TechnoMac's Command and Conquer Strategy Guide and Tactics page:
aka C&C: The novel :-) 

VERSION 3.0:  The nearly finished, corrected edition :-)

Compiled by TechnoMac, LlamaOne, and Friends
 
A guide for beginnning and intermediate players
Including strategies from some of the best players
Updated 8/3/97

WARNING:  Do not print this if you are into saving trees as it is nearly 45 pages long and gets longer every time I revise it :-)  

While TechnoMac wrote most of the core of this, LlamaOne wrote a lot of new stuff, so he gets co-author credits for helping a lot.  Thanks also to StrikerOne, Wallabee, Indyrmm (aka Sig) and Sir KilobYte (aka SKY).

EMAILS:
TechnoMac: gjordan@midwest.net
LlamaOne: llamaone@geocities.com

Please distribute like crazy, especially to newbie players and those who would benefit from the page!  This FAQ version is designed to be easily distributed via email and will be eventually posted at these sites for download:
www.midwest.net/scribers/gjordan/cnctacts.html  (this is listed as a link in the KALI C&C server and in several other sites!)
www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Castle/2344                      (Llamaland, LlamaOne's mirror site)


INTRODUCTION (skip if you want to!)
The material contained here is nonessential but I felt it should be included.  Please feel free to go on to chapter 1 and come back to this in your spare time if you are ready to learn right away!  Otherwise, read on...


WHO IS THIS MASKED MAN?
	The first question you're probably going to ask is "Who is this TechnoMac and why is he ranked so low in Netleague?  Why is a guy with so many losses writing a tactics page?" Well, if you've done that much checking, you have discovered two things:  One is that yes I did lose a lot of games and the second is that with the exception of the occaisional legitimate person who posts a win, I never played any of the NL games listed!  The rest were all in the first month of my C&C experience.  As of this writing, I have played  A LOT of games via Westwood Chat and KALI, and in each game, the tougher opponents notice a huge improvement in my playing style.  I also talk for sometimes upwards of an hour just about one series of games with my opponents so that we can learn from each other, and most people who play with me are eager to do so again because I play fair and am a quick thinker.  While I might not be on the top of the ladder or Netleague or whatever, I only play on weekends and am still very new to the multiplay gaming scene-most of those guys play a LOT and have had this game and/or RA plus even Warcraft II to occupy them.  I have spent the past 5 years playing games on a 386, looking for AI bugs to exploit and so forth.  Trust me...I know what I'm doing.  Ask anyone who has read this guide:  It is chock full of observations, anecdotes, and complete strategies most players learn the hard way.  I have spent over a month writing this, and I think it is very to the point and thorough.  If, however, you should find a new strategy, have an incredible tale to tell, or just want to thank me for this guide, you can reach me by email.  Please label the subject "Re:  Tactics Page".  
	By the way, TechnoMac is a name used by both me and my brother.  He put together the homepage and is mainly found in the Zone playing XvT as...you guessed it TechnoMac.  I am the TechnoMac who plays C&C, Quake, Duke3d, Netmech, Warcraft II, and so forth via Westwood or KALI...I usually play C&C though as it remains my favorite real-time strategy game AFTER Dune II. :-)
(TechnoMac means "The next generation of Mac" (the verb "To mac") and is not associated with Apple computers in any way since I have a Gateway 2000 Ppro 200 w/ 64 megs RAM, Diamond Monster 3d card and an S3 ViRGE card, etc :-)....so please, Mac users, don't ask me to play you since I'm "on a Mac" because while the Macintosh is a fine machine, I don't own one!)
	
	A NOTE ABOUT RANKING SYSTEMS:

	Newbies beware!  Many are burned by these systems.  Netleague in particular has so many ways to cheat that I will probably just remove my name...if they'll finally let me.  So far, I've been burned by several cheaters, and more will come!  Netleauge is poorly maintained and , as one of the Laser put it, "is dead" :-(
	If you insist on playing on a ranking scale, watch out for sharks (people who either want to beat newbies for wins, or stop potentially good newbies from getting any better by beating them repeatedly).  The trick to deciding if a person is worth playing, after all, is to see if they care if a game is ladder/NL or for fun-occaisionally people have to play ladder games to stay on the ladder, but most will play any who challenege them.  If the player starts getting personnal or begins telling you how bad they are, maye its time to find another player.  I know one guy in particular got mad at me for attacking right away, told me I was cheap, and then insisted I play again after insulting my playing style.  Too bad he won't ever get a chance to play me again....a lot of people LIKE playing against me :-)  At least he wasn't NL though.
	If you join Case's Ladder, I have written a section explaining ladder tactics in one of the last chapters.  Westwood's ladder will produce similar tactics as are listed in this page.


A NOTE ABOUT WESTWOOD CHAT:  This is where I usually reside...I like the friendly atmosphere and the ability to play C&C at relatively nice speeds.  Since this is a free service, if you have the GOLD edition like I do, I suggest logging on and trying it out...It is free and has a lot of regulars who frequent its channels.  It also has a limited, monitored IRC type enviornment where you can just chill while you download a file or whatever.  It's a good server, and I recommend it to anyone.  PLEASE REMEMBER YOU MUST HAVE THE GOLD EDITION TO PLAY HERE THOUGH!  FOR OWNERS OF THE DOS VERSION THERE IS A $10 REBATE OFFER BUT THAT'S IT!  IF YOU ARE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH WESTWOOD PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL ME BECAUSE I CANNOT HELP YOU!  Thanks.
www.westwood.com if you're really interested
Hey and Westwood has a ladder now!  Play where C&C is optimized and reap the rewards!


A NOTE ABOUT KALI:  If you tire of head to head wchat matches and you are itching to try out other maps and 3 or 4 player games, register KALI while it's still only $20 for life.  That's right...$20 buys you the software in any and all formats plus free upgrades until you die...not like the expensive multiplay services like TEN where you pay per month, either.  PLUS Kali lets you play ANY game that is playable over a LAN...so you can play that 8 player dukematch or try out Netmech and see what it's like without having to have a LAN...this is all internet based too, so you can play anyone from around the globe.  If you don't have it and you love net gaming, GET IT.  Trust me..it's worth it :-)
 download the shareware version at    www.kali.net
It allows 15 minutes of play each time until you register it.

A NOTE ABOUT RED ALERT:  All right RA players...don't expect too much here to help you out.  This is geared towards a lot of specific C&C stuff that RA lacks.  Also, RA is much different in structure strategically, so you'll have to switch modes to play C&C.  Most people can become good at both, but I've found many people prefer one and stick with it...usually the first one that they have played a lot.  You may find C&C a little too fast for you...that's OK because RA is fast paced too but the units aren't.  Instead, RA relies more on wars of attrtion while C&C relies on sneakiness...pick your poison, and stick with it.
(I wrote an RA tatcics page that was 3 pages long....all it was was tank strategies since that's all that anyone really uses.  It was not posted because I don't feel like wasting the internet space to post it, plus it's all obvious anyway)
9 out of 10 llamas prefer C&C to RA, by the way!  Vets of C&C are usually that way too :-)
(while TM owns RA and C&C, LlamaOne is hesitant to buy RA unless he wants "a good single player game")


A NOTE ABOUT SINGLE PLAY:  Well, single is fun, but it lacks the tactics...alright not fun but captivating...it lacks the tactics of mu.....ok, so its downright boring at times, fine....multiplayer gam...ALRIGHT,  SINGLE PLAY IS BORING BECAUSE IT IS EASY AND THE AI LETS YOU TAKE OVER ITS ENTIRE BASE WITH ONE APC. ARE YOU HAPPY?  Geez, anyway, multi will challenge you while single has...umm, nice video with endings you are better off not watching (yes the acting is bad and the scripting is worse)
	There is one redeeming quality in single play-You can see how quickly you can spread out and also practice your engineering skills by taking over the entire base...otherwise, stick to RA because it has much better single play missions :-( 

HEY ONE MORE THING AND THEN WE'LL START:
	This guide is mainly a compilation of the strategies I have witnessed that WORK.  SirKilobYte observed (accurately, might I add) that some strategies don't work as well for all players.  A good example will be my engineering strategies...I love using engineers as opposed to slaughtering my foe.  SirKilobYte  prefers destroying harvs with buggies/bikes.  Both of our methods work, but they work differently, which is the point.  So, keep an open mind as you read this and try to adpat my methods to your own as well as using some of my strats against others since the first thing people always tell me is "gee I never thought of that before".  Once you get rolling you will develop your own ideas but for now, please, enjoy mine :-)
(also, if you are playing on KALI, you're gonna have more time to react to stuff, which means different tactics will work.  Since Westwood is optimized for C&C Gold, the games there will allow you to be sneakier than in KALI)

DISCLAIMER

This document is divided by sections into 2 parts:  basic and advanced.  I reccomend you know the basic stuff very well before you try the advanced stuff, most of which is my own but a lot of it is based on or stolen from (and credited to) the pros.   This document is copywritten 1997 by TechnoMac.   Please distribute this freely and print it out if you need it, but I ask that it is only distributed for personnal use and is not used commercially without my consent.  Please distribute it in homepages and FTPs or by mail...just not on CDs that go on racks for sale or whatever....

by the way...Command and Conquer, Red Alert, and Westwood Chat are all registered trademarks of Westwood Studios and Virgin Interactive.  Please give these folks some consideration by not copying their CDs and such...piracy rates are pretty high with CD-Rs being available and the CDs only costing $10 apiece...it may be tempting to pay $20 for a copy of C&C, but you are really ripping yourself off since the less money that they recieve means the less quality in their games...and I think you'll agree it's worth $40 to ensure the high quality games Westwood cranks out.  If you're gonna copy stuff, copy the shareware crap that everyone has anyway...don't rip off the companies, though, unless you're stupid and don't wanna play any more of their games when they go bankrupt and are out on the streets begging for food and you give them a nickel...well, you get the picture.  Thanks.

If you really like C&C, try these games too:
Warcraft II by Blizzard (and yes, Warcraft and then the Add-on for War II are also good!)
Dune II by Westwood (aka Dune: The Battle for Arrakis on the Sega Genesis)
Red Alert by Westwood
C&C Covert ops (add-on) by Westwood
C&C Counterstrike (RA add-on) by Westwood
C&C Sole Survivor (Internet only add-on) by Westwood
Subspace (internet only) by Virgin Interactive
Starcraft by Blizzard (looks good but not out yet)

Future games that look good:
Dark Reign by Activision
Conquest:Earth by Eidos
Rebellion by LucasArts
C&C 2: Tiberian Sun (There is a little info on this floating around the net...) by Westwood
Rumored: Warcraft III by Blizzard (may be awhile tho!)

AVOID:
KKND by whoever it's by (geez its just a cheezy ripoff)
Star Command Revolution by whoever (a Starcraft wannabe that resembles Dune II in space)




	Chapter 1:  How to Start:  For beginners and those who got off on the wrong foot
In which I introduce the game and give TechnoMac's 10 commandments of C&C


	First of all, I want to clear up the misconception that two things will help:  Single Play and RA's skirmish mode.  Single play is wonderful training in guerrilla small-force tactics where you can save your game whenever you want and you can exploit the many bugs in the AI since it is weak in the areas of recon and offense.  The AI will never bike rush the GDI's construction yard, use Apaches to remove pesky obelisks while sneaking in engineers in APCs, or sell unnecessary structures when they are being attacked.  Instead, the AI is somewhat gullible and not realistic at all, leaving for an unsatisfying game when you posses a large force.  Also, the game is not hard; I have the strategy guide only for the information, not the maps or strategies which are helpful but are things I usually don't use.  To make up for the ease a player can have beating the computer, such as in DUNE II, Westwood took the scenario approach, which allows small forces to squelch Nod actions or wipe out GDI strongholds.  The only reason to play through all the way is the video, which is sometimes cool, and the challenge, which is mostly laughable.  (Westwood no doubt intended the video to be cool....well, it's good for a computer game but not necessary!  The game is worth buying with or without it...that's how good this game is!...  Although the ion cannon part is pretty cool)

	As for skirmish mode in RA, I was surprised and saddened to see this was not included in C&C Gold.  This mode allows a player to simulate multiplay versus the computer with as many as seven opponents using all the standard options.  Unfortunately, the only value I found in this was the option of base planning, and since RA is different from C&C because it has naval forces and fake buildings as well as different special weapons, it's really not too helpful here.  It is kind of nice for RA, though.

	Now, having that out of the way, I want to tell you that if you are reading this before you have played C&C multiplay, you probably should make sure you know how to play the game because I'm not wasting space or time explaining the very beginnings of playing.  Rather, I'm establishing a code of rules to keep in mind as you play so that you have a strong foundation.  I call it the TEN COMMANDMENTS.  Catchy, huh?

TECHNOMAC's 10 COMMANDMENTS FOR C&C

1.  THOU SHALT BEGIN PLAYING WITH NOD:  Nod is easier to begin with, Bar none.

2.  THOU SHALT KNOW THINE UNITS:  "General, I expect to send a squad of F-15s to bomb Iraq.  C-130s will fly escort to engage enemy units, and SR-71s will cover the flank."  Is this you?  How bout this:  "Kane, I expect to send an APC to take out the Mammoth tank while my quick moving artillery finish off the base"  Right.  Learn about each unit like it's going to be on a major test-because your multiplay games will be the equivalent.

3.  THOU SHALT BE ABLE TO RECOGNIZE THINE UNITS:  Do you know the difference between a flame thrower and minigunner?  Try putting a flamethrower in the middle of a group of minigunners and you'll see why this is necessary.

4. THOU SHALT BUILD THINE REFINERIES NEAR TIBERIUM: There is nothing that will cost you more time and money than for your harvs to have to travel all the way around your base or a canyon or something to the nearest tiberium deposit.  Using the spider base techniques listed later on, a little recon and by building new refineries near the tiberium and selling the ones you don't need, you should be able to keep this commandment-and a steady cash flow 

5. REFINERIES ART THINE SEED; THOU SHALT BUILD MANY REFINERIES: Similarly to commandment #4, you need to have lots of places for harvs to go to when they are full as they tend to jam up passes when there are few refineries.  Also, the same principle about getting money quicker applies.  Just pretend the refineries are rabbits or something and make them multiply (though putting two together will yield no offspring, I'm afraid :-)  

6.  THOU SHALT BUILD STRUCTURES AS FAST AS IS POSSIBLE:  I always say that fast building is the first rule of the game.  It is.  I am more impressed by a newbie who builds a base quickly than one who spends all his money on tanks and tries to take me out.  (with one refinery too!)  If you cannot concentrate on building and attacking at the same time, play Quake or something, because C&C is going to require your complete and undivided attention at nearly all times!

7.  THOU SHALT EXPLORE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE AROUND THINE BASE EARLY INTO THE GAME:  Most people send a unit to each corner as well and use their defending units to scout out 10 squares or so around the base.  Send the units to the corners if you want but definetly know what is around your base so that you have ample warning time when your foe appears.  This is especially important for detecting engineers

8.  THOU SHALT NOT LEAVE THINE CYARD VULNERABLE:  Like losing?  Let your foe destroy that cyard or capture it and you'll love it.  If you know how to keep engineers out, DO IT.  If not, 
umm, read on!  That's what I'm here for :-)

9.  THOU SHALT KEEP THY FOE AWAY FROM TIBERIUM:  Hmm here's a no-brainer:  If you have units guarding tiberium fields, can your foe use the fields?  How about a refinery guarded by turrets/obelisks/guard towers/AGTs?  Just watch out for engineers, who love to come and take over the refinery and use the field themselves.  As long as you control the majority of the tiberium, your foe will eventually run out and you will get the upper hand :-)

10.  THOU SHALT BEWARE STRANGE UNITS BEARING GIFTS:  The Chinook and the APC are kind of like trojan horses:  They seem harmless but they carry the destruction of your base inside.  Command and Conquer relies on both elements in the name, setting it aside from all other strategy games of its type.  BEWARE because an engineer in an APC or Chinook is one of the most common things you will learn to dread.  Don't let the guys near your base or you will be SORRY.


If you follow these simple rules, you're ready to play with the big boys.  If not...well, you're KFC (Kentucky Fried Commander)





Chapter 2:  Break it down! Units and Structures
In which I give uses and weaknesses of units and say a little bit about structures...
keep the manual handy so you can look stuff up if you need to!

UNITS:
	Through the course of the game, you have several units at your disposal.  While at first this might seem overwhelming since there are so many units to learn about, eventually, you'll be complaining that Westwood didn't create more units for each side!  Here is a complete list of units and my observations in the many games I have played.

INFANTRY UNITS:  AKA Cannon Fodder

	There are four ways to conquer your opponents in this man's army-The right way, the wrong way, Kane's way, and Sheppard's way.  The right way involves a consistent flow of deploying varied units by their strengths and weaknesses in offensive or defensive positions.  The wrong way includes premature rushes or careless deployment of troops (i.e. Flame tanks behind grenadiers).  Kane's way is the ruthless "expendable troops" approach where lives are lost for objectives such as destroying key structures and such.  Sheppard's way, or "the wuss way", is to keep all of your units alive and not take any possibly lethal risks.  (hehe take THAT GDI players :-) 

	Now....I understand that it is cruel to send men to their slaughter through the power of EVA, since I can just sit back and laugh while their wives and children cry at home.  I also know that if you sit around your base all the time hoping something will happen, you're gonna get pounded, lit up, SMEARED.  So, with this in mind, I deploy my infantry in an orderly and useful pattern so that they can defend stragglers while I assault my enemy.  But what are these guys useful for?  Read on to find out.

MINIGUNNERS: (Troopers)  The grunt of this game, you're going to discover very quickly that their cheap (100 credit) price is well earned since they are not equiped to singlehandedly do much at all.  But, as I have already said, each guy has a particular use.  In this case, I find minis to be very powerful in packs since they can be stacked 5 to a square and scattered easily.  They are also great for defense since they pack 5x the punch of a buggy/hummer in these packs and cost 500 credits to do this!  Plus, the only thing that can move them without killing them are tracked vehicles, meaning that a handful of these guys can guard a pass and keep out Nod bikes or GDI hummers while more powerful units sit behind them and pound away!  Plus, rockets and tank shells tend to have little effect on them, since they can hit the dirt and bunker in!  The only drawback is that they tend to be vulnerable to machine gun fire and flames of any type, including artillery fire.  ( this applies to ALL infantry)  So...use them with that in mind since a well placed SSM can destroy them from 10 squares away and nukes have a tendency to kill mass numbers of them as well.

