AGE OF EMPIRES The Age of Kings ~DS~ A walkthrough/FAQ by obiwankenobi246 |===========| | | | i. INTRO. | | | |===========| This game is very addictive, and after playing it for awhile, I got to the point where I was pretty good. But, I couldn�t beat Saladin Mission 5. I beat all the over levels, but couldn�t beat that one. I went on the internet to try to find a walkthrough for this game, but had a terrible time finding one. After about 30 minutes of searching, I found one. I owe quite a bit to the guy who made that one (see "special thanks" at the end of this walkthrough), and his walkthrough helped me beat Saladin Mission 5. I quickly breezed through Saladin Mission 6. After beating the game, I decided to make a walkthrough of my own. I hope this helps all who read it. This guide is for you if: 1) you are stuck on one of the levels and can't figure out a way to beat it. 2) you just can't seem to get that last star or those last 2 stars or get any stars. This walkthrough demonstrates a way to get at least 2 stars on every level, and 3 stars on most. 3) you have your own way of beating the level, but want to try a different way. Sometimes (actually a lot) there is only one good way to beat the level. But other times there are many ways to beat a level. Maybe this walkthrough will give you a new way to beat a level (and then again, maybe not). |=====================| | | | ii. VERSION HISTORY | | | |=====================| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Version 1.27 (7/11/09): It's been awhile since the last update, but I got a lot more done. Walkthrough complete through Saladin mission 4. Messed with the table of contents a little more. It might be awhile until the next update. I plan to be done with Saladin by the next one, and mission 5 will take me awhile. Version 1.15 (7/1/09): I kinda screwed up my last update. This is what it should be: Walkthrough complete up to Saladin. Finally done with Genghis Khan!!!. Redid Joan mission 5, now shows how to get 3 stars instead of two. Changed the copyright info. a little bit, and the special thanks section. Updated the table of contents. Version 1.00 (6/29/08): First version!!! Includes some strategies and tips; walkthrough complete through Genghis Khan mission 2. |===================| | | | TABLE OF CONTENTS | | | |===================| i. INTRO. ii. VERSION HISTORY ------------------------------------------------- 1. STRATEGIES AND TIPS ------------------------------------------------- 2. JOAN OF ARC 2a. Mission 1: Escort to Chinon 2b. Mission 2: Sword of the Saint 2c. Mission 3: From Peasant to General 2d. Mission 4: Breakthrough to Orleans 2e. Mission 5: Lifting the Siege of Orleans 2f. Mission 6: Crowning of King Charles ------------------------------------------------- 3. MINAMOTO YOSHITSUNE 3a. Mission 1: Battle of the River Crossings 3b. Mission 2: Taira Conquest 3c. Mission 3: The Battle of Ichi no Tani 3d. Mission 4: Yashima 3e. Mission 5: Mongol Invasion ------------------------------------------------- 4. GENGHIS KHAN 4a. Mission 1: The Tatars 4b. Mission 2: Uniting the Tribes 4c. Mission 3: Supreme Ruler 4d. Mission 4: Empire Expansion 4e. Mission 5: Japan Invasion ------------------------------------------------- 5. SALADIN [incomplete] 5a. Mission 1: Rising to Power, Part 1 5b. Mission 2: Rising to Power, Part 2 5c. Mission 3: Reynald's Raiders 5d. Mission 4: The Horns of Hattin 5e. Mission 5: Reclaiming Jerusalem [incomplete] 5f. Mission 6: The Battle of Arsuf [incomplete ------------------------------------------------- 6. RICHARD THE LIONHEARTED [incomplete] 6a. Mission 1: All in the Family, Part 1 [incomplete] 6b. Mission 2: All in the Family, Part 2 [incomplete] 6c. Mission 3: Cyprus [incomplete] 6d. Mission 4: The Siege of Acre [incomplete] 6e. Mission 5: The Battle of Arsuf [incomplete] 6f. Mission 6: The Taking of Jerusalem [incomplete] ------------------------------------------------- 7. FINAL WORDS 7a. Special Thanks 7b. Copyright Info. 7c. Contact Info. |========================| | | | 1. STRATEGIES AND TIPS | | | |========================| AOE (Age of Empires) is pretty much all strategy. Some of it involves chance, but the foundation is strategy. Here are some strategies that I used. ----------------------------------- A) Where to build TC (Town Center) On some levels, the TC has already been built for you when you start. But on others, you are given a villager, militia, and hero, and must choose where to build your TC. The best place to build your TC is where a newly trained villager can get to a place where you can build a mill or mine in 1 turn. This helps boost your economy. For example: ****hh* *M***** ****T** rrrrrrr ******* *****mh *=plains(costs 2 move pts) M=place to build a mill m=place to build a mine r=road (costs 1 move pt) h=hill (costs 3 move pts) T=town center On all levels that you must build a TC on, you start on Age 2 or greater (except for Genghis mission 4, Joan of Arc mission 3, and Richard mission 1). This means that your villager has 8 move pts. Look at the map above: the T would be a good place to build a TC because a villager can then build either a mill or mine on the next turn. Always keep in mind that a place to build a mill is always on plains (2 move pts) and mines are always on hills or mountains (hills=3 move pts, mountains=4 move pts). ---------------------------------- B) Take out mills and mines first This is probably the most obvious of these strategies and tips but sometimes you get caught up in destroying the town that you can forget that taking out their economy can ease your task a lot. ------------------ C) Kill the Monks This is just common sense but sometimes you want to take out the enemy units that are hurting your men. Always remember that those stupid monks are your real problem because they keep healing the enemy units and converting yours. When attacking a TC that has a church, make sure that you demolish that church before the enemy trains the stupid monks. The monks also have way too much defense which makes it that much harder to kill them. ------------------------------------- D) Realize the importance of archers Archers, though easily killed by enemy cav. units, are invaluable to your army when used correctly. For that matter, without archers, your army