A Beginner’s Guide to Wc3: Or how I learned to stop worrying and beat Computer Normal
WC3 is a deep game with a ton to learn. The community is more than a decade old, and thus many veterans take for granted their ability to beat the AI. Obviously, a new player is not going to want to wade into the perilous world of multiplayer until they feel confident that they’re not going to be crushed by a dumb bot. Here’s a guide to get you on your feet, confident that you can beat the computer, and jump you right into the amazing world of online play.
The guide will contain steps followed by an illustration as a sample beginning human player. The end of each step will have links to resources for additional information. Enjoy!
Step 0: Custom hotkeys
This is a potentially unnecessary step, but I and many players would reccomend it. Yes, the game is totally playable with default keys; in fact, many of the old pros still play (and decimate the opposition) using defaults. But, as a new player, you don’t have any ingrained habits. So why not start by giving yourself easy access to the quickest layout of keys? The most default is just aligning everything to QWER/ASDF grid etc. I personally have that, but customized a little more: all the big time spells that I’m going to be casting often are located right at the R key, where my first finger rests anyway, and near all my 1,2,3,4 control groups. (AM’s water elemental - R. Priest dispel - R. Kodo devour - R. Footman defend - R, you get the picture.) PM me and I’m happy to share.
Otherwise, youcan’t do much better than exploring this link: WTVR’s customizable guide - https://www.reddit.com/r/WC3/comments/69p3nv/improved_custom_hotkeys_setup_by_wtvr/ as a starting point and then customizing from there. Take the time to get your fingers used to hot keys, WHATEVER you decide them to be. Default or not, this game opens up to you once you gain a facility with hot keys.
Step 1: Pick a Race
Four races and all of them are extremely fun to play. It can be stressful to pick just one, but do it anyway, just for now. Four races means figuring out 16 match ups, and that’s too much to learn at first. Pick one and practice with that race. It’s hard, I know, it feels like you’re limiting your enjoyment of the game. Nah, by giving yourselves the small sandbox of one race, you’re only going to improve your play generally. By being familiar with your main race, you will naturally understand the mirror and the other races as well. That means switching will be way easier. Also, you’ll get better faster, which means more wins faster and winning is almost always more pleasurable (though probably not as informative or valuable) as losing. You don’t have to main one race forever, and in your non serious practice time, sure, play random or whatever floats your boat. But give yourself a rule that you won’t switch mains until you’ve satisfied X condition. Like “Get 10 wins with main” or “Have 30% win record with main.”
Step 2: Pick a Map
Log into B.Net, or W3A, or wherever you play, and look at the map pool. Pick one of those maps to be your new home. You are going to live there for a while. Time to get comfortable. I suggest one of the maps from the B.net map pool that overlaps with W3A. You’re more likely to be playing on B.net (weaker competition), and this way you get more bang for your buck if/when you do ever switch over. Two Rivers super fun map, but being a black belt on Two Rivers doesn’t help you on W3A. So pick Echo Isles, Terenas Stand, Twisted Meadows, Turtle Rock, Secret Valley, or Melting Valley. (And also be cool and refer to them as EI, TS, TM , TR, SV, and MV).
You’re going to open a game and turn off your opponent. Bam, the whole map belongs to you. Creep the entire map. Learn every creep camp. Challenge yourself, don’t mass an 80 food army and pick off everything. See how few units you need to safely creep. Say you chose Terenas Stand. Can you creep the Goblin Shop w/ AM Level 2, 4 foots and 4 militia? On the other side of the map (remember you get two cracks at every creep camp!) try it with 3 and 3 and see what happens. What about if you have defend? Don’t forget to take into account your increased hero level as you experiment. How close can your units come to the creeps by day without aggroing them? Know the exact position. Try and work on pulling back your hurt units, so you spread damage evenly across units. If you have a specific tank (like a summon), make sure that your summon is taking most of the damage. How does your race heal most efficiently? Try and creep fast, so don’t take 10 minutes between camps, go right from one to the next to the next to the next. Figure out how to keep your army as healthy as possible while doing it. Do you heal on the way to the next camp? Do you have to go home? Figure it out.
This will give you confidence and you won’t feel the invisible pressure of the bloody axe that is computer normal’s vicious attack at first daybreak.
