All is not lost

With the help of an old friend, the heroes try to withstand the fury of Gargarensis’ counterattack.

Starting objective: Find the abandoned mining town (2) and build a Town Center there.

Difficulty levels:

  • Easy:
    • Additional towers
    • Giants have less units
    • Gargarensis’ forces have less upgrades
  • Hard/Titan:
    • Less Towers, only two houses in mining town instead of five
    • Gargarensis’ forces have more upgrades
    • Gargarensis’ forces will often deploy an underworld passage inside the mining town

This mission opens near the location of our heroes’ impromptu exit from the underworld. (1) Under your command are the campaign heroes, 7 ulfsarks, 6 villagers and an ox cart. You’ll be informed you need to set up a base to the south. (2)

Once you put up a Town Center, the Towers and Houses in the mining village convert to your control, and you’ll be issued a general objective to build up before Gargarensis attacks. A trick here is to build 10 houses before your Town Center – that way when the buildings convert, you get extra population. (You’ll have to use your villagers to gather the wood necessary to be able to put up a TC in addition to the houses though.)

New objective: You have 10 minutes to build up before Gargarensis attacks.

You’re going to want to establish a strong economy quickly. There is plenty of gold around, and enough hunting that you shouldn’t need to farm for a while. Advance to the Heroic age as soon as possible in order to grab the settlement to the south for additional population.

There are three passes leading to your town. (3) If you want to make this easy, then don’t wall all of them. If the AI can’t get past a wall, it knocks it down. If it knows there another way to get past, it leaves a wall alone. Pretty simple.

Set up a few layers of walls in two of the passes and get the Stone Wall upgrade to reduce the chance of anything actually getting through. Leave one pass clear – the central pass is best, since it provides the most room for your units to fight. This way, the AI will only attack through this location, which makes defending an extremely simply matter. To augment your defense, place down Towers and Hill Forts as well to support to your army, and maybe some walls to restrict the flow of enemy units. (Remember, you need a gap. And don’t choke up the pass so much that your own units can’t fight effectively.)

Now, of course buildings aren’t going to do everything, they’re just going to make matters easier for your units. So, you need to train a strong army.

Gargarensis trains both Greek and Norse units in this scenario. He favors Cavalry, (both Jarls and Hippikons) Toxotes and MU’s. Jarls are a good choice, because they’re effective against both archers and MU’s. (Also because they’re so tough, they’re more likely to survive fights and get healed.) Ulfsarks are also a solid choice, because they are the strongest Norse unit against cavalry – worship Bragi in the Heroic age to access the powerful Swine Array and Call of Valhalla upgrades for them. And while you don’t face many infantry on this mission, Throwing Axemen can provide practical ranged support. They can also take out enemy siege weapons more easily than your other units. In the Mythic age, Ballistae are also effective ranged support.

As mentioned before, Bragi is a good Heroic age choice for his powerful Ulfsark upgrades. In Mythic you can choose from Baldr and Tyr. Neither of their god powers are going to be very useful – Fimbulwinter won’t have any effect at slowing down the attacks thrown against you, and you really want a strong economy, so Ragnarok probably isn’t the best idea. Tyr has Berserkergang upgrade for your Ulfsarks, while Baldr’s Fire Giant will provide some much needed ranged support.

After ten minutes have passed, you’ll be shown a cutscene of Gargarensis’ gathering forces, and then the attacks begin.

New objective: Survive for 20 minutes until help arrives.

So, now for the fun part. You get to engage in 20 minutes of gratuitous slaughter. If you haven’t already, use your healing spring god power around where you expect the fighting to occur so you can heal your units between battles.

Remember to train replacement units as the fighting goes on – Ulfsarks in particular don’t tend to last too long when the enemy is using archers. If enemy siege is targeting your Hill Forts/Towers, try building walls around them, or keeping your army in front of them. Repair damaged structures – it’s a lot cheaper than buying new ones.

About midway through the attacks, enemies will be generated inside the west of your camp, (4) and will head for your Town Center. The first ones will be Battle Boars, followed by Cyclopes – both of which are capable of taking buildings down and stomping your poor villies, so keep your eyes out for these attacks. On the harder difficulties, Gargarensis sometimes deploys an Underworld Passage in the west of your camp, which will generate three successive attacks if you don’t destroy it. (The trigger for this event uses a rather ambiguous condition, so it doesn’t always happen.)

After 20 minutes have passed, Odysseus will arrive in the west of your camp, (4) with a large army of Centaurs, Myrmidons and Hetairoi, and you’ll receive your final objective.

New objective: Fight your way northward to Gargarensis. (5)

This objective is so easy it’s not funny. You’ve got a massive army capable of wiping out some serious opposition, but there’s only a handful of units between you and Gargarensis – who apparently thought it was a better idea to sit out in the open waiting to be attacked than in the middle of say, his own fortress. But ours is not to reason why. We just want to kill him.

Once your units surround Gargarensis, you’ll be rewarded with victory.

On to mission 31

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