The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998 / hackers_encyclopedia.iso / pc / softdox / wc2.faq < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 2003-06-11 | 38.0 KB | 1,130 lines

Warcraft 2 Unofficial FAQ List September 16, 1996 1. About this document This section discusses this document. 1.1 Table of contents. Sections marked with an asterisk are new or changed in this version. 1. About this document 1.1 Table of contents 1.2 Authors of this document 1.3 Where to get this document 1.4 What does Blizzard think about this? 2. General Questions 2.1 What is Warcraft 2? 2.2 How can I contact Blizzard? 2.3 What are the different versions of Warcraft 2? 2.4 What are some good Web pages for Warcraft 2? 2.5 Can I download Warcraft 2? 2.6 Which is better, Warcraft 2 or Command & Conquer? 2.7 Which are better, orcs or humans? 2.8 What's a PUD? 2.9 How do I use a PUD? 2.10 Can PUD's have a goal other than destroying? 2.11 How do I use the features of the expansion set in my own maps? 3. Game play and operation 3.1 I'm having trouble running the program. Help! 3.2 What bugs are in Warcraft 2? 3.3 My save files don't work with 1.3! Help! 3.4 What are the shortcut keys? 3.5 What are the cheat codes? 3.6 Why can't I build more units? 3.7 What do portals, rune stones, and circles do? 3.8 Why don't I see cut scenes in the expansion set? 3.9 Can deathknights see invisible units? 3.10 What does this spell do? 3.11 Does haste increase attack speed? 3.12 How do I build walls? 3.13 What Easter eggs are in Warcraft 2? 4. Single-player campaign levels 4.1 How do I beat the computer? 4.2 I killed all the computer units. Why don't I win? *4.3 Does the computer cheat? 4.4 How do I beat level Human 7? 4.5 How do I beat level Human 14? 4.6 How do I beat expansion level Human 7? 4.7 How do I beat expansion level Orc 12? 4.8 How do I beat expansion level Human 12? 5. Multi-player games 5.1 What is "spawning"? 5.2 The start button is greyed out. Why? 5.3 I keep getting beaten on multiplayer. What to do? 5.4 Are other people cheating in multi-player? 5.5 How can I cheat on multi-player? 5.6 What is a grunt rush? 5.7 What is the seven-man grunt rush? 5.8 What is a mage bomb? 5.9 What is barracks first? 5.10 How do I change the color of my name? 5.11 Can I play Warcraft 2 over the Internet? 6. Kali 6.1 What is Kali? 6.2 What do I need for Kali? 6.3 Where do I get Kali? 6.4 How do I install Kali? 6.5 Really, how do I install Kali? 6.6 Which are good Kali servers to play Warcraft 2? 6.7 What is THF? 6.8 What are ogre rules? 6.9 What is TVB? 6.10 What is a FFA? 6.11 What are the NWL and IWL? 6.12 What is the lumber bug? 6.13 How do I stop my units from mining? 6.14 What's the best speed on Kali? 6.15 Is there a Kali newsgroup? 7. Tricks and tactics 7.1 What strategy guides are available? 7.2 How do I stop bloodlusted ogres? 7.3 How do I stop sappers/dwarves? 7.4 How do I stop death knights? 7.5 How do I stop a mage bomb? 7.6 How do I stop submarines? 7.7 How do I stop barracks first? 7.8 How do I stop early grunt attacks? 7.9 What tricks can I use? 1.2 Authors of this document The primary author is Dan Zerkle, zerkle@cs.ucdavis.edu. If you would like to suggest an addition or revision, please mail it to him. Suggestions and additions from Richard Wan (riwan@unixg.ubc.ca) are marked "RW". 1.3 Where to get this document The document is posted Mondays to alt.games.warcraft, alt.games.kali, and comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic. It is available on the Web from http://www.ogr.com/faqs/warcraft2.faq or http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/4006/war2faq.txt. If you would like to include it on your Web page, please contact the author so he can mention your page here. If you have a commercial Web operation, please contact me before using this information. 1.4 What does Blizzard think about this? This FAQ list is unofficial and the authors have no association with Blizzard except as customers. How- ever, an employee of Blizzard made the following com- mendation: I want to commend you on the War2 FAQ. Very thorough, and very accurate. Mike Morhaime Vice President Blizzard 2. General Questions This section contains general questions about Warcraft 2. 2.1 What is Warcraft 2? Warcraft 2 is a real-time action and strategy computer game written by Blizzard for the IBM PC and compati- bles. It runs under MS-DOS or Windows 95. A Macintosh version is schedule for immediate release, and may already be on store shelves. You may control armies of noble humans (and allies) or loathsome orcs (and allies). You may play against the computer or up to seven other players. To defeat the enemy requires clever strategy, tactics, and resource management. You must produce buildings and harvest resources to train troops and fight the enemy. It has the unique fog of war feature. You can not see the actions of the enemy unless you actually have a unit in visual range. 