Age of Empires: The Age of Kings – Walkthrough

 __________________
|                  |
|  AGE OF EMPIRES  |
|                  |
|    The Age       |
|    of Kings      |
|      =DS=        |
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[I]   Introduction
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Welcome to my Age of Empires-Age of Kings guide for the Nintendo DS. I'm a big
fan of the series personally, and compared to the rest of the series, which is 
RTS (real time strategy), this quirky turn-based combater is a different taste.
But, in the same light as Super Mario Bros. 2 was, as compared to the rest of 
the series, different, but in a good way, so too is this game. It was like 
drugs for me after a while, and the addicting gameplay had me hooked for the 
longest time. As I've seen on the boards, so too is the situation with many 
others. 

Two things before we start. First of all, if you want a particular section of 
this guide, use Ctrl+F to open up the Find application. It will quickly take 
you to whatever numerical section you want without scrolling and searching. 
Also, be sure to check the other guides here too. They all provide a unique 
perspective, and my guide isn't necessarily the best in all of the missions, 
although I do try. Read all of them to see what strategies work for you.

[II] Version History
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 Version 0.90    7/26/09
 I've been working on this for the longest time. It's still incomplete, with a 
chunk of the maps, all of Saladin’s and one of Richard's missions still 
incomplete, but its pretty close. This is easily my longest FAQ so far, and my
3rd. Expect me to finish it soon.

 Version 1.00    7/28/09
 Whoo, finally finished! It took me two days, but the guide is (basically) 
finished. I believe I will come back later to improve upon some of the mission 
guides, but this is basically it. In retrospect I also added a section on The 
Library.

 Version 1.10    8/2/09
Between the many minor edits intertwining, this is my first major update for 
the guide. Adding a full-er guide for Khan mission Mongol Invasion, a few 
information changes and a spell-check. Also added the sections "Glitches," 
"User Profile," and "The AI." I added these after scanning over my game, and 
now this guide covers every dimension of the game 100%!

 Version 1.11    1/21/10
Spellcheck for grammatical correctness. Spurred by an e-mail I got over the
issue.

  Version 1.20 (CURRENT) 6/21/10
Update to include the info that James sent me via email (thanks!)

[III] Contact Information
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a_bilogur at yahoo dot com. I don't want to put it in ordinary format because 
I've already received several rounds of spam asking for the use of my guides. 
How annoying.

If you have any questions or comments send them to me!

[IV] Table of Contents
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[I]   Introduction
[II]  Version History
[III] Contact Information
[IV]  Table of Contents

[1] The Basics
    [1.01] Resources
    [1.02] Buildings
    [1.03] Your Military
    [1.04] Terrain
    [1.05] The Civs
    [1.06] Ages
    [1.07] Researching and Technology
    [1.08] How To Start
    [1.09] The Empire View
[2] Advanced Concepts
    [2.01] Heroes
    [2.02] Special Objects and Random Events
    [2.03] Goals, Scoring, and Empire Points
    [2.04] The Library
    [2.05] User Profile
    [2.06] The AI
[3] Your Military
    [3.01] Strategic Tips
    [3.02] Unit Tree
    [3.03] Unit Guide
    [3.04] Special Abilities
    [3.05] Bonus Units
[4] Campaign Mode
    [4.01] Joan of Arc (tutorial)
    [4.02] Minamoto (Easy)
    [4.03] Genghis Khan (Medium)
    [4.04] Saladin (Hard)
    [4.05] Richard the Lionhearted (Very Hard)
[5] Skirmish Mode
    [5.01] Options
    [5.02] Maps
[6] Multiplayer
[7] Glitches
[A] Appendix
    [A1]   List of Technologies
    [A2]   List of Units
    [A3]   "Best" Units
[C] Credit
[V] Legal Bit

[1] The Basics
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[1.01] Resources

The basic building blocks of your dominance are resources. It all boils down 
to that. There are two resources in this game-food and gold. Food can be 
acquired by building mills on spots with wheat on them, while gold can be 
acquired by building mines on spots with gold on them. 

Mills are cheaper to build, and always appear on Plains squares. After building
a mill you can build up to four farms around it, each of which produces more
food per turn. Fully developed mills offer a sanctuary to heal battle-damaged 
military units, but also note that farms are easily destroyed by almost any 
unit.

Mines are more expensive to produce, and also a rarer resource in general. They
always appear on mountain and hill squares, which can be difficult to get to 
due to their high move cost. however it is worth the effort, as each mine 
produces gold on a nice scale. Although they are smaller than large mill 
complexes, mines offer +1 range and a 20-40% defense bonus to the units they
house.

You can capture enemy resources by destroying them, and if possible replacing 
them with yours. Mills can also be captured by destroying the main mill whilst
leaving the surrounding farmland intact. A passing villager can build a new 
mill and in this way capture both the mill and the surrounding farmland.

Everything in the game ultimately stems back to how many resources you have. 
Things that require mostly food are units and buildings, while things that 
require mostly gold are technology and siege units.

An advanced function in the game is the ability to trade food for gold and vice
versa. By building a Market, you can trade resources at a small loss. This is 
useful when you have an overabundance of one or a lack of another, usually a 
lot of wheat but little gold.

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[1.02] Buildings

Buildings are the workhorses of your efforts. They produce the units and tech
that make it happen, and are an integral part of the game. Building have 
several functions. They start towns (Town Center), allow you to build certain 
units, generate techs for you to research, hold and have military significance,
reinforce surrounding structures (Towers), or generate resources (Wonder). 
Units that rest for a day one of your buildings recover 20 HP.

The basic building is the Town Center. This building makes up the center of 
your town complexes, and should be defended to the last man. They can build 
villagers, and if the town center is destroyed, the entire town forfeits. You 
can capture a town and its surrounding buildings by building a new one on a 
destroyed town center square. The amount of Town Centers you can build is 
limited by the Town Center cap, which varies from map to map.

The next buildings are the mills, farms, and mines that make your economy work.
They are covered in the section above, Economy, but basically they are the life
line of your efforts, as without an economy you can't have everything else.

After you build a town center you start to surround it with other buildings in
the four adjacent squares. These come in two flavors-military or tech 
buildings. Military buildings produce certain units-Barracks produce infantry,
Stables cavalry, Archery Ranges missile troops, etc. etc. They also come with a
few corresponding techs.

The other kind of building is a research building. There are two in this game,
the Blacksmith and the University. The Blacksmith unlocks techs related to 
armory and weaponry, which basically give your military units a attack or 
defense boost. The University meanwhile is of varied tastes, allowing advanced 
techs that reinforce buildings (adding to their defense), allow you to build 
new siege engines, etc.

The last kind of town building goes in the squares diagonal from the town 
center and across from the surrounding building. It is the tower. The tower
basically functions as a reinforcement building, reinforcing the surrounding
buildings by adding a handy defense bonus to them. they are unlocked once you
reach the Feudal Age.

The projection of your military might comes in the form of the castle. These 
4x4 military buildings can be built on a wide range of terrains, even the 
mountains, and provide a way to reinforce an area besides the town center. They
can also produce a few military units-one civ-specific Special unit (covered
later), the Longswordsman or later the Two-Handed Swordsman (and, if you 
unlocked it, the Dopplehander), and, if you researched Siege Engineers, the 
Trebuchet. The Castle also boasts a huge defense, a nifty defense bonus, and a 
few corresponding techs.

The final and most mighty building in the game is the Wonder. Although it takes
a king's grant to build, the wonder is the ultimate projection of your power. 
Every turn it generates 125 food and gold from worshipers' grants, so it will 
eventually pay you back and gives you a huge boost to your economy. You can 
only build one wonder per game.

Certain units, that is infantry and siege engines, get a 33% bonus when 
attacking buildings, and one, the Battering/Siege Ram, is specially designed to
take buildings down. Even with towers and reinforcing techs buildings are 
vulnerable to invading armies late in the game. Note also that Cavalry and 
Archers get a 50% damage reduction when attacking buildings.

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[1.03] Your Military

There are many, many units in this game, and the all-important military aspect
is covered in section 3 of this guide. But basically, units can be organized 
into four categories: Infantry, Cavalry, Ranged, and Siege.

Infantry units all get a 33% boost when fighting buildings and siege units. 
However, they are generally extremely vulnerable to cavalry (expect for the 
Pikemen). They excel at demolishing buildings.

Cavalry are units on horses. They get a 33% boost against infantry and ranged, 
but suffer a 50% damage reduction when attacking buildings. Although they are 
the bane of infantry and archer existence, Pikemen easily slice through them. 
With one exception, cavalry all have an enhanced 10-point movement range. Also,
they cannot enter swamps

Ranged units are the most vulnerable but strategically powerful of the classes.
They all have a reduced defense but make up for it with extended range. When 
behind a solid wall of your troops they are potent indeed. Ranged units suffer
a 50% damage reduction vs. buildings however, and are easily killed by all 
other units, even other ranged units.

Siege Engines appear relatively late in the game. They are like bigger, slower,
and less mobile version of the ranged units-but they also have a huge attack 
that can decimate whole armies. They get a 33% bonus vs. buildings, but cannot
cross fords, swamps, or mountains unless there is a road. Note that infantry 
are very good at killing lone Siege Engines, and that they all have to take 
some time to set up.

One more unit worth covering by itself is the monk. The monk is a unique unit 
because it possess two unique abilities-Heal and Covert. They can heal damaged
units, and attempt to convert enemy units (the latter works within two squares
but is more effective within one). These abilities are enhanced by certain 
techs.

A unique part of the game is the mercenary. These are advanced soldiers, 
purchasable from Markets, which vary day by day. They have a high cost, but it
is worth it because mercenaries are always stronger than ordinary units and 
come with unique abilities, making them potent killers.

Each unit has some basic stats. These are health, movement range, attack, 
defense, sight, range, unit bonuses, and abilities. Health is how much health 
the unit has left; if it is reduced to 0 the unit is destroyed. Units resting 
on friendly buildings restore 20 health per turn. 

Movement is, simply, how far the unit can move. This ranges from 7 to 10. In 
certain game scenarios units get a reduced move range, and some Hero Abilities
(covered later) can enhance the move range. Infantry and most units have a 7 
move range, Cavalry have 10, while certain special infantry, like the Samurai,
Monks, and Woad Raiders, have 9. Each terrain type requires a certain amount of
move points, which ranges from 1 (roads) to 4 (mountains).

Attack is basically how much attack the unit has. Also note that the less 
health the unit has, the weaker its attacks and the more damage it takes in 
battle. Attack is enhanced by certain techs, hero abilities, veteran statuses, 
unit bonuses and abilities.

Defense is similar to attack, but it dictates how much damage the unit takes in
battle. A high defense makes a unit hard to kill permanently. Defense can be 
enhanced by terrain, techs, hero abilities, veteran status, unit bonuses, 
abilities, or standing on a friendly building.

Sight Range dictates how far a unit can see into blackmap or fog of war. A 
longer sight range equals more sight. All units have a sight range of 7, except
for the Scout Cavalry which has a sight range of 10. Sight range can be 
enhanced by being on higher terrain, which consequently also requires a 
higher sight range to see. 

Range is how far way a unit can attack. Ranged units and most siege engines 
have a range of 2-3, while everyone else can only attack one square in front. 
Range is enhanced by hills or mountains and dulled by forests and swamps. Note
that you can't hit a unit if you can't see it. The highest possible range in 
the game is 5, which can achieved with a 3-range unit on high terrain under the
influence of King Richard's Firing Line ability.

Unit bonuses, which are influenced by the unit type, give a unit a bonus or 
reduction when fighting certain other types of units. 

Special Abilities are abilities present in certain units that can give it 
added uses, increase its combat capacity, or reduce their effectiveness. It is 
covered in more detail in section 3.4.

The amount of units you have on the map is limited to your Unit Limit. The unit
is your total production divided by 100. (Not counting bonuses) The max unit 
limit varies from map to map and mission to mission.

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[1.04] Terrain

Terrain can have a huge effect on the battle, and it comes with its own stats.
These are the move cost, the sight cost, the sight bonus, the range bonus,  
Buildings Allowed, and Specials.

The move cost is the most basic. It's just how much you pay from your move 
range to go over the terrain. It ranges between 1 and 4. The Sight cost is how 
much you need to see the terrain. The sight bonus is the bonus you get to your
sight range when you are on the terrain, which appears when you are on high 
terrain like a mountain. Buildings Allows shows which buildings can be built 
there, and Specials is for any special properties, like how Fords do not allow
Siege to pass.

There are two types of strategic "cover" in this game-blackmap and fog of war. 
Blackmap is when the terrain is totally unexplored, whilst Fog of War is when
you have explored the terrain, but do not see the square itself so cannot 
perceive enemy movement on it, if any.

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[1.05] The Civs

There are 5 civs in this game-the Britons, Franks, Saracens, Mongols, and the 
Japanese. Each one has a civ bonus, a special civ-specific trainable unit, 
discounted and high-cost units, and its own hero. They all also have a distinct
play style, so read on!

-Franks
The Franks, in contrast, are cavalry-heavy. In the 100 Year's War, unruly 
knights were almost their downfall. However, their special 
unit, the Throwing Axmen, is infantry.

These guys are essentially the "Newbie" race. Joan of Arc's campaign is the 
game tutorial and the Franks are well balanced as a whole. Their cavalry-
swayed  game isn't so dramatic that they can't use infantry to the fullest.
The  Throwing Axmen are a very forgiving unit, as their Skirmish Ability can
save them from being tactically misplaced. Joan’s best ability by far is her
massive healing power. She can heal 20 diagonally or give 5 hp to ALL of your
units on the map.

Civ Bonus: Farming
Discounted Units and Buildings: Stable, Castle, Knight, Caviler, Paladin, 
Knight
High-priced Units and Buildings: Camel, Horse Archer, Scorpion
Hero(ine): Joan of Arc

-Britons
The Britons are historically archery-heavy; there used to be a law that 
reserved Sundays for archery practice. AOE mimics this, along with the 
mainstay Briton special unit, the Longbowman.

The Britons are essentially a fantastic Ranged civ. They usually pair up high
powered missile troops with well-balanced infantry, making them a well-balanced
attacking force. However, because of their reliance on Archery and that their
siege equipment is more costly, they are ever so slightly weaker at sieging 
then the other civs, at least until you research Flaming Arrow. Their hero,
Richard the Lionhearted, is a multitasker, though his best ability is Firing
Line, which adds 1 range to all archers in sight.

Civ Bonus: Mining
Discounted Units and Buildings: Archery Range, Church, Crossbow, Arbalest, 
Longswordsmen, Two-Handed Swordsmen, Champion
High-priced Units and Buildings: Camel, Horse Archer, Onager, Bombard
Hero: Richard the Lionhearted

-Mongols
The pride of the Mongols lie in their fast moving and deadly horse archers. 
Their special, the Mangudai, conform to this.

The Mongols are designed to always have a slight inherent edge. Their early
Scout and Light cav discounts are early-attacker style, and later in the game
their tech bonuses give them a technological edge. Their most useful ability
is Patron of the Arts, which cheapens tech even more.

Civ Bonus: Tech Discount
Discounted Units and Buildings: Stable, Blacksmith, Scout Cavalry, Light
Cavalry, Horse Archers
High-priced Units and Buildings: Knight, Caviler, Paladin, Crossbowman, 
Hand Cannondeer
Hero: Genghis Khan

-Saracens
The Saracens are a desert people, so they mount Camels instead of the usual 
Horses of their foes. This gives them a huge advantage in mounted cavalry 
battles. Their special unit, the Mameluke, is devastating a cavalry battles.

The Saracens are very resource and cavalry heavy. This gives them a massive 
weakness to pikes, one made more difficult to overcome by their special being 
Mamelukes. However if you can overcome this you have their great economy to
your advantage. The biggest early-game changer is the Benefactor ability, which
puts 100 gold directly into the treasury, a powerful economy-booster.

Civ Bonus: Mining
Discounted Units and Buildings: Stable, Market, Horse Archer, Onager, Bombard,
Light Cavalry,
High-priced Units and Buildings: Knight, Caviler, Paladin, Longswordsman, 
2-handed Swordsman, Champion
Hero: Saladin

-Japanese
If you ask me the Japanese are the "odd one" in this game, but they’d 
developed an independent warrior code that stresses warriorship, similar to the
Feudal Code of Europe. Their high point is their superb infantry, most 
especially the Samurai, although their Archers aren't weak either.

The Japanese stress strategic defense and well-organized offense. Their hero
has great support ability as well as a heal power. But they also have a 
tremendous siege potential, as the Pillage ability gives ALL of your forces 
+50% vs. Buildings.

Civ Bonus: Farming
Discounted Units and Buildings: Mills, Mines, Spearmen, Pikemen, Crossbowmen,
Arbalest, Hand Cannondeer
High-priced Units and Buildings: Camel, Knight, Caviler, Paladin
Hero: Minomoto

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[1.06] Ages

There are four ages in this game. These are the Dark Age, the Feudal Age, the 
Castle Age and the Imperial Age.

The first age, the Dark Age, is short-lived, and that's good thing because you
don't have much to do. There are only two building types and two military units
which makes for a bland combat situation. You should concentrate on resource 
building and once you have established a basic economy, research the required 3
techs and advance.

The second age, the Feudal Age, is probably the age of opportunities. Keep your
teaching consistent and build up your military age. Finish your economy and 
begin military operations. The key here is to end up with a strong strategic 
position for the next age, and to have a good economy. The Feudal age is much
expanded from the Dark Age, but it's still only mushrooming.

The Castle Age is where the fighting really takes off. Now you commandeer a 
full sized fighting force. The Castle Age is really important, as it 
establishes Castles, siege equipment, and mercenaries. This is probably the age
when you fight the hardest and the most.

The Imperial Age is basically the endgame, and the pinnacle of medieval force. 
At this stage the technology becomes MUCH more potent, and the Wonder comes on 
line. In the Imperial Age the technology basically amplifies. Potentially 
game-changing techs, like Sappers, Flaming Arrows, and Spies, come on line. You
also get to see the Champion and the Paladin.

