TIBERIAN SUN GUIDE 2025
SHARED STRUCTURES -4
CONSTRUCTION YARD:
Sell as Boom maybe engi: If you sell a Construction Yard right as it is destroyed, you might get several Engineers that you can use for Engineer Attack. You can get up to three Engineer and five Light Infantry. It randomly decides what units you will get. The CY gives the best units if sold while destroyed of any building in the game.
GATE
Vehicles on Gate avoid EMP: Vehicles that have been stopped on top of a gate can avoid being frozen by the EMP Cannon. If enemy EMP Cannon in range of your base consider keeping a few Titans on gates.
Gate northern = no hit hiding tank: If you hide a vehicle in the northern most part of a gate, your vehicle will not be hit when the enemy tries to shoot gate.
Place gates around MCV: Place gates around MCV to block Engineer steal and have a place to put your tanks to avoid EMP Cannon
Gate over wall: You can place a Gate over an existing Wall
Gate down disappear inf: Even if gate is down because of unit on top of it, you can still disapear units into it with the CTRL+ALT move.
Gate behind warf = no back steal: If you place a Gate behind the War Factory, then a Mutant Hijacker can not steal units from behind your War Factory.
Gate blocks their engi, not yours: Technically a Gate surrounding an enemy building would let your Engineer through to steal the building, and block enemy Engineer from healing the building at the same time. (Note: I have never seen this trick done in a game, but it might be useful on rare occasion.)
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POWER PLANT
Nod needs two power plants early: Once Nod has two Tiberium Refinery, he can not add another one, or a War Factory, until he makes 2nd power plant. You can power down your Hand of Nod and make them, but you will again be on low power once you place a new building, and have to build a power plant on low power. Another reason why making mass Refs and selling them is a good build order, especially for nod, who has early Rocket Infantry that defend JJ.
TIBERIUM SILO
Silo fools deployed stealth find: If the enemy is using their deployed vehicle to find your stealthed buildings, you can build a few cheap Tiberium Silos to disguise the outline of your stealthed buildings. Place them around buildings like the Stealth Generator, that you are trying to keep hidden. This will also keep enemy soldiers from walking next to that Stealth Generator if Subterranean APC units deploy in your base.
Silo counter 1shot diz: If you are going to make spare Tiberium Silos anyway, consider putting them on the corners of your War Factories and/or Tiberium Refineries to prevent the Disrupter from destroying them in one shot with its “1-shot” tactic.
Three Silo equidistant: You can make three Tiberium Silo in a triangle outside your base quickly so that hopefully your Lasers can be built farther out from your base to destroy Titans sooner, but on all three sides of your base. (If the Titans decide to walk a different route)
WALLS:
Walls no Sold Money: Walls do not give you any money when you sell them.
Place wall in front of Tick: If you place a Wall right in front of a Tick Tank, you can make the Tick Tank hit the wall and not your Titan. (or whatever the Tick Tank was trying to shoot)
Wall counter by attack MCV: Attack enemy MCV so he can't make walls any more. This can stop an enemy from outbuilding walls into your base.
Wall counter with more walls: Another Counter move to an enemy trying to outbuild walls into your base is to outbuild walls into their base at same time, preferably faster.
Counter diz wall with multiple diz: If enemy building wall to place under your landing Carryall attack, send multiple Carryalls. The enemy will likely only be able to defend one Carryall at a time.
Counter diz wall with other attacks: Make other attacks like Light Infantry and Titans to attack the enemy and force them to make lasers or vulcan/rpg instead of being able to make walls to set under your incoming Carryall Disrupter attack.
PAVEMENT
Nod Vehicle Pavement: Nod's wheeled vehicles are faster on pavement. GDI Titan, Wolverine, Mammoth MK2 are the same speed on pavement. So Nod does have some pavement advantages over GDI. Artillery can quickly escape Titans and setup farther away. Attack Cycles can quickly reach a landing enemy Carryall carrying a Disrupter.
Wait to pave: Wait until the enemy Devil Tongue or Subterranean APC is very close, and pave right before it starts to surface. If you guessed the surface area location correctly and paved over it, the underground unit will have to surface elsewhere. This is helpful when the enemy is trying to ALT surface under your Engineers. It gives your Engineers time to run away from DT.
