YMMV / Urban Assault

• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Taerkasten Bomber Zeppelin. It has the most powerful bomb in the game, is the most durable vehicle in the game (It takes multiple hits from a Resistance Rhino to kill it at full-health), and peels back the fog of war better than a regular scout vehicle does. However, it is also one of the slowest air units, so slow that some heavy tanks - a vehicle class the Zeppelin is designed to defeat, actually outmaneuver it. It is also too slow, too big, and too expensive to play the role of an exploring scout.
  • The Taerkasten Thor's Hammer, a heavy tank/artillery hybrid only available in the unreleased Metropolis Dawn expansion. It is arguably an equivalent of the Resistance Rhino, but with much heavier armor and a faster weapon reload rate. It all sounds excellent until its downsides are mentioned: It is too slow to reach and attack a host station located far away, and its projectile has a significantly shorter flight distance. It is also a bit too expensive to take the role of an anti-tank ground unit, something which Eisenhans or Leonid tanks would be more cost-efficient at.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: The game was intended such that different scenarios warranted different strategies. However, many players will eventually settle on several streamlined strategies to cover all advanced missions for simplicity and convenience.
  • All campaigns: Teleport to a captured enemy power station and spam Tigers/Tekh-Traks/Leonids/X01s to destroy the enemy host station. Ghorkovs can take it even further once the Turantul I is replaced by the Turantul II (Skorpio), as it's much stronger than other Host Stations and can actually hold its ground against large groups of enemies. This strategy is the fastest one to execute without being too costly, but has a high risk of failing or even backfiring on you since among many other variables to handle, the enemy host station usually resides in a stronghold making teleporting to it tantamount to suicide if you don't act fast enough, and your host station may not have enough energy to create a squad big enough to vanquish the enemy host station.
    • Obviously, in multiplayer matches where saving game is impossible, this strategy is considered as a quite risky move since failure would result in the attacker being subjected into a disadvantage.
  • All Campaigns: Accumulate a horde of mobile and powerful vehicles, set to Level 2 aggression level, and attack the enemy host station en masse. This strategy, while low-risk, easy to execute and also having a relatively high success rate once the critical mass of units is attained, hinges on the player being deeply entrenched with high energy recharge rates (i.e.: It is expensive and can be very slow to execute) for a protracted time to prepare a large force. It can be also very punishing if the assault ends up in a failure.
    • This strategy, while easy to execute on paper, is extremely unpopular in multiplayer due to the amount of time and energy required to perform such tactics in the first place. And even if a player manage to successfully turtle (which is already disadvantageous since the game punishes turtling strategy a lot with sector systems) and accumulate a huge number of vehicles, the opponents can just prepare counter units and prepare for a counterattack since the player who spammed the vehicles will not have any energy left to build anything else.
  • Resistance Campaign: Eliminate the enemy host station using either close-up-and-personal tactic (Dragonfly or Rock Sled) or sniper tactics (Rhino) - all player-controlled. Compared with the previous two-mentioned strategies, this strategy is the cheapest with the lowest risk, but is more situational, or in the case of the Dragonfly tactic very prone to failure since most of the time the enemy host station is still strong enough to kill the player-controlled Dragonfly before the latter does its job.
  • All Campaigns: Do the job yourself with the strongest unit you have at your command (Dragonfly and Warhammer for the Resistance, Tien-Ying 7 and Gigant for the Ghorkovs and Bronsteijn and Phantom for the Taerkastens). Combine with the Rhino Gambit (Use some chaff units (Scouts/Fireflies/Yings/Serps) to distract the enemy) to ensure maximum damage. As with the Resistance Campaign's Dragonfly strategy mentioned above, its cheap but prone to failure without using the chaff tactic, and deploying chaff is ironically pretty expensive.
• Demonic Spiders: Each of the factions has an unit or two that will inflict hell on a player when encountered in the campaigns.
  • The Ghorkovs/Kyternesians have the Gigant, a massive Turantul (their normal Host Station) modified into a massive and powerful heavy assault aircraft. Fast, hard to kill, and deadly. The few times they're encountered, they'll bring great pain to you and especially to your Host Station. Also, in AI hands, they fire much faster than when they're controlled by the player. In the early game, the Garghoil 3 bomber is this as well, being study and launching 8 bombs at a time. They will also bomb smaller other flying vehicles if they end up on top of them. A group of Wasps will almost always lose to a small group of Garghoil 3s without player help. The Garghoil 3 stops being this once you obtain the Falcon fighter, as they will die in one or two shots to them, and the Falcon is too fast for them to fight back. Their strongest air unit, the Tien-Ying 7 is the worst of them all, being basically a Falcon, but better in every way.
