"mazel tov bitches"
-Lithium_
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| The Battle of the North | | | Author: | | | IP: | resnet18XXXX | | Date: | 02/04/00 06:02 | | Game Type: | Warcraft 2 | | Labels: | none | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 8, Min: 8
Lifetime Rating for MRHD: 8.5455 |  | The Battle of the North
Part 1: The Time for Battle is at Hand
Somewhere in the frigid northern lands of Quel’Thalas a great battle took place between the virtuous warriors of the Alliance and the dark forces of the Orcish Horde. The peasants were dressed in woolen clothing to shield them from the brisk and piercing winds, and the footmen and knights were adorned in gleaming armor, of the highest quality steel, swords ready at side. In the Orcish camp, the peons were clothed in scanty rags, hardly the reinments for the conditions, while the Grunts wore hardened leather to protect them from the merciless blades of the Alliance warriors. And the Ogres…well, let us not get into that. The Alliance knew that they would have to strike hard and without mercy, lest the Horde gain all of Quel’Thalas and press forward into the very lands of Lordaeron.
It was a lazy afternoon between my morning Philosophy class and my evening political science class. A perfect time to study and enhance the experience of higher education, and to continue on the quest for that much coveted 4.0 GPA. Or it could be a time for even greater endeavors, such as getting on battle.net and playing some games of Warcraft 2. After seriously weighing all options, I decided that the latter was in my better interest. I went to the join list, and scrolled down through the small list of games that there always is during this time of day, while the non-lazy people are doing constructive things with their lives. There are a couple of team games, and one or two on that abomination known as the Warcraft 2 Big Game Hunters conversion, but finally I find the type of game I am looking for, entitled “1v1 GWN!!”, which I immediately join. As always in these situations I /stats my opponent, VmpHntrD, so I can get a feeling as to their caliber. I see the numbers 74-16, and sigh, knowing that I shall once again have my chobo head placed on a silver platter, severed by the mouse of a gosu warrior. I console myself, thinking that it is being on the receiving end of severe ownage that eventually brings a player to the elite ranks. He has picked humans, so I decide to give myself at least a slim chance and pick orcs. We go through the pre-game rituals of “Are you ready?” and “gl hf”, and then he begins the game, and I am already counting a loss on my record.
Great White North is one of the new puds that were released with the arrival of War2BNE, it is a 96x96, with the start locations being in the four corners. It has three points of expansion, one middle left, one middle right, and a larger one dead center. Just look at my terribly inadequate screenshot if it at the bottom if you want. It is a standard land map basically, with two entrances into each base, a point of extreme importance as you shall soon see. Anyways, on with the game.
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Part 2: The Bloodshed Begins
The Alliance scouts came back with news that the Orcish encampment was just north of their present position, and that the forces there were mobilizing for a large assault. The alliance general sighed heavily. “So this is it then. All the hopes of humanity rest on us now.” His voice was dry, burdened with the pain of many conflicts with the Orcs both in the present war and the previous war on the soil of Azeroth. He and the rest of soldiers who had participated in that first war had failed, not only the people who depended on them, but also themselves in a much more deep and painful way. A young man in those days, his face was now hardened by brutal weather and scorched by the heat of battle. His graying hair was an ever present testament to the fact that he was of old age now, and if he did not soon amend his heart for past failure, he would go to the grave a pathetic shell of a warrior, and of a man.
The young squire glanced around nervously. With hesitation, he addressed the old and tired leader. “Sir, if I may, the Orcs will soon attack. We need to devise a plan for decisive strategy against them.” The elder soldier nodded slightly, more focused on the bloodshed of the past than the matter now at hand. He was recalling an old strategy that had worked for him in many battles past, one that had always brought a glimmer of hope even in the darkest of times. A slight smile danced across his face, in a moment that was so fleeting that the young squire believed it to just be a trick of the shadows. “We shall immediately rally a squad of our finest footmen, and they shall circle in from behind the enemy and ambush them at the edge of the forest. The front line of the Orcish camps are well defended, but the back is weak. Victory will be ours. Give out the orders, and make sure they are carried out with all deliberate speed.”
The young man nodded and scampered off hastily. All there was to do now was to see if the Orcs were so dumb that they would not expect an attack from behind; they always had been in the past. They may have great strength, but the ingenuity and intellect of mankind will win out against brute force in the end. It must. These were the thoughts of the aging general as the horrific war began to unfold a new chapter before them on that day.
