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41 - Thunder Hill
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Author |
File Description |
Stratego |
Posted on 10/28/04 @ 12:00 AM (updated 02/05/05)
Mission 41 - Thunder Hill
You are facing three opponents: Richard Lionheart, Caliph, the Scorpion, Caliph, the Jackal, each of them 40000 gold!
Player: 3000 gold
This very hard mission hits you like a hammer, because you will be under attack after a short while by three opponents who will press you hard with a multitude of siege equipments and well-armed units. I don’t know how many restarts have been necessary to find out an effective strategy that would help surviving these massive overwhelming hostile assaults. The only strategy that really would work is to apply delaying tactics.
First, slow down game speed (on minimum!). Now, a race against time has begun, where you simultaneously have to manage many different tasks and where you’ll move your PC-mouse with flying fingers across the map. The three most important things to do are: 1. Delaying the enemy attacks as long as possible. 2. Taking care of a high popularity and a stable food supply. 3. Building up an efficient defensive strategy.
Point 1:
When starting right from the scratch, it’s essential “to life” to keep the enemies at a distance, so that you will gain the necessary time to stabilize your “shaky” position. I tried various methods, but nothing really worked, until I placed six woodcutters (two in front of each opponent’s gatehouse), so that they could not leave their castles for a while. Don’t forget to switch your woodcutters “off” – o.k., so you won’t get any wood for the time being. Well, some time, the enemies still succeed in getting rid of these “nasty blockade” and then you should be sufficiently prepared, if you are following the next steps.
Point 2:
Economically, you start with 1 granary, 2 huts, 1 mill, 1 wheat farm, 1 hops farm, 2 dairy farms, 2 apple orchards, and 4-5 hunters, 2 bakeries and 1 brewery. (Buy wood!!!) This range of buildings will guarantee a stable food supply, while at the same time, one additional inn and one or two churches will give you bonus points for your popularity. Raise your taxes up to “high taxes” depending on your food consumption. The more foodstuffs are allowed to use up, the higher could be the tax rate. The gold that is flowing into your cashbox you ought to use wisely for appropriate military investments (mainly crossbows and leather arms!). The important military buildings are: 1 mercenary post to recruit Arabian archers from time to time, 1 barracks and of course 1 armoury
Point 3:
Sell all your initial surplus iron and pitch, then buy in both leather arms and crossbows and additionally erect three fletchers ( crossbows!!) and 1 tanner – and buy some wood, especially for your fletchers! Military wise you must wall in your young settlement at all costs. For that purpose, place two quarries and four ox tethers north of your keep. Erect at least six square towers, three at a time west and three northwest of your keep. Staff those western towers with mangonels and the others (against Richard’s catapults) with ballistas. ( engineers guild!!!) While your direct neighbour, the Blue Jackal, seems to be paralyzed by this “surprising” locking up, you should order barrage at the Caliph’s keep by your mangonels. This destroying and deadly shower of stones will decimate the Caliph’s garrison, so that a handful Arabian swordsman will have little trouble with the remaining hostile forces. It might happen however, that some of Richard’s pikemen would break through your wall system, but they won’t survive entering your castle…
If your granary should fall, you have to control your popularity and quickly to rebuild every important building. Also, keep an eye on the Blue Caliph’s slaves who try to burn down your economic structures! When your food production is running, you can resolutely build up a strong weapon production (blacksmiths, armourers, and pole turners) for your offensives after your position is strong or secure enough to stand the enemy attacks. This is the right moment to reactivate again your woodcutters, (if they aren’t destroyed yet) or to erect some new woodcutters huts, now regularly cutting wood.
The first years are characterized by a pure defensive struggle for survival, that’s the crunch point in this hard mission. If you succeed preventing the enemies from concentrated attacks, you will carry out an organized structure consequently planning your offensive. Siege and eliminate your three opponents by using all your own reliable methods that will work at any case.
