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Red Alert: Counterstrike
TO SEE / PRINT CORRECTLY THE TABLES AND THE ASCII MAPS OF THIS FILE YOU
MUST USE A NON PROPORTIONAL FONT SUCH AS COURIER (SUPPLIED WITH WINDOWS)
AND SET THE MARGINS AT 75 CARACTERS PER LINE.
A GOOD IDEA IS TO ISOLATE THE TABLES AND MAPS ON SINGLE PAGES.
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RED ALERT "COUNTERSTRIKE"
(For Europe : "MISSIONS TAIGA")
********************************
* A GUIDE BOOK *
TO
THE SECRET GIANT ANTS MISSIONS
(and the secret "code" to unlock them)
With the description of new units and new structures
(Small part of the Red Alert in-depth Guide Book I am writing)
********************************
* English version 1.00 / April 10th 1997 *
* French version to be released soon *
* VERSION FRANCAISE A VENIR (-)*
****************
HTML VERSION SOON AVAILABLE
with pictures, screen shots, true tables, and typographic enhancements
****************
by Christopher Barnsley
E-mail : 101717,2517@Compuserve.com
(Please, when dealing with Red Alert Questions, DO NOT use any of my
other E-mails that may appear in headers or messages)
All rights reserved - tous droits reserves
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR THE ONES WHO ARE IN A HURRY
AND WANT TO UNLOCK THE SECRET MISSIONS RIGHT NOW :
SEE JUST BELOW SECTION 3
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The purpose of this file is to help players in the secret missions
available in Westwood Studios' "COUNTERSTRIKE",
an official add-on pack for their success game RED ALERT
(-) Note sur la version francaise ё venir :
Note on the French version coming soon :
Je travaille sur une traduction francaise de ce fichier. Je suis desole
mais je n'aurai pas le temps necessaire pour le traduire dans d'autres
langues europeennes.
(I am currently working on a French translation of this file for France,
Canada (Quebec), part of Europe, and many countries around the World. I
am sorry but I'll have no time to translate it into other European
languages.)
Les francophones trouveront entre parentheses le vocabulaire utilise dans
les versions francaises du jeu, generalement la premiere fois qu'un
nouveau mot est employe. Ce fichier presuppose que les possesseurs d'une
version francophone savent lire l'anglais americain mais ne connaissent
pas forcement le vocabulaire original retenu pour les unites, structures,
et titres.
(French speaking players will find the vocabulary used in French language
versions of the game between parenthesis, generally the first time a new
word is used. (May also help English speaking people playing with owners
of a non-US version of the game over the Internet). This file assumes
French version owners are able to read English but do not necessarily
know the original English names chosen for units, structures, or titles.)
1) WHAT ARE THE GIANT ANTS MISSIONS ?
-------------------------------------
They are 4 special missions hidden on the CD of COUNTERSTRIKE, the same
way the dinosaurs missions were hidden in "Covert Operations" (French :
"Operations Survie"), the add-on for the original C&C (called today "C&C
Tiberium Dawn" / "C&C Le Conflit du Tiberium"). (To be opposed to the
subtitle of C&C II which is supposed to be something like "Tiberian Sun"
/ "Soleil Tiberien").
These missions deal with giants ants attacking the human race and, of
course, it is up to you (who else ?) to stop them.
Unlike the dino missions, you can not play ants in a fifth level as you
could play dinosaurs in "Covert Operations".
2) WHAT MUST YOU GET TO PLAY THE SECRET GIANT ANTS MISSIONS ?
-------------------------------------------------------------
You must have :
- The full game COMMAND & CONQUER "RED ALERT" (Alerte Rouge)
- The official add-on pack COUNTERSTRIKE (Missions Taiga) released on the
end of March 1997 / April 1997
- The same equipment as for playing Red Alert
- And the secret way to unlock them... (see just below !)
3) ***** FOR GOD'S SAKE HOW DO I UNLOCK THESE SECRET MISSIONS ? *****
---------------------------------------------------------------------
OK. You have not to launch the game with a special option like in "Covert
Operations" (the -funpark option on the command line).
JUST DO THE FOLLOWING :
- On the main menu screen, locate a circular form in the upper right
corner which is supposed to be a sort of loudspeaker.
- Press the left shift key AND left click at the same time in the center
of the supposed loudspeaker.
- That's done ! A menu appears asking you to select a difficulty level
for the giant ants missions. Note that this menu DO NOT mention you
have unlocked some special "ants" missions.
4) WHAT HAPPENS NEXT...
-----------------------
After selecting a difficulty level, you will see a video in the style of
old horror or SF movies of the fifties, with the camera slowly climbing a
huge ant-hill at the top of which "something" is moving, getting out of
the pit. A giant ant suddenly appears immediately followed by an old-
fashioned drawn horror movie title "IT CAME FROM RED ALERT" (French :
Echappees d'Alerte Rouge - Escaped from Red Alert). Like in the old B-
series movie "It came from outer space".
Then you'll have to complete 4 missions, with no cut-scenes between them
:(
You'll only have the briefing screen telling you what your next mission
is. But, at the end of the fourth and last mission, you'll see a short
video of the collapsing Queen-ant you have just defeated :)
5) WHAT WILL THE INSTALLATION OF COUNTERSTRIKE DO TO MY ALREADY INSTALLED
GAME ?
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This is not a general COUNTERSTRIKE info file but note the following.
The installation upgrades your versions of the games files automatically
and gives you one hundred multiplayers maps as a bonus. Flawless.
It also upgrades the files of Westwood Chat.
It gives you the ability to save multiplayers games at last ! :) But not
if you play over the Internet :( Only modem and local network games.
It changes some things in multiplayer mode (no more alliance possible
with the computer opponent ; more randomly chosen starting points ; etc.)
It gives you new units (for certain Counterstrike missions only), more on
that later.
It gives you the opportunity to play sometimes with both Allied and
Russian technologies.
See the readme file in the root directory of the COUNTERSTRIKE CD.
6) WHERE DOES THAT STRANGE IDEA OF GIANT ANTS COME FROM ? (SUPPOSITION)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe I am mistaking but I suspect someone at Westwood's to be a fan of
old horror movies and especially one called "THEM". (Listen to the noise
of the old projector during the final video).
"THEM" is an old black and white film dealing with an invasion of giant
ants created by the US nuclear experiments in the desert during WW II.
In the first part of the movie, you witness some devastated housings in
the desert and night attacks by nearly invisible creatures making strange
noises. Finally, the giant ants appear and the war begins ; some
characters even follow them deep into the ant-hill.
The giant ants of "THEM", while really tough contenders, are very
sensitive to fire and flame-throwers, and also to machine guns and
bullets if you aim at their antennas. So are the ants of COUNTERSTRIKE...
(except you can't target their antennas only in the game).
In "THEM" the first colony is finally destroyed but, a short time after,
the corpses of some flying ants are discovered : some creatures escaped
and are now hiding under the cities of man, in the sewers or the
underground tunnels, with a new queen producing larvae... The last
victory will belong, anyway, to the human kind.
Are you able to bring such a happy end to the ants missions in
COUNTERSTRIKE ?
Of course, Westwood people may have been freely inspired by a lot of
other movies of that time where big funky beasts were many.
In COUNTERSTRIKE, you finally discover the Queen-ant in a Russian base
equipped with toxic gas traps in order to kill ants. That makes one think
that Westwood's giant ants are the result of a soviet experiment that
went wrong.
7) NEW UNITS AND STRUCTURES IN THE GIANT ANTS MISSIONS AND SOME TACTICAL
TIPS ABOUT THEM
------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1) HUMAN SIDE (UNFORTUNATELY YOURS !) :
You play under the color of the good old GDI (approximately tan) with
units that are a mix of Allied and Russian vehicles and men. For the game
engine your are house SPECIAL that can use both technologies (there is
one new multiplayer map you can play as house Special). You CANNOT access
a really high technology level during the ants mission, due to Westwood's
will. You have NO aircraft or choppers ! In one mission (#3) you will
discover a nearly destroyed Russian base that is red colored as usual. By
seizing over some buildings you may acquire the ability to produce some
other Russian units, mainly heavy tanks and yak planes (more on this
later).
STAVROS : appears only in ants mission 4. Remember the always smiling
General Stavros ? He is now with you on the field (the character is also
used in a normal mission in COUNTERSTRIKE). Stavros behaves roughly like
the commando of the original C&C or Tanya in RED ALERT. He moves quite
fast and uses a powerful gun but not with a very long range. He has no C4
(explosives) ability like Tanya and the C&C commando. He is more
resistant than any soldier of yours. The great thing is Stavros reacts
automatically to close threats and shoot the enemy without you ordering
to, at the opposite of the commando or Tanya (except if directly
attacked).
Stavros cannot be "built" so you have to keep him in good condition with
a medic. Remember that a medic cannot cure himself but two medics can
cure each other ! So heal your wounded medics by bringing them close
together !
Stavros is really efficient against ants (he probably aim at the antennas
!), especially if he has been upgraded by the contents of crates (there
are several powerup crates in ants mission 4). He is even more efficient
than a group of grenadiers or a mammoth tank on all ants !
Unfortunately, Stavros is a bit fragile to fight directly warrior and
fire ants (mind these ones !), and can be killed easily by these nasty
beasts. He can also be killed easily by a group of ordinary
reckon/workers ants. So, protect him and always make a diversion when
attacking groups of ants or a fire ant with him. And, of course, learn to
retreat when necessary !
CIVILIAN SPECIALIST (FLY-TOX MAN) : appears only in ants mission 3. More
friendly called Fly-tox (well, ant-tox) man by me. This is a civil
technician, dressed in white, behaving roughly like Einstein and as weak.
But he is the ONLY way to destroy ant-hills and he is 100% efficient.
Just a small group of Fly-tox men is given to you and you CANNOT "build"
them, so mind !
To destroy a ant-hill, just order him to go to the center of the ant-hill
(the others units cannot go there). When he reaches the ant-hill some
toxic gas is immediately released (sort of green smoke) and the ant-hill
will never produce ants again. Some ants will get out but will die
immediately. More : if some ants come close to the neutralised ant-hill,
they drop dead ! Isn't science great ?
The Fly-tox man can be killed easily by any sort of ant, so you must
cover him with other units when attacking ant-hills.
Note : due to what is probably a bug, I experienced a strange thing. Just
at the moment my Fly-tox man neutralised the ant-hill, one of my units
was fighting, to protect him, with a warrior ant which was at that time
on the ant-hill. It destroyed my unit but the Fly-tox man completed his
job. Nevertheless the warrior ant remained on the neutralised ant-hill
unaffected by the green gas. I had to send another unit to force the
warrior ant to move. At the very time it stepped on the field near the
ant-hill, it died !
