Part 48: Alaska
I'm back! And hopefully things should be less hectic now that I've finished up the stuff that came up in real life and we can get back to a fairly frequent/consistent update schedule.
So Alaska. This is a tricky mission since you're well behind enemy lines, have a pretty terrible starting location, and you need to mine 100,000 credits. From an area the UCS currently control. Good lord.
Fortunately the successful completion of this mission will put our spaceship well ahead of the pace we saw in the UCS and LC campaigns.
Like I said, our starting location is pretty horrible. We've got minimal resources and the UCS are sitting on the deposits we need. Our first goal is to get a small base going here and then push out with tanks we've got at HQ. Hope you saved up some units, otherwise this mission is going to be nearly impossible.
The base at our LZ is going to be a shoestring operation. We don't need anything more than power, a Supply Depot to reload, a VPC to make our support units and a Mine/Refinery to extract the pitiful amount of resources here.
This is our target. This is an extremely rich mineral field but it's currently controlled by the UCS and it's got a ton of trees on it. Boo trees, get out of the way you make mining challenging.
Okay I lied there's one more building I put at the LZ base. Since we're out of credits at HQ we need a Research Center to work on upgrades. But that's it I swear.
We need to research the Grozny because it is awesome and I'm sick of using Cossacks.
Now that everything is built and my army is here we can move out and take on the UCS base. We're going to need a lot of firepower, and it's crucial you don't over-extend yourself here for...reasons you'll soon see. If you are taking heavy losses, pull back and re-group. You don't want to destroy the base and only have a Pamir or two left.
The UCS aren't shitting around here. They've got guided rockets and every structure that can support weapon mounts has them. Furthermore, the longer you wait to take out the base the more well-defended it will be. The Mammoth you see there is building a Small Tower and will continue to build if you don't intervene quickly.
Why are the buildings still shooting if they don't have power any more?
Oh right, because there's two power plants. Or well there were two power plants. Now there's none.
We've destroyed the last building and gotten our mining base started. Another great victory for the Eurasian Dynasty!
Let the
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqsU-XQ8ZD0
The Grozny is complete. As you can see it's a pretty fantastic helicopter.
Our next piece of research will be the Large Tower. We're gonna need it.
Why?
Because those damned robots sent a distress signal and their friends are going to investigate. The UCS are going to come hard and fast at both our bases. The best defense is a good offense, so let's rally what we've got and see if we can blunt their attacks a bit.
At least we found out about a new research program. Those have been very fruitful for us so far. Additionally, the attacks won't trigger until you destroy the last structure in the mining base. If you'd like to cheese this mission you can leave one structure alone and have a much easier time of things.
The UCS have a very impressive set of defenses here to the southwest of the mineral patch. It's just Small Towers but because they have a height advantage and homing missiles this can quickly become a death trap.
We've taken out three of the towers but we're already down 4 units and the UCS have brought in their Gargoyles and Tiger Gs to intensify the fire. We're begging for a beat down right now.
Yep we are getting our asses kicked. As out of character as it is I think it's time to order a retreat.
Fall back filthy peasants! Fall back! Any man not running like a scared child back to base will be shot (by the UCS)!
In news that should surprise no one given how badly we're outnumbered there, I end up taking horrific losses. Time to bring in more units from HQ!
There we go. It's like we didn't just lose our entire army in one of the most ill-conceived attacks since massed cavalry charges in WWI.
Good thing we brought in those extra units because now the northern UCS forces are pummeling our base. Grenades aren't that great but they do a good job against buildings.
Fortunately they don't have shields to defend against our Siberia Ls and the Tanks can take care of anyone out of range of the lasers.
Plus we've now got this fancy line of Large Towers to guard the southern half of our base.
Check out that line. Isn't it the best line of towers you've ever seen?
The UCS, realizing how awesome my line is has decided to attack the LZ base. Too bad I didn't build any of those up there
Meanwhile a brave Pamir has raced inside the UCS base to the west. It looks very well-fortified, thus proving how utterly stupid my offensive was.
I've built enough Small Towers around the base that they should be able to fend off the Gargoyle raids.
Not that they needed to do too much defending since the Mine is now tapped out. With the minerals fully extracted there's no reason to continue to hold this base.
And my cavalier defense results in some towers getting destroyed. But there's no reason to cry over a base that's served its purpose.
Our army is doing a great job of holding the northern part of the base against the UCS though. And I've now got enough time (and credits) to build some Large Towers to support them.
These UCS Tigers seem to love attacking the tower, which makes life a lot easier for the army.
I've also managed to rebuild from my poorly planned attack. Thanks for holding the line there Siberias and Tanks. You'll get a medal or extra rations or something.
More Tigers march to their doom up north.
We've hit the 200,000 CR sent mark but we're only halfway through this mission.
Let's see if I can speed up the mining, I don't want to be here all day.
This extra mine should do wonders.
Or it would if it had more than 2000 credits under it.
Let's try that again...
Oh no! The UCS have finally realized that my magnificent towers don't stand up too well against Gargoyles. Damned UCS, being all clever and stuff.
So glad I spent the 1,000 credits on that mine.
Now that the attacks have slowed down I'll focus on getting some upgrades. First is the 2nd tier rocket launcher.
Our mining base is humming along quite nicely. To save time I turn the game speed up to max and well, you can see what happens when you've maxed out the game speed. Things move very quickly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5RkaXzVQ6s
Our upgraded rocket launcher. Works just like the UCS and LC.
Hurrah! Hurrah! We've managed to mine all the resources we've needed. And now I'm known as Axeil, "Scourge of the Robotniks." What an awesome nickname.
Instead of going back to base right away, I'll work on some more rocket launcher upgrades.
Now we just need the upgraded ammunition and our rockets will actually be worth using.
We brought in 170,000 credits more than what we needed for our second progress report. They should call me "Scourge of Central Planning"
We managed to hold out against superior numbers in a very tenuous situation. I'm proud of my men. Good job guys!
156 units destroyed. And that's why you don't keep throwing robots at an objective you can't achieve.
Remember Japan from the UCS side? Well instead we're going up against 3 Lunar Corporation bases. Given our mediocre air force we're probably going to need naval units this time. For everyone that's been waiting to see navies in action, this is your lucky day.
The 2nd ED battle theme will be our last piece of music until we get to the expansions.
I hope you've all enjoyed the music section!