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I always enjoy this map as an excuse to fortify the imam's island. It's inefficient and unnecessary but island strongholds are the kind of basebuilding nonsense I enjoy.
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May 9, 2023 09:19
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El Cid - Part 3: The Exile of the Cid Mission 3 Starting Text "King Alfonso sent his most loyal and able servant, Rodrigo Díaz, the Cid, into exile with only his horse, Bavieca. Myself and our two daughters were left at the monastery in Castile. When Rodrigo and I parted, it felt like a nail being torn from its finger. Rodrigo rode alone into the Castilian winter. He was not alone for long. Everywhere he went, mercenaries and soldiers were eager to follow. Soon, he had a small army of his own. But the Cid was not content to wander the wilds of Castile forever. He needed a castle and a lord to serve. This too, he found, in the most unlikely of places."  King Alfonso: I cannot stand the sight of you, El Cid. I command that you leave my kingdom at once!  Alfonso's Soldier: My Cid, I know that the king is irate, but I am certain you do not mean to leave without your trusty Bavieca! She waits for you in the stable to the northwest.  Alfonso's Soldier: My Cid, here is your horse. Do not judge King Alfonso too harshly. We will open the gates for you now. Godspeed.  King Alfonso: That's enough of a head start. If the Cid shows his face near our city again, you may open fire.  Spanish Knight: King Alfonso is a fool to send you into exile. We will follow where you lead, my Cid. So the first couple of minutes of this scenario are just Scenario 1 again, in reverse. Not really much to do here except appreciate the parallelism.  Turns out that King Alfonso wants to make sure that the only way El Cid leaves Castile is in a body bag. These guys can knock out one or two of your Pikemen, but overall aren't too much of a threat.  Moorish Camel Rider: Greetings, my Cid. My lord Motamid has heard of your situation and welcomes you to join him at his city of Zaragoza. It is just a short ride to the southeast of here. After the ambush, you find these Camel Riders who join you and give you your next objective.  Moorish Camel Rider: My Cid, King Alfonso has blockaded the gap leading to Zaragoza. If we are to get through, we must siege his castle. Perhaps we can find the troops we need to the south.  Moorish Villager: My Cid! What little we have is yours, if you can just destroy Alfonso's castle to the north. Finally, some real gameplay! You don't get any villagers, just a bunch of resources and production buildings (and on Standard a Trebuchet). You can build up a big army if you want, but the more resources you save now is the more you have to jumpstart your economy later. Also, it's useful to note the Relic here, as there's nothing in the way to stop you from easily picking it up later for some extra gold.   King Alfonso: El Cid, we stand nothing to gain by fighting against each other. Let us call a truce and each just go our separate ways. Start attacking the Castle and Alfonso sends out its garrison try and stop you. Take down the Castle and Alfonso switches back to Ally with you for the rest of the scenario, allowing you to pass onward to Zaragoza.  Motamid: We meet again, El Cid. You could not have arrived at a better time. The army of Count Berenguer is approaching our gates! Defeat him, and you may have the land outside my city gates as your own.   So yeah, Motamid's back and this time he's a bit more helpful/relevant to the story. His units help soften up Count Berenguer's army, allowing you to destroy it handily and then take out his Siege Workshop. Motamid: Thank you for saving my city. Here is a small reward for your trouble. Now you may use these villagers to build your own encampment northwest of Zaragoza. But be vigilant, Berenguer may come again! Destroying the Siege Workshop moves you on to the final part of the mission: building up a base and destroying Count Berenguer's fortified town.  As Motamid says, Berenguer will occasionally send a mix of units after you, the first wave likely showing up before you've had a chance to get your base built up. They're annoying, but Berenguer only really attacks at the raid level, rather than sending a full scale army bent on your destruction.  For this mission and the next you're playing the Saracens rather than Spanish, so I hit Imperial and mass up a mixture of Cavalry Archers, Camels, Mamelukes, and Trebuchets.    The forces that guard Berenguer's base are the same as those that make up his raids, just with the addition of a few Throwing Axemen (he's playing as Franks for some reason) and there being more of them. Tearing down the Castles is the hardest part of this siege. Destroy most of Berenguer's important buildings and he resigns, ending the scenario. Mission 3 Ending Text "Motamid, Lord of Zaragoza, was a gifted leader of men, but like many of the Moors, he was also a poet and artist. The cultural achievements of the Moors made the rest of Europe seem barbaric in comparison. As the Cid parlayed with Lord Motamid in his sumptuous palace, he feasted on meals that came floating down an indoor stream. Motamid bestowed rich gifts on the Cid, and made him a wealthy man. But the Cid, ever the loyal servant of Castile, convinced Motamid to ratify a treaty, making Zaragoza part of Castile. The Cid never fought openly against King Alfonso, though he did make enemies with Count Berenguer and other Spanish lords who wanted only tributes of gold from the Moors and were not interested in making alliances with them. Count Berenguer would remain the Cid's enemy for many years." I kind of feel like I'm playing an interactive El Cid movie more than a campaign here. It's an enjoyable one, but still. You expect the first scenario of the campaign to be cinematic, so that's fine, but by the third scenario you would think they would have gone all-in on gameplay already. Extra Slides Mission 3 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 3 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 3 - Intro Slide 3 Mission 3 - Intro Slide 4 Mission 3 - End Slide 1 Mission 3 - End Slide 2 Mission 3 - End Slide 3 Mission 3 - End Slide 4 Jossar fucked around with this message at 02:53 on May 10, 2023 |
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May 10, 2023 02:39
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Yeah this campaign seems to experiment with a more personal and narrative-heavy style compared to the base game. I'm surprised they make you lead Saracens and not Berbers once those were introduced but I suppose Moors is an ambiguous term to begin with.