Step 3: Become comfortable with a build order
Here’s one of the more important steps. Here is where you’re going to start getting some solid reps to build up your muscle memory, understanding of the game, and confidence. Load up your preferred map, and put on computer at whatever level. Doesn’t really matter, you’re not going to see them. You’re only going to be practicing the first few minutes of the game. Over and over and over again. You want to be able to play the first few minutes blind. In fact, before you even start your game, sit down with pen and paper and write out exactly what you’re going to do. E.G. "I will put 5 peasants on gold, queue up 3 peasants at town hall. One in gold line builds altar. First peasant to pop builds barracks. Next two each build farms. Next one to gold. Rest to lumber. Altar peon scouts. I want X peasants total (usually 5 gold 8 lumber, but might want to err on a few more on lumber early on), and Y footmen." You decide. Know where your first two creep camps are, and be able to creep them fluidly while also continuing your build.
For our TS as Human example: I want 5 gold peasants; 8 lumber peasants; 5 footies; 3 farms; a walled off base; and a tower upgrading to Arcane. I also want my AM at level 2 - I want to have crept goblin lab, and the green camp immediately next to it, and (assuming it’s nightfall) headed to the shop to go buy boots of speed. And as soon as all those conditions are met, I want to be teching the moment the resources are available. Practice that ten times. See how fast you can do it. First time you press “Upgrade to Keep” right at the second dot after nightfall. Next time you do it one dot after nightfall. After that you might hit it right at the howl of the wolf. Get faster each time. Look at it like a game. Don’t worry about what happens afterwards, you don’t care, you’re quitting and restarting the mission. Don’t worry about oppo right now. Worry about you!
It’s ok if your Build Order isn’t exactly how the pros do it. At our beginner level, having a solid gameplan is generally going to be enough to win, even if it isn’t Meta (most efficient tactic available). And having your own style will give you ownership and may in fact better your muscle memory of the build. It’s also, of course, totally ok to exactly copy a pro. In fact, it might even be preferred until you understand why you might want to swap up the order of things. But seriously don’t worry what your build is, just choose SOMETHING that you stick to and practice ten times. We care about the reps, not the result.
Resources, go to https://www.reddit.com/r/WC3/comments/4xhaox/warcraft_3_getting_started_community_megathread/
And scroll down to 2.a Guide to Warcraft Races (choosing a race). There are a bunch of 2 min videos that you can copy. Just choose on and let it be yours for now. Or ask one of the pros in here to help you. Lots of people are happy to help.
Step 4: Engage the Enemy
Wow, ok you’ve played probably 11 games so far and you haven’t even seen the opponent yet. Now it’s time, baby bird, now it’s time. First get a feel for your own inherent preferred level of aggression. Some people like to be so aggressive that they treat oppo’s base like their second (or first!) home. Others like to turtle up at home with lots of towers. Others like to creep and pretend oppo doesn’t exist until they have 80 food. Where do you lie on the spectrum? You’re going to find out by methodically testing each type of route.
First iteration: Build your hero and rally hero and existing troops right to oppo’s base. Right before you enter, hit F10, pause the game, take a deep breath, tell yourself what you’re going to do (I’m going to go straight for the gold line and run out the moment enemy army appears; or I’m going to start banging on their outermost building, and then engage enemy when he appears). Save the game. Fight the enemy. See what happens. Win or lose, reload, do it again. N.B. - AI bot plays very differently from human opponents. In that it very much over emphasizes tier 1 units. Also, in the beginning, computer going to be more efficient than you. That probably means when you enter their base early in the game, they are going to have more units than you. That might mean you can’t realistically win the battle. Maybe you can, that’s great, but don’t be discouraged if you're losing a lot here. Concentrate FIRST on not letting your hero die, at all costs - use your TP! After you feel comfortable that you're not going to lose your hero, then concentrate on pulling back your weak units (since you rallied right to oppo, you’re probably only gonna have like 2 footmen, see if you can save them). Practice this engagement a few times, and get a feel for when you’re winning and when you should be retreating.
Second iteration: Build your hero, creep to level 2, and then head straight to oppo’s base
Third iteration: Build your hero, creep to level 3 (while continuing to build up army) and then head straight to oppo’s base.
In all of these iterations, remember to hit F10, take a deep breath, make a game plan, and save, cause you’re going to redo it like 5x.
So iterations 1-3 are hyper aggressive base harassment. Now we’re going to hero harrassment.
