• 
• Fifth Mission

This mission requires patience, especially at start. You'll have to move from cave to cave unnoticed. Technically you can fight the enemies, but it's easier not to do so. There are two groups of units, cavalry and infantry. The infantry group will follow the cavalry group, but they're slightly slower. You can go a short distance if you go between two groups or a longer one, if you go after the infantry group has passed. Don't bother with the treasures along the way, take the medicine man though.

The first three caves have no surprises, but the fourth one will have two cave bear waiting for you when you get in - nothing you can't handle though. Try not to lose units and keep healing with the medicine man you hopefully rescued. After the fifth cave, you should head south and then east.

Once you enter the tunnel, do as you're told and keep moving. You'll have to fight a few bears, but don't bother with the treasures, they might take too long. You're in a hurry, since after a while, a group of enemies will chase you. You can fight them, but you don't have to. Again remember to use the heroes' special abilities. The bears are relatively tough, so don't underestimate them.

Reaching the other end of the tunnel, you'll have to start building an economy as soon as possible. Move your villagers gathering berries to hunt and queue villagers. Have the treasure ship produce wood. Build a market and a dock as soon as possible. Start building fishing ships. Don't build more than 15 fishing ships in total, since there's not much fish in the lake.

After you use a few shipments, you'll have a rather big army, but you'll also lose a good part of it once the first attack comes - the enemy army is huge. Remember the heroes' special abilities, you'll need them! Don't hesitate to call sentries and/or irregulars from town center. After the battle, go wall off the tunnel so that you'll be able to build a gate in it. Have two layers or more. With your economy growing you might be tempted to go to third age, but the enemy will attack again with a very large army, so don't do it yet.

After that fight, you'll probably need to find another gold mine. Have some steppe riders kill the Chu Ko Nu in the tunnel and follow with your villagers. Start mining, but send a few villagers to wall off the entrance of the mine as well. You don't need to exit the tunnel, so no need to build gates. A few layers are ok. Once you have a sizeable mass of Chu Ko Nu, about 50 and some cavalry too, start considering going up. Even then, build units. You'll need a lot of them to finish this scenario. Summer palace is a good choice for a wonder here, since you'll be needing the banner armies.

Once in Fortress Age, upgrade your Chu Ko Nu and start sending shipments. Your aim is to have a solid economy, with which you can build a sizeable mass of Chu Ko Nu and Arquebusiers, some hand mortars and cavalry for taking out stray enemy groups. Once the gold pile runs out, move west in the tunnel and you'll see some rock obstacles, which you can mine with villagers. Take some 6 cavalry units with them, since there will be 6 bears again in the cave. Lao Chen suggests digging the through to the enemy side, but don't do it - you're better off fighting at just one front.

Start pushing to take out the northern town center. Don't sacrifice units in vain and keep up your Chu Ko Nu/Arquebusier mass. The enemy will try to push through the tunnel from the south, but you should have enough warning if you have built the walls there. Send your cavalry to take care of them.

As said, patience is the key. You won't be moving fast, but you won't leave a building standing. If you scout properly, you can even find his wonders going up - destroy them to delay the enemy. After the first TC falls, destroy the other buildings and then head south. Age up to Industrial Age - it's not important which wonder you choose, since there's little the enemy can do by now, if you've kept your units alive. In case you've been losing units and the enemy is pushing back, build a couple of castles to buy time. They have a lot of HP and the enemy will concentrate to take them down, before hitting your economy. Keep building units and don't let them stray far. The gravest mistake you can do is not to mass enough Chu Ko Nu/Arquebusiers.

Eventually you'll be taking down the second town center and the traitor himself, the event which concludes the Chinese campaign.

Congratulations!

Indian Campaign