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Although you could put together a strong argument that Age of Kings would have been a great game with just the random maps and multiplayer games, the single player campaigns add a few twists that don't appear anywhere else in the game. There are escorts, races, and some pretty tricky stuff tossed into the normal building and breaking things of the other parts of the game. It also happens to be fairly interesting to follow the semi-historical footsteps of some of the great military leaders of the past.

Joan of Arc
The first campaign follows Joan of Arc as she rescues France from British control near the end of the Hundred Years War. You will guide her from her humble beginnings until she gets barbecued. That is followed by a final battle to drive the British from France.

An Unlikely Messiah: Your mission is to simply escort Joan from the camp at Vaucouleurs to the Chateau of Chinon. You start out with introductions from Bertrand and Jean de Metz and then pick up some men-at-arms and archers. Head south from the camp (you will be warned not to head west) and kill the wolves along the path; if you don't, they will attack Joan. You will come up to a battle between the French and British, and as they usually do, the French lose easily. It is a good idea to order your units to stop so that they don't accidentally attack any British after the battle ends.

Light cavalry is especially useful for killing off unguarded enemy trebuchets before they can do any damage to you
As soon as the French are all dead, continue south. The bridge is out (go figure), so you have to take the long way. Shortly after you turn to the west, you will get ambushed by a handful of highwaymen. Dispatch them and then follow the trail to the north and then west. Go across the bridge and into the French village. Here you will pick up more soldiers and a battering ram. Go back across the bridge and leave Joan and the battering ram on the bridge. Set up your army for an ambush and then have a single soldier go south and attack the Burgundian gate. This will cause the four archers inside the town to attack him. Have him run back to the rest of your soldiers and ambush the pesky archers. Move the battering ram up and have it kill the gate, the towers (or play on easy and have no towers) and anything else you don't like in the town. Make sure to move your army into the town because there will be two light cavalry still there.

The next part of the escort is either sneaky and easy, or a lot of mouse gymnastics and hard. If you move your army across the shallows and down to the river ahead, you will run into an ambush and have to get all your troops on three transports before they are killed. If you leave your army next to shallows, you can simply run a single unit to the dock, get the transports, and have them sail up the river to pick up the rest of your army without the need for speed clicking. Sail back to the main river, east, and take the first small channel that heads south.

Although you can do mouse gymnastics to board your transports under fire like this, it is much easier to move the ships first
Land your forces on the north shore at the shallows. Head just a short ways to the north, and you will pick up six more archers and a couple scorpions. Head back across the river where you will get ambushed by highwayman and Burgundians. Once they are gone, you can simply race to the Chateau.

The Maid of Orleans: You start out with a few units and have to first head to Blois to meet up with your army. Burgundian cavalry will ambush you about halfway there, so move slowly and carefully. Once you arrive at Blois, have your army head north and follow the trail that meanders to the northwest, but have the trade carts head due north until they come to the river. Have the carts follow the river rather than the road in order to avoid the enemies. Your army will run into a larger Burgundian ambush, and while they are fighting, the trade carts can drive by, across the bridge, and into Orleans safely. Immediately put your villagers to work and make more villagers. It's also a good idea to send out a unit to explore the area west of Orleans in order to claim the mill and farms that are there.

Once Orleans is yours, fortify your side of the bridge you just crossed. Make sure to put walls, towers with archers, and gates in place so that you do not have to worry about Burgundy or the South British for the rest of the battle. Once that is done, you can simply build up your resources and army normally until you are ready to destroy the North British castle which is in the northwest corner of the map.

Pikeman and skirmishers can team up for a very cheap raiding party. They probably won't be enough to take out an enemy, but they will create a lot of chaos
The Cleansing of the Loire: This scenario starts with you on a small bit of land with only wood available. You can quickly claim two transports and two demolition ships by running to the flag to the west. Immediately move the ships back near the rest of your forces. Have one of your villagers build a tower at the start of the small inlet, and the other three build a town center. Although you cannot mine yet, the wood will let you build farms, and you can build a market to sell excess food and wood in order to pay for your advance to the castle age as well as buy enough stone to build a castle once you are ready to cross the river. You will also want to a bunch of houses and the blacksmith on this strip of land.

After you advance to the castle age, put several villagers on one transport, and five archers on the other. Send them to the far east edge of the screen to land. The area can be quickly sealed off with a few short walls and makes an excellent beachhead. Travel north along the west edge of the screen until you exit the forest. There is gold in the open land here and this is a good place to build a castle as well as the rest of your buildings. You can use the gold to buy stone for fortifications.

Because your access to resources is fairly limited, you are going to want to use lots of pikemen and skirmishers that only require wood and food. You should make sure to fully upgrade your archer and infantry technology at the blacksmith because you will be depending on these units. Send out raiding parties of five pikemen and five skirmishers. These parties will be particularly effective since the British on this map like knights and archers. Also, Burgundy has a village in the center of the map. If you build a few battering rams (cheapest of the siege engines) and add them to your raiding parties, it is possible to knock Burgundy out of the fight early on. This is a good idea since Falstoff tends to get pretty aggressive as time goes on.

