Hello, I just picked up The Settlers: Rise of an Empire recently and a few times along the way, I've looked for hints and tips online but was never able to find any detailed FAQs or walkthroughs -- I checked the usual suspects (Gamefaqs.com, fansites/forums linked at the Wikipedia TS:RoaEpage, good old random Googling, and reading these forums) and I decided to write up something to help people with the single player campaign.

I've just played through Mission 8 and having retried the silly thing over and over, I wanted to help out some fellow players and give some advice on how to win this scenario. I realize it's kind of weird to just start at Mission 8, but this scenario is fresh in my mind (having just beat it ten minutes ago and now taking a well deserved cheesecake break!) so this is where I'll start.

Mission 8: Timing Is Everything
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Compared to the other scenarios, I found this one very short and actually quite simple, in theory. The major roadblock here is micromanagement and being an efficient builder. The last eight scenarios should have pretty much drilled in the necessary steps in building your city -- I hope you learned your lessons well, because this scenario will test those skills. Basically, unlike the last eight scenarios, you are ruled by the clock in this one. There's a very stringent time limit to get quests done, and every second counts!

As soon as the scenario loads and the Grandmother of Grandmothers starts lecturing you about what you have to do, the timer for the first quest starts. You have about 15 minutes to finish the first task, which is plenty of time. I chose Hakim as my Knight because of his reduced upgrades skill, but playing as Kestrel is also a good choice, due to her increased tax skill. As soon as the timer hits, take a few seconds to check out your starting area. The area is actually pretty self-sufficient, with everything you need to hit Sheriff -- you won't need to level any higher. You only need to level to Sheriff to access the Swordsmith/Swordsman Barracks and to be able to produce a Thief at your Castle. Also, notice that in addition to your starting area, you also have another territory to the north.

Your first quest is to deliver 300 gold to Grandmother. You already start with 250g, so this seems like an easy win -- but don't send the money as soon as you have it! If you wait until about the 1 minute mark to send the money, you can use the extra time to prepare for the next quests.

Start out by laying down the foundations of the city. This is what I started with:

-- 2 Woodcutters (place them in two separate forests, so they don't mow down the whole patch of trees right away)
-- 2 Hunters (one in the starting area, one in the territory to the north)
-- 1 Butcher

Spend some time making sure that everything is upgraded to full and that Trails are connected, so that your settlers move around faster. As you are building up your budding city, this is a good time to send your Knight to scout around. Don't wander around the entire map because there's nothing to see, and it's very easy to get stuck in dead ends among the icy cliffs. Be sure to head to the village to the northwest (I believe it was 1 territory west -> 1 territory north), but once you discover it, send your Knight back to the Marketplace. The village leader doesn't have anything for you at the moment, but notice that they've got some nice fluffy sheep and there's some big bad wolves lurking in some trees to the east of their village. You'll be back later.

As I sent my Knight back to town, I built the following:

-- 1 Iron Mine
-- 1 Stone Quarry
-- 2 Wheat Farms (with around 6-7 Wheat Fields between them)
-- 1 Tannery

The Iron Mine is preparation for building a company of Swordsmen, the Stone Quarry and the Tannery are for the Sheriff requirements, and the Wheat Farms are there to help feed the settlers. Now, you will likely only have a few months of Wheat growing, so grow as much as you can before it snows -- this scenario doesn't last long enough for a second harvest. I typically wait until I have about 20 Wheat before building a Bakery. I just like to ensure a constant flow of goods.

Getting to Sheriff will be very fast. Leave the first Castle upgrade for last, because you may end up not having enough gold to send to Grandmother. As soon as you have 450g saved up, go ahead and upgrade the Castle, and upgrade your Knight to Sheriff. At this point, I had over 2 minutes left and could have finished the first quest, but I waited until the 1 minute mark before sending the money. As soon as you hit Sheriff, I recommend saving your game. If you have to restart, doing the last ten minutes over and over again really, really sucks. Anyway, after hitting Sheriff, I did the following:

-- Built 1 Swordsmith/1 Swordsmith Barracks
-- Trained 1 Thief
-- Built 1 Bakery

By now you should be around 1 minute, so send your money off to Grandmother and laugh at Crimson Sabatt a bit. Don't worry about your shipment being unattended -- Grandmother has strict rules and no one is allowed to attack carts with goods (or at least the carts with goods going to her...).

