Can You Beat Warcraft 2 Beyond the Dark Portal Deathless?

[@ArrowQuivershaft]

Death Coil is actually an 'area target' spell, that will do fifty damage (to as few units as possible) and give the health back to the Death Knight. But if there's no units in the target zone, it just spends the mana. Its infuriating.

[@nixnihil]

The problem is (in the vid when he complained), he cast it on the building by accident. Maybe that also negates the splash? Either way, that's why he "failed" on the gryphon--he hit the building instead.

[@thomaswestfall1774]

I love seeing your challenge videos on Warcraft. It’s awesome to see more creators who do RTS videos / and videos akin to GiantGrantGames and I love seeing the older Warcraft games having grown up on Warcraft 3. Keep it up 🎉🎉🎉🎉😊😊

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Thanks so much for the kind words! I am a slave to nostalgia and like to stream old rts games from the 90s too! Glad you enjoy the content

[@Adamius_]

​@@Admiral_IddyGrunt/footman only?

[@Admiral_Iddy]

maybe sometime I was thinkin do an elves/trolls only run so archers n destroyers only. The guy I shoutout Redwings he has footmen/grunt only runs already up on his channel if you wanted to check him out! @@Adamius_

[@QibingZero]

It really does seem like on Human 12 they originally expected you to do the transport strat, but maybe in playtesting it was a bit too awkward, so they just put the sapper in and called it a day. Really crazy. I never even realized that bay was there, and that they gave you enough oil to exploit it!

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Me neither! Never crossed my mind i just always saw the sapper and just followed their lead hah amazing after 25 years and i only just saw water

[@lilacorkindheart8325]

Wonderful video, and job Admiral. This game was obviously WAY harder than the base one. Yet, you managed to pull through. I noticed that you improved your videos a lot as well. Audio is much better balanced. You still use your own humor while improving on it, without repetition. An entertaining listen all the way through, and a bit of your own thought/feeling about each challenge (as in missions). You are still improving, still staying strong. Most importantly: entertaining - it is so nice to come back to you, be it old videos or new. See you again Admiral.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

You definitely live up to your name kindheart! Thats really nice of you to say. KZbin is tough but fans like you make it worth while

[@lazlo686]

@@Admiral_Iddyif you fancy yourself even more of a masochist, I’d recommend Warcraft 2 Alaunter campaign. I haven’t even beat the second level yet in 3 days

[@WhiteDragonOfLight]

The current cannon lore for Deathwing in human 7 is the Alliance force wasn't able to best the dragon, but luckily the Gron known as Grull showed up and started fighting Deathwing. Sadly Grull wasn't quite strong enough to beat him with his adamantine plating, but Kadgar came up with the idea to cast some Ice spells at Deathwings super heated body causing a few to shatter giving Grul the ability to properly attack Deathwing. Dethwing now lousing the battle runs off back to Azeroth abandoning the other black dragons he lead to Dranor to lick his wounds.

[@SoulKiller7Eternal]

Which is bullshit. Grull started the fight because the black dragons were starting to inhabit his land, Deathwing began to fuck him up until the Alliance got involved. He is, lore wise, to WarII suppose to die in Outlands. Yet they BSed it and made him alive in Azeroth, some the fuck how.

[@GeneGear]

@@SoulKiller7Eternal Its because they turned the dragon leaders into demigods, instead of just...really strong dragons. WoW making the Dragonflights into ultimate beings really screwed up the lore of the RTS games, and required massive retcons across the board in order to make everything fit. Except the more they tried to make everything fit, the more plotholes kept showing up (because otherwise why didn't Deathwing just personally end the Wars since the Alliance didn't really have anything that could stop him?) the more they had to introduce even more convoluted events to try to explain everything away. And then Sylvanas burned a tree down and suddenly everyone became aware of just how much retcon garbage was packed into WoW's lore.

[@retloclive9118]

The expansion also added 2 new music themes for both factions.

[@Inquisitor_Cadian]

If you're asking about white orks in your camp, it's because they're the laughing skull Clan and they were helping you actually. In the missions up to the last human mission. They're known for their tricky way of betraying people to get more power. The laughing skull clan was offered new worlds to conquer and in return, killing you sounded like a better plan then go back to your old world. Wonderful video mate loved it Woops my bad it was the shattered hand clan. I guess we hired them as freebooters. I remember when i played i guess i thought they were the laughing skull clan as they do talk to you

[@CyrusVorazan]

This is just a theory, but I think enemy being passive in human 12 may be because they want to actively target your heroes, which can't be reached. If that is the case, it can explain the similar behavior in human 10, because you evacuated your heroes to a place where they can't be reached, and maybe a similar thing going on in human 9.

