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Tactical Manual
Compared with the original Command & Conquer, Covert Operations is a
nightmare. After playing many of the C&C levels available on the Internet,
I expected Westwood's add-on to take no longer than a couple days to
finish. Seven days on, and with the words "Mission Failed" burned into my
retina, I have to admit I was wrong. These missions are hard, people. To
give us a fighting chance, our agents have gathered crucial military
intel. Use it well. Many of them sacrificed their lives to bring you this
information. Let them not have died in vain.
GDI Missions
Blackout
Get the money crate in front of the church. Follow the path to your south
and you'll come to a fortress guarded by a flame tank. Destroy the flame
tank with an airstrike. Sabotage all the power stations. Move your
commandos to the west and along the ridge. Destroy the turrets on either
side of the valley, but leave the obelisks standing. Your MCV will arrive.
Deploy it just north of the western tiberium field. To prevent Nod
engineer incursions, sandbag the mouth of the pass. Launch an airstrike
blindly at the middle of the northeast corner of the map to take out the
construction yard. If you miss, re-load your mission and try again.
Hell's Fury
Move all units east. Destroy the turrets and the Hand of Nod (HON). Build
your construction yard, a power station, a barracks, a refinery and put a
guard tower near the entrance. Build engineers to take over the remaining
buildings. Nod is building up its own base to the north. If you waste any
time at this stage, your efforts will be doomed. Build a helipad and a
transport chopper will arrive. Stick bazookamen into the helicopter and
send it north to the yellow flare before Nod has a chance to set up SAM
sites. Send the bazookas east to destroy the turrets. At the same time,
transport an engineer into the drop zone, and take over one of the power
stations. Build a barracks next to it and destroy everyything there. Use
sandbags to prevent Nod from rebuilding. Without power, the obelisks will
stay silent. Remember not to destroy the obelisks until the very end.
Infiltrated!
Sell the barracks immediately. Shoot the engineers with the minigunners
that come out of the sale. Build a concrete wall and slap it down between
your guard tower and the tank that is firing at your own. Build a new
barracks and make an engineer to recapture the refinery. A turret may pop
out in the corner of the refinery. Destroy it and build a sandbag in its
place. Place a couple of advanced guard towers (AGT) by the entrance.
Explore the map with a humm-vee to reveal the tiberium deposits. The enemy
base is in the northeast. When your humm-vee nears the Nod base, Apache
helicopters will scramble to engage. Lead them to your AGTs and the
Apaches will be destroyed. Build another refinery, and manufacture several
medium tanks, placing them next to your north wall. During battle, repair
your guard towers. Your main targets should be the rocket launchers first,
and the flame tanks second. Watch out for the stealth tanks hiding in the
tiberium fields. Destroy the enemy harvesters with three or four Orcas.
Nod will soon run out of money, letting you assault their base with little
or no fuss.
Elemental Imperative
Move all of your units north and then northwest. Destroy the few defending
units and liberate the village. When the transport helicopter arrives,
place your commando inside of it and bunny hop across the riverbank, then
up on the plateau, then below the ridge behind enemy lines. Make a beeline
to the village due east. Retrieve the two crates.
Ground Zero
Head south and kill all the infantry and flame-throwers in this area. You
will receive a medium tank. Go back up the pass and follow the northeast
passage. You will receive some grenade and infantry units. Destroy the
flametank with your troops to receive a humm-vee. Stick to the northeast
passage. Heading west from the tiberium fields, you will reach the
conference center. Blow a hole in the wall. Move everyone, including the
scientists, south. Kill any Nod troops you come across. Destroy any Nod
vehicles using standard loss leader procedure. Get the scientists to the
signal flare.
Twist of Fate
Order the tank in front of your base inside. Immediately move your two
mammoth tanks to the northeast. Aim at the bazookamen as your tanks roll
perpendicular to them to fire anti-infantry missiles. Move them south on
the plateau, and wait for them to recuperate. Your MCV should arrive.
