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More Offensive On the Ground
The Orc Ogre-Mage spells Bloodlust and Runes make the Orcs much more offensive
on the ground war than the Humans whose Paladins have to rely on Healing and
Exorcism. Healing does not make them offensive in most situations and Exorcism
is only useful if the enemy has Death Knights.
Bloodlust
Bloodlust can turn one Ogre into the attack power of three. Bloodlust also
triples the damage of Dragons. Bloodlust can allow Death Knights and Troll Axe
throwers to take on Dragons by themselves. Bloodlust is almost always freely
available once researched as there are often plenty of Ogre-Mages around to
cast it and at full mana an Ogre-Mage can cast 5 Bloodlusts. Bloodlust is an
offensive spell and is much more effective in increasing the attack power of
the Orcs, than Healing, a more defensive spell does for the Humans. Bloodlust
can often turn the tide of the game if the Human player is slow to Castle or
does not build a lot more Paladins to compensate. Bloodlust is also instantly
effective as the Orc player usually already has plenty of Ogres as the
Bloodlust spell is researched. Healing in comparison only helps the Paladins
out if they survive the battle.
Orcs Are More Intimidating
A group of Bloodlusted Ogres and the Bloodlust sound makes it a much scarier
experience then facing a group of Healing Paladins. Although some might argue
Human Invisibility and Invisible Blizzard attacks are much scarier.
Runes
Orcs have the unique ability to use their Ogre-Mages to lay down Runes. Runes
can be placed in the paths of oncoming enemies to damage them and reduce their
numbers before the two sides actually connect. Runes can also be placed in the
middle of a Peon Mining stream to quickly take out a number of them. Runes can
be placed around Mages to keep them from retreating. Combined with Bloodlust,
Ogre mages are very powerful.
Runes can also be cast on strategic locations to prevent invasions and
attacks. This is one of the few spells that can actually cause an enemy to
retreat at the sight of.
Upgrade Prices
The Blacksmith offensive upgrade prices for the Orcs are less Gold intensive.
Gold is needed very early for Peons and Grunts, so it's often easier to have a
mix of Gold and Lumber, even tho Lumber takes longer to harvest then a large
collection of Gold.
For the last offensive Orc weapon upgrade, the price is 900 Gold, 300 Lumber.
Humans in comparison is 2400 Gold, no Lumber. Since Ogres and Grunts are
heavily Gold priced (800, 600 Gold respectively), there is rarely a large
collection of Gold built up. While it's faster to mine Gold than Lumber, quite
often you have a collection of Lumber built up by this point in the game
making the upgrade feel cheaper than paying 2400 Gold.
Hasted Death and Decay
Death Knights can cast Haste on each other to speed up the damage of Death and
Decay. A Hasted Death Knight can quickly cast Death and Decay making it easier
to attack collections of grouped units before they respond, and also
increasing the chance the Death Knight will have, to fully cast the spell
before being killed. The Death Knight can also more effectively pull off the
"Mage Bomb" by casting a Death and Decay on the enemy then quickly casting
Death and Decay on itself severely damaging and killing units that respond to
the Death and Decay using Haste.
Hasted Peons
Although largely useless, Hasted Peons can repair buildings faster as well as
mine Gold and chop Lumber at a faster rate.
Ready for Battle Much Quicker
As the Orc player gets to the Fortress/Castle Stage, they only need to build
one building: Altar of Storms and upgrade their Ogres. A group of Peons
repair-build the Altar of Storms to quicken it's construction which gives the
Orc player an even bigger jump. Then after two short upgrades: Ogre-Mages,
Bloodlust, the power of the Orcs are virtually tripled. At the Castle stage
the Human player is more vulnerable to attack as they must alter the makeup of
their forces. Resources are a big hindrance here as the Human needs much more
before their superior magic can come into play. They need more Peasants and
Gold to have as many Knights and Mages as needed to oppose Bloodlusted Ogres.
Orc players do not suffer from this problem except when facing other Orc
players with Bloodlust.
Resources
Humans sometimes require a lot more to effectively counter Orcs. They either
have to build a lot more Paladins to counter the Bloodlusted Ogres, and/or
build Mage Towers and a Church, Mages and must research Blizzard which require
a lot of resources. Then they need to research Invisibility or somehow sneak
Mages in to Blizzard Orc Peons. The Orc player often only needs an Altar of
Storms to research Bloodlust.
After Fortress
The Majority of games against lesser skilled Human players can be handled
using Bloodlusted Ogres. Prevent the Humans from building Mage Towers and
Churches.
Killing Mages
Mages are very expensive, the best way to attack Mages is to limit the enemy's
ability to mine Gold. If that is not possible, attempt to attack them directly
using Bloodlusted Ogres. Cast Runes around the Mages and in front of them in
the hope that they will walk over the Runes and be destroyed.
Invisible Mage attacks
There are only a few possible defenses against Invisible Mage Blizzards on the
Peons. You can place Runes around the area, but the player will most likely
walk around them or wait until they disappear. You can place Towers or Cannon
Towers around the Mine so that once the Mage starts casting Blizzard he will
be killed before his spell causes serious damage. But quite often Mages can
find a perfect place to cast that is out of range of the Towers. Another
option is to place a few Catapults around the Gold mine that will instantly
kill the Mage when it appears. This also is usually quite impractical. The
best solution is to wall in the town completely using buildings and walls.
Invisible Mages cannot walk through buildings so buildings are the best bet at
protecting against such a strategy.
Mage/Paladin Healing combo
Orc players often head straight for the Mages. Humans may Slow incoming
Bloodlusted Ogres and cast a Blizzard on them then run their Mages toward your
Guard and Cannon Towers. At the same time the Paladins beat on the Ogres
backs, and also Heal the Mages as they are being attacked until the Ogres die
to the Paladins and possibly Towers. For the Orc player it is best to attack
the Paladins first as they are the ones Healing the Mages. After the Paladins
are gone, the Mages will be without protection and more easily killed.
Try a surprise attack. If possible, use Demolition Squads to blast your way or
Transports to land your way into the fight from an unexpected direction. This
can catch the enemy off-guard and unprepared to defend against your assault.
Exorcism on Death Knights
Try if possible to get rid of that Church before they get Exorcism. But if
they do get it and use it correctly, you might avoid making any further Death
Knights. Unholy Armor can prevent Exorcism if you need to make a quick hit on
the enemy town. This will require more than two Death Knights.
Fighting Invisible Transports
Invisible Transports usually can't be Invisible all of the time. Often people
with Invisible Transports bring them right back to their island when they are
done attacking so watch their shores. Wait for the Transport to appear off
shore or land back on the enemy shore then sink it using Destroyers.
When you see units unloading onto the shore quickly cast Death and Decay where
you see them unloading, use Ogres to place Runes around the the Transport.
Build Towers out of range of ships yet still within range to attack units
landing on the shore. Often the enemy will not have time to unload before you
can destroy them using a combination of Towers, Runes and Death and Decay.
Easier to Learn, Hard to Master
The Humans are more intuitive than the Orcs. Their buildings and building
names make sense right from the start while the Orc Buildings require a little
more time to learn. However, once the Humans reach the Castle Stage, the
player must be very good to defeat enemy Bloodlusted Ogres. Quite often, less
skilled Human players are very strong until the Castle Stage when playing
Humans well requires more control and strategy.