is missing a very valuable component, and is incapable and not able to reach its full potential. Protect your archers with pikemen or spearmen or some kind of cavalry. Remember that by putting and ranged unit on a hill or mountain, their range, as well as their defense increases. Oh, and WELSH BOWMEN RULE!! These upgrades of regular archers cost only 100 empire points. When playing as the Britons, the longbowmen that you can train from the castle are totally awesome! Research the archer upgrades, put at least 3 archers in your army, and victory will be yours (most of the time). ------------------------------------------ E) Learn all the AI tricks and strategies By playing this game enough (which, if you're reading this, you probably do), you may start to recognize some of the things the AI does on a regular basis. One of the things that I notice about the AI is that they have an undying love for spearmen, pikemen, etc. They train so many pike units that you must take advantage of this and train lots of men-at-arms, longswordsmen, etc. They also build more than one barracks and market most of the time. ---------------------------------------------------------- F) Use the terrain and Unit Specialties to your advantage The most skilled AOE players have mastered that art. There are gazillions of examples, but I will only name a few. Probably the simplest of these would be the advantage of pikemen vs. cavalry. Pikemen have an anti-cav. specialty which gives them +83% attack and defense, not to mention "First Strike." That is an example of a unit specialty. An example of using terrain to your advantage would be putting ranged units on hills and mountains to increase their range and defense, as well as putting camels on desert terrain or other cavalry on plains. On page 18 of the instruction booklet there's a list of all the special abilities, and what they do for you. Use these to your advantage, as this will greatly improve your chances of winning. |================| | | | 2. JOAN OF ARC | | | |================| -------------------------------- 2a. Mission 1: Escort to Chinon If you can't get three stars, or much less pass this level, you should not be playing this game. ---------------------------------- 2b. Mission 2: Sword of the Saint This is the level that Joan's sidekick whats-his-face instructs you in combat. Again, getting three stars is a cinch. I don't have any advice on this one; I think (and hope) you can figure it out on your own. --------------------------------------- 2c. Mission 3: From Peasant to General If you have trouble on this level, it will probably be not having enough gold. Make sure to get a market so that you can trade all that extra food for gold at a discount price. Once you advance to Age 2, keep the English town under siege; you can rout Earl Talbot with Joan and some welsh bowmen pretty easily. You can destroy the town, too, but make sure that you don't capture it until you have claimed all the resources on the map. You should always have at least 3 villagers on hand all the time. Also, keep in mind that you don't have to build farms around the mills to claim all the resources. Once you have gotten all the resources, send a villager quickly to the English place and capture it. Do all this and do it quickly, and you have 3 stars. --------------------------------------- 2d. Mission 4: Breakthrough to Orleans Really easy to beat, but maybe a little difficult to get 3 stars on. The Lost Relic and destroying the battering rams were the bonus goals that I had trouble with. Since there is no bonus goal that says "finish by the end of day 10" or something, you can take as long as you want to heal when you reach Blois (the town that you get the trade cart from). You'll meet some enemy troops on your way, but you should be able to annihilate them without much trouble. Heal all of you troops at Blois, get the trade cart, and continue down the road leading north to Orleans. Just over the bridge that is a few squares away from Blois, there are two monks that are both at 50 health. Joan's advisor will try to convince you into merging them into one unit. Don't do this. Bring both of the monks back to Blois, get them back to 100 health, then continue your journey. Meanwhile, run the rest of you troops on down the road until the road splits. Take the route that keeps going east. A few squares later, you will run into the lost hunting party and some fairly strong resistance: two well-placed archers, a men-at-arms, and some light cav. units. Mop up these guys and return your army to where the road splits. Next, the relic is in the middle of some swamps in the NW corner of the map. Take your monk and a longswordsman or pike and go get it. There might be an English monk already there; just kill him. Anyway, after you get all your troops together at the crossroads, use Joan's Inspiration power and your monks' healing power to get all of your units back to full health. Once your units are all in a mob and all are at full health, take some ranged units to the edge of the river that is southeast of Orl�ans and pick off any enemy units that they have near that river. They will never go across the ford that is even further southeast so you're safe to zap those units while they helplessly run away (sometimes they are stupid enough to just linger and be killed). Take the rest of your force cautiously across the actual bridge that is west of the town. Be ready to encounter quite a few enemy units, but luckily they don't fight much; they just run and try to protect their battering rams. Once you have cleared a path for the trade cart to enter Orl�ans, take it right in. Do not bring Joan in because this will end the mission and then you can't get all three stars. The English will have somewhere around eight troops that can attack you. Remember that this isn't counting the battering rams. You will have about ten to twelve troops if you played this right up to here. Use your troops wisely and you will have everyone killed soon. My advice is to kill all of the units that can hurt you first. Don't concentrate on the battering rams until all the other English troops are dead. Since the battering rams can't hurt you, it's a cinch from here to finish and get all three stars. -------------------------------------------- 