Completed Let us RECLAIM THE HOLY LAND

[Darth Roxor]

CHAPTER XVII - THE B(I/U)G ONE!

Spoiler

We begin by resolving all the events per your request. First, the steel goes to the Templars, so they may make cheesy power metal with it.

After which we support the Hospitallers' claim to the Krak des Chevaliers...

...

but for some reason our heroes don't get the bonus skill point from the Templar rep threshold!

which is because

WE GOT CUCKED!

Yup, the choice might say "+2 fame", but, in fact, it gives only +1 Enjoy your free Templars

The Pope also sends us this reric as thanks. We send it back to him as thanks too.

Then I sell the noob Templars.

And all the items left in our coffers that nobody can use anymore.

Which lets us go full retard on final armour and weapon upgrades for the important units (knights and archers).

and also buy all the assets available for the mission.

In Baghdad, we get to deliver the killing blow to the Abbasid Caliphate. The enemy forces will once again be commanded by our good friend caliph Al-Nasir li-Din Allah.

Stay away from my lands, infidel. Stay away!

WARNING! TEMPORAL DISTORTIONS MAY OCCUR PAST THIS POINT

Welcome to Madinat Baghdad, ye Codex. We get a shitton of engineering points to set up our catapults. In fact, we can deploy all of them and still get 1 point left.

Here you can see both the walls and the moat. Looks p. dangerous!

The city certainly stretches far away.

Remembering the cavalry bumrush back at Jerusalem, I cover the flanks with our knights and put the bulk of our army in the middle.

Starting battle spawns two enemy mobs by the two bridges. One are 2x abbasid lancers + trebuchet + turk palace guards.

The other are 2x turk guards + lancers + trebuchet.

No seljuks in sight. Mighty suspicious!

Let the siege begin! Take no prisoners! Kill them all!

My intuition was correct, and soon three drop pod signals appear on the western flank.

But from the three drop pods, only 2 regiments spawn Saracen Horsemen and Seljuk Light Horsemen. Obviously, we murder them with ease.

Ah, classic sieging.

Once the outer wall is down, we sabotage one of the enemy trebuchets.

And get in closer to shoot out the defenders at the first bridge.

Poor suckers stand no chance. Moving past the bridge mobs them together and forcibly switches them to close array formation, which is extra unhelpful against archers.

And then there are our own trebuchets

None reach us alive.

The enemy bastions cover the other side of the moat almost completely, so taking this way would be most unwise.

Fortunately, our archers can camp themselves just outside the range of the other trebuchet and trigger the other mob to attack.

Effects are similar.

this place

was where the game crashed for the first time

You are weak, infidel. My forces will ultimately bring you to your knees.

Fortunately restarting and getting to this point again didn't take a lot of time.

The trebuchet needs taking care of. I send one light cavalry regiment ahead to run around in the open and bait its shots, while the other moves through the moat to chop it up.

Run run run, run away!

Taking out the catapult thrusts us into another set up phase in front of the inner wall.

Remove your army from sight of my castle walls, at once!

I deploy in a similar way as the last time. Knights cover the west bridge, everyone else covers the east.

and then I hit start battle, enemy units populated the map and the game crashed

I retried and it crashed again

I lowered all settings to minimum, retried and it crashed yet again

Watch your back, knight! Watch. Your. Back.

So I had another idea. Perhaps the issue here was the sheer number of units on the battlefield. So I kicked out two knight regiments to the reserves (Gascon Knights and Chevaliers) and limited the outer wall siege catapults to only 4.

Bombarding the outer wall with just 4 catapults took ages even on 4x gamespeed, but fortunately I could just pick up the guitar and pass the time.

And what do you know, it worked! Starting the battle didn't crash!

We can now inspect the enemy forces. There are 5 victory locations and 6 groups of kebabs defending them. Turk bowmen and palace guards by the main gate.

Abbasid lancers and turk bowmen on this square.

