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Ordering equipment is as simple as clicking on the "i" icon to order what you need in the Files menu section. Keep your ammo stocks high-you'll need them
Commander, frankly we're headed to hell in a hand basket! With a deadly plague, a fanatic cult, and strange misshapen creatures engulfing cities, the future of humankind looks dire indeed! The sinister origin of this threat has been uncovered, but with only the handful of men and women at your disposal to stand in the path of the ever-advancing Brood, can we really hope to survive? While bleak, the true fate of humanity rests in the hands of our most skilled commander, you! At the cost of untold lives we've obtained invaluable reconnaissance knowledge, information that will be your most priceless resource in combating this Brood menace. With your superb leadership and this intelligence we may yet prevail!

The Players
You have eight elite agents at your command, and a host of standard agents. Your active command can include up to sixteen agents, and you'll likely need every one of them. Here's a brief rundown of your agents' abilities and their projected performance potential in the upcoming crisis. Our Intelligence Division does make a few recommendations on preferred personnel:

The sniper rifle is hands down the best weapon in the early portion of the game
Steel: Almost a must have for your primary team. This agent can be honed to withstand incredible amounts of damage. This makes her ideal for taking point in combat.

Savage: He's another candidate for your primary team. He can carry up to twice that of a normal agent. As his strength increases he can also toss grenades farther, carry more, and can resist being knocked about by explosions. Even so, it's his ability to scavenge large quantities of equipment off the battlefield during the later part of the campaign that's invaluable.

Pyro: Also a good choice for your primary team. The ability to damage any enemy visible to your team makes this agent's telepyrotelokenitics a great all-around choice.

Doc: While the ability to heal others seems like a no-brainer choice, the equipment stores have more effective field aids available. Still a good choice for the reserve team.

When sending your agents out, fill up unused inventory with ammunition. Again, you'll need it
Ninja: The ability to cloak combined with natural stealth skills can make this agent a very effective covert operative. Unfortunately, this specialty isn't as required or as effective as brute force on most occasions. These limitations make this agent a consideration for the reserve team at best.

Detonate: The explosive ability of this agent rarely has practical use in most missions (unless you want to take the time to lure enemies into exploding traps).

Creep: This should be an ability to rival Ninja's! Sadly, an odd limitation makes mimicking the most desirable Brood, the Satyr, impossible. A later update may address this; we'll keep you informed.

Viper: This agent has an interesting shield ability. This skill can draw fire if used cunningly, but otherwise isn't as proactive as some other abilities.

The Other team members
You may be tempted solely to use the elite agents at your disposal, but this would be a grave error. The standard agents also have special abilities, and while not superhuman, they are every bit as equal as the elite agents.

This a good example of splitting your team up effectively
Standard agents have one of five skills: heavy weapons, support weapons, explosives, medium weapons, and handguns. These weapon skills offer both "to hit" and damage bonuses over the base accuracy skill, but only for the weapons type that the agent is trained to use. The higher the level of skill the greater the bonus for "to hit" and damage for that weapon type. In the right hands mediocre weapons can become deadly and deadly weapons (like the Sniper Rifle and Mini Gun) can make the toughest missions cakewalks.

However, not all weapon skills are equal. For instance, there is almost no use for agents with handgun skills. So, as soon as possible you want to kill off these agents (as the game gives you no opportunity for firing) and replace them with more useful specialties. A recommended agent mix:

2 Heavy Weapons Specialists (your sniper team, deadly with Sniper Rifles and Mini Guns)

1 Support Weapons Specialist (indirect fire weapons, someone's got to use them)

2 Explosives experts (they throw grenades farther and are more effective with the all important stun grenades)

3 Medium Weapons Specialists (the grunt portion of your team with M4s and SA-80s)

Avoiding the four man Swiss cheese festival

Battlefield basics: The game offers you a variety of command stances, and which one you use depends a lot on the situation and your preferred strategies. However, if you find your team getting chewed up regularly, there are some ways to prevent this.

The Stealth skill increases the ability of an agent to get close to an enemy before detection. However, the agent must behave in a stealthy fashion. Walking, using cover, keeping out of LOS, and toting silenced weapons all help him or her get very close to most enemies
To start, take control and direct your team personally. By default the agents are set to advance and engage any threats. By changing to Hold Position On and kneeling you'll prevent your group from advancing unless directly instructed too.

