FAQ/Walkthrough - Guide for Age of Empires: Mythologies
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Age of Empires: Mythologies
For Nintendo DS
FAQ/Walkthrough by iloveaoe
Version 1.4
5/26/09
Copyright 2009 iloveaoe.
Email: iloveaoe -at- gmail -dot- com
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 other web
site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a violation
of copyright.
--------
Contents
--------
- Preface
- Introduction
- Basics
- Basic strategy
- Movement
- Unit hitpoints/healing
- Attack damage
- Merging units
- Aging up
- Unit cap
- Understanding the upper-screen displays
- Resources
- Nintendo DS button use
- Tips and tricks
- Differences from Age of Empires: Age of Kings
- Glitches
- Myth unit list
- Campaign walkthroughs
- Egyptian
- Greek
- Norse
- My Campaign results
- Scenario walkthroughs
- Egyptian
- Greek
- Norse
- Underworld
- My Scenario results
-------
Preface
-------
This is my first FAQ, so I hope it is useful to everyone. I have tried to be
sure it is 100% accurate, but I would not be surprised if there are some
details that are incorrect. *Please* let me know of any inaccuracies by
emailing me at: iloveaoe -at- gmail -dot- com. Thanks!
My many thanks to IONDragonX for his excellent FAQ. I have credited him below
when I am writing about things I found out from his FAQ rather than found out
myself.
My thanks to the following people who pointed out inaccuracies in my FAQ:
Mazzle
------------
Introduction
------------
Age of Empires: Mythologies for Nintendo DS is a turn-based strategy game.
Military units move around a map, attacking enemy units and buildings to try to
conquer the enemy. Other units can build buildings, such as Town Centers,
Barracks, and Farms, that produce income or military units. Your civilization
can move from age to age by spending income and doing sufficient research--each
age has more powerful units than the previous age, as well as possibly having
new buildings or units available. There is a constant struggle to determine
the best way to use your limited resources: build buildings, train units, do
research, or save up to "age up" (move to the next age).
You can play as any of three civilizations: Egyptians, Greeks, or Norse.
Each civilization has aspects unique to it, such as different military units,
different Heroes, and different major and minor Gods.
Military units can be Heroes (only a few of these at a time), Humans, or Myth
units. In addition, each military unit is of a certain type: Heavy Infantry,
Light Infantry, Cavalry, Archer, or Siege. There are two main "rock-paper-
scissors" relationships when a given unit attacks another:
Hero > Myth > Human > Hero
Cavalry > Heavy Infantry > Light Infantry > Cavalry
(Where the ">" means "gets attack bonus against"--that is, the item on the
left has an attack bonus against the item on the right, and the item on the
right has an attack "anti-bonus" against the item on the left.)
In addition:
Anything except Light Infantry > Archer > Light Infantry
Cavalry or Heavy Infantry > Siege
Siege or Heavy Infantry > building > Cavalry, Light Infantry or Archer
(The last ">" there is unique--buildings cannot attack, so they do not have
an attack bonus, of course, but Cavalry, Light Infantry, and Archer *do* have
an attack anti-bonus when they attack buildings.)
When you can get an advantage in both categories (e.g. Human Cavalry attacking
Hero Heavy Infantry), you can really do damage.
Each player is either Age 1, 2, 3, or 4, with Age 4 being the most advanced
and most powerful. Each time you age up (move from one age to the next), your
units increase in strength, and you gain new options, such as new buildings
that can be built, or new units that can be trained.
You are always fighting on behalf of a given major God. In each age, you pick
up a new minor God. Each of these Gods provides a God Power that can be used
once per game--this can be something that, to list some examples, damages all
enemy units, or destroys some enemy unit and its surrounding units, or increases
your food income for a few days. These can make a large difference in a given
game.
Each Hero also has a power, called a Hero Power. These can be used once every
so many days, and include things like increasing the defense value of the Hero,
or allowing all friendly units to move farther that day, or having the Hero
switch places with some other friendly unit.
This game is considered to be a sequal to Age of Empires: Age of Kings for
Nintendo DS, since it is, in general, quite similar. There are quite a few
differences between the two games, however (see the "Differences from Age of
Empires: Age of Kings" section later in this guide for more on this subject).
This game is also related to the same-named game for the PC. I have not played
the PC version of this game, so I cannot comment on this subject, other than to
say that many people on the GameFAQs Boards have said that there are
similarities between the PC version and this DS version. Note that the PC
version is real-time, not turn-based as the DS version is.
------
Basics
------
There are three main ways to play this game:
1) Campaigns. This is a "story mode" that steps through 8 Campaigns per
Civilization. This is the best place to start, since there is some teaching
provided by the game as you progress through the Campaigns. You must fight
the Campaigns in order, starting with the Egyptians, followed by the Greeks,
and finally the Norse.
2) Scenarios. These are "set-piece battles", 6 for each of the three
civilizations, and 6 for the Underworld. These can be done in any order.
3) "Skirmish". This is when some number of human players play some number
of AI players (maybe 0), on a chosen map with each player having a chosen
Civilization and major God. For example, one human playing Norse can play
against 1 human playing Greek, with each human having an AI ally playing
Egyptian. I put "Skirmish" in quotes because there is a "Skirmish" mode
on the main menu, but I am grouping together here Skirmish and Multiplayer
since they are very similar.
A good way to learn more about how this game works is to do the Tutorial.
Definitely go all the way through the Tutorial before starting to play. In
addition, the Campaigns provide some information about the game play--if you go
straight into Scenario or Skirmish mode, you will miss this.
Each player takes turns, with one player doing their entire move for day 1,
then another player doing *their* entire move for day 1 and so on through
the players. When you are playing the Campaigns or the Scenarios, it is always
you against the AI--two players. In Skirmish mode, you can go up to 4 players,
one of which must be a human, but the rest can be any combination of humans and
AI players.
On your turn, you can:
- Move each unit and then perform some action with that unit; actions include
such things as Attack, Build, Demolish, Hero Power, and Merge.
- Perform some action with each Town building (the Town Center and all
buildings around it other than Towers); actions include Training units, doing
Research, and invoking a God Power. (Exception: The Town Center can perform
the Trade action any number of times per day, and then the Town Center can do
a different action after that; but you cannot perform a different action and
*then* do the Trade action.)
--------------
Basic strategy
--------------
It is important to attack "correctly"--that is, using the right units against
the enemy. Attack as much as possible with a bonus (or a double bonus!), like
Cavalry vs. Heavy Infantry. Especially in the Campaigns and Scenarios, using
the right units against the right enemy units can make the difference between
winning and losing.
In general, I try to attack with every military unit I have every day.
Much more damage is done when attacking than when counterattacking--if two
equal units have a battle to the death, whichever attacks first will almost
always win. Of course, it can be better to *not* attack with a unit some turn
rather than to attack badly (e.g. Cavalry vs. Light Infantry). In order to
attack with every unit, figure out which of your units can attack which enemy
units *before* staring your attacks, otherwise, you will find certain units
wasted. For example, if your unit A can *only* attack enemy unit Z, you want
to have A attack Z, not have another of your units kill Z, then leave A with
nobody to attack.
Possibly the *most* important thing is to pay attention to the state you are
leaving your units at the end of the day. Look at your units from the enemy's
perspective, looking for weaknesses. Is there a way for an enemy non-ranged
unit to attack one of your ranged units--this is bad, because ranged units have
very low defense values, and usually get hurt very badly when attacked
directly. Are you leaving one of your important units in a position where it
can be attacked on 3 sides by the enemy--this is a good way to get that unit
killed. Is there a hole either in the middle or the end of your front where
an enemy unit will be able to run through and flank you? It is important to
attack "correctly", but it is maybe even *more* important to position your
units "correctly" for the enemy's attack. You will be an expert when you can
not only do serious damage to the enemy on a given day, but also leave a
position such that he can only do minimal damage to you on his half of the day.
Pay attention to the terrain. Positioning your unit in a Forest square
adds 20% to that unit's defense value if attacked. Conversely, a Road square
subtracts 10% of the defense value. This is a huge difference--an attacked
unit in the Forest might take minimal damage, while the same unit on the Road
might be killed. In the same vein, note the square the enemy is on. If you
have two enemy Spearmen in attack range of one of your units, for example, one
on a Hills square and one on a Road square, it might be possible to kill the
one on the Road square but not the one on the Hills square.
The other important thing about the terrain is to use the impassable squares
(Mountains, River, Ocean) to your advantage. Since units can't move into
these squares, you can put ranged units next to them in such a way that those
units can't be attacked. Also, you can block the squares between two
impassable squares to create a chokepoint and make it very hard for the enemy
to advance. The enemy might have 20 units to your 5, but if all 20 are
blocked by a chokepoint you are maintaining, you can withstand the imbalance
since maybe 15-18 of his units are unable to attack. The classic chokepoint
is a Bridge over a River; with one strong unit, you can hold off an entire
army for a certain time.
Listen to the "advice" given to you when you propose attacking a given unit.
This tells you, in general, what the results are going to be. If you see one
of the messages that tell you you'll kill the enemy, go for it--killing enemies
is what this is all about. If you see one of the messages that say you'll take
damage and so will he, think some more about whether this is a good idea--is
there some *other* unit that will do better against this specific enemy unit?
But note that you will very often attack when the advice is this "he'll take
damage and so will you"--usually the enemy will take much more damage than
you.
I think ranged units deserve a special mention. They are very weak in defense,
so you need to concentrate on protecting them. Much of my time is spent in
determining how I can attack with my ranged units but not leave them in a
position to be attacked. Also, since ranged units can attack from a distance,
and thus not be counterattacked, it is much more easy to maintain them at
full strength than it is to maintain Infantry units at full strength, for
example.
Aging up is key in this game. If you are age 3 and your opponent is age 2,
things will go quite smoothly, and if it is the opposite, you'd better be
thinking about aging up soon!
In general, you should rarely get 1-hit-killed by the enemy. This indicates
you either have your units out of position (like having a ranged unit able
to be attacked by an enemy heavy infantry unit), or that you are way
outclassed (like you are age 2 when the enemy is age 3). In this game, I
really believe you should give up quantity for quality--that is, I'd much
prefer to have 10 age 3 units rather than 15 age 2 units. In my experience
in the campaigns, I *never* get even close to my unit cap (see the "Unit Cap"
section below for what this is)--on the hard campaigns, I think I probably
get to maybe 20 units about the time I win. But 20 strong units, in one or
two strong formations, can do an amazing amount of damage every day, and
take surprisingly little in return if well-managed. (Note that there are a
few Scenarios where I did get to my unit cap.)
--------
Movement
--------
Each day, a unit can move up to their movement capability. A unit's movement
capability can be found on the second page of information for that unit (move
the cursor to the square the unit is on, then push the Y button to see this
page), and is the value next to the little symbol that looks like some boots
with a lightning bolt in front.
Note that units can never move through or into a square occupied by an enemy
unit or building.
To see the squares that can be attacked by a unit after the unit takes a day's
movement, move the cursor to a unit, then hold down B. Doing this on an enemy
unit will allow you to place your units out of reach of the enemy. Note,
however, that holding down the B key will allow you to see where a unit can
attack, BASED ON THE CURRENT PLACEMENT OF ALL UNITS. For example, you might
find one of your units could not move very far, due to blocking enemy units.
If you kill one of the enemy units, then look again, your unit might be able to
move to and attack many more squares than the last time you looked. The same
goes for the enemy--you might think your favorite unit is safe, but if the
enemy eliminates one of your other units, that favorite unit might now be
attackable. Note also that I have noticed cases where this is not accurate,
cases where I could see that a given enemy unit (often a ranged unit) could
clearly attack some square, but the square appeared to be out of range when
holding down the B key on that unit. So make sure the range shown seems
reasonable.
There are two types of units, as far as movement goes:
1) Non-flying ("normal") units. These are all normal units. Almost all
normal units have a movement capability between 11 and 21, with most siege
units having 11-13, most infantry units having 13-18, and most cavalry having
15-19.
How far these units can move depends on the terrain being traversed. The
following terrain types cost the following amounts in terms of movement:
Cost Terrain type
---- ------------
4 Forest, Hills, Ruins, Gold
3 Plains, Food
2 Road, any building, Settlement, Bridge
unpassable Mountains, River, Ocean
For example, a unit with a movement value of 11 could NOT:
- move through 2 forest squares and then into another forest square (would need
12 movement to do this)
- move through 2 hills squares, followed by a road square, and then into
another road square (would need 12 movement to do this)
- move through 5 road squares and into a plains square (would need 13 movement
to do this)
2) Flying units. I'm not sure how to tell which units are flying units other
than just looking at their pictures, and by the fact that their movement
capability is usually a number between 4 and 7.
Flying units with a movement capability of 4, for example, can fly through any
3 squares and into a 4th. They can fly over "unpassable" squares like rivers
or mountains, but must end up in a "normal" square--that is, they cannot stop
in an unpassable square. They cannot fly over squares containing enemy units.
----------------------
Unit hitpoints/healing
----------------------
Each unit has a certain number of hitpoints--this is the strength of the unit
in terms of its ability to sustain damage. When a unit is "full-strength", it
has all its hitpoints. As it takes damage, it loses hitpoints. If its
hitpoints go to 0, it dies.
A unit's hitpoints are shown as a green bar, with a number like 120/132,
meaning that the unit currently has 120 hitpoints, and its full strength number
of hitpoints is 132. Note that a unit's full strength number of hitpoints can
be increased, either through research or by aging up.
When units are "in training"--that is, after you select to train them but
before the start of your next turn--the unit is at 25% strength, where it has
a number of hitpoints equal to one quarter of its full strength hitpoints.
Units in this state are fairly easy to kill.
When the next day comes around, the units add 75% of their full strength
hitpoints. So if the unit wasn't attacked during training, it will go to full
strength. If it was attacked and lost, let's say, 5 hitpoints, the next day
it would be at full strength minus 5 hitpoints.
When a unit is attacked (or a God Power such as Earthquake is used against it),
the unit loses a certain number of hitpoints. At this point, your unit is more
likely to get killed. Also, in the case of Human units, if they are at less
than full strength, they do less damage to the enemy when attacking. So it is
often in your best interest to try to "heal" damaged units. I believe that
Myth units and Heroes do not work this way--they do the same amount of damage
no matter how wounded they are. They can still be worth healing, however, to
lessen the chance that they are killed.
There are a number of ways to heal units:
1) Move them to any friendly building. This includes the standard buildings
in a Town Center complex (including Towers), Mines/Mine Shafts/Mills/Farms, and
even Obelisks. Every day that your unit starts the day on a pre-existing
building, it will regain 20% of its full strength number of hitpoints.
Note I said "pre-existing": Villagers/Architects that build a new building
will not heal as a result of being on top of the building the next day; of
course, if they *stay* on the building another day, they *will* heal.
2) Heal them with Priests. The Priests in this game exist for really just one
reason: to heal other units. You move them next to a unit that is not at
full strength and then choose Heal Unit from the menu. This will heal
approximately 33% of the full strength number of hitpoints of the unit.
3) Heal them with Valkyries. The Norse God Freyja enables training the
Valkyries Myth unit, and this unit can heal just as Priests do. The Valkyries
are more useful, however, as they are also a full-fledged military unit capable
of doing serious damage to the enemy. Priests can attack, but do very little
damage.
4) Heroes heal 5% of their full strength number of hitpoints at the start of
every day.
5) Use a God Power, such as the Greek "Restoration" God Power, which heals 50%
of each unit's full strength number of hitpoints.
6) Use a Relic, such as Brisingamen, which allows a Hero that is equipped
with it to heal an additional 10% per day (in addition to the 5% the Hero
heals already).
7) When you are Egyptian, position them next to the Hero Nakht. All friendly
units adjacent or diagonal to Nakht at the start of a day will heal 10% of
their full strength number of hitpoints.
-------------
Attack damage
-------------
A very useful piece of information in playing this game is: how much damage
will a given unit do if it attacks a given other unit? To know this, you need
to understand how the various attributes of the two units work together to
determine the attack damage.
Unfortunately, I have not fully figured out the computation the game uses. I
have tried various different algorithms, and while my predictions are pretty
much always fairly close, they are not exact. Hopefully I will eventually
figure this out, but until then, here is what I have learned.
So just to be clear: do not believe everything you read in this section, as
it is just my observations. (I get bored quickly trying to figure this stuff
out, especially when my attempts at guesses are never exactly right.) (I would
*love* it if someone could give me more information on this--use my email
address at the top of this walkthrough, please!)
The attack value of the attacking unit is the starting point. This says how
much damage a given unit can do. The defense value of the defending unit is
then used to determine what percentage of the attack value is "deflected"--the
higher the defense value, the lower the damage done. As an example, if a unit
with an attack value of 60 attacks a unit with a defense value of 40%, the
damage done would be 60 - (40% of 60) = 60 - 24 = 36. This means that 36
hitpoints would be subtracted from the defending unit; if the unit had 36 or
less hitpoints before the attack, the unit would be killed by the attack.
In determining the defense value of the defending unit, don't forget to take
into account the terrain the unit is standing on. If a unit with a normal
defense value of 40% is standing on a Forest square, its defense value goes to
60% (Forest squares have a +20% to defense); if on a Road square, its defense
value goes to 30% (Road squares have a -10% to defense). You can see, then,
what a huge difference the terrain can make--that unit has twice the defense
value if it is standing in the Forest instead of in a Road.
Then comes the bonuses. I have not been able to figure out the exact system
for the bonuses, but it appears to me that the bonuses seem to be about 33%.
In other words, if a Heavy Infantry unit attacks a Light Infantry unit, it
will do approximately 33% more damage than expected. Using the example above,
a 60-attack-value Heavy Infantry unit attacking a 40%-defense-value Light
Infantry unit would do approximately 48 damage, instead of the 36 damage that
was expected. So, instead of 60 attack strength, treat the unit as having
60 + (33% of 60) = 80 attack strength, then the damage is 80 - (40% of 80) =
80 - 32 = 48.
I have not noticed any difference in the various bonuses--that is, for *any*
bonus (Heavy Infantry vs. Light Infantry, Myth vs. Human, Ranged vs. Light
Infantry, and so on), it seems to add about 33% to the attack damage done.
When there is a double-bonus, such as Myth Heavy Infantry vs. Human Light
Infantry, the damage done seems to be about 66% more than expected.
Similarly, anti-bonuses appear to be about 33%--a Light Infantry unit attacking
a Heavy Infantry unit will do about 33% *less* damage than expected.
Interestingly, if a unit has both a bonus *and* an anti-bonus, they don't seem
to cancel each other out. For example, a Human Light Infantry that attacks a
Hero Heavy Infantry does *not* do both +33% and also -33%, but instead does
maybe about 10% *more* damage than expected. I'm not sure whether this happens
for all cases of "bonus and anti-bonus" attacks.
Then you must figure in the health of the attacking unit. If the attacking
unit is a normal Human unit, like Spearmen, the unit will do less damage as it
loses hitpoints. A full-strength attacking unit will do 100% of the expected
damage, an attacking unit at about half-strength (that is, its current
hitpoints are half of its maximum hitpoints) will do about 75% of the expected
damage, and an attack unit with only 1 remaining hitpoint will nonetheless do
about 50% of the expected damage. So if the attacking unit has 40% of its
maximum hitpoints at present, it would do approximately 50% + (40% of 50) =
50% + 20% = 70% of the expected damage. Note that Myth units and Heroes do not
seem to suffer this loss of damage--they attack at 100% of expected damage no
matter how many hitpoints they have left.
It appears as if the health of the defending unit has no effect on the damage
done. Although remember that the health of the defending unit *does* determine
whether it is killed or not in the attack.
I have spent almost no time determining the amount of counterattack damage that
occurs in a given attack. If the defending unit does not die in the attack, it
gets to counterattack. My very limited effort would seem to imply that it will
do about 25% of the damage that would be expected if *it* were doing the
attacking. That is, counterattack damage is 1/4 that of attack damage.
-------------
Merging units
-------------
If you have two units, both of which are not at full strength, you can merge
the two units to create one stronger unit. The two units must be the same
type of unit (i.e. you can merge two Slingers, but cannot merge a Slinger and
a Spearmen). To merge the units, move one of the units next to the other, and
choose Merge from the menu. You will then have to choose the unit to merge
with. The hitpoints from the first unit (the "merging" unit) will be added
into the hitpoints on the second unit (the "merged into" unit). Of course this
will not cause the hitpoints on the "merged into" unit to go higher than its
full strength hitpoints--you cannot use this to "supercharge" your units. If
the total of the two is greater than full strength, the "merged into" unit goes
to full strength and any extra hitpoints are lost. Note that the "merged into"
unit will then be done for the day, so if desired, do whatever you want to do
with the "merged into" unit *before* doing the merge.
A note on strategy: Two units will always do more (or the same) attack damage
than one. Two units with only 1 hitpoint each will actually do just about the
same damage to an enemy as one unit with all its hitpoints. So if you're in
attack mode, when you're trying to do as much damage as possible, merging often
doesn't make sense. But note also that attacking with two units will cause
*both* units to take counterattack damage. The counterattack damage is not
affected, I don't believe, by the strength of your unit. To continue with my
example, attacking twice with 1 hitpoint units will do as much damage as a
full strength unit, but both will be killed by the counterattacks. For a more
realistic example, two units at 50% strength will do, I believe, about 1.5
times the damage that one unit at 100% strength will do, but both 50% strength
units will take counterattack damage of, let's say 15 hitpoints, the same
counterattack damage the 100% strength unit will take. So you inflict 1.5
times the damage, but incur 2 times the counterattack damage. Where merging
makes a lot of sense is when you are at your unit cap--that is, you cannot
train any new units because you already have as many units as you are allowed.
If you merge two partial strength units, that frees up a slot for you to train
a new unit. So you can turn two wounded units into two full strength units.
It is also possible that you might *really* need another Cyclops, for example,
but you're at your unit cap. You can merge two Hoplites, then build your
needed Cyclops.
--------
Aging up
--------
Aging up upgrades all your units. Aging up is very important to your success.
Trying to fight an enemy that is an age higher than you can be very difficult
and frustrating.
It appears that when aging up from age 1 to age 2, in most cases both the
attack strength and full strength number of hitpoints of every unit are
increased by 25%. Aging up from age 2 to 3 increases those same values by
another 20%, and aging up from age 3 to age 4 increases them by another 11%.
I do not believe that a unit's defense percentage or movement value is
increased by aging up, although thanks to IONDragonX's excellent FAQ, I have
learned that when aging up, some Gods confer certain bonuses, such that, for
example, aging up with the Greek God Hermes *will* increase your unit's
movement values.
To age-up from age 1 to age 2 costs:
- 400 food
- 400 gold
- 0 favor
and requires
- 4 topics researched
To age-up from age 2 to age 3 costs:
- 600 food
- 600 gold
- 50 favor
and requires
- 8 topics researched
To age-up from age 3 to age 4 costs:
- 1000 food
- 1000 gold
- 100 favor
and requires
- 12 topics researched
There is no age 5.
Note that many of the Campaigns do not have, nor do they have the ability to
build, Shrines, so aging up is not possible. In addition, there are
Campaigns that allow aging up, but do not allow aging up all the way to age
4--for example, they might allow you to age up from age 2 to age 3, but that
is it.
--------
Unit cap
--------
At any one time, you cannot have more units than your unit cap. You can see
what your current unit cap is by looking at the bottom right corner of the top
screen: if you see something like 14/25, this means you currently have 14
units, and your unit cap is 25. If you reach your unit cap, when you select a
building where you would normally be able to train units (such as a Barracks),
the "Train" option will not appear in the pop-up menu.
Your unit cap increases as you age up:
Age Unit cap
1 20
2 25
3 30
4 35
It is possible to increase your unit cap a bit above these values, through
certain Gods or doing certain Research.
Note that Villagers, Architects, and Ox Carts do *not* count against your unit
cap--they essentially have their own separate unit cap, since you can never
have more than 5 of them.
As I stated above, the unit cap very rarely comes into play in the Campaigns
and Scenarios.
---------------------------------------
Understanding the upper-screen displays
---------------------------------------
In this section, I will explain what you see on the upper-screen of the DS.
First I will show the "pictures" of the various different displays that can
occur, with a short explanation of when that display is shown. Inside these
pictures, I will designate areas of the screen as, for example, "(Area 3)".
After the pictures, each one of the areas is described. Inside the pictures
I designate symbols with a "@" sign followed by a few letters that describe the
symbol; for example, "@Shld" is a symbol of a shield.
Upper-screen when a unit has been selected:
________________________________________________________
|(Area 1) |(Area 3) |(Area 6) |
| | (civ. | (colored band) |
| (picture of | symbol) | |
| terrain) | | (picture of unit) |
| |___________| |
| |(Area 4) | |
| (resource) | | @Crown @Sword |
|_________________| (age) |________________________|
|(Area 2) | |(Area 7) |
| |___________| Thutmose |
| Hills |(Area 5) | Hero Hv. Inf. |
| | (day #) | ---------------------- |
| @Shld 10% |___________| | 77/102 | |
| @Eye 1 | | ---------------------- |
| | | @Sword 53 @Shld 35% |
| | | vs+ |
| | | @Bow @Bldg @Spear @Rock|
|______________________________________________________|
|(Area 8) |
| @Food 755+155 @Gold 755+155 @Favor 5+5 @Man 3/20 |
________________________________________________________
Upper-screen when a building has been selected:
________________________________________________________
|(Area 9) |(Area 3) |(Area 11) |
| | (civ. | |
| (picture of | symbol) | (pictures of your |
| building) | | Gods, up to 4) |
| |___________| |
| |(Area 4) | |
| (resource) | | |
|_________________| (age) |________________________|
|(Area 10) | |(Area 12) |
| |___________| |
| Barracks |(Area 5) | Player VP* |
| ----------- | (day #) | |
| | 45 | |___________| iloveaoe 425 |
| ----------- | | CPU 76 |
| @Shld +1 | | |
| @Sword +1 | | |
| | | |
|______________________________________________________|
|(Area 8) |
| @Food 755+155 @Gold 755+155 @Favor 5+5 @Man 3/20 |
________________________________________________________
Upper-screen when an empty square has been selected:
________________________________________________________
|(Area 1) |(Area 3) |(Area 11) |
| | (civ. | |
| (picture of | symbol) | (pictures of your |
| terrain) | | Gods, up to 4) |
| |___________| |
| |(Area 4) | |
| (resource) | | |
|_________________| (age) |________________________|
|(Area 2) | |(Area 12) |
| |___________| |
| Forest |(Area 5) | Player VP* |
| | (day #) | |
| @Shld 20% |___________| iloveaoe 425 |
| @Eye 0 | | CPU 76 |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
|______________________________________________________|
|(Area 8) |
| @Food 755+155 @Gold 755+155 @Favor 5+5 @Man 3/20 |
________________________________________________________
Upper-screen when a unit has been selected and then the
Y button is pushed:
________________________________________________________
|(Area 13) |(Area 15) |
| (colored band) | Thutmose |
| | @Food 180 @Gold 180 @Favor 50 |
| (picture of | |
| unit) | Thutmose III was the |
| | step-son of Hatshepsut |
| | and was considered the |
| | greatest military mind of |
|____________________| his age. Thutmose is a |
|(Area 14) | Heavy Infantry Hero. |
| | |
| @Sword 53 @Shld 35%| |
| | |
| @HP 102 @Mvmt 13 | |
| | Strong+ Weak- |
| |@Bow @Bldg @Spear @Rock @Coll |
|______________________________________________________|
|(Area 8) |
| @Food 755+155 @Gold 755+155 @Favor 5+5 @Man 3/20 |
________________________________________________________
Upper-screen when a building has been selected and then the
Y button is pushed (or when a unit on a building has been
selected and the Y button is pushed twice):
________________________________________________________
|(Area 16) |(Area 18) |
| | Town Center |
| | @Food 350 @Gold 350 |
| (picture of | |
| building) | The Town Center is the |
| | foundation for your cities. |
| | Buildings can be built in |
| | any of the tiles |
|____________________| surrounding the Town |
|(Area 17) | Center. Town Centers |
| | also allow you to train |
| @Shld 30% @HP 120| Villagers and provide |
| | additional Resources each |
| @Food 35 @Gold 35| turn. Each time you Age |
| | Up, you may support an |
| @Favor 5 | additional Town Center. |
|______________________________________________________|
|(Area 8) |
| @Food 755+155 @Gold 755+155 @Favor 5+5 @Man 3/20 |
________________________________________________________
Descriptions of the areas:
Area 1: A picture of the terrain. If there are resources on the square, such
as Food or Gold, it will be shown at the bottom. For Settlement squares, only
the Favor resources are shown here.
Area 2: Details on the terrain. The @Shld value is the defense percentage
added to a unit's defense percentage standing in that square. For example, if
a unit has a defense value of 35% and is standing in a Hills square with a 10%
defense value, that unit has a total defense value of 45%. The @Eye value is
the increase to sight for a unit standing in that square.
Area 3: The symbol of the civilization you are playing as. If you select an
enemy unit, you will see the symbol of the civilization of that enemy.
Area 4: The Age you are in, in Roman numerals. If you select an enemy unit,
you will see the Age of the enemy.
