[OVERLORD]
In order to win as Overlord you need to avoid buying items whenever possible. Try planting three spawners right at the start of the match. If you drop four and kill two ghosts, you might just barely have enough time and gold for four ghouls in the first wave. You also have time to hide them if you so choose. Then, move south to the nearest rune, you should be able to grab two runes shortly after they spawn and keep moving in this direction to take the first Well.

After this you have options. If you're feeling powerful enough you can set up some aggressive units even closer to the radiant fountain and Wells, structures come into more use than spawners at this stage.

If you decide to take a more passive role, you can just plant spawners around the outside edge of the map until you're in a good position to create a base of operations. Good places for this base are at the shop in the mines or at the rune outside of the Roshan Pit in the top right.

It's good to put skill points into the final command ability and the monster summoning abilities. The final command makes a win before the 15minute mark easily possible; it makes all the creatures you control attack the radiant ancient and anything that stands in their way.

Using axes isn't terribly taboo, but it does ♥♥♥♥ some people off. If you want to make use of Axes without going bankrupt and ruining your farm, try using between 1 and 4 orc camps at most and upgrade them. I find the enemy struggle to deal with just two orc warcamps and it doesn't cost all that much.

WARNING****
When you summon a unit, it does not dissappear when you stop channeling. IT GOES ON A RAMPAGE AND WILL ATTACK YOU. The Greater Demon Lord is especially hard to deal with, given that he constantly rains deadly fire balls down on most of the map, and can kill most things in a couple attacks.



[THE RADIANT]
The radiant have one goal; kill abbadon. Survivng until the timer runs out will work on the inexperienced Overlord who tries to juggle needlessly powerful units and a bleak economy, but it won't work when they get that final command ability.

I suggest picking characters that can stun or slow Addabon, damage is a lesser concern so long as Abbadon has mana to escape with. Earthshaker, Vengeful Spirit, Lina, Sniper, and Sven all work moderately well to keep Abbadon from escaping at breakneck speed and doing moderate damage.

Don't pick chen, though. Everybody hates Chen. Only if the Overlord himself allows it should you pick Chen.

The first thing you need to do is kill the hordes of kobolds that spawn near and to the south of the radiant fountain. Then, buy a simple item: starting to build an expensive item is a waste of time.

Remember that you can control the radiant creeps. For real, the radiant creeps, you can select them and make them tank for you. I reccomend using this to clear the mines early.

Heroes with AoE can farm considerably faster than characters without. One tactic is to murder a trail of kobolds towards the mines, then killing things in the mine. There is the first of several large ancient nuetrals in the mine that drop a decent item most of the time. At best I've found a sacred relic, while at worst you get a greater healing potion. Also in the mine is a "mimic" that appears to drop a random item. Another such creature to look out for is the "treasure frog."

All 5 characters should have a teleport ready at the start of a match, so that they can stop an overlord from trying to sneak the first Well as mentioned in the Overlord part of the guide.

It is possible to take Roshan at the start of the match with an Ursa and adequate teamwork. I reccomend this tactic.

Once your team mates are all level 2/3/6 you need to go as a team to find the overlord and kill every spawner you come across. Continuing to farm meager amounts while giving The Overlord the key to the kingdom is just asinine.

As a last resort, you may find yourself wanting to outlast the timer by hunting down as many spawners as possible. Good luck and god's speed.

I'm only going to say this one more time: