I wasn’t thinking pacifist (although I’m a big fan of T-West’s work), I just think if anybody knows how to make the campaigns challenging for Hera, then it’s him
So well-played! I am a campaigns only player, 59 years old. Don’t play often enough to have any real skill, but I’ve been enjoying AOE 1 and 2 since they first came out.
@@gamingminds7093 I have played a number of custom campaigns, including all the Vikings campaigns by Filthidelphia BEFORE they were part of Victors and Vanquished.
@@-shadow2407 bari super easy, u put 2 trebs to the frank castle while he's still friendly to you with your starter army. he changes sides, immediatly treb down the castle and boom ez win
@@joosttijsen3559 I wonder if I could've even done Bari 4 without that cheese tactic. Shit is STRESSFUL. With the cheese...It's sooo much more manageable.
bro I was literally asking myself today, "What would it take to get hera to play some campaign?" I've never clicked on a video so fast in my life Edit: would def love to see more campaigns. Try one of the new ones you haven't played before and soak in the excellent storytelling. Armenians and Georgians have really good campaigns
Genoese were Byzantines before Italians existed, regarding your question later in the video. I'd love to see some campaign content on this channel. The defensive strategy here is imo actually harder to pull of compared to going aggressive early on and taking out 2-3 enemies right away, so excellent work with that one :) If you're looking for some specific campaigns scenarios that are challenging and well designed on hard, here are some I'd recommend: Kotyan Khan 2 (The Battle at the Kalka River), Thoros 4 (Bloody Crestwaves - okay, you could argue about "well designed" for that one because it's in a one sword campaign, but it's definitely challenging), Rajendra 3 + 5 (Rising Star, Slaying the Vritra - some of the best macro missions in all campaigns) and Jadwiga 4 and 6 (The Siege of Vilnius, The Fruits of her Labor). The Jadwiga campaign in particular is often considered to be the best of all the campaigns by a majority of campaign fans (it's also worth playing just for the story, being propably the campaign with the best writing and storytelling, though one should propably play the Algirdas and Kestutis campaign first, because one of the characters from that one features heavily in both campaigns). I don't doubt that you can still propably beat each of these on your first try, but I think you'd have a decent amount of fun with them. If I could pick one I'd want to see you play the most, it would propably be Jadwiga 4 (The Siege of Vilnius) - not because it's the hardest, but because I think it has some of the best design elements.
mapie, I don't know how you could be simply wrong, the Genoese were inhabitants of the republic of genoa, completely different and separate from the Byzantines. both sides and parties which controlled different lands possessions with different backgrounds in history and upbringings.
@@AaronOmar-co8bn This is about what civilizations represented the Genoese in this scenario in-game before the italians were introduced with "The Forgotten" expansion. They were represented by the Byzantines, as I've mentioned. I wasn't making any statement about history.
@@n07ju57hum4n some scenarios I think are way too easy for a pro to have engaging content. Watching a 2800 cruise through an easy scenario Like Saladin 1 or Joan of arc 1 I think would be boring. But I think a lot of scenarios have some potential if he tries with some extra challenge. Ghengis khan 4 or Saladin 3 but you delete one of your camps at the start.
There’s an alternative strategy to just go out and defeat all the opponents. You should replay, start building a wonder, delete it, then try to defeat all the opponents And yes, I’d like more campaign stuff.
Yes, the hardest achievement in this map is to defeat all opponents. Not impossible, but I hate seeing my town getting blasted when I'm out hitting another.
@@silversrayliegh5924Build a forward castle as soon as game starts, towards north, where there is a massive gold and stone stockpile, and then start mining there. Put all your archers in that castle. Build fortified walls along all entrances to your base except the left most one, near the shore. This will make all enemies go all the way around and mostly to your forward castle. Build andmaintain a 15 mamaluke army. Upgrade to elite mamluke with blast furnace asap. Upgrade fortified wall asap. Then launch attacks northward with trebs and mamlukes asap. Get zeolotry next. You will defeat one enemy after another. Aim to eliminate the ship building galilee first.
I loved the “It’s been 15 years since I landed on an island with gold, west of here” nostalgia moment. If you loved the classic campaigns, you are gonna go crazy with the newest ones; they are a different game. I need more content like this @Hera. Thanks!