Advantages:  Cheap, powerful in packs.  Quick reload time.  Quick to produce. (7 sec!)
Disadvantages:  Slow, vulnerable to almost anything, weak weapons, not good alone

FLAMETHROWERS: (flamers)  Gee, mister, can I TOAST your infantry? This is the creed of the infamous Nod flamethrower. While they can take out entire groups of soldiers in one blast and are great for destroying buildings, the are so agressive that sometimes they fry your OWN infantry!   These guys are the single best defense for ridding yourself of engineers since they are easily hidden, powerful, quick to produce, and best of all, NOD exclusive (sorry GDI players, you'll get your chance later with grenadiers!)
Just don't put them in close-knit packs as they tend to explode and kill each other when they die.  <<<WARNING!  HIGHLY FLAMMABLE!  USE WITH CAUTION!>>> hehehe 

Advantages:  Powerful, Quick to produce (13 sec), only a few are needed
Disadvantages: Limited range, slow, costly, and dangerous around friendly troops.

ROCKET SOLDIERS: (Bazookas)  The cheapest and best air defense, yet also the easiest to wipe out with missiles and rip guns.  Bazookas are the only infantry unit that can effectively aid in the destruction of armored units, attack the air, and guard your base with a decent range.  They are cheap and small, easily hidden, and hard to kill with tanks and rockets-they can avoid the blasts by hitting the dirt. Though still vulnerable,  they can fight back.  They aren't incredibly effective vs infantry, though....your chances are better with grenadiers for killing off engineers.:-)

Advantages:  Five of these guys pack more punch than a SAM site and require no power to use!  Plus, they are easily hidden, cheap, quick to produce (17 seconds), effective vs air and land vehicles
Disadvantages:  Weak vs. infantry, easily killed by explosions, slow.

GRENADIERS: Ah the GDI gets its chance to shine!  Now here are some questions:  What's fast, powerful, and can wipe out entire lines of infantry from a few squares away?  What unit, when grouped in clusters of three to five, effectively wipes bikes off the map in a matter of seconds?  What is the fastest infantry unit available at the beginning of the game?  What unit can make you a super being that can take over the world and crush both Nod and the GDI?  If you answered "the grenadier" to all but the last question, you probably cheated by looking at the title of this section!  If you answered "the tank" to any of these someone should slap you and tell you to quit playing RA :-)  The grenadier is indeed one of my favorites, which is funny because in the first edition of this page all I said about them was that they have a slow refire rate and were harder to use by humans than by the computer, which always seems to wipe out your entire squad of troops with two grenadiers.  Oh well.  These guys are also great building killers, easily hidden, and just good when in large groups as base defense since an APC or tank is required to remove them quickly...and how many Nod players do you know who send APCs ahead of them to squash infantry before sending a horde of bikes and buggies?  Well, maybe more now...:-)  These units are just all around good units so make sure you use them :-)

Advantages: Powerful weapon, infantry killers, cheap, quick to produce (11 sec), quick movers (for men!)
Disadvantages:  Weak vs. armor, easily killed, slow refire rate, dangerous in the very back of your infantry lines

CHEMICAL WARRIORS: (Chem troops) Flamers squared, these guys are the only troops who can survive a walk through the tiberium garden or other large tiberium fields.  Basically, they wipe out a lot of troops instantly when they fire but are expensive because they require the $3000 temple of Nod to build!  Great for those missions where your foe decides to sneak APCs into your base, because if they are hidden and then moved to the threat, they can kill whatever comes out quickly.  The visceroid (that bubbly thing that occaisionally attacks), BTW, (visc means "inside out" and they have a connection to people and tiberium...hmmmm) has the same attack.

Advantages: POWERFUL vs infantry and vehicles, can visit the green stuff safely.
Disadvantages:  Expensive to gain the ability to build, easily killed, loners,  and if misdeployed, they can cause your guys a lot of grief. 

ENGINEERS:  OK, I know it's a wrench, but he looks like he's holding a sandwich in the (Gold edition) sidebar picture!  Indeed these guys are as defenseless as Dilbert...yet they are the most powerful base conquerors on the board!  Unfortunetly, they are slow (from too many sandwiches, I guess), and they are DEFENSELESS!  If you've ever had 5 engineers mowed down at once you know what I mean.  Fortunately, when the evil Gods of Westwood created the engineer, and saw that it was good, they moved on to create his companion: the APC-not from a rib, but probably from his wrench which looks like a sandwich.  
	Deployment of these troops is key, and the APC, which we will discuss a little later, is a big aid in this area.  Also useful is the Chinook.  See the Advanced attacking section to learn the ins and outs of engineering.

Advantages: Can single-handedly take over any structure except for those which shoot back and the Temple of Nod.
Disadvantages: VERY easy to kill, 500 credits a pop

COMMANDOS:  RA players know how deadly Tanya, the Commando's distant relative and sadist  is.  The commando certainly isn't much different since he chortles with glee when he blows up a grenadier or levels a building.  While these guys are funny, powerful, and handy to have around, they are expensive (1000 credits a pop!) and since they are famous and noisy, every player playing can hear them when they are produced.  THIS IS A BAD THING!  Especially if you build more than one, because then your foe will get ticked off and attack any and all troop transports you have and probably your barracks/hand of nod as well.  Note that while commandos can BLOW UP any unit or building, they are vulnerable to tracked vehicles and anything with treads, plus the fact that they can't effectively hurt vehicles.  See the advanced attacking section to learn the proper use of these destructive little boys.

Advantages:  Can blow up buildings easily and quickly, fast, great scouting range, one shot kills any infantry unit, incredible range
Disadvantages:  Vulnerable to being rolled over, cannot effectively hurt armored vehicles like tanks, everyone knows when you have one. 



And to finish the infantry section, there is the Hall of Shame:

TECHNICIAN:(civilian)  Ahhh..the most versatile unit in the game.  Fire one shot, he's running in circles.  Send him to attack, he shoots firecrackers or something and gets killed.  Look, I wouldn't plan on sending any tanks after these guys because they're too powerful and your tanks will run away.
Actually, any bullets used to shoot these guys is a waste.  Just let them run around unless you like mowing down civilians who are too dumb to leave at the first sight of tanks, tiberium, or, God help us, Visceroids (another joke unit).  Otherwise, there is the technician rush (yes I have done this and it is funny.)
You can't build technicians. You can get them by building a structure and then selling it, though (like a silo).  Useful as napalm fodder in single play since the planes always attack the northernmost unit, but in multiplay...get real
	The pistol they wield has a VERY fast refire rate tho... 2 shots/sec by the numbers.  In westwood chat, that's a lot of shots!  Too bad they do almost NO damage.
StrikerOne did point something out, though:  Should you decide to resign, try to get as many techs into the enemy's base as possible, since they don't just die, they EXPLODE!  Hehehe.

Advantages:  Fun to shoot
Disadvantages: You know, you're only young once...so I'm going to save myself some years and leave these out.


VEHICULAR UNITS:  TANKS, BUGGIES, AND SO FORTH

Deployment of these guys is important since each has a special reason for its standardized existence.  Again, these guys can be fun to throw away, but it's not worth it if you want too conserve units for a rush or defense.

HUMMER: (humm-vee) and NOD BUGGY: (dune buggy) "Probably my least favorite units because they are wimpy and pack no punch.  MAYBE you'd want to use the hummer as a recon unit if you were GDI, but I can't think of a reason Nod players would build these since Nod has the more powerful recon bikes at its disposal.  Please note that their M-60s have the same punch as a minigun trooper but with twice the range."
	That was what I used to think, too.  Recently, though, I have discovered that these units ARE GOOD for a few things:
	1) They can't be rolled over
	2) They are good infantry killers
	3) They are cheap defense (300 for Nod, 400 for GDI)
	4) They fire quickly
	5) They are excellent recon
	6)  They are quiet when doing the look-away attack manuever (given later)
	7)  They make excellent companions for APCs and bikes
	8)  They are great pass-guards and distractors
	9) They are quickly produced
So see, even I admit I'm wrong-so now you have no excuse if you find out you are :-)

Advantages: Cheap, somewhat fast, good bang for your buck 
Disadvantages:  Weak armor


RECON BIKE:  This is the preferred Nod unit for rushes since it is VERY fast and packs TOW rockets, which are land-air and somewhat deadly with a great range.  These guys are great for recon, as the name suggests, and the only reason you shouldn't have 20 of these is if you are playing a non-rush game.  Even then, they are great defense, especially vs. air units.  If you are playing a capture the flag mission, use this unit to capture and move the flag-it won't be slowed down as much as a tank.

Advantages:  Best used in rushes and air defense, FAST
Disadvantages:  Nod exclusive (sorry GDI players!), light armor

TANKS:  These I will explain together and then separate
	Tanks are ideal for mobile defense, garrison, and for defending weak units like the SSM, artillery, and rocket launcher.  In offensive manuevers, they are a bonus but occasionally a hindrance since they are slow.  Tanks are also great for scaring off foes who decide they will scout out your base since nobody wants to waste the time and effort of a rush that will fail.  Therefore, tanks are very useful and the staple of your defensive forces once you get rolling.  Also, as in RA, they are the preferred choice for rushes by the GDI.  So, I think it is safe to say much of your time will be spent building these armored bringers of death.  ( I have heard many people complain about the long life of the GDI medium tank)
	Two problems come with all tanks:  They have a hard time hitting moving units and they have a hard time hitting infantry (except for the flame tank).  Keep these in mind.
LIGHT TANKS:  The only standard tank available for NOD, this tank is somewhat useful with a nice speed and decent armor.  Most people are surprised to learn, though, that units with TOW rockets, such as recon bikes and infantry, have a more effective weapon as it does more damage, reloads every 4 seconds, and affects a range of 1.5 squares while the tank only affects 1 square and reloads in the same amount of time.  Of course, you can roll over bikes and men with a mammoth tank ( well, you gotta get lucky with the bikes), but light tanks can't get the bikes at all.  Despite the lower ratings I have brought up, though, the light tanks do have it a little better in terms of armor and the fact that they don't have to turn around-they are turreted.  For these reasons and the fact that the tanks are cheap to manufacture, I'd say the light tank is probably the best all around unit you can have for defense and escorting devastating units if you are Nod.  Since this is a game of blitzkrieg (lightning war) tactics, players aren't advised to rush the enemy base with these since they have the quicker and deadlier recon bikes on Nod's side, but I wouldn't underestimate the power of these tanks either.

Advantages:  A solid unit, relatively cheap, good bang for your buck, can squash troops
Disadvantages:  Kind of slow, no match versus a medium tank, have a hard time hitting infantry (which are easily squashed)

MEDIUM TANKS:  This is the GDI unit.  You wanna do a rush?  Either send 20 hummers or send 10 of these.   Though slow, they are powerful.  If you can get even four of these near an enemy construction yard, its a goner.  Let's not even discuss what happens when these guys hunt in packs-it's too deadly.  Suffice it to say that these outclass the Nod tanks by a pretty good margin, only slightly slower but better armored and armed.  But if you've played, you already know this.
Tactics I enjoy are using these to defend my base while I send a small strike force of more medium tanks and, say, an APC into the back door of an enemy base.  While the medium tanks take a mere bruising because of their armor, I rush in my APC and take over whatever I need.  More on these tactics later, though.  Let's just suffice it to say that these tanks are a slight advantage over Nod; but then, all of the GDI's equipment is slightly better than Nod's in some way.
And let's talk about the bike squash capability for a second here....YES medium tanks can squash bikes.  NO they will not unless the bike is in their way.  Don't ask me why...I tried force moving a GROUP of medium tanks onto a whole heap of bikes and every tank avoided the bikes.  So don't rely on this capability.

Advantages:  THE defense until you get AGTs, and they're good defense, too.  Turreted, tracked, well armored, and they have a longer range than light tanks. (4.75 squares as opposed to 4)
Disadvantages:  Only the relative slowness and inability to hit the easily squashed infantry, as well as units that are moving quickly.  Cannot defend vs helis (no one's perfect), but then the Nod apaches will be hard pressed to hurt these guys.

MAMMOTH TANK:  THE ONLY unit that can simultaneously hit air units and ground units at the same time.  Unfortunately, these lumbering giants are unbelievably slow and seemingly stupid.  Though they are powerful, they are laughable against a large number of quicker units such as light tanks or recon bikes.  On the other hand, they have the ability to roll right over Nod bikes( in a similar fashion to that of the medium tank though!).  This is a tremendous advantage if the bikes are sitting still, but would an experienced player sit still for the slowest unit in the game to run over his bikes?  I think not.
	Let's put it this way:  These guys are great for defense and light air defense when you are defending harvesters or artillery.  But the key word is defense, and I have yet to see mammoth tanks used well in any offensive tactics except as bait, and even then, do you want to wait that long to strike?  Since these are only available to the GDI and it is supposed to be their crowning achievement, perhaps you get an idea of how this game is a little slanted to one side.  Still, if you need a great defensive unit that doesn't need to move and can regenerate its power back up to halfway and attack the air and ground at the same time, the mammoth is great.  If you need an ambush unit, the mammoth will be a preferred unit.  If you can hide the mammoth behind a tree or building, you won't be sorry.  But if you try to use it in lightning war tactics, you will be handing your behind to your opponent for a swift kick.
	Just to be fair, if you find some way to use the Mammoth as a mobile bringer of death, please email me because I will not only print it here I will credit you in future revisions.

Advantages:  The best defensive unit in the game.  Bar none
Disadvantages:  Costly, slow to produce, slow overall, not extremely powerful, somewhat of a beacon for destruction since it is usually relied on as the only defense in some areas. 

STEALTH TANK: Ah, my personal favorite.  This unit is one of the main reasons I prefer C&C to RA:  It's quick, powerful, and invisible.  The problem is, most people don't know how to use these units.  They are easily seen by infantry, units that bump into them, and AGTs.  They also don't perform well when damaged, and their armor is only medium level.  On the other hand, if you had 5 tanks appear out of thin air and begin blowing up your harvester, wouldn't it be slightly annoying?  How about that perfect, unguarded c-yard, that you send a horde of engineers to only to have them blown up before they even leave the APC?  Or the helis that you send chasing after a harvester that are suddenly blown up by units that appear out of thin air?  How about when your opponent suddenly says "nice base" and you realize he hasn't sent in a scout?  How about when 10 tanks blow your cyard to smithereens before you can even build an AGT?  Obviously, these tanks are useful and add a new dimension to C&C and real-time strategy games.  The problem is, people misuse these so horribly that they are a waste of credits when all anyone wants to do is a bike rush anyway.  Because these units are difficult to use and unusual, I have written an entire advanced attacks section on them later.  But for now, I suggest you get to know these; I have a feeling they'll show up in part two.
(Some people criticzed me by saying that Warcraft II has invisible units too.  Sure, it does, but they require a spell to be cast on them and they lose the invisibility when they attack.  Stealths are a little different that way)

Advantages:  Gee, you can't see them...they are quick, deadly, and great scouts.  On the off chance that they are seen, if you are paying attention they can escape into invisibility and be repaired.
Disadvantages:  Expensive, must be placed on guard mode to attack air units or they'll just sit there.  Hard to use at first

FLAME TANKS :  Another Nod unit, but this one is nasty.  Take the armor and tracks of a tank and then cross them with flamer and you get this sick invention, a device that wipes out infantry quickly and buildings quicker.  You might try sending these against AGTs since they will move right next to them and destroy them without too much trouble.  They also take out a lot of units with them when they die since they are loaded with napalm.  I dread seeing these, but these units are used even less than the stealth tanks and for no good reason other than they're expensive.  So what?  They are able defense and great for sneaking in during a base assault against structures since they cause widespread damage and take care of annoying infantry.  

Advantages:  POWERFUL, great for almost anything, good speed, nice armor.
Disadvantages:  EXPENSIVE, slow to produce, not expendable, short range.



SSM:  These units are perhaps one of the nicest to have if your enemy is surround by mountains, since you can go up or around the mountain and pelt his base from up to ten squares away!  With a highly explosive napalm warhead on each missile, if groups of SSMs are firing at buildings, they are quite deadly.  The only problems with this unit are its speed, its reload time, and its light armor.  Also, it is vulnerable to the air something fierce.  I recommend if you use these that they are heavily guarded by bikes and tanks since only Nod can use them.

Advantages:  Incredible range, deadly weaponry, good infantry killers.
Disadvantages:  Light armor, slow in speed and turning, terrible reload time, cannot hit air units.



ROCKET LAUNCHER:  This is GDI's answer to the SSM, but it functions more like a mobile SAM crossed with artillery.  It's great for air and land defense, has the same range as artillery and does more accurate damage, but it is lightly armored and not a good base defender since its missals often hit structures when they miss.  
	I don't really employ these a lot but I guess they are pretty good if you don't have SSMs available.  Nod players really have no reason to build these other than if they want powerful air defense and decent range versus helis.  They do recharge their missles about 2.5 times faster than the SSMs though, but since they do less overall damage....it may be better to avoid them.
	But if you are doing a base strike, on the other hand....the SSM does not perform as well as the rocket launcher.  Keep this in mind!

Advantages:  Defend land and air equally well, but not at the same time, pretty powerful
Disadvantages:  Slow, long reload time, shorter range than the SSM.

ARTILLERY:  Ah, the artillery, the worst long range unit in the game.  While these guys have a lot of power (more than the SSM!) and a quicker reload time (comparable to the rocket launcher), they are also slow, limited to the shorter rocket launcher range, and turn like a full shopping cart being propelled by an electric fan set on high.  They just aren't fast.  Plus, they are inaccurate.  Thankfully they do damage to all adjacent squares, but still... They are good only for defense and I don't trust them around bases, so maybe as the units who guard from the tops of passes.  Otherwise they are not good units.
	The best place to use these is (you guessed it) defensive positions and NOT in offensive moves.  I have seen passes guarded by these guys where nothing could get through, and I have seen bases where artillery on guard mode have wiped out entire loads of engineers in one shot!  Of course, I have seen them miss the engineers and hit the base, but hey, no one's perfect.
BTW when a player sent about 10 of these against 5 of my medium tanks once, I blew them all up without taking a single loss by merely moving my tanks in close and concentrating fire.  That's what I mean when I say they aren't offensive, but it is offensive to use them! :-)

Advantages:  Powerful, cheap, easy to build, good defense
Disadvantages: SLOWWWW, Turn SLOWWWW, inaccurate, light armor.

HELICOPTERS:

ORCAS:  These are so fast you won't see them coming until you are dead but they are also not so well armored and are only really effective as unit killers.  I don't advise these for blowing up c-yards, but for harv raids....which we will discuss later...:-)
	The only real problem is the limited ammo.  These guys have a very long reload time if you're far from your base.  Also, they are too expensive to throw away, so if you build them, plan to keep track of them so that you can keep them in good repair and away from your opponent's SAMs, rocket troops, bikes, stealth tanks, rocket launchers, and AGTs.  

