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|.><.| _______________________________________________________ |.><.|
|~==~| |~==~|
|.><.| AGE OF EMPIRES 2: AGE OF CONQUERORS GUIDE / WALKTHROUGH |.><.|
|~==~| _______________________________________________________ |~==~|
|.><.| |.><.|
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Guide author: Orgulo
Guide version: 1.4
Game version: 1.0
System: PC
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1. INTRODUCTION
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1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.1.1 WELCOME
1.1.2 KINGS TO CONQUERORS
1.1.3 HINTS AND INFO
1.2 USING THIS GUIDE
1.3 CONTACT ME
2. WALKTHROUGH
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
2.1 ATTILA THE HUN
2.1.1 THE SCOURGE OF GOD
2.1.2 THE GREAT RIDE
2.1.3 THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE
2.1.4 A BARBARIAN BETROTHAL
2.1.5 THE CATALAUNIAN FIELDS
2.1.6 THE FALL OF ROME
2.2 EL CID
2.2.1 BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER
2.2.2 THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY
2.2.3 THE EXILE OF THE CID
2.2.4 BLACK GUARDS
2.2.5 KING OF VALENCIA
2.2.6 RECONQUISTA
2.3 MONTEZUMA
2.3.1 REIGN OF BLOOD
2.3.2 THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE
2.3.3 QUETZALCOATL
2.3.4 LA NOCHE TRISTE
2.3.5 THE BOILING LAKE
2.3.6 BROKEN SPEARS
2.4 BATTLES OF THE CONQUERORS
2.4.1 AGINCOURT
2.4.2 HASTINGS
2.4.3 KYOTO
2.4.4 LEPANTO
2.4.5 MANZIKERT
2.4.6 NORYANG POINT
2.4.7 TOURS
2.4.8 VINDLANDSAGA
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
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is my walkthrough for Age Of Empires 2: Age Of Conquerors, in case you
hadn't already figured that out. It's the follow-up to the guide I wrote for
Age of Kings, which is the game for which Conquerors is the expansion. You
can't install or play Conquerors without having previously installed Kings, so
the chances are you've already played and possibly even completed Kings, with
or without my guide. This in turn means that you don't need to be spoon-fed
every little fundamental detail about how to play the game, which suits me
fine.
My guide to Kings was very simple, and so is this guide to Conquerors. Each
guide just walks you through each level without much fuss, pointing out things
you might need to know or notice, and advising you on the best way(s) to
bypass each section of each level, all the way up to overall completion of the
game.
Like Kings, Conquerors is an old game by now. Most of the games I write guides
for are old, since I can't afford to shell out £30 on the newer ones :( As far
as I know (I haven't checked) this guide is the only one of its type for
Conquerors, which is the reason I write guides - to help people with games
which I love but which may not have many or any walkthroughs already around.
This is all my own work, and any similarities between mine and someone else's
are coincidental.
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, and mentioned as they
occur.
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1.1.2 KINGS TO CONQUERORS
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is just a quick section highlighting a few of the improvements and
advantages that AOC has over AOK.
~.><.~
Your Objectives window now has a Scouts tab added on. This gives you salient
information and useful tips about the area, but nothing that couldn't really
have been included in Hints.
Researching Caravan from the marketplace will allow trade carts to shift twice
as fast, which means twice the gold in half the time. Buy it.
And researching Heresy from the monastery will cause enemy monks to kill any
units in place of converting them, which is worth 1000 gold if you're going to
be meeting a lot of monks. Your computer enemies will often have this
researched.
In addition to the AOK priests getting upgraded to monks, you can now build
missionaries in certain levels. They're faster but they can't pick up relics.
You can now garrison units inside battering rams, to be ejected at will or
when the ram takes too much damage. To my intense disappointment you can't
garrison petards inside. Or monks. Or peasants. Or quite a lot of other units.
The good news is that you can get far more units onto transport ships by
garrisoning them inside rams first. So you could either get fifteen swordsmen
onto an upgraded transport, or fifteen rams and sixty swordsmen all at once.
The best feature of AOC over AOK is the fact that you're no longer stuck on a
pathetic population limit of 75. You can now go up to 150 in some levels,
which makes a big difference to everything. This unfortunately includes the
strength and size of enemy armies and towns.
And - glory be! - you can now stack up farms in the mill. No longer do you
have to listen to those scittery sounds every time a farm dies. No longer do
you have to constantly flit back and forward between your town and your armies
to build more one by one. Give that designer a pay rise.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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1.1.3 HINTS AND INFO
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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.
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, though AOC is much more accommodating than the 75 pop. limit AOK. Try
to put your market at the back of your base to maximise the amount of gold
available from the markets of your allies.
Trading carts are brilliant, so don't overlook them. They basically give you
free gold forever in any level where any of your allies or opponents has a
marketplace (accessible over land). If you defeat an enemy but leave their
marketplace standing you can switch to Ally with them in the Diplomacy window.
This will allow you to trade with their marketplace, which comes in handy in
levels where you have no real allies and couldn't otherwise trade as normal.
Sometimes you'll have to switch back to Enemy to allow the mission to end.
Try to find a balance between workers and combatants. This will change in each
level, as will your population limit; but I tend never to have more than ten
farmers, for example. You won't use much stone either, certainly not enough to
justify more than six stone miners.
Outposts are not as useless as they appear. Since the enemy often attacks the
first building they encounter en route to your base, you can sacrifice the
outpost in order to give you warning of the size of the enemy attack and the
direction they're approaching from. This is much better than being caught by
surprise when they arrive right outside your walls.
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.
Use the bottlenecks of the terrain to direct your enemies into one focused
area. Bridges are obvious examples, as well as mountain pathways, river
crossings, etc. You should also use walls to send your enemies along certain
routes, especially towards castles. Computer opponents look for connected
pathnodes, so if you redirect their routes without actually blocking them you
can make sure they go to where you want them to go. And you don't even need to
use stone - just build palisade walls.
My own favourite trick to use against the enemy (if they have walled and gated
bases) is to build my own gates right next to theirs, or wall their gates off,
or use petards to knock down their gates and then build my own in the space.
They can't get out of their own base until they destroy my gates, and they
often don't even try. Even if they do they will always attack the one which
they would normally go through to head for my base, which means I can build a
couple of towers just outside and watch them die.
Don't ignore the town bell - it's immensely useful in many levels.
Group units according to abilities and movement speed. Every group will move
at the speed of its slowest unit, at least until the group enters combat.
Don't buy upgrades you don't need just for the sake of having them. There are
quite a few you'll never need from the university, as they apply mainly to
towers. While playing this game I found myself relying almost entirely on
castles and directional walls - I didn't need tons of towers on which to waste
my stone.
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
-----------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬---------------------------
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
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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 played the game on Moderate difficulty, since it's probably the difficulty
level most people will choose.
I've given each level a difficulty rating from 1 to 3, 1 being easiest and 3
hardest. You might disagree with these ratings, but I will remain incapable of
giving a munkle's chunkle.
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 ostentatious
piffle and get right to the brief but useful hints.
Anyway, good luck and I hope my tactics help you out.
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2.1 ATTILA THE HUN
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Barbarian hordes feast on the dying Roman Empire. The most dangerous of these
invaders are the Huns and their ferocious king, Attila. After pouring out of
the Caspian steppes, looting and burning all the while, the Huns become so
powerful that the Roman Empire is forced to pay a tribute to Attila. But the
king of the Huns is still not satisfied, and he mobilizes his horsemen to
invade Gaul and eventually Rome itself! Can nothing stop the brutal Attila?
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2.1.1 THE SCOURGE OF GOD
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Success in this first mission depends on how quickly you move. If you hang
about and take your time doing everything you might find this mission almost
impossible to win; whereas dealing with the objectives as soon as you are
given them can make it almost impossible to lose. If you do it my way you'll
see why I've given it the lowest difficulty rating.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
Attila must survive.
Attila must make sure Bleda is killed and return to the Huns' camp. Only then
can the Huns ride against their enemies.
---
Bleda challenges Attila to a contest involving a poor boar. Take Attila north
west, aware that you're quite clearly being led into an ambush. Fight the boar
with Bleda, and he betrays you once it's dead. Don't wait for him to finish
talking - get Attila running south east towards Bleda's purple buildings.
All those horsemen will see Attila running past and will realise that Bleda
betrayed him, at which point they'll switch allegiances and help you kill off
Bleda and his archers. Once this is done Attila gains control of the camp and
the game begins.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: RESCUE HUN CAPTIVES FROM ROMAN FORT TO THE SOUTH
DEFEAT 2 OF YOUR REMAINING 3 ENEMIES (THE SCYTHIANS, ROMANS AND PERSIANS)
~.><.~
You should have three idle villagers, so get them chopping wood or harvesting
berries while you take all your horsemen south. Follow the road south over the
bridge, heading down towards the Roman base.
Don't bother building any more villagers yet. Just send your horsemen all the
way to the southern corner of the Roman town (ignore the towers and guards for
now), where you will discover your trapped peasants and a Scythian scout.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: FREE THE SCYTHIAN SCOUT FROM THE ROMAN FORT. HE PROMISES A REWARD
~.><.~
Now get your horsemen to attack the Roman guards, then get them to knock down
the weak towers. I know you take a lot of damage and will probably even lose a
few units, but the town's defences are really easy to wipe out. Once your guys
are safe punch holes in the palisade walls of both enclosures.
The Scythian scout will scarper north (don't attack him) and you can take your
peasants all the way back to your base. Keep your horsemen back and destroy
the Roman buildings until the Romans are defeated.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: BRING ATTILA TO THE SCYTHIAN VILLAGE IN THE WEST TO DISCUSS AN
ALLIANCE
~.><.~
I strongly suggest you do this right away, since if you take too long the
Scythians will become your enemies instead of neutrals, and you really don't
want the Scythians as an enemy. Send Attila west now, while your peasants head
for home and your horsemen get started on taking down the Roman base. You
should also be able to advance to the Feudal Age, so do that while you wait
for Attila to arrive at the Scythian encampment.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: SEND 10 HORSES TO THE FLAGGED SCYTHIAN PALISADE SO THE SCYTHIANS CAN
SUPPLY ATTILA WITH SOLDIERS
~.><.~
Now you just have to find ten horses (just approach them with one of your
units) scattered around and send them over there. Here are the locations of
the horses:
South of your camp (1)
Trapped behind palisade walls at the north west corner of your camp (3)
Due east of your starting lumber camp (2)
Due north west of your starting mill, across the river (4)
Due west of the bridge to the west of your camp, on the coast (3)
Outside the north west wall of the Roman camp (3)
Once you get ten to the Scythian flags you get another objective.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: KEEP 10 HORSES IN THE FLAGGED SCYTHIAN PALISADE SO THE SCYTHIANS CAN
SUPPLY ATTILA WITH SOLDIERS
~.><.~
Build up your base and units while you hunt for the horses. You can get those
three out of the palisade by getting a mangonel to fire at the ground where
the walls are placed.
The Scythians donate loads of free mangudai to the cause when you give them
ten horses, which is frankly something you want sooner rather than later; and
they also brilliantly begin attacking the Persians in large numbers, making
your life infinitely easier. Research Cartography from the market place so you
can see how the Scythians are getting on.
If the Persians do manage to attack you it will be across the southern bridge,
so concentrate on defending there instead of anywhere else. Stick some towers
and a gate at the bridge; and destroy that red Persian gate to the west with
rams as soon as you can, in order to get rid of that irritating tower behind
it, and to get to the plentiful gold.
Build a dock just beyond this wall so that you can get across to the Persian
base easily. Either that or just send your units slowly south and then east.
The Scythians should keep the Persians more than occupied, and it's not hard
to send in your rams, knights and mangudai to delete the Persian base bit by
bit.
Kill off the town centre and the last of the Persian peasants and it's victory
for the Hun.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Pull Attila away from the boar as soon as it's dead, and gain the help of the
horsemen.
Take care of the Roman base at the very start - don't hang around and let them
get stronger.
Meet with the Scythians as soon as you get the objective, and find the horses
for them to quickly get their help and lots of mangudai.
The Persians become a luxury once the Scythians start attacking them - by the
time your own troops are ready the Persians will be practically destroyed
anyway.
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2.1.2 THE GREAT RIDE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is like a bad custom-made mission, and the area is far too big for its
objectives. You'll wish you could just skip the tedious trek at the beginning,
but at least the enemy base is easy to take down.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
Raid the Roman villages. Once you have enough resources to build a forward
base, then you can field an army against the Romans.
---
Make two groups - one of tarkans and another of cavalry archers - and take
everyone south west to the Sofian village. Destroying their very poorly
defended town centre will get your mob some food towards their stockpile and
defeat the Sofians.
Move west to the trees and stick to them while you head farther south west, to
the enclave with the archers and mangonel inside it. Send your cavalry archers
close to the wall to bait the mangonel into attacking them, then move them
away when it shoots, allowing your tarkans to batter a hole in the wall. Send
everyone in and destroy the mangonel, then the archers.
Now head south west again until you see the castle. Don't get too close and
don't attack the gate next to it. Head south east along the wall until you
find the other gate.
Start attacking the gate and some guards will appear from both inside and
outside the walls, opening the gate in the process. This will allow your
horses through, at which point you can remove the guards and start on the town
centre. Clear away any peasants hanging around.
If you approach the castle it will spit out some more tarkans and hussars for
you, but they will be trapped and under attack from the castle. It's up to you
if you want to try to get these extra units, but I tend to just deal with the
castle later.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.3 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
Les <
[email protected]>
"If you defeat Dyrrhachium outright, the military units in that pallisade
all die on their own and they can be avoided untill that time anyway..
there's no need to face them at all. As for the castle, it HAS NO
MURDER HOLES! This is key. Just send in your tarkans against it and
keep your archers well away and you can take it without casualties. I
just used my tarkans to break-down all the gates around the Dyrrhachium
inner-town and then destroyed all the buildings within and set-up my own
town-center mating my own gates to the still-intact walls for defense..
then sent my vilagers out to 'appropriate' the Dyrrhachium and later the
Sophia farms.. You can also, if you wish, build a dock and some fishing
ships to take food from the Thessalonican fish-traps.
Also, don't forget to raid the mines south of the Roman fort and east of
Thessalonica.. Adrianople I think it's called. Big boost of gold and
stone."
---
I got a bit of a doing when I approached the castle, which is why I advised
avoiding it until you're stronger; but if your way works then it works. I
remember trying to use the fish traps but I ditched them when I realised the
boats were, as usual, taking ages - better with farmers. As for the mines, I
knew they were there but I also knew I didn't need them to win the level -
only worth going for if you're really struggling for resources, which you
shouldn't really be in this level. Thanks for the suggestions.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.3 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
Go east to the Thessalonican base and get rid of the guards. Knock out the
houses to gain control of some much needed peasants, then destroy the mill,
the docks and any remaining peasants, defeating Thessalonica.
Send your new peasants northwards to the bunch of gold east of the red Sofian
base, while your horses move on across the river to the east to find
Adrianople. Destroying their mines will net you some gold; but get rid of the
monks, towers and miners first.
Head north, but stick to the western trees so you can avoid the Roman base.
You will also pass a pathway with torches and bones, but you can come back
here later.
Now you have to destroy Naissus's lumber mills for some wood. Do this and then
kill the peasants to defeat Naissus.
Now send your combat units west to meet up with your peasants. Build a town
centre between the gold and the Sofians' farms, and start building your base
around here. You will get a new objective once your town centre is up.
~.><.~
TRAIN AN ARMY AND DEFEAT THE ROMANS BY LEVELLING THEIR TOWN CENTER
~.><.~
The Sofian farms can be used by your peasants - just get a peasant to
'attack' one. Build a siege workshop and a couple of rams to help take down
that Dyrrhachian castle you missed earlier, since you'll be needing the stone
this will bring you; and a monastery to get your existing combat units back up
to health.
Once the castle is gone Dyrrhachium will be defeated. Get mining the stone to
the north of it if you haven't already.
You now just have to watch out for the Roman attacks which will be coming at
you from over that river crossing to the east. They will send various units
but nothing a few towers and the Town Patrol upgrade can't handle, in
conjunction with your knights and monks (the Romans have Heresy researched, so
your monks will kill them rather than convert them).
Upgrade everything and build a decent sized force, bearing in mind you have a
pop. limit of 75 in this mission. I recommend four or five rams, two or three
monks, a bunch of knights and another bunch of crossbowmen and / or elite
skirmishers.
While you are building your forces, send a fast unit around to that path into
the forest you passed earlier. When you get inside you will meet some Scythian
witches (with American accents) who tell you to send over 6 of your villagers
if you want a nice gift.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: GIVE 6 VILLAGERS TO THE SCYTHIAN WILD WOMEN IN RETURN FOR THEIR
ASSISTANCE
~.><.~
You do want a nice gift so send 6 villagers over, at which point the women
will tell you to go north of their hut to a clearing. Send a unit up there and
you'll get a big bunch of hunting wolves and petards (make sure you max your
pop. limit out before picking these units up).
ATTACKING THE ROMANS
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Now is the time to empty your base and launch an attack. Position everyone
north west of the Roman base and start building a castle north of the small
bridge. Use the wolves to scout out the perimeter of the Roman walls while you
build the castle, then start hitting the gate with rams. The Roman units will
be baited into attacking the rams, so pull them back to within range of your
castle.
Once you've dealt with whatever meagre guard force the Romans had, hit the
gate and the towers, then pour everyone inside to get working on the
buildings. You could try building some unit production buildings of your own
just behind your castle to speed up the replenishment of your armies.
Knock out the castle first with petards and rams, then launch a full-scale
attack on the town centre. Once it falls the Romans are defeated.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The Dyrrhachian castle will give you some units if you attack it early, but
you may lose as many or more if you try to take the castle down without siege
units.
The Romans will only attack over one river crossing if you build your base
next to Sofia.
Build a castle just outside the Roman walls to make attacking their base much
easier.
You only need to destroy their town centre to defeat the Romans.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.1.3 THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The beginning of this mission makes it seem a lot harder than it is, but if
you fend off the pretty pathetic green attacks you're laughing. This mission
is all about getting gold by threatening your enemies, but you'll have to
spend some in order to destroy them, so don't be surprised if you feel a sense
of inevitability as you approach the blue walls.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
Stockpile 10,000 gold in tribute from the Romans.
---
Ring the town bell as soon as the level starts, then bait the attacking greens
down towards it. You should be able to convert one of the men-at-arms while
killing off the other two units. The greens are going to keep attacking until
you stop them, though they never send anything more powerful than scout
cavalry.
Start producing peasants and work towards building a monastery, fending off
the greens' attacks all the while. Stick most of your units on patrol around
the eastern edge of your base, and send your monk through the mountains to the
west when your monastery is up. Pick up the relic among the trees and bring it
back to your base - it will bring you much needed gold.
Your base should advance steadily, and you should focus on building knights
and crossbowmen to protect it from attack. Send the crossbowmen south with
some miners to get started on the precious stone; and patrol the eastern edge
with your knights.
ATTACKING MARCIANAPOLIS (GREEN)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The green base of Marcianapolis is extremely easy to destroy, and you can get
a lot of gold out of it too. Just send about ten knights and three rams to the
gate, knock it down and head up to the town centre. It should give you no
trouble, and you can rake in the gold by taking out all of their big buildings
after the town centre is gone.
Once Marcianapolis has been defeated you'll want to get rid of the red base in
the south west corner of the map. I took fifteen knights, twenty crossbowmen
and elite skirmishers, four rams and three monks south of my base until I
found the river.
ATTACKING PHILIPPOPOLIS (RED)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Using a similar force, work your way along the river, past the mill, until you
find the first guard tower. Send your rams in while your ranged units hit
their ranged units, and your knights mop up stray peasants and melee units.