Please, you may understand that I cannot give you a detailed sequence of all activities, but I’ll present a solution on principle which should serve as a helpful basis to proceed individually. One note: The enemies will be incalculable, so keep that in mind…!
Enjoy and good luck!
Stratego
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Boingo |
Posted on 05/14/06 @ 11:25 PM
Okay. I just finished the level, without crippling, or anything like that. In order to survive the initial onslaughts, I had to adopt a couple of bizzarre strategies.
The plateau was the key to success. The area around the keep is too dangerous on this level, so pretty much everything, except the farms, quarries, and mines, was placed on the plateau, which proved to be an extremely safe place to put things.
After setting the game speed to minimum and restarting, the first thing I did was delete the initial stockpile element beside the keep (I lost 6 wood. Boo hoo hoo.). This allowed me to reposition the stockpile up on the plateau at the top of the slope. The grannery, marketplace, and armoury were all placed on the eastern section of the plateau.
On the plateau above the quarry area, there is just enough room within the building limit to construct three square towers, and a small gatehouse. I bought enough leather and crossbows for 15 crossbowmen, and sent them to the top of the square towers. There they had an extreme height advantage, and were able to protect that all important stone. Three balistae were placed on the square towers and manned, to take out Richard's catapults when they attacked the walls around the quarries. The barracks and the engineer's guild were placed just north of the towers.
Then I had the lord abandon the keep and move to one of the towers on the plateau, which were more secure. I also hired as many engineers as possible. This is because I knew the peasants around the keep would be repeatedly slaughtered by the blue Caliph, and I would need some engineers waiting ahead of time to rescue the keep.
I started with three wheat farms, and one hops farm crammed in as close to the southeastern cliff of the plateau as possible.
The quarries were surrounded with multiple rings of low walls, the farms had walls around them, and so did the keep. A couple of gatehouses allowed access for my peasants.
Having all of my troops up on towers on the plateau meant that they could not defend the keep, but it did keep those ever so important quarries protected. The quarries got sacked once, but only once. The farms were never touched. It was the poor peasants around the campfire, who kept getting slaughtered. As stone came in, I had to keep rebuilding the barriers around the keep. Once I had enough stone, I was able to build a group of three square towers about mid way between the keep and the slope up to the plateau and mount balistae on them. I was sure glad I hired all those engineers earlier. The balistae on the towers were able to destroy the catpults and fire balistae attacking the keep. With the enemies gone, I was able to erect some lookout towers to the south of the keep to block arrows from the two Caliphs' archers from hitting the peasants around the campfire. From that point on, I was able to start building my forces without much bother, and win the game.
Sorry to be long winded, but that is basically the way I beat the level.
To recap:
1. Build everything on the plateau that can be built on the plateau. (Stockpile, grannery, armoury, marketplace, barracks, engineer's guild, woodcutters, mills, bakeries, fletchers, hovels, brewers, chappels, churches, cathedrals, and inns)
2. Build square towers on the plateau overlooking the quarries with balistae and crossbowmen on them.
3. Abandon the keep, and move your lord to the plateau. The keep is much too dangerous on this level. You can rescue the keep again once your stone supply is secure.
After that, you can probably figure out how to beat the level on your own, without much difficulty.
{{EDIT: More information. Please open the following pic in a new window so that you can refer to it more easily.
http://www.doomlegends.com/SHC/ST4102.jpg
This composite picture is from late in the game. The blue Caliph is already dead, and I am just beginning to attack Richard I.
The red dotted line indicates where my initial low walls were placed. The first of the walls was the main outer one, forming a rough square around the entire compound. Next was the wall blocking access to the slope up to the plateau then zig-zagging around my first four farms (A) with a gatehouse. The last one isolated the quarries from the rest of the compound. The walls each had a second wall added just beyond it to slow down attackers, and all the walls were eventually thickened as stone became available.
1.) The first thing I did was delete the beginning stockpile element beside the keep. I lost some starter wood, but that was okay. With the starter stockpile gone, I was able to choose a new location for the stockpile up on the plateau at the top of the slope. It meant a slower trip for my workers, because of the slope, but it meant that they were delivering to a relatively safe area, rather than to the keep, which was suffering from a nearly constant hail of arrows in the early part of the game. All buildings that could be located up on the plateau were put there.
