OzWL Strategy Forum

Contents
No.	Who?	Date Added	Name/Comment	For ...

1	JJJ (submitted by lynspx)	6/1/97	Water Level Building Order The quick 6 man grunt rush
2	JJJ (submitted by lynspx)	6/1/97	How to play Medium Resources Notes on playing med. res on land
3	MolG	17/1/97	Use those Death Knights! Learn the value of these units
4	Kanga	12/2/97	Low Resources Startup Strategy Not knowing how to start up on low res can kill you
5	Fuhrer	12/4/97	Blacksmith First The Blacksmith "first" strat
6	Fuhrer	14/4/97	Farm Farm Farm Barrack Strategy Exactly what it says.
7	Nuitari	2/7/97	Water Battleship / Sub Rush Building Order
8	Nuitari	2/7/97	Low Res Alternative Building Order
9	Nuitari	2/7/97	Low Res Footman Rush Building Order
10	Nuitari	2/7/97	Land Footman Rush Building Order

At the time of writing, JJJ had played 75 matches and won 72 of them. Listen to this strategy!

To do the 6 man grunt rush is simple. The peon orders follow the same as on the above lists of resources.

On high - Build a lumber mill instead of a barracks, then build your barracks, and the rest of the peons harvest gold. When lumber goes down to about 1400 send the newly trained peons to wood. Once the lumber mill is finished, the peon builds a Shipyard. And after the shipyard is finished, the peon builds a foundry. While the foundry is being built, you may want to build a destroyer to look for the enemy. (on High Seas Combat, the foundry hop is suggested) And after that is done, train a transport. All the while, you should be training grunts. To finish, simply find the enemy (with either your transport or a destroyer or a jugg) and unload on them. Make sure you don't get your transport killed in the process!

On medium - I am baffled. I hardly see people play medium at all, let alone on water levels. Obviously you cannot do the 7-man grunt rush. If you know the building order, tell me please.

On low - Normally what I would do is build a lumber mill once I get 4 farms. Then soon later comes a barracks and a shipyard. It should be easy to do... One thing you want to do before you train your transport is to train some oil harvesters, and build a platform. On this resources level you only get 1000 oil, so if you lose your fortress, it's gone for good. Remember: Blacksmiths cost 100 oil. If you want to completely rush the enemy, don't build a blacksmith and you can build a transport before you even build oil dudes.

This is a rarely played resource level. I've only played it a couple times myself, so you might want help - you could come across someone specialising in medium resources, and if you don't know how to play it, you could get kicked. It's JJJ (again) ...

This building order is the only order most people use now in medium resources. If you don't use it yourself, you can be caught dead. If you do it, and the opponent doesn't, do the obvious: Attack him!

Find your mine (if not already found.) It doesn't hurt to do the lumber bug. Build a town hall. (As close to the mine as possible.) Build a farm. Begin training peons once the farm is done. Once you reach 6 peons, which happens later, stop training them. The peon who just finished the farm builds a barracks. Your first peon out of the town hall builds a farm. All remaining peons (including the one on the barracks) mines gold. The peon who finished the second farm builds a third. Once the barracks is finished, train grunts (nonstop - until you have 7 - where you will have to stop due to farms) The peon on the third farm will go mine gold, with the rest of the peons. Peon #7 can go on wood. (this gets you enough lumber soon enough to build another farm.) Doing this, you should get 7 grunts. You will want to find the enemy as soon as possible with one or two grunts, and then send in the entire army. When looking for the opponent, don't forget to switch some peons from gold to lumber. Another variation of this building order is the `8 man rush' which does not work as well all the time. Instead of 6 peons, only train five, and you can train 8 fighters. People tell me they can counter the 7 man rush with a walled-in guard tower. Well, if you can make a walled in guard tower, do it. I'm not sure it will work very well.

Death Knights. These guys are probably the most underestimated unit in the game. Whenever I play no uses them, and when I chat with people they only rag about how weak they are. Well next time you're about try this...
Use the Death Knights haste properly. Properly I hear you say... there are three main reasons why Haste is cool.
#1. Is for making those little Sappers run like the wind.
#2. Is to make Dragons puff like crazy
#3. To make Death & Decay rule!

I suggest #3 as the main one to remember. Get four Death Knights, fully charged, then use two of them to Haste the other three. The dash in and cast Death & Decay, which happens at double speed!!! increasing the attack like any other!!! thus doing lots of damage very very quickly, and to top it off you can bolt away from the conflict once you're done.

Another superb use of the Death Knight is Unholy Armour. Again a spell you never see used, and I still can't figure out why. Try the previous idea, five Death Knights, 1 Hastes 2 of them, while the other 2 unholy the Hasted two, they then run into the base, letting the Units in there converge upon them, then they cast Death and Decay on themselves... Massive carnage... and then bolt as before, while still Hasted.

When playing on land, with low resources, here is the starting build order nearly everyone uses (I think).