Bowmen and palace guards again

Nubian warriors and palace guards

Palace guards and bowmen

And finally nubians, lancers, bowmen.

HORY SHEET NO SELJUKS IN THIS MAP EXCEPT FOR THE HORSEMEN AT THE START. Which is also hilarious in its own way, because I remember in the Saracen campaign you can recruit light cavalry better than the seljuks - Mameluk Riders. The moment you realise this unit doesn't even appear in the Crusader campaign... and when you later realise Assassins appear on one map only... same as Circassian Riders... and Ayyubid bowmen...

Yeah, better not to dwell on this

However, we have to cap only 3 of these points, so steamrolling the dual-triple groups should be hella easy. Otherwise we might have even been in slight trouble!

Death is too good for you. You deserve worse.

At this point, Steam also refused to take pictures again. Fortunately, I still have my trusty Ultima Online Screenshot Utility at hand.

These folks started a bit too close for their own good

Not pictured: Wilhelm tries to trample incoming palace guards, but a dumbfuck catapult shoots a boulder directly into him, killing 4 of his men. Good job.

I am the skirmish master!

Once the wall is down, we can start shooting our way to victory.

Then I let the light cavalry mop up the bowmen.

But for some reason they take super high casualties while doing so

From there I proceed with knights only.

Going from two sides, the heroes catch the palace guards' attention while the knights templar ride into the bowmen.

Two points capped, one to go.

This one.

Short work.

It's a perfect home run!

That weapon oil sure is gonna be worth it now...

Well, it seems victory is ours and we've secured the Holy Land in the name of Christendom.

All that is left is chill out while rolling the credits

what

WHAT

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

well, you know what they say

it aint over till the fat lady sings

You play like a lame camel!

Upon another replay, it takes yet another 10 minutes to break down the walls. But somehow I miss one section and post my archers next to it.

Best part of this: the guard towers in the wall for some reason refuse to shoot our archers even though they are well within their range

Also, as you may notice, this time I kept our forces to the barest necessities, also kicking out the templars and longshields to the reserves.

So a few funny things happen along the way, including massive casualties that shouldn't have been there.

Am I to dispose of all our foes? Well, I expect nothing else.

Also, here you may witness 43 turk bowmen getting smashed to death by the charge of the knights templar. I think if I aimed the charge better, they would have all died

Final palace guards hit the dirt. Cap the point... and...!

AND...!

YES!

Death comes for me. I am not afraid... but maybe you should be!

VICTAREH!!!!





Credits start rolling and we bask in all the glory.

Once credits stop rolling and the game is supposed to return to the main menu, a final middle finger for Richard:

The Holy Land has been saved. We would never have managed it without God's own help. I think a final thanksgiving song is in order:




Thanks for reading.

 

[Kipeci]

Quality product.

What's the campaign like for the Saracens? Are you fighting on the same map for Crusader clay, or have they shifted it at all so that you aren't defending against ridiculous expeditions into Baghdad but are instead launching absurd ones into Rome or something?

 

[Darth Roxor]

What's the campaign like for the Saracens?

From what I remember, although my memory might be cloudy, it's harder than the Crusader one because the enemy army compositions are much better thought out - there are less tier 0 trash units like vassals or foot knights than the fucking seljuk spam. On the other hand, the campaign STRUCTURE is a total letdown, because it doesn't have the whole factions and plans angle. You always have one plan for a battle, and there are no factions at all, which is ridiculous, because you could at the very least put in Seljuks, Mameluks and Abbasids there. This also means less politocool events, IIRC. There are also some other changes, like a jihadi tech tree that you unlock with geld and upgrade points gathered from battles, and faith working very differently, but I dun remember the details on this one

Also, yeah, the map is the same.

I could potentially continue this LP into the Saracen campaign, but I dunno. I think it would have less reader input, since it would be mostly limited to map choice. And it would probably also lack the kool krusader singalongs because I'm sure as hell not gonna scour the youtube for two dozen nasheeds or whatever the hell

 

[Jaedar]

What's the campaign like for the Saracens?

