Defender of the Crown FAQ

Defender of the Crown FAQ
Version 1.5, 02/12/2001
by Brian Kern <[email protected]>

______________________________________________________________________________

Table of Contents

1...Introduction
2...Starting the game
2.1.....Character Attributes
2.2.....Character Selection
2.3.....Starting Values
2.4.....Monthly Status Screen
3...Main Strategic View
3.1.....The Menu
3.2.....Brief Command Summary
3.3.....Things to keep in mind
4...Reading the Map
5...Buying Armies
5.1.....Description of the Units
6...Conquest
6.1.....Entering Territories
6.2.....Field Battles
6.3.....Detailed Battle Notes
6.4.....Defensive Seiges
6.5.....Offensive Seiges
6.6.....Sherwood Forest
7...Tournaments
8...Raiding
9...Miscellaneous
9.1.....Limits
9.2.....Side Events
9.3.....The Centerboard Strategy

Appendix A - Territory Chart
Appendix B - Game Genie Codes
Appendix C - Revision history
Appendix D - Legal info (icky yucky ewwww)
Appendix E - Credits and Contact information

______________________________________________________________________________

1. Introduction

Defender of the Crown is a midieval strategy game, released in 1989. The
premise behind the game is that the King has come back to England, and
distributed land and titles to six men that he considered worthy. Your job, as
one of these new lords, is to bring peace to England by way of conquering it
in its entirety.

______________________________________________________________________________

2. Starting the game

2.1: Character Attributes

Every character in the game has three attributes that determine their relative
abilites. These attributes are Leadership, Jousting, and Swordplay. The
possible ratings for an attribute are Weak, Average, Good, and Strong.

Leadership
-
This is a highly important trait. Leadership determines both how fast your men
will respond to commands in field battles, when you need to switch tactics in
a live fight, and how fast your crossbow moves when defending against a seige.
Since fighting a defensive seige is one of the most common events in the game,
and is the last thing keeping you from being wiped out entirely, it's
important to keep your leadership high.

Unlike the other two attributes, Leadership can be modified by events in the
world. Every time you win a Fame joust, your leadership goes up a bit. If you
win enough of them, you can eventually drive your leadership straight up to
Strong. I recommend doing this early, since you'll need that fast seige
defense.

Leadership can also decrease over time - being stuck in seige situations over
and over will lower your leadership rating as your men's morale starts to fail
them. You'll also take a leadership hit when you lose a fame joust, or kill
your opponents jousting mount.

Jousting
-
This trait has direct applications in both phases of jousting. When you're in
the lists, attempting to unhorse your opponent, your jousting level will
determine how fast you can move your lance, and how accurately you can hold it
in position.

In the melee combat phase, your jousting attribute is responsible for how much
strength you start out with, how hard you can hit with your mace, and how much
time is required between mace hits for higher damage.

Whether to worry about Jousting or not depends entirely on how you intend to
play the game. Since participating in a fame joust is a way to crank up your
leadership, it's recommended to get someone with a decent jousting attribute.

Swordplay
-
This attribute has the most limited real world application. Swordplay only
gets used when you're raiding an enemy castle. A high swordplay rating means
that you will start with a higher health rating. Enemies will still take just
as long to kill, and hit you just as hard. I wouldn't worry about this
attribute, as it's possible to conduct a raid without being hit once, through
careful footwork.

2.2: Character Selection

At the start of the game, you get to choose which of the four northern lords
you will play the role of. Your castle placement is random, so choose a lord
with ratings to match your playing style.

Wilfred of Ivanhoe
Leadership Average
Jousting Good
Swordplay Good

Wilfred has a very well rounded style. With a little creative jousting, you
can run his leadership up to Strong, making him an even more attractive
player. Wilfred is great for beginners.

Geoffrey Longsword
Leadership Good
Jousting Weak
Swordplay Strong

Geoffery is good to have if you intend to do a lot of raids, but he is
worthless on the tournament field. I haven't ever won a joust with Geoffrey,
and never expect to in the future.

Geoffery is an advanced character - it's very hard to keep your leadership
score without being able to joust *at all*. No leadership means death in
seiges, so..

Cedric of Rotherwood
Leadership Strong
Jousting Average
Swordplay Good

Cedric is another good character for beginners. With a Strong leadership
rating, his crossbow is as fast as they come on seige defense. This is a great
advantage early on, as nobody wants to spend money and time calling
tournaments, but nobody wants to leave their castles wide open either.

Wolfric the Wild
Leadership Weak
Jousting Strong
Swordplay Weak

Most people hate Wolfric outright, because of his combined Leadership and
Swordplay ratings. But is it really that bad? Leadership can be built up
through Fame jousts, which Wolfric excels at. Swordplay, while unchangable,
doesn't prevent you from running a successful raid. When Jousting can net you
both leadership and new territories, it's a hard call to make.

