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Defender of the Crown
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How to play and win!
by The Byter
Defender of the Crown is undoubtedly one of the best games to be released
for the Apple IIGS, second only to Alien Mind. Digitized sound, good music,
and incredible graphics make this game an excellent showpiece for your
computer. Game play includes a strategic wargame with tactical battles
(although both are simplistic), arcade sequences, and animated scenes to
watch. This file will guide you to victory at Defender of the Crown. It is
not a cheat, so you will have fun playing, and this file will alleviate some
of the frustration new players are certain to find.
It would be beneficial to print out this file, as well as the SHR
picture: DOTC.MAP, to use as aids while playing the game. Use any painting
program to print the map, and any word processor (or Proterm/Mousetalk) to
print the file.
Scenario
~~~~~~~~
The King is dead. The six knights (chosen from 9) are now fighting to
determine which one of them shall become the replacement. Three of them are
Saxons (including you), and three are Normans. You have an advantage: You
have Robin Hood as your ally, and he will help you out in three crucial
battles, as well as harassing Normans from time to time.
Politics
~~~~~~~~
The Saxons are your allies, and you may pass through their lands (colored
blue) safely, if you choose, or you may attack them. The Normans (earth
colors) are your joint enemies, and to win you must occupy each of the three
Norman home castles.
Extra-Curricular Activities
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Whilst playing the game strategically, juggling the political balance to
best suit your ends, you also have the chance, from time to time, to attend or
hold a Jousting Tournament, Raid an enemy (or allied) castle, and rescue a
beautiful ward of one of your allies from the hands of the enemy kidnappers.
These events will have an impact on the rest of the game, but it is not
essential to do well in them.
Jousting
~~~~~~~~
If you hold a Tournament, or attend one that another noble is holding,
you will be treated to some nice graphics and animation. You will then be
given the choice to joust for land or fame. If you are doing well with your
land holdings, you may choose to try to expand them, and this is a nice
friendly way (ie: you won't go to war) of getting land from your allies. If
you are short on land, it would be better to go for fame.
When you first begin playing Defender of the Crown and jousting, you
will need a bit of practice jousting. Hold tournaments often, and choose
Wolfric the Wild as your character, as he'll give you the best jousting
advantage.
The game will switch to an overhead view of the entire tournament.
There is a lot to look at here, although none of it is important. You will
see your horse trotting from the left to the right, and you can speed it up
to a canter by repeatedly hitting the mouse button. At this point, the game
switches to a side view of the two knights approaching one another.
When you get close enough, the view will switch again and show you a
first-person view of your opponent heading towards you. Use the mouse to
direct the point of your lance over onto the shield of your opponent, as close
to the center of the "X" as possible. When you get close, press the mouse
button to strike.
The third person view comes back on the screen, and you see the result
of the bout. If you hit successfully, you will see your opponent (the blue
knight) knocked off of his horse, and you will win leadership, fame, or land.
If you did not successfully hit, and your opponent did, it will show you
getting knocked off, and you will lose the land (if that's what you bet) and a
point of leadership. Often, neither knight will hit, and the horses will come
around for another pass.
Do not inadvertently aim for your opponent's horse, be it head or body.
If you hit the horse in the joust, you will kill it and big trouble will
befall you. You will lose all of your land, many of your soldiers and
knights, your leadership will drop to bottom, and you will be banned from all
future jousting events.
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The fencing simulation is very poor in this game (I should know, being a
veteran fencer), and is accomplished as follows:
Move the mouse right or left to move the fencer right or left.
There is a spot in the middle which will keep your character
stationary, but don't count on using it.
Press the mouse button to extend your blade. Releasing it will
return to en garde position. Waiting will bring your blade up
in a defensive position.
Finish off the guard who attacks you quickly, pushing him towards the
left end of the courtyard. Every hit he scores on you, and every hit SCORED
ON YOUR BACKUP will remove one of your "hit points", measured on a grey bar at
the bottom left of the screen. The bottom right holds your opponent's score.
When you kill your guard, no more touches on your backup will be scored
against you, and he will continue to engage the remaining guard as you sneak
into the castle proper.
Once inside, you will be face-to-face with the captain of the guard.
You shadow flickers on the back wall as he advances down a short flight of
step to assault you. Hurry up and meet him on the bottom step, and push him
back up the stairs and kill him.
Now the part you've been waiting for. How do you kill the guards? It's
simple, if you know the trick. I keep pushing forward, attacking every 1/4 of
a second, with a 1/4 second break after every third attack. Count "LEX-I-CON"
in your mind, and break after each "CON", if you want to do as I do. You will
loose one hit point for about every two that your opponent looses. Keep up
the attacks with regularity, or you will probably get captured.
Once you kill the second guard, you will advance into the treasury of the
castle and loot it, taking 1/2 of the castle's assets. If you are attempting
a rescue rather than a raid, there is a different outcome.
