Walkthrough for new players: THE BEGINNING OF A GAME

[c0rpsmakr]

STARTING THE GAME:

 

THINGS TO DO DURING THE FIRST FEW MINUTES OF THE GAME:

1. setting up/building your base

2. scouting

3. antiscouting

4. establishing your economy

 

 

 

BUILDING YOUR BASE:

 

at the start of every game, you begin by deploying your mobile construction vehicle (abbreviated as mcv) and building a powerplant (abbreviated as pp).

 

-pp's supply power to your base and enable some buildings to be used, such as radar, EMP cannon (emp), firestorm generator (fs), missle silo, stealth generator, obelisk of light, ion cannon/hunter seeker. If you are playing as nod or against a nod opponent, know that when the faction has low power, their SAMs don't work, while gdi's sams will remain active even in low power. *NOTE* if you try to build on low power, the speed that you build will be reduced drastically, therefore you never want to be on low power. having high power doesn't benefit you in any way, aside from making it harder for your opponent to reduce you to low power (which generally isn't a high priority target unless nod is stealthed or has one thousand sams that need to be disabled)

 

 

 

after placing your powerplant, build your barracks(bar or bax) and begin making light infantry(inf) for scouting and antiscouting [see scouting/antiscouting below]

 

after your barracks is placed, begin building a refinery(ref). during the time your refinery is building, you should be using this time to scout your opponent and the map, and placing antiscouts(antis) around your base

 

once your ref is done building, place it as close to the tiberium (tib) as possible. doing this will reduce the distance it takes for your harvesters (harvs) to travel between the tib field and docking at your refs, which will give you the fastest possible and most efficient cash flow. never place buildings in such a way where they create an obstacle between your refs and the tiberium (ie placing your pp or bax next to the tiberium, which will prevent you from putting your ref as close as possible to the tib field).

 

*harvesters (harvs) weren't programmed with the most practical AI. they often tend to travel to farther spots of tiberium when there are much closer places for them to gather it. when you place your refineries, immediately command your harv to harvest the closest tiberium to your refinery's entrance. this will contribute to you obtaining the fastest possible cash flow. also, each time a harvester leaves your refinery, try to make a habit of sending them to the closest pixel of tiberium if you see them wandering off. it may seem tedious, but it only takes a few quick clicks. in the long run it will become second nature to you and you will have much better cash flow than your opponents that neglect to do this.

 

 

after placing your initial ref, follow-up by building another 3 refineries in a row. having multiple refs at the start will provide you the cash to setup your economy to carry you through the rest of the early stages of the game until you need to expand your base to the next patch of tiberium. while making these refineries, continue scouting all over the map and making lots of infantry. as you begin to run low on funds, sell your refineries. this will give you a quick cash spike of $1000 (half of what it costs to make a ref) along with 5 infantry and another harvester. make sure you monitor your cash flow though, as it's easy to overproduce infantry while trying to build refs. you never want your money to be so low that your production comes to a halt as youre in the process of making structures and youre needing to wait for harvesters to come back to your refineries. you can always put units on hold or cancel them to finish making buildings, but never delay your progress in making buildings.

 

*tip* it takes a bit of practice to control the balance between your spending and cash intake, ensuring you always have enough money for the next building, but as with everything else it becomes second nature after you practice it enough, and it will keep your production constant throughout the game. sometimes you may need to send a harvester back to a refinery that isn't completely full of tiberium so that you can finish a building. let's say that you accidentally make too many infantry before your third refinery is done and youre about to be out of funds before it's done building. stop making infantry at this time and funnel all of your remaining cash to finishing this ref, as that is the priority. check your harvesters to see how many blocks full they are. if you need $300 more to finish this refinery, you need to select a harv that is at least 2/3 blocks full of tiberium and command it to go unload in your refinery. a full harvester unloads about $750 worth of tiberium(green tiberium, blue tiberium is worth about $1100 per harv load), so having a harv about 2/3 blocks full of tiberium out of 5 blocks will give you over $300, which is enough to finish that ref that you can sell and continue your building process.

 

you should end up with either 2 refs and 4 harvs or 3 refs and 4 harvs after the process of making/selling your first refs before making your war factory(war). the general rule is to have about 2 harvs per ref from the start of the game as early as you can get this ratio, because you always want harvesters unloading tiberium in your refineries for every ref you have. while one is harvesting tib, the other is dumping in your ref, and once that harv leaves, the other one that was harvesting should be going right in to dock.

 

 

 

 

SCOUTING

 

scouting the map is crucial. if you can't see your opponent, how are you going to know what they are going to attack you with and how to attack them? start by sending one infantry(inf) to each corner of the map, and then sending individual inf through the shroud between the revealed paths of the map created by the scouts you sent to the map's corners. once you do this, place a group of 3 inf at each corner of the entrances to your base as antiscouts(antis) to prevent your opponent from scouting you. 3 inf will kill one passing scout as it runs by. one disc thrower(disc) is able to kill a single passing inf as well, provided that their grenades aren't thrown on cliffs or ridges (which cause them to miss).