Once the tower is done push your rams south and destroy the town centre, and
get everyone else started on clearing out the remaining Philippopolis
buildings.
There is another relic just beside their western barracks, but don't try to
send a monk in for it until you've smashed down the guard tower to the north
east. Your knights should be able to find and kill every last peasant, and
your rams should clear away any red buildings across the east bridge, leaving
the reds all but defeated (apart from a couple of fishing boats). Make sure
you knock down that blue monastery farther to the east as well.
You now have access to lots more stone, so get mining while you tidy up any
holes in your army and explore the coastlines to see what your remaining
enemies have in store for you.
ATTACKING CONSTANTINOPLE (BLUE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
There are one or two things to note here before you try assaulting
Constantinople:
Firstly, you can complete the mission without going near the blue city, if
only you manage to extort 10,000 gold from the rest of your enemies. You can
also build a castle for another 500. The chances are that you won't have
enough gold, so I'll include an attack on Constantinople for the sake of it.
Secondly, there is a large batch of gold south of the city, on a sandy
peninsula. This is guarded by ships and ground units, however, and you'll have
so much gold by now that you probably shouldn't bother going for it.
Thirdly, you can also attack the city by sea, as there are a few gates set in
walls on the water to the north and south of it. This is again more trouble
than it's worth, and a ground attack is simple enough to allow you to ignore
the sea routes.
Anyway, build a castle to the north west of the blue city, and run along the
outer walls to bait the first bunch of units into following you. Delete these
mangonels and other ground units, then send about eight rams up the hill to
the first gate. Knock out the gate and any nearby towers, then prepare to
enter the city's walls.
You will soon be attacked by lots of different blue units, the most dangerous
of which are the mangonels. You can draw all of the Roman units outside the
walls and to within range of your castle's garrison, which makes it a lot
easier to bring them down. Get them all to the castle and then remove them,
fighting in your own territory rather than theirs.
Once the Roman base has emptied itself of its guards you can just send in rams
to get rid of the towers, castle and wonder.
The good thing about Constantinople is that, big though it is, it's not
producing any more units, so the blues get weaker with every unit they lose.
No matter how many units you lose from your own army you will emerge
victorious, and you just have to rebuild enough to assault the castle and the
wonder to the east.
Destroying the castle will get you 2000 gold, but this may still not be enough
to take you above 10,000. The wonder's destruction gets you a massive 5000
gold, which should be enough, and if so the level is over and you've won.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Ring the town bell until your army is strong enough to cope with the green
attacks on its own.
Don't waste stone on lots of fortifications - you'll wish you hadn't when you
see the minuscule bases of your neighbouring enemies.
There are two relics near the red base.
Constantinople is heavily fortified and well defended, but once you get rid of
the initial defenses they'll have nothing left to keep you at bay.
The wonder gives you the most gold when you destroy it.
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2.1.4 A BARBARIAN BETROTHAL
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This mission is often reminiscent of hell in stripey pants. There's nothing
else I can say about it, except that you should prepare yourself for a very
big headache scheduled to arrive in about three hours from now...
---
Difficulty - 2/3
Objectives:
Defeat Orleans.
Defeat Metz.
Defeat Burgundy.
---
I once approached the start of this mission by slowly and painfully destroying
Burgundy with my gaggle of starting units before they could get going. Then I
built my town on their land and took it from there.
This is possible but it turns out it wasn't a good idea.
Gather your few starting units together and build your town centre in the
eastern corner of the map. There are various batches of gold and stone around,
and it will be a long time before any of your enemies decide to attack you.
The cliffs and trees north and west of your position provide a nice set of
barriers to your enemies, so build walls and towers in between these natural
blockades. Concentrate on producing knights first and foremost, then get your
upgrades and siege units up later.
The first few attacks should be easy to fend off, and you should use any monks
you've built to capture as many of the better units as you can. After one or
two attacks you will get a welcome objective.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: BURGUNDY IS WILLING TO JOIN YOU, IF YOU CAN CONVINCE THEM YOU ARE
TRUSTWORTHY. FIRST THEY WANT A TRIBUTE OF 500 GOLD
~.><.~
You should by now have plenty of stone, and nearly enough gold. Change your
stance with Burgundy to Ally in the Diplomacy window, tribute them 500 gold
from the marketplace as soon as you are able, then get the castle built inside
their territory (which should now be revealed) within ten minutes. Site it at
the north of their base, east of their mill.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: BURGUNDY WILL JOIN YOU IF YOU BUILD A CASTLE WITHIN THE FLAGGED AREA
OF THEIR TOWN WITHIN 10 MINUTES
~.><.~
Start building trade carts and send them to trade with the Burgundian
marketplace. The Burgundians will join you when the castle is built, and life
gets easier from now on. This is why my idea to attack Burgundy early was a
very bad one - I did myself out of an ally and had to do the rest myself,
which was horrible.
You'll still have a lot of work to do, since Burgundy have all the military
might of a slice of toast that's been cut into ten pieces and dipped in a
runny egg. Start mining all the gold you can find, including the batches
within the Burgundian territory; and start building siege units, knights,
ranged units and monks to launch your first assault, which is going to be on
the red base to the north.
Before you leave the confines of your (hopefully walled) base you should make
sure you have some towers and a castle at the western point, since Orleans is
building quite a large force of cavaliers, scorpions, rams and other things to
send your way. Bait these guys into range of your castle and fight them just
outside your walls.
ATTACKING METZ (RED)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
You have space for 150 units, so build a nice mixture including trebuchets,
petards, rams and paladins. You should also have at least twenty ranged units
and a few monks for support.
Send them up the east edge of the map until you come to the red marketplace.
Attacking it will attract attention, and your frontal units should engage the
guards while you send in your rams and trebuchets to hit their castle.
Mop up using your ranged units, convert any red paladins who are approaching
from the rear, and quickly hit the town centre north of the fallen castle. You
should have more than enough of a force to get rid of the last of the red
peasants and buildings: just don't go too far west or you'll run into Orleans,
which you don't want to do quite yet.
Once Metz has been easily defeated you can pull everyone back to the safety of
your base while you rebuild and repair. Orleans will soon mount another attack
and you should get ready for it.
You should also be able to advance to the Imperial Age by now, so do this and
buy some more decent upgrades for your units and buildings.
There is a batch of stone in the southern corner of the map, and there should
still be enough gold lying about to prevent you from having to foray into
dangerous territory.
ATTACKING ORLEANS (TURQUOISE): I
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is one serious base that Orleans have, and it's going to take a lot to
bring it down. They have a castle at the south east edge of their base, so
ignore it and go around the back, past the defunct red mills on the north west
edge of the map.
Build a castle around about here - it will come in handy later. Don't bother
with any unit production buildings, but position all your forces beside the
castle before you attack.
Push a trebuchet south from the north west edge of the map, and you should see
the Orleans north wall, with a guard tower behind it. Target the tower with
the trebuchet and the turquoise guards will begin to react and pour through
the gates. Now push the rest of your forces forward: get rams working on the
gate and walls; paladins and ranged units soaking up the main Orleans attack;
monks supporting and your trebuchets hitting any buildings they can see over
the wall.
The idea here is to take out the town centre above all, which is somewhere in
the middle of the base, to the south west. If you destroy it then Orleans
won't build another one, but if you destroy everything except it they will
just rebuild everything you destroy once they (invariably) wipe out your
forces.
There's a second castle in the south east of their base which you might also
want to destroy too. Basically remove the town centre and then as many unit
production buildings as you can before you lose all of your own units inside
Orleans' walls.
If you do get rid of the town centre you are presented with a new and
extremely large problem: the Romans will appear from the west and attack you
in enormous numbers, protecting Orleans, their ally.
It's around about now that you'll lose all of your units and the dark blue
Romans will fill the Orleans walls. Once your guys are dead some of the Romans
will immediately attack your north castle or your main base - my north castle
easily withstood their individual attacks; and my main base had a castle and
five towers behind thick walls waiting for any attackers.
You should now be able to sit back and soak up attack after attack from the
unorganised Romans, and they will not replace lost units. Don't bother
attacking Orleans while the Romans are about. Eventually the dark blue attacks
will stop altogether and the Romans will have almost no units left on the map.
While you're waiting for this you should be scraping up whatever gold remains
around the area and protecting your mining operations with at least one tower
per mining camp. Get rebuilding your forces with this gold and the gold being
brought in from your trade carts running between your base and Burgundy.
ATTACKING ORLEANS (TURQUOISE): II
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Build up pretty much the same force as you had before, only this time you're
aiming to wipe out Orleans totally. There should now be a big hole in their
northern walls, and you can send your masses through there again and finish
off the remaining buildings much more easily.
Rome can't intervene a second time, and if you can remove the Orleans paladins
and scorpions the rest should topple quite easily, with not too many
casualties on your side. This will be especially true if you send decoys to
run in and out again, drawing a few enemies up to your northern castle each
time.
There's still that castle in the middle of the map to deal with, so hit it
with trebuchets while your cavalry archers or whatever take out the guards.
The Orleans trebuchets can be dropped easily by your paladins, and all that
remains is to hunt down every last enemy unit. Research Spies from the castle
to help with this.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Build a square base surrounded by walls, with a castle and some towers in the
north west corner - you will rely on this barrier many times.
Try to enlist Burgundy's help - it's not very much but it's better than
deliberately giving yourself four enemies.
Attacking Orleans is easier if you sneak around to the north.
Make sure you destroy the town centre the first time you attack Orleans.
Let the Romans come to you - don't try to engage them while they're waiting
inside the Orleans walls.
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2.1.5 THE CATALAUNIAN FIELDS
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This one's a killer, both with base defense and getting rid of your enemies.
Two of your opponents are doable, but the dark blue Roman base is one of the
toughest in the entire game.
---
Difficulty - 3/3
Objectives:
Defeat the Romans, Alans and Visigoths.
---
This is a big level with three strong enemies, each of whom will send large
numbers of heavy units against you. And they'll start pretty soon after the
mission begins, so your first priority is to build and defend your base.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.2 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
William Qi <
[email protected]>
"I feel it can actually be alot easier if you act fast enough, like the Hints
suggested to treat it like a death match. Build a castle and two stables right
when the game starts, and start pump out knights and Tarkans, once you have
around 30-35 of each(about 5-10 minutes if you are on fast speed), sent them
straight to Teal, at this stage, the Tarkans tears down their castle like it
is made out of paper while you sent your knights to their combat units, which
are mostly archers at this stage, you should not take more than 5 minutes to
take down their base. Then sent them straight towards Green's base from the
North. Whilst at home, your economy should start running smoothly, upgrade
whatever you can, and should be teching up to Imperial age by the time teal's
base is down, prioritize elite tarkan upgrade once you reach imperial.
Ideally, you will have elite tarkans or cavaliers by the time your army reach
green's base but don't fret if you didn't, as before, tarkans tears down the
two castles fast and painlessly.
Blue is a bit tricky, since if you invade while their troops are in there, you
will be killed quite fast. This time, bring all your units back home and heal
them up. Reinforce up and upgrade to Paladins, and get 4-5 trebuchets, you
should be up to your population max. Now, sent all your army(leave a paladin
at home) to west of blue's base, but don't attack. Wait until you see blue
moving out to attack you. Once the blues reach your base, get your lone
Paladin to draw them to your castle and run circle around it, and kill any
trebuchets they have. Whilst blue are busy with your castle, sent your main
army straight to their castles, with tarkans targeting one, trebuchets attack
another and your paladin deal with any combat units they have left. You should
be able to kill all three castles this way no problem. Sent reinforcements of
paladins to blue's base once you done deal with their invaders in your base.
With this way, I was able to beat this mission in 35 minutes on fast. The main
trick is attack fast and don't give them any time to build up, especially teal
and green. And with blue, they should have only 3 castles up by the time you
and there and taking down the three castles is easy with Tarkans insane
building attack(they killed one of blue's castle before my 4 trebuchets
brought another one down to 20%), and paladin support to soak up fire."
¬¬¬
Unfortunately I've lost my friggin' savegames for AOC, so I can't check this
out for myself (at least not until I go through the game again). It sounds
like a very good tactic, and definitely not one which occurred to me -
probably because I'm more of a cautious, build-up-the-base sort of player, and
so rushing in at the start only suits me on one or two missions. But any
suggestions which help make this tough mission easier are appreciated, so
thanks for this.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.2 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
Pull everyone just east of where you start and build your town centre in the
little corner tucked into the trees. Expand west from there, and get knights
and cavalry archers up in numbers as soon as you can. The area is a little too
open for lots of walls, plus you don't have a lot of stone, so build a castle
facing south to the bridge, and another castle facing north west.
Build the castles close enough together so that enemies running in between
them will always come within range of either one or the other. Build walls
which lead enemies towards your castles, since sometimes they can sneak in
around the back or through gaps. Forget about towers.
Your red allies to the north are not strong and you can't rely on them for
anything. You'll need to spot any encroaching enemies quickly, and take them
out before they reach either your base or your ally's. Just stick with lots of
horses and always fight around the castles for support. Keep your paladins
roaming around outside the castles, and your ranged units and monks garrisoned
inside. Use the paladins to draw enemies into the castles' range and watch out
for trebuchets and rams.
ATTACKING VISIGOTHS (GREEN)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The Visigoths are to the south, and their base is the weakest of the three
enemies'. I took about twenty paladins, twenty cavalry, five trebs and a few
monks. Make sure you've soaked up the latest attack from either of the other
two enemies, then attack the Visigoths once your base is safe.
The Visigoth base has two castles south of the town centre, but other than
that they are pretty delicate and can be knocked over easily. Clear out the
remaining peasants and then pull everyone back to base to continue defending
from the other two enemies. You should no longer be attacked from across that
southern bridge, so explore to the west and place a tower or outpost at each
river crossing - one to the west and another to the north west. They won't
stop any attacks but they will give you a very useful advance warning.
You can also switch to Ally with the Franks in the far west and start sending
trade carts to their marketplace for more gold.
ATTACKING ALANS (TURQUOISE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
You might have noticed that your two castles are having trouble catching every </pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
enemy incursion, especially with those enemy trebuchets sitting in the
background. Build another one if you can afford it, and place it beside the
bank of trees just north west of your base, south of the Ostrogoths'
marketplace.
The Alans' base is pretty easy to take down too - about as easy as the
Visigoths', except that they're farther away. Push all your units to the east
end of the river crossing leading west to their base, then attack the nearby
castle with the trebuchets. The base will empty of cataphracts and other
units, but nothing your paladins and cavalry can't easily break up and defeat.
The castle will be gone by the time your ground units have dealt with theirs,
so start on the town centre, stable, etc. Hunt down the last of the peasants
and you have only one enemy left.
ATTACKING ROMANS (BLUE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
I've tried many times to attack the Romans the conventional way: sending in
the usual bunches of paladins, trebuchets, archers, etc. This just doesn't
work. The Romans can have three or four castles at a time, plenty of towers,
tons of units, including defense trebuchets, and lots of peasants bringing in
more and more and more resources. If you hit Rome and manage to wipe out half
of their base and most of their units, they will all be back by the time
you've replenished your own armies.
The best thing to do is to build one or two castles in close proximity of each
other, just outside the Romans' territory (if they don't attack your building
sites you're OK). Build one or two of each unit production building behind
your castle(s) and keep your entire army here until you're ready.
By the time you reach the Roman base their peasants will almost certainly be
working outwith the confines of the main base, which makes it easy for you to
run around the outskirts, pick them off with cavalry archers and then retreat
to your nearby castle. This has the dual effect of getting rid of some of the
pesky peasants and also forcing the Romans to send their own army out to
investigate.
The Romans will send virtually every combat unit they have at your nearest
castle when you pick a fight with the outlying peasants, so soak up their
attack around your castle(s) and then quickly move in for the kill. I had to
use two groups of four trebuchets, as the Romans have so many castles and unit
production buildings. With their guards gone you shouldn't find it hard to
raze their town, and then it's just a case of hunting down every last peasant
with Spies.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Two or even three castles on the western edge of your first base is not
overkill. Guard them with paladins to take out any and all siege weapons.
Destroy the Visigoths early.
Trade with the Franks in the west.
Instead of charging into the Roman base and getting cut down by their units,
castles and towers, build your own secondary base just beyond the limits of
their territory, then draw their units into the deathtrap of your own
fortifications.
Don't reinforce your army from your main base while attacking the Romans -
it's far too far away. Build more unit production buildings in the north of
the map, otherwise you'll never defeat the Romans.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.1.6 THE FALL OF ROME
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is one seriously difficult mission, maybe the hardest in the game
overall. It will take you a long time and you may not manage it at all if you
suck.
---
Difficulty - 3/3
Objectives:
Defeat Milan, Padua, Verona and Aquileia, so that you may parlay with Rome.
Attila must survive.
---
You are not in a good position here. Those mountains are actually a hindrance,
not a help, and you have little space in which to build your town.
Unfortunately the level is designed so that this is the only place you can
really build a base and expect to keep it for very long.
I managed to defeat Milan as soon as the level started, using just my own
starting units, but Verona just sent a ton of units in and wiped me out before
I could start building a base inside Milan's walls. I've also tried destroying
Milan's eastern castle and then sending all my starting units down south to
build a base right next to the Roman walls, but the area was just far too open
and the stone is at the opposite end of the map.
By the way, Milan are very vulnerable at the start of the level, and if you
want to try you can actually pretty much defeat them before they can get
going. You will have to be building your own base up at the same time,
however, so if you do go for Milan early make sure your other enemies don't
get the drop on your town while you're away. Even if you don't go for Milan
right away, send your four trebuchets south from the very start and get rid of
that unprotected castle next to the water - this will help you clear away any
green trebuchets firing on your castles later.
I usually do this mission in the following order: Aquileia, Milan, Padua,
Verona. This is possible and it's the way I prefer to go. However, since
you're reading a walkthrough I'm assuming this level is giving you trouble,
and so you may not be able to do them in this order, since you won't have
enough time to kill off Padua's wonder. So I've rearranged the order into
this: Milan, Padua, Verona, Aquileia, since Milan and Padua are the ones most
likely to beat you to it by building a wonder.
Anyway, assuming you're leaving Milan alone until you're stronger, the first
thing you should do is start building a castle immediately, preferably south
of your town centre, at the place where the land opens out past the mountains.
Don't bother with walls or gates or anything - they will hinder you more than
your enemies. Pull your trebuchets right up to the north edge of the map,
behind your town centre, as your enemies will target them before any of your
other units.
Produce lots of peasants and get building farms, chopping lumber and building
the resource buildings. Get more peasants started on the gold to the west and
the stone far to the east - don't bother protecting your mines, as they should
never come under attack.
Padua and Milan have both probably started building their wonders by now, but
don't panic. Don't research Atheism either, not until you know you might not
make it without it.
Build walls, gates and a couple of towers at the back west and east passages
into your base, and keep small, numbered groups of knights just behind each.
Your enemies will be trying to sneak siege weapons and crossbowmen through the
back routes occasionally, and you need fast and mobile units hanging around to
quickly respond to these threats. Three or four knights at each passage can
handle everything that might come along, but wall and gate the passages off
too, just in case. Let the siege weapons attack your towers, then send your
knights rushing out to kill the enemy units off.
You should be able to fit your buildings in at the back, once your lumberjacks
have cleared the area. Concentrate on building lots of knights, as the only
units capable of catching and killing everything else quickly. Build another
castle facing the purple base, and keep them repaired while you build your
army. The only units your two castles can't remove by themselves are the
trebuchets, so keep your eyes open, because there are lots of trebuchets
around here.
