Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition Boot Camp
All right soldier. The first thing to do is for you to realize how important the hot keys in WarCraft II are. Being quick in War 2 is essential to success, and when you have memorized the hot keys you have a distinct advantage, clicking on each little icon with the mouse can take up a lot more time than you might think. To help you memorize the keys, I made a graphic that tells the most common hot keys so you can know what to do with a quick glance. All what you have to do is print it out and then keep it close to your keyboard. Click on the thumbnail below to see and print it.



Use command/right click
Many otherwise awkward commands can be easily taken care of by using the command key on the mac and right clicking on the PC (and with macs that have two mouse buttons). For example, if you click on a peasent and command click/right click on a gold mine, he will mine. If you do the same on some trees, he will chop them down. If you select some troops and click on an enemy, they will attack. From just those examples, you already have a nifty little shortcut.

Build several Barracks
You need to build troops fast. Obviously, you build up an army a lot slower with only one barrack building one knight at a time compared to five barracks training five knights at a time. As I start a game, depending on the map and other factors of course, it isn't unusual to build two barracks as soon as I can. You want to pump out troops as fast as you can.

Expand Quick
As soon as you have a somewhat stable base, send out a peasent to another mine and have him build another Town Hall/Great Hall next to another mine. You will be surprised how quickly you suck up resources, expanding as early as possible will pay off. Do it as much and often as possible, if you control the most gold mines and lumber supply you already have a great advantage even without your troops being built yet.

Naval Battles
When you have to fight in the water, try to do it when you have a Keep/Stronghold. You will want to have that so you can have a Gnomish Inventor/Alchemist to make a flying machine. Enemy subs can really pack a punch at the beginning when you don't have anything ready to detect them, and enemies I have found more often than not take advantage of that. Having one ready at the beginning is a big help with a ballista standing guard. Ballistas/Catapults are excellent for shipyard defense when you are getting your Armada on your feet, they can shoot outside of every ship's range. One problem that might come with is that while moving your ballista/catapult you might inadvertently move it into a battleship's/juggernaut's range, and boom, gone in one hit. Another problem is that I have had some people on battle.net and occasionally computer opponents quickly send a transport over with one Knight/Ogre and destroy the ballista/catapult before I can move it away and send something to defend it. To avoid that problem, have a couple of units close to guard the ballista/catapult.

Neat trick
A neat trick I found is using Dwarves/Sappers to target specific parts of a base. The most effective part is targeting your opponents farms, usually people build farms clumped together. Dwarves/Sappers can take out a farm in one hit, and when they are close together you can take out perhaps as many as three at a time. Usually your opponents defense isn't adequate to the threat, it would take several towers or a substantial unit deployment to counter it and those are vulnerable to a dwarf attack also (especially towers, those can be taken out in one explosion too). Taking out the farms first can really choke your opponent, he/she require them in order to expand. By doing that, he/she have to rebuild those farms first, spending time, resources, and peasents, on something they already built a while ago. After the farms are gone, go after the Town Hall/Great Hall, Keep/Stronghold, whatever, if you can (might be to well defended for a dwarf/sapper to get in). That will knock your opponents gold source for a little while, giving you time to build an invasion force while your opponent is in tatters.

Attack at all sides
Usually when I find my opponent, I'll keep attacking him/her from the path that I discovered their base at. However, after a few attacks, I found that it is usually better to then find another way in. What usually happens is that your opponent has dedicated their defense to the side you attacked earlier. When you attack their base at an angle your opponent hasn't even thought about defending yet, you can walk right into their base without having to worry about any nasty towers they may have built and get a lot of their peasents. Aim for peasents first, then structures, before their army can get to you. By getting their peasents their immediate ability to gather more resources is paralyzed, which can give you more time to send more troops if that initial attacked failed.

Other various tips:

  • Ballistas/Catapults are good for knocking out towers. Ballistas/Catapults can shoot at a tower right outside a tower's firing range. They are better suited for the job than dwarves, since you use up one dwarf each time for a tower which can get pretty expensive.

  • Don't divide your troops. When you attack, send everything you have at once. Usually attacks that go in waves, or one group attacking one side and another attacking another don't work out (my personal experience). To make sure your troops don't get divided by accident, assign group numbers. Then when you decide to attack, press one and move them in, press two and move them in, etc. This will mobilize your troops much quicker than selecting a group with the mouse each time and sending them to battle.

  • Always make sure your troops are being upgraded on a periodic basis. If not, your opponent could have a substantial advantage.

  • Fully upgraded Rangers/Beserkers are pretty nifty units. They can shoot tons of arrows/axes before the enemy is close enough to attack. The only problem is their poor armor and hit points, so sending them into battle against Catapults/Ballistas and Cannon towers where there is lots of splash damage isn't a very good idea. For defending your base behind a wall and for some offensive missions, they are very good at inflicting lots of damage. To see what I mean, just watch how quickly a group of them can level some farms or a barracks.

    		•





    News Links E-mail Message Boards Macintosh Playstation 2 Downloads