Mission 5: Bayinnaung - The Old tiger = Ridiculously difficult

[Smillie88]

I need some advice with this mission, i follow the video guides which are on hard but i can't even get past moderate as there seems to be 100's more units than in the hard video guide

[76561199096712327]

Can you pause the game?

If you can, that's your answer.

[Big [REDACTED] Marty]

Originally posted by menzoberranzan:

Can you pause the game?

If you can, that's your answer.

Ah yes, pause it.

[Smillie88]

I have been doing that its F3, it helps alot but not enough
I managed to destroy all but one yellow base, which eneded up spamming monks and onagers which screwed me

[Big [REDACTED] Marty]

If you have access to bombard canons i'd recommend those for the siege, and archers with the monks, though some micro will be needed to not have mucho losses

[kud13]

I haven't tried in DE yet, but here's how I beat in on HD:

1) unlike what the game says, take your time with the initial march. Crucially, use your monks to convert a University and research Chemistry.- also you can grab a Blacksmith to get the other upgrades, but University is a must. Then continue your push. Leave a bunch of units to guard your starting base- Onagers on Attack ground + garrizoned towers work well to guard the bridge, and use some cavalry to snipe any trebs/other siege that comes from the north base.

2) As you're taking Bayannung on his merry stroll, focus on destroying Harbours- the AI doesn't rebuild them, and you're gonna have to win water once this phase is over.

3) When you win water, cannon galleons can wipe the Portuguese base.

4) If you manage to keep your base on the mainland and wipe out their docks and pretty much everything your cannon galleons can reach, you should be able to push from several directions at once (landing a force + have troops from your starting base).

My general experience so far is that DE Moderate is generally not as hard as HD Moderate, so the AI spam should be a lot more manageable. Like I said, I found that the key was getting the upgrades early. You have Redemption monks, so you don't need to build production buildings- everything that's not a Tower, castle, harbor, temple or TC is fair game.

[Smillie88]

I don't start with any resources to research anything or do you mean you can get the techs if you convert the buildings? I managed to deal with Portugal and 2 yellow bases before praying at any of the shrines, the main issue is the shrine praying pilgrimage part. I guess there's nothing i can do but be quicker

[76561199096712327]

There are 2 ways to play this:

1)Micro like crazy under pause and try to finish as fast as possible.

2)Prepare for a VERY long grind - like 3 hours of real time. You can get Atonement and convert Portuguese monks. Portuguese will eventually research Redemption and their converted monks possess their full techs and will be able to convert their Feitorias and other buildings. I don't recommend trying to convert their Navy as they have infinite resources and you will lose in a war of attrition even with Feitorias.

Next convert tons of Elephants while tanking with the Hero. Don't lose the fragile Arambai because you want to keep that pack that can oneshot excessive Elephants..

Heal the hero with multiple monks and repeat this until you have converted enough elephants to just steamroll the map in one single massive attack.

[Smillie88]

I'm using a strategy where i can kill 1 yellow base to the north of my starting location by taking out their 2 castles asap, then disabling the next nearest yellow base base by taking out as many production buildings as possible rendering them ineffective and then I can manage to force portugal to resign completely by destroying their wonder, the problem i then have is getting spammed by monks and onagers from the western base, usually by this time I land my western army to attack the western yellow base while moving the battered remnants of my eastern army to the west praying at the shrines as I go. but both my armies get battered during this process, in one attempt I had about 20 elephants and 10 monks healing but they get owned by kiting monks, onagers and I'm sure they had a handful of other annoying kiting units. its just getting frustrating now. and this is on moderate difficulty, i refuse to put it any lower

[mental00]

This is by far my least favorite mission in the game. I won after lots of frustration, saves, pauses, f.... were flying in the room and such. This is on hard mode and DE edition.

TL;DR. Save, pause, keep your siege and priests alive, push fast by land and sea, spam navy, destroy everything, build a force and clean up the rest.

-I pushed to the first meditation point and destroyed the castles and buildings around it. Push a little further to the second meditation point and lure and kill what you can with your Arambai.

-Simultaneously push with your ships and destroy a few ships you will find at the top left. Disembark there and destroy the castle-buildings at the 4th meditation point.

-You should be under the 8 minute mark when you start with the 1st mediation with everything cleared around there. Push to the 2nd meditation, destroy castles, towers and docks.

-With both armies, push to the 3rd meditation point, destroy everything you can and proceed to the last meditation point.

-At that time I didn't have much army so I got the remaining hero and villagers in a boat to the small island with the base. Personally I didn't try to defend the starting land base.

-Upgrade what you need (chemistry, blacksmith upgrades, etc) and spam fire ships and bombard galleons (after researching them). Push to destroy every dock and whatever else you can from the sea.

-At that point I was almost out of wood (if you are not fast enough they spam ships out of 20 docks). I got an mixed army of elephants, monks and halbs and landed on the Portuguese base with the 3 feitorias, converted them and spammed towers on the walls filled with archers.

-Defend until you replenish your resources and push destroying the remaining castles

All in all it sucked but it was the last campaign I had left.. :D

[Smillie88]

I eventually cleared this mission in strange way, but very frustrating, I ended up converting the portugese Feitoras and digging in at my castle, it was basically a tug of war between there and the other side of the map, while converting as many enemy priests and elephants as possible i had around 50 towers around the bridge and castle turning it into a killing zone. literally any groups of enemies approached would be vaporised in 2 seconds with the amount of arrows.

this took me about 8-9 hours. Never again

[Virgil]

The mission becomes a lot easier if you do the following things:

- Kill the yellow player in the base right north to yours ASAP with your starting troops. This is done by taking out both of their castles. At the very start of the game this should be fairly easy even with poor micro. They will commit suicide afterwards. This will make the rest of the mission far easier.

- As you move along quickly, your priority is to have Bayinnaung medidate and his heir reach a transport ship to be shuttled off the island, but the more docks you destroy, the easier the mission will be. You can just snipe castles with cannon galleons and watch as the remaining yellow players resign despite the rest of their army being intact. For that reason, try also to nuke the castles that are hard to reach from the sea, if applicable. Don't worry about losing your starting units as long as the pilgrimage is complete and the heir is safe: you'll have plenty of resources for the remainder of the mission.

- The Portuguese player will commit suicide if you destroy their single castle with cannon galleons. Just bring a few of them to the northernmost corner of their base, kill the towers first, then monks as they try to convert you, then the castle. Send in a fireship or two if needed for caravels. There are two monks on the northernmost island that you can send to convert the feitoras afterwards.

[rmundell]

Originally posted by itsfridayaintgotnojobgotshittodo:

I need some advice with this mission, i follow the video guides which are on hard but i can't even get past moderate as there seems to be 100's more units than in the hard video guide

This was a difficult and frustrating campaign but after trying it a few ways what worked for me was to pour all my resources into wiping out the northern tribes including the Portuguese, before even attempting the pilgrimage. I wish I had saved a villager over on the island, or back behind the castle at my base, because once the pilgrimages were done I had plenty of resources, but couldnt build new buildings as I went, so I was always having to train units back at the base and send them, or else ship them over from the island. Be very careful to protect the heirs as you go because they will tend to head to the front of each fight. Of one dies its over. I didnt do the monuments in sequence, because having lost my trebuchets I had to skirt the castles and enter some of them from behind. Tough one, but it worked in a couple of hours after having tried and failed four or five other ways. I saved one of the feitoras for the monks on the island to convert, but didnt really need it as there are tons of resources after the pilgrimage.