More Strategy
Some argue the Humans require much more strategy than the Orc player. The Orc
player often needs and builds only Bloodlusted Ogres, while the Human player
has and needs all sort of spell combinations, units and strategies to counter
the Orc threat. A Human victory over Orcs that reached the Fortress/Bloodlust
stage is often something to brag about because of the skill level and strategy
required.
More Damaging Attacks
Humans can clear out any Death Knights with Exorcism, and can use Mages and
Invisibility to destroy all of the Orcs mining operations. The Human player
can then slow enemy Bloodlusted Ogres, and catch them without Bloodlust to
finish them off. Mages can instantly kill any Death Knight or Dragon with
Polymorph. The Orcs really have just one severely damaging attack, attacking
with Bloodlusted Ogres, and Human players playing Orcs always know that is
coming. The Orc player in contrast doesn't often have any idea what the Human
player is going to do. This Orc player overconfidence and predictability can
sometimes be their downfall.
Upgrade Cost
On maps with less Lumber such as Oil is the Key and Nowhere to Run, the
Blacksmith upgrades which require less Lumber than the Orc counterparts can be
a slight advantage.
Healing
Humans can use Healing to keep expensive units such as Mages and Gryphons
alive battle after battle. If units survive an attack, Healing can make them
brand new again.
Holy Vision
Humans can use the Paladin spell Holy Vision to spy on the enemy while the
enemy can do nothing to stop it.
Exorcism
While the Orcs do not have a very good counter against Mages other than
directly attacking them, Humans have several good counters against Death
Knights. A Human player often has plenty of Paladins and once the Exorcism
spell is researched, there is plenty of mana and Exorcism to go around. A
Paladin needs only to get within 10 of a Death Knights to cast the spell. Orc
players often stop building Death Knights once Exorcism comes out because of
the fear of Exorcism.
Mages Have More Effective Spells Than Death Knights
All Human spells are useful for specific purpose. Mages have more spells that
are effective in everyday playing. Death Knights have more "trick" spells such
as Whirlwind, Raise the Dead, and Unholy Armor which really don't come into
play as often. The only real advantages that Death Knights have over Mages is
their one extra attack range and Unholy Armor, Hasted Death Knight "Mage Bomb"
trick. While Death Knights can use Death Coil to heal themselves, Human
players can just use Paladins to Heal their Mages which is much easier than
trying to find an enemy to Death Coil to heal the Death Knight.
Invisibility
Invisibility is an exclusive Human spell that Orcs can do little to counter.
One way to fight an Invisible unit is to use attack ground with Catapults and
Juggernaughts and hope you hit them but this really isn't an effective counter
and is something that is usually pulled off once in a life time. Runes can be
thought of as the best counter to invisible Mages.
Humans can use Invisibility with all sorts of spells and units to make nearly
uncounterable attacks. One of the most effective Spell combos for the Humans
is the Invisible Mage that casts Blizzard on the enemy Peons mining Gold. The
Orc player can attempt a Hasted Death Knight Death and Decay attack but this
is nowhere as effective as the Invisible Mage attack.
Slow
Humans can instantly cut in half the attack power and speed of any unit. One
Mage has enough mana at full to to cast five Slows.
Polymorph
The Orcs have no instant kill spells other than Runes. Humans Mages can
instantly kill nearly any unit with Polymorph, especially Death Knights and
Dragons. Orc players sometimes get in situations where the enemy has Death
Knights or Mages and they have no real way of getting in to kill them other
than direct attacks with Bloodlusted Ogres or a complicated spell combo of
Unholy Armor and Haste on a Death Knight using Death and Decay. Often the
Mages just survive and Heal using Paladins. But Human Mages can usually clear
out any group of enemy Mages and Death Knights with Polymorph. Using an
Invisible Transport the Human player can land a Mage, pop out, Polymorph, then
get back in the Invisible Transport and run. For longer distances, another
Mage in the Transport can pop out, make the Mage Invisible, then the Invisible
Mage sneaks in, casts Polymorph, then runs back to the Invisible Transport.
This is very hard for an Orc player to counter. Walls and Runes are really the
only defense against this and not an effective one at that.
Invade By Surprise
One thing you have to watch out for is alerting the enemy to your coming
attack. This will give them time to Bloodlust. What you must try to do is get
in there beating on the Ogres before the enemy knows what is going on.
Death Knights
Upgrade Knights to Paladins and research Exorcism. Using Exorcism you can
easily clear the map of Death Knights in hit and run attacks.
Basic Strategy
Warcraft II is a Game of Production
Quite often the more you resources you mine and harvest and the more units you
produce, the better you do. If you find yourself falling behind in unit
battles, try building more Barracks and Shipyards. Also build more Peasants to
mine Gold and harvest Lumber. Take over multiple Gold mines so that you can
mine more Gold.
Remember to place your Town Hall properly so that can fit enough Peasants on
mining and also will allow them harvest correctly
Peasants Are the Key
Peons and Peasants are responsible for all production. They are the most
important units in the game and the key to winning. Quite often Peon
management is just as important as controlling attacking units properly. Build
a lot of Peons, enough to generate more than enough resources and keep them
protected. Take and defend expansion positions to further your security.
The More Peasants the Better
Unless Gold is limited (small mines of 25k and below), the more Peasants you
have the better. Just how many should you build? Many players build about 14
Peasants then stop. That will usually not cut it. You should have about 25
Peasants minimum. Keep training Peasants until you are into the
Castle/Fortress Stage. Some say 30 peons will get you enough Lumber and Gold
to do the job. Another way to find the ideal number of Peasants is to keep
building them until you more Gold and Lumber than I know what to do with. How
do you count Peasants? Count up your other units spread around the map, look
at the food used and subtract the other units from the food used. You can also
just estimate.
Continually Training Peasants, Especially In the Beginning
Train Peasants in a steady succession from the beginning. If at any time you
have to wait for a Farm to train another Peasants, you are getting behind.
Stay ahead in your building of Farms. Don't be afraid of making too many
Peasants. If you find you have too many Peasants mining Gold, send them to
another Gold mine to build a Town Hall or move them onto Lumber.
The second a Peasant gets done training, you should immediately train another.
You must try to keep this up through the Stronghold level and into the
Fortress level. Now you can't always build Peasants, because you fall behind
in food supply due to lack of Farms. You must try to minimize the lag between
building Peasants. So keep building those farms and stay ahead. Sometimes,
however, you must make a choice as to whether to build an offensive unit or a
Peasant. You need to have enough offensive units to defend yourself.
Keep a Balance Between Gold and Lumber
You should have enough of both resources. If you find you have a lot of Gold,
put more Peasants on Lumber. If you have lots of Lumber, get more on Gold.
What often happens is you put too many peons on Gold and do not have enough
wood but have lots of Gold. The same can happen with Lumber, lots of Lumber
and no Gold. You must avoid both. Why? Because it slows or stops you
production. You could have 30,000 Gold and 0 Lumber and you wouldn't be able
to build much besides Gryphons, Mages and Footmen (all Gold only). Keep in
mind that Lumber takes much longer to get than Gold so you may have a lot more
Peasants on Lumber than on Gold.
Out Produce the Enemy
In land battles of equally powered units, control plays a big key, but
generally the person with the most units and similar or greater upgrades, wins
the battles.