From what I remember, although my memory might be cloudy, it's harder than the Crusader one because the enemy army compositions are much better thought out - there are less tier 0 trash units like vassals or foot knights than the fucking seljuk spam. On the other hand, the campaign STRUCTURE is a total letdown, because it doesn't have the whole factions and plans angle. You always have one plan for a battle, and there are no factions at all, which is ridiculous, because you could at the very least put in Seljuks, Mameluks and Abbasids there. This also means less politocool events, IIRC. There are also some other changes, like a jihadi tech tree that you unlock with geld and upgrade points gathered from battles, and faith working very differently, but I dun remember the details on this one

Also, yeah, the map is the same.

I could potentially continue this LP into the Saracen campaign, but I dunno. I think it would have less reader input, since it would be mostly limited to map choice. And it would probably also lack the kool krusader singalongs because I'm sure as hell not gonna scour the youtube for two dozen nasheeds or whatever the hell

I would like to at least see the differences between the campaigns, even if you don't want to finish it.

 

[Nicebrain]

Good job

 

[hello friend]

 

[Storyfag]

I would like to at least see the differences between the campaigns, even if you don't want to finish it.

This.

 

[RK47]

That's it? Wow. Even King Arthur ending had more.

 

[Darth Roxor]

yeah, not even a letter of commendation from the pope

 

[Darth Roxor]

SARACEN CAMPAIGN IS A GO

SURAH 1 - MODERATE JIHAD

Spoiler

YOU SERIOUSLY HAVE TO ASK?

A great calamity has befallen the land of the Faithful, my brothers!

The Arab (and by Arab I mean 100% Seljuk) armies were swept away by the might of the crusader forces under Richard the Lionheart.

And now the infidel pigs are gorging themselves upon the ruins of our splendid palaces!

But all is not lost. For Sultan Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub managed to escape capture, and he lies in the shadows, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike against the barbarians from the west. Though his troops are scattered and weak, they have GOD on their side, and so they shall win!

Ah, the call to battle.

Our starting roster is ridiculously terrible, but we have at least one huge advantage - Saladin already starts on horseback. Ofc this will drain our coffers even more than replacing Raynald's useless bodyguards, but this is nevertheless a huge starting oomph.

I also like how they call him the sultan of Egypt and Syria when both of these are dubbed Caliphates in the game

The rest of our dudes are all seljuks.

A slight consolation at least is that the warriors and swordsmen start over level 0.

The good news end here.

The only other unit we can hire apart from the three above are spearmen. We even lack the funds to get another regiment of swordsmen, FFS.

Faith is a bit different, as you can see. It doesn't just influence relics, it also acts as currency for leadership abilties. But what are leadership abilities, you ask?

Here's what replaces the factions from the crusader campaign. A bunch of tech trees where we can research Jihad and better contemplate our knowledge of the Quran.

There are three trees in total.

Leadership abilities, which are as follows:

Fuck yeah, multiple simultaneous and devastating defensive deep strikes.

All of these upgrades cost money and upgrade points, and the needed sums vary depending on usefulness. As you may also notice, a bunch of them are completely useless.

The leadership abilities more or less act as spells that you can invoke at any time during a battle. Faith points are spent to activate them.

Next up is the unit upgrade tree. This unlocks new units for us to recruit. Most of them we know already from the Crusader campaign, except for three:

Super-heavy cavalry.

I guess kinda sorta an equivalent of crossbowmen? Either that or it's just bombardiers with a wrong portrait and name

Light cavalry.

Note: three higher-tier units that we've never faced in the crusader campaign. Sigh.

And finally general upgrades. Catch-all term for all kinds of boosts and buffs.

It would appear that we're going to have only 2 heroes for the entire campaign (Saladin and the guy unlocked through this tree). Unless some more appear in events or whatnot, but I wouldn't count on it.

