Command & Conquer: Generals/Nuclear Winter



The final mission is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, if you make certain mistakes that this contributor made. It can take days to complete. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and you can do better with a few hints.

The onslaught starts right away. Immediately build a stationary Gatling gun placement to defend yourself from the hoard of invaders that starts immediately.

Use the inferno cannon to immediately take out the rocket buggies on the top of the ridge.

Another mistake you can make, which can be a real pain, is building a building too far north in your initial starting area in the valley. Eventually Rocket Buggies will come and attack it later in the game when you don't need the distraction.

Carefully take over the base to the right. This is not a big issue.

Whenever you get a chance, build a good supply of hackers, as this will be your main source of income. Building at least eight would be much better than four.

Suggestion: Why stop at 8? The more you make, the faster you get money. Just remember to spread them out so they can't be killed with one strike.

It will be obvious to build a supply depot right by the supplies in the town you just captured.

Great idea gleaned from Staley: Capture the GLA supply center and use a hacker to hack additional funds from it before it is destroyed!

When you build your buildings, it is necessary to spread them out all over the map. You don't have to worry about defending them, as there is a bottleneck directly to the north of your small captured town. This is where the main battle will take place, to the north.

In the Allied final mission, the "Double-Nuke" strategy worked like a charm, but not on this mission. GLA has radar jammers, and you are never able to see anything worth nuking. Building double nuclear factories would be a waste of resources. This is going to be a ground war. The only way the nuclear capabilities could be used was as a way to slow down the onslaught of incoming troops.

Technique learned from Staley, Deuce ex Defcon: Slowly use a progression of Cluster Mines, Air Strikes and Nukes to slowly reveal the map to the north. Once this is done, the Scud Storm can be revealed and destroyed!

Approach the bottleneck to the north of your small captured town to face an onslaught of troops. It seems to never end.

Suggestion: A good way of defending is to get a small force of dragon tanks and make them form up in a line and start their fire-spraying attack. Keep a few tanks behind them in case any enemies get through and make your nuke cannons auto-attack in front of the dragon tanks. This way, you only need to worry about artillery and rocket buggies, which you can take out with a few MIGs.

When you get a chance, build another (or your first) weapon factory close to this area so you can repair your vehicles.

A main mistake you can make is not knowing you could upgrade your Overlord tanks with Gatling guns.

It's very difficult trying to shuttle Gatling gun vehicles and Overlords back and forth between oncoming troops and vehicles. Getting Overlord tanks upgraded with Gatling guns will make things go much smoother.

Suggestion: An Overlord with a speaker tower on top will help prolong the life of your army greatly.

Plus don't forget to upgrade the Overlords with the two upgrades available at the nuclear facility.

The Scud Storm is a constant pain in the arse, and the key is to immediately save game when you got the launch message so you could move any vehicles and troops out of the way, if possible.

The "Oil Derrick" type buildings can be captured, but don't capture the oil derrick on the east side of town until you can defend that area, because they will come and destroy it immediately.

Have your Black Lotus up ahead of you so you can see what forces are coming at you.

It is a real grind working through the town, but for your peace of mind, once the town falls, it is just a mopup mission from there on out.

Instead of constantly trying to push through the center of town, once you pretty much hold the middle, it might be best to run a secondary force, once you build up the manpower, off to the left (west) and then up (north) and back to the east. This way you can wipe out some weapon factories and barracks that may help ease the constant barrage of troops coming at you.

Suggestion: Send in a nuclear missile or artillery barrage to help you destroy the town.

Maybe in hindsight building a very small air fleet might be worthwhile, just to uncover some of the map for you. The editor has not explored this method.

Suggestion: Building a few MIGs is a very good idea. It can destroy enemy artillery behind enemy lines and help your defences from time to time. Also, if you are not adverse to losing your planes, you can quite easily scout out the SCUD Storm and destroy it with your nuke and an artillery barrage.

Don't forget to use the electronic pulse general's power to disable attack vehicles and the cluster mine drop. You will need all the help you can get.

Alternate strategy
Suggestion: This is a slower but potentially more effective way to tackle this mission:


