I gave up a year ago.Decided to ghave another go at the 4th mission and fail miserably.

Any cheats or hints.
I just wanna play this like a movie anyway.
The gamneplay is too hard for me with the limited brain I got from poor genes.

Had about twenty goes on the 4th mission and fail.
Depression now setting in big time.
Anyone who can pass a cheat,I'd be most grateful.

Awesome TY.
i'll never finish the game without those cheats.

Meh, I had the original CD version and completed it without using anything except the built in invulnerability cheat.

Also, the -chicken cheat doesn't work, I just tried it, it makes the file name invalid.

Yes, the difficulty is totally messed up. First excuse my grammar as I´m going to write this very fast and I will not maybe pay much attention to correct it.

The funny thing is that last missions are far easier than any of the first missions in the game, basically because 2 things.

a) you´re flying CRAP, the game gives you the good ships later than any other WC game I ever played.

b) the missile system is totally CRAZY, plus the collision damage.

The problem with b) is that is crazy on "normal" difficulty, totally crazy in hard, but you change to 1 difficulty lower than "normal" and the game is boring... but on "normal" is still annoying... it just work WRONG. And i readed it several times here, and in other forums... other thing is finishing a total crazy mission, and when you´re just killing the last enemy fighter he or she has the marvelous skill to blow up your ship ramming in to you more often than you can imagine... so weaker hull fighters are BAD for this game.

This is not the best WC game by far... WC3 is 100 times much more "betatested" on it´s gameplay, but it still deserve to be played. The plot is interesting, and some of the combats are epic because you piloting crappy ships. The game gets worse when you have the "superfighter" because it becomes super easy... but at the same time is a total relief, tired of so many stupid difficulty testing on WCIV...

So some tips to survive the first half of the game:

Surviving Missiles: DECOY is your friend, use them very wisefully, try to save as many as you can for the final steps of every mission (usually harder moments), and try to learn how to evade missiles without the DECOYS in case you would be out of them.

Your own missiles: The good thing is the same that make you the things harder (missiles) is equally deadly for enemies. Try to learn wich enemies are harder or more dangerous and use your missiles vs them. Kill them FAST if there are many enemies with missiles locking on to you, this will make you not use as many of your decoys. Sometimes you can kill enemies just with one missile, not even need to fire them with lasers.

CRAP spaceships, or "space coffins" my opinion.

ARROW: One of the few fighters that is awesome, it let you evade missiles and is fast not very hard, but a difficult foe. The bad thing? It will not be available for a long time...

EXCALIBUR: Other great fighter, sadly you practically will not touch it.

HELLCAT: I hated it on WC3, and I hate it even more on WCIV this CRAP does nothing great,, it lacks firepower, it lacks missiles, it lacks hull, it lacks shields, it lacks speed, it lacks decoys, it lacks EVERYTHING... it´s the typical design that tries to do everythying cheaper, and does finally nothing... (if it were a real design of course) You will fly this shit more than any other Confederate Fighter, and you will die on it a lot of times... try to evade flight it every time you can... (I dont remember if you have many options to skip it)

THUNDERBOLT: Great Fighter, hard, powerfull and still a bit agile. Anyway the same as the others, you will not have many oportunities to fly it on the game. (In fact i think some of the confed ones you not even touch them)

LONGBOW: The same as Thunderbolt, but what it lacks on manouverabily it wins on missiles payload. A total killing machine. Of course I remember, maybe I´m wrong... that you touch it a couple of times in the whole game... so sadly you will not enjoy it.

BEARCAT: As long as I remember you dont even touch this fighter, the same as the RAZOR ...

DRAGON: Aka the superfighter, I will not tell you anything else about it. Would be an spoiler. But if you get this fighter on the game, then it comes "easy mode"

The next 3 fighters are the fighters that you will most fly on the game. And yes, they´re not good enough... so prepare to suffer...

BANSHEE: It´s the BEST of the three believe me, it´s like a "bad" version of the ARROW, it´s agile, and can evade missiles easier than any other fighter. So why not stick to it? Because it´s payload and lasers are crap... but for dogfights or fighter to fighter missions is just the best option you will have in the most part of the game.

VINDICATOR: Take the HellCat and make it better, it really works better than the Hellcat, but it´s still a weak fighter that will make you want to throw your joystick to the wall each time you will be blowed up for a stupid thing... at least it has a decent payload. Sadly you will need to fly this fighter on each "planetary" mission. It has a big problem to survive missiles as has bad hull, and not enough agility.

AVENGER: The "bomber" heavy fighter. It´s not bad, but is not as good as the Thunderbolt. Use it on every "non-shield" missions you fly (there are some) as it´s hull will make you survive. It´s a must fighter if you´re going to destroy more than 1 capital ship on some missions. It´s a pain to fly it if you need speed, but it´s more decent than the Vindicator.

Yes, I finished the game on medium without cheats. But was a VERY frustrating experience until i get the DRAGON fighter. It´s not you, the game is very difficult, but the stupid thing is turns SUPER easy at the end... so I think it´s really bad tested when was made. Not as WC3, the 3 is just amazing game. Im my opinion WC2 has a similar problem compared to WC1, but it was not so big.

IMO the actual movie of WC4 was better than WC3, the storyline was more involving as well IMO.

And Maniac is a LOT less annoying in WC4, which is a BIG help.

I think the same, WC3 is definitively much better game in overall, but the cinematics and actors are way better on WC4.

WC3 is a longer game, with more missions. WC4 is quite short in comparison, only about 26 missions compared to WC3's 30 odd.

I thought WC 4 had a lot more humor to it, which helped break the tension in the story. WC 3 was a constant drag because there was hardly any relief from the "We're losing the War!" story arc.

Also the "pilot girl" is hotter than the young blonde and even Ginger Lynn haha, but the dumb Mark Hamill didnt attack her this time :(

You mean everyone doesn't love Maniac? Man, I remember always wanting to play a maniac spinoff when playing wc3.

I really liked WC4's story (even though it was less epic than WC3's). I thought the acting was some of the best in video game history.

As for the "difficulty" issue. I found that if you hit "ALT-O" and turn the difficulty level down to easy/rookie then the games becomes quite easy. Also, make sure you balance the power settings (you have to reset this every time you go from space to planet side and back even though it's the same level), no need to put any on damage until you actually get damaged. I basically died maybe once or twice during the entire campaign. In retrospect I should have turned it on a hard setting but I was too impatient with getting to the next cut-scene!

Manage the energy/power is a must on every mission, more if you play in normal or hard difficulties. I counsel to "steal" most part of the repair system energy and move it to shields and weapons.

Gave up on this.Mission 4 drove me crazy.I had to quit to save myself from going to a clinic.

Every game on GOG is effing hard lol.
I'm 46 years old.Just can't play these anymore.
I didn't have the advantage of playing games from birth like the Gen Yers.

Oh boredom managing this, decoy that,forgeting what gun does what while trying to dodge the enemy.Us Males can't multitask you know.Space sims are really boring as batshit.
NO| SPACE GAME/SIM ON THIS PLANET HAS GOT THE GAMEPLAY BALANCE RIGHT YET.Always adding and adding and making gameplay terrible not finding a perfect balance.Lot of "intelligent " people out there but not using it right!