Where Sheep Tag came from

• The map
• The makers
• ReVoLuTiOn
• Beyond Warcraft
• This remake
• Sources

A Warcraft III custom map

Sheep Tag was a custom map for Warcraft III, played in the game's custom games lobby. Players remember it from the Reign of Chaos days, the game's first year, before The Frozen Throne. The idea was simple enough to explain in one sentence: a few sheep build farms to wall themselves in, and the wolves hunt them until the clock runs out.

The tag genre is older still: it goes back to StarCraft's Cat and Mouse maps. Sheep Tag gave it a farm, a flock and a pack, and players who were there remember it as one of the most popular maps of its day.

The makers

The community credits [Star], also written Star[MD], with inventing Sheep Tag. A 2005 release of Sheep Tag: Return of the Shepherds by CowardlyShoe opens by thanking "[Star] for inventing Sheep Tag", along with Strangel for the "Tough Edition" and TempestReborne for starting the T2.0 series that Return of the Shepherds grew from.

Like most Warcraft III maps, it spread through edits. The Ultimate Sheep Tag line, credited to [Star] and edited by LiL-White_Boy, ran to version 5.0, and other branches followed, among them the BEHH Edition and Winter Sheep Tag.

Sheep Tag ReVoLuTiOn

The version most people play today is Sheep Tag ReVoLuTiOn, created by GosuSheep and Chakra and now kept up by verit. It also credits XXXandBEER among the original creators. The public record shows how long it has lasted:

• 2010: version 6.9.3 by Chakra, a 128 by 128 map for 12 players.
• 2015: version 7.7.4, the one later remakes point back to.
• 2020 to 2023: the 9.x versions, later ones recommended for 2v4 lobbies.
• 2024: a new numbering from version 24, rewritten in TypeScript compiled to Lua for the current Warcraft III.
• February 2025: version 25a, a 224 by 416 map.

One map database lists 121 versions of ReVoLuTiOn alone. It still has a Discord and a community that plays it.

Beyond Warcraft

The idea traveled. A_Dizzle built a Sheep Tag for Dota 2's custom games, five sheep against five shepherds, where the sheep must last 10 minutes. It credits the original Warcraft III creators by name: XXXandBEER, Chakra, GosuSheep and Star[MD].

Why I rebuilt it

Warcraft III custom games are hard to get running today, so I rebuilt Sheep Tag to run in a browser, on any computer or phone, with nothing to install and no account.

It keeps the rules everyone remembers: farms that block, the one-tile gap that sheep fit through and wolves don't, upgrades from hay to stone, gold farms you hide inside your walls, and rescuing friends from the pen in the middle of the map. It adds a homestead of its own: hedges that grow, beehives, windmills, scarecrows, wool, a sheepdog, lakes you can cross on plank bridges, and a day that runs from morning to a final minute of night, with weather rolling through.

Keep reading: how to play, with every farm, ability and key.