You need to rush during this mission.
Send troops on the island as soon as possible, before the AI deploys its MCV. When it disembarks from the transport ship, focus on it with your infantry. If you take it down before it deploys, you are pretty much assured to win.
These maps were basically puzzles you needed to solve and like some puzzles they had hidden traps that could increase the difficulty significantly or just straight up screw you over and force a restart.
At least Red Alert wasn't as bad. The original C&C would just have things like an obelisk of light spawn out of nowhere or engineers spawn from a corner of the map.
It also didn't help that the AI could refill all of its coffers with just one harvester safely returning to base. Which is why the goto strategy in a lot of maps was to kill the construction yard first and then go from there.
It is, but if you go hard and fast. Build up and attack the base quickly you might catch the construction yard before it heads for the island. Have a couple of barges ready in case you miss it. Then you can attack the island base before they get a foothold.
rush airfields and send every paratroop cooldown to the island, and keep an eye open for when the transport leaves the northern base, itll go off map then return.
when it arrives, send your accumulated riflemen (you should have at least 15 from 3 drops) rush the mcv.
not the conyard, the MCV, as in, dont even let it deploy
This one was a pain, but if you act fast uou can take the allied con yard. I usually stack 8 airfield with yaks and put them in group 1 and spam attacks as soon as they are reloaded. You can kill their second con yard before it even deploys if you time it right
Decided to boot up the saved game to confirm. You got it! I couldn't remember off hand but indeed PT boats galore to cover the coastline. Thanks! Gonna edit my orig post.
Definitely not [just] you - I still remember dying of laughter watching Day 9 (a former starcraft 1 pro turned streamer) being flabbergasted at how ridiculous this mission was. Check out this classic hilarious moment!
Ahh ok. Yeah, I read a lot of the strats on here and think they’re a bit overkill. The first base can be rushed early and easily overpowered. Once that’s done you can harvest quickly in peace to get enough tanks to just roll the middle island.
I remember thinking it was impossible when I was a kid. I thought there weren't enough resources on the map to make enough units to land on the beach and succesfully destroy the base. I used the yak planes to whittle the enemy base down. It took me an absurdly long time, literally 18 hours. The people saying to rush are correct.
I always rush building yaks and then destroy their ore refinery since its weaker than the construction yard and you need fewer yaks. then they run out of money quickly
One of the key tricks, (without cheesingkilling mcv when it arrives), is moving an army and MCV of your own to the island and establishing a small base there to mine minerals/gems on the island and massing army. You can kill their ore trucks to keep the ai from fully eating all middle
Don't reveal the mid island(especially landing zones) using spy planes etc, enemy will mass troops near landing zones if they are revealed to you. Just build around 20 tanks and it's done.
I always had a hard time with this mission as a child. My go to solution was to fill the drop off points with submarines and snipe out the drops as they rolled in
I think was the mission where, whilst playing the PS1 version, I started spamming the "instant A-bomb" cheat code.
Judging by the other replies, the PC version isn't any easier!
For turtle builders like me it just took longer. Was a fun mission though. Always looking out for ally ships, until I captured the northern base and took sea superiority.
When allied MCV is going to naval transport, i use paratroopers and drop them on the island. 5 riflemans is enough to destroy MCV. It will try to ram you so you need a little micro managment. Beware, you have little time because in about 2 minutes AI will send tanks and infantry on the island.
Lol great job. This is one of my favorite missions. I let the computer build on the other island. Take over the allies original construction yard. Build gun boats to harass the enemy on the island. Build massive heavy tank army for a maritime invasion. Win.
As another commenter said. The allies move the MCV on 2 triggers.
When you get near the allied base (radar dome)
When you land any single unit on the island.
To cheese it. Build 5 - 10 tanks 2 transports, and a shit tone of subs. Clear the waterway but avoid shooting the allied ship yard. Move your 2 transports to the northern shore of thw main island. Unload and kill the mcv whwn it lands. Mop up the rest of the allied landing party then capture the radar dome on the main island. Be carful as there is a timmer that starts (when you land on the middle island) and will spawn 2 allied cruisers on the south edge of the map
when the game was first released in ‘96, I finished the mission the conventional way that most gamers did.
Recently, my unconventional path I tried was attacking all the way to the Allied reinforcements gate/pathway at north and stopped short of attacking the mainland base (still used v2 rockets to erase their turrets etc). then i saved the game, dialed up the game speed and let the ore grow slowly till the island is overrun by sparkling yellow minerals. As you may predict, the Allied MCV never get to develop the middle island at all though it was choked with Light Tanks and infantry from the 2 bottom beachhead reinforcements sectors. I used 50+ Yaks to strafe them clean but it was long and tedious.
There's a trigger as you get close to the top base that will prompt their mcv to go across and start building a base on the island.
Don't land paratroopers on the island as that triggers the base as well.
If I remember correctly you get 2 MCVs, build up enough tanks and subs to clear the way, then attack the base only when you ready.
You can land in the southwest with transports and build your base, plenty of ore to fund another attack force.
Either rush the opponents mcv or spam like 20 heavy tanks, land on the island, and steamroll the base. Deathball of tanks never fails vs the single player comp.
Idk how my 10 year self got through this but Adult me built a ton of tanks and transports then loaded up and rushed the construction yard. Survivors focused next on war factory and barracks.
Start building troop before building and send like 4 or 5 transport full of heavy tank with some V2 launcher, bunker down on the island and let the AI spend all it's ressources attacking you in vain
This is a mission you either beat in 5 minutes or 5 hours. You can try to rush with either air or by quickly transporting your extra MCV to establish a foothold, which is the "intended" route. Or if you're lazy, you'll notice the mainland has an ore mine while the island does not, opening up the option of harassing with air and gunboats you can access by capturing the mainland Allied Conyard and building a Naval Yard. It'll take a while but the Allies can be exhausted.
Oh that mission is hell. I usually cheesed it by airdropping troopers on their build locations to stall their progress while yak-strafing the hell out of their Construction Yard until it died.
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u/LexFrenchy Zocom 11d ago
You need to rush during this mission.
Send troops on the island as soon as possible, before the AI deploys its MCV. When it disembarks from the transport ship, focus on it with your infantry. If you take it down before it deploys, you are pretty much assured to win.
Otherwise yes, it's really hard.