Safed, also known as the Siege of Safed, is the third challenge scenario in Historical Battles in Age of Empires IV: Knights of Cross and Rose. It is based on the siege of the Templar castle of Safed by Sultan Baybars in 1266.
Intro[]
Scenario description[]
The citadel of Safed stands strong, but Baibars schemes to breach its walls. You must repair the citadel as it endures a siege, and strike out to stop the attacks.
Opening cinematic[]
Soldiers serving the sultan Baibars have ravaged the countryside for weeks. Though we have tried to stop him, we've learned today that it was all a ruse. With our forces hunting him elsewhere, Baibars is marching directly on our citadel at Safed. We've held strong against their numbers so far, but Baibars now has siege weapons firing upon our defenses. If we are to survive, we must sally forth and find supplies to repair our citadel. And, God willing, we should seize any chance we have to destroy those siege engines. If we prevail, we may survive long enough for reinforcements to save us.
Start of scenario[]
Baibars has his siege engine firing on our fortress. We must secure a supply of stone to perform repairs. If the citadel survives long enough, we may be able to reach the enemy camp and stop the bombardment.
Scenario instructions[]
Starting conditions[]
- Starting Age:
Castle Age - Population limit: 200
- Starting units:
- Resources: 112 stone
Objectives[]
- Save the Fortress of Safed from falling
- Mine Stone for the Fortress to be repaired (0/4)
- Tip: Protect your Villagers - the mission fails if all are lost
- Stop the bombardment (0/82)
- Conqueror challenge: Escort all your Villagers safely quickly for a greater challenge
- Mine Stone for the Fortress to be repaired (0/4)
Medals[]
Percentage health remaining on Fortress
- Gold: 75%
- Silver: 35%
- Bronze: 1%
Players[]
Player[]
- Knights Templar: The player starts with all of their units inside the citadel at Safed, at the center-right on the map. There are a few buildings in the citadel surrounded by Stone Walls in various states of disrepair, but these are purely cosmetic, as the only one that is selectable is the main Fortress that needs to be defended. The Fortress does not offer any of its typical bonuses, but takes significantly less damage than normal (approximately 85% less). The player's Villagers cannot construct any buildings.
Allies[]
- Repair Crew (Knights Templar): These are the 15 Villagers that repair the Fortress. They will automatically repair the Fortress when stone is available, and will otherwise remain garrisoned inside of it.
- Neutral (Ayyubids): The neutral residents of the area have small towns around every Stone Outcropping consisting of a Town Center and a few buildings. After completing the stone gathering at each location, the player will gain control of their military production buildings, which have an extremely fast creation speed.
Enemy[]
- Mamluk Sultanate: The enemy civilization is the campaign-only Mamluk Sultanate, based on the Abbasid Dynasty. They start out assailing the player's citadel from the east with Counterweight Trebuchets, and have a siege camp in the eastern corner containing a relatively large army. They also blockade the pass to the west of the third stone camp with Palisade Walls, guarding extra Villagers and a Monk as prisoners that the player can rescue. Otherwise, they have many Military Tents around the map from which units spawn to attack the player as they progress along the map. They will attack with Militia, Spearmen, Archers, Horsemen, Ghulams, and Camel Riders, with a few Mangonels as well. These same units also defend the siege camp at the end.
Strategy[]
The Siege of Safed is the most linear and straightforward Historical Battle. From their starting point, the player must travel along defined paths to each well-marked next stop, guarding their limited Villagers from enemy attack so they can gather more stone at each Stone Outcropping. As a general rule, for this leg and all others, it can help to have the Villagers on a separate control group to prevent them from entering into combat. Additionally, Hospitaller Knights can be tasked to focus on healing instead of combat to keep the player's army alive. On each leg, the player can use their Scouts or other units to gather the Treasure Chests along the periphery of the paths, shown in the image below. These will help the player train additional reinforcements at each stop.
