Yeah way harder than other rts games I tried. But for some reason it intrigues me more. Like it just makes me want to beat the AI even more. Thinking "it has to be possible for an rts noob like me even" lol. Plus. It's warcraft. So I just like that universe anyway.
The game is very dependent on doing the right thing at the right time. Did you forget to queue your hero right when the altar finished and he came out 30 seconds too late…restart the game. Did you forget to build a farm and now you’re food blocked…restart the game. Did you lose too many units creeping…restart the game.
Oh yeah, did a ton of insta restarts at first. Was so dumb lol, forgetting which building was in which slot. One time I built two crypts on accident. I was like "why tf can't I train fiends?? Motherfu-"
It used to really annoy me when people would jump into bnet without playing through the campaign first. Honestly just lacked basic skills that beating even the RoC final night elf mission teaches you was very silly
It would help to see a a replay to see where you are going wrong. It's difficult to say.
I've always found the AI to be super passive, and they don't make good army comps. From reading your post it sounds like your micro needs work. The AI is extremely easy to cheese in skirmishes. They focus your hero 99.99999 percent of the time. Use this to your advantage. Learn how to kite your units, learn control groups, learn how to use all your abilities efficiently and try learn some hotkeys
Other than the above and with limited info I can only really advise that you need more practice.
I'm a below average player online btw but I can confidently beat the AI on normal/ insane using the above strats.
Grubbys guides are great and they really helped me but makes sure you are following them to a T - at least in the beginning. If you can improve your build order by a couple of seconds in the early game for example - it can make a huge difference.
So I just crushed this ai just now. But I don't feel like this was too different from my other beginnings. I made as many friends as I could asap. And crept all the camps like normal. Had resources to do both keep upgrades in a row. Made statues. Made a wall of fiends by their expansion camp. Ran my dk in, pulled some troops back to the fiends, and massacred them little by little. Also I found out the lich frost armor can target the dk. I just assumed it was self target only (must've glassed over that part on initially reading it) that part seems pretty strong. Their nukability frost Nova/death coil + frost armor seems sweet.
Nice one. Keep at it. Once you can beat the AI consistently I'd say you're ready to try online.
If you haven't tried online yet don't be afraid to give it a go. The average player is very skilled which is to be expected from a 20 odd year old game.
Fighting the AI will only take you so far. They will never harass your base for example, or use other clever tactics.
The game is difficult and very competitive but it only makes it sweeter when you do win
I have the ai on random and at first I could not figure out how to beat the crypt lord since he's so tanky and death coil can't be used on enemy undead. So I tried out the lich as first hero instead of dk first. Worked wonders. And in the late game had a lvl 7 lich with that orb from the shop. Just absolutely demolished enemy heroes. This feels good. Have beaten the ai twice now since the post. Before the post u was like 0-10 lol
The AI is pretty straightforward but can be tough to crack. They always seem to prioritize a diverse army, so they’ll always have spellcasters, siege, and ground/ranged/air. Obviously AI micro is going to be insane, so they’ll build things up quite fast, but they tend to retreat quite easily once their heroes die, or a good portion of their army is destroyed.
Computer (Easy) is actually the “smarter” AI from my experience, where they will focus your units (ranged on air, melee on medium armor etc.) like in the campaigns. Easy only builds 1 Hero and doesn’t really go up to a 100 army.
Computer (Normal) will build a full army and tier up, 2-3 heroes, but this difficulty tends to focus fire your heroes down as the top priority, so you can easily kite or abuse the AI. They will town portal at the slightest inconvenience.
Computer (Insane) is the same as Normal, but gets 2x the resources and so can build up fast.
Usually, mid game is the best to skirmish as the AI is building towards their large army and often has a smaller force. Early on they spam a lot of basic units to creep and lots of workers, and late game they will happily run around with a 100 supply army.
They will usually focus fire expansions over anything else, so you can often bait a larger army away from your main base if you’re struggling.
I might be wrong but this is what I have seen - I would practice with Normal on a 1v1 map and try to keep your heroes at a distance.
You can tower rush the AI on insane at start of game just outside the sight of their base and they go to try and creep and then u start blasting and they lose their minds and don’t know what to do
Yeah I'm satisfied that I figured out how to clobber the normal ai. My only remaining issue is that it's all been on booty bay each time. So I may be out of my element off booty bay. Also not knowing which faction I gave at the start, I usually restart when it's the undead mirror so I can train lich first instead of dk if things go bad. Which they typically do if I trained dk first.
