The Lion and the Demon

The Lion and the Demon is the sixth and final scenario of the Saladin campaign in Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings.

Starting Conditions

 * Starting Age: Imperial-age-research.jpg Imperial Age
 * Starting resources:, , ,
 * Population limit: 75
 * Starting units:
 * 9 s
 * 7 s
 * 6 Archersoftheeyesicon.png Archers of the Eyes
 * 4 s
 * 4 s
 * 4 s
 * 2 s

Objectives

 * Construct a Wonder and defend it.

Hints

 * Managing a large city can be confusing. It might prove helpful to rebuild military buildings where you can easily find them.
 * When you are ready to build the Wonder, you can delete some of your houses to make room for it.
 * Attacking one of your enemies early can benefit you later on, but be careful venturing outside Acre's walls.

Player

 * Player (Saracens): The player starts with a fortified city in the center of the map.

Allies

 * Persian Outpost (Persians): The Persian Outpost is located in the south of the map. They send the player five Elite War Elephants after some time has passed. Their Transport Ship near their Dock and guarded by a Guard Tower.

Enemies

 * Franks (Franks): The Franks have their base in the north of the map, between the Genoes and the Knights Templar. They deploy Bombard Cannons, Paladins, and Hand Cannoneers. They also have a large force of Siege Rams that they will use in their initial attack on the player.
 * Jerusalem (Byzantines): Jerusalem has its base in the east of the map. They field Champions, Camels, Onagers, and Trebuchets.
 * Richard (Britons): Richard occupies a region northeast of Acre, and trains Longbowmen, Scorpions, and Cavaliers. He also commands the Bad Neighbor and God's Own Sling.
 * Knights Templar (Teutons): The Knights Templar are found in the north, between Richard and the Franks. They field Elite Teutonic Knights, Paladins, and Capped Rams.
 * Genoese (Byzantines): The Genoese have their base in the far north. They attack the player's city with naval armadas, but do not field any units on land.

Strategy
This strategy also works if you play this campaign at the Hardest difficulty in Age of Empires: The Age of Kings and build the Wonder at the very beginning then halt to maximize the difficulty.
 * 1) When you have enough Stone, build a Castle near The Accursed Tower or at The Accursed Tower specific location if it's destroyed.
 * 2) When you have enough Stone again, build another Castle next to the Fortified Walls of Acre to the West which also near the Docks. The enemies will eventually attack there.
 * 3) Don't create military units.
 * 4) Garrison the Archers of the Eye inside The Accursed Tower.
 * 5) Keep the Onagers within the city of Acre all the time, order them to perform no attack stance.
 * 6) Order The Accursed Tower to kill the Paladins, Elite Longbowmen, Champions, Hand Canoneers, Heavy Camels, Light Cavalries, Hussars, Elite Teutonic Knights, Cavaliers and destroy the Capped Rams, Siege Rams, Siege Onagers, Scorpions, God's Own Sling, Bad Neighbor, Bombard Cannons, Trebuchets. The top priorities are the Elite Longbowmen, Hand Canoneers, Bombard Cannons, Trebuchets, Siege Onagers, Elite Teutonic Knights, Scorpions.
 * 7) Order the initial units to destroy the Bad Neighbor, God's Own Sling, Bombard Cannons, Trebuchets then immediately return back to the city of Acre through the Fortified Walls of Acre. You may also kill the Hand Canoneers, Elite Longbowmen, Elite Teutonic Knights, Cavaliers, Paladins, Heavy Camels, Champions, Light Cavalries, Hussars and destroy the Scorpions, Capped Rams, Siege Rams, Siege Onagers.
 * 8) Order the Mamelukes to kill the Paladins, Cavaliers, Heavy Camels, Light Cavaliers, Hussars and destroy the Capped Rams, Siege Rams from within the city of Acre through the Fortified Walls of Acre. You may also kill the Elite Longbowmen, Elite Teutonic Knights, Champions and destroy the Capped Rams, Siege Rams, Scorpions, Siege Onagers, God's Own Sling, Bad Neighbor, Trebuchets. The top priorities are Paladins, Cavaliers, Heavy Camels,Capped Rams.
 * 9) When you have enough Woods and Golds, create Trebuchets and unpack them near the Fortified Walls which near the two new Castles that you built and the initial Castle which is far away from the sea.
 * 10) Order the Trebuchets to kill Paladins, Elite Longbowmen, Champions, Hand Canoneers, Heavy Camels, Light Cavalries, Hussars, Elite Teutonic Knights, Cavaliers and destroy the Capped Rams, Siege Rams, Siege Onagers, Scorpions, God's Own Sling, Bad Neighbor, Bombard Cannons, Trebuchets. The top prirorities are Bombard Cannons, Siege Onagers, Trebuchets, God's Own Sling, Bad Neighbor.
 * 11) Order the Onagers to kill the Paladins, Elite Longbowmen, Champions, Hand Canoneers, Heavy Camels, Light Cavalries, Hussars, Elite Teutonic Knights, Cavaliers and destroy the Capped Rams, Siege Rams, Siege Onagers, Scorpions, God's Own Sling, Bad Neighbor, Bombard Cannons, Trebuchets. The top priorities are Siege Rams, Capped Rams, Elite Teutonic Knights.
 * 12) Order the Mamelukes to kill the Paladins, Elite Longbowmen, Champions, Hand Canoneers, Heavy Camels, Light Cavalries, Hussars, Elite Teutonic Knights, Cavaliers and destroy the Siege Rams, Capped Rams, Siege Onagers, Scorpions, God's Own Sling, Bad Neighbor, Bombard Cannons, Trebuchets. The top prirorities are Paladins, Cavaliers, Hussars, Light Cavalries, God's Own Sling, Bad Neighbor, Siege Rams, Capped Rams.
 * 13) Order the Castles to kill the Paladins, Elite Longbowmen, Champions, Hand Canoneers, Heavy Camels, Light Cavalries, Hussars, Elite Teutonic Knights, Cavaliers and destroy the Siege Rams, Capped Rams, Siege Onagers, Scorpions, God's Own Sling, Bad Neighbor, Bombard Cannons, Trebuchets. The top priorities are Hand Canoneers, Elite Teutonic Knights, Elite Longbowmen, Trebuchets, Capped Rams, Siege Rams, Siege Onagers, Scorpions.
 * 14) Research Elite Mamelukes, Plated Barding Armor, Bracer, Blast Furnace, Siege Engineering, Chemistry, Two-man Saw.
 * 15) Create Mamelukes.
 * 16) Research Galleons.
 * 17) Create Galleons.
 * 18) Build more Keeps and Castles near the ocean.
 * 19) When you have no more Gold. There's an island nearby to the Northeast that contain more Gold Mines and some Trees. You might want to order your Villagers to go mine Gold there. Create Transport Ships.
 * 20) Order the Transport Ships to move, transport then unload to the island, sneaking away from the War Galleys.
 * 21) Use the currently available Galleons to escort then protect the Villagers mining the Gold. (optional)
 * 22) Survive until the attack waves weakened.
 * 23) If you run out of Wood inside the city of Acre behind the Fortified Walls of Acre, then you might want to order the Villagers to go outside the city of Acre behind the Fortified Walls of Acre to the nearby Trees to chop Woods there.
 * 24) Begin continue building the Wonder.
 * 25) Maximize your population with military units then order them to attack.

