Robin Hood - Defender of the Crown
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= =
= ROBIN HOOD: DEFENDER OF THE CROWN =
= ------------------- =
= FAQ/Strategy Guide =
= ~ =
= Written by Scottie_theNerd (scottie_thenerd@yahoo.com) =
= Copyright (c) 2006 David Nguyen =
= Version 1.01 =
= =
===============================================================================
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LEGAL DISCLAIMER
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This guide is written by David "Scott Lee" Nguyen, also known as
Scottie_theNerd. Should this FAQ be hosted on any site other than
GameFAQs (www.gamefaqs.com), permission is required from me before hosting.
Distributing this guide without prior permission is a direct violation of
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To gain permission, ask nicely via an email to scottie_thenerd@yahoo.com. This
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Anything resembling spam will be promptly removed.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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To use the index codes for quick navigation, open the search function in your
browser (CTRL + F) and copy/paste the index code. This will take you directly
to the desired section.
1.0 - Introduction.....................................................[INT000]
1.1 - Changes from DOTC..............................................[INT001]
1.2 - Characters.....................................................[INT002]
2.0 - Gameplay.........................................................[GMP000]
2.1 - Objectives.....................................................[GMP001]
2.2 - World Map......................................................[GMP002]
2.3 - Archery........................................................[GMP003]
2.4 - Jousting.......................................................[GMP004]
2.5 - Swordfighting..................................................[GMP005]
2.6 - Field Battle...................................................[GMP006]
2.7 - Siege..........................................................[GMP007]
3.0 - Walkthrough......................................................[WLK000]
3.1 - General Strategies.............................................[WLK001]
3.2 - Prologue.......................................................[WLK002]
3.3 - Early Game.....................................................[WLK003]
3.4 - Mid-Game.......................................................[WLK004]
3.5 - Late Game......................................................[WLK005]
4.0 - Appendix.........................................................[APP000]
4.1 - Unit Types.....................................................[APP001]
4.2 - Legendary Items................................................[APP002]
4.3 - Enemy Lords....................................................[APP003]
4.4 - County List....................................................[APP004]
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1.0 - INTRODUCTION [INT000]
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"It is the dawn of a new age..."
Once upon a time, at the dawn of gaming, there was a platform known as the
Amiga, and on the platform was a gem named 'Defender of the Crown'. Defender of
the Crown featured superb, colourful graphics, catchy music and a plethora of
minigames on the path to the conquest of medieval England. And of course, the
merry men of Sherwood led by the infamous Robin Hood were thrown in too.
Just under twenty years later and after numerous ports, DOTC is brought back by
Cinemaware, recreated from scratch for modern consoles using modern features.
Gone are the sprites of old, replaced by bright 3D graphics. Gone is the
roleplaying and character selection, and in comes the player as Robin Hood
himself, assisted by the crew of Sherwood Forest in a plot-driven recreation of
the classic Defender of the Crown, seeking to wrap England in lincoln green.
Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown is the modern revision of DOTC, initially
released on the PlayStation 2 and later ported to Xbox and PC. Retaining the
core gameplay of the original classic and introducing many welcome changes,
Robin Hood: DOTC allows the next generation of gamers to enjoy what the old
generation enjoyed: a game with simple objectives, easy to pick up and
accessible to any gamer of any age.
This guide has been put together to assist players in understanding the
mechanics of the game and to provide insights into strategy for all the
minigames as well as the overall campaign for England. The FAQ is structured
into the game's separate components in order to allow for easier accessibility,
and hopefully readers will make sense of the wealth of information provided in
this guide.
This FAQ is written mainly off the PC version of Robin Hood: DOTC, which is
practically identical to Xbox and PS2 versions. I have elected to refer to the
controls by their names (Action 1, Action 2, etc.) rather than the default PC
key assignments, and have attempted to note special circumstances for console
players, so this FAQ will hopefully be useful to gamers of all platforms.
Welcome to England, and the dawn of a new age.
===============================================================================
1.1 - Changes from DOTC [INT001]
===============================================================================
Naturally, a game coming from the Amiga to a next-gen console will have some
rather drastic changes. Just as Sid Meier's Pirates!: Live the Life was a major
revamp, so too is Robin Hood: DOTC a major revamp of the original DOTC. This
section will list out the changes made in this version of the game.
---------
General
---------
-As the title of the game suggests, you are no longer a northern lord fighting
to reclaim England. Instead, you play the role of Robin Hood himself, who was
nothing more than a support character in DOTC who slit the throats of an enemy
army several times. Robin Hood will have the support of other key characters to
perform all the duties of an English lord.
-The graphics system is now based on 3D modelling rather than sprites.
-The objective of the game is different. The original DOTC required you to
defeat all rival lords. Robin Hood: DOTC does not require complete conquest,
but requires you to defeat the new archnemesis, King John.
-Since you no longer play as a specific lord, there are no exclusive stats.
There is a leadership and fame rating, but that has no impact on the game.
-The Siege Defense minigame (with the crossbow) has been removed. Sieges are
fought as regular field battles.
-In its place, there is a new minigame: Archery Raid.
-You cannot get married in this game, as you are Robin Hood after all.
-Not surprisingly, you are no longer able to call upon the men of Sherwood to
aid you before a battle. You *are* the men of Sherwood.
-The game is now plot-driven. As you are fighting the war, various events in
the game will prompt you to perform certain missions. There is also a fair bit
of dialogue throughout the game, as well as a few cutscenes.
-A new option is available to pay off King Richard's ransom in installments.
Doing so will gain you more reinforcements at various points.
-There are no allies. While DOTC had a limited alliance system (you were allied
with some lords, but they could freely conquer your lands while you had to
request permission to walk through their land without triggering war), Robin
Hood: DOTC's lords are all hostile to each other.
-Defeating an enemy lord yourself by taking his home castle allows you to
obtain one of four items that enhance your abilities in Archery, Swordfighting,
Siege and Jousting.
-There are now "special" counties on the world map that, if held, allow you to
recruit certain units for reduced prices.
-Recruitment can be done in any county instead of your home county, and you can
recruit directly into your campaign army without the need to transfer troops.
Recruitment does not automatically end a turn either.
-Money is more readily available. Instead of earning a few gold per turn, you
know earn hundreds. This is to support larger armies than DOTC.
--------------
Field Battle
--------------
-The entire system has been changed. You still use a variety of units, but
battles are now based on a bowling-alley style of combat rather than a static
battlefield with you issuing or changing orders. See the Field Battle section
for more details.
-You'll be using larger armies in battle. Rather than a maximum of 250 troops
in an army, you can have up to 400.
-The Soldier class has been changed to the Peasant class, which serves the same
purpose as cheap but weaker infantry.
-A new class, Footmen, has been introduced. Footmen are more expensive infantry
but are more powerful, though much less so than Knights.
-Archers can now be recruited into armies, serving as indirect fire support
along with catapults.
-Each unit type can be commanded individually, and each have their own special
attacks, which can increase defense or offensive capability.
-When attacking a fortified position (eg. a castle), undamaged walls now
appear, reducing damage to the defending forces.
-Enemy campaign armies can retreat instead of automatically fighting to the
death.
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Jousting
----------
-Charging at each other down the lists is still the same. However, the melee
component has been removed. Jousting is based on a 3-point system consisting
purely of breaking lances into each other rather than bonking someone over the
head with spiked ball.
-Players now need to mash buttons in order to determine the speed of the mount.
A very fast attack will knock your opponent off their horse completely, while a
slow attack will fail to break your lance, rendering the bout a draw.
-You can still pick your opponents, but you cannot pick to joust for Fame or
Land. Jousting has three set rounds to joust for the following in order: Fame,
Gold, Land.
-It is no longer possible to kill your opponent's horse, so you cannot be
expelled from the tournament in disgrace.
-Tournaments now end everyone's turn instead of just yours, so you can
capitalise on your winnings and not lose your land the next turn.
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Swordfighting
---------------
-There are many more environments to fight through, including dungeons,
rooftops and banquet halls, instead of the same courtyard and the same stairs
(although they're still here).
-The combat system has been revamped. Rather than blocking, stabbing and
walking back and forth, swordfighting now consists of high and low attacks,
combos, ducking, jumping and parrying. See the Swordfighting section for more
details.
-Enemies are slightly more varied. Instead of fighting generic guards, you now
fight against generic guards and the occasional knight, who is just like a
guard with more health and a funny-shaped helmet.
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Siege
-------
-The premise of sieging is the same: knock down walls and send in Greek Fire.
-In DOTC, you didn't need to breach a wall, as all you had to do was nick off
the top and use that gap to send in Greek Fire and Disease. In Robin Hood:
DOTC, breaching walls removes fortifications in the field battle component.
Also, you cannot begin a field battle without breaching at least one wall.
-DOTC sieges took place over half a dozen days lobbing one boulder on each day.
Sieges in Robin Hood: DOTC cover four days, with each day giving you a certain
time limit to lob as many boulders as you can at enemy walls, which are now
more resilient and require more pounding.
-You can now pick which side of the castle you want to bombard. There are four
sides, and each side contains a unit-specific building. Destroying the building
will significantly reduce the defending garrison before the battle.
-Enemy walls now have archers, which will shoot back. Taking too long to damage
walls will result in heavy attrition for your men and catapults.
-There is now an actual purpose to having more than one catapult. With
multiple catapults (not more than 10), you can "charge" your attack, and a
fully charged attack will allow multiple catapults to lob their payloads onto
the same point of aim with some inaccuracy, making it more devastating against
walls.
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1.2 - Characters [INT002]
===============================================================================
Anyone who knows anything about Robin Hood would probably be aware of who's who
in Sherwood Forest. Nonetheless, Robin Hood: DOTC gives each character a unique
role to play. While the player is essentially fighting all of England in the
name of Robin Hood, you will actually assume the role of different characters
to perform certain actions, each reflected in the World Map options. This
section will also include villains and support characters.
*Note about rivals:
-The rival lords in the game are randomly generated from a list of characters.
Games will have different lords starting in different positions on the map, and
they all behave the same. The only character (other than you) to start in every
game is, naturally, King John.
***************
The Good Guys
***************
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Robin Hood
------------
Robin Hood...well, he's Robin Hood! Stealing from the rich and giving to the
poor, and so on. Robin is the main character of the game (which makes sense,
considering how the game *is* named after him) and will be the primary
character in the advancement of the plot. Yeah, there's everyone else in
Sherwood Forest, but everything revolves around Robin.
Gameplay-wise, Robin is used to perform raids. He can carry out archery raids
on caravans and sword raids on castles. Robin won't be leading any armies or
jousting, but he's a crucial moneymaker, and his portrait will contain the
journal entries and hints in the game.
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Maid Marian
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Robin's beloved. Marian, being of the upper class, is able to enter and leave
the royal courts around England at whim. As Robin's love, she's also crucial in
advancing the plot throughout the game, typically taking verbal jabs at Robin.
Marian's special ability on the World Map is to gather intelligence. When she
is available, you can send her to any region on the map. After a few turns, she
will return to report on troop numbers. A handy thing to have, although you
probably won't be paying much attention to them.
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Little John
-------------
Little John fills the role of the guy who says "G'day mate!". Accent aside,
Little John is responsible for leading Robin Hood's armies and acting as field
commander.
On the World Map, Little John is the person to turn to for recruiting forces in
any region, as well as moving the campaign army around and engaging in battles
and sieges.
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Wilfred of Ivanhoe
--------------------
A knight of the realm (and in the original DOTC too) and one of Marian's close
contacts. Wilfred lends his assistance to further Robin's cause by persuading
other knights to enlist in his army.
Being a knight, Wilfred is the only one who can participate in tournaments.
Wilfred can call a Tournament on the World Map and joust for fame, gold and
land. Wilfred is also the person to turn to in order to build castles.
As a bit of a trivial thing, Wilfred of Ivanhoe claims descent from Cedric of
Rotherwood, another playable character in the original DOTC.
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Friar Tuck
------------
The bumbling friar appears now and then to give Robin and his merry men some
good advice and a bit of preaching while he's at it. Friar Tuck will appear
every few turns on the World Map in order to collect funds to pay King
Richard's ransom.
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Will Scarlet
--------------
Robin's "nephew", Will is ruthless and bloodthirsty, often at odds with Robin's
rather passive approach on the struggle. Will is not an important character,
but he appears from time to time to advance the plot.
**************
The Bad Guys
**************
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Prince John
-------------
Brother of King Richard the Lionheart and usurper of the throne of England.
King John's done no favours for himself for backstabbing the royal court (hence
why we're stuck in this jolly little war). King John will be your nemesis
throughout the game and is the most powerful faction in England. He has his
base in Cornwall, in southwest Britain, and is coloured purple.
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Sheriff of Nottingham
-----------------------
Robin Hood's first nemesis, the Sheriff of Nottingham sees Robin as nothing but
a thorn in his side. The Sheriff will challenge Robin for supremacy over
Nottingham at the beginning of the game, and appears occasionally for plot
purposes.
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Guy of Gisborne
-----------------
A ruthless assassin hired to hunt down Robin Hood. Guy of Gisborne knows no
mercy or respect, not even to his master King John. Guy has no direct impact on
the game, but is a crucial character in the plot.
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2.0 - GAMEPLAY [GMP000]
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Like the original DOTC, Robin Hood: DOTC offers numerous minigames to break the
monotony of conquering England. These include innovative field battles, classic
sieges, exciting jousts and epic rooftop swordfighting. I have divided this
section into these components, and each section contains instructions, notes
and strategies on their respective minigames.
===============================================================================
2.1 - Objectives [GMP001]
===============================================================================
In DOTC, your objective was to defeat all the other lords, even your allies.
