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 Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Main Theme Introduction Age of Empires II, originally subtitled "The Age of Kings", is a Real Time Strategy game originally developed in 1999 by Ensemble Studios as the sequel to the highly successful Age of Empires. Instead of being set at the dawn of civilization, you play a bunch of civilizations/cultures from all over the world between what the Europeans would classify as the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, locked in scenarios of economic development and combat. AoEII did really well for itself and became a staple of the RTS genre, but sort of fell by the wayside for newer games or ones with more comprehensive competitive scenes, though it always retained something of a strong cult following, even as official multiplayer networks floundered and people started moving to informal network gaming services. Fast forward to 2013. Hidden Path Entertainment, coming off of successfully releasing Counter Strike: Global Offensive and having one of the original AoEII's lead developers in its company lineup, says it's going to remake Age of Empires II as the "HD Edition". It releases to mixed reviews - the general opinion is that nothing was really done to improve the game beyond giving it a new coat of paint. New players find the lack of modern quality of life improvements stifling, old ones hate that the that they're being forced to buy the game again for no reason and that the competitive scene community now has to choose whether to stay on their external networks or migrate to Steam. But enough interest was generated in the idea of an HD remake that Microsoft decided to step in and promise to redo the whole series, "done right" this time. Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition was released in 2019, to mark an even 20 year anniversary of the game, and this time has been regarded as the remaster of AoEII that people actually wanted. The game's in as good a state as it has ever been, and is being maintained on a continual basis with balance tweaks and miniature expansion packs coming out every few months. How This Will Work Alright, let's start with one thing up front: I am not a very good AoEII player. Part of the goal of this Let's Play is as much to motivate me to become a better player, as much as anything else. For this reason, this will be a screenshot Let's Play covering the highlights of scenarios so you don't get bored to tears while I mess around for an hour trying to get things done. The goal is to show off all of the campaigns and one-off scenarios that come with the game on Standard difficulty. I might be encouraged to do stuff from the Steam Workshop/Standard Multiplayer/Alternate Mode Multiplayer/those random scenarios that were hidden in the 1999 version but you had to manually dig them out, but that's all subject to personal discretion and how well this Let's Play goes in general. I will be completing the William Wallace tutorial campaign and then opening up the floor for people to vote on what my next campaign would be, subject to a few limitations. For instance, I'm going to try and have the first couple of votes limit themselves to campaigns that came with the original Age of Kings and its first expansion: Age of Conquerors so people can get a feel on how the old game was structured before going more freeform. (I also don't own any of the expansions to start with, but I will buy them all before we're done here. They're each only  a piece off-sale anyway.)Spoiler/Historical Discussion Policy Okay, look. Even moreso than Empire Earth, which got a bit wacky about this, reading a history book is going to spoil the game. Don't go out of your way to intentionally spoil the current plotline's narrative climax, but I can't really condemn half a page to black lines because I'm worried that talking about the Austrians in one scenario gives away the game for the Ottomans in another. Likewise, you are free to talk about history, but keep it civil. If I see people restarting the Crusades in the thread while discussing the Crusades in the thread, I am going to shut things down until the next update. Jossar fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Mar 26, 2023 |
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Mar 26, 2023 15:54
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Learning Campaign - William Wallace - Part 1: Marching and Fighting Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Celtic Theme Very well, then let us begin, the tale at the beginning.  There are a lot of campaigns in Age of Empires II. A lot. Some have more scenarios than others, but they average out at around 5-6, and there's 11 campaigns here just in Europe alone, though it is the most populated continent compared to the others. A bronze checkmark here means that I have previously beaten the campaign completely on Standard, the easiest difficulty setting. Just so you know what I've already gone through and what will be at least slightly new to me.  The tutorial campaign, set in Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence is divided into 7 scenarios. The first couple of scenarios are just basic explanations on how to play the game, but by the time you get to scenario 5, you're basically playing a slightly easier version of a full-scale campaign. It's also a bit more Braveheart than the real thing, right down to the old version of the narrator, who has been toned down a bit for the Definitive Edition.  Starting Text Each scenario comes with a neatly illustrated set of slideshow cutscenes to explain the narrative/historical basis of what you're about to do. I'll post them as links at the end so as not to eat up posts, but will include the dialogue under the starter slide. "We are without a leader. The dead king of Scotland has no heir. War creeps in from the south, where Edward Longshanks, the avaricious King of England, has returned from successful campaigns in Wales and France. As Longshanks turns his attention to Scotland, the shadow of fear settles across the Highlands. The English have thousands of Welsh longbowmen, hundreds of knights on horseback, and dozens of siege weapons. We Scottish have a rabble of untrained soldiers who do not even know how to march in a straight line. We must act soon. If we are to have any chance of resistance, we need to forge an army by any means necessary."  Here's the start screen to every mission. The Objectives screen gives you your scenario goals, which will periodically update. The Hints screen gives a few tips related to the mission, and the Scouts screen usually gives you a rough description of where the various factions are placed and what their signature force composition is going to be. I will skip showing this off for the rest of the tutorial campaign as things are relatively straightforward.  Standard RTS gameplay that we might as well get out of the way - left click on units to select them, right click to have them move.  