 * 1) As the game starts, take out all the enemies, protect your Overloads, Infernos, and Gatling Tanks at all costs. After destroying the GLA troops at the base, take their Supply Stash, the GLA worker works much faster than the Chinese Trucks. Later in the game, you can add hackers to your fund-collecting team.
 * 2) Set up your base, spent every penny your have in this manner: Command Center-Power Plant-Supply Center-War Factory-Black Napalm upgrade-random. The GLA will not launch their SCUD storm if your fund does not exceed $5000, so if the budget is kept below this limit, you can keep pumping out troops without having to worry about a SCUD strike, then slowly overwhelm the enemy by large numbers.
 * 3) The choke point can be blocked by guarding it with two Overlords, one upgraded with speaker tower, one Gattling cannon, which takes care of all enemy vehicles. Keep two Gatling tanks (or build some Gattlin Cannons) on each side to slaughter all the terrorists who comes a little bit too close to the tanks, then order your two Inferno cannons to forcefire the ground from behind the tanks, a firestorm would periodically burn, which can BBQ most GLA troops on their way, making it easier for you tanks to take them down. It will be a good idea to garrison some troops in the building on the slope, too, as it attracts the SCUD launcher's missiles, and you can repair the building so the SCUD will keep bombarding it until you can take care of them. As the game progresses, purchase the Black Napalm upgrade to increase the firepower of your Infernos. If you want to hold the enemy back further, Nuke Cannons will add additional support to the Infernos.
 * 4) While your troops are holding off the enemy, building 3 Air Fields for 12 MiGs. When they are ready, wait until one wave of enemy is about to perish, then order them to fly alongside the left border of the map. When they have reached the left top corner, fly along the top to avoid all anti-air fire. When the SCUD Storm comes into sight, unload all the missile at it, then quickly launch an Artillery Barrage at it, this should get rid of it nice and clean.
 * 5) With the SCUD Storm gone, you can now happily build a few Nuclear Missile and slowly take out the GLA buildings with the support from your Artillery Barrage. When all the GLA production lines (i.e. Barracks, Arms Dealers, Command Centers and Supply Stash alike) are destroyed, it is now safe to send your troops in and clean up the rest.

Note: Do not conduct any offensive measures too quickly. If the offensive fails, the enemy will send a counterattack to your base with twice the normal number of troops. If that happens, use 5 Dragon Tanks, deploy them horizontally in the base opening and use their Fire Wall ability, and use the Inferno Cannons as a guard. Use the Overlord with Speaker Tower as a healer for your defensive troops.

Note: The GLA does not start the mission with access to SCUD launchers. If you can keep your losses to a minimum, the GLA will never get the general's promotion that allows SCUD launchers. This makes it much easier to defend the choke point.

Alternate strategy #2
This alternate strategy also revolves around the use of the GLA supply center.

With your starting force for one of your overlords build a bunker, put any surviving infantry into it. On another build a speaker tower to repair your units. If your third one survives build a Gatling gun on it.

In the starting GLA area to your right take out everything except the GLA supply center. Build a supply center of your own next to the supplies. Build a barracks and a propaganda center so you can build a Black Lotus and have her drain the GLA supply center of its funds. Once it is fully drained it will be captured. Build a worker.

Build the rest of your base, build hackers for money etc (as per previous strategies). Park your starting army on the slope that they charge up next to the second set of supplies over on the right hand side. You should easily be able to gun down their waves of attacks while you are up the hill. Once you get down into the town however it gets very cramped with restricted lines of fire, so you might want to stay up the hill for a while.

Once your economy is going well and you have some spare cash, start building the GLA buildings with your GLA worker. You can work your way up to building your own SCUD site and give them a taste of their own medicine! In order to find their SCUD site you can build a couple of radar vans and research the radar upgrade. Park them away from your buildings (so they don't get SCUD stormed) and (individually) hot-key them. C is the short cut key for scanning. Once you find their SCUD site you can throw your own SCUDs in their general direction plus artillery, nukes etc. Be lavish and remember that it is better to give than receive.

For fighting down in the city area they tend to throw waves of troops and light vehicles at you which are very easy to kill, but they also tend to have a lot of mobile scud launchers and those tend to decimate everything except air units and overlords. Even worse, they have a long attack range and so can attack you when you can not even see where they are.

To deal with that threat you can build groups of overlord tanks. Each group should consist of 5-6 overlords, upgraded with at least two speaker towers and at least two Gatling cannons in each group. Technically one speaker tower is sufficient, but if they take out the overlord with the tower while your attention is elsewhere, then you may quickly lose the rest of the group too. So it is safer to have two in each group.

Before you take out their SCUD site don't bunch too many of these groups up (especially in the city area) because while overlords are relatively capable of dealing with a couple of hits from the mobile scud launchers, if they get hit by the scud storm they are too slow to move out of its area of effect and it will take them out.

Alternate strategy #3 (no nukes)
Capture the GLA supply center if you want.