Order it to stop in its tracks. Inch your mammoth tanks towards the west
side of the plateau and destroy the stealth tank and Apache. Kill the
remaining Nod troops in the pass with the remainder of your forces. Set up
your construction yard by the yellow flare. Build a powerplant, refinery,
comms center, and set up AGTs by the tiberium field north of your base.
Sandbag all the entrances to the north/south mountain pass to force Nod to
attack through your kill zone. Take over the middle base with engineers
and a well placed shot of ion cannon. Build another refinery to take
advantage of the northern tiberium fields. You will need to starve Nod of
income if you are to win this one; go out of your way to kill the
harvesters.
Blindsided
Sabotage the turrets and the SAM sites to the west. Take the airstrip,
HON, comms center, and a power station with four of your five engineers.
Sell everything except the HON. Create 15 minigunners. Kill the obelisk
and then the turrets with your infantry, and snipe the Nod infantry with
your commando. With your remaining engineer, capture the refinery while
the harvester is inside. Destroy the SAM sites to receive airstrike
capability. Capture the remaining structures with more engineers. Put your
gamespeed on full. Airstrike the northwest and northeast corners of the
map to destroy the construction yards. Micromanage your harvester; you
need to let the tiberium grow back. Airstrike anything else you see - each
airstrike will reveal a little more of the map. When you have about 12,000
credits, cross the river with a bunch of engineers, take over the HON,
plop down an airstrip, and churn out an unstoppable army of tanks and
minigunners.
Nod Missions
Bad Neighborhood
Lead the north and the east mammoth tanks to your base and destroy it with
a turret and two bazookas. Sandbag the whole northeast section of your
base to set up a kill zone. Build a gang of five bikes, and place them in
a group by your base entrance. Send one of the bikes up the right side of
the map. Head back to the bike gang when you see the mammoth. Any Orcas
that chase will be destroyed. Kill the GDI harvesters with your bike gang.
Kill GDI snipers with flame tanks. The final assault on the GDI base
should be by light tank and recon bike.
Deceit
Move west to the crate. Capture the helicopter with an engineer. Go west
past the double river crossing to find the flare. Transport your men
there. Build your base. Use the Apache helicopter to destroy guard towers,
men and vehicles. Take over the comms center to your east. Airlift your
commandos to get the crate in the southeast quad - support them with the
Apache. Build turrets at your comms center and at the southern entrance to
your base. Build a stealth tank and explore the map. Stay one square away
from the infantry and guard towers at all time. Build a temple of Nod.
Start rolling your armour. Airlift engineers into his base while the AGTs
are down. Build an obelisk of light in advance, and get ready to plop it
down once your engineers have taken over any of the standing structures.
Eviction Notice
You must now go north immediately. Destroy the mammoth with three flame
tanks. Move everyone east. Destroy the village and get the three crates
under the church, oil pumps and another building. Build a powerplant,
refinery, barracks, airstrip, comms center and temple. Leave a flame tank
in the southeast corner to handle GDI engineers. Build an obelisk in the
northwest corner of your base. Most GDI attacks will be routed through the
tiberium field. Scout the enemy base with a stealth tank and launch the
nuke at the Nod construction yard.
Tiberium Strain
Use the wall-of-fire (WOF) technique to reduce damage to your vehicles
when fighting the enemy. Head south and kill all the villagers. Do not
destroy any buildings! Go back up to the river crossing, but head east
this time, following the road. Go north through the tiberium field until
you come to the base. WOF the entrance, and inch your way up. Identify and
destroy the three bio-centers.
Cloak and Dagger
Don't play GDI's game; do not fight the enemy. Stay one square away from
any infantry or guard towers. Follow the base wall and enter from the
northern entrance. Destroy all of the fencing surrounding the MCV and
deploy it right under GDI's leftmost power station. Wall up the whole
eastern portion with a line of sandbags reaching from the guard towers to
a point past the mammoth tanks and beyond. Build the rest of your base
(power, HON, refinery) down there. Place turrets inside the sandbag wall
and destroy all the power stations. With the AGT net down due to loss of
power, build another HON next to your construction yard. Build engineers
to take over the GDI construction yard and any remaining power stations.