2.2 How can I contact Blizzard? Their Web page is http://www.blizzard.com. E-mail is sales@blizzard.com. Sales are at 800-953-SNOW. Paper mail is P.O. Box 18979, Irvine, CA 92713. The manual lists contacts for customer support. 2.3 What are the different versions of Warcraft 2? Version 1.0 is the original version (Tides of Darkness) that comes in the box on the CD. Version 1.2 is a free (RW) patch available from Blizzard's Web site. It fixes a bug with the exorcism spell, includes support for Kali, and allows players to start in random map positions in multi-player. Version 1.3 is the Beyond the Dark Portal expansion set, available as a separate CD. It has all the features of 1.2. Also, it includes 24 difficult cam- paign levels, two new cut scenes, many maps for use in custom or multiplayer levels, a new tile set, special "hero" characters, better PUD selection software, and a disco music track. Version 1.32 is a free patch that may eventually be available from Blizzard's Web site. It will contain a program to fix old save files to work with newer ver- sions of the program. At the time of this writing, Blizzard still wants to fix some things before releas- ing it. If you run across this patch, please do not use it. When the patch is officially released, this document will be updated. There are some add-on CD's sold by other companies. These CD's contain more maps. People who have bought them invariably report disappointment. 2.4 What are some good Web pages for Warcraft 2? There are far too many to list them all. Use a Web search, watch the newsgroup, or follow links to find them. Here are three good ones. Blizzard's Web site is at http://www.blizzard.com. It has all sorts of useful information. Check it out if you have purchased or are considering purchase of any Blizzard product. Shlonglor's War 2 page is generally considered the best, with lots of strategies and overviews. It's at http://www.andrews.edu/~fraizer/war2.cgi. Methos' Warcraft II Strategy Page contains lots of hints for better game play. It also contains links to other pages. It's at http://www.mtsu.edu/~csc10001/strat.html. 2.5 Where can I download Warcraft II? Blizzard's Web page contains a playable demo for the IBM PC and the Macintosh. 2.6 Which is better, Warcraft 2 or Command & Conquer? They are both good. If you like one, you'll probably like the other. You should probably buy both. Gen- erally, Warcraft 2 is considered better for multi- player, while Command & Conquer is considered superior for single-player play. Warcraft 2 has a medieval setting with monsters and magic. It runs in SVGA mode for nice graphics. The units for the two races are very similar, all having close or exact matches to the other side. You must harvest and manage three kinds of resources. Up to eight players are permitted in a single game (effec- tively six on Kali). Each package purchase allows up to three players per game (two of every three players don't need CD's). The cut-scenes between levels are sparse and not very pretty, but occasionally clever. It has the unique fog of war, which adds a new dimen- sion to the game by allowing sneak attacks and surprise tactics. Command & Conquer has a modern setting with soldiers and vehicles. It runs in VGA mode for mediocre graph- ics. The two opposing sides have widely varying unit types. You must harvest and manage only one resource. Up to four players are permitted in a single game (effectively two on Kali). Each package purchase allows up to two players per game (the game comes with two CD's). The cut scenes between levels are magnifi- cent, detailed, frequent, and add to the plot of the game. It has no fog of war, so different players in multiplayer games can see everything that the other players do (after initial scouting). 2.7 Which are better, orcs or humans? The skills of the commander are much more important. Both races are nearly identical until the castle/fortress stage, when the spells arrive. Until that stage, the orcs have slightly easier weapon upgrades at the blacksmith. After the castle stage, the races are somewhat dif- ferent. Orcs are easier to play effectively, but humans are more subtle and dangerous. A perfectly good orc strategy is to make a whole mess of ogre-mages, run them to edge of the enemy town, cast runes between the enemy hall and mine, bloodlust all the ogres, then run them into town to wreak havok. This, in fact, is one of the best strategies, and com- monly used. It's easy and effective. Humans, on the other hand, can do more things in the control of an intelligent commander. They have a wider variety of useful spells. Holy vision helps a lot with fast reconnaissance, allowing intelligent actions. Invisibility allows units to sneak into vulnerable spots and cause damage before they are stopped (invisi- ble mages and transports are particularly dangerous). Slow is an absolutely devastating spell if used correctly and liberally. In multi-player games with fast game speed and slow network response, orcs are much easier to play, simply because they don't have to cast as many spells. Humans have to spend more time doing that. 2.8 What's a PUD? A PUD is a file containing a level map. Many come with 1.3. You may also create your own with the level edi- tor or download them from various sources. 