Fog of War exists in two forms - entirely blank area that you know nothing about depicted as an inky-blackness, and area that you know the rough composition of but don't know its current status because you do not have current line of sight.  Click in a square around units to select all of them at once, and move them all. Units move at the speed of the slowest unit selected, so if you wanted that Knight to run off ahead, you'd have to let him go off on his own.    You are tasked with destroying an English outpost, then returning back to your home village, only to have to defend it against an onrush of English militia who are annoyed that you destroyed their outpost. Killing the enemy militia ends the scenario. It's a tutorial scenario, so of course it's going to be fairly simplistic, but I do love the little atmospheric touches like the game letting you bask in your cozy little your village for a few seconds before the counterattack.   Going to take this opportunity to show off the victory/statistics screens this first time around. The game lets you review how you did in-depth on a variety of screens, which is admittedly more useful for figuring how things shaped up during a Random Map game. Stars indicate you did the best in a particular category, the crown shows that you were on the winning team, and the ribbon shows that you were your team's MVP (in a significant, notable way). I will probably skip statistics for the future unless there's something very noteworthy that pops up. There's also usually a slideshow cutscene after the mission. I will usually just post the text for that one, and otherwise include its slides with the others: Ending Text "Scotland has soldiers now, if only a few. But if we are to turn back the greed of Edward Longshanks, we will need many more recruits, and much more gold in our coffers. These ancient stones and oaks around us will soon be drenched with the blood of clansmen." I'll try to get the tutorial campaign out of the way rather quickly so we can move on to things that aren't just "press button to move unit" soon enough. Extra Slides Intro Slide 1 Intro Slide 2 Intro Slide 3 End Slide 1 End Slide 2 Jossar fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Apr 29, 2023 |
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Mar 26, 2023 17:20
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I don't think using timg tags is a good idea here, you're basically forcing each reader to click on every single picture if they want to see anything.
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Mar 26, 2023 17:50
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Fixed. Apparently I did three whole Let's Plays without knowing how to convert regular images into ones that wouldn't break image scaling before this. They really do let anybody post on the internet! 
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Mar 26, 2023 18:40
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I spent so many hours playing the original release back in high school. I played mostly the random maps and occasional PvP, usually some custom map type where there was a forest separating the enemy sides so you couldn’t rush the opposition in the early game (forget the term, started with an M?) because I’m a huge piece of chicken poo poo. I had no idea they came out with another edition after the 2013 one. I'll have to check it out.
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Mar 26, 2023 22:08
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coop52 posted:I spent so many hours playing the original release back in high school. I played mostly the random maps and occasional PvP, usually some custom map type where there was a forest separating the enemy sides so you couldn’t rush the opposition in the early game (forget the term, started with an M?) because I’m a huge piece of chicken poo poo. I had no idea they came out with another edition after the 2013 one. I'll have to check it out. Neat. Looking it up on the wiki, I think the map you're talking about is called Michi and it now comes with Definitive Edition (edit: I'm not sure if it's in by default or was added only to the Lords of the West pool though). Learning Campaign - William Wallace - Parts 2-4: Feeding the Army, Training the Troops, Research and Technology Yeah, the rest of the early tutorial missions are pretty much complete nothings. Let's just get them all out of the way in one post. Mission 2 Starting Text "An army marches on its stomach, or so the old saying goes. My clansmen have been farming and tending sheep for hundreds of years... but gathering enough food to feed an army is a different matter entirely. Without a strong economy, the meager forces that we have cobbled together will collapse again."  The goal is to get 50 of each resource except Stone, simple enough. Here is a Villager, your basic resource gathering and building unit, standing next to a Town Center, your basic resource dropoff point and production center for more Villagers. The Town Center is surrounded by a couple of trees, which provide Wood and has a berry patch to the southwest which provides Food. In the Definitive Edition, it's a little bit easier to see at a glance how many resources are left in several of these resource piles just by hovering over them. Villagers gather resources until they're full, and bring them back to a dropoff point, unless you personally tell them to haul everything back ASAP.   After your first couple of berry harvests, which you can track in the upper left corner of the screen, the game gives you a couple more villagers to speed up the rest of the process. The only thing that isn't immediately obvious is where the gold mine is, but it's just a little bit to the southeast of the town center off in the Fog of War. Finish gathering 50 of each of these resources and the scenario ends. Mission 2 Ending Text "Edward Longshanks, for all his disrepute, has shown his military tactics in Wales, England, and France to be very effective, if not cruel and ruthless. He is indeed an enemy to be feared. The English sacked the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. With that I could call it a battle, but it was truly more of a massacre. Unless we organize our army, there will be more massacres to follow. I pray that we can be ready for when Longshanks comes." Mission 3 Starting Text "In villages throughout the Highlands, there is grim talk of skirmishes between Scotland and England. We lost the town of Dunbar last week. Scottish defenders broke ranks and fled. The English have an army that is larger and better trained. To compete with them, we are going to need new recruits to pick up spear, sword, and bow. We must transform these shepherds into soldiers."    The goal is to create 4 Militia units, or the lowest tier of Infantry. The game wants you to go to the Town Center to start creating additional villagers, which I do, but at the same time I also start building a Barracks, the main Infantry troop production facility. Construction goes faster the more villagers are working on a building, but of course, the more villagers that are doing that, the less you have to gather resources.  