Hah, I always thought "Penultimate Assault" would be more apt, if not as cool.

I wrote once before whether if, in the very beginning, you knock out the enemy mech building the eastern turret, no nuke is built beyond it. That's wrong - its just timing as to whether another contructor is built.

Just finished this level for the zillionth time, and still as challenging. The AI is VERY aggressive and the scripting of this level likely more tight. I try to get that first aerial factory after the turret to avoid further attacks by air. This is best done with a Bee, but the heavy artillery next door can get you quick.

I just build judases. It seems to be the most effective challenge to the AI. I try - TRY - to save as many units as I can but once they send the first barrage of Bees over, you need that Judas badly. There's usually a tank or two headed your way too that you can grab.

The hardest thing for me is trying to worry about all this judasing while the AI is sending light and medium units straight north right at your base. I seem to never to rememember to spread out enough to deal. Another bee is what I use for the southern turret. Then it''s all just judasing and attrition.

There's a mek past the southern factories, if you judas him you MAY be able to capture the ion cannon. For some reason you cannot research it or steal the enemy's research....
There are triple rocket knights righ tthere so if you are good in FP you can really turn the tables right then.

Probably the best constructed Level. Now --- THE CONTROLLER! "Me on OTHER side now!"

@wildh0rse My favorite hard level is the last level. It isn't only hard to destroy the enemy, it's also hard to get minerals and manage the base while all hell breaks loose. They throw literally everything at you.

If you come to a certain room before they even start attacking you, though, this becomes incredibly hard to do without 1st person mode. And even then, good luck dodging all the Singularity Vortexes, rockets and Judas rays while Gorillas try to smash you and while all the crowded builders escape. I repeated that part 10 times in a row. It was very fun to do with an Assassin Warlord, but even with the 1st person mode, clearing that room is, as I said, very hard. It's very satisfying and useful, though. If you do that, you can destroy all nearby factories with ease. At least that's what I think. I don't know, really, but it's still better to kill them all out for me than to let them send out small squads of devastating machines continuously.

The only thing I ever end up bulding is Judases. That room with the turrets is key, the only way I have been succesful is to burm through that room with a Judas and hope that there's a gorilla there. Once you judas some key units they go for the other ones and the turrets kill all the friendly units and all the enemy in the line of fire. Best thing to do next is to get up into that northeastern room and destroy those factories, This way the units have to travel farther from the western factories to get to you. It's really, really easy to get hammerred in the last level, saving at succesful points is paramount.

The end game is hard too. You have a very inaccessible area that contains MORE factories. I like jusasing the builders there and builing a turret lol or better, decontructing the factories which you dont need. And yea the AI just keeps at you with the light infantry units so those factories have to be dealt with. A great level!

Once I built a nuke and actually nuked the controller to death :-) that was fun.

@wildh0rse Not to forget the satisfying ending sequence! If you want to, I can post it here aswell, since I converted it into .avi format.

Satisfying isn't the word. You found/researched everything, took the pass, reclaimed Talonthia 8 (yikes thats a whole other posting), espionaged and assualted and FINALLY that damned controller is finished!

Off topic: Why are the non-campaign levels' AI so weak? I can't help but win straight through evry time.

@wildh0rse said:

Once I built a nuke and actually nuked the controller to death :-) that was fun.

You can do that in an underground setting!? (I never finished the campaign.)

I thought about this image. The nuke is the ball hahaha.

@wildh0rse I guess it's because the machines in the campaign levels have some scripted behaviors or something, that makes the enemy feel more intelligent (and it's quite true if you compare it to skirmish bots). Skirmish has almost no scripting (almost, let's not forget the enemy builds the buildings in the same places), so I guess that's why.

Correction: You can NOT build a nuke in the last level. I just finished it. That was a fantasy I guess. You can build turrets and Aerial factories though. I found there are a lot of small mineral deposits in the west of the last level that I did not know about. This is only relevant in the end game, after everything has been wiped out, it's not safe otherwise. The western factories are the last lynchpin of the AI's defense and it pumps out missile knights and judases and TONS of machine gun reapers, Yikes.

It's fun how I just "convened" all the units at the Controller and basically just lit the fuse, so to speak. Took about 30 seconds with everyone firing, "Music from the entire Orchestra"!!!

@wildh0rse I used the 1st person mode with the Assassin Warlord, destroyed all the turrets and masterfully dodged their rockets, then I started to circle around the Controller. Sometimes Gorillas noticed me, but that was only a benefit for me (guess why). I had to destroy them occasionally, though, 'cuz things got too hot when they were too close. It took me a long time to destroy it with only a single unit (+ replacements, casualties happen), but it was awesome! Definitely worth every single BMU.

The funniest thing is, you can actually fire nukes at your enemies in the Midian interior, however, it's possible in the Skirmish maps only. Imagine how do they fly through all the ceilings and walls...

yay.gorilla

Final Assault is a fairly easy mission once you get the strategy right.

My strategy is to build a few Judas, and take out the airborne unit factory to the east. Then I press south with a Judas, capturing enemy units. I also capture civilian units to distract enemy aggressors, especially constructors, because I can have them deconstruct enemy buildings that will provide me with BMUs and destroy structures. Sometimes I'm able to capture the Ion Cannon and really mess things up.

My primary focus is to do a lap towards the factory area in the immediate south of the Pod, capturing units as I go. Once I arrive in the factory area, I capture units and have them stand on the factory spawn pads so no more units can spawn, and have them attack the factories. I usually have a few gorillas following me that I capture once they catch up to me. Bee Bombers are one of my favorite units to capture in this mission, because they are so destructive with the density of enemy units and structures found in this level.

I also only focus on tactical targets; I don't attack civilian buildings. My primary focus is military units and factories.

The very last mission is challenging. My refined strategy is to press directly west from the starting point once the base has been established (smelter & a few scavengers to continue building Judas' and warlords/commandants with healing ability) with a Judas and capture as you go, killing reapers and saving anything you can capture. I send vortex singularity units to the smelter because they often kill my own units.

Once you press West, you attack the civilian factories and have a few captured units hang out there to kill any constructors that try to rebuild them. Soon all constructors will be destroyed, making it impossible for the enemy to replenish any destroyed factories.

Once the constructor population withers, I send in a strike team that destroys the four light infantry factories directly North-North-East of the starting point. This is usually done with a first person Gorilla that I capture, and the strike is done by masterfully toggling between the different weapons systems by pressing Tab and hitting one building with missiles while punching another. That will severely reduce the amount of pressure the main area experiences.

From that point on, if the Gorilla survives, I'll continue north and start destroying bases until he is killed.

Then I switch to the southeast front and press north in a clockwise fashion, capturing units as they are built from factories and using them to attack the factories while I press on in my Judas.

It takes a while and a lot of micromanaging using the Pause button, but I believe this strategy is one of the most effective.