Pave protect Silo from DT: Pave around Tiberium Silos to protect them from Devil Tongues: The Devil Tongue will have to surface farther away and drive on the pavement to reach the Tiberium Silo. This gives your defenses more time to destroy Devil Tongues.
Outbuild pave: Steal an enemy building or build into the enemy's base and then place pavement in enemy base. There could be several reasons for doing this. You delay block underground units from diving and leaving to attack your base by putting pavement under them. You could pave around Tib Trees blocking enemy tib at that patch all game. You could lay pavement in enemy base so your units can drive around faster as nod, while GDI Titan Wolverine MK2 would not be faster.
Pave under building for stealth: Normally if your base is stealthed, buildings won't have pavement under them so the enemy can easily attack non paved areas. You can counter this by laying pavement down before you place a building on top of the pavement. Now your whole base stealthed base area looks paved.
Pavement crushing last second: If you lay pavement at the last moment, you can drive vehicles faster to squish Light Infantry, especially as Nod. When your Light Infantry are about to battle theirs, lay pavement and immediately drive across pavement and squish the soldiers with Tick,Sensor, Art, Harv, MCV, or Weed Truck.
Deploy vehicle blocks pave: You can not lay pavement where your vehicle is deployed. (I am pretty sure you can not lay pavement where enemy vehicle is deployed) You could deploy a Tick Tank, Artillery, or Sensor Array near the enemy base where you want to surface a Subterranean APC. Deploy so that the enemy can not lay Pavement, then move tank and surface next to the building where your vehicle was deployed.(Note: This would be very hard to do because it is hard to predict where/when the enemy will place pavement, and enemy will probably destroy your tank. Speed is important in getting the sub there fast.)
Pave under Carryall on Tank: If your Carryall is sitting on your Mammoth MK2 near your base and you suspect an enemy Subterranean APC is coming to your base carrying a Mutant Hijacker. You can lure the enemy into surfacing SubAPC under or near your Carryall by laying pavement right before it starts to surface. This will force the SubAPC to surface farther away, deploy Carryall off MK2 and destroy SubAPC and MH. (Not many players will even know to surface a SubAPC directly under your Carryall on MK)
TIBERIUM REFINERY
Ref die = harv dumping die: If a Tiberium Refinery is destroyed while a Harvester is dumping Tiberium into it, the Harvester can die too.
Avoid targeting Harvesters dumping in Tiberium Refinery as they take two more Banshee shots than the Tiberium Refinery. ( 9 vs 11) Don't mark invisible Tiberium Refinery or Tiberium Waste Facility in the exact location that the Harvester or Weed Truck dumps.
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WAR FACTORY:
Boom sell Warf = 12-14 inf: If you sell a War Factory while it is being destroyed, you can get twelve to fourteen Light Infantry, which costs a lot more than the $1000 you would get, if you sold the War Factory before its destroyed. (Light Inf valued at $1440 to $1680) Consider sending Light Infantry rush with your other soldiers afterwards. (Note: soldiers can die when the building is destroyed, it is annoying) You can get a Medic from the GDI Warf Boom sell, so the GDI Warf boom sell is better than Nod Warf boom sell.
Place warf near Barrack: Place your War Factory near your Barracks or Hand of Nod so that exiting units can quickly run to your War Factory where your SubAPC or A-APC are newly built and exit. This makes faster hands free way of getting your attacking units into your APC faster.
Alt Warf mk, diz, dt: Left mouse click on the War Factory and then left click far away on map so any Devil Tongue, Disrupter, or Mammoth MK2 will not shoot through your War Factory to hit units on the other side.
Hide units in Warf: Build second War Factory right as Subteranean APC or Amphibious APC is ready and it will be hiding in the War Factory when you place it on map. Now send soldiers to hide in the War Factory inside the APC and you can hide infinite soldiers in it. The Soldiers are not inside the SubAPC or A-APC, they will be able to shoot enemy troops. Stacked soldiers can smash an Engineer Attack well if its not expected by enemy. Keep APC near MCV/Warf. Many soldiers and Medics hidden in Warf is very strong but easily countered by 1 Orca Bomber or a few Devil Tongue.
