Warcraft 2 strategy
guide

Basic tips

The concept of Upgrading

Upgrading is necessary in the game, to a degree. The drawback to upgrading is that it is a
direct tradeoff with development. Consider upgrading "research" and the amassing of
troops "development" and you'll see the trade-off that occurs as you play the game. Let's
take the example of a multi-player game I played a while ago. A friend was attacked by
some units from a hostile group. He had been upgrading and had a couple of griffins and
about a 4-8 man defensive. I sent 6 men down there. I saw 8 enemy units. I had upgraded
my men to a "level 5" status. I lost 2 men in the process of wiping out the 8 enemy units.
He was at the threat of losing his town. What was the difference between our strategies?
He was upgrading his troop types. I was upgrading my troops. Our opponent was
amassing troops. Whose strategy was best? The bodies on the ground will tell that story.

How do I upgrade effectively?

First, always build lots of peons or peasants. You never can have quite enough of these
guys. I recommend somewhere between 15-20 for the initial colony and 5-10 for later
colonies. These little guys are the crux to your ability to continue in a progressive fashion
throughout the game.


Next, be balanced.

It doesn't matter if you have the ability to build a griffin if I have 20
level 3 orcs laying the beat down on your nifty looking town hall. The difficult part of the
game is balancing the initial development. 


Here are my suggestions for the early game:
- Build a Hall, Farm, Barracks (If it’s a low resource game continue building farms and
get a peon base going before you build a barracks), Farm (leave this peon building farms
until you have a total of 5), Smith, Barracks, structural upgrades. This allows you to
develop an adequate peon structure and defense structure early. I recommend building 2
grunts quickly, right after the second farm, and sending them out exploring. This way
they can lend an offensive attack to your side early in the game. Remember though - you
have to replace them as soon as they've left.
- Use the smith and the lumber mill before anything else is upgraded structurally. If you
have an adequate peon base and are turning out some decent amounts of gold and lumber
then you should start dumping that money into your army. Do so buy upgrading sheilds
and swords at the smithy and axes/arrows at the lumber mill. Get your men up to level 5
quickly, while keeping in mind that you need to be developing troops. I recommend a
ready town defense in the early game of between 6 and 12 men.
- Be sure to expand. Once you've sent your two men out to do a little scouting you should
start a group of 3 peons whose soul purpose in life is to acquire you another gold mine. I
recommend towers if you opponent is skilled to defend the gold mine. And I always
recommend a military accompaniment of sorts. 2-10 men, depending on the time in the
game that you're expanding.
- Build towers intelligently if you build them at all. A catapult can get at a tower, so it's
smart to keep some units nearby for cat patrol. Keep in mind that your tower is an easy
target for a group of troops though. To prevent their ability to access the tower try to
"wall in" your towers. Peons have the ability to build a wall, use them to build a wall
around a tower, or a group of towers. Remember to upgrade your towers. Cannons for
ground troops, and Guard towers for airborne troops.
- Upgrade to the second castle type after you get a decent troop base and your troops are
at least level 3. This allows you create some better units. Troll berserkers and Ogres if
you're an Orc or Knights and Rangers if you're a human. The berserkers/rangers are one
decent weapons. If you upgrade them (at the Lumbermill) they can have an incredible
amount of range and the ability to regenerate or to do massive damage. Knights are
important later since they can become Paladins and Heal your other troops, while Ogres
are massive bloodlusted mounds of destruction.
- Continue along these lines. Remeber, it's important to be balanced. A level 5 Grunt can
take out several Level 1 Footmen and even a Level 1 Knight. Getting a gryphon early
sucks if I've got 20 Level 3 Axethrowers to shoot it out of the sky.

Let's talk Strategy!
1. Be smart when you attack.
Don't just right click on an opponents unit or building. Be sure that you hit "P" for Patrol
and then select the unit or building. This simple strategy will win you more games than
you would believe, it forces your troops to peel off from their current focus and attack
any standing forces that your opponent may have - on their own. That means you can be
back at the barracks working on the next wave while your offensive is laying waste
efficiently.
2. Don't forget offense!
I argue that the "4 man rush" is a great strategy. It involves 4 troops, whether a
multi-player alliance or a quick rush of grunts attacking one opponent and heading
straight for the line. 4 guys attacking your peons early is devestating, financially and to
your speed. You can't foget offense later though. It's important to send an attack out on
your opponent at least once every half an hour, if not sooner. If your opponent isn't on the
defensive, then they're developing an awesome offensive.
3. Attack resource acquisition.
Let's assume that you stumble on your opponents recent colony expansion. Do you attack
the Town Hall or the Peasants mining the gold? THE PEASANTS. Always attack
peasants if you're just on a limited offensive. A peasant costs 400 gold and is the only
element running your opponents productivity. Your grunts don't mean anything to you -
you already sent them out to die. If one grunt kills 2 peons, not only has he more than
paid for himself, but he's crippled your opponents ability to produce. If you're attacking
peasants/peons, just park your men inbetween the town hall and the gold mine and let
them do the work for you. (Be sure to hit “P” in doing so).

4. Communicate.
It's important not only to let your allies know where you are, but how you're doing troop
wise and where you're going to expand to. This is what the glory of an alliance is.
5. BLOOD LUST
This is a difficult thing to come to grips with. Blood Lust is from the Ogre Mages. ( Ogre
Mound - Altar of Stroms ) Research this spell as soon as possible. If you're the humans,
you have to come to grips with this spell as soon as possible. A blood lusted creature is a
frenzy of destruction, watch out for them. My recommendation is to leave a limited
portion of your offensive to slow down the blood lusted creatures and then send the rest
to take out the mages who have to be nearby.
6. Never leave your town undefended.
'Nuff said.
7. Dragons and Gryphons suck.
Yup. It's true. Go cry and get it over with. 4 archers can kill a Gryphon, cost less, and
they can kill everything else faster too. These are great late game creatures, but don't
build them until you've already launched an offensive. These guys are back-up attackers
at best.
8. Paladins and Mages
These are the key creatures for the human player. Paladins heal your other units and
Mages are superb. Mages can lay Mage Bombs, Ice Storms and other spells to annoy your
enemy immensly. Mage bombs are great because they allow you an invisible defense. Ice
storms are great for an opponent who groups their troops together and leaves them idle.
The fire enchantment is the same ace the ice storm, but even better - his troops won't say
"we're under attack" when you cast this on one of them.
9. Goblin Sappers and Dwarven Demolition Teams are KEY.
No one plays these. Most strategy guides don't even make reference to them. What a
mistake. These creatures are THE BEST in the game. One sapper can take out several
blood lusted creatures. Using these guys is simple. Once you've done your exploration
you'll see your opponents structures. If your opponent groups their troops, send ONE
sapper to attack the group. (Left click the Sapper, right click the group.) He's never seen
on the map since he's so small, and he blows up before he can be killed usually, taking
out three troops. He costs you 500, and does damamge to a 3 x 3 area with stealth. He's
guaranteed to pay himself off. Remeber to use lots of these guys all the time. It annoys
your opponent - they'll never figure out what's going on. Don’t forget that you can use a
sapper to penetrate wood and rock also, a great way to surprise your opponent with a
“backdoor attack.”
10. Spread your troops out!
Don't dump your troops in groups. This is bad. This lets them fall prey to a mage or a
sapper easily. Put them all a couple of squares apart.
11. Attack intelligently.
Don't waste your time attacking a group of footmen if there is a group of mages nearby.
Attack expensive and damaging units. Attack catapults first, they'll devestate your troops.
Be sure to attack buildings like the mage tower or the ogre mound before you attack
anything else.
12. Don't forget Archers or Axethrowers/Berserkers in the late game.
These are some of your best defensive units. Always send a few with an offensive. They
attack fliers and they also attack from a range, which is nice in support with an attack.
They can also attack from behind a group of trees and be very annoying. The ranged
ability can't be beat. They can even attack ships!

General Tips


Decoy.

This means you lay some towers somewhere and then build some farms behind
them. This leads your opponent to believe it's a town, while your towers annihalate their
troops here. Another ploy on this is to take a large group of troops and put them just by
the decoy, this way you can wipe out the party they send to attack.
Expand. You must constantly expand. If you let your opponent expand more than you,
then you've lost the game. Once you've got a decent game going. you should explore for
more mines. If you encounter an enemy colony - stake the war here. This way you hurt
your enemy, not only do they loose troops and peons invested, but they could lose a town
hall. (Not a cheap thing to lose at all.)


Multiple barracks are key to winning.

I recommend between 4 and 8 barracks once the
game gets rolling. Remeber, it's easier to build 4 troops with 4 barracks then it is to wait
for one barracks to turn out 4 troops.


Never do a single offensive.

Always attack with 2 - 3 groups of troops from different
directions. You can usually bait your opponent by attacking with one group, waiting until
they move their troops in and then sweeping in to take out their peons and do a back
attack of the troops they moved down. This is easy to do in a multi-player game.
5-8 Players can be won easily. Instead of building a barracks near your town, send a peon
exploring, and build your barracks in the middle of their town. If they're slower than you
then they're hosed. If not, then you get a quick trade-off of troops. It's an easy tactic to
take out a lot of people.


Learn the map quickly, especially if fog is off.

Recon is important. Intelligence is key to
winning warcraft, you must know where your enemy is weak. Build about 3 or so
zepplins/flying machines and send them on recon missions, once you find your enemy, if
fog is on, keep them on the most likely path to your colony. If it's off, then your troops
have done their work.


I recommend remote barracks sites.

One thing that I like to do is build a few barracks by
my opponents town. This cuts down on move time, and allows me to "hide" my military
production to an extent. This is REALLY good if fog is on. Fog is a great thing ... it
allows secrecy. Secrecy is important to winning.


Rocks and trees can be blown up.

Just like building and troops, sappers and demolition
teams can be used to blow up rocks and such on boards. They blow up portions, so it may
take a few, but this is a great way to surprise your opponent. :) One of my best wins came
by blowing up the rocks under my opponents town and then sending my troops through
the back door. :)


Walls are generally a waste.

They have a very limited utility. I see them as good for three
things: Decoy use, looks like a vulnerable and poorly defended town, peon management,
and towers - see above.


Spend your money.

Don't just acquire gold ... you need to spend it! Remember, if you
have the capability to be offensive, you should be being offensive. If you need to build
more barracks, do so. If you need to expand or upgrade, do so! Just spend that gold, it's
wasted otherwise.


Left click on the map.

Lazy players don't do this. It jumps you right to that section of the
map. This is important because it allow you to launch a 2-3 part offensive and continue
to build troops to continue the onslaught. It's a bit of a headache, but it's worth the
bragging rights when you win.


If you lose peasants or peons, rebuild them.