Realising that Saladin will be our primary all-purpose unit for the time being and that his refills will be COSTLY AS HELL, I give him Last Stand and a healer. Last Stand is great as a starting ability, because it's a one-point-wonder: the defence boost stays always at 50%, additional levels only extend the duration.

I also buy a regiment of spearmen because we really need more units.

We return to Baghdad just as we'd left it!

As you can see, successful Jihad calls for only one brilliant plan. This will be true for all missions.

The crusaders have overrun Baghdad and are now getting drunk in the streets. This is the perfect moment to attack.

We'll have to sneak into the city at night and capture a bunch of neighbourhoods to incite the local moderate rebels to aid our cause. After that, we'll be able to kick the infidels out of our turf.

Assets include Scouting (aka map reveal for 30 seconds). It's not like we can even afford it to begin with.

So it begins.

All the gates stand wide open, and our first objective lies right behind them.

BISMILLAH! INFIDELS AHEAD!

Not a big deal though, just vassals and pilgrims.

Wait, pilgrims?

Yep, it's a unit we never could recruit. It seems they are an upgrade over regular spearmen, which makes it p. weird that you can't hire them during the crusader campaign.

Night-time archery ain't ideal, but we have to make-do with what we have.

We split the enemy units and bumrush.

The useless fucking seljuk spearmen are of course having their asses handed to them despite engaging 3v1 against a target softened by archers...

Let's see what's over here.

Crusaders and pilgrims. A bit higher calibre.

I take them on an extended detour along the walls to maximise archer damage.

Unfortunately one of Saladin's men gets caught in the clusterfuck as manoeuvres go a bit wrong

SURPRISE!

I don't even know what's going on here anymore.

Approaching the inner gate, we trigger more westerners. 2x vassals, 1x spearmen. Not a biggie.

Especially since moving AROUND the walls is teh hard

Mopping up

And moving on.

Capturing the inner wall makes five victory locations pop up across the map. All of them get capped by the enemy, so they must be guarded.

Indeed. Central one is pilgrims and crusaders.

Facing archers in these streets is a death trap even at night.

Also the AI is kind of wonky (prob cuz of limited night FOV), and we can easily split the enemy groups around by cleverly approaching and retreating. However, once someone is attacked for real, their friends always rush in to aid them.

Capping the point gives us cannon fodder spearmen. Not bad.

Next point are spearmen and vassals. No problem.

Which gets us auxiliary warriors.

Since our regulars are getting fairly busted atm, these are more than welcome.

Third point is guarded by pilgrims, vassals... and templars



THIS CAMPAIGN DOESN'T FUCK AROUND

I have a bit of a bad feeling about this.

The templars obviously knock the living shit out of our trash units.

It takes engaging with Saladin to turn the tide, although at this point his squad is so hurt that I hate putting them into danger again.

Alhamdulillah, cannon fodder heavy infantry.

Two points to go.

Just vassals, no problem.

No problem at all, especially when engaging with cannon fodder only.

Another seljuk warrior regiment for free.

I also get back to the moat for a moment to check if the other bridge is guarded. It is, by vassals.

I use the opportunity to give our archers some easy XP.

Final point are crusaders and 2 vassals.

Archers make short work of the vassals in the streets.

Mopping up (another free spearmen unit).

Allahu akbar!

Look at all them level-ups, hory shieet.

I also like the odds this map put us up against. 960 soldiers vs 240

Reinforcing all these deaders obviously costs a lot

Also, we can now recruit light cavalry. Weee!

Some level-ups

Persistence for the swordsmen is a no-brainer.

While for Saladin I get 2 levels of Rage. All the other options are kinda crap.

Baghdad also got us this reric. Kind of bad, but there's nothing else we can equip, and this time we can't exchange artifacts for faith, only gold (2k for the horn).

Let's see here. The only new map we can go to is the Caliphate of Baghdad, but there's also an event.

