Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun Campaign Tips / Lantern

Changelog

Changes to the book's content

2025-11-06: uploaded to site

Introduction

I replayed this game circa Summer–Autumn 2024, both for nostalgia and to look back at how it works, for… reasons, and figured I oughta put together some tips. The game's mostly straightforward, but sometimes it throws a curveball or there's an exploit or secret, and a few missions are just weirdly hard compared to the rest of the game.

These are just low-key tips. They're mostly not walkthroughs, and the walkthrough parts are both clearly-specified and limited to just the trickiest part of the mission. They're not meant to tell you the one best way to do anything and completely take the fun out of puzzling out how to beat the game. They're also written under the assumption you've done all the side-missions leading up to each main mission.

Not all missions have tips. Some missions were just too easy, some were straightforward slugfests with no complexity or secrets, and a few were branching path missions where I chose one path and didn't come back to the other one.

This is an older game with a warped difficulty in a sweet spot between the obnoxiously-specific and -cheap solutions of Tiberian Dawn and the balance and flexibility of later RTS games. I thought about doing tips for Age of Mythology, released only a few years later, but by that point in pro game dev history people must've figured out intuitive and complex mission design, and most of the advice and tips I could come up with were too generic or conditional. In any case, don't feel bad about save-scumming in this game, particularly for the no-base missions.

General Tips

These are general tips for either or both factions, but they're still only meant for the campaigns; they probably won't help (and might even hurt your chances) against human opponents.

Tips for both factions

Your base:

If the map gives you a Mobile Construction Vehicle (MCV), scout for a good base location before you deploy it.
If there are multiple bridges to your location, destroying all but one often makes the AI use the last one instead of repairing the other(s).
Concrete stops certain weapons (e.g. Nod Artillery, GDI's Ion Cannon) from making craters/deforming the terrain.
Building a Tech Center upgrades your existing buildings; you can sell the Center afterwards and still keep the upgrades as long as you don't lose or sell the buildings the Tech Center upgraded.

Your economy:

Spend money, don't save it.
Have 2 Harvesters per Refinery.

Side note about Harvesters: they go to the nearest available Refinery when they fill up, even if that Refinery's all the way across the map at a different base (and across enemy territory). To avoid losing your Harvesters, either micro-manage them or wall off Tiberium fields with Harvesters and Refineries inside.

Your units:

Choices that would be bad against a human can be good against AI.
Light Infantry are surprisingly good value.
Ground vehicles move faster over Concrete, roads, and paths.
When leaving units to guard bases, arrange them in arcs at base entrances so attackers are caught in range of more units.

The AI:

Scouting too far in mission maps can cross AI tripwires and make the enemy permanently more aggressive.
The AI rarely rebuilds lost buildings except in the final missions of the base campaigns and in later parts of the Firestorm expansion.

Base-building missions often go slow if you build up a massive army to steamroll the enemy. Speed them up by following your objectives (not all missions need you to destroy all enemies) and having a sense of how few units you need to tip the balance of a base assault in your favour.

Tips for GDI

Your stuff:

Disc Throwers can be set up to permanently destroy a bridge by force-firing them at a point just before it; their grenades will bounce onto the bridge and blow it up. If you target them at the bridge itself then they'll stop firing once the bridge is destroyed (because their target's destroyed) and they won't start firing again even if the bridge is repaired.
Disc Throwers can destroy Lasers from outside the Turrets' range by using force-fire.
A few Medics can keep infantry alive against most normal units.
Terrain doesn't block Titan cannons.
Firestorm Walls don't stop Disruptor beams (relevant in the expansion).
Disruptor beams deal damage to buildings per grid square the beam hits. If you move a Disruptor up to a building and force-fire at the ground on the other side, you'll deal massive damage.
It's cheaper to repair vehicles at a Service Depot than buy new ones.

Enemy stuff:

When Nod AI fires missiles, it prefers targeting Service Depots, War Factories, Barracks, and large groups of units.

Tips for Nod

Your stuff:

Half a dozen Artillery protected by Rocket Infantry and Mobile Repair Vehicles are almost invulnerable to most threats.
Cyborgs in a Tiberium patch can be a relatively cheap, tough defence.
Artillery has a ~100% hit rate in the base game (not the expansion).

Enemy stuff:

The AI doesn't always keep Titans out of range of Lasers.
Firestorm Walls don't stop Devil's Tongue flamethrowers, Lasers, and possibly Obelisks of Light.