ATTACKING MILAN (GREEN)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
You could also go for the weakest enemy, Aquileia, first, but for the sake of
this guide I'll start with Milan. Milan will start building a wonder long
before Aquileia, plus their siege weapons cause you many more problems than
anything Aquileia can come out with. They're the most dangerous enemy you
have, so kill them earlier rather than later.
You might be thinking you should keep Attila back at base, away from battle;
but I've sent him in every time and he didn't die. Your enemies won't
prioritise him, stupidly, and paladins are so tough that Attila should never
come to harm while escorted by a big group of twenty or more. Send him into
battle - he's a good unit.
If you do go for Aquileia first (I always do) you can still be back in time to
destroy Milan and then Padua before either can complete their wonders. I
believe Aquileia are the last of your enemies to attempt a wonder, so you'll
probably want to leave them alone for now while you deal with the faster two.
Since I'm starting with Milan here, I'll mention Aquileia later.
Milan, in case you hadn't noticed, like their siege weapons. In fact they will
hardly ever send out anything other than mangonels, trebuchets and
crossbowmen. Their attacks are irritating to fend off, but their base is a bit
of a pushover (though they may have three castles). It's also good to take
Milan out first because, when you try to attack Padua, Milan send siege units
over in support of their purple allies, which is a serious problem for you.
Anyway, send a big army of paladins, cavalry archers and trebuchets south
until you find and destroy Milan's outer mill. They should empty their base of
crossbowmen and mangonels, etc. but your horses can fend them all off. Pick
off the mangonels quickly, then move your trebuchets down and hit the gate (go
for the gate before anything else - you don't need mangonels firing at you
from behind the green walls.
Once the gate is down use your trebs to find and destroy the nearby towers,
then move your army inside their walls to get rid of their town centre. West
of here is another castle (sometimes) and a few unit production buildings, but
Milan should be crippled with the loss of their only town centre, and you can
clear everything in here easily, including the wonder they'll have started
building. There's another castle to the west, across the bridge, but you might
have defeated Milan by now by killing all their peasants. If not just clear
away everything else until they're finished.
Pull everyone back to base and fill out your army again. Padua are on their
way to completing their wonder, and you're going to have to move fast to
destroy it in time.
The good news is that you only have to watch for attacks from the east from
now on - Milan were the only ones attacking from south or west. Plus Verona
are the only ones left who will regularly send trebuchets your way, which is
even more of a relief.
ATTACKING PADUA (PURPLE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is a big base, and the wonder is right in the middle. There's really only
one place you can attack from because of the time limit, so range your army
just out of reach of their walls. Get one or two trebuchets to hit the gate,
another two on the two towers inside it, and another one or two on the tower
down the western wall.
Padua will of course respond with most of their army, so do your best to fend
them off with your cavalry archers. Hit mangonels with your paladins as soon
as you see them, and let the paladins soak up the counter-attacks from Padua
by sticking them in front while your cavalry support. Keep monks in the
background for healing.
Once the gate and towers are gone you can head inside. It's very congested in
here, and it's easy to break your army up because of all the buildings. Try to
keep everyone together, and target every trebuchet you have on that wonder,
while everyone else supports (kill off the peasants and town centre with
paladins while your ranged units take out the crossbowmen, etc.
You will probably keep most or all of your knights, but your cavalry archers
might be pretty much wiped out, and you won't have all your trebuchets either.
This doesn't matter - if the wonder is gone then Padua have serious problems.
Pull everyone back to the safety of your castles as soon as you see it fall,
and let the castles get your back.
Now just build up another army and head back inside Padua's walls with it.
Advance slowly and carefully, keep everyone together and watch out for towers
and the castles to the south east. Destroy any gates you find too, as they
will make it easier for you to chase down the annoying crossbowmen.
If you have eradicated pretty much every purple building you see and yet Padua
are still alive and well, they've probably built another town centre inside
Verona's walls, far to the south east. Deal with this later, but Padua will
probably never be a real threat again. Leave them long enough and they will
start building another wonder, however.
By now your gold and stone mines have probably run out, so send all your
miners south of the now ruined Milan, follow the road across the bridge, then
look south of the end of the bridge to find lots more gold. There's no more
stone in the level though, so buy what you need from the market. Hopefully you
left Milan's market standing too.
Speaking of wonders, while you were attacking Padua, Verona will have started
on theirs. Research Atheism this time, and push whatever forces you have still
standing through Padua's south gates, then go down the road until you find a
couple of Verona's houses. Stop here and bring some peasants down to build a
castle and some unit production buildings north west of Verona's orange base.
ATTACKING VERONA (ORANGE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is a bog-standard base, slightly easier than Padua's to destroy. You
should know how to deal with this sort of thing by now: just hit towers and
gates with trebuchets, let their armies break onto yours, suck them back to
your castle, keep healing, advance once each section is clear of towers.
Verona have a couple of castles and they will keep producing trebuchets and
axemen. Bring them down when you see them, and watch out for all the paladins
and monks.
Once you destroy Verona's wonder they will resign, whether you get all their
peasants or not, so you might want to just barge in with trebuchets or petards
and go for the wonder while you keep the rest of the orange units busy.
Now all that is left (if you didn't kill them off earlier) is to defeat
Aquileia. Well, Padua might have started another wonder inside their old base,
so research Spies (you should have enough gold) and kill off Padua's peasants
and the wonder to finish the purples off once and for all.
The last batch of gold is south east of Verona's walls.
ATTACKING AQUILEIA (RED)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The reds are the easiest bunch to defeat, and you probably won't need a
walkthrough at all for their tiny base. They'll have a few buildings outside
their walls, to the south, but you can delete them easily and soak up the
counter-attack coming from the main base. Get rid of the towers and gates,
then head inside to delete everything you see. As far as I know you don't have
to finish off the ships to defeat Aquileia, but you will have to kill their
peasants and a wonder, if they've even managed to get the finger out and begin
building one.
Anyway, once you've vanquished all four of your enemies you get a new
objective.
~.><.~
ATTILA MUST MEET WITH POPE LEO I OUTSIDE THE GATES OF ROME
~.><.~
Send Attila down to the revealed area, where the pope is waiting.
Congratulations on winning the Attila The Hun campaign.
-----------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬-------------------------------
2.2 EL CID
-----------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬-------------------------------
Spain is divided between Christian kingdoms to the north and Moorish kingdoms
to the south. In the barren borderlands of Castille, Rodrigo Diaz, called El
Cid, gains notoriety as a brilliant general and heroic crusader. El Cid is so
popular among soldiers and peasants alike that the distrustful King of
Castille sends him into exile. The Cid must join forces with his former
enemies, the Moors, and fight against his beloved Castille. But an even
greater threat waits across the sea in Africa, where fanatical Berber horsemen
are eager to seize what the Moors could not.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
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2.2.1 BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is a nice, peaceful little level, where your enemies can be controlled
and dominated easily. There is only one batch of stone, and if you control it
you control the map. You also get quite a lot of free stuff, which is always
nice.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
Become King Sancho's champion in a trial by combat.
---
Take El Cid into the arena and he will defeat the two-handed swordsman. Send
him to the stable to get the horse, then return him to the arena to kill off
the knight. Now send him down the hill to the west and stand him in front of
the bunch of yellow units until the King gives them to Cid as his army.
~.><.~
EL CID MUST SURVIVE
TAKE COMMAND OF THE CASTILLIAN ARMY IN ORDER TO CAPTURE KING SANCHO'S
CONNIVING, AMBITIOUS BROTHER, KING ALFONSO. ALFONSO'S CASTLE LIES TO THE
NORTHWEST, ACROSS THE RIVER
~.><.~
Use your new units to explore the eastern half of the map, and make sure you
pick up the free houses in the village to the north. There are two bridges
across to the centre of the map - go across the northern one and get more
houses, a mill, a lumber camp and four more peasants.
Build your town centre just south of that bridge and send all your combat
units north until they find the walls of King Alfonso's base. Pick a fight
with the nearby stone miners and the base will empty of its guards, though
your own units should be able to finish them off if they are out of range of
the blue towers.
Now send them all up the eastern coast, beside the east wall of the blue base.
They should run into some gold miners - the only ones Alfonso has - and the
miners should fall quickly to your soldiers. Kill off the mining camp and wait
for the reprisal from the now pretty weak blues. They will send up units to
investigate for a couple of minutes, but they will soon run out of gold, and
by that time your own base should be capable of replacing any soldiers you
lose. You now have the upper hand, and you should establish your own gold mine
up there quickly, leaving all your soldiers in the vicinity, out of reach of
the blue towers inside the walls.
You can do the same with that stone mine you found - wipe it out and post some
guards just beside it. Continue to build up your base, knowing that your
enemies can't get at any stone or gold.
By the way, don't chop trees around the lumber camp you got given - instead
build ten lumberjacks and send them far west, over the bridge and west to the
trees and the edge of the map. Build a lumber camp here and start cutting down
these trees, as there is a monastery with four relics hiding beyond them,
guarded by a few monks, who will ally with you when you approach them.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.3 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
Lambert Forkink <
[email protected]>
"There is a path trough the forest, fust west of the most western blue
tower.You can reach it without bieng hit if you move next to the trees. Send a
knight to them is much quicker and easier. if you do this in the castle age
and with redemption reseached, you can convert a tower, which can function
like an outpost."
---
Nice one, I never spotted the path.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.3 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
There are a few other things you might want to do while you build up your
forces for an attack:
Send someone up that hill to the south to find six more free units. Build a
marketplace to the west of your main base and start trading with your allies
across the river. Build a castle just south of the blue gate, in order to
catch any and all units coming through.
Now that Alfonso's army has access to neither gold nor stone, they've pretty
much lost already. I used three petards to knock down their gate, another four
each for the two towers behind it, then I moved my ground units in and camped
them at the unit production buildings right next to the hole I had just
created in their walls. I then sent four rams over the bridge to start work on
the castle, then moved more petards in just behind them to hit the castle
while Alfonso's siege units reacted from the west. The rams and petards should
be more than a match for the castle, at which point you'll get your final
objective.
~.><.~
EL CID HIMSELF MUST BRING THE CAPTURED KING ALFONSO TO KING SANCHO'S
TOURNAMENT GROUNDS
~.><.~
Alfonso changes stance to Neutral and then to Ally, and all that's left for
you to do is to send Cid and the King (standing alone north of his castle)
back to the arena you fought in earlier.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Stop Alfonso's army from mining stone and gold as soon as you can - they will
offer almost no resistance from then on.
There is no need for a vast army in this level - you can hold Alfonso's
soldiers at bay with one castle outside their walls, and assault their base
with four rams and about fifteen petards.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
2.2.2 THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is a big mission with a very complex bunch of fortifications and
buildings to negotiate. But by being sneaky and devious you can render your
enemies impotent while you stroll in and grab the four relics from under their
noses.
---
Difficulty - 2/3
Objectives:
El Cid must survive.
Find a way to stop the rebellion in Toledo.
---
Move everyone downwards and you get another objective.
~.><.~
EL CID MUST MEET WITH THE IMAM, AS HE WILL KNOW HOW TO QUELL THE UNREST IN
TOLEDO
~.><.~
Soon afterwards Toledo is defeated, but ignore that for now. Send Cid alone to
the east, past the Motamid guys who will ally with you and whose marketplace
you can trade with later, and farther east until he finds the water. There is
a ship to the south which will come under your control, so send Cid across the
lake to meet the Imam.
~.><.~
RECOVER THE 4 RELICS FROM THE REBEL LEADERS AND RETURN THEM TO THE IMAM
~.><.~
So he wants the relics, but can't be bothered getting off his arse and
recovering them by himself. Anyway, put Cid back on the ship and drop him off
to the south, back on the mainland.
Now bring all the rest of your units down to meet him and head east as far as
you can, until you hit the edge of the map, on the southern coast of the lake.
Set up your base among the mountains south of here: there is plenty of gold
and this area is very inaccessible from your enemies' point of view. The place
you entered the map in is not a good place for a base.
Build your town centre, farms, mill and lumber camp next to the gold among the
mountains, then start building houses against the pond to the east (you will
soon lose the houses you started with). Build your larger buildings on the
beach south of the big lake, and block both entrances to the mountain pass
with stone gates. Build a marketplace so that you can trade and buy more
stone, and start producing knights and cavalry archers to protect the big
crossing south of the lake, which is where almost all your enemies will be
coming from (make sure to block that little pass by the west cliffs with a few
squares of wall).
All your enemies will now be coming at you over that crossing, so build a
couple of towers, stick five archers in each, then just patrol the area with
your heavy units, with monks sitting behind them for healing. You are
basically safe, since the enemies won't be building siege weapons, and you can
begin the next phase of the attack.
NULLIFYING THE THREAT FROM THE SARACENS (GREEN)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Getting this right is tricky, but once it's in place the greens are pretty
much useless. Send five or six villagers and ten archers through the southern
pass, then directly east to the little clump of trees. Head due south from
here until you find the small outcrop of stone in the desert. Ignore this for
now and continue directly south until you find much more stone beside a green
mining camp. The Motamids tell you about this stone at some point, but
I'm not sure what triggers their message.
Make sure you have enough stone from the marketplace and then build an
enclosure surrounding the stone and mining camp. Build a gate somewhere in the
wall and make sure you leave enough room for yourself to build a mining
camp and a couple of guard towers (upgrade these as soon as you can from the
university). Stick the guard towers at the north wall of this enclosure, with
the mining camp against the map's edge.
Protect this construction site with your archers until everything is in place,
then put five archers in each tower, while your peasants begin mining the
valuable stone in peace. From now until the end of the level the Saracens will
do little except send more and more units fruitlessly against the walls and
two towers of your little encampment, trying endlessly to get to the stone.
Your walls and towers and archers can hold them off forever, and you can
pretty much ignore the greens from now on.
COLLECTING THE FIRST RELIC
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is easy but long-winded. Your base should be safe and your stone mining
operation should also be safe. The only threat will be coming from the
intermittent skirmishes into your territory by the orange Spanish Rebels, none
of which should be a problem if you've posted towers and gates on the
outskirts of your base.
You can empty your base of combat units and head far to the west until you
cross a yellow bridge and arrive at the orange gates. Build a castle in the
clearing north of the gate, as well as a monastery and a siege workshop. Bung
a stable there too if you like, and place a gate at the beginning of the pass.
You should have plenty of gold and stone coming in now (there is more gold
just south of your mountain base, and lots in the north west corner of the
map), as well as plenty of food and lumber. You should also have built a lot
of knights and cavalry archers by now, but now that you have the castle you
can replace any fallen cavalry with the much better conquistadors. Start
building petards from the castle, since they will be mainly what you'll be
using versus the Spanish Rebels. Have one or two rams handy as well, to bear
the brunt of any attacks coming from towers and castles.
Take out the orange gate and then send in some quick horsed units to scout out
the area just south of the wall. You should find a few towers, one or two
behind gates, a town centre, a mill and a castle farther south. Have about
eight petards built, then wheel a ram into the middle to draw fire from the
towers and town centre. Blow up each tower with the petards and then start
again on the next one. The castle can be downed by knocking down the wall with
your ram (switch to Enemy with Toledo to target the wall), then sending
petards through the hole while the castle fires at the ram. Keep your
conquistadors, knights and monks just behind, out of range of any of the
fortifications, but close enough to quickly erase any Spanish soldiers who
might attack the ram(s).
And just basically keep doing this: scout farther and farther south until you
meet an obstacle, send in a ram to draw fire, send in petards to remove the
obstacle. This should work all the way down south, over the bridges, past the
towers, through the last gate and east to the castle in the little corner
island. Just keep building more and more petards.
Once that last castle is gone you should get rid of the unit production
buildings surrounding it, then pick up the relic from the castle's wreckage,
Bring it up to your monastery with a monk, then send all your units to the
north of the two bridges, where there is a coastline leading east.
By the way, don't take the relic to the Imam yet - in fact don't take any of
them to him until you have all four.
COLLECTING THE SECOND AND THIRD RELICS
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is much easier, now that the oranges have lost a ton of buildings, and
the greens are occupied by trying to take down walls and towers they can't
possibly breach. Push everyone east, with your heavy units leading the way,
You will meet some resistance but nothing that can't be steamrolled by your
legions of horses. The monks guarding the three monasteries by the statue
might manage to convert or kill one or two of your units before you kill them,
but so what? At this point you have by far the upper hand.
Delete the monks and monasteries, then send your own monks into the wreckage
for the two relics. Send them back to your own monastery while your combat
units sit in this enclosure with the statue in the middle. Bring your monks
back to your main force to provide the usual support, then push everyone east
yet again.
COLLECTING THE FOURTH RELIC
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This one's the easiest yet. Follow the roads until you come to the conspicuous
palisade wall. There will be a lone green monk trembling behind it, clutching
the last relic. Knock down the wall, introduce the monk to your conkers' guns,
then bring the fourth relic to the monastery. Pull your units out to safety -
you're done here.
All that remains is to take the four relics all the way back to the boat on
the north east lake, and across to place them in the Imam's house. Do NOT let
the ship be attacked and sunk while your monks are transporting the relics
across - I assumed they would be fine and left my computer while I waited,
then I came back to find the ship gone, along with the relics, meaning I was
stuck and had to reload. Not funny.
As soon as you dump the first relic in the Imam's monastery your enemies will
react with whatever they have, and will hurry to try to retrieve the relics.
They're wasting their time if you drop them all off at once, after which you
can just wait for the victory message.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
2.2.3 THE EXILE OF THE CID
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is a weird, half-RPG / half RTS level with a surprisingly weak opponent.
If you explore your surroundings you can exploit your enemy's vulnerabilities
quickly and easily.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
El Cid must survive.
El Cid must find a new city in which to live and a new lord to serve.
---
Head north and grab your horse, then south and make your way out of the city.
Alfonso's men will attack just as you're leaving, so head south through the
town and pick up some more units. Stop and kill the two soldiers chasing you,
then head south towards the two mountains.
~.><.~
JOIN MOTAMID OF THE MOORS AT HIS CASTLE IN ZARAGOZA
~.><.~
Run your three horses through the pass and get them to attack and kill the
scorpions, then follow up with your pikemen. More free units await just beyond
the mountains, and then you can head south east towards Alfonso's next castle.
Stick to the west edge of the map to avoid its range and the guards behind the
walls, and continue farther south to get handed a mini-base.
~.><.~
DESTROY ALFONSO'S CASTLE, SO THAT YOU MAY CONTINUE ON TO ZARAGOZA
~.><.~
Build up a nice complement of units with the resources you're given - make
sure you include three or four rams, whatever you decide to build. Use the
rams to bait the castle and guards into attacking them, then wipe out the
units with your own while your rams start on the castle (the castle's guards
should open the gate when they come through, allowing you to barge past).
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.3 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
Lambert Forkink <
[email protected]>
"I've another thing found, in the3rd mission of el cid: you suggest making
rams, but why dont use the tebuchet you got given? only build a few men at
arms to defend it from the 4 Pikeman that guard the castle. and without rams
you are much faster in Zaragoza."
---
Having lost all my saves I can't remember whether or not I got a trebuchet
before reaching Alfonso's castle. If you do get one then it's obviously useful
against the castle, but the rams are still the best bait units around,
especially if you don't want to lose your only fragile trebuchet.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.3 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
Once the units are gone, pull everyone out while your rams keep battering at
the castle. When it's down you can continue north with whatever units you've
still got left, taking them through Motamid's gates and north east to the
flagged castle.
~.><.~
DEFEND ZARAGOZA BY DESTROYING COUNT BERENGUER'S SIEGE WORKSHOP NEARBY
~.><.~
Motamid wants the siege workshop hassling his eastern gates to be removed, so
take everyone through his northern gates and go around to meet Berenguer's
siege weapons and a few guards. Nothing tough here - just target the mangonels
with your knights and the guards with anyone else. Then finish off the
workshop and houses to be given a bunch of resources and a handful of free
units by Motamid.
