Path of War, Chapter 6, Mission 1

PATH OF WAR:  LOST KING CAMPAIGN
Chapter 6
Olaf Grimtooth, Your Time Has Come: Mission 1

by Sparrow

Click here for this mission’s saved game or if you would like to add your own walkthrough, or comment on this one.

Mission Briefing:
“Sir William is disheartened after hearing the news. He cares little about the demotion but does not understand why the bond of trust between himself and the king has been broken. I have done my best to relay the stories I have heard.”

Objectives for Victory:

  • Quest: Kill Olaf
  • Quest: Control 6 Estates
  • Quest: Kill Edwin

Losing Conditions:

  • Your Lord Dies

Starting units:18 spearmen, 16 archers, lord
Starting weapons:10 bows, 10 spears
Available units:armed peasants, spearmen, archers, engineers, laddermen, catapults, burning carts
Map size:large
Starting Date:January 1066
Starting Stats:gold 500 | honor 0 | population 0/8 | popularity 80
Starting Goods:50 bread, 50 meat, 100 wood, 75 stone
Buildings added:double thickness walls, siege camp, church, bedchamber, carter post, bee hive, chandler’s workshop, water pot, well, falconer’s post
Buildings lost:stone tipper
Buy/Sell:cheese, wheat, hops, ale, wood, stone, iron, candles, cloth
COMPLETE:    
first quest:Add bastion, mercenary post, monastery, dairy farm, tanner’s workshop, apothecary, courthouse, guard post, torturer’s guild, 10 tortures.
Gain ability to make crossbows and train crossbowmen, buld cats, hire pictish boat warriors, outlaws, thieves.
Game Version:1.2

WALK-THROUGH:

You are situated on a large chunk of land separated from the bulk of the map by a river. Olaf has landed and is building a settlement near your eastern border on your side of the river. All other estates in the area, along with Edwin’s castle, are across the river accessible by only two routes, a single bridge in the southwest, and a series of bridges across some small islands southeast of Olaf. Another river to the south further carves up the land and can be crossed by several bridges.

Chapter 6 has two separate missions. To complete the first, presented here, you must achieve three objectives, or quests:

  1. Kill Olaf, who has made a landing and is building a fort on your eastern border.
  2. Gain control of at least six estates, which includes your own home castle.
  3. Siege Edwin’s castle and kill him.

In the second mission you will occupy the now defeated Edwin’s castle, repair it and its dilapidated economy, and try to repel multiple waves of attackers. I mention this now because a few things carry over between missions one and two.

Many troops, for one thing. Archers and spearmen have a maximum limit of 100 each that can be carried over to mission two. As far as I know all crossbowmen, catapults and laddermen will also be carried over. All your estates can be reclaimed with the click of the mouse, and will also contain all their goods carried over from mission one. However, your food, resources, weapons, gold, honor, population, and popularity will all be reset to starting levels.

Knowing this ahead of time will allow you to make appropriate decisions during play regarding those things that do and do not carry over. You now know that something like building 300 archers is a waste of time unless they are needed to defeat Edwin (which they’re not), since they are not carried over. And I’m not proposing storing huge caches of weapons on estates as this could be considered somewhat of a “cheat”, and it’s not needed. But you do want to pay at least a normal amount of attention to the running of your estates. Neglecting them could put you at a disadvantage later.

There will be some attacks during the initial buildup phase, nothing major, but enough to overrun you if you’re not prepared. As always, building a strong economy in short order will be the ticket to accumulating the gold, honor and weapons needed to build an army up to the job. Slowing the game down and liberal use of the pause key (P) can be a big help in getting a lot of needed buildings placed very rapidly, game time wise.