Area 5: Which day of the Campaign/Scenario/Skirmish you are in.
Area 6: A picture of the unit. The colored band at the top shows which army
the unit is part of (sometimes in large battles, it is hard to tell just by
looking at the bottom screen). The two symbols in the lower-right detail the
type of the unit. The first symbol says whether it is Human (hand), Myth
(lightning bolt), or Hero (crown). The second symbol says whether it is
Heavy Infantry (sword), Light Infantry (spear), Ranged (bow), Cavalry (horse
collar), or Siege (falling rock).
Area 7: Details on the unit. The unit's name and type are listed at the top.
Just below this is the unit's health, in hitpoints, shown both numerically and
as a green "health bar". If the value shown is 77/102, this means your unit
currently has 77 hitpoints out of a maximum number of hitpoints of 102. The
green bar would be green about 3/4 of the way across in this case, showing that
your unit is at about 75% of its maximum hitpoints. The @Sword value is the
unit's attack strength. Note that all units except Ranged units have a sword
symbol, but Ranged units do not. Ranged units have a number followed by a bow
symbol. The number before the bow is very important--this is the attack range
of the unit. The @Shld value is the defense percentage of the unit. At the
bottom of the area, there are symbols that show which types of units this unit
has a bonus against.
Area 8: Your current Food, Gold, Favor, and unit status. At the left is
shown how much Food you currently have and how much your current Food income is
per day. For example, "755+155" means you have 755 Food to spend, and your
current daily Food income is 155. Similarly, the next 2 numbers are your
current Gold and daily Gold income, and then to the right of that, your current
Favor and daily Favor income. Note well that for all of these, the daily
income shown is how much your daily income was *today*--it does not say what
your income will be tomorrow. If you build a Farm on day 5, that Farm's Food
income will not be shown in this area until day 6. At the far right of this
area is shown your unit status. A value like 3/20 means that you currently
have 3 units out of a maximum of 20 units. The 20 value is your unit cap--you
cannot train more than this many units.
Area 9: Like area 1, but a picture of the building instead of the terrain.
Area 10: Details on the building. As with the green bar in area 7, the green
bar here shows the health of the building. Inside the green bar is one
number, which is the current number of hitpoints of the building. The @Swrd
and @Shld values are theoretically increases to the attack and defense of units
standing in those buildings, but according to IONDragonX's FAQ, units do not
seem to get any increases while standing in buildings, so these numbers are
probably a glitch.
Area 11: Pictures of your Gods, one for each age.
Area 12: The current score, in terms of Victory Points. The scoring is this
game is very glitchy, so you can probably completely ignore these mostly
useless numbers.
Area 13: Same as area 6 without the symbols at the bottom. However, for
Villagers, Architects, and Ox Carts, there is shown at the bottom of this area
something like "(3/5)". This tells you that you currently have 3 of this type
of unit, out of a maximum of 5. Note that, confusingly, even when looking at
enemy Villagers/Architects/Ox Carts, the value shown is for *you*, not for the
enemy.
Area 14: Unit stats. The @Sword and @Shld values are the same as in area 7.
The @HP value is the unit's maximum hitpoints, and the @Mvmt value is the
unit's movement capability, per day.
Area 15: Details on the unit. The @Food, @Gold, and @Favor values shown just
after the unit's name are the cost to train the unit. At the bottom, similar
to area 7, are symbols detailing which types of units this unit gets a bonus
against, but also which units this unit has an anti-bonus against.
Area 16: A picture of the building. When the building is an Obelisk, there
is an indication at the bottom like "(3/5)", meaning that you have built 3 out
of a maximum of 5 Obelisks. Even if you are looking at an enemy Obelisk, the
numbers shown are for *you*, not for the enemy.
Area 17: Building stats. The @Shld value is the defense percentage of the
building when it is being attacked. The @HP value is the building's maximum
hitpoints. The @Food, @Gold, and @Favor values show the daily income produced
by the building. Note that buildings like Barracks produce no daily income,
so no values are shown, and buildings like Farms produce only Food income, so
no @Gold or @Favor values are shown.
Area 18: Details on the building. The @Food and @Gold values shown just after
the building's name are the cost to build the building.
---------
Resources
---------
This section will list all the income-producing (food, gold, or favor)
buildings or units. Since this varies a fair amount by civilization, I will
have separate sections for each civilization.
Here are some of the main differences between the civilizations, as far as
resources go:
1) Egyptians are the only civilization to build Mine Shafts.
2) Egyptian Heroes can build Mines/Mine Shafts/Mills/Farms.
3) Norse do not build Mines/Mills/Farms at all, but instead use Ox Carts.
---
Egyptian:
All resources continue to produce 100% of income until destroyed
Destroying Mill/Mine does not halt income of adjacent Farms/Mine Shafts
Another player destroying and rebuilding a Mill/Mine causes that player to
begin to gain income from that Mill/Mine, but does *not* affect the
ownership or income of surrounding Farms/Mine Shafts; that is, to fully
"take over" a Mill with four surrounding Farms, you have to destroy and
rebuild all five
Types of food resources:
Town Center
Built by: Villagers
Where: On a settlement
Cost: 350 food, 350 gold
Income: 35 food/day
Limit: One Town Center per age (i.e. if you are age 3, you can have a
maximum of 3 Town Centers)
Mill
Built by: Villagers, any Hero
Where: On a Food square
Cost: 15 food, 60 gold
Income: 40 food/day
Limit: No limit to number of Mills built
Farm
Built by: Villagers, any Hero
Where: On a square adjacent to already-built friendly Mill
Cost: 15 food, 60 gold
Income: 20 food/day
Limit: No limit to number of Farms built
Types of gold resources:
Town Center
Built by: Villagers
Where: On a settlement
Cost: 350 food, 350 gold
Income: 35 gold/day
Limit: One Town Center per age (i.e. if you are age 3, you can have a
maximum of 3 Town Centers)
Mine
Built by: Villagers, any Hero
Where: On a Gold square
Cost: 60 food, 15 gold
Income: 40 gold/day
Limit: No limit to number of Mines built
Mine Shaft
Built by: Villagers, any Hero
Where: On a square adjacent to already-built friendly Mine
Cost: 60 food, 15 gold
Income: 20 gold/day
Limit: No limit to number of Mine Shafts built
Types of favor resources:
Town Center
Built by: Villagers
Where: On a settlement
Cost: 350 food, 350 gold
Income: 5 favor/day
Limit: One town center per age (i.e. if you are age 3, you can have a
maximum of 3 town centers)
Shrine
Built by: Villagers
Where: In a square adjacent or diagonal to a town center
Cost: 100 food, 100 gold
Income: 10 favor/day
Limit: No limit to number of Shrines built
Obelisk
Built by: Any hero
Where: In any empty square
Obelisks cannot be built within two squares of each other
Cost: 21 food, 21 gold
Income: 3 favor/day
Limit: Maximum of 5 Obelisks in existence per player
Pyramid
Built by: Villagers, at age 3 or higher
Where: On a square adjacent or diagonal to a town center
Cost: 110 food, 140 gold
Income: 5 favor/day
Limit: No limit to number of Pyramids built
Note: Reliquary research at Pyramid promises 20 favor/day per Pyramid
But there appears to be a glitch, and the research only provides
income of 1 favor/day per Pryamid (in addition to normal 5)
---
Greek:
All resources continue to produce 100% of income until destroyed
Destroying Mill does not halt income of adjacent Farms
Another player destroying and rebuilding a Mill causes that player to begin
to gain income from that Mill, but does *not* affect the ownership or
income of surrounding Farms; that is, to fully "take over" a Mill with four
surrounding Farms, you have to destroy and rebuild all five
Types of food resources:
Town Center
Built by: Architect
Where: On a settlement
Cost: 350 food, 350 gold
Income: 35 food/day
Limit: One town center per age (i.e. if you are age 3, you can have a
maximum of 3 town centers)
Mill
Built by: Architect
Where: On a Food square
Cost: 15 food, 60 gold
Income: 40 food/day
Limit: No limit to number of Mills built
Farm
Built by: Architect
Where: On a square adjacent to already-built friendly Mill
Cost: 15 food, 60 gold
Income: 20 food/day
Limit: No limit to number of Farms built
Types of gold resources:
Town Center
Built by: Architect
Where: On a settlement
Cost: 350 food, 350 gold
Income: 35 gold/day
Limit: One town center per age (i.e. if you are age 3, you can have a
maximum of 3 town centers)
Mine
Built by: Architect
Where: On a Gold square
Cost: 200 food, 60 gold
Income: 100 gold/day
Limit: No limit to number of Mines built
Types of favor resources:
Town Center
Built by: Architect
Where: On a settlement
Cost: 350 food, 350 gold
Income: 5 favor/day
Limit: One town center per age (i.e. if you are age 3, you can have a
maximum of 3 town centers)
Shrine
Built by: Architect
Where: In a square adjacent or diagonal to a town center
Cost: 100 food, 100 gold
Income: 15 favor/day
Limit: No limit to number of Shrines built
Palace
Built by: Architect, at age 3 or higher
Where: On a square adjacent or diagonal to a town center
Cost: 110 food, 140 gold
Income: 5 favor/day
Limit: No limit to number of Palaces built
Note: Reliquary research at Palace promises 20 favor/day per Palace
But there appears to be a glitch, and the research only provides
income of 1 favor/day per Palace (in addition to normal 5)
---
Norse:
All resources continue to produce 100% of income until destroyed
Types of food resources:
Town Center
Built by: Ulfsark
Where: On a settlement
Cost: 350 food, 350 gold
Income: 35 food/day
Limit: One town center per age (i.e. if you are age 3, you can have a
maximum of 3 town centers)
Ox Cart
Built on: Town Center
Where: Place Ox Cart on a Food square
Cost: 150 food, 150 gold to build Ox Cart at Town Center
No cost to move Ox Cart onto Food square and start producing income
Income: 1st day: 33 food; 2nd day: 66 food; all following days: 100 food
If Ox Cart moves from Food square all daily income for that Ox Cart is
lost and it must restart at 33
Sometimes above numbers increased by 10% (not sure why yet)
Limit: Maximum of 5 Ox Carts in existence per player
Types of gold resources:
Town Center
Built by: Ulfsark
Where: On a settlement
Cost: 350 food, 350 gold
Income: 35 gold/day
Limit: One town center per age (i.e. if you are age 3, you can have a
maximum of 3 town centers)
Ox Cart
Built on: Town Center
Where: Place Ox Cart on a Gold square
Cost: 150 food, 150 gold to build Ox Cart at Town Center
No cost to move Ox Cart onto Gold square and start producing income
Income: 1st day: 33 gold; 2nd day: 66 gold; all following days: 100 gold
If Ox Cart moves from Gold square all daily income for that Ox Cart is
lost and it must restart at 33
Sometimes above numbers increased by 10% (not sure why yet)
Limit: Maximum of 5 Ox Carts in existence per player
Types of favor resources:
Town Center
Built by: Ulfsark
Where: On a settlement
Cost: 350 food, 350 gold
Income: 5 favor/day
Limit: One town center per age (i.e. if you are age 3, you can have a
maximum of 3 town centers)
Shrine
Built by: Ulfsark
Where: In a square adjacent or diagonal to a town center
Cost: 100 food, 100 gold
Income: 5 favor/day
Limit: No limit to number of Shrines built
Combat
Every time a Norse unit is in a battle, favor is gained immediately
Varies from 1 to 5 favor per battle
Most common: 1, 2, or 3
Seem to get more favor if attacking without bonus
Seem to get only 1 favor if attacking with bonus
Favor gained even when your unit is attacked by enemy
But only if your unit gets a counterattack:
No favor gained if your unit is killed
No favor gained if non-ranged unit attacked by ranged enemy
When Norse are fighting, there should be no shortage of favor
Palace
Built by: Ulfsark, at age 3 or higher
Where: On a square adjacent or diagonal to a town center
Cost: 110 food, 140 gold
Income: 5 favor/day
Limit: No limit to number of Palaces built
Note: Reliquary research at Palace promises 20 favor/day per Palace
But there appears to be a glitch, and the research only provides
income of 1 favor/day per Palace (in addition to normal 5)
----------------------
Nintendo DS Button use
----------------------
I will not attempt to list the full amount of functionality available through
the Nintendo DS buttons, but I *will* list the ones I use somewhat frequently
(note that I use the stylus a lot) and which aren't obvious:
- Holding down the L button allows you to see the entire map from above, with
friendly and enemy units, resources, and buildings marked.
- The R button steps through all friendly units who have yet to make a move on
a given day. If you think you've moved all your units, hit the R button to
make sure.
- Holding down the B button when the cursor is on a unit (friendly or enemy)
will show in red all the squares that unit can attack, given the current state
of all the other units--for example, if a unit is surrounded and can't move,
only the four adjacent squares will be red, but if one of the surrounding units
is killed, the B button will suddenly show more attackable squares.
- If the cursor is on a square that contains a unit or building (or both),
the Y button will show more information about the unit or building.
---------------
Tips and tricks
---------------
1) Units can move through friendly buildings at a cost of only 2 movement
points, *even if* the building is in the process of being built. Therefore,
you can often change how far a unit can move by building a building in its
path. If you are playing the Egyptians and really, really want a given unit to
attack some enemy unit, but it can't quite get there, you could have one of
your Heroes build an Obelisk on one of the "tough" squares (e.g. Forest, Hills)
along the way--this just might make the difference and allow your unit to move
far enough to attack.
2) Don't forget that Egyptian Heroes can build Mines/Mine Shafts/Mills/Farms,
as well as building Obelisks. Since Heroes from the Greeks and Norse cannot
do this, it is easy to forget.
3) When using ranged units, try to put them on Hills when possible. For
example, you might be able to attack the enemy unit you want to attack by
putting your Slingers on a Hill square, or on a Plains square. The damage
done will not be different, and there is no counter attack, so what is the
difference between the two? The difference is when the enemy gets his turn.
If your Slingers are on a Hills square, they will have a greater counterattack
range for any enemy Slingers that try to attack them. If your Slingers were
on a Plains square, an enemy Slingers might be able to attack you without
counterattack if they are on a Hills square. If your Slingers were on a Hills
square, this wouldn't be possible, and the enemy might not even attack, because
he doesn't want to incur the counterattack. Plus, the Hills square adds 10% to
the defense value of your ranged unit compared to if they were standing on a
Plains square.
4) Use Villagers/Architects to attack weak enemy units. Villagers/Architects
have very low attack strength, but nonetheless might have enough to eliminate a
very powerful enemy. Since the attack takes place before the counterattack,
Villagers will take no damage from attacking even an age 4 Khepesh, *if* the
Khepesh has only a few hitpoints left, and the Villagers can inflict at least
that many hitpoints in damage. Since even low strength units can still cause
serious damage when attacking, getting rid of the enemy's low strength units is
a good thing, and rather than wasting one of your strong military units to
finish off a weak enemy, use one of your weak units, such as Villagers or
Architects or Priests, or even some low strength military unit of your own. In
one of the Greek campaigns, I actually killed *3 enemy units* with a unit of
my own that only had 1 hitpoint! The enemy never attacked my 1 hitpoint unit,
and every day for three days in a row, the enemy had a very weak unit that was
in range of my 1-hitpoint unit.
5) Similarly, use weak units to just "take up space". Many times you can be
in a position where, for example, your ranged units can be attacked by the
enemy because there is one path for the the enemy to run around your front and
barely get to them. To make this impossible for the enemy, take a weak unit,
like a Villagers, Architects, or Priests, and just move them next to the ranged
unit, blocking the enemy attack. (Of course, sometimes the enemy can kill that
weak unit first, *then* attack the ranged units that were "protected", but this
means the enemy must be able, and willing, to use *2* units to get to your
ranged unit.)
6) When attacking enemy ranged units, attack first with your non-ranged units,
then use a ranged unit for the kill. This way none of your units takes any
counterattack damage. When attacking enemy *non-ranged* units, attack first
with your ranged units, then use a non-ranged unit for the kill, once again
avoiding all counterattack damage.
7) Attack enemy units that are in the process of being trained on an enemy
building whenever possible. Such units are weak today, but will be at full
strength tomorrow if not killed. You get a good "bang for the buck" attacking
a training unit rather than attacking another unit and letting the training
unit get to full strength.
8) If you are in a position where you are defending against an enemy and trying
to avoid them getting through a chokepoint, try to pick the position your units
are in such that the enemy cannot get two attacks against any of your units
(except for ranged attacks, of course). For example, a straight line (not
a straight *diagonal* line) is good, since each one of your units in the line
can only be attacked by the one enemy unit across the line from it. A diagonal
line, on the other hand, is not ideal, since every one of your units has two
enemy that can attack it, with the possibility that that double attack will
kill your unit and the enemy can then move into the abandoned square. That
abandoned square in the diagonal line, moreover, is not attackable by either
of your neighboring units in the line; but if it were a straight line, when
the enemy moves into the abandoned square, he can be attacked from both of your
neighboring units *plus* from the next square back, giving a triple attack
against that square to try to get it back.
9) Watch the order you do things in on your buildings. For example, I have
been burned by saying "Ok, I need some Architects", so I train the Architects
on my Town Center, then when I need to Trade some food for gold later on the
same day, I cannot do that because my Town Center has been "blacked out".
Similarly with Shrines--do whatever you need to do on your Shrines (assuming
you have more than one), *then* age up. Since aging up "blacks out" *all* your
Shrines, you won't be able to do anything else with any of them after aging up.
10) When advancing in black map mode, advance with your farthest back units
first. As they move forward, more squares will become visible, and if these
squares contain enemies, you want to be able to attack them, which hopefully
you can, since you haven't yet moved your forward units.
11) The AI is often stupid in deciding where to send his units, sending them
first one way, then another. You can use this to your advantage--if he seems
to be sending a lot of units somewhere you don't want them, make trouble
elsewhere and he might just turn them around and run them back. In an ideal
world, you can keep him undecided, sending a good number of his troops back
and forth, not attacking anywhere.
12) Mills produce twice the income of Farms, but cost the same amount to build.
Therefore, it is the most cost effective to build additional Mills, rather than
to build Farms around your existing Mills. The same is true of Mines and Mine
Shafts, for the Egyptians.
13) You can locate enemy units in Forest squares by noting that the game will
not allow you to move to those squares. If you select a unit, the game will
show you all the squares that unit can move to. If a Forest square that you
should normally be able to move to is not shown as a possible place to move,
this means there is an enemy unit (or building) in that square. So you still
have to first have a unit next to the enemy to *officially* spot the unit,
but at least you know in advance which Forest square he is standing in. This
makes it easier to kill "hiding" units, but also can be a lifesaver in terms
of your decision of whether and how to attack. Imagine you have 3 units
against an enemy's 1 unit (that you can see). You can attack all out and kill
the enemy, so that would seem to be the best course. However, if you can tell,
using the trick I mentioned, that there are 3 enemy units hiding in the Forest
squares around you, you might be best served by retreating and hiding in Forest
squares yourself.
---------------------------------------------
Differences from Age of Empires: Age of Kings
---------------------------------------------
This section will list differences between this game and its predecessor:
Age of Empires: Age of Kings. In the below, I will abbreviate "Age of Empires:
Age of Kings" as "AoK", and this game, "Age of Empires: Mythologies" as "M".
NOTE WELL that I believe it can be useful to read this section even if you have
never played AoK, and have no intention to, because there is some information
about Age of Empires: Mythologies in this section that is not found elsewhere
in this guide.
I will list mainly differences that have to do with game play, not differences
in the overall descriptions of the games themselves. And I am by no means
going to list *all* the differences--there are very many.
---
Major differences:
- In AoK, there are Human units and Hero units, and neither has an attack bonus
when attacking the other. In M, there are Humans, Heroes, and Myth units,
where Humans get an attack bonus when attacking Heroes, Heroes get an attack
bonus when attacking Myth units, and Myth units get an attack bonus when
attacking Humans.
- In AoK, your unit cap is determined by the amount of daily income you have.
Most of the game, if you are not in the process of losing, you are at or near
your unit cap, and your top, or near top, priority is building more
Mines/Mills/Farms to produce more income, to consequently raise your unit cap.
If one player has twice the income, he will also be able to have twice the
number of units, in general. In M, your unit cap is determined by your age, and
the cap is pretty huge. You will very likely never come very near your unit cap
in any of the Campaigns. So a player with twice the income might be able to
*train* more units on a daily basis with the extra food/gold, but the player
with less can nonetheless field essentially the same size army.
- In AoK, there are Mines, Mills, and Farms. In M, there are the same Mines,
Mills, and Farms, but there are also Mine Shafts (Egyptians only), and the
Norse use Ox Carts instead of all of these.
- In AoK, units increase their stats by fighting in a certain number of
battles--most units get 1 "gold ribbon" after fighting 3 times, 2 ribbons after
fighting 6 times, and 3 ribbons after fighting 9 times, and each ribbon
upgrades the unit. In M, this concept does not exist.
- In AoK, Heroes can use their Powers every day, and they each have four
different Powers to choose from. In M, Heroes have only one Hero Power, which
can be used only once every some number of days (varies per Hero, but once
every 2, 3, or 4 days is pretty common).
- In AoK, the only two resources are food and gold. In M, there are three:
food, gold, and favor.
- In AoK, there are no Gods, and thus no God Powers. In M, there are both.
- In AoK, a unit does damage proportional to its current health. For example,
an attacking unit at 50% health will do damage approximately 50% of what it
will do at full health. A unit at low health, let's say less than 20%, was
somewhat useless in battle. Reducing an enemy unit to 5%, for example,
essentially removed it from the battle (other than the ability to take up space
and block a square). In M, Human attacking units do less damage when
wounded than when full strength, but the difference is much less. A unit at
50% health will do damage approximately 75% of what it will do at full
strength, and a unit at a measly 1% health will still do damage approximately
50% of its full strength damage! So very weak units can still do real damage.
And Myth units and Heroes seem to do full strength damage no matter how
wounded they are. So in M, it is much more important to actually kill an enemy
unit, rather than simply badly damaging it. I put this in the "Major
differences" list because this difference means my basic strategy for attacking
the enemy is different. In AoK, *in general*, I would attack as many of the
enemy as possible including especially the "dangerous" enemy--if I didn't kill
*any* of his units, but reduced them all to less than 50% health, I wouldn't
take much damage from their attack on their turn. *Very* often in AoK my
strategy in a major battle was to attack as many enemy as I could, each one
being attacked only *once*. In M, on the other hand, you really want to *kill*
enemy units, so I often find myself attacking a few of their units multiple
times to kill them, while ignoring other enemy units entirely. AoK: my 8
units attack 8 enemy units; M: my 8 units attack *and kill* 3 enemy units.
---
General:
- In AoK, in my opinion, there were relatively few glitches. In M, I believe
that there are many more, and they are more serious (see the "Glitches"
section for more information).
- In AoK, each Campaign had one or two required goals, tasks that *had* to be
done to complete the Campaign, and three optional goals. If you completed
zero of the optional goals, you would get no stars and a certain amount of
Empire points; if you completed one of the optional goals, you would get 1
star and more Empire points; two optional goals, 2 stars and more Empire
points; three optional goals, 3 stars and more Empire points. It was an
extra challenge, then, to complete all Campaigns with 3 stars. In M, there
are no optional goals, but it is possible to fight the Campaigns in either
Normal or Hard mode, so the extra challenge is to complete all Campaigns in
Hard mode.
---
Units:
- In AoK, all civilizations have the same basic military units. There is only
one unit type specific to each civilization, trainable only in Castles.
In M, civilizations have completely different military units. I believe the
only unit type that is common to more than one civilization in M are Priests.
- In AoK, there are many unit types that can be trained only at Markets, such
as Woad Raiders, Persian Elephants, Viking Berserkers, and Knights Templar.
In M, there is no such thing as a Market, and no "unusual" units can be built.
- In AoK, there are units that can be unlocked. In M, there aren't.
- In AoK, units normally change their name when aged up. Militia, the basic
Heavy Infantry unit in age 1, would become Men-at-Arms in age 2, Longswordsmen
in age 3, and Two-Handed Swords in age 4, with each change including an
upgrade in unit stats. In M, units stay the same name for the entire
game--for example, the only (Human) Heavy Infantry unit available to the
Egyptians are the Khepesh, in all ages. However, the units *do* upgrade their
stats when aged up.
- In AoK, Monks could Convert enemy units, causing those units to "change
sides" and become part of the same army as the Monks. In M, Priests, the
equivalent of Monks, cannot Convert enemy units.
- In AoK, age 4 Monks heal more damage, as a percent of the strength of the
healed unit, than age 3 Monks. In M, Priests heal the same amount of damage,
33% of the strength of the healed unit, no matter the age.
- In AoK, no units "automatically" heal. In M, Heroes heal 5% at the start
of every day.
---
Building:
- In AoK, Town Centers and Castles can be built on any square (with a few
restrictions; for example, no building in Swamps). In M, there are no Castles
and Town Centers can only be built on Settlement squares. Note that Obelisks
are the only buildings in M that can be built more or less anywhere, and these
can only be built by Egyptian Heroes.
- In AoK, *all* buildings are built by Villagers. In M, Villagers (Egyptians)
and Architects (Greek) still exist, and still build buildings. However there
are differences: 1) Egyptian Heroes can build Obelisks, Mines, Mine Shafts,
Mills, and Farms; 2) The Norse do not have the equivalent to Villagers, but
instead their Ulfsark (they are essentially Spearmen) are the ones to build all
Town Center buildings; and 3) The Norse cannot build Mines/Mills/Farms at all,
instead using Ox Carts on Food and Gold squares (see the "Resources" section
for more details).
- In AoK, there are no Mine Shafts. In M, the Egyptians can (and *must*, if
they want to produce income similar to a Greek-built Mine) build Mine Shafts on
the four squares adjacent to a Mine.
- In AoK, you can get yourself in trouble if you do not have a Mine, and have
very little gold, since it costs a lot of gold to build the Mine--you need a
Mine to produce gold, but you need gold to build a Mine! In M, building a Mine
is relatively cheap in gold, and more expensive in food.
- In AoK, you can only build Town Buildings adjacent to a Town Center; in the
squares diagonal to a Town Center, you can build Towers. In M, you can build
any Town Buildings, including Towers, in any of the squares adjacent to or
diagonal to a Town Center.
---
Attack/defense:
- In AoK, ranged units have a +1 to range if they are standing on a Hills or a
Mountains square, and a -1 to range if they are standing on a Forest or a
Swamp square. In M, ranged units have a +1 to range if they are standing on a
Hills square, they cannot move into a Mountains square, and there are no types
of squares that decrease range.
- In AoK, when you build a building on a square, the square retains its
effect on range--that is, building a Tower on a Hills square means that ranged
units standing in the Tower have a +1 to their range. In M, a building
nullifies any effect on range, so a Hills square goes from a +1 to range to
a +0 to range if it has a building built on it. (By the way, this might be
a glitch in M--I can see times when a ranged unit is on a Mine, for example,
and I hold down the B key on that unit, and it looks like I can attack 4
squares away with a ranged unit that normally has a range of 3, but then when
I actually try to do the attack, it will not allow the range 4 attack.)
- In AoK, when attacking a unit, the attack value of that unit is compared to
the defense value of the attacking unit to determine the amount of damage done.
For example, if the attack value was 100 and the defense value was 100, the
damage done was 50, meaning the defending unit lost 50% of its health. In M,
the defense value is actually a percentage, and that percentage of the attack
value is "deflected". For example, if the attack value is 60 and the defense
value is 40%, 40% of the 60 is deflected, resulting in a damage of 36 (60 -
40% of 60). (This is a simplification of the damage scheme in M--see the
"Attack Damage" section elsewhere in this guide for more information.)
- In AoK, there are no squares that decrease a unit's defense value. In M,
Road squares decrease a unit's defense value by 10%.
- In AoK, all ranged units can attack an adjacent square, although this means
they also will get counterattacked. Similarly, if they are attacked from an
adjacent square, ranged units will get a counterattack if they are not
killed--this means there is some reason to *not* attack a strong ranged unit
in AoK. In M, almost all ranged units cannot attack an adjacent square, and
make no counterattack when attacked from an adjacent square. The one exception
to this, I believe, are the Norse Throwing Axemen who are able to attack
adjacent squares.
- In AoK, certain ranged units, and all ranged Siege units, could not move
and attack in the same turn. In M, all units can move and attack in the same
turn.
- In AoK, certain Siege units could only attack buildings--that is, they could
not attack units. In M, all Siege units can attack units, albeit not usually
especially effectively.
- In AoK, buildings did not counterattack. In M, if you attack a building in a
non-ranged attack, your unit will incur some counterattack damage, so attacking
buildings is not "free".
---
Terrain/movement:
- In AoK, units can move into and through Mountain squares. In M, units
cannot.
- In AoK, there are Swamp squares, and a very interesting thing about Swamp
squares is that they cannot be entered by Cavalry or Seige units. In M,
there are no Swamp squares, and no similar concept of a square that cannot
be entered by some units.
- In AoK, Forest squares are harder to see into (they have a higher "sight"
value), but they can nonetheless be seen into if a unit is close enough (for
Scout Cavalry, "close enough" could be a fairly long distance away). In M,
Forest squares can *only* be seen into by a unit adjacent to the Forest square.
