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This level isn't especially hard but it is longer than the first. You are quite in a hurry at the beginning but after that, you can proceed as slow as you want.

Mission Information[edit]

Summary
  1. Travel from Crete to Argos
  2. Build a city in Argos
  3. Pacify the locals
Victory Conditions
  1. One Capitol in Argos
  2. Two enemy Town Centers destroyed
  3. Pelops has been to Argos
Defeat Conditions
  1. Pelops or at least two of his sons die
Factions
  1. Greeks - Blue (player)
  2. Minoans - Purple
  3. Messenians - Red
  4. Achaians - Yellow
Epochs Available
  1. II - Stone Age
  2. III - Copper Age
Special Units
  1. Pelops (Chariot Archer)
  2. Son of Pelops (Royal Guard)

Walkthrough[edit]

Once you get control, go along the shore to the northeast. Eventually, you reach a point where you have another forest to the east, sea to the north and three gold mines to the south guarded by a few Bowmen. While it might be tempting to start mining, it's not really worth it since the area is going to be overrun anyway. Therefore, build a Dock and churn out enough Transport Rafts to fit your population in; you won't need anything else.

Set sail east until you reach the map's border then do a mad dash north while still hugging the border. The reason for it is because the sea is chock full of Minoan Battleships which will blow any ship you can build at this point into smithereens. This route dodges almost all of them but you might run into one anyway; don't stop, just keep running until you reach the mainland and unload. The battleship will still follow your transports so send them away as bait while you move inland; the transports have now served their purpose and you no longer need them.

Move to Argos and start building. You won't have much resources so concentrate on setting up the Capitol first and getting your food gathering started as you'll need more Citizens. Of the two enemy factions who attack, the Achaians are the greater threat as they send either about half a dozen Horsemen or a flock of Bowmen at you when they attack. The Messenians are also in the Stone Age so their attacks will be weaker. Pelops himself doesn't have much health so use his sons as meatshield. Attacks will come from two directions: some of them north and most of them southwest. The wide-open area where you made landfall is big enough for a Granary and its farms so food won't be a problem; you might also try to fish but don't let your fishing boat wander off too far out or it'll run into Minoans.

Your priority here is reaching the Copper Age and getting a Hospital up and running to heal your defenders. Once this is done, base defense gets a lot easier. You will need to defend using units for a while as you don't have much stone at the start. The nearest stone mine is to the southwest on a smaller plateau but your enemies will attack any expansions into the area; move your main force here to guard your Citizens until you have enough stone to build Towers. Two or three Towers can hold the area down enough that you don't need to guard it with troops anymore, plus Argos won't be attacked from this direction either. Don't forget to upgrade the Towers from the Capitol and purchase the range extension from the Towers themselves (it follows the format of a standard unit upgrade so upgrading one Tower upgrades them all; it costs the price of a single Tower, ie. 175 stone).

Now you can concentrate on your main goal: the pacification of the region. There are three Town Centers you can target: two Achaian and one Messenian. One of the Achaian Town Centers is practically a stone's throw away from Argos so that should be your first target. It is defended by Horsemen but as the first mission showed, Spearmen are more than a match for them. However, be sure to build some Macemen as well in case you run into Bowmen (you don't need Bowmen of your own as the Achaians don't use Spearmen and Horsemen can counter them) You might want to bring a Sampson or two along to speed up building destruction; focus on the Stables first so that they can't make more Horsemen on-site (unless you want to rack up a higher unit kill score, of course).

The Messenian Town Center is only guarded by a few Towers so as soon as you clean out the defenders, let your Sampsons at them. They tear it down faster than the other troops, plus they have more armor against ranged attacks so they can go at Tower destruction for quite a long time. As soon as the Messenian Town Center is down, you win.

Alternatively, you may wait with bringing Pelops to Argos as victory won't trigger until you do. Since you receive Civilization Points every time you destroy a Town Center, you can sequence break to raid the second Achaian Town Center and get more points than you were supposed to before you trigger victory.

The reason why you're not advised to build much in Crete is because Minoan patrols will attack you frequently. After a while, a large army will attack and destroy whatever you build. Fighting them is futile as they respawn endlessly and the area is scripted to unleash two Earthquakes and a Volcano in order to force you off the island.