So i just played the last mission in hercules labors and it took really long to take over mt. pelion,mostly because the ally eleusis who was supposed to trade armor with me stopped trading it for years,only sending me gifts of it each year randomly i think and i couldn't ask them to gift me more since it wasn't marked anymore.My army couldn't beat them with the lack of armor and sometimes i even got a colony ally involved but couldn't beat em.
In the end nemea became so strong and i had the chance to send a military strike with them and i won,though i also sent my army again and colony army after eleusis was trading armor again,but that took em long enough.
But yeah i probably needed hours to beat it in that mission where you even can't produce your own armor.
Maxium i had were 4 full hopplites groups which means 8 in each group.Didn't send the 5th group since it wasn't a full group.
Should have bought more armor at the beginning,oh and the zeus sanctuary was built before i managed to overtake mt. pelion,one god even destroyed storage with sculptures which prolonged the building of the sanctuary.

Yep. The one's w/o Armor are tough.

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Some of the Monsters are wimps like the Kraken. If you place rock throwers near your trading piers, the Kraken does a lot less damage. Doesn't work on gods.

Basicly ranged can kill monsters,don't know if all monsters but i believe trireme are also ranged and can kill the kraken.But it didn't come to this yet.

Oh and i played on hero since i believe this is the normal difficulty of the game.

Yep You can kill the monsters. But keeping the Kraken away from the Piers with just rock throwers can begin at the get-go. Some other monsters too. (Though Medusa just gives you statues.)
I forget. Can you raid any town for Amor in this Hercules adventures? Or do the designers keep you on a short leash in every way?

I just checked since i save a lot.It doesn't show armor on plunder just any and other on all cities.
The only way i could probably get armor was if i would conquer an ally eleusis,but i didn't try that one.

Thanks for checking. Short leash all the way around. I

Well no wine production in final mission,i had to buy wine and armor,but armor was the one really missing.Did mostly only export fleece since i had that a lot and olive oil thanks to arbor of athena,tributes were wood,olive oil and marble from my colonies.Think i did export wood and marble also when i didn't need it that much.
Oh and colony mission number 2 was actually Lerna they had wine,but the tribute was olive oil from them.
Guess i was afraid of running out of drachmas that is why i didn't buy armor so much at start,but i am actually new to this game and it's my first time playing through it.
I only played caesar 3 from such similar games and beaten it on hard without realizing it was on hard,now trying to beat zeus+poseidon before i go to emperor rise of middle kingdom or pharaoh+cleaopatra

The Wine for Armor mission is Athens. And it takes a lot of wine to get armor.

I recommend playing on Titan difficulty. There's actually more challenge at this level than what you can get on Normal (Hero).

As for the final Tiryns mission, you get gifts of armor from Elyusis throughout the mission, but they are heavily delayed. It's recommended to build up a substantial military before the last colony mission and stockpile a lot of armor to use as spare. Alternatively, you can ask your allies to perform military strikes and send weaker amounts of troops to attack Mount Pelion.

For the record, armor "is" available for a short time at the start (ie 2-3 years). Then an event will lower the demand the city sells, removing it entirely.

one of the annoying things about the game is sometimes you simply need to know when youre going to get f'd so you can set up for it ahead of time.

i played this game so much as a kid that once i start playing it i remember every strat i need for each scenario and when to build up goods even if they just sit around in 4-8 stockpiles for 3+ missions. yay childhood memories :D

i generally try to stock up so i have at least 4 stockpiles worth of any good im importing and 10-20 of anything my city needs or exporting. this leads to a few hours of just sitting around with messages off waiting on thins to pile up.