1. Lumber bug, build Hall, then farm.
2. Peon goes on gold, after one load, train peon 2
3. Peon 2 on gold, when you have enough, train peon 3, 4 and 5
4. Peons 3, 4 and 5 go on lumber.
5. Peon 4 will bring in 250 lumber. Use him to build your second farm (note: when initially assigning peon 4 to lumber, send him in the direction you want to build your 2nd farm in). After starting your second farm, you should have 0 gold and 0 lumber left over.
6. When peon 4 finishes the farm, put him back on lumber. Build peons 6 and 7
7. Peons 6 and 7 go on gold.
8. After a short delay, your 700th gold and 500th lumber should arrive very close together. Take the peon who brought in the lumber, and build a barracks.
9. When you have 400 gold again, build peon 8.
10. Peon 8 builds 3rd farm (I occasionally have up to about 10 second delay here).
11. Peon 9 goes on gold
12. Barracks and Farm will finish pretty much at the same time. Build a grunt and another peon, and go forth as you wish. You will need to build another farm pretty soon, and you want more grunts for either offense or defensive purposes.

There are some variations on the theme, but if you can do this without wasting critical seconds early in the game, you will be off to a reasonable start. Now if anyone wants to expand on what they do differently, I, for one, am listening :)

Apparently some people think that I use the FFSB [farm, farm, smith, barrax] order, involving building a smith b4 your barracks. I do not actually use it but for those that wish to use it, here is an order that achieves it most efficiently.

After building your 2nd Farm (I assume evryone knows up to this point) the farm peon goes on gold.
Your next peon (p6) goes on lumber, p7 on gold, and p8 builds a smith.
Then u build p9, who goes on lumber.
Then the peon who brings in the 450th lumber builds a barracks.
U will soon need a 3rd farm. If u follow this order efficiently, u wull just aquire the lumber to build it as soon as your smith is done. So p8>smith>f3. This works best for humans, as u can immediately start upgrading your swords.

Now, with this strategy u get 1-2 levels higher in upgrades than your enemy, but they get up to 3 more grunts if they go FFB. Using this u attack as soon as your troops are upgraded to level 3. They will be at lvl 2 at the most, usually lvl 1.

Now the drawback to this is (and this is the reason why i do not use it) is that u are not building peons for a long period of time. If u do not breakthrough with your initial rush (after lvl3 ) u will be behind in the race to keep/2nd hall etc.. In my opinion, a good build order is one in which u are continually producing peons throughout, and get grunts (and upgrades asap). This occurs with the FFFB order. I am currently trying to determine a build order for this, but am still testing it out.

Now Peon who brings in 250th lumber (p4) builds f2, and then goes to gold when finished.

Afterwards u put peons where u wish. I'd advise getting a smith before your 5th farm, after your 1st or 2nd grunt. U should be able to put a 5th farm down almost immediately after your smith is down. With this build order u churn in the resources :)

You will be down by 1-2 grunts, if your opponent goes FFB, but u will have an advantage in the race to keep, 2nd hall, and even smith (u get a smith down earlier!). To overcome a rush, one can block in, or even better fight 3 vs 1 (behind a gap). A cannon shouldnt take too long to established either.

For newbies, I'd advise the FFB order, as it is important not to waste any time in the FFFB order. The later u put your barracks down, the quicker you have to be. To others, I'd say this is the order to use, unless the pud is a small/2 player pud, in which u may be vulberable to a grunt rush or to FBF'ers.

The Following Seven Strats are building orders by Nuitari (whom I had my first OzWL game with and got kicked by). Building orders are important and sometimes unique to the player. Learn these - they're more than useful. Many thanks to Nuitari.

I've tried to find a strategy for dealing with sub rushs beside using the same tactic. The only one that I have come up with is the following. Please note that this tactic has NOT been fully tested against experienced players.

Small Water map / High res
1. #1 Peon builds hall
2. #1 Peon builds farm
3. #1 Peon builds lumber mill
4. #2 Peon helps with the mill
5. #3 Peon builds farm
6. #1 Peon builds shipyard
7. #2 Peon helps with the shipyard
8. #4 Peon builds a 2nd shipyard
9. #3 Peon builds farm
10. #5 Peon mine
11. #6 Peon wood
12. #7 Peon mine
13. Once the first shipyard is done - build a tanker and search around. If you find that the enemy only has built one shipyard, then is safe assume subs are coming.
14. #1 Peon builds foundry
15. #2 Peon helps with the foundry
16. #4 Peon mine
17. #8 Peon wood
18. #9 Peon mine
19. #10 Peon builds farm
20. #1 Peon builds a barracks
21. #2 Peon builds the 5th farm
22. #11 Peon mines gold
23. #12 Peon chops wood
24. #10 Peon chops wood after 4th farm done
25. #2 peon chops wood
26. Once barracks is complete - upgrade to keep and peon #1 chops wood
27. At this point - the enemy may attack with subs, if the enemy attacks one of your yards with 1-3 subs - disregard them, if they attack the foundry - then start repairing when the foundry is at 50%.
28. When the Keep is 75% complete - build 2 battleships
29. Once keep is complete - get wood peons to build an inventors place and repair it. Once done - build a flyer.
30. Send all peons back on wood.
31. Flyer should be ready as battleships come out. 2 battleships should be able to handle 1-4 subs. If not - just build more battleships - you should have enough res.

