Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour/China Nuke General vs. General Leang (SuperBoss)

General Leang is known as the Dragon General for good reason. She is pure evil -- even though she is kind of cute.

And yes – this mission is winnable on the hard setting.

The race is on to destroy General Leang before she launches her Scud Storm, Nuclear Missile and – deep sigh – Particle Cannon. The launches can be postponed by destroying one of the three weapons bunkers located in the middle of this elongated map. Each time a bunker is destroyed, the timer is reset to twelve minutes.

The Dragon General seems to have an endless source of supplies. Any structures destroyed on her main base will be quickly rebuilt. Because of this, the ultimate goal is to destroy the three Command Centers and the five dozers on the base.

A constant onslaught of heavy armor will be rolling toward your base. Because of your Overlords, you will eventually be able to expand your base beyond the eastern bridge, but it won’t be easy.

It is actually possible to win the mission without expanding beyond the eastern bridge, although it helps to be able to spread out your base a bit.

Even without her Super Weapons, her General’s Powers are devastating to your base. Starting at about 30.5 minutes into the mission, Cluster Bombs and Artillery Barrages will wreak havoc on your structures and the EMP Pulse will power down your structures (losing precious time in the process) way before the Super Weapons are ready to launch. You will have the first twelve minutes, reset the timer for another twelve minutes, then six minutes into the next reset before you have to deal with this issue.

This strategy may not be fancy or pretty -- in fact, it is downright ugly and ungraceful, but it will work – barely.

There will be a bit of variety every time you play this mission. Slightly moving a dozer from one area of your base to the other will change where the Carpet Bombing strikes, etc. It will be very challenging quickly building up your base and protecting it from armor on the northern ridge above your base. It is absolutely essential to constantly destroy the Air Fields to keep enemy jets from slowly picking apart your base. Some bomb runs will not be successful, (with your Carpet Bomber getting shot down by passing Gattling Tanks) while other times it will avoid enemy fire. It is recommended to save your game before each bombing run and reload and try again (waiting a few seconds) if you are unsuccessful.

This mission is a modified version of the USA strategies vs. General Leang. One major difference is that using this walkthrough, you must actually weather the Carpet Bombs and Artillery Barrages and rebuild afterwards.

Walkthrough – First 12 Minutes

The onslaught begins immediately. A very tight sequence of defensive posturing will help you survive the first few minutes.

Build a Reactor directly east of the Command Center, build and extra dozer, and build a Barracks directly west of the Command Center.

Key Strategies

• Build two Gattling Cannons on the northwest area of your base to prevent a Sneak Attack tunnel from appearing on your base. If you do this, the tunnel may appear to the east of the bridge, where you can deal with it at a time of your choosing.
• Build your Barracks, War Factory and Propaganda Center all in a single row (west to east) with your Command Center. This will leave room for five Nuclear Missiles to the south (three in one row and two in the next) -- and Gattling Cannons, Reactors and more Nukes to the north.
• Important: Build your Gattling Cannon and Speaker Tower slightly back from the bridge that leads to your base and slightly to the south of it. This way, the Rocket Buggies will be forced to bottleneck on the bridge and will be easier to destroy.
• Build an Air Field and a single MIG and fly it on a one-way mission to outline the Air Field on the northeast part of the map. After this, use your Carpet Bombing and Artillery Barrage to repeatedly destroy the two Air Fields in this vicinity.
• Build a single Helix and then sell your Air Field. You will need the room to build multiple Nuclear Missiles. Upgrade the Helix with a bunker and fill it with Tank Hunters. Store the Helix safely on the back of your base until it is needed to protect the northern ridge above your base.
• Build 16 Hackers at your first opportunity for continued cash flow. You will need it to build multiple Nuclear Missiles and rebuild after the Carpet Bombing and Artillery Barrage of your base 30 minutes into the game.
• Use an Overlord or two, coupled with a Gattling Cannon and Propaganda Tower, as the center of your defense by the eastern bridge.
• Eventually sell your Supply Center and Barracks to make room for additional Reactors and Nuclear Missiles.
• It is best not to sell your War Factory as you will need to continue to defend your expanded base with additional Overlords later in the mission. (It is also possible to sell the War Factory, cram eight Nuclear Missiles into your original base, after you have built additional Overlords to protect the eastern front.
• If possible, start expanding your base east of the bridge about 24 minutes into the game. Build another Gattling Cannon and Speaker Tower and reposition your tanks here. Sell the previous Gattling Cannon and Speaker Tower, if necessary, to continue building additional Nuclear Missiles.
• Destroy the three Command Centers with six Nuclear Missiles as soon as you can, probably after your base has already been Carpet Bombed. They will be rebuilt but this will delay further attacks on your base and position the dozers closer to these areas so they will be destroyed on the next round when you have eight or more Nuclear Missiles.
• Around the time that your base is Carpet Bombed, start building as many Gattling Cannons as possible near the northern ridge. Around this time is when you will be attacked from this area and most of your units cannot fire back. Use your single Helix to help clear the area when Avengers and Gattling Tanks are not around. You can easily lose this mission even with seven Nuclear Missiles when General Leang resumes her attacks.
• Always have on hand an extra three or more Reactors than necessary. If your power is shut off, the delay in launching your nukes may cost you the mission.
• Expand your base to the east as you see fit at the 30-minute mark, protecting the structures with Overlords, Speaker Towers and Gattling Cannons. You may receive a brief reprieve after getting Carpet Bombed, but the onslaught of armor rolling toward your base will pick up again soon.
• Keep the oil derrick on your base constantly repaired. You need all the revenue you can get.

