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Battles of the Forgotten: Bukhara Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Persians Theme Very well, then let us begin, the tales of those long forgotten.  Back to the historical battles screen we go.  Starting Text "Seventy-three long years have passed since thousands of nomadic riders flooded the Eastern borders of Persia, defeated the Persian army, and killed the shah himself. The invaders plunged deep into the heartland of the empire. The weakened Persians had no choice but to give in to the outrageous demands of tribute imposed by the White Huns. Now, Khosrau, the grandson of the slain shah is ready to take revenge for the eternal shame cast upon his empire. Persian heralds visit the four corners of the empire to gather one of the largest armies this world has ever seen. But even with an army that could fill the space between the Zagros and Alborz mountain ranges, the White Hunnic horse archers will not be easily beaten. Khosrau knows that perhaps the only way to ensure victory is to ally with another nomadic people: the Gokturks. These nomads from lands hardly touched by civilization hate the White Huns as much as the Persians do. They are as tough and hardy as the White Huns, and, most importantly, can strike the Huns from their rear. The earth trembles as thousands of Persian horses and elephants travel to battle. Khosrau will soon show the world that the Persian Empire is still a force to be reckoned with..."  Persian Soldier: Those vile White Huns will bleed us dry with their excessive demands. We must bide our time for now but we will crush them once Khosrau arrives. Persian Spearman: Welcome to Khorasan. Follow me, I will lead you down this mountain pass.  Persian Spearman: You can construct a small base here and collect the resources to pay off the White Huns until Khosrau arrives with his army.  Persian Spearman: The Persian villages can provide you with resources, but beware of White Hunnic raiders!  Persian Soldier: Hun raiders keep attacking our trade routes on the Silk Road. We should defend the trade carts so that we do not lose the gold.  That was a lot of intro setup and we're still not done yet. It pretty succinctly covers the goals of the early part of the scenario though: get to the Imperial Age to summon Khosrau's army. Make sure to defend the various Persian villages from the White Hun Raiders with your starting units and they'll tribute you Wood and Food, and Gold if you can also manage to defend the Silk Road. It's interesting to note that the game gives you a couple of Caravanserais that wind through the middle of the map to help assist in this process (Hindustani unique building, heals and speeds up Trade Carts in its radius of influence), which is why the villages' trade partner in Khorasan is playing as Hindustanis.  Persian Soldier: The true backbone of the Persian army is its heavy cavalry. We can hire these men for 1500 gold. Once you find this camp in the center of the map, you get an offer to muster the forces of the Persian Empire for 1500 gold. Doing so not only gives you these Sogdian Cataphracts (Scenario only unit, anti-Archer Cavalry), but allows you to make them at your Stables. I'll grab these guys later, but I don't make too many more of my own.  White Huns: We expect 400 gold, as usual. Refuse, and you will face the wrath of our horsemen. (after tribute) That will do... for now. Although the raiders are active at the start, the main White Hun warband (who unlike the Raiders is not playing Huns, but Mongols) is inactive, and starting at around 15 minutes will ask for successively larger tributes in order to stay pacified (400, 600, and 1000 gold respectively.) I buy them off the first time, just so I can grow my economy a little bit more before moving on to the next phase of the mission, but I see a lot of people recommending not even bothering with this, as the gold helps to fuel upgrades for their units.  Persian Soldier: The Persian army under Khosrau has arrived! We will show these White Huns the cost of meddling with the Persian Empire! Persian Mahout: My elephant cannot wait to trample some White Huns! White Huns: We heard that you are leading your army against us? A very unwise decision that will cost you your empire! Reach the Imperial Age and Khosrau shows up with a bunch of War Elephants and extra resources. Have I talked about War Elephants in any capacity other than mentioning that they're the Persians' unique unit? I've definitely mentioned them before because the Persians show up in a lot of scenarios as AI, but this is the only time we get to play as them. Whatever - Persians Unique Unit, slow-moving Cavalry/Elephant unit with extra anti-Building and trample damage that doubles down on Elephant units being very durable/high quality in exchange for being very expensive. Once Khosrau's army arrives, the White Huns immediately turn aggressive, independent of any prior tribute payments.  Sogdian Cataphract: We will crush all the enemies of the Persians!  I take the opportunity to grab the Sogdians because despite the game praising Khosrau's army here, it's not really that large of a force on its own. You do get access to these training facilities down in the south, though.  Gokturks: Persians, we share a common enemy. Perhaps you would be interested in a temporary alliance against the White Huns? (after sending a unit to the Gokturks' Castle) So, an alliance it is? Very well. Just do not get in our way. Once the White Huns declare war on you, the Gokturks in the north of the map will agree to ally with you against them for free. Great job, Gokturks!    With Khosrau's initial army and the Sogdians, I take out the forward White Hun Raider camps. They have more in the back of the main White Hun base, but this stops the worst of their aggression and mostly folds them into the main White Hun army, which now takes their place. The main White Huns are generally less focused on raiding, but will still strike at targets of opportunity, especially near their base.  The Persians have a unique tech that lets them spam Crossbowmen as a trash unit that only costs Wood. This can be useful, even if they don't get Bracer and the Arbalester upgrade, but in this map it was kind of a mistake as between the resource deposits and the Silk Road, the map is extremely generous with gold. At one point, I even went in heavy on buying Food directly from the Market because my gold was outpacing my other resources that much. Eventually I learn this and swap to a mostly War Elephant based army.     At this point, with a fully built up army, there's nothing left to do but smash the White Huns. They have a very large and well-defended base, but ultimately if the Raiders didn't cripple you in the early game and destroy your economy, by the time you're hitting the White Huns there's nothing they can do to stop the endless barrage of Elephants. Do note that they can still punish you for putting a forward base too far forward: the White Huns aren't really down and out until you're about two-thirds of the way through destroying them.  Gokturks: With our main rivals, the White Huns, weakened, it is time that we take what is rightfully ours. Which makes that point the perfect time for the Gokturks to backstab you. More specifically, it's keyed to destroying two of the White Huns' Castles. They also do this if you get too close to their base, even before the White Huns are weakened. I think that even if you don't ally with the Gokturks, you still have to defeat them in order to win the scenario, so there's no reason not to ally with them in the interim.    White Huns: Retreat! Leave everything behind! I finish clearing out the White Huns' base and the Gokturks send everything they've got in a cavalry charge that falls flat before the War Elephants and a few Cavalry Archers that I decided to add into the mix. Unfortunately for the Gokturks, they're a little too late on the backstab for it to meaningfully change anything.    Gokturks: You have defeated our fierce cavalry archers?! Very well, we will keep our promise and retreat behind the Oxus river. The steamroller then moves on up and flattens the Gokturk base as well, bringing the mission to an end. Persian Soldier: We have finally rid ourselves of those hefty tribute demands. The Persian Empire can prosper once more! Ending Text "The White Huns were powerful but too disorganized to cope with multiple invasions. When the Persians and their Turkic allies launched a two-pronged attack, the White Huns panicked. The mighty Persian beasts of war and swift, accurate Turkish horse archers crushed the disorientated enemy within eight days. After the Persian victory at Bukhara, the White Huns faded into history and the Gokturks and Persians divided the conquered land among themselves. Under Khosrau, Persia once more became a worthy rival of the Byzantine Empire, while the Turks established themselves in the vacuum left by the White Huns." I found this to be a slow and plodding mission, but then again, I did go all in on War Elephants.  But seriously, it's a great scenario for showing off the Persians' strength as a late-blooming eco and Cavalry civilization: the enemies are not particularly inclined to throw around Pikes/Halberdiers and you have a ton of gold so there's no reason not to drown the map in Paladins and/or War Elephants. Extra Slides Intro Slide 1 Intro Slide 2 Intro Slide 3 Intro Slide 4 Intro Slide 5 End Slide 1 End Slide 2
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Jul 1, 2023 14:38
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Apparently, Dynasties of India introduced a change to this scenario to prevent you from fully upgrading the Knight-line to Paladin, limiting you to Cavalier. Its an odd change, but I guess it encourages the use of the Sogdian Cataphract and the War Elephant. The Hun Raider camp west side of the river can be taken out right at the start if you're quick with a little bit of micro and the watch tower near the centre of the map is an excellent place for some defensive buildings. Early on, garrisoned Persian TCs have double HP and are very hard to kill, and eventually replacing them with a pair of garrisoned castles (With a few cavalry to take out rams and trebuchets) basically makes the west half of the map yours forever. From there, its a fairly simple boom and destroy mission. Its a very good scenario.
