Tag Archives: Warcraft

Real Time Strategy – Chess on a more grand scale

With the past days… Miss Wyno has prodded me more and more to play strategy games as well as to wet her bloodthirsty taste for victory. For a while it was friendly games of Settlers of Catan which made me remember my occasional ventures into the comic and game shops when I was a wee lad. It’s almost amazing how deep a board game can make Risk look like child’s play. From that… Wyno wanted to move into active digital mediums rather than stare at a passive Java applet of Settlers of Catan. I am a Blizzard fan and so is Wyno and Sol (who’d be dragged back in to this) so naturally, WarCraft III was the game of choice.

I will concede to the fact that I am not a “perfect” player… If anything I enjoy the recreation of playing. It was fun to see that Blizzard still supports the competitive spirit for even their “vintage” titles such as WarCraft II BattleNET Edition, StarCraft (Brood Wars), and WarCraft III even though they have bigger projects looming (Diablo III, StarCraft II, etc). I don’t harbor hate or distaste for the Command & Conquer series, just I was never much into theme of an alternate reality… That is actually somewhat odd as StarCraft is sci-fi based, but that’s another tangent…

In chess, the seasoned player knows that even the pawn can be one of the more lethal units of the game. Like knowing that if you can get your pawn to your opponent’s side that you can promote your unit to become any unit you desire. Most (wise) people would opt to promote the pawn piece to a queen to ensure best possible returns on their “investment” as their movement is far wider than most pieces. In WarCraft III, Blizzard retweaked the game’s errata from the earlier sequel (WarCraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal) almost in reverence to this principle. Sadly, I didn’t take note of this back in 2003 when I originally got into the game… rather, I learned the merit of this a few nights ago with Miss Wyno and Sol in our 4 person match.

Wyno would attack my human encampment that was woefully doomed to a swift death. My town was overrun by many of my peasants just harvesting materials in hopes of being able to fund my army of dwarven gunners. Unfortunately, my hero, footmen, and buildings were being savagely beaten… In a final rallying cry and more for novelty, I decided to hit the town hall’s “Call to Arms!” command, converting my peasants to a militia unit for a time frame of 45 seconds. I’d see the animation of my peasants dropping whatever they were doing, be it chopping wood or harvesting gold to run back to the town hall to grab armor and a sword to give a last stand. What I would see was something amazing… I saw my peasants encircle her hero unit, just laying down their swords for battle and slaying her hero. At the same time, my peasants were also fending off her armies fairly well even though the game was set and match. From seeing that, I will never underestimate the power of a lowly peasant or peon be it in game…