| X1CA_002 Forged Alliance official campaign map | |
| Size | 20x20 km |
| Aeon Loyalists, led by Crusader Rhiza, were captured while conducting sabotage and intelligence missions against Order and QAI positions. You must rescue the Loyalists being held by QAI and defeat all enemy commanders operating on the planet. | |
| Previous map: X1CA_001 |
Next map: X1CA_003 |
X1CA_002 is an official campaign map from Forged Alliance. It is the second map.
Walkthrough/Strategy[]
OPERATION:DAWN
PRIMARY MISSIONS:
- Thwart the Order Assault
- Destroy the Order Forward Base
- Rescue the Loyalist POWs
- Survive the Counter-Attack
- Defeat the QAI Commander
SECONDARY MISSIONS:
- Eliminate the Order Resource Base
- Destroy the Order Defences (Aeon)
- Bring an Engineer, ACU or sACU to the Cybran Colony (Cybran)
NEW TECH
- UEF Ravager (after first base)
- UEF Spearhead (after capturing prison)
- Cybran Jester (At start)
- Cybran Fire Beetle (after first base)
- Aeon Paragon (After capturing prison)
- Aeon Sprite Striker (At start)
Tips[]
Tip 1:When capturing the Loyalist Prison you should upgrade your ACU with teleportation so that you can teleport in and capture it and teleport out since Celene will have a extra base if you keep the order base alive thats guarding the prison. The prison area is only guarded by a single T2 defense and perhaps a few gunships. If you're Aeon you can use sACU for this.
Tip 2: You can fly a transport along the bottom of the map with engineers and build factories under your ally's stealth generators. This will allow you to build T3 units (especially heavy artillery) and flank the QAI half of the base.
You start with nothing but your ACU, so standard build orders are necessary. There is a substantial amount of reclaimable mass in the ruins of the base surrounding your start location, so you can use them to boost your early mass generation. Build your defenses at the only entrance point on the right. You should build up your base as much as possible before destroying the base in the first stage.
The second stage can be ended very quickly by the method in Tip 1, however you do want to build up some experimentals and maybe strategic missile launcher before completing it.
After this, you'll see about 20 units appear on the far right of the map, twelve of these being Experimental units, 6 Monkeylords and 6 Galactic Colossi. These, believe it or not, are harmless to your main base as when they reach the remains of QAI's base the GCs will ally with you and destroy the Monkeylords. Note that if you place some experimental units (ideally GC's, Monkeylords and/or a few Soul Rippers) at the edge of the map, they can wipe out the entire experimental group before the GCs switch sides. Any remaining GCs will attempt to march towards QAI's base, however the base is heavily defended by Monkeylords and a Soul Ripper. You can train some T3 Gunships and some ASF and when the experimentals appear, primary the Monkeylords only (the GC cannot attack air). When the GC become allied, they will turn around and head towards QAI's base. Use the ASF and try to take out the Soul Ripper and any remaining gunships can target the Monkeylords patrolling QAI's base. With some adequate ASF coverage of the GC, they can take out most of QAI's base themselves.
If you're UEF, a Mavor will do the job easily, since you only need to destroy the ACU. You can also use Fatboys but you'll have to destroy the Soul Ripper first.
If you're Cybran, you can build some Soul Rippers to crush the ACU, or you can try to use Scathis but since Scathis has slightly less range than heavy artilleries you won't be able to fire it fom your base, thus you'll have to move it to one of Celene's base.
If you're Aeon, don't bother with the Paragon, just use two CZARs for an easy victory, or you can use Tempest but beware of that Soul Ripper.
Useful Information
This is the mission UEF gets their T3 PD Ravager, which makes for a powerful defense, obviously, as it's the only T3 point defense in the game. Bases will, naturally, fare well against any attack with 15 of these outside your base. UEF thrive on symmetrical layouts and visible designs, so make a line of five Heavy Shields between the beach and the mountain ridge, with 15 T2 point defence on the right-hand side and 15 SAMs the left.
If you're UEF you can, at this point, reclaim the Triads and construct Ravagers where they used to be, however T2 Point Defence will still hold back most units.
In this mission the Aeon unlock use of their Experimental Resource Generator plus their Tech 3 Sniper Bot and the Cybran gain the Light Gunship plus the Fire Beetle Mobile Bomb.
If you are playing as Aeon,you can get a free CZAR strike(complete with air units inside).
Walkthrough/Strategy (Hard Mode)[]
Welcome to the Hard Mode section. Many of the tactics used here are unnecessary in normal mode, but crucial in hard mode. The order and timing of your actions are crucial in the beginning of each mission (and each stage) in order to survive the early assaults, and in most cases you'll need to capture enemy factions in order to make things easier. A general rule to remember in hard mode is that you must allow yourself to build up as much as possible before ending each stage in order to prepare for what's coming, thus you must be familiar with the flow of the mission.
This mission is slightly easier than the previous one because the only difficult area is the early part of stage 1, and there's no strategic air strikes to worry about.
Stage 1[]
Unlike in normal mode, which only requires you to kill 12 units, you now have a staggering 47 units, including 2 T2 Blazes, all need to be killed by your totally un-upgraded ACU alone. Minimise the damage you take by walking in circles and stay behind the Aeon buildings. Walking in circles allow you to avoid the shells from the massive numbers of Fervor artilleries, since they have minimal damage radius but has very high DPS (in fact their DPS is comparable to their T2 Obsidian), thus if you stay still you'll be in trouble.