2e. Mission 5: Lifting the Siege of Orleans This one is tricky for a tutorial. I now know how to get three stars, thanks to an informative e-mail (special thanks section). The beginning is the hardest part, as the English suddenly decide to throw half of their entire army at you. Lots of knights will help here, along with typical welsh bowmen. Make sure to train at least one villager, but no more than two. Onagers can help, too, and they are very useful later on in the game. Ignore Joan's advisor when he tells you to take out Bastille St Loup. Instead, go west and capture the farms. Head south over the bridge leading to Olivet Castle. Take out the gaurds, then rout Talbot. Start burning Olivet Castle, but don't completely destroy it. Get it so that you can destroy it in one turn. Also, take an archer to go shoot at the English in the island castle, Bastille des Tourelles. Meanwhile, take a few units to go destroy the remaining enemy mills. Take the rest to go fight Bastille des Tourelles. This could involve the sacrifice of 2 or 3 units, as the longbowmen are the deadliest archer unit in the game. Again, take down the castle health to where it can be destroyed in one turn. Do the same with Bastille St Loup. Wait until you have claimed all the resources on the map, then burn all the castles in one day. Don't worry about killing the units that will come when you destroy the castles. When they have all been burned, you will be done. If you did this right, you should have 3 stars. ---------------------------------------- 2f. Mission 6: Crowning of King Charles It looks kinda easy and you're excited to almost be done with Joan, but they have to throw one more tutorial that's maybe a little easier than the last one but can still be difficult at you. Getting three stars is definitely possible, but for some reason I still haven't done it. I'm probably making it harder than it really is but who knows. Anyway, back to the guide. You need to know where the relic is to get all three stars, or at least one or two. The relic is in a swamp in the SE corner of the map. Make sure to take a sword guy or something to take care of the archer that will harass your monk. Meanwhile train 2 more villagers and build mills, mines, and farms like there's no tomorrow. This is kind of like the last mission in the sense that you always have to be on guard for random archers, knights, and who knows what else. They will pop out of nowhere and kill your villagers, which is really annoying. Your economy is a key factor again in this level. Build it up as quickly as you can so that you can build the wonder by the end of day 12. Build a market or stable (I prefer market) when you have some spare cash, but don't train anything from it. If you do you will not have enough cash to build the wonder once you age up. DO NOT BUILD A BLACKSMITH!!! You don't need one to age up, and you NEED the units that you can get out of a market/stable more than you need a blacksmith. Once you get the relic returned and you have enough resources to build the wonder, build it close to the bridge that is south and a little west of your town. Once you have done that, train units like mad, especially cav and archer units whenever you can. Leave the Dauphin alone in the corner for a little while until you have a good sized force ready to go out and escort him. When you have enough, escort him over the bridge where it is safe but not into the wonder yet. Be careful along the way as lots of English troops suddenly decide that it's time to attack and they come out of nowhere and start attacking your town and maybe burning your fields. Don't worry though, because they only attack with about three or four men each time. Earl Talbot should be over that bridge that I talked about earlier near the mountains a little further south of the bridge. With Joan and lots of cav and archers, you should take care of him without much trouble. Take the Dauphin the rest of the way to the wonder and you're finished with Joan. Hallelujah. |=======================| | | | 3. MINAMOTO YOSHITUNE | | | |=======================| --------------------------------------------- 3a. Mission 1: Battle of the River Crossings Now we get to tackle a historic hero's story that...uh...none of you have probably ever heard about. Oh, well. Now you get some (gasp) education. Wow. Never though video games were educational, did you? Well, this one kinda sorta is. OK, back to the walkthrough. This mission isn't too bad if you do it correctly. For some reason, I can't seem to get 3 stars on this one. It shouldn't really be that hard, but I guess I'm too lazy to do it. Don't be lazy like me. Wow I can't seem to stay on topic here. Take all your forces to the bridge on the right. Yoshikana will still take his units from the left bridge and attack you, though. Get your archer units on the mountains, and use Minamoto, a cav, and a samurai or two along with those archers and hold that force off. Meanwhile, use the rest of your units to try and destroy the force on the right bridge. If you are getting killed from the left bridge force, postpone the right bridge attack and kill the rest of the left bridge units. Does your head hurt yet? Bear with me. Once the left bridge force is gone, you shouldn't have any trouble with the right bridge force. I don't think your scouts are much use to you in this level. If they haven't been destroyed, put one on each of the first two bridges. If you beat the level, you will get a star for doing this. Afterword, take all your units over the right bridge, but not over the next one. Heal them with Minamoto's Inspiring General power. After all your units are at full health, get an archer on the mountains, and run toward their archer. Once you kill him, Yoshikana will gather the rest of his units and fight till the bitter end...well, bitter end for him. You might have some difficulty with him, because he is a Minamoto-like unit with 4 samurai on his side. My strategy for him is to get all archers in range, and let your hearty samurai, cavs, or pikemen take the brunt of his attack, while sniping them to death with your deadly archers (and yes, I am obsessed with them). Kill all the samurai and the lone archer first. Then get one unit on every bridge. After all this, you