The Let's Play Archive

Warcraft II

by Azzur

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Original Thread: Joo wan' axe? Let's Play Warcraft II

 

Introduction



Welcome back to another Warcraft LP!

For those of you uninitiated, Warcraft has quickly become the center of all things nerdy. However, it seems that while the name "World of Warcraft" is amazingly well known, its predecessors are often mere footnotes that have been ignored by the general player-base. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness is the sequel to Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, which I LP'd earlier.

What am I looking at here?
This is a screenshot LP, since Warcraft II was an earlier generation of RTS, the combat and management can be a tad slow at times. While the speed has been stepped up quite a bit from Warcraft: O&H's plodding pace, the game is still not anywhere near as fast as many games that we're used to today.

Also, as I tried to do with the previous game, we will be sticking as close to canon as possible. If we have a few mistakes here and there, we'll see if I can't patch those up right away.

Who are all these people? Why should I care?
Since the gameplay of your average RTS (pre-"DEEP STORYLINE" Blizzard) is a little dry, I have narrative help from characters that will hopefully enhance your viewing pleasure of the LP. These characters are well established in my previous LP, which I encourage you to read beforehand.

I heard that Warcraft has some seriously established lore...
I may have agreed with you before my Warcraft LP, but now it's more like wading through various retcons and Mary Sues (Med'aaaaaaaaaaan ). That said, I will keep up with a separate "Lore" section that will be updated alongside the main LP.

Drawings? What is this craziness?
I also pepper in my updates with illustrations from time to time, to demonstrate action not taking place on screen. Hopefully, these won't be frighteningly awful, but I make no promises.

Hey, you promised us Human screentime!
Ask and ye shall receive. This LP is now fully Horde/Alliance compliant. I will be updating both campaigns with ongoing characters, stories, etc.

How often will we be seeing updates?
Alright, I don't want to put myself on a cross here, but I do put a lot of effort into these LPs, so I'm careful not to put an update out until I feel that it's finished. Much like the previous thread, I will try and update twice a week; once for a campaign update and another for the Lore update. However, I'm still tweaking this schedule, since I'd like to fit in both a human and orc update in one week. If things go according to plan, we may see three updates a week.

Saturdays: Main update

Wednesdays: Lore update

With all of that out of the way, let's get down to business.
Here's our opening video, with state of the art CGI: blip.tv, Viddler, or Youtube

And just like before, I have the map that we'll be looking at for the LP.



That quality could be better, so I'll work on getting a better image.

Also, Let's Draw!

>>>NEW READER GUIDE<<<

For those of you who haven't been here from the start (for shame!), here's the order in which the thread has been updated. This is to ensure maximum clarity when reading, both story-wise and lore-wise.




Act 1
Mission 1: Square One in a Frozen Hell
Mission 2: Trolling Hillsbrad
Mission 3: Gulf Fishing
Mission 4: Gruntinator

Act 2
Mission 5: Tol Takers
Mission 6: Who has the Gall to Protect Cho?
Mission 7: One Eyed Deer

Act 3
Mission 8: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Juggernaut
Mission 9: Ogre-Bombing
Mission 10: Bloodgut and Mag'fon do Stratholme
Mission 11: Eh, Who Needs the Dead?

Act 4
Mission 12: Saying Goodbye to Old Enemies
Mission 13: Here There be Victory
Mission 14: Warcraft II: Retcon Harder



Act 1
Mission 1: Latrine Duty
Mission 2: Dwarven Know-How
Mission 3: Cannonballs
Mission 4: Vengeance on the High Seas

Act 2
Mission 5: How to Save a Base
Mission 6: Taking a Ballista up the Rear
Mission 7: By The Light That Took Forever

Act 3
Mission 8: Slaughtering Civilians... In Self-Defense!
Mission 9: Bringing Out the Light
Mission 10: Stratholme's Illustrious Dental Plan
Mission 11: A Very Hostile Take Over

Act 4
Mission 12: Burning the Sea to the Ground
Mission 13: The Lion Falls
Mission 14: Varin's Victory



In Six Years We... Uh...
Trolls: A How-To
How the elves fucked up Azeroth
Who's winning this damn war?
Stroming Tol Barad
Two Headed Lore! Cho'Gall and Killrog!
Wednesday Night War Recap
The Light and How to Wing It by Blizzard Staff
Ogres: The Second Imported Cliche of Azeroth
Reading is Educational Canonical!
Our Upstanding Neighbors to the North
Can We Get Real About This Tomb Already?
The Little Green Men Versus the Dragonqueen


Extra updates
Intermission 1
Intermission 2
A Brief Q&A



BASIC UNITS



Peon: Basic builder and resource gatherer. Unlike it Warcraft: O&H, the peons can actually attack and have slightly better AI. Sill not that great for anything other than their intended use.



Grunt: Orc starter melee unit. Not many words to be spared here. They swing axes and look good with massive shoulder pads.



Troll Axethrower: The badass ranged trolls who will be providing ranged assistance for all forays into human territory. These guys will upgrade far beyond that of normal units and become absolutely amazing later on.



Troll Berserker: Upgraded badasses. Includes higher range, sight, and health regeneration. Also somehow grow tusks.



Ogre: The bulk of your damage dealing units, even before they get amazingly nifty powers. They hit hard, take some serious damage, and they move decently too. If you're going into battle without these guys, then you aren't going into battle.



Ogre-Mage: The amazingly nifty powers! Er, power, really. Bloodlust!



Death Knight: Horrifying units that can utterly wreck entire armies if they have the magic available. If they don't... well, uh... Warning: Keep away from paladins.