Wolfric is for advanced players who are already familiar with the game
mechanics. Don't try to cut your teeth on him, you'll find yourself dying
early on to successive seiges. His low leadership score is a serious drain
early on, and it takes some time to set him up to a level where you can begin
retatlitory conquering.

The rest of the knights on the field are unselectable, and make up the main
corps of your enemies.

Brian De Bois
Leadership Good
Jousting Good
Swordplay Average

Roger Falconbridge
Leadership Good
Jousting Good
Swordplay Good

Edmund the Grim
Leadership Strong
Jousting Average
Swordplay Good

Philip Malvoisin
Leadership Good
Jousting Good
Swordplay Average

2.3: Starting Values

Every lord gets one territory to start - the territory with their home castle.
Since you always play a northern lord in this game, this limits you to one of
three potential starting points - Cumbria, Nottingham, or Clwyd. Each has
advantages and disadvantages to it, and you can win from any starting point,
so don't fret over it too much.

Your castle comes equipped with 20 soldiers. On your first turn, you get to
collect the income for the land you start with, but no matter what your income
is, you always wind up with 11 gold for your first turn.

2.4: Monthly Status Screen

At the start of each turn, you'll get a screen that looks like this.

------- October -------
| | 1149 | |
| | | |
| | Income | |
| | ## | |
------- -------
Gold
##

Ratings:
Leadership Weak
Jousting Strong
Swordplay Weak

Army:
Soldiers: #
Knights: #
Catipults: #
Home Garrison: #

The left square contains your portrait; the right square is empty for the time
being. This screen gives a basic rundown of your current working environment,
and it's the only place where you can learn what your per-turn income is,
short of reading every square on the map and doing some math.

Your portrait will change depending on how your game is going. As you near the
final assault, your portrait may look afraid, or happy, depending on which end
of that battle you wind up on. The portrait also gets seriously messed up when
you kill an opponents horse in jousting.

______________________________________________________________________________

3. Main Strategic View

Now that you've started a game and noted your starting information, you get
your first taste of the main strategic screen. You'll be spending a lot of
time here, so you should be familiar with its interface and the commands
available.

3.1: The Menu

In the upper left is a menu. Your control pad will move a cursor around. In
order to use a command, drag your cursor over the command no the menu, and
select the command. You cancel commands by dragging your cursor over the menu
to some point that isn't a command, and pressing A.

3.2: Brief Command Summary

The commands are best treated as separate events, and each warrant their own
section.

Tournament: Call a tournament.
Conquest
-> Read Map : Same as the 'Read Map' option.
-> Move Army: Send your army to enter a new territory.
-> Transfer : Add men to your army from a standing garrison or manned
territory.
-> Done : Exits the Conquest screen.
Go Raiding: Start a gold raid on an enemy castle.
Buy Army : Purchase more troops to continue your conquests.
Read Map : This lets you get general information about a territory.
Pass : Skip your turn.

3.3: Things to keep in mind.

In this game, you will always get the first move. This can be good and bad.
It's good because you get prime pickings of the land first and foremost. It's
bad because the enemy can see what you do, then move to intercept you without
waiting for the next turn.

Learn which actions affect the flow of the game.

Actions that end your turn:
- Calling a tournament (ends all turns for that month)
- Moving your army; Your turn only ends if you take over an unoccupied
territory, or if you take over an enemy territory.
- Raiding another castle.
- Buying armies, but only when you actually make a purchase. You can look
for free.
- Passing your turn.

Actions that don't end your turn:
- Moving your army; You can move through territory that you control for
free. You can also move through the territories of an ally for free, so
long as you maintain the alliance.
- Transferring troops between your army, your garrisons, and your
territories.
- Reading the map, from the conquest menu or the top menu.

______________________________________________________________________________

4. Reading the Map

This command can be executed from the top level menu, or from the Conquest
menu. It gives you the names of all of the territories, along with the name of
their present owner, the number of vassals that land contains, and the income
generated from that parcel.

Castles have no vassals to them. The number of vassals on a given piece of
land determine how many extra troops you will gain for your army at the time
of initial conquering. For example, I start with a one man army on Nottingham,
and invade Yorkshire, due north. Provided that my troops aren't attacked, I
will wind up with 7 troops; my initial 1 plus the 6 vassals for my claiming
Yorkshire.

This only takes effect at the very start of the game, when territories have
not yet been claimed.

Knowing the relative income rates is important, since you want your income to
be as high as possible. Also, knowing which enemy you're about to engage is
also vital, as they often seek retribution. Try to equate the crests to faces
early on, since the crest is the only heraldry in the game.

See Appendix A for a complete listing of the information you can get out of
the Read Map command.

