Tank Commander

The Tank Commander is the second special governor and seventh overall governor in Rebel Inc. He was released in the "Tanks and Caves" expansion.

Specialty

The Tank Commander equips starting Soldiers with tanks, regardless of practicality. If only the Insurgents would stay still...

• Deploy Coalition Soldiers 1, Deploy National Soldiers 1 and Deploy National Soldiers 2 contain a mandatory Tank attachment with increased costs and training time.
• Garrisons, Drones and Airstrikes cost more.
• National Travel Logistics and all Roads cost less.
• All Civilian prices increase by $1 and then increase by 17%.

Unique Initiatives

For further information, see Government Initiatives#Tank Commander and Military Initiatives#Tank Commander.

• Tank Justice (Government) - $0 - Multiplies Corruption by -0.2. Reduces Global Support Level and increases Global Hostility Level by 3.
• Deploy Coalition Soldier 1/Deploy National Soldier 1/Deploy National Soldier 2 (Military) - All of these units work normally, but they cost more time and funds to train, yielding Tank units instead.
• Fuel Hoarding (Military) - $0 - Reduces Global Support Level by 3 and increases Global Hostility Level by 3.9 (Stronger than Warlord's Civilian Shakedowns), but only reduces logistics costs by 1.
• Advanced Driving Classes (Military) - $5 - Removes the regional support penalty caused by Tanks and prevents them from damaging road infrastructures. Cost increases with the amount of active tanks.
• Extra Tank (Military) - $8 - Gives a Tank attachment.

Strategies

Advantages

Tanks are extremely strong. Unlike soldiers, they can easily win fights without extra support, especially in flat terrain. They can also block insurgents per usual, and the support loss could be easily countered with Advanced Driving Lessons, which is cheap anyway. Fuel Hoarding and cheaper Road initiatives can also drastically improve logistics, allowing a strategy where he relies on a few Coalition units with heavily upgraded roads and security initiative(s) while they train National Soldiers.

Weaknesses

Tanks themselves contain multiple disadvantages and deprive him of infantry units necessary for various other purposes. They cost more to train, cannot support other troops, don't gather intel (which in turn can delay battles for a couple of turns, even though they do prevent intel decay), take longer to train, can't assist roll-outs, severely antagonize local populations (specifically when fighting), receive no benefit from most upgrades and generally cannot enter remote zones, unless it is accessible by Highways or has its main roads upgraded, and do not have their massive strength boost when they fight in zones with difficult terrains when they can enter them.

For the tanks to enter combat in Remote zones with mountains and forests, you'll have to ensure the natural presence of a highway or an active Main Road initiative in relevant region, since they will refuse to enter those with dirt roads. Combined with increased costs of Airstrikes, Drones and Garrisons and the low amount of available National soldiers, it can make battles in remote regions very difficult. Inaccessible terrain also prevents Tanks from blocking insurgent camp spawns, forcing players to make very careful use of Coalition Soldiers.

The increased cost for most civilian initiatives and specific military ones can also exacerbate the stabilization issues, as even with the sheer might of Tanks withstanding high intensity conflicts, they still cannot replace regular soldiers and relies on them to cover their weaknesses.

Governor Bonuses

• Show Trial for Drug Kingpin always results in the Kingpin being killed by a Tank, reducing Opium production.

Achievements

Tanks!

Win a game with the Tank Commander

Tanks very much!

Win a game with the Tank Commander on Brutal difficulty

Tragic Accident

Run over a drug kingpin with a tank

Modern Farming

Use tanks to destroy 5 Poppy Fields

The Subtle approach

Use the Dangerous Driving tactic to destroy the last insurgent in a zones

Roll Initiative

Use a governor's expertise to improve an outcome

Hell is for heroes

Win with seven different Governors on Mega-Brutal difficulty

Trivia

• Under normal circumstances, Tank Commander has the fastest units in the entire game.
• While nowhere near the Warlord, Tank Commander does have some morally questionable methods in regards to using Tanks:
  • His initiative "Tank Justice" involves running over corrupt individuals with Tanks.
  • His governor bonus on the "Drug Kingpin Captured" decision implies he arranged for a Tank to kill a Kingpin in a staged accident in order to intimidate the opium industry.
  • The achievement "Modern Farming" (which can only be achieved by the Tank Commander normally, as Tanks and Opium Trail's namesake feature cannot coexist otherwise) indicate he merely destroys Poppy Fields by using Tanks to run over them.