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30 - Eye of the Camel
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| Author |
File Description |
| Kester |
Posted on 10/28/04 @ 12:00 AM (updated 12/15/04)
 Mission 30 - Eye of the Camel
This is a straightforward, surprisingly easy mission with the Human Lord teaming up with Richard Lionheart against Saladin the Wise and Sultan Abdul. The computer lords begin with 8000 gold, and you get 2000.
When gameplay begins in year 0, your keep is positioned between your ally on your left, and Sultan Abdul on the right. Resources are plentiful. You'll want to begin with the usual placement of woodcutters and apple farms. Buy a marketplace so you can purchase enough additional stone to enclose your keep, then line the walls with braziers and archers. Set up quarries, ox tethers, iron mines, wheat farms, bakeries, an inn, etc. - everything necessary to keep your people happy.
Next begin weapon production. I started with maces, crossbows and leather armor, and added to it as resources allowed, until I had about 2 of everything. Build your barracks and mercenary post. Add additional quarries, as the sale of stone will be your primary source of income.
I added a tower between my keep and Sultan Abdul's, but it didn't have much effect. Anything I placed on it was quickly killed or destroyed.
Lastly, build the engineer's guild and about three catapults. When all is in place (and your forces number about 70), ask Richard Lionheart to attack Sultan Abdul. When he agrees, direct your catapults to take down the gatehouse. When that is down, it will be easy enough to march in and kill the Sultan. (My attack on the Sultan went in three waves: my initial attack, Richard's troops catching up and attacking, then a second attack from me with hastily purchased Arabian knights after the first batch were all killed. It would have been better if I had waited for Richard's forces, to launch the attack simultaneously.) Sultan Abdul died in May of year 10.
With your close enemy out of the game, you'll have room to expand, so take advantage of it and place more quarries. Gold will quickly accumulate. For the next few game years it will just be a matter of building your army. When I was ready to attack Saladin the Wise, my army had the following: 5 archers, 20 macemen, 25 crossbowmen, 15 pikemen, 23 knights, 18 engineers manning 9 catapults, 3 assassins, and 123 Arabian knights.
Move your catapults into place to attack Saladin's towers, then ask Richard to attack with you. Move all your forces into position near the river. When one or two towers have fallen, move your macemen in to destroy the gatehouse. Follow quickly with your other forces, and Saladin the Wise will fall. He died in March of year 16.
This mission was different for a couple of reasons. First, resources are very abundant, so you'll have no problem raising gold or providing for your people. And second, unlike most of the other missions, the enemies don't really attack. The Sultan will occasionally send a few troops near your keep, but the archers and crossbowmen you've set around the walls will be sufficient to kill them.
I won this mission on the first try (for a change!). Good luck, and have fun with it yourself!
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| Author | Comments & Reviews ( All | Comments Only | Reviews Only ) |
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| homergobye |
Posted on 12/09/04 @ 12:00 AM
start with 2-3 apple farms market total of 6 stockpile elements couple woodcutters barracks armory buy in 10 xbow men and put up a sige shop buy 2 engineers and build a square tower with mangaleon and some stairs near the sultan for susdainded fire . put all your start men and men you built exept swords and knights. nowas resources and gold allow get as many quarries with ox tethers as possible and get ale and bread production rolling. HINT I HAD POP OF 122 MOST OF GAME and 11 quaries that kinda what im sayin what you need. as stone allows build 4 square towers with balistai and some xbowmen for defense againse saladin. When sultan is weak enough build 10 macemen and take him out.
No need to build weapons at least i didnt with 11 quaris of stone income you stay wealthy. Build some knigts about 20-30 its time to kill saladins economy. lead them around merily knocking out the buildings and build extra knights to reinforce.keep doing this as you build an army of mace or swordmen to take him. when all outer buildings have been takin down use your knights to knock in a gatehouse and march in youre mace or swordmen for the kill. HINT use remaning knigts to knock down important structures inside incase you dont kill him and as a destraction.I found this level easy but it took some time for me |
| Comrade Morik |
Posted on 05/21/05 @ 12:00 AM
Anyhow, as with every game now, I lowered the speed to 20, built 4 granaries to the SE, added 3 more Stockpile bits (total of 4 - truly you don't need any more then that), built a market, 2 wheat farms (close by to the ESE), 2 quarries, 6 ox teathers (the quarries were on the stone pile farthest south in a SEasterly direction). I then proceeded to build a Round Tower as close to the Sultan as possible, built a low wall piece with stairs leading up, a skew of braziers and a tower mounted mangonel on top. I then built 2-4 (can't remember) houses in the far SE corner below Richard's quarry. Next, in this order, Engineer Guild, Armoury, Barracks, buy 2 engineers, ten leather armours and 10 crossbows, build as many crossbow men as possible, equip engineers onto mangonel, move starting archers up to tower, build more crossbowmen, buy 20 bows, build up bowmen, load everything into the tower. Set the Mangonel to shoot at the keep and leave it. My reasoning for doing this is, it isn't going to hit on target very often and odds are it'll destroy everything around it. Get the archers to peg off the slingers ASAP, then just set em to aggressive. Build a high was about 6 squares NW of your keep and extend it to your tower (if you have enough stone). Now you can set the speed up again.
