Hello,

I noticed someone on the list requesting some general hints for Paul's
masterpiece of a game ;-).. Anyway, here's some general things I've
made up on my way to mission 28....

General Mission-types:

Fast/smart (0->2 years)
(Most rescue missions)

Fast strike (4->8 years)
(A few rescue, prisson-breaks, 'destroy-enemy-something', the later can/
must sometimes be played 'long')

Long and tough (+40 years)
(Destroy one/all enemy)..

----

Fast/smart strategy:
(Only rescue-missions, I think the first prisson can be done with this)
Find a safe path and guide your people that way, normaly it includes
finding no-man-land or walking along borders.. (Usualy takes a couple
of attempts before it works..)

Fast Strike:
Build 2 or 3 barracks, trade iron/wood/stone/ore/coal/oil for gold and
armour and make all your pessants into soldiers, then go for the target.
On later rescues you'll need to take a few strategic buildings to get
your people home. On later prison-breaks you MUST make a secure path
to the prison as you need almost all the men safe home.. (This type
takes a first attempt where you only send your knights out to locate
the target(s), then restart and build the army..)

Long:
Start by building a farm, a pessant-hut and some water-supply. The next
step is to find what you can produce easy. If you are near water, you
can make some water-pumps and trade water for what you need, if you're
near mountains build mines.. Try and produce as many things as possible
yourselve, it's however often a waste to build 'masons' and 'forresters','
as they 'run out', rather use your men and resources on mines, water and
food that last forever, then trade for wood..
Always have spare men in your HQ to do transports, 2 or 3 is enough at
all times, be sure to construct pessant-huts as you go on, a base ready
for battle should have at least 5 pessant-huts with plenty supplys..
Don't build warehouses unless you REALY need them, due to bugs in the
game they usualy gives more trouble than good..
If you have more than one mine, then have only ONE producing oil for
your labs, don't produce oil if you don't have any labs.. Same for
farms, only produce grain if you have baker or brewery..
Build a lab early on and make sure it's filled with scientists, you'll
need the 'tourch' command to make a good battle..
Barracks can usualy wait until year 20, the soldiers you have from the
start is enough to guard until that time..
Don't put guards in houses build 'away' from the enemy, they'll serve
much better in the HQ if you get attacked..
If you choose to build an armoury early in the game, you should only
put 2 people at work there, more will use you your iron-supply. When
you build barracks you don't need to have 5 people in them from the
start, 2 is enough until you begin preparations for battle..

Don't start battle until you know how to tourch the enemy, then set
off with a good bunch of soldiers and 3->7 pessants, have the soldiers
distract the enemy and send in your pessants and burn everything. It's
importaint to burn down barracks, refinery, armoury and farms (yes !!)
belonging to the enemy, it might also be good to burn the water-supply.
When you tourch, then remember to keep tourching a building until it's
destroyed, simply done by: Everytime a pessant has tourched a building
and he leaves it, quickly select him and ask him to do it again, now he
will walk into the building (the guards won't attack him) and wait until
a wizard appears and puts out the fire, then he'll tourch again, keep
doing it as long as the building stands (Don't worry, the pessant won't
die when the building drops..)..
When the 'primary-supply' of the enemy is knocked down, go on and burn
the rest of his houses. When that's done (enjoy the pessant-huts, sounds
so funny..) send the pessants and soldiers home to relax a bit, wait 1
or 2 years and make the attack on the enemy HQ.. Repeat for all enemy if
needed... ;-)

Hope this helped someone ;-)

A load of kind regards from
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   Aka. Jens Vang Petersen  top_cat@post8.tele.dk