You can't skip the tutorial entirely though! I mean, you can if you kill off all but one of your villagers and produce 4 militia, but assuming that you are playing normally you will run into your population capacity limit. It's the number next to the stone, with the left number representing how many people you currently have and the right number representing your current population limit. This comes in two forms, the local limit that can be increased by constructing buildings such as Houses, Town Centers, and Castles, and a total potential limit which you cannot go over for an individual map no matter how many additional buildings you create.  Once you've solved the housing shortage, you have more than enough resources to create 4 Militia at the barracks and finish the scenario. Mission 3 Ending Text "Now that we have militias stationed across the border, the English have slowed their raids. But facing Longshanks' army will be another matter. The wicked English king has yet to bring his famous longbows to bear. Our militias can only get us so far. We are going to need more advanced weapons." Mission 4 Starting Text "Rumors creep from the south of a giant who leads the forces of Scotland, his great sword driving through earth, man, and horse alike. If this mythical knight can stall the English advance, it will give us time to develop the arms we need. Even now our smiths are forging swords, and fletchers are crafting arrows and crossbow bolts."  The goal is slightly more interesting this time, advance to the Feudal Age, upgrade your troops, and repel a more sizable English raid. The first goal is to have all of our villagers gather berries until we hit 500 food. This is fairly simple as there's a berry bush right next to all your villagers, along with a bunch of sheep. Herd animals are mobile sources of food that you can drag near resource points and kill for easier accessibility. This is just the tip of the iceberg of a large series of calculations that people have made regarding the Food economy, which can be summarized as: Unless you have a bunch of coastal fish nearby your start, the most efficient thing is to lure aggressive animals near your Town Center and kill/harvest them there until you have the Wood to setup a fishing economy or Farms, using Mills near other hunting sources/berries and herd animals as a stopgap measure. Once you get to the level where you need to worry about sustainable/long term Food solutions, Fishing is more cost efficient in terms of wood than Farming until the lategame, but you aren't always guaranteed water and there are enough asterisks involved depending on civilization and your preference for speed over efficiency to make your head explode. This generally reflects a tendency for the early game to be more micro-heavy than the late game.  While the villagers are working, the game also takes the opportunity to teach us about technology research in general. Definitive Edition also provides an additional little glow as a visual cue to show if your buildings are busy researching something or not. Loom is one of the early technologies that pretty much universally gets researched as quickly as you can at the Town Center to minimize potential casualties from enemy raiding. You would almost think it should be researched by default, but trying to figure out how to slot it in is sort of the game's way of getting you to think about how to manage the early game's action economy. This is more important if you're playing a Random Map game than in the campaigns, though never underestimate the damage that can be done by early raiding, especially if you're playing against mid-higher level AI.   Apart from 500 Food, the other prerequisite for teching up from the beginning age or Dark Age, to the Feudal Age, is having two buildings of your current era built that aren't Houses/Walls/the starting Town Center. The game has a Barracks already built offscreen, so all you need to do is build a Mill (a Food dropoff point and research facility) next to the berry bushes and you'll have everything you need to Age up, which is done at the Town Center.   During the Age transition, the English attack your town. This is probably meant to show off that you can keep working on stuff in the rest of your town even while the age up is happening, but I find something else to do with the time. I garrison all of my military units into my Town Center, which allows them to slowly heal up, and shows off that when garrisoned, the Town Center gains a ranged attack versus enemies. The normal use case for this is to have your villagers to run into the town center during raids so that they aren't killed and can help your military fend off a small-scale enemy attack.  The Feudal Age upgrade completes, also cosmetically altering all of your buildings and making it look like you live in an actual town rather than a glorified hunting/military camp. This grants you access to additional buildings, units, and researches.  Like so - going back to the Barracks allows you to upgrade your Militia units into Men-at-Arms.  With the upgrade complete, the English send in a Knight and some Militia which are easy to trounce, ending the scenario. Mission 4 Ending Text "Longshanks has invaded, stormed, and sacked the city of Perth. Worse, he has captured the fabled Stone of Scone and declared himself King of Scotland. If we cannot bring about a victory in battle soon, the Scottish armies will be too demoralized to put up any fight at all. If this mythical Scottish giant does exist, I wish that he would bring up his forces to Stirling, where we shall next do battle." Next update, we finally turn things around. Both in terms of there being the start of actual gameplay and the Scottish army not immediately collapsing into cutscene defeats no matter how well we upgrade our units. Extra Slides Mission 2 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 2 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 2 - End Slide 1 Mission 2 - End Slide 2 Mission 3 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 3 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 3 - End Slide 1 Mission 3 - End Slide 2 Mission 4 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 4 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 4 - End Slide 1 Mission 4 - End Slide 2 Jossar fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Apr 10, 2023 |
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Mar 26, 2023 22:43
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My lasting memory of the AoE2 campaigns is that La Hire wishes to kill something. Awesome game regardless, there's an alternate history where I have a slightly better grasp of the internet in 2000 (or slightly better internet at home) and I become an RTS person thanks to this and Starcraft.
