Is "Carving a Path" even beatable?

[Azu-Kun]

This is utterly frustrating and seemingly impossible, There are crossbows in towers all over the place and are surrounded by a moat, so I can't send in my Ram to knock down any towers, nor the front gate.
I try to send in my spearmen and macemen to try and fill in the moat, then try sending them in batches to fill in a specific spot and they get completely annihilated everytime.
I tried that while picking off the crossbows and archers but they have more crossbows and tower advantage to they also get annihilated.
I can't go anywhere but the front because the rest of the castle is blocked off by cliffs.
This seems impossible and I am close to just giving up on this game.
Is there some kind of "Endless" mode where I build a castle and defend against an endless hoard of enemies and see how far I can get?

[ຊคrtนrคēl]

Another person was asking already about this as well, I'll copy/paste my response from there, hope it helps you too:)

The response:

"I did it on very hard

If you need help there are a lot of youtube guides that were made over the years for the older version, but it's still working in the definitive eidition

I followed this method and it worked:

https://youtu.be/edKnJ9UwgEo?si=Pu0D1Yb9UePwSWI-
"

[Azu-Kun]

Originally posted by Zarturael:

Another person was asking already about this as well, I'll copy/paste my response from there, hope it helps you too:)

The response:

"I did it on very hard

If you need help there are a lot of youtube guides that were made over the years for the older version, but it's still working in the definitive eidition

I followed this method and it worked:

https://youtu.be/edKnJ9UwgEo?si=Pu0D1Yb9UePwSWI-
"

How in the actual ♥♥♥♥ am I supposed to figure that out?! Is the rest of the game like this?! If it is, I don't think I want to play this anymore.

[ຊคrtนrคēl]

Figure what out? That you can watch a youtube video to see how it's done in simple steps? xD Does something like that really require figuring out?
And there's even more than 1 approach possible

It's a strategy game, if you don't like the strategy part and just want to slam your troops against the enemy, you should find a game where you can do that then
Dunno what you want me to tell you, don't play it then if the game is too hard for you and find something easier
While it's true that it's definitely a nasty mission, it is the same like in the original game and people have been beating it for 20+ years now

[Azu-Kun]

Originally posted by Zarturael:

Figure what out? That you can watch a youtube video to see how it's done in simple steps? xD Does something like that really require figuring out?
And there's even more than 1 approach possible

It's a strategy game, if you don't like the strategy part and just want to slam your troops against the enemy, you should find a game where you can do that then
Dunno what you want me to tell you, don't play it then if the game is too hard for you and find something easier
While it's true that it's definitely a nasty mission, it is the same like in the original game and people have been beating it for 20+ years now

Let me ask you something, did you originally beat the level on your own or did you watch a guide?
Does that not seem a bit too esoteric- to go around and find a tiny patch of land up against a moat that is very easy to miss and tell your crossbows and archers to slowly wither away at Ai on the towers that slowly moves them to replace dead men and then fill in a very small part of the moat to place your Ram?
This isn't strategy that you'd use against a Human, this is manipulating a terrible Ai.
If most people playing a game- need a guide to get through a part of a game or-Lord have mercy, an ENTIRE game, it's bad design.
I was actually having fun with the game and I was beginning to get the hang of the game's lingo and beat some of the levels without a guide.
But this mission, If the majority of people need a guide for this, maybe it's not entirely the people's fault, but rather the devs making a horribly designed level.
Why are you assuming that im just blindly rushing the castle in the first place? Did you not read what I said? I tried different things, I tried picking off units, I looked to see if I can go around somewhere else. Most likely a lot of people did the same thing and still failed, it's been 20 years and looking at the youtube comments- a lot of people are saying "This is so hard!"

[ຊคrtนrคēl]

Originally posted by Gen:

Originally posted by Zarturael:

Figure what out? That you can watch a youtube video to see how it's done in simple steps? xD Does something like that really require figuring out?
And there's even more than 1 approach possible

It's a strategy game, if you don't like the strategy part and just want to slam your troops against the enemy, you should find a game where you can do that then
Dunno what you want me to tell you, don't play it then if the game is too hard for you and find something easier
While it's true that it's definitely a nasty mission, it is the same like in the original game and people have been beating it for 20+ years now

