Intermediate concepts(copied over from old forum)

[GreenPlastic]

Just wanted to repost this because there are so many people currently playing that would benefit greatly.

Intermediate Concepts, Part 1
There are tons of resources aimed @ the new player but I really don't see too much out there for intermediate players.
Hopefully, I will be able to bridge the gap for some of you who can't seem to take the next step up in competition.
For some, I'll just be speeding up your improvement but overall I would love for you all to be great players and help to increase the amount of games that everyone can compete in.

Most games do not end on the first attack.
Remember that and remember it very well.
It will serve to build the foundation of everything else you will learn going forward.
When you play, play as if you are about to play a very long game and take advantages of the opportunities that will arise.
Throughout a game, there will always be weaknesses that are exposed and created.
Take advantage of those opportunities but do your best not to overplay your hand.

You will come across most situations in War 2 quite often.
If you don't have a great memory then you should take notes.
There are tons of things to take notes about. How many times have you lost a game and immediately afterward you start to think, "Oh if only I had..." That is all of us.
We've all had that moment but some of us just don't seem to commit that to memory and it keeps on happening.
The truth is that in most games its never just 1 action that puts you in a losing situation.
However, in those situations where you realize your mistake, it is an opportunity to eliminate a weakness in your own game and become a stronger player.
We've all played this game for years! Can you imagine how many less flaws you would have if you worked on fixing 1 or 2 mistakes a week??? The possibilities are endless.
I challenge you to be a player who makes 1 less mistake every time I see you on(which is quite often...lolol I know, I know you want me to get a life.)

The best area to start your improvement is your peon management.
You've heard it a million times to this point in your War2 career.
So many people tell you that peon management/creation is the lifeblood of War2 but they don't explain to you how or why.
Let's focus on making peons for a sec. It takes roughly 8 secs to make a new peon. This is 8 secs whether you are ahead or behind on peons.
War2 doesn't sense that you are behind and speed up peon creation.
Say in the first minute of the game(after hall/farm), you fall behind by 2 peons but you never miss another one and neither has your opponent.
For whatever length of time you play, the resource deficit will increase.
The longer the game goes, the more resources you will be behind.
Imagine you had 0 peons and you were watching someone else mine gold with 2 peons. This is the real time difference between resources and its compounded over time.
Don't miss a peon!
This isn't the only peon problem you can run into, though.
Upgrades to hold/fort increase the gold each peon returns.
When you don't fall behind in resources early, usually you can tech faster as well. This will help to improve your economy further.
That covers peon creation on an intermediate level.

You also have to worry about what your peons are doing.
War2 AI doesn't protect you from making mining/chopping mistakes.
It will allow you to get to 10k gold/125 wood. It has happened to us all and it is something you can control.
War2 is gold driven but relies on a foundation of wood.
You will have to mine more gold than you harvest wood but you must keep the ratio well balanced.
Warlat has made it so that everyone on War2 can pull peons and put them where they are most beneficial.
When you first start playing on high res, you are probably going to put most of your peons in gold early and thats a great plan.
The thing that people mess up the most, though, is pulling peons for wood too early and 1 at a time.
If you aren't pulling 4+ peons for wood at once then you have missed out on a gold mining opportunity.
You can mine many bags of gold in the time it takes a peon to chop 100 wood.
For example, if you had 0 wood and you wanted to get to 1000. If you put peons on wood 1 at a time with no overlapping chops, the time to get 1k wood would be longer than just having 10 peons all start at the same time.
You can start your chopping a few seconds later because they will all finish at the same time. That extra time is extra gold in your pocket.
Man GP...that sure is a lot to remember about peons.
Yep and theres so much more but I'll cover 1 other way you are misusing peons.

