Command & Conquer/Slovenia or Romania

These two missions are similar. In both cases, you will not be able to set up intelligently unless you have a lot of map knowledge. Acquire that map knowledge by sending your starting units out on suicide scouting missions, and reloading the scenario multiple times, or by reading a walkthrough. You also need to know the proper build order to get attack helicopters ASAP; get that information from the manual.

Because of the difficulties in these missions, you may also want to go back to the previous mission and collect a lot more money before ending it, although only 20% of that money carries over.

Slovenia
Choose the left arrow to play this mission.

Send one Humm-V to the SW. It is almost immediately engaged by a gun turret. Run away. Send your other Humm-V to the east until you find a Tiberium patch. Send your MCV in that direction.

You will now be attacked by a Nod Buggy. Engage it with your Minigunners and tanks, but definitely not with your Grenadiers.

Set up your Construction Yard 3 squares away from the Tiberium patch. Note that there is a ridge north of your position. Nod can attack you from that ridge, so you want to leave at least one row of squares north of your buildings open in case you want to move units there.

Next, execute the following build sequence: Power Plant (always built immediately after the CY), Refinery, Barracks, Helipad, Weapons Factory, APC, Power Plant, Repair Bay. Except for the Refinery, which is built adjacent to the Tiberium patch, and the Repair Bay, which is built NE of the Refinery, these buildings run in a tight line west from your CY. Normally, you do not want to place your buildings so close together, but you have no choice here. You will note that there are some sandbags in the NW corner. You can't use them to anchor new buildings, and you can't sell them, so blow them up with your tanks before they interfere with your mobility. Somewhere along the line, you will be attacked from the SW by a small group of infantry. Keep your own infantry away from these guys. You will also be attacked from the ridge north of your base by some mobile artillery. You should have an Orca available to deal with that threat.

As soon as you have an APC, you should destroy the gun turret south of your base with your Orca, plus your Grenadiers, plus your tanks. This will give you some breathing room.

If you keep a close watch on your Tiberium stockpile, you can get away without building a Silo for now. Build priorities during this phase are a second APC, a Guard Tower, and a rocketeer. Don't harvest all of the small Tiberium patch near your Refinery. When you need to access the large Tiberium patch in the NE corner of the map, blow away the gun turret guarding it.

If you manage to get this far, you are in good shape. The rest of the scenario will present no difficulty.

Blow up all the gun turrets on the way to the Nod base, which is in the SE map corner. Nod does not defend or replace them. This is best done with Orcas; it requires at least two, because Nod does repair these turrets.

Nod probably stops attacking you somewhere along the line. Unless they ran out of Tiberium (they did not), this means that they are saving an enormous amount of money for defense.

Approach the Nod base very carefully. It is strongly fortified, and there is a laser at the entrance. The laser kills most ground units with one shot. Its range is about as far as a gun turret.

You now have several options. You could build up a large force (which might be difficult) and just rush in, but that seems quite suicidal, especially because you have no idea what's in that base yet. It's probably better to just invest the base and await developments.

By the time that the Nod Harvesters expose themselves, you should have something like 10 tanks, 5 APCs, and some other units camped outside the single exit of the Nod base. Don't overinvest in Orcas; they are simply too expensive as a main combat unit. Three Orcas with two Helipads is plenty. At this point, your force is sufficient to attack and destroy the Harvesters while beating off the Nod sorties. Your damaged units have a long way to go for repairs, but this situation is stable.

This is now the attrition phase. You are taking a lot of damage, which costs money to repair (50% of the pro-rated vehicle cost), but you shouldn't be losing any vehicles. On the other hand, Nod is losing Harvesters at $1,400 a pop, and each of their infantry sorties costs $1,000 or so. It may seem like you're not making any progress, but you will run Nod out of money. Remember that they've been saving money for a long time.

When you can manage it, sneak a couple of fast units around behind the Nod base. This is dangerous, but important. You will learn that getting anywhere near the base with your Orcas is suicidal. However, you will find a soft spot in the NE corner.

Send an APC loaded with Grenadiers to the NE corner of the Nod base. They will be able to deal with the single gun turret there, and if Nod is out of money, it can't be replaced. Now your Grenadiers can wipe out the entire NE corner of the Nod base with impunity. You can use your Orcas as well (after eliminating the SAM sites, of course!). Send a couple of Engineers over there to capture the Airstrip and the Construction Yard. You can now get a flamethrower tank for fun, bearing in mind that it is no more effective against gun turrets than your own tanks.

Stay away from the Obelisk until all Nod Power Plants are destroyed!

Rumania
Choose the right arrow to play this mission.

This mission looks harder than the Slovenia mission, but that's only until you figure out how to set up your base. However, Tiberium is in very short supply. You have enough to set up a strong defense, but not to put together a large field army for a very long time, until your Tiberium patches regenerate. This assumes that you have left enough Tiberium on the ground to permit patch regeneration. Don't even think of engaging in any suicidal charges into the Nod base!

