http://users.bart.nl/~jamin C&C Aftermath Playing Guide KILLER TECHNIQUES Fine-tune your butchery skills with these brutally efficient death-dealing measures. Kill the ore trucks Just kill them. It's usually the only way to stop the computer's endless waves of massive metal killing machines. Range finding Blowing up the base defences with V2 rocket launchers and other long-ranged attacks has always been a staple part of the C&C diet. You can tell if a target is in weapons range by looking at your attack cursor. If it's a white circle with a raspberry jam filling, you're good to fire. If it's a white circle with little mint-green pips on the outside, you need to move closer. Focal fire The trouble with C&C and most other games is that damaged units don't suffer from the side effects of being hurt. A rocket from a damaged V2 launcher is just as accurate and deadly as one from a healthy V2 launcher. Instead of attacking several vehicles at once, command your units to attack and destroy a single enemy vehicle at a time. Go through the enemy ranks one by one. Each vehicle you destroy reduces the number of bullets to dodge. Shoot-and-scoot It's always more difficult to nail moving targets. You'll have a distinct advantage if you can keep your units moving while all about you are standing still. Tap the 'X' key repeatedly the next time you order a tank attack. Though your tanks will scatter to the four winds, they'll always keep their turrets pointed and firing in the direction of your enemy. The queue attack The queue attack is a different approach to shoot-and-scoot, giving you more control over the movement of your units. After you give your attack order, hold down the 'Q' key and give your units some movement orders (try a box pattern). They'll follow your move orders while simultaneously firing on the enemy. This technique works equally well with surface ships as it does with tank units. Busting the limits The speed limits, that is. If you're the impatient sort and have no qualms about cheating, put your slow units in the same group as a faster water transport or APC. Now, press 'F'. When you next give a movement command, the slow units will burn nitro to keep up with the faster ones. ALLIES Harbour reclamation The Soviets are mining ore from a field north of the ocean crossing. If you can send a handful of tanks into this field and take out the ore trucks, the computer will never recover, and remain unable to make new vehicles or replace lost buildings. From that point on, it's just a matter of destroying the defences before rolling into each base. Capture the war factory in the leftmost base so you can make V2s to take out the Tesla coils. In the nick of time Follow the maze-like lay of the land to get to the Soviet base, and send an engineer into the HQ building to release the captives. Use shoot-and-scoot techniques to kill the tanks that get in your way. Your first real obstacle is a Tesla coil perched on a cliff. You have to destroy this one with brute force. Secondly, a screen-width to the west of the north- eastern barracks, there's a minefield running from the base of the cliff to the outcropping just left of a solitary tree. Once you release the captives, get back to the landing zone as fast as you can. You'll be chased by several tons of Mammoth tanks, but your captives are equal in speed. They have the fear of death upon them, after all. Caught in the act There's a fair bit of island hopping to do here, since you have to get Tanya from island to island for reinforcements. You get a helicopter transport on the second island, but if you don't move it away the very instant it lands, a pair of MiG fighters will destroy it. Your rocket infantry can kill attack-helicopters, but you need a group of at least five, and you have to keep them alive. To this end, leave lone riflemen next to the crates you find on the islands. These crates will heal all your units back to full health. You should use them only when you are in danger of losing your rocket infantry. Breach the concrete wall of the north-eastern base and get your spy inside the radar dome. Clear a landing zone in the north-west with your destroyers. Use them to pound the Tesla coils and rocket infantry on the island's shore. Production disruption Destroying the power-plants will net you a few Chronotanks. Send them north, past the bridge and east around the concrete wall. Teleport the Chronotanks to the little island on the left of the sub-pen and send it to kingdom come. Negotiations As everyone knows, it's best to negotiate from a position of strength. You can get Tanya past the flame turret barricade in the east once you destroy the two SAM sites to the north. Kill any infantry getting in your way, but avoid the nasty tanks at all costs. Return to the church with hostages in tow. There's a tank parked on top of the last river crossing that you can deftly avoid by ducking into the forest on your right. Monster tank madness Once you capture the sub-pen and power-plant, cross the water in a shiny new transport and find your base. Send a spy to the east to infiltrate the radar dome in the enemy camp. Unless you want to become pedigree, chum, give the bridge and the dogs a miss. Manufacture an APC and send it south to pick up the professor. Return to base and stick him into the evacuation helicopter. Time flies Teleport your Chronotanks from island to island and destroy all the SAM sites that you find. When you come to the tank on the bridge, leapfrog over him. Eventually, you'll blow the innards out of everything and Tanya will come to help you. Build your base to the right of the gem deposits. Since the Soviets have four ore trucks and are mining an obscene amount of the golden stuff, you must get a war factory up pronto and make six or seven medium tanks to destroy them. Shoot and scoot is the only way you're going to be able to do this without taking horrendous casualties yourself. The mission becomes dead easy afterwards. Absolute M.A.D.ness Past a clump of trees in the south, there's a huge deposit of gems to grab. Repair your units and buildings after each M.A.D. tank attack unless you want to lose them. To stop the M.A.D. tank attacks completely, build an APC and stick a spy inside. Send it to the tech centre in the south and infiltrate the building. Repeat this for the tech centres in the east and the south-east. When the research centre pops up in the bottom-right corner of the map, teleport the Chronotanks there - on top of the enemy soldiers if you can. Destroy the construction yard and research centre while running over the little soldier men. Use a