Hostile Takeover
Destroy the church across the river with some long-range bazooka shots to
reveal a money crate. Get your units past the tank and across the bridge
to the abandoned Nod base. Sell the comms center and build an engineer.
Take the turrets to the southeast out with bazookas, make a hole in the
fence, and steal one of the choppers. Put someone in the chopper and
retrieve the crate. Build five bazooka units. Assault the tanks using loss
leader tactics. Sell the HON. Find the other abandoned Nod encampment to
the west. Repair the construction yard. Build powerplant, HON, refinery,
airstrip and other buildings. Keep your harvester away from the northern
AGTs. Seal off your vulnerable southern opening with sandbags.
Under Siege: C&C
Scout the map with a stealth tank. Stay one square away from all enemy
units. Sell the southernmost SAM sites and all of your tiberium silos.
Retrieve the money crate under the southern church. Move a technician west
and a little north as an airstrike decoy. Build five recon bikes and move
all of your forces behind your turrets. Concentrated bike fire will
eliminate GDI probing forces. Nuke the enemy construction yard and power
stations in the north corner, then sell the temple. Attack the harvester
in the north with the stealth tank to "dislodge" units. Cloak before it
arrives to frustrate it into suiciding your base. Repeat until the
northern forces have all died. When the north forces are destroyed, GDI
will mobilise ALL their forces. They will attack your SAM sites. You
should be able to destroy all the GDI units with concentrated turret and
bike fire.
Death Squad
Timing is important. Move your two stealth tanks east of the GDI base and
make a hole in the wall. Move them north, past the mammoth tank. Move your
Nod buggy and your commando to the hole. Hit and run the grenadiers with
the buggy, and snipe them with the commando. Distract the mammoth tank and
any other GDI vehicle by running your buggy all around the inside of his
base. At the same time, order your commando to sabotage the advanced comms
center. Once the commando reaches the sandbags, open fire on the AGT with
your stealth tanks. The AGT will concentrate on the tanks and leave your
commando a clear path to the comms center. The rest, as they say, is
history.
Survival Kit
Sandbags are a cheap way of winning any game. The computer can't recognise
sandbags or fencing as valid targets, and will happily let you sandbag
their bases shut as you pound away at them from the outside. Placing a
sandbag where an enemy building formerly stood will prevent it from being
rebuilt.The computer will always scan from the top down when selecting
targets. To prevent airstrikes against your base, put a minigunner as far
north as you can as A-10 bait. To prevent against engineer incursions,
place a SAM site, immune to engineer takeover, in the most northeastern
corner of your base.
Use loss leader tactics. This is a way of fighting that reduces damage to
your units. When attacking tanks or bikes, for example, attack with an
infantry unit first. They do little damage to the infantry while you blow
them away with your own vehicles. Likewise, when attacking vehicles,
attack with your tank first, letting it, instead of your more vulnerable
men, soak up the machine gun fire. Concentrate your fire on a single
enemy. The quicker you reduce the number of attackers, the less damage you
will take.
Use CTRL-click to force attack on an empty square. Bazookas can take out
standard GDI guard towers from a distance. Approach in a direct vertical
or horizontal line. Advance units one square at a time until they open
fire of their own accord. Enemy ion cannon blasts will almost always
strike obelisks or turrets. Enemy nukes will almost always be launched at
your advanced guard tower. The key to defeating obelisks and Advanced
Guard Towers is to destroy the enemy power stations. They won't function
without juice.
Finally, you can cheat if you are caught in a jam. Select one of your
obelisks, turrets or guard towers. Sell it. As the men pour out, quickly
select it again, and press "S" to stop the sale. You keep both the men and
the structure, and you can repeat this many times.