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May 10, 2023 05:34
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YaketySass posted:Yeah this campaign seems to experiment with a more personal and narrative-heavy style compared to the base game. They're fine altering the cpu civs but outright changing what you play as is another step (outside of Prithviraj's "that civ is no longer in the game"), especially for a classic campaign, I think Mazerunner fucked around with this message at 08:32 on May 10, 2023 |
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May 10, 2023 08:29
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King Alfonso loving blows
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May 10, 2023 23:48
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El Cid - Part 4: Black Guards Mission 4 Starting Text "King Alfonso watched with alarm as the combined Christian-Moorish forces of the Cid gained power and prestige. Finally, he could stand it no longer, and sent his own army against Motamid's Moors at Zaragoza. As much as he would have liked to come to the assistance of his friend Motamid, the Cid could not draw steel against King Alfonso, as he was still the Cid's rightful lord. Since the Cid could not assist him, Motamid was forced to seek help elsewhere. When he contacted the Almoravid Berbers who lived beyond the sea in Gibraltar, however, he received more than he bargained for. These veiled religious zealots waged a continuous jihad across the barren dunes of the Sahara. Their leader, the fanatical Yusuf who never showed his face, immediately prepared to cross the ocean into Spain with thousands of men and camels. King Alfonso's army was certain to crumble beneath this new wave of invaders."  Alfonso's Knight: Hurry, my Cid. King Alfonso's forces are deep in Moorish territory and are horribly outnumbered. (after advancing a little bit further)This way! Hurry! So people were asking why we're not playing as the Berbers. That's because in the context of this campaign, all of the native Spanish Muslims are classified as Saracens, so when El Cid works with primarily Muslim forces, that's what the game has you play as instead of Spanish. We only start seeing the Berbers as an enemy faction now, after Motamid has given into despair and called the Almoravids from across the sea. Honestly, we really should go back to playing as the Spanish from this point forward, but I suppose they wanted at least two scenarios where you played as the Saracens to justify the switch. Alfonso's knight leads your starting army forward...  King Alfonso: Rodrigo, if you have any loyalty left, you will save me from the Moors. Please cover my retreat to my camp to the west. To this battle being fought between King Alfonso's army and an advance force of the Black Guard Army. Defeat them and a reinforcement army from Yusuf shows up to try and force you to continue on with the scenario by retreating with Alfonso towards his base.  King Alfonso: Thank you, Rodrigo. Now you must lead my army against Yusuf and his Black Guards. If you can destroy all of their docks, they will be unable to transport soldiers across the Strait of Gibraltar and must postpone their invasion of Spain. With that, Alfonso gives you his base, which is well defended, but has a limited number of resources, especially stone and gold.  Black Guard Monk: El Cid's soldiers! Please, do not destroy our place of worship. Instead, summon the Cid to us that we may speak with him. (after El Cid is brought to the Mosque) You are most tolerant, my Cid. Take our mosque under your protection by sending a holy man to convert it and, though I should not, I will help you to defeat Yusuf and his Black Guards. This Mosque to the south of your base provides a side quest. Build a Monastery, then a Monk, research Redemption, and convert the Mosque.  Black Guard Monk: Our thanks, my Cid. I feel free to help you because I have foreseen your victory. I seek only to bring the bloodshed to a swift close. (after a few seconds) The transports are the key. Destroy the Black Guard Navy's transports and you will effectively cripple the arrival of reinforcements. (after a few seconds) Also... El Cid, if you should wish to leave a holy man here at the mosque, we will teach him all that we know. Doing so gives you an additional side quest... which is either literally useless or as good as useless, because by the time you can destroy the Transports you have pretty much already won the scenario anyway. But you also can leave a Monk by the Mosque and he will slowly research all of the Monk technologies for free. If you plan on using Monks at all this mission, this is absolutely fantastic.   This is doubly the case because while stone is common enough outside of your base, gold is in relatively short supply. I'm a bit slow in doing so, but try to take the opportunity to seize the remaining gold mines from the Black Guard Navy.   And then it's just a long, boring grind through a heavily fortified hybrid Black Guard Army and Navy town to make sure that I don't leave any enemies behind me that can take out my Trebuchets while I work on the victory objective.  4 of the 6 mission objective Docks are at the back of the town/reachable from across Gibraltar.   The last two are in a separate base owned by Yusuf to the east. I break out through the walls of the hybrid Navy/Army town and get to sieging.   Yusuf spawns a lot of troops from his military buildings once you get near his base. He manages to produce them at a fairly impressive clip and it makes fighting through the city more difficult than it seems.  Fortunately, unlike with the Black Guard Navy/Army town, you don't really have to worry about smashing everything. If you've been thorough about destroying the victory condition Docks on the outside, you just need to race for the final Dock to win the scenario. King Alfonso: You have done it, my Cid! Without his transports, Yusuf will have to call off his invasion. Mission 4 Ending Text "Alfonso needed only have mentioned that Spain was in jeopardy, and the Cid would have come! And when the Cid did finally come to his king's aid, the Berbers were crushed, and their leader, Yusuf, was forced to flee back to Africa. The Cid bowed to Alfonso, ready to return to his rightful place as the king's champion. But King Alfonso was angered that the Cid had not arrived sooner and ordered him to return to his exile. This time he seized the Cid's wife and children. Many long years did I rot in the dungeons of Castile." This scenario is tougher than the ones that came before it, but it feels like it was as much because the bulk of my army was made of trash units as due to anything clever about the scenario itself. The final assault on Yusuf's base was pretty satisfying though. Extra Slides Mission 4 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 4 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 4 - Intro Slide 3 Mission 4 - Intro Slide 4 Mission 4 - Intro Slide 5 Mission 4 - End Slide 1 Mission 4 - End Slide 2 Mission 4 - End Slide 3 Jossar fucked around with this message at 12:48 on May 11, 2023 |
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May 11, 2023 05:46
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El Cid - Part 5: King of Valencia Mission 5 Starting Text Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Carne y Helado "The Cid was in exile again, and this time there were no more Moors to welcome him in. He wandered the bleak rocks of Castile and wondered if his tale was finally at an end. And yet, a remarkable thing happened. Many mercenaries and knights knew of the tales of the Cid, and were eager to follow him, even without a castle. As the Cid wandered further south, more men, Christian and Muslim, joined his army. Eventually, the Cid had a large enough force to carve out a fiefdom of his own. King Alfonso had set his sights on beautiful Valencia, the jewel of the Moorish coast. But the Cid was closer and could get there sooner. If he conquered Valencia, the Cid would have protection not only from the machinations of Alfonso, but also a bulwark against the inevitable second invasion of Yusuf and the Berbers. Events would have unfolded simply then, had not our old enemy, Count Berenguer of Barcelona, picked that moment to strike back at the Cid."   Berenguer's Soldier: It is the one they call The Cid! If we bring his head, Count Berenguer will be most pleased. Once again, you start the mission with El Cid riding off through the wilderness to collect troops, first being ambushed by Count Berenguer's forces at this river crossing.  