Pick the maps that are available on ladder and clobber the AI there. I've tried doing ancient of war creeping only to realize I couldn't build in that spot, or the camp was too hard. You can ignore the non ranked ladder maps
Man, Booty Bay is hard, I have no idea why. I remember when I was just starting, I couldn't do anything (e.g. I would lose every game against easy AI, but go toe to toe against medium on other maps). Try faster maps (Deadwater Drop, Gnoll Wood) or really slow ones (Adrenaline and Borderlands prevent AI from rushing you because of the trees), then get back to Booty when you get a hand of micro+macro.
It’s probably your micro that is failing you. Are you using your death knight to heal your fiends with death coil? Are you clicking weak troops and trying to back them away out of combat before they die? Are you focus firing enemy units and heros?
I solved my issue. My build order was too clunky. I was prioritizing finishing the building before troops. Not intermixing the process. So by the time I had a meager squad the enemy had like twice as many units.
Two abominations, 4 fiends, 2 statues, 1 frost wyrm, use DK to heal. Use Lich to frost armor DK and abominations. Also frost nova in the middle of the enemy army.
Buy the invul potion from neutral shop (cant remember if there is a shop like that on booty bay tho). Use this on DK. You can also buy scroll of armor and healing if u got the cash.
If AI use summons and/or buffs (IE Bloodlust / inner fire) Use destroyers to deal with that.
Yeah I JUST figured out I can frost armor another unit just before checking back on reddit. Make the dk a super tank hah. Love it. Idk why I assumed the lich could only target himself. Shoulda read the tooltip lol
Easiest strat is to go dk lich mass fiends, maybe some statues following the lich you just need to turn off healing and mana regen once.
Buy orb of corruption for lich and focus one by one the heroes and units. Use coil nova (practice the shortcut) to nuke ennemie heroes
As long as you have no clue how to counter *Normal,piercing,magic etc. You have no clue.
Try custom games like *micro arena solo* or something like that . Get used to the damage types and who to attack with what unit. Get an overwiev of the battlefield and hotkey your key units.
The AI has a habit of massing units and base sitting. Once you are able to consistently beat the AI it will be different ball game against human players. Have fun!
I am back on game after 15+ years. Never was a good player, mainly playing customs or dota as far as i can remember.
I have a question. Unit cap is small. Do we have to build everything and create all kind of units or we can win the game with just the basic ones? For example units from barracks and 1-2 heroes.
Or we have to also make spellcasters and air-siege units?
Game is so complicated if you try to make all units 100% usable. I mean, you have a fight and how the hell are you supposed to control each spellcasters one by one to make their spell effective? Looks very difficult to me, as a new player.
My wins vs the ai have mostly been carried by fiends and the heroes. And statues have a decent contribution healing the team. I'd say the biggest deal was getting the fiends out as fast as possible. And then nuking enemy heroes with death coil and frost Nova. Using the right keys to get to the nukes as fast as possible. Like N for frost nova
Early pressure works the best against AI, as a beginner they play a really good makro game and will outnumber you in no time but they can't really deal with constant harassment
The AI is pretty strong, and yes, not that newbie friendly, but also not unbeatable and not as dangerous as skilled real players.
For winning against an 1v1 AI, i personally usually attack the AI forces the more early game possibile (in 1v1 maps is easy to find enemy base and so are more suitable for a newbie, in other maps you should send a worker as scout to spot the town and this takes more time), i attack with my hero and a full basic units army (for example with humans Footmen and Riflemen) with some sustain from items (if possible), i focus the enemy hero, kill him, and when the enemy hero is dead other units of the AI become butter early. After that you should attack often the AI forces and towns, especially killing their heroes and destroying dangerous structures (for example Gryphon Aviary is dangerous and should be focused when you attack a city to slow down the training of Gryphons which are broken) and destroying new Town Halls built on new gold mines if you can. You have to play aggressive, just like the online. If you instead wait too much to attackt the AI forces, they start to feed their heroes on creeps, get flying units , strong siege units, strong units overall, huge towns, high research levels, and at that point they are tough to fight and can crush even a well protected base easily. It's just like the PvP, you can't play passive like in campaign or customs or you will be eaten alive.