[@paulx7620]

This was beautifully edited, lots of fun the whole way 😂👍

[@Admiral_Iddy]

thanks man! I vastly underestimated how much time it would take but glad it turned out ok! thanks for watching :)

[@vineheart01]

even as a kid, i always found it weird that units dont regen normally but humans got a healer. Also found it weird that they got an anti-undead spell which is literally just to hard counter the mage unit for orcs (since you cant get skeletons normally without a deathknight) Its probably one reason why even though i played this a lot as a kid, i never really touched it again once we got Starcraft. Yeah only Zerg regen'd, but only on creep and Medic wasnt in the base game, so it didnt feel like an uphill battle facing against the healspammer until you got dragons+deathknights+ogremagi

[@Admiral_Iddy]

oh yeah I always found the spells choices weird like pallies get a spell ONLY to counter death knights, and ogres get landmines? aha and if all the spells are so weird why not tinker with the stats so both factions arent exact mirrors of each other! maybe it was easier that way :)

[@redwings13400]

Whoa, I never thought of using your mass migration strategy for Siege of Vanguard before. That's genius. Amazing job with this! Some of those levels looked so painful!

[@Admiral_Iddy]

oh yeah! it really took a load off with constantly defending walls as those orcs just stood at the beaches wondering where everyone went haha thanks for supporting dude!

[@rallykalle8852]

Whats a mass migration tactic? dont understand I took all forces i have from the befinning and directley attacked white when i finaly manage beat this mission, cause then you are blocking their attack path and relieve pressure from your base and the the heroes take damage while ballista working on their towers and death knight ;) before that i allways wondered what "hold out" means in the briefing, was it a time mission like SC2 Legacy Of Voith without just a visible clock? i taut 18 years before LOV was invented ;) cant mean that you shall simply defeat the enemy bases!

[@redwings13400]

@@rallykalle8852 migration is moving from one location to another. So in this case, mass migration would be picking up and moving everyone from the initial stronghold across the sea in to purples base. So fascinating fact about this game: the ‘hold out’ language actually is supposed to represent an alternate victory condition! There’s a trigger in this level that checks how much gold everyone has, and if everyone other than the player runs below 400 gold, the player wins! However, the trigger wasn’t set up properly and doesn’t work. It checks every players gold aside from yours. This includes four players that don’t show up on the map, and the red rescuable player that starts with your heroes. These players all start the map with 5000 gold and have no way to spend this gold, so the secondary victory trigger never has any way to activate. Therefore, genocide is the only way to actually beat the level.

[@rallykalle8852]

@@redwings13400 Aha, how do you know about this trigger? on Alen Adams old blogg? ;) But Admiral here proves genocide isnt needed either

[@rallykalle8852]

​@@redwings13400 Okay now i get it, the migration to purple island made the enemy slow down the siege at Vanguard, my attention lacked on Admirals speech. Thats a strange idea when you are pressed by 2 other clans to migrate to purple first just to prevent dragons, but if it works it was right :) You are probably right about the enemy focus on the heroes, i maybe recall that when i attacked white at the beginning bonecheawer might have flanked me, some heroes front and some back though Bonecheaver and Thunderlord that was removed on first orc mission is back, strange

[@chrisramsteck5866]

Aww. What a heartfelt opening. I'm new around here but you're a stand up admiral, Iddy

[@Admiral_Iddy]

New or old all the crowd are appreciated deeply

[@maceshigh1]

Good stuff A I. It was a blast witnessing this live.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

As always your presence is always appreciated my dude!

[@AaronAzimov]

Awesome video Iddy! Your editing skills are just as impressive as your gameplay. It's funny seeing the recaps of each level explained in a matter of minutes after watching your streams and the sometimes hours-long fights that these levels put up lol. It's truly been a pleasure watching you complete these runs, though! You've totally reignited my love for this game, which I now play every day, and I hope you find more success and glory ahead!

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Thanks so much bro thats so great hearing you love the game again! Ive been playing some opposite campaigns (human missions as orcs and visa versa) Haha it was tough sifting through sometimes 3.5 hour recordings to get the ONE instance of a funny thing rhat happened too ahha glad to have you on the team 🙂

[@chrisf6657]

Massive props for this, I got filtered on human mission 3 when I played through the expansion a year ago. The dragons and ground forces kept coming in from the west and destroying my towers. When I finally made it into the enemy base I kept getting sniped by cyclones and death coils. I ended up quitting because I just got tired of death knights.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Oh man between magic users and air this expo really knows how to annoy the player to the max i def got lucky in places

[@xWiranekx]

will you do the warcraft 3 campaigns deathless too?

[@rallykalle8852]

When do we get that livestream for each mission on human too? :)

[@chrisf6657]

Patiently waiting for the peasant/peon/transport only run

[@Nordico2000]

Oh the big video is here! This is a great one, it was awesome to sit through the streams and see how everything worked out in the end. Thanks for the fun streams and great WC2 content Iddy. Also, here's a PSA: if your death coil lasts for 10 minutes or more you should consult your necromancer.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Thanks so much for hanging out bro! I think I got a death coil when I was in Turkey haha 🤣

[@relogos]

Another one of the "nah, it's imposible" off the list.

