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 gattling 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 gattling guns.
It's very difficult trying to shuttle gattling gun vehicles and Overlords back and forth between oncoming troops and vehicles. Getting Overlord tanks upgraded with gattling 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 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.
Suggestion: This is slower but more effective way to tackle this mission:
1. As the game starts, take out all the enemies, protect your Overloads, Infernos, and Gattling Tanks at all costs. After destorying 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 badget 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 Gattling 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, 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 missile, 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 to increase the firepower of your Infernos. If you want to hold the enemy back further, Nuke Cannons will add additionally support to the Infernos.
4. While your troops are holding off the enemy, building 3 Air Fields and 12 MiGs. When they are ready, wait till one wave of enemy is about to perish, then order them to fly alongside the left border of the map. When they reach the the left top corner, fly along the top until the SCUD Storm is insight, 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 threat of SCUD storm gone, you can 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, Arm Dealers, Command Centers and Supply Stash alike) are destoryed, it is now safe to send your troops in and clean up the rest.