
My upgraded commander does beat a Tech 2 turret, but it takes him a while to get there and clean up all the mess. The only way I can get my economy back is to march there myself - using my commander - and take on that turret in person.

And it would be bad enough even if I had built a few basic units for emergencies. This would be embarrassing enough if it wasn't the same tactic I'd just used on them.

It's still merrily destroying - there's plenty to shoot at in its vast range. One engineer - one! - got past my anti-air turret in an air transport, landed, and built a Tech 2 turret in my base. Most of the rest of my original territory is populated by blackened wrecks or enemy structures. I had wondered why my economy seemed to be going down rather than up, and the explosion of my biggest power generator helps explain it. Appropriately, that's when I notice my base is gone. I even take some risks, upgrading my commander with some combat improvements and having him stray into the enemy base to take out a few minor buildings on its perimeter. I'm not going to use them yet, just upgrade them all to Tech 3 so I can eventually build an army tough enough to punch through the enemy's own defenses. I build two more shields just in case, and one anti-air turret, then start building factories. The range on these things is huge, so most stuff doesn't even get close enough to trouble my shield. This is actually kind of cute, it holds him the way a cat holds a kitten: dangling limply by its neck. So the transport finishes, my commander climbs in, and it carries him out to the front line. He'd have to send them all at once to damage my turrets faster than I could build them. The enemy has taken a terrifying amount of the map by this point, but he's still only churning out Tech 1 tanks. My commander finishes upgrading a little early, which frees him up to help build the transport. It's tricky, but the economics of it just about work out. That finishes around the same time the transport completes, so he hops in and flies out to the enemy's front door to build a forward base. While that's building, I upgrade the commander himself to be able to construct Tech 2 stuff.


That lets me build an air transport big enough to carry him, and tough enough to survive any Tech 1 interceptors that try to bring it down. I keep my commander at home, build an air factory, and get it to Tech 2 as soon as possible.