Advantages:  Cannot be shot at by most units, great unit killers, fast
Disadvantages:  Can only attack what you can see, long reload time, very easily shot down when not kept in good repair and away from certain structures, cannot scout, have a hard time with infantry units  

APACHES: These have lots of names, so I'll just say the Nod helis.  These guys are the opposite of ORCAS;  ORCAS are fast, Apaches are kinda slow.  ORCAS kill vehicles  well, Apaches kill buildings and infantry well.  ORCAS have a short supply of missles, Apaches have a long supply of rip gun ammo.  Basically, if you use Apaches, it's to destroy a structure, and this is a good thing.
For some reason, these guys are great infantry killers as well, due to the long bursts of ammo they can fire.

Advantages:  Great structure killers, long supply of ammo, air superiority, great infantry killers
Disadvantages:  Cannot effectively destroy vehicluar units, easy to shoot down since they are slow.  Short sight range, terrible scouts.

UNIT CARRIERS:

APC:  In the words of colleague StrikerOne, 
"APC attacks
APCs can't do that much to your Cyard.... so I wouldn't worry about them too much.
APCs with Engineers inside
Now this can be a serious threat..."
The preferred nickname for APCs is Armored Personnel Crushers.  They are fast and can run over pesky infantry OR BIKES who are guarding the backs of bases.  They can also carry engineers.  engineers can capture buildings.  Buildings can be sold or have turrets attached to them.  Do I need to say more?
	I have a few pages of APC strategies and tactics later on.  These guys are worth the cash, since they are heavily armored, the preferred target of turrets when they deploy men, and they can carry five guys and roll over troop defense before deploying right near the structure.  They are fast and are also fun to use as scouts since they make the enemy paranoid.

Advantages:  Um None
Disadvantages:  Hehe just kidding about no advantages...it's no serious disadvantages that they have :-)

CHINOOKS:  The dreaded transport helicopter.
	The only problem I have encountered with these is that they have no defense.  They are really too slow to avoid a barrage of SAMs, so they have to sneak in. This is where the cliff side "engineer drops" come in handy.  They are great for surprises but normally they have to land in hard to reach places so that they arrive safely.  They also can't defend vs.  ground troops.  If you read the Chinook strategies after the APC guide later, you may get some ideas, but for now, I say stick with the APCs.

Advantages:  Can carry units, hard to detect
Disadvantages:  Easy to shoot down when they fly over missles or land, too expensive to lose.

TURRETS:  (I refer to all buildings with attack capabilities as TURRETS not to be confused with the Nod turret, which is a part of this larger group)

GUARD TOWERS:  The GDI anti-infantry turret.  These are really not that great except that they require almost no power, sport a rip gun, and are cheap.  Due to short range, they are a better backbone defense until you can build some AGTs.  DO NOT REQUIRE POWER  

Advantages:  Cheap
Disadvantages:  Short range, not very powerful.

ADVANCED GUARD TOWERS:  The only GDI defense that you can really rely on, these long range (7.5 squares) turrets are the only dual air/ground defense turret.  They require very little power and pack slightly less punch than a rocket launcher. They are well armored and of course repairable, making them a nice little defensive package.

Advantages:  Can spot stealth tanks, air/ground defense, good reload time, powerful, can build 5 per power plant
Disadvantages: Can offer a false sense of security and can be destroyed easily if placed in a bad spot accessible to SSMs.

TURRETS:  Instead of the weaker guard towers, Nod gets to use turrets that are akin to medium tanks and do comparable damage. They are a good defense especially when coupled with SAMs and Obelisks of Light.  DO NOT REQUIRE POWER

Advantages:  A repairable, powerful tank defense
Disadvantages:  Only really powerful in clusters of 3-5.

SAMs: Nod's air defense, these are annoying since they can only be effectively destroyed when they pop up to shoot plus they pack a nice punch. They are best deployed in a triangular, then star of David pattern around the base.

Advantages:  Good to help defend c-yards and other important structures from air raids.  DO NOT REQUIRE POWER
Disadvantages:  They don't always go off. I have had a few problems with this since they can't be manually targeted like the other turrets.

OBELISKS OF LIGHT: No doubt has a stranger turret popped up in real-time games before the invention of this tentacle like structure that destroys things quickly.  Unlike the bug zapping telsa coil in RA, this structure is heavily armored and is known to wipe entire armies off the map very efficiently.  Unfortunetly, they are prime military targets for airstrikes and they require massive power; 3 power plants are required to evenly power two of these monstrosities.  Obviously, they are a valuable unit, but they also are a costly one.  For two obelisks, you will spend 3600 credits plus any repairs since your opponents aren't going to wait while you build two power plants and two obelisks.  Oh yeah, they are easily removed by a GDI ion blast too....(slightly weaker armor than AGTs)

Advantages: THE BEST ground defense around, always on guard.  Quickly and efficiently kill units.
Disadvantages: EXPENSIVE, crippled by low power, military targets.


BUILDINGS:

I will handle this section a litte differently.  I will just list the reasons to or to not build them.

CYARD:  NEEDED to build any structure.  Does not build well without power when other structures are present.

POWER PLANT:Powers your base A MUST HAVE!

ADV POWER PLANT:  Twice the power, more expensive, longer to produce, less space.  Good for limited space missions. Not necessary, but available. no benefits.

HAND OF NOD / BARRACKS:  Only structure that can train infantry.  A MUST HAVE! Allows bazookas, minigunners, engineers, and flamers/grenadiers (depending upon which it is) plus several buildings.
Low power=low production.  More than one=increased speed assembling units

WAR FACTORY / AIRFIELD:  Only structure that can recieve vehicles.
	The war factory is pretty lightly armored but produces units right away.  It also is ideal for hiding units behind.  Allows basic GDI units.
	The airfield has 3x the armor but is at the whim of the plane.  The best place to build one is on the right side of the map because units will arrive faster that way.  Cannot hide units. 
Neither produce quickly when power is low.  Having more than one (either type) increases production speed significantly.

COMM CENTER:  Useful only for radar purposes, plus allows some advanced units and structures.  A must have for AGTs, requires power to use radar.  You cannot get better units beyond the basic ones until you build this.

HELIPADS: Come with helis!  Needed for reloading purposes.  Small and useful in building helicopter fields.  (C&C myth says that helis will leave automatically when a nuke or ion cannon fires. This is false-a player did that and said it was his "autodefense"  THANKS WALLABEE FOR DOING THAT:-)

REFINERY:  A basic structure.  You need LOTS of these; They are better to build than harvesters on their own since they come with a harv.

SILO:  A cheap small building where tiberium is stored; When taken or destroyed, all tib in them is lost.  Not tremendously useful unless you are spider basing.  

ADVANCED COMM CENTER: Very useful for GDI players, allows the use of the ion cannon as well as a couple of units...but not a must have...wait to build this until you have enough power for the ion cannon and enough cash to fund it.  The ion cannon's not worth skimping your defense funding over.

TEMPLE OF NOD: Extremely useful for Nod, but the problem most players have is that they don't know when to build it.  Look at it this way:  $3000 credits will buy six tanks or six turrets.  One option can defend your base, the other can fire a nuke every 14 minutes if you have sufficient power.  The nuke isn't even incredibnly powerful...it will devastate light structures and clean up the infantry, but it won't win the game for you.  Tanks, bikes, or whatever might.  Only build this if you need the MCV option, commando, or you're ready to use the nuke and you can defend your base adequately.

WALLS:  Look-these are a waste of cash.  Have you ever played a multiplay mission where you've had time to use these?  They are useful for only a few options, and even then...You can use them to stretch your base out through narrow tracts of land, you can build chokepoints, you can place them around your cyard to stop engineers, or you can use them to force enemys to go around to a heavily defended part of your base since the time that it would take to destroy them would make them vulnerable to turrets or something...I never have seen them used well, and I doubt I will, since all  but the concrete can be rolled over anyway.  (there is one way to use walls-surround your buildings with them to prevent capture.  This can be a good thing, but I don't advise surrounding the entire base...more on that in the defense chapter)

Now that you understand your materials, you can start that base.


Chapter 3:  Basic Building
In which I explain the "higher teqniques" to building a good base quickly

Right off the bat, you need to understand one thing:  Building involves structural as well as unit considerations.  You can't just plan where to build...you need to plan WHAT to build, and that includes units, especially at the beginning of the game.	
	The key to building is speed.  If you can't crank out your structures fast enough, you are sunk.  I have fallen victim to this many times as well as most other players have to me.  Even you experienced players out there might want to read this section carefully;  these tips are straight from the pros and might help you with building a better strategy.  And I always say, ANYONE is vulnerable at the beginning of the game, and that's usually because of building. 
	The first prioity is power.  After you deploy that base, build a power plant.  (A note about deploying:  DO THIS RIGHT AWAY!  Chances are extremely good that wherever you are placed at the beginning is a bad spot; you'll just have to adapt when you have time.  At this point, the most crucial thing you can do is start cranking out structures) (if you start a a tiberium field then its just you bad luck!) To figure out where to deploy this, I'd look around by hitting shift F9 to save the location of the base and then scroll around, or you can just press "h".  Figure out where you are relative to the map and then build your plant to the side closest to the border.  You will need to put a heavily armored structure on the other side for reasons I will explain later.
	Now, with the juice turned up, work on an INFANTRY PRODUCER (hand of Nod, Barracks).  I like to place these above my cyard to help guard against engineer attacks.  Again, I will go into detail later.

	Next, build a refinery.  Some people might say "Well, why not get the cash and vehcles rolling before you produce useless infantry?"  To those of you who are curious, or to those of you who are confused, and especially to those of you who think you know everything, it's because in the time it takes to build a refinery and a vehicle producer, you can build a maximum of:
*8 engineers (4000 credits)
*16 bazookas    (4800 credits)
*21 flamethrowers  (4200 credits)
*39 grenadiers    (6240 credits)
*39 minigunners  (3900 credits)
(Based on a base time of 133 seconds to build each structure plus 10 seconds between to deploy and click on "Build" =276 seconds.   This will go faster or slower depending on your connection, but when you build at faster speeds, the rates are still the same)  Read my note to see why this is wrong now (a little lower)
How about the time it would take to build a solid base defense until you get turrets and vehicles?
In 276 seconds...
Nod can build:
*5 rocket men, 3 flamethrowers, and 21 minigunners at a cost of 4200 credits,
*10 rocket men, 2 flamers, and 11 minigunners at 4500 credits
etc.
GDI can build:
*10 bazookas, 7 grenadiers, and 8 minigunners at 4920 credits
*5 bazookas, 17 grenadiers, and 10 minigunners at 5220 credits,
and so on.
If you take a look at the numbers, building is always easier.  The trick is to plan what you consider the best defense while you build.  Of course, if you start at 9999 credits, subtracting the costs of the power plant, infantry producer, refinery, and unit producer, you have 5399 credits to contruct a defense, plus the 700 your harvester brings in each time it returns.  You might not want to spend this all on infantry...in fact, if I were planning out my defensive tactics, I would include enough cash in my reserves to build either bikes or helis if I was Nod and humvees, tanks, and AGTs if I was the GDI (which requires, of course, extra power, and a comm center for the AGTs).  But...I have caught a few players with their pants down becuase they focused on building tanks while I built helis, and then blew up their cyard.  This "SLASHG" technique, described later on, is one example of how planning a defense can aid you, since the other player was GDI and had not built a barracks or anything required to build the AGTs, making his base wide open to attacks from the air...and defenseless as a child. 

Note:  The information you just read is acurate according to the ORIGINAL CODE, but just for fun, in single player mode I timed all of the building times at the speed of a regular westwood chat game.  It came out being 13 seconds for a refinery, 42 seconds for a War factory, 5 seconds for power, and 12 seconds for a barracks.  (If you read the manual it says War Fact and refinery are both 133 seconds)  Just for grins, I timed the amount of time it would take to build, from scratch, two different teqniques: While both involved a power plant and barracks, I wanted to see how long it would take to build a second refinery before the war factory.  When I did this it was on the third to last GDI mission, and I had 5000 credits.  I placed the refineries near tiberium and was not caught waiting for a load to come in to halt the progress; the building was continuos and as fast as I could do it.  For power, a barracks, 2 refineries, and a War Fact. it took 1 min 27 sec.  With only one refinery in there it took 1:11.  The thoughts that ran through my head were that this difference of 16 seconds would amount to maybe one GDI unit extra and nil for Nod since it is at the mercy of the plane.  Personnally, I prefer to have as much cash as possible and rely on infantry to defend for that 16 seconds...building a second refinery means more cash being harvested for 42 seconds.  I don't know about other games, but in Westwood chat that is maybe 2 1/2 loads per harv if you are near tiberium, which means 1400 per harv by the time you get the War Fact and more on the way when you start builing units.  As for what I said above, it does not take 276 seconds (almost 5 minutes!) to get that much of a base on westwood chat.  Heck, I've had games that have ended before 5 minutes! So while what I printed is merely what I calculated from the manual, anyone with a brain can see that refineries take much less time than war factories/airstrips...meaning I used the wrong info or Westwood printed the wrong stuff.  Please note that with excess power, you will produce more quickly; with yellow you produce at twice the time and in red three times the time.  With no power you are really screwed and in for a long wait.  
	Other times I found: Guard tower: 10 seconds  AGT: 22 seconds Comm center: 22 seconds
helipad: 5 seconds
 	Essentially, in the Gold edition times must have changed from the original version and they didn't update the manual.  Go figure
 
Now that you have a barracks, obviously you should build a REFINERY and a VEHICLE PRODUCER (airstrip/war factory).  After this, you have a few options:  You can build defense and power for it (turrets and tanks), a wave of units, another refinery, extra structures, or helipads.  The tried and true way of discovering this is by sending a recon unit to sneak a peak at the foe's base while you see what is vulnerable.  For example, if the ground defense is weak but the cyard is surrounded by SAMs, perhaps you should hold off on air units for awhile.  If you see a bike rush being constructed, perhaps you should step up defense and the production of tanks.  If you see a lot of harvesters coming in and out, perhaps you should assemble an anti-harvester strike force.  I think you get the idea.  The most important thing to remember is what a longtime #1 on the MaG league, starmann, told me :  "I use my head".  You don't need formal training or military tactics to win this battle; You need to watch and outhink your foe.  Since most people who play do not do this, you can probably win if you keep a cool head. :-)
	DO NOT RELY ON:  The temple of Nod or the advanced comm center to win the battle for you.  First of all, these both require excess power to charge their special attacks.  Secondly, they recharge at very slow rates (10 min for the ion cannon, 14 for the nuke).  Thirdly, they require a lot of time and money to build.  If you have the time and money, or need some of the options they offer, go fo it.  If not, I'd say just hold off on them.  They can be useful, but you could build 5 light tanks for the cost of the temple of Nod...
	Also, don't rely on obelisks as your sole ground defense.  These units are incredibly powerful, but they are easily put out of commission by an easily performed takeover or destruction of a power plant, not to mention the vulnerability to airstikes and ion blasts...They are powerful, but they are slow, costly, and prime targets for the ion cannon or airstikes, as well as SSMs.  And if they get blown up, you're out 1500 credits. :-(


Chapter 4:   Advanced Building Tactics
"Building" on chapter 3, I explain the spider base teqniques and tell a story :-)

	This is probably one of the areas where players know the least.  Most people I've played don't use these tactics becuase they are unconventional and slightly costly.  They are also not rushes or defense, which many players get preoccupied with.  Rather than concentrating on a rush or defense with a limited amount of funds from harvesters that travel farther and farther each time, wouldn't it be nice to monopolize the green stuff and have a base at just about every pass on the map?  It's possible, and it doesn't require the 5000 credit MCV.  Instead, it requires some thought, planning, and a bit of cash and recon.
	Please keep in mind as you read this section that while you are building a base, you need to be planning: 1) Where is the tiberium and how can I build to it? 2)  Where do I need to build factories to deploy units? 3) Where should I strengthen my defenses and where can I leave them a bit lax? 4) Where are the structures I can sell eventually? 5) How fast do I need to build certain units? 6)  Do I have ample power reserves 7)How many and what kind of units will I need to defend?   This stuff is all VERY crucial and sometimes will mean the difference between winning or losing.

StrikerOne's Base Spread: (AKA Spider basing)
The first time I saw this performed I was playing one of those "quick matches" where the guy said "You'll be done as soon as you beat me" and I thought, despite the fact that it was only my third night playing (and third opponent, might I add), that this would be an easy kill.  Little did I know that StrikerOne is one of the best players around, a member of team Chaos, one of the original squads from Kali.  The guy used to write tactics pages similar to this one!  (though not as long). I noticed from the get-go that his base was creeping up towards mine.  We were playing tiberium garden...I was in the top canyon and he was due south.  My harvesters had to pass a three or four square wide gap every time to get to the garden, while his base was right next to it.  I wasn't worried becuase we had an OTT ( that's a RA term for Ore Truck Treaty, or I guess here it would be THT for Tiberium Harv Treaty), and becuase I sent a few stealth tanks into his base and quickly isolated his cyard.  The problem was, I could see that below the base, there was a refinery...5 squares to the south and unconnected!  "Are you using some kinda code?"  I asked him.  "I never cheat," he replied.  Even though my stealth tanks attacked his cyard and got it down to red, he managed to build two or three AGTs and take care of them.  Then, he found my base and began building up to it, blocking off the only way out with AGTs, which attacked my harvs...and I couldn't do anything, becuase my harvs wandered into fire and couldn't make it back to my base!  I tried valiantly to take one of his structures with a chinook and an engineer-it was shot down before I could get it close, becuase he had placed AGTs near each minibase he had built. I resigned and demanded to know his secrets when we got back to westwood chat, finding myself both frustrated and intrigued.
The trick is to build a chain of structures to where you want to go.  You use cheap structures like silos and power plant, building two and then selling the old one, and so forth, forming a chain to where you want to build.  Since you sell them, you gain a couple of guys and part of your cash back...plus you can keep the power when you build a refinery or whatever and have gained time later when you build turrets, since you'll have plenty of power!  It also allows the flexibility to sell structures when they are under attack, since they will not be critical when you have lots of them.  Some players (not me, though) even go so far as to hide a second construction yard care of an MCV in a corner of the map so that if the first cyard gets destroyed, the second can surprise the foe.  The remote base has a lot of possibilities, though.  Here are some of the more advanced strategies.

Build and Sell teqnique:
	To use these strategies, you need to understand this teqnique.  Say the following represents a base:
(cyard)-(power plant 1)-(refinery)-(power plant 2)-(power plant 3)

  Now, if you sell off power plant 2 and build a fourth one and place it like this:

(cyard)-(power 1)-(refinery)-(empty spaces)-(power 3)-(power 4)

You have a gap where 2 used to be and you can continue adding on structures to buildings that aren't connected to the central base, like so:

(cyard)-(empty space)-(refinery)-(adv. power)-(empty)-(empty)-(refinery 2)-(comm center)-(war factory)-...

