The Lion's Den | Learning campaign - Preparations Stronghold: Crusader II Guide
Last update: 11 May 2016
Win:
- Collect Stone: 200
Lose:
- Your Lord Dies
- Time passed: 25 days
The third and the last mission in the "Preparations" learning campaign. The goal of this mission is to accumulate 200 stone (on normal difficulty level). Additionally, a time limit appears during this mission - you have to complete the mission before 25 days have passed.
At the beginning of the mission place your Stockpile next to the trees, to the East from your castle. Afterwards, place your Granary in such a way so it is close to the oasis, but not on the grassland. Now build 6 Wood Camps as close to the trees as possible - the best method is to build them close to the trees and at the same time not far away from Stockpile. Now place 2 Apple Orchards near your Granary and wait for more wood.
Select all your troops and place them in the Northern entrance to your base - Archers should be stationed on top of your Barracks, so that they will have increased firing range. Do not build any wall at all - at the beginning of the mission you will have 30 stone, 20 of which needs to be spent in order to build the Armory. As soon as you have enough wood you should construct it.
After you receive your first wood from Wood Camps, build a Hovel for 8 peasants. Afterwards, build another 2 Apple Orchards, 2 Pig Farms and 2 Hop Farms. After several minutes has passed since the beginning of the mission, you will get some reinforcements, which should help you defend against lion's attacks. Build another Hovel for 8 peasants, 3 Breweries and 2 Fletcher's Workshops - the last one may take some time, as it needs a considerable amount of gold to be build. Poleturner's Workshops can be completely omitted - Conscripts and Archers should be more than enough to finish this mission. After you've accumulated a sufficient amount of wood (remember that you can also buy it from market) build an Inn and set ale distribution in accordance to your capabilities.
As you start accumulating bows, remember to recruit Archers and don't forget about Conscripts - if you've built Poleturner's Workshop(s), you can also recruit some Man-at-arms. As soon as you have an army consisting of at least 10-15 Archers and about 50 Conscripts, you can get on with the elimination of lion's dens - this army is a little exaggerated, but it's better to have more troops than get most of them killed and be forced to retreat.
Lions are easy, but kind of irritating (as every swift unit in the game) enemy - they move quickly and tend to attack your Archers if you have them along with Conscripts when attacking their dens. A good tactic is to have two rows of troops - the first one, placed closer to lions, consisting of Conscripts and Man-at-arms, and the second one, just behind the first one (or "inside of it"), made out of Archers - both of them with the "line" formation. It will allow you to lure the enemies from afar (Archers), while your melee troops will finish any lion off, keeping your Archers safe. Start off with getting rid of the lone den on the right side. Afterwards, attack the dens on the left side.
Now it's the time to clear out the stone deposits - send your troops to storm the enemy walls, to the Easy from former lion dens. Send your melee troops to get rid of Arabian Swordsman, and order your Archers to clear out the walls. Get rid of all enemy troops in the area and start the construction of Stone Quarry - the more you can build the better, as you will accumulate stone faster. Remember to build 2-3 Ox Tethers near each of your quarries, as there's quite a distance between your base and them. Some enemy troops may appear on the map from time to time and they will attack your Stone Quarries - leave your forces between them and the enemy walls to prevent that from happening. After you've collected 200 stone the mission will be completed.