Interesting tidbits Grumpus,

after reading your post I went back to 'my' Tenedos and replayed the ending without conquering Cyme but taking Miletos and Ethopia first and then finishing in conquering Cyme.

What do you know, you really get to take them with you back to Aulis as Vassals , which really is going to make episode 4 a lot easier - I hope.

Btw - because of that, ended up with a nice stack of cash too - >90k vs 45k before .

Ps, for some reason Ethiopia wasn't too bad (lost 4horsemen & had 2 leaky triremes) - than again, threw the whole stadium at them - 4 horsecomp., 3 armies, 2 tris, hero and help from Aulis !! (Because of previous raids they were left with only 3 shields before attack )

[This message has been edited by C Franziskus (edited 11-17-2000).]

Quick question - what difficulty?

I'm in Tenedos in Olympian and am having an awful time. Replayed the episode before it a couple of times, now I'm restarting the whole adventure. So far so good - estate block planned out for when I FINALLY get to build those things (I take Olympian seriously - gonna try to fit 40 estates on the non-meadow plateau so I can have my perfect 20 horse companies), Lyrenessa (sp) doesn't exist yet, Cyme is staying down at one shield, because I bribe my allies into giving them trouble every once and awhile . 60k or so cash, but still holding back on the olive oil (each of my two blocks has a full warehouse, but I want to stay in the episode). Hopefully, with cash and weak enemies, things will go smoothly in episode 3.

RSC

[This message has been edited by RSC (edited 11-18-2000).]

...hero level...

RSC:

I played at hero level.

I think that in Tenedos this doesn't make much difference since the main cash drain is imports, not construction.

Still, if I were going to do this at Olympian, I would want to bring at least 60K with me.

C.F.

At Ethiopia I used only the 40 horsemen. No allies, no navy.
I think heros make a big difference since I later conquered Miletos, a similiar rival, with the same force plus Archilles, and suffered only minor casaulties.

Yep, I brought 60k with me . 20k left, let's hope they sell that armor FAST (sanctuary is up).

Biggest problem is that military matters are harder on higher difficulties (I think )...which means that Lyrnessus (which is a 5 shield city, since I did some pretty stupid things early on ) is gonna be awfully hard to conquer. But I've perservered before with only Herc and an Ally (though only on a 2 shield city ), so as long as I'm in good economic shape, things should work out (hopefully & eventually).

RSC

Going back and conquering Miletos & Ethiopia was the best thing I did in all adventures .

Made the remaining 3 episodes 'a walk in the park' .

Yep, I finished the last Adventure tonight .

Will post the final colony and final city in download section.

Thanks again Grumpus for the key advice .

[This message has been edited by C Franziskus (edited 11-19-2000).]

RSC,

Lyrnessus is a 5-star at hero too (and I was being nice to all my map-cities). A couple of 'intense' raids brought the shields down to an acceptable number fast though .

Well, makes me feel a bit better . Off to eat a bit of (late) breakfast, then let's hope we can get the armor export up .

RSC

CF:

Glad it helped. An extra 8-12,000 drachma per year always seems to make the game go easier.

Well, I arrived here with only 17k drachmas, and am wishing I had a bit more...

Well, well, well......

there goes the neighborhood - rodents get to play the final version too now ....

Well, I've finally managed to build Athena's Sanctuary (year 10 now), but I very nearly lost a battle with a bunch of invading Trojans, despite her help. Hector's still running around the city, destroying any and all attempts I make to get an armor industry going.

Oh well, they say this is the hardest adventure .

[This message has been edited by Angel Reckless Rodent (edited 11-22-2000).]

Hector really is a handful...

Right after completion of Hephaestus' sanc., Talos went after Hector - it wasn't pretty - not even the cart pushers stopped to recycle the bronze needed for armor

Grumpus -

How do you sell 37 armor in one year? Did you sell the stuff Troy gives you?

Hephastes certainly doesn't want to bless my Armories. I can normally get only 25 or so armor (if that much) milked from them each year...

RSC

RSC:

I don't remember if I had any gifts that month or not, but I am sure that I have produced around 40 armor in several years.

When I finish the Forge I build a road next to it. This is the only road that touches the Forge, and it dead-ends there. Then I wait to see at what point on that road Hept emerges. Then I build four armories right in his path. Usually about three foundries are enough.

Whoever:

Changing the difficulty level definitly makes opponets tougher.

When I played at Hero leve;, I attacked Ethiopia with 40 horsemen and barely won

When I played at Olympian , I attacked Ethiopia with 44 horsemen and Archilles and lost.

One more question -

If the road is dead ended, how do you get the armor to the piers? Do you micromanage with getting warehouses by the piers, then switching them to accept so the piers will pick it up?

RSC

One end of the road dead ends at the sanctuary. The other end can go wherever you want it to.

You have to be careful even with this kind of setup. I have, much to my disgust, observed Gods emerging from sanctuaries onto a road that never passed within 11 tiles of the relevant sanctuary, and was not connected to the sanctuary. This was despite the presence of a second road that was connected to the sanctuary. This observation may well be an artifact of the map I was playing (Tiryns), but if not, it suggests there is some grid-reference system employed for determining the road on which the god(dess) emerges.

I always watch the God to see where he emerges the first few times just to make sure. If for some reason he doesn't like my road, I'll change it to suit him.

[This message has been edited by Grumpus The Elder (edited 11-22-2000).]

