Seeking to raise my ladder rating in WarCraft II, I searched for an opponent with a higher rating than me, and lo and behold I find a game entitled "1v1 LADDER" on the list. I do a /stats on the creator, a fellow by the name of Ogerharry (hmm, wonder what his favorite strategy is!). To my delight, his rating is about 50 points higher than mine. His skull would make a fine trophy on the battlements if I could but remove it from his shoulders.

I joined the game and pleasant greetings were exchanged. I guess I was just the kind of sucker he was looking for, because he didn't boot me from the game or anything. I also noticed he had Humans selected as his race. This could mean one of two things: A) Easy win!! Easy win!! .. or .. B) He could be really good, and I could really be in trouble. Opting for Random as always, 'gls' were exchanged, and at the last moment he switched over to Orcs. That should have told me something then.

The hazy fog of war lifted, revealing my blue peasant standing around in the lower left portion of the map. It appeared that the Gods of Fate had placed me in command of the Alliance forces in this area. Our mission? To rid the land of those vile Orcish scum rumored to be in the countryside somewhere and raise the standards of Azeroth over the blackened, burning remains of their fortress. The resources had been left on Map Default, and what we were given to start with was to my liking. While the town hall was being built, I thought on my strategy. Luckily for me, the Orc strategy was almost always the same across the myriad clans. Race to Bloodlust like a mofo and run you over with rampaging herds of fat-boys until you cried uncle. Not so luckily, this almost always proved fatal if gotten out of hand. And so in the infamous words of Apollo Creed: "We gotta put him away early."

The peasant (no I will NOT name him!) who finished the town hall was ordered to construct a farm, as were the next two who recieved their diplomas in craftsmanship. At this point I had 450 wood left from my starting amount, so the fourth serf was told to build an Elven lumbermill as close to the woods as possible on the east side of my town. I noted there was only one slightly narrow entrance into my base, and this was where my mill went up. Thankfully the placement didn't wall me in completely, but would make it difficult for mobs of early grunts to funnel through. While constantly training peons and alternating them between lumber and gold gathering (and adding new farms as needed), I sent out a lone peasant in order to find my enemy and see what was going on with him. I logically deduced that there were four starting spots, and all of them in the corners based on my own position. While the peasant wandered through the forest, I noted how pleasing the map looked, and how it was _very_ friendly to Warcraft's poor pathing AI. I commented on this to my enemy, and we both shared at least this in agreement. I would be playing this map a bit more in the future.

The first place I checked, bottom right, proved barren of any orcish activity. My next trip to the northeast hit the honeypot. The sight of a troll lumber mill blocking the tiny entrance to the orcish base completely greeted my peasant. Beyond it I could see a few emerald-skinned laborers chopping busily, and a barracks being built at the very edge of the fog. There was no tower behind the mill, so I set my peasant forth to 'dismantle' the offending structure with his mighty pick-axe. This got his attention, as I saw a tower going up behind the mill. Yours Truly suddenly had a burst of inspiration. I pulled Mr. Gump back and ordered him to build a tower just out of range of my enemy's, but well-within range of the lumber mill.

Okay, back home I've started on my second barracks and blacksmith and have a single level 1 footman guarding my base. Well at least now I had some sort of idea of how I was going to be a wrench in the gears of the mighty Orcish war machine. Back up at my "blockade," the tower was being retrofitted into a guard tower. So far I had not been scouted to my knowledge. Suddenly, I see an angry peon trudge out of the mists and come after my poor, defenseless peasant! Whether he was his scout, or the one he had sent out to be an eventual expansion builder I will never know. The two lowly workers exchanged a few pathetic whacks with their axes before I had my peasant run rings around the little bit of forest behind my upgrading tower with the peon in hot pursuit. Eventually the race ended when my tower finally upgraded and impaled the luckless orc worker through the chest with two spear shafts, ending that threat. I instructed the slightly wounded peasant to build an on-site barracks in order to speed up the pipe-line of new recruits that would soon be massing here, bringing my barracks count up to three. I also sent up two footmen to help safeguard the operation as well as an Elven Archer to patrol the southern forest in order to spot any peons trying to chop through. If he was leaving in any great hurry, I wanted to know about it.

At around the time my third barracks was completed, I started the upgrade to keep seeing as I had resouces to spare. The trollish lumbermill was kept alive by a single peon frantically repairing it from the other side. Once again my super peasant constructed yet another tower south of the evil mill and it was made into a cannon tower. It heaved a cannonball that ended the life of the peon tending to the mill, then proceeded to rain fire down on the enemy guard tower, which was outranged by the cannon tower.

Now as it were the Orc commander would have only one choice: Ogre production would have to be delayed in favor of catapults. Anticipating this move, I demanded construction of a ballista at the barracks near the hot-zone and also began building my stables at home. It was about five seconds from completing when I heard the sound of an orcish catapult rumbling to the front. It launched, decimating my number one peasant. It became personal then. The orcish bastards would pay, and pay out the nose. A few knights and a mixed assortment of footmen and archers were gathering outside the blockade, waiting for the order to charge in.

A few sulphurous shots from the catapult destroyed my guard tower and began to work on my cannon tower when my ballista popped out. Yeah, baby! We played a little game of tag with eachothers respective siege engines, mine getting the first hit in, then his damaging mine a little from splash. Then he decided for whatever reason to pull his catapult out of sight. I did the same with mine.

I had only moved back to my base for a moment in order to upgrade to castle, train a few more knights, make farms, etc.. when "The town is under attack!" filled my speakers. Slamming the spacebar, I was greeted by the sight of the stupid catapult pelting fire down on my on-site barracks. Grinning, I began to trudge my own ballista up to the front. The next salvo was aimed at my ballista, but it overshot the target. Before the orc operating the machine could correct, a mighty arrow drove through the center of the catapult, sending a shower of lumber and ammunition everywhere. Then my attention was directed to the burning enemy guard tower behind that stubborn lumber mill. As soon as the ballista destroyed it, my eager forces charged!! Mighty war-hammers and gleaming broadswords hacked into the structure, then poured through the opening before the dust and smoke had even settled amongst the debris they had trampled over. A lone orcish grunt turned at the sight of the forces of the Alliance pouring into the base and began to run toward the town hall, screaming "We're being atta--" the rest was stifled as the hapless creature was crushed underfoot by the mighty warhorses of the stalwort knights. The only defenses the orcish settlement had to offer culminated from three catapults, three ogres, and a smattering of trolls. But the ogres were only level 2, whereas mine were 4! Upgrades really won out in that fight, and any ogres who showed their two ugly heads from the two barracks the orc commander had were quickly butchered. Reinforcements came in a steady trickle to seal the Orc's fate. He indeed did have a fortress and an Altar of Storms, but did not get the chance to research the hated magik.

Back at home I built a mage tower just for the hell of it, and even expanded though I didn't need to. It's just that I felt that I had to at least -attempt- to expand. My opponent apparently didn't like seeing his plans fall through on him, as I finally recieved another transmission from him:

Ogerharry: Hmm....gay.

Even though my opponent did take the cowardly way out and disconnect, there was a happy ending as my rating did increase after the battle. And yes, I know this wasn't the most exciting of battle reports and was somewhat lopsided, but it just shows that there is risk in teching up to bloodlust like that and using the strategies my opponent did. Human fans unite!

Oh yes, and for controversy's sake and in order to boost my number of comments, the following people are blatantly homosexual:

Mark4
Whoop'
Johnny_Vegas
Upgraded_Probe
Sqick
YourRoleModel
Ahscar
Kadabra










That was a joke. None of the above are blatantly homosexual, except for maybe Whoop.

=)