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Completed Let us RECLAIM THE HOLY LAND
- Thread starter Darth Roxor
- Start date
Excidium II
Self-Ejected
Armenia, let's do the easy stuff for geld.
Let's go for Edessa to reclaim what was most recently Crusader clay, and take on the Double-Idiot Emperor. The guy is a dumbass, but when you have competent units that won't shatter when breathed on then you won't have to spend all your war spoils on importing more chavs to replace your losses and can start to afford the nicer troops.
INTERLUDE I - TRAITORS IN TRIPOLI
First things first, we tell Theodore
to take a hike, which gives us a whole new set of rep bonuses.
After that, it's off to steamroll the saracen mercenaries heading for Tripoli.
Huh? Hands off my turf, you european devil son of a bitch.
You got the wrong Tripoli, o pimp of pimps.
Ah, goodie. Proceed!
(it ain't even the real Christ Ist Erstanden, but there's like one version of the real one on jewtube and it's kind of shit)
GEE THIS MAP LOOKS FAMILIAR.
Some of these kebabs are definitely not familiar, though.
"Bombardier" sounds like hot shit, especially when dual-wielding some rather weird-looking sabres, but these are just regular light infantry chumps. The only bombs they can throw are smoke grenades, and I don't even remember what they do. Probably some ranged defence bonus or someshit.
The enemy also has a regiment of heavy cavalry. We definitely want to look out for these.
Oh look, a forest. Let's take positions there.
Tactical genius allows us to hide the entire army among the trees. If anyone gets close, he'll have the surprise of a lifetime
Note the rambo cavalry regiment.
For some reason the rest of the turkmen are not particularly eager to join with their vanguard scouts.
Tried to shoot them down, but they retreated the moment I got close. Oh well. Back into the forests with you men.
This has to be some clever stratagem to send half your force into the open desert and let the rest hug the walls half the map away...
Let's see if this baiting proves any fruitful.
It does!
SURPRISE BUTTSECHZ (the eye icon denotes a unit that has just left hiding and has the ambush bonus)
Needless to say, the enemy cavalry is obliterated within seconds :cheersmate:
Seljuk spearmen are similarly eager to commit sudoku.
And once they're out, it's time to roll out our cavalry
flank
and
SMASH DA HUMIEZ
Soon the bodies of the saracen vanguard are pressed into the desert sands.
But we have to get back to the forest quick cuz the rest of the suckers are incoming.
Once again it's rambo cavalry trying to bumrush us...
I actually wanted it to ride into our spearmen, but the archers opened fire on their own and chased the enemy away!
The rest take up positions in the middle. Crever AI to be sure.
This time baiting them into attacking doesn't work, though, so we'll hafta do this the hard way.
I hide the spearmen in a small glade to the left in anticipation of the saracen heavy horsemen, then open up with a few arrow barrages.
awwwww yeah baby
hidden spearmen in diamond formation that is super effective against cavalry charge, and the saracens are driving right into them
AFFIX BAYONETS
YOU GUYS ARE FUCKING USELESS
Once the horsemen have finished their charge, two of them were left dead. Meanwhile we lost 42 spearmen
Still, the crusaders were more than enough to then assault the cavalry while all the rest of our troops took on the infantry and murdered the hell out of it.
It was a short battle, alright.
but why aren't we victorious
oh
who the hell are these guys anyway?
Discounting the 42 dead spearmen, that's only 12 casualties. Meanwhile the saracen army was slaughtered to the last man (the remaining units shown here are the city bastions).
Also, we looted an elixir that permanently adds armour to a unit. P. cool.
Good, the pilgrims are still here.
Also, level ups
New skills unlock for Richard. Cleave
and Cowardice.
Cleave is something we shall now pump everything into because it's SUPER EFFECTIVE. At max level, the hero can mow down entire regiments all by himself.
Let's shop at the pilgrims.
OH YES PLEASE
Since our losses were next to 0 last battle, we had a lot of spare cash that I decided to splurge on trinkets again. Bought 2 captains, for crusaders and light cavalry, and hired these crossbowmen for the lulz. Even if they aren't any good, we can just sidegrade them to bowmen.
I also threw the useless speamen into the reserves and didn't bother reinforcing richard (2400 geld for 3 dudes SERIOUSLY?)