Each Barracks can only train one unit at a time. To train more units at once
to form large offensive and defensive forces you need to have multiple
Barracks. It's not uncommon to see high skilled players to build 7-10+
Barracks. Be careful, however, to only build Barracks that you can support. If
you have five Barracks but are only training out of two, those 3 Barracks are
wasted. Build extra Barracks when resources start to build up. To support
multiple Barracks build several expansions.
The same is somewhat the case on water maps. Generally two Shipyards are
needed to quickly build up an attack fleet. Often players with only one
Shipyard are not able to keep up in production against players with two.
Keep Your Money Spent
There is no reason at all to save up Gold and Lumber. Warcraft II is not won
by accumulating wealth but rather instead by crushing your enemy. If you find
you have too much Gold and Lumber, spend it on more Barracks, Shipyards,
upgrades, Mage Towers, and offensive units. You can't always keep your money
spent and you don't always need to, but keeping money spent is a good overall
plan. It is often very embarrassing to lose a game when you have plenty of
resources but just didn't bother to use them.
Food
To create a new unit you must have one Food grown. The Food limit of 1 is the
same for every unit regardless of type or perceived size. A Town Hall provides
1 Food support, while Farms provide 4. Be sure to build enough Farms so that
you will be able to create units when you need them. At the top right portion
of the screen to right of the resource counters is a listing of Food Used/Food
Grown. The indicator turns red when you have used more Food then you have
Grown Keep a watch on that indicator and build more Farms as necessary so that
you will have enough. There is no penalty for using more Food then you have
Grown, but you will not be able to create any more units until more Food is
grown or less Food is used which usually means some units die.
Multiple Units on Only 1 Food
There is a trick to allow you to get the most units out of one remaining food.
When you have only one extra Food Grown left, train units from all of the unit
producing buildings such as Barracks, Shipyards, Temple of the Damned, Gnomish
Inventors. Once the units are started they will be created regardless of the
Food used once they are finished. Using this method you can get quite a jump
in units over the Food limit. For example if you have 1 Food left, then
instruct all 8 Barracks to make a unit at the same time you can jump 7 over
the limit.
Freeing Up Food Space
Sometimes you run into a situation where you need to quickly build specific
combat units but you do not have Farm space, the time necessary to create a
Farm or possibly the resources to build it such as you have run out of Lumber.
In desperate situations, kill some Peasants or the most useless unit you can
find to free up Food space for units that would better address the situation
at hand. While this may seem an extreme solution to lack of Food it can help
out in dire situations.
Learn How to Control Your Units
This is very important. For more info, look at Unit Commands and Controls as
well as Hot Keys and Special Commands
Upgrade
Upgrades are key in Warcraft II. When using land units, quickly build a
Blacksmith and begin upgrading as soon as possible. Make sure you Always stay
a level ahead of your enemies in both ships and units. If you see they have
level 3 ships build level 4 or 5. The same with land units, upgrade them in
the Blacksmith. Every level you up upgrade ships and Barracks units Footmen
and Knights will pay off if you have enough units.
Something you should never have is level 1 Knights. Get at least one or two
upgrades before making Knights.
You can check the upgrades of your units without having to click on the Lumber
Mill, Blacksmith or Foundry. Select a unit then take note of the Stop and
Attack icons which will indicate the level a unit has been upgraded. Enemy
units however will not be able to tell which upgrades you have researched.
Level 4 for example could mean 2 armor upgrades and 1 weapon upgrade or it
could mean 2 weapon upgrades and 1 armor upgrade.
Don't Be Afraid to Lose Units
While it's good to save any units you can for a later battle, do not become so
protective of them that you are afraid to use them.
Know How to Counter Each of Your Opponent's Moves
What I mean is no matter what your enemy does, you should know what to do.
Examples: If they keep Blizzarding your town, go find and kill those Mages. If
people are Dragon making you, get out the Axe Throwers and Bloodlust. For
every move, you should know the counter.
Recon Is Key: Know What Your Enemy Is Doing At All Times
If you want to know what to do against the enemy, you should know what the
enemy is doing. This means recon. Recon is one of the most important things in
the game. Poor recon is the usual cause of lost games. Perhaps you didn't
notice the enemy had an expansion with no defenses, or that the enemy was
building up a certain kind of unit, or that they were wide open to certain
kinds of attacks in certain locations.
Good Recon does not have to be delayed until you get Flying Machines. On land
maps, send out a Peasant or Footmen to all the Gold Mines and make sure no one
is building 2 Town Halls early. Recon is so important because you can often
attack the enemy when they have no defenses early in the game.
Place Flying Machines on patrol over Gold mines that you expect the enemy to
expand to. Be warned that the enemy might not build there if they see the
Flying Machine. Try if possible to keep it within view of the Gold mine
without giving away it's location.
Do a fly by the enemy mines and compare their Gold Mine to yours. Take note if
the enemy is mining more Gold than you then build more Peons and place them on
Gold. Keep up in the resource race.
On Low and Medium Resources, Do Not Upgrade to Stronghold/Keep Too Soon
The normal upgrade time for a Town Hall is usually when you have more than 18
or so Peasants. You can get into great problems if you upgrade too early. What
sometimes happens is that people get greedy and want the Ogres/Knights just a
little too soon. So they make a few or no Footmen and then upgrade directly to
Keep. During this period, the enemy runs in with a bunch of Footmen and
catches the enemy before they can build enough Knights to defend themselves.
At this point you don't have enough forces to repel all those Footmen. Even if
you do start making Knights, the enemy can position their Grunts around the
Barracks so they can Kill any Ogres that pop out. This is a situation you do
not want to be in.
Skipping the Footmen Stage
Some people decide to skip building Footmen and go straight to Knights. This
really risky. Here are the trade offs. If the enemy comes in with Grunts you
are dead. If they don't, you will get a lot of Knights and will most likely be
able to overpower them. This might be something you might want to try on maps
where the enemy has difficulty in reaching you such as Nowhere out of this
Maze. Combine this strategy with a few walled in towers, or by walling
yourself in, it might be possible to pull this off. The enemy may just bring
in a catapult, break open your defenses and send in the Grunts.
Be Very Careful In the Early Part of the Game
The first 10 or so minutes of the game are extremely important. Any mistake or
delay in building Peasants, Farms, or getting resources can cost you the game.
You have to carefully watch each and every unit and make sure they are all
doing exactly what you are telling them to. After your town starts to roll,
this becomes less necessary and you can devote time to attacking the enemy.
Lower resources starts require more precise movements early on in the game as
they can easily determine the outcome of the game.
You must learn exactly what to do for each plan and resource.
Run Away!
If you see yourself in a battle that you just can't win, run away. The happens
when someone has a walled in Cannon, Guard Tower, or when the enemy has more
troops. . Know when it's a good time to fight and when it's time to run. You
want to run away if you are Human and see the Bloodlusted Ogres. If possible
run with the Ogres following until the Bloodlust wears off, then turn and
attack. If someone casts Unholy Armor or has a Flame Shield on run until this
spell wears off.
Don't Repair Buildings If You Can't Stop People From Attacking Them
This is the most common Newbie mistake. If you have units coming out of a unit
producing building, or have reinforcements on the way to save the building
repair it. Repair buildings that are key to a wallin. Otherwise do not waste
resources on a losing battle.