2.9 How do I use a PUD? Just put the file in your Warcraft 2 directory (or a subdirectory if you are using 1.3 or later). To use it, select a custom scenario or multi-player scenario, then pick the PUD from the "select scenario" list. 2.10 Can PUD's have a goal other than destroying? No. All custom games or multi-player games have only the goal of destroying all the enemies. You can't change this with the map editor or any other way. 2.11 How do I use the features of the expansion set in my own maps? The map editor in 1.3 is the same as the one in 1.0. It doesn't allow you to use the new tile set or the heroes. However, Daniel Lemberg has written an unoffi- cial editor that will let you do so called war2xed. It can be downloaded from http://www.bayserve.net/~lemberg/. 3. Game play and operation This section addresses general questions about game play and program operation but not strategy (there is a separate section for that). 3.1 I'm having trouble running the program. Help! Blizzard has extremely good technical support at its Web page. If something is going wrong, please check out that page first. An answer to your problem is almost certainly there. If you're still having trouble, contact Blizzard at one of the support contacts mentioned on page six of the manual. This will work better and faster than posting to the newsgroup. Do not post a technical question without trying these two things first. If you really must post, please men- tion that you already tried the above avenues. Mes- sages posted to newsgroups are distributed to tens of thousands of servers worldwide, and it isn't really appropriate to waste these sorts of resources when you've already paid Blizzard to answer your questions for you. 3.2 What bugs are in Warcraft 2? Version 1.0 may crash when the exorcism spell is used in certain places. The multi-player chat room does not always show correct versions of other people's software. If start a peon or peasant chopping wood, then order him to build a hall or lumber yard, you'll get one free load of wood without taking the time to chop it. It appears when the building finishes. Save files from 1.0 or 1.2 will cause a crash after installing 1.3. The 1.32 patch contains a fix for this (although it has not been officially released yet). Also, you may use the tigerlily cheat to continue your game at the appropriate level. Walls, trees, and rocks are considered terrain, so you can see them being built or destroyed by opponents even if they are in the fog of war. Rarely, when a building is destroyed (especially mines), you can still see it (although game play is not affected). Sometimes, when you expect to get an ogre-mage, an ogre gets built instead. Knights rescued from other nations do not get church upgrades if the upgrades are taken before the rescue. They stay knights and only get the blacksmith upgrades (Derek Angell ChezLad@aol.com). 3.3 My save files don't work with 1.3! Help! See the section above about the bugs in Warcraft 2. 3.4 What are the shortcut keys? Put your mouse pointer over an icon for any command. Text describing that command will show up on the bottom of the screen. One of the letters of the description is a different color. That is the shortcut key for that command. 3.5 What are the cheat codes? To use a cheat code, hit enter, type the cheat code, then hit enter again. To disable a cheat, just type it again. In multi-player, any cheat you use will help all the players. These are the more useful codes: "Tigerlily" enables level jumping. After this, use codes like "human 7" to skip to human level seven, "orc 12" to do a similar thing for orcs, and "human 17" to skip to level three of the expansion set. "On screen" shows the whole map. "Make it so" speeds up building, upgrades, and unit production. "It is a good day to die" spectacularly boosts your units' strength (does not affect computer players). "Unite the clans" wins immediately. "You pitiful worm" loses immediately. "Glittering prizes" increases your gold, wood, and oil. "Valdez" increases your oil. "Hatchet" speeds up wood chopping. "Deck me out" gives you armor and weapon upgrades. "Every little thing she does" gives you spell upgrades. "There can be only one" wins whole game. 3.6 Why can't I build more units? Each game has a maximum limit of 600 units, which includes mobile units and buildings. This limit is divided evenly amongst all the players. Therefore, if there are four players (human or computer), each one can have a maximum of 150 units. The unit limit only applies to players still in the game. So, if one of the four players in the example above was eliminated, each of the three remaining players would get to make up to 200 units. 