Odds are Saladin will send some forces towards you, but in allr eality it wont be that much. Avoid the urge to enclose the keep, here's why: 1. If the keep is enclosed, computer forces will attack the walls, where as if it isn't then they'll try to walk around, 2. Saladin doesn't use too many Catapults unless it's on an enclosed bit. Build two mills and 5 bakeries now - that's probably all the wood you have. Buy some more bows and replenish the tower mounted troops. When you finish clearing out Abdul's forces and have quashed them for a few minutes, send in you 5 crusaders. I finished off Abdul with just the 5 crusaders, losing 1 of them in 1991.
Now, with the excess stone you've probably gained, build a round tower up against the river-moat thing, enclose it with a high-crenulated wall and add stairs. Build a tower mounted Ballista on it. Build some engineers, 5 more bakeries, 2 more quarries at the Sultan's mine with 6-8 oxen, 6 bowyers (s4et on bow), 6 bowyers (set on X-Bow), 3-4 more wheat farms, and maybe if yer feeling giddy then some iron mines wherever possible. Try to get 5 more woodcutters in the far SE and 5 hunting posts by the deer in the SE. DON'T EQUIP TROOPS IN THE NEW TOWER YET!!! You'll just lose them if you do. Extend your wall and enclose your keep now, build up a second round tower just a bit farther NE from the first river guarding one and build a similar setup. Build about 35-40 crossbowmen and bowmen. When you have these recruits, send the new ones and the 2 engineers to the second river tower and all the men (including engineers) from the Sultan's tower over to the first river tower. The reason for this is your troops will begin attacking the enemy at about the same time. Bolster your economy, build a third tower on the chain and fill er up. Should be about 10-15 minutes into the game now.
Make 35 engineers and a mix of about 60 cross and bowmen and send them over to the NE side of the map. Build 10 ballistae and start shreading his economy from that clifftop vantage. When yer ballistae and bowmen up there have gained some ground, build trebuchets near the edge. Build about 3 trebuchets behind the connecting walls of the river towers and constantly destroy the towers that Saladin builds. Build up more Bowmena nd Crossbowmen, about 15 more bakeries, Horse Archers and Assassins.
I attacked Saladin with 78 Assassins, 125 Horse Archers, and 120ish bow/crossbowmen. Witht he small stockpile and granary setup you'll be sure to sell supplies whenever possible as opposed to leaving them there for a while. use the North and South trebuchet teams to take out towers, the horse archers to sweep around the eastern side and patrol the NW side of Saladin's castle. Place half your archer force by the south gate and half by the north gate. Use the three archer teams to haild down on the lord. Most of the shots will hit the guys around the lord, so yer set. Climb the assassins over the SE wall and take out the lord. Finished the mission in roughly 1995/6, or 30-40mins. Good luck mates!
- Comrade Morik - |
| rc5a501810 |
Posted on 06/15/06 @ 07:58 PM |
| mavengloiven |
Posted on 07/16/06 @ 11:36 AM
You'll find that blue Sultan is easy to get rid of by employing the usual tricks - mangonel towers at his castle, fire ballista/fire archers to take out his workers, etc. Once he was gone, though, I found myself woefully behind Saladin in troop numbers and cash. He had like 50,000 and I had like 1,500! So, at least for me, it took some patience to build up my bank and my army so that I was ready to attack him with any success.
I read about the ledge strategy, but I didn't find that too helpful, since he could also pick off my trebuchets and archers from that back corner stone yard. I found the western side (probably SW is more accurate), to be the best place to attack, since there were 3 towers there, and 2 had already been weakened by my teammate's seiges.
I brought about 100 crossbowmen over to the far, far left side of the map, right against the edge, and just out of range of the ballista and mangonels on his castle right and direct south sides. next I brought over about 8 fire ballista, and I made about 25 knights. I also kept building swordsmen, deciding I wouldn't try attacking him until I had about 150. I began by taking out his eastern and southern towers with catapults and some trebuchets I built (although he destroyed my trebuchets), and I sent my knights all around his castle, destroying all his buildings and then finally inside of his castle, tearing down his inns and bakeries in there. Of course, he has 50,000 and easily just rebuilt them, so I don't know what good that did... but I found some success at least in tearing down his towers at least temporarily, and I saw that if I got the timing right, there would be a window of attack where only 1 or two seige weapons would affect me.
Fortuitously, a HUGE fire broke out all around and inside Saladin's castle, I think it started from my fire ballista that were trained on the gatehouse of his castle where his archers congregated; anyway, it destroyed every single building inside and outside his castle, which was pretty sweet. While I waited for it to go out enough to attack, I brought my 150 swordsmen over to the far western edge of the map, ready to strike, I made another 25 knights, and I also made about 50 horse archers. My economy was doing well by this point - I had about 10,000, so I could afford these extravagent expenditures.
