Chapter 4, Side Mission 2: Treacherous Trove Cove

**Map 19** (Chapter 4, Side Mission 2) is a 9x12 medium-sized map in TinyGroove. Its S-rank can be achieved if completed in <20 days.

### **Mission Background**

This side mission plays out similarly to Chapter 2, Side Mission 1 against the Knights of Levanthall. The Outlaws have mutinied and now three commanders you have recruited are vying for their control against you. This time, instead of controlling the most villages, the Outlaws will join the team of whichever commander possesses the most funds at the start of the (independent) Outlaws' turn. This is complicated by the fact that in fog of war settings, each player's treasury is unknown to the others, so you will have to budget conservatively to gain (and maintain favor) with the Outlaws. If you do so before Day 10, and subsequently never lose favor with the Outlaws thereafter, they will remain aligned with you, making the battle much easier and get you Achievement 24.

#### Helpful Tips

There are 4 artefacts hidden in this mission. Three of them are recovered by razing and then scavenging Ryota, Emeric, and Valder's Strongholds:

* B. Illuminary Ulna (Recovered after Scouring the Rubble of Ryota's destroyed Stronghold).

* E. Flyer Figurine (Recovered after Scouring the Rubble of Emeric's destroyed Stronghold).
* F. Altered Alter (Recovered after Scouring the Rubble of Valder's destroyed Stronghold).

This actually helps veil the fact that there's a new artefact hidden on this map:

* T. Moat of Rebirth (Having this artefact can reanimate commanders upon death in the Seas of Chapter 4).

The new artefact is connected to the second of two villages with treasure chests hidden on this map:

1. The western treasure village (close to the player's stronghold) provides the location of each enemy commander.
2. The eastern treasure village gives information about the location of a hidden artefact within the moat surrounding the Outlaws' barracks, and standing at the 4 locations in the moat it highlights is needed to ultimately claim the hidden relic.

After 1 week, the player encounters some interesting features... defeating enemy commanders simply respawns them (infinitely) behind their barracks, but deducts 500 gold from their treasury (which helps to ensure they have less gold than you. The same thing happens you you, however, if you lose your commander (after your secondary commander is lost). Visiting the water cave feeding the moat (of rebirth) provides a hint on how to stop this phenomenon: place a unit at the inlet and outlet of the moat (the game will highlight these areas with flags 1 and 2) to interrupt its effect on all commanders, which makes victory easier.

Having completed Chapter 4, Side Mission 1 also makes this mission much easier. Since you are nearing Sigrid's Felheim Fortress, she will periodically send up to 5 vampires to harass you along the western border of the map. If you have Artefact 'S', these vampires will be instantly neutralized, otherwise, having approximately 2-3 mages turtled in the woods near your stronghold can make quick work of them, but recruiting them makes it harder to gain favor with the Outlaws, as they aren't cheap.

One final note of strategy is that you will not be able to directly control the outlaws (even when they are aligned with you). As such they may get in the way of flags you need to occupy at times. So you may want to get to those quickly if you are going for the artefact... or move your units close by so they can occupy the spaces when/if they become vacant. The Outlaws won't destroy an enemy stronghold, but they can complicate defeating the enemies if they are under your employ. If they defeat an enemy barracks and all of their units, an opposing player may regain control of the outlaws from the income on their Stronghold with no way to spend it! You'll need to keep a fair amount of gold in reserve to ensure that doesn't happen if you wish to maintain influence over the Outlaws, which will more than likely require more than 1,000 gold in reserve after turn 10, and more than 2,000 gold after turn 20, etc., unless you provide the enemy AI a way to spend their accumulated gold, or continually defeat their commander (if you don't stop the moat of rebirth's commander regeneration effect, which is tied to this mission's Artefact 'T').

All of this information was gleaned from the in-game spoilers unlocked in the Achievement Castle by completing at least 60% of the game and destroying the red gates comprising the 'Campaign Completion Counter'.

### **Achievements**

#### A24: Mutinous Rebirth

**Conditions:** Put down the mutiny with solidarity by Day 10. This requires the player to acquire control of the mercenary outlaws by Day 10 (or earlier in the battle), and then... not lose control of them once they are under your employ. The first part of this achievement is easy, the second part is very difficult.

Successful execution requires minimal spending on account of the player, since your enemies' treasuries are unknown to you with the fog of war conditions. This is furthermore difficult to accomplish because you need to balance your attacks with your enemies' across all 3 opponents (and the mutineer Outlaws) to ensure none of them take too substantial of a beating, since your enemies need to be able to spend money at their barracks or the player will need to maintain a massive treasury by purchasing very few units to succeed in this endeavor.

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