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Jul 1, 2023 20:54
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Battles of the Forgotten: Dos Pilas Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Mayans Theme Starting Text "Hidden in the dense jungle of the Yucatán, the Mayan civilization thrives. Massive stone pyramids carved with images of gods and kings tower above the sea of green vegetation. The Yucatan is dominated by two city-states, Tikal and Calakmul. Competing for control of the rich trade routes throughout the peninsula, the two cities have warred with each other for as long as anyone can remember. To secure the jade and cacao trade, Tikal founded the city of Dos Pilas. Now, the old king of Tikal sends his youngest son, B'alaj Chan K'awiil, to rule it while his oldest son will rule Tikal itself. B'alaj, however, is not happy with his small inheritance. The god of war plants seeds of resentment and hate in him and B'alaj is convinced that would be a better ruler of Tikal than his brother..."  Eagle Warrior: We are losing the ford! Quickly, retreat to Dos Pilas and warn its citizens!  You start this scenario with a small band of Eagle Warriors and Plumed Archers, and have to make a run for it towards the town of Dos Pilas to the south. Feudal Age Raiders line the routes and can be overpowered in small numbers, but are best avoided when possible.  Eagle Warrior: Warriors from Calakmul have defeated our army! They will soon be on their way to our town. To arms! Reach Dos Pilas and you're given control of the town and the goal to make it to the Castle Age. You're also given a side objective to clear out some bandit camps, but there's no real point in doing so at this stage of the mission, so just focus on getting up to Castle as quickly as possible.  An initial wave of troops from Calakmul will attack the city fairly early, but can be defeated through judicious use of your Plumed Archers and the town's Towers.  Eagle Warrior: Calakmul's attacks are not letting up. We'll be done for soon! Calakmul: We hereby claim the city of Dos Pilas for the almighty city of Calakmul. Join us, or die! After you reach the Castle Age and the Eagle Warrior gives his remarks, Calakmul will start sending much larger forces against you. You can fight them off, but there's no real point: the mission won't continue until Calakmul's troops reach the inside of your base. You're then given three minutes to make a choice: swear allegiance to Calakmul or stay loyal to Tikal as determined by clicking on their Wonders. Failing to pick an option within the time frame is seen as hesitation by the Calakmul soldiers and you're automatically dumped into the Tikal route for the rest of the mission.  Eagle Warrior: We fight for Calakmul from now on! The two routes are broadly similar: if you stay with Calakmul you keep control of Dos Pilas. If you flee to Tikal, Dos Pilas switches to a Calakmul-aligned AI and you take over Uaxactun to the east. Your long term goal is to break into the city that you aren't allied with and destroy their Wonder to force their submission. Tikal starts you off with an additional ally in the form of Naranjo, Calakmul will eventually attack them, with Naranjo's northern gate immediately collapsing upon the announcement of the attack. If Calakmul gets anybody past Naranjo's walls within 15 minutes afterwards, Naranjo will immediately surrender and switch sides, leaving you with an enemy that directly threatens both you and Tikal. In addition, most of the optional bonus objectives will involve you having to circle around the enemy town of Dos Pilas in order to complete them... But on the other hand, if you can defend Naranjo on the Tikal side, you have a fairly secure route directly into Calakmul's base. So all you need to do is deliver a quick knockout blow to Dos Pilas before piling everything on to Calakmul. The Calakmul player on the other hand, pretty much has to run the whole enemy gauntlet in order to get the most convenient route into Tikal. And the only bonus objective that really matters is equidistant from both sides of the map. In the end, I go with Calakmul, mostly because that's the historical option and also because I don't want to have to go and restart all my base building. (There's a reason I'm only talking about scenario objectives here: no matter which major city you ally with, their AI is functionally useless, so you might as well be playing the rest of the mission by yourself at this point except for trading. But we're already used to that.)    All three enemies will send forces to attack you, and they are tenacious. I found that Uaxactun had the most aggressive AI of all of them, and even managed to get inside my city and threaten the infrastructure a few times. Maybe because they're playing Aztecs instead of Mayans? This is the hardest part of the mission, and on harder difficulties it's really easy to get overrun. I was able to wind things down once I got a few Castles up and fortified the walls. The attacks kept on coming, but they could mostly be handled by the static defenses.  With that out of the way, I was able to free myself up to start work on bonus objectives. Destroying these five Mayan Raider camps gives you 200 gold each and saves you the trouble of accidentally running into the Raiders while doing other things.  Eagle Warrior: There is a small village situated to the west of us that is currently occupied by raiders. If we liberate this village, it will support our war effort. (after defeating the raiders) This village has been liberated. Now we will be able to trade at its market! The village will periodically tribute you a small amount of supplies. The Market is of questionable value. The only reason I ever see it being worth using over Calakmul's Market is if you have reason to believe that you're going to be cut off from trading with Calakmul's Market because the trade route comes too close to enemy territory. But the enemies are generally too busy attacking you directly instead.  Eagle Warrior: We have spotted a bandit camp to the south! I wonder what they are doing here...  Eagle Warrior: The bandits were protecting a large gold mine. Look at all of this! Also it's moot because while you can run short of gold on this map, the real solution is attacking this weakly fortified bandit camp to the south where a very large pile of mineral resources is present. By this point, I have a full Mayan army of Elite Eagle Warriors, Elite Plumed Archers, and a couple of Trebuchets up and tearing through everything.  Meanwhile Uaxactun is trying to get a sneak attack in, which nearly catches me off guard, before I manage to peel off a few Eagle Warriors to smash these Battering Rams.  Tikal's primary fortress down here projects force between Tikal itself to the east, the bandit camp to the south, and my base to the west. Destroying it stops their troops specifically from attacking your base and clears up a possible avenue of attack on Tikal, but it's a longer and more annoying route through to the Wonder itself compared to the northern approach. Tikal is also notable in this mission for training a lot of Slingers, which they shouldn't be able to do, but were granted in order to have something extra that could wreck Infantry. Calakmul trains Jaguar Warriors for the same reason.    Next up is Uaxactun. There's ostensibly no reason that you really need to destroy them, and the game tries to compensate you for taking the time to do so by having Calakmul tribute you a bunch of resources. I think you might also get some, or at least some stone, when you destroy Tikal's fort for the same reason. But in any event, these guys have been the only real danger to me all mission, and I want them out of the way during my assault on Tikal. Destroy the Town Center and they crumple immediately. Tikal panics and sends some forces to try and destroy my onrushing army, but they can't stand up to fully upgraded Plumed Archers mowing them down.    Second verse, same as the first. I don't remember if taking Naranjo gives you resources or that's waived because breaking through this town at least has the distinct purpose of making the final assault on Tikal easier. You also don't want these guys staying around anyway, because their Mangonels can cause havoc if left unsupervised.   Tikal's standing army isn't that impressive, having been defeated multiple times in getting to this point. But the city will constantly swarm with new troops being trained from all the military production facilities. Just force your way through and take out the Wonder to claim the win. Eagle Warrior: Tikal is burning. Victory is ours! Ending Text "After years of conflict the war god's thirst for blood was satisfied. B'alaj, having betrayed his father and brother and sacked the city he held dear, was plagued by guilt. Despite his victory, he relinquished his claim on Tikal and instead returned to Dos Pilas, where he spent the remainder of his days. Later Tikal was rebuilt and it finally overcame its rival Calakmul. However it never truly recovered from the betrayal of one of its dearest sons and the Mayan civilization steadily declined..." I had one or two people tell me that this mission was going to be the bastard of the earth, and I can definitely see how on higher difficulty settings it would be murderous. As I played it though, Dos Pilas is an interesting, if somewhat longer/grindier than usual mission (though not exceptionally so), with a fair amount of replayability due to its primary branching choice. Extra Slides Intro Slide 1 Intro Slide 2 Intro Slide 3 Intro Slide 4 End Slide 1 End Slide 2 End Slide 3
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Jul 2, 2023 19:04
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Wasn't a fan of this one, the build up seems like the player is going to be the deciding factor between two warring alliances, and while that is technically what happens your allies are so passive they're basically non-entities
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Jul 2, 2023 19:38
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Its been a while, but I really disliked playing this scenario. I found it to be a really long grind against infinite unit spam which just isn't fun. At all. The allies being useless just makes it worse. The idea of having some replay value via the choice between sides in the early game is a good one though.
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Jul 2, 2023 20:17
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oh yeah this one. rough mission. satisfying to beat but those initial phases are rough
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Jul 2, 2023 22:33
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And with Dos Pilas completed, we're now done with the Mesoamerican architecture set and none of three civilizations that use it will ever show up in the remainder of the campaigns again. I want a full Mayan campaign 
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Jul 3, 2023 02:27
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Asehujiko posted:I want a full Mayan campaign
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Jul 3, 2023 10:14
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This mission had a lot of RPG-esque side content in the Forgotten, like a trader who will give you gold for bringing him turkeys and some other stuff. This was removed in Definitive Edition, which is probably for the better, it wasn't really a good addition in the first place. There is also a hilarious way to cheese this mission: at the start, send all your eagles straight to Tikals wonder. Set Tikal to Enemy, and destroy the wonder (Tikal will not set you to Enemy at this stage of the mission, so all their units will just stare at you menacingly), advance to Castle Age, ally Calakmul, and you win immediately as Tikals wonder is already destroyed.
