I just played Joan of Arc VI again to see if it had somehow gotten playable. It did not. It is worse. There is no way to beat the first battle without losing half of your best soldiers, you start with bubkiss for resources, and all three Imperial age enemies attack within 15 minutes of you starting your barely Castle age base.
Further, they are now more aggressive and likely to harass you.
The only thing that makes it slightly easier is that they do not send literally every unit at once. This is not an improvement. I am not a top level player, but I used to beat all the campaigns on hard. In this version, I am unable to beat Joan of Arc on moderate!
This makes no sense! It does not matter what I do! I have built counter units, but I end up having to build so many of them that I can never reach Imperial, and all the while, the AIs are not building a town, no, they are just building more units. Even on moderate, after I rushed the Burgundians, I have nothing that can stop the constant onslaught of enemy troops. I can knock down their forward buildings, but eventually, they just outnumber and outrange me in every unit.
I thought I was doing well when for the first time (I.E., after I switched to moderate) I managed to get my Castle age blacksmith upgrades, but it was already too late because the enemy had upgraded the same and also gotten elite longbows.
Am I missing something? I can build castles, but that does not matter because they hit me with trebs that take the castles down in two volleys. It is not possible for a regular person to beat this.
You talking about the last mission, right? There’s a exploit in this mission, that makes it really easy to finish, even on hard.
Build a dock in the very south of the map, and send the trade cart to the flag with a transport boat, through the river. You will need something to escort it, sure, but you will be free from attacks as long you don’t start any agression against burgundy.
Move slowly on the first battle, sniping and using your range until siege comes out and you can snipe it and the monks with your cavalry/heroes.
Immediately after the first battle, wall up your base, set up your eco and split your army into two parts:
(1) Infantry, archers and trebuchet
(2) Cavalry and bombard cannons.
The first group goes south to take out Purple. The second group goes North to take out Orange. Both at the same time.
Bring your troops back as soon as you’ve beaten them and get a defensive castle up. Then you have to survive Red’s attack. Conserve as many units as you can and use the castle fire. Make a second layer of walls to pen the enemy in when they get close to breaking through.
After you survive the big onslaught from Red, the mission is laughably easy.
OK, first: an apology - mostly to the devs. I know my first post in this thread was emotionally charged and a bit accusative. Sorry about that. I just have had no luck with this for a good eight tries, and I was frustrated when writing. You really have been making a lot of good updates. Thanks.
Now, as to the responses:
Thanks for the exploit, but I am at least trying to get through this one without cheese. Though, if I were cheesing it up, that is a pretty good one. I suppose I might also lumber camp the starting position until I could market-> tc-> Imp with a smithy.
For the split approach, yeh, I really try to hold back and snipe, but they have so many archers and siege that it is really difficult to do because they out-range me. Because of this, I wonder if I can have enough to take out Shrewsbury. I will give it a try though.
Thanks for the input folks. I will say that I have always struggled with being aggressive, so that might part of my problem. Anyway, thanks again.
The campaigns can be a bit tricky at times and you have to take the best approach with the start you are given. Often this means going out and attacking early because you have a large army sometimes it means turtling up and booming. In this one you should take your time capturing the town (as far as i know the other dont move unitl the tc is destroyed) and use the rest of your army to keep up the pressure against the other factions (not the British). You are at an advantage early on because your units have a lot of upgrades compared to what you can build. Ferchalurchs advise for the attack is really good. Good luck!