The Exile of the Cid is the third scenario in the El Cid campaign in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors. It is based on El Cid's first exile and service for the Taifa of Zaragoza (1081-1087), particularly the Battle of Almenar (1082).
Scenario Instructions
Starting Conditions
- Starting Age:
Castle Age - Starting resources: None
- Population limit: 75
- Starting units:
- Gaia units:
- 6
Pikemen - 4 Camel Riders
- 2 Knights
- 1 Trebuchet*
- 6
* Standard difficulty only
Objectives
- El Cid must survive.
- El Cid must find a new city in which to live and a new lord to serve.
- Join Motamid of the Moors at his Castle in Zaragoza.
- Destroy Alfonso's Castle, so that you may continue on to Zaragoza.
- Defend Zaragoza by destroying Count Berenguer's Siege Workshop nearby.
- Defeat Count Berenguer.
Hints
- El Cid no longer leads a Spanish army, so become familiar with the Saracen technology tree.
- Know when to fight and when to run away. You may need to destroy walls that block your path, but only if there is no alternative.
- El Cid does not view Alfonso as an enemy so much as misguided. As such, you should not destroy anything of Alfonso's unless you are forced.
Scouts
- Your scouts report: El Cid (red) starts alone in exile. Do not fear, for you will soon find recruits to your cause. You will have little in the way of an economy until you meet up with an old friend.
- King Alfonso (blue) is your enemy, but he is more of an annoyance than a threat. The real enemy is Count Berenguer of Barcelona (purple). He will send swordsmen, Knights, Scorpions, and Battering Rams your way.
- Motamid the Moor (green) is a potential ally as are any other Moors you may encounter.
Players
Player
- Player (Saracens): The player starts with El Cid only in King Alfonso's Army's fort in the west.
Allies
- Motamid (Saracens): Motamid controls Zaragoza, located in the center of the map. El Cid must visit the Castle there before fighting Berenguer.
- King Alfonso's Army (Spanish): King Alfonso's Army has a fort in the very west as well as a fortified outpost southwest of Zaragoza. He also has some troops in the mountains east of his fort. Once El Cid collects his horse Bavieca, the Army changes their diplomatic stance to the Cid to enemy. Destroying the Castle at the outpost southwest of Zaragoza causes them to ally with the Cid again.
Enemy
- Berenguer (Spanish, Franks in the Definitive Edition): Count Berenguer has his base at the north of the map, as well as an army camp northeast of Zaragoza and an outpost that guards the bridge outside of Zaragoza. After the Cid meets Motamid in Zaragoza, he is required to destroy the Siege Workshop outside Zaragoza's walls before defeating Berenguer.
Overview
King Alfonso exiles El Cid to the Moorish lands out of jealousy. At first El Cid must collect his horse before setting off and having Alfonso change his diplomacy and attack but becomes your ally again after destroying his castle. You then gain Knights, Pikemen and Camel Riders. During this scenario, El Cid befriends the Moorish prince Motamid (green/Saracens), and together they must defeat the Catalan Count Berenguer (purple/Spanish). In this scenario, El Cid controls a Saracen army.
Strategy
The player starts possessing only the El Cid unit. As they reach the gate to the east of the starting position, they must go to the Stable) to ride Babieca. Alfonso will start attacking when they reach the towers along the west map border. Lure the two Long Swordsmen out of the tower range to fight them.
After this, the player may spot two Knights and six Pikemen beside a Mill that turn sides and aid El Cid.
In the southwest area of the map lie some mountains. Further east, two Scorpions and several Longswordsmen are awaiting for El Cid to move across, ignore these, and approach four Gaia-controlled Camels to gain them.
Towards the north from that point lie two towers. Then, a dialogue is triggered telling the player that the correct way is to the south. Moving southeast from that point, they will come up to a Castle and several units belonging to Alfonso, triggering another dialogue telling the player that this Castle is blocking the way to Zaragoza.
Attack this position to lure out the enemy units. Take them out and go south, where a Gaia-controlled base, including a Siege Workshop, will provide gold, food and wood to construct siege weapons, or reinforce the army. On Easy difficulty, the player is also provided with a Trebuchet to take down the Castle.
