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|.><.| _______________________________________________________ |.><.|
|~==~| |~==~|
|.><.| AGE OF EMPIRES 2: AGE OF KINGS GUIDE / WALKTHROUGH |.><.|
|~==~| _______________________________________________________ |~==~|
|.><.| |.><.|
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Guide author: Orgulo
Guide version: 1.7
Game version: 1.0
System: PC
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------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬-----------------------------
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1. INTRODUCTION
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.1.1 WELCOME
1.1.2 HINTS AND INFO
1.2 USING THIS GUIDE
1.3 CONTACT ME
2. WALKTHROUGH
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
2.1 WILLIAM WALLACE (LEARNING CAMPAIGN)
2.1.1 MARCHING AND FIGHTING
2.1.2 FEEDING THE ARMY
2.1.3 TRAINING THE TROOPS
2.1.4 RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
2.1.5 THE BATTLE OF STIRLING
2.1.6 FORGE AN ALLIANCE
2.1.7 THE BATTLE OF FALKIRK
2.2 JOAN OF ARC
2.2.1 AN UNLIKELY MESSIAH
2.2.2 THE MAID OF ORLEANS
2.2.3 THE CLEANSING OF THE LOIRE
2.2.4 THE RISING
2.2.5 THE SIEGE OF PARIS
2.2.6 A PERFECT MARTYR
2.3 SALADIN
2.3.1 AN ARABIAN KNIGHT
2.3.2 LORD OF ARABIA
2.3.3 THE HORNS OF HATTIN
2.3.4 THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM
2.3.5 JIHAD!
2.3.6 THE LION AND THE DEMON
2.4 GENGHIS KHAN
2.4.1 THE CRUCIBLE
2.4.2 A LIFE OF REVENGE
2.4.3 INTO CHINA
2.4.4 THE HORDE RIDES WEST
2.4.5 THE PROMISE
2.4.6 PAX MONGOLIA
2.5 BARBAROSSA
2.5.1 HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR
2.5.2 HENRY THE LION
2.5.3 POPE AND ANTIPOPE
2.5.4 THE LOMBARD LEAGUE
2.5.5 BARBAROSSA'S MARCH
2.5.6 THE EMPEROR SLEEPING
3. CONTRIBUTORS / CONTRIBUTIONS
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4. VERSION HISTORY / UPDATES
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1. INTRODUCTION
--------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬-----------------------------
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1.1 INTRODUCTION
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1.1.1 WELCOME
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This is my walkthrough for Age Of Empires 2: The Age Of Kings.
I realise that the AOE games are RTS, and that an RTS walkthrough might be
considered an oxymoron. This walkthrough is for people who, like me, had or
are having problems beating any or all of the single player levels. I can't
guide you through every minute of every game, since RTS games are so open, but
I can help you with the levels and bits that gave me difficulty, and there are
lots of those.
Most of these level guides take you through only one specific way to complete
the level, because obviously it's impossible to list every method. If you have
a better way to win a particular level than the ones in here, by all means use
it.
Objectives sometimes change when you achieve certain triggers. My listed
objectives are the ones which you are given at the start of the level - any
other subsequent objectives are dealt with in the guide, though not
specifically mentioned.
I haven't read any other walkthroughs for AOE2:AOK, though I know there are
some. This stuff is all my own work, and any similarities between mine and
someone else's are coincidental, though I'll surely be ahead on swear words.
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1.1.2 HINTS AND INFO
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
I've given each level a difficulty rating from one to three. I realise that
even some of the levels I've marked as Easy can be quite hard, but difficulty
is relative, and if you think The Maid Of Orleans is hard, wait until you come
up against the likes of The Lombard League.
In this guide I have mostly denoted enemies by unit / building colour, instead
of by nationality. This just makes it easier to know which ones I'm talking
about while you're actually playing the game, since some levels have four or
five nationalities of enemies, and frankly I sometimes have difficulty
remembering what frigging nation my own guys are from.
If you have stone to spare, build a castle. Then build another one. They are
by far the best things in the game, and they solve most problems. Try to have
units garrisoned inside to deal with trebuchets, rams and bombard cannons.
About the only level where building a castle is a bad idea is The Lombard
League - read that section to find out why. Oh, and The Horns Of Hattin,
because it's impossible.
The computer often tends to attack the last building you built. This means
that you can defend your entire main base just by building a castle somewhere
else and making sure it stands. Weird but true, mostly.
Trading carts count towards your population limit - be careful how many you
build.
Try to find a balance between workers and combatants. I tend to have nine
farmers (or six fishing boats if I'm using only boats for food), seven
lumberjacks, five gold-miners and four stone-miners, plus a single peasant for
building and repairing. This allows me a lot of combat units, but even one
extra can make a big difference, especially if that one is a trebuchet or
something.
When you are nearing the end of a level, where everything is a fight and your
base is all but forgotten (except for those sodding farms making scittery
noises at you every two minutes), try getting rid of some of your peasants.
It's safe to say that if you have over 10,000 units of food, you can kill off
a few peasants to make room for more combat units. Try not to have any units
who are virtually superfluous. And sell your surplus goods in the market - I
know 14 isn't much but it's still better to have less wood and a bit more
stone than have tons of wood you'll never need.
Castles and towers are excellent, since they are technically combat units
(well, buildings), but they don't count towards the pop. limit. You can have,
in theory, fifty towers, five castles and one peasant, and your population
will be 1/75. So with one actual unit you can hold off vast armies. This isn't
really tenable though, since god only knows where you'll get the stone from,
but you get the point. Use your stone - that's what it's for.
Base defense is a lot easier if you look for the nearest bottlenecks and block
them off. The computer almost never sends units at you in transport ships, so
pay attention to the shape of the land and plan your base layout accordingly.
Holy Roman Emperor in the Barbarossa campaign is a great example of this - you
can build one massive wall all around your island, or you can build four gates
and fewer than twenty squares of wall for the same effect.
Town centres can act like mini-castles if you pull your peasants back to them
with the town bell. It's unreal how often town centres can save your arse, yet
they're still easily forgotten. One full town centre and one single scout
cavalry to draw enemies in can provide a better base defense than an empty
town centre and ten knights.
Group units according to abilities and movement speed. Grouping scout cavalry
with Teutonic knights would be a mistake. Grouping champions (melee) with
skirmishers (ranged) is another mistake - the champions will be almost
useless. Monks do well in groups of monks only, as a sort of ambulance service
bringing up the rear.
Use the scatter formation when you're getting attacked by mangonels or
scorpions. One mangonel can instantly delete an entire squadron of yours, so
know where they are and make them a priority kill.
Quick in and out attacks can be very useful in this game. For instance, send a
scout cavalry running around the perimeter walls of an enemy base, then send
him running back home, drawing the gullible enemy guards into the firing range
of towers and castles. Sometimes it's amazing how many enemies you can take
down just by having a quick unit run past to get their attention.
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1.2 USING THIS GUIDE
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Please view this guide in a text viewer / editor with a set fixed-width
font, or else it might look a mess. I use Courier New, Size 10.
Use the Find command (CTRL + F) with the numbered contents menu at the start
of the guide, in order to quickly jump to the section you want.
I have put the main walkthrough section of the guide towards the end, after
all the other game information. This is not a design flaw - it's deliberate.
--------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬------------------------------
1.3 CONTACT ME
--------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬------------------------------
As the game is now quite old, and since I now consider this guide complete, I
have no intention of updating it in the future and will therefore no longer
respond to feedback.
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--------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬------------------------------
2. WALKTHROUGH
--------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬------------------------------
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This is the section of the guide which will instruct you on how to
successfully beat each of the levels in each of the campaigns. My strategies
are my own, and they worked for me; but if you have better ones then just
stick to using them, obviously. And maybe think about contributing them to
this guide.
I've tried to split each mission guide up into sections, though some don't
lend themselves to this at all. I've also included a QUICK HELP section at the
end of each mission guide, to allow you to skip past all my inane pish and get
right to the useful hints.
Anyway, good luck and I hope my tactics help you out.
------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬---------------------------
2.1 WILLIAM WALLACE
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This campaign follows the fortunes of William Wallace, in spite of the fact
that he doesn't show up until the last level. This leads me to believe that
this campaign was designed by Americans. The Scottish campaign is generally
really easy, true to the fact that Scots can pretty much stroll through any
conflict without even cracking a fingernail. We're the greatest.
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2.1.1 MARCHING AND FIGHTING
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
Follow the instructions to reach the Scottish village.
---
Even if you are the type of person who waves at aeroplanes, you will still
have difficulty failing this level. There is an urban legend which says that,
instead of the usual 'YOU HAVE BEEN DEFEATED' message, this level will just
grow hands and smack you in the head.
Anyway, run around all the flags, take down the outpost and then defend the
base against the three English soldiers.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The map designer initialled this one - try using the reveal map cheat. No, I'm
not telling you it.
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2.1.2 FEEDING THE ARMY
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
Gather 50 food, 50 wood and 50 gold.
---
You can just let your first villager do everything, or go down the route of
having different villagers do different things. I don't know which one takes
longer, and I intend to spend zero time finding out.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Just follow the instructions.
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2.1.3 TRAINING THE TROOPS
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Train 4 militia.
---
There are no enemies in this area, though the game hints would have you
believe otherwise. Just build a house then a "berrecks", and train four
militia men.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
N/A
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2.1.4 RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
To win you will need to advance to the Feudal Age and repel the English raids.
---
There are no English raids here. Just gather enough resources, of which there
are plenty, to advance to the Feudal Age.
QUICK HELP
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Some gold and sheep to the north.
A lone villager hiding to the south.
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2.1.5 THE BATTLE OF STIRLING
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Defeat the English army and destroy their tower.
---
Finally, a bit of excitement. No, I'm wrong. The AOE games always prided
themselves on being historically educational: if this is an accurate portrayal
of the Battle of Stirling then my arse is a detailed scale model of the
Wallace Monument.
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
--------------------------------
There's plenty of stone to the north and gold to the west. Build a house, then
a mill next to the berry bushes for quick food. Then just build up your base
while you soak up the pathetic English attack, which incidentally was the
basis for their latest World Cup campaign. I just realised that if I never
update this document again, that statement will remain true. Anyway, ringing
the town bell should deal with the enemy easily.
Once you've got about fifteen scout cavalry and fifteen skirmishers, just
charge the tower. Use your ranged units to take out the English behind the
palisade wall, knock the wall down with your cavalry, charge the tower with
the horsemen and take out the last two archers with your own ranged units.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Ranged units are always good for drawing enemies away from the protection of
their towers.
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2.1.6 FORGE AN ALLIANCE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Capture 3 relics and guard them in your monastery.
---
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is the first of the Scottish missions with any real challenge, unless you
count evasion of boredom. Peasants apart, you can do this mission with one
monk and one siege onager.
You get a lot of resources at the start, so turn all your peasants into
farmers so you can advance to the Castle Age very quickly. Build houses while
you're waiting, then produce a few more lumberjacks. This will get you up to
speed as soon as possible.
There's plenty of gold and stone to the west. The first relic is just south of
your monastery. The quicker you grab it, the more gold you'll get.
Explore the coastline around to the west. The two crossings both lead to the
gates of the enemy, so avoid them for now. Head into your allies' base
(yellow) and discover the second relic on top of the hill to the north. Take
it back to the monastery.
You have tons of time to build up your base and forces, since the English
attack your allies before they attack you. Get all the way to the Imperial Age
and assault the English base with the strongest units. Building stone walls,
gates and towers at those two river crossings might not hurt either.
Constructing your unit production buildings just behind these river defenses
will be a good plan too, making it easier and faster to replenish any units
you lose.
The relic is on a hill beyond the red walls, directly south of the eastern
river crossing. Smash up the base, grab the relic and take it back to the
monastery.
Here's my sneaky, cheap way of getting the third relic (cheap unless you
include mangonel upgrades). Draw the English forces away from the area of
their eastern gate, and sneak a peasant all the way around the coast to the
south east while the English are occupied. When your peasant reaches the edge
of the map he should be on a grassy hill with thick trees to the west and the
river to the east. Build a siege workshop and a monastery here. Produce one
priest and one mangonel. Upgrade mangonels to onagers, then to siege onagers.
Siege onagers can smash through trees using their attack ground ability, so
break through the trees to the sand. Follow the treeline around until you're
due north of the southern corner of the minimap. Smash through these trees and
send your priest in to pilfer the relic from under the noses of the English.
Take it back to your new monastery and you're done.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Use your initial stocks to advance quickly.
Don't bother tributing your ally.
Building walls and towers at both river crossings makes this level a joke.
The sneaky way is ALWAYS better.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.1.7 THE BATTLE OF FALKIRK
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Build a castle.
Destroy the English castle.
---
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Right. The second the level starts, put all your peasants to work, build four
more, then advance to the Castle Age. Gather all your starting combat units
together and send them down to the river crossing to the west. You should have
enough stone to build a castle, so get the four miners to go down and build
one right at the crossing, while your combat units guard the construction
site. As soon as the castle is done, garrison your combat units in there, and
send your miners back to work at your main base.
Wallace arrives with a lot of help, so get his lot over to the castle too.
They won't all be able to fit in, so explore the area with your horsemen while
you build up your base. With that castle there, you don't have to worry about
your base getting attacked any more, so just take it easy. Build a university
and research murder holes and other upgrades so you can deal with invaders
more effectively, including the rams.
And that's your base safe, with a ton of free combat units into the bargain.
ATTACKING THE ENGLISH BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This couldn't really be easier. Use the free transport ships to take Wallace
and the elite woad raiders (good name for a band) over to the south east of
the far island, along with some trebuchets and whatever else you feel like.
You'll meet not much resistance, and wiping out the English should be easy if
you keep your groups organised and your siege units protected. Take out their
castle on the hill with trebuchets.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
A castle at the crossing basically wins you this level from the very start.
Woad raiders are really quite crap.
--------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬-----------------------------
2.2 JOAN OF ARC
--------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬-----------------------------
Take Joan Of Arc on a tour of what seems like the entire country of France.
She's a talisman but she's dangerous to use in battle, since most of the
levels rely on her not dying. Ironically, the most difficult level of this
campaign is the only one she isn't in.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.2.1 AN UNLIKELY MESSIAH
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Escort Joan from the camp at Vaucouleurs to the Chateau of Chinon.
Joan must survive.
---
Is there such a thing as a likely messiah?
This is just a walk-from-A-to-B-to-C mission. Take your knights, men-at-arms
and crossbowmen south, keeping Joan at the back. Watch the British beat up the
Franks, then follow the dirt path around to the broken bridge on the west
shore. Go north, sticking to the trees to the east. Take out the group of
thugs by the outpost, and head farther north by the trees. Cross the bridge
and go north west to the Franks encampment. Joan must approach the group of
units to get their help.
Don't go across the north west bridge; instead go back over the bridge to the
south and use the ram to attack the gate to the west. Remove any red units
which attack the ram, and bust your way through the gate. You can try to take
down the whole base if you want, but there's not a lot of point.
Anyway, head west, over the river crossing, and deal with the three wolves.
Farther west is an ambush, but sticking to the southern coast should let you
avoid it. Pile onto the boats. The only important one is Joan, since this is
the last piece of combat. When you knocked down that gate, you ceased to have
a use for your ram, so send it in first as a decoy, while everyone else jumps
onto the boats.