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Mar 26, 2023 23:20
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I will pedantly raise my finger and push my greasy glasses up my nose and point out that like many pieces of media this game is deeply unfair to the dark ages which are mostly an age (much like the Greek dark age) of lack of documentation and not an age of living in dung themed trash fire. But it was definitely less pleasant to live in than the late Roman Empire, although serfs definitely had preferable living conditions compared to slaves, as a whole technology, and by this I mean the large scale organization, means both financial and manpower, and trade networks necessary, took a step back, while its purely intellectual knowledge didn't really slide back all that much, and of course there was technological progress in other areas. Also let's get the evil faction out of the way first, I'm sure there's an English campaign around the place somewhere.
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Mar 27, 2023 05:18
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It's kind of funny how this game has had expansions coming out up until... right now. Jeeze, they're still about to release a new expansion?
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Mar 27, 2023 06:37
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AoE2 Definitive is an absurdly gigantic game, yes. I haven't gotten any of the expansions for it though, I don't think. It's only gotten bigger! I wonder if the new expansion will finally make it so every civ has single player content? As of Khans/the release of Definitive, everyone at least had a single map in the Conqueror's scenarios, with the sole exception of Lithuania for some reason. E: since 1999, AoE has gotten: The Conquerors, The Forgotten, The African Kingdoms, Rise of the Rajas, The Last Khans, Lords of the West, Dawn of the Dukes, and Dynasties of India. 8 expansions! That's a video game with LEGS. E: oh also Return of Rome, which is apparently them putting AoE1 stuff in 2. 9! Rody One Half fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Mar 27, 2023 |
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Mar 27, 2023 08:29
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this game literally taught the child me important lessons in moral relativism. despite the french being the good guys in the french campaign, they're bad guys in the saracen campaign. how do you square this?! it was difficult for a young (and very stupid) me.
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Mar 27, 2023 10:32
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V. Illych L. posted:this game literally taught the child me important lessons in moral relativism. despite the french being the good guys in the french campaign, they're bad guys in the saracen campaign. how do you square this?! it was difficult for a young (and very stupid) me.
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Mar 27, 2023 10:51
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anilEhilated posted:Good thing the Britons are pure evil. yes, that was another important lesson: the english are next to satan
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Mar 27, 2023 10:54
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Rody One Half posted:AoE2 Definitive is an absurdly gigantic game, yes. I haven't gotten any of the expansions for it though, I don't think. It's only gotten bigger! Does AOE2 DE contain all the stuff from the 2013 HD's expansions?
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Mar 27, 2023 12:58
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tithin posted:Does AOE2 DE contain all the stuff from the 2013 HD's expansions? "Definitive Edition Main article: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition On August 21, 2017, at Gamescom, Microsoft announced a remaster titled Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition was in development by Forgotten Empires, Tantalus Media, and Wicked Witch Software.[96] On June 9, 2019, Microsoft revealed the gameplay trailer at Xbox E3 2019. The game includes all content from the previous editions and expansions, as well as four new civilizations (Bulgarians, Cumans, Lithuanians, and Tatars), additional campaign missions (Ivaylo, Kotyan Khan, Pachacuti, and Tamerlane), and new 4K graphics. It was released via Xbox Game Pass for PC, the Microsoft Store, and Steam on November 14, 2019.[97]"
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Mar 27, 2023 13:36
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Thanks! The steam store page has surprisingly little info on its contents
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Mar 27, 2023 13:38
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Rody One Half posted:E: oh also Return of Rome, which is apparently them putting AoE1 stuff in 2. 9! I secretly like AoE1 more than 2 so this is good to hear, thanks!
