Final Fantasy VII/Fort Condor

Fort Condor is located in the Junon area, near the back entrance to the Mythril Mine. It's easily accessible from Junon (though a river appears there later in the game).

The basic problem is this: Folks at Fort Condor are waging war against Shinra, who seem to be hell bent on conquering back their precious Mako reactor. The Fort folks merely want to protect the giant condor who is nesting on top of the reactor.

So you're going to spend money on a gigantic warfare simulation. You can either let the folks fight it out themselves, or command the troops yourself. The gameplay isn't too deep, but it's an interesting and fun real-time strategy minigame.

When to play
Fort Condor is an interesting minigame, and you can access it in various parts of the journey on CD 1 and CD 2.

Shinra attacks the fort a total of 17 times, which are as follows:


 * 1) When you first reach Fort Condor.
 * 2) After saving Priscilla and resting at that old person's house.
 * 3) Before going to Upper Junon.
 * 4) After getting the Buggy.
 * 5) After finishing the storyline events in Cosmo Canyon.
 * 6) After getting the Tiny Bronco.
 * 7) After getting the Keystone from Dio.
 * 8) After finishing the storyline events in the Temple of the Ancients.
 * 9) After finishing the storyline events in the Forgotten Capital.
 * 10) Not possible. You cannot reach Fort Condor at the time Shinra attacks.
 * 11) Not possible. You cannot reach Fort Condor at the time Shinra attacks.
 * 12) Not possible. You cannot reach Fort Condor at the time Shinra attacks.
 * 13) Not possible. You cannot reach Fort Condor at the time Shinra attacks.
 * 14) Not possible. You cannot reach Fort Condor at the time Shinra attacks.
 * 15) After getting the Highwind.
 * 16) Not possible. You cannot reach Fort Condor at the time Shinra attacks.
 * 17) The Final Battle. Mandatory. See Walkthrough.

You only need to fight battle number 17 to recover the Huge Materia, but it is probably better to fight (and win) some of the other battles, as they will yield some very useful items. If you are ever short on funds, consider selling a mastered All materia.

Units
The various units are as follows

Basic strategies
Note that you can only deploy your units on the top half of the battlefield.

If money is no object, set up two tristoners on the left path (few units try to go this way usually and these are easily rebuilt), two on the very far right, and three tristoners on the middle. Place the multiple ones on top of each other; this way, if the enemy is destroying the lower one, it's getting hit on the head by the one above. Just above the line, deploy some Defenders and perhaps a few Shooters as well. Shooters are good to be placed right above Tristoners as well.

Another strategy it to deploy one Tristoner in the middle, one on the left. Put a fire catapult in the middle skewed left (so you can shift its direction to cover the middle or the left) another fire catapult in the middle skewed far right, this one can again cover middle or right but favors right (since it is the only artillery for that avenue).

Put one defender on each corner, two defenders in the middle, and a final defender at the far right catapult (he can be exchanged with either a middle or right defender so that oen can go be repaired). Then add in one repairer in the middle, one on the far left. Fill in the remaining space with shooters, 2–3 covering each corner the rest in the middle.

Use the defenders as meat shields that the repairers can fix up after a fight (except when a barbarian is attacking, then allow him to pull forward). Keep the shooters condensed just behind the defender, make sure to adjust the direction of your catapults for where the bulk of enemies are attacking.