You also have to be careful if you place any other roads in the vicinity of the Sanctuary. My problem in Tiryns arose with the Arbor of Athena. I had everything working nicely, with Athena blessing my three olive presses, and then I built an elite block several tiles away. Lo and behold, Athena starts appearing on the boulevard in the Elite block. Curses! A little bit of restructuring later, everything was back to normal...

I notice no one in the responses so far mentioned Ares. He showed up in my episode-3 Tenedos and regularly did more damage than Hector. He was a real pain until I finally got Athena, who can whup Ares' butt but good. She also came in handy with those large-large Trojan invasions. Once she stood right outside of my military wall where the Trojans were trying to break through, and destroyed half their entire army before she finally let them break through and my own soldiers had to dirty their hands.

Choosing Tenedos for episode 3 makes for undoubtedly the toughest adventure in the game. The official "walk-through" of recommends bringing at least 25,000 drachma with you to Tenedos. I recommend 75,000!

At Olympian levels, victory in Tenedos -- thy name is "fleece"! In Tenedos, it really is "golden fleece."

When I played this episode, I was also able to get bronze by gifting wine to the rival city that produced bronze. I think it was Miletos. It required at least a medium level gift. Then I could request the bronze. I used this to make the statues needed for the Forge. However, it did not occur to me to raid Cyme in the initial stages. Also, FYI, I put a horse ranch near the path that Hector usually followed. He destroyed that, which seemed to satisfy him and so he left my armories alone. I wasn't playing at hero level and I am uncertain if that affects the gift/request system. Ares attacked me here as well as Aphrodite Chessie

I'm a lazy bum... I save Tenedos for the 5th ep. of Trojan.

In the 4th I get Athena up and rolling (mostly for Olive Oil, as there don't seem to be any invasions), and I've conquered Cyme, Miletos, and Ethiopia (with Odysseus' help and 11 Hoplite companies)

Of course, you can keep the 4th ep. going as long as you want, building cash way up by selling Fleece, Wine, and Armor. Hermes helps quite a bit when it comes to requests.

Maybe one of these days I'll play Tenedos as the 3rd ep., maybe not.

Wolfie.

Finished Tenedos,the 3rd episode at Olympian level,used 9 years and 6 months,not fully optimized,beacuse I didn't know when some of the invasions and rescue operation would take place,and when Hector would come.

Start with 47k fund,dropped to 7k in the third year.I didn't bribe off invasions because I knew I could not afford that.I think a starting fund of 40k is enough(I've spent quite some money on beautifications,to evolve houses quickly),and with 35k you can still manage though,with some debt.

Hephaestus's sanctury was finished in year 2,same as Grumpus,and the Arbor of Athena wa sfinished in year 4,just before Ares' invasion.That's really fun watching Athena wipe out the nasty Sparties in SECONDs!

To deal with early invasions,I borrowed some idea from Andreas' tower matrix(Revenge in P-Olympics),very successful,it also helped Athena later when she have to kill 30-40 Trojans:they obviously was confused about which way to take,and going back and forth for some time before finally going to the only opening on the wall.

When Athena's sanctury was done,all the difficulies was over,the only thing left was to conquer as many cities as I could and sold some armor(my best years had sold 40).

I've managed to build a 40 townhouse common block and a 20 estates(not all have horses) elite block on the lower land,a bit overcrowded,food was a prolem there,before I have Miletos conquered.

Left with 83K,and Miletos,Ethiopia,Cyme,Lynessus conquered.I guess the next episode would be quite boring...

IMHO,Olympian level is challenging not only because of the higher building cost:you got fewer workers from the same population(4%),you have to pay more on initial beautifications because the evolving threshold for homested,tenemant and apartment are higher,and finally,you got less from raiding your rivals(in Tenedos,16 instead of 32) and will suffer heavier losses when battling abroad,make raiding less profitable than lower difficulty levels.

p.s.no rival cities(including Troy) had ever got more than 4 shields when I left Tenedos(1322BC).

[This message has been edited by Plebus (edited 01-31-2001).]

Noooo!I can't build Athena's sanctury in episode 4...What a terrible mistake:I've built Hades in episode 2,and as I would only spend 4-6 more years in this city(before conquering Troy),the high cost of Hades cannot be paid back.

I wish it had been notified that I can only build 2 sancturies in this episode...

[This message has been edited by Plebus (edited 01-31-2001).]

I've since played this at Olympian and pretty well agree with Plebus as to the differences encountered at the higher difficulty level.

One additional thing I noticed was that, it I requested goods from allies, the amount granted would be much lower. I think I once asked for marble and got three blocks - hardly worth expending the good will for.

I think that, at Olpmyian, it's better to avoid requesting goods/military from allies and vassals if at all possible. The resulting hit to your reputation makes it hardly worth it.

Grumpus,I forgot to mention that at Olympian level,the invasions are harder to be paid off(the highest bribing fee I saw in Tenedos was 9000Drachmas,and it was a force of 16 horsemen and 40 foot soldiers!).

At Olympain level,you also have less income from taxation,not only the TRMs are lower,people are also less tolerable to high taxes(very high/very high strategy cannot be used at Olympian level,even with every other things OK in the city).

I agree that requesting goods or military aids is harder at Olympian level,especially in Tenedos,because all the effective gift items are those you are in shortage or have to be imported,but I do have allies(including Aulis) help conquering every rivals(usally a raid ealier from my own army which is only for "softening" their defense).I also send gifts of statues(tribute from Cyme) to Aulis and asked for wheat(11 loads in return).

[This message has been edited by Plebus (edited 02-01-2001).]