So in this way, you can build a 2 link chain and sell it off until you get to a better spot.  This works with all structures and walls too, but the most efficient seems to be the silos and the power plants- I use silos for horizontal, power for vertical as it is speedy to build them and they occupy a three by two area.  If you are really trapped, you can sandbag it if need be, but if you are trapped on an island with a bridge, you are better off with a  structure on the mainland to build off of or to have deployed there in the first place :-)

Hidden base:

	The trick here is to build a long train of structures off into a corner of the map where your foe has not explored and build a second base, with all the essential buildings.  Unfortunetly, you need to make sure the base isn't discovered by the enemy as you are building it, so if the opponent has a pretty good view of your base from recon, build and sell quickly.  I'd say the best way to go about it is to make your old base look inconspicuous with plenty of defense and then go ahead and do this.  If you have satellite bases already, build off of  them; One or two might even be suitable for this.  Build a new base complete with unit producers, helipads, plenty of power, refineries, and possibly even send an MCV over there to have a second cyard.  Then, if the enemy attacks the main base, you can sell off what you need to to keep from losing all the money (it is always to your advantage to sell a structure in the red when it is being attacked OR when an engineer is about to take it) and in the meantime, produce units at double the speed and if you have an MCV deploy, structures as well.  While you are there, you can mount a huge unseen force and raid your foe.

	Advantages:  You can build a secondary base to backup the old one in the case of a major rush or whatever.  You can also make a huge army without detection.
	 Disadvantages:  Expensive, requires a lot of attention to the radar as you do it because if you are not watching your old base, it may suddenly become your enemy's new second base-this does occasionally happen.
	Cautions:  Watch those harvs-make sure they don't lead your foes to the new base unless you are ready to defend it.  Also, make SURE your enemy hasn't seen the area; it's a good idea to block these areas off early on if possible.  Make sure you plan the base out before you build it, and always keep the original base bookmarked.

Satellites:

	 This is a fun strategy because it is so annoying.  This is what StrikerOne did to me the first game before he choked me (the next strategy).  Simply build several refineries in various passes and such near the tiberium fields...and build turrets around them.  Use the build and sell strategy to accomplish this.  By doing this, you can see a lot, confuse your foe as to where all the harvs are, get a LOT of tiberium, and protect passes when you build turrets.  If the harvs get destroyed, you'll have made more than enough to build another, and if you have lots of refineries for them to flee to, you can protect them better.  Also good for attacking enemy harvs who want to get your tiberium-just build a base near where they pass and then a bunch of turrets.

Advantages:  Pays for itself, very easy, very annoying.  
Disadvantages:  Harder to defend at first, hard to start because it begins as an expensive project.
Cautions:  Just watch out for airstrikes by building ample air defense.  If you build a factory or such in a satellite, defend it well.  Also, watch out for stray APCs and engineers-if you can't afford a turret, don't build the satellite.

Ivy Choke:

	You build your base organically, like the vines of a plant, and block off the enemy and his harvs with well placed turrets and front line unit producers.  It's very simple to do, and you can either build straight to the base or around it.  The best way is to prevent the harvs from getting out first by blocking off tiberium and then taking care of units.  This seems to work better with the GDI's AGTs, but with the proper placement, a stream of turrets, obelisks, SAMs, SSMs, and rocket firing units could effectively defend the vines.  Before you do this, make sure your base is WELL defended against rushes or engineer attacks (especially the cyard) and then start. Keep a close eye on that base; It is still the core!  Meanwhile, build airstrips and such near the front lines to produce units quickly and send them straight to battle.  I'd recommend a huge helipad field in the backlines, but only if you need one; helis are fast enough that they don't need to be in the front.

	Advantages:  Effective, cuts the enemy's money off.  Similar to starvation tactics used in many wars.  Eventually, you will beat them by resources and numbers.
	Disadvantages:  Sometimes, the enemy has a tiberium field you don't have access to...also, your base becomes the prime target for engineer and commando raids-be sure to guard the air and ground because if a Chinook flies in next to your cyard...you may lose your advantage when your foe cranks out a new refinery, or turrets, or whatever. He might even take one of your refineries when a harv is in it...bad news.  Also, this tactic requires four things:  Recon, planning, tiberium, and time.  Plan on lots of power needs, too, especially if you're Nod.

Small base:

	This is the strangest one, and I don't think it works very well.  Simply build two power plants, a refinery, an infantry producer, a unit producer, and maybe a comm center.  Now build a lot of harvesters and send them all over the map.  Ignore them if they get clogged due to your poor deployment.  Now build a bunch of buggies or humvees and then the expensive units like commandos and mammoth tanks.  Now if you're nod build a LOT of obelisks (they don't need power yet) and a temple, or an adv. comm center if you're the GDI.. Make sure you block in as many units as you can and make those harvs go all the way around the base because you have so many, a few of which are full and have been for 15 minutes but can't move because they are stuck.  Now send a unit up to the base and try to blow up something while you wait on your nuke, which recharges so slow and even slower than usual because you have too little power.  Now nuke those bastards and laugh with glee..while they send a mammoth tank/ technician rush down to your base and still manage to win.  Congratulations, you need to keep reading if this sounds like your idea of a good strategy. Of course, I exaggerated quite a bit,  but this is a real life scenario many new players and braindead veterans try.  That, of course, is the reason for this guide.    
	
	By now I hope you have learned some new ways to look at C&C.  You've just learned tactics for building that many players think are unconventional and hard to do.  Actually, it's easy to build well, you just need to know how.  I have put a lot of time and effort into writing this and nothing makes it more worthwhile than to see players excitedly using these tactics in their own strategies.  Please keep reading on if you're ready, but if you haven't yet mastered the building teqniques described, it might be time to sit and work on them before going on.  :-)
  
	

CHAPTER 5: How to build Defense 
This section has been added due to requests from players and a major revision to the lack of defensive tactics in previous versions of this page.  This section will focus on BUILDING defense...the chapter on defense is a study on how to use what you've built
	
	So now that you have your base, it's time to learn the best ways to set it up for defense.  There are a few things base defense conisists of:  Air defense, unit defense, and engineer/commando defense.  Here are some methoods for each:
AIR DEFENSE: 
Infantry:
This one is the easiest to build provided that you have a barracks/hand of nod.  Simply build a bunch of rocket men and place them in key places around your base.  While they are on guard they will fire on any helis that come in!  There are a few things you need to keep in mind, though:
	*The best place to put bazookas are in areas where they are easily hidden, near key strcutures.  I have had the best luck with hiding them behind the stick that juts out of the left side of the refinery-I force-move them (hold alt and click) past it and push "s" right as they reach it.  It will take you some practice to move them correctly, but if you play with where you position them, they usually wind up pretty well hidden.  Other good places are behind trees, rocks, the War factory (which, as StrikerOne noted earlier in his tactics page, is an ideal place to hit with a nuke),  and any other structure or geograpical feature that juts upwards.  If they are hidden, chances are good the helis will blunder in and get killed.  
	*When playing versus apaches, be careful! They tend to turn and waste the rocket men fairly quickly before resuming mass destruction if a player is paying attention and has any ammo left.  
	*Generally, 5-10 bazookas can handle any heli rush you can't see coming, and I'd say about 3 bazookas for every heli once you find out how many are coming if you're really worrried.
	*Watch out for nukes-never cluster your guys together becuase a popular tactic is to nuke the cyard to take care of infantry and then to finish with air units!  You'll have to sell the yard to avoid losing the 2500 credits you'll recieve for doing so, (there is no way to save it at this point!), but if you can save a few units, you'll be glad later on :-)

There are units that perform air defense as well:
	*Bikes are great for base and air defense due to their Dragon TOW rockets.  The best thing about bikes is that they are fast enough to return to your base and mop up helis if you have them patroling as a heli rush is launched.  They must be sitting still or on guard mode (which is not the same as just being dormant) to fire upon helis. (build about 2 bikes per heli for ideal defense) 
	*Stealth tanks have the particularly nasty advantage of being invisible.  This may seem useless vs helis, but if you place a few stealths in the line the helis fly on to reach you base (the straightest line between their pads and generally you cyard) the tanks will suddenly appear and start shooting!  If you even get one or two by doing this you have succeeded since you have prevented that much more ammo from being expended on your base, which may even mean you won't lose a structure in some cases.  But Stealths are also great in your base as they are an unseen defense...I have seen people blunder into bases containing stealth tanks and lose entire squads of helis without knowing there was a defense! (build as many as you can afford to use!)
	*Well, the rocket launcher CAN defend the air...but it also tends to hit your base when it misses...great for stopping helis out in tiberium fields, but I have had bad experiences with them in the base.  I would not focus on building these as an air defense.
	*Mammoths are great for air and ground defense since they regenerate and they shoot quickly.  If you have 2 or 3 of these, you can probably stop a small force of helis quickly...especially when combined with rocket men...ah but that's next. (Build these for other defense too....)
	*Of course you can always combine units...I like to use rockets as the basic defense and keep bikes nearby in case of trouble...one thing that seems to help is building an airstrip next to the yard when I'm Nod and letting the bikes that fly in serve as defense until needed.  I also suggest keeping the barracks straight above the cyard so that should you need to crank out a quick defense it will be right in the hotspot.

Then there's the structures:
	*AGTs are great for air defense but seem to fire a little slower and cannot manually target the helis...which means if they player knows what they are doing, they can distract the AGTs and send in the helis.  Now I have been told that the AGT can be reset to guard mode but I have been unsuccessful with it...(Push "g")...the only solution I have seen that really works is to keep AGTs in triangular patterns around the base.  Since you can build 5 per power plant this shouldn't be too costly in terms of power...and they are not too expensive considering what they can do.
	*SAM sites are the Nod alternative, and they tend to be nice since they are harder to wipe out unless a heli is right there taking the damage while tanks blast the weakly armored launcher.  The good thing about SAMs is that they are dedicated towards the air and require no power to use...the bad thing is that they have a more limited range than the AGTs.  I suggest you build these in triangles and eventually a Star of David (like the star on the Isreali flag) pattern since they will completely detract from the idea of sending either a heli or a chinook INTO the base.  How to stop them OUT of the base is another chapter 
:-) 

Unit Defense: This is simpler in this section than it will be later since all we're discussing is how to keep stuff like tanks out of your base.  How to stop units period is another chapter :-)

	Here's the typical problem: Both sides spend a lot of time building a bunch of units and then slam each other with rushes.  There are pluses and minuses to this tactic.  The positive is that you will win if you build more units and blow up the base..  The negative is that if you allow a bunch of units into your base, you will lose.  
	The "tank rush" and the "bike rush" are both pretty common tactics since they are easily performed and require little planning or thought.  Unfortunetly, they are hard to stop since they are essentially massive waves of units sweeping towards your base.  The good news is that there are ways to plan ahead to slow them down while your defense removes the massive numbers one by one.  
	The least commonly used tactic is to build walls, since walls are easily taken out by tanks.  Here's a thought, though:  If an enemy decides to send hummers or engineers in big numbers, won't walls keep them out?  Sure.  You just need to make sure an ORCA or a tank doesn't come take out a section beforehand.  Actually, walls are very useful for creating what are called "chokepoints", meaning areas where only two or three tanks can squeeze in at a time.  Most players prefer to build more heavily armored structures later on, adding to the defense of the chokepoint.  Generally, the best way build a chokepoint is to use natural features like rocks and canyons and such and then build off them.  For example, most players would attempt to squeeze through a narrow pass blocked off by a refinery or power plant rather than destroying it.  After all, the cyard can build more, and that's the better target if you're gonna send a wave of guys, right?  Wrong.
	Most of the ideas behind creating chokepoints are essentially what I described:  If you can build structures that are expendable and will block traffic until they are destroyed, you foe will take more hits squeezing through and possibly not even make it to your base.  Since rushes require speed, it is unlikely that most enemies will think ahead long enough to destroy your structures that are letting them trickle in.
Here's an example:  Let's say the only way into a base is over a bridge.  If you cross the bridge, your units will go one by one and can be stopped by a single buggy for few seconds.  Now let's pretend that an area the width of a bridge is what remains between a refinery and a canyon wall, and on the other side of the refinery is the canyon wall.  There are no other ways in, and just past the refinery is an AGT that will fire on any who enter the pass.  Even if the enemy attempts to rush by dismantaling the refinery and then sending in a huge wave of guys, you clearly have the defensive adavnatge since you can block the area off before that happens.  
	If there is no way to choke your enemy out of your base, then make sure if they come near your base, they will be sorry.  Build and sell to put turrets in good positions, such as on the tops of passes and such, keeping them as hidden as possible behind trees and such.  Make sure any vulnerable part of your base is guarded by a variety of units so that you can handle anything that comes in.  Then, build turrets around structures your enemy might want to capture or destroy, since the fewer spaces there are to crowd around the building, the better.  If possible, force units to have to travel a long distance to get to the cyard  so that your defenses can kill them before they get too many shots off at it.  
	Please note that the best defensive units are infantry and mammoth tanks.  Buggies/hummers also work in massive numbers and a combination of bikes/nod turrets tends to mop up rather quickly.  Medium tanks and light tanks are somewhat good for base defense but usually work better in perimter defense and not in the interior since they are not quick enough to roll around the structures.  I know mammoths aren't either, but they are already doing double duty for air defense and they regenerate and are just generally hard to kill :-)
	The art of keeping out units comes down to knowing where they will strike and how you can slow them down.  Build your defenses with that in mind.

Engineers and Commandos:  I wouldn't worry as much about killing commandos since you will see them rarely and you can hear them before they even come.  What I would worry about are the ways to kill pesky engineers which can turn the tide of you battle since they can allow you foe to begin producing anything he wants so long as he has stuff to build off of.
	Here are some of my favorite (collected) engineer defenses you can try building:
Enter...THE ENGINEER FILES
	-StrikerOne reports that a player named PIMPDADDY builds his hand of Nod directly above the cyard-when the APC approaches and proceeds to squash the infantry defense, PIMPDADDY has a flamer at 95% on hold...and he lets it go.  The flamer leaps out and torches the engineer(s).  Very impressive!
	-Striker's tactic is to build a regular guard tower right along the top of the yard and buildings on either side.  When the engineer pops his head from the APC, the guard tower will fire on the APC...so he sells it, unleashing three minigunners who instantly kill the engineer.  Any others are similarly wasted.
	-You can build walls along the top of the cyard, which will force the engnieer to have to go around...but and orca or tank can easily remove this
	-My trick is to hide two flamers, one on either side of the cyard, in the space that the dome of it covers.  Other good places are the refinery, war factory, and the hand. When the engineer comes out, he's toast!
	-This works well with commandos too, since they can be hidden just as easily.  Just wait till the guy pokes his head and kill him with the sniper rifle.The only problem is you may not get the chance since most engineer attacks occur early on, before you have the capability to build one.
	-The commando can also be hidden to kill other commandos...remember that the enemy will only shoot the infantry he can see, so keep this guy hidden and bring him out when thr enemy won't expect it. :-)  This tends to work REALLY well when you have flamers or commandos hidden and the enemy walks by...to become toast!  If your units don't have to move to attack, you won't have to risk losing them..so try to herd the enemy commando to be near yours (tanks and buggies can do this, among other things) and fire....your comando won't move, and his will quickly die!  He'll probably STILL wonder what killed him.
	-If you're really worried about your cyard getting taken over, build all that you will need and sell that mutha...it'll give you 2500 credits and will surprise your foe!  I recommend it if you are constantly losing your yard to quick attacks or takeovers, but I only do it when I'm sure I can win without it.  Plus, if you are really sneaky you can sell it and take over your foe's at the same time!
	-The risky "take the building back" strategy is...well, good luck is all I'll say! If you can get an engineer into the building before your foe sells it then you haven't lost anything other than 500 credits, but usually opponents sell the important structures as soon as the engineers pops his head to retake it...so don't rely on this one too much.

There you have it, folks...the ideas to keep in mind for what you need to build.  You're gonna have to plan  out a strategy (probably a few) to build this stuff automatically so that you can devote more time to using those units and not just building them!  Trust me, once you get a building method stuck in your head, you will automatically want to build whatever you need very quickly...it just takes practice. :-)
	The time for building is at an end... now let's learn how to apply the usages of the particular units to the game for CONQUEST. 



CHAPTER 6: How to suceed in C&C without really attacking:  The art of recon
In which I show my secret to effective C&C: Recon	


I could come up with a cutesy little system designed just for C&C to help you here...but instead, 
I'm going to use a system that I discovered that WORKS for any real-time strategy game.

	RECON:  The prerequisite for attacking is recon.  I have never seen any attack that has been hugely successful without the aid of thorough recon.  That's why the computer loses so easily; It attacks whatever it sees first rather than mapping out your base and then attacking weak points (despite the programmers' claims).
	Unlike the computer, each player has a playing style that will have strengths and weaknesses.  Many players, for example, choose to cluster all their units in one place and add to a huge heap of guys gradually.  Some build packs of bikes and buggies to wipe out any early defenses in bases.  Others concentrate on building a base that is purely defensible and don't worry as much about offensive units.  With good recon, you have the capability to discover what your foe's strengths and weaknesses are just on the way they build and deploy!  
	The important thing to remember (I borrowed this from the book Myth Conceptions by Robert Lee Asprin) is two words:  SAM and DOC.  In this case, SAM means Strength Armament Movement while DOC means Deployment Organization Communication.   Obviously, since what you are doing is not attempting to brek codes or figure out the foe's signals, communication is out for the time being...but the other 5 are CRUCIAL.
	First of all, when you perform recon with either bikes, APCs, or hummers, you need to look for the cyard since it will begin as the center of the base.  From there, you can follow the branches until you are following the harvesters and so forth.  It's like entering a cave and moving through tunnels.  The whole idea is to see as much of the enemy's strategy as you can, because once you have gotten a good look at the base, you can tell a few things.
	First of all, if the base is well spread out, you can tell that your foe is concentrating on moving to tiberium and defensive strongpoints...and you can tell by the amount of defenses how well he defends his base when he is not attacking.   Now, move on to SAM.  The strength is easily assessed by glancing at the sheer number of units.  Does your foe have 5 recon bikes guarding his cyard, or 5 AGTs?   Is the force small, or large?  Now, move on to armament.  What type of units does your foe rely on?  Does he have a lot of infantry killers (flame tanks, flamers, hummers, grenadiers, etc), air defenders (bazookas, recon bikes, etc) armor killers (tanks and turrets), or does he defend against all three?  Take note, because you will need to decide later how you intend to get into the base.  Finally, are the units on garrison, or are they being assembled into field strike forces?  How about enemy recon?  Is he constantly exploring around your base?
	Look at the deployment.  Where are the troops deployed?  How are they aranaged?  Are there only one type of unit guarding the cyard?  Are the troops clustured up where a well fired nuke or SSM could make quick work of them?  And then is the organization.  How is your enemy's base laid out?  Is your foe very logical, buildig in a pattern, or is your foe very organic, spreading his base out like tentacles?  Are the flamers in the middle of the infantry?  Are the refineries near the tiberium, or do the harvs go a long way? Is there a way to block off your foe due to poor layout?
	Now, with all of this in mind, you can asses relatively well what your foe will do.  It's really cool if you can do this with a stealth tank, since your foe will never know you were there and build even more reglularly than they normally would.  When I watch players like StrikerOne, I can just marvel at how fast and automatically they build, while with other players I laugh as their harvs jam up in one area.  You can learn a lot from good recon.
	I'm a tenor (quad) player in my school's drumline and when I play I am constantly analyzing the little details because the details are what are important.  I pay attention to the feel of the stick, my hand position, my stick height, the pressure at the fulcrum (where the thumb and index finger join) and so on.  While I can't play without a basic know-how of the nots and rhthyms, I won't ever be any good unless I watch the little stuff.  In the same manner, you need to watch the little details in a game of C&C.  While you need to apply the basic strategies to win, you need to pay attention to where you're going to use them and why.  That's why the thing I tell most players is that recon is the most vital part of winning.  If a player has scouted my base and knows what's coming, even if they lose, I congratuate them on a great game.  Of course, sometimes you get lucky; I played a game where I came across a crate that revealed the entire map-the only way into my foe's base was through a chokepoint bridge, which he had guarded rather heavily with medium tanks.  I coolheadedly bought a chinook, flew in an engineer, took his yard and left.  Since I had not visibly entered his base, he had assumed that I could not see it well enough to even land a heli, so he had no defenses other than at the chokepoint. The thing was, I never needed to get into his base because I could see it all!  He was proably surprised and must have thought I was cheating or something, but he was the host who turned on the crates after all!  

