WarCraft 3 MP: 29 minutes of hell

[vovan]

WarCraft3 MP: 29 Minutes of Hell
or
How Vovan Got His Ass Handed to Him

So, I played my first WC3 MP game tonight. Sure enough I lost. But that's not the point...

Setup:
1 v 1
Me: Undead
Opponent: Orc
Map: I've no idea. Some symmetric map with lots of snow.

Action summary:

So, as the game loads, I start building like crazy, send one of my ghouls to find where the other player is, and in the mean time fill the gold mine full of acolytes, and three more ghouls to gather wood.

The ghoul comes up to the orc base, and there is nobody but peons in there. (I go: Yes! I'm playing another newb!) After a couple of the peons are chopped up, the guy finally realizes he is being attacked and puts the remaining ones into the orc burrows, and the ghoul is shot. (As I learned from the replay, just as my ghoul was going towards the orc base, my opponent was marching with a hero and four grunts towards my defensless base - with exception to the three ghouls gathering wood. Luckily, he rushed back as soon as he heard the "our town is under attack".) Some time later, I build up some more army, a hero, and go to raid the guy's base. I come up there, and my hero, together with the six spideys are chopped up almost instantly. By a hero, and four or so ... grunts! The story repeats itself over and over again, and finally after half an hour my base falls.

After a GG, I look over the results: I produced just as many units as the guy (well, one more, actually ), I gathered more resources, and yet I got dominated. I look at the replay, and see that not only I got dominated but, I built superior units: two heroes, plus crypt fiends, meat wagons, necromancers... And the other guy only built two heroes, some grunts, and exactly two witch doctors. That's it! Yet, he went through me like a truck through a carton wall!

Lessons learned:
1. My main mistake? Playing MP with an SP strategy! I took a long time building up my base, and not producing units. I took a long time before building my first hero (another fatal mistake, more on that below). I only produced advanced units - didn't even do the ghouls. Why is that bad? Simple: I was racing for more advanced units, while the other guy was racing up the tech tree, improving the simple ones. While I spent about twice as much on a single spidey as he did on his grunt, we got essentially equivalent units, because he had upgraded attack + defense all the way, and had the positive influence of an advanced hero. Thus, I was spending much more gold, and not getting any advantage, almost.

2. I forgot about advancing the hero. While my Death Knight and Dread Lord stayed at level 2 and 1 respectively, his Tauren and Farseer got to 6 and 4 respectively. Thus, the guy killed my heroes exactly 12 times, while I killed his... 0 ( ).

These two points are what I got out of my first MP game. Any more advice for improving my poor strategy?

[mactbone]

Sometimes a single hero is better. Go with combos that are proven - eg a Paladin or Mountain King with some footmen. Six regular units is about when you want to start creeping - you can do it with less but you have to micro. more. Ranged units can be godly if your opponent is new.

Play "Use map rules" and forget all that crap

[DrSpike]

Undead V Orc is a hard matchup for Undead. You need to go with ghouls or crypt fiends, and improve whatever you decide to go with. Crypt fiends are very popular v Orcs because Orcs have no anti-air and Undead have Frost Wyrms in the late game, and these frost wyrms share the same upgrade path as crypt fiends.

Undead's power lies in killing heroes fast by surrounding and using undead spells, and in very fast creeping with Death knight and ghouls (or fiends) + death knight's healing + ghoul's cannibalize, which heals them further. The second hero with this strat should be Dreadlord, for his vampiric aura. With Crypt fiends you should go with the lich though, since the aura is of no use with ranged units. In either case v orc you need wands of negation, because the orc will nearly always use lots of caster units.

To be honest I think undead is the hardest race to play well, so you probably should start with elf or human.

Keep it up though, it's a great game.

[vovan]

Aha, thanks for the advice.

DrSpike, it's interesting that you find humans easier to play better than the undead. I would like to hear more on that. Since I posted that report above, I played two more games: one with the undead vs. elves, the other: undead vs. humans. I beat the humans by the 10-minute mark by rushing in really early with death knight + ghouls. But once again, I got my poor arse kicked by the night elves.