3.7 What do portals, rune stones, and circles do? In campaign levels, the roles of the dark portals, rune stones, and circles of power are explained by the introductions to the appropriate levels. However, in custom maps (PUD's), they can serve no roles other than decoration. Using w2xed, it is possible to assign different charac- teristics to all buildings. For instance, a rune stone could be made into a gold collection point. 3.8 Why don't I see cut scenes in the expansion set? There are only two new cut scenes. One is at the end of the human campaign (level 12), and the other is at the end of the orc campaign. That's it. 3.9 Can death knights see invisible units? No, they can't. The computer can, but it's cheating. 3.10 What does this spell do? To find out what a spell does, there are three steps: First, read the manual. It has a description of the spell. Second, experiment with the spell in a single-player game. You'll get a good feel for the thing. This should be enough. If you're really, really curious about the exact details of the spells, check out the Insider's Guide to Warcraft II, at http://www.gamespot.com/features/wc2/index.html. 3.11 Does haste increase attack speed? (RW) The haste spell doubles the number of attacks from dra- gons and gryphons. All other units will attack no more frequently and cause no more damage when hasted. 3.12 How do I build walls? You can only build them in multi-player games. The computer units never attack walls directly, so they aren't permitted in single-player games. 3.13 What Easter eggs are in Warcraft 2? Click on a unit many times to hear it say funny things. Keep clicking. Footmen are particularly hilarious. RW: Boats are funny as well! You also get cute quotes from testing the sound card too many times (Simon.Palmer@cs.uwa.edu.au). Sheep say "Baa ram ewe!", which is from the movie, Babe. If you click on a critter enough times, it explodes! No, it doesn't cause any damage when you do this. If you use the cheat "disco" on an expansion set level, a really cute song will start playing. You can also play the song by putting the CD in an ordinary music CD player and playing track 18. 4. Single-player campaign levels This section discusses play in the campaign levels. 4.1 How do I beat the computer? Generally, you can protect your town with lots of towers and wait until you've built up a huge force. Then, attack. On the expansion set levels, you often need to attack much sooner. On several, in fact, you need to wipe out an enemy town immediately with your starting forces. Most levels can be beaten with simple persistence and skill. See the strategies and tips section for some hints that may apply to single-player levels. Tricks for beating tricky levels are detailed below. If this FAQ isn't enough for you, you may call Blizzard's hint line at 900-370-SNOW. The charge is 85 cents per minute. 4.2 I killed all the computer units. Why don't I win? You missed one or more somewhere. Keep searching. Make sure that the entire level has been explored. You may need to turn off the fog of war to help you look. Using the "on screen" cheat helps. Also, you can turn off the terrain display on the mini-map with the TAB key. 4.3 Does the computer cheat? Yes. It always knows where all your units and build- ings are. That means that it can hit your invisible units with death coil. It also means that it doesn't have to search to find your towns. On the campaign scenarios, it usually starts off with considerably greater forces. It can upgrade scout towers to arrow towers without having a lumber mill (Paul Jeray pjjeray@students.wisc.edu). 4.4 How do I beat level Human 7? There are some catapults on the left side of the map. If you touch them, you'll capture them and you can use them to attack the orcish town. 4.5 How do I beat level Human 14? Cause as much damage as you can with your ships to the catapults and towers. Then, land your armored troops and ballista and clear off some space. Finally, land your mages and archers. Build lots of anti-dragon defenses. Guard towers or archers, mixed in with an occasional mage fireball, will do the job. Once you have plenty of guard towers, the rest of the level is routine. 4.6 How do I beat expansion level Human 7? Although you can't build much, you can make a lumber yard, a ship yard, and lots of destroyers. Do so. Kill Deathwing by using your gryphon to lure him to your fleet of destroyers, which will do the job quickly. 