TD multiplayer tactics - A good read!

[AchromicWhite]

I wanted to do a write up on using the two sides of TD, some of it I understand very well, others, not so much.

I'm a Nod player at heart, but also find them superior in gameplay. Again, this is MULTI-player tactic, not Singleplayer.

 

Firstly, I want to go through general gameplay by both teams.

 

 

Part 1: Unpacking the base

 

Before you unpack your MCV, it's usually good to try and find some tib to start near, so drive for a bit first, if you unpack to far away from tib, then you're going to have trouble getting money early on, and it may start to hurt you once your starting cash starts running low.

 

Unless using a speacial tactic, I find the best buildings to buy first are:

 

-- Power Plant

-- Barracks/Hand of Nod ---> men for scouthing (build man, start building another, move the forst man to a random corner, hit "H", (by now the next man should be built), build another man, move next man to another corner, rinse and repeat for all corners, you may also want to send out more to certain areas if you know the map well). Also good to build a few grenadiers/flamer troops to deffend your base at this point, place them around the Con Yard, on bridges and other choke points close to your base to stop early enemy scouts.

-- Refinery ---> Build it as close as you can to the tiberium!

-- War factory/Airstrip

 

And remember, build them in a chain, not in a box. So that your base is actually moving somewhere (hopefully closer to tiberium).

 

 

Part 2: Revealing the map

 

Ok, You're now up and running, you're getting money, and you have the 3 most important factories in the game. You can make buildings, vehicles and infantry. So what do I do now?

 

Right away, start building a few fast units, hummers, buggies or bikes (probably no more than three for their purpose here). And use them to scout. At the same time, I'd say start building another power plant, not so much for the power, but to start expanding your base. Don't worry too much about building too many light vehicles though, just don't use them all to scout, as it's a deadly job, and you may need them very soon to actually kill things for you. (in other words, don't waste what you have).

 

Hopefully, those men you sent out earlier found lots and lots of tiberium nearby AND your opponents base and scouted out those two areas thoroughly! But more likely they died in the process or being thorough as tiberium and esspecially enemy bases are both deadly to infantry. Not to worry, they have served their purposes as long as they're actually found these things. If not, bad luck, and get those fast new shiney hummers, buggies and bikes out and finding those things, these units are a bit more hardy and alot faster and can hopefully be more thorough about their job too.

 

 

Part 3: Who said there's no way to get rich quick?

 

Getting rich in CnC is your abillity to GET the tiberium FAST. Some people say, "don't get it too fast, it'll run out" I think this is a bad philosophy as this isn't who's able to feed all of africa the longest, it's how many units and buildings you can get into action for you to kill your opponent. And that is what money does.

 

Build your base in a chain towards the next nearest tiberium field. As I said before, putting down key structures is helpful for this. Remember to use the right structure for building in certain derections (for example, obviously the airstrip will build your base faster when moving East or West than it will North or South, while Power Plants and Barracks/Hand of Nod, will build faster North and South than they will East and West). You'll quickly get the hang of building your base in a chain, just as long as you remember to do it. It's also good to remember that just because a building might not be the BEST shape to get you to the next tiberium field, doesn't mean you shouldn't use it to try and get there, the faster you do, the quicker you can get your mits on the green stuff.

 

When you reach a new tiberium field (or feel close enough to one), build a refinery! This is most important, by the end of most games I'll have about 4 refineries if I've played well. This will give you a cash supply you'll find hard to spend, which is good, because it means you can keep making units and buildings all day long.

 

Always continue to expland your base, both by getting it nearer to tiberium and working along your tech tree. You'll probably find yourself mostly building Power Plants to move North and South and Silos move East and West, expanding out, but it's also good to throw in the additional Barracks/Hand of Nod. It's the same price as a Power Plant anyway, let's you build troops out in new territory (to help deffenend that shiney new refinery that you're about to build when you get to that tiberium) and you'll be able to build out of all existing Barracks/Hand of Nod faster. "Keep 'em coming!"

On the note of deffence, some sturctures you might want better deffence for, but remember, placing it next to the construction yard doesn't help you deffend it, but the right terrain, and deffencive sturctures and units, do. So you may want to build deffence structures and Barracks/hand of Nod next to buildings that are expensive and/or very helpful, such as helipads, War Factories/Airstrips or Adv.Comm/Temple. You can also build structures in choke points in the terrain to restrict movement or completely cut off movement of units through it. They can probably blow it up, but sometimes, time is all you need to get ready of the attack and save your Con Yard etc. Just remember it will also restrict YOUR units through this choke point too. These are obivosuly also good places to build deffence structures.