7.2) ANTS SIDE (UNFORTUNATELY THEIRS !) :
There are mainly 3 sorts of ants (plus the queen), each of them with
special abilities. Unfortunately there are no flying ants. :(
ANT-HILL (French : foumilliere) :
It is not really a structure but a piece of terrain, so you cannot
destroy it with weapons.
It produces ants in big numbers as long it is not neutralised by the Fly-
tox man.
SCOUT ANT (French : Fourmi de reconnaissance) :
- Color : brown
- Color on radar screen : same as your own units (damned !),
approximately tan
- Armor : the weakest of all ants but quite comparable to a ranger armor
- Abilities : ant bite, with formic acid probably because it can reach
its target over a concrete wall (good protection anyway) at about as
far as one "square"
- Available in ants missions : 1, 2, and 4 (don't remember one in mission
3)
The basic ant but able to fight with a good efficiency so don't count it
out ! A small group can easily tear your ore truck or even a mammoth tank
into pieces ! It is fortunately not too hard to kill :) But bad news : it
must be a sort of spy-ant because, on the radar screen, it appears to be
the same color as your units :(
This means that when hearing the dreaded message "Base under attack"
(French : "Notre base est attaquee"), you cannot locate the enemy units
immediately by looking at the colors on the radar screen. You have to
guess where they can be by their movements or number, or jump very fast
from a part of your base to another until you find them. And believe me,
they work fast.
Worse : on the radar screen you may not see them coming and attack your
ore truck or units.
WARRIOR ANT (French : Fourmi guerriere) :
- Color : red (not to be confounded with the bright red of the Fire ants,
or you're dead !)
- Color on radar screen : same
- Armor : good, seems better than the reckon ant
- Abilities : as the reckon ant but stronger.
- Available in ants missions : 2, 3, and 4
Believe me or not (and in that case, you won't live long), a single
warrior ant may destroy a mammoth tank, and two will surely destroy it.
Same for the ore truck. NEVER let a warrior ant get close to your ore
truck or mammoth tank. (Well, this will happen to you anyway.)
Strangely I noticed that it seems a simple medium tank is more resistant
to the attack of a warrior ant than a mammoth (or at least as resistant
as) .... !? I have to experiment further on this... and hack the game
files !
Warrior ants are the main component of mission 3 and you are really going
to see a lot of them at that time ! Don't say I did not warn you.
FIRE ANT (French : Fourmi lance-flammes) :
- Color : bright (fire) red, sort of orange
- Color on radar screen : same
- Armor : certainly good. Hard to say at that time if better than the
warrior ant's, because when facing the fire ant you have not a lot of
time to experiment. I'll get back on this question and then update this
file.
- Abilities : throw flames that put the flame tower of RA and the flame
tank of the Nod (in C&C) to shame. Impressive and deadly. Good range.
Very efficient against men (including Stavros) and fine against
vehicles and structures. A single fire ant has very easily and quickly
destroyed a half-condition mammoth tank in mission 4 without taking
serious damage.
- Available in ants missions : 1 (only one or two I believe), 2, and 4
(the main cause of failing mission 4). Don't remember one in mission 3.
Fortunately, fire ants are not numerous in the game but you must learn to
distinguish them from the warrior ants because their fire spray is really
deadly, with an area effect. Do not use grouped soldiers to attack them
as a single fire ant can sweep out a group of 3 to 5 soldiers very
easily, sometimes with only one hit (don't forget that grenadiers and
flame-throwers men explode when dying and hurt or kill their buddies).
Instead, spread your forces and attack from different points ; protect
Stavros if you use him to attack a fire ant ; retreat very fast if
necessary (not sure you'll have the time to save your units !).
Good tactics : make a diversion even by sacrificing a man and attack the
fire ant at the time it is aiming at the poor guy ; better : try to see
if you can blast some barrels to kill the fire ant. (In ants mission 4,
this is the better way to kill a very annoying fire ant waiting for you
near the upper left corner of the big Tesla Coil room.)
LARVA (French : "larve" but kept as "larva" in the captions of the French
version of the game) :
- Aspect : no ant, just a cocoon
- Color : white
- Color on radar screen : no radar on mission 4 where larvae are
- Armor : none or quite none, very weak
- Abilities : none. Waits to be destroyed but generally well protected by
elder sisters ! Explodes when hit, may harm. Larvae are not sensitive
to toxic gas ; must do the job yourself.
- Available in ants missions : 4 only
Nothing to say : don't get too close then just shoot and have fun ! But
mind : guardians are surely not far...
QUEEN ANT (French : Reine des Fourmis)
- Aspect : red ant with distended abdomen
- Color : red
- Color on radar screen : no radar on mission 4 where the Queen is
- Armor : good. Have to experiment again on this
- Abilities : sort of biological, weaker, Tesla Coil incorporated !
Cannot move (at least in level 4).
- Available in ants missions : 4 only
Hi mum ! There is only one ; it cannot move and, despite a respectable
armor, this end-of-the-game boss monster is not really hard to kill and
will not throw fireballs at you either :) It prefers using its own Tesla
Coil on your remainning forces! And sh*t ! :(
This power makes the Queen able to kill instantly any soldier (Stavros
can be a little bit more resistant), or terminate quite easily a mammoth
tank. But the discharge seems to be weaker than the one of the Tesla Coil
structure ; in fact, it looks like the electric flash of the new
Counterstrike Tesla tank.
Advice : kill all others guarding ants, do not waste time on larvae, then
attack it with all units, sacrificing one or two just to let you hit the
beast while it is reloading its condensers ! Or make the mammoth tank go
forward to distract the Queen.
8) THE NEW COUNTERSTRIKE UNITS AND STRUCTURES YOU WILL NOT FIND IN THE
GIANT ANTS MISSIONS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Counterstrike provides some new units and structures you'll discover
along the non-secret missions but that are NOT used in the ants missions.
Just for your information, here they are :
English French Comments
--------------------------------------------------------------
ATS SMTA Advanced Russian submarine
Tesla tank Tank Tesla Small, not as well armored as heavy
tanks but with a weaker version of
the Tesla Coil !
Volkov Volkov Russian super soldier, sort of cyborg
with internal armor, nearly
indestructible, fast, with a super-
gun able to kill any soldier with one
shot and even to destroy tanks with
some
Chitkoi Cyber-chien Ever spawned Cujo add-on in Quake ?
This nice bloody dog fighting on your
side ? Well, Chitkoi is Cujo's
family. Super dog, extremely tough,
with a super jump ability. Can tear
a full squad of soldiers into
piecies without serious damage on its
side. Good dog ! Play dead !
FAL Longbow HAA Helicoptere
d'assaut An advanced version of the Apache
avance Longbow
Alloy facility Usine
metallurgique
Plus : Allies have captured migs and turned them into atomic bombers...
and you play that mission on the Russian side :(
9) THE UNITS YOU CAN USE IN EACH OF THE GIANT ANTS MISSIONS
-----------------------------------------------------------
You will be able to use the following units during the four ants missions
(French translation of names, see below the table) :
Ants
Mission # Men Vehicles Structures
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
1 Rifle Infantry Ranger Supplied (no
Grenadier Mine layer Construction
Engineer (anti vehicle : yard) * :
Bazooka works fine Refinery
Medic against ants) Barracks
Ore Truck War factory
Camouflaged
pillbox
Power plant
Service Depot
Radar Dome
Silo
Concrete walls
.......................................................................
2 Same as #1 Same as #1 plus : Construction yard
Medium tank (MCV)
APC PLUS : all remaining
structures of # 1
BUILDABLE :
all # 1 structures
plus :
Turrets
AA Gun (no need)
Shipyard (no need)
.......................................................................
3 Same as #2 Same as #2 plus : Same as #2 plus :
plus : Mammoth Tank Advanced Power plant
Civilian V2 rocket launcher
Specialist Gunboat
(Fly-tox man) Destroyer
Transport
+ IF you take the
Russian abandoned
buildings :
Heavy tank
Yak plane
Paratroopers
ParaBombs
.......................................................................
4 Supplied : Supplied : NO structures
Stavros 1 mammoth (Inside base mission)
Bunch of in reinforcements 1 Tesla Coil
Rifle Infantry after entering activated by a
Grenadiers, a certain room control panel to find
Flame-throwers, Gas traps to kill ants
Bazookas,
Medics
.......................................................................
* All the supplied structures in Mission 1 are badly damaged at the
beginning of the level.
(FRENCH NAMES : Pillbox / Camouflaged pillbox : bunker / bunker camoufle
; turret : tourelle ; refinery : raffinerie ; war factory : usine
d'armement ; Service depot : centre de services ; Power plant / Advanced
PP : centrale electrique / CE avancee ; Tesla Coil : Bobine de Tesla ;
Barracks : caserne ; Radar dome : Dome radar ; Concrete walls : murs de
beton ; Rifle Infantry : mitrailleurs ; Grenadiers : grenadiers ;
bazookas : bazookas ; medic : medecin ; engineer : ingenieur ; Civilian
specialist ~ Fly-tox man : specialiste civil ; Flame-throwers ~ Flame
Infantry : infanterie lance-flammes ; Ranger : ranger ; APC : VBT ;
Medium tank : tank moyen ; Heavy tank : tank lourd ; Mammoth tank : tank
mammouth ; Ore truck : collecteur de minerai ; Mine-layer : poseur de
mines ; V2 rocket launcher : lance-roquette V2 ; Gunboat : aviso-
torpilleur ; Destroyer : Contre-torpilleur ; Paratroopers : parachutistes
; Parabombs : parabombes)
You WILL NOT have access to high technology levels and very advanced
structures and units, nor to some basics elements : Tanya, Tesla Coils,
Flame towers, Chronosphere, Missile silo, Gap generators, Iron Curtain,
planes and choppers, Technical centers.
10) THE ANTS MISSIONS STRATEGY GUIDE
------------------------------------
10.1) FOREWORD AND GENERAL TIPS :
During all the four ants missions you will have limited means, except on
mission 3 where things are a bit better.
Note the following tips :
- All ants can be killed by a single mine. So protect your base with
mines. Let a tortuous passage for your ore trucks and other vehicles, so
the ants cannot take it by chance.
- The mine-layer can be easily destroyed by ants while doing its job and
they may be nearer than you think, so take care. It needs about 2 to 3
hits for a warrior ant to destroy a mine-layer, and a fire ant can do the
job in one or 2 hits.
- Ants seem to be quite sensitive to the machines guns of the pillboxes,
rangers, VPC, and even rifle infantry in groups. Two (big) machines guns
are often more efficient than two tanks !