Compared with the original Command & Conquer, Covert Operations is a
nightmare. After playing many of the C&C levels available on the Internet,
I expected Westwood's add-on to take no longer than a couple days to
finish. Seven days on, and with the words "Mission Failed" burned into my
retina, I have to admit I was wrong. These missions are hard, people. To
give us a fighting chance, our agents have gathered crucial military
intel. Use it well. Many of them sacrificed their lives to bring you this
information. Let them not have died in vain.
GDI Missions
Blackout
Get the money crate in front of the church. Follow the path to your south
and you'll come to a fortress guarded by a flame tank. Destroy the flame
tank with an airstrike. Sabotage all the power stations. Move your
commandos to the west and along the ridge. Destroy the turrets on either
side of the valley, but leave the obelisks standing. Your MCV will arrive.
Deploy it just north of the western tiberium field. To prevent Nod
engineer incursions, sandbag the mouth of the pass. Launch an airstrike
blindly at the middle of the northeast corner of the map to take out the
construction yard. If you miss, re-load your mission and try again.
Hell's Fury
Move all units east. Destroy the turrets and the Hand of Nod (HON). Build
your construction yard, a power station, a barracks, a refinery and put a
guard tower near the entrance. Build engineers to take over the remaining
buildings. Nod is building up its own base to the north. If you waste any
time at this stage, your efforts will be doomed. Build a helipad and a
transport chopper will arrive. Stick bazookamen into the helicopter and
send it north to the yellow flare before Nod has a chance to set up SAM
sites. Send the bazookas east to destroy the turrets. At the same time,
transport an engineer into the drop zone, and take over one of the power
stations. Build a barracks next to it and destroy everyything there. Use
sandbags to prevent Nod from rebuilding. Without power, the obelisks will
stay silent. Remember not to destroy the obelisks until the very end.
Infiltrated!
Sell the barracks immediately. Shoot the engineers with the minigunners
that come out of the sale. Build a concrete wall and slap it down between
your guard tower and the tank that is firing at your own. Build a new
barracks and make an engineer to recapture the refinery. A turret may pop
out in the corner of the refinery. Destroy it and build a sandbag in its
place. Place a couple of advanced guard towers (AGT) by the entrance.
Explore the map with a humm-vee to reveal the tiberium deposits. The enemy
base is in the northeast. When your humm-vee nears the Nod base, Apache
helicopters will scramble to engage. Lead them to your AGTs and the
Apaches will be destroyed. Build another refinery, and manufacture several
medium tanks, placing them next to your north wall. During battle, repair
your guard towers. Your main targets should be the rocket launchers first,
and the flame tanks second. Watch out for the stealth tanks hiding in the
tiberium fields. Destroy the enemy harvesters with three or four Orcas.
Nod will soon run out of money, letting you assault their base with little
or no fuss.
Elemental Imperative
Move all of your units north and then northwest. Destroy the few defending
units and liberate the village. When the transport helicopter arrives,
place your commando inside of it and bunny hop across the riverbank, then
up on the plateau, then below the ridge behind enemy lines. Make a beeline
to the village due east. Retrieve the two crates.
Ground Zero
Head south and kill all the infantry and flame-throwers in this area. You
will receive a medium tank. Go back up the pass and follow the northeast
passage. You will receive some grenade and infantry units. Destroy the
flametank with your troops to receive a humm-vee. Stick to the northeast
passage. Heading west from the tiberium fields, you will reach the
conference center. Blow a hole in the wall. Move everyone, including the
scientists, south. Kill any Nod troops you come across. Destroy any Nod
vehicles using standard loss leader procedure. Get the scientists to the
signal flare.
Twist of Fate
Order the tank in front of your base inside. Immediately move your two
mammoth tanks to the northeast. Aim at the bazookamen as your tanks roll
perpendicular to them to fire anti-infantry missiles. Move them south on
the plateau, and wait for them to recuperate. Your MCV should arrive.