[@paulx7620]

Thanks for the video 👍

[@KennethOlney]

Hey. Hey. ILY. These WC2 vids and your streams (when I can catch them) been a bunch of fun!

[@Admiral_Iddy]

and it fans like you that fuels me to make em! thanks for the support :)

[@pauljablonski5746]

I see you did wc1 wiv no summons. That was cool

[@rallykalle8852]

I think you are wrong that sappers counts as a kill? dont think it does in the stats!! i have allways strived for zero kills as a kid and i used sappers alot on Alterac, Crestfall and Blackrock Spire to create multiple kills on packs of enemys cause of their explosion radius, you simly lure their biggest units to you by runnning around them in circles and let them hit yourt dwarf until 3-4 of them are chasing you then you right klick and blow them up all together and ALL will die by spash damage no matter their hp, so Ogres and Knights included, this works on guard towers to, just round the tower and let it hit you until your dwarven cant take another punsch then demolish the tower and take atleast!!!!! 1 enemy standing near with you in ITS death. It becomes almost a mathematic tipping point on how many you can include in the kill before the dwarf will die, works best on cannon towers who allways miss, great for killing of catapults guarded by ground units, Blizzard placed enemy guards around their towers and catapults for a reason, so that sappers can take care both of them to ;) You should attemp this yourself for fun, i disagree with people who never use then :) i have screenshots from 1996 on old computer who i took on explosion moment when i blew up 4 enemys + 1 building at same time on Alterac

[@rallykalle8852]

I took care of whites base on Coast of Bones directley without that catapult you wanted, and did it with the dwarven demo squad tactic who took the tower and ogre in one blow, , if enemy kills your sapper before the explosion its a kill in the stats?

[@Dacijo]

Teron Gorefiend, first death knight.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

one of the coolest too, I even dressed as him for halloween when I was in like 5th grade haha Im kool like that

[@tristegnon4786]

Hello there. (Sry in advance if my english isn't on point, it is not my native language and i'm basically self taught). I'm part of the silence user on YT and almost never comment, even on my usual and favourite content creators, but here i felt like this was needed : First of all, I was touched by your intro and was happy to use my time to watch your content that obviously took you way more of yours to make, and for that i need to say thank you at least. Thanks for the good content, the nostalgia it brings us, the narration, the humor (loved it, and the edits too), the tips for the missions and your thought process, everything was great, it felt very friendly and even "homely" and it's not the nostalgia talking haha. Anyway, to put it in a simple way : really great video, loved every bit, thanks again and I wish you the best for the future.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

thanks so much for the nice comment! Im humbled every day but the support I have been getting it is really nice :) I shall keep at it as best I can, and its comments like this that really fuel me to keep going. I hope you enjoy everything I create!

[@danevileye]

Hey Admiral, just found your channel and I binge watched all your War2 videos. I'd highly recommend u to try SZWagier's War2 violent campaing, inside War2 combat edition. It is basically the same maps of the 4 main War2 campaigns, but with an absurd difficult spike and improved AI. U can also try the hi resolution patch in order to assist u in that grueling challenge.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

hey bro thanks for watching and commenting! I actually have a stream vod of trying some of Ed Gorod's custom campaigns they are wild! Pretty difficult and might try out the one you mentioned.

[@popersson]

Great video! Would love to see you take on the old RTS War Wind, remember it was a lot of fun and ahead of it's time. It's free on both steam and GoG. :)

[@stylesrj]

1:11:00 The narrator did say that the magic of the tomb revived fallen warriors and knights, etc. which explains why there are Humans and why they're working with the Orcs. Even if there were no Humans in the vanilla level. Maybe they sent an expeditionary force and lost it and they got revived as undead thralls? Those Paladins must be very confused...

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Haah some pally is like...phil is looking kind of pale today is he ok? Steve is quite thin all skin n bones! Hah until they find out they are all dead 😂

[@madcat789]

Dentarg is so cool he left Warcraft before it became Suckcraft.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

It is weird that he is like never mentioned again, save for that cancelled Lord of the Clans game where you can see his skull in groms room (i have a stream of this game in the live section if you are interested) thanks for watchin!

[@errata]

Awww yeah, this is the baby I was looking forward to!

