Blood Alliance - Micromanagement in a nutshell

« Micromanagement in a nutshell »

Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
Jul 29, 2010, 11:51pm

Blood Alliance :: Warcraft III :: General Strategy :: Micromanagement in a nutshell

Author

Topic: Micromanagement in a nutshell (Read 100 times)

Gutz
Shaman

member is offline

Guts and glory

Joined: Apr 2003
Gender: Male

Posts: 111

Micromanagement in a nutshell
« Thread Started on Aug 26, 2003, 1:42am »

-Name is explanatory. A simple and easy guide to micro for no0bs and anyone who wants to learn.

I've seen many articles lately involving newbish antics and so on so forth. Most of these articles have covered micromanagment to some extent, but micro makes up 75% of all of my strategies and I wanted to get my own 2 cents in, so here goes. What is micromanagment? Micromanagment is simply the ability to effectively use your troops in battle, and is ultimately what seperates the good players from the bad. I personally fall in about the medium catagory, where I still have to home my reflexes but can put up a decent fight. The really good players can do about a gagillion (yes, that's a lot) things at once, and can win battles where their forces are outnumbered almost 4-1 in a base of power. So, here are the tips to good cheezy microing.

HERO: Heroes are the most important part of any army, and there is a fine balance to keeping them alive and keeping them in a place where they can do damage. (You wouldn't believe all the games I've been in where my allies spend all of their time running their hero around without it doing anything.) For practice in good micro, there is no hero that relies on it more than the the pretty warden, so I'll refer to her. Warden have incredibly low HP and super uber high attack damage, but are deadly in the hand of someone that can micro. To be good with her, simply use the strategy of hit and run. Run up close, use shadow strike, get hits in, and when the enemy starts to force fire run. Meanwhile, your guys can mop those that are chasing the warden, and a good player will realize this and continue his attack on your whole group. Rinse and repeat, and if you run out of mana just barely stay in range to hit the opponent with your regular attack.

Another example for the more advanced player with a demon hunter: For every 3 games I play I get at least one orcish tower rush. When you lose your units destroying the other enemy units so that it leaves you with only your hero against the two towers left (if there any more you didn't catch it soon enough and need serious ally help) you need to micro to take them down. Most players have 2 or more peons repairing buildings while you attack them, and you can't afford to take the time to hit each of them or your dh dies. My solution: Immolation. If you can get right next to the repairing peons before attacking the towers you can flame them with your spell while you bang up the buildings. Suddenly, with a bit of moon well help, the towers aren't really so scary anymore and with the extra cash you save while the enemy foolishly tries to keep his strat going you can tech up and stomp.

UNIT: Units aren't nearly as powerful as heroes, but when your heroes are at low levels they actually cost more than your heroes do to revive. Keeping your units alive means having the chance to retaliate after an assault and save money later. Even the weakest of units can save lives in large battles as they provide both an obstacle to get through and an attack bonus if nothing hits them. So if something can be saved (especially to creeps) DO IT!!!

Unit Micro though goes far beyhond keeping them alive. In all battles, one thing usually always determines the outcome of an attack: formation. A relatively simple example of formation involves an undead player putting an enemy hero to sleep and then surrounding the hero so that it can't escape BEFORE attacking it.

Another example: If you can keep your weak ranged units (such as archers) behind a heavy melee unit (such as a Druid of The Claw in Bear Form, or mg) you will do much more damage and last longer. Each unit has what I call "the buzzsaw factor" or, how quickly they can be mass slaughtered. Headhunters are great additions to any orc army, but their incredibly low HP means that almost any other unit that gets to them can kill them without taking many hits. Warcraft3's AI does a somewhat decent job of plotting a simple formation for you, but it is a good one: Melee in front, Ranged, Casters. If you only have a few casters, this is a good idea but if you go mass casters I suggest changing the order to Melee, Casters, Ranged because you really only need a few casters to get the effects (if you micro ^^) and ranged units generally do more damage than caster units so it is best that they survive longer.

Focus Fire is incredibly good because you can take out units quickly while the enemy spreads its damage to you out little by little as a whole. It is almost always the right thing to do, but there are execeptions-

#1:The enemy is taking advantage of the "buzzsaw factor" and you need to move your units first.

#2: You are in an all melee against all melee battle. (You'll spend more time running into your own troops than dealing damage.)

#3: The enemy is getting wise to you and starts using hit and run tactics (See warden move above)

There are also priorities when it comes to focus fire.

#1: If the thing you are shooting can't shoot back but other things around you are, then shoot them first.

#2: If a hero is weak, is doing heavy damage to your army, OR can easily be trapped, always take care of it first. However, many players are aware that you will be doing this and stock their heroes with potions from merchant shops. If this is the case, take the rest of the units first, because the time it takes to bring down the hero will mean that you will suffer heavy losses. (1 hero revived for 450 against a loss of 2800 for all of your units.)

#3: Analyze the opponent's strat and stop it. If the opponent is taking a whole lot of ghouls and necro into battle, then the ghouls are simply there to act as fodder to get skeletons from. Ghouls are easy to kill, so take the necros first and as a result no more skeletons can be raised.

SPELL MICRO:
Spell Micro is the most common form of micromanagment and should quickly be mastered if you want to be good at the game. For example, if you plan on using sorceress to win a battle then you had BETTER be able to cast polymorph on the enemy while doing unit and hero managment as well. Remember that War3 is a great program, and that if you want to use multiple spells in a selected group you only have to click their icon to use them.

Here is a good example of spell micro. Heal is a great spell of the human priest, but I hate blizzard for putting that d**ned autocast ability on it because if you really want it to work well you need to focus the spell from a group of priests on one target. Each priest's wave gives back something like 15-30 hp (I can't remember off the top of my head.) Spread out it is nice, but ever tried using 12 priests on a hero at the SAME TIME? Do the math for hp recovery in an instant, end of story.

--The most commonly overlooked micro spells in the game are as follows:
1. Rejuvenation
2. Unholy Frenzy
3. Anti-Magic Barrier
4. Devour
5. Ensnare
Master these 4 and you will be a force to be reckoned with.

BASE MICRO: There isn't much to say here except watch replays and learn from others. Here are some basic tips for good micro at home though:

1. Have a build plan and order.
2. Use rally points
3. Never have workers idle unless you expect attack and set your workers on auto repair.
4. Never forget upgrades
5. If you have damaged units and it is night time, why not go use your or your elfish ally'###### wells? Having a well at 100% mana at night means you are doing something wrong and your units are at perfect health. It will rejenerate during the night anyways, so use it!
6. You can focus tower fire, don't forget it!
7. You can group buildings of the same time to mass produce units without having to individually click each one.

stay tuned more to come when i have time...

Link to Post - Back to Top IP:

Logged

Dont cower in your base, get out and experience the guts and glory of war grasshopper

Click Here To Make This Board Ad-Free

This Board Hosted For FREE By ProBoards
Get Your Own Free Message Boards & Free Forums!
Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Report Abuse | Mobile