Warcraft II

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Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

Developer(s)	Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher(s)	(PC), (Mac) Blizzard Entertainment Ubisoft (Saturn), (PS) Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Victor
Designer(s)	Ron Millar, Blizzard Entertainment
Release date(s)	(PC), (Mac) December 9, 1995 1996 (Saturn), (PS) August 31, 1997 November 27, 1997
Genre(s)	Strategy game
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer
Platform(s)	Macintosh, MS-DOS, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, Windows, (with Stratagus) BSD, Linux, Mac OS X
System requirements	Windows 95, Pentium 60 MHz, 16MB RAM, 2xCD-ROM Drive for Gameplay (4xCD-ROM for Cinematics), Local Bus SVGA Video Card (DirectX Compatible), Microsoft Compatible Mouse, DirectX Compatible Sound Card (For Audio)
Input	Keyboard and mouse

Warcraft Portal

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (usually simply Warcraft II or Warcraft 2; sometimes abbreviated to WCII, WC2 or War2) is a sequel to the popular real-time strategy game Warcraft, developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released in December of 1995. Users play as either orcs or humans in a fantasy medieval world full of swords and sorcery. It was originally written for MS-DOS, though it had a Windows launch screen and played well under Windows 95; there was also a Macintosh version of the game. Blizzard also released an expansion pack, developed by Cyberlore Studios, known as Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal on April 30, 1996. Blizzard re-released WarCraft II, combined with its expansion, in 1999, under the name WarCraft II: Battle.net Edition. Changes made for this release included porting the game to Windows, fixing a few minor bugs, and, as the name implies, enabling multiplayer support via Blizzard's online matchmaking service, Battle.net. By using the Stratagus game engine through Wargus, it is also playable on BSD, Linux and Mac OS X.

The game has a linear single-player campaign for each side, and a multiplayer option via a LAN or the Internet), using existing or user-created maps. The former's storyline is basically a frame tale for combat and devoid of plot development during missions, which is usual for early RTS games but in contrast to some later ones, including Warcraft III and Starcraft. The game is set six years after the fall of Azeroth. The Orcs have decided to conquer the lands to the north and add Lordaeron to their empire, and the battles to follow would later be known as the Second War.

1 Units and structures
- 1.1 Units
- 1.2 Buildings
2 Utilities, modifications and conversions
3 Special features
4 Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition
5 Online play
6 Console ports
7 Warcraft II Alpha
8 Notes
9 See also
10 External links

[edit] Units and structures

Like in Warcraft, the game makes use of two opposing sides and with immediately clear counterparts among the races’ units. For example, the basic fighting unit of the Humans is the Footman whose immediate Orc counterpart is the Grunt. Like the first game, the mouse-clickable controls for the units is located to the left side of the screen. The number of units has also been increased, and the units themselves have more elaborate abilities. As an aesthetical change, both sides are now allied with three minor races.

