|
Rody One Half posted:I thought this was the coolest poo poo in the world as a kid, I'd send whole suicide squads of priests against the AI just for converting whatever they ran into.  As addenum to my post, we also need to take into count the Great Pop Cap Schism between Ensemble & community. Low population makes both high-power units and the ability to turn them over a lot scarier (though unlike AoE2's Knights, gold Cavalry in AoE1 always sucked compared to the infantry or the non-gold Chariot Archer). Sacrificing your admittedly very powerful Priest to remove a maxed out enemy becomes a lot more attractive.
|
#
?
Apr 12, 2023 16:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 02:49 |
|
|
Saladin - Part 4: The Siege of Jerusalem Mission 4 Starting Text "Jerusalem. Twenty years have I been with the Saracens... Saladin's target is Jerusalem. The great, ancient city is sacred to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam and is the virtual capital of the Holy Land. If there can be a victor in this endless conflict, it will be the army that holds Jerusalem. To complicate matters, Saladin is determined not to harm the city itself. If a single holy shrine is damaged, the populace might well view Saladin not as a liberator but as yet another conqueror."  Archers of the Eyes: Shots from our bows rarely miss their mark. You start the mission off with a small army, whose real job is to defend your build up in case you manage to accidentally run into any Crusaders too early. The Archers of the Eyes are a set of hero Arbalests with 100% accuracy. They're useful to keep around, especially early on, but they're not essential.  I get to booming/building a sizable defensive encampment. Over the course of the buildup, Jerusalem repeatedly taunts you: Jerusalem: The city is ours! Your efforts are futile! (After a few more minutes) Wouldn't your kind prefer to wander in the desert rather than waste our time?  Eventually they start sending out waves of Cataphracts, the Byzantine Cavalry Unique Unit (which is resistant against normal Anti-Cavalry units and destroys Infantry), but not enough to make a serious dent in my defenses.  The defeat of their first real wave marks a good time to go out and destroy one of Jerusalem's towers, all of which you need to destroy in order to complete the scenario. Attempting a serious attack on Jerusalem kicks the AI into overdrive, as it realizes that you're trying to win. Jerusalem: Launch a counterattack!   Initially, you're just facing the army of Jerusalem itself, which is sizable, but easily defeatable. However, things start changing once the knightly orders get involved. Not this guy though, the Master of the Templar has a tendency to ride out early and die like a chump. Master of the Templar: If you strike me down, I will grow more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Your powers are weak, old man.  All of your opponents will keep streaming in troops to the fight, which eventually can wear you down. I manage to take out the second tower here, but have to retreat back to my base and build up again. I have a couple false start attacks as I try to get past the Crusader lines, but after they fail another assault on my base I have the momentum to resume the attack on Jerusalem proper. It's at this point that it sort of descends into a trash fight on my part, with plenty of Hussars and Elite Skirmishers going forward, though I probably could have found some more gold to the south if I wasn't as narrowly focused on the tactical layer.   Jerusalem's double layer of fortified walls can prove quite annoying, but once you break through your troops are free to sack all of the buildings except the Monasteries. Smash enough of the military buildings and you've functionally eliminated Jerusalem as a player. The Hospitallers are more than happy to make up for it.  The third tower is in the center of the city, and is not particularly contested.   The last two towers are next to Knight Templar castles. The southern one happens to be next to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which will also cause you a game over if you destroy it, even though it's not a normal Monastery.  If you haven't been thorough in rooting out the bases outside of Jerusalem proper, the Knightly orders will make this part really annoying. I slug through their troops to destroy the first castle/fourth tower because I figure that it's easier than trying to destroy the Knights Templar base.    