Talk:The Lion's Den/@comment-151.48.203.79-20170319011906

I learned to play this on hard before they nerfed it, it took some time but it's doable.

Beginning: build 4 fishing ships, rally your galleys and keep them back, you'll need them later and upgraded, start villager production in both town center.

Sent your villagers on the island to the berries, the ones in the mainland to the stone.Then mass focus food, wood, but you need to send as soon as possible 3 villagers onto the next island (key to winning the scenario) reachable via shallows.

Why? Because it has all the gold (and stone) you'll need later. Research stone mining tech asap.

Use your villagers to build gates and walls in the same exact place Kouambi Saleh's walls are in the island in the North, that's your battle line.

Build a castle there asap, behind the walls, it'll keep the waves at bay.

Now focus on technologies for arrows, buildings and navy. Where you build that castle on the second island add 3 docks, then 3 archery range, 1 siege workshop, 1 monastery.

Once you start mining the stone in the second island, you can add another castle, to kill the red troops faster.

Mass your fleet, because they will come and they'll hit hard. By keeping your fleet near the castle, right after the red walls and the shallows, you are likely to be able to destroy most of the trebuchets with just your navy.

Final part: while they are building the wonder, you should eventually have finisehd the tech you need and have started building your army.

You'll need 40 hand cannoners, 5 bombard cannons, 4 monks to heal.

Advance slowly at first as you'll face Koumbi's waves first, then their first line of walls. I prefer bombard cannons to trebuchets because you might not have all the time to pack and unpack.

Once the first line of defense is down, if you have at least 100 years left, you are likely to have won. Focus the barracks so that it'll slow down Koumbi's troops production, advance slowly to the wonder, fight the final battle against Sumanguru's elite troops, destroy the wonder.

Tough but I enjoyed this a lot more than many longer and far more frustrating scenarios.