Posted December 16, 2020
Hey everyone! I haven't seen this posted anywhere else, so I wanted to throw some advice on the web for anyone trying to finish the Return to the Throne scenario with Camelius.
(I am assuming that you have already reached Pannonia with Camelius as a Praetorian. Everything before the showdown with the Berbers/Gauls from Pannonia is pretty straightforward and easy.)
WARNING: This takes literally forever. You may not even want to bother attempting to finish the scenario unless you are a completionist. If you insist on putting hours into grinding for an arguably unsatisfying victory, read on.
AFTER KILLING CAECILIUS METELLUS:
Once you have "saved" Apollonia and been promoted as Praetorian, you will be awarded Pannonia as a functional city (though it doesn't have an Arena, so no recruiting heroes or training units). You will start with two villages that are captured by the Gauls located to the east. You are free to capture these villages back immediately, as well as another village just to the northwest of them, near a Shipyard. These will help you stockpile food that you will need to build up a large offensive force.
Like the priest in Apollonia says, the land to the east is cursed -- there is a large number of lower level Roman soldiers that are frozen in place outside of the city. As soon as you bring Camelius close to the soldiers, a druid will appear that curses you, causing you to fly to an island north of the battlefield to change yourself back. When you return to Pannonia, your soldiers will greet you and prepare for the battle.
Be warned: as soon as you return to Pannonia after breaking the curse, all hell will break loose. The Gauls will send large, trained armies not only to capture your villages but to harass Apollonia and the settlements from earlier in the scenario as well.
The way that I found worked the best was to set the game to max speed, stockpile food with the villages, and use Investment at the tavern to store gold. This is best done before sending Camelius to the field, as there won't be any challenge to the villages (though this means that there is nothing else going on). I stockpiled to about 300k food through tributes and buying before I started training units.
Good choices for the army you can use to storm the Gallic stronghold are either massed Scouts (since they can be recruited at level 10 thanks to the Tavern) or Praetorians (their massive HP and armor help counter the Gauls' spammed Woman Warriors' death blow), + priests that have "learned" to level 50 using Camelius. It is difficult to create a group strong enough to capture the Town Hall at this point; I tried about 30 times to breach the fortress before I was able to move on to the next step.
The best way to calm down the Gauls' massive reinforcements is to kill the level 50 druid that cursed you before; Camelius can run in and kill him quickly, though actually doing so is a matter of trial and error (even more so due to the massed Druids that he can blend into after summoning more reinforcements). Once the druid is dead, you should get Camelius out of there; the crazy reinforcements will stop, and you can come back to finish them off.
AFTER KILLING THE DRUID:
Once the druid is dead, the Gauls will focus on spreading their armies across the map (they keep about 12-15 total running around at any given time). While they will occasionally attack Pannonia, they will spend more time capturing other settlements to send food and peasants back to their stronghold.
At this point, I was still able to run the game at high speed without having an instant loss due to a rush on Pannonia; however, I would recommend keeping some soldiers in the Town Hall to deter any attacks. Your focus should be on building up forces to take the stronghold -- I used around 250 Praetorians and 50 high-level priests to cut through the last Gauls in the stronghold.
Be wary about your food situation; because the Gauls are more active, they will incessantly attack the villages you control if you can maintain them. It is easier to buy food at the Tavern, though this requires a significant amount of gold.
AFTER TAKING THE STRONGHOLD:
Once you have taken the Gauls' stronghold, the scenario goes into overdrive: you receive full access to the Gallic stronghold (Arena included), and Camelius becomes promoted to a hero. Your objective them changes to gain control of every opposing settlement in the area (this means any remaining Blue or Green buildings; Yellow is not a threat).
From here, the scenario acts as a regular 1 vs. 1 battle, with you beginning with control of both Pannonia and the Gallic stronghold while trying to wrest control from the Gauls. However, you are at an immediate disadvantage -- not only will the Gauls most likely have access to most (if not all) villages on the map, they will also have access to two functional towns: Apollonia and Ad Vallum (the Gallic city in the northwest corner, where you prevented Stratorius Magnus from being assassinated).
Things become straightforward from here; as long as you are quick-saving often, you should be able to mop up the Gallic forces over time. After several attempts, I ended up using trained-up Gallic heroes to lead armies of Scouts while Camelius lead buffed Woman Warriors. There is a tipping point once you reduce the Gauls' strength enough -- after recapturing Apollonia and getting several armies in the field, the Gauls basically gave up and stayed north of the pass above Apollonia, save for the occasional annoying Viking Lord and small army that the towers chewed up.
AFTER TAKING ALL OF THE SETTLEMENTS:
You're done. That's it, seriously. Camelius gives a short word about avenging his father's death, and you win the scenario.
Like I said above, if you're a completionist like I am, it may bug you not to finish the scenario. If you choose to take on the challenge, be prepared for a serious grind -- it took me about six hours after reaching Pannonia to finally finish the scenario (though much of that time was testing different strategies). If you choose not to, you aren't missing much, other than knowing that you beat the scenario.
For those of you brave enough to take on this daunting task, I hope my advice helps! I've been waiting for someone to finally post some advice on this scenario for a long time, but I'm glad I was able to figure out might work! Best of luck to anyone taking this one on.