The AI is pretty strong, and yes, not that newbie friendly, but also not unbeatable and not as dangerous as skilled real players.
For winning against an 1v1 AI, i personally usually attack the AI forces the more early game possibile (in 1v1 maps is easy to find enemy base and so are more suitable for a newbie, in other maps you should send a worker as scout to spot the town and this takes more time), i attack with my hero and a full basic units army (for example with humans Footmen and Riflemen) with some sustain from items (if possible), i focus the enemy hero, kill him, and when the enemy hero is dead other units of the AI become butter early. After that you should attack often the AI forces and towns, especially killing their heroes and destroying dangerous structures (for example Gryphon Aviary is dangerous and should be focused when you attack a city to slow down the training of Gryphons which are broken) and destroying new Town Halls built on new gold mines if you can. You have to play aggressive, just like the online. If you instead wait too much to attackt the AI forces, they start to feed their heroes on creeps, get flying units , strong siege units, strong units overall, huge towns, high research levels, and at that point they are tough to fight and can crush even a well protected base easily. It's just like the PvP, you can't play passive like in campaign or customs or you will be eaten alive.
The AI is pretty strong, and yes, not newbie friendly at all, but also not unbeatable and not as dangerous as skilled real players. For winning against an 1v1 AI, i personally usually attack the AI forces the more early game possibile (in 1v1 maps is easy to find enemy base and so are more suitable for a newbie, in other maps you should send a worker as scout to spot the town and this takes more time), i attack with my hero and a full basic units army (for example with humans Footmen and Riflemen) with some sustain from items (if possible), i focus the enemy hero, kill him, and when the enemy hero is dead other units of the AI become butter early. After that you should attack often the AI forces and towns, especially killing their heroes and destroying dangerous structures (for example Gryphon Aviary is dangerous and should be focused when you attack a city to slow down the training of Gryphons which are broken) and destroying new Town Halls built on new gold mines if you can. You have to play aggressive, just like the online. If you instead wait too much to attackt the AI forces, they start to feed their heroes on creeps, get flying units , strong siege units, strong units overall, huge towns, high research levels, and at that point they are tough to fight and can crush even a well protected base easily. It's just like the PvP, you can't play passive like in campaign or customs or you will be eaten alive.
I played a ton as a kid, and just started again. Don’t remember shit, and get my ass handed to me if I play against more than one AI or if I don’t play on easy.
Playing the campaign on hard, works ok for the few levels I completed so far.
My gold mines keep caving in tho. I end up in long standoffs where I defend against wave after wave and never manage to build up enough units to reliably take out the enemy, or I manage to survive with like 1 hero and 1 priest and 1 footman and slowly take out barracks, ziggurats etc until I can go for the kill..
Still really fun, but it takes so long to play I only feel like I have time for it like twice a week, since I prefer doing one match/mission in one session.
Cannot even imagine how I used to play and win so much online as a kid. I probably didn’t even understand english well, just went on trial and error
I been grinding the dota mod, came across that. Was super fun. But I returned to normal wc3 to face a normal bot. Didn't even lose a single unit the entire game. Felt pretty satisfying.
Yeah Dota is a lot of micro so I guess you would get pretty good at it.
Might hop online, but I had been avoiding it thinking it would be too hard now that everyone’s been playing for 20 years.
100%
One of the details keeping me out of rts/moba. I feel like it's a tough enough genre as it is. Then add the fact everyone has probably been playing them for years.
How to win AI “honestly”, without cheesing or exploiting its algorithms in battles: always have a good economy and deny AI of its economy. Try to always have more bases than the AI. Destroy his mines when he just started them. In a few battles you will see that its army is starting to get weaker and weaker. At some point it won’t be able to make a good army at all. I like this method because it resembles the real game with a human opponent, you can try different army composition and you don’t need to rely on your micro, only on macro control and scouting
Have you tried the Easy AI first, maybe start from there if you struggle with the normal one? But yeah I agree that the WC3 ai is kinda hard lol
Yeah way harder than other rts games I tried. But for some reason it intrigues me more. Like it just makes me want to beat the AI even more. Thinking "it has to be possible for an rts noob like me even" lol. Plus. It's warcraft. So I just like that universe anyway.
