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jeffnz

Operation Stiletto: what's the best strategy for the Steam version with all patches

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I used to win this mission by capturing the GDI base in the south-west corner but then I had to rush to save the GDI base in the north-west corner, and victory took about 2 hours because of the veteran tripods - instead of building a good base and army, I'm rushing to save the northern construction yard. This time I'm going to capture the Scrin air base and see if I can use Dis-integrators and air craft to repel GDI. Is the mission easier if you get the Scrin bases first? I'd like an opinion from anyone who has played Operation Stiletto in the past 12 months. I have the game on Steam so that means I have the 'balance' patches which unbalance the campaign.

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If you just want the mission without secondary objectives you can just use planning mode to capture all at once.

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TaxOwlbear's video from above shows just that. It's ridiculous.

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Unless you are speedrunning the game, I see no reason to actually use such a boring and exploitive strategy.

I haven't played the campaigns recently (though it may have been within 12 months), but I do know I didn't have too much trouble with the bad rebalancing except for one mission, which wasn't this one.

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Oh, it's that easy?! :o

I've used planning mode before but only to stack attack and movement commands, not to issue orders all over the map for simultaneous execution. Totally worth cheating I reckon, what a chaotic mission - as soon as you capture one construction yard (or alien equivalent) then you have to protect it from the opposing army, as well as protecting from attacks within the base you capture.

TaxOwlbear describes "Kane's Tower" as an infamous mission. I managed to beat the final GDI mission with a bit of luck and it's definitely easier than the final NOD mission. I always play on normal difficulty. I may have beat Kane's Tower once on normal, then again, I can't really remember.

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3 hours ago, Nmenth said:

but I do know I didn't have too much trouble with the bad rebalancing except for one mission, which wasn't this one.

I assume GDI's mission in Croatia is the only one that's truly affected, and the only problem I think anyone would have is rescuing the MCV from the Nod ambush in the actually-not-the-city-of-Zagreb, although TaxOwlbear managed to finish the mission without going for the MCV, as the game only triggers the ending if all Nod bases are destroyed.

But yeah, people had 10 years to adapt their strategies, since patch 1.09 was released in October 2007 :P

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I don't remember which one it was. I looked at the list of missions, but none of the names look familiar and I don't feel like reading a synopsis for each one. It might have actually been a Kane's Wrath mission too...

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GDI's Croatian mission is, from what I've gathered, generally considered to be harder after the patches. I don't recall having particular balancing issues with Kane's Wrath 1.02, just missions that are difficult by design, I believe.

 

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I believe the mission was Taking Back What is Ours (Nod: Act IV, mission 1). I failed it numerous times and couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I don't actually know if the rebalancing patches were the reason for it being so difficult, but that was what I assumed since its difficulty level was significantly higher than any other mission.

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It's one of the epilogue missions, it's natural that it's harder than the rest ;)

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I was challenged to redo Operation Stiletto, this time with the secondary objectives. The mission isn't that much harder, but luck plays a big role. Sometimes one factions wipes out and important structure and you have almost no time to react, sometimes they just fight around a little bit and it's easy.

 

 

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5 hours ago, jeffnz said:

TaxOwlbear describes "Kane's Tower" as an infamous mission. I managed to beat the final GDI mission with a bit of luck and it's definitely easier than the final NOD mission. I always play on normal difficulty. I may have beat Kane's Tower once on normal, then again, I can't really remember.

Kane's Tower is harder than most missions, but not that bad. The key for the strategy I used are these three things:

1) Immediately expand to the blue Tiberium field to the east. Build a Hand of Nod there and get a Commando to blow up the Juggernauts. Build Obelisks of Light there to intercept the units from the south-eastern GDI base. Capture the Juggernauts to take out the GDI air base in the north.

2) Capture the Scrin Construction Yard. Wait until GDI has destroyed most of the Scrin defences, then spam Obelisks and AA stop GDI. Capture or destroy the Scrin structures, as the Scrin will turn against you as soon as you attack them. Taking over their Construction Yard alone does NOT make them aggressive, though.

3) Build a Temple of Nod and at least four Air Towers with bombers are your main base to destroy GDI's Ion Cannon Control Centres. Once that is done, you have basically won. I suggest building the overpowered Scrin air units and stomp whatever is left.

2 hours ago, Nmenth said:

I believe the mission was Taking Back What is Ours (Nod: Act IV, mission 1). I failed it numerous times and couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I don't actually know if the rebalancing patches were the reason for it being so difficult, but that was what I assumed since its difficulty level was significantly higher than any other mission.

Is that the Outback mission? Or do you mean What is Rightfully Ours from Kane's Wrath?

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8 minutes ago, TaxOwlbear said:

Is that the Outback mission?

Yes.

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2 minutes ago, Nmenth said:

Yes.

That one is a pain with the patches and on the highest difficulty. The Scrin send so much stuff at you; the only way to cope with that (for me) was sit there for a while and spam a silly amount of AA.

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I found Croatia to be a lot easier with 1.9, never had problems getting the MCV out, though it could also be that's just because I improved since I played the campaign on 1.0

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