Iteration 4: Build hero, and go FIND opponent’s hero. Now it’s AI bot, so it’s probably just going to be camping out in base, but you’re not going straight to base. Remember you’re a master of this map, because you crept the whole map as your very step. Go check the green camps near the base. If they’re not there, GREAT, creep the camp, you just gained an asset on THEIR side of the map. Maybe it's a little later in the game, so you should go scout the expo spots. Find out where they are, and as soon as you’ve sighted them, again, same thing, pause, save, and practice the engagement 5 times. Your goal here is first to locate them, and hopefully to catch them while they are creeping, so you can creepjack them. If they run away from you chase them. If they manage to escape all the way back into their base, pause, deep breath, save, and see if you have enough of an advantage to fight them in their base. Repeat 3x times.
Iteration 5, and 6: Creep hero to level 2 or 3, and then go find out where is oppo’s army.
Iteration 7: Mr. Creeper. Creep and aggressively avoid any engagement with enemy. You only engage them if they bring the fight to your base. Here your goal is to build as big of an army as possible and get your heroes as high level as possible. If you meet them on the field, run. When they decide to come to your base, pause, save, and TP back (plan where you are going to TP) and then engage.
In all of these iterations, you’re not ever actually playing the game through till the end. You don’t care how the game ends. The game ends for you after you’ve satisfied your goal for the iteration. So pressure is OFF! Of course, if you absolutely annihilate your oppo, go ahead and press your advantage. See if you can continue to macro your base as you step on their throat.
Step 5: Play a full game
Ok now you’ve got like 12 games under your belt, and in most of those games you have like 3-5 practice battles under your belt. You know the map, you know the creeps, you know your build order, you know when YOU like to be offensive, and you’ve probably also gotten a feel of when in the game oppo is weak. Time to play. You only have one rule here. NO QUITTING. It doesn’t matter if you F up your build order, and you trap your hero in the base (ok, never mind, actually then you can reset and start over), it doesn’t matter if your hero dies, it doesn’t matter if you have to run from an engagement, it doesn’t matter if they blew up half your base and ran. Until the screen pops up telling you you have been defeated, you keep playing. I bet you’d be surprised at how with all your experience you’re not out of any game. Just keep trying to build up a bigger and bigger army, get your hero levels higher and higher, and keep trying. I guarantee you that if you practice this way, that in <20 games you will be consistently beating AI normal.
Step 6: Watch your replays
Watching wins is fun, sure, but watching losses is way more important. Easy to critique when you’re not also playing at the same time. See where you went wrong. Before engagements, same thing as in game. Pause, and set the replay to half speed. Ask yourself, where should my units be? What should they be targeting? Unpause and see how closely your analysis sticks to your actual gameplay. Try and always be asking yourself, am i winning right now? Should I keep pressing, or should I retreat? If you should be retreating, watch to see if you're actually doing it in game. Retreating isn’t weak or bad, in fact it’s what separates good players from bad!
Step 7: Watch Pros (Twitch, youtube, and replays)
Get on Twitch or youtube and watch the best. You’ve definitely got an understanding of your race now. You chose human and Terenas Stand? Go to youtube and search for Tod, Terenas Stand. Watch and see if he takes a different creep route then you. Watch how many units he brings into a fight. Watch to see when he does and doesn’t take a fight.
Ask around who are the pros that play your race. Ask someone to send you replays to watch to help a certain match up. Ask people to watch your replays and give you some advice!!!
Here's a good place to start to find Pros: https://warcraft3.info/youtube. And up at the top left of that window will be features livestreams on twitch. Go get watching!
Step 8: Get onto B.Net!
I personally think that after AI normal, you should go to B.Net. I don’t think Insane is good practice, because they get double the amount of resources that you do, so if your game plan is economy harass, it just simply won't work. Yes you should be able to beat computer normal before you hop on B.Net, but once you do that, give ‘er a try. I bet you’d be surprised at how often you can pick up games. Most importantly here, have FUN. If you look at your losses like a chance to improve, they become fun. Look to the end of this guide for a section on dealing with ladder anxiety.
Step 9: Revisit your build order/game-plan
You've got one build in your pocket. The thing you used to beat computer normal. But now you're playing against real live opponents, and they play different races, and your one strategy ain't gonna work for all comers. It's cool. Stick with it for a while. Find out what races it is strong against, and what races it's weak. Did you like one base fast tech? Cool, you're also probably going to eventually learn how to expand. Love mass casters? UD has destroyers, and they are magic immune. You've got experience, let's turn that experience into wisdom, which will allow you to discern what is working and what is not. Start expanding your knowledge base!
GOOD LUCK!!!!