[edit] Units

Humans	Orcs	Notes
Ground Units
Peasant	Peon	The basic workman unit. They are capable of gathering the basic resources wood and gold, as well as building and repairing structures. They also have a very weak capability to fight.
Footman	Grunt	The most basic fighting melee units of either side.
Elven Archer	Troll Axethrower	Ranged units capable of attacking enemies at a distance and attacking flying units.
Elven Ranger	Troll Berserker	Upgraded versions of the Elven Archer and Troll Axethrower, who are replaced by them once the upgrade is researched.
Knight	Ogre	Heavily armored and fast-moving units. They are the units of choice for melees.
Paladin	Ogre Mage	Upgraded versions of the Knight and Ogre, who are replaced by them once the upgrade is researched. These units can cast spells. Ogre spells are used more for augmentation and traps while the Paladins' are for healing and fighting undead.
Ballista	Catapult	Slow-moving, slow-firing siege machines that are capable of dealing devastating damage to stationary targets, such as buildings or unmoving units. In the first Warcraft game, both sides used catapults.
Dwarven Demolition Squad	Goblin Sappers	Fast-moving units, vulnerable to projectile weapons. They have a standard attack, but are designed around a special suicide bombing attack which does high amounts of damage to everything within a certain radius.
Mage	Death Knight	Units capable of casting powerful spells. The magi are more for support and handicapping the opponent while the death knights are purely for destruction. Death Knights can also summon units (see below).
	Skeleton	The skeleton warriors are the only summonable units from Warcraft: Orcs and Humans to be summonable in Warcraft II as well (daemons exist in Warcraft II, but are not summonable). Similar to before, there is a time limit to how long they can exist.
Air Units
Gnomish Flying Machine	Goblin Zeppelin	Unarmed reconnaissance aircraft.
Gryphon Rider	Dragon	Flying units capable of dealing large amounts of linear splash damage. They are, however, very vulnerable to attacks from Archers/Trolls, Mages/Death Knights and Guard Towers.
	Eye of Kilrogg	An unarmed floating eye summoned by Ogre Magi to explore. They automatically expire after a short time.
Naval Units
Oil Tanker	Oil Tanker	Used to build oil rigs and gather oil from them.
Elven Destroyer	Troll Destroyer	Primary naval combat vessels. Very effective against air units.
Human Transport	Orc Transport	Boats used to transport up to 6 land units across a body of water. Unarmed and unarmored.
Gnomish Submarine	Giant Turtle	Underwater units that can often attack their targets without being seen. Can be spotted by aerial units, towers, and by other submarines/turtles.
Battleship	Ogre Juggernaut	Heavily-armored ships capable of dealing greater damage but which move much slower than Destroyers and cannot attack air units.

Playable characters in the Tides of Darkness campaigns include Uther the Lightbringer, a Paladin, Zul’jin, an axethrower, and Cho’gall, an Ogre Mage. They have increased unit statistics (depending on the character) in comparison to to their normal counterparts, will end a mission if killed, they each have a unique picture and identity of their own, and they set up the introduction of their unit type.

In Dark Portal, hero units take greater part in several missions and their survival is critical in completing each mission. Hero units are basically stronger and more powerful versions of the regular units.

The hero units of Beyond the Dark Portal are:

Humans – Danath (Footman), Alleria (Elven Ranger), Turalyon (Paladin), Khadgar (Mage) and Kurdran and Sky'ree (Gryphon Rider)
Orcs – Deathwing (Dragon), Korgath Bladefist (Grunt), Grom Hellscream (Grunt), Dentarg (Ogre Mage), and Teron Gorefiend (Death Knight)

The units are quite balanced by virtue of being almost identical, the only real differences can be found in the spells used by Paladins, Ogre-Mages, Mages, and Death Knights. Paladins have no equivalent for the Ogre-Mages' bloodlust spell, which serves to double the damage dealt by a unit [1] while Ogre-Mages can't heal other units. While the Mage's slow spell halves a units movement and attack speed, the Death-Knight's equivalent, haste, only increases attack speed in the case of dragons. Furthermore, Death-knights have no equivalent for the Mage's polymorph, which disables a unit indefinitely.[2] [3]. The other non-cosmetic difference is that Elven Rangers can learn the Marksmanship ability (so that they deal more damage) whereas their counterparts, Troll Berserkers, can acquire Regeneration (which slowly heals their wounds). Another difference is that the melee damage upgrades in the Blacksmith of Humans cost more gold than that of Orcs, though lumber is required in the latter. Finally, the Death Knight's attack range exceeds the Mage's by 1 space, however the Death Knight is susceptible to the Knight's Exorcism spell while the mage is not.

