Age of Empires II: The Conquerors/The Exile of the Cid

Map
Available on the Steam website.

Walkthrough
You start with only El Cid as a Champion unit at the very beginning. As you reach the gate to the east of the spawn, you are told to grab your horse Babieca before you leave. Walk to the stable to get it. After you moved out of the gates and begin walking down the cliff, Alfonso will start attacking you as you reach the towers along the west map border. Keep moving to take minimium damage from those towers; and lure the two longswordsman out of the tower range to fight them. You will spot 2 knights and a couple pikemen beside a windmill that turn sides and aid El Cid.

You should spot some mountains in the southwest area of the map (the east, relative to the gate you went out). Some more mountains further east creates a valley in between, and there are 2 scorpions and several longswordsman awaiting for El Cid to move across. Pass those Alfonso units are 4 camels waiting for you, and will be controllable for use.

Moving upwards towards the north from that point are two towers from Alfonso and a dialogue is triggered telling you the correct way is to the south. Moving southeast from that point, you will come up to a castle, 2 lookout posts and several units from Alfonso and a dialogue is triggered telling you there is a castle blocking the way to Zaragoza; but you can get siege weapons further to the southeast to knock it down. The units will be lured out when you attack the lookouts. Take them out and then go south. There you meet the GATA, whom will give you gold, food and wood so you can build siege weapons, or reinforce your army. You can either just go for the siege weapons; or train additional units with the siege weapons to booster your forces. The former would mean you have more resources as you start your base later on; while the latter just means you have a stronger force arriving Zaragoza. At the same time you receive the GATA forces, your lookouts outside the walls of Zaragoza will be attacked by Berenguer. There's pretty much nothing you can do to save those since you have no control on that side of the map yet.

After taking down the castle, Alfonso will declare you and him buddies again so you won't have to worry about him attacking anymore. As you move into Zaragoza, they will request you to help take out the siege weapons outside their walls, along with the siege workshop. It should be easy considering you have 6 mounted units, and Zaragoza units will tank the hits. The previous siege weapons that took down the castle should make short work taking down the buildings.

As the Berenguer siege workshop crumbles to dust, you are given 4 villagers and the remaining mounted units inside the Zaragoza walls. Move them to the vacant lands to the North of Zaragoza and start building your base.

Behind the treelines (to the North) is the Berenguer base. There might be Berenguer units coming from the North to harrass you as you build up your base but with El Cid and all those mounted units you now control, you can defend pretty easily.

If you wish to be very safe from Berenguer harrassment, you can set up the base at the Eastern corner, making your base easier to defend since the attack will only be on one front. However this means you will be further away from certain resources such as the stone pile located to the south of Berenguer.

Tips

 * Move to the West once you spawn will save you 5 seconds and a dialogue as you get Babieca immediately.
 * Legendary units like El Cid have regenerative Health, if you wish to minimise the casualty, send El Cid to tank/alone in fights when suitable (he can fight the scorpions and longswordsmen in the valley with approximately a quarter of the health remaining).
 * Two garrisoned battering rams and proper micro ought to be enough to take out the castle blocking the way to Zaragoza. The castle does not have murder holes upgraded so units take no damage once under the castle (saving up the resources allows you to build up the base faster).
 * You can also avoid the castle by going west of it and making a path near the river with your trebuchet. You can take care of the castle later with stronger forces once you've built your town center.
 * There are many gold mines outside the Southeastern gate of Zaragoza, and also a few in the northwest of Zaragoza and west of Berenguer's castle near the river.
 * The only stone quarry available is between this castle and Zaragoza.
 * If you want to make gold with a trade carts, the best location for your market is in the southern corner. From there you can trade with Alfonso's market near the river on the other side of the map in a straight line for 106 gold pieces.