Don't Repair a Building Unless You Have to
Repair key buildings such as Black Smiths, Stables, Town Halls, but do not
repair buildings without a good reason. Buildings are not destroyed by fire no
matter how many hit points they have left so the only reason to repair a
building is because it's important, or to require more Goblin Sappers to
destroy it.
Know Why You Lost
Warcraft 2 is a game of learning. When you lose you should know why. By
knowing why you lost, you know what you can improve on in future games. If you
don't have a clue, ask the players who defeated you after the game how they
won. Be sure to not accuse them of cheating but be sincere in your request. If
they are nice, they will give you their input. Have your friends watch you
play. Often they can give you good advice about how to play from another point
of view and to correct your mistakes as you go.
Offense vs Defense
The best defense is a good offense. Don't spend too much time building
defenses for your town. Be sure to wallin your town if possible. A huge
defense may protect you from attacks but to advance in the game you need to
attack the enemy town and prevent them from expanding. Instead of building too
many Towers and Catapults you will have much more success building more
offensive units, expand to more resource spots, upgrade, and attack.
Quite often, people spend plenty of time building lots of Towers in their town
which does not leave enough resources to build any units to protect all these
Towers. Towers can easily be killed by Goblin Sappers, Catapults and
Blizzards. You might want to build one or two Towers by your mine, or at most
3-4 Guard Towers but don't over do it.
Building Orders
Building Orders can allow you to build to specific units and buildings as
quickly as possible. Building orders are very important on low resource games,
and less so but still important and helpful as more resources are available.
While building orders will not be listed here, many people are willing to
share their favorite building orders on the fan sites.
Placing your Town Hall
When you start the game, find the mine first. Next decide how close to the
Gold Mine you want to place your Town Hall. If you want to put a lot of
Peasants on Gold, you should move it back a space from the closest possible
building distance. Be warned, the further the Town Hall is away from the Gold
Mine, the longer it will take the Peasants to mine Gold and return to the
Hall. You will have to train more Peons just to keep up with the enemy who has
their Town Hall closer to their mine. Do not place your Town Hall against the
left side of the screen or up against Trees on the left side so that the left
side is covered. If the left side of the Town Hall is blocked, the
Peons/Peasants might pop out on the wrong side of the Town Hall or Gold Mine
which will mean they will have to walk longer to walk to and from the Gold
Mine. This may put you behind the enemy in resource gathering.
The computer "remembers" where the Peasant Mined or Harvested, and will
generally place the Peasant out to the left or right of the Town Hall, up or
down depending on where the mine is located (occasionally, if the mine is
directly above or below the town hall, they'll pop out above or below the Town
Hall). Here is the reason Peasants sometimes will come out of the town hall
the wrong way:
The order remains the same as the pop-out order if the position is blocked,
only flipped. What this means is that this is one example for the pop-out
order:
This will be the order of the Peasants if the Mine is to the lower left or
below the Town Hall. usually is to the left or right of the Town Hall, but not
above or below it. What happens if the Town Hall is up against the left edge
of the screen in this case? The Peasants will pop out at position 6 - opposite
the direction of the mine! The most basic of solutions is to build your Town
Hall without any major obstacles to its left or right. However, you can also
apply a bit of analysis and wisdom to figure out the safest position for it.
When the Town Hall is this far from the mine you will need a lot of Peons to
get a steady flow of Gold as seen here. This is very slow mining. Another Town
Hall should be built closer to the mine.
What If Peons Pop Out the Wrong Side of the Mine?
Occasionally, the Peons decide to come out on the wrong side of the Mine away
from the Town Hall depending on how the Town Hall is placed in relation to the
Mine. When this happens, build some walls around the mine until they come out
on the right side.
Because the left side of the Gold mine is blocked by trees, the Peons pop out
on the far side. Proper map making should solve this problem.
If you insist on playing maps where this problem happens, build walls around
the mine until the Peons pop out closer to the Town Hall. You can also chop
away the Lumber to the left of the mine which will probably be faster and
cheaper than building walls.
Use Buildings As Walls
Walls are cheap but they only have 50 hit points. Early on it was discovered
that Buildings make much better walls. Buildings have more hit points, cover a
greater area, can be repaired, and are useful. Farms in particular are often
used as walls. One drawback of using Farms, however, is that they have 400 hit
points which is exactly the damage done by Goblin Sappers. When using Farms as
walls you must be careful to make multiple layers of Farms, or build actual
walls in front of the Farms to make them less desirable as targets.
Learn how to Wallin Your Town
Walls
Farms replaced walls for defense, but walls are still useful. Build walls in
front of buildings to protect them from Goblin Sapper attacks as seen here
around Towers as shown here.
Use walls to spell out messages to your friends!
Avoid Placing Buildings In-between the Town Hall and Mine
Try not to place any buildings in between the Gold Mine and Town Hall. These
buildings may interfere with the movement of Peons trying to mine Gold. If
your Peons have to walk too far, or have to walk around some object to get
from the Gold Mine to the Town Hall, you will get behind in resources. This is
often enough to cost you the game. Keep the path between the Town Hall and the
Gold Mine clear.
A Farm in the way cause the Peons to be confused as to how to return to the
Great Hall.
A Second Farm build here fixes that problem.
Buildings in between your Town Hall and Gold Mine hurt yourself much more than
the enemy attacking you. Although the Peons may still be able to find their
way back to the Great Hall, they will take much longer to do so which will get
you behind in production.
Keep Buildings Separated
To make it more difficult and less inviting for the enemy to use Demolition
Squads to blow up your buildings, place them a Farm's distance apart so that
the enemy will need 1-2 Demolition Squads per building to blow them up which
will mean they will lose more resources on the Demolition Squads than you will
have lost on the buildings.
When you place buildings tightly packed together they become perfect targets
for a Blizzard or Death and Decay. Keep buildings separated so they do not
become targets for Demolition Squads or Blizzards.
Offensive Building
When attacking the enemy take units from the Barracks then send them to attack
the enemy town. The closer the Barracks is to the enemy the faster these
offensive units will reach the enemy town. If you have a long distance from
the Barracks to the enemy town they will be able to build quite a few units
before your units reach their town. Whenever possible send a Peon over near
their town and hide some Barracks there so you can quickly build units and
send them into the enemy town. Some players go so far as to build the Barracks
in the middle of the enemy town. You must however get them completed and have
enough units to protect them for this to effective. Sometimes you see a person
building a Barracks near your town, head over and start attacking it and
destroy it because the enemy has nothing to defend it. That offensive building
did not pay off for them. Only do this when you can protect the Barracks or
when you think you can hide the Barracks.
Hide Buildings
When the enemy looks for important basic and advanced buildings often they
look at your main town for them. Sometimes you can hide advanced buildings
such as Blacksmiths, Lumber Mills, Ogre mounds, Mage Towers, Dragon Mounds
outside your town where the enemy will not notice and find them. Using this
strategy you can sometimes make the enemy think you don't have these buildings
and that you cannot build certain units. They might catch on however once they
see units that require those buildings but do not find the buildings that
allow those units to be made. Hiding buildings happens more when you have lost
your main town and are defended but can also be seen in normal play as well.
The downside of using this strategy is that once discovered you must defend
these buildings which are usually a long way from your towns and Barracks.