______________________________________________________________________________

5. Buying Armies

The Buy Army command is what allows you to purchase more military might. The
command screen looks like this.

Buy Army Treasure: 11

Cost Garrison
1 Soldiers 20
8 Knights 0
15 Catapults 0
20 Castles

Done

To purchase a unit, highlight the type that you want, press A to select it,
press Right until you've got the number that you want to buy, and press A
again. Move the cursor down to Done, and press A to exit the screen. This will
end your turn, so be sure you're finished any other actions that you wanted to
carry out.

Keep in mind that all troops purchased will be purchased at your home castle;
so, if you're going to buy a ton of soldiers, try moving the ones in your home
castle out before making a purchase, and replace them with what you buy.
Purchases happen instantaeously, so the enemy won't be able to get the drop on
you.

5.1: Description of the Units

Soldiers
-
The basic foot troops - the more, the merrier. Foot troops are the basic unit
of field combat. More of them means a higher chance of overall victory. Foot
troops are capable of swarming under any other units, provided that they have
the advantage of numbers.

Knights
-
Knights are shock troops. They're useless when you're under a seige, as they
die just as fast and easy as normal soldiers do; However, they're undisputably
great when you're in the field. Knights can be used in outflanking maneuvers
in order to better decimate the enemy forces. Don't keep the knights tied up
in garrisons - use them to support foot troops in defensive field missions and
offensive seiges.

Catapults
-
The heavy artillery. A catapult provides no benefit when you're under a seige,
so keep your catapults with field troops when possible. Catapults are required
to assault a castle, and can help turn the tide of a normal field battle via
bombardment. The only time to keep a catapult in a garrison is when you have
absolutely no other safe place for it. A catapult can't be harmed during a
seige, though if you lose the castle, you'll lose your catapult.

Note that catapults can't move around on their own. They have to be placed
into an army with one other unit, soldier or knight, to get from place to
place.

Castles
-
Castles can only be placed on land that you control. They come with 10 men
pre-installed, so if you're good at fighting seiges, they're a ready-made
fortress for you to hold ground with. I recommend deploying more troops to
them rapidly. Castles really help to break up the impending advance of a large
ground force, as a well-played defensive seige can chop an invasion group to
tiny bits.

______________________________________________________________________________

6. Conquest

Conquest is the basic action of the game. You form an army, and move it about
the land. Before you can enact the conquest option, you have to form an army
from the men in your garrison.

To really get into the game, you must take and hold territories, defend
castles that you control, and assault the castles of the enemy.

To start off, use the Transfer command. This is how you form an army from your
garrison forces. You can also transfer troops to and from the field, in order
to create a standing army in a territory. Invading forces will have to take
down whatever troops you left behind in order to take over a given area.

Transfer Forces
Garrison At: Nottingham

Garrison Army
20 Soldiers 0
0 Knights 0
0 Catapults 0
Done

You can create an army with just one man. I recommend doing that at the very
start, and when you only need to ferry troops over controlled areas.

6.1: Entering Territories

Once you have a standing army, use the Move Army command to transport your
troops from point to point in the field. Point your cursor at where you want
your army (symbolized by a horse) to go, and hit A. The choice has to be to an
adjacent territory.

Note: For the purposes of movement, Sherwood Forest doesn't exist. You can
pass straight through it, to and from Nottingham. Keep this in mind when you
own that territory or when planning an offensive seige against it.

When you're entering a territory, it will be in one of four states. Either you
control it, your allies control it, it's totally empty, or an enemy is holding
it.

Entering an unclaimed territory
-
To take over an unclaimed territory, just move your army in. It can consist of
as little as one troop all by himself. At the start of the game, you'll pick
up vassals from any unclaimed territories that you take over. See the Read the
Map section and Appendix A for more information.

When you take the territory, your crest will appear on it, so that you can
keep track of what you own.

Taking an unclaimed territory ends your turn.

Entering a territory you control
-
Your troops can move freely through any realm that you are in control of
without ending your turn. You can also deploy and reclaim troops from the
field on your way, since transferring troops won't end your turn either.

Entering allied territories
-
First, let's define "ally". An ally is one of the blue players that you
haven't already begun waging war on. At the end, you'll want to, for there can
be only one King; Early on, try to keep the peace with them, even if they
invade and conquer lands of yours.

Assuming that you aren't at war, entering an ally territory will get you
prompted with a message asking whether or not you're seeking safe passage. If
you say Yes, you can pass through allied lands just as though you controlled
them. If you say No, you'll invade and conquer that territory - and earn the
emnity of one of the blue players.

Note that your allies aren't given the option of whether or not they want to
ask you for permission to walk through your lands - they just attack at the
start, when they need a channel to move through. Don't let it get to you early
on.

