Human Lord (2,000 gold) v Snake, Duc Beauregard, Snake, Doubletongue & Snake, Duke Vipertooth (all 4,000 gold)
When I first placed this mission on the release of Crusader, it gave me the first opportunity to really understand what the skirmish mode offers. Here, you face multiple enemy lords who have a larger starting gold supply than you. The Snake AI lord isn't the most difficult to beat, but with three of them picking away at your castle, it's an easy map to get wrong!
You have the advantage of a keep placed on a high plateau though, and this can be invaluable. I started off by placing three woodcutters' huts, granary and wheat farms on the small strip of oasis land at the very bottom of the map. This area is easily defended with a gatehouse and some walling and I quickly set up an effective food chain. The aim here was to gradually wall in the keep, so a stone quarry was placed early on too. A large square tower was sited on the west of the plateau, guarding the stone quarry and offering protection to this flank of the castle.
I bought bows in large numbers to start off with. The Snake doesn't use heavily armoured units, preferring to use archers and pikemen, as well as a handful of slaves. You can easily be overrun though, as the Snake does generate a lot of troops.
A hop farm was placed early on too, and once ale production was in full swing, I turned off the food supply. I use this tactic whenever possible, selling food in large quantities. It seems to generate the most gold, and getting a well defended castle here is paramount.
Throughout this misison I played on the back foot, facing multiple invasions by the three Snake lords. Steadily, I built up my forces, buying weapons whenever possible. Only when I was comfortable with my troop numbers did I venture out to lay siege to the Snake, one lord at a time. I found that a combination of archers and either macemen, pikemen or swordsmen was sufficient here.
I just made 30 assassins and send them to the blue snake, the rest of the gold was spend on assassins which i sent to the yellow snake, when you the blue one was defeated the assassins moved on to the orange snake and this mission was completed in 2 maybe 3 minutes.