Tag: Warcraft

The funniest thing is that I managed to execute tower rush on the first Northrend mission.

It was all fun and games until final mission of Human campaign, Frostmourne. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but Mal’Ganis was able to counter my every strategy, recovering every time. I thought that I could do mass griffins, he went mass gargoyles. I tried mass tanks, he went mass meat wagons. I went knight, riflemen and priests, he managed to destroy me with abominations and frostwyrms. The only way I managed to beat that mission without looking for a guide is by eventually destroying both his mine and town hall with tanks, so he ran out of money. No fun, just frustration.

I forgot that Arthas killed Mal’Ganis. And Uther. But the dwarf friend isn’t killed directly, looks more like an accident during release of Frostmourne.

I know I completed both Warcraft 3 and the Frozen Throne, but it was more than 20 years ago. And I feel like I was playing games always in a hurry back then, so I don’t actually remember much of the story.
Generally, I like the Reforged version. The only issue I have is similar to Age of Empires 2 remake: when you zoom out, the image becomes all foggy, some kind of original engine limitation. This, and also the microstutters: the game goes from 240fps to 50fps every few seconds.
My personal issue is that the game had received updates for over 20 years, so I’m not sure what version am I playing when I’m playing the campaign. I don’t remember “Sundering Blades” upgrade, for one. And did Orc grunts always had heavy armor and thus weak to magic?

Completed Orc campaign as well now.
Starting as orcs is much harder. As humans, you get healing spell pretty early, allowing you to preserve your units. With orcs you get… skeletons.
Also funny how with orcs you sent to assassinate chieftain’s daughter, because she ran off with an ogre.
When I played this game as a kid, I didn’t appreciate spiders at all. Now I do. They are a great way to take out enemy catapults, and if they manage to get into the city, they do surprising damage to buildings.
The mission where you need to rescue Garona? Brutal! I did manage to complete it on my first try, but still, lost most of the units because orcs can’t heal them.
A nice trick that AI knows I wouldn’t notice if not for some YouTuber mentioning it, is that human opponent would cast Invisibility on a knight, then send him to hunt peons.
The last two missions are very similar to the Human campaign: survive until you can summons demons, then overwhelm the resistance.

Completed Human campaign.
The game is still quite brutal, even with all the advancements in quality of life. You don’t intercept a catapult, and half of your army is dead before you know it.

Counterintuitively, putting catapults in the front of your army works surprisingly well. They are rather sturdy, and extra range allows them to counter enemies early.

Funnily enough, I think that the level before last is harder than the final one. Despite tons of enemies, the base in Blackrock Spire is much easier to defend. Last two levels are basically a Water Elemental factory. You just survive until you get them, then spawn as many of them as possible, overwhelming the enemy.

I still find it awesome that they had a unique sprite for the Blackrock Spire.

I must admit, an updated version of Warcraft wasn’t on my bingo card for 2024. But here we are.

There is updated control scheme from Warcraft 2, so you can just right click everything. You can also double click to select all units, and you can control up to 12 units at once, instead of just 4 from the original or even 9 from Warcraft 2. As a nice bonus, there is also a seamless switch between the original and updated sprites.
But there is no waypoint system, and no unit queueing either. Still, it’s a much improved experience.

Решил немного переиграть в Warcraft. Самый первый.
Вещи, о которых я помнил смутно:
В игре была резиновая рамка, по ctrl’у. Вот чего не было, так это отрядов по ctrl+1.
Юниты не видят дальше собственного носа. Иначе говоря – дальше трех шагов. Очень утомительно.
У Lothar’а (умрет в Warcraft 2) был собственный уникальный спрайт. Пленные юниты в подземелье не просто стояли, а лежали под одеялами. Ими нельзя было управлять, пока их не вылечишь.