BattleReports.com - Starcraft strategy, reports, replays. Strategy reports for Warcraft 3, Civilization, and more!

What's up dudes! Here is another report for y'all on the majestic War of the Ring. Just a recap: In my previous WotR report , I got a little too big for my shoes and, after two victories against easy and medium-level computer players, decided that I was man enough to take on a Hard. This proved to be my undoing and I had my ass handed to me on a silver plate with a side of onions. Now is the cue to get yo self over to the previous report if you haven't already read it, because there will be NO pre-report explanation in this one.

However, people who have played Warcraft 3 will probably be fine, because as mentioned earlier this game is basically Warcraft 3.

So, uh... after losing that one game in the previous report, it shall be known that I went into deep depression and even considered suicide. That's how much this game meant to me. However, I stayed strong and decided to try again. This time, however, it would be for real. This would be the ultimate battle between man and machine.

The map is called Sorrow and it is sorrowfully bland. Dull gray canyons permeate the landscape with Places of Power and expansions thrown around here and there. I start in the 10:30 as the blue Good people and my foe, presumably, in the 4:30 as the red Evil people.

One advantage of this map is that each player's starting area is closed off and there is only one entrance, meaning one can usually expect where their foe is coming from. Anyhow, I immediately get to work because I know this game will be a tough'un. A good deal of peasants are trained and divided among food and ore in more or less equal numbers.

As I near my current population cap, I send one of the peasants to build me a camp over on the left. With my pop cap raised I am able to make some MORE peasants. One of them teams up with the camp-builder to construct a Barracks east of my town hall, since the AI in this game has a tendency to rush and I best be prepared. Once the barracks is built, I begin pumping out Gondor swordsmen and send the two builders to construct some more camps up north.

It should be known that this whole time my economy is nowhere near stagnant and I am constantly producing more peasants and assigning them to either ore or food. Once I have 4 swordsmen I send 'em out to scout the surroundings and instantly come upon some orcs frolicking in the woods near my base. I do not stop to consider how the hell the AI was able to get forces near my base so darn quick and set upon the heathens with my manly men.

The fight is short and the lives of all the greenskins are extinguished in a flash. I figure that was enough exploring for now and march my swordies back to the base for a well-earned rest. To supplement my men I erect a dwarven hall so I can make axethrowers and later shieldbreakers.

More swordsmen are built, more camps constructed (bringing my total pop cap to 76 for now) and a forge is also built to allow me to upgrade my swordsmen and dwarves. However I am not satisfied and proceed to build even more camps, deciding to max out my cap now so I don't have to worry about building camps later (the max is 100, and each camp holds 11. Yes this is a very weird and unshapely number).

I continue pumping out swordsmen and also research a tech at the forge to increase their attack. I then upgrade my fortress to tier 2 and instruct my peasants to build a ranger post, which will allow me to make (you guessed it) rangers.

Once I have ten or so swordsmen, I begin adding axethrowers into the mix for mild ranged support. Actually, I don't really mix them in, I kinda keep 'em separated because deep in the darkest recesses of my mind I am planning to segregate dwarves and men, using an army of shieldbreakers/axethrowers for attack and keeping my swordies back at the base for defense. The reasoning behind this is that shieldbreakers are seriously tough and should be able to punch through the opponent's defenses sans probleme, especially with axethrower support.

However this dream of racial segregation comes to an end when I am assaulted from the east by some creepy crawlers, and in my obsessive-compulsive desire to not lose ANY swordsmen I let my dwarves assist them in the defense of my homeland.

The invaders are promptly dealt with and life goes on. At this point, basically, I have a fairly good economy, although no matter how hard I try, I always seem to come out short on food and have a surplus of ore. Re-assigning workers in large numbers does not help. I also have obscene amounts of swordsmen and dwarves guarding my eastern border, and more are being trained as we speak. Since I would like to go on the offensive sometime soon, I decide that additional defenses are needed and start putting up a tower with my idle builder peasants.

As this is being done, I decide to take a risk and split up my glorious army into two parts. One stays back at the base, while the other goes to check out one of the eastern expansions.

Finding it empty, I decide to head south and take a look at the one below it (I also send my four builder peasants over to this current expansion so that I can hopefully set up a forward base). Usually whenever I played this map on medium difficulty, that southern one would be the first expansion the computer would build on. However, there is no orc presence here either. My guess is that it's too early in the game. Not finding anything of interest, I decide to stroll over to the Place of Power in the middle of the map and claim it. Wish it were that easy.

