Act II "Ice" - Mission 8: "Bring Down The Mountain" — "Age Of Empires III" Campaign Guide

Mission 8: “Bring Down the Mountain”

As it turns out, Warwick’s travels to the west have an incredibly devious purpose which is the hiring and arrival of a massive Russian mercenary army which Warwick plans to use to decimate the colonies. John request that Kanyenke force the Russians up the northern path through the mountains while John sets up a special surprise.

Primary Objective: Use Miners to collapse all the Rock Bridges.

"Age of Empires 3" - Act II Ice - Mission 8: Bring Down the Mountain (1 of 9)

"Age of Empires 3" - Act II Ice - Mission 8: Bring Down the Mountain (2 of 9)

"Age of Empires 3" - Act II Ice - Mission 8: Bring Down the Mountain (3 of 9)

While definitely epic, the final level of Act 2 “Ice” in Age of Empires 3 is all about military control and careful placement of units rather than economy or base building, both of which should be completely ignored. The only task economy wise should be moving some settlers to have most working on food with a couple on lumber and gold to mass produce Musketeers while bringing artillery and other units through reinforcements. You will definitely benefit through the building of additional houses and somewhat through the tier 1 Market resourcing upgrades but that is really it.

First off, take your group of Miners you start out with and send them to the first Rock Bridge near your southern Town Center, the northern most bridge, to start collapsing it. They will do this by chiseling it with their pick axes until the bar above it fills then moving to the opposite side and doing the same, collapsing the bridge when both side’s “collapsing bars” are full. Bring you Culverin and Musketeers sass soon as they’re trained to stand along the ridge near the Miners. Since the Russians all approach from the west going east, your troops should be positioned just a tad to the left of your Miners so any attacking units engage them first instead of shooting your valuable Miners.

Your first shipment from Boston should be a Fort which should be placed along the northern most pass, between the two pieces of treasure and north of the top Rock Bridge. This will provide a distraction and defense keeping at least one or two Great Cannon from making it out of the level while you are busy. Just ignore it after building it as that is the only purpose it will serve here.

Eventualy more Miners will come in from the caves at the north of the map by your northern Town Center. These units should immediately be sent to your other Miners to help with whatever Rock Bridge you are working on at the time, with another group coming until you have 10 or so total Miners. If you lose several Miners, more will come to replace them from these caves.

Secondary Objective: Destroy a Great Cannon

"Age of Empires 3" - Act II Ice - Mission 8: Bring Down the Mountain (4 of 9)

"Age of Empires 3" - Act II Ice - Mission 8: Bring Down the Mountain (5 of 9)

"Age of Empires 3" - Act II Ice - Mission 8: Bring Down the Mountain (6 of 9)

In order to earn some experience boosts you can take out the Great Cannons in this level as they pass near whatever Rock Bridges you are working on, with the first coming through the pass you should still be initially working on. Don’t go out of your way to take these out, but definitely use your Culverin to eliminate them if traveling near your units anyway to give you more time in this level while earning more XP towards shipments.

Once the first Rock Bridge is collapsed you can move south to the next one and finally the third, taking your constantly growing army along with the Miners to guard the high ground near each bridge. The Miners have a powerful explosive attack they can use against the enemy but it is slow to fire and is too risky considering their importance and potential difficulty in getting replacement miners to the bridges you are working on as the level goes on and enemies become more numerous.

Dealing with the large scale Russian attacks.

"Age of Empires 3" - Act II Ice - Mission 8: Bring Down the Mountain (7 of 9)

"Age of Empires 3" - Act II Ice - Mission 8: Bring Down the Mountain (8 of 9)

"Age of Empires 3" - Act II Ice - Mission 8: Bring Down the Mountain (9 of 9)

Eventually the mercenaries will get pissed from your destruction of their cannon and the collapsing of their routes and send a massive force of units against you. If they head to either of your bases then you are technically better off, since that will keep them distracted while you work on collapsing the bridges. However if they get too close to your army, the best way to handle them is using the terrain to your advantage and pulling back your forces in a way so they have to walk up or down one the many ramps to reach you, thus causing their forces to thin out and come like a stream instead of a massive wave. With this method you can effectively kill off a force several times larger than yours without even taking significant loses. Retreat your miners from their bridges if they are too exposed while you do this and move them back once finished, much better safe than sorry at this point.

As long as you completely ignored trying to increase your economy besides the first tier Market upgrades, even then not really necessary, and kept a quick pace when it comes to taking out the bridges you should have little difficulty in this level. Once the third bridge is down, this level is a victory and you get to sit back and watch some cinematic before proceeding on the the third and final act in the game.