Warcraft 3 - and my illegitimate love for the undead

[Righty The Wonder Ghoul]

if any of you out there already play warcraft 3, then you need not be told why it is just one of the greatest RTS games (and greatest games in general) for the computer right now. It is more than just loads of fun, it has so much variation it could keep even one with the shortest of attention spans busy for days on end. If you dont already own the game, at least check it out, find a friend who owns it and try it out. You should definately consider buying it though, especially now that the price is down to $35.

But now to the main subject, i want to hear from people who do play this game, what race and strats do you use right now? what have you used (or seen used) with success? what do you think of different things in the game. I use undead of course, and i think ghoul rush followed by late game strats are the penultimate strat for undead. right now im doing arranged with a human player friend. we rush with ghouls footies and archmage dreadlord (sleep and blizzard are insane) and late game i get a death knight as second hero with abominations and he gets a paladin as second hero with gryphons. we have yet to lose in arranged (every game we have played was against higher level teams). i find this strategy versatile and highly effective in games because it can cover nearly every aspect.

what do you guys think?

[Tobias]

the strategy apparently works like a charm according to what you have told me. I personally am an orc player

I usually go meat shield, more off, in 3v3, im the guy who makes the chieften and the grunts early game, and then sends them in and makes a large distraction for the enemy while my allies go casters/air and attack them with ease. It has worked in the past, and it does work most of the time, but im trying to tweak it to make it work faster. So far, it has really been the only strategy that has worked at all

[Righty The Wonder Ghoul]

if you want it to go faster make more barracks. i find with aboms (who take a long time to build) that 2 slaughterhouses are the minimum required to use aboms at all. also, creeping can help jump your economy so i recomend a lot of it, and expand. get every upgrade that works on the unit you are using, even if that would require 2 war mills to get it faster. you need to go as fast as you can, cus, well orcs arent very fast. supposedly in the expansion pack one of the items you can buy at the orc built shop is capable of building a great hall without the use of a peon, thats pretty sweet for expanding.

[Tobias]

last time i told u about using multiple warmills, u said that it wasnt a great idea...so now what?

And the multibarracks, i thnk that could work in the long run

[Reverend]

I personally am a Night Elf player, and find that teaming up with Orcs or undead works best. Better with Orcs because they go Seer with Grunts, and I make Moon priestess with rangers. The rush of long range Elves supported by two heros clearing the way for grunts can hurt, a lot.

[Tobias]

i played with a nightelf player once, and we reemed everyone, especially when the priestess got starfall, and helped clear the way for the good ol' taurens to smash everything with their sawed off telephone polls

[Reverend]

True, the priestess can become a friggin nightmare at high levels, but at level two alone, when she's bolstering ranged attacks and firing magic arrows, she's somewhat onesided

[Tobias]

vuve got a point there rev. But any hero at low lvls is basically one sided. Its all about lvling them all up.

Another strategy i found works well with orcs, is using a kodo beast with maxed out wardrums as a way of beefing the attack up, and also to remove a unit permanently at the beginning of the fight

[Righty The Wonder Ghoul]

cal, obviously you have never seen the nightmare that is undead/night elf rush. that alone can damage opponents to no end. in my opinion night elves are a bit unbalanced at this point in time. also mike, heres how you do it... if you are going grunts you really only need a very small amount of lumber, only enough to make the buildings you need, and get the proper upgrades, thats quite simple. so if you have two mines you should have 4 workers getting gold and 1 getting lumber, that should be more than enough to keep your economy strong. if you are short on lumber take a peon or two off of the mine and get some lumber. the multiple war mill is no good in early game, but you could use it later with some effect, use it in a hide the farm sort of way... also, you should always buy extra tps and tower up expansions, enough that if someone tries to attack you can hold them off long enough to portal back to your expo. also, always look out for siege and siege spells. the drawback of siege spells is that every one i can think of has to be maintained, which means one war stomp ends the spell. siege units on the other hand are another story. they can be quite annoying, but most of the high damage ones die faster than many units. the most annoying siege units would have to be either tanks (they take forever to kill) or mortar teams. when mortars are used effectively they are so dammed annoying its not even funny. raiders can be annoying too, but if you can cut off any exits they die quite fast.

[Ranma Saotomi]

I haven't played it yet but I sure as hell want to!!! I might have to invest in that after I get Everquest for my PC.