A Storm Over The Meadows (by Admiral Calania)

Foreword
You will be greeted with a neat little cinematic introduction of Princesss Zoe and Dracorian flirting like crazy. You know they want each other. You can feel, I can feel it, the guard that bops Dracorian can feel it.

Annnnnnyway.

Drac’s little sister Rovyn shows up with a bad attitude and a monstrous looking ferret and decides the best way to handle you is to stare at you. Yes. With the way this walkthrough goes I can almost guarantee you that she will stare at you while you win the game.

My Special Notes
You need to understand that this game is fluid. It changes from game to game. I used this method two times to beat the level. The first time Rovyn had 32 soldiers outside my home city. The second time she had only 9. That is a very large difference!

Starting from this mission and on there is no true guide that will be the “I WIN” button. These will merely be stepping stone. You will have to learn to adapt and to adopt new courses of action. If something doesn’t turn out correctly or the AI does something different you need to be able to dump this strategy guide or, better yet, simply work around the current difference.


 * This is also played on Easy. This walkthrough is not meant for harder difficulty. It is only meant to help those wanting to advance the story and not their skills as a player.

Victory Points
There are 6 total points. You (or her) will need 4 to win. This is very interesting if you look at the mini map.

She is the yellow dot and you are the red dot. The map layout itself is the greatest asset you have.

Rov has access to 5 zones total before she is at your town. You have access to 10 zones including a victory point sector and the Royal Observatory.

That is correct, you block her from ever reaching those two Victory Points. That leaves her with only 4 she is capable of getting. Remember how you need 4 to win? Well, she can only get 4! That means if you can prevent her from getting just one of those points she cannot win the game without actually killing you off. She can fight you on the Victory Points, Field Marshall, and Metropolis but you have access to more zones than she does. This is her Achilles heel.

To win though you will need 4. We will go with Special Sector, Sun King, Metropolis, and Emperor.

Once again, this will be fluid. Throughout this game you may lose one or two and gain one or two. Simply ignore this. We are going for a long term solid victory and not bickering back and forth with Rov.

Starting up and the most important click you will make
The very first thing you should do no matter what is to click your castle and upgrade your defenses in your home town. This is vital! Your town in this game is the single most important zone. It will not be long before Rov is sitting at your doorstep. She will have taken every zone she can and you will be the only thing in her way. If you give her the opportunity she will take it and you will be starting all over.

Now, about how we will achieve the path to victory. We will mostly be ignoring miliart and completely ignore trade. Coal and iron are scarce and we will use them for tools. Coins will be scarce as well and there is no need to build an Export office as you start with zero wool/cloth/shirts. It isn’t worth starting an entire production chain for that. You will need the room used better. This leaves us with our friend the Novice.

Get used to him. You are going to make a ton of them.

You will be building the following in your starting town.
 * 3 residences
 * 1 mountain shelter with 3 quarries
 * 2 lodges each with 1 woodcutter, 1 sawmill, and one forester
 * 2 farms each with 3 grain farms
 * 1 storehouse at each place


 * Purchase two pikemen

Send your army to the southwest (away from Rov) You will take this zone mostly for the prestige level gain.

While the fighting is occurring build yourself 2 more residencies, a farm with 2 mills, a well, a brewery, 2 bakers, and a toolmaker. Yes I know the toolmaker will run out of iron, but that is fine. You will supply him soon enough.

Once the new zone is yours immediately move your army back to your home sector. They will be stationed here for the rest of the game to deter Rov from attacking you.


 * Spend your prestige point on the Church/Export/Stronghold option.


 * In your new zone build 2 storehouses and a church. Ignore the Goldmine for the time being.

Our next step will be to increase our economic might and prestige level with TECHNOLOGY!

There are 6 techs available to obtain. We only want 5. Ignore the sheep tech as we won’t ever build any sheep farms.

Queue up 15 novices.

At this point you may wish to build a second brewery. I did but it is not mandatory. It will simply make this go by a ton faster.

As your novices are built research the techs. Purchase Ornamentation first, then Forced March, exercise. The other two can be gotten in either order.

Once you research ornamentation use your two prestige points to earn “Roads” and “Storehouse Upgrade”

Use the Prestige point from Forced March to earn Geologist. Time for the crazy fun part. Upgrade your storehouse closest to your church all the way. Click on it and set it to gather all bread and beer. For a while this will be the only place you will be needed the two.

--Go ahead and build a mountain shelter and 3 gold mines now. Here is the goofy part. Set them all to geologists. We want the stone more than the gold honestly.

Your original stone quarries should be running low on stone if not out. When they ruin out completely delete them one by one (getting the tools back) and build an iron smelter in one of their places.

Your final prestige point earned from technology should be spent on the constructor.

--Use your church and added cemeteries to it until you gain TWO more prestige points. Use these two points to earn the House Upgrade option and the Stone Fortification option.

--Click on your castle and upgrade your fortifications to stone.

After all the techs are researched (minus the silly sheep) and you have stone walls guarding your town it is time to expand.

--In your main town build two noble houses

--Queue up 14 novices in your church

--Upgrade the storehouse near your iron smelter all the way and instruct it to collect iron ore and coal ore.

--Send 8 of your new novices to the zone directly west of your church zone. This zone ahs an iron mine.

Once obtained build a mountain shelter with 3 iron mines (only set one to geologist), 3 storehouses, and 1 constructor. Upgrade the constructor to level 2.

--Once the next six novices are done being made send them to convert the town directly south of your new iron town. This town will have coal in it.

-Build 2 store houses and a mountain shelter with 3 coal mines (set one to geologist) in the newest zone.

At this point you will want to upgrade a few of your houses in you main town to increase your population limit. Upgrade about 3-4. If you need anymore room later simply upgrade them again.

--Queue up 17 novices. (Yes, 17)

Once the first 11 are done send them to the zone in the southwest to convert it. It is the zone that has a large silver star over its castle. This is the Victory Point zone.

The next 6 Novices should be sent to the zone directly north of your Iron Town. Once converted you will earn the Victory Point for Emperor as you will have one more zone than Rov.

---

At this point I had the countdown timer start. I immediately told my storehouse by my church to stop stockpiling beer and food.

I then queued up 7 pikemen to be built in case Crazy old Rov decided to strike out of fear of losing.

If you have not won this means your are missing a VP somewhere.

I won with

- Special Sector - Emperor - Metropolis - Sun King

You should at least have those first two. If you are lacking either of the other two simply do this :

Sun King - Built into your church with cemeteries. If you run out of room build a church/export/stronghold in the special sector zone. That zone has more than enough room to add the prestige add on’s to the building.

Metropolis - You need working population. If Rov is beating you simply build up more work places. Add more housing to accommodate.

Now that you have won the game, take her ferret from her and enjoy the upcoming 8th mission! I know I did!

When playing this game I NEVER took a Conquest/Population award. At the end of the game I had something like 8 or 9 built up. You can use those for anything you want/need during the game and it will only benefit you. I wanted to play without using mine so as to make certain of everything.
 * FINAL IMPORTANT NOTE