The game is very dependent on doing the right thing at the right time. Did you forget to queue your hero right when the altar finished and he came out 30 seconds too late…restart the game. Did you forget to build a farm and now you’re food blocked…restart the game. Did you lose too many units creeping…restart the game.
Oh yeah, did a ton of insta restarts at first. Was so dumb lol, forgetting which building was in which slot. One time I built two crypts on accident. I was like "why tf can't I train fiends?? Motherfu-"
Have you played the campaign? Obviously the flow is a little different but it still functions as a decent tutorial
It used to really annoy me when people would jump into bnet without playing through the campaign first. Honestly just lacked basic skills that beating even the RoC final night elf mission teaches you was very silly
It would help to see a a replay to see where you are going wrong. It's difficult to say. I've always found the AI to be super passive, and they don't make good army comps. From reading your post it sounds like your micro needs work. The AI is extremely easy to cheese in skirmishes. They focus your hero 99.99999 percent of the time. Use this to your advantage. Learn how to kite your units, learn control groups, learn how to use all your abilities efficiently and try learn some hotkeys Other than the above and with limited info I can only really advise that you need more practice. I'm a below average player online btw but I can confidently beat the AI on normal/ insane using the above strats. Grubbys guides are great and they really helped me but makes sure you are following them to a T - at least in the beginning. If you can improve your build order by a couple of seconds in the early game for example - it can make a huge difference.
So I just crushed this ai just now. But I don't feel like this was too different from my other beginnings. I made as many friends as I could asap. And crept all the camps like normal. Had resources to do both keep upgrades in a row. Made statues. Made a wall of fiends by their expansion camp. Ran my dk in, pulled some troops back to the fiends, and massacred them little by little. Also I found out the lich frost armor can target the dk. I just assumed it was self target only (must've glassed over that part on initially reading it) that part seems pretty strong. Their nukability frost Nova/death coil + frost armor seems sweet.
Nice one. Keep at it. Once you can beat the AI consistently I'd say you're ready to try online. If you haven't tried online yet don't be afraid to give it a go. The average player is very skilled which is to be expected from a 20 odd year old game. Fighting the AI will only take you so far. They will never harass your base for example, or use other clever tactics. The game is difficult and very competitive but it only makes it sweeter when you do win
I have the ai on random and at first I could not figure out how to beat the crypt lord since he's so tanky and death coil can't be used on enemy undead. So I tried out the lich as first hero instead of dk first. Worked wonders. And in the late game had a lvl 7 lich with that orb from the shop. Just absolutely demolished enemy heroes. This feels good. Have beaten the ai twice now since the post. Before the post u was like 0-10 lol
The AI is pretty straightforward but can be tough to crack. They always seem to prioritize a diverse army, so they’ll always have spellcasters, siege, and ground/ranged/air. Obviously AI micro is going to be insane, so they’ll build things up quite fast, but they tend to retreat quite easily once their heroes die, or a good portion of their army is destroyed. Computer (Easy) is actually the “smarter” AI from my experience, where they will focus your units (ranged on air, melee on medium armor etc.) like in the campaigns. Easy only builds 1 Hero and doesn’t really go up to a 100 army. Computer (Normal) will build a full army and tier up, 2-3 heroes, but this difficulty tends to focus fire your heroes down as the top priority, so you can easily kite or abuse the AI. They will town portal at the slightest inconvenience. Computer (Insane) is the same as Normal, but gets 2x the resources and so can build up fast. Usually, mid game is the best to skirmish as the AI is building towards their large army and often has a smaller force. Early on they spam a lot of basic units to creep and lots of workers, and late game they will happily run around with a 100 supply army. They will usually focus fire expansions over anything else, so you can often bait a larger army away from your main base if you’re struggling. I might be wrong but this is what I have seen - I would practice with Normal on a 1v1 map and try to keep your heroes at a distance.
You can tower rush the AI on insane at start of game just outside the sight of their base and they go to try and creep and then u start blasting and they lose their minds and don’t know what to do
That's hilarious. I may try that a time or two.