4.7 How do I beat expansion level Orc 12? As the game starts, send Deathwing to the nearest enemy mine, out of range of the arrow towers. He will kill all of the peasants there and that nation won't be able to make troops. 4.8 How do I beat expansion level Human 12? Early in the game, you need to attack the white orcs. Cast blizzard spells on their towers and over the trees on their peons. After that, set up a defense force near the portal and have Khadgar destroy the portal with lightning and blizzards. 5. Multi-player games This section details questions relevant to multi-player gaming. 5.1 What is spawning? You may install the game on multiple computers. You only need the CD to create (not join) a multi-player game or to engage in a single-player game. Each CD on a computer in a multi-player game will serve up to three players, so an eight-player game will work with only three CD's. This multi-play from a single CD is called spawning. 5.2 The start button is greyed out. Why? All players who didn't create the game must click in the little "ready" box next to their names. 5.3 I keep getting beaten on multiplayer. What to do? Tactics you used against the computer won't work here. You need to build really fast and produce lots of forces right away. You should probably wait longer to buy all of those expensive upgrades that were so handy against the computer. Towers don't work so well against intelligent players, so use fewer of them. Build your hall as close as possible to your mine. Also, you need a lot more peons or peasants. The strategy web pages mentioned earlier are very handy for getting better at multi-player. 5.4 Are other people cheating in multi-player? No. They're just much better than you are. If you enable a cheat, it affects all players, and a message appears on everyone's screen. It would be possible to hack the executable file to show more information, but there have been no reports of this. 5.5 How can I cheat on multi-player? You can't. Go away. 5.6 What is a grunt rush? It has two definitions. It either means attacking with a lot of grunts or footmen early, instead of trying for upgrades, or it means building a barracks before a town hall and attacking with a couple grunts before anyone else has them. The second method is not as effective now that players can start in random places with ver- sion 1.2 and up. 5.7 What is the seven-man grunt rush? It is a devastating strategy for medium-resources land games. Build a hall, three farms, and a barracks. As you do so, produce six peons or peasants. Start the barracks as soon as the first farm is done. Set five peons or peasants to mine gold, and put the sixth to chopping wood. Use the gold to produce seven grunts or footmen. As you produce them, scout for the enemy. When you have all seven, gather them outside the enemy town, then attack to kill all the enemy peasants or peons. If this doesn't work, you will eventually have enough wood to build another farm, produce more choppers, and proceed as usual. This strategy is so nasty that people rarely play on medium resources any more. 5.8 What is a mage bomb? Cast invisibility on a mage. Walk that invisible mage into the middle of the stream of enemy mining peons or peasants. Have the mage cast a blizzard right on top of himself. The blizzard will not hurt the mage, but it will kill all the peons or peasants, plus any armored units that come to attack the mage. 5.9 What is barracks first? This is the strategy of building a barracks before a town hall, then producing a few grunts or footmen to attack very early. When the enemy doesn't do it, it is a guaranteed win if you find his town fast, and a guaranteed loss if you don't. Most people don't like to play this sort of game. 5.10 How do I change the color of my name? Edit the file war2.ini. Find your name in it. Use your text editor to insert the characters CONTROL-B through CONTROL-F Each of these characters will change the color of the letters after it when you're in the game. You can use the MS-DOS edit program for this. Just position the cursor, type a CONTROL-P, then the control character you want. The special character will be inserted. 5.11 Can I play Warcraft 2 over the Internet? Yes. See the next section about Kali. 6. Kali This section discusses Kali, the popular Internet multi-player gaming facility. For more information, see the Kali Web site. 6.1 What is Kali? Kali is a system designed by Jay Cotton that fools a set of computers on the Internet into thinking that they are together on an IPX network. This allows many games that allow multi-player action on an IPX LAN to work over the Internet. There are Kali systems for MS-DOS and Windows 95. Server machines on the Internet allow players to meet before they start their games. Warcraft 2 works particularly well on Kali. 6.2 What do I need for Warcraft 2 on Kali? You need a real Internet connection (PPP and SLIP are fine) running at least 28.8Kbps, at least version 1.2 of Warcraft 2 (with the war2kali executable), and a $20 registration fee if you want to play for more than 15 minutes. Also, you need experience. Before you try playing on Kali, complete the 28 campaign levels that come with the game. They are good practice. 