This was awesome to watch, Hera. I would love more of this. Exciting to see a pro player play the harder AI maps. And you shaming the teal 'player' was hilarious. I had a pretty hard laugh on that... "Teal is costing u guys the game btw" 🤣🤣
Your love for this game is so contagious ❤ I haven't tried it yet myself, but since there is now the option to co-op campaign, maybe you could team up with your brother, or maybe Daut? That could be great fun to!
Oh and campaign content is always welcome. Might want to go for some of the achievements? They can be quite hard, even on lower difficulties. I tried "I Was in China Before" for about three hours on Standard/Easy. When I literrally issed on villager that started to construct the wonder with my army right next to him, it broke me. Or "No Wonder on my Watch", which constantly forced my to changed my battle plans...
I was always just campaigns for the last 25 years up until the last 2-3 months I finally started doing some ranked games with a friend (thanks partly to you and general excitement from watching tournaments). I absolutely love the campaigns!
What you said about how AoE2 has something for every kind of player is so true. Nowadays I mostly watch competitive multiplayer games, but back in the day the strongest draw for me was the game's insanely robust scenario design community. The game didn't have many official campaigns at the time, so people took to the scenario editor straight away to make tons of custom scenarios and campaigns. The variety was WILD, like from the more multiplayer-leaning proto-tower defense scenarios to strictly SP, quasi-RPG campaign experiments. And that's never really stopped, people have been at it for 25 years now and continued creating a functionally infinite amount of gems. It's super cool
Well played!! I always delayed the wonder a ton and focused on taking out some of the enemies first, but it did take ages since you'd just be sitting out the timer really..
I remember playing this around 2001. I did not have build orders. I did not know any counters not listed on the game card. Population limits were 75 at the time so going up to 100 was a challenge in and of itself. I lost quite a few times as I was defending the walls. Eventually I won with less than 100 hp on my wonder. It was exhausting. I didn't know there was gold and stone elsewhere, so after running out I was selling food to repair my wonder. I had over a full side full of villagers repairing. It would have been helpful to know they could have destroyed rams. This was by far the hardest challenge. If Hera is going to do campaign events an APM limit like Viper has been doing, will be needed to make it any challenge at all.
No offense of course but it’s a miracle you made it to this level playing a campaign like that lol, I know the feeling though. I was hardly any better, albeit I usually spent 10 hours just turtling because I liked to play around with the AI behavior and stuff.
Some of the harder scenarios I would like to see you do: Kotyan Khan (besides the first scenario, the whole campaign is excelent and pretty challenging) The 3rd Ivaylo scenario The last Hautevilles scenario The last Bari scenario The fourth Jan Zizka scenario The Jadwiga campagin as a whole is very well designed and there are some pretty challenging ones, too.
in my personal experience, the alternative route (defeating all enemies) is way easier than defending the wonder, clearing all the right side with hussars and mamalukes let you collect a lot of wood and gold for bombard cannons and just start pushing the remains enemies, and letting them out of resources killing all their siege
You should make a video on your father trying AoE lol. By the way as a campaign player, loved this video and definetely make more campaign videos with challenges and stuff like that.
Right, cool thing about Aoe2 is you can enjoy it in many different ways. Even for completing this particular mission there are several strategies exist. With starting units you can go ahead and defeat the Grey right away. Then I used to develop some navy + mamelukes and kill Teal blocking them from the sea at the same time. Hardest thing was to defend the base from other enemies at this point, since my APM is far from being good :) Then it was time to build a wonder and the choice either to defend it from the enemies left, or continue to kill them slowly one by one. Anyways, I've never found this mission too hard even on Hard difficulty. Maybe only in my childhood 25 years ago, but I don't remember, and pretty sure I was playing on lowest difficulty back then :D
More campaigns please! I absolutely agree that AoE's strength is the diversity of gameplay available. I'd personally never have gotten interested in, and stuck with, the game if all it had to offer was competitive multiplayer; but with campaigns, skirmish and co-op, there's tons for me to enjoy, and through that I get the knowledge to understand what's happening when I watch the competitive people stream and cast!