[@rallykalle8852]

Did you try to attack black instead of red directley in Beyond the Dark portal mission after whiping out white? 17:11 maybe it work? If i ever replay fall of Auchindoun im gonna attack orange directley as allways ;) but leave 1 orange buildning standing and wipe out all clans and try to get zero kills :) Impressive tactic on Dance of the laughting skull, never knew you could attack directley, its so stupid that Blizzard dug a canale for a transport ship for the enemy, did they ever used the transport? or didnt they just run alongside the canale? when they attacked

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Black could work, they have a lot more towers though, and the big threat is time, the longer you take to kill someone the other players build up and attack. That one was a cool one! I always wondered that too maybe they intended for some sneak attacks or maybe the transport is there for aesthetics like in the first human level there is a random transport as well

[@rallykalle8852]

@@Admiral_Iddy But you can get rid of dragons!, but yes i checked the map remake at wowpedia (discusting) and theres alot of enemy units also, so if you wanna avoids kills i take it back The enemy uses the transport on Allerias Journey if my memory serves me right, i shoud know since i was so so passive so enemy got pissed :) I dont recall them using their transport on Dance of Laughting skull, you must replay and find out ;) And find out whos right about blowing up demo squad end get a kill

[@stylesrj]

25:55 No shoutout to that one Skeleton that put on the wrong faction colours that morning? :D

[@Admiral_Iddy]

I forgot to mention him! just ONE skelly who found himself under deathwings thrall haha I feel like he is that guy from office space, in the wrong job looking for his paycheck

[@gilberthangel6949]

Another feat of strength by you!

[@Shiizi]

Man this is so impressive! Imma be honest. i dont think ive finnished both campaigns without cheating :( Was alot of fun to watch this video!

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Childhood me would agree haha it seemed so hopeless as a kid.

[@musicfan1558]

Nice one! Enjoyed watching it as usual :D And thanks for mentioning me! 😊

[@rallykalle8852]

How can you load campaign missions inside the W2 editor? 24:14 never heard of that!

[@Admiral_Iddy]

I just googled campaign missions puds (the name of war2 maps) and there was a forum that had tthem! I went throough each level and made the races swapped, and then tried to make a coop version of every level. They even have custom ai selectors to make certain missions harder etc

[@rallykalle8852]

​@@Admiral_Iddy Is it this maps that cant create swamp in the editor? static.wikia.nocookie.net/wowpedia/images/e/ee/WarCraftII-BeyondTheDarkPortal-Humans-Mission08-CoastOfBones.png/revision/latest?cb=20160417150626

[@john681611]

Its really cool to hear of an AI that actually plays by the rules. Unfortunatly I've found a good few RTS games where the AI clearly cheats.

[@rallykalle8852]

My brother (we played as a pair) have confirmed to me that you dont get a stats-kill when demolishing sappers, so all was in vain ;) no it wasnt, it caused creative solutions! But you should replay last mission and demolish yourself out and get 0 kills when the horde isnt passive waiting for your heroes to come out, i wish i could test this but i dont have Warcraft battle net edition available, my brother claim that its impossible, i say its just as possible

[@fergalkearney1603]

Do you have any interest in playing a legendary 90's rts. Kknd 2. And trying deathless for that? I remember years ago playing it thinking it was very challenging

[@darkagebeal]

Those last levels were brutal!

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Orcs especially almost every mission took me over 3 hours to crack haha but we pulled through!

[@rallykalle8852]

8:11 Whats the hurry Admiral? i totaly avoided the death knight and his party and took peasants and woodcutted myself into Danath from the outside where the forest is as thinnest (you need the lumber anyway) the area thats still black on your map, i spended some ladiback hours on this mission :)

[@KingZolem]

To answer your question yes it is the same Deathwing, and no they didn't retcon anything. He came back as basically a cyborg to repair his ruined body.

[@petermari8299]

Teron looks so nice as a critter and then exploded by the blizzards of my mage squad..the memories

[@SmolShippie]

I like how you throw sass at 30$ D4 horse. Now it is a 65$ D4 horse.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Lol! My joke isnt good enough now! Thats actually wild, 65 for a horse.

[@SmolShippie]

@@Admiral_Iddy Are you taking proper care of yourself? The video itself was lovely but the rudeness in your voice somewhat took away from it, guess that life is somewhat unsatisfactory? I can completely understand that things don't always go for the best but I really hope that you manage to see the good in the little and simple things. I've actually been doing deathless runs as a child just because it broke my heart to see a unit of mine dies, no one touch my babies

[@Kyrkby]

Something I just realised is that ships require oil to build, but all of them use sails except the submarines...

[@MechaEmperor7000]

If you ever revisit this, maybe consider just murdering every single critter you see, just to be sure.

[@nixnihil]

Your death coil failed at 59:00, I think, because you hit your barracks instead.

[@vespi57]

Orc mission 6. Aside from the final mission, I say it is the hardest in BTDP. Though I have beaten it several times (not deathless though), it always comes to bite me. It is pure PAIN!!