Some time early in the game, if your allies have not been killed off
yet, you will be given a chance to rescue the ward of one of the other two
Saxons. This is a regular fencing battle, as described above, except the
prize is a romantic interlude (with pretty good graphics) of the maiden falling
in love with your character, and eventually, marrying. This is a good thing,
because the maiden's guardian will be so indebted to you, that he will turn
over all of his lands to you, which is very advantageous strategically. You
will see the icon of your wife on the right side of the map from now on.
Castle Siege
~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you desire to take over an enemy stronghold, or a territory with a
castle, your army must bring along a catapult. At this point, you will begin
a 7-day siege of the castle. Armed with your trusty catapult, you will begin
throwing an assortment of projectiles at the enemy fortress.
Boulders - Used for knocking holes in the outer wall, thus reducing the
defensive effectiveness of the castle.
Greek Fire - Used to torch the tower. Kills about 10% of enemy forces.
Disease - Toss this through a hole you've knocked with boulders in the
wall. This will make the enemy sick, and kill about 20% of his
remaining soldiers and knights.
As always, the control is the mouse, but this time, just the button.
Push and hold the button in and the catapult will crank backwards. There are
some handy markers on the catapult rope, which will help you lob the cargo at
the right place. Releasing the button throws the projectile at the target.
Below, I will give a diagram of how far to pull the catapult back for using
each type of weapon. Usually, you should watch the rope carefully, and
release the button as the notch BEFORE your target notch is covered up.
Top of 'pult
===
-
= ___ Lob fire from here.
-
- ___ Throw first boulder here.
= ___ 2nd, 3rd boulders, Disease.
- ___ 4th, 5th boulders
-
=
-
-
=
-
-
=
===
===
Bottom
In other words, pull the catapult back until only the top notch on the
rope is showing to throw fire. Pull it back until the second notch is covered
to throw your first boulder, and second notch uncovered for your second and
third boulders. After you've tossed a couple boulders at the wall (and hit),
you can toss your disease ammo in (historically, these "care packages"
contained sewage and corpses).
It is usually best to knock a few holes in the wall, throw in the
disease, throw in a fire, and then knock a few more holes in the wall. If you
don't knock any holes, the enemy will be well-fortified and you may see your
superior force cut to ribbons. If there is only one soldier guarding the
fort, don't bother with using the catapult, but just go directly to "Start the
Battle".
Battle
~~~~~~
When you enter into battle with an opponent, you will be shown a little
battleground with your forces dressed in blue standing on the left side of the
screen, with the enemy's red forces on the right side. Your soldiers will be
lined up in front, and your knights behind. The larger the forces, the more
characters are shown on the screen.
On the right, there is a box showing the statistical sizes of each
force, counted in soldiers, knights, and catapults. On the left is your
"tactics box", which gives you a choice of tactics to follow as the battle
progresses. They are outlined below.
Stand and Fight: Essentially you do this when you have equal or slightly
superior forces. You just hack at each other until you change tactics.
Knight Charge : Your knights will charge the enemy lines and do a lot of
damage. Make sure you have more knights than your enemy before you do this,
and you can do A LOT of damage.
Outflank Enemy : If you've got superior forces (about 130% to 150%+ of the
enemy), you should use this tactic. This surrounds your enemy, and they
lose soldiers quickly this way.
Catapult Attack: If the enemy is still in a castle, you can lob rocks at them
and make them easier to hit. If you're on a field, you can throw fire into
their masses and do some damage. The problem is that your defense goes down
when you use the catapult, and you can take a nice loss.
Defensive Hold : Not aggressive. You sit there and let the enemy attack you.
This is best to use when you're in a castle, or you have lesser numbers and
want to do as much damage as possible before you die.
Wild Retreat : Rout. Your forces run for it. You should do this if you
are up against insurmountable odds, and you want to save some part of your
army or garrison.
If you've got superior forces of soldiers, use flank attacks and
standing attacks. If you've got more soldiers and some knights to boot, do
flank attacks and knight charges. You can decimate an enemy easily this way.
If the enemy is obviously going to slaughter you (or is already doing so),
give it up. Do a wild retreat, and save some forces.
Strategy
~~~~~~~~
This is what will win the game for you. The strategic aspect. When
playing to win the game quickly and easily, don't worry about jousting and
raiding castles, but simply take over as much land as you possibly can. Use
Sir Cedric of Rotherwood or Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe for their leadership
abilities.
In all cases, it is best to put all of your initial soldiers into your
army, and go out in search of land. As you take over more land, you'll get
more soldiers, and money to boot. Once all the free land is taken, or if an
enemy (not an ally.. they won't attack you unless you box them in so they
can't attack an enemy) gets close, spend all of your collected cash on foot
troops, and buy a catapult soon too. Don't worry about knights yet. Print
out this file, or at least the statistics at the end, and also print out the
SHR picture: DOTC.MAP, which will show the various provinces as you see them
on the screen, with the addition of their gold and vassal values and names.
If you start in the province of Cumbria (dark blue, uppermost castle)
you should immediately move your forces to Lancashire to the south, and the
next turn, to Yorkshire at your northwest. From there, battles will begin
forming, and you should prepare to help medium blue fight off yellow and
orange attackers if they get too close.
