Path of Peace, Chapter 4 – Wolf Hunt

by Stratego

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MISSION BRIEFING:

The estate to the north used to be a thriving weaving community, but wolves have recently overwhelmed it. The Lord of this estate, Sir William, has gone on a crusade. In his absence, I charge you to set this estate to rights. I have assigned Constable John Briggs to advise you in military matters.

Objectives

  • WIN – No wolves on the map, and recruit 20 archers
  • LOSE – Your Lord Dies

Map size:  large
Starting date:  continues from end of chapter 3
Starting stats:  Gold: 100, honour: – , population: 8, popularity: 100
Starting goods:  40 wood, 10 stone
Buildings added:  hops farm, brewery, inn, fletcher’s workshop, poleturner’s workshop, treasury, armoury, and barracks
Buildings lost:  none
Buy/sell:  wood, stone, bows, spears

Starting units:  lord
Available units:  archers, spearmen, armed peasants

At the end of mission 3 a big fire almost completely devastated your former settlement, Slaughterford. Thank God, that was close! In the nick of time, you succeeded in moving into your new domicile, Harbury. This time, there are two different threats you have to deal with:
ferocious wolves and periodically attacking outlaws.

The roaming wolves are terrorizing the neighbouring northern province, Wintertop (owned by Sir William), and your borderland as well. However, there’s no hurry to free the map from wolves. We can disregard this task for the time being. At first, let’s concentrate on recruiting the demanded number of 20 archers.

Start with your market, 2 hovels, 4 or 5 saw pits, and 2 hunter’s posts. It’s also advisable to immediately erect one or two wells because of some sources of fire flaring up again in the beginning. If you should lose any farm or other buildings through fire rebuild them quickly. That’s the moment you will get military reinforcements consisting of five archers and ten spearmen. Send your archers up to the right turret of the keep and place your spearmen (defensive stance!) near the signpost and the bridge as you can see on the picture below:

If necessary, buy some wood and stone to build up your barracks and armoury. While the outlaws are approaching, you can additionally recruit a few armed peasants to assist your spearmen in defending the bridge. In this first fight many spearmen will die, but finally your archers should finish any bandit who’s breaking through. If you should really fail to stop them trust in your brave lord, he will come to your aid, at worst… so don’t worry!

As soon as the worst is over, get your weapon production going and simultaneously establish a well-running economy. Purchase 15 stone and place the treasury. Additional apple farms plus more hunters will boost food production, so that you’ll be able to increase food consumption step by step. The more food in your granary the better it will be for your population. It’s easy to understand that actions like that logically affect a rising popularity. Thus, adjust taxes and food consumption to keep popularity high at 100 and keep your people happy.

In this first stage, you will need gold to purchase bows until bow production is running smoothly. Keep on recruiting armed peasants and archers in order to strengthen your defensive position against those repeatedly attacking outlaws.

Bring back life to your former estate Slaughterford (see next picture):

Your neighbour has enough space to rebuild a self-sufficient food industry. Place three or four hovels there and don’t forget to add two carter posts as well (very important!). Then extend the production of apples and reactivate stone production by placing two or three quarries and ox tethers for each. In the course of time, Slaughterford will turn out to be a reliable partner supplying your new home with surplus food and stone. That will allow you to double food rations! Besides, all incoming stones are a welcome commodity for sale to fill your treasury with gold coins.

The Honour Effect

Honour is another essential aspect here. The lord’s kitchen, two pig farms, and two gardener’s huts each are continuously pushing up the honour rate; very important to recruit archers for the keep and spearmen for the bridge without any delay. On principle, there is a second well-working method to keep popularity on a constant high level: Ale!

Heat up both ale production (at least two hops farms, two breweries) and ale consumption (1 inn) as early as possible. When you click on the inn, a small box will appear on the screen. Pull the slider to the left or to the right to adjust ale consumption, (of course) depending on the provisions of ale in your stockpile. If nothing else happens that might badly influence the situation you will keep popularity up (100!) for a long time.

This next picture shows another detail of the economic structure in your new estate, Harbury:

The actual weapon industry looks like this: At least four fletchers and two pole turners are working between stockpile and armoury or as close as possible to those buildings. That’s necessary for a fast and consistent weapon supply. Keep on strengthening your defensive position around the keep, and when you have the 20 archers to meet the goal, don’t stop recruiting more of these units, because the annoying wolves are still waiting for you!

Now you are in a safe position to exterminate all the terrifying beasts. The 20 archers on top of your keep will beat off any assaults of the outlaws; no worries about that!

Deploy a special task force composed of about 12 archers and 12 spearmen, moving them to the northern borderlands. On your path northwards you will track down several small “nests” with lazy wolves hidden under the trees.

Use the following very efficient military convoy formation (see picture above): Spearmen are going ahead, the archers behind them. While the archers are targeting the wolves with hails of arrows, the spearmen will finally finish all wounded animals. Advance carefully until you reach the northern village to rescue the weavers of Wintertop.

When all the wolves are eliminated, you’ve done it well. Victory!

Stratego

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