can kill Yoshikana. By the way, if you want to try for 3 stars, totally disregard this last paragraph and run pell-mell into the rest of his army without healing your almost-dead units. I advise against this, though, because I suspect that it is very hard to win this way. If you do succeed though, (that last star that I can't get is winning by the end of day 12) don't forget to do put a unit on every bridge before you kill Yoshikana. Bingo, your first Minamoto mission is complete. ------------------------------ 3b. Mission 2: Taira Conquest Time to launch the conquest of the Taira. This level is kind of like an empire map level. You build up units and you conquer. Not that hard. Seriously, though, this shouldn't even be all that hard to get three stars on. They're a little bit challenging but if you're very experienced (and if you read my strategies and tips) you're probably not reading this part. Oh well, I have to do it so I might as well get on with it. As always, you want to start building your economy as fast as possible. The food part isn't hard but you have to search a little to find some safe gold. It's smart to research the gold-increasing technologies on this level. Well, that�s actually smart on any level. Anyways, get that economy going quickly. Use your scout to search out relics. As usual, the relics are around the corners, sides, and mountains on the map. As for attacking, you might want to skirmish a little with the Taira beyond the mountains in the middle of the map a little, but don�t get in over your head because they will get ticked off after a while and start sending in lots of units to get you out of the mountains. There is some gold there, but don't push too hard to get it. If you're not big on ticking off the Taira, don't attack at all. When you have built up a good sized army (with lots of Welsh bowmen), follow the road up North and to the West to find the first Taira TC. Build a TC of your own there to reinforce your troops. If you're at the Castle age with enough food and gold, build a castle a few spaces away from your new TC to protect it. By now, you should have a pretty big army. It's not too much trouble from here to finish the level. You might encounter some problems with the Taira being at the Imperial age and you only at the Castle age. Don't age up, no matter how much you want to. With a big enough army, it won't matter what age you're on. You might also find trouble at the island castle. It will probably get bloody here. My advice is to take a samurai and back him up with Welsh bowmen. You might go through 2 or 3 samurai and quite a few bowmen by the time it's over. Like I said, it will get bloody but keep pushing on and the castle will fall. When you get to the final stages, don't kill off the Taira yet. Make sure you have all the relics in either a monk's hands or in a church. Then annihilate them. ------------------------------------------ 3c. Mission 3: The Battle of Ichi no Tani You have to destroy the Castle north of you. I actually didn't beat this level on my first try, but now I think it's kinda easy. Keeping all your siege units intact is a little difficult, as is killing all the Taira. The good thing about the level is that there is not a turn limit goal. Makes it a lot easier to get 3 stars. The hermit monk is in the northeast corner of the map. Go right from the beginning until you find the path. The advisor guy will say something. Follow that path but beware of random Taira units along the way. Keep Minamoto at the middle/back of your formation. When your units get too close to death, bring them back so that he can heal them. About midway through your journey, you will run into a swamp with some Taira guarding the way. Take some samurai and your pike or skirmisher, whichever you prefer (or whichever is left) and kill these dudes. Keep to the far right side of the map and follow until you find the monk. Bring him back to start healing your units. While this is happening, it is very possible that you're fighting a horde of Taira that see you and get ticked off. Hold them off with good strategy until your newly-found monk arrives and starts healing your guys. Along with Minamoto, he should revive your army quickly. After killing the Taira horde that was harassing you, get back on the main path. In the thick of the mountains, more Taira will begin attacking from the west. These can be hard to destroy, because you probably lost some units in the other onslaught. My advice is to take one unit that you don't think is very useful and run him pell-mell into the Taira. They will concentrate on him while you take out the others. Also, get whatever ranged units you have left and put them on mountains/hills to pick away at all those samurais' health. This will greatly decrease the number of casualties/injuries to your army. Get a scout and a few other random units of your choice and head towards the western path on the left side of the map. Be ready for more random Taira units to pop up and kill you, so get your scout on a mountain where he can see forever and spot those Taira before you unexpectedly get your mini-army ripped to shreds. After those 2 main onslaughts, the going is easy if you have enough troops. Hunt down the rest of the Taira, then burn the castle. Bottom line for this mission, like Minamoto mission 1, is to keep your archers alive. Without them, you will take a lot more deadly hits since you don't have anyone to pick apart their army with. All in all, this mission should not cause you trouble. Good thing, too, because the next one is a beast. Ugh. ----------------------- 3d. Mission 4: Yashima I'm at a loss for words. There isn't a nice word to describe this one. It's WAY to difficult for an "easy" campaign. The way that I do it probably isn't the *easiest* way to do it, but I make it work. This way involves MASSIVE slaughter, as I usually just try to bludgeon my way through that first bridge. I've heard of a way that involves building another TC on the south side of the map, and that's probably easier, but we are gonna do it my way. As in every massive conquest-type map, economy is your number one focus at the beginning. Leave one of the two villagers you have to keep building farms by those two mills you start out with. Send the other to build