Now send most of your units north west to look for the big batch of gold south
of the curve of trees. There is stone round to the west, but don't go too far
north on either side of the trees or you will meet Berenguer's base. Don't
chop those trees either, as they're protecting you - send your lumberjacks to
the forest in the east corner of the map and leave them there in safety.
While you set up your base next to Motamid's northern walls, send any unhorsed
combat units south east from here until they come to the far side of the
river, where the gold is. You can pick up this gold later, when your initial
supplies run out, but for now keep heading west along the bottom of the map
until the road curves north, through some trees at a small gap past Motamid's
south west walls. You can twist around and down south again to arrive at the
small base you were given earlier.
Station these troops next to the relic lying beside the buildings, if it
hasn't been taken already, If it's still there there will be an enemy monk
coming for it soon, so defend it while you hurry towards building a monastery
and a monk of your own. If it's already gone just forget it and send your
troops back to your main base.
As far as defending your base goes, there are various bottlenecks you should
block to channel Berenguer's troops to where you want them. Scout out the area
to the south, east and west, but don't go too near Berenguer's walls or his
castle by the river to the west. Your enemy has gold and stone within his
walls, but it will run out eventually and his peasants will then go for one of
the other three gold deposits in the map, starting with the one north of their
west castle. By that time you'll want to have taken the castle and nearby
towers and gate down, and to have placed towers and defenses of your own
around that batch of gold. But if you hurry you can easily take Berenguer down
long before he leaves his own walls.
You can stop the enemy units from attacking you from the east by building a
gate right beside their easternmost one, and by placing some walls at the tiny
gap between their walls and your trees. They will almost always go the long
way round to begin with anyway, across the river and down to your old base.
Only when those buildings are gone will they start trying to attack past the
trees, but a castle around that area can deal with them easily, especially if
you stock it with heavy units.
By this point you know well how to defend a base and steer your enemies to
specific points, so I won't go on about it.
~.><.~
DEFEAT COUNT BERENGUER
~.><.~
When you are ready to attack start hitting the gate with your rams (don't
bother waiting around to hit the Imperial Age - it's too expensive and totally
unnecessary here), and back them up with your cavalry. You should batter the
gate down with little difficulty, then you can head north west to find the
barracks and then the castle.
Twat the castle with your rams and let them draw its fire, while everyone else
backs them up. Don't worry about losing units - your base is just to the south
and you can quickly replenish what little force you need here. The town centre
is to the north and then there are more unit production buildings. I never met
any enemy siege weapons except one single ram, and Berenguer's guards were
pretty pathetic.
Kill off the last peasant and you're done.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
There is only one batch of stone you can possibly mine, so build your town
nearby, behind the protection of the trees.
Your lumberjacks will be safe in the east, and you shouldn't have them cutting
down trees which are shielding you.
Try to grab that relic before Berenguer does - he already has four, and you
could do with the gold.
Keep your attack quick and simple - you'll have to with such a low pop. limit.
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2.2.4 BLACK GUARDS
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This is a great mission, but it's pretty tough in places. It's a great example
of how the most gigantic fortress in the universe is little use against a
sneaky bastard.
---
Difficulty - 2/3
Objectives:
Follow the Knight in order to rescue King Alfonso.
El Cid must survive.
King Alfonso must survive.
---
Follow the knight to the south west until you meet King Alfonso in the middle
of a battle. You have to escort him farther west to his base, which will be
visible on the mini-map. Note the stone you will pass on the way, as well as
the forests.
~.><.~
ESCORT KING ALFONSO TO HIS CAMP TO THE WEST
~.><.~
Keep Alfonso well out of the way of every battle in this game, and make sure
you keep an eye on El Cid too, though by all means use him in combat. Save
often anyway.
Bring everyone inside the walls and stick Alfonso up by the pond, out of the
way. Your new base is going to be coming under heavy attack from camels and
mangonels, among other things. You also don't have much space or resources, so
you'll have to explore the area to find more gold and stone.
Make sure you build a section of wall and preferably a guard tower at that
tiny hill on the west edge of your base, where the little house is sitting. If
your enemies smash down that house they can enter your base up that hill, so
block it.
Alfonso's told you of your main objective.
~.><.~
DESTROY THE 6 BLACK GUARD DOCKS.
~.><.~
Get chopping the lumber and mining the gold and stone quickly, but don't
bother building farms once the berries and fish are gone. There's not enough
space in here, and there are more berries to the west of your base, and far to
the east, south of the road you entered on. Build a mill at the western
berries once the first lot is gone.
Work quickly towards getting enough stone to build a castle, and once you have
enough build the castle just south of your gate, tucked into the corner of the
cliffs. You may not survive the first two attacks by using just your starting
units and walls, but you definitely will survive if your castle is in place.
The gate is where all your enemies will be coming to, so make sure they all
come within range of the castle. Stick Alfonso inside it and keep an eye on
its health throughout the level - this one castle can last you forever if you
keep it repaired after each attack.
Exploring around your base and beyond is very important in this level, because
there are valuable resources scattered around. There is stone south of your
gates, though it's guarded by an enemy tower. I suggest picking up all that
stone quickly, as well as the gold south west of your base. There is much more
stone away to the east - look for the berries south of the road, then go
farther east.
There is also a mosque south west of your base, at the edge of the map. When
you find it you will get a new objective.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: BRING EL CID TO THE BLACK GUARD MOSQUE
~.><.~
Send him down along with a monk and get another objective.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: CONVERT THE BLACK GUARD MOSQUE IN RETURN FOR AID IN DEFEATING YUSUF
AND THE BLACK GUARDS
~.><.~
You'll have to have Redemption researched from your own monastery, but if you
do then you can convert the mosque and get an interesting snippet of
information.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: DESTROY THE BLACK GUARD'S NAVY TRANSPORTS TO STOP THE ARRIVAL OF
REINFORCEMENTS
~.><.~
You can also keep your monk next to the mosque and start getting free monk
upgrades for as long as it stands.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: SEND A MONK TO OVERSEE AND LEARN AT THE FORMER BLACK GUARD MOSQUE
~.><.~
Your enemies will quickly target it, however, so bear this in mind and build a
wall in the gap to protect it for a while, if you care enough.
Anyway, your base should be adequately protected by your castle and a few
knights to take care of any sneaky trebuchets. Once those two initial batches
of berries are gone, along with most of the trees inside your walls, send your
food and wood peasants far to the east and find the big lot of berry bushes in
the north forest. Stick a lumber camp and a mill among the trees and produce
all your food and wood from this area. Your peasants up here should never be
attacked.
Gold and stone is another story, and every mining operation except the one at
the tiny outcrop of gold south west of your base will be attacked at some
point. If you do site a mining camp at any stone or gold crops make sure you
protect them with units (preferably mamelukes from your castle). If you build
towers your enemies will be drawn to them, but not if you just keep units
nearby. Also, try to have at least ten peasants per mining operation, and
concentrate on one batch at a time - all miners at the same camp. The quicker
you scoop up these valuable resources the better, and the less chance the
enemy will have to wipe out your peasants.
By the way, there is a deposit of gold on the south west edge of the map,
south of that mosque. It's right on a cliff, and if any of your outer mines
get attacked it will be this one. The problem is that it will also be
targetted by yellow ships, which will be pretty difficult to take out unless
you build a tower. Building a tower is fine, except that the ground units
attack the sodding thing too, and it may not stand for long. If you do go for
this gold (and you definitely should), you'll have to protect it with both
units and a tower. You could even try building a wall and gate around it to
shield it from the worst of the ground attacks.
It's a lot to have to deal with, as well as those intermittent attacks on your
main base, and also the exploration of the map to find where the enemy bases
are. Speaking of which, it's a good plan to take down the green base in the
south east as soon as you feel your forces are strong enough. Your own base
will be fine while you're away, so get together some trebs, twenty or so
knights, twenty mamelukes and a few monks; upgrade everything as far as you
can, and sell off some excess lumber or food at the market to make up the
gold.
ATTACKING YUSUF (GREEN)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
They have a pretty impressive base for such a small area, but what they don't
have is much interior protection. Send your army east to the cliffs, then
south until you find the first green units guarding the mining camp. Get rid
of the units and attack the camp to draw out a few of the green guards.
Mameluke them to the deck and then get trebuchets to drop the first two
towers.
Now go south and hit the other two towers, guarding your trebuchets closely
all the while. Now, before you head into the base, send your knights west and
kill off every peasant you see hanging around the monastery and trees. Once
this is done you can hit the base.
Take down the unit production buildings you'll find just inside the first
area, then go south to the town centre. The more buildings you destroy the
fewer enemy units you'll have to deal with, and you'll finally arrive at the
castle which is their last line of resistance. Destroy the first yellow dock
on the coast too, and there's another one to the south west beside the
transport ships. You can reach it with your trebuchets, which makes two down,
four to go.
Try not to let your trebuchets destroy Yusuf's marketplace, as leaving it
standing will allow you to rake in the gold. Switch to Ally with them once
you've killed off the last of their peasants and defeated them, then build
some trade carts from your marketplace and send them all the way across to
their market for endless injections of over 75 gold a time. Make sure you
knock out the enemy guard towers your trade carts will be running past en
route.
ATTACKING THE BLACK GUARD NAVY DOCKS (YELLOW)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The game encourages you to build a dock and assault your remaining enemies by
sea to reach the other four docks, but this isn't necessary. Start mining the
batches of stone and gold around the wreckage of the green base while you
position your army just outside it, to the west, in between the green walls
and the yellow walls.
Use your trebuchets to destroy the south end of the yellow walls, as well as
the tower and town centre beyond. Some yellow units might react, so drop them
with your mamelukes, then move your entire army inside the yellow base. You
shouldn't meet much protest from the yellows, so move your units west,
knocking out the towers and looking for the docks. There are four more, all of
which can be found by scouring the coast with your trebuchets, using their
wide field of vision. Just protect them well, as they're the only ones who can
reach the docks and smash them up quickly.
If you do manage to do it this sneaky way you can complete the map by only
having to take out one of the three bases. You might be pretty grateful for
this strategy if you ever have an opportunity to see the size of the yellow
base. Don't waste your time trying to wipe out every building and unit they
have - just sneak around the back and make them look a little silly.
Wiping out the last dock wins the map - ignore the transport ships.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
One castle makes the difference between getting wiped out early and... not.
Pick up the gold and stone fast, and make life difficult for any enemy mining
operation you meet.
Leave the green marketplace standing if you like infinite gold.
With all available upgrades, elite mamelukes and trebuchets can blast through
the yellow base and remove the docks with little difficulty.
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2.2.5 KING OF VALENCIA
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is the obligatory siege level, similar to a couple of the Saladin
missions from Age Of Kings. Your enemy has a base which would normally be easy
to knock over - it's just a pity you never get enough time to try.
---
Difficulty - 3/3
Objectives:
El Cid must survive.
El Cid must once again find a new city in which to live.
---
Head east over the river, past the two goons and into Denia, whose occupants
will now hand you some buildings and units.
~.><.~
DEFEND DENIA FROM COUNT BERENGUER
~.><.~
Explore the area and collect all the buildings. In a couple of minutes the
town will be attacked by an army far too large to fend off, so grab all the
units you can find, then send everyone down to the south cliffs, east of the
gate.
~.><.~
EL CID MUST ONCE AGAIN FIND A NEW CITY IN WHICH TO LIVE
~.><.~
Head south over the bridge before the second bunch of Berenguer's forces can
reach it from the east (they're on their way, and you don't want to meet them
on the bridge). There are more units available at the end of the bridge and in
the town of Lerida to the south east. There are more peasants in Lerida, at
the beach to the east. Collect them and head north to find a white monastery
and two missionaries who will join your service. You should hang onto these
useful units, and build a couple more from the free monastery before you head
east to Valencia's walls and a new objective.
~.><.~
DEFEND VALENCIA FROM BERENGUER UNTIL THE WONDER IS COMPLETED
~.><.~
This is the difficult part of this level. With very limited resources
(especially lumber) you have to keep Berenguer's forces at bay until those two
peasants have finished building the wonder. They take ages, and your base will
be under heavy attack from tons of purple units - mostly siege weapons.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.2 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
Richard Hochroth <
[email protected]>
"Lumber is NOT a problem! When you start the level, take the 4 peasants that
come with Denia and store them in the upper left corner of the map, where the </pre><pre id="faqspan-3">
trees are (not too far from where El Cid starts out). Put them there, tuck
them in that corner, and get to Valencia. Once you get the 650 lumber, have
those 4 peasants build a lumber camp and start knocking down trees. The 4
peasants were there the entire level, were never harmed, and provided me with
a lot of lumber! There was no lumber shortages to worry about. I think that
once you get to the point where you get 650 lumber, the peasants are safe.
It's vital to make sure they're tucked away far enough that Berenger's troops
won't see them when destroying Denia."
¬¬¬
Nice one, this never occurred to me at all. I can definitely see how this
would make this mission's lumber issues easier, so thanks a lot.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.2 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.3 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
Leonardo Alonso <
[email protected]>
"In El Cid's campaign, on the "King of Valencia" level, I found the first
siege wave was my main problem. I'd try to eradicate the siege weaponry as
quick as I could, but either one or two mangonels, bombard towers, and bombard
cannons would finish my units off too quickly. Yet, I discovered if you keep
Denia while it is being destroyed by the mangonels and trebs, by the time they
reach the last houses, you can send El Cid over there and wait by the bridge.
Eventually, the mangonels will come trying to cross the bridge, heading
towards your base, but unphased by El Cid's presence. From there you can
destroy the mangonels, and heading back towards town find the one of the
trebuchets. I always miss the other one, but by that time I am able to head
back to base with El Cid, attack the last trebuchet with him and my knights,
chase the bombard cannons down, and head back to base, with my castle wiping
up the field. I realized that after I destroyed the first wave, I was
extremely easier off, and I noticed that the rest of the attacks were
unorganized, sending a bombard cannon or mangonel at once, followed by a
paladin."
---
Good idea sending Cid back to take out the first batch of enemies when they're
not expecting it - this never occurred to me. A bunch of peasants could take
out the other trebuchet if they found it in time. Thanks for this
contribution.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.3 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
The first problem is the lumber - you can chop those trees north of the town
centre, but other than that you'll have to depend on the 650 lumber Valencia
will give you when you start, and whatever wood you can afford to buy from the
market. There is a nice thick forest south west of that monastery you found,
but your camp may come under attack.
You therefore need gold, so get at least six miners on the gold and another
six plus on the stone. You'll want to build another castle in between the two
northern gates, since it will be a great help in taking down all the horses
and foot soldiers running around outside your walls. You'll have to keep it
repaired though, as it is the first target for all those siege weapons.
As for food, you'll manage to get a lot from the sheep, and you should be able
to get enough wood to build nine or ten farms. The farms will run out before
the level is done, but you should still have enough food to keep producing
more and more knights.
Berenguer will manage to send four or five waves at you before the wonder is
done, and his platoons will include every type of siege weapon except
scorpions. Most dangerous are the trebuchets and bombard cannons, especially
since they fire from beside the protection of the horrible bombard towers to
the north. You can build some petards to knock out the towers one by one while
things are quiet, but you might not want to spend that much money. On the
other hand, getting rid of the towers will allow you to kill off attacks long
before they reach your base.
Build nothing but knights from your two stables, and keep your monks and
missionaries beside or in one of your castles to provide much needed healing
during and after every battle. Forget the blacksmith upgrades - you don't have
much money and the university upgrades are much more worthwhile in a siege
level like this. Build a university as soon as you can and work towards buying
everything it offers. Forget the Imperial Age as well, by the way - there's no
way you're getting there in this level.
A tower at your western gate is a good idea, and the two upgrades from the
town centre will help your peasants move faster and your castles and tower see
farther, which is very helpful if you want to get the drop on all those
mangonels and rams.
Your pre-emptive attacks on Berenguer should all be pretty much the same: spot
his legions moving towards you, send your knights racing out to hit the siege
weapons hard and fast (mangonels are lowest priority, as your castle can reach
them later), send your knights back to base to get healing from your
missionaries once all the siege weapons are gone, let your castles delete all
the other units, replace any lost knights and repair any walls or gates in
readiness for the next assault.
It's a real headache this level, but keep an eye on the wonder's progress and
save before and after each wave of Berenguer's forces. Try to grab some melee
units attacking your walls by targeting them with your missionaries.
Once the wonder is done you've won.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Find the monastery north of the bridge - its missionaries will come in very
handy.
Build nothing but knights.
Buy all upgrades from the university and town centre - the rest can be
ignored.
Buy what you need from the marketplace if you can afford it.
Watch your walls and gates and keep them repaired.
One castle isn't enough - build another one at the north walls.
Don't get into scraps with Berenguer's non-siege units - kill off the weapons
and retreat to the castles.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
2.2.6 RECONQUISTA
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This one follows on from the previous level, giving you the same base you just
saved from Berenguer. Two of your enemies are nothing special, but the third
and last, Yusuf, has a base which will be very difficult to assault from
anywhere.
---
Difficulty - 3/3
Objectives:
Defeat the three armies of Yusuf so that Valencia will remain free.
The body of The Cid (near the Castle) must come to no harm, lest the people of
Valencia realise they've lost their leader.
---
You can pretty much forget about defending Cid's horse - if you get your base
protected properly it will never be reached by your enemies.
As soon as the level starts, build peasants and get them started working on
each of the four resources within your walls. Mine or buy 50 stone quickly,
which will give you enough to build a castle as close to your southern walls
as you can get it (touching the stables and archeries). This is critical for
the remainder of the level.
ATTACKING BLACK GUARD ARMY (TURQUOISE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
While you're building peasants and beginning to grab resources fast, take all
your starting combat units west together until you find the Black Guard Army
buildings. Get your rams to hit the castle while your other units support
them. You should be able to win this battle, knock down the castle and take
care of all the units your turquoise enemy will be sending towards your base.
You might lose most of your own units, but this extremely early attack will do
you a big favour in the long run.
Once their castle is down pull everyone back to inside your walls while you
wait for any stray enemies to come and get hit by your castles and towers. The
yellows might be attacking from the south, so use your knights to bait them
along your walls to within range of one of your castles, then clear away any
rams.
The last remnants of the Black Guard Army are up in the north, but there's not
much there - just some archeries, houses and a siege workshop. Send your own
rams and horses up there (you should have added a few more knights by now) and
clear out the rest of their buildings, and you should be able to defeat them
with no problems.
Get everyone back to base, and make sure your peasants are organised and
bringing in the resources. Send a horse west of your base to find the
monastery and build some missionaries if you can afford it.
Your aim here is to have three castles, one north, one in the middle, and a
third at the south of your base. The northern one won't see much action, but
it will definitely help get rid of the yellow camels and horses who will be
hassling your walls and gates. The middle one will help hit some green ships
soon, but it's that southern one you should have built that will really earn
back its cost.
You will be under constant attack from the Yusuf ships - fire ships, galleons
and elite bombard ships. Use your own meagre navy to bait any you see into
range of your southern castle, then get rid of the out of range bombardiers
with your ships before they can do much damage. Stick to this bait tactic on
the seas and the green ships should be pretty easy to take care of.
ATTACKING THE BLACK GUARD NAVY (YELLOW)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Don't try this until you have a few trebuchets, accompanied by lots of
paladins and conquistadors. You should have relocated your lumber operations
to the north by now, but the stone and gold in or near your base should still
be going strong. Upgrade everything in sight, then send your army south along
the coast, with the missionaries bringing up the rear.
You will pretty soon find the castle near the beach, with the town centre and
several other unit production buildings behind it. Use your horses to deal
with the yellow horses and camels, as usual, while your trebs get started on
the buildings. Keep everyone together, as the mamelukes have a way of
splitting your forces up.