Repairs on buildings being attacked cost people so much in resources but not just in the cost of repairing the building.
I see a lot of players have a gut reaction to pull too many peons to rep a building and they pull the wrong peons to rep with.
Wrong peons??? Wtf do you mean wrong peons?
Well like we've already covered, it takes a lot longer to chop wood than it does to mine gold.
If you are going to rep a building please pull from gold or a peon who just happened to be accidentally idled. (Don't let your peons idle!)
Another thing is don't panic when you are being attacked and repping a building.
You don't have to repair a building to full health immediately.
The repairing is just a stop gap for whatever choice you made to deal with the attack.
If your building is being hit by 3 grunts, repair with 2 peons. If its 4 grunts, 3 peons.
Remember that you just want to maintain the building standing so you can defend.
If you rep with 5 peons vs 3 grunts, that is 3 extra peons that could be mining gold/gathering wood.
That will put you behind in the same way that missing a peon will.
How many times do you leave a game and have more units and peons and still realize you were way behind on resources.
This is part of that equation.

(Bonus tip: Manually put your peons where you want them to chop. Spread them out in a manner such that they do not chop the same wood and constantly scan your base for peons chopping the same wood. If you find it redirect the one who has chopped the least time if you know which one it is, otherwise just pick one and put him somewhere else.)

[GreenPlastic]

Intermediate Concepts Part 2
This is part 2 of intermediate concepts. Now that you've had time to master your peon processes, it is time to figure out ways to fine tune your gameplay.

Scouting is an area of the game that only a handful of people have truly mastered. It is bound to be many players' weakness.
There are many different types of scouting: peon, grunt, not scouting.
Let's take a look at peon scouting and the various pros and cons to it.
One of the immediate pros to peon scouting is that you will find your opponent much faster than if you wait for your first grunt.
One of the immediate cons is that you will be behind a peon in resources early.
Peon scouting allows you to dictate what you do based on what you see your opponent doing. It allows you to be non commmittal on what you are doing early game and gives you extra flexibility.
There are certain things that you will want to keep in mind when you peon scout. First, you want to have a plan for each base you will encounter. It isn't enough to just know where to scout. You must also know what you will do if you find your opponent there.
Let's picture being 4 and peon scouting: Your first area to scout will be 5 so you will need to know what your intent is as you go to their base. Will you mill them in and try to win a gt war or will you be trying to slow them so you can make a cat in 4? Are you planning on dualing 3? What if 5 is empty?
Ok 5 was empty so now you have to decide where you want to scout next. Will you go to 6 or are you going to head to s9 or 9? (A sidenote here is that pscouting 11 is usually a losing idea unless you are 9 and its your first peon. The logic there is that most people seal 11 immediately and 11 is very easy to defend vs towers.)
Things to consider here are that s9 and 9 are both probably still open at this point in the game and that 6 is a weaker spot than 4. If s9/9 or 9/11 duals you are instantly behind unless you manage to find a way to slow them.
I would recommend scouting 9 because it is a common base to s9/9 and 9/11 duals. Remember to have a plan after you find your opponent and never forget the meaning of the word scout. Your scout doesn't have to try to be a hero and win the game so don't waste more resources than necessary when you do find your opponent.
One other thing to mention is that pscouting 12/2 from any spot is usually a recipe for a lost peon. 12/2 are most likely to rush so your peon is at a disadvantage and there isnt really anything to gain from pscouting 12/2.

Grunt scouting is another way to scout your opponent. A couple of pros to using the grunt scout is that you don't sacrifice an early peon and also the grunt is a walking threat. A con is that the grunt scout will find other bases a little bit later in game due to the time it requires to build a barracks and train a grunt.
The same type of logic will dictate where you scout with your grunt and in some cases with how many grunts.
The same threats exist to you whether you are scouting with a grunt or peon. Are they dualing? Which bases are most likely to dual? Are they rushing? WHAT ARE THEY DOING???
We'll scout from 12 here in this example. First grunt definitely wants to check 2 and find out if you have a neighbor. Remember to have a plan for what you will do if it is hot or not.
Let's assume that 2 isn't hot. When you are done scouting 2 a 2nd grunt should be made in 12. You can now scout towards the most likely dual base, 9.
Have a plan in your head as you go there as to what your next move will be if they are rushing, dualing, or its empty. If they are rushing are you going to try to overwhelm them or simply power? If they are dualing, are you going to try to cat and break the dual or will you counterdual? If it is empty, where will you scout next and how does that affect your choices at home?

