Keys to Winning
These are the keys to winning Warcraft II, when playing against human opponents. For the sake of simplicity, I will be using the human versions of units (Footman instead of Grunt.) This is not prejudicial. This is just so I don't have to type too much. Nuff said.
The number 1 thing to do is, BUILD MORE PEASANTS. No one ever builds enough peasants. NEVER! This is always what seperates the good players from the crappy players. The good players will have 12+ peasants on their gold mine in the first 20 minutes. The crappy ones stay with 10-. You can never have too many. Keep building peasants, and keep building farms to keep up with them. In 99.5% of the games I have played, whoever has mined the most gold, has won. Almost every time. You have to have a good amount of resources before you can do anything. BUILD MORE PEASANTS!!!!!
If you're playing high resources on a land level, this is the reason you don't upgrade to keep right away...you get shorted out on peasants real quick. Wait until you have an acceptable amount of peasants, and then upgrade.
If an attack kills some of your peasants, but you are able to fend it off, rebuild your peasants! If you don't, you're playing right into your enemy's hands. Don't let those attacks effect you in the long run. There was a reason you had that many peasants in the first place. So get back there ASAP.
OFFENSE KEEPS THE OTHER GUY ON DEFENSE. If you're playing a 1 on 1 or a game with teams, play an offensive game. Try to be the first to attack. If you just sit back on your ass, letting your forces build up, chances are you are going to get smoked, if you're playing someone good. Don't be that guy. You're just asking for a devastating attack. If you play defensively you will get smoked.
If you're playing a 3 or 4 player Free-for-all, disregard my last statement. This is why I don't like 3-4 player FFA's. Because, in this case, the defensive player will probably win. It is in your best interests to just let your forces build up and let the others duke it out. Then you take your big force and sweep up what's left.
Keep the pressure on. Don't give your enemy time to rebuild. Show no mercy. If you're invading and winning, you still should be building units. Keep sending them to the enemy's base. You're not playing to be a nice guy. Go ahead and go for the jugular.
Learn to play water. It's a part of the game too. If you're not good at water, don't keep other people from picking it...you may get creamed but at least you'll learn from your mistakes. When you learn to play it right I think water levels are a lot more fun than land levels. There's more strategy involved....And you may not get creamed. One of the first water games I played was against Chrism, who wanted to see how good I was (Chrism is one of the best water players on Kali) and I actually beat him! So don't underestimate yourself.
Along those lines, never shy away from playing good players. If you know someone is good, don't keep from playing them just because you might lose. But don't pester them either (we good players hate that). Offer a game and then, if you want to improve, ask them for a critique. Maybe get them to give you a couple of pointers, if they know what you're doing wrong. It's amazing how a few minor changes in your style can drastically improve your play. So if you want to learn, learn from the best.
Also, if you are a good player, try not to play newbies TOO much. And if you do, don't slack. Be careful if you play a lot of newbies, as you can develop a lot of bad habits, and will get creamed when you play a good player. But don't keep from playing newbies altogether. It can be theraputic to, every so often, just wallop the living shit out of someone. :)
Use your excess resources: if you have 10K+ of gold in the bank then you're not playing efficiently. Likewise with lumber. If you have this happening to you then you need to build more barracks. Or more shipyards, if it's a water scenario and you have excess oil too. Don't build more barracks than you need, but build enough to constantly pump out the guys and use all your resources.
Your first priority should be to keep your gold supply coming in. Expand to another gold mine when the one you're on is between 20,000 and 10,000, if possible. Try and mine two mines at the same time; 10 peasants each on 2 mines mines more than 20 peasants on 1 mine (this is due to backlog you get when you have too many peasants on 1 mine). You get gold a lot faster that way, and can support more barracks. On the downside, however, 2 mines are harder to defend then 1.
Along those lines, defend all your mines. If you have a load of peasants with nothing to keep a group of 3 or 4 knights coming in and killing them all, you're just being dumb. Defend your peasants over defending your buildings; your buildings will last a lot longer under an attack. And if the enemy attacks your buildings, then move your units. If you have 30 knights you should not lose any peasants due to conventional attacks (there is no defense to an invis. mage attack).
Take out the enemy's gold supply. No, I don't mean blow up the gold mine, either. That is definately not worth it. But when attacking, especially if you know you can't rout the enemy's defenses, go right for the area between their town hall and their gold mine (the place I refer to as the "Peasant Line"). Don't try to attack individual peasants; instead, just park your butt right in between the two, slaughtering the peasants as they walk by. This will cripple your opponent's gold supply. Then, once you have the peasants taken care of, concentrate on the other things.
If you have Blizzard or Death and Decay, do the same as the tip above, but just cast the spell right in between the town hall and the gold mine. Remember, the blizzard doesn't hurt the mage that cast it. If the mage's magic is full it will kill All the peasants that are mining gold at that mine. And it's without the inconvenience of losing all those units by doing it the other way.