Head south, following the western coast. Halfway down, you should see a cliff
with some trees around it. There will be a small break in the cliff edge where
you can pass, so let your guys off here, then just right-click on the flag at
the north west corner of the mini-map and your units will get there by
themselves.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Keep Joan away from combat, but still quite close to your other units.
Watch out for wolves.
The ram is good for drawing fire at the boats.
If you get warnings about where not to go, heed them.
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2.2.2 THE MAID OF ORLEANS
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Joan must survive.
The cathedral in Orleans must remain standing.
Escort Joan to Blois so she may command the French army.
---
Send everyone north. You will meet a bunch of goons halfway there - use the
monk who waves you off if you need healing.
Keep pushing everyone north. When they reach Blois you will get a lot more
units, as well as six trade carts.
Outside the eastern gates, it might be worth exploring a bit to the east and
down south, since there are lots of minerals around here. Head along the
northern coast when you're done here - don't go too far east or you'll run
into trouble. Along the coast you should find the boats, so take everyone
across, including the carts.
There is gold to the west which might come in handy, and farms and stone north
of that. The farms will save you a lot of building in a short while. Get over
to Orleans - as soon as you approach the gates, the city comes under your
control. The carts aren't essential, but they will give you a lot more
supplies to get started with.
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Well, from here it's up to you. You've got a nicely walled compound, whose
surrounds should be dotted with towers as soon as you have enough stone. You
can try a castle if you want, but since you'll be under attack from all
directions, its effectiveness will be lessened a bit. The biggest problem is
protecting your farmers, lumberjacks and miners, since they'll all have to
work outside the walls. I'd suggest building a tower next to every mining /
lumber operation, and next to the mill. Get your peasants in there at the
first whiff of danger, and keep a close eye on them. The enemies will attack
them once in a while.
ATTACKING THE CASTLES
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Here's how I prefer to do this.
Immediately upgrade to the castle age, and build a castle north of your base,
just out of reach of the red towers. Meanwhile have your first three peasants
start farming, and use the food they bring in to create about ten or fifteen
more peasants. Have your ranged units fill the guard towers along the south
and east edges of your base. Have about five of your new peasants mine the
stone north of the free farms, and the rest cutting wood right next to your
castle.
Next to your new castle build a siege workshop and a university, upgrading to
Murder Holes when you can. Build about ten rams (no trebuchets allowed here),
or more if you can afford them (you should have plenty of gold). Attack the
red wall due west of the red castle (the part surrounded by trees, in between
the range of the corner towers) with your rams - they should break through but
they will be under attack. Send all your surviving rams through the gap and
have them attack the castle. Send in all the rest of your forces after them,
so that the rams draw all the fire but all your units are hammering the castle
at once (keep Joan out of it). With luck the castle should fall, though you
will have very few units remaining, and you'll have to watch for mangonels.
Believe me, this way does work, and you can get this mission over with very
quickly just by using a lot of rams and your starting units.
If you do it the long way, you'll spend a lot of time mopping up all around
your walls, dealing with mangonels, lots of rams, horsemen, archers, etc.
You'll need towers at every length of wall, and a strike-force of cavalry
ready to charge out and get rid of any siege weapons. Plus you'll have to
protect your peasants at the same time.
______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________V1.3 CONTRIBUTION______________________________
Harpret Kalsi <
[email protected]>
"just wanted to say that I found a very easy way of getting past the maid of
ORLEANS scenario. Basically when u start theres one of the enemy castles
placed just above your troops to the west a bit. You can take out this castle
from the very start of the map with the troops u are given including the ones
u need to collect to the west of the map. But yea if u can take out that
castle and then take ur trade carts to ur town, u win the map as soon as they
reached the flagged area without worrying about defending the town and
catherdrel"
---
I tested this for the first time after your mail, and it worked great for me.
Basically got all my units together and blasted the hell out of the castle
south of the bridge, which I usually avoid. This is good if you're a decent
enough player to get away with it, but that castle and its guards can be
dangerous, so save before you head in if you're going to try it.
______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________V1.3 CONTRIBUTION______________________________
One thing worth noting: once you reach Blois, the yellow monk who was standing
by the cathedral at the very start will possibly have followed your guys all
the way to Orleans without getting killed. For some weird reason, this guy
stood outside my northern gate and HEALED MY FRIGGING ENEMIES. If he does this
to you, introduce him to the business end of a mangonel, because that sort of
aid is the last thing you need in this level.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Look for the boats outside Blois.
There is a lot of farms and a mill west of Orleans, just waiting to be used.
Rams can end this level quickly.
Build towers everywhere, including next to your peasants.
There are lots of minerals in this map - just explore.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.2.3 THE CLEANSING OF THE LOIRE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Destroy at least 3 British castles.
Joan must survive.
---
This mission can be hard or easy, depending on how you approach it and where
you site your main base. Take all your guys north at the start, and you should
meet up with some ships. Take everyone across the river and let them off, then
kill off your transport ships to lower your pop. limit.
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
You can either choose to start your base right away, or you can attack
Burgundy with what units you have. This is not difficult at all - just head
north from your landing point, and you should find their small base. It's
defended by four or five towers, but these are not tough to take down, as long
as you stay out of the firing range of the others while you're doing it. Take
out the town centre first though, sneaking through in between the towers, and
get rid of any peasants or combatants around. This will do you a favour in the
long run, since these guys would have been using up the valuable gold and
stone dotted all around here.
There are several places you could put your base, but I recommend way down in
the southernmost corner of this island, over the river crossing. There's
plenty of gold and stone along to the east; tons of trees which are also
grouped closely together to make up nice bottlenecks where you can put your
gates; the river is just south west if you want to build boats to go up the
smaller river to the north; and the area is as far away from any enemy base as
you can get.
You will be under attack from over the river crossing once in a while, but not
so much if you got rid of Burgundy at the beginning. Most of the attacks will
be from the north east, but nothing some walls and towers can't handle.
ATTACKING THE ORANGE BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Explore to the north - you should find three castles behind walled compounds
about two thirds of the way north east, from the top of the map to the bottom.
There is another castle in the far north, but this is more difficult to take
down.
When you destroy your first castle, Fastolf will attack with some of his
goons. He is pretty tough, but not if you capture him with monks. He has the
same stats as Joan, and is well worth grabbing.
You might also want to take out Fastolf's base, which can be tough since it's
quite spread out. Worth it though, since it allows you to sneak around to the
back of the middle castle.
ATTACKING THE RED CASTLES
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The three lone castles are all in small, walled compounds, vulnerable to
attack from the rear. Just use rams on the walls then pile everyone in through
the gap and raze the castles.
The base in the north is a different proposition, involving longbowmen,
mangonels, towers and walls. Nothing too heavy though, and it is easier if you
attack through the eastern wall. Better to leave this though, when there are
three easier castles.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The less open your base is to attack, the better. A corner is always better
than an edge.
Taking out Burgundy at the start saves you a lot of grief.
Capture Fastolf if possible - he is noticeably different from his bodyguards.
If you're placing mining operations far beyond your city walls, protect them
with towers - they may be attacked, and one tower will not be enough.
Go for the three red castles, rather than the one in the bigger base in the
north.
Towers by the river will deal with all those red ships.
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2.2.4 THE RISING
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Travel west to help reinforce the French town.
Be wary of opposition along the way.
Joan must survive.
---
Go north from the starting point and follow the coast along to the far west.
This should let you avoid almost all of the enemies in the middle of this
area. Once you get Joan to the flag, you will gain some peasants, a town
centre, a mill, a lumber yard and a mining camp. Use the berries for some
quick food.
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Whatever you do, this base will be pretty hard to defend for quite some time,
especially since it's in such a suckage position for defending. The nearest
bottleneck is to the north, over the river crossing. You should wall this off
as soon as you get a chance, but otherwise it will be a case of desperate
defending and ringing the town bell a lot until you get enough stone to put a
castle up, which will definitely do you a favour in this mission. I'd
recommend relying on quick response units for defense, rather than a lot of
walls and towers, since the area is too open and there's not a lot of stone
around. Keep some mobile units around your town centre and farms, since
enemies have a habit of suddenly appearing inside your base from out of
apparently nowhere.
I tend to put a wall and a gate at the crossing to the north, then build a
castle at the other crossing, plus another wall and gate, since the eastern
crossing is the most dangerous.
Once the nearby stone and gold deposits are exhausted, the next nearest is to
the east. They may be lightly guarded by the last of the reds, but nothing
major at all.
ATTACKING THE GREEN AND ORANGE BASES
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
You can help yourself in this mission by realising that all you have to do is
wipe out the town centres of each of the three enemies, not every building and
unit. And the orange and green centres are actually very easy to take down.
For the greens to the north of your base, just send in four or five rams as
soon as you have them built, and you probably don't even need to bother with
an escort. The rams can knock out the town centre very fast, and once this is
done the greens will just stop functioning. The same applies to the orange
base, except for this one I just sent about six trebuchets halfway up the
eastern crossing and had them heave their ammo over the gate and onto the town
centre, which is right next to the castle. The castle will topple with the
town centre, and the orange base will shut down straight away too. That's two
out of the three enemy bases gone with only a few siege weapons needed. True,
the trebuchets were under attack, but they managed to get rid of the town
centre before the orange guys destroyed them. So you can launch full scale
attacks on both bases and lose quite a lot of units in the process, or you can
expend money on a few cheap siege weapons - it's up to you.
For the ships cruising along the river, I built my own dock to the west and
quickly got some galleons together. Take out any enemy docks and stay away
from the orange castle to the east. I tend not to bother with sea units in my
games, but the boats in this level can be a pain for your walls and gates at
the western crossing.
ATTACKING THE YELLOW BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The final base is a different prospect altogether. This place is seriously
well guarded by towers, many mangonels, and many, many longbowmen. Trying to
get through is a nightmare, especially since they have two castles, both of
which will constantly produce longbowmen, who will always try to suck your
units in by firing then retreating. But you can't follow them because of the
mangonels, who will pour out of the gates and reduce your squadrons to mince.
I've had good luck with sitting just outside the east gate, trying to suck
longbowmen out one at a time and finishing them off with my own ranged units,
who are all the time getting healed by priests. This has the added advantage
of being out of range of the castles, and being as far away as possible from
all those mangonels. Meanwhile I get rams / trebuchets to attack the northern
corner of the wall and break through there, which should not raise undue
suspicion from the enemy. At that point I pour my horsed units and siege
weapons through and head across the northern edge of the map. I get all my
siege weapons to target the town centre, sending my other units in first to
draw fire. Trebuchets and rams should do the job in time while the rest of
your units are distracting the billions of longbowmen.
Remember it doesn't matter how many units you lose, just as long as you take
down the town centre by the end of it. Throw everything you have at it.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Wall off both crossings as soon as you can.
Keep plenty of fast, mobile units in and around your base - ranged units are
little use in this level.
Stone is scarce, but castles are very much worth it at each crossing.
Taking out the green base early can gain you valuable resources.
A few siege weapons can beat two out of the three enemies.
When attacking enemy bases, target EVERYTHING on the town centres.
Sneaking into the yellow base is far better than a frontal attack.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.2.5 THE SIEGE OF PARIS
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Joan must survive.
Refugee villagers in Paris are attempting to escape English tyranny. Locate at
least 6 of the refugees.
Rendezvous with the king's reinforcements in Paris, just south of the river
bridge.
---
This is another cross-country traipse, this time through the enormous city of
Paris. Like the Hints window says, defend your siege weapons because this
place is a nightmare without them.
Take everyone north, sticking to the west edge of the map. You will reach a
castle defended by towers and a wall. Destroy it and head carefully east until
you reach the gate. Attack the gate with your bombard cannons while everyone
else fends off the enemies who come through the gate. Send someone through the
ruined gate to pick up the peasants, then pull them back out again with the
peasants. From here you can knock out a lot of the Paris buildings from behind
the wall, just by firing over with your cannons and trebuchets. Careful of the
castle to the south and the trebuchet guarding it.
Next, head inside the confines of the walls. There is a mangonel to the south
and a couple of galleons guarding the water - all three of these units should
be taken out in order to make your life easier. You can destroy all the
buildings you want, but it doesn't make any difference to the level. You
should be more concerned with getting to the bridge to the south east. There
are two towers and a galleon on the near side of it, a monk and another tower
in the middle island, and another tower and a mangonel at the far end. Attack
the monk in the middle with Joan, who cannot be converted.
Once over the bridge, take Joan east to the cathedral and kill the other two
monks. There is another mangonel lurking to the south who may take a shot at
you. Don't let it draw you towards the champions farther south.
Head south east and pick up the militia, scorpions, axemen and a couple of
knights, who can help you deal with the elite longbowmen against the eastern
wall. Next, knock a hole in the wall where you met the bowmen and go through
to find the dirt path to the east. Follow it south until the road forks. Stop
here.
This is probably the hardest bit of the level if you choose to attack, so
don't. Watch the battle in the revealed area to the east, where Burgundy take
on the Compeigne. Your purple enemies will win and remain lurking around
inside the walls, but their large force should be pretty depleted. This should
make it easy for you to send in all your forces first, then run in Joan and
the six peasants while the Burgundians are distracted.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Guard your siege weapons.
Don't chase enemy units too far - let them come to you.
Attack monks with Joan.
Exploring can get you killed - just follow a narrow route.
Leave the Burgundians to it at the final area, and only charge in once their
forces are heavily damaged by Compiegne.
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2.2.6 A PERFECT MARTYR
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 2/3
Objectives:
The Trade Cart carrying the French flag must survive.
Plant the French flag (loaded in a Trade Cart) on the hill in Castillon
(covered with flags).
Rendezvous with the French artillery, commanded by Jean Bureau.
Rendezvous with the French army, commanded by Constable Richemont.
---
No Joan in this level, but at least you don't have to watch her back all the
time.
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The first job is to get rid of Burgundy, which is really quite easy if you do
it sensibly. Loth as I am to be sensible about anything, let's give it a go
anyway.
Head south until you find the rendezvous point, where you will gain control of
the army. Head over the river crossing to the west and get the artillery. Now
take all your units, including the trade cart, down to the southern edge of
the map, where the trees are. Keep heading west, past the batch of gold and
across the little rocky place which looks like it's blocked.
Incidentally, if you want to build up your base quicker, you don't actually
have to pick up the artillery yet. Just avoid them and take down the base with
the army, then come back for the artillery once your base is up and your pop.
limit is at 75.
If you did get the bombard cannons, group them together, your horsed units
together, and all the rest of your combat units together (apart from
trebuchets), so that you have three groups. Put your remaining units
(trebuchets, peasants and trade cart) in a fourth group and keep them well
away from the action. Put your three combat groups on 'no attack stance'. Go
past the purple mill of Burgundy, and the fishing peasants, and go south
across the crossing. Now put all your units on aggressive (apart from the
bombard cannons, as they can accidentally land their cannon balls on the heads
of your men) and get them to decimate the base. Make sure you mop up the
peasants especially.
As soon as you attack the southern settlement of Burgundy, the northern one
will empty and all of those units will charge to protect their twin base.
Mount your defense at the southern end of the river crossing you just came
over, keeping your groups intact (keep the bombard cannons out of it). Once
all the Burgundians are gone (check for stray peasants), Burgundy should
resign and you will get their resources. You can now set about building your
base at either of the sites they have just vacated.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.6 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
Anonymous
"in the last Joan of Arc mission: A perfect Martyr, you said in your guide to
build a town. Now this strategy may appeal to people who like to destroy
everything or want a bit more fun (me for example in the "siege of Jerusalem"
village i totally leveled Jerusalem minus the untouchable buildings) Instead
of building a base i used my starting troops to just go straight to the finish
line at the red British base.
