How to win prolonged games
Let me dispel a rumor that is floating around Kali, and that I see on Kchat every freaking time I join and all the people who don't know better treat me like some sort of King. I am NOT the god of war2. I am not the KING of winning at war2 ... I am not just being modest here ... I only win slightly more than half the time when playing good players. There was a time when maybe only 4 or 5 players could consistently beat me; that time has passed. I am neither a king nor a god, I am just pretty good. I put together a decent strategies page, and I am pretty good at helping newbies out through it, but I am nowhere close to the best players on Kali. So please stop treating me like you're afraid to play me, like I'm too good or something. I am pretty good ... and can give most people a run for their money, but I am not an awesome player anymore.
Now you're thinking, "Shaf's just showing false modesty." I am not. I fully admit that I am a good player, but I am not a dominant player. And there is one quick reason for this: I am not as fast as the best players on Kali. I still haven't practiced pumping out the grunts and am not able to do so with much efficency. I suppose I could learn, if someone took the time to teach me, or if I took the time to learn, but I really don't have that kind of time. I'm carrying 18 credits. :( School is keeping me fairly busy, and between homework, running up a huge phone bill talking to my g/f, hanging around in my dorm room watching Clerks with 25 or so people crammed into a prison cell (well, maybe not quite that many:) --- er --- I mean, dorm room --- doing my laundry, and trying to figure out the PISSY e-mail system at Michigan Tech, I don't have time to perfect my skills as a war2 player.
The reason for all this is simple: I am slow. I can't keep up with the best of the best. In games between good players (like between good IWL players) speed is everything. If one player is just a little faster, the faster player is going to win. I just can't keep up. So my basic skills, while they used to be as good as anyone's, have not improved with everyone else's. I've been left in the dust. However, in issues not dealing with speed, I have not lost any of my skill. So I figured I'd do a page on my strong points.
You see, my strength lies in how I handle games once they've passed the point where speed matters. I rarely lose prolonged games. And since some people have the opposite problem; those who never see knights or ogres don't always know what do do with them, I thought I'd make a page having to do with how to fully wipe out an enemy that has built up. This is my strength. So for this page, I will assume you have survived the first part of a game successfully, and (probably) have been able to expand and hold a second mine.
The reason I am doing this, specifically, is because I see a lot of people, once they get past the early stages of a game, only win for reasons unfathomable to them; they win half and lose half, but don't have any idea why. Sometimes they are able to starve their enemy out, sometimes the enemy just gets bored of making units, sometimes the enemy tries to do something goofy, and sometimes their enemy leaves their computer to go off and eat lunch; in any case, they don't follow any specefic plan in order to get to this point. They just win or lose.
This has always been what my strength has been: winning, and knowing exactly why I have won, is ultra-important. And so I will share this with whoever has been willing to sit through this droning of mine, or whoever is smart enough to skip past this B.S. :)
Basically, there are two ways to win prolonged games, as I see it. I know, there are probably more, but there are only two that I am going to discuss right now:
The first way is the direct way --- the Orc way --- and the second way --- the Human way --- is the starve-your-opponent-out method of winning. Both work equally well, although they are better for their respective races.
Way 1: The direct way (aka the Orc way)
This is the simplest way, and a way of killing someone very suited to the orcs. The way you do this is simple: destroy your opponent's ability to produce units. Kill all barracks. Kill any barracks trying to go up, and kill anything that doesn't move. Kill town halls, and then go for peasants and start the clean-up. This only really works if you have dominating units; in order to take out buildings, you have to have dominance. Yes, I am talking about Bloodlust. This is why this is the orc strategy. When orcs play against humans, the orcs must use bloodlust in order to take out the human's ability to make mages -- and other units as well.
Symptoms of being beaten directly include having lots of gold in the bank, but no way to spend it; also, feverishly setting up 5 barracks at different times only to have them be torn down while being built. You have no way to spend your gold, and from there your opponent goes into a clean up job, seeking and destroying every little new base you try to put up.
This is one way to win a game directly: take out your opponent's offensive units, and then buildings. It works well in combination with units like sappers and demo squads, and death knights and mages. See especially, my page on magebombs to see a really good way to take troops out directly. Magebombs and deathknightbombs are great for this method of winning. Once you take about 8 enemies for the cost of one mage, send in your units and sweep through them, then go straight for barracks. This works great --- once you've gained this "land superiority" you have all but won, as long as you remain with good recon.
Way 2: The starve-out-your-enemy way (aka the Human way)
This way is a bit more complex than the previous method, but it is the only way to go if you are playing as humans against an enemy that plays as orcs. Humans have it very rough when competing against the orcs on a direct basis, because of bloodlust. Yes, I know the rest of my strategy pages contest that bloodlust is beatable, even in a direct method, but realistically bloodlust is a huge advantage. Unless you've mastered exactly how to use your mages, and I mean to their FULL potential, I would not recommend trying the direct way, as humans, when playing against an orc. It just doesn't work the way you'd normally want it to, and in order to take out an enemy that uses bloodlust correctly, you would have to outmine them by like 2X. That is not a realistic situation, when playing against a good player. Instead, you have to try and starve your enemy out.
The reason why I call this the human way is because the humans are SO well-suited for this. I'm talking about invisibility. This is the ultimate starve-your-enemy-out spell. Cast this on a mage, and then blizzard the peons. Cycle, rinse, repeat. Just don't let them mine any gold.
Symptoms of being beaten by this method include having about six barracks but no gold. If you're mining long-distance in order to get enough money to build a town hall, I'd say you've been starved out. Someone has either taken out all your peasants, or taken out your expansion halls, and you thus have no way of getting any gold.
This, as I said before, is the more indirect method of winning a game. It's harder to tell how you're doing (you can't see how much gold is in your enemy's bank) and it is a pretty ballsy technique not to go directly for the unit-producing buildings. But, if you're playing against bloodlust especially, it can become your only option. And if you know how to pull it off, especially with invisibility, there is really no defense against it outside of early prevention. Wall-ins don't stop mages, and nothing can stop invisibility. The only way to defend against this is to take out the mage towers early, or just do the same thing to your opponent. Or, you just build enough gold and units up that you have a big enough force to win regardless of whether or not you have any peasants on gold.
The most useful application for this method is in taking out expansions. In any game (with some exceptions, especially on Garden of Towers) you're often hard-pressed to take out your enemy's ability to mining ability at their original mine. Especially since later in the game, the original mine is probably drained, and it is later in the game where these strategies are applicable. Hit any expansions hard and then weather the storm of units that will probably follow, and you will win.
This is the way to win with humans. Against a good player, you can't compete with bloodlust on even terms, unless you use slow up the bunghole. This is not easy, and is more useful for once you've already taken out the gold supply, or before you are able to, and is more of a survival spell. Bloodlust is a dominance spell, and while slow can't totally compare, with invisibility I just can't resist going to mages. Bloodlust is such a repetitive spell. Bloodlust is such a repetitive spell. Bloodlust is such a repetitive spell. You get the idea? :) I have so much more fun with humans :). To some people, winning is more important than fun. Not me. Nothing beats sending an invisible mage in and blizzarding all the enemy peasants. I feel so powerful every time I do that. It's such a great feeling. Or sending invisible paladins in and killing all enemy deathknights. Or casting slow on all the enemy ogres and attacking, while they feverishly and futily try to bloodlust each other. I love tearing down enemy buildings and knowing that you've totally starved your opponent out. Mages just rule. It's so much fun to take the complicated way out, especially when it works just as well, if not better, than the direct way.