If you start in Nottingham (medium blue), in the middle of the map south
of Sherwood Forest, you should go for Lancashire (northeast) first, then
Leicestor (directly south of Nottingham) then Linconshire (coastal shire to
the west), if Dark Blue doesn't have it yet. From there, you'll have to be
ready to fight off orange and brown attacks on Leicestor, and yellow attacks
on Linconshire. It's best to let dark blue get Linconshire and fight Yellow
for a little while, while you build up troops, then go in and take it from
Yellow.
If you start off in Clwyd (light blue, east England), you should take
your forces to Gloucestor (southwest) first, then to Gwynedd (northeast), then
on to Glamorgan, then get your forces back home. You will lose Gloucestor
quickly, as it will be a big target for both Orange and Brown, and ultimately,
this is the key land in the early game. Build up your army, then attack
Gloucestor after Orange and Brown have wasted most of their armies taking it
from one another.
From here, you will have to watch what is going on to decide what to do.
It is nice to take territories that give a lot of gold and vassals, but more
important is keeping a defensible empire together. Do not have lands way out
in the middle of enemy territory you can't more troops to quickly. Keep your
allies above water. If they're threatened by a big force, strike at some of
the attacking force's undefended territories.
As soon as you can, pick up a catapult. When you get enough forces, and
some land near an enemy stronghold, go in for the kill. Get Robin's help if
they have a lot of forces. Attack the stronghold, and if it falls, all of the
enemy's lands become yours. If an ally of yours attacks you, gather a nice
force together and enter his lands. Keep asking for safe passage until you
get to his stronghold, and take it over. You'll get all the traitor's lands.
It is best to take out an enemy castle early in the game, just to make it
easier on yourself later. Early in the game, the computer does not defend
its castles very well.
As far as forces go, in the early game, build up on foot soldiers. If
you can get a lot of foot soldiers, you can always do flanking attacks on the
enemy and win nearly every battle. When you've got a sizable empire, but have
enemies attacking in multiple places, start building castles. Building a
castle in an internal (non-border) territory is a waste of 20 gold. Build a
castle on a piece of land whichu??T ?{???e??t@A@? P\D 8?Y`up(?X?V?CxP?7?s@ S@ q?eH?u@?u??? 4P?<x8?R ???B zL (?\T?upEWpPH??P??H ?V?? ??VHC?l?6??I}?H?????H}??P ?V?C?+I?X?%? 0?A j t?dGNsx\?xh????V( \$?u0;Qx????4?J?$7Uh??K?<?? C (?x?J (?lCy?Gb??T@?h??, ?R??FH?v??F8?vJ40?F??vh??L ?L&?L,h?i?4*H ??x z?.o$ ?@0Px??G ?H??I (???P?EXt??u?M\??? ??N? ?4 ??$ ? ?????4 ?TN??2 P9?N????????T ??\0P@?+a }@0??? ??nL?oD2 0????d????l?????BU@?+ ?|F? ????. ???"
vesting in knights. A good-sized troupe of knights will steamroll
forces of up to 10 times their size. It's good to carry along at least one
foot soldier for every three knights later on, for protection.
To get ahead fast in the game, take over enemy strongholds, and gain all
their lands. It will be hard when they are in the middle of a bunch of minor
castles, so try to hit one up early in the game. Go for Yellow or Orange,
because Brown is too tough to get, and is usually the last enemy you have to
kill. One underhanded tactic is to help your allies along, then backstab them
and steal their lands. It works, but it isn't very chivalrous.
Statistics
~~~~~~~~~~
All of these statistics can be found in the game (save for my strategic
values for the territories, which I determined), but I'll type them up
here so you can print and use them, which is a lot easier than using them from
the game proper.
Character Name Race Leadership Fencing Jousting Total
-------------- ---- ---------- ---------- ---------- -----
Sir Geoffry Longsword Saxon ****** ********* ****** 21
Sir Wilfred of Ivanhoe Saxon ******** ****** ******** 22
Sir Cedric of Rotherwood Saxon ********* *** ******** 20
Sir Wolfric the Wild Saxon ****** ****** ********* 21
Sir Roger of Falconbridge Norman ***** ********** ******* 22
Sir Edmund the Grim Norman ******** ********* ******** 25
Sir Reginald Front-de-Boeof Norman ******* ****** ******** 21
Sir Phillip Malvoisin Norman ********** ******** ***** 23
Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert Norman ******** ******** ********** 26
Territory Name Income Vassals Strategic Location
-------------- -------- ------------ --------- --------
Cumbria *** zero * North-NE
Yorkshire ** ****** *** North-NW
Lancashire **** ****** ** NorthEast
Nottingham ** zero *** North
Linconshire *** ****** **** Northwest
Gwynedd ** **** * Far East
Clwyd *** zero *** East
Leicestor ** ***** **** Centre
Cambridge ***** ****** ***** West
Norfolk ****** zero ** Far West
Glamorgan * **** * East-SE
Gloucestor ******* ************ ***** SouthEast
Buckingham ******** zero **** South
Essex ****** ******** *** SouthWest
Cornwall ******** zero * Far Southeast
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