Tide Hunters was introduced to the w3c map pool a couple seasons ago. There are 2 different expansions you can take on your respective side of the map, however, one is VERY easy to take and allows for very very quick expansions if you want. This map does not have a merc camp which also allows for the potential of early expansions being more likely to succeed.
Below are various creep routes for each race (UD still under construction).
Before you try these creep routes you should check this article on how to abuse creep mechanics (including lightning shield creeps and pulling creeps):
https://warcraft-gym.com/a-summary-on-creep-mechanics-and-how-to-abuse-them/
For the night elfs who do not know how to AoW creep, you need to check out this article first: https://warcraft-gym.com/ancient-of-war-creeping/
Human Creep Routes
Early Expansion & Creep Patterns
The blue creep pattern gets you level 3 and access to an early expansion. You need militia for the first and second spots on the blue camps and the first camp on the red creep route. For the Red route IT DOES NOT GIVE YOU LEVEL 3, however, it puts you close to your enemy base with ALMOST level 3. You could militia creep the green camp next to your base, however, if you early expand with this creep pattern then you cannot do so as you will not have the necessary wood.
Hard creeps /w good items and expo
This creep pattern gets you a relatively early expansion and also access to 2 good items. The camps are harder. You will need militia for the 1st and 3rd spots. For the #1 camp you should do the “pull the golem trick” so that you do not get bolted by the creep.
Early expansion at harder creep
This is another expansion route which is slightly easier than the first one but also gives you level 3. The items are not as good. You need militia for creep camps 1 and 3 atleast.
No expansion creep pattern.
This creep route gets you a quick level 3 and access to a good item. you will need militia for the first spot. You will then solo creep the #2 orange camp near your base with just militia while you creep the green #2 spot. For the #1 camp you should do the “pull the golem trick” so that you do not get bolted by the creep
Night Elf Creep Routes
Quick Expansion Routes
The blue creep pattern is an expansion route that can be done especially quickly by KOTG builds and keeps you close to your building expansion to protect it. AoW creep the 1st spot.
The red creep route is for tavern builds. You AoW creep the first spot and take a slightly slower expansion than the blue creep route.
A quick creep slow expansion creep route and anti early expo creep route
The blue creep pattern allows you to creep quickly but get a slow expansion. It is a very safe creep route. AoW creep the 1st spot.
The red creep pattern is specifically aimed at preventing or slowing an early expansion from occurring. If your enemy is expanding quickly you AoW creep the first spot, aiming the item creep. Take the item with your hero and run straight across to the enemies expansion while you finish the creep with your AoW and archer.
Undead Creep Routes
The following creep routes were made by Razer studying Happy replays.
UD vs ELF/ORC: DK first fast level 3
Typically Happy sells his tp to buy a Rod of Necromancy and a Ritual dagger. You want to go and kill a critter with your scout acolyte, and use your first charge. Then creep the camps as indicated using a charge as indicated on the diagram. This will get you a quick level 3. You may be harassed while you are doing this so be careful you arent taking too much damage/losing units to the elf or orc player.
UD vs. Elf: Fast expo with DK
Typically Happy sells his tp to buy a Rod of Necromancy, ritual dagger, and a skull (you may want to buy 2). You want to go and kill a critter with your scout acolyte, and use your first charge. Take your expo then the green in front of your base. Buy a dust at shop and go for the harass after. Expo as soon as you can and defend accordingly if elf is harassing you.
UD vs HU: CL expo
Typically Happy sells his tp to buy a Rod of Necromancy and a Ritual dagger and sacrificial skull. You want to go and kill a critter with your scout acolyte, and use your first rod charge. Creep your expo with your cel and a ghoul or 2. You can also soon after creep the green camp (#3) with just ghouls. You can go harass the HU expo position with your ghouls/cl. Try to track the human to see if hes going to you or not to see if you need to defend/cancel expo/harass HU.
