Recap pages are Spoilers Off by default, so in all these pages all spoilers are unmarked. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned
Heir to the Ethiopian crown, Princess Yodit is ready to take over the throne of Aksum. However, when her scheming and treacherous nephew Gidajan frames her for theft and blasphemy, the princess is forced to leave her home country. In foreign lands, the vengeful woman manage to find new power and soon is ready to come back to make Gidajan pay. Her revenge and fury will shake the hearts of the Ethiopian to this very day.The player is in control of the Ethiopians, the color being Green.
Scenarios
1. Path of Exile
The scheming prince Gidajan has framed his aunt Yodit for the theft of the sacred golden curtains. Thanks to her loyal bodyguard Samuel, Yodit manages to escape her prison, but the enemy is on guard, and the roads leading out of the kingdom are well-guarded and patrolled. With a handful of loyal warriors on her side, Yodit must escape at all costs.2. The Right Partner
Away from home, Yodit is burning with revenge and needs to obtain power and support in order to strike back at her treacherous nephew. Near Egypt, she hears of the rich and powerful Syrian Prince Zanobis, a man looking for a suitable bride. Determined to not let this chance slip away, Yodit prepares her soldiers to show the Prince her valor and skills, in order to get her hands on a solid base which will allow her to retaliate.3. A Fallen Crown
Five years have passed since Yodit's marriage to Zanobis. The queen had waited patiently, and now an opportunity presented itself: the Aksumite King Dagnajan is preparing a campaign against the eastern countries, his army humongous and ready to crush any form of resistance in his way. What he doesn't expect, is an ambush. Yodit's plan is daring, for it involves sending a small but trained troop to sabotage the mission and assassinate the king during the march, while he's unprotected and vulnerable.4. Broken Stelae
Yodit's plan was a success, and with the death of Dagnajan, Aksum has fallen into chaos, as the civil war inflames. As Yodit gathers her army, a smaller unit of rebels loyal to the exiled queen disembark south of the harbor of Massawa: their plan is to conquer the many steles scattered around the desert and destroy Gidajan's monasteries in order to weaken the grip of the loyalists before striking them down. With the control of Massawa, Yodit's forces will surely gain an enormous advantage over Gidajan's troops.5. Welcome Home
The time for revenge has come: Gidajan has successfully killed his brother and secured his position in Aksum, but for naught, as Yodit's enormous army marches on Aksum, determined to raze the city to the ground and kill Gidajan and all those who even dare to side with him. A massacre like no others is about to take place in the cradle of the Ethiopian civilization.This Camapaign contains examples of:
- Advancing Boss of Doom: Dagnajan in the third scenario leads a huge army of many diverse units (which you can reduce by raiding the camps) and after 50 minutes of gameplay he will march towards the mountain fortress in the east. If you cannot slay him before his unit makes it to the pass, you'll lose.
- Big Bad: Yodit's nephew Gidajan is a constant threat from the first scenario of the campaign down to the last.
- Cosmetic Award:
- The HD Edition has "Yodit Campaign Completed". DE replaced the achievement with "Destroyer of Axum".
- DE has also "An Army Marches on Its Stomach"note .
- Create Your Own Villain: Gidajan's attempts to get rid of Yodit turned her into The Dreaded for the entire Aksumite Empire.
- Early Game Hell: Something of a recurring theme for the campaign is giving you very little to start with, making the first part of the scenario quite difficult if you don't know what to do. Once you manage to establish a foothold though you're set:
- Path of Exile: you start with a defenseless Yodit, her beefed up bodyguard Samuel and nothing else. You can gather a generous army of Glass Cannon Shotel Swordsmen (which you cannot train, as you're restricted to Feudal Age and your only possible base is a desolate village with little resources and quite vulnerable to the raids of three nearby enemy bases. And this is the first scenario.
- The Right Partner: You start with two distant bases and a handful of troops... but little resources and while one base is safe, the other is quite vulnerable to costant raids from the Gray player, who will costantly spawn troops (including camels, horse archers and Archers of the Eyes) to harass your weak spots... namely the second base.
- A Fallen Crown, in order to stop Dagnajan's brobdiganian army and his well-protected camps you have about five villagers, four Shotel Swordsmen, four archers and a Scout Cavalry, meaning that you have to start by making a base, with the ideal spot being right next to a enemy village. Fortunately, it's possible to quickly defuse said village's threat with an early, strategical attack.
- Broken Stelae: You start with five villagers, five Shotel Swordsmen and a small base with abysmal resources. And while you can acquire supplies by capturing the Stelae, doing so will periodically summon swarms of Gidajan's soldiers from Massawa to retake the Stelae and build a Guard Tower next to it.
- Welcome Home in Definitive Edition has you start with two bases at the opposite sides of the map, with a handful of soldiers defending them and four villagers per side. Gidajan, meanwhile, has two fortified bases filled with troops, but is not mandatory to fight him.
- Evil vs. Evil: In the blue corner, Gidajan, a scheming bastard who'll turn on his own family to make sure he has the throne. In the red corner, Yodit: a wronged and vengeful queen who ends up killing her own brother, throwing her own country in a bloody turmoil and then killing Gidajan and implicitly devastate her own capital.
- Foil: To the Joan of Arc campaign, as those are the only one with a woman protagonist: while Joan is an heroine of humble origins who encourages all those around her to fight for a country for a greater cause which costs her her life, Yodit is royalty who acts entirely on vengeance alone, trampling her own family and country in the process and living to see her revenge fulfilled.
- Misplaced Retribution: Downplayed. Yodit's attack against Dagnajan, while unprovoked, has the ulterior motive of starting a civil war between Gidajan and his brother.
- Shrouded in Myth: Next to nothing is known of Princess Yodit (or Gudit), but apparently her reputation really is that bad.
- The Siege:
- Subverted in A Fallen Crown, Dagnajan's final objective is a scarcely-protected fortress on a mountain pass. You have to defeat him before he's successful.
- Broken Stelae: you have to lead a small force to gain the support of the local rebels and destroy the port city of Massawa.
- Welcome Home: you have to enter the besieged Aksum and crush Gidajan's loyalist, fighting through the barricated streets, with the allied houses forming a labyrinth of streets.
- In DE, the last scenario is drastically changed: now you're in charge of two opposite bases with the city of Aksum in the middle, while Gidajan has two bases located to the north and south. On one hand, Aksum is now much easier to take as you have to destroy at least five of the six souped-up towers defending it, with each destroyed tower reducing the number of buildings the enemy owns. On the other hand, you start with villagers, no buildings and meager troops in divided bases and Gidajan isn't shy about sending waves of mixed troops at you, which can cause quite some damage if you're not careful.
- Timed Mission: In the third scenario, after establishing a base, a 50 minutes note timer will appear, letting you know how much time you have before Dagnajan and his army start their march. During this time, you have to find his camps and resources (such as the base of the Orthodox Monks and the Elephant pens) and destroy them. The more damage you can do, the weaker Dagnajan's army will be. While running out of time won't cause an instant loss, wasting too much time without accomplishing the objectives will make the final battle harder and possibly unwinnable.
- Villain Protagonist: Unlike Joan of Arc, Yodit's definitely a villain on par with Attila or Vlad Dracula.