Would love to see Hera try the different Victors and Vanquished campaigns. They are more difficult than most other campaigns and some have extra Steam achievements that add more challenges
Feels really good to hear the boss of GL has trouble beating all the scenarios on hard, as I just finally finished getting all the achievements (sans the masterpiece acheivement) and also the scenarios done on hard. Some community members are too good at the game and not really appreciative of the level of skill required (looking at you ornlu). I had gotten close before the mountain royals, but got stuck on bloody crestwaves and with life. Victors and vanquished has some particularly difficult scenarios and achievements.
Campaign content would be fun, I'd watch it! Plus, it would be fun to see how different our strategies are for each mission. Personally, I don't think this is the hardest mission but it's definitely challenging and fun!
I really enjoy watching the pro tournaments, but playing the game, I'm one of the casual campaign-only players. What sparked a new fire for me was getting to play some co-op campaigns with friends. Really hoping they will make more of them co-op, because it's been a blast.
Please keep doing the Campaign missions! As a majority campaign only player it’s awesome seeing my favorite AOE2 player have single player content. Great video! !
hera plays this how i always imagine the leaders from the past wouldve done it, like saladin himself. its totally satisfying to watch, because i myself can never be so clean.
PLEASE do a campaign playthrough on hard! Would be sick. And by the way there is a kinda cheese strat to win this: Grab the boats and go through a river on the right to the gray team and destroy the town center, they will forfeit right away.
I would definitely like to see more Scenario content like this. When I watch pro-AoE it's really cool but there's so much about it that I will never understand because I've never played pro-AoE. But I've played the scenarios and I understand the challenges and tactics that come with them, so watching a pro handle the scenarios at the highest level is really cool.
Just wanted to say that I love this video! I hope you would do a full campaign series, going through each level on hard (I know there's a lot!). I would totally watch every single video!
The comment about being able to enjoy AOE2 in so many different ways is absolutely true. I love playing multiplayer, but I also have so much fun playing campaigns. There's such a huge amount of single player content and most of it is really, really fun. That's not even getting into things like community/unranked games. It's very rare that I can play both multi and single player for an RTS game and enjoy both equally, but AOE2 manages to do it.
I know this level has a reputation, but I never felt it was that bad honestly. Having beaten all campaigns on hard, some personal nail biters for me were Dracula 3, Alaric 6 and one in the Indian campaign before Dynasties of India, I haven't checked back on that one since. They are all very fun though if you wanna check them out. Or just enjoy the campaigns by themself. The Age of Titans campaign on the hardest difficulty is another story though. Those levels have no middle ground, either absurd or absolute jokes for some reason 11.
If you ever decide to go for the custom campaigns , I would suggest you to go for the Apranik campaign or the two parts of the timur campaign that maybe custom but act as the precursors to the official aoe2 Timur campaign .
I'm loving to see campaigns in this channel! With all honesty there's many extremely difficult campaigns today, way harder than Saladin's. Don't point at me with that Tsar of the Bulgars.
Cumans campaign would be interesting, those are some really high pressure missions. I first try most missions on hard but Cumans has been kicking my ass
I played this scenario when I was a kid, and I remember taking all the ressources from the small island, then build the wonder there and fortify the island with towers, walls and galleons. Worked as a charm
Base layout in campaign is great. Just think about it: for you it's nice to have houses in groups of 4, but the devs were reproducing historical maps and having the fun you don't have time for in game.
I have been playing AoE2 for just under 1 year and I have over 1000 hours playing time ... 90% of that being campaign play and 10% being 1v1 against the computer. I definitely love getting value out of my units and then healing them up, but man ... I have only about 10% of your micro skills!
During the lockdowns I did every campaign, then I doubled down and did all of them in hard, some are crazy long, also made it every steam achievement, also looong I regret nothing so fun
Persians are such an insanely good civ nowadays 11. And against AI armies, Saracens with the new Monk tech feel almost unstoppable. Just go Mameluke + Monks + Monk Unique tech + some Seige and you can beat basically any AI army other than like, camel archers.
When you do this again try the 2nd mission of the pachacuti campaign on hard with the steam achievement of not building any walls, that is the hardest mission i ever played
i love the one campaign where u have Teutonic castle and they attack you on every side and theres like 3 or 4 bridges and u start in the middle of the map.
