Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour/China Nuke General vs. USA Laser General

Hard Difficulty
The most important thing to remember on this level is to spread out your base. While on easier difficulties it may be possible to play without getting hit by a particle cannon it is impossible to avoid it on hard difficulty. On hard difficulty, the Laser General starts with 3 Particle Cannons and the power to use them.

Start this level building two additional dozers. Remember to put a little distance between all structures and build your barracks, Nuke Reactor, and Supply Depot. At this point put up a few base defenses. You should build a bunker and a Gattling Cannon on the road near the tech repair bay. Then build the same on the road on the same diagonal to the northwest. For the most part, one of each along with a speaker tower(after they are available to you) should suffice until you can supplement them with an Overlord tank and/or a Nuke Cannon.

After your first bunker is built, start building a War Factory right away followed by the propaganda center, internet center, nuke silo. Remember to space everything out so that the particle canon will not take out more than one building at a time.

Leave some extra room around your Nuke Silo and build a speaker tower near it. Before you build a Nuke Silo, your perimeter base defenses and your command center are the primary targets of the Laser General's particle cannons. When you have a Nuke Silo it becomes the ONLY target of the particle cannons. When this happens you will want to keep a dozer next to it to repair it after every strike and the speaker tower will heal the dozer if it gets to close to the particle beam.

Once you get your base up and running, as long as you repair the damage from the particle cannons it is just a matter of time before you can build up a force to enter his base. The computer mainly plays this level defensively with only a small strike force that should easily be taken care of by your Bunkers/Gattling Cannons. You can take out all three particle cannons at once with a combined Nuke Missile strike and a Level 3 Artillery Barrage back to back.

By the time you are a 5 star General, your Nukes and your Generals Powers should have softened up his base a little. You can start a frontal attack with a few Overlord Tanks (half with Speaker Tower and half with Gattling Cannon upgrades usually works fine) Keep a Nuke Cannon or two behind the Overlords to take out base defenses as you advance. With a strong strike force, it is not too difficult to wipe him off the map on this level.

On this level, air power was not really necessary as his laser patriots tear your planes to shreds. Just be sure to build enough gattling cannons to take out his gunships. Also, early in the game, there is an unguarded supply pile to the east of the map. You can send a dozer to go and build a supply depot there, but this expansion base is usually nothing more than a preferred target for his particle cannons.

Alternate Strategy
This level is initially extremely intimidating. You start out with a Command Center and bulldozer – while the Laser General begins with three Particle Cannons ready to blast away.

The land assault starts slowly and this will give you a chance to form rudimentary defensive positions by garrisoning the buildings centered between your base and the Laser General’s base.

Build a solid defense, create Internet hackers and accumulate enough funds to build two Nuclear Missiles at once. This way, they are less susceptible to destruction while being built.

Build a few Gattling Cannons to the east of your base to defend against persistent Comanche helicopter attacks. An enemy Colonel Burton will also be attacking your base. Detection units are a must.

Walkthrough
Basic start: Build a Reactor, an extra dozer, a Barracks, Supply Center. Build a second Supply Truck. Purchase Radar to activate the radar map.

Don’t forget to choose one of your General’s Powers.

Be sure that all buildings are placed far enough apart so that the Particle Cannons cannot destroy two buildings at once.

Sometimes enemy infantry occupy one of the five civilian buildings right in front of your base – and sometimes they don’t. If they have, you will need to build a War Factory and a Dragon Tank to clear the building before you capture the region.

If there are no buildings previously occupied, immediately build five Tank Hunters and garrison one in each of the buildings. After this, add Red Guard to each of the buildings to help protect the area from infantry.

Build a War Factory (if you haven’t done so already) and then the Propaganda Center so that you can build and park an Inferno Cannon in the center of the garrisoned buildings. This is necessary to destroy the Laser Tanks that park at the top of the ramp and are out of range of the garrisoned troops.

Build a Speaker Tower in the middle of the buildings. Have a bulldozer in the area to keep the buildings repaired.

By now, the Particle Cannons will start attacking your base. At the beginning, “just” the Barracks will be destroyed. This is great, as you can constantly rebuild it for only 500 credits.

If it targets your Command Center, repair immediately or it will be lost on a subsequent blast.

Beef up your garrisoned buildings with five more Tank Hunters and five more Red Guard. This mission is “blessed” with a great bottleneck to protect your base. Take advantage of it. Add more units to these buildings as opportunity arises.

Build two Gattling Cannons to the northeast of your base, separated by a safe distance. You must keep these here to protect your base from Comanche attacks. They will be destroyed by PC blasts, but that’s okay. Just continue to rebuild them. The west side of your base will not be bothered by these attacks.

Consider having a second Inferno Cannon in the area of the garrisoned buildings to beef up defenses.

It is also necessary to be wary of Colonel Burton slipping onto your base and detonating your buildings. It is possible to mine your buildings to help minimize the threat. It also helps to putting a Gattling Cannon on the ramp leading down from the bridge to the east of the garrisoned buildings. Have a few teams of Listening Outposts and Gattling Tanks teamed up – just in case you have to go hunt him down.

A lot of this mission is two steps forward and one back with the constant repairing, but you will make slow but steady progress.

Build around eight to ten hackers and position them in different areas at the back of your base and have them start hacking the Internet for easy cash.

After you have over 9,000 credits saved, build two Nuclear Missiles simultaneously. This may prevent the PC’s from targeting your Nuclear two times in a row before it can repair and destroying 4,500 worth of infrastructure.

Once the Nuclear Missiles are completely built, attacks from enemy Particle blasts will not entirely destroy them and they can be repaired after each attack.

After the countdown, you can destroy the three enemy PC’s with either a double nuclear blast or a single nuclear blast and a hit with a level three Artillery Barrage.

Wait for your PC’s to charge back up and you can then destroy the Command Center. When a bulldozer comes back to rebuild it, destroy it with an Artillery Barrage. As soon as all dozers are destroyed, no new structures can be built and you can slowly start taking the base apart.

Destroy first all Airfields, War Factories and Barracks.

Use your General’s Powers and armored units of your choice to destroy defenses at the very front of their base in case you decide to launch a ground assault. Or you can just use multiple nuclear strikes to finish the job.

Your ground forces have plenty of reach with the Inferno Cannon and Nuke Cannon, and the Overlords are supercharged.

It is not necessary to destroy the Laser Turrets, Fire Bases, garrisoned civilian buildings, infantry or vehicles to win the mission.

Once the frontal defenses are destroyed, a small ground force can perform mop-up duties of any structures left standing.

Mission accomplished!