Orcs (red) attack a Human town and its defenders (blue). The Conjurer can summon a water elemental, while the Warlock can summon a demonic melee unit. The Human Conjurer and Orc Warlock have energy blasts, wider-range destruction spells and the ability to summon small, venomous monsters. The Cleric's other spells are protective, healing the injured and making troops invisible, while the Necrolyte raises skeletons as troops and can make other units temporarily invulnerable, at the cost of severely damaging them when the spell dissipates. The Human Cleric and Orc Necrolyte can both defend themselves by magic and also see distant parts of the territory for short periods. These advanced buildings can be constructed only with assistance from other buildings. Įach side can construct two types of magical buildings, each of which produces one type of spellcaster and researches more advanced spells for that type.
However all except the most basic also need assistance from other buildings, some of which can also upgrade units. The Barracks produces all non-magical combat units, including melee, ranged, mounted, and siege units. Each Farm provides food for up to four units, and additional units cannot be produced until enough Farms are built. The Town Hall stores resources and produces units that collect resources and construct buildings. The lower-level buildings for Humans and Orcs have the same functions, but different sprites. As both are limited resources which become exhausted during the game, players must collect them efficiently, and also retain forests as defensive walls in the early game when combat forces are small. Non-combatant builders deliver the resources to the Town Center from mines, from which gold is dug, and forests, where wood is chopped. Warcraft requires players to collect resources, and to produce buildings and units in order to defeat an opponent in combat. The game also allowed spawn installations to be made.
Multiplayer and AI skirmishes that are not part of campaigns were supported by a random map generator. The game allows two players to compete in multiplayer contests by dialup modem or local networks, and enables gamers with the MS-DOS and Macintosh version to play each other. In one mission, the player has to kill the Orc chief's daughter. These include several new mission types, such as conquering rebels of the player's race, rescuing and rebuilding besieged towns, rescuing friendly forces from an enemy camp and then destroying the main enemy base, and limited-forces missions, in which neither side can make further units, and making efficient use of one's platoon is a key strategy element. Gameplay of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans expands the Dune II "build base, build army, destroy enemy" paradigm to include other modes of game play. Both sides have melee units and ranged units, and also spellcasters. The game plays in a medieval setting with fantasy elements. Some scenarios are complicated by the presence of wild monsters, but sometimes these monsters can be used as troops. In multiplayer games, the objective is always to destroy the enemy players' forces.
In the single player campaign mode the player works through a series of missions, the objective of which varies, but usually involves building a small town, harvesting resources, building an army and then leading it to victory. The player takes the role of either the Human inhabitants of Azeroth, or the invading Orcs. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is a real-time strategy game (RTS). The game and its plot were later adapted as the 2016 film Warcraft. This competition fostered an "RTS boom" in the mid– to late 1990s. The game's sequel, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, became the main rival to Command & Conquer series by Westwood Studios. Sales were fairly high, reviewers were mostly impressed, and the game won three awards and was a finalist for three others.
Warcraft games emphasize skillful management of relatively small forces, and they maintain characters and storylines within a cohesive fictional universe. The game introduced innovations in its mission design and gameplay elements, which were adopted by other RTS developers.
The MS-DOS version was re-released by Sold-Out Software in 2002.Īlthough Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is not the first RTS game to have offered multiplayer gameplay, it persuaded a wider audience that multiplayer capabilities were essential for future RTS games.
It was released for MS-DOS in North America on 23 November 1994, and for Mac OS in early 1996. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans is a real-time strategy game (RTS) developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment, and published by Interplay Productions in Europe.