I first annihilated the northern Burgundian base (purple) by using siege
weapons and keeping my melee units on stand ground in front of them and the
ranged units whom i also kept in stand ground (i grouped melee together, siege
and ranged together) my ranged units would focus fire on anything that came
close (required my input of course) if anything reaches the ranged units
(highly unlikely) the melee units on stand ground would take them out. As soon
as the Burgundian base was leveled i moved my troops past it (the base was
only leveled to give me more room to work) i saved as often as possible as
soon as a small objective was completed (eg. a tower was destroyed without
losing any units) you might not need to do this but personally i hate losing
troops and i loaded every time i lost a few, though you must not lose too many
because you wont be getting more using my strategy.
As soon as the Burgundians were gone, i moved carefully down south west of the
Burgundian base then up a little to a marshy crossing over the river where a
number of red British troops, 2 Keeps and a few mangonel await. I kept my
knights on stand ground directly north of the crossing and then i used my
siege to take out the towers, the ranged units took out any reds that came
(keeping in mind purple will still harass you with two handed swordsman and
champions in small groups take them out as they come) the knights are to move
down and take out the mangonels as they come as they will be absolutely
devastating against your weak archers and cannoneers. As soon as they were
defeated you would have lost a few troops maybe move across the river again
fending off the constant but laughable red and purple attacks. Hug the river
with your troops to ensure minimum damage from more towers. Soon you may come
across a bombard tower dangerously close to your men, at this point array
siege to destroy the tower and again use your troops to defend. Then move
further north and finally west until you meet a red castle which you take out
with siege. Then keep moving west and little bit south until you come to a red
gate facing north, take this gate out and move all your troops in, at this
point tons and tons of red troops engage you, too much for your army, keep
them busy with your troops and get some of your troops to attack the tower
guarding the target destination of the flag (you did keep the flag with you
right? and the civilians to repair the siege with your resources from
destroying the purple TC) the troops will be targeted by the towers, the rest
of your men will be busy getting cut to pieces (though putting up a good
fight) then simply weave your cart in between the fray and get to the flagged
area. Voila mission accomplished."
---
Thanks. I am the kind of player who likes building bases, but an all-out
assault is another way of doing it, and if it works it works.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.6 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
Each site has advantages over the other, but I tend to go for the southern
base. It has a fantastic bottleneck, enough space (just) to build up a full
base, and it is very far away from the enemy bases. The northern site has
berry bushes, walls, gold, stone and lots of trees, but in my experience it
comes under heavy and constant assault even when you're not ready to defend
against it. Besides, those resources will stay there untouched for a very long
time, and you can build your secondary base here later.
By the way, that big area in the south that you passed at the beginning might
look attractive, what with all that gold and those trees. No, it isn't. I've
tried a few times and I just get a kicking from attacks from both sides, as
well as problems with having to mine the stone to the west, which leads to my
mining operations getting wiped out almost as fast as I can build them. It's
the lack of stone that makes this area a bad place for a base, but if you
think you can successfully maintain a base here, good luck to you.
Anyway, assuming you are using the southern Burgundy site for your base, just
plug the crossing bottleneck with walls and a gate as soon as you can, and use
your given units to fend off attacks while you get building.
Three problems with this place: firstly, you will probably be attacked by some
red ships from the west. Your bombard cannons should be able to take them out
when they appear, but don't build any important buildings by the western coast
until they're gone. Another problem is the red tower across the river to the
north, but again use bombard cannons.
</pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
The third problem isn't really to do with the site, it's the number of units
you have. I had sixty-five by the time I'd gotten rid of Burgundy, and it took
me a long time to get my infrastructure up with that many units taking up
space. So I killed off most of my light cavalry and sent the rest exploring,
not minding if they got killed. I also got rid of some of my arbalests, then
just let the others gradually die from defending. Don't go overboard and kill
them all off, but you will probably want to sacrifice some to make room for
peasants.
ATTACKING THE ORANGE BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Once your base is up and running, and you're used to fending off bunched
attacks from longbowmen, knights, siege weapons, whatever, you will probably
want to take care of that orange base in the north west. To do this, it would
be very helpful to establish that second base in the old Burgundy site to the
north. To do this, send in your own combat units to clear away any reds who
might be lurking, then build walls and gates and then a castle in the gap
between the lines of trees at the west of the walled area.
Build a stable, siege workshop, monastery, whatever else you want behind the
castle, and start mining the stone and gold. Your first base should be OK from
now on, since the enemies will target the new one, but keep an eye on it
anyway.
Taking down the orange base should be pretty simple, as long as you group your
units intelligently and keep them away from that castle. Use trebuchets or
bombard cannons on the castle, and your hand cannoneers or whatever to fend
off the enemy's ranged units. This battle can take surprisingly long, but
concentrate on the castle and the unit production buildings first, and it
should have a happy ending. All that remains is to explore the surrounding
area for those pesky peasants who will try hard to start up a new base to the
south.
If you're lucky, there will be a big batch of stone among the ruins.
ATTACKING THE RED BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Take out the two red towers over the river, then send through whatever combat
units you have amassed. Heading south west is suicide, since this is where all
the main fortifications are. Much easier to head north, taking out towers as
you encounter them, and all the way around the top of the map, past the
castle, until you come to the back gate. Make sure you have your trade cart
with you, then just bash through the gate and walls with everything you've
got. It should not be hard to distract the enemy while your trade cart rolls
up to the flag, at which point the level ends, along with the Joan Of Arc
campaign.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The southern Burgundy base is the best site for your own first base.
Do not allow your trade cart to be destroyed - if you get a DEFEATED message
without knowing why, it's probably because of this.
Sacrifice your starting combat units to make room for peasants.
If you want to build up your base quicker, as well as go over your pop. limit
later, don't pick up the artillery until later.
Attack the orange base through the easternmost gate.
The red base is a joke if you sneak around the back and send your cart through
while the rest of your units provide a distraction.
---------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬--------------------------------
2.3 SALADIN
---------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬--------------------------------
This campaign can be surprisingly difficult in places, given that it's the
third of five.
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2.3.1 AN ARABIAN KNIGHT
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Defeat the Franks west of Cairo.
---
Fend off the first attack by the blue scouts, then take everyone east to the
coast. Follow the coast down, running into very little trouble on the way.
Eventually you will come to a larger encampment at the south end of the river,
guarded by knights, crossbowmen and axemen. Group your units intelligently and
beating these guys should result in few friendly casualties.
Head over the bridge to meet the last of the blues. The Egyptians have
probably changed stance to enemy by now, which means you're going to have to
get rid of the bunch of red units who will come out of the city and onto the
middle island. Take them down without going too far east yet. You have to
threaten the Egyptian mosque in the northern end of their city, which means
breaking through the gates. You get a free cannon galleon, which you can send
north along the coast to explore the western walls and find out where the
towers are. You should also use your cannon galleon to take out that first red
tower behind the southern gate, before you send your ground units through it
(you'll have to destroy the gate too, unless you can inveigle everyone through
when an enemy unit opens it from the inside).
By the way, if you destroy that blue blacksmith on the island you get a free
chain barding armour upgrade.
When taking your units through the Egyptian city try sticking to the middle -
too far west gets you within range of towers, too far east takes you too near
more towers and a castle. It's not hard to make it up there with hardly any
injuries, and when you run into a solitary monk in front of a gate you're
nearly there. When this monk falls the Egyptians become your friends again, so
it might be a good idea to send just one unit all the way up there on his own
and kill the monk without endangering everyone else. Then the rest of your
units can pass through the city unharmed.
Your units can now get through the red gates, which is nice since you've just
been handed a lot more units, including a ram. Take everyone through the north
east gate and out into the desert. You now have to defeat the turquoise Franks
to the south east, and it will be much easier if your siege units remain
intact. They have a siege workshop and a town centre surrounded by widely
spaced towers. They also have quite a lot of units, including mangonels.
I like to attack one of the towers and then fall back, letting the Franks
come to me, way beyond the protective range of their towers. They will empty
their base, and if you are stationed far enough away you can mop up the
turquoise knights well before the mangonels and pikemen reach you. With all
their units gone, you can then send your ram to break down the town centre on
its own.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Protect your siege units.
Destroy the island blacksmith for an armour upgrade.
Send one solo unit to the mosque to kill the red monk - this will save your
other units some trouble.
Don't attack the Frankish base by piling all your units in - attack then
retreat, drawing their units away from their towers.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.3.2 LORD OF ARABIA
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Defeat Reynald's pirates.
Defeat Reynald's raiders.
Do not allow your allies of Aqaba and Medina to be defeated.
---
There's nothing particularly hard about the beginning of this level - just
build up equal numbers of farmers and lumberjacks quickly, then gold miners.
The best defense of this base is just to ring the town bell whenever enemies
appear, then suck the enemies towards the centre with your mounted units.
You'll be getting attacked from the north quite often, and also sometimes from
the west, where the blue base will drop units off from boats. A castle on the
western edge of your settlement should deal with them easily, while a few
towers and scattered units will sort out attacks from the north.
Unfortunately you do not have a lot of stone, so research cartography from
your market so you can see what your allies see. Don't worry about your allies
by the way - they will hardly ever be under serious attack, and you can
basically ignore their constant pleas for help. Get a stone mine going next to
the south east allied base, and your own base should progress nicely.
By the way, your allies will occasionally gift you some resources. They will
also keep complaining about being under attack, even after you get rid of the
raiders. Ignore the idiots.
ATTACKING THE TURQUOISE BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is extremely easy. I had a group of knights, a group of mamelukes
(castle), a few monks and five rams. Use mamelukes to mop up while your rams
hit their southern gate. Take out the tower next with the rams, and fend off
more archers with everyone now inside their walls. The archery is to the north
and it should be the next target, followed by the town centre. Get rid of the
remaining two towers while your mamelukes and knights take out the rest of the
peasants. There might be more peasants hiding outside in the desert (try next
to the stone deposits), and once they're gone the raiders will resign.
ATTACKING THE BLUE BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The pirates are in the west, across the water, and you'll have to build
transport ships to get over there.
But first, a few things to tie up on your side of the water. There is a couple
of stone deposits in the north, past the turquoise base, and a relic between
the yellow and turquoise walls, by the trees. Across in the middle stretch of
land, which can be reached via the river crossing in the north, there is more
stone and gold, as well as a walled off area full of red raiders. Get rid of
the crossbowmen and the mangonel so you can access the gold. The pirates have
a mini base down to the south of this island, with a tower, some houses and a
dock. Finally, to get your ships up and running, try building your dock in the
very northern end of the river, just around the crossing. Your dock will be
attacked right away, as well as your ships, so make sure your dock is north of
some fortifications. I like to build a castle right on the coastline so that
any passing galleons will be shot down before they reach my dock.
To take out the pirates' base, just get all your units to the southern tip of
the western island and head north, getting rid of buildings as you find them.
There are some towers, and you will probably be hassled by galleons, but
nothing major. Keep your units together, your rams protected and everyone away
from the beach, and you should have little trouble dealing with the blue base,
including the castle. Since they're a sea-faring bunch, the pirates actually
have very few ground units - I just ran into some knights and that was it.
You might want to build about ten galleons to clear out the seas of enemy
galleons before you transport your units across to the pirates' island, but
this will probably necessitate killing off some of your own land units to make
room. It will make traversing the sea much safer, but it's up to you.
To get rid of the pirates for good, wipe out all their buildings then hunt
around for any stray peasants or ships. There are lots of fishing boats
around, and sometimes the pirates send one or two peasants to the beach just
west of your main base, where they just stand doing nothing.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Use your starting units and the town bell for early base defense.
There is plenty of gold and stone on your island, and more gold can be gained
via trade carts.
Ignore your allies' cries for help - they're in no danger.
Attack the turquoise base as soon as you have a decent strike force - there's
no point hanging around.
Defend your dock by placing it in a site where enemy ships will have to pass
close by to a castle or towers.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.3.3 THE HORNS OF HATTIN
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 2/3
Objectives:
Capture the Piece of the True Cross (a relic) and return it to the Horns of
Hattin (marked by flags).
---
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
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This is a very tricky level, but it's one where it helps to bear your main
objective in mind. You don't have to wipe out all your enemies, just find the
relic and bring it back to your base. But first you're going to have to get up
a decent base, and this is one level where you have to defend almost totally
through units.
Get all your starting peasants in the north base to collect the mutton from
the sheep, and use the food to produce lumberjacks. Set up a lumber operation
on the northern corner of your base, where there are plenty of trees, then
produce a few more peasants as gold miners. There is a batch of gold along the
eastern edge of the map - just send the peasants along and down the little
archipelago to find it.
The southern base is not really worth worrying about - I tend to get the three
peasants there to mine the gold, and also build a monastery once you're at the
castle age. The monks can capture any enemies who might attack the palisade
walls (including the knight Reynald de Chatillon), but most attacks will be
launched at the northern base.
Your market can help give you any resources you're short of, since you should
have plenty of gold for quite a while.
As I said, defending this base is reliant on units, and so the quicker you can
get into the castle age (sorry, no castles, towers or stone walls allowed in
this level), the better. I rely on skirmishers and knights to take care of
whatever enemies break through the south western palisade walls, as well as a
few monks to capture enemy knights. The town bell can help deal with any who
get through, and your mangonel can do a job on units lurking beyond your
walls.
One thing I thought I'd note: I'm not a fan of scorpions at all, but almost
all your enemies will be streaming through a tiny gap in the wooden palisade
wall at the southern edge of your north base. Sitting four or five stationary
scorpions within range of this gap might be a good move, since every enemy
passing through the gap will get hit by multiple bolts at once.
RETRIEVING THE RELIC
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
You'll just have to concentrate on building up your forces inside your
northern walls and deal with enemies as and when they break through. Your goal
is to have enough units to continually defend your base, while also looking
for the relic. Your job might be made a bit easier if you can take out the red
British base to the south east. They have some scorpions and quite a lot of
crossbowmen, but taking out the archeries and town centre with rams while your
knights get rid of any ground units and the siege workshop should be enough.
You might have a hard time tracking down the last of the British units, since
they'll have stray peasants all over the place trying to re-establish the
base. Just keep scouting around with knights while everyone else defends your
own walls, and eventually you should clear out the last of the red units.
The relic you need is in the northwest of the map, in a double-walled compound
defended by monks. Unfortunately the Hospitallers and the Knights Templar have
bases nearby, so you're going to have to break through those difficult bases
before you can get to the relic. That is unless you knock down the wooden
palisade wall at the north west corner of your own base and sneak some forces
around the back.
I took two monks, a couple of mangonels, a handful of knights and a few
skirmishers along the northern edge of the map, encountering hardly any
resistance. Don't get your guys to shoot at any peasants they pass, and the
enemies should not be alerted to your presence. Take out the monks inside the
walls with your skirmishers, while your mangonels knock down the walls. The
Hospitallers will be alerted and send a few units to try to stop you, but take
them down with your escorts, while your monk grabs the relic and takes it
home. Remember you're taking the relic to the pavilion surrounded by flags in
the middle of your base, not your monastery.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Stone is useless in this level, so don't bother buying any.
The space in your pop. limit taken up by the five or so peasants whom you
would usually have gathering stone is free here - use those slots for more
defenders.
Rely on ranged units and knights to defend your base - most attacks will come
through the exact same section of wall, making scorpions probably your best
option.
Wiping out the red base as soon as possible will make things easier.