This makes Forest squares prime real estate for putting units you want to
ambush the enemy with, and can make units in Forest squares especially hard to
attack.
---
Research:
- In AoK, doing research is independent of buildings--that is, you can train
units on every building you own and still be able to do research on that day.
In M, you must do research at a specific building, and once you've done the
research at that building, you cannot do anything else with that building that
day.
- In AoK, research is relatively expensive--one day's research at a given age
costs *much* more than the cost of training an elite unit at that age. In M,
research is relatively cheap--research is almost always less expensive than
just about *any* unit (other than Villagers/Architects).
- In AoK, to do research that upgrades units' stats, you need to first build a
Blacksmith building around a Town Center, and the upgrade you get from such
research is specific to a given age. In M, there is no Blacksmith building,
and the upgrades due to research are not specific to a given age--they carry
over after an age up.
---
Income/resources:
- In AoK, when a Mill is destroyed, any surrounding Farms immediately produce
no income. If the Mill is then rebuilt, by any player, any surrounding Farms
immediately produce income for the new owner of the Mill. In M, Farms produce
income for the player that built them until the Farm is destroyed, no matter
what the state of the Mill is. Destroying an enemy Mill, then rebuilding it,
only produces income for you from the Mill--the Farms continue to produce
income for the enemy until you destroy and rebuild them.
- In AoK, the income from Mines/Mills/Farms/Town Centers is reduced if those
buildings are damaged--if a Farm is at 50% strength, it produces 50% of its
normal income. In M, the income from all buildings (and Ox Carts) is *not*
affected by those buildings (or Ox Carts) being at less than full strength.
So damaging an enemy Mine does you no good; you must destroy it to affect the
enemy's income.
- In AoK, Mills cost more than Farms, but produce the same income as Farms.
Given a choice between building Farms around an existing Mill or building a
new Mill, the Farms are a better investment. In M, Mills and Farms cost the
same to build, but Mills produce double the income. This disparity means that
when I am trying to win quickly, I often build *only* Mills, skipping the less
cost-effective Farms.
---
Aging up:
- In AoK, when you Age Up, it takes effect on the next day. In M, it takes
effect immediately.
- In AoK, when you Age Up, it does not affect what you can do that day. In M,
you can do nothing further at any of your Shrines that day.
- In AoK, you Age Up at your Town Center. In M, you Age Up at a Shrine.
--------
Glitches
--------
This section will list the glitches I have personally experienced in this game.
(If there are glitches that have been complained about many times on the
GameFAQs boards, I might mention those, even if they haven't happened to me.)
I will attempt to list them from most grievous to least grievous.
- The AI is able to build/train many more things than he should be able to,
given his income. In many of the Campaigns, he is able to build many units
per day on a small income, while you are only able to build maybe 2 units per
day on a larger income. This is pretty frustrating. It also means that it is
not worth your while to destroy his income sources (Mines/Mills/Farms/Ox
Carts).
- The AI can be really, really stupid when playing the Norse. For example, on
the third Egyptian Scenario, the AI plays both a Greek player and a Norse
player. The Greek player plays as expected--building varied buildings, aging
up, and so on. The Norse player builds a few Barracks and/or Stables, never
builds a Shrine, and so stays Age 1 the entire Scenario. I have seen others
mention this stupidity when the AI is the Norse in Skirmish mode as well. This
makes it easy to win, but pretty boring as well--it is not the least bit
challenging beating an age 1 opponent if you are age 3.
- The scoring on the Campaigns is very screwed up. The AI is sometimes able to
beat me in score, even if I have totally kicked his butt in the Campaign. An
example is Greek Campaign #7, where I essentially killed *all* of his training
units--he literally made almost no attacks the entire Campaign--yet he had a
higher score at the end than I did. This is so screwed up that I cannot
believe that the developers of this game could possibly have missed it.
- The Reliquary research at Pyramids/Palaces is supposed to increase the daily
income of favor at every Pyramid/Palace by 20, bringing it to 25 favor/day.
Instead it only increases it by 1, to 6 favor/day. (Did the people developing
this game never try that?)
- I am not sure whether it is a God Power or what, but I have seen a number of
times where I have destroyed an enemy building, moved a unit into that square
to attack an adjacent building, then when it gets back to my turn, my unit has
been moved out of the way and there is an Architect in the square building
another Town building.
- I have had a few cases where the game "froze"--all movement stopped on the
screen. I had to turn off and back on the game to recover.
- I have had a case where the game goes to a black screen, for example, after
the enemy's turn, and will not come back no matter how many buttons are pushed.
(No, the DS was *not* out of battery power!) When this happened, I restarted
the game, went back in to the last point I had saved, and when I got to the
same point in the game, it went black again.
- I have personally seen AI units make two moves in one day many times. I've
even seen an enemy Hero attack me twice in the same day!
- In Greek Campaign #5: Throne of the Dead, once you have controlled the 3
Temples for a turn, the "white curtains" are supposed to drop, allowing you to
finally go onto the enemy's island. However, I have had it happen that the
white curtains dropped, but the island could not be entered. If you Save,
Quit, and then reenter the Campaign, the glitch should go away. (I have also
heard that others have had the curtains not drop, and even that others have
seen the AI itself not be able to go through the curtains, and be stuck on his
island.)
- In Norse Scenario #2: Hawk's Eye, if you use the Fimbulwinter God Power, the
game will freeze when the God Power is finished (3 days after use). This is
because the enemy has no Town Center.
- Holding down the B button when a unit is highlighted will show in red all the
squares a unit can attack--that is, given all possible moves the unit can make,
all the possible squares that could be attacked after some move. However, I
have seen cases where this is not accurate. This is especially true for ranged
units. I have seen cases where it was abundantly clear a ranged unit could
attack a given square, but that square was not red, and have seen cases where a
given square was red, but I analyzed the situation and could find no possible
way to attack that square.
- When the Norse Hero Narfi uses his God Power to summon a War Wolf, I have
seen the War Wolf be summoned on a River square, which should be impossible.
--------------
Myth unit list
--------------
I will list here all the Myth units in the game, and which God they are
associated with. Thanks go out to snakeman_12--I got these lists from posts
made by him on the GameFAQs boards. (As with everything in this FAQ, please
let me know if I've gotten something wrong!)
(In the below, A->B means that God A allows training of Myth unit B.)
Egyptian:
---------
Ra -> None
Isis -> None
Set -> Hyena
Bast -> Sphinx
Horus -> Avenger
Hathor -> Roc
Sobek -> Petsuchos
Osiris -> Mummy
Sekhment -> Scarab
Thoth -> Phoenix
Anubis -> Anubite
(Missing: Scorpion Man)
Greek:
------
Zeus -> None
Hades -> None
Poseidon -> Pegasus
Hera -> Medusa
Athena -> Chimera
Hermes -> Centaur
Aphrodite -> Nemean Lion/(Cursed Pig God Power)
Apollo -> Harpy
Ares -> Minotaur
Nyx -> Shade
Hephaestus -> Cyclops
(Missing: Lamia Warrior)
Norse:
------
Thor -> None
Loki -> None
Odin -> Huginn
Freyja -> Valkyrie
Heimdall -> Einherjar
Njord -> Mountain Giant/(Walking Woods God Power)
Forseti -> Battle Boar
Baldr -> Troll
Skadi -> Frost Giant
Hel -> Fire Giant/(Nidhogg God Power)
Tyr -> Fenrir Wolf
Hero Narfi -> War Wolf
(Missing: Nibelung Warrior)
There seems to be some agreement that the myth units listed as "Missing" above
cannot be trained, no matter which Gods you choose. These units appear in
Campaigns/Scenarios, but are not available in Skirmish mode.
---------------------
Campaign walkthroughs
---------------------
General notes:
1) I am not going to write walkthroughs that are unit-by-unit, day-by-day,
plans for exactly how to win a Campaign. Some of my walkthroughs *are* fairly
specific on what to do for the first few days, but in general, other than day
1, what you do always depends on what the enemy does. You need to be flexible
and react to the actual state of your Campaign, not just follow some
walkthrough to the letter. This game is complex enough that the walkthroughs
must tend to be general guides to the Campaign.
2) Reading my walkthroughs might get boring, and you might want to fight the
Campaigns a different way. However, one reason why I wrote my walkthroughs
with as much detail as I did was to help readers learn from my thoughts. I
doubt if I'm the best player of this game, but I believe that I am very good
at it, based on my experience of GameFAQs board comments, both for this game
and for Age of Empires: Age of Kings (for example, I'll see many people asking
for help on some Campaign/Mission, then see the people giving the help even
saying it took them a number of tries to succeed, all on a Campaign that I won
easily on my first try). So maybe looking at the choices I made can help you
become a better player. And feel free to let me know if you think my choices
are non-ideal--I'd be interested in hearing of ways for me to become a better
player as well.
3) My walkthroughs are usually not written as what I believe is the optimal way
to win the Campaign, against a really high quality opponent. Instead, they are
usually written as the best way to win the Campaign *quickly* against the AI,
who is often not a very high quality opponent. For example, if I was fighting
against a human, in some of the Campaigns I would build more (sometimes many
more) Mines/Mills/Farms to establish a strong economic base--against the AI,
however, I often want to sacrifice long-term income for short-term military
strength.
--------
Egyptian
--------
Egyptian Campaign 1: Border Skirmish
Attack the closest enemy Camelry on the left, with your left Spearmen and
either of your Camelry. This will eliminate the enemy unit and you can attack
the enemy's second Camelry on the left with *your* second Camelry. (Note: In
Hard mode, the first Camelry will not be eliminated by your two attacks, so you
will not be able to attack the second Camelry on day 1.) Position your
remaining (two in Normal mode, three in Hard mode) units on the left side of
the map so that they cannot be attacked by any of the enemy units (see the
"Movement" section for how to determine this). On the enemy's turn, the enemy
units from the right side of the map will likely move within attack range, so
attack everything you can. Ideally, you can attack their Slingers with your
Khepesh for a 1-hit kill, but if this is not possible, attack them with a
Camelry, not with a Spearmen, who should be attacking Camelry. Try to attack
with every one of your units every day after Day 1 and you should have no
problem eliminating all their units.
My result:
Normal: 2 days
Hard: 3 days
----
Egyptian Campaign 2: Portents
First move Thutmose closer to the enemy and use his Hero Power--this will make
it such that every one of your units can attack an appropriate enemy. Have
your Slingers stay back and attack the closest Anubites, both Khepesh attack
the other two Anubites, the Spearmen and one of your Camelry kill an enemy
Camelry, and your second Camelry can attack the Khepesh. (Note: Once again, in
Hard mode, you will not kill the Camelry, so your second Camelry can instead
attack the enemy's second Camelry.) So after day 1, you've seriously wounded
the enemy. Days 2 and 3 are then pretty easy--just make sure you're attacking
in a way you have an advantage: Thutmose vs. Anubites, Khepesh vs. Anubites,
Spearmen vs. Camelry, Camelry vs. Khepesh or Camelry, and Slingers vs.
Anubites. And keep your Slingers out of reach of all enemy units.
My result:
Normal: 3 days
Hard: 3 days
----
Egyptian Campaign 3: Hero's Welcome
The very easy (and boring) way to win this one is to essentially just stay in
place and wait for the enemy to come to you. You can then wipe them out with
all your ranged units. Use Thutmose to build an Obelisk on the square just
across the bridge, move one of your Slingers into the hills to attack the
Spearmen now visible, move your Chariot Archers to the bridge to finish off
that Spearmen, then use your other Slingers and your hero Hatshepsut to kill
the other Spearmen now visible. From here it is a cakewalk, while you keep an
infantry unit in the Obelisk and pound any units that arrive with your ranged
units, who can control the approach to the Obelisk by occupying the bridge and
the hills to the south of the approach. When Anubites arrive, make sure to hit
them with Hatshepsut--she will 1-hit kill them (in Hard mode, she will only
hurt them really bad). The enemy has one Slingers unit, and if used
intelligently, it can be bad news for you: if it moves to the Forest square on
the eastern edge of the map, just east of the hills your ranged units are in,
it can attack one of the hills squares without you being able to attack back.
Luckily, the AI is not usually that smart, even in Hard mode, so it will
likely just waltz up to the Obelisk and wait to be destroyed. Remember when
shooting at the enemy Slingers to shoot from 4 squares away (a Slinger in
hills, or Hatshepsut) so that the Slingers cannot counterattack.
The aggressive, quicker, effective, and more fun way to win this campaign is to
attack. As with Campaign 2, move Thutmose toward the enemy (into the Forest
square on the other side of the bridge is a good spot), then use his Hero
Power. Now start attacking with all your units. By moving Thutmose across the
bridge, you should now be able to see at least one enemy. Attack that enemy (a
Spearmen) first with a Slinger, then with a Khepesh. Now you should be able to
see other enemies. Try to kill all you can, while leaving your units in a
position that none of your ranged units can be attacked on the enemy's turn.
You should be able to kill all but one enemy unit in sight, and that one should
be out of your range to attack, but also out of range to attack your ranged
units on his turn. As the enemy moves toward you, continue to attack all out.
The enemy Spearmen can be killed with one attack from an ranged unit and one
attack with either a Khepesh, Spearmen, or Thutmose. As above, if there are
any enemy Anubites in sight, try hard to use Hatshepsut to attack them.
Remember to keep your ranged units out of attack range of whatever units you
cannot kill.
My result:
Normal: 4 days
Hard: 5 days
----
Egyptian Campaign 4: Rebuilding
The first campaign where you have to build your resources! The first day,
build a Mill on the Food square and a Mine on the Gold square. The next three
days, build a Farm adjacent to the Mill and a Mine Shaft adjacent to the Mine.
Make sure to research every day for the first four days. Research Blacksmith
at your Town Center one of the days, and on that day, use your God Power
Egyptian (Prosperity) at your Shrine.
What to do with your non-villagers during this time? You can just hang out and
wait for your eventual assault, or if you're more aggressive, move toward the
enemy and he'll come to you to be attacked. You don't have, and would have a
hard time training, a sufficient army to take on all the enemies until you have
aged up, so only attack the units that come to attack you (although they won't
come at all if you don't move their way a little). Note that the enemy units
on this one pretty much stay put until you move near enough to them, so you do
not have to worry about them all-out attacking you.
On day 1, both heroes should build an Obelisk in any case. Later days that the
heroes aren't doing anything, they should also build an Obelisk. The Obelisks
increase favor, which will help you build sufficient myth units once you've
aged up. You cannot build more than 5 Obelisks total. Hatshepsut should also
use her Hero Power some turn, to increase income.
On day 5, you should be able to age up at your shrine. Which minor god to
choose is personal preference. I don't think any of them is a bad choice
(although I think the Tornado God Power of Horus is not a good idea to use)--my
choice was Bast, to get the Sphinx myth units.
Start building up an army. This will likely include building more buildings
(build another shrine to increase favor and to make it such that you can build
two myth units in one day, build a stable if you'd like to train Camelry, and
build an Archery Range to train Slingers). Once your army is ready, use
Thutmose's Hero Power to get them all up to the front. If you have built a
sufficient army (there is no hurry, remember), you should be able to wipe out
the enemy fairly easily. Keep Hatshepsut protected, and use her and Thutmose
against enemy myth units whenever possible.
(NOTE: I'm guessing that one of the subjects where you would get the most
disagreement is: what to build when. I believe that you will pretty much
always want to build resources as soon as possible, so building the
mines/mills/farms/mine shafts quickly is a no-brainer. But should you also
build more buildings, such as an Archery Range? And what about training
additional Villagers, to speed up the time it takes to build all the farms
and mine shafts? Different people will have different answers to these
questions. In this case, since you pretty much have to wait to age up before
really going on the offensive, and you can't age up until day 5 at the
earliest, my preference was to not train any additional villagers, and not
build any buildings until I'd aged up. I wanted to age up as quickly as
possible, and building additional buildings and training units in those
buildings would probably make it such that I couldn't age up on day 5, due to
insufficient food or gold.)
My result:
Normal: 10 days
Hard: 9 days (the enemy being more aggressive made it more painful, but also
allowed me to finish them off a day quicker than in Normal
mode)
----
Egyptian Campaign 5: Expansion
This is an exercise in using Hero and God Powers effectively. If you use them
well, you can win this campaign without the enemy even getting going. If you
don't, you'll let the enemy seriously wound your efforts with his God Power,
and also let the enemy build his forces.
On day 1, you must use your Eclipse God Power. This will prevent the enemy
from using his Plague of Locusts God Power on his turn, which destroys all your
farms and causes your food income to go to 0 for three days.
On day 1, you should use Hatshepsut's Hero Power to protect your farms and
mines from attack, since there is no real way to stop the enemy from attacking
on his day 1.
On day 2, you should use Thutmose's Hero Power. On day 1, move all the forces
you have in the North toward the enemy Town Center. But make sure that no
units can be attacked by the enemy Anubites, other than your Sphinx (the
Anubites cannot effectively attack the Sphinx, so won't). Putting the Sphinx
in range of the Anubites, but blocking the Anubites from getting to your other
units is key in that on day 2, after Thutmose uses his Hero Power to increase
all your units movement, you can kill all units in the enemy Town Center
complex except one Villagers. That is, with an intelligent movement forward,
including using your two Khepesh to take out the Anubites, and Hatshepsut to
take out the farthest away training Camelry, you can kill every unit the enemy
has in that area except one Villagers. At this point, the enemy in that area
is basically done--he will train new units, but you can easily destroy them
while they are training. Try to use the Sphinx to destroy a building every
turn--it will 1-hit kill any building (except maybe a full-strength Town
Center). Just have some unit of yours kill a training unit, then have the
Sphinx destroy the building underneath. It is only a matter of time before
you'll have destroyed all the buildings and units in this area.
The Western area, near your farms and mines, is more difficult. But since you
don't need any help in the East, it is not that important that you develop lots
of food and gold resources. You just need to kill their units. First, block
the Southern Scarab by moving your Khepesh in front of it, attacking the
neighboring Spearmen at the same time. That Scarab will stay blocked until
killed. Attack the Western Scarab with Thutmose, and block that Scarab from
going South or East with Thutmose and one of your Spearmen. Block the Eastern
Scarab from going South with your last Spearmen. Train Khepesh, Slingers, and
Villagers in your Southern Town Center area on day 1. Days 2 and on, attack
what you can and continue to block as much as possible. Due to lack of favor,
you won't be able to age up until day 3, but you should have enough food/gold
to research at your far north Barracks on day 1, build two Khepesh and two
Slingers in the South, and still age up on day 3 (the first thing you should
do on day 3 is to age up, to increase the power of all your units *before*
they start to attack on day 3). With the new units, you should have no trouble
killing all the Spearmen and Scarabs around your Town Center.
My result:
Normal: 5 days
Hard: 5 days
----
Egyptian Campaign 6: Trust
You have the enemy totally outclassed in this one. He mostly just trains Human
units, and you of course can only build Myth units. I pretty much only built
Sphinx units, and they 1-hit kill all Human units the enemy has. To beat this
one, just build 1 or 2 Sphinx units every day (as many as you can afford). I
think Mummies would probably work as well, but the main advantage of Mummies
over Sphinx is that they have more hitpoints and a higher defense, which are
not needed against an inferior force. The Sphinx have a higher attack, and
more movement, which are quite useful here.
On day 1, have both your heroes build Obelisks. These increase your favor,
and with you building only Myth units, favor is important. I also researched
the Anubis research that increases your daily favor by 10%, although it might
be arguable whether it is worth it, since you're giving up the favor to do the
research early, and getting the benefit later, when getting units early is
useful and getting units later (when you're in total control) isn't. Most of
the other research is only useful for Humans, and you don't have any.
It looked like the South was the vulnerable part, so Thutmose built an Obelisk
there on day 1, just South of my Southeast Shrine, then I trained a Sphinx on
that Shrine. As it turns out, I was right, since there are a Barracks, Stable,
and Archery Range within sight, and each building trains a unit on day 1.
Using the Sphinx to destroy the Western Tower near these buildings, Thutmose to
kill the training Khepesh, and Hatshepsut to kill the training Stingers, you
can kill all but the training Camelry. This is a good start. With new Sphinx
every day and no Sphinx ever dying, just keep attacking and you can't lose.
The official goal of this game is to live to day 15, but it is actually fairly
easy to wipe out the enemy prior to that (the game will still make you hit End
Day until Day 15 comes around). I killed all the enemy units, and all its
unit-producing buildings on day 9 in Normal mode and day 10 in Hard mode.
If you don't try to annihilate the enemy, but simply try to hold on, this is
really easy. Four of the five areas the enemy comes from have
one-square-wide chokepoints--just put a Sphinx or Mummy in the chokepoint and
you're done, since the enemy can't really hurt them.
My result:
Normal: 15 days (all enemy gone on day 9)
Hard: 15 days (all enemy gone on day 10)
----
Egyptian Campaign 7: Exodus
There are two main ways that this campaign can be fought: 1) head back toward
your Town Center and defend at the 3-square-wide choke point just South of the
Town Center, or 2) take on the enemy right away, build a mill on the food
square in that area on day 1, then try to hold on against the onslaught. I
will discuss both.
---
1) Head back toward your Town Center and defend
This is the easiest way to win this one, since for the most part, the enemy
dutifully comes to you to be killed.
With extra special care, you can actually build your Town Center *and* build
both a Mill and a Mine on day 1. Move Thutmose back and use his Hero Power to
increase all unit's move. Move Khepesh one square to the West and one square
to the East of the Settlement to be able to see the Food and Gold squares.
This isn't sufficient, however, as your Villagers can't quite get to all three
squares (the Settlement, Food square, and Gold Square). Here you can use a
helpful trick--a building counts only two movement points, *even if it is still
in the process of being built*. So first send Ramesses to build an Obelisk on
the square just North of the Northernmost Villager--this means that your
Villagers can now move through this square at a cost of only 2 instead of 3,
which is just enough to get the Westernmost Villagers to the Food square. None
of them can yet get to the Gold square, however. So send the Easternmost
Villagers to build the Town Center. Now *that* square counts only two
movement points as well, and with the aid of these two buildings, the last
Villagers can make it all the way to the Gold square to build a mine. A good
start to the Campaign.
Use Hatshepsut to build another Obelisk two squares West and one square
South of the first Obelisk. These give useful favor, but especially help with
your defense. A good defense line is to keep a unit in each Obelisk, a unit
in the Forest just South of the Western Obelisk, and a unit just West of the
Eastern Obelisk. Put a Khepesh in the Forest, and Thutmose and your two
Chariots in the other three squares. The enemy doesn't really have anything
that can effectively attack the Chariots, and has a hard time attacking the
Khepesh, since it is hidden in the Forest.
As the enemy units arrive, attack them with your three Ranged units first, then
with your other units. Concentrate on getting rid of the unit next to the
Khepesh in the Forest--if you kill this unit, the Khepesh cannot be attacked
the next turn (until the enemy shows up with some Chariot Archers later). Move
Khepesh in to take spots if your Chariots get too damaged, but watch out--the
Khepesh can be 1-hit killed by the Scorpion Man, and are seriously damaged by
Chariots. Make sure to always leave yourself in a good defensive position at
the end of every turn. Thutmose can take a lot of damage, so can be used to
hold positions when necessary. And it can really help, once your Villagers
have finished their building, to put a Villager in front of your units to slow
down the enemy--they are cheap to build and in fact, are *not* 1-hit killed
by enemy Chariots.
I built one Shrine right away, to start to do research to age up, and built
a Barracks later to train Spearmen to fight the enemy Chariots. But I don't
think it really matters that much what you train--you can actually defend your
position with no additional units, so any additional units are gravy.
Don't give up defending your position to do it, but try to age up as soon as
possible. Once you've aged up, you pretty much outclass the enemy and can
start to move forward. In fact, I was moving forward fast enough that the
units I was training at my Town Center couldn't even catch up!
Use the Glorious Rain God Power once you have enough Mills/Farms for it to
make a good difference. Use the Book of Thoth God Power so that you can use
Glorious Rain again. And try to use Hatshepsut's Hero Power when possible to
also increase your food income.
---
2) Attack immediately and try to hold off the enemy there
This is challenging, but doable. I ended up winning the campaign with my
original units plus the (one) Phoenix. I lost one Khepesh and two Villagers
(when I used them as shields to attempt to protect my military units). I
probably erred because it took me a good while to age up, and so I could only
build the Phoenix and not any other Myth units. I was instead concentrating
on building Mills/Farms/Mines/Mine Shafts, which was probably a good idea,
but I'm wondering whether I should have concentrated more on aging up earlier.
So here is how this option goes. Attack all you can on the first day.
Concentrate on killing the Eastern Scorpion Man, so that your Villagers can get
to the Food square and build a Mill. Protect the Villagers with your two
Chariots--move them to the West and South of the Food square, attacking and
killing the Scorpion Man there. With careful work, you should be able to kill
all four Scorpion Mans and Setekh in the first two days. So far so good. Then
things get a lot harder.
I got overconfident and moved forward attacking all the units that arrived,
reaching the East/West line where the Gold square is. The enemy units are just
too much, however, so I had to use Thutmose's Hero Power to increase all the
units move and get them back to my Mill/Farms/Obelisks to heal. It is probably
a better idea to build as many Obelisks as possible in the area, train a Priest
at your Shrine (you'll have to do a research to be able to train Priests in age
2), and just try to hold your ground around your Mill/Farm/Obelisk complex.
As always, be very careful on who attacks whom. It would probably be useful to
send some Spearmen up to the front, since the enemy has a lot of Chariots, and
they are hard to fight with the units you've started with, but building a
Barracks and then training Spearmen uses up very valuable food/gold, so I'm not
sure it is worth it.
My defensive line included an Obelisk to the South of the Southern farm, and
an Obelisk to the West of the Western farm. Make sure to keep the enemy from
flanking you by going around the West side of your defenses and attacking from
the West.
As with option 1 above, use the Glorious Rain God Power early, then recharge
it with the Book of Thoth God Power and use Glorious Rain again. This God
Power not only increases your food income, but also decreases the enemy
movement values, so that they will arrive to attack you a bit slower.
And as above, once you've aged up, you can start to move forward. As I said, I
chose to spend money only on resources, a Phoenix, and a Priests, and any money
I spent afterward on units were on units that never caught up with my advance,
and so didn't get into battle.
My result:
Normal: 16 days (using option #1 above)
Hard: 18 days (using option #2 above)
----
Egyptian Campaign 8: Valley of Shadows
This is clearly the hardest campaign so far, and is quite complex. I don't
think it is feasible to write a clean walkthrough for a complicated campaign
like this. You have to roll with what the AI throws at you and be flexible.
And be patient--the enemy is strong enough here that I don't think an all-out
attack would work.
That said, here is my best shot at a walkthrough.
Early game: Build a Shrine at your main Town Center. Strive to control the
Southwest, especially the farms. I personally thought it was worth sending
one of my heroes (Hatshepsut) to the West to accomplish this. You want to try
hard to ensure that those farms in the West start producing food as soon as
possible, and continue to produce food the whole game (other than when the AI
uses the Plague of Locusts God Power on you and destroys them all in one fell
swoop). Secondarily, when you can safely do it, build the Mine and Mine Shafts
on the Gold square a bit to the North and East of your original Town Center
(remember that you can use your Heroes to help, since Egyptian heroes can build
Mills/Farms/Mines/Mine Shafts). Also remember to use your heroes to build
some Obelisks (a good place is near that Mine), to give you a place to heal
and to add favor.
I'd say you probably want to build a second Shrine when possible.
One time I played, I built a Town Center in the west when it was possible; the
other time, I never did build it, having better things to do with my money
(aging up, for the most part). The time I *didn't* build it, I won
faster--Town Centers are really expensive compared to everything else.
Middle game: Try hard to make sure no enemies bother your farms in the West,
and move up through the mountain pass in the West as you can, taking out the
two enemy buildings when possible. I found that once I could get my units to
emerge from the Northern end of this pass, this was the beginning of the end
for the enemy, since the enemy had to divert some of the units that would have
normally been fighting in the middle of the map, and that made my efforts in
the middle of the map work better. So it is ironic--the Western area would
seem to be the key to this campaign: controlling all that food resource and
attacking out of the top of the mountain pass are maybe the two most important
things. Yet it is hard to send a large body of troops that far, and the AI
does not seem to treat the area with a lot of urgency either. I have a feeling
that if I had sent more troops over there, he would have sent more as well.
(Maybe sending Thutmose that direction at the start would make sense? Then
try to fight off the enemy around your Northern Mine with troops trained at the
nearby Town Center?) (Or maybe building that second Town Center in the West
should be considered a priority, at the expense of possibly not aging up as
fast?) I think that to win this fast, don't build the Western Town Center due
to the high expense. But if you are having a hard time winning at all, maybe
the Western Town Center is a key.