You may even want to build some more since you're obviously behind on the production
game. :)


Don't waste time.
This is a real-time strategy game. Don't go get a drink of water, don't
pee, don't do anything other than be a lean, mean, efficient thing. Learn the keystokes.
Keep one hand on the mouse and one hand on the keyboard. Learn to play the game like
it were an extension of your body.

Select units ahead of time.

You can group units by holding down shift and clicking on the
or by dragging a box over them. Later you can hold down ALT and click on any of the
units in a group and it will select the entire group. Also, do things like dragging a box
over the town hall if you're waiting for a peon, that way you can select him the second he
comes out. Or try just continually hitting "p" on the town hall when you're at 90% and
waiting to build another peon, that way you don't have to do anything other than select
the new peon once he comes out and you'll already have another on the way.


Harvest lumber carefully.

This is a free natural defense that is what a wall should be - an
impenetrable wall. Your opponent has to send wimpy and easy to kill peons over to take
down this wall if they’re not using sappers. If your town is surrounded by lumber be sure
to leave the bare minimum there as a wall. It's free, it rocks, and it's pretty too.


Manipulate your surroundings. 

Penetrate rocks. Hack your way through forests. Don't let
nature stand in your way. If you're laying the beat down on a city and have some peons
harvesting, send them to harvest around your opponent. Weaken them as much as you
can when you can. Make sure you have clean paths to important places so that you can
defend effectively.


Mages and Death Knights.

These two have the ability to area attack. Use it wisely. Why
send in 20 troops to kill some peons when you can send one invisible mage to cast ice
storm or one death knight to cast death and decay? These will both kill most if not all the
peons, and will cost you one guy - at most. Be sure to use invisibility on your mages as
soon as you can. An invisible mage laying mage bombs is a tough guy to beat.


Don't waste your money.

Don't waste your cash on spells you're not going to use or on
catapult upgrades if you're not going to build a catapult. Towers are a big money suck
most of the time - justify them well before you lay them.


Remember the early Game


As I have discussed before the early game is not a game of solitary development or
utopian isolation, it is a struggle to gain a resource advantage. If you're lucky enough and
good enough then you should be able to beat your opponent somewhere around 7 minutes
on the clock. Let's review a few things about the early game:


Attack the Peon line.

This is the line of peons that goes from the Town Hall to the gold
mine. Any attack that can make it's way here early in the game should do so - even if it
means losing 2 of the 4 Grunts you sent to the town. Remeber, this attack is a key attack.
A Grunt for Grunt battle nets you nothing, but a Grunt for Peon battle nets you the time it
takes to rebuild that peon and the resources that peon could have gathered in that time.
Remember, the early game is resource war, so don't hand the advantage to your opponent.


Patrol is useless, unless you're being smart.

Patrol is a great strategy, but you shouldn'tsee it as anything else. For example, Setting a
grunt to patrol around your town is only going to irritate your peons and look pretty
foolish. Setting a group of 4 Grunts at the entrance of your town and setting them to
patrol is great strategy - it protects your peon line. Let's review how to use the "P" key
again. Highlight a group of guys, hit "P" and then click on your group again. This
command will set that group to "patrol" the area they're at. They won't move, but they
will attack any living opponent that happens to stroll their way. Also, when your troops
are attacking a building or an enemy town, be sure to have them "patrol" the area. This
way not only will they knock down structures, they will also attack any units that happen
to stroll their way. Pretty nifty, or so I think!


Be smart when you attack structures. 

Attack blacksmiths, Ogre Mounds and Stables
early. This stops your opponent from putting out anything other than gruts. If you’re
doing an arial attack, take the lumber mill out. Remeber, your goal is not to beat your
opponent one to one initially, it’s to gain the development advantage, that means you try
to take out key structures so that you can send in superior troops later for the one on one
combat.
Be fast. Learn the shortcut keys. 

When you click on a unit, you'll notice the command
buttons on the left. Highlight these and you'll notice one letter of the command is colored
differently from the others. For example, if you're using a Peon, "B" on build is colored
differently. This means that "B" is the shortcut key for the Build command if you have a
Peon selected. So, if I click on a peon and type B and B again, my peon will be told to
build a barracks. Learn the shortcut keys and use them instead of dragging your mouse
around. Also, have multiple peons build structures. This means two things: A) Have
peons building several structures at once, don't compromise development time by
limiting yourself to one peon building structures, and B) You can have multiple peons
build the same structure. To do this either select the peon and right click on the structure
or click on the peon, hit R and then click on the structure.

The utility of a wall. 

Walls have a very low toughness rating, so aren't very good at
stopping a rush of men. Especially considering you defend key areas, and if they're
beating on your walls, they've probably already laid the beat down on your defensive
force. Walls do have some utility in the game though. The basic utility is slow down. It's
quite possible that the initial offensive against your town will blast by your defensive
force and head for the peon line. If you narrow the entrance to your town with a couple of
quick and easy to build walls you allow your troops to catch up to the offensive.
Something to remember though, these walls will also impede the movement of your
troops. At bit more thoughtful utility is peon trafficing. Have you ever noticed that one or
two peons then to always get caught somewhere simply standing? This is because the
area traffic is too great for them to move freely. You can make your peons much more
efficient and productive by walling out "trouble zones." A great example of this is the
lower right hand corner of the "Garden of War" board. To the left of the gold mine are
two open spaces that peons will often get trapped in. If you wall these two spaces, not
only will your peons not get caught there anymore, but they won't travel over those two
squares back to your town hall, which means your producing more quickly. A trick that
not many people employ is to wall off portions of the gold mine, forcing your peons to
enter and exit it very close to your hall. Aside from this, the wall seems to be an inferior
blocking structure to a farm.


Managing your peon line.
This is without a doubt the heart of your game, the single most
important element to you continuing your war campaign. The above paragraph is the first
time I mention manipulating your peon line, and it's something I wholeheartedly believe
in. Aside from that, it's even more important that you avoid doing so in a negative
fashion. Don't build structures in the middle of your peon line, this forces your peons to
walk around the structure, increasing the distance between the hall and the mine. Also,
don't build structures on the border of your peon line. Some people do this to protect the
peon line, but you're just asking for a traffic jam, if you ask me. Narrowing the peon line
is only going to cause large numbers of peons to gather and speak horribly of your ability
to construct a town. Be sure your peons can move freely and efficiently. That faster your
peons produce, the faster your grunts/ogres can shut down your opponents peon line.

Towers in the early game.

A lot of the time when I play a high resource game I'll run into
a town defended by either 6 guard towers or 3-4 cannon towers, but without the other
elements of the "wall-in" strategy I discuss elsewhere. It's important that you do not leave
your towers exposed, as this strategy tends to do. The cost to set up this defensive
structure is quite staggering, and the 9 level 5 ogres that it allows me to send can usually
tear down this defensive boo-boo quite quickly. If you're worried about an offensive, and
turn to towers as a defensive move - which is entirely acceptable - be sure that you
defend them. Also, don't waste your time early with guard towers. Guard towers are good
against Dragons and Sappers, and that's about it. Cannon towers are what you need to
protect anything else. 2 defended cannon towers and a decent wall-in can shut down a
vast majority of early offenses, but a horde of cannon towers that are poorly defended are
only going to delay the inevitable.


Don't spread your town out.

Keep your structures close together. I’m not saying cram
your town into the smallest area possible, but I am saying that you should put your town
in the area that takes up one screen early. This allows you to move around your town and
issue commands quickly. It also makes it difficult for your opponent for move troops
around your town, once they actually find it - which is also more difficult. I see people all
the time who spread their initial town across two gold mines, "guarding" the second gold
mine I guess. This is a useless strategy since you are effectively spreading your initial
defensive force across twice the area. The less area you have, the fewer cubic squares per
defensive unit. This is something that most players don't even consider, unfortunately.
Many players will leave a force of 4 grunts alone to defend a town sprawled across a
large portion of the game board. This is a recipe for disaster, at best. I like to implement
the initial wall-in with my barracks. A barracks has 800 "hit points," much better than a
farm, and is able to crank out defensive units quickly. Not a shabby defensive wall, one
that comes with spikes. Also, I recommend grouping your initial barracks, this allows you
to construct troops a little more quickly, which is very important in a game of speed. If
you expand later and decide to build more barracks, group later barracks together also.
Ex: You could have 4 in the upper right and 4 in the upper left.


Send two forces.

If your opponent has their peon line guarded by a group of defensive
units, break your attack into two groups. Send in one group and then stagger the second
group behind a couple of seconds - make sure the first group will live for a minute longer
though. Then have the second group punch through and head for the peon line. Your
opponents defensive force will be occupied and will rather willingly allow your second
group to go rape the bushes and burn the women. The second group doesn't have to very
large, considering their motive. I recommend a group of about 3-5.


Mislead your opponent. 

I've not lost a game to someone saying "you've got me" while
they were building a second town, but I've been quite surprised to find another town with
4 grunts defending it. It may not win you a game, but let them think you're down while
you build the second town. It may just win you a game. If not, you'd lost anyway, it was
worth a shot.

Axethrowers are expensive. 

Upgrading and producing axethrowers costs quite a bit of
money. There are two drawbacks to axethrowers: A) They trade-off with structures. Each
unit costs 50 lumber. B) They trade-off with Ogres. Each unit costs 50 lumber.
Axethrowers are nice to defend an attacking force, but are slaughtered quickly once the
grunts defending them fall. I see axethrowers as a weak attacking strategy, and as an okay
defensive strategy - in the late to mid game. Early in the game, a force of axethrowers
can be slaughtered by a cheaper force of grunts. Most people I play lose because they
took the time to build a lumber mill, upgrade their axethrowers to level 2-3 and built a
few of these trolls. In the meantime, I've built and Ogre mound, upgraded my guys to
Level 5, and have 9 Ogres parked outside of their town. Axethrowers are definately not
something you should be spending your limited early game resources on; they don't
develop their utility until the late game resource surplus needs to be spent constructively.


The Blacksmith is your best friend. 

Once you have 2-4 Grunts, you should be upgrading
at the blacksmith as frequently as possible. Just a couple of level 3 grunts can fend off a
horde of level 1 grunts. The upgrades are cheap in comparison to the effect the deal to
those who haven't upgraded. If you doubt me, play a game against the computer, it rarely
upgrades it's troops. You can quickly see the drastic effect that upgrading can have in a
man for man battle.


Don't forget farms. 

Farms are a great structure. Don't let yourself caught in a farm
bottleneck. Some players build 5 farms and then stay there. This is a bad strategy. If I can
build more troops and send them your way, then I will. There's no reason to continue
churning out peons and capacity. This is a game of resource wars - don't let yourself fall
behind because you got a little bit too lazy. 

Mid to late game strategies
The mid to late game.