TBH it's really nice to see pro playing campaigns. We have the real opportunity to see how good micro/macro can also be helpful in single player Also: 25:39 Hera short but very wise explanation why AoE2 is so popular to this day and beyond
I have never thought about "Active defense" I have been playing RTS for so long, and this is the first time i heard it in a way that it clicked. Thank you! also remember Keep Exploring the Map.
The key is to do four things (SPOILER ALERT): -let Imperial Age for later, your starting resources NEED to be used a.s.a.p. on the creation of troops -make a wall in the north passage at enough distance to not provoke grey enemy and the red teutons, so that way you'll face enemies only by one side -be two steps ahead of your enemies, make a second TC where is convenient to pull villagers and gather all the food+wood as possible, and make pikeman and skirms (byz have cheaper pike and skirms so is even better like this) to help your starting cataphracts - the only gold costing unit you need to do early game are petards for two things: one to destroy Melo's tower early as possible and remove him to don't deal with him ever again (also the resources he won't exploit will be utmost benefitial) and the rest of the petards will be to destroy the blue's castle when he turn against you (if you put the petards right next to blue's castle the amount of troops you'll need to turn him back to you will be just those petards) Later on as an extra, get the yellow norman mercenaries as allies since they are helpful, but avoid them as much as possible to avoid having to deal with the until you can pay them the amount of gold they demand, if you don't pay them, is an extra enemy you must deal with -_-
@@El_Papaco if you want the cheesy way I can help you: be careful and destroy the two yellow players before the final stage starts, you know, in between attacking the light blue camps, for that convert almost all siege but a last siege tower, use the ramms to destroy the yellow bases and at the end to trigger the final stage the destroy the final siege tower with a fast group of units like light cav Oh, just let a single military building of the two yellow enemies but no houses. Good luck doing units without population space xD...
in my win play i start creating 3 cataphracts and using them with archers to kil the monks for the gold and insta contracting the yelow, then sending 10 petards to blues castle to instakill him when they turn so the mercenaries and blue takes melos tower solo and i just have to deal with red and green in north part
Hi, I would certainly watch long form videos of you doing campaigns. Maybe go from beginning and do them all on hard? I know I may not represent your core audience but for me that would be a absolute win
Fun fact, I was carried in this scenario by an army of 40 mamelukes. They single handedly beat Jerusalem and held back the advance of other factions while I built up defences. English Cavaliers were like butter and the French and Teutons never sent mass paladins. So yeah, mamelukes are real good in this scenario
historically speaking, they were the perfect counter against the crusaders, paladins, French royal knights and Teutons in big numbers, but generally it was the French knights of noble background or royal backgrounds. etc . mamelukes have actually far outlasted in achievements and feats, such as defeating the invading Mongols. and other such invasions etc. despite the worst situations in those periods, so mamelukes were definitely pivotal in those moments of chaotic history in terms of benefiting the Muslim world.
This is my favorite campaign map to use cheats on. I'd build an intricate wall above the cliffs, and then use 6 cobra cars to destroy the enemy. The trick though is that I had to keep the cars hidden (because time travel) so they had to unalive any unit that found them. I also didn't get to spawn more.
14:40 Historicly accurate as well. Good defender are active in sallying out, not to defeat the enemy but just to slow down enemy siege progress(like say destroying that precious trebuchet that would have been useful on sieges)
Most campaigns got easier with DE and all its updates. This one got harder. I couldn't do it the first time I tried it on DE. But Mameluke micro was the way for me.
Now do it pacifist.
Would honestly love a colab here, Hera's skills + T-West's knowledge - maybe you can guide Hera along the harder campaign routes :-)
Saladin pacifist coop?
I wasn’t thinking pacifist (although I’m a big fan of T-West’s work), I just think if anybody knows how to make the campaigns challenging for Hera, then it’s him
LMAO
Yea, pacifist T-west specialist
So well-played!
I am a campaigns only player, 59 years old. Don’t play often enough to have any real skill, but I’ve been enjoying AOE 1 and 2 since they first came out.
It is always great to see how broad the age spectrum is for this great game
Try and look into the fan made campaigns!
@@gamingminds7093 I have played a number of custom campaigns, including all the Vikings campaigns by Filthidelphia BEFORE they were part of Victors and Vanquished.