Denia Villager: You are welcome here, my Cid. We will follow your commands if you can help defend us from Count Berenguer.    Denia Villager: Berenguer is attacking! Ours is but a peaceful village. We cannot defend ourselves. We should flee across the river. Your first stop is in the village of Denia. Unfortunately, Berenguer sends a large army to wreck the place which you have very little chance of defeating at this time, and the game encourages you to keep running across the map.  Lérida Knight: It is the Cid! Finally have we found a lord worthy of our service.  Moorish Camel Rider: The Cid will lead us to victory against Count Berenguer!  Lérida Fisherman: It is El Cid Campeador! We will throw down our nets and follow him to Valencia.  Spanish Monk: We have heard of the Cid's piety and would humbly join his service. The village of Lérida and its surroundings only exist to provide scenery and give you access to more troops before continuing on.  Berenguer's Soldier: We claim Valencia in the name of King Alfonso! Turn back at once! Reach Valencia and you are given immediate control of the city, although realistically you will have to fight off a number of Berenguer's soldiers before getting down to business.    Valencian Villager: Welcome, El Cid, to Valencia. We have suffered much in this war, but those days are past. We know that you will restore the city to its former glory, El Cid Campeador. So the first thing to note about Valencia is that a bunch of the walls are on fire and need to be repaired. The second thing to note is that two of Valencia's villagers do not switch sides once you claim the city and instead start building a Wonder in the north of it. Them completing the Wonder is your victory condition - it cannot be assisted in any way, but its completion can be delayed if Berenguer's forces attack it, and this is their primary target. The third thing to note is that Valencia gives you a whole bunch of wood as tribute, claiming that wood is difficult to find in the area, but this is pretty blatantly untrue, although your woodline is not well defended by the city walls. Finally, the last thing to note is that that Wonder area starts with a Bombard Tower, which serves as a sufficient defense against the first few waves of Berenguer's troops but will eventually become unable to defend the area by its lonesome.  Berenguer's force from the west takes a while to get to Valencia, but will eventually attack the city. By this point, you should have gathered and built up enough troops to take it down. All further attacks come from the north of the city.   One of said waves manages to catch me off guard, tears down the walls, and even gets a couple swings at the Wonder before I manage to defeat it.   As the mission goes on, Berenguer mixes in some more types of units, including Imperial Age ones, but once you establish a stable perimeter it's just about running out the timer.  Valencian Villager: By defending our wonder, The Cid has helped to put Valencia on the map! Viva El Cid! Mission 5 Ending Text "How abundant the orange groves and olive trees seemed to the conquerors who had come from bleak Castile. Valencia was a tropical paradise, complete with palm trees, a silk market and abundant fish and waterfowl. After the Cid had secured the castle and saw to the defenses of the city, he sent for me and the children. Our reunion took place on the highest tower of the castle, before a sea that consumed the entire horizon. We turned Valencia into our own kingdom, uniting eight-thousand Christian and twenty-thousand Moorish soldiers. It was the greatest of the Cid's accomplishments to date. We were far away from the reach of King Alfonso, and Count Berenguer himself was safely locked in Valencia's dungeons. In time, he would be ransomed, and one of our daughters married to his nephew and heir, to ward against future conflicts. If only the tale of the Cid had ended there, beneath the Valencian sunsets. But it was not to be. Valencia lay right in the path of the advancing horde of the frenzied Yusuf and his Berber warriors." That's one of El Cid's major enemies out of the way. Time to deal with the other and finish off the campaign. 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 Mission 5 - End Slide 4 Mission 5 - End Slide 5
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May 12, 2023 03:14
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This mission made me turn down the difficulty from Moderate to Standard - even on Moderate, Berenguer's attacks get relentless. Also, the Bombard Tower isn't there. Anyhow, a somewhat historical note on the main villain of this piece - the circumstances of Yusuf ibn Tashfin and his army showing up are about right, but he didn't turn on the Moors (yet) and sure as hell didn't get beaten by El Cid who was in fact perfectly happy to sit back and let the Almoravids and Alfonso duke it out in hopes it'll weaken them both. Yusuf eventually ended up withdrawing his army from the Iberian Peninsula - due to trouble in Africa. The second banishment by Alfonso didn't happen either - by the time El Cid was recalled from exile, he was well and truly sick of Alfonso's poo poo and set out to carve his own fiefdom that paid allegience to Alfonso only nominally. Valencia didn't exactly invite him either, he ended up having to siege it for four years. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 15:03 on May 12, 2023 |
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May 12, 2023 08:37
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Worth noting, defending against Berengeur from the North can get extra spicy because his defensive line of towers is uncomfortably close to the front, and all too often you'll have to dive into range of his towers to take out his Siege Weapons.
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May 12, 2023 13:42
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El Cid - Part 6: Reconquista Mission 6 Starting Text "We were trapped and alone in our kingdom of Valencia. The Cid immediately sent out messages for potential allies, but there were few to be found. The Christian kingdom of Aragon was too far away, and King Alfonso of Castile seemed in no hurry to come to the Cid's defense. Even the Cid's old ally, Motamid the Moor, was of no avail. Yusuf had sent him into exile in the Sahara Desert, where he spent the rest of his sad days composing poetry. The Berbers rode around the city for ten days and nights, shrieking and banging their weapons on shields made of hippopotamus hide. But the Cid comforted his troops, prayed and planned a counterattack. And then the unthinkable happened. During a brilliant surprise attack to capture gold and horses from the Berbers, Rodrigo Díaz, my Cid, was shot by a stray arrow. The surprise attack became a rout, and the Cid's men barely made it back to the castle with his broken body. Rodrigo and I knew he would not last the night. But we also knew that without their Cid to lead them, the soldiers of Valencia would never have the strength to stand against the Berbers. So as he breathed his last breath, I strapped my husband onto his horse, Bavieca, and placed his sword, Tizon, in his hand. Bavieca stood out above the city of Valencia. My one hope was that the men would not realize the charade -- realize that their Cid was already dead."  Ximena: My poor Rodrigo. 'Tis only his horse who lives. But the men must not find out, or they will never have the courage to face Yusuf! We're right back to Valencia for the final mission of the campaign, and it's much as we left it. A few important differences: a gold field now replaces the Wonder, and oh yeah... El Cid is dead. His body is displayed as a motionless allied unit propped up in front of your starting castle. If it "dies", you immediately lose the mission.   Your starting forces are sufficient, with the addition of a Trebuchet or two, to knock the Black Guard Army out of the map. This means one less distraction while you face the two more annoying enemy forces and for the most part frees up the outside of your base for unharassed resource harvesting.  This Monastery also makes its return from the previous mission, switching to your control once you find it. The relic is nice for free gold production, although you really aren't limited on resources for this scenario.    