[edit] Buildings

Humans	Orcs	Notes
Town Hall	Great Hall	The basic main structure, without which other buildings may not be built. Gold and lumber harvested by Peasants/Peons can be returned here to add to the player's stockpile.
Keep	Stronghold	Upgrades of the town halls that allow the construction more advanced units and buildings. They also increase the amount of gold stockpiled from each batch from 100 to 110. A Barracks needs to be built before upgrading.
Castle	Fortress	The third and final upgrade after the Keep and Stronghold. These allow even more advanced units and buildings to be built. They also increase the amount of gold stockpiled from each batch from 110 to 120. An Ogre mound or Stables must be built to upgrade.
Chicken Farm	Pig Farm	Basic structures necessary to provide food for each race. In order to train more units, more farms must be built.
Barracks	Barracks	The building necessary to create more Footmen, Archers, Knights and Ballistae for Humans; Grunts, Axethrowers, Ogres and Catapults for Orcs.
Elven Lumber Mill	Troll Lumber Mill	The elves and trolls have monopolized the lumber industry. These buildings store the lumber harvested by each race, increase the amount stored from each batch of lumber from 100 to 125 and allow various upgrades for Elven Archers and Troll Axethrowers.
Blacksmith	Blacksmith	This building allows the player to upgrade the armor and weapons for most land units.
Scout Tower	Watch Tower	Towers that watch out for incoming enemies. Also, building them in an area far away from town keeps that area exposed for the player to see. Can be upgraded to a Guard Tower or a Cannon Tower.
Guard Tower	Guard Tower	Scout and Watch Towers may be upgraded to shoot arrows.
Cannon Tower	Cannon Tower	Scout and Watch towers may be upgraded to fire cannonballs, which deal greater damage to the enemy than guard towers do but have a worse rate of fire and cannot attack air units.
Shipyard	Shipyard	The basic structure necessary to build naval vessels.
Oil Platform	Oil Platform	Oil plays a significant part in the game as it's necessary in the creation of several units such as the naval vessels. Oil is also used for various upgrades and the construction of the Blacksmith building.
Foundry	Foundry	The foundries serve the same purpose for ships as the Blacksmith does for the land units, that is, to upgrade armor and the damage capability of weapons.
Oil Refinery	Oil Refinery	Refineries increase the amount of oil stockpiled from each batch.
Stable	Ogre Mound	The buildings necessary to allow the creation of Knights and Ogres.
Gnomish Inventor	Goblin Alchemist	Structures necessary to build recon aircraft and demolition teams. Allows the construction of the underwater units at the Shipyards.
Gryphon Aviary	Dragon Roost	The aviary and roost are built to create the Gryphon Riders and Dragons.
Mage Tower	Temple of the Damned	The buildings necessary to create the Mages and Death Knights and research the spells they conjure.
Church	Altar of Storms	These two buildings enable the player to upgrade the Knights and Ogres to Paladins and Ogre Mages, respectively, and to research the spells these units use. A Blacksmith must be built also to summon them.

[edit] Utilities, modifications and conversions

Warcraft II was an unusual game for the time because a large number of third-party utilities were written for it. Among the first things, Daniel Lemberg reverse-engineered the Warcraft II map file (*.pud) format and created the first third-party map editor, War2xEd, which could do numerous things the bundled map editor could not do, such as editing unit attributes. Although Lemberg did not make the source code for War2xEd public, he did publish the complete Warcraft II map file format, which led to a wealth of new tools, including a Macintosh version of the tool called PudMaster. More importantly, Blizzard began to use War2xEd internally, and it influenced them to bundle a feature-rich editor with their immensely popular game StarCraft.

The next important breakthrough came when Alexander Cech and Lemberg broke the encryption used in the base game data files. Cech went on to create a program called Wardraft, which allowed users to browse and modify the contents of the game data files, allowing comprehensive modifications. The spawn of extensive alterations became known as "Total Conversions", and a great many projects were in motion for a good long while. Some of the more prominent were "DeathCraft: Twilight of Demons" by Dirk "The Guardian" Richartz, "War of the Ring" by Gurthaur, "Editor's Total Conversion" by Fronzel Neekburn and the whole of the Warclan, "Elfcraft" by Ace Calhoon, and the noteworthy "Rituals of Rebirth" spearheaded by Kalindor, Kosmous, and Commoner.

