Joan of Arc 2: “The Maid of Orleans”

Article written by Wild1234
Published on 12-08-1999
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When you start, you will have a small band of soldiers, and Joan of Arc. First you should walk your soldiers over to the monastery, and separate the mounted units from your swordsmen, and you light cavalry (we don’t want him to die). Keep following the train until you find a small hill, halt your units at the top of it, and slowly advance them until you see some light cavalry. Attack them with a unit, but retreat it back to the hill as soon as the enemy cavalry starts to chase you. When you get to the hill, you should be able to fight off the three light cavalry before the remaining two, and the two knights reach you. If you have done this properly, you should have taken very little damage and be able to have the monk quickly heal your units. When you have gotten your entire army back together, advance to the light blue town that you can see on the mini map.

When you reach Blois, you will receive the French army to command along with some trade carts to take with you to Orleans. I recommend placing your units into groups as follows, group 1 is your knights, group 2 is your archers, group 3 is your swordsmen, scout cavalry, Joan of arc and Duke D’Alencon, and set your trade carts to group 4. When you leave Blois, the path will turn north after a pile of gold, then it will head east again. When the path turns north again, keep going to the east, and you will run into an orange wall, when you reach a gate in this wall, turn to the north, and you will find a river past a orange mill and farms (don’t attack the farms or the mill). Cross this river and you will reach a purple base just right for the slaughter. When you reach this base, attack with your crossbowmen only, leaving your knights at the crossing of the river along with the small group that Joan is in.

Have your crossbowmen attack the villagers then retreat when they enter the TC, and wait for them to leave it again. Also, expect to see a few spearmen and a militia appear. After killing the villagers for a while some more units will come from behind, and attack your units that you left behind. Don’t worry about them, just send your crossbowmen over to help when they appear, and take them down. Then go back to the orange farms and follow the wall closest to the farms to a bridge near its end. When you get near the bridge, watch out for two towers guarding it, one of which is behind the wall you are following, (be sure to stay a little ways away from the wall) and cross it to Orleans.

Once you cross the bridges, you should follow the path to Orleans, and send your trade carts over to the market. When you are passing by oranges town, try to avoid any knights that might be there, as fighting them will cause you more losses than you want. When you reach Orleans, start upgrading to the castle age, and build three farms with your villagers. If you send a unit out the southwest gate, you will find a path that leads to some farms. There is also some gold and stone near the farms, but be careful, they are outside of your walls.

Now, after you reach the castle age, you will want to make four villagers, and walk out the northwest gate. Follow the path north to reds market, once you find the market back away from it a bit, and build a castle, then place any knights that you have inside the castle. You can expect small attacks from red that will sometimes contain a mangonel, just use your knights to take them out. Now that your castle is built, have your villagers build a University, then buy some stone, and research murder holes. With your castle to keep red busy, make some more villagers, and send them down to the farm area, and build a new town center next to the stone, which is a little north of the farms. Then make a mining camp near the gold mine to the south, and start gathering some wood gold and stone, getting a little stone before the other resources. Now start to make your army, make it so that it contains knights, and battering rams. Remember to upgrade your Knights with husbandry, and armor before you attack.

Now build up your army to attack red, about ten knights and five bettering rams should be enough to start with, and build a tower or two to protect your farms. Keep Joan inside your town to protect against orange’s battering rams. If you start having trouble with orange and red attacking together, have your castle help to defend from red, while you make about five knights to protect you from orange. When you are ready to attack, send in your battering rams, with your knights waiting to fight off any swordsmen that decide to chase after your battering rams. You should build a couple of monks when you attack red, in order to heal your units as you fight him, but you can always just run back to your castle if you don’t have enough gold for monks. They are not necessary for you to win, but they will allow you to kill red with one extended attack, or with a smaller attacking force. Once you take down the wall with your battering rams, clear out a couple of towers so you can move in your horses safely, and start to rip down the castle in front of you. If you succeed in this, you will win this scenario. The only hard part of this game will be defending Orleans from orange’s battering rams while you are building your army. So be sure to keep a couple of knights, or Joan of Arc, ready to stop the battering rams when they attack you. Good luck, you are now on your way to the third scenario of the Joan of Arc Campaign.