This frees me up to just go for broke on the last tower, since it doesn't matter if I attract the Hospitallers' wrath as long as I can force Jerusalem to surrender first. Saracen Fighter: All Jerusalem towers destroyed! The city is ours! Mission 4 Ending Text "The last time I entered Jerusalem, as a Crusading knight, I waded through the blood of victims. This time, not a building was looted, not a townsperson was injured. Saladin set free nearly every prisoner he took. The citizens of Jerusalem proclaimed Saladin as their savior. He offered to free me, but after 20 years in his service I have decided to see it out to the end."'' I like this scenario a lot, especially after the last two. The enemies are difficult, but not unreasonably so. You have a certain degree of flexibility on how to approach your opponents - I just focused on winning the mission directly, but there's something to be said for trying to take out the external bases to make the assault easier. You have a decent amount of resources, but not so unlimited that you can just turtle forever, especially if you want to keep on using gold-heavy units. Props to the designers on this one. Extra Slides Mission 4 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 4 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 4 - Intro Slide 3 Mission 4 - End Slide 1 Mission 4 - End Slide 2 Jossar fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Apr 13, 2023 |
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2023 01:10
|
|
|
ha id forgotten about that star wars reference. i can evem hear the voice clip in my head
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2023 01:23
|
|
|
One fun thing to do when building defensive walls like was done here: leave an open gap. Even if entering that way will get them absolutely riddled with millions of arrows, the AI will always prefer to stream through a hole in your wall rather than batter open a new hole somewhere else. So you leave a hole, then focus your defenses there. A Castle or two (or three), and maybe some cavalry to deal with potential siege weapons, and such.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2023 02:15
|
|
|
The Archers of the Eye having 100% accuracy is a lot less special now that thumb ring exists, but I guess it's nice.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2023 10:14
|
|
|
Yeah, here we have one of AoK's better levels. In this map, the role of Jerusalem is played by the Byzantine civ, giving them tougher buildings and Cataphracts. Due to AoE2DE changing our earlier run-in with the Jerusalem faction to be played by Franks, this is the first time we see the civ. Inside AoE2, which wants its civs divided neatly between geo-cultural groups, the Eastern Roman Empire sits in an awkward position: deserving its own group, but not urgently enough to get one. In original AoK, they used the same Middle Eastern architecture set as the 3 Islamic civs (Saracens, Persians, Turks). Building mosques as Byzantines had caused the community no end of ire. AoE2DE then shifted them and another disputed civ to a renovated Mediterranean building set. On top of that, AoE2DE at launch did not support changing a scenario player's architecture style (the feature was added in Lords of the West). For this map, that means we are looking at a Jerusalem encircled by the Walls of Constantinople, covered in Renaissance deco, sitting at its heart Barracks bearing the Red Cross shields of Genoa, and replicas of Florence's Santa Maria Novella church. Is the ME set a perfect depiction of the Middle East? A commenter has rightly summarized it as an Orientalist dream, imagining Middle East as a dark, dusty foreign land, the embodiment of both opulence and alien threat. Also, its castle model isn't even from there. What it had is being a very accomplished realization of this exoticizing vision, which has been lost in AoE2DE's flat, unthoughtful recreation of AoK buildings. Aside from the mosque, how good is the set for Byzantines? It has gentle Greek-looking roofs, but they are mixed in with Moorish merlons and horseshoe gates. That's one reason why a hope of the history-inclined players is for them to add Georgians and/or Armenians, and make a new Eastern Christian set they can share with Byzantines and Bulgarians. However, nothing is simple in AoE2's world of Serial Architectural Compromises... quote:The Archers of the Eyes are a set of hero Arbalests with 100% accuracy. They're useful to keep around, especially early on, but they're not essential. Arbalest: The Definitive Editions have updated some names of in-game items to avoid sensitive words, correct mistakes, and in rare cases, attempting to improve accuracy. One of the updates' goals is to ensure a non-siege engine unit's name refers to the person rather than the weapon. Thus "Camels" become "Camel Riders" (which also avoids confusion with the animal itself), "War Club" becomes "Club Warrior". However, this guideline is enforced as inconsistently as the others, and Arbalest is renamed Arbalester, despite the word also referring to crossbow users. Not to mention the many units that refer to the same historical troops, but are called different names across Age games. In short, don't bring an editor's work habits to the Age games. cuc fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Apr 14, 2023 |
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2023 10:43
|
|
|