- But rangers and VPC are very vulnerable to ants, especially warrior
ants and flame ants.
- Ants are sensitive to fire. Flame infantry soldiers are fine but can
burn their friends or hurt them when they die and explode.
- Ants are too fast for V2 rockets. Use them only on still ants and,
better, still ants concentrations.
- Ants often attack smartly (at least they seem to) : they target your
Service depot (because they "know" you need it to reload the mine layers
?), Refinery (often first building attacked in Mission 1), War factory,
unless they are stopped or distracted by a defensive structure or unit.
- To overcome a warrior ant with medium tanks without important damage,
you need 3 medium tanks. You can do the job with two if you lead well
your tanks but they will be damaged. With one tank, you need to be really
good at maneuvring and to have really nothing else to do on the field.
- Don't rely on mammoth tanks alone : ants are very good at attacking and
destroying them in about fifteen seconds. A mammoth tank attacked by two
warriors or more is a dead tank ; by one warrior ant it may become a dead
tank too if you let it fight on its own and/or alone.
- Same advice for ore trucks : ants love attacking them and are as
efficient at destroying them as they are with the mammoth tanks.
- A good combination for fighting ants may be medium tanks plus rangers
or VPC. The tanks and theirs cannons stop the ant while the machine guns
kill it. Use one/two tanks and two to four machine guns vehicles. Keep
rangers and VPC out of the reach of ants. You will not have a better
result by engaging four to five tanks. The basic brown ants can be killed
quite quickly by only two rangers if you keep your distance.
- A group of rifle infantry can be efficient against a scout ant
especially if you surround it. It is less obvious (but possible) with a
warrior ant, and quite dangerous with fire ants.
- Pillboxes are a better defense than turrets. Eventually use some
turrets to attract the ants' attention while the pillboxes do their job.
- Ants can attack through concrete walls but it seems walls protect
partially the structures and units behind them. (To be verified).
GREAT : Due to a stupidity in the C&C Red Alert engine, pillboxes can
shoot through concrete walls while being protected by them. Turrets
cannot and destroy the walls of their own base ! (Like in C&C). It is
probably because pillboxes use the part of the engine that was used for
guard towers in C&C, and guard towers were supposed to be higher than
walls ! So place your most exposed pillboxes behind walls ! (This work
fine in all RA et Counterstrike missions.)
- If you can build Russian heavy tanks in Mission 3 by seizing the
Russian abandoned factory, they do a better job against ants than medium
tanks (more firepower) and maybe even the mammoth ones.
- One or (better) two long range destroyers (sorry, no cruisers) can
clear some parts of the map in mission 3 without any possible strike back
from the ants.
- In mission 3, place walls, buildings, units, and/or mines in such
positions that the ants have to go near the first neutralised ant-hill
(near the water) and the gas. This will kill them immediately, as a
perfect defense structure. Far in the battlefield, try to attract ants
near a neutralised ant-hill and its gas.
- When destroying ant-hills with the Fly-tox man, send units to protect
him and distract the ants. Mind : some ants may go out just at the moment
the Fly-tox man arrives near the ant-hill.
- Some ants stay still all the time. Don't ask me why !
10.2) MISSION 1 :
Warning : missions 1 and 2 are linked and use the "inherit" function of
the C&C engine. That means all the structures and units you have at the
end of mission 1 will be there, at your disposal, at the beginning of
mission 2. If you have lost the major parts of your base in mission 1 you
are in big trouble to succeed in mission 2 ! You have already seen this
"inherit" function operating in the first missions of Red Alert on the
Allies side : remember, the first base you built was available for a
later mission. But, as you cannot be aware of this, you may have the good
idea to sell all your units and structures in order to (maybe) get some
more money for the next mission, or simply concentrate on fulfilling a
very precise mission and neglect the status of your base at the end of
the level. So I believe the programmers of linked levels should
absolutely warn the players of the existing links.
The lost base you have to find is in the middle of the map. It has no
less than 4 ways in (allies architects are really stupid), north, east,
south, west, plus destroyed walls in the north-east (radar dome) and
south-west (service depot) ! All buildings are in terrible condition.
You are given a ranger and four rifle infantry. Do not take the first
road to the east. Follow the road to the north. Send your men on the
second road to the east, so they reach the base. From this moment you'll
have a lot of things to do fast and simultaneously.
Continue with the ranger to the north and cross the river. Just after it,
locate some barrels and a pump a little bit at east of your position.
Blow the barrels. A money crate appears. Take it. Do not get back to the
base, continue east (you'll run just "above" the base) and you reveal an
ore field. Before reaching a small bridge, turn south to enter the base.
You can blow the bridge by making some barrels explode. Do it, it seems
to be a bit better during the future fights if the bridge is destroyed.
Once the ranger in the base, position it at the western gate, and protect
the refinery.
While doing all this with the ranger, take your four men in the base by
following the road as said above. The base area is revealed at the moment
they reach the western (refinery) gate and a countdown of the time you
have to resist begins. Immediately put all the buildings in repair mode
except the ore silo you can sell because you are unlikely to spare a lot
of money in mission 1 and it uses energy. You may wait a little for
repairing the radar dome, it will not be attacked immediately.
Place 3 men at the western gate near the refinery where you'll place the
ranger too. The first brown ant will soon come from the west and attack
the refinery that can be easily destroyed at that time. If you lose the
refinery, you may as well abort the mission.
Send the fourth man out by the south gate ; blow the barrels just near
the wall and take the money crate that appears. Make your man move a bit
to the east to discover a small ore field just under your service depot.
Immediately send your ore truck there.
Notice the shape of the ore field : a small stripe along your base, then
a narrow passage to a circular ore zone in the south, and again a narrow
passage that leads from this circular zone to the south of the map. Ants
will come that way to attack the ore truck and the service depot. You'll
have to mine the first narrow passage as fast as possible, leaving a way
for your truck but not for the ants (mine tricky !)
Once energy has reached a good level, begin the production of your first
vehicle that should be a ranger to face the first attacks. You'll have to
move quickly your rangers to help pillboxes destroying the incoming ants.
It is no use to begin producing a ranger immediately when energy is low
because of the way the C&C game engine works. The construction speed
depends on the status of your base (energy, condition of the factory) at
the moment the construction begins. If the status is bad at the beginning
and gets better during the construction, there will be no benefit : the
speed will remain as slow (the next construction, of course, will be
faster). At the opposite, if you begin a construction with a base in full
condition and if this condition gets worse during the construction, this
one will be nevertheless completed at the same fast speed (but the next
one will be much slower).
For mission 1 that means you can have a ranger faster by waiting the good
moment to begin the construction than by starting it when the base is
nearly destroyed. Experiment !
You'll get some reinforcements by Chinook in the first minutes. No more
after.
From this moment, play defensive and keep on producing units : they will
all be there, ready for mission 2, if not destroyed. Repair the radar
dome. Protect it with units (attacks will come at the end of the level).
If you use mines there, do not place them to close to the dome.
After one or two rangers, produce a mine layer and a second as soon as
possible. Produce men to fight along with rangers and pillboxes. Protect
the service depot at all price. Get rid of the ants in the little
circular southern ore field and mine its two narrow passages.
The second attack will probably come from the east (sometimes north),
then south and north (against the factory or the pillbox). Mine the
eastern access : the ants come mainly along the rocky crest. Mine the
northern access. At last, use some forces to clear the western
neighbourhood and mine the road you followed at the beginning just at the
level of a small house near your western gate. Mine between the house and
the rocks at the east : ants come that way but your ore trucks will drive
to the ore field of the west between the house and the western rocks. You
may not believe there is a passage here but there is one !
Build ore trucks (2 or 3), protect them well. Do not hesitate to bring
them back to the base, attracting ants into your mines fields. And
produce, produce, produce. Attack ants with several vehicles at the same
time.
So, you must reach the end of mission 1 with a base in perfect condition
and a good number of units.
10.3) MISSION 2 :
You get a MCV, 2 medium tanks and all you have at the end of mission 1.
The map is the same as in mission 1 but now larger, with news zones
including two villages and... a nasty ant-hill infecting all the region
and able to overcome your forces.
Deploy your MCV in the middle of the base. It is a good idea to add one
turret near each of the pillboxes, so turrets will stop the ants while
the pillboxes will fire at them. Keep on mining the access of your base
and some ants pathways.
You must evacuate civilians of the two villages to a safe place. A
transport waits at the north-east to bring them across a river. Place it
in the middle of the river so ants cannot damage it. The first village is
right east of your base. Quite easy. The second one is north-east near
the ant-hill. Harder.
Explore the map but don't enter the villages until you are ready to
evacuate people because civilians will rush out of their homes and will
become preys for the ants.
You have no Fly-tox man to neutralise the ant-hill but it is fortunately
located on a small island with three bridges (west, east, north). Destroy
the bridges and you'll stop the invasion. Grenadiers and bazookas can do
the job but, due to the number of ants on and near the island, the risk
is they don't leave long enough to complete their job. The better idea is
to use tanks by six or more to blow the bridges. Send the tanks to one
bridge at a time, with some other units to distract the ants. Concentrate
fire on the bridge even if you see some tanks are going to be destroyed.
There is no elegant solution there : you must blow the bridges, every
unit is dispensable. It seems better to blow first the western bridge,
then the eastern one, then again the one in the north.
Once you did this, build new forces and clear the way for civilians (you
don't need to kill all the ants to win). Go to the villages, take the
civilians, bring them to the transport and then across the north-west
river to the safe building.
10.4) MISSION 3 :
Numbers and marks refer to the great ASCII-art map below ;)
Warning : if you read the following and so know what to do, this mission
becomes quite easy.
