TIBERIAN SUN GUIDE 2025

 

SHARED UNITS -4

 

 

 

LIGHT INFANTRY

 

Scout Order: First scouts go to enemy base, second & third scouts go to corners of map, any other scouts go toward enemy base to be used in anti scout groups, or scout your Tiberium fields for expansion later.

 

1 inf hits harv: One Light Infantry can shoot at the enemy's harvesters to annoy them. Over time it can take Harvester health down to half. Alot of players will ignore it if you are attacking elsewhere at same time and they forget about it.

 

“G” = no “S”: If your Light Infantry are on Gaurd with “G”, do not tell them to Stop with “S” or they might run away from enemy back to the location where you put them on guard. This can be annoying during a large Light Infantry battle.

 

Scout fast = enemy gets defensive: If you can scout the enemy really fast, they might be more likely to make defensive units, especially if they have not scouted you yet. So, in a way, this type of fast scouting acts like a form of defense, prolonging the enemy attack.

 

Light Attack = repair money: If you lightly attack enemy buildings with random units like Light Infantry, the enemy might waste money repairing. Send a lot of units to randomly hit buildings on all sides of enemy base. It can drain their funds fast if you attack a lot of buildings at same time with cheap units like Light Infantry.

 

Every Scout used attack: Early in the game, every Light Infantry scout should group up for your early main Light Infantry rush, if you are building a rushing Light Infantry build order. This is more important on small maps, some larger maps it might take scouts way longer to arrive and delay your Light Infantry rush.

 

Notice player scouts: Players usually send Light Infantry early scouts to the same places on the map, you can study your opponent and learn where they send scouts to have anti scouts ready further away from your base. Spectate a few games or watch youtube games to memorize players likely scouting paths.

 

Inf faster than Titan: Light Infantry are faster than Titans and can run ahead to shoot them again if the Titan is walking away from them. (unlike Rocket Infantry and Disc Thowers which are same speed as Titan)

 

Light inf steal, no enemy aLT: It might be possible to steal a vehicle with a group of Light Infantry standing next to the vehicle and holding CTRL+ALT. Without the enemy using the ALT button to try to squish your soldiers.

 

Counter to inf steal is inf steal: The counter move to a group of Light Infantry stealing your Harvester is to steal their Harvester the same way. (Same with Mammoth MK2 if they are GDI and have one)

 

Light Inf wall counter: Put groups of Light Infantry or other units around your base to block or slow down enemy walls that are trying to outbuild into your base and possibly block your Refs or Warf.

 

Light Inf outbuild counter: Place groups of Light Infantry or other units around your enemy's outbuilt buildings to stand in the way of them placing their buildings closer to your base.

 

Early inf block gate fully: Send early Light Infantry to block the gate to your base so no scouts get in early. Block the gate fully so that no Attack Buggy, Cyborg, or Wolverine can get through.

 

Scouted = gate inf to MCV: Once your base is scouted, there is no reason for Light Infantry to guard the gate, bring all your Light Infantry back to your MCV/Warf to protect them from possible Nod Engineer attack.

 

Light inf still = hide in tib: 1-2 Light Infantry by themselves can hide near Tiberium trees, especially if they are green in color on green Tiberium (Blue soldiers hide well on blue tiberium) Just don't move them or the enemy's eye might be drawn to them. Stand still.

 

Light Inf hurt as flee: It is generally a bad idea to retreat Light Infantry when they are battling other Light Infantry, because your men are getting damaged and doing no damage to enemy units while running away. “G” is better to make all men attack. Try not to engage enemy if you have fewer Light Infantry, or retreat to base so you can build Laser or Vulcan or use Harvester to crush Light Infantry.

 

Light Inf Numbers: In a group of Light Infantry, you can have mulitple groups numbered and make 20-25 attack one infantry at a time. This can win Infantry battles because you use the right amount of Light Infantry to destroy enemy Light Infantry in one shot. You have 2 or 3 groups of 20-25 Light Infantry, you cycle between the three, targeting individual Light Infantry. This is how Light Infantry battles are won with fewer men.When each group can “1-shot” an enemy soldier, the enemy soldiers die faster.

