If your having a difficult time completing a level,
try the following tips.
Try building the basic castle needs, such as a Marketplace, Mercenary
Post, Granary, Stockpiles, and Industry Buildings, then save there.
It is easier to start at that point, in case your placement of
some walls or towers do not work well.
Pause game play whenever you can to save time. It is very important
to build faster than the enemy.
Keep your money making resources (Food, Rocks, Iron, Pitch, or
Weapons) protected, or put walls around them to keep them safe.
Capitalize on them whenever you can.
Create layers of walls around or in front of important towers
and other targets that the enemy likes to knock down.
Horse archers are very useful in this game, especially when aggressing
enemy castles with Mongonels to help put big holes in enemy walls
and a few swordsman as guard dogs.
By immediately placing a group of Woodmans Huts around a enemy
base, then putting them to sleep, you will block the area and
prevent him from building Barracks or a Mercenary Camp. It costs
a lot of Wood, but it means they cannot make any troops and therefore
very easy to defeat. Note: This does not work on the pig.
When attacking a castle, concentrate on the enemy Barracks. Once
destroyed, try to block it from being rebuilt by placing troops
over its remains. Again, it makes the enemy easier to defeat without
it producing more troops.
The Ballista is good at holding positions far from the security
of your home base. Get a group of about eight built, with approximately
twenty Archers and stick a couple Trebuchets in the middle of
them. The Trebuchets can attack the enemy castle well protected.
If needed, you can always take the six Engineers from them to
make three more Ballista when the enemy counterattacks. Ballista
are also great at taking out enemy troops on the castle walls,
especially fire throwers.
On several levels there is very little farm land, but you always
find at least one resource available (Stone or Iron). Concentrate
on the mining and sell it at the market for Food.
Have both Archers and Crossbowmen on Towers (five each) for a
good defense. Add a Ballista on the Tower to make it better as
they have a huge range and can even hit attacking Trebuchets.
To protect farms, etc. outside your walls, build a Tower and a
Gate next to each other. This allows you to put Archers in and
have them protected from enemy soldiers entering the Tower. You
could also destroy stairs to the tower once they are in, as an
other option.
Pikemen are the best troops due to the combination of speed, defense
and attack. Knights are far too slow to attack with, but make
great defenders.
In the most difficult levels when the enemy comes at you very
early, try to set up a trap. Build strong walls around your land
except in one area. Leave an opening and have as many troops as
possible covering that area. The enemy often ignore the undefended
walls and go for your "weak spot'" Instead, they walk
in to a wall of Ballista, Archer, and crossbow fire; and a few
Knights for good measure. Do not forget your Lord is also a superb
fighter that also can be used.
It is all a matter of timing. Organize waves of attacking troops,
attack with one group, then send in reinforcements. When blocking
the enemy from rebuilding its Barracks, your troops will not last
long. While they do the blocking, have other sets attacking.
If you are having trouble with some of the first levels of the
crusader trail, where you have more money than your opponent,
try this. Build a Granary and a few necessary things like a Market.
Then, build a Mercenary Post. Train a lot of Assassins and attack
your opponent immediately. This will save you some time, so you
can get to the higher levels faster.
If you are stuck in the level where the Wolf has 40000 credits,
and you only 7000, when you have built your base and are able
to beat his attacks (easy if you know how to defend), his castle
is enormous. Look carefully and you will see that if you put a
Rolling Tower against his wall to the northeast, you can get up
with about 150 Macemen. You will be able to maneuver through his
castle.
Superior numbers are everything. This is a very economic game.
A stronger economy supports a stronger military. It is a lot cheaper
to have too many Archers on your walls than just enough. Slaughtering
the enemy before most of the troops reach the walls saves you
a lot of stone and Archers in the long run.
The first priority for any map is defense. If the funds are there,
build 15 to 20 Archers or Crossbowmen (depending on the enemy;
the Rat never uses armored troops, so archers are good enough)
and enough Lookout Towers to house them (five to a tower) near
resources that would normally be far away from the keep. Use the
Gatehouse strategy or put Pikemen at the bottom of the stairs
to protect them. You only need large towers for Ballista and Mangonels,
and Lookout Towers for Archers (because of range) for castle defense.
Once your castle is well defended enough to remain unattended,
build several Trebuchets just out of range of enemy Mangonels
atop their towers. Send about 10 Archers and Crossbowmen (again
depending on enemy) and 10 swordsmen per Trebuchet as protection.
From here, you can pummel the enemy walls, let them rebuild, and
do it again. He will send troops to destroy the Trebuchets, but
your Archers will pick them off easily. Keep replenishing the
Trebuchets and accompanying soldiers. After a while, he will run
out of money, troops, and resources. You can then walk in the
huge gap in his walls.
When attacking an enemy tower, do destroy it completely. This
will allow the enemy to rebuild one in the exact same location.
To accomplish this, just attack the tower until it turns to rubble.
This will leave a useless structure in a location that cannot
longer be built on. Also, after a building is destroyed the CPU
will attempt to build another in the same exact location. Simply
place a man in the area of the destroyed building, and this will
prevent that from occurring.
Trainer: +27 v1.0 by Myth
Trainer: +3 v1.1 by lakecityransom
Trainer: +27 v1.1 by Deviance