Lord Michael I |
Posted on 01/07/08 @ 04:38 PM
Holy Water, the third mission of the Second Stronghold: Crusader trail has the similar starting position as the previous mission. You, located in the North-Eastern part of an island are battling The Abbot, who is located to the South-West. You start with 4000 gold while The Abbot starts with 2000.
As always, start with the base of your town. Place five stockpile tiles, and a granary as close as you can to the keep.
Then, make a market and four hovels, far from the keep itself, as this space will be used for other, more important buildings. Buy around 200 wood units. Place six bakeries and one mill close both to the granary and the stockpile. Try not to place buildings on green spots as these will be used for farming.
There is some greenery to the north of the Keep, which you will use to place to wheat farms. To the south of the keep is located another patch of greenery, which you will use to place a hops farm, to start an ale production, and a Dairy farm if you choose to recruit crossbowmen. Make two breweries and two inns. Now, build two fletchers, one pole turner, a blacksmith and a tanner. Place the fletchers on crossbow production and the pole turner on pike production. Two quarries, with two oxen per quarry shall be placed on the stone to the north of the keep, and two iron mines on the iron patches to the west. Place two woodcutters where you find trees, and erect a tower on the outskirts of your newly founded town, facing The Abbot’s castle. Buy some more stone and place a stairway and a barracks. Place Ballistae on top of the tower and send your initial archers to the top of it.
Send you spearmen to the foot of the tower and make your melee troops assemble there, as this is useful if any warrior monk tries to get to the top of the tower. Remember there are lions around the map, so you must be careful when you place a building far from your keep. Look for the lions, and if there are any, send your archers to eradicate them.
The upper image shows the town as the way I built it. I recommend you make it this way too.
Now that you have made a town, you need to destroy the other town in the island. If you made your castle quickly, there is a chance that The Abbot’s castle is not finished.
So, sell everything you have in excess (Stone, iron, hops, food, anything) and build 16 engineers, and make four catapults and four fire ballistae. Remember to raise your taxes since you have a popularity boost because of the ale.
Approach your catapults enough for them to destroy the towers, which with luck, will be unmanned. If the towers are unmanned, then concentrate your fire ballistae to destroy all the farms and other exterior buildings. If the towers are manned and your catapults are in the range of the archers, use your fire ballistae to kill the archers.
Though The Abbot will keep making quarries and farms once you destroy them, don’t give up. Keep destroying them.
After some time of recruiting foot soldiers, approach the walls and open a breach, as so:
If you have around 15-20 pikemen, you are ready to go. Send the pikemen over and kill The Abbot. In this map, speed is key. If you take too much time making your town, The Abbot will make his own town, and it will be more difficult to defeat since his walls will be manned, he will have melee soldiers, etc. |