Numbered Engi hiding in Warf heals: A Engineer that is numbered and hiding inside a War Factory with the APC method, can actually heal the War Factory that it is hiding it. An excellent Banshee defense if not expected.
Stacked soldiers in Warf = visc space saver: To save space for building inside walls with not much build space, you can hide soldiers in your War Factory. (See guide for details on hiding soldiers in Warf)
Stack CC and Cyb in Warf = no emp: If you stack your Cyborg Commando and Cyborgs inside of your War Factory, they will be immune to EMP Cannon!
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SAMS (GDI and Nod):
3 Sams = 2 shot Carryall: Three Sams is nice to have vs a GDI opponent early because they can destroy a Carryall in two shots. Place them near your MCV and War Factory spaced apart so no Orca Bomber can hit multiple sams in one run. You can always sell the Refineries.
6 Sam = 1-shot Carryall: Six Sams can destroy a Carryall in one shot. Three Sams is nice to have vs a Carryall, destroying it in two shots. Requires 90 power for nod (1pp), 120 power as gdi (1pp + 1 turbine).
8 Sam = 1-shot Orca B: Eight Sams can destroy an Orca Bomber in one shot. Before the Orca Bomber can even hit almost anything. Four Sams are a good thing to have vs GDI, being able to destroy an Orca Bomber in two shots. (Requires 160 power as GDI (2pp), or 120 power as Nod ( 2pp). )
9 Sam = 1 shot Banshee: Nine Sams can destroy a Banshee in one shot.
Make 2 Sam per Orca B: Consider making two Sams per Orca Bomber that the enemy makes.
2 Sam stop 1 Orca B: Two Sams can stop an Orca Bomber from finishing his second shot to destroy a Sam. Both Sams survive, make sure to repair fast.
Bridges and Cliffsides can block sams, place Sams far back from the edges of the cliff or bridge.
Sams face direction: Approach Sam from the opposite direction to get a split second time advantage. (Note: this time advantage is very minimal considering how fast the Sams change direction before firing. Might not be worth doing, but sometimes every little bit helps)
Place Sam at edge: When enemy scouts your base, place your new Sam where it would have hit their JJ , had it been there before. Your enemy's JJ wasn't hit in that location before so they won't expect Sam there when they send plane. Maybe.
Early Sams: Early Sams might go on the edge of your base to prevent air scouts, but once your base is scouted, put sams next to Construction Yard and War Factory. You can always sell Tiberium Refinery if they are targeted by Orca Bombers.
Sam might hit runaway plane: Sometimes the Sam actually hits planes that are flying away from it. This happens somewhat frequently and is just part of the game.
Sam hit plane over building = 1 bar: Your buildings can be slightly damaged if enemy planes are hit by your Sams, when the planes are over a building. It can do about one bar of HP damage to the building.
Sam over Tech: Some might think it is more important to make Sams before Tech Center. It depends on the game and build order. Faster attack out with no Sam or one Sam, or one to four Sams that might not be useful, but could defend diz and planes.
RADAR:
“Q” Radar fast: “Q”-ing units on your Radar screen is faster. You can switch back and forth between radar and normal screen, combining “Q”-d units. Example: Select unit, hold “Q”, then send the unit to multiple places on both your screen and radar screen. The unit will go to all the locations sequentially.
Radar Screen Fast: Send units faster on the Radar screen to minimize mouse movement and mouse scroll time.
HELIPAD:
Kill Helipad = kill plane: If you destroy a Helipad with a plane on top of it, the plane will probably die too.
Carryall inside: The Helipad can be placed on a Carryall sitting on a vehicle. This disguises the Carryall and makes it look like its sitting on a Helipad, possibly hiding the vehicle too. If Carryall on vehicle is EMP killed, the Helipad is damaged to 5 green bars health but not destroyed.
Helipad reset lift off reload: If a Harpy, Orca Fighter, Banshee, or Orca Bomber flies off of a Helipad, it will have to restart its ammo reloading timer. Try not to lift planes off Helipads because of this.
EMP CANNON
EMP Cannon is expensive: The EMP Cannon is expensive in terms of build time, money, and having to charge up. Depending on map size and terrain, it might be better to make about 8 Titans or Tick Tanks instead of getting early EMP Cannon. (Assumes you built War Factory at same time, not early 1 ref radar EMP)
Carryall lift = no emp death unlike planes: If planes are rising to take off as EMP Cannon hits ground, the planes can be destroyed, as well as the Helipads under them. The Carryall however does not have this weakness. It will never die while lifting vehicles off the ground. It only dies if its parked on vehicle when EMP hits ground.