The number one expansion I think I want is just campaigns for the East Asian civs. Japan and China in particular have been in since Age of Kings, but they and the Koreans have to sit with just historical battles (as do the Persians and Magyars). For every civ a full campaign I say! E: Vikings too. They and Japan do have 2 though. A North American expansion would also be nice, not the least so in Vinland we're not fighting Celts anymore.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2023 14:05
|
|
|
Rody One Half posted:The number one expansion I think I want is just campaigns for the East Asian civs. Japan and China in particular have been in since Age of Kings, but they and the Koreans have to sit with just historical battles (as do the Persians and Magyars). It's a shame you can't neatly divide China into civs the way they did with Dynasties of India, it's a part of the world that could with increased focus.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2023 14:49
|
|
|
YaketySass posted:It's a shame you can't neatly divide China into civs the way they did with Dynasties of India, it's a part of the world that could with increased focus. well, with the Mongols being right over there, they COULD go with Tanguts, Han, and Jurchen, if they wanted to do that? e: But then you're creating more campaigns you have to make I guess.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2023 16:27
|
|
|
aoe3 had a pretty sweet Japan campaign. i liked a lot of what aoe3 did actually... very different beast than aoe2... i still want more aoe2 campaigns
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2023 16:31
|
|
|
I mean they've (for various definitions of "they") have been making this game for 20 years and we're still asking for more of it
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2023 16:33
|
|
|
The culture I'd like to see split up into multiple factions to play as would, topically, be the Saracens. It could be a neat thing to make this campaign unique, playing not as one faction but several in coalition as the Crusades grind on.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2023 16:37
|
|
|
I could have sworn the Byzantines had a castle that had square towers and sand colored walls, but I can't find any evidence that a castle like that was ever in the game. Which is weird because I can picture it pretty clearly.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 01:21
|
|
|
VostokProgram posted:I could have sworn the Byzantines had a castle that had square towers and sand colored walls, but I can't find any evidence that a castle like that was ever in the game. Which is weird because I can picture it pretty clearly. I seem to recall this too, but can't find it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 02:02
|
|
|
VostokProgram posted:I could have sworn the Byzantines had a castle that had square towers and sand colored walls, but I can't find any evidence that a castle like that was ever in the game. Which is weird because I can picture it pretty clearly. Are you thinking of this, perhaps? 
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 02:07
|
|
|
Saladin - Part 5: Jihad! Mission 5 Starting Text "Tiberias, twenty and a half years of bloodshed... We are far from the ocean, so the Saracens interpret the smell of salt and commotion of seabirds as signs from Heaven. I sit near Saladin's tent, watching the butchery below. Saracen horse archers sweep through yet another unorganized mob of European soldiers. The great Crusader nations have been reduced to puny city-states. Only Tiberias, Tyre, and Ascalon are still in Crusader hands. Nonetheless, these three cities are well fortified and could withstand any siege. Saladin has had many victories on the open desert, but the Crusader castles are unparalleled. If he is victorious now, the Holy Land will belong to the Saracens again. A failure could mean decades more of carnage."   There's a little bit of time to boom before the action starts, which is good, because you start with nothing but buildings and some villagers. There is an allied village to the north, but its only real purpose is to serve as a market to trade with, and can pretty much be ignored.   Tripoli Vanguard: Charge! At about 13 minutes in, a wave of independent units attacks your city. They're easily defeated as long as you've made some kind of military, and resign immediately thereafter. They mostly exist to inform you that the other cities are about to wake up.   Tyre will constantly perform combined force attacks from the land and sea, consisting of Cataphracts/Mangonels and endgame ship units, and threatening the north of the city. Pretty much assume that I am always fending off a Tyrian assault of some kind offscreen, until the endgame. Tiberias mostly focuses on heavy Cavalry and attacks the south of the city. A castle can ward off most of Tyre's assaults, but it really should be a bit further north of the city to do so safely, and I will have to rebuild this one later. Tiberias only really gets one good shot in with Rams near the beginning and is otherwise mostly just splitting my attention from the Tyrian front and demanding that the occasional group of Camels come play defense.  Meanwhile, Ascalon never attacks you directly, but is relying on the other cities' assaults to turtle up and build a Wonder, to allow it to achieve an instant victory condition 350 "years" after construction. This isn't really that much of a threat because they're slow in building it (even on Hard they only start building it 15 minutes in, and with a couple of villagers), but it does make them the priority target once you're ready to go on the offense.  Tiberias: Lord Saladin, we are weary of this senseless bloodshed. Tribute to us 1,000 gold as a show of good faith and we will call a truce. At a half hour in, Tiberias launches a slightly larger attack than usual as incentive to get you to pay them a lot of gold to stop being a problem. Ignoring the offer and destroying them is the faster way to win the scenario, but it's also more annoying, so I pay up. Tiberias: Did I say 1,000 gold? I meant 2,000 gold. ...you do have to be aware though, that Tiberias is going to ask for a second payment. I have to dump most of my resources via Market to do so, but after the second payment Tiberias is as good as their word and allies with you for the rest of the scenario. They don't make any effort to attack the other two cities, but their market is more convenient to trade with than the one in the northern village and more importantly, the rest of the map is now safe.  Queue the army buildup.   Ascalon has a nasty little surprise for you, in that the most intuitive way of sieging the city also leaves you in the line of fire of their fleet.    In fact, their fleet probably does a better job on defense than the rest of their army, since it can harass you at range throughout a good deal of the assault. But in the end Ascalon still goes down before their Wonder is even finished building.  Saracen Soldier My Lord, this mole was made by Alexander the Great when he lay siege to Tyre in 332 BCE. Let us hope we are more successful. Shouldn't that be in the Hijri year instead since we're playing the Saracens? Whatever. The Alexander thing sort of makes sense since his Siege of Tyre was a colossal pain in the rear, even though he eventually won.   Mine won't be that difficult. Tyre can't be assaulted by land directly, but in the process of smashing Tyre's assaults, they don't really have that much left on land or sea to defend the city with, so it's just a matter of ferrying the army across with transports, destroying the Castle that serves as the linchpin of their static defenses, and going to town until they resign. Mission 5 Ending Text "Once I was amazed at the nobility of the Saracen warriors. Only a few years ago they entered battle as gentlemen, bringing with them treasure chests, wine, singing girls, and collections of doves, nightingales, and parrots. No longer. In reaction to European hostility and fanaticism, the Saracens have steadily become more resolute... more bloodthirsty. Their love of art is replaced by a love for battle. Now, in answer to the Crusade, they have adapted their principle of jihad for warfare. The result has been devastating to the Crusaders. The European presence in the Holy Land was finished. Or so everyone believed..." This scenario is perfectly ordinary, except for the excellent use of combined land/sea tactics by the enemy forces, which is pretty cool to see and puts it at above average. I went land heavy for this scenario, as I usually do, but there's definitely something to be said for trying more of a mixed approach yourself. Extra Slides Mission 5 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 5 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 5 - Intro Slide 3 Mission 5 - Intro Slide 4 Mission 5 - Intro Slide 5 Mission 5 - End Slide 1 Mission 5 - End Slide 2 Mission 5 - End Slide 3 Jossar fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Apr 15, 2023 |
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 02:39
|
|
|
I played through several campaigns a few years ago, on hard difficulty. I recall this being the first truly difficult mission, with it being almost impossible to not get pushed out of the water by Tyre. I think I had to resort to garrisoning newly created ships inside the shipyards as Tyre was attacking, then unloading them once I had sufficient numbers to overwhelm the technologically far superior Tyre ships. Eventually I razed the island with cannon galleons without landing any units. One of the missions in the Barbarossa campaign is what forced me to dial the difficulty down a notch. Some of the campaigns they added in the HD/DE editions are much harder than that even.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 06:53
|
|
|
