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- Warcraft 2 Strategy Guide
- January 1996
-
- * * * * * By Paul O'Keefe * * * * *
-
- * The Warcraft 2 Strategy Guide from Blizzard Entertainment should be out
- soon, and will probably be a lot better than this. This guide is
- not a product of Blizzard Entertainment. This guide is just a few
- strategies that helped me play the game.
-
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Contents:
-
- 1. Keeping a Defense
- 2. Planning an Offense
- 3. Using Spells
- 4. Building a Town
- 5. Keeping Troops Alive
- 6. Battles at Sea
- 7. Upgrading the Right Way
- 8. Cool Things to Do
- 9. Cheat Codes
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Introduction:
- Well, here I am with the Warcraft 2 manual, a bag of chips and a
- glass of soda. My lava lamp is making wierd bubbles, and I'm racking my
- brain to try to think of all of the strategies I have used in Warcraft 2.
- I mainly play as Humans, so I will be refering to the units as the Human
- version. Ex: a "knight" can also mean an ogre. Here goes!
-
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 1. Keeping a Defense
-
- A defense is perhaps the most vital thing in any war effort. With
- a good defense, you will have enough time to create a good offense.
- Depending on what mission you are on, you may know how to use different
- types of units. The most basic defense is a row of 4 or more knights, then
- at least 6 archers right behind them, in a single row. It is always good to
- have about 2 bastillas behind the archers. In this picture, the enemy comes
- from the top. If the enemy approaches from another side, rotate your defense
- accordingly. The bastillas ( or catapults ) in the back are huge helps.
- They will always fire at the first guy, and unless the enemy is very slow,
- the shots will miss. But the shots WILL hit the area right behind the
- attacker, killing anything there. Bastillas are also great at killing axe
- throwers and archers, and sometimes an enemy will retreat once he sees the
- bastillas.
-
- E
-
- E = enemy
- K = knight KKKK
- A = archer AAAAAA
- B = bastilla
- B B
-
-
- Once you get Churches, immedietely research paladins, and then the
- "heal" spell ( only humans have this spell). Use the heal spell to replenish
- your health after each attack, or during an attack if the need be. The heal
- spell will enable you to focus on building an offense, because you will not
- need to continuously build defenders.
- If you're playing as the nasty little Orcs, a defense is not as easy
- to maintain. If you're fast enough, the "bloodlust" spell will enable you
- to kill attackers rather quickly, but it is pretty hard to cast it on your
- defenders in time before the attackers get to your defensive line. The
- "rune" spell can be helpful. Place a line of runes about 6 squares before
- defensive line. Be careful not to overlap runes, as they will be wasted.
- A line like the one below will kill or seriously damage quite a few
- attackers before they get to your defensive line.
-
- 1 = 1st cast 1 3
- 2 = 2nd cast 11123334
- 3 = 3rd cast 12223444
- 4 = 4th cast 2 4
-
- If you are playing a level where dragons (or griffins) attack
- your town make sure you build archers, and a lot of them. The worst thing
- you can do in a dragon attack is to position your units on after another
- like in the left picture. Position your archers like the right picture.
-
- WRONG!! RIGHT
-
- A
- D = dragon AA A
- A = archer AAA D A
- AA A D
- A
- A
- A
-
- Can you see why? In the left picture, each time the dragon attacks,
- he damages at least 2 or 3 units, because the trail of fire continues beyond
- his target. In the right picture, the dragon only damages one unit per
- attack. Make the RIGHT choice. Ha, ha! Get it? RIGHT! :)
- Catapults are usually the only thing that would cause you to have
- your defensive line retreat. Catapults are slower than other units, so they
- probably get close after you have killed the other attackers. Depending on
- what I have, I will either send 2 bastillas, or 2 to 3 knights out to kill
- the catapult. Make sure that the knights don't go one after the other, or
- the 2nd or 3rd knight will get hit with the blast. If you send bastillas,
- make them "move" toward the catapult until the enemy fires. One of the
- bastillas will probably get slightly hurt. After the catapult fires, "stop"
- your units and they will automatically fire and get 2 dirct hits, most
- likely destroying the catapult. If for some reason you decide to send
- archers or some other unit with a ranged attack, move them up next to the
- catapult and the catapult will over-shoot them. Cool, huh?
