Antioch | Learning Campaign - Lionheart Stronghold: Crusader II Guide

Win:

• Enemy Lord dies

Lose:

• Your Lord dies
• Time passed: 50 days

Placing your Barricades and tower like that will prevent your peasants from being attacked.

A mission in which you will have to build your castle (and later on your army), while simultaneously defending from the enemy.

Start the mission by spending all your gold to buy wood - this way you should have 700 wood. Using the newly acquired resources build: 8 Wood Camps, 3 Stone Quarries (with at least 2 Ox Tethers for each), 2 Hovels for 8 peasants, and then place (near your Granary - it's located in the lowland) 2 Apple Orchards, 2 Dairy Farms and 1 Pig Farm. After you've received your first wood delivery, build 3 Wheat Farms, 3 Hop Farms and place a Mill next to your Stockpile. With the next wood delivery build 3 Bakeries, and then another 3.

As soon as your Stockpile start receiving hop deliveries, start your ale production - build 1 Brewery for every 10 peasants in your castle, and as soon as you start producing any ale, build your Inn. The moment when you have your economy running, with plenty of food, stone and ale, is the moment in which you can start preparing your army. Start off by building 2 Iron Mine - given the short distance between it and your Stockpile, 1 Ox Tether should be enough for each.

Build a Medium Tower in the entrance to your castle, build stairs leading to it and place your Rangers and Archers on top of it. Additionally, use the new toy you now have at your disposal - Barricades. Build them in such a way to block the entrance to your oasis, so that there's only a narrow, 1-grid entrance just below your tower, so that your peasants can travel freely (look at the above screenshot). Building it this way should limit the enemy movement and ensuring that you have a smooth resource production in the oasis. Position your Pikemen at the end of the Barricades (at the "entrance"), so that they can stall enemy Swordsmen trying to barge into the oasis.

Now it's the time to start recruiting your army. Build 4 Forges and 4 Fletcher's Workshops - you can't recruit Swordsmen, nor Crossbowmen during this mission, so your army will consist of Macemen, Archers and siege equipment. If you want to, you can swap your Archers with Rangers - they are less efficient at ranged combat, but they can hold their own ground against some of the weaker melee units. If you plan on using Rangers, you must build 1 Armourer's Workshop for each Fletcher's Workshop. This mission also allows you to use Trebuchets, which will make your attack a lot easier.

Recruit 30-40 Macemen, 30-40 Archers (or Rangers), several Trebuchets (3-4 are more than enough, but the more you bring, the easier it will be burst through the enemy defenses) and a few Mantlets - the last unit will allow you to protect your Archers from enemy ranged attacks. After you've accumulated enough units, you can start your siege.

Take care of Archers standing by the Barricades first, and then order your Trebuchets to fire at enemy walls.

After you've crossed the lake, you will stumble upon first enemy resistance - Archers hiding behind Barricades, who are stationed to the East. Use your own Archers (albeit with Mantlets' assistance) to get rid of them swiftly, and then use them to clear the Northern Barricades as well. At the same time order your Trebuchets to fire at Archers stationed on the nearby wall - after a few hits there will be no resistance there.

Get rid of the enemy Archers with your Trebuchets - what is left from them can be finished by your own Archers.

After you've bashed through the first line of defense, you will have to destroy the enemy wall. Use your Trebuchets again to get rid of most of enemy Archers stationed on the walls and towers. After you've killed most of them, focus their fire in a single spot to knock a hole in the wall, which will allow your forces to break into the enemy castle. Before you do that, however, locate Whirling Dervishes stationed near a group of Archers, a couple of Hovels and a Well. Kill them by using your Trebuchets and/or Archers - do not attack them with your Macemen, as they will kill most of them in an instant. After Whirling Dervishes are down, you can order all your troops to attack the enemy Lord - there should be a squad of Archers and Arabian Swordsmen on your way there, but your Macemen should make a short work of them. After the enemy Lord is down, the mission will be completed.