Enemy harassment during the first leg is minor and can easily be repulsed by attack-moving. At the first stop, once the Villagers start gathering stone, the enemy will continually attack with Horsemen and Spearmen. These are easy enough to keep from the Villagers, as the player can use their army to surround and block the Stone Outcropping. In this scenario, gathering stone works differently than in standard games. Although the Stone Outcropping has a fixed amount of stone, the actual amount gathered by the Villagers seems to be somewhat independent. Villagers gather extremely quickly, filling up their carry capacity of 20 in only a few seconds. The more Villagers gathering, the more stone is gathered overall, incentivizing the player to keep as many alive as possible. After the first node is exhausted, the player will gain control of the Barracks. Men-at-arms are the best overall unit choice for the scenario, since the enemy does not field any Crossbowmen or Camel Archers. Hospitaller Knights are a worse investment in this case since they are not upgraded to veteran status, and as such have significantly worse stats overall. They should only be kept in high enough number to continue healing the player's army as needed.
The enemy will begin attacking along the second path with Camel Riders, but it should still be straightforward arriving at the second stop. Here, the player should beware of the enemy Mangonel and take it out immediately before beginning to gather stone. This time, the enemy will attack with Militia and Camel Riders, both of which Men-at-Arms should be well suited to deal with. To activate "conqueror mode", the player must complete the second stop in a fast enough time without losing any Villagers. Although the exact time requirement is not stated, as long as they do not linger unnecessarily at each stop, which would also increase the damage taken by the Fortress, it should be easy to achieve. In conqueror mode, the enemy adds additional Trebuchets to attack the Fortress, reducing the available time before it is destroyed. The overall amount of other units on the field appears to be the same. After the second stop, the player will also gain an Archery Range, from which they can create Archers to supplement the Man-at-Arms from the Barracks. Genitours are available, but are expensive and perform more poorly in the defensive gameplay style required in the scenario, being more vulnerable to enemy Spearmen.
From the second stop, the player can either travel directly southeast to the next stone outcropping, or travel along the southwest path to free three extra Villagers and a Monk from the enemy palisades. This is the only area where the enemy will attack with Lancers, so the player should be prepared for them if going this way, although the amount of guards is still relatively small. It is still possible to complete conqueror mode without the extra Villagers, but they will make it easier, and the Monk can also help with healing and even converting enemy units using the nearby Relic. At the third stop, the enemy attacks will ramp up, and also involve a lot more Archers. The Archers will directly target the player's Villagers, so they must be taken out first. With the Stable acquired after exhausting the stone, the player can create some cavalry to gain the mobility to quickly take out siege engines behind enemy lines, as well as the increasing number of fielded archers. Templar Brothers can be a strong generalist fighter against the enemy Ghulams and perform better against enemy camels and spearmen, but Horsemen will provide a much more cost effective counter and can leave more resources for creating additional Men-at-Arms production at the cost of leaving less wood for Archers. No single unit composition is necessary to complete the scenario, so the player can experiment with what feels best to them.
The major impediment on the way to the fourth stop is the Mangonel and group of Archers on the cliff overlooking the path. These should be taken care of with the newly acquired cavalry before attempting to move the Villagers by. Enemy attacks at the fourth stop will be similar to those of the third, where Archers will present the highest risk to the player's Villagers. When the last stone is depleted, the player will gain the objective to destroy all of the enemy units besieging the Fortress. The player will also gain a Siege Workshop in addition to the three previous unlocked production buildings. Mangonels can be useful, but, as before, are not necessary. The most important consideration is to have a high enough component of cavalry that the player can race forward and target each besieging Trebuchet one-by-one as soon as the objective appears. This will stop the damage to the citadel and leave the player with the highest possible percentage on their Fortress. Once the siege engines are destroyed, the rest of the army can take out the remaining enemy units at the siege camp. After all units are defeated, victory will be achieved.
Outro[]
End of scenario[]
We've destroyed their siege camp. That should buy us time.
Unlockable content[]
- Page from History: The Turcopoles
Trivia[]
- The scenario ending does not explicitly present an 'alternative history' Templar victory (instead saying the victory 'buys them time'), but regardless, the actual end result of the siege was a victory on the part of Baybars, and the execution of many or most of the Templar Knights.
Gallery[]