Next, break up your squad into two separate groups. A facet of the AI combat behavior is a threat level assessment. Four agents amassed are quickly going to be overrun by Brood forces but a smaller group is considered a lower threat.

Another priority is capitalizing on any opportunities to use height as an advantage. This strategy can't be stressed enough! While this tactic is only marginally advantageous against the Cult in the earlier stages of the game, it can be a lifesaver when facing those deadly Brood!

General tips: On the battlefield don't bother picking up the spoils unless you need them immediately. As often as possible take the opportunity to check all bodies and containers for equipment. While this seems time consuming, this is the only way certain weapons will become available to you, and will likely reduce the number of times HQ re-supplies are needed. As discovered supplies are automatically retrieved after the mission is completed, don't pick them up unless the need is immediate. Also keep in mind that when multiple missions appear, each mission's length ranges from 6-8 hours (the time spent in-mission has no effect). So choose missions carefully.

Setting up for the defend objective mission
While not urgent, we advocated sending unneeded equipment stocks back to HQ. When you get an understanding of your needs vs. your supplies, take the time to streamline your on-hand equipment supplies. Sure, you can always create weapon reserves around the city, but these only create one more locations to defend in the later portions of the game.

For example, you might want to start by dumping all small arms. Eventually, you'll probably want to reduce weapons to the maximum number of weapons you might use in a mission (which in most cases is four, but one or two for weapons like sniper rifles). You shouldn't need to move ammunition reserves, though, unless they get completely unwieldy or are no longer in use.

Research: The game advances in chapters. The catalyst for progressing through the chapters is research (and, to a lesser degree, the number of missions). So, the research aspect is handled in a linear fashion. That is to say you can't research Brood species out of order, or you will speed things up. This makes accomplishing research requests in a timely fashion a necessity. Keep in mind that researching a creature can take up to eight hours. Other research developments occur in a variable timeframe, but can be delayed if any of the three research facilities are lost.

The Cult

When applying experience it's a good idea to do it manually, so you can concentrate on boosting health, accuracy, and the special ability
Overview: The Cult is on the move, but you must keep them from building up a significant presence in the city. When Cult Strongholds appear, eliminate them as quickly as possible. For your agents, concentrate on building up the experience on the two primary teams you plan to use for the duration of the campaign.

Unique mission of note: The Defend mission at the end of the Cult chapter is fairly tough. You need to defend the relay for roughly 2 minutes. A seemingly endless Cult force will mob your team to stop you. Fortunately, this aspect of the mission isn't triggered until you get within a certain distance of the target relay. With proper planning Sentry Guns can really be effective on this mission (and fun)! Unfortunately, this is really the only mission where they're practical, so you may want to dump all but a token number after completing this mission.

You can never have too much Armor (like Flak Jackets) as they tend to get destroyed in battle if the wearer takes too much damage
Strongholds: When the strongholds appear attack them aggressively; without them the amount of cult/brood activity in the city is reduced. Another consideration is that the number of strongholds also affects the number of lairs you will face when the War chapter starts, so eliminating them as quickly as possible is in your best interest!

Strongholds may reappear later in the chapter—they appear as a function of enemy victory points being amassed. Thus, the more missions you fail or ignore, the more likely new stronghold will appear. Of course, Strongholds near your facilities are always more of a threat as they dramatically increase the chance of those facilities being attacked. Eventually, you've eliminated any immediate threats; these are the ideal times to order supplies from HQ.

Weapons of War: Mid-range weapons like small arms and shotguns are practically useless, as they require you to get too close to enemies. The M4's rate of fire and range makes it an ideal weapon for the Cult chapter. You can use the AK-47 as well, though they're slower (but do slightly more damage) than their M4 cousins. You'll likely prefer using them only if your M4 rounds run out (on or off the battlefield), as their noteworthy advantage is in being so common.

Strongholds are marginally tougher than normal missions, but taking them out early is vital for late game survival
Later on the M60E3 will become available. Its damage and rate of fire will make it the cornerstone of your arsenal all the way up to The Final Conflict Chapter. The Sniper Rifle is a must-have weapon, though. While it's slow firing, its damage, range, and silencer make it the ideal weapon for the first two chapters. In the right hands it is almost ludicrous how easy missions can get—even strongholds can be easy pickings. Just remember when outfitting your agent to load him or her down with as many extra ammunition clips as you can—they'll be needed!

mmorphon00@yahoo.com

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Page Updated Mon Feb 28, 2000 8:25pm EST