Important: Pack everything tightly as you build, with the Supply Center being as far against the western edge of the base as possible and as close to the supplies as possible. Use this same philosophy for all of your building.

Build an extra Supply Truck.

Immediately research the Capture Command and queue up a Red Guard, then three Tank Hunters. Set the Rally Point near the oil derrick.

Build a Gattling Cannon to the east of the base. Position it a bit back from the bridge so that Rocket Buggies cannot target it from the other side of the river. Place it slightly to the south of the bridge to keep from being shot at from the bluffs.

Capture the oil derrick with your Red Guard.

Build a War Factory directly east of your Reactor, with no space in between them. Build two Battlemaster tanks.

Fight off the pair of tanks attacking your oil derrick with your Tank Hunters and your Battlemaster tanks.

Next there will be a Rocket Buggy attack. After it targets your Gattling Cannon, destroy it with your Battlemasters and Tank Hunters. Repair your oil derrick and Gattling Cannon.

Build two Gattling Cannons on the northwest side of your base and station your Battlemasters and Tank Hunters in the same area. This may or may not prevent the Sneak Attack tunnel from appearing.

Important: If the Sneak Attack tunnel appears, do not rebuild whatever Gattling Cannons are lost. You will spend all of your credits constantly replacing GC’s and the dozers that are building them.

Build the Propaganda Center directly east of the War Factory, with no room between them.

As soon as the Propaganda Center is done, build an Overlord, upgrade it with Gattling Cannons and position it by the eastern bridge. Build a Speaker Tower to keep it healed.

Build a second Overlord, upgrade it also with Gattling Cannons and station it on the northwest region of your base to help fight off the air attack. Build a Speaker Tower in this area. Again, do not replace the Gattling Cannons lost on the northwest area of your base. You will rebuild them later in the mission when the Air Fields are more suppressed.

Build an Air Field. Build a single MIG and send it toward the northeast portion of the map. It should reveal an Airfield in this area. Bookmark the area as #1 for future reference.

Build ten Hackers and place them in a safe place in the back of your base. This is an important part of the strategy to build these Hackers now, as opposed to later, to make sure you can fund the Nuclear Missiles.

Sell your Supply Center once the supplies are gone.

After the ten Hackers are built, build a third Overlord, upgrade it with Gattling Cannons and send it toward the eastern bridge to join your first Overlord.

Research Chain Guns now!

Build a single Helix and then sell your Airfield. You will use this single unit to help keep the northern ridge cleared later in the game. (You may not have funds for this until after the first bunker is destroyed.) Later, after you get the Nuclear Missile started, upgrade it with a bunker and fill it with Tank Hunters.

Right about now you should be Level 3. Destroy the lower Air Field with your Carpet Bombing. You will need to save your Artillery Barrage to destroy the first bunker to reset the timers in a bit.

Important: From here on out, constantly destroy the Airfields at every opportunity with Carpet Bombs and Artillery Barrage. This will make the difference whether you survive with ample resources through the next 12 minutes.

Destroy the lower eastern bunker with your Artillery Barrage. The timer will be reset to 12 minutes.

Walkthrough – 12 Minutes to 24 Minutes

Build six more Hackers for a total of 16.