START BUILDING YOUR CASTLE ECONOMY:
Start by placing your stockpile and granary. Since the stockpile has a lot more resource producing buildings to be placed around it than the granary I placed my stockpile in the center of the largest chunk of open space, south of the keep, between it and the trees to the south. In most missions I place only one stockpile, but in this one because of the varied types of industries you can engage in and the large area available to establish them, you might consider two. This will mean you won’t have to spend as much time selling off excess goods. I placed one to begin. The granary, requiring less space, I put west of my keep in the much smaller area south of the stone deposit. Add three hovels. I grouped mine northeast behind the keep near the shore and eastern border.

Now move all your starting troops to the eastern border to a position a little north of the trees bordering the large open space south of the keep. From here they’re in a good position to intercept attackers advancing high or low on that side.

I recommend placing 20 or so saw pits because it’s advantageous to clear a lot of the timber from certain buildable land so you can use it later on. It’s also not a bad idea since you should be doing lots of building early in this mission. You can use it all for a while, then the excess will bring in good money later. There is another way of clearing trees, which is erecting a segment of wall, placing rolling logs on it, and releasing them in a controlled roll and burn. This will clear all the trees in their path. You have both available, but that’s somewhat of a “trick”, and I want to encourage you to use very “clean”, honorable methods in these walk-throughs. Trickery is not needed to achieve victory in any of these missions. As with other skills that can be learned outside of gaming, it’s best to learn the “proper” way first, then experiment with alternate methods. You’ll become a much better player for it.

I specifically placed a few saw pits by the bushes east of the keep, and one in the back, to clear them out of the way. I like to push back the trees near the eastern border south of the keep to enlarge that huge buildable area on the south, so placed plenty of saw pits around them.

Deleting Saw Pits: CAUTION: when it comes time to remove or relocate them be very careful! The woodcutter goes to a tree, cuts it into a pile of logs, and takes one log back to the saw bit leaving the rest of the pile there. For each load he comes back and gets another log to be sawn. When the pile is used up he cuts another tree and makes a new pile. The problem is, if you delete a saw pit, the log pile remains and prevents building over it. I don’t know of any way to remove a log pile if the saw pit is deleted or destroyed. Only the original woodcutter can do so. Once he is gone you have a permanent log pile and a spot of unbuildable land. So you must wait until the woodcutter picks up the last log in a pile, then delete the saw pit.

Site a market and buy in 70 wood. Next is food production. I placed four apple farms and four hunter’s huts around the granary to start. Leave space near the granary for a gong pit and falconer’s post.

You should get the production of bows going right away. Weapons production buildings should get the very highest priority in placement so they are close to both the stockpile and the armory. This reduces walking time and increases weapons production. Site two fletchers.

Next you can place your treasury, armory (near the fletchers), barracks, lord’s kitchen and bedchamber. When wood starts coming in place four more hovels, a gong pit and falconer’s post near the granary, then eight more apple farms and three more hunter’s huts. At this point you should be able to go to double rations and increase taxes.

Three more hovels should be next, four quarries, nine ox tethers, then two more gong pits and two falconer’s posts, one pair by the stockpile and the other near the hovels.

Another four hovels, eel pond, and two pig farms. You should have a little honor now and can train some archers, plus additional spearmen. Placing some archers near or on the keep would be a good idea until a wall is built. In my case I put them on the barracks, due to its position outboard of the keep.

Around mid to late 1067 you will see attacks by Olaf’s berserkers and Edwin’s spearmen. Your troops, still on the ground, should repel them easily if they’re in position.

As stone comes in start constructing a wall. Attacks will continue to come on the eastern border. I recommend starting at the southern end of this border, as this seems the hardest to defend. Once it gets to the road, start another section at the northern shore and build south toward the road, to meet the first section, but leave a gap at this point. If you put in a gatehouse or block it off completely, attackers tend to redirect their attacks around and over your southern bridge where you have not, as yet, put up any defenses. You could erect a wall earlier, before the first attacks, but it would take much needed wood and gold to purchase it. Much better, I feel to put your resources into infrastructure and even more important, additional archers. It’s not hard to hold off the attacks without walls for now.