	Just in case you're wondering, did you know what the #1 way to lose a C&C match is?  While some people might say it's building too few units or not defending your base, the truth is NOT KNOWING WHAT YOUR ENEMY IS UP TO IS THE BEST WAY TO LOSE THE MATCH.  I've seen it happen and had it happen to myself-the enemy hides 8 apaches in a secluded spot and then, when your air defense is low, attacks you.  Just ask opponents like starmann who like to hide in the darkness why they can beat players who don't explore.
	By the way...should you perform good enough recon around your base you will be able to see which areas your foes will come in...meaning you can start working on building chokepoints.


CHAPTER 7:  HOW TO MAKE UNITS WORK TOGETHER
	In which you will learn how to make all your units get along :-)

	It seems kind of silly that I might write a chapter on this...after all, your units are all on the same side, right?  Unfortunetly, most players don't make their units cooperate.  Back in my early days I played a guy called "fullclip" who is in the army.  While I sent single units or small teams (mainly stealth tanks) to take care of his cyard, he pounded me very badly by merely sending squads of units that worked well together-medium tanks for the vehicles and hummers for the infantry.  He had me at his mercy enough that he could have sent in an APC and I would have had to sell my structures to stop the engineers!  While this story may seem kind of silly, I think anyone who struggles with beating many players will recognize this vulnerability.  Quite simply put, offense is the only way to win, but units that don't go together won't win you anymore than the loser's place. 
	The most popular combination of units, of course, is the Nod bikes and buggies.  I have been playing Case's ladder a lot lately and have learned this tactic from the best players...buggies have a quick refire rate and make great cannon fodder while the bikes pound away.  Since buggies are cheap they are more common while the bikes come later to reinforce the group.  Then tanks and such can be added.  Why does this work?  Simply because the buggies are capable of destroying most anything while the bikes can aid in the quick destruction of armored units.  The buggies can also quickly kill infantry, while the bikes pound away at tanks and structures once they breech the defense.  This combination is surprising in its simplicity yet it works.  Of course, ladder strategies don't seem to work as well as in non-ladder matches!  	There are other combinations and relationships that are not explored as thoroughly but still work.  I personnally find that a combo of grenadiers and minigunners is a great defensive line for GDI infantry defense, since the minis can fire away at attacking units while grenadiers safely pound from behind the lines.  Another good combo is an APC full of bazookas since it can move in, drop them off,  which allows them to blow up nearby armored units, blending a defense against infantry and armor.  The only thing bad about that combo is that sometimes the APC gets blown up too quickly...I prefer to use it to move in a quick defense as opposed to offense.  And of course, my all time favorite of distracting an AGT with an APC or tank while my Apaches or ORCAS come in and remove it quickly....such combos are great for keeping valuable units alive while removing their hated foes (in this case the GDI air/ground defense!) Just use your head.
	Here are some other relationships you might try out:
	1) Rocket launchers and Tanks
	2) Flamers and rocket men
	3) Mammoths and bikes ( you need to capture an opposing yard to try this though!)
	4) Tanks and ORCAS  (apaches are really only better in the cases of buildings or massive waves of scattering infantry!)
	5) Hummers and bazookas
I have used these before with mixed results.  The key to teams is to make sure that the faster units wait for the slower ones (usually selecting the faster ones and pushing CTRL-ALT while clicking on one of the slower units will keep the faster ones in the right place) and for the stronger armored ones to take the damage while the more powerful ones are kept out of the crossfire.  While no team is perfect, use them to help develop your playing style.  You'll be surprised how a variety of units can work together and keep each other alive, and then you'll be glad to use them together. :-)


CHAPTER 8:  Basic Attack Tactics
	In which you will learn how to start beating up your foes


	Now that you've gotten this far, it's time to concentrate on another one of those basics:  Offense.
	There are three types of basic offense:  Small group (field units) attacks, surgical strikes, and rushes.
	
FIELD UNIT ATTACKS
	The surest way to protect harvs, scout potential base sites, and to defend a tiberium field is to use a small group of units, usually a mixture of units prepared to take care of anything.  For example, you're moving upwards, so you send an APC full of rocket men, a couple of tanks, and a rocket launcher to help defend your new area, as well as the harvesters if they begin to get raided.  Well, sometimes you find through your recon that a small group of units is moving towards your base, or sometimes you find that an APC is coming to your base via someplace that your foe thinks is not defended.  Small groups are usually ineffective against big forces, but in the case of a few units, you can usually use these groups to stop the units from getting to your base by attacking.  Even better is the idea that you can press CTRL-ALT and select your harv or a structure and have these small groups defend (and follow) what you have entursted them with.  This can help you keep a building long enough to get some more heavy-duty units and turrets to the spot that is being attacked.
	Sometimes, when a foe is building far enough out that he is not adequately defending, you can sneak in a small group to hold off defense long enough to get in an engineer or two.  It is helpful if you have the engineer ready beforehand to go in an APC, but hey, the group can probably hold keep the place secure long enough...
	This is really annoying to your foe when you send several small groups after you have picked a target.  The steady supply of reinforcements will discourage your enemy and probably allow you to take over whatever land they were guarding.  Just remember, field units are really meant for defense, but when they are used in moments of oppurtunity, they can hold their own until the big boys get there to clean up the enemy's base.

SURGICAL STRIKES
	This is actually a simple principle that most people should have no trouble understanding:  

1.  You pick a target
2.  You build a lot of units, mybe 5-10 depending on what is needed
3.  You attack just that target, and then back off.

	Very easy.  Very dependable.  Often confused with the rush, might I add.  Basically, you need some very quick units (ahem...hummers) that attack quickly and do some damage (ahem... bikes) or have air superiority (ahem...helis).  The preferred units, believe it or not, are NOT technicians or mammoth tanks.  They are bikes, hummers, and helis.  Take note that orcas are usually used on groups of units or harvs while apaches are used to clean up buildings.  Hummers will come in greater force than bikes, due to their weaker weapon.  I have also seen APC rushes where minigunners and bazookas and such leap out...well, let's just say stick to other units for strikes.   
	The preferred targets for a surgical strike seem to go in this order:  Cyard, Any unit producer (War Factories/airstrips seem to be the more popular to attack first), then any building that can still cause problems (helipads, turrets, special weapons buildings).  It is usually a bad idea to attack the refinery because if the person you are playing is any good at all, they will have enough refineries that it won't hurt a lot...unless it is easily accesible to fire and the only other ones are miles away from the tiberium-this will be beneficial since it will slow down your foe's monetary gains by A LOT.  Similarly, a war factory on the front lines is much more dangerous than one that is incredibly far away from anything...there is no right or wrong order to strike, just a tactical one. :-)

	THE RUSH (start shaking....)
	First of all, I would like to start this by saying that TOO MANY PEOPLE RELY ON RUSHES AT ALL, ESPECIALLY BIKE RUSHES!  I was proud of myself at first when I discovered that the rushes can be beaten...but when you think about it, how hard is it to destroy a bunch of units when you know they're coming anyway?  If you see your enemy mass producing bikes, for example...build a bunch of bazookas, grenadiers, turrets, and tanks.  If your enemy thinks he or she is a Soviet and builds a lot of tanks, it is easy to stop tanks with AGTs or obelisks as well as turrets, or missle launchers and a similar force of tanks backed by bazookas.  You see, all rushes rely on is a HUGE number of units, maybe 10-20, moving into your base and wreaking havoc.  If you are in a well defended area, you shouldn't be in too much trouble; Less if you have taken the time to prepare.  If however you discover the force coming your way before you can build an adequate defense...well, I'll cover that later in the chapters on defense.
	With all the minuses of the rush, I am surprised people would rather perform them as opposed to the cleaner surgical strike.  I will go into detail regarding the most devastating and popular rushes, and then explain how the rushes can be coordinated tactically to actually overcome the minuses.
	Hummer / Buggy rush:  These used to be the most popular GDI rush until RA came out and everyone used tanks.  Though they are light in armor and power, the hummers are EXTREMELY effective in large groups because they are fast and cheap.  For Nod, this is even better, because the Nod equivalent is 100 credits cheaper.  Some GDI players think that this is cheap and unfair, but as StrikerOne says, "Who ever said GDI was for beginners?".
	The basic principle here is that you send in a lot of hummers and hope to take out a building or two.  Since they are easily replaced, you can begin another wave as you start the attack.  Since the units are cheap and quick to build, this is easy to do while your enemy is still mustering a defense, and most likely, your foe won't attack you while you do this, so you have the time to build up your own defense while you send most of your units to attack. 
	ADVANTAGES:  Easy, quick, cheap, thrilling
	DISADVANTAGES:  Only good for the beginning of the game since tanks and turrets tend to put a quick end to this rush.
 	Bike Rush:  The MOST POPULAR NOD STRATEGY and also the one that people put A LOT of faith into.  While Nod and the bikes go hand in hand --speed and power and all that--,  most players want to use this move over and over to beat an opponent.  Let me tell you something if you think this is a stratgically sound move: IT ISN'T.  You're sending in some very weak, crushable units that tend to get distracted very easily to blow up a bunch of buildings?  I think you will find your time and money better spent using these for recon, field units, and surgical strikes than for rushes...BUT if you must know, this move is so intimidating that most players panic when it happens and practically GIVE you the win.  They'll do silly things like sell all their structures or try to build a few tanks while you chortle with glee.  If they've read the defense chapter later on, though, I doubt it will work out as well...
	ADVANTAGES:  VERY popular, has a good reputation for working versus inexperienced players, will make your opponent react defenseively
	DISADVANTAGES:  TOO MUCH FAITH IN THIS MANUVER will cost you a lot of bikes...many a time rocket men hiding behind the hand of nod or war factory will make quick work of your bikes.
	Tank Rush: All right you lousy RA players...here's your forte. :^) The problem is, that no matter how many tanks you build, you've gotta realize that this is C&C and not RA.  In RA, it is quite simple to just send a bunch of tanks into a base-either past telsa coils or into the darknes of a gap generator.  In C&C, while your slow moving tanks attack the enemy's base and defenses, an APC might drift up and make quick work of your base... and if that doesn't, a counter rush performed by faster units will.  
	Here's the procedure...build a lot of tanks, then send them into the enemy's base where they will quickly take out a lot of buildings due to their heavy firepower.  There's only one problem....it will take you a long time to do this.  I do not reccomend C&C tank rushes, and if you are inclined to do so, please keep in mind that unless you do it when defenses are low, you might not even get your tanks to the base.
	ADVANTAGES: Well...it is destructive if done right.
	DISADVANTGES:  Well...it is costly and slow if done wrong, plus it usually leaves your base pretty open....since you can't send your force back to defend vs faster APCs, bikes, or hummers....
	Heli Rush:  Let me tell you something about these...they are the most devastating attack in the game when coupled with Ion cannons or nukes...especially against the construction yard!  There's nothing like dropping a nuke to take care of all the infantry and finishing off with apaches, or blasting the cyard with orcas and then hitting it with an ION balst.  HEHEHEHE  Unfortunetly, you usually don't get the luxury of having one of these special weapons, so it is also a good idea if you build a lot of helis and attack.  Remeber-orcas aren't going to pack a lot of punch against buildings, so you might restrict yourself to attacking turrets like the AGT and such.  
	By the way...despite what you might think, this is not a brilliant manuver.  Some players think that this is such an unconventional tactics that there is no defense....well, if the GDI can defend it without SAMs or AGTs, I wouldn't count on taking out that cyard versus an experienced player...and all the Nod players need is a few bikes in the area to ruin your plans.  Being a player who has lost several helis due to poor planning, I can tell you now that this rush is deadly when used correctly, but terrible against a heavily defended base, since the apache needs a lot of time to unload its rip gun.
	ADVANTAGES:  Very deadly when used in coordination with a lot of stuff-especially the nuke and ion cannon!
	DISADVANTAGES:  Hardly noncoventional since almost anyone can do it.

and lest I forget, my two personal faves...
	
	Mammoth Tank Rush:  Well, I have to give StrikerOne some credit here...he actually pulled this off!  He used maybe 5 and punched through my defenses lomg enough to take a few buildings...plus I had little tiberium left.  Other than in a situation where the player doesn't have adequate funds for defense, this rush is the slowest darn thing you will see!  I guarantee you won't get too far with this, since the tanks are SOOO SLOWWW
	
	Technician Rush:  That's right..these guy have the armor of tanks and the destructive capablities of commandos!  Just send them in...they are especially reisitant to flames and chem warriors...hehehe
	Now look all of you real-life engineers out there who play this game...the rivalry between engineers and technicians surfaces again!  Looks like the designers once again beat out the people who just tinker with stuff, right?  :-)  (If you are an engineer and have no idea what I'm talking about....never mind)

AND THE AMAZING HARVESTER RUSH
	This is actually no joke.  A player (member of TEAM CHAOS) named PROFESSOR did this in a three way to StrikerOne...
	SLASHG apparently had weakened Stiker's CYARD to the point that it was red.  The Prof. was almost dead, so he decided to send his harvesters into Stiker's base near the cyard. As luck would have it, the AGTs began firing...and missed the harvs, hitting the cyard, which erupted into flames.  The harvs were dutifully hunted down and shot.
	Of course, this applies to all units, especially the fast ones:  keep you units moving and the AGTs and such might miss...




Now that you've learned about rushes, you are ready for a better way of winning:  
CHAPTER 9:  THE COORDINATED ATTACK
In which you will learn the best way to attack your foe


	The surest way to confuse, overwhelm, and impress an opponent is to use a variety of units.  This obviously is the ulitimate attack, yet also the hardest to concieve and pull off.  You need to know EXACTLY what you are up against, what units are good for destroying what, and how long it will take each group to get into position.   Unfortunetly, you usually don't have time to try this with a full plan, so I decided to include this to help you learn to do it reflexively.  
	The trick to the coordinated attack is using your units in the proper order.  If all that stands in your way between a heli rush and a cyard is bazookas, build an SSM or an APC full of grenadiers to take them out, then use the helis.  Also effective is the nuke, which effectively clears out any nearrby troops quickly.  But let's say it's more complicated than that.  take the following scenario:
	Beavis is playing against Butthead (heh-heh) and Beavis is using the GDI while Butthead uses the forces of Nod.  Beavis has been continually attacked by small raiding patrols and posseses the follwing units and structures:  5 bazookas placed around the cyard, 3 hummers, 6 medium tanks (he is waiting to get the cash to build a seventh), an APC with 2 engineers, and 5 AGTS: 2 placed near each of the two entranced to the base and one near the cyard.  He has 3 refineries, 4 harvs, 3 helipads with orcas, and a small patch of tiberium to the north of his base.  He is deployed along the northwest border.  All other tiberium is in range of Butthead's bazookas or SAMs, which mean heli raids are ineffective while Butthead has turrets and obelisks guarding fields near his base.  Butthead has a monopoly on the tiberium, and his base that started in the southeast has grown to take over the entire southern portion of the map and parts of the middle.  Butthead posseses 6 light tanks, 10 bikes, an APC full of engineers, an empty Chinook, 5 apaches with airfields, 3 SSMs, 5 stealth tanks, and 2 flame tanks.  He also has a huge number of Bazookas hidden around his base and a few flamers to discourage engineers from entering his two cyards.  He has 2 of each production facility: One in the front, one in the back, except for the cyards which are south.  Butthead is able to produce anything he needs since he has every required building and a temple of Nod with a nuke nearly charged :-)

	Now comes the fun part:  How can Butthead kill off Beavis?  Well, since he has so much at his disposal, several ways:
	1.  He can move units in to control the tiberium, since there is only a small patch left, 
	2.  He can destroy the AGTs and head for the cyard
	3.  He can take care of the cyard with his enginners by APC or chinook,
	4.  He can nuke the cyard and then send in apaches to finish the job
	5.  He can attack all the units and turrets and then worry about the buildings,
	6.  He can use his apaches to destroy the harvs before they get back to the refinery by nuking the field and then finishing them off
	7.  He can use his stealth tanks to sneak in and do whatever is needed.
	8.  He can surgically strike the cyard with his bikes
	9.  He can use his SSMs coupled with tanks for defense to blow up the AGTs
	10.  He can send in his flame tanks to torch the bazookas and then get the yard.
etc....
So you see, there are lots of different options... but maybe Butthead would do really well if he tried a combination of them:
	1.  Nuke the yard, clean up with apaches, and simaltaneuosly take care of the front AGTs with units.  Send the stealth tanks in to destroy the power plants and the engineers in to take care of the unit producers.  Let the tanks and bikes engage any resistance and use the apaches and SSMs to remove the rest of the AGTs.  The flame tanks can act as anti-infantry when buildings are blown up or sold.
	2.  Take out the front AGTs and force all units through that pass, destroying whatever causes problems.  Nuke the yards before he gets to it and waste it with his troops.
	3.  Sneak in the stealth tanks to destroy the power plants and orcas, then send in an APC or chinook.  With the chinook, make sure an SSM takes out the bazookas.
	4.  Use the stealth tanks to destroy the harvesters and sit on the tiberium field.  While Beavis investgates, take care of the AGTs and move the engineers in, then conquer the unit producers and refineries.
	5.  Have a stealth tank block each refinery by placing it on the arrows, then wreak havoc.  Beavis won't get any cash because his harvs won't be able to get in, unless he catches the tank "ghost" for a second.  Even then, Butthead should be busy distracting  Beavis so that he can't afford to do anything about it.  Then destroy the base any way, using the nuke to take out the infantry and cyard.