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Jul 3, 2023 17:29
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anilEhilated posted:I'm afraid the only way to make that interesting and not another Pachacuti would be basically retreading the Aztec campaign. there was a campaign in AoE3 that was a bit clever in this regard... had a Chinese treasure ship get lost at sea and wind up shipwrecked in North America. the caveat being their story was lost to history so whatever it could be somewhat ahistorical
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Jul 3, 2023 17:35
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this one from Asian Dynasties: https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Act_II:_China
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Jul 3, 2023 17:37
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Battles of the Forgotten: York Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Case in Point, Paste Starting Text "Shouts of assent ring around the hall as the sons of Ragnar finish speaking, and ravens fly upwards, eager to bring good tidings to the Aesir. Moments later, the sky flashes with lightning and booms with thunder, signaling the approval of the gods. Days later, the mustering begins. Kings, jarls, warriors, and common folk alike gather, eager to seek vengeance on the Northumbrian king Aella for the dishonorable slaying of Ragnar. Ivar, one of Ragnar's sons, has sworn to carve the blood eagle on Aella in retribution. Ragnar's sons approach a small band of warriors with a dangerous but important quest: to scout the British Isles and establish a camp. When the army arrives, it will need a secure base from which to strike out against the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that dominate the British mainland. Thor is pleased, for the seas are benign and the winds favorable, allowing the longships a serene passage across the North Sea. As they near York, the seat of Northumbria, the sound of the sea mingles with the grinding of axes. Skalds eagerly prepare to craft the verses for a saga that will be passed down until the end of time."  Jarl: There lies our target, the fortified city of York. We must find a safe location to land and wait for the rest of our mighty brethren to arrive before we seek Valhalla together. Viking: My lord, we have scouted the British Isles. Far-seeing Odin has shown us several sites where we can strike our tents! Jarl: Let us make haste and disembark. Our presence must go unnoticed... for now. This scenario starts you off with a number of Longboats and a few transports containing soldiers and Villagers. Your first goal is to find a place to disembark. This is a big map. A very big map. So I wanted to find out how long it would take to traverse it.  I wasn't perfect in getting here, at least in part because the coastline of the British Isles is rather jagged, and doesn't allow for a direct route, but still... it took 14 in-game minutes to cross the map.  Jarl: Skol! Our camp is complete. Quickly, muster a force! Soon the sails of our brothers will draw near, and we will wet our axes with Saxon blood! You then get 15 minutes to build up free of any obstructions before the rest of the Viking Great Army/Great Heathen Army shows up.  During this time, I sneak my starting troops out back behind the fortified cities to attack a number of Southern Ireland's resource camps, most importantly this huge gold/stone mine here.  Viking: Hark! Look to the sea! Thor and Njord favor us, for our army has arrived! Your reinforcements consists of a fleet of 40 Elite Longboats, which I won't say no to, but I'm more of a fan of keeping things on land when possible.  I bring them over to Southern Ireland, picking a few fights along the way to tear down most of the Britons/Scots/Welsh southern Docks. It's a bit costly due to the presence of some Castles, but I consider it to be worth the price of lessening their interference in Ireland. As you can see, the mission now has 4 objectives, any of which will count for victory - replace a Palace building in York with a Wonder of your own construction, capture 15 of the map's 23 relics, obtain 50,000 gold, or defeat 5 of the 7 opponents. I didn't really have a specific plan going into this mission, so at this point I figured I'd sack all of Ireland and see where that left me with regards to the victory conditions.   My construction pretty much went up until the walls of the first of Southern Ireland's fortified bases, so when I was ready, I just started making troops and dumped them on the base. Funnily enough, the most resistance I had was from Wessex's navy, which had wandered all the way into Ireland proper from their own base via a series of rivers.  But this meant that I could also deploy my Longboats to attack a number of Southern Ireland's smaller towns in a similar manner.    Markets, Monasteries, Town Centers, Cathedrals, and Wonders all give you gold when you destroy them, so the 50,000 gold route doesn't take an eternity. All of the Monasteries on the map also come with a Relic inside, and it's good practice to loot them, even if you're not specifically going for the Relic victory.   Mercia and the Britons/Scots/Welsh send a few raiding parties by land and sea, but nothing so large that they can't be driven off, at which point I fortify the southern part of my base with additional Castles to prevent additional raids on my Fishing Boats.    With Southern Ireland crushed, I move to work on Northern Ireland. I'm greatly condensing a lot of what's going on here, which basically amounts to multiple occurrences of "roll up to city, fight its' small army, have the Trebuchets destroy the Castles and some of the defensive fortifications, and then pillage the place.  By the time I conquered all of Ireland (Northern Ireland technically has a Monastery on the mainland but is for all practical intents and purposes defeated), I was about two and a half hours into the scenario and realized that I was less than halfway through everything except the gold objective, and even for that I was 10,000 gold short. I was about to prepare for an invasion of the mainland... but it turned out that the tens of thousands of other resources that I had generated in the rest of my economy just barely added up to 10,000 gold if I sold them all at the Market. Viking: Praise upon the Aesir - our victory is complete! Ending Text "Favored by Odin and Thor, the Vikings watered the ground with the blood of their enemies, seizing vast amounts of plunder and fertile land. The stench of smoke and death filled the air as hapless victims foolishly turned to their altars instead of their swords. The haughty Anglo-Saxons met their match at the hands of ruthless Viking warriors eager to earn their place at Odin's tables. True to their word, Ragnar's sons carved the blood eagle into the back of the cowardly Aella as a warning to any who might think of opposing them. Ragnar's sons settled the land that they had conquered, eventually establishing a state known as the Danelaw. For the next two centuries, Dane and Saxon would live as neighbors, sometimes at war, sometimes in peace, until the Saxon victory over the Norse at Stamford Bridge in 1066 foiled the last Viking invasion of England." As it turns out, I picked the turtle-iest possible start, but even without doing that, this scenario is a monster. Apparently at one point it taxed people's computers to the point of unplayability? York has a lot of interesting options, from the multiple starting locations to the different victory conditions, but for anything other than the 50,000 gold one, you are basically scheduling your whole night to complete it. I'm glad that something like this exists for the dedicated AoEII player, but personally I'm more than happy to quite literally take the money and run. Extra Slides Intro Slide 1 Intro Slide 2 Intro Slide 3 Intro Slide 4 Intro Slide 5 End Slide 1 End Slide 2 End Slide 3 Jossar fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Jul 5, 2023 |
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Jul 5, 2023 01:55
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Battles of the Forgotten: Honfoglalás Starting Text "Throughout Europe, church bells ring while screams and the smell of burning wood fill the air. Everybody knows of the terror of the Vikings and their feared longships, but those who dwell inland face another horror. Magyar horsemen strike deep into the European heartland, raiding, plundering, and killing without distinction. These nomadic pagans come from far to the east where they were driven out from their homelands by their aggressive neighbors. Now they have arrived in Europe, and their lightning-quick raids terrify the locals. The rulers of Europe are powerless to stop these swift, mounted marauders. Raiding, however successful, cannot sustain the Magyar tribes forever, and they are ready to settle down. Scouts have found a suitable location in the south: large open grasslands, similar to the steppes of the Magyar's ancestral home, lie within the Carpathian Basin. Only the Eastern Franks, Moravians, and Bulgarians stand in their way. If the Magyars can defeat them, the tribes will once again have a land to call their own."  Magyar Horseman: We are the ten arrows that will strike Europe! We will take this land by force! This scenario is a Definitive Edition rework of the original HD Edition version, but excepting the subject matter (the conquest of the Carpathian Basin by the Magyars) and broadly-speaking the nomad mechanics, they might as well be two different scenarios. The first was a much more discontinuous, extremely long, multi-chapter saga all contained within a single scenario. This one is a lot more cohesive, if perhaps a little bit less epic in scope. You start out with a base and a moderate number of soldiers, but no Town Center and can't build Farms, Houses, or Castles. You're also limited to 100 pop cap. To compensate for this, there are a number of "nomad" bonuses that you receive: - Destroying enemy buildings gives you resources. - Having sheep in the central pen automatically generates food. - Destroying enemy Town Centers gives you extra villagers. Building a Town Center removes these special bonuses, but lets you increase your pop cap to 150 in addition to the buildings. The intended idea is that the bonuses entice you to play as nomads in the short term, while you gather the resources needed to prepare yourself for the inevitable switch that you make to a settled economy based on the long term benefits.  After a bit of build up, I start by raiding the Avars. They're in a bunch of scattered camps to the south and are therefore the easiest enemy to take out at the start, although if you're trying to rush the map, Great Moravia can be taken out pretty early if you dodge their Castles and target their Town Centers.  In the middle of this process, East Francia sends a surprisingly dangerous knight rush against my base, and I have to send some troops back to cover it.  But with them out of the way, I continue my assault on the Avars.   