 

"Why don't I just sandbag? It's cheaper!"

Sandbags are slow to build.

Sandbag ONLY allow you to build out. (no extra power and units)

Sandbags get blown up easy.

"But Silos are crap too!"

Yes, but they're still alot faster... sell them once you no longer need them. Sandbaging is really for only when you NEED to build through an area (1 square wide) such as bridges.

 

 

Part 5: Let's get phisical

As well as expanding your base, you should be pumping out sweet new vehicles (and maybe troops too) to crush your pathetic opposition! While I've written this as a seperate "part" all this need to be happening at the same time as base expantion and the collection of tiberium.

 

We'll talk tactics on which units in perticular are good for what situations in a later post, but right now, I just want to get people to understand one important thing. DON'T STOP BUILDING. Get the units on the field, it's no use having lots of money and no units. Thinking you can build them later is just a bad philosophy. So once again. "Keep 'em coming!"

 

 

Part 6: Field Stratergy

 

Light vehicles RULE!

Offensive: It's a damn good idea to always have a small (or large  ) group of light vehicles, to perform quick attacks when an oppertunity arises.

Deffensive: They are also good for deffending your base quickly, and when your base is a big long chain, anything slow isn't really going to help. You should also have deffences in key areas to start deffending right away and back up the light vehicles when they arrive (which will be soon...)

 

Money makes the world go round:

Offensive: Destroy your opponents harvesters or even refineries if given the chance or create the "chance" yourself. Light vehcles are best for this as they can move in without the opposition being able to stop them, even if they watch the whole thing happen.

Deffensive: Make sure your opponent doesn't do the same to you, it's usally no use killing their harvester if they kill yours too. Again, light vehicles are the way to go on deffence, but if you've built your refineries near the tiberium (like you should), you might be able to use base deffences to help out not only to deffend the refinery, but also the harvester.

 

Money is nothing if it's not made into units or buildings:

Offensive: Take any oppertunity to attack something important, be decisive, don't be affraid to sacrifice unit's as a diversion to allow you an oppertunity to destroy something important, esspecially anything that cannot be replaced or replaced fast, which serves an important service to your opponent (usually a factory, but not always). If you move somewhere you shouldn't have and get your units killed, you'll know not to make the same mistake next time.

Deffensive: Think about which of your own buildings are the easiest to be destroyed given the way you've built your base, and which buildings are seen as the most important right now.

 

Take out the Con Yard, and shut them down!

Offensive: This isn't something you have to do fast, but if you can, it's usually the way to go. If you do mannage to kill it, your opponent may instantly change in train of thought. They may become more agressive or deffensive, this IS something important to note. If you do manage to kill it and survive whatever verbal or virtual retaliation that may or may note have come your way, shut them down... the power that is. The factories will most likey be well deffended now, as your opponent is trying to hold onto them in hope of winning. The power plants are easier to kill, and if you kill enough it will slow down, and eventually stop, the abillity to build units. However, if you do get the chance to destroy a factory, take it, if the Con Yard is dead, all buildings are for the picking, everything is no longer replaceable! On an important note, it's now good to play a long and safe game, deffending your base well and slowly out building your opponent, taking oppertunities as they arise.

Deffensive: Place extra deffense around the Con Yard and have light vehicles on hand to deffend it if needed. If you're going to lose your Construction Yard, sell it, you may as well get 2500 credits, right? If you have lost it, DON'T LOSE HOPE! It's often hard yacker from here forward, but still very possible to win. Work fast to win or even the score by taking out your opponent's Con Yard. If you wait around, you'll probably be out built and the more time you wait, the more opperunities your opponent will have to make every second of life more difficult.

 

Variety is the spice of life:

Different units and deffence structures are good at differnt things, so build the things that will have an advantage against what your opponent's building. Use flames and high explosive against men, use anit-armour against tanks etc. The same goes when building deffensive sturctures, no use building Turrets/Oblisks if your opponent is infantry rushing you, as much as building Gaurd towers or Adv. Gaurd is against heavy armoured vehicles. Build mixed units to help stop your opponent finding and exploiting your weakness. You nor your opponent are invinsible no matter how much of a good thing you have. Everything has a weakness, so find it and exploit it.

 

"Da North syde's the best!" "Nah da South sydes the best!"