Hotkeys

The hotkeys are your friends. Here are the ones I use most often:

General

Esc: opens pause/options menu
H: centre viewport on your Construction Yard

Selection

E: selects all on-screen units
T: selects all on-screen units/buildings of the same type(s) as any currently selected unit/building
Shift + left-click: add clicked unit/building to current selection (click and drag to add multiple)

Select-all is particularly useful if you left Ghost Stalker sitting on greenery (as GDI) or have stealth or subterranean units (as Nod).

Force-action

X: scatters selected units (not much, but it stops infantry getting run over so easily)
Ctrl + left-click: Force Fire: selected units/buildings will fire at the target, even open ground, terrain features, or friendly units
Alt + left-click: (when selecting units) Force Move: selected units will move to the target, even if another unit's standing there (useful for running over infantry with vehicles); (when selecting buildings) marks the target as a rally point, so any units the building(s) produce will automatically move there (if this command doesn't work, try holding Ctrl as well)

Rally points let you get units into defensive positions automatically, or send them to the front lines.

Teams

[0 to 9]: select a team (you start with no teams set)
Ctrl + [0 to 9]: overwrite that team with the selected units
Shift + [0 to 9]: add selected units to that team without overwriting it
Alt + [0 to 9]: centre viewport on that team

The same-type hotkey T and team hotkeys are incredibly useful if you wanna have any good control over your army. Good ways to split units:

by type, e.g. infantry vs vehicles
by speed, e.g. scout vehicles vs heavy armour
by target, e.g. strong against infantry vs strong against armour
by range, e.g. can vs can't safely destroy Lasers
by purpose/location, e.g. grouping units guarding a location

Waypoints

I don't use these often, but they do have their advantages: you can make guard patrols, automate air attacks, and help units avoid hazardous terrain or enemy defences. They're a little fiddly to set up, and only let you do things you could already do manually, but they can help you avoid micromanagement and let you focus on one thing at a time.

W: switch into/out of waypoint mode
right-click: (when in waypoint mode) switch out of waypoint mode
left-click: (when not selecting waypoint) select a waypoint; (when selecting waypoint) move selected waypoint to target
Shift + left-click: (when selecting final waypoint in path and targeting first waypoint in path) turn the path into a loop
Delete (not Backspace): delete selected waypoint

Each time you enter waypoint mode, you'll start creating a new path. To edit an existing path, click any of its waypoints. You can have up to 12 paths with up to 15 waypoints each.

When you select units, clicking on a waypoint causes them to follow that path starting from that waypoint:

left-click: send selected units to follow waypoint path
Ctrl + left-click: (when selecting combat units) send selected units to attack each waypoint on path (put the waypoints on enemy buildings/deployed units only); (when selecting Medic or Mobile Repair Vehicle units) send selected units on a heal patrol; they'll heal/repair up to one friendly unit per waypoint
Ctrl + Alt + left-click: send selected units on a guard patrol: they follow waypoints and attack enemy units/buildings nearby

If you put a waypoint on a Service Depot, vehicles following the path will stop and repair themselves. If you put a waypoint on a Helipad, air combat units following the path will stop and refill ammo. If you put a waypoint on a friendly building, Engineers following the path will repair the building if it's damaged.

Other

I don't use these, but they do exist in the manual:

stop
follow
guard
move to map event
set/move to map location bookmark
cycle through on-screen units
switch to power or repair mode
scroll sidebars up/down by whole pages

Plus a few multiplayer-specific ones.

GDI Main Campaign

GDI 3.1: Capture Train Station

This mission has an easier branch I never found the first time I played. If you go north through the valley instead of around the winding plateaus and bridges, then you get heavy reinforcements and a more direct route to the enemy base.

GDI 6.1: Destroy Vega's Dam

This mission has two paths bridging off from the centre of the map. By default, you can only take the northwest bridge, which leads to an ambush and a frontal assault on the enemy base, either of which can easily destroy your forces (though it's also possible to get through almost unharmed). To get the easier route across the (initially broken) northeast bridge:

Don't blow up the SAMs in the city just yet.
Make your Disc Throwers force-fire over the ravine north of the city at various angles.
Now destroy the SAMs.

