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.)

Last edited by GreenPlastic on Fri Jul 26, 2013 9:00 pm; edited 1 time in total

War2 roulette is my advanced style. I do strats that are extremely strong vs certain positions, so so against others, and sometimes horrible vs like 1 or 2 spot configurations. That is how to have fun.
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I have hacks in my brain and I use them.

Non jerk-off reply, your sentences need some spacing to make it more easy to read.

I will add a tip:

Sometimes you are farmed out and need 2 cats (or units) and building a farm will either take time or make u go under 600 wood.

Simple solution. I kill my grunt with the lowest HP and start training 2 cats.

Also applicable when the grunt has like 1-2 hp left and would be (possibly) useless. Sacrificing it to train 2 healthy ones while a farm is building is more beneficial.
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Awesome stuff GP, looking forward to part 2.