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[1.07] Research and Technology

Researching technology unlocks special bonuses for your units, buildings, and
economy. Although resource-consuming, there is no alternative to tech if you 
want to become stronger. The bonuses range from attack increases to sight 
bonuses to new units and economic boosts. Technology is what dictates 
advancing ages. Some techs have game-changing properties; for example, Spies 
allows you to see enemy town centers, while Flaming Arrows remove the 50% 
damage reduction on Archery units. Regardless, they are one of the most 
important aspects of the game.

Researching tech requires food and gold, and the cost differs from age to age 
and even tech to tech (some are unusually expensive because of their power). 
When you collect a certain amount of technologies, and have sufficient funds, 
you are given the opportunity to advance an age.

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[1.08] How To Start

When you start you have a couple of units and a villager. Use him to build a 
town center wherever you can fit a town center with four buildings around it. 
Meanwhile, use your preliminary units to scout out your "area."

On turn two, start building a villager at your town center while your first one
builds on a resource, preferably a mill. 

on turn three your other villager should go and help your first one in starting
your economy. Once you have a mill and a mine running, or something of that 
nature, start expanding your town center and researching techs.

Beyond this basic start, do whatever you think will win you the game. It 
depends on the map and of course there is no template of action, if there was 
there would be no fun.

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[1.09] The Empire View

The Empire View gives you an overview of your status in the game. It gives you
your food production, gold production, a breakdown of the above, your unit cap,
your town center cap (and how much of it is fulfilled), and your castle cap 
(and how much of it is used). To access it press X to access the minimenu, and 
then select Empire View. Simple, but it neededs its own little section.


[2] Advanced Concepts
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[2.01] Heroes

Each civ has a hero. These are devastatingly powerful historical persons who 
can change the battle just by being there. In missions though if the hero dies
you die, so beware. however they all have extremely high stats.

Each hero comes with unique hero abilities, four of them. They range greatly-
from healing the attack/defense boosters to movement bonuses-but are useful 
when applied correctly. However remember that using them requires you to 
forfeit an attack turn, so often it's a debate between attacking and bringing
their high stats online and using the abilities. Each of the heroes is of a
different type, so are most effectively killed with different units.

In Mission mode the heroes are key to the storyline, but in general, whenever
you're putting him on the front lines in battle expect him to take damage-
heroes are like arrow magnets. So be careful with him.

Joan of Arc (Franks)
This hero is very well-rounded. Although she suffers in concentrations with 
infantry, She has varied talents (like the ability to heal 20 hp) that make 
her useful. Highest stat is defense, which is good for beginners. Weak to 
cavalry.

Hero Powers:
Inspiration
 condition: none 
 effect: Joan and adjacent units recover 20 health
Divine Purpose
 condition: none 
 effect: All friendly units recover 5 health
Blinding Faith
 condition: enemy units are within Joan's sight. 
 effect: Those units suffer -25% DEF
Weakened Resolve 
 condition: enemies are adjacent or diagonal to Joan 
 effect: Those units lose 25 health

Richard the Lionhearted (Britons)
This one is definitely a multi-tasker. Richard can do many things-cheapen 
units, bolster attack and defense, add range to your archers-but also makes for
a powerful attacking platform. His Cavalry type leaves a huge hole to pikemen 
however.

Hero Powers:
Reckless and Fierce
 condition: Enemies are adjacent or diagonal to Richard 
 effect: those units lose 20 health
Superb Leader
 condition: Friendly units are within Richard's sight 
 effect: These units gain +25% ATK
Recruit for the Cause
 condition: Richard is on a town center 
 effect: Today, units cost -20g/20f
Firing Line
 condition: Friendly RGD units within Richard's sight 
 effect: These RGD units gain +1 range

Genghis Khan (Mongols)
Khan is the only ranged hero in the game. This makes him vulnerable to attacks,
but if you set him up right he can be devastatingly powerful. Plus, Khan has
the first Strike ability, which ensures that whoever he fights is going to take
some bad casualties. His abilities are designed to give you a constant edge in
battle, and Patron of the Arts makes tech so much cheaper, AS WELL as their 
technological discount bonus.

Hero Powers;
Patron of the Arts
 condition: Genghis Kahn is on a town center
 effect: Today's research is discounted by -50g/-50f
Nomadic Travel
 condition: Friendly units are adjacent or diagonal to Genghis 
 effect: Those units gain +5 move
Overwhelming Siege
 condition: Friendly units are within Genghis' sight 
 effect: Friendly units in sight gain +33% ATK vs. buildings 
Mongol Terror
 condition: Enemy units are within Genghis' sight 
 effect: Those units suffer -25% DEF

Saladin (Saracens)
Saladin is a great hero. His most useful asset is definitely the Benefactor
ability, which adds 100 gold to your treasury every turn that he is on a town
center. Although highly mobile, he is weak however to pikemen.

Hero Powers:
Benefactor
 condition: Saladin is on a town center 
 effect: Adds 100g to the treasury
Rain of Arrows
 condition: Friendly ranged units are within Saladin's sight 
 effect: Those units gain +33% ATK
Aura of Invincibility
 condition: Friendly units are within Saladin's sight 
 effect: Those units gain +33% DEF
Hit and Run
 condition: Friendly units are adjacent to Saladin. 
 effect: Those units gain +2 move and +25% ATK

Minamoto (Japanese)
This guy is essentially a super-pikemen. Minamoto is the only hero without any
real weakness, and boy can he slice up cavalry. Minamoto has several extremely
useful abilities, like Pillage, which raises ATK vs. buildings 50%, and is one
of only two heroes with a healing ability. However, he's not very offensive, 
and his main attribute is defense. 

Hero Powers:
Pillage 
 condition: none 
 effect: All friendly units gain +50% ATK vs. Mills, Mines, and Farms
Warrior Code
 condition: Minamoto is on a town center 
 effect: Today, all units cost -20g/-20f less
Minamoto's Guard
 condition: Friendly units adjacent to Minamoto 
 effect: Those units gain +33% ATK/DEF
Inspiring General
 condition: none 
 effect: Minamoto and adjacent units recover 15 health

[2.02] Special Objects and Random Events
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When you play in skirmish mode, you'll notice certain objects lying around on 
the ground. These are goats, bags of gold, and ruins. They're not just scenery
however, and if you rest for a turn on one of these objects, you claim a albeit
small reward. Resting on a goat gives you 100 food, and on a bag of gold, 
obviously, 100 gold. However, the ruins are more tricky, and potentially more
dangerous. Stepping onto a ruins will give you a random effect. It can be gold,
food, a mercenary, Wisdom of the Ancients (one free tech), or your unit could 
disappear.

One early game tactic, especially on blackmap maps, is to send out a Scout Cav
to scout out the map and collect any bonuses. NEVER put an important unit, like
your hero, to rest on a ruin, as it may kill him. If you attack from the 
square however you won't claim the prize.

There is one more special object in this game, the relic. This is a holy item 
that can only be picked up by a monk. The relic appears in both missions (where
it is usually either an objective or goal) and skirmish mode. Once you pick it
up, carry it to a church and deposit it there. Once the relic is in the church,
it starts generating a small amount of food and gold; if your monk is killed 
before he can deposit it, the relic is dropped where he died and can be picked
up by another monk. If the church is destroyed the relic is dropped on the 
ruins.

A church containing a relic, or a monk carrying it, is glittering. Capturing a
relic or depositing it is counted as the move for the turn. The relic is not 
that tactically important, and should be a possible side quest to your main 
objective-defeating your enemies.

Random events is another skirmish-only feature. At the beginning of each turn
there is a chance that a random event will occur. these range from a Gold Rush
(gold) to Bounty Harvest (food) to Population Boom (each TC spawns a villager).
There's even one that damages all of your units by 5. These effects are totally
random, so you have to just go with it.

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[2.03] Goals, Scoring, and Empire Points

Goals are another mission in-game function. On each mission you can achieve up
to 3 stars by completing certain secondary objectives. Each secondary counts 
towards 25 Empire Points. They range from difficult to cursory. Try to get all
3 stars on each mission, if you can; this guide will help you in this.

Each goal generates 25 Empire Points. Empire Points can be used to buy new maps
and new (extended) units. Finishing missions generates 100 points; finishing 
Skirmish mode games generates 50 points. 

There's a cheap trick in Skirmish mode to generate Empire Points. Make a 3 on 1
game against a weak AI, no blackmap or fog of war, and it will finish quick.

Scoring is an important gauge of how you're doing. The Scoring area is 
basically a chart of your progress. There's an overall gauge, a military gauge,
a economic gauge, a tech gauge, and an exploration gauge. The Scoring system 
tells you who's in front and who's behind, quite simply.

[2.04] The Library
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I love the library. It turns this game into a mini-history lesson, which in 
fact it already is. You could spend half an hour just reading all of the 
material they have on Civilizations, heroes, Units, Buildings, Technologies, 
Ages, Missinculous (which is basically broad topics like military overviews), 
and Great Conquests. Literally 50% of what I know about the Middle Ages comes 
from here, and the articles are well-written and expansive, though not TOO long 
so as to be boring. This is a big plus for the game, and, gasp, actually makes
you smarter! Who said games don't have educational value? 

[2.05] User Profile
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The user profile basically tracks the progress of the game's user. When you 
first start the game, you have to choose your name and your insignia. Make sure
your name is over 3 letters long; see section 7, glitches, for why. Your emblem
is basically the symbol that represents your empire; it appears besides your 
name in skirmish mode. You can choose from 21 prefabricated emblems. Another 
thing you start with is your empire rank. Determined by the total amount of 
empire points you have, you can advance from the measly starting Pheasant all 
the way up to Emperor.

You can visit your profile at any time from the main menu. This is where you 
can see your name, current insignia, Emperor rank, amount of empire points 
earned, amount of empire points available, and campaign progress.

You can edit your profile at any time, and even erase it, which basically 
resets the game. Check the campaigns to see which missions you have cleared 
and how many starts you have earned on each one. This is an excellent 
indicator of your in-game progress. Although you won't be visiting this one 
often, you will at some time to admire your handiwork.

[2.06] The AI
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To those of you who don't know, "AI" stands for Artificial Intelligence, and is
basically the computer you are playing against most of the time. It helps to 
learn the AI tricks and trades so that you can use them against them or do them
yourself. Learning the way of the AI is integral to winning in difficult 
matchups.

First of all, there are 3 types of AI in the game, subdivided into 3 difficulty
levels. These are the Turtle (defensive) AI, Attila (offensive) AI, and Ave 
(balanced) AI. the first will tend to focus on defense and research, the 
second on military and scouting, and the third is a balance of both. Ave is 
arguably the hardest of the three AIs because he neither shells up, allowing
you to seize resources, nor attacks recklessly, allowing you to rush to their 
town center and attack them practically before the game has even began. These
AIs come in three flavors - easy, medium, and hard.

There are many things that AIs do; I will attempt to list most of them here. 
- Sometimes, AIs "skip" their turns. They don't move any units, or move only 
villagers or a few units. This trend, which happens occasionally, lasts even on
the Hard AI difficulty.

- Sometimes AI will over concentrate on a single unit or unit type. I've seen
many AI "Onagar armies," the most famous variant, as well as large Battering 
Ram crops, Monk herds, and Pikeman armies. This is beneficial, at least to you,
as you can expose their unit weakness to quicken the pace of their destruction.

- AIs usually tend to gravitate towards Pikemen over swordsmen. This is a very 
understandable thing, and you should do so as well. Take this trick from the AI
book early on, because although weaker, Pikemen are naturally "immune" to all 
other units, or rather they are not weak to any other units.

- AIs utilize Scout Cavalry. This is another AI trick you should learn because
Scout Cav are VERY useful for scouting and for running around enemy lines and
maiming Archers.

- AIs make a rush for resources, and even send villagers into your territory to
try and steal your resources. When the enemy does this is annoying, but 
when your friend does so it is dire because you cannot attack the resource 
building and thus it will remain theirs until your enemy destroys it, if they
destroy it.

- AIs clog up units. Literally. You're trying to advance and they clog up your
straights with their own units. This is very annoying but cannot be helped. 

- You cannot go on top of AI buildings. Although your monks can heal their 
units and their monks can heal yours, though they usually don't, you cannot go
on top of AI buildings, only pass through them. You can't even pass through 
them if they are your enemy's, just burn them down.

- AI are not as smart as you are. You know exactly where to build the castles,
the towns, and the wonders, and what units work best on the map. AI don't. They
frequently place Castles in deep forest and towns in spaces without enough 
room, and units that are totally wrong for the map and situation.

- AI build to their type. Turtle builds towns in cover and castles besides them
while Attila boldly puts up castles and towns at your front door, and Ave will
put his towns and castles behind his army. The same holds true for unit 
production; Turtle likes Pikemen and Ranged units and Siege units, Attila likes
Infantry and Cavalry and fast-moving Ranged units, while Ave is, again, a 
balance of both. This can often lead to an underbalanced or oversaturated 
force, all the easier to exploit.

- AIs like relics. They like them a lot. Frequently they will boldly send monks
out into the unknown just to retrieve them.

- AIs have a "Panic" mode. If you start attacking their core towns, or approach
their territory, they will start building units like mad, on every square, even
not-so-combat-useful villagers.

- AIs use a lot of villagers. Where you can make due with 4 or so, AIs will 
build 7 and send them out across the world. They die very easily as the AI is 
bold in stealing your territory and resources.

- AIs glitch. They have a trick in which they can place a unit on a building 
and build on it in the same turn, which basically results in two units on a 
single square. There is nothing you can do to stop this, and you can't 
replicate it, so you just have to with it (see section 7-glitches)

- AIs tend to over concentrate their forces on certain units. This ranges from 
what they should be doing to stupid; for example, attacking Archers and missile
troops as the opportunity allows is right, but concentrating half their army to
destroy a certain unit is not. AIs are extremely wary against Siege and 
Battering Rams and Heroes, and will send everything they have against them. You
can exploit this by keeping two monks on hand and heeling the unit every turn.
They will continue concentrating on killing it no matter what it takes, 
allowing you to focus on them; this works especially well with the hardy First
Strike-capable Khan.

- AIs like to use badly damaged units for raids and econ damage. If you nearly
kill a unit but it survives, it will either fall back and heal, commit suicide
against your unit, or fall back and attack your econ buildings. This is 
exploitable but most especially allows you to saturate their unit production 
with 10-20 hp units.

- AIs sometimes take a turn to build something. For example, they will move a 
villager to a mill space, wait a turn, and only THEN build on it.

- AIs use certain units to glut you up and slow you down. Most notably they 
will blockade you with villagers or the much more problematic Battering rams.

- AIs do not respect unit range. They do not care if moving a unit somewhere 
will put it in the direct attacking range of one of your units, and they will 
not adjust their position so as to avoid that unit. For example, they will 
attack your units while ignoring a bunch of Areblasts planted in your mountain
mines. On the next turn you can rip their units to shreds.

- AIs research at intervals. They research for a few turns and then pause, 
research again and pause. This means you can overtake them in tech over 
extended periods of time, no matter how far behind you are.

This is by no way a full list of AI quirks, but it gives you a basic idea of 
how they work, as well as some idea of what you can exploit for your use. On 
very difficult matchups, like 3 hard AIs and you free-for-all, you have to 
learn and exploit these quirks to bring them to their knees without them 
killing you.

[3] Your Military
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[3.01] Strategic Tips

1. "Good" Formation
The basic formational unit of the game is what wolfmanphd calls "Good 
Formation." Borrowing his terminology, this formation is basically a wall of 
pikes, with cavalry protecting the flanks, archers within, and support units 
like the monk in the rear. This formation works on any scale, from grand to 
micro. It's not particularly offensive, and it looks basically like this:

  PPP 
 PAAAP
 CISIC
  MSM

P = Pikemen
A = Archers and other missile troops
C = Cavalry
I = Infantry and/or siege and archers
M = Monks
S = Siege

Durable pikemen lead the front for a reason, and that is that they have no 
gaping weakness. They can rebuff cavalry charges, survive missile troop salvos,
and hold their own in battle with other infantry. If you can afford it and are 
playing as the Franks, you can also use the Throwing Axmen, whose Skirmish 
ability to inflict heavy casualties, even against charging cavalry, the 
traditional infantry weakness.

When two of these formations meet, it basically becomes a battle of attraction,
with both sides basically grinding down against the other. In battle the victor
is usually the one who can force a hole in the front line and then chomp down 
into the vulnerable belly, which contains your valuable and irreplaceable 
missile troops. That is why I recommend tying down the first rank of missile
troops with Skirmishers, which are more resilient to assault then anything else
due to their skirmish ability.

The monks and siege engines lead the back, but if you're daring you can put
them in the front. This exposes them to enemy breakthroughs but also makes them
more useful in battle, allowing front-line healing and conversion and
devastating anti-archer and anti-breakthrough fire.

In battle, the attacker inflicts severe damage to the front line, while the 
defender gets an extended run as his crossbowmen and siege engines get to 
attack along with the usual archers.

2. Force concentration
Related to the above, this game really rewards defense in depth. One of the key
features of a formation is that it doesn't allow a single unit to be flanked on
all sides and thus destroyed, only for front-line action, or attraction. Make a
mob of units and just go with it; taking a turn or two to do this is usually a
key thing. Sending a few separated units into enemy territory is asking for it,
but sending a concentrated force makes all the difference.

3. Resource Harassment
Basically, kill the farms before the town centers. Whenever you get the 
opportunity, fan units out and start blowing up the farms and mines. This has a
huge effect on your opponent's economy. This makes all the difference between a
gristly well-occupied town and a deserted one. If you make the mistake of 
concentrating on the town centers first it will take a long time to destroy 
them, or at least longer then it should.