SYMBOLIC AND APPROXIMATIVE MAP FOR ANTS MISSION 3 (THE BIG ONE)
---------------------------------------------------------------
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
o WWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RRR .. o
o WWWWWWWWWWWWWW R 7 R . o
o WWWWWWWWWWWWW R ## R . o
o WWWWWWWWWWW RR R ## R . R o
o WWWWWWWWWW R R . RRR R o
o WWWWWW RRRRRRRRRRR . R R o
o ## =========== . RRR R o
o ## Abandonned= . o
o 9 Russian = .................. o
o Base 8 = . . Destroyed o
o============== = . . Village o
o = = . WWWWW . o
o . WWWWWWWWWW . o
o . WWWWWWWWWWWWWW . o
o . WWWW WWW . R o
o WWWW WWW . R o
o Big Ore Field WWW WWW . RRRRR . RRRRRRo
o WWW RRRRRRRRR WWW . .... o
o WWW R R WWW . .RRRR o
o WWW R R WWW . .RRRR o
o WWW R ## R WWW . . o
o WWW R ## R WWW . . o
o WWW 10 WWW . o
o WWW . Big o
o RRRR WWW . Ore field o
o R WWW . o
o 11 R WWW . o
o ## R R WWW . o
o ## RR R WWW . RRRRRRR o
o RRR R WWW . RRRRRRR o
o WWW . RRRRRRR o
o Big Ore Field WWW . RRRRRRR o
o WWW .. RRRRRRR o
o W RR WWW 5. RRRRRRR 6 o
o W RR WWW . o
o RR WWW ## . o
o RR WWW ##.... o
oWWWWWWWWWWWW RR 14 WWW 2 .... o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR .......... Starting o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RRRRRRRRRR 3 Point S o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW ...13 WWW o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR ....... WWW . 1 RRRRRRRo
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR .. RR . WWW . o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR .. RR . WWW . R o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR 12 .. RR ......... R o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR ## .. RR 4 R ORE o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR ## RR WWW R FIELD o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR WWW R o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR WWW R o
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
LEGENDS
-------
##
## Ant-hill S Starting Point
R Main rocks (impassable) 1-12 Marks
W Water (impassable) = Walls russian base
.... Main attack paths of ants
You have a MCV, 2 medium tanks, 2 mammoth tanks. Reinforcements of
various soldiers will come after you settled a base, and Fly-tox men just
after again.
You begin nearly in the south-west corner (S). There is a well protected
ore field just south of your starting point. Settle your base in 1 to
have easy access to this field while protecting it from incursions of
ants.
Face the first attacks with your tanks (mind : warriors ants are perfect
mammoth tank killers).
Reinforce a bit your base with camouflaged pillboxes, mainly to face the
attacks coming by fords 3 and 4 and also ant-hill 2 and passage 5. When
you can, protect pillboxes with concrete walls (they can shoot through !)
even it is not a perfect protection against ants.
As soon as you can without major danger, neutralise ant-hill 2 with one
Fly-tox man. Covert him well during the operation.
Scout with some (lost) men during this time.
Mine the land near fords 3 and 4, then on passage 5 from which many ants
will come. Mine passage 6 a bit (not useful). Ants guarding the fords
will attack mine-layers if you're not careful.
Great tip : construct walls so you force the attacking ants to go near
the neutralised ant-hill 2. Gas will kill them immediately ! Worth the
money.
Build an attack force to escort 2 Fly-Tox men (in case you lost one) and
neutralise ant-hill 7 in the north : a lot of your problems come from it.
Harvest the big ore field north of your base.
You may build a shipyard near ant-hill 2 and one or two destroyers, so
you can wipe out ants around ant-hill 10 in the middle of the map. Sorry,
NO cruiser !
Seize the abandoned Russian base 8 in the north-west with engineers. No
Russian resistance, all killed by ants. But neutralise the ant-hill 9 in
the base. Mind : ants will attack the taken buildings, especially the war
factory.
Now you can build heavy tanks that are more efficient against ants. Yak
are quite useless. You have also paratroopers and dropped bombs (use them
only on large concentrations of still ants like around ant-hill 12).
Neutralise ant-hill 10 after clearing the way with your destroyers or
units. You can send the Fly-tox man from the Russian base, or by passing
ford 3.
Neutralise ant-hill 11. Then slaughter the ants around ant-hill 12
(normally a lot of still ants). You can do this by blocking passages in
13 and 14 with tanks and machine guns vehicles (behind tanks), and use V2
launchers to crush the insects.
Neutralise ant-hill 12, then clear the field if necessary. You've won !
(Another solution is to progress from the south after having neutralised
ant-hill 7 ; in that case, you seize the Russian base at the end.)
10.5) MISSION 4 :
This is an inside building "puzzle" mission. The hardest thing is to find
what to do and the order to do it. Warning : so, if you read the
following the mission will become so simple that you will nearly be able
to complete it with Stavros alone protected by 2 medics and some
soldiers.
Numbers and marks refer to this great new ASCII-art map below. (OK, I
swear I'll upgrade this file if I can one day in HTML format with GIFs
and JPEGs !)
SYMBOLIC AND APPROXIMATIVE MAP FOR ANTS MISSION 4
(THE INSIDE BUILDING ONE)
-------------------------------------------------
Reinforcements
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH 15a HHHH 13HHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH HHHH HHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHH 15 14 11 10 HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHH HHHH 12 HHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH 15b HHHH HHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHH 9 HHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH HHH HHHHHHHHH HHH 3 HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH HHH HHHHHHHHHHH HHH 2 HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHH HHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHH 16 HH HHHHHHHHHHH 7 HHH Tesla HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHH HH HHHHHHHHHHH HHH T Coil HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH HHH HHHHHHHHHHH HHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHH HHH H H H
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHH HHH 1 S H
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHH 6 H
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHH HH HHHHH H H H
HHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHH HHHHHHHHH HH HHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH H HHHHHHH HH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHH 17 H 8 HHHHHHH HH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHH 18 HHHHHH HHHHHHH HH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH HHHHHH HHHHHHH 4 HH 5 HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHH HH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHH HH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
LEGENDS
-------
S Starting Point T Tesla Coil (friendly)
1-18 Marks H Base Walls
You start with Stavros, 5 rifle infantry, 2 medics, 8 flame infantry, 4
grenadiers, and 5 bazookas : much more than in any inside buildings
mission in R.A. You will receive a new medic and some new men, then a
mammoth tank as reinforcements at point 10 when you enter some rooms
later. :)
Huh ! Ants will receive reinforcements too ! :(
Until you've found the good power switch, your vision is limited : if one
of your units leaves a place, this one gets dark again.
Two soldiers of another house open the way... let them do... maybe they
will make the barrels explode and kill the two ants coming your way.. If
not, kill the scout ants in the corridor by blowing the barrels without
moving any of your units.
The best idea is to take Stavros as main unit. Assign him a number, so
you can easily come back to him (Select Stavros then CTRL + number) Make
a medic escort him (select medic then CTRL-ALT click on Stavros). Make
the second medic escort the first medic so they will cure each other and
Stavros too. Make one or two rifle men, one grenadier and one bazooka
escort Stavros too. Avoid flame infantry because if a flame soldier is
killed near Stavros he can harm him a lot at a bad moment.
Create a second group of about 3-4 soldiers including 2-3 flame-throwers
; use it to support Stavros in critical situations (mind not to burn
Stavros yourself !).
Take 2 soldiers to scout the areas before stepping too much forward with
Stavros.
If you are not sure of yourself, attack ants with some soldiers and then
finish the job with Stavros.
Blow all barrels you see : ants will be blown away if near. Blow larvae
too : they can hurt you if they explode.
Go through room 1 to the entrance of the big room 2. You'll encounter
probably two scout ants on the way. Send a soldier along the wall to
control panel 3. This activates a friendly Tesla Coil in the middle of
the room 2. The Coil secures the area by killing incoming ants.
Blow carefully all the barrels in south of room 2. Then go to room 4
where the power switch is. The room is protected by one scout ant in the
little corridor and one steady at the switch.
Once you have turned power on, go room 5 and take the two powerup crates
(better armor, better firepower).
Blow the remaining barrels in room 2. Mind : there is a deadly fire ant
at point 9 ; you will attack it on its back later by corridor 7. Just
before point 9 you can kill the still scout ant.
Go to corridor 6 ; some ants will probably come from corridor 7 and room
8 at the same time. Kill them, retreating a bit if necessary. Take
corridor 7. Carefully approach point 9 where the fire ant stays still.
Blow the barrels behind the crate to kill it. Take the powerup crate.
Get back to room 8 : harder work there. Do not rush into : a fire ant
will go forward and attack you, then will get back to its position at the
center of the room so you cannot attract it in the corridor ; kill ants
one after one. Distract the fire ant with some units while Stavros kill
it. At the west of room 8 the way is cut by boxes. On the other side is
the room with the evil Queen-ant but you must walk around to get there.
Go in the corridor just under point 11. Blow the barrel at the entrance
of corridor and kill the scout ant waiting for you at point 10. Take the
powerup crate. Notice the entrance just north : your reinforcements will
arrive this way and ants' ones too !
Cross corridor 11 to room 12. Warning : as soon as you enter the room
ants reinforcements (2 fire ants and 3 warriors) arrive by point 10,
rushing to you while 3 other warriors come by corridor 14. So RUSH
yourself to control panel 13 : this will activate the green toxic gas in
room 12 and immediately kill all attacking ants. Just station your units
at the middle of the north wall and see ants dying. Do not fight if not
necessary.
At this time you will receive a new medic and new men at point 10. Take
them with you in room 12.
Enter corridor 14. You will receive a mammoth tank at point 10. Get back
to room 12 and take the tank with you.
Room 15 is full of warriors ants and larvae. The great tip is to kill
carefully the first ants then send a few units (or the tank) along the
north wall to blow the barrel at point 15A. This will cause a major
explosion of all barrels around the devices at the extremity of the room
and a (slow) release of gas that will kill all the ants in this area (not
the larvae). Take the powerup crate at the extremity of the room point
15B.
Go to room 16. Mind : there is a fire ant somewhere ! Eliminate the
warrior ants or they will come after you when you enter room 17.
Proceed carefully with room 17, do not rush into, kill ants one after
one. Mind : if you go further than the middle of the room you are in
range of the Queen's biological Tesla Coil !
Once all ants are dead, gather your forces to attack the Ant Queen.
That's easy : send two or three units forward to distract the queen and
massively attack it while it is "reloading". You can also blow the
barrels just behind it to help you killing the beast. The best way is to
distract the Queen with the mammoth tank that can handle some electrical
hits before being destroyed.
That's all. Clear the remaining larvae if any. You've completed the
secret giant ants missions. You've got the Fly-tox Oscar for life
achievement !
You can watch the video of the dying Queen Ant with the bakground noise
of an old movie projector.
***********************************************************************
COMING SOON (I HOPE) : AN HTML VERSION OF THIS FILE WITH PICTURES, TRUE
TABLES, TYPOGRAPHIC ENHANCEMENTS, ETC., UNDER THE FORM OF A MINI(?) WEB
SITE YOU CAN DOWNLOAD TO YOUR HARD DISK AND VIEW/PRINT WITH YOUR BROWSER
Files will be zipped and you will need Pkzip for Windows or Winzip
(shareware at least) to unzip them,
or compatible unzipping Windows or Dos software.
This Shareware is freely downloadable on the Web :
http://www.pkware.com
http://www.winzip.com
Remember to register useful shareware !