Invading enemy held territories
-
What happens during an invasion is largely dependant on whether or not the
enemy army happens to be in the territory you're invading.

If the enemy doesn't have any forces in the territory that you're invading,
the game treats it as though you were taking an unclaimed piece of land, with
the exception being that you won't gain troops for the vassals there.

If you managed to stumble into the enemy army, or if the enemy army comes to
where your field troops are, you'll have a field battle on your hands.

6.2: Field Battles

When you get into a field battle, you have a command screen. Your forces will
be on the left, the enemy forces will be on the right. The people on screen
are a rough indication of the levels of destruction present - exact numbers
appear on the bottom of this screen. Also on the command screen are your
available battle options.

To switch between options, use Up and Down on the control pad, and hit A to
select a new battle strategy. You can change strategies as many times as you
want in the course of a battle; just keep an eye on those numerics to see if
you're being slaughtered.

Fierce Attack
-
This orders your troops into a headlong charge through the enemy. This works
best when you have overpowering numbers of soldiers and knights.

Hold Ground
-
This tactic takes a defensive stance, increasing your combat abilities.
Knights don't seem to give a real benefit while holding ground. This tactic
seems to work best when you're defending land you control already.

Bombard
-
A catapult exclusive, this orders your catapults to fire on the enemy. There
isn't any kind of feedback for this, so use your imagination.

Outflank
-
A Knight specialty that also works well with high numbers of soldiers. A
flanking maneuver is where you try to get your troops to engage the enemy from
the sides, where their lines aren't set. It's risky, but the potential damage
to an enemy army is huge. If you can outflank the enemy, do it.

Retreat
-
Sometimes the best way to fight is to not be there. Where you retreat to is
determined by the type of battle. If you are attacked in the field, and
retreat, you'll flee to your home castle. If you launch an attack and retreat
from it, you'll go back to where the attack was started from. You should
retreat if you aren't sure of your ability to win a fight, as it's easier to
perform a seige defense than it is to win a field battle.

The computer controlled enemy units will not retreat, ever. Every field battle
is a fight to the death with them.

6.3: Detailed Battle Notes

Unit review
-
Your soldiers are going to provide the mass of your army, and as such are your
main fighting force. High numbers overcome low numbers at all times.

Knights are used to really tip the scales. In low numbers, knights don't seem
to do much - but once you get more than 8 or 10 in an army together, they
become a serious fighting force.

Your catapults are handy for using Bombard, but they don't seem to influence
the outcome of a battle much. All they really do is allow you to lay seige to
an enemy.

Order of Precedence
-
In battle, your soldiers will be drained away first. The main advantage is
that, when you have a properly constructed army, this gives you time to assess
the damage that you're doing without losing your really costly units - your
knights and catapults. You can decide whether or not you want to retreat
before the battle gets beyond your ability to control.

Since knights are insulated, huge numbers of them aren't required. Putting 5
to 10 knights with a troop of 20 to 30 soldiers makes for a highly effective
unit. If you get closer to an even balance, say 20 soldiers with 17 knights,
you wind up with an even *more* effective unit. Knights do the most damage,
far and away.

I have lost battles where I took 70 soldiers with no knight support in against
a 20 soldier / 17 knight combination. By the time I sounded for a retreat, I
had been cut down to 32 troops.

The only real downside to using knights is their high cost. For the cost of a
single knight, you can acquire eight more soldiers.. but the question becomes
how effective they are in groups. I don't know if 10 knights by themselves
will beat 80 soldiers, but I'm certain that 10 knights with 10-15 soldiers
guarding them could.

6.4: Defensive Seiges

Control pad: Move your crossbow.
U : Raise elevation
D : Lower elevation
R/L: Slide horizontally

A : Fire crossbow

When a castle that you control is attacked, you begin a seige defense. This
screen has you armed with a crossbow. You'll be facing your castle wall, which
the enemy crossbowman will scale and attempt to shoot you from.

The castle wall has five positions on it, and looks like this.

_1_ _2_
| | | |
| |_3_ _4_| |
| | | |
| |_5_| |
| |
|___________________|

The attack:

Enemy archers come up two at a time. They try to stay separated, with one on
each side of the wall, to make you slide back and forth to kill them.

The archers may come up in any two places. The worst possible combination of
archers is at points 1 and 2, because you have to shoot one, and then slide
the crossbow all the way across the screen to take down the second archer.
Unless your leadership is high, you're guaranteed to be hit at least once.

Every hit that you take kills men in your garrison, so always keep men on hand
to repel seiges with. Never leave a garrison undefended, especially your home
castle. That's just begging for an invasion. :)

The defense:

Your crossbow has three elevations - high, medium, and low. It starts at low,
so if someone appears at 1 or 2 right off the bat, slide the crossbow up to
the right height before firing. You can fire with a decent rate of speed, but
try not to miss. Also try to keep your crossbow in the middle height, between
3 and 4, so you can hit any of the points with a fast reaction time.