Magyar Horseman: Our nomadic days are over. We will no longer benefit from our old ways.  Magyar Horseman: These Avars were like us once, but they grew soft and weak from the plunder that they gained. A wise lesson is to be learned here. Tried to get these two to line up simultaneously but was a few minutes out of sync. Oh well. Defeating the Avars grants you access to the Castle Age, but you can't reach the Castle Age unless you have a Town Center so I abandon nomadism and start booming to get to the Castle Age food requirements. Fortunately, all the sheep that were gathered can now be repurposed for temporary supplies while I build up a proper farm economy. (Also all of my Houses catch fire for some reason, I'm not quite sure why.)  While I'm booming, East Francia attacks again with some Teutonic Knights and Archers. This is less dangerous than their initial Knight rush and they never really regain their momentum from this point onwards.  Magyar Horseman: We spotted a Byzantine encampment to the east. They may have something to offer us. Byzantine Commander: Our emperor is prepared to pay you 2,000 gold if you declare war on the Bulgarians. On top of that, he will pay you 500 gold for every Bulgarian fortification that you destroy.  Eventually the Byzantines will show up with an offer: open up a second front against the Bulgarians to the south of your base, and they'll give you 2000 gold, a free tech upgrade to Imperial, and 500 additional gold for each Castle and Krepost (Bulgarians' unique building, a mini-Castle with limited functionality but cheaper cost) that you destroy. Doing so also allows you to replace one of the two enemies that you have to defeat in order to win the scenario with the Bulgarians instead. Notably, the Byzantines' offer is not an upgrade at your Town Center, it just advances you directly. So if a player wants to stay nomad, they can just take the Byzantines' offer and still have access to units that can take down static defenses. In my case though, I don't take the offer: I'd rather just keep things limited to one front even if that means a longer process in terms of getting to the Imperial Age. (Also, I cracked up at this point because the guy voicing the Byzantine Commander is clearly the same guy from Constantinople in the Attila campaign who handed us a bunch of gold and told us to get out.)    Access to Rams is more than enough for me to crush Great Moravia. While there is no obligation to take them out first, they're the closest to me and the biggest long term threat if left alone due to producing Pikemen in large numbers. Defeating any of the major factions unlocks the Imperial Age research at your Town Center.    East Francia suffers from being just too slow to get their economy up before my fully upgraded Imperial Age army comes crashing down on them. So ends the scenario. Magyar Horseman: This land belongs to our people now, and Europe is open for us to plunder! Ending Text "The Magyar horsemen annihilated the Frankish army and utterly destroyed the empire of Great Moravia. After centuries of wandering the steppes, they could finally settle down to create their own kingdom. Many, however, rejected the thought of exchanging their bows for plows. Not until Otto the Great, founder of the Holy Roman Empire, defeated them at the Battle of Lechfeld did the Magyar raids finally come to an end. After this defeat, the Magyar nomads adopted European ways, converted to the Christian faith, and transformed into farmers. They founded the Kingdom of Hungary, whose army was famed for its combined elements of nomadic horsemen and heavy cavalry. For centuries, Hungary would stand firm as the frontier stronghold of Europe, resisting invaders from the east-invaders much like the first Magyar raiders who ventured into Europe." I kind of like the original version of this scenario more, though it shares the problem that York has where getting through it can take hours. Probably for the best to leave York intact and change this one, as the original Honfoglalás could get kind of buggy at times due to all the in-game trigger dependencies, and better to have a reliable scenario than a Dracula-esque mess. Extra Slides Intro Slide 1 Intro Slide 2 Intro Slide 3 Intro Slide 4 Intro Slide 5 End Slide 1 End Slide 2 End Slide 3 Jossar fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Jul 6, 2023 |
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Jul 6, 2023 04:03
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York is an absolute slog at the best of times. The Forgotten version was even worse, mostly because it featured much more aggressive unit spamming by all enemy players. That one is honestly my biggest gripe with most of the Forgotten scenarios/campaigns, there are lots of situations where you fight uphill against enemies that have literally infinite ressources to spam units with.
cncgnxcg fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Jul 6, 2023 |
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Jul 6, 2023 05:46
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I like the idea of York - a big, epic map, proper material for a saga, but I agree it's just a bit too big and AoE doesn't really have mechanics that'd interact with the playground design too well. On the other hand, it's the only singleplayer map where you get to play as the Vikings so at least they get a good showing. Honfoglalás just looks like a slog.
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Jul 6, 2023 10:01
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Less epic in scale, absolutely, but the very nature of the map and its trigger-based progressions, as you said, made it prone to becoming very buggy, and it was dangerously easy to sequence-break in a way that just broke everything and made the map unplayable. One of the maps that made it abundantly clear that The Forgotten was originally a fanmod that was picked up as an official product, and not the same level of Professional Development as other expansions.
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Jul 6, 2023 15:18
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York is way too big and ambitious unfortunately, its a good idea for a scenario but there is such a thing as less is more, sometimes. Honfoglalás is one of the better scenarios in this set though, I enjoyed playing it a lot. I never played the original, but I think the one we've got now is excellent.
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Jul 6, 2023 23:01
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I enjoy York, but it really needs some triggers to spice it up or at least the enemies hooting and hollering at you. Interestingly (to me) North and South Ireland are at war with each other, and also at war with an alliance of a couple english players. But you'd be forgiven for not noticing, especially because for whatever reason even on the hardest difficulty the AI's are very weak and their attacks are pretty rudimentary. I would guess its to keep the unit count low due to the vast size. Seems like a missed opportunity for some diplomatic skullduggery, or at least some shifting diplomatic stances. Say you knock out a couple English players, maybe the Irish ally together and start launching invasions, that sort of thing. Also like everyone says, its really too big to be a fairly standard boom and burn mission
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Jul 7, 2023 01:19
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I'm a big fan of the version where you turn the Isle of Wight into a weird fortress
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Jul 7, 2023 01:20
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Battles of the Forgotten: Kurikara Starting Text "Gliding through the trees, the wind whispers a faint melody to the rhythm of the footsteps of soldiers. The narrow mountain pass feels ominous and forbidding, and yet there is a peaceful aura to it that calms Minamoto's vanguard. The common soldiers groan as a deluge suddenly begins, transforming the soil into a treacherous sea of mud. The battle-hardened samurai alone are silent. Their honor is their prime concern, and it rests on the success of their mission: to deliver supplies to the besieged city of Kurikara. After years of injustice, the Minamoto clan declared open opposition to the dominance of the wicked Taira, splitting Japan in two. Lord Minamoto controls the East, while his cousin Yoshinaka holds the frontier. Throughout two and a half years of war, the Taira have steadily advanced, rarely seeing defeat. Their armies strike at Kurikara in a three-pronged assault, while an auxiliary force seizes the lighthouse at the point of the Noto Peninsula, controlling naval passage in and out of the Toyama Gulf. Entourages of samurai patrol all roads to Kurikara, and enemy supply lines reach all the way to Kyoto, the imperial capital. This will be the decisive battle of this war. If Kurikara falls, the Taira will be free to flood into the Minamoto heartland and claim victory. If Kurikara holds and the Taira are defeated, the tide will turn and Minamoto may even be able to bring the fight to the gates of Kyoto."  Samurai: The road to Kurikara is well guarded. We must be swift and elusive if we are to reach the city alive! You start the mission with a small army and a cart full of supplies, with the goal to make it to the city of Kurikara. You're approached by a scout from Kurikara who goes on ahead to lead the way to the city...  Only to get killed by this Taira patrol. I'm not certain if you can avoid this patrol with clever movement, or it's positioned in such a way that you always have to take the fight. In any event, I kill them and move on.  Yoshinaka: Many thanks for the supplies - we are barely holding out. What news from Minamoto? Samurai: Minamoto promises to send help over the mountains, but is currently occupied with a rebellion. We are sent to aid in the defense of the city. Yoshinaka: Very well - we will do the best that we can. Take over defense of the city! Samurai: Hurry men, to the defenses! Defend Kurikara with honor! Once you get your troops to Kurikara, you gain control of the city, and its defensive garrison, including Yoshinaka (like all other heroes in this scenario, a Hero Samurai.)  The bay is filled with fish, but the Taira will continue to raid your base from the water as long as they have Docks in the area with which to produce ships.  Samurai: My lord, we wish to sail around the northern peninsula but are unable to do so due to the treacherous rocks. If we capture the lighthouse, then our ships would be able to pass safely!   Samurai: The lighthouse is ours! Now we can sail through! Try to sail beyond the lighthouse and your ships get killed. To go any further up, you need to mount an amphibious assault culminating in slaying the Taira troops. You can use the peninsula route to get a backdoor into one of the Taira army bases and the economy of the Guards (who supply the Taira army with food), but I only really care about securing the area for my fishing ships. But no matter what, one of the 5 mandatory Taira generals you have to kill is present on this island, so I would be coming this way eventually. Defeating the Taira Guards and the general gives you access to the lighthouse and the static defenses surrounding it.  