***********************************************************************
END OF FILE
TO SEE / PRINT CORRECTLY THE TABLES AND THE ASCII MAPS OF THIS FILE YOU
MUST USE A NON PROPORTIONAL FONT SUCH AS COURIER (SUPPLIED WITH WINDOWS)
AND SET THE MARGINS AT 75 CARACTERS PER LINE.
A GOOD IDEA IS TO ISOLATE THE TABLES AND MAPS ON SINGLE PAGES.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
RED ALERT "COUNTERSTRIKE"
(For Europe : "MISSIONS TAIGA")
********************************
* A GUIDE BOOK *
TO
THE SECRET GIANT ANTS MISSIONS
(and the secret "code" to unlock them)
With the description of new units and new structures
(Small part of the Red Alert in-depth Guide Book I am writing)
********************************
* English version 1.00 / April 10th 1997 *
* French version to be released soon *
* VERSION FRANCAISE A VENIR (-)*
****************
HTML VERSION SOON AVAILABLE
with pictures, screen shots, true tables, and typographic enhancements
****************
by Christopher Barnsley
E-mail : 101717,2517@Compuserve.com
(Please, when dealing with Red Alert Questions, DO NOT use any of my
other E-mails that may appear in headers or messages)
All rights reserved - tous droits reserves
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR THE ONES WHO ARE IN A HURRY
AND WANT TO UNLOCK THE SECRET MISSIONS RIGHT NOW :
SEE JUST BELOW SECTION 3
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The purpose of this file is to help players in the secret missions
available in Westwood Studios' "COUNTERSTRIKE",
an official add-on pack for their success game RED ALERT
(-) Note sur la version francaise ё venir :
Note on the French version coming soon :
Je travaille sur une traduction francaise de ce fichier. Je suis desole
mais je n'aurai pas le temps necessaire pour le traduire dans d'autres
langues europeennes.
(I am currently working on a French translation of this file for France,
Canada (Quebec), part of Europe, and many countries around the World. I
am sorry but I'll have no time to translate it into other European
languages.)
Les francophones trouveront entre parentheses le vocabulaire utilise dans
les versions francaises du jeu, generalement la premiere fois qu'un
nouveau mot est employe. Ce fichier presuppose que les possesseurs d'une
version francophone savent lire l'anglais americain mais ne connaissent
pas forcement le vocabulaire original retenu pour les unites, structures,
et titres.
(French speaking players will find the vocabulary used in French language
versions of the game between parenthesis, generally the first time a new
word is used. (May also help English speaking people playing with owners
of a non-US version of the game over the Internet). This file assumes
French version owners are able to read English but do not necessarily
know the original English names chosen for units, structures, or titles.)
1) WHAT ARE THE GIANT ANTS MISSIONS ?
-------------------------------------
They are 4 special missions hidden on the CD of COUNTERSTRIKE, the same
way the dinosaurs missions were hidden in "Covert Operations" (French :
"Operations Survie"), the add-on for the original C&C (called today "C&C
Tiberium Dawn" / "C&C Le Conflit du Tiberium"). (To be opposed to the
subtitle of C&C II which is supposed to be something like "Tiberian Sun"
/ "Soleil Tiberien").
These missions deal with giants ants attacking the human race and, of
course, it is up to you (who else ?) to stop them.
Unlike the dino missions, you can not play ants in a fifth level as you
could play dinosaurs in "Covert Operations".
2) WHAT MUST YOU GET TO PLAY THE SECRET GIANT ANTS MISSIONS ?
-------------------------------------------------------------
You must have :
- The full game COMMAND & CONQUER "RED ALERT" (Alerte Rouge)
- The official add-on pack COUNTERSTRIKE (Missions Taiga) released on the
end of March 1997 / April 1997
- The same equipment as for playing Red Alert
- And the secret way to unlock them... (see just below !)
3) ***** FOR GOD'S SAKE HOW DO I UNLOCK THESE SECRET MISSIONS ? *****
---------------------------------------------------------------------
OK. You have not to launch the game with a special option like in "Covert
Operations" (the -funpark option on the command line).
JUST DO THE FOLLOWING :
- On the main menu screen, locate a circular form in the upper right
corner which is supposed to be a sort of loudspeaker.
- Press the left shift key AND left click at the same time in the center
of the supposed loudspeaker.
- That's done ! A menu appears asking you to select a difficulty level
for the giant ants missions. Note that this menu DO NOT mention you
have unlocked some special "ants" missions.
4) WHAT HAPPENS NEXT...
-----------------------
After selecting a difficulty level, you will see a video in the style of
old horror or SF movies of the fifties, with the camera slowly climbing a
huge ant-hill at the top of which "something" is moving, getting out of
the pit. A giant ant suddenly appears immediately followed by an old-
fashioned drawn horror movie title "IT CAME FROM RED ALERT" (French :
Echappees d'Alerte Rouge - Escaped from Red Alert). Like in the old B-
series movie "It came from outer space".
Then you'll have to complete 4 missions, with no cut-scenes between them
:(
You'll only have the briefing screen telling you what your next mission
is. But, at the end of the fourth and last mission, you'll see a short
video of the collapsing Queen-ant you have just defeated :)
5) WHAT WILL THE INSTALLATION OF COUNTERSTRIKE DO TO MY ALREADY INSTALLED
GAME ?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is not a general COUNTERSTRIKE info file but note the following.
The installation upgrades your versions of the games files automatically
and gives you one hundred multiplayers maps as a bonus. Flawless.
It also upgrades the files of Westwood Chat.
It gives you the ability to save multiplayers games at last ! :) But not
if you play over the Internet :( Only modem and local network games.
It changes some things in multiplayer mode (no more alliance possible
with the computer opponent ; more randomly chosen starting points ; etc.)
It gives you new units (for certain Counterstrike missions only), more on
that later.
It gives you the opportunity to play sometimes with both Allied and
Russian technologies.
See the readme file in the root directory of the COUNTERSTRIKE CD.
6) WHERE DOES THAT STRANGE IDEA OF GIANT ANTS COME FROM ? (SUPPOSITION)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe I am mistaking but I suspect someone at Westwood's to be a fan of
old horror movies and especially one called "THEM". (Listen to the noise
of the old projector during the final video).
"THEM" is an old black and white film dealing with an invasion of giant
ants created by the US nuclear experiments in the desert during WW II.
In the first part of the movie, you witness some devastated housings in
the desert and night attacks by nearly invisible creatures making strange
noises. Finally, the giant ants appear and the war begins ; some
characters even follow them deep into the ant-hill.
The giant ants of "THEM", while really tough contenders, are very
sensitive to fire and flame-throwers, and also to machine guns and
bullets if you aim at their antennas. So are the ants of COUNTERSTRIKE...
(except you can't target their antennas only in the game).
In "THEM" the first colony is finally destroyed but, a short time after,
the corpses of some flying ants are discovered : some creatures escaped
and are now hiding under the cities of man, in the sewers or the
underground tunnels, with a new queen producing larvae... The last
victory will belong, anyway, to the human kind.
Are you able to bring such a happy end to the ants missions in
COUNTERSTRIKE ?
Of course, Westwood people may have been freely inspired by a lot of
other movies of that time where big funky beasts were many.
In COUNTERSTRIKE, you finally discover the Queen-ant in a Russian base
equipped with toxic gas traps in order to kill ants. That makes one think
that Westwood's giant ants are the result of a soviet experiment that
went wrong.
7) NEW UNITS AND STRUCTURES IN THE GIANT ANTS MISSIONS AND SOME TACTICAL
TIPS ABOUT THEM
------------------------------------------------------------------------
7.1) HUMAN SIDE (UNFORTUNATELY YOURS !) :
You play under the color of the good old GDI (approximately tan) with
units that are a mix of Allied and Russian vehicles and men. For the game
engine your are house SPECIAL that can use both technologies (there is
one new multiplayer map you can play as house Special). You CANNOT access
a really high technology level during the ants mission, due to Westwood's
will. You have NO aircraft or choppers ! In one mission (#3) you will
discover a nearly destroyed Russian base that is red colored as usual. By
seizing over some buildings you may acquire the ability to produce some
other Russian units, mainly heavy tanks and yak planes (more on this
later).
STAVROS : appears only in ants mission 4. Remember the always smiling
General Stavros ? He is now with you on the field (the character is also
used in a normal mission in COUNTERSTRIKE). Stavros behaves roughly like
the commando of the original C&C or Tanya in RED ALERT. He moves quite
fast and uses a powerful gun but not with a very long range. He has no C4
(explosives) ability like Tanya and the C&C commando. He is more
resistant than any soldier of yours. The great thing is Stavros reacts
automatically to close threats and shoot the enemy without you ordering
to, at the opposite of the commando or Tanya (except if directly
attacked).
Stavros cannot be "built" so you have to keep him in good condition with
a medic. Remember that a medic cannot cure himself but two medics can
cure each other ! So heal your wounded medics by bringing them close
together !
Stavros is really efficient against ants (he probably aim at the antennas
!), especially if he has been upgraded by the contents of crates (there
are several powerup crates in ants mission 4). He is even more efficient
than a group of grenadiers or a mammoth tank on all ants !
Unfortunately, Stavros is a bit fragile to fight directly warrior and
fire ants (mind these ones !), and can be killed easily by these nasty
beasts. He can also be killed easily by a group of ordinary
reckon/workers ants. So, protect him and always make a diversion when
attacking groups of ants or a fire ant with him. And, of course, learn to
retreat when necessary !
CIVILIAN SPECIALIST (FLY-TOX MAN) : appears only in ants mission 3. More
friendly called Fly-tox (well, ant-tox) man by me. This is a civil
technician, dressed in white, behaving roughly like Einstein and as weak.
But he is the ONLY way to destroy ant-hills and he is 100% efficient.
Just a small group of Fly-tox men is given to you and you CANNOT "build"
them, so mind !
To destroy a ant-hill, just order him to go to the center of the ant-hill
(the others units cannot go there). When he reaches the ant-hill some
toxic gas is immediately released (sort of green smoke) and the ant-hill
will never produce ants again. Some ants will get out but will die
immediately. More : if some ants come close to the neutralised ant-hill,
they drop dead ! Isn't science great ?
The Fly-tox man can be killed easily by any sort of ant, so you must
cover him with other units when attacking ant-hills.
Note : due to what is probably a bug, I experienced a strange thing. Just
at the moment my Fly-tox man neutralised the ant-hill, one of my units
was fighting, to protect him, with a warrior ant which was at that time
on the ant-hill. It destroyed my unit but the Fly-tox man completed his
job. Nevertheless the warrior ant remained on the neutralised ant-hill
unaffected by the green gas. I had to send another unit to force the
warrior ant to move. At the very time it stepped on the field near the
ant-hill, it died !