Back in town, send your Thief ahead in perparation for the second quest (I believe it was 1 territory north -> 2 territories east). In the northern part of this area (you'll know you're in the right place if you also see Fishing icons), you can see the border of The Red Prince's territories. Park your Thief just in front of the border -- this is in preparation for the second quest. By now, your money should have reached or be very near Grandmother, so get ready for part two. I recommend saving now.

Grandmother now wants 8 pieces of Woolen Clothes. Now, if you hadn't prepared properly for this request, you are almost guaranteed to lose. The time that they give you (around 15 minutes , plus a 2 minute grace period that you can get) just isn't enough time to get everything done. Anyway, your Knight will probably now say something about sabotaging Crimson Sabatt's Storehouse, so it's time to take our carefully parked Thief into enemy territory. Once you cross the border, be careful not to run into military troops, because they'll kill your Thief on sight. I hugged east as I travelled down a couple of territories, past the Palisade Gate and eventually to the main city Stone Wall. There's two Stone Gates to the city, make sure you go to the east Gate, because this Gate is the closest one to the Storehouse. Also, the west Gate happens to have Crimson Sabatt sitting in front of it. Be very careful when you enter the city, it's crawling with patrols! Enter the city and head to the Storehouse -- no matter what you do, you will be spotted. Just make sure that you make it into the Storehouse! You will lose your Thief, but the Storehouse will be sabotaged, granting you an extra couple of minutes.

By now, your Swordsman Barracks should have enough for a company. The village to the northwest has the sheep you need to make Woolen Clothes, but first you have to kill the wolves that are threatening them. Take your Knight and 1 company of Swordsmen over to the village, and while they are trekking over there, build 1 Sheep Farm with 2 Sheep Pastures. When your troops have killed the wolves, you are able to buy sheep from them -- buy 2 flocks of Sheep and send your group back to town. The sheep will take their sweet time getting back, so in the meantime, make sure the Sheep Farm is fully upgraded, and build 2 Woolen Clothes Shops. Upgrade those as well.

While you're waiting for the Sheep, send your Knight over to prepare for the next quest -- the same area where you parked your Thief, only this time we are after the Fishing nodes. The reason we sent the Knight here is because this is the only area on the entire map that has Fishing nodes, and yes, you guessed it, the next quest is to get Fish. So we need to claim this territory as soon as possible! Build the Outpost near the Fishing nodes, because the southern part of this territory is completely sealed off. This will come in handy when Crimson Sabatt later tries to mow you down with her troops. Along with the Outpost, build the following:

-- 1 Fishing Hut (fully upgraded)
-- 1 Stone Gate/Wall

As mentioned before, this is the only Fishing area, and when Crimson Sabatt finds out you've already moved in, she'll threaten you and then send a ton of troops to take the territory from you. Instead of trying desperately to raise an army to meet hers (which eats up precious resources and time), I opted to build a Stone Wall. The area is a natural bottleneck, perfect for walling. With the Stone Gate/Wall up, Crimson Sabatt's troops have no way of getting to your Outpost. A little planning goes a long way! You could just as well build 3 non-upgraded Fishing Huts, and they would be built faster, since it's all done in one trip versus the three trips to upgrade 1 Fishing Hut. It probably all works out the same way anyway.

By now, your wandering Sheep should be in their pastures and production of your Woolen Clothes has just started. I actually placed the Woolen Clothes Shops away from the Marketplace so the settlers wouldn't be tempted to swing by and get clothes from the Woolen Shop, instead of going to the Tannery. Now, it's just a waiting game. Also note that unlike the previous shipment of gold (which comes from the Castle), your shipment of Woolen Clothes has to first be picked up from the Shops and delivered to the Storehouse, and then they are sent out to Grandmother. So make sure you have spare time to allot for that -- I sent my shipment off around the 2 min - 2:30 mark. While that's on its way to Grandmother, take this time to make sure you are ready for the next quest (even though you're pretty much ready already). This is also a good time to save.

Lastly, Grandmother wants 8 Fish. Not cooked, just raw Fish. By this time, you've pretty much won the quest. Crimson Sabatt will want to take over the Fishing area, but you've already built a Stone Wall, and her troops have nothing to do but mill around uselessly. If you're worried about her troops killing your Fisherman on his way back to town, I found that after standing around for 15-20 seconds, Criimson Sabatt's troops march back to town, leaving my Fisherman to deliver his cargo unmolested. As soon as you are able, send your Fish off to Grandmother, because Crimson Sabatt has a trick up her sleeve. Even though you control the only Fishing area on the entire map, The Red Prince somehow smuggles some fish over to her, thus allowing her to send her shipment. What a cheat! But your shipment should arrive first, anyway.