2.) Very early on, before the first attack on my castle, I placed 3 square towers on the plateau overlooking my quarries and iron mines, which was just barely within my building limit. The barracks and engineer's guild was placed just north of them. I bought weapons and recruited 15 or 20 (I can not remember which.) crossbowmen to man the towers, and placed three balistae on the towers. I also recruited a large number of engineers, because they would be needed later, but would be difficult to recruit when the keep was attacked.
Since this was possibly the most secure spot on the map, I moved my lord up on to one of the square towers (green arrow).
3.) Two quarries and two mines. That was what I would have to rely on, so I made it the most heavily defended spot from the start. I had to add water pots, because slaves were managing to get in faster than my crossbowmen could shoot them.
4.) The keep was under heavy attack from archers fire balistae and catapults for a long period while I was defending the quarries. When I finally had enough stone to do so, I errected a couple of square towers at this location, and fitted them with balistae. This put them out of range of the archers, who were concentrating on masacring the peasants around the campfire, but close enough to kill them and destroy the enemy siege engine, which were rolled up almost to the keep itself.
5.) Once the enemy siege engines were destroyed, I was able to repair the wall around the keep, and erect a line of lookout towers to block the incoming arrows from enemy archers, at least partially. This allowed me to start getting some peasants around the fire once again, without their getting killed. I then began recruiting them as crossbowmen and stationed them up on top of the keep to eliminate the archers.
--It should be noted that I began fortifying the west side of the quarries around now (unmarked), to fend off attacks from the lionheart, which were growing in intensity, with larger numbers of siege engines, and greater numbers of troops. A pair of towers with balistae on them and increasing numbers of crossbowmen were pressed into service here. --
6.) The Caliphs started building new catapults and fire balistae to renew their assault on the keep, but now they were out of range of the balistae at (4). I had to build some more towers, first to the east, then to the west, to take care of the new siege engines. Crossbowmen were required to protect these from archer attack.
7.) This is where I switched from defence to offence, sort of. Square towers with mangonels were added in front of the ones with balistae, protected with crossbowmen. A constant rain of rocks from the mangonels slowly reduced the blue caliph's castle to ruins, and killed nearly all of his troops.
From here, My castle was pretty much safe, and it was just a matter of time until all my enemies were destroyed. }}[Edited on 05/15/06 @ 02:44 PM]
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MentorSHC |
Posted on 07/30/06 @ 11:08 AM
Always love to play mission 41 but it is 'easy' to win meanwhile.
1. slow down the speed and use the 'p'-key for pause your game
2. buy enough stones for building 3 towers facing caliph very close to your recruitings, 1 tower facing lion directly on quarry and a wall parralel to caliph and conected with your 3 towers (it protects you for fireslaves on this side.
sell all pitch. buy 20 archers (1 cost 75). 14 archers to your 3 towers, 6 to the one against lion. ballistae and mangonels and engineers. destroy the stairs on the 1 tower faces lion.
3. buy enogh wood for building woodpackers, stonesupply (1 later 2nd), foodsupply, tenners, crossbows, pikiniers.
4. if you have some money left build some firing-ballitsae.
5. recruit new crossbowmen and place them to your 3 towers facing caliph. when the ballistae going to be destroyd, save your engineers and build new ones!!! recruited new pikineers you place to the stairs and protect your lord too.
6. try to avoid fire by the slaves!!
7. the time works for you if you secure:
- the stonesupply and protection of your towers
- the recruiting of crossbowmen and pikineers
- the supply of food, beer and wood
[Edited on 07/30/06 @ 11:11 AM]
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magdanos |
Posted on 11/03/06 @ 06:57 PM
41 - Thunder Hill
I read the comments above and I thought that #41 is a very hard one. But it is really not! I have just finished that skirmish without any cheats or tricks, and without moving stockpile or buildings uphill. Woodcutter/ox trick might help here but I prefer using it when there
is no other way. #41 provides great opportunity to test your defencive ability. However it is not only defence that is of importance.
