PCPP Game Guide 2/PCPP_GG2.iso/PCPP/strategy/c&ctips.txt

Text File | 1998-06-02 | 13KB | 253 lines

CHAPTER 1: SCREEN MOVEMENT, HINTS AND CHEATS

Cursor modifiers:

Team Mode...
Click on a portion of the screen, hold down your mouse button and draw a box
around the units you wish to team up, then let the button go. It's that easy. And, you
can elect a whole screen of your units to create a team if you wish. There really isn't
any limit.

CTRL # : Team Creation...
Mark a group of units as a team using either using your mouse button and shift key
or the bounding box. Then use CTRL and a number key (0-9) to assigned the
selected units as a team.

0-9 : Team Selection...
Selects a pre-marked team (see Team Creation) as the current active group.

ALT-# : View team...
If the key is held while pressing a team number, the specified team will be selected
and the view centered over the team members. This is identical to pressing the team
number and then pressing .

CTRL : Force Attack...
Holding down the CTRL key will turn your movement cursor into the target
crosshair. This lets you target friendly units, trees, and empty squares.

ALT : Force Move...
Holding down the ALT key will turn your movement cursor into a movement only
cursor. Subsequently moved units will move instead of a attack. This is how you get
your tanks to squish enemy infantry instead of blowing craters around them.
Some objects and vehicles can be run over by tracked vehicles. Use ALT-click to
do a forced move to a location with the object/unit directly in its path of movement.
Infantry can be crushed by Harvesters, Tanks, APC's, and Dinosaurs. Recon bikes
can be crushed by Harvesters, Tanks and APC's. Sandbags, fences, and walls can
be crushed by mammoth tanks.

CTRL+ALT : Guard Area or Unit...
Select a group of units and then CTRL+ALT click on a building, this forces your
units to patrol the area around the building looking for the enemy. They will engage
the enemy if found. If you CTRL+ALT click on another one of your units (for
example, the harvester) your selected units will guard that unit as it moves around
the map. This also applies to enemy units, which is perhaps not so useful.

G : Guard Area...
This will cause a selected group of units to go into guard mode. In this mode, units
will scan with binoculars for enemy units, and move to attack any that come within
their sighting range.
Highlight all units that can shoot up (Mammoth tank, Recon Bikes, Rocket
Launchers, even Bazooka troops) and hit G for Guard mode, they will shoot at
anything that is around them! Even Orca's and Apache's!

How do I make a convoy or a circling patrol...
When you've got a group of units, and want them to follow one another in a
single-file style grouping, make use of the CONTROL+ALT key combination like
this...
1. Send the leader towards destination.
2. CONTROL+ALT Click on the next unit to follow him
3. Repeat 2 until you have your group

This tactic can be altered to get an interesting circling patrol effect out of Hummers,
Buggies, and Tanks.
1. Select a lead unit.
2. CONTROL+ALT Click the next unit.
3. Repeat 2 until you have all but one of the units in your group.
4. CONTROL+ALT Click the LAST unit on the leader.
This technique can also be used to keep faster units from traveling too quickly.
Make all the faster units 'guard' the slowest unit in the group (e.g.- mammoth tank)
and wherever you move the unit, the faster units will follow at the same speed.

X : Scatter Units...
This causes a selected group of units to scatter. Useful when infantry is under attack
by tank treads and incendiary missiles

S : Stop Unit...
Causes a unit to stop dead in its tracks. Very useful when one of your units is brain
dead and begins to wander nonchalantly into the guns of the enemy base.

HOME : Homing...
This will center the tactical view around the currently selected unit or building.

H : Home unit...
Selects your construction yard, and centers the tactical map around it.

CTRL F7-F10 : Map Bookmark System...
Use CTRL+F7-F10 to mark a spot on your map, then use F7-F10 to jump to that
spot at anytime.

TAB: Open/Close Sidebar...
Opens and closes the sidebar. Use it when you need to see more tactical map.

N : Next unit...
This is almost a useless command. It runs through the internal lists of units, selects
the next one, and centers the tactical view around it.

R : Resign...
In a multi-player game, your civilians and technicians actually do a large amount of
damage when you resign. Position them by the enemy before resigning, and maybe
you'll take a few of them with you.

Multi-player Options
A : Alliance...
Select an enemy unit and press 'A'. From that point on, your troops will treat that
enemy as a friend and not target them. This only works one way. The other side is
still welcome to blow you to smithereens, so they must also ally with you to
complete the team effort. Allying with an enemy is also useful when you want a deep
strike operation into the heart of the enemy base, but don't want your units to slow
down and fight. Such operations might include recon or engineer infiltration. Pressing
'A' for a second time will negate the previous ally command.

Other tips:

Place buildings anywhere...
A working radar map is required for this. Scroll your screen in such a way that a
part of a building you own is cut in half by the menubar at the right. Select that
building. Start construction on the building you want to build anywhere. When the
construction is complete and the building is ready, move your cursor over the
building that is on the map. Drag the hash marks past the building as your move your
cursor into your radar map. It is important that it leaves an area of white hashing -
one white hashed square is enough. Move your cursor into the radar map. It should
display a no-smoking sign. Wherever you click your mouse button now will deploy
your building on that spot in the map.

This bug was corrected in versions after 1.19. Trying to abuse the radar map will
have unpredictable results.