The AI seems to do a dumb thing--he keeps changing his mind as to where to
send his troops. He'll send some troops down the Western pass, threatening to
storm through and wipe out my not-very-strong contingent over there (it is a
long way from the Town Center, so hard to reinforce). But then the next day,
he'll decide that he really needs those troops in the middle of the map, so
march them back up the Western pass. I think you can take advantage of this:
if you see some troops coming your way in an area you don't want them to be
in, make some trouble on the other front, and he'll turn them around. This is
a really stupid thing for the AI to do--you pick a direction to send your
troops and let them go there. Only a dire emergency should cause you to turn
around some troops getting to one front and head them back toward the other
front--a second front at least three days' march away!
My personal experience with the middle game, as far as the middle of the map
goes, was that the enemy and I traded control, with me having a good turn and
looking good for a day or two, then the enemy coming back with a vengeance and
pushing me back for a day or two. I think you need to be mindful of always
leaving yourself in a good position at the end of your turn. For example,
leaving a ranged unit within range of an infantry or cavalry unit is like
kissing that ranged unit goodbye. Once again, be patient. And remember:
the Mine complex, including hopefully some Obelisks in the area, makes for a
great place to retreat to to heal up. In both games I played, I had to do
this.
One time I played, I used Thutmose's Hero Power to get two strong infantry
units (Son of Osiris and Mummies) up the Eastern mountain pass to destroy
the two enemy buildings there. I think it is easier to deal with all the
troops in the middle of the map coming from his Town Center complex, rather
than having some extra troops coming from the Northeast.
End game: Eventually you should be able to build up sufficient units to take
control--especially when you can attack from the Northern end of the mountain
pass in the West *and* from your main Town Center. I can say that in one of
my games, what really turned the game around was one single turn when I used
Thutmose's Hero Power that gives extra move to every unit. That Hero Power
might not seem that useful in a tight Campaign like this, but when I used it,
it was fatal. I was able to attack almost every unit he had, and really turned
the game into a rout in one single turn.
General comments:
Use your God Powers. I used Glorious Rain early on to get extra food *and*
slow down the enemy. I added Thoth in a later age up and then was able to
do the Book of Thoth God Power and then do Glorious Rain again. This is
quite helpful in building up forces. The Son of Osiris God Power can be
useful, to turn the otherwise not especially useful Ramesses into a Heavy
Infantry killing machine. But the fact that Son of Osiris is a Hero and the
enemy builds mostly Human units, means that my supposedly invincible Son of
Osiris was very often pretty low on hit points. I mean, when you are pulling
your invincible unit off the line to run back and heal, he doesn't feel so
invincible anymore. The Eclipse God Power can be quite useful if you've
gotten far enough to build a fair number of Myth units, and if you're lucky,
you'll use it just before the enemy uses Plague of Locusts--the Eclipse power
doesn't allow any other God Powers for four days.
My experience was that the AI had what seemed to be infinite income. In one
game, I used the Plague of Locusts God Power *twice* (both times destroying
all his farms *and* forcing his food income to 0 for two turns), so he should
have really been hurting. He had only two Mills and one Mine to my three Mills
and two Mines, but yet had no trouble building units. And, for the first time
of any of the Egyptian campaigns, in Normal mode he actually beat me in Victory
Points (even though I won the campaign), mostly because he had a *huge* value
in the Wealth category. After the turn I mentioned above where I increased the
move of all my units and wiped him out, he built *13* units the next turn! 13
units would take at least 1000 food, 1000 gold, and 100 favor, I believe, and
at the time his daily income was quite small with only 1 Mine, 4 Mine shafts,
2 Mills, and maybe 5 Farms--this income would barely cover building 2 or 3
units. And then the next turn he built another 8 units! I *never* had enough
food/gold to build more than maybe 3 or 4 units in a single turn. So I guess
I'm wondering whether doing anything to limit his income, such as Plague of
Locusts, is worth your trouble. Hard to say. I *will* say, however, that
once you're starting to take control and head toward his Town Center, using
Plague of Locusts to get all those Farms out of the way makes the going much
easier.
I used Hatshepsut's Hero Power pretty much as often as possible (every 6 days).
Her power is to increase your income and protect your Mills/Farms/Mines/Mine
Shafts. I waited to use it the first time until the enemy was in a position to
harm my Mills/Farms/Mines/Mine Shafts and until I had built up some of the
Mills/Farms in the West. However, other days that the AI had an opportunity
to destroy Farms, he chose to attack somewhere else instead, so I'm not so sure
that the "protection" part of this Hero Power is as good as it might seem.
It is easy to say, and harder to do, but aging up is key. All your troops get
a boost, and you get another God Power. It is often hard to justify not
training any units in order to try to save up for aging up, but you really need
to do it. Hatshepsut's Hero Power can really help with the saving up, as can
the Glorious Rains God Power.
My result:
Normal: 28 days
Hard: 24 days (I was more experienced? Or Hard AI was too aggressive? Or
just lucky?)
-----
Greek
-----
Greek Campaign 1: Disruption
A set battle that pits 7 of you to 12 of them. Do this one wrong, and you can
end up right on the edge of winning. Do it right and it is pretty easy.
The first two days are very important. You should be able to get rid of the
five enemy units on your side of the river while taking somewhat minimal
losses. If you attack the Medusa on day 1 with your Myrmidon, you can still
have one of your units killed if the enemy decides to attack a Hoplites with
its Toxotes and the Medusa. And you leave your Myrmidons in range of two
Toxotes from the other side of the river.
So I prefer to leave the Medusa alone on day 1, but kill both Hoplites and the
closest Toxotes. To do this, move your Western Toxotes to the hills square
that allows them to attack the Northern enemy Hoplites, then attack that same
enemy unit with Perseus--one enemy down. Next, move your Southern Toxotes just
one square forward and attack the enemy Hoplites, following up this attack with
your two Northern Hoplites attacking the same unit--two down. Finally, attack
the nearby Toxotes with your Myrmidon and Southern Hoplites--three down, and
only one of your units is even slightly damaged. On the enemy's half of day
1, however, I believe they will kill a Hoplites by attacking it with both the
Toxotes and Medusa. As stated above, this is not avoidable no matter whether
you attack the Medusa on day 1 or not. In any case, after day 1, you have 6
units still alive, either all full health, or one with very slight damage.
On your day 2, attack the Medusa with Perseus, following that up with an attack
from one Toxotes--four down. And then take out the Toxotes with a combination
of your other four units (just remember to attack with your Toxotes only if you
won't be counterattacked). So your units take no further damage on day 2, and
all 5 nearby enemy are dead.
From here on, let the Hoplites come to you, for the most part. They will do
this quite well. Stay out of any of the squares attackable by the enemy's
Toxotes on the other side of the river. And guard your Toxotes at just about
all costs--they are very useful against the enemy Hoplites, and can be quite
damaged with any attack against them.
At the end, there will be 2-3 enemy Toxotes left on the other side of the
river. Whether it is pleasant or not, you have to just run after them, take
your lumps when they attack, then counterattack on your turn for the win.
My result:
Normal: 5 days
Hard: 6 days
----
Greek Campaign 2: Prophecy
Another set piece battle. On day 1, you can attack 5 of the enemy units, but
there are, I believe, only 3 of them that can be killed, so I concentrate on
that. I kill the Western Hoplites with a Toxotes, a Myrmidon, and Perseus
(with Perseus to the East of the Hoplites). I kill the Southern Hoplites with
a Toxotes, a Myrmidon, and a Hoplites. I kill the Kataskopos with a
Gastraphetes and a Hoplites. This leaves me with only my Kataskopos, which I
use to attack the Hippokon (although it doesn't do much damage, so maybe it
might be better to keep it in reserve?).
Perseus can get to and pick up the relic on day 1, but I feel it is more useful
to kill the Southern Hoplites than to pick up the relic. Same argument for why
I don't use Perseus' Hero Power against the Hippokon on day 1--I don't think
you can kill both Hoplites if you do this.
On day 2, I believe that Perseus will likely be able to reach an enemy
Gastraphetes; if he can, use his Hero Power on the Gastaphetes. In this way,
the Gastraphetes will be frozen for 3 days, which is plenty of time to allow
you to kill the rest of the enemy without being hassled by the Gastraphetes.
Another possibility, if the enemy goes after your Hoplites on day 1 and leaves
you unable to effectively fight the enemy Hippokon, is to use the Hero Power
on the Hippokon instead.
On days 2 and beyond, remember to keep your Archers as protected as possible
(ideally, they will never be in attack range of the enemy units), attack where
you have the advantage (especially try to use your Hoplites against the
Hippokon), keep units out of the road when possible (don't worry about putting
units in the road if it allows you to kill enemy units), and concentrate on
*killing* enemy units, not just wounding them. Try to attack with every unit
every turn, and try to *kill* at least 3 enemy per day. Personally, I am more
afraid of the enemy Archers than the enemy Hoplites, so I attack them more
aggressively.
My result:
Normal: 4 days
Hard: 5 days
----
Greek Campaign 3: Gateway
An exercise in Black Map. You can get yourself in trouble early if you leave
your units exposed to early attack. But if you hide in the Forest, things are
much less dangerous.
On day 1, attack both Towers with your Heroes, build a Mine and train some
Architects. On day 2, attack both Towers again (destroying the Tower attacked
by Perseus), run your Kataskopos through the hole and into a Forest square
(attacking a Shade if possible), build a Mill and a Shrine, and train some more
Architects. Note that one attack from a Shade on your Kataskopos will kill it,
so keep them hidden. On day 3, run Perseus over to destroy the other Tower,
then run Odysseus through and again, into a Forest square. About this time,
the enemy will show up with a lot of units. Attempting to attack them will
likely get your units either killed or very badly damaged. Better to retreat
back to, or behind, your Towers. Make sure to keep a unit in each Tower (even
an Architects) to prevent the enemy from destroying a Tower and rushing through.
After the initial large wave of enemy units, the number of arriving enemy
units shrinks significantly. Make it through the initial wave, then counter-
attack aggressively once you have sufficient units. It will be easy from
there.
Early on (day 4, 5, or 6), send an Architects to the Western bridge and
across. A good way to do it is to put the Architects in the Forest square on
your side closest to the bridge one day, then run them across the bridge and
as far as they can go toward the Southwest corner of the map the next day.
Due to Black Map, the enemy is unlikely to see them. Run them to the far
Southwest corner of the map, where there is a Gold square. About the time they
get there, you'll be able to send another Architects over the bridge again,
heading toward a Food square in the West. Send the Architects from the
Southwest Mine up to help build the Farms.
You've got sufficient research to age up, but lack food, gold, and favor.
Concentrate on building up your resources (Mine/Mill/Farms) before aging up.
It will probably be day 5 or 6 before you can age up, assuming you don't
train any units, which you don't really need that early.
When aging up, I chose Ares, to get the Minotaur. It is the only Heavy
Infantry Myth Unit, and I thought it was best to get Heavy Infantry, to be able
to destroy the enemy's Town Center buildings. The Earthquake God Power is
useful as well in destroying the enemy buildings and damaging the enemy units.
As soon as possible after building the initial Shrine, build an Archery
Range--Archers are key to help you get back out of your area. I fought this
entire Campaign with a few Chimera, lots of Minotaurs (after aging up), and
maybe 4 Gastraphetes.
My result:
Normal: 16 days
Hard: 16 days
----
Greek Campaign 4: Old Friends
This involves an entire campaign's worth of chokepoints. The bad news is that
you have to fight your way through all of them (probably). The good news is
that is it hard to lose this campaign, since the enemy has to fight through
chokepoints as well.
You start the campaign against enemy Archers, and you will need Archers to help
get through the chokepoints, so this campaign is a good one to help teach you
the utility of Archers.
At the start, the enemy has a number of Archers in the vicinity of your troops.
This is good news, as Archers are not effective at launching offensives--that
is, they can damage an enemy, often badly, but have a hard time taking ground
away from the enemy by themselves. You need to break through to them *before*
other support troops arrive. Therefore, on day 1, have Herakles attack one of
the Towers while Perseus attacks the other. Odysseus can kill the Shade, and
your Kataskopos can just hang out, with nothing to do. Ideally, it would
probably make sense to put Perseus on the road and Herakles just to the East,
since Herakles is so vulnerable to Archers (being Light Infantry). You attack
both Towers since that way the enemy will have to move Archers into both Towers
to prevent you from destroying one of the Towers. In my case, they only moved
Archers into one Tower, so I destroyed the other (two hits from either Perseus
or Herakles destroy these towers) and shot through to attack everything I
could. I think this might be a good time to use Perseus' Hero Powers, to
freeze an enemy Toxotes that you can then destroy any time you'd like in the
next three days. You want to get up to the enemy's
Archery Range/Tower/Mill/Farms area as soon as possible.
On day 1, I trained some Myrmidon, researched a Shrine research, and built a
Mill. On day 2, I researched Market and built a Farm. On day 3, then, you can
age up. This means you age up quickly, but don't get many units to the front,
since you've only built one Myrmidon, and probably won't be able to build a
second unit until probably day 4. If it proves too difficult to support the
front with this strategy, take another day or two to age up and train some
extra troops on day 1 or 2.
When aging up, you can make your own choice on which Minor God to add. I
selected Hephaestus, for his Plenty God Power--this map has very few
resources for you to start with, so the Plenty power really helps. The
corresponding Myth unit, the Cyclops, I did not build any of until much later,
after my next age up.
The second time I aged up, I chose Apollo, for his Underworld Passage God
Power. I used this to make a tunnel from right next to my Town Center to
just over the Ocean to the North. The same day I aged up, I build a Cyclops.
Every day thereafter, I built a Cyclops and moved it through the passage.
An army of Cyclops makes quick work of the enemy Town Center complex. When I
played, I was usually getting near the Town Center complex on the North side
with the rest of my troops about the same time I was getting my Cyclops to it
from the South, so the enemy could not concentrate on my Cyclops. On
this map, the Underworld Passage is so useful that you might even decide it is
worth it for your first age up. I decided that it wasn't that useful to have
the passage if I didn't have enough food/gold to build sufficient units to take
advantage of it.
As I said above, Archers are key in this. Build an Archery Range and start
training Gastraphetes. I think you should train 4 of them (more is probably not
bad, but it is more important to also train some Chimera and Myrmidon). Once
you've got 2 or 3 Gastraphetes up to the front, you start to take control.
I think probably the key square on the whole map in this campaign is the enemy
Farm two squares East and one square South of his Archery Range. Once you've
destroyed that square, you can move into it and to the square to the North of
it, thus denying him the ability to move into his Mill/Farms. You then have
a double attack on the Tower square (in addition to any Archers you can get to
fire on them).
I think the best time to use the Bolt God Power is in the Archery Range area,
since it can get very congested. Wait for a turn where you're set up to break
through that chokepoint, if only his units were gone, and *poof*, use your
God Power and they *are* gone. With the Restoration God Power, one time I was
playing I used it perfectly--the day after the enemy used his Earthquake God
Power. He damaged all of my units, then after Restoration, all but two of my
units were back to full strength. Another time I played, in Hard mode, I used
Restoration at a point where I was trying to get past the chokepoint in the
Northwest and most of my units were damaged, some fairly badly. My other two
God Powers were Plenty and Underworld Passage, which you should use the very
next day after aging up (especially Plenty).
Once you've gotten past the Archery Range chokepoint, the rest is pretty easy.
You should have sufficient units, and sufficient Archers, to gain ground every
day, and the enemy only reinforces the front with 2 or 3 units a day. The
other chokepoints can be a pain, but with care you can get through them fairly
quickly.
This is the campaign in which I noticed the biggest difference between Normal
and Hard mode. In Hard mode, you cannot get through the initial enemy Towers
in only 2 attacks, *and* the enemy Archers are more likely to get into the
Towers. This means that the enemy can possibly arrive with his non-Archers
before you manage to get past the first Towers, making life much more
difficult. Still, with perseverence and reinforcements, you can eventually
break down his defenses and move through. In Hard mode, it might make sense to
wait to age up until day 4 or 5 in order to train units to help on the front.
In that case, build an Archery Range and train some Gastraphetes. But don't
wait too long to age up--you really need that power-boost to all your units to
help you deal with the enemy.
My result:
Normal: 20 days
Hard: 22 days
----
Greek Campaign 5: Throne of the Dead
This is an exercise in defending and building resources, until you build up an
army large enough to attack. Or at least that's how I fought it.
The enemy is on an island in the middle of the map that you will not be able to
go onto until you have Captured all three Temples with your Heroes. The enemy,
however, *can* leave the island and harrass you quite badly. One possible way
to play this, then, is to try to Capture the Temples as quickly as possible
(I think you could probably do it by around day 8 or 9, with Odysseus),
then slowly enter and kill everything on the island. I don't really like this
strategy, since I prefer to build a strong force before attempting to enter
the enemy stronghold. He quite frequently trains at least 4 units per day, and
if you haven't built up sufficient resources, you will have a hard time
training even 2 units per day.
Note that there is a known glitch in this Campaign, where even after Capturing
the 3 Temples, you still cannot enter the middle island. This is usually fixed
by doing a Save, then a Quit, and finally reentering the Campaign.
I have a slick way to win this campaign quickly and effectively. Essentially,
you use Hero Powers to get chokepoints on both bridges, then use the Ceasefire
God Power to enable you to build your resources, and to build your units up
enough to defend the bridges. In this way, you never allow the AI to leave his
island to get out and harrass you, and safely build lots of resources to boot.
On day 1, move Odysseus as far as you can to the North and West, toward the
Northern bridge. Have the Northern Hoplites follow. Move Herakles and a
Hoplites toward the Minotaur, have both Architects build Shrines where they
stand, and research Lightning March. On day 2, use Odysseus' Hero Power to get
all the way to the square just to the North of the Northern bridge and attack
the adjacent Mine, while moving the Hoplites that direction. Herakles kills
the Minotaur and the Hoplites move through the Temple to attack the Farm on the
other side. Perseus moves to block the exit of the Eastern bridge, and the
two architects move--one toward the Gold square just to the North of the
island, and one toward the Food square just to the South. Research
Marketplace at your Town Center. I also use the Bolt God Power to kill the
enemy's training Archers and Catapults--those two can wreak too much havoc,
and can ruin my plan to prevent the enemy from getting off the island--by
aiming the Bolt at the unit in the corner Shrine between them. The
enemy does not seem to want to attack Odysseus, but will attack Perseus. On
day 3, first age up and choose Hermes, to get the Ceasefire God Power. Use
Perseus' Hero Power to freeze the unit that attacked him and have Odysseus and
the arriving Hoplites attack the adjacent Mine. Herakles should Capture the
Temple and the Hoplites near him should kill the Farm (in Hard mode, the Farm
won't be dead). The Architects can move closer, if you'd like, to the Gold and
Food squares, but don't go there yet and make sure you're not in range of the
Archers on the island.
And finally sweet day 4, where our plans come to fruition. Finish killing the
Mine next to Odysseus (in Hard mode, you'll probably have to run the Hoplites
near Herakles over to help, after Herakles runs around the long way to finish
killing the Farm), have Perseus attack the frozen unit, have Herakles (in
Normal mode) attack a Farm or Mill, and *then*, once all your attacks are done,
use the Ceasefire God Power. Now run your Architects up to build the Mill and
Mine. You can build all you want with no risk of being attacked during days
4-6, and only have to continue to leave a unit in front of the two bridges to
keep the AI on his island. In fact, the AI doesn't even seem to train many
units during the Ceasefire! You, on the other hand, want to train the units
you will use to continue to keep the AI on his island, so on day 4, build a
Chimera that you will run Northwest to put in front of the Northern bridge.
Eventually, you want two Chimeras at each bridge, with a Priests and a set of
3-4 Centaurs that run around in the hills to the North of the island,
attacking any enemy Archers that come in range, as well as attacking other
units. Since you have 3 Shrines and a Temple, your favor per day is pretty
good, so you should be able to build at least a Chimera or Centaur every day,
and sometimes, build 2.
On day 5, the Architects that built the Mine can run West to the Gold square
adjacent to Odysseus (where the enemy mine used to be) and build *another*
mine. The Architects that built the Mill can build Farms on days 5 and 6. So
by the end of day 6, you have 3 Mines, 2 Mills, and 6 Farms, producing a
comfortable income.
Also use days 4-6 to heal any units that were damaged (probably the Hoplites
near Odysseus were badly damaged by enemy Archers--run them to the first Mine
your Architects built, to heal) by moving them to buildings--remember, you're
in a Ceasefire, so you can put them wherever is convenient as long as you're
ready to attack again on day 7. Just don't make a mistake and leave the square
blocking the exit to either bridge empty! The enemy could then move through
and mess up the whole plan.
On day 7, the Ceasefire ends, so attack any units on the bridges with your
Chimeras and attack any enemy Archers you can with your Centaurs. Remember,
from now on, try to keep a unit on the Mines near the island, so that the
enemy cannot destroy them with Catapults. Also use Herakles and however many
Hoplites you can spare to destroy the enemy Mill/Farms in the far Northeast--I
trained a Myrmidon during the Ceasefire to go over and speed the destruction
process. The Architects that built the 2 Mines should be there and ready to
rebuild the Mill, and then the Farms.
From here on, just try to maintain your lock on the bridges, while building
sufficient forces to be ready to decisively attack the island.
At the point that your Heroes are no longer needed to keep the bridges
clogged, you'll want to run them around to Capture the other two Temples.
First research Winged Sandals to increase the move of your Heroes and you will
be amazed at how quickly they can run all the way around to the Minotaur/Temple
on the far North. You can attack that Minotaur beforehand with your Centaurs,
across the River, but why waste your Centaurs for this since any of the Heroes
will 1-hit kill the Minotaur anyway? Once you Capture the third Temple, the
"white curtains" that have prevented you from going onto the island will drop
at the start of the enemy's turn. Now you can enter the island and finish off
the enemy.
I aged up again a few days before getting the 3rd Temple, and chose Hephaestus,
to get the Cyclops Myth unit--that unit takes down buildings fast, and that's
what you need to finish the Campaign. Head onto the island from all three
bridges, trying hard to use Centaurs to kill units standing on buildings, then
use Cyclops to destroy the building. With sufficient units and careful
planning, I was able to win the Campaign 3-4 days after grabbing the 3rd
Temple.
I have seen others who used the Underworld Passage God Power of Apollo to build
a passage from the Town Center in the East to the Western side of the map.
This makes sense, since it is a long ways away, but in my opinion, the only
reason you really need to go there anyway is to Capture the Northern Temple,
and you can easily do this with Odysseus without bothering with the Underworld
Passage.
My result:
Normal: 17 days
Hard: 22 days
----
Greek Campaign 6: Escape
I consider this campaign a bit of an insult--after 8 previous Egyptian, and 5
previous Greek, campaigns, it seems a bit insulting to be presented with a
campaign where I can destroy all but one enemy unit in the first two days,
while getting barely a scratch to my own units--even in Hard mode! And that
one enemy unit left--admittedly a huge monster that has lots and lots of
hitpoints--is still beatable by the totally non-interesting method of simply
attacking him as much as possible, with all units possible.
You totally outclass the enemy here. By carefully picking your fights, you
should be able to kill 11 of the enemy's units on day 1 and seriously wound a
12th, while only receiving a tiny amount of damage to Hippolyta, one of your
Heroes, who will heal that damage at the start of your next turn. In my case,
only one enemy unit counterattacked on their half of day 1, doing somewhat
minimal damage. Then I could wipe out the rest of their non-Cerberus units on
day 2, or, if I am trying to win in 3 days, I attack Cerberus with all 4 of
my Heroes on day 2, thus leaving 3 enemy Shades alive.
A very important thing to keep in mind is that your Heroes have a huge movement
in this campaign. So use Odysseus to kill the middle Minotaur in the West and
Herakles to kill the middle Minotaur in the East, Perseus to kill the middle
Medusa, and Hippolyta to attack the Northern Medusa, all on day 1. All the
units near where you start can be easily killed: the Shades die from any
attack, the Medusa die from one attack from either a Myrmidon or a Prodromos,
and the Minotaur die from two attacks--one by an Archer and one by a Myrmidon
or Prodromos (or, you can kill them with two attacks from just about anything,
although if the first attack is not an Archer, that unit will take some
damage). Day 2, do it again. The most important units to attack Cerberus
are your Heros--they do the most damage.
Note that Cerberus will not attack you until you first attack him. So in Hard
mode, I chose to kill all enemy *except* Cerberus on day 2 and *not* attack
Cerberus until day 3. In Normal mode, I wanted to win in 3 days, and that
requires attacking with all 4 Heroes on day 2.
It *is* fairly hard to win Normal mode in 3 days and Hard mode in 4 days, I
believe, but it is *not at all* hard to win this campaign.
My result:
Normal: 3 days
Hard: 4 days
----
Greek Campaign 7: New Enemies
I had written a walkthrough for this one, *then* I saw a post on the GameFAQs
board by wilowns1, stating that you could win this one by doing an all-out
attack at the very beginning. I feel a little embarrassed I hadn't tried that
myself, but I guess it seemed sort of crazy, to all-out attack an enemy Town
Center complex with only 4 units, not to mention the fact that three tough
Lamia Warriors and a tough Hero were in my way. But once I tried it, I liked
it--thanks wilowns1! So I will leave my original walkthrough description, but
add another after it to discuss the all-out attack strategy.
---
1) Hold your ground and age up (the original walkthrough)
This campaign is a tough one, but with care and the right God Power usage, it
works out OK.
I believe that the ultimate goal here is to age up, as the enemy outclasses
you (age 3 vs. age 2) at the start of the Campaign. Once you've aged up to
age 3, you can start to train as many units as you can and I believe you are
then on your way to winning.
My approach on this is to *not* give up the chokepoint around the Temple where
your Heroes start. On day 1, I triple attack the Southern Lamia Warriors with
Odysseus, Perseus, and Hippolyta, while Capturing the Temple with Herakles.
Odysseus and Perseus are now in a two-wide chokepoint that is perfect to try
to maintain against the AI. The AI actually does not counterattack very
aggressively at the start, so the first few days you're fine. Get Herakles
off the Temple on day 2 so that you can retreat one of your Heroes there if
necessary, moving Herakles in to take his place.
In Normal mode, I decided to build resources as much as possible, and send
reinforcements to the front to help. As a result, I didn't age up until day
8 or 9. However, with a few Myrmidons and Chimera in addition to my Heroes,
I was able to maintain the chokepoint fairly easily. By the time I aged up,
I had 2 Mines, 2 Mills, and 6 Farms.
In Hard mode, I decided to see whether I could skip reinforcements and just
try to age up as quickly as possible. The AI used the Earthquake God Power
when I was training an Architects, so my building up resources was set back,
and it was difficult. I aged up on day 7, I believe, with only 1 Mine, 1 Mill,
and 4 Farms. Without reinforcements, I had to retreat slowly, while still
maintaining the chokepoint--that is, not allowing the enemy into the area
South of the middle area around the Temple. This was touch-and-go, with me
losing three of my Heroes eventually, and the enemy forming a breakthrough
(that he didn't take advantage of) the day before I used Ceasefire.
Things start to get tough at the front about day 4, when the enemy shows up
with lots of units. Use the Bolt God Power to wipe out 4 or 5 enemy units on
one of these early days. Use Hippolyta's Hero Power when you need an extra
punch from her attack, and definitely use Perseus' God Power--you can freeze
an enemy unit on the front for 3 days, and during these 3 days, you will
receive no more attacks from that square.
The key is that when you age up, choose Hermes for the Ceasefire God Power.
(If you have been reading the walkthroughs above, you will remember that this
was my main strategy on Greek Campaign 5 as well--sorry for the repeat, but
Ceasefire is unbelievably useful when you are greatly outnumbered.)
The AI can be quite overwhelming in the middle, and calling a Ceasefire gives
you time to build up your forces. I have won this campaign without Ceasefire,
but it is easier with Ceasefire. So, the day after aging up, do whatever
attacks you'd like, then use the Ceasefire God Power. During the Ceasefire,
you want to 1) hold your ground (that is, maintain whatever chokepoint you
have), 2) heal your forces, and 3) bring reinforcements to the front. To hold
your ground, remember that you can even hold it with Architects, since they
cannot be attacked--I used two of my Architects to "save the Hero's spots"
while the Heroes went back to heal on my nearby Farms. It is essential that
you not allow the enemy to move into your area during the Ceasefire
(although I think the AI is really stupid and essentially does nothing during
the Ceasefire, so if you're desperate, you could try leaving the chokepoint
unguarded and see what happens). As far as bringing reinforcements to the
front, train units on the early days of the (3 day) Ceasefire, rather than
spending food/gold on those days to build Mines/Mills/Farms--wait for the last
day of the Ceasefire to build those. This way the units you are training will
have time to get to the front before the Ceasefire ends. The day the Ceasefire
ends, resume your attacks at the chokepoint--it is now only a matter of time
before you will begin to gain ground, and once you start to gain ground, it's
pretty much over.
Build Chimeras, Myrmidon, and Centaurs, as well as a few Priests. Don't
forget about the Centaurs--they really help a lot if used wisely.
The enemy has the Earthquake God Power, so it is risky to use your Restoration
God Power if he hasn't first done the Earthquake. Unless you really need it,
save it for the day after the Earthquake. (Or not: one time the AI used
Earthquake on day 1, damaging my Heroes only slightly--it wasn't worth using
Restoration then, so I saved it for later in my chokepoint defense when it
came in quite handy.)