If you've made it here, then this is a tight game. This is the hardest part of the game
because getting this far means the early game was a stale-mate. That's a bad sign, that
means your opponent knows what's up, and they're ready for the resource war. Moreso
now than ever, the struggle for gold and lumber is on. The late game is won by your
positioning in the mid-game. Here are my tips for the mid game:


It's time to expand. You first mine is going to be getting depleted, it's definately time for
a second and a third. You need to continue a steady and growing resource acquisition
while defending these precious commodities.


Put the hurt on. Your opponent is going to, at some point, weaken one of the town halls
they're going to have going. That's when you make a run for the peon line. Pressure all
the towns, this way a focused attack on your opponents part exposes the peon line and
gives you an advantage. It's good to use Sappers at this point in the game to annoy your
opponent and remove important buildings like the blacksmith. (A favorite tactic of
mine.)  Consider the final town hall upgrade. Nothing is quite as devestating as a
bloodlusted ogre or an invisible mage blizzarding your peons. If you have the resources
and are either at a stale mate or an advantage, then go for the upgrade. If you're getting
beat down and there's a lull in the storm, you may wish to try for the Uber-troops. If
you're playing orcs, bloodlust is increadibly important and key to a majority of victories.

Defense, defense, defense. Some annoying players will head straight for the dragons at
this point, be sure to be prepared for that. You should have the board explored, be sure to
watch for this development. Build a few towers and maybe toss some of those excess
resources into upgrading your Axe Throwers.


The mid game is a difficult game where the balance of power shifts. It's a quick transition
to the late game from the mid game, so don't get left in the dust. It's important to
remember that this part of the game is actually a more important race for resources, so
don't forget the peon line and poorly defended towns.

The late game.
The late game is the best game to be had. If you can make it here, it's usually a one-sided
crushing. The best games I've played extend to a late game that lasts 20-40 minutes. This
is a complicated game, at the least. Some tips that I have:


Know your opponent. If speed doesn't win games of warcraft, then strategy does. Key to
strategy is the ability to recon and acquire intelligence well. If you know what your
opponent is doing, then you can formulate an appropriate strategy. There's no sense in
building towers and archers if your opponent isn't building Dragons, but you may as well
be building them yourself. Watch what your opponent builds and look for weaknesses,
you must exploit your opponents lax nature.

Sappers! They rock. Use these troops to weaken or destroy ill defended areas. If you can
squeeze a sapper to the peon line, it's a great attack. They're also great for attacking
important structures like blacksmiths, altar of storms, ogre mounds, towers, and goblin
alchemists. Theses structures are key to your opponents offense, but a couple of sappers
can take any of them down. Quite the resource trade-off. One strategy is to attack the
guards, and then slip the sappers in to do the dirty work. A note with sappers - don't send
them out in a line, they will just blow each other up, space them out.

Air? Don't forget the air in games that go late. If your opponent isn't well defended again
air attacks, two Dragons can net a bunch of peons. Recon is increadibly important to
investing in this strategy, but it can definately pay off if it is the last thing your opponent
was expecting. One reason to avoid this element early is so that you can use it later - to
your opponents surprise.

Think ahead. This is the part of the game where brute force has lost it's glory for a while
and you must figure out how to get more brute force than your opponent. This means you
have to actually think on your own a bit and figure out how to best ensure that you're in
the best position to defend your towns and churn out the uglies.


Don't be wasteful. If your opponent is going airborne in the later portion of the game then
don't build four Dragon Roosts to out Dragon your opponent. Defend your town against
the attack and lay waste to their peon lines. Dragons are expensive, cripple their
resources and you cripple their strategy. It's all about strategy at this point in the game.


Multiple attacks will win the game. Don't limit yourself to attacking one town or
attacking one area. Send multiple groups of men to attack multiple areas. If you're using
the "P" command, this becomes very simple, and very effective. It draws your opponent
away, weakens their defenses, and buys you some time for development. This is hard to
learn to do, but well worthwhile.

Starve your opponent if you can! If you have the advantage in the early game, then park
your troops just outside of your opponenets town. Be watchful to make sure your
opponent doesn't sneak out some troops to annoy you with. The goal here is to force your
opponent to depelete their mine and then leave them with no alternative but to come out
and face your overwhelming forces. If you restrict your opponent to but one mine you
should be able to go mine crazy on the rest of the map and build lots of ego shrinking
units like death knights and sappers. Just picture this scenario: 30 ogres guard 10
sappers and 10 fully charged death knights. Your opponent blasts out and runs into the
now bloodlusted wall of ogres, death knights start to wipe out the forces even more
quickly with a bit of Death and Decay and the sappers head to the town to destroy all
barracks. It doesn't end very well for anyone on the receiving end of this situation. Your
opponent may choose to rely on a dragon offensive, but you should be able to turn out
enough Ogres and bloodlusted dragons to make them envy your ability to conquer. Do
this especially if your opponent tries to wall-in in the early game or if they defensively
position themselves so that it's difficult to access the town - if it's hard for you to enter it's
hard for them to exit. This is perhaps the best way to solve the dilemma about attacking
your oppenent brutishly early in the game. Don't head for the peon line, don't wipe out
their town - just hold them down. It's like Vader - choke them from a distance. It might
help a bit if you type, " * choke * * choke *" to your opponent from time to time 

Offensive defense
A lot of players rely on a tower defensive in the early game. I've seen two popular
methods of this - 3 spaced guard towers or 2 well defended cannon towers. This is an
interesting strategy when you consider the resources involved in such an ambitious
defensive effort early in the game. You're looking at a couple thousand in gold and nearly
a thousand in lumber. I have some contentions with such a defensive effort in the early
game.

Towers are great defenders.

A well defended tower will easily net several kills for you before it goes down, and it will
also generally ensure you that your opponent will head somewhere before they head to
your peon line or your barracks. If you place your towers well enough then you will have
created virtually an inaccessible unit that is capable of dealing massive damage from a
distance. I can see why they're tempting in the early game, and used to recommend that
everyone go with a tower defensive early. A cannon tower isn't as good at defensive as a
guard tower is since it's not capable of attacking the square immediately next to it.
Remember when you're building towers that you want to figure out how you'll be
defending.

It's a no-brainer.

You don't have to watch a tower. You don't have to command it to attack. There's no
delay and zero lag for the tower. It's the ideal unit. It attacks on it's own, defends against
anything automatically and suffers from none of the problems that we humans do. A
zero-maintense shredder, it's a great concept and players who aren't able to out-skill a
tower defensively tend to rely on the tower for defense.

Towers aren't movable.

As tempting as a towers power and ease of use are, their major and often overlooked
disadvantage is that they can't move. Yeah, they're cool. But they're cool for only a
certain area, and will only be a defensive figure in that defensive area. I've seen players
scatter towers on the map and upgrade them. I don't know what's up with this strategy,
even with fog on. ( A flyer is cheaper and movable ). Remember that you should only
build a tower in an area that needs defense. Towers aren't offensive. When you build a
tower you're spending a lot of resources on something that can't ever move from it's
initial location, a defensive posturing.

Defense trades off with offense.

As I said before, a decent tower defensive is going to cost you a couple thousand in gold
and nearly a thousand in lumber. Even a single upgraded tower is over a thousand gold
and several hunder lumber. While you're working on this your opponent is likely to be
spending that cash they didn't spend on towers working on an offensive force. For
example, if you were playing me, I'd be working on a stronghold upgrade so that I could
throw up a few inventors and have them take it to you. Never fool yourself and think that
your offensive force should be as good as your opponents - you've already slowed
yourself down. Every single defensive motion or thought that you entertain is
time/opportunity that your opponent can spend offensively.

Be sure you build correctly.

If you're going to build a tower you should make the effort to defend it as best as
possible. You just chunked down cash and time to have this thing defend your area, now
at least give it some support. I would recommend blocking access to the tower with farms
or other structures. Remeber the fewer that can access the tower the longer it will suvive
in an offensive attack on your town. 

Air units
Dragons and Gryphons are pretty popular in the game. It seems a lot of people like these
units so much that they'll take their name and try to base their entire game around getting
these units out quickly. These people are interesting to speak strategy with, because when
you find one who's sctually thought through the problems with this strategy who is still
using it, you probably have something to learn. They aren't a complete waste, but I feel
they have a limited place in the game.

The two units are different.

If you're going for an air game, then you have to be orcish. If you're human you've got the
support spells of slow, blizzard and polymorph to help you. The only one of these the will
really effect the ability of your gryphons in battle is polymorph, but it's so expensive
you're probably not going to get much out of it. If you've got a support of ogres and
deathknights you can haste and bloodlust a group of dragons and then send them out.
This is a true destructive force, much like a knife in hot butter. I'm not arguing that the
units themselves have differences, because that's only true on the pixel level. But the cast
of units supporting the air game makes the potential abilities of the two very different,
and let's the dragon take a hasty lead.

The air game can devestate your opponent.

I often read posts where one player says he lost to a "huge swarm of gryphons - at least
20!!!" If you're able to get a decent sized air offensive going you'll probably win the
game. Take the Gulf War for example, our air force decimated Saddam's ground troops,
leaving our ground troops only a limited defensive to overcome. If you can win the air
war, then you should be able to quickly get an advantage in the ground war. If you let
your opponent get so far as to have five or more air units and don't know/care about it,
then you certainly do deserve to lose the game. You should either be immediately
levelling your opponent or getting a defensive measure going. Otherwise you'll be posting
how much you really do believe that an air advantage isn't something to overlook in your
next game.

Airborne has it's advantages.

Perhaps the best and most overlooked advantage of air units is that they can move in a
straight line. Nothing stops them. They just go, get there and do their work. This is an
incredible benefit that your normal troops don't have, they've got to wade through the
maze between your hall and your opponent before they can do anything. Air units also
have a natural defense ability, they can only be hit by archers, guard towers, a "cruiser"
ship, magic or other air units. This is a nice feature when your opponent only has one
deathknight to combat your 3 dragons when you show up in the middle of their town. The
penalty for the ability to move easily and attack anything with little fear of counter attack
is that air units are slow and are defensively weak.

There's a psychological game too.

Something I've seen people do, with limited success, is throw a dragon roost up in
someplace fairly obvious and watch their opponent throw up 4 guard towers and crank
out 8 level 3 axethrowers. It's quite the money and time trade-off, and you never even
have to make a single air unit. Remember, if it's a stale-mate late in the game then you
really are looking for a weakness to exploit. If your opponent will take the bait then go
for it. Just remember that some people will try to counter air with more air, so don't think
that your opponent won't be doing the same.

How much is it worth after I take it off the lot?!