This requirement is no longer present in Robin Hood: DOTC. Instead, you have
one objective:
**TO WIN THE GAME: You need to be the one who defeats King John**
Just to make it clear:
-King John (purple) must be defeated by YOU, the player.
-If another lord defeats King John, you WILL LOSE the game.
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"Oh crap, but one of the lords starts right next to him!"
-----------------------------------------------------------
True, one of the lords starts in central England, while King John always starts
in Cornwall in southwest England, meaning that those two will be the first to
square off. Seem risky to your goal of English domination?
Don't worry. King John is around twenty times more powerful and wealthier than
any of the starting lords. That unfortunate lord will be in a precarious
situation. He'll probably have some success in recapturing territories, but his
home castle will always be under threat. Prince John will play with his food
for a bit, but he'll crush the lord sooner rather than later. If you want to
collect all the special items, you'll need to help the lord fend off King John,
since you probably won't conquer him anytime soon. You can do this by taking
King John's lands during tournaments. See the strategy guide and Jousting
sections for more information.
Basically, don't worry about the other lords taking King John on. They'll fail
miserably unless you cripple John and the central lord is getting the upper
hand against him. Then you'll need to start helping John and crippling the
lord.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Oh, that means I can make a beeline and wipe him out straight off..."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In theory, yes, but you'll have a HELL of a time doing that. As I said above,
King John is around twenty times more powerful than you are. He'll start off
with a fully equipped army and plenty of gold to waste while you're trying to
piss off the northern lord with arrows. Not to mention that you're nowhere near
his home castle at the beginning. He'll crush you, and he will keep on stomping
you if you pick a fight with him until you get a strong army with plenty of
Knights.
-------------------------------------
"Okay...so, what the hell do I do?"
-------------------------------------
Basically, follow a policy of containment. Let the other lords do whatever they
want, but make sure King John doesn't conquer too much territory. Take the time
to crush the other lords, since you'll need their territory for money, their
castles for items, and their silence to stop them from wasting your time. If
one of the other lords looks like he's about to attack King John, maul him with
your troops. More details in the strategy guide section.
===============================================================================
2.1 - World Map [GMP002]
===============================================================================
The world map is where you'll be spending most of your time. Unlike the boring
map of DOTC, you now get a bright and colourful map of England, filled with
trees, rivers, mountains, castles and even miniature knights charging down the
lists.
There are plenty of things you can do in this part of the game, so I will
describe by their respective sections.
----------
Features
----------
England can be somewhat intimidating for a first time player with so much
happening on screen. Actually, there isn't much the world map shows, mostly
being eye candy.
Firstly, there are two methods to view the world map. One is the normal world
view, which is what you start off with by default and contains all the pretty
trees and mountains. Selecting the zoom button will take you to the overview
map, which is a basic political map of England. The political map will makes it
easier to navigate as well as see the important contents of each county, such
as fortresses, garrisons and armies. Note that the world map is the only way to
see which counties have ports, important for King John's invasions.
When you end your turn through performing an action, each lord will make their
moves on the world map. This process is very tedious, and you can accelerate
the process by pressing an Action button during the AI turns, which will take
you to the political map showing you the enemy moves in short.
A brief list of things you see on the world map:
- Counties:
The bread and butter of Defender of the Crown. Ownership of counties is
represented by a coloured flag on the world map, and a solid colour on the
political overview. County borders can be seen when highlighted, but otherwise
the counties are not distinguished on the world map. Note that whatever is
inside the counties is of no relevance.
- Armies and Garrisons:
Garrisons are represented by a foot soldier while campaign armies are
represented by a mounted knight. Next to these indicators are chevrons which
indicate the relative strength of the army. One chevron armies contain a small
number of troops, whereas three chevron forces are full-strength.
- Strongholds
These castles represent counties which need to be sieged in order to be
conquered. At the beginning, only the four rival lords, Robin Hood and King
John will have castles in their home counties. Note that King John's castle in
Cornwall looks quite different from the others, and this is reflected in the
very challenging siege it requires to capture it (see the Walkthrough for more
details).
- Tournament Venues
These are shown by miniature knights running back and forward. These don't
actually mean anything, but on the world map they do show which counties are
home counties. The home counties never change though, so it shouldn't be hard
to remember where they are.
- Ports
Certain counties located by the sea contain ports. These cannot be see on the
political overview, but can be seen on the geographic world map. Ports are
represented by a couple of small wooden wharves. These cannot be used by the
lords, but can be used by King John to launch surprise naval invasions. It is
good advice to defend these counties well, unless you want an army of purple in
your backyard.
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Characters
------------
On top of the screen are available characters, each with their own role in the
game. Some of them are always available, whereas some appear once every few
turns. The character portraits will also reflect how well you've been doing in
previous missions as well as reflecting plot development. Characters can be
depressed, smiling graciously or battered and bruised based on what's been
happening.
*ROBIN HOOD*
Not surprisingly, the main character of the game. You won't actually be using
him very often apart from raiding. His options are as follows:
-Raid Enemy: Participate in an Archery or Sword raid
-Read Journal: Read entries for game help and story development
-Browse Map: Look around England
Raiding is one of your primary sources of income early on. You can raid enemy
castles as well as ambush caravans. For more information, refer to the Archery
and Swordfighting sections. To launch a raid, select the Raid Enemy option from
the menu, then select a valid target, indicated by sword and target icons in
the overworld view, or by the home castle and caravan pieces on the world map.
The journal entries act as a record of game help. As you uncover new game
mechanics, you can review the in Robin Hood's journal, which include things
like troop types, instructions for raids, legendary items, and much more.
Browsing the map allows you to zoom around England to check on the various
counties. There's not much point to it though.
*LITTLE JOHN*
Little John is in charge of your armies, and appropriately his options pertain
to recruitment and attack.
-Attack County: Use your campaign army to attack another county
-Transfer Forces: Move troops between counties and your army
-Recruit Forces: Hire more men for your army or garrisons
Attacking a county is self explanatory. You can only attack a county that is
adjacent to your own. Your army will move itself across the map to the target
county automatically, so you don't have to shuffle your army around all the
time. If a county is undefended, you will capture it without a battle. If there
is a garrison, you must fight the garrison in a field battle, along with the
campaign army if it is present. Attacking a castle will force a siege if you
have catapults, or else you will be unable to attack it. If you select one of
your own territories, your army will simply move there. This can be helpful for
defending against an enemy push into your territories.
After a successful field battle, the county will become yours. If you lose an
attack, then your army will return to where it came from. If you lose a
defending field battle, you lose the county. If you lose your home county, you
lose the game. Note that capturing a rival's home county will cause all of his
holdings to become neutral; they will not automatically join your faction.
To recruit troops, you need to select the county you want to place the troops
in. To recruit into your campaign army, select its current location and you can
select it from the next menu. When recruiting, the following opens up:
---------------------------------
| COST AMOUNT |
| 1 Peasant x |
| 4 Archer x |
| 5 Footmen x |
| 15 Knight x |
| 25 Catapult x |
| |
| ACCEPT |
| Recruit into: |
| Campaign Army |
| |
---------------------------------
This scroll lists the cost of unit type, how many of the unit you have in
total, and where you are recruiting the troops to (Campaign Army or County
Garrison). Note that your Campaign Army can hold a maximum of 400 troops in
total, while counties hold 100 troops unless upgraded with a stronghold (see
below). Capturing certain counties will also reduce the cost of certain troop
types.
*WILFRED OF IVANHOE*
Wilfred of Ivanhoe, being the only knight in your merry band of men, is in
charge of things that knights do: build castles and joust. I'm sure knights do
other things too, but they do tend to do those two in particular.
-Build Stronghold: Fortify a county
-Hold Tournament: Participate in a joust
Fortifying a county requires a lot of gold. There are three levels of
fortifications, each coming with a set number of defenders. Select the type of
stronghold you want to build it. Enemy lords aren't very good at sieging, so
you won't need the best castles all the time. However, bigger strongholds allow
you to support more troops in a county. Make sure you recruit more men to
defend your new stronghold. When building a stronghold, the following
information will appear:
-----------------------------------------
| COST MAX GARRISON |
| 500 Keep 200 |
| 25 Archers |
| 15 Footmen |
| |
| 900 Castle 300 |
| 50 Archers |
| 35 Footmen |
| |
| 1200 Fortress 400 |
| 80 Archers |
| 60 Footmen |
| |
-----------------------------------------
This scroll lists the cost for each type of Stronghold, the amount of troops
that come with the purchase, and the maximum number of troops the garrison can
hold. Note that these prices are for building a stronghold on a vacant county.
Upgrading a stronghold will be cheaper. Also note that capturing the county of
York will reduce the cost to build strongholds. Note that there is a fourth
level of stronghold, Palace, which is unattainable. King John starts with a
Palace in his home county of Cornwall.
Holding a tournament costs 400 Gold, and ends the turn for all lords. The
tournament will open up the Joust mini-game, where you can joust for fame, gold
and land. You can only hold one tournament every few turns. See the Joust
section for more information.
*MAID MARIAN*
Being an aristocrat, Marian can enter royal courts at whim. Apart from
advancing the storyline, Marian has only one option on the world map:
-Spy: Gather information on a county
To spy, select the desired county from the world map. Marian will disappear
from the character portraits and will reappear several turns later, providing
you with the intelligence. Marian's agents will continue to provide
intelligence, so you will always receieve up-to-date details of garrisons when
you browse the world map.
*FRIAR TUCK*
Friar Tuck appears once every few turns for one reason:
-Pay Ransom: Gather gold to pay Richard's ransom
Tuck is intent on paying King Richard's captors the requested amount of gold to
free him. This total amounts to 10,000 gold, which is a LOT of gold for the
early game. Consequently, you should hold off the ransom until late game when
you have plenty of money lying around.
As you pay off more of the ransom, you'll be rewarded with knights. The more
ransom you pay off, the more knights join you during your conquest. Ultimately,
you will get 100 free knights in the final battle against King John. Since King
John has a backup army, these knights will be essential. Don't trigger the
final battle without paying off the ransom in full.
Unfortunately, there's no way to accelerate the transfer process, so you'll
have to sit there and wait until you transfer thousands of gold from your
coffers to Friar Tuck's little bag.
---------------
Ending a Turn
---------------
The world map section of the game is turn-based, and you will always have the
first turn. In the original game, almost any action would end the turn. Robin
Hood DOTC is more liberal with its actions, so you can do quite a few things
before ending a turn.
The following actions will automatically end a turn:
-Capturing a county (regardless of field battle or result)
-Performing a raid (regardless of success)
-Participating in a tournament (ends turn for everyone)
The following does NOT end a turn:
-Recruiting or transferring forces
-Moving the campaign army into a friendly county
-Building strongholds
-Paying off ransom
-Launching a spy mission
-Reading a journal entry
There is no way to end a turn manually. You MUST undertake some sort of action
in your turn.
----------
Counties
----------
England, as residents know, isn't just one big slab of land; it's divided into
smaller counties. Robin Hood uses counties as a method of measuring how much
land a lord owns. Lords will fight each other for control of more counties in
order to gain more money from taxes.
Several counties can also be grouped together to form "territories". For
example, the counties of Nottingham and Derby together form the territory of
Nottingham. When a lord owns all of the counties in a territory, he gains bonus
income from all of the counties combined. Losing a county, however, will also
nullify the territory bonus. There is no partial territory bonus. Most
territories contain two counties, but some contain three.
Counties are won and lost through field battles (see Little John above). If a
county has a stronghold in it, a siege is necessary before the field battle.
Ownership of county is represented by the lord's coloured flag on the world
map, or by the solid colour on the overview map.
Each lord starts off in a home county. If this county is taken, the lord is
eliminated regardless of how many counties he has remaining. This also includes
you as the player, so losing Nottingham will end your campaign prematurely. As
Wilfred of Ivanhoe points out: "Defend it as if you would defend your own
life."
Other counties are notable in certain aspects. Some counties, such as York,
Warwick and Somerset, provide discounts to training troops or building
strongholds. Some counties also have ports on the world map, allowing King John
to launch surprise naval attacks.
For a full list of counties, see the Appendix.
--------
Events
--------
As the game progresses, various events will pop up. Some of these are scripted
events that progress the story, while other events are optional, allowing you
to play a minigame in order to attain an extraordinary benefit. These optional
missions will pop up sporadically throughout the campaign.
A third type of event involves the amount of income you earn. Occasionally, you
might receive a bonus in the amount of income you gain. On the other hand,
there is a random chance that you will gain very little income.
===============================================================================
2.2 - Archery [GMP003]
===============================================================================
Archery will be the first minigame you'll experience, as you happen to be
ambushing a hapless merchant when the game's intro is played. You'll be playing
as Robin Hood in this scenario, and veterans of DOTC will need to get used to
this entirely new aspect of conquering England.
The mini-game plays out like this:
Robin Hood will be perched in a tree. A convoy of wagons, carts and riders will
pass beneath you. Your objective is to take out as many soldiers as possible,
each giving you a certain amount of gold. At the end of the raid, you'll give
presented with the total amount of gold captured.
To start a raid, click on Robin Hood's portrait on the World Map and select the
"Raid Enemy" option. Find one of the caravans on the map and select that county
to raid it. Occasionally you will be prompted to raid targets of opportunity,
such as procuring food or wiping out reinforcements, which are exactly the same
in gameplay with the only difference being that there are a lot more troops.
The advantage of an archery raid is that if you fail, you will not be captured
by the enemy. Rather, you will withdraw from the ambush with no gains. The
disadvantage is that an archery raid will obtain less gold than a sword raid.
As with Swordfighting, Archery raids have two ratings: Difficulty and Profit.