When you get enough stone, work on the southern defenses. There’s just enough room between the trees and the bridge to squeeze in a single width diagonal wall, add a gatehouse and lookout tower. Later I added another lookout tower on the southern bulge. Add troops on these defenses when available. Crossfire from archers on the two towers should eliminate all of Edwin’s troops at Much Hemlock. Send in a few spearmen to capture it.

An alternate wall layout is to build one east to west across the southern tree line connecting the wall on the eastern border to the map boundary in the west, and putting a gatehouse in it. The disadvantage to this is it reduces the amount of buildable land inside the castle walls, and it doesn’t provide archer coverage to Much Hemlock, although that could be added. Other configurations would work. Just be sure you’re protected. With the south secure you can thicken the eastern wall and add a gatehouse to complete the perimeter.

You should keep your eye on the woodcutter’s log piles, both at the bushes east of the keep and the trees in the south. As each log pile is exhausted, see which woodcutter it belongs to and delete his saw pit. The only way you can do this is to watch him as he picks up the last log and see which saw pit he goes to. You may not need as many saw pits at this point. Re-establish those you wish to keep out of the way of the freshly cleared land.

Add an engineer’s guild. As gold permits, add six more fletchers, then four poleturners. Establishing a total of eight fletchers will give you plenty of archers and ease your tasks throughout this mission. There’s very few military problems that having more archers won’t solve.

I now added the second stockpile adjacent to, and south of, the first (see screen shot). Then three wheat farms and three hops farms. Buy in five cloth for dresses. Setup two mills, six bakeries, and four breweries. Keep training troops.

Soon you should be able to erect a church and inn. Buy in candles. Increase taxes as you can. Set up chandler’s workshops and beehives if you wish. You can also add sheep farms and weaver’s workshops. Be sure to keep up with hovels and add some more bakeries and breweries. Another gong pit and falconer’s post on the other side of the stockpiles would also be a good idea. Add two more eel ponds. I deliberately left quite a bit of extra room around the armory knowing that when the first quest is completed you will be able to build dairy farms and tanners, among other things.

PLAN YOUR PATH:
The three quests can be done in any order. Olaf, being a nearby threat certainly seems a logical choice to begin with. An easy next step after that would be to buy or capture the six estates you need, or all nine of them if you prefer, leaving the siege of Edwin until last.

However, if you plan to use your estates to produce goods for use in the second mission of this chapter, where you will be defending Edwin’s now captured castle, then acquiring them first might make more sense. It requires fewer troops than attacking Olaf, and will give the estates that much more time to produce larger quantities of goods for mission 2. If you don’t have enough honor yet to purchase those for sale, you can still capture the ones held by Edwin and add the balance as honor is available. Some of the three neutral estates may get captured by Olaf, saving you spending the honor. The most important ones need to be captured anyway.

Another plan, for those who like to build and create overwhelming odds against the enemy, is to capture the estates first, then siege Edwin, leaving Olaf until last. This gives you control of the estates and Edwin’s castle, leaving Olaf, being last, as the trigger for mission 2. By leaving Olaf alive you can take all the time you want to produce goods and weapons in the estates and organize Edwin’s castle to your liking. You can produce and cart in as much as you like, produce as many crossbowmen as you like and stash away as many weapons and goods on estates as you like (as the carry over of trained archers and spearmen will be limited to 100 each for mission 2).

Of course, I don’t think this was the way this mission was intended to be played. I think there is supposed to be a sense of urgency and scrambling to organize defenses for the siege in the second mission. But the option is there.

Defeating Edwin before Olaf will move you to Edwin’s castle, leaving your old castle as a “Friend”, now called Implestow. In taking over his castle you leave all your gold and goods behind at your old castle and inherit Edwin’s. Whatever gold, honor, population, popularity, goods, weapons and food he had replaces your previous amounts. And he may have a fair amount. You will still get the two attacks, one after completing each quest, directed at whichever castle is your current base. So be prepared! They should be Olaf’s troops instead of Edwin’s, however.

