Fort Condor Fort Condor is a fort near Junon in " Final Fantasy VII " . A condor , incubating its egg , sits atop the fort covering up the Mako Reactor . The player can play a strategic minigame here . Fort Condor can be visited any time from after the party travels through the Mythril Mine until the end of the game , but only needs to be visited once . The minigame was designed by Kazuhiko Yoshioka , the event planner for Fort Condor . Story . The Shinra Electric Power Company constantly tries to storm the fort to get to the Mako Reactor . When they are on their mission to obtain the Huge Materia , the party must protect the egg on top of the fort . If they succeed in defeating Shinra ' s final assault , the egg hatches and the people protecting Fort Condor give the Huge Materia to the party . If the player loses the strategy game and lets the invaders reach the top , and then loses the consecutive boss battle , they do not get a Game Over but are ejected out of the fort . All the fort inhabitants are implied to have died and the player won ' t get the Huge Materia and can never come back to the fort , as the rope to climb up will be missing . Locations . Fort Condor is located to the South on Gaia ' s Eastern continent , in the middle of a patch of badlands . It is just southwest of the Mythril Mine . As it is located on the eastern side of the continent , Fort Condor may not be accessed until after the player has ventured through the Mythril Mines for the first time . Quests . Strategy minigame . Fort Condor ' s minigame is a basic real - time strategy game similar to the game " Crystal Defenders " , as the battlefield , combat , and other features are alike . After giving the man at the top of the Fort some gil to pay the fighting mercenaries , he will allow the player to fight a battle against a wave of attacking forces from Shinra . To fight the enemies , the player must hire units to fight the invaders . Every unit has HP , which must be depleted to destroy it . Once every enemy unit has been defeated , the battle is won and a prize is awarded . If the enemy reaches the top of the battlefield , the party has to fight a weak enemy called CMD . Grand Horn . If the player loses this battle , there is no Game Over but no prize is awarded . Even if the player defeats the Grand Horn , they will get a different prize than which they would have won if they had beaten the strategy game properly . There are twelve battles in all , but only one is mandatory . There are twenty units that can be commanded at a time . To build a unit , the player must pay for them out of their own personal funds . Money donated to Fort Condor can not be used to purchase these units , so if players donate to Fort Condor , they should be sure to keep enough money to buy units during the game . Because playing the game costs gil , the player will not be allowed to play unless they have at least 4 , 000 gil in personal funds ( again , this is separate from Fort Condor ' s fund ) . 4 , 000 gil is only enough to buy 10 of the cheapest units , so it is recommended to have more than this . When the battle is won , the surviving units will be refunded at 200 gil per unit . Most units can perform only two actions : move and attack . Workers can place a bomb to explode when the enemy touches it . Friendly troops cannot be damaged by the bomb traps . Repairers can heal ally units for 10 HP per action . Stationary units can be dismantled to allow new units to replace them . Certain units hit enemies well for double damage , while hitting others for half . Units are selected by moving the cursor with the D - Pad and pressing . The game speed can be adjusted by pressing and . The final enemy unit to attack is the " Commander " . Its strength and HP are high , and it takes half damage from all attacks . However , it is slow and can easily be defeated by ranged units . Enemies appear at the bottom of the map at two separate entrances ( one to the left and one to the right ) . The enemies appear gradually over time . If , at any time , the player has defeated all enemies on the screen , the remaining enemy troops never arrive and the player wins immediately . If the Commander unit appears , the battle is won by defeating the Commander . Tips . To easily win a battle , the player can place one Fighter ( or Shooter , since it moves faster ) as low as possible , start the fight , and set the speed to its slowest setting . After the battle has started the player can place another Fighter slightly lower than the first , and repeating to place troops lower and lower . There will eventually be a red line indicating the lowest level the player can place troops . Once this lowest level is reached , the player can buy more units and place them immediately at this level close to the entrances where the enemy forces arrive . By quickly overwhelming the enemies currently on the battlefield , the battle can be ended before the majority of enemy troops even appear . This strategy can be expensive however . Another option is to place a single Attacker ( the fastest moving unit ) as low as possible before the battle , set the speed to slow , then order the Attacker to move to the bottom of the screen . As the Attacker moves downfield , enemies will begin to enter . As soon as the red line reaches the enemy which has advanced the furthest , the player can hire and place the mercenary unit that counters it directly in front of it . This can be repeated as enemies appear , using only the units needed to counter