	The trick is to use your units correctly.  An army of SSMs won't last long vs tanks, due to slow recharge rates and weak armor, but SSMs guarded by tanks and rocket launchers...those will do a lot more!  The best trick is to block off any enemy passes if you can and use the long range of the SSMs to wreak havoc...the tanks you blocked the pass with will take damage, but they will but you time.  Make sure you have something around to protect vs airstikes also....
	Now let's say Butthead starts his attack and discovers a secret cache of medium tanks and rocket launchers and such :-0 !!!!!!  Well, that's what we call sneaky defense, boys and girls, and if you had paid attention to me earler and done RECON this wouldn't have happened (sigh).  If you have those stealth tanks, for Pete's sake USE THEM!!!  Of course, I assume you're all a little smarter than Butthead...heh-heh-heh...

	Here's that magic formula for coordinated attacks:
1.  DO RECON to discover all the points of your foe's base
2.  Mass produce any units you want to use
3.  Look at the opponet's defensive layout and decide what will do the most damage to what, what it needs to be protected by, etc (SSMs, for example, need an escort).
4.  Group your units into strike forces for easy access (with numbers).  Bookmark important hotspots
5.  Make sure you don't waste your time; Don't let a foe keep building stuff if you attack; take care of harvs and production as a priority!!!  Look at it this way-if you can blow up one building and then send another wave 30 seconds later and get the rest, which should you destroy-a war factory or a cyard?   Most people might say the cyard, but I'd take care of the war factory since it takes a while to rebuild a costs a lot-which means no units are prodcuced by it in the downtime.  The next time, get the cyard-that way, you've wasted your foe's money, and slowed down his prodcuction until you can get reinforcements.(!!!)  Apply the same strategy to refineries-try to block them off if possible, since they are 2000 credits to build as well -you can stop the cash flow for awhile and help yourself!  If you have enough guys blocking, you might even be able to take care of defenses long enough to destroy them before your blockers are destroyed!  Then think of the advantages.  (this is risky and can be costly, though)  The best place to block, of course, is on the arrows.  It only takes one tank-If you are attacking a refinery, you might as well just block it off and take care of the defenses first.
6.  If an attack fails, retreat as needed.  Don't throw away units unless you're doing one of those Armageddon attacks where your entire base full of infantry you recieved from selling all your buildings tries valiantly to imitate the Bay of Pigs or whatever.  Just remeber-the only justification for losing a unit is if you gain something better in return.  If you lose 3 sparkling new light tanks destroying one Mammoth tank, you have wasted 1800 credits.  If you lose one mammoth while destroying a temple of Nod...you have cost your foe 3000 credits and a special weapon...so don't sweat it.
7.  DO NOT HESITATE.  Once you begin, you are committed.  Don't turn around unless you are retreating or you are nuts-slower units like artillery and SSMs are vulnerable in the backs since they take so long to turn....You will take uneccessary hits for stupidity if your foe decides to capitatize on your error.

Coordinated attacks are really an advanced tactic that will take you a lot of practice to master.  I included them here because they are really the most basic of the advanced tactics printed further.
I warn you now, the next sections on advanced attacking are not reccomended for those of you who can't understand why rushes are such a bad tactical move.  The following tricks are sneaky, devious, and hard to do...if you try them, you will probably fail.  Don't despair...just try again.  My email signiture bears the wise words of Yoda..."Do, or do not.  There is no try."  This applies to anything, but in C&C, if you are afraid to try new tactics, you won't go anywhere.  Trust me.



CHAPTER 10: ASSORTED ATTACKS
Covered here:  Stealth tanks, Engineers/commandos, Air raids, harv raids / tiberium control, and of course, the mighty <<<INDIRECT ATTACK>>>.

	STEALTH TANKS
	These are probably the worst abused unit in the game, yet one of the ones with the most potential.  Let's look at these guys for a second:  Moderate speed, 900 credits a pop, have the same missles as recon bikes, and oh yeah, they are invisible except when discovered by infantry or AGTs, or by a few other mistakes you can make.  Obviously, thesse guys have a lot of advantages.  But people get hesitant to use them!  Why?  Because they're not tanks or bikes, and because they require a lot of attention.  I KNOW that these people have probably done what I did when I started out:  relied on them and build nothing else.  With a good base defense, an offensive force of stealth tanks can be more useful than bikes!  Last time I checked, bikes can't sneak into a base undetected and stay there, scouting out anything nearby.  
	If you have played as Nod or against Nod, you understand the benefits of stealth tanks.  They are ideal harv raiders, great for sneaking into bases, and can shoot down enemy helis when required.  Unfortunetly, when these boys uncloak, they seem to be easy targets, plus the fact that they suffer a bit in the armor department.  The reason most people think that these units are weak, though, is because they try to sneak one or two into a heavily guarded base and then wonder why the tanks get blown up so quickly.  And of course, AGTs can see them, right?   
	If you are dumb enough to attack a heavily guarded base with any two units, you are stupid.  PERIOD.  Why should stealth tanks fare any better? ANSWER:because they're sneaky is what most people seem to think.  The sad reality is that stealth tanks do offer a tremendous advantage-surprise-at a reasonable cost, but they are hard to mass produce because they take awhile to build.  As for the AGTs...here's how I get around those things:
TECHNOMAC'S STEALTH MANUVERS
	There are a few ways to fool AGTs...the first one was suggested by StrikerOne, but I adapted it a bit.
	1.  Coming from the north, send a stealth tank barreling into an AGT...and force move it directly above the square where the base of the AGT is.  The AGT will pop off a couple of missles...and then freeze up.  It will have to be retargeted manually, but the player will probably think nothing of this; perhaps the tank just got away or something.  Now, you can be sneaky and fire on the AGT with that tank, you can send out others to quickly wipe it out, or you can be really nasty and attack with your apaches, provided that they won't get shot down by another one.  This is not advisable when AGTs are close to each other...or when infantry are adjacent.  If a regular guard tower is near, it will see you too.
	2.  An AGT has a maximum range of 7.5 squares.  It can see a stealth tank within THREE squares.  Use this knowledge to your advantage!  Unlike the computer in single play, which manually targets its AGTs to fire on your stealth tanks, human opponents won't have a clue...unless you give it away.  Once an AGT has locked, it can see your unit in its full sight range...if it makes it that far.  Go around if you can.
	3.  My personnal favorite for its ease...send a useless unit or a nod buggy or something right up to the AGT...heck, you can really scare your foe with a dummy APC...and send in 2 or 3 stealths while the stupid tower finishes off the unit.  Sneak in about nine or ten, use some other means to get rid of infantry, and wreak havoc!  
	4.  Forget about the AGTs, concentrate on the harvs!  Take over any tiberium field you can with 3-4 stealth tanks and have a field day!  Don't let the harvs return to base, and if your foe sends down tanks, just move your stealths and send up a small strike force!  
	
Don't waste your time engaging stealths unless you're prepared to lose them!!!  They will probably die, so don't bother trying to repair nearly dead ones-they are slow and easy targets once they are smoking or fading in and out.  Just let them go down fighting...you'll do more damage that way!
	There is one other trick I like to use.  When orcas or apaches begin to make raids on your base, put a few stealths in the path and place them on guard.  Your foe will be surpirsed when 5 or so tanks appear and blow the  heck out of his helis!  Just make sure you disengage them before they follow the helis!  
	Watch out for retaliations...if your foe knows you are hiding stealths in a particular area, he might try bling firing-say, using a rocket launcher to force fire an area where he believes your tanks are.  Helis can do this too!  Make sure you keep those guys movin!
	With this fresh outlook on stealths, I'm sure you can beat those guys who don't understand them now!

	Wallabee points out here that once he found a few of my stealths by accident.  I had hidden a few in his base and he accidentally tried to build on them.  He proceeded to blow them up...confusing me.  I thought he was all-knowing or something until he told me that he had tried to build on them....sure was lucky for him, too!  


ENGINEERS:  A kinder, gentler C&C
	There is a game out on the market called Krush Kill and Destroy (KKND).  Warcraft seems to favor that philosophy a lot, as do most real-time strategy games.  The thing that has always set Westwood apart from the others is that you don't just blow stuff up...you COMMAND and CONQUER by any means available.  There is one way to bloodlessly take over a base-we call it the engineer rush.  Unlike the standard strikes and rushes where players try to blow up strategic structures, engineers have the capacity to merely touch and posses them.  So powerful are these engineers that RA weakened them quite a bit since C&C tends to revolve around getting engineers into a base as well as destoying it.  Personally, I see the engineers as adding a completely new dimension to real time strategies as you have to be on your guard for a silent killer.
	HOW TO USE ENGINEERS:
	There are only a few structures of stratgeic importance:  Anything that allows production, anything where a unit can be captured when timed correctly (refineries, helipads), and anything that gives you an advantage over your opponent.  Taking away his power is useful if he relies on obelisks or AGTs, but it isn't as good of a move as taking his cyard and building a few of your own turrets in his base.  Taking a barracks/hand of nod is always nice because you can build engineers right up front.  Basically, if you take it, get some use out of it...but don't let it get taken back.  If an enemy engineer heads towards your new structure, sell it!
	Of course, its getting the engineers in that's the tricky part.  Mainly, APCs are the best way in...but Chinooks have surprisingly good results when used correctly.
	 APC:  The preferred places to deploy engineers seem to be to the right of a building or to the top...meaning you should do whatever it takes to get into these positions.  Why? Because that is where the engineers come out, which means they are RIGHT NEXT to the structure (!!!!).  When you start doing this, it opens up a whole new world of defense tactics and offensive moves.  Your new goal is to get to those two areas, preferably the c-yard's.  But if your opponent is experienced, they will be ready! 

 
	Of course, you might be wondering, HOW DO I GET THE APCs IN THE BASE?  Well...here's those APC strategies I promised.
	
APC RUSHES 
	The trick to using APCs is to use lots of decoy units.  My favorite strategies involve the three cup trick that magicians like to use:
	There are three APCs, and two are loaded with engineers.  The third one is hidden away where the opponent has not explored.  I move the two APCs around to shuffle them up, then move one to one patch of darkness and the the other to the patch of darkness where I hid the decoy (by patches of darkness I mean what the enemy hasn't yet explored).  If the foe is watching, he expects two APCs loaded with engineers to come up.  Instead, I use the single APC and deploy the engineers there....and send up the decoy as well.  This way, two supposedly full APCs are heading towards the base while a third one waits and follows after the APCs have been sighted. While the enemy is concentrating on the two decoys, the third one can usually get in and take over...so long as the first two are still occupying fire.  The five engineers in the patch of darkness can be reclaimed by another APC and you can do this over.
	Sneaky variation-have the two decoys full of minigunners, and use FOUR APCs-two prehidden, two loaded with engineers.  Only send the two decoys first, deploy the pesky infantry, and send up the closest engineer-filled APC to take over.  Keep the other one for later
	Even sneakier:  Use a chinook instead; place it where the dummy APC should be, and then unload the engineer laden one when it arrives to your dark patch.  The now dummy APC and the other will serve as a distraction while the Chinook flies in through the back.

Note that all three of these require timing, and all three use the cover of darkness to make the old switcheroo.  No magician ever wins fair with the ball in cups trick, so you might as well be sneaky yourself.

	Here's another funny one:
	15 engineer rush:  Create 6 APCs and load up three w/ engineers.  Make sure your foe only sees three APCs-preferably, the dummy ones, since you are going to pull a grander version
of the above trick.  You can load up the dummies with infantry to distract the weapons if you like.  Now send up the dummies followed by the three engineer APCs as soon as your dummies are enaged-and deploy all 15 engineers in the base!  You'll definetly take something, so be ready for it!  15 engineers are nasty to handle!  Yes, chinooks can do this too!
	Note:  In all of these, make sure there are no obelisks, SSMs, or flamers-they will put a quick end to your fun!
(and it's gonna require nearly 10000 credits to pull off!)

With commandos, you can do a lot more damage using the same methoods, and mixing in engineers.  Try it....

Misc. Engineer stuff
	-Here's another idea:  If your foe is building satelitte bases, send a strike force to hold off opposition, and take it with an APC of engineers.  Now you can build off of it and attack the nearby base!
	-Whenever you take a building, your first inclination might be to sell it...don't unless it is red, about to be a commando victim, or about to be retaken.  Instead, before you take a structure, you can build, say, an airstrip and have it ready and a tank on 95% hold...as soon as you take the building, depoly the strip and release the tank!  You now are in the base.  This also works well with turrets!  Barracks/hands of Nod are good for this as they can produce more engineers!
	-The best part about taking enemy production yards is that if they are the other side (you are Nod and they are GDI or vice versa), you can build whatever they can build with that structure!  The only other way to do this is to play the funpark missions in Covert Ops or C&C GOLD.  (dual GDI-Nod stuff!)
	-Please note that you cannot take over the adv comm center, temple of Nod, or turrets of any type.
	-Sneaking in an APC with an attack is always a good strat, also good for distractions!
	-Usually, it is better to try other tactics than to build spare engineers to recpature your base-normally, the enemy will sell if he sees one!

	Finally, there's the "never lose faith" story
Now, I've played Vs. StrikerOne a lot, because he is a good opponent and he plays fair and is not out for ladder or NL matches.  The only problem was that he always would beat me-badly!  He'd also make jokes about "Mr Tactics".  So, when he found me early on in one mission and began attacking me, I noticed that there was a short, open path between our bases so I sent a single, hidden engineer I had up above the path he had taken into his base-and took his barracks.  He didn't notice that I built another engineer and took his cyard, so I built two grenadiers to take out the nearby orcas he had as they rested on the pad and took over the rest of his base!  Though he destroyed my yard before he realized his mistake, I had his and all that he had left was a harv, which a visceroid killed soon after.  It was a 10 min match that I won due to clear thinking and innovative style. Never give up!
	(The only regret I have regarding this is that it was such a quick victory-I envisioned myself beating Striker in a long, drawn out blow-for-blow battle.  It kinda opened up the idea to me that ANYONE is vulnerable at the beginning of the game...so keep that in mind)

 HARV ATTACKS:  A guide for harv hunters
	The theory:  The best way to keep your foe from expanding is to keep his harvs in check.Obviously, if your foe gets low on credits and all of his harvs are getting killed before they make it home, he has to deploy some of his troops to protect the harv.  If he is not making any money, he can't replace them; the same goes for structures.  In fact, he might be able to sell a few structures for some cash, but he'll end up short in structures to build maybe one unit or building.  Without cash, he also can't repair his units, which means that if you weaken all of his units and continue to keep killing his harvs, he will not be able to effectively strike against your base.
	The methood:  Ah, this part is a little harder.
	There are several ways to attack the enemy harvs and blow them up.  The problem is that it is hard to distinguish which ways are the most effective.  Obviously, attacking with infantry is not an exceptionally great idea since the harv can plow right over them; likewise with bikes if the player knows how to roll over bikes (over the nose of the bike and a little bit of luck).  Three to four tanks can do the job, but then you have the problem with retaliation aiding the next harv, or helis coming to destroy your force while another harv arrives.  Mammoth tanks are too darn slow.  SSMs and missle launchers have to wait awhile to reload, meaning fewer hits and vulnerability to a defensive strike while they reload.   Hummers and buggies tend to not punch through the armor and flame tanks are useless against these giants.  So...the smart player will plan ahead and use one of the following methoods:
	1)  Stealth tanks - This is the best method available to Nod players as stealth tanks are sneaky, powerful, and can herd a harv into a blocked off area and pick it off easily.  I suggest 5-7 stealths to take out a harv before defense arrives to pick off your stealths.  They are good guards for tiberium patches since most people don't watch their harvs and the stealths only show up long enough to finish the job.  They also can defend against helis should an orca try to remove them.  If you play around with these, you'll find them very effecient for surprise attacks on harvs.
	2)  Remote base - Set a few units on a big patch of tiberium to ward off harvs and immediately build your base to the field and place a refinery and some turrets there.  Some players like to build a barracks and war factory/airstrip too to crank out units as needed.  If an enemy harv comes by, your turrets will take it out and your units can be positioned to defend against any offense.  Just watch for engineers as the remote base is in its infancy;  I have lost access to tiberium due to this oversight!
	3)  Harv hunter assault squads:  This is probably the best tactic for quick and easy harv removal.  Simply build a squad with varied units:  For Nod, I suggest maybe 3 tanks, an SSM (for infantry), several bikes (to ward off air attacks), and maybe a string of apaches to finish off the harv as it tries to escape.  For GDI, I advise ORCAS and lots of 'em, a few medium tanks, an APC or two filled with bazookas in case air defense is needed, and maybe a few grenadiers to wipe out infantry.  Basically, you need to rely on a pretty quick group to move in, attack, kill, defend, and hold the area till your harvs have gotten the tiberium there. I recommend helis since they are quick and have pretty good fire capabilities; Orcas make quick work of harvs and apaches in large numbers can finish off a harv in red pretty quickly.  The point is to stop the harv from returning after all; If it gets back to the base, chances are good that it will be repaired or replaced.
	Of course, once you take a field expect some resistance.  That is why you need a variety of units to guard the area.  For example, if you use 5 tanks to blow up a harv and leave them there, orcas and apaches can shoot them with no problems unless they are stealths or mammoths.  Solution:  Have rocket men present.  6 or 7 bikes are easily removed by a few medium tanks.  Solution:  have a few tanks of your own to draw fire.  It's as simple as that.
	4) Bikes and Buggies:  Though similar to the assault squads, I have found this team to be versatile just because the buggies can keep the bikes from getting rolled over and they all have enough speed and range to nail the harv before it gets back to its base.  The best part is that they are fast enough to run if tanks show up or to hold their ground if helis show up since you will have missle units.
	


FIRING PRIORITY
	This is simple.  Say you have 3 medium tanks and you want to take out 5 bikes and two light tanks.  Which do you shoot first?
	If you say the tanks, you're WRONG.  Consider this:  Tanks fire slow, somewhat deadly shells.  They have moderate armor.  Bikes fire quick armor piercing missles.  They have light armor. Wouldn't it be better to remove the bikes before the tanks so you take less shots?  You will take out many more units more quickly if you concentrate on the bikes rather than the tanks.
	Now apply these (each time with three medium tanks  for simplicity)
	1)  VS. 3 bazookas (armor piercing rockets, no armor) and 2 buggies (light armor, weak machine gun)
	2)  VS.  1 AGT and 3 guard towers
	3)  VS two flame tanks and 3 light tanks
Answers:
1)  Bazookas then buggies-sometimes infantry seem stupid to kill first, but in this case they are a threat (merely roll over the bazookas in this case).
2) AGT and then towers-You need to weaken your foe's range before the power.  After the AGT is gone, you have plenty of space for attacking the guard towers out of their range.
3: Light tanks then flame tanks-I have never seen a flame tank take out anything with armor without getting really close and firing less than 10 times-enough time to remove the deadlier tanks by concentrating your fire on one at a time.