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Mar 27, 2023 13:39
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tithin posted:Thanks! The steam store page has surprisingly little info on its contents Yeah I thought there'd be a more complete explanation on the steam page... I owned the HD edition, and all I remember caring for was the new campaigns. C-Euro posted:I secretly like AoE1 more than 2 so this is good to hear, thanks! AoE1 had the better priests/monks. Once they brought the audio files to AoE2, it was over, a clear winner had emerged.
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Mar 27, 2023 13:47
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Way back when I first played this campaign I was so bad I was terrified and even struggled at one mission. But I managed to beat it! Jobbo_Fett posted:AoE1 had the better priests/monks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c_FyTLdfgA Poil fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Mar 27, 2023 |
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Mar 27, 2023 22:29
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Well this sure blew up overnight. Always glad to introduce/reintroduce AoE2 to people, especially in its modern form. Learning Campaign - William Wallace - Part 5: The Battle of Stirling Mission 5 Starting Text "The time for minor skirmishes is over. We now prepare for war. The villain, Longshanks, is poised to cross the River Forth and threaten the town of Stirling with a force of men-at-arms, heavy cavalry, and a multitude of archers. Our newly forged army marches southward to establish our own base and attack the English before they can ready their troops."  Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Shamburger So yeah, this is the first scenario that sort of resembles a real game. You have the standard opening of 3 Villagers, a Town Center, and a Scout Cavalry. The English/Britons are somewhere on the map, find them and destroy their Tower. As such, I try to play it like a Random Map game, although I'm still getting back into the rhythm of things and don't play it perfectly.  Always make sure to get your Scout Cav out and exploring around your base, this can usually net you a few Sheep. The Scout also discovers a Stone pile, though for this mission it isn't going to be of much use.  Of greater importance are these Gold piles to the west of town. The game recommends building a Watch Tower on top of the hill just overlooking the gold piles, but one tower by itself isn't really too useful for holding the English off.  The biggest priority is getting the economy going. I wasn't able to find a Boar quickly and the game gives you plenty of Wood to start, so I just focus on getting a Dock and a Barracks up so I can set some Fishing Ships and rush researching the Feudal Age. By the way, this is also a good opportunity to notice that Definitive Edition tells you how many units are currently working on each resource, it's next to the resource icon.   Speaking of rushes, the English send a bunch of Militia at you fairly early on. The game recommends you using your Town Center to fend them off, but the enemy Militia are much more interested in taking down my Barracks. Fortunately, a little bit of kiting with a Militia of my own is enough to get the English Militia into the line of fire.  With the English rush defeated, I am free to finish teching up to Feudal, claim the gold piles, and start building up some troops. Here you can also see Supplies, a Feudal Age Research that reduces the Food cost of troops in the Militia line that was introduced in the Definitive Edition to make them a more viable pick in mid-late game fights.  The English base is off to the west. It is lightly defended in terms of static fortifications, with only a few wooden walls, but there's enough troops inside that you don't want to attack it until you have a double digit number of soldiers like the game recommends.  Simultaneously with training more troops, I build a Blacksmith, a Feudal Age Research building, so I can get some increases in Melee unit armor and attack before my army gets to the English fort.    Break through the walls, a wave of Men-At-Arms, and a wave of Archers and you're free to whale on the Tower until it crumbles. Literally! Another new change in the Definitive Edition is that instead of buildings immediately collapsing once they hit 0 HP, they now cinematically crumble to the ground. A nice little touch. Mission 5 Ending Text "Stirling was our first great victory. Even as we held the coastline, word arrived that Stirling Bridge had been held by a force of Scots led by the mythical knight of whom so many have spoken. Now we know his name: Sir William Wallace, the bane of the English. Edward Longshanks names Wallace a traitor and a criminal. Sir William replies that he cannot be a traitor, for he never swore fealty to an English king. With Wallace leading our armies, the men fight with renewed vigor. Perhaps the tide of our misfortunes is about to turn..." The game has traditionally considered this to be the end of the "Beginner's Tutorial" and says that you now know enough to play a Random Map game. Realistically, unless you're playing against a low level AI or are a very hands-on learner, you really do want to get through the next two missions to learn the additional features and how combat plays beyond the Feudal Age. Extra Slides Mission 5 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 5 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 5 - Intro Slide 3 Mission 5 - End Slide 1 Mission 5 - End Slide 2 Mission 5 - End Slide 3 Mission 5 - End Slide 4 Jossar fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Mar 28, 2023 |
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Mar 27, 2023 23:43
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It's my first time looking at the track names for the music and some of those are quite surprising.
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Mar 28, 2023 03:00
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Yeah, there's a lot of "silly" or "out there" track names floating around, especially relative to how grandiose the music itself can get.