Selling infantry/vehicles using sandbags...
Selling a building will get you 50% of the purchase price. You can sell infantry,
vehicles and even civilians. Build a sand bag and move the unit as close to the sand
bag as you can. Click on the sell button. Move the cursor over to the sand bag.
Move the twirling dollar sign as far away from the sand bag (toward the unit) as you
can without it loosing its rotating property. while its spinning near the unit click and
sell. This is a great way to make money if you are seriously down and out and about
to get beat. It takes a little practice to figure out, but once you have done it the first
time its simple.

Selling vehicles using the repair bay...
If you put the unit in the repair bay (no infantry, of course), click sell, and move the
cursor over the unit, a little green $ will appear. You can sell the unit for half-price. I
find this useful when my units are injured. Usually, I will bring back a vehicle that is
almost dead and sell it away to build a new one. It's better to gain some money then
none at all.

Infinite minigunner...
Sell any building that has a weapon (turrets, obelisks, etc.) Quickly select the
building, and press 's' to stop the sale. The building will remain where it is, but the
minigunners will have already poured out. Repeat this as many times as you like to
get an army full of minigunners. These minigunners can be sold using the sandbag
proximity technique to get infinite cash as well.

How do I hide under trees...
Well, you can do it. Select your unit to move past the tree. When your unit is under
cover, hit 's' to stop the unit. Your unit will be behind the tree and invisible to other
human eyes. My friend does that often in multi-player games.

Fire before enemy arrives...
There is no reason to wait for the enemy to come to you before firing. Use the
CTRL key to force your units into continuous fire mode. This works well with area
effect weapons such as artillery, flame-throwers, rocket launchers, and grenadiers.
This will intimidate a human opponent into thinking twice before attacking, and will
utterly decimate any AI opponent who will walk blindly into the killing field.

You can aim the target's of your Obelisks and Adv. Guard Towers. Just select the
building (or a lot of them using the shift and force an attack on the approaching
vehicle you want to nail using the ctrl key). Very handy if he has a Mammoth in front
to draw the fire and you just shoot his APC which is following behind.

Money making ala Sim C&C...
If you have defeated the computer except one or two buildings and your are sure
that you will win with your existing troops sell all your buildings and attack after that
the remaining buildings. You will get lots of money and a 'efficiency-rate' of 100%
which will results in many points.

A variation on this is to leave an enemy building standing, and go into tiberium farm
mode. With good harvester management, it is possible to rack up a near infinite
amount of money without running out of harvestable tiberium.

Capturing enemy buildings...
By capturing an enemy building, you not only have the option of selling it for money,
but you can build units and structures that you wouldn't normally be able to do with
your own facilities.

Tiberium harvesting without silos...
When your refinery storage is getting full, start constructing another building. The
construction will use up the tiberium in your storage. When the construction is
finished, cancel the building. You will get your money back, but the tiberium will not
return.

How do I view the radar...
There are two different radar maps, one long range and one short, and you can
cycle through them by clicking the Map button -- provided, of course, that you have
a communications center.

How do I suspend or cancel build commands...
You can suspend or cancel build commands by clicking with your primary mouse
button on the unit icon that is currently being built. This will turn the unit icon gray to
signify that the building has been put on hold. From this stage, clicking with your
primary button will resume building, and clicking with your secondary button will
cancel the build order.

How does the computer cheat...
The computer starts out with more funds than you do.
The computer can place units inside scenery at the start of a mission.
The computer can rebuild gun turrets when they are destroyed without needing to
have adjacent buildings.
The computer can build a construction yard without needing a MCV.
The computer doesn't have to clear out SAM sites to launch an air-strike.
The computer may rebuild destroyed buildings even if they are not adjacent to any
other building.
The computer's Orca's may attack NOD attack choppers in mid-flight.
The computer can use harvesters to attack tanks and other vehicles.
The computer can build harvesters immediately as long as funds are available.
Though it may seem like the computer builds harvesters immediately as long as it has
funds available, it does not. The AI starts building a new harvester when it senses
that an existing harvester will be destroyed.

What is a blossom tree...
They serve as replenishing centers for tiberium. After you harvest all of the tiberium
from around a tree, it will grow back around it. Whenever the blossom tree releases
spores, it damages any units directly next to it. One really odd thing about these,
sometimes they don't do ANYTHING! You must fire a few shots at it (Rockets
seem the best) and THEN it will start to shoot out more Tiberium. You must use
CTRL to FORCE an attack though. Harvest AROUND Tiberium Trees to get
CASH FAST: Take direct control of your harvesters and very selectively harvest
ONLY the dense areas of the Tiberium. Then, move to another plot and do the
same. You'll be surprised how quickly the Tiberium regenerates and how easily you
can harvest it.

Why should I destroy villages...
Because you can find crates full of money under churches.

Advanced features:

Hex edit for more money...
If you have refineries, this cheat may or may not work. Sell them off. Make note of
the amount of money you have, and save the game. For this purpose, let us say that
you had 2437 credits. Exit C&C. Convert 2437 into hexadecimal. In this case, the
conversion is 985 in hex. Hexadecimal numbers in our case need to be pairs, so,
add a filler digit to pair. 09 85. If you had 4 digits already, then there is no need for
a filler. Make a backup of your savegame. The savegame with the most recent file
creation date is the savegame you want to edit. Load your savegame into your hex
editor. Reverse your hexadecimal pairs. 85 09. Do a hexadecimal search for this
reversed number pair. The first instance should appear at hex location 580h. Change
both numbers to FF FF and repeat. You may find anywhere from three to five
references. Change them all.

DISCLAMER. I have cut and pasted together notes, tactics and tricks from all
over the web. As I gathered all this information I came across entries without any
names, or two of the same entries with two different names. So I chose to leave out
all the names. I thank all those people that posted all these ideas, you know who
you are.