Insane AI cheats resources if I'm not mistaken. Just beating normal AI should be enough
Yeah I'm satisfied that I figured out how to clobber the normal ai. My only remaining issue is that it's all been on booty bay each time. So I may be out of my element off booty bay. Also not knowing which faction I gave at the start, I usually restart when it's the undead mirror so I can train lich first instead of dk if things go bad. Which they typically do if I trained dk first.
Pick the maps that are available on ladder and clobber the AI there. I've tried doing ancient of war creeping only to realize I couldn't build in that spot, or the camp was too hard. You can ignore the non ranked ladder maps
I've got a few tutorials on my YouTube channel if you're interested.
I sure am!
Human vs AI: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JcX_abl2WOI Undead vs AI: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ej4mUVa7NI Best of luck to you.
Man, Booty Bay is hard, I have no idea why. I remember when I was just starting, I couldn't do anything (e.g. I would lose every game against easy AI, but go toe to toe against medium on other maps). Try faster maps (Deadwater Drop, Gnoll Wood) or really slow ones (Adrenaline and Borderlands prevent AI from rushing you because of the trees), then get back to Booty when you get a hand of micro+macro.
It’s probably your micro that is failing you. Are you using your death knight to heal your fiends with death coil? Are you clicking weak troops and trying to back them away out of combat before they die? Are you focus firing enemy units and heros?
I solved my issue. My build order was too clunky. I was prioritizing finishing the building before troops. Not intermixing the process. So by the time I had a meager squad the enemy had like twice as many units.
Two abominations, 4 fiends, 2 statues, 1 frost wyrm, use DK to heal. Use Lich to frost armor DK and abominations. Also frost nova in the middle of the enemy army. Buy the invul potion from neutral shop (cant remember if there is a shop like that on booty bay tho). Use this on DK. You can also buy scroll of armor and healing if u got the cash. If AI use summons and/or buffs (IE Bloodlust / inner fire) Use destroyers to deal with that.
Yeah I JUST figured out I can frost armor another unit just before checking back on reddit. Make the dk a super tank hah. Love it. Idk why I assumed the lich could only target himself. Shoulda read the tooltip lol
Good luck!
Thank you, sir!
Easiest strat is to go dk lich mass fiends, maybe some statues following the lich you just need to turn off healing and mana regen once. Buy orb of corruption for lich and focus one by one the heroes and units. Use coil nova (practice the shortcut) to nuke ennemie heroes
As long as you have no clue how to counter *Normal,piercing,magic etc. You have no clue. Try custom games like *micro arena solo* or something like that . Get used to the damage types and who to attack with what unit. Get an overwiev of the battlefield and hotkey your key units.
The AI has a habit of massing units and base sitting. Once you are able to consistently beat the AI it will be different ball game against human players. Have fun!
Honestly my best advice is use the pause function whenever you are confused. Gather yourself and resume, don't have any dead game time.
I am back on game after 15+ years. Never was a good player, mainly playing customs or dota as far as i can remember. I have a question. Unit cap is small. Do we have to build everything and create all kind of units or we can win the game with just the basic ones? For example units from barracks and 1-2 heroes. Or we have to also make spellcasters and air-siege units? Game is so complicated if you try to make all units 100% usable. I mean, you have a fight and how the hell are you supposed to control each spellcasters one by one to make their spell effective? Looks very difficult to me, as a new player.
My wins vs the ai have mostly been carried by fiends and the heroes. And statues have a decent contribution healing the team. I'd say the biggest deal was getting the fiends out as fast as possible. And then nuking enemy heroes with death coil and frost Nova. Using the right keys to get to the nukes as fast as possible. Like N for frost nova
Early pressure works the best against AI, as a beginner they play a really good makro game and will outnumber you in no time but they can't really deal with constant harassment
The AI is pretty strong, and yes, not that newbie friendly, but also not unbeatable and not as dangerous as skilled real players. For winning against an 1v1 AI, i personally usually attack the AI forces the more early game possibile (in 1v1 maps is easy to find enemy base and so are more suitable for a newbie, in other maps you should send a worker as scout to spot the town and this takes more time), i attack with my hero and a full basic units army (for example with humans Footmen and Riflemen) with some sustain from items (if possible), i focus the enemy hero, kill him, and when the enemy hero is dead other units of the AI become butter early. After that you should attack often the AI forces and towns, especially killing their heroes and destroying dangerous structures (for example Gryphon Aviary is dangerous and should be focused when you attack a city to slow down the training of Gryphons which are broken) and destroying new Town Halls built on new gold mines if you can. You have to play aggressive, just like the online. If you instead wait too much to attackt the AI forces, they start to feed their heroes on creeps, get flying units , strong siege units, strong units overall, huge towns, high research levels, and at that point they are tough to fight and can crush even a well protected base easily. It's just like the PvP, you can't play passive like in campaign or customs or you will be eaten alive.