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Mar 28, 2023 03:53
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Learning Campaign - William Wallace - Part 6: Forge an Alliance Mission 6 Starting Text "Our coffers were depleted at the Battle of Stirling, so we need to strengthen our economy once again before pushing south into lands held by the English. We need to construct a market and establish trade routes to the villages of friendly clans. Local legends speak of three sacred relics hidden south of Stirling. Acquiring these artifacts for Wallace's army will be a great boost to Scottish morale."  This scenario tries to fill in several of the concepts that the game didn't have the chance to teach you about while getting your fundamentals up and running. The first of these are Monks and Relics. Monks are a unit that you can build in Monasteries, starting in the Castle Age (the game is cheating here). They are typically slow moving, but have the ability to heal your own units, convert enemy units, and pick up Relics that are strewn about the map. The Relic is that glowing tiered box just south of the monk.  Picking up the Relic has no immediate effects except for turning it your color, and making the Monk unable to use its other abilities unless you put down the Relic.  Get the Relic back to one of your Monasteries and you can garrison the Relic inside of the Monastery. Doing so starts generating passive gold income. Additionally, if you are on a Random Map game and have the appropriate victory condition unlocked, having all of the map's relics locked in your/your team's Monasteries starts a countdown timer which ends in victory for you/your team.  The second is that there are multiple unit types. The game has shown off a couple before, but has mostly been expecting you to beat up the English with the Militia line. Let's go into a little bit more depth on these units that we have here. Archers are Ranged units and they and most of the other Ranged units are built at the Archery Range (which can be built starting in the Feudal Age). They are generally good against Melee/Infantry units and are generally countered by Cavalry or Skirmishers (an Anti-Archer ranged unit). In practice they tend to have very little Armor of any kind, except what they are given through armor upgrades. Scout Cavalry is the most basic of the Cavalry units, which are built at the Stable (which can be built starting in the Feudal Age). They are generally good against some Ranged units and things that you have to chase down (Monks, against which they specifically have a Conversion resistance bonus, and Siege Weapons). They are generally countered by heavier Cavalry or Infantry, especially the Spearman line which has a bonus against them.Skirmishers (an Anti-Archer ranged unit). They have a small amount of Pierce Armor (which most Ranged and spear units use) but no melee armor (which most Cavalry and non-Spearman Infantry use), except what they are given through armor upgrades. They are also informally considered to be a Trash unit, one that can easily be spammed in the late game because they cost no Gold, which runs out faster than Food and Wood. Men-at-Arms are the Feudal Age upgrade of Militia, which are built at the Barracks, the only Dark Age era military production building. They are generally good at fighting Skirmishers/Scout Cavalry/Spearmen, which are collectively the general Trash units, but are countered by Archers/Siege and heavier Cavalry, although you don't see the last until Castle Age. They have a very small amount of Pierce armor, in fact originally it used to be 0, and no Melee armor, except what they are given through armor upgrades. They also have a small amount of bonus damage against buildings, but as you are going to see this is only really useful if you can mass them.  Third and finally, Markets. Markets allow players to trade resources that they have in excess for Gold, which can be used to buy other resources. Buying/Selling resources affects the global price of resources, although there are hard limits on crashing the market. There are also hard limits on raising prices, but it's a lot less likely you'll ever see those. The market also serves as the production and drop off point for Trade Carts, which make Gold when they arrive at another player's Market based on how far away the Cart had to travel, before returning to your own Market to dump off the Gold into your stockpile. This is the primary source of Gold in late game matches with multiple players. Finally, building a market allows you to tribute resources to an ally for a fee.   As you can see, the game gives us an allied player on this scenario. It used to be that you needed to build a Market before you could get allied Line of Sight, and I think the game is still playing buy those rules, but now you just get it automatically in Random Map. They're a welcome source of gold, although the scenario is fairly generous as is. More importantly though, their town is home to the second Relic.    The English are on the other side of the river and have Stone Walls and are in Castle Age. The game gives you the ability to tech up to the Castle Age here, and I probably should've done it, but I felt like being cheeky. I lure out the majority of the English forces to the river and mob them to death, with my Monks providing healing and converting the enemy's Knight for good measure.   Uncontested, I then break down the English Gate Wall. After sitting there for nearly two and a half minutes. Take heed because I will not be doing this during the actual campaigns unless the scenario conditions force me to - barring an army of dudes, if the enemy is at Stone Walls, you really want Castle Age and a Siege Workshop up before trying to break them down.     I could burn down the rest of the town, but since this scenario doesn't actually care about beating the English, I just raid the Relic spot and run back to the Monastery to obtain victory. Mission 6 Ending Text "With the three relics locked away in Scottish churches, men murmur that we are blessed by the heavens. Our army now stands a chance as we prepare for the final clash with the English. Scotland now has archers and knights of our own with which to meet Longshanks. We march south, to Falkirk, where we will join with the army of William Wallace and plan our combined attack upon the English castle." This one's very clearly just meant to show you the ropes on these other functions, but it's still more high octane than the early tutorials were. On to Falkirk! Extra Slides Mission 6 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 6 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 6 - Intro Slide 3 Mission 6 - End Slide 1 Mission 6 - End Slide 2 Mission 6 - End Slide 3 Jossar fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Mar 29, 2023 |
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Mar 29, 2023 01:32
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I always thought it was fun to do unnecessarily complicated poo poo on certain easy levels in the campaigns, like this or sterling. Sterling for example has a large, perfectly habitable island you can relocate to south of the English camp, and doing so completely breaks the simple tutorial AI so you can do whatever you want entirely unmolested.