If you're humans, cast invisibility on your mage, and pull the above trick, if there could be a problem getting to the opponent's mine. If you're orc, use unhloy armor (this doesn't work as well as invis, but it helps). This is possibly the most devistating attack in the game. USE IT!
Keep your enemy from expanding. If neither are you are getting anywhere with attacking, it's going back and forth or whatever, the easiest way to win is to starve your opponent out. This means, on sea levels, gain sea superoirity and prevent them from getting any shipyards, or alternatively, use destroyers to kill all transports as they come out. If you're expanding and your enemy's not, and the game is otherwise even, you're going to win.
If you're playing a team game, communicate with your partner. Tell them everything. Especially if you know you can trust them. (And don't stab your partner in the back. That's very bad form). Co-ordinate your attacks and try to gang up on someone.
This means informing them when you discover something new...if the enemy is mining another mine, and you find out, tell your partner. It can't hurt your strategy.
However, don't place typing over playing. Instead, send a message when you otherwise would be just staring around.
Know what your enemy is doing. Use holy vision and flying machines. Try and keep them watching the enemy's every movement. If they're mining another gold mine you need to know, so you know where to attack. Many games have been lost due to poor recon.
Build more than 1 flying machine. A lot of people think they can get by with 1 but that really doesn't do much at all. I usually build about 5, and my recon isn't the best.
Also, remember, flying machines spot subs. If your enemy is building subs then park a flying machine over all your groups of ships.
Upgrade your units and ships at the blacksmith and foundry. This is something a surprising amount of people don't do. I see people build level 1 Knights. Level 1 knights are WEAKER (but admittedly faster) than level 5 footmen. If I have level 5 units and the enemy has level 1 then I know I am going to win; i don't care about numbers. Level 5 units mow through level 1 units. Upgrade! It's worth it.
If you see your enemy has a higher level than you than it's inadvisable to attack, unless you have a huge numbers advantage.
There isn't much point to upgrading your archers....especially for me, as I don't build archers, unless my enemy is building gryphons. If you build a lot of archers then upgrade, but otherwise don't bother.
Use magic. Learn to use magic well. Magic is a very powerful tool, but you have to know how to use it. It's hard to get to work right but very powerful.
Don't research spells unless you think you'll need them, even if you have excess gold. I usually don't bother to research a lot of my spells; in fact I usually go (as humans) for blizzard, invisibility, and slow (polymorph if the enemy's building gryphons). Don't research just for the sake of science. It's a waste.
Your mages are the most powerful units in the game, but they need protection. Don't let three knights come in and kill 8 mages. I have killed a mage with 2 peasants! Don't let all that destructive power go to waste.
Know your map. Know the starting colors of your map. And know where the gold mines are. Know if you're on an island, or if you're landlocked. Knowing is not half the battle. It is at least 7/8. If you know more, you win. End of Story.
With the new patch (1.2), knowing the colors of your map isn't as important, and a higher emphasis is placed on recon. But still it helps when communicating with your teammates where you are; "I'm in red's old position." So you should still learn where the starting colors are..though it isn't absolutely necessary anymore.
More specifically
How to beat Defensive players:
One of the prevailing strategies on Kali is the "Wall yourself in" strategy.....it was designed to ward off early grunt attacks and does it very well. But it is easily beatable:
First, prevent your enemy from expanding. The biggest disadvantage of even a good wall-in is that it's nearly impossible to expand from. Set up units at all the gold mines, and set up camp just outside of his range. Harass him to keep him worried, maybe, (demo squads work best for this) and expand yourself. If he is able to attack then set up your own defense, but DON'T LET HIM EXPAND!
With that accomplished, go for mages. Go right for mages, and get blizzard as fast as possible. Once you have a respectable number of mages, attack. Send your units to back them up, in case he sallies forth and attacks your mages, but just blizzard the hell out of everything in sight. Take out all of his units. And the blizzards will rock all world against even the best defense....this is where you take out crazy numbers of enemy units, like 30, with 1 blizzard. Just hit it on them and watch them DIE. Magebombs are the way to go.
Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT just send your footmen against a wall-in defense, or even just a very good defense. This is just what your opponent wants. That's what the defensive strategy was designed for...just be patient and wait till you can capitalize on the defense's weakness. It's worth it.
How to beat the early grunt attack:
Note: by "Early Grunt Attack" I do NOT mean barracks first. Barracks first is a piece of shit strategy to which there pretty much is no defense...if you want to pull barracks first on me then fine, you take me out that game, but I won't concede the win to you....as Tou says, "Barracks first is a loophole, not a strategy." So anyway..................
There is now what is known as the "seven grunt attack," or sometimes, the "four grunt attack," prevailing on Kali. This works basically on Medium resources on land levels, but I'm not going to share them with you cause I hate them, and don't really know them that well. Basically, though, these are strategies for early grunt attacks. There are numerous ways, however, to defend against them:
Play water. I know this isn't a defense against the strategy but it's a good solution, for the long-term. There are no cheap strategies, really, for water...there are good strategies and fast strategies, but no cheap strategies. So that is one solution...
