Zileas' 1.32 Undead Strategy

Difficulty: High
Type: Strategic (with tactical hints included)
Focus: Anti-Unit

After playing the various races some, I came to the conclusion that Undead is possibly the most powerful race in 1.32. The strategy I have developed is based on heavy use of area effects, particularly carrion swarm, as well as a focus on unit preservation and aggressive containment. This strategy is _not_ easy to do well, and will only give you a 1-2 level advantage over your opponents. However, so far I am roughly 25-2 with it -- one loss was to the exact same thing, and one loss was to demon hunter / KOG / Ballista / fast "semi-free" expand with mass treants (which I couldve countered with mass air but didnt...).

This strategy is most likely "imbalanced", but it isn't THAT bad or THAT easy to use, so I've gone ahead and posted it.

Basic Build Order and Strategic Application

1) Send two acolytes to gold mine, queue up 2 acolytes, build a ziggurat, build a crypt, send acolyte to gold, send ghoul to wood -- practice it and do it quickly. Speed matters.

2) Once you have the gold mine full with acolytes, queue up 1 more acolyte.

3) Build an Altar, and another ziggurat. It is important that you place your zigs in positions that will allow them to defend things well. I suggest one right up against your gold mine in case they dragon rush you, and another by where you plan to lay a graveyard later for fast wood gathering purposes. Scout with your acolyte, and build a spare.

4) When the crypt completes, mass produce ghouls until you have a total of 5. When the altar completes, queue up a Dread Lord. When money is available, build a graveyard in a location that will allow faster wood harvesting. This should not slow down your ghoul production, but might defer cannabalize by a few seconds. Make sure you have your ghouls harvest wood in the meanwhile, and also target the rally point of your Crypt to a tree so that you will automine wood as you produce ghouls.

5) When you complete your 5th ghoul, research cannabalize.

6) At this point, start gaining experience like crazy. The key is to target small creeps first, so you have a food source, and start using cannabalize for individual ghouls to heal them. You should not lose creeps doing exp unless you are fighting very large creatures, such as level 6 golems, or ogre lords. You will want to pump points into the DL's vamp aura, and carrion swarm. Carrion swarm is the most important of the two. In rare cases you may also want sleep, usually substituting for early vamp aura.

7) Work your way towards your opponent while exping. Try harassing their base -- sometimes you can get them to reallocate peons to either be militia or enter burrows. If you are playing against a night elf or undead, consider trying to assassinate a peon or two with carrion swarm.

8) Upgrade your ghouls at the graveyard, and upgrade up the tech tree as you can. You will probabaly want meat wagons at some point, as well abominations eventually. More importantly, you may want a second hero. Unless you are fighting a Demon Hunter, I would recommend Lich, though Death Knight is ok too. Against a Demon Hunter stick with one hero.

9) From this point on, play an aggressive containment game. Don't worry so much about razing their base, but be conscious of any massed air problems that come up. Also, continue to level, and spread gold mines across the map in as unlikely locations as possible. I recommend up to 3 gold mines, but it doesnt hurt to have extra ones "ready to go" just in case something happens.

Contengencies

The two biggest threats to this strategy (Besides itself) are farseer/blademaster/wyvern and demon hunter/ballista/KOG.

To counter the farseer strategy, you will want scrolls of healing, and will want to have Lich and Dread Lord. You may also want some crypt fiends with web in addition to your Ghouls. As soon as their farseer casts chain lightning (and it affects your units), use your healing scroll. Then, open up with areas targetting their farseer, followed by your units. It is imperative that their farseer die early. After this, you can more or less ignore the blademaster, and focus on the wyverns. If you don't have mana potions, this could be tricky, so make sure you do. Hit and run areas should perform well enough on wyverns -- a nova and a carrion swarm if of high enough level will eat them alive.

The DH/Ballista/KOG strategy is very tough to beat. For one thing, you will want to liberally use wands of negation to stop Treants. I also believe this will temporarily shut off Immolation. You will also want to go air ASAP, and absolutely do not want to get a second hero -- just power level your dread lord. A lich is going to just be fodder to ballistas, and yet another mana burn target. Focus on killing off their KOG, and then their ballistas. Without treants, their ground troops will get eaten by your ghouls. You may also want to use sleep on the demon hunter to buy you time against immolation and mana burn, but be careful -- its easy to hit a demon hunter with carrion swarm. Also, KOG will probabaly be their best anti air if they devote heavily to this strat. They will probabaly fast expand though, which has its own challenges.

Fast expansion in general is best handled with meatwagons and a zeppelin. Using this as a fast attack force, and using your main hero force as a backbone when their army shows up work quite effectively. After all, 4 meatwagons can pulverize a town hall very quickly.

In general, if you have cash to spare (Which you usually will in the midgame), expand "Zerg style", and defend with 2 spirit beacons. If you are aggressive about this, you will have gold mines up faster than your opponent can reasonably try to stop them. In other words, apply pressure/containment while expanding -- a classic old move.

Additional Advice

1) Dont waste corpses, and dont abort cannabalizes. This means that you should avoid all-group commands -- once you start a battle try to focus on single unit control and not group control. Issuing a group command during a cannabalize aborts it, wasting a corpse. You dont want to do that.

2) If you ambush creeps at night, typically they will target one of your ghouls as their target. Cannabalize him asap, and he might be able to tank the rest of the battle.

3) Use areas early and often... But if you get a Lich, always save a frost nova to pick off a fleeing hero.

4) Carrion Swarm works best if you take a step back and let it spread out. Its a cone effect after all. Don't be decieved by its graphic though -- its maximum range isn't that far.

5) Dont be afraid to hit and run, and try to buy mana potions. If you are confronted by a superior force, be sure to drop carrion swarms on them as you run. Once you do this 2-3 times, you will be in very good shape usually.

6) Carrion swarm is EXCELLENT for assasinating peon lines. It takes some practice, but is great. Dread Lords are also hard to kill, so often its ok to ignore minor static defenses to pick off peons with swarm combined with melee attacks.

7) Against another undead player, eat corpses early and often. This keeps them from doing the same.

8) When stuck in the late game, get frost wyrms. They typically win it.

9) Frenzy is a decent spell when used on heroes, but in general, I dont think spellcasters are worth the effort with this strategy.