Don't explore at all. Just deploy your MCV exactly where it starts, shuffling your units out of the way as necessary. Start a Power Plant; it is placed immediately SE of the CY. There are some sandbags in this area. You can't use them to anchor new buildings, you can't sell them, and they actually obstruct your base, so blow them up with your tanks right away. Build your Refinery immediately NW of your CY. Next, build your Barracks directly east of your CY, one square away; it is anchored by the Power Plant. Next, build your Helipad immediately north of your CY, one square away from your Refinery. This placement is very tight, but it still leaves a bit of room to maneuver around each building.

You will have faced very early attacks by a Nod Buggy and then two small groups of infantry. Engage them with your Minigunners and Humm-Vs and possibly tanks, but definitely not with your Grenadiers, because they will damage your own units, and you will need them for a different purpose. After this, you can expect to be attacked by flamethrower infantry, so your infantry will have to hide.

Save the game.

Note that there is a ridge along the south side of the map. Nod can attack you from that ridge, but you now have an Orca available to deal with that threat.

Start your Weapons Factory. It takes a while to be ready. While you wait, explore a bit. There is a Nod gun turret immediately north of your base. Destroy it with your tanks, Grenadiers, and Orca. This will give you some breathing room.

The Weapons Factory is placed on the left map edge, right against the ridge; it is anchored by the Refinery. As soon as you have an APC, you can explore more seriously, because it increases your anti-infantry capacity dramatically. You will probably see a mobile artillery unit sneaking up on you along the south side of the map. Waste it with your Orca.

You are likely to be cash-strapped by now. This means that you can't buy all the things that you want to right now. The highest priority is to get a second APC. You want to reveal the terrain well past the Tiberium patch on the left side of the map, otherwise Nod infantry can attack you from that side, and if you have to fight in the patch, collateral damage will destroy Tiberium.

As money comes in, get a second Power Plant (placed on the left map edge just north of the Weapons Factory), and then a Repair Bay NE of the Helipad, and then a Guard Tower NE of that. After you get a Silo, third Power Plant, and Communications Centre, your base will pretty much be complete.

Your base can only be attacked by ground units along the left map edge or from the NE, down a narrow valley. You should strongly consider walling off the area north of the Tiberium patch.

Don't harvest all of your first Tiberium patch; let it regenerate. There is a small but inexhaustible patch to the east. There is another patch further north along the left side of the map, but, due to blocking terrain, it is effectively very far away and mechanically hard to access. All of this means that you will run out of Tiberium well before you can build up a large force, and this assumes that you don't lose any units.

Blow up all the gun turrets on the way to the Nod base, which is in the NE map corner. Nod does not defend or replace them. This is best done with Orcas; it requires at least two, because Nod does repair these turrets.

You probably won't be able to afford a Communications Centre before your money situation becomes critical. The CC is not so important in this scenario, because the terrain limits movement so much. You do want to have something like 5 each tanks and APCs, and three Orcas supported by two Helipads.

Nod keeps attacking you with waves of infantry that easily cost $3,000. They attack along the west and south map edges, as well as down the middle. With your income down to almost zero, it's time to implement extreme measures.

When you can afford to do so, run a line of sandbags up along the left edge of the map past your first Tiberium patch and block that valley off completely. Then sell back those sandbags that aren't actually part of the block. Remember to leave enough money in the bank for repairs.

Keep pushing your sandbag wall forward as resources permit. When you have the entire left side of the map walled off, run a sandbag line back into the NW map corner and down the left side until you can place a Refinery there. There is just enough room for the Refinery, and there is even one location that does not entirely block the valley (not that that's important). Now you have a real income!

Crank out 5 more tanks, and infantry if you feel like it. However, at this point it's probably better to save your money so that you can build siegeworks around the Nod base, since you almost have building anchors there anyway. You should know by now that the Nod base has only one exit, no shortage of Tiberium (although they've probably spent their entire cash reserve), only two gun turrets, and 4 SAM sites. Oh, and don't forget about the laser! A mass attack into the Nod base is probably stupid, especially since the SE corner seems to be only weakly defended, with only a SAM site there.

It won't be long before the Nod Harvesters come out to play. Kill them off, and Nod will soon be out of money.

Send an APC loaded with Grenadiers to the SE corner of the Nod base. They will be able to wipe out the entire SE corner of the Nod base with impunity. Send a couple of Engineers over there to capture the Airstrip and the Construction Yard. You will probably need to sell the Airstrip immediately, because it is in range of the Nod laser.

Stay away from the Obelisk until all Nod Power Plants are destroyed!

Notes about exploration
1) Orcas, as any air unit, do not reveal unrevealed terrain.

2) APCs see further than Humm-Vs. Due to the movement restrictions, this is the first scenario where it matters or is even obvious.

Important notes about Orcas
Of course, you will keep Orcas away from SAM sites. But you also need to keep them away from the Nod rocketeers, which means, due to unit identification issues, that you need to keep Orcas away from all Nod infantry. Part of the problem is that Orcas tend to drift while they are shooting, sometimes a great distance. A big part of the problem is that you cannot mouse-select Orcas in flight, although you can keyboard-select them if you previously assigned a control group.