Yusuf will send Transports full of troops from across the sea, but he's more of a supplement to the Black Guard Navy, which will soon start attacking in large numbers. A Castle or two properly positioned by the sea, combined with your currently existing army, can save you a great deal of trouble. The game offers you a bunch of free fishing farms, which I tried to take advantage of early on, but it's honestly better to just keep your economy land-based where it is more difficult for the enemy forces to attack.    After destroying the Black Guard Navy's army, I exhaust the rest of my starting army destroying their base. Now Spain is mine, and I can switch focus to the invasion across the sea.  Well, after dealing with one of Yusuf's more annoying raids. You can't get too complacent, even if you don't care about your economy any more after a certain point, because you don't want to just hand Yusuf the win by letting one of his Battering Rams break into Valencia, where it can knock over El Cid's corpse.  The invasion fleet is ready.   Yusuf's base is protected by three of the unique Towers. You can only outrange the northeastern one, but that also appears to be the spot where Yusuf deploys the majority of his navy. I found it better to just hit the middle tower as fast as possible with Cannon Galleons and level the Castles before switching to defense for my navy.  I haven't used them a lot because of resource constraints and wanting to vary things up a bit, but the Spanish do get Paladins.   After defeating Yusuf's navy, my Cannon Galleons do the lion's share of the work in destroying everything that can be reached by sea, and my Paladins sweep across the land to flatten what cannot, bringing El Cid's campaign to a close. Mission 6 Ending Text "It was the twilight of Moorish Spain. The Berber army had been broken and Valencia withstood the siege. King Alfonso would not allow us to bury the Cid until he could personally attend the funeral. When he arrived, he dispelled all thoughts of interring the Cid into the earth. Instead, the Cid's body was preserved and placed near the altar of the church, seated on an ivory stool that he had captured from the Moors, clothed in precious silk, and holding his sword, Tizon, in his left hand. And who was left to rule in Valencia? King Alfonso of Castile or Count Berenguer of Barcelona? No. Valencia is mine. It is I, Ximena Díaz who claims rulership of my dead husband's kingdom. And if the Berbers return to Valencia, it is I whom they shall find commanding the soldiers of Rodrigo Díaz, El Cid Campeador!" It's an okay finale for an okay campaign. I said about halfway through that this is really more of an interactive movie about El Cid than anything else, and that pretty much remains true until the very end. Apart from a hair-raising moment during the back half of Mission 5, the rest of this campaign might as well have just been played on autopilot. It does make for a compelling movie though, and if it never reaches the heights of true greatness, there's never really a bad mission either. 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 Jossar fucked around with this message at 03:14 on May 13, 2023 |
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May 13, 2023 02:50
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Campaign Vote #7 This thread, too, is Rome. A. Attila the Hun - Huns B. Alaric - Goths C. Trajan - Romans D. Sargon of Akkad - Sumerians E. Pyrrhus of Epirus - Macedonians With the new Return of Rome expansion releasing on Tuesday, it's not worth it for me to try and cram an entire campaign in on Sunday/Monday night, so instead we're just getting a long weekend vote leading into one of the new or modified campaigns. If you want to just keep on playing the old content, vote for Attila or Alaric, which are Conquerors/Forgotten campaigns with a now-updated Roman enemy in certain missions, and make it known that you prefer to go back to the previous voting pool. If you want to see the new stuff, vote for Trajan/Sargon/Pyrrhus and say that you want to keep the current voting pool. Voting lasts for 72 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.
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May 13, 2023 03:05
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Jossar posted:D. Sargon of Akkad - Sumerians Sickening. Let's go for it anyway.
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May 13, 2023 03:16
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B. Alaric
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May 13, 2023 03:20
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Cythereal posted:B. Alaric Seconding this. B. Alaric. It's a fun campaign, and getting Ye Olde Goth Flood going is always hilarious.
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May 13, 2023 03:30
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Alaric and Obelisk
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May 13, 2023 04:49
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B. Alaric El Cid's campaign had some of my favorite atmosphere- I loved the descriptions of Castille, Valencia, Motmad's floating dinner, El Cid alone in exile and finding reinforcements... but yeah gameplay wise it's pretty basic, and the sudden swap to Saracens for the middle, while atmospheric does kind of undermine the whole spanish campaign bit.
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May 13, 2023 05:16
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B. Alaric
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May 13, 2023 06:45
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Jossar posted:D. Sargon of Akkad - Sumerians Anyhow, the finale is really based more on legends that built around El Cid than any history. Yusuf ibn Tashfin indeed came back to Spain in 1090, but this time he was more interested in subjugating the Moorish principalities which he viewed as lazy, incompetent and lax in religion (which gave him a perfectly good excuse to usurp their power). The Almoravid armies did attack Valencia a couple of times but never succeeded against a very much alive and well Cid. The corpse on a horse thing is completely literary; El Cid most likely died of natural causes in 1099. His widow managed to hold into power for a couple years, but the Almoravids eventually conquered Valencia in 1102. Jimena took her husband's remains, strapped them onto a horse (which is probably where the legend originated) and ran for Burgos, which is where El Cid's tomb can still be found. anilEhilated fucked around with this message at 10:12 on May 13, 2023 |
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May 13, 2023 10:08
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SIGSEGV posted:Sickening. anilEhilated posted:Wait, what? It sounds like it's going to be a weird campaign, something about Inanna/Ishtar talking to Sargon and telling him to go forth and conquer. I suppose having the actual Akkadians in the game would be too much trouble, but a Sumerian campaign that was entirely unique to the Sumerians would probably involve hopping between city-states, unless you really wanted to zoom in on one of the lives of one of Sargon's near contemporaries such as Lugalzagesi or just lean fully into the mytho-history aspect and play as Gilgamesh. Might have been more coherent civilizations to build a third Age of Empires I in Age of Empires II campaign around in any event. Jossar fucked around with this message at 11:22 on May 13, 2023 |
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May 13, 2023 11:17
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They could have made him Babylonian, still very, very funny but at least it would be the right connections. Or they could follow broadly historical Ur I and II, or even Ur III, we know about those.
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May 13, 2023 11:37
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AoE1 is no stranger to very weird civ choices. Huns represented by Hittites come to mind.
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May 13, 2023 13:54
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Sargon Let's go back to the beginning, shall we?
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May 13, 2023 15:28
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Asehujiko posted:AoE1 is no stranger to very weird civ choices. Huns represented by Hittites come to mind. I guess they share a sound? There's no civ to play the Huns while Babylonians could be used since they share the culture and language. Other baffling things are the way the architecture sets are handed out but I suppose you have to use the Egyptian set after making it and there's too many civs that would fit the Mesopotamian set.