I suppose it is hard to play the undead "right" because of their of the things that are different with them... But what about the humans? I've never really played them much - are there any special strategies with them (Like you said the death knight + ghoul combination for the undead)?

Thanks

[DrSpike]

It very much depends on the race.

With Humans v Orcs it's air again, perhaps with casters, since orcs have no good counters for air.

V undead, MK + Paladin with casters is very strong.

V NE it's hard to say, you need to react more in this matchup.

I don't think there is much between the races now.....the game is quite well balanced, but it is certainly true that some races are harder to play than others. Many feel undead are hardest, and I would agree, and would put orcs (my favourite) as second hardest.

Humans have very strong casters.........and creeping with footies is quite easy whilst you are teching.....this is what makes them quite easy to play.

[vovan]

Gotcha. Thanks a lot. I'll play some more with the humans and see what happens.

[DrSpike]

Personally I'd pick a race and stick with them till you get to at least level 8 or 9. You should then learn the other races to get some perspective on the big picture.

I think it is very hard at first to play all the races at once.

[vovan]

Well, as you can see, I've been sticking to the undead... But if it is the hardest race, I might just stick to humans from now on.

Either way, I'll just play a couple of human games, see how it goes, and if I do better with them than with the undead, and then make my choice.

[DrSpike]

Yeah I think it is a good idea to play a few games with each race before you choose your favourite to specialise in......then return to playing other races when you learn the game. There is a lot of general knowledge that is transferable. When you have that you just need to learn how best to creep with each race, and how to micro them in battle. Admittedly that isn't as easy as it sounds.

[vovan]

35 Minutes of Hell
or
A Dwarf Takes a Beating

Yup, you got it, I got my ass kicked again.

Set-up
1 v 1
Me: Humans
Opponent: Night Elves
Map: Something-Something Gnoll (grassy area with rivers all over the place)

Okay, so this was my first game as humans. Well, actually the second one, but in the first, my opponent lagged like hell, and quit before we encountered each other. So, in this game. I built a mountain king, and a bunch of footmen right off and went creeping. Killed some of them dawgs, and leveled the little man up to 3. Yay. (As turned out from the replay, on my scouting the area, I barely missed the guy's only forces - also scouting - of a demon hunter and a huntress. D'oh, I could have taken them on. ) Then came back to my town, waiting for something to happen.

As I am building the Arcane sanctum (sp?), I notice on the minimap, some pink dots to the north-west of my base. I go to check out, and see some huntresses, the demon hunter and a priestess of moon just standing there enjoying the view. (I still have no idea what the heck the guy was thinking, 'cause he wasn't doing anything in the base, either (from the replay). Must have been scratching an itch, or something.) So, of course, I send my guys to tell these girls to go away. They start running away, and then as I realize I went a little too far from my protective towers, they turn around and attack. 'Course I tell my guys to run for cover, but the short-legged Gimley is too slow (and also affected by some spell apparently - slow poison I think) to run away and is chopped up (remember, he just returned from some heavy creeping). Of course, the elves rush in, but my towers take care of them almost singlehandedly. (That's got to be the first mistake by another player I noticed. Instead of rushing into the middle of the base, the guy just stood there trying to take down the towers without any siege weapons. Of course, it was fairly hard, especially taking into consideration that I had already researched masonry.) By the time the dwarf was revived, only the demon hunter and the priestess of the moon were left standing. The guy apparently didn't notice my little hero, and I just had time to smack the ground with the thunder clap and finish off the demon hunter. After which I tried chasing the priestess, who was also almost done, but sure enough the gnome was slightly slower than the tiger she was riding.


Mopping up after the first battle

After that, I quickly whipped out six more footmen and ran towards the guy's base. (I hand't scouted it out yet, but from the direction his troops were coming from, I knew.) Sure enough, there was nobody there, and I had enough time to chop down a tree or two before the revived demon hunter returned with a couple of huntresses, after which I ran back to my base, only the gnome and two of my footmen surviving. (Turned out, he was out creeping again.)

