I got stuck last week on the mission Protect the People. In this mission, there are a bunch of civilians in the middle of the map and you have to escort them off one side of the map. You succeed if you can escort three citizens off the map and you fail if three are destroyed.

Today, I finally beat it. I mustered mostly all archers and three Riverwatch Riders. My goal was to destroy all the archers first to keep the citizens from getting poisoned and to force the Uthuk to come close and get countered. I made a concerted effort to maneuver defensively rather than offensively, preventing the Uthuk access to my people by blocking their movement.

In the end, I won, not because I escorted three civilians off the map, but because I destroyed all the enemy units. I'm wondering if anyone has succeeded by moving three citizens off the map instead of destroying all the Uthuk? In my experience, every time I moved a citizen out from behind my wall of Daqan units, they were quickly devoured by the savage Uthuk. Even in the late game when there were only a few enemy units left, I felt like I couldn't risk breaking formation. It was safer to just stay put and defend my position until all the opposition was destroyed.

So has anyone succeeded in escorting the citizens off the map?

I almost always win that one by destroying all the enemy forces. I've found that using early guards against the units pinned on the bottom of the map, then archers to take out their archers as you said puts me way ahead. Enchanted + Darken early can really wreck the pinned units too.

I also find that mission to be rather difficult. I generally use mostly a defensive strategy, forming a circle around the peasants and countering Uthuk's attack until their army starts showing some bigger holes on one of the two flanks. Then I either go to win by attrition or by exploiting the weak side in Uthuk's army and have the people reaching the other side that way.

Still, a tough one