UD vs orc: DK first
Typically Happy sells his tp to buy a Rod of Necromancy and a Ritual dagger. You can go for the expo first as it is relatively easy to take. The green camp next is also easy to take but is a little exposed so you may be harassed. Then you can go for your orange camp near your base (#3) which is closer to your main and more secure.
Orc Creep Routes
Blademaster creep routes
BM vs Orc Item creep into harass
Use with accelerated shop timing (16 pop). Item creep the troll at the sea giant spot, buy items, go to the middle, buy a circlet. You either meet the FS right here at the shop or move towards their base and find the BM running towards you (if they did the whole sea giant camp).
If BM: The BM is probably low hp at this point, cancel their healing salve and bully him off the turtle spots in mid.
If FS: Hit him. If you don’t meet the FS in the middle, they probably did the murlocs first, move your grunt to their natural and towards their sea giant spot from there, while moving your bm towards their base and then to the sea giant spot to sandwich and kill a headhunter (if you’re lucky they are creeping the spot right now and one hh is already ensnared and ready to be picked off).
BM level 3 vs Orc or UD
Use with Standard Shop Timing (17 pop). Creep your whole Sea Giant Camp, shop Salves, run to the middle and buy a circlet. Take opponents small turtle camp then head to their natural expansion. If you didn’t see the opponent by now, Item creep the expansion (kill only the murloc that drops the item), then take the goblin shop.
Pros compared to other BM Lvl3 Route: the shop creep is easier than the marketplace therefore contested earlier, getting it secures you a little advantage. Not cleaning up the little murlocs at the expansion also saves a lot of time.
Alternative BM Lvl 3 Route vs Orc/UD
Use with Standard Shop Timing (17 pop). Creep your whole Sea Giant Camp, shop Salves, run to the middle and buy a circlet. Take opponents small turtle camp then head to their natural expansion. If you didn’t see the opponent by now. take their whole expansion creep then item creep the ogre magi at the marketplace.
Pros compared to other BM Lvl3 Route: the marketplace drops a higher value item than the shop and it lets you trade a bad drop (cloak, ring…) for a circlet or claws.
For both of the BM Lvl 3 Route vs Orc/UD If you get to the opponents natural and see a cryptlord creeping it or having just finished it, you switch to harassing his fexpo/cl as much as you can instead of creeping.
The Gnoll Camp is a nice first camp for the SH if you don’t suspect a push coming from the opp. Hex the poison gnoll, kill the purge gnoll then the (still hexed) poison one, while tanking the overseer and the little one with the sh for minimal salve consumption. If you suspect a heavy push coming or a blademaster sitting on top of you, you can start with the small murloc next to your base instead, until your bm has gathered enough information to start the bigger camp.
Blademaster vs. Night elf
Straight harass
Use with late shop (after starting t2 tech). Buy a circlet and go straight to their base with your BM and Grunt, try to jack the murloc camp, kill an archer or cancel moonwells. After that you can item creep the small turtle camps when going back and healing up. Vs Keeper you want to stay on his heels and don’t let him creep. Vs. DH you want to item creep important spots (their natural expansion, ogre magi at the marketplace) while he is searching for you.
Straight harass with shop
Use with early shop (build at 9 pop, 5 seconds before altar finishes). Buy Salves/Scroll, head to the middle, buy a circlet and use speed scroll to get the guaranteed creepjack at the murloc camp. Chase keeper forever.
Lvl2 with early Shop
Use with early shop (build at 9 pop, 5 seconds before altar finishes). Creep your own turtle, buy circlet, head towards their base and look for them. (Either scout peon sees them go to the natural, you’ll find them at their turtle or they’re at the murlocs). If the scout peon sees them go to their natural you can either take their turtle or their murlocs before going there and trying to harass with your blade. If you choose to take their murlocs you can also go into their base right after to cancel the third moonwell.