The French army preparing to retake Paris. Makes you wonder why, though, since they are just going to lose it again and again and again and...
When you have Burgundy out, build up enough forces to hit all three of the smaller British forts at once. These each contain a castle that is easier to fight than the main British city. Do not attack any of the castles until you are sure you can kill all three at the same time. Once one castle is destroyed, the British will attack in force, and they have a lot more gold than you do.

The Rising: This scenario is much easier than the last one. You start out by heading to the camp, but as per usual, you will get ambushed halfway there. After you dispatch the British Guards, continue on to the flag and you will be given villagers, a town center, and a mill. Immediately go to work building up the area.

This map has a large river that separates you from the enemy. There are only two shallows across it. If you simply send scouts along the trails, you will spot both of them. Do not cross the river yet as this sets off your enemies who will attack and who start out with much larger armies than yours. Instead, simply locate both fords and then fortify your side of the river heavily.

You also want to build a siege workshop as soon as possible. There are plenty of resources on your side of the river, but most of them are guarded by a single tower. Being able to send battering rams to kill the towers makes it much easier for you to get access to those resources.

When you are ready to attack, it is best to start with Chalon (green). They do not have any walls, and only a few towers. That means you should be able to take them out without as many casualties. Also, this will give you access to Troyes without having to fight through the wall on their side of the river.

The Siege of Paris: This map actually has three major sections to it. First, you need to break into Paris. Then, you need to destroy the fortifications in the heart of the city (unless you want to baby-sit the refugees to make sure they don't die). Finally, there is the mad dash to the finish. A good old-fashioned barbecue follows that race.

The final map in the Joan of Arc campaign is the best scenario in the game for setting up a really nasty surprise for the other guys
Your army is a bit too large at the start to manage easily. The best way to overcome this is to break it into three groups. The first group should be your archers, cannons, and trebuchets. Put them in a box formation and give them a hotkey (CTRL+1). They get to do all the real work. The archers will protect the siege engines, and the engines will break down the walls. The second group is infantry and you should hotkey them as well (CTRL+2). Finally, you want your cavalry minus Joan in their own group. This will allow them to move quickly around the battlefield killing the onagers and longbowmen who will be all over the place when you start your assault. Joan gets to sit in the corner since she is too important to risk (if she dies before the refugees escape, you have to start over).

Send your box forward carefully. If it shoots at anything, let it finish before moving it again. Put the infantry out in front of it, and have the cavalry ready to rush monks or enemy ranged units that try and attack it. Continue on until you reach the gates of Paris. This is going to be your biggest fight. You might even consider leaving the trebuchets behind for this one since they won't be of any use, and they make the next fight much easier. Simply get your box into position where the cannon can fire on the gates, put the infantry between the gates and the box, and have the cavalry ready to pounce. As soon as you fire at the gate, the British will come running out of the city. Use the cavalry to kill the siege engines and to chase the longbowmen who cannot fire at targets right next to them. The cannon can also match the longbow range, which will help keep your archers alive.

After you finish off the defenders, move your trebuchets up and kill the towers. You can now safely enter the city, but don't rush through it. There is a well-built castle with extra walls towards the center of town. Your trebuchets can deal with that and you can use your other groups to defend them. Once that is removed, continue through the city. The refugees are on the west side of town next to the river. Collect them and head to the bridge where you won't get your promised reinforcements (surprise surprise).

A Perfect Martyr: Joan is dead, but the war isn't over yet. Your first job is to take over command of the army of the roasted pean…—err—peasant. That is a simple matter of just heading east. Once you have all your troops, your best bet is to set up an ambush and then lead Burgundians back into it. Move the archers up near the shallows of the stream and order them to stand ground. Move the infantry in front of them and put them in a defensive stance. The cannon should go on the east shore of the river just past the bend. This will give your ambush a lovely "L" shape and add crossfire without the risk of hitting your own troops. Leave your cavalry in the rear, but hotkeyed so you can rush them up against Burgundy cannons and monks.

As soon as your ready, send a single scout up ahead and have him knock on the gate. As soon as the enemy starts to attack, run back past the ambush. The Burgundians will follow and will die. Repeat a few times until your don't get attacked when you knock. Move your forces up and break into the Burgundy walls.

It is possible to get Burgundy to resign before you finish the fight. Once you slaughter a couple waves of them, send a few heavy cavalry units to the southeast corner of the map. There is a small Burgundian village. Your cavalry should kill the town center and start attacking the other buildings. Once you do enough damage, Burgundy will resign.

You will be tempted to start building your base inside Burgundy's walls, but that is a bad idea. There is a British base (Shrewsbury) in the northwest corner of the map that is much easier to defend, has plenty of resources inside the walls, and doesn't start with that much of an army, making it an easy target if you attack immediately after beating Burgundy. Try not to destroy any of the walls other than the gates since the other British forces will never attack any walls built by their allies. After you finish off Shrewsbury, you will need to build a full base and conquer the last of the British. The goal is simply to get the trade cart to the flags, but there is no way to do that without first crushing the British. Also, there is a single ford across the river between the British and you. If you fortify those shallows, you can have easy access to all of the resources on your side of the map without worrying about defending your villagers from British raids. Make sure to include trebuchets in those defenses to fire at longbowmen and get them into range of your towers and castles.

mmorphon00@yahoo.com

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Page Updated Mon Feb 28, 2000 8:25pm EST