Aging up to age 4 is useful, of course, but not really necessary, I don't
believe. After aging up to age 3, I kept building sufficient units to dominate
the enemy, ignoring aging up. When I was finally in control, I stopped
building units and saved up for aging up to age 4--this was a bit useful, as
I chose Hera so that I could use the Lightning Storm God Power to help in the
mopping up of the enemy's Town Center complex.
A very useful fact is that there is both a Gold and a Food square in the far
North--if you send Architects North from the Northern of your 2 Mines, you will
come to them. I sent some Architects toward those very early (day 4?), and was
able to build an extra Mine, Mill, and 4 Farms without the enemy bothering me
at all. (Note that in Hard mode, I was not able to spare the Architects until
much later, and in any case, the enemy was much more adventurous in exploring
the map, so I would not have been able to build anyway, since the enemy had
built on them.)
---
2) All-out attack from day 1 (thanks to wilowns1 for the idea)
Although it seems hard to believe, this campaign can actually be won by
attacking the enemy Town Center area from the very start. With care, you can
limit the enemy's forces by killing all of his training units, thus mostly not
having to fight full-strength units. This can be touch-and-go, as if you let
it get out of control, things will go bad quickly, and your entire force will
be killed around the Town center. It probably wouldn't be *too* bad if this
happened, as the enemy would nonetheless be all around his Town Center, and
this would give you a fair amount of time to train forces before he got over to
your area, but I was able to keep this from happening, even in Hard mode.
On day 1, move Odysseus to the square West of the Western Lamia Warriors, move
Perseus to the square West of the Southern Lamia Warriors and use his Hero
Power on them, move Herakles to the square East of the Southern Lamia Warriors,
and move Hippolyta to the square South of the Southern Lamia Warriors and have
her attack the enemy hero, Ladon. Only Hippolyta attacks, since there is no
reason to take counterattack damage from the Lamia Warrior units when they will
all be killed on day 2 by the Bolt God Power anyway. Do not use Hippolyta's
Hero Power--it will be more useful later. Have your Architects build a Shrine,
and train Architects, Myrmidon, and Hippokon--it is fairly rare I train this
much at the start of a Campaign, but this is war!
On the enemy's half of day 1, Ladon and the enemy Lamia Warriors don't move,
but do two attacks on Odysseus and Herakles.
On day 2, have the Architects build a Mine and a Mill, then use your Bolt God
Power on the enemy Hero--this will kill all three of the Lamia Warriors and
seriously damage the Hero. Your Heroes can now kill all of the training enemy
units, except the Priests built in the enemy Shrine. Use the Hero Power of
Odysseus to get to the other side of the Town Center complex to kill the
Petrobolos. Hippolyta, rather than killing a training unit, should be used to
kill the Architects building the Archery Range--she will have to use her Hero
Power for this to work. The AI is too stupid to continue building the Archery
Range later, so if you can kill the Architects building it, you'll never have
to deal with Archers. (Note: In Hard mode, Hippolyta will not be able to
kill the Architects--you'll just have to put up with the Archery Range.) It
is important that you kill training units rather than attack/kill Ladon! The
*most* important thing is to make sure the enemy *never* has more than a few
units in the area (other than Shades/Architects/Priests), otherwise, you will
lose control and be killed quickly. Move your Myrmidon and Hippokon toward
the action as far as they can go. Train another Myrmidon.
On day 3, your actions depend on what Ladon does. It is in your best interest
to kill him if possible, but don't do it if it means not killing some training
enemy unit. Move your two Myrmidon and one Hippokon as far forward as
possible. Build two Farms.
Keep moving your forces toward the enemy Town Center. You need to decide every
turn whether to build Mines/Mills/Farms or whether to train units. I pretty
much erred on the side of building--I built two more Farms on day 4, a second
mine on day 5, and a second Mill on day 6 (you need to run the Architects over
to the square just West of the Road bend on day 5 to be able to see the Food
square). If you don't send enough units to the front, though, you can lose
control. If you build sufficient resources like this, aging up is actually
fairly easy, only needing maybe two turns without training units, and can
happen around day 9. This is important to make your units stronger and to
get the Lightning Storm God Power of Hera. This God Power will eliminate all
training units the day it is used, as well as weakening or killing all other
enemy units, so it is very useful to either keep control of the area, if things
are getting a little scary, or to allow you to attack some buildings to start
the effort of destroying the Town Center complex.
It is definitely annoying that every time you kill a Human with a Hero, a Shade
appears, especially since you only have Heroes at the front at the start of the
Campaign. I think it is an interesting conundrum of what to do with the Shades
if you ever have extra attacks. On the one hand, killing the Shades is a good
idea, since they will eventually gang up and attack one of your units, doing a
suprising amount of damage. On the other hand, it appears that many times, the
Shade will simply stay in place on top of the building, meaning that no new
unit is trained on that building that day, making your job easier. I have the
impression that the first day they stay in place, and the second day they move,
so keep that in mind when deciding whether to kill them or not.
It is hard to know when the best time to use the Restoration God Power is. You
want to keep it until you really need it, but losing a few units at the front
can be so damaging to your cause that it might be better to use it *before* you
really need it, like the turn before the enemy is about to kill one of your
Heroes. I actually went the entire Campaign in Hard Mode without ever using
it--if you're doing a good job at the front, your units take little damage.
I was able to win this campaign quickly with just the units I've mentioned so
far, plus two Chimera and one more Myrmidon. I had enough extra attacks fairly
early on to destroy some buildings, and this really helped. However, if you're
having a hard time controlling the Town Center area, the key to finishing the
Campaign is ranged units, since simply killing training units does not get
buildings destroyed (and the enemy cheats, as it always does, and builds an
amazing number of units every day). Once the ranged units arrive, they can
kill the training units, allowing other units to then attack the buildings.
The ranged units I used were the Medusa, but it might be better to build an
Archery Range. As it turns out, I only built the one Shrine, not wanting to
waste any money on any other Town buildings--with the Medusa, I didn't need an
Archery Range, and with the Lightning Storm God Power, I didn't really need
any Siege units.
I didn't bother with aging up to age 4, as this would have only slowed things
down. Similarly, I sent Architects to the front when they were done building,
rather than sending some to the Northeast corner to build more
Mines/Mills/Farms. The Architects can actually help at the front, to finish
off very weak units (or Shades) and to take up space.
My result:
Normal: 13 days using strategy 2; 18 days using strategy 1
Hard: 14 days using strategy 2; 24 days using strategy 1
----
Greek Campaign 8: Mount Olympus
The second set piece battle with a big 4-square Myth creature in 3 campaigns,
but this one is a bit more interesting than campaign 6, although still being
quite easy.
Just about all of your units do very good damage to Typhon (like 55 to 84 per
attack), so you don't really need to save any specific units. The Heroes are
always most useful against a Myth unit, though, so try not to let any of them
get killed. Herakles does 84 damage, no matter how wounded he is, and Perseus
does 79. Herakles is a magnet for attacks (since he is Light Infantry), so
you will likely end up healing him a lot with your Priests.
Use the Eastern Centaur and Hippolyta against the 2nd Lamia Warrior from the
West, then kill it with the Minotaur. Use the Western Centaur against the
Western Lamia Warrior, then attack with Herakles and kill it with the Nemean
Lion. Attack the third Lamia Warrior with Odysseus and use Perseus' Hero Power
against the fourth Lamia Warrior, freezing it for essentially the whole
campaign. Attack a Harpy each with each Chimera--this is non-ideal, attacking
Light Infantry with Cavalry, but what can you do; the Chimera are the only
units that *can* attack the Harpies. Use the Western Priests to heal Herakles,
and the other two Priests can simply move forward, since they have no one to
heal (that will change quickly).
Typhon will use an attack that damages a lot of your units at once. The
Harpies, rather than ganging up on your Chimera, which they *should* do, seem
to fly around and not attack much. On your turn, your Archers are the ideal
units to take out Harpies, 1-hit killing any they attack. But generally
concentrate on attack Typhon with your Heroes and on healing any units that
are getting low on health. Typhon will die relatively easily once you start
attacking him in earnest.
My result:
Normal: 4 days
Hard: 4 days
-----
Norse
-----
Norse Campaign 1: Tested
This is a campaign where you just fight everything you can. But try to stay
in the Forest whenever possible, to avoid being attacked first.
In the South, have Siegfried attack the Eastern Raider, and have your two
Huskarl kill the other Raider. In the North, both Huskarl attack and kill the
enemy Huskarl. Don't put any of your units in the Road, since if they are
attacked by the enemy, they'll be hurt much more badly.
Leave the two Huskarl in the North to find and kill two Einherjar in the
Northeast, while Siegfried and the other two Huskarl head North to find and
kill a Jarl, a Frost Giant, and a Fenrir Wolf.
With Siegfried's group, always move the farthest back unit first, to move ahead
of the others and see what is there--in this way, if an enemy is spotted, you
can use your forward units, which haven't yet moved, to attack the enemy. If
you ever have a day where Siegfried isn't attacking, use his Hero Power that
increases his defense for two days. Siegfried 1-hit kills almost every unit
on the map, so always be attacking with him.
My result:
Normal: 4 days
Hard: 7 days
----
Norse Campaign 2: Memory
A race to the corner, on a map where you're badly outnumbered. You only have
two Jarls to help you fight maybe 8 or 10 enemy Trolls, Battle Boars, and one
Einherjar. The important thing to realize is that you do *not* have to defeat
all the enemy units, you only have to get Siegfried to the Temple in the
Southwest corner of the map, and Siegfried is relatively indestructible. It
is definitely possible to get Siegfried killed, I believe, but it seems like it
would be hard. Note that at the very end of the campaign, he 1-hit kills the
Einherjar guarding the Temple, even if he is quite weak, so even if he gets
seriously wounded in the final stretch to the Temple, you can still win the
campaign. Siegfried has a relic that allows him to heal 15% at the start of
every turn, which is 23 hitpoints per day.
Use the Forest squares as much as possible. The best start seems to be to
kill the first Troll with Siegfried, then run the 2 Jarl into the Forest
squares on the other side of the bridge. At that point, going through the
middle of the map or going through the Southern part of the map seems to be
somewhat equal. I think the Southern direction affords more Forest squares,
and there are more enemy in the center (although the enemy in the center will
come South and you'll probably still have to fight them).
Odin's two crows, Muninn and Huginn, are also on your side. They have 0 attack
value, so cannot attack--they are purely scouts. Definitely keep them in the
Forest, at least early on, when they can be used as Scouts. Later in the game,
it is possible you might come up with a reason to put them in a non-Forest
square--to block enemy units' movement, or to lure an enemy to attack them
instead of attacking one of your more important units. Leaving them exposed
will almost surely mean their death.
The Battle Boar can be 1-hit killed by Siegfried when they're in the Plains,
but in the Forest, they are very tough to kill--attacking with Siegfried *and*
both Jarl in the same day will *still* not kill them. Maybe best to simply
avoid them in this case.
If you're going for a fast win, you'll want to keep moving at top speed, taking
your chances with leaving Siegfried out in the open. If you're instead trying
for a careful win, try to end as many days as possible with every one of your
units in the Forest. Siegfried's movement value of only 13 will make it hard
to keep him in the Forest every day, but you can try your hardest. And if you
ever *do* get stranded out of the Forest, that is a good day to use his Hero
Power, to up his defense value to 95%.
My result:
Normal: 8 days
Hard: 8 days
----
Norse Campaign 3: Ring of Fire
Once again, you're outnumbered, but this time at least, you've got a
reasonable number of units. The goal is to kill all enemy units, and they are
spread all over the map. Luckily, the units to the Southwest and West of your
buildings will come to you to get killed, so you do not have to explore in
those directions.
You start with two Barracks and an Archery Range, and 600 food/600 gold. You
have no way of earning additional food or gold, however, so you have to make do
with the starting food/gold. I decided to train 4 Huskarl and 1 Throwing
Axeman, and research Improved Infantry. Whichever combination of Ulfsark,
Huskarl, Throwing Axemen, and research you choose, do as much as you can as
early as possible--no reason to save for later.
Siegfried starts out a long way from home, all by himself with three enemy
nearby. Don't be scared--this is not at all as bad as it looks. Attack the
Huskarl, which will kill them. The two Ulfsark next to him cannot really hurt
him very bad. Siegfried can just spend his time finishing off the units near
him and between him and your buildings. This will take a while, but at least
in Normal mode, he never gets the least bit near death.
There will be some early defense of your building area, but the enemy is really
not set up to attack buildings (being Cavalry and Throwing Axemen), so you can
pretty easily repulse them. Your Huskarl will 1-hit kill the enemy Throwing
Axemen or the enemy Ulfsark, so do this whenever possible.
To win, you will have to venture to the Southeast corner of the map to go
around the end of the mountain range, then head back up the other side of the
mountains to near the volcanic-looking area toward the Northwest corner. On
the way, you'll find 4 Frost Giants. These are not easy to kill, but Siegfried
does a lot of damage to them, and a combination of Throwing Axemen and Huskarl
will eventually kill them even without Siegfried. And then at the very end is
a Nidhogg, a large flying creature that has a lot of hitpoints, but is not
really that hard to kill, especially with Siegfried there.
If you're playing it safe, defend your buildings, venture just a little ways
South from the buildings to lure some enemy units to their death, then heal up
while waiting for Siegfried to arrive. Then take the entire army of units
together toward the Nidhogg--with your entire army, it is pretty easy to
steamroll through the opposition, even if it *is* 4 Frost Giants and a Nidhogg.
My result:
Normal: 11 days
Hard: 13 days
----
Norse Campaign 4: On the Front
This is the first campaign using Ox Carts, so you can learn how the Norse get
resources from Ox Carts, not from Mines/Mills/Farms.
Although this took me 26 days in Normal mode, this is the first campaign
that took me 30 days or more, since it took me 30 days in Hard mode. So this
campaign can take a good while.
One of your Ox Carts is on a Gold square already--leave it there the whole
campaign. On day 2, it will provide you with an income of 36 gold, on day 3,
it will provide 73 gold, and on day 4 and every day after, it will provide you
with an income of 110 gold. But if you ever move it off the Gold square, the
income will vanish immediately. The other Ox Cart is right next to a Food
square, so on day 1, move it on top of the Food square and leave it there--as
with the Gold square, it will produce 36 food, then 73 food, then 110 food per
day for the rest of the campaign. You will want to build more Ox Carts to move
on top of other Food/Gold squares you find in this campaign, but Ox Carts are
fairly expensive, so wait to build the first until it can be used.
It is important to age up as quickly as possible. At the start of the
campaign, you have 6 of 8 researches done, so you just need to do two
researches (Marketplace and Improved Infantry would be my suggestion--you
want to avoid any researches that need favor). You have enough food and gold,
assuming you don't train any units. You are short on favor, however. Build
Shrines on days 1 and 2. Remember that the Norse gain favor especially from
fighting, so once the enemy shows up around day 3 and you start to fight them,
you'll gain favor quickly and be able to age up on day 4. Which God to choose
when aging up is a toss-up, I believe. None of the God Powers is especially
needed at the moment, so maybe choose more for the Myth unit it will give you.
At the front, put your units in the Forests as much as possible. A good
defense posture is around the Mountains to the North of your Ox Cart on the
Gold square. Just South of those Mountains are two Hills squares with a Forest
square just to the East. Put your Throwing Axemen on the Eastern Hills square,
your Hero Gunnar on the the Western Hills square, two Huskarls on both Forest
squares adjacent to the Throwing Axemen, and the Raider in the Forest square
just South of Gunnar. Your ranged units can hit the enemy without fear of
being attacked, and your Huskarl in the Forests are hard to kill.
When the enemy shows up in earnest, around day 4 or 5, it is time to use both
your God Powers. In fact, one time I played I used one of my God Powers on the
same day I aged-up--you have to do the God Power first, then age up, since once
you age up, all your Shrines are blacked out for the rest of that day. Use
Walking Woods and build the big Tree-thing at the front, in a square that seems
useful at the time, preferably in a Forest again. The Walking Woods is fairly
useless, in my opinion, but he can come in handy to take up space and protect
one of the other units, and he can be fairly hard to kill, especially when
standing in Forest. If nothing else, he will probably be attacked by the
enemy, and those are attacks that *aren't* happening to your more important
units. But much more importantly, use your Great Hunt God Power, which makes
all your units more powerful for 3 days. You have just aged up, upgrading all
your units, then you use this God Power to upgrade them even more. Your units
should now outclass the enemy, and the fighting at the front should go much
more smoothly. Wait until there are a fair number of enemy units in sight,
and until you are fully engaged with the enemy--you don't want to use this
God Power too early and waste the first precious days of it making only 1 or
2 attacks per day.
After aging up, begin to train at least 1 unit per day to be sent to the front.
Some days you might be able to build 2 units--I would suggest spending as much
money on units as you have, rather than spending the money on research. This
is because you will have lots of favor, and the research at Shrines is
cheap--so you can build as many units as possible, and then you'll very
frequently have enough left over to do a research at a Shrine.
As you send more and more units to the front, the front will start to move
Northward as you kill the enemy and advance. Send units around both sides of
the lake--I'm not sure this is necessary, as if you were to go around only one
side, the AI would probably send all his troops from the other side over to
fight you, but it seems like a good practice, to avoid being surprise-attacked
behind your front.
As you get to the point where it seems unlikely new troops will actually be
able to get to the front before the campaign is done, stop building units and
save up to age up to age 4. It is not really necessary, but you can probably
get a good God Power to help in the final assault.
The final push to finish the enemy off is a bit of a pain, as he is entrenched
behind a chokepoint. Just slug it out. Other than the first two God Powers,
I would suggest you save your other God Powers for this final assault--use a
God Power that damages all the enemy units to help get through the chokepoint,
for example, and an especially useful God Power is the Undermine God Power,
since you can use it against the enemy Town Center to weaken all of his
buildings. However, you have to be able to *see* the enemy Town Center to do
this, so you will have to make a certain amount of progress in destroying
buildings first.
My result:
Normal: 26 days
Hard: 30 days
----
Norse Campaign 5: Advance
This Campaign is a real challenge and can be easily lost if you play it
incorrectly, especially in Hard mode. The enemy starts at age 3, while you're
age 2, so he outclasses you, and *way* outnumbers you.
I have won this Campaign, both in Normal and Hard mode, by attacking all four
bridges on Day 1, moving your Heroes East to help, and just generally reacting
to the situation, trying to keep the enemy from getting to your Town Center
before you can build up sufficient units. (In Hard mode, this is very hard,
and the enemy *will* get to your Town Center complex--you just have to do the
right dance to keep eliminating his units slowly, while training more of your
own to eventually finally get the upper hand. It was touch-and-go for me at
one point, with the AI in position to beat me, I believe, if he had made better
choices.)
However, I believe that it is much, much easier, and quicker, to fight this
Campaign by turtling at the start, using your God Powers early, and aging up
quickly. With the right defensive position in your corner of the map, you
should be able to win this one fairly easily. This works very well in both
Normal and Hard mode.
Here's how it goes. On day 1, build 2 Shrines, research Improved Cavalry, and
retreat all units (except the Battering Rams--more on this later) back toward
your Town Center. On day 2, research Marketplace and get your units into a
good defensive position. My favorite defensive position is like this: Huskarl
in the Forest square to the North of your Ox Cart on the Food square, Jarl in
the Forest square to the the East of that Food square, Siegfried just South of
that Jarl, Brunnhilde on the Road square Southeast of Siegfried, Jarl east of
Brunnhilde, another Jarl east of that (just North of the Gold square). Keep 1
Huskarl and the two Ulfsark in reserve (keep the Ulfsark at least two squares
back to avoid the enemy Throwing Axemen hitting them). Gunnarr goes on the
Hills square just South of the Food square. I've fought this Campaign using
this strategy a number of times and only once did I lose any of the units in
the front line (I once lost the Eastern Jarl). One of the reasons this
defensive line is so effective is that your units (with the exception of
Brunnhilde) are on Plains or Forest (+20% defense) squares, while the enemy who
come to fight you will have to stand on Roads squares (-10% defense).
On day 3, use both God Powers (Wild Fire, and The Great Hunt). This damages
every enemy unit, as well as making your units stronger. This is huge in
helping you win this. Also on day 3, Siegfried probably isn't required to
attack, so use his Hero Power to protect him. On day 4, first research a
Shrine research that costs 25 food/25 gold/15 favor (I chose Divine Mounts),
then age up, choosing Baldr as your new God--Baldr has a very useful God Power
(Ragnarok) as well as allowing you to train Trolls. Since the Norse Throwing
Axemen have a range of only 2, the Trolls with range 3 are very useful. Note
well that to age up on day 4, you cannot train *any* units on days 1-4.
On day 5 or 6, use the Ragnarok God Power--now you clearly outclass the enemy
and things really go your way. It seems like using this on day 5 would make
the most sense, but for some reason, every time I played, day 5 didn't feel
right, then on day 6 I used it and made very good progress. Note well that
when the Ragnarok God Power is used, a Huskarl appears on every unoccupied
Shrine and Town Center. Before I learned this, I had seen cases where I did
not get as many Huskarl because I had other units "in the way", so make sure
you have vacated *all* Shrines and Town Centers before using Ragnarok. The
Huskarl not only appear, but can move on that same day, and since we're
fighting just in front of the buildings, they should have no trouble finding
an enemy to attack that same day. Ragnarok rocks!
Every day, simply attack every enemy you can with your units on the front,
*without moving* any of those units--that is, you *must* maintain your solid
defensive line until you have routed the enemy units. They keep coming, so
don't be lured into giving up your line too early. I would say if you use
Ragnarok on day 6 and attack with the 3 Huskarl, on day 7 you will be able to
abandon your defensive line and attack like crazy. Note that Brunnhilde's
placement in the defensive line virtually guarantees that some day (probably
day 4), she will be able to use her Hero Power on three units lined up right
in front of her--since the units are all damaged already due to your Wild
Fire God Power, this can be quite effective. I could not resist running
the Ulfsark out from behind the lines to kill an enemy Cavalry unit--the
Ulfsark get killed on the enemy's turn, but it seems worth it to take out a
Cavalry unit. But remember, the Ulfsark were not *on* the line, they were
behind it--running them out to attack does not endanger your line.
Every day after you age up, train the maximum number of "premium" (Jarl,
Huskarl, Valkyries, Trolls) units--you will be able to train either 1 or 2
per day. The Trolls units are very useful, not only in taking out units on
top of a building so that you can attack the building, but also in taking out
the enemy Ox Carts--I think having at least 4 Trolls makes things go much
smoother. I basically kept building maximum units until it was clear that the
new units were not going to make it to the front before the campaign was over,
at which point I started saving up to age up to age 4. In Normal mode, I
finished the Campaign before age 4; in Hard mode, I got to age 4 the same day
I won. So aging up to age 4 is not really needed if you use this strategy.
I have found that it is actually pretty essential to *not* retreat the two
Battering Rams units on day 1, instead using them to block the roads and slow
the enemy's advance. Leave the Western Battering Rams where they begin, and
move the Southern Battering Rams to the crossroads right next to where they
begin. In fact, both Battering Rams seem to always have an enemy Throwing
Axemen run up to and stop right next to them, so they can then attack those
Throwing Axemen on day 2. This doesn't do a lot of damage, but it does enough,
I believe, so that when you use your Wild Fire God Power, those two Throwing
Axemen die. So the Battering Rams each take one unit with them when they die,
which is about all I can expect of them--they seem pretty useless in general.
If you do *not* use the Battering Rams in this way, trying to keep them alive,
the enemy will arrive in huge numbers on day 2, and the going will be much
tougher for you.
With this turtling strategy, by day 7 or 8 you will have totally decimated all
enemy units that came to attack you, which is most of the units the enemy has.
So you can attack at high speed now without much problem from the enemy. I
sent 1 Huskarl and 1 Jarl to the Northwest, as there is usually some enemy
there to attack. Otherwise, send all units through the middle of the map,
taking out both Towers (skip one if it is too well defended--you really only
need one way into the enemy area) and flooding in toward the Town Center.
Also with this strategy, you do not really need any additional food/gold
income--it might help a bit, but not much. So if you really want to, go ahead
and train 1 or 2 Ox Carts, and send them to the Food square just Northeast
of your Town Center complex in the middle of the Forest squares, and to the
Gold Square on the Western edge of the Map about 2/3 of the way up. The reason
the Ox Carts aren't really necessary is that you can't really build them until
about day 7 or so (you can't afford them, needing to spend on more important
things, and besides, you can't send them out past your defensive lines until
you have killed the numerous enemy), but by then, you've pretty much won if
you just keeping training units and attack toward the Northeast as fast as
possible.
If you are trying to win this quickly, one of the pains are all the enemy Ox
Carts, which do not die so easily, especially in Hard mode. Most annoyingly,
there is an Ox Cart in the far Southeast corner that you will have to send
units to destroy. Note also that the Ox Carts heal automatically at the start
of every day, so rather than attacking two separate Ox Carts with one unit
each, attack one Ox Cart with multiple units until it is dead, then move to
another Ox Cart.
My result:
Normal: 15 days
Hard: 16 days
----
Norse Campaign 6: Revenge
This Campaign looks pretty dire at the start, with so many enemy Fenrir Wolf
units around your Ox Carts. It looks like they could quickly decimate all your
income. As it turns out, they seem to barely attack the Ox Carts, so you lose
none (in Hard mode, I *did* lose one Ox Cart). With the income from these 5 Ox
Carts, you are actually in very good shape.
Right off the bat, there are two Fenrir Wolfs and an enemy Hero (Narfi) in
range of your Town buildings, so it looks scary. If the AI was reading my
Tips and Tricks, he would try hard to prevent you from training any units. In
fact, the AI *does* seem to take out the unit you train in your Barracks on day
1, but he doesn't bother with the units in the Town Center and Archery Range.
So you can start to build up your forces. If he had bothered to take out
*both* Ulfsark, you would not be able to build any more buildings, and if he
ran as many Fenrir Wolf as he could directly toward your Town Center on day 1,
it would be difficult to defend yourself if you were having a hard time
training units that weren't killed during training. But the AI didn't read my
Tips and Tricks, so you *are* able to easily train units, and you *don't* have
to deal with all his Fenrir Wolf attacking. In fact, in Hard mode, the AI
didn't even attack *any* training units on day 1, *and* ran one of his Fenrir
Wolf units that was right near my Town Center *away* from the Town Center--how
stupid!
If I was afraid of the AI attacking my training units, I would take a defensive
posture on day 1, protecting my training units as much as possible. Since the
AI doesn't seem too interested in taking out training units however, I instead
attack Narfi on day 1 with all three Heroes, making sure to put Gunnarr in a
Forest square (I also put Siegfried in a Forest square), and train 2 Ulfsark
and a Throwing Axemen. On day 2, use an Ulfsark (you should have one at least)
to build a Shrine in the far Southeast corner of your Town Center complex, and
make sure he cannot be bothered by the enemy. Gunnarr can kill a Fenrir Wolf
that is in the Plains or Road, so use him to take out one Fenrir Wolf on day
2, and use your Throwing Axemen and Brunnhilde to take out another. Whenever
I played in Normal mode, Siegfried could kill Narfi on day 2 without moving.
Also on day 2, train more Throwing Axemen, and some Huskarl.
As soon as you can, use the Wild Fire and The Great Hunt God Powers. As with
the previous Campaign, these help a lot. (Although since you pretty much
outclass the Fenrir Wolf units, maybe it would be better to save these God
Powers for later, when you start to see the enemy's Human units. When it
really comes down to it, you don't need either God Power to easily win this
Campaign.)
From here on, train as many useful units as you can per day, concentrating on
the Valkyries and Einherjar. One time I built a Stable and trained Jarl, but
another time I didn't and didn't really feel the Jarl's absence. Head straight
West from your Town Center to find and kill any remaining Fenrir Wolf, and to
get to the passage through the Mountains that heads toward the Northwest and
allows you to get to the enemy Town Center complex in the Southwest corner.
There are a couple enemy Ox Carts that you need to take out that are *not* on
the main path to the enemy Town Center complex--there is one enemy Ox Cart
(visible from day 1) in the North and one in the South (not visible, and easy
to miss if you're running by at high speed), both actually fairly near your
Ox Carts in those areas. The quick way to take these out is with Huskarl or
Einherjar, but that takes valuable units out of your attacking force.
Instead, you can use Ulfsark--I believe 4 attacks from an Ulfsark will kill
them (after Wild Fire).
You start at age 3 and don't really need to age up to win this, but with such a
large income, you will have enough to age up fairly quickly if you stop
training units. I trained as many units as I could until it was clear the new
units wouldn't be able to catch up to the front before the Campaign was over,
then I stopped training and waited to age up.
When I aged up, I chose Tyr, for his Fimbulwinter God Power. I used this God
Power when I was fighting near the Northwest corner--this meant that the enemy
could train no units for 3 days, during which I was able to get down to and
destroy the enemy buildings. Once I got in sight of the enemy Town Center, I
used the Undermine God Power against it, making the destruction of his Town
buildings that much easier. He also has 3 more Ox Carts in the area, and the
concentration of buildings and Ox Carts makes for slow going, but with the
Undermine God Power and careful attention to your attack order, you can finish
the enemy off quite quickly.