Mark you might like FVD or castle blood custom map on HD edition. I wish we could play the old RPG maps like the matrix or vampire rpg
You can trade with the Persian ally, which is arguably more efficient than mining gold.
Hera playing this mission:
Chillin & having the time of his life.
Meanwhile I still go to therapy with severe PTSD from this mission
Play bari 4 on hard too xd
fr lmao he casually enjoys exploring the map while i spam the retry button
he makes this look so easy lol
@@-shadow2407 bari super easy, u put 2 trebs to the frank castle while he's still friendly to you with your starter army. he changes sides, immediatly treb down the castle and boom ez win
@@joosttijsen3559 I wonder if I could've even done Bari 4 without that cheese tactic. Shit is STRESSFUL.
With the cheese...It's sooo much more manageable.
bro I was literally asking myself today, "What would it take to get hera to play some campaign?" I've never clicked on a video so fast in my life
Edit: would def love to see more campaigns. Try one of the new ones you haven't played before and soak in the excellent storytelling. Armenians and Georgians have really good campaigns
More campaign!
Genoese were Byzantines before Italians existed, regarding your question later in the video.
I'd love to see some campaign content on this channel. The defensive strategy here is imo actually harder to pull of compared to going aggressive early on and taking out 2-3 enemies right away, so excellent work with that one :)
If you're looking for some specific campaigns scenarios that are challenging and well designed on hard, here are some I'd recommend: Kotyan Khan 2 (The Battle at the Kalka River), Thoros 4 (Bloody Crestwaves - okay, you could argue about "well designed" for that one because it's in a one sword campaign, but it's definitely challenging), Rajendra 3 + 5 (Rising Star, Slaying the Vritra - some of the best macro missions in all campaigns) and Jadwiga 4 and 6 (The Siege of Vilnius, The Fruits of her Labor). The Jadwiga campaign in particular is often considered to be the best of all the campaigns by a majority of campaign fans (it's also worth playing just for the story, being propably the campaign with the best writing and storytelling, though one should propably play the Algirdas and Kestutis campaign first, because one of the characters from that one features heavily in both campaigns).
I don't doubt that you can still propably beat each of these on your first try, but I think you'd have a decent amount of fun with them. If I could pick one I'd want to see you play the most, it would propably be Jadwiga 4 (The Siege of Vilnius) - not because it's the hardest, but because I think it has some of the best design elements.
I thought that that first sentence was an actual history lesson, haha
mapie, I don't know how you could be simply wrong, the Genoese were inhabitants of the republic of genoa, completely different and separate from the Byzantines. both sides and parties which controlled different lands possessions with different backgrounds in history and upbringings.
@@AaronOmar-co8bn This is about what civilizations represented the Genoese in this scenario in-game before the italians were introduced with "The Forgotten" expansion. They were represented by the Byzantines, as I've mentioned. I wasn't making any statement about history.
@@MapleWillowAspen ah, ok, then I misunderstood.
Honestly, you doing all the campaigns would be sick.
I couldn't agree more
@@n07ju57hum4n some scenarios I think are way too easy for a pro to have engaging content. Watching a 2800 cruise through an easy scenario Like Saladin 1 or Joan of arc 1 I think would be boring.
But I think a lot of scenarios have some potential if he tries with some extra challenge. Ghengis khan 4 or Saladin 3 but you delete one of your camps at the start.
@@quasibrodo923 I definitely agree I would like to see him do more difficult missions so I can replicate his strategy 🤣
@@quasibrodo923 you are right ! you post only good comments here.
Not sick
Just wonderful!
The best part about this is how excited Hera was about everything - even the fact that his teammate conjured elephants out of thin air.
There’s an alternative strategy to just go out and defeat all the opponents.
You should replay, start building a wonder, delete it, then try to defeat all the opponents
And yes, I’d like more campaign stuff.
Yes, the hardest achievement in this map is to defeat all opponents. Not impossible, but I hate seeing my town getting blasted when I'm out hitting another.
please do this :)
i always enjoy doing the campaigns like this too. complete as you are supposed to then complete by killing everything
I was about to say the same thing: Is it possible to defeat the enemies and then build the wonder in a peacful map ?
@@kalgon57No, if you defeat all enemies, game ends. No need for wonder.