It's not always this simple, but if you train your mind to react in this manner, you will do just fine.

AIR RAIDS
	There are only a few basic ideas here:
1)  If a base is defended by SAMs, attack away from the SAMs
2)  If a base is defended by rocket men, distract them with ground forces
3)  If a base is surrounded by AGTs, take care of the power first to remove them as a threat.
4)  Apaches are ideal for destroying buildings, while orcas are decent unit killers.
5)  Anything not guarded should be destroyed as necessary ASAP
6)  The cyard is the best target if engineers can't get through
7)  Apaches coupled with a nuke should destroy any structure quickly.
8)  If a non-missle unit (or an SSM) is placed out in plain view and nothing nearby can shoot down your helis, blow up that sucker. 

Then there's the (as StrikerOne calls it)  SLASHG attack:
	(Nod only) As soon as you get your barracks and refinery CRANK out helipads until you have 5 or six apaches.  Now simply fly them all in to attack the cyard-it's cheesy but you'll probably take the yard down, especially if you started with six units and can send in a couple of buggies or whatever to ensure the yard is destroyed.  While not a SOUND strategy it is easy and will certainly gain you the upper hand.

	That's about it for air attacks.  Any "brilliant" player can figure out the easiest way to win against an RA player is to nail their cyard with apaches early on while they build tanks.  It's not a great strategy when the player has rocket men though-and many players like to hide their bazookas, so watch for them!

<<<INDIRERCT ATTACKING>>>
	Another basic idea that most people don't consider.  If you want to attack your foe without deploying a bunch of units, simply build towards his base and build many turrets as you progress. Sell the turrets that get left behind as you move and keep building more in the front of your "tentacle", the chain of structures inching towards your foe.  As soon as you get near his base, build a bunch of AGTs / Obelisks and target anything nearby.  This is ideal for blocking off passes and stopping harvs from reaching tiberium.  If you want a good example of how this works, try the level "Tiberium garden".  Many times, one player gets stuck in a giant canyon with one pass out.  If this can be blocked by your base before they extend theirs, even an MCV can't get through to build elsewhere.  The only solution they will have is to do engineer raids, which means chinooks which means you merely need to remove all helipads and the cyard ASAP.  After that, they will see that they are trapped and probably quit.  Check and Mate.

Chapter 11: Advanced Attacks
	Warning:  These attacks are EXTREMELY risky and require a lot of skill, luck and deception to pull off.  Some of them are called "cheap" and many of them only work in exacting situations.  Beginners should work on the basics before attempting these and intermediate players should take heed that they must be able to recover quickly should these plans fail.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
	At this point, most people realize the maxim of C&C:  Anyone is vulnerable at the beginning of the match.  While the advanced defense chapter will teach the tricks to losing that status quickly, its true that anyone is vulnerable.  There are a few things you can do to make the game run more smoothly at the beginning:
	1) You can start with 3000 credits, which leaves enough for a refinery and a power plant
	2) You can cut the units down to 3 or 0.  I recommend 3 since that way you'll get SOME defense and a recon unit.  0 tends to allow engineers to scout and slip in quietly.
	3)  You can turn crates off- I highly recommend this
	4) You can avoid maps like tiberium garden where often one player is placed near tiberium while another is not.
	5) You can call a "five minute treaty" where the host must inform all players when the recon and attacking may begin.  (if you violate the treaty you have to sell your yard or something-that's up to the host)  Obviously this one is for games with newbies :-)

Now....here are those coveted "secret moves"
1) Engineering
	The easiest thing to do at the beginning, believe it or not, is to quickly locate the base and send in 2 or 3 engineers right away.  Send them by foot and keep them in what you hope is still  shroud for your foe...try to avoid tiberium so that your engineer will have more of a chance to survive later on.  Whatever you do DON'T worry about which structure you take since you can have a barracks/hand prebuilt and place it right away.  If you can get the yard first, go for it, but take  whatever you can get.  This strat works about 75% of the time unless your foe a) finds your base too or b) prepares for it.  Me, I always prepare for it since I expect it to happen....and it hasn't gotten me since.
2) Green is the color
	Westwood provided kind of a "natural camo" among tiberium with the color green.  In a mission like tiberium garden you can easily hide a bunch of smaller units or even tanks in the tiberium fields to avoid close detection.  Unless your foe is looking closely, you can have all kinds of units sitting there undetected.  Other great places to hide are under rocks and trees. If you are beige, you'll usually fit in under trees in the desert missions and if you're green...well let's just say you'll fit in just about anywhere.
3) Hiding units
	Those great buildings you have in your base are really good for hiding stuff. I like to hide flamers and bazookas all over my base, and many an engineer has fallen prey to these guys.
	If you play around with moving the unit and pushing "s" to stop them, you can usually get them to a place behind a strcuture where they are nearly invisible unless they move slightly.  I find if you have a few bazookas hidden your foe will try to get you with the helis a lot...and lose them and the money spent on them to an unseen menace.  I like to  hide a bunch of flamers, group them, and have them all leap into action when the engineers start coming...usually, an APC will try and kill the flamers while getting nailed by the heavy duty stuff.  Infantry units are easily hidden.
	But there are more practical applications....Sometimes you can hide six or seven bikes under a small grove of trees...or near your base you can put guard towers and turrets near geographical features.  It always surprises you foe to happen upon these easter eggs, and usually makes them mad enough to do something stupid...letting them play right into your hands.
	By the way, I mentioned hiding units in your own base, but did you know you can hide units in your enemy's base too?  Try putting a couple of minigunners behind an enemy power plant and see what I mean :-)
4)  2 cyards
	This has worked for me before and it has majorly failed before.  It's worth a shot sometimes but not usually.
	Build whatever you need to get an MCV and then get one...it will take awhile and cost 5000 credits.  Now put the MCV in a corner of the map away from the battle and deploy it...try to make sure your opponent doesn't see it.
	Now heavily guard the new one and allow the old one to have weaker defense...usually, your foe will concentrate a lot of cash towards killing the old one when the new one will still be around even if he gets the old one!  It's also kind of funny if you find one in a crate since you will build very quickly and your foe probably never saw it!  More than one yard is great if you are undetected but it is an expensive investment.
5) Sneaky Bikes
	The easiest and seemingly BEST way to beat a person with Nod is to simply blow up their cyard with about 5 bikes!  Most people get mad and quit at this point, and it only takes about 5 minutes to play a game where you try this.  Once you get the yard, either back off or attack the power so that it will take forever for them to build units!
6)  Take out the power and the trash...:-)
	DON'T TALK BACK!  Just let the lack of power or a cyard slow your foe down-this is unconventional, yet slows your foe down quite a bit until you can get back in and lay waste to the base!  Make your goal the cyard and then the power plants for a game, and see what I mean!  With no power and no supply to build more, even a minigunner will take forever to build! :-)  Plus, if they are getting an ion cannon or nuke ready, it will slow down the charging!   This one's kinda new to me as I have been experiementing w/ unconventional tactics, but it works :-)
7) Double-sided attacking
	Try this:  Prepare both a bike rush and an APC full of engineers (chinooks work even better).  Now send in your bikes and attack the strange things-power plants, units, etc while you fly in the chinook or send in the APC.  If the engineers fail to get the critical stuff the bikes should be able to take care of them.  This will freak out your enemy and looks really good when you cripple defenses as you conquer the base if the engineers survive!  Plus, you can do one w/o the other, but combining the two assures your victory
8)  The refinery question
	There is quite a debate about how many refineries you need at the beginning of the game and when you should sell old ones.  Here's the deal:  Two refieries at the beginning will allow you to make up for lost time with the airstrip since you can build a third refinery after the airstrip is built, sell one of the old refineries (the new one should be near more tiberium fields, the old fields should just be getting used up!) and build another airstrip.  Now you can build twice the tanks in the same amount of time!  Plus, you'll get more cash this way.
9)  Fake-out tank rush
	This is a fun tactic for GDI...build a bunch of tanks and then move them about halfway to your foe's base, strengthening your lines across one front (make sure you can keep units from sneaking in other ways)  so that it looks as if you're about to tank rush your enemy.  Now send in maybe 3 or 4 hummers to distract any missle units as a CHINOOK LOADED WITH ENGINEERS comes in.  Hopefully, your foe will have been concentrating on the tanks and built more of the same....the engineers will make quick work of the base.  If your foe decided to spend a lot of time building AGTs or obelisks...this isn't such a hot idea :-(.
10)  The incredible STEALTH TANK destructo-rama
	Hehehe...this is a really fun trick that I like to use....Simply build a few stealth tanks, place them in front of the refineries in your foe's base (on the arrows) and send in a swarm of bikes...start blowing up everything you can that might produce units but leave the cyard...let your foe keep trying to build until he runs out of cash.  Now you can taunt him as his harvs just sit there, unable to move into the refineries :-)
This isn't as destructive as it is funny, but I like it :-)

Basically for some of these teqniques, I just used some combinations to create deadly attacks that will allow assured victory and are fun to watch and perform.  Part of the grace of playing C&C is that it allows you to take many strategies and compile them into a game of chess like moves.  Obviously some of these moves are not quite so effective vs ladder tactics, or good players, but they are like a work of art when pulled off correctly.  Now about those ladder tactics...
Ladder Ladder Ladder
	When you are playing on Case's ladder as I have been, you are going to notice a huge change in tactics that work.  Due to the relative slowness of KALI, most players seem to do a lot more fighting and a lot less engineering on maps where tiberium is easily accessible and there are few passes and such to fight in.  While the Westwood ladder and Netleague both allow the more common tactics we have just discussed, I have found that playing on Case's has led to some pretty interesting tactics.
	The overwhelmingly popular side to pick on the ladder is Nod, due to the bike/buggy team that can wipe out armor, infantry, and buildings quickly.  The strategies are pretty much the same due to people just adopting the top players' ideas and using them.  The nice thing about the C&C ladder is that there is a lot of strategy involved...the matches get pretty challenging in terms, especially early on.  Basically, the best thing I have seen work is for a Nod player to simply build one or two refineries, and airstrip, another refinery or two, another airstrip.  What is sad about the matches is that they do not tend to advance beyond this, and some players even sell their cyards at this point and just crank units.  What is good about it is if a player is careful and watches what they are doing, they can stop huge forces from blowing them up and quickly nail the base down if the cyard has been sold.  
	One game I played was vs a guy from Holland named Juan!!.  He and I did EXACTLY the same things including sending our buggies to opposite corners (I was on the right and sent to the left, he was on the left and sent to the right) to building similarly.  The only reason I lost was because I decided to ttack his base while he decided to attack my units...and since tiberium was scarce I couldn't replace them before it was time to die.  Had I waited and merely took over his base while he was distracted....I might have gottn at least a stalemate.  It was eerie, but that is where the best players truly are.  Screw NetLeague; It's number one is good but not nearly as good as the ones on Case's Ladder.
	Tactics for the ladder are all pretty much similar to what I have said, so if you join, be sure you are ready to lose a few to learn the hard way what I just said...and you will learn the hard way, believe me.  Just stay focused, build quickly, and control the tiberium-that's all you need to do to win :-)
Check Kali's C&C channel for the current link to Case's Ladder if you wish to join :-)
	(I think it's www.igl.net/)

Chapter 12:  Defense 
	For those of you who have read earlier verions of this page, LlamaOne has completely rewritten this chapter as he found it inadequate and had some new ideas.	
	The first thing you need to remember when you are defending is that the only way to keep your foe out of your base is to look like you can repel any attack, regardless of if you can or not.  TechnoMac talks a lot about recon earlier on, and I have found that the best thing to assess right off the bat is whether or not your foe is capable of stopping an attack.  Well, it goes both ways, and I'm afraid what most people never consider is that your defense may or not ever be used for defense, but it is an investment to keep your enemy out until you defeat him.  Therefore, building on the the foundational chapter TM wrote on building a defense (hehe), we're going to closely examine the skill which most players lack: effective defense.
1) The basic principle:
	Here is the only thing you need to keep in mind when defending:
	WILL THIS SETUP STOP ANYTHING FROM GETTING IN?
	The considerations for this cover unit strength, size, power, capabilities, and element.  For example, an engineer can be stopped by a lot of units, but if he makes it to an outside structure such as a power plant, he has effectively penetrated your defense.   Meanwhile a mammoth tank must wade in and completely destroy a building before it suceeds-giving you advance warning due to the sounds of firing.  While that mammoth will do more damage than a hummer, it will be detectable, whereas the hummer's quiet machine gun can get burried in the sound until you notice it has done some nice damage.  The biggest consideration, of course, is element, since there are land and air units (and if you play RA, sea too!) to deal with.  Using the basic principle will allow you to think of all of these aspects.
2)  Implementation:
	Now you have to consider what is available if your defense does not meet the basic principle.  If you are GDI, right off the bat with only a barracks and war factory you have 2 effective infantry killers, one armored armor killer, a land/air killer, and several other units that can aid you as well.  Use your bazookas to keep out pesky helis and chinooks as well as to guard vs vehicles while grenadiers and hummers will keep the infantry at bay.  Tanks are great armor piercers and artillery can wound groups when they are clustered together and the arty is on guard mode.  Now build a guard tower and, later on, a comm center and some AGTs...you have a defense that is partially mobile (units) and one that will be repairable when attacked (turrets).  You can defend all aspects of your foe's attacks-armor, units, infantry, and air units-and if you deploy your troops right, (step 3) then you'll be powerful enough to stop whatever.
	As for Nod, BTW, you start out with an even better advantage with flamers and bikes.  Bikes are the ultimate land/air equalizer and flamers can kill many more men in one shot.  Plus, the Nod tanks are slightly weaker but more effective when backed by the missle ladden bikes and Nod has the buggy which costs 100 credits less than the hummer.  And that's just units!  Nod does suffer in terms of turrets since neither ground turret can fire upon air units...but hey, that's what SAMs are for! If you set just bikes, tanks, and buggies in your base with 3 SAMs around the core of the base for defense, you won't have too many problems with Nod.  
	(Many people say Nod is the stronger side and I happen to disagree...Nod has a unique style that requires guile and quickness, not the power of the GDI.  The problem is that Nod seems to have so many advantages that GDI players tend to miss the disadvantages of it!  Nod is EXTREMELY vulnerable to power loss, and its bikes are easily removed by a few grenadiers and minigunners...but more on that later)
3) Deployment
	Here is the tricky part that many people get stuck with.  Indeed, I have seen MANY people build the right amount of units and then stick them all in a chokepoint while I send in a chinook full of engineers...yes it happens, mainly to those who don't know what's coming and expect ME to attack their huge lines.  In those games, BTW, I usually have the time and money to build a friggin' NUKE if I want to, and I usually put it to GOOD use hehehe :^)
	The best places to put units are in strategically sound locations.  If the only way into your base is over a bridge, then guard the bridge with armor while you have bazookas and other infantry watch for straying engineers.  If your base is on a piece of land that has two narrow passes, guard each with a moderate defense and keep reserve forces between them to reinforce whichever area is attacked.  I have found that the most effective method of defending two areas this way is to group each group by location-say assign #1 to one group guarding a pass, #2 to the other, and #3 to the reinforcements.  If I have helis, I use #9.  This way, I can easily just press a number and move guys without worrying about whether or not all of my units are moving as will happen when you franticly group a bunch of guys and tell them what to do.  With teams, you have a system where each group is easily identified and hasa specific place to be...it  makes them easier to build onto as well when you are cranking units.  
	If your base is open wide for the entire world to see then defend primarily with one big group in the area where your foe seems to be sending the most units.  Make sure you defend other areas as well...the grouping system seems to work here as well since you can make two groups in your primary defense and move some of the units quickly if needed while keeping the other group there.  The best thing to do in this situation (which rarely occurs) is to build turrets near key strcutures and along the perimeter where they will be needed...usually a radar is useful too for spotting baddies that sneak in.  The only way you'll be able to effectively defend this type of base, though, is to know what's coming so make sure you do ample recon.
	As for defensive lines, NEVER put your weaker units right in front.  A line of tanks with artillery behind is much better than vice versa.  Keep the weaker range units behind the stronger armored units if possible...if your defense is buggies, bikes, and turrets, put the buggies and turrets in front and have the bikes fire from behind since they have more range and less armor.  A line of bazookas behind tanks is a sound defense too since they pack a great punch and can defend against air units (for you GDI fanatics)

Elements:  Air and ground
The following units and strcutures can defend against air units only:
	SAM site
The following can defend against ground units only:
	All tanks except the stealth tank	
	hummers/buggies
	infantry except engineers and bazookas
	Obelisks
	turrrets
	guard towers
	arties
	SSM
	APCs
	Helis
The following can do both:
	Bikes (Nod)
	Bazookas (Both)
	AGTs	(GDI)
	Rocket Lanchers	(both)
	Stealth tanks	(Nod)

Right off the bat, Nod can more easily take care of problems regarding air threats.  GDI units fall mostly under the second category, meaning GDI MIGHT be more vulnerable to airstrikes.  The plus side to the GDI is that its units are typically tough enough to withstand heli attacks from Nod long enough to build AGTs which are a very effective air defense.  So as you look at it from a GDI-Nod perspective, it seems that Nod will rely on UNITS for air defense while GDI will rely mainly on BUILDINGS to keep its skies freindly.  The trick to defending both is to know first what to expect and secondly what you need to watch for.

	The way you should defend at the beginning is this:  Build some bazookas ASAP.  Deploy them in a circular pattern around the core of your base as you continue to build.  5 or so is best.  Make sure all are in range of your cyard. It helps to group them for quick access. Put them on guard mode ("g") and watch...
	If your foe tries a "Slashg" heli attack where he sends five or six of them right away, you can defend easily since you are ready for it.  If they are apaches, they need time to take out the yard, while ORCAS need numbers.  Hopefully, you've pulled off enough recon to know what to expect and have hidden away some extras.  Most players who decide to do the heli rush will do it if they only see two or three bazookas; If you can keep several hidden, you can cause your foe a lot of frustration, time loss, and credit waste.  
	If your foe decides to send in a small ground force, your bazookas will be ready and waiting to back up whatever units you have built should your foe tread into your base.   Bazookas are armor piercing and pretty darn accurate, so don't shortchange them.  They are great backups for grenadiers and flamers which can run in and quickly mop up infantry while the bazookas can destroy vehicles.  
	By using the above technique, you can BEGIN with an effective bi-element defense.  Now look what happens:
	You build your airstrip and begin cranking out bikes which you will use later.  Instead of sending them all to one place, you group them and deploy them around your base, set on guard mode.
	If your foe attacks with helis or a chinook, your bikes will at least warn you by firing at them.  Hopefully, you can kill the things before they do any real damage.
	If your foe sends in ground troops, bikes are great defense as they can quickly move in and fire quick rounds of rcokets, which are armor piercing.  In a similar fashion to the bazookas, they can defend while buggies clean up the infantry. 