- Build gryphons as soon as you can, and keep them a little after
- your defensive line. If you see a group of enemies with no axe-throwers,
- death knights, or dragons, send your gryphons over and you could get a few
- easy kills, since most land units can not attack units in the air.
- Make sure you explore your surroundings thoroughly, and build towers
- (I think guard towers are more useful) around points of attack. A few flying
- machines can set a perimeter around your base, and if the flying machines
- come under attack, it is easy to have them retreat.
- If you play without the "fog of war" build flying machines as soon
- as you can, and explore the whole map. You will definitely be able to spot
- attacks early on if you play this way.
- Is that it for defense? I guess so.
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 2. Planning an Offense
-
- Once you have an adequate defense set up, the time is right to get
- to work making an offense. Early on, all you will have is footmen and
- archers. In my opinion, archers are good at defense, but their attacks
- aren't powerful enough to make a good offense. Even with full upgrades,
- archers can't fire repeatedly at a good rate. There is a few second delay
- between shots, where enemies can get in a lot of hits. Because of this, I
- mainly focus on making land units such as knights, footmen, mages and
- dwarven demolition squads, and bastillas.
- Most enemy towns are protected by a couple of guard or cannon
- towers. Make sure you have two or three bastillas to take out towers. The
- range of a bastilla is only 1 more than a cannon tower, so make sure you
- don't positon units in front of the attacking bastilla, or the cannon tower
- will kill them. Upon first sight of of an enemy approaching you when you
- are attacking a tower, have your bastilla(s) retreat and move knights to
- intercept the approaching enemy. A lot of the time the enemy will simply
- go right for the bastilla, no matter how many knights you have defenders
- you have. Make sure you protect your bastillas, because if you lose them,
- you will not be able to get into the base without heavy losses. It is much
- better to wait and make more bastillas before attacking than to just send
- in your troops against a tower. If for some reason you need to get past a
- cannon tower without killing it, remember that, like catapults, the tower
- will overshoot its initial target. A tower will usually attack the closest
- thing to it, meaning that you can attack it with archers, and keep a knight
- constantly running around the tower. The tower should go after the knight,
- which is constantly running so the tower will over-shoot him, and you might
- only suffer light losses. It is still much easier to attack it with
- bastillas though.
-
- K = knight T
- B = bastilla
- T = tower
-
- KKBBKK
-
- Dwarven demoliton squads are awesome! If you ever see a group of
- enemies such as grunts or ogres ( it is important that the enemies do not
- have a ranged attack, because they will not walk up next to the squad ) just
- send a demolition squad up right into them. When the enemy has gathered
- around you, detonate your explosives and the explosion will kill or
- seriously damage all of the enemies. Demolition squads are also helpful in
- destroying towers. Two squads can kill a towerby detonating themselves next
- to it. BE CAREFUL YOU DON"T HAVE FRIENDLY UNITS CLOSE TO THE SQUADS AS THEY
- DETONATE!! You will just end up killing your own units.
- Once you get into the town, immediately attack the barracks, only
- stopping to kill enemy units that could harm you. Once the barracks is
- gone, you are pretty much home free. Attack any additional towers, and then
- go for the peons. Once the peons are eradicated ( the great hall will
- continue to make more ) then attack the great hall. Attack any peons
- attempting to repair the great hall. Once the great hall is destroyed,
- MAKE SURE you have killed EVERY peon. If you don't kill every peon, the
- peon will build a new great hall, and you will have to do everything over
- again. After the great hall, the barracks, and all the peons are dead, go
- for any other building that has the capability of making new units, such
- as Temples of the Damned, shipyards, goblin alchemists and dragon roosts.
- Depening on what the enemy is attacking you with, you may want to destroy
- the dragon roost first, or the shipyard, or anything else. Save the pig
- farms for last, since they don't do anything to kill you.