Now, for our next trick...
There is a new political crisis on the map!
This time in Cyprus.
Good news: lots of useful bonuses.
Bad news: no money for winning.
However, Cyprus should be full of forests to hide in and limit casualties to a minimum, similarly to the Tripoli battle.
It looks like Lesser Armenia is going to have to wait!
First things first, we tell Theodore
After that, it's off to steamroll the saracen mercenaries heading for Tripoli.
You got the wrong Tripoli, o pimp of pimps.
(it ain't even the real Christ Ist Erstanden, but there's like one version of the real one on jewtube and it's kind of shit)
GEE THIS MAP LOOKS FAMILIAR.
Some of these kebabs are definitely not familiar, though.
"Bombardier" sounds like hot shit, especially when dual-wielding some rather weird-looking sabres, but these are just regular light infantry chumps. The only bombs they can throw are smoke grenades, and I don't even remember what they do. Probably some ranged defence bonus or someshit.
The enemy also has a regiment of heavy cavalry. We definitely want to look out for these.
Oh look, a forest. Let's take positions there.
Tactical genius allows us to hide the entire army among the trees. If anyone gets close, he'll have the surprise of a lifetime
Note the rambo cavalry regiment.
For some reason the rest of the turkmen are not particularly eager to join with their vanguard scouts.
Tried to shoot them down, but they retreated the moment I got close. Oh well. Back into the forests with you men.
This has to be some clever stratagem to send half your force into the open desert and let the rest hug the walls half the map away...
Let's see if this baiting proves any fruitful.
It does!
SURPRISE BUTTSECHZ (the eye icon denotes a unit that has just left hiding and has the ambush bonus)
Needless to say, the enemy cavalry is obliterated within seconds :cheersmate:
Seljuk spearmen are similarly eager to commit sudoku.
And once they're out, it's time to roll out our cavalry
flank
and
SMASH DA HUMIEZ
Soon the bodies of the saracen vanguard are pressed into the desert sands.
But we have to get back to the forest quick cuz the rest of the suckers are incoming.
Once again it's rambo cavalry trying to bumrush us...
I actually wanted it to ride into our spearmen, but the archers opened fire on their own and chased the enemy away!
The rest take up positions in the middle. Crever AI to be sure.
This time baiting them into attacking doesn't work, though, so we'll hafta do this the hard way.
I hide the spearmen in a small glade to the left in anticipation of the saracen heavy horsemen, then open up with a few arrow barrages.
awwwww yeah baby
hidden spearmen in diamond formation that is super effective against cavalry charge, and the saracens are driving right into them
AFFIX BAYONETS
YOU GUYS ARE FUCKING USELESS
Once the horsemen have finished their charge, two of them were left dead. Meanwhile we lost 42 spearmen
Still, the crusaders were more than enough to then assault the cavalry while all the rest of our troops took on the infantry and murdered the hell out of it.
It was a short battle, alright.
but why aren't we victorious
oh
who the hell are these guys anyway?
Discounting the 42 dead spearmen, that's only 12 casualties. Meanwhile the saracen army was slaughtered to the last man (the remaining units shown here are the city bastions).
Also, we looted an elixir that permanently adds armour to a unit. P. cool.
Good, the pilgrims are still here.
Also, level ups
New skills unlock for Richard. Cleave
and Cowardice.
Cleave is something we shall now pump everything into because it's SUPER EFFECTIVE. At max level, the hero can mow down entire regiments all by himself.
Let's shop at the pilgrims.
OH YES PLEASE
Since our losses were next to 0 last battle, we had a lot of spare cash that I decided to splurge on trinkets again. Bought 2 captains, for crusaders and light cavalry, and hired these crossbowmen for the lulz. Even if they aren't any good, we can just sidegrade them to bowmen.
I also threw the useless speamen into the reserves and didn't bother reinforcing richard (2400 geld for 3 dudes SERIOUSLY?)
Now, for our next trick...
There is a new political crisis on the map!
This time in Cyprus.
Good news: lots of useful bonuses.
Bad news: no money for winning.
However, Cyprus should be full of forests to hide in and limit casualties to a minimum, similarly to the Tripoli battle.
It looks like Lesser Armenia is going to have to wait!