As the game began, I spawned in the upper right hand corner, while he received the lower right hand corner. The resource setting was high, so right after I finished with my first farm, I then proceeded to send a peon off to the bottom right hand corner, looking to expand. He spots a farm, and immediately I turn him away, and send him to the middle left gold mine, hoping to set up an expansion that would go undetected. At this point I make a very critical error: I went into the game thinking that this map only had one way into each base, so I decide to wall off the one entrance that I knew of with a pretty standard design, as shown below. Basically it was two barracks, blocked in back by three farms, and then three towers just to scare any determined footmen away. I had little worry for my main, and as I scrutinized it, I began to feel proud of this particular wall-in. Yes, I thought to myself, this baby will protect me from the meanest bunches of Ogres out there.
I found out how wrong I was in the first couple of minutes. If you noticed the doctored/remake screenshot below, you would have seen that while the southern entrance was well guarded, the western entrance had not even a lone grunt to be seen guarding it. Plus, since I had early expanded, I did not have the resources to hold off what was to come, which was a group of eight level four footmen. By this time I had about five level three grunts, and because of my brilliant base design, they couldn’t even arrive there very fast, since they had to go around the outside and then in. By the time they finally made it my blacksmith had already been demolished, and the footmen were gleefully hacking away at my peons, besides one deviant who seemed hell bent on my lumber mill. I managed to kill one before they all coalesced on my forces and slaughtered them without mercy. Two more grunts came along soon after their brethren had been slain, but they two met the end of their lives in that moment. There were now only three footmen left, but there were also no grunts. All my buildings around the mine had been destroyed except for the Great Hall, which I had one peon repairing. Then he sent the footmen down to my wall-in, where two of them were slaughtered by my towers there, with one pulling away and sitting next to my gold mine. I had one whole peon left at my main, my tech buildings were gone, and I had just the Hall and three peons at my expansion. Things could not very well get darker than what they were at that moment.
However, I was not about to give up. I had had many close games with Warcraft2, and for everyone one of those I had lost. I was tired of losing. I would not give up. If I could not match my opponent’s forces, I would try to lure him into a false sense of security, to outsmart him. If he slacked off, I vowed to make him pay. I would have my chance.
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Part 3: The Folly of the Alliance
A winded messenger burst into his tent where he had set up his headquarters, it was the squire that he had conversed with earlier; apparently he was chosen by the captain to run between the frontlines and the base. The general glanced up, that slight grin reemerging, for he knew what the tidings would be. “Sir.” Wheezed the exhausted messenger. “Latest information from the frontline states that our forces have routed the Orcish Horde, and that their base lies in rubble. There is, however, a line of sentry towers where the remaining Orcs rain arrows and fire cannons upon us from, that are quite dangerous. The Captain at the front is asking permission to engage these towers, sir.”
The general sat in his chair thoughtfully. So many lives had already been lost in the wars with the Horde, why should his men throw theirs away taking these towers head-on when the remaining Orcish threat posed no imminent danger? “Tell them to hold their ground.” Stated the general in a mild and yet firm voice. “We shall call upon the elves to fashion us some ballistas, and with these we shall take down the towers without the loss of another human life.”
The messenger nodded. “As you wish, sir. I shall tell the captain this immediately, you can count on me.” As the messenger turned away, cold lightning traveled down the general’s back, inducing a shudder. Something within him was second-guessing his decision, and the air was all of a sudden thick with the presence of intangible death. I have a very bad feeling about this. Perhaps I have made the wrong decision… perhaps I should have ordered a frontal assault. The ballistas will take time… what if The Horde takes advantage? The general shook his head, driving all doubts away. War was no time for a leader to second-guess himself. There was no quarter for indecisiveness. He would stick out his plan, for better or for worse…
At this point I do all that I really can: I start rebuilding all of my structures at my expansion, converting it into my new main. I expect at any moment for a couple of dozen footmen to storm through my main, but oddly enough they never come. Just one footman standing stupidly near the mine. So at this point I realize that my break has finally arrived: my opponent obviously believed he had me, and had started to slack off. Quick to take advantage, I pretend to try to rebuild my original main, and expand again to the lower left hand corner. I now have a total of three barracks at my new main, and a blacksmith up that had just finished upgrading my newly made grunts to level four. I start upgrading my hall into a stronghold, hoping to get Ogres as soon as possible.