4. Build behind your army
Extending on the above, as your army advances into enemy territory and destroys
their resources, send a couple of villagers on their flank to secure the new 
resource channels. Cut your supply line by building castles and towns within 
enemy territory in strategic positions. This will give you a huge boost and 90%
of the time can be a game ender, even if your assault ultimately fails.

5. Hold the bridges and roads
On almost any map, there are only two ways into your territory - across a 
bridge or road or by going down the grueling backterrain. Hold to roads and oh
lord, ESPECIALLY the bridges. Bridges act as force concentrator, forcing a 
large amount of units onto a single one-square piece of land. No piece of land
is more important, and holding, or seizing, the bridge and the area around it 
is key. Generally you should build a town center or castle next to or near the
bridge.

6. Kill the monks
When AI run low on cash, they build monks. They form squads of monks and these
go around healing their guys and converting yours. They act as force 
multipliers and are a gigantic pain in battle. Execute them quickly.

7. Kill the archers
In any strategic position archers are key, so to ruin the position you have to
kill them. A mass of front-line infantry works, but without archer support they
are like an old man with no legs. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[3.02] Unit Tree

    TECH 1          TECH 2           TECH 3           TECH 4

Barracks
      Militia -> Men-At-Arms   -> Longswordmen -> Two-Handed Swordsmen
                                               ~> Dopplehanders
                                               ~> Champions
                      Spearmen ->    Pikemen   -> Elite Pikemen

Stables
Scout Cavalry #

                  Light Cavalry -> Knights      -> Cavilers           
                                ~> Knights of   ~> Paladins
                                   the Round    
                                          Camel -> Elite Camel 

Archery Range

                       Archers ->    Archers   --> Elite Archers
                  Welsh Bowmen ~> Welsh Bowmen /

                   Skirmishers -> Elite Skirm. -> Expert Skirmishers

                                 Horse Archers -> Elite Horse Archers

                                   Crossbowman -> Areblasts

Church
                                         Monks -> Elite Monks

Siege Workshop
                                 Battering Ram -> Siege Ram
                                               ~> Dark Ram

                                     Scorpions -> Heavy Scorpions
                                       Onagers #
                                                  Bombard

Market
                                     Mercenaries
Castle
                                          Civ Specific Units
                                                 >Trebuchet
                                                 ~War Wolf

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[3.03] Unit Guide

 Militia
Militia aren't that useful of a unit. Considering that the only other Dark Age 
unit in the game is the Scout Cavalry, which will rip militia to shreds, 
militia are only useful against other militia and for wrecking buildings, more
the former then the latter because their low stats hamper building destruction.
Very little significant things happen in the Dark Age, as you are just starting
your economy, likely don't know your enemy's headings, and can quickly advance
to the Feudal Age.

 Scout Cavalry
Scout Cavalry are a powerful force for a Tech 1 unit. The only other unit at 
Tech 1 is the militia, so they have a huge edge in battle. In addition Scout
Cavalry carry a worth far greater then it appears to early players. Scout 
Cavalry are, as their name suggests, scouts. They are a unique unit, with 10
sight range, 12 movement, and the unique "Scout" ability, which allows them to
run across mountains and hills with only a two-level movement cost. In other 
words, they are ridiculously far-ranging and mobile and highly observant. This
makes them excellent beyond comparison at exploring blackmap.

Scout Cavalry also prove their worth in combat. Their extreme mobility and 
cavalry-type unit bonuses means that they can wreck archers and missile units 
by exploiting gaps in enemy formations and by flanking. However, pikemen are 
the bane of their existence, and their low stats ensure they aren't returning.

 Men-at-Arms
Men-at-Arms are the tech two evolution of the militia. Generally you should 
keep a small forte of them. Men-at-Arms are strong against other infantry and 
missile troops (bar the skirmisher), but are highly weak to cavalry, which is 
why they often cast a support role.

 Spearmen
Ah, spearmen. One of the most tactically elicit units in the game. Although 
weaker than Men-at-Arms, they more than make up for it with their Anti-Cavalry
ability, which means that they can pulverize cavalry AND other infantry. This 
is one of the key ideas of the game. Plus, they come very cheap.

 Light Cavalry
Light Cavalry are a powerful choice, able to bear down on all other tech 2 
units, but they have one major dysfunction-their weakness to Spearmen. Other 
then that the Light Cavalry can bear down on any other Feudal Age unit.

 Archers
At tech 2 the game really expands, and one of those reasons is the addition of
archers and other missile troops. Archers have great offensive capability, but
they're also one of the primary reasons that the Feudal Age is when you have to
start thinking about keeping your formation together. Although very strong when
utilized correctly, Archers are extremely vulnerable to attack due to their 
very low DEF. This problem is compounded in the Castle Age by the fact that the
Tier 3 archer is the same as the Tier 2 one, making it even more vulnerable.
Still,  Archers are powerful units that can damage front-line soldiers before
your own go into front-line combat with them, enlarging the chances of your
success.

 Skirmisher
Skirmishers counteract the problem with archers. How? Simple; with their 
skirmish ability. Although they have lower stats (150/100 vs. 110/110) then 
Archers, and a shorter range, they are not nearly as vulnerable to attack, 
because bite back-hard. The game treats every hand-to-hand attack on the 
skirmisher as if it was the skirmishers that initiated the attack. That 
basically means that no matter the odds, this guy will leave a mark. Still, 
skirmishers simply lack the tactical prowess and killing power of archers. You
should still have a few, but they're more useful for guerrilla warfare or when 

the enemy breaks into your archer lines.

 Longswordsmen 
Longswordsmen are the Castle Age evolution of Men-at-Arms, and they're just as
vulnerable to cavalry. But their higher attack means that they're actually very
good at destroying buildings.

 Pikemen
Pikemen are a lot cooler looking then Spearmen, with big, oversize pikes. 
They're also better at taking down buildings and more durable in general.

 Knight
When someone thinks Medieval age they think Knight. Knights are a far cry from 
the lightly armed and armored Scout and light cavs of before, but they still 
have the same role.

 Camel
Camels add another dimension to the cavalry game. Camels are the desert 
adaptation of Knights, so they come with the Plains Rush equivalent, Desert 
Rush, as well as an awesome new ability - Scares Horses. This gives them 33% 
ATK bonus vs. horse units, making Camels a anti-cavalry of sorts. Great for 
desert maps.

 Archers
The strength of archers is the same as from Age 2. They're still tactically
important, but their strength has weakened significantly. Aw well...

 Elite skirmishers
Due to the massive variety of units introduced in this age, Elite Skirmishers
are ever so slightly weaker, especially with the new siege units on line.

 Horse Archers
Horse Archers are a new Castle Age unit that adds cavalry-inert flexibility 
to your ranged lineup. They're not especially powerful, and are just as weak to
direct attack as archers, but boy are they mobile. Remember that they have a 
two square range however.

 Crossbowman
Another tactical addition to the crew is Crossbowmen. Along with the new siege
units, Crossbowmen are the stand-and-fire units of the Castle Age. Their 
ability, No Move & Attack, basically means that they cannot attack on the same 
turn they move, so obviously Crossbowmen are meant as emplaced archers. They 
have a very high attack and defense, for ranged units, but are still fairly 
vulnerable to cavalry. If they are well-placed and supported by other units, 
like on a Mountain mine, Crossbowmen can literally rain hell down on enemy 
troops from long distance. However, Siege units can do the same, and with
greater effect. So which to choose? crossbowmen are FAR more mobile, and can
go into  mountains and fords, places Siege units cannot go. However the 
tradeoff is that they are less powerful. Crossbowmen are also cheaper.

 Scorpions
Scorpions are punishing machines. They have a huge attack, and as siege units,
their only limitation is that they are tactically inflexible. Set up a Scorpion
and it will rain down massive casualties on any enemy foe. Plus, their heavy 
defense staves off attacks, especially from missile troops. Scorpions have the 
same one-turn set-up as Crossbowmen, but as a check to their power they can 
only target units.  

 Onagers
Onagers are a weaker but multi-purpose siege unit as compared to the Scorpion.
They're weaker (but still fearsome), but can target buildings as well. AIs seem
to love these, and you should too...though don't build whole armies of them, as
AIs sometimes do...

 Battering Ram
The Battering Ram is the tour de force in anti-building siege power. It can 
smash whole Town Centers to rubble in just 2 turns. Just don't expect it to 
last long-it's an arrow magnet, and will get beat up pretty badly pretty 
quickly. Still, this has its uses, as it distracts enemy missile troops from 
your main force with its high defense. if you're ever stuck in a long-winded 
siege, archer the defenders and then smash this baby into the building in a 
suicide strike to degrade the building's hitpoints quickly.

 Monks
Monks add another dimension to the battle. They act as troop multipliers in 
force, healing their guys when they get low and converting yours. When AIs get
strapped for cash, they send a squad of these guys to go crazy on you. You 
should always keep a small forte of Monks in the back of your army, they act
like mobile healers. Monks are unusually mobile at 9 paces a punch.

 Knights Templar
Knights Templers are the ultimate Castle Age knight, which makes sense as they 
are a mercenary unit. Templers are exceptionally strong due to their unique 
Zeal ability. What that basically means is that after every battle, Templers 
automatically heal back 20 hp. This makes them a lot harder to take down, and 
renders them immune to weak attacks. Note however that it doesn't carry over to 
buildings. 

 Woad Raiders
Whoo! I love these guys. They are truly mobile guerrilla platforms, with an 
unusually high move rate, 9 squares. Anyway, these guys rock, because of their 
extreme mobility and their "Causes Fear" ability, which cuts 33% ATK and DEF 
from anything they're fighting, be it Archers, Cavalry, or even buildings.

 Persian War Elephant
Persian War Elephants are immense, hulking beasts of unnatural strength. Even 
Pikemen have trouble taking them down. Their high stats and Causes Fear ability
makes them a tour de force, but at the cost of a low mobility score. Cavalry 
has never been this sweet.

 Berserkers
The Vikings appear in this game under the guise of this unit. They're basically
giant men with a giant pole arm and ridiculous strength to boot. What makes 
Berserkers so impressive is their frenzy ability, which means that they always
fight at 100% no matter what their actual HP level is. So a 5% Berserker can
wreck Archers like 20 of him. Get it while you can. 

 Turkish Janissaries
Janissaries are basically a stronger version of Crossbowmen. Very cool, but 
there's nothing else to say about them.

 Throwing Axmen
France has forever been a deeply forested place, which explains the prevalence
of the axe over the bow in combat. Historical notes aside, the Throwing Axmen
is just plain awesome. It's got great stats, but the big part is the Skirmish
ability, which punishes anyone who engages it. It's a bad idea to engage in 
hand to hand combat with a Throwing Axmen at full, or heck, even half health.
If you can, build them instead of the far weaker Longswordsmen. Their Skirmish
ability basically means that they are mostly immune to the highly damaging 
cavalry strikes that so plague Longswordsmen. The Woodsman ability, giving them
a bonus in woods, is a nice touch too.

 Longbowmen
Longbowmen are basically the ultimate range unit. While at first they don't 
look like much, just stronger bowmen, that's all changed by their great Volley
ability. This adds 50% to their ATK when over 50 Health. Longbowmen can single
handedly lake down heavy units, but one must remember that because of their 
archer nature, they are also the most vulnerable. Britons never need to build 
normal Archers.

 Mangudai
In my opinion the mangudai are the weakest civ-specific unit. They boost a 
unimpressive score and just 2 range. The First Strike is useful, but just makes
them a stronger version of the Horse Archers, still extremely weak to cavalry 
runs. However, if you research the right techs, easy for the Mongols, it will 
become a potent and highly effective killing platform, useful due to its high
mobility.

 Mamelukes
Mamelukes are a great unit, like a super-camel, but the fact that they are the
special unit of an already cav-heavy Saracen civ is not a great thing. There's 
not much to say about them that can't be said about the Camels, they're 
basically camels with a cooler look and +50 to all stats, but boy are they 
though. They can absolutely destroy everything bar the Pikeman. If you're the 
Saracens, you'll never need to build any other cavalry. 

 Samurai
Samurai are an awesome unit. They have +50 stats and a hell of a lot of 
fighting potential. Samurai move 9 squares instead of the ordinary 7, and level
up a lot faster too due to their "seasoned Veteran" ability, which subtracts 
one fight from each level (2,4,6) Samurai are just so powerful, it's likely 
that they'll quickly accumulate all 3. If you're the Japanese, you need not 
any other infantry.

 Cavilers
The creme of the Knights crop, the cavaliers. Though the ages have advanced, 
his usage has not.

 Heavy Camels
Heavy Camels are more heavily armed and armored then Camels, but have the same
role and perks. 

 Paladins
Paladins are the ultimate Cavalry. They have the highest stats in the game (300
ATK 300 DEF), and are in a way Tech 5 units. Very strong, and harder to rebuff
even with Elite Pikemen. Note that you need Squires to raise these.

 Two-Handed Swordsmen
The final evolution of the swordsman. Absolutely colossal at destroying 
buildings, but still very weak to cav, especially with the "Tech 5" Paladins 
running around.

 Champion
Where there's a tech 5 Cavalry, there's a tech 5 Infantry. The foot equivalent 
of the Paladin, the Champion boasts amazing stats (300/300), which basically 
means if you bother to research Arena, you basically get a free Infantry 
upgrade.

 Elite Archers
These upgraded archers have been modernized from the Feudal Age Castle Age 
predecessors. Although they haven't changed in appearance, their stats are 
stronger. but the new prevalence of alternate missile troops and siege units 
mean that archers are no longer the one choice, so expect a relative decline.

 Elite Skirmishers
The Skirmishers brought into the Imperial era. Lacking in power with such big 
alternatives like Scorpions available, but still deadly in hand-to-hand 
combat - to a point.

 Heavy Horse Archers
Horse Archers, barded in armor. Upgraded for the modern era, they are still 
exceptionably mobile.

 Areblasts
The evolution of Crossbowmen, these steel-equipped units still have the basic
function.

 Heavy Scorpions
The absolute pinnacle in unit-destroying technology. Heavy Scorpions drive 
Archers into the ground and grind swordsmen to dust. Get it while you can!

 Siege Ram
The absolute pinnacle in building-destroying technology. If you're ever stuck,
just roll one in and watch your problems evaporate. An arrow magnet, also great
for suicide strikes against big targets, like wonders.

 Bombard Cannon
A great gunpowder unit, can do the work of both Scorpions and Siege Rams, 
though not as powerfully.

 Trebuchet
To me the Trebuchet repress the pinnacle in siege technology, period. It can 
churn castles to dust and render enemy formations broken with a single chuck of
it throwing arm. Trainable at castles, their only limitation is that they can't
attack units right next to it - in other words, attacking it. Still, what's a 
big, heavy siege unit doing out there in the direct line of fire anyway?

 Elite Monks
Elite monks are even more forceful than their predecessors. Their healing 
power has been upgraded significantly; they can heal an extensively 
battle-damaged unit in two turns. Their converts work more often. Kill them 
before they turn your units upon you.

 Elite Knights Templar
In a world of high-end units, Knight Templar rise above due to their Zeal 
ability. Even more potent now than before.

 Elite War Elephant
This is the most overpowered unit in the game. It can grind infantry, even 
pikemen to dust. The only effective counter is heavy siege weaponry, and these
don't last long, as your opponent correctly realizes how potent this one is.

 Elite Woad Raider
Amazingly, guerrilla still works in the Imperial battlefield.

 Elite Berserker
The Imperial battlefield is a high-damage place, and this guy is here to ensure
that he makes him mark with his frenzy ability.

 Elite Janissary
The Janissary is a great unit, and this one is too, but the siege shop Hand 
Cannondeer is so much easier to access.

 Elite Throwing Axmen
Skirmish is potentially even more dangerous now that so many units are on the 
grid.

 Elite Longbowmen
Longbowmen still carry the special punch that they had in the Castle Age.

 Elite Mamelukes
Besides being perhaps the coolest-looking cavalry in the game, Elite Mamelukes
are a hard-hitting foe. 

 Elite Mangudai
Upgrade these a bit and you have a potent unit, but it starts of a bit...
underpowered.

 Elite Samurai
The hottest looking Infantry unit EVER is also the hardest-hitting infantry 
unit EVER. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[3.04] Special Abilities

This section lists each of the special abilities in the game and their 
function. For a more complete guide to the unit skills go to the unit skill 
guide.

Anti-Cavalry - When fighting cavalry, gets 83% ATK and DEF bonus and "First 
Strike."
Anti-Personnel - May not attack buildings.
Build - May build and repair buildings.
Buildings Only - May only attack buildings.
Causes Fear - Opponents always suffer -25% ATK and DEF.
Convert - May attempt to convert enemy units.
Desert Charge - Gain +33% ATK when attacking units on Desert that don't have
"Desert Charge."
First Strike - Always strike first, even when defending (unless fighting 
another First Strike unit).
Frenzy - Attack and counterattack at full health (100) until completely dead.
Heal - May heal units; 20% per use (increased by certain techs)
Hero Powers - Has Hero Powers (see section 2.1 - Heroes)
Improved Convert - May attempt to convert enemies with an improved chance of
success.
Improved Heal - Heals unit; 30% per use.
No Counterattacks - May not counterattack when attacked.
No Move & Attack - May not attack in the turn that it moves.
Plains Charge - Gains +33% ATK when attacking units on Plains that don't have
"Plains Charge."
Rapid Fire - When attacking, gets additional attack after opponent's counter-
attack.
Scares Horses - +33% ATK and DEF when fighting horse units.
Scout - Mountains, forests, hills, and swamps only cost 2 move points.
Seasoned Veteran - Achieves Veteran Status more quickly: 2 battles, 4, and 6.
Skirmish - Gains First Strike against all units with a range of 1.
volley - When health greater than 50% +33% ATK.
Woodsman - +33% ATK and DEF when fighting in the forest.
Zeal - Automatically heals 20 Health after any battle against another unit 
(but not buildings)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[3.05] Bonus Units

These units can be bought from the Empire Store for a certain amount of Empire 
Points.