Last edited:
Forests are nice. 
jonnypolen
Liturgist
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2007
- Messages
- 271
Finally, a good LP again!
INTERLUDE II - CYPRUS HILL
Since these are all side missions, might as well update it all fast.
I wonder if we'd still get that +1 templar rep for the intervention had we sold the island to the Hospitallers.
Anyways,
Welcome to Cyprus. Finally we're out of the damned deserts.
Our wicked foe are mostly lowest tier crusader units. Foot knights, vassals, spearmen, light cavalry and bowmen.
We have considerable advantage over all these chumps because they are all level 0, while our troops are all battle-hardened already.
In fact, there is a big snowballing effect in the game to begin with, since enemy units NEVER appear above level 0.
In the centre-north part of the map, there's this "guard post" on a hill surrounded by forests. Looks like a good place to dig in.
We immediately send our cavalry to cap it. The enemy has similar plans.
However, we get there much earlier, especially cuz the enemy AI panicked and just stood still at one moment. Probably didn't want to send its regiments to certain death.
Let's see if we can shoot them out with arrer boyz.
Nope, they gtfo the moment we get close.
Which gives us ample time to hide among the trees!
teehee
LEAVE NO ONE STANDING
Since technically we are still outnumbered, the best thing to do now is to make as many of them run as we can.
kekekekekeke
Hmm, bad news is our flanks are actually kind of exposed.
Even worse is that when you're fighting in a forest, it's VERY EASY to lose track of all units.
For example here there's an enemy cavalry regiment riding past our archers.
While here there are foot knights rushing right into them, and the only unit I have to engage them are the vassals...
Let us hope they can hold out long enough!
Also, well, in theory they should have boosts when fighting heavy infantry in a forest.
These motherfuckers just keep riding around despite my foot knights chasing them with haste on.
And now there are spearmen engaging my cavalry. Gotta retreat and regroup because it's gonna be a lot of really unnecessary casualties otherwise.
AND NOW THERE'S CAVALRY RIDING INTO MY BOWMEN
what a clusterfuck
Still, we're winning on almost all fronts... except for the vassals who are getting butchered by the foot knights.
I order them to gtfo.
BUT THE RETARDS REFUSE TO LISTEN AND KEEP RE-ENGAGING AS THEY RUN
RETREAT DAMMIT I TOLD YOU TO...
well nevermind
guess this marks our first lost regiment of useless cannon fodder
these idiots had it coming tbh
After that it's just a short mop up of the suckers that ran from the initial arrow barrages.
chop chop
Victaly!
Note the 3 level ups of the crossbowmen. They do ridiculous damage despite their short range.
Still, we've suffered many more casualties than I'd like, and we got no geld for the mission.
Nevertheless, level-ups
Cavalry can now choose between Charge
and Ranger. Picked the latter, should be very useful given the prevalence of deserts.
All the things the crossbowmen get to pick we already know. Took Ambush. Was pondering Haste too for them quick getaways, but it would be sort of silly.
Crusader archers can also now get flaming arrows
And masterwork armour. Flaming arrows ought to be good against heavier enemies.
The bowmen can also choose between masterwork armour and hiding. Hiding looks hilariously broken, so I took it without second thought.
Foot knights also get 2 new picks. Open field looks very nice but you have to remember there are next to NO open fields in this game. Everything that looks like an 'open field' is actually a desert.
Resilience is sort of a no-brainer.
Also, we got a new unit. I keep mixing up Crusader Elite and Crusader Knights, and actually so does this game - both the units have mismatched models and icons, which you can even see here. The crusader ELITE model in our army (currently selected) matches the icon of the crusader KNIGHTS in the recruitment screen. Meanwhile the model of the knights matches the icon of the elite. Crazy!
Anyway, the crusader elite are a light cavalry unit that is an improvement over normal "light cavalry" in all ways. We'll definitely find much use for these.
Looking through recently looted stuff, I see this. Manna from heaven! Selling this shit will be just enough to reinforce all our regiments (except Richard of course).
Also, the last mission put us over another rep threshold for the French. We can now recruit...
The 100% White Company of Saint Irenaeus the Martyr.
I'd like to say it's a shame the vassals kicked it in the last battle because they could be upgraded into these, but... the white company is only slightly less trash tier than the vassals
Anyway, before we proceed to our next mission, there's a new event!