If you got lucky, you killed enough of the Rocket Infantry hidden in the fog of war north of the ravine that they won't be able to shoot down the Orca Transport that tries to land there. The Transport drops off an Engineer—have them repair the bridge, then send your forces through the tunnel on the other side to get inside the enemy's main base.

This might feel like an exploit, but there's seemingly no other way to kill those Rocket Infantry without going the long way around, defeating the point of the back entrance shortcut.

GDI 7: Capture Hammerfest Base

First, there's a few Artillery on the way to the base, but they don't activate unless you reveal them in the fog of war. They're so dangerous at this point that if they activate, you should just restart.

Second, explore around in the no-base part of the mission—you can destroy various Nod buildings to bring down enemy defences. However, capturing their outposts with your precious Engineers isn't worth it.

Third, the main Nod forces don't activate till you recapture the blue Construction Yard. As long as you keep your combat units away from the blue GDI buildings (which your units are inexplicably hostile to), you can recapture as much as you like and build up your army.

Finally, after you recapture the Construction Yard the enemy regularly sends Engineers to repair the three bridges between your base and theirs; secure your base by setting up Disc Throwers to repeatedly destroy these bridges (see the GDI general tips).

GDI 8: Retrieve Disruptor Crystals

There's a lotta branching paths here. Some get your forces decimated, while others give you a bigger or smaller chance of early victory. If you don't wanna puzzle it out, here's the best route:

Go south to the river, staying east to avoid the Nod outpost.
Send your Hover MLRSes upriver.
Blow up the train engine from the safety of the valley.

You can now finish the mission at your leisure.

GDI 9: Destroy Chemical Missile Plant

Complete all three(!) side-missions before this one to gain major advantages, in particular a 30-minute timer until the enemy's power goes down.

Two things make this mission and its extremely long, thin map less painful:

Firestorm Walls destroy missiles.
The front half of the Nod base has no SAMs.

Do yourself a favour and capture something in the front half of the Nod base so you can build up a forward base.

GDI 9.1: Rescue Prisoners

There's a beat-up GDI base across the river north of the starting point. Repair it and hijack the Amphibious APC on the other side (if you find the Mutant Hijacker) and you can make an amphibious assault on the back of the prison island later in the mission.

Just about the only ways to avoid the enemy patrols in the western half of the map are to cross to the abandoned GDI base and blow up the bridge behind you, or duck into the area where the mutants were hiding. You're better off just skirting along the edges of the map until you get past the city to safer ground.

If you get tired of the 3-Cyborg patrols, you can get rid of them by destroying the civilian hotel they spawn from. It's in the city, and as far as I'm aware it's best accessed from the south, not the safer northern route.

GDI 9.2: Destroy Chemical Supply

This level can be a motherfucker till you see how poorly-defended the Tiberium Waste Facilities are. They're northeast of the main Nod base and have no air defences.

If you've destroyed all enemy buildings, but the mission won't end, look around for white chemical tank buildings and destroy those too.

You can get a secret side-mission here:

Send any unit to the train station in the northwest.
Get Ghost Stalker onto the train.

You must do this before accomplishing the mission's win condition. The secret mission's short and simple and gives you a major bonus in the main mission of this set.

GDI 10A: Destroy Prototype Facility (Croatia)

This mission starts with the mutants in the northwest, sheltering in a tunnel. I don't know how the Hungarian mission starts, but I think the mutants start on the southeast.

The Mutant Hijacker can steal one of the Mammoth Mk. 1 tanks on the Banshee test range, but the vehicle never fully joins your side even though you control it, so you can't repair it with Service Depots.

Once you start building your base, the enemy'll attack from multiple routes, but you can stop most of them by putting units in three places:

Put the Mammoth Mk. 2 in the valley junction north of the bridge, with some infantry support.
Build your main forces on the high ground to the north of that.
Send the mutants back to the Tiberium patch near the start of the map to intercept enemy patrols.

Finally, this map gave me a real appreciation for the infantry–Medic combo. I grouped 10 Light Infantry and a few Medics and snuck them around the attack range of an Obelisk of Light to the riverside in the middle of the map, where they basically tied up any Nod units that passed through. The AI didn't try to run them over or send Devil's Tongues after them, so they whittled down everything from Light Infantry to Cyborgs to Tick Tanks to Stealth Tanks with 0 casualties.

GDI 11: Weather the Storm

There's a lotta Artillery on cliffs, but you can destroy them from the low ground using Titans. Find two south, one north, and a few more east of the Kodiak.