My heart sinks as my offensive force comes face-to-face with an assortment of pissed-off orcs and trolls and is promptly decimated. Okay, maybe 'decimated' isn't the right word, because I do manage to inflict some substantial damage on the enemy army before lights-out, however the fact that they already have trolls at this stage in the game is truly unnerving. I suffer a minor panic attack and start pumping out random units at my main to supplement my defense force, in preparation for the attack to come. These 'random units' include some Riders of Rohan, as well as a ranger whom I garrison inside the tower...

However, after considering the situation a bit, I hatch a very cunning plan. To my knowledge, the AI doesn't often make use of Places of Power, or at least they don't target them specifically. Thus, I assume that the Place at the 9:00 should be more or less undefended. I send one Rider over, avoiding the central canyon through which I assume red's army of trolls currently marches, and upon arriving at the Place I, sure enough, find it completely empty. The bonus it gives me is quite tasty (plus 3 to all units' attack).

However I cannot celebrate for long, as my base is attacked by Haradrim slayers, the evil side's primary invisible unit. Luckily, having a ranger camped inside my tower, I am able to see the fuckers and their lives are abruptly terminated. However, that is just the beginning, and soon the main army of trolls and orcs comes knocking at my front door. Luckily, at this point my army is expanded significantly and features several shieldbreakers as well as the attack bonus from the Place of Power, all of which when mixed create a hasty death potion for the trolls.

At this point I realize that things have gotten serious and that I need to step my game up a notch. I take some peasants off ore (I have way too much as it is) and make them build me a second Barracks so that I can pump out Swordsmen/riders twice as fast as before. I also send a rider to capture the central Place, since I assume that the enemy hasn't able to muster up another army by this point and the coast should be clear. Sure enough, it is, and the bonus that the Place grants me is quite interesting. It lets me cast a spell that temporarily reveals any section of the map that I wish. I hold off on that for now and pan on over back to my base, where I research an armor upgrade and a second weapon upgrade for my units. The peasants have also finished my second barracks, so I instruct them to construct a deuxieme tower.

I figure my army is pretty massive right now, so I hold off on building supplements and stand back to admire my handiwork.

However, I am rudely interrupted when my rider at the central Place is raped by a HUGE force containing the previously seen stonehurler trolls as well as the infinitely more badass Bonecleavers, one of the strongest regular (non-hero) melee units in the game. I change my mind about supplementing my defenses and start churning out more units for all I'm worth. Doesn't matter what they are, so long as I have as many as possible.

It is not long before the enemy is at my gates again, but I am ready. The bonecleavers, who charge in first, are surrounded by my mini-men and find themselves in pieces. The stonehurlers had been hurling stones from afar, but once the bonecleavers are dealt with, the rock-chucking fiends are soon to follow. Here's a high quality animation explaining what transpired that day:

Surprisingly, I lose very little units during that fight. Seeking to make use of the lull in the fighting, I grab my two peasants quite roughly and tell them to build me a second Dwarf hall. While the spamming of buildings reigns at my base, I select ALL of my troops and send them on the offensive. I realize this is a risky move, because now I have close to no defenses aside from the units currently being trained, but I am hoping that the enemy doesn't have any troops at the given moment and thus can't follow up the attack for some time.

As can be seen from the minimap, my main force is sent to the far-off expansion in the 7:30 corner. Also, this probably CANNOT be seen from the minmap, but figuring that the computer doesn't give a shit about the 9:00 Place of Power anyway, I send the rider that was previously there to re-capture the central Place. Oh, and I am finally able to collect enough food (250 I believe) to start up a second Town Hall at my eastern expansion, where four peasants had been idling this entire time.

My second dwarf hall back at my main is now complete, so I send its builders back to gathering ore. I train me a Gimli hero unit to boost my main's feeble defenses. At this point my army arrives in the 7:30 corner and finds it empty. Intrigued, I click on the central Place and cast vision spell upon the 3:00 expansion. To my surprise, there are no orcs there either.

What does this mean? It means that the Hard computer is probably a noob in disguise. We all know how valuable expansions are to one's economy, because having all of one's workers at one's main can get both inefficient and dangerous if they are attacked.