Air units are expensive and slow to build.. They're 2500 gold each and take twice the
time an ogre or paladin would take to build. This means that one air unit should net the
damage and support that 2 high-level land units can create. Most boards start with 40,000
gold in a mine, which means that you can see a total of 17 dragons could be made from a
mine. ( My math isn't wrong - don't forget the fortress, that you have to have, will be
giving you a gold bonus ). That's relatively few units for a lot of gold. This means that to
go airborne in the late game you're probably going to need a gold mine for just the air
units, several roosts to get the units out quickly enough and a decent ground defensive to
keep your opponent at back until you're done. When you decide to go to the air game, you
lay your cards on the table. You're gambling that your opponent can't stop you in the
meantime.

The air game should be reserved for the late game only.

I've seen players try to get a fortress upgrade as soon as possible on a high resources
game just so that they could start an air game early. You're killing yourself if you do this.
The most imperative thing to victory in an air game is an adequate support base, and if
you don't have a great defensive and the spells to make your air units what they should
be, then you're going to lose to either an early game grunt rush or a mid-game ogre rush.
To play with this strategy under-estimates your opponents conviction to win the game. If
you really wish to win the game then you should reserve your dragons for a late game
only introduction and by the time they arrive you should have the units to make them
successful. Otherwise you're simply tempting your opponent to remind you why you need
to balance offense and defense in the game. Air units are offense only; in defense they
damage your town, your units and are slow to replace. Don't make the mistake of liking
the looks of a unit so much that you over-estimate it's role in the game.

Do I use air units?

Yes. Not often, because it's not too frequent an occasion that I make it to the late game.
When I do make it to the late game though I will go for a roost if I feel my opponent is
weak against that line of attack. It's all about your ability to exploit your opponents weak
points. But always be sure that in doing so you're not creating weak points of your own. 

More basic strategies
First, it's important that you know a few basic principles:



•Know the shortcut commands. It takes no time to click on my peons and hit B, B to
build a barracks. It takes a while to drag the mouse around. •Use extra peons wisely.
Early in the game you can use multiple peons to build one structure by right clicking on
that structure. If you're playing with resources on high then the early game is a contest of
speed, so it's important to get those structures up quickly. •Don't build more than you
need. A grunt rush or an ogre rush can quickly end your grand plan for a stronghold or
some gryphons and mages. Don't waste your time in the early game. •Peons are more
important than troops. Don't just spend the initial money allocated with resources on high
on troops. Be sure to get at least a minimum of 12 peons going so that you can continue
to pump out that grunt/ogre army you're working so hard on. 



Next, you have to keep the build order in mind. You must be quick and efficient with this
order. A note, If you start with some of the structures, then don't worry about duplicative
building, focus on your assault. Where a "+" appears build both at the same time. *
Keystrokes in parenthesis. *



•Town Hall ( B, H) •Farm (B, F) •Peon + Farm (P, B, F) * Have this peon build a total of
5 farms * •Peon + Barracks (P, B, B) •Peon + Smith (P, B, S) •Peon + Barracks (P, B, B)
•Manage your peons. Send 3 of the intial peons to harvest lumber, and send the others to
mine gold. You can increase those harvesting lumber later. •Crank out Grunts. Defend
your town and send one or two exploring to find your opponent. •Once you're reached
about 10 peons, with a few on lumber, go for the stonghold upgrade. •While you're
waiting for the stonghold, upgrade at the smith. You should get Ogres by level3 or level4.
•After the stonghold finishes construction build a peon and have him build an Ogre
mound. •Churn out Ogres at alarming rates. You may wish to construct a 3rd barracks,
but make sure you can support it. 

Note1: Be sure that you're multi-tasking with your peons. You need to have several peons
doing several things at once.. Many players lose a lot of games because they're not able to
do more than one thing productively at a time.

Note2: When attacking the opponents peon line, town or men be sure to hit P ( for patrol
) and then click on the peon, building or troop. This tells your units to attack any enemy
units that come by during the attack - freeing you and slaughtering your opponent.

So, how do you beat the strategy? Early in the game a "wall-in" tends to work fairly well.
If you're faster than your opponent then just go man for man, but be sure to take down his
peon line with your attacks while defending your town.

Barracks
Barracks first is fast, but costly.

The strategy behind barracks first is that you get grunts to your opponents town before
they have a defense. This means that you build a barracks and a farm early in the game
and then crank out grunts to send a massive welcoming party to the other town. There
are a couple of problems with this strategy.

You must find your opponent early. If you fail to find your opponent within about 2
minutes of game play, a good player will have a good wall-in going and a grunt waiting. 
This means that to get the strategy of barracks first to work early you have to get to your
opponents town before they've really even begun serious structure development.

A wall-in means death. If your opponent can actually do the 3 man wall-in then your
grunt rush is history. They've got defensive posturing and a peon army working on level
5 upgrades. In the meantime you're stuck building a town hall with enough gold for 2
peons. It's not a pretty picture and this is why most grunt rushes lose.

You can be out rushed. Let's assume you play a decent opponent. They may decide to
just encourage you to change your strategy by finding you first and wiping out your
barracks. Most people send their guys in groups, but good players will recond with
multiple guys on this strategy - your opponent will be very likely to have fewer guys, so it
really doesn't matter if you just find them with one. Once you've found them you send
the horde. This is exceptionally painful when you wipe out your opponent only peons
and then go to work on their barracks. The peons MUST go first, since this is a lock. 
Your opponent will cry and ask for a re-match, I assure you. :)

You lose any mid-game advantage.

Grunts cost gold, 150% as much as a peon. That means for every 2 grunts you could
have 3 peons. This means that an early rush of 6 grunts is the equivelant of 6 peons and 2
grunts for your opponent. Those six peons are building structures and acquiring
resources though. This means that if your opponent is able to play defensively at all they
should hold off the initial onslaught. Once the initial onslaught is over your game is
over. You're behind resources and peons. That means your opponent get to ogres first
and educates you in true destructive power.

It is a one-sided strategy at best.

There are no tricks to a grunt rush. It's not like you can suddenly surprise your opponent
in the middle of a grunt rush and win the game with some other hidden strategy. This is a
very transparent strategy and it's all or nothing. If you lose that initial attack then you've
essentially forfeit the game. You may as well surrender and call for a rematch quickly,
because your opponent has every advantage required in the game at that point. 
Essentially the only surprise that you can give your opponent is an immediate surrender
after you fail to beat down their peons.

I like to scout very early, as I've indicated above. Sometimes I run into something that
surprises me quite a bit. I have found opponents that will start a high resources game by
building 3 or 4 barracks very early in the game. I don't see this being of much use early
and in all honesty think that it's only a way to ask that you get stomped into the ground.
I've seen very few people be able to handle such a situation well, and I've only seen that
happen when they run 3 barracks. Below is my argument for only biting what you can
chew.

No one really allocates the right resources to the barracks. Most people think that they
can get by running 3 barracks with like 6 barracks on gold and 3 on lumber. This just
won't cut it. That might run a town in the early game, but it will never be enough to crank
out troops, upgrade and build structures. Let's assume that each barracks requires 4 peons
on gold and 2 on lumber, a quite realistically under-rated assessment. Let's also assume
that to run a town you need a minimum of 4 peons on gold and 2 on lumber. This means
that for 1 barracks you would need 8 peons on gold and 4 on lumber, for 2 barracks you
would need 12 peons on gold and 6 on lumber, for 3 barracks you would need about 16
peons on gold and 8 on lumber. 24 peons is a lot, more than the standard 10-15 you see
running around the standard town. Certainly more than you'll see when you hit a town
that has three barracks early in the game. Let's also consider the farms in the equation.
Your base town would have to have 2 farms, and you're looking at an additional 1.5
farms per barracks. This means that for 3 barracks you're looking at a total of 7 farms.
That's just for the peons base - you'd need 2 more farms to be able to crank out 9 grunts.
Most people don't have and don't plan on having this many farms when they lay down
multiple barracks.

Very few people seem to consider the huge time trade-off this start requires. You're
spending a lot of your initial resources on barracks and supportive elements and using
your peons to run and support the barracks. You're letting your opponent spend their
money on upgrades and defensive posturing if they're not doing the same. This puts you
in a position of slight compromise, you're hoping to get an early game advantage by
sacrificing some of your ability at mid-game development. All I have to say is good luck,
the early game is really short, and a group of Ogres can lay waste to a swarm of Grunts.

In truth such a strategy is not much quicker.There are a few reasons that this is true.
Perhaps most important is the fact that most people aren't able to run the three barracks
the whole time, meaning that they're stalling troop development instead of seeing
production the entire time. Also, a good defensive structure can often shut down a 9 grunt
rush, which means that the defender gets the upper hand once the offensive is over.
Something else to keep in mind is that most players spend all their effort catching up
structurally and cranking out troops, which often means they ignore of fall behind in
upgrades, which is a huge no-no. Perhaps even more devestating than falling behind in
upgrades is falling behind in the race to Ogres. If your opponent gets to Ogres first, you'd
better hope you have some at your base, or you're soon going to be needing them there.

Ultimately I don't think it's necessary to go so heavy on barracks in the early game. Ogres
will crush you, it's simple fact. Sometimes I get grunt rushed, but by the time they make it
through my grunts I'm throwing some Ogres out, and then it's over and I hand them the
kleenex they're going to need in about 2 minutes. You also get to a slow start and have to
watch your opponent get the upgrades more quickly than you do. That is never something
that anyone should be comfortable with.

More tips
Make another unit before you move. It seems simple, and I've spent a long time trying to
figure out which is the better way to go about it. It's best to command your barracks or
hall to create another unit before moving the one that just came out for a few reasons. It's
an issue of time, ultimately. Waiting a split second for a unit to get gold or lumber isn't
much compared to what it takes to make a unit. It takes a while to get gold and lumber,
but it doesn't take long to make a unit. The time you save by building a unit before
moving may be the difference between having 5 or 6 peons/grunts early in the game.
Also, bodies are good. The fact that you could get 100 lumber or gold a little quicker
does little when you consider how much extra you could have by doing the other method.
Kicking units out faster means that in the long run you're going to see more production
from each of those units. No, one unit won't make a huge difference, but 10 or more will.

Maximize space. I see a lot of people cram their town into a small amount of space, not
taking the time to spread their town out in the space that they have available to them.
This will hurt you in the late game. If your peons can't traffic well or you don't have time
to build the things like a farm or an ogre mound later in the game then you're in some
pretty bad shape. Be sure that you explore your initial area if you don't know it and that
you leave yourself room for future development. This means that you leave yourself
room for any structure that you might leave in the late game. Don't count on getting a
second hall or anything - use what you're given, it's the only thing you can be sure that
you'll have in the later game.