battalion of tanks to wipe the rest of the Soviet forces off this map. PAWN Until the timer ticks down, you're stuck on the defensive. Lay mines in a chessboard pattern at all the approaches to the base. Station your artillery behind your turrets, and pull your rocket infantry to the top and a bit to the centre of your little outpost. If you have the chance, pick up the crate under the oil field so you have some money with which you can conduct repairs. Get rid of the fake stuff in your base once you get your construction vehicle. The only way to win this mission is to send wave after wave of tanks to the north and wear down their defences bit by bit. Your destroyers can give you a bit of air cover here. Use your reinforcements in the top-left to destroy the ore trucks. This won't stop the Soviet reinforcements, but it will prevent them from repairing base damage. SOVIET Testing ground Build a sub-pen as one of your first structures. Send three submarines to the very top of the map. Destroy the enemy shipyard and any ships it may have built. Swing round to the west and destroy the ships in this little harbour. Now send two missile-subs to bombard everything around the northern coast. You should be able to take out half the base without a single loss. Targeting things under the GAP cover isn't difficult; use a submerged sub as a scout to direct the fire of your surfaced missile-subs. Shock therapy Though this is an uncomplicated search and destroy mission, you still need to know a couple of things. First, there's a healing crate under a house in the south by the river. Lastly, you need a V2 rocket launcher to sink the destroyers attacking your missile subs. Let's make a steal The control panels deactivate the machine-gun turrets on this level. The first such panel is south and to the right of your starting position. Head east from here, and enter the tech centre. Double back, take the first corridor south, punch the panel on your way, and duck into the tank room. Dash south and east into the reactor room. Punch the panel in the south to start the countdown timer. Double back again, and run south. Tap the panel in the east, infiltrate the weapons factory, and hop into the experimental vehicle. Your escape route is a long tunnel just north of the reactor room. Don't fight. Just drive. Test drive Stick Volkov into the Phase transport and send them to the northern tech centre. Let Volkov demolish the tech centre while you use the Phase transport to level the AA guns. Do the same thing when you reach the communications base in the south-east. Afterwards, use your submarine reinforcements to clear the channel of gunboats and destroyers. When you receive your shipment of tanks, place the Phase transport at the point where the road turns into a land bridge over the river. From here, you can destroy the turrets and pill-boxes from a safe distance, opening the way for your armour column. Don't drink the water Once you've gassed everyone, capture the chronosphere and at least one of the power-plants. Teleport your MCV across the water and set up your base along the banks of the northern river. There are loads of gems in the upper-left corner. Gather them up quickly so you can build some Tesla coils to defend your base. Don't neglect your southern base. Build a sub-pen and a couple of Tesla coils to protect it from the Allied destroyers and cruisers. You can get rid of the Allied naval power altogether by destroying their shipyard with a few submarines. Build a weapons factory in this southern base and churn out ten heavy tanks. Stick them into transports and set sail for the remote beachhead past the broken bridge. You can ignore the turrets and simply bully your way into their base. Crush everything save the tech centre you need to capture. Situation critical In order to get Volkov and the scientist on the island safely, you have to shut down the power to the Tesla coils. Towards this end, use your missile subs to destroy the power-plants along the perimeter of the island. Be very careful not to destroy the Tesla coils themselves. Send the scientist into the control centre while Volkov destroys the SAM sites. Exercise some caution as you destroy the last SAM site. If you lose Volkov to friendly fire, you'll lose the mission. Brothers in arms Extracting your spy from the compound will require delicate footwork. When he emerges from the HQ, run past the barrels to the south. One of the brothers will shoot at you. With luck, he'll hit the barrels as you pass and roast the dogs giving chase. Run back to the landing zone for reinforcements. Kill the ore trucks in the northern ore field. If you need some money to buy tanks to do this, pick up the crates hidden under the tech centre in the east. Once again, the Allied naval forces will give you trouble unless you counter them early with submarines. Be especially wary of the cruiser creeping up to shell your buildings from the south. The two brothers are tough, but they aren't invincible. If you're powerful enough to make them angry, you're powerful enough to kill them. Deus ex machina Your missile-subs will get you through the difficult parts of this mission, so build three. When you land your tanks on the north-west island, your missile- subs should attack the turret line before you send the tanks through. The missile-subs alone have enough range to destroy the radar dome on the neighbouring island. You'll want to land troops to pick up the 12,000 in cash stored under the toy factories. There's an opportunity to take out the enemy weapons factory with few casualties. Find the weapons factory with a spy plane, and drop paratroopers on the nuclear demolition truck parked next to it. Blow it sky-high. The third radar dome in the upper-right corner is easy picking for a tank battalion. The fourth radar dome is on the peninsula where they are keeping Volkov. After you destroy the dome, get an engineer into the weapons factory. You can't run Volkov over, but he is vulnerable to air attacks. Grunyev Revolution Grunyev is a weird place where things are not as they seem. The smart way to kill the kamikaze villagers is by tooth, fang, and anti-personnel mine. You have to hold out long enough for Stalin to send his personal guard. They'll finish off anyone you missed. One caveat: they'll attack you also, so you must be prepared to meet them with tanks of your own. You may want help with the initial funding, so see that your ore trucks find the gems surrounding the central pond. The gems run on both sides of the river. Kill the Allied ore trucks on sight and prevent them from mining any gems themselves.