After that, I became all paranoid, and killed my own game, by never leaving the base again. (Well, almost.) He came up to my base again, and again, and after two or three battles, I was lost. Of course, by the time he finished off my base, I put up a nice expansion, hoping he wouldn't notice, but sure enough, he did, and just by the time his forces marched up to it, I resurrected the dwarf one final time, who just had enough time to smack the ground once more to finish off that nasty demon hunter.

Good game.


Good dwarf! A Thunder Clap that killed the demon hunter

Lessons learned:
1. Learn the friggin' hotkeys! Ok, my dexterity with the mouse is limited to say the least. In some of my replays I've seen it that in one blink of an eye, my opponent already has two buildings being built, and all the peasants at work. In the time I go click ... click ... click... My opponent is usually sitting back, watching the base grow.

2. Don't sit in your base like a mouse in the hole. I figured I am afraid to leave the base unguarded, and thus very often sit in it instead of creeping and leveling the hero.

3. I like the little guy! Okay, I plain love the MK's thunder clap. I used to like death coil, but in the heat of the battle it is hard for me to aim it. Much easier to click the spell button, and off it goes. Gotta be slightly more careful though, as it is good in that case to have lots of people around, and that can be dangerous, as the guy can get killed.

4. Learn the friggin' hotkeys! About the only one I use is the grouping for units. Could have been very useful in the fights for spells.

5. Looking at the stats, they are much better this time around. For instance, I killed his hero four times, and he, mine - five times. A good improvement from the last time's score of 12 - 0. Yet, I still could have saved my hero a couple of times. Gotta be careful with that.

6. Learn the friggin' hotkeys! Sometimes when I see a building in desperate need of repair during the battle, I spend too much time looking around for a peasant, instead of micromanaging the battle itself.

7. Learn the buildings. Well, shameful as it may be, I built a lumber mill instead of a blacksmith, and was very surprised not to see any attack / defense uogrades. Oh, well, I researched masonry (which helped my towers quite a bit, actually), but in the heat of action I fogot to build the blacksmith till about 3 / 4 of the game was gone.

That's anout it... (Oh, and did I say I need to learn the hotkeys? ) More advice would be greatly appreciated. Admittedly, I suck at this game, but hey, I'm having fun nonetheless.

[DrSpike]

Play for a month and you'll be 8 or 9. This is quite a intricate RTS, so there is quite a bit to learn. You also have joined at a hard time, with many low level players 'smurfing' on a second account, when there first can be anything (I played a level 29 player the other day - needless to say I got whupped too).

Still keep practising. You have identified the main newbie mistakes..........learn the hotkeys right now before you get used to using the mouse to cast spells. Also get used to using your town portals, so you can portal back to save your base, and portal away so you don't lose your hero.......heroes give a lot of experience to the opposition if they die, and leave you week to a counter if they die.

With humans practice a build whereby you tech as quickly as you can whilst pumping footmen (I'd say around 26-30 food should be about right, though I don't play humies that often).......stop before you get to 35. Then build a second hero, and 2 sanctums. When they are ready build sorcs from one and research the sorc upgrades from the other.

And all the time, creep creep creep. Don't be afraid to practice your creeping and creeping orders against the comp so you don't waste time in a game.

[Zero]

undeads may be the hardest to play, but learning how to play them is certainly rewarding. A skilled undead player can be downright godly and untouchable.

Keep playing the undeads if you like them. But do play other race to get perspective on them too.

[vovan]

What about expansion bases? I just played againts a human, and he plopped down his expansion as soon as he could (and that was very fast, might I add, I was still hanging around with my Mountain King and three or four footmen). Of course, that resulted in him being quite a bit behind in tech and buildings at first. (Sure enough I didn't know about that and didn't attack. ) But with the additional source of gold early on, he could gain a very significant advantage.

Also, I guess, I'm off to practice my battles, because every time I look at the stats after the game, I see that I produced approximately the same amount of units as my opponent, yet I usually loose lots of battles...

[vovan]

Okay, I have just played another MP game... Humans vs the Elves. I put out an expansion as fast as I could, and that helped quite a bit. In fact, I think that if I had done that in some of my previous games, I might have won. But any way...