a mine on the gold place in the mountains just west of your TC. On the way, have him make a blacksmith for your TC. After he is finished with this, send him out to the islands north of those mountains and have him build the mine and the mill and farms there. Once your other villager is finished building farms on those mills, send him off to the west end of the map and get him to build mills, mines, and farms down there. Don't go very far east, though, because the Taira will get mad and kill him, or they might have already built stuff there. Now for the tough part: defending your TC from the crazed Taira. These guys seem to have unlimited resources, and they don't quit. First, get Minamoto on the bridge to hold off the Taira charge. His defense is about 590 on a bridge without any research or experience to begin with, which is insane. His healing power will keep him on there for a while without taking much damage. Get your lone archer on that hill and start sniping. When Minamoto finally gets low on HP, take him to a farm to heal and put your light cav or men-at-arms or a pike on the bridge for a little while until Minamoto is ready to fight again. I guess the main idea here is to hold the bridge and try to stay as healthy as possible. Keep doing this until you have a high, constant resource income. Then comes the hard part (as if this wasn't hard enough). Here is where I differ in how I do this mission compared to some others. Once you have achieved that "high, constant resource income" that I talked about earlier, we get to enter the stage of MASSIVE slaughter. First, have some archers clear out a path in front of you one or two spaces from the bridge. Take any random unit (except Minamoto or an archer) and charge him into the fray. This may take a while and will involve more than one sacrifice, but your objective here is to clear a path for some swords/pikes to start nibbling away at the Taira town. Give yourself some breathing room and try to push the Taira back to the mountain pass. This will also take some good strategy. Another good idea is to give a villager some room to build a castle just east of the bridge. This will give you access to the greatest sword unit in the game: samurai. Build the castle soon enough, and the samurai will give you a huge boost in burning the town. One other thing: DO NOT ADVANCE TO THE FOURTH AGE!! When you do advance, the emperor's army will begin annihilating you. Don't provoke them into fighting, either, by attacking one of his units. I'm pretty sure that they will attack you anyway once you're getting close to destroying the Taira, but I haven't confirmed this yet. Anyways, once the Taira TC is gone, capture it and remake the buildings. It is a good idea to have a market here, as some of the units they produce will be priceless to you later. The rest of the buildings are up to you. Burn and capture the mills, mines, and farms north of your new town. I think you should be about ready to age up now, as you have two TC's and a castle. The hardest part of this is the first part. The turn after you have aged up, the four elite samurai that the emperor has will come in and wreak havoc on your army. (it's even worse if they do it randomly, as you have no idea what is going on) When they are finally dead, it gets much easier. Keep some ground units and at least one archer there to hold back the rest of their meager attack. They also start to go monk-crazy near the end, which is super-annoying. Do whatever you want to counter this. I never was a big fan of monks; they are too unpredictable with their "convert" powers. With the Taira, keep slowly pushing them back toward their final TC. They will probably have built random castles in the mountains, and this makes them excessively strong. They still seem to have unlimited resources, with which they completely plug up the mountain pass. This part will probably involve more sacrifice, but you should have enough resources to survive. After they are out of the mountains, things should get a ton easier. Burn whatever buildings they have west of their final TC. That TC should fall fairly easily. Here is where you want to have a market. The emperor is more monk-crazed than ever, and a good way to counter this is with Templars. Their zeal ability allows them to stay healthy for a while, which is very useful when fighting monks that have really high defense. Take them over to where the last Taira TC used to be and gradually work your way toward the Emperor's town. I think you should be able to take it from here. The rest is just about mopping up the rest of the emperor's army. Here's some things to remember at the end: 1) Don't forget to build any mines that you can. There is a mine right by the enemy town. Just plow through those buildings (without destroying the TC) and take it out, then build your own mine. If you had built every other mine, you should have already gotten the "build 8 mines" bonus goal, but you still need to destroy it to get the "destroy all enemy mills, mines, and farms" goal. 2) For the "Dispose emperor what's-his-face" goal, burn 2 or 3 of the emperor's TC buildings so that you can get to the path where a ship will pick him up in the northeast corner of the map. Put a samurai or cav unit at the end of the path to trap him, and then kill him with your other units. He should start running when his "palace" is under 50 health. Wow that was a tough mission. Congratulate yourself for completing it, then it is time to move on and forget about this one. ------------------------------- 3e. Mission 5: Mongol Invasion Not too bad, but will probably give you trouble somewhere along the way. I don't have much advice on this one because the mongol invasion path differs ever time you play it. Here's a few things that will help though. TRAIN SAMURAI LIKE MAD!!! If you don't have samurai, you don't have victory. It's that simple. Also, make sure you have about 4 villagers at all times. The mongols are smart and will focus on hurting your economy. If you don't know what to expect, they will do this and you won't have a chance because you won't have any resources. Bonus goal advice: For the "defeat Khan" goal, surround Khan with some samurai or whatever, then snipe at him a little. You should be able to take him out