The Orc Ogre-Mage spells Bloodlust and Runes make the Orcs much more offensive
on the ground war than the Humans whose Paladins have to rely on Healing and
Exorcism. Healing does not make them offensive in most situations and Exorcism
is only useful if the enemy has Death Knights.
Bloodlust
Bloodlust can turn one Ogre into the attack power of three. Bloodlust also
triples the damage of Dragons. Bloodlust can allow Death Knights and Troll Axe
throwers to take on Dragons by themselves. Bloodlust is almost always freely
available once researched as there are often plenty of Ogre-Mages around to
cast it and at full mana an Ogre-Mage can cast 5 Bloodlusts. Bloodlust is an
offensive spell and is much more effective in increasing the attack power of
the Orcs, than Healing, a more defensive spell does for the Humans. Bloodlust
can often turn the tide of the game if the Human player is slow to Castle or
does not build a lot more Paladins to compensate. Bloodlust is also instantly
effective as the Orc player usually already has plenty of Ogres as the
Bloodlust spell is researched. Healing in comparison only helps the Paladins
out if they survive the battle.
Orcs Are More Intimidating
A group of Bloodlusted Ogres and the Bloodlust sound makes it a much scarier
experience then facing a group of Healing Paladins. Although some might argue
Human Invisibility and Invisible Blizzard attacks are much scarier.
Runes
Orcs have the unique ability to use their Ogre-Mages to lay down Runes. Runes
can be placed in the paths of oncoming enemies to damage them and reduce their
numbers before the two sides actually connect. Runes can also be placed in the
middle of a Peon Mining stream to quickly take out a number of them. Runes can
be placed around Mages to keep them from retreating. Combined with Bloodlust,
Ogre mages are very powerful.
Runes can also be cast on strategic locations to prevent invasions and
attacks. This is one of the few spells that can actually cause an enemy to
retreat at the sight of.
Upgrade Prices
The Blacksmith offensive upgrade prices for the Orcs are less Gold intensive.
Gold is needed very early for Peons and Grunts, so it's often easier to have a
mix of Gold and Lumber, even tho Lumber takes longer to harvest then a large
collection of Gold.
For the last offensive Orc weapon upgrade, the price is 900 Gold, 300 Lumber.
Humans in comparison is 2400 Gold, no Lumber. Since Ogres and Grunts are
heavily Gold priced (800, 600 Gold respectively), there is rarely a large
collection of Gold built up. While it's faster to mine Gold than Lumber, quite
often you have a collection of Lumber built up by this point in the game
making the upgrade feel cheaper than paying 2400 Gold.
Hasted Death and Decay
Death Knights can cast Haste on each other to speed up the damage of Death and
Decay. A Hasted Death Knight can quickly cast Death and Decay making it easier
to attack collections of grouped units before they respond, and also
increasing the chance the Death Knight will have, to fully cast the spell
before being killed. The Death Knight can also more effectively pull off the
"Mage Bomb" by casting a Death and Decay on the enemy then quickly casting
Death and Decay on itself severely damaging and killing units that respond to
the Death and Decay using Haste.
Hasted Peons
Although largely useless, Hasted Peons can repair buildings faster as well as
mine Gold and chop Lumber at a faster rate.
Ready for Battle Much Quicker
As the Orc player gets to the Fortress/Castle Stage, they only need to build
one building: Altar of Storms and upgrade their Ogres. A group of Peons
repair-build the Altar of Storms to quicken it's construction which gives the
Orc player an even bigger jump. Then after two short upgrades: Ogre-Mages,
Bloodlust, the power of the Orcs are virtually tripled. At the Castle stage
the Human player is more vulnerable to attack as they must alter the makeup of
their forces. Resources are a big hindrance here as the Human needs much more
before their superior magic can come into play. They need more Peasants and
Gold to have as many Knights and Mages as needed to oppose Bloodlusted Ogres.
Orc players do not suffer from this problem except when facing other Orc
players with Bloodlust.
Resources
Humans sometimes require a lot more to effectively counter Orcs. They either
have to build a lot more Paladins to counter the Bloodlusted Ogres, and/or
build Mage Towers and a Church, Mages and must research Blizzard which require
a lot of resources. Then they need to research Invisibility or somehow sneak
Mages in to Blizzard Orc Peons. The Orc player often only needs an Altar of
Storms to research Bloodlust.
After Fortress
The Majority of games against lesser skilled Human players can be handled
using Bloodlusted Ogres. Prevent the Humans from building Mage Towers and
Churches.
Killing Mages
Mages are very expensive, the best way to attack Mages is to limit the enemy's
ability to mine Gold. If that is not possible, attempt to attack them directly
using Bloodlusted Ogres. Cast Runes around the Mages and in front of them in
the hope that they will walk over the Runes and be destroyed.
Invisible Mage attacks
There are only a few possible defenses against Invisible Mage Blizzards on the
Peons. You can place Runes around the area, but the player will most likely
walk around them or wait until they disappear. You can place Towers or Cannon
Towers around the Mine so that once the Mage starts casting Blizzard he will
be killed before his spell causes serious damage. But quite often Mages can
find a perfect place to cast that is out of range of the Towers. Another
option is to place a few Catapults around the Gold mine that will instantly
kill the Mage when it appears. This also is usually quite impractical. The
best solution is to wall in the town completely using buildings and walls.
Invisible Mages cannot walk through buildings so buildings are the best bet at
protecting against such a strategy.
Mage/Paladin Healing combo
Orc players often head straight for the Mages. Humans may Slow incoming
Bloodlusted Ogres and cast a Blizzard on them then run their Mages toward your
Guard and Cannon Towers. At the same time the Paladins beat on the Ogres
backs, and also Heal the Mages as they are being attacked until the Ogres die
to the Paladins and possibly Towers. For the Orc player it is best to attack
the Paladins first as they are the ones Healing the Mages. After the Paladins
are gone, the Mages will be without protection and more easily killed.
Try a surprise attack. If possible, use Demolition Squads to blast your way or
Transports to land your way into the fight from an unexpected direction. This
can catch the enemy off-guard and unprepared to defend against your assault.
Exorcism on Death Knights
Try if possible to get rid of that Church before they get Exorcism. But if
they do get it and use it correctly, you might avoid making any further Death
Knights. Unholy Armor can prevent Exorcism if you need to make a quick hit on
the enemy town. This will require more than two Death Knights.
Fighting Invisible Transports
Invisible Transports usually can't be Invisible all of the time. Often people
with Invisible Transports bring them right back to their island when they are
done attacking so watch their shores. Wait for the Transport to appear off
shore or land back on the enemy shore then sink it using Destroyers.
When you see units unloading onto the shore quickly cast Death and Decay where
you see them unloading, use Ogres to place Runes around the the Transport.
Build Towers out of range of ships yet still within range to attack units
landing on the shore. Often the enemy will not have time to unload before you
can destroy them using a combination of Towers, Runes and Death and Decay.
Easier to Learn, Hard to Master
The Humans are more intuitive than the Orcs. Their buildings and building
names make sense right from the start while the Orc Buildings require a little
more time to learn. However, once the Humans reach the Castle Stage, the
player must be very good to defeat enemy Bloodlusted Ogres. Quite often, less
skilled Human players are very strong until the Castle Stage when playing
Humans well requires more control and strategy.