 

Antiscout fog hide: After killing an enemy scout with your Light Infantry anti scouts, try to hide them in the fog again so you can surprise the enemy with them later if the enemy sends larger Light Infantry rush later.

 

Inf interfere with Carryall pickup: If you surround a vehicle with Light Infantry or other soldiers, it can sometimes interfere with the enemy's ability to pick up their Carryall. (Running units on waypoints around a vehicle also works sometimes.)(Note: Sometimes all those units can actually delay a Carryall from deploying off of that vehicle for up to 21 game seconds!)

 

Trade inf for low power vs Nod: It might be worth losing 10 or more Light Infantry to get the enemy Power Plant to low power. The enemy will build 50% slower on low power. GDI can counter with turbine healing a Power Plant 100%, works best vs Nod.

 

 

HARVESTER

 

Harv ROT = average: The Harvester Rate of Turn is average like a Tick Tank.

 

Harv Fake Eating: If you have no base but want the enemy to waste units scouting trying to find your non existant base, you can fake like your Harvesters are eating Tiberium and then travelling to far corner of map in shroud. (Like on Giants map). To the untrained eye, the enemy might not notices that your Harvesters arent actually eating Tiberium, they are just stopping and starting on Tiberium.

 

Harv go to dump = no listen: If a Harvester is returning to the Tiberium Refinery, it might ignore your command to do something else. Just be ready for it, and tell the Harvester twice or more times.

 

Block dump harv = stays stopped: If Harvester is blocked while dumping Tiberium in Tiberium Refinery, it will stay still even if the walls or Laser Fence blocking the Refinery has been destroyed. You will need to manually restart your Harvester in this situation.

 

Harv unlock = not steal: If the Harvester dumping in the Tiberium Refinery finishes dumping and unlocks from the Tiberium Refinery, it will not be stolen if three Engineers steal your Tiberium Refinery, even if it is still driving off the pavement.

 

Block Ref w/ harv: If you send a Harvester to your or your Ally's Tiberium Refinery, and you block it from getting there with walls, other Harvesters will not be able to use that Tiberium Refinery. This can be a mean trick to play on allies. His Harvesters might even wait in que by the Ref.(Note: unallying might counter this, not sure)

 

Select unit with Harv = no dump: If you have your Harvester and another different type of unit selected at the same time, you will not be able to send the Harvester to dump in a Tiberium Refinery. De-select the unit first, so you only have the Harvester selected. Then, send harv to Ref.

 

 

 

ENGINEER

 

Tight build = Engi counter: Tight building placement can help protect buildings. (Example: two Tiberium Refinery touching each other will protect one side of each Ref from Engineers, even though it slows Harvesters. It makes it easier to defend Engineer attack with other units, having fewer sides of a building to protect from Engineers)

 

Engi steal 8 bar Ref: One Engineer steals 8 health bars from the Tiberium Refinery. (Engi takes slightly more than 1/3 health, two Engineers leave only 2 red health bars on Ref )

 

Engi GDI pp turbines 2: A normal GDI Power Plant costs $300, and each turbine costs $100. An Engineer costs $500. Consider not sending engineer into an empty Power Plant or a Power Plant with one Turbine. Turbines are cheaper than Engineers.

 

1-2 Engi vs CY: 1 Engi does 447 hp Construction Yard: One Engineer does 447 hp damage to CY, leaving 563hp. Two Engineers do 873 hp damage to Construction Yard leaving 127 hp left.

 

Auto Eng is faster: The auto engineer attack using waypoints is slightly faster because you do not need to select a group number, you only need to deploy the vehicle. So pros will always use the Auto Engineer attack, especially Nod Pros.

 

Engineer Attack = no Engi def: If the enemy is sending an early Engineer rush attack, he might not have left over Engineer to help heal his buildings. Might be a good time to consider sending fast units like Banshee or Orca Fighter to destroy buildings when he sends Engi rush.

 

Early enemy Harpy = inf+ harv: If you are doing a early Light Infantry rush and see that Nod has one or two early Harpies, you can send a blue Tiberium Harvester Bomb with your units, hopefully distracting the Harpy in front of your attack.

 

Pre damaged Harv Bomb: If the enemy damages one of your Harvesters, consider sacrificing it as a Harv Bomb. You can also pre damage your Harv Bombs yourself.

