You know, it would have been fantastic if the game's manual or anything had mentioned this.

no kidding! these are things I did not notice until much much after my original purchase of the physical copies back in the day... kind of really makes the game unique and realistic in a way though, to where destroying research bases in early missions fast, actually DOES slow the war effort on the whole of the enemy later on... it feels more like real war in this way, for this reason, the game remains a classic, idk of any RTS that have done this since really.

When the game came out I didn't know that eather and was frustrated too, but if you ever decide to lead the ED to victory once more, you should use this mod:

http://www.gog.com/forum/earth_series/earth_series_mod_thread/post2

The Moon Project Earth2150 Mod by Loco xx

This 696kb Mod will enable you to play the 3 original Earth 2150 campaigns with the Moon Project engine.

With this benefits:

- better graphics
- you can zoom out further
- more useful hotkeys
- new technologies integrated seamlessly
- uses TMP unit balancing (ED campaign a little easier, LC campaign a little harder)
- unchanged original missions
- no .exe installer (just copy files and rename them)

Edit: fixed typos

Yet it seems like the AI has to cheat. For example: I've replayed the first ED mission of Escape from the Blue Planet several times now and also the following mission Himalaya. Before I start the first mission I build a army made of Pamirs and MG-Taigas in order to rush the LC base instantly. When the mission starts I move to the ressource area, construct a landing zone and import all my tanks. I rush their base about 2 Minutes after the mission had started. The base isn't even complete, yet they don't have any ressources left. I destroy everything and up to this point, they don't even have research labs. As soon as they're about to land the get destroyed by my MGs. And they're trying HARD to rebuild their base, I have to destroy about 5 flying research labs, 10 solar power plants and 3 headquarters.

And still in the final stats after the mission the AI managed somehow to research 4 or 5 technologies while only mining 8000 Credits at max. How the hell is that even possible?

The same with Himalaya. The smaller AI doesn't have any labs and gets destroyed pretty easily. The main antagonist has a base which is impossible to destory since it has like 10 heavy guardian towers and a lot of units. They don't even have research labs and yet managed to research 7 technologies while being at war with me.

Then I tried cheating myself: with armageddon I destroyed everything a few seconds after the mission had started. And look at this: Now the enemy has not researched ANYTHING. So either I'm sucking at being a rusher, which I will not deny, or the AI has its own rules. It's also very funny to see how many units the AI can spawn even though it should be bankrupt at some point. In Ural it was the case: While the base was tried to be rebuilt over and over again the enemy kept spawning moons and lunars non stop.

I also have to add that I tried all of this on easy and hard difficult.

EDIT: correction: The blue LC AI in fact has one research lab in the Himalaya mission.

IIRC some of the research is scripted. Making the AI tougher and/or making sure that certain key techs are being there I assume)
The only exception is in skirmish. Goes both for research and resource.

How do you steal resources in this game?
I just played Ural with ED.

Edit: think i found out that you can command an attack to destroyed mines and then get the resources.

To you, and to some other people i rush in to say, in Himalayas you DON'T need to destroy the blue base. Nowhere in the goals list does it say that. You start the mission, discover the poor dead scouts (F to poor nephew of general) and you are given ability to build, you immediately build a landing pad, send in whatever units you have in your main base while the initial 6 tanks deal with the cyan's single defensive structure and their mine asap. Then you build your own mines, clear out the deposit while defending against blue's attacks, take all the resources back to your base and END the mission. If you try to destroy the bases you clearly aren't meant to destroy, you'll bloody yourself and waste resources.

EDIT: One thing people tend to ignore about ED: you can MICRO away quite a lot of the damage from early LC and UCA forces - bring your army, then figure out which units the enemy is trying to attack with their rockets and grenade launchers, and keep moving that unit while your 20mm chainguns and 105mm cannons do the work. Also, if you move the unit under attack and at low health AWAY from battle, but through your units, the enemy will usually try to chase and go past your entire army, so even if it has hitscan weapons, it will still lose some time and dps by not attacking other units, so that trick will also give you an edge. you should remember that any unit you save, even at 1 hp, can be repaired to full health later, and with Repairer level 2, you can update its weaponry and chassis to the current models. Lastly - USE hero units! Those weirdboi fat tanks in Arctic 2 mission stayed with me till the end of the campaign, got HUGE bonuses from ranks, and I later even found energy shield powerups in some catacombs which made them even better.