- When trying to approach the base, you can usually find a few lone
- guards. If you don't want to lose much health in an attack, you can attack
- the enemy with a bastilla (the enemy won't see you coming). You can surprise
- the enemy and get an easy kill.
- I guess that's it for offense.
-
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 3. Using Spells
-
- Spells are cool, powerful, and perhaps the funnest thing in the
- game! Here is a list of spells and their uses:
-
- HUMANS:
- Paladin:
- - Holy vision: Just like far-seeing from Warcraft 1. Useful
- for scouting areas. I don't use this spell
- very much. I mainly use flying machines for
- scouting.
- - Healing: This is a great spell. I use it mainly for
- defense. Any time a unit is getting low
- on energy, use this spell.
- - Exorcism: I've never gotten this spell to work. Maybe it's
- a bug or something.
- Mage:
- - Lightning: The basic attack for mages. It is fairly
- powerful, and it doesn't use any magic power
- to fire. It can attack air units as well
- as land and sea.
- - Fireball: I don't really like this spell. It uses way to
- much power, and doesn't do enough damage.
- It is useful in getting rid of towers if you
- are patient. It continues beyon its target,
- so if the enemy is in a row, use fireball to
- do a good amount of damage.
- - Flame Shield: This is a good spell for sending a lone
- troop into an enemy defensive line, but it
- can be dangerous if any of your other troops
- come in contacted with the enchanted one.
- Try casting flame shield in the middle of a
- group of enemies. You can use the enemy to
- your advantage, because anywhere the enemy
- goes, he will do damage. Useful on peons.
- - Slow: You can try using this spell on retreating enemies,
- but I have never been able to find a good
- use for it. Otherwise, cast it on attacking
- ogres or other strong units to slow their
- attacks.
- - Invisibility: I was a bit disapointed with this one. You
- can't cast it on dwarven demolition squads
- ( it will kill them ), and death knights can
- still see your invisible units. What a
- rip-off!
- - Blizzard: I think Blizzard Entertainment put this spell in
- because the name of their company is the
- same as the name of the spell. :) Anyway,
- this spell is quite powerful, and has a good
- range. To make an effective attack, make
- sure the caster has plenty of magic power.
- - Polymorph: Now this is a COOL spell! The enemy will not
- notice you casting it, so you can turn a
- whole group of defenders into sheep, hogs
- or seals. Wow! This spell will not work on
- catapults though, so watch out!
- ORCS:
- Ogre-Mage:
- - Eye of Kilrogg: Sort of like the holy vision spell,
- ogre-mages can make a floating "eye" to fly
- around and explore terrain and sight units.
- These eyes disappear rather quickly, so use
- them with haste.
- - Bloodlust: This is a pretty cool spell. The target will be
- able to do more damage with each attack.
- This is useful for quickly dispatching of an
- enemy.
- - Runes: I talked about these in the "Defense" section of
- this guide. If you want more uses, just cast
- this spell right in front of any enemy unit,
- then walk into the sight wange of that unit.
- He will chase after you, and go right
- through the field of runes. You can cast
- this spell out of the sight range of every
- unit.
- Death Knight:
- - Touch of Darkness: This is a lot like lightning. It is the
- basic attack for death knights. It does not
- use any magic power, and can attack units
- on land, sea and air.
- - Death Coil: If a death knight is getting low on energy,
- you can trade magic for life with this
- spell. It has a nice range, and is powerful.
- Whatever is taken away from the enemy, you
- get. I don't think it works on bastillas.
- - Haste: With this spell, the enchanted on will do all of
- his actions (walking, attacking) faster.
- Combine this spell with bloodlust for a
- fierce guardian.
- - Unholy Armor: This is just like the unholy armor spell
- from Warcraft 1. Be careful, it wears off
- quickly. Each time the spell is cast, the
- target loses half of his power. Use this
- spell conservitively. Don't cast it on
- goblin sappers!
- - Death and Decay: This spell is useful in groups, but is
- not worth casting for only one enemy. The
- manual says it can consume wood, but I have
- not gotten it to do that. Useful for
- destroying buildings.