Once you master hitting the enemy troops, try to improve your defenses by
shooting and immediately moving away to the next target. You have to be
confident in your aim for this, but once you're used to the five enemy
positions, it's very routine to do. With a high leadership rate, lots of
practice, and some luck, you can defend seige after seige without losing a
single man in your garrison.

Leadership directly affects how fast your crossbow moves, how fast the bolts
fly, and how fast you can shoot. Get your leadership rating up early, so that
you can defend against seiges without dying. Leadership can be gained by
winning jousts for fame.

Once you get proficient at seige defense, you can use it as a principle
strategy; drop small castles everywhere, staff them with minimal defensive
forces, and then let the enemy slaughter its huge armies against your meager
defenders.

Know that if you lose the seige against your home castle, the game is over.

6.5: Offensive Seiges

This is the part we love - driving an enemy force out of their homes and
killing their families. This is what Defender of the Crown is really all about
- rampant conquest.

To lay seige to an enemy castle, bring an army with at least one catipult in
tow to the enemy castle.

There are two phases to an offensive seige.

Stage 1: Catapult attack

Load Ammunition
Days Remaining In Seige: 6
Enemy Garrison: 30

Greek Fire: 2
Disease: 1
Boulders: 6

Boulders are used to open up the castle wall for further attack. They will
not kill enemy troops in this stage of combat. Only Disease and Greek Fire can
be used for that purpose. The object here is to use the boulders to create a
hole in the wall, which you then pitch the greek fire and disease through.
This is tricky to do, as it takes a third person view from just behind the
catapult.

Start by choosing a boulder.

___ ____ ___
| '| |' |
| | | |
| | | ___|_
| | || |
/^^\| | || |
} | | | |
| || | | | |
| ||____|_++_|_| |
| | | ++ = 1st boulder shot
| | xx | xx = 2nd boulder shot
| | | zz = 3rd boulder shot
| | zz |
| | |
| | |

If all of the hits don't come off, don't worry. You only need to open up the
hole with one boulder in order to get greek fire and disease in. The more wall
you break down, the easier it is to lob destructive weapnos in.. but they
don't do more damage, regardless.

Once a hole is formed, pitch the greek fire and disease in. Expect to decimate
10% of the standing force per shot - i.e., a home castle of 30 will lose 3 the
first round, then 3 the next round (10% of 27 being 2.7, rounded up), and
hopefully 2 more on the next round, leaving 22 men in the field to do battle
with.

As for the precise trick to aiming; you have to get a feel for it. If you
listen closely, you'll be able to count 13 "clack" sounds from the catipult in
about three seconds, which is perfect timing for nailing the first section of
wall. Sections must be knocked down in order, otherwise the boulders are
ineffective. Practice some seiges, you'll get a feel for the right timing.

Having more than one catapult doesn't increase the number of shots that you
can take, nor does it increase the overall damage you'll do to the enemy
forces. One catapult is just fine for an offensive seige, unless you're really
fond of them in field combat for some reason.

Stage 2: Field Combat

Essentially this is the same as any other field battle at any point in the
game. Defenders seem to gain an advantage while taking the field outside their
castle; assume that a defending force operates at 2:1 odds. If you don't have
the manpower to survive, execute a retreat right after the catapult attack.

You'll have to employ a bit of anticipation when deciding how many units
you'll require. Odds are likely that you'll spoil more than one seige due to
bad planning for the defensive forces on their side. If you come back later,
the enemy will have a chance to regroup, and possibly to lay seige to you in
the interim. Probing attacks normally do little aside from inviting
retaliation.

As a nifty side note, once the enemy holds more than one castle, you'll find
that they leave their auxillary castles completely open with 0 men inside.
Cease Firing right at the start of a seige and take over your new home.
Castles often have high territory values, and once you're good at defensive
seiges, you'll be able to hold them indefinetly. A lot of the time, this will
have to be a primary strategy for surviving the game, since the computer
enemies will trash your computer allies in short order.

When you take over an enemy castle, all lands that are currently under their
banner will be transferred to your control.

6.6: Sherwood Forest

If you go into Sherwood Forest during your Conquest turn, you can enlist Robin
Hood's help. Keep in mind that this offer can only be used in the same turn as
when you ask for help, and that it only applies to field combat - either
fighting an enemy army in a territory, or the field combat portion of an
offensive seige.

When you talk to Robin, he'll pledge his assistance. If you engage in
offensive field combat in the same turn, he and his men will slit the throats
of the enemies, reducing their numbers substantially. This makes it a good
deal easier to clean house with your troops.