My result:
Normal: 12 days
Hard: 13 days
----
Norse Campaign 7: Citadel
The longest Campaign in the game, this is a bit of a challenge near the
beginning, and never gets *too* easy.
The enemy not only is age 4 versus your age 3, but he also has many more units
available. Aging up, then, is a priority. However, you're not really that
close to aging up, especially in favor. When possible, do research that
increases the stats on your units--the enemy has apparently done lots of
research, as his units outclass yours even after you've aged up.
When doing this in Normal mode, I decided to ignore fighting and try to age up
as quickly as possible (you can't ignore fighting entirely, since you have to
defend your area, and you also need to do some fighting to earn enough favor to
age up). Train only an Ulfsark, and build only one Shrine, and you will likely
be able to age up on day 7. It will be a bit tough to defend the Southwest
corner of the map with just the units you started with, but it shouldn't be too
difficult. Try hard to not let the Tower on the other side of the long bridge
be destroyed; keep either Brunnhilde or Siegfried in it once the enemy shows
up. Unfortunately, a number of powerful enemy units also show up from the
North, and that is the hardest part of waiting to age up. Definitely use the
Wild Fire God Power during the first 7 days, to damage all the enemy units and
make it easier to deal with them. I didn't use The Great Hunt God Power until
later, but in retrospect, it would probably make more sense to use it in the
first 7 days as well--once the enemy shows up in force about day 5 or 6.
In Hard mode, I tried being more forceful in my early defense. Train an
Ulfsark, build 2 Shrines, and train 1 Throwing Axemen and 2 Huskarl, all as
quickly as possible. *Then* wait to age up, which happened on day 8. Put the
Huskarl in the Forest squares North of your Town Center such that the enemy
units arriving from the North cannot get into the Forest squares and have to
stand on the Road or the Plains to fight you. This will make it such that
there will be no trouble defending from this direction. As before, defend
the Tower at the end of the bridge with Siegfried and Brunnhilde. Use both
the Wild Fire and The Great Hunt God Powers on the same day, once the enemy
gets to your area, about day 6.
Once you age up, build as many units as you can per day--you're age 4, so no
more saving up, spend it all! Build a stable and start training Jarl. Your
main units to train will be Jarl, Valkyries, Einherjar, and Trolls. After not
too many days, you'll have sufficient units to start pushing the enemy's units
back. Because the enemy knows about the two paths to your area--the one that
ends up coming from the North and the one that ends up coming from the East--I
believe you need to send units on both paths. Send enough units on the
Northern path to make sure you can hold back the enemy and make constant
forward progress (maybe 6 units, including a Valkyries for healing?), then
send all the other units to the East. Try to stay in the Forest squares as
much as possible. Be prepared to lose units--I don't know if I was being more
careless than usual, but the enemy has a pretty much constant stream of new
units that was not easy to handle without losing some of my units. The other
problem is that the enemy has many *powerful* units, like Frost Giants, Fire
Giants, and Mountain Giants. These are difficult to kill.
The map layout is as follows. Your Town Center complex is in the Southwest,
the enemy's is in the Northeast. There is another Settlement in the Southeast,
although I didn't use this to build a Town Center. The enemy has a Stable and
some Ox Carts in the Northwest corner, protected by two sets of Towers, as well
as a Shrine along the Eastern edge of the map. This Shrine is a real pain, as
it is the Shrine training most of the Giants--make it a priority to get rid of
it. The enemy Town Center complex is surrounded by Mountains, so the only
entrance is from the South, through an area with 6 Towers, an Archery Range,
and a Barracks--to make it even tougher, this area is pretty much 100% Road
squares, so as you are fighting to make it through the chokepoint, your units
are always standing on Roads, with their -10% to defense. There is an easily
accessible (after you push the initial enemy force back) Food square a bit
Southeast of the long bridge near your Town Center, and a Gold square in the
far Southeast corner of the map.
When aging up, make your own choice as to which God you want. I chose Baldr
to get the Trolls, since the Norse are weakened by only having the range 2
Throwing Axemen. The Trolls come in very handy with all the work you have to
do destroying enemy buildings--they can kill the enemy unit on the building,
allowing other units to then attack the building. (You might prefer to get the
Mountain Giant myth units instead, since they will make quick work of
buildings--you'll have to train lots of Throwing Axemen in that case.) Getting
Baldr also gave me the Ragnarok God Power, which I used as soon as possible
after aging up in order to get the Huskarl created by the God Power into the
game early. Make sure your Town Centers and Shrines are all empty when you use
this God Power, as you will get fewer Huskarl if buildings are "occupied".
Use the Undermine God Power on the enemy Town Center square as soon as you can
see it.
Other than the above, there don't seem to be any secrets with this Campaign.
Withstand the first part until you age up, then build maximum units and attack
all out. Be prepared for a long battle to destroy the enemy's Town Center--in
Hard mode, I was within sight of his Town Center a full 10 days before I could
finally win the Campaign.
My result:
Normal: 33 days
Hard: 36 days
----
Norse Campaign 8: Dragon's Den
The final Campaign! Another "beat up the big 4-square-large myth creature"
Campaign, only this time, the creature, Fafnir, is quite tough. If you do not
maintain a good defensive formation when fighting Fafnir, you can lose this
Campaign.
Fafnir has two attacks: a "standard" attack against one unit, or an attack
where he will fly somewhere, land (damaging units next to where he lands), then
breath fire in some direction, damaging all units in the 2 by 4 square area he
breathes on (2 squares wide and 4 squares long). This makes it important that
you position your units wisely, even when they are not attacking.
A good defensive position against Fafnir's fire-breathing attack is a sort of
checkerboard, like:
X-X-X
-----
X-X-X
-----
X-X-X
where "-" is an empty square and "X" is one of your units. This is good
because if all your units were in a position like this, only two of the units
could be attacked by Fafnir's fire-breathing attack. Of course, you also need
to attack him, so you can't just leave all your units in the formation above.
But the units that *aren't* attacking can put themselves in some sort of
formation like the above *around* the attacking units to try to minimize as
much as possible how many units are in one 2x4 area. Note that Fafnir has to
land, and he takes 4 squares to land, so he cannot land in the middle of the
above formation. A possible formation when attacking Fafnir in his original
location might look something like:
-----XFFX-----
---X-XFFX-X---
------XX------
--X-X----X-X--
-----x-X------
---------x----
Unless I'm mistaken, there is no place that he can fly to, given the formation
above, that would allow him to attack more than 3 of my units with his 2x4
fire-breathing attack.
At the start, there are 10 enemy Myth units (in addition to Fafnir) facing your
12 units. It is actually surprisingly easy to kill off all 10 of their units.
On day 1, sit still for the most part and let the enemy come to you to be
killed off on days 2 and 3. The only moves I made were to move Siegfried out
to the Forest square (to try to make sure he will be able to attack a Battle
Boar on day 2) and use his Hero Power, and move the Northern Einherjar back to
the square that Siegfried just left (out of range of the Frost Giant).
You have 600 food and 600 gold to spend, with no ability to get more, so you
just spend it until it is gone. I chose to train 3 Jarls and 1 Huskarl, and to
research Improved Infantry and Improved Cavalry. Train and research as fast as
possible from day 1, doing the training first, of course.
Once you've killed all but Fafnir, get your units into position to attack,
*without* attacking him and without getting any units within range of his 2x4
fire-breathing attack. I believe that Fafnir will leave you alone until he
has a unit to attack, so make sure you can attack him from all 6 squares around
him on the first day you attack.
Siegfried and Brunnhilde do a lot of damage against Fafnir, with most of the
other units doing significant damage as well. Just keep hacking, trying to
do as many attacks against him as possible every day, and eventually you'll
finish him off.
When possible before you attack Fafnir, use the Valkyries to heal units.
However, once I started attacking Fafnir, I mostly stopped the healing, since
putting the Valkyries next to another unit made them a target for Fafnir--he
can probably fly somewhere and attack both those units and probably at least
one other.
With good solid attacking on days 2-4, and careful positioning of your units
once you start attacking Fafnir, you should finish him off without losing more
than 3 or 4 of your units.
My result:
Normal: 10 days
Hard: 11 days
-------------------
My Campaign results
-------------------
Although I listed all my results above in the walkthroughs, I thought it would
be interesting to put them all together in one place, and especially to sort
them from longest Campaign to shortest.
Here are my results in the Campaigns:
------------------------------------
TABLE 1: My results in the Campaigns
------------------------------------
| Normal | Hard |
Campaign | result (days) | result (days) |
--------------------------------------------|---------------|---------------|
Egyptian Campaign 1: Border Skirmish (E1) | 2 | 3 |
Egyptian Campaign 2: Portents (E2) | 3 | 3 |
Egyptian Campaign 3: Hero's Welcome (E3) | 4 | 5 |
Egyptian Campaign 4: Rebuilding (E4) | 10 | 9 |
Egyptian Campaign 5: Expansion (E5) | 5 | 5 |
Egyptian Campaign 7: Exodus (E7) | 16 | 18 |
Egyptian Campaign 8: Valley of Shadows (E8) | 28 | 24 |
Greek Campaign 1: Disruption (G1) | 5 | 6 |
Greek Campaign 2: Prophecy (G2) | 4 | 5 |
Greek Campaign 3: Gateway (G3) | 16 | 16 |
Greek Campaign 4: Old Friends (G4) | 20 | 22 |
Greek Campaign 5: Throne of the Dead (G5) | 17 | 22 |
Greek Campaign 6: Escape (G6) | 3 | 4 |
Greek Campaign 7: New Enemies (G7) | 13 | 14 |
Greek Campaign 8: Mount Olympus (G8) | 4 | 4 |
Norse Campaign 1: Tested (N1) | 4 | 7 |
Norse Campaign 2: Memory (N2) | 8 | 8 |
Norse Campaign 3: Ring of Fire (N3) | 11 | 13 |
Norse Campaign 4: On the Front (N4) | 26 | 30 |
Norse Campaign 5: Advance (N5) | 15 | 16 |
Norse Campaign 6: Revenge (N6) | 12 | 13 |
Norse Campaign 7: Citadel (N7) | 33 | 36 |
Norse Campaign 8: Dragon's Den (N8) | 10 | 11 |
--------------------------------------------|---------------|---------------|
-----------------------------------------------------
TABLE 2: Campaigns, longest to shortest (Normal mode)
-----------------------------------------------------
| Normal | Hard |
Campaign | result (days) | result (days) |
--------------------------------------------|---------------|---------------|
Norse Campaign 7: Citadel (N7) | 33 | 36 |
Egyptian Campaign 8: Valley of Shadows (E8) | 28 | 24 |
Norse Campaign 4: On the Front (N4) | 26 | 30 |
Greek Campaign 4: Old Friends (G4) | 20 | 22 |
Greek Campaign 5: Throne of the Dead (G5) | 17 | 22 |
Egyptian Campaign 7: Exodus (E7) | 16 | 18 |
Greek Campaign 3: Gateway (G3) | 16 | 16 |
Norse Campaign 5: Advance (N5) | 15 | 16 |
Greek Campaign 7: New Enemies (G7) | 13 | 14 |
Norse Campaign 6: Revenge (N6) | 12 | 13 |
Norse Campaign 3: Ring of Fire (N3) | 11 | 13 |
Norse Campaign 8: Dragon's Den (N8) | 10 | 11 |
Egyptian Campaign 4: Rebuilding (E4) | 10 | 9 |
Egyptian Campaign 6: Trust (E6) | 9 (15)* | 10 (15)* |
Norse Campaign 2: Memory (N2) | 8 | 8 |
Greek Campaign 1: Disruption (G1) | 5 | 6 |
Egyptian Campaign 5: Expansion (E5) | 5 | 5 |
Norse Campaign 1: Tested (N1) | 4 | 7 |
Egyptian Campaign 3: Hero's Welcome (E3) | 4 | 5 |
Greek Campaign 2: Prophecy (G2) | 4 | 5 |
Greek Campaign 8: Mount Olympus (G8) | 4 | 4 |
Greek Campaign 6: Escape (G6) | 3 | 4 |
Egyptian Campaign 2: Portents (E2) | 3 | 3 |
Egyptian Campaign 1: Border Skirmish (E1) | 2 | 3 |
--------------------------------------------|---------------|---------------|
---------------------------------------------------
TABLE 3: Campaigns, longest to shortest (Hard mode)
---------------------------------------------------
| Normal | Hard |
Campaign | result (days) | result (days) |
--------------------------------------------|---------------|---------------|
Norse Campaign 7: Citadel (N7) | 33 | 36 |
Norse Campaign 4: On the Front (N4) | 26 | 30 |
Egyptian Campaign 8: Valley of Shadows (E8) | 28 | 24 |
Greek Campaign 4: Old Friends (G4) | 20 | 22 |
Greek Campaign 5: Throne of the Dead (G5) | 17 | 22 |
Egyptian Campaign 7: Exodus (E7) | 16 | 18 |
Greek Campaign 3: Gateway (G3) | 16 | 16 |
Norse Campaign 5: Advance (N5) | 15 | 16 |
Greek Campaign 7: New Enemies (G7) | 13 | 14 |
Norse Campaign 6: Revenge (N6) | 12 | 13 |
Norse Campaign 3: Ring of Fire (N3) | 11 | 13 |
Norse Campaign 8: Dragon's Den (N8) | 10 | 11 |
Egyptian Campaign 6: Trust (E6) | 9 (15)* | 10 (15)* |
Egyptian Campaign 4: Rebuilding (E4) | 10 | 9 |
Norse Campaign 2: Memory (N2) | 8 | 8 |
Norse Campaign 1: Tested (N1) | 4 | 7 |
Greek Campaign 1: Disruption (G1) | 5 | 6 |
Egyptian Campaign 5: Expansion (E5) | 5 | 5 |
Egyptian Campaign 3: Hero's Welcome (E3) | 4 | 5 |
Greek Campaign 2: Prophecy (G2) | 4 | 5 |
Greek Campaign 8: Mount Olympus (G8) | 4 | 4 |
Greek Campaign 6: Escape (G6) | 3 | 4 |
Egyptian Campaign 2: Portents (E2) | 3 | 3 |
Egyptian Campaign 1: Border Skirmish (E1) | 2 | 3 |
--------------------------------------------|---------------|---------------|
* This Campaign is forced by the game to be 15 days long; the number shown
before the parentheses is the number of days that it took me to kill all enemy
units and destroy all enemy unit-producing buildings--that is, to reach the
normal state where Campaigns end.
If you are able to finish a campaign in fewer days than I did, I'd be
interested in hearing how you did it. Drop me a line at iloveaoe -at- gmail
-dot- com. Thanks!
---------------------
Scenario walkthroughs
---------------------
The "General notes" above in the "Campaign walkthroughs" section are applicable
here as well--please read them!
--------
Egyptian
--------
Egyptian Scenario 1: Citadel of the Pharaoh
Use The Great Hunt God Power on day 1, which allows your Huskarl to destroy the
enemy Towers. In the Southern area, use your Mountain Giants to destroy the
Tower, then use your Huskarl and Jarl to go through that hole and kill all 3
enemy ranged units. Do the same thing in the North, except this time it is
a Huskarl that destroys the Tower. Research Improved Infantry. You can train
a Jarl, but it isn't really needed. Run the Einherjar and Valkyries as far as
they can get toward the fighting. Send Siegfried either direction. Move the
two Crows to next to the Mountain range to the East of your buildings.
On the enemy half of day 1, he'll use the Tornado God Power against you.
Sometimes this will do damage against you, sometimes not. Then he'll attack
with Chariots and ranged units that do a fair amount of damage.
On day 2, use the Wild Fire God Power. Now attack as much as possible--you
should be able to decimate his forces, leaving only a few standing. Have the
crows jump over the Mountains--don't worry about leaving them in the open, the
enemy has enough to worry about without trying to attack your crows. You
should try to use the Mountain Giants to destroy the enemy buildings (ignore
the Towers).
On day 3, use the Walking Woods God Power, creating the "tree creature" in a
square adjacent to the enemy building near your crows--have it attack the
building. Attack anything you can find and run your troops toward the middle
of the Eastern edge of the map, where there is the final enemy building, a
Shrine.
If all goes well, on day 4, you can get sufficient troops to the enemy Shrine
to destroy it, as well as destroying all remaining enemy units.
My result: 4 days
----
Egyptian Scenario 2: The Restless Dead
You versus lots of Mummies.
Move Thutmose to the West as far as possible and use his Hero Power. Use the
Southern and Western 2 Khepesh, as well as the Western Chariot Archers to kill
the Mummies visible in the West. Use the Western Priests to heal one of the
damaged Khepesh.
Move the Northern Khepesh *almost* as far East as they will go--this will make
a Mummies visible there, which you can attack with your other Chariot Archers
and Eastern 2 Khepesh, once again using your Priests to heal a Khepesh.
From here on, more and more Mummies arrive to fight you. Keep killing at least
one per day in each area--in the Western area, with Thutmose, you should be
able to kill 2 per day in many cases. Of course, hide the Chariot Archers in
the Forest, or put them behind Khepesh to protect them.
My result: 6 days
----
Egyptian Scenario 3: Clash on the Nile
The first Scenario where you have to build resources.
There are essentially two battles here--you fighting the Greeks on the Northern
side of the water, and you fighting the Norse on the Southern side. You have
Town Centers on both sides.
Move your Heroes eastward the first few days, building Mills/Obelisks along the
way. Use Nakht to build Obelisks on day 1 and day 2, as far eastward as
possible. Move the Hyena of Set along with Nakht, to enable Nakht to move
farther when building Obelisks. Use Ramesses to build a Mill on day 1, an
Obelisk as far eastward as possible on day 2, and another Mill on day 3. The
fight goes better if you move Nakht over to Northern side with Ramesses--with
the two of them together, it makes it easier to defend. And the Norse will
stupidly come over to the Greek side to attack, rather than marching across
the Southern side to destroy your base. Therefore, move Nakht as far toward
the island in the middle of the map as possible on day 3, and across the
island on days 4 and 5, building an Obelisk on the Northern landmass, just a
bit North of the bridges to the island. I built the Obelisk on the plains
square 2 squares North and 1 square West of the Western bridge, but I think in
retrospect, it might have been better built in the Forest square just East of
that Plains square. In any case, using your two Heroes, Nakht in the Obelisk
and Ramsses in the Forest square 2 squares West and 1 square South of the
Obelisk, you can hold off the enemy for a while, especially if you're lucky
enough to get some Ulfsark in the squares adjacent to the Obelisk--they're
weak so if they attack they won't hurt too much, but in fact, they'll usually
just stand there and *not* attack, thus making it such that other, more
powerful units can't attack either. I also ran some Villagers into the Obelisk
one day, moving Nakht back to heal for 1 day.
Behind, age up twice ASAP. On day 1, train 2 Villagers. On day 2, have the
Northern Villagers build a Shrine, the Southern Villagers build either a Mill
or Mine, train another Villagers in the North, and research Blacksmith in the
South. Days 3-5, research at your Shrine and age up on day 6. Build as many
Mines/Mine Shafts/Mills/Farms as possible while making sure you have sufficient
food/gold on day 6 to age up. How willing you are to leave your Heroes up
there alone (one time, I didn't send them any help whatsoever until around 10
or so, and they held their ground pretty well, although I *did* lose Nakht just
before reinforcements arrived) will dictate when you build Barracks. I suggest
you build one Barracks at each Town Center on day 4 or 5, and start to train
Khepesh in the North once you've aged up. In the South, Spearmen are
perfectly capable of dealing with the Norse, so you can save some money by
building them instead.
In age 2, research Marketplace as soon as possible, as well as three more
researches (maybe 2 from the Shrine and Improved Infantry), and age up again,
as early as day 10, as late as day 12. Once you're age 3, you can begin your
fight in earnest, and will have a lot of success against the enemy.
Concentrate on Myth units, Khepesh, and Chariot Archers.
Age up with Anubis, to get the bonuses to Infantry and the Blades of Anubis
research to buff your Infantry even more--you are trying to create incredibly
strong Infantry. The Blades of Anubis also strengthens Nakht, so researching
this ASAP after aging up is good. When aging up to age 3, choose Horus, for
even more Infantry strength, as well as for the Avenger myth unit. Compared
to the Avenger, the Anubites are pretty wimpy, but they are good enough for
the Southern fight, and much cheaper than the Avenger. Note that with these
2 Gods and the relevant research, your Khepesh can get to a defense value
that makes them essentially invulnerable.
Eventually, you can age up to age 4, and this should be fairly easy, as you
should have quite a large income with all the Food and Gold squares available.
Age up with Hathor, to get the Metor Shower God Power.
The Norse AI is *really* stupid. It stays age 1, spitting out lots of Ulfsark
and Raiders the whole game (*way* more than it should be able to, on the
small income of only 135 food and 135 gold per day that it officially has).
It is no real problem fighting these and getting to and destroying his Town
Center complex, other than the fact that he trains maybe 4 units per day, so it
can take you a while. If you send 7 or 8 units across the South, that should
be enough to take him out--any of your units will one-hit kill his. I have
even used Villagers as part of my main force--they can often attack a Raider
one day, damaging it, then kill it the next.
The Greek side of the Scenario is a different story. It can be a challenge to
fight your way East. It is especially tough when everything is going well and
then he suddenly uses Poseidon's Cursed Voyage God Power on you--all of your
units lose attack and defense and you start to feel how the AI feels when
fighting you--outclassed. When this happens, go into defensive mode and ride
out the four days.
If possible, make Nakht part of your Greek attack force. Every day, at the
start of the day, all friendly units adjacent or diagonal to Nakht heal 10%
of their maximum hit points, so plan your attacks to have Nakht attack an enemy
unit in the middle of the line, and have other units attack beside and ahead
of him such that he is surrounded by units at the end of your day.
I do not think it is worth building additional Town Centers closer to the
action (there are two Settlements on both the Northern and Southern sides).
The 350 food and 350 gold is just too expensive early on, and later, when you
can afford it, you already have well-built-out Town Centers and don't really
need more. Try to build on the Food and Gold squares on the way to the
enemy--even if you don't have the money to build Mine Shafts and Farms around
them, just building the Mill/Mine brings in a nice income.
This Scenario is light on especially useful God Powers. I guess my feeling is
that the time that God Powers are especially useful against the AI is early
on--once I've really gotten going, I don't need any help. The Eyes of the
Desert power is nice, but I think its main point is that it increases the range
of your Archers, so it seems pointless to use it when you have only the one
ranged Hero. Horus' Tornado God Power can be useful, but it goes in a random
direction, so you have to make sure it won't backfire and hurt you as well.
The Meteor Shower God Power is a good one, but to get it, you have to accept
the Roc Myth unit, which I think is weak. The Swarm of Locusts God Power, so
useful against a *real* enemy, seems to be just about useless against the AI,
with its seemingly infinite income. And the Eclipse God Power can be quite
useful, but only after you've got sufficient Myth units on the scene to make
it worthwhile; maybe if you used this at just the right moment, you might
avoid the AI using his Cursed Voyage God Power altogether? I think if you use
the Eyes of the Desert as far Eastward as possible on the Greek side, then use
the Tornado as far Eastward as possible with that extra sight, on the same day,
you can possibly make it such that you can start the Tornado in a square that
can do significant damage to the Greeks, and *not* cause damage to your
forces. Use Meteor Shower once you're near the enemy Town Center, not only to
weaken any enemy units between you and the Town Center, but also to kill all
enemy units currently training--if this is timed right, you can go from not
having even touched the enemy buildings to destroying 3 or 4 of them in one
single day. Use Plague of Locusts to clear out the enemy's 3 Farms on the
same day as, or in the few days before, Meteor Shower.
This is a long, hard slog of a Scenario, but just keep pushing forward and
you'll get them in the end.
My result: 23 days
----
Egyptian Scenario 4: Return of Osiris
As it turns out, this scenario can be won quickly and fairly easily by an
all-out-attack strategy. Contrary to my normal tendency to age up as quickly
as possible, especially when the enemy is an age above me, in this scenario,
you can simply stay age 2 and attack like crazy, preventing the enemy from
getting too established. If you rush them, but also take some time to age up,
you can find your front-line troops decimated--you'd still win in the end, of
course, but to win quickly, you have to keep the pressure on.
On day 1, kill the 4 enemy Architects while moving all units as far Northeast
as possible. Have Ramesses build an Obelisk 2 squares South of the Food
square on day 1 and 1 square North and 1 square West of the enemy Town Center
on day 2. Attack and destroy the enemy Town Center on day 2, build a Mill and
a Mine, and continue to move Northeast. On the enemy half of day 2, usually
a Kataskopos arrives and Perseus moves into sight, so on day 3, kill the
Kataskopos with a Mummies and a Villager, attack Perseus with Ramesses and 2
Mummies, build a Town Center, a Farm, and a Mine Shaft, and then use the Son
of Osiris God Power. Keep moving all your Mummies and Hero Northeast!
On day 4, you can train a Mummies at your Shrine. Also build a Barracks and
2 Mine Shafts. Attack and kill enemy units as much as possible, but continue
to concentrate on moving Northeast--destroying the farthest South enemy Farm in
that direction is a good idea. Don't hesitate to send Villagers along with
your other units and use them to finish off almost-dead enemy units. On day 5,
you can train some Khepesh and use the Prosperity God Power. Try to get units
to the enemy Town Center complex in the Northeast, and if possible, kill some
training units--it is more important to get your units to the enemy Town Center
and start killing training units than it is to kill existing enemy units that
might be bothering you. On day 6, you should probably be able to train both
Khepesh and Mummies. Somewhere along the line (day 4, 5, or 6), build an
Archery Range and start training Slingers when possible. Train units first,
then if there is extra money available, build Farms/Mine Shafts. The extra
gold income from the Prosperity God Power will make Mummies much more
affordable. Keep new units rushing to the front and the enemy will eventually
crumble as you destroy his training units and start to destroy his buildings.
My result: 11 days
----
Egyptian Scenario 5: Monthu's Trial
My tendency on these types of Scenarios is to build resources like crazy. The
first time I fought this one, I aged up to age 2, then 3, then 4, while only
building one single military unit. I was age 4 by day 11, with the enemies
still all age 2, and me having an income of something like 600 food and gold
per day. To do this, simply build a few well-placed Obelisks around the
nearby middle bridges, and train 4 Villagers to head toward the Southwest and
Southeast to build as many Mines/Mine Shafts/Mills/Farms as possible. I also
built one Myth unit to help defend in the middle while waiting to get to age 4.
Once at age 4, I then steamrolled them, but not starting to attack until day 11
or so makes for a long scenario.
So the quick way to win this is to be much more agressive. On day 1, move
Thutmose across the bridge and as far South as possible, train 2 Villagers in
the North and South Town Centers, research Fleet of Foot at your Shrine, and
train some Slingers. On day 2, age up with Horus (the Avenger Myth unit is
great, and Horus' research really strengthens your units), build a Mine with
Thutmose, move your Villagers toward their respective Western corners of the
map, and train a Khepesh. On day 3, attack the Norse units that have shown up,
build a Mine with a Villagers, train an Avenger, and research Marketplace. On
day 4, kill whatever Norse are left, take control of the Eastern 2 bridges,
possibly even building an Obelisk with Thutmose, build 2 Mills, and research
Axe of Vengeance. On day 5, then, you can already attack the Norse Town
Center--the Norse are pretty much dead in the water at this point. On day 5,
build the remaining Mine and a Mine Shaft, attack the Norse Town Center,
train an Avenger, research Improved Infantry, and train a Villager at the
Northern Town Center. On day 6, build a Shrine to the East of the Northern
Town Center and destroy the Norse Town Center.
From here on, just keep training units to come to the front, while building up
resources as you can. Age up to age 3 slowly, concentrating on training units,
but slowly saving food/gold to age up around day 10 or so. Build a Shrine
next to the Southern Town Center probably around day 8 or 9. Start cranking
out Chariot Archers when you're age 3--having an extra Archery Range or 2
wouldn't hurt. Just keep attacking and you'll bring them down eventually,
although their Town Center complexes are difficult to attack based on the
surrounding terrain. Use Thutmose's Hero Power to get units to the front
quickly. Aging up to age 4 is not really necessary, and I think it is more
useful to train units to help on the front, but if you're sure you won't need
any more units, save up to age up. I didn't actually build many Farms or Mine
Shafts, but built a Mine or Mill in every possible spot in the Western part of
the map and on the central island.
Addendum: In fact, the quickest way to win this is to age up to age 2 on day
2, as above, then crank out maximum units until you're sure they won't make it
to the front in time to help, *then* age up to age 3. Staying age 2 makes it
harder to fight the enemy, but the extra units make up for it. I trained as
many as 3 units a day until day 13, then didn't train anything else, aged up
to age 3 on day 15, and finished up on day 16. I chose Horus for age 2 and
Thoth for age 3, getting me 2 Tornado God Powers, which I used on the 2 enemy
Town Center complexes.