- - Whirlwind: Again, this spell is useful for groups of
- enemies, but not much else. Actually, this
- spell works great against air units.
- - Raise Dead: This time around, skelatons stay alive without
- needing magic power. This means that they
- never die on their own. Using this spell you
- can build up a large army of the undead and
- march it on your enemies base. Skelatons are
- much stronger this time.
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 4. Building a Town
-
- I don't have that much to say here. Basically, the order that I
- build stuff in is:
-
- Humans Orcs
- 1st- town hall great hall
- 2nd- farm pig farm
- 3rd- barracks barracks
- 4th- elven lumber mill troll lumber mill
- 5th- blacksmith blacksmith
- 6th- upgrade to keep upgrade to stronghold
- 7th- shipyard shipyard
- 8th- gnomish inventor goblin alchemist
- 9th- stables ogre mound
- 10th- foundry foundry
- 11th- oil refinery oil refinery
- 12th- upgrade to castle upgrade to fortress
- 13th- church altar of storms
- 14th- mage tower temple of the damned
- 15th gryphon aviary dragon roost
-
- Of course, you will obviously need more than one farm. Build farms
- as needed. And if the battle is mainly on sea, build the sea buildings early
- on. I recommend at least 4 peasents, and as many as 8, depending on how
- much of the resources you need. I find that six farms can supply a
- good-sized army. And build towers as you see fit. If the enemy attacks with
- air units, make guard towers. Otherwise make cannon towers.
-
- READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ!
- READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ! READ!
-
- This is a really cool trick. If you need to speed up the building
- of something, have one peasant "build" the building, and then have all of
- your other peasants "repair" the building as it is getting built. It will
- cost a bit more, but the building will get built a lot faster.
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 5. Keeping Troops Alive
-
- This will be pretty short. Basically, when you are in a defensive
- line, you may find that the enemy keeps on going after one unit. If you
- don't have the "heal" spell, then it helps to rotate your troops around the
- defensive line. For example, have the strongest guy switch places with the
- weakest guy. This way, the damage will be spread over many units instead
- of focused on one. If you have the "raise dead" spell, you can put the
- skelatons right in front of your defensive line, so the skelatons will take
- the damage instead of your troops.
-
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 6. Battles at Sea
-
- Personally, I think sea battles are the hardest in the game. Here
- are as many strategies as I could think of.
- First of all, the cannons always overshoot a fast unit coming
- toward you, such as a transport or a oil tanker. What I find works is to
- use the "move" command, and click on the oncoming ship. As soon as the enemy
- ship passes you, use the "stop" command and, if the enemy is within range,
- your ships will fire and hopefully sink the vessel. Only oil tankers and
- transports will try to get through your defensive line. All other ships will
- attack it.
- Most bases only have one or two transports to shuttle their units
- across bodies of water. If you can find a transport on the shore, immedietly
- destroy it. If you destroy all of the transports, and the shipyard, the
- enemy will not be able to get any more units across water. This means that
- you can concentrate on making a strong navy. But beware, after you destroy
- the shipyard and transports, the enemy will continuously build land
- defenders, so when you do send in a landing party, you will meet a lot of
- defenders. But they can't get off the island, and their mine will eventually
- run out. If their mine is VERY large, you can always destroy it.
- The best way to get past cannon (or guard) towers located on a beach
- is a fast and furious attack. Send in as many ships as you can. Once you
- clear away a small area, get a bastilla or two on the beach (out of range
- of the towers) to take out the remaining towers. Your losses may be heavy.
- When searching for enemy ships, always keep a flying machine close
- by in case you run into an enemy submarine. You will know you are under
- attack by a submarine if you see big explosions on your ship, but no enemy
- units nearby. Or you can always make your own submarines, because they can
- see enemy underwater units as well. Submarines are very weak, and can be
- destroyed in one or two hits. The problem is GETTING those one or two hits,
- because if you don't have a submarine or flying machine close by, you won't
- be able to see the enemy submarine.