A new patch exited public beta this week, the "largest balance update ever" to AoE2DE since launch, bringing a fresh round of features and glitches, including another pathfinding-fix-that-breaks-it-some-more. Hope they don't interfere with your enjoyment of this LP too much! As this patch turns 2 more QoL mods - exclamation marks  over Idle Villagers, and Small Trees - into built-in functions (following the earlier officiating of Tile Grid, and Building Range Indicators), let's talk about the tension between thematic flavor and competitive QoL.The Small Trees family of mods exist as a bandaid solution to a real problem: AoE2's main selling point, its massive buildings and vegetations that made the game felt "more realistic than any RTS", has rendered gaps in your defense perimeters harder to see. It does not help that most tree and building sprites protrude out of their tiles, appearing to cover more ground than their real footprints. Nor does the game have the Stronghold series' "flatten terrain" feature (if it did, surely you can imagine all competive games played with it on forever), or any convenient way to detect the gaps. In lieu of any systematic fix, shrinking the trees makes one half of the problem more tolerable.  The community lets you further tailor the experience by darkening the tiles & pruning shrunken trees into more uniform shapes...  ...or turn everything into cubes, even cliffs (the brown cubes), which are actually static objects in AoE1/2, unconnected from real terrain. (The above also shows Tech Preview, another popular mod family that serves as reminder to your civ's access to key techs. Devs would later add an official, but not necessarily better-looking Tech Preview that pops up when you mouse over your Civ Emblem/Tech Tree button in the upper right.) One focus of this flavor-QoL tension I find interesting is the need to unlock two diplomatic abilities in AoE1/2, two of a few vestigial remains of AoE1's origin as a real-time 4X/god game before they turned it into a Warcraft 2 clone. First, the player needs a Market before they can "Tribute" resources to another player, apparently conceived for 4X interactions with AI if the name's any indication, at the cost of losing a percentage of resources as taxes, which can be reduced with techs. While an AoE tradition, being able to transfer resources between players at all is rare in RTSes due to how it thoroughly warps player behavior. With the ability, the optimal way to play team games is to "Sling" - for team players to specialize into pure military and resources roles. Slinging is banned in all tournaments, but the Tribute ability itself has never been changed. The second is the need to research a tech before allied players can share their map vision - Writing at Bronze Age Government Center in AoE1, Cartography at Feudal Age Market in AoE2 - you can see how contrary to modern multiplayer RTS intuition this rule is. Like many legacy issues, the rule was dealt with in steps, steadily and slowly. The Forgotten - the mod-turned-first DLC of AoE2HD - used a stopgag solution, making the tech free and almost instantly researched. It became auto-researched when a Market is built in a 2018 patch. At the end of 2022, an AoE2DE update finally made vision sharing at match start an option that is "on" by default. ==== A final note while we are still on the Market specialist civ - the global resource market may be one of AoE2's most underrated innovations. It would become the inspiration for Offworld Trading Company, an entire RTS centered on battling with market fluctuations. Jossar posted:Saracen Soldier My Lord, this mole was made by Alexander the Great when he lay siege to Tyre in 332 BCE. Let us hope we are more successful. More seriously, to real medieval people, Alexander was only known through many garbled legends with little bearing on history - part of the Matter of Rome romance cycle and Nine Worthies to Europeans, King of Two Horns or Iskandar in Middle East. They wouldn't know a thing about who in which year besieged Tyre, so dating it with Hijri would be as ahistorical as with Anno Domino  . I don't mind this line as an edutainment touch.
cuc fucked around with this message at 09:51 on May 21, 2023 |
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 09:07
|
|
|
Maybe if players were actually pros they wouldnt leave holes in their walls regardless of the size of the trees 
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 12:06
|
|
|
It's such a disappointment when people lay down a few strategic walls and rush you while you're just trying to build the prettiest base.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 12:12
|
|
|
VostokProgram posted:I could have sworn the Byzantines had a castle that had square towers and sand colored walls, but I can't find any evidence that a castle like that was ever in the game. Which is weird because I can picture it pretty clearly. You're probably thinking of the Middle Eastern Castle, though that one has round towers. Byzantines only adopted the Mediterranean architecture set in DE. Cythereal posted:Are you thinking of this, perhaps? That's the eastern european castle, which the Byzantines never had afaik.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 18:12
|
|
|
cncgnxcg posted:That's the eastern european castle, which the Byzantines never had afaik. Yeah but I'm wondering if that's what they're remembering and thought it was Byzantine.