once his health is too low to do any damage with his "First strike" ability. For the other 2 goals, go ahead and start fortifying and building farms, but you might not get far. Once victory is near, finish up those goals before completely destroying the mongols. Other than that, have fun and be glad that Minamoto is something you don't have to think about ever again. Unless I update this and put more info into these missions, you are done with Minamoto. |=================| | | | 4. GENGHIS KHAN | | | |=================| -------------------------- 4a. Mission 1: The Tatars Now it's time to start the campaign of the man with the largest empire ever: Genghis Khan. This first mission allies you with the Kerait Tribe, which stinks. These guys are wimps who care more about personal progress than defeating the enemy. They do distract the Tatars, though, and they can sort of take care of themselves. It can be easy to screw up this mission and only get two stars. The Northern Tatars will attack you immediately. It is easy to get annoyed and go destroy them. Don't do this; deal with the minor attack and then focus your units elsewhere: on the Southern Tatars. Make sure to get all the resources in your section of the map, then start building town buildings. Get an army and go take out the Southern Tatars. Then hurry over to the Northern Tatars and take them out. This is an easy mission to win. Some advice on the bonus goals. Three TC's is easy; just build one on the captured Southern Tatar town, and then one in some other random place. Same with the castle. Build it where you need it. Probably the two easiest stars in this game. Winning by the end of day 30 is harder. Do everything as fast as possible. Also, I was playing through once and I had a TC and one villager left to destroy. It was day 30, so it was my last turn. I discovered that I wouldn't be able to get to the villager, and I thought I wouldn't be able to win by that day. I went ahead and destroyed the TC, and it said I had won. I looked at the goals more closely and saw that it said to destroy all enemy TC's to win. Remember that and it might help you with that goal. ---------------------------------- 4b. Mission 2: Uniting the Tribes You can consider this mission very annoying, but in truth it is one of the better missions in the game. For me, "skirmish" missions where you have no TC are the hardest. These missions teach you a lot about how to defeat your enemy using good tactics rather than brute force. This mission also encourages you to win as efficiently as possible, as one of the bonus goals is to win with greater than 9 units. Go for the tribe in the SW area of the map first. Every time I do this level, these guys are converted to your side easily. As your first move, use Khan's power "Nomadic Travel" right where he is to begin with. Then move a unit of your choice (with the exception of a monk) on to one of the mountains by the SW tribe so that you know where their units are. Next, go try to convert the chieftain with a monk. If it doesn't work the first time, try, try again. He should surrender by the second attempt. Use your third monk to try to convert some other random unit. Next, bring in your military guys and surround your monks, or protect them in some way. You can even inflict some damage if you want, but don't kill anyone. By the next day your army will have 4 or 5 new units in it, plus an onager. Now it gets tricky. We are gonna go for the NW tribe. This tribe obviously hates you with every fiber of being within them. It is time to put your skirmishing skills into action. You can try to run your monks up there to try for a conversion, but it probably won't work even on the third try. I think you should just keep your monks back and take advantage of their healing powers so you don't lose as many guys. The objective here is to kill or nearly kill pretty much every unit they have. An idea here is to try to get your onager into the middle of the fray and protect him with some pikes while the onager destroys enemy cavalry. This has quite a few drawbacks, though. The stupid manguadai will hurt him badly, and their "first strike" capabilities are very painful when you try to attack them. Also, you will need your pikes to kill all those camels they have. Good luck on that part. When you think it is safe. Run your three monks over to the chieftain and try to convert him. This usually takes two turns. Like I mentioned earlier, don't completely kill all their units. Once the chieftain is converted, spend as many turns as you like healing your army up. Go for the NE guys next. They have about 4 units guarding the ford, so take the bridge. There is only one or two other units other than those guarding the ford. Kill the other guys. A good strategy here is to kill the units not by the ford, then run your monks over to the chieftain. He may take two turns to convert, but you will live. Keep the ford units occupied, but try not to kill. Once the chieftain is converted, your army should have 3 or 4 more units. The last part might get bloody, too. They hold the ford leading to their area viciously. I think the best option is again to take the bridge. If you have 13+ units left, you could just kill all their guys except for the chieftain. I don't know how hard it is to convert this chieftain. If you have made it this far without losing any monks, though, you will make it through the last part and win with 3 stars. ----------------------------- 4c. Mission 3: Supreme Ruler I have no idea how I got three stars on this one. Sure, building the wonder is easy, but how I managed to explore the enemy territory, build 4 mines, and hold off the horde that massacres you at the end is a mystery. I'll walk you through this as well as i can... Without the massive bonus in research that you start out with, this mission might very well be impossible. But if you made it through all the levels up to this one, you know that it is possible. Anyway, build your TC about 2 squares south of the road that leads north. Let Khan and your junky militia hold off any zealous invaders that enter your territory. Build mines as soon as possible, because you will probably be low on gold throughout the game. Here's a few things that will help you along the way: Don't get sidetracked