(I am assuming that you have already reached Pannonia with Camelius as a Praetorian. Everything before the showdown with the Berbers/Gauls from Pannonia is pretty straightforward and easy.)
WARNING: This takes literally forever. You may not even want to bother attempting to finish the scenario unless you are a completionist. If you insist on putting hours into grinding for an arguably unsatisfying victory, read on.
AFTER KILLING CAECILIUS METELLUS:
Once you have "saved" Apollonia and been promoted as Praetorian, you will be awarded Pannonia as a functional city (though it doesn't have an Arena, so no recruiting heroes or training units). You will start with two villages that are captured by the Gauls located to the east. You are free to capture these villages back immediately, as well as another village just to the northwest of them, near a Shipyard. These will help you stockpile food that you will need to build up a large offensive force.
Like the priest in Apollonia says, the land to the east is cursed -- there is a large number of lower level Roman soldiers that are frozen in place outside of the city. As soon as you bring Camelius close to the soldiers, a druid will appear that curses you, causing you to fly to an island north of the battlefield to change yourself back. When you return to Pannonia, your soldiers will greet you and prepare for the battle.
Be warned: as soon as you return to Pannonia after breaking the curse, all hell will break loose. The Gauls will send large, trained armies not only to capture your villages but to harass Apollonia and the settlements from earlier in the scenario as well.
The way that I found worked the best was to set the game to max speed, stockpile food with the villages, and use Investment at the tavern to store gold. This is best done before sending Camelius to the field, as there won't be any challenge to the villages (though this means that there is nothing else going on). I stockpiled to about 300k food through tributes and buying before I started training units.
Good choices for the army you can use to storm the Gallic stronghold are either massed Scouts (since they can be recruited at level 10 thanks to the Tavern) or Praetorians (their massive HP and armor help counter the Gauls' spammed Woman Warriors' death blow), + priests that have "learned" to level 50 using Camelius. It is difficult to create a group strong enough to capture the Town Hall at this point; I tried about 30 times to breach the fortress before I was able to move on to the next step.
The best way to calm down the Gauls' massive reinforcements is to kill the level 50 druid that cursed you before; Camelius can run in and kill him quickly, though actually doing so is a matter of trial and error (even more so due to the massed Druids that he can blend into after summoning more reinforcements). Once the druid is dead, you should get Camelius out of there; the crazy reinforcements will stop, and you can come back to finish them off.
AFTER KILLING THE DRUID:
Once the druid is dead, the Gauls will focus on spreading their armies across the map (they keep about 12-15 total running around at any given time). While they will occasionally attack Pannonia, they will spend more time capturing other settlements to send food and peasants back to their stronghold.
At this point, I was still able to run the game at high speed without having an instant loss due to a rush on Pannonia; however, I would recommend keeping some soldiers in the Town Hall to deter any attacks. Your focus should be on building up forces to take the stronghold -- I used around 250 Praetorians and 50 high-level priests to cut through the last Gauls in the stronghold.
Be wary about your food situation; because the Gauls are more active, they will incessantly attack the villages you control if you can maintain them. It is easier to buy food at the Tavern, though this requires a significant amount of gold.
AFTER TAKING THE STRONGHOLD:
Once you have taken the Gauls' stronghold, the scenario goes into overdrive: you receive full access to the Gallic stronghold (Arena included), and Camelius becomes promoted to a hero. Your objective them changes to gain control of every opposing settlement in the area (this means any remaining Blue or Green buildings; Yellow is not a threat).
From here, the scenario acts as a regular 1 vs. 1 battle, with you beginning with control of both Pannonia and the Gallic stronghold while trying to wrest control from the Gauls. However, you are at an immediate disadvantage -- not only will the Gauls most likely have access to most (if not all) villages on the map, they will also have access to two functional towns: Apollonia and Ad Vallum (the Gallic city in the northwest corner, where you prevented Stratorius Magnus from being assassinated).
Things become straightforward from here; as long as you are quick-saving often, you should be able to mop up the Gallic forces over time. After several attempts, I ended up using trained-up Gallic heroes to lead armies of Scouts while Camelius lead buffed Woman Warriors. There is a tipping point once you reduce the Gauls' strength enough -- after recapturing Apollonia and getting several armies in the field, the Gauls basically gave up and stayed north of the pass above Apollonia, save for the occasional annoying Viking Lord and small army that the towers chewed up.
AFTER TAKING ALL OF THE SETTLEMENTS:
You're done. That's it, seriously. Camelius gives a short word about avenging his father's death, and you win the scenario.
Like I said above, if you're a completionist like I am, it may bug you not to finish the scenario. If you choose to take on the challenge, be prepared for a serious grind -- it took me about six hours after reaching Pannonia to finally finish the scenario (though much of that time was testing different strategies). If you choose not to, you aren't missing much, other than knowing that you beat the scenario.
For those of you brave enough to take on this daunting task, I hope my advice helps! I've been waiting for someone to finally post some advice on this scenario for a long time, but I'm glad I was able to figure out might work! Best of luck to anyone taking this one on.
