Warcraft 3 strategy and hints discussion

Cafe Society
1

So I’m a little behind the times. I know there’s a World of Warcraft out but I just bought Warcraft 3 the other day and I’m getting my feet wet playing it. It’s the very first of the Warcraft series I’ve played and, I don’t know if it’s because of that or because I downright suck at it but…I downright suck at it.

I’ll center this around the Player vs computer battle scenarios because any tips I can garner from that I can apply towards the storygame itself.

First, I think I have the whole building process down, though I do tend to spend money on frivilous upgrades that aren’t necessary. But my soldiers come out at a reasonable rate and I tend to get my Hero out fairly quickly in the game. But no matter how fast I develop, my level 1 Hero and three soldiers run in a level 3 Hero and 9 soldiers, get massacred, and then the game is over.
I’ve read discussions on here about the begining, midgame and endgame and I just shrug and say “I can’t survive past the beginning!” Am I doing something wrong? Can I lower the skill level of the computer a bit while I figure things out?

On the realm of fighting, well, this is where things really go wrong for me. I can’t seem to micromanage these guys. I grab a bunch of soldiers who are about to die and tell them to fall back. They start to comply, get hit by the enemy and suddenly they forget their orders. They’re back into the action and die horrible gruesome deaths because they’re too stupid to know better.
Likewise, let’s say I have long shooters or healers I want on the outside of the battle. I place them there to start with but they invariably run right into the middle thinking that’s the best place to fight. Again, horrible gruesome death.

Any way I play the result is the same: a dozen skeletons line the path to my village and my buildings crumble to the ground.
There has to be a better way that I’m just not getting.

2

First off Player V Computer is a bad way to play (to learn). The Skirmish AI is much better then the campaign AI. The campaign AI is far more scripted and predictable. I had beaten the game on hard a few times before I played my first Player V Comp and I was surprised how much more difficult the computer can be.

Another problem you seem to be having is knowing the difference between move command and move attack command. Basically if you just order someone to move they’ll move in that direction but stop if attacked. However if you right click they’ll move to that position ignoring all attacks. Another problem you might be having (if you’re correctly right clicking to withdraw) is once they reach the place you pulled them back to they’ll stop. Then if they see a comrade in battle they’ll return to battle to support them so make sure you’ll pulling back far enough. In battle you’ll want to focus on one enemy at a time. It’s much better to quickly kill the enemy then simply let your soldiers attack whomever they feel like you can beat a much larger force because the AI will spread its attacks out. Another good method when you get good at a little micromanagement is what you’re doing by withdrawing wounded men. After you pull them back far enough (using the move ignoring attacks right click) the AI will reacquire a new target close to it and you can send your man back into battle pretty much safe from attacks for awhile until someone else acquires him. He can deal damage the same no matter how close to death he’s become.

Ideally you’ll not want to move a distance then engage in combat or your units will all be jumbled with your front line mixed with your ranged. You’ll want to move to a position just short of where you are going and wait for the units to sort themselves (or do it manually) then attack.

In short play the campaign missions figure out how things work read the manual carefully to see how different commands work. I hope this helps.

3

Yeah, I’m learning to play this now too.

First thing I have learned: Set your game speed to slow. We’re learning, we need that extra time to think. Start a campaign, go to options, set the speed to slow, then save your game. I always save the very beginning so I don’t have to mess around with other screens and if I make a huge mistake within 3 minutes I generally start over.

Some of the things you mention can be fixed by the commands you issue. In a fallback mode, select your retreating troups and right-click on a safe spot on the mini-map to get them out of there. They should stop fighting and run. Don’t use the (A)ttack command to move them, as soon as they get hit they will stop to fight. If the right-click doesn’t work (for some reason), use the (M)ove command. You can also use a scroll of town portal to wink everyone back. The transport scrolls do come in handy, and are fairly cheap compared to re-building your army.

For your long-range attackers, I usually group them together (Ctrl-#), put them on the outskirts, and then hit ‘H’ for ‘Hold’. They will hold their positions, not moving from where they are, even if attacked. If they have ranged weapons, they will use them.

I break my fighting forces into useful sub-units. Grouping soldiers, spell casters, ranged attackers, tanks, etc. together. Then I use them as per their groupings strengths. Like tanks will sit back and I will fire all tanks at one section of battle so they don’t cause damage to my troops (a tank-type unit does ‘splash’ damage to an area, if your units are in that area, they get hurt too…took me awhile to learn that, I was killing my guys all the time).

Targetting all attacks on one unit at a time also works wonders. The logic being that 10 wounded units can still fight back and cause damage to you. But focusing on killing 1 unit will kill them faster, and they can’t do damage to you when they die. So you go 10, 9, 8, 7…and less damage will be dealt to your units as a result. I sometimes have a mini-group that I use to target single units while I let the others go beserk…it just adds some attention to, say, their Hero or biggest unit.