After eliminating the units, move to the area on the northeast where there're two empty mass deposits and immediately start building a land factory then 4 power plants. Even while building them you'll have to watch out for stray units around the area as well as be ready for the T1 assaults. Use the same walk-in-circle tactic against those Fervors. Don't bother building defenses yet; they'll just get destroyed, instead get two T1 engineers to help with the base, then immediately start upgrading the factory to T2. If you're Cybran, right about now you'll unlock the Jester, which can help killing those T1 units, but don't build too many of them as you want to reach T2 ASAP. You wont have mass extractors yet so have one engineer reclaim the extractor wheckage at the deposits then those building wheckages at northeast. Don't over-reclaim: you dont want any wastage since you don't have extractors yet.
Now, the reason why you should choose that spot for your base is because that spot is off the enemy assault waypoint: enemy units will come in from the lone entrance point, move straight to the west, then down to the Loyalist base. If you build your base at any other area you'll receive the blunt of the attack, thus the area northeast of the Loyalist base is the only "safe" spot and allow you to avoid most of the attacks. Notice i say most: you still have to fed off some units, and the upcoming T2 assaults will have enough range to attack you. Do not worry about the Loyalist base: they can hold off the T1 units for a while, but they wont last when the enemy starts using T2 units. Still, losing the Loyalist base won't cause a mission failure, in fact losing them allows you to have two more deposits. This is particularly important when playing as Cybran, since the T2 Cerberus point defense is weak against their shielded Obsidians, so you might want to use the Loyalist base to draw off their fire until you can get some Rocket Bots to counter them.
When your factory reaches T2, immediately build 4 mobile flaks to prepare for the gunship assaults, then get some T2 engineers and have two build some T1 power plants (about 20 will do) then the two T2 mass extractors while the other two build a shield generator on top side of the factory; it is time to form a defense line. Remember to have your T1 engineers reclaim destroyed units so you have enough mass for all this. After you have the shield, build T2 point defenses and T2 flaks under it. The enemy should began to use T2 units in their assaults now so you can't delay. After you have the T2 extractors, start building a T2 power plant and another shield beside the first one. If you're Cybran make sure your shields is at ED3. Don't upgrade further though; you want small shields for the frontline defense to avoid gunships wonder into the shield and destroy the structure. Now, continue building T2 shields to the left and build T2 defenses under them, while at the back continue building some T2 power plants. Be mindful of the available mass: reclaim those destroyed gunships as they worth the most mass. Do this until you reach another mass deposit which is at northwest of the Loyalist base: you'll need about a chain of 5 to 7 T2 shields in a line to reach. Also get some tactical missile defenses in place; those Evensongs can bring down your shields if you're not careful.
With that long defense line in place, you can start to relax and its time to upgrade your ACU and your factory to T3. You should have 3 mass extractors now, which is enough once you upgraded them to T3 and surrounded them with storage. Get some T3 shields (ED5 for Cybran) at the back of your defense line to cover them as well as the base. Start building T3 power plants and get some mass fabricators as well, since unlike skirmish they only consume 1000 power each rather than 3500. Also get some SAMs around the base but you don't have to worry about any huge air strikes since they won't be any. Get a Quantom Gate and build some sACUs. A strategic missile strike is not likely but you can build a strategic defense if you're the paranoid type.
Start building experimentals. A Mavor is nice for UEF though not vital if you capture Aeon tech, and Soul Rippers for Cybran, and Colossi and CZARs for Aeon. You only need land experimentals and soul rippers for defenses since the following two stages will end very quickly if you follow this guide. Use the Mavor/Soul Ripper/CZAR to destroy those power generators to complete the objective, then attack the base, aim for defenses, petrol units, and mass extractors. Leave the engineers and production building alone for UEF/Cybran since you want to capture the Aeon engineers. For UEF you may want to use Broadswords for this because Mavor can easily do too much damage, however you can build your Mavor nearer so that some buildings are inside the minimum range. Transport an sACU over to capture. Build up your new Aeon base and get some Aeon SACUs to build some CZARs for the final stage. Make sure you have an Aeon sACU with teleportation upgrade.
Also you can build a second base at the area with the hydrocarbon deposit if you like, since you can get 3 more mass deposits there to allow you build experimentals quicker.
When you're ready, destroy the base and proceed to next stage.
Stage 2[]
Immediately teleport your Aeon sACU over and capture the prison, then teleport back. Job done. Now watch the epic battle between Colossi and Monkeylords and proceed to the next stage. In normal mode, there'll be 6 Monkeylords and 6 Colossi, however in hard mode there'll be 8 Monkeylords so a win is no longer a guarantee, and whats more to ensure its victory QAI will send 3 Soul Rippers to finish up, so unless you prepared CZARs/Soul Rippers to help them the Colossi will lose.
Stage 3[]
To end the mission, simply send all your CZARs to the poor ACU and fry it to submission, though you only really need one.If Aeon,you can also use the CZAR Celene offers you. For Cybran/Aeon you may want to spend some time to complete the optional objectives, both easily achievable with the help of a CZAR, then for cybran transport an engineer to the destination or, even safer, teleport an Aeon sACU over.
Trivia[]
- The end cinematic shows loyalist T2 tanks, engineers, and a few Harbingers. In the campaign, the loyalists hardly ever build anything T2 let alone T3. They are effectively useless and the end cinematic should have quite weaker units.
- Presumably to avoid breaking the end cutscene, the Seraphim gateway is completely indestructible, as it cannot take damage at all.