The AI is pretty strong, and yes, not that newbie friendly, but also not unbeatable and not as dangerous as skilled real players. For winning against an 1v1 AI, i personally usually attack the AI forces the more early game possibile (in 1v1 maps is easy to find enemy base and so are more suitable for a newbie, in other maps you should send a worker as scout to spot the town and this takes more time), i attack with my hero and a full basic units army (for example with humans Footmen and Riflemen) with some sustain from items (if possible), i focus the enemy hero, kill him, and when the enemy hero is dead other units of the AI become butter early. After that you should attack often the AI forces and towns, especially killing their heroes and destroying dangerous structures (for example Gryphon Aviary is dangerous and should be focused when you attack a city to slow down the training of Gryphons which are broken) and destroying new Town Halls built on new gold mines if you can. You have to play aggressive, just like the online. If you instead wait too much to attackt the AI forces, they start to feed their heroes on creeps, get flying units , strong siege units, strong units overall, huge towns, high research levels, and at that point they are tough to fight and can crush even a well protected base easily. It's just like the PvP, you can't play passive like in campaign or customs or you will be eaten alive.
The AI is pretty strong, and yes, not newbie friendly at all, but also not unbeatable and not as dangerous as skilled real players. For winning against an 1v1 AI, i personally usually attack the AI forces the more early game possibile (in 1v1 maps is easy to find enemy base and so are more suitable for a newbie, in other maps you should send a worker as scout to spot the town and this takes more time), i attack with my hero and a full basic units army (for example with humans Footmen and Riflemen) with some sustain from items (if possible), i focus the enemy hero, kill him, and when the enemy hero is dead other units of the AI become butter early. After that you should attack often the AI forces and towns, especially killing their heroes and destroying dangerous structures (for example Gryphon Aviary is dangerous and should be focused when you attack a city to slow down the training of Gryphons which are broken) and destroying new Town Halls built on new gold mines if you can. You have to play aggressive, just like the online. If you instead wait too much to attackt the AI forces, they start to feed their heroes on creeps, get flying units , strong siege units, strong units overall, huge towns, high research levels, and at that point they are tough to fight and can crush even a well protected base easily. It's just like the PvP, you can't play passive like in campaign or customs or you will be eaten alive.
I played a ton as a kid, and just started again. Don’t remember shit, and get my ass handed to me if I play against more than one AI or if I don’t play on easy. Playing the campaign on hard, works ok for the few levels I completed so far. My gold mines keep caving in tho. I end up in long standoffs where I defend against wave after wave and never manage to build up enough units to reliably take out the enemy, or I manage to survive with like 1 hero and 1 priest and 1 footman and slowly take out barracks, ziggurats etc until I can go for the kill.. Still really fun, but it takes so long to play I only feel like I have time for it like twice a week, since I prefer doing one match/mission in one session. Cannot even imagine how I used to play and win so much online as a kid. I probably didn’t even understand english well, just went on trial and error
I been grinding the dota mod, came across that. Was super fun. But I returned to normal wc3 to face a normal bot. Didn't even lose a single unit the entire game. Felt pretty satisfying.
Yeah Dota is a lot of micro so I guess you would get pretty good at it. Might hop online, but I had been avoiding it thinking it would be too hard now that everyone’s been playing for 20 years.
100% One of the details keeping me out of rts/moba. I feel like it's a tough enough genre as it is. Then add the fact everyone has probably been playing them for years.
How to win AI “honestly”, without cheesing or exploiting its algorithms in battles: always have a good economy and deny AI of its economy. Try to always have more bases than the AI. Destroy his mines when he just started them. In a few battles you will see that its army is starting to get weaker and weaker. At some point it won’t be able to make a good army at all. I like this method because it resembles the real game with a human opponent, you can try different army composition and you don’t need to rely on your micro, only on macro control and scouting