  • The Taerkastens have the Hetzels, a rare case that also classify as Goddamned Bats. They're slow, but hard to kill, and their guns are lethal to most vehicles. Trying to take them on in large groups is suicidal. Also, their cannons will shake your screen a LOT if they hit the vehicle you're controlling. They're one of the reasons the early Ghorkov campaign is so hard, the other being the Resistance's Zerg Rush with heavier tanks. You will learn to fear the noise their engines make. They also have the Phantom, a more modern fighter that compensates its lack of maneuverability with a lot of health, armor and a big missile that does hundreds of damage per shot. Metropolis Dawn also gives them the Ostwind, an anti-air tank that can quickly slaughter most air units with a barrage of rockets.
  • The Resistance has the Warhammer, their mightiest fighter. When faced in the other campaigns, they are really hard to destroy, and extremely maneuverable. Their boomerang-shaped cruise missiles also have powerful homing capabilities, so it's nearly impossible to escape a Warhammer's shots if your vehicle isn't fast enough. Even the Ghorkovs' Tien-Ying 7 has problems fighting one of these. The Tiger is also this, due to its impressive armor and health.
  • The Mykonians have the XO1 Quadda, their main fighter and Elite Mook. This brick-shaped mass of worm-like tubes is probably one of the deadliest things you will fight in the game, and the AI loves deploying them in large groups. They're slower than most air units and still pretty fragile, but their rapid-firing weapons are deadly to everything they hit, especially Host Stations. The Quadda is arguably the biggest threat to host stations - A single squad of 7 XO1 Quadda units can destroy an unattended Resistance Host Station in a few seconds.
  • The Sulgogars compensate their lack of unit variety by having a whole army of Demonic Jellyfish. Both their main combat units, the Mean Green and the Slime Lord are, statswise, vastly upgraded Yings and Quaddas, respectively, combining the best of both units with even stronger guns. A couple of Slime Lords can quickly slaughter your Host Station if you aren't careful, and a horde of Mean Greens will kill any flying drone that gets too close.
  • The Black Sect counts as an entire faction of these, as they can build any vehicle and building of whichever faction they're facing. Thanks to their stolen Anvil Host Station, you can't see any of their units in the minimap! You could be busy fighting off a Quadda swarm, only to get your Home Station killed in moments at the hands of another Quadda swarm you could not see in your map. Playing against the Black Sect greatly hampers your Real Time Strategy skills, and their presence essentially forces you to adopt a much more active First Person Shooter role.
  • Heavy helicopters from all main factions are also extremely deadly and versatile under player-control. These include Dragonfly of the Resistance, Bronsteijn of Taerkastens and Hourglass of Mykonians.
• Difficulty Spike:
  • Original Resistance campaign: The game starts out relatively easy and the difficulty level goes progressively and naturally higher. However, a huge spike in difficulty occurs towards and during the middle of the campaign, due to a combination of a lack of the means to create a good power source and the lack of powerful units required for smooth completion. "Dark Valley" marks the start of these tough levels. "Moonlight City" (Acquiring the Dragonfly), "Wide Field" (Acquiring the Falcon and Power Station 1+), "Sulog's Fine Thread" (Acquiring the Rhino) arguably marks the both the peak of the difficulty curve for the player to overcome and also the most important missions to complete because of the aforementioned key tech upgrades.
    • And despite the Sorting Algorithm of Evil, the difficulty level progressively goes down from the middle peak as you acquire more crucial tech upgrades. In particular, merely acquiring the Rock Sled in "Maze Wayz" arguably made many other missions a lot easier - It is the most powerful suicide unit in the game and is also specialized in killing an enemy host station, an action that can very quickly turn tables in favour of the player.
  • The Ghorkov campaign of the unreleased Metropolis Dawn expansion has a higher difficulty level than the original Resistance campaign due to the disadvantage of the early units that the Ghorkovs had against the Resistance and Mykonians, and Ghorkovian units in general lack the versatility of the Resistance units.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • The Stonehenge Power Station, not available for building by any faction and is also the most efficient power station in the entire game. It only appears in the "New Stonehenge" mission of the original Resistance Campaign, nothing much is mentioned about it and isn't even relevant to the mission itself.
