Part 68: Andes

Welcome to South America. The UCS has bottled up the Andes region pretty tight. There's no hope of making it in in time via Panama so we'll need to approach from the south. Unfortunately, the UCS has a number of defensive outposts here, making it impossible to move through the region. We'll need to take them out so we can secure a foothold in the mountains.



We start with a bit of resources and no base to speak of. Fortunately we're surrounded on three sides by high mountains so we only need to worry about an attack from the northwest.



I send the UFO to do some scouting and he finds two Small Towers. They're easy enough to destroy. This is what will happen this entire mission. You find small outposts all over the place and some of them are impossible to hit from the ground.



Like this one. There's no way the UFO or any other land unit can reach the towers or the power plant.



The UFO is now on the plateau above the valley to the west of our starting location. I've started constructing a mining base there as there are more resources. I've also had the UFO destroy more Small Towers that line the edge of the cliff wall.



And now the UFO has stumbled on a very undefended base. This was very foolish of you UCS.



There were a few plasma Small Towers around the power plant, but they're not a real threat. With the power down I raze the rest of the base to the ground.



It's taken a bit but I've created the solution to the unreachable towers. Can you see it yet?



Yes that's right, it's the Han B. I've not shown off the power of bombers all that much so get ready to see why you want to make sure you're well-defended against air strikes in the late game.





This is why. The Hans dropped their nuclear payloads over the power plant and were able to utterly decimate the plant and the surrounding towers. The ED's bombs are far stronger than the UCS's since they're 1) nukes and 2) ignore shields (because they're nukes).

The other helicopters I made only exist to draw fire away from the Han bombers; the Hans are more than capable of taking out all the defensive outposts on their own.



They still have to reload, so I build a new Supply Depot at the mining base. It'll be closer to the action.



With the Hans reloaded, I send the air force back out to discover more outposts and nuke them.





Even Fortresses are no match for the power of the nuclear bomb.



While the Hans fly around nuking everything in sight I've sent the UFO down to the bottom of the map, where he's found a UCS mining operation. We need those resources assholes, give them to us!



This base is even more of a pushover than the last one. This is the only power plant in the base. Er well, it was the only power plant.



More nukes! Drop more!

At this point, so long as I can get the Hans over the power plants the UCS outposts are toast. If you like nukes (and who doesn't like nukes?) this is a much more cost-effective strategy than lobbing missiles everywhere. Bombers are far cheaper to reload than missile silos. Just make sure you repair them if they take some damage going in for their strikes. They take a bit to rebuild.



The Hans are back at base repairing so I figure I can clear out the last bit with the Volga BRL.





It's just as effective as the bombers. There's a few Small Towers that need to be cleaned up but they fall in seconds.



Is that 500 kg for all my medals? Just how many medals have I earned at this point?





Oddly, the UCS didn't really build any units this round. I think the only units they built were the Harvesters. I'm not sure if this is what normally happens or if they were too in awe of my nuclear bombs to do anything.




All this build-up and the last true mission of the ED campaign is a reverse-escort mission combined with a mining mission? Lame. Lame as hell. But don't worry. I found a way to spice up the last mission of Earth 2150.

I have to say though, the flow of the last 10 missions or so have been great. You're sent to one specific area and given the objective of clearing out the UCS but the game doesn't make all the missions the same. Even each region is different. The South Pacific focused on naval combat, Africa focused on your alliance with the Ashanti and nuclear technology and South America has well...okay South America isn't that great. You can see how the outcomes of one mission lead right into the next mission in ways that the LC and UCS campaign don't because they just don't have enough missions. Most people never get to see these awesome late-game ED missions because they've already mined the 1,000,000 CR for the space ship. I'm glad I was able to show off these missions to you guys as they're some of the best in the game in my opinion.

As I've already played Colombia I think the update will go up fairly soon. I've deviated from the mission parameters a bit since Colombia is a very boring mission if played straight. Once it's done we move on to the moon!