Warcraft II - Tips and Tactics

Warcraft II is very much a unit-based game. Its in the training and use of units 
that success or failure lies, and in sometimes coming up with an unusual 
combination thatll leave your opponent floored. So heres the complete run-down 
on how to get the most from your fantastic army. Its organised unit by unit. 
Where both sides have pretty much identical units, theyre covered together, and 
where individual cases need explaining they are. Explained. Individually.

Peons/Peasants
Yer bog-standard Serfs, their primary use is in collecting gold and lumber and 
building things. If a fight occurs near them, move them all away to safety 
immediately. Always try to keep your Peons behind other units. One of the more 
useful things that Peons do is repair. If one of your buildings is under attack, 
instruct a Peon to repair it while the attack is going on. As long as you keep it on 
the other side of the building from the attacker, youll find that its perfectly safe 
and will seriously slow down the rate at which the attacker causes damage. 
Indeed, get two Peons repairing a building and youll have made it practically 
indestructible. Its also possible to use this facility to speed up your building by 
sending Peons to repair a building under construction. Be warned, though: this 
will substantially add to the cost in both gold and lumber.

Orc Grunts/Footmen
These characters are your basic foot soldiers, and youll need a few of these at the 
start of each level. As soon as you can though, you should stop producing them 
and concentrate on some of the
other more useful units.

Trolls/Elven Archers
These are the missile units. In hand-to-hand combat they are quickly 
overwhelmed. Always keep them behind Grunts or Ogres (Footmen and Knights 
for the Elves) in battle. If you group them with these other units, keep a fairly 
even mix. When you move to engage the enemy, the Trolls or Archers will stop at 
a distance while the hand-to-hand specialists move in. In the case of the Trolls, 
its worth producing lots of these early on, as later youll be able to buy 
regeneration for them.
Both Trolls and Elves should be upgraded vigorously. On later levels they 
become the best defence against the heavy aerial threat posed by Dragons or 
Gryphons. A couple of well-trained units can be very effective, especially if you 
distract the aerial invader with some cannon fodder. Get a Footman or Grunt and 
run him around underneath the flying nasties. Hell probably survive for quite a 
while and your missile chuckers will benefit from the easy target practice 
provided.

Catapult/Ballista
More destructive than the Trolls or Archers, these are also missile-only units. 
Theyre very slow, however, and in defence you should always keep them back 
from any front-line areas, only bringing them forward when an enemy appears. 
Their greatest use comes when attacking, because of their exceptional range. With 
reasonably careful positioning, youll be able to take out enemy towers without 
any danger to the catapult. When attacking with these units, always keep some 
foot soldiers nearby. If the catapults come under attack, move this squad in to deal 
with the attackers. Then pull them out again and let the catapults do the major 
damage.

Goblin Sappers/Dwarven Demo Squad
Surprisingly effective, these units self-destruct when instructed. Youll find that 
two of these will take out most enemy buildings. Like the Peons, though, they 
should be kept away from all combat. Keep them in some safe corner until you 
need them. They can also be used to carve routes through to gold mines or forests 
by blowing up mountains. It can be well worth using a couple of these to make a 
journey for your Peons shorter, giving you quite a significant long-term time 
advantage.

Ogres
Ogres are very tough hand-to-hand fighters. As soon as you can, stop producing 
Grunts and switch to these. Later on youll be able to turn them into Ogre Mages 
and research spells for them. However, if money is tight this is one thing that can 
quite easily be dropped from your schedule. The Death Knights get much more 
effective magic and the Ogres dont really get all that much tougher when you 
make them into Mages. Keep a careful eye on your Ogre units, which tend to be 
rather head strong and are likely to charge off after retreating enemy units when 
you dont really want them too.

Knights
Knights are great shock troops and, as with Ogres, as soon as they become 
available you should concentrate on producing them instead of Footmen. Unlike 
the Ogres, though, they get great magic when upgraded to Paladin status, and its 
well worth spending the money on research. Two spells in particular are hugely 
useful. First Healing: it can make sense to keep your Knights with healing safely 
out of the way and just bring units to them to have them healed. This is especially 
useful when combined with Gryphons. The other invaluable power that Knights 
get is exorcism. Use that to pick off any Death Knights you come up against.

Mage
Like the Death Knight, the Mage should be kept out of close fighting. The Mage 
has great destructive capability with its Fireball spell - just be careful there are no 
friendly units in the line of fire. The other great spell in the Mages armoury is 
Invisibility. Cast it on a Peasant and get him to walk calmly into your enemys lair 
and build a Guard Tower. Or cast it in on a Peasant in combination with Flame 
Shield and get him to wander unnoticed among your enemys army, wreaking 
havoc as he goes. Or cast it on some Dwarves and get them to blow something up. 
Youll have great fun with Invisibility, the only drawback being that it doesnt 
fool death Knights, so make sure that your paladins have exorcised them first.