Here is my strategy. It's a combination of strategies given above ant I think it works just good enough here.
Your starting position is in the corner so that you have to deal with attacks from two sides - west (The Lionheart) and southwest (The Chaliffs). The blue Chaliff should be killed in the beginning. Then concentrate on your defence and economy. Fast build towers and mount them with balistas and crossbowmen. Start gathering resources. I prefered to mine iron and stone but the main quantity of gold I gained by selling flour. You need the chain wheet farm-mill-bakeries to bread your population anyway. Just produce extra flour and sell it. Use the money to recruit your crossbowmen and balistas. Once you ensure your settlement start building an attacking force. Dispatch the second Chaliff then The Lionheart.
Beginning:
1. Start any other skirmish mission and slow the speed down to 20. Quit mission and start #41. Now the speed should be 20 and you will not lose a single second for this purpose. As someone said speed is essential!Immediately place 3 stockpile tails to the north, marketplace, armoury and granary near the stockpile but not close to each other.
When the first stone appear on the stockpile try to build 3-4 wall tails where the blue Chaliff's wall ant towers shoud be. This prevents him enclosing his castle and provides you an opening in his front. Do not worry if you do not succeed. Place barracks and buy 10
maces and 15 leather armours. Train as many macemen as possible. Place additional hovel and sell all extra goods (except stone and wood). Buy another 10 maces, 15 leather armours and 10 crossbows. Train this units and send crossbowmen to attack the front line of Chaliff. While enemy ranged units are dealing with your crossbowmen send macemen to push their way through the walls (attack a lookout tower and use the opening). When your macemen reach the keep be aware of that they sometime prefer to attack everything else but not the lord!
Hint - Watch out for burning pitch areas around Chaliff's castle.
2. Once the first enemy is dead assign your troops to dig a moat from south of yout kampfira to the east end. Leave space between
soutwest end of kampfire and the moat for two square towers. Set up only one for now. Set up second square tower just west of the northern stone deposit. Place stairs near the towers and mount them with balistas and any left crossbows. Recruit crossbowmen and send the most of them in the northern tower as Lionheart likes to attack there.
3. Economy. Build several woodcutters huts uphill, place 2 quarries and 3 oxes, 3-4 iron mines, 3 wheat farms, 1 hops farm, 1 inn, 1
chapel (buy wood). Raise taxes as possible. By this time you must be running out of food. Buy different types to increase popularity. Built at least 2-3 breweries, mill, 3 bakeries, and 2-3 fletchers (crossbows). Use stones to link the two towers. Sell all the iron mined. As you get more money, bild a church. Build additional wheet farms and mill. Sell extra flour. Place dairy farm and start production of leather arms. Whenever you can increase the number of all kind of farms. Soon you will be able to build a cathedral to increase popularity. Use additional inns too.
Hint - Do not forget to recruit crossbowmen and repair towers at any cost!
4. When you have enough stone and crossbowmen set up another two square towers - one to the nort and one to the southwest. Now your defence is complete. Start producing weapons to equip an attacking force and kill the second Chaliff. When he is dead your south and southwest flang is clear. Move troops defending this area into two additional square or round towers to the north. Lionhart's attacks wont be trouble for you anymore. At this stage I had alot of free time while recruiting my attacking force. I looked for ghosts in my town. Yes, there can be seen ghosts in SHC. I saw one when plaing castle builder. It was great fun. Anyway I still havent seen ghosts in skirmish mission.
When ready attack The Lionheart and you'll be victorious!