My result: 16 days
----
Egyptian Scenario 6: Sanctum of the Snake
A simple one, as long as you keep your head. The enemy are all in the
Northeast and Southwest, so move your units to strong defensive squares on
those two corners of the lake and you'll be good. The enemy pretty much
all-out attacks, and you'll have to take a bit of damage on the enemy's half of
day 1, but then you'll take over. Each enemy Khepesh just needs any two
attacks to kill it, each enemy Catapult is one-hit killed by a Lamia Warrior,
and each enemy Priest is one-hit killed by a Medusa. Attack the Khepesh
first--the Catapults don't actually do much damage. Protect your Medusas.
My result: 5 days
-----
Greek
-----
Greek Scenario 1: Wrath of Olympus
A rush to the center is in order. You have 2 Heroes, 2 Barracks, 1 Stable, and
1 Archery Range. You have a daily income, but there is no way to increase the
income, or Age Up. I don't believe that either of the Hero Powers is really of
any use, and without a Shrine, you can't use God Powers. So this is just a
"shoot-em-up".
On day 1, move all units into the Forest squares past and near the Towers, and
train 2 Myrmidon, 1 Prodromos, and 1 Gastraphetes. On day 2, attack the units
that have shown up, and train 2 Myrmidon, 1 Prodromos, and optionally 1
Toxotes. Two attacks from a Myrmidon will kill a Minotaur, and will kill an
injured Cyclops. Try hard to move your units in the Northwest and Southeast
toward the center of the map, since you have reinforcements coming from your
military buildings in those corners that can take care of the enemy units
you've left behind to concentrate on getting to the center. In the other two
corners, your 2 Myrmidon should simply try to stay in the Forests and kill
Cyclops. The Cyclops do not really pose any threat to your success in this
Scenario, but it turns out that it is common for some Minotaurs to abandon the
other two corners and come to fight with the Cyclops, and at that point, your
2 Myrmidon are outnumbered. You'll need to send units from the 2 strong
corners into the 2 weak corners to help. And don't forget to attack the
center, getting rid of units training at the enemy's 4 Shrines, as well as
attacking the Shrines. 1 attack from a Myrmidon and 1 attack from pretty much
any other unit will destroy a Shrine. This Scenario is definitely easier if
you stop the enemy from training lots of units at his Shrines.
One more pointer: the enemy will use the Lightning Bolt God Power against you
if you have two units next to each other on day 2 or later. So keep this in
mind and try to keep your units diagonal to each other--this is easier than it
sounds, since it is common you'll have more than 1 unit attacking an enemy
unit, and those two will naturally be diagonal rather than adjacent.
My result: 5 days
----
Greek Scenario 2: March of the Barbarians
Lots of killing from afar. All but one of your useful units are ranged units,
so you simply keep killing the enemy from a distance until the enemy is gone.
There are *many* enemy units, so it will take a while.
Many of the enemy are Nibelung Warriors, which are a Light Infantry unit that
is one-hit-killed by your Centaurs (or one-hit-killed by your Medusa, *if* the
enemy unit is standing on a road). There are also enemy Priests that are
one-hit-killed by your units. The enemy Fenrir Wolf units take two attacks to
kill them. The issue are the many enemy Einherjars and Frost Giants, which
require a large number of ranged attacks to kill. This is where your one other
useful unit comes in: Odysseus needs to get to the front and attack the enemy
Heavy Infantry units every day he can.
Day 1, have Odysseus grab the Hermes' Winged Sandals relic and Hippolyta grab
the Artemis' Bow of the Hunt relic before doing anything else. Now all your
ranged units have +1 to their range. Move the units that are far from the
front toward the front (they have to go South to get around the River), but
have the units near the front attack as much as possible, shooting over the
Mountains. The Centaur nearest the enemy can attack from the Forest squares to
his Southeast.
From then on, continue to run the far away units to the front as quickly as
possible, while having the units near the front attack every day. Use the
Pegasus units as spotters (if you leave them exposed, they'll get killed) on
your side of the Mountains, then kill the units you can see.
About the time Odysseus gets to the front, the enemy will be making his way
North around the Mountains and heading East along the Road, threatening to
attack your ranged units. Luckily, with the Mountains, the Forest squares to
the North of the Road (where you can hide Archers), and Odysseus to block the
way, you can head off the enemy and keep him from overrunning you. Concentrate
on using the Archers to kill everything at the front, making it hard for the
enemy to ever get a solid attack against you, since he can never see you very
well. Attack Heavy Infantry units with Archers until Odysseus can kill the
unit without taking any counterattack--I was able to maintain Odysseus with no
damage the entire Scenario.
You can leave Archers somewhat vulnerable--in a Forest that can theoretically
be attacked, for example--but if you leave them exposed, the enemy *will*
attack them, and can do a lot of damage with Heavy Infantry. I left one
Centaur exposed one day (I thought it was worth it for the major damage I was
able to inflict that day by going all out), and sure enough he was almost
killed on the enemy's half of the day.
Eventually, the enemy will start to dwindle, and you will need to move West and
then South to mop up the remaining enemy units.
My result: 13 days
----
Greek Scenario 3: Serpent's Coil
God Powers are the key here. You have one Shrine and 4 Heroes, and the Shrine
has 4 useful God Powers available.
On day 1, use the Bolt God Power against the Westernmost Lamia Warriors to the
North--this kills 4 enemy units. Move Hippolyta 3 squares East and attack the
remaining Lamia Warrior in the North, then attack the same unit with Odysseus.
Move Perseus onto the Shrine (to avoid it being attacked), and move Herakles
into the Forest square directly West of your Shrine.
On day 2, use the Lightning Storm God Power, then move Perseus 1 square South
and 2 squares East of the Shrine and use his Hero Power against the Lamia
Warrior. Move Herakles 1 square South and kill the Lamia Warrior, and use
Odysseus' Hero Power to move diagonal to Herakles and kill another Lamia
Warrior. Finally move Hippolyta to the square Southwest of Perseus (next to
the frozen Lamia Warrior), and use her Hero Power against the remaining Lamia
Warrior in the Southwest. With Perseus and Hippolyta in this position, the
enemy units in the Southeast are blocked.
On day 3, use the Earthquake God Power. At this point, just start attacking
all the units you can, since they are now all weak and can be one-hit-killed
with pretty much any attack, with the exception of the enemy Hero in the
Southeast.
My result: 5 days
----
Greek Scenario 4: Tricksters' Game
The enemy has 3 Town Centers to your 1, but he is Norse, so this is pretty
easy. You cannot Age Up.
The enemy's main Town Center is directly East of yours, and in my experience,
he will concentrate on this one, doing nothing with the other two until he
feels pressure to.
On day 1, build a Mine, Mill, and Shrine, and train Architects. I built the
Shrine East of your Town Center. Move Perseus as far East as he can go, and
move the Centaurs to the square just West of Perseus.
On day 2, build 2 Barracks, one Northwest and one South of your Town Center
(these are the best squares to send troops North and South). Build 2 Farms
and train another Architect--to win quickly, I use the Architects as military
units. I've seen the enemy Hero Narfi come forward on day 1, and if he does,
attack him with Perseus in such a way that Perseus blocks the way for enemy
units to get through toward your Town Center; but I've also seen him stay back
out of sight, and if he does this, move Perseus forward to block the way.
Have your Centaur kill the Fenrir Wolf but make sure the Centaur is not in
range of the enemy Hero.
On day 3, train 2 Myrmidon and 1 Centaur. Move 2 Architects North as far as
possible, and move 2 Architects South as far as possible, moving the final
Architect East, maybe even helping in the attacks. Use Perseus and the Centaur
as circumstances warrant, based on the enemy movements--it is likely Narfi
summoned a War Wolf, so killing it is a possibility.
As far as using Perseus' Hero Power to freeze Narfi, do *not* do this if Narfi
is blocking your progress to get to the enemy Town Center. You want to get to
the enemy Town Center in the East as soon as possible and prevent him from
building other buildings.
Run the 2 Myrmidon North and South. It is worth building a Mill in the North
when your Architects reach the Food square, but don't build another Mine if you
are trying to win quickly--the Mine is too expensive. In the North and South,
you can use the two Architects to kill a training Ulfsark, then attack the Town
Center with your Myrmidon. Eventually you will want 2 Architects and 2
Myrmidon in both the North and South, and to win quickly, you might want to
send a Centaur to help from around the enemy's Eastern Town Center.
Concentrate on destroying the enemy Town Centers first, then work on destroying
the Ox Carts. When possible, research to improve your units. But to win
quickly, always train units first, *then* use extra money to do research. By
the end, you should have maybe 5 Myrmidon and 4 Centaurs.
I think that neither God Power available is useful, so I used neither.
My result: 9 days
----
Greek Scenario 5: Olympian's Rise
You (and I believe the AI) start with no income and no buildings, at age 1 with
no researches done and have to build up your forces from scratch. You start
with 2 Architects, Herakles, and a Kataskopos. Your forces start in the North
and West, the AI's in the South and East, and there are the same four squares
of interest in the four directions: a Settlement, 2 Food squares, and 1 Gold
square. I only use one Settlement (the Northern one), but use all the Food
and Gold squares, and try to use some of the AI's Food squares as well.
The most important thing in this Scenario, I believe, is to research Lure,
which doubles the food income from all your Mills. If you build a number of
Mills, you can have a seriously high income for not much initial cost.
On day 1, move the Northern Architects straight North and the Western
Architects straight West. Move the Kataskopos as far East along the North of
the map as possible, and move Herakles as far South as possible. On day 2,
move Herakles as far Southeast as possible, and move the Katakopos as far East
as possible *before* moving the Architects, since the two military units can
now see a Settlement square and a Gold square that your two Architects can move
to on day 2, but could not see themselves. Build a Town Center and a Mine.
There are many ways to proceed from here, although I do not think there is any
way to age up earlier than day 8--that is, you have to skip researching for at
least one day. For me, I skip researching on day 3, instead training another
Architects. On day 3, build a Mill in the North and move your Western
Architects a bit South of West. On day 4, build a Mill in both the North and
West, and a Farm in the North, while researching Blacksmith. On day 5,
research Town Watch while building a Shrine, and move your Western Architects
as far East as possible. On day 6, build your 4th Mill and research Lure, and
you'll have plenty of food for the rest of the game. In fact, the food you
gain on day 7 should allow you to build your 2nd Mine. Doing all this, plus
doing another Shrine research on day 7, and not wasting money on anything else
will allow you to age up on day 8. I chose Hermes, to get the additional
movement for my units, and to get the Centaurs as Myth units. I tried other
Gods for age 2, but I think the additional movement provided by Hermes makes a
big difference--your units have to move long distances from your Town Center
to the enemy.
What to do with Herakles and the Kataskopos (H&K) during your build up to
age 2? I like sending them to the Southern area, although it does complicate
things. The AI will build up his forces in the East, and at least at the
start, there is only one Villagers in the South. If you can get over there
with H&K early and kill the Villagers before they can build a Town Center, you
can pretty much neutralize the South. The problem is that to the enemy, he can
only see you in the South, so he starts sending all his units that way, rather
than sending them toward your Town Center in the North. I would prefer he send
them to where I am strong, or at least to where I *will* be strong on day 10 or
so, rather than having H&K have to struggle to survive and to guard against an
enemy Villagers showing up and building a Town Center. He is weak in the South
but so am I, with only H&K and my Western Architects that I send that way as
soon as the 2 Mills and 1 Mine are built in the West. So sending H&K South
causes the enemy to consider the South as important, which makes it more likely
he will get a Town Center set up there, which I definitely do not want. If
instead, you (mostly) ignore the South, he doesn't seem to do anything there,
although it is likely he will build a Town Center, and that Town Center can
start to grow quickly if you're not careful.
Once you've aged up, your first priority is researching Marketplace, so that
you can trade all that food you have for gold. Build 2 Barracks, and train as
many Centaurs and Myrmidons as you can. Remember to try to research every
day--getting to age 2 was the most important, but you want to get to age 3
quickly as well. Send your troops Southeast, toward the enemy Town Center,
but realize you might have to have a unit or two continue South to help H&K a
bit.
Use the Cursed Voyage God Power around day 10 or so, when you've started to
encounter more than just one or two enemy units per day. This will help your
expansion, as the AI will be loath to attack you when he is weakened by the God
Power.
Choose Ares when aging up to age 3, to get the Earthquake God Power, which you
should use when you have at least 3 or 4 units around his Town Center and when
the AI is training a fair number of troops. The Earthquake will kill most of
the training units, and you can proceed to destroy some empty buildings. Once
I'm age 3, I like training Prodromos--with the Lord of Horses research and
Hermes, they have a movement value of 22!
I send one of the Northern Architects around the Northeast, and he is usually
able to build a Mill right next to the enemy Town Center. As I said above,
send the Western Architects to the Southern area--there are two Food squares
there that are rarely built on, so you might be able to add 2 Mills to your
collection. I only build the 1 Farm (day 4)--otherwise, you've got better
things to do with your money.
My result: 19 days
----
Greek Scenario 6: High Tide
I found this Scenario frustrating, for at least these reasons:
1) It is very easy. Although I didn't reach the enemy until day 2, I killed
every one of his units by the end of day 4.
2) No matter how well you organize your attack, you can't win before day 7
because there is an enemy Shrine in the South that is hidden in Forests and
can only be attacked by one unit. Therefore, as long as the enemy trains a
unit there every day, you can't damage the Shrine without Archers, and the
earliest you can get Archers on the scene is day 5.
3) I figure that I could do this Scenario over and over, and eventually the
enemy would neglect to train a unit on the Southern Shrine and allow me to win
in 6 days. I don't like the fact that I have to depend on AI stupidity to win
quicker.
On day 1, run Perseus through the center of the map as far as he can go. At
this point, you can see two Relics. There are actually 4 Relics, none of which
are especially useful to you, but I think the most useful is the Northern
Relic, Hermes' Winged Sandals, to get your Cavalry units extra movement. So
move Odysseus to that Relic and pick it up. Having Perseus pick up the Western
Relic, Ares' Savage Spear, on day 2 can be useful, to increase the strength of
your Hoplites. You want to avoid letting the enemy get any Relics.
Split up your troops, some to go around the Southwest part of the map, some to
go around the Northeast part of the map, and some to go through the middle.
I've found that Hoplites sent around the Southwest never get into the battle,
and also that you want to send at least two Prodromos through the middle, to
use on day 2 with Odysseus to block the enemy advance.
On days 2 and 3, train Centaurs at your Northern Shrine and send them through
the middle of the map at top speed (don't allow them to be slowed at all, or
they won't get in position to attack the enemy's Southern Shrine on their 3rd
day of movement). To have enough favor to train the 2 Centaurs, do not do any
Research before day 4. On day 2, use the Cursed Voyage God Power, and on day
3, use the Curse God Power against at least 3 Human units that are next to each
other, probably in or near the choke point that guards the Southern exit of the
area in the middle of the map. That choke point *could* be a real pain, since
you have no Archers at the beginning, but it turns out that your Prodromos
running around the Southwest and Northeast can actually attack the *other* side
of the chokepoint on day 4 (and maybe even day 3!).
Your Hoplites are pretty useless. They can only finish off units damaged by
your Cavalry, or kill the Pigs created by the Curse God Power.
As quickly as possible, get a unit in the one square that can attack the
enemy's Southern Shrine. The Shrine is hidden in a Forest square along the
bottom of the map, with a Forest square to its North and unreachable squares
to its East and West. You can get a Prodromos there on day 3. Your unit
should kill any training units, waiting for the Centaurs to arrive on day 5, at
which point the Centaurs can kill the training unit and your Prodromos can
attack the Shrine. On day 6, another Centaurs arrives, so you can begin to get
2 attacks on the Shrine per day.
The enemy's Eastern Shrine is easily destroyed without Archers, since there are
2 squares that can attack it, and since you can actually start to attack it on
day 3 and destroy it on day 4, if you'd like.
My result: 7 days
-----
Norse
-----
Norse Scenario 1: Cold Shoulder
This Campaign is deceptively easy. You start with Food and Gold, you of course
gain favor quickly as the Norse, you have 3 Shrines, and 5 Ox Carts. So it
would appear you should build up resources. However, this Campaign can be very
easily won without bothering with the Ox Carts at all, and with using the
Shrines only for God Powers.
The entire Campaign is an all-out attack. You outnumber the enemy by a good
amount, but he has a fair number of buildings you must destroy. He has a fully
built-out Town Center in the middle of the map, protected by 4 Obelisks, 4
Petsuchos, and 4 bridges. He also has a small Town Center, that he will grow
if given the chance, in the Northeast.
On day 1, first use The Great Hunt God Power, strengthening your troops for the
first 3 days. In the Northwest, move your Mountain Giants East across the
bridge and attack the Farm directly to the East of the Bridge with your
Valkyries. In the West, destroy the Obelisk with your Valkyries, attack the
Petsuchos with a Huskarl, and run the other 2 Huskarl as far North as possible.
In the South, destroy the Obelisk with the Western Mountain Giants, kill the
Petsuchos with Atli, then attack the Barracks in the Town Center with your
Einherjar. Move the other Mountain Giants as close to the bridge as possible.
Run the Jarl and the two farthest East units (Einherjar and Valkyries)
Northeast as far as possible. Your Huginn can be moved North, enabling you to
see the Obelisk to the East of the enemy Town Center. Use the Walking Woods
God Power, growing the "Walking Woods" unit on your side of the Eastern bridge,
where he can cross the bridge and reach and destroy that Eastern Obelisk.
On day 2, first use the Wild Fire God Power. This is important as it destroys
any units the enemy was training, making attacking his buildings much easier
(without ranged units, it is very hard to attack buildings from a bridge, as
you can only kill the training unit, and can't get an attack on the building
itself). Now finish off the Barracks in the middle with your Einherjar, run a
Mountain Giants into the square to destroy one of the Towers, and run either
Atli or a Valkyries into that square to attack a building. Your Walking Woods
will likely be able to attack a building--if he can't, attack and kill the
Petsuchos first with either your Einherjar or Valkyries. Also attack a
building with your Huskarl to the West of the Town Center. Destroying all the
buildings in the middle is challenging, given the tight quarters, but it can
be done fairly easily--in general, ignore the Town Center (including ignoring
training Villagers) until the end. Depending on the enemy's move, it is very
possible that your Mountain Giants in the North can already attack and destroy
some enemy Town buildings in the Northeast.
The enemy seems to like using the Son of Osiris God Power, turning Hatshepsut
into the Son of Osiris. This makes the unit hard to kill--your important units
here are the Jarl running around the East and the 2 Huskarl coming around the
Northwest.
Just keep destroying buildings and send your Human units against the Son of
Osiris, and this Campaign will be over before any units you might have trained
in your Shrines can be of any real use.
My result: 4 days
----
Norse Scenario 2: Hawk's Eye
Your Fenrir Wolves and Valkyries against the enemy's Rocs and Phoenix,
essentially. Your units kill Rocs and Phoenix pretty easily, so this is easy.
The only hard part is running all the way around to get to his Shrines.
You have 1 Shrine, the enemy has 5. Your Shrine is relatively useless, except
for using the Wild Fire God Power. I decided to save the God Power and use it
on a day I wanted to kill his training units (and I could see the units to be
sure it was actually doing something!). On other days, I trained another
Fenrir Wolf, or a Priest, but in general, anything you train doesn't really
help that much, since it takes them a while to get to the front.
I'm not sure it really matters which units you run around to the bridges on the
far North and West. Leave a few units behind to handle the Rocs that cross the
river on day 1. Just run as fast as possible, using the Fenrir Wolves to
attack Shrines when possible, and using the Valkyries to heal. You want to run
half your units to the North bridge and then South down the East side of the
river, and half your units to the West bridge and then East along the South
side of the River. Doing this, you'll find the 5 Shrines. Pretty much
everything the enemy has is very easy to kill *except* for his hero, Nakht, who
is really hard to kill with the units you have. He seems to hide out in a
Forest square Southeast of the enemy's Southeast Shrine. Find him and just
start attacking--it will take many attacks to kill him, especially with his
ability to heal a lot every day. If Brunnhilde is there, use her Hero Power
on Nakht to get one more attack in a given day.
(By the way, thanks to IONDragonX's FAQ for telling me about a glitch in this
Scenario. Every time I played this Scenario, it froze on me at the start of
day 4--it was driving me crazy. It turns out that this was because I was using
the Fimbulwinter God Power on day 1, and because the enemy has no Town Center,
when the God Power was over, a glitch caused the game to freeze. So don't use
that God Power in this Scenario.)
My result: 8 days
----
Norse Scenario 3: Assault of the Norse
Hey, I hit my unit cap in this one--I think that is a first! (When you hit
your unit cap, the "Train" item is just no longer in the list when you click on
a building.)
So, my natural tendency is to take it easy on training the "weak" Ulfsarks and
Raiders, waiting to age up and start training Huskarls and Jarls. However, if
you want to win this one quickly, never stop training, even though you're
training weak units. Lots of small cuts can kill as well.
You start in age 1, with no way to do any Research until day 3. So that means
you cannot age up until day 7. On day 1, use your God Power and place the
Dwarven Mine in the square just to the East of the Ox Carts that are directly
East of your Shrine--putting it here speeds up your unit's run to the front,
since they can run through a building instead of a Forest. On days 3-6, do a
Research at your Shrine, then age up on day 7. I don't think it really matters
which God you choose--there are pluses and minuses of each, but no God is
especially useful, I don't think. I chose Heimdall, so that I could use the
Undermine God Power on the enemy building complex--with so many weak units, I
wanted some help in destroying the enemy buildings.
Run Narfi, Atli, and your Ulfsark directly East to get to the enemy building
complex. On days 1 and 3, I used Narfi's Hero Power to get some War Wolves,
and believe it or not, they lived all the way until the end of the Scenario,
helping destroy the enemy buildings. I also used Atli's Hero Power a couple
times to damage the enemy Heros--the AI will keep resurrecting Siegfried and
Brunnhilde until you finally destroy his Shrine.
*Every day*, train an Ulfsark and a Raider. Run them directly East as fast as
possible to get into the fight. It is tempting to use your Ulfsark against the
enemy Raiders, but if you do that, there will be no troops to attack the enemy
Ulfsark, so I generally attacked Raiders with Raiders and Ulfsark with Ulfsark.
Once you age up, train Jarl, Huskarl, and Throwing Axemen. I ran the Throwing
Axemen and Huskarl Northeast, to move across the Northern edge of the map and
attack the 2 Ox Carts the enemy has in the Northeast corner. There is also 1
Ox Cart in the Southeast corner, and 2 Ox Carts near the enemy building
complex. These Ox Carts complicate a quick win, as they are not easy to
destroy with Ulfsark and Raiders, and they heal around 10% at the start of
every day. Once you've gotten the area just West of the enemy building
complex more or less under control, start sending some units North and South
from there to attack the Ox Carts in the corners. When the Throwing Axemen and
Huskarl arrive in the Northeast, they make quick work of the Ox Carts.
Once age 2, do the Research at the Barracks and Stable to strengthen your
units. If you research every day, you will be able to age up again quickly,
making your units that much more powerful.
My result: 13 days
----
Norse Scenario 4: Northward March
Yet another all-out attack. Run almost everything you've got forward as fast
as possible, attacking everything in your path and you'll have no problems.
You have three separate areas of units and enemy--the West, the East, and the
center. In the West and East, push all your units North, trying to destroy at
least one Farm/Mine Shaft, and then the Mill/Mine, so that you can move an Ox
Carts on top of the Food/Gold square. There are Scorpion Men opposing you, but
your Einherjar and Valkyries take care of the Scorpion Men fairly easily. Move
North as quickly as possible to take out another Mill/Mine and cover it with
your 2nd Ox Carts. Keep moving to get to the Far North and turn toward the
center. You should not even come close to losing any of these units during the
run North.
The center area is quite different--you start with only a Town Center, an
Ulfsark, the Hero Gunnarr, and the 2 crows Huginn and Muninn. You need to
build up your forces. On day 1, build a Shrine and train an Ulfsark. On day
2, build another Shrine and some other building--I built a Stable, but in
retrospect, I think an Archery Range would probably be better, since ranged
units will be valuable later. If you move Muninn North into the convenient
Forest square, you can see an enemy building, so on day 2, I used the Walking
Woods God Power to sprout the Walking Woods in the square 1 square Southwest
of that building, which turns out to be next to the enemy Archery Range--the
Walking Woods killed a training Slingers for a number of days. Building up
your forces is not easy, as your income is not large and takes a while to get
going. I used Gunnarr early on by sending him East next to the River and
having him shoot across the River to help with the Scorpion Men.
In the center, the enemy has 3 buildings in a 3-wide chokepoint about 2/3 of
the way North (these include the Archery Range I mentioned above). These
buildings can be very tough to deal with, since you can only get 1 attack on
them without ranged units, and the only ranged unit you begin with is Gunnarr.
To make things worse, the two outer buildings are in Forest squares, so you
have to be next to them to attack. In the Northern center, the enemy's Citadel
is located, surrounded by 4 Shrines. Even though this complex is bigger, and
has the Citadel in the middle, it is easier to attack, since your forces coming
from the East and West can converge on it, those units include a number of
Einherjars and Mountain Giants, and there is room to attack. I used the
Undermine God Power against the Citadel, but I'm wondering whether I should
have instead used it against the 3-wide chokepoint--probably not, but that
choke point is quite frustrating.
Some people like using the Wild Fire God Power early, to give you a kick start,
but if I'm not in any danger, I prefer saving it until later, when I can use
it to kill a number of training units. Similarly, it does no good to use The
Great Hunt God Power early, since you have no Human units early--wait to use
it until you have a number of Human units ready to do battle.
Note on my result: the AI used the Tornado God Power on day 6, and managed to
destroy 3 of his own buildings, including the middle building in the 3-wide
chokepoint, his Citadel, and a Shrine next to the Citadel! I thought that this
lucky turn of events might allow me to win in 7 days, but he had just enough
units, and hid them in Forests, and there was no possible way to destroy them
all on day 7. If I had trained Throwing Axemen instead of Jarls, I might have
had a chance. So if I played enough times, I might get lucky and the AI might
destroy a number of his own buildings again, and I might be able to get this
Scenario down to 7 days. But I'll stick with my 8 day result and feel lucky
enough.
My result: 8 days
----
Norse Scenario 5: Monster's Den
Ah, a Scenario I can actually imagine someone losing! This could be very tough
if you fought it wrong. You are being attacked from all sides and are
outnumbered. The enemy is mostly Minotaurs and Chimera, with 2 Centaurs thrown
in, and nothing you have can one-hit-kill any of the enemies (and if it wasn't
for Siegfried, the enemy Chimera would require at least 3, and in most cases, 4
of your attacks to kill them!)
I have tried fighting this with different strategies, but the one that works
the best, I believe, is to split your forces into two groups--I sent mine East
and West. Move only into Forest squares on day 1 and the enemy will have a
hard time attacking you at all on day 1. On day 2, attack with abandon!
Use the Fenrir Wolves only against the Chimera, in general, and try hard to
have Siegfried attack a Chimera as well. A Minotaur in a Plains square can be
killed with 2 hits from Valkyries or Einherjar, but if he gets in a Forest
square, it can require 3 or even 4 hits.
Concentrate on eliminating enemy units (not just damaging them) and keep your
units in the Forest squares as much as you can. As you kill all the units in
the East and West, move your units back toward the center to find and kill the
enemy units coming from the North and South.
I never did use Siegfried's Hero Power, always thinking there would be a better
time later. Of course, the enemy is unlikely to attack Siegfried since they
are all Myth units, so the extra defense is pretty useless in any case.
The Ox Carts are not useful to create income in this Scenario, but they can be
used to block the enemy's movement, or to create a "honey pot" to attract enemy
units. In one case, I left it exposed in a Plains square so the enemy could
see it, and they "wasted" 3 of their strong units to attack and kill my Ox
Carts!
My result: 6 days
----
Norse Scenario 6: The Lightning Fortress
3 days! Much too easy for the final Norse scenario.
You need to destroy his well-defended Town Center complex. Well, it is well-
defended in terms of buildings, but not at all in terms of units, and since
your units are very good at getting rid of buildings, *and* you have powerful
ranged units to kill off units standing on buildings, this is a cakewalk.
On day 1, kill as many of the Hoplites as possible--it should be pretty easy to
kill all but 2. My method is to move the Fire Giants into the Forest square
and attack the middle Hoplites. Then a double attack on the Hoplites that you
can now see in the Forest square will kill them.
On day 2, use your Frost Giants and Mountain Giants to break in toward the
Town Center complex, destroying Farms or Mines as needed to get there. Your
Fire Giants should kill all the units training in the town buildings.
There is one trick on this Scenario. The AI wants to use the Bolt God Power on
you on his half of day 1. He will look for a spot where he can kill the
maximum number of units. So I used my Ox Carts and moved them up next to my
Mountain Giants--the AI killed them both. Other than these 2, none of my units
were next to each other. I figure if I know I'm going to lose units, I might
as well have one of them be the useless Ox Carts, and I'll pick the other one.
As it turns out, when I played, the enemy's hero, Ladon the Lamia, comes over
to that side of the map, so rather than the units on that side moving through
to the Town Center, I used Atli against Ladon--therefore, I didn't miss the
Mountain Giant at all.