7.2) ANTS SIDE (UNFORTUNATELY THEIRS !) :
There are mainly 3 sorts of ants (plus the queen), each of them with
special abilities. Unfortunately there are no flying ants. :(
ANT-HILL (French : foumilliere) :
It is not really a structure but a piece of terrain, so you cannot
destroy it with weapons.
It produces ants in big numbers as long it is not neutralised by the Fly-
tox man.
SCOUT ANT (French : Fourmi de reconnaissance) :
- Color : brown
- Color on radar screen : same as your own units (damned !),
approximately tan
- Armor : the weakest of all ants but quite comparable to a ranger armor
- Abilities : ant bite, with formic acid probably because it can reach
its target over a concrete wall (good protection anyway) at about as
far as one "square"
- Available in ants missions : 1, 2, and 4 (don't remember one in mission
3)
The basic ant but able to fight with a good efficiency so don't count it
out ! A small group can easily tear your ore truck or even a mammoth tank
into pieces ! It is fortunately not too hard to kill :) But bad news : it
must be a sort of spy-ant because, on the radar screen, it appears to be
the same color as your units :(
This means that when hearing the dreaded message "Base under attack"
(French : "Notre base est attaquee"), you cannot locate the enemy units
immediately by looking at the colors on the radar screen. You have to
guess where they can be by their movements or number, or jump very fast
from a part of your base to another until you find them. And believe me,
they work fast.
Worse : on the radar screen you may not see them coming and attack your
ore truck or units.
WARRIOR ANT (French : Fourmi guerriere) :
- Color : red (not to be confounded with the bright red of the Fire ants,
or you're dead !)
- Color on radar screen : same
- Armor : good, seems better than the reckon ant
- Abilities : as the reckon ant but stronger.
- Available in ants missions : 2, 3, and 4
Believe me or not (and in that case, you won't live long), a single
warrior ant may destroy a mammoth tank, and two will surely destroy it.
Same for the ore truck. NEVER let a warrior ant get close to your ore
truck or mammoth tank. (Well, this will happen to you anyway.)
Strangely I noticed that it seems a simple medium tank is more resistant
to the attack of a warrior ant than a mammoth (or at least as resistant
as) .... !? I have to experiment further on this... and hack the game
files !
Warrior ants are the main component of mission 3 and you are really going
to see a lot of them at that time ! Don't say I did not warn you.
FIRE ANT (French : Fourmi lance-flammes) :
- Color : bright (fire) red, sort of orange
- Color on radar screen : same
- Armor : certainly good. Hard to say at that time if better than the
warrior ant's, because when facing the fire ant you have not a lot of
time to experiment. I'll get back on this question and then update this
file.
- Abilities : throw flames that put the flame tower of RA and the flame
tank of the Nod (in C&C) to shame. Impressive and deadly. Good range.
Very efficient against men (including Stavros) and fine against
vehicles and structures. A single fire ant has very easily and quickly
destroyed a half-condition mammoth tank in mission 4 without taking
serious damage.
- Available in ants missions : 1 (only one or two I believe), 2, and 4
(the main cause of failing mission 4). Don't remember one in mission 3.
Fortunately, fire ants are not numerous in the game but you must learn to
distinguish them from the warrior ants because their fire spray is really
deadly, with an area effect. Do not use grouped soldiers to attack them
as a single fire ant can sweep out a group of 3 to 5 soldiers very
easily, sometimes with only one hit (don't forget that grenadiers and
flame-throwers men explode when dying and hurt or kill their buddies).
Instead, spread your forces and attack from different points ; protect
Stavros if you use him to attack a fire ant ; retreat very fast if
necessary (not sure you'll have the time to save your units !).
Good tactics : make a diversion even by sacrificing a man and attack the
fire ant at the time it is aiming at the poor guy ; better : try to see
if you can blast some barrels to kill the fire ant. (In ants mission 4,
this is the better way to kill a very annoying fire ant waiting for you
near the upper left corner of the big Tesla Coil room.)
LARVA (French : "larve" but kept as "larva" in the captions of the French
version of the game) :
- Aspect : no ant, just a cocoon
- Color : white
- Color on radar screen : no radar on mission 4 where larvae are
- Armor : none or quite none, very weak
- Abilities : none. Waits to be destroyed but generally well protected by
elder sisters ! Explodes when hit, may harm. Larvae are not sensitive
to toxic gas ; must do the job yourself.
- Available in ants missions : 4 only
Nothing to say : don't get too close then just shoot and have fun ! But
mind : guardians are surely not far...
QUEEN ANT (French : Reine des Fourmis)
- Aspect : red ant with distended abdomen
- Color : red
- Color on radar screen : no radar on mission 4 where the Queen is
- Armor : good. Have to experiment again on this
- Abilities : sort of biological, weaker, Tesla Coil incorporated !
Cannot move (at least in level 4).
- Available in ants missions : 4 only
Hi mum ! There is only one ; it cannot move and, despite a respectable
armor, this end-of-the-game boss monster is not really hard to kill and
will not throw fireballs at you either :) It prefers using its own Tesla
Coil on your remainning forces! And sh*t ! :(
This power makes the Queen able to kill instantly any soldier (Stavros
can be a little bit more resistant), or terminate quite easily a mammoth
tank. But the discharge seems to be weaker than the one of the Tesla Coil
structure ; in fact, it looks like the electric flash of the new
Counterstrike Tesla tank.
Advice : kill all others guarding ants, do not waste time on larvae, then
attack it with all units, sacrificing one or two just to let you hit the
beast while it is reloading its condensers ! Or make the mammoth tank go
forward to distract the Queen.
8) THE NEW COUNTERSTRIKE UNITS AND STRUCTURES YOU WILL NOT FIND IN THE
GIANT ANTS MISSIONS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Counterstrike provides some new units and structures you'll discover
along the non-secret missions but that are NOT used in the ants missions.
Just for your information, here they are :
English French Comments
--------------------------------------------------------------
ATS SMTA Advanced Russian submarine
Tesla tank Tank Tesla Small, not as well armored as heavy
tanks but with a weaker version of
the Tesla Coil !
Volkov Volkov Russian super soldier, sort of cyborg
with internal armor, nearly
indestructible, fast, with a super-
gun able to kill any soldier with one
shot and even to destroy tanks with
some
Chitkoi Cyber-chien Ever spawned Cujo add-on in Quake ?
This nice bloody dog fighting on your
side ? Well, Chitkoi is Cujo's
family. Super dog, extremely tough,
with a super jump ability. Can tear
a full squad of soldiers into
piecies without serious damage on its
side. Good dog ! Play dead !
FAL Longbow HAA Helicoptere
d'assaut An advanced version of the Apache
avance Longbow
Alloy facility Usine
metallurgique
Plus : Allies have captured migs and turned them into atomic bombers...
and you play that mission on the Russian side :(
9) THE UNITS YOU CAN USE IN EACH OF THE GIANT ANTS MISSIONS
-----------------------------------------------------------
You will be able to use the following units during the four ants missions
(French translation of names, see below the table) :
Ants
Mission # Men Vehicles Structures
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
1 Rifle Infantry Ranger Supplied (no
Grenadier Mine layer Construction
Engineer (anti vehicle : yard) * :
Bazooka works fine Refinery
Medic against ants) Barracks
Ore Truck War factory
Camouflaged
pillbox
Power plant
Service Depot
Radar Dome
Silo
Concrete walls
.......................................................................
2 Same as #1 Same as #1 plus : Construction yard
Medium tank (MCV)
APC PLUS : all remaining
structures of # 1
BUILDABLE :
all # 1 structures
plus :
Turrets
AA Gun (no need)
Shipyard (no need)
.......................................................................
3 Same as #2 Same as #2 plus : Same as #2 plus :
plus : Mammoth Tank Advanced Power plant
Civilian V2 rocket launcher
Specialist Gunboat
(Fly-tox man) Destroyer
Transport
+ IF you take the
Russian abandoned
buildings :
Heavy tank
Yak plane
Paratroopers
ParaBombs
.......................................................................
4 Supplied : Supplied : NO structures
Stavros 1 mammoth (Inside base mission)
Bunch of in reinforcements 1 Tesla Coil
Rifle Infantry after entering activated by a
Grenadiers, a certain room control panel to find
Flame-throwers, Gas traps to kill ants
Bazookas,
Medics
.......................................................................
* All the supplied structures in Mission 1 are badly damaged at the
beginning of the level.
(FRENCH NAMES : Pillbox / Camouflaged pillbox : bunker / bunker camoufle
; turret : tourelle ; refinery : raffinerie ; war factory : usine
d'armement ; Service depot : centre de services ; Power plant / Advanced
PP : centrale electrique / CE avancee ; Tesla Coil : Bobine de Tesla ;
Barracks : caserne ; Radar dome : Dome radar ; Concrete walls : murs de
beton ; Rifle Infantry : mitrailleurs ; Grenadiers : grenadiers ;
bazookas : bazookas ; medic : medecin ; engineer : ingenieur ; Civilian
specialist ~ Fly-tox man : specialiste civil ; Flame-throwers ~ Flame
Infantry : infanterie lance-flammes ; Ranger : ranger ; APC : VBT ;
Medium tank : tank moyen ; Heavy tank : tank lourd ; Mammoth tank : tank
mammouth ; Ore truck : collecteur de minerai ; Mine-layer : poseur de
mines ; V2 rocket launcher : lance-roquette V2 ; Gunboat : aviso-
torpilleur ; Destroyer : Contre-torpilleur ; Paratroopers : parachutistes
; Parabombs : parabombes)
You WILL NOT have access to high technology levels and very advanced
structures and units, nor to some basics elements : Tanya, Tesla Coils,
Flame towers, Chronosphere, Missile silo, Gap generators, Iron Curtain,
planes and choppers, Technical centers.
10) THE ANTS MISSIONS STRATEGY GUIDE
------------------------------------
10.1) FOREWORD AND GENERAL TIPS :
During all the four ants missions you will have limited means, except on
mission 3 where things are a bit better.
Note the following tips :
- All ants can be killed by a single mine. So protect your base with
mines. Let a tortuous passage for your ore trucks and other vehicles, so
the ants cannot take it by chance.
- The mine-layer can be easily destroyed by ants while doing its job and
they may be nearer than you think, so take care. It needs about 2 to 3
hits for a warrior ant to destroy a mine-layer, and a fire ant can do the
job in one or 2 hits.
- Ants seem to be quite sensitive to the machines guns of the pillboxes,
rangers, VPC, and even rifle infantry in groups. Two (big) machines guns
are often more efficient than two tanks !
