The Last Timurids is the second scenario of the Babur campaign in Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Dynasties of India. It portrays Babur's departure from Ferghana Valley and his rule over Herat and Kabul.
Intro[]
So it was that I, the great Babur who so recently had sat upon Tamerlane's throne in Samarkand, was now grateful for every watery bowl of millet porridge that I could get my hands on.
I was in a pitiful state! My so-called army consisted of fifteen riders, only three of which had swords. Hungry and battered, we spent the nights in the wild, and my mother slept in our only remaining weatherproof tent.
Oh Qutlugh, my dear mother! Without her I would have been hopelessly lost. Brave and indomitable, more skilled with her bow than any of her soldiers, she was a Mongolian princess sprung from the old tales.
I am not ashamed to admit that I often cried myself to sleep in her arms in those awful days. She would tell me the legends of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, and the painful setbacks that they had to endure before their days of greatness finally came — just as they would for me.
My mother turned out to be right. After three years of hardship, a messenger arrived from distant Herat. My uncle Husain Baiqara, the last reigning Timurid, sought a capable commander to lead the city's defense against the Uzbeks, who were now hovering around Herat like vultures.
It was an opportunity that I could not pass up.
Scenario instructions[]
Starting conditions[]
- Starting Age:
Castle Age - Starting resources: None (the player receives 100 food from an Afghan Villager immediately upon leaving the starting village)
- Population limit: 125
- Starting units:
Objectives[]
Main objectives[]
- Initially
- Babur and Qutlugh must reach Herat to meet with Babur's uncle Husain Baiqara (location marked by a flag).
- Babur and his mother, Qutlugh, must survive.
- After reaching Herat
- Defeat both Uzbek armies.
- Capture the Monument in Kabul to conquer the city.
Secondary objectives[]
- The residents of Herat will reward you with gold for every unit killed and every enemy building destroyed, as long as you can defend the city.
- Send a unit to the Elephant Breeder to negotiate the sale of his herd.
- Tribute the Elephant Breeder (Player 6) 300 gold to buy his elephants.
- Change your diplomatic stance towards Kabul to ally in order to enter into a non-aggression pact with the city.
Hints[]
- Babur's following has shrunk after his recent setbacks, so you can only support a population of 125. Additionally, it is impossible to build Docks in the desert and you may not yet advance to the Imperial Age.
- Since Babur has left Transoxiana, the majority of his entourage no longer consists of Tatars, so become familiar with the Hindustani technology tree.
- The city of Herat, ruled by Babur's uncle, is very rich but not well-fortified. The residents will pay Babur well if he takes on the defense of the city against the Uzbeks.
- Do not engage in unnecessary fighting with the Uzbeks before you reach Herat. Without the city's financial means, Babur cannot do much against the invaders who are superior in numbers.
- Do not hesitate to use your heroes in combat once you have reached Herat. Should they be wounded, they will retreat to the Castle there to recover and fight again after they have recuperated.
Scouts[]
- Babur (1, Orange) initially only has his mother and a few soldiers who remain loyal to him on the journey to Herat, where his uncle rules.
- The city of Herat (2, Blue) lies to the southwest. It is known for being a haven for education and science, but only has a small garrison with which to fend off attacks.
- Two Uzbek armies (Cyan and Green) have encircled Herat and will soon begin to lay siege to the city. The Uzbek armies consist of mounted archers, Camel Riders, Light Cavalry, Steppe Lancers, and siege weapons such as Mangonels and Rams.
- Far to the east is Kabul, a city formerly under Timurid rule, but now the seat of an Afghan warlord (5, Red) who recently staged a coup. This upstart has a large army of mainly infantry and archery units, but his intentions are not known yet.
Players[]
Player[]
- Player ( Hindustanis): Starts in a minor Afghan village in the northeast with a small force.
Allies[]
- Herat ( Tatars): is a city in the west of the map ruled by Husain Baikara. Its walls are torn down and it hosts a token garrison, but it still boasts a standing Castle. Its workers lie outside, east of the city, and are granted to the player when they reach the city.
- Civillians ( Hindustanis): consists of a small village where the player starts, and an elephant breeder's estate to the south of Herat.
Neutral → Ally → Enemy[]
- Kabul ( Hindustanis): is a well-fortified city in the east of the map and fields an army of infantry and archers. It is ruled by an Afghan warlord whose intentions are unclear at the beginning. However, after Babur defeats one of the two Uzbek armies, he will switch his diplomatic stance to Enemy and occasionally attack Herat with Crossbowmen and Ghulams. The player will have to capture the Monument in Kabul to force him to surrender.
Enemies[]
- Northern Uzbeks ( Mongols): have their camps in the north of the map. They train cavalry forces along with Rams. Their troops patrol the path to Herat in tenacious search for Babur. They will later train Cavalry Archers, Mangudai, Light Cavalry, Mangonels, and rams.
- Southern Uzbeks ( Cumans): have their camps in the south of the map. They train cavalry forces along with Mangonels and Scorpions. Both Uzbek armies will make several attempts to attack Herat and Babur's base. They field Camel Riders, Light Cavalry, Cavalry Archers, and Mangonels.