Build intelligently when you do build. I mention that you should limit the entrance to
your town as much as possible without blocking it. This is something that I still stand by,
it's a pain to get around if you're on the offensive against a town built correctly. Also,
don't spread your town out so much you compromise early development, this will be
damaging later in the game. It's hard to balance the trade-off between spreading out and
not cramming yourself, but it's something you must learn to do to play the game
effectively. You should build early structures well and in a quick fashion - I recommend
building farms in this order and in this fashion:

4 2
3 1 

And so forth. That let's that peons build quickly, efficiently and doesn't take up much
space. It's important to not keep your peons wandering around looking for a spot to build
a farm. Dedicate an area and use that spot for farms. :) This kind of building is important
for other structures, build them by each other so that you can build quickly and defend
your town well.

Send your first and second grunts to scout. I build fairly quickly and get my initial grunts
out very early. Most people would leave these grunts to defend, but I often wonder what
they're defending against... The early game is about finding your opponent, not about
beating them. Send your early grunts scouting to find your opponent. This means you
send them in different directions also, which some people don't do. Once you get a grunt
to your opponents base, scout it out. Then your opponent is worried. Your opponent is
stuck thinking, they've found me, I need to get a defense going. Then you send the second
grunt there, increasing your opponents fears. I've actually nearly killed opponents with
these 2 grunts alone - so it's very useful to scout out your opponent early. Some may say
that this is bad strategy, but it is only bad strategy against a barracks first start - and then
it lets you know what your opponent is doing. Yes, it has drawbacks, but I think they're
severely limited in comparison to the bonuses it offers.

Never quit building or scouting for your opponent. In the late game don't stop searching
the land or upgrading and building structures. Even if you think you've got your opponent
on the ropes, don't lull yourself into a defenseless state. This is the worst thing you can
do. Of course it's entirely likely that your opponent is building a second town, no one
likes to lose. Never lose sight of your objective - to dominate the game. It is therefore
important that you keep the upper hand once you get it. Even if it means sending one
grunt out to charter the known the world, set him to work.

Consider a second hall. Many people complain about the distance from the hall to the
mine early in the game when it's set to default units. Stop whining and start building.
Throw up a second hall and get to work cranking out peons. If you half the distance you
double your ability to acquire gold, something not too shabby early in the game. I used to
think that you could make up with this with more peons, but I realized that the extra gold
and lumber to make the farms and the peons is nearly as much as the second hall. This
also allows you to be a little faster than your opponent at resource acquisition, something
no one ever complains about.

Don't be afraid to switch game plans. I talk elsewhere about the importance of developing
a game plan early and how those early decisions are critical to the game. Sometimes an
ability to change your mind is also key to winning. If you plan a grunt rush and your
opponent entirely walls themself in with some defensive towers early in the game then
you're in a bad situation. Throw down three alchemists and get to work churning out
sappers. Leave your grunts for defense and put them outside your opponents town to
choke them. Don't let yourself get so stuck on a strategy that you exclude your only
option for winning. Always be ready and willing to alter your gameplan. Much like the
best quarterbacks in football are improvisers, the best players in warcraft are adaptive
improvisers. The ability to adjust is the ability to ensure that you are capable of winning a
game.

Don't wall yourself in. I've seen players who like to wall their entire town in with farms.
They throw a couple of barracks on the outskirts, 2 rows of farms behing the barracks
and some towers behind the farms. This does protect your peon line and makes it very
hard to make it to the structure of your town, but it only ensures that you deserve to lose
the game. You don't have a way for a peon to get out anywhere. If you run out of space in
your town you have to hack your way through the trees to get anywhere, and this is
something your opponent will prevent if they know what they're doing. You also have
lost the game in a very bad fashion if your opponent succeeds in taking down your
barracks. Once your barracks are gone you've lost the ability to create units and have also
lost the only defense you had aside from towers against your farms. This is a tempting
strategy early, and it seems to dominate some groups of players, 

but I feel it is easily beat.

Watch your resources. Sometimes I play with people and they say things like "I have
10k" to me. I wonder what these players are doing. Some argue that they're waiting for
mages and such, but I don't get it. Your peons still mine then - it's not like they take a
break when you get to mages and stop mining. Don't let your money sit around for any
reason. If you have more than 3k to spare, you deserve to lose the game. Spend it on
anything, farms if you must, but spend it. If you've got 10k and I've got 3k that's 7k of
stuff that I've already got that you're going to have to wait to get. It's just not smart
strategy to stockpile money for any reason. If you're worried about money for later, throw
a couple of farms up and kick out 8 more peons for gold - you'll never have to worry
about gold again. It's simple, it's tidy and it assures that you're not sacrificing anything to
your opponent. I love to be broke, if I'm not then I'm working hard to get there. Warcraft
is not a game to see who still has the most gold in the end - it's a game of opporunity.
Half of the opportunity is represented in gold and half in lumber. Spend what you get or
you may as well have just sat idle for a minute while I worked up a frenzied army.

Speed tips
I play and speak to a lot of people who like to watch their units attack their opponent.
This is something that amuses me. I don't understand how people who don't give the
game 100% of their effort and attention expect to win consistently againt people who do
devote their entire effort to a win.

Multi-tasking isn't only for windows.

If you're attacking my town you shouldn't be drooling while you watch some units kill
others. You've seen it all before. Get to work! That's what I'm doing while you're there.
Click on your town on the mini-map and get to work again. Your units got there and are
going to war, that's all you wanted them to do. Now get to work on the next attack or the
support force. There's no reason to not be doing this. Always be doing this. Once you've
clicking on your barracks and got some guys going and done any necessary upgrades, you
can click the mini-map again and watch for a second or two. Never quit working, or
victory won't be yours to be had.

Don't forget patrol.

When you're attacking, like I say everywhere, hit P and then attack. This lets your units
go on "auto-pilot." This allows you to leave your attack force and head back to your town
without any worry whatsoever. People often ask me how it is that I can get as many units
as I do. It's very simple. My barracks are never not building. They're constantly cranking
out one unit or another. If you're not doing the same then you will be overwhelmed by my
desire to win.

Use the mini-map.

It's there for something other than to show you what's going on. If you click on the
mini-map the display will center where you clicked. If you want to move around the map
quickly, don't realy on the map scrolling, click on the map. It's easy, simply and accurate.
Remember, everything you do that's lazy or "easier" is something that I can work a little
harder at to get an advantage. The best players are those who've learned to best use the
software and the most efficient at doing so. 

Reason’s I lose
The more peons you have the more resources you can get. The more resources you have
the more of an offensive/defensive force you can create. When you attack, you should
always try for the peon line, so it makes sense that you would want the most peons you
can possibly get - after all, worst case scenario is that your peons end up defending
themselves. Another important element that people tend to ignore is trafficing. It's
incredibly important that you manage your peons well and make them as efficient as
possible. This means that you build no structures in the path that you peons beat to the
gold mine and it means you havest the trees nearest to you early in the game. If thiere is
lumber making your peons walk extra distance from the hall to the mine - get it out of
there! You should strive to have the most peons in the game. There is no negative effect
to lots of peons, and the positive effects abound. Stop whining about losing and start
cranking out the real winners - peons! You will see a definate improvement.

The balance between offense and defense.

This is perhaps the most difficult element of the game. I've been working on this for
quite some time and am still playing with this. This is what most strategy revolves
around and it's import that you find your own way to balance these two. I used to play
very defensively with towers and such and have recently shited my game to a much more
offensive type of game. I feel that this was a good thing, thought I don't think I could
have made this change beneficial to my game if I had done it sooner. You must learn the
game before you can change it, so experiment with this constantly. If you find yourself
losing frequently, keep a pen and paper nearby and write why you think you lost each
time. Eventually you'll be able to pick out some flaws that dominate the page. Focus on
these and adjust the game play accordingly. It's hard to specifically target flaws since I
can't see your game, but I can tell you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with
changed your game to try something new. I encourage it and it's something I often do.

Don't forget Patrol.

It really ircks me to realize that my guys are just standing there taking a solid whooping
without doing more than uttering, "we're under attack." Remember that when you're
moving troops, attacking units or attacking a building you should hit "P" and then click
on the appropriate unit. This makes your units attack anything that moves, including
peons, enemies that pop out of buildings and sappers. It's a nice luxury to be able to
knock down a town while working on building up your own, and patrol is the command
that allows you to do this. If you doubt this, try playing a game with patrol and then play
a game without using patrol. You'll see an obvious difference, and you'll come to love
the command.

Recon, recon, recon.

Even better than knowing what you're doing offensively and defensively is knowing what
your opponent is doing in these areas. This is your best friend, fog on or fog off. You
should always attempt to know what your opponent is trying to do. This lets you avoid a
sapper attack, prepare for a dragon based offensive or watch the horde of ogres march to
your town. There is no excuse for poor recon other than that you really wanted to lose. 
Always do your best to make sure you know what is going on around you at all times. 
This allows you to structure your offensive well, notice weak spots and in general protect
yourself from any dangers. In every type of warcraft format it is imperative that you
understand the world you're playing on and the opponent is doing in these areas. This is
your best friend, fog on or fog off. You
should always attempt to know what your opponent is trying to do. This lets you avoid a
sapper attack, prepare for a dragon based offensive or watch the horde of ogres march to
your town. There is no excuse for poor recon other than that you really wanted to lose. 
Always do your best to make sure you know what is going on around you at all times. 
This allows you to structure your offensive well, notice weak spots and in general protect
yourself from any dangers. In every type of warcraft format it is imperative that you
understand the world you're playing on and the opponent you're facing. I have never
heard an argument against recon, and if you have one to make I'd love to hear it. 
Knowledge is more than power, it's the key to victory.

Don't waste money.

I see people who are trying to grunt rush build a lumbermill early in the game all the time
and I wonder what they're doing. Don't bother building a structure because you can do
so, build only the necessary structures for your offensive. If you begin to play with what
you need rather than everything that you are able to build you will find yourself with a lot
of extra money to upgrade and build troops with - something all of us wants. Always be
aware of what it is you are going to need and build those units, but don't build something
that you don't need/ aren't going to need soon. My early game is a minimum of structures
to get me ogres quickly, and they often end up trashing some towers and a lumber mill. I
ask myself why and can only deduce that people are buildings structures because they're
able to do so. That is not a reason to build a structure, it is a waste of gold and lumber. 
Avoid such thinking at all costs - even the ultimate cost, victory.

Go for upgrades if you can.

Level 5 guys are tremendous. They simply devestate anything lower levelled than they
are. If you've got the cash and lumber laying around, upgrade your troops. It's definately
worth it. Early upgrades cost less than a troop, effectively, yet make your troops worth
more than an extra unit would. There's no sense in cranking out as many guys as you can
and not upgrading them. This is suicide. You will lose, and you will be ashamed when
you do. Along these lines, if you have spare money build the structures that allow you to
upgrade your troops and get to work on upgrading. I'm not saying buid a Lumbermill and
go for upgrades on archers if you're not going for any, I am saying build a smith or an
ogre mound and spend the resources to pump your units up.

Work on speed.

