Whiggles.com Compact
News // Movie Checklist // DVD Collection // Writings and Musings // Other

Warcraft III

Hey, I think I might actually be getting quite good at this game! I've been playing Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne online quite a bit recently (on the European realm, where the players are generally quite polite), and although I'm far from a pro (or "gosu", as the best Warcraft III players are known in online circles - it comes from Korean, I believe), I feel that my win/loss ratio is finally beginning to shift in favour of the former. I'm Level 10 at the moment, and I think that, for once, the automatic match-up system employed for this game actually works quite well in terms of pitting players of around equal skill level against each other. Naturally, you do get some seasoned professionals creating new accounts and then running rings round newbies like myself, but most of the games I've played have been satisfying by virtue of the fact that I've been playing games that have been tough without being impossible. Even when I lose, it's pretty good fun, as it's not like I've been tending to get completely trashed.

My favourite strategy, at the moment, is to use an Archmage/Blood Mage combo for my heroes, researching the Blizzard and Flame Strike as my primary abilities (yes, I actually do play Humans, despite them having the reputation of being the weakest race). At Level 3, it's amazing how quickly a combination of these two area of effect spells can cut through swathes of enemy units. My primary combat units tend to be Spellbreakers (there's nothing better than having a magic-immune front line and being able to throw down the aforementioned AOE spells without worrying about killing your own units) and Riflemen (to take care of those pesky flying units, mainly). Throw in a couple of Priests and Sorceresses and you have a force to be reckoned with. This strat seems to work pretty well against most of the forces I've come up against, although it takes a while to pull off because it's fairly cost-intensive, meaning that I need to be able to maintain an expansion and have enough gold to be constantly producing units from three Arcane Sanctums. That, of course, leaves me fairly vulnerable early on, but I've found that if I've been able to survive the initial harrassment and rushes from the enemy, I stand a pretty good chance of winning the game.

If all that sounded like double-Dutch to you, don't worry. I probably won't subject you to my Warcraft III ramblings too often. But this is definitely a great game and, when competing online against players who are actually civil to you (unlike, say, many of those on the US servers), it's even more fun. GG

22:16