Congratulations, you've completed Mission 8. Grandmother tells Crimson Sabatt to get the hell off her property, and we're treated to a cutscene before Mission 9.

A couple of tips that I may have missed:

-- Build trails everywhere to maximize your setller's travel time
-- Only build what is necessary to save time and resources (your town should have enough just to make sure everyone is fed/clothed)
-- Always be aware of your overall goal, don't get sidetracked by one part of it
-- When sending your Knight/troops out, do some work while they're travelling from point A to B. Upgrade buildings, put down Trails, etc.

And if you're still having troubles after all this, I'm guessing it may be because you are placing your buildings too slowly. Play the mission a few times to get the hang of where you think everything should be, so that the next time you try, you will know automatically.

Thanks for reading! Suggestions/comments/etc are welcome.

-- petiteetoile

Edit: pennyuk and zweispeer have both confirmed that you only need 2/4 quests to win the mission. This is how it goes:

-- Wait until the last minute of the countdown to send the gold to Grandmother
-- Upgrade your city and Knight to max, build a Siege Weapons Blacksmith
-- The fourth quest is to send Grandmother 5 Siege Weapon Parts (not the finished siege weapon, the first stage parts). Click when you have them and win!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: petiteetoile,

I tried this Mission many times,after being unsuccessful each time,I wondered what would happen if I only managed to do 2 of the quests she set.I handed the gold in,then continued building,ignoring the clothes and the fish requests from the Grandmother,when she announced she wanted 10 engine parts,I hit the send button and BINGO I win.On to Mission 9.

Hi,
Am through to Campaign6 Rekkyr & have found the sheep, have killed the wolves & built sheep farms(2) but the sheep will not enter the pens, WHY.

The soldiers for killing the wolves aren´t really necessary, although preparing the smith and baracks soon enough is recommended.
I go straight from the start with my hero to the wolves and start fighting them with only him. He will die about two times, but appear after a short time at the castle again. So by the time you get your second quest, i have my hero parked at the village Storehouse and buy the sheep in the very second the grandma STARTS to speak about the second quest.....gives muchmuchmuch advance in time. If you are fast enough, (That´s a tough one but BTDT) you will be able to build an outpost in the fish territory and catch enough fish even before the second quest countdown is over, so you can deliver the fish right after your clothes cart has arrived at grandma.

Something else. I never used the thief after the first time, because if you do so, crimson will send one of her own and you would bey busy keeping him from steeling your own wool. I also suspect fullfilling the thief Quest has a negative influence to your prestige points in the final statistic, viewable after a click on RITTER in the German Version, i think it would be KNIGHT in english

At last, you need only two successful missions out of 4 to win. So a very EASY way is sending the gold just before the end of countdown, upgrading your city and your Knight to the maximum and simply building a siege weapons blacksmith. The last quest would be sending 5 Units of siege weapon PARTS, not an assembled siege weapon. Just let your stage 1 Siege engine Smith fill up, and when the Quest occurs, klick send. :-D Won the mission...........


Edit: Viewing both top posts, i must say i´m way too slow typing.........

If requested, i would change the link in the FaQ for mission 8 to this thread, personally i think it´s near perfect

quote:

tried this Mission many times,after being unsuccessful each time,I wondered what would happen if I only managed to do 2 of the quests she set.I handed the gold in,then continued building,ignoring the clothes and the fish requests from the Grandmother,when she announced she wanted 10 engine parts,I hit the send button and BINGO I win.On to Mission 9.

@pennyuk: I tried this mission quite a few times too, but I never played out the whole scenario -- like if I failed the quest that I was on, I'd restart it and try again. I actually never even knew about the fourth quest, hehe. But that's good to know and is so much easier than all the juggling around that I did.

quote:

Hi,
Am through to Campaign6 Rekkyr & have found the sheep, have killed the wolves & built sheep farms(2) but the sheep will not enter the pens, WHY.

