Talk:The Final Fortress/@comment-115.70.185.94-20190730235326

The other two posters have described it well, but I will summarise how I beat this level (but it was very hard). I hope the extra detail helps.

1. Above all, get your villagers mining stone first and as quickly as possible. You want about 1500 stone (eventually) to build a stone wall (west) and two castles (one east, one west). Anything else is a bonus.

2. When you have about 700 stone, build a stone wall at the west (but leave the west end of the wall open so they leave the wall alone - my wall was slighly L shaped, ending near an enemy guard tower and going up near a small group of trees). Then buld a castle behind the wall. This protects the castle from almost all damage (so you don't need repair stone - I needed no repairs throughout my campaign).

3. As soon as you have enough stone (another 650 stone), build a second castle to the east (near the narrow bridge). Prior to this, don't waste your troops fighting at the eastern front... Let the castle (with your rattan archers) mop up the enemy, plus a few stationary bombard canoneers to soften things up.

4. As soon as you can, pick up the two relics (one to the east and one to the west) to generate gold

5. As soon as you possibly can, generate two trebuchets, send the trebuchets and most of your army up the western corridor as they will face little resistance becase Ming's army was destroyed in the first 60 seconds of this campaign. Use this advantage to destroy almost everything outside of the city without restistance ... but only if you don't hesitate. Protect the trebuchets at all costs in this small campaign as they are the only thing that can take out the first few castles and towers. You'll have to inch your way up. Eg. Destroy the first two towers. Destroy the first two castles, destroy the other towers, then decimate everything outside of the main city. Leave a few elephants and peasants behind (hidden at the very top of this corridor) to achieve "Hint 2" (below). I kept my army of 30 or so (elephants, man-at-arms, archers) close to the trebuchets at all times. Be perpared to flee at around 15 minutes into the campaign when they will send out a decent army.

6. Then attack at the east to establish a castle. Once this area is captured, send waves of trebuchets or petards from your eastern base. If you think you'll lose too many petards, use the trebuchets to take down the first castles and the bombard towers. Petards are a little quicker. But, beware: Ming will amass troops in the city if you keep sending in petards and trebuchets, so, you'll have to send "mock armys" in from the west to draw the troops out of the city.

Hint 1: Ming will amass troops to defend the city. After your castles are established, you will nee to draw out their army. By attacking from the west, Ming will send out resources away from the city and away from the East. That's when you use your trebuchets and petards. You will probably need a total of 20 trebuchets (over time) and 200 petards (over time). For example, in one raid, I may use 30 petards to destroy a castle. Most of them will die on near the castle. I couldn't use trebuchets in the city because they're just too slow to get anywhere. The petards move quicker and with enough numbers, you can take down your target. But, the western-most castle may be hard to destroy without some support. It may be possible to destroy all barracks/archery ranges so they have a bottle neck in producing military. Then, you can send in rattan archers to defend your trebuchets. However, I found it easier to just use the petards.

Hint 2: There is a monastery in the north east. Attack this with a few elephants after you have finished step 5 (above). This will take away one of their sources of cold (ie. a relic) and lock away many of their soldiers. They will send in many troops (probably about 100) once you start attacking the monastery. Have your elephants ONLY attack the monastery. Once the enemy's troops arrive at the monastery, use your villagers to build a wall at the start of the path to lock in 1/2 of Ming's army without killing any of them. This will (a) halve the size of Ming's army, and (b) slow Ming's generation of gold/resources becuse one of their two relics will be stuck without a monastery to put it in!

Hint 3: Fill your castles full of rattan archers to repel attacks. But, I wouldn't do this until step 5 is complete. If I had a choice between the "early western corridor attack" and defending a castle, I'd put the resources into the initial attack.

Good luck. I'm an average player and it was tough, but, I did it without cheating!