Did you know today is only World of Warcraft's fifth anniversary? I was surprised because I thought the game has been around for much longer. That's how fast Blizzard's MMORPG has managed to penetrate the games market and become synonymous with online gaming. Five years ago, everyone was still raving about EverQuest and calling it "Evercrack." How the times have changed.
To celebrate, I've decided to take an unorthodox approach and play the classic Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. It's easy to post a retrospective like every other blogger. But we shouldn't forget that without the classic RTS, there'd be no WoW. Before the addition of demons, night elves, heroic orcs, panda people, and right-click commands there was a simple strategy game, lacking simple mechanics but oozing charm. This is the game that I was once completely and utterly obsessed with. I would carry around the dual-sided manual to school and memorize every last bit of Azeroth's lore during recess.
Playing Warcraft again brought back all those old memories of battle. So now, I bequeath to you my grand strategies for success against the computer AI. It worked then, and it still works today.
Establish Walls Of Archers
The first step is to build as many archers as you can and line them up along the choke points around your town. 5-6 archers are sufficient because the computer player likes to send 1-2 weak units at a time. As they approach your town, the archers will shoot them down. It's also a good idea to keep a knight around in case the computer sends a catapult.
Harass The Enemy With Summoned Scorpions
As you're upgrading your weapons and researching new spells, as well as expanding to new gold mines, you'll need to constantly harass the computer player. Because gold and lumber are limited, it doesn't make sense to build footmen or archers to attack. Instead, save up on conjurers and send swarms of summoned scorpions. Once you've researched all your spells, it's time to go on the offensive.
Invisible Conjurers Sneak In Undetected
The funny thing about the computer player is that it will always try to keep a set number of units around town. It doesn't matter if those units have a full set of health or are limping along in the red. Get a cleric and turn your conjurer invisible. Two or three conjurers work best here.
Rain Of Fire, Bitches!
Once the conjurer(s) have penetrated the perimeter of the town, find the concentration of important buildings (barracks, tower, etc.) and units and unleash the rain of fire!
Swoop In For The Kill
Some people like to send in eight knights to mop up. I generally prefer sending water elementals. Because the game limits you to four units per squad, managing eight units is a lot harder than four. Because the poor conjurer sacrificed himself to unleash rain of fire, the computer town defenders are not in the best shape to mount a counter-attack. If there are catapults, go after them first. Then, destroy all the raiders and spearmen. Pay no attention to the peons. Unlike matches against human players, denying resources won't really help you here because the computer cheats.
If the water elementals get torn apart halfway through the offensive, go back to your town and send all those archers you had lined up. A winner is you!
The Orc Version
This strategy doesn't work as well when you play as the orcs for a couple of reasons. First of all, the warlocks have a poison cloud attack rather than rain of fire. The poison cloud doesn't do nearly as much damage over a large area and also might choke your own troops to death as you send in the cleanup crew. Secondly, the spearmen have slightly shorter range than the archers. So if you set up a wall of spearmen, the computer can send archers to wreak havoc.
A good strategy is to load up on catapults and send summoned daemons to protect them. The catapults will destroy most of the computer town while the daemons wipe out any town defenders that might try to destroy the catapults. If you're playing against an actual human player (as in someone who's not the CPU) you can cast unholy armor on your warlocks to make them invulnerable and then attempt to cast a few poison clouds over the enemy's gold mine.