 

Engineer no steal but damage: The Engineers can not steal some buildings but can damage them to red health by using CTRL +ALT. The Engineers will not go directly into CT, Laser, Obelisk, Nod Sam, Emp Cannon, but the CTRL +ALT method can lower those buildings health to red, so you can finish the buildings with other fast units like Banshee or Orca Figther.

 

Engi steal LF outbuild smash tanks: You can steal a building and build Laser Fence Posts in the enemy to smash their vehicles, soldiers, and planes on the ground in between your two Laser Fence Posts.

 

Many Engi defense = kill harvs: If the enemy is prepared to heal buildings with a lot of Engineers on defense, consider destroying Harvesters instead. Engineers can not save Harvesters.

 

Building Fire kills Engi: It is possible for a building that is on fire to kill the Engineer that is trying to heal the building. Consider repairing the building first to help put out the fire unless you immediately need to heal the building 100% with Engineer.

 

Always build next to steal: Consider always building something next to a building that you steal. Even if it is just one Laser, at least it will distract enemy. Might be good to have it already built and ready to place when you steal the building.

 

4 Engi spare steal: You can send four Engineer to steal a building so that you can repair it after you steal the building. This gives you more time to build other buildings next to it before the enemy destroys it. Also gives you more time to sell. Fourth Engineer can re-steal if the enemy saves with their Engineer. Fourth engineer acts as a spare, if one of your Engineers is killed.

 

Steal into EMP: Steal an enemy building with three Engineers and build EMP Cannon in their base. Make sure that you have a prebuilt EMP Cannon with an EM-Pulse that is ready to fire. Nod's Engineer attack is better than GDI's so this tactic works best with Nod.

 

Nod Engi outbuild saves money: Nod can save money on spare MCV by stealing enemy building and building Silos and Hand of Nod away from enemy base. You can send Artillery and other ground forces from your main base to connect with your buildings so that you can make lasers and sams to protect them. Your new Refinery's Harvester will start eating enemy Tiberium if you build one. SubAPC is faster than MCV for expansion (on small maps) This is a very good way for nod to outbuild for several reasons, but you have to watch Harvesters, a lot of micro control involved when your Refineries are so far from one another.)

 

Surface APC engi by helipad/OrcaB = flight delay: If you surface your Subterranean APC next to a Helipad. The Orca Bomber launching off the Helipad might have to briefly adjust its flight and circle around before hitting your Engineers. This might possibly give you just enough time to steal a building before that Orca Bomber sitting on the Helipad can kill your Engineers.

 

SubAPC + 4RI+ 1 Engineer+ Banshee: Engineers steal about 1/3 of a building's health no matter how expensive the building is. So if you are combining Engineer with Rocket Infantry and Banshee, you might as well go for the most expensive heavy armor buildings like the MCV, Warf, Ref.

 

Enemy attack Eng = kill building: If there are enough enemy units shooting at your Engineer as it tries to steal a building, the enemy units might accidentally destroy their own building as they shoot at your third and last Engineer. This is annoying because you won't get to sell the building.

 

 

SENSOR ARRAY:

 

Sensor Array Speed = 6 Tick: The Sensor Array is as fast as a Tick Tank. Most heavier vehicles are slower than the Sensor Array.

 

Buggy or Inf middle map: To save money, destroy a Sensor Array in middle of map with cheap units. Attack Buggies are great because they are faster than the Sensor Array. This is only when the Sensor Array is alone in middle of map with no defensive units.

 

1RI or 4Inf: One Rocket Infantry hurts a Sensor Array about as much as four Light Infantry.

 

Disc Thrower >2x RI: One Disc Thrower is stronger than two Rocket Infantry when destroying a Sensor Array, watch out.

 

Sensor squish: Remember the Sensor Array can also run over soldiers, it won't slow your economy down like using a Harvester will. Make sure you run over enough soldiers to offset the cost of your Sensor Array. The following is a list of units to smash to equal the value of Sensor Array:(Inf 8, RI4, Disc5,Engi2, Medic2) Watch out for Disc Throwers, maybe not a good idea to approach many.