Strategy[]
The paths to Herat are barred by Uzbek troops, but just send Qutlugh and Babur to rush through the enemy units and they should reach Herat safely. Once the player has a base and some Villagers, start building an economy. As the Gold Mines in the map are scarce (most of them are in Uzbek territory), the player has to rely on gold earned by enemy units slain, or buildings razed. The player should build two to three Castles guarding the river passes, buying the stone if necessary. The player will eventually earn a reasonable amount of gold by killing the raiding units sent by the Uzbeks using Castles.
Initially, both Battering Rams and Armored Elephants are unavailable. To the south lies an Elephant Merchant. When discovered, he will ask for a unit to be sent in its elephant pen. He asks for 300 gold, which will not only enable Armored Elephants, but also upgrade them to Siege Elephants. Siege Elephants are important since the player is locked in the Castle Age, can neither create Trebuchets nor Bombard Cannons.
The player is also faced with dilemma with what unit to choose as the melee cavalry. Hindustani Camel Riders have +20% attack rate, and both Uzbec armies focus on mounted units, whereas the Light Cavalry do not cost gold (which is scarce) and can tank archer fire. Both units benefit from the team bonus equally. Cavalry Archers and Crossbowmen are equally upgradeable and generic, but the former should be preferred since mobility is important in this scenario. The Uzbek armies are no match for the player's camel army and will go down in no time. The Ghulam might not be a good unit in this scenario since they are gold extensive, are slower compared to other melee options, and do not work well against mounted archers.
Kabul will offer a peace treaty at some point in time, which the player can choose to accept within three minutes. If the player wants to delay attacking Kabul and focus on the Uzbeks, they should change the diplomatic stance with them to ally. However, in order to earn the achievement, the player must not accept the offer.
Kabul will eventually shift its diplomatic stance to Enemy. This happens when the player betrays Kabul (by switching the diplomatic stance towards Kabul to Enemy), defeats one of the Uzbek armies, ignores Kabul's warnings to stop building military buildings, or ignores warnings against the placement of military units too close to Kabul itself. To deal with that, the player can do the following:
- Accumulate a large enough force before defeating either Uzbek army. This is usually triggered with the destruction of the final military building of either player.
- Build a Castle or two close to Kabul and then rush to capture the Monument - but beware that building too close will result in Kabul's enmity.
- Defeat both Uzbek armies simultaneously. This can be done by whittling down both armies to a single military building each, before destroying them (and their remaining units) completely.
- Use a Siege Tower to send units over the innermost wall (the Gate connected to the wall is locked). Kabul will not react to the Siege Tower and will not have enough time to stop the soldiers garrisoned inside the Siege Tower from capturing the Monument.
Once the Monument is captured, Kabul resigns. Shortly thereafter, all of Kabul's towers, Castles, Gates, and units are destroyed and the rest of the city switches to the player's control.
When all three enemies are defeated, the player is victorious.
Outro[]
The Uzbeks had been driven out — or so I thought. As soon as I left Persia, Herat was overrun by a third Uzbek army, which had been waiting for me to lower my guard. Yet, the pain of losing Herat was nothing compared to what befell me shortly after taking Kabul.
My noble mother, who had suffered all of the hardships of the last few years without complaining, died in the shadow of the city's snow-capped mountains.
It was not a good place for Qutlugh to die; she had always loved the rolling hills of Samarkand. Yet, even as grief consumed me, I surrendered her body to the earth in the most beautiful terrace garden in all of Kabul.
I had become the ruler of a grand, cosmopolitan city... yet I felt like the poorest man in the world. It seemed that for every good thing that I was given, something valuable was taken away from me.
Allah gives and Allah takes.
Trivia[]
- The scenario deals with the struggle to recover Samarkand from the hands of the Uzbek Khan, Muhammad Shaybani, who had captured the city in 1500, being the first non-Timurid ruler of the city in more than 100 years. Unable to achieve this, Babur escaped with his mother to Herat.
- The city of Herat also featured in the second Tamerlane campaign scenario, Gurkhan of Persia.
- The achievement "Never Trust a Campaign AI" is a reference to a meme where the campaign AI that is allied with the player is either incompetent or will betray the player anyway (in the case of Kabul, it is both).
- In real life, the mountainous and desert geography of Afghanistan would not be suitable for elephant breeding, although the side quest of obtaining elephants from the elephant breeder was most likely added for gameplay purposes.
- Despite elephants not being native in Afghanistan and the geography not being suited for elephant breeding, war elephants had historically made their presence in the region since antiquity. The first recorded presence of war elephants was in 305 BC, as part of a peace treaty between the Seleucid and Maurya Empires). Furthermore, it was very common for various Indian and Persian kingdoms throughout most of Afghanistan's history to gift elephants to Afghan warlords in order to win support of the tribes.[1]
- Husain Baiqara is initially present inside Herat, as a renamed Shah. The unit is removed when Babur comes close to Herat.
- Despite the scout report, neither of the Uzbeks will train Steppe Lancers due to having no training script in the AI.
References[]
- ↑ Hanifi ,Shah Mahmoud (2020). Elephants in Afghanistan: Surveying the history of a pachyderm cultural frontier https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/context-culture/elephants-in-afghanistan-surveying-the-history-of-a-pachyderm-cultural-frontier/