Samurai: A cart has arrived over the mountain from Kamakura. Ensure that it reaches the palace in Kurikara! Meanwhile, trade carts start arriving. Bring them to the Wonder in Kurikara for 1000 gold a piece. This combines with a slow, steady trickle of gold provided by the locals, so you have a decent amount to play with in this scenario.  The Taira have a forward base just outside of Kurikara and destroying it is my next objective.  I'm helped by the fact that several of the more annoying Taira army units moved up to attack the lighthouse. They make it fairly far through the static defenses, before eventually going down on their own.  It turns out that you can get away with a lot in this scenario as long as you have some Trebuchets and act decisively. This scenario doesn't seem to be a really big fan of long, drawn out battles.  Samurai: My lord, the Hojo clan requests that we send an envoy to their palace to discuss an alliance. Hojo Takimasa: I wish to make war on the Taira, but I do not have the proper weaponry. If you bring me two trebuchets, I will commit to this war. (after doing so) We fight with the Minamoto clan! At around 45 minutes, the Hojo Clan in the south of the map asks for an alliance. They help out a little bit, but aren't necessary to win the scenario. Winning without their assistance gets you an achievement.    We then commence a two pronged-attack: I level the main Taira base in the center of the map, while Hojo does a surgical strike on the general near their base.   On my way to the next base, I find the Taira Guards main supply of Mills. I don't eliminate them entirely, but I do a lot of damage to ensure that they can stop tributing the main army in an effective manner.  I spend a lot of this mission pummeling things to death with massed Japanese Champions. Is it the most effective battle tactic? Not really. But it is always fun to see.  Anyway, Hojo forgot to actually destroy the buildings in the base that they attacked, so I have to go back and finish the Taira army production facilities myself in order to trigger the next part of the scenario. Samurai: The Taira armies are defeated and their princes slain!  Minamoto: May the world quake and the Taira fools tremble before the might of my army! First, Minamoto shows up alongside a moderate size army of scenario-unique Mounted Samurai which combine general heavy cavalry traits, the Samurai's anti-unique unit bonus damage, hero-esque health regeneration and immunity to conversion.  Minamoto: It is time to take the battle to the Taira heartland. We march on Kyoto! Then he gives us our final marching orders: besiege Kyoto and kill the Taira general sitting at the palace in its center.   Kyoto has a ton of Castles guarding it but not much else. Just slay Taira no Koremori and take control of the Imperial Palace, then lay waste to the rest of the place until you claim victory. Samurai: Minamoto-sama, Taira no Koremori is dead and Kyoto is ours! Ending Text "Thunder boomed as spears of lightning pierced the sky. Driven back from the walls of Kurikara, the Taira army retreated in panic as Minamoto claimed victory after victory. Smoke rose from the enemy camps and floated towards Kyoto, an ominous shadow of the doom approaching those inside the city. Offering thanks and prayers to the gods, Minamoto halted and made camp outside Kyoto. Siege engines pounded the walls for days, reducing its great castles to piles of rubble. As the main gate fell, samurai poured into the city while Minamoto strode triumphantly to the Imperial Palace and planted his banner. With the power of the Taira broken and their capital taken, a seemingly doomed rebellion had triumphed. It would take two more long years, but Minamoto's prowess as a commander ensured victory at the battle of Dan-no-ura, ending the Genpei War and ushering in the new era of the Kamakura Shogunate." Design-wise this scenario was fine, but it feels like the enemies are way too passive, so they're just there as obstacles for you to overcome rather than a real threat. That seems to be happening a lot in some of these Battles of the Forgotten scenarios and it's making things less interesting than they could be. I know at least in part this is because I'm playing on Standard, but we've definitely had scenarios where even on Standard the AI doesn't pull any punches! Extra Slides Intro Slide 1 Intro Slide 2 Intro Slide 3 Intro Slide 4 Intro Slide 5 End Slide 1 End Slide 2 End Slide 3 Jossar fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jul 8, 2023 |
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Jul 8, 2023 11:45
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Jossar posted:First, Minamoto shows up alongside a moderate size army of Hussars. not hussars, but a special one-off 'mounted samurai' unit
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Jul 8, 2023 14:31
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Duly noted and edited. Shows how much I was paying attention to micro in this scenario, or really anything beyond "spam more Champions and Trebuchets."
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Jul 8, 2023 15:08
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Fun fact, the original version of this map instead featured Tairo no Kiyomori as the final target, who died two years before this battle takes place. Kiyomori would also go on to feature in the second Warriors Orochi game as a major antagonist.
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Jul 8, 2023 15:40
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Battles of the Forgotten: Cyprus Starting Text "'Deus lo Vult! God wills it!' This zealous shout resounds throughout Europe as news spreads of a Third Crusade, called by the Pope himself. Three of Europe's most renowned rulers have sworn to fight: Frederick Barbarossa of the Holy Roman Empire, Philip Augustus of France, and Richard the Lionheart, King of England. While the Emperor Barbarossa marches his army across Europe, the kings of France and England sail to the Holy Land. Richard's journey, however, is as adventurous as one can expect of someone known as the 'Lionheart'. A Mediterranean storm scatters the English fleet and shipwrecks many of Richard's ships on the island of Cyprus. The island's ruler and rebellious Byzantine lord, Isaac Komnenos, has taken the stranded English prisoner. Among the captured is Richard's very own sister. Richard is determined to punish Komnenos for this insult, but he also sees opportunity in these unfortunate events. Cyprus is an island of great strategic value, if the English can capture it, Cyprus could be used as a naval base for the crusade and raids on the wealthy Muslim trade ships."  Richard the Lionheart: The usurper Isaac Komnenos has imprisoned my sister in Nicosia! We will be revenged for this insult. The inhabitants of Cyprus will quake with fear once we have landed! You start this mission with a fairly large army (including Richard the Lionheart, a heavy cavalry Hero unit), split between warships and a land army stuck on the Transports. Your goal is to make it to Cyprus and crush the city all the way in the northern corner of the map.  'The storm scattered your fleet so additional troops can be found on various islands and coastal shores on Cyprus proper. You'll also find a few scattered warships to join your fleet as well. There will be a few ships floating about that belong to the Nicosia Fleet, but they can easily be destroyed piecemeal.  Of all the scattered troops, this group right here is the most important as it contains a Trebuchet. On Standard this will be the triumphant return of God's Own Sling, but it is crucially important, even as a regular Trebuchet on Moderate and Hard. You just have to make extra sure that it comes to no harm as you won't have the built in forgiveness-factor of hero regeneration and a little bit of extra range.   I disembark my army and starting heading for the interior of Cyprus. Along the way, I am confronted with Nicosia's scout patrols. You're facing off against Byzantines, so expect balanced armies of Cataphracts, Skirmishers, and Spear units, with the occasional Militia-line, Foot Archer-line, and Mangonel-line unit thrown in for good measure. Fortunately, most of these can just be shredded by Longbowmen before they make it too far into your ranks.  Isaac Komnenos: The English have landed! I must gather my soldiers! English Soldier: Isaac Komnenos' main army will attack us soon. We must conquer a base as quickly as possible! Go in far enough and you face a decent size army from Nicosia. Isaac panics and says he'll go and mass more soldiers, but I'm not quite sure if this has any impact on the AI or this conversation is just here to tell you to hurry up and get started with the next part of the mission to attack Limassol and claim a base.  Instead, I head in the opposite direction. I would have to do so anyway to find these additional soldiers stranded on the coastline (including Robert of Thornham, another heavy cavalry Hero unit)...  English Soldier: The fortress in Isaac's harbor lies in ruin! We have plundered much booty!  But my primary goal is to attack the Nicosia Fleet and destroy it before it can have a chance to build up significantly. This is difficult, especially as that Fortress is extremely durable thanks to bonus HP from being a Byzantine building. But in addition to getting 1000 gold for destroying it, defeating the Fleet means that we don't have to worry about them supporting Nicosia's attacks on land or any attacks at all by sea. We also get to plunder their resource piles, which will make the assault on the city go more smoothly.  With the Nicosia Fleet defeated, we're back on schedule for the rest of the mission. Just beyond the edge of this picture is Limassol's Castle. I need to destroy it, but it's so far away that the only way I can get line of sight on it is to have my heroes dart back and forth in front of the Castle while the Trebuchet brings it down. Limassol sends out the occasional grouping of troops to try and stop this, but they're torn to pieces by Longbowmen, freeing up the heroes to do their job.  Cypriot Villager: Stop this carnage! We surrender, just spare our families!  Once the Castle goes down, all of the remaining buildings in Limassol flip to your side and this becomes a base-building mission. Just beyond the town is the last part of your army scattered along the beaches, including Richard de Camville, a light cavalry Hero unit, and a Monk to heal your troops. I could have tried to grab these guys earlier for the healing, but it didn't seem worth the effort to extract them without Limassol already being under my control.   The north of the base is open to attack by enemy forces, but what's left from the initial invasion is more than enough to ward them off until a Castle goes up and starts producing more Trebuchets and Longbowmen.     