Dopplehanders (100 EP) - Stronger versions of the Two-Handed Swordsman. Get 
them quickly, they are an easy +25/+25 upgrade to your units.

Welsh Bowmen (100 EP) - Welsh Bowmen are probably the best special unit because
they last 2 ages (Archers don't advance in the Castle Age).

Mons Meg (150 EP) - Mons Meg is basically a stronger version of the Bombard 
Cannon. Pretty darn powerful.

Knights of the Round (200 EP) - This is an expensive acquisition, and there 
seems to be a glitch in the game that prevents this unit from advancing ages.
So don't get it.

Genoese Crossbowmen (100 EP) - A great, cheap Crossbowmen advance. Get it now!

Swiss Pikemen (100 EP) - Another great unit. +25/+25 for an awesome unit lets 
it stand up to Longswordmen with greater ease.

Dark Ram (250 EP) - Not particularly useful, but really, really strong!

War Wolf (150 EP) - This is the best siege unit in the game. If you have a few
points to spare, buy it!

[4] Campaign
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[4.01] Joan of Arc (tutorial)

1. Escort to Chinon (impossible to lose)

This mission is impossible to lose. Simply follow Jean de Mertz's instructions 
and go down the road. A Militia comes out to kill you, pathetic, kill him and 
them arrive at the castle to finish the mission.

2. Sword of the Saint (very easy)

Easy. Follow Jean's set instructions, do them well to please him and get a star
towards your goals, and then you are given a small army, and the British come 
after you with a small army.

Use your Knight on the Archer. Use your own Archer on the Longswordsman, then
attack him with Joan. Move your Pikemen closer behind. In all likelihood the 
Longswordsmen will suicide into Joan, and then the Knight will attack her. 
Archer the Knight from behind, move Joan in to attack the Battering Ram. 
Pikeman the Knights, then Knight the Battering Ram. Use your Archers to finish
off the Knight. Combine your Knight and Joan to finally dispose of the 
Battering Ram. Move Joan onto the church to finish with 3 stars.

3. From Pheasant to General (very easy)

At the start of the mission you are given this small area to build a town and 
your army, with a bridge blocked off by Jean. The English general is to the 
North. Move Joan to the side and build a Town Center on the indicated spot.

Next turn, move the villager to one of the two mills. Build a new one on the 
town center. Don't forget to research, Leather Soles is best because it adds to
your Villager’s movement. With your first villager, head for the other wheat 
resource (or the mine if it's closer), with your other villager heading for the
other. Research another tech. On the next turn, start expanding your mills with
farms. You can now tech up, do so. 

On the next turn, go and build a Stables or Barracks while the other of your 
villagers continues expanding the mills. After that, start building up your 
army. Once you've reached your unit cap, go up the road and attack. Keep your 
villagers expanding the mills, once the attack begins move them up while 
reclaiming all of the resources, this is required for 3 stars. When you get to 
the town, use the appropriate units, but save Joan for the main guy. Once he's
running, destroy the town center and wait. If you want to finish quickly, just 
capture it, but if you want 3 stars, build another villager, or two, and go 
around reclaiming the resources. once they are all yours capture the TC to win
with all three stars. 

If you haven't yet, send the north-most villager to the gold and build a mine.
With the other one, go to one of the spaces adjacent to the town center and
build a stable and then a barracks the next turn, or vice versa.
By now, you should have researched enough to move on to Age 2. If not, do so.
Also begin building units for your attack force. Once Jean says so, begin
moving forces towards the British town. But keep on building units (light
cavalry) to follow them. Fight your way to their town, and destroy the TC (town
center), but not any of the other buildings. Once the TC is gone, a villager
can go in and build another town center in its place to capture the
surrounding buildings and win.

4. Breakthrough to Orleans (very easy)

As soon as you start you are surrounded by a bunch of underpowered units, use
Joan's abilities and then kill them easy. Another Skirmisher and Scout Cav come
out. Use the mountains and hills to archer them. As you go down further there 
is a Spearman, and a Light Cavalry. Reach Blois, get the Crossbowmen and heal.
You have to defend a Trade Cart from this point forward. Once you reach the 
bridge, you get 2 monks. Instead of merging them, let them heal each other to 
get double healing. Very early on you meet a junction in the road. The top one
leads to the besieged Orleans, while the bottom one leads to...3 Archers! They
are converted to you. You also get detailed knowledge of all of the terrain.

As soon as you retrieve them get ready for a really big one. As soon as you do 
you're going to get run into by a large amount of units. Get to the town and 
drive the Trade Cart in, BUT NOT JOAN. If you want 3 stars, you have to bypass 
it and destroy the enemy Battering Rams, which means killing their guards. They
recede into the area right of Orleans when you approach. Also, you have to 
retrieve the relic, so send one of your monks into the swamps in the northwest
corner to retrieve it. Support him with an Infantry, it's guarded by another 
monk. Monks can wreck havoc here, converting units like mad.

5. Lifting the Siege of Orleans

To finish the mission you have to wreck the three castles. You start out at the
town of Orleans, located on a small island. To the Northwest are a couple of 
critically under defended British mills, and to the northeast is the castle 
Bastille St. Loup., which is extremely lightly defended and the easiest target.
Directly south, on a small island, is the Bastille des Tourelles. It's also 
relatively lightly defended. Across from it is a small area from which units 
can arrive, be mindful of that. Down to the southwest is the 'final" area, the
bridge in is defended by siege an Onagar and Scorpion, and it contains the last
castle, Olivet Castle, as well as Earl Talbot himself.

On your first turn build a unit in every available facility, including a 
villager. You're initially surrounded by enemy units, use yours to smash them 
away. Your initial treasury will quickly whittle away, so you'll have to 
capture the mills to survive. The first attacks only come from the northern
forces, after a few turns the coast will be clear. Be picky, but not too 
picky, and try to wait out so you have a decent squad of elite mercenary army
units.

Use your units to destroy the mills and then capture them with your villagers.
Now here's a trick for you. Instead of destroying any of the castles, reduce 
their hp so that they would fall in one turn. As soon as possible siege each 
castle with a small amount of units while your villagers capture the mills. Use
your villagers to secure the two gold resources. Use Archers and whatever you 
want to route Sir Talbot. Once you've claimed 2 stars, and you have to do this
in 20 turns or less, destroy the castles.

6. Crowning of Prince Charles

Now, to deal the final blow to the British claims to the French crown, you 
endeavor to crown the Dauphin king of his lands. Before you can do this, 
however you must advance to the Imperial Age, build a Wonder, and find a
missing relic, all within a time limit. To pass the mission, and especially to
pass it well, you have to do these quickly. Because of this mission is the
only tutorial mission with a truly large degree of difficulty.

You start out in a relatively large blackmap-eschewed map. Your Town Center is 
the center-north. The relic is located somewhere in the swamps on the map, 
either in the northwest corner or somewhere else in the deep south. You have 
to dispatch units to search for it, but it's made more difficult by the many 
British "leftovers" lurking around in the blackmap.

In the meantime, expand your resources aggressively, and get an army off the 
ground. Don't waste unnecessary resources, and research if you can every day.
The Wonder is no small task to build, requiring quite a few resources. Also 
build on the mills square to the south of your main TC, it will come in handy 
later. You have to do this quickly, but if you can't find the relic fast enough
it will throw everything off, which is the degree of failure in the mission.

Once you've found the relic, send a monk to claim it. Build the Wonder and put 
the relic there. Once you've satisfied all of the conditions, the Dauphin 
appears in the southwest corner of the map. Go fetch him; his stats suck, and 
he's foolishly traveling alone. Send in cavalry to escort him. He is quickly 
followed by British armies - one to the west of your town center, and one to 
the southeast. Move him quickly and hold off enemy units. He's actually pretty
funny - his unit is just a bunch of look-alikes on horses, and your enemies 
have to attack them until they get to the real one.

Anyway, holding off the armies can't be too hard. Just move him onto the Wonder
to win the mission. If you ask me you should also have to defeat the English 
forces, but oh well, this is tutorial after all.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[4.02] Minamoto (Easy)

1. Battle of the River Crossings

You start out with a small army. There are two bridges leading to your enemy, 
both are blocked off by his units but one on the right is more lightly defended
by 6 units instead of 5. You can attack either side, but once you start denting
A, B will invade you. I usually choose the left side, because for some reason 
they always get into this stupid formation that exposes their Archers to 
attack. Anyway, whichever side you choose, maintain a detachment on the other. 
Don't use Minamoto for battle, but to heal up badly damaged units, and then 
send them back into the fighting. After a handful of turns all of their bridge
forces will have been vanquished. If you want 3 stars, leave 2 badly damaged 
units (or Scout Cav) behind on the bridges. Also leave another unit to go up 
the opposite side of the rest of units, to secure the other bridge (there are 4
of them) Rush up to the next section. The two bridges to your guy are defended 
by Areblasts. Attack one, preferably with Light Cavalry. They will instantly 
retract, giving you access to Yoshitsune and his little Samurai army. Destroy
all of the other units before you kill the coward Yoshitsune, and leave one 
unit on the bridge behind your army. The other one you sent should secure the
other bridge. If you do this correctly, and quickly, victory will be yours, 
with all 3 stars, the last for finishing under 12 turns.

2. Tiara Conquest

The thing with this mission is that if you are too passive, you will have a 
hard time winning, because the Tiara would have taken all of the resources.
In this mission the Tiara are very aggressive, as soon as they see something
of yours they will attack. However, if they take damage from this, they will
usually instantly retreat.

Where you start out, dispatch your villagers to start building your economy. 
Send your Scout up the far left of the map, and glut the bridge on the right 
with Minamoto, supported by an archer or whatever else you want to use. Your 
Scout will find two bridges-one right next to your settlement, and one far up
the map. The mistake I made when I first played was stopping at the first 
bridge; pretty early on, send a villager up the left and build a Town Center 
right on the bridge. With your other villager, capture the resources on this
new land. Remember, on this map you shouldn't be too aggressive on resources, 
because the Tiara will attack very quickly.

The Tiara usually do 4 things when you do this - attack Minamoto (shouldn't be
a problem as he can heal himself), attack your northwestern town center (spend
the unit boost you get from those new resources on a bit of protection there),
attack Minamoto and your first town center through the mountains (easily 
repelled by missile troops, usually), or attack your North town center through 
the mountains/build a castle in the mountains. You should build one too to 
rebuff their attacks and discourage them from building one.

Now here's a trick I learned. Once you have a significant force, rebuff one of 
their attacks and then counterattack. This will bring all of their attention on
your first force, while your second force can slip in almost unremitted. Once 
your first force starts taking bad damage, recede to your settlements and heal 
up. They will rush to your second force, which is hopefully pillaging mills and
burning fields. Continue this pattern to weaken them significantly. Once you 
get siege units on line and near the TCs, knocking them down should be a 
breeze.

For the island castle, move your siege units into range. The castle is defended
by two Areblasts. After they attack, heal up and counter with your Siege units,
Ranged units, and Samurai. Kill them and then blow up the castle; fairly easy.

Don't destroy the final TC before you can collect the 3 relics scattered across
the map. The last star is the most difficult; but even fighting at Castle Age 
vs. Imperial, it doesn't matter, numbers shall prevail.

3. The Battle of Ichi No Tami

I got stuck on this mission the first time I played it, but once you know what 
you're doing, it 's a breeze. This is what I found to be the easiest way.

There are 3 paths to take. The central path leads right to the castle, but it's
chock full of enemies. The right path leads to a Elite Monk and is only 
sparsely populated, a good choice. The right one is the worst, densely
populated by units. Don't take it.

Get into a solid formation, Samurai leading and Siege units way in the back, 
and inch forward. First send a Scout Cav into the edge of the right mountain 
chain. You'll discover two units on the far right road, a Samurai and an Elite 
Skirmisher, as well as a small packet of units on the main road. Set up your 
units just out of their sight range, then attack the Samurai with your Horse 
Archers. Finish him off with your own samurai, and you'll have to kill the 
Skirmishers the old-fashioned way. Heal up any damage with Minamoto, and then 
send a Samurai or 2 up the swamps to reclaim the monk. You can skip him though
if you want. 

Again, heal up and then snipe the units on the main road with your Horse 
Archers. As soon as they come close use your samurai. If you don't kill them, 
the badly damaged units will recede towards the castle. Get your entire army 
over the mountains, and then get on the main road, finishing off the remaining
stragglers (Yes, this means that you have to pretty much leave your Siege units
behind), but you skip a nice bit of fighting this way. You've shortcut right 
to the castle. Throw your Samurai against it, it'll be lightly guarded 
initially. Don't even bother with the grunt rush, it'll come too late as if you 
surround the castle with Samurai as I did, It’ll fall in 2 turns flat.

If you want the 3 stars, you'll probably want to complete the "kill all enemy
units" thing separately. Just move your archers slowly around the map, supported
by all of your other units, to finish them off. Be patient, this will take 
quite a while.

4. Yashima

Wow, this mission is WAY too hard for Easy mode. It's also really long, should 
take you around 50 turns when all's said and done. The two opponents are the 
Tiara and the Emperor’s Army. The Tiara are aggressive, but start out Feudal
Age just like you, with two town centers your one. The Emperor’s Army doesn't
do  anything until you become a significant threat or attack them, which is
great, cause they're freaking IMPERIAL age. Anyway, blockade the bridge with
Minamoto to stop grunt-rush. don't attack them with him, just heal him every
turn with his Minamoto's Guard ability, letting your ranged units (initially
Archer) to finish them off. Once your reach Castle Age, focus on getting
resources and getting tech.

Pretty early on, while you're finishing up the top segment of the map, take a
villager and go through the mountain pass to the southern section. Build a new
Town Center there, and use your surplus units from above to defend it (as in 
the bridge). Gather up all of the resources on your quadrant of the map, and 
then I built two castles-one at the northern bridge and one at the southern. I
used these as the staging points for my attack. Attack once you're tech 4.

On the southern part of the map, I attacked a mine belonging to the Emperor’s
Army and brought them into my force. I then retreated, and used my extra siege
engines to wreck havoc on them while my Northern force attacked and destroyed
Tiara north. I'm not sure why, but for a long time the Emperor ignored my north
assault. Once he did, and brought that huge mesh of pikemen, monks, and samurai
on me, it was too late. As his forces began attacking mine I retreated to my 
castle.

Now the Emperor grows more diligent. My badly tattered Southern force healed 
and recharged at the castle before attacking again. This time he sent units in
to counter me ASAP, besides the Tiara resistance already there. When he does 
this, break the remaining units holding you in at the castle and make a rush 
for the bridge. In all likelihood the Tiara are trying to rebuild the North, 
kill them again. in the meantime your southern force will be suffering, just 
try to keep a net on your siege equipment and heal badly damaged units quickly.
Your fast moving Elite Samurai from the north should be able to link up with 
your south force. Combined, they can repel the assault and defeat the Southern
Tiara. Use your cavalry to mop up any remaining Tiara, especially Villagers. 
Wipe out all of their resources-this is important as an extra star. Use your 
monks to heal your units, blockade the bridge with un-convertible Elite Samurai,
and get ready for the final push, on the Emperor himself.

The Emperor uses a mixed-infantry army - Samurai, Pikemen, and Monks. The Monks
are a huge pain, and the main reason you should keep an oversize amount of Sam.
as they are inconvertible. when you're ready, cross the bridge and onto his 
territory. Be sure to bring a lot of siege with you. He will send everything he
has at you, deal with them. Get right up to the TC, ignore the Wonder for now,
and shred it for effect. Leave the Town Center alive, though, until you finish
with other matters. Destroy all Tiara resources, build upon as many mine 
squares as you can with your Villagers (you need 8), and concentrate on the 
Wonder. Undefended, it should fall quickly. The turn after it falls a humorous
thing insures. The child Emperor’s mother insists that he run to his ship, 
which is across from a strip of land in the north. An Elite Samurai morph 
(named Emperor’s Guard) emerges, kill him before he reaches the ship. Whoo, it
shows the captured kid say that "with my last breath, I curse the house of 
Minamoto forever!" and he jumps into the water and drowns himself. Your advisor
seems sour to lose the prize, but his mother is in tears...

5. Mongol Invasion
This one is fun. There's a million ways to play, so I'll leave you to your own
devices. Just remember to lure Khan out of his area before you kill him, once 
he hits 50% he starts to run.

[4.03] Genghis Khan (Medium)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. The Tatars
In this battle you and your friend have to defeat two Tatar encampments. You 
are on the "main section, an reverse-L shaped middle part on which you and your
friend start out. one of the encampments is to the north of you, and to the 
east of your friend, and another is to your far southeast.

The north Tatar is easily killed. Send in Khan, with a few other units, to kill
them, but focus on the main threat-the other Tatars. These are the guys who 
will hold your attention the entire battle. Do everything you can to make sure
the north falls quickly, but your friend attacks it too (even if he does it 
dumbly) so you have to deal with the south. To do so you have to blockade the 
main bridge into their territory, on the southwest side of them. As soon as 
possible petition units, especially Archers, to hold up the pass. Also send a 
villager to claim the open resources and especially to build the nearby mine, 
which will act as your healing space for the rest of the game. By the time you
hit Castle Age you should be able to glut the enemy and to build a castle in 
their face. Reclaim as many of the resources as possible, but leave a few for 
your friend. Don't worry about him, he can handle himself.

The next part is to siege the enemy himself. Your friend does some trial-and-
error fighting, typical of AI. Start the real deal from the south (by this 
time, you should have established a second TC there). He should fall, but only
after some extended fighting.

Getting 3 stars here is a breeze. Finish quickly to get 1. Build 3 Town Centers
to get another, and the Build a Castle thing should be something you are 
fulfilling ordinarily anyway.
 