@THEFLYONE: Were the sheep bought or wild ones? Animals will enter their pastures if a) they have the appropriate housing (pastures) and b) if they are wild, the territory that they are on must be claimed by you. So if you killed some wolves and there were some wild sheep in the same area, you would have the claim the area first (ie: build an Outpost) before the sheep will go to your pastures. Also, the sheep take a very long time to walk back.

quote:

The soldiers for killing the wolves aren´t really necessary, although preparing the smith and baracks soon enough is recommended.
I go straight from the start with my hero to the wolves and start fighting them with only him. He will die about two times, but appear after a short time at the castle again.

@zweispeer: This is actually what I did too, my first couple of tries. Even though it doesn't matter how many times your Knight dies, it just kind of bugs me, so I tried to do it in a way where he doesn't die.

quote:

Something else. I never used the thief after the first time, because if you do so, crimson will send one of her own and you would bey busy keeping him from steeling your own wool. I also suspect fullfilling the thief Quest has a negative influence to your prestige points in the final statistic, viewable after a click on RITTER in the German Version, i think it would be KNIGHT in english

@zweispeer: This is really interesting because after sending my own Thief, I never noticed Crimson Sabatt sending her own! Sure, she said that I was playing dirty, but I never saw anyone coming to my Storehouse, or maybe she did send someone and I was too busy on other parts of the map to notice. I never bothered to check afterwards what my score was, so I'm unsure what effect it had on my overall score.

quote:

If requested, i would change the link in the FaQ for mission 8 to this thread, personally i think it´s near perfect

@zweispeer: Thank you.

I am to thank you for your great work. If somebody could tell me if other threads like this, of similar quality exists, i would gladly link them in the FaQ.

quote:

Originally posted by bazza1932:
Hi,
Am through to Campaign6 Rekkyr & have found the sheep, have killed the wolves & built sheep farms(2) but the sheep will not enter the pens, WHY.

Found out where I went wrong with the sheep, as I'm a little hard of hearing I listened again very carefully to the spiel & realised that I just had to ride up to each sheep & it would turn & walk back to the owners sheep pens, & not the ones I had built.

quote:

Originally posted by bazza1932:

quote:

Originally posted by bazza1932:
Hi,
Am through to Campaign6 Rekkyr & have found the sheep, have killed the wolves & built sheep farms(2) but the sheep will not enter the pens, WHY.

Found out where I went wrong with the sheep, as I'm a little hard of hearing I listened again very carefully to the spiel & realised that I just had to ride up to each sheep & it would turn & walk back to the owners sheep pens, & not the ones I had built.

buy the sheep

If I remember correctly, on this mission you had ride around to find an ai' lost sheep and send them home.

Hi petiteetoile - Salut

Excellent Mission Walkthrough well written and will be a lot of help to some players myself included as I get fed up with some fiddly missions and this game is the only one I've played that gives my Pc the occassional screen lock up.

Good Idea zweispeer if all good mission walkthroughs could be placed in one Sticky FAQ
Danke Schon

Hope your little star shines brightly petiteetoile

Au Revoir Maxim

Halelujah here, I tried it, twice. I did everything up to the point of claiming the fishing territory. Fought tooth and nail to hold it until I came up with 1000 gold. When I had the gold I laid the foundation for the outpost but Sabatt removed it and left a small hill there. I lost the 1000. I can't figure it out. Its a trick right? Or do I let her claim the territory and then fight for it.? Any help someone? I really want to get by this one.

That would be my way, exactly. I wait with my soldiers at the border till she has build the outpost. Then i take over the outpost and save the thousand gold. :-D It´s much better invested in more soldiers. Remember to upgrade your Castle to tha maximum level, so you can recruit 90 soldiers.

SUCCESS! I finally figured it out. Forget the clothes and the fish, fix your sights on the siege engine parts. 300 gold/siege engine parts. What a relief when I saw VICTORY written across the top of my screen. Great round though, on to campaign 9. Hmmmm, water in the desert. Take care all and thanks so much for the suggestions.

Hello Everyone and a Happy New Year to you all. Well I would like to begin my New Year conquering Level 13? I've watched the videos, some written info is in German. No Splekin de deutsch? Wish I did. Can someone help me? Please?

which knight should i chose????

Beware Crimson cheating in this level. When attempting the Fish collection task, I noticed that when the river froze over, Crimson would bring her troops to the supposed 'closed off' area at the base of the fish territory, and would instruct them to run upwards, over the ice and into the territory, thus destroying my 'safe' outpost.