@@silversrayliegh5924Build a forward castle as soon as game starts, towards north, where there is a massive gold and stone stockpile, and then start mining there. Put all your archers in that castle. Build fortified walls along all entrances to your base except the left most one, near the shore. This will make all enemies go all the way around and mostly to your forward castle. Build andmaintain a 15 mamaluke army. Upgrade to elite mamluke with blast furnace asap. Upgrade fortified wall asap. Then launch attacks northward with trebs and mamlukes asap. Get zeolotry next. You will defeat one enemy after another. Aim to eliminate the ship building galilee first.
I loved the “It’s been 15 years since I landed on an island with gold, west of here” nostalgia moment.
If you loved the classic campaigns, you are gonna go crazy with the newest ones; they are a different game.
I need more content like this @Hera. Thanks!
Your take playing campaigns is absolutely unique here. Love the insight you provide, and it really feels like you have a blast. Please do more!
This was awesome to watch, Hera. I would love more of this. Exciting to see a pro player play the harder AI maps.
And you shaming the teal 'player' was hilarious. I had a pretty hard laugh on that... "Teal is costing u guys the game btw" 🤣🤣
Had no idea about you or your channel till youtube reccomended this video to me, more campaigns please! This was a really fun watch
❤
Your love for this game is so contagious ❤
I haven't tried it yet myself, but since there is now the option to co-op campaign, maybe you could team up with your brother, or maybe Daut? That could be great fun to!
Oh and campaign content is always welcome. Might want to go for some of the achievements? They can be quite hard, even on lower difficulties. I tried "I Was in China Before" for about three hours on Standard/Easy. When I literrally issed on villager that started to construct the wonder with my army right next to him, it broke me. Or "No Wonder on my Watch", which constantly forced my to changed my battle plans...
I was always just campaigns for the last 25 years up until the last 2-3 months I finally started doing some ranked games with a friend (thanks partly to you and general excitement from watching tournaments). I absolutely love the campaigns!
What you said about how AoE2 has something for every kind of player is so true. Nowadays I mostly watch competitive multiplayer games, but back in the day the strongest draw for me was the game's insanely robust scenario design community. The game didn't have many official campaigns at the time, so people took to the scenario editor straight away to make tons of custom scenarios and campaigns. The variety was WILD, like from the more multiplayer-leaning proto-tower defense scenarios to strictly SP, quasi-RPG campaign experiments. And that's never really stopped, people have been at it for 25 years now and continued creating a functionally infinite amount of gems. It's super cool
Do you remember the Blacksmith?
Well played!! I always delayed the wonder a ton and focused on taking out some of the enemies first, but it did take ages since you'd just be sitting out the timer really..
I remember playing this around 2001. I did not have build orders. I did not know any counters not listed on the game card. Population limits were 75 at the time so going up to 100 was a challenge in and of itself. I lost quite a few times as I was defending the walls. Eventually I won with less than 100 hp on my wonder. It was exhausting. I didn't know there was gold and stone elsewhere, so after running out I was selling food to repair my wonder. I had over a full side full of villagers repairing. It would have been helpful to know they could have destroyed rams.
This was by far the hardest challenge. If Hera is going to do campaign events an APM limit like Viper has been doing, will be needed to make it any challenge at all.
No offense of course but it’s a miracle you made it to this level playing a campaign like that lol, I know the feeling though. I was hardly any better, albeit I usually spent 10 hours just turtling because I liked to play around with the AI behavior and stuff.
This was super fun. I'd watch a whole campaign series tbh!
Some of the harder scenarios I would like to see you do:
Kotyan Khan (besides the first scenario, the whole campaign is excelent and pretty challenging)
The 3rd Ivaylo scenario
The last Hautevilles scenario
The last Bari scenario
The fourth Jan Zizka scenario
The Jadwiga campagin as a whole is very well designed and there are some pretty challenging ones, too.
Vietnam 2nd campaign. Absolute nightmare, hardest for me
More of this gameplay please. It was a nice change of pace from the usual 1v1 ladder stuff we mostly see streamed.