Even if your first attack fails you should still have done the yellows enough
damage to cripple them badly, and your next army can wipe them out with ease.
Kill off the last of the peasants, but leave the marketplace standing if you
can, then trade with it once the Navy has been defeated.
Hunt around this western island for all the gold and stone, then begin
replenishing your forces, especially your navy. You can also research bombard
towers from the university, so get some of those up in support of your
southern castle.
Use your ships to explore the sea. You should find an island in the north with
a lot of gold on it, but don't go too far east yet, as there are three towers
(Despair, Desolation, Agony) which can cause your navy serious problems.
ATTACKING YUSUF (BLUE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.2 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
Richard Hochroth <
[email protected]>
"My suggestion here begins after Black Guard Navy has been destroyed. We have
to deal with Yusuf (who is green, not blue in my game for some reason). It is
very simple to defeat Yusuf's 3 towers and castles before even setting foot on
the Yusuf's big piece of land where his base lies.
1. Establish base on that big island between Yusuf and El Cid where all the
gold is. I had my villagers there mining gold. I built a dock here. I
didn't build any bombard towers, but that's definitely an option. When that
was done, I transported a trebuchet and took it as far east on that island,
where the green marsh is. From there, I was able to knock down the guard
tower.
2. Knocking down this guard tower opens up a new opportunity. At this point,
I was building a massive fleet to control the waters. I took a transport ship
and a few trebuchets. I dropped off the trebuchets on the green marsh south
of where the guard tower used to be. From there, I knocked down the dock and
first of the 3 castles. My navy was protecting the trebuchets and killing off
any horses/trebuchets that may be attacking my trebuchets from land.
3. After knocking down that first castle, look to the southwest of that marsh.
There's a huge marsh area. I dropped my trebuchets off there and pulled the
navy back a little out of the reach of the second castle. From there, my
trebuchets took out the second castle.
4. After that, you can see the second guard tower, the island and that piece
of land/marsh that sticks out northeast. I dropped my trebuchets off at the
tip of that where the marsh is and took out the second guard tower.
5. Repeat the same process to knock out the third guard tower and the third
castle by finding the pieces of marsh or land adjacent to those structures to
knock them out.
Now after knocking out the towers and castles, your navy can roam free. Your
navy will control the waters of this entire level w/o restrictions. You now
can assault Yusuf without guard towers or castles. I had a HUGE navy at this
point. I packed up 4 transport ships filled with villagers, horsemen, and
trebuchets. I went to the north part of Yusuf's land and built a castle with
my massive navy protecting the villagers (this isn't always easy, I had to
reload once). I brought 8 villagers and only 1 survived despite enormous
support from my ships. My ships were trying to knock out the battering rams
trying to destroy the castle structure (before it was built), so that allowed
some horsemen to kill my villagers. Once I got my castle up and my
men/trebuchets on Yusuf's land, it was very easy to take out the docks, Town
Center, and kill all the villagers.
One other thing, while I was preparing my transport ships, I kept my navy on
Yusuf's coastline and allowed them to do whatever they want. They were so
strong that they killed very solider, monk, or horsemen that Yusuf threw at
them. There was no guard towers, trebuchets, or castles to harm my ships.
The only thing at that point to kill my ships were monks, who were easily
killed. So while I was gearing up my offensive, my ships were weakening the
stables and seige workshops that were near the coastline."
¬¬¬
Well, all of this would clearly be helpful for the mariners of this game,
people who have the patience to build and maintain massive navies like you
obviously did here. Personally I can never be bothered with too many ships and
prefer to do most or all of my attacking on land, which is why I didn't think
of doing things your way.
If it works it works, but I still prefer to use the sneaky petard tactic
below. Your way also has the disadvantage of leaving Yusuf's unit production
buildings until pretty much last, which isn't doing your ships any favours;
but it also has the advantage of taking out the guard towers and castles early
without having to sacrifice ground units. It's a different tactic anyway, so
thanks a lot for this.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.2 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
As well as the three very dangerous towers, Yusuf has a base with two docks
and three castles arranged along its coast. The base itself is almost totally
contained in the eastern corner of the map, and there are several unit
production buildings in close proximity to each other, not including those
castles. This is one base that you have to hit hard on your first attempt, or
else it will all be back again when you return.
After a lot of reloads and different tactics, I've only come up with one way
of getting rid of these annoying bastards. A castle near their town centre is
essential, and it's also very important to get rid of their three castles
first. The castles are the only buildings the peasants won't rebuild, and if
you can get rid of them and their annoying trebuchets your own castle will
stand a much greater chance of surviving.
The blues are masters at immediately replacing just about every building you
can take down, and there will be a constant stream of units coming from their
multiple unit production buildings. They don't need fortifications with a
production line this efficient. No matter what armies you take over there,
Yusuf will always be faster and you'll always be at a disadvantage.
So first things first. Sneak a transport ship along either edge of the map
(behind the horrible towers on the islands) and get scout cavalry to leave the
ships and run around inside the base. You can research Spies too, but it tends
to be pretty expensive here.
Once you have the layout of the base, including the locations of the castles
and town centre, the next step is to get rid of the castles. Sneak transports
in again, but this time put petards and four or five paladins on them. Run the
paladins around in circles near the castle to draw fire, then send the petards
in while Yusuf's forces are going for your decoys. Fourteen or fifteen petards
can take down a castle in one shot, after which you can put your paladins back
on the transport quickly and beat a retreat. Build another fifteen petards and
go for the next castle, until all three are gone.
Trying to eradicate the siege workshops, archeries, etc. with petards is a
waste of time - they just get rebuilt right away. Even the town centre gets
resurrected as soon as you knock it down.
The only way to keep the pressure on Yusuf's base while you work on taking it
down is to build your own castle near their town centre. It's dodgy and it
will attract attention, but if you can get multiple peasants to erect it
quickly and fend off any assaults with your own combat units, the castle will
do you a big favour. Yusuf has no more castles from which to build trebuchets,
and the only other units he has which can harm your castle seriously are the
rams.
Sneak your peasants, paladins and conquistadors in from the west on
transports, and run all the way up to just south of the blue town centre, with
everyone on No Attack Stance. Yusuf shouldn't react to your presence until you
start building your castle, at which point he will steam most of his land
units towards the building site.
I used eight peasants to get my castle up fast, while letting Yusuf attack my
paladins and conkies. I lost a lot, but that was OK because I had a lot. The
castle was built and I dumped everyone left inside immediately. Then I just
let the castle erase all of Yusuf's units, including the peasants in and
around the town centre. This makes things a lot easier, because now when you
start wiping out the unit production buildings with trebuchets or petards from
your new castle, they will not be rebuilt nearly as fast - or at all if you
manage to get all the peasants.
The area gets easier with each building destroyed, and soon I had the upper
hand. To win I just had to kill all the peasants and destroy the docks, having
killed off just about everything else on the island.
And that's the end of the El Cid campaign.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The Black Guard Army can be wiped out as soon as the level starts.
The most important defense building you can have is a castle in between your
archeries and stables. Bait enemy ships to within its range.
The Black Guard Navy is just another standard base - nothing special.
Beware of the three towers guarding Yusuf's coastline - they are very tough to
destroy unless you hit them with trebuchets from nearby land, which is
difficult to do since the land is Yusuf's.
Use sneaky tactics to weaken Yusuf's base - a full frontal assault will hurt
you more than him.
Get a castle built in an area of Yusuf's island where it will attract a great
deal of attention, but make sure there are no blue castles or trebuchets left
before you start building it.
---------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬------------------------------
2.3 MONTEZUMA
---------------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬------------------------------
Centuries of conquest have allowed the Aztecs to become the mightiest empire
in Central America, But when strangers appear on the shores of the Caribbean
Sea, Montezuma, emperor of the Aztecs, is unsure whether they are conquerors
..or gods. Can a vast empire of warriors using obsidian spears and cotton
armor hold off mounted invaders armed with metal armour and gunpowder? Will
the Aztec island-city of Tenochtitlan continue to conquer the Americas, or
will it crumble beneath these foreign conquerors?
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2.3.1 REIGN OF BLOOD
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This level is very simple and you have little choice in what units to fill
your army with.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
Capture the 4 shrines (Monasteries) sacred to Quetzalcoatl.
Place a sacred relic in each of the 4 shrines (Monasteries).
---
Begin the slow process of building up your base. Concentrate on getting all
the houses you need to take you up to 75, and make sure you explore the area
to find its boundaries. You should end up with three gates and walls at the
three entrances to your base, through the trees; and make sure you back each
entrance up with at least two towers.
The middle entrance will be the most popular, so try parking a mangonel behind
your gates, on Stand Ground stance. If any enemies do reach your buildings
near the beginning of the level, just ring the town bell until they're cleared
out.
Upgrade and so on, but don't bother building anything from your barracks.
Produce a lot of archers and crossbowmen, as well as three or four rams.
Your base will eventually be fine and your enemies won't be getting past your
gates and walls without getting mown down by your towers. Wait until you've
bought all the upgrades, etc., then head through your western gate towards the
first monastery.
Before you go for the monastery, build a castle just outside your gate and
start building jaguar warriors. This castle will bear the brunt of the
enemies' pathetic attacks (no siege weapons) and will pretty much stand
forever while you get your army built. You should have four groups: jaguars,
ranged, rams and monks (capture the first monastery and start researching -
also place the first relic inside it).
ATTACKING TLATILUCO (RED)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
You've probably found their first tower just west of your castle - hit it with
rams and back the rams up with your ranged units. Keep heading west to find
another tower and do the same again. Head south at the next turn and destroy
the archery and barracks down in the corner.
Now head north to find the main base: ram the castle and town centre, then
delete the remaining buildings, keeping your forces close together. Leave the
marketplace standing, and hunt down and kill the last of the peasants and
towers to defeat Tlatiluco (check in the middle of the map, as they sometimes
place a blacksmith or university around there).
Start trading with their marketplace (switch to Ally) while you move on to the
next enemy.
ATTACKING XOCHIMILCO (PURPLE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Relocate everyone to the middle of the map, on the brick road, and start
hitting whichever purple buildings you find there. Their base lies north west,
so cut down any of their units who react to your attack, then proceed to the
west. You will soon find their castle, which is easy enough to ram down. They
send out annoying scorpions, but they're not hard to charge down with your
scouts once the castle is out of the way.
This base is just a repeat of the red one - search and destroy. Their unit
production buildings are mostly in the northern edge of their base, and you
might have some searching to do to find the last of their peasants.
Before you leave this north west area you should get the second relic into the
second monastery. You'll have to build a dock on the river, then a transport
ship to take a monk and some escorts across. There are a few jaguars hanging
around who might give an unguarded monk some problems, but you'll manage it,
I'm sure. That's two relics captured.
Now shift everyone back into the middle of the map, on the road leading east
to the gold and the water. This is the way to your final enemy, so plant
another castle here and build walls and a gate to the east of it, between the
trees.
Send someone around to the third monastery, south and then east, and stick the
relic inside.
ATTACKING TEPANACA (ORANGE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Leave your second castle where it is while you pull your entire army back to
your original town centre. The easiest way to attack Tepanaca is through your
eastern gate, past the pool, through the palisade wall enclosure with the big
cats in it, and on to the north.
I had five rams, five petards, three monks; and the rest of my army was
jaguars and ranged units. Park everyone at that pool and smash down the wooden
walls, then send everyone north along the edge of the map. The orange castle
is right there, so hit it with rams while your other units explore to the
west. You should find the town centre, and your five petards can drop it
immediately, leaving everyone else to wipe out any remaining units and
peasants. This shouldn't be hard - if you built your second castle right next
to the batch of gold on the road, the oranges should have been sending all
their units to attack it and die.
Tepanaca should fall easily, and once they do you should collect your units
together at the site of their ruined castle. You can get to the last monastery
by heading north and west, but this one is guarded by a few orange eagle
warriors. They will destroy the monastery if you don't kill them first, so
remove them and put the fourth and last relic into the building.
If you've got each relic in each monastery but no victory message is coming
up, it might be because you switched to Ally with one of your enemies for the
sake of market trading. Switch back and the level should end.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Build houses quickly, and gates and walls at the three bottlenecks to prevent
the big bunches of enemies getting at your town centre.
Your enemies cannot possibly stand up to even one castle.
Only capture the relics when you know the monasteries will be safe.
You can build big, cheap armies in this level, so don't waste too many pop.
slots on peasants.
Sneaking through the back route of an enemy base will always be to your
advantage.
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2.3.2 THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is one of the levels least likely to give you headaches on defense. If
you know what's going to happen you can nullify all the threats before they
come, and if you do that then this level will give you no trouble.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
Deliver the summons of war to the Texcoco town centre.
Deliver the summons of war to the Tlacopan town centre.
---
Nothing difficult here - just take your guys to the yellow town centre and
then to the purple one. Neither of your allies seems to like their new orders,
so bear this in mind for the rest of the level. Note the relic sitting in the
south of the purple base. There are two more farther north, but they'll be
revealed later.
~.><.~
DEFEAT THE TLAXCALANS BY DESTROYING THEIR 4 TOWN CENTERS
~.><.~
A transport ship will appear and start sailing up river, so stop it when you
see it and offload your peasants onto the east bank. Search the south east
forest for a big bunch of berries, with gold south of it, among the trees.
Site your town centre in the clearing with the berry bushes and start
building.
Your first aim is to get to the Castle Age as soon as possible, so that you
can build a monastery to grab those relics before anyone else does. You can
easily reach the Castle Age before your allies, but the quicker you get the
relics the more gold you'll have. Start trading with their marketplaces too,
though your carts may be attacked en route to the yellow base.
Build walls and gates at any gaps in the trees which lead to the purple base,
and build two or three towers beside the river to the west, close enough to
hit any red ships which may (will) be coming down there later.
Don't build a castle in your base - you won't need it there. Instead build one
castle right next to the purple town centre, and another right next to the
yellow town centre (garrison some jaguar warriors in the yellow one). You
might also want to put some unit production buildings next to each, for
safety. Build up your armies with whatever you please (include some rams), and
shift them all to one of the islands north east of the red base, in a good
position to launch an attack on the red town centre which your allies will
surely now have discovered for you.
Before you attack the red base, you might want to explore the area north east
of the yellow base. There is a bridge leading to a gated enclosure, and if you
break the gate down and go up the hill, past the towers, you get an objective.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL BRING 10 ELITE JAGUAR WARRIORS TO THE TEMPLE OF TLALOC AND BE
REWARDED
~.><.~
The warriors you send in get an apparent attack bonus, though this hardly
seems like much of a reward to me, given all the trouble you went to.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.3 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
James Hogan <
[email protected]>
"I noticed that you made a mistake in your Montezuma, Triple Alliance guide.
Where you bring the 10 Jaguar Warriors to the temple for them to be upgraded,
they don't simply get an attack bonus, but they get another 400hp, bringing
them up to 450hp."
---
Thanks, I didn't spot this.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________V1.3 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________
ATTACKING TLAXCALA (RED)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Move west from here and ram their next town centre, deleting any guards in the
process. Destroy the nearby buildings and then move south to find lots of
archeries and barracks and a monastery on another island. This place will give
you the most trouble, so keep your ranged units mobile and your rams protected
- watch out for ships on the river. And make sure you find and take that relic
from the middle of this island.
Once this island is cleared out the reds are crippled, so move everyone north
west to find the back of their base, where they have a poorly defended castle,
a third town centre and a handful of houses. There's a dock and a mill to the
north east.
Wipe these out and you're told that there's only one town centre remaining.
It's south west of the second one, beside another dock. Once it's gone you can
kill off the red peasants and defeat Tlaxcala.
~.><.~
DEFEAT YOUR FORMER ALLIES, THE TLACOPAN AND TEXCOCO
~.><.~
Yup, your allies stab you in the back. This is where those two castles come in
pretty useful, since they should now be firing on both town centres. Eject the
jaguar warriors from your yellow castle to deal with those rams, and hurry
your main army down to the yellow base and start picking fights around your
castle. Build petards from it to delete the yellow buildings quickly, and
build backup units from your other buildings to quickly erase the yellow
units.
Now do the same again with Texcoco. Your castle in the purple base might be
pretty damaged by now, but the best the purples can do is mangonels, so your
castle should be able to defeat the purples on its own. If not, get some units
over there to help out.
Once both your former allies are finished a new threat appears in the far
north, allowing a nice segue into the next level.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Picking up the relics fast from the purple base will allow you to forget about
building gold miners, leaving more space for a bigger army.
Build castles and unit production buildings next to the town centres of each
of your allies.
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2.3.3 QUETZALCOATL
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This level can be hell if you don't do it right. 99% of the difficulty comes
from the protection afforded to the Spanish by the ships on the river - get
rid of them and it's just another base you have to attack.
---
Difficulty - 2/3
Objectives:
Defeat the Tlaxcalans.
---
Forget about saving your allies - I've built a castle next to their town
centre to help them out, yet they still managed to be defeated. You have
enough trouble getting your own base in order, so ignore Tabasco altogether.
The best way to defend your base is to get your stone up quickly, build gates,
walls and towers at all the routes into your base except for the western one,
then build a castle just beside that western entrance, so that all your
enemies will be fed through there and have to pass your castle.
For defense units rely on eagle and jaguar warriors, and just build and
develop your base while you let your castle do the majority of your defending.
Your warriors should be able to chase down and kill off any rams or bombard
cannons who try to sneak in.
ATTACKING TLAXCALA (RED)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
You will soon run out of gold and stone, so search to the north for more. You
should be able to buy or scrape together enough stone for a second castle, so
build it just next to the palisade walls with the gap in it, east of the
bridge leading into the Tlaxcalans' base. This castle will catch pretty much
all their combat units, and they have no dangerous siege weapons to hit you
with. Build some more unit production buildings south of your castle, and
start mining the gold and stone nearby once you've taken care of the red
towers on the bridge.
If you've reached the Imperial Age you can use trebs to attack the red base;
but if not just use your upgraded rams. Head north of the bridge first, to
find the monastery and university in a walled enclosure. Once this area is
clear advance slowly across the bridge, protecting your rams with ranged
units, and protecting your ranged units with monks and warriors. You will find
the castle to the west, so ram it to the ground and hit the town centre to the
north east. There's another town centre west of the castle, and once that's
gone it's just about over for Tlaxcala, and you can start mining all the gold
they were hoarding.
Their defeat will trigger another objective.
~.><.~
CAPTURE 20 SPANISH HORSES AND RETURN THEM TO THE FLAGGED PEN IN THE AZTEC CAMP
OR DEFEAT THE SPANISH
~.><.~
Since capturing the horses necessitates going into the Spanish base and
erasing a lot of their buildings, I'll approach this second half of the level
as though you're intending to eradicate your blue enemies altogether.
Another thing about the horses: they're trapped in palisade walled pens, and
your allies have an annoying tendency to attack and destroy these walls and
gain control of the horses. The Spanish react to the horses as though they
were enemy units, and they head through the broken walls and kill them off.
You may not even be able to get 20 if this happens to you.
ATTACKING CORTEZ (BLUE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
What makes Cortez so irritating is his elite bombard galleons, who are ranged
up and down the central river. The Spanish don't have a dock and they won't
build one, so at least no more ships will appear once you've taken down the
first lot. But you won't believe how many units you can lose if you just
blunder into his base without taking measures against those ships.
First of all, don't bother building a dock. Without going into detail, it's a
waste of time, no matter where you put it.
Secondly, don't even go near the river until Tlaxcala has been defeated. Stick
a castle at the river crossing just beside where your ally's town centre used
to be, then build some more unit production buildings west of it. This will be
your new base from which to attack Cortez.