2. Uniting the Tribes
This is a very unique mission. You start out with a small force, the most 
important part of which is the two monks, and must either kill or convert each 
of the four chieftains in the area. Each one is confined to his own little area
and covered in blackmap and fog of war, but they all have pretty significant 
forces. As to complete you have to amass a force larger than your starting one
and convert as many chieftains as possible, a technique called monk spamming is 
very useful here. Basically, when you are in range of a unit you would really 
like to convert, and then save your game. Attempt to convert them. If it fails,
quit without saving, return to the mission, and try again, until you succeed. 
This guarantees you conversion, but may take some time, as it is never a 100% 
thing.

Each of the chieftains have pretty significant forces which can challenge your 
own. Keeping your forces united and not letting them to your ranged units is 
pretty vital. Use the terrain to spam them with missile troops from some range,
like, say, across a separating river. Once you've converted or killed the main
troop, use the monk spam on the Chieftain to try and get his sway. This will 
take a few tries because they're a tough cookie, but you have a guaranteed 100%
success rate with monk spamming. Or, you could kill them, but not if you want 
3 stars.

For some reason the first one falls the easiest. He also leaves his Mangudai
for your disposal, which is quite useful. I recommend starting in the Northeast
and heading down, then to the west, because the western chiefs also have siege
equipment in their sway (by the way, capture these). The other chieftains try to
resist a lot more, but should fall quickly too. Between conquering, heal your
units up with your two monks.

3. Supreme Ruler
Basically, in this mission you have to fight three other nations while you 
build up your economy. Eventually, you have to build the Mongol Wonder, the
Great  Tent, and defend it against huge reinforced numbers. 

You start in a large open, arid area. The other three nation, the Merkits, 
Higher, and Burials, are all fighting you, but luckily they are one age behind
and also completely preoccupied with fighting each other.

To cut the long story short, build up a town center (and later 2, plus castles)
while sniping the fighting in the north with Khan and your ranged units. Build 
a large army, with significant forces, and advance into the Imperial Age. Once
you are ready, build the Wonder.

As soon as you do, they seemed unimpressed-so unimpressed they attack you. 
Giving up internal strife, they attack you united. Only thing is, they also get
high-level reinforcements to the southwest and northeast of your position. At 
first it may look like a big problem, but building the Wonder gives you a large
production boost and a very large unit cap boost. Hold down the top with 
minimal forces, as best you can, as it's not the big problem. Don't be fearful
of retreating from the massive forces that they propel at you from the 
reinforcements, just as long as the Wonder doesn't fall.

To go to 3 stars, you have to build 4 mines (including one in enemy territory,
just build it but don't expect it last long). Also you have to build the Wonder
in 30 days, which simply means you have to do it quickly. Also you have to 
scout enemy territory, just build a triple squad of Scouts and send them 
straight into enemy territory. Easy.

4. Empire Expansion
This is a very large, empire-style map. You have free access to a huge wealth 
of scattered resources, but they're also very distant from one another. Your
foes are the Kievens and the Khwarazm Shah, some Turkish dude.

This is a very large map, and contains you and your two foes, the Kievans and 
the KS. You start out in the far north, I recommend scouting out directions to
your enemies (there's a road down and then to the east directly into their 
territory) before establishing your first TC. At the moment neither of them 
realizes you are there, so build your Town Center quickly, best somewhere west
of the junction in the roads. Meanwhile, your Scout Cavalry should finally give
you a grasp of where things sit. You command a large area to the east of the 
map. The Kievan and KS are fighting one another in the west, the Kievan to the
north and KS to the south. Build an army of 4-5 Villagers and concentrate on 
expanding your economy. After about a dozen turns, you should have conquered 
most of your resources, and your economy will be expanding at a nice clip. Also
while doing this, build a Town Center directly in front of the bridge into Kiev
territory. If you want, send Khan south to strafe the enemy resources.

In my game, I also built a "tech" and church town, behind your lines, to help
with keeping everything else military. That's churches, blacksmith, university,
and whatever else you want. 

There is a notable spit-resource section to the south. although you have to 
cross a mountain chain to get there, it contains a very juicy amount of 
resources. unfortunately, the line between you and them is not very clear here,
but still go and capture them resources because they try to do the same.

Once you have a significant force, attack down the road into the Kievans. They 
turn from their conflict with the KS to repelling you. Use your Scouts to probe
out their exact size and the location of their nerve centre, their Town Center.
Attack it and clear the remaining military units to win them. The KS are 
obviously far weaker then the Kievans, and are always an age behind everyone 
else, so they'll fall in short order.

The Kievens are harder to take down then you’re already-defeated ones. In all 
likelihood, you'll be holding off attacking Kievans and attacking K-dudes at
the same time, but concentrate on holding off the aggressors while suppressing
the K-dudes. The large boost you get from all of those new resources certainly
makes your job easier.

Now, getting 3 stars is pretty easy here. Build a Scout early on, and explore 
the map. Go for whatever ruin you see, and get all of them for a star. 
Remember, there's a chance they will die, so I recommend keeping a squad of 2,
and then rebuilding any that are lost. Once you explore your own territory, and
are attacking the Kievan/KS, do so with them. The last star is for reaching 
Imperial Age first. which is actually not that hard, just research a lot, 
especially with the Mongol tech bonuses. Getting 3 stars is not hard, again, 
but time-consuming.

5. Mongol Invasion
Oh, this is a really fun mission. You basically invade Japan with your Mongol 
hoards, and the Japanese are intent upon driving you away, especially from 
their sacred temple.

You land with a relatively large force to the northwest, near the town center 
of Dazaifu. First, use the monk-spamming technique from before to convert the 
Crossbow there. Move khan behind your Cross and attack the samurai. Now use one 
of the Champions to attack the Crossbow in the mill to the north and a Camel to
assault the Crossbow in the mines. Use the other Camel to attack the Scorpion 
in the town and then finish it off with two Mangudai. Move all of your other 
forces closer to the TC; next turn you get to burn it with Siege Rams, 
Champions, and Trebuchet. Finish off one of the Crossbowmen with your last 
Mangudai and finish your turn.

The Japanese immediately move all of their forces on you. This is a serious 
problem because of the Elite Samurai composing its majority. Also, they build a
castle in the north.

For the next few turns concentrate on surviving. The next boat is not far off.
Take out the northern mill with your Champion and start moving him towards the
battle; use any badly damaged units to raid villagers and resources. In just 
two turns another boatload of reinforcements join your current force and help 
ease the battle. In mine I used Genghis Khan as a massive bullet magnet; he 
can take a lot of damage due to First Strike and I kept healing him with my 
monk.

Once the reinforcements come you can surmount the first assault. The Town 
Center should fall now, as will the mine. Use your mangudai to attack any 
lone Elite Samurai that overextend themselves out of friendly range, but 
really spend this time cleaning up, holding it down, and completely 
destroying the TC. Use your Mangudai to snipe the mine to your west, and
destroy it. Move west slowly.

You have one big advantage over the Japanese-your many Mangudai. These 
mobile sniping platforms are extremely useful here because they can snipe 
enemy units and buildings ahead of your lines without taking too much 
damage, as their first Strike ability allows them to survive a turn out in 
the open (except against Elite Samurai). Also, the Japs use only Areblasts
for some reason, and H. Archers are rare, giving you ever the more of an 
advantage. use it to greatly weaken the foe before breaking them with your
Camels and Champions. Also, remember that the forces occupying the Wonder 
will not attack you, even if you are in range, unless you come REALLY close
and attack the Palace.

After a few turns the next reinforcements come. they are in not one, but 2 
boats. One lands as usual and reinforces your already large force, and one
lands to the east of it, across from your usually landing area. They are 
both pretty small. by now you should have begun seiging the castle, so pull
both of these to the road and to the castle to attack. With your western 
force, use the Camels and then the Mangudai to damage the Areblasts, and
then the Trebuchet on the villager.

You now have two options; to finish quickly, blow up the castle. The other
option is to concentrate on 3 stars by going up the map and defeating 
everything there. 

[4.04] Saladin (Hard)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Rising To Power, Part 1

This is actually an easy mission, if you take into account that there are 6 
relics, but you only need 4, and 2 are easy grabs in your territory. The
biggest problem is that your Town Center limit is 2, exactly how many towns you 
have right now, and one of them is a mosque town.

When you start, build a Pikeman for your empty slot. Send your Scout Cavalry 
onto that hill on the edge of his range to reveal the scene-Damietta. Don't 
worry, the Longswordsman doesn't see you. Move your force in, but out of his 
sight range, with Saladin leading. Start building farms with your Villager, and
research your first tech, preferably the gold-raising one as you have a 
critical lack of it right now. This is so as to advance to age 4 in 18 days and
claim a star.

On the next turn, attack. Use Saladin to run down the Longswordsmen, and the 
Scout to kill whatever he's training on his Archery Range, usually an Archer.
Move your Longswordsman in and get close to the TC. Next turn, Saladin the 
second Longsword and start attacking the TC with your own. Use your Scout Cav 
to attack the villagers and Saladin to burn the mine, alongside the Pikemen who
arrives from your training. Bibles, and the surrounding resources, should fall
quickly, but unfortunately one of the villagers escapes as soon as the attack 
begins. Oh well, they no longer pose a threat.

As your Town Center limit is all used up, you can't reclaim the Town Center, so
don't be afraid to burn it all down. Using the unit cap boost you get from your
farming with the villager, build another one and capture the mine and mill 
outside Bibles.

On your next unit limit expansion, build a monk and send him to claim the easy
to get relic near your mill. By now you should have wrapped up with Bibles. 
Your other villager should be concentrating on the mills outside the mosque 
town. Begin training your army. You might have to skip a few turns of tech due
to resource gathering costs, but that's ok, you have 18 Days to research 11 
techs, so you have a little bit of time.

Your army will really begin to kick off now. Send a Scout cav to explore the 
gaping black hole that is the western part of your "area" and start claiming
resources there. Train lots of, ok train like 3, monks. Use monks, ranged 
units, one Camel, and a few Pikemen, that's the best mix for the mission.

Now attack! Punch through Damietta’s punch-card units and capture the easily
taken relic on the strip of land just above. That's 2 down so far. 

Damietta is very weak, and all they really control is a pathetically tiny 
strip of land with barely enough room for a Town Center, a mill, and a mine.
Plus, you'll soon be rocking at imperial Age, and they are backwardly at
Feudal Age. Easy pickings.

Kill them and then move onto the next civ. Meanwhile, use a villager to build
a couple of Castles in the far right, before Alexandria, and strafe it. 

The next relic is located in a swampy area that takes a long time to get there,
just send one of your monks down there to get it. The last one is on the strip
of land you are attacking right now. Go up and get it. This new area is also 
where your escapes from Belbies start a new TC, destroy it if you want.

It’s really hard to get three stars in finishing in 26 days. I always get stuck
wading through the mud in getting the second to last relic, and the amount of 
time needed to conquer the Blue guys and snag that one is also unacceptable. 
I'm open to hints, but for now it remains 2 stars.

2. Rising to Power, Part 2
Saladin has outgrown his master, and now their ambitions clash in open 
conflict. The map is shaped basically like a giant L. You start at the 
southwestern corner of the map. The castle is to the east, just past those 
mines, and your ultimate objective, Damascus, is to the far northeast, on the 
other end of the map.

Using your 2 spare unit caps, build a Villager and an Archer. Using the Scout, 
stand on the nearby mountain to see the local terrain. The castle isn't as 
close as you might presume, out past those two mines (you can send a Scout 
there to see its outskirts). Taking it is not going to be easy. Wait a little 
before you strike to raise your unit cap; the place is fortified in the 
mountains, and besides the two men-at-Arms and Crossbowmen, it is also 
receiving reinforcements from the north.

Expand your resource gathering with your two villagers. If you want grab the 
ruins in your territory with a scout while you wait. Put Saladin at the 
juncture that is the small lake. This will put him in range of Archers, but 
also a Men-at-Arms will wade out to fight. Kill him, it makes your job 
easier. Now the rest of them, except the crossbow, wades out to attack you.

You may take some losses, but ultimately this is to your advantage as you can
kill them now. This map has a VERY harsh unit limit. Once you have killed 
them, advance on the castle and attack the Crossbows. Meanwhile, send your 
Villagers and build upon the two mine and one mill resource in the nook 
northwest of the castle. These will also serve to heal you. 

Once the Crossbows are dead, assault the castle. Use Archers and whatever you
can spare to hold off the reinforcements from the north. Now you recharge
your army. Build a castle to train Mamelukes to replace the Knights you have,
because Mamelukes slay on desert.

Once you are ready, attack Bastra. It's a bit of a ways down the southern road.
Build a town center on the opposite end to cut your supply line, and use it to 
train siege units and the all-holy Battering Ram. Bastra is actually harder 
then it appears, but it still falls quickly, in about 5 days-2 to break their 
army and 3 to destroy the TC itself.

Meanwhile, your northern force should be pressuring the other guys. Don't 
attack them, yet anyway, just move into their territory. This will distract 
them from the invasion you're staging down the road from Bastra to Damietta.
Once it starts, move in with them too to help.

Also, where you built the TC, turn it into a siege/monastery. Build 3 or 2 
monks and send them out to collect the relics. One is in the swamps north of 
your original Town Center; one is very close to where your monastery town is, 
in the hills north or where Bastra was; and one is in the hills on the edge of
the map near where Damascus is.

The first 2 turns of battle now will be about taking losses but holding your 
line. Once you get to the TC itself, you'll have an easy way to victory. Also,
build a castle somewhere nearby for healing and reinforcements.

3. Reynolds’s Raiders
This is a fun, if ridiculous, mission. Basically, some angry Crusader named 
Reynold is attack Muslim pilgrims - basically, Trade Carts - heading between
the four "holy cities." You must defeat his constant raids and let the carts 
come through. You don't get to choose your units, except for the ones you can
build from the small grants you get for every successful caravan, but it's 
mostly Camels, Pikemen, and Horse Archers, which is ok because Camels and 
Pikemen can burn a hole straight through any Templar. Notably, Reynold
completely forgot to bring missile troops with him.

The first few turns make or break your game. Reynold has invaded, and his 
forces are scattered against the peninsula. There is also a castle in the 
south. Start by pulling your Camels from the north town, Bibles, and 
attacking the Templar across the ford. Your Damascus forces, which includes
Saladin, should form a sort of "wall of units" and smash against the Templers.
The problem here is that there are two Knights to your flank, which can 
attack you from behind, but luckily all of your units there are Knight-killing
Camels and Pikemen, so they shouldn't be TOO much of a problem. Use to Horse 
Archer to soften up the Templar across the ford, the one you hit with your 
Camel from the north forces.

In the south, there is castle with a Templar and a few units in the middle.
Use your southern Camels to attack the Castle and draw the Templar's 
attention, but keep your Horse Archer out of range to keep it from being 
massacred. Be sure to stay out of the range of the Pikeman to the north!
your southeastern medina forces should form up and advance slightly into the 
mountains. They stand to take the most damage here because the forces here 
are nearly as strong as them, but luckily you can pull units from the south
if you get in a pickle-and you probably will.

Keep aggressing against them on the next turn. Blast Reynold with Saladin and 
watch him flee. Kill the rest of the Templers. In the south, pull your two 
forces together and attack the Templers. They should fall quickly to your brute
might ;) After they are gone, siege the castle and destroy it to claim a star.
Rest all of your units and get them back to full health.

Now that the Templar raiders are gone, locamote the cart from its start point
to its destination. A few turns after you finish this, Reynold comes again. 
Shock! Expecting this, form a wall of Pikes and Camels to blockade their main
entry point. There are also two other points they occasionally use, in the 
south, these are covered by your southern army.

Surround the carts with units, are wait for the Templar army to attack and then
destroy them, and don't let any of them get destroyed to finish with 3 stars 
(the other one is Less the 2 Carts destroyed, but if none are destroyed 
obviously 0 < 2).

4. The Horns of Hattin
It's that Reynold guy again. This time, Saladin has had enough of him, and you
have to destroy his army and then rush into him and kill him. The rat tries to
run away. Split your fast-moving troops, Mamelukes and Camels, from your main
force and catch up to him. The army itself is quite conquerable. He flees with
some Templers, a Trade Cart, and a fast-moving Monk carrying a relic. You have
to kill all of them, and all of the military units, to win.

For some reason, on my game, this one glitches, and no matter what happens to
your mamelukes, You get the "Keep both of them alive" star right at the 
beginning. Dunno if this happens for everyone, but it makes the job easier. 

Take a turn to organize your forces and find what direction he's fleeing in. I
found a trick to get rid of the Crossbowmen; flank all the way to the left and
right with your 4 Light Cav, and then run straight into them. For the rest,
just split a few fast units out while the main army clashes. The Light Cavalry,
if used quickly, can easily get to him and wreck the Trade Cart and/or monk 
before his Templar guards kill you. The difficulty of this mission is based on
what direction he flees in; it's harder to do to the west, and easier to the 
east, due to the terrain and how he leaves his units behind. However, he flees
to the east only rarely.

5. Reclaiming Jerusalem
Um...yeah. Jerusalem. This is actually the reason I came here to GameFAQs in 
the first place, for help beating this mission. It's...hard. Really, freakishly
ridiculously hard. 

I've actually seen two tactics for beating this one. One is to build castles 
and to train Mamelukes every turn. Another is to build two markets ate each TC
and leave the castle for later, getting up a super-elite Mercenary army. But
both of them have point, you'll get shredded if you use normal units.

The best guide for this mission is from wolfmanphd, at 
http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/file/927039/43618.

There's also a very detailed guide to the second approach, by bling56789,
at http://www.gamefaqs.com/portable/ds/qna/927039.html?qid=37052.

6. The Battle of Arsuf
This isn't all that climatic for a finale to mission 5. You have to avoid the
dammed Templers and kill 3 water carts. just close up your formation for 2 
turns, then use Hit and Run to run up to them and engage. The water carts are
hidden behind the Templers, honestly they are scary, you have all the wrong 
units to kill them Templers. You should win about Day 5; use Pikemen and your
missile troops to bop the Templers, punch a hole through to the carts and 
then blow them up.

