Henry the Lion

Henry the Lion is the second scenario of the Barbarossa campaign in Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings.

Barbarossa must defeat Poland who reside in a scattered non-nucleated base in the east of the map. The Polish attack with many siege units and Huskarls. Barbarossa is allied with Saxony, Bavaria and Henry the Lion. Henry the Lion quickly changes to enemy, and his large army will make things difficult, but he can be defeated. Saxony and Bavaria provide you with resources, as you begin with no villagers. However, villagers can be obtained from Henry the Lion, as there are several Gaia Villagers at the West side. It is possible for the Polish to attack Henry The Lion's team, they will destroy most of his units and his castles if they do.

Starting Conditions

 * Starting age: Castle-age-reseach.jpg Castle Age
 * Starting resources:, ,


 * Population limit: 75
 * Starting units:
 * 1
 * 6 s
 * 10
 * 6
 * Gaia units: None

Objectives:

 * Defeat Poland.

Later Objectives:

 * Defeat Henry the Lion.

Hints:

 * The German states of Bavaria and Saxony are 'feeding' the armies of Barbarossa and Henry the Lion. Defend the helpless feeders at all costs.

Allies

 * Bavaria (Teutons) is at the southern part of the map, with only villagers and civilian buildings, gathering resources and pay tribute to you.


 * Saxony (Teutons) is at the northwestern part of the map. Just as Bavaria, they also have only villagers and civilian buildings, gathering resources and pay tribute to you.

Ally → Enemy

 * Henry the Lion (Teutons) has his base at the western tip of the map, without any villagers. As his stance towards Poland is 'ally', his army would not resist the Polish invasion and simply get slaughtered by the Polish. He would become your enemy at a certain point and you must defeat him.

Enemy

 * Poland (Goths) spreads from the north to the east of the map, with only castles, siege workshops, watch towers, docks and houses. They come in huskarls and siege units, and would only send navy in an early attack against you. Simply destroying the Polish castles and siege workshops would force Poland to resign.

Strategy/Tactics
You start from the central-western part of the map. Poland will have a navy attacking you in the early stage of the game, so you may need to build fire ships to defend yourself against the Polish navy. However, once you have destroyed the Polish navy and they stopped building a navy, you may start building trade cogs to trade with the Polish docks.

Poland will invade both you and Henry the Lion (which will simply get slaughtered without resistance), and may occasionally attack Saxony and Bavaria. As Poland is attacking Henry the Lion, it would be advicable to at least destroy their mangonels to prevent them from stationing at the west, where some Gaia villagers will spawn. (To be mentioned in the next paragraph).

Henry the Lion will betray you and become your enemy either at the 2000th second (33 minutes and 20 seconds) mark of the game, or the northwestern Polish castle (on the western side of the river, near Saxony) is being destroyed, or you have crossed the river into the northern or southeastern part of the Polish base, or if you change stance with him to enemy. You will be informed by a soldier of yours that Henry the Lion has some villagers at the west (actually the Gaia villagers mentioned above) ready for your possession. There will be a flag marked at that spot. Send any unit to the flag and the Gaia villagers become yours. (If there is any enemy around, they may start attacking the villagers, and any mangonel will deal a great blow against the villagers). There is also a relic there, being confined in Henry the Lion's walls and locked gate. If the Polish army has destroyed the structure, you may just send a monk to take the relic, as long as there is no enemy around.

It may be a good idea to convert Polish huskarls whenever possible, in order to make use of their speed and strength, as they cannot research heresy.

Altenative way
In The Age of Kings, players can defeat Henry the Lion by changing their stance to neutral, building Rams, and attack Henry's Castle, Siege Workshop, and Barracks before he changes his stance to enemy. This no longer works with expansions installed.

Trivia

 * In history, Henry the Lion was the Duke of Saxony (1142-1180) and also the Duke of Bavaria (1156-1180). Probably this explains why he remains allied with Saxony and Bavaria in this game, despite betraying the player (Barbarossa).
 * (Spoiler Alert) Henry the Lion serves as the narrator of the Barbarossa Campaign.