Robin Hood grants no benefit if you try to use his men defensively. Also, I'd
originally thought that he grants extra health when you engage in a castle
raid, but I haven't been able to prove that; Wolfric still sucks at swordplay,
no matter how you slice it. :)

______________________________________________________________________________

7. Tournaments

Ah, the tournament, the great equalizer. For those of us who play Wolfric,
this is how we gain leadership strength, how we keep enemies off our lands,
how we acquire income, and how we generally manhandle our competition. The
Tournament can balance the other factors of the game, and even serve to tip
the scales in your favor.

If you use the tournament from the main menu, you'll call a tournament with
your fellow friends and enemies. Calling a tournament costs 5 gold to do, so
make sure you have the money on hand.

Tournaments can only be called every so many turns, which prevents Wolfric
from dominating the game through pure tourney play, and gives the lords a
chance to rest.

Participating in a tournament ends your turn, but not the turns of the other
lords. When you acquire land, there stands a good chance that you won't be
able to hold it through the next turn. Even so, this can be used to prolong
certain death, increase your income for a turn, and give yourself a shot at
buying enough men to withstand the next seige.

There's also the inestimable benefit of being able to upgrade your leadership
score here. I can't stress that enough. If you want to beat this game, you
need to be able to survive defensive seiges. To survive defensive seiges, you
need leadership. To get leadership, you have to joust.

There are two types of jousts.

Joust for Fame
-
Jousting for fame increases your leadership score when you win. Losing will
lower your leadership score. The risk is minimal, once you get good at
jousting, and leadership *must* be obtained and cultivated to survive.

Joust for Land
-
You're gambling a territory on the outcome of the joust. This is an excellent
tactic early on, as it lets you take over territory very close to the home
bases of the enemy armies, forcing them to turn and deal with the potential
threat, rather than beseiging your castle early. This also helps to free up
some land right around you for another turn. Just be sure not to lose.. :)

Territories that have castles on them cannot be risked, even if they aren't
your primary castle.

The Joust has two phases to it, much as an offensive seige does.

Phase 1: The Lists

When people think of "jousting", this is it. Two horses, thundering down on
one another, with the riders trying to unhorse each other. This event takes on
a first-person perspective, with you facing the enemy knight. At the start,
the enemy will be a good distance away from you, but as he approaches, you'll
see his body, lance, shield, and horse.

The shield looks something like this.

--, ,--
| \, ,/ |
| \,____,/ |
| || |
| || |
| xx | xx = Target range
| xxxxxx |
| xxxxxx |
| xxxxxx |
\, xx ,/
\, || ,/
\, || ,/
\, ,/
\/

The goal is to aim your lance into the middle of the enemy's shield. This
produces the best results, and more often unhorses the enemy than not.

If you hit too far to the sides, or too high, you aren't likely to score a
hard enough hit to knock the enemy off the horse.

Keep your lance up, by the way. If you push it too far to the lower left, you
can and will kill your opponents horse. This is considered the ultimate in bad
form, and will result in you being stripped of your lands and titles, as well
as being banned from all future tournaments. Every territory that you
conquered reverts to an unclaimed state, for anyone to take over. Auxillary
castles are vacated as well.

If no clean hit is made by either side, the joust resumes until someone is
finally knocked off their horse. This part of the joust exists solely to
determine how much health you'll have for the next one.

Phase 2: Melee Combat

Now that you're off your horses, you and your opponent will engage in close
quarters combat. You're given a shield and a chain mace to work with.

B : Raise Shield
Release B : Lower shield
A : Swing mace high
Down + A : Swing mace low

In order to actually do damage, you'll have to let the mace swing around a few
times before striking. If you strike repeatedly, you'll wind up doing little
or no damage to your opponent, even though you will interrupt their attacks.
Wolfric is an exception here - you can always do damage with Wolfric.

The enemy doesn't seem to have a real pattern for this event. Try to put your
mace where the enemy isn't guarding with his shield. When your enemy's energy
is depleted, he collapses, and you win.

If your energy is depleted, you are defeated, and removed from the tournament.
You can only keep going so long as you keep winning.

You can fight a maximum of three jousts per tournament. If you win all of your
bouts, you're proclaimed the champion of the day, and get a nice little
picture of you and your horse. (Woo woo!)

You may only joust with a given knight once per tournament, for either land or
fame. Anyone can serve for a fame bout, so make sure to do your land jousts
first. This way you can't accidentally joust someone for fame and then be
denied the opportunity to take land from them.

The other knights will sometimes call tournaments. This is a random occurance,
though it happens more when the other knights are rich, and after some or all
of the other blue players have been eliminated.

______________________________________________________________________________

8. Raiding

The idea is simple - pick a castle, friend or foe, and send an elite agent in
to try and steal gold.