Ruh-roh. The tyranny of choices!
- Pick templars and get a bunch of items for units + kaptin + rep.
- Pick papists and get rep + 2 permanent stat-increasing elixirs.
- Pick yourself and get a new reric + faith + piss off everyone else.
And finally the thing you've all been waiting for.
Traps, eh. I don't like the sound of that at all.
The crafty Teutons want us to launch a two-phased attack. We'll first send a vanguard of dudes to trigger the traps with their faces during the night, then get reinforcements in the morning and crush the enemy.
Two new assets (that we can't buy anyway) for this include: Exploration (reveal all enemies [including hidden ones like traps] on the map for 30 seconds) and Destroy Trap (select and remove one trap from the battlefield).
The careless Templars realise there is no time to be lost and want us to attack during the night only. However, this will mean leaving a bunch of our troops out of the battle.
Assets: Poison the wells and spread rumours.
The careful Papists prefer not to risk attacking during the night, and so they suggest waiting for everyone to assemble and then attack fair and square during the day.
Assets: Exploration and destroy trap.
Come one, come all, and drop in your votes.
- Who gets the piece of the HOLY CROSS
- Whose crever pran shall we employ for Armenia?
DISCUSS!!!
I wonder if we'd still get that +1 templar rep for the intervention had we sold the island to the Hospitallers.
Anyways,
Welcome to Cyprus. Finally we're out of the damned deserts.
Our wicked foe are mostly lowest tier crusader units. Foot knights, vassals, spearmen, light cavalry and bowmen.
We have considerable advantage over all these chumps because they are all level 0, while our troops are all battle-hardened already.
In fact, there is a big snowballing effect in the game to begin with, since enemy units NEVER appear above level 0.
In the centre-north part of the map, there's this "guard post" on a hill surrounded by forests. Looks like a good place to dig in.
We immediately send our cavalry to cap it. The enemy has similar plans.
However, we get there much earlier, especially cuz the enemy AI panicked and just stood still at one moment. Probably didn't want to send its regiments to certain death.
Let's see if we can shoot them out with arrer boyz.
Nope, they gtfo the moment we get close.
Which gives us ample time to hide among the trees!
teehee
LEAVE NO ONE STANDING
Since technically we are still outnumbered, the best thing to do now is to make as many of them run as we can.
kekekekekeke
Hmm, bad news is our flanks are actually kind of exposed.
Even worse is that when you're fighting in a forest, it's VERY EASY to lose track of all units.
For example here there's an enemy cavalry regiment riding past our archers.
While here there are foot knights rushing right into them, and the only unit I have to engage them are the vassals...
Let us hope they can hold out long enough!
Also, well, in theory they should have boosts when fighting heavy infantry in a forest.
These motherfuckers just keep riding around despite my foot knights chasing them with haste on.
And now there are spearmen engaging my cavalry. Gotta retreat and regroup because it's gonna be a lot of really unnecessary casualties otherwise.
AND NOW THERE'S CAVALRY RIDING INTO MY BOWMEN
what a clusterfuck
Still, we're winning on almost all fronts... except for the vassals who are getting butchered by the foot knights.
I order them to gtfo.
BUT THE RETARDS REFUSE TO LISTEN AND KEEP RE-ENGAGING AS THEY RUN
RETREAT DAMMIT I TOLD YOU TO...
well nevermind
guess this marks our first lost regiment of useless cannon fodder
these idiots had it coming tbh
After that it's just a short mop up of the suckers that ran from the initial arrow barrages.
chop chop
Victaly!
Note the 3 level ups of the crossbowmen. They do ridiculous damage despite their short range.
Still, we've suffered many more casualties than I'd like, and we got no geld for the mission.
Nevertheless, level-ups
Cavalry can now choose between Charge
and Ranger. Picked the latter, should be very useful given the prevalence of deserts.
All the things the crossbowmen get to pick we already know. Took Ambush. Was pondering Haste too for them quick getaways, but it would be sort of silly.
Crusader archers can also now get flaming arrows
And masterwork armour. Flaming arrows ought to be good against heavier enemies.
The bowmen can also choose between masterwork armour and hiding. Hiding looks hilariously broken, so I took it without second thought.