The baffling silence at my original main continues, until the piercing sound of the gigantic arrows of the ballista crashing through the air are heard. I look over to the wall-in that I had made, and see it crumble in no time. I was at a point of indecision: should I let my old main fall, and buy me some more time, or should I save it, since I could use all the gold that I could get my hands on at this point? Gathering up my courage, I take fourteen grunts and form two separate groups, seven in each. They are now fully upgraded, and ready for the challenge. Wasting no more time, I send them over to the point from which the ballistas are firing merrily away. Since the ballistas had already targeted my structures in that area, my grunts are on top of them in no time, and destroy the six plus ballistas with almost no damage to themselves.
It is at this point that the footmen finally arrive. About a dozen of them, to be precise. This was the moment of truth; if I could hold off this force, then I just might have a chance. A fierce skirmish ensues, with bodies of grunt and footman alike being mutilated, but in the end, four grunts remained standing, all the footmen lay dead. Only now does a footman scout out my middle left expansion, but even this one still fails to find my much more weakly guarded lower left one. Knowing that I would be overrun if I didn’t start producing more units fast, I throw up two more barracks, bringing the total up to five, and begin to produce more peons at all three halls.
It wasn’t long until a large group of footmen with a few knights struck. I had a fair number of grunts out, and these whittled the attacking force down by a fair amount, but a few were still left. Luckily for me, my Ogre Mound had just finished, and the first of the dual headed dimwits popped out. These take care of the remaining forces of my opponent at my base, and by the time his second wave came around, I had more than enough Ogres to take care of the job.
My newfound confidence was soon shaken however, when the third wave hit not my new main, but my old one. I sent a fair force of ogres towards it in a hurry, but the legions of knights that were there mowed them down pretty quickly, and I realized to my dismay that that area was lost. Not to be deterred, I immediately expand to the upper left hand corner, and send nine ogres to defend it, so at least I could be mining from three areas again soon. By this time I had upgraded to a fortress, and had just thrown up an Altar of Storms and a Temple of the Damned.
At this point something that no one wants to see appeared at an unguarded edge of my base, hitting my farms and promptly blowing them up. Yes, it was the dreaded dwarven demolition squad. I hastily recalled what I could from my days on Warcraft2 strategy forums, and then remembered that a lot of guard towers at the perimeter were good for defense against unescorted demolition, since the arrows from them never miss. I then hurriedly set up a defense perimeter of towers, which does indeed kill a bunch of sappers that try to wreck havoc on my base. By now I have some death knights out, and am researching bloodlust.
It is also at this point that tons of knights charge into my base. The first wave I easily stop, but the second one leaves me pretty weak. And then a third wave comes in, at a point where I have very little left. I am forced to wait for them to target a building, and then use death and decay on them. This tactic buys enough time for the next set of ogres to come out, which finally eliminates the knight threat. At this point my opponent seems to give up the offensive for now, so I make a Goblin Alchemist and pop out a goblin zeppelin, in order to do some thorough scouting of my enemy.
As I go around the map, I see he has three positions. He has a pretty empty main, dried out of gold, he has the middle right expansion, little forces and a fair amount of gold left, and he has the center of the map, large amount of forces and a large amount of gold left. There was no doubt in my mind. I knew it was time to strike, and I knew just the place.
Part 4: The Tide of Battle Changes
The general was nervously stroking his beard with a trembling hand. He was very worried indeed. Apparently the Horde had indeed exploited the lapse between the first attack and the assault by the ballistas. Many brave soldiers had died since trying to penetrate the defenses of the Orcish encampment, but to no avail. The snow was falling heavily now, and his men were exhausted and hungry, for the supplies that they had brought had been greatly diminished through the course of the rigorous fighting. There was not much fight left in them.
How could this happen? The general thought in dismay. I grew overconfident and underestimated my enemy…and now… and now many of my men have died when they shouldn’t have. Also… we may very well fall in battle today, all of us. At this thought the general squinted his eyes so violently that you would have thought that the greatest of pains had just ravaged through him. And in a sense, it just had. But this was no physical pain, rather it was the pain of the realization that lives had been lost because HE had made the wrong decision. Wives were now widows. Children were now fatherless. Mothers would hear news of their deceased sons. No person with a heart could tolerate that thought.