The relic is easier to get by sneaking around the back than it is by steaming
through two heavily guarded enemy bases.
Reynald de Chatillon will attack your southern base near the start - if you
can capture him with monks your southern base should be left alone from then
on, and he is a very useful unit to have.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.3.4 THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Do not allow any Jerusalem Monastery or the Dome of the Rock to be destroyed.
Destroy the 5 towers defending Jerusalem so that Saladin's army can occupy the
city.
---
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The best way to win this level is with a very well protected base, and it just
so happens that you have everything you need close by to get one up and
running quickly. There's stone just north of where you start, and some nice
cliff edges for you to base your walls and towers around. Explore to the north
west and south east of where you start, and plan your walls accordingly,
making sure you leave enough room for all the buildings you'll need as well as
two or even three castles. Pretty soon you'll be under attack from all angles,
so try to make sure that the first thing enemies encounter is a castle and /
or towers. Beyond this, it's up to you how you build your base.
You will eventually run out of gold and stone, and the nearest, most easy to
access deposits are to the south east. Explore and you should find batches of
both, with little chance that the enemy will try to take your new mining
operations out. Might be worth putting a tower next to each mining camp you
build though, just in case.
The game tells you to take out both the inferior enemy camps before going for
Jerusalem itself, but this isn't really necessary. Once you have enough of a
force for an attack, taking down the orange base to the west is extremely
easy, but not essential, since the enemy will just be launching lots of
fruitless attacks against your castles and towers.
The yellow and orange bases are heavy on peasants, obviously designed not to
really do you any damage but mostly to just get in your way while you attack
Jerusalem, and also to eat up resources. There is a relic in a walled square
at the back of the orange base to the west.
ATTACKING THE TOWERS OF JERUSALEM
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Bear in mind that all you have to do to win is to knock down the five towers,
all of which are on the perimeter wall. So gather together lots of mamelukes
and knights, plus a few monks and trebuchets, and just saunter around the
outer walls, knocking out each tower as you find it with the trebuchets while
everyone else defends the siege weapons. Make sure your trebuchets don't take
out the Dome or the monasteries and this should be easy.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
A walled off base with two or three castles behind it is crucial to winning
this level.
Make sure you leave no holes in your walls on the north west or south east
approaches to your base.
Just one bombard cannon inside your walls, behind your castles, can take care
of all enemy siege weapons.
Mamelukes are fantastic for every aspect of this level - build as many as you
can.
A bunch of well-escorted trebuchets can knock out the towers easily, winning
this level in no time.
There are lots of unguarded resources to the south and east of this level.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.3.5 JIHAD!
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 2/3
Objectives:
Defeat any 2 of the 3 Crusader cities: Tiberias, Tyre, Ascalon.
---
This mission has two timers on it from the beginning to make it more
difficult, and it's also a very definite siege level, with your enemies
holding most of the cards. Don't worry about your allies however - as far as I
know they never get attacked. I've given this level two out of three because
it's so much easier if you build an intelligent defense and send out recon
troops.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.6 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
WILLIAM SULLIVAN <
[email protected]>
"In the level Jihad! it is possible to build a wonder for an easy victory. You
probably will have to take out the orange's wonder first but if you get it up
and defend it for 350 years, then you won't have to eliminate Tiberias or
Tyre."
---
Thanks, I never think of building a wonder unless it's an actual objective, so
this should make the mission easier, if also more boring.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.6 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
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First things frickin' last. Get your fishing ships busy immediately and put up
another four or five farms near your mill. Next produce some lumberjacks. You
may have noticed the less-than-abundant trees inside your walls; you may also
have noticed your allies' town to the north east. This would be a charming
place to site your lumber and stone operations, since your peasants will be
out of the way of enemies and won't have to hang around just outside your
northern walls to work. Get seven or so lumberjacks up there as soon as you
can and get them to the trees west of your allies' town. There is stone
directly south of their market, so get some peasants started there too. You
might even want to build a new town centre up there, though I haven't done
this. The gold you'll be using first is at the southern point of your main
base.
Here are some priorities for you:
Build a castle. You can actually do this pretty quickly thanks to the fact
that you have so many buildings given to you already, including a market.
Building a castle just south of your archery is a good idea, and it will do
you a lot of favours. I also like to build a second castle right next to my
docks, because these will be under serious fire later and ships just won't be
good enough, especially since you'll be needing so many land units.
Build at least ten knights. The land units attacking you will include all
sorts of delights, and knights are versatile and quick enough to deal with all
of them. I'd especially recommend skirting around the perimeter of your base
so that you can see enemy squadrons coming, because many of the enemies won't
actually switch to attack stance until they reach your walls, even if you
attack them pre-emptively on the way. It's always so much nicer to get rid of
four mangonels and two trebuchets before they start shooting back.
Pick up the relics. You can't exactly get the one in the western end of the
blue base at the moment, but the one north of your allies' town will do nicely
when you get a monastery up.
The only yellow ships which will give you real trouble are the bombard ships,
which is why you should always have some galleons next to your docks. Use the
galleons to draw these particular enemy ships into range of one or both of
your castles and your towers.
Anyway, the oranges in the south will start building a wonder sooner or later,
before anyone attacks you. By this time you should have all your peasants and
your knights ready, and should be building a castle, preferably the one which
will be dealing with the eastern attacks - the ships come a bit later from the
west and north. That wonder makes the oranges your first priority, and you
will be needing mostly trebuchets and knights, and mamelukes if you have a
castle.
There's no rush and you'll have to fend off a few attacks from all directions
first, but don't leave it too late. Your first batch of knights will probably
get defeated through defending your base, but you should have the resources to
build more anyway. The Tripoli guards will resign once their first attack is
wiped out, but be on the lookout for mangonels and rams from the east.
I'd also recommend that you wait for your castle to be built and then just
concentrate on mamelukes for your ranged units - I tend to ignore the archery.
Keep building up your forces as you see fit, but make certain you have some
galleons or war galleys. Try not to go overboard on towers in this level - the
stone is pretty limited for a while. Just rely on a couple of castles, and
mobile units ready to draw enemies towards them.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.6 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
pull tiger <
[email protected]>
"this may be really obvious but ive found a way to make the jihad!!! level a
ton easier. i beat the level on only the third try and the attacking troops
hadnt even got anywhere near my wonder, they hadnt even made much of a threat
at any of my buildings
the way i did it was there are three ridges that provide access to your
fortress. i quickly got villagers building walls here and i basically blocked
up these ridges with walls 4 deep. I then built some towers either side of
these to draw some of the fire and then placed some of those cannon guysaround
this area as well to take out the trebuchets that they throw at you. i then
had to block up the beach area to the top left hand area of the fort next to
the river, again, walls 4 deep. you then need to make sure the area to the
right of your fort is taken care of as a lot of soldiers keep coming through
here but the trees slow down their progress, you can put your ships in the bay
here to attack the people as they come through, although any troops in this
area will get pounded from the ridge above.
like i said this may be totally obvious but i beat the level in about 40 mins
on my third try and pretty much started building the wonder straight away."
---
I don't know why it didn't occur to me to use guiding walls in this level - I
certainly used them in other levels. But if you can stream your enemies to one
or two points and have towers or ships there waiting for them then this level
will, as you say, get much easier. Cheers.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.6 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
ATTACKING THE ORANGE BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Nothing too hard here, though try attacking their north eastern gate, as the
other one is too close to their ships. Take out the towers first, and send
knights and mamelukes in to clear out the mangonels and various other land
units - there should not be many, as this base is mostly defended by towers.
Once you've gotten rid of the last of these, get your trebuchets to knock out
the wonder inside the walls. The oranges will only be defeated when you wipe
out the units next to the wonder, as well as the last of their ships.
You have now defeated Ascalon, which leaves you with only one other of your
enemies to vanquish in order to complete the mission.
Incidentally the Tiberians may have offered you a truce if you tribute 1000
gold to them, but sod that. Well, it gives you a bit of respite while you
rebuild your forces, but... it gives your enemy 1000 gold. It's up to you. You
will almost certainly have run out of the first stocks of gold and stone by
now anyway, but there is plenty more gold and a little more stone to be found
on the mainland. Just scout around north and east and buy stone from the
market if necessary.
ATTACKING THE BLUE BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The yellow base is to the north. It's tiny and it's an island, but attacking
an island surrounded by bombard towers is not a lot of fun. Another
interesting thing is that the yellows have very little wood on their island
and will soon run out, leaving them unable to build more ships. But the blues
are directly east, and who wants to have to build five or more transport
ships? So let's attack the blues instead.
Find the forest due south of your allies' base and follow it down until you
meet the blue castle. They have a couple of other castles - one on the south
western approach to the base and one away to the east beside some gold, but
once you've taken care of the castles the blues really have very little else
that can't be easily slaughtered by mamelukes and knights. From there it's
just a case of systematically slaying their peasants until they resign.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Use your allies' base for stone and lumber operations.
Two castles - one on the east, one on the west - will be very helpful.
As much as you might dislike building ships, have about eight galleons at all
times and upgrade them when you can.
Use scouts to warn you of incoming attacks - this virtually halves this
level's difficulty.
Elite mamelukes, trebuchets and monks are all you really need versus the
oranges and blues.
There are two relics - one north of the allies' base, the other in the blue
base.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.3.6 THE LION AND THE DEMON
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 3/3
Objectives:
Construct a wonder and defend it.
---
Oh God. This level is hellish, and whatever you do you'll have great
difficulty.
Firstly, there's only really one place to build your wonder, and that's at the
back of your base, next to your gold and stone deposits. Try to build it
outside the walls and it will attract immediate attention from virtually every
enemy unit, and there are four different sets of enemies in this level, all of
whom will send very varied squadrons at you, including every type of siege
weapon (except maybe scorpions).
Of course, this will also be true if you build it inside the city walls, but
at least that way you can defend it. Speaking of defense, your first castle
will not be enough - I'd recommend at least one more against the east wall, as
well as a lot of towers and maybe a second layer of wall. Inside your castles
should be either mamelukes or knights or both, since you're going to be
running around outside the walls a lot to mop up all those trebuchets and
bombard cannons. The fact that your base only begins with two gates and
neither are on the east wall is a pain in the arse, but if the enemies manage
to knock a gigantic hole in that wall put a gate in it, since this makes it a
lot easier to deal with the attacks from that direction. If you've first
gotten rid of the trees that is.
Of the four resources you'll need, wood is the most difficult to come by.
There is plenty of stone and gold - so much that you can start building your
wonder right away if you like living dangerously. Be aware that the level
gives you a little time at the beginning to prepare, but not if you
immediately start on the wonder - then it's on for real.
For peasants, have about eight or nine farming around your town centre,
another seven or eight on lumber (within the walls, unfortunately), and about
six or seven each on stone and gold. You get four fishing ships but these are
very slow and they take up valuable space in your pop. limit, so scuttle them
if you want. You will hardly ever be attacked by ships, if at all, so that's
some comfort at least.
You need a constant influx of all four resources to keep on top of this level,
so take care of your peasants, especially the vulnerable lumberjacks against
that south east wall.
As for combat units, I rely almost totally on knights and mamelukes for
mopping up, with a few monks inside the walls for healing. The only useful
siege weapons here are bombard cannons, which are unfortunately the only ones
you can't build from the beginning. Which brings me to another point - most
university upgrades are already done, but get chemistry underway as soon as
possible so that you can build the bombard cannons. They are invaluable for
counteracting the enemy from all directions.
Don't even think about attacking any of the four enemies. I have successfully
taken down the greys in the south about halfway through the level, but once
their castle was down and they were defeated, my own units were so depleted
that the remaining three enemies took my base out easily, and I lost the whole
thing. Better to keep your units healthy and safe inside your walls, and take
a purely defensive stance throughout.
You can try attacking one of the enemies as soon as the level starts, with the
blues or yellows being the closest and 'easiest'. I have tried this about ten
times, and have not succeeded once. They have too many mobile units and
towers, they keep ringing the town bell every time you approach one of their
peasants, and all my starting forces were taken out every time, leaving me
with nothing with which to defend the base. Don't bother - stay inside your
own base and wait.
There's not a lot else I can tell you here. Just make sure resources are
coming in constantly, especially stone for those towers and repairs - and try
not to over-complicate things by experimenting with different defensive units.
Upgrade when you can at the various buildings, and do NOT let any of your
castles fall. They are critically important through the whole level. The
Accursed Tower is also really nice - try not to let it fall, since it is
better in every way than your usual towers (except for garrison capacity).
Finally, the wonder. Building it at the beginning of the level makes life
instantly difficult, usually before you have had time to upgrade or add units
or anything else at all. But then the quicker you get it built the quicker the
timer will run down. On the other hand, building it later, once your base is
relatively prepared, allows you to defend it all the easier. But by then you
have a lot less gold, stone and wood inside your walls, and you'll have
trouble if you run out altogether of any of them.
The only happy fact from all this is that getting the wonder built is the hard
part. It takes frigging epochs to build, even with about thirty peasants
bashing away, but once it's up the timer runs down surprisingly quickly in
this level. By the time mine reached zero, my wonder was under heavy attack,
my walls and all my units were gone, as well as all my castles and most of my
other buildings. The enemies don't seem to rush straight to the wonder, which
gives you a little more respite. Try surrounding it with at least one layer of
wall while you're building it - this should give you even more time.
But as I said, this level is a killer whatever you do, so don't be surprised
if you only just make it and no more. Or if you don't make it at all...
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.6 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
WILLIAM SULLIVAN <
[email protected]>
"There is a much easier and painless way of beating the Lion and the Demon on
the Saladin campaign. If you explore west with your ships you might find a
small island with one tree and some gold. There is a small hump on the south
tip of the island. If you have your peasants clear the gold and the tree on
the hump, then you can build your wonder on this hump. Use your remaining
resources to build a castle and a small navy on the island to defend against
the enemy ships. You should win the level with no problem."
Larry Neer <
[email protected]>
"I took the coward's way out on this scenario. Since it just says to build and
defend a wonder, I built my wonder on the largish island about in the middle-
west of the ocean. Only one of the foes has a navy and they weren't hard to
fight off.
First thing I deleted most of the houses. The city has many, many more houses
than you need. Getting rid of most of them lets your troops move around inside
the walls a lot better and also lets you farm inside the town. BTW - this also
works in 2.2.2 The Maid of Orleans
Grew my economy and land forces as fast as possible. Also built a navy of
maybe 18 galleys. Also fought off the various attacks from the land-based
forces. Once my economy was going good and the attacks on the city were
becoming harsh I moved 12 peasants to the island with gold and mined the gold
on the south half of the island. Once that gold was gone I had room for a
wonder.
Meanwhile I was careful to defend the island from sea attacks and defended as
best as possible at the city. Also build a dock on the island and kept
building new ships until my supplies ran out.
The city eventually fell - every single stone gone except for one half-burned
gate they left standing. I think I counted 18 trebs hitting me at one point.
Before they got to my market I sold everything of to maximize the amount of
wood and gold to make more galleys with. Spammed galleys after that to keep
the (yellow?) navy away until the clock ran down. Finally won with 12
peasants, one wonder, maybe a dozen ships, one dock, and hardly any supplies
left."
---
If only all really tough missions were this easy. Thanks :)
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.6 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
QUICK HELP
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Pray.
Get peasants up and running as soon as possible - get all four resources in
fast.
Knights, mamelukes, monks, bombard cannons, towers and castles - build nothing
else.