with trying to kill the Uighurs (orange). This is more harmful than helpful, as it soaks up resources that you need for holding off random assaults. At the end, make sure you have an army ready to hold off a horde before you build your wonder. Also, try to put it between a town and a castle or something. This is all just common sense, though. For the 4 mines goal, I guess you could put together a task force to attack the two mines not in your area. The Uighurs will hopefully be too distracted with trying to save their city to bother you much. The Merkits (blue) will probably put up more resistance. Get a good ranged unit and some random units of your choice to hold them off. Don't bring your whole army, though. With the exploring enemy territory goal, get a scout cav. or two to run around the edges of the map. You might go through one or two before it says you have completed the task. Again, the Uighurs might be distracted, but be careful with the Merkits. Good luck!!! -------------------------------- 4d. Mission 4: Empire Expansion This one can be kinda fun. I think it's really easy for a medium campaign, but "conquest" style missions like this are my favorite. Getting three stars on this is easy, too. At the beginning just run around exploring, build up your economy, and research. About the time you reach the Castle Age, build another town by the bridge over the river in the middle of the map. This part could get tricky, but if you have a high income rate, which you should, you will be able to pull through. Pour troops through the bridge into no-man's-land west of the bridge. Khwarazm Shah (purple) and Prince of Kiev (blue) will be waging a major battle here. Slowly push the Shah back to their town, while keeping the Kiev at bay. A castle smack dab in the middle would do you good here, too. When the Shah are gone, the battle becomes much easier. Any good general knows that fighting a two-front war can be devastating. Take the Axis powers in WWII for example. Sorry about the history lesson. All along the way you should have been researching, looking for ruins, and looking for relics. If you didn't do the last two, you can still get three stars. Reaching the Imperial Age first is something you should do in all maps; do it today!!! Anyway, bottle up the Kiev, but don't kill them. Wait until all the ruins have been explored and all the relics captured. Keep in mind that you don't need to bring the relics to a church, just get them in the hands of a monk. When this is done, kill the Kiev, and we finally get to fight the Japanese!!! ------------------------------ 4e. Mission 5: Japan Invasion Another fun one. This is almost the exact same thing as the last Minamoto mission, except you are the mongols this time. I think it's easier being the Mongols than being the Japanese on this one. No matter where your first boat puts you, head west. This end is much easier to clean out. Destroy all the resources west of you, then advance on Dazaifu (great name!!!) with everything you have. This should not be too hard to burn. Spend some time healing troops with your monks, then push east. All along the way you will keep getting (literally) boatloads of troops. Always join them with your other massive mob of troops until you have a horde of at least 30 units. This will make you next to completely unstoppable. Anyway continue going east while burning mills, mines, and farms along the way. The Japanese won't like this, so they send in Samurai to slice you to pieces. Kill them. Once you get to the wonder, take out all enemy troops in and around it. Then take a break and heal up again. Your monks should not be trying to convert at all. Just let them heal. Samurai can't be converted anyway. Try to keep your champions and heavy camels as healthy as possible, as they are the best for zapping samurai and crossbowmen. Finally, begin your advance on Hakata and Fukuoka Castle. No doubt there will be heavy losses, but monks and more boatloads of reinforcements will save the day. Destroy all traces of the Japanese. When Hakata and Fukuoka Castle are ashes blowing in the wind, go destroy the temple. You should now have 3 stars on all the Genghis Khan missions. |============| | | | 5. SALADIN | | | |============| --------------------------------------- 5a. Mission 1: Rising to Power, Part 1 Saladin could be my favorite hero of them all. I'm not sure why, I just like him. His powers are not bad, but the one thing I don't like about him is that he doesn't have a power that hurts an enemy unit in any way. This can get him into some tight situations, such as facing a ton of pikes. His benefactor power is one of my favorites, though. I had trouble with this one my first time through. I'm not sure why, because once you find the right way to do it, this is not a hard mission. Getting three stars isn't really that hard, either. Probably the most important thing to know on this mission is where the relics are. You can see two at the beginning, but this is very deceptive. The relic in the swamp is NOT a relic you want to go for. Get the relic on the hill that you can see. Also, there is a relic in the unoccupied southwest corner of the map. This area is also home to lots of gold!!! You will need this very much. The other two relics that you want to chase after are in corners of the map. There is one in the northeast corner, just east of the town of Damietta. The other one is in the northwest corner, just north of the town of Alexandria. Whether or not you get three stars is determined in the first 10 or so turns of the game. On your first turn, you want to move your army out to protect your mine and your northern mill. Have your villager go build more farms on your southern mill. Train a monk. An army from Bilbeis will charge you early. You know what to do. After this, move Saladin back to your TC and have him use Benefactor until you have enough mines to produce enough gold for daily use. He will probably be at your TC for a while. As soon as your unit cap goes up, train another villager. Your monk that you trained earlier should have gotten the relic in the southwest corner. You can also have him explore the landscape in that area, because no one will attack unless you enter their territory. You need to be researching every turn you