More Strategy
Some argue the Humans require much more strategy than the Orc player. The Orc
player often needs and builds only Bloodlusted Ogres, while the Human player
has and needs all sort of spell combinations, units and strategies to counter
the Orc threat. A Human victory over Orcs that reached the Fortress/Bloodlust
stage is often something to brag about because of the skill level and strategy
required.
More Damaging Attacks
Humans can clear out any Death Knights with Exorcism, and can use Mages and
Invisibility to destroy all of the Orcs mining operations. The Human player
can then slow enemy Bloodlusted Ogres, and catch them without Bloodlust to
finish them off. Mages can instantly kill any Death Knight or Dragon with
Polymorph. The Orcs really have just one severely damaging attack, attacking
with Bloodlusted Ogres, and Human players playing Orcs always know that is
coming. The Orc player in contrast doesn't often have any idea what the Human
player is going to do. This Orc player overconfidence and predictability can
sometimes be their downfall.
Upgrade Cost
On maps with less Lumber such as Oil is the Key and Nowhere to Run, the
Blacksmith upgrades which require less Lumber than the Orc counterparts can be
a slight advantage.
Healing
Humans can use Healing to keep expensive units such as Mages and Gryphons
alive battle after battle. If units survive an attack, Healing can make them
brand new again.
Holy Vision
Humans can use the Paladin spell Holy Vision to spy on the enemy while the
enemy can do nothing to stop it.
Exorcism
While the Orcs do not have a very good counter against Mages other than
directly attacking them, Humans have several good counters against Death
Knights. A Human player often has plenty of Paladins and once the Exorcism
spell is researched, there is plenty of mana and Exorcism to go around. A
Paladin needs only to get within 10 of a Death Knights to cast the spell. Orc
players often stop building Death Knights once Exorcism comes out because of
the fear of Exorcism.
Mages Have More Effective Spells Than Death Knights
All Human spells are useful for specific purpose. Mages have more spells that
are effective in everyday playing. Death Knights have more "trick" spells such
as Whirlwind, Raise the Dead, and Unholy Armor which really don't come into
play as often. The only real advantages that Death Knights have over Mages is
their one extra attack range and Unholy Armor, Hasted Death Knight "Mage Bomb"
trick. While Death Knights can use Death Coil to heal themselves, Human
players can just use Paladins to Heal their Mages which is much easier than
trying to find an enemy to Death Coil to heal the Death Knight.
Invisibility
Invisibility is an exclusive Human spell that Orcs can do little to counter.
One way to fight an Invisible unit is to use attack ground with Catapults and
Juggernaughts and hope you hit them but this really isn't an effective counter
and is something that is usually pulled off once in a life time. Runes can be
thought of as the best counter to invisible Mages.
Humans can use Invisibility with all sorts of spells and units to make nearly
uncounterable attacks. One of the most effective Spell combos for the Humans
is the Invisible Mage that casts Blizzard on the enemy Peons mining Gold. The
Orc player can attempt a Hasted Death Knight Death and Decay attack but this
is nowhere as effective as the Invisible Mage attack.
Slow
Humans can instantly cut in half the attack power and speed of any unit. One
Mage has enough mana at full to to cast five Slows.
Polymorph
The Orcs have no instant kill spells other than Runes. Humans Mages can
instantly kill nearly any unit with Polymorph, especially Death Knights and
Dragons. Orc players sometimes get in situations where the enemy has Death
Knights or Mages and they have no real way of getting in to kill them other
than direct attacks with Bloodlusted Ogres or a complicated spell combo of
Unholy Armor and Haste on a Death Knight using Death and Decay. Often the
Mages just survive and Heal using Paladins. But Human Mages can usually clear
out any group of enemy Mages and Death Knights with Polymorph. Using an
Invisible Transport the Human player can land a Mage, pop out, Polymorph, then
get back in the Invisible Transport and run. For longer distances, another
Mage in the Transport can pop out, make the Mage Invisible, then the Invisible
Mage sneaks in, casts Polymorph, then runs back to the Invisible Transport.
This is very hard for an Orc player to counter. Walls and Runes are really the
only defense against this and not an effective one at that.
Invade By Surprise
One thing you have to watch out for is alerting the enemy to your coming
attack. This will give them time to Bloodlust. What you must try to do is get
in there beating on the Ogres before the enemy knows what is going on.
Death Knights
Upgrade Knights to Paladins and research Exorcism. Using Exorcism you can
easily clear the map of Death Knights in hit and run attacks.
Basic Strategy
Warcraft II is a Game of Production
Quite often the more you resources you mine and harvest and the more units you
produce, the better you do. If you find yourself falling behind in unit
battles, try building more Barracks and Shipyards. Also build more Peasants to
mine Gold and harvest Lumber. Take over multiple Gold mines so that you can
mine more Gold.
Remember to place your Town Hall properly so that can fit enough Peasants on
mining and also will allow them harvest correctly
Peasants Are the Key
Peons and Peasants are responsible for all production. They are the most
important units in the game and the key to winning. Quite often Peon
management is just as important as controlling attacking units properly. Build
a lot of Peons, enough to generate more than enough resources and keep them
protected. Take and defend expansion positions to further your security.
The More Peasants the Better
Unless Gold is limited (small mines of 25k and below), the more Peasants you
have the better. Just how many should you build? Many players build about 14
Peasants then stop. That will usually not cut it. You should have about 25
Peasants minimum. Keep training Peasants until you are into the
Castle/Fortress Stage. Some say 30 peons will get you enough Lumber and Gold
to do the job. Another way to find the ideal number of Peasants is to keep
building them until you more Gold and Lumber than I know what to do with. How
do you count Peasants? Count up your other units spread around the map, look
at the food used and subtract the other units from the food used. You can also
just estimate.
Continually Training Peasants, Especially In the Beginning
Train Peasants in a steady succession from the beginning. If at any time you
have to wait for a Farm to train another Peasants, you are getting behind.
Stay ahead in your building of Farms. Don't be afraid of making too many
Peasants. If you find you have too many Peasants mining Gold, send them to
another Gold mine to build a Town Hall or move them onto Lumber.
The second a Peasant gets done training, you should immediately train another.
You must try to keep this up through the Stronghold level and into the
Fortress level. Now you can't always build Peasants, because you fall behind
in food supply due to lack of Farms. You must try to minimize the lag between
building Peasants. So keep building those farms and stay ahead. Sometimes,
however, you must make a choice as to whether to build an offensive unit or a
Peasant. You need to have enough offensive units to defend yourself.
Keep a Balance Between Gold and Lumber
You should have enough of both resources. If you find you have a lot of Gold,
put more Peasants on Lumber. If you have lots of Lumber, get more on Gold.
What often happens is you put too many peons on Gold and do not have enough
wood but have lots of Gold. The same can happen with Lumber, lots of Lumber
and no Gold. You must avoid both. Why? Because it slows or stops you
production. You could have 30,000 Gold and 0 Lumber and you wouldn't be able
to build much besides Gryphons, Mages and Footmen (all Gold only). Keep in
mind that Lumber takes much longer to get than Gold so you may have a lot more
Peasants on Lumber than on Gold.
Out Produce the Enemy
In land battles of equally powered units, control plays a big key, but
generally the person with the most units and similar or greater upgrades, wins
the battles.