Another problem on this map is the lack of radar coupled with how you start away from the map edges, so you don't know where attacks will come from. However, there are barely any enemies west of the Kodiak, so once you clear the Artillery and a few other units you can focus on the east.

Final tip: there aren't any Tiberium fields in the enemy base, so you can easily take out their Harvesters (depending on which field they go to).

GDI 12: Final Conflict

This mission's hard if you go in knowing nothing. Something about the combination of the puzzle-y aspect of no-base missions, the timesink of base-building missions, and the particular poison of the repeated time limit… you can make mistakes 10 minutes in and only face the consequences 45 minutes later. However, a little knowledge goes a long way.

First, Nod has a lotta money and each base rebuilds lost buildings very quickly. This means you can't use conventional strategies like destroying Power Plants to take base defences offline, or destroying SAMs so your air units can take out Artillery. You need to capture or destroy a base's Construction Yard first.

Second, your base defence has gotta be on point:

Concrete everywhere and build over dirt paths to protect against subterranean attacks.
Wall up key buildings to protect against Engineers.
Build and maintain perimeter walls and turrets.
Rotate your units to and from the perimeter depending on the attackers.

Third, destroying an ICBM Launcher resets the timer to 1 hour, and destroying them all stops the timer completely, so you have 3 hours max to destroy the ICBMs and infinite time to destroy the bases.

Fourth, the bottom half of the map opens out when you cross a tripwire between the two blue Tiberium patches near your base, or when you take out the western base's ICBM. Opening up the map exposes you to missile attacks from Kane's island, so give yourself plenty of time to build by waiting till there's 15–10 minutes left on the timer.

Finally, the mission's a lot more manageable after you deal with the southern Nod base and Kane's island (which is nearby).

To take out the southern base:

Build 10 MLRSes—add Amphibious APCs carrying Engineers and mixed infantry if you wanna capture the base.
Bring your forces around the edge of Kane's island and then along the edges of the map to find the southern base's ICBM.
Go northwest from the ICBM to find the Construction Yard, War Factory, and Hand of Nod.

To take out Kane's island:

Fly a sacrificial Orca Fighter from north to south to expose its SAMs.
Destroy the SAMs in the north and west using your MLRSes (force-fire at the ground where cloaked SAMs are).
Send over Engineers, mixed infantry, and a Titan using Orca Carryalls.
Capture the Missile Silo and critical buildings, then deal with the rest.

Soon you should have Multi-Missiles and Ion Cannon shots on a regular basis, plus a few Orca Bombers. Expose the other two ICBMs and the rest of the mission's just cleanup.

GDI Firestorm Campaign

Firestorm: GDI 3: Quell the Civilian Riots

Actually a pretty good mission, if underdeveloped vs its concept: a punchy rapid-fire real-time puzzle.

You'll probably fail once or twice because your objectives aren't signposted and events quickly spiral, but it's so easy to restart and get back into it that tips honestly feel unnecessary. Well, here's one: positioning is key. Figure out which roads the rioters attack through and post your units there. If you have to micromanage your units at the base instead of focusing on finding the riot leaders then you're doing it wrong.

Firestorm: GDI 4: In the Box

Capture one of the enemy Power Plants in the middle of the map and build an EMP Cannon nearby; it'll be in range of most of the enemy base and will be a massive help during your final attack.

Firestorm: GDI 5: Dogma Day Afternoon

This mission has an excellent concept and decent atmosphere, but it's balanced extremely badly—just save-scum through it.

Deploy the Juggernaut and kill the Tiberium Fiends across the stream. Leave it here for the rest of the mission—it's very hard to keep it alive on the route your other units will take, and you'll need it here later anyway.

The Archaeologist fully heals when they enter a temple (actually, they're replaced by a new Archaeologist unit).

The Cult Guards are unbelievably strong against Ghost Stalker, but you can deal with the cult compound without him.

It's impossible to get the Juggernaut to the exit; destroy it to end the mission.

Firestorm: GDI 6: Escape from CABAL

First, you must end the initial assault with at least $3400 left to build a War Factory and Harvester. Here's a good approach—bring your units southeast to the ruined GDI base, then do these things as simultaneously as possible:

Make Disc Throwers.
Build a War Factory, then a Harvester.
Sell the Tiberium Silos, a Power Plant, a Refinery, and the Searchlight.
Repair all other buildings.

