War | Chapter 3 - "Edwin's Rescue"

By Mathew Steel

Mission 1:

Win - Rescue Edwin

Lose - All your troops die

Sir William tried to negotiate Edwin’s release with Lady Seren. This is not successful as she demands land, money, and troops. In turn, William decides it is better to rescue Edwin with brute force.

This is your first siege mission in the Stronghold 2 campaign. A siege mission is very different from the typical micro-management, army building mission. You are given units to command, and an objective to complete. You may not build or recruit. However, in this mission, you are not alone. Sir William will assist you in this siege to rescue Edwin.

Here, you can see your units:

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Your army is not exactly impressive, but it will do. Sir William suggests you go over to the far side of the wall to begin your siege. This can be confusing at first, as you may want to immediately run straight up to the right of William’s siege. However, this is not the best option. If you move to the middle-right of the map, you will notice a small hill leading to the edge of Lady Seren’s wooden wall.

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Move all your troops to the next height, taking care to stick to the right-hand side of the swamp in order to avoid archer fire. Once you reach this area, simply wait. Allow William to use all his troops in order to try and kill some of Lady Seren’s resistance.

You can use your archers to safely kill the 4 spearmen who stand on top of the wooden wall. Once done, take 3 of your own spearmen and begin breaking the wooden wall. You want a fair enough gap as to avoid an easy tunnel for enemy archers to shoot through.

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Now, if your spearmen are still alive, put them back with the rest. Next, split your units into 3 groups – archers, spearmen, and ladder-men with armed peasants. You can see I’ve done this below. This is not a necessity, but it speeds up your command process.

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Take the ladder-men and armed peasants and charge them through the gap in the wooden wall. Place the ladder on the stone wall as close to the mountain as you can. As this occurs, quickly move your archers up behind them, placing them close enough to the wall to shoot at the enemies without exposing them to other archers.

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Run your armed-peasants and ladder-men across the wall as you command your archers up the ladder. Your armed peasants will soon die, but your archers should have had enough time to clear out any immediate threats. Your archers should now be able to sit safely on this portion of wall without receiving enemy fire.

Now, take 8 archers, and place them in the first watchtower, i.e. the one closest to them. You can place a total of 8 archers in a watchtower without having them clip. These archers should be able to remove more of the enemy forces, but not all. Once they’ve killed all the units they can, retreat them back to the larger group of archers on the wall.

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Let’s use those spearmen! Select all of them and charge them at the furthest wall units. At the same time, move your archers onto the next bit of wall, allowing them to target enemy archers in the watchtower. Once the watchtower is cleared, move your archers to the top of it, and allow them to assist the spearmen in clearing the immediate enemy units.

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For reference, your spearmen and archer placement will look similar to this:

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We’re almost there. Once the wall is cleared, you should be left with enough spearmen and archers to complete the siege. Lady Seren should only have units at the keep. If you are low on unit numbers, select the archers, take them to the floor, and have them act like horse-archers. Shoot and move. This is tedious, but eventually you will get rid of the enemy units.

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If you have a good number of spearmen and archers, you can do as shown below. Place your archers on the wall to shoot at the enemy units. The enemy will begin walking towards you. You can hold your ground and allow the spearmen to defend your archers.

Once all the enemy forces are killed, simply select any units and move them towards Edwin. As this is a rescue, he will not attack you. Once you have reached Edwin, a cutscene will play, and you will complete the mission.