Was this quest supposed to fail?

Question

After getting the Writ to partake in the Dragon Hunt one of the quests you get given by Maximilian is to recapture a stronghold taken by goblins (The Shadow Fort).

After opening the gate, killing all the small fry goblins and almost killing one of the ogres/trolls (what ever those giants are) all the soldiers got killed and my quest updated to report my failure.

Now at first I thought this was what was supposed to happen however this was on the assumption that all quests were linear, I was corrected in this assumption in the quest Land Opportunity where one of my hired Pawn indicated I could just by the land rather than force the current tenants out, wanting to confirm I went back and found I could by the land for 80k.

So I am wondering, with the quest which saw me try and retake the shadow fort, was this supposed to have failed or did I screw up? If the latter what effect will this have on me later on down the line

Answer 1

The quest goal is achievable. However, the victory goal is a little bit difficult to achieve if it's your first try. I failed to retake the fort myself the first time too. You can probably find a lot of great guide for this quest out there, but I'll try to summarize the things I did briefly here:

1. Assuming you obtain the lever to open the gate, DO NOT open it right away. Instead eliminate all the monsters in the yard first.

2. You might find fighting two Ogres with the goblins constantly firing ballista at you rather difficult to do. Here's the trick: try to lure the Ogres near the inner gate ( underneath the wall where the two ballista are sitting at). This way the goblins will not be able to fire at you.

3. Once you are done with the Ogres, now you can open the gate. Don't forget to have group healing potion or healing magic ready.

4. In order to achieve the goal ("rout the goblins"), you need to clear out a few waves of goblins in the yard. Try to clear out these goblins ASAP and making sure ser Robert is not surrounded by goblins. Don't worry too much about other soldiers since their survival are not the key of the objective.