[4.05] Richard the Lionhearted (Very Hard)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. All In The Family, Part 1

In a classic English royal feud, Richard's younger brother has raised a 
Frankish rebellion to try and coup the throne. You and your father, King Henry,
must defeat the two Frankish forces. Similar to Genghis Khan 1, eh? Well, not 
really. The thing is that very early on your father, who makes a crappy fight, 
quits when he hears your younger brother, the rebel, was injured. Quitter.

You are positioned in the northwestern part of the map. Your dad is to the east
and the first Frank, the weaker one, is to the south. The other one, who 
decimates King Henry, your dad, is to the far southwest. In the middle is a 
big crossroads leading to and from every section of the map.

As your friend is busy handling the southwest enemy, concentrate on 
dispatching of the southwestern force as soon as possible. Don’t bother trying
to help King Henry, it's no good and you have stretched units and resources as 
is. Militia make crappy fighters but are far better (still horrid) at seiging 
then Scout Cav, who are combat units mostly. Richard is above-par on both, for 
Dark Age standards. Be sure to get rid of the TC AND the villagers. They can be
a great pain later on.

As you wrap up and jump-start your economy, heading into the Feudal Age, your 
King quits. When he does so all units and economic structures disappear, and 
his Town Center disappears too, allowing you - or your foe - to capture it.
This is good because this guy is an economic hog, going around the map with an 
army of villagers and building on every economic plot he sees, even on those 
clearly in your or enemy territory. So build aggressively to stymie this 
obstacle.

Once you dispatch of the southern town center, capture it and the surrounding 
resources. The front will basically look like this: you controlling the entire
west section of the map, with two town centers, and two bridges in (north in 
south, both in the area of your TCs), and him controlling the entire east 
section, well the large island constituting most of it as well as a theoretical
militaristic grasp in the north. The large central crossroads links the two of
you together.

As you go into the Castle Age focus on getting rich and getting tech. At first 
your opponent has an advantage over you, but you should be able to equalize.
It's recommended that you build a castle in either the north or south, or both.
The AI usually attacks one end of your settlement or the other, and makes the 
mistake of doing this with ALL his available forces. So to attack, counter his
attack and then invade. Rush for the bridges on his side and build a castle 
or town center there to solidify it. Now you're literally at his doorstep, 
and you can attack.

The AI concentrates a huge amount of settlement in his "island," so it looks a 
bit like a fortress-in other words, daunting. I recommend Battering Rams or 
Imperial Siege units for this. He's a tough cookie, and trains units almost 
everywhere, but if you even out him in battle, and attack his resource 
generation, he'll quickly weaken. Destroy his fortifications to win the 
mission.

2. All In The Family, Part 2

Well, King Henry has gotten mad at Richard's insolence and is threatening to 
disinherit him. This is unacceptable to the Lionheart, and once again as part
of the family feud you have to battle a family member in combat.

You start out with a town center in the dead middle of the map. King Henry has
3 TCs, all surrounding you. The map is smothered in blackmap, so at first you
don't know exactly where the attacks are coming from, just from the bridge 
below, the bridge above, and the roads to the east. Just across from the bridge
to your south is the first Town Center, it's the nearest and also the easiest 
to take. A bit up the road to the north of the northern bridge is the next 
closest one, and what appears to be the main one as it also establishes a 
secondary Town Center. The last TC is quite far away, down the road east of the
main one.

Your first order of business is just to survive. Use your Unit Abilities to 
their fullest and counter the attacks coming from every side. There is a short
respite between skirmishes, so use it to heal. Be sure to keep your Ranged 
units protected, as they can die easily. You have one more unit slot availed, 
use it to build a Spearman as you don't have any Anti-Cavalry at the time. 

Pretty early on a Scout Cavalry emerges from the blackmap. He informs you that
King Phillip, Richard's French kingly friend, is funneling reinforcements in.
So obviously you'll constantly be working above your unit limit, so use your
resources to research tech every turn, it's necessary as your opp and your 
reinforcements go from Dark to Imperial by the end of the brawl. 

The second (or rather first) reinforcements consist of Archers and cavalry. 
Rush them to your lines. With these reinforcements your burgeoning army should
be able to easily withhold their attacks.

The next reinforcements are infantry. They say that the siege units are proving
more difficult to handle than expected, and a group of monks and infantry have
stayed behind to defend it. Get these reinforcements to the lines. Now, you 
should easily be able to defend against attacks, and even go on the offensive.

Split a small amount of units and go south, to the first TC. Break through the
defensive Tower and attack his Town Center. Use your Archers to disable 
anything he's building. It should fall easily enough. Once it does go in and 
capture it, then the surrounding resources.

The final reinforcements are the heaviest-Two-Handed, Elite Throwing Axmen, 
Elite Monks, and a Trebuchet. With this you can easily smash through the 
remaining enemy centers. Detach your army into two parts-one to hold the Town
Center from attack and one to attack their Town Center to the north. Cavalry 
aren't very useful in this one because there's a lot of swamp at the TC. Be 
sure to leave a nice little bit of units at the TC, there's a sudden influx
of units suddenly when you attack.

The last Town Center is pretty far away. Just head down the narrow road east 
and you will find it. it’s not they well defended, and should fall to your 
goliath forces quickly. Before it does, make sure you've completed the 3 
stars - 4 Town Centers (yours, 2 captured, one built), a Wonder, and the relic.
Once you've done so destroy it and victory is yours.

3. Cyprus

Ok, so now we get to the fun part of Richard's missions, the Crusades. Only 
problem is, one of your ships, containing a large chunk of your funds, was 
captured by King Isaac of Cyprus, who refuses to give it back. So what do you 
do? Invade of course.

You come with a large army, complete with a Battering Ram. Siege the first 
town, it's pretty lightly defended by down-aged units. Defeat them and capture
it with your villager. Now destroy their resources and claim them for yourself.

So you've captured the first Town Center. The map looks like a crescent. Your 
Town center is in the lower southwest. A road down a bridge has mine situated 
in the mountain range, protected by a Crossbowman, and another town as well as
a mill. Now the path bends, and you reach another TC, encamped in the 
mountains. Destroy it to reach the final TC, in the far northwest. Oh god 
that's a tough cookie to crack, and looks like a fortress with all of the 
units. You can't take a path from your first TC to the last one because of a 
huge mountain range separating the whole map. There's a starred castle in  
the mountains, near your first TC, destroy it and its Elite Axmen guard to 
claim a star. To do so just place Archers on your side of the mountain and 
wear him, and the castle, down.

Ok, back to the main thing. Once you have nice little force and good resources,
attack the second TC. It will be defended similarly to the first one, but 
there's also a Crossbowman in the mountains mine to deal with, use a Knight on
him. This town should fall quickly, and concentrate on destroying the mill 
center to the south so that your villager can capture it after he captures the
Town Center.

Now, the next-to-last town center is pathetic, really. Instead of reinforcing 
this easily defended mountain-encrusted town, Isaac pulls all of his remaining
forces in unto himself at the last town. So it's a cinch to destroy this one. 

Break through and render the Town Center rubble, before reclaiming it for your
own. Now, you are ready for the final one, and whoo, it's a dozy. You've 
captured a siege engineer shop in the last TC, and you'll definitely need it. 
Build a few Battering Rams or even better, Siege Rams, you'll need them. 

The only way into the last TC is by a bridge directly in. However, it's no easy
pickings punching into it because the area is smothered in units. The layout 
looks like this:
____________
  M ______  \\
 f |      |  ||^  f
fmf| Town |  //^ fmf
 f |__  __|  ||^  f
      ][     ||^
  

^ = Mountain
m = Mill
f = Farm
][= Bridge
[5] Empire Map
M = Mine

First, destroy the mill to the east and capture it if you like. Then set up 
Archers on the mountains, utilizing Richard's Firing Line ability to increase 
their range. Snipe the units inside. Keep your siege engines nearby, and don't
even think of a front-line assault by infantry, it'll be too bloody. The main 
units of the occasion are archers you have encamped in the mountains. Use them
to open up a hole in the defense of the building guarding the southern 
entrance. then ram it with a Battering Ram or Siege Ram. It's highly unlikely 
the ram will survive, but oh well, that's what they're for. As to get 3 stars 
you have to lure out Isaac, just blowing up the Town center is quite out of 
question for now. Concentrate on coming around with your archer-equipped siege
rams and battering the buildings to shreds. Also use your Archers to reduce the
siege equipment he has there. After a few rounds Isaac will reveal himself and 
attack you. Bad choice; kill him, and then wreck the TC.

If you want 3 stars you'll also need to collect all of the relics. Build a 
church in one of your conquered spot and collect them all.

4. The Siege of Acre

Bloody hell, the Siege of Acre! This is a freakishly hard one, and don't be 
discouraged if you lose a few times. Even experts have immense trouble, 
including seizing the mines, routing Saladin, and winning in a mere 15 DAYS. 
Now that's a hardcore mission. Luckily I found a user-friendly, if lengthy, 
way to conquer it with 2 stars (15 days? Well...read on).

Basically, you start out with a nice, large army, but this counts for nearly 
nothing compared to the bristling hornets’ nest that is Acre. Trust me, it's 
impossible to beat it with just the forces you have right now. Just be docile 
and hold back. Luckily, reinforcements come on days 7. 10, and 15, so by that 
end you have the brute power needed to force Acre out.

Also, enemy reinforcements arrive at similar intervals, and days 7, 10, and 
15. The first is simply an extra garrison for the Acre troops, but the other 
two are much more dangerous. They consist of Elite units, and spawn to the 
right of your column. The Mamelukes are especially, immensely dangerous, as 
they can wipe your Templers out completely in hand to hand 100-100 combat. My
best advice is to position a bit of Longbowmen on the right with Templers, 
and to attack first. use your Longbowmen and then run them down with Templers.
Then retreat. By the time the first column is knocked out a new one comes, 
which is even more dangerous, so that is why you retreat. As they come in, 
do the same thing again, and use Longswordsmen on the Pikemen.

Also, you have to defeat Saladin and destroy the two mines he is near. To do 
this set up a bunch of Longbowmen, Templers, and King Richard himself, split 
them from the main group, and then encamp upon the mountains with 5-range 
archers and attack the mines/Saladin’s guards. Once you do so he will head for
you, and he, the two Camels, and the two Mamelukes are deadly, so fall back
quickly while taking pock shots at him. Weaken his force with the Longbowmen,
the only truly effective kick-all weapon you have, and then counter with your
Templers. After a few battles you will emerge victorious, and Saladin will be
routed. Now you can freehandedly destroy the two mines.

OK, now for the big thing, the siege itself. I've found an AI trick that will
totally make the battle easier. Instead of attacking, stay behind and augment
your archer's range with Richard's Firing Line ability. For some reason they 
will not charge past a certain extent, and the line for this is 4 spaces to 
the north of the town center, except for one exception in the center for which
it is 5. But really, you'll find the exact line through trial and error. 
Richard can boost all archer's range by 1, which basically means that you can 
reach beyond this "line" with your Longbowmen, doing punishing damage whilst
receiving nothing in return.

Also, if you do enough damage, the AI finally runs out of his near-infinite 
economy and can't build any new units. be advised this will take a while! But 
if you are very docile or are having severe difficulty, this will work. 
Otherwise, use Firing Line, use them Longbowmen to shoot the defenders to 
pieces. actually, just use them at max range to shoot a straight path directly
to the TC, which is the ultimate objective-nothing else matters. Now that you
have cleared a path, attack the Archery Range with a Battering Ram (suicide 
strike) and then counter the threat to your overexposed Archers by moving your 
Templar line forward.

The AI will undoubted counterattack, but also concentrating on the Battering 
Ram. Now, use your Archers again to clear a path, hurt the aggressors, and then
counterattack the attackers with your Templers. Flank the Scorpions if at all
possible, they present an immense threat, and kill them. Now, ram your badly
damaged Battering ram into the Archery Range, and then finish it off with your
Archers. Clear the TC and then ram your Imperial Ram into it, badly damaging it
to 49%. After another turn of counterattacking, which should be weaker, open up
with the archers again and then ram your final, still undamaged Battering Ram
into home on the Town Center. Finish it with Longbowmen. Victory! Whoo, that 
one was a dozy wasn't it?

UPDATE:
James says:

Leave all long swordsman and siege weapons where they spawn and go after the
mine with everything else. Destroy the mine before pissing off saladin and his
guards. Once they are after you, use bowman to weaken the mamelukes first and
foremost, and use templars and Richard to finish off the weakened units.
Sometimes a camel or mama will drift towards acre, just ignore it and rush the
other mine with ALL remaining templars. The first time, I only used two
templars and they were unable to take the mine down before the reinforcements
showed up (you can also use one of your bowman to help out, recognizing it
will be dead as soon as the reinforcements arrive. When the first wave of
reinforcements appear, finish off the mine if it still stands, and then FIGHT
these troops with anything you have left (even Richard, although be careful
because I didn’t get him out of harm’s way until he was quite weak.) Once
these troops are dead or crippled, bring all remaining archers to the
mountains in range of acre, Richard behind your troops (using firing line or
superb leader… I suggest SL because you need to do as much damage as
possible).

Ok, up to this point I actually still had templars hitting acre from the south
east, but they will eventually get slaughtered by the second wave of
reinforcements, however this will delay them long enough to keep communication
broken between them and acre. 

Now as you outlined, clear a path, hit the archery with the ram and any extra
archers you have, and then bring your other ram in behind it, in range of the
TC. Of course they counter your ram hard so next day, withdraw one ram, clear
the path/TC and then hit it with the other ram and any other missles you can
get in, and if you are as efficient as possible with your movements/attacks,
and probably with a little luck, you should bring acre down on or before day
15…

Thanks James! Creds for you :) Anyone else want to email me something?

5. The Battle of Arsuf
You're traveling towards Jerusalem, and are ambushed by Saladin’s Light 
Cavalry. What starts out as the stirring of the hornet's nest ends in a very 
big, but very quaky, fight. 

The key here is to reduce your surface area.  So, as fast as you can,
contract your water carts into a ball.  Then, around them, put
scorpions and crossbows. Use your Templers to blow open the swordsmen, and your
own swords to kill the pikes. The Mamelukes are a tough cookie. Use your 
ranged units and then strike them down with cavalry.

It might look like quite a strong show, but after a while, like turn 8 or so, 
Saladin just quits and goes home. To get 3 stars, rout Saladin by attacking him
and keep your Trade Carts safe, parallel to this is to keep your powerful 
Scorpions intact. Easy. This is actually a pretty fun mission. But, then again,
if Saladin hadn't quit, he would have annihilated my badly damaged, 
underpowered forces.

6. The Taking of Jerusalem
This one is a dozy. As in, it's a mad rush in which you lose a lot of units 
but win because, well, you fulfilled the objectives, didn't you? This is #2 on
my list of hardest missions, right up there with Saladin’s Jerusalem, The 
Siege of Acre, and Yashima (though the latter isn't actually THAT hard).

Build a Town Center north of where you start. At the same time send your units
up to Jaffa and annihilate it. Now, capture it and the nearby mill. Two things 
happen: they advance to the Imperial Age, and start sending super-elite units
like mad at you from Jerusalem and from Ascelon. Capture Jaffa, and expand as 
well as you can. Build a castle on the bridge to Ascelon and as a buffer to 
Jerusalem, and defeat the first hoard they send at you from Jerusalem.

Take a large chunk of your forces and attack Ascelon. This is a critical supply
juncture to Saladin-in fact, all they ever do is resupply Jerusalem. But the 
biggest threat by far is the Mameluke armies they send north at you from 
Jerusalem, OWWW. Each one can wipe your ticker clean of any unit, even Pikemen
and oh, especially your charismic Templers. Longbowmen them and advance on them 
with Templers. A full strength one can knock your unit out completely without
any sort of effort, so keep a lot of Longbowmen for your split there.

Just use brute strength to burn down Ascelon as fast as humanly possible and 
return to your overextended, malpowered, horribly wounded Jaffa army. 
Reinforce it so that it can stand fight again (and if your castle was burned 
down, rebuild it). This is the stretch-point of this mission; it may take 
several tries, but if you can achieve it, well you've finished the hardest part
of the mission.

Saladin usually attack into Jaffa. Bullet into Imperial as soon as possible.
Establish a garrison at Ascalon using your new resources. Build several Markets
and Churches, they are critical to this mission, and use a lot of Siege 
Engines. Once you are established, reach your unit limit, and attack with your
Jaffa guys. At the same time, advance with your smaller Ascalon garrison upon
your foe.

Now the going gets gritty. They have immense pure power, with 2 castles, a 
Wonder, and a fully cocked Town Center that you are under orders not to totally
decimate. Crap. Attack Saladin first and push him away, not having him around 
to debase your efforts is awesome. By far the biggest threat is the Elite 
Mamelukes they've got. KILL THEM WITH BOWMEN BEFORE THEY CAN FULLY SPAWN. 
Ignore a more standard unit like Archers just to kill these guys, they're 
absolutely brutal.

Kill anything that comes from the castle and do heavy econ damage as you can.
Equalize with the Town Center and then batter it into the next dimension. Use
your Siege Rams to crunch the buildings into rubble and open up as many holes
as you can. From here, Archer anything they train, use your Templers to hold
off their stuff, and blast a clear to the Town Center. Now, BLOW IT UP. Also
take the castles and Rock thing with you, if you can.

This is HARD!!!

[5] Empire Map
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Empire Map is another fun mode in this game, the free play mode. You select 
your civ, color, team (if any), and options, and start playing. Section 1 
covers the many options that make skirmish play varied and interesting.

Something worth mentioning-in skirmish mode you will have an "Emperor Rank." 
This is determined by the total amount of Empire Points you have collected 
(including those you spent). Since every victorious skirmish match gives you 
points, you will advance from Peasant all the way to Emperor!

[5.01] Options
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Age - Select your starting age. If you select an age other then the first one, 
you start with all the technologies of the previous ages.

Black Map – Standard, you will start your campaign with the entire map covered
in darkness. If you turn this off, the entire map can be seen and you will see
all of the squares.