- If you can't get close enough to destroy the shipyard, then go for
- the enemy oil platforms. These are usually guarded by a few ships. Once you
- destroy the enemy's supply for oil, it will not be able to continue
- constructing ships. You can the rule the seas, and kill some buildings near
- the shore with you boats. Battleships have a longer weapon range than
- destroyers, so if you need that one extra unit of range to attack a
- building, get a battleship. If there are enemy ground units one square out
- of range, use the "attack ground" command to attack the space right next to
- the enemy. A lot of the time, the enemy will run towards you, and into
- range.
- If you are getting attacked with ground units being brought across
- on transports, build a GUARD tower as close to the shore as you can. A
- cannon tower would overshoot the transport, but a guard tower is not as
- strong. But each time the transport gets close, it will get damaged a
- little. Patience!
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 7. Upgrading the Right Way
-
- This is mainly just a matter of what you need the most. If most
- battles are on land, upgrade swords and shields. If the battles are on sea,
- upgrade your armor and cannons. Only invest money into elven rangers and
- troll berserkers you you have a whole bunch of archers or axe throwers, or
- if you've got money to spend (which is rare). Try to upgrade everything
- once before you go into upgrading something for the second time. I almost
- never upgrade my bastillas for the SECOND time. 4000 gold for only 15 extra
- attack points? You're crazy. I would much rather have 5 ogres than an
- twice upgraded bastilla.
- If you have any towers, upgrade them as soon as possible, since a
- watch tower can not harm enemy units at all.
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 8. Cool Things to Do
-
- 1. While you are building something, "repair" it with other
- peasents. It will be built much faster, but it will cost
- a bit more.
- 2. Cast "unholy armor" or "invisibility" on enemy demolition squads
- and goblin sappers. They will explode.
- 3. Destroy the enemy's gold mine. This will take quite a long time,
- but once you destroy it, the peasents will have to walk a
- long way to get more gold. Put a few knights in their way,
- and the enemy won't get anymore gold.
- 4. Use cheat codes :)
- 5. Click on critters so much that they EXPLODE. It takes about
- 10 seconds of clicking.
- 6. Repeatedly clicking on all of your units, and listen to the funny
- things that they say.
- 7. Using the map editor that is included with the game, make your
- side off in one corner, and make 7 opponents, all on the
- edge of the map. All of the opponents should be peasents.
- Make one ( 1 ) mine right in the middle of the map with the
- maximum amount of gold in it, and have a forest all along
- the edge opposite of where your base is. All of the peasents
- will make a town hall real colose to the mine, and begin
- making a huge town, right in the middle of the map. Ever see
- sixty peasents go into a mine at once? You will now. (you
- might want to use cheat codes if you intend to PLAY this
- level). Make sure you adjust the starting conditions to give
- enough resources to each opponent to build a town hall.
-
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 9. Cheat Codes
-
- Oh boy, now what you've all been waiting for! I don't think these
- are ALL of the cheat codes, because I don't yet have a "eye of newt" type
- magic code or a "iron forge" type upgrade code. This is what I have:
-
- glittering prizes - 10,000 gold, 10,000 lumber, 5000 oil
-
- it is a good day to die - all units invincible to everything except for
- excorcism and death coil. You can also
- kill most enemies in one hit
-
- hatchet - two chops on a tree and your peasent will bring it back
-
- showpath - shows full map. There will be a black haze around places that
- you haven't explored in the map in the
- upper-left hand corner
-
- on screen - same as showpath, but gets ride of the black haze
-
- make it so - build units and buildings super fast. Careful! It affects the
- enemy also
-
- valdez - get a whole bunch of oil. Not much use for this if you know
- "glittering prizes"
-
- UCLA - displays "go bruins". Not much use for this
-
- there can be only one - lets you see the ending sequence for your current
- side. The Orc's ending is cool!
-
- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- That's it! I hoped you liked it. If you really liked it, you can
- send me $500,000 dollars, and get the registered version! Just kidding. Good
- luck beating Warcraft 2!
-