I play people and frequently get to their town, kill some stuff and then get to watch them
attempt ot rebuild - while 2 or 3 peons just stand around! If you're losing games your
peons aren't working hard enough or simply aren't working at all. You need to be fast to
outpace and out do your opponent. That means you must know the hot keys and that you
must not leave peons to wander without being productive. You paid good money for
their labor and they're useless if you're not telling them to do something. You should
never leave a peon standing. If you're on an offensive, hit "-" a few times, get your peons
to work and then hit "+" a few times. Don't be afraid to do more than one thing at once,
if you are I won't be and I will beat you 9 games out of 10 because I was able to build
more than you. I often have multiple structures under construction and am running an
offensive attack. You should be too. Practice this. Using your mouse well is key,
leaning the hot keys is key, and even more imperative is that you never let anyone on
your side rest. They should all be working as hard as you are, or you'll soon find yourself
struggling.

Resources are necessity.

One of the worst loses I've ever had was a game where I was starved. My opponent didn't
ever bother attacking me, he just parked his forces right outside of my overly defensive
wall-in and watched as I bled my mine dry and then squirmed to get another. I was not
happy, and he had it easy. Several mines to himself and I had voluntarily restricted
myself to a limited area. Don't wait for your mine to run out before you go searching for
another. It's important that you maintain a resource flow and that you disrupt your
opponents. If possible, keep your opponent from a second mine, this assures you that if
the game goes into the late game stages you can get a stronger foothold and bleed your
opponent out. You also want to make sure that you can get your second, third and
additional mines. If you run out of resources you restrict your opportunity, this is the last
thing you want to do with the game. Your ultimate goal in the game is to tip the equal
opportunity scale that you start with at the beginning of the game to your favor - you
want to have the advantage at all times.

You just got beat.

Sometimes we just lose. I lose all the time. I don't mind losing, I quite enjoy it actually -
if my opponent can beat me then my opponent has something obvious to teach me. Be
sure that you walk away from an experience having learned something. Spot a weakness
in your style or in your opponents game and you will have improved your chances next
game. I've been beaten by players who have literally lost to me over 8 times in a row
after that. Losing doesn't mean anything, other than that you get to find out how to make
yourself a little better. 

More later game strategies
1) wall in -- probably the most important tactic in this game. if u can’t defend yourself, u
can’t win. place some towers around your village, especially the place where you think
your enemy will attack from, then build farms around your towers. so when the enemy
attacks, the enemy will attack the farms while the tower attacks them. but there are ways
to beat this wall in. such as  mage bomb, and catapult rush ( look at # 16 ). 

2) when attacking -- attack early, attack frequently, just like the computer. when the
computer attacks, it doesn’t bring that many units and usually you can survive those little
invasions. but it does that frequently and it disrupts you. you have to make more soldiers,
get more gold, farms, and repair damaged buildings. so just like computer, attack early &
frequently with less than 9 units. 




3) 9 ogre-magi invasion -- if you got at least 9 OMs, don’t hesitate. go attack with blood
lust on everyone. but be careful. 9 OMs invasion won’t be successful if your enemy has
mages. the mages can blizzard you, polymorph you, slow you and flame shield you. if
one of your OMs got flame shielded, isolate him because the flame can damage other
OMs. 
About BLOOD LUST: 
A Bloodlusted unit has both its Basic Damage and its Piercing Damage doubled for the
duration of the spell, which makes the unit extremely effective against even the most
heavily armored foe. The bonus from weapon upgrades is also doubled. 
For example, in a battle between an upgraded Paladin and an upgraded Ogre-Magi, both
units will do 4-8 points of damage to each other. 
Normal Ogre VS Normal Knight 

(8 Basic Damage - 4 Enemy's Armor) + 4 Piercing Damage = 8 Max Damage 
Level 8 Ogre-Magi VS Level 8 Paladin 
(8 Basic Damage - ( 4+2+2) Enemy's Armor) + ( 4+2+2) Piercing Damage = 8 Max
Damage 
If the Ogre-Magi is Bloodlusted, however, it will do 
( ( 8x2 ) Basic Damage - 8 Enemy's Armor) + ( 8x2 ) Piercing Damage = 24 Max
Damage!!! 
This is triple the amount that the Ogre-Mage was doing before! Even if a Human Mage
casts Slow on the Ogre-Mage, halving its attacks, it will still do 50% more damage than
the Paladin does. 

4) invisible mage with blizzard -- this is also called mage bomb. everyone should know
what I mean by that. invis the mage, take him close to a group of enemy units, blizzard
them, get in the blizzard, while the enemy units attack u the blizzard will wipe them out.
of course, u will have to sacrifice the mage. but it’s a good trade. this is 9 blood lusted
OMs' worst nightmare. 


(5) death knight coastal defense -- when the enemy vessels attack your shipyard, bring 2
death knights close, but not too close, to the shipyard. unholy armor a DK, and with him,
death and decay the ships. battleships will have the range to attack you, but you got the
unholy armor! watch’em toast at the coast! 

6) cannon towers and catapults at the coast -- guard your coast mostly with catapults.
although they have no armor, they got great power, and they load up faster than the
cannon tower. cannon towers can only damage up to 50, but level 3 cata can damage up
to 110! it's the 2nd highest: a fully upgraded Battleship can damage up to140 HP! if u got
lots of cata, imagine what they can do! also build some cannon towers because they can
see subs and ain’t nobody can take’em down with ease. c-towers got 160 HP and 20
armor, compare that to catas who have 110 HP and “0” armor. and NEVER place archers
on the coast. archers are crap against ships. 1 shot from fully upgraded battleship can
wipe out more than 3 archers! and remember, ships got lots of armor: fully upgraded
battleship has 25 armors, that's more than what all buildings have ( 20 armors ). 


7) hit and run with Whirl Wind -- haste a DK, bring him close to enemy’s town hall, cast
2 WW at the space between the gold mine and town hall. then take him back to your
base. you wanna do this very quickly. ALWAYS USE HOT KEYS WHEN CASTING
SPELLS. if there r towers near townhall, unholy armor the DK. the WW will destroy
those poor peasants. repeat this lots of times. it will frustrate the enemy. 


8) anti air defense -- my favorite anti air defense, just make lots of archers and some
guard towers around your village. dragons r flies against archers, and the towers can
survive for a great amount of time. if u r orc, research regeneration as fast as u can.  it'll
help your berserkers to stay healthy.  if u have DKs, death coil the dragons.  death coil is
the dragons' worst nightmare!  only 2 death coils can get rid of 1 dragon!  if u have
mages, cast polymorph or slow on them. 



9) healing VS blood lust -- many people say BL is the best spell because of that awesome
power u get from it. I agree but I like healing better. Hey, with healing, u can heal any
organic units at any time! after a small battle u can heal wounded soldiers and make them
fresh for the next battle! Orcs can’t do that! but they have regeneration, which only
enables the berserkers to self heal to full energy. For rangers instead of regeneration, they
have marksmanship which gives them 3 more damage. 

10) fire balls VS death coil -- fire balls have the greatest range, range of 15! it is also
powerful. 1 fire ball shot bounces about 5-6 times, causing damages to many. use them
on peons, and skeletons, and other weak units. it is very weird though, sometimes it
damages up to like 70 HP but sometimes only 20 HP. also use this when u see the enemy
marching to your town. cast fire balls on them and make them weaker to fight. death coil
has OK range but the best thing about it is that it sucks up the energy. the DKs will suck
up the energies of the enemy units. and it also can suck up more than one unit's energy.
let’s say a DK has 50/60 HP, if he uses death coil, he can get back to 60/60! but the HP
won’t go up more than 60. it is very useful when u use it after that DK was unholy
armored. because unholy armor takes away 50% of HP. also use it on a critter and get 5
HP. 



11) runes & exorcism -- runes r very good if u use it wisely. when u see the enemy
marching to your town, cast runes on the place where the enemy will step on. this is very
effective. a level 8 OM can die if it steps on 2 runes! each runes can damage up to 50 HP.
u can also cast it on water! Another devious use of Runes involves using an Ogre Magi
and a Death knight together. The Ogre-Magi casts Runes on the ground between the
Death Knight and some enemy troops, then the Death Knight casts Death and Decay on
the enemy units. The troops will rush the Death Knight, and run right into the Runes.
Obviously, the more Ogre-Mages you have available to saturate the ground with Runes,
the more effective this tactic is. exorcism is useless unless your enemy has DKs. it is very
good against DK sneak attack and the skeletons. 1 exorcism can take out a DK, and many
skeletons. 



12) starting w/ 1 peon -- if u start w/ 1 peon, then worry about upgrades later. focus on
walling in, making grunts, and farms. then when you feel like u have enough soldiers to
defend against early land strikes, start upgrading. and while upgrading, scout the map
with the flying machines. then the rest is yours. 


13) air strike -- when attacking w/ dragons, send them with less then 3 in one group.
because of their bouncy weapons, your dragons can damage each other. since the dragons
are very slow, avoid attacking destroyers, archers and guard towers. use them to attack
buildings, battle ships and others who can’t attack air units. if u r orc, always cast haste
and blood lust on dragons when attacking. 



14) naval strike -- don’t build a shipyard, unless u have goblin alchemist. because the first
thing u wanna do after building a shipyard is to make turtles. if u have only 1 enemy,
make about 2-4 turtles and strike the enemy shipyard. by that time if the enemy doesn’t
have any units that can’t detect turtles, the sea is yours. if they do, then don’t retreat
because if u retreat, they’ll follow u and destroy your shipyard. strike early and surprise
the enemy. 

15) demo squad -- the purpose of making them is this: to destroy buildings or destroy a
large group of units or in some cases destroy rocks. the explosion can damage up to 400
HP so it will be smart to use them on a large group of units. it can demolish all units that
suround it ( look at the picture below): even level 8 OMs. don't try to use them to destroy
towers. it's not worth it. also the demos will die before even they get to the towers. use
catas to destroy the towers. don't get demos near enemy's catas. 1 shot from a cata can
kill a demo. bring the demos after u have sent the attackers to enemy's town. use them to
destroy big buildings such as barracks 800 HP, shipyards 1100 HP and town halls 1200
HP ( keep 1400 HP, castle 1600 HP ). 

 the explosion                            the deaths.... 