- But rangers and VPC are very vulnerable to ants, especially warrior
ants and flame ants.
- Ants are sensitive to fire. Flame infantry soldiers are fine but can
burn their friends or hurt them when they die and explode.
- Ants are too fast for V2 rockets. Use them only on still ants and,
better, still ants concentrations.
- Ants often attack smartly (at least they seem to) : they target your
Service depot (because they "know" you need it to reload the mine layers
?), Refinery (often first building attacked in Mission 1), War factory,
unless they are stopped or distracted by a defensive structure or unit.
- To overcome a warrior ant with medium tanks without important damage,
you need 3 medium tanks. You can do the job with two if you lead well
your tanks but they will be damaged. With one tank, you need to be really
good at maneuvring and to have really nothing else to do on the field.
- Don't rely on mammoth tanks alone : ants are very good at attacking and
destroying them in about fifteen seconds. A mammoth tank attacked by two
warriors or more is a dead tank ; by one warrior ant it may become a dead
tank too if you let it fight on its own and/or alone.
- Same advice for ore trucks : ants love attacking them and are as
efficient at destroying them as they are with the mammoth tanks.
- A good combination for fighting ants may be medium tanks plus rangers
or VPC. The tanks and theirs cannons stop the ant while the machine guns
kill it. Use one/two tanks and two to four machine guns vehicles. Keep
rangers and VPC out of the reach of ants. You will not have a better
result by engaging four to five tanks. The basic brown ants can be killed
quite quickly by only two rangers if you keep your distance.
- A group of rifle infantry can be efficient against a scout ant
especially if you surround it. It is less obvious (but possible) with a
warrior ant, and quite dangerous with fire ants.
- Pillboxes are a better defense than turrets. Eventually use some
turrets to attract the ants' attention while the pillboxes do their job.
- Ants can attack through concrete walls but it seems walls protect
partially the structures and units behind them. (To be verified).
GREAT : Due to a stupidity in the C&C Red Alert engine, pillboxes can
shoot through concrete walls while being protected by them. Turrets
cannot and destroy the walls of their own base ! (Like in C&C). It is
probably because pillboxes use the part of the engine that was used for
guard towers in C&C, and guard towers were supposed to be higher than
walls ! So place your most exposed pillboxes behind walls ! (This work
fine in all RA et Counterstrike missions.)
- If you can build Russian heavy tanks in Mission 3 by seizing the
Russian abandoned factory, they do a better job against ants than medium
tanks (more firepower) and maybe even the mammoth ones.
- One or (better) two long range destroyers (sorry, no cruisers) can
clear some parts of the map in mission 3 without any possible strike back
from the ants.
- In mission 3, place walls, buildings, units, and/or mines in such
positions that the ants have to go near the first neutralised ant-hill
(near the water) and the gas. This will kill them immediately, as a
perfect defense structure. Far in the battlefield, try to attract ants
near a neutralised ant-hill and its gas.
- When destroying ant-hills with the Fly-tox man, send units to protect
him and distract the ants. Mind : some ants may go out just at the moment
the Fly-tox man arrives near the ant-hill.
- Some ants stay still all the time. Don't ask me why !
10.2) MISSION 1 :
Warning : missions 1 and 2 are linked and use the "inherit" function of
the C&C engine. That means all the structures and units you have at the
end of mission 1 will be there, at your disposal, at the beginning of
mission 2. If you have lost the major parts of your base in mission 1 you
are in big trouble to succeed in mission 2 ! You have already seen this
"inherit" function operating in the first missions of Red Alert on the
Allies side : remember, the first base you built was available for a
later mission. But, as you cannot be aware of this, you may have the good
idea to sell all your units and structures in order to (maybe) get some
more money for the next mission, or simply concentrate on fulfilling a
very precise mission and neglect the status of your base at the end of
the level. So I believe the programmers of linked levels should
absolutely warn the players of the existing links.
The lost base you have to find is in the middle of the map. It has no
less than 4 ways in (allies architects are really stupid), north, east,
south, west, plus destroyed walls in the north-east (radar dome) and
south-west (service depot) ! All buildings are in terrible condition.
You are given a ranger and four rifle infantry. Do not take the first
road to the east. Follow the road to the north. Send your men on the
second road to the east, so they reach the base. From this moment you'll
have a lot of things to do fast and simultaneously.
Continue with the ranger to the north and cross the river. Just after it,
locate some barrels and a pump a little bit at east of your position.
Blow the barrels. A money crate appears. Take it. Do not get back to the
base, continue east (you'll run just "above" the base) and you reveal an
ore field. Before reaching a small bridge, turn south to enter the base.
You can blow the bridge by making some barrels explode. Do it, it seems
to be a bit better during the future fights if the bridge is destroyed.
Once the ranger in the base, position it at the western gate, and protect
the refinery.
While doing all this with the ranger, take your four men in the base by
following the road as said above. The base area is revealed at the moment
they reach the western (refinery) gate and a countdown of the time you
have to resist begins. Immediately put all the buildings in repair mode
except the ore silo you can sell because you are unlikely to spare a lot
of money in mission 1 and it uses energy. You may wait a little for
repairing the radar dome, it will not be attacked immediately.
Place 3 men at the western gate near the refinery where you'll place the
ranger too. The first brown ant will soon come from the west and attack
the refinery that can be easily destroyed at that time. If you lose the
refinery, you may as well abort the mission.
Send the fourth man out by the south gate ; blow the barrels just near
the wall and take the money crate that appears. Make your man move a bit
to the east to discover a small ore field just under your service depot.
Immediately send your ore truck there.
Notice the shape of the ore field : a small stripe along your base, then
a narrow passage to a circular ore zone in the south, and again a narrow
passage that leads from this circular zone to the south of the map. Ants
will come that way to attack the ore truck and the service depot. You'll
have to mine the first narrow passage as fast as possible, leaving a way
for your truck but not for the ants (mine tricky !)
Once energy has reached a good level, begin the production of your first
vehicle that should be a ranger to face the first attacks. You'll have to
move quickly your rangers to help pillboxes destroying the incoming ants.
It is no use to begin producing a ranger immediately when energy is low
because of the way the C&C game engine works. The construction speed
depends on the status of your base (energy, condition of the factory) at
the moment the construction begins. If the status is bad at the beginning
and gets better during the construction, there will be no benefit : the
speed will remain as slow (the next construction, of course, will be
faster). At the opposite, if you begin a construction with a base in full
condition and if this condition gets worse during the construction, this
one will be nevertheless completed at the same fast speed (but the next
one will be much slower).
For mission 1 that means you can have a ranger faster by waiting the good
moment to begin the construction than by starting it when the base is
nearly destroyed. Experiment !
You'll get some reinforcements by Chinook in the first minutes. No more
after.
From this moment, play defensive and keep on producing units : they will
all be there, ready for mission 2, if not destroyed. Repair the radar
dome. Protect it with units (attacks will come at the end of the level).
If you use mines there, do not place them to close to the dome.
After one or two rangers, produce a mine layer and a second as soon as
possible. Produce men to fight along with rangers and pillboxes. Protect
the service depot at all price. Get rid of the ants in the little
circular southern ore field and mine its two narrow passages.
The second attack will probably come from the east (sometimes north),
then south and north (against the factory or the pillbox). Mine the
eastern access : the ants come mainly along the rocky crest. Mine the
northern access. At last, use some forces to clear the western
neighbourhood and mine the road you followed at the beginning just at the
level of a small house near your western gate. Mine between the house and
the rocks at the east : ants come that way but your ore trucks will drive
to the ore field of the west between the house and the western rocks. You
may not believe there is a passage here but there is one !
Build ore trucks (2 or 3), protect them well. Do not hesitate to bring
them back to the base, attracting ants into your mines fields. And
produce, produce, produce. Attack ants with several vehicles at the same
time.
So, you must reach the end of mission 1 with a base in perfect condition
and a good number of units.
10.3) MISSION 2 :
You get a MCV, 2 medium tanks and all you have at the end of mission 1.
The map is the same as in mission 1 but now larger, with news zones
including two villages and... a nasty ant-hill infecting all the region
and able to overcome your forces.
Deploy your MCV in the middle of the base. It is a good idea to add one
turret near each of the pillboxes, so turrets will stop the ants while
the pillboxes will fire at them. Keep on mining the access of your base
and some ants pathways.
You must evacuate civilians of the two villages to a safe place. A
transport waits at the north-east to bring them across a river. Place it
in the middle of the river so ants cannot damage it. The first village is
right east of your base. Quite easy. The second one is north-east near
the ant-hill. Harder.
Explore the map but don't enter the villages until you are ready to
evacuate people because civilians will rush out of their homes and will
become preys for the ants.
You have no Fly-tox man to neutralise the ant-hill but it is fortunately
located on a small island with three bridges (west, east, north). Destroy
the bridges and you'll stop the invasion. Grenadiers and bazookas can do
the job but, due to the number of ants on and near the island, the risk
is they don't leave long enough to complete their job. The better idea is
to use tanks by six or more to blow the bridges. Send the tanks to one
bridge at a time, with some other units to distract the ants. Concentrate
fire on the bridge even if you see some tanks are going to be destroyed.
There is no elegant solution there : you must blow the bridges, every
unit is dispensable. It seems better to blow first the western bridge,
then the eastern one, then again the one in the north.
Once you did this, build new forces and clear the way for civilians (you
don't need to kill all the ants to win). Go to the villages, take the
civilians, bring them to the transport and then across the north-west
river to the safe building.
10.4) MISSION 3 :
Numbers and marks refer to the great ASCII-art map below ;)
Warning : if you read the following and so know what to do, this mission
becomes quite easy.