This is just in the case of the Adv. Gaurd and the Oblisk, because they fire from the square above where they are built (and therefore actually lie). This means that buiding these deffences to deffend from northern attacks is better, but to attack from the South against your opponent is better. In fact, in the case of the nod artillery, it can hit the Advanced Gaurd Tower without being hit, if you place it one square to the left of right of a line drawn directly south of the AGT and slowly moved North, one sqaure at a time, but cannot attack it from the North without getting hammered.

 

Choke points:

Offensive: Build deffences around tight areas, and filter your opponent through them one unit at a time... if they're dumb enough to keep feeding them that is.

Deffenseive: Don't move through a tight area of it's reasonably deffended, you'll lose alot more than your opponent, and maybe lose everything.

 

Part 6: Speacial tactics

There are speacial rush tactics available in the game if your witty and lucky enough to pull them off. And I say luck, because all of these seem to have a degree of luck involved.

As all of these are rush tactics, it's best to open your MCV where it starts to conserve building time.

 

Infantry rush: Build out as usual, but build towards your opponents base instead of tiberium. Build ALOT more Barracks/Hand of Nod as you do so and start pumping out troops as you go, throw everything you have at him, if you get close, build base deffences and occational engineers to capture nearby buildings. This tactic doesn't work so well against Nod as it does GDI because Nod has flamer men and can get artillery early on as well.

 

Light vehicle rush: This is more of a Nod tactic, but GDI could use it also. Build towards tib as usual, but maybe skip on the barrack/Hand of Nod to preserve resources. Build a War Factory/Airstrip and start pumping out light vehicles. If your Nod, I'd say build a mixture of bikes and buggies, obivously GDI must use hummers. Once you get low on cash, sell your Con Yard and keep on pumping until you have a huge army fast... then realease them for a 1 time only chance of beating your opponent fast.

You can also try building a second War Factory/Airstrip to increase the speed of production, but remember that you'll have less units for the rush.

 

Tank rush: This is the same but with medium tanks, I wouldn't do this with light tanks, they suck too bad on the offence, and you'll almost certainly need a second War factory to make it worth while... Still, could be worth it to see the look on your opponents face when you get an army of tanks that fast (except you won't see it, because this is CnC).

 

Apache rush: Build a Hand of Nod fast and start building helipads while you seek out your opponesnts base with infantry. 4 Apaches will kill a Construction Yard if none are destroyed. While most people say don't build a refinery at all, it should be noted that if you build only 5 then you can still build a refinery at the end as backup, and you still have more than enough apaches to kill all you need to. This tactic is better used against GDI as they have less that can destroy the apaches early on and Nods flame men can put an end to your scouting, which is crucial to this tactic. However, it's far from unusable against Nod.

 

 

That will do for now, I'm going to do a write up on the different units and structures for Nod and eventually GDI once I better understand them. Stay tuned, and "Keep 'em Coming!"

 

  -Liam

 

All feedback is welcomed, if you'd like to add your own part to this, please come up with a witty title and be thorough.

[Ferret]

Needs some cleaning but overall. Cool read for newbies!

[AchromicWhite]

Part 7: Which units? Which deffences?

 

The Brotherhood of Nod.

 

--Infantry--

 

All infantry are resilliant to anti armour rounds, but very vulnerable to high explosive (HE) weapons. So when facing masses of anti armour weapons, it can be a good idea to mix some of these troops in. Try not to keep your men in tight formation as it really only makes them easier to be killed by splash dammage or being crushed by tanks. If confonted by flames or HE weapons, it's almost certainly best to run away, if you choose not to, then accept the casualties that are to follow. It should also be noted that all infantry (except Chemical Warriors) will take damage as they pass through tiberium, or if they strand under a blossom tree while it's sporing. However, standing still in tiberium seems to be just fine, so if you can get in alright and want to keep your troops in there to attack the enemy harvester, this is ok.

 

-Name: Minigunner

-Price: 100

-Weapon: Assault Rifle

-Requires: Hand of Nod

This small arms troop makes a great early scout, but he has some other uses later in the game also. Building a group of these will allow you to block areas off from light vehicles. It's important to spread them out a bit, don't place them all 5 to a square as it just makes them easier pickings for high explosive, flame shots or being run over. Their guns work just fine against other infantry, light vehicles and lightly armoured structures, but aginst armoured vehicles (tanks) and heavily armoured structures, you might find them taking alot of time to destroy their target. However, this cheep unit should not be underestimated. And even just spreading some around your base can be very anoying for your opponent.

