Mission 13 – Snake Eyes

Base map

Start date: April 1205

Objectives

All difficulty choices

  • Kill the Snake

The Snake’s new castle lies in a valley across from his old one! We have already occupied his old fort; build it up until you are strong enough to lay siege to the Snake’s last castle to finish him off for good.
Should you succeed, pull out immediately, as we don’t have nearly enough men to take on the Wolf’s main army. Raise some engineers to create the siege engines you will need.

Resources

Supplies

  • 185 wood
  • 61 stone
  • 43 wheat
  • 11 flour
  • 800 gold

Troops

  • 12 archers
  • 10 macemen
  • 6 crossbowmen

Trade

ResourceBuySell
Meat84
Cheese84
Bread84
Wheat238
Ale238
Wood41
Stone147
Bows3115
Spears2010
Maces5830
Crossbows5830
Leather Armour2512

Notes

The main objective in this mission is to kill the Snake. The Pig will send troops, mostly archers and macemen, to attack your castle about every 14 months starting in the second year of the mission. The site for your castle is very defensible, especially once you give up on the buildings outside your castle and buy the needed stone through the market. You have more than enough space inside the castle to place additional dairy and wheat farms. Once you have stabilised your defences and economy, you’ll need to build up your forces to take the Snake’s castle.

I started with expanding my economy and building a wall down to the low lying ground (see minimap). Adding more iron mines increased my income and I expanded my army steadily. While my army was recruited, I enhanced the fortifications with crenelations and moats around the lower gatehouses. Moats are particularly useful as enemy troops will spend time filling them in even if there’s walls they can reach nearby. Crossbowmen make short work of both the archers and the macemen.

Once I was happy with my defences I started gathering macemen, crossbowmen and engineers across the river. By 1210 I launched my first attack taking out a tower and losing three catapults. I also found out the Snake uses pit traps and these will take out a healthy maceman. With the loss of the siege engines I decided to pull back.

Seven years later I launched a second attack. This one managed to take out another tower and the ballista on top of the first tower.

My third attack took place 2 years later, and I managed to take out the walls and towers, using tower shields and catapults, helped by a bunch of macemen. I tried laddermen as well, but these ran foul of the staked ditches and got eliminated before they could be used. My crossbowmen gained the inner tower line and continued to pepper the Snake with bolts, resulting in his demise in March 1221.

Finished map

Total Losses: 48%
My Score: 10,200

There is a quicker and easier way to handle this mission, though.
You can place a bit of wall next to the high land west of the Snake’s castle and build a staircase going up. Once this is in place, you can sneak in through the back door and kill the Snake before he knows what hit him.
I decided to give myself a bit more of a challenge and took the long way round.

Download this finished map

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