SYMBOLIC AND APPROXIMATIVE MAP FOR ANTS MISSION 3 (THE BIG ONE)
---------------------------------------------------------------
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
o WWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RRR .. o
o WWWWWWWWWWWWWW R 7 R . o
o WWWWWWWWWWWWW R ## R . o
o WWWWWWWWWWW RR R ## R . R o
o WWWWWWWWWW R R . RRR R o
o WWWWWW RRRRRRRRRRR . R R o
o ## =========== . RRR R o
o ## Abandonned= . o
o 9 Russian = .................. o
o Base 8 = . . Destroyed o
o============== = . . Village o
o = = . WWWWW . o
o . WWWWWWWWWW . o
o . WWWWWWWWWWWWWW . o
o . WWWW WWW . R o
o WWWW WWW . R o
o Big Ore Field WWW WWW . RRRRR . RRRRRRo
o WWW RRRRRRRRR WWW . .... o
o WWW R R WWW . .RRRR o
o WWW R R WWW . .RRRR o
o WWW R ## R WWW . . o
o WWW R ## R WWW . . o
o WWW 10 WWW . o
o WWW . Big o
o RRRR WWW . Ore field o
o R WWW . o
o 11 R WWW . o
o ## R R WWW . o
o ## RR R WWW . RRRRRRR o
o RRR R WWW . RRRRRRR o
o WWW . RRRRRRR o
o Big Ore Field WWW . RRRRRRR o
o WWW .. RRRRRRR o
o W RR WWW 5. RRRRRRR 6 o
o W RR WWW . o
o RR WWW ## . o
o RR WWW ##.... o
oWWWWWWWWWWWW RR 14 WWW 2 .... o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR .......... Starting o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RRRRRRRRRR 3 Point S o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW ...13 WWW o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR ....... WWW . 1 RRRRRRRo
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR .. RR . WWW . o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR .. RR . WWW . R o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR 12 .. RR ......... R o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR ## .. RR 4 R ORE o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RR ## RR WWW R FIELD o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR WWW R o
oWWWWWWWWWWWWWW RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR WWW R o
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
LEGENDS
-------
##
## Ant-hill S Starting Point
R Main rocks (impassable) 1-12 Marks
W Water (impassable) = Walls russian base
.... Main attack paths of ants
You have a MCV, 2 medium tanks, 2 mammoth tanks. Reinforcements of
various soldiers will come after you settled a base, and Fly-tox men just
after again.
You begin nearly in the south-west corner (S). There is a well protected
ore field just south of your starting point. Settle your base in 1 to
have easy access to this field while protecting it from incursions of
ants.
Face the first attacks with your tanks (mind : warriors ants are perfect
mammoth tank killers).
Reinforce a bit your base with camouflaged pillboxes, mainly to face the
attacks coming by fords 3 and 4 and also ant-hill 2 and passage 5. When
you can, protect pillboxes with concrete walls (they can shoot through !)
even it is not a perfect protection against ants.
As soon as you can without major danger, neutralise ant-hill 2 with one
Fly-tox man. Covert him well during the operation.
Scout with some (lost) men during this time.
Mine the land near fords 3 and 4, then on passage 5 from which many ants
will come. Mine passage 6 a bit (not useful). Ants guarding the fords
will attack mine-layers if you're not careful.
Great tip : construct walls so you force the attacking ants to go near
the neutralised ant-hill 2. Gas will kill them immediately ! Worth the
money.
Build an attack force to escort 2 Fly-Tox men (in case you lost one) and
neutralise ant-hill 7 in the north : a lot of your problems come from it.
Harvest the big ore field north of your base.
You may build a shipyard near ant-hill 2 and one or two destroyers, so
you can wipe out ants around ant-hill 10 in the middle of the map. Sorry,
NO cruiser !
Seize the abandoned Russian base 8 in the north-west with engineers. No
Russian resistance, all killed by ants. But neutralise the ant-hill 9 in
the base. Mind : ants will attack the taken buildings, especially the war
factory.
Now you can build heavy tanks that are more efficient against ants. Yak
are quite useless. You have also paratroopers and dropped bombs (use them
only on large concentrations of still ants like around ant-hill 12).
Neutralise ant-hill 10 after clearing the way with your destroyers or
units. You can send the Fly-tox man from the Russian base, or by passing
ford 3.
Neutralise ant-hill 11. Then slaughter the ants around ant-hill 12
(normally a lot of still ants). You can do this by blocking passages in
13 and 14 with tanks and machine guns vehicles (behind tanks), and use V2
launchers to crush the insects.
Neutralise ant-hill 12, then clear the field if necessary. You've won !
(Another solution is to progress from the south after having neutralised
ant-hill 7 ; in that case, you seize the Russian base at the end.)
10.5) MISSION 4 :
This is an inside building "puzzle" mission. The hardest thing is to find
what to do and the order to do it. Warning : so, if you read the
following the mission will become so simple that you will nearly be able
to complete it with Stavros alone protected by 2 medics and some
soldiers.
Numbers and marks refer to this great new ASCII-art map below. (OK, I
swear I'll upgrade this file if I can one day in HTML format with GIFs
and JPEGs !)
SYMBOLIC AND APPROXIMATIVE MAP FOR ANTS MISSION 4
(THE INSIDE BUILDING ONE)
-------------------------------------------------
Reinforcements
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH 15a HHHH 13HHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH HHHH HHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHH 15 14 11 10 HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHH HHHH 12 HHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH 15b HHHH HHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHH 9 HHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH HHH HHHHHHHHH HHH 3 HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH HHH HHHHHHHHHHH HHH 2 HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHH HHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHH 16 HH HHHHHHHHHHH 7 HHH Tesla HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHH HH HHHHHHHHHHH HHH T Coil HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH HHH HHHHHHHHHHH HHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHH HHH H H H
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHH HHH 1 S H
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHH 6 H
HHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHH HH HHHHH H H H
HHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHH HHHHHHHHH HH HHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH H HHHHHHH HH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHH 17 H 8 HHHHHHH HH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHH 18 HHHHHH HHHHHHH HH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH HHHHHH HHHHHHH 4 HH 5 HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHH HH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHH HH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
LEGENDS
-------
S Starting Point T Tesla Coil (friendly)
1-18 Marks H Base Walls
You start with Stavros, 5 rifle infantry, 2 medics, 8 flame infantry, 4
grenadiers, and 5 bazookas : much more than in any inside buildings
mission in R.A. You will receive a new medic and some new men, then a
mammoth tank as reinforcements at point 10 when you enter some rooms
later. :)
Huh ! Ants will receive reinforcements too ! :(
Until you've found the good power switch, your vision is limited : if one
of your units leaves a place, this one gets dark again.
Two soldiers of another house open the way... let them do... maybe they
will make the barrels explode and kill the two ants coming your way.. If
not, kill the scout ants in the corridor by blowing the barrels without
moving any of your units.
The best idea is to take Stavros as main unit. Assign him a number, so
you can easily come back to him (Select Stavros then CTRL + number) Make
a medic escort him (select medic then CTRL-ALT click on Stavros). Make
the second medic escort the first medic so they will cure each other and
Stavros too. Make one or two rifle men, one grenadier and one bazooka
escort Stavros too. Avoid flame infantry because if a flame soldier is
killed near Stavros he can harm him a lot at a bad moment.
Create a second group of about 3-4 soldiers including 2-3 flame-throwers
; use it to support Stavros in critical situations (mind not to burn
Stavros yourself !).
Take 2 soldiers to scout the areas before stepping too much forward with
Stavros.
If you are not sure of yourself, attack ants with some soldiers and then
finish the job with Stavros.
Blow all barrels you see : ants will be blown away if near. Blow larvae
too : they can hurt you if they explode.
Go through room 1 to the entrance of the big room 2. You'll encounter
probably two scout ants on the way. Send a soldier along the wall to
control panel 3. This activates a friendly Tesla Coil in the middle of
the room 2. The Coil secures the area by killing incoming ants.
Blow carefully all the barrels in south of room 2. Then go to room 4
where the power switch is. The room is protected by one scout ant in the
little corridor and one steady at the switch.
Once you have turned power on, go room 5 and take the two powerup crates
(better armor, better firepower).
Blow the remaining barrels in room 2. Mind : there is a deadly fire ant
at point 9 ; you will attack it on its back later by corridor 7. Just
before point 9 you can kill the still scout ant.
Go to corridor 6 ; some ants will probably come from corridor 7 and room
8 at the same time. Kill them, retreating a bit if necessary. Take
corridor 7. Carefully approach point 9 where the fire ant stays still.
Blow the barrels behind the crate to kill it. Take the powerup crate.
Get back to room 8 : harder work there. Do not rush into : a fire ant
will go forward and attack you, then will get back to its position at the
center of the room so you cannot attract it in the corridor ; kill ants
one after one. Distract the fire ant with some units while Stavros kill
it. At the west of room 8 the way is cut by boxes. On the other side is
the room with the evil Queen-ant but you must walk around to get there.
Go in the corridor just under point 11. Blow the barrel at the entrance
of corridor and kill the scout ant waiting for you at point 10. Take the
powerup crate. Notice the entrance just north : your reinforcements will
arrive this way and ants' ones too !
Cross corridor 11 to room 12. Warning : as soon as you enter the room
ants reinforcements (2 fire ants and 3 warriors) arrive by point 10,
rushing to you while 3 other warriors come by corridor 14. So RUSH
yourself to control panel 13 : this will activate the green toxic gas in
room 12 and immediately kill all attacking ants. Just station your units
at the middle of the north wall and see ants dying. Do not fight if not
necessary.
At this time you will receive a new medic and new men at point 10. Take
them with you in room 12.
Enter corridor 14. You will receive a mammoth tank at point 10. Get back
to room 12 and take the tank with you.
Room 15 is full of warriors ants and larvae. The great tip is to kill
carefully the first ants then send a few units (or the tank) along the
north wall to blow the barrel at point 15A. This will cause a major
explosion of all barrels around the devices at the extremity of the room
and a (slow) release of gas that will kill all the ants in this area (not
the larvae). Take the powerup crate at the extremity of the room point
15B.
Go to room 16. Mind : there is a fire ant somewhere ! Eliminate the
warrior ants or they will come after you when you enter room 17.
Proceed carefully with room 17, do not rush into, kill ants one after
one. Mind : if you go further than the middle of the room you are in
range of the Queen's biological Tesla Coil !
Once all ants are dead, gather your forces to attack the Ant Queen.
That's easy : send two or three units forward to distract the queen and
massively attack it while it is "reloading". You can also blow the
barrels just behind it to help you killing the beast. The best way is to
distract the Queen with the mammoth tank that can handle some electrical
hits before being destroyed.
That's all. Clear the remaining larvae if any. You've completed the
secret giant ants missions. You've got the Fly-tox Oscar for life
achievement !
You can watch the video of the dying Queen Ant with the bakground noise
of an old movie projector.
***********************************************************************
COMING SOON (I HOPE) : AN HTML VERSION OF THIS FILE WITH PICTURES, TRUE
TABLES, TYPOGRAPHIC ENHANCEMENTS, ETC., UNDER THE FORM OF A MINI(?) WEB
SITE YOU CAN DOWNLOAD TO YOUR HARD DISK AND VIEW/PRINT WITH YOUR BROWSER
Files will be zipped and you will need Pkzip for Windows or Winzip
(shareware at least) to unzip them,
or compatible unzipping Windows or Dos software.
This Shareware is freely downloadable on the Web :
http://www.pkware.com
http://www.winzip.com
Remember to register useful shareware !
***********************************************************************
END OF FILE