Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings/The Lion and the Demon


 * Objective: Build and protect the wonder.

We present three completely different approaches to this scenario.

Strategy 1: The Corregidor approach
There is a very easy (yet not as glorious) way to win this scenario. Northwest of your city lies an island which is large enough for you to build your Wonder on. This may require you to abandon your city to your land-based enemies, but the good part is that you will not have to bother fighting them at all.

At the beginning, research "bracer" at the blacksmith, then task your fishing ships to fishing, your villagers by the town center to lumbering and your villagers by the mines to stone mining. Use all the extra food that you will get to create more villagers and task them to stone mining.

While the enemy starts rushing to your walls and Towers, create three Transport Ships (two should be enough if you decide to leave your army behind). As soon as the enemy becomes a threat to your villagers (when your watchmen tell you "Templars preparing to attack" should be a good time for you to leave), board them on the ships and head for the island.

When you reach the island, have a few villagers build ten to twenty Towers around the island to protect you from Genoese warships, the only enemy units which can still attack you (but they are not a big threat). The southern part of the island is where you will want to build your Wonder, so make sure to leave enough room. Task the other villagers on the wood and gold.

Once you have collected all the gold from the southern mines, you can start building your Wonder. If you don't have enough stone left, build a Market to get what you need, then destroy it. From now on, you just have to wait for your Wonder to be completed and for the timer to run out.

This is probably the fastest way to win the scenario. It cannot be considered a sleazy way to win. Ask yourself why that island is there. It does not exist in the real world environment of Acre, so obviously the scenario designer added it for a specific purpose. There is, however, a crucial reason why this method works, and that is because the Genoese are not permitted to build Cannon Galleons. If they were, of course, your island, all your towers, and your Wonder, would be toast, unless you were able to maintain a fleet to sink the Cannon Galleons.

Strategy 2
This is the most direct way to win. However, it requires you to be clairvoyant and prescient. That is, you need to know what is happening all over the map, even if you can't legally see it, and it requires you to know what will happen in the future. To be specific, you need to know where your enemies are and where certain resources are without actually scouting, and you need to know that your enemies do not properly employ heavy artillery to do you in.

Take all your starting military units, (apart from the Mangonels) and 5 villagers to the left hand side of the map and go up until you find a gold patch. Immediately build a castle and a Town Centre. Use the military units to fend off any Paladins. At home, start mining gold, get a villager to build a Mill and start producing villagers on farms and gold. Fishing ships should get going as well. Once the castle is built, get two trebs and then with those 5 villagers build a Town Centre in between the gold and the trees and start chopping the wood. With the trebs, start attacking the Teutons and the Franks, going for the Towers, then the Town Centre, then the Teutons' castle. You will get hit by some French Bombard Cannons, Siege Rams, and Hand Can'rs first. Use your units to take them out. Getting a monastery then a monk wouldn't go amiss either. The trebs should be doing a lot of damage, you will get attacked by some Paladins and some Teutonic Knights, but the Mamelukes, Archers of the Eyes and cav archers should be more than enough to see them off. Once you've taken out the castle, go for the villagers while the trebs take out the rest of the buildings. The Franks and the Teutons will soon resign. While all this is happening, don't forget to make sure that you're producing villagers to bring in the resources. Your main base is never attacked, but if so, the Mangonels and Towers will defend you. I have 11 lumberjacks, 15 farmers and 15 miners. I delete the 4 Galleons and fishing ships once the Franks and Teutons go down. With your trebs and cav archers, Genoa is easy: trebs take down Towers then Town Centre then docks, and cav archers take out villagers.

However, when attacking Genoa, you will get hit by the British and Jerusalem. They will attack the castle and the TC that you built at the start of the mission. Start producing Mamelukes once the Teutons and Franks are down. Don't forget to start mining stone, and get an extra castle or two there to help defend. Use Mamelukes to take out the trebs that Jerusalem and the British send you and then send them back into your castle. Ignore the Longbowmen and let the castle take out the Scorpions, Mangonels, Camels and Champions that they send at you.

You then get the Elite War Elephants from the Persians around this point. When they arrive, get an army of 6 trebs, 5 WE, 15/20 Mamelukes and 10/15 cav archers(delete some villagers to make room for them). Send the War Elephants into the British base as a decoy to take all the abuse (use them on the defensive trebs as a priority though), the trebs can hit the castle, and the cavalry will take out the Onagers and archers. Once one castle is down, concentrate on the other castle. You may well lose all your units as Longbowmen are annoying with that range and Jerusalem usually sends in its Onagers, Camels and Champs as well, so don't forget to have the 3 castles you have continually sending in reinforcements, and having a villager building a castle right next to the British base when you attack them first is a good idea so trebs can spawn right next to them. The French may get some villagers to escape and rebuild, but they will no longer be a threat. You can now build a Wonder, or rebuild your army and take out Jerusalem. As you now control most of the map with tons of resources, it's a very fun and easy mission.

Strategy 3
stay tuned