-Name: Flamethrower

-Price: 200

-Weapon: Flamer

-Requires: Hand of Nod

This hearty troop is a great early build to help deffend your base from those pesky infantry scouts. This troop tears through squads of simple infantry types. Their advantage is also their disadvantage, as in large numbers themselves, will actually hit each other if one stands in front of the other, further more, when a Flamethrower dies, he's burst into flames damaging those around him. It's not uncommon to see large squads go up in flames becase only a few were killed. Not to worry, as it takes only a mximum of 2 shots to kill most other infantry, the best way to take on large squads of enemy troops with them is to send them in 2 at a time, stopping them from hitting each, and from taking mass damage due to their own casulties, while still causing mass damage to enemy troops. They can also take on lighter enemy buildings, if you do decide to do this, just note that in larger packs, you will almost certianly lose some. These troops are also trigger happy, and will attack trees placed next to them.

 

-Name: Rocket Soldeir

-Price: 300

-Weapon: Rocket launcher

-Requires: Hand of Nod

This is an anti armour troop, his rocket will punch through armour, but having very low armour himself leaves him vulnerable to almost every attack, even anti armour rounds that are not overly effective against them will still often kill them. They are quite a pricey unit, so spread them out or even mix them in with other infantry to help keep them alive, just note that they are slower than otehr infantry and so will start to get left behind over longer walking distances. Their rockets also can shoot into the air, so you can use them as quick to build, mobile sam sites.

 

-Name: Engineer

-Price: 500

-Weapon: N/A

-Requires: Hand of Nod

This speacialist unit has the unique ablility to capture enemy buildings by walking into them. The engineer is then lost but the structure is now yours to command. They have reasonalby low health, and no weapon, so they will need to be protected as they approach an enemy base. The best ways to do this are by placing them in an APC or a Chinook Transport Helicopter. If you do manage to capture an enemy building, you can consider selling it for instant destruction of the building (stopping it from being recaptured) and an instant pay out, or if you captured a factory, you could produce new units/buildings from it. Alternately you can use it as a seed start building deffence sturctures or your own factories within the base, a quick Hand of Nod and some turrets can cause devistation in the middle of an enemy base and could even win you the game. Unlike the rocket soldeir, I wouldn't recomend trying to hide them amoungst other soldiers as they stand out like a lose thumb.

 

-Name: Chemical Warrior

-Price: 300

-Weapon: Tiberium gas spaygun

-Requires: Hand of Nod, Temple of Nod

This very hearty warrior acts as an anti armour version of the Flamethrower infantry, dealing extra damage, but still suffing from the inconviniences of hitting each other with their gas attacks and exploding when killed.

  "Chem spray is an anti-armor weapon, meaning their explosion does a lot less to the surrounding soldiers, they don't kill eachother quite as easily as flamethrowers, and an APC full of them can take out any building it gets close to in 2 or 3 attacks."

  -Nyerguds.

  They are also the only infantry to be able to pass over tiberium unharmed, be careful though, as blossom trees will still deal damage to them. The biggest downside to this troop is that it requires the Temple of Nod to build, and, usually by that time in the game, your opposition will have plenty of anti infantry weapons available to them to take care of your Chemical Warriors.

 

-Name: Commando

-Price: 1000

-Weapon: Sniper Rifle/C4 explosives

-Requires: Hand of Nod, Temple of Nod

The most hearty and the most powerful infanty in the game, with a pricetag to match. The Commando is equipped with the Sniper Rifle, allowing him to take out any infantry in one shot at a long range! He can take on entire armies of infantry single handed, but it doesn't stop there. If he enters a building, in the same way as an engineer, it will instatly be destroyed, and the commando will walk back out! The downside is that, when buildings are destroyed, enemy troops come out and will almost always get a hit or two on your commando before you can react and kill them. Sneaking them or rushing them into he enemy base using an APC or CHinook Transport, is the best way to go. In groups are always best seperated and sent at differnt targets as all the things they are good at killing they kill instatly, doing this they can qucikly level large amounts of structures and even entire bases. They do almost no damage to any vehicles, so stick with using them to kill infantry or structures. It should be noted that when you build a commando, or when he exits a vehicle, you'll hear him say "Time to rock 'n' roll!", also when you click on a structure to destroy it, you'll hear him say "I've got a present for ya!" as well as this sounding really cool to you, it'll sound really cool to your opponent too as the sounds play for BOTH players. So they'll know a commando's on the way when you build them, shuttle them around and attack stuctures (no real sneak attacks possible then).