Foot knights also get 2 new picks. Open field looks very nice but you have to remember there are next to NO open fields in this game. Everything that looks like an 'open field' is actually a desert.
Resilience is sort of a no-brainer.
Also, we got a new unit. I keep mixing up Crusader Elite and Crusader Knights, and actually so does this game - both the units have mismatched models and icons, which you can even see here. The crusader ELITE model in our army (currently selected) matches the icon of the crusader KNIGHTS in the recruitment screen. Meanwhile the model of the knights matches the icon of the elite. Crazy!
Anyway, the crusader elite are a light cavalry unit that is an improvement over normal "light cavalry" in all ways. We'll definitely find much use for these.
Looking through recently looted stuff, I see this. Manna from heaven! Selling this shit will be just enough to reinforce all our regiments (except Richard of course).
Also, the last mission put us over another rep threshold for the French. We can now recruit...
The 100% White Company of Saint Irenaeus the Martyr.
I'd like to say it's a shame the vassals kicked it in the last battle because they could be upgraded into these, but... the white company is only slightly less trash tier than the vassals
Anyway, before we proceed to our next mission, there's a new event!
Ruh-roh. The tyranny of choices!
- Pick templars and get a bunch of items for units + kaptin + rep.
- Pick papists and get rep + 2 permanent stat-increasing elixirs.
- Pick yourself and get a new reric + faith + piss off everyone else.
And finally the thing you've all been waiting for.
Traps, eh. I don't like the sound of that at all.
The crafty Teutons want us to launch a two-phased attack. We'll first send a vanguard of dudes to trigger the traps with their faces during the night, then get reinforcements in the morning and crush the enemy.
Two new assets (that we can't buy anyway) for this include: Exploration (reveal all enemies [including hidden ones like traps] on the map for 30 seconds) and Destroy Trap (select and remove one trap from the battlefield).
The careless Templars realise there is no time to be lost and want us to attack during the night only. However, this will mean leaving a bunch of our troops out of the battle.
Assets: Poison the wells and spread rumours.
The careful Papists prefer not to risk attacking during the night, and so they suggest waiting for everyone to assemble and then attack fair and square during the day.
Assets: Exploration and destroy trap.
Come one, come all, and drop in your votes.
- Who gets the piece of the HOLY CROSS
- Whose crever pran shall we employ for Armenia?
DISCUSS!!!
Last edited:
- Influences the power of certain relics.
- Influences how many relics you can equip at a time (1 relic at 0 faith, 2 relics at 5, 3 relics at 10. We currently have 2).
No idea.
Last edited:
Let the Templars have the relic, and attack during the day.
Reinhardt
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2015
- Messages
- 29,534
3. We got one for previous mission.
The kaptins aren't anything very special to "show". They just replace 1 dude in a squad with a mini-hero who has pumped up stats and his own HP.
Note the red bars on the Crusader and Light Cavalry icons, those are the HP bars of the captains.
There's nothing more to say really, they don't have special abilities or anything by default. Advancing in rep tracks can give them hero skills though.
Yeah
Relic to the templars.
Papal battle plan.
Papal battle plan.
Excidium II
Self-Ejected
Give the relic to the pope, use the elixirs on Ricardo
HRE plan, we've seen how well the AI can handle ambush.
HRE plan, we've seen how well the AI can handle ambush.
Can't use elixirs on heroes I'm afraid, only regular units.
Excidium II
Self-Ejected
Well that changes things. Give it to the templars then. We can't carry more than one relic yet anyway.
ore clover
Learned
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2017
- Messages
- 171
CHAPTER VI - BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE ARMENIA
Per yer decision, we give the splinter of the True Cross that pricked someone's little finger to the Templars.
In return, they now make themselves available for hire.
Templars are heavy infantry, and they are really guud. They are an improvement in all ways compared to Foot knights, and in comparison to Crusaders they do much more damage and have better resistance and ranged defence, but less armour and HP.
Don't ask me what Resistance and Armour actually mean because I can't tell you, and neither can the manual. I guess one is flat damage reduction, the other percentage? Who knows!
(also, it triggers me how the vast majority of units in the game are left-handed for some reason)
We'll want to upgrade the foot knights into these ASAP, but I'll leave the crusaders around for a while longer.