Lord Magdanos[Edited on 11/03/06 @ 07:03 PM]
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Razorclawzz |
Posted on 02/02/08 @ 09:38 PM
Thunder Hill is one of the easiest level trail one i think |
The Animaal |
Posted on 06/07/08 @ 04:32 PM
Like this mission, because of the start... :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiAizSbfzd0 |
LordNothingam |
Posted on 07/21/08 @ 03:56 PM
the thing with the woodcutter is a good idea, but i have a better one.Put 1 woodcutter(or ox tether) at each gatehouse.Put it in the center of the gatehouse,where the people go out.Woodcutters will be destroyed,but slowly,so when they are destroyed,replace them.After a long time the lords will destroy their towers and gatehouses(themselvs), till then make many horse archers,ballistas,swordsmen... There still will be archers so u can destroy them with ballistas and horse archers,after that bring swordsmen and kill the lord.I made 250 horse archers,50 crossbownman and 12 arabian soldiers.Had to refresh them after every attack.Be careful at caliph pitch traps. |
Wiebes |
Posted on 09/24/08 @ 11:04 PM
I must say I feel pretty good having won this one when some pretty good players had to resort to cheats like the lame ox tether. Here's the strategies that did NOT work for me:
a) Selling everything and sending 50 macemen to attack the Caliph. I tried it 20 times - 20 failed attempts. It's possible that once in a blue moon you will beat him, but that's luck, not strategy. I also tried 40 pikeman, no luck.
b) Putting an ox tether or woodcutter anywhere on the map when you don't intend to use it for purposes of blocking an opponent is cheating. Shame and lame.
c) Planting pieces of wall for the purposes of preventing the enemy from building their own tower is lame. More shame.
Here's what worked:
a) Avoid building a long wall. Just build towers. It saves stone and you can sell the stone for cash.
b) Build three square seige towers.
Put one to the right of the keep, halfway to the border. It will allow you to fire on your own keep to maintain population to enter your colony.
Put another square tower just to the right of the iron mines at the base of Thunder Hill.
Put another square tower just above the quarry on the top of Thunder Hill.
Man all towers with 15-30 crossbows and ballistas.
c) MOVE THE LORD from the keep to the very top and right of the screen. Way up to the top of the hill.
d) Build all hovels at the top of Thunder Hill.
e) Destroy the stockpile right away (this was a great suggestion earlier). Put it at the base of Thunder Hill (just to the right of the entrance up the hill where there is no farmland). Put your mill and wheat fields right there. Put your bakeries up the hill (there will be the occasional flat spot). Put granary to far right at the base of the hill.
Build 2 water towers at the base of Thunder Hill. (I put one on the left for the quarries and one on the right for the farmland and granary. I needed both.
Now you have the base triangulated - a square tower up top of the hill to handle incoming attacks from the west, a second square tower to handle any attacks on your quarries and a third square tower to protect your farmland and shoot at anyone who gets through the 2 towers and gets to the base of Thunder Hill.
DON'T BUILD ANYTHING near your keep. It's indestructible and will be under heavy fire.
For the first 2 hours, just build crossbows and seige weapons and stock your towers. Play on slowest setting (of course).
The frustrating part of the game will be when the Caliph just stands around your keep and slaughters your peasents. They appear, they bow, they die. Don't panic. Use your tower to the right to fire the ballista (it will be the only weapon in range) and it will kill any enemy who is there. Big deal, you lose some peasants, you will get more and they are free.
When the enemy is not around, build a low wall directly in front of your keep. This will keep the catapults at bay and the archers at bay for a while. Rebuild but ONLY when you need peasants (like when you are ready to buy 5 crossbowmen). Buy them all at once, build the stone, and then move them all together to a tower. You have to time it right. Take a look around. If there are 30 horse archers standing there, don't spend the gold and train your soldiers. Wait. Eventually they will leave and then you buy 5, move them, and the enemy will reappear and start slaughtering again.
That's the real key. I got to the point where I had money but no staff. I had 25 crossbows and 25 leather armour but no soldiers. Peasants were just dying left and right in front of the keep. But your ballista in the east tower is key - it will kill anything in front of your keep WITHOUT TAKING FIRE because it's off to the right, out of range from the Caliph's castle.