A 3rd and passive way to scout is not to scout at all. I don't agree with not scouting your opponent because you won't know what they are doing but occasionally you can get tricky.
Assuming your opponent scouts you can use the timing and direction the peon is traveling to guesstimate where they are. The downside to this is you are getting 2nd hand information and not everyone scouts the same way which can throw off your predictions.
Work on your ABS. Always Be Scouting. Get your w2 6 pack on and be prepared for the haters to call you hacker since your scouting is gonna be legen.....wait for it......dary.


Now that you are scouting in a decent manner, the next step in your evolution will be the concept of pressuring your opponent.
There are ways to control what your opponent does by forcing them to make choices that you have already considered. This puts them a step behind in the mental aspect of the game and opens up your choices.
There are a ton of ways to put pressure on someone and you can do it in all timeframes of the game.
In early game, you can gain some of the biggest advantages over your opponent by forcing them into a defensive posture. This can come from winning the early rush, to raxing their resources(if you are going to block someone's mine do it with a barracks if you can), or using towers to keep them isolated from the rest of the map.
By making your opponent defensive, you can more accurately predict what they are doing. When you get really proficient at it, you will make them spend more resources than you are spending and thus give you an advantage that is huge as the game progresses.
While they are stuck in their base or dealing with your pressure, you are free to roam the map and do what you want to do. You can tech, dual, go afk...the choice is yours.
Pressuring your opponent is freedom for yourself. In Viruz' case, he would probably 5 hall.
Some other things that I consider pressure would be creating threats for the future.
By knowing where your opponent is mostly likely to expand, you can take measures to prevent it.
Imagine your opponent is 11. His mostly likely expansion is going to be 9. You can create pressure in his situation by walling off s9(a dk temple works really well). They know they need an expansion and that if they can't get rid of that temple then they are going to have problems. This will force them to commit to take a base further away from their main(harder to protect) or to secure s9 so they can mine a bit safer.
In this same scenario, you can apply pressure by walling off the path to 12/2 so that their path of travel is restricted.
When you use these tactics, notice what the weaknesses of it are for yourself so that when you find yourself on the other end of it you can properly attack it.

There will be one more part to this series and hopefully I'll get it done sooner rather than later. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope some of it is helpful in your war2 adventure!

[~ToRa~]

Any advice on how to win a neighbor war. Let's say from 4/5

[GreenPlastic]

A nib war is a bit of a different animal depending on spots.  4 is at disadvantage in a 4/5 because of the longer walk for peons, the multiple spots that need to be defended and the horrible gold flow.  The biggest concept that you should keep in mind when nib warring is that your actions should hurt and slow your opponent and help you.  For instance, if you are able to wall someone's gold off and at the same time yours is not blocked, then you have gained an advantage.  Winning a nib war is about gaining the small advantages and letting them stack up over time.  Nib wars from 4 take on different meanings in different games.  In a 1v1, you can safely go all in vs 5 to win the nib war.  Often times people do not defend vs all ins because it usually requires them to go all in to defend a majority of the time.  In a 2v2, you can split your frequency of going all in or playing to gain smaller advantages.  If your ally is able to scout the other player in a 2v2, you can adjust whether you are going all in or not.  In 3v3s and 4v4s I would advise to play a safer game where you try to slow 5 and get ahead and also defend 4.  The only exception to this is whenever everyone in game has a nib war.  You can assume that if you all in there will not be any help sent your way because everyone has their own issues to deal with.  Generic advice for 4 is to always mill in their gold flow.  Depending on where you are able to mill, you can gt the front of their base or the rear.  You can also use 1 to disguise the other.  If you can make someone defend on one side while you are setting up the other side, that works really well.

From all other spots, play for small advantage and build a lead via peons and slowing them down.  I'm a believer in always pscouting your nib from 9 or 11.  Your goal is to rax their gold and defend your own.  Don't do things that will cost you the lead such as going 3/4 all in.  Either you are all in or you aren't.  If you half ass something like that, you will just end up losing peons and they will defend plus get ahead due to all the extra peons they have.  Don't forget to make farms when nib warring.  9 peons pwn 5.  Use your peons as attack units.  If you are attacking a tower, know which peons you will use to attack rep peons and which you will allow to keep hitting the tower.  Do not chase 1 peon with 4 peons.  Use single units to do the reverse of that.  If you only have 1 repper available, sometimes its better to just run at the enemies peons and try to get them to chase you.  It'll buy time for your tower to finish upgrading.  Learn the hotkeys for making a wall and insta canceling it so that your peon doesnt take damage and frustrates ur enemies. 