Each Barracks can only train one unit at a time. To train more units at once
to form large offensive and defensive forces you need to have multiple
Barracks. It's not uncommon to see high skilled players to build 7-10+
Barracks. Be careful, however, to only build Barracks that you can support. If
you have five Barracks but are only training out of two, those 3 Barracks are
wasted. Build extra Barracks when resources start to build up. To support
multiple Barracks build several expansions.
The same is somewhat the case on water maps. Generally two Shipyards are
needed to quickly build up an attack fleet. Often players with only one
Shipyard are not able to keep up in production against players with two.
Keep Your Money Spent
There is no reason at all to save up Gold and Lumber. Warcraft II is not won
by accumulating wealth but rather instead by crushing your enemy. If you find
you have too much Gold and Lumber, spend it on more Barracks, Shipyards,
upgrades, Mage Towers, and offensive units. You can't always keep your money
spent and you don't always need to, but keeping money spent is a good overall
plan. It is often very embarrassing to lose a game when you have plenty of
resources but just didn't bother to use them.
Food
To create a new unit you must have one Food grown. The Food limit of 1 is the
same for every unit regardless of type or perceived size. A Town Hall provides
1 Food support, while Farms provide 4. Be sure to build enough Farms so that
you will be able to create units when you need them. At the top right portion
of the screen to right of the resource counters is a listing of Food Used/Food
Grown. The indicator turns red when you have used more Food then you have
Grown Keep a watch on that indicator and build more Farms as necessary so that
you will have enough. There is no penalty for using more Food then you have
Grown, but you will not be able to create any more units until more Food is
grown or less Food is used which usually means some units die.
Multiple Units on Only 1 Food
There is a trick to allow you to get the most units out of one remaining food.
When you have only one extra Food Grown left, train units from all of the unit
producing buildings such as Barracks, Shipyards, Temple of the Damned, Gnomish
Inventors. Once the units are started they will be created regardless of the
Food used once they are finished. Using this method you can get quite a jump
in units over the Food limit. For example if you have 1 Food left, then
instruct all 8 Barracks to make a unit at the same time you can jump 7 over
the limit.
Freeing Up Food Space
Sometimes you run into a situation where you need to quickly build specific
combat units but you do not have Farm space, the time necessary to create a
Farm or possibly the resources to build it such as you have run out of Lumber.
In desperate situations, kill some Peasants or the most useless unit you can
find to free up Food space for units that would better address the situation
at hand. While this may seem an extreme solution to lack of Food it can help
out in dire situations.
Learn How to Control Your Units
This is very important. For more info, look at Unit Commands and Controls as
well as Hot Keys and Special Commands
Upgrade
Upgrades are key in Warcraft II. When using land units, quickly build a
Blacksmith and begin upgrading as soon as possible. Make sure you Always stay
a level ahead of your enemies in both ships and units. If you see they have
level 3 ships build level 4 or 5. The same with land units, upgrade them in
the Blacksmith. Every level you up upgrade ships and Barracks units Footmen
and Knights will pay off if you have enough units.
Something you should never have is level 1 Knights. Get at least one or two
upgrades before making Knights.
You can check the upgrades of your units without having to click on the Lumber
Mill, Blacksmith or Foundry. Select a unit then take note of the Stop and
Attack icons which will indicate the level a unit has been upgraded. Enemy
units however will not be able to tell which upgrades you have researched.
Level 4 for example could mean 2 armor upgrades and 1 weapon upgrade or it
could mean 2 weapon upgrades and 1 armor upgrade.
Don't Be Afraid to Lose Units
While it's good to save any units you can for a later battle, do not become so
protective of them that you are afraid to use them.
Know How to Counter Each of Your Opponent's Moves
What I mean is no matter what your enemy does, you should know what to do.
Examples: If they keep Blizzarding your town, go find and kill those Mages. If
people are Dragon making you, get out the Axe Throwers and Bloodlust. For
every move, you should know the counter.
Recon Is Key: Know What Your Enemy Is Doing At All Times
If you want to know what to do against the enemy, you should know what the
enemy is doing. This means recon. Recon is one of the most important things in
the game. Poor recon is the usual cause of lost games. Perhaps you didn't
notice the enemy had an expansion with no defenses, or that the enemy was
building up a certain kind of unit, or that they were wide open to certain
kinds of attacks in certain locations.
Good Recon does not have to be delayed until you get Flying Machines. On land
maps, send out a Peasant or Footmen to all the Gold Mines and make sure no one
is building 2 Town Halls early. Recon is so important because you can often
attack the enemy when they have no defenses early in the game.
Place Flying Machines on patrol over Gold mines that you expect the enemy to
expand to. Be warned that the enemy might not build there if they see the
Flying Machine. Try if possible to keep it within view of the Gold mine
without giving away it's location.
Do a fly by the enemy mines and compare their Gold Mine to yours. Take note if
the enemy is mining more Gold than you then build more Peons and place them on
Gold. Keep up in the resource race.
On Low and Medium Resources, Do Not Upgrade to Stronghold/Keep Too Soon
The normal upgrade time for a Town Hall is usually when you have more than 18
or so Peasants. You can get into great problems if you upgrade too early. What
sometimes happens is that people get greedy and want the Ogres/Knights just a
little too soon. So they make a few or no Footmen and then upgrade directly to
Keep. During this period, the enemy runs in with a bunch of Footmen and
catches the enemy before they can build enough Knights to defend themselves.
At this point you don't have enough forces to repel all those Footmen. Even if
you do start making Knights, the enemy can position their Grunts around the
Barracks so they can Kill any Ogres that pop out. This is a situation you do
not want to be in.
Skipping the Footmen Stage
Some people decide to skip building Footmen and go straight to Knights. This
really risky. Here are the trade offs. If the enemy comes in with Grunts you
are dead. If they don't, you will get a lot of Knights and will most likely be
able to overpower them. This might be something you might want to try on maps
where the enemy has difficulty in reaching you such as Nowhere out of this
Maze. Combine this strategy with a few walled in towers, or by walling
yourself in, it might be possible to pull this off. The enemy may just bring
in a catapult, break open your defenses and send in the Grunts.
Be Very Careful In the Early Part of the Game
The first 10 or so minutes of the game are extremely important. Any mistake or
delay in building Peasants, Farms, or getting resources can cost you the game.
You have to carefully watch each and every unit and make sure they are all
doing exactly what you are telling them to. After your town starts to roll,
this becomes less necessary and you can devote time to attacking the enemy.
Lower resources starts require more precise movements early on in the game as
they can easily determine the outcome of the game.
You must learn exactly what to do for each plan and resource.
Run Away!
If you see yourself in a battle that you just can't win, run away. The happens
when someone has a walled in Cannon, Guard Tower, or when the enemy has more
troops. . Know when it's a good time to fight and when it's time to run. You
want to run away if you are Human and see the Bloodlusted Ogres. If possible
run with the Ogres following until the Bloodlust wears off, then turn and
attack. If someone casts Unholy Armor or has a Flame Shield on run until this
spell wears off.
Don't Repair Buildings If You Can't Stop People From Attacking Them
This is the most common Newbie mistake. If you have units coming out of a unit
producing building, or have reinforcements on the way to save the building
repair it. Repair buildings that are key to a wallin. Otherwise do not waste
resources on a losing battle.
