Why is Arcadia City so DIFFICULT in Halo Wars?!

Why is Arcadia City such a difficult mission in Halo Wars? Let's break down how to best approach this mission!

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[Orieth]

“The evac ships have been destroyed” *visibly triggered at covenant mega turret*

[rocketime]

Seeing this so many years after playing this seems so weird but it also brought back the memories of how awful this mission felt. I'd also say that the one mission where you have to rescue the marine squads surrounded by Flood and EMP the Forerunner things to buy more time is also one of the hardest in the game as well.

[xyro]

I remember restarting this level 20+ times just trying to save that first shuttle. Imagine my indignation when I found out they were doomed no matter what >:[

[cheato]

ODST's 100% rush 1st and THEN go into hornets. The ability to drop 10 units on any dangerous area is too good to pass up.

[Blackandfan]

I always just mass odsts around all important spots, usually thats enough to get through the mission in legendary with gold. The map has a lot of garrisons.

[dossantoscarballo]

Incredible how you guys show so much love to this game after all these years. I was playing Arcadia City just today and got the Legendary Gold. Toughest mission to do so.

Im not half as good as you guys, but I would love to play with you. You just make this game so much better. Countless were the times your Tutorials on Halo Wars 2 saved some of my shittiest weekends.

[grrman]

I find that it's better to go for infantry and garrison all the various towers while micro-ing the starting hornets around to help where required. ODST are also great against all the banshees and vampires that come in the latter part of the mission.
You might even be able to secure the second base doing that, if you feel really brave.

[BaxterAndLunala]

Another effective piece of the strategy, put Marines in the sniper towers near the ships when they're empty (Jackals will occasionally enter them, same with Grunt squads, most spawn without anyone garrisoned, but some will have cops in them).

[The-Autistic-Strategist]

I use to struggle with this mission when I was younger.

Now whenever I go back and play this, my ultimate goal is to try and destroy the Covenant Base before the countdown ends.

[dthendrick]

Halo Wars 2 is amazing, but I always preferred the first game. The most interesting part of Halo lore to me is humanity's struggle to survive the Covenant onslaught. Halo Wars gave us a glimpse into the war before the action-packed year of 2552. We really need more Halo games set between 2525-2551. So much potential, so much lore, so many legendary characters. Would love to see Halo Wars 3 focus on the broader war, introducing space combat, a galactic Conquest mode. Imagine playing as the UNSC starting from Harvest fighting a strategic retreat against an unstoppable force, kinda like Total War Attila. Or playing as the Covenant, with massive military strength, but a fog of war constant making human planets and ships harder to locate and track, and the Covenant could have a civil/racial war mechanic where you have to keep the individual races of the Covenant happy or they would rebel. You could have Heritic and Insurrectionists factions spread across the galaxy to contend with. You could even have an Atriox campaign where you fight to build the Banished forces from a small rebel group to a force that rivaled the Covenant. You could have a Flood outbreak that comes mid to late game and adds even more trouble to contend with, and the outbreak could start randomly anywhere in the galaxy. Total War Halo Wars lol

[lilyofdesire]

I just reinstalled this game today because of your halo wars 2 videos, and this was the only mission I've felt I needed to restart from the beginning and completely rethink my strategy.

The strat that got me through my 2nd attempt without losing an airship was to grab both bases super quickly. Then I went full econ plus one airpad at the lower left base, then focused everything on fortifying the righthand stronghold that borders the covenant base.

Once I had a couple AA vehicles and scorpians at each evac ship (and some hornets flying around as-needed), I focused on the covenant fortifications. While I didnt bother completely destroying their base, I beat them back to a managable degree to give myself some breathing room.

P.S. I'm writing this prior to watching the video, and im curious to see if our tactics overlap at all ❤

[Cringe_]

I remember breaking my controller several times doing this mission, the banshees always throw me off.

[Alstar]

This mission alone took me 163 attempts with using various strategies and being obliterated by various AI and RNG related bullcrap. It is even worse when you attempt to Gold Medal it. Even in my recorded attempt i almost lost to Mega Tuuret almost destroying the Cargo Ship with ~ 500 civvies in it. I did however managed to hold both of the bases.

About the "generous" ammout of Hornets and Red Team - you only get 4 of them on legendary. Red Team in my attempts usually ended up pushing too far into enemy and dying. This mission was a nightmare. The person who decided "Yeah, Banshee Suicide is a very fair upgrade" and added it to this mission deserves his microwave plate broken.

As for the tips - Infantry feels almost mandatory, there are a lot of watchtowers where you can place your troops and they will passively aid you in defending against anything that Spirits bring, Try to grab all of crates as quickly as possible with Forgehog, be reactive to any fliers and make your prayers once you get Mega Turret announcemend from Serina.

[harrizar]

I remember that if you play this mission on legendary not only does the mega turret get activated a lot sooner into the mission but its is way more active even targeting your bases, and if my memory serves me right in legendary the covenant Ai will take over any bases slot you have left unbuilt so you wanna be quick getting those up because more covenant bases just means more hell for you to deal with as for some reason only in this level that the covenant spawn rate is put on overdrive.

[scarecrow]

I havent seen a team respawn video in forever lol but I love the fact yall still make videos. Good shit.

[GoBuckeyes]

Putting marines in the towers really helps kill alot of the covenant units. I usually try and get a second force to go and take that second base although I’ve never been able to destroy the covenant base either because of the timer running out or just being overwhelmed with the defenses that base has

[randombrosaphine]

I never finished this game when I was younger because of this mission. I just bought it on PC 2 hours ago and got back to this mission. I am now looking up strategy to beat it because its still a fucking pain.

[Muse]

I always let the covenant destroy a second ship and focus all my efforts on defending just one while ignoring the civilians 😅

[mythicq]

Awesome tips, I totally agree ! Also my brother and I usually build two bases, the early part is definitely a bit harder, but it prevents the Covenant from building too strong of an army and makes snowball way better in the end

[Ser_Matticus]

I feel what always get me are the banshees with their Kamikaze death charge on the cargo ships, so I usually had Wolverines and had my defenses a little further out from the cargo ships to keep the banshees from killing the cargos with said kamikaze charge.