One thing about ED people underappreciate - DEDICATED special weaponry. While more OP races have powerful weapons or AOE capabilities, their weapons only have secondary properties as an added, weak, bonus, but ED has dedicated heat and dedicated EMP weapons which pack quite a punch. Energy shields are quite a pain, that is true, but if you use even the smallest vehicle with a laser or EMP can make pretty much any ground unit without one a sitting duck, or a roasted one. Your choice. And with the big fat robots with massive HP pools and crazy 75% armors, you really don't want to waste any ammo trying to burn through all that fat with conventional means anyway. Also if you use upgraded Ion Cannons, those things pack quite a punch and if you have enough of them, you can burst the shields down pretty quickly.

I gotta say i don't like rushing in this game because units gain experience and i'm desperately trying to build an elite high level tank force (i'm also using a Taiga with a flag, to get the +2 boost), and i HATE losing units and LOVE sustaining and repairing all the damage, so i save and send my near death units to main base. No man left behind!. By the time i get repairer research half of my unit cap is on its last HP and desperately needs repairs. And vodka. Lots n lots of vodka. Those Ivans have seen some crazy shit, i'll tell you.

Also I never really looked at it like this before, but It actually might be accurate to the lore. If you look at ED's tech, it's all junk tech from 21st century, while UCA and LC are like alien tech in comparison, so it would make sense that ED is constantly out-teched and outmatched in their missions. I play it slow and on Easy so it's not usually a problem. Oh and research ammo asap, it lets you outrange base defenses as early as Antarctic mission (3 minigun ammo upgrades = 8 range to enemy's 6 or 7. Also, you should note that UCA's defenses SUCK. destroy the power relays which have a puny 300 HP and their medium and large towes stop firing. Lower ones can be outranged. I don't understand from the first poster's post whether or not he is trying to do the missions with just his initial troopers, but you should always build a transporter tab as soon as it's safe and call in your unit cap from the main base. With this substantial force you are more than likely to clear out any initial units the enemy has, and crack open their base defenses, or turtle up like i enjoy doing instead.

Overall this game is raw in quite a few places, and i WISH there was someone cool enough to undertake a remake project to iron out all the problems, but despite all that it still enchants me to this day.

Edit: A bit of a personal opinion, but i tend to not really remember games i can beat too easily, it's always the ones that frustrate me at one point or another, and force me to learn stuff and learn to handle its problems that i tend to remember for a long time and enjoy. At around the same time i also got to play Knights and Merchants, and for a beginner that game can be BRUTAL with its massive attack waves as early as 2nd level, and i still can't beat all the levels yet, but that game is amazing.

I also played the ED campaign and I'm not enjoying it. Lasers are great (if they decide to fire) but once shields come out they are utterly useless.

For those reading this who are struggling with the ED campaign:
- Focus on grozney? (the second tier helicopter). Cossacks die fast, but the grozney can take a few hits. Arm they with rockets because of the range and snipe the power facilities. Air units also don't get hit by plasma/electric which completely shred your land units (I think they avoid armour).
- Rockets are crucial. They hit land and air. Initially they are dumb fire but you get guided in the Indonesia missions. Rocket will also have the longest range which you can use to snipe buildings easier.
- Pamirs are mostly there to soak damage. Mix a few with damage dealers and they will hold their own.
- Abuse save/load. Save at the start of the mission and bring in a fleet of air units. You can kill an entire enemy within a couple mins if you hit their power sources early. Reload if it goes poorly
- Weapons on top of buildings are a great way to secure ground. Rockets are preferred due to hitting air and ground, but lasers are also a good choice against the pesky UCS robots and their plasma.

This seems to have carried over from Earth 2140, where an early rush makes a lot of missions so much easier.

ED campaign is also the hardest in the original campaign, UCS is easier, mostly due to a special unit and LC is a cakewalk.
If you get ion cannon weapon for ED tanks use them against shields, i think that one shot and their shield is gone. But how far are you anyway?

Myself i beat the original campaigns already and moon project also, only need to play lost souls which i heard is the hardest of them all.

One thing i knew also that you don't need to send resources to your space station right away, even though they tell you you should, you can do that latter. So when you defeat all enemies on map or how that goes again and go to home base, then when ending the mission it tells you how many credits you would get, simply bring them into your home base by deducting it from your space station so they don't send it to space.
I always had 70000 credits extra in my home base because of my play style. Also important is to not leave your units behind with the transporter but i guess you knew that.