Defense against the siege in mission 2 is the most versatile I’ve seen, open to so many ways of approach. Depending on how you design your defenses, you can successfully defend all the way from just your starting troops and completely ignoring economy, population and estates, all the way up to creating many hundreds of spearmen, archers, crossbowmen, pikemen, and catapults, and building a thriving economy, large population and relying heavily on massive amounts of goods from estates. It works any way you want to do it.

So plan your preferred approach and decide what order to complete the quests, how many troops you’ll carry over with you, what kind of defenses you might want, whether you want a large economy, and if and how much you’ll use the estates.

ATTACK OLAF:
The strategy for completing each quest will be basically the same no matter what order they are done in. I’m going to proceed in what seems to me like the easiest and most logical order. Olaf will be first. You can rush and eliminate Olaf at the beginning of the mission before he can build up, but I much prefer to let enemies develop their defenses before attacking. I find it more fun dealing with an enemy once he has a chance to develop his castle and build an army.

When you have a large enough force you can move on Olaf. You have spearmen, archers, catapults and laddermen available, which gives you some choices. Some like to pulverize the fort with catapults, targeting and eliminating most of Olaf’s troops as well, and taking out the mercenary post. Catapults are effective weapons against troops as well as walls and towers. Mop up and final elimination of Olaf is left to the archers and spearmen. An easier method, however is to use laddermen and archers. Olaf’s berserkers and axe thrower’s are just no match for a decent sized force of archers.

I used an initial force of about 60 archers, 40 spearmen, and a couple of laddermen in a technique I call the “Ring of Fire”. Advance the archers, with some spearmen ahead, cautiously just west of Olaf’s saw pits. His berserkers will periodically venture out in small groups to engage you. 60 archers is enough to dispatch these groups with ease. Try not to engage the spearmen, let the archers do their work. Little by little, advance slowly east towards his walls, dealing with the raiding groups and gradually targeting troops inside the fort. Watch out for caged war hounds. Have your spearmen deal with these quickly.

I reinforced the group with another 20 archers. When you are close to the wall and things have settled down a bit, split off half the group and go around north of the stockpile and approach that wall as you did before, eliminating most of the troops inside the western half of the compound. Even though Olaf will continue to make troops at his mercenary post, things will quiet down substantially. When that is accomplished send in a ladderman to both the southern part of the wall and the north. When in place send all archers to the exact middle of the top of the western half of the wall by the stockpile. The wall, being narrow, will force them to fan out in a semi-circle on the wall creating the “Ring of Fire”. They will take out any remaining troops and begin targeting Olaf himself. I had about 70 archers left and it takes very little time to bring Olaf to his knees. A few berserkers may scale the platforms to get at the archers. Use spearmen to take care of these or just let things alone. The archers will deal with them, then continue with Olaf.

INTEGRATE YOUR NEW INDUSTRIES, DEAL WITH CRIME:
Olaf’s fort is destroyed and it now becomes your estate. You will return to the objectives screen to see this quest checked off, then return to the map. You now have available to you bastions, mercenary post, monastery, dairy farms, tanner’s workshops, apothecary, courthouse, guard posts, torturer’s guild and all 10 torture types. You have also gained the ability to train crossbowmen, build cats, and hire pictish boat warriors, outlaws and thieves.

Crime is now added to your concerns so erect some guard posts, a courthouse, torturer’s guild and one or more torture types. A guard post should be placed very near the granary, and optionally one near the hovels, as all criminals steal from the granary, and therefore must travel there. Then establish some dairy farms and tanner’s workshops for leather armor production, and set most of the fletchers to produce crossbows.

Upon Olaf’s defeat it is announced that Edwin has hired a band of thugs, and they will move up from the south. Their path will depend on your castle layout. With the layout I used here, with wall and gate close to, and encircling the southern bridge, the thugs took the longer route across the eastern bridge and attacked my eastern wall. If your southern wall is set much further back they should probably take the more direct path up through Much Hemlock to attack your southern wall. They are mainly lightweights, consisting of spearmen and laddermen, but will erect a siege camp. If you didn’t have trouble with the previous attacks, this should be even easier since you have a lot more troops. Archers eliminate most troops, then spearmen mop up and dismantle the siege camp. You can defend the walls or meet them in the field.

