Command & Conquer 3: Croatia

I experience bouts of misguided gaming aspiration. I fondly remember playing Red Alert 2 and Warcraft II, forgetting that I suck at RTSs. Temporary insanity made me purchase last year's Command & Conquer 3, an otherwise outstanding RTS but for the fact that I only made it through the first half of the GDI campaign before shelving it. In mute frustration.

I like balancing gaming genres and though I'm making solid headway in Shivering Isles, I got the yen to tackle C&C 3 once more. I've already mentioned the problem inherent in me playing an RTS; firing up C&C 3 had me face to face with the GDI campaign mission 8, Croatia once more. A year ago I was waves upon its rocky shores, battering myself again and again, defeat after defeat.

But not this time! In the middle of my house, in full view of my scared family, I rebel yelled "For Croatia!" and proceeded to once again methodically puzzle out the inappropriately difficult scenario.

I say inappropriate because the game misleads. It lays a bread of bread crumbs for Hansel to follow to his RTS death. If you've ever played C&C 3, you know the campaign missions have yellow primary objectives. They're ordered too: 1, 2, 3, etc. Most of the time, you have to complete them in numerical order. But not always. And therein is the key to Croatia, as divulged by the kind soul that wrote this guide. God bless him.

His tip on how to build a defense worked perfectly. I had been building infantry, digging them in west and south. They always got the crap kicked out of them. Grawl ignores bunkers, instead building four APCs and loading an infantry unit in each one. Two to west, two to the south, and Nod never made it within throwing distance of my base walls.

Powering up both vehicle turrets on north and east worked great too. But I had been under-supplanting my tanks. I had only been using one or two for both flanks. Grawl said three for each and once again I watched as wave after wave of Nod vehicles exploded before my walls.

Once I lasted the requisite three minutes, the game added a mission: rescuing the MCV well north of my base. And across the bridge. The game never ceases chirping out reminders to rescue and escort the MCV back to your base. And this how it misleads you. If you go ahead and rescue the MCV when the computer orders, Nod continues assaulting all four flanks of your base. It's almost impossible to micromanage the MCV escort AND you base's defense. Well, impossible for me at least. Compounding the problem, Nod researches its tech tree with zeal; once you start seeing the flaming throwing tanks rolling into your base, it's game over.

But Grawl has the answer. He says ignore the mission order, and build up a tank fleet, no fewer than twelve Predators. Take them north, northeast and wipe out the base that's sending the endless vehicle waves. Once that's gone, two of your flanks become safe enough for playground equipment. I mean, you can hear crickets. It's a beautiful thing.

After that, the mission opens wide. Escorting the MCV back to base is a cakewalk. The only thing left is to expand your base, research your tech tree, and destroy the remaining two Nod bases. I used wave after wave of Orcas, but jumping shock troopers work as well.

I'm thrilled to be through Croatia. However, I felt mission 8 ill-placed in the GDI campaign because I tore through mission 9 immediately after, first time through. Mission 8 is a difficult roadblock that hampers many gamers if the boards are to be believed. I would have placed it later in the campaign or tweaked the Nod vehicle assault. Maybe they deliberately made the mission hard in the middle of the campaign, a sort of skillz check to weed out the RTS challenged.

All I know is Remember Croatia!