And then from that point onwards, it's pretty much a straight shot to Nicosia. They have no real way of threatening my base or army any more, so it's just about shooting all of their units dead with Longbowmen as my Trebuchets work to tear down the city, building by building. English Soldier: Cyprus is ours! Clap Isaac in irons so that he will not be able to wreak havoc ever again! Ending Text "Richard's combined naval and land operations proved to be successful and Cyprus was quickly taken by the Crusaders. Isaac was thrown into the dungeons and Richard crowned himself king of the island. Richard then sailed east to resume his crusade. Upon his arrival in the Holy Land, however, Richard discovered that he alone remained to lead the Crusade. Barbarossa had drowned crossing an Anatolian river, and Philip Augustus returned to France with an illness. Despite these setbacks, Richard proved more than capable of the task ahead, matching wits with the famed Saladin. Richard is remembered as a brave warrior, a skilled commander, and a righteous king, renowned for his patronage of poetry as well as his martial exploits. He remains the ideal of the romantic, chivalric knight, and an iconic figure in both England and France." It's a very interesting scenario until you take Limassol, at which point it becomes another generic build up and destroy mission against a pretty mediocre opponent. Even leaving the Fleet alive for later just means you have a harder fight, it doesn't make it any more fun. The developers already cut out a lot when converting this scenario from the original Forgotten design, maybe they should have slimmed it down a little more and kept the focus on Richard breaking into the island? Or at least made it easier to deal the knockout blow against Nicosia: having to destroy the whole city to win is just pointless. Extra Slides Intro Slide 1 Intro Slide 2 Intro Slide 3 Intro Slide 4 End Slide 1 End Slide 2 End Slide 3 Jossar fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jul 9, 2023 |
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Jul 9, 2023 19:13
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Battles of the Forgotten: Bapheus Starting Text "As the Mongols descend on the Near East, the Turkish sultanate of Rum is on its last legs and will likely soon crumble. Several Turkish chiefs in Anatolia, called beys, are ready to seize the sultan's lands. Their warriors are hardy and fierce, untamed by the niceties of the Rum court. Once the sultanate is theirs, nothing will stop their further expansion west into Byzantine lands. The most fierce of the Turkish beys is Osman "the Bone Breaker," a reputable man who claims to have been given the authority to rule over the world by God himself. He is determined to unite the Turks against their common enemies. Facing Osman is the proclaimed savior of the Byzantine Empire: Roger de Flor, a former Knight Templar and commander of the Catalan Company of mercenaries. Years of service fighting for the lords and princes of Europe have made him and his soldiers hardened veterans. The future of Europe and the Middle East will be decided by the outcome of the battle between these two great men."  Seljuk Rider: The Rum Sultanate is doomed. We will ride with you, Osman. The scenario starts with you only in control of Osman, a mounted archer hero who fires multiple arrows at once, but you gain control of some additional Light Cavalry and Cavalry Archers nearly immediately.  Which are useful to have as small squads of Byzantine Cataphracts roam the map and will engage you when possible.  Ottoman Horseman: These villagers will do our bidding. (after a few seconds) The Byzantine cities are well fortified, but their army is not as strong as it once was. Once you reach the flagged area, the base building portion of the mission begins and you get your goal: destroy all of the Byzantine Castles to win.  Ottoman Horseman: Fighting this many enemies might prove fatal for us Osman. I suggest that you form an alliance with one of the other Turkish beys to improve our situation.  Candar: Nobody will be able to resist the combined Ottoman and Candar forces! Ottoman Horseman: We should deal with our other Turkish rivals. There can only be one to rule over the Anatolian Turks! After a couple of minutes, you get a mission to ally yourself with one of three regional Turkish factions. In addition to getting an ally, each of them provides you with some resources and technologies. To give a general overview: Karesi - Gives you Dock upgrades. Without these guys you can't even build warships on this mission. Germiyan - Gives you most of the Cavalry Archer upgrades. Really good if you're planning on spamming the map with Cavalry Archers. Candar - Gives you some of the Cavalry upgrades as well as a number of defensive ones. Probably the best all-rounder faction to pick, mostly by default. I pick Candar, mostly because I figure that this is the only mission where I'm going to get to show off Janissaries, so I might as well go full gunpowder. The factions you don't ally with become your enemies. Not allying with any of the factions after 10 minutes makes all three factions your enemy, but you get Conscription for faster unit training and fully upgraded Bombard Towers. Doing so and defeating all three Turkish factions before winning the mission gives you an achievement.  Ghazi Warrior: We have heard of Osman's fame and we are eager to offer our services. I think this is tied to whenever you make your choice, but it could just be time dependent generally. In any event, you will eventually start getting reinforcements from the east that spawn in every few minutes to supplement your forces. Sometimes they're troops, sometimes they're villagers, I even got a Monk with a Relic at one point.  Turkish Camel Rider: It would be an honor to fight at the side of Osman the bone breaker! In addition, there are a number of troops floating around the map that will join you if you approach them with a military unit. I thought that this screenshot was fun, because I got line of sight of these guys from Candar, so you get to see them in their original Gaia state.   Germiyan takes the opportunity to assault both Candar and myself, which is repulsed with some effort, but signifies that it's about time to defeat them before they grow any stronger and become a significant amount of trouble.  My assault on Germiyan also involves the Byzantines taking the opportunity to try and double team me. From this point on, there's going to be a lot of small Byzantine raids happening on my camp in the background.   But ultimately, the Germiyan forces can't stand up to all the event troops that I've been given, Janissaries, and Bombard Cannons. Defeating the other Turkish tribes is unnecessary, but it's very useful because it knocks them out of the fight, gives you a whole bunch of resources, and you get whatever buildings are left over when the respective player resigns.   I decide to go and assault the first Byzantine Castle to secure the center of the map on my way to eliminating Karesi, which I accomplish, but it does turn out that I've been a bit too slow here and Karesi has their troop production engine fully online at this point.  Roger de Flor: The Byzantines need my help taking care of these infidel Turks? Very well, Osman, my blade and I wait for you. This is another case where I'm not sure if this is scheduled for approximately an hour in or just triggered as a result of the destruction of the first Byzantine Castle, but a small army of Catalan Company troops marches to my position and they take over the southern Byzantine base (which no longer counts as a target for winning the mission). Like the other Turkish tribes, defeating the Catalan Company is optional. In fact, if I really wanted to, I could just ignore everything and gun for the one remaining Byzantine Castle. But it's another enemy and a very active one at that, so I decide to just march south and take everyone out before turning back to win the scenario with minimal contest.   Karesi and the last of the Byzantine patrols fight me tooth and nail, but are no match for the rolling deathball.  Catalan Soldier: The Byzantines betrayed us. You can have Anatolia, Turks - we are going home. The same holds true for the Catalan Company. Despite the commentary there, that is just flavor text for forcing the Catalan Company to resign. There is no integrated gameplay mechanism reflecting the Byzantines backstabbing the Catalan Company.   The final Byzantine fort puts up a heroic effort, but charging the Cataphracts right into my Janissaries' guns does not go well for them. Byzantines: You Turks cause us nothing but trouble! At least we will be safe behind our mighty walls of Constantinople! Ottoman Horseman: We have destroyed all of our enemies! Anatolia now belongs to the Ottoman Turks! Ending Text "Roger de Flor proved to be a match for Osman. He managed to defeat Turkish armies on several occasions and almost drove them out of Anatolia. Just as de Flor neared his greatest victory, he was betrayed. The jealous Byzantine nobles, fearing that de Flor would take the reconquered lands for himself, ordered his assassination. In retaliation, de Flor's Catalan Company ravaged Byzantine Anatolia and Greece before returning home with the body of their esteemed commander. With de Flor finally gone, Osman could complete his conquests and consolidate his power. The other Turkish beys soon acknowledged his rule and he founded his own empire that would bear his name: Osmanli Devleti... the Ottoman Empire." I think this scenario might have been better if you had to get rid of the Catalan Company, otherwise they feel kind of superfluous. Then again, maybe the devs were worried that this would make the mission too long - after all, the scenario had already lost an entire extra first part in order to be streamlined for the Definitive Edition version. Extra Slides Intro Slide 1 Intro Slide 2 Intro Slide 3 Intro Slide 4 End Slide 1 End Slide 2 End Slide 3 Jossar fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Jul 11, 2023 |
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Jul 11, 2023 04:02
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I really enjoyed playing Bapheus, I went for the achievement and it was a nice challenge. The Turk AIs resign if you destroy the castles, so sniping them with Bombards or Trebs is an option. If you're very quick, I bet you could instantly take out the Germiyan and Candar castles by placing 8 petards next to them while allied and once they turn on you, they will instantly blow the castle up, causing their resignation immediately after declaring war. Cyprus and Kurikara are ok, but are quite flawed unfortunately. Cyprus has an interesting start, but is just a boom and destroy mission at the end of the day and is pretty generic overall. Kurikara's problem is its AI, which just does nothing. I never got attacked once, and legitimately thought I'd broken a trigger or something.
