Path of Peace, Chapter 5 – Aid for Sir William

by Stratego

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MISSION BRIEFING:

It would appear that something has delayed Sir William on his return from the Crusades, and his people are beginning to run low on food. Make sure you keep them well fed until he returns.

Objectives:

  • WIN – Keep Sir William’s granary from emptying for 24 months
  • LOSE – Your Lord dies

Map size: large
Starting date: continues from end of chapter 4
Starting stats: continues from end of chapter 4
Starting goods: 50 apples, 10 meat
Buildings added: wheat farm, mill, bakery, wooden wall (single/double), wooden platform, lookout tower, small gatehouse, apothecary, gong pit
Buildings lost: none
Buy/sell: wood, stone, bows, spears, cloth, hops, ale
Starting units: continues from previous mission
Available units: archers, spearmen, armed peasants

In mission 5 of the Path of Peace campaign, it’s your task to supply Sir William’s population with food and to keep them from starving for a period of 24 months. Above all, you will learn how to use carter posts very efficiently and quickly.

Sir William’s subjects are suffering from lack of food. Thus, the time has come to activate carter posts, which will play the major role in this chapter. Right in the beginning erect the first carter post in your estate next to the bridge leading to Sir William’s Castle. If there isn’t any free space there, don’t be inhibited to tear down “older” existing buildings (from the previous mission) that would be in your way. It’s quite evident to rebuild those buildings or workshops on different available open areas.

Immediately order your carter post to deliver (continuously) 20 apples to Sir William’s granary in this first stage. Later on, you should step up the rations of apples (50) per delivery as soon as you’ll get transferred extra food supplies by your partner estate, Slaughterford.

Simultaneously turn your own food rations back to “normal” rations. Keeping your ale consumption on the highest level (up to 8), will allow you to easily lower the tax rate down to “normal” or “high taxes”. All these combined actions will constantly guarantee a positive popularity (+2) throughout the entire mission. Control your ale provisions in that case and buy sufficient ale barrels (at least 10-15) if necessary.

Now it’s time to provide Sir William’s growing population with additional food stuff. To put your plan into action, erect a second carter post (in case you haven’t done it yet in the previous mission) in the borderlands of your neighbouring estate Slaughterford, close to the quarries. From there, continuously send 50 apples or meat to Sir William’s castle depending on the amount of food in Slaughterford’s granary. (See picture below).

To refill your food stocks in your main estate it’s a good idea to use another third carter post placed again in Slaughterford providing you with apples to compensate your resulting loss of food. Alternatively, you can try to build a new hovel and supplement your own provisions with additional meat by placing 6 hunter’s posts. If you want to set bread production going, that might take too much time to establish a well-working bread supply in a reasonable way, considering the limited timeline of 24 months. However, in view of subsequent missions, it’s definitely not a wrong decision to vary food supply in the long term.

While your horse-drawn vehicles are busy with delivering the goods to Sir William’s granary you can take your time to strengthen your position against the periodically repeating assaults of the outlaws. If possible, recruit more archers and spearmen with regard to future missions; you will need them, too.

As you can see on the following screenshot, I tried to block the eastern access to my estate close to the mouth of the bridge.

This blockade consisting of a small gatehouse, one lookout tower, and a single wall manned by archers was working pretty well as a deterrent. In fact, the outlaws attempted to advance from the north, but my powerful garrison of 60 archers made short work of these bandits.

By the way, keep a watch on those two scales (time scale and food scale) on the upper left corner on the screen. If there is still enough food in Sir William’s granary and time is running out, you’ll be winning this chapter.

Stratego

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