 

tips for scouting: it is usually somewhat difficult to scout your opponent early with your initial scouting inf, as your opponent will have antis around their entrances by the time your scouts arrive. you must at least scout the perimeter of your opponent's base if you are unable to get inside, as this will give you vision early on for whenever they send things from their base. it's a good idea to have a couple stray inf near their base to try running in if they send their infantry out.

 

if you are still unable to reveal your enemy, you can create one of the following units to send across the map and scout them:

 

gdi- amphibious apc, jump jet infantry (jj), orca fighter (orca)

nod- attack buggie (buggy), attack cycle, harpy, subterranean apc(sub)*you can fill it with infantry and deploy it in their base to scout*

 

*to scout with planes*, you can send them across the map to the farthest revealed terrain and constantly fly it between that point and another point that is revealed to uncover more of that area. this is why it was important for you to scout the perimeter of your opponent's base earlier. send your plane to one of the areas on one side of their base and fly it to the other side, then repeat the process however many times is necessary to see that part of the map. this is called "cross scouting" or crossing.

 

 

MORE TO FOLLOW....

[Nyerguds]

THINGS TO DO DURING THE FIRST FEW MINUTES OF THE GAME:

1. Punch tree, get wood

2. Build crafting table

3. Make pickaxe, get cobblestone

4.

 

...

 

Oh wait. This isn't Minecraft you're talking about

 

---

 

Silliness aside, nice guide, but... you're doing it wrong

 

1. Read the manual: [TS]  [FS] (FS manual doesn't go over the game basics. Read the TS one first)

2. Play through the campaigns. No, don't argue. Do it. Kane commands you :mad:

3. NOW continue with c0rpsmakr's guide 

 

Really. After that one dude here asked about the mysterious white beam that destroyed his base... RTFM, people, and play the damn game before jumping to multiplayer

[c0rpsmakr]

the guide will not teach tactics and strategies that every decent player will use literally every game, ever. it may teach unit functions, but that is the only thing that a guide can do for someone, which they can just as easily learn by playing actual people online, and at the same time, improving.

[c0rpsmakr]

after placing your initial ref, follow-up by building another 3 refineries in a row. having multiple refs at the start will provide you the cash to setup your economy to carry you through the rest of the early stages of the game until you need to expand your base to the next patch of tiberium. while making these refineries, continue scouting all over the map and making lots of infantry. as you begin to run low on funds, sell your refineries. this will give you a quick cash spike of $1000 (half of what it costs to make a ref) along with 5 infantry and another harvester. make sure you monitor your cash flow though, as it's easy to overproduce infantry while trying to build refs. you never want your money to be so low that your production comes to a halt as youre in the process of making structures and youre needing to wait for harvesters to come back to your refineries. you can always put units on hold or cancel them to finish making buildings, but never delay your progress in making buildings.

 

*tip* it takes a bit of practice to control the balance between your spending and cash intake, ensuring you always have enough money for the next building, but as with everything else it becomes second nature after you practice it enough, and it will keep your production constant throughout the game. sometimes you may need to send a harvester back to a refinery that isn't completely full of tiberium so that you can finish a building. let's say that you accidentally make too many infantry before your third refinery is done and youre about to be out of funds before it's done building. stop making infantry at this time and funnel all of your remaining cash to finishing this ref, as that is the priority. check your harvesters to see how many blocks full they are. if you need $300 more to finish this refinery, you need to select a harv that is at least 2/3 blocks full of tiberium and command it to go unload in your refinery. a full harvester unloads about $750 worth of tiberium(green tiberium, blue tiberium is worth about $1100 per harv load), so having a harv about 2/3 blocks full of tiberium out of 5 blocks will give you over $300, which is enough to finish that ref that you can sell and continue your building process.

 

you should end up with either 2 refs and 4 harvs or 3 refs and 4 harvs after the process of making/selling your first refs before making your war factory(war). the general rule is to have about 2 harvs per ref from the start of the game as early as you can get this ratio, because you always want harvesters unloading tiberium in your refineries for every ref you have. while one is harvesting tib, the other is dumping in your ref, and once that harv leaves, the other one that was harvesting should be going right in to dock.

 

 

 

this should provide you with enough information to understand the basics of your early base creation and fundamentals for setting up your economy. for more info, you can message me on here or in the game on my log "c0rpsmakr" if you'd like some tips or training.

[Humble]

Nice.

[ch!ll]

 

[Nyerguds]

the guide will not teach tactics and strategies that every decent player will use literally every game, ever. it may teach unit functions, but that is the only thing that a guide can do for someone, which they can just as easily learn by playing actual people online, and at the same time, improving.

I assume with "the guide" you mean the game manual?

 

But yea, we've literally had people here who didn't figure out the basic tech tree, and playing the original campaigns definitely helps to introduce that step by step.