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May 13, 2023 17:49
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Hittites playing Huns is from the In This design choice seems to have little historical basis, unless you know about the "horse rider theory", which assumed that Japan was conquered by a steppe horse culture in 4th to 5th CE, based on excavated horse-related artifacts from that period. As Ensemble themselves acknowledged in their Yamato civ bio, the theory has been long outdated. Nonetheless, it was an important chapter in the annals of Japanese historiography, and the perfect excuse for Ensemble to lean into. In Return of Rome, the Yamato civ icon is 'shopped from the photo below, of just one such horse-related artifact, a haniwa earthen horse head from Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Few civ icons in the DE franchise can boast a deeper connection to the civ identity than this.  See also: AoE1DE Steam trading card: Yamato Haniwa  cuc fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Jun 8, 2023 |
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May 13, 2023 20:56
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cuc posted:Hittites playing Huns is from the AoE1DE version of the level. There's no good real answer here because AoE1 is pretty clearly aimed at Greece + Mesopotamia and has very sparse representation anywhere else. Geographically you could put in the Shang as they just about bordered the group from which we think the Huns are descended or indeed Yamato for being the horse archer faction.
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May 14, 2023 16:38
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Vote's closed! The vote is tied, but only in the most technical of vote-counting senses, and it was clear that more people wanted to see Alaric, so that's what we're going with. Didn't get a good consensus on whether to go back to Conquerors/Forgotten or continue on with Return of Rome, but the thread has generally been in favor of prioritizing the old stuff, so my default presumption is that in the absence of any outcry to the contrary before the next vote, I'll just add Attila to the pool and go back to those campaigns.
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May 16, 2023 03:49
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Alaric - Part 1: The Battle of the Frigidus Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Goths Theme Very well, then let us begin, the tale of the king demanding his people's due.   Mission 1 Starting Text "Each night I have the same two visions. One of a field of wheat stalks swaying in the wind... another of bright burning flames, trampling horse hooves, and loud screams. My people, the Visigoths, came to Roman lands not as an invading army, but as a people running from a scourge... No! A plague sent by God himself! We warned the Romans of the impending danger, but they ignored us. They despised and distrusted our kind. They treated us poorly, gave us barren lands, and when we suffered famine they made us sell our children for food. Inevitably, we went to war, and our great army struck a decisive blow to the Romans at Hadrianople. We slew their emperor and forced them to allow our people to settle in Roman lands. Our victory taught the Romans to not underestimate Gothic warriors. In exchange for the land they gave us, our young men would serve in the Roman armies, fighting alongside our former enemies. As wars broke out between the eastern and western halves of the empire, we gathered our spears and served Rome in battle."  Scout: The Roman general Stilicho requests our presence on the battlefield.   This mission is a 3v2, albeit the Eastern Roman Empire is really more of a defensive player until you and Stilicho have thoroughly secured the river and mostly focuses on keeping itself intact, as it is the primary target of the enemy's forces. You play Goths, of course. The Eastern Roman Empire remains Byzantines, even after the patch. Stilicho is playing Huns, representing barbarian auxiliaries of the Eastern Roman Empire. This also helps fit your roles on the map - you're supposed to be flooding the map with units, the ERE is making itself into a target and turtling, and Stilicho takes advantage of both of your efforts to snipe enemy buildings.   Visigoth Soldier: Western Roman soldiers have been spotted to the south! It takes about 5 minutes for the enemies to start throwing waves at the ERE. Their static defenses start out being able to ward off your opponents' attacks, but you'll find that things start escalating very quickly. The Western Roman Empire is now represented by the newly released Romans. They attack primarily with Crossbowmen and Long Swordsmen, though they will eventually also start mass producing Scorpions. Notably, because the scenario is in Castle age, the Militia line has not been upgraded to Legionaries (one of the Romans' Unique Units, replaces the Imperial Age Militia-line upgrades), but the WRE will throw the occasional Centurion (the other Unique Unit for the Romans, very expensive and very powerful cavalry unit, boosts speed/attack speed of nearby Militia line units) at you.  Visigoth Soldier: Arbogast is attacking our allies! General Stilicho: Arbogast has Frankish soldiers fighting for him. Deal with them! Arbogast is playing Franks, representing himself being half-Frankish and the WRE's auxiliaries, and as such will spam Throwing Axemen and Knights, eventually bringing in Battering Rams. I find the WRE overall to be more of a threat, but Arbogast is still worth watching as he has the power to close the fight early in a way that the WRE does not. Stilicho's comment here is the first of two side-quests you get during the scenario. Take out Arbogast's Town Center and he immediately resigns regardless of the status of the rest of his military, leaving the WRE to fight alone.  My allies do a good job of holding out while I boom, but eventually I need to do something to aid them or else they'll collapse, so I build a castle in the ERE's base. This also allows me to research Anarchy, so I can build Huskarls at my Barracks and start spamming them out.  Visigoth Soldier: The emperor of the Western Roman Empire is a pagan sympathizer. We should collect all relics to prove that the Christian God is on our side. Here's the second side-quest - there's two relics on the map. Grab them and you're given the Goths' Imperial Age unique tech for free, allowing you to flood the map even harder.  Stilicho does a good job of trying to raid Arbogast's forces, but I think he's a little too trigger happy, considering that Arbogast seems to love building Towers to defend his camps. This isn't just mission-start either, at one point he tried to build a forward Tower near one of the gold piles on our side of the river. Pretty active/clever for a campaign AI.   At this point, the enemy armies are out in full force, but then again so am I.   I join Stilicho's next raid across the river, turning it into a proper assault on the enemies' position.   The fight is large enough that Stilicho's forces, including a couple of Tarkans (Huns' Unique Unit, Cavalry unit that does bonus damage against buildings), manage to slip through and start setting Arbogast's southern camp on fire. I eventually join in and help Stilicho finish wrecking the place. It's also at about this point that I finish collecting the relics, and build a ton of forward barracks off-screen on the eastern side of the river. Visigoth Soldier: We have collected all of the relics! Our men are eager to go into battle.   From here on out, I aim to weaken the enemy side as much as possible before going for the killing blow. First I smash into the WRE camp and take down the majority of their troop production buildings.  General Stilicho: Arbogast has fled into the Alps, abandoning his men. Well done Alaric, I knew that I could count on you. Then I take out Arbogast's Town Center, just to make sure that he doesn't come to the WRE's aid or attempt one last sneak attack on the ERE base.  Finally, it's just about destroying the last few defenses in the WRE's base and tearing their Castle down. Visigoth Soldier: The Western Romans flee the field of battle. We have triumphed! Mission 1 Ending Text "The dead bodies of young Goth warriors littered the flanks of the Julian Alps. For all the blood we shed, the Romans did not even give us a crumb of gratitude. A Gothic commander in the Roman army encouraged us to desert and go back to our people. 'Hardship is upon your families, wives, and children, and your people need your help now more than ever,' he said. Few had heard of Alaric, this Gothic commander, but he managed to gain a strong reputation during his service in the Roman army. He was a tall man with a voice that could silence a crowd. When Alaric spoke, all heads turned in his direction and his eyes flickered with an inextinguishable fire." This scenario is kind of the opposite of how most of the El Cid ones were. There's a story here, and some surprisingly nice details and character touches, but they're all very clearly in service of the gameplay of the 3v2, which is why my description for this one is a little bit more terse and strategy focused. It's a very fun scenario to play, and it's nice having competent allies for a change! Extra Slides Mission 1 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 1 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 1 - Intro Slide 3 Mission 1 - Intro Slide 4 Mission 1 - Intro Slide 5 Mission 1 - End Slide 1 Mission 1 - End Slide 2 Mission 1 - End Slide 3 Jossar fucked around with this message at 04:26 on May 18, 2023 |
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May 17, 2023 00:56
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Yeah, a nice thing about later expansions is that they give you very competent allies with pretty neat interactions. A nice thing about the campaign missions in general is that you can use as much infantry as you want, which is a breath of fresh air considering how bad infantry is in MP
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May 17, 2023 11:38
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Surprisingly little black nail polish among the soldiers. But seriously though, it did look like a fun mission to play.