I proceed to move my 7:30 army over to 6:00 and thus close up the only entrance to the computer's home base. Now I simply wait until he sends out another army, kill it, and then converge on his defenseless main. However, as we all know dreams never come true. Apparently the tricky devil was able to sneak an army out of the base before I corked up the opening, and the same army now kills the Rider at the central Place.

The situation is now actually pretty bad. If they decide to attack my expansion, then my workers are dead meat because there are absolutely NO defenses there. The state of my main isn't so great either: three soldiers and a Gimli (who costs me three fate points but no resources), along with two towers, provide the only defense.

Except... the best defense is a good offense, right? That can only mean one thing. I select the army that waits at the threshold of Hard's domain and send them into the heart of darkness. At first it seems like my force should be more than enough to take care of this vile presence. However, the base is larger than I imagined. It is chock full of towers and random trolls running around, as well as a few heroes including Grishnakh and the demented Lord of the Nazgul.

My forces cause some minor damage, but are vastly outmatched and all of them meet their doom in the maze of thatched-roof huts and shoddy fortresses. The only thing left to do now is check out what the hell is going on at my main. I am just in time: the first waves of the enemy are already breaking against my defenses. I quickly teach Gimli the Sunder ability at the cost of two fate points, which lets him temporarily stun all enemies within a certain radius.

This works out well for some time: however, the goblins you see in the screenshot are only the beginning, and once the stonehurlers arrive Gimli is overwhelmed and killed. The few troops that remain are quickly deprived of life as well, and my main stands completely undefended and open to attack.

I desperately train reinforcements as the enemy Haradrim slayers and stonehurlers begin battering my buildings. Having two of each military production building pays off and I am inexplicably able to take down three massive trolls with only a rider, a couple dwarves and my towers. However, my real fear is the Haradrim slayers. While I was in combat with the trolls, the sneaky bastards took down the tower in which my sole Ranger was hiding and butchered him. Now, having no detector units in the vicinity, I am unable to see them and they easily decimate my already wounded dwarves and rider.

As they begin hacking away at one of my dwarven halls, I train an additional ranger and the hidden homies come into view again. I decide to let my ranger stand aside for the time being, so that he doesn't get massacred ahead of time. I then unleash my secret weapon - the revived Gimli the dwarf. He beelines right for the (now-visible) vertebrates and sunders their asses before they can react. I then send my ranger, as well as a rider and shieldbreaker that were trained during the madness, to help out in the slaying of the slayers. Not so tough now that they are clearly visible, they meet their doom.

As all this was going on, I did not neglect my economy and maintained a steady flow of workers to both food and ore at my eastward expansion.

Having failed in the offensive and saved my base from destruction by the breadth of a hair, I am now back to square one. Except for the fact that I have two settlements to his one, and the benefit of both Places of Power under my control. However, it should also be kept in mind that he is a piece of Hard artificial intelligence and I am merely a noob with a dream, so we're about even.

During the lull in the fighting, I hasten to rebuild my forces and use some peasants to replace the tower that was destroyed. One I have around 10 or so peasants at my forward base, I halt the flow of peasantry and produce a Frodo Baggins hero instead just for kicks. Frodo is one weak sumbitch but he is still heaps better than your average Gondor swordsman, and can be leveled up to make him more uber.

Suddenly my main is beset by another army. It consists mainly of troll bonecleavers and a level 2 Grishnakh, but they fall quickly due to my numerical superiority. At this point Frodo pops out of my forward town hall and I send him to check out the goings-on at the central place of Power, where he is promptly trampled by some more trolls apparently en route to my base, and I lose control of the Place. As is to be expected, this second batch of evil scum soon comes knocking at my front door, led by the infinitely evil Lord of the Nazgul.

I manage to defeat these mofos as well, and still maintain a sufficiently large force. I decide that the time has come to act and, with backup being trained at my main in case the enemy decides to sneak in while the main force is away, send the majority of my troops down to the central Place of Power. There is no one here, and I capture it without complications.

To my dismay, when I cast the Place's vision spell on the 3:00 expansion, I see that the computer has begun expanding there (FINALLY). This is how shit looks at the given moment:

I instantly send my main army, which is highlighted by the box in the minimap, to take care of the 3:00 pioneers. In case you examined the map via more than a passing glance, you might have noticed a blue line which seems to stretch from my main to my expansion. What is that? Those are all my workers. While the fight for my main was going on, the resources there had more or less been depleted, so I waited until the coast was clear and then executed a mass migration of my labor force to my expansion.