Order it to stop in its tracks. Inch your mammoth tanks towards the west
side of the plateau and destroy the stealth tank and Apache. Kill the
remaining Nod troops in the pass with the remainder of your forces. Set up
your construction yard by the yellow flare. Build a powerplant, refinery,
comms center, and set up AGTs by the tiberium field north of your base.
Sandbag all the entrances to the north/south mountain pass to force Nod to
attack through your kill zone. Take over the middle base with engineers
and a well placed shot of ion cannon. Build another refinery to take
advantage of the northern tiberium fields. You will need to starve Nod of
income if you are to win this one; go out of your way to kill the
harvesters.
Blindsided
Sabotage the turrets and the SAM sites to the west. Take the airstrip,
HON, comms center, and a power station with four of your five engineers.
Sell everything except the HON. Create 15 minigunners. Kill the obelisk
and then the turrets with your infantry, and snipe the Nod infantry with
your commando. With your remaining engineer, capture the refinery while
the harvester is inside. Destroy the SAM sites to receive airstrike
capability. Capture the remaining structures with more engineers. Put your
gamespeed on full. Airstrike the northwest and northeast corners of the
map to destroy the construction yards. Micromanage your harvester; you
need to let the tiberium grow back. Airstrike anything else you see - each
airstrike will reveal a little more of the map. When you have about 12,000
credits, cross the river with a bunch of engineers, take over the HON,
plop down an airstrip, and churn out an unstoppable army of tanks and
minigunners.
Nod Missions
Bad Neighborhood
Lead the north and the east mammoth tanks to your base and destroy it with
a turret and two bazookas. Sandbag the whole northeast section of your
base to set up a kill zone. Build a gang of five bikes, and place them in
a group by your base entrance. Send one of the bikes up the right side of
the map. Head back to the bike gang when you see the mammoth. Any Orcas
that chase will be destroyed. Kill the GDI harvesters with your bike gang.
Kill GDI snipers with flame tanks. The final assault on the GDI base
should be by light tank and recon bike.
Deceit
Move west to the crate. Capture the helicopter with an engineer. Go west
past the double river crossing to find the flare. Transport your men
there. Build your base. Use the Apache helicopter to destroy guard towers,
men and vehicles. Take over the comms center to your east. Airlift your
commandos to get the crate in the southeast quad - support them with the
Apache. Build turrets at your comms center and at the southern entrance to
your base. Build a stealth tank and explore the map. Stay one square away
from the infantry and guard towers at all time. Build a temple of Nod.
Start rolling your armour. Airlift engineers into his base while the AGTs
are down. Build an obelisk of light in advance, and get ready to plop it
down once your engineers have taken over any of the standing structures.
Eviction Notice
You must now go north immediately. Destroy the mammoth with three flame
tanks. Move everyone east. Destroy the village and get the three crates
under the church, oil pumps and another building. Build a powerplant,
refinery, barracks, airstrip, comms center and temple. Leave a flame tank
in the southeast corner to handle GDI engineers. Build an obelisk in the
northwest corner of your base. Most GDI attacks will be routed through the
tiberium field. Scout the enemy base with a stealth tank and launch the
nuke at the Nod construction yard.
Tiberium Strain
Use the wall-of-fire (WOF) technique to reduce damage to your vehicles
when fighting the enemy. Head south and kill all the villagers. Do not
destroy any buildings! Go back up to the river crossing, but head east
this time, following the road. Go north through the tiberium field until
you come to the base. WOF the entrance, and inch your way up. Identify and
destroy the three bio-centers.
Cloak and Dagger
Don't play GDI's game; do not fight the enemy. Stay one square away from
any infantry or guard towers. Follow the base wall and enter from the
northern entrance. Destroy all of the fencing surrounding the MCV and
deploy it right under GDI's leftmost power station. Wall up the whole
eastern portion with a line of sandbags reaching from the guard towers to
a point past the mammoth tanks and beyond. Build the rest of your base
(power, HON, refinery) down there. Place turrets inside the sandbag wall
and destroy all the power stations. With the AGT net down due to loss of
power, build another HON next to your construction yard. Build engineers
to take over the GDI construction yard and any remaining power stations.