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May 17, 2023 14:07
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Alaric - Part 2: Razing Hellas Mission 2 Starting Text "The elders of the Visigothic tribes elected Alaric king of the Visigoths. Never before had there been a single king, but never before had there been a man like Alaric. We were drawn into another war with Rome. The Romans had failed to fulfill their promises of lands for our families and Alaric was determined to force them to remember their promises. He marched our army south into Greece; 'The Days the Romans ignored the Visigoths are over!' he declared. 'We will set fire to Hellas!'"  Visigoth Soldier: Greece has many rich cities to plunder. We should take as much as we can carry and leave before the Romans can field an army. This mission is pretty much Manzikert again, but instead of being the Turks and primarily using Cavalry Archers and Trebuchets, you're mostly cobbling together whatever you can find until you get sufficient resources/techs to spam Huskarls, as per the Goths' usual game plan.  Visigoth Soldier: These Roman cavalry can easily cut down our infantry. It will not be easy to deal with them. Okay, not quite. First off, you don't start the game with the ability to produce Huskarls, since you don't have a Castle. Second, the enemies in this map are all Byzantines, and the static defense forces and main army of the Eastern Roman Empire love to spam Cataphracts. This is... not really a good matchup for Huskarls. While heavy Infantry is still your go-to solution here, the game does encourage diversifying a bit into Pikemen and some kind of ranged unit to have some hope against the armies of Byzantium. I also built a few Battering Rams, just to have something that wouldn't crumple under fire from a large number of arrows shot all at once. It should be noted that there is an achievement for completing the scenario having only built infantry, if you really want to embrace the spirit of the thing.  Sparta is your first major opponent, they have a couple of Knights, Pikemen, and Long Swordsmen, but their town only has one gate to protect it. It's a pretty straightforward run to flatten everything and destroy their Town Center.  Visigoth Soldier: This city-state was once known for its fierce soldiers. Where are they now??  Visigoth Soldier: We can use these resources to train many more men! A large number of things happen all at once as a result. Half the city is set on fire, your troops mock the city in question for being weak, and the military production buildings and Towers convert to your use. This lets you get troops to the front line faster, and in most of the cities gives you access to buildings that you don't already have. You get an initial tribute wave and additional resources every so often from each subdued city, with each city giving more resources of one particular type. Sparta gives more Wood. Finally, for conquering Sparta, you're given Anarchy, allowing you to produce Huskarls at your Barracks. Visigoth Soldier: We will bring anarchy to Greece!  The ERE tends to be pretty passive with respect to your main base, but they will try to swarm the towns you've recruited in an attempt to cut off easy access for new troops to the front lines. In practice, I found them a bit too slow to pose an effective threat, although I did start seeing some large ERE forces roaming the map by the end of the scenario.  Pretty much every city besides Sparta is a much more significant threat. Argos trains Skirmishers, Light Cavalry, and Scorpions. Most of this can be dealt with by parking Rams at their gates and hammering away, but you have to watch out for the occasional Light Cav charge and rush in with your own Infantry to save the day.  But getting through the gate is only the start of the difficulty, as Argos has a second layer of defense. Fortunately, all it takes is clearing out a few Towers and I'm free to break through the inner gates with impunity. Getting through to Argos proper has a Villager remark: Argos Villager: Barbarians are within our city walls! Where are the Romans to protect us?  Visigoth Soldier: We have burned Argos to the ground! Argos is notable in that it is the Food city and comes with a University, if you want to research those technologies. For conquering Argos, you gain Perfusion, although I've heard some sources say it's bugged on everything outside the starting set of Barracks. Seemed to work fine to me, but it can be difficult to tell unless you're measuring the difference. Visigoth Soldier: Our warriors are eager! We will overwhelm our enemies with numbers.  Capturing Argos also wakes up Corinth's army, primarily comprised of Knights and Crossbowmen. I'm surprised that they were so proactive with their units compared to the other cities in trying to go after me? But it's too small a force for this point in the scenario without the benefits provided by static defenses and is easily destroyed.   The assault on Corinth at first appears to be very similar to the one on Argos... except for this ERE unit losing discipline and rushing forward to meet my army as it approaches Corinth's inner gates. This lets my army's advance group hold the gate open, allowing them to skip destroying the inner gate and make a run directly for the Town Center.  Visigoth Soldier: The riches of this city will fill our coffers for years to come! Corinth Villager: These Goths do not know when to stop! Will there be no end to our misery? Corinth is the Gold city, and it also comes with a Monastery. In this mission, you run out of Gold fairly often and are incentivized to move quickly, so I don't think it's really worth making Monks compared to more units in general. But there's something to be said for the resources saved by not having to make up for lost units.  The ERE has finally gotten around to sending a sizable force to tear down one of my production complexes, but it's back in Argos, while I've already moved on to Corinth and am about to start the assault on Athens. So I'm not particularly interested in making sure that it stays up.   Athens does something really clever here: like Corinth, they let me through one of their gates, but this time it is the outer set and it leads directly to a killing ground underneath a Castle where their army is also waiting. Unfortunately for them, the Castle doesn't have the range to cover all of the space between the outer gates and the inner gates, so I run my army ahead to the inner gates and then wheel around to intercept Athens' army. Now Athens has to sit there while their Castle can't do anything to stop my army from tearing down the inner gates and sacking their city.  Visigoth Soldier: Yet another Greek city is burning. I am sure that we have the attention of the Romans now. (after a few seconds) It is time to travel home, but the Roman army is blocking the path north. We must fight our way through them! Athens is the all-rounder city. It gives you access to a Castle, primarily useful for the Petards, since by now you can produce Huskarls at the Barracks.  Visigoth Soldier: Athens has a gold mine to the north. If we kill the Romans defending it, its wealth will be ours. (after capturing the mine) Have you ever seen anything as shiny as pure gold! There's a gold mine to the north with some troops and towers. Defeat them to improve Athens' Gold production. It seems a little bit late in the scenario to be concerned with that, but I suppose if you really fall behind on troops, this is your last chance to remedy resource shortages before the final push.    The ERE has a heavily fortified position en route to its main base. The Byzantines have all their relevant units, but a good deal of their army is spread out across the map trying to hunt down your troop production facilities and you've had time to develop a full Goths' army. Show no mercy and the scenario is won. Visigoth Soldier: Greece burns! We have sent a clear message to Constantinople. Mission 2 Ending Text "Ancient cities - once renowned for their philosophers and soldiers - were sacked and burned to ash. The world was changing rapidly, but Alaric had seen visions. Despite our victories, the eastern Romans still refused to meet our envoys. Instead, we turned west. The half-Vandal general, Stilicho, was the driving power behind the Western Roman Empire. He knew Alaric from when our king served the Romans. We hoped Stilicho would be more willing to negotiate." Somebody was clearly having a good time while writing this scenario, you can pretty much hear the scenario writer cackling in the background as all of Greece becomes a smoldering husk. Extra Slides Mission 2 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 2 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 2 - End Slide 1 Mission 2 - End Slide 2