Further tips:

The enemy has air power, but their Helipads are poorly defended.
The enemy has no Tiberium inside their base.
The enemy base has a back entrance blocked by a destructible cliff.

Firestorm: GDI 7: The Cyborgs are Coming

River ice re-freezes quickly on this map once you start building your base.

When your Commander reaches the city in the northwest, each village receives drop-pod reinforcements under your control. They'll be quickly overwhelmed by the enemy, so leave them be or try to get the survivors back to your base.

You can rebuild the damaged GDI base or set up in the city. The former means you have to fight the Reapers and Tick Tanks in the old base, while the latter means you won't be able to lay down Concrete.

You don't have to repair any bridges. In fact, it's probably better not to.

If you assault the southern enemy base from the north (bad idea), build a forward base and deactivate enemy defenses using an EMP Cannon.

Firestorm: GDI 8: Factory Recall

Another well-designed map from Firestorm, with interesting terrain and different routes you can take with different conditions. For example, you could attack the main enemy base from the southeast, which gets you closer to the Construction Yard, but you need to get units across the bridge there before the Tiberium Vein field blocks the path, adding a natural time limit or forcing you to use units that can cross the Vein field or the river. The versatile design's let down a bit by typical Tiberian Sun issues, where some routes are much easier than others.

Micro-manage your starting units heavily. Avoid all fights and don't let them attack the parked Cyborgs and Reapers near the network centre—some of those enemies will soon switch to your side.

There are two places to start a base: where the enemy outpost was (natural defences, may let you build an EMP Cannon in range of the enemy base) or in the northern town (more Tiberium).

The enemy base has tough defenses, but a few weak areas—you can cross the river directly into the base, or sneak down the western edge of the map to break through the wall where no Obelisks can reach.

Destroy the dam to deplete enemy power.

Firestorm: GDI 9: Core of the Problem

The first part of this mission's brutal. As with all the hardest missions in the game, this is less a set of tips and more a walkthrough to the point where the pressure starts to ease off.

Set up in the southeast corner and secure all routes in—destroy the west bridge from the starting area, wall up the land route north of the starting area, and do not destroy the fragile cliffs to the north of your base. Build up mixed ground units and SAMs to defend the base while you deal with the missile threat. Early on, CABAL will send a Commando and Cyborgs south of your base using a Subterranean APC, so be on guard.

Beyond ground attacks, you'll also face regular air attacks and missile attacks. You can actually deal with both of those in one stroke by taking over the missile base in the southwest corner, which will then attract all the enemy air attacks. Send 5 Hover MLRSes to destroy the missile base's Reaper guards and SAMs, then airlift an Amphibious APC of Engineers to capture the Silos and control centre. Build a few SAMs to defend the base. Keep an eye on the Silos' damage—they'll attract most enemy air attacks from now on, taking that heat off your main base.

Now break the fragile cliff and attack the enemy's economy in the opposite corner of the big plateau. Capture and sell the Refineries and Tiberium Silos and destroy all Harvesters you come across. Be careful of the Artillery in the plateau's southwest corner; you can stay out of their range by heading north from the broken cliffs, then west, rather than going diagonally across the Tiberium field.

That takes care of missiles, air attacks, and half the enemy's economy. They'll still attack relentlessly, but you should be able to reach equilibrium and destroy their outposts and main base.

Nod Main Campaign

Nod 2: Retaliation

Not quite a tip or an Easter egg, but you can complete objective 2 just by blowing up the bridge to the main enemy base. It's hinted at by Slavik's cutscene comment that “[if you] take the bridge [then] they're cut off—the island is a tomb”.

Nod 4.1: Blackout

There are three ways to do this mission: straight, sneaky, or exploit.

Doing it straight means withstanding attacks from three directions: northwest, south (by Amphibious APC), and east. It's a huge pain and you can easily get locked into a cycle of spending all your money repairing damage/replacing losses.

The sneaky method is to get a minimal base going and make a few Engineers, then send all your units over the bridge to the east and along the island to the broken bridge in the northeast. Repair it, kill the units on the other side, destroy the weak cliffs nearby, and rush to the Radar in the north of the enemy base. It's risky, but quick, and very up Nod's alley.

Or… you could use the exploit. This mission's a weird difficulty spike if you don't know the quick route, and the devs messed up CABAL's lines in mission select so he makes it sound easy (I'm pretty sure he reads the same line for another mission for which it makes a lot more sense), so I didn't feel too bad about using it.