Fog of War - Areas you have uncovered will still allow enemy movement to go 
unseen unless the square is illumined by the sight range of one of your units.
Turning this off means that all explored squares are always illuminated, 
turning this and Black Map off lets every player see every other player's 
actions across the whole of the map. A very nifty feature depending on what
kind of game you want to play.

Civilization Specials - Toggling off will turn off all of the civ specials 
(see sec. 1.5) making them all completely equal. One interesting effect of 
this is that now castles can train any and all civ-special units, so you’d 
see Saracens with Throwing Axmen and Britons with Mamelukes, and etc.

Heroes - Usually you start the game with your civ's hero, a swordsman 
(Militia, Men-at-Arms, Longswordsman, Two-Handed, depends on starting age) 
a villager, and your hero. Toggling this off replaces the hero with another
swordsman.

Random Events - Random Events, described in section 2.2, are random events 
that can have a good or bad effect on your empire. Turning them off negates
them. See 2.2 for details.

[5.2] Maps
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following is a list of maps in the game.

Agincourt (250 Empire Points) *2 Players*

Overview:
Set Piece Battle! Play as either side in this legendary battle of the Hundred 
Years' War. Best played as Britons (Player 1) against Franks (Player 2).

Details:
This is one of the few Set Piece Battle skirmish maps, in which both players 
start with a large army and most outfight one another. Player 1 starts with 3
Pikes, 6 Swords, 6 Longbowmen, and a Knight. Player 2 starts with 5 Swords, 
4 Light Cav, 3 Crossbowmen/Areblasts, 4 Heavy Cav, and a Caviler/Paladin. This
one is the reliving of the Battle of Agincourt, and similar to the real one, 
the British must use their Longbowmen to crunch the enemy lines, while the 
Franks must use their Cavalry to effectively burgeon into the Briton lines (the
Britons won this epic battle in real life, by the way).

The map itself is a kind of plain with a + road in it, either side containing 
forests and swamps scattered throughout. Assuming that neither side sees the 
other, there's going to be a lot of careful movement down the road.

Arabia *4 Players*

Overview:
The vast, arid lands of the Arabian kingdom. 

Details:
This is a very large, desert map. The island is absolutely covered in resources
and blanketed in Special Objects, you'll need a large team of villagers to 
claim it all. fighting is probably going to be sporadic, but there are several
bridges and a few fords that distinguish one's territory from another, so 
expect heavy fighting over these. The Saracens have a definitive advantage here,
and the Mongols aren't bad for it either. As the map is almost completely 
desert, expect no Knights. You have space for 4 Town Centers, and ranged units
help because there are many mountain and hills cutting into the desert. Overall
expect some long-distance fighting!

Archipelago *4 Players*

Overview:
A tight gathering of many grassy islands linked by short bridges.

Details:
Archipelago is a large map that is basically a huge collection of closely 
linked but water separated islands. They range from tiny 4x4s to some more 
respectably sized islands. The terrain is plains with sparsely populated 
forests, and a few mountains and hills housing gold resources scattered about. 
This game is all about options-there are a million ways to get to your opponent,
some more roundabout then others. There are also a million chokepoints-no 
fighting to the last breath over a single bridge, if your army is broken you 
can retreat a bit and blockade the next one. This makes for a very interesting
blackmap game. Each island contains a few (usually 1 to 2) resources, so you 
have to go around, claiming them for yourself, faster than your opponent.

Archipelago Large (200 Empire Points) *4 Players*

Overview:
A massive complex of interconnected islands ranging from tiny to huge, and 
featuring a variety of terrain.

Details:
This map is basically a larger, more varied version of Archipelago. It's one of
the largest maps in the game, but the cut-out roads are very helpful for 
getting where you need to be. Though the principal is the same, the islands are
bigger, the terrain is more developed (there are 2 desert and a few mountain 
and forest islands), and the fights are more long distance.

Archipelago Small *4 Players*

Overview:
An intensely compact set of linked islands.

Details:
Unlike the other Archi maps, this one has a distinct shape-an O. That means 
there are two ways to your opponent. The four relatively large islands are very
intensely resource-bourn, with 2 Mines, 2 Mills, and 3 Special Objects 
compacted onto the island, and that's not even counting your TC! Because of 
this you should make a mad rush to blockade as many islands as you can. Try a 
4-player game on this map-it's intense!

Asia Major (300 Empire Points) *4 Players*

Overview:
A colossal map representing all of Asia. Radically divergent terrains and wide 
open areas present a unique conquest challenge.

Details:
The best way to classify this map is absolutely, amazingly, colossally huge. 
The map is intensely varied. There's no real thing to say, it varies by the 
game.

Black Forest *4 Players*

Overview:
An immense forest with a spidery network of roads - the perfect place for an
ambush!

Details:
This map is dominated by a spidery network of roads and an immense forest. 
Resources are cut into slots in the forest. This map is big on keeping a caste
of scouts to survey the enemy, because it's true, it's really ambushable. 
The map is separated by a long winding river down the center of the map, but
again there's the problem with surveillance - there are 2 bridges and 7 fords
connecting the two sides. The best civ on this map is the Franks, specifically 
for their Woodsman ability on their Throwing Axmen.

Bridge *2 Players*

Overview:
A single bridge provides the only link between two small islands.

Details:
You start in the north corner of either the west or east damage. The most 
important square in the game is the single bridge connecting the two islands,
and controlling it is key. Most of the map is plains, but for some reason, near
the bridge there is a lot of deserts, so Camels and Mamelukes are pretty 
useful.

Bridges *4 Players*

Overview:
A wide waterway splits two forested grasslands. These are connected by long 
bridges placed at opposite ends.

Details:
Two bridges connect two widely spaced (at points they almost touch however) 
islands, connected by roads that form a ring. Each side has easy access to two
relics, which means you won't have any gold problems in this map. The islands 
have quite a few resources, enough for a thriving economy. If you're playing 
4 player each side has access to a single relic, still helpful.

Bridges Large (100 Empire Points) *4 Players*

Overview:
Enormous plots of land split by a massive body of water. Long bridges and a 
small network of islands provide the link.

Details:
This is a very large map, but it's actually smaller then it looks due to the 
large water gutter space in between the two islands, East and West. The islands 
are connected by three large buildings, and actually have a bridge segment 
separating the north and south part of each island (the two spawn areas). The 
middle bridge actually has a small island complex, and this is interesting as 
it contains four relics! If you build a church town and stuff each church with
these babies, it'll be producing 200 gold/turn. Overall the elongated bridges
and great size provide a unique conquest opportunity.

Britannia *4 Players*

Overview: 
The island empire of the Britons, stretching from Cornwall to Scotland.

Details:
Well, it doesn't actually look like Britain, but this map is very large like
it. This map is very confusing to navigate, and is a gigantic stew of all sorts
of terrain. The basic shape between the four player positions is a sort of
square, connected by badly broken roads. Still, each player is close to one
another. Most of the resources ring the outside.

Canals *3 Players*
Long stretches of interconnected rivers subdivide the grass and swamplands of 
this medium-sized map.

Details:
The basic shape of this map is a ring-the civs start on the outside of the 
ring, and a road network connects them all (again, with bridges), but instead 
of the usual water in the center, there's treacherous, but resource rich, swamp
terrain. If you can capture the entire swamp, you've basically won economically
but it's a tall task to do so. Fights here tend to develop into bogged-down 
Villager fights in the swamplands with skirmishes around the sides.

Castles (150 Empire Points) *4 Players*

Overview: 
A staged-conquest map heavy on mountains and carved up by a dense road network.
Custom built for unbridled castle-building!

Details:
This is a military-heavy map. There's an incredibly dense road network and some
truly great town and castle spots, all carved into slots in the mountains. 
Archer paradise.

Corner Kingdoms *4 Players*

Overview:
A large, unclaimed central landmass bordered by satellite island territories.

Details:
The point of this one is to reclaim as many small islands as possible while 
holding onto your chunk of the main island. Wow, another fight-to-the-center
map. You'll have no trouble getting to your opponent thanks to the large road
network, but the off-terrain can be treacherous. There is a mountain of 
resources here, so keep a team of villagers on hand.

Crossroads *4 Players*

Overview:
Twisting roadways zig and zag over and around mountain peaks, all colliding
into a central junction on this medium-sized map.

Details:
Just as the title says, there's lots of zigzags, mountains, and a central 
road "pinwheel" here. Because of this the fighting will gravitate towards the
center. You're not as far as you think from your enemies...

France (100 Empire Points) *4 Players*

Overview:
The long-disputed plains, forests, and mountains of medieval France.

Details:
Another O-shaped map, it actually looks like France, unlike Britannia. The 
fighting will be on the outside, and the villagers will be on the inside, 
because resources tend to gravitate to the treacherous terrain towards the 
center of the map.

Germania *4 Players*

Overview:
A medium-sized map of the German countryside from Bavaria to the North 
Atlantic.

Details:
An irregular crisscross of roads with resources scattered throughout. Lots of
bridges, Viligence is key here. Follow the main road to your enemies, but 
be sure to be on the lookout for ambushes.

Hannibal's Crossing (250 Empire Points) *2 Players*

Overview:
Player 1 must cross the Alps and pillage the Roman settlement. Play as Mongols
(Player 1) versus Britons (Player 2), with fog and Blackmap ON.

Details:
This is perhaps not the most accurate Set Piece battle depiction. The Middle 
Ages started shortly after Rome collapsed, and it was not the Mongols and 
Britons but the Carthaginians and Romans. Still, this is an epic. You start out 
with 8 Persian War Elephants, a Two-Handed, and Elite Skirmisher. Your opp 
starts with a small army of more "normal" units. Player 1's goal is to destroy
the town center, Player 2's to defend it. You are separated by a large mountain
range, difficult to navigate, and a bit of terrain. Obviously you have no 
choice but to ram through the mountains as you can to reach the other side.

Hasting (250 Empire Points) *2 Players*

Overview:
set Piece Battle! Play as the Norman invaders or Anglo-Saxon defenders in this
historic battle that shaped the course of England's history. Best played a 
Franks (Player 1) against Britons (Player 2).

Details:
This one is actually very similar to the Agincourt, except there are no roads,
and a more varied unit repertoire. Franks should concentrate on using their 
Axmen to counter the pikes and Cavalry on everything else. Britons should use
their Longbowmen to hurt the opposition and then finish it with everything 
else. The map is also of a very varied terrain.

High Pass *2 Players*

overview:
A small concentrated road with grassy fields and a coveted central path 
through the large dividing range of highlands.

Details:
This is a very small map, as evident by the 2-player limit. To tell you the 
truth, this map is very strange to me. There is a central path between the two
spawn points, but everything else is treacherous hillbilly-type land that 
contains all the resources. So you should be splitting your time between 
fighting on the intensely contested main road and raiding your foes economic 
establishments. It's a total of a 5-day trip from side A to side B, so expect
to fight all of the time.

Khyber Pass (250 Empire Points) *2 Players*

Overview:
Set Piece Battle! Fight to control this strategic route through the mountains 
of Afghanistan. Best played as Saracens (Player 1) against Mongols (Player 2).

Details:
This is, like, the Jerusalem of the Skirmish mode. It's very hard, and if your
looking for a challenge, you've found one. Player 1 has the advantage of heavy 
siege equipment and Elite Mamelukes, but minimal numbers, but Player 2...well, 
they have a lot of Ranged units. it's a fight to control the long winding path
through the mountains, which basically makes it ranger heaven-so really Player
2 has the upper hand. Plus, the Heavy scorps are easy to kill from extended 
range. A true challenge.

King of the Mountain (300 Empire Points) *4 Players*

Overview:
A resource-reach, mountainous island is the central link between several 
neighboring isles.

Details:
Hmm, haven't we seen this before? That's right, another fight-to-the-center 
map. I actually like this one the most among the group. The map isn't big at
all, and there are 4 skinny, long islands. In the middle is a not large, but 
resource filled island. It contains 4 critically important mines, and a relic.
Capturing and holding this island is freaking hard!!! Still, the unique and 
challenging perspective is well worth the huge point cost you have to boot.

Moats *2 Players*

Overview:
Small, symmetrical grasslands are divided by a wide lake. Ideal locations 
abound for moated towns and castles.

Details:
This is a small map, but one dissected by a lot of rivers, so it has more 
bridges then most other maps have in total. You start out in the perfect Town 
Center spot-totally surrounded by a river, with space for a full TC. There are 
also some 2x2 shaped islands, obviously made for castles. All in all, this one
makes for an interesting, if tailored, game.

Mongol Steppes *4 Players*

Overview:
Long rivers divide the large, wide-open flatlands and deserts of medieval 
Mongolia.

Details:
A large, wide open area with lots of resources. There is a single road leading
down the map. The catch? You start out really, ridiculously, astoundingly close
to one another. You can literally engage on Day 1, and kill their villager by 
Day 2! The map is very pretty when looked at, and the resources are all over. 
The one road means that battling will be heavily contested. This one is best
played as a team because you can beat the crap out of your enemy if he's this 
close.

Nippon *2 Players*

Overview: 
The narrow and mountainous Japanese isles.

Details:
Narrow and mountainous, indeed. This is basically an island, shaped like Japan,
in a massive sea, with one road connecting the whole segmented beauty together. 
There are a few different islands at the ends besides the main one, and the 
positioning of your spawns, around the edge of the bend, gives you a lot of 
space behind from which to grab for resources. This is a fun, action-filled, 
and especially hilly map, and you can actually see the Asian mainland-at 
least, the edge of it-as a chunk of land in the northwest corner.

Oasis *4 Players*

Overview:
A fertile, green sanctuary lies in the center of this small desert wasteland.

Details:
Yes, this is a small map, but it looks nothing like the "oasis" pictured in the
small preview screen. There are no forests, for starters, and the "oasis" is 
actually a small, thin strip of green land in the center, harboring two mill 
spaces and a relic. Each player starts in a corner, and the central resources 
are actually very important as each spawn point has access to just one mill. 
Interestingly, there are no roads in this map, so movement is harder then you
would think by its size. Still, the central vertex is in my opinion entirely
missable.

Outreamer (150 Empire Points) *4 Players*

Overview: 
The Crusader Kingdoms, etched out of the turbulent, sand-swept Holy Lands.

Details:
Another large, desert map. Interestingly, it's divided into two long, thin 
parallel strips of land, separated by water, each with its own road and 
connected only at the ends by the two crossings, a bridge and a ford. 
Resources are high, but locomotion between the two strips is a huge problem,
as the two main crossings, and the many mountainous secondary ones, are 
intensely mountain-encrusted. Siege units are useless here, except for defense, 
as they cannot pass over. There are two relics here, in the center of the map,
on those secondary mountainous crossings.

Ring
Overview:
A medium-sized ring-shaped island with varying terrain and a direction 
dilemma.

Details:
Ah, another ring map. This is an intensely varied map, and for some reason, the
road sort of goes out where it's supposed to connect with the north, so the 
northern spawned has his own little special thing, with his "own" road. This
map is actually very lopsided; north and east are placed very close, whereas
south and west are very far from one another. Hmm, so here where you spawn 
has a big effect on how the battle goes. Anyway, it's a totally resource-laden
map, so have fun on this one.

Riverlands *4 Players*

Overview:
A landscape strewn with a myriad of wide, impassable rivers. The risk of 
entrapment is always present.

Details:
Wow, what a huge, bewilderingly disorganized map. The road network is the 
only thing solid here is the road network, which looks like an o with a + 
through it. There's an absolutely colossal amount of resources, and a core 
directional dilemma, with quite a few ways to get where you want to be, so
each battle will be unique in its own way. There are lots and lots of oxbows,
which are, as I learned from science class, are cut-off ring-shaped river 
sections that develop over a long period of time due to the gradual curving of
a river. However, there's a long distance to cover between you and them, so get
cracking.

Scar *2 Players*

Overview: A small map featuring a geography-dividing and resource-laden central
mountain range.

Details:
A big, twisting central road juncture marks the cortex of a greatly varied map.
This one has a mountain-and-water center, grass and forests in the median, and
a few deserts skirting the outskirts. It's quite a varied map, as you might 
first grasp by the name and description. It's pretty large for a two-player 
battle, and it kind of looks if you just took a way a small amount of water on
either side, you could stretch it to 4 players, easy. The resources are quite
random too, but yes, they do have a center in the mountains.

Skirmish ~ Desert (250 Empire Points) *2 Players*

Overview:
Set Piece Battle! Face off against an opponent in this balanced desert 
encounter. 

Details:
Fun! If you want a nice, short, challenging battle against your buddy, this 
map, or its Skirmish Plains counterpart, is for you. You start out with a large
army on one side, opposed by an equal army on your opp's side. Winning lies in 
using the terrain to your advantage, and the ability to poke and exploit holes
and gaps in enemy lines. The thing that makes this one unique is that it has a
Castle on either side. Yes, Castle! Although your unit limit is 7 and you start
with 27 units, if the fighting gets intense, you have a place to pull fresh 
troops from. Each player starts with 3500 food/3500 gold, that'll last quite a
few rounds of recruiting, so the fight won't end until someone's castle is 
destroyed!

Skirmish ~ Plains (250 Empire Points) *2 Players*

Overview:
Set Piece Battle! Face off against an opponent in this balanced open-field 
encounter.

Details:
Wow, what a huge army. each side starts with a large army, and most battle each
other out. This is like Desert Skirmish, but with a few differences. First of 
all, this time it's on a large Plains map. Second of all, the battle is 
Imperial, no matter what age you choose. The "big point" of your army is the 
Champion and Paladin relegated to each army. Third of all, TWO castles! How
cool is that? There is one difference between the two armies, south has a 
Heavy Scorpion and a Siege Ram while north has an extra Caviler and no Scorp.

Swamplands *4 Players*

Overview:
Fiercely contested roadways meander around this endless stretch of swampy 
wasteland.