[@Admiral_Iddy]

It was always such a strange difficulty spike too, seeing as the next two levels while still tough give you so much more time to breathe. But to hell with griffons ahah

[@ThePariahDark]

You are right, it is a retcon. Deathwing died like 3-4 times and it was always retconned.

[@mumblecake251]

To the critics. It says that it's a deathless run, not a glitchless run. Totally valid to me.

[@Czaszkor]

Imagine how hillarious it would be if the dragon you put on the gold mine in mission 8 would kill your workers because of the flying machines xD

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Omg didnt even consider that haha i dont think dragons auto attack choppers or zepplins though....amazingly and luckily

[@Czaszkor]

Well the last time I played Warcraft 2 was years ago and I played the opposite style of deathless, just mass armies and full supply strikes one after another, however in such a challange I would not even risk it slightly. AI from the 90s is too unpredictable and I prefered to anticipate everything. Better safe than sorry. Of course all of this doesnt matter if dragons dont AA choppers like you said

[@Admiral_Iddy]

@@Czaszkor haha the greentide warfare! Max out and roll in! I never even knew what the supply max was I was scared to lose units as a kid ahh id give them all names and backstories and not even train extras. Obviously it didnt result in many wins 😂

[@Czaszkor]

@@Admiral_Iddy hahaha I did the same but in StarCraft, I would keep alive my best units and try to keep the alive as long as possible to check out their exclusive names after getting to required kill count, then I proceeded to greentide warfare again xD always works. Poor zerglings getting hammered by storms and scarrabs. Christ, I have flashback of poor paladins/ogres getting hammered by my own dragons/griffin riders. Pure mayhem and destruction. Sometimes I was generous enough to micro them forward to high prioriety targets soo they deaths wouldnt be meaningless and they would get a heroic death :D

[@gyppygirl2021]

I saw you doing these streams, and my only thought was, "you are COMPLETELY INSANE." ...does it still count as insanity if it works? Congrats on finishing this absolute monstrosity of a run. XD

[@Admiral_Iddy]

haha I vastly underestimated how tough this challenge would be haha it did test my patience, but glad it went well in the end and was able to pull off some unique strats!

[@AlexeiVoronin]

BtDP was Blizzard's first ever expansion, which makes it quite historically significant. It also added lots of lore bits that affect the Warcraft universe to this very day. And since you mentioned saving & loading - this has been an issue ever since BtDP was first released for DOS in 1996. In fact, the very first patch for the expansion (1.33) was primarily released to address a number of AI-related problems that occurred after... you guessed it - after loading a saved game. The patch even included a "fixsave" program to cure your older saved games of any AI pointer bugs they could contain.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

ah so it was always a problem, I assumed it was the port to gog.com haha looks like they didnt bother fixing it even to this day!

[@AlexeiVoronin]

So, what is going ot be your next conquest, o great Admiral? One of the classic Command & Conquers, perhaps? I can also reiterate my earlier suggestion about checking out Dark Colony - I have a feeling you would enjoy it ;) At any rate, by subduing BtDP, you surely raised the bar for other deathless runners.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Im going to do some more casual streams this week but I am hankering to try command n conquer generals next. Might do a casual playthrough to scout n see if a deathless or like ranger only strat could be possible

[@sleepingninjaquiettime]

The only other reason to use sappers was to punish noobs in multiplayer.

[@TheNovicek]

25:40 >Mostly skeletons >Nothing too scary Pick one

[@mardaumlauf7749]

Warcraft 2 not hart but it's terribly drawn out and long

[@fritos1445]

Warcraft 2 was one of my main games growing up, having multi day long battles with friends and my dad so much fun.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Never got to try multiplayer as a kid but there is a channel that streams constant matches every day! Its really good fun to watch 😁

[@andy7614]

Yeah! Found the second trolling critter!

[@mrmarvel9309]

Yay for my 2 suggestions, raising the heroes as skeletons and the one boar was harmed in the making of this video.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

haha it is a collaborative effort! someone suggested I make a blacksmith in auchindoun and it just blew my mind never thought to do that!

[@torwaldlimmortel5952]

I wished I could have been there more during the streams, as when you started them it was late night for me due to time zones, but still it has been a real pleasure to be there the few moments I was present. I'm really curious on what game you will do next and can't wait for the next stream.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Thanks so much man! I had no idea my streams would go global so wish I could have the perfect time for everyone! Im streaming in 20 mins as a matter of fact though if you have time 🙂 just a casual game tonight my brain needs a rest from challenges haha

[@camwardart]

Battle chests… ohh the sweet golden age for RTS gamers

[@Ghostly_One1]

My most vivid memory of the game is probably as a teen brat ever so often trying to spam the hell out of dragons/griffons, and never accomplishing much cause they'd just be bombarding themselves half to hell from the line splash attacks since my dumbass didn't know to make concaves properly.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

those absolute baked potatoes are such a pain, and completely necessary at times haha like that one lazy classmate who happens to know the answers to the test and you need to have him in your group

[@Ghostly_One1]

Ain't dat the truth. One thing you do have to hand to WC3 is they definitely fixed the self-splash issue, or at least for griffs since orcs don't get dragons anymore. If memory serves griffs don't get it by default, but rather require a hammer upgrade 🤔

[@samisainio7468]

Wau! Awesome content :) I really got rofllstomped while trying the orc mission 6 a while ago. Nice to see how the AI behaves in various situations and boy you gotta lot of nerves to play relentlessly towards your goals! :D

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Thanks man! I vastly understimated the enemy in this campaign especially the humans they were a major pain! Thanks for the support!