ACQUIRE SIX ESTATES:
While you’re busy equipping and training crossbowmen you can set about capturing the rest of the estates on the map. You only need six, and that includes your own home castle, but it can be advantageous to get them all, as you can get them producing so they will be in good shape in the next mission. Send a group of at least 20-30 archers and 10-15 spearmen over the southern bridge and begin capturing estates by killing Edwin’s troops, then massing at the flag pole until the estate shows your flag. The unoccupied ones usually need to be purchased for 100 honor each. No troops need visit those. Be sure to leave enough troops to protect your castle.

I present many ways to defend Edwin’s castle in mission 2. Some benefit greatly from all the goods your estates can produce and deliver, some don’t need anything from the estates, not a single cart load. If you’d like to have lots of goods available at the estates for mission 2 then follow the advice in the following paragraphs. If not, skip on down. While taking a little time to set up, it’s also a good exercise in estate management, demonstrating their enormous economic power.

Getting Your Estates Producing: (Use this advice if you want to cart in goods in mission 2.) Visually check each estate and add food production. Add buildings until each one has at least four apple farms, three hunter’s huts, five dairy farms, two saw pits, and at least four hovels (more may be needed on some estates). More pitch rigs could also be added at four of the estates. Be sure there are extra peasants available around the flag poles to serve as future carters. This will provide ample stores for you to draw upon in the second mission. Additionally at Tingle Uncton, immediately south of Edwin’s castle, make sure stone quarrying is in full swing. You could add at least two more quarries by moving a few of the ox tethers. And at Harbury, St Columb Minor, and Barns End, I added two hops farms and three breweries on each. The reason for having multiple estates produce ale is that in mission 2 there will be raiding parties of mounted knights who will recapture some estates and try to destroy a lot of carts. Harbury is in a pretty good position with lots of room to brew ale, but is usually captured. St Columb Minor and Barnes End have enough room, are usually not recaptured, and their carts will take different routes. Either one may have many carts destroyed but not both together.

At Dachet Foolbury, east of your old castle where Olaf’s encampment used to be, set up in addition to the basics just mentioned, three wheat farms, two mills, ten bakeries, three hops farms, and four breweries. If you think you’ll need lots of honor in mission 2 you could also set up production of royal food at Dachet Foolbury. Don’t forget a royal kitchen there as well to store it. This is a huge estate and could support lots more production than this. And it’s location is very important because, when carter posts are placed at its borders, they are the second closest to the castle, behind Tingle Uncton.

The object at this stage is to keep as much of the goods on the estates as possible. Therefore, do not build any carter posts. There is also no point in deleting the ones already there as they will be rebuilt automatically. If you really want to conserve every apple and plank you could direct the existing carters to deliver five of any arbitrary goods to the closest neighboring estate, so they just shuffle a small amount of goods amongst themselves.

At Much Hemlock, where iron is produced, it’s probably wise to cart it to St Columb Minor, the next estate over, where it will be relatively close to Edwin’s castle in mission 2. Do this after you capture Much Hemlock and as soon as there is five iron available to transport. You could also delete the existing carter post and rebuild it on the border with St Columb Minor, making the trip exceedingly short. You don’t want Much Hemlock delivering iron to your castle where you can’t use it and it will be unavailable to you in the second mission. If you do end up with some iron by mistake, set up a carter’s post in your castle and send it to Dachet Foolbury or back to Much Hemlock. If you ship it to Dachet Foolbury, escort it if necessary to make sure it arrives.

Keep an eye on Much Hemlock as Edwin may recapture it several times. March some troops out and take it back from him if he does. Do not station troops there because if Edwin is able to recapture it and you still have some troops close by, your troops may kill an iron loaded ox.

