So, I really have gone downhill.
I used to be so good with the undead.
Then, apparently, I fell on my head. I don’t remember it happening, but that’s probably due to the brain damage that has become so readily apparent in my playing skill. Everytime I face off against humans, I end up with a bunch of high-hitpoint sheep. Other races also slaughter me. I think it’s that I don’t do anything after I hit “a bunch of ghouls & crypt fiends, with double-aura-goodness” until I get to abominations. Then it’s abominations with double-aura goodness. This is not a good strategy. I think 3 meatwagons (with auto-corpse-collection) and 4 (fully upgraded) necromancers (with auto raise dead) would be a beautiful combination. And that way I don’t need to wait until my black citadel to do useful things. Plus, siege units do much, much better against towns than masses of melee units.
Banshees and frost worms are also good. With like 4 banshees (again master level) and 3 frostworms, you can anti-magic the f worms (no flying sheep) and then possess the knights (or sorceresses).
That adds up to 49 supply. With heroes and resource gatherers on top (say 21 – 26 supply) you’re at the border (or crossing over into) high upkeep. Enough room for a few abominations. But it’s not about amassing the kick-assiest army. More to do with _using_ your kick ass army.
bah. Too much thinking. Not enough smashing.
[Addendum: Scouting is another Major, Major Thing I Need To Work On]
I think this is why I never got into War3 after winning the single player campaign.
It’s all about micromanaging, which I suck at. I try for the creature tree (crypt fiends -> gargoyles -> frost wyrms) which should be relatively powerful without requiring a whole lot of micromanagement, but I get eaten for underutilizing my hero.
Give me Dark Reign or Warlords Battlecry 2, where the units actually have reasonable individual AI, any day.
Patch
Remember that they’ve likely patched the game and changed the value of certain units. I don’t own the game or play a warez’d copy of it so I don’t know specifics, but I saw a laundry list of changes on a message board I read that looked like they overhauled _every_ race.
Also, apparently there are playbacks of highly-ranked players duking it out where you can pick up tactics, but I’m too lazy right now to go hunt them down for you. But if you ask me real nice, I might go looking for them for you later.
Re: Patch
They did recently patch, but the patch did nothing to the undead but improve them. (and increase the cost of adding a defensive element to your supply structures, details, details.)