Limassol, The Conquest of Cyprus

Objectives

‘Isaac Comnenus, the independent ruler of the island, is disliked by the people of Cyprus and has fled to take up position nearby presumably awaiting reinforcements. Fortify the city of Limassol and prepare for his return’

Resources

Supplies

  • 2000 gold
  • 95 wood
  • 50 stone
  • 60 bread
  • 5 archers
  • 5 spearmen

Trade

ResourceBuySell
Wood41
Bows3115
Ale2010
Wheat238
Bread84
Pitch2010

Notes

Limassol is a great map with a tricky start and plenty of troublesome invasions. Initially you start with a ruined castle/town and lions to thwart your every move. To progress in this map you quickly need to eradicate the lions. Build a marketplace, armoury and buy 10 longbows. Build a barracks from your starting stone and recruit 10 archers, placing them on top of the keep initially. There is a stone quarry in place already and the much needed stone will allow some wall repairs to be done. If possible, move these archers to the small tower at the west of the castle. I found that they were more effective placed here.

Once the lions are killed off you can begin the task of meeting the economic requirements as well as fortifying your castle. Whilst you already have woodcutters huts placed on the map I decided to build 2 more near the quarry, in easy reach of trees and the stockpile. I wanted to ensure I had plenty of defence as soon as possible. With some of the starting gold, I built fletchers’ workshops. I tried to concentrate on producing bread and as soon as wood stocks allowed, I set about getting bread production in full swing. Why bread, you may ask? Why not apples or cheese? Well, with bread able to be sold at the market, my aim was to ensure sufficient ale consumption and religion to allow food to be turned off with no effect on popularity. Thus I deleted the apple farms once bread production was in full swing, with 3 wheat farms, one mill (initially, increased to 2 as the map wore on) and 8 bakeries.

The economic goals here involve production of swords and metal armour. Producing these won’t be a problem with a huge area of iron ore relatively near the keep. If you play this on easy difficulty, you can consider going for these goals early on. Any harder and you need to consider armoured pikemen on the walls to defend against the invasions. My initial idea was to lace the castle with archers and crossbowmen, using all iron for the weapons production. However, on normal difficulty this proved problematic. The map has its fair share of fire ballista and assassins which are difficult to target and you may need to take manual control of groups of archers to ensure these are dealt with swiftly.

With stone at your doorstep I would also recommend you increase the number of larger towers that can support ballista. They are vital if you want to knock out both enemy siege equipment and as many enemy troops as possible.

The invasions are very hard to control if you get overrun. There is a good mixture of troops and siege equipment that will test you to the limit. As far as tactics are concerned, I would accept that you may suffer losses and you need to ensure that weapon production is always at bursting point.

There is a lot to consider here. Fortify the castle, repairing walls and even moat digging, meet the economic goals and defend against the invasions. Make sure you don’t neglect any of these areas as it may be too late!

One final point: fires here can cause untold damage as you will probably wish to build compact and within the castle walls. Be prepared for losses and ensure you have a good number of wells to fight against the fires.

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