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May 18, 2023 06:03
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The Alaric campaign originated in the Forgotten mod and has been heavily altered for DE. The original only had 4 missions instead of 5, and of those 4, only the fourth scenario has been adapted for DE (it's still the fourth mission, funnily enough). It's quite possible that Perfusion doesn't work for the extra barracks you get, because AoEII has always been weird about units/buildings that are given to you after already being controlled by another player, and these issues have never been fixed. If you play a mission where you are given units from the neutral "Gaia" player (the type that switches to your control once you see them), you will notice that these units are completely unaffected by any upgrades you research. This has been in the game since release. If you have ever wondered why some missions will start with units pouring in from off-map while the "unit created" sound plays, it's because the scenario designer was aware of this issue and uses a "create unit" trigger to bypass it, since units created this way act the exact same way as those the player would create in a building.
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May 18, 2023 07:30
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Alaric - Part 3: The Belly of the Beast Mission 3 Starting Text "Rumors spread that Stilicho was ready to make a deal with Alaric. Our hopes were raised, but as weeks passed with no news, we knew that more Gothic blood would have to be shed. The Romans resented Stilicho for making a pact with 'barbarians'. When parts of the Western Roman Empire were overrun by usurpers and invaders, they blamed Stilicho. He soon learned the hefty price of Roman politics: they declared him an enemy of the state and had him executed. In a frenzy of hate, the Romans followed Stilicho's execution by murdering all soldiers of Germanic descent. Then, in another rush of blind rage, they turned on the families of those soldiers, and murdered them too. The survivors flocked to Alaric, begging him to raise an army and march with them into Italy to exact vengeance. Alaric coldy answered them, 'The Romans have never known fear, but that will change.'"   Ataulf: My most trusted warriors will aid you today on the battlefield, Alaric. This mission is another 2v2, except instead of fighting alongside the Romans, your ally is Alaric's brother-in-law Ataulf. Wouldn't make sense to have anything other than Goths for this mission anyway.   The Italian/Byzantine factions representing the Northern Italian cities are very passive and will give you time to boom, so there's no reason not to spend a while building up your economy for the onslaught. At which point I start the procedure that I will use for the rest of the mission - keep enough troops around to thwart any initial probes made by the enemy's defensive armies, build 4 Barracks right outside their base, and then just flood the area with Huskarls. Cremona is the easier of the two cities to take down, and trains a generic mix of units, favoring Knights and Scorpions. It's more a side show than anything else, but taking it out early ensures that you'll have access to their gold piles for the rest of the mission. Visigoth Soldier: Cremona lies in ashes! Death to the Romans!  Aquileia sends an army to try and figure out what's going on, but it gets crushed as I pivot around to build up a Barracks camp and attack them. Note the Onagers though, they're going to be important in a second...   It's also at around this time that Ataulf finally completes his buildup and starts attacking Aquileia. He starts with Two Handed Swordsmen/Champions, but starts adding in Rams and will eventually get around to producing Huskarls. Aquileia's Pikemen and Skirmishers are nothing to write home about, but their static defenses are in a less vulnerable position than Cremona's and their Onagers make for a good defensive line. Ataulf's forces keep getting shredded until I can help him with the push through the Gates.   Once you break through, it's smooth sailing to sack the rest of the city, thus ending this part of the mission. Visigoth Soldier: We have burned Aquileia to the ground!  Ravenna: Our most esteemed emperor is ready to grant you an audience.  Focus switches to a single Scout Cav in the south of the map, whose goal is to ride up and meet Honorius, the Western Roman Emperor, so that the Goths can discuss terms. This also gives you a view of a sizeable army made out of Roman unique units and Onagers guarding a narrow pass.  Sarus: Our emperor is wrong to negotiate with scum like you. I will not allow it! Except as it turns out, one of the WRE's auxiliary leaders, Sarus, has a personal grudge against Alaric. He not only kills the messenger, sabotaging the negotiations, but gets the entirety of the countryside to rise up against the Goths again. With diplomacy having completely and utterly failed, the final objective of the scenario is to take down Sarus' forces as a prelude to sacking Rome.   In Mission 1, we got to see a few Centurions, but they were just being produced scattershot from the WRE's central Castle. But here these guys are in exactly their intended role of supporting a large number of Legionaries and it's a surprisingly tough fight. Combined with being bombarded by Onager shots, I'm momentarily forced to retreat back across the river with Ataulf serving to delay Ravenna's forces before my Barracks infrastructure goes up and I'm able to burst my way through.    Once you get past Ravenna's standing legions, Sarus takes over as your final opponent. He's also playing Goths, and although he's outnumbered 2 to 1, he has an absolutely massive base which he will use to spam out as many infantry units as he can, although he favors Halberdiers, so as long as your gold economy hasn't collapsed you can eventually win on troop quality alone.  Sarus is also smart enough to recognize that if you're winning, you must be producing troops from a nearby base to overcome his own infantry flood, and will try to send a bunch of garrisoned Rams to take down an insufficiently well defended set of military buildings. I make sure to send a couple of Huskarls back to stop them from making it to my Barracks.   Ataulf: How many times do these Romans think that they can fool us? Alaric, it is time for decisive action! It is time to take Rome! You have to be pretty thorough about destroying everything, as Sarus' villagers will start trying to rebuild if you don't force him to resign. Once Ataulf mentions sacking Rome, you know that you've won. Mission 3 Ending Text "For all the Romans did to us, it seemed logical for Alaric to seek their downfall, but that is not what he wanted. After sacking the cities of Northern Italy, he met with the Roman Emperor, Honorius. Alaric's demands were reasonable and humble, a sign of reconciliation between our two peoples. And all would have gone well, had it not been for the Gothic commander Sarus. Sarus had vied with Alaric over the Visigothic kingship and had lost dishonorably, instead entering Roman service. Jealous of Alaric, he ordered his soldiers to attack our king by surprise and kill him. Luckily, Alaric and his men survived the assassination attempt, and escaped." This is the closest thing the game has had to a boss fight so far, and it works surprisingly well. I'm impressed at how much the campaign is keeping things fresh, despite the Goths themselves being a one-trick pony. Extra Slides Mission 3 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 3 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 3 - Intro Slide 3 Mission 3 - Intro Slide 4 Mission 3 - Intro Slide 5 Mission 3 - End Slide 1 Mission 3 - End Slide 2 Mission 3 - End Slide 3