They're directly related; you'll never have a trivial Worthy raid or a
challenging Pittiance raid.
The following are the maximum values for raids. The amount can vary with
different numbers of troops, and you'll need to take them out yourself. As a
rule of thumb, anything less than Worthy is not worth your time.
Pittiance: 150 - 195 Gold
Worthy: 250 - 295 Gold
Note that archery raids can never attain Kingly Sums. Those are reserved only
for Sword raids.
----------
Controls
----------
Action 1........Shoot/Zoom
Action 2........Dodge
--------------
Instructions
--------------
Apparently there are only two types of roads in England: one that goes over a
bridge, and one that goes through a forest. Your ambush will randomly take
place in one of these places, with some variety in angles and time of day.
They're all the same, although some angles allow more time for targets to head
straight at you.
No targets will appear for a few seconds, but the first few riders will appear
soon enough. The convoy will appear in waves of two or three riders, with one
appearing just as the previous one reaches the half-way point. The riders will
be oblivious to your presence unless they become spooked, in which case they
will spur their horses and run faster.
There are no crosshairs in this game. Your point of aim will be the tip of your
arrow. Your shot will travel straight for short distance before falling to the
ground. You will need to compensate for the drop when aiming for further
targets. All enemy targets take one hit to knock down, although knights will be
protected by shields, requiring a headshot or the Bow of the Crusades.
To loose your arrow, press Action 1. Holding Action 1 will have a zoom effect,
allowing you to aim more accurately. Note that it does not make the shot any
more accurate, and is slower to aim and fire.
A few targets will be armed with bows and will open fire once they're within
range. Most of their shots will miss, but you will be warned of accurate shots
in a Time Crisis-like manner. If you are looking at the target, you will see a
large cross appear, indicating the cross-section of the arrow heading your way.
You will also hear a high-pitched whistle.
When this happens, press and hold Action 2 to duck behind cover. Enemies will
still fire at you, but you will be immune to any attacks. On the other hand,
you will be unable to return fire unless you remove yourself from cover, and
you will be unable to see the convoy at all. Furthermore, the enemy can still
make accurate shots at you, with the possibility of you being pinned down. Note
that enemy shots have inconsistent travel time. A direct hit can take anywhere
between 2-4 seconds to go pass, with less time when they close the distance.
The raid ends when the convoy has passed.
---------------
Target Values
---------------
Soldier: 5 Gold
Archer: 5 Gold
Saddlebags: 35 Gold
Knight: 15 Gold
Carriage: 100 Gold
Wagon: 100 Gold
------------
Variations
------------
-Random: A maiden is sighted in carriage with a much larger convoy equivalent
to a Kingly Sum. Shoot the escort, and take out the driver of the carriage to
gain a 100 Gold bonus. If you fail to take the carriage, you won't get the
bonus.
-Event: Will Scarlet scouts an enemy column moving through a forest. Killing
these men will net very little gold, but will cripple an enemy army. Usually
only happens once in a game, and early on.
-Event: An enemy army has taken provisions from local peasants. Completing this
mission will increase your fame.
-Event: An enemy convoy is carrying surplus weapons. Take out the convoy to
get bonus troops.
-------
Notes
-------
-The actual composition of a convoy can differ, but the total amount of gold
available will be similar. Sometimes you will get more saddlebags, sometimes
you
will get more wagons.
-If you shoot a rider's horse, they will be spooked and will sprint through the
remainder of their section.
-Riders won't get spooked easily. Generally, they'll run if you miss them
several times or if they see one or more of their buddies drop dead in front of
them.
-Archers will never sprint; they will shoot you all the way. The exception is
if you shoot their horse.
-Likewise, Knights will never sprint unless you shoot their horse.
-Carriages and wagons can sprint too. Any archers in the back will continue to
shoot even while the wagon is sprinting.
-You cannot claim a wagon unless you kill ALL the occupants. That includes the
driver, archer and any footmen riding in the back.
-Alternatively, you only need to take out the driver to claim a carriage.
-You cannot shoot through branches. Doing so will slam it into the tree,
obscuring some of your vision. On the other hand, the forest stage seems to
allow you to shoot through tree trunks.
-All riders die with one hit. Knights have a shield, so you'll to shoot them in
an uncovered area unless you have the Bow of the Crusades.
-Conversely, you can only take 3 hits before you fall out of your tree. You
won't be captured though, and you can retreat anytime.
-The tracer animation is somewhat deceptive. Sometimes it will go straight
through a target without hitting it. If that happens, just reacquire your
target and fire again.
-If you choose to retreat, you will go away empty-handed and lose some
leadership rating, which doesn't have any real impact on the game. If you lose
all your health, you will also come out with no profit. Obviously, it's better
off staying in your tree for as long as you can.
-There's a bit of a glitch with the forest stage. Sometimes a target will drop
dead spontaneously without you even looking at him. Voodoo, perhaps? In fact,
some of the troop models are reused, so if you shot a rider in the head, you
might see another with an arrow through his head spawn at the other end. This
forest is creepy...
-----------------
Tips & Strategy
-----------------
-Archery is probably the *least* useful mission to undertake, although it
probably requires the most skill. Tournaments offer big bucks for little
effort, conquering territory means more long-term revenue for little effort,
and swordfighting takes quite a bit of effort and brings in a lot more money
than ambushing. Archery might be safer, but if you're good at swordfighting,
risk isn't a problem. All-in-all, Archery can be a novel way of getting money,
but there are more efficient ways. You might prefer it at the beginning when
most lords are poor (except King John), but towards the end it will quickly
lose its worth, along with making the Bow of the Crusades the least useful
special item.
-In general, aim for the centre of mass. Best part to aim for is their chest,
stomach or hip. Don't bother with headshots; the targets are too small for that
kind of accuracy. You're Robin Hood, not Orlando Bloom.
-If in doubt, aim lower and more to the left than what you think. Targets move
faster forwards than sideways, and aiming at this point would reduce the
chances of the shot flying overhead or into the horse.
-Targets are quite slow and bumble along haplessly, although their paths are
never perfectly straight. Their slow speed might make it hard to predict where
they will be when you shoot. It's often easier to shoot a sprinting target than
a trotting one. Keep that in mind if you accidentally spook a rider.
-Prioritise your targets. Archers are the most dangerous: you can't take out
anything else if they keep forcing you behind cover. Take that out ASAP,
especially the ones with saddlebags. If there are any carriages or wagons,
focus on that. Then take out riders with saddlebags, then knights, then regular
riders. This should net you the highest profit if you don't have perfect
accuracy.
-Don't stay stuck to a target. If you can't hit one and they start moving
behind you, let them be. If you keep shooting until they disappear, you'll miss
your best opportunity at the next wave. Forget about being perfectionist and
just take the easy shots, otherwise you'll find yourself overhwhelmed with
archers.
-Accurate enemy shots still take several seconds to reach you, depending on how
far away they are. You can see the arrow coming, so if you're risky you can
spend a few more seconds taking shots until it's just about to hit you, then
duck.
-Try to practise shooting zooming. Zooming takes time and slows your rate of
fire down drastically. It might be acceptable for the early missions, but later
one when you're loosing arrows by the handful at dozens of targets, you're
going to need much shooting time as possible. Most of the distances won't
require zooming, and once you get the hang of the trajectory you can snap to
the require point of aim and pressing the action button instinctively.
-The bridge stage is by far easier than the forest stage, regardless of what
angle or time or day it is. All enemies head down one path, and certain angles
give you straight shots. There's a branch in the way, but you can shoot between
the branch and the trunk, and this is a very convenient point of aim as the
riders appear through this gap. Aim slightly above their heads when they appear
to get the right range, then bring the aim down to their heads and chests once
they get to the bridge. Any closer and it's a direct shot.
-There is one bridge mission where you are so close to the ground that you can
almost touch your target. This one requires direct aim for almost every shot,
and it's quite hard to dodge enemy arrows on time.
-The forest stage is difficult, since the riders will split down three paths in
the middle, with two of them being obscured by trees. Try to take them out at
the far end, aiming well above their heads due to the longer distance. However,
once they approach the middle, aim towards their torso, as their forward
movement will cause your arrow to overshoot. It's quite hard to get the archers
who take the side paths, but when they appear they can be shot with direct aim.
-All wagons net 100 gold, but you have to take out all the occupants, including
footmen and archers. The best wagon is the ale wagon, carrying three barrels in
the back. All you need to do is take out the driver and you get 100 gold. Easy.
-Even though you're only pushing a button, treat it like real archery. Keep
calm and take the time to aim. You're not a machine gun; you need to make the
shots count. Keep your aim smooth; don't make sudden sharp movements. If you
can't get a target by half-way, let it be; you'll become flustered looking back
and forth.
===============================================================================
2.4 - Jousting [GMP004]
===============================================================================
Probably one of the most enjoyable minigames in the original DOTC, Jousting
still has its characteristic first-person lance aspect. However, the objective
is no longer to beat your opponent senseless with a mace. Instead, you'll be
purely running up and down the lists based on a point system. And, if you've
seen A Knight's Tale, you'll know exactly how it works. Sorry, someone HAD to
mention it; it's like writing a guide for Sid Meier's Pirates! and not
including an arrgh-joke.
Jousting occurs during tournaments. To hold a Tournament, click on Wilfred's
portrait on the world map and select "Hold Tournament". You'll need around 150
Gold to host a tournament, and you can only host one every few turns. However,
I heavily recommend you host whenever you can, as you can easily win back the
gold and expand your territory. See the strategy section for more info.
In the ported versions of the game (i.e. non-PS2 versions), jousting has been
added to event-triggered minigames. In this case, another lord might hold a
tournament, allowing you to partake in it without you hosting it. This rarely
happens though, especially if you're hosting regularly. If another tournament
is hosted, you won't be able to host your own for a few turns.
----------
Controls
----------
Action 1/2.......Increase speed
--------------
Instructions
--------------
When participating in a tournament, you will given a choice as to which
opponent you want to joust. The opponents will consist of all the rival lords,
King John and several generic "young knights". As you defeat more lords, they
will be replaced with more generic knights.
Each knight jousts until they are eliminated, so you'll have less and less
opponents to pick from. If you are defeated, you will be eliminated from the
tournament.
There are three rounds, each with different prizes:
Round 1: Fame
Round 2: Gold
Round 3: Land
Being eliminated in any of the rounds means you will lose your part of the
prize. In other words, you will either lose Fame, a few hundred Gold or one
of your territories. The benefit is that you can gain any or all of these if
you win.
When you pick an opponent, a rather lengthy cutscene will show you and your
opponent preparing to ride down the lists. You'll get bored of it after a few
hundred times, so you can skip it and get to the action.
Unlike DOTC, the first part of the joust involves "powering up" your charge.
Mash the Action 1 and Action 2 keys alternatively to increase the speed of your
horse. The speed of your horse is indicated by how far down the right Sir
Wilfred is.
After a short while, the game will switch to first-person with your opponent
charging down towards you. You can stop mashing the action buttons. Now you
need to direct the tip of your lance towards your opponent. You'll need to aim
for your opponent's head or body. Any other location and it will register as a
miss.
The scene will automatically play out from there. The riders will slam into
each other and register their points. The first combatant to reach three points
is declared the winner. In the event of a draw (i.e. both opponents score 3 at
the same time), you will continue jousting until one of you gets the upper
hand.
If you lose, you are eliminated from the tournament. If you win, you will
proceed to the next round. Winning all three rounds will make you the
tournament champion. You can pick which territory to take from your final
opponent.
--------
Points
--------
Glancing Blow: 0 points
Torso hit: 1 point
Head hit: 2 points
Knock-off: 3 points/instant victory
-------
Notes
-------
-The charge-up period is the most important. If you are not further than half-
way across the screen, your blow will not be strong enough to break your lance,
scoring no points. If you exceed the length of the screen, you will have enough
impetous to knock your opponent off their horse, scoring an instant win.
-The result of a bout is solely dependent on your aim. If you do not
successfully target your opponent, the result will either be a dual miss, or
your opponent will strike you with varying results. If you do not have enough
impetous to knock off your opponent, it is possible for both of you to score
hits, including mixtures of head hits and torso blows.
-The point of aim is exactly where the tip of the lance is before the aiming
sequence is over. This requires some prediction and adjustment as you close in
with your opponent.
-Your opponents will have some rather weird positions on their mounts. Some
will be wide open for you to strike; others will be far more protective.
-As you eliminate rival lords, they will be replaced with generic knights.
These knights are very poor at jousting and are easily defeated. Generic
knights will always lose against lords.
-The rival lords are just about equal in jousting skill.
-King John is the best at jousting, and will usually defeat other knights,
although he will lose on the odd occasion. Keep this in mind if you plan
on sponging land off King John, as he will always be the last remaining
opponent unless you defeat him in an earlier round.
-As with Archery, you can withdraw from the tournament but you will get nothing
from it.
-Winning the gold round will net you 400 gold, regardless of who you beat and
how much gold they have in their treasury. On the other hand, you have to cough
up your gold if you lose.
-If your opponent has no spare land, you will get nothing in compensation.
Never fight a generic knight for land because he won't have any.
-You cannot give away or take a home county. Instead, you will receive nothing,
so avoid picking on targets with no land to lose.
-----------------
Tips & Strategy
-----------------
-Mash those buttons. It doesn't matter where you aim later; as long as you hit
your target, you should be able to knock your opponent off on the first run,
even King John.
-Aside from button mashing, get used to aiming your lance. There's one position
in particular where the rider will angle their body in a very weird manner,
giving you a rather small target to aim at. Work on your aim, and victories
should come very easily.