    • However, the Stonehenge Power Station makes a 2nd appearance in another mission within the unreleased Metropolis Dawn, where the player representing the Taerkastens would actually gain a significant tactical advantage by capturing it.
  • The Mykonian Ground Cube only appears in one mission in the original Resistance Campaign. Quite possibly the rarest encountered unit across the entire game for single player feature.
• Self-Imposed Challenge:
  • There is no strict need to destroy all enemy host stations in a level. Technically speaking, you only need to control all key sectors required to open the beam gate - just long enough for you to teleport to the next level. The act of destroying enemy host stations only serves makes this task more reliable, but is often undertaken by players since that's still part of the fun.
  • On missions involving the Stoudson Bomb, some players will instead opt to destroy the enemy the old-fashioned way. This is not a completely fruitless endeavor, because direct destruction of an enemy host station increases the beam gates' space for the player's units to bring over for the next mission.
• That One Level:
  • One of the early levels, Surprise! starts off by literally throwing a Turantul in front of you. The map's Power Station is hidden in unclaimed territory, and it's the player's first match up with the Taerkastens.
  • Dark Valley, another early mission has you fight a deeply entrenched Ghorkov emplacement. This mission shows you the main reason you must destroy enemy Power Stations, as the Turantul will create horde after horde of Garghoils, Speedies, Tekh-Traks, and worst of all, the Garghoil 3 bomber, which makes its first appearance in this level. At this point, you'll probably only have the Fox, the Wasp and the Weasel. The AI will throw dozens of bombers at you until you're a crater. There's also a Stoudson Bomb under Ghorkov control, which will destroy you in 3 minutes if you don't capture it.
  • Wide Field is a free for all between you, the Ghorkovs and the Taerkastens. Unfortunately for you, the Taerkastens have a Stoudson Bomb, and two of the Triggers are guarded by a wing of Phantoms, their strongest fighter, capable of taking down the Falcon, which you also obtain here, in one shot. The bomb is more lenient this time, with a ten minute countdown.
  • Sulogs Rising, featuring the Sulgogars, will have you start at the edge of Taerkasten hood, with the alien jellyfishes claiming the southeastern corner of the map. If you don't flee from where you are right away, either a horde of Hetzels, Eisenhans and Zeppelins will crush you really fast. The Sulgogars are far worse. If you don't destroy the eastern Power Stations in the map, they will drown the whole level with hordes upon hordes of Mean Greens and Slime Lords, who will kill everything they get too close to, including the Warhammer heavy aircraft you obtain here. The Taerkastens will also build more Power Stations if they have enough energy. The best strategy in this level would be to eliminate the Taerkasten Flying Fortress immediately (Hint: Dragonfly), leaving you good territory and allowing you a one-on-one fight with the Sulgogars.
  • Blue Casbah featuring both the Black Sect and Taerkastens. It's not funny when you're busy holding back the Taerkasten horde only for your host station to be nuked to death by a BS Zeppelin you couldn't see cause you were too busy fighting in another front. It's also really difficult to take down the Black Sect, as they build their unique and extremely deadly Flak Stations.
    • The recommended and easiest strategy is to locate the Black Sect Host Station right from the beginning of the mission and send a Rhino to snipe at it repeatedly from a safe distance until the Black Sect is destroyed. This would give you more territory and allow you a one-on-one fight with the more predictable (and easier) Taerkastens.
  • Hamburger Hill, named because the hill in question is flanked on both sides by multiple enemy host stations, resulting in getting attacked from multiple directions simultaneously. The alleged high difficulty is due to the fact that the sole Resistance Host Station had to face the combined might (Both pre-deployed and created) of 5 enemy host stations, which is very true if all the player does is to defend the fort and the Stoudson Bomb. However, at the start of the game, if the player managed to find a window of opportunity to kill one or more enemy host stations and/or cripple their power sources, the level is a lot more manageable.