You may not use any of your ships - scuttle them to make room if so.
You start with a lot of wood which you won't be needing for anything other
than farms and bombard cannons, since you have been given almost every
building. Sell some at the market.
Concentrate on creating units first - deal with upgrades later, when you can
afford them.
When sending out knights and mamelukes to take out enemy siege weapons outside
your walls, target the siege weapons only, then retreat. Don't get into a
scrap with anyone else - that's how you lose your entire force.
Draw enemies into range of your castles, as usual.
The castle upgrade, hoardings, can buy you a little more time.
Try not to lose the Accursed Tower.
When building your wonder, get every single one of your peasants on the job.
Enemy siege weapons will generally target the closest building, which should
always be a tower. Build towers, then more towers - it will make life so much
sweeter. And keep repairing them.
-------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬-----------------------------
2.4 GENGHIS KHAN
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This is what I call a campaign! The last three or four levels of this campaign
are unforgettable classics.
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2.4.1 THE CRUCIBLE
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Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Ride forth to each of the Mongol tribes and convince them to join the Khan's
army. Make an example of any tribes which openly war against you.
---
This level is so simple it doesn't really even deserve one out of three for
difficulty.
The level starts once the guy finishes his Sean-Connery-with-an-aneurism
impression. Head north to the grey encampment and find out that they want a
relic. Can't do that right now, since you need a monk to pick up relics.
Head north east and pick up the sheep, then farther north to the blue
encampment. They want twenty sheep, so donate the six you just found, as well
as the eight which can be found north west, north and north east of the blue
camp. This brings your total to fourteen. The remainder are best obtained from
the red palisade to the north east of the blue camp, though you will have to
fight off three red cavalry archers. Once you have sent the blues these twenty
sheep (send them to the flagged area) they will give you six cavalry archers
and two monks, while all the sheep mysteriously dematerialise, as sheep will.
By the way, the monks will heal you even before you bring them sheep.
From here, head down to the green camp to the south west. They will ask you to
vanquish their far off enemies, but ignore them, change your stance from ally
to attack and wipe them out. This will save you a hike later. Convert a couple
if you can.
Next, head way over to the eastern edge of the map and to the pink camp. Avoid
the red outpost by the river to the south. When you approach the pinks, they
should realise that you have vanquished the greens, which is what they would
have asked you to do anyway. They give you more cavalry archers, and now we
only have two camps still to deal with. Now for that relic.
North of the pink camp is a red enclosure, heavily guarded. This contains a
relic, but there's a much easier one available by following the cliffs around
to the south until you come to the one by the trees, guarded by three wolves.
Send a monk in and grab it - the wolves didn't attack my monk - and send your
monk all the way back to the grey base who want it, avoiding that red outpost
on the way.
While your monk is doing this, send the other monk and all your horsemen down
to the light blue base. They ask you to remove Ornlu the wolf, who can be
found among his pack to the south east - follow the cliffs up and around.
Target 400HP Ornlu with everyone you have, then kill the rest if you can be
bothered. You might lose a couple of units, but so what? Unfortunately none of
the wolves can be converted by your monks.
While your other monk is taking the relic to the grey monastery in order to be
gifted with mangudai, get your heroes back to the light blues to receive their
equally obsolete reward of flaming arrows and five camels. I'd have preferred
five arrows and some flaming camels. Once both these things are done the level
is over.
This is the quickest and most direct way I can come up with for completing
this rambling RPG-type level with as little hassle as possible.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
You can attack friendlies by opening the alliance menu and changing from ally
to enemy.
Monks are the best scouts to warn you of nearby reds.
Allied monks can heal your wounded units.
The relic must be placed inside the grey monastery to be accepted.
Sheep can make themselves invisible at will.
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2.4.2 A LIFE OF REVENGE
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Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Prevent the tent of Genghis Khan (Wonder) from being destroyed.
Kill the traitor Kushluk.
---
That's one hell of a bloody tent. A 'World Ranger Storm Buster 4' is usually
good enough for me.
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
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Don't worry about your wonder: not only will the enemies rarely attack it,
they have no unit available that can do it serious damage. Of more pressing
concern is building a defensible base. Follow the advice and head north,
killing the handful of cavalry archers guarding the yellow base. This done,
the base becomes yours, with seven peasants thrown in.
Explore the surrounding area while you build your base. There's lumber to the
east, gold to the north and stone to the west. The deer are handy for early
food. You will be under attack from the red base to the west, but the first
wave will approach the wonder first, and will probably succeed in taking down
the houses around it. The town bell is your best defense for a long time, but
concentrate on getting your own combat units sorted and developing towards
building a stone wall and a few towers around your base to do the thing
properly.
ATTACKING THE RED BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
It's not that the red base is hard to defeat; it's just that you have to
achieve it with such crappy units of your own. Anyway, once you have a decent
complement of melee and ranged units (no siege weapons available), head west
and take out all the enemy combat units first. Hunt down the peasants next,
until they're all gone. Some may be working way to the south east, but finding
them won't be hard. Attacking the red base is much easier if you have more
units queued in your archery and stable, ready to head for assembly points
which you have placed in the heart of the red base.
KILLING KUSHLUK
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Wouldn't you know it: Kushluk scarpered immediately, as soon as he saw you
attacking the reds. Now he's hiding away to the west, in a seriously well
guarded base. You can explore it if you want by using a monk to convert one of
the scouts who keep floating past on the other side of that palisade wall,
then sending the converted unit in to die.
The worst thing you can do at this point is break that wall. It's not
defending your enemies, it's defending you.
The best thing you can do is build a castle right next to it. This manouevre
is known as 'flushing the Kush'. OK, it isn't really. But whatever you want to
call it, Kushluk will idiotically head straight for that walled enclosure, to
within range of your castle, which should have as many units as possible
garrisoned inside it. Three seconds later he's dead and you've won, and all
those green units and buildings away to the west are left scratching their
collective arse and wondering where they went wrong.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Ignore your wonder.
Ring the town bell until you have walls and towers up.
Wait until the reds attack you and get mowed down by your towers, then
counter-attack their depleted base.
Kushluk can be done to death just by building one castle next to the walled
enclosure.
An attack on the green base is a bad idea.
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2.4.3 INTO CHINA
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 2/3
Objectives:
Conquer the Tanguts, Hsi Hsia, Jin and Sung.
---
This is just an incredible level from start to finish, one of the most
memorable of the whole game.
There is a problem with this level, since even after you've defeated the four
enemies mentioned in the objectives it still won't end. You also have to
defeat the Engineers, who are in dark blue.
Take all your starting units and head south east, sticking to the edge of the
map until you reach the river. A little west you can pick up a necessary
transport ship, which should be used to convey everyone across to the other
bank. Send everyone south and kill off the Engineer guards. When you head
farther south you are given a mangonel, a ram and six peasants. You can save
yourself some trouble later by killing off the last of the Engineers now - you
don't need to raze the buildings, just the peasants. Don't be decoyed too far
west though - there is an enemy tower over the crossing.
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Back to the ship and across to where you came from, then take everyone north
and look for a nice starting point for a base. There is gold and stone around,
as well as lumber to the north and south of this area. I recommend putting
your base as far north as possible, but with your town centre the southernmost
of your buildings. You will need the town bell to fend off early attacks from
enemy units, and also as many of your starting units remaining as possible to
deal with the rams. If your town centre is the first building the attackers
encounter, having come from the south, the others can remain unmolested.
Your plan here should be to get a castle up as quickly as possible, situated
somewhere next to the big clump of trees to the south. There is gold to the
east of these trees too, and you will want to enclose both behind walls.
Before enemies meet your miners and lumberjacks working in these areas, they
should run into at least one nice big castle and some towers and walls in
front.
The castle is doubly important: it will defend against numerous attacks from
lots of different types of units, and constantly; and it will also allow you
to build trebuchets. Send some trebuchets to the northernmost point of the
Great Wall just beyond the confines of your own base, and use them to knock
down the nearest towers, followed by the wall itself. You want to bash a big
enough hole to allow one of your units through to the other side, where they
will run into a couple of Engineers' buildings and some free bombard cannons,
which will be extremely useful to you. Plug that hole with your own wall once
you have the bombard cannons safely inside your base.
About the Wall: there are towers all the way along it, and it is always at
least three layers deep. Trebuchets and bombard cannons make short work of the
towers, though the walls take longer. My advice would be to avoid knocking any
holes in the wall, other than the one you made to get the bombard cannons </pre><pre id="faqspan-3">
earlier. There are actually two gates in the wall, though you can only see the
one to the west. The second one is more to the south, and it is vertically
aligned so that it's invisible. I tend to block up the western gate with my
own walls and make sure there are no other holes in the Wall, so that my
enemies all come through the other gate, at which point they run into my
towers and castles. Your fortifications will always take a localised beating
if you do this, but if you funnel your stupid enemies through one gate, you
can never be taken by surprise.
ATTACKING THE YELLOW BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The Jin (yellow) have to be your first target, since they're the only ones
smart enough to attempt construction of a wonder. This puts an annoying timer
on the level which you really could do without, but with this guide in front
of you you can't go wrong. No, you can't.
Get up a good force of knights, mangudai and trebuchets, with some monks
thrown in for much needed support. It is also a very good idea to send at
least one peasant with these guys, since reinforcements are much easier to
obtain when you don't have to send them across an entire map and two guarded
rivers.
Use that transport ship you got at the start to send trebuchets over to the
island where the blue Engineer base used to be. Get them to knock out that
pesky tower to the west, then bring everyone else over on the same boat. Get
everyone down to the southern edge of this island, while your ship makes its
own way down the river to meet them on the southern coast.
At this point you can either build a dock and create more transport ships
(and upgrade them), or you can just use that single one you were given to take
everyone down to the southern island, where the Jin reside. Your ships will be
attacked by Jin galleons, but it's up to you.
Whatever you do, your forces should end up on the south island, right on the
eastern edge of the map, by a forest and a little pool. Head right down to the
south east corner of the map - here is a good place to build a stable,
archery, etc. A castle is maybe a bit overkill, since you'll be attacking the
Jin and they'll be defending - not the other way around. Build one if you have
tons of stone and if it makes you feel any safer.
The point is that you should have a decent force with which to attack the Jin
base, with the capability of sending in quick reinforcements of each type,
should your first lot fall in battle (which they will). Send your guys
cautiously west - you will be met with some knights, then a wall, then a gate,
then four towers. Deal with each in turn, bashing the towers floorwards with
trebuchets while everyone else protects your siege weapons from the Jin who
will be flowing through the gate. Once these towers are gone, take out the
gate and head inside. There are two more towers along the north wall, and lots
more Jin to deal with. Get your trebuchets started on the wonder while
everyone else defends. Once the wonder is gone you can breathe easy, even if
your entire strike force was wiped out. The buildings you built to the east
should be able to produce units enough to take care of the rest of the Jin
base, though you may have to send trebuchets or bombard cannons over from your
northern island to deal with the numerous towers, as well as the castle to the
south. If you can take out all the Jin peasants the towers and castle will
crumble, but do it however you want.
A few more things about this part of the level to note:
Don't leave your main base unguarded - keep at least some bombard cannons and
a few knights around multiple castles and towers while the rest of your guys
are away. It will still be under heavy attack and you will have to keep an eye
on it.
You might think that it will be easier to sneak your trebuchets and knights
along that southern wall of the Jin base and take them by surprise, but you
really won't. You might succeed in destroying the wonder from this vantage
point, but everyone will be bottlenecked and you'll be under more concentrated
attack from both front and rear than you would if you went in through the east
gate. Experiment though - as long as the wonder is wiped out, not much else
matters.
Don't relocate everyone to the Jin island once they're gone - the stone and
gold around won't last forever, and an island cut off from the rest of the
level is not a good launching point for an invasion. Transport ships take up
room in your pop. limit. Just set up some mining camps for the gold deposit
and the two batches of stone, as well as a lumber camp in the eastern forests,
since it's safer to get wood from here than in the north base.
ATTACKING THE GREEN BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
You can now destroy any surplus transport ships you may have made, but keep
one so that you can take a peasant from the Jin island north to the main land
mass, except that you are now inside the confines of the Great Wall. There are
lots of stone and gold to be had in the area due north west of where the Jin
had their dock, so building a mini base around here might not be a bad idea.
Keep away from the towers until you can take them down with trebuchets. This
is an excellent place from which to attack your remaining enemies, so relocate
to here, if anywhere.
I put up a castle, and behind it my mining camps and one of each unit
production building (except obviously a dock). If you follow my example, your
enemies will now mostly be attacking this new castle, which is easily
defensible with walls and towers. But you're going to be killing your enemies
off soon anyway, so don't go overboard - this level just got a bit easier.
On the other hand, the greens are the most difficult of your remaining enemies
to take down, simply because their main base is in a horribly advantageous
(for them) location. You're going to need a large force to get rid of that
castle, those trebuchets, those scorpions, those mangonels, all those melee
and ranged units, and every last one of those insanely irritating peasants. At
least they don't have any towers. Nope, I'm wrong.
After much experimentation, I just stuck with mangudai, trebuchets and monks,
and when they got killed I built more. Mangudai are at least as effective as
knights in general, and ranged units are just more useful at this point than
melee. Bear in mind that you should now have tons of at least two of the four
resources, and that you can easily sacrifice some peasants to make room for
combat units.
Heave whatever forces you can muster to the south west, where you will pass
some green peasants before discovering their castle and main base on a big
hill with a curvy, bottlenecked approach. Oh good, I like those. Your
trebuchets should target the castle as soon as they spot it, while everyone
else defends them. Mangudai can hit the enemy trebuchets in front of the
castle, but they'll have to do it while hitting everyone else as well. If you
have enough of them, and with monks behind them for healing, the greens should
eventually stop pouring down the hill, leaving you to go up and deal with the
town centre and some siege weapons. Trebuchets can wipe out everything up
here, while your other guys start trying to hunt down those peasants. There
will be some milling around and running off into the distance, but it's maybe
best to just forget about them for now while you deal with your next obstacle
- the reds.
ATTACKING THE RED BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is actually really easy with mangudai, monks and trebuchets, and if you
keep everyone together you should have very little trouble. Attack their base
from the east, since this is the only way you can get in at their town centre
and other buildings. They have a bottleneck on the river which actually suits
you more than them. Get your trebuchets to hit the outlying houses, then watch
as the reds pour across that little river crossing, right into the blades of
your mangudai. It's a massacre, and your guys are free to head west and
delete the red buildings still standing. Again, ignore any fleeing reds, as
there's not long to go now until the end.
ATTACKING THE LIGHT BLUE BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
You have two options with these guys - north or south. Either way, it's the
same as before, with monks healing your mangudai who are edging forward
gradually in a big group - or maybe two groups - taking out the enemy units
easily and quickly one by one as they get near enough. Trebuchets for the
buildings and the mangudai attacking the base while defending the trebuchets.
With this style of attack the last enemy base should offer little resistance.
Now all that remains is to finish this level off entirely, which means dealing
with those peasants who are still running around the countryside, trying to
begin new bases. Research espionage from a castle if you haven't already, and
get your mangudai on the case. Make sure you include the dark blue Engineers
in your culling activities, since you can't complete the level otherwise.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The Engineers' island is not a good site for your main base. Neither is the
eastern end of the Jin island. Neither has readily available stone or gold.
The town bell is useful for early defense, but you will still need ground
units to kill off the rams.
Build a castle as soon as possible and site it next to the big clump of trees.