 

Sensor ROT= Average: The Sensor Array's Rate of Turn (ROT) is average like a Tick Tank.

 

Sensor detects after deploy: Sensor Array only detects stealthed and underground units once it is fully deployed. It will not detect those units while it is in the process of deploying.

 

Sensor deploys fast: The Sensor Array deploys slightly faster than the Tick Tank and Artillery.

 

Frozen Sensor works: A Sensor Array that is frozen still works. It will still show you stealthed units or underground units.

 

 

 

PLANES:

 

Limit plane fog sound: Let the first plane spawn in the Helipad, it makes no sound. The next planes should only make a landing noise because they spawn off the map and land next to Helipad. This is less noise than having each plane spawn on the Helipad and moving each plane as it spawns. (Note: Harpy is silent, does not apply)

 

Alt planes to fog early: As long as you scout an area on the map you can left mouse click on Helipad and then left mouse click on the map where you want newly spawned planes to fly to when they are built on Helipad. (the alt command is no longer needed to do this, but players still say “Alt a Helipad” because the ALT command was the old way to do this before a game patch fixed it. When you hide your planes elsewhere, they might surprise the enemy more when you attack.

 

Leave planes in mid map: When planes leave your base, your enemy should see them fairly quickly, but a lot of players do not set bookmarks to quickly view other areas of the map. So if you send your planes and land them in the middle or somewhere not scouted for a moment, the enemy might move on to other things instead of focusing on using Engineers to save buildings. Your planes seem to come out of nowhere later after they hide for a bit. It can be much harder to prepare for Engineer heal.

 

Alt Crash Damages: Each plane does a different amount of damage to buildings when it ALT crashes into them. You can see by the numbers that the Harpy and Orca Bombers do the most damage, and Banshee do the least. The Harpy might even be better than the Orca Bomber and its cheaper and can be made earlier. The Harpy has more health than the Orca Fighter so it hovers over the building longer and the building is hurt every time Harpy is hit by Sam.

 

Orca B Alt Crash: (198, 220, 231, 264, 406)

 

Harpy Alt Crash: ( 231, 253, 348, 544, 710)

 

Orca F Alt Crash ( 132, 220, 291, 352)

 

Ban Alt Crash ( 129, 231, 264, 315)

 

Carryall cheapest ALT crash: GDI Carryall is the cheapest plane to ALT crash but you need to build a Service Depot to attain it. You don't need a SD to make Harpy as Nod. It is $250 cheaper than Harpy though. Carryall does about the same damage ALT crashing either empty or carrying a vehicle so don't waste a vehicle doing the Carryall ALT crash trick. (about 100-350 hp damage, obviously higher if the Carryall lands on building when it crashes)

 

Staged planes: Planes are fast and worth possibly staging a few near the enemy to quickly finish any buildings you damage with other units or special attacks.

 

Fast return “S/G”: It is faster to return planes to helipads by highlighting planes and pressing “S” or “G” to stop or guard the planes, than to manually move the map view to your home base and manually send the planes to Helipads. (Works nicely with Orca Fighters avoiding Sam shots before returning to attack again)

 

2 planes kill ½ harv: Two of any planes can destroy a Harvester with half health that was damaged previously. (Two Harpy, Banshee, Orca F, or Orca B.)

 

Plane edge fog land: A plane can reveal slightly more fog of war by landing on the ground near the edge of the fog of war.

 

Plane fire reveal fog: All planes reveal more fog of war if they attack a building or the ground with CTRL force fire.

 

Banshee Harpy better stack Warf: The Banshee and Harpy hide better stacked in your War Factory than the Orca Bomber and Orca Fighter, which show up more on the War Factory to where the enemy can see them.

 

Can't stack planes on ref harv dump: If the Harvester is dumping in the Tiberium Refinery, you can not stack planes on the Tiberium Refinery.

 

Stacked planes block ally harv: You can block allys from dumping their Harvester in their Tiberium Refineries by stacking planes on their Refineries. This is a dirty ally trick.

 

Rapid stack: Stacked planes tend to stack in the same place they are already stacked if you have a group of stacked and non stacked planes highlighted. Simply keep stacking all of them to save time. You don't have to waste time highlighting ONLY the non stacked planes when trying to stack all.