Goblin Zeppelin/Gnomish Flying Machine
With no combat ability whatsoever, these units are just spotters. Theyre very 
handy for sussing out enemy strengths and weaknesses, but their major use comes 
when the enemy produces submarines. Add one of these to any naval group you 
create and theyll be able to spot the otherwise invisible subs, allowing you to 
attack them without being spotted.

Death Knight
The Death Knight is an awesome creature, but not really suited to hand-to-hand 
combat. Try to keep them slightly away from the fighting and particularly any 
Paladins. Probably their greatest power is to animate the dead. With the judicious 
use of a couple of Death Knights attached to any raiding party you can turn all the 
enemies you defeat into skeleton soldiers at no financial cost. As the enemy gets 
weaker, you get stronger.
Also very effective is the Whirlwind, but only when cast on very dense areas of 
the enemys defences. Unholy Armour is great if you give it to a Sapper unit and 
then send it, now invulnerable, to blow up an enemy building or army. It certainly 
gets rid of pesky Mages quickly.

Dragon/Gryphon Riders
These great aerial beasts are the finest weapons available. No longer do you need 
to build ships to transport your men around. Now you can just fly somewhere and 
attack it. Their only real disadvantage is that if grouped they tend to destroy 
friendly units with over enthusiastic fireballs, and even each other, but keep them 
as loners and they wont go far wrong.

Naval Tactics
The Troll Destroyer and Elven Destroyer are fast, manoeuvrable ships and still 
useful when theyve been superseded by the bigger and more powerful Ogre 
Juggernauts or Battleships. The larger ships are much slower and take longer to 
respond, so always keep a blend of different ships in a naval group. That way 
youll be able to react more quickly to any threat. The Destroyers are also capable 
of hitting flying opponents, which makes them indispensable at sea.
The Submarines make a great addition to any naval group as well, but can also be 
used very effectively as raiders in groups of two or three, especially if combined 
with an aerial spotter to watch out for any Towers or flying creatures that are 
capable of noticing them. Sending Subs out in advance of a large navy is a great 
tactic, as you can pick off enemy ships before theyve seen you.
One final piece of advice. Towers are very effective against naval units, and 
youll nearly always lose ships when attacking them. But you can use a Transport 
instead. Put three Footmen into the Transport and rush the enemy Tower. Land 
the Transport as close as possible to the Tower, then release your Footmen, who 
will attack it and remain safe because the Towers can only attack units at a 
distance. Move the Transport out of harms way until the jobs done, and then 
send it back in to pick up your heroes.


Sim Citadel
The layout of your buildings can have a crucial effect on the outcome of any 
attack, so take some time to think about where you place them. Always make sure 
that your Peasants have as short a route as is possible to the Town Hall or Lumber 
Mill, for instance, and build Barracks as near to the front as possible so that your 
troops have less distance to travel into battle.
Towers are an extremely effective form of defence, particularly as they can be 
easily repaired when damaged. Whats not so obvious is that they can also be very 
handy in an attack. Building a string of Towers behind enemy lines will certainly 
give them something to think about.
Although you cant build walls yourself, you do have an option to create very 
effective barriers by using Farms. Farms are not crucial buildings and are pretty 
cheap to produce. If you want to block off an area against repeated attacks, build 
a wall out of Farms and then place Towers just behind it. The enemy will come 
along and attack the Farms, leaving you in peace to pick them off. Then when the 
attacks over, repair your Farms. Using this tactic its possible to just sit back and 
absorb all that the enemy can throw at you until hes exhausted all his resources. 
Keep an eye on how much gold is left in his mine by using your aerial spotter.


Filthy cheat
There is a quite splendid array of cheats for Warcraft II. These are just some of 
the more useful. To use any of them, press the enter key. Then, when the 
Message: prompt comes up, type in any of the following. A word of caution 
though: some of these cheats (particularly the production ones) give the enemy the 
same benefits. This is thankfully not true of the invincibility. Typing in the same 
cheat code a second time will turn the cheat off.

IT IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE: Makes all your units and buildings invincible, 
except for a few magical attacks.
GLITTERING PRIZES: Gives you 10,000 gold, 5,000 lumber, 5,000 oil.
VALDEZ: Gives you 5,000 oil.
HATCHET: Speeds up the production of wood so your Peasants or Peons get a 
unit in only two chops.
MAKE IT SO: Dramatically speeds up all building.
TITLE: Increases the speed of your units.
NOGLUES: Disables magical traps.
SHOWPATH: Displays entire map.
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE: Shows the end sequence and
finishes the game.
UCLA: Shows Go Bruins! message. For no obvious reason at all.
