Results 1 to 3 of 3

Thread: Best Warcraft II Skirmish EVER!

  1. #1
    ServBot (Level 11) Edmond Dantes's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Posts
    3,868
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    2
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    32
    Thanked in
    31 Posts

    Default Best Warcraft II Skirmish EVER!

    Oh god, I SO wish I had been recording at the time, because the most awesome thing happened and I doubt people will believe it. Here's the story anyway.

    First, a little bit of explanation: Warcraft II was Blizzard's biggest RTS before the days of Starcraft, and basically plays like a simplified Starcraft in a stock medieval fantasy setting. That said, its one of my favorite games of all time, and I still pop it in to play skirmishes (one-off bouts against a computer opponent) from time to time. The races are human and orc, both playing kinda like the Terrans in Starcraft except they get some slightly different abilities and upgrade costs.

    In this game, both me and the CPU were human.

    I was playing the Battle.net Edition, on a map called Great White North. It was one of those maps where the players each start in a corner. I was in the lower left. I built five peasants and sent the fifth one scouting the corners in clockwise order (so the corner above me first) while building up my town, building more farms so I could get more peasants, and finally started on a barracks and lumber mill by the time my scouter peasant finally found the enemy camp in the lower right corner.

    Terminoloy explanation:

    "Exit" -- starting locations are often surrounded by trees. Openings in the treeline are called "exits." (Trees can only be destroyed by either peasants chopping them down, or else by demolition units aka "sappers" blowing them up. Otherwise indestructable, so they make a good natural barrier).

    "Farmwall" -- like the supply depots in Starcraft, you can arrange your farms in a pattern where they effectively form a barrier. Usually you want to wall off one of the exits.

    "Peasant" -- they're like SCVs in Starcraft. They build stuff, but also harvest gold and lumber, two of the three main resources in this game (the third, oil, is mined by ships. There wasn't any in this map). Constructed by the Town Hall, which is basically the Command Center.

    "Footman" -- a melee fighter unit.

    "Archer" -- Just what it sounds like. Long-range attack but a slower attack rate than the Footman.

    Now, each starting location had two exits. I came across the topmost of my opponent's exit, which... he had walled off (the comp is usually not smart enough to do this). So I got silly: I had my scouter peasant start building towers along his farmwall. At this point, my home base had walled off one exit and was starting on the other, and I had a peasant build a lumber mill.

    Towers, see, at first can do nothing but look. But once you build a lumber mill, they can be upgraded to Guard Towers, which fire arrows at any enemy that comes in range. And it just so happened that my enemy's entire peasant line--both the gold-miners and lumber-gatherers--were in range of the four towers I ended up constructing, as was his Town Hall. Very soon, the CPU had no peasants and no town hall.

    There was, however, a problem: he had built his barracks OUTSIDE his town, so out of nowhere my homebase was attacked by six guys--four footmen and two archers. Despite a valiant attempt I could not fight them off, so I watched my entire town get destroyed. Soon, the only thing I had left, was my four towers and my one peasant. And no, I did not have enough money to build a new town hall. For the rest of the game, this peasant was all I had left.

    While looking for the other entrance I saw his barracks and, wary of losing my last guy, instead got into his town by finding a thin rank in the trees and chopping through. Then I hung out on the opposite side of his farms, knowing his dudes would come this way to take out my towers as those were the last thing left to kill. Sure enough, his six guys showed up and.... barely managed to get one tower's HP into the red before all four enemies were eliminated.

    So I scouted around, found his last remaining structures--a lumber mill and a blacksmith (the towers had killed all the farms) and was like.... that's it? That's all he had?

    So I took a risk, went up and started whacking his barracks. Now, the CPU will often escape to a different mine and start their colony from scratch so I kept expecting a footman to pop out and kill my last peasant, but it never happened. This CPU had no hidden colonies or resources. He was unable to produce units, while I had one usable one.

    The barracks went up in flames, and then I started whacking away at the smith, then the lumber mill. Now, peasants are weak, so while waiting I did some doodling. Eventually though, both buildings were down, and the game announced my victory.

    Then the post-game stat screen popped up. Warcraft II gives you a score and a rank. Naturally, my rank was "peasant."

    So what's the point of this story? That Warcraft II is awesome. Also never give up.

    Damn I so wish I had taken pictures or at least recorded this.

  2. #2
    Kirby (Level 13) Tanooki's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Posts
    5,964
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    3
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    2
    Thanked in
    2 Posts

    Default

    I follow you entirely, funny. Remember when we were talking old big box games and stuff when you thought you wanted Kilrathi Saga I had brought up RTS and my favorites were few and this was one of them. I just wish GOG would get it so I could have a workable copy again as it's fun and unlike starcraft and later it plays fair. Shame they couldn't keep cheating cheap AI out of the style of games after that from multiple developers to make it more interesting instead of some well coded smarter difficulty levels. WC2 and the Tides of Darkness addon were the pinnacle of the genre.

  3. #3
    Cherry (Level 1) wizardofwor1975's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2014
    Location
    Central California
    Posts
    275
    Thanks Thanks Given 
    0
    Thanks Thanks Received 
    2
    Thanked in
    2 Posts

    Default

    Nice one Ed. Sure sounds like one helluva skirmish. Man, I wish you'd been able to record it. Anyway congrats on the victory with your lone peasant. Very cool.

Similar Threads

  1. New GT Retrospective: Warcraft
    By Cantaloup in forum Classic Gaming
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 11-11-2008, 05:41 PM
  2. About Warcraft 3
    By Zenitram in forum Classic Gaming
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 10-26-2008, 05:39 PM
  3. Warcraft 2% Milk
    By PsychedelicShaman in forum Classic Gaming
    Replies: 11
    Last Post: 06-06-2007, 10:20 PM
  4. Anyone still play Warcraft 3?
    By unbroken in forum Modern Gaming
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 03-27-2006, 12:51 AM
  5. Warcraft 3 help needed
    By Starcade in forum Classic Gaming
    Replies: 3
    Last Post: 04-19-2003, 09:10 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •