Need some strategy tips for single player Options

[thefran]

I've never played multiplayer, only completed all campaigns and several challenges on medium or hard in vanilla Generals and ZH.

Due to a combination of me being very rusty and the AI being (subjectively) improved, I get absolutely pummeled on Challenge mode. As China Nuke, I try to turtle a bit till I can get some nukes and overlords going, get a defense line of 3-4 Gattling tanks and a propaganda tower as I go north with a Desolator, 2 Gattlings and a Dozer to establish a second supply center, and then get rolled by a bunch of laser paladins and that damnable laser artillery. (Rocket soldiers don't help much obviously). Build order is reactor-racks (capture, 4 Red Guards, capture oil derricks and whatnot, then camp in a building)-prop tower-supply-war factory-2 supply trucks-gattlings and rad tanks-nuclear center-strategy center-dead.

As US Laser, I kinda expected to get an easy win against Granger before realising that I don't actually have good ground air defense. Sure, he doesn't get countermeasures against my lasers, but I build a half-circle of laser partriots as I desperately try to build a good tank wave, but avengers turn out to be very expensive and very cost inefficient, his raptors kill them easy.