In practice, this is much harder. Success means that you acquire half of the
gold in the treasury at the time of the raid. Failure means losing a hefty sum
in order to pay the ransom for you to be returned unharmed. On top of that,
you have to fence your way to victory, which requires a new set of skills.

A: forward stab
A while holding up: parry, can be done repeatedly
Right and Left: step forward/backward

You always start off in the same place during a raid. You have to go through
three weak guards, and then one strong one.

The weak guards can be dealt with by walking up to them, stabbing once, and
retreating a step or a half-step. When their hand comes near, stab again,
retreat some more, and repeat indefinetly. Remember, you can deal damage by
stabbing them in the hand; no need to get close, parry, and strike. That route
is for either the exceptional or the foolish.

This technique also works on the strong guard, even though he gets the
advantage of higher ground to start. Be patient, and don't panic. It's
possible to conduct a raid without taking any damage, though more
realistically, you'll be injured a bit.

The enemy can sometimes raid your castle. This usually happens when you're
carrying a high total of gold, or after you lock an enemy down by surrounding
his routes of exit with small castles that he can't break down. Not that I'm
suggesting anyone would do such a thing and taunt the poor computer players
about their inadequacy, but just in case you do, raids are likely to follow.

The best way of dealing with an enemy raid is to spend your money. ;) That
way, there isn't anything for them to take from you.

______________________________________________________________________________

9. Miscellaneous

This section is for things I want to try, don't completely understand yet, or
just haven't found a good way to file.

9.1: Limits

The maximum number of a given type of units that you can have in your army or
in your garrison is 250. You can have 250 soldiers, 250 knights, and 250
catapults all at once. Your gold also maxes out at 250.

The ideal unit size to keep in a garrison is 25. If you add more, you'll lose
men faster proportionally. It's not unimaginable to see an army of 120 lose 24
people to a crossbow hit, instead of losing 1 or 2 people.

9.2: Side events

There's a quest to save the princess (works just like a raiding scenario).
Doing this quest successfully results in you joining forces with an allied
lord. The quest requires at least one surviving allied lord in order for it to
ever come up.

You can have a catapult destroyed by a raid.

Vassals can rebel, costing you a territory.

You can gain someone elses territory in a rebellion, I think.

The Normons can raid your castle, stealing half of the gold you've amassed.

The Normons can also ambush your sheriff while he was collecting taxes, making
you lose half of the gold you would have brought in.

They can also sabotage your "best" catapult, making you lose one.

9.3: The Centerboard Strategy (courtesy of Nick Fleet)

Nick Fleet sent in the following tactic for winning the game every time. Give
it a run and see what you think. :)

Actually, it's kind of cheap way of winning. The first step is to
keep reseting the game until you get Rotherwood (the only starting
territory where you get an income of 4 gold). Rotherwood is just
below Sherwood forrest. Transfer all your men out of your castle and
into your army; take the territory directly to the east. Next round,
raid a castle to get some gold. Next round, buy one catapult and as
many soldiers as you can. The next round, move all the soldiers and
the one catapult into your army. By now, the red opponent in the
teritory of Norfolk will have lots of land. Attack his castle with
all your men. To win the battle you must knock down the wall all the
way, hitting it with four boulders. I have never lost this critical
battle. You will win the fight and capture all the land, earning you
a nice income.

The central theme to this strategy is that you can withdraw forces
from your castle in the early stages of the game as none of the
computer opponents seem to want to take a risk. From here, the
strategy consists of aggresively attacking the red opponents. If you
want, on the next turn following the above, you can gather up another
big posse and launch another brutal assault against the computer.

______________________________________________________________________________

Appendix A - Territory Chart

This chart duplicates the information that you would find in a Read Map
command.

Territory Name | Vassals | Income | Notes
-------------------|-----------|-----------|----------------------------
Cumbria | 0 | 3 | Castle, northern-most point
Sherwood Forest | n/a | n/a | Forest SE of Cumbria
Yorkshire | 6 | 2 | N of Sherwood
Lancashire | 6 | 4 | W of Sherwood, S of Cumbria
Nottingham | 0 | 4 | Castle, S of Sherwood
Lincolnshire | 6 | 3 | E of Nottingham
Gwynedd | 4 | 2 | NW of Clwyd
Clwyd | 0 | 3 | Castle, W of center point
Leicester | 5 | 2 | E of Clwyd, center point
Cambridge | 6 | 5 | E of center point
Norfolk [Enemy] | 0 | 6 | Castle, eastern-most point
Glamorgan | 4 | 1 | SW of Clywd
Gloucester | 12 | 7 | SE of Clywd, W of Buckingham
Buckingham [Enemy] | 0 | 8 | Castle, SSE of center point
Essex | 8 | 6 | ESE of Buckingham, SW of Norfolk
Cornwall [Enemy] | 0 | 8 | Castle, far SW penninsula
Dorset | 6 | 4 | E of Cornwall
Hampshire | 8 | 3 | S of Buckingham
Sussex | 8 | 7 | SE penninsula

Enemy starting castles are marked.