There was also a reverse engineered free software game engine called Freecraft, which allowed users to import the actual game data from Warcraft II and play the game on different platforms and with additional features like queueing unit production, finding idle workers, an improved AI and network connectivity for up to 16 players. In addition to being compatible with Warcraft II, it could also be used with a set of artwork and scenarios made by the Freecraft Media Project (FcMP). Although the actual Freecraft program and FcMP used no art or code from Warcraft II, the project received a threatening cease-and-desist letter from Blizzard, apparently due to similarity to the Warcraft trademarks. Not willing to fight Blizzard, the maintainers cancelled the whole project, later rekindling it under the name of Stratagus.

Many of the utilities and conversions have faded into the depths of obscurity, but the appeal of feature-rich editors and total conversions has lived on.

[edit] Special features

Humorous unit quotes are a feature of Warcraft II, following the tradition of the original Warcraft. If a single unit is clicked on several times in a row, his or her voice samples change from regular to longer, emotional ones. He or she may start getting angry at the player, or quote lines in reference to movies or games. For example, a footman would say, "don't you have a kingdom to run?" or "are you still touching me?" These phrases differed in the game's demo for the Footman and Grunt units, and were mostly exhortations to purchase the full version.

Clicking on a non-playable critter such as a sheep enough times causes it to blow up, an exploding sheep reference.

If the disk for Beyond the Dark Portal is inserted into a CD player, the orchestrated music from the game can be played. In addition, there is a bonus 13th track called "I'm a Medieval Man" which features remixed sound bites from the game. "Medieval Man" is also a cheat code in StarCraft to obtain all unit upgrades for free.

[edit] Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition

Screen shot of game play.

Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition is an online-enabled version of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, with the expansion Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal built in. This is essentially a Windows version of Warcraft II which allows for usage on Battle.net, and, unlike its offline counterparts, does require a CD Key to install.

Currently, Warcraft II enjoys little attention from Blizzard's management, shown by the fact that there are serious unaddressed issues with the Battle.net interface and Mac OS X & Windows XP compatibility. The average number of users playing Warcraft II online at any point is between 600 and 1200.

The bulk of the remaining Warcraft II players are found on us.east server and reside in the War2 Ladder Challenges channel.

[edit] Online play

Although the Battle.net Edition wasn't released until 1999, online play was widespread from the game's release using IPX Emulators such as Kali. Warcraft II (along with Command & Conquer) was one of the first Real-time strategy games to be played widely online, and spawned several leagues, including the International Warcraft League (IWL) and singles and teams ladders on Case's Ladder.

The Mac release allowed multiplayer games over TCP/IP. The IRC channel MacWarCraft served as a gathering place for online play, before Battle.net was created. There was also a popular league created by the Macintosh community, that provided a ranking system and helped players find opponents, called MaG League (short for Macintosh Gaming League).

The depth of strategy of the game was found to be immense and evolved over time. But for every tactic, subsequent countermeasures were developed and matches eventually played out like complicated games of rock, paper, scissors. What was once considered odd eventually became routine, and established players were forced to adapt.

Unlike the later game, StarCraft, there were few Warcraft II competitions played for money or prizes. However, the level of competition was fierce, with many players devoting most of their spare time to learning the dynamics of the game.

While a small base of competitive Warcraft II players still exists, most moved on to newer games, such as StarCraft and Warcraft III. As the game grew older, the population of active players diminished, as did the viability of the leagues.

[edit] Console ports

Tides of Darkness and Beyond the Dark Portal were released together for Sega Saturn and PlayStation under the title Warcraft II: The Dark Saga in 1997 by Electronic Arts.

[edit] Warcraft II Alpha

Warcraft II Alpha was an early version of the game given to magazines for early reviews.^[1] Most of the graphics appear the same as those in the final version, but certain elements had not been finalized. An example of this is the mix of Warcraft II units and Warcraft I units available; necromancers and wolf-riders were still a part of the Orc units.