Four of the estates also produce pitch which could be similarly conserved, rather than have it go to waste if it’s transported back at your castle. All of this will provide you ample stocks to cart in wood, stone, iron, pitch, ale, four food types, and royal food in the second mission during the siege. You will not be sorry. I had 70 carts running in the second mission on one try.

As soon as you capture six estates you will again be taken to the mission objectives screen to see this second quest checked off, and then return to the map. Your acquisitions will trigger a chastising of Edwin by Angus McLoud. Edwin will then send a larger force from his own castle to try to dislodge you. Your wall at this point should be crawling with archers and spearmen, not to mention crossbowmen. I had over 100 archers, 50 spearmen, and some crossbowmen. Even though he sends archers, spearmen, laddermen, and catapults from his siege camp, Edwin has no chance if you’ve been building along with me. Again, you could meet him in the field and make short work of it. The defensive knot formation can be a good choice here.

With the attacks brushed aside and the estates in good shape, you’re ready to assemble your attack force to march on Edwin’s castle. Remember, while all crossbowmen, laddermen and catapults carry over to the next mission, you will only be allowed to keep a maximum of 100 archers and 100 spearmen.

PREPARE YOUR ATTACK ON EDWIN:
At this point it’s really hard for me to recommend any single size of force to use in sieging Edwin. I’ve easily captured Edwin’s castle with five laddermen and 50 each of archers and spearmen, and then turned around and successfully defended in the second mission starting with the remainder from that group, and without any goods from the estates. If you try the second mission without reading the walk-through first, as you should, and which I highly, highly recommend, you could need many hundreds of various troops, and may still lose on the first try.

So, I’ll leave it at this. Based on my knowledge from playing this chapter many times, I personally would attack with 100 archers and 50 spearmen, 4 laddermen, plus whatever crossbowmen I happen to have. But that’s because I know what to expect and how I will defend. For a first time try without reading the next walk-through I would recommend preparing your estates, as outlined above, and going in with 120 archers, 120 spearmen (with attrition you should have over 100 each left), 50 or more crossbowmen, and a dozen each of laddermen and catapults. Add more crossbowmen and catapults if you wish. Catapults are somewhat effective against siege equipment and very effective against troops.

There are two basic ways to breach Edwin’s castle, knocking a hole in his wall with catapults, or scaling the wall with troops using laddermen. Either method will work quite well in this mission, but you need to be mindful of the fact that you will be taking over and defending this castle in the following mission, and it will be in whatever state you leave it.

I think you’re better off taking Edwin’s castle without disturbing a brick so you won’t have to repair it later. No matter how many troops you decide to use, they can be deployed in the following similar fashion. Attacking on the western flank seems the easiest. Move your archers up incrementally to the southern edge of the westernmost marsh and take out all of Edwin’s troops outside the walls that are in range. Massing them on the edge of the marsh should trip the western set of burning logs, which will be stopped short by the marsh. Inch up until they trip.

When safe, send in four or five laddermen (too many and they’ll spread out in front of the untripped logs). Advance spearmen, archers, and crossbowmen to the base of the wall. Be sure none will spill over in front of the untripped, second set of wall logs to the right. Have a small group of spearmen deal with the war hounds. When ladders are in place send spearmen up, targeting them to the top of the round tower. Send half the archers to the top of the gatehouse, and half to the top of the left-hand wall. Split the crossbowmen, if used, into thirds, one group to the top of the wall, one to the gatehouse, and one to the tower. This troop disbursement for the missile troops is quite arbitrary. Don’t dawdle. Be sure all your troops are up on the walls before the logs reset.

When the walls and tower are clear of enemy, advance all spearmen directly to the top of the keep for Edwin. Do not let them linger and smash any buildings. When engaged, Edwin will give up at a certain point, rather than fight to the death.

Another victory! And on to the second mission in this chapter.

Sparrow

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