Easy victory
The small island, stocked full of gold, in the sea just west of Acre, is just big enough to build the wonder. First create a Transport Ship and use your 4 Galleons to find the island and set them to "no attack stance", only attack if the Genoese attacks you. Then create 6 new villagers.

Once you have 15 villagers sail with them to the island. There, forget about the attacks in the city and create a Mining Camp to deplete the 2 gold reserves in the south. Now you should have enough space to build the wonder and win.

Trivia

 * In real life, Saladin lost the battle of Acre to Richard The Lionhearted and the city remained the main stronghold of the remnant of the Crusader kingdoms for the remainder of the Crusades. The real battle also operated as a "siege within a siege", with Richard's army besieging Acre and a large Saracen army outside the city attacking the Crusader army multiple times to relieve the city's exhausted garrison, but being repulsed each time. This format was not used by the developers of the game because it was too reminiscent of the Alesia scenario in the Ave Caesar campaign in Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome.
 * Historically, Bad Neighbor and God's Own Sling (whose name is God's Stone Thrower) belonged to Phillip II of France instead of Richard the Lionheart.
 * Historically the Longbow did not come into widespread use by the English Army until the reign of King Edward I Longshanks. At the time of the Crusades the Anglo Normans preferred normal bows and crossbows (including Richard the Lionhearted himself, who was apparently somewhat skilled despite preferring to fight with a sword on horseback).
 * The island nearby Acre in this scenario does not exist in reality.
 * The addition of Jerusalem as an enemy is misunderstood; Jerusalem had been captured by Saladin and was thus under Muslim control. However, as the Siege of Acre had begun by King Guy of Jerusalem (acting as a sort of "government-in-exile" crusader army), they are simply present as another enemy. The developers, for whatever reason, put less effort in describing Richard's other Crusader allies (Franks being led by King Philip II of France, Jerusalem by King Guy). Nonetheless, after Acre, Saladin was again defeated by the Crusaders at Arsuf (not included nor discussed in the campaign), and shortly thereafter a deal was brokered between Richard and Saladin, which was partially explained at the end of the campaign. Acre would become the new seat of government for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, until it too fell to the Muslims in May 1291. The KOJ (or Outremer as it was sometimes called after the loss of Jerusalem) would cease to exist as a relevant political entity after that.