 

Stack plane interferes Carryall land: Stacking a plane on the enemy's vehicle can interfere with an enemy targeting their vehicle for pickup with a Carryall. Or it can interfere with an enemy MK2 targeting your MK2 by misfiring on your stacked plane instead.

 

Stack hide planes in MK2: Face the MK2 towards the bottom right and you can stack hide 1 banshee, 1 orca B, or multiple Harpy/Orca F. inside the Mammoth MK2.

 

Stack planes in buildings: Stack the planes in buildings to hide your planes, bigger buildings hide the planes better. Great tactic for defense, especially if the enemy did not see you do it. (Note: Pro enemy can hover mouse over building and see highlighted units inside it.)

 

Planes ground BR helipad TR: All planes face bottom right when they land on ground, and face top right when land on Helipad, even Carryalls.

 

Plane hide under bridge: You can stack planes under a bridge, even on water. When you heal the bridge with Engineer, the bridge will hide planes. Banshee and Harpy hide better than Orca Fighter and Orca Bomber under bridge. (They both leave yellow dots on bridge that easier for enemy to see) Hidden group of planes under a bridge over water might not be expected by enemy, especially if they did not see you put your planes there.

 

Stage planes to lure FS: Try to lure the enemy into using Firestorm defense to kill your planes as his own planes are returning to base. His own planes might be killed by the Firestorm when he tries to kill your planes. You can try flying near his planes, so either his firestorm takes out both of your planes or neither.

 

Watch waypoint loop lure FS: watch the enemy planes fly on their waypoint loop over their base. Try to lure the enemy to use his Firestorm defense while his planes fly over his waypoint loop and over his own Firestorm defense.

 

Some stacked planes avoid EMP: If your planes are stacked, some of them can avoid being frozen by the EMP Cannon, but some of them will be frozen.

 

Stack plane in building avoid EMP: If you stack planes inside a building, they will not be frozen by EMP Cannon.

 

Stack hide MCV, Temple, GDI Upgrade: Fully hide planes in those three buildings, other buildings only partially hide planes.

 

Stack plane ally SD: You can stack planes on a team mates Service Depot but they will not heal. They will not interfere with other units trying to heal on SD.

 

Planes feint low ammo: Pretend like your planes have no ammo. If the enemy is not closely paying attention to how much ammo your planes have, you can feint like they are out of ammo and attack later. (Example: Only send a few of the Banshees in a group to attack so it looks like the others are out of ammo, then use all Banshee after enemy wastes Engineer running into building to heal)

 

Tight multiple groups prevents Sam damage: If you have many groups of planes you can keep them close together on approach to enemy base flying over a lot of Sams, to minimize the damage. Once inside the enemy base, you can split up your groups and attack seperate buildings. This tactic makes Sams waste ammo hitting the same plane, possibly misfiring when the plane it was firing at died before the Sam Missile hit the plane. It can keep you planes alive longer on approach to enemy base. (Note: Aimable Sams might counter this technique)

 

Planes land cover subs from Art: If the enemy had few Sams and a lot of Artillery, and you had a lot of planes with full health, you could land the planes in enemy base right before your underground units surface, to take the heat from the artillery. Then quickly lift. Its a costly move, Artillery will hurt planes and might shoot them right out of the air, if they get that last shot off. You have to be quick. We are assuming your full health planes are out of ammo, and you really want your sub attacks with engineers or other delicate soldiers to survive the attack. (Rarely used tactic, but might be useful on rare occasion)

 

Plane hop scout: If you send a plane 1 cell away in the direction that makes your plane fly away from Sam, your plane can scout into the fog by hopping away from Sam and not getting damaged as much while you hop into the fog of war.

 

Plane edge fog scout: If you click very fast into the edge of the fog of war over and over, some planes, like the Harpy will fly into the edge of the fog without ever landing, in a direction away from Sams, limiting damage by the Sams.

 

Plane CTRL+ALT WP wanders farther: If your plane is on waypoint loop with CTRL+ALT, and it wanders off to attack enemy units or structures, it might wander even further away from your Waypoint loop if there are other enemy units nearby the first unit you started attacking. Be prepared to have planes wander far away into dangerous Sam territory if enemy base nearby.

