Game:

WarCraft II (1995)

Duration: 0:00

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Our next assignment is an attack on Stratholme, a major Alliance port city and naval base. This base is a key Oil production center, so destroying it should deal a severe blow to the Alliance war effort. Notably, it’s best to do the opposite of what the mission briefing says—it tells us to destroy the naval base (which produced the Oil) and then the rest of the enemy presence. However, it’s actually best to save the naval base for last. That’s because on this cold-weather map, a lot of the “water” is frozen-over ice that creates a single giant landmass. We can’t build on ice, but our ground units can cross it and so nearly all the action is going to be on the ground. That’ll be our first priority, and once we’ve secured our landmass the Alliance naval assets can be cleared out at our leisure.

The mission begins with our units along the southern edge of the map. We have three Peons and plenty of warriors, but they’re blocked by a large rock formation. That’s where the game’s newest unit, the Goblin Sappers, come in. Goblin Sapper units are small teams of suicide bombers that can blow up things, including rock formations. We have four of these teams, and I use two of them to blast a path through these rocks. Once that’s done, I send nine combat units through to a small island protected by some Footmen. There’s not much actual ground for building on this island, but it’s got the only Gold Mine nearby, so it’ll have to do. After clearing the Footmen out, I have our Peons come through and build a Great Hall as well as two Pig Farms. That’s not nearly enough to support our army, but I decide that the next building I’ll construct is a Lumber Mill. That may seem like a weird choice, but right now the small collection of trees near the Gold Mine is all the Lumber we have access to, and I want to stretch it out as much as possible before moving on. The Lumber Mill’s +25 bonus to each wood pile is really going to come in handy for that, so I build the Mill and then start focusing on building more Farms. To lessen our troop count, I have our remaining two Goblin Sappers scout in the enemy base’s direction, blowing up some hostiles along the way.

Soon enough we have plenty of Farms and I’ve expanded the workforce considerably. However, the small collection of trees near this base is starting to run out, so the next step is to find a new source of trees. There are lots of them near the enemy base, but it’s important to set up at the right spot. We could set up near a Gold Mine, but it’s uncomfortably close to the base’s main entrance and we’d face constant enemy assaults if we went there. It’s much safer to set up along the eastern edge of the Alliance base, where I scouted to earlier with the Sappers. There’s no Gold Mine there, but there are plenty of trees and much less opposition. I move our combat units there, then bring some Peons to build a base on the new site. The Peons get to work, but we have some problems. There are two Paladins that attack our troops, but the main threat is the enemy Ballistae that fire at our troops from behind the base’s walls. They’re quite dangerous, and we lose several units, but we’re able to neutralize them with Catapults. I make sure to also have the Catapults destroy the Towers along the wall as well as some buildings further inside the base. At this point, the enemy stops bothering us and I work my way up the tech tree. Eventually we’ve upgraded all the way to Fortress, and I build up a large army of Ogre-Magi, Troll Berserkers, and Catapults. When we’re ready, I breach the wall and send the troops in.

It's a nasty fight. The base is defended by two Barracks that constantly produce more defenders, as well as numerous Cannon Towers that can inflict a lot of pain. But I’m genuinely caught off guard by the Mages. Debuting in this level, Mages are deadly spellcasters. They’re not at their full potential at this stage of the game, but they do have the Slow spell—as its name suggests, it dramatically slows hostile units. They’re able to use it to slow our Ogres to a crawl, and to my dismay they’re wiped out without even inflicting much damage on the enemy. Our Trolls and Catapults do better and destroy some enemy structures, but they’re likewise eliminated. Undaunted, I start building more units and continuing to attack while replacing lost troops. It’s a long struggle and producing new units takes a real toll on our Gold reserves, but we ultimately have the better position. We’re seriously damaging the enemy base, while they never do manage to launch a real counterattack. Eventually, their base is destroyed and all that’s left is to destroy their naval assets. I build some Ogre Juggernaughts and, with a Zeppelin escort, move into the water. There are some Elven Destroyers and Battleships, but we’re able to prevail. Soon the seas are free of Alliance presence and a hard-fought Horde victory is in the books

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