EMP Cannon Range: 27 waypoint cells. It looks like about 9,5 inches by 5 inches oval on the map.
Depends on your screen size and resolution.
2 Orca B kill repair EMP: Two Orca Bombers can destroy an EMP Cannon no matter how fast the enemy repairs it. This is a GDI advantage.
EMP undeployed Ticks: Undeployed Tick Tanks have weaker armor than deployed Tick Tanks so try to EMP Cannon freeze them while they are not deployed.
Lure plane lift & EMP kill: Try to lure the enemy to lift their planes off the ground or off of Helipads.
You might be able to lure this by sending a Multi Missile or Chemical Missile. Then use EMP Cannon to hit planes right as they take off. This will kill planes, and kill any Helipad below those planes too.
Surface Sub CC no avoid EMP: It is not possible to deploy a SubAPC or A-Apc to release a Commando unfrozen by the EM- Pulse if the APC is above ground. It might be possible, but I tried many times. The SubAPC must be below ground to release a Commando on the surface unfrozen by EM-Pulse.
CC “S” walk on APC avoid EMP: The Commando can avoid EMP Cannon freeze by entering the Subterranean APC or Amphibious APC and pressing “S” right before he enters the APC. This will stop the Commando on top of the APC and he will not be frozen by the EMP Cannon.
CC avoid EMP 2 Inf walk: The Commando can avoid EMP Cannon freeze by walking through two Light Infantry soldiers standing next to each other. The timing requires practice. This trick is useful and worth putting two Light Infantry with your Commando in the Subterranean APC attack.
Stealthed Frozen Electricity seen: If a unit is stealthed by your Stealth Generator but an EMP Cannon freezes them, the unit can remain invisible, but the enemy might see the visible electricity marks on your vehicles from being frozen by EM-Pulse.
EMP faces enemy: For a slightly faster EMP Cannon, you can make it face certain ways by firing EM-Pulse in that direction. Power down your other EMP Cannons, and you can intentionally make the EMP Cannon facing the enemy's units that is closer to the units, be the one that fires. (Note: The EMP Cannon spins around to face where it is going to fire before it fires, minimizing this time and the distance to enemy units makes the EMP get to enemy units slightly faster)
EMP too early or too late: Be careful using EMP Cannon, especially on your team mates's base or Harvesters. EMP Cannon too early can freeze your units/ buildings or your team mates units/ buildings.
Do not be fooled by a Carryall pretending to drop vehicles, this juke can be devastating.
EMP Glitches yes: JJ flying, Disc Thrower, Wolverine,
GS stops EMP: The Ghost Stalker can stop an EMP Cannon, depends on timing.
EMP face TR: The EMP faces the direction it last fired. It normally starts facing top right.
3 Engi CTRL +ALT EMP red health: Even though Engineers can not be sent into the EMP Cannon, you can send three Engineers near the EMP Cannon with CTRL+ALT and have your Engineers walk into the EMP Cannon damaging it down to red health. Your Engineers will not steal it, but you can finish the badly damaged EMP Cannon with Banshee or other fast unit. (2 Banshee is probably better) This is kind of an expensive way to destroy an EMP Cannon, so probably only useful if you really need to destroy that one EMP Cannon to change outcome of game.
Counter sub stack CC EMP-kill sub: If you suspect that the enemy will stack his CC onto his SubAPC to avoid EMP Cannon, just wait to use EMP Cannon until SubAPC dead.
Counter Inf walk through CC emp avoid: Enemy might be known to use the 2 inf walk through trick, just kill the infantry before you use EMP Cannon on CC to counter.
EMP fake Carryall land: EMP will destroy a Carryall that fake landed on a vehicle but the vehicle will not be destroyed. The vehicle will be frozen by the EMP Canon.
EMP Carryall landed inside = frozen: If you land a Carryall inside a vehicle, the EMP Cannon will freeze both your Carryall and the vehicle it landed inside.
Stack SD = No EMP: Stacked units on the Service Depot will not be frozen by EMP Canon.