Going back to the assault on 3:00. My army sets upon the fledgling encampent with great glee and things look over for the orcish settlers until some bonecleavers arrive to defend. However, Gimli sunders their collective asses and they are chopped up while still stunned, leaving my troops free to wreak havoc on the defenseless settlement, raping churches and burning women. In the meantime, a small force tries to attack my main but is repelled because I have managed to amass a big enough defensive army that it now rivals my offensive one in terms of size.

When the enemy's forward base is no more, I send my main army further south and run into another orcish horde, complete with trolls, Grishnakh, the works. I realize that shit is going down, so I grab my defensive army and send it down to merge with my offense, leaving a couple rangers behind to protect against invisible fuckers. Gimli and the vanguard still take a pretty serious beating, but luckily backup arrives just in time and Gimli along with some remaining dwarf companions are saved.

Suddenly I realize that this is it. The moment of truth. It is now or never. I grab all my armies, including a boatload of swordsmen that I had been training back at the main because they are fast to produce and durable, and send them all to the bottleneck of the computer's base. Here I meet an unfriendly troll who likes to throw rocks at people but he is put out of his misery in no time flat. While the troll is getting his ass whooped, I use the central Place to check out the fogged area below my base to see if there are any orcs trying to sneak around like last time, but this time there aren't.

My army poses for a group picture before the final putsch. "Smile!" cackles Gandalf the Gay as he whips out his point n' shoot and the famous image is taken that will forever be replicated in history books, gracing the chapter about the final defeat of Mordor and the liberation of Middle-Earth.

As soon as my armies charge into the base, all hell breaks loose.

From the looks of the above screeny, one might think that in the following minutes I get completely owned. Truth is, I don't. Via the assistance of the ever-hepful Sunder, the oversized brutes are taken down, as are my old friends Grishnakh and the Lord of the Nazgul. However the real problem is the sheer size of the base. As was mentioned during my previous attack on this place, there are tons of towers and buildings everywhere, with goblin slavers and workers swarming around like ants. It is very hard to coordinate an attack in such crowded conditions. I figure I would have to get to the towers first, since they are pelting me with arrows, but the path is blocked by myriads of crazy goblins and other weird shit. I need something to clear the way... and, when my fate point tally hits seven, I find just the thing.

One click of the mouse and seven fate points is all it takes to summon the oversized plant, and things suddenly take a turn for the better as the as the deciduous dominator hurls massive rocks at the shoddy orcish structures, clearing a path for my smaller troops to get through and attack the more vital points of the evil empire.

However, my troops are still getting stretched very thin. Plus the Ent doesn't last forever, and once he sinks back into the ground there is the faintest possibility that victory may slip from my grasp, once again. I select the forces that had been trained at my main and send them down to help out, but I realize that it will take them quite a bit of time to get down here and by the time they do, the battle may well be over. I need another high-impact game changer, and I get it in the form of Gimli's tower-stealing ability.

Being in almost continuous combat, I am provided with a steady stream of fate points and once I get two, I am able to activate this function, which lets Gimli invade an enemy tower and claim it for my side. I do so, and fairly soon the two towers near the enemy's resource-gathering operation are under my control. This turns out to be highly effective, because towers can kill a goblin worker in two or three well-placed hits, thus wearing away at the root of the computer's economy slowly but surely.

The workers vainly try to take down the towers, but all is useless and upon the arrival of my backup armies, all that remains is to take down the remaining orc structures and the game is as good as mine.

Well, that pretty much sums it up.

Some thoughts:

The Good faction is MUCH easier to play as than the Evil faction. There is nothing unique about the good side, they pretty much follow the most generic RTS formula that is possible. The evil dudes, however, have their war posts/land corrupting and their slavers instead of houses. Slavers take a helluva long time to make and since they are produced in the same building as workers, making them interrupts your economy significantly.

Thus, the reason I won this game is because I played Good, and also because I had the +3 attack advantage (stemming from the 9:00 place of power) throughout 90% of the game. Some may consider this unfair, but all that matters is that I beat the hard AI, 1 on 1, end of story.

Ah, and for any LOTR nerds out there, tomorrow (March 15th) is the official day on which the Battle of Pelennor Fields took place - possibly one of the most important events in the entire trilogy because a shitload of important people died, including Theoden, the Witch King and Denethor (as well as Gothmog in the film).