[@feliomichaels]

To explain the lore behind Deathwing in cliffnotes. Deathwing is doing stuff for shits and giggles after he turned from being an Aspect of Earth to an Aspect of Death influenced by the Old Gods, Warcraft's version of Lovecraft deities. His fellow Dragon aspects (the actual good dragons you don't see in War 2 or War 3) kicked his ass and then vamoosed to guard Azeroth from afar, after using an artifact made of all the Dragon aspects's souls to kick Deathwing into a deep sleep. When the Orcs invade Azeroth with the Portal at the start of War 2, the massive amount of magic rouses Deathwing, who skillfully evades the wards on him, polymorphs into an orc temporarily and manipulates the orcs into capturing said artifact. With it, he enslaves the red Dragon brood, belonging to the aspect of Life, Alexstraza, in order to serve the Orcs' invasion. (this is why all the dragons are red, in lore) Deathwing eventually secures passage to Draenor as the Dark Portal re-opens. He happens to land on a mountain populated by gronns, feral Ogre variants, who don't take kindly to him and his kids. That's when this campaign mission plays. While the game has you kill him, in canon, Khadgar uses a massive spell to dislodge Deathwing's scales, which in turn allows the chief Gronn, Gruul (who you also end up killing in WoW) to quite injure him. Deathwing absconds back to Azeroth, this time polymorphing into a Human Admiral Lord (the irony) and playing court politics, up until he attempts to regain the Artifact and put an end to the Dragon Aspects. Dragons + Rhonin, the greatest human mage of all time have an epic fight with him where they barely defeat him, and he returns to the Domain of Earth to heal, recovering just in time for his WoW expansion. Now for some additional cliffnotes: - As noted, Death Coil works weirdly as an Area Damage lifesteal spell. One suspects it was coded thus because all spells that aren't targeting your units are coded to be projectiles in this game. - The AI has particularly coded attack patterns. As you noted in Human 10, sometimes these are VERY exploitable. It's playing as intended though, much as the save glitches, so no foul play. - The repair conga line and rebuild was a direct response to the original War 2. As we saw, in many missions, killing the production just about freezes the AI, so they hard coded against it. - Human 11 is canon in lore, as the chief of the Laughing Skull sees that the warlock Gul'dan is under the thrall of his demon masters and attempts a backstab at the last possible turn. - Human 12 is also canon. Ner'zhul (the precursor to the Lich King, the entity that ends up taking over Arthas in War 3) DOES destroy Draenor completely, rendering it into a jagged Outland. - Orc 6 illustrates the issues of balance in the game. Orcs were superior to humans not because humans were inherently weaker, but because Orc early game once you hit bloodlust is quite strong. However, when Human gets an established base and a steady gold income from up to two gold mines, all of a sudden it can turn into impregnable walls of mage-griffon-paladin. - Orc 12 is burned into my memory from when I tried to play this game. It would foreshadow some of the harder levels in War 3 and Starcraft. You're on a clock, as if you fail to act fast enough, the combined forces become overwhelming in an instant. As well, the amount of static and production render rushing anything a complicated task (I didn't consider Deathwing bloodlusting straight into white, though, good solution). On top of everything, the fact that the AI has four combined production places and isn't afraid to throw the sink at you from instant one renders playing defense a bad idea. It's good to see that it's still possible to beat deathless, because coming in, this was the mission I was most afraid would just become impossible. Congrats, though, it's a phenomenally satisfying run. With this, you closed the chapter on the classic era of Warcraft and proved, really, all these people whine too much, just get better, and you wouldn't lose a single soldier. (except for all the folks trapped in Draenor when it asploded. Oops?)

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Wow! Thanks for the explanation, looks like deathwing was keeping way busier than we thought. Always found it weird dragons turning into people but hey they cant all just be treasure hoarding lazybones haha. Oh definitely when you blew up production buildings in war2 the enemy would just accept it was gone but they rebuild Immediately in this one, sometimes. It was exhausting but glad to be finished ahah i can now play it for fun again! Allowing deaths makes it so much smoother obviously haha. Thanks for the support!

