Conquest Earth - Playing Guide

                     Supplied by Keeks

Conquest Earth has 30 levels for both human and Jovian races to
conquer. Because of the sheer size of CE there are thousands of
ways in which to play. Arcade players will tend to take manual
control of the more powerful craft, blitzing their way through the
enemy defences.  Using just this approach will have limited
success, and it is only then that deeper strategies must be
devised.

DEFENCE - To beat the enemy in combat and finish the game you
first need to learn how to defend yourself. There are three
defensive modes that you can use in Conquest Earth.

1. Assist mode - When a group of units is selected and put into
Assist mode they rush to defend any of the group that comes under
attack. This mode is particularly useful when you have men
patrolling entrances and exits to the base and you want to ensure
that they have adequate backup.

2. Guard mode - When selected, troops in Guard mode will protect a
small area around them, measuring roughly 1/3 of the visible play
area (when zoomed in to maximum detail). Should an enemy enter
that area, the guarding units will attack. This mode is best
employed when trying to protect base elements valuable to your
cause, for example, your power station, factory or cloning pod.

3. Escort mode - This is used for escorting other troops. If the
escorted troop or unit is attacked, the escorting troop will try
and defend the unit and attempt to disable his assailant. Use this
mode to guard a valuable unit. This ploy is very useful when
trying to punch a hole in the enemy defences, in which your main
attack unit (such as your tank), is heavily backed up by, for
example, long-range bazookamen or mortar men. These modes should
be used as much as possible during the earlier levels so that you
can become familiar with them as quickly as possible. By the time
you get to the harder levels, you will need to rely on using the
advanced AI modes, because attacks can happen so quickly that it
proves almost impossible to do everything manually and at the same
time. For those playing Conquest Earth from the human perspective,
guard towers and manned bunkers become available on later levels.
As soon as you have the option to build these items, do so, and
place them around your base because they help with the overall
defence.  Keep an eye on them regularly however, as no amount of
defensive measures will hold up the enemy for too long. Players
electing to play from the Alien point of view will find that their
sentry units become tougher as the game progresses. Keep your eye
on them as they can't hold up human assaults for long.

ATTACKING - Similar to the defensive modes, there are three
advanced attacking modes for you to use. If the attack modes are
used often enough they reduce the amount of time it takes to set
up attack patterns.

1. Hunt mode - Select Hunt, then the Target, and the selected unit
will attempt to destroy the targeted enemy. Should anything attack
the hunting unit, it will break off the attack temporarily and
attempt to destroy its assailant. For humans, using a harrier in
this way to take out enemy buildings will achieve maximum effect
with minimum effort.  The same thing goes for the Alien Gliders.

2. Seek 'n' Destroy mode - When you assign this mode to a unit and
select a target, the unit will hunt the target but not stop until
it has been destroyed, even if shot at. This selfless mode is best
used when an enemy unit is wreaking havoc among your troops or is
about to destroy one of your most important buildings. Only use
this when it is absolutely imperative that a unit or building is
dealt with as soon as possible. If playing aliens, sending a death
squad of invisible stealth units to take out powerful human units.
Otherwise a power station can have a devastating effect on the
enemy and change the course of the war to the alien's favour.
Invisible stealth aliens have to decloak to fire or be hit.

3. Rampage mode - This option is only available on the Easy game
mode. Selecting Rampage sends all the troops that you have
selected to attack every enemy unit on the level. If any enemy
units are within the immediate vicinity they are attacked first.
Your units continue to make their own decisions until another mode
is selected. It is mainly designed as an aid for the novice player
who has yet to master the full strategic complexities of the game
but can be used successfully if you're desperate and overwhelmed.

One of the best ways to destroy the enemy is to group many
similar troops together and assign them to a Squad key (Press
shift and a number between one and six). If you are playing as a
Human, some good units to include in your teams are mortar men,
for their excellent long range attacks, fronted by grenadiers and
bazooka men for close range destruction. If you have around four
of each unit you will have a strong team to attack with. By
toggling through each squad and advancing towards the enemy
target, you are able to use mortar men or bazooka men to provide
very effective covering fire to protect your marines.

If you are playing as an Alien, purple pulser squads, with gold
pulser squads for heavy firepower, can be very effective. Around
two of each unit should give you enough power to destroy a human
building in seconds. The gold Pulsers have a greater effect on
buildings and armoured units, while the purple variety are better
at attacking troops.