Hostile Takeover
Destroy the church across the river with some long-range bazooka shots to
reveal a money crate. Get your units past the tank and across the bridge
to the abandoned Nod base. Sell the comms center and build an engineer.
Take the turrets to the southeast out with bazookas, make a hole in the
fence, and steal one of the choppers. Put someone in the chopper and
retrieve the crate. Build five bazooka units. Assault the tanks using loss
leader tactics. Sell the HON. Find the other abandoned Nod encampment to
the west. Repair the construction yard. Build powerplant, HON, refinery,
airstrip and other buildings. Keep your harvester away from the northern
AGTs. Seal off your vulnerable southern opening with sandbags.
Under Siege: C&C
Scout the map with a stealth tank. Stay one square away from all enemy
units. Sell the southernmost SAM sites and all of your tiberium silos.
Retrieve the money crate under the southern church. Move a technician west
and a little north as an airstrike decoy. Build five recon bikes and move
all of your forces behind your turrets. Concentrated bike fire will
eliminate GDI probing forces. Nuke the enemy construction yard and power
stations in the north corner, then sell the temple. Attack the harvester
in the north with the stealth tank to "dislodge" units. Cloak before it
arrives to frustrate it into suiciding your base. Repeat until the
northern forces have all died. When the north forces are destroyed, GDI
will mobilise ALL their forces. They will attack your SAM sites. You
should be able to destroy all the GDI units with concentrated turret and
bike fire.
Death Squad
Timing is important. Move your two stealth tanks east of the GDI base and
make a hole in the wall. Move them north, past the mammoth tank. Move your
Nod buggy and your commando to the hole. Hit and run the grenadiers with
the buggy, and snipe them with the commando. Distract the mammoth tank and
any other GDI vehicle by running your buggy all around the inside of his
base. At the same time, order your commando to sabotage the advanced comms
center. Once the commando reaches the sandbags, open fire on the AGT with
your stealth tanks. The AGT will concentrate on the tanks and leave your
commando a clear path to the comms center. The rest, as they say, is
history.
Survival Kit
Sandbags are a cheap way of winning any game. The computer can't recognise
sandbags or fencing as valid targets, and will happily let you sandbag
their bases shut as you pound away at them from the outside. Placing a
sandbag where an enemy building formerly stood will prevent it from being
rebuilt.The computer will always scan from the top down when selecting
targets. To prevent airstrikes against your base, put a minigunner as far
north as you can as A-10 bait. To prevent against engineer incursions,
place a SAM site, immune to engineer takeover, in the most northeastern
corner of your base.
Use loss leader tactics. This is a way of fighting that reduces damage to
your units. When attacking tanks or bikes, for example, attack with an
infantry unit first. They do little damage to the infantry while you blow
them away with your own vehicles. Likewise, when attacking vehicles,
attack with your tank first, letting it, instead of your more vulnerable
men, soak up the machine gun fire. Concentrate your fire on a single
enemy. The quicker you reduce the number of attackers, the less damage you
will take.
Use CTRL-click to force attack on an empty square. Bazookas can take out
standard GDI guard towers from a distance. Approach in a direct vertical
or horizontal line. Advance units one square at a time until they open
fire of their own accord. Enemy ion cannon blasts will almost always
strike obelisks or turrets. Enemy nukes will almost always be launched at
your advanced guard tower. The key to defeating obelisks and Advanced
Guard Towers is to destroy the enemy power stations. They won't function
without juice.
Finally, you can cheat if you are caught in a jam. Select one of your
obelisks, turrets or guard towers. Sell it. As the men pour out, quickly
select it again, and press "S" to stop the sale. You keep both the men and
the structure, and you can repeat this many times.