Or, my way was to move Odin City onto the ridge in the middle of the map as soon as the game begins, and as soon as you have a base that can stand its ground against creeper build a drone base and attack the deepest creeper on the valley just north of the ridge and cut off the creeper in the bowl from the source
This game would be better if you could kill the guards, even if there were, say, twice as many guards because then each level would be like a ton of assassinations instead of one.