Overview[]
- Objectives
- Survive The UEF Assault
- Destroy The UEF Naval Base
- Destroy The UEF Air Base
- Destroy The UEF Land Base
- Defeat The UEF Commander
Planet:
Matar
Allies:
Crusader Eris(Note: She Leaves During First Part)
Enemies:
Arnold
Note: Arnold first appears at the naval base, then the land, the air, and his base. To defeat him, you need a huge army of ships to take out his defences first, and have gunships finish him off.
Technology available: all T1 units, T2 Air unlocked but with Skimmer only. As the mission progresses, the Specter T2 gunship and both (vanilla) T2 sea options will become available.
Tactics[]
- The Holdout
The exiting Aeon crusader is exhausted from the endless waves of UEF, giving the player an idea of what is about to come. Start by constructing as many engineers as possible, both T2 from the air factory, and then T1 from every other factory. This is to increase global build rate as fast as possible. Use the engineers to place structures over the aeon wrecks. Rebuilding on top of an identical wreck will cut the construction time in half. Start with the T2 Power Generators for economy, then progress to the mass extractors and drop T2 Extractors. Build extra air factories as necessary to produce T1 engineers -- these can eventually be upgraded later.
Air will come in from the north and west with transports, representing the two main UEF bases. Additionally, from the southwest bombers will come. There will be so many air fighters it will not be worth any. Simply use the engineers to build flak turrets. Also do not bother with Shards, even though they can't be shot down, as they are mass inefficient. Overall, as T2 Land is not available these turrets will be your main form of defence. Use the ACU engineering suite to assist the engineers in their task. If there are any wrecks you cannot use or unit wrecks, reclaim them by alt-attack moving with engineerings.
Shortly after the air raids, fully loaded transports will start to arrive. If they all can unload it will be overwhelming. With the flak turrets this should help, but they will need to be expanded to the northwestern area.
Once this is done, rebuild the Naval Factories in the northwest. Equip them with T2 torpedo defences to ensure they cannot be sunk while your forces are accruing attack submarines. Equip the north edge of your base with the T2 Oblivion point defence and sandbag walls to stop enemy destroyers. The map will soon be expanding, so be cautious. Also continue to build redundant T2 power and T2 factories to the north for extra safety.
- Going on the offensive
When the attack is repelled, the 3 closest UEF bases are revealed. There will be plentiful torpedo launchers. Along with the Valiant destroyers, this also marks the start of a buildup of T2 Stinger gunships and Governor cruisers. The economy should also be well established at this point in order to continue. This is the appropriate time to start constructing interceptors to defend your growing navy. Build a vast array of T1 Naval Factorys. Use the repeat command to ensure they are pumping out sylphs and Beacons -- you will definitely need some of each. The sylphs are vital for sea control - defeating enemy submersibles, such as the Tigershark, as well as the Governor cruisers to stop them from sniping the main base; while the Beacons are pure DPS against tropedo launchers and factories.
Send the Beacons to the bottom left along with a fighter escort to mop up the Stork torp bombers. There is limited torpedo defence so once the gunships and torps are cleared, the Beacons will be free to engage. Clean up the island and use a Chariot to capture the mass deposits.
Start chipping away at the southeast cruiser base using the surviving frigates. There are long range T2 torp defences, so using the north edges of the Aeon island's coast will be most useful for placing naval factories, to stop rallying units from wandering into their range. As mentioned before, use sylphs to remove the cruisers. It will be a tough fight but once the T2 navy is down the Aeon forces will get more mass to play with and remove a major threat (there is no TMD available to defend against the cruiser's naval TML).
- UEF on the retreat
Finally, start upgrading air factories to T2 and prepare for a well-supported push north. This is not the end of the mission. It may have been apparent that the UEF commander is fleeing using a Teleporter upgrade. He will do so again. Use gunships, frigates, and other forces to clean out the base. Once it is down the T2 transport drops will stop. Finally, the map will then expand west again one last time.
Increase your production in order to beat the final base. You can try to snipe the ACU on land with gunships but he has heavy flak support. Alternatively, use frigates to clear out the T2 torp defences, then move subs anticlockwise around the island archilapelago to clean out the factories. Spam click the attack commands and break up the sub group into bits because they do not have collision and can simply move through each other, so issuing extra movement will expedite their attack and rangefinding. Be weary of the Triads, which outrange frigates.
Once the base defences have been dismantled, disable the UEF ACU to secure victory for the Princess.