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May 19, 2023 02:20
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Competitive Multiplayer Overview: The Romans Unique Unit: Legionary - heavy infantry unit that replaces two-handed swordsmen and champions Unique Unit: Centurion - heavy cavalry unit that increases the power of nearby infantry Unique Techs: Ballistas: scorpions and galleys fire 33% faster Comitatenses: infantry, knights, and centurions train 50% faster and receive a charge attack Civ Bonuses: Villagers gather, build, and repair 5% faster Galleys +1 attack War Galleys +1/+1 armor, Galleons and Dromons +2/+2 armor Infantry receives double the effect from Blacksmith armor upgrades Scorpions cost -60% gold and benefit from Ballistics Scorpion-line minimum range reduced to 1 Estimated Competitive Rating: Average As the newest oldest kids on the block, it's going to take some time to figure out where the Romans fit into AoE2's meta, but I was bored at work today and watched a series of games by top-fifty players where they chewed on how they think the Romans will shake out, and the preliminary consensus is that the Romans are probably going to be an extremely map dependent faction. The Romans are very unusual in that their bonuses are quite narrowly focused on just a few types of units: infantry, scorpions, and galleys, with a few small benefits to knights and their unique units. And, well, infantry and scorpions are generally bad and it's extremely unlikely that the Roman bonuses will change that. None of the Roman bonuses address why those units are bad in competitive multiplayer, and thus are unlikely to be meaningful. The Romans also have a sharply limited tech tree, losing a lot of valuable upgrades in the Castle and Imperial Ages, and they notably join the Britons in entirely lacking gunpowder units of any kind. Strangely, what this leaves the Romans with is what may very well be an oppressively strong naval civ. The Romans completely lack the demolition ship and cannon galleon lines, but get the brand new dromon for the Imperial Age that serve the same role as cannon galleons. The Romans then get bonuses to both attack and armor on their galleys, with the armor improving as the Romans tech up their navy, and the Romans also get fast fire ships. The Romans may very well be the strongest naval civilization in the entire game, likely to be a certified nightmare (or more likely, just plain banned) on water heavy maps and likely giving them some serious play in mixed maps. The big question mark with the Romans, then, is their villager bonus. While it's a much smaller bonus to gather speed than any similar bonus previously seen in the game, it also applies to pretty much everything. In the opinions of the top-end competitive players, they're curious and uncertain whether this flexibility and broad applicability is likely to actually outweigh a more limited but more powerful bonus that gets you what you need when you really need it. It's quite likely that this will be dependent on map and civilization matchup. Taken together, the forecast for the Romans in their current state is that this is a civ likely to veer between a below-average-to-low position to an oppressively powerful civilization depending on how much water play matters on a map. It is very likely that they'll be habitually banned in competitive tournaments by most players due to the specter of facing Roman naval power.
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May 19, 2023 02:44
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One detail I want to point out. In all the campaign maps, there is the objectives window. It does what you think it does, but also has a tab for "Hints" which are specific to the mission and generally helpful to read, and also a "Scouts" tab which gives you a general idea of where people are and what sort of units they'll focus on. The Scouts tab for this mission states that Ataulf, once he is strong enough, will deploy, and I quote, "the typical flood of infantry that the Goths are known for". That phrasing just tickles me considering how often the term "Goth Flood" is used to describe their gameplan.
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May 19, 2023 03:54
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From Spirit Of The Law's Goths overview
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May 19, 2023 04:48
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Meanwhile, in reaction to Return's 41% positive reviews on Steam (767+15 total reviews, including 334 English reviews at 56% positivity, 209 Simplified Chinese reviews at 16% positivity), they have relented and will port AoE1 campaigns over. But not all 10 campaigns, no. In a tremendous display of generosity, they will port 4 of them, two are Ascent of Egypt (because Return of Rome still lacks any tutorial) and The First Punic War (3-level campaign from the Rise of Rome demo), and the remaining 2 will be decided by a poll. This complicates things a bit for this LP - we don't know which campaigns will be ported, and we don't know when will they be gradually rolled out. But I guess we can handle it in stride, just as with the real AoE2 DLC later this year that they've dropped hints about. Asehujiko posted:It's the other way around, the Huns were Hittites originally before being replaced by Yamato. cuc fucked around with this message at 21:57 on May 19, 2023 |
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May 19, 2023 21:44
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maaan i started up the Alaric campaign to start playing along with the LP but i relented and got Return of Rome instead. p fun so far but the pathfinding of units seems worse than base AoE2. my boneheaded swordsmen and legionaries keep letting other swordsmen walk by them and destroy my ballistas. i have never had this problem in ApE2 before... its been a dogs age since I played AoE1... is this just true to the OG gameplay?
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May 19, 2023 22:13
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also what the gently caress just port over all campaigns
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May 19, 2023 22:14
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Sally posted:maaan i started up the Alaric campaign to start playing along with the LP but i relented and got Return of Rome instead. p fun so far but the pathfinding of units seems worse than base AoE2. my boneheaded swordsmen and legionaries keep letting other swordsmen walk by them and destroy my ballistas. i have never had this problem in ApE2 before... its been a dogs age since I played AoE1... is this just true to the OG gameplay? True OG, yeah.
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May 19, 2023 22:22
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lol recalibrating expectations then.
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May 19, 2023 23:01
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