Afterward, Alfonso will change his diplomatic stance to "ally". As the player moves to Zaragoza, they will request help for taking out the siege weapons outside their walls, including a Siege Workshop. As soon as it is destroyed, the player is provided with four Villagers and the remaining mounted units inside the Zaragoza's walls, to start building a base, preferably to the north, just outside Zaragoza, where certain resources lie (such as some Stone).
To the far north lies Berenguer's base, from where military units might harrass the player as they build up a base but with the units they are already provided, the enemy units should not pose much trouble.
As soon as the player is ready, prepare to siege Berenguer's fortress. Begin by scouting the perimeter, using either El Cid Campeador or other cavalry. Find a way to breach the eastern gate using siege weapons and fight the foot units with cavalrymen and Cavalry Archers and the Knights with Camels (but beware of base defences), and move along the edge of the map to avoid the field fortifications.
As soon as the Town Center is destroyed and any Villagers are killed, the player will be awarded victory.
Trivia
- If the player chooses to destroy Berenguer's Castle in order to get up to Motamid and never gets near Alfonso's Castle (so there is never an alliance), when Berenguer loses, so will do Alfonso, losing his obstructive castle along with his base.
- This is the only El Cid scenario that King Alfonso's Army appears in but his unit does not.
- One of Alfonso's guards refers to Bavieca as female, despite being commonly thought of as male.
- Count Berenguer returns as an enemy in King of Valencia, using the same color but his civilization is changed to Franks. In the Definitive Edition, Berenguer is played by Franks in both scenarios.
Historical comparison
- The Moorish king that El Cid served under was Yusuf al-Mutaman of Zaragoza, also called Al-Mutamin (d.c. 1085). He is different from Al-Mutamid of Seville (1040-1095), whom Motamid is named after. Motamid is said to be a poet and a scholar, showing again that he is an amalgam of the two: Al-Mutamid was a poet, and Al-Mutaman a mathematician.
- The mixed crowd of Muslims and Christians chanting El Cid's name that is attributed to Toledo in the previous scenario is usually said to have happened in Zaragoza or Valencia.
- Count Berenguer is Berenguer Ramon II of Barcelona (c. 1053 - c. 1099), called "The Fratricide" because he was accused of killing his twin brother Ramon Berenguer II in a feigned hunting accident in 1082.
- In the scenario, Berenguer's base is north of Zaragoza but Barcelona is east, and the battle was northeast. However, Berenguer was allied with Aragon (north of Zaragoza), and some Aragonese participated in the battle. El Cid also defeated the King of Aragon in the Battle of Morella (1084), but the place is even further east than Almenar.
- The highlight of Almenar was the capture of Berenguer by El Cid. In the campaign, only his second capture is referenced.
- Rather than an invasion by Berenguer, the war started as a rebellion by Al-Mutaman's brother Al-Mundir, who allied with Berenguer and Sancho I of Aragon; indeed, Al-Mundir's forces fought both in Almenar and Morella against El Cid. Naturally, this goes against the claim that Berenguer was only interested in gold and would not ally with Moors. It is also ironic considering that Berenguer had to pay a huge ransom for his release.
- El Cid did not broker a treaty that made Zaragoza part of Castile, nor did Alfonso invade Zaragoza because he was jealous of him:
- Zaragoza paid tribute to Sancho II of Castile. It stopped when he died, but resumed payments to Alfonso in 1076.
- In 1083, the castellan of Rueda proposed to surrender the castle to Alfonso in exchange for replacing Al-Mutaman with his uncle (who was imprisoned there). However, the uncle died and the castellan tried to hide his treason by killing Alfonso's soldiers. El Cid convinced Alfonso that Al-Mutaman was not involved and Alfonso retired without escalating to war.
- Al-Mutaman died in 1085 and Alfonso besieged Zaragoza to force his son to keep paying tribute, but retired when the Almoravids landed in the Peninsula. Zaragoza paid again in 1097-1102, after El Cid left, but remained independent until it was conquered by the Almoravids in 1110.
- The outro's story could be based instead on Alfonso's invasion of Valencia in 1092 to extort five times the tribute that it paid El Cid. El Cid retaliated by raiding Castile from Zaragoza (though only in the lands of his enemy, García Ordóñez); this made Alfonso renounce his pretensions, "pardon" El Cid, and recognize his rule over Valencia in return for vassalage to Alfonso.