Pick up the bombard cannons through the north end of the Great Wall,
preferably after you have hit your pop. limit.
Block off one of the enemy gates, forcing enemies to be fed through the other
one.
Build a mini base east of the Jin to make attack easier.
The Jin island is not a good place from which to attack your other enemies.
Control the gold and stone south of the eastern end of the Wall.
The simplest attacks are the best against the three enemies on the mainland.
Sacrifice peasants to make room for more combat units.
Research espionage to help finish the level.
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2.4.4 THE HORDE RIDES WEST
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Difficulty: 2/3
Objectives:
Subotai must survive.
In the north, deploy Subotai's horde to conquer Russia.
In the south, the Khwarazm shah is expecting a gift. But it is assassins he
will find in our Trade Carts. We must deliver the carts to the shah quickly,
before he breaks his alliance with us.
---
There are about four enemy bases in this game which can be nightmares to
attack, and this is one of them. The only reason this level doesn't get three
for difficulty is that it gets much easier once you figure out the best way
to do it.
You may have noticed that you have two bases, and you may be wondering how to
manage each one against the other. It would probably help to have clear goals,
so here they are.
Your northern base will be attacked first, and by a lot more units, and yet it
is easier to defend than the southern base. You will want to have lots of
combat units in the north, while hurrying to construct a castle in the south.
The castle is absolutely crucial if you want to keep your southern base (which
you do, since this is where the early gold and stone is), since the southern
base will easily be wiped out by war elephants if you don't have a castle to
occupy their attention.
But before you do all that, select your trade cart in the south and right
click on the revealed area in the yellow base to the west. You need to get
that cart over to the shah quickly, or they'll launch an attack you won't be
ready for. The cart will be allowed to pass, and when it reaches the shah two
swordsmen will jump out. At this point, it's important that you get them both
to attack and kill the shah, because if he lives the yellow retribution will
be much worse.
Here's what to do next: build five peasants from your southern town centre,
and the other three in the north with your starting food. Get all eight
peasants in the south mining the stone and gold, with more on the stone. You
want to build that castle as soon as you can, so you need to get from 200
stone to 650 quickly. Meanwhile take your northern combat units west and kill
off the two cavalry archers. This will gift you two archeries, a mill, a
market, a mining camp, some houses and a big batch of gold. Lovely.
Your northern peasants should start farming, bringing in more and more food
from which you can build more farmers, then lumberjacks. Then more miners in
the south, etc. I tend to stop at nine farmers and seven lumberjacks in the
north, and seven stone miners and six gold miners in the south. With any extra
food beyond that, build up combat units in the north, as well as a strong
base. Most of your attention will be on the north, since the south can take
care of itself once that castle's up.
Build the southern castle just to the west of the crop of gold you will find
along the road, but don't build it way west of your town centre. If you do
this, the elephants will just avoid it and knock out your town centre without
impediment, rendering the castle redundant. Build it in such a spot that
enemies attacking the southern base can't help running into it. You will also
probably want a monastery in the south, somewhere behind the castle, so that
you can create monks who can capture as many wonderful elephants as the yellow
guys can send your way. Build a university as well, since enemy war elephants
prefer your castle to not have the benefits of murder holes. Walls and towers
can help, but really it's mostly about having at least one castle to protect
your southern town centre. Make sure to keep your castle in good repair.
While the yellows are attacking your southern base, the reds are attacking the
north. The best they can do, however, is knights and rams and huskarls -
nothing difficult if you have walls and towers up around that freebie base you
were given. Make sure you scout out the forests around this base though, since
the reds will just go around your walls and head straight to the town centre
you started with. If they attack, make sure they go where you want them to go.
Make sure Subotai doesn't die in the north, or it's all over.
ATTACKING THE RED BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is painfully easy, and even easier if you wait until they launch a failed
attack against your own base. Head south west with knights and rams and ranged
units until you reach their castle (by the way, a castle in the north base is
a bit of a waste until the reds are actually gone). Hit the castle with your
rams, while everyone else protects them. The reds should have very few units
hanging around, and the remainder of their base should be a stroll to take
down. This will leave you with a nice, healthy crop of gold, if you don't
leave it too long to attack. By the way, there is another big deposit of gold
in the trees south of your two bases.
At this point, building a castle halfway down the western edge of the map, on
the dirt road, might not be a bad idea, though don't go too close to the
yellow walls to the south. If you do, they will attack your castle, and you
will not survive. Build the castle in a spot where it won't attract attention
but will still be a barrier against any yellow scouts who decide to come
north. Now you can basically forget about your northern base and concentrate
on the southern end.
ATTACKING THE YELLOW BASE
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This is much easier from the south than the north, so that's what we'll be
doing. At some much earlier point you probably reached your pop. limit, what
with having two bases and two defenses to deal with. That's OK, since the
yellows will still be throwing elephants uselessly against the walls of your
southern castle(s), allowing your monks to convert them, pop. limit be damned.
Having at least ten elephants in your southern squadron is a very good idea,
though you can technically keep nicking them for as long as you want. The
yellows can't go over their pop. limit, but you can so make them pay. Some
trebuchets also wouldn't hurt for this attack, and the rest should be
mangudai and / or knights (I prefer mangudai). You can even sacrifice some
of your northern units to make room for more in the south, since the northern
base is pretty superfluous from now on.
Anyway, I had at least ten elephants, lots of mangudai, some monks and a few
trebuchets in the south, and I sent them westwards to take out that gate and
the two towers. Through the gates you will encounter some knights, and maybe a
few gold-miners depending on how long you have waited. Farther west, the first
thing you will run into is a castle among some pillars. Behold, the place from
which the elephants were spawned! If you believe you have more than enough
elephants for now, take it down with trebuchets. Mangudai will make short
work of the knights who come to investigate. You may also draw the attention
of more elephants - convert as many as you can (one or two monks per
conversion) and delete the rest with your own elephants.
There are a few yellow buildings to the south of that castle, as well as a few
knights and peasants, but the main base is of course to the north. Head that
way until you reach the two towers guarding the gate. You could go that way,
but you're probably not an idiot. Do we want to go through a horrible
bottleneck with monks and towers and knights and elephants, or do we want to
go through the trees to the west, a route which offers a nice open avenue to
that wonder we want to destroy? I don't care, we're going through the trees.
The long-winded way is to bring over a peasant from your southern town centre
and erect a castle just behind the trees. This does tend to draw arrow-sharp
attention from every enemy in the vicinity however, so it might be better to
launch your offensive from here without the support of a castle. Either way is
good, so do what you think is best. I have noticed that the yellow base never
seems to stop sending more and more and more and more units against your
castle if you put it here or nearby, which makes it difficult to decide when
to mount your own attack. On the other hand, it's always nice to have a castle
right behind you, as well a nice source of more mangudai.
Anyway, to attack the wonder just push everyone forward, with your elephants
leading the way, mangudai right behind them, and monks right behind them.
Monks can convert enemy elephants or knights to begin with, then offer healing
when they run out of faith. Elephants should target enemy elephants, while
your mangudai deal with the knights and monks.
While all this is going on you should have planted your trebuchets and they
should be attacking the wonder from just behind the main battle. Keep
everyone occupied with your mangudai and elephants and the trebuchets should
have it done in no time, at which point you win.
QUICK HELP
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Just remember: units in the north, castle in the south.
Send your trade cart to the shah right at the start of the level, and make
sure the assassins succeed in killing him.
Subotai is in the north - don't be afraid to use him, but keep an eye on his
health.
Research murder holes or your southern castle is in big trouble.
A monastery in the south lets you convert those yellow elephants almost
infinitely, and they are absolutely invaluable.
Explore the north for lots of gold.
The red base is extremely easy to take down - don't be fooled by the regular
attacks.
Build a castle halfway up the northern road then forget your northern base.
You don't have to destroy the entire yellow base - just the monastery.
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2.4.5 THE PROMISE
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Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Capture the Bohemian flag.
Capture the Polish flag.
Capture the German flag.
---
This level is great fun, but the start can be difficult to get a grip on.
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
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Two of your four starting peasants will automatically start chopping lumber,
and the other two will go for the deer next to your town centre. I've noticed
that the start of this level is much easier if you let your food-gatherers
hunt the deer first, instead of trying to build farms right from the start. I
failed four times with farms, but succeeded the first time I went with the
deer instead. You need all the wood you can get in order to build buildings
faster.
For lumber and gold, send a few peasants up far north of your base, where
there is plenty of gold and lumber. This keeps them out of the way of the
trouble which comes to your town centre. There is also a very handy relic,
which should be picked up ASAP. Site your lumber and gold-mining camps up here
for preference.
You should build a stone wall at the beginning of the path which leads up the
hill to the castle, since strong forces will be coming down here soon. Once
the wall is up, sit your mangonel behind it on 'stand ground' stance.
You could try doing the same down at the southern path which leads to the blue
base, but I've found that they are more likely to send forces against you if
you don't allow their peasants access to the very valuable stone deposits.
Instead of blocking the way, try sitting ranged units right next to the stone
and get your miners to pick it up as quickly as they can. Don't build your
mining camp or anything else too close to the cliff to the west, since ranged
enemies will target it and your miners from the top of the cliff when they
head along the upper path.
Your base will periodically be attacked by both red and blue, and they will
target your town centre first if there are no obstacles in their way. Wall off
the reds if you want, but this tends not to work with the blues, since they
send mangonels along with the soldiers. Let the blues through and let them
come to your town centre (ring the town bell and suck the enemies in with your
horsemen). Then just let the peasants inside shoot them down while your
horsemen run around in circles to draw their attention. Your town centre
should never be in real danger given the weakness of the forces the blues
send.
Try to convert the red Teutonic Knights if you can - sit your priests behind
the wall / gate and target one knight each per priest - they are very handy
units to have.
ATTACKING THE BLUE BASE
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The blue base is actually very easy to attack. They have two or three guard
towers and a castle - otherwise they are very weak. The best time to attack
(as usual) is when they've just sent a squad to attack your base and you've
wiped them out. Send mounted units along with rams - anything else is pretty
much useless for this attack. Send the rams to take out the first tower, while
your horsemen mop up any blues who attack your rams (including the mangonels,
who will almost certainly target your rams). Head east next and get rid of the
town centre, then any peasants still wandering around. If your rams are still
healthy, go for the castle to the south next, then approach the big flag in
front of it. Clear the area of any remaining peasants, and take out the tower
to the south west if you want.
The only thing worthwhile in the area of the blue base is the plentiful
lumber, so make use of it if you need it.
ATTACKING THE RED BASE: I
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Wait until the most recent bunch of reds have attacked your base
unsuccessfully, then send four or five upgraded rams up the hill path, with
the rest of your forces trailing behind. The castle on the top will attack
them halfway up, but to no great effect. When they reach the top of the hill
they will be shot at by two towers behind a gateless wall. Quickly knock down
some of the wall then get rid of the towers with the rams, while everyone else
defends the rams from red ground units; then head over to the castle and take
it out as well.
There may be a few more scattered reds around this area, but nothing heavy.
Defend your rams while you clear up, then start exploring the flagged area.
There is precious stone to the west, and more even farther to the west. There
is gold down to the south, and more stone around the corner, towards the red
base. Set up mining operations at the nearest batch of stone, and build towers
at the start of the southern path. More reds will be coming up here soon, but
in my experience they just head robotically for your town centre. So deal them
as much damage as you can while they head blissfully past. Make sure your main
base has decent protection against any who might slip through, and grab as
many Teutonic Knights as you can.
Do NOT build a castle anywhere among the flags. This triggers the onslaught
from the green base to the north, and you don't want that yet. Neither do you
want to stray too far up the northern pass. If you get a message from one of
your soldiers telling you not to go up there, it's already too late. Avoid it.
You can however head over to the west edge of the map. You should find a path
that curves uphill, which leads to a monastery where you can collect some
extra units, including a monk. Try to have your population limit maxed out
before you go up there though, since it will get bumped up to over eighty.
It's up to you to hang around here scooping up all the stone and gold around,
or to launch an attack on the reds to the south if you think your forces are
strong enough.
ATTACKING THE RED BASE: II
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Siege weapons will be a big help here - rams are good but trebuchets are
obviously better. If you've built a castle, go with the trebuchets.
Don't attack via the long, curving passage with the gold at the start of it -
you will be vulnerable to towers and your forces will be too bunched up.
Instead find the pool of water to the west, and go around and down that way.
Take out any buildings you come across, and you will eventually reach a gated
wall. Siege weapon it to the floor, while your ranged units mop up and your
monks heal, then charge in and raze the town centre. There are more buildings
all along the southern edge, and also a castle which should be approached
cautiously.
There is a troublesome tower on the extreme western edge of the red base,
which cannot be attacked by non-ranged units (inc. rams). Trebuchets will deal
with it easily, but anything else will have trouble.
Once the reds are all gone, hit the flag by the castle to complete that
objective.
DEFENDING AGAINST THE GREEN ATTACK
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Triggering the green attack is done by either building a castle inside the
circle of flags, or sending units up to the north. Either way, you need to be
well prepared, and one castle alone just will not cut it. The green attack is
SERIOUS, and you have to be ready for it. I'd recommend at least three castles
inside the flags, each full of your units. Surround the area with walls (more
than one layer wouldn't hurt) and make sure there are handy gates so that your
horsemen can take care of any trebuchets out of range of the castles.
Mangonels sitting behind the walls can do a job, but you'll have to keep an
eye on them.
To prepare for the onslaught, build your first castle up to 99%, then leave it
while you do the same for however many other castles you want to build (you
can have as many as your stone reserves will allow, though over five is
probably a bit much). Once you're ready, complete all castles at once, and sit
back and wait. Fill your castles and hide horsemen amongst them to be ready
for those ranged siege weapons.
Make sure you block off the southern pass too - the one which led to the red
base from the east. If you build a big wall between the pool and the northern
cliff edge, but none around the back, the greens will just avoid your big wall
and nip round the back, where they can do some serious damage if you didn't
anticipate this. Blocking all their pathnodes is the only way to be sure, so
cover any holes you think there might be.
If you're well enough prepared then the green attack should be easy enough to
cope with. The many and varied siege weapons are the worst of it, so be ready
for them sitting outside your walls, just out of reach of your towers, castles
and mangonels.
ATTACKING THE GREEN BASE
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Head up the northern path to the green base, which is now emptied of units, or
almost. Go carefully at first, since there are bombard towers and mangonels
along the cliffs. Take them out with trebuchets, then do the same for the
gates ahead. Beyond the gates is a tiny, walled base, with a castle inside
more walls, guarded by a handful of units and a mangonel. Kill these units and
destroy the castle, and the level is complete.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Use the deer for initial food stores.
Get the stone as a priority.
Pick up the relic in the northern corner.
Don't build a castle among the flags until you're ready for the green attack -
anywhere else is fine.
There is a monastery and extra units to the west.
Siege weapons are essential for attacking the red base.
Build multiple castles among the flags and complete them all at the same time.
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2.4.6 PAX MONGOLIA
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Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Defeat Hungary.
Survive until Subotai's reinforcements arrive.
---
This level is surprisingly easy for the ultimate Genghis mission, but I like
easy things.
You have forty game minutes until Subotai's lot get here, and you're going to
have to defend your base in the meantime. You start off with a bunch of
petards and a lot of light cavalry and mangudai, as well as some peasants and
buildings (including a castle in a not very strategic defensive position). Get
your peasants going with lumber, gold and stone, as well as the sheep and deer
that are dotted around for early food. Build mangudai and nothing else for
units, and keep your petards out of the way for now.