Vehicles can avoid EMP with ALT crush: If you time the ALT crush so that your unit crushes their soldier right when the EMP Cannon hits the ground, you can avoid EMP Cannon freeze. (Example: One should try to land Disrupters near enemy soldiers to avoid EMP)
EMP slows enemy heal: EMP Cannon can freeze units gathering near enemy Service Depot to be healed. EMP Cannon can also freeze Nod's Mobile Repair Vehicles. This could be a useful tactic if the enemy has a lot of damaged units and you want to delay their healing.
EMP Titans at enemy base: It makes sense to outbuild EMP Titans at the enemy's base because you will be freezing their base defenses too. As long as most of the Sams are frozen, you can use planes to damage Titans early, so the Titans have to repair and waste time before rushing you.
The fastest EMP: The fastest way to get an EMP to hit the ground is to use the EMP Cannon to EMP itself. This ensures that the ball of elecricity does not fly through the air, but immediately drops to the ground right on the EMP Cannon. (Might be useful, if you ever need a really fast EMP to hit ground)
EMP close plane lift= hard: It is possible to lift planes next to an EMP Cannon after you see it move, but this is very hard to do and risky. It might be better to just let the planes be frozen. If you are a split second too slow, your planes will die lifting off when EMP Cannon hits ground. (Note: The farther your planes are away from EMP Cannon on ground gives you more time to react and try escaping, it is unwise to land a lot of planes right next to enemy EMP Cannon, unless you are ready and trying to lure enemy to waste EMP Cannon)
EMP = enemy radar down: Use your EMP Cannon on enemy Radar and if they do not have a backup Radar, they will not be able to see the map.
EMP stop tank deploy: It is easier to avoid EMP Cannon by deploying vehicle if you stop the vehicle beforehand and it is still. Moving tanks sometimes take a moment to stop before you can deploy them, which gives you less time to react to EMP Cannon and time the deployment correctly.
EMP in fog: Remember where your enemy scouted and try to place the EMP Cannon in the remaining fog of war to surprise enemy.
No park all vehicles by only EMP: If the enemy uses his EMP Cannon to hit your EMP Cannon AND your units surrounding it will be frozen. You won't be able to use your EMP Cannon for 25 Game Seconds and your tanks are frozen. It is best not to park a lot of your vehicles around your only EMP Cannon.
EMP engi placement: You can place your EMP Cannon near the middle of your base next to your Construction Yard and War Factory so that your 1-2 Engineers can quickly heal your EMP Cannon if five early Banshee come.
EMP Carryall as lands = kills diz: Use your EMP Cannon to hit a Carryall as it lands a Disrupter and both the Carryall and the Disrupter will be destroyed. (Requires very good timing, must practice)
EMP Carryall as land = no kill MK: Use your EMP Cannon to hit a Carryall as it lands a Mammoth MK2 and the Mammoth MK2 can survive. The Carryall will be destroyed only. (Unlike when a Carryall is normally sitting on MK2 and both die when frozen by EMP)
EMP MCV = no deploy: If you use your EMP Cannon to hit a MCV, the MCV will freeze and not be able to deploy into a Construction Yard. This tactic can delay the enemy from building for 25 game seconds.
TECH CENTER
Tech Center costs $1500: The Tech Center is almost the same cost as two Titans. It might be better to save the money for Titans or other units instead of buying a Tech Center, depends on the game.
HUNTER SEEKER
Hunter no audible warn: There is no audible warning when an enemy releases his Hunter Seeker. You must have the map scouted to see it flying across the map. So you have time to scatter units.
Hunter kills Helipad and plane: The Hunter Seeker can destroy both a Helipad and the plane on top of it at the same time.
Big group Seeker multikills: You can wait until your enemy has a lot of grouped soldiers on the map to send your Hunter Seeker. Multiple units can be destroyed by the Hunter Seeker if they are standing next to a unit that got hit.
Watch Hunter see path- avoid attack: If you can see a Hunter Seeker coming then you can avoid attacking units you might want the Hunter Seeker to kill. You can also kill worthless enemy units like one Light Infantry in the flight path of Hunter Seeker to make it maybe target a more valuable enemy unit or structure. (Note: This is hard to pull off in a game, scout the map well and practice)