Details:
Ugh, brow, muddy swamps. There is very little dry land on this map, but the 
road network IS extensive, though I can't say fiercely-contested. Resources

are scattered within the little "squares" made by the 3x3 "boxes" meandering
road (check the map to see what I mean). Cavalry are of limited usefulness
here, a they can't cross the ugly swamps, then again so are siege units and
ranged units, but less so.

Twin Peaks *4 Players*

Overview:
A medium-sized map with a circular road system that cuts through a central 
band of mountains.

Details:
Despite the name, there's only a thin band of mountains down the center. But
they do restrict movement so that only the two passes through by the 
square-shaped road are a viable travelling option. The rest is mostly hills,
plains, and forest, with a few scattered desert areas.

Valley *2 Players*

Overview:
A small, fast-paced map featuring a vital central path as well as two very
different side-routes.

Details:
A very, very large map for 2-players. A lot of the resources are through the
mountains and forests in the median besides the main road and out past, on
the deserts and plains there. A very resource-heavy map, but the central road
is the thing that you'll be ducking out on, plus resource raids on the margin.

[6] Multiplayer
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This section is basically meant to cover the nicks of this game's multiplayer. 
Because of its turn-based nature, this game is one of the few games that allows
player to vs. each other on a single DS, though the "Hotseat" game. There is 
also a Wireless Multiplayer, but unfortunately no Wi-Fi :(

The options in the multiplayer are the same as in skirmish - choose your map, 
civ, team, starting age, and any of the various options, and begin. You'll find
that competing against fellow humans with experience of the game is much 
tougher then Hard AI, even. Expect Hotseat with experienced players to last a 
long, LONG time. A big problem, and one of the biggest problems with the game, 
is that multiplayer cannot be saved and requires you to play it through fully.

[7] Glitches
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you've played this game, you'll notice the huge variety of bugs in it. The 
biggest problem with this game is that it has a tendency of freezing up. The 
most common one happens when you battle an Onagar and occasionally some other 
siege unit. in the middle of the battle animation the game will freeze and you
cannot unfreeze it. To avoid this problem you have to turn battle animations 
off.

The other major one is a pain in the ass. Often, if you drop the DS, move it 
suddenly, or otherwise disjoin the game cartridge, it will freeze up with 
static over all or some of the units on the screen. This is a big pain in the 
ass and means you have to turn your DS on and off again, making you lose your 
unsaved work.

There are two other common problems, these are non-killer. Whenever you click 
on a unit and tell it to move, a sound plays. For example, if you move a 
Caviler it will sound hooves (some units like Yoshimaro have no sound at all).
If you hurry through and click End Day or go to battle with a horse unit 
before the sound finishes playing, it may get stuck and keep looping. This is
is annoying but won't break anything so don't worry. It will go away soon 
enough.

The other common non-killer bug is when the AI places a unit and builds a unit
on the same building, resulting in 2 units on a single square. There is nothing
you can do about this but kill them both.

One bug that gave a lot of attention was when certain DSs were especially 
vulnerable to random crashes, breakdowns and glitches. After complains were 
brought in, Majesco found a workaround-the problems stemmed from using a 
username 3 characters or less. So when you play make sure your profile name is
4 characters or more.

The last and most serious problem is when your game bugs out while you are 
saving. This is extremely dangerous, as if it does you will lose ALL data. 
Trust me, it happened to me once and I had to start from scratch. make sure you
are secure when the DS is saving, this is far more serious than just losing a 
mission or skirmish because you forgot to save!

Also it sometimes turns totally off when the DS card is moved. 

The general work-around to these problems is to save often, which you should be
doing anyway. That way you are less susceptible to the problems. Even with 
these major glitches, the game is an amazing one, but they force you to save 
often; be ready for them and let the fun continue!

[A] Appendix
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[A1] List of Technologies

---------
Dark Age:
---------

* Loom
Requires: Town Center
Cost: 50f 150g
All Villagers get +25 DEF

* Town Scouts
Requires: Town Center
Cost: 50f 150g
Town Centers gain +4 Sight

* Leather Soles
Prereqs: Town Center
Cost: 50f 150g
Villagers gain +1 Move

* Weaponsmith
Requires: Barracks
Cost: 50f 150g
Militia gain +25 ATT

============
-Feudal Age:
============

* Town Watch
Requires: Town Center
Cost: 95f 280g
Improves Town Center DEF by +20% and Sight by +2

* Wheelbarrow
Requires: Town Center
Cost: 125f 375g
Cost of buildings is reduced by 10%

* Advanced Mining
Requires: Mine
Cost: 95f 280g
+15% to Mine income

* Horse Collar
Requires: Mill
Cost: 95f 280g
+15% to food income

* Scale Mail Armor
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 95f 280g
+25% DEF for Infantry

* Scale Barding
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 95f 280g
+25% DEF for Cavalry

* Fletching
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 95f 280g
+25% ATT for Ranged Units

* Padded Armor
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 95f 280g
+25% DEF for Ranged Units

* Forging
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 155f 470g
+25% ATT for Infantry and Cavalry

* Tracking
Requires: Barracks
Cost: 95f 280g
+2 Sight for Infantry

* Cartography
Requires: Market
Cost: 95f 280g
+1 Sight for all units

++++++++++++
-Castle Age:
++++++++++++

* Town Patrol
Requires: Town Center
Cost: 150f 450g
+2 Sight and +20% DEF for Town Center

* Hand Cart
Requires: Town Center
Cost: 150f 450g
Cost of Building is reduced by 10%

* Shaft Mining
Requires: Mine
Cost: 150f 450g
+15% to Mine income

* Heavy Plow
Requires: Mill
Cost: 150f 450g
+15% to food income

* Chain Mail Armor
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 150f 450g
+25% DEF to Age 3 infantry

* Chain Barding
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 150f 450g
+25% DEF to Age 3 Cavalry

* Bodkin Arrow
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 150f 450g
+25% ATT to Age 3 Ranged Units

* Leather Armor
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 150f 450g
+25% DEF to Age 3 Ranged Units

* Iron Casting
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 250f 750g
+25% ATT to Age 3 Infantry and Cavalry

* Conscription
Requires: Barracks
Cost: 150f 450g
Cost of Infantry is reduced by 15 food and 15 gold

* Husbandry
Requires: Stable
Cost: 150f 450g
Cost of Cavalry is reduced by 15 food and 15 gold

* Archery Tournaments
Requires: Archery Range
Cost: 150f 450g
Cost of Ranged Units is reduced by 15 food and 15 gold

* Mechanics Guild
Requires: Siege Workshop
Cost: 150f 450g
Cost of Siege Units is reduced by 15 food and 15 gold

* Banking
Requires: Market
Cost: 200f 600g
+ 5% gold Income and improved Trade Rate

* Merchant Network
Requires: Market
Cost: 150f 450g
Price for Mercenaries is reduced by 25%

* Redemption
Requires: Church
Cost: 150f 450g
Improves Heal ability of Monks and Elite Monks

* Fervor
Requires: Church
Cost: 150f 450g
Improves Convert ability of Monks and Elite Monks

* Sanctity
Requires: Church
Cost: 150f 450g
+25% DEF for Monks and Elite Monks

* Murder Holes
Requires: University
Cost: 95f 280g
+25% DEF for Towers

* Masonry
Requires: University
Cost: 150f 450g
+5% DEF for all buildings

/////////////
Imperial Age:
\\\\\\\\\\\\\


* Crop Rotation
Requires: Mill
Cost: 250f 750g
+10% to food income

* Plate Mail Armor
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 250f 750g
Age 4 Infantry units gain +25% DEF

* Plate Barding
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 250f 750g
Age 4 Cavalry units gain +25% DEF

* Bracers
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 250f 750g
Age 4 Ranged units gain +25% ATK

* Ring Archer Armor
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 250f 750g
Age 4 Ranged units gain +25% DEF

* Blast Furnace
Requires: Blacksmith
Cost: 625f 975g
Age 4 INF and CAV units gain +25% ATK

* Arena
Requires: Barracks
Cost: 250f 750g
Allows Champions

* Squires
Requires: Stables
Cost: 250f 750g
Allows Paladins

* Flaming Arrows
Requires: Archery Range
Cost: 300f 900g
RNG units no longer suffer penalty vs. BLDGS

* Sappers
Requires: Castle
Cost: 300f 900g
All INF units improve in +50% ATK vs. buildings

* Hoardings
Requires: Castle
Cost: 250f 750g
Improves Castle DEF by +35%

* Spies
Requires: Castles
Cost: 300f 900g
All enemy Town Complexes are now sighted

* Guilds
Requires: Market
Cost: 300f 900g
+5% gold income and improves Trade rate

* Atonement
Requires: Church
Cost: 250f 750g
Improves Heal ability of Monks or Elite Monks

* Block Printing
Requires: Church
Cost: 250f 750g
Improves Convert ability of Monks or Elite Monks

* Illumination
Requires: Church
Cost: 250f 750g
+505 gold income from all relics

* Faith
Requires: Church
Cost: 250f 750g
Monks and Elite Monks gain +25% DEF

* Treadmill Crane
Requires: University
Cost: 250f 750g
Cost of buildings is reduced by 10%

* Siege Engineers
Requires: University
Cost: 250f 750g
Allows Imperial Age Siege units to be built

* Architecture
Requires: University
Cost: 250f 750g
+5% DEF for all buildings

* Chemistry
Requires: University
Cost: 250f 750g
Allows Hand Cannondeers and Bombard Cannons

* Ballistics
Requires: University
Cost: 300f 900g
+25% ATK for Siege units with Range above 1

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[A2] List of Units

Unit name: Militia
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. siege +33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 100
Defense: 100
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: None


Unit name: Villagers
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. siege +33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 50
Defense: 50
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Build


Unit name: Scout Cavalry
Unit type: Cavalry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Infantry +33% vs. Ranged -50% Vs. Building
Move: 12
Attack: 100
Defense: 100
Sight: 10
Range: 1
Specials: Scout


Age 2:

Unit name: Archers
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 150
Defense: 100
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: None


Unit name: Skirmishers
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 110
Defense: 110
Sight: 7
Range: 2
Specials: Skirmish


Unit name: Light Cavalry
Unit type: Cavalry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Infantry +33% vs. Ranged -50% vs. Building
Move: 10
Attack: 150
Defense: 150
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Plains Charge


Unit name: Men-at-Arms
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. siege +33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 150
Defense: 150
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: None


Unit name: Spearmen
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. siege +33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 100
Defense: 150
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Anti-Cavalry


Age 3:

Unit name: Knights
Unit type: Cavalry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Infantry +33% vs. Ranged -50% Vs. Building
Move: 10
Attack: 200
Defense: 200
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Plains Charge


Unit name: Camels
Unit type: Cavalry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Infantry +33% vs. Ranged -50% Vs. Building
Move: 10
Attack: 200
Defense: 200
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Desert Charge, Scares Horses.


Unit name: Longswordmen
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Siege +33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 200
Defense: 200
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: None

Unit name: Pikemen
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Siege +33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 150
Defense: 200
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Anti-Cavalry

Unit name: Viking Berserkers
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Siege +33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 200
Defense: 200
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Frenzy

Unit name: Crossbowmen
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 200
Defense: 175
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: No Move & Attack.

Unit name: Elite Skirmishers
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 150
Defense: 150
Sight: 7
Range: 2
Specials: Skirmish

Unit name: Horse Archers
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Building
Move: 10
Attack: 150
Defense: 150
Sight: 7
Range: 2
Specials: None

Unit name: Throwing Axmen
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: 33% vs. Siege 33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 225
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Skirmish, Woodsman

Unit name: Persian War Elephants
Unit type: Cavalry
Bonuses: 33% vs. Infantry 33% vs. Ranged -50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 200
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Causes Fear

Unit name: Celtic Woad Raiders
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: 33% vs. Siege 33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 200
Defense: 200
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Causes Fear

Unit name: Knights Templar
Unit type: Cavalry
Bonuses: 33% vs. Infantry 33% vs. Ranged -50% vs. Building
Move: 10
Attack: 200
Defense: 200
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Plains Charge, Zeal

Unit name: Scorpions
Unit type: Siege
Bonuses: 50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 350
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: Units only, No Counter, No Move & Attack

Unit name: Battering Rams
Unit type: Siege
Bonuses: 50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 400
Defense: 325
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: Buildings only, No Counter.

Unit name: Onagers
Unit type: Siege
Bonuses: 50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 275
Defense: 275
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: No Counter, No Move & Attack


Age 4:

Unit name: Two Handed Swordsmen
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Siege +33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 250
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: None

Unit name: Elite Pikemen
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Siege +33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 200
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Anti-Cavalry

Unit name: Archers
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 200
Defense: 200
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: None

Unit name: Arbalests
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 250
Defense: 225
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: No Move & Attack.

Unit name: Expert Skirmishers
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 190
Defense: 190
Sight: 7
Range: 2
Specials: Skirmish

Unit name: Hvy Horse Archers
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Building
Move: 10
Attack: 200
Defense: 200
Sight: 7
Range: 2
Specials: None

Unit name: Cavaliers
Unit type: Cavalry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Infantry +33% vs. Ranged -50% Vs. Building
Move: 10
Attack: 250
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Plains Charge

Unit name: Heavy Camels
Unit type: Cavalry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Infantry +33% vs. Ranged -50% Vs. Building
Move: 10
Attack: 250
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Desert Charge, Scares Horses.

Unit name: Elite Berserkers
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Siege +33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 250
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Frenzy

Unit name: Elite Woad Raiders
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: 33% vs. Siege 33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 250
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Causes Fear

Unit name: Trebuchets
Unit type: Siege
Bonuses: 50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 370
Defense: 350
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: Min Range 2, No Counter, No Move & Attack

Unit name: Bombard Cannons
Unit type: Siege
Bonuses: 50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 325
Defense: 325
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: No Counter, No Move & Attack
(Notes: You need to research 'Chemistry' To raise these.)

Unit name: Hand Cannoneers
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 300
Defense: 225
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: No Move & Attack
(Notes: You need to research 'Chemistry' To raise these.)

Unit name: Champions
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Siege +33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 300
Defense: 300
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: None
(Notes: You need to research 'Arena' To raise these.)

Unit name: Paladins
Unit type: Cavalry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Infantry +33% vs. Ranged -50% Vs. Building
Move: 10
Attack: 300
Defense: 300
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Plains Charge
(Note: You need to research 'Squire' to create Paladins)

Unit name: Heavy Scorpions
Unit type: Siege
Bonuses: 50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 400
Defense: 300
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: Units only, No Counter, No Move & Attack
(Note: You need to Research Siege Engineers to raise these.)

Unit name: Siege Rams
Unit type: Siege
Bonuses: 50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 500
Defense: 375
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: Buildings only, No Counter.


Unit name: Elite Monks
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: 33% vs. Siege 33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 50
Defense: 200
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Improved Heal, Improved Convert

Unit name: Elite Knights Templar
Unit type: Cavalry
Bonuses: 33% vs. Infantry 33% vs. Ranged -50% vs. Building
Move: 10
Attack: 250
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Plains Charge, Zeal


Unit name: Elite Janissaries
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 300
Defense: 225
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: No Move & Attack 

Civ Specific Units:

-Franks
Unit name: Throwing Axmen
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: 33% vs. Siege 33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 250
Defense: 275
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Skirmish, Woodsman


Unit name: Elite Throwing Axmen
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: 33% vs. Siege 33% vs. Building
Move: 7
Attack: 275
Defense: 300
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Skirmish, Woodsman

-Britons
Unit name: Longbowmen
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Buildings
Move: 7
Attack: 250
Defense: 200
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: Volley


Unit name: Elite Longbowmen
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Buildings
Move: 7
Attack: 275
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 3
Specials: Volley

-Mongols
Unit name: Mangudai
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Buildings
Move: 7
Attack: 150
Defense: 150
Sight: 7
Range: 2
Specials: First Strike

Unit name: Elite Mangudai
Unit type: Ranged
Bonuses: -50% vs. Buildings
Move: 7
Attack: 200
Defense: 200
Sight: 7
Range: 2
Specials: First Strike

-Saracens
Unit name: Mamelukes
Unit type: Cavalry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Infantry & Ranged, -50% vs. Buildings
Move: 7
Attack: 250
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Desert Charge, Scares Horses


Unit name: Elite Mamelukes
Unit type: Cavalry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Infantry & Ranged, -50% vs. Buildings
Move: 7
Attack: 300
Defense: 300
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Desert Charge, Scares Horses

-Japanese
Unit name: Samurai
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Siege & Buildings
Move: 9
Attack: 250
Defense: 250
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Seasoned Veteran


Unit name: Elite Samurai
Unit type: Infantry
Bonuses: +33% vs. Siege & Buildings
Move: 9
Attack: 300
Defense: 300
Sight: 7
Range: 1
Specials: Seasoned Veteran

[A3] "Best" Units
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a little extra feature.

Infantry:
1. Elite Samurai (Elite Stats, High Move, Fast Upgrading)
1. Elite Throwing Axmen (High Stats, Skirmish ability)
2. Elite Woad Raiders (High Move, Causes Fear)
3. Elite Berserkers (Frenzy!)

Cavalry:
1. Elite War Elephant (Elite Stats+Causes Fear=Absolute Pwnage)
2. Elite Mamelukes (Elite Stats, Desert Charge, Scares Horses)
2. Knight Templers (Zeal)
3. Paladins (Elite Stats)

Ranged
1. Elite Longbowen (High Stats, Volley)
2. Elite Mangudai (Fast, First Strike)
3. Hand Cannondeer (Elite Stats)

Siege
1. Trebuchet (High Damage, Units and Buildings!)
2. Heavy Scorpion (Massive anti-personnel damage)
3. Siege Ram (Building Crusher)

[C]. Credit
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Me of course from writing this guide.
- James for emailing me his solutions to Lioheart's Seige mission.
- <your name here> for <your contribution>
- And readers like you. Thank you!

[V]. Legal Bit
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This guide is (C) 2009 jimmythesnowman.  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.