Tag: Age of Empires

Completed all 5 original campaigns of Age of Empires 2.
Expected a lot of trouble from mission with Germans in Poland, since you don’t have any villagers, and fully depend on your allies to send cash. But no, it was rather easy.

One major problem I have with how the game plays is that’s walls are important, but it’s very hard to tell if they are blocking the enemy or not. Many times cavalry would squeeze between a wall I built and a gap which I couldn’t see due to isometric perspective.

After completing the game, I think that the Mongol missions are the most difficult. German might be large scale, but they are the Protoss of Age of Empires 2, with the best buildings, best infantry and some of the best cavalry as well.

It’s interesting how each campaign tells a different story. The German is the best in this sense, with Henry the Lion betraying you not once but twice over 6 missions, then with the final reveal that he’s also the narrator.

What I like about Gengis Khan campaign is that again, you are tasked to recover a relic, but in fact there are two: one is held by a hostile tribe, and another is hidden away.
Other than that, it’s pretty similar to Saracens campaign, except instead of building camel riders and camel throwers you build horse archers and more horse archers to make a porcupine impression out of anyone who disagrees with you.
The first mission that really annoyed me is the Great Chinese Wall one. Not because Chinese are actually a great counter to the mongols with their rocket carts, arbalests and lance cavalry. But because you’re never told that one of the 4 AI opponents is building a Wonder, that triggers a timer until mission fails (go figure the logic behind it). And that opponent is on an well protected island, so you really need to know what you’re doing.
I ended up using the French strategy to beat this mission. Instead of building a base behind the wall as intended, I transported all my peasants to the island, then fast-teched into Castle Age and built a castle: islanders don’t build rams or trebuchets. Once Wonder was not an option anymore, I moved back to the mainland. Still, it probably took me a good hour to beat the other 3 factions into submissions and hunt all their villagers. Who. Would. Not. Relent.
After this mission beating Russia and Persia is easy, despite the supposed need to control two camps at once. And I expected that the final mission for holding the bridge will be the toughest, because in previous one you are tasked with building three castles, which is a lot, and on my first try Bohemians actually destroyed all of them. But this mission is the easiest, Hungary barely attacks, and then you are given a ton of legendary units.

Second campaign I play is for Barbarossa (Teutons).

It plays exactly as you’d expect: toughest buildings in the game and toughest infantry, so you just overpower your opponent as long as you have the Castle to build your Teutonic knights.

It felt too similar to France campaign, though, so I decided to try Saladin instead. The story is a strange propaganda how Saracens are so much better than Norman crusaders, but anyway.

For some reason, camel riders are efficient against cavalry. And the special unit is a camel rider tha throws swords? But it’s a simple game plan: you build a lot of fast camel cavalry and destroy your opponent that programmed to use cavalry as well.

The only interesting bit is that in the last mission Richard Lionheart deploys unique trebuchets against you, called Bad Neighbour.