I still lost this one. Heh, I am starting to get a little frustrated, quite frankly. As always, I saved the replay, though, so if any of you good players have the time to take a look at it, and maybe point out some more of my mistakes, and ways to improve, I would greatly appreciate it. (It's v1.05)

Thanks

[DrSpike]

I'll take a look tomorrow. Now zzzzzzzz.

[vovan]

Thanks, DrSpike.

Some things I already know about, so you don;t have to type them up ():

1) Should have teched more aggressively. Bad memory.

2) When I was attacking the guy's expansion, and my hero got killed... Why didn't I teleport back home? Well, that's the problem of bad mouse reflexes. Thing is, I am playing on a laptop, so it doesn't have a numpad, thus I can't use keyboard to use items...

3) Why didn't I use the dragon egg when defending my base from that one attack that broke my spine? Bad memory again.

[vovan]

Hi, there, it's me again.

I just played three more games as humans, and that was... weird to say the least.

Game 1:
Me: Humans (I am currently at level 3, BTW)
Opponent: Elves (lvl 7)

I see the level 7 and expect a good beating. Quite rightfully so, it turned out. I start quite nicely, and build up even faster than usual. I start with a mage insted of the dwarf, as the elves have lots of ranged units, so I figure it'd be hard to get to them for a thunder clap. So, I get blizzard. OK, I run off to build an expansion. Clear out a mine from creeps, and start building a city hall. I glance at the minimap, and see a pink dot blink near my main base. Sh1t, I think, the end already? And start running with my archmage and five escorting footmen for defense. As I come up, a lvl 1 demon hunter emerges from the dark and heads towards my villies. But before he can do anything, I give him a cold shower, and he runs away. (Where's the horde? I think) Well, presently, I see the trees next to my gold mine part, and what emerges? A tree of life, that's what! And starts pounding on my ... lumbermill. OK, I give it a cold shower, as well, and when the spell is over, chop it down. Ten minutes later, a huge horde of elves comes up, and I am dead.

Okay, the guy was level 7, I think, and I have yet to truly win a game. Start a new one.

Game 2:
Me: Humans
Opponent Night Elves (lvl 1) "Yes, finally, I have a chance to win" - I think

What do I see instead? An exact replay of the previous game, only on a different map! As I start on the expansion, a lvl 1 demon hunter comes up, only this time, I kill him, followed closely by a tree of life, which I chop down, followed not so closely by an even larger horde than in the previos game: all three heroes, god knows how many units, and the walking trees summoned by one of the heroes. (Keeper is it?) I put up more of a fight than before, killing all the dryads in the back with blizzard, as well as two heroes: priestess, and the demon hunter. Sure enough, I am crushed nonetheless.

"D@mn newbies" I think, "can't even think up a new strategy" ( )

Game 3:
Me: Humans
Opponent: Orcs (lvl 3)

"Okay," I think, "no more walking trees for me!"

Not so fast!

As I start building my expansion, a lone farseer comes up to my base. I kill him. Then, some mercenaries, followed not so closely by a horde of units, with three heroes, and god knows how many witch doctors.

Why do I have this deja vous feeling?

*sigh* I guess I'll go play against the computer... At least it employs a variety of tactics. (Well, I need to train a little bit in certain aspects - most notably teleporting. It seems I can never do it in the heat of the battle.)

[DrSpike]

I watched the replay. One thing that stood out a mile was the speed of creeping. In the first 10 minutes you stood around watching the scenery for at least 5.

Learn 2 or 3 maps well (turn the others thumbs down for now - I have plunder and the 4 "4-player" maps thumbs up, and the biggest 3 thumbs down) and work out a good creeping order so you don't waste time.

Other than against undead I'd use AM as first hero, MK as second. First point should go to Water Elemental though, since with this you can creep without taking much damage with your footies.

Other things: don't build towers if you are going with a tier one army.....they are a waste of resources. Build less footies (you only need enough to creep with, and defend your base against rushes) and tech quicker to 2 arcane sanctums.

Also research 'defend' at the barracks when you have say, a 30 food army, this means you can creep creeps with ranged (ie piercing) attacks without taking much damage.

Keep practising, the game will get easier.