Some stone walls around would be a good plan, as well as some towers in front
of your base. Most of your defending will be done by sending horsemen south
and drawing enemy units in toward your towers, then taking out any siege
weapons who bring up the rear. This is one level where it's better to ride out
and meet your enemies before they get near your base. Keep some monks around
to heal your soldiers, and replace any lost light cavalry with mangudai
(upgrade to elite when you can afford to).
By the way, I tried quickly getting a wall and gate up at the end of the
bridge, and then hurrying to build a castle behind it by creating tons of
stone-miners. This failed though, because they just sent about six trebuchets
along the bridge, and I couldn't get at them because all the other enemies
were blocking the bridge in front of them. My castle fell long before I
punched my way through. Anyway, a castle in the first part of the level is a
waste of stone, since that bridge will soon be gone.
It's better to just let your mangudai and towers wait out the forty minutes
(it's really nowhere near this long), while your peasants build a half decent
base. Don't build anything too close to the river to the west, since enemy
trebuchets can fire across the divide. This includes walls and guard towers.
There's plenty of every type of resource around, so go nuts while your guys
absorb all the enemy's attacks.
By the time the timer gets to about ten minutes, the Hungarians will be
sending over the last of their attackers. Subotai will arrive with two wolves
(no effect on pop. limit) and ten more saboteurs. At this point, try to battle
on the bridge itself - the Hungarians should scuttle it, thereby cutting off
all access to their base. Just hang around the bridge and wait until they
destroy it, though try not to have Subotai in the middle when it falls, or
it's game over.
ATTACKING THE RED BASE
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You have plenty of resources everywhere, and you're probably thinking the
level just got much easier. Well, it did, but not for long, The enemies will
start building a wonder, and you're going to have to get over there and
destroy it in order to kill them off for good. But the bridge is gone - yikes!
Explore the southern end of the river to find the answer. You should set up a
mini base here, including a castle right next to the northern end of the bank
of trees. Have trebuchets next to it to take out the towers and any enemy
trebs that might try to attack the castle over the tops of the trees.
Now you have to get rid of those trees, assuming your forces are prepared to
attack. You can either chop them all down (long) or flatten them with a siege
onager (short but expensive, and you may not have space available in your pop.
limit). Either way, make a gap in the northern trees, and watch as the enemies
start to trickle through, only to get sliced to the deck by your castle.
Attacking and destroying the base itself isn't really hard - it's just that
you need to do it quickly and they have two castles and a lot of towers, not
to mention trebuchets and every other kind of siege weapon apart from bombard
cannons. I tend to inch northwards, destroying targets as I find them. Petards
and especially your limited saboteurs are useful against towers and unguarded
enemy buildings, but your trebuchets will have some work to do first to clear
the way of gates and walls.
The best way to attack the base is to wait for a lot of their peasants to have
been killed by coming too close to your castle (because they will for some
reason), then send in two groups of mangudai, some trebuchets, monks; and
petards if you want them. You may need to rebuild your forces if the first
ones fail, but the enemy has great difficulty rebuilding if most of their
peasants have been killed. Concentrate on getting rid of those castles and
towers with trebuchets, and the monastery and siege workshop behind the
western gate should be priorities as well. Once both castles are down the rest
is a stroll - target the wonder and smash it up, and both the level and
campaign end.
QUICK HELP
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Mangudai and monks can easily defend your base until Subotai arrives.
Don't worry about losing one tower after another - that's why they're there.
Be aware that your pop. limit changes when Subotai arrives - you might need a
siege onager later, but you might want to also go 11 over the max of 75.
Hang around the bridge after Subotai appears - this should trigger its
destruction.
Build a second base at the southern crossing.
Attack the enemy base cautiously until the castles are down - just don't hang
about too long after the bridge falls.
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2.5 BARBAROSSA
--------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬------------------------------
There seem to be very few countries which Barbarossa doesn't want to scrape
off the face of the Earth. Why Italians have Teutonic Knights as their unique
unit is beyond me, but then I'm not a historian, as you've probably guessed.
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2.5.1 HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR
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Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Capture 4 of the 6 relics from the surrounding German duchies.
---
You begin on your own little Utopian island, surrounded by enemies who can
attack you over four different river crossings.
Explore your island first while you set up your infrastructure. You have
plenty of everything, plus a castle, but you should head towards walling and
gating off all four of the crossings as soon as you can. Knights and scorpions
are about the most dangerous attackers you'll be dealing with, but it's still
best to block all avenues, or maybe leave the south eastern one open so that
every attacker runs right into range of your castle. There are yellow towers
on the north east crossing which will annoy your wall-builders, so bring them
down when you can. Just ring the town bell if any attackers reach the middle
of your island and you should have no trouble clearing up.
ACQUIRING THE RELICS
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Of the six enemy bases, the only ones which might give you difficulty are the
greens (south, south east) and yellows (north), as they're the only ones whose
bases are surrounded by walls. All six bases have a castle each, but remember
that all you're being asked to do is grab the relics from the monasteries. So
just locate the monastery in each base and raze it, then run your monk all the
way back to your own monastery. The purple and orange bases are easiest, as
their monasteries are not within protective range of the castles. Anyway, once
you have four of the six, the level ends.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Block off the four crossings with walls, towers and gates as soon as possible.
Orange (north west) and purple (south west) are easy bases to get relics from.
Building just one bombard tower in the middle of an enemy base can be an
enormous help in taking it down.
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2.5.2 HENRY THE LION
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Defeat Poland.
---
You start off incapable of doing anything but producing units. You're told to
defend Saxony and Bavaria, but they hardly ever get attacked, and you'll have
more difficulty defending your own base. You have to wait until your two
allies (Henry won't tribute resources to you) donate to your cause, which will
allow you to replenish your units. You also can't build monks.
Spend your first half hour building as many units as you can while you fend
off the pathetic Polish attacks. Ignore any attacks on your dock - sea combat
is pretty useless in this level, unless you're someone who likes using
transport ships.
When you do finally decide to strike back at the Polish, head north to find
their nearest castle, guarded by a couple of towers. I'm pretty sure the
Polish don't have murder holes researched (you do), so a few rams should bring
down the towers and castle easily (as long as you defend your rams from the
huskarls). At this point, Henry betrays you and attacks while your forces are
away. Don't worry, his attacks are pretty crappy, and if you have some
horsemen still around your base you can just draw all his units to your castle
where they'll be cut down.
Henry has some malcontents locked in a walled area which also contains a
relic. You'll need to knock down that gate and grab the peasants before you
can build a base of your own. If you want to deal with the Polish later and
just raze Henry's base now you can - it's a good location for a base. Once you
do this, it's just a case of building up a bunch of units (concentrate on
mostly rams, since the Polish don't actually have a base as such - just a lot
of siege workshops, castles and towers).
Doing this level the way the game wants you to is a bad idea, since you'll
always be at a disadvantage.
Here's my first alternate way of doing this level. From the start build a ton
of rams - as many as your starting resources and creative market trading will
let you. Send everyone north (leave one horseman at your base, locked in the
castle) and knock down the towers and castle with ease. Head east over the
river and take down any other buildings you find. When you first attacked the
Polish Henry should have decided to attack you, and he'll start sending guys
to your base to hit the university first. Lure them to your castle.
Weirdly, the Polish then decide to attack Henry instead of you, and the blue
units should all be heading for Henry's base. Weirder, Henry won't retaliate,
and his units will just let themselves be hacked down by the Polish, which
saves you a lot of trouble. In this way, you can knock out a few Polish
castles and towers while the Polish deal with Henry in your absence. You
should have enough rams to go around the whole map getting rid of the blue
castles, and your two allies who didn't stab you in the back should be fine on
their own, since the Polish are preoccupied with Henry's base instead of
theirs or yours.
The second alternate way is to build a bunch of rams at the very start, build
some trade carts to trade with Bavaria, then change diplomatic stance with
Henry from ally to enemy, instead of waiting for him to do it to you. Take out
his base to start with, rather than attacking the Polish and letting him
betray you while you're away.
However you approach this level you should have very little difficulty if you
just use your castle intelligently and be aware of how each faction will treat
the others.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Your castle is the best thing you'll have for defense, and rams the best for
offense.
Henry can be gotten rid of early before he even gets a chance to betray you.
The earlier you act the better - the Polish attacks get steadily heavier.
Send lots of trade carts to the Bavarian market to get your gold up faster.
You can then use your market to buy what you need - just make sure you defend
it from Henry.
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2.5.3 POPE AND ANTIPOPE
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Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
Convert the cathedral in Milan.
---
This is one of those levels that is horrible if you play it the way the game
wants you to, but pish simple if you exploit the computer opponents'
weaknesses. And these goons have lots of weaknesses.
BUILDING AND DEFENDING YOUR BASE
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Take everyone south, following the coast until you reach a wrecked boat. From
here go east until you meet the Crema archers and spearmen, who should be
either destroyed or converted. Proceed to destroying the barracks and archery,
then go around the green base converting all the peasants you can find. You'll
know when you have got the last of them because Crema will resign, leaving you
to destroy their base and build your own.
I like building my base in the back corner of the map where all the trees are.
There is plenty of stone and gold on this island - just explore to find it, as
well as a single relic to the west. Your allies can be traded with when they
build their market.
For defense, site a castle on the western edge of your base. Your enemies will
be dropped off of transport ships on the beach to the west of your base, and
you should make sure that they reach the castle first. Have some units inside
the castle to take care of bombard cannons, and keep your castle repaired. You
can build lots of walls, gates and towers if you want, but a single castle is
just as effective.
ATTACKING THE BLUE BASE
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Milan is way over to the west. They have en enormous base, and it's difficult
to get to because the purple River Guards are in the way. They are also very
difficult to attack.
This is the best method I have found for finishing off this level. Remember
that you just have to convert the cathedral, not destroy both your enemies,
which is lucky.
Go north to your allies' base and build a dock. It will come under attack
soon, so have at least one bombard tower nearby to take down the purple ships.
Build a transport ship and take some trebuchets or bombard cannons (for their
view range and slightly faster speed) to the other island due west. Drop your
siege weapons off and take them west to the brick road. Follow the road south
past the pool until you find the northernmost gate of the Milan base. If you
have taken a long time to build up your base you might get lucky and see
peasants going through the gate, which will mean you don't have to destroy it.
Whether you get rid of the gate or just leave it to be opened constantly by
the peasants, this is where your second group of units is going to go in order
to reach the cathedral the easy way. Bring another lot of units over - I
prefer about eight monks and fifteen to twenty hand cannoneers - this should
be sufficient for our sneak attack. Take this lot to where your siege weapons
found the gate, via the same route. Try to make sure no enemies spot you on
the Milan island. If the gate is gone send your units through the gap / if
it's being opened by peasants just shove your way past them. Head south until
you find the market and the university, then farther south to the cathedral.
At this point no enemies should be reacting to your presence, and there are no
towers or castles to alert them either. Get your monks working on the
cathedral (make sure you researched this in the monastery) while your other
units - however many you brought, the more the better - fend off the enemies
who will be rushing to see what's happening. If you're lucky the cathedral
will be converted before the last of your monks dies, and you'll win.
I could write a guide to attacking the Milanese the hard way, but this base
can be a killer to have to bring down. The easiest route of attack will still
be from the north, since it's the only one with no towers, but I'd definitely
recommend building a mini-base of your own on the same island, definitely
including a castle. This is a given for any level where you'd otherwise have
to bring reinforcements over in ships.
QUICK HELP
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Scuttle your ships at the start - they'll die soon anyway.
Convert all the Crema peasants to make your own base construction quicker.
One castle can do the same job as four castles and loads of walls, towers and
gates.
Ignore the purple goons - their bombard cannons are the only units who should
give you the slightest trouble if you follow my guide.
Milan can be easily snuck into through its northern gates.
Don't just send one monk to convert the cathedral - the more you have the
quicker it will go.
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2.5.4 THE LOMBARD LEAGUE
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Difficulty: 3/3
Objectives:
Construct a Wonder within the city walls of Venice, Padua or Verona.
---
This gets three out of three because of the four enemies, the purple ships,
the difficulty of picking up resources outside your own base and the fact that
building a castle makes the level harder instead of easier.
As soon as the level starts, get all your starting units and pile them into
the three transport ships to the south. Follow the river east and get all the
other ships. The four transport ships contain many more units which will
definitely be useful. Destroy the fishing ships before you continue if you
don't plan on using them.
At this point you have to decide where you're going to put your base. There
are only two likely places, and the nearest is to the south.
THE SOUTH BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is the area of land marked by that southern outpost. The advantage of
this area is that it's less vulnerable to attack by ships than the other one
is. The disadvantage (if you see what I mean) is that it's much farther away
from any of those cities in which you're going to have to build a wonder. If
you keep all your buildings away from the water, you can defend this place
with one castle and a couple of bombard towers (situated south of that river
to the north). You will soon run out of stone and gold though, and travelling
north to get more is dangerous, especially since Henry the Lion will once
again betray you the second you put up your first castle. This northern
stretch of land gets very, very popular later on, with the yellows, purples
and oranges all fighting for the gold and stone; and your second base, if you
put one here, will be very exposed and under constant attack from all types of
units.
THE NORTH EAST BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
To get here from the start (see the outposts on the minimap), you'll need to
take your guys over in the ships. Avoid the island castle to the east and the
purple base to the west on your way.
I like this base because launching an attack on the purples is far more easy
from here than it is from the south. A bunch of trebuchets can quickly level
most of their buildings from the far side of the river, making this the
easiest town in which to build your wonder. You also get more starting gold
than in the southern base. On the other hand, your land available for building
is a bit smaller, especially because of the enemy bombard ships, and the next
nearest crop of stone is within sight of the walls of the green base. On the
other other hand, the purples are the only units who come by sea, and so
everyone else will be forced to use one of those two river crossings on the
northern edge of your base.
ATTACKING ANYONE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Whichever base you choose, be aware that your first castle will trigger
Henry's betrayal and then you will have four enemies. This is almost a siege
level, except this time you can't just wait for the clock to go down.
If you choose the southern base, the yellow town is probably the easiest one
to put your wonder in, especially because they're the only ones without a
castle. Before you do that you're going to have to take out all the buildings
they'll have put both inside and outside their walls. Try destroying Henry's </pre><pre id="faqspan-4">
base first with your main forces, then putting a castle and some buildings
where he had his castle. This will make an attack on the yellows far easier.
If you want to try putting your wonder in the purple or green bases, make the
north east area your own base. The greens are right next to you, and they have
a small town with the castle right at the back. They do have walls and gates
though, unlike the purple base. One quick way of getting rid of the greens is
to build a castle inside your base and produce about four or five trebuchets.
Then build another castle just south of their easternmost gate, right outside
their walls, just beyond the reach of their towers. Their trebuchets will
start attacking your castle, while your own trebuchets kill off theirs. Then
knock down the gate while the rest of the greens throw units uselessly against
your castle. Your own units should have no trouble clearing the green base out
of the way, and all that remains is to fend off everyone else while you get
your resources up and your wonder built inside the green walls.
The best way to take down the purples is by building a lot of trebuchets and
backing them up with knights and petards. Have the trebuchets sit across the
river pounding the buildings, while your knights clear away the purple units
and your petards get dropped off in transport ships to get rid of the towers
and docks. The most difficult thing about attacking the purple base is not the
towers or the castle, but those frigging bombard ships. You might want to take
them out with your own ships before launching your ground attack.
