And now... probably the most asked question about Warcraft II...

Which side is better? Humans or Orcs?

Both sides have their advantages. First, there are the Mages and Death Knights. Death Knights have a range of 3, while mages have a range of 2,which doesn't make much difference anyway, since when either of them is seen by an enemy unit, they have to use a real spell fast or get to safety or they're dead. Almost anyone will agree that mages have a much more powerful arsenal of spells than Death Knights, my favorites being Blizzard, Slow, which helps counter Bloodlust, Polymorph, Flame Shield, which works well on a bunch of enemy units together, especially slow ones like catapults or ballistas, while the others, like Invisibility, which doesn't last long enough to do much, and Lightning, which just plain sucks, and Fireball, which doesn't do much either, aren't much help in battle. Death Knights have Decay, Haste, which helps sometimes, but can be countered by Slow, Death Coil, which only works well against weaker units, and Whirlwind, which only works well when a lot are created, which to be very effective, cheat mode should be enabled. Even the good Death Knight spells don't amount to much, and ones like Raise Dead, which can raise the dead, yes, but makes incredibly weak skeletons which just plain suck, Touch of Darkness, which also just plain sucks, and Unholy Armor, which doesn't last long enough to do anything anyway, just make the Death Knight suck. So the score is now Humans, 1, Orcs, 0.

Now we move on to Ogre Mages and Paladins. I would say Ogre Mages are definetley better. Paladins have Healing, which is okay, bu definetly can't compete with Bloodlust. They also have Holy Vision, which helps, but the Eye of Kilrogg can help you spy much better, since holy vision lasts much shorter than Eye of Kilrogg. Exorcism? I don't really use this one much, but it can be helpful if a Death Knight is attacking your town with decay, but runes are better, since they work on all types of units and you can "mine" the area just in front of an enemy army with it. I say Ogre Mages win because of Bloodlust. I think tht this is the single best spell in the entire game, with the exception of polymorph in cheat mode. Since I think Ogres win, it is now Orcs, 1, Humans, 1. And I give the Orcs another point for bloodlust, for this simple fact: You can build small armies and still win by Bloodlusting all of your men and attacking a much larger army. I have seen 3 bloodlusted Ogre Mages kill 9 knights before dying. Since the other unit types are all pretty much the same, the result pretty much depends on magic. So the score is Orcs, 2, Humans, 1, now. But also, Humans have better AI. This doesn't really make too much of a difference. So the score is Humans 1.5, Orcs 2.

Final Score: Humans: 1.5 Orcs: 2

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