16) catapult rush -- i don't think many of u experts will agree with me on this, but i think
sending a group of catapults to enemy's town to wipe out towers, farms and all sorts of
buildings is actually a great idea. i know that catas r crap against strong land units such as
ogres, but if u have like 9 fully upgraded catas, those land units will be toasted even
before they get to the catas. of course u wanna use catapult rush early in the game.
Even more basic strategies
Rule Three:UPGRADE UPGRADE UPGRADE!!!!! level 4 footmen can wipe out level
one ogres like nobody's bussiness--and that's REALLY embarrassing for the your enemy.
However, don't make the mistake of using so much of your money to upgrade that you
only have a few troops. A good example of this is upgrading ballista/catapult for the
second time before you have a keep. This is totally ridiculous as you have spent 4,000
gold on a unit that you use very rarely when you could have upgraded your town
hall/great hall to a keep and then make a stable and a few knights. However, I rarely
upgrade my archers for the very simple reason that I use them less than I use knights or
footmen. Thus, I never felt the need to upgrade my archers until I see somebody using
dragons--but by then I would have plenty of deathknights/mages to take them down and
would only get the archers to free up my magic users for more important tasks. 

Rule 4:Don't be afraid to build more than one building. I've noticed that many newbies
seem to follow some instinctive rule that they only need one blacksmith,lumber mill,
stable, and even shipyards. YOU DON'T. If you have the money, build a lumber mill
whenever you see that your peons have started to take longer routes to get to the trees,
build multiple blackmiths so that you can upgrade your units faster, use one shipyard(or
refinery)to ship oil and 2-3 more to build a fleet. Even though this takes a lot of money,
don't be afraid to do this(if you have the gold, that is)this way, it will take longer for your
enemy to destroy your city and you will be able to upgrade your units faster. 


GETTING STARTED
In this strategy I refer to the Orc's buildings and soldiers, but the same goes for everything
if you are playing with the humans.

I have found that if you are playing with the Orcs, when your opponent suddenly sees a
monster coming towards him it gives him more of scare than to see a human. I know it
sounds silly, but it's true.

The key to beating your opponent is to keep training peons. Peons are the key to a
successful game. You must train 15 to 20 peons if you want to dominate the game. If you
have 15 peons you should take 9 or 10 of them to mine for gold, and leave the other 5 or
6 peons to chop down trees. The same goes for 20 or even 50 peons - send the majority to
the mines and leave the rest for chopping trees. But you must be careful. Make sure you
do not chop down any trees that might be acting as walls for your city, Trees and rocks
are the best walls. Also should check every once in a while to make sure your gold mine
still has gold in it. If you run out of gold the game is over! 

If you choose to play defensively then it is basically a matter of who attacks first. 

OFFENSE IS THE KEY
No matter what anybody tells you, the way to play is offensively. What I mean is from
the beginning send grunts and axethrowers to attack the enemy's city. Once they kill them
off send some more... The point of this is that your opponent will most likely not be
ready for an attack just moments after you begin. Chances are, especially if they are
beginners or just haven't gotten the hang of the game, they are going to try to build up
their army and make all of their upgrades and come in one giant attack. If you start
attacking them immediately while they are still building and upgrading they will not have
any troops left to attack you with. 

GOLD MINES 
Gold mines determine the outcome of the game, therefore, at all times you should have at
least 3 to 4 ogres, or 5 to 7 grunts guarding them. 

As I mentioned earlier have 9 to 10 peons working the gold mines and that way you can
train lots of soldiers. While you are busy attacking your opponent your peons have
gathered enough money so you can train another batch of soldiers. Once your opponent's
gold mines are gone he will surely attempt to take over yours. You must do everything
you can to stop him. Without his gold mine it is only a matter of time before he can't
build anything, Then all you have to do is to kill off the remainder of his troops. 

If you are playing against the computer, then when his mine blows up he will keep
sending peons over to your mine. What I do is I take ogres and completely surround the
mine on all four sides. That way when the peons come they are killed and the computer
eventually runs out of money. 

DEFENSE
If you are playing with three or more people the best way to play is defensively.
However, if it is a one-on-one game, it is the worst thing to do. 

Building walls is a good idea. What I mean by building walls is that when I build farms I
always place them where that they act as walls for my city. This is an effective way to
keep your enemies out. But make sure you leave an opening so your men can get out.
Then I set up axemen along the backs of the farms and usually put up a cannon tower,
two ballistas, plus some grunts to protect the opening and make sure that the enemy
doesn't get in through it. I do not recommend putting up to many towers as they don't
reach that far. Apart from at the entrance I only put up a few guard towers in the middle
of my city just in case some griffin riders decide to show up. 

PLAYING THE WATER
The water is another very important key to the game. If you dominate the water it makes
it that much easier for you to take over the game. Juggernaughts, although very powerful,
are slow and take a long pause between shots. Therefore, I don't recommend you send a
juggernaught alone. You should send them in groups of 3 or more. 

Destroyers are pretty good because they are fast, but they don't do as much damage as a
juggernaught. Still they are good for attacking buildings and people on the land, and
unlike the juggernaught they can attack griffin riders. 

Turtles are great for spying. Although they don't have a lot of power they are perfect for
attacking your enemies at sea. Unless your enemy has a zeppelin, dragon, a tower next to
you, or a submarine he can not see you and so cannot attack you. Turtles are perfect for
attacking unsuspecting ships in the middle of the sea. 

One last important thing to remember is to always try to attack and destroy enemy
transports while at sea or ashore. Once they reach your city they drop off a few
unexpected guests! 

BUILDINGS 
The order in which I usually build is this: greathall, lumbermill, barracks, blacksmith,
barracks or shipyard, foundry, upgrade to stronghold, ogre mound, alchemist, temple of
the damned, oil refinery, alter of storms. Eventually I add another one or two barracks. I
don't suggest building a dragon roost because dragons are so expensive and they kill your
men as well as the enemies.

MAGIC
The eye of kilrogg by the ogre-mages is a good thing to use when there is a certain part of
the map that you must see. Although the holy vision from a human paladin is better in my
opinion because then the enemy doesn't know that you can see them. 
Also blood lust is a good idea when you are preparing an attack, just like unholy armor
performed by the deathnights. 
Another good spell by the deathnights is whirlwind. This is very effective if placed in the
middle of the enemy's city prior to an attack because it drains their power and scatters
them all over the place. Just remember not to attack until the whirlwind is extinct,
because it will hurt your men the same as theirs. 
The only thing that I don't like about the Orcs is that their magic is not as good as the
humans, but I still favor playing with the Orcs. 

NOT TO DO'S
First of all like I said earlier do not send dragons along with other troops because they
will kill your men too. The only time you attack with dragons is if you just want to annoy
your opponent and kill some men. 

Do not chop trees that act as walls because they are one of the most effective defenses
there is. 

Do not build lots of towers. They are a waste of money and they do not reach very far. 

Do not leave mines unguarded. They are the key to a successful game. 

Do not send more then one goblin sapper at a time to the same building because the first
one to blow up will kill the other goblin sappers before they have a chance to blow up.
Also, do not send sappers anywhere near your own troops because they will blow them
up as well. 

Last but most importantly DO NOT GIVE UP. You can come back from virtually any
game. All you need is a peasant. If the enemy is slaughtering you then hide a couple
peasants and start to build up a city.

TIPS AND TRICKS 
One of the tricks I mentioned before is to surround your gold mine when the computer's
blows up. 

Another trick I learned is that if their is an enemy tower that is not surrounded by anyone,
take a catapult and slowly move towards it until you reach it. The tower will not spot you
because towers can not reach as far as catapults. 

When attacking buildings an axethrower will destroy them faster then grunts or ogres,
and death knights will destroy them even faster yet. Don't ask me why, they just do. 

If you have more than one city and one of your cities is being demolished, abandon it and
send a whirlwind to it. There is no use dying for nothing so you might as well hurt the
enemy too. 

When I want to send some sappers to blow up a few buildings I usually send a few
archers and footmen to attack the enemies city. While they are busy dealing with them I
send some sappers from the opposite direction. They won't know what hit them. 

Also if you want to raid the enemy's city send half of your troops to one side and the
other half from the opposite side. That way they will see the first group and send all of
their men to them. Then you send your other group from the opposite side and you will
have them trapped. 

One last tip - when you destroy your opponent's city make sure you kill all of his
peasants. They are like roaches. If leave one or two their entire population will grow
back. So be very thorough and double check to make sure NONE of them are hiding
anywhere. 
Humans
There are several reasons why one might wish to be the pitiful "hoo-manns," for one
thing, human wizards are a lot better than their orcish counterparts (death knights)mainly
for the reason that wizards can't be exorcised. Also, invisibility is such a kick-ass spell if
you know how to use it--you can virtualy waltze into you're enemy town with a paladin
and wipe out death knights like there's no tomorrow. Another great use for invisibility is
to cast it on your peasant if your town is overrun and sneak him out of there--to rebuild
another while your enemy is busy laughing in you're face!!! But most importantly,
invisibility combined with mage-bombing is a truely frightening sight for the enemy. 

As you can see, the only thing going for the humans is their spell--other than that, they
are pretty much the same thing as ogres(though their elvish rangers are much better than
troll beserkers). 
Orc’s
The Orc’s are my favorite group.  With there bludlusted Ogres it is nearly impossible to
destroy ‘em.  Their magic is nowhere near as good as the humans, but is stil decent. 
Intead of being a group that only mines gold(The humans have to pay for very little in
lumber) you have to mix it up a bit and provide both gold and lumber for these creatures. 
Suprisingly, if seen an Orc mayscare an oppennent more than a human(prolly because of
their looks).  While being the orc’s you must watch out for the humans magic, espeically
their invisibility, also putting a blizard on your town is quite threatining.  You must use
bludlust while playing as the orcs.  It helps out a whole bunch.  The only spell other than
bludlust that does anything is when you apply .  The orc’s are a better team when you
start off, and I reccommend using them.  Try upgrading quick and attacking heavily when
you get bludlust.  Make the first thing you destroy the wizards or you will get hurt.
Orc Units
Peons -- It's a waste of time to try and fight using these, despite the fact that they can do it
now. You'll still need a lot of these, though, as the more of these you have, the faster you
can collect resources.
Grunts -- The backbone of your forces, at least early on. They're decent fighters, and
swarms of them are hard to stop.
Axe Throwers -- Hey! I thought trolls were stronger than orcs! Well, not here anyway.
They're not quite as useful as spearmen in the first game, but they're still a decent unit.
Useful for hitting flying units.