Don't Repair a Building Unless You Have to
Repair key buildings such as Black Smiths, Stables, Town Halls, but do not
repair buildings without a good reason. Buildings are not destroyed by fire no
matter how many hit points they have left so the only reason to repair a
building is because it's important, or to require more Goblin Sappers to
destroy it.
Know Why You Lost
Warcraft 2 is a game of learning. When you lose you should know why. By
knowing why you lost, you know what you can improve on in future games. If you
don't have a clue, ask the players who defeated you after the game how they
won. Be sure to not accuse them of cheating but be sincere in your request. If
they are nice, they will give you their input. Have your friends watch you
play. Often they can give you good advice about how to play from another point
of view and to correct your mistakes as you go.
Offense vs Defense
The best defense is a good offense. Don't spend too much time building
defenses for your town. Be sure to wallin your town if possible. A huge
defense may protect you from attacks but to advance in the game you need to
attack the enemy town and prevent them from expanding. Instead of building too
many Towers and Catapults you will have much more success building more
offensive units, expand to more resource spots, upgrade, and attack.
Quite often, people spend plenty of time building lots of Towers in their town
which does not leave enough resources to build any units to protect all these
Towers. Towers can easily be killed by Goblin Sappers, Catapults and
Blizzards. You might want to build one or two Towers by your mine, or at most
3-4 Guard Towers but don't over do it.
Building Orders
Building Orders can allow you to build to specific units and buildings as
quickly as possible. Building orders are very important on low resource games,
and less so but still important and helpful as more resources are available.
While building orders will not be listed here, many people are willing to
share their favorite building orders on the fan sites.
Placing your Town Hall
When you start the game, find the mine first. Next decide how close to the
Gold Mine you want to place your Town Hall. If you want to put a lot of
Peasants on Gold, you should move it back a space from the closest possible
building distance. Be warned, the further the Town Hall is away from the Gold
Mine, the longer it will take the Peasants to mine Gold and return to the
Hall. You will have to train more Peons just to keep up with the enemy who has
their Town Hall closer to their mine. Do not place your Town Hall against the
left side of the screen or up against Trees on the left side so that the left
side is covered. If the left side of the Town Hall is blocked, the
Peons/Peasants might pop out on the wrong side of the Town Hall or Gold Mine
which will mean they will have to walk longer to walk to and from the Gold
Mine. This may put you behind the enemy in resource gathering.
The computer "remembers" where the Peasant Mined or Harvested, and will
generally place the Peasant out to the left or right of the Town Hall, up or
down depending on where the mine is located (occasionally, if the mine is
directly above or below the town hall, they'll pop out above or below the Town
Hall). Here is the reason Peasants sometimes will come out of the town hall
the wrong way:
The order remains the same as the pop-out order if the position is blocked,
only flipped. What this means is that this is one example for the pop-out
order:
This will be the order of the Peasants if the Mine is to the lower left or
below the Town Hall. usually is to the left or right of the Town Hall, but not
above or below it. What happens if the Town Hall is up against the left edge
of the screen in this case? The Peasants will pop out at position 6 - opposite
the direction of the mine! The most basic of solutions is to build your Town
Hall without any major obstacles to its left or right. However, you can also
apply a bit of analysis and wisdom to figure out the safest position for it.
When the Town Hall is this far from the mine you will need a lot of Peons to
get a steady flow of Gold as seen here. This is very slow mining. Another Town
Hall should be built closer to the mine.
What If Peons Pop Out the Wrong Side of the Mine?
Occasionally, the Peons decide to come out on the wrong side of the Mine away
from the Town Hall depending on how the Town Hall is placed in relation to the
Mine. When this happens, build some walls around the mine until they come out
on the right side.
Because the left side of the Gold mine is blocked by trees, the Peons pop out
on the far side. Proper map making should solve this problem.
If you insist on playing maps where this problem happens, build walls around
the mine until the Peons pop out closer to the Town Hall. You can also chop
away the Lumber to the left of the mine which will probably be faster and
cheaper than building walls.
Use Buildings As Walls
Walls are cheap but they only have 50 hit points. Early on it was discovered
that Buildings make much better walls. Buildings have more hit points, cover a
greater area, can be repaired, and are useful. Farms in particular are often
used as walls. One drawback of using Farms, however, is that they have 400 hit
points which is exactly the damage done by Goblin Sappers. When using Farms as
walls you must be careful to make multiple layers of Farms, or build actual
walls in front of the Farms to make them less desirable as targets.
Learn how to Wallin Your Town
Walls
Farms replaced walls for defense, but walls are still useful. Build walls in
front of buildings to protect them from Goblin Sapper attacks as seen here
around Towers as shown here.
Use walls to spell out messages to your friends!
Avoid Placing Buildings In-between the Town Hall and Mine
Try not to place any buildings in between the Gold Mine and Town Hall. These
buildings may interfere with the movement of Peons trying to mine Gold. If
your Peons have to walk too far, or have to walk around some object to get
from the Gold Mine to the Town Hall, you will get behind in resources. This is
often enough to cost you the game. Keep the path between the Town Hall and the
Gold Mine clear.
A Farm in the way cause the Peons to be confused as to how to return to the
Great Hall.
A Second Farm build here fixes that problem.
Buildings in between your Town Hall and Gold Mine hurt yourself much more than
the enemy attacking you. Although the Peons may still be able to find their
way back to the Great Hall, they will take much longer to do so which will get
you behind in production.
Keep Buildings Separated
To make it more difficult and less inviting for the enemy to use Demolition
Squads to blow up your buildings, place them a Farm's distance apart so that
the enemy will need 1-2 Demolition Squads per building to blow them up which
will mean they will lose more resources on the Demolition Squads than you will
have lost on the buildings.
When you place buildings tightly packed together they become perfect targets
for a Blizzard or Death and Decay. Keep buildings separated so they do not
become targets for Demolition Squads or Blizzards.
Offensive Building
When attacking the enemy take units from the Barracks then send them to attack
the enemy town. The closer the Barracks is to the enemy the faster these
offensive units will reach the enemy town. If you have a long distance from
the Barracks to the enemy town they will be able to build quite a few units
before your units reach their town. Whenever possible send a Peon over near
their town and hide some Barracks there so you can quickly build units and
send them into the enemy town. Some players go so far as to build the Barracks
in the middle of the enemy town. You must however get them completed and have
enough units to protect them for this to effective. Sometimes you see a person
building a Barracks near your town, head over and start attacking it and
destroy it because the enemy has nothing to defend it. That offensive building
did not pay off for them. Only do this when you can protect the Barracks or
when you think you can hide the Barracks.
Hide Buildings
When the enemy looks for important basic and advanced buildings often they
look at your main town for them. Sometimes you can hide advanced buildings
such as Blacksmiths, Lumber Mills, Ogre mounds, Mage Towers, Dragon Mounds
outside your town where the enemy will not notice and find them. Using this
strategy you can sometimes make the enemy think you don't have these buildings
and that you cannot build certain units. They might catch on however once they
see units that require those buildings but do not find the buildings that
allow those units to be made. Hiding buildings happens more when you have lost
your main town and are defended but can also be seen in normal play as well.
The downside of using this strategy is that once discovered you must defend
these buildings which are usually a long way from your towns and Barracks.