There had been lots of word going on lately on a particular C&C mission being rather difficult to complete, namely the 7th NOD mission known as “The doctor vanishes”. I’ve completed the mission myself, so why not share my own experience and how I went about it in this mission walkthrough. I’ve completed the mission on hard difficulty so what you experience in your game might be different at a different setting. There are many ways to play this mission, I went for the superfluous, covert approach, so here goes!
Behold the superfluous beehive!
First off you start on the Southeast corner of the map, with a green tiberium field on your left. Immediately start building up your base defenses starting with spider then laser turrets all facing the ramp. You will need a crane as well as 3 harvesters going to keep yourself and your cash flow busy.
Do take caution when placing the turrets too near the ramp base as enemy tanks and rocket squads can use the height vantage point over your defenses and hit your them out of your range. A good indicator will be like as shown above with a good level “kill zone” for enemy troops to engage your turrets.
Technically, it would be ideal to position both kill zones at the ramp, the 2nd one being directly above your start point expanded with a mini forward base, but given the fact first wave will come in less than a minute time, you won’t be able to counter their large forces in time- mostly comprising of predators and rocket soldiers, making jello out of any armoured tanks they can possibly encounter. The enemy is also smart into not attacking your turrets but it’s nerve control center, so always keep repairs in handy. The best bet is to have your right kill zone just above your starting power plants as shown above. Having more spider than laser turrets is a good choice, but they won’t hold out for long either, quick leveling up your tech level and have at least 2 obelisks up on each kill zone, then you are really safe.
Though one can argue on spending the money instead on tanks and rush them to the bases and capture the objective. There are however 3 enemy bases in all and though one is lightly defended just north from your location with guard towers, attacking them with any sizeable NOD force will severely weaken them upon taking one base down- remember you have to deal with both their offensive and defensive forces. To make matters worst, there are 2 more other bases constantly sending tanks and rocket squads to your base, you won’t be able to take any assaults thereafter. Their tanks love crushing your infantry and NOD tanks can’t stand a chance against their rockets and armor, so the best bet is to secure your beehive.
The covert forces
Now here is the fun part, once you have build up a sizable defense, there won’t be enough green tiberium left to feed and build your army. But before you go into the red, ensure that you’ve trained one commando and at least 3 specters. The base on the north east is defended on their south entrances but guarded by pillboxes on the eastern entrances. You can start by stealing some blue tiberium from the northeast base using your newly formed covert team. When the time is right start by sneaking past enemy tanks on the exit ramp to your right leading up, keeping to the right edge of the screen. You have to get your timing right after an enemy assault and sneak past before the next wave comes. You will pass a space shuttle like building and see a monorail track, behind the top north east field is the fenced blue tiberium field. The enemy base is on your immediate left.
Leveling the bases
A combination of artillery force fire (ctrl-Rclick) will make short work of any buildings in the fog of war. Start by destroying all their buildings at the back especially their refineries so you can keep the cash for yourself. Always keep your specters away from the front line with your commando at the front, you might considering grouping them so you can call them out by numbers. If any patrol predator tanks were to come your way push your commando in front and engage them, she will be able to sustain fire from 3 tanks without any sweat, then let your artillery turn the tanks into scrap metal in few nicely placed shots. Your commando is also very useful into clearing and rocket squads harassing your specters, just don’t get her against any watch towers and you will be fine. Stick to his technique and you will be able to clear the whole base with 4 units. Start building a forward base up right on your enemy field and start building up your main attack force.
There you will be able to make short work of the center GDI base and stop the wave of attacks. The 3rd base is located right on the Northwest corner of the map. right behind the facility housing the doctor. But you have to get past a whole city of garrisoned buildings to reach him.
Clearing the garrisoned city
Attacking here can be done in any way you prefer- you can choose to flush them all out using purifiers or flame tanks, personally I still prefer clearing them with my long distance artillery, at the same time leveling out the whole city in the process with my commando- yes the same veteran strike team. The thing is that all garrisoned buildings are anti-air (i.e only rocker squads) so having a commando doing back to back C4s is a rather effective way to clear the city as well. While taking out all the buildings in the city, do start building a sizable scorpion tank battalion of say 20 tanks and 20 mantis as well, because the mission is not over after capturing the 2 objectives yet.
Thereafter you can start capturing your final objective, not forgetting your bonus one as well. Carryalls will arrive to extract the doctor and load him into one carryall transport. Then all hell will break loose- the map will suddenly spawn few rocket squad hammerheads, slingshots and shatterers all targeted at your carryall. Here is where your scorpion tanks and mantis will come into good play, getting rid of them is relatively easy, but getting them off your carry all is the tough part as they only concentrate all their fire on that one target.
The computer is rather persistent too, sending few hammerheads right at the end to meet my carryall destination, not knowing about my base anti-air defenses. The mission will end once you’ve successfully protected the carryall upon reaching the other Southeast end of the map (i.e your base) . Congrats!
Another mission walkthrough I’ve written after this mission, C&C Kanes Wrath – Tacitus interruptus brief mission walkthrough
Upon replaying the campaign I find that on hard your best bet is to immediately build a hand of nod and capture the two tiberium silos and the tiberium spike at the docks. Also send in your flame tanks to pick up the crates containing extra money that can also be found at the docks.
Build up base defences as stated above but before doing so build an emissary and set the way point to the dock. Once its there move it to the ramp that is near the blue tiberium field.
Once deployed build a tiberium refinery and base defences at your top base.
From here on in continue to build up your base defences at your secondary base, research the flame weapons upgrade at your secret shrine and spam build purifiers.
Build between 10-15 of these along with some mobile AA and take out the bases.
Whilst attacking continue to build base defences at your secondary base. Once enemy bases are destroyed, capture both objective buildings and send your force back to base 2 to be repaired.
By this point your army and base defences at base 2 will be plentiful and you will easily destroy all that GDI throws at you to try and destroy your airbourne troop transport.
Mission Accomplished