 

CTRL +ALT ground = plane return: If you make a plane go to an area on the map while holding CTRL+ALT, the plane will return to your Helipad at your base.

 

Fast planes less likely hit over structure: Fast planes like Banshee and Orca Fighter are less likely to be hit by a Sam while traveling over one of your building because they are faster. The slow planes, Harpy and Orca Bomber are more likely to be hit over your buildings.

 

Stack Plane dark shadow: You can look at the shadow of a plane to see how dark the shadow is. It is slightly darker if there are stacked planes. It can be hard to see if you don't have another plane near it with no stack that is lighter in color for comparison.

 

Plane group lures Orca B miss: A large group of planes can lure an Orca Bomber to try to bomb them. If you are fast, you can lift your planes and make the Orca Bomber hit the ground instead and miss your planes. (Note: this is risky move and very costly if you fail)

 

 

 

MCV:

 

MCV ROT = avg: The Mobile Construction Vehicle has an average Rate of Turn (ROT). It is the same as a Tick Tank.

 

Move begin MCV big maps: Moving your Mobile Construction Vehicle at the beginning of a game slows down your build order. It is a risky move that works better on large maps. There are more places to hide on a large map. This tactic can sometimes confuse the enemy if they are not expecting it.

 

Nod must outbuild before GDI: The GDI Carryall makes outbuilding much faster for GDI, so Nod should focus on outbuilding sooner in its build order, or build Tiberium Silos to the next Tiberium. The Mobile Construction Vehicle is a slow vehicle, you can build across faster possibly. Nod does not do well in cliffed in areas, that he has to expand across for new tib, but blocked by cliffs. (Such as Top Left in Terraces)

 

MCV 15 green bar health: The Construction Yard has 15 green bars of health, so each bar represents about 67hp. (1000/15) This can help you calculate damages from looking at the building health bars only.

 

 

DEPLOYABLE VEHICLES

 

Dont stealth deploy: If you deploy or undeploy a deployable unit while it is stealthed, it will briefly flicker and give your location away to the enemy. Do not deploy your units unless you need to. Artillery should be deployed as they are made or you can wait until enemy approaches and deploy all stealthed Artillery at same time in surprise defense tactic.

 

Deployed Tick Tank and Artillery no chase: If enemy units run past your deployed Tick Tank or Artillery, they will not chase the enemy unit, they will remain in place.

 

Deployed = no go to SD: Deployed vehicles will not go to the Service Depot until you undeploy them first.

 

Can't scatter deployed: You can not scatter deployed vehicles with “X”. The deployed vehicles will not move.

 

“D” no work during undeploy: The “D” deploy key will not make your vehicle deploy if your vehicle is currently undeploying

 

“S” no work during undeploy: The “S” command will not stop your unit that is undeploying.

 

Moving unit D= stop: If your deployable vehicle is moving, pressing “D” will make the unit stop, but it will not deploy. You will need to press “D” again to make it deploy. (Note: This might be faster than using S+D because you are hitting only one key on keyboard twice, the “D” key)

 

Turn deploy delay: Be careful turning and deploying at the same time, it might slow down your deployment.

 

“X” no work deployed: You can not scatter units that are deployed. They will not move.

 

 

 

BOTH APC

 

Stealth enter/exit apc: If units are stealthed when they walk into an APC, they will be stealthed when they exit that APC later in the game. You can use this to hide Medics or other units longer so that the enemy does not know what attacking units came out of your APC, until they unstealth.

 

APC with 5 inf = 6 Orca B distractions: Number each of the five light infantry and the APC they are riding in. Deploy APC in enemy base and split up your Light Infantry. Send each Light Infantry near an enemy building. Hopefully each soldier will lure enemy Orca Bomber to hit their own buildings like Helipads, Powerplants, etc.. (Wooden buildings best) You can follow up with another APC full of Engineers to steal buildings.

 

Discmen APC suicide strike: The Disc Throwers inside an APC do not blow up when the APC dies. If you drive APC into a group of enemy soldiers, you might not even be able to deploy the APC. Make sure to deploy before reaching enemy soldiers. Use APC to run over soldiers while you finish with Disc Throwers.