Miscellaneous:
Know your attack and armor types- http://classic.battle.net/war3/basics/armorandweapontypes.shtml
Know the upkeep system- http://classic.battle.net/war3/basics/upkeep.shtml
Browse through this 10 video fundamental playlist. Goes over good stuff like “how to wall off”, “scouting the enemy hero for information”, and “what items are important from the goblin shop.” https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAP2FJao_UyFOrX2sdCJ5lx8FbuFYEq2x
Know your unit stats and building stats. http://classic.battle.net/war3/human/unitstats.shtml http://classic.battle.net/war3/human/buildingstats.shtml
How to deal with Frustration and Ladder Anxiety:
WC3 is an extraordinarily fun game. When we become frustrated, or we are scared to hit the play button, then WC3 is fun no longer. Why would we play a game that makes us miserable? Here are a few different strategies that may help you deal with frustration, tilting, and anxiety. All are based around a guiding principle.
Ask yourself: Am I having fun? ...
… if the answer is no, then you stop playing.
Here are some specific strategies:
Pause after every game
- You could get up and stretch. You could do 10 pushups. You could eat a handful of raisins one by one, dedicating each to a different aspect of the lord of RNG – May Your Creeps Always Drop Claws of Attack!.
Pause every 4 games (or 30 minutes, or an hour)
- This game takes a lot of mental fortitude. That is drained after long sessions of play. Take more than a breather – why don’t you step away from the computer for a while. Go to the bathroom. Maybe eat a sandwich. Or maybe do 15 minutes of that thing you’re actually supposed to be doing right now.
Make a point to be friendly
- If you lose a game, before you hit GG, type out, “Hey dude I’m new, got any tips for me?” You might learn something. You might -gasp- even make a friend! This community is so nice and welcoming, it doesn’t HAVE to be toxic. And if you’re in a friendly mood, then your oppo’s cancerous behavior actually is funny instead of destroying your psyche. Oh yeah, and join the community. Here's a good link to a beginner friendly discord channel: https://discord.gg/6r5uUvH. Also check the megathread for other discord community. B2Warcraft is probably the most popular of all of them!
Don’t play when you’re hungry.
- When hangry everything in the world is a little bit… shittier. WC3 is no exception. If a stubbed toe feels like a gunshot wound when you missed lunch, then how do you think it’s going to feel when his Blade Master steals your third creep in a row? Go eat a banana and see if the situation gets better.
Embrace your Losses.
- This game is skill intensive. Don’t shortchange yourself by blaming losses on bad luck. Losing means learning. Much easier to learn about our character and ability during times of adversity then when everything is gravy. Also, you're new at this game. So you shouldn't have any ego wrapped up in the game. The answer to the question, "Am I good at this game that people have already been playing for 14 years?" is obviously, "No." So who cares? If you look at losses like a learning experience, then even losing becomes fun.
These guidelines are simple - even obvious - but not necessarily easy. To follow them takes discipline. Developing discipline derives benefit for all people, and may derive particular benefit or our sub-group “the internet gamers.” Are you able to NOT immediately click through to play again after a loss? Can you remember to even ask yourself if you’re frustrated in the first place? Again, simple but not easy. It means stopping and asking, “Why am I not having fun?” It means honestly evaluating your play - bad luck or misplay? Finally, it means determining whether you should even be playing right now at all - am I unhappy because I’m frustrated, or am I unhappy because I should be work/study/exercise/spending time with friends.
One of the nicest things about WC3 is that each game is relatively short. Usually no longer than 15-20 minutes. This gives us a lot of built in checkpoints to catch ourselves when we are unhappy. Play the game and be happy!
Wrap Up
This was fun to write, and I hope you enjoyed it. I sincerely apologize for being such an obnoxious preachy new age weirdo, but hey, man, you are who you are. So let me leave off with one last kumbaya:
I’m a lifetime lover of games, all games – basketball, spades, chess, boxing, poker, smash bros, etc - this is up there as one of the best. It’s worth pouring into it the time, effort, and energy. It feels like a deep game with lots of room to grow. But that shouldn’t mean being miserable. So take the time to figure out how YOU best play this game. I submit that playing happy equates to playing better. Don’t take my word for it, find out for yourself.
Ok, veterans, please share the tips you would have told yourself when you were JUST starting out this game. Look forward to bathing in all your advice. Be well, and happy gaming!
Posted Oct 23, 2017, 12:35 AM UTC · edited