We pressgang the Christians into giving up all the upgrade points they've stockpiled in their basements.
And we prepare to defend Acre with our lives!
I divide the army into archers + heavy hitters for the initial onslaught, and the rest for later reinforcements.
Dis gon be gud
Ah, no destructible walls and bastions.
That's good because the odds of runtime error go down significantly.
That's bad because all the holes in that fucking wall spell flanking disaster.
Nice details on some of those buildings.
10 engineering points don't give a lot of room to play with, so I set up 2 fire ballistas (unlike crusader siege weapons, you really want to max these out. They are crazy effective) and 2 patches of caltrops at the city entrances.
Here they come. And their advantage is overwhelming to say the least.
2x ENGLISH LONGBOWMEN, 2x crus archers, 1x KNIGHTS TEMPLAR, 2x langschilde, 4x vassals/white company, 3x spearmen.
I don't like this at all.
Also some pilgrims stashed here for whatever reason.
The templars park themselves at the left entrance and let themselves get pummeled by artillery. Don't mind if I do.
But obviously we switch targets to this juicy blob here the moment it enters our range.
... the crusaders are certainly performing some advanced manoeuvres here
Reminds me of Asterix and the roman legions scrambling into formation in a huge dust cloud.
Still, after a moment they finally decide to attack.
I put Saladin against the templars because everyone else is gon get trampled to death.
Let's hope the others finally start breaking because otherwise we'll be in BIG TRUBBLE.
They, in fact, don't start breaking. The gambit has failed.
BRACE FOR IMPACT
WHOA
Well, the morale fail domino came a bit late, but can't say it wasn't effective
Nevertheless, I'd rather see them run on the approach and not break in combat. That's because if units fly the white flag in combat, they typically still fight, while out of combat they just run in whatever direction, so we could shoot them out with archers. Meanwhile we'll be taking moar losses.
The effect of which is I gotta evac Saladin before he takes too much of a beating.
Also gotta commend the knights templar for holding out so damn long.
And here come the red flags, finally
... and here come the enemy reinforcements...
... spearheaded by two more regiments of knights templar
while the rest are 3x templars, 4x crus archers, 1x styrian infantry
THIS WILL BE A BLOODY FIGHT
Meanwhile our idiotic archers leave their cozy positions by the artillery for whatever idiotic reason and start taking shittons of casualties. Remember kids, NEVER GO THROUGH THE STREETS under arrow fire.
Our reinforcements finally make it in as well. But will they get to us in time?
And, most importantly, will they make a difference against all these fucking templars?
good that i picked experienced retainers for the turks
Anyway, the infidel vanguard has been sent to hell. We can now prepare ourselves for their friends.
But first lets try to get rid of these remaining cowardly archers.
It turns out to be a very dumb idea because the knights templar hunger for our seljuks.
This isn't really a fight we can win, especially with the rest of the heathens right there.
So I gtfo a moment later. We really have to get behind the artillery again.
However, one of the knight units refuses to fuck off, so I order the abbasid lancers into formation
And engage with the seljuk swordsmen as well.
But then the other knights come in from the flank
HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS
The first knight unit dies just as our dudes start getting trampled and shot. Allah be praised, they do not break. Because if they did, they'd both be toast.
The lancers manage to leg it with just 1 dude left
Here we go again, for another bloodbath.
Saladin, stop these templars from wrecking the artillery or I swear I'll have you beheaded.
Phew!
The heathen infantry might be a problem if they get near though.
The styrians fortunately get murdered by our bowmen.
Then the knights break
And finally so do the incoming templar footmen
While these cretins here just park themselves and do nothing, no doubt frozen in fear by our righteous might! Superfortunate this, because I'm kind of out of good units that could engage them...
Once the parked templars are killed, we can bombard the equally parked crusader archers.
Killing some of them makes the rest trigger, but it's no biggie.
At this point, the artillery and archers are enough to massacre any fools dumb enough to get too close.
Cleaning up stragglers.
This was a cool battle men
huge losses though so the refills will prob be costly
Yep
I kick out the lancers and swordsmen into the reserves, swap in the rested spearmen.
You know, I wonder if that's how the "economy" of the saracen is supposed to work and why you get a new unit for each map. You are supposed to cycle regiments in and out of the reserves all the time to conserve the cash. Because, remember, Richard could always get a loan from the
jews venetians, while Saladin has to make do with what he has.
Much better.
Also, new unit. Slave heavy infantry, better in all ways than the pathetic seljuk swordsmen. Cool guys, wish we had more of them.
Some level-ups
Ah, turns out I was dumb. The lancers don't start with
shield wall, but
spear wall, as do all spearmen (+100% damage vs cavalry). Still, it's pretty hilarious that they can get shield wall here as their ranged defence is 0. However, after eating all the arrerz in the last battle, they got the "battered" accolade, which got them +30 ranged def, so shield wall is a no-brainer. Especially since the remaining abilities are terrible.
Experienced retainers for the circassians takes down another 1500 gold from the reinforcement cost. Neat.
Asad gets access to Cowardice and Cleave. I think he could use some offensive abilities, so I start pumping Cleave.
Turks get aimed shots + fire arrows, which is also fairly idiotic. One is +50% damage/-50% fire rate, the other +30% dmg/-30% fire rate. Also like how the fire arrows says "+30% damage (fire-based)", as if that even mattered.
Close combatant is a very mofo ability, and it took me a while to decide between this and arms-bearer. In the end I picked close combatant to maximise the glass cannon potential.
We have shittons of upgrade points, so I spend some. First, better healers for obvious reasons.
Then abbasid lancers. While not a pressing matter per se, it's more of an investment in the future, since it'll give us access to turk palace guards. And we really want to have turk palace guards.
Politicool event:
TRAITORS! HERETICS!
So the templar
traditionalists want to see proper order restored... by allying with the saracen devils?
Yeah makes perfect sense
Straightforward choice, although both options are enticing:
- The Templars will give us a Templar unit for free
- The Hospitallers will give us a reric and 2 upgrade points
New map:
"Extremely hard", I like the sound of that.
"This will be the end" indeed.
ALLAHU AKBAR!
Yeah, forget it. We'll be leaving Jerusalem for last, just like we did with Baghdad.
So the remaining options are: Arabia (oasis), Asia Minor (Hamburger Hill), Lesser Armenia (hilltop with guard towers).
SO
- Which knights' agenda do we support?
- JIHAD!!!!!!!!!