Talk:Broken Stelae/@comment-27263122-20180315190609

Urgh, hate this map as well. Hard is hard...

To start, send the boat with your knights down to the base south-west of your own. Unload them and acquire a few more riders from that base for free, then send the whole lot directly west and take that stone stele. It'll be a very good boost throughout the game.

Walls are your friend. Once you have a good econ going (wood/food), put 5-6 villagers on the stone cache and then make 3 villagers dedicated to wall building. One goes south and connects the two forests (one tribe should be between them, just ignore them and leave them outside the walls), and then connect one forest to the camp where you got the free units. No one destroys those palisades, so it's quite cost-effective.

To the north, you'll see a moderate gap between a forest and the lake. Build walls and a gate there. Watch out, an enemy monk may try to convert you so send a few light cavalry to kill him. Heck, you can even send your entire force there and destroy the monastery for an early 1000 gold.

The last set of walls is west of the northern one. Be careful as you connect the walls between the individual trees. Trees are natural barriers, so wall in whatever you can. It'll stretch from the small shared forest where you share with the northern walls, and the woods directly west of your base. My opinion is to move your lumberjacks away from that designated spot and get wood elsewhere.

Directly south of your base is a good wooded spot. Also to the north-east, there should be an extension of land still without your walls that has a trove of wood for you to use. Get it.

Enemies should start pouring in around 10-11 minutes (screw the strategy above, they came 2 minutes early...). They'll hit your walls hard, so build a market and blacksmith/dock and start aging up. You can also start stockpiling more stone in order to build a few castles later on.

By the time I reached Imperial Age, I had 6 castles guarding my base. Another good place to wall up is beyond the northern walls, to the left of that monastery camp you destroyed. Connect the forest (one of the best barriers) and the northern sea, then build a castle to guard there. The entire right space of that will now be your last trove of trees, so get choppin'.

Honestly, other than the Stone Stelae, the rest are basically useless. Just use this time to mine all of the stone/gold in your base, then hoard wood/food. Age up, start picking your favorite unit lines, then swarm everyone. You can even just chill until you get an abundance of stone and then block off the two paths from the enemy's base with walls and castles.

Gold may be an issue, but you can hoard that by utlizing only skirmishers and light cavalries. Hussars may be a bit expensive, but good in the long run. You won't be relying on cavalry though, which is sad...

Blacksmith and University upgrades are a must. Fortified walls, murder holes, architecture. You'll need the lot to successfully defend. This match just doesn't work unless you wall up...

PS. If you're worried about that trebuchet, don't. If it does get in your base before you could wall up, just let it do its business and wait until the guarding crossbowmen leave it to siege your town. You'll want to leave behind your knights from the main defensive army, then use them to go around and attack the trebuchet when it's alone. Who says you can't have actual strategy in a strategy game?

PSS. The TC is stronger than you'd think. Garrison with villagers and let it take all the hits while dishing out its own. You'll be outranged by the archers, but sending out a decoy villager to attract their attention, then moving the villager back is a good method to bring the archers just a bit closer. You can even do it well enough that you don't lose a single villager in the raid.