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Mar 29, 2023 07:15
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Rody One Half posted:I always thought it was fun to do unnecessarily complicated poo poo on certain easy levels in the campaigns, like this or sterling. Sterling for example has a large, perfectly habitable island you can relocate to south of the English camp, and doing so completely breaks the simple tutorial AI so you can do whatever you want entirely unmolested.
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Mar 29, 2023 12:55
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It wasn't AoE2 for me unless the farms surrounded a windmill. My biggest annoyance there was always one square gap because the farms were a bit too big for the windmill itself.
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Mar 29, 2023 13:31
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I actually checked, and though I don't own the India expansion, I do have Dukes, which introduces Lithuania single player content, so unless there's a left behind civ in Dukes or India, AoE2 actually does have campaign maps for every single civ now!
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Mar 29, 2023 16:37
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Are you going to show off all the standalone missions from the Conquerors expansion?
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Mar 29, 2023 17:24
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Cooked Auto posted:It wasn't AoE2 for me unless the farms surrounded a windmill. You'll be a fan of the Poles, then, who have a slightly larger unique mill that doesn't have that issue and a bonus for putting farms around it.
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Mar 29, 2023 18:00
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Sadly I don't have any DLC for the Enhanced version. But neat either way.
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Mar 29, 2023 18:10
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Man, I should really get back to finishing the campaigns.
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Mar 29, 2023 20:23
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oh man, goonspeed! i know there's been a few attempts at AoE and AoE2 that haven't gotten too far. one of my favourite games of all time, but so, so, so massive. i am shocked and terrified at the prospect of a Return to Rome expansion being released and destroying even more of my freetime. i love playing AoE2's campaigns. a lot...  my top two most played steam games lol
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Mar 30, 2023 00:58
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Learning Campaign - William Wallace - Part 7: The Battle of Falkirk Mission 7 Starting Text "The only way that we can hold the boggy lowlands around Falkirk is to build a castle and as many walls as we can construct in a short time. These fortifications will serve to protect our camp as we construct siege weapons with which to assault the English castle. Once the castle is constructed, Wallace himself has sworn to join our forces. Together we will attack Longshanks and his English troops."  Welcome to the final mission of the tutorial campaign! While the AI doesn't quite have its training wheels off yet, it's finally off the leash and willing to take a proactive role and bring the fight to you. Therefore, speed is of the essence. The first thing I do after getting Villagers on resources is tech up to the Castle Age.   Case in point, here's the English sending out a raiding party to destroy one of my forward Outposts and even trying to sneak one of their Unique Units, the Longbowman, into my base to start shooting villagers. The English will be constantly churning out troops, and while they initially prioritize destroying your Outposts, if you lose enough of them, they'll just start sending everything directly into the heart of your base.   Alright, it's the Castle Age and my first priority is to, well, build a Castle! They're very stone intensive but serve as a massive defensive roadblock between their huge HP and high attack power/multiple arrows. They also serve as the research point for a couple of technologies including your civilization specific ones and the build point for your civilization's Unique Unit. If I wasn't confident in my ability to destroy whatever the English were going to throw at me, I would have built a series of Stone Walls with the Castle inside the Walls. Fortunately this is unnecessary...   Because building the Castle spawns in William Wallace's forces, a whole bunch of Imperial Age troops. Wallace is a unique hero unit, who is functionally a super version of the Imperial age version of the Militia line, the Champion. In addition to just having more stats, he also heals himself and acts faster than a normal Champion would. Paladins are the final upgrade of the Heavy Cavalry line, which can be built at the Stable (but you can't even make their predecessor units until Castle Age). They are generally good against most units, except for their specific counters of the Spearman line , Camels, Elephants, and Monks, their main weakness being that they are fairly expensive. They have a decent amount of both types of armor. Galleons are the final evolution of the standard ship line, they're weak against Fire Ships and static defenses, but good against Cannon Galleons and Demolition Ships (unless they're caught out). These guys won't be of too much use in this mission, but they're nice to throw against enemy units randomly walking through water shallows. Transport Ships are exactly what they sound like, they exist to move land units across the water. Finally, there are Elite Woad Raiders, the upgraded version of the Celtic Unique Unit. They're kind of like if you took a Champion and made it beefier and a lot faster, but with less armor after all the upgrades were said and done. Faster spawn time too, but they have to be made at Castles rather than Barracks. They're not a one to one stand in, but you'll probably be using them a decent amount anyway, because the Celtic Light Cavalry isn't as great as it could be and you need something speedy and good as a generalist damage dealer.   