6.3 Where do I get Kali? It is available from http://www.axxis.com/kali. 6.4 How do I install Kali? Complete, detailed instructions come with the Kali package. If you download that, you'll have all your Kali questions answered. You'll need to unzip the Kali files to get at the instructions. If you don't know how to unzip a file, ask any friend who knows something about computers. 6.5 Really, how do I install Kali? Really, read the instructions. They're very good. 6.6 Which are good Kali servers to play Warcraft 2? Kali Central has lots of novice games. Axxis and Castlenet have intermediate level players. Starlink is for experts only. Don't go there unless you're prepared to lose and lose and lose (nobody wins all his games there). 6.7 What is THF? This rule is commonly used on Kali. It stands for "town hall first," and means that you must build a town hall or great hall before anything else. 6.8 What are ogre rules? It is a rule which disallows attacks unless there is an ogre or a knight in the attack party. It is often called by less skilled players who don't want to quickly lose to waves of grunts or footmen. 6.9 What is TVB? It stands for "top versus bottom." It means that the top two players on the chat room ally with each other against the bottom two players (who also ally with each other). 6.10 What is a FFA (RW)? It stands for "free-for-all." It is a multi-player game where every player attempts to destroy all the other players. Secret alliances are allowed when more than three players are in the game, and treachery is not frowned upon (as it is when teams are decided before the game starts). 6.11 What are the NWL and IWL? They are leagues of Warcraft 2 players on Kali, presum- ably "National Warcraft League" and "International War- craft League.". They are groups of players organized into teams (called nations and clans) who compete with each other for points and rank. IWL players put special characters around their names in game to indicate their team. NWL players put the "NWL" characters after their names. When NWL players do this, they typically refuse to play against anyone who is not in the NWL. The IWL home page is at http://www.oz.net/~iwl/iwl.htm. The NWL page is at http://home.netinc.ca/~amolnar/war2/inwl.htm. 6.12 What is the lumber bug? See the bugs question above. It is important when playing on low resources because it allows you to build a farm immediately after finishing the town hall. 6.13 How do I stop my units from mining? Slow the game way down. As fast as you can, select peons or peasants and order them to stop by pressing the "s" key. Eventually, some of them will stop. RW: Most players can get by without doing this. Just train more peasants. 6.14 What's the best speed setting on Kali? When starting the game with one peasant only, full speed is best for a short while. After three or four buildings are completed, it is best to slow the game to one notch below that. This makes units more respon- sive, so it is possible to cast spells, react to attacks, and so forth. If the lag in a game is particularly bad, the speed should be slowed to about the midpoint to reduce the effect of the lag. 6.15 Is there a Kali newsgroup? Yes. It's alt.games.kali. 7. Tricks and tactics This section discusses common questions on how to deal with elements of game play. It is mainly oriented towards multi-player action. 7.1 What strategy guides are available? There is an official strategy guide book. It mostly contains information in the manual, but also contains maps and walkthroughs of the standard campaign levels. You may purchase it at your local software store or directly from Blizzard. Most of the Web sites for Warcraft 2 offer multi-player strategy guides. 7.2 How do I stop bloodlusted ogres? Destroy or hurt the enemy badly in the beginning of the game so he can't get them. Make sure you have plenty of reconnaissance in the form of towers, flyers (flying machines or zeppelins), and patrols, so you can see them coming. Cast slow on them. Cast blizzard or death & decay on them when they stop outside your town to bloodlust. Polymorph them. Keep a few gryphons or dragons over your town for last-ditch defense. Ogres can't hurt them. RW: Cast a flame shield on one of them when they are in a group together. 