Let me ask you something, did you originally beat the level on your own or did you watch a guide?
Does that not seem a bit too esoteric- to go around and find a tiny patch of land up against a moat that is very easy to miss and tell your crossbows and archers to slowly wither away at Ai on the towers that slowly moves them to replace dead men and then fill in a very small part of the moat to place your Ram?
This isn't strategy that you'd use against a Human, this is manipulating a terrible Ai.
If most people playing a game- need a guide to get through a part of a game or-Lord have mercy, an ENTIRE game, it's bad design.
I was actually having fun with the game and I was beginning to get the hang of the game's lingo and beat some of the levels without a guide.
But this mission, If the majority of people need a guide for this, maybe it's not entirely the people's fault, but rather the devs making a horribly designed level.
Why are you assuming that im just blindly rushing the castle in the first place? Did you not read what I said? I tried different things, I tried picking off units, I looked to see if I can go around somewhere else. Most likely a lot of people did the same thing and still failed, it's been 20 years and looking at the youtube comments- a lot of people are saying "This is so hard!"

How should I remember, I think I didn't even beat it at all the first time 22 years ago, idk I was like 8 years old at the time

And as I said, there's more than one approach to it, not just the example I linked. The one in the video is one of the rare ones that work on the 'very hard' difficulty, but the lower you go with the difficulty, the more possibilities open up for the siege of the castle and the ways you can go at it

You accuse me of not reading what you said, yet clearly what I said flew completely past you. And nobody is denying that it's hard

But anyway, I'm not even going to start arguing over the guide/design philosophy because I can already tell it would just drag out with you and I don't want to waste my Sunday on discussions

Please don't write more long responses for me to read, I really have no wish going through them.
I'm going to turn off the notifications for this thread so don't waste your time responding to me, since I won't be seeing it

I gave advice and tried to help, now you can do with it whatever you want, or quit the game, or whatever you want
Makes literally no difference to me

[Habor]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhrdXSscSnk

[manmoth]

its possible you just need to abuse game mechanics, i think last time i won this with one maceman left, on a somewhat related note, there should be an achievement for every campaign beaten on very hard difficulty, c'mon Firefly, let us brag to everyone

[ЦPЯIZЗ]

I can't believe they left this mission 'as is' instead of updating it to actually be beaten fairly without cheese

[Onyx]

Originally posted by ЦPЯIZЗ:

I can't believe they left this mission 'as is' instead of updating it to actually be beaten fairly without cheese

Cheese is for minmaxing high scores. In the original Stronghold 1 I didn't need to cheese this to beat it.

[Azu-Kun]

Originally posted by Onyx:

Originally posted by ЦPЯIZЗ:

I can't believe they left this mission 'as is' instead of updating it to actually be beaten fairly without cheese

Cheese is for minmaxing high scores. In the original Stronghold 1 I didn't need to cheese this to beat it.

I've beaten the mission some time ago but I still had to use the guide.
I call ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, you should do it and record it. For all I know- you're lying.

[Onyx]

Originally posted by Azu-Kun:

Originally posted by Onyx:

Cheese is for minmaxing high scores. In the original Stronghold 1 I didn't need to cheese this to beat it.

I've beaten the mission some time ago but I still had to use the guide.
I call ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, you should do it and record it. For all I know- you're lying.

I don't need to. Someone else did 10 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyjOdmp_fZ8

[Azu-Kun]

Originally posted by Onyx:

Originally posted by Azu-Kun:

I've beaten the mission some time ago but I still had to use the guide.
I call ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, you should do it and record it. For all I know- you're lying.

I don't need to. Someone else did 10 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyjOdmp_fZ8

Smells like cheese to me.

[Onyx]

Originally posted by Azu-Kun:

Originally posted by Onyx:

I don't need to. Someone else did 10 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyjOdmp_fZ8

Smells like cheese to me.

Amassing your troops at the weakest point of a fortress and using that to snowball is basic tactics.

Cheese is using the Pixel Hunt 2001 tactic where you can find the handful of tiles where your crossbowmen on the ground can outrange the archers and crossbows stationed in towers, then ground attack to eventually wipe the towers clean without the AI firing a single shot in retaliation.

[[‡]=Storky=[‡]]

I recall it was much easier back day, also used pixel hunting.
But the single way to go is to siege the least flamable spot left of the gate, as speedrunners do.

[Azu-Kun]

Originally posted by Onyx:

Originally posted by Azu-Kun:

Smells like cheese to me.

Amassing your troops at the weakest point of a fortress and using that to snowball is basic tactics.

Cheese is using the Pixel Hunt 2001 tactic where you can find the handful of tiles where your crossbowmen on the ground can outrange the archers and crossbows stationed in towers, then ground attack to eventually wipe the towers clean without the AI firing a single shot in retaliation.

But wait, if this was a human player, why wouldn't they just send more troops to eliminate your crossbowmen? This seems like manipulating an Ai.