-The Lance of Sir William Marshal will greatly increase your power. You will be
practically invincible in jousting if you get it.
-Use tournaments to your advantage (see Strategy). When you hold a tournament,
all other lords lose their turn. This means you can gain a fair bit of gold as
well as your taxes for the next turn without sacrificing anything to your
opponents. Furthermore, picking the right opponents also allows you to restrict
their growth by taking important bits of land, forcing them to waste a turn to
recapture it. Basically, tournaments are always profitable as long as you win.
===============================================================================
2.5 - Swordfighting [GMP005]
===============================================================================
After Jousting, Swordfighting would be the most memorable scene in the original
Defender of the Crown. Like the other minigames, Swordfighting has undergone
some massive gameplay changes, although the principle is still the same: fight
through an enemy's castle to obtain their horde of gold.
As with Archery, Sword raids have several levels of profit:
Pittiance: 150-195 Gold
Worthy: 250-295 Gold
Kingly Sum: 400+ Gold
The primary advantage of sword raids is to get more money from castles, at the
cost of a more difficult scenario. Failing a sword raid will get you
imprisoned, which wastes several turns.
Performing a sword raid takes a fair bit of skill, and the rewards aren't much
better than archery raids unless you go for the rich targets (the exception is
if you have the Lion Sword; see below). Pick your targets wisely, or else you
might end up losing gold.
----------
Controls
----------
Action 1.........Block
Action 2.........High Attack
Action 3.........Low Attack
Action 2+3.......Thrust
Up...............Jump
Down.............Duck
Left/Right.......Move
--------------
Instructions
--------------
Begin the raid by selecting Robin Hood's portrait on the world map and
selecting an enemy home castle. The further the castle is from one of your
territories, the less time you have to complete the raid.
Each raid runs through several randomly selected scenes, including the
courtyard, dungeons, rooftops and dining hall. Use Left and Right to move
through the scenes. Although the battles take place in a 3D environment with
background soldiers fighting, the combat is actually linear, meaning you can
only move back and forward. The soldiers are there just for show.
When you meet an enemy soldier, his health bar will appear on the right side
opposite yours. Soldiers will have a small health bar and knights a larger one.
For veterans of DOTC, footwork is no longer necessary, but now you need to deal
with multi-level attacks and dodging.
Press Action 2 or 3 to attack. You can do a 4-hit combo by pressing the attack
buttons for times in a row. You can add a thrust at the end of the combo to do
a 5-hit attack. Typically, the enemy will counterattack with their own combo,
and the duel will go back and forth this way unless one of you break the
pattern.
All attacks can be blocked with Action 1. However, blocking will cause you to
lose a portion of your health. Timing the block with the enemy attack will
cause you to lose no health. Alternatively, you can choose to Jump or Duck.
Jumping a Low attack or Ducking a High attack will stun the enemy, giving you a
free attack. Using the wrong dodge or mistiming it will cause you to get hit
without much time to recover.
Once the enemy is defeated, continue moving through the scenes and taking out
more enemies. After several scenes, the game will load another section of the
castle, and you will repeat for as many levels as the difficulty requires.
If you lose all of your health, you will be captured. When captured, you can
either bribe the guard, or you can attempt to escape. Either way, you will lose
a turn or more depending on how many times it takes to be successful. If the
timer runs out, you will be forced to withdraw with no earnings.
------------
Variations
------------
Event: Some lords have a tendency to capture innocent maidens. Complete the
mission to gain bonus gold and a cutscene. These happen several times
throughout the game, including one plot-based one.
-------
Notes
-------
-You can mix high and low attacks up to a maximum of four hits. The fourth hit
will be a roundhouse blow.
-A thrust attack will end the combo. The best time to use the thrust would be
after the fourth attack. The thrust is also the most powerful attack and cannot
be dodged.
-On the other hand, blocking a thrust will stun the attacker.
-Timing the block with the enemy's attack will prevent you taking any damage.
There is a split-second delay from pressing the block button to completing the
block move, so keep that in mind when going for perfect blocks.
-A successful dodge will leave the enemy stunned.
-Some sections of the levels contain no guards. Just run through them.
-The timer is shown at the top of the screen. You will be notified when it
reaches 30 seconds, and finally a 10-second countdown.
-The amount of time available depends on how far the target castle is from your
nearest county. King John's castle will have the shortest timer until you
conquer the counties near Cornwall. The tutorial says that garrison size and
type also affect the amount of time you get, but distance seems to be the
biggest factor.
-Garrison type does influence how many Knights and Footmen you fight, however.
Smaller garrisons will often have one or two empty areas to walk through
instead of fighting.
-The difficulty of the raid determines how many 'levels' you need to go
through. Each 'level' has three sections you must fight through. Perilous raids
require three full levels, whereas Trivial raids only require one.
-Occasionally, an enemy will be looking the other way when you approach.
Attacking him in this state will stun him and give you a free combo.
-Obtaining the Lion Sword will increase your attack power and give you a new
overhead final attack. Gaining this item will allow you to blitz through the
swordfighting levels. In fact, it's hard to actually lose if you have the Lion
Sword.
-There are two types of enemies: Footmen and Knights. Footmen prefer two-hit
combos while Knights go for the full four- or five-hit combo. Knights are also
better at defense and have larger health bars.
-If you complete a raid with perfect health, you will get a 50 gold bonus.
-If you lose all your health, you will be captured and imprisoned. While in
prison, you can attempt to escape or bribe the guard. Bribing the guard costs
gold, but allows you to return to the world immediately, while escaping carries
a risk of failure. Either way, you will lose one or more turns after being
captured, and enemies can still conquer in your absence.
-----------------
Tips & Strategy
-----------------
-Unless there are no Worthy targets for Archery raids, only go for Kingly Sum
sword raids. Archery raids don't carry the same risk but get a greater reward
on average.
-Play it safe. If you're unsure of what the enemy is doing, block. After you
get the rhythm of their attack, start dodging. Poor dodging will lose lots of
health and waste time; good dodging will save lots of time.
-If you're relying on dodging, watch the enemy's arm movements to see if their
attack is going to be high or low. This takes a lot of practice and quick
reflexes, but once you get the hang of it you can easily dodge attacks.
-Most enemies have predictable combos. Footmen tend to favour a two-hit low
combo, while Knights go for four-hit high or low combos, seldom mixing high and
low attacks. Use this lack of variety to your advantage when evading.
-Remember that you don't have to dodge either. You can go through a raid using
only blocks. Timing the blocks correctly is easier and safer than dodging, so
you can preserve your health that way.
-There's no real difference between high and low attacks against enemies, so
just mash whatever keys you want. However, always add the thrust at the end of
your combo; as the most powerful attack, it will decimate Footmen and cripple
Knights.
===============================================================================
2.6 - Field Battle [GMP006]
===============================================================================
Field Battles are by far the most common mini-game you'll have to go through,
required to capture enemy counties. While you can shoot merchants, dance across
rooftops and jab pointy things at each other as long as you want, you'll have
to pump your hard-earned gold somewhere, and this is it.
Little John will recruit troops and lead the campaign army to conquer counties.
While you can hire troops anywhere, you can only have one campaign army at any
one time. If this army is defeated, it will return to your home county of
Nottingham until you put more troops in.
--------
Troops
--------
For your battles, you will a few different types of units to work with. For a
more comprehensive list of units, see the Unit Types section in the Appendix.
Peasants: Cheap melee units, but incredibly weak
Archers: Medium-strength ranged units
Footmen: Good all-round infantry
Knights: Heavy shock troops
Catapults: Long-range bombardment unit
Note that you cannot have more than 400 troops in total for your campaign army.
Each county can only support a limited number of troops, and can be increased
by building higher level fortfications.
On the world map, army strength is represented by chevrons, with one chevron
representing a weak army and three chevrons representing a full-strength army.
-------------
Battlefield
-------------
Rather than taking place on a flat landscape as in DOTC, Robin Hood DOTC's
battles are represented as chess pieces charging down several lanes like a
bowling alley. Below is a basic diagram of a typical battlefield.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| ======================================================================== |
| P P |
| A ================================================================== A |
| F F |
| C ================================================================ C |
| K K |
| ======================================================================== |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LEGEND:
-P: Peasants
-A: Archers
-F: Footmen
-C: Catapults
-K: Knights
Note that this diagram portrays an "Advanced" battle. At the beginning of the
game, you will encounter "Basic" and "Intermediate" battles, which contain only
one and two lanes respectively. The only difference is the number of melee
troops available for use. A battle between Footmen and Peasants will take place
on a single-lane battlefield, while a battle involving Peasants, Knights and
Footmen will be fought with three lanes. Most enemy armies will contain every
available unit, so most battles will be fought in the above Advanced setting.
Basically, the two armies will line up opposite each other. Battle is fought by
sending out troops or missile attacks down one of the lanes. Melee units will
be in the front line and will absorb damage until they are eliminated, pushing
the missile units to the front line. When one side loses all of their units,
they lose the battle. Both sides can retreat during a battle, forcing an
automatic win to the other side to preserve their army.
--------------
Instructions
--------------
-Highlight a unit (PC: Mouse; Console: D-pad)
-Use Action 1 to select the unit
-While selected, use Action 2 to cycle through the unit's skills, if any.
-Select a lane using the D-pad. Any unit can attack through any lane.
-Press and hold Action 1 to charge up the attack. The longer the charge, the
more powerful the attack.
-The unit will begin its attack.
-Meanwhile, you can order another unit to attack.
-Once the unit completes its attack, it will return to its base position and
wait for another order.
-The battle continues until one side loses or retreats. You can retreat through
the Pause menu.
-------
Notes
-------
-While each unit starts in the same position, they will remain in the same
position until defeated. You cannot move a unit.
-When a unit is engaged in an attack, a miniature piece will show their
progress through their lane. Their 'base' piece will be greyed out, indicating
that they are engaged in an attack.
-A base piece is still vulnerable to attack even if the unit is attacking a
different lane. For example, if a Knight attacked Lane 1 and the enemy attacked
through Lane 3, the Knight unit will take damage.
-If two attacking units meet during their charge, two things can happen:
- One unit annihilates the other (usually due to stronger charge)
and continues their charge.
- Both units cancel each other out, forcing them to return to base.
-Similarly, if a ranged unit targets a lane occupied by a charging unit, they
will fire at the attacking unit instead of the base unit.
-If an attacking unit reaches a base piece, they will inflict extra damage
while taking no damage themselves.
-Missile units will not 'charge'. Instead, they will fire a volley of missiles
through one of the lanes, causing damage without exposing themselves.
-If a melee unit is eliminated, a missile unit will take position in the front
line, where they are most vulnerable. If a smaller army fights a full-sized
army, ranged units will automatically be in the front line to fill up the
lanes.
-Multiple units can charge down a lane.
-The more of a unit you have you in your army, the longer you can power up your
charge and the more powerful your attacks.
-If a unit reaches the end of an empty lane, they will inflict no damage.
-Different units move at different speeds. From fastest to slowest:
1. Missiles (archers and catapults)
2. Knights
3. Peasants
4. Footmen
-If the battle is fought after a siege, any remaining walls will be shown on
the battlefield. Walls prevent the unit behind it from taking damage. After
sustaining a certain amount of damage, the wall will be destroyed, exposing the
unit behind it.
-The battle map will rotate based on the side with the upper hand.
-Initially, your units will not have any special abilities. As you fight more
battles and gain more experience, your units will learn new techniques. These
techniques will typically be learnt in one large period of battling, as you
cannot learn more than one tactic at a time. These tactics will make your army
devastating however.
-Each skill can only be used once per battle.
----------
Strategy
----------
-Firstly, determine your army composition. A general army should contain
approximately the following:
30% Peasants
25% Archers
30% Footmen
15% Knights
5% Catapults
This is purely arbitary, and players should experiment with various
compositions, especially tweaking between the three Melee units. More
aggressive players should opt for more Footmen and Knights, while conservative
players should go for more Archers.
-You DO need a balanced army though. You can't get away with having an army of
Knights even if you can afford it. Most of your opposing armies will have a
balanced force, and having multiple unit types attacking your one unit of
Knights will beat you no matter how many Knights you have. More units mean more
lanes covered, and that means more attack opportunities.
-As the game progresses, especially if you pay more of Richard's ransom, you'll
find yourself overburdened with Knights. You may not be able to replace some of
your Footmen or Peasants, but if you get 50 free Knights, I wouldn't be
complaining.
-Similarly, don't recruit one Peasant to guard a lane by himself. A unit that
dies in one attack is just as useless as having no unit at all. Get enough
Peasants to survive one or two attacks, and enough Footmen to deal more damage
than take losses.
-Don't bring more than 10 catapults with your campaign army unless you're
sieging Cornwall. They're of limited use in battle and take up valuable space
for other troops. They can do substantial damage in small numbers, but getting
large numbers of them isn't worth it.
-For order of battle, unleash your ranged units first. Fire off fully-charged
arrow and catapult shots to hammer enemy units. The first salvo will be aimed
at the base unit, so they'll inflict more damage, cutting down enemy attacks
while your own melee units counterattack.
-You should be using fully-charged attacks most of the time. If you've got the
manpower to charge up your attack, make the most of it before you lose that
ability through casualties. Remember that most damage is done with opposing
units running into each other, and both sides will take damage. The side with
the more powerful attack will sustain less damage and break through the enemy
attack.
-Be wary of enemy positions and numbers. Don't send 100 Peasants against 50
charging Knights, because the Knights will simply obliterate them. Let the
enemy make the first moves (and if you're using ranged units first, they will)
and counter accordingly. Send Knights against Catapults and Archers, use
Archers against Knights and Footmen, use Peasants to attack exposed Archers and
Catapults, and use Footmen as general-purpose troops.