Get your army together and make sure you include five or six trebuchets (kill
off most of your stone miners, farmers and lumberjacks to make room - you
should have tons of resources by now). From the site of your ally's old town
centre, head due north to the trees and farther north until you find the river
mouth.
Use your trebuchets' line of sight to find the two galleons and target and
destroy them if you can, protecting your trebs from Cortez's ground units with
your own archers and crossbowmen. Only advance east along the little
archipelago once those two ships are gone.
Send your rams east before any other units and get them to hit the stable and
whatever other buildings are at the north end of the Spanish base. Your rams
will be getting hit by bombard cannons, so rush your faster units in and get
rid of the bombardiers fast, as they can give you big problems. With their
siege weapons gone the Spanish find themselves in trouble, and they should
have few guards inside their base, since most of them will have been sent to
die against your castle walls.
Destroy the town centre and the other nearby buildings with your trebuchets -
hit those two monasteries to the south west as well. There are two more
galleons in the water on the east edge of the map, so use your trebuchets
again and don't head south until the ships are gone.
From here it's a stroll. The Spanish are all but defeated at this point, and
your ranged units will be picking off peasants and stray combat units. Take
out the two towers to the south; a guard tower on the near side of the river
and a bombard tower on the other side. Head south over the river with
everything you have, hugging the trees to the east to avoid the castle to the
west. Start using your trebuchets again, and be aware that, as well as the
castle to the west, there is a siege workshop a little to the south, guarded
by bombard cannons (probably). There are also two more towers farther south,
one of which is a bombardier.
None of this should give you too much trouble, and once it's all gone you can
research Spies from the castle and start clearing out the remaining blue
units. You might have missed a bombard tower in the south east, or the odd
peasant or even a ship. Erasing them all wins you the map.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Ignore your allies.
Build a castle in your base and use walls and gates to feed your enemies
towards it - guard the castle with a few melee units to defend against rams
and bombard cannons.
The batches of stone and gold south of the red base are the ones you should go
to when your initial stocks run out.
Your ally's old territory makes a good place for a secondary base.
Clear out the river of as many ships as you can before assaulting the blue
base.
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¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
2.3.4 LA NOCHE TRISTE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
A horrible mission if you do what the computer expects you to do. So don't.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
Destroy the Spanish wonder to end their influence in Tenochtitlan.
---
Head south along the edge of the map until you meet a bunch of other units who
will join you, and get a new objective.
~.><.~
RESCUE THE AZTEC WARRIORS HELD PRISONER BY THE TLAXCALA
~.><.~
Go back north to your starting point, then farther north to find another lone
eagle warrior, then farther to find two bunches of red goons guarding two
transport ships. Pick a fight with the bunch on the left and get the
transports, then take out the other bunch if they approach.
~.><.~
TRAVEL ACROSS LAKE TEXCOCO, WHERE YOU MAY SAFELY GATHER RESOURCES
~.><.~
Take all your units north on the transports, then unload them on the north
beach. Destroy the two conquistadors and head north to the corner of the map.
You will find an enclosure with some jaguars inside, and you can destroy the
walls with your ranged units to set the jaguars free. They should attack the
monk but they might also attack you too when you pass. I prefer to just rush
the monk and kill him.
From here head east to find a mangonel, and use it along with your other units
to take out the six guards. Farther east are some buildings and a tower -
destroy the tower with the mangonel, but ignore the other buildings (kill the
peasants).
You can get more units from the next enclosure to the east, and you'll get
into a fight with more red guards on the bridges. Don't go any farther east -
there's a castle over there.
Kill off that ship with your ranged units and mangonel, then take everyone
down the bridge until you hit the island. Make sure all your units are on No
Attack Stance here, and stop them at the end of the bridge.
At this point the game wants you to rush everyone onto those transports and
head far south to start a base, but this is pointless bollocks. If you want to
do this, fine, but this walkthrough doesn't cover such a strategy. Building a
base (with some free buildings) down there results in constant - and I do mean
constant - hassle from enemy ships, and you end up being extremely frustrated
spending all your time getting rid of more and more galleons.
Instead I prefer to destroy the gate on the west wall with my mangonel, and
use my other units to fend off any enemies who come to investigate (there
should be hardly any). Removing the gate takes time, but you'll have enough if
you stick with it.
Once it's gone, move all your units through the gap and down across the little
bridge to the south east. Head due east from here to find one peasant working
on the wonder. Kill him with your ranged units then send some melee units to
attack the building site, while your mangonel attacks the middle of it. Try to
have your units attack the wonder while remaining out of range of the two
castles behind it.
This will of course draw unwanted attention, so keep your eyes open for
mangonels, missionaries and conquistadors. If you hit them before they can hit
you, and keep your mangonel battering away at the wonder, you can have it down
and the level won without ever having to build a thing.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
When you find the first yellow gate you can have your mangonel attack it while
the rest of your units remain on No Attack Stance.
Keep your mangonel attacking the wonder, while the rest of your units protect
it from the nearby guards.
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¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
2.3.5 THE BOILING LAKE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is another one that stops being tricky when you get what the trick is.
The game makes a big deal about telling you to defend your given bases, but
you can almost forget about them entirely.
Once you get the defense of your real base sorted, the level becomes another
build-and-direct fest.
---
Difficulty - 2/3
Objectives:
Defeat the Tlaxcalans and Spanish.
---
You start off in a precarious position with no room to build, so take all the
units you have (apart from your ships) and send them to the north west corner
of the map. Build a lot more peasants, and explore the seas while your units
move to the site of their new base. If you do this level right you won't lose
any of these buildings.
Build a town centre in the clearing north of the westernmost beach, just
beside the stone. Don't go too far east though, as there is a dangerous
bombard tower lurking. You will also have been told of a new objective.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: BRINGING CAPTURED SPANISH UNITS TO THE PLAZA (INSIDE THE TORCHES)
WILL ALLOW YOU TO CREATE NEW UNITS
BRINGING HORSES WILL CREATE CAVALRY
BRINGING TRADE CARTS FULL OF GUNPOWDER WILL CREATE BOMBARDS
~.><.~
You can deal with this later. Right now your aim is to get your town up and
running and properly defended. You should get surprisingly little hassle from
enemy ships, despite what the Hints window tells you. It's not hard to have an
armada of fifteen or more ships scouring the seas, and they can easily mop up
any fleets the blues send at your docks.
The quickest way to get rid of the pesky tower is to take a fast unit along
the beach and around to the north, to the back of the tower (stay out of its
reach). You should find a ruined building and some trade carts. Send the trade
carts down to the south east corner of the map, where your flagged castle is.
Make sure you send the carts into the flags one at a time so you get all five
bombards.
If you get the bombards captured and back up to your north west base as fast
as you can, you can destroy the tower before the blues' first attack, which
will consist of mostly siege weapons. If the tower is gone your units can get
in at the blue bombards much more easily.
Tlaxcala will also be sending units your way, but nothing that a ring of the
town bell can't solve. Keep an eye on the perimeter of your base until you
have enough stone to build walls in between the clumps of trees. You can then
build a castle just next to that ruined building you found, and use your walls
to feed your enemies towards that very spot. This makes defending your base
much easier.
As for how to plan your town: build your unit production buildings in the very
north west corner, west of the enclosure full of horses, whose gate you can
knock down to send the horses all the way back to the flags for some cavalry.
Don't build a castle near your town centre, because there's not a lot of stone
about. Just surround it with walls and the odd tower to keep a watch.
Build a mill down at the berry bushes while you're trying to get your first
stocks of food up, but build the farms around your town centre for safety.
You can mine the stone north of the ruined building once the initial batch is
gone, and there is an island with tons of gold on it due east of your north
west base.
Once your infrastructure is in place start filling up your much bigger than
usual pop. limit with mostly basic units. Upgrade everything to hell from the
university, etc. Make sure you include some trebuchets to complement your
bombards, and stick in some monks and petards too. Your ships can do nicely
with between ten and fifteen units.
By the way, if you feel like exploring for some bounty, try dropping some
units off in a transport ship in the very south east corner of the map. From
here you can head north along the map's edge to find more gold, horses, trade
carts and a relic.
Build some more unit production buildings around the castle you built south of
the big crop of stone, and prepare to attack Tlaxcala.
ATTACKING TLAXCALA (RED)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is pretty easy, but a bit messy too. Push everyone east and use your
trebuchets' line of sight to see what's ahead. Hit the north part of their
base first, and try to kill off the two blue towers east of the red buildings.
There's a castle to the south, among most of the rest of their buildings, and
the only real trouble comes from trying to delete the scorpions while avoiding
the castle. Drop everything with trebuchets and guard them with every other
unit. Leave your bombards out of this by the way - they're too weak both
defensively and offensively.
As long as you keep everyone together, don't let your archers or warriors
range too far ahead, and take out the buildings one by one, Tlaxcala will have
no chance. Once they're gone you have the slightly more dangerous Spanish to
take care of.
ATTACKING CORTEZ (BLUE)
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Pull everyone back from the destruction of the red base and regroup. Fill out
your army to the max again (though you'll hardly need it), and send your ships
along the coast to get rid of any blue ships hovering around, ready to hit at
your passing ground units.
Hit the north castle with your trebuchets first, and use your bombards to wipe
out any blue trebuchets that might be guarding the castle. The blues will
throw a few other ground units at you, but by this point they should have not
much left in their arsenal, and any blue units coming down that hill can just
stroll into a barrage of arrows and crossbow bolts.
With the castle gone you can advance east up the hill to find their town
centre. They may have one or two towers, and be trying pathetically to build
some rams from the siege workshop, but your army can just roll over this place
in seconds, leading to victory.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Build lots of peasants from your first town centre but send them all north
west to start a new base.
Try to find the trade carts very quickly, then send them back to the flags
(one by one) and send the bombards up to hit that bombard tower in the north -
this will let you fend off the first blue ground attack much more easily.
Bottleneck your enemies into approaching your outer castle, otherwise they can
sneak into your base from lots of different places.
Don't go overboard with the number of ships you build - you really won't need
more than fifteen.</pre><pre id="faqspan-4">
Explore the eastern peninsula for some bonuses, including a relic.
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2.3.6 BROKEN SPEARS
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This level looks and sounds a lot tougher than it is, so I can't really give
it the highest difficulty rating. If you're quick at responding to warnings of
attack you can direct your forces easily, especially since two of your three
enemies keep mindlessly throwing units against your fortifications, while the
third produces armies made of piffle.
---
Difficulty - 2/3
Objectives:
Defeat the Tlaxcala, the Spanish Army and the Spanish Navy.
---
Erm, yes. Well, it should be pretty obvious that you need some fast
fortifications fast, with all speed. You've got three town centres, each with
some peasants scattered around them. Get resourcing and building more peasants
- you especially want stone.
The aim is to get enough stone to build a castle on the northern tip of your
base, between the dock and the gate leading north west; and another castle
away down to the south west on the island where the three long bridges meet.
That's a lot of stone, so get cracking on those peasants. You're back to a
pathetic 75 pop. limit again, so start building an army while you put your
first castle on the south west island. Destroy the two barracks first, and
kill the red peasants going for the gold. Once the castle is up, build another
archery, a barracks, a monastery and gates at the bridge to stop the purple
invaders.
That castle can defend your troops while you build them up from here. Bung in
at least four trebuchets before you hit your limit. While you're building this
first army you should also be building a second castle on the north tip of
your base, since this area will see action from both the purples and the
blues. Make sure you build ten or more ships from the nearby dock, and get
them to sit right next to your castle - you will need these ships to kill any
bombards, mangonels or trebuchets who will come along that north west bridge.
They can also bait blue ships into range of your castle.
ATTACKING TLAXCALA (RED)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Once your southern army is ready send them along the south east bridge. Your
trebuchets will spot the tower and castle at the end, so knock them down while
your other units protect the trebuchets. Clear out as many of the red
buildings as you can - there are more farther south east. You might not make
it all the way to a red defeat on this first try, but you should have done the
reds a lot of damage and destroyed a lot of buildings before your last unit
falls.
Replenish your army if you need to from the mini-base you've just built, and
keep an eye on that second castle and the health of your ships. Once your
second bash at the reds is up and running, send them south and finish off the
remainder of the red buildings and units. They offer little in the way of
defense - they may have another castle way down to the south, but nothing your
trebuchets can't smash. You should manage to defeat the reds on this second
go, which means you now have a lot of breathing room, not to mention tons of
undefended gold.
While your army was away you should not have run into too much trouble from
the other two enemies. The blue ships may succeed in knocking out a couple of
towers, but send your own ships over there as soon as you get any warning. If
you can also manage to kill off the purple siege weapons before they get along
that north west bridge, the lesser purple units can all be caught by your
northern castle. You're basically defending your whole main base with ten or
so ships.
Before you attack Cortez's Army, make sure all your peasants are still finding
resources, that your gold miners have been relocated to the old red territory,
that everything is upgraded and repaired (including ships), and that all gates
and walls are intact. You won't be needing them for much longer anyway, but my
main base got jumped by a transport full of purple knights while I was away
attacking their base. Ring the town bells if you do get invaded unexpectedly,
and keep one or two spare eagle warriors handy around your main base - they
are fast enough to bait invaders towards a castle.
ATTACKING CORTEZ'S ARMY (PURPLE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
After attacking and defeating the reds, your main army should be back at your
south west castle, fully replenished and healed. Send them up the long north
west bridge to the grass, then go west and north again, around the trees,
along the edge of the map to find a castle guarded by some conquistadors and
maybe a trebuchet. Destroy the castle with the trebs while your ranged units
take care of everything else.
Work your way up and along from here - there is very little else to say. Your
army should be more than capable of deleting whatever else the purples have in
store, and their second castle and town centre is east of your position, at
the top of that short bridge. Kill the peasants and say bye-bye to Cortez's
Army.
Before you pull your armies back home to reorganise then, send someone along
the north edge of the map until you find the powerful elite turtle ships.
There are three of them, and I strongly suggest adding them to your fleet of
lesser ships with no further delay.
ATTACKING CORTEZ'S NAVY (BLUE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This couldn't be simpler. Send a peasant all the way down to the south of the
map, where you finished off the reds earlier, and send your entire army (minus
the ships) down after him. Build a dock and a couple of transport ships in the
bottom corner and then load your army and that peasant onto the ships.
Go east, sticking to the bottom edge of the map, until you reach the far
coast. Don't go north around it, as the rest of this coast is defended by
bombard towers all the way along.
Disembark at the bottom of the coast, then send everyone east and up the hill
to the clearing. Build a castle here, as well as any other unit production
buildings, and you're laughing. Start exploring to the east with trebuchets,
backing them up with everyone else. I only met some lumberjacks on my way to
the town centre, and once I destroyed it Cortez's Navy resigned, leaving me
victorious.
If for some reason you're required to eradicate the whole base, just keep
revealing the fog of war with your trebuchets and take it slow and easy,
replenishing any forces you lose from your castle, etc. The blues are -
predictably for a navy - very reliant on ships, which leaves almost no room
for ground units in their army. Bad news for them if you decide to attack on
land.
Once Cortez's Navy is defeated you have completed the Montezuma campaign.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
As usual, castles save the day. Build one on the island where the three
bridges meet, and another one east of your north west gate.
Putting gates at the long bridge will prevent the purples and reds from
constantly invading your base - this is critical.
If you keep an eye on your ten to fifteen ships they can fend off both the
purple and blue attacks constantly.
Watch your towers and castles - they will often need repaired.
You won't need many monks in this level - stick with one or two and flesh out
the majority of your army with warriors and crossbowmen.
Pick up the elite turtle ships in the north.
Don't waste time, money and energy by attacking the Navy with your own ships -
sneak around the back and destroy their town centre over land.
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2.4 BATTLES OF THE CONQUERORS
-------------------------¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬----------------------
Certain names ring down through history as men and women who shaped the world.
Some were forces of chaos, destructive and rapacious. Some were men of honor
who fought for the right. Some defended their homelands from invaders, while
others used their military might to violently acquire the lands of others.
Battles such as Agincourt, Manzikert and Hastings are remembered as turning
points in world history, and names such as Henry V, Yi Sun-shin and Erik the
Red are etched forever as great conquerors. Now relive their tragedies and
triumphs.
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2.4.1 AGINCOURT
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This is a great little stop-start mission, in which you have to watch the
health of every unit you have. Keep your minimal forces organised and in
support of each other and you can stroll this one.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
King Henry V must survive.
---
Straight away you're under attack, and it's tough to organise your forces.
Collect your archers into the one group quickly and start hitting the greens,
move your three monks to just behind them, and collect all your melee units
into the one group, pulling your two rams to safety in the rear. Keep everyone
away from the towers while you mop up this first assault, then head north. If
you manage to keep all your monks and both your rams you did well.
By the way, you should use your monks to capture as many units as you can
rather than kill your enemies off. You'll have to kill most enemy units, but
grab some where you can.
~.><.~
ACQUIRE A TRANSPORT SHIP IN ORDER TO SEND HENRY V HOME TO ENGLAND
~.><.~
Easier said than done. Stop your forces just south of the Voyeni gate, and
keep your rams and melee units back on the road, out of the way. Send your
monks and archers a little east until you see the peasants at the mill, but
don't attack the peasants with the archers (put them on No Attack Stance). Get
your archers to manually attack and kill every Voyeni combat unit who will
come at them along this eastern pass.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: DESTROY THE UNIVERSITY IN VOYENI (GREEN) TO RECOVER AND LEARN FROM
THE GREAT TEXTS STORED THERE
~.><.~
You need all the help you can get in this mission, and Voyeni is not a
dangerous place. Once your archers have killed the units heading their way,
use your monks to convert the two peasants and quickly pull them west to
beside your melee units - they can repair your rams with your limited lumber.
Try to convert a knight too, if you can, then send everyone north to the gate.
Park your archers just outside the gate and change stance to Defensive. They
will fire through the gate at the archery, but they'll target any green units
who appear too. Get your rams to knock down the gate while your archers
protect the rams, and keep healing with your monks. The rams will destroy the
gate and let you through, but only take your archers and monks again.
Switch stance back to No Attack on your archers, and get your monks to capture
all the peasants here, while you target any combat units with the archers.
After a minute or so the Voyeni will only send out units very slowly, so send
in your two rams to hit the university (attack it from the north corner, or
the castle to the south will be able to reach them).
Defend your rams while they work, and once the university is gone your
archers' ammo gets upgraded to fire arrows. Now get your two rams and all your
archers to attack that castle (send rams in first). Target any units you see
as soon as they appear, and your archers and rams should be able to take the
castle down with no casualties. Shift everyone to the bottom of the bridge and
attack the south gate with your rams.
By this point you will probably be running out of lumber to repair the rams
with, if you haven't already. Once the lumber is gone the peasants are almost
useless, but keep them for now - you can use them as decoys later.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: DESTROY THE BLACKSMITH IN AMIENS (CYAN) TO RECOVER ARMOR AND WEAPONS
~.><.~
You get this objective when you go far enough south to find the Amiens gate
and towers on the hill. Attack the towers with your archers, healing them with
your monks if they get hit, then attack the gate with archers and rams once
the towers are gone. Move inside the walls, through the second gate, then
attack and destroy the blacksmith for the upgrades. Avoid the castle to the
south.
Take everyone back outside, past Frevent, and go across the river and north
until you're told about the French castle, and Henry does his line. I thought
this was from Richard III, but maybe I'm wrong...
Anyway, position your 'army' just south of the bunch of blue knights. Send
your now useless rams and any peasants you have in first to draw their
attention, then hit them with everything else, keeping your monks in the rear.