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 18:42
|
|
|
 Dark, bulky and imposing, Ensemble's original ME Castle sprite is a marvel to behold. However, the community had spent the longest time uncertain of its real world basis: Krak des Chevaliers (Crusader castle in Syria), Saladin or Ottoman-era forts in Cairo, or Sasanian empire citadels? Turns out it's neither, but based on the 15th century Castel Nuovo in Naples. Those characteristics that make it so unique and memorable - the thick round towers, the tooth-like "ravelins" at its base, were experimental designs intended to resist contemporary gunpowder. What's weirder is that the Ensemble artists apparently were so impressed by the "teeth ravelins", they also added similar slimmer-on-top "buttresses" to the base of the Western European Castle model. 
cuc fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Apr 14, 2023 |
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 18:46
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:Yeah but I'm wondering if that's what they're remembering and thought it was Byzantine. Nah, it's none of the ones in the current sprite sheet and I couldn't even find a picture on the wiki. What I'm thinking of has walls that look pretty much like stucco or compacted earth and the towers are capped in a flat roof. I'd begun to think I made it up, except: tracecomplete posted:I seem to recall this too, but can't find it. Maybe it's actually a wonder or a TC?
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 19:25
|
|
|
Is there a list of what historical buildings were used as reference for AoE 2 sprites somewhere? That could be interesting.
anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Apr 14, 2023 |
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 20:01
|
|
|
anilEhilated posted:Is there a list of what historical buildings were used as reference for AoE 2 sprites somewhere? That could be interesting. There's these ones for the wonders at least: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb-Mb2VhEZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFy-aBEtJH8 Then there's also the wiki: https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Castle_(Age_of_Empires_II)#Architecture
|
|
#
?
Apr 14, 2023 20:25
|
|
|
Scouring the wiki best I can- (spoilers, I guess, technically, if anyone should care) https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Castle_(Age_of_Empires_II) https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Buildings_(Age_of_Empires_II)#Unconstructable_buildings https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Wonder_(Age_of_Empires_II) So Byzantines either used the Middle Eastern set and castle (pre-DE) or the Mediterranean set and castle (DE). The Mediterranean set got updated for DE, and there were/are some campaigns with Byzantine and Italian cross-pollination in the HD and beyond era. The description given seems more like the African castles but maybe not. The Portugese wonder is based on a real life castle. There are several non-buildable campaign/editor structures that might match Campaign designers will occasionally layer multiple buildings to achieve unique looks. Maybe they're thinking of the alpha/beta castles Other than that, no idea other than Mandela effect, or maybe thinking of a different game? Like the Greek fortress from Age of Mythology
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 02:25
|
|
|
Saladin - Part 6: The Lion and the Demon Mission 6 Starting Text "The City of Acre. Nearly twenty-one years have I ridden with Saladin... When word of the Saracen victory at Jerusalem reached Europe, another Crusade was launched. The kings of the three most powerful nations in Europe - England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire - embarked for the Holy Land with hundreds of thousands of troops. Saladin knows that his most dangerous opponent is Richard the Lionhearted of England, a brilliant tactician who learned the art of war fighting against his own father. He builds colossal fortresses and fights always from the front lines - the ideal of a romantic warrior. Richard's army has come ashore near Acre. Much of Saladin's army is trapped in the city, while two monstrous English trebuchets pound at Acre's walls. If Richard can defeat our army here, then he can walk into Jerusalem unopposed. Saladin knows that this is the climax of his jihad. All the Crusader states have fallen. If the Saracens can hold onto Acre, then the Europeans will be forced to return home. If Acre falls, then the centuries-long nightmare of eternal war, raid, and counterraid, begin again. All Saladin's victories will be for nothing." Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Ride Lawrence Ride  Mameluke: Let us show the infidel dogs of the west a sight the likes of which no son of Europe has ever seen! Archer of the Eyes: We shoot to kill. The final mission of the Saladin campaign is a knock down, drag out brawl against 4 Crusader armies (well, technically 5, but you'll see), while you try to build a Wonder and play defense until the timer runs out. Both sides get some special toys for this mission, although yours are much more useful: Saladin's forces get a couple Archers of the Eyes again, but more importantly you have the Accursed Tower and the Tower of Flies. Highly effective super-towers that can mow down enemy troops with ease. Well, the Accursed Tower does at any rate. The Tower of Flies just sort of sits being useless in the bay. I make sure the Accursed Tower is fully garrisoned to max out its bonuses.  Water control south of your town is uncontested for the entirety of the scenario, so I build a bunch of Fishing Ships and Trade Cogs to generate Food and Gold. There's a Persian Outpost at the bottom of the map that's pretty much just a dock, but that's all you need as a trading partner.  All right, role call. The Franks bring some of their famous Cavalry to the fight, but it's easily shreddable. The actual danger of their forces is that they soon upgrade from using Rams to Gunpowder units, and the Bombard Cannons can very quickly overwhelm your defenses if not left unchecked. They mostly attack from the northwest. Just offscreen are the Knights Templar, who also bring Cavalry but their most annoying units are Rams and Elite Teutonic Knights. They tend to focus on being difficult to break through while the other armies are more directly causing havoc. They attack from directly north.  Jerusalem (I guess this is the remnants of the Kingdom of Jerusalem as we hold the city itself) throws a dash of Light Cavalry at you, a good number of Champions, and finally Onagers and Trebuchets. They attack from the east, which can sort of be distracting as nobody else attacks from that direction and your base's defenses aren't as geared towards fighting them off. Richard the Lionheart's forces include a couple of Elite Longbowmen, but mostly Siege. So much Siege, he'll repeatedly send armies made entirely out of all the conventional siege units at you. As if that wasn't enough, he also has two unique Hero Trebuchets, Bad Neighbor and God's Own Sling. He attacks from the northeast.  Finally, there's Genoa. They have all the endgame ships, but with some occasional maintenance your static defenses can hold them off, so they're pretty much nonexistent. They attack from the west.   The game seems like it wants you to build the Wonder immediately at the start, but this is a trap. The enemy forces restrict themselves to probing attacks before you start construction, so it's best to build up your economy and a full army before starting construction. Since you're not trying to blow up enemy buildings, need to rapidly respond to different parts of the siege, have pretty much infinite food and gold, and the most dangerous parts of the enemy forces are Siege/Gunpowder and Cavalry, the situation kind of encourages you to go heavy on Mamelukes rather than a balanced army composition as in most of the rest of the campaign.   Once the wonder starts going up, the Crusader armies launch a massive coordinated assault on your position. Richard's forces are the most dangerous of these and I deal with him first, but leaving any part of this wave unattended for too long can be disastrous. The Shah of Persia sends you five Elite War Elephants (the Persian Unique Unit) at 25 minutes, but they're too slow to be of any real use for this scenario.  Up until this point, I haven't been too focused on keeping buildings up, but in this scenario I make sure to have a dedicated Repairer on hand to bring all of the defenses back to tip-top shape, especially the Accursed Tower.  Once the Wonder (the Great Mosque of Samarra) goes up, you have 300 in-game years (which is to say, 25 minutes) to defend it for victory.   The Crusader armies will continue to launch attacks, at an enhanced scale and tempo compared to before the wonder was constructed, but not unbearably so. I take advantage of the relative solidity in my defenses to build a Lumber Camp outside of the walls, to gather resources in preparation for the final assault.    Starting at about 75 years before the completion of the timer, the Crusader forces redouble their efforts in one last attempt to prevent me from winning the scenario. This part gets pretty intense, and I lose the outermost layer of defenses including the Accursed Tower while I trade space for time, but ultimately the Crusaders' efforts are too little, too late. Mission 6 Ending Text "The first year of my freedom... The fighting is over. The fire has gone out of Richard's lust for conquest. The two respected adversaries started speaking, finally, of peace. War is not gentle with men's health. Richard fell ill with a fever. Because he respected his enemy, Saladin sent Richard fruit and mountain snow to comfort him. Soon enough, Richard boarded a ship headed back to England. The Third Crusade is over. The final treaty was