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Jul 11, 2023 17:00
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The Catalans always arrive once you destroy the first byzantine castle, and take over one the remaining bases. The Gazi Warrior reinforcements are time-based. Also, on standard difficulty, not choosing an ally gives you Elite Jannisary as well as the other techs. Also, I don't know if they ever actually fixed Karesi giving you useless naval techs but not having access to docks. The first version of the scenario in Definitive Edition did have docks available from the start, which were removed at some point, for reasons presumably involving demolition ships and the shoals around your base. Except they didn't bother to change Karesis bonus techs after removing docks. The original version had a much slower start (in Feudal Age, instead of Castle Age), where you fight nomads and ally one of the turkish players via marriage. Then you have to destroy all the byzantine castles and kill the two remaining turkish players.
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Jul 12, 2023 18:07
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cncgnxcg posted:Also, I don't know if they ever actually fixed Karesi giving you useless naval techs but not having access to docks. The first version of the scenario in Definitive Edition did have docks available from the start, which were removed at some point, for reasons presumably involving demolition ships and the shoals around your base. Except they didn't bother to change Karesis bonus techs after removing docks. I was curious about this myself because I had heard the very same rumors, so I went back after my run and confirmed that yes, you can actually build Docks and war ships now, although the latter only if you ally with Karesi. I still think it's a suboptimal way to approach the scenario, but it is at least possible.
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Jul 13, 2023 03:43
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(On moderate) Allying with green on Bapheus can work pretty well; they're right on top of the byzantines and draw almost all their attention immediately, which also seems to attract yellow as well. Since cyan takes a long time to get rolling this makes defense fairly straightforward. They actually knocked out the second byzantine castle on their own in my recent replay. Maybe since any of the three can be your ally, they dont get the alliance lobotimization some scenarios use? Fun mission, the waves of free units and villagers keep things from getting too overwhelming In my experience taking out orange is more trouble than its worth, they seem to have some berserk scripting that kicks in as you get close to their base. Also moderate can get nasty if you let it go on too long, you may experience the horrifying sound of yellow unloading four trebuchets into your blocking castle while your attention was elsewhere The Chad Jihad fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Jul 13, 2023 |
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Jul 13, 2023 05:09
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Battles of the Forgotten: Lake Poyang Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Chinese Theme Starting Text "In the distance, wooden towers as tall as giants take shape in the dense morning fog that hovers over the vast Poyang lake. These wooden islands, each carrying two to three thousand men and horses, are tall enough to scale city walls. Their target is the Ming city of Nanchang. The Mongol Yuan dynasty is on the verge of collapse and Chinese warlords are eager to take its place. The Han want to make use of the fighting between their rivals, the Ming and the Wu, to launch a surprise attack on the Ming and seize the Jiangxi region from them. The Ming, however, are not prepared to surrender Nanchang so easily, and their army sails north to face the Han. The Ming general Zhu Yuanzhang is outnumbered, but he is determined to thwart the Han ambitions. After all, only one warlord can rule China."  Ming Sailor: We have almost reached Lake Poyang. Our shipments for the construction of the great temple in Nanchang will be here shortly as well. Local Fisherman: Watch out, Admiral! The enemy navy is blocking the passage ahead! Demolition Sailor: No worries, we will blast their ships into a million pieces!  This scenario (which is weirdly enough, very similar to its pre-DE counterpart, but they changed the name around and moved it forward several hundred years to reflect an entirely different battle) starts with you having a moderate size navy and a couple of troops/villagers on boats. You need to hurry to clear out the Han Navy blockade, as you have 25 minutes to clear the way for an incoming Transport, so it isn't destroyed by enemy ships or static defenses.   Approaching the shore gives you a Trebuchet, which you need to immediately shove onto the transports and move slightly forward so it can continue onwards to take out these Towers, clearing things up for your ships to keep moving along the coastline. You're also given a few Chu-Ko-Nus, which are mostly playing bodyguard/advanced scouts for the Trebuchet while it does its work. By running through this area you'll be given control of the local village Try to build up as much of an economy as possible so you can build more ships.  Eventually the two parts of your army will meet up in this shallows chokepoint guarded by a combined land/sea/static defense force stationed by the Han Navy. Defeating them gets your sailor to pipe up: Ming Sailor: It will take more than a few ships and towers to stop our great navy!   Ming Sailor: A transport ship with the finest lumber in the region has arrived in the bay. We must protect it at all costs so that it can reach the construction site safely! At this point it is imperative to go out into the open water and destroy as many Han Navy ships as you can before the timer runs out and the Transport Ship spawns. Once said Transport spawns, it will immediately start rushing for the temple site in the south/southeastern part of the map, independent of whatever is in the way. Failure to clear out enough of the ships means that they will inevitably destroy it, causing you to immediately fail the mission.  Ming Sailor: The first shipment has arrived. We must make haste and clear a way for the next shipment!  Ming Sailor: The Nanchang garrison has turned over the city to us. Let us make sure that the temple construction site is secure. With the delivery of the first shipment, you gain control of Nanchang and the rest of the scenario gets much easier. However, the remaining shipments will all show up in faster increments of 15 minutes, rather than the 25 minutes that the first shipment did.  Also, you have additional opponents and a bunch of Han Navy/Admiral Chen ships spawn in each time so you don't get complacent, even if you had previously managed to wipe out everything along a patrol route. Admiral Chen is the biggest threat of these newly relevant forces - he's another competent water-bound opponent, who also has a proper set of bases and numerous outposts throughout the map.  Chinese Pirate: The only god we worship is the god of wealth. Pay us 2,000 gold and we will attack the Han for you. (after paying them 2000 gold) Ha! Such shiny gold can truly make a pirate's heart beat faster. Very well. We will sink the Han ships for you! These Pirates are annoying but can be bribed to switch sides and will serve as a distraction for the enemy forces and occasionally sink some ships. Mostly you want them out of the way so they don't waste your time/risk sinking one of the shipments.  Finally, the Han Army will attack you by land, but I found that the preexisting static defenses and troops you are given are more than enough to deal with them. Maybe build a Castle in their way later, just in case.  After destroying a number of Han static defenses, Admiral Chen's outlying docks, and a whole bunch of each of their ships, I secure a route for the transport for its next run. The run order is always West (the direction you came from), Northeast (near Admiral Chen's outlying bases), Northwest (on the outskirts of Admiral Chen's main northern base), East (near the Pirates), and Southwest (near a Han Army fortress).   Trying to pick at Admiral Chen's main bases can be useful for weakening him further, but in practice there's only so much damage you can do as he has super-towers that make wrecking them in full very difficult.  After the third shipment completed or so, Admiral Chen will start trying to go on the offense. It's not a serious threat, but it means you have more places that you need to be splitting your attention, and trying to juggle everything at once is the difficult part of this segment.  Other things of note for this segment: - There's a Chinese Peasants town to the east so you can trade even if you run out of gold piles. - There's a Chinese Peasants town all the way to the north that can provide you with Dragon Ships if you tribute them gold, which are kind of like improved Fast Fire Ships. Getting twenty of these gets you an achievement. I didn't really value getting these that highly because with everything going on, I wanted the superior range on Galleons. - The Han Navy will attack your original base at some point. It can be warded off, but I chose to let it get destroyed in order to centralize my focus on what I needed to defend.  The last Transport ship is notable because there are a lot of static defenses that can potentially threaten it, including these fortifications from the Han Army. Cannon Galleons are a good way of taking them out.  Ming Sailor: We have all of the building materials required to construct the temple.  Admiral Chen: So, you think that you can build a temple while we stand idle? Think again! Ming Sailor: Enemy troops are trying to land in Nanchang!   With all of the materials delivered, control of the Wonder build site switches to you and you are tasked with completing the Wonder before one of the other factions has a chance to destroy it. Admiral Chen and the Han Army in particular get very aggressive here, but are only able to land a few troops at the outskirts where they're either shot to pieces by Castles or harmlessly shunted off in another direction.  Ming Sailor: The temple is built! We have acquired the divine favor of the gods and the Han will submit to Ming rule! Complete the Wonder and the scenario immediately ends. Ending Text "Although vastly outnumbered by the large Han tower ships, the smaller and more maneuverable Ming vessels were better suited for the shallow water. During the second night of the battle, the Ming launched a surprise attack with fire ships, which devastated many of the Han ships. Thousands of Han soldiers drowned or burned alive. The Ming victory secured their position as the strongest faction in China. In time, they conquered the Middle Kingdom, ending a century of Mongol domination. The new dynasty ruled China for nearly three centuries, ushering in a great age of prosperity and stability." This scenario has a competent naval mission, but it's also exhausting in how you have to maintain complete battlefield awareness at all times or else you get an instant game over. Can definitely understand why one or two people said that they hated this one. Extra Slides Intro Slide 1 Intro Slide 2 Intro Slide 3 End Slide 1 End Slide 2 Jossar fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Jul 15, 2023 |
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Jul 15, 2023 06:32
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Campaign Vote #15 A. Sforza - Italians B. Tariq ibn Ziyad - Berbers C. Sundjata - Malians D. Francisco de Almeida - Portuguese E. Yodit - Ethiopians 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.