[@Baurles]

I just found your channel and love your videos. Have you heard about the project to remake the Wc2 campaign in Wc3 Reforged, Chronicles of the Second War? The project looks very promising and has some demo missions out, think you'd enjoy them.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Thanks for watching! I have heard and played the demo missions I have high hopes for the mod but I am worried they might have been too ambitious as it has been a long time, and sometimes these big mods just fizzle out. I hope thats not the case! As what I played was badass

[@rellsw02]

Your dedication to these tedious games is incredible! I can barely get through these games let alone play through them with extreme handicaps. Keep up the great work.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

@@rellsw02 the military taught me how to serve tedium incarnate haha i was trained for these games 😂 thanks for the support brother!

[@Rosenkill]

Really impressive and entertaining.

[@rocket_hops]

i too prefer fow off, i like being able to react

[@jasonphillipo9654]

I love this, Makes me relive my child hood playing Warcraft. Kind want to know though why he isn;t polymorphing the dragons? Once you get this spell it makes Dragons a joke unit.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Im glad you enjoyed the vid! I always found Id rather have the mana for blizzards as opposed to poly, I do wish death knights had polymorph i would abuse that power way more than death coil

[@sbonel3224]

A truly beautiful run. I liked that you tried your best to do it without saving and loading. Well played. I think the orc campaign didn't really tie into the cannon (back then they didn't know this) so they made 2 completely different outcomes. I always liked the orc outcome more with the end title screen where you're standing besides Ner'zhul and accompanying him into the twisting nether. That's why I think missions like orc4 and human2 are mirrored. Like as a human you're basically the "bottom left" (purple) human from the orc mission that sees the middle human base destroyed and starts from basically scratch just like purple does in the orc mission while in the orc mission you're the one destroying the middle human fortification. After that the campaign kinda branches off with the human campaign going into draenor while the orc campaign staying on azeroth and conquering it. Hope to see more warcraft 2 content from you. There is a "hard mode" campaign made by fans with the AI's improved so they don't break on reloading and added difficulty and attack waves. Would be nice to see you try that one once (not deathless of course because just completing it would be a feat in itself :D)

[@denarte6986]

Anymore wc2 vids? Would love to see you play custom single player campaigns like redmist or bruhcraft or even harder version of OG campaign

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Already streamed a few sessions of redmist and stuff, a little too hard for my peasant brain but I am taking a break from warcraft 2 for a bit. My next vid might be Warcraft 1 footmen only or somethin

[@Marksnus]

Yupp. Still a madlad. Good work!

[@vineheart01]

Actually for the longest time i didnt even know WC2 had an expansion. Probably because it didnt add any units is why i didnt hear about it. First time i saw the title "WC2 Beyond the Dark Portal" i thought it was some fan game thing based on lore snippets throughout WC3 and WoW. And immediately confused as to why they'd do that in WC2 and not WC3 lol

[@Admiral_Iddy]

It would be totally normal to think that, that was a time of "companion" packs too, basically anybody could make a disc with maps and scenarios and sell em with warcraft all of which dont matter...but are still fun! One was The Next 350 levels which was 350 single player scenarios that i cannot find a download for haha

[@Kyrkby]

Just want to say it's incredibly fun to see people do these challenge runs of old games. Have you thought about trying out Dune, you know, that old Westwood RTS?

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Never played it at all but im going to try command n conquer generals next to see what options there are , hopefully nobody has tapped into that yet 😃 and thanks for watching! Glad you like it

[@denarte6986]

You massaging your nipples as you confirm that the run is possible gave me a good laugh 😂 with how tough the run is I’d probably do the same 😅 Great job 👏

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Oh man it was just such a relief after 3.5 hours of nonsense ahha with war1 seeing that one loss nearly killed me 😂

[@canebro1]

Absolute madlad! Excellant gameplay! Great editing! And on par narration!

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Thanks bro! That means a lot 😄

[@DesignInYourOwnTime]

Admiral Iddy is beautiful. I have found a unicorn in the forest amid my feverish wanderings between bouts of Fear and Hunger\.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

haha thanks so much! Even my mum doesnt think im that handsome ;)

[@balintmolnar5153]

I like those chalneges :D

[@Knight1029]

A bit late to this video but I wanted to say thanks for the videos. I have watched everything so far and it has been really good. Hope to see you do more deathless runs and other types of runs.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Thanks bro! Livestreamed a challenge this very night, elves only, almost done and will make a video on that too

[@Knight1029]

@@Admiral_Iddy I saw the stream for a bit but couldn't stay for long. It was really cool seeing how you used them in the game. Can't wait to watch the video.

[@theMagos]

Fog of War is off, awww...

[@dexteradams6515]

I think Deathwing's presence in Beyond the Dark Portal was retconned entirely. If I remember the book correctly, he spent most of the expansion in Azeroth after dropping his eggs off in Dreanor

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Aw thats way less cool ahha in the cancelled game lord of the clans thrall kills him by blowing up his insides ahha as he chills on treasure smoking a hookah.

