Bad news

Invade the bandit stronghold in a two-pronged attack to find out what Gargarensis is hiding.

Starting objective: Build up Ajax and Arkantos’ forces and fight your way to the mine. (7)

Difficulty levels:

  • Easy:
    • Gargarensis has less Towers
    • Gargarensis does not cast Meteor when you begin attacking
  • Hard & Titan:
    • No Academy and less Towers at start
    • Gargarensis starts in the Mythic Age

This scenario starts you in an interesting situation – you have two separate towns under your command, but with no access to each other. (Yet.) Arkantos and Chiron command the town to the east. (1) There is plenty of wood and a temple in this area – so use it for gathering wood and favor. To the west, Ajax commands another town. (2) Two gold mines are in this area, as well as some berries and sheep – so obviously you are going to be gathering your gold and food here initially. A relic can be found in the south of Arkantos’ town (3) which you will want to retrieve and put in your temple. (There’s another relic in the far west of the map – but it’s more work getting it than it’s worth.)

At the moment, the only way to move units between one town to the other is to fight your way through several of Gargarensis’ camps, including two fortresses. (4) To make things a little easier, we’re going to set about advancing to the Heroic age as soon as possible and take advantage of Apollo’s Underworld Passage god power. Build up your economy, get lots of villagers working and get the economic upgrades. You can’t scout too far beyond your town at the moment because enemy walls block your progress. (Leave them alone for now – you’ll be attacked sooner if you destroy the walls.)

As soon as you advance to the Heroic age, cast Underworld Passage in each of your towns. Now, you can build up on one side, and if you are attacked on the other, you can hurry your army through the passage to meet the threat. Building walls or a fortress may help slow down attackers as well.

When building up take consideration to the fact you are Zeus – you gain favor extra fast, so myth units are a plus. Athena’s Minotaur is a cheap and all round effective myth unit, and Apollo’s Manticore is a very tough and powerful ranged unit. Advance under Hera if you want to focus on myth units, and get the Monstrous Rampage tech. (+25% to all myth unit damage types.) Apollo’s Sun Ray technology also increases the attack of Manticores. Since you have Athena and Apollo in your pantheon, Hoplites and Toxotes may be good units to focus on as well. If you aren’t using Minotaurs or Colossi, you’ll need some siege weapons to take down enemy Towers. Finally, no matter what units you use, Apollo’s healing temple technology can be useful to heal your units up between attacks.

When you begin attacking, Gargarensis won’t be too happy about it and will cast meteor on Ajax’s Town Center. Plan ahead and space your buildings out to reduce the damage.

When you are ready to attack, take your army through to Arkantos’ town. After you break through the wall, you’ll find two archery ranges. Take these out, then detour west to take out the Fortress. (Enabling you to now take out the buildings outside Ajax’s town when you are ready.) Back near the former location of the archery ranges, punch through the walls and take down the towers to find yet more of Gargarensis’ buildings to the east and one of Gargarensis’ Fortresses to the north. Knock these down and claim the two settlements. (5)

When you’re ready, proceed northwards towards the mine. To win the mission, simply destroy the two Fortresses overlooking it. (6)

On to mission 9

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