The Templars also gift us some junk. The armour is bretty guuuuuuud.
while this pathetic sword I sell immediately.
Battle calls. Following the Paypal States' plan, we wait for the dawn and attack with all our units.
A fortified hill and we are at the bottom. I don't like the looks of this much.
Fortunately, the Saracens are very few compared to previous scenarios.
Still, they have a bunch of new kebab in the menu.
True kebab bowmen with hats of pimping +5.
And these burly palace guards! The big stat numbers place them on par with the Templars, but who knows what the actual crunch under that is. Still, we might perhaps be wary about these.
Starting the battle, the Turks naturally refuse to come down to meet us, opting instead to do some chaotic regrouping.
We'd have to be insane to run at them directly because that slope from our starting position is probably chockful of traps.
Not trusting this map at all, I keep scouting ahead with the light cavalry in case any spike pits and ninjas spring out of the ground.
Dios mio, caltrops!
It's the only trap on our way though, and nobody triggers it.
Soon our whole army is posted on the Saracens' flank, while they just bide their time playing al-Poker and getting drunk.
I'll eat my shoes if they have any traps on THIS side.
We start by picking off the closest horsemen regiment.
Thanks to the braindead AI, they are the only ones running at us
Which proves somewhat fatal to them.
And then the Seljuk spearmen be like "[Perception] THERE'S SOMETHING GOING ON IN YONDER FOREST"
Shooting at the heavy infantry finally triggers more kebab to attack.
This ought to be a good test for fire arrows and crossbowmen.
Crossbowmen make the turk palace guards fucking MELT
Once the enemy gets too close for us to risk friendly fire, the usual melee clusterfuck ensues.
Poor turks have no chance, running head on into our ambushing heavy hitters.
Until predictable effect is achieved.
And any stragglers are picked off.
What remains are the guard towers, one light cavalry regiment and one bowmen regiment (and 2 lone turk bowmen that were put to flight earlier )
Damn guard towers make it 'ard to just pick everything off with arrer boyz, and anything that is on the edge of our range runs the moment we start shooting.
Thus, we proceed with the charge of the light brigade!
Yeah, look at all them caltrops. I wonder how many of them were hidden on that slope in total.
Mopping up
GG WP no re.
Also that sword
We got this relic for the battle.
I wonder if this means it does a global debuff to the entire enemy ARMY or just to the ONE REGIMENT that the hero attacks. Something tells me it's the latter, since it explicitly says "hero unit's" and not "hero's". Might need some field testung though.
Also, levelups
Crusaders get to choose between masterwork armour and weapons. Since they're beefy enough as they are, I picked weapons.
Replacing losses costs us barely 1000something geld, so we can finally start doing funky things with our units again. First, I upgrade the pathetic foot knights into templars.
Since they have different ability trees, we can reassign the templars' skill points. Abilities include Evasive Wombat
Experienced retainers
Disciplined
and also Useful Concoctions and Masterwork Weaponry, which we already know.
Took Experienced Retainers (since replacing their losses is likely going to be costly) and Disciplined (cuz heavy infantry is fat and gets tired fast).
The rest of the money I splurged on some offence/defence upgrades for a bunch of units, and on 3 bodyguard replacements for Richard.
A reminder of our current reputation trackers:
Also, storming Lesser Armenia unlocks a new territory for conquest.
Though it says the difficulty is "only" Hard, you can guess by the rewards and the territory that this is a BIG fight, and we'd better not poke our noses there at the moment.
Where next to conquer?
Well, what do you know!
A politicool crisis!
All them ducats and that healer ho boy
Bohemond the Bambino is as good as rescued!
However, that still leaves the question of wot do after that. Our current options are fairly limited, as there's 5 of them, and 3 are somewhat haram (Seljuk Sultanate, Damascus, Caliphate of Cairo). This leaves two places of interest:
Edessa
and Jordan.
AS YOU COMMAND, SO SHALL IT BE.
Per yer decision, we give the splinter of the True Cross that pricked someone's little finger to the Templars.
In return, they now make themselves available for hire.
Templars are heavy infantry, and they are really guud. They are an improvement in all ways compared to Foot knights, and in comparison to Crusaders they do much more damage and have better resistance and ranged defence, but less armour and HP.