-Remember that you don't have to use all of your units to attack. If you feel
that a unit will be annihilated if it attacks, don't deploy it. It might be
worth leaving your Footmen and Peasants in defense while you use your Archers
and Knights to attack.
-When you gain your offensive and defensive skills, you should use the skills
as soon as you can before your units are rendered ineffective from casualties.
You can play it safe and use a defensive tactic straight off (save the ranged
defensive shots, as they force a unit back), or you can go for a devastating
offensive tactic with full-strength units.
===============================================================================
2.7 - Siege [GMP007]
===============================================================================
Some counties will be fortified, and the only way to capture these counties is
to besiege them. At the beginning, only the lords' home counties will have
castles, but later on they will start building forts in other counties, which
will greatly slow down your advance. Note that enemy armies will not need to
siege your forts, but will automatically deduct troops on both sides to
simulate a siege. When an AI player sieges another AI player, the game will
auto-calculate the battle.
In order to start a siege, you will need to have at least one catapult in your
campaign army. Veterans of DOTC will quickly realise that the concept is
essentially the same, with some minor differences.
----------
Controls
----------
Action 1........Fire/Charge Catapults
Action 2........Switch Payload
--------------
Instructions
--------------
Sieges take place over four days, lasting 60 seconds each. Before each day, you
will be allowed to scout the four different sides of the enemy castle using a
telescope. This will allow you to see the status of the wall and the building
behind it. You can select which side to bombard.
You will need to breach at least one wall, meaning you have to blast through
all the layers. As a bonus, you can destroy the barrack buildings behind the
wall to reduce the amount of enemy troops inside. Only boulders can smash
walls; buildings can be destroyed with boulders, although Greek Fire causes
more damage to troops.
The distance you launch your boulders depends on how much you power up your
catapult. If you are playing the Xbox or PS2 versions, you wind your catapult
by twirling both analog sticks inwards until you reach your desired distance.
If you are playing the PC version, you're blessed with only needing to pull
downon the mouse. Obviously, you'll have a faster rate of fire with the PC
version.
Fire your catapult by pressing Action 1. You can fire multiple catapults
simultaneously by holding down the Action 1 button to "charge up" your
catapults. Switch payload by pressing Action 2 or 3. There is no aim
assistance; your shots will be done purely by trial and error.
You will be taking casualties if you take too much time to batter a wall down.
A day ends after 60 second have passed, or if you have complete destroyed the
wall and building. The siege ends after four days of siege, or if all your
catapults are destroyed. If no wall has been breached, you will be unable to
proceed to the field battle.
-------
Notes
-------
-As said above, if you take too long to tear down chunks of wall, you will lose
men at a very rapid rate of attrition. Don't be surprised if you lose 30-40
troops per counterattack, and they can be anything from peasants to knights.
-Each side has its own type of structure: archer tower, stables, barracks and
workshop. Destroying them will cripple archers, knights, footmen and catapults
respectively.
-You can only have maximum charge of 10 catapults. Don't bother bringing more
unless you're sieging Cornwall and need spares. Multi-shots are far more
damaging than single shots, often tearing down multiple chunks of wall in one
volley.
-It's far easier to charge up your shot on the PC version, as you don't need to
use your thumbs to wind the catapult.
-You'll need to tear down most or all of the wall before you can expose the
building to your shots. The archer tower is the exception, as it's quite tall.
-Try to avoid pummelling the buildings until after you lob in Disease and Greek
Fire. Disease won't damage anything, but it will cripple troops for the field
battle. Greek Fire will take out a significant chunk of troops. Boulders will
destroy some troops, but not as much.
-Disease has no effect on walls. Greek Fire may be able to blow a chunk out of
a wall if aimed correctly, but this seems random, and boulders are far more
effective.
-You only get one Greek Fire shot per day, so make sure you lob it in exactly
where you want it to. You only get the Disease payload as a legendary item, and
you get one per day as well.
-The Disease payload is only obtainable as a Legendary Item, but it is arguably
the most useful. Troops affected with Disease will move slower than normal.
Note that your troops can also be diseased if sieged by an enemy.
-The difficulty of a siege (i.e. the size and strength of its walls) is
dependent on the level of the stronghold. Keeps crumble easily, whereas King
John's Palace (an unattainable level for other lords) takes a massive pounding.
-----------------
Tips & Strategy
-----------------
-While getting the right mark is all about trial and error. However, there are
some general rules that can help you:
*Never wind your catapult to max. Walls are never that far. Instead, only wind
your catapult to around 90% strength.
*The middle section of wall can be hit with a 50-70% shot.
*The last bit of wall can be smashed with a 20-30% shot.
*Building distances vary. They should be hit with a slight more powerful shot
than the middle one. Some buildings are easier to hit than others.
-If you charge up your catapults, don't fire more than 5 at once. It takes time
to charge them up, and taking too long to shoot results in your men getting
decimated by counterattacks. More than 5 catapults is overkill anyway.
-Even though you only need to destroy one wall, try to destroy the other three.
Any remaining walls will block your attacks during the field battle, and you've
got nothing better to do for the other three days of siege.
-Prince John's castle at Cornwall is a PAIN in the arse to siege. Refer to the
Walkthrough section for more details on sieging this beast of a fortress.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
3.0 - WALKTHROUGH [WLK000]
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Because Robin Hood DOTC is an open strategy game, there is no one definitive
method of completing the game. However, due to its simplicity there won't be
much variance between each game. I have therefore identified the more common
scenarios as well as put forward recommendations on strategies and brief guides
on difficult points in the game.
A few notes on the terminology I use:
-I have arbitarily divided the campaign into Early Game, Mid-Game and Late
Game. These reflect the number of lords conquered and therefore the status of
England rather than how long you have been playing for. They divide as such:
Early game: 0-2 lords eliminated
Mid-game: 2-4 lords eliminated
Late game: Defeat of King John
It is possible to skip Late Game entirely (see Mid-Game section) and defeat
King John earlier, but in most games this will be the general timeline of
events.
-Because the rival lords in the game are randomly selected from a set list, I
will not be able to refer to lords by name. Instead, I will refer to them based
on their starting position (i.e. northern lord, eastern lord, western lord,
southern lord). The exceptions are yourself and King John, who always starts in
the same position.
-I've divided each section of the game into the following:
Background: No header, but a background on what the situation should
be like.
Military: What actions you should take concerning armies, defenses
and who to attack.
Income: What to do about your economic status.
Story: Anything worth noting about the progress of the storyline
Notable Challenges: Guides on how to complete certain sections
===============================================================================
3.1 - General Strategies [WLK001]
===============================================================================
Just as there are many ways to skin a cat, there are many ways to conquer
England. This walkthrough is by no means the definitive method to knock King
John over the head with a mace, and players are certainly encouraged to develop
their own strategies and tactics.
This section will provide some strategies that could be used or incorporated
into other strategies.
--------
Turtle
--------
Strategy: Defensive
Principle: Hold your ground until you have an opportunity to attack.
Every strategy game has to have some sort of turtle strategy, and Robin Hood
DOTC is no exception. Basically, you spend more time raiding and holding
tournaments than you do fighting battles. Using the money from your raids to
recruit troops and build strongholds, your aim in this strategy is to build up
massive forces to bulldoze any opposition and to dissuade or stop enemies from
attacking you.
Expansion is horribly slow. You basically only attack when your counties have
been properly fortified and garrisoned, which can take a while during early
game. However, this will dissuade enemies from attacking you, so you earn a
certain degree of security.
The advantages and disadvantages are fairly obvious. On the plus side, you'll
never need to worry about facing an army superior to you, not even King John,
and you'll get plenty of opportunity to sample all the mini-games. On the bad
side, the strategy is horribly inefficient and expansion will be slow. It also
requires you to be rather adept at the minigames, or else you won't be turning
in any money at all. With heavily developed counties, enemies may not even
attack you at all.
Due to the relative lack of difficulty in the game, turtling will probably be
unnecessary, and only a temporary strategy for building up at-risk counties.
-------------
Steamroller
-------------
Strategy: Highly Aggressive
Principle: Conquer, conquer, and then conquer some more.
The Streamroller strategy basically disregards all the minigames and relies
solely on conquest as the main source of income. Surprisingly, this works quite
well. During early game, most opponents will have weak armies, so pumping funds
into recruiting a large army will give you an army that can take out a rival
lord from the start. The strategy is slow to start, as you will be unable
recruit Knights and Catapults until after a few turns.
When used straight off the bat, the Steamroller strategy allows the rapid
capture of neutral counties and rapid defeat of enemy armies. You will probably
be stuck with sieging until you get Catapults, unless you somehow obtain
Catapults earlier from an archery raid (VERY rare). Capturing territories and
eliminating rivals will give you Legendary Items and more taxes.
The advantage of this strategy is that you're practically unstoppable. Any
losses sustained by your army can be made up by the taxes you earn each turn,
and by conquering lots of counties, you will receive plenty of gold each turn,
even in early game. In fact, you might be able to defeat King John and win the
game very quickly, although King Richard's ransom and King John's double-army
might put a dent in that plan.
The main disadvantage is that you will need to sacrifice defenses for your
early counties while you pump up your war machine. This isn't so bad at the
start when you aren't threatened, but when the eastern lord starts to knock on
your door and King John gains access to naval attacks, you'll need to turn
around and put troops into your at-risk counties. Additionally, you might
overstretch yourself and leave numerous counties open to attack, and you won't
be able to gather enough money to defend them all sufficiently.
Regarding minigames, the Steamroller strategy practically ignores them,
engaging in them only for quick financial gain, normally through tournaments.
Captured counties pay for themselves, and enough gains will nullify the need to
engage in any minigame other than tournaments and battles. However, the
strategy does require skill in Field Battles, or else you'll be flat on your
arse with no army or money.
This strategy is effective from the start, but players will likely go for
something more balanced and less aggressive. However, streamrolling will be
inevitable towards late game where there isn't any time to raid and all the
focus is on capturing territories and fortifying them before King John can get
them.
-------
Blitz
-------
Strategy: Aggressive
Principle: Hit them before they know it
Blitz is more of an extension to another strategy than a strategy by itself.
Basically, Blitzing involves taking one or more counties quick succession
preferably followed by a conquest of a lord's castle.
The easiest way to accomplish this is as follows:
1) Capture a county two moves away from enemy home castle
2) Hold a tournament and defeat the lord in the final round
3) Choose the next county as your prize
4) Move your campaign army across your new county and attack the home castle
The strategy hinges on the tournament, as holding a tournament cancels turns
for everyone, as well as giving you a 400 Gold, plus your turn's tax, and gives
you a free territory. This assumes that you actually win the tournament, which
is the hardest part of this strategy. If you're good with jousting, no problems
there.
There are several problems during the tournament stage of the strategy.
Firstly, if you're not good at jousting, this strategy simply won't work.
Having the Lance of Sir Marshall, however, practically guarantees victory, so
if you have that then this is too easy. The other problem is getting your
desired target to survive to the final round. If your target is King John,
he'll thrash most opponents, so just knock out the rival lords and he'll be the
last one standing for you to win land off.
If it's another rival lord you want, that's going to be a bit problematic.
First things first, beat King John in the first round. He's the best jouster,
so leaving him alone will risk him eliminating your desired target. In the
second round, all the generic knights will have lost (unless there are too
many), so pick another rival lord to eliminate. If your target is fortunate
enough to have survived to the third round, your conquest is assured. If your
army is understrength, use your winnings to recruit more men and attack the
next turn.
It's about luck though, so if the target lord doesn't survive to round three,
your plan's scratched.
Of course, you can only hold tournaments once every few turns, so you can't
rely on this strategy. Only call this one into play when you're in position to
cover the necessary amount of land to knock out a lord. This strategy is ideal
with a turtle strategy.
----------
Balanced
----------
Strategy: Balanced
Principle: Do a bit of everything
Basically, you do what you need to do. Blitz when you need to, steamroll in
late game, defend the important counties, and do a bit of raiding to get the
funds. You'll probably be forced to fall back on a balanced strategy once your
counties become threatened, either by having too many battlefronts or
conquering too quickly. On the plus side, it's a small turn to change to a more
specialised strategy.
The problem with a balanced strategy is that you won't get anywhere fast, and
you'll find that you're either deficient in offense or lacking in defense.
That's when you need to make decisions, and quickly. Contain your enemies and
King John, but don't push too hard or too fast. Conversely, don't get yourself
into any awkward situations.
-------------
Containment
-------------
Strategy: Defensive
Principle: Keepings off
It is the dawn of a new era: Cold War England! While this strategy can be
applied to any adversary, it works BEST against King John himself.
The concept of containment is to deny crucial territories to a rival lord and
restrict their expansion, both militarily and economically. King John is
extremely weak to this strategy, so I'll be concentrating on his situation.
King John starts in Cornwall in southwest England. He begins very wealthy and
with a strong army. However, most of his wealth comes from the two counties
next to Cornwall, which form his territory and major source of income.
Capturing one of these and holding it against him will deny him of steady money
and ultimately bleed him dry.
Capturing one of the territories won't be so easy. You'll start a fair way off
from Cornwall, so you're not going to get there early on, though it becomes
viable in mid-game. Alternatively, you could win it off King John from a
tournament, allowing you to fortify and garrison it. However, since the county
will most likely be cut off, you'll have to pay double for forts and troops.
Thankfully, you only need enough to dissuade an attack rather than stopping one
outright, and most enemies are poorly equipped for sieges in early- and mid-
game.