Sorry for the jumbled thoughts/paragraphs.  Just typed some stuff as it came to mind.  I don't mind answering or showing you things specifically in game when I'm not gaming.  Hope some of this helps.

[tk[as]]

good informative article and very well written gj

[tk[as]]

im contemplating creating a 3-4 month gow ef training series... starting from the very basics like just explaining units/buildings, moving on to building order, placement, basic rush strategy, and progressing through every single aspect of war2 that i can think about.. basically a "Go from newb to pro in 4 months!" type deal

obviously nobody can go from newb to pro in 4 months, but id like to create a plan that if someone actually followed it to the T they would be able to be slightly competitive in 4 months and have the tools and understanding they need to fine tune whatever they learned in the series to truly becoming pro in 9months to a year if thats what they wanted to do

my only hold back is i'd like to promote a server during the videos, and im not extremely enthusiastic about promoting server.war2.ru due to the lack of administrative support. the videos would double as an advertising tool.

[~ToRa~]

Is dualing 4/5 ever a good idea? Or is powering generally the way to go

[GreenPlastic]

There is no 1 catchall strat from any spot.  Everything is going to be player dependent.  If your opponent sucks at dual breaking, why not dual?  If you suck at dualing, why dual?  You have to understand your skillset and play to your strengths and take advantage of your opponent's weaknesses.  If you happen to be a really great rusher, don't power/dual just because you see others doing it.  If your late game/apm are not up to par, then do not dual under any circumstances unless you are just practicing.  If you are just practicing, then the win doesn't matter and you should just play that game maintaining a huge focus at home.  Don't worry about your opponent because you are just fine tuning your dual/apm.  For the 4/5 dual, I'm not a fan of it because of how many different ways you can be slowed.  You are already naturally slower than an s9/9 dual or a 9/11 just because of the amount of buildings required to seal + the gold flow of 4 not being optimal.  Throw the fact in that you are already slower AND you have more fronts to defend and it just doesn't seem like a worthwhile undertaking.  A power is a good starting point for learning w2 but it isn't always the best/most efficient way to win games.  You are essentially playing a weak/uc early game, skipping mid game, and then hoping to get a late game advantage early when you power.  Also, when you power, you need to be really good at resource management.  You need to understand what your resources will be based on how many choppers you have and also some basics from the advice above.  Don't repair with choppers if you can avoid it.  Pulling from your gold peons is the way to go if you have the time. 

For my skillset, I typically prefer to power/rush over dualing from 4/5.  When these questions pop up in your head, try to do a pros/cons list of each using your knowledge.  You'll make amazing gains when you put your brain to the test.  Think about how each spot would counter your dual once they find it and how fast they can find it.  Think about which spots you'd be better off powering against and which you would gain from dualing.  By thinking about the other spots in reference to your own, you are now thinking about the entire map and gow as a whole.  You'll understand a bit better what to do when the roles are reversed and someone else is dualing or powering 4/5.

[~ToRa~]

That was probably the best advice I've heard so far thanks

[tk[as]]

There is no 1 catchall strat from any spot.  Everything is going to be player dependent.  If your opponent sucks at dual breaking, why not dual?  If you suck at dualing, why dual?  You have to understand your skillset and play to your strengths and take advantage of your opponent's weaknesses.  If you happen to be a really great rusher, don't power/dual just because you see others doing it.  If your late game/apm are not up to par, then do not dual under any circumstances unless you are just practicing.  If you are just practicing, then the win doesn't matter and you should just play that game maintaining a huge focus at home.  Don't worry about your opponent because you are just fine tuning your dual/apm.  For the 4/5 dual, I'm not a fan of it because of how many different ways you can be slowed.  You are already naturally slower than an s9/9 dual or a 9/11 just because of the amount of buildings required to seal + the gold flow of 4 not being optimal.  Throw the fact in that you are already slower AND you have more fronts to defend and it just doesn't seem like a worthwhile undertaking.  A power is a good starting point for learning w2 but it isn't always the best/most efficient way to win games.  You are essentially playing a weak/uc early game, skipping mid game, and then hoping to get a late game advantage early when you power.  Also, when you power, you need to be really good at resource management.  You need to understand what your resources will be based on how many choppers you have and also some basics from the advice above.  Don't repair with choppers if you can avoid it.  Pulling from your gold peons is the way to go if you have the time. 

