My crusade against impossible video games continues...

I really love this game, but by god either I suck so badly at it I probably should jut give up, or the AI is so horrifically programmed to hate the player it's the same!

Every skirmish i set up to play against the AI ends the same way; without fail, every time. No matter how quickly I think I am building, the computer has twice the resources, army, number and level of heroes as me. Right off the bat, it seems the AI has his army ready to strike! I cannot see how this can be possible; it absolutely escapes me and seems to defy reason as to how this can be. I simply cannot see how the AI can build this quickly! While I@m struggling to get hero #2 out, he has three all levelled up at levels 3-4 at my base with an enormous army full of siege engines ready to destroy me.

Which he does.

If there's anyone out there who can give me some advice, i'd be very grateful. I really like the game, and i don't mind losing - honest! - but getting absolutely caned is really getting tiresome!

Which one is three again? The one with the main characters?

Seanchai

reign of chaos (though strickly speaking frozen throne, which is the expansion since thats what i play). It has the hero characters yes with the orc, human, night elf and undead factions.

Quote from: signoftheserpentreign of chaos (though strickly speaking frozen throne, which is the expansion since thats what i play). It has the hero characters yes with the orc, human, night elf and undead factions.

Well, I know what I didn't do: Diversify. I picked a couple of strong units and built a bunch of those.

I also built a lot of the structures that automatically attacked enemy units. As soon as possible, I'd create a perimeter.

Another thing I did was try to branch out and take over mines as soon as humanly possible. Cash flow allows you to build what you need to protect your cash flow.

Seanchai

I really only know from StarCraft strategy, but what Seanchai is saying sounds like ... well ... StarCraft.  Here's how I lost in my early StarCraft career (against AI or human):

I sat back, and built up the stuff I wanted to build, and trained the guys I wanted to train.  My opponent sent in an early little scouting rush, and I received the attack and destroyed it ... maybe lost some buildings, maybe just had my troops depleted.  I congratulated myself on good defense, and built some more of it.

Well ....

What the opponent had seen during that early scouting rush is that I didn't have anything even vaguely like an early offense to put pressure on him.  So while his rush was fighting it out, he was expanding to suck in more resources.  And he didn't need to defend them very well, because after his early rush I was in even worse shape to try to come out and argue the point.

Very, very quickly that expansion base paid for itself and started generating income that put him well ahead of me in the resource race.  He built enough of a force to hold me in check, if I happened to foray out into the wilds outside my base, and meanwhile he expanded some more.

Soon my enemy had four or five bases to my one.  He generated four times the resources every second that I was.  He spent money like water, built advanced units just to show that he could, and then eventually (out of pity more than anything else) he ran right the hell over my base like an unstoppable tidal wave of carnage.

Here are the questions (again ... Starcraft, but maybe you'll get lucky and the principles will apply) that helped me get to a point where at least I had a fighting chance against some guys:

• How soon can you find the enemy base and check out what they're doing?  (I would often sacrifice the fourth or fifth resource-worker that I created, just to have a scout canvassing the board ... don't know what the sensible economic break-point is in WC3)
• How soon can you get your first attack onto his doorstep?
• How soon can you get your second attack pouring into his depleted troops?
  
• How soon can you expand without losing both bases? (Hint:  It's probably during that second attack)
• How are you going to make sure you're alerted the moment he starts to expand ... so you can make him pay for it in defending units, or else lose the expansion?
• How soon can you develop high-mobility units that force him to spend resources fortifying all sides of his base(s), not just one main approach?
• How will you assure that you have enough resources to trap him in his base while you out-expand him?

I hope this helps!

I got to level 23 on B.net back when I played War3...so Here's what I see:


1. If you have no idea how the ai does it, save a replay and watch the ai player. The AI moves with maximum efficiency. They are usually much harder than an actual player in the beginning.


2. War3 in multiplayer/skirmish is an Offensive game. You need to get out there and kill creeps and the opposing players forces.

3. Do you use keyboard shortcuts? Those are needed to maximize efficiency and speed along multi-tasking.

4. I War3 it pays to have a limited tech strategy at the beginning. Pick a certain 3rd tier unit and tech directly to it.

Which race do you play, as strategy beyond this is usually geared toward specific races.

Good luck!

I play Night Elves at the mo and have managed to start beating the ai. I have managed to tech up better than it while it gets more resources. i try to get the hunters hall quickly so i can get huntresses out en masse and go from there. i haven't really thought about an ultimate tier 3 goal, that's a good idea.

i think i build pretty fast, though thats against the machine.