If you apply this strategy at the beginning of the game, you'll find that King
John will struggle with the southern lord as well as with you. Johnny will
probably capture a few territories, but steady campaigning will take those away
from him, leaving him with only one or two counties with little money. His
naval invasions will only consist of 1 troop of each unit, and you can
basically conquer all of England without a threat from King John. However, he
does still have his garrison, as well as his reinforcement for the final
battle, so you can't waltz into Cornwall Castle just because you've backed him
into a corner.
Take the time to eliminate the other rival lords, even though you won't need
the income too badly after you capture enough land. You will probably reach the
doorstep of Cornwall before all of the story events have been played out, but
unless you've paid off King Richard's ransom, you won't be strong enough to
take out both of King John's armies. Capture more counties to get more gold for
Friar Tuck.
There are a couple of disadvantages to using a policy of containment. If
attempting this in early-game, you will need to save a substantial amount of
money to fortify and defend King John's bit of land in order to recruit enough
troops as a deterrant. Secondly, this leaves King John vulnerable to attack,
especially by the southern lord. His castle will hold off a few attempted
sieges, but won't last forever, so take out the southern lord before he can do
something silly like winning the game.
This strategy can also be used against other lords, but they're not as
restricted in expansion as King John's starting location, and they're not as
hard to beat conventionally.
===============================================================================
3.2 - Prologue [WLK002]
===============================================================================
Taking place in Nottingham, the prelude serves to familiarise players with the
basics of the game. You only have one opponent to deal with, the Sheriff of
Nottingham, and he'll only attack you once. For first-timers, use this as an
opportunity to practise battles and raids.
When you start a new game, you will go through a brief cutscene setting the
scene for the game. You can skip this if you want. Immediately afterwards, you
will automatically play through an archery raid. Complete the raid and you will
be taken to the Nottingham map, followed by some more dialogue.
At this point, Robin Hood will be by himself, so the only thing you can do is
raid. The Sheriff of Nottingham will send an army your way, but you can't do
anything about it yet, so ignore them. You can pick between Archery Raids or
Sword Raids. A perfect Archery raid will get you 185 gold, while a Sword raid
with perfect health will get you 150 (you will only need to defeat one
footman). The sword raid will be easier overall, but not as profitable.
When the Sheriff reaches the territory just outside Robin's forest, Little John
will arrive with an army. Use your earnings to recruit more troops (at the
moment you can only recruit Peasants and Archers). Get some more Peasants, but
try to load up on plenty of Archers. Aim for over 100 Peasants and 80-100
Archers. The Sheriff has only a handful of troops, but they're in the form of
Archers and Footmen, so you'll take some casualties.
You can either do another raid, or you can attack the Sheriff's campaign army.
Raiding won't get you much you can't already get, so you might as well attack.
Otherwise, the Sheriff will attack your forest, and if you somehow lose the
Forest, you lose the game (shame!).
You've got full control from here. The Sheriff won't be able to raise another
army, so he'll just take the town. Capture the Bridge and attack either the
lightly defended Tax Road or the lightly equipped town, and then attack the
Sheriff's fort. The fort is guarded by a reasonable number of Footmen and
Archers, but it shouldn't be a problem for you.
There is no time limit to the prelude, although Marian will become impatient
with you. You can't stock up on gold, however, as the Sheriff will attempt to
raid you every turn.
Once you defeat the Sheriff, another cutscene will play, followed by some
dialogue, and Maid Marian will send you off on your way to conquer England!
===============================================================================
3.3 - Early Game [WLK003]
===============================================================================
You'll go through a lot of dialogue, and Sir Wilfred will offer to show you
tutorials on counties and rival lords, which you can skip if you wish. Once the
formalities are done, you're basically free to do whatever you want.
For the purposes of this guide, I will use the term 'early-game' to indicate
the period from the beginning of the war to the defeat of the second rival
lord.
----------
Military
----------
You will retain the Peasants and Archers you had from Nottingham, as well as
the gold you had. At this point you can recruit more Peasants and Archers, but
you'll also be able to recruit Footmen. You start off with none, so recruit
some posthaste. After a few turns, you will be allowed to recruit Knights and
Catapults, the latter allowing you to siege enemy castles. If you're
stockpiling money, you might want to go for a balanced army of 100 Peasants,
125 Archers and 125 Footmen, saving the remaining 50 for Knights and Catapults.
This is quite expensive, but you won't need a full-strength army at this point.
In regards to who to attack, you're right in the middle of four lords. I
recommend attacking the northern lord, as no other lord can reach him unless he
expands, so you might as well get him out of the way. The eastern lord will be
the next nearest threat. The western lord will not bother you for a while, and
the southern lord will be wrestling with King John.
Note that the FIRST county you should conquer is Derby, the county due west of
Nottingham. This will complete your territory, giving you bonus income. Where
you expand from here is up to you. Most neutral territories have no garrisons,
although important ones like Warwick and York will have small garrisons that
will prove to be little trouble.
--------
Income
--------
Even with Derby, you will only get a couple hundred gold each turn, so you'll
need to find another source of income very quickly. If you are following the
Streamroller strategy (see above), you'll need to neglect your starting
counties to capture more land and take some land from your northern neighbour.
If the eastern lord knocks on your door, you'll need to remove the threat, but
be wary of fighting a war on two fronts. Take out the northern lord first; the
southern and eastern lords will usually take each other on, leaving you to
handle your nearest rival.
If you aren't Steamrolling, this is a good opportunity to do some raiding. All
of the lords will have pitiful archery targets and sword raids, but King John
alone will have a Kingly Sum in his castle. If you're daring, raid his castle
straight off; otherwise raid enemy caravans and spend your earnings on troops.
The bulk of your income, however, will come from jousting. Don't call a
tournament straight off; wait until everyone has captured their nearest
counties. On the second turn, call a tournament and win all three rounds. This
will get you 400 Gold, plus your turn's taxes, as well as a free county. Try to
take one of King John's counties to slow down his conquest, or even try to
contain him (see Containment strategy above).
Don't bother with Friar Tuck's demand for ransom money. You need every gold
coin you can get for your current situation, and that's far more important. Pay
the ransom later when you make thousands, not when you're scratching up a
hundred.
-------
Story
-------
Most of the dialogue will be between Robin's men to organise your ranks, with
the occasional snippet from King John's court and the introduction of Guy of
Gisborne. There will only be one significant plot event, and that is the duel
with the Sheriff of Nottingham, which paves the way for greater plot
development. If you're making decent progress, you'll have plenty of time
between plot events to do whatever you need.
----------
Strategy
----------
-Take Derby to complete your Nottingham territory. ALWAYS do this when you
start a campaign. You'll be at a significant disadvantage if you don't, not to
mention that there isn't much else to do.
-After taking Derby, you can hold a tournament, rush a neutral county or raid.
Which you choose is based on which strategy you want to follow. If you do
attack, take out the northern lord first, as he's the biggest threat as of
current.
-You will receive around 20 free Knights at this point. You can buy more if you
want, but these 20 will be enough for your first rival lord.
-Once you get catapults, siege the northern lord's home castle, either through
normal conquest or through a Tournament Blitz (see above). With the northern
lord eliminated, capture his now-neutral counties, especially York if you
haven't got it already. This will give you cheaper fortifications.
-The Sheriff of Nottingham duel will occur just after you defeat the first lord
(or sooner, if you're not up to pace).
-Pick the second lord to bully. The eastern and western lords are equally
viable, but take on the lord who is more powerful, preferably the one not
preoccupied with the southern lord. Most of the time, the eastern lord will
make a beeline to the southern lord, leaving the western lord to you.
-Since these lords are so close to your home county, you can knock them out
with a Tournament Blitz.
-Be VERY careful with King John: during the early game, King John will gain
access to ships which will allow him to launch a surprise attack on any county
with a port. These can be seen on the map, and it is essential that you fortify
these to prevent him from taking your land (he has a preference for you above
all others).
--------------------
Notable Challenges
--------------------
*DUEL WITH THE SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM:
Seems like the good Sheriff is getting fed up with Robin Hood again. He will
challenge Robin Hood to single combat after a cutscene. If you've been doing
sword raids, this is no different to any other opponent apart from having a
longer health bar.
The Sheriff will usually rely on four-hit combos with the occasional thrust,
and mixes his high and low attacks, though like most enemies he tends to stick
with straight-low or straight-high attacks. If you're sharp with your
swordfighting, dodge to your heart's content. Otherwise just parry his blows
and counter with your own combo. If you managed to get the Lion's Sword by this
early point, this battle will be a breeze.
After you defeat the Sheriff, a cutscene will play.
*FIRST SIEGES
If you siege the northern and western lords, you'll have an easy time
overwhelming them as they've only got weak Forts. A full complement of ten
catapults will be make them too easy, as you don't need much accuracy to knock
the walls down. Attacking the southern and eastern lord first will run you into
slightly harder Castles, but they're not much different.
Set your first shot to around 90% down and power up a couple catapults. Fire
them off, and this should take out the top chunk of wall or more. Set the next
shot to 60-70% and fire, and the next volley at 40-50%. Throw in Greek Fire and
Boulders to demolish the unit buildings. The first lords will have puny
garrisons unless their campaign army is there, so you shouldn't have much
trouble defeating it in the field battle.
===============================================================================
3.4 - Mid-Game [WLK004]
===============================================================================
For the purposes of this guide, 'mid-game' will refer to the period after
defeating the second lord and the elimination of the fourth and final lord.
Possible scenarios in the game begin to branch off here. If you've been
expanding rapidly, then you'll have conquered two lords very quickly, leaving
the other two and King John squabbling over the southern and central counties.
This can either result on a deadlock, or one of the lords gets knocked out by
King John. If you're looking for Legendary Items, this is very bad, and
allowing King John to expand as far as the southern lord means that his army
will be very powerful.
Hopefully you've been putting some effort into stinting the growth of King
John's lands, or else you'll be swimming in a sea of purple. If you took out
the western lord, the eastern lord might have attempted to attack Nottingham
while King John and the southern lord duke it out. Otherwise, the western lord
will probably attack King John and the southern lord. This is the situation
you'll find yourself in for the mid-game phase.
----------
Military
----------
By this stage, you should be making enough money each turn from your counties
to maintain your army. Replace losses immediately after the battle, then
recruit a garrison for newly captured counties. You can safely ignore garrisons
in your northern counties, but definitely fortify those coastal counties to
prevent King John from launching a surprise naval attack.
If you're wealthy, fortify every county you capture. You don't need the best
castle, but having fortifications and a reasonable number of Footmen and
Archers is essential to dissuading enemies from attacking. Get Peasants with
spare cash and Knights if you've got enough, but Footmen and Archers will be
the backbone of any garrison. Don't forget that fortifications come packaged
with some troops.
Military conquest should be your priority now. Forget about raids, keep holding
tournaments to contain and blitz, but focus mainly on conquering more counties.
You should have enough money to streamroll, and keep an eye out for those
special counties. If King John is expanding too far, get his attention by
capturing some of his central counties, and try to blockade him in Cornwall
with fortified Cornish counties.
If you keep King John cooped up in Cornwall, he'll have a weak army and won't
venture out to attack you, apart from launching naval attacks on unprotected
counties, but typically with very small armies (like, five men in total). Take
the time to defeat the remaining lords and train your army, hopefully getting
the offensive skill sets for all your units.
If you haven't kept King John in check, then he'll be waltzing all over
England, resulting in a frustrating late game.
--------
Income
--------
As mentioned above, your primary source of income should be taxes from your
counties. You should be getting over 500 gold per turn at the start of mid-
game, which is more than you can get from raiding. Invest your earnings into
your campaign army first and foremost, then use the remainder for garrisons.
Use your army to conquer more land to get more income, remembering to go for
complete territories rather than random counties.
If enemy lords are reaching a stalemate, they will begin to raid you, including
King John. Watch your treasury and try to spend everything you've got, which
shouldn't be too hard at this stage. If you've got too much cash, donate some
to Friar Tuck, but otherwise keep it in reserve. You can make up for the ransom
in late game.
-------
Story
-------
You'll get a bit more action for the storyline during mid-game. Most of the
dialogue will concern Guy of Gisborne, and eventually Marian will leave to find
out information about Gisborne. This means that you will no longer have
Marian's service as a spy; not that it's of particular use.
If you're conquering rapidly, you'll find yourself on the doorsteps of Cornwall
without the story fully developing, which causes some of the journal entries
and cutscenes to go out of sync. It is possible to beat the game without going
through the whole story, though this will be unlikely if this is your first
time going through the game.
You'll have to face off against Guy of Gisborne in a sword duel soon enough. A
fast player will encounter this in their 'late' game, but I'll include the duel
in this section.
----------
Strategy
----------
-Capture remaining northern counties and fortify coastal counties. If you've
defeated the western lord, get the rest of the Welsh counties, especially
Cardigan for the cheap archers. If you knocked out the eastern lord instead, go
straight for west or south without capturing the rest of the east. They're too
hot to hold for the time being.
-If you haven't already, start infringing on King John's lands. Don't let him
expand past central England, or else he'll outgrow you.
-Take out remaining lords if they haven't killed themselves. Tournament Blitz
is recommended, but attack conventionally if you want. You should be powerful
enough to take them head-on.
-Once all lords are eliminated, try to contain King John if he hasn't been
blockaded. If he's matching you in terms of territory ownership, you're in
trouble. Beef up your territories and prepare for his onslaught. Take out his
army before he does something big.
--------------------
Notable Challenges
--------------------
*DUEL WITH GUY OF GISBORNE
This duel takes place in a dark forest between Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne
after a lengthy cutscene. Like the duel with the Sheriff, there's nothing
particular different about this duel apart from Gisborne having a much longer
health bar and being more aggressive.