Wallace's forces meet up with mine to mop up the slow English tide that's destroying the Outposts. Meanwhile, back at base, I build up a Siege Workshop and have it start cranking out Battering Rams. While Rams do have a place in absorbing arrow fire, their main role is to bring buildings down, and there's an English castle looking to have a few hammering away at it.  The English are sending off lines of Infantry, but they're easily mopped up at this point. Now what the game clearly wants you to do is go and attack the gate that all of these guys are pouring out of, but it's got a whole bunch of Towers next to it and is clearly a deathtrap.  So instead, I use the Transport Ships that Wallace brought to just ferry my army over directly into the heart of the English base. Much easier.   The English Castle is located on the top of a hill just behind the Town Center. If you don't try to make this a slog for yourself by going through the front door, then defeating the rest of the English army in your way and destroying the Castle is a breeze. Mission 7 Ending Text "It looked certain that we would be defeated at Falkirk. Yet somehow though outnumbered and outranged by English longbows, we were victorious. The English castle was torn down, and a Scottish one shall be built in its place. William Wallace has shown us the path to victory. Although he is but one man, he inspires great deeds in others. Many of the Scottish knights and lords have drawn their swords with his. Wallace's own sword is a five-and-a-half-foot beast, forged of course in Scotland. He has sworn not to rest until his sword finds the neck of Edward Longshanks. The struggle will continue, but we have learned the ways of war. Now it is the English who will know true fear." And that's the end of the William Wallace Campaign! The game used to say that it had nothing left to teach you and to go experiment on your own. Nowadays, the Definitive Edition comes with an additional set of Advanced Tutorials called the Art of War to teach you how to play the game efficiently, but since those are just the game quoting Sun Tzu at you and otherwise having minimal story content, I will not be doing them. VostokProgram posted:Are you going to show off all the standalone missions from the Conquerors expansion? I will be doing the Battles of the Conquerors/Forgotten though! Not all at once, I will probably just give you guys a vote option for doing a whole bunch of them at a time in the place of a single campaign. Speaking of which... Campaign Vote #1 It's time to vote on where to go from here. For this first vote, the options will be between the other 4 original Age of Kings Campaigns, to be broadened with the next vote. Joan of Arc's is typically considered to be the easiest of the four main campaigns, and for many will likely be the most nostalgic, but even the most difficult of these is still manageable (especially relative to some of the later expansions). A. Joan of Arc - Franks B. Saladin - Saracens C. Genghis Khan - Mongols D. Barbarossa - Teutons Voting lasts for 24 Hours from the time of this post, the winner being the option with the absolute greatest number of votes, independent of majority. 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. Extra Slides Mission 7 - Intro Slide 1 Mission 7 - Intro Slide 2 Mission 7 - Intro Slide 3 Mission 7 - End Slide 1 Mission 7 - End Slide 2 Mission 7 - End Slide 3 Mission 7 - End Slide 4 Mission 7 - End Slide 5 Jossar fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Mar 30, 2023 |
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Mar 30, 2023 01:42
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Sally posted:oh man, goonspeed! i know there's been a few attempts at AoE and AoE2 that haven't gotten too far. one of my favourite games of all time, but so, so, so massive. i am shocked and terrified at the prospect of a Return to Rome expansion being released and destroying even more of my freetime. i love playing AoE2's campaigns. Thanks! I'm pretty sure there was a complete AoE1 Let's Play on the forums, but it wasn't archived or placed on the Master List, so I have no idea where it went.
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Mar 30, 2023 01:52
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Interesting historical context! The scottish lost the battle of Falkirk, badly. Actually the historical background to most of this campaign is pretty much on that level, later ones get... better (?) about it. Anyway, better get A. outta the way. Dang french.
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Mar 30, 2023 01:52
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B: Saladin
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Mar 30, 2023 01:55
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NewMars posted:Interesting historical context! The scottish lost the battle of Falkirk, badly. there's a William Wallace campaign from the English's POV on one of the more recent DLCs. it is more... accurate.
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Mar 30, 2023 02:00
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C Go with the Great Khan.
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Mar 30, 2023 02:01
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The blood on La Hire's sword is almost dry!
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Mar 30, 2023 02:47
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