It doesn't really matter if you lose most of your units, just so long as Henry
survives.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: BREAK THROUGH THE ENCLOSURE AROUND THE FRENCH KNIGHTS' TREBUCHET AND
CAPTURE IT FOR THE ENGLISH
~.><.~
Smash the wall down and approach the trebuchet to capture it. Pull it out of
the reach of the towers then start hitting the two nearest towers with it.
From here you can just send Henry running around to the west and then south on
his own. He will pass the castle without getting hit by it, then pass some
more towers, as well as some French knights around the dock, but if you keep
him running he can make it to the ship with plenty of health to spare.
~.><.~
KING HENRY V MUST RETURN HOME TO ENGLAND
~.><.~
Stick him aboard the transport and leave the docks, heading over to the red
flagged area. When he disembarks you've won.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The first battle is the most important, as it determines the units you will
have to approach the rest of the level with. At least save all three monks,
both rams, and Henry, and you should be OK.
Don't bother heading north past Voyeni's west gate.
You have to pass through Voyeni, so you might as well go for the university.
You can skip Amiens, but the upgrade is worth it.
Frevent is only useful if you want to capture more units.
Once the French knights at the castle are gone you can send Henry running the
gauntlet to the end.
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2.4.2 HASTINGS
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This mission never really gets difficult, in spite of all its potential. Two
of the three enemy bases are pathetically easy to eliminate, and the third can
be taken down without you ever having to see it.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
William the Conqueror must survive.
Conquer England by destroying the castle of Harold the Saxon (orange).
---
You start off with a few buildings, but not much room to build more. Start
harvesting and become more and more aware of the fact that you have no
frigging stone nearby. There's more gold to the east of your castle. Don't
waste what stone you have, just build up the usual low level army. Bung in a
couple of rams, but you won't be needing siege weapons for this first stage.
Soon you get a message about allying with Harald Hardraade. This is a good
idea, but only do it once you've built houses to 100 and maxed out your pop.
limit.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: SEND TRANSPORTS TO THE NORTH TO PICK UP HARALD HARDRAADE'S VIKING
BERSERKS
~.><.~
As for base defense, there's nothing very tough coming your way. It's all
pikemen and champions - no siege or ranged weapons, no monks... They'll be
attacking through the gap in the north wall, so ring the town bell and bait
any invaders to within range of your castle (don't even bother with Murder
Holes from the university yet - it's not worth it for a few piddling units).
Explore outside your base and do what you can to get rid of any towers and
lurking yellows.
Once the area is clear you can explore to the south of your island, over the
bridge and find the minuscule base of Harold's Raiders. They have quite a few
melee soldiers and a couple of scorpions, but your army of upgraded knights,
cavalry archers and monks can erase them easily. The precious stone you need
is east of here, up on a cliff, and there is more gold east of that, guarded
by a tower.
You've probably allied with Harald Hardraade by now, so build a castle on the
west coast of the area north of that little bridge, and build a dock just
south of it. Build a few galleons for protection, and a trebuchet to knock out
the dock and the tower on the far shore. Now build a transport and go and pick
up Harald's berserks (have Careening researched).
By the way, you also get the excellent longboats when you sign up with
Hardraade, so add them to your navy and keep them repaired.
The stone and gold you found will soon run out, but you can send your peasants
over to that revealed island to get more. Don't go there yet though - instead
go to the south corner of the map to find another island with lots of stone
and a yellow mining camp. Once that stone is gone it's time to move off your
first island and do something about your remaining enemies. Upgrade everything
in sight and let's move on.
ATTACKING SAXON NAVY (RED)
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This is really easy - ships are obviously this enemy's strength, so their
threat is pretty much nullified if you take out their town on the land. Use
transports to send all your units (and all your miners) over to the southern
shore of the Saxon Navy's long island (leave behind a couple of paladins at
your town centre - the Navy will keep sending units over occasionally). Head
north and clear out their pathetic town, then build a castle or two south of
the bridge. Wall and gate the bridge off, build a couple of towers behind the
gate, and block the gap past the cliffs to the west. Harold will be sending
lots of little unorganised melee units at you, but two castles and two towers
at the gate cut them down fast.
Now build a few unit production buildings behind your castles and fill out
your army. By this time I had loads of paladins and cavalry archers, all of
Hardraade's berserks (and Harald himself), a few monks, some trebuchets and
four rams. This was more than enough - remember you only have to destroy
Harold's castle to the north, and it's not the most well protected thing ever.
By the way, the Navy won't be defeated yet, but their town centre is gone, so
they might send any remaining ships they have against your eastern island. Use
your own small navy to bait them towards the castle and then the Navy is done
and dusted. The Navy also has a small base in the north west corner of the map
from which they produce all their ground units, but you can ignore this
safely.
ATTACKING HAROLD THE SAXON (ORANGE)
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Back west, once you think you're ready just send everyone over the bridge and
attack the two towers and gate just up the road with your trebuchets. Harold
will empty his base at you, but the berserks, archers and paladins combined
will soak this up, no problem. Now just head farther north until your trebs
spot the castle - smash it floorwards and win the level.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Take Hardraade's help, but only after your population is full.
Don't underestimate the yellows - they have units who can quickly cut down
your knights.
A castle on the western tip of your island can sink all of the Navy's ships -
but back it up with a few galleons of your own to bait them in.
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2.4.3 KYOTO
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This level is really off-putting, what with Kyoto's strength, your weakness
and the constant timers. But do it sneakily and cleverly and it stops being
tough and becomes fun.
---
Difficulty - 2/3
Objectives:
Your lord, Nobunaga, is trapped in Kyoto. You must rescue him to restore his
honor.
---
As soon as you begin you get a kicking and a new objective.
~.><.~
DESTROY ALL 3 OF KYOTO'S CASTLES TO PUNISH THEM FOR THE MURDER OF LORD
NOBUNAGA
~.><.~
Move your fire ships north east, let your ally's transports drop your units on
land, and get another objective.
~.><.~
ESTABLISH A BASE FROM WHICH TO ATTACK KYOTO
~.><.~
Watch as the saboteurs punch a hole in the red wall, and move in to kill off
whomever you find. Head north west and pick up some bombards with which you
can destroy the gate and head into the next section. Kill off the ram and the
castle up to the north east, then go back into the first section and knock out
the gate in the east wall. Head through to the town centre to capture it. The
gate will magically rebuild itself and the peasants will die.
You need to start building fast, because this level keeps getting timers put
on it. The Kyoto monks will keep grabbing the relics and transporting them
from monastery to monastery, and you have to kill off each monastery to reset
the timer.
Anyway, get building and mining - there is stone south east and gold through
the gate to the west. Once that stone runs out there is more to the west,
beyond the red walls. Build a university with Murder Holes when you can, then
build a castle just north of the red mill, and then destroy the two sets of
gates north west of your castle - this will allow you to ignore the blues from
here on, since they will all come through this tunnel and run into your
castle, though you should keep a couple of samurai garrisoned inside in case
they send rams.
ATTACKING KYOTO (GREEN)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
I used to think this was tricky, but it's actually quite easy with my
splendiferous strategies. You have to destroy those three castles in the
minimap, but more immediately you have to destroy the monasteries which should
also be revealed (one by one, depending on where the relics are currently
held). The first monastery is in the north, across the water, and you're only
getting over there by building a dock and some transports.
Build your first dock on the south east coast of the island you're on, just
east of your base. Build one transport and send it north east along the coast,
through the broken bridge and round to the northernmost point of the island.
Send a peasant and your four bombards up to it from your base (there's another
castle somewhere west of the east coast - bombard it when you see it) and
stick them on board.
Send your ship north east and alight your units at the closest part of land
opposite the island you just left, the area which has grass and flecks of snow
on it. Build a castle right on the coast, as close to your old island as you
can, then build a dock west of it, tucked into the corner of the beach. Build
a stable north of your castle, out of the way. This will be your base of
operations from now on.
From now on you should concentrate on building three units: galleons from your
north dock; trebuchets from your north castle; and a handful of knights from
your north stable (four or five). Be sure to research Kataparuto from the
castle - it comes in immensely handy here; and Siege Engineers from your
university. Make sure you have about ten peasants on food and lumber, and
seven or eight each on gold and stone.
The monks will soon start their first countdown, if they haven't already, so
build four or five trebuchets from your north castle and send them and your
bombards over to the Kyoto wall and knock down the towers. The trebuchets can
reach over the wall to hit the monastery, and the timer will be reset. Quickly
pull back your siege units to the castle, because Kyoto might send some monks
and / or trebs of their own to counter-attack - nothing major though.
By the way, you can build a monastery next to your north castle, then build
five monks and send them in straight after your siege units have finished off
the monastery (they'll have to knock a hole in the wall to let the monks
through). Kill off the enemy monks with your knights, then grab the relics and
capture them for yourself, and you won't have to worry about any more
countdowns. I'll continue as though you haven't bothered to do this - it's not
necessary anyway.
Hopefully you now have about ten galleons in your armada, so keep them
patrolling between your two docks, as Kyoto will be sending galleons and
bombard ships around every so often.
ATTACKING THE FIRST CASTLE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The monks will now have moved their relics to the next monastery, and the
counter will soon begin again. You're in a good position now though, and you
can send more trebuchets down along the wall (kill off the towers as you pass)
to hit the first castle and the gate. You might lose one or two of your siege
units here (keep your bombards at the back, since you can't replace them), but
pull them back to the castle as soon as Kyoto's first castle is downed.
ATTACKING THE SECOND CASTLE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Once the first castle is gone you can repair your trebuchets and bombards.
Send them north this time until you find the gate up the hill, knock it down
(bring along some knights just in case), and head in. There should be little
resistance on the way to the next castle, but once you get within range -
north west of the castle, behind the trees - Kyoto will respond as soon as
your trebuchets go for the castle.
Ignore their attack and send your trebs around to the south as soon as the
castle goes down. You should have saved just before launching your
bombardments, so make sure the monastery goes down on this attack too. If not,
reload and try again until you get both buildings and the counter resets.
Don't worry about losing all of your siege units in here - this is normal and
not an issue.
Anyway, you now want to take any and all siege units you have (you only need
three trebuchets) all the way south to where you built that first dock earlier
(it may have been destroyed by now - this is not a problem). Build another
dock in the same place as the first one if it's gone; then build a new
transport down here. Kyoto might try to attack this new dock as well, so bring
your own ships down if this is the case. Pile your siege units aboard and head
east to the cliffs.
Do all this quickly, because the monks are at it again.
ATTACKING THE THIRD CASTLE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Sail north west along the cliffs until you find the first bit of snowy beach,
just south east of the third and last castle. Drop off your siege units on
this little smidgen of land and get them to hit the castle from over the wall.
Kyoto will respond with ships and maybe a couple of scorpions, but if you have
even three fully upgraded siege units it won't matter.
Once the third castle is gone you win, and sod those bloody monks.
Incidentally, there is another way to approach this level, and it cuts out
having to bother with ships (mostly). If you build one transport ship from a
dock next to your first town centre, then send everyone you have over to the
very south shores of the Kyoto island, you can head north east to find a ton
of gold and a load of bamboo sticks. This is a good place for a base, and you
can attack the castles over land. Try this if you want, but I tend to go with
the above tactics, since there are timers in effect.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
One castle and a cleverly opened gauntlet route can nullify any threat from
the blues in the north west.
Don't waste your time and money building loads of knights, samurai, cavalry,
etc. You can do this entire level with a handful of siege weapons and one
transport ship.
Upgrade your siege weapons - it makes a big difference.
Losing all the units you send at the second castle and monastery is expected,
and well worth it if you get both buildings at once.
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2.4.4 LEPANTO
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This is the worst of the Conquerors missions, at least in terms of likelihood
of getting a headache. The first time I saw it I couldn't believe it was
possible, but it is, otherwise this guide would suck balls.
I've given it 3/3 even though it can sometimes be easy. If you do it even half
right you can get away with it and be wondering what all the fuss was about;
but if you do it wrong it will go very wrong, and you will lose.
---
Difficulty - 3/3
Objectives:
Complete and then defend your Wonder from the Turkish navy for 200 years.
---
It's difficult to know what to do first, but the obvious thing is, in spite of
the game's advice, to get all the peasants around the wonder's building site
working on it. Build some more peasants from your town centre in the
east and target them to mine the gold away down to the west. At the same time
you will have to fend off the first Turkish assault on the seas, using your
own bunch of starting ships. Target the cannon galleons - your towers can take
care of their galleons if you lose your fleet.
The biggest problem here is the transport ships. You can get your wonder built
long before the first transport ships approach, but this level is won or lost
depending on whether you can catch and kill the transports before they land on
your shores. If your ships can chase them down before they arrive then you
will have little trouble defending your wonder, but if you miss even one or
two they can give you big headaches, especially since the Turks are cheating
by getting far more units than normal on each transport.
One bright spot comes soon after your wonder is completed, when the Greeks
present you with a proposal.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: TRIBUTE THE GREEKS (GREEN) 800 GOLD SO THEY WILL ALLY WITH YOU
~.><.~
Hopefully you have the gold to give them. They reveal a great deal of the map,
allowing you to predict more easily where the transports will be coming from,
and they will also periodically tribute you with valuable resources. This
level is like Space Invaders.
There's not really much else to say here. Your own peasants combined with the
Greek tributes can help you build more and more ships, and you can even stick
most of your peasants on stone mining to enable you to build and replace
towers, or even a castle. Your only maritime aim is to try to catch as many of
the transports as you can on the way in. The attacks by combat ships die down
quickly, and the landing units are the main danger. On my second go at this
level I caught and killed the first two or three transports, but none of the
rest. This turned out to be enough, mainly because I got my wonder built as
soon as possible.
There is one very important transport ship you will definitely want to catch.
It lands right next to your western dock and it unloads petards and bombards,
among other things. This is far too close to your wonder for comfort - cut
this one down as a priority before it offloads its cargo.
The best tactic I can suggest is to play the level through a couple of times,
getting as far as you can. Then on your first serious try have four or five
galleons aggressively patrolling each of the landing sites you've learned
about in previous attempts. You won't get all of the transports but you'll get
a great deal, and this should be enough since the ground units are too dumb to
go straight to your wonder and attack it.
Your walls and gates do you a favour here too - most of the units I
encountered just stood there hacking at the walls randomly. Take all your
starting mangonels and dump them in the wonder's enclosure - they can attack
any encroaching enemies from over the walls, and they help a lot. Your ships
can also get close enough to the beach to hit any bombards, which are the most
dangerous of the ground units.
By the way, you can build a castle right next to your wonder as soon as it's
done - just buy enough extra stone from the marketplace and let the castle
provide that little bit of added security. It's very, very worth it, since you
won't be using the stone for anything else.
200 years sounds like a lot, but it's not really. You might do better than you
expected.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Get all your peasants working on building the wonder.
Don't bother building any land units - if your ships are clever enough you
won't need them.
Try learning of the specific landing sites and then plan your ships' patrols
accordingly.
Take the Greeks' help when they offer it - I know it's expensive but it's
worth it.
Your galleons can hit the dangerous bombard cannons from the water.
Another castle or two will help, if you can afford them.
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2.4.5 MANZIKERT
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This level isn't hard, just long-winded. There's a fair bit of waiting around
for resources, and it's hard to know what exactly to build when you're just
starting.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
Receive tributes from the Theme of Galatia by capturing their Town Center.
Receive tributes from the Theme of Pisidia by capturing their Town Center.
Receive tributes from the Theme of Cappadocia by capturing their Town Center.
Defeat the Byzantine army.
---
Build two or three rams, then do what you want with the rest of the money -
just get as many units as you can out of it, and you might want one or two
blacksmith upgrades as well.
ALLYING WITH PISIDIA (RED)
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Head out of the base and west to kill off the first of the Byzantines. Then go
north and attack the gate with your rams (ignore the towers for now). The rams
will be attacked from within the walls when they get the gate to about half
health, so pull them back quickly and kill off the enemy units. Destroy the
gate and take your rams alone up around the hill path until you reach another
gate. Knock it down, and the one beyond that, then rush your horses up to the
flags to take partial control of Pisidia.
Throughout all of that your rams will be getting attacked by the towers, but
don't try to destroy any of them - you get control of them later. Also keep an
eye on your rams - if any enemies attack them on their way up the hill make
sure your other units can quickly get rid of the threat. Don't worry about
losing or damaging units from the towers - you can build plenty more later.
So you are now being tributed by Pisidia, and you can slowly add to and
upgrade your forces. Take all your units except the rams back down to where
you killed off that first gate, and wait for the squadron of Byzantines who
will be coming round the mountain, singing aye-aye-ippy. Smash the rams then
all the rest, and the blues should stop attacking - if they do get to your
first base they can wipe it out, leaving you down a lot of houses and unit
production buildings.
ALLYING WITH CAPPADOCIA (GREEN)
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Once you've got two or three more rams and lots more miscellaneous units, send
everyone to the south west wall and find the green gate leading up into the
mountains. Knock the gate down again, and this time use scorpions to kill the
greens attacking your rams from behind the gate. Head north and smash the next
gate open, then rush in again to collect the Cappadocian town. You will now
get tributed lots more gold and food, plus some small amounts of wood.
Rebuild again while you send your rams and scorpions west to the bridge.
~.><.~
OPTIONAL: DESTROY THE 4 SARACEN TOWERS SO THAT YOUR ALLIES CAN MINE THEIR GOLD
~.><.~
Send the rams over first and destroy the three towers that they can get to.
Once the first three are gone, position your rams so that the fourth tower is
baited into firing at them, then hit the tower with your scorpions. Once all
four towers are gone you get lots more gold from the Saracens.
There doesn't seem to be a time limit on this level - you can take as long as
you want about moving between towns and building your armies. After that
initial attack I never met the Byzantines again until I attacked them later.
ALLYING WITH GALATIA (YELLOW)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is the hardest of the three towns to get into, guarded as it is by two
castles, two towers, a gate, lots of scorpions, monks, etc. The best way I
found to get in with minimal fuss is to collect six or seven rams together,
group about fifteen to twenty horsed units together, and send both groups out
the north west gate of the Cappadocian territory. Sneak the horses along the
bottom cliff to the south east, so the castles don't hit them.
When they reach the area due south of the yellow gate (send in a light cavalry
first to scout out the area, just so you know exactly what you're dealing
with), you can run the horses north to decoy the yellow guards into following
them as they retreat. Bring them south out of range of the castles and finish
them off, leaving the way clear for your rams.
Now sneak the rams along the same south east cliff, only this time turn north
when you're due south west of the western castle. Move them up past the
castle, right in against the cliff so that the other castle can't reach them
as they pass, then get the rams to all attack the gate. They will come under
heavy fire, but you should manage to drop the gate on this one attack.
Now you can just run your horses north to the flags. Yes, they take a lot of
damage, but it's worth running the gauntlet. When you do get to the flags you
gain the help of Galatia, and all your units will be healed.
You can now build trebuchets and monks, among other things, and there will be
a lot more resources at your disposal.
ATTACKING BYZANTINE (BLUE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
They have a castle and a siege workshop in the middle of the desert, south
east of the yellow gate. Hit it with trebuchets while your filled out army
takes care of every blue unit sent to investigate, and wipe out the workshop
too.
Head east to find the gate and the hill leading into the blue base. There's a
castle at the top of this first hill, so try not to get sucked into a fight
around the second gate. Destroy the castle with trebs again, and your other
units can soak up all the eejits that the Byzantines throw at you on the hill.
Break down the gate and head in to begin destroying the nearby unit production
buildings. They have peasants everywhere, and a few monks will probably try
capturing some of your units. Kill the monks when you see them, and get your
trebs working on all the buildings. The pesky monastery is on the eastern edge
of the map, beyond the town centre.
You win once you kill all their peasants and destroy the town centre. Lemon
squeezy.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Defend the rams above all else while you're attacking Pisidia and Cappadocia.
