The Lion's Den: Impossible Mode

Having heard about how infamously difficult the last Sundjata mission was prior to Patch 4.8b, I really wanted to experience it in all its original brutality. I planned on modifying Koumbi Saleh's A.I. script to be more aggressive, when I discovered that apparently the devs had programmed an extra "impossible-mode" goal that could be switched on. This would make the opponent attack more frequently and with greater numbers, just like the original version of the mission. I proceeded to slightly change the mission in the Scenario Editor by starting the player in the Castle Age instead of the Imperial Age, and voila, the challenge was on!

The only real difference I could observe between the "impossible-mode" version I had saved in the scenario editor and the original is that the Wonder still started construction 28 and a half minutes in, rather than just 15-ish minutes in as was the case originally. However, impossible-mode compensates for this by tasking far more Villagers than usual to work on the Wonder, so it goes up a lot faster.

I was able to win the mission by booming really quickly, securing the resources at the top of the map, and creating a death trap of Castles near the land chokepoint, baiting the enemy's numerous swordsmen with my Gbetos, and then attacking Koumbi Saleh with a large force of Trebuchets and Elite Gbetos.

If you want to try the mission yourself, it shouldn't be too hard to extract the campaign mission and turn on impossible-mode.