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Jul 15, 2023 06:34
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One last Forgotten campaign to go, Sforza
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Jul 15, 2023 11:39
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Lets go with Sforza next. Well done beating Lake Poyang legitimately, it really left a bitter taste when I played it. I tried to play it legit at least a dozen times, but never got close to a win so I gave up and resorted to cheesing it. It has infinite resource unit spam, Han Army land units just spawn in the middle of the wood line just west of the wonder instead of being trained (Admiral Chen at least has the courtesy to pretend to play legit and uses transports), and a strict time limit against a 550 unit Han Navy. Just awful.
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Jul 15, 2023 13:21
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biscuits and crazy posted:Lets go with Sforza next. I think in this case I got lucky because the big "murder everything" army spawned by the Han Army got distracted trying to take out my Western base and never made it back to the front lines, so all I got was Light Cav and Chu-Ko-Nu spam which got mowed down by a Castle outside my Western gates. Putting a wood line to the west is probably a bad idea though, if you've made peace with the Pirates, the east is pretty much entirely safe right up until the very end when Admiral Chen's landing transports, and doesn't risk any raids from the Han Army.
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Jul 15, 2023 14:00
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A, Sforza time.
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Jul 15, 2023 14:06
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B. Tariq ibn Zayid
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Jul 15, 2023 14:13
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B. Tariq ibn Zayid
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Jul 15, 2023 17:01
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B
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Jul 15, 2023 17:51
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Vote's closed! With a perfectly balanced set of votes, I'll cast the tiebreaker in favor of finishing off the Forgotten campaigns. It's a mercenary's life for us then, with Sforza.
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Jul 16, 2023 12:58
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Sforza - Part 1: Mercenaries and Masters Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Italians Theme Very well, then let us begin, the tale of the soldier of many fortunes.   Mission 1 Starting Text "So, you want to know about Sforza? I will tell you about Francesco Sforza. Sforza was like me. We were condottieri - 'contract men.' When the Italian princes were too rich or too cowardly to get their hands dirty, they paid us. We fought because they paid us to fight. We stole because they paid us to steal. And when they did not pay, we made sure someone did. We sold ourselves to the highest bidder, and if another prince came with a bigger purse, we did not hesitate to change sides. Honor was cheaper than silver, but for Sforza... Sforza was different. He was in it for his own glory. That is why he took the Visconti contract. He wanted to make a name for himself - to be more than the bastard son of a dead mercenary. He needed a patron: an ambitious prince with many enemies and more gold than friends. Filippo Visconti, the Duke of Milan, was the obvious choice. Visconti had all the ambitions of Caesar, but none of the courage. He was craven and paranoid, but at least he paid - well, most of the time. And whether his ambitions meant war with Florence or with Venice, Visconti always needed contract men. That is why he hired condottieri like Sforza and Niccolo Piccinino - hungry men looking to make a name for themselves."  Micheletto: Only a fool would die here for a few coins! Come, men! Let us fight our way out of the city to reach my cousin, Francesco!  Micheletto: Through the gates, men! Do not let the Venetian sewer rats make Brescia your grave! You start the mission in control of a few Cavaliers, Condottieri, and Hand Cannoneers in the middle of the town of Brescia. The Venetians have captured the town and you have to make a break for it. The first few enemy troops stand directly in your way and have to be engaged, but after that it's best to run directly for the gates to trigger the next phase of the scenario.  Micheletto: Cousin, the Venetians have taken Brescia! We will not get paid unless we retake the city. But beware of that bastardo, Carmagnola. He will attack us!  Piccinino: Sforza, you scoundrel! I know your cousin abandoned Brescia to the Venetian dogs! No bother. More gold and glory for me. Do not get in my way. Once you make it out of the city, you head down south to Sforza's military camp, complete with the man himself in command (infantry based Hero unit). You're introduced to your nominal ally in Visconti's service, Piccinino, who's really more of an ally of convenience who scouts the map for you and might be inclined to attack the enemies if he feels like it. He did not feel like it in this playthrough.  Visconti: You are failing Sforza! I shouldn't pay you, but take it. Do not disappoint me. I will have Piccinino stab you in your sleep if you fail me again! Speaking of which, here's our boss. As a mercenary, Sforza refuses to do anything so pedestrian as "have an economy", your troop production capacity is entirely based on tributes you get from Visconti and maybe some additional units/buildings converted by Monks if you really feel like it. Visconti will continuously complain about your uselessness the whole mission, but he will pay you. Mostly. For this mission I will be throwing out a combination of Hand Cannoneers, Condottieri, and Cavaliers. Probably should have swapped the Hand Cannoneers out for Arbalesters just to have something to do with all that wood instead of selling it at the market, oh well.  Visconti: Take your payment, now show that you deserve it!  The biggest threat on this mission is the enemy mercenary captain Carmagnola. An early rush takes him out no problem and makes the rest of the mission a breeze. However, soon afterwards... Visconti: There seems to be a bookkeeping error. You will not get your next payment. You are a savvy condottiero. Figure it out. Approximately every 18 minutes or so, Visconti has a "bookkeeping error" that temporarily stops the flow of tribute.  Piccinino: Visconti is an ungrateful fat dog, isn't he? I recommend you sack the local markets for resources. No one became rich by being honest... Visconti: You are a contemptible one, Sforza. Not even the innocent townsfolk are spared your hunger for gold. The intended solution to this is sacking the local, defenseless Markets owned by the neutral Lombard player in order to keep some kind of resources flowing in. At least until... Visconti: I fired my accountant and fixed the error myself. You will get your next payment, but no arrears! Visconti gets nervous that you're just going to quit the campaign and reinstates payments. I love the storytelling in this scenario. Everybody's a bastard - you'll do whatever it takes to win, Piccinino hates your guts, but is also willing to give you advice... so he can stick it to Visconti and feel better about himself by bringing you down to his level, and Visconti keeps trying to claim the moral high ground while ultimately being the one responsible for you sacking the countryside in the first place.  The Florentines are a secondary enemy that if left alone can become a threat, but otherwise aren't too much trouble if hit hard and fast in the absence of Carmagnola.   Micheletto: Maria Vergine! We have done it, Francesco! But watch yourself, my cousin... with every victory, others grow jealous! With all the offensive threats neutralized, all that's left to do is to break down Brescia's gates and kill all of the Venetians inside to win the scenario. Mission 1 Ending Text "Visconti distrusted and hated us, but I do not blame him; his own brother was murdered by a condottiero on the steps of a church. Visconti saw Sforza's successes as a threat and plotted to have him killed. But instead of running to safety, Sforza confronted the duke directly. To our surprise, Visconti was so impressed by this boldness that he dismissed the charges against Sforza and betrothed the soldier to his daughter Bianca. This made Sforza the duke's heir. I will say this about Sforza: he was a scoundrel, but he was no coward. And his courage was always repaid." Full of character, but not interesting as an actual playing experience. I get the feeling that's going to be the case for at least a couple of the scenarios in this campaign. It's just so easy to effortlessly crush the map really quickly, and that's without doing things like using the starting allied Castle to kill all the Venetians in the initial phase or rushing Brescia with a bunch of units right after you get Sforza's base. 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 - Intro Slide 6 Mission 1 - End Slide 1 Mission 1 - End Slide 2 Mission 1 - End Slide 3 Jossar fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Jul 16, 2023 |
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Jul 16, 2023 21:07
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