We have added some categories for Alpha and Beta versions of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness. Each of them includes three Orc and three Human campaign levels, which are different than the levels included in the release versions.

The alpha version (a.k.a. "v1.2alpha", "magazine alpha") can be found at https://www.moddb.com/games/warcraft-ii/downloads/warcraft-ii-alpha-demo. It uses a very incomplete version of the game engine (with controls that are closer to WarCraft 1) with different mechanics including a 4th resource (ore, from mining rocks) and scanning to find oil reserves. It checks victory conditions much more often than the release version.

The beta version (a.k.a. "v1.20elc", "demo", "shareware") can be found at https://dosgames.com/game/warcraft-2-tides-of-darkness. It appears to be very similar to the release version.

There's another beta version ("v1.08sh") that can be found at https://www.moddb.com/games/warcraft-ii/downloads/warcraft-ii-demo, but we're not sure yet whether it's the same as the other beta or requires a separate category.

These may not run on modern computers directly. I've been able to run Alpha v1.2alpha in DOSBOX (an emulator), but I wasn't able to get Beta v1.08sh to work. DOSBOX allows you to adjust the CPU speed. Runs for the Alpha will be timed in milliseconds for now, due to the accelerated victory checking, until we figure out what resolution is required. (Maybe hundredths of a second?) I added a brief note about this to the rules, but we'll probably need to adjust these rules further once we have a better grasp on the differences.

To launch the game in DOSBOX, you can run the following commands in the command line. (Adjust the path to match where you've unzipped the game, for me it's in D:\war2a.)

mount W: D:\war2a
W:
war2

Warcraft II Alpha 1.20

Cheat Codes

• "showmap": reveals the entire map (like "on screen" in release)
• "fastbuild": dramatically accelerate building/production for both players (like "make it so" in release)
• "cash": grants 10,000 gold, 5000 lumber, 1000 ore, and 1000 oil for both players (like "glittering prizes" in release)
• "orc1", "orc2", "human1", "human2": jump to level (like in release, but "tigerlily" code not required first)

Mission Objectives

• Orc 1: Mine 3000 Oil
• Orc 2: Destroy the Human settlement
• Human 1: Mine 3000 Oil
• Human 2: Destroy the Orc encampment

v1.20elc means electronic release, v1.08sh means shareware release.

In Alpha version there is no victory delay (game code was checked), so milliseconds make sense.

@Alukret: ahh, those make sense! Thanks for pointing that out. Given that the version numbers are different I assume there are some minor changes, but if the gameplay appears identical we can treat them as a single category, unless we learn something indicating they need to be separated.