Lvl2 with standard Shop
Use with early shop (build at 9 pop, 5 seconds before altar finishes). Creep your own turtle, buy circlet, head towards their base and look for them. (Either scout peon sees them go to the natural, you’ll find them at their turtle or they’re at the murlocs). If the scout peon sees them go to their natural you can either take their turtle or their murlocs before going there and trying to harass with your blade. If you choose to take their murlocs you can also go into their base right after to cancel the third moonwell.
FS Creep Routes
FS HH vs Orc Safe Lvl3 Route Mirror
Goal: Fast lvl 2 Wolves for a nice harass (or FS FL push) right as t2 hits.
Creep your own Murloc Spot, then your Sea Giant spot. After that take your natural expansion, then head into the middle of the map to look for your opponent and either creepjack them or take any of the camps there (either a small turtle camp or the shop) for lvl3.
Pros: safest lvl3 route that won’t damage any of your units
Alternative FS HH Lvl3 Route Mirror
Creep your own murloc spot then both turtle spots in the middle, then the goblin shop.
Pros: saves your sea giant spot and expansion for your second/third hero.
Cons: gets scouted and harassed faster, weaker permanent items, in direct comparison vs a player taking the safer fs lvl3 route above, they will creepjack you right as you’re creeping the goblin shop and you will have to fight over it. (both farseers will be lvl 2.7 at that point)
FS HH vs UD
Take your own turtle spot, then head to their turtle spot. If the spot is crept already the UD is probably at their natural → go there and harass them. Otherwise creep the turtle spot, then check the natural after, creep it and go back to the goblin shop. If you encounter the opponent at any time during this route, try to bully him back to his base. If you don’t encounter him he is either doing something cheesy or is taking low value camps with long running distances (= most likely won’t be lvl 3 before you).
Alternative FS HH vs UD
Sometimes you won’t be able to bully the opponent back to his base. Most commonly when the opponent opens fast fiends, he will have enough fiends to safely fight off your aggression. In that case you can take both turtle camps in the middle (they won’t start with theirs when playing fast fiends). Check their natural and if you meet them there or feel you would get creepjacked, back off a little, take one green murloc camp next to the market and then the marketplace with 4-5 headhunters (pull it out a little for safe creeping). You will leave them their natural and most like the goblin shop this way, but you’ll still get lvl 3 off of mid camps at a position the UD doesn’t scout as frequently.
Standard FS HH vs HU
Take your turtle spot, take their turtle spot, then scout with wolves for their army (natural/gnoll camp) if you haven’t encountered them at their turtle spot. What you wanna do after is either chase around their army and don’t let the AM creep or go to their base and harass the economy while keeping eyes on where their army is.
Note: Sometimes Humans will go for the laboratory creep as their first camp, in that case you definitely wanna harass them and pick up easy peasant kills. If you feel like your opponent might go for it you either need to peon scout or send one of your first pair of wolves to the camp directly.
Farseer vs NE (Straight harass)
Versus Nightelf you usually wanna harass right away with your farseer. So you’re heading straight to their base/first camps. If you peon scouted them AoW creeping their Sea Giant camp look for them at the natural and murlocs camps with wolves. The Objective is to keep their first hero lvl 1 as long as possible to do damage to their economy by killing wisps and canceling buildings.
Shadowhunter Creep Routes
SH vs Orc/Nightelf with Wards Lvl3 Route
Fun strat, looses to any kind of early harass, but uncontested its a very fast lvl 3 with just 3 camps.
For this route you need an early second burrow (before tech) and a late shop (last peon builds it). Build the shop a bit forward towards the murloc camp to save running time.
Start by placing wards between the murloc and the gnoll camp, creep the murloc camp at the start while building a snake pit of 4-5 snakes, immediately start the gnoll camp after. Start a second grunt right after t2 tech. After the gnoll camp shop and heal, then go to the wizard camp with your SH and 2 grunts. Lightning shield creep the wizard and go harass the opponent with lvl 2 wards right as/slightly before his t2 is finished.