Age of Empires II: The Conquerors Guide

From Age of Empires

Contents 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 WELCOME 1.2 KINGS TO CONQUERORS 1.3 HINTS AND INFO 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

[edit] INTRODUCTION

[edit] 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

because I can't be stuck writing them.

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.

Anyway, enough about that. Most of these level guides take you through only

one specific way to complete the level, because obviously it's impossible to

list every method. If you have a better way to win a particular level than the

ones in here, by all means use it; and if it's

significantly better or as good as mine I'll list it in the next update and

credit you for its inclusion. Please try to be specific in your contributions

- suggestions like 'THAT BIT'S EASY IF YOU GET YOUR DUDES TO HIT THE STUFF

WITH THE BIG THING RIGHT IN THE BALLS LMAO 1337 PWNZOR!!!1!' are about as much

use as an origami hamster.

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.

Finally, this isn't a statty sort of guide. I can't be shat putting in tons

of numbers that you can find for yourself just by moving your mouse. If you

need help getting through certain levels, please read on; but if you're

looking for building property tables or whatever, forget it. Oh, and there are

no cheats here either - if you use cheats you don't need a walkthrough, innit.

[edit] 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 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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[edit] HINTS AND INFO

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.

[edit] WALKTHROUGH

This is the chapter 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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[edit] 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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[edit] THE SCOURGE OF GOD

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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

QUICK HELP

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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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[edit] THE GREAT RIDE

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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 <trojan@atoka.net>

"If you defeat Dyrrhachium outright, the military units in that pallisade

all die on their own and they can be avoided until 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 villagers 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

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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

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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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[edit] THE WALLS OF CONSTANTINOPLE

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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

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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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[edit] A BARBARIAN BETROTHAL

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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)

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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

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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

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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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[edit] THE CATALAUNIAN FIELDS

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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 <sixawill@hotmail.com>

"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)

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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)

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You might have noticed that your two castles are having trouble catching every

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. CONTRIBUTION: Whenever I attack the Alans, I kill about 3 castles, as they rebuild them, and I can't quite find all the peasants, so they build an archery range in the middle of the roman base. This makes it extremely hard to kill them off, as the romans shelter them, and they make it even harder to kill of the romans.

ATTACKING ROMANS (BLUE)

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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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[edit] THE FALL OF ROME

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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.

---

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[edit] 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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[edit] BROTHER AGAINST BROTHER

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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 <helloitsme22@gmail.com>

"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.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] 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 butt 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.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] 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 <helloitsme22@gmail.com>

"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.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] BLACK GUARDS

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

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

targeted 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.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] 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 <rjhny1@aol.com>

"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

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 <brain_dead6@hotmail.com>

"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.

Use petards one bye one to sneakly destroy the horrifying bombard towers.

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.

Convert the enemy's paladins if possible. These will be strong siege killers.

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.

Forget about the Imperial Age if resources are limited.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] 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 <rjhny1@aol.com>

"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 siege 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.

---

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬------------------------------

[edit] 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?

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] 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.

Important Note:

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.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

[edit] 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.

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________V1.2 CONTRIBUTION_______________________________

James Hogan <whatisthemeaning@gmail.com>

"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.

[edit] 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 trebuchets 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.

[edit] 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.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] 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.

NOTE: Cashing in horses gives you elite tarkans, which benefit from attack upgrades, but are delicate because Aztecs don't get any cavalry armor.

Also, you are prevented from producing trade carts. I assume this was to prevent players from booming trade carts to get endless cannons.

ATTACKING CORTEZ (BLUE)

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

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.

Explore the eastern peninsula for some bonuses, including a relic.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] BROKEN SPEARS

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

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.

---

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬----------------------

[edit] 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.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] AGINCOURT

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

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.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] HASTINGS

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

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)

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

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)

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

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.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] 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.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] LEPANTO

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

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.

~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~ = ~.><.~

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

[edit] 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)

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

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)

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

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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[edit] NORYANG POINT

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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)

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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)

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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 butt, especially

since the area is so covered in trees and bamboo sticks. Just forget them.

ATTACKING THE JAPANESE NAVY'S DOCKS (YELLOW)

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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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[edit] TOURS

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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

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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

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

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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 butt 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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[edit] VINDLANDSAGA

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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

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬

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.