My result: 3 days
----------
Underworld
----------
Underworld Scenario 1: The Coiled Dragon
This is an interesting Scenario: it is a long Scenario that doesn't allow aging
up to age 3--I am not used to fighting at age 2 for more than 5 or 6 days.
You start age 1 but can research right away, so you can age up on day 5. Which
God to choose is a tough one (especially since you get to choose just one for
the entire Scenario, and can't say "I'll wait and use him for Age 3"). I have
tried Hephaestus (to get the Plenty God Power, since money is a bit short),
Hermes (to get the extra movement since there are such long distances between
you and the enemy), and Ares (to get the strong troops). Hepaestus and Ares
have strong Myth units that can one-hit-kill the enemy buildings, but Hermes
has the Centaur Myth unit, which is fast and deadly. As it turns out, I like
Hermes the best and was able to win the fastest with him.
On day 1, train an Architects and start building one building per day. There
doesn't seem to be any hurry, since you are mostly waiting for age 2 to start
training units anyway. Build a Barracks on day 2, then train Hoplites on days
3 and 4 at that Barracks. Do a research every day so that you can age up on
day 5.
Run Ladon and the Hoplites South, although once Ladon gets just South of the
Temple, wait for the enemy units to appear. He and the Hoplites should be
able to clean out the area fairly well while waiting for the age 2 units to
show up.
Once you've aged up, start training units like crazy (note, however, that you
probably need to research Marketplace the same day you age up). Train Myth
units first, then Myrmidon, then Hippokon and Toxotes. Of course if you've
aged up with Hermes, you have Centaurs, so it really doesn't make sense to
train many Toxotes (train just 1 on day 5); and if you *didn't* age up with
Hermes, the Toxotes become more important as your only ranged units. Even
though you can't age up again, try to do research when possible to increase
the stats of your units.
Just keep rushing forward on both sides of the map. Don't worry about the
enemy's Mills/Farms/Mines/Mine Shafts--instead kill units and try to get to
the enemy building complexes to start destroying buildings. I never did use
the Sentinels God Power--the enemy never gets even close to my Town Center, so
what is the use?
My result: 15 days
----
Underworld Scenario 2: Prometheus' Gift
I am quite surprised with my 13 day result! The first time I did this, I
finished in 23 days, with much consternation along the way. Then I tried it
again and not only found a perfect time for the Frost God Power, but also got
lucky when the enemy's Tornado God Power destroyed 2 or 3 of his own buildings.
And then, even with that, it was frustrating--I was only 1 attack away from
winning in 12 days, just barely not being able to destroy the far North Town
Center.
On day 1, move Narfi to the bridge to the West and use his Hero Power--this
summons a War Wolf behind the enemy's Tower! Move the Ox Cart that is on your
Town Center directly South over the bridge, train another Ox Carts and 2
Ulfsark, and use the Spy God Power.
On day 2, build 2 Shrines with the 2 Ulfsark--if you build in the Northwestern-
most square, you can be killed by the enemy Hero, so avoid this square. Move
your Ox Carts in the South onto the Gold square and move the Ox Carts on your
Town Center directly South across the bridge. Research Eyes of the Forest at
your Shrine. Depending on what the enemy throws at you around Narfi, attack
something. If possible, attack the Tower in front of Narfi--it is important
to break down that Tower eventually.
On day 3, you just barely have enough Food and Gold to age up. I chose Skadi,
both to get the Frost Giants and to get the Frost God Power. Move the far
South Ox Carts onto the Food square. You might want to have Narfi use his Hero
Power again to summon another War Wolf behind enemy lines. It depends highly
on the enemy's movements what you do with your Ulfsark.
On day 4, research Marketplace at your Town Center, unless you are desperate
to build units that day.
From here on, the enemy's movements vary so widely that there is no way to
predict them here.
The key thing that I did, however, was that on day 4 or 5, the enemy Hero was
standing just East of the bridge to the Northwest of my Town Center, and I used
the Frost God Power on him--this froze both him and 1 unit standing next to him
for 3 days, also blocking the enemy from crossing that bridge. When the ice
cleared, he and his cohort were damaged, so I was able to kill his cohort and
surround and almost kill him. The reason this was so important was that in this
way, the enemy was not able to attack from the North at all, so I could
concentrate for a few days on attacking across the bridge to the West.
Probably because of my two War Wolves, the enemy did not try to cross the
bridge South of his Town Center in force--he only sent a Hyena and 1 Villager.
I was able to kill these off with an Ulfsark. So this meant there were no
problems in the South.
I believe it was on day 5 that I was able to build 2 Frost Giants, and on day
6, they, along with a Huskarl, ran across the Western bridge and started
destroying buildings. These 3 units, along with Narfi and the 2 War Wolves,
were able to create significant havoc, especially after the enemy's Tornado
went awry and destroyed some of his buildings for me.
Now, I can't promise your experience will be so successful. So I will try to
provide some general comments about how to fight this.
You need to try to protect your Ox Carts--these are what allow you to fight.
This means that the Southern area of the map is a very important area, since
you have 2 Ox Carts there. Try hard to not allow the enemy to get a foothold
there.
Similarly, the enemy will attack across the bridge that is Northwest of your
Town Center, and you have an Ox Carts in easy attack range. If possible, try
to keep the enemy from getting across, although this is pretty much impossible
if the enemy really tries hard to cross it. If the enemy gets through, try to
fight him off as well as possible and remember that the more trouble you make
elsewhere, the fewer units he'll send that way. As I said above, I believe
this area is a perfect place to use the Frost God Power, since it is just too
hard to defend otherwise.
When aging up to age 3, I chose Hel, to get the Fire Giants and the Nidhogg God
Power. The Nidhogg can be summoned anywhere and is a very powerful Heavy
Infanty Myth unit, and the Fire Giants add ranged units to your attack (I am
not a big fan of the Throwing Axemen, with their short range).
My result: 13 days
----
Underworld Scenario 3: Zeus' Betrayal
Another interesting Scenario. You have a bunch of units to start with, and the
ability and income to train more, but they are all Heavy or Light Infantry Myth
units (plus your Hero Nakht). So no Ranged, no Cavalry, no Siege. As it turns
out, it is the Ranged units you really miss, as this entire Scenario is
essentially a fight for 4 separate chokepoints--you're on one side of them, the
enemy is on the other.
For all but one of the chokepoints, you can essentially hold the enemy off
forever. You have a Mummies standing in a Tower (so it gets the automatic
healing every day), and if you put Priests next to the Mummies to heal them
every day, the enemy will never be able to get through, since he only has
Ranged units at one of the chokepoints. He *does* have Catapults at the other
chokepoints, but only 1 at each, and the Catapults do almost no damage to your
Mummies.
The last chokepoint, however, is undefendable by you. The enemy has *many*
Medusa, and can easily kill the Mummies and destroy the Tower on day 1, no
matter what you do. As it turns out, I've decided that this is a good thing.
Just as it is very hard for the enemy to break through the other chokepoints
without Ranged units, it is hard for you as well. So my strategy is to let the
enemy through the chokepoint, then kill them. However, it is important that
you not let too many of the enemy through, as you will then lose control.
Until you're ready to try to break through a chokepoint, *never* attack with
the Mummies you have standing in the Towers--just stand there, let the enemy
attack you (but not kill you), then have Priests heal the Mummies.
So on day 1, train Priests in all 3 of the close Shrines, and research Blades
of Anubis at the Southern Shrine. Move the 2 middle Mummies in the South
directly Northward as far as possible and the other 2 Southern Mummies toward
your middle Shrine. Move the 2 Anubis directly toward the middle. Move the
Western Avenger into the Forest to the West, the Northern Avenger South one
square, and put the other 2 Avengers in the 2 squares West of the Shrine. This
sets you up to be able to attack in force when the enemy breaks through just to
the West of your middle Shrine.
On day 2, attack whatever came through the chokepoint. If there is a risk of
losing control, attack all out, but if not, try to leave at least 1, and
ideally 2, squares on your side of the bridge empty for the enemy to move into.
This same advice goes for future days as well--until you can break through the
chokepoint yourself, you need to concentrate on letting the enemy come across
to attack you, so that those enemy units can then be killed. Only by letting
him send his troops to their deaths can you hope to make progress with all
those Medusa around.
Also on day 2, move the 3 Priests to the other 3 chokepoints and heal the
Mummies. Train another Priests in the East, Anubites in the West, and an
Avenger in the middle. One trick you can pull is to heal the Mummies in the
3rd chokepoint, then run them directly West to attack a possible enemy unit
that has crossed the bridge and gone 1 square East. You have another Mummies
directly South of that chokepoint that can run up and take its place in the
Tower.
On day 3, train a Priests in both the West and East, and either an Avenger or
a Mummies in the middle. The use of the 2 Priests in the West is due to the
fact that the Catapult in that area likes to attack your Priest instead of your
Mummies, so without another Priests, you can be without. In the East, you can
use your Priests in a "shuffle", the farthest West can run West to heal a unit
on the front, the next farthest West can run West to heal the Mummies in the
3rd Tower, then the Priests from the Shrine can heal the Mummies in the 4th
(Eastern) Tower. Also, after a while, you will need to heal the Mummies twice
every few days, since 1 healing does not cover the daily damage done. I built
a lot of Priests in this Scenario, and shuffled them to the front.
The enemy's side of the chokepoints is broken into 2 distinct areas: the 2
Western chokepoints go into one area, the 2 Eastern chokepoints into another.
There is no way for the enemy (or you, once you've broken through) to move
from one to the other.
If you've been leaving squares for the enemy to move into, he'll eventually run
out of units to send through from his Western half, and he'll leave an opening
for you to run through. Send absolutely all your Avengers across--you need
your Mummies in the East, so they don't really need to be sent through unless
the enemy still has too many units to handle with just your Avengers (if he
does, you probably should wait longer to break through).
Now my strategy for breaking through the Eastern 2 chokepoints is pretty
specific. I guess I could have done the same thing--just let them through one
of the chokepoints and kill them on my side. But I decided to break through to
them. Sometimes it is a bit iffy whether you'll get through, but I guess in
the worst case, you can simply retreat and go back to the "let them through"
plan.
My attack is 3 pronged. 1) Kill the weak Minotaur (weakened by attacking your
Mummies over and over) in front of Herakles and run through a Mummies to attack
Herakles. Have another full-strength Mummies ready to run through the next day
to attack Herakles again. 2) Once you've attacked Herakles 3 times (twice
*might* work, but I'm not sure), use the Tornado God Power right on top of him.
If you're lucky, the God Power will take him out and hit lots of enemies as
well. If you're not, it'll come your way. What happened to me was that it
took out Herakles and damaged 1 other unit, so not so good, but not so bad.
Have lots of Mummies and a few Anubites (they have a very high movement, so can
get to squares the Mummies couldn't) ready to run through and fill any squares
you can get into. 3) Have Nakht (train him again if he gets killed) use his
Hero Power to turn into a raven, then fly him over into the enemy area behind
Herakles--I like the square 2 squares West and 2 squares North of Herakles.
Then immediately use the Son of Osiris God Power and change Nakht into the Son
of Osiris. Dropping this almost indestructible unit behind his lines really
makes things easier for you.
The AI is not really very good at keeping you from breaking through--he is very
likely to leave a hole, or to leave some exposure where you can make a hole
with an attack, especially with the Son of Osiris to help. As soon as you find
a hole, run through everything you can. Once you break through, it is only a
matter of time.
My result: 11 days
----
Underworld Scenario 4: Lionheart
This is the first Campaign or Scenario that I think can be easily lost, even if
you play well. Essentially, if the AI uses the Cursed Voyage God Power on you
on day 1 or 2, you are very likely to lose no matter what you do (I tried once
to win this after Cursed Voyage, just to see if it was possible. With a lot of
hiding and running and guerilla tactics, I was able to kill all but Perseus,
but killing him was not possible with only 2 Anubites and a Priests, which is
all I had by that time.)
In my mind, the key to this is destroying the enemy Shrines as quickly as
possible, and my strategy does that on day 4. Once his Shrines are gone, he
cannot train any new troops, nor use any God Powers, so then you just have to
hack at his existing units until they die.
I'm going to be very specific on day 1's moves here, as I really do believe
that this start makes the rest of the Scenario work.
On day 1, move Nakht straight North to between the two Nemean Lions and attack
the Eastern Lion. Move the far Southeast Anubites to the square East of the
Eastern Nemean Lion and attack it. Move the Eastern Priests 3 squares North
and 1 square East and attack the Lion next to Nakht (using the Priests ranged
attack). Move the 2nd Anubites from the East to behind that same Lion and
attack it, and finally move the Eastern Anubites to East of that same Lion and
kill it.
Now move the 2 Eastern Catapults directly North 4 squares and attack the other
Lion standing next to Nakht. Move the last Catapult 3 squares North and 1
square West and attack that same Lion. With the Northern Anubites, move behind
that same Lion and attack it. Move any of the remaining Anubites to just South
of that Lion and attack it, and finally move an Anubites to West of that Lion
and kill it. Move the final Anubites to West of the Western Lion and attack
it, and move the Priests 4 squares North and attack that same Lion. Finally,
move the Phoenix directly North as far as possible. When your day 2 starts,
Nakht and the 3 damaged Anubites diagonal to him will heal. Also, this
position makes it such that none of the Lions (there are 2 more waiting in the
wings) can attack anything other than Anubites, which they don't like to do.
On the enemy's half of day 1, if he uses the Cursed Voyage God Power, you are
in trouble. But he usually doesn't. His Lions usually make a couple attacks
against your Anubites, killing nothing.
On your half of day 2, move the Phoenix to South of the enemy's Western Shrine
and attack it. You want to move your Western Catapults 3 squares North, and
there is likely a Lion standing in that square, so first kill that Lion (with
help from the middle Catapults, which move 2 squares North and 1 square East,
then attack that Lion from 3 squares away). Once that Lion is dead, you should
move the Catapults into the square and attack the other Lion, and use the last
Anubites on that side to attack the Lion as well. The Priests can heal one
of the damaged Anubites.
In the East, it depends on what the enemy did on day 1, but the important part
is to get your Eastern Catapults 2 squares North and 1 square East (and I
already said above that your middle Catapults do the same thing). Kill a Lion
that Nakht can get to by attacking with Nakht and probably just one Anubites,
then attack the other Lion with the other Anubites and the Eastern Catapults.
Once again, use the Priests to heal an Anubites.
It is not that important to attack the enemy Mines, as you are going to destroy
his Shrines quickly, so the income to him doesn't matter. Note, however, that
destroying the Mines later might be useful, so that the enemy cannot see your
units from his Mines.
On day 3, go with the flow as far as Anubites go, killing the Lions that are
left. The important thing, though, is to move the Catapults North and kill the
Eastern and Western Shrines. This will take him down to 1 Shrine, which you
can see over the top of the Mountains to the North. On day 4, all 3 Catapults,
as well as your Phoenix, will be able to attack that Shrine, so even if the AI
trains a unit, you should be able to destroy that Shrine. In fact, depending
on what is training there, you might be able to kill the training unit with
your Phoenix on day 3. If you can see Lamia Warriors coming around the West,
leave the Anubites you have in the West over there to take care of the Lamia
Warriors. Otherwise, run those that weren't needed to kill the Lion around to
the East. The AI can kill a few of your Anubites with his Lions on his half
of day 1, but he usually doesn't, so you should be able to get rid of all his
Lions and Shrines without losing a single unit.
Now the hard part begins. The enemy Hero Ladon the Lamia is very hard to kill
with your units, as are the Lamia Warriors. In fact, unless you have an
Anubites at full-strength, attacking Ladon will be suicide since Ladon's
counterattack will take a full-strength Anubites down to only 4 hitpoints!
(And attacking Perseus, if the enemy trains him, is even worse--a full-strength
Anubites attacking from a Plains square will be killed with the counterattack.)
But the important part is to just attack hard, especially with Nakht and your
Phoenix, and you will be able to kill anything. Don't do suicide attacks,
though, unless it is right at the end of the Scenario and the unit isn't
needed. By the way, if you surround Ladon, even without attacking, he will
likely "waste" his turn by using his Hero Power to push all your units away
from him--this doesn't damage your units at all, and means they can come back
and attack the next day.
The time I was able to finish in 6 days, I was lucky in that the enemy decided
to train Odysseus at their Northern Shrine--with all my Light Infantry units,
I was happy to see a Cavalry unit coming my way rather than, for example,
Perseus. So Odysseus was trained on day 2, a Priest was trained on day 3,
which I had the Phoenix kill in training, then on day 4, the AI used the Curse
God Power, which turned 2 of my Catapults and 1 Priests into Pigs. This was
okay, however, as my 3rd Catapults was able to destroy that Shrine on day 4.
My Phoenix was freed up and flew off to attack the Western Lamia Warriors on
days 4, 5, and 6, killing it. So all the rest of my units came to the East to
fight Odysseus (killed pretty easily), Ladon (killed, but not easily), and the
last Lamia Warriors (they do bad counterattack damage and can 1-hit kill your
Anubites, but only 3 attacks from Anubites take them out).
If you are having a hard time with the enemy in this one, you can use your
Phoenix to fly around behind his lines (the area around his Northern Shrine).
He will often decide to send his units back to that area to deal with the
Phoenix, rather than come to attack you. So he might, for example, attack in
the East with a Lamia Warriors, but rather than also attacking at the same
time with Ladon, which could be quite difficult for you, he'll send Ladon back
toward his Northern Shrine. Then you can take out the Lamia Warriors and do
some healing while Ladon is wasting his time chasing a Phoenix that can run
away very easily. Another thing you can do is hide your units in the Forest
and since the AI can't see them, he might run back away from you. So if things
look bleak, use these tricks to get the AI out of your hair for a day or two.
My result: 6 days
----
Underworld Scenario 5: Kronos' Rage
Compared to the previous Underworld Scenarios, this one is pretty much of a
snooze. 15 of your units against 4 fully-built-out Town Center complexes, and,
at least if you do it right, the enemy never really gets the least bit
dangerous.
So, you have to attack all 4 complexes at once, otherwise, the enemy could
train lots of units in whichever complex you weren't attacking. And it is very
slow to move units from one complex to another. So this is essentially 4
separate battles for the entire Scenario.
The one choice you have is where to send the 4 units in the middle (I'm
ignoring the Ox Carts, since I can't really see them doing anything very
useful). I'm not sure it really matters which you send where. I would say it
would make sense to send the Fire Giants either East or West, instead of
sending them to an area that already has Fire Giants. And the North needs a
Fenrir Wolf rather than Siegfried, I think. I've tried different combinations
with similar results. There is probably an optimal distribution, but this
Scenario is too boring for me to try it many times. (Another reason I stopped
is that I do not believe this is winnable in 7 days, so once I got an 8 day
result, there was little motivation to try to do better.)
In each area, it is a trade-off between destroying buildings or killing units
in training. I am willing to put up with units getting trained as long as they
are weak units and it means I can destroy additional buildings so that fewer
units get trained next time. In the Eastern area, for example, I concentrated
on destroying buildings and as such, the enemy got units trained, but they were
only a Kataskopos and a Villagers, and I had destroyed 3 of the 5 Military
buildings. Then, even with those units running around and new units getting
trained, that area was actually the area that seemed to be finished easiest.
On day 1, attack Ladon with the Jarl, then finish him off on day 2. You can
either kill Herakles on day 1, or destroy an extra building--I chose the
building, then finished off Herakles on day 2.
In each Town Center complex, you must destroy all 5 of the Military buildings,
the Town Center, *and* the Palace to finish the Scenario. Leave the Town
Center and especially the Palace for last, since they cannot train dangerous
units, but since a Mountain Giant can destroy a Town Center in 2 attacks, I
have destroyed the Town Center in the West to get to the other buildings.
The AI could make this Scenario much more difficult by training more units,
especially in the North, but it doesn't. A smart opponent would realize you're
understrength in the North and do all the training there, but the AI seems to
do the opposite--train more where you're strong.
My result: 8 days
----
Underworld Scenario 6: Children of the Gods
The ultimate in outnumbered: the enemy starts with 84 units to your 4! You
have buildings to train units and use God Powers from, however, and he doesn't.
The key God Power here is Ceasefire, which you should use on day 1 after making
attacks with your 4 Heroes. This gives you time to build up forces. The enemy
is, of course, stupid (as you should know well by this point, the very last
Scenario), but he is especially stupid in this Scenario I believe. The most
important way he is stupid is that during the Ceasefire he doesn't move. He
*could* surround you, moving up his powerful forces and cooping you up in your
building complex, and kill off all your training units (after the Ceasefire)
with his ranged units. (An additional stupidity: because the enemy is actually
made up of 3 separate forces, each force figures it can't hurt a training
Chimera, so doesn't try, but if the 3 forces, who are supposed to be on the
same team, would team up, they could go far to prevent you from training any
units, making your job quite difficult. But they don't.)
My strategy is to use Ceasefire on day 1, then ready a devastating attack on
his ranged units on day 4. His Light Infantry units near your buildings don't
like attacking buildings or Myrmidon, so I just put one strong unit in front of
the buildings, and the Light Infantry units just pretty much run away! Also,
I've found that the almost-indestructible Chimera are much more useful than
Medusa or Centaurs, so I build only Chimera.
On day 1, have Hippolyta use her Hero Power against the Fenrir Wolf 3 squares
to the West of your Northwest Vault, and have Perseus kill the Fenrir Wolf just
East of this. Herakles almost kills an Anubites on the East side of your
buildings (it will die when you use the Lightning Storm God Power). Move
Odysseus through your buildings and around the enemy troops to the East, as far
as possible, then use his Hero Power, and on the second move, move to and kill
the nearest Petsuchos in sight. Now use the Ceasefire God Power. Train a
Myrmidon and a Chimera in the Western Shrine.
On day 2, move Herakles to the square North of your Northern Shrine, the
Myrmidon to the square West of your Western Shrine, the Chimera as far South
around the enemy units as possible, and Perseus to the West through the enemy
units. Move Odysseus around the Slingers to the North and then straight East
as far as possible--at the conclusion of his move, you should be able to see a
formation of 2 Mummies and 4 Khepesh. Use the Bolt God Power on the closest
Mummies, killing 2 Mummies, 2 Khepesh, and a Chariots. Train another Myrmidon,
and 2 Chimeras in the Northern and Eastern Shrines.
On day 3, we're trying to get in place for the attack on day 4. Move the
newly-trained Myrmidon to the square East of the Eastern Shrine, the Eastern
Chimera to the east around the enemy, the Northern Chimera to the North around
the enemy, and the Southern Chimera to the Southeast to see as many enemies as
possible, not getting out of range/sight of the ranged units in that area.
Train a Myrmidon and 2 Chimera in the Northern and Western Shrines.
On day 4, use the Lightning Storm God Power then attack! We have a tunnel
through the Light Infantry in the West, and we want to do that same thing in
the North. So just North of the Northern Shrine, kill the closest Fenrir Wolf
with Herakles, then the farther Fenrir Wolf with Hippolyta. Move the
newly-trained Myrmidon one square South and attack, and have both other
Myrmidon attack from where they're standing. You have strong troops in front
of each Shrine/Barracks, to protect them from attack. All 7 of your other
troops (5 Chimera, Perseus, and Odysseus) should attack behind the Light
Infantry groups--I personally like getting rid of as many ranged units as
possible. If possible, have your units attack from Forest squares, especially
the Heroes, since there are so many Human units around to attack them. Train a
Myrmidon and a Chimera in the Western Shrine. At this point, you should have
killed 7 Light Infantry (with 1 Light Infantry unit at 2 HP), 7 ranged units,
and the 4 Heavy Infantry and 1 Cavalry with the Bolt. Basically 20 enemy down,
64 to go, with little or no damage to you. So far, so good.
However, things turn bad on the enemy's half of day 4. He can attack finally,
and he does, doing serious damage to many/most of your units. However, he does
not seem to be smart enough to concentrate his attacks and kill your units.
On day 5, you want to use your last God Power, Restoration. Ideally, you want
to use this at the end of the day, but you want to make sure that you don't
have any of your units killed by a counterattack, and for human units, they
will do more damage if you first use Restoration, *then* attack. Anyway,
send the newly-trained Chimera South, and send the newly-trained Myrmidon to
help if another Myrmidon has been seriously damaged. With all your "outlying"
troops (those away from the building complex), just attack all-out, trying to
kill whatever you attack and ideally do it from a Forest square. Train 2 more
Chimera, wherever they seem the most needed. I think I researched Improved
Infantry at my Barracks on this day, but that is probably not needed.
From here on, keep building maximum Chimera per day and attacking all out.
On some sides, very quickly, the enemy moves away from your buildings, so you
can feel free to move the Myrmidon (and Herakles) that were guarding your
Shrines/Barracks out to attack whatever they can get to. If you see Khepesh in
Plains squares, it might be worth attacking them, since with their 70% defense,
if they get in Forest squares, they are very hard to kill.
A more-balanced attack with Chimera, Centaurs/Medusa, and Priests would seem to
be more sensible than my all-Chimera attack, but if you want to win quickly,
the Chimera work better, I believe. They one-hit-kill just about everything
and are very hard to kill, unlike the Centaurs/Medusa/Priests.
Note that it is possible that the enemy has extra Heavy Infanty troops in the
far North/East/South/West that he won't move until you get close enough, so you
might need to go find them.
My result: 8 days
-------------------
My Scenario results
-------------------
Once again, although I listed all my results above in the walkthroughs, I
thought it would be interesting to put them all together in one place, and
especially to sort them from longest Scenario to shortest.
Here are my results in the Scenarios:
------------------------------------
TABLE 4: My results in the Scenarios
------------------------------------
| My result |
Scenario | (days) |
-------------------------------------------------|-----------|
Egyptian Scenario 1: Citadel of the Pharaoh (E1) | 4 |
Egyptian Scenario 2: The Restless Dead (E2) | 6 |
Egyptian Scenario 3: Clash on the Nile (E3) | 23 |
Egyptian Scenario 4: Return of Osiris (E4) | 11 |
Egyptian Scenario 5: Monthu's Trial (E5) | 16 |
Egyptian Scenario 6: Sanctum of the Snake (E6) | 5 |
Greek Scenario 1: Wrath of Olympus (G1) | 5 |
Greek Scenario 2: March of the Barbarians (G2) | 13 |
Greek Scenario 3: Serpent's Coil (G3) | 5 |
Greek Scenario 4: Tricksters' Game (G4) | 9 |
Greek Scenario 5: Olympian's Rise (G5) | 19 |
Greek Scenario 6: High Tide (G6) | 7 |
Norse Scenario 1: Cold Shoulder (N1) | 4 |
Norse Scenario 2: Hawk's Eye (N2) | 8 |
Norse Scenario 3: Assault of the Norse (N3) | 13 |
Norse Scenario 4: Northward March (N4) | 8 |
Norse Scenario 5: Monster's Den (N5) | 6 |
Norse Scenario 6: The Lightning Fortress (N6) | 3 |
Underworld Scenario 1: The Coiled Dragon (U1) | 15 |
Underworld Scenario 2: Prometheus' Gift (U2) | 13 |
Underworld Scenario 3: Zeus' Betrayal (U3) | 11 |
Underworld Scenario 4: Lionheart (U4) | 6 |
Underworld Scenario 5: Kronos' Rage (U5) | 8 |
Underworld Scenario 6: Children of the Gods (U6) | 8 |
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TABLE 5: Scenarios, longest to shortest
---------------------------------------
| My result |
Scenario | (days) |
-------------------------------------------------|-----------|
Egyptian Scenario 3: Clash on the Nile (E3) | 23 |
Greek Scenario 5: Olympian's Rise (G5) | 19 |
Egyptian Scenario 5: Monthu's Trial (E5) | 16 |
Underworld Scenario 1: The Coiled Dragon (U1) | 15 |
Underworld Scenario 2: Prometheus' Gift (U2) | 13 |
Greek Scenario 2: March of the Barbarians (G2) | 13 |
Norse Scenario 3: Assault of the Norse (N3) | 13 |
Underworld Scenario 3: Zeus' Betrayal (U3) | 11 |
Egyptian Scenario 4: Return of Osiris (E4) | 11 |
Greek Scenario 4: Tricksters' Game (G4) | 9 |
Norse Scenario 4: Northward March (N4) | 8 |
Norse Scenario 2: Hawk's Eye (N2) | 8 |
Underworld Scenario 6: Children of the Gods (U6) | 8 |
Underworld Scenario 5: Kronos' Rage (U5) | 8 |
Greek Scenario 6: High Tide (G6) | 7 |
Underworld Scenario 4: Lionheart (U4) | 6 |
Norse Scenario 5: Monster's Den (N5) | 6 |
Egyptian Scenario 2: The Restless Dead (E2) | 6 |
Greek Scenario 3: Serpent's Coil (G3) | 5 |
Greek Scenario 1: Wrath of Olympus (G1) | 5 |
Egyptian Scenario 6: Sanctum of the Snake (E6) | 5 |
Norse Scenario 1: Cold Shoulder (N1) | 4 |
Egyptian Scenario 1: Citadel of the Pharaoh (E1) | 4 |
Norse Scenario 6: The Lightning Fortress (N6) | 3 |
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