Taking a mixture means that once attacked, you can, by using one
type or another, defend your group quite adequately.  Once
grouped, you have two attacking options. First, you can keep the
group together in a bunch, making sure that when you are attacking
all the units in the group are within their various maximum firing
ranges. The disadvantage of this, however, is that they are
susceptible to attack from the air. Gliders and Harriers are
guaranteed to pick off something even if their initial target is
missed. Spreading a group out a little more reduces this risk, but
means that units towards the back may not be able to fire far
enough to hit the enemy. Because of their excellent speed of
production in cloning Walkers, the Jovians can create an army of
laser men with which to attack. The advantage of this is that
while your existing army of Walkers are attacking the humans, you
can keep pressing L (the last command) key to continue cloning.
This way, if the first group fails, you have a second group of
aliens ready to attack the depleted human forces. Remember to keep
a careful eye on the more unguarded areas of your base, and indeed
on your cloning pod to make sure there is room for your
freshly-cloned walkers to stand.

THE MAP

If you are greatly out-numbered by the enemy it is a wise idea to
use the map to aid your attack. There is often a better way into
the enemy's base than may be immediately obvious. Look for the
least guarded entrance then sneak in, killing any enemy units that
attack you on the way. Once you are safely inside, you should aim
for the power generator. If, for some reason, you can't get to the
power station easily (because, for example, the Jovians have a
line of sentry pods in the way, or the humans have bunkers),
attack the cloning pod (if you are playing as humans) or barracks
(if you are Jovian) instead. This will stop them creating more
troops with which to attack you. If you are playing the human side
and have a satellite launcher then launch the communications
satellite. This satellite gives you an extra level to zoom out to,
giving you the ability to see the Jovians' every move. The Jovians
have the same ability once the communications crystal building has
been constructed.

UNITS

When you play CE for a while, you will notice that the further you
get into the game, the bigger and more advanced weapons that
become available. If you are playing as humans, you get the option
to build harriers and flame tanks, the latter of which is more
powerful than the cannon tank. Aliens can build gliders, which
are just as powerful as the awesome human harrier. This table will
give you an indication of each unit's abilities. The humans have
three tanks to choose from which have different ranges of attack.
The cannon tank is the standard one to build. This is best used
when destroying enemy buildings and tanks. The rocket tank,
however, is very good at long range attacks and is best put to use
if you build them in groups of three and fire at the enemy's base
from a distance. By doing this, the Jovians will have difficulty
in locating the origin of the assault and it will take them time
to find you. The flame tanks are great for destroying aliens and
are really effective at close range. The harriers are one of the
deadliest weapons to use in the game. When flying the harriers,
watch out for the Jovian Spiker SAM sites and the fuel level.

Using the harrier in Manual mode is very gratifying as you
manoeuvre the plane around the spikers, but using Hunt mode to
destroy enemy buildings can prove equally effective and also
enables you to concentrate on possible defensive issues in the
meantime. Helicopters are used to drop medical packs or ammo boxes
which are used to recharge injured troops health or refuel tanks.

A good very good tactic is to drop loads of health boxes just
outside an enemy base, which can act as decoys or, of course, be
used in their regular fashion when your troops are close to the
enemy's base and need attention. Human SAM sites are very useful
and you should build at least three to defend your base after
Level 12, as the aliens begin to build Gliders. You should always
look out for bio-formed aliens, which look like human units. You
can tell they are aliens by the fact that when you select the
unit, they do not respond. Use sandbags to block off all the
entrance points to your base except for the one which you should
guard with gun towers and bunkers.

Aliens have two Pulsers available to them, one purple, and one
gold.  Both have average armour when being attacked by human
troops, so they are best employed in the destruction of buildings
and human tanks. The aliens have a mine layer for speed. The mines
it lays are very useful and hard to avoid. A good strategy is to
place the mines on a bridge where the enemy have to cross. If all
else fails you can utilise the speed of the mine layer to drive
over the enemy units before they know what's hit them. The aliens
have a bio-forming ability which allows them to change into human
objects. Different aliens can choose from a variety of human units
and even inanimate objects such as rocks. It is worth remembering,
though, that this is only camouflage and they are not able to use
the weaponry of the unit they are impersonating. However, more
experienced players can use another tactic: bio-form an alien into
the human rocket tank and sneak it to the human's base. You can
now run over the human troops, and the tank won't be attacked
because of the disguise.

HINTS & TIPS

When building a lot of the same unit, save time by pressing L
(last command). To centre on your base press Enter. You can assign
groups of troops together on a keypress to save time after drag-
selecting. It's much quicker to manoeuvre squads of men this way
and as each unit can be a member of several squads, it also allows
for quick changes in tactics, including beating a hasty retreat!
On multi-player games it is possible to hide the human SAM sites
behind some buildings, for example, the satellite launcher. This
will fool the alien opposition into believing that you have no air
attack defences.






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