Act IV: Australia
Mission One: Outback
Primary Objectives
- Capture Convoy
Bonus Objectives
- Destroy Tiberium Tower
- Capture GDI Research Facility
Tough!
Your goal here is to liberate a few nuclear transports from GDI control, then get them to a holding point until your Nod transports can arrive to carry them away. You only have a few units to work with here, and won’t be able to build more until it largely becomes unimportant to do so. Fulfilling the bonus objectives will likewise be very tricky, but at least the mission is short so you can try again as often as you like.
Immediately group your Venoms into one group, your ground units into another, and your saboteurs into a third. If you’re interested in the bonus objectives, then start the game by moving your ground units towards the tiberium spike in the northwestern corner, destroying its defenders, and knocking it down. That will block the road leading to the northeast, preventing any of the nukes from leaving the map.
Capturing the research facility will be much more difficulty, since your saboteurs will have to reach the extreme southwestern corner of the area. Still, no more enemy units should be constructed here, so if you manage to move your gunships over to the southwestern base, they can destroy the anti-infantry turret there and allow your saboteurs free access to the research facility.
Defense
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While all this is going down, have your ground units destroy the escorts for one of the nuclear bombs as it approachs the eastern exit to the zone. The destroyed orchard to the south is your pickup point, so move the nuclear bomb when it’s under your control up against the mountains there. You only need one here; don’t waste your units trying to take out the other escorts. When you manage to move one of the nukes into the orchard, some defensive turrets will spring up and the Scrin will attack.
At this point, you get a war factory, so start building as many stealth tanks as you can afford; they’ll be decent against both the ground and air units that will be coming your way. Move your nuke around so that the countdown for the Nod carryalls begins, then get ready to make a defensive stand. The Scrin will be attacking with plenty of air units here, so keep your Venoms to the rear of your base where they can shoot down enemy fighters without coming under fire from the enemy ground vehicles. Hold up behind the turrets and wait for the minute and a half it takes for the carryalls to arrive, and you’ll win the mission.
Mission Two: Sydney City Wall
Primary Objectives
- Eliminate Three Alien Targets for GDI
- Capture the GDI Lab
Bonus Objectives
- Capture two Tiberium Spikes
- Destroy the Ion Control Center
Defending The Base
Your mission here is to help the GDI forces fight off the Scrin that are attacking Sydney, but you have a secondary mission, as well: capture the GDI lab inside the city walls to obtain the nuclear launch codes that you require for your nukes.
At the outset, build another harvester, then an air tower to go along with five saboteurs. Airlift the saboteurs and send them all north into Sydney. You’ll notice that there’s an Ion Cannon Control Center here; capture it first! It has a seven minute countdown timer, and around nine minutes after the mission starts, it will be unusable. If you want to get one good shot off with the Ion Cannon, then you need to land here and capture it ASAP. Land another saboteur to capture the GDI lab, and another for the Space Command Uplink. Then send the other two off to the west, skirting the northern side of the map, where they’ll find two tiberium spikes. Capture them both to give your base a little extra funding.
While this is going on, build a Secret Shrine to unlock some new tech, and start building up your base defenses. A couple of Avatars in Hold Ground stance near your war factory would be a nice start, but you know you’re going to want to have a bunch of Obelisks of light scattered around as well; you will eventually be seeing some large numbers of Scrin coming your way after they get bored of the GDI, so you want to make sure that you can withstand the assaults. The enemy has a huge number of Tripods here, so don’t discount your Venoms. Tripods have no anti-air capabilities, so a huge fleet of Venoms may wind up saving your life here. You may also be capable of holding the line with buggies if they’re upgraded with EMP coils; just run a mess of buggies into the oncoming assault and flip the switch to render them temporarily inert, allowing your Obelisks to get a few more shots in before they reactivate.
The Endgame
;)
At nine or ten minutes into the mission, a few things will start to happen. Scrin Destroyers will knock down the walls leading into Sydney, first off. This may be preventable if you have five or six Venoms at each location they appear to shoot them down, but it’s probably not meant to be stopped. When this occurs, you’ll lose control of the Ion Cannon Control Center, and in fact will be told to destroy it. If you already captured it, this will prevent you from making use of the Ion Cannon. Around this time, you’ll probably also be facing off against a large number of Scrin coming towards your base.
Now, if you want everything to go smoothly, you’ll want to plan ahead for these occurances. First off, have your air towers build up four or eight Vertigo bombers, as well as a large number of Venoms, perhaps twelve or so, in a group. With that done, you should be prepared for a nice little airstrike. What you want to do is have your Ion Cannon shoot the northernmost of the three alien target structures, the Warp Sphere, here as soon as it comes online. At the same time, fly four or more of your bombers to the north of your base, then fly them in towards the portal (the easternmost Scrin structure) from the northeast to avoid some of the anti-air units, bomb it, then return to base. If done properly, you can destroy two of the three target structures before the Ion Cannon gets taken offline. This may provoke a Scrin attack, though, so be ready with your Venoms and Avatars in your base. You should still have the Space Uplink structure, which will let you use Shockwave Artillery on incoming Tripods. Taking them offline will again let you defeat most of them, assuming you have a good number of Avatars and Obelisks protecting your base.
Anyway, your goal here isn’t to fight the Scrin; it’s to destroy their buildings. If you don’t manage to get the Ion Cannon to fire, then your best bet is to simply build up a large force of Vertigo bombers and use them to head straight to your targets. The Portal and Signal Array will each go down with just a couple of bombs, but the Warp Sphere will be a bit tougher. Even if the Scrin are rampaging through your base, though, it’s still possible to win by simply bombing out their buildings while you control the GDI base to the north.
