Carving a path (very hard)

[Dankinator]

has anyone done this?

[LargeHead]

After countless times of mission restarts, and strategies tried, today I was finally able to finish it, just a few seconds (!) before the Pig's attack.

So I want to make it clear to everyone reading the forum of the game that the 15th mission of the game is possible to complete on very hard difficulty. However it requires a LOT of patience, because you must be prepared that even reading this guide may not lead you to immediate success, and you must keep trying countless times.

The strategy I used was the following.

1. As soon as the game starts move all your archers and crossbowmen to the left hills. (DONT wait for the enemy macemen to come out, because that pause will kill you a few minutes which you WILL NEED at the end)

2. Use your arches (and only the archers) to kill the three crossbowmen from the left front tower. No single archer from you must die. To do this, you must move your archers to safety after they have fired a shot. This will stop the enemy crossbowmen from hitting your archers. If you are done, move them to the same spot again and repeat this until all enemy crossbowmen die. You can try to use your crossbowmen too for help, but it didnt really work for me, and you will need ALL your archers and crossbowmen later too so spare them!

Edited: 2/A. The macemen will attack your archers while doing point 2. so prepare your archers and crossbowmen to kill them. Don't use any other soldiers!!

3. As soon as a crossbowman dies, an archer from the ground come to the tower as reinforcement. Leave them, until all 3 crossbowmen dies. Then use your archers and crossbowmen to kill the 4 archers from the same tower. This time you don't need to move your archers because the enemy archers wont damage much, and it will just consume youre time.

4. After that kill the archer on the wall, that fires fire arrows. If your archers keep saying "can't target him sir" use the attack here trick. (Press the attack here button, place a spot on the map, then before the shots are made, point to the enemy archer.)

5. Kill the archer on the small tower, left to the gatehouse.

6. Let the archers mentioned in point 4-5. hit you, dont run away from their shots, if you use your archers good, nobody from you will die.

7. Kill the 3 crossbowmen on the gatehouse using the trick mentioned in point 4.

8. Now starts the harder part. Move about 3-4-5 archers, 4 spearmen, and your battering ram to the bridge. (Select each soldier type + the ram INDIVIDUALLY so they all move there in their own speed.)

9. Select your archers and order them to move left and right, left and right, etc. Repeat this all the time. This makes the remaining 4 crossbowmen and 1 archer in the first line to shoot your archers, but if you move your archers right they will always miss them. Meanwhile your spearmen will dig the moat, but since the enemy archers will be occupied to kill your archers, nobody is going to shoot the spearmen.

10. Let the spearmen dig, until the way to the gatehouse is clear.

11. Move the spearmen back. (None of them must die!)

12. Destroy the gatehouse with the ram.

13. While performing the 11th and 12th task, make sure youre archers will still not get hit.

14. After the gatehouse is destroyed, move the ram and your archers back, and try to move your archers as close to the pikemen as possible to lure as many pikemen out as possible.

15. If you do good, the pikemen that went out, will follow the ram back, and you can use your remaining archers and crossbowmen (AND ONLY THESE TWO SOLDIERS!) to kill the pikemen.

16. Get some archers and lure the remaining pikemen outside, and use the archers and crossbowmen again to kill them.

17. If the second try did not get all the pikemen killed, you must load your game.

18. So now all the pikemen are gone, we need about 19 spearmen to kill the crossbowmen and the archer in the front. Order 19 spearmen to get to the right front tower, and in the same time order all your archers to in from of the destroyed gatehouse's remains + move your rame to the castle's second line, next to the right small tower. This is to distract the remaining archers in the front, + ALL of them in the second line. (Dont forget to kepp moving your archers left and right!)

19. In the same time move your macemen, and your remaining spearmen between the left front small tower, and the left front large tower.

20. As soon as the ram reaches the second line, order it to destroy a part of the right WALL next to the right small tower. (You will simply not have time to destroy anything else!)

21. Prepare your spearmen and macemen to break in.

22. Divide your troops in the following ways:
- spearmen must kill all the archers and crossbowmen in the second line of the wall (2 small towers, gatehouse, and a large tower on the left) and after doing this, all of them must go the closest tower next to the second line's large left tower,
- all macemen must first kill the 5-6 archers in the tower just behind the breached wall,
- then they must divide into four parts,
* 3 macemen must go to the tower behind,
* 3 must go to the same tower which is the spearmen's last target,
* 2 must go to the rearest tower on the left,
* the rest to the keep, plust the first 3 must also aid them as soon as they are finished.

If you do all this in the correct order, with perfect timing, not wasting any single second, then you will be victorious just a few (3-4) seconds before the Pig's army arrives. I would like to state a couple of things:
- any questions are welcome,
- I can not guarantee that this strategy will work for you, especially because this needs to be executed very perfectly, you must not make a single mistake. The map is very very tough and even knowing this will require you a lot of time to restart, before it might actually work,
- to make your restarts less, please save after EVERY SUCCESSFUL STEP!!

I don't say that this is the only solution, but I have tried many things before this, and this was the only one that worked.

Best regards
LargeHead

[Dannigrrl]

That's nuts!
Any idea why the archers shoot the ground?