  • Any corridor mission. To elaborate, corridor missions have a battlefield that is very narrow width-wise, but stretch on for MANY sectors length-wise. Your power station's output will always be less than optimal, so you'll only be able to build units at a snail's pace. The AI suffers from this as well, but since they start with the whole map under their control and multiple power stations, it's like trying to swim upstream, except instead of water, there's 100 enemy units gunning for you. Enjoy watching your squadron (that it took you 30 minutes getting the energy to make) be whittled away by the constant barrage of enemy units. Rage Quit is very likely to occur if one doesn't employ Save Scumming (An encouraged move since the game explicitly programmed this feature in). The Resistance Campaign features THREE corridor missions: "Assi's Way" featuring the Mykonians, "Sulog's Fine Thread" featuring the Sulgogars, and "Gauntlet" featuring the Ghorkovs. These missions are almost unavoidable if not completely unavoidable since "Sulog's Fine Thread" unlocks the Rhino vehicle and "Gauntlet" upgrades the Dragonfly's weapon, and both vehicles are crucial for the late to final few missions.
    • "Assi's Way": Although it's better than the others in that it's three sectors wide, it also has you facing not one, or two, but THREE Mykonian Host Stations. If one Myko Radar sees you and you don't have enough defenses, you will drown and die in a sea of Quaddas and Air Prisms. The Mykonian stations are deeply entrenched with many Power Stations surrounding each of them.
  • Sibuna of the original Resistance Campaign. Your host station is located at the north-end of the map while the Black Sect station is located deep within a clustered city near the other south-end of the map, surrounded by walls and predeployed units, making it extremely inconvenient if not impossible for ground units to attack it - This means the popular tactics of deploying either the Rhino or Rock Sled to destroy the enemy host station is not viable. If this isn't bad enough, the Ghorkovs deployed two Tarantul II host stations on the west.
    • The tactic recommended by the mission briefing is to eliminate the Black Sect first, but for some players it can actually be easier to get rid of the Ghorkovs first and allow you a one-on-one fight with the Black Sect. The Black Sect station being entrenched in an almost-inaccessible area actually works both ways, since that means the Black Sect will also be relatively slow at deploying its attackers. For the tactic to destroy the deeply entrenched Black Sect, the double-shot Falcon upgrade available in this particular mission could actually prove vital. A horde of double-shot Falcons at big enough numbers can overwhelm the Black Sect station, or alternatively, a squad of Falcons can be used to capture a power station near the Black Sect and resort to the riskier Tiger Drop tactic.
  • Parasite City, the final level in the original Resistance Campaign. Even if many players do not find it exceptionally difficult, it is still generally deemed one of the most unpredictable levels since the huge map size (2nd biggest in the game) hosting every faction in the game ensure things almost never happen the same way twice.
  • Snipers!, an early Ghorkov campaign mission where you obtain the Tekh-Trak has you fighting a free for all between you, the Taerkastens and the Resistance. Both will be utterly relentless in trying to kill you, with the Taerkastens throwing hordes of Hetzels and tanks, and the Resistance doing the same with a constant trickle of Jaguars and Tigers, which are hard to destroy with what little units you have.
  • Terkasten Wimps, another Ghorkov mission, is anything but easy. The Taers have a heavily fortified base, guarded by all kinds of nasties, including the expansion-exclusive Ostwind, whose rocket launcher barrages are hell for the mostly air-based Ghorkovs. They also have a Thor's Hammer, the Taerkasten version of the Rhino. And they are the easy ones... because the Resistance is even more dangerous than them, as they can create Flak Station 2s, horribly deadly against everything you have. Eventually they'll entrench themselves in the upper left corner of the map, launching hordes upon hordes of Jaguars, Tigers and Marauders, the latter of which will most likely destroy any Power Station that lies below them. Even obtaining the Gigant won't be of much help, as the Flak Stations and the Marauders can kill them really fast if you're not careful. Good luck.
  • Stoudson's Bastion of the Taerkasten Campaign. It plays out similarly to Hamburger Hill, where you have control of a Stoudson Bomb and you have to endure/overcome the combined might of 3 Resistance Host Stations. It is arguably the toughest and most frustrating level across **all** the available campaigns, and unlike most other missions it does test your combined First Person Shooter and Real-Time Strategy player skills to your limits. Constant jumping into, switching control of the correct vehicles, firing at and responding to the enemy should occur at the right time and place.
    • There is a shortcut though, although quite unreliable, relatively luck-based, and one must still act fast - The player can expend most of the Flying Fortress' limited energy to create and deploy a horde of Hetzels to eliminate the first Resistance Host Station. With luck and speed, the Resistance Host Station will fall before the Flying Fortress does, leaving you with some remaining Hetzels to absorb the fallen host station's energy residue to get more energy to replenish the Hetzel horde. Repeat the same for the other two Resistance Host Stations.