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02 - Setting Out
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| Author |
File Description |
| Sulis |
Posted on 11/14/03 @ 12:00 AM
Mission 2: Setting Out
Human Lord (2,000 gold) v Caliph "The Scorpion" (2,000 gold)
After the straight-forward and simple first mission on the Trail, here we have a little bit more to deal with, by way of the Caliph AI lord. For starters, gold is now equal at 2,000 each. The Caliph differs greatly from the Sultan from Mission 1 and is much more actively aggressive towards you. He relies predominantly on slaves to wreak havoc on your farms, woodcutters' huts... anything not protected by a castle wall.
Again, and despite the above, I opted not to wall in the keep and decided on a large round tower armed with a mangonel, sited to the east of the keep. If you wish, you could easily place this within striking range of the Caliph's castle and weaken or even take down some of the towers.
However, to start with, I placed a granary, marketplace and 2 further stockpile tiles. Two woodcutters' huts were placed to the north-east of the keep, as were one wheat farm and one apple orchard. Then, the armoury was built and 25 bows purchased. With 10 stone added to that which remained from the tower build, the barracks were placed behind the keep. All starting archers and the 25 new recruits were placed in the round tower. There was sufficient firepower here to slay all slave attacks as well as a handful of Arabian swordsmen early on.
One of the tactics I use throughout the skirmish trails to generate gold, where possible, is to ensure you have maximum ale coverage. I also turn off food consumption and sell everything I can, with the ale coverage offsetting this drop in popularity. In this case, bread seems to be the most sensible option and before long the treasury is filling up nicely! Hop farms and one brewery were placed as and when wood stocks allowed.
Eventually, as wood starts to be deposited at the stockpile, I placed iron mines and opted for heavily armoured swordsmen as the main body of my attack. I could buy weapons if required, but I found that in the early stages of the Trail I had time and scope to manufacture my own. The map is fairly well balanced, with huge deposits of iron available behind the keep for you. The Caliph has a similar useful source close to hand: stone.
Before long, I had a force of some 15 swordsmen and 30 archers. To ensure I had a clean access to the Caliph's castle I built an engineers' guild and set up three catapults. Three is probably a bit excessive here, and one or two should be more than enough. I also placed a mercenary tent and recruited a few assassins. These were to be used to climb the towers and take out fire throwers and any archers that may weaken my attacking force.
The final attack was achieved rather easily with my small gathering of swordsmen. I moved most of my archers from the round tower I built to defend my keep at the beginning of the game and ordered them to attack the fire ballista of the Caliph for safe measure. With a hole punctured in the castle wall and a few archers targeting fire throwers, victory soon followed. |
| Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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The Ztolk
(id: Ztolk) |
Posted on 12/20/03 @ 12:00 AM
After building a granary near the oasis, I built a mercenary hut and as many horse archers as I could, and told them to patrol accross his side of the oasis. I had about 25 in total.
After this I built four woodcutter huts, and as many apple farms as possible. I built a market, barracks, and armoury as well, then sold all my stone. After that I built as many iron mines as I could.
I sold the iron to buy maceman equipment. Meanwhile, my horse archers had devestated his economy and made him unable to build a military, so a large army was not necessary. I used 30 macemen, but there was almost no resistance.
This mission took me about 4 years. |
| X Man Sethy |
Posted on 08/07/05 @ 08:14 PM |
| brainstorm44 |
Posted on 12/21/05 @ 02:37 AM
Just use a frontal attack, you can still do it because the Caliphs castle isn't done yet. Kill his archers and slay the lord. Presto!
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| Duc Timothy |
Posted on 06/19/06 @ 07:36 PM
I manned the gatehouses with a few Archers and, to a point, crossbowmen. It was no problem beating off the attack of slaves, since only one apple farm wasn't walled in and that was covered by a few Archers with Braziers. (Seriously, if you're new to the game and you use Archers, there is no excuse for not using the free braziers. I say this because it took me a while to figure that out, and I'm usually quick at RTS games.)
I played defensive for a while. I built about 6 Iron... um, thingies... and soon Iron was pouring in. First, I wanted to secure my castle as 10 total troops would *not* be suffucient. So I sold off the valuable Iron and always had a fair amount of money, usually about 700 gold average. That was all I needed at a time, so I was set.
I sold off a lot of Iron and bought enough stone to build a Round Tower. (Did I mention that I didn't bother trying to quarry stone? It was all covered by the pyromaniac, the Caliph) Putting a mangonel on it and about 30 crossbowmen, I killed off the fire ballistae in front of his castle, killed his 25 slaves which were in crossbow firing range, and used the mangonel to obliterate about 5 of his towers. (Yes, I waited until he was fully developed. But it's a castle sim, and I wanted to relish the castle building, financial management, etc.)
I trained about 20 Horse Archers and sent them on a preliminary drive-by shooting. It went well, as I cleared the 5 or 6 Archers that could have roasted an invasion army. Then a few Arabian Swordsmen killed them off, mainly because I didn't care about them anymore; they did their job. Besides, clearing out the castle's defenders had damaged/killed most of them, and they were useless.
I trained about 20 more Horse Archers, and a small army of 15 Pikemen and 10 Swordsmen. It was, after all, an almost-empty castle at that point. With the merc camp under constant fire, the Caliph had no way of reinforcing his castle.
I sent the Horse Archers to the gate to harass the Caliph and disrupt stone shipment while I trained 5 Assassains. I sent the Assassains to a halfway point, and sent one to the gatehouse. While this took place, I gave my infantry their marching orders. "This armor's heavy!"
The Assassain opened the gate without being detected (detected by what?). My Horse Archers entered, and fired on everything they saw. Peasants, engineers sent to man a Fire Ballista, even the Caliph. Then my infantry reached the castle. After destroying a few buildings for the heck of it, I sent them to the Caliph, who didn't even bother going to the top of his Keep.
The castle itself I threw together. I didn't even bother to reinforce or crenellate the walls. It was the invasion that was carefully planned, strategized, and executed. Because of this, I didn't lose one Pikeman or Swordsman when I quickly executed the Caliph.
Lesson learned? As long as the castle is sufficient, there's no need to waste time making it a beautifully-defended castle. It's the invasion that takes the most planning, the most careful execution. Oh, and siege equipment never hurt anyone - at least not you, hopefully. ;)[Edited on 06/19/06 @ 07:36 PM]
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| Fortress |
Posted on 12/31/07 @ 03:23 PM |
| polind663 |
Posted on 01/30/08 @ 02:32 PM
Then I started my production. I mad a few graineries and a few apple orchards for food and bought as much wood as possiable for iron mines. I built a barracks and an armoury. I only built a blacksmith and armourer and bought bows with money made from extra iron.
After building up about 300 archers and 200 swordsmen, I attacked. First I sent in about 50 troops to set off the caliphs pitch ditches, waited for the fire to die, then sent in my archers. After the caliphs archers and fire throwers died, I sent in all my swordsmen to clean up house. |
Lord Dredde
(id: lord dredde) |
Posted on 04/05/08 @ 03:20 AM |
| Lord Of Crusader |
Posted on 08/25/09 @ 09:51 AM |
| maximan23 |
Posted on 01/02/11 @ 05:40 AM |
| AaronTheDean |
Posted on 09/21/12 @ 11:59 PM
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