7.3 How do I stop sappers/dwarves? Spread out your buildings so a single unit won't be able to hit multiple buildings at once. Destroy or hurt the enemy badly in the beginning of the game so he can't get them. Keep your enemy from getting lumber, so he can't build them. Make sure you have plenty of reconnaissance in the form of towers, flyers, and patrols, so you can see them coming. Patrols will also likely kill them. Towers are likely to get killed by them, except for non- upgraded ones. Don't keep your units standing around. It's too easy for a sapper or dwarf to blow up two or three of them. Put them on patrol, instead. Cast slow on them. Make a group of four arrow towers near your important buildings. Cannon towers don't help. Surround your important buildings with walls. Make a group of troops and put them on patrol along likely approach paths for the exploders. Upgraded elves and trolls are especially good for this. Cast polymorph, unholy armor, or invisibility on them. All of these spells instantly destroy exploding units. 7.4 How do I stop death knights? Destroy or hurt the enemy badly in the beginning of the game so he can't get them. Make sure you have plenty of reconnaissance in the form of towers, flyers, and patrols, so you can see them coming. Use exorcism on them. With good reconnaissance, you should always be able to kill them before they kill your paladin. Cast slow on them. Death & decay becomes much less dangerous. Attack them normally when they approach. 7.5 How do I stop a mage bomb? Destroy or hurt the enemy badly in the beginning of the game so he can't get them. Unfortunately, reconnaissance doesn't help as much, but you might be able to extend your field of view enough to kill mages before they become invisible. Put two cannon towers near your mine. They will prob- ably kill the mage before he causes too much damage. A catapult and some patrolling units near there also help. 7.6 How do I stop submarines and turtles? The best way is to make sure that you can see them. Consult the manual's descriptions of submarines and turtles to find out how to see underwater units. If you can see a sub, it is easy to kill with ships or a catapult. If you are in a pinch and can't see the sub, order a catapult, ballista, battleship, or juggernaut to "fire at the ground (water)" where you see the sub's projec- tile coming from. You may be able to hit it anyway. It will die in one shot, usually. 7.7 How do I stop barracks first? Use the THF rule. Play on low resources. Play on a water level. Play on a map where you need to chop through trees before you can reach the enemy town. 7.8 How do I stop early grunt attacks? Build faster than your enemy. Kill all the enemy peons or peasants so that he can't make grunts. Near your hall, build a cannon tower and surround it with other buildings (probably farms) so that grunts can't hit it. It will defend your peons or peasants. Block off access to your peons or peasants with trees and buildings. This is called a "wall-in", and is dangerous because your peons or peasants can't get out to new mines or to expand the town. Play a water level or one where you need to chop out of a bunch of trees. 7.9 What tricks can I use? Kill enemy peons and peasants first. They are the most dangerous units, since they are the ones who are send- ing those nasty enemy units at you. They are also really easy to kill. The best way to do it is to cast blizzard or death & decay on the area between the enemy hall and mine. If someone does something really nasty to you, remember it. Do it to your next opponent. Have multiple peons or peasants repair a building while it is being constructed. It will build much more quickly. Use hotkeys. You can order your troops and buildings around much more quickly that way. To bloodlust a group of ogres very quickly, click on one, type a "b", then double-click on another. You've now bloodlusted and selected that ogre. Type another "b" and double-click a third ogre. Continue this pro- cess until all the ogres are bloodlusted. Caste haste on a deathknight, then order it to cast death & decay. It will cast the spell very quickly. Use mage bombs whenever an opponent has three or more peons or peasants on a mine. Make a lot of gnomish inventors or goblin alchemist buidings near or behind the enemy town. Make a lot of exploding units and blow the enemy town to bits. Put a platform on every oil patch. Your enemy won't get any oil. Cast slow on every enemy unit you see. Cast haste on your woodcutting peons. RW: A trapped peon can build a wall to pop himself out. RW: In single-player games, to defend against death knights casting death & decay on your towers, put fly- ing machines well in advance of the towers. the death knights will waste mana casting whirlwind on the gnomes. RW: Cannon towers can not attack units directly adja- cent to themselves. Surround them with farms. * EOF *