Gisborne is an effective attacker, making the most out of four-hit combos and
lunges. As with any opponent, you can block these blows with little or no
damage, or evade if you're feeling game. Gisborne will mix his high and low
attacks, so there won't be any predictable pattern. Gisborne will also rely
heavily on blocking and the occasional evasion. Gisborne, unlike the Sheriff
and the generic opponents, is quite adept at blocking lunge attacks.
Don't force any attacks on him; let the duel swing with the normal defend-
attack-defend pattern. He'll block many of your attacks, but you can get away
with several hits, making sure that your defense is up to scratch.
If you have the Lion's Sword, this battle will be very easy due to the
increased power of your strikes and your unblockable overhead strike. Gisborne
won't be able to take much punishment from this Legendary Item. If you don't
have the Lion's Sword, the duel will take substantially longer, so pace
yourself carefully.
*SIEGES
By now, you should have already sieged two enemy castles and will siege the
remaining two. The rival lords probably won't succeed in nabbing one before you
do, but it can happen if you let them expand. In any case, the third and fourth
sieges are pretty much the same.
The apparent distance looks further, but the required range for your catapults
is pretty much the same. The walls will take slightly more damage this time
around, but if you've been making a habit of firing 3-4 catapult volleys, this
shouldn't be a problem. Follow the same siege power guidelines in the previous
settings and these walls shouldn't pose any problem.
Note that any strongholds built by the enemy will usually be forts, which are
as easy to knock down as the first two lords.
*MID-GAME VICTORY
For those of us who are daring enough, it *is* possible to finish the game
without defeating all of the rival lords. This is realistically possible if
you've been following a Containment strategy from the start of the game,
thereby keeping King John to his starting county of Cornwall and leaving the
map to yourself. If you want to skip the story and go straight for Johnny, just
load up on Catapults and head to Cornwall castle.
The siege is crucial, more so during mid-game than late game. I won't list the
siege details here, so check out the late game section for a guide to sieging
Cornwall. The thing you need to watch out for is attrition damage. Cornwall is
very well defended, and you can't afford to lose men to arrows. You can lose up
to 50 troops per day if you're not effective with your bombardment.
If you've lost more than 80 troops in total, consider your battle lost. That's
almost a quarter of your army, compared to King John's still powerful garrison.
More importantly, King John has two armies. Since you probably haven't paid off
King Richard's ransom, you won't get any reinforcements, so you're stuck with
fighting two powerful armies with your weakened force. Odds are against you. If
you've somehow paid Richard's ransom, then this battle should be a cinch.
The other significant problem is that your troops probably haven't gained their
final skills. At best, you'll have all the defensive skills, but that won't be
enough to defeat King John.
When the battle starts, send your Knights against their Footmen in Defense
mode; send your Footmen against their Knights in Shield mode and your Peasants
against the enemy Peasants in Guard mode. This will reduce your attack overall,
but it will preserve your numbers. Be VERY mindful of which lanes the enemy
attacks through. Don't send your weak troops into the same lane as the enemy
Knights. Use your own Knights and Footmen to soak up as much damage possible.
Don't waste your Archers and Catapults defensive skills just yet. Fire off a
volley at the enemy base units, then unleash Cover Fire and Bombard against
advancing Footmen and Knights to force them back. Keep sending your melee units
against the enemy units. Try to send them through the same lane as their
attacking units so that you can cancel their attack as well as reaching the
base unit; otherwise your troops will sustain major casualties from enemy
attacks.
After the first army is defeated, King John will summon a second army. Your own
troops can vary greatly: at the very best, you'll still have fair numbers of
all your melee troops. More realistically, you'll probably have around 30
Knights left (depending on how much you had), a bunch of Peasants and/or
Footmen, with your Archers most likely in a front line position. You're in deep
trouble if you're left with less than this.
At this point, it becomes a case of survival. Use your Archers and Catapults to
bombard base units, particularly Footmen and Knights. Use your Knights to
counter-charge attacking Footmen and Knights, though this will probably cost
you dearly. Rely on your ranged units to bombard the enemy while keeping your
melee units in reserve and counter-charge when the enemy attacks.
This will be a VERY close battle, most likely with only around 10 of your
troops remaining. You'll still have to duel King John (see below), but the hard
bit is over. If you're finding it too hard to defeat King John now, just wait
until late game.
===============================================================================
3.5 - Late Game [WLK005]
===============================================================================
Some players can take a while going through mid-game, whereas some players will
go through mid-game at lightning speed. The effect is the same though: late
game is when the only two forces left in England are King John and yourself.
There are two scenarios that can happen based on what you do in mid-game. You
either have trapped King John in Cornwall, allowing you to conquer most of
England; or you've let King John run rampant, so the map is half green and half
purple. The latter is very difficult, resembling WWI trench warfare. The former
is very easy.
Most of the story will have been completed by now, leaving you free to finish
off King John.
----------
Military
----------
It's all about conquering those loose counties. With all the money you have,
you shouldn't have a problem making up for losses and fortifying every county
you capture. If King John is very powerful, you'll need these defenses.
Because you don't automatically gain enemy territory when you defeat their
lord, most of the neutral counties have quite formidable garrisons, so be
careful with your tactics. They're actually more dangerous than your regular
adversaries, so try to defeat them with minimal losses to yourself.
Go for all the special counties if you haven't already. If King John is running
rampant, make sure you fortify and garrison your new counties before moving on,
or else King John will capture them the next turn, resulting in a see-saw war
with no end. King John will most likely go for Nottingham if he can, so build
that up if he's becoming a huge threat. Likewise, you should be going for
Cornwall and cutting him off.
If you haven't done so already, capture one of is starting counties and fortify
it. Ideally, you should capture both free Cornish territories and leave King
John in Cornwall. Capture all his remaining counties and attack his home county
when you're ready. If you've bled him dry, he won't be able to do much. If
you've let him grow powerful, it's going to be a bitter fight to the end.
Note that if you've been relying little on Knights, you'll start to get flooded
with Knights when you pay off King Richard's ransom. Since you'll probably run
out of space in your army, your Knights will be distributed to random counties
you own. Don't be surprised to see your Knights go from 50 to 130, especially
if you've lost men in battle.
--------
Income
--------
Since you own half if not all of England, expect your income to be around 1500+
per turn. Unfortunately, there's no way to skip the counting, so you'll have to
sit there and watch your coffers refill themselves every time.
Don't bother raiding. You HAVE to wage war. Raiding will set you seriously
behind if King John is conquering England; you need the regular income from
counties, and you need to stop King John from getting income. If you've
contained King John, you've practically got nothing left to raid, and his own
castle will probably have no gold to steal either.
Apart from maintaining your army, there's only one thing you can do with your
money: Pay off Richard's 10,000 gold ransom.
-------
Story
-------
Apart from rescuing Marian, the story ties off at this stage. All the
characters will be resolved to defeat King John, and you won't be interrupted
any further.
Oh, and pay off Richard's ransom already =P
----------
Strategy
----------
-Depending on how much land King John has, you'll either be playing tit-for-
tat, or you'll just bulldoze your way into Cornwall.
-Take the time to strip King John of his lands, defeat his army if it's on the
prowl, and take some more neutral lands to pay off King Richard's debt.
-Use this time to give your army more experience. You can go through the final
battle without all the skills, but they help tremendously.
-When ready, siege Cornwall castle. This one's a tough one, so see below.
-Fight the field battle. King John will summon reinforcements after the first
army is defeated, so you're essentially fighting two full-strength armies.
-If you paid off Richard's ransom, his Knights will return, reinforcing you
with a hundred extra Knights after King John summons his reinforcements.
-After winning the battle, you must duel with King John.
-Defeating King John will end the game after a cutscene.
--------------------
Notable Challenges
--------------------
*SIEGE OF CORNWALL
Okay, here's the big one. Cornwall may just be a castle, but it's very well
built and superbly situated, not to mention ridiculously well guarded. Rather
fitting for a final battle.
Before you start the siege, make sure you have at least 15 catapults in your
army. Even though you can't charge up more than ten catapults at a time, it's
likely that Cornwall's defenders will destroy many of your catapults. It's
almost impossible to take down its walls if you lose 8 catapults in one go, and
of course you don't want the siege to end prematurely.
Which leads onto my next point: King John's archers do a LOT of damage. Don't
be surprised if a volley of arrows takes out 20% of your troops. It's very easy
to lose a quarter of your army after the siege is over, and that will do you no
good in the field battle. You HAVE to be accurate with your shots to prevent
the archers from firing. You can get away with being hit once or twice, and you
might get lucky enough to only take minimal damage, but it is essential that
you beat down the walls as soon as possible if you want to have a fighting
chance in the battle.
And, unlike the other castles, Cornwall Castle has the toughest walls in
England. While other walls only need one or two boulders to knock holes into
them, Cornwall's defenses can take a hideous amount of punishment. You WILL
need to charge 4-5 boulders (preferably go for a full 10 boulder shot) just to
take out one portion. Additionally, the setting of the siege will be different
to what you're used to. You'll be firing at long ranges across rivers at multi-
layered walls and at weird angles.
Take your time with aiming: watch the fall of shot and compensate your next one
instead of rapid firing. While waiting for each shot to fall, charge your next
volley. This is significantly easier with the PC version due to the mouse, but
it is very important to aim before wasting a barrage.
As intimidating as the siege is, it's actually not that different from a
regular siege. For this section, I'll be referring to the walls assuming you
take out each in order, selecting the next wall to the right each time.
Note that it would be VERY helpful if you use your Disease payload against the
unit building. This will be invaluable in the field battle. It is not
essential, but it will make your life a lot easier.
WALL ONE:
-You'll be firing across the river in this one. Despite the long distance, you
actually don't need 100% power. 90-95% is enough, but make sure you charge at
least five boulders, if not more. If you're not certain, fire two volleys from
the 90% mark and you'll probably nail both sections of wall.
-Once you get the top bit off, use a charged 75-85% shot to take out the next
section of wall.
-Use a 55-65% shot to take out the remaining section.
-Destroy the unit building if you haven't accidentally levelled it.
-Note that you're actually firing at a higher wall rather than the closest one.
You only need to blow out the four sections of upper wall to clear it. It can
be difficult to see from your angle, so just waste the archer tower and finish
off the wall if the level doesn't end.
WALL TWO:
-You're firing at a weird angle. Your target is the wall between the trees.
-Despite the closer range, use the same aiming points as the previous wall.
-Destroy the unit building, although it's also easy to accidentally destroy it
while knocking down the wall.
WALL THREE:
-This one's a quirky one. You're aiming across the river at an upper wall, but
you'll actually need less power than the other walls.
-Use a 90% shot to take the first section with at least 7 boulders
-70% shot for the second section.
-50% shot for the third section.
-30% shot for the last section.
-Finish off the unit building.
WALL FOUR:
-Another long range river shot. Use the same aiming points as Wall One.
-Be careful with the last section of wall. It's hidden behind the treeline. Aim
a shot there to destroy the last section of wall.
-Destroy the unit building.
Speed is the key. Take too long with each shot, and you'll lose hundreds of
men. If you've lost an entire unit, load the last save and start again. Don't
expect to win the following battle with anything less than 75% of your army. If
you've been hitting the walls effectively, you might get away with only 50
casualties, or even none.
It's difficult enough on the PC version, and the console version makes it
difficult to charge and aim at the same time. Be creative if you have to; you
need to pummel those walls.
*BATTLE OF CORNWALL
How hard this battle can be is directly related to how many of your men survive
the siege. If you only have 200 men left, consider this battle lost. A 100%
successful siege will drop King John's forces to just under 200, and his
reinforcements will number around 300. You want at least 300 men all up to
match him, and you 100 Knights if you paid off King John's ransom (you *did* do
that, right?).
If you've got the Offensive skills, unleash all of them immediately. Your first
goal is to blitz all of King John's units while your units are at full
strength. Use Ignite and Inferno straight off against John's Knights, use your
Knight's Charge to attack his Footmen, and use your Footmen's Jab against the
Peasants, then send your Peasants on a Mob attack down the centre lane to
finish off any survivors or to take out the missile unit that fills its place.
If King John attacks, his attacks will be heavily blunted by your massive
offense. Use regular attacks for the next wave to finish off the remaining
troops.
When John gets his reinforcements, you should have at least 50% of your army
still remaining if you've been effective, or 30% if you haven't. You'll get 100
Knights if you've paid King Richard's ransom, and these will be the backbone of
your army. Use the Defensive attacks for all your melee units, and use Cover
Fire and Bombard to stop an enemy attack. From there, it becomes a slugfest
between your troops and King John's. Most likely you'll lose your Footmen
and/or your Peasants, and consequently your Archers and Catapults. Unleash
whatever you have left, and use your overstrength Knights to take on any
attacks. You should be able to win with quite a few Knights remaining, though
it will be tough either way.
If you don't have the Offensive skills, you'll need to be more cautious. Use
regular attacks for empty lanes. If you see John sending troops down a lane,
use your Knights' Defense skill in that lane to bowl them over. You'll take
more casualties.
If you didn't pay the ransom, you're somewhat screwed. Try to preserve as much
men as you can through the siege and the first battle, and you might be able to
beat King John with only a dozen men remaining.
*DUEL WITH KING JOHN
Oh c'mon. If you can beat gargantuan stone walls and a thousand men, you can
beat one silly guy with a sword.
Same rules apply with King John. He has the longest health bar in the game, and
is better at attack and defense than Gisborne. He will block most your attacks
and make the occasional dodge, and will make full use of combo attacks. If
you've polished up on your swordfighting, just block and dodge as with any
other opponent. Note that like Gisborne, King John is adept at blocking lunge
attacks.
