I am Brasidas Mission 16 Grand Campaign Tips and Tricks

[Plokmijnuh]

Before I get into the gameplay, some helpful bonuses are available depending on your choices in Across the Wine Dark Sea.

If you give the Bowl of Menelaus to Pausanius, the bowl is in the Temple with the Old Man in Methone during this mission. If you bring Brasidas to the Temple you get +1 attack for Infantry.

(If you give the relic to Pausanius in Wrath of the Regent, you also can get an infantry speed boost of 15% in Pyres on the Coast. Simply go to the first of the two eastern most coastal Perokoi towns and go to the south gate. A couple Athenian elite hoplites are guarding a statue of helios.)

Level Overview:


Spartans get 2 Polemarchs for free from the town center. You can use the 2 polemarchs to boost the stats of your infantry. The Healing aura is 50 HP per minute and is very helpful.

As for the Unique Techs: Helot Levies is 500 wood and 500 gold and can be purchased with the starting resources. This will allow you to boom quickly before the first attack by the Athenians.

The Goats for the Blacksmith aura quest are on the southern side of the map by the cavalry siege camp. There are a group of 5 and 4 goats just to the north of this camp and either side of the small lake/pond. The remaining goats are at the Helot supply camp just before this.

There are 4 helot supply camps that when cleared spawn a ox wagon or donkey that can be brought back to Methone for 2000 food. 1500 wood and 1000 gold.

The least impactful siege camp in my opinion is the southern most one on the coast which gets rid of Leviathan ships. And 10 biremes is plenty to defend the harbor. (However, you could look into using fishing ships for the oysters to get more gold.)

The most important siege camps are to the north (take northern mountain pass). The one in the top left corner reduces the number of skirmishers and archers. While the second siege camp in the north lowers mangonels, onagers and scorpions. There are also two supply camps up here.

For gold you get fewer gold mines on moderate and hard and there is only 5 stone mines on moderate/hard. I would place castles in the north and middle to reinforce. I used hoplites/hippeus for my army.

1 Polemarch in the middle. Brasidas at southern or Northern gate depending on what path you want to take during the night phase. The remaining polemarch can heal the units at the remaining gates.

You cannot build walls but you can repair the gates at night or during the day. You can also build buildings to slow down the Athenians. Building barracks to partially block the Athenians confuses the AI because the Athenians will attack the barracks instead of steamrolling straight to the Gates. Also if there is a breach, the AI seems destined to destroy everything instead of focusing on reaching the central fort. The Sapper Tunnels can be annoying but you have plenty of time before they actually undermine the walls of Methone.

Sell food and wood as needed as gold is limited. And I had so much food and wood but was always low on gold. I didn't bother getting archer or cavalry armor at blacksmith. And I went with the Greek Noble Cavalry which is good for sniping rams in a pinch.

Also once the 4th siege camp is cleared the Athenians spawn a massive army for a final push. All I can say is this is tough but thankfully the Athenians are not smart and don't go straight to the Methone Fort if the walls are breached. They kinda spread out and destroy everything near the outer walls and go all over the place.

Also if a wall is breached. The Athenians continue to attack the North, Middle, and South and don't congregate on the section that's been breached. They also will attack the gates on the double wall that separate the inner/outer walls rather than focus on the main gates.

Also Bodkin Arrow, Bracer, and other range techs do not upgrade your starting towers.