Don't ask me what Resistance and Armour actually mean because I can't tell you, and neither can the manual. I guess one is flat damage reduction, the other percentage? Who knows!
(also, it triggers me how the vast majority of units in the game are left-handed for some reason)
We'll want to upgrade the foot knights into these ASAP, but I'll leave the crusaders around for a while longer.
The Templars also gift us some junk. The armour is bretty guuuuuuud.
while this pathetic sword I sell immediately.
Battle calls. Following the Paypal States' plan, we wait for the dawn and attack with all our units.
A fortified hill and we are at the bottom. I don't like the looks of this much.
Fortunately, the Saracens are very few compared to previous scenarios.
Still, they have a bunch of new kebab in the menu.
True kebab bowmen with hats of pimping +5.
And these burly palace guards! The big stat numbers place them on par with the Templars, but who knows what the actual crunch under that is. Still, we might perhaps be wary about these.
Starting the battle, the Turks naturally refuse to come down to meet us, opting instead to do some chaotic regrouping.
We'd have to be insane to run at them directly because that slope from our starting position is probably chockful of traps.
Not trusting this map at all, I keep scouting ahead with the light cavalry in case any spike pits and ninjas spring out of the ground.
Dios mio, caltrops!
It's the only trap on our way though, and nobody triggers it.
Soon our whole army is posted on the Saracens' flank, while they just bide their time playing al-Poker and getting drunk.
I'll eat my shoes if they have any traps on THIS side.
We start by picking off the closest horsemen regiment.
Thanks to the braindead AI, they are the only ones running at us
Which proves somewhat fatal to them.
And then the Seljuk spearmen be like "[Perception] THERE'S SOMETHING GOING ON IN YONDER FOREST"
Shooting at the heavy infantry finally triggers more kebab to attack.
This ought to be a good test for fire arrows and crossbowmen.
Crossbowmen make the turk palace guards fucking MELT
Once the enemy gets too close for us to risk friendly fire, the usual melee clusterfuck ensues.
Poor turks have no chance, running head on into our ambushing heavy hitters.
Until predictable effect is achieved.
And any stragglers are picked off.
What remains are the guard towers, one light cavalry regiment and one bowmen regiment (and 2 lone turk bowmen that were put to flight earlier
)
Damn guard towers make it 'ard to just pick everything off with arrer boyz, and anything that is on the edge of our range runs the moment we start shooting.
Thus, we proceed with the charge of the light brigade!
Yeah, look at all them caltrops. I wonder how many of them were hidden on that slope in total.
Mopping up
GG WP no re.
Also that sword
We got this relic for the battle.
I wonder if this means it does a global debuff to the entire enemy ARMY or just to the ONE REGIMENT that the hero attacks. Something tells me it's the latter, since it explicitly says "hero unit's" and not "hero's". Might need some field testung though.
Also, levelups
Crusaders get to choose between masterwork armour and weapons. Since they're beefy enough as they are, I picked weapons.
Replacing losses costs us barely 1000something geld, so we can finally start doing funky things with our units again. First, I upgrade the pathetic foot knights into templars.
Since they have different ability trees, we can reassign the templars' skill points. Abilities include Evasive Wombat
Experienced retainers
Disciplined
and also Useful Concoctions and Masterwork Weaponry, which we already know.
Took Experienced Retainers (since replacing their losses is likely going to be costly) and Disciplined (cuz heavy infantry is fat and gets tired fast).
The rest of the money I splurged on some offence/defence upgrades for a bunch of units, and on 3 bodyguard replacements for Richard.
A reminder of our current reputation trackers:
Also, storming Lesser Armenia unlocks a new territory for conquest.
Though it says the difficulty is "only" Hard, you can guess by the rewards and the territory that this is a BIG fight, and we'd better not poke our noses there at the moment.
Where next to conquer?
Well, what do you know!
A politicool crisis!
All them ducats and that healer ho boy
Bohemond the Bambino is as good as rescued!
However, that still leaves the question of wot do after that. Our current options are fairly limited, as there's 5 of them, and 3 are somewhat haram (Seljuk Sultanate, Damascus, Caliphate of Cairo). This leaves two places of interest:
Edessa
and Jordan.
AS YOU COMMAND, SO SHALL IT BE.
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