Once again the young squire/messenger ran up to him, a very worried look on his face. “Sir!” He exclaimed. “The Horde is moving in on our westernmost position, their death knights have engaged our defenses, and Ogres have flanked either side!” There was no response from the general but a slight tremor of the lower lip. “Sir?” Half-Inquired the young man, the concern on his face growing deeper.
The general looked the youth straight in the eyes. Taking a deep breath, he gave out what might have very well been his final orders: “Tell the captain to hold that position at any cost. ANY cost. Tell him to use any and all resources that we have, for if we lose that position, then we are finished.” The young man nodded. “Yes sir…” he responded, his voice lacking the enthusiasm that had been with him but a day before when this conflict began. As the general watched him disappear into the veil of falling snow, he wondered if any of them would live to see the sunrise ever again.
At this point I decided that I must strike the middle and cut off his main source of gold. I begin with using death and decay with a lone death knight, which is immediately met with a fairly large force of knight, but survives long enough to lure them away from his base defenses and right into a waiting group of Ogre-Magi. Then I bring out two more death knights, and their death and decay completely brings down his wall-in on the western side. I enter the middle and go to kill his peasants, and after I get a few, ballistas start firing on my troops from the outside of his base.
I split my forces in two, keeping one in his base to take apart the stuff inside, and another to deal with the ballistas on the outside. They are firing from his wall-in on the eastern side, and rather than wait to get some death knights out there, I pincer attack it with my Ogres, and I manage to destroy it without too many casualties, thanks to bloodlust. I quickly gather up three more death knights, and use it to break through the wall-in protecting his final source of gold. With bloodlust handy, I demolish the weak forces inside, and lay his town hall to waste right before what appears to be a final group of knights arrives to save it, who are also unceremoniously slaughtered. Knowing the end is near, I gather up my forces and head for his main.
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Part 5: The Triumph of The Horde
The shattered forces of the alliance fled hastily through the forest, to try to escape from the vengeance of the Horde. As the aged general made his way south along with the remains of his troops, he tripped over the body of a fallen man, no doubt slain by one of the Orcs. He started to get up, but was stopped dead cold as the implications of what he saw dawned on him. The body was that of the young squire.
For a moment he could do nothing. Such a young life, one that had served me faithfully throughout this horror. Why should I get to live, and yet he die? I am the one who is to blame for this, I have no right to keep on living! The captain, who had been on the frontlines, came up to him, and put a hand on his shoulder nervously. “Sir, we must get going.” He said, in a voice that showed both compassion and admiration for his superior. The general shook his head.
“No my dear captain, I shall not. This bloodshed is the fault of mine, the loss of like is a fault of mine, the tragedy to come is a fault of mine. I will stay here and confront the Orcish Horde myself; sacrificing my life now is the only way I can atone for my sins.”
A long of deep shock passed across the face of the captain. “But sir! You cannot die here, the Alliance is in great need of men with your knowledge and prowess! What will they do without you!”
The general looked him dead in the eye. “The Alliance is finished.” He stated flatly. Yet despite the emotionless tone of his voice, an observant onlooker would have noticed the beginning of tears in his eyes. Just the beginnings, mind you; a general of such prestige would never cry. Never. Nevertheless, the beginnings of those tears were there in the corners. The captain did not notice.
“I will stand my ground here with you then, sir.” The captain stated most firmly. The general was about to object, but then he realized it was hopeless, so instead, he nodded in agreement. And together they stood, and when the rage of the Orcs descended upon them, they fought with a fierceness that is unknown to man, and together they managed to take down half a dozen Ogres on pure emotion alone, until finally being sent to rest. Their bodies were never found by the Alliance, but they were deemed heroes by the leaders of the alliance, for they had lain down their lives for the good of humanity, and the scribes would henceforth glorify their tale, one of failure that would be construed into one of valiant bravery against hopeless odds…
Well, I think you know what happens now. J I storm through his main virtually unopposed, and, realizing that he has lost, he asks for a rematch (which I have to deny since it was almost time for that evening political science class.), and then leaves the game. And, in the tradition of a popular section that I in no way take credit for thinking of…
Lessons Learned:
1: NEVER slack off until your opponent is dead.
2: Scout all areas thoroughly.
3: Don’t think walling in one side will help if there are two entrances. J
4: If someone is using death knights on you and you are human, research exorcism!
5: Even a chobo like me can win a game or two. J
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