signed on September 2, 1192. By its terms, Jerusalem remains in Saracen hands, but Christian pilgrims are to be allowed to visit all the holy places, freely and safely. It seems a fitting compromise to a war that has been fought over religion and land. The war is over, but I do not think I shall ever see Normandy again. I want to see the steel foundries in Damascus and the gardens of the Caliph in Baghdad. I have never seen the mighty Krak des Chevalliers, now-fallen fortress of the Knights Hospitaller. The Holy Land has many wondrous sights, and I can spend a lifetime here. It is peace in the Holy Land... for the moment. Sadly, in a land so small, home to so many different cultures, birthplace of three of the world's great religions, I suspect that blood may one day stain the sand again." Before the Definitive Edition, you used to just be able to shove your Wonder on an island to the west and cheese the scenario, but that's been patched out and now you have to fight it out. Which is good, because this is an enjoyable scenario and a nice change of pace from always being on the offense. And yes, we did just end the campaign by defeating the Britons, again. That's the last time for the original Age of Kings campaigns though. Overall the Saladin campaign, while it still has some bumps, is a further refinement of what we've seen so far, starting to show off a number of different ways to play both in terms of civilizations and scenario types. Extra Slides Mission 6 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 6 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 6 - Intro Slide 3 Mission 6 - Intro Slide 4 Mission 6 - Intro Slide 5 Mission 6 - Intro Slide 6 Mission 6 - Intro Slide 7 Mission 6 - End Slide 1 Mission 6 - End Slide 2 Mission 6 - End Slide 3 Mission 6 - End Slide 4 Mission 6 - End Slide 5 Mission 6 - End Slide 6
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 04:35
|
|
|
Campaign Vote #3 Well, we got the two big favorites out of the way, let's see if that changes things up in the voting. A. Genghis Khan - Mongols B. Barbarossa - Teutons C. Attila the Hun - Huns D. El Cid - Spanish/Saracens E. Montezuma - Aztecs F. Battles of the Conquerors - Franks/Vikings/Turks/Britons/Spanish/Japanese/Koreans Voting lasts for 24 Hours from the time of this post. In the event of a tie, I will act as the tiebreaking vote between the two tied options. Please bold your vote in order for it to be counted, as well as noting if you are changing your vote from something else.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 04:39
|
|
|
I will note that going on the offensive and wiping out all the enemies is a particularly lengthy but entertaining endeavor if you have the patience for it. As for the next campaign... I mean... hell with it, we've been going in order so far, let's keep that up. A.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 04:53
|
|
|
I get a little bit Genghis Khan
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 04:59
|
|
|
Barbarossa
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 05:02
|
|
|
E. Montezuma or Cuauhtémoc
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 05:08
|
|
|
BlazetheInferno posted:I will note that going on the offensive and wiping out all the enemies is a particularly lengthy but entertaining endeavor if you have the patience for it. tbh it is actually possibly easier than trying to defend. you can snipe jerusalem's town center with your starting warships- that on its own is worth doing even if you're going for the wonder. the others you can generally smash with your starting army + constant stream of reinforcements if you go hard right away before they build up. Richard's the hardest just because the AI can micro the poo poo out of longbowmen (and he has two castles)
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 05:08
|
|
|
Genghis Khan's campaign absolutely rules. I believe the offensive version of this map is an achievement in definitive, though I haven't done it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 07:01
|
|
|
Rody One Half posted:
it is. bit of a slog though. never thought of trying it until i saw the achievement.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 08:25
|
|
|
Let's complete the trilogy with Barbarossa.
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 09:31
|
|
|
Let's turn around and go right back to crusading with Barbarossa
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 09:40
|
|
|
i actually never managed to beat this map before it occurred to me that i could attack the crusaders
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 09:49
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 02:49 |
|
|
A. Genghis Khan I haven't actually played the revised version of this one for Definitive Edition, so I'm curious what got added/changed with regards to the new civs available (I imagine the Poles and Tatars make actual appearances).
|
|
#
?
Apr 15, 2023 12:39
|
|