can so that you can age up before day 18 and get the bonus goal. You should research every turn you can in any other map for that matter. Anyway, after you have your second villager, you can start crankin' out units to battle Bilbeis. When you have enough troops, go burn the city. Bilbeis usually exhausts all their troops in mad dashes toward you. If you counterattack them right after one of their mad dashes, your job might be easier. Take a scout and a monk to the northeast corner of the map. The Damietta people shouldn't attack you, as long as you don't attack them. Get the relic there, and you should have three now. You should have trained 2 monks. I should have mentioned that earlier. We all make mistakes. Anyway take a villager, the second monk that you should have trained, Saladin, and whatever military units you can spare to the southern edge of Alexandria territory. Build a castle and destroy the town. Get the relic behind the town, and run it back to a mosque as fast as possible. If you are running really short on time, use Saladin's hit-n-run power to give your monk some extra speed. You should be able to use it on the monk every turn, and he should be able to get it back to the mosque in 3 turns. Good luck. --------------------------------------- 5b. Mission 2: Rising to Power, Part 2 This mission can be harder than it first appears to be. But again, if you do it right, three stars isn't that hard. You shouldn't have much trouble at all with resources. There is lots of food and gold near you, enough to supply you with a force big enough to destroy Nur ad-Din's castle. You might go through some fierce resistance when trying to destroy it. Once you do destroy it, build a castle of your own in its place when you are at the castle age. The part after this can be a little difficult. Get a force to follow the southernmost path to the town of Bastra. Destroy all in your path. When this is done, build a TC a few spaces north of your castle, just over the bridge. Make sure you put a church there. Get about 3 monks to go retrieve relics. Begin to push Nur ad-Din's army out of the area and back to Damascus. This might also be a little difficult, but Mameluke hordes should do the trick. You will also want some swords and archers, too, to fight the pikes they send at you. Overall, you shouldn't have much trouble after Bastra is down. Remember that to complete the relics bonus goal, you do not need to bring the relics to a church. You just need to have them in the hands of a monk. Then go burn Damascus. --------------------------------- 5c. Mission 3: Reynald's Raiders This is a fun mission. I played it quite a bit when I was stuck on Saladin mission 5. The goals are kind of dumb on this one. There are only 4 overall, and by keeping all your caravans safe, you finish the mission and get 2 stars. Destroying the castle is easy, too. The first couple of turns will determine how easy this mission will be for you. If you efficiently kill all of Reynald's first forces quickly, this will be really easy. If you take too long to kill them all and you take heavy losses, you might have a little more trouble here. It's kinda hard to do a walkthrough on this mission. I do have a tad bit of advice, though. First of all, take out the templars first. They are the most annoying thing in this mission. That is all just common sense, though. Some advice for killing templars: do NOT use horse archers. They do practically nothing against them. Have your horse archers either die or annoy other units. That's about it for this one. Have fun and don't get let the raiders bite!!! ----------------------------------- 5d. Mission 4: The Horns of Hattin Oh, yay, we get to fight a historical battle against a "weak" crusader army. Blarg. This is one mission where if you lose your camels and Mamelukes*, you might as well call it a day and start over. But I shouldn't be complaining because the next one...well...yeah... You should start out by running a camel/Mameluke to each side of the map, with a light cav there to help out. If that doesn't work for you, try 2 camel/ Mamelukes to each side, then try to wait out the next part. These troops will run down the templars, Reynald, and all the bonus goals that try to sneak out. You will have trouble with this next part, especially if you used all your camels and Mamelukes to chase down the crusader deserters. Try to hold out until your camels and Mamelukes have returned. Then move in and crush the Crusaders. That's it to this one. *I have had a weird glitch or something happen to me. At the beginning of the mission, it will bring up the "goals" page and check off the Mamelukes goal. I think I even lost a Mameluke once and I still got credit for completeing that goal. If something like this has happened or still happens to you, contact me... |================| | | | 7. FINAL WORDS | | | |================| ------------------- 7a. Special Thanks Special thanks goes to... ...my best friend Chad, who helped me on quite a few of the missions. He also kept me working on this when I got really tired of it...thanks Chad!!! ...wolfmanphd. Your guide was very helpful to me. Saladin mission 5...thanks a ton. ...Eric Berg. He informed me of how he got three stars on Joan mission 5, and his method is now in the walkthrough. Thanks again man. ...my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Without Him I wouldn't be alive...thank you Jesus! -------------------- 7b. Copyright Info. Copyright 2009 Grant Fruechting This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal, private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any site other than those posted below as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation of copyright. This guide is allowed on these sites: http://www.gamefaqs.com/ http://www.neoseeker.com/ http://www.supercheats.com/ ------------------ 7c. Contact Info. Please e-mail me at [email protected]. I would be happy to answer any questions about this guide. Also, any ideas about how to get a bonus goal that I don't know how to get would be greatly appreciated, and you could count on your name being added to my "Special Thanks" list. Thank you very much for reading my guide; I hope it helped you. End of Document
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