Sc2AncientWar Wiki

**Welcome to the Sc2AncientWar Wiki!**
Ancient War (War 3 Mod) is an Starcraft 2 Arcade Map which uses Warcraft 3 Mod to pit 8 players against in each other with one emerging the victor.

The troops that you build is pitted against another player troops. The deciding factor for victory is based upon the army size, unit types, formation, items equipped and luck. This makes paying attention on the build of other players very important. You would need to counter build in order to win battles which puts you further ahead and closer to victory for the final battle.

## How to play

During the game there would be a build phase and a battle phase.

During build phase, spend your gold and make your army in a formation. Select your builder (wisp for Night elves, Peon for orc, Peasant for Humans and Acolyte for undead) and build your troops with the available gold. During the build phase, you can only see your area of build while the rest of the map is covered in fog of war.

During battle phase, the army you build will spawn. You can't control your army during battle. The AI controls the army. What you can control is the type of units on your army and their relative position on the battlefield, which is done during build phase. Because the ai controls the unit, there is an element of randomness in the results. However, counterbuild still plays a major role in the outcome. During battlephase, the fog of war disappears. Therefore, you should take a look around to see what the other players are building in order to counter them for the next round.

There would be (# of players - 1) round for player battles. This means that if there are 8 players, there would be 7 player battles in order for all players to have a match with everyone excluding themselves. In order for players to have a match each round, no. Of players are always even. If it is an odd number, the game would add an ai player. The matchups are random, so it is important to keep track of players you have and haven't battled with. You only battle each players once. Hence, if you keep track of your player battles, you will have an idea on who you might battle next. On the last round of the player battles, you can be certain that you will be match with that last player you havent battled. It is important to win battles, as you get more wood depending on the amount of units you defeated. Wood is always traded for gold with the exception of final round. The more gold you have, the more army you can build, and the more army you have the more you win, which can snowball you to victory unless countered by another player.

After the player battles round, comes the bonus round. During bonus, you are battling a boss type of unit which gets stronger and grows in number. You would want to kill as much of this spawn as you could to get a lot of wood. Players that are focusing too much on round battles tend to get punished on bonus. Also, players that has been losing round battles can effectively get back in the game by doing well in the bonus. Players that are doing well during rounds can also do poorly on bonus, so you shouldn't give up yet.

After the bonus round, comes the final round. In the finals build phase, you can hire units that can be purchased with wood. Then trade the rest of your wood for gold to build the rest of your army. The finals is an elimination round. The matchups are still random, but players that loses are eliminated. The last player standing becomes the winner of the game.

## Unit Guide

It is important to understand what each unit does and how they interact. Knowledge on units allows you to properly adapt against your opponent strategy and build units to surprise and counter your opponent. Also, properly understanding units provides explanation on why a certain unit is chosen on a build. It also allows you to make adjustment if you have either more gold or less gold. Checkout the guide below for details.

* Human Unit Guide
* Orc Unit Guide
* Night Elf Unit Guide
* Undead Unit Guide

## Build Guides

Generally when building, you would want melee type on the front and range and support units at the back. Upgraded units are generally stronger than unupgraded units on a per cost basis. A mixture of units are generally better than one unit type. There is synergy with certain units and it is important to take advantage of that. There are exceptions such as putting range low hp units on front to deny lifesteal or putting support units like fraerie dragon on front because they get high armor while channelling. Checkout the guides below for details.

* Human Build Guide
* Orc Build Guide
* Night Elf Build Guide
* Undead Build Guide

## Item Guide

In classic mode, you receive an item at the start of each round. Items adds another depth to this game. Item provides enhancement that can turn a fragile priest into a tanky priest or a warrior to be nearly unkillable. To move an item to a unit, right click an item then left click to the unit you want to equip the item on. Items are usually move from the builder to your army unit as they receive an item in the beginning of the build phase of each round, but you can also move items around between two units. To sell an item, right click an item then drop to your pack horse (humans, night elves and undead) or kodo beast (orc). The amount of gold you received depends on the level of the item with level 1 giving you 10 gold, level 2 giving 20 gold and so on. Humans are an exception for this rule, as they get an extra 10% gold for selling an item. In other words, they will receive 11 gold for a level 1 item and 22 gold for a level 2 item. If you prefer not to deal with items, you can play the challenge mode of the game. For item tips for each race, click on the link below.

* Human Item Guide
* Orc Item Guide
* Night Elf Item Guide
* Undead Item Guide

### The Value of Upgrading Goods

Upgrading goods early round gives you passive income, if you are selling all your items. Level 1 item sells for 10 gold, Level 2 item sells for 20 gold, Level 3 item sells for 30 gold and so on. Upgrading goods once guarantees you a Level 2 item or higher on the next round. In other words you will no longer receive a level 1 item. Second upgrade, guarantees you a Level 3 item or higher. Now, how does a player profit from this? Let us say for example that you spent 15 + 30 gold to upgrade your goods twice. You are short for the last goods upgrade which cost 45 gold, so you upgraded goods to max on round 2. You spent a total of 90 gold on upgrades. However, you will profit in the long run. Here is why. In round 2, you are guaranteed a level 3 item or higher. In round 3 and forward you are guaranteed a level 4 item or higher. So you are guaranteed an extra 20 gold from selling your item on round 2, and an extra 30 gold on round 3 and forward. By bonus, you would have earned an extra 200 gold from selling items - 90 gold spent = 110 gold net profit. Finals is 140 gold net profit. Another reason to upgrade early is you have a higher chance of receiving the strong item you desired. However, even if you never received any items you desire, you still profit by selling all your items. The downside of upgrading early is your army value would be lower in the early rounds. So you are forfeiting your chance for early round dominance.