Don't let the Byzantines destroy your initial base after you've captured
Pisidia.
Use scorpions to hit the fourth Saracen tower.
Pull the Galatian guards away from the castles, then ram the gate down.
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2.4.6 NORYANG POINT
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This level is easy enough if you just keep your navy full and healthy. Lots of
bonuses about too.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
Optional: Prevent the Japanese from destroying Korea's wonder.
Defend Korea from the Japanese.
---
I'm not exactly sure what purpose the wonder serves, but save it if you want.
I let mine get wrecked to see what would happen - nothing.
Just pull your starting navy north and pick off the Japanese ships one by one.
Send your ships south again and get them to aggressively patrol between your
two docks - you'll be building more ships later.
Now get your peasants working. Wood is more important than food in this
mission, so have about ten farmers and ten lumberjacks. Gold is vital too, but
you'll hardly be using stone at all - just as well since there is hardly any
around. Have about eight or nine gold miners and three stone miners, and don't
bother upgrading the stone miners at the camp.
As far as base defense goes, you'll be doing it almost entirely with your
ships. The only land battles occur when the Japanese manage to drop off some
samurai south of your town centre, and they can be easily mopped up by ringing
the town bell and researching Murder Holes. This level is won or lost around
your docks, so always make sure you have plenty ships - twenty plus is not
overkill, and you'll be adding more later. Find and buy every ship upgrade you
can too.
GAINING THE HELP OF ADMIRAL YI (GREEN)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
The best site for a lumber mill is far north west of your town centre. You
will get a message about allying with Admiral Yi soon after the level starts,
and his castles and house will be revealed in the minimap.
~.><.~
FIND ADMIRAL YI AND LEARN OF HIS SECRET WEAPON
~.><.~
Take all your choppers up there until you find a corner of green wall trapped
behind some trees. Clear the trees out of the way and build a ram to smash the
wall down (switch to Enemy with Admiral Yi).
Once your peasants have cleared the trees from the other side of the wall you
can send a unit through to the flag and gain Admiral Yi's assistance (switch
baack to Ally). He gives you three castles (you can't build your own), and
three elite turtle ships west of his house. Despite what the game tells you at
this point you can't build more turtle ships, which sucks. You can build the
war wagons though, and I suggest you do, if only to provide some mobile land
defense in case the Japanese drop their units off at your town centre.
~.><.~
USE TURTLE SHIPS TO DEFEAT THE JAPANESE NAVY
~.><.~
Send the turtles (including the excellent Admiral's ship) down the coast and
join them up with the rest of your fleet - protect them and repair them
whenever you can, as you don't want to lose these great ships.
GAINING THE HELP OF THE CHINESE (ORANGE)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This happens soon after you gain the turtle ships. The Chinese donate a bunch
of bombards and elite ranged units to the cause, probably taking your
population above its limit. Send an upgraded transport over there to pick them
up and take them to the mainland.
Soon after meeting the Chinese you'll get another objective.
~.><.~
DESTROY ALL OF THE JAPANESE DOCKS TO END THEIR THREAT TO KOREA
~.><.~
You probably have a lot of gold by now, so research Spies from one of the
castles (it should be pretty cheap). This will let you see the entire map, and
give you advance warning of any yellow ships coming your way.
By now you should have over twenty ships, including the turtles, and you
should have upgraded pretty much everything from the blacksmith, docks,
university and castles (docks being especially important). Your ships will be
patrolling the south east coast and catching every yellow ship which
approaches. You could also have bombard towers ranged along the inlets to take
out any yellows who slip through.
ATTACKING THE JAPANESE RAIDERS (PURPLE)
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You'll never see these guys unless you go to them in the north of your island,
and their only purpose is to block an alternative route to Admiral Yi's
castles (there's lots of gold there too, but you already have tons). You can
destroy their tiny base and climb on the free transport ship, then drop a unit
on the west beach and smash down the gate. This is unnecessary if you can just
break down the walls as I mentioned, but if you want to do it the hard way,
fine.
The Raiders have some crossbowmen and samurai, a handful of rams and
scorpions, some towers, and a castle. They're not tough to take down, it's
just that you won't have many ground units of your own. One idea might be to
build a bombard tower or two at the south end of the little bridge, then run a
unit in to bait them all across. The towers can kill them all and then you can
wipe out the castle and towers with the Chinese bombards you were given.
Frankly, attacking the Raiders is a pointless pain in the arse, especially
since the area is so covered in trees and bamboo sticks. Just forget them.
ATTACKING THE JAPANESE NAVY'S DOCKS (YELLOW)
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Easy. Just build up your navy and repair any damaged ships, then send them all
(I had over twenty) east to start picking off the docks. Leave behind about
ten galleons to continue patrolling your own docks.
Start in the eastern corner of the map and work your way along the Japanese
coast. Spies will let you see where the castles and towers are (as well as the
docks themselves, obviously), and the first three docks can be easily taken
out with little or no damage to your ships. Attack the bombard tower west of
the eastern dock first - bait it into firing at one of your galleons then just
keep moving the galleon out of the way every time the tower fires.
Now pull your ships back home and repair them, then take out the fourth dock
by getting your ships to hug the beach to the west as they go into the river
mouth. The fifth dock is easy enough, and the sixth dock in the west is easy
too, if you take out the towers first.
Which just leaves the seventh dock. I ignored my ships for this one and just
sent six trebuchets sneaking around into the south west corner, dropped them
off on the east beach and took out the dock with one unified blast.
And then you win.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Build ships, ships and more ships; and then build some more ships to go with
your other ships. And then upgrade all your ships until you've got more and
more upgraded ships.
Ships.
Break into Yi's enclosure with a ram and some lumberjacks - ignore the Raiders
altogether.
Keep your turtle ships and starting bombard ships healthy - they're better
than the galleons.
Kill off the free Chinese units if you like - they're all but useless if
you're going to be attacking the Japanese docks with your ships.
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2.4.7 TOURS
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This was the first of the Conquerors missions I ever tried, and it was giving
me nightmares until I finally got it. It's surprisingly easy if you move fast
at the start.
---
Difficulty - 2/3
Objectives:
Prevent the Moslems from destroying any of your 3 Town Centers.
Capture the 6 Trade Carts in the Moors' baggage train and bring them to the
Cathedral in Tours.
---
This level comes in two stages: the first one is to get your own base to a
point where you no longer have to worry about it being destroyed; and the
second is to assault the Moors' base to recover the carts.
You'll soon realise that all your two enemies are really doing is throwing
bunches of melee units against your walls, over and over. Once you notice this
then base defense gets pretty pish simple, and the only thing you have to do
is get castles up post haste.
DEFENDING YOUR BASE
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
As soon as the level starts send all the units in the south up to your base
and inside the walls, including Charles Martel. While they're travelling get
one of your peasants mining the stone in the north corner, and the other three
building farms. You want to have about eleven farmers and ten lumberjacks, so
work as quickly as you can towards this goal.
Meanwhile your base will come under attack soon after you've returned your
combat units to your walls. Forget your knights for now - just send your
axemen to stand behind the walls on Stand Ground stance, and manually target
each of the enemy units until they've fallen. Whatever you do, don't send any
of your units through the gates, as you really don't want your enemies getting
inside at this point.
Your walls and gates will take damage, but no holes should appear. You can
conduct repairs later, but right now you want to build a castle and stick your
knights in it until you can research Murder Holes. To do this you'll have to
advance to the Castle Age (hence having more farmers than usual) and have
mined 50 stone to go with your starting amount.
By the way, don't use that lumber camp to the west of your base. Your
woodcutters are absolutely brilliant at stupidly using your gates and chopping
down that one lone tree inside your walls. This just lets the enemy units in,
which you don't need. Instead send your cutters east to the forest and chop
wood there, out of the way. They won't be attacked.
Once you're in the Castle Age get some of your farmers to quickly build a
castle just south of your southernmost wall (almost touching it). This castle
is going to see a lot of action, so keep your knights and axemen in or around
it so they can fend off enemies until you can research Murder Holes, and
preferably Ballistics. This all costs money, so hopefully by now you have
built all your peasants before anything else, and the resources are coming in
steadily. Send your farmers back to work when they're done.
Right now you do not need units - you need castles. Build your first castle
and then hurry towards getting the resources to build the second. As I said,
keep your starting combat units around your first castle, and duck them inside
when they're losing health. Take out the enemy camels and knights with the
axemen, and use your knights to chase down the scorpions and bait any enemies
attacking your western gates towards the castle.
It wouldn't hurt to keep a monk handy, who can be let out of the castle to </pre><pre id="faqspan-5">
conduct healing when things quieten down. The many farms, mills and houses in
the outskirts give you great warning of the approach of enemies. Researching
Herbal Medicine from the monastery wouldn't hurt either.
You should be able to keep your first castle standing easily, as well as chase
down the dangerous rams attacking from the west. Bait all your enemies towards
the castle, and Murder Holes can take care of the rest. You can research
Hoardings later, when you reach the Imperial Age, but right now you should be
working towards getting another 650 stone for your second castle (buy some
from the market if you want - this isn't a level where you'll ever be
desperately short of resources).
When you have the next 650 stone build your second castle west of your western
gate, but still close to the walls. The idea is to force any and all enemies
to come within range of either or both castles. Most will attack that western
wall, so you want either one or both castles to be able to reach them. Keep
knights inside each castle in case of rams, but once your second castle is up
you can almost ignore your base defense, especially if you've bought all the
building upgrades from the university.
Repair any damaged bits of wall or gates around your base, build the odd tower
at places where the ones remaining can't reach, and build walls and gates
around your castles if you want the extra security. The worst the enemy can
throw against your castles and towers is rams, so watch out for these
occasional units and let your castles laugh the rest out of the park.
CAPTURING THE TRADE CARTS
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Your gold will last a while but the stone, as usual, won't. Soon you'll need
more, so build a scout cavalry and start exploring this big map. To be honest
most of it is empty, and there is nothing of interest to the south east. Go
across the bridge south of your eastern gate and look for the gold to the west
of the bottom of it. There is more precious stone way down in the south of the
map, quite close to the Moors' green base. I built a mining camp here and it
was never attacked, so it should be OK. There's also more gold west of the
stone.
Anyway, before you think about attacking the Moors (attacking the Turks isn't
necessary - try it if you want, but I'm not going to here), you'll want to
advance to the Imperial Age to get all the cool units. Do this and build an
army of paladins (upgrade everything you can afford), ranged units (I went
with the elite axemen, in spite of the fact that I'm not usually a sucker for
unique units), trebuchets and a few monks. Meh, build what you like, but scout
out the perimeter of the Moors' base with a scout cavalry first, so you know
what you're up against.
They have a castle in the north west corner of their small base, and walls all
around it. It's not that the base is difficult to attack, it's just that it's
so sodding far away from your own. So you might want to build a well guarded
castle and some unit production buildings somewhere around that crop of stone
(I put my castle and some walls on the very end of the brick road to the south
west, against the edge of the map - the Moors don't react to the building
site). Leave a few knights back in your first two castles for the sake of
those yellow rams (later ones will have units garrisoned inside, but so
what?), then shift your army south to your third castle, ready for an assault
on the green base.
At this point it's up to you what you do - I actually ended up forgetting most
of my army and just sent in petards to knock out first the gate and then
the green unit production buildings one by one. I also built another scout
cavalry and revealed the layout of most of the base before the scout died.
The Moors' base turns out to be really crap. I met a grand total of zero
combat units and my army stood around scratching its arse for most of the
time. Once the castle and town centre was gone it was a stroll. The only
problem you might encounter is that they'll ring the town bell, and the arrows
from the town centre may target the carts you need. Make sure none of your
carts is destroyed or you'll have a problem.
All that's left now is to escort those six carts back home and place them
between the flags in front of the beautiful cathedral. I had managed to lose
one of my castles to rams at this point, but I no longer cared.
QUICK HELP
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Your axemen can fend off the first assaults - just don't let the enemies
inside your walls.
Chop wood away to the east - don't use the given camp.
Get a castle up fast and keep it repaired.
Keep fast melee units garrisoned in your castle(s), or you could lose them to
the yellow rams.
All building upgrades help in this level.
The Moorish base is absurdly rubbish - you may not need anything beyond a few
petards in the end.
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2.4.8 VINDLANDSAGA
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
This is what happens when you design a level with no gold in it. Horribleness.
The Sea of Worms looks like something out of Lemmings, if you ever get to
reveal the entire minimap.
---
Difficulty - 1/3
Objectives:
Erik the Red must survive.
Transport Erik the Red west across the ocean to the New World and start a
colony there.
---
For once you start off with the most basic of bases, and you've got to get all
the way up to the Castle Age slowly and steadily. You'll also be attacked by
three wolves - two of them ordinary doggies; and the third Ornlu himself, whom
you may remember killing in Age Of Kings. He will appear when you build a
blacksmith, and he can cut down your berserks with one swipe. Ring the town
bell when you see him and make sure you target the town centre on him.
Anyway, the idea is to mine all that stone to the east and do some creative
buying and selling at the marketplace. You need to build two, possibly three
castles in this level (by my strategy anyway), and this is kind of hard given
that you have no gold and only one batch of stone. Actually there is a lot
more stone in the middle of Greenland, to the north, but it's hardly worth
going for.
When building your town make sure you put all your buildings to the east of
the town centre, in the corner of the map. Viking longboats will be along
later, and you don't want them to be able to reach your buildings with their
shots. Once you have your first 650 stone you can build your first castle on
the southern tip of your island, west of the little inlet. Build a dock in the
inlet so that any passing enemy ships will have to meet the castle before they
reach your dock. The castle will also catch any transports passing by, which
should keep your first base totally safe for the rest of the level.
Try not to spend much on unit upgrades or anything - this strategy depends on
using just a few combat units and relying instead on castles. I bought only
the blacksmith upgrades which used food alone; Horse Collar and Town Watch
from the mill and town centre; and didn't even bother with a lumber camp on
the first island.
RELOCATING TO BRITAIN (BLUE)
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Build a transport from your dock and load Erik and his escorts on it, as well
as a few peasants. Bung on some barracks units if you want. Send the boat
south west until you find the next island, which is where Britain have a puny
base. Take your ship around the northern tip and down the other side, then let
them off when the shore levels out. There should be trees and a lumber camp to
the east and a market to the south.
Get your peasants to start building a castle next to the lumber camp, between
it and the water. Britain will attack the building site with some archers, but
Erik and his two berserks should be able to kill them all. The castle will
soon be built, at which point you can garrison Erik inside and start building
five petards.
There is a tower south east and another to the south west of this island - use
your berserks and Erik to destroy them (they have an attack bonus vs.
buildings). Then hit the town centre to the south with your five petards. Once
it was gone I let Erik out of the castle and got him to kill off Britain's
peasants with the help of some more berserks from the castle.
Britain's marketplaces can be smashed down for a lot more gold. Use some of
that gold to research Murder Holes and Ballistics from the university.
Fletching and Bodkin Arrow from the blacksmith are good investments for your
castles, and Double-Bit Axe and Bow Saw are good researches to undertake from
the lumber camp you'll want to build next to your second castle.
Now you can bring over all the rest of your lumberjacks, who will be
struggling for wood on your first island. Leave your farmers where they are,
but relocate your wood-cutters to Britain and start on the big bunch of trees.
Don't bother building another dock over here - it will only be destroyed.
Build up about ten or fifteen galleons from your first dock and research
Careening.
PASSING GREENLAND (GREEN)
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Greenland is in the north and it's heavily populated and half-arsedly
fortified. Weak though Greenland is, you're weaker. Thankfully your objectives
don't state that you have to wipe these guys out, since it might be pretty
hard with no gold mines and no long-range siege weapons.
Anyway, stick Erik on a transport again, accompanied by two or three berserks,
four petards and three or four peasants. Be sure you have another 650 stone
before you do this. Send the ship due north west of your second castle until
you find the coast of Greenland, then follow the ice south west and then west
until you can't go any farther without having your ship sunk by the Sea of
Worms. You might want to have cleared any enemy ships away from this area
before you send your transport in.
Drop your passengers on the last narrow bit of accessible ice on the very
southern tip of Greenland, then send them west. They will meet a tower, so
knock it out with the four petards and send your peasants and Eric past the
wreckage. You want to build another dock on the south west tip of the ice,
from which you can build another transport to take your units west across the
sea.
Dump everyone on the transport and head due south west until you find land.
Follow the coast south west until you find the edge of the map, then drop
everyone off here.
ESTABLISHING A COLONY IN THE NEW WORLD
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This island has some purple Celts on it, a small army made up of woad raiders
and militia. They have two barracks, a town centre and a scattering of houses.
The Skraelings are yet another enemy who seem to be able to keep producing
units without having any peasants.
The idea here is to quickly build a castle inland, south of the Celts' base.
Fight off the nearby Celts with Erik and the berserks while your peasants
build the castle, then garrison the peasants and the berserks inside.
~.><.~
THE VIKINGS MUST BUILD A TOWN CENTER, A MARKET, AND 12 HOUSES IN THE NEW WORLD
~.><.~
Now you want to run around this island and bait the Celts into following Erik
to the castle, while you build petards and send them to destroy the two
barracks and the town centre. The barracks need three petards each, and the
town centre will need five. Erik is very unlikely to die, so just keep the
Celts away from their buildings until you can send the petards in.
Once the three main buildings are gone you can bait the remaining Celts into
approaching your castle, and the island is pretty much clear. Build the
required buildings with your peasants (stay away from the coast - there are
longboats about) and the level is won.
By the way, there is a lonely hermit on a tiny island on the west edge of the
map. I killed him with Erik but nothing happened. I guess this guy might have
a bearing on the level if you do it a different way to the above strategy, so
let me know if you have a clue what he's there for.
QUICK HELP
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Be as economical as you can on the starting island. Food is the only resource
you'll get a lot of, so sell it at the market for gold.
You don't need every available upgrade - be sensible and remember that there
is little or no combat in this level.
It's not essential to land on Britain, but it definitely makes the level
easier.
You can skip Greenland almost entirely.
Clear out the Skraelings by baiting them towards your castle, and use petards
to sneakily destroy their three unit production buildings.
~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~
Congratulations, that's the last of them (I arranged the Conquerors campaigns
in alphabetical order for the sake of this guide).
Thanks for reading :)
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3. CONTRIBUTORS / CONTRIBUTIONS
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Version 1.0 -
29 November 2006 - Michael Sarich: Copyright Disclaimer
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Version 1.1 -
N/A
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Version 1.2 -
15 February 2007 - William Qi <
[email protected]>
Contributed to section 2.1.5 THE CATALAUNIAN FIELDS
06 March 2007 - Richard Hochroth <
[email protected]>
Contributed to sections 2.2.5 KING OF VALENCIA; 2.2.6 RECONQUISTA
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Version 1.3 -
03 May 2007 - Les <
[email protected]>
Contributed to section 2.1.2 THE GREAT RIDE
06 May 2007 - Leonardo Alonso <
[email protected]>
Contributed to section 2.2.5 KING OF VALENCIA
30 June 2007 - Lambert Forkink <
[email protected]>
Contributed to section 2.2.1 BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER
02 July 2007 - Lambert Forkink <
[email protected]>
Contributed to section 2.2.3 THE EXILE OF THE CID
21 July 2007 - James Hogan <
[email protected]>
Contributed to section 2.3.2. THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE
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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 - 29 November 2006
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Version 1.1 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 1.2 completion - 22 February 2007
Miscellaneous:
Corrected errors in formatting and typing
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Version 1.3 completion - 04 August 2007
New disclaimer
Section 1:
1.3 CONTACT ME - Updated information
Miscellaneous:
Corrected errors in formatting and typing
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Version 1.4 completion - April 2017
Guide is now considered complete
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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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