WarCraft III- Mission 3, NE.

[SnowFire]

I've been slogging through WC3 in my free time, and the single player missions have been pretty good so far. I'm curious though- how have people who've already completed things get through "The Awakening of Stormrage," the mission mentioned in the title? This is on Hard mode, of course (and it's wonderful! I like intense matches where the computer never gives up). And really, this is by far the hardest mission I've done so far- sure, there have been other semi-timed missions so far (generally in the "conquer the next base before your gold runs out"), but you could still futz around them (you don't lose when the gold runs out, it's just that you should be in the process of destroying the enemy's base at the time. And Mission 5 Human, one of my favorite, you can kill Mal' Ganis!).

So, what worked for you? If I try and destroy the Orc base, I'm generally about halfway done when I lose. Even if I was all the way done, I'd still have the guardians to worry about, so this is incredibly slow. I'm really not sure how to speed it up. Yes, I bring my Ancient Protector up immediately and sit my army outside the Fountain of Life while waiting for Ballistas to be built at the beginning, and have my army there ready to recieve Orcish attacks. I've tried both ignoring the extra gold mine for more speed and getting it along with 3 Ancient of Wars. I've tried building my Moon Wells outside the Fountain of Life for even faster healing. It's still not fast enough.

That leaves running like a madman across the base. Problem is, you really get routed doing that, and you also have to all Huntresses then, pretty much. I've managed to take down two guardians that way, but the Lightning Guardian just smacks me around and chews out the remaining 4-5 badly wounded Huntresses and my Hero. And the Ice Guardian is really nasty. Thanks, Mr. Tip about the dryads. The Abolish magic isn't doing damage to the Treants as best as I can tell, despite the fact that they're summoned, and you can't dispel a Frost Nova that weakens your line of Hunts!

So how'd y'all do it? Reminder, this is Hard mode. Furion's been eaten by ghouls at least 8 times by now.

P.S. Too bad about the NE, they feel slightly tacked on. I'd much rather have the new Orc-Human alliance be the ones to smack down the demons. And I very much like the excuses they came up with in the Undead & Orc missions to fight all the other races. The excuse in the NE missions seems to be that the NE are xenophobic idiots who can't even try diplomacy and won't notice that their enemies who can't be trusted are fighting hte same darn thing, and would probably happily let you through the base if you just talked with them instead of attacking whenever you saw them!

[Jon Miller]

the case with the NE is the issue of unknown cultures meeting eachother for the first time and the problems associated with that

so the concept makes sense (the application is not the best, but what do you want, it is a computer game)

(I did it on normal, so can't help)

Jon Miler

[SnowFire]

Yes, that's why I said they were xenophobic. I mean, look at the Tauren- they were faced by a threat, the newcomers seemed nice, so they helped each other out and made an alliance. The NE face a far worse threat "Ahh! Our ancient enemies! Blah blah blah!" and refuse to even talk to the people they see fighting the undead and Legion, because "they can't be trusted." Well nice to know what experts you are on what they think!

Bah. They don't deserve to be the ones to beat down the demons.

[devilmunchkin]

well....you gotta be faster
you have realize what you do and don't need. don't research until you have some breathing space. Using Druid's of the claws in bear form (best mellee unit you have) and Dryads to count spells that the orcs have. If you use archers, give them the flying things (name escapes me at the moment) ..so that they're better protected and you can build more troops. remember to keep building reinforcements when you go in...
perhaps build an ASS LOAD of ancient protectors and make an army out of that..send them ahead since they walk to slowly and build two more teams of regular battle units so that they get there all at once.

[Dauphin]

I normally just use ballistas to specifically target unit producing buildings and archers to provide some cover.

Once the buildings are destroyed an en masse assault with hunters can mop up the remaining units.

Then the remaining buildings can be destroyed unhindered.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by SnowFire
refuse to even talk to the people they see fighting the undead and Legion, because "they can't be trusted."

Would you talk to a group of people that you thought had just slain your god?

[monolith94]

yes, to be fair, the orcs did kill their god

[DinoDoc]

That does tend to tick people off.

[Dauphin]

What good is a god that is not immortal and invulnerable? Good riddance I say.

[SnowFire]

dm: Unfortunately...
A) Can't build Druids of the Claw yet.
B) Can't build Hippogryph or Hippogryph Archers yet, and if you could, then you could actually harrass the undead and slow them done (that would be wonderful!).
C) There's only 1 level of upgrade available, it's very cheap, and you start out with breating space. I'm definitely still doing it.

Also, the Ancient Protector strategy... I suppose it's worth a shot- move the wisps up to the front before making them, of course- but it's still going to be slow, and will be totally inadequte against the guardians. The slow advance against the Orc base will be bad, because I've been trying to speed that up.

DD: Yes, yes, but the humans didn't. And still, never even talking? Pehraps they would have noticed the grisly purge of those orcs who killed Mr. Silly Pants.

[devilmunchkin]

try building them immediately and sending them there..while they're traveling you can be building other forces..
can you hire the bears?