Friday, November 27, 2009

Orc Campaign: Map 11

Daemons are the strongest unit in the game. Four daemons can destroy a fully-guarded town in minutes. So it's no surprise that the core strategy of the final orc maps involve holding on for dear life until you can train a warlock and summon these creatures.

Warcraft III introduced the Burning Legion, a faction of demonic creatures that invade Azeroth. It turns out that the Legion was behind the corruption of the orcs and much of the chaos surrounding the various nations since the beginning of recorded history. However, there has not been any explanation regarding the Legion's relationship with the summoned daemons.

One theory is that the summoned daemons are the Doom Guards that serve the Burning Legion. Going by appearances alone, both have horns, swords, and wings. However, Doom Guards are fairly weak compared to the killing machines that are daemons. Also, it doesn't make sense for Doom Guards to be subservient to the orcs since the latter are actually servants of the former.

Another theory is that the daemons are another race unrelated to the Burning Legion. However, in Warcraft II, they appear at the Tomb of Sargeras. This suggests they're affiliated with the Burning Legion after all.

Just another unsolved mystery.

Move quickly, young peons!

It's the beginning of the end! Your goal in this mission is to train four warlocks and research the summon daemon spell. If you can hold on long enough for that to happen, the rest will be easy.

You start with a lumber mill and barracks already built. Immediately send your units east and position them at the opening between the trees. Use a raider to scout the entire lower half of the map.

You'll need a lot of gold to survive the enemy attacks!

Send your peons to the gold mine directly southeast of town. You'll eventually want to get 6-7 peons going. When this mine is depleted, move everyone to the mine on the bottom right corner of the map. Your peons will be safe from harm. Ignore the mine directly north of town because attempting to access it will expose your town to danger.

Guard the chokepoint with your life; leave no cracks!

The trees in this level act as a natural barrier for your town and force all enemy units to enter through the chokepoint in the screenshot above. Make sure you keep an eye on your woodcutters so they don't open a hole. The computer will send invisible troops against you but blocking the chokepoint prevents them from showing up in your town and wreaking havoc on your peons.

Use catapults to attack any conjurers or clerics that cluster in this area. They'll also come in handy against the water elementals. Yes, the computer player will send these dangerous creatures at you relentlessly. They will make short work of your spearmen. You'll generally lose 3-4 of them every time. Thankfully, you won't have to face more than one elemental at a time. However, the computer may try to coordinate with knights or catapults to make your life miserable.

That's a lot of armor!

Build a temple and train necrolytes as quickly as possible. Once you learn the unholy armor spell, you can use it to make a raider invulnerable. Use the raider as a tank to occupy the elementals while your catapults destroy them.

Also, use your dark vision to scan the human town to the east. You'll want to uncover the southern-most buildings. Then, train a new catapult.

Your catapult can bombard the city from across the forest.

Your catapult can actually shoot at the town from the other side of the trees. You can destroy the farm, church, and lumber mill without fear. The computer player will hopefully send peasants to repair the buildings, giving you additional targets to demolish.

Demolish the key human structures from afar.

By the time you're done, most of the town's defenders will be dead from splash damage. Luckily, the two towns don't reinforce each other. So if you destroy all the peasants here, the peasants from the other town won't be able to rebuild it.

Unfortunately, that trick won't work on the other town.

Scanning the other town with your necrolytes, you'll see that it's more heavily fortified. You won't be able to use your catapults without a swarm of knights breathing down your neck.

Train warlocks!

So what to do? You'll need to research the summon daemon spell for 3,000 gold. Then, train four warlocks. If you can do this, you'll be able to destroy both towns with ease. As you're training your second, third, and fourth warlock, use your existing one(s) to summon daemons to help guard the checkpoint.

Summon an army of unholy daemons!

Once the warlocks are fully charged, summon four daemons and send them to the eastern town. Open the gap to let the daemons through and then close it back up to defend against invisible units.

Daemons are near-invincible; their only enemy is time.

The daemons will be able to cut through the remaining defenders like a hot knife through butter. You should be able to destroy the entire town and still have some juice left over.

Send the daemons to mop up the remaining town.

Send the daemons to the northern town and kill as many of the defenders as possible before they run out of juice. You should be able to kill about half the defenders. Go back to your town and summon four more daemons.

The human towns are destroyed!

Send in your remaining troops and finish the job. Mission complete.

Next Time: The first war comes to an end. Azeroth falls.