______________________________________________________________________________

Appendix B - Game Genie Codes

ZAVVALGO Only 10 soldiers in your Garrison
AZVVALGO 40 soldiers in your Garrison
AAEOUPPA Soldiers for free
LAEOUPPA Triple the cost of soldiers
GAEOKOAA Halve the cost of knights
APEOKOAA Double the cost of knights
YAEOSOYA Halve the cost of catapults
ZAEOVPGO Halve the cost of castles

______________________________________________________________________________

Appendix C - Revision History

v1.5, 02/12/2001, 7:00pm
Got an email with a really nice strategy for fast game takeover; Thanks,
Nick!

v1.4, 07/11/2000, 2:00pm
Added information about Sherwood Forest, thanks to a trio of helpful people
that sent me email. Yay! People read this FAQ!:)

v1.3.2, 04/30/2000, 8:17pm
Spontaneous decision to go by my real name instead of my alias.. time to
update all of those FAQs.. *cries*

v1.3.1, 04/30/2000, 1:10pm
Forgot to convert the word wrap to cr/lf's in UltraEdit.. *blushes* :)

v1.3, 04/30/2000, 12:40pm
Added the Detailed Battle Notes section, with the order of precedence and
general notes as to how field battles are evaluated.

v1.2, 04/30/2000, 11:50am
Fixed the starting amount of gold. Fixed the order of events with respect to
tournaments. Added the cost of calling a tournament.

v1.1, 04/30/2000, 1:30am
Duh. Added some legalistic crap that nobody reads in order to safeguard my
rights. Such things always leave a bad taste in my mouth, though. This is the
first posted version, despite the fact that 1.0 was ready to go.

v1.0, 04/30/2000, 1:05am
Finished reorganizing, updating the data, clearing out temporary notes. The
doc should be ready for posting at this point. I hope someone gets a little
use out of it. ;) Future versions will include strategy for the different
characters and a description of the side events that can occur.

v0.7, 04/29/2000, 11pm
I've chosen a format for the FAQ, and am coallating information into it's
proper place. Threw the territories into a separate chart. This version was
not released.

v0.6, 04/29/2000, 10pm
Finished codifying most of the information. I haven't decided on a complete
layout yet, and this isn't a complete document. This version was not
released.

v0.1, 04/28/2000, 2:30am
Started the project. I really wanted to write one for Faxanadu, but there was
actually something like information available, so I've skipped that project
for a day or two. This version was not released.

______________________________________________________________________________

Appendix D - Legal Info

This FAQ is copyrighted material, just like anything, anywhere, at any time
that anyone ever writes. Don't you love how copyrights work in the US? :)

I hereby grant limited reproduction rights; if you want to print this off of a
webpage for your own not-for-profit use, feel free. Want to save a copy to
your hard drive? Rock on, go for it.

Reposting this work to another website without any notification is fine,
provided that you *do not modify* the original work in the process. I spent
time on this, so leave my name and those of any contributors in tact, okay? :)
Is that really so much to ask? sheesh. :)

No modifications are allowed. I hold the copyright, I do the mods. :) If you
try to reuse this work and pass it off as your own, I'll likely find out, and
will take steps to wildly boot you from whatever servers you inhabit. C'mon,
it's a Defender of the Crown FAQ for God's sake, no need to steal it.. :) It's
close to free as is. :)

______________________________________________________________________________

Appendix E - Credits and Contact information

Game Assistance:

The Sherwood Forest Team
-
Father Jonathan <[email protected]>
Mike Richey <[email protected]>
Chris Hutson <[email protected]>

This fine trio told me what the Robin Hood's assistance actually did for
you. They also confirmed that people do, in fact, read this FAQ. :)

Centerboard strategy
-
Nick Fleet <[email protected]>

Nick hooked me up with his strategy for taking over the game from the central
territory on the map. I hadn't played that way before, and it's really cool to
see innovation at work. Thanks, Nick. :)

General:

Thanks to anybody that reads this, since it means I didn't waste my time
filling a gap where none was present.. :)

The latest version of this FAQ can be found at GameFAQs -
http://www.gamefaqs.com

..though if you are reading this, you probably knew that already. :)

Do you have something to add to the FAQ? A question unanswered that you'd
like to see make it into the next version? Send it over to [email protected],
and I'll do my level best to incorporate your suggestions. Credit will be
given as credit is due. :)

Thanks for playing, and good luck! :)

(c) 2001, by Brian Kern.
Limited reproduction rights as assigned above.