything above 12 is dumb. If you do have starting units you can often forget building a barracks and just use starting Buggies/Humvees to scout instead 6.4 - Visceroids Visceroids are weird little reddy-orange balls that go around being annoying. They are "blessed" with the C&C AI which is basically "attack the northern and westernmost object", so good luck if youre northern most and there are visceroids (same apllies to civilians but they deal like no damage) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That Covers pretty much everything in multiplayer, Good luck and happy gaming. If you think some more stuff can be added feel free to post it in the cncnet forum thread this will be uploaded to.