By the way, if you can scout out the northernmost corner of the purple base,
there is a stretch of land where they have their siege workshop, university,
town centre and blacksmith, as well as a tower and one of their four docks.
Dropping off fifteen to twenty petards and taking out all these buildings at
once will deal the purples a massive blow, then you can send in everyone else.
Another thing about the purple base - they have four docks, but if you take
out the one on the southern island with the castle it can't be rebuilt, and
ships from the other three docks will all pass the same bit of land on the
western tip of the north east area, just where the north river starts. A
castle and bombard towers here will make life easier.
To win, just build a wonder inside the walls of any of the three bases (not
Henry's). It's hard to be specific in how to deal with this level all at once,
since I don't know where you want your base to go or which enemy you'd prefer
to take out first. Whatever you do you'll be on the defensive for most of the
time, and if you're going to attack an enemy then it's best to have a base
nearby. Well-defended secondary bases aren't cheap to build and they're
unnecessary if your enemy is close by. I therefore recommend using the north
east area for your base and going for the greens or purples as soon as you're
ready. I know that first argosy across the seas is unattractive right at the
start, but you'll reap the benefits of more gold and fewer failed counter
strikes later on.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
North east base is better than south for a number of reasons, though more
vulnerable to sea attack and harder to get to in the first place.
Make sure to empty the transport ships of all the additional units.
Exploit the pop. limit trick if you want - build 75 units then empty the
transports.
The yellow base does not have a castle.
Henry will attack you as soon as you build a castle.
Keep buildings grouped together, far from the coast.
The purples are the only ones who attack from the sea - use your bottlenecks
effectively.
There are two islands in the middle of the sea - one has gold, the other has
stone.
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2.5.5 BARBAROSSA'S MARCH
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Difficulty: 1/3
Objectives:
At least 10 troops must survive to reach the Hospitaller camp.
---
Another questy mission, this time with an insane number of units to begin
with. But if you plan your route this level is just a long trek from A to B,
and you should be able to easily complete it.
THE NORTH ISLAND
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
It's possible to sneak your units to the Gallipoli dock without getting into
much trouble, but the greens can get pretty annoying and it takes kinda long.
On the other hand, the blues switch allegiances to enemy if you approach their
base, and it's a big one. On the other other hand, you have a much easier time
getting across to the southern island by using the blue fleet...
Sod it, we'll go with the blues. Send one scout cavalry west, across the river
and into the blue base. They don't want you anywhere near their base, and the
place should empty itself of troops, sending them all at you. It's easy to
deal with all the blue units if you take out that green galleon at the river
and then station your troops just at the end of the crossing, forcing the
blues into the bottleneck. Siege onagers can fire over your pikemen, doing
extreme damage to the blue units, while your horsemen watch out for the blue
mangonels which will bring up the rear.
Once the blues have thrown all their land units at you fruitlessly, it's left
to you to slowly advance through their base, destroying gates and towers and a
castle (though I'd leave the castle standing if I were you) before you reach
their wonder. Get just one of your troops near enough and the blues will fold,
handing you their base and their enormous navy. Unfortunately, the greens will
attack you from the west, sending mamelukes and mangonels and camels at you.
Fend them off one by one and then get all your ground units together inside
Constantinople. Group all your new offensive ships together too and prepare to
cross the sea to the south.
A couple of notes before you take your units across to the south. There's a
tiny island in the far west which has a trebuchet and some axemen waiting for
you, if you can be bothered to go all the way over there. The seas are heavy
with green enemy ships, but you don't have to clear them all out, especially
if you know where you're landing. Just make sure you kill off any who get too
near your transports, while you ferry every last one of your units across. And
by the way, there are two landing sites, but the one in the west triggers an
ambush which can lose you quite a few units as you try to disembark. Getting
on and off transport ships is not a very user-friendly process in this game,
and if you can get all your units on the beach without getting molested, you
probably should try. So I'm going to advise alighting to the east.
One more weird thing I thought was... weird. You can actually break through
the forest at the very start with your siege onagers, then through the wall
that separates you from the blue allied ships. Send your troops through the
gap you made in the wall and send them onto one of the blue transport ships.
Erm. Then the blues later change to enemies and you can't get your troops back
off the ship. Completely pointless, but worth mentioning. I have too much time
on my hands.
THE SOUTH ISLAND
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Though you don't get ambushed on the eastern beach, you are quite a lot
farther away from your objective than you would be if you'd picked the other
beach. Watch out for the monk who can destroy your onagers or convert your
units. Leave everyone here and send someone due east until you meet the yellow
tower on the edge of the map, with the four heavy cavalry archers around it.
You'll be given the cavalry - take them away from the tower.
We're going to sneak into the Hospitaller camp by the back way, such as it is.
To do this, we'll have to pass either one of two castles, but the one to the
east gets us four new siege onagers if we take it down, whereas the one to the
south gets us a splitting headache. Head directly to the eastern corner of the
map and find the castle guarded by walls, eight heavy cavalry archers and a
trebuchet. Draw the cavalry away from the walls and send one of your paladins
after each of them individually - this is the best way I've come up with to
deal with these unfeasibly irritating units. Take out the trebuchet, the
castle and the gate, and the onagers are yours.
From here, follow the cliff path down to the south east, sticking to the edge
of the map. At the end of the cliffs you should see two big clumps of trees.
Due west of here is a small gap, blocked by more trees. Someone will suggest
knocking down the trees, but we're way ahead of him. Target the trees with
your siege onagers and clear a route through. Stick to the south east edge of
the map when you're in this area - there are enemy bombard cannons to the
north. This part of the map is wide and basically clear - head south west till
you hit the cliffs, then follow them north west.
You'll arrive at a pool surrounded by trees, and west of the pool is a big
group of hostile wolves. The wolves are your last obstacle - take everyone
south and into the Hospitaller camp. Congratulations, you made it.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Empty the blue base of its units, then get to the castle to convert the blue
base.
The more towers you leave standing in the blue base, the easier it will be to
fend off the greens' attack.
The eastern disembarkment point is easier but longer.
Pick up the cavalry archers and onagers in the east of the map.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.5.6 THE EMPEROR SLEEPING
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Difficulty: 3/3
Objectives:
Don't destroy the Dome of the Rock.
Deliver the body of Barbarossa (in the pickle barrel) to the Dome of the Rock
in Jerusalem.
---
This mission is set in the desert and there's not a lot of stone about. You've
got ten game minutes to set up a base before your allies turn on you, and
that's not much time for what you need to have ready.
You have four groups of six peasants: get one group on lumber; one group on
the gold to the north; one group on the valuable batch of stone far to the
south west, just below your allies' small, orange town; and the rest on farms
and a mill just beside your town centre. But before you do any of that, build
houses very quickly with all the non stone-miners, and get one single peasant
to build a monastery. There's a relic just south of your base which needs to
be grabbed extremely quickly, or else a green priest will take it to their
nearby monastery. You can of course take it by force later, but if you want it
sooner get a monk to it as soon as you can from the very start.
Add a few more farmers and lumberjacks to your peasants, and get your stone-
miners to build a castle between the two pools surrounded by trees south west
of your base. You might even want to do this first before your miners head
south. This castle is there to defend that batch of gold to the east, which
will be popular with the yellows later, as well as be a decoy for all the
elephants, knights and trebuchets who would otherwise be heading straight for
your piddling base to the north. Once the castle is up, get one peasant to
build a stable, archery, monastery and siege workshop behind it, as well as a
university and blacksmith. You can build a market in the northern base later,
if you want to send trade carts to your orange allies.
All of the above must be done as smoothly and quickly as you can. You need the
castle up FAST to fend off the first attack by elephants and trebuchets, and
about four monks to capture as many of the elephants as they can - one monk
per conversion. The monks should try to get all the elephants, while your
knights are taking out the trebuchets before they can destroy your castle.
Don't let your castle fall - you can't afford the extra stone. Bombard towers
are useful against elephants, but not if you want to capture them rather than
destroy them. By the way, this part of the level is kind of like the castle
you built in Pope and Antipope - one castle is about as useful as three
castles and tons of fortifications. Don't go overboard - you need all the
stone you can hoard.
There is more gold to be found in the western half of the map, but your
enemies easily control the middle, the south and the east. For now you're
going to have to just soak up regular attacks by trebuchets and elephants
(which is easy enough - smash the trebuchets, convert the elephants), and use
your castle as the Alamo. Occasionally some green mangonels might appear or
something, but nothing harder than the yellows. Just keep your eyes open for
incoming attacks and you should be fine, while you steadily capture more and
more elephants and pick up all the gold that's to be had. If you built the
castle away from your northern base, the base should be pretty much left
alone - if not just ring the town bell.
By the way, keep that pickle cart well out of the way of everything.
ATTACKING THE YELLOW BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Hopefully you built some trebuchets before you captured all those elephants.
They will make busting through the wall a lot easier, which is what you're
going to do. Knock a hole in the western wall, where the mangonels and siege
workshops are, and send your elephants in first. The best time to launch your
attack is just after you've fended off the latest of the yellow attacks.
Take out the workshops with trebuchets, while your knights and elephants deal
with the enemy knights, mangonels and trebuchets. There will be a few more
yellow elephants floating around, so use your monks to convert them rather
than to heal your own units. This attack can be a bit chaotic from not knowing
which units or buildings to prioritise.
Try this: trebuchets to destroy the buildings; elephants and monks on enemy
elephants; knights on enemy knights, mangonels and trebuchets.
Once the siege workshops are both gone ignore the other buildings until you
can get rid of the two stables, since the knights are great at killing your
trebuchets. I believe that the enemy castle won't fire at you while it's still
trying to produce elephants and trebuchets from inside, which it always is. So
get your trebuchets to attack the castle once the other dangerous buildings
are cleared, and get your elephants to protect your trebuchets by standing
right next to them, while any knights you have left charge right up to the
castle and kill off the yellow trebuchets before they get a chance to fire at
your own. Using this method I managed to take down the main yellow base in one
attack using ten elephants, six trebuchets, eighteen knights and four monks:
by the time I was finished I had four elephants and one trebuchet left.
Unfortunately, there are more yellow peasants beyond the eastern wall, and the
protection of the greens makes it too much trouble to try to erase every last
one. They will build another town centre and other buildings soon enough, but
as far as I know they won't build another castle, which at least means no more
elephants or trebuchets. To stop their attacks coming through the northern
gates, I knocked down the northern yellow gate and built my own in the gap,
then surrounded it with walls and towers. This attracts a lot of attention,
but it also means all your other places are safe (don't go or build too near
the southern wall - the green siege weapons can fire over it). Block off any
other holes in the wall so that if the greens and remaining yellows attack you
from anywhere it will be through that northern gate. The worst you'll have to
deal with up there are siege onagers, but bombard towers can destroy them with
one cannon ball.
Now that you've cleared out this middle area, you might want to get rid of
that green monastery to the north for the relic you missed earlier (if you
haven't already), and replenish your forces. Don't destroy the monastery
without grabbing the relic right away - the greens will soon send their own
monk to haul it back to a different monastery.
You can now build your own third base where the yellow one used to be, and
launch an assault to the south.
ATTACKING THE GREEN BASE (SOUTH)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
If the yellows made a big enough gap in the trees to the west of their middle
enclosure, build a castle here, just a bit away from the wall. If not, build
the castle farther to the east. You'll need to be buying stone from the market
at this point, but there will still be plenty of gold. There is a lot of
unmined stone and gold beyond the wall to the south west, which is a good
place to attack first. Bash a hole in the wall and send your massed forces
through. There is a castle and a few miscellaneous units, but nothing
difficult if you keep your forces together. Don't go too far south or you'll
run into the blue base, and their monks, towers and castle can be a problem.
Once you've gotten rid of the greens to the west, start mining the stone and
gold, then get trebuchets to work on the blue castle and towers, followed by
the rest of the reachable buildings behind the wall. You don't need to do
this, but it's fun. Take out the gate to the east and bring your intrepid cart
down through it - give it an escort through the blue base just in case. Take
some bombard cannons so that you can take care of any towers that you will
encounter, though these represent the only resistance the blue base will put
up. The Dome has two towers guarding it - take them down and get your cart to
the red flags and you win.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Gold deposits are scarce, so pick up the relic and trade with your allies to
get your stores up.
Build a castle and draw the yellows to it.
Capture as many elephants as you can.
Destroying the yellow castle is a priority - don't attack the yellow base if
your forces aren't strong enough to break through to the castle.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
Congratulations, you've completed the game. Now toddle along and play Age Of
Conquerors.
Thanks for reading :)
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3. CONTRIBUTORS / CONTRIBUTIONS
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Version 1.0 -
09 August 2006 - Michael Sarich: Copyright Disclaimer
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Version 1.1 -
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Version 1.2 -
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Version 1.3 -
17 November 2006 - Harpret Kalsi <
[email protected]>
Contribution to section 2.2.2 THE MAID OF ORLEANS
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Version 1.6 -
27 June 2007 - Anonymous
Contribution to section 2.2.6 A PERFECT MARTYR
01 August 2007 - pull tiger <
[email protected]>
Contribution to section 2.3.5 JIHAD!
23 August 2007 - WILLIAM SULLIVAN <
[email protected]>
Contribution to section 2.3.6 THE LION AND THE DEMON
02 September 2007 - WILLIAM SULLIVAN <
[email protected]>
Contribution to section 2.3.5 JIHAD!
07 September 2007 - Larry Neer <
[email protected]>
Contribution to section 2.3.6 THE LION AND THE DEMON
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THANK-YOU TO ALL CONTRIBUTORS
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4. VERSION HISTORY / UPDATES
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Version 1.0 completion - 10 August 2006
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Version 1.1 completion - 03 October 2006
Completely reformatted and reorganised the walkthrough
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Version 1.2 completion - 20 October 2006
Section 2:
2.5.5 BARBAROSSA'S MARCH - Added QUICK HELP section
2.5.6 THE EMPEROR SLEEPING - Added QUICK HELP section
Section 3:
Fixed contributors section to include v1.1 contributors (none)
Made one or two more changes to the formatting
Corrected the odd spelling mistake
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Version 1.3 completion - 20 November 2006
Section 1:
1.2 USING THIS GUIDE - Improved information
1.3 CONTACT ME - Improved information
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Version 1.4 completion - 01 February 2007
New disclaimer
Section 1:
1.2 USING THIS GUIDE - Improved information
1.3 CONTACT ME - Improved information
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Version 1.5 completion - 19 April 2007
Miscellaneous:
Various formatting changes
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Version 1.6 completion - 16 October 2007
New disclaimer
Section 1:
1.1.2 HINTS AND INFO - Changed difficulty ratings
1.3 CONTACT ME - Updated information
Section 2:
2.1.5 THE BATTLE OF STIRLING - Added QUICK HELP section
2.4 GENGHIS KHAN - Changed all mentions of mamelukes to mangudai
Miscellaneous:
Corrected a few typos
Changed most of the formatting
Changed difficulty ratings from stars to points
Included v1.5 contributor and update information
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Version 1.7 completion - April 2017
Guide is now considered complete
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Apologies also to anyone who was unfortunate enough to see v1.0 of this FAQ. I
put a lot of work into the guide itself, without bothering with formatting or
style. Hopefully you'll find this version much easier on the eye.
Thank-you for using this walkthrough. I hope it helped you out, or at least
taught you how _not_ to play the game. At the very least, I hope you found it
entertaining.
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This guide was written and formatted with the excellent Metapad:
http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad/
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