 10 gold
gold

## Turn Rewards and Gold Income Explained

Classic Mode
lumber

The table above is the rewards you get per turn in classic mode. In classic mode, you receive an item at the start of each round, but you get a lower reward per round. The 1st row is the round. The 2nd row on the table above is the amount of gold you receive each round. You should get a total of 1350 gold by bonus if you don't build. However, you don't receive any lumber from turn rewards if you have no army.
The Amount of lumber you receive for each round depends on the size of your army on the previous round, which is typically the amount of gold you spent. The third row on the table above is your lumber turn reward with the assumption that you spent all your gold towards your army. For example, on Round 1, you spent 75 gold which gives you an army value of 75. You will receive 75 lumber on Round 2. On Round 2, you received another 75 gold towards your army which brings your army value to 150, so you will receive 150 lumber on Round 3. If you have been losing horribly with zero kills each round you still should receive a total of 3675 lumber by bonus round.

For sake of simplicity, let us assume that you have 3600 lumber. 200 lumber can be exchanged for 10 gold so it will give you an additional 180 gold. Add in 80 gold, if you have been only getting level 1 item each round because of bad luck and sold them all. You should have a total of 1350 + 180 + 80 = 1610 army. You can also gain an additional 110 gold by upgrading item early round and selling all your items (for details see item guide section). This brings you to 1720 value without even counting fight bonus. Each race has a bonus build that is around 1800 value. Theoretically, you can ignore counter building during player round battles and just build for bonus. Although, you are unlikely to win against a veteran with this strategy. You are allowing them to dominate the round and get more lumber rewards, which will give them 2000 or higher army value by bonus which means they are likely going to do well on bonus.

The table below is the rewards you get in challenge mode. In challenge mode, you do not receive any items. However, you receive a higher reward per turn.

Challenge Mode
lumber

### Growing your army size quickly

 Item sold
 Lumbertogold
 Net Value
 Turn Reward
 Net Lumber

Let us analyze how some veterans play and see why they always have a bigger army than yours. Most veterans prefer the classic mode, so we will analyze in terms of a classic mode game. Veterans normally sell the items they don't like, but they will normally equip it first to benefit before disposing it. For example, you can keep your 1st item equipped in round 1 and round 2 and dispose it before round 2 ends. On the third row of the table above, There is no gold from item sold on round 1, because the player kept the item. Then round 2, the player would sell their two level 1 items for a net value of 20 gold. Usually they will use it to fund goods upgrade, which gives you 20 - 15 = 5 net gold. Same thing is employed on round 3 and 4; keep the item on round 3 and sell 2 level 2 items on round 4 and use it to fund goods upgrade, which gives you 20 + 20 - 30 = 10 gold. On round 5 and later, you don't profit from item upgrade considering there are 4 rounds left and the 45 gold cost of third goods upgrade (10 x 4 - 45 = -5 loss). However, most vets will still do a 3rd goods upgrade for a chance to get a powerful item they like. For the sake of analysis, we will keep the discussion on 2 goods upgrade. On the fourth row of the table above, you trade every 200 lumber for 10 gold to grow your army further. As a result of selling your items and trading your lumber, your net army value grows faster as shown on the 5th row. Bigger army value means bigger turn reward for each round. The +gold is your gold that is unspent due to price of army being a divisible of 15. Remember that your turn reward is the size of your army of the previous round, which is shown on row 6. Net lumber is your total lumber for the round, discounting fight bonus. A value divisible of 200 is taken off the value assuming you trade it for gold like you should, with the left over being on +value.
This brings you to a total of 1680 by bonus round; discounting gold from the fight bonus. Noticed that the value is less than the value of 1720, if you upgraded your item early. However, you should remember that you are likely to lose on the 1st 4 rounds if you upgraded goods early. This build is meant to try and establish round dominance while slowly upgrading your goods level. In other words, you should be winning a few rounds and getting fight bonus, which means you should a bigger army than this. This is why you always see veterans with 2000+ army value on bonus round. It is important because bigger army value combined with proper bonus build gives you a high bonus reward and a high bonus reward translates to bigger army for the finals.

 Item sold
 Lumbertogold
 Net Value
 Turn Reward
 Fight Bonus
 Net Lumber

Now check, the next table above with the turn reward included. Assuming that you are winning each round, your army value increase fast. The fight bonus is usually awarded during round battle phase, but can only spent on the next round build phase which is why they are put on next round for simplicity of calculation. Also this discounts the item being higher and lumber bonus from additional kills so the army value is going to be higher if you win each round. The net value in this table will be used on the build guide.

**Disclaimer:** You have to understand that this guide is only meant as a guide. You are not guaranteed a win following the build order that are suggested. In order to win, one must constantly adapt, and counterbuild according to the situation. If you can win doing the same build each time, then this game would be very boring. Knowing the right build for the situation can only comes with experience. It can be comparable to chess opening. You can memorize the opening lines like sicilian, petrov, etc, but what if your opponent made a different move that is not mentioned in the opening line theory?