Death Wagon: Ends the lives of those unwilling to call it a death wagon.



Goblin Sappers: Ever play Stratego? You send in your spy to take out the enemy general in one hit, and hope he doesn't get killed in turn? That's the sapper. Massive damage attached to a disposable, fragile unit.

NAVAL UNITS



Oil Tanker: They gather oil and have a skull on their prow. Pretty orc'in' up in here.



Troll Destroyer: Death boats.



Ogre Juggernaut: Pretty much the most powerful ground attacking unit in the game. High damage, high armor, high life, zero mobility.



Orc Transport: Lashed together bone and canvas can somehow float six fully armored men across dangerous territory and land safely on enemy land. Orcish magic!

AIR UNITS



Goblin Zeppelin: Your flying scout who is more than likely insane.



Dragon: Do I really have to say anything? Fire comes out of the mouth part and enemies get roasted.

HEROES



Zul'jin: The leader of the Amani Forest Troll Tribe, filled with an intense hatred of elves. His goal in the war is to destroy Quel'thalas and put an end to the elven race entirely.



Cho'Gall: Chieftain of the Twilight Hammer clan, who wishes to drive the world into apocalypse. A student of Gul'dan, Cho'Gall is an amazingly intelligent and competent mage.



BASIC UNITS



Peasant: Your resource gatherer and building... builder. This time around, however, peasants can actually attack! ...for worthless damage.



Footman: Your basic cheap melee unit. Swings a sword, takes some hits, but generally not your most powerful unit.



Elven Archer: Much like the axethrowers, archers quickly become the powerhouses of the human army. There are some who argue that the archers are far superior to the trolls, but that comes down to upgrades later on. Also, elves!



Elven Ranger: Archers get totally upgraded into the damaging champions of Azeroth. They get a massive increase to damage, as well as range and sight.



Kinght: Not many words to spare on knights here as they are essentially the knights of Warcraft: O&H. They have amazing speed, high damage, and enough life to keep dishing it out. Later on however...



Paladin: Paladins just make life easy. With fast healing, you may never have to worry about losing forces again. Then again, that requires some extreme micro, but even without it, paladins keep the team alive. They also have some other spells. Whatever.



Mage: Mages are... awesome? Tons of debuffing spells, plenty of decent AoE spells, and an instant kill spell. The drawback? Huge amounts of micro on a slow, low health, low armor unit.



Ballista: Amazingly high damage, huge burst. At what cost? Okay, these guys are slow-moving and have a habit of... well killing everyone on both sides. Aim with caution!



Dwarven Demolition Squad: To further prove the insanity inherent in dwarfkind, the dwarven demolition squad runs around with powderkegs on their backs and waving torches around frantically. Simply put: the best unit.

NAVAL UNITS



Oil Tanker: These units are the peasants of the sea. Only that they can construct just one building. And only procure oil. But you need them!



Elven Destroyer: Swift, decent damage, but light on the life. These guys make up the bulk of your naval forces, mostly because they're cheap and build quickly.



Battleship: The tank of the seas, the battleship brings along the true might of the human Alliance. It will crush ships, ground forces, buildings, hopes, and dreams.



Transport: Steel-plated ships that take your units from one place to another. Of course for all their steel plating, it is imperative that you land them with caution! They're still... squishy-ish.



Gnomish Submarine: The undersea "stealth" unit of the Human side. With hitscan attacks on a naval unit, they have proven to be quite the agile, hard hitting boon that can deal some serious damage if used properly.

AIR UNITS



Gnomish Flying Machine: The best quotes in the game. Your scouting unit who makes whooshing noises as he flys around.

HEROES



Uther Lightbringer: Arguably one of the most amazing paladins ever.
Table of Contents

Medals of Knowledge and Distinction


Loremasters

Fienne - For their knowledge of the living races of Azeroth and beyond.
DragnMastyr - Not just a master of dragons, but of gods and goddesses.
zeal - Probably a real-life troll scholar.
GhostStalker - Elves and magic just go hand in hand. Like... water and magic! and A Stromgarde Stromtrooper!
Ulvirich - For helping to bridge the knowledge gap between the Thandol Span and the Thandol Valley.


Medal of Thread Saving and Grunt Remembering

Ze Pollack - For providing the perfect words to remember dear Vilefeast. Also for saving the thread!


Medals of Correction and Duty


Five Fingers of Fury

Kijiro - Azzur is a silly goose! Trolls only have three fingers! ...mon.


Mathemagical Medal

yook - How many ogres does it take to get to the center of a knight squadron? Yook knows!


Medals of Contesting!


Most Badass

McTimmy - For his entry of Human Cutscene 2 Footman.


Most Evil

Feinne - For his entry of Gul'dan.


Most Shouldn't Exist

Manic_Misanthrope - For his entry of World of Warcraft PCs.


Medal of True Grit and Perseverance

Pops - For showing us who the Most Important people in this war really are.


Chieftain Necksmasher's Spirit of the Season Medal (Contest Link)

Medals of Artistry and Altruism


The Medal of Continued Model Mastery Mayhem

Screaming Idiot - Who else? He has brought my thread untold greatness with his modelviewer skills!


Warcraft Cameraman

Cythereal - For going into the trenches of the war(craft) and bringing back quality images!

Elysera Sunfury's HNN Broadcasts


Medal of Happy Little Trees

Greggster - For adding a little prussian blue, pthalo green, and cadmium red to our cast of characters.


I Warned You About the Stairs Medal

Greggster - how HIGH do You even have to BE to do Something LIKE that........


Gif-errific Medal of Creation

Greggster - How many medals do I have to give this guy!?

Related Arts

Screaming Idiot



Greggster



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