The Jackal’s Stronghold

Amanra must recover the second Osiris Piece from Kemsyt.

Starting objective: Get Amanra to the village. (2)

Difficulty levels:

  • Easy:
    • Additional towers in Nile village (2)
    • Kemsyt’s stronghold (9) has fewer defenses
    • Kemsyt has less starting units, including a much smaller navy
  • Hard/Titan:
    • No towers in Nile village (2)
    • Kemsyt begins attacking the player much earlier on
    • Kemsyt’s stronghold has more defenses

The scenario opens in the east of the map. (1) You command Amanra, several Camelry (Bonus! You get Osiris’ Desert Wind upgrade for Camelry free in this scenario, even though you start in Heroic) and two Axemen. Head down to the village, (2) the slingers shouldn’t pose much problem. (You may want to detour south to clear out a few other slingers that are lurking around.) Once you arrive, the village will convert to your control.

New objective: Bring Amanra to the Osiris Piece Box. (9)

Optional: Bring Amanra to Nile valley buildings and villagers (Green) to convert them to your cause.

You should be familiar with the build and destroy formula by this stage of the campaign. Your initial goal is survival and establishing a decent economy. There are free farms scattered around the map, but to make it easier to keep track of where your villagers are – particularly when Kemsyt starts attacking – just stick to farming around your Town Centers. Gold is not hard to find, there’s plenty lying around, and once it runs out, you can set up a caravan route between the east corner of the map (1) and the settlement in the south corner of the map. (Which will return a lot of gold. Remember, longer trade routes yield much higher gold.) You can use the Prosperity god power any time you like to boost your gold income – be sure to have your Pharaoh empowering gold before you do so, and have at least one gold upgrade researched.

A little tip for this mission is that you can exceed the normal pop limit by not converting any of the green houses until you’ve already placed 10 houses yourself. Combine this with the three additional settlements you can capture, your bonus as Isis, and the Eye of Horus relic and can you can hit the maximum pop of 300 on this scenario, which is very nice indeed.

Kemsyt launches attacks at regular intervals – Spearmen and Anubites ferried over from his stronghold in Leviathans. Their exact landing place is dependent on the location the AI deems most accessable – initially it is southwest of your TC. (7) By setting up walls in key areas, you can divert attacks into the same area every time, and set up a Migdol and maybe a few towers to deal with any attackers. This will take a little experimenting, however. For now, put up a few barracks’ and begin training and upgrading Axemen to deal with Kemsyt’s Spearmen, and a few Priests to heal your units between attacks. (Nephthys also grants you the Spirit of Maat upgrade – double healing rate and reduced cost for Priests. A very nice technology.)

There are several relics lying around. Directly southwest of your Town Center is the Reed of Nekhbet (3) – which doubles naval MU attack. This one is essential. Others can be found near the Temple south of your TC, (4) north of the path you took to reach the village, (5) and three more relics can be found on the north side of the bay near the village (6) – but you need a transport to reach them.

Attacking Kemsyt’s stronghold will require a more balanced army than just Axemen. Kemsyt tends to have a lot of Chariots – so Slingers or Camelry would be effective. (Also as I mentioned earlier, you get the Desert Wind upgrade for free on this mission, even if you don’t choose Osiris. So your Camelry are a lot better.) You’ll also need siege capabilities to take down walls and towers to get to the highest point of the stronghold where the Osiris box is.

Since you start the game under Nephthys, you have access to the Leviathan MU. (You can choose to worship Thoth and gain the Turtle MU as well, but the Turtle has a time wasting special which means that it usually ends up doing less total damage than the Leviathan for a higher cost.) Anyway, Kemsyt’s Turtle MU’s will wreak havoc on regular ships, but Leviathans are immune to their special attack – and have double attack from the Reed of Nekhbet relic you retrieved. So, obviously when you start creating your navy, you want some Leviathans. Supplement them with Siege Barges, because other than MU’s, Kemsyt tends to just build Kebenits. Plus they can take out quite a few buildings from the water – particularly if you get Naval Oxybeles upgrade which increases their range.

When you’re satisfied with your army, it’s time to attack. You don’t need to be at the pop limit, given the very high limit you can achieve on this mission – but on harder difficulties, it will help. Just make sure your army is balanced and you’ve invested in suitable upgrades.

There’s only one practical area to land on the island, and that’s the open area on the southwest side of Kemsyt’s island stronghold. (8) So have your navy head for this location.

When attacking, cast Ancestors during any tough battle to improve your odds. Combining it with the Eclipse god power on land will make your Ancestors significantly more powerful. (Lost Ships which Ancestors summons on water aren’t counted as MU’s – so unfortunately no benefit there.) On water, you can use Eclipse to make your Naval MU’s significantly more powerful. If for your Mythic God Power you choose Meteor, use it to clear out Kemsyt’s defenses and kill a few of his units when you first land on the island. If Son of Osiris, then simply use your demigod Pharaoh to reinforce your army

Complete annihilation is not a prerequisite for victory in this scenario – so don’t waste your time trying to achieve it. It doesn’t matter if your navy gets wiped out, as long as you safely dropped your army off on the island. It doesn’t matter if your army is being cut to pieces as long as you can get rid of any walls between Amanra and the Osiris Piece (9) and bring her to it. Once you do, you’ll be rewarded with victory.

On to mission 18

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