Berserkers -- Yeah, that's more like it. These guys are tougher than normal axe throwers.
Regeneration is especially useful, allowing them to heal, which most orc units have
trouble doing.
Ogres -- Much cooler looking that the Raiders of yore. These are fast, strong and tough.
As soon as possible, switch to them instead of footmen.
Ogre Mage -- Pretty much the same as ogres. Bloodlust is a good spell, in that it increases
a unit's attack power. Eye of Orgg is great as a small expendable scout. Runes are useful
for guarding a town, or casting between an enemy's town hall and gold mine.
Death Knights -- Not as strong to attack as their name would indicate. Their spells
closely imitate human spells, except for death coil and raise dead. Death coil allows you
to dran an enemy unit's life if he gets too close, and raise dead allows you to build up
legions of skeletal warriors. Skeletons are much stronger this time.
Tankers -- The same as the human version. They can build platforms and haul oil, but
that's about it. The more you have, the more you can haul.
Destroyers -- Once again, the same as the human version. Good at raiding coastlines, as
well as picking off weaker sea units. They can also attack air units, which is something
some other units can't do.
Transports -- With these, you can swiftly transport your units to glory across distant
oceans. Yeah, sure. Anyway, each cna hold six units.
Juggernauts -- Big, mean and ugly. Pound for pound, these are the match of any land or
sea unit except the Battleship.
Goblin Zepplin -- Good for scouting. If you have fog of war off, then these can be used to
reveal sections of the map quickly. Also good for finding subs.
Dragons -- Awesome flying weapons. Good against knights, footmen or anything else
that can't fight back. When fighting in groups with these, make sure they don't kill each
other.
Building orders:
Some general notes on creating your own build orders.

I've had many people ask me if I though hall/farm or farm/hall was faster. Now, let's
think about this for a minute. Let's assign the time it takes to build a hall the value X. To
keep the idea, the time to build a farm will be assigned Y. One must also move the peon
from the first structure to the second, so the walk time shall be given the value Z. As such
the build time for the two starts in question can be represented as:

Hall/Farm -- X+Y+Z=result.

Farm/Hall-- X+Y+Z=same result.

See something a bit redundant? That's right, they're identical. You don't get a second
peon or anything faster one way over the other. Remember, your town arrangement is
going to be the same either way you choose to do this build order, so it's the same time
value for each of the variables above. Don't trick yourself into looking places where there
isn't an advantage to be gained. Think about it first.

Remember efficiency. Many of the people with whom I speak about build orders need
essentially three simple pointers. This game really isn't about who can get what first as
much as it is about who can get what and keep it going first. So, the three thoughts on a
build order:

Build for later expansion. When you're arranging your town, try to arrange it so that you
have easy access to another mine (or two if possible). Don't restrict your town so much
that you have a hard time moving out when the mid to late game necessitates this
transition. Lately I've been sprawling myself across large portions of the map, centering
my offensive capabilities between the mines and setting myself up early for the defensive
necessary to keep myself in the game later. Not only does this net a second mine rather
easily, but it also provides enough room that you can space things out. That means you
have tons of room for buildings and that sappers and DK's become much less of a hassle.

Know your layout. One of the most common things that forces me to compromise my
game and the I see others struggling with (or at times encourage to struggle with) is an
inability to cope with the available space in relation to the gold mine and the structures
needed. I'll often see a player follow the tree line - a serious mistake. Take for example
the lower right spot of the Garden of War board. Many people will limit their buildings to
the arch of the tree line at the top of the spot. This is a bad idea, that limits you to a very,
very small amount of space. Try expanding up, around and out. There's no reason to limit
yourself to what is immediatly available. Doing so crams you later and makes a
nightmare for peon/building management. Given this, know how you want your town to
be laid out and follow that plan early. Spend the time building your all acessing what is
available to be used on your end. Then do the best you can with the spot you have. Don't
fret and cram yourself, you'll make the game a nightmare in doing so.

Be as fast as possible given the above. Sometimes you'll have to compromise or adjust to
win the game given the opponent you've chosen. Other times you'll have to walk a peon
quite a ways to build your first barracks or your third farm. Maybe your lumber mill is
best put a long ways from your hall to cut through some trees with ease. Always consider
the alternative. Often, the long walk to build the structure is worth the wait. After all, if
you build your barracks far from you hall, your offensive units never, ever should have to
travel the distance your peons just did. Given the number of offensives you should launch
throughout the game, this is a huge benefit. So, remember your limitations, remember the
benefits, and set yourself up as best as possible as fast as possible.

So, on with the build orders. If these seem a bit confusing, remember, they're just the
basic shell and you will have to take them and make them your own. If you're having a
hard time figuring out how they're presented, try reading the disclaimer in the
introduction.

 


Grunt Rush
1. Town Hall, Farm, Barracks, Gold.
2. Farm, Farm, Farm, Farm, Lumber.
3. Smith, Gold.
4. Barracks, Gold.
5. Gold.
6. Gold.
7. Gold.
8. Gold.
9. Gold.
10. Lumber.
11. Lumber.
12. Lumber.
13. Barracks.
This should suffice. There a few variatiosn in which a person builds a second smith early
to upgrade quickly. You may also want to build a lumber mill early instead of upgrades
to make the trasition to lust a bit qiuckly. If you're fast enough at building you should be
able to utilize the third barracks a bit sooner.
Ogre Rush
1. Town Hall, Farm, Barracks, Gold.
2. Farm, Farm, Farm, Farm, Lumber.
3. Smith, Gold.
4. Gold.
5. Gold.
6. Gold.
7. Gold.
8. Gold.
9. Gold.
10. Lumber.
11. Lumber.
12. Lumber.
After hitting 12 peons you'll want to upgrade to a Stronghold and throw up your second
barracks. Your grunts should be level 3 by the time it's done upgrading to the stronghold.
You will probably want to build a farm at this time also. Once your hall is upgraded, start
a 13th peon and immediately peel a peon from lumber to build the Ogre Mound for you.
After this, keep up on farms, consider a third barracks and start upgrading you Ogres and
cranking them out.
Bludlust Rush
A very successful strategy that you'll eventually see online is one that focuses not on early
offense, or any offense really, until bloodlust is obtained. If you see an opponent who
walls in early, doesn't upgrade their troops quickly and seems to not be doing much
offensively, get a clue, and get one quick. You're already behind if you've not punched
through the wall-in and gotten to their peon line. And if you have and the game isn't over
yet, then you'd better be fast on your way to bloodlust on your own.

The essentials of this strategy are interesting.
Offense is minimal early. This strategy generally only runs one barracks early (though
some do get two going in the early game in reaction to an opponent). The problem with
attempting an offense in the early game with this strategy is that it costs gold, lots of it.
You have to build extra structures, towers and play fast to get this going right. As such, 6
grunts is a costly investment. As such, scout, and scout well. But keep a defensive force
early and not an offensive force.

Don't overextend. Many players will get greedy and spread themselves a bit too thin early
in the game reaching for a second mine. In doing so, they trade off time and resources,
allowing their opponent an early and detrimental offensive advantage. If you take a
second mine (which you should) take the closest mine and the most easily accessible. If
you have to throw you lumber mill next to some trees and hack through them, do so.
Remember, you have plenty of time on a 60k mine to work your way to bloodlust. You
can usually hit lust on a 30k mine if you play your cards right (Don't tell those at Case's
this or you'll be branded a cheater).

Gold. Gold. Gold. This strategy is very dependent on early resources to get the structures
necessary for bloodlust and to get the support for several barracks pushing out a
nightmarish horde of ogres. This is why I advocate the you center your barracks and try to
narrow the entrance or wallin the area for two mines. This allows you an easier late
game, easy early game expansion and provides lots of gold. It's not hard to do, and most
opponents will be lazy enough to let you do this. It's also rather confusing if done well,
your opponent really won't know where to centralize their attacks and will come to waste
a large portion of their offensive against your meager defenses. The most important
element of this strategy is more resources. If your opponent does the same, do it better.
More ogres. More barracks. More Death Knights. All require more resources.

 

How to beat it.

Lust back. If you are using the same strategy in the early game and find your opponent
doing this, or if you're not overly commited to an alternate strategy, then turn to the lust
game yourself. Just play it better than your opponent. As I said before, more barracks,
more ogres, more DKs. Maybe a dragon or two for the peon line. A sapper or two to bust
through the trees and get a few ogres on the inside (where their ogres shouldn't be). Sit by
your opponent with a group of ogres and then lust up. Your opponent will defensively
lust. Then wait a few seconds and start a second lusting of all of your units. Your
opponent probably won't catch what's going on for a minute, then attack. Your ogres will
stay lusted and his should run out.

Don't be offensive. This is where I lose the majority of my games against this strategy. I
spent too much time trying to break through and too little time trying to make sure that I
can keep up later in the game. This strategy is a mid-game/late-game speed focused game
in which you're left in the dust (perhaps pounded into the dust is better) if you don't keep
up. If you don't break through early in the game, don't bother. My recommendation, take
more mines. Get more gold. Play the strategy better. Your opponent has given you no
offensive challenge in the early game so make them suffer for that. Such an opportunity
is rare in this game. If your opponent gives that to you then give the same to them.

Lock out. In a team game this is my favorite strategy against this game play. Simply
prevent your opponent from getting more gold. It's not that hard. Withstand the offense
(when it does come) minimalize the success of barracks (sappres and death knights tend
to remove them quickly) and then, when your opponent makes their final desperation run
for a gold mine shut them off. This should be an easy tactic; remember, your opponent
isn't looking for offense in the early game and will easily let you take another gold mine.
Once you've done that you've ensured your advantage. Just scout well and then exploit
the one true weakness of every strategy, it needs resources.

The build order


1. Town Hall, Farm, Barracks, Gold.
2. Farm, Farm, Farm, Farm, Lumber.
3. Smith, Lumber Mill, Lumber.
4. Gold.
5. Gold.
6. Gold.
7. Gold.
8. Gold.
9. Gold.
10. Gold.
11. Lumber.
12. Lumber.


You'll want to make a defensive posture early and may want to consider a tower or two
early. Upgrade to a stronghold at the same time as you would an Ogre rush. You may
wish to not upgrade your troops early in the game and leave them at level 1. This lets you
get lust a bit quicker and a lusted ogre that's level one is still a frightening site. Besides,
level 3 Ogres lusting each other is a funny, funny sight. Building extra barracks is
something that you do in response to your opponent, be sure to scout and stay aware. This
is really a strategy in which you must react well early, because you're weak until you get
rolling.
Dragon Rush
1. Town Hall, Farm, Barracks, Gold.
2. Farm, Farm, Farm, Farm, Lumber.
3. Smith, Lumber Mill, Lumber.
4. Gold.
5. Gold.
6. Gold.
7. Gold.
8. Gold.
9. Gold.
10. Gold.
11. Lumber.
12. Lumber.


Some people like to go with a heavy tower defensive to allow the structures to be built
quickly without much hassle. I say go with the barracks (maybe two) and then keep you
opponent busy with an early rush of grunts and a short rush of Ogres. Then keep your
defenses up and surprise your opponent with a burst of about 6 dragons or so. I
recommend building 3 dragon roosts. Something that I've found important about this
strategy. Abandon the dragons. Once you send out 6 or so, go heavy, heavy Ogres and
rush. Your opponent will throw up a few towers and crank out a few axe throwers
normally. This puts them a bit low on resources and very, very low on defense in the
short term for a ground attack. This is a game in which you hope your opponent
"over-corrects" for you strategy, not one in which you hope to beat your opponent with
the dragons.



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