

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. Save your mission. 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 everything 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 refinery 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
refinery and place it at the east of your base. A turret may pop out in the
corner of where the refinery was standing first. 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 corner of the map. 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 the ion cannon. Build another refinery to take
advantage of the northern tiberium fields. When you destroy the Nod radar
in the northwest to stop the airstrikes. 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 Apache helicopters 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. You can destroy the adv. comms center from the
south with only two Stealths.


The 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 towers,
exept if you have an adv. comms center.

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.