You need to get your Hero advanced ASAP, so go kill creeps to level them up. Then match your upgrades to your Hero’s strengths. If you have a Hero that has good melee skills (the dwarf and his Thunder Clap that affects units in an area), then focus on building your soldiers up (armor, weapons). But if your Hero has some good passive skills (like the mage and their Brilliance Aura that heals Mana quickly), then focus upgrades on your spell-casters, for example. And avoid stupid combinations: Maxing your Mage’s Blizzard skill and building a large melee force is dumb. Blizzard causes damge to all units in an area, so your Mage will start killing your own units.

I’ll stop for now and see what others have to say.

-Tcat

4

A sample build, IIRC, for night elves:

You start with four wisps. Put three on the mine and one on wood. Immediately set two more to building, and build a third one as soon as you can afford to.

WHen the third one comes out, have it go immediately to build a moonwell, and build a fourth wisp (sent to the trees). As soon as you have the money to do so, build an ancient of war; then as soon as you have the money to do so, build an altar (or whatever the hero-summoning building is). Build a couple more wisps to replace the lost ones.

As soon as the ancient is done, build an archer. As soon as the altar is done, build a hero–the demon hunter is great for this. Build another archer as soon as you can afford it.

In no time, you’ll have a hero and two units, good enough to go creeping with. Continue building moonwells and archers for awhile until you can afford to build the hunter’s hall; meanwhile, attack creeps very aggressively.

I find night elves by far the easiest in player-versus-computer battles, for some reason.

Daniel

5

The most important thing I ever learned for RTS games is that your resources should always be almost exhausted, and you should always be building guys in the early game. You can build other buildings (and should), but your first goal is to have your barracks never once stop churning out guys for any reason. Depending on your race, there are certain build orders that will help this happen. Google can probably help you find some build orders to experiment with (I’d offer my Orc build, but it’s been long enough that I can’t just remember it off the top of my head).

Also, don’t get too attached to strategies learned against a computer. If you ever play against people, they use very different strategies.

6

For withdrawing units, if you happen to be playing Night Elves, and you’re fighting at night (as a Night Elf, you should always try to hold your battles at night whenever possible), the “hide” command works much better, since it works instantly. While you’re fighting, keep your archer subgroup selected (they’re likely to get hurt much worse than your hero), and as soon as you see one getting to the low yellow or red hitpoints, click that one in your selection window and hit “i”. You’ll see her fade out, and whatever was attacking her will pick a new target. As soon as it does, hit “h” to tell her to hold position again, and she’ll resume shooting.

The bit about keeping your resources exhausted is generally good advice, but there are exceptions. Sometimes (depending on the map), it’s possible to get into a very good defensive position, where you can hold your base with only 40 food worth of troops. In this case, it can be a good idea to pump as much gold out of your mine while you can, so you won’t have to pay upkeep tax on it. After the mine is drained, then you can shoot up to 90 food without penalty, and attack with overwhelming force. If your opponent keeps attacking your solid defenses, your hero will level up without ever having to leave the base; if he lets up, then you go out creeping or skirmishing his secondary bases.

7

Just a quick little note that I haven’t seen mentioned yet that could make a huge difference in the game for you, have you learned how to create control groups? By left-click and dragging your mouse over units, you can select a large amount of them at once (you can also select all units of the same type in an area by holding down ctrl and left clicking a unit). Once they are selected, you can assign them to a “control group” by pressing ctrl+any number from 1 to 0.

Now all you have to do is quickly tap the number that you set for that group to re-select all those units. If you create a group for all your ranged units, and another for your melee units, you can rapidly switch between the group you want to control by just tapping the corresponding number.

8

There’s also nothing better than watching other people play. You can go to www.warcraftstrategy.com and download some replays. Once they’re downloaded, you toss the files into your replay folder, and then load the replay from the View Replay section.

I’ve learned many tips I would have never figured out, most importantly build order… which should get you up and running fast.

Great game, I’ve been playing since Reign of Chaos first hit the shelves and haven’t stopped.

9

Thanks all so far for the tips. Sorry I haven’t come back sooner but I don’t have internet access at work. Sigh.

I’ve tried looking across the web for some of this but gave up when the strategy guides were sprinkled with “ur a newb n this build order is best!”

I knew about creating large groups using the mouse drag button but not about controlling individual groups though separate commands. That could make a world of difference right there. Anything else you guys have, I’m all…er…eyes.

10

Sounds like you need some basics.

If you have a group of mixed units (hero and other units, for instance), you have one active subgroup (units all of the same type). You can switch which subgroup is active by hitting tab, or by clicking on an inactive unit. There are some commands common to all units, but any special abilities the subgroup has will be the ones shown in the commands window. For example: My main force typically consists of a Priestess of the Moon (night elf archer-type hero), a dryad, two Druids of the Talon, and eight Archers. When I select the group, the Priestess will be the active subgroup, and my available commands include “scout” (summons an owl that can fly around and scout for you) and “starfall” (rain of fire all around the Priestess which only damages enemy units). If I hit tab, then my dryad is the active subgroup, and I can use her “Abolish Magic” spell. If I hit tab again, then my two druids are the active subgroup, and I can cast “Cyclone”, or turn them into bird form. Tab again, and my eight archers are active, but they don’t have any spells.