For my skillset, I typically prefer to power/rush over dualing from 4/5.  When these questions pop up in your head, try to do a pros/cons list of each using your knowledge.  You'll make amazing gains when you put your brain to the test.  Think about how each spot would counter your dual once they find it and how fast they can find it.  Think about which spots you'd be better off powering against and which you would gain from dualing.  By thinking about the other spots in reference to your own, you are now thinking about the entire map and gow as a whole.  You'll understand a bit better what to do when the roles are reversed and someone else is dualing or powering 4/5.

to get better at it


as far as your question is concerned tora 9/11 dual is agreed to be the strongest dual. s9/9 has it's advantages and disadvantages... 4/5 dual is the same way.

one of the reasons most people don't like dualing 4/5 is because the gold is difficult to get flowing early at 4.

i recently started dualing 4/5 after learning how to do it mainly by accident. typically in a dual you want to close off imediately. that costs resources. resources that you need for peons. but one fairly popular dual strategy from 4-5 is to close 4 off as soon as possible, and get guard tower in 5 very fast. you're going to need the guard eventually any way, but if you just auto-upgrade it before even being scouted you have enough protection for an early 1-2 scout grunts and dont need to spend the early resources walling off. the way the timing works, you can typically afford to have non-stop peon production and have time to eventually wall off 5 before a serious attack against 5 is carried out.

if you ever have any interest in seeing exactly what im talking about let me know and i'll show you the basic build in a game

[Yamon]

I think the biggest problem for average players is they neglect the basics. The basics are what sets the good apart from the great. Instead of focussing on complex strategies and tactics, and what to do at what spot, and how to take advangtage of a spot; instead try to master the basics of balancing your resources optimally. Remember that every unit is temporary. In a faster paced game macro becomes just as important as micro. So your ability to produce what you need to fit the situation can never be compromised. If you have a 3k gold and wood advantage on your opponent, it doesn't matter how shit you play, you'll still win. Combining powerful economy with good micro and superior decision making is how games are won, or even dominated. Very rarely will you ever find yourself losing from speed. Balancing your economy doesn't requite a lot of speed, just consistency. Working on your APM is kind of ensuring yourself that you are capable to compete with your opponent. And you opponent can have an apm of 50, or 300. So focusing on your speed is a little silly if you don't understand the basics.

[IustinLZep]

Mining speed from different positions                  Hello, I was wondering if anyone had bothered to calculate or record the different mining speeds from different spots around the gold mine. By this I mean, three spaces away all 360 degrees around the mine.

Can anyone offer insight on this?

[Warchief Lightbringer-]

Yes I did that test in like 2001 for Gow bne. I might still have the file somewhere. I have however modified some of my current hall placements to allow for better counters to nib wars...


Sent from my HM 1S using Tapatalk

[tk[as]]

id be interested if you found that file LB ... i did something similar a few years back but don't remember the exact findings. i remember when mining from 3 spaces away the difference in time it took to blow a gold mine with the exact same amount of peons was no more than 10-20 seconds difference.

other factors have a larger influence in my opinion. some of the things that will unbalance the gold flow is obviously peon jams which tend to happen more frequently at 9 imo. another big factor is wood peons(which is why peon jams are more frequent at 9 i think). if they're chopping close to your hall and entering/exiting your hall with wood instead of lumbermill it's a lot more likely to get peon jams and slow gold flow.

[Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)]

Is dualing 4/5 ever a good idea? Or is powering generally the way to go

Braviet's 4/5 dual is insanely good

Does anyone have a replay of it?  I want to watch it again so I can steal it.

It's like he leaves 5 open but gets a gt, and then sends out some grunts?  A lower wall-in at 4 with a chop gt?