Hopefully, you've eliminated all four lords and received the Lion's Sword,
which will accelerate the dueling process drastically. If you somehow don't
have the Lion's Sword, you'll need to play it defensively again. Defend John's
combos and counterattack with your own full combos.
After you defeat King John, a long cutscene will play, ending the game. There
isn't anything else you can do after this, and there are no unlockable
features. The only option is to play through the game again if you REALLY want
to.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
4.0 - Appendix [APP000]
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
===============================================================================
4.1 - Unit Types [APP001]
===============================================================================
Any county can recruit any type of unit. However, owning certain counties will
give discounts certain units. Also, counties that are not adjacent to your own
(i.e. cut off by enemy territory) are forced to pay double for recruitment.
Each unit starts with a basic attack, but with more combat experience they can
learn more powerful techniques. These are convenient colour-coded and
consistent: the first learned tactic is blue and typically defensive in nature,
and the second learned tactic is coloured and aggressive. Each tactic can only
be used once in each battle.
---------
Peasant
---------
Cost: 1
Skills: Guard, Mob
Special County: N/A
Peasants replace the Soldier type from DOTC. Dirt cheap, Peasants are
incredibly weak in combat, serving mainly as arrow fodder and meat shields
against enemy footmen. Peasants are formidable in numbers against ranged units,
but they get massacred by Footmen and Knights. Don't even think about sending
Peasants against them.
Obviously, Peasants do not get discounts from special counties due to the fact
that they only cost 1 Gold.
*SKILLS:
-Guard: Defensive attack; reduces casualties taken while charging
-Mob: Offensive attack; deals extra damage to enemies
--------
Archer
--------
Cost: 4
Skills: Cover Fire, Ignite
Special County: Cardigan
Archers are very cheap and pack a heavy punch in numbers. They fire quickly and
can cut down charging enemies efficiently. Being a ranged unit, Archers are
protected in the back row until a melee unit its wiped out.
The county of Cardigan east of England, in Wales, provides cheaper Archers.If
you're expanding that way, you'll find yourself with plenty of archers to fill
your army and defend your lands.
*SKILLS:
-Cover Fire: Forces an attacking unit to return to base.
-Ignite: Offensive attack; does devastating damage against target
---------
Footman
---------
Cost: 5
Skills: Shield, Stab
Special County: Warwick
Footmen are shock troops. Slightly more expensive than Peasants but less
expensive than Knights, Footmen are general-purpose units. They have decent
attack and defense ratings and can hold their own against all units. Get these
in decent numbers to make them a powerful force to control.
Capturing Warwick in the heart of England provides cheaper Footmen. Since
Footmen will be the backbone of all your armies, consider it important to
capture this county during your conquest.
Footmen become available to recruit after the Prelude.
*SKILLS:
-Shield: Defensive attack, reduces losses while doing less damage
-Stab: Offensive attack; does devastating damage against target
--------
Knight
--------
Cost: 15
Skills: Defend, Charge
Special County: Somerset
The heavy cavalry of your army, Knights are the most powerful units on the
field. Knights advance very quickly and do devastating damage, although they
take some time to return for another attack. Knights are very expensive,
however, but you will not likely need any more than 40 at any one time.
The special county for Knights is Somerset. However, this is frightfully close
to King John's starting position. You won't be taking this county for a while,
and if you do take it you won't be able to hold it for long. The only practical
way of getting this county at the beginning is to win it off King John in a
tournament. Somerset provides a decent quick discount if you win it off him,
but you won't have many Knights in your army anyway, so this isn't so
important.
Knights can be recruited after several turns in the main campaign.
*SKILLS:
-Defend: Defensive attack, reduces losses while doing less damage
-Charge: Devastating offensive attack
----------
Catapult
----------
Cost: 25
Skills: Bombard, Inferno
Special County: Canterbury
Although primarily used to siege fortifications, catapults can also be used to
bombard enemies in the field. Being a ranged unit, catapults start in the back
row. Catapults do moderate damage, but fire very slowly. As you shouldn't have
more than ten catapults, don't rely on them in the field and use archers
instead.
Capturing Canterbury in south-east England will give you cheaper Catapults. As
with Somerset, you won't be able to reach this county for most of the game, and
you won't be building many catapults anyway. By the time you reach this county,
you should be making thousands of gold per turn.
Catapults can be recruited a few turns after Knights are unlocked. Note that in
a rare situation where you are given a supply-raid mission, you can actually
obtain Catapults before you can recruit them. This is very uncommon though, so
don't rely on it, and you get them soon enough anyway.
*SKILLS:
-Bombard: Forces attacking unit to return to base
-Inferno: Offensive attack; massive damage
===============================================================================
4.2 - Legendary Items [APP002]
===============================================================================
Legendary Items are obtained after defeating a rival lord. There are four in
total, each with a different purpose. Note that in order to gain a Legendary
Item, you MUST be the one to defeat a rival lord by taking their home county.
You CANNOT gain an item if an AI controlled player defeats another lord. If
that happens, you will permanently lose the opportunity to gain an item.
-----------------
Disease Payload
-----------------
Used for: Siege
Effect: Slows down units
You receive one load of Disease along with your Greek Fire and boulders. Firing
a Disease pot into an enemy structure will kill some men and provide a chance
to give them diseased status for the following battle. Diseased units will move
at a reduced rate. As you only have one disease shot per day, make sure you
knock down the walls and don't waste it. You might want to fire off a Greek
Fire pot first to get your aim correct. Note that your own units can be
infected with disease if an enemy armies successfully sieges you.
---------------------
Bow of the Crusades
---------------------
Used for: Archery Raid
Effect: Pierces Shields
Probably the least useful of the four Legendary Items, the Bow of the Crusades
provides only one benefit: you can kill knights by shooting through their
previously invincible shield. It's not very useful because Archery Raids aren't
that profitable in the first place, and Knights aren't particularly difficult
to kill.
--------------
Lion's Sword
--------------
Used for: Swordfighting
Effect: Extra damage and attack
One of the best Legendary Items (closely tied with Disease), the Lion Sword
drastically increases your attack power as well as giving you a new combo
finisher. This increases your regular combo to five hits, with the fifth hit
being a devastating overhead slash. You can also chain a thrust with this
attack, giving you a maximum of six hits. Most enemies die after the overhead
attack though, so it's overkill.
----------------------
Lance of Sir Marshal
----------------------
Used for: Jousting
Effect: More powerful charge
The Lance of Sir William Marshal (who happens to be one of your generic
opponents) allows you knock off opponents without as much impetous as normally
required. This would be useful to poor button mashers, but if you can get max
speed anyway, this item is useless. Nonetheless, possessing it makes you
practically invincible during jousts.
===============================================================================
4.3 - Enemy Lords [APP003]
===============================================================================
This section will list the enemy lords that are in the game. Each game contains
four lords randomly selected from the character roster, each with their own
colour and symbols. When these lords are defeated, they are replaced by generic
knights that have no presence in the game other than to joust against. King
John is the only opponent that is in every game.
The rival lord descriptions are taken directly from the game.
-------------
Prince John
-------------
Prince John, brother to our King Richard Coeur de Lion and usurper to the
throne of England. John is the shadow to Richard's fire and light and he has
always hated his brother for this. Now with our King held prisoner in Austria
the jealous sibling would steal the Crown he could never claim on his own.
Prince John is alternatively referred to as King John, mainly during
tournaments. Prince John's faction colour is purple, his coat of arms contains
a crown and, appropriately, he wears a crown on his helmet during jousts. He
will always start in Cornwall.
--------------------
Geoffrey Longsword
--------------------
Lord Geoffrey Longsword, a Saxon noble well-known for his courage and personal
skill on the field of battle. There may better generals than he, but few could
claim the admiration his soldiers have for their leader.
Geoffrey Longsword is coloured orange, and his jousting helmet features a sword
shape across his visor. Longsword was one of the playable characters in the
original DOTC.
-------------------------
Reginald Front de Beouf
-------------------------
Lord Reginald Front-de-Beouf, one of Prince John's Norman dogs. I'd wager that
once Prince John's ire diminishes and he feels safely placed on the throne,
Reginald will scurry back to seek favor from his master.
Reginald is coloured bright red, and wears an odd-looking sun emblem covering
his jousting helmet.
-------------------
Marc de Rampaygne
-------------------
Lord Marc de Rampaygne, not a more devious Norman serpent in all of England. He
dons the mantle of a whimpering courtier while his spies and assassins remove
his enemies in the dead of night. He will find England as a new world now that
war is to be fought on the battlefield and not from the shadows at Court.
Marc de Rampaygne is coloured dark red and has a ram as his symbol. His
jousting helmet sports ram horns.
-----------------
Philip Malvosin
-----------------
Lord Philip Malvosin, a crude Norman brawler who plays at war as if his armies
were toys for his own amusement. He cares little for the losses his men suffer,
for he enjoys the excitement of a bloody siege even when a more diplomatic
solution would be sufficient.
Malvosin is coloured dark blue on the world map, and his coat of arms features
a pair of axes. His jousting helmet is adorned with an oddly placed pair of
small axes on the sides. Philip Malvosin is also a returning lord from the
original Defender of the Crown, being a non-playable rival in the original.
------------------
Wolfric the Wild
------------------
Lord Wolfric, a descendant from a Viking general who fought with their King,
Harald Sigurdsson, at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. Many call him a
'barbarian lord' with distaste, but he bears his detractors' slanders with a
twisted sense of pride, hence his self-proclaimed title, 'Wolfric the Wild'.
Wolfric is coloured yellow on the world map and uses a boar as his symbol. His
helmet is covered in a boar's head. Wolfric the Wild is also famous for being
one of the playable characters in the original DOTC, no less the master of
jousting.
------------------
Thomas Oldcastle
------------------
Lord Thomas Oldcastle, of a Saxon bloodline that can be traced back to our
warriors that crossed the channel to fight for Prince Vortigern against the
Celts during the Roman withdrawal from England. Thomas has grown old and
nervous without a true heir to his line.
Thomas Oldcastle is coloured light blue, and his symbol is a castle. His
jousting helmet is decorated with battlements, resembling a tower.
-----------------
Generic Knights
-----------------
Generic knights play no role in the game other than to act as joust fodder
during tournaments. Several begin in tournaments, and as more lords are
defeated they are replaced by more generic knights.
-Edmund the Grim (non-playable character in DOTC)
-Roger of Doncaster
-Hubert de Burgh
-William Marshal (original owner of the Jousting Legendary Item)
-Hugh de Neville
-Roger Falconbridge (non-playable character in DOTC)
===============================================================================
4.4 - County List [APP004]
===============================================================================
The follow is a list of all the counties in the game, listing its name, its
associated territory, its base income and any special notes concerning it.
A few notes:
- The income listed is the *base* income only. When a lord owns all the
counties of a territory, each county gains bonus income.
- Most territories contain two counties. Cornwall, Leicester and Buckingham
contain three counties. Essex only contains one county.
- 'Enemy lord' indicates the home county of a rival lord and the level of their
stronghold.
- 'Naval' counties can be used by King John for surprise invasions.
- Certain counties provide discounts for unit recruitment. When captured, the
discount is applied universally, and lost when the county is lost.
- 'Garrisoned' counties start with a garrison at the beginning of the game,
usually for special counties. Note that counties belonging to a defeated lord
will be automatically garrisoned, usually with strong troops.
For ease of navigation, I have chosen to list the counties by Territory rather
than alphabetical order. The order roughly follows from the north of England to
the south in a S-shaped pattern.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| COUNTY | TERRITORY | INCOME | NOTES |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Northumberland | Yorkshire | 32 | Enemy lord, Keep |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| York | Yorkshire | 35 | Garrisoned, cheaper Castles,|
| | | | Naval |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Cumberland | Cumbria | 33 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Westmorland | Cumbria | 37 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Lancaster | Lancashire | 35 | Naval |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Cheshire | Lancashire | 39 | Garrisoned |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Notthingham | Nottingham | 39 | Hood's home county, Keep |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Derby | Nottingham | 37 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Lincoln | Lincolnshire | 35 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Chesteven | Lincolnshire | 38 | Naval |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Carnarvon | Glynwdd | 33 | Enemy lord, Keep |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Powys | Glynwdd | 37 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Dyfed | Glamorgan | 39 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Cardigan | Glamorgan | 37 | Garrisoned, Cheaper Archers,|
| | | | Naval |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Cydewain | Clwyd | 35 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Hereford | Clwyd | 39 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Suffolk | Leicester | 40 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Stafford | Leicester | 42 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Warwick | Leicester | 45 | Garrisoned, Cheaper Footmen |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Worcester | Gloucester | 40 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Gloucester | Gloucester | 43 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Northampton | Buckingham | 50 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Middlesex | Buckingham | 43 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Oxford | Buckingham | 43 | Enemy lord, Castle |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Ely | Cambridge | 40 | Garrisoned |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Cambridge | Cambridge | 39 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Norwich | Norfolk | 35 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Leicester | Norfolk | 33 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Essex | Essex | 40 | Naval, One-County Terr. |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Canterbury | Sussex | 33 | Garrisoned, Cheap Catapults |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Lewes | Sussex | 33 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Hampshire | Hampshire | 39 | Garrisoned |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Surrey | Hampshire | 30 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Somerset | Dorset | 35 | Garrisoned, Cheaper Knights |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Wiltshire | Dorset | 37 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Cornwall | Cornwall | 65 | John's home county, Palace, |
| | | | Naval |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Barnstaple | Cornwall | 35 | |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Devonshire | Cornwall | 35 | |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
===============================================================================
END OF FILE
Copyright (c) 2006 David "Scott Lee" Nguyen
===============================================================================
Amazing Games. Many Cheats. Such Wow.