Here's the exploit: Take all of your units across the eastern bridge, including your Mobile Construction Vehicle. Deploy your base here and blow up the bridge behind you. The GDI patrols won't find you, so the enemy will never attack. The downside's that the island's so cramped you'll have to place buildings more carefully and micro-manage your Harvesters more closely.

Nod 5: Salvage Operation

This mission's real tough, but the solution's incredibly easy and silly: just make your vehicles target the train when it rushes past at the beginning. They'll chase it around the map and catch up a few times to give you the chance to blow up the rear car containing the crate you need to capture.

Nod 6A: Capture Umagon (Provo)

Do not send units anywhere near the Mobile Sensor Arrays. Destroy the northern one by sneaking Artillery around the west and north edges of the map into a small cliff nook nearby. Then, you can either get Artillery into the middle of the map to destroy the others, or short-circuit the mission by sending units across the northern edge of the map to attack Umagon's train when it arrives.

Nod 7: Sheep's Clothing

There's almost no enemies south of the river. Defeat the enemies and blow up the one bridge (in the mutant outpost) to make the area totally safe. You now have as much time as you like to amass forces to take on the main base of the river.

Nod 9: Villainess in Distress

This mission can be done extremely quickly: Capture the Power Plant and Radar, use the Subterranean APC to ferry the Cyborg Commando and Slavik to Oxanna, rescue her, and take them all to the Orca Transport when it arrives.

If you want to play everything out to the fullest, then don't take your starting vehicles too far south, as there's an AI tripwire that triggers constant enemy attacks from the main GDI base. Focus on capturing the base near Oxanna's prison and building up an army there.

Nod 12: Capture Jake McNeil

I've only done this the easy way: get McNeil when he's in the base. Tips:

The turrets seemingly don't attack when you're in the target base.
Sell most of the buildings and build more Titans and one Medic.
You can force-fire to attack the Wolverines guarding McNeil.

That's about it, unless you alert the enemy. About that: there's a lone enemy Light Infantry by a Searchlight Tower on the road to the base who won't immediately report in if they see you. I don't know if they do if they get close, but you can afford to rush APCs past them (as far away as possible, still) without causing McNeil to turn back.

Nod 13: A New Beginning

This mission can be brutal: GDI has their full arsenal and uses it all.

Firstly, and very importantly, the timer's how long it takes for the Philadelphia to make one pass overhead, but it takes three to lock on and destroy you. However, you can finish in under an hour if you're aggressive and well-informed, which is honestly more compelling—there aren't any big enemy bases here, so the map makes more sense as a speed/stealth challenge.

General tips:

GDI hits your captured Refinery with the Ion Cannon. Sell it and build your actual base southwest, near the Tiberium.
Your main challenge is the northwest beacon.
Leapfrogging Artillery will go far.

The northwest enemy base is a major pain. The faster route's up the western edge of the map and over a long bridge, but it's incredibly easy for the bridge to get destroyed by firefights. The solution:

Set up Artillery in the valley below.
Send over sacrificial infantry to reveal enemy defences.
Destroy the defences with the Artillery.

Bring Engineers in case you need to repair the bridge. Once you've dealt with the nearby defences, rush the base and make a mess with your main forces. Send a small group northwest from the gate, destroy the wall and an RPG Turret, and rush the ICBM Launcher to the finish line.

Nod Firestorm Campaign

Firestorm: Nod 3: Tratos' Final Act

An obtuse mission that drives a lotta people to take over the enemy base piecemeal instead of taking a full stealth approach. This is more of a walkthrough because of how precise you need to be.

Sneak a Limpet Drone over the water north of your starting point and into the enemy outpost.
Deploy it on the road so it attaches to a passing truck.
Kill/destroy the outpost's defences (yes, even Ghost Stalker).
Capture the outpost and make Disc Throwers.
Use Limpet Drones to lure MLRSes on the water back to the outpost and destroy them.
Send Limpet Drones north and east of the outpost to find patches of coast outside the enemy's walls.
Using your APCs, send units to destroy the SAMs at each of these patches.
Blow a hole in the wall at the eastern patch and capture the nearby Radar to reveal most enemy buildings.
Send a Limpet Drone southeast of the Radar to find an island with Power Plants.