All orders you can give your units have hotkeys. For instance, if I have one of my Druids of the Talon active and want to cast Cyclone on an enemy unit, I can just hit “c” and then click on the unit, rather than clicking the spell icon. This makes using special abilities much faster; any special abilities that you use regularly, you should learn the hotkey (usually it’s the first letter of the spell name). This also applies to abilities of buildings: If I select an Ancient of War (night elf barracks-type building) and hit “a”, it’ll start making an Archer.

You can target your own units in the selection window (the window in the bottom center, with all the mini-portraits). For instance, if you have a Paladin grouped with a bunch of Knights and Footmen, and you see that one of them is getting hurt, you just hit “t” (the hotkey for Holy Light) and click on the injured unit’s icon, and the Paladin will cast Holy Light on that unit and heal it.

Right-clicking in the main window means “Do something to that”. If you just right-click on a location, your units will move there. If you right-click on an enemy unit, that’s an attack order. If you have a zepplin (flying transport) selected and right-click on one of your units, it flies over and picks that unit up. If you have a worker selected and right-click on a building, it’ll go over and repair that building, etc. If you have a unit-producing building selected and right-click, that sets a rally point. Any newly-created units from that building will immediately act like they received the right-click command (usually, this just means moving them to wherever you clicked).

Some spells (those with a green border on the corners) can be set to auto-cast by right-clicking on the spell icon. When auto-cast is enabled, that unit will decide on its own when it’s a good time to use that spell. For instance, a priest with “heal” on auto-cast will cast it whenever there’s an injured friendly unit nearby, and a shaman with “bloodlust” on auto-cast will cast it automatically on any nearby unit that’s entering combat. The computer usually makes good choices on this, and it saves you a lot of trouble, so I recommend using auto-cast whereever available.

11

While looking for the replays, I found the beginner center at warcraftstrategy.com:

http://wc3.warcraftstrategy.com/resources/guide_index.asp

There you will find a 6 part beginners guides with breakdowns for each race…I learned tons reading it for 15 minutes.

-Tcat

12

I’m having trouble with a specific mission.

It’s the one where Thrall has run off to see the Oracle and you are controlling the Warsong clan at the lumber camp (which still exists in WoW! That’s so cool!) Then Cenarius shows up and levels your outlying bases. I can sometimes manage to survive the first wave and set up a perimeter, but when it comes time to go on the offense I get reamed.

13

I’m gonna respond to Sturmhauke without using spoilers. Be forewarned.

Surely you don’t mean that you managed to save your outlying bases, do you? I thought that was impossible, and so as soon as that mission begins, I grab all my troops fromt he outlying villages and run them toward my main base. I can usually save a couple of them before the outliers all die.

IIRC, there are three main places that attacks come from. The southern one has a great plateau overlooking it; build a few towers on that plateau and keep an orc handy to repair them. Build some more towers near the northern one, and have some troops patrolling between the two.

You’ll need a smaller force once you build your secondary base to the north, to defend up there.

One trick when defending your base on this map: bait the bad guys. That is, as soon as they appear, make sure they engage with your troops, and then withdraw to the protection of the towers. And again, make sure you’ve got a peon handy repairing the towers; you’ll probably want to micromanage the peon, retreating him if he starts to get attacked and then bringing him back.

Other than that, you may be waiting too long to build your secondary base; try doing it earlier in the game and seeing if that helps.

Daniel

14

Actually you need two tower positions on the main river crossings. Build 6+ towers at each point this will level nearly any wave that comes at you by itself. Towers are the key to any of my base defenses build enough and you can make your base nearly unassailable just keep enough units in reserve for catapult destruction.

Build the second stronghold ASAP (I do it even before the attack) to get the gold coming in. I keep my men below the 40 cap for quite some time. Don’t attack the elf bases instead take your troops north and get to the demon polluted waters that will turn your orcs into Chaos Orcs. At that point you can start leveling the elf bases. Chaos Orcs to full damage every attack so you don’t even have to bother with catapults and trolls anymore (well maybe a troll shaman to heal) a single group can clear an entire base on its own. While you’re attacking though Cen will show up. If you have enough men just kill him and end the mission. If you don’t though retreat and rebuild your attack group. You can then either wipe the elf bases out one at a time or go after Cen (his base is behind the elf bases).

15

That is one thing about W3 which sets it apart from most RTS games, the importance of defensive buildings. In most games, you’ll want to build a few, but you’re probably better off using units for defense. But in W3, they don’t use food, which is a critical resource. One can even (with Night Elves) build an army of Ancients which don’t cost you anything, though you’ll need some support with them to protect them against catapults and other ranged units (Ancients move too slowly to close with ranged units).

16

I think my problem was building too many troops too soon and losing gold to support. I did manage to get chaos orcs once, but when I went to attack Cenarius he beat the crap out of my forces, and I couldn’t recover fast enough to prevent my base from being overrun.