Command & Conquer: Generals — How to Play
What it is
Generals (2003) and its expansion Zero Hour (2003) leave the Tiberium and Red Alert stories behind for a near-future war between the USA, China and the GLA, a guerrilla army. It is one of the most-played C&C games online today, and almost all of that play is Zero Hour.
The basics
- Workers or bulldozers build your base; supply trucks, choppers or workers gather from supply docks.
- The USA and China need power; the GLA does not.
- Promotions earn you general's points, which buy special powers such as airstrikes, paradrops and artillery barrages.
- Each side has a superweapon: the Particle Cannon, the Nuclear Missile, the Scud Storm.
Zero Hour's generals
Zero Hour adds nine generals — three per faction — each a variant of their side with different units and powers. See the Generals category.
Starting out
- Read Install and Setup first — on modern Windows, GenPatcher makes the game run properly.
- Play the campaign, then the Generals Challenge, which pits you against each general in turn.
- Learn one faction against the AI before going online.