Ah, we can send our mujahideen on martyrdom missions!

Three options, all pretty straightforward. We can sabotage:

- Damascus for + 10k ducats,
- A reliquary for + 2 faith,
- Acre for a Relic and an armour.

Finally, conquest.

I like that the descriptions of the maps are different for the saracens and crusaders.

William of Tyre, eh? Doubt it's this guy since he ain't no lord... and he should also be dead at this time... just like Asad ad-Din... well nevermind \^-^/

The briefing seems vanilla enough. We gotta entrench at the ford and set up siege weapons. Then the crusader army will come from the west, and we'll hafta drive them back. "Reinforcements" should arrive shortly after from the north, which is gud because we REALLY NEED THE CANNON FODDER


And speaking of cannon fodder, we also have 5k gold to spend, which makes me wonder wot do with it. I'm tempted to get the horsemen (4k), but I'm just as tempted to get the Loot upgrade:

It'll cost us 2k gold and 2 upgrade points, but I feel it's something that's best taken ASAP to get the maximum snowball effect out of it. But doing it will block us from the horsemen, and instead we'll have to limit ourselves to archers or light infantry.


Suggestions? Opinions?

And, naturally, where do we send our saboteurs?

 

[Jaedar]

It is possible, because we will accept Damascus' generous gift of ducats.

 

[Excidium II]

We need $$$ more than anything so I vote Damascus for the event.

Also yeah, the earlier that geld earned upgrade is bought the better so go for it.

 

[Azira]

Jew the max out of the events and upgrades. The coins must flow.

 

[RK47]

It's a no brainer to take extra gold as early as possible.
It acts as a loss minimizer and the best part is that gold is flexible.

 

[ore clover]

> "We have gathered our best warriors."

> Seljuks

Dire straights indeed for صلاح الدين يوسف بن أيوب‎‎.

I also think you should go for the loot boost, as well as the 10000 gold. Unless the extra faith will vastly improve combat efficiency, of course, but you'll probably need as much money as you can grab to keep the trash units standing, and then to buy proper units later on.

 

[Erebus]

Loot and Damascus. Soon, we'll be rolling in gold ! (Or, at least, we'll be able to buy some less crappy units.)

 

[Storyfag]

Oy vey! Shekel overdrive nao! Damascus and bonus loot pl0x.

 

[hello friend]

Loot Acre and Loot Skill. Loot loot loot. Pillage. Burgle. Steal.

 

[Darth Roxor]

SURAH 2 - EUPHRATES WRATH

Spoiler

We order the mujahideen to bring us all the dinars they can find. Let the crusaders pay the jizya.

Then I get a regiment of horsemen.

And the loot upgrade, which will pay for itself with a bonus already after the next mission (base geld for the Euphrates is 14k, this costs 2k)

After which I also get a 3rd archer regiment for good measure.

May the river sweep the infidels to their deaths!

The set up phase is similar to the Crusader version of the map, although we get very few engineering points to play with.

I fortify the ford with two fire ballistas and two fields of caltrops.

Also, the weather effect on this map kinda looks like fog, but I don't think it's that since the archers' range doesn't seem halved. But maybe fog only impacts accuracy? It is a mystery.

The battle starts and reveals...

3x Langschilde, 5x Styrian Infantry, 2x Vassals

Oh there's also a guard post behind our starting position. Whatever the reason for it.

We wait for the fuckers to approach.

AND UNLEASH ALL FUREH UPON THEM

What we really want to do is barrage the fuck out of those styrian infantrymen. Shooting the longshields is pointless even with ballistas given their near-IDDQD to ranged damage

The first piece of the domino falls.

Unfortunately it's not enough, and the infidels manage to breach the ford. We retreat our archers to avoid eating too many javelins.

Good news, however, is that merely glaring at the heavily battered light infantry is enough to make it flee.

After which the domino

Finally goes into full effect.

Meanwhile the crusaders get reinforcements.