Here's how I attacked. I turned off my catapults so as not to smush my own guys, and I sent my knights to destroy the one southern seige tower that was still giving me grief, once they dispatched that, I sent them over to the western gatehouse to knock it down, and when they drew fire from a bunch of swordsmen, my fire ballista on the western side wiped them out. When the gatehouse came down, I just stood those knights in the opening, so that he couldn't build another, and I sent my 150 swordsmen in. By this time a bunch of arabian swordsmen left his keep to attack my knights, but I had enough there to hold him off until my slow swordsmen could get inside his walls. When they were about to enter his castle, I also brought my 100 crossbowmen (remember them) and put them right inside his castle, to take out the far eastern tower ballista and remaining archers, and weaken some of his arabian swordsmen standing on his keep with his lord. I timed it right, so it all came together at the same time - and I also brought in those 50 horse archers... and Saladin fell quite easily.
I guess the lesson here is this: since you don't have a lot of money at first, you don't want to bankrupt yourself by building a medium size army to rush at Saladin, only to have them destroyed easily. My advice is to be patient, build a very large army, and make sure when you attack that you have the upper hand. For some reason, when I did attack, the other Richard wouldn't help me... figures. But he did help earlier by softening Saladin's defences from time to time and keeping Saladin distracted.
Fun mission, and challenging, requiring a lot of patience. |
| crusaderswordsma |
Posted on 05/19/07 @ 05:17 PM |
| Birowizard |
Posted on 07/07/07 @ 10:05 AM
Early on, probably 18 game months in, Saladin sent in some horse archers and swordsmen at me, but I asked Lionheart for help, which he gave and basically had no futher problems.
I had already gotten stone production started with one quarry, which I now added to on the other stone areas, one iron mine, (all you really need initially), and food production.
Placing the granary close to and between the stockpile and farmland, and all other food/ale production is key in all scenarios, but I never really saw the full effects of it until this one: I needed very few farms to maintain food for well over 80 peasants, and once I did see food begin to drop, I only needed to add one or two bakeries at a time to keep up. ale prduction was maintained by three breweries and at the close of play I had over 100 barrels which I sold off.
Once stone production was up to good speed, I built a line of square towers right on the edge of the ford, as far as I could in each direction, (waiting for stone/weapons production to allow each one to be built & manned), mangonel in most, (I think 3 out of 8 had ballistas), braziers, and a mixture of crossbowmen and archers on a ratio of about 3/10. You wouldn't beleive how this map looked with so many stones and fire arrows flying through the air! All three of Saladin's facing turrets were continually disabled, (aim the mangonels NEAR the base, not at the tower - then you don't need to retarget). Then I decided to go totally over the top, (as if I hadn't already), and place another matching line of towers immediately behind the first; so that it looked like I had a double wall of square towers all along the riverfront! You do need to check the towers repeatedly to repair them, but this is easy with stone production being so high. Each secondary tower was given another mangonel and then I just left them to it. The front of Saladin's castle was swiss cheese, and I went around the back where there was no stone flying with 125 horse archers, (lost a lot to his ballistas and bowmen, but only about half), and then finished him off with - you guessed it - more men that I had stone; about 750 foot units in all.
Lionheart only asked for one set of 4 bows early on, then left me alone; I'd joined my line of towers to his castle with wall and a gatehouse, so he was pretty well protected. I never once had to increase efficiency by adding bad things; ale, religion and good things kept popularity high enough to enable taxes at -8 throughout.
Easy, total domination and medieval superpower building level. Have fun!
Birowizard [Edited on 07/25/07 @ 12:24 PM]
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| Lord Wabbit |
Posted on 04/10/08 @ 04:23 PM
First off: scaling the steep embankment. Didn't go well. Saladin's mangonels managed to kill, oh, at least 30 Crossbowmen and around 40 Swordsmen. His archers then began to wipe out yet more. However; I made it to the wall.
Secondly: scaling the wall. The Siege towers, with their immense speed, easily reached the wall. I ordered my Crossbowmen up the towers; and to my horror, they all, pretty much immediately, died. To look at Saladin's keep, you would have seen about 20 archers, if that. To look at the amount of arrows coming out of it, you would have seen about 60.
Nevertheless, my Crossbowmen managed to take out quite a few; before dying. But half of my Swordsmen were still intact (with a few flesh wounds). These were swiftly marched onto the walls, and onto the nearest gatehouse.
Thirdly: scaling the keep. Needless to say, this is were things came to a climactic head. With just over 40 Swordsmen coming down from the gatehouse, and trundling towards the keep door, my heart fell as I noticed about 15 Fire throwers. But, with a cry of "We shall not negotiate with terrorists", I attempted to urge my Swordsmen to move a little bit faster (to no avail). 20 seconds later I had no Crossbowmen and no Swordsmen left.
The easy economic position of this scenario is deceptive; taking over the hill is incredibly difficult and I frankly can't be bothered. Bwuakkkkk |
HGDL v0.8.2 |
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| Downloads: | 1,018 |
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| Size: | 900.97 KB |
| Added: | 10/28/04 |
| Updated: | 12/15/04 |
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