 

--Fast Vehicles--

 

These play a very important role in the Nod army and you'll oftern find yourself using large packs of them even to just float around the battlefield waiting for any oppertunity to pick up easy kills. They are fast enough to outrun many attacks from units and even base deffences. Just rushing past units and deffences you take out important buildings is a fair tactic using these. And importantly, because Nod can get 2 differnent weapons, you can take out a number of different things with them without too much trouble.

 

Name: Nod Buggy

Price: 300

Weapon: Machine Gun

Requires: Airstrip

High speed and a machine gun for a very cheep price tag make a fantastic combo, as soon as you place your first airstrip down, you can start pumping out these buggies, for early recon and rush attacks on the enemy base and harvester. However, they are also good later inthe game for picking off harvesters as well, and make a great mix with recon bikes to make a fast gun/missile combo. Some people say these are good for fending off recon bikes, I think which unit is better against one anotehr is arguable, but if someone would like to clarafy on this, I'll add your comments in here.

 

Name: Recon Bike

Price: 500

Weapon: Missile Launcher

Requires: Airstrip

The fastest ground unit in the game, firing anti-armour missiles that can hit both air and ground targets. The name sugests it to be used only for recon purposes, but this lightly armoured bike is nothing to be laughed at. The recon bike may well be the most important unit in the Nod army. When taking on large amounts of armour or protecting harvesters, your base or other ground units, the recon bike is the way to go. It's biggest flaw is when facing infantry. Troops will quickly mop up a squad of recon bikes, so if faced with troops, I suggest leaving, fast (which shouldn't be hard). It's a good idea to mix in nod buggies with these, even just one or two, so you can quickly get rid of small amounts of enemy infantry, but against large squads of troops, there can be no victroy.

Use packs to take out enemy harvesters and escape before they can even retaliate. It is also a fantastic Mobile SAM launcher. Just put them beneath, enemy aircraft, or in a space with you think they'll fly, select them, and hit "G". The short range missiles make them very accurate, the anti armour missiles will quickly kill any air unit passing over.

A Nod player without recon bike, is a Nod player who's probably losing.

 

Name: Light Tank

Price: 600

Weapon: Light Cannon

Requires: Airstrip

The light tank is a medium speed vehicle with a cannon which isn't perticulilly powerful, but with the heaviest armour in the Nod millitary. And that is perhaps the entire point of this unit, to take the hit's INSTEAD of something else, more expensive and/or with a more devastating attack, taking the hits. Against base deffences, move some light tanks in first to soak up the fire while your other units slide on past untouched. Tanks also take almost NO damage from small arms fire, so taking on BUggies or Hummers is an acceptable task, though  will say, most people will just retreat in the face of this, rendering the attacks of the light tank useless, once again.

 

Name: Artillery

Price: 450

Weapon: High Explosive Artillery

Requires: Airstrip

  One of the most underestimated units in the game. Slow moving, light armour, long range, inacurate, mega damage dealer. The artillery can be quickly built near the start of any game and act as a good anti infantry unit, stopping early infantry rushes and picking off those pesky scouts. It can certinly be used offensively too though. They will need to be protected as they approch the enemy base, usually with recon bikes, and almost certianly once they reach it as well. The long range means you can attack the Advanced Guard Tower from the South without any problems (see the Field Tactics section for exact details on this strategy). They deal large splash damage also, and can take out large buildings very fast, especially in groups.

 

Name: APC

Price: 700

Weapon: Machine Gun

Requires: Airstrip

The purpose behind the APC is a reasonably obvious one, it's all in the name, "Armoured Personal Carrier". It's used to ferry troops across the battlefield, protecting them from enemy fire and getting them to their destination with speed. Building one of these early on and rushing engineers into your opponent's Construction Yard early int he game might be a "cheap" tactic, but it certainly can win you a game. Very rarely will anyone carry anything other than engineers in an APC, and when they do, it's almost certainly going to be a commando. It's no that other infantry are compleley useless, it's that APC's are almost always used as a rush tactic for qucikly taking out buildings.

It should be noted that this is a vehicle that is also pretty good at taking out infantry. It has an anti infantry gun, for a start, it's reasonably armoured (giving it good protection against small arms fire) and it's also tracked and quite quick, meaning it can squash infantry really well. But for 700, it's not really worth building JUST for this purpose.

 

Name: Flame Tank

Price: 800

Weapon: Twin Flamethrower

Requires: Airstrip

 

More soon, stay tuned...

