Article By Tony James
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Table of Contents
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1.0 Introduction
2.0 General Stategy
3.0 GDI tips
4.0 NOD tips
5.0 Scrin tips
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1.0 – Introduction
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The purpose of this guide is to provide some general and race specific strategies for Command & Conquer 3. This guide assumes you have a basic understanding of the game. The first thing you should do before playing online is to go through a few missions in the campaign and try a few games vs the computer in skirmish mode. You can find the latest version of this guide at this address:
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2.0 – General Strategy
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There are a few basic things every player should be aware of if they expect to be competitive in multiplayer matches.
-Keep in mind that it costs the same to build a refinery and sell it to keep the harvester as it does to build a harvester from a factory. Most good players use this to their advantage early in the game. Sell your first factory and replace it with another one. Do the same at your expansion if you expand early.
-Blue tiberium is worth twice as much as green, so ALWAYS expand first if there is blue tiberium on the map
-Counter infantry rushes easily with your anti infantry turret
-First of all, memorize as many hotkeys as possible, hotkeys save a lot of time and make a huge difference.
-Learn to use control groups if you dont already, you can find out how in the manual
-Keep in mind which units detect stealth, when you are faced with stealth units such as NOD Shadow Teams, you need to be aware of your races stealth detection units. For example With GDI you can use a Pitbull.
-Build at least two harvesters for each refinery and build at least two refineries early of the game
-Dont forget to use your special abilities
-Build your structures so that you are moving towards tiberium patches so you can set up a refinery there when your build radius reaches far enough
-It is generally always a good idea to build a crane first before anything else
-Learn how to power down buildings using "x" hotkey
-Dont lose unnecessary units, remember you can heal tanks at the factory
-Use reverse move "D" to move your tanks back when you are retreating so their stronger front armor is facing the enemy
-What a lot of people forget is that if you have units that leave husks on the battlefield like the Avatar Walker with the Scrin, an engineer can enter the dead husk and revive the unit with half health, always use this to your advantage
-If you are outnumbered pull your units back and queue up defense structures to cover your retreat if you think the enemy will follow
-If your opponent is not attacking and is giving you too much time, spam some harvesters and refineries, you will be able to tech up and pump out your late game units much sooner
-Build Order tips: there are many different build orders, but my build orders generally consist of something like this:
1. crane (and surveyor if there is blue tiberuim) (set rally point of base to expansion spot)
2. (build queue 1)refinery, (build queue 2)power plant,
3. place power plant, queue another refinery, place first
4. refinery, sell the refinery I just placed, then queue a factory
5. place the second refinery in the spot where I sold the first refinery
6. queue refinery
now you have two harvesters 1 refinery, 1 factory building and a refinery building from here you should build another refinery at your expansion and sell the first one, or you could just send a harvester from your factory as soon as it is built to meet up with your new refinery. Dont forget about power plants as well. But no matter what, start pumping out some units. Use your newly built units to harass the enemy, preferably destroying his expansion.
From here you can build another factory, refinery, or barracks depending on your opponent and your play style.
If you feel confident in your ability to defend yourself against a rush with few units you can build more refineries early and spam a few harvesters to give your economy a huge boost. Remember economy is key.
With scrin you could have built a barracks instead of a factory first and produced some disintegrators to go harass the enemy. Or used disintegrators as cheap defense while you build up your economy.
With NOD you could have built a barracks and a secret shrine early to go for a Shadow Team rush.
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3.0 – GDI tips
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Here are some general tips when using GDI:
When using GDI you should focus on building predator tanks. Infantry is ok, but is easily countered. Your best bet if you expect to encounter mainly tank type units is to spam predator tanks and maybe mix in rocket troopers. Once you have a decent size group of predator tanks use them to harass the enemy, focus on disrupting the economy. Rocket troopers are great against air units as well, especially with the composite armor upgrade.
Predators are your bread and butter, but you should be teching up to mammoths as soon as possible while you are still spamming predators. The railgun upgrade for tanks is essential to gaining the edge.
Orcas are good as a mobile support unit, but dont rely on them to be your main attack force, they are easily countered.
If you are against a good NOD opponent, expect some Shadow Teams, which in groups are stealthed and can destroy buildings easily. You can counter these easily if you build a pitbull to detect stealth and an APC to help finish them.
Against scrin, you may be faced with an early disintegrator rush which you can easily counter with anti infantry turrets and APCs. Counter Scrin air superiority with rocket infantry with composite armor upgrade, they will rip through any air units.
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3.0 – NOD tips
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Here are some general tips when using NOD:
NOD relies more on harassment than direct attacks, use their strengths to your advantage. Use your fast scorpion tanks to do hit and run attacks on the opponent. You should also use your shadow teams to blow up your enemies structures. Try to avoid units that detect stealth.
NOD excels at the early game, try to prevent GDI and Scrin from getting to their elite units by destroying the prerequisite buildings as you see them. If GDI gets mammoths with railguns you will have a hard time surviving.
The laser upgrade for the scorpions is very important to gain an early edge.
Against Scrin, like with GDI, your rocket infantry is very effective.
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4.0 – Scrin tips
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Here are some general tips when using Scrin:
The Scrin are most effective with a mix of units. Early on, Disintegrators and Seekers are effective against tanks. Once you get a nerve center, your Devourer tanks will be your main unit. They have a special ability that allows them to absorb tiberium from the field giving them much stronger weapons for a limited number of shots, always use this ability.
Scrin's air units are very strong when mixed into the army. Do not rely entirely on air units, as they are easily countered by units such as armor upgraded rocket infantry. Avatar walkers are great late game units but use them wisely as they can be taken over by enemy engineers after they fall. The shield upgrade is very useful, get it as soon as possible.
Use your lightning spike ability if you go for an early attack, you can place this turret type structure anywhere on the map.
Tony James is an author and webmaster. He currently runs the website Freeware Games.net
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