Brotherhood of Nod
The Brotherhood of Nod is used to sticking to the shadows; it’s had to do so for a long time to avoid the glare of the GDI. Now that they’re ready to burst back onto the world, they’re building up a new army with new strengths and weaknesses.
Nod forces are typically going to be a tad weaker than those of other factions, but will often be cheaper and quicker when moving around. Stealth is also an important factor of the Nod tactical plan, as they’re capable of hiding an entire base with just a couple of structures, and many of their units (Shadow Teams, the commando, stealth tanks, etc.) have built-in stealthing capabilities. They’ll arguably take more skill to work with in multiplayer, but we’ll let the game theorists puzzle over that one.
Infantry: The early infantry units here are of fairly poor quality, with the militia squads being probably the worst unit in the game, but in this case you get what you pay for. You can eventually build fanatics, which are expensive, but which can quickly brunt an enemy assault that’s coming your way. Fanatics are useful in the open, but assaulting a well-designed enemy base is another matter, since they’ll often be taken out by defenses before they can get close enough to do real damage.
In the hands of a skilled player, the Shadow Teams will be interesting to watch, as they’re capable of gliding over the battlefield and landing behind enemy lines to bomb their structures. They’re undone by stealth-detecting turrets and units, but will be murderous when used against unsuspecting players.
Vehicles: One of the biggest weaknesses of Nod is its early lack of decent anti-vehicle units and vehicles. While they have rocket soldiers, their basic early vehicles aren’t capable of dealing much damage to opposing vehicles. The Scorpion tank is really their only option here, but it’s going to be fairly weak in the face of opposing Predators, at least until it’s upgraded with laser capacitors. Stealth tanks are likewise a bit too lightly armored for their own good. Don’t neglect to build buggies, though; they’re cheap and fast and can be moved around to deal with infantry or planes that assault you.
Avatars are an interesting unit that serve as the superunit for the Nod. It can assimilate technology from other nearby Nod vehicles, allowing it to use their weapons to supplement its own, but this destroys the unit that you steal from. You can add multiple pieces of technology to a single Avatar, conceivably pushing the aggregate cost of it up over 5,000 bucks, but in general it’s probably better not to put your eggs in one basket and simply keep the units separated, unless you have a way of quickly repairing the Avatar when it’s damaged.
Aerial Units: Nod gets to use both Venom Patrol Craft and Vertigo bombers here. The Venom craft are unique in CNC3 in that they’re completely detached from the air tower that spawns them; the normal scout/fighter craft for the GDI and Scrin have to return to base to be repaired, and can only be built in limited numbers, but a single air tower can pump out as many Venoms as it likes, and can do so cheaply. Venoms are great for dealing with enemy infantry, especially when they’re upgraded with laser capacitors, and in sufficient numbers can wreak havoc on enemy vehicles as well, or shoot down incoming Firehawks or light Scrin fighters. They’re very weak, however, and will be shot down after just a few rockets shots, and can’t be told to automatically return to an air tower to be repaired.
The Vertigo is the best bomber in the game (assuming you don’t consider any of the Scrin vehicles to be “bombers” as such). It’s more expensive than the Firehawk, but has the advantage of stealth and the bonus of concentrating all its firepower in one bomb, thus reducing the amount of time it takes to reload and also making it easier for them to find new targets and run if their target is destroyed before they reach it. They’re very tough to kill unless they run into a large patch of turrets or get pursued by enemy fighter planes.
Structures: The Nod turrets are among the best in the game. They’re not overwhelmingly powerful, but their construction makes it difficult to take them out. The earlier turrets will have one central pod from which three smaller turrets are distributed. Killing the smaller turrets will prevent them from firing, but the central pod will eventually reconstruct them automatically. Destroying the central pod will eliminate the turrets, but still, they’re a pretty efficient system, especially since a lot of AI opponents will fire on the turrets first, allowing you to react before they manage to dish out the hurt to the central pod.
Obelisks of Light are powerful but slow-firing defensive structures that can be set up to chew through incoming vehicles. They can also fire on infantry but are inefficient at taking them out, even if they do suppress them almost instantly. They can’t fire at aerial units, however. Note that Beam Cannon vehicles can be positioned behind Obelisks and supercharge them with their beam weapons, which reportedly increases their range and damage, but these additions are apparently somewhat marginal.
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