After killing the enemy's subs - search for the foundry, your enemy will be trying to get off the island. His/her shipyard will be useless without a foundry in that should he/she build more than 4 subs - he/she will not have enough oil for both a transporter or castle upgrade. Most people would try to build a foundry and get peons to other islands so watch for the foundry being built.

Anyways - as I stated previously, this tactic has not been fully tested but I believe the strategy and building orders are sound. Try it and see if any improvement can be made :)

Most people are aware of the standard building order for low res. This is an alternative one that I have found to be quite effective.

1. #1 peon builds a hall (lumber bug of course)
2. #1 peon builds a farm
3. #1 peon mines gold
4. #2 peon mines gold
5. #3 peon chops wood
6. #4 peon chops wood
7. #5 peon chops wood
8. #4 peon builds 2nd farm
9. #4 peon chops wood after 2nd farm done
10. #6 peon mines gold
11. #7 peon mines gold
12. #8 peon builds a smithy
13. #9 peon builds 3rd farm
14. #9 peon chops wood after 3rd farm done
15. #10 peon mines gold
16. #11 peon mines gold
17. #8 peon builds a barracks after smithy is done
18. Upgrade swords
19. #12 peon chops wood
20. #13 peon builds 4th farm
21. Upgrade shields
22. Barracks and 4th farms will finish at same time - produce footman
23. #8 peon mines gold
24. #13 peon chops wood
25. The first footman that is produced should be lvl 3
26. #14 peon builds 5th farms
27. Build more footman and peons
28. Another farm will be needed after 5th footman is produced
29. Build other buildings as needed.
30. Go attack someone :)

This strategy works pretty well is getting upgrades for your units. It is important to note that this order will only work for human players. By no means am I saying this is the best way to build on low res, it is just an alternative. Perhaps someone can improve it a bit:) However - from past experience, this building order works pretty well on large land maps.

Although I feel that this strategy should be generally frowned upon, it is still a valid tactic. The requirements for this type of rush is that the map must be one where the enemy's position is known. The most effective map for such a strategy is on One way in One way out. I believe that Almighty1 was the first player I know of that used this tactic to great effect.

1. #1 peon builds hall (lumber bug of course)
2. #1 peon builds farm
3. #1 peon mines gold
4. #2 peon mines gold
5. #3 peon chops wood
6. #4 peon chops wood
7. #5 peon chops wood
8. After 450 wood has been collected #3 peon builds a barracks
9. After 300 wood has been collected #4 peon builds a 2nd farms
10. #5 peons repairs the farm
11. #3 peon also repairs the 2nd farm after barracks done
12. #3 peon mines gold after 2nd farm done
13. #4 peon mines gold after 2nd farm done
14. #5 peon chops wood
15. Produce 4 footman and attack.

I believe that this strategy has a lot to do with luck. If both players do this strategy, the winner is usually the one whose footmans are not stupid enough to just walk right by the enemy and attack first.

When playing on a land map on high res, this is a possible building order that may be considered: Please note that is order is specified for human players and that orcs players should use a slightly different building order. If you're an orc player, Email Minbari - he's got the building order for orcs as wood becomes a problem.

1. #1 peon builds hall
2. #1 peon builds a farm
3. #1 peon builds a barracks
4. #2 peon builds a farm
5. #3 peon builds a smithy
6. #4 peon builds a barracks
7. #5 peon mines
8. #2 peon builds a farm
9. #1 peon mines
10. #3 and # 4 both mine
11. #6 peon builds barracks
12. #7 peon mines
13. #8 peon mines
14. #9 peon mines
15. #6 peon builds a farm
16. #10 peon builds a farm
17. #11 peon mines
18. #12 peon mines
19. #6 & # 10 peon chops
20. #13 peon chops
21. #14 peon builds farm then mine
22. #15 peon mines

Please note: peons are continuously produced as are footman, as soon as the first footman is produced - you should find the enemy. Once found - attack with all but 2 footman. you will have enough money to continously produce them. But remember to build more farms too.

At the end you should have 13 peons, 6 farms, 3 barracks, 1 smithy, 1 hall and be able to attack with footmans in groups of 6-9. Remember - if you do this - you must keep the pressure on the enemy. Destory all expansions and should you find their base - you will have enough res to build a lumber mill in your base and guard towers outside their base. This is more of a speed attack techique, if you cannot keep the enemy from expanding - then you will lose. Don't bother attacking a walled in canon tower, build guard towers near their farms and barracks and protect your towers with lots of footman.

Offense is the best defense for humans, after bloodlust is researched - it gets very difficult so your objective is not to allow the enemy to expand. They may get blood lust, however will have too few ogres to do any good due to lack of gold. Upgrading order: Shields / Swords / Swords / Shields. This upgrading order must be followed as the res available will only allow for this order. I'm sure other variations may exist, but this one has served me well in the past.