I did not enclose the quarry or iron mines during the whole game. Eventually your 2 towers (one at the base and the other at the top of Thunder Hill) will destroy anything that gets close. Just put crossbows and ballistas and you will be indestructible.
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lukterran |
Posted on 12/25/08 @ 01:50 AM
This was a hard map until I figured out that I needed to take out the Blue Caliph early. It is too hard to defend all the attacks against both Caplishs and Richard otherwise.
This is what I did.
1. Of course slow the speed down, and use the "P" pause button often. It is really good to open up the trade screen and pause the game you can still buy and sell while paused which helps save time.
2. Built
Stockpile x4
Granary
Houses x4
Trading post
Barracks
Armory
And then lost lots of woodcutter huts near the Blue Caliph.
2.DO not wait for the supplies to appear buy enough stone (20) to build the Barracks fast.
-Use up all the wood building woodcutter huts near Caliph. The reason for this is that your lumberjacks will start walking toward Caliphs keep. They will distract some of his archer fire from your Macemen later on. Sacrific the peasants you will get more.
3. Then buy enough Leather Armor and Maces for about 50 or so Macemen as many as you can. Sell all the supplies to fund this. Also sell most of the food stocks. You will get all the money back after you kill of Caliph. Do not worry about working on building your economy until Caliph is dead.
4. Send Mace men around toward the south eastern side of the map to attack his keep at the bottom corner of the keep. Keep them out of range of the archers. Attack the south tower to get into the keep. This seems to be the weaker side. Only send in 8 or so Macemen at a time until the tower is down. You will lose some unit due to fire.
5. Begin sending in the rest of your Macemen, do not have them run through the fire. Keep having them focus there attacks only on Caliph.
This should work to kill Caliph if you move quickly. (Again use the pause key often)
(I was able to repeat killing Caliph three times to be sure it just wasn't luck, once I figured out how to go about taking him out.)
6. After Caliph falls you should be able to collect between 10000-12000 gold from his defeat. You will then have enough supplies to build defensive towers, crossbowman, engineers, balista and establish your ecomony. If you use "P" you should have everything up and running before Richards first attack wave. |
XRedRavenX |
Posted on 06/28/09 @ 08:40 PM
This level is a lot easier than it first appears to be, the secret to this level is placement and after years of playing this game I have found an easy way to beat this level.
1. First slow the game speed down, and use the "P" key pause button like lukterran stated above. Destroy your stockpile and move it back close to the grass area.
2. Then build a gatehouse behind your keep in the center of the back.
3. Then another in line one space away from it.
4. Place 4 towers in a line starting at the edge of the gatehouse working out.
5. Make a moat using slaves to cut off the enemy very important to do this fast. So make a bunch of slaves 30 or more.
6. Make some X Bowmen I made 10 it does not take many at the start. Also make a few Arabian archers to defend and stock your towers with basilicas.
7. Get your castle up and running sale a lot of goods you have start taxing with ale. Build some wheat farms start baking bread and making X bows ect.
Here a link to show how it should look when you’re done.
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x181/XRed_RavenX/Level41.jpg
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x181/XRed_RavenX/2Level41.jpg
My finished castle link here
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x181/XRed_RavenX/3Level41.jpg
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th3ch0s3n0n3 |
Posted on 09/02/09 @ 10:26 PM
This mission was much easier than I anticipated. If you really want to make it easy, I have 2 suggestions:
1. Re-locate your stockpile to the nearby plateau, which can be walled, moated and then protected with two square or round towers of crossbowmen.
2. Put woodcutter huts in front of your enemies' newly built castles. When they get destroyed, re-build them. By doing this, you isolate the three lords, and cause them all to run out of money.
From there, I am sure you are capable of making your own castle the way you like. What I did was focus on weapons production, and made pikes, crossbows, and armour. I made an army of 50 ballistae, and 150 pikemen on the first Caliph, 50 ballistae and 200 pikemen on the second Caliph, and 400 pikemen on the Lion. |
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