Mission Two: Operation Artifact

Go ahead and build a few mass extractor/power generator combos around your starting point. You’re in no rush, so build a land factory, crank out some engineers, then upgrade your factory to Tech 2. You will eventually be getting some interceptor flybys, so either construct some T2 mobile flak vehicles, or build anti-air defenses around your base.

When you want to find the first piece of Seraphim tech, simply build a few T2 tanks, then roll them to the northeast. The village there is populated solely by T1 units, so you shouldn’t have a problem with them. When they’ve been taken out, manually attack the temple nearby (click Attack, click the temple) until a Seraphim Tech pops out of it. A transport will come along to pick it up shortly afterwards.

Search Surrounding Temples For More Tech

There are a few more temples scattered around the area, but only one of them has any tech. It may be randomized, but we only noticed it dropping from the southeastern temple on the map. Be sure that you have at least ten mobile flak pieces backing up your T2 tanks before rolling up on it, and be sure that your main base has a few tanks and flak units, as well, or at least a good number of anti-air structures.

When you knock out the temple there, reinforcements will arrive for the Aeon, both near the temple and your base. Defeat them to grab the tech.

Destroy The Aeon Bases

Two Aeon bases will appear now, with one to your south and one to your east. The one to the south will only send naval units your way; a group of submarines protecting your bay will defeat anything that comes along, especially if they’re backed up by torpedo launchers or T2 point defenses on the shore. The eastern base will periodically send airplanes and large ground forces at you. Build T2 point defenses on the eastern side of your base to deal with them, but note that they’ll sometimes send transports around to the western side.

Sneaking around to the eastern side of this base and shelling it will weaken it severely.

It’s easiest to start with the eastern base. After building up your defenses, sneak or transport an engineer or five to the southeastern corner of the map. Build a naval base and start cranking out five to ten frigates. When they’re done, you can move them up around the eastern base, on the river nearby, and start shelling it from the water; they won’t have any defenses against this. After destroying everything you can target, including the anti-air batteries and the land factories, you can finish off the base by building up a fleet of around 20 bombers and using them to first take out the remaining anti-air, then shelling the rest of the base. The number of point defenses in the base makes a unit assault look inadvisable.

The southern base can actually be defeated without any offensive units at all. The easiest way to proceed is to ferry in four or six T2 engineers to the eastern side of the base down there. As a naval base, it doesn’t have much in the way of land defenses, so this will let you set up a line of T2 point defenses just outside of town (be sure that you’re out of the way of the land unit patrols). Set them up, let them kill anything in range, then build another line of point defenses a bit further up. A few lines of these defenses will wipe out the base and the naval factories, letting you send in a swarm of subs to finish the job.

Defeat Mach

Your missile launchers will be able to destroy most of Mach's units without being hurt themselves.

Mach has been brainwashed by the Seraphim tech, so you’ll have to defeat him in the southeastern corner of the map before moving to the quantum gate. This is a fairly easy task. Build a couple of T2 land factories on the spit of land to the southwest of his base and have them both start cranking out T2 land units, including a copious number of missile launchers, which are now available for construction. The T2 missile launchers will have a farther range of attack than anything Mach has in his base, save for a single T2 point defense. You can use them to shell the base from afar, then (after using them to clear out some of the wall segments), move them forward to target Mach himself, who’ll blow up real nicelike.

You can end the mission now by moving your commander to the quantum gate and heading through it. If you want to complete the optional objective of defeating the Aeon commander, you can send spy planes to the north, but don’t be surprised if she walks out of her base towards the quantum gate herself! Swarm her with your units and take her down before completing the mission. No need to destroy her base unless you wish to do so.

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