[@dexteradams6515]

@@Admiral_Iddy The books are kind of fun. They have dumb moments like a paladin getting so pissed off he basically goes super saiyan to fight like half a dozen orcs by himself but it also has moments of pure metal. I can't remember which book it was but in one of them, they defeat Deathwing by flash-cooling his nearly molten armor causing it to shrink and rip apart his skin and scales forcing him to retreat.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

I tried reading one of the books but it sort of read like fan fiction which kind of made it hard, but I think it was a starcraft book I read too that had the same vibe, I just gotta give em more of a chance I think. Ah they dr doomed him! rapid cooling on his metal armor! that does sound hardcore haha @@dexteradams6515

[@justdracir8197]

I never managed to beat the human expansion 2 mission (as a child) so thanks for those videos. It´s great seeing them in great detail D:

[@Admiral_Iddy]

I am not a very smart person but maybe my wild tactics will inspire people to go back and beat what their child selves couldnt 😂

[@justdracir8197]

@@Admiral_Iddy maybe dunno. I played a lot of WC2 as a child (despite not being that great at it). But yeah maybe i will tackle it at one point :P

[@relagob8380]

Now we are gaming gamers.

[@abdd.challab7700]

Loved tihis series and this video specially. Great work

[@Admiral_Iddy]

thanks for the comment and the support!

[@DJToMyHits]

I love me a good challenge run.

[@Templarfreak]

42:38 wtf that was like a perfect wc2 human dying noise

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Haha thats how I sound every time I stand up! I can be a human deathsound in the next game blizzard hire meee!

[@Lowco5]

Yay, i'm going to enjoy this. Thanks for the work!

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Thanks so much! I hope you enjoy it! Doing a stream in a couple hours on youtube too would be happy to have ya

[@jadoyon]

Doesn't the Orc campaign happen before the Human one here?

[@Admiral_Iddy]

I think so, in both vanilla and the expansion while it isnt ENTIRELY canon they technically happen before the humans both times

[@e2622]

Absolutely perfect human death sound at 42:36.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Hah actually not bad at all! Put me in coach! Im ready for the remake!

[@pkhtr]

42:39 Bloodlust?

[@Canuovea]

Ah yes, the saving and loading issue is mainly for Beyond the Dark Portal, right. Nice potential workaround. ...Old Hobbit movie is best Hobbit movie. Well, at least Death Coil heals the caster, right?

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Yeah the glitch is a major pain but I think I did it as fair as I could without losing my mind to insanity haha trying to figure out the next challenge maybe war2 elves only

[@Canuovea]

@@Admiral_Iddy I imagine Troll Axethrowers will be worse than Elven Archers only... The horror. The horror.

[@adrgs12]

You can GROUP CAST IN WARCRAFT 2?!

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Ohhh yeah blew my mind too ahaha makes things A LOT easier

[@sparky9284]

Groovy baby

[@edspace.]

Hope you are having a nice day. There are some classics of RTS that I'm saddened that they just seemed to stop, while I can understand why Generals 2 never happened I still wonder about why Warcraft 4 didn't. Also I thought I already subscribed but I found I wasn't so it may be worth people checking if they've been unsubscribed.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Generals 2 im glad didnt come out, I believe it was cursed and would have been a disaster because of EA and warcraft is definitely because money, WoW just made them so much money they dont believe in rts anymore. A dam shame too.

[@edspace.]

@@Admiral_Iddy Thanks, probably right about EA, they seem to have a history of not handling franchises well (at least I hear so from fans of C&C and Battlefield). Maybe one day I'll sell enough books to be able to buy the C&C and Warcraft IP off EA and Blizzard (although Microsoft has bought Blizzard). Hopefully one day there will be a new dawn of RTS.

[@IronHulkTriathlon]

Much love brother! Proud to be in the community with you.

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Thanks man! I am continuously humbled by the community that is growing here really getting good vibes all around

[@dragonsgreedgaming3500]

I love all the random warhammer references. Also, Pickles the dragon = clutch mvp.

[@breathstealer5486]

When grunt/ destroyer only warcraft 2

[@Admiral_Iddy]

Im thinking elves or trolls only, so archers n destroyers maybe ill try that this week

[@SilverKnightPCs]

Glad you took on this on. Not an easy run by any means. And note on the feeling of leaving service: its hard to go from interacting with a big organization and feeling a part of something bigger than you to nothing. Been there myself... ended up opening up my store to keep my sanity!

[@Admiral_Iddy]

It feels like it never happened haha when i tell people about my time in its like...did it even happen there is no way lolol. Glad you found your calling! Im hoping mine is the right choice too 😁 thanks for the continued support