Or for the GDI players..
	You build your comm center and start the AGTs, building them in strategic locations around your power plants and your cyard.  
	If air units come in and try to get the yard, the AGTs will quickly put a stop to it.  If engineers sneak in, you can shoot them from a long range and usually kill them.  If ground units such as tanks attempt to enter the perimeter they will be perlted at least once before getting in a shot.  Plus, should the AGT get damaged, it is repairable.  A bi-element defense once more that has many advantages.

	While this may SEEM obvious, you'd be surprised how many people forget this stuff when playing.  It's a thinking game, so use your head!
 
If you understand the concepts of defense so far, please read on to the advanced section.  If you are still a little shaky, practice this stuff; It's common sense but it's harder to do since it seems to bear no advantages at first. :-)
-LlamaOne


CHAPTER 13:  ADVANCED DEFENSE
a look at the more involved defensive methods, written by LlamaOne

Ah, welcome back to Llamaland.  I'm glad to see that you've moved on from basic defense!  Now prepare yourself to don nicknames like "Ironwall" and such, since by the time I am done with you, most players may never even SEE all of your base :-).

	The key to advanced defending involves a lot of recon, deduction, quick building, and a little luck.  The luck factor is pretty minimal since by the time you are skilled enough to be able to do some of the things I will share with you, you should be able to control units well enough to do anything you need to do.  As with the advanced attacking chapter TM wrote, I am going to post things that work in some situations but not all.  Here's the secret formula to deciding if they will work before they use them:
KNOW THY ENEMY 
	That's it!  Simply watch your foe's style and you'll be able to figure out what to do.  It sounds SOOOOO simple but it's harder than you might think.  Let's look at an example:
	You notice your foe is building lots of bikes with his two airstrips.  There are two paths into your base that are pretty direct and one where he will have to travel long distances to get around.  The two direct paths each narrow to a 3-space wide chokepoint at one point.  You currently have two tanks at each of those points (GDI medium tanks).  You have ample cash to build a huge army.  You figure before he arrives you can build maybe 4 med tanks.  How can you block your foe long enough to stop him?
	I'm not going to answer this right away; I'm going to leave it up to you to figure out as you read. I'll tell you that I have won in this type of situation though!  I want you to keep this situation in mind as you mull over my tactics and see if what you would have done is similar to what I did.  Keep in mind that you are not RESTRICTED to building tanks! :-) 
Here we go:
*COMPLEX CHOKES:
	The chokepoints we talked about earlier we basically mae of buildings, which is a great strat if you have the resources to do it.  Unfortunetly, that invloves a lot of building which is not as easy in the beginning of the game.  The biggest problem with building over is the cost and the false sense of security it may give you.  Until you can afford to build over, it's better to spend that money building units to send over.  The trick to placement follows two methods:  The simple block method or the gauntlet.  
	The blocking method is where you merely place a few weaker units like hummers in a line and reinforce them with more powerful weapons like tanks or missle capable units.  I prefer to keep the armor in the back so that if the line is breached, I still have awhile to react rather than having the enemy punch through the strong and then the weaker units.  Another thing about hummers and buggies is that they are cheap and will cost less to replace than a tank.  More about this in the DEFENSIVE LINE BUILDING tip in a few paragraphs. :-)
	The sneakiest block method I have tried was to use stealths in the front...it frustrates the enemy unless they detect the tanks and at the same time allows a few extra seconds to fire on the foe....the only drawback is that sometimes the stealths get killed and that's no good since they are kinda pricey.   
	The gauntlet method is even funnier since you create a single-space pass through a bunch of units and just blast away...it is easily blocked off should they get too far.  I prefer the block method since it is more reliable against faster units, but occaisionally the gauntlet works well against Nod since the Nod units tend to fire back when shot at...meaning the units will jam up and get picked off quickly.It also forces the units to try other avenues since they can't get through, which will buy you some time.  If you have all the ways in pretty well guarded, you should be fine :-)   This method is really better for showing off than anything else.
*CONCENTRATING FIRE
	The simple key to any type of defense is to assign your units to a group and make them force fire on each unit.  The priority is imporant here:  Pick off the units that are either doing the most damage or the ones that are the most quickly destroyed.  If you are plagued with a bunch of bikes and hummers, nail the weaker bikes (which also do more damage!) and then get the hummers.  If it's between bikes and tanks, get the bikes first since they are doing as much damage and are easier to dispatch. In essence, you want to remove the units ASAP which means get the weaker guys first.  I always charge artillery before tanks, bikes before hummers, and engineers before empty APCs.  It's a sound method, so don't knock it.
	I'm not going to explain the mechanics of why concentrating fire is more effective than just firing on the nearest guy, but I will say this:  If you take out one unit every time your group fires and your foe is doing damage to each of your units every time his group fires, less damage will be done by your foe as each round of firing commences.  It's pretty simple math! 
*DEFENSIVE LINE BUILDING
	As promised :-)
	The trick to lines is to put what we call "cannon fodder" up in the warzone and to have the more powerful and expensive units behind them.  Buggies and hummers are the best fodder you can build in my opinion, and infantry is a close second.  The only reason infantry is not first is because it is too easily rolled over by tanks.  A line of hummers followed by a solid row of 5 to a square bazookas is pretty good tho...unless an SSM or flame tank wanders in.  Use discretion with infantry, but don't shortchange them.  
	The second layer of the line should have your medium range units...bikes or tanks are best here.  Actually, tanks are really the better choice since they will be harder to punch through if your foe breaks the first line, but bikes will kill your enemies pretty well too...and they're quicker to move in where needed.  Possibly a row of buggies, then bikes, then tanks will work for Nod players...you have to play
around with it and decide.  For GDI, a second row of tanks is essential.  I don't recommend mammoths straight across that line, BTW...but they will be good for occupying any helis that decide the line looks like a prime target.  The other advantage to mammoths is that regeneration factor...but they are hard to replace since they are slow, so make sure you have other medium tanks there as well.
	The third row can be artillery or (God help us) missle launchers and SSMs.  Use thier long range as an advantge, but make sure they aren't killing your front line off with splash damage! 
Missle launchers will be great for GDI players since they can likewise shoot down helis.
*BUNKER IN THE BASE
	As a last resort, use the buildings in your base as a bunker and kill the enemy while he tries to take out your cyard and such....If you have turrets this is a great idea while if you have nothing but units...well, maybe you should go ahead and sell everything since you will probably lose most of it.  This is one of those "desperation" defense moves, but hey, it has worked before!
*BUILD TURRETS OUT TO THE CHOKPOINTS
	This is another one of those tactics I don't use much....it is possible and desirable to build using spider basing to the chokpoints and cram the area full of turrets...but most games don't last long enough to do this.  Nod has a slight advantage in this area....Nod can build turrets that require no power and are thus harder to disable...If you are GDI watch out for power raids since helis may try a suicide run and take the power plants and cyard out to keep your turrets out of commission...and since you will be using AGTs, no doubt, this is a serious problem.
	Note:  This is much more effecive for a light defense than one where you are constantly being bomabarded.   

Ok, here's how I did it:
	I noticed the bikes were coming along the top of the two paths so I moved the 4 tanks up to the chokepoint and blocked it off.  While I had been building tanks I also built a few engineers and a chinook...and flew them in and took over while I concentrated fire on the bikes.  I think two bikes made it through and did a little damage before I was able to build a tank and finish them (I also used some minis to weaken them...pretty darn effective!) and by then, I had his cyard, hand, airstrips, and a refinery.  Boy was he mad!  The guy called me cheap (yeah, who was BIKE RUSHING, huh?), sold his buildings, and made me chase a harv for about a minute...then he quit and I haven't played him since.  
	If you can react to a situation like that similarly, you're ready to start climbing that ladder!  Just keep in mind that defense is more important than offense no matter WHAT the RA players might say...I have seen many people fall prey to a lack of defense because they ran out of money and had used all their units to pelt away at me while I built out and gained control of the tiberium...and I have seen players who think 2 tanks will defend their base!  Don't be naive...your enemy has to get into your base and a) Take it over or b) destroy it.  Since there is only one winner, it might as well be you!
	-LlamaOne



CHAPTER 14:  Game types and options
TechnoMac returns to explain alternatives to HvH games

	Probably the most interesting option about C&C is that of the variety of games.  Most of the tactics posted here have been for HvH, or Head Vs Head games where two players try to kill each other.  Did you know that even in Westwood chat you have a few other options?  They are CTF (capture the flag), 
bases off, Bases on vs. Computer (co-op), bases off vs computer (co-op).  If you are fortunate enough to have a true MULTIplayer gaming program like KALI then you also have the option of 1 vs 2 or 2v2 games or even the dreaded FFA (free for all). Here are some pointers on each type of game:

NOTE:  It is often more enjoyable to try these games with opposing sides rather than choose the same one! (Nod vs GDI is just so much more fun than Nod vs Nod for example!)

HVH (head to head):  You can play these with or without bases.  Almost ALL of the tactics above are written with HvH in mind with bases on, crates off.  This is the most popular type of game, including ladder matches.  The only point I have to make about the bases off game is that you want to concentrate your fire and build a defensive line if you expect to win....I reccommend using between 30 and 60 units (or whatever the max is) or your game will go FAST, too fast to be fun.  For the Nod players, use your stealth tanks to find the main concentration of enemies and bunker yourself into a nice area where you can secure yourself on all sides  Attack using smaller groups of bikes and buggies to take out the heavies...try to focus on the weaker areas so your units don't get killed too fast.  Once you have removed as many tanks and missle launchers as possible, sneak in and try to get the artillery since the fast units can usually make quick work of them.  For the GDI I reccomend that you play a strictly defensive game where you send out scouts to keep and eye on your foe and wait for them to come to you...the best thing to do is to take over a small island or something and wait for your foe...there are really not as many strategies for a no base game, it's basically just sole survivor with a bunch of units.  Have fun.:-)

CTF (Capture the Flag):  This is one you won't play too often because it's just different from the others in strategy.  Essentially, for those of you who are still trying to grasp the concept, your worst enemy has stolen your handkerchief and put it on a pole.  You're going to build a bunch of units and go steal it back, but you have to be careful because you also have to guard HIS handkerchief which is sitting in your base.  The disadvantage, of course, to getting the hanky back is that it is cumbersome and requires your unit to move at 1/2 speed to carry the thing....I ask you, is it worth it for a piece of cloth you use to blow your nose on?  :-)
	Actually, CTF is very fun and that's why its the most popular game in Sole Survivor (which I was beta testing BTW).  The whole idea of losing due to a flag being stolen is kinda terrifying, yet it makes the game move so much differently.
	You have two basic things to keep in mind in CTF:  defense and offense.  The defense is the part you will concentrate a lot on since you need to be able to stop anything that tries to get your flag.  The worst defense in the long run is turrets since they are 1) easily destroyed and 2) not mobile.  You see, when your foe gets your flag, it stays where he dies, which means you can't move it back to the turrets!  Certainly a circle of obelisks is a good defense, but then all your foe has to do is send in a few guys to take out the power...so it gets very complex.  The time-honored strategy I prefer seems to be to surround the flag with armored units in a big circle and infantry on the inside (grenadiers or bazookas).  This way, you have a two layer defense of strong units and you can cram a LOT of guys inside the circle of tanks or whatever.  Since your foe needs to get a bike or hummer in to effectively escape with the flag, he will be hard pressed to get in and he can't roll over the infantry even if he does breach your tanks in one spot.  Then you can concentrate on clearing HIS defense to get to his flag and escape.
	Offense consists of mainly breaching the defensive line and getting the flag.  The best part is, you have a new weapon at your disposal to do this!  It's called "the unexpected" since you can either lay waste to your foe's base or sneak in and get his flag.  Personally, my favorite plan is to send in a small rush of bikes, kill a few units, and sneak in an APC or chinook as I do this and just take over the poor sucker's base.  I have done this many times with mostly success since people get so worried about you getting to their flags!  Some misguided souls also like to use walls to place around the flag-that is a VERY bad idea as all it takes is one ORCA or tank to put an end to those.  Please note that helis CANNOT carry the flag, and infantry cannot sneak it into the APC and run off and such. Quit trying to be so clever.
	Winning CTF is quite simple:  Get the flag to the circle where yours is kept.  If it comes down to a race between you and your foe, move a unit (a heli can do this!) onto the circle and make him have to destroy your unit before he gets to the circle.  That way, you can buy some time. :-)

Co-op Vs Computer: There are two types of co-op.  When you have bases on, I have found the AI (artificial intelligence) does not like to build bases so while you can play co-op with bases on, I don't reccomend it.  With bases off you essentially work together to get the computer before it gets you.  The only real difference here is that you MUST find your fellow player and ally them (click on their unit and press "a") or you will be playing a FFA.  Usually, telling each other what color you are and where you are helps....send in a scout and ally ASAP.   Hunting down the AI is easy, and it doesn't tend to ally with itself as much so its also easy to kill it.  No problems. :-)

1v2 or 2v2:  Ah, the ultimate game.  Either a brutal team up where one tries to beat the odds or four people try to kill each other.  Well, when you team up it is obviously to your advantage to use differing sides... Nod and GDI vs Nod and GDI makes for a fun game, but then so does 2 Nods vs 2 GDIs.  If you want to intergate your bases and have AGTs next to obelisks, I suggest differing sides for teams, but if you want good vs evil...take the same sides vs same sides approach.
	There are a few things to keep in mind:
	1) Make sure you and your teammate divide the tiberium equally...usually north/south or east/west works well.  Pick a Mason-Dixon line and keep your harvs from crossing it.
	2)  If you find your foes, make sure you have your teammate discover them too...you both need to know the same stuff to effectively win :-)
	3) Don't doublecross your teammate...just make sure you can blow him up should he doublecross you.  This is best done by placing turrets and barracks/hands of nod in his base and units near all the critical structures and even hidden if possible...that is only needed if you don't trust your foe however.  It allows you to quickly mobilize should he remove you from the "ally" status. :-)

Have fun!  I think you'll find this type of game speaks for itself and is generally fun!

FFA (Free for All):  The game where all falls upon one player to win.  Teamups are frowned upon and should not occur here...if they do, you are in trouble!  The best way to take out 2 or 3 other players is to essentially scout them out, find out who is weakest, kill them, and move on.  I do not reccommend trying to assault two guys at once but I do recommend using a few guys as distractors to pretend you are attacking one player and then, while another's defenses are low, sneak in and kill him.  FFA will make you think twice about ever playing C&C again sometimes but it is fun...and there is a real sense or accomplishment to winning :-)


CRATES
	Here is a brief explanation of crates:
	A small box that contains a special treat...sometimes a bomb, sometimes cash, sometimes stealth, all-map, shroud map, or special weapons.  If your cyard is destroyed, you might find another one in the crates, as well as units and such. 
	There is only one reason to turn these on:  To give other players a handicap since they can reagin their cyard and such.  Also, it sometimes is fun to find that your APC or Harv has gained stealth capabilities, which sometimes happens. An invisible APC can still carry units...and a stealth harv is just darned funny. Crates are more trouble than they're worth most of the time, but sometimes, they're kinda fun. :-)




Chapter 15: Netiquette
TM's guide to manners and enjoying your games more
	Now that you know how to play and master C&C, I want to use my soapbox to just talk about the biggest problem you will have with C&C players:  rudeness and bad sportsmanship.  When you play C&C, you are essentially matching wits with someone you cannot see or speak to-especially via the Internet.  All you can see are their comments and their strategies.  Therefore, I encourage you to befreind these people either before or after matches in the pre/post battle discussion.  They are real people just like you, sitting at a computer playing the same game.  I have made quite a few friends with people from all over the world by just talking to them in Westwood Chat, and it has been quite an experience to realize that I am only judged by what I say and how I react-not by my looks, speech, age, or social status.  Therefore, if you want to meet people who will like you for who you are, use the internet as the means for this.
	When you play someone, you should always at least congratulate them if they win.  Saying "Nice game" goes a long way, as well as discussing why you lost and how you can do better.  If you win, make sure you are not snotty about it-help the other player to learn from their mistakes.  This will help your repuation and maybe they can show you a thing or two about your own strats you haven't thought of.
	Finally, if you have to leave or get disconnected, always make sure you seek the player out and apologize-it is inconvenient to get disconnected but most people understand

	The best places to play C&C on the net are KALI and Westwood Chat, both of which have a chat channel for the game.  Westwood requires the gold edition but allows people to chat in a monitored enviornment for free-KALI is a one time fee of $20 and supports any game playable over a network.  I am on both, so if you see me, let me know you read this!  I put a lot of time into this and want to know what readers think

 	Thanks for reading this guide...many people have put a lot of work into this (especially TechnoMac!) and we all appreciate your support...please email TM and tell him what you think!  As a special thanks to those who helped and a fun section for those who want to learn more, the next section is purely user strategies and anecdotes...please enjoy and send one if you'd like to appear!  The HTML version will have updates weekly for this section, so please add whatever you like!  (It's up to us if it is worthy of putting in, tho!)
THANKS!

CHAPTER 16:   User Strats and Stories
TechnoMac:
	Okay, here's the story of my first game:
I was in wchat tryng to figure out how to get C&C to work so I could try it and this guy named Wallabee asked me if I wanted to play.  I figured a Wallabee was a fish or something (It's a kangaroo!).  Anyway, he explained how to play and so we went into the game.  I had barely played the game in single play and had kinda ignored the manual..so as my lone harvester went out to pick up some tiberium, I was SHOCKED when 5 stealth tanks appeared (I had no idea what they were) and blew up my harv!  Wallabee said "Hehe, RA doesn't have THOSE!".  I proceeded (stupidly) to build a comm center and a stealth tank...only to have him blow it up with several of his!  Frustrated, I sent all my guys into his base and lost, but he and I played several games until I got MUCH better and was ready to strike it out on my own...and then two nights later I met StrikerOne...the rest is history!

LlamaOne:
	I live in the same town as TM and know him from school...when he got me into C&C I got very interested and studied his page right off the bat...  But I disagreed with him on one point:  He said that Nod was more powerful than GDI.  I disagreed and spent a lot of my time trying to prove that GDI can beat Nod hands down once the game gets going.... well, I still haven't beaten TM with GDI, but I did discover one thing:  If you play GDI people assume you're good!  In the words of StrikerOne, "Who said GDI was for beginners?"  hehehe
	I'll post when I actually beat TM and give all the gruesome details!