I Hope This Works

I don’t understand… will it fight?

Ajax questioning the purpose of a large wooden horse

I hope this works is the sixth scenario of the Fall of the Trident campaign in Age of Mythology. The main objective is to build the famed Trojan Horse and invade Troy from the inside.

Summary
Convinced the Trojan walls will never fall, the heroes plan to use the Trojan Horse in a final attempt to invade the city. Their activity must be kept secret however so they must kill any scout sent from Troy before they can deliver the news to the city. Once on the inside, they will be able to destroy the main Trojan gate and Troy’s fortresses and finally rescue Helen.

Objectives

 * 1) Accumulate 1000 Wood to build the Trojan Horse.
 * 2) Build the Trojan Horse.
 * 3) Sneak your Heroes through Troy toward the Trojan gate and find a way to destroy it.
 * 4) Avoid being seen by the Trojan patrols.
 * 5) Kill the cyclops guard to capture the siege towers. (Actually, they are Helepoli)
 * 6) Use the Helepolis Towers to destroy the Gate of Troy.
 * 7) The gate is down. Use Agamemnon’s reinforcements to destroy the three Trojan Fortresses.

Players
Arkantos (Zeus) – Arkantos, Ajax, Odysseus, Agamemnon, two Hoplites, four Prodromos, three Toxotes and some Villagers start in the Classical Age with a Town Center and only a handful of buildings spared by the previous Trojan attacks.

Enemies
Troy Civilians (Hades) – own some buildings that make up most of the city of Troy. Some of their units can be captured by the heroes. Once gate is broken, their buildings will also start attacking the player.

Troy Military (Hades) – will initially send scouts to ensure Agamemnon and his forces have left. If these are allowed to return to the main city, Troy will send additional forces to finish the job. After finding the Trojan Horse and bringing it within their gates, their troops will be reduced to a few patrols after nightfall.

Strategy
This guide is applied to hard difficulty. It is, of course, also applicable for the other grades of difficulty.

Immediately as the scenario begins, one hero should be sent to retrieve the Relic south of the town as it increases the speed of cavalry. Also, the Hand Axe and Crenellations technologies should be researched and a stable built. Players should have their villagers gather food from the goats while the Prodromos search north west of the Town Center to find more goats. Food will be needed to train more villagers and cavalry units. Villager production must be kept steady, to get enough resources for not only the horse but to replace fallen soldiers and construct some more military buildings. Once the goats are used up, the fishing ships should do all the Food gathering as they are less vulnerable to the impending Trojan attacks.

The area around the Town Center is fairly open and resources are scattered widely so it will be difficult to monitor the activity of villagers and the arrival of the Trojan scouts. Troy will regularly send scouting parties of six Hetairoi and will switch back and forth between arriving from the north pass to the east pass. These can easily be lured closer to the Town Center who, alongside the towers, will bombard them with arrows. The player starts with some watch towers to help take them out but it is best to build some additional towers for protection. Crenellations will enable the towers to aim better at the fast-moving cavalry but also do bonus damage to them. The Prodromos are the best option at countering the Hetairoi as they are faster than the Hetairoi and also do bonus damage to them.

This is crucial as once only two Hetairoi remain, they will attempt to flee to Troy to warn them of the imminent danger. The Bolt god power can be saved to kill one scout that may escape. If even one scout makes it back to the city, Troy will send an army made up of hippikons, hypaspists, toxotes, Nemean Lions and a Petrobolos in an attempt to finish off the player. If this army is successfully killed, Troy will resume periodically sending scouts of Hetairoi.

The Trojan horse has slow built rate so lots of villagers will be needed to construct it. Once the player feels safe, all villagers should concentrate on building the horse. Once the horse is complete, a cut scene will occur and the second part of the scenario will begin.

Ajax, Arkantos and Odysseus will exit the Trojan Horse now brought within the walls of Troy after nightfall, and must be sent to scout ahead. There will be a patrol of four Hoplites and a Cyclops, strong enough to tackle all three heroes. Players should simply wait for them to move on to another area and then continue towards the gate. They will need to kill an Elder Cyclops to capture Troy Civilian’s four Helepoli, but must first wait for a Colossus patrolling the area to leave. Once the Cyclops is killed, the Helepoli will now be under the player’s control and can be used to destroy the main Trojan Gate after the heroes kill a Hypaspist guard. The heroes can even garrison in one helepoli to grant it more attack and so it can tear down the gate faster.

Once the gate is destroyed, Agamemnon will arrive with reinforcements made up of Hoplites, Hypaspists, Toxotes, Catapults and Colossi. Casting Bronze as fast as possible will help protect the soldiers from Troy’s Lightning Storm. The combined strength of these units and the Meteor god powers granted will be needed to destroy the three Fortresses. Once Troy has fallen, the Trojan war will end and victory is secured.

Additional Tips

 * Players may train Minotaurs to give some additional bulk to their army, but they must be careful not to knock Troy’s scouts away from the battlefield, allowing them to potentially get a head start in fleeing back to Troy.
 * Troy may cast Forest Fire to disrupt villagers gathering wood far from the player’s Town Center.