2x heavy cavalry (crusader knights), 3x foot knights, 4x white company.

Somewhat serious, I especially don't like the looks of those cavalry units.

Also these fuckers here are running off the map even though they carry an item, and I won't be able to get to them even with cavalry now

Signal flare detected from the north!

Our reinforcements are p. neat, but their placement is horrid. They start so far away, only the two horsemen regiments will reach us in time for action.

At the ford we're still mopping up the Germans when the knights arrive.

Surprisingly enough, the seljuk spearmen actually pull their own really well. They stop one of the charging knights dead in their tracks and skewer them like fresh kebab.

They have no chance once the auxiliary horsemen join up with us.

Once the knights are dead, we retreat behind the ford again to bombard the incoming infantry with fire ballistas.

Given that these are much more sucky than the first wave, it's almost a formality.

As you can clearly see

The rest of our reinforcements only get to chase down the stragglers.

Bretty guud.

So butthurt about that one styrian infantry regiment legging it

Very cheap reinforcements. The last mission has left us swimming in dinars.

The spearmen get a skill, although all of them are p. bad. Took ambush.

Also, I opt to sell this pathetic relic after all. At first, I thought it said "+ morale to army", but actually it's "+ morale to the hero's unit", which is completely and utterly useless.

After which I go berserk on recruitment. I get new swordsmen, warriors and horsemen, which costs us roughly 13k geld. Then I spent another 3k or so on armour/weapon upgrades for the more important units.


There's also a new event.

And dang, the rewards are actually all p. cool.

- Free the boss imam for +3 faith
- Free Asad ad-Din and get a new hero
- Free a mameluk boss and get mameluks (heavy inf) + mameluk lancers (light cav)

I'm p sure a new hero is objectively the best choice here, though.


Reclaiming Baghdad unlocks three new provinces.

Asia Minor

Not storming this fucking hill again

HOLY SHIT THAT FUCKING MAP

Yeah, I'm fairly sure THIS ONE is currently out of the question.

Al-Jazira

Seems the Fremen are getting uppity!

Interesting. No idea why we wouldn't want to wait for them to murder each other first.

and Arabia.

Those snivelling, cowardly dogs!

Looks interesting. An assassination more or less, but the crusader fortifications may pose a problem.

Finally, we also have 2 upgrade points to spend (ignore the fat 0 on the pic cuz I was experimenting with stuffies when I took it).

At first I thought it may be prudent to unlock turk bowmen to replace the pathetic seljuks, but after the recruitment spree we wouldn't be able to upgrade them just now anyway.

I think it might be a good idea to get a faith ability, and dat confusion looks p. tempting. Particularly since it paves the way to Terror, which looks ridonk OP, although it'll first need unlocking Fanatic and Toughness.

However, I was also thinking about getting this:

Which might not look much, but has the advantage of directly paving the way to this:

Although I can't tell whether this affects recruitment ONLY, or also unit upgrades and reinforcements. I would assume all three, but you can never tell with this game.


So the three questions, wise al-Codex, are these:

- Which loyal subject do we free?
- Where do we strike?
- What do we research?

 

[Azira]

Take the hero
Go for Al Jazeera
And research Small consolations

 

[Darth Roxor]

Ah, another thing that just came to me:

Neither Arabia nor Al-Jazira give new upgrade points. Which might actually still make it prudent to unlock the turk bowmen.

 

[Erebus]

Free the imam to get moar faith !

Al Jazira. A battle between three enemy armies should be interesting. Also, assassins !

And research Confusion. It sounds pretty useful.

 

[Storyfag]

Hero (that's Sal's uncle, right?)
Asia minor ofc
Small consoltardion

 

[Darth Roxor]

(that's Sal's uncle, right?)

oui

 

[Jaedar]

Might as well take the hero I guess, and I want the assassino.

Our faith is very inadequate right now, so a power won't do us much good. I think we should research better units.