exactly what appears on the field , and only if the player doesn ' t have the same unit nearby . With this strategy the player can defeat the invasion force using no more than 5 - 6 mercenaries none of whom should die allowing for a refund of 1000 - 1200 gil of the money spent in addition to the prize for the battle itself . For additional coverage , a Tri - stoner can be placed near the left - side entrance once the player ' s troops have advanced positioned so that it targets the entire corridor . Units . Dummied units . In the data there are 24 entries for units . With the selectable player and enemy units , only fourteen are used . The rest of the slots are units named Dummy . Seven of these unused slots are models of a sloped orange rectangles and were likely never going to be filled . The three other slots appear to be of a tower , a ground trap , and a mine . Battles . There are fifteen battles that can be fought in Fort Condor . The actual number of battles is seventeen , but battles 14 - 18 and 20 cannot be accessed because they occur during times when the party cannot travel to Fort Condor . These battles are considered won if the player has given the Fort Condor forces at least 15 , 000 gil , that is 3 , 000 gil per battle . There are no prizes for these battles , however . The player is rewarded with an item upon winning each of the fifteen playable battles , and a prize is received after the final battle regardless of whether the enemy reaches the top . If won by fighting CMD . Grand Horn , the party will only get a battle prize drop and won ' t be getting any prizes from the Fort Condor observer . There is a slight glitch in a few of the missions regarding the dialogue box that notifies the player of the prize they have received , in which it will say the player won a different prize than the one they are actually given , or it will simply appear as a blank dialogue box . There is an option to let the Fort Condor forces handle the battle themselves , but they need to have at least 3 , 000 gil to do that , which the player must donate . If the player has less than 4 , 000 gil the man at the top will not allow the party to participate in the battle either . The maximum amount of gil the player can give the Fort Condor troops is 32 , 767 gil by giving out 500 gil until at 29 , 500 , then giving them a large amount of money . This is because after the funds reach 30 , 000 gil further deposits will be denied . If the player donates more money than 32 , 767 gil , the rest will be lost . If the player has given gil to the fort they will receive the deposited gil before the final battle , the strategist saying : " Let ' s give them all the gil we have ! " Each battle can only be fought during specific times during the game . If the player moves forward in the story and does not fight the battle , it is lost forever . Skipping a battle means the player does not win the prize for the battle they are currently fighting and instead get the prize for the battle they skipped . Prizes can be permanently lost this way . The final battle is the exception : its prizes will always be the same . Purposely failing the missions by placing no unit and waiting lets the party face off against CMD . Grand Horn , an easy repeatable boss that provides quick gil . CMD . Grand Horn only drops Vagyrisk Claw at level 19 only , which most players can ' t encounter after leaving Junon . The level of CMD . Grand Horn is determined by the average of active party character levels . To participate in the Fort Condor battles sometimes requires the player to backtrack long distances . Date mechanics . The game has a hidden affection value that determines whom Cloud will go on a date with in Gold Saucer later . The value is determined by the dialogue and party member choices made prior to the date . When Cloud first talks to the old guy : When the old guy tells Cloud about his problem : Development . If the player hacks the game to include Cloud , Tifa or Aeris in the Huge Materia quest battles , they will have spoken lines , but in the game these three can never be in the party for the Huge Materia scenario . These unused lines may exist because the original planned mechanic for the Fort Condor battles was for the player to be allowed a limited number of losses before the fort would fall , also suggesting the player would have been able to trigger the Huge Materia event in a different time than it does in the final game . In the final game it doesn ' t matter how many of the optional battles are lost ; the fort will not be defeated , and the Huge Materia quest is triggered by the storyline . Remnant to the abandoned mechanic may be present in the tutorial for the minigame , where the man says : " Let ' s get back to basics . If the enemy reaches this shed , you ' ll have to fight them off immediately . It ' s not the end of the world , but if you lose repeatedly , it could be dangerous . " Furthermore , the man also keeps count on the player ' s losses , saying : " Up to now , you ' ve lost { ! } { Var : 1 } times . If you lose too many times , you won ' t be able to come back . " Most players never see this message as losing the game completely requires for the player to lose both the minigame , and the boss battle , and if that were to happen the player would be more likely to reset and try again than keep playing . Musical themes . The background music of Fort Condor is " Open Your Heart " . During the minigame battles the music is the eponymous track " Fort Condor " .