The focus of this twelve minutes is to have at least five Nuclear Missiles built or building south of your line of structures – Barracks, Command Center, Reactor, War Factory and Propaganda Center. This will fit nicely with three in one row and two in the next.

The other focus is to constantly suppress air attacks by repeatedly destroying the Airfields to the northeast. It is suggested you save your mission before each Carpet Bombing run to make sure it is successful. If it isn’t, modify the timing of your approach and you may have better luck.

If the lower Airfield is not rebuilt, use the Carpet Bombing to start destroying the Bunkers to the east of your base. These will be quite problematic if they are still present when you start expanding your base.

The third area of focus is to control the northern ridge, which can be quite problematic. When funds permit, create a few Gattling Cannons along this area. Gattling Tanks are also capable of firing back at the units firing from above you, so create about three Gattling Tanks when funds permit.

If necessary use your General’s Powers to help you out, but don’t use up your Carpet Bombing when you need it to destroy an Airfield. Use the EMP Pulse to shut down Avengers and Gattling Tanks so your Helix can attack them. Mining the area can also help control this area. Your Overlord in this area seems to be only semi-effective.

Save your game fairly often. You will want to reload if:

• You don’t successfully Carpet Bomb the lower Airfield.
• You lose your Helix.
• You lose your oil derrick.

Build at least one or two Gattling Cannons near the northern ridge to help control Avengers and other vehicles.

As soon as your first Nuclear Missile is ready, you can also use this to Nuke the upper Airfield. You will eventually need six nukes in unison to destroy the three Command Centers. As long as your sixth nuke isn’t ready to fire yet, you can use your others to level an Airfield. If, by chance, all the Airfields are gone, target the War Factory.

You can “almost” get six nukes built by the end of this twelve-minute session, but probably not, so you will probably get carpet bombed.

That’s okay. As long as you have five or six nukes building at the end of this time period, three Overlords and your Helix in place and the Airfields under control, you can still win this mission.

Walkthrough – 24 Minutes to 48 Minutes

This is going to be tough. If things don’t go as planned, reload.

Try to get everything in position before the Carpeting Bombing hits your base when you have about 5:40 on the clock.

Every time you get Carpet Bombed, it can be different because of the slightest variation in the position of your units and structures. If you aren’t happy with the destruction that occurs, change things around a bit and see what happens.

Before the chaos starts, build two more Overlords to add to the eastern defense. Create one with a bunker filled with Tank Hunters and one with a Propaganda Tower.

The mission can be won (or lost) whether you expand to the east or not. You will probably want to re-establish your Overlords on the east side of the bridge, backed up by another Gattling Cannons and Speaker Tower. You might want to build a few Reactors right by the bridge for “power insurance.”

Important: Multiple Jarmen Kells will snipe at your Overlords. Try to stay within the protective range of the Gattling Cannons and have a backup supply of Red Guard in case you need to recapture these vehicles.

During this chaotic time leading up to the carpet bombing, build a number of Gattling Cannons along the northern edge of your base.

After you have your four Overlords to the east, sell your War Factory for space for another Nuke Missile. The goal is to have at least eight ready to fire on the second round of attacks of the Command Centers. You can fit other nukes along the north of your base or to the east – but you may need to sell your Speaker Tower or Gattling Cannon to fit it in this space.

If you don’t have eight Nuclear Missiles built and your Propaganda Center is destroyed, you will have to rebuild a Supply Center, War Factory, and Propaganda Center before rebuilding another nuke.

The goal is to lose zero Nuclear Missiles during the Carpet Bombing and ensuing Artillery Barrage. It can be done. Be sure to keep everything repaired or you will lose it on the next round of bombing.

Fire your six Nuclear Missiles and destroy the Command Center before it is necessary to destroy the last bunker (36 minutes into the mission). In this way, you can then destroy the Command Centers again, plus hopefully the remaining dozers, when you attack the next time with eight nuclear missiles.

You will then be ready to destroy all of the Super Weapons with plenty of time left on the clock by the time the nukes charge up for the third time. From there, just destroy the Barracks, War Factories and Airfields and General Leang will surrender.

During the 24-minute-to-36-minute stage, you will be harassed from the northern ridge and from the east with Overlords and other hardware. There are a lot of ways you can be overwhelmed, so it is suggested to save often when you are happy with your progress.

My apologies if you suffer frustration following this walkthrough. It is a touch-and-go situation throughout on this extremely tough mission. Good luck!!

Mission accomplished!!