[Nyerguds]

Chem warriors are pretty awesome. Chem spray is an anti-armor weapon, meaning their explosion does a lot less to the surrounding soldiers, they don't kill eachother quite as easily as flamethrowers, and an APC full of them can take out any building it gets close to in 2 or 3 attacks. Sucks that you need a temple for them though

[NodAssaultTrooper]

What about Stealth tanks, wondering how to use them?

[pichorra]

What about Stealth tanks, wondering how to use them?

 

Put near of tiberium fields, to destroy enemys haversters, or put much of then inside the enemy base, so, while you distract the player with something like attacking him haverster, or a small attack and then destroy the enemy buildings.

[Nyerguds]

Stealth tanks are fun to sneak into the enemy base one by one, and then attack the conyard (or any other important target you want to take out).

 

I've recently done my "APC full of chem warriors" assault tactic with flamethrowers... takes some more micromanagement, but it worked out nicely. In combination with 2 stealths, I took out the CY and all power plants, leaving the opponent completely crippled

 

The fun part is driving through the enemy base, dropping of 2 flamethrowers, and immediately driving on to the next target

[NodAssaultTrooper]

When playing Nod and combating grenadier with medium and heavy tanks what can be done?? I don't see how the Nod player defend against such monsters. There are rockets soldiers/light tanks and chem warriors...but getting run over really makes the counter hard to use. I also find that apaches are only any good vs light and medium tanks.

 

Also, would anyone here recommend artillery, I use it to defend my base, but is it worth it...very slow and vulnerable to orcas.

[Nyerguds]

Artillery is indeed usually only good as defense, or if the enemy has no air force. As Nod you're usually better off going for SSMs; they actually outrange everything without any effort. You just need to remember the small tech tree oddity that makes you require an Obelisk to build those. They mean absolute death for any turtling opponent, especially if he uses the terrain as defense, which means he only has a few possible base entrances. Lay siege to them with SSMs guarded with light tanks in front of them, and bikes as AA around them, and you can wipe out any base defenses they could put up.

 

As for grenadiers and medium tanks, I'd just counter with light tanks and flame tanks, and maybe some expendable flamethrowers to take the infantry down faster. Flamers and grenadiers are about evenly matched.

[Riseofbane]

so much shit to read

[Nyerguds]

Hmm. First thing I usually do when starting a game is pump out a few minigunners and send them to the corners of the map. This way of scouting is usually a lot faster in finding the enemy locations than waiting until you teched up to vehicles. (Well, unless the map is full of tiberium and they all just die in that ) I wonder why it's not mentioned in the first post...

[Myg]

I think a basic topic about the general tactics used in TD might be good, not just a newbie intro.

[Lovehandles]

go ahead

[Riseofbane]

question for both RA and TD,

 

is there a max speed of production for the units regarding how many buildings? or does it go up infinitely?

[Nyerguds]

Honestly, I never tested that. The fact MCVs are horribly expensive and slow to build kinda gives a natural deterrent against the RA-like spam anyway. Not to mention, C&C1 maps are smaller, so there's usually not even enough space to build too many factories just for increasing build speed.

 

(and GDI weapons factories are made of cardboard... sooo easy to destroy )

[Echo]

question for both RA and TD,

 

is there a max speed of production for the units regarding how many buildings? or does it go up infinitely?

 

I sort of tested this with Djohe about two weeks ago in TD, and obviously there are also RA maps like Normandy which give you no choice but to increase production rates across the board. There is obviously a max speed, and it's as fast as the game allows the 'build' cycle animation on the sidebar to play (same duration it takes to train a Minigunner/Rifle Infantry after building two Barracks). I think 30 or so WF's in either game is the cap for vehicle production speed, at which point MCV's are just spat out at less than a second per unit for as long as your credits hold.

 

Same goes for CY's. Get around 20 of these up and anyone watching your base expansions will probably think you're cheating.

 

But then getting this sort of thing to work properly is generally impossible in a conventional/fair match. Nobody's going to just sit there and let you hog all the resources, and even if they did there's probably nowhere near enough on any given map to expand like that.

[cn2mc]

Due to the small map sizes in TD and expensive MCVs putting down too many factories is counter-productive. 3-4 should do it for GDI if you have the cash, with the fourth one just as a back-up in case the others get blown up or if you need units spawned in another place. Nod doesn't even need that much because airfields have a lot of HP and Nod units are cheaper. Even just two airfields can spit out bikes and buggies almost simultaneously (two planes anter the map at the same time).