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Yard

Primary Objectives:

• Enable Generator (Trunk Port)
• Begin Armour Production
• Destroy Ant Infestation
• Enable Trunk Port (Receiver)
• Enable Trunk Port (Pattern Buffer)
• Enable Trunk Port (Biosphere)

Secondary Objectives:

• Collect Research Item (Rocket)

Try to get your Air Strike up to v2.0 ASAP, because it will really come in handy when taking out the Anthills.

Control Towers C4 and C6, and the Rocket Research Cube can be accessed by Engineers right from the beginning of the level. You can create Engineers at C1 and C2 and fly them over the water to reach these areas.

Dish a Squad over to R1 from R2 or R3, and clear the area around C3, so you can reprogram it. You can clear out the island (the one with C1, C2, and C3) with your Squad if you wish, but a good strategy is to wait until you have the Incubators I1 and I2 under control before you do so, so you can harvest the souls to make DGs later in the level.

Back over at C4, create a Squad and fight your way to C5, and the Generator Trunk Port (T1). Once you've reprogrammed C5, power should flow from the Generator Trunk Port to the Construction Yard.

From C6, create a Squad and proceed towards the main part of the island - just follow the blue sparking power pylons?, taking out baddies as you go. When you hit the large clump of Virii in front of the Towers/Incubators (C7, C8, I1, I2), terminate with extreme prejudice. Air Strike v2.0 comes in handy here, if you have it. Grenades v4.0 from a distance is AWESOME here. Don't forget to take out the Triffids behind the Towers/Incubators. Reprogram the Towers, and harvest souls. If there are no souls left to harvest, draw up a Squad back at C1 or C2 and take out the enemies you left behind at the beginning of the level; harvest away.

Once the DGs start popping out, send them over to the Construction Yard, CY on the map. They'll take up positions around the Construction Yard, and it will start churning out Armours.

Now it's time to tackle the final tasks - eliminating the Ants, and reprogramming the three Towers/Trunk Ports surrounded by them. Here's two proven methods:

• Method: Sneak Attack

Create an Engineer at C7 or C8, fly it up past the Construction Yard, and out over the water, to C9. You should be able to get this Tower reprogrammed before the Ants realize the Engineer is there (If not, just send over another Engineer to finish the job). Once C9 is reprogrammed, then send the Engineer over to C10, and create a Squad to give it some cover fire. This is where it gets hairy. With your Squad, start taking out Anthills, with your preferred seccondary weapon of choice - Air Strike, Rockets, or Grenades. Remember, if you can't quite reach an Anthill with one weapon, try switching to another. You'll probably go through a few Squads before you get this accomplished as well. Eventually, you'll take them all out - clean up any stray Ants walking around, and reprogram the last Control tower, C11.

• Method: Sneak Attack 2

Take the Towers in the ant areas with Engineers. Now, at C8 create as many squads as you can. Keep them close together at first. Let them fight on their own--they'll do a decent job of it. Pretty soon it will be clear which squads have streams of Ants targeted on them. Take an unengaged squad and run up to the nearest Anthill and call in an Air Strike. If the Squad survives, repeat. As you clean out the nearer Anthills you'll have to move your squads forward carefully. Take small steps only, trying to cover too much ground will get them killed. The ant streams become so focused on their target that they'll completely ignore another squad walking up to their Anthill.

• Method: Frontal Assault

Send in 4 empty Armours, and convert them into Battle Cannons in a similar formation to this:

Once they're all set up, pour as many DGs as you can in at once, and direct them to the middle of the formation with an Officer:

Sit back and watch, and they'll make short work of the Anthills, and you can freely reprogram the remaining Control Towers.

• Method: Soul Drain

You can defeat the Ants without Armour if your Darwinians have acquired lasers. A large group of DGs has enough firepower to hold off several ant streams. The Anthills are all population limited. This method uses Engineers to turn the Ants' numbers against them. For best results, use Engineers that can carry lots of souls. Setup a line of Officers from the Incubators, pointing into the narrow mouth of the main valley. Send any DGs you have. Setup as many Engineers as you can and send them to the battle site. After a few cycles the DG hoard will be strong enough to cover the Engineers 98% of the time. Ant bites will slowly degrade the Engineers, but they will last long enough to let you take a break from the game. Check back, replace missing Engineers, and shift the Officer line into the main valley. After a while the Darwinians will have recovered most of the Ant souls. All by themselves. It is possible to completely eliminate the Ants this way. You are left with a ghost town of empty Anthills.

Alternative Strategies:

• Method: Water attack

A normal approach to this level leaves a lot of souls uncollected because you have no incubator for them. The incubators are also a pain to reach because they are guarded by Triffids. However, it's a layered defense with nothing behind it. Send out the engineers for the Rocket and then the unguarded dishes--you can have Rocket 2.0 before engaging anything--a very good idea as Rocket 1.0 is pretty dangerous to fire. While you are researching this build as many Squads as you can and send them along the path of the polygon carts up to the area behind the Triffids. Yes, this is across water. Your squads will cross it, albeit quite slowly--follow the island as long as you can to speed it up. Note that they walk on the bottom--they're almost invisible while crossing but they come through fine. Move your spares to the ridgeline between where they come ashore and the Incubators and Triffids, then send one in to attack. Your primary goal is the Triffids, the secondary goal is to clear enough stuff out that your Engineers can live long enough to reprogram at least one Incubator. Once you get one it's no problem to clear off the rest of the infection in the area and you'll be able to harvest souls rather than waste them. You can then clear off your starting island and the Generator port island and get the souls.

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