Become the defensive player....if you can wall yourself in than do so...it's difficult sometimes to get the wall up quick enough but it's worth it. If the early grunt rush comes and you've walled in right, complete with towers and a couplea archers, then the attack will fizzle. Then I would get out of the defensive posture ASAP and play like you normally would...these rush strategies slow your opponent down in the long run, if they don't win right away, and you can often capitalize right away. Since I don't like playing defensively, I would scrap that strategy as soon as you can.
If you can, counterattack. Try and save your units from the fray on defense; you should have towers for that purpose, in a good wall-in. If you can defend against the grunt rush you can send your leftover units in for the attack, and take out enemy peasants. Congrats, you've just won a game.
How to play water:
Water is a no-man's land for many players, but it doesn't have to be. A lot of people can't play water and thus refuse to....but all should learn. It's not cool to be a landlubber.
Basically, there are about 3 ways to play water: The Normal strategy, The Early Footman Attack, and what I call the "Jumpstart" Strategy. Note that all of these strategies are for medium resources; that is the standard sea setting. I almost always play my sea levels on medium.
Playing it straight is easy; I usually build a shipyard when I have 4 or so farms, and go straight for a battleship. Build a barracks and get your oil going, and build another battleship, and by then you should be well on your way. My regular building pattern for this goes (Town Hall) --> (Farm) --> (Lumber Mill) --> (Farm) --> (Farm) --> (Farm) --> (Shipyard) --> (Foundry) --> (Farms as needed) --> (Barracks) --> And so forth.
The early footman attack is trickier...basically you get a barracks very early, even before your lumber mill. And put all your resources into getting a transport, while still making footmen. You'll probably get attacked on the sea before you finish with this, but they won't be able to take out all your sea capabilities before you can get a transport. Don't build anything having to do with oil...you start with enough oil for a transport (2, even). I don't know the exact building structure but don't know if it would help anyway :)
The "Jumpstart" is a risky strategy I picked up from NaTe; it is the quickest way, I believe, to get a battleship on the seas. Here's what you do: Build your town hall, 1st farm, and lumber mill as always. Then build your second farm right away. Then, before you build any more farms, build a shipyard. Progress from there as you normally would, building peasants and farms as needed, but build a foundry as soon as you can, and get a battleship before you build an oil tanker. The key to doing this correctly is to get lumber....you have enough gold, just put more than you normally would chopping trees. If you do this one right it works great, though in the long run you grow slower than your opponent. I have won 1 on 3's using this, in the first half hour of the game. If you do it wrong, however, it can be disastrous....you have to take out all opposing sea power with that first battleship as it takes a long time to get a 2nd using this strategy.
Now that the new patch is out, the early footman and jumpstart strategies are a lot less effective, as you don't know where to attack. So I would just play it straight.
I don't know much about water on low or high resources, because I rarely play on anything but medium, just because medium is just about right for sea.
How to come back:
One of my number 1 rules in warcraft II is, never give up. I learned this after coming back to win a five player free-for-all after being knocked down to only 1 Peasant with 4 Hitpoints! This is harder to do on 1 on 1 games, but it is doable in 3-8 player free for alls...coming back from nothing is hard, but not impossible.
In this spirit, if you attack someone, try to take them all the way out. Don't go halfway, as they can come back later and bite you on the ass...take them completely out of the picture. That way you don't have to worry about them pulling any of this.
Here is a cool strategy I picked up off of one of Shlonglor's war2 stories: if you're playing in a game where someone had dropped or quit, then build your town along with theirs, killing all their peasants (If they had any left) and then Attacking your own buildings until they are on fire. You do this because, when a building is on fire, it's hard to tell what color they are. If you take out the dead person's burning building and replace it with your own, it will be difficult for them to notice that it's yours...it's a last-ditch sort of thing but I actually used it once, and was able to come back to the point where I was a force to be reckoned with...this isn't the most practical strategies but it is SOO cool!
If your shipyard has been taken out, and there are enemy battleships parked outside of your home, don't be in such a rush to rebuild it....if you start building it the enemy will take it out right away. Now you've just lost all the gold and lumber of a shipyard, and a peasant to boot. Instead, once you've been landlocked, I like to go for mages. A lot of people do the gryphon thing but I think mages work better...they keep ships the hell away from your island, so you can rebuild. If you're on high seas, then you can foundry over to another island to get more gold, or bust through the rocks with demo squads, and then you can rebuild. In any case, don't be in a huge hurry...instead, build up your land forces and fight against any land attacks....because once you've lost at sea they are sure to come. Just be patient, and draw it out as long as you can, until you get your mages working, and are blizzarding everything in sight.
Don't ever give up. You'd be surprised what you can do when your opponent has crappy recon. If you can hide a town, or have a secret gold mine working for you, then you can come back from virtually any situation, especially when playing games with 3+ players.
