The Pope gets the privilege of digging through mud for our amusement.
Which nets us this reric. Not bad, at current faith it gives any hero +10 armour (they have 25. Don't ask me how 25% of 25 = 10)
The $$$ we got I also splurge on a bunch of weapon and armour upgrades for knights and archers.
After which it's off we go to accompany Philip of Artois on a Near Impossible Feat (tm), poisoning the Saracen wells beforehand.
As you may have gathered from the previous update already, during the Third Crusade Damascus was ruled by Saladin, as part of a joint Sultanate of Egypt and Syria. This time the kebab chief will not get away from our grasp!
As I look about, I take little comfort. I must not fail my people.
Here we are. Given the lack of any big city walls, this obviously isn't the city of Damascus proper. No idea why they'd not include it in the game, but so it goes.
Philip is a mounted hero, who brings with him two more units of Crusader Knights. Fairly trashy, but heavy cavalry is heavy cavalry.
To the east is the monastery of Saint Justinian. Since it's not a concern of ours, it's barely guarded - just two seljuk regiments.
To the north is a plain with a countdown, where the Turk reinforcements will come in from.
While northeast, on a small hill, there's the main enemy army.
And it is
you've guessed it
100% seljuks
...
THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A VERY HARD MISSION
WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING GAME
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
No matter. We first take our archers, light cavalry and infantry north to these woods to intercept the incoming turks.
The knights will escort Philip because he'll certainly just rush into the seljuk mob, carried by French sentiments.
oh hey more seljuks run out of the forests along the way
maybe i'd be more concerned if they were fucking assassins or something
The desert is no place for you. Go home, my friend. Go home.
You bet your ass, Sal.
the incoming turk reinforcements are, of course, also seljuks
this isn't even funny anymore
Time to chop up the first trash.
The main army is coming down to get a piece of us too. Good.
Moar seljuks, heuehuehue
The sands of time are running out for you, my friend.
FUCK YOU
Rambeau of Artois decides to spearhead the charge.
We follow five steps behind to let his bros take all the initial damage.
And then it's disco time.
Meanwhile I notice crossbowmen taking damage.
Oops, I forgot to order them to stop running towards the seljuks, and suddenly a turk bowmen regiment spawned
They actually lose a lot of men on the retreat lol. This would certainly be a dumb way to lose a unit at this point.
My forces have struck another blow against you. This is but the beginning of the end for you, my friend.
So you say, Saladin, but then I check the other front...
And I don't even have any idea what's going on here anymore
Shoopin' out the turks with our proper archers. I order the infantry to move forward, no point wasting more time here against SELJUK WARRIORS
While over here there's nothing left but our knights and their deaders.
By all that is holy, you fight well! Too well, I fear.
The reinforcements in the north finally stop spawning. Their total number was: 2x seljuk warriors, 1x turk bowmen, 1x seljuk light horsemen, 1x saracen horsemen
Needless to say, they aren't much of a challenge for us. A few langschilde get trampled, but that's about it.
And then suddenly the men start rejoicing.
I didn't even get to clear the monastery in the corner of the remaining seljuks ;_;
You are mighty in battle, but are you just as well? I put myself at your mercy.
(Depiction of Richard (left) and Saladin (right), c. 1250–60)
We kick Saladin's fat ass into the deepest dungeon we can find and prepare a special cell for waterboarding!
Although the fact that we haven't actually faced him as a unit in any battle yet makes me wonder if he won't be present in Baghdad...
Losses cost a bit to replenish, but lol @ money at this point.
We were also rewarded with ANOTHER useless unit of lvl 0 longshields. To the trash they go.
We can also recruit English Longbowmen now. A clearly superior option to the crusader archers, we upgrade all our bowmen into them.
Some level ups.
Nothing particularly useful for the chevaliers, but I guess scatter is always welcome.
The upgraded bowmen get to redistribute their skillz. The only ones from their selection that we haven't seen yet are:
Aimed shots.
Evasion.
I picked aimed shots + arms-bearer + masterwork weapons for all three regiments.
The last mission also kicked us over another rep threshold for Philip August and the French.
:bros4lyfe:
Two new events spring up in Damascus.
The vultures scramble for our loot! You know the drill.
- French give us rep and 10k geld to spend on trinkets.
- Germanos give us rep, a kaptin and some unit equipment.
- Templars give us +2 rep and a templar unit (so in other words 4k ducats because we'll be selling them at once).
The second event is, once again, papists and templars being at each other's throats.
- Papal States promise us rep, a reric and a faith boost (the power of prayer!)
- Templars promise rep, a kaptin, a priest and a weapon.
The last day dawns, my good men. Baghdad is the final province left for us to conquer.
I remember siding with the Templars during the battle of Jerusalem and not having too many regrets, you fucking scumbag game
Also, lol @ "one of the toughest battles yet" - who wants to start placing bets on how many seljuks we'll get to face here?
So yeah, one plan available, and it's the Teutons. Sounds like a pretty big battle is ahead of us.
Baghdad is surrounded by double walls and a moat, so we'll have to breach each of these in a three-phased attack.
1st, we have to set up siege weapons and break through the outer wall.
2nd, we must cross the moat.
3rd, we need to break through the inner wall and take the city itself.
Many assets available (sabotage, poison the wells, engineers, tunnelers), and with all the defences stacked up here, we can probably expect many Saracen trebuchets and the like. Let us hope it will not be a disappointment this time, because all the supposedly "hard" maps except perhaps Al-Jazira have been a complete joke so far.
So, for your final choices in dis campaign, you may now decide on the fate of the damascene steel and the Krak des Chevaliers.