Build 2 widely spaced bunkers full of rocket troops and 2 Gatling cannons at the choke point. Have bulldozers behind each to repair the damage and a speaker-tower equipped overlord to repair the bulldozers. Choose nuke cannon general promotion, build 2 and using the "area defend" option cover the defense from just behind the bunkers. They will automatically take care of the annoying GLA buggies and mobile SCUD launchers. With 2 groups, in case of a SCUD storm attack, one will always survive to carry on the struggle while you replace the losses. When you gather enough money you can replace the destroyed bunkers with about 3 overlords - 2 with Gatling cannons and one with a speaker tower (again cover them with nuke cannons so that you don't have to micromanage the defense).
 * Defense

Build about 10 hackers before the base resources run out, divide them to 2 vastly separated groups away from your base and the choke point (so that the annoying SCUD storm can never wipe out your entire economy in 1 blow) and guard each group with some Gatling tanks (just in case a rebel ambush appears).
 * Economy

Build 2 airfields and fully upgrade your 2 groups of 4 Migs (armor and black napalm). Train a Black Lotus and scout ahead starting with the right side of the map. When you encounter a GLA hole or a Stinger site use the Migs to destroy it - 8 air-launched rocket hits in rapid succession create a firestorm that destroys each of the structures at once (although your Migs can not gain experience that way). The stinger sites are widely spaced and not mutually supporting, enemy rocket troops quite ineffective as air defense, and the quad cannons charging your base will ignore the overflying aircraft so you can succeed without losses. Start with the nearer stinger sites and always use the cleared approach route as the return path for the aircraft. The eventual goal is to get the Black Lotus to the SCUD storm (in the far center-left part of the map) and capture/sell it. For extra fun capture it just before it is ready to fire and rain a free SCUD storm at the enemy before selling it. Than capture/sell all the buildings except the (unguarded) palace that will be destroyed by airstrikes and enjoy the victory parade.
 * Offense

Dealing with the SCUD Storm
As soon as you establish your base, build defenses and train your fleet of hackers. Train Black Lotus and send her to the left side of the map. Climb the mountain along the edge of the map, avoiding any stinger sites or tunnel networks. At the top, there will be two tunnel networks guarding the west entrance of the GLA Base. Call an artillery barrage to destroy the left one so that Lotus can pass. Go behind the supply stash and capture it. All GLA units will respond by attacking the supply stash (including the tunnel network next to the Command Center). A midst the chaos, send her to capture the SCUD Storm and use it against them before selling it. It is important to keep in mind to keep your resources below $5000 so that they won't launch their SCUD Storm.

Tips for surviving Brutal Mode

 * Immediately
 * Save your game. Chances are you'll have to start over a few times (the lengthy mission briefing and intro cut-scene become tiresome).
 * Upgrade both Overlords with propaganda speakers.
 * Prevent Construction dozers from going up the hill. Instead, have them build a Command Center and power station in the canyon.

Once the Overlords are upgraded, have them attack-move up the hill, but not too far. They should be on either side and slightly ahead of your surviving units. Have your Infernos guard the area between the Overlords (the Overlords should be spaced approximately the distance of the inner guard circle). As soon as the Command Center is constructed, select the 'Cluster mine' option, and drop mines to the east, revealing some territory while providing a bit of protection. As units become fully repaired, move them just ahead of the Infernos, but watch them carefully to be sure they don't become overly ambitious and get killed. Gradually move the Overlords to the east, flanking the remaining units which move in formation. At this point be sure the Infernos are the only units moving in guard mode.
 * Opening game

As soon as you've moved a safe distance, bring up a Construction dozer to build a Barracks. Select 'Building capture' upgrade when available.

Once the GLA base is reached, have Gatling Tanks take out workers and the rocket soldiers behind the buildings (waiting to destroy them once captured). Don't bother hacking the supply center; there will only be a few hundred dollars if you take out their workers quickly.

Destroy the tunnels only and capture the rest. Create several workers; have them repair buildings, and most importantly, build at least two stinger sites and three tunnels while others gather supplies. Leave at least one worker near defensive structures for inevitable repairs, and a "spare" in the Tunnel network. They're much cheaper than a dozer to replace.

During the very short grace period before the GLA onslaught begins, utilize GLA defenses that are cheaper and don't require adding power stations (instead of going overboard with Chinese ones). One stinger site should be at the top of the ridge on the forward edge, to the left of the path. The 2nd should be on the slight ridge to the right of the path and a bit forward (near the supplies). Space them sufficiently to avoid both being destroyed by a single SCUD Storm. Build tunnels adjacent to each Stinger Site, with a gap just big enough for an Inferno, and a 3rd someplace distant. Have an Inferno set to guard at each location, with an Overlord nearby. At this point, the Overlords should be used mainly as mobile propaganda towers; you can't afford to lose them. If you don't still have both Overlords (and at least one Inferno and several other units), then you might as well start over. You're doomed.

In case of an incoming SCUD Storm, send units into the tunnels ASAP! Especially the expensive and vital Overlords.


 * Tips for early game
 * Build a Palace to enable Jarmen Kell and Rocket buggies.
 * Use Jarmen Kell, placed in a building near the bottom of the choke-point (to the right). Be sure he is out of range of your Infernos (use of Nuke Cannons not recommended)!
 * Rocket buggies are the best counter for mobile SCUD Launchers that will soon become a menace. Have two or three held back for this purpose (set as a group), and use a quick hit-and-run technique.

Once you survive the early game, you can establish a formidable base and then utilize any of the above strategies. Good luck – you'll need it!