If you find yourself running out of units, send some Disc Throwers to the small cliff overlooking the enemy's Refineries in the northwest, destroy the Vulcan Cannon between the Refineries, and send over an APC with a few Engineers to capture the buildings.

From here on you need to destroy 6 Power Plants. The enemy base has 4 pairs, and the easiest to reach are:

on the northern plateau
on the eastern island
walled off in the east of the main base

Now the Sensors and Firestorm Wall are down; wait for Tratos' guards to (mostly) leave, then rush in and kill him.

This mission would've been a lot more interesting if it was built around the Limpet Drones—attaching to passing vehicles to steal their sight. There could've been a whole network of vehicles moving around the base; you could've explored deeper and deeper instead of just capturing one Radar that reveals almost everything in one go.

Firestorm: Nod 4: Mutant Extermination

One of the best missions in the expansion, even the whole game, with well-structured and varied terrain, an unusual opponent, a neat but low-key stealth gimmick, and an escalating threat.

Mutant vehicles take no damage from Tiberium Vein fields.
The enemy rarely attacks from the south, but never say never.
The mutants only use air units defensively.

The truck you're after switches sides as soon as you find it so don't scout inside the enemy base or else you'll convert the truck and it'll immediately be attacked and destroyed by the mutants. Save your forces for a frontal assault so you can distract the enemy.

Firestorm: Nod 6: The Needs of the Many!

Now that CABAL's gone, you don't have voice alerts. Keep an eye on the map for flashing boxes around events or points of interest.

This mission has an interesting concept, poorly-implemented—the GDI aircraft are very capricious about whether or not they leave the base. Do what you can, rush the Radar with Engineers, and save-scum.

Firestorm: Nod 7: Determined Retribution

Subterranean APCs with Cyborgs spawn in the middle of the map in two waves: one when you enter this area for the first time and another when you approach the missile base in the northeast. These are the only times the enemy attacks your base.

It's possible to sneak into the missile base using a subterranean vehicle via the edge of the water between the missile base and the eastern bridge. Enemy units don't seem to attack the captured Missile Silos and the base has no defenders (aside from the Cyborgs who drill in later).

Firestorm: Nod 8: Harvester Hunting

Build a dozen or so units with your Fist of Nod, then send it northeast to avoid an early enemy attack.

You don't have to capture either enemy base, but if you do, take the northwest one: it has a Construction Yard and fewer defences.

Although you only need to destroy the enemy's economic units and structures, you'll have to take out almost all of both bases to do so.

Money crate locations:

2 in the ravine east of your starting point
3 inside trucks in northeastern village
2 in the pit near the southwest corner of the map
3 on the northern island revealed when reinforcements arrive
2 in the middle of the map when reinforcements arrive

Firestorm: Nod 9: Core of the Problem

This is less a set of tips and more a walkthrough for the first part of the mission, because of how brutal it is.

It starts with a protracted firefight. Hold your units back till the Subterranean APCs arrive, then use them to move everything north and capture the nearby outpost. Set up your main base further north, in the lower ground, and build up a strong economy based on the massive Tiberium field across the bridge. Destroy the two other bridges northeast of the Tiberium to secure the area.

From here your immediate threats are, closest to furthest:

a Mobile War Factory over the water southeast of your base
an airbase in the mid-south of the map
a missile base in the southeast corner

You'll face air attacks from all directions and ground attacks from the northeast, so build up mixed ground forces plus Lasers and SAMs to defend the base so you can focus your attention on the above problems.

First, send Limpet Drones east to find the Mobile War Factory. Send Engineers and mixed infantry in your APCs, capture it, and let the enemy destroy it. Make sure your APCs come back—it'll take a while before you build up your tech enough to make more of them. The soldiers are expendable.

Second, scout further east to find the airbase. Build up a subterranean strike team and capture this base's Radar to reveal various enemy locations on the map, including the missile base in the southeast. You can deal with the rest of the airbase later. Again, bring back the APCs (crew expendable).

Finally, raid the missile base. It's guarded by Reapers; attack with Rocket Infantry and Devil's Tongues. Capture the Missile Silos—this not only stops the missile attacks, it also attracts all of the enemy's air attacks. If you build up a bunch of SAMs and repair the Silos when they get damaged, you'll tie up the enemy's air units for the rest of the mission, killing two birds with one stone.

Now CABAL can't so easily set the pace of the battle, so you can deal with the rest of the enemy outposts and bases as you like.