"I need gold" ignores the allied dock... :D (probably wouldn't have been worth it for the time remaining)
ahh trade cogs, an oft forgotten unit XD
9/10 Campaigns get easy once you find a way to trade. 11
@@ComfyDents those are my favorite missions :):):):). 11111
in my personal experience, the alternative route (defeating all enemies) is way easier than defending the wonder, clearing all the right side with hussars and mamalukes let you collect a lot of wood and gold for bombard cannons and just start pushing the remains enemies, and letting them out of resources killing all their siege
You should make a video on your father trying AoE lol. By the way as a campaign player, loved this video and definetely make more campaign videos with challenges and stuff like that.
Right, cool thing about Aoe2 is you can enjoy it in many different ways. Even for completing this particular mission there are several strategies exist.
With starting units you can go ahead and defeat the Grey right away. Then I used to develop some navy + mamelukes and kill Teal blocking them from the sea at the same time. Hardest thing was to defend the base from other enemies at this point, since my APM is far from being good :) Then it was time to build a wonder and the choice either to defend it from the enemies left, or continue to kill them slowly one by one. Anyways, I've never found this mission too hard even on Hard difficulty. Maybe only in my childhood 25 years ago, but I don't remember, and pretty sure I was playing on lowest difficulty back then :D
More campaigns please!
I absolutely agree that AoE's strength is the diversity of gameplay available. I'd personally never have gotten interested in, and stuck with, the game if all it had to offer was competitive multiplayer; but with campaigns, skirmish and co-op, there's tons for me to enjoy, and through that I get the knowledge to understand what's happening when I watch the competitive people stream and cast!
Would love to see Hera try the different Victors and Vanquished campaigns. They are more difficult than most other campaigns and some have extra Steam achievements that add more challenges
I love campaign content but occasionally; since competitive is more fun to watch. Great video!
Feels really good to hear the boss of GL has trouble beating all the scenarios on hard, as I just finally finished getting all the achievements (sans the masterpiece acheivement) and also the scenarios done on hard. Some community members are too good at the game and not really appreciative of the level of skill required (looking at you ornlu). I had gotten close before the mountain royals, but got stuck on bloody crestwaves and with life. Victors and vanquished has some particularly difficult scenarios and achievements.
i loved this, would absolutely love to see you play the campaigns, it can even be a theme on twitch like "historic friday" or something
Campaign content would be fun, I'd watch it!
Plus, it would be fun to see how different our strategies are for each mission.
Personally, I don't think this is the hardest mission but it's definitely challenging and fun!
I really enjoy watching the pro tournaments, but playing the game, I'm one of the casual campaign-only players. What sparked a new fire for me was getting to play some co-op campaigns with friends. Really hoping they will make more of them co-op, because it's been a blast.
Was super fun to watch, would love to see more campaigns!
These are the type of contents we need, when the regular content starts to get booring.
Make some vids about water maps as well.
Please keep doing the Campaign missions! As a majority campaign only player it’s awesome seeing my favorite AOE2 player have single player content. Great video! !
Yea man I would really enjoy seeing these mixed in with your other videos. Thanks for all your great stuff ❤️
hera plays this how i always imagine the leaders from the past wouldve done it, like saladin himself. its totally satisfying to watch, because i myself can never be so clean.
I'm just a casual but I love re-playing this one on hard. It's a perfect amount of challenging. Next time I'll try it the way you're playing it.
Love the content! If continue with the campaigns should try the harder ones - or even custom ones, there are great options to play!
PLEASE do a campaign playthrough on hard! Would be sick. And by the way there is a kinda cheese strat to win this: Grab the boats and go through a river on the right to the gray team and destroy the town center, they will forfeit right away.
this is so kino! amazing content wouyld love to see more like it
I would definitely like to see more Scenario content like this. When I watch pro-AoE it's really cool but there's so much about it that I will never understand because I've never played pro-AoE. But I've played the scenarios and I understand the challenges and tactics that come with them, so watching a pro handle the scenarios at the highest level is really cool.
Just wanted to say that I love this video! I hope you would do a full campaign series, going through each level on hard (I know there's a lot!). I would totally watch every single video!
That was funny to see ngl, keep the campaign content pls
I loved this video. Please do all the campaigns. It was so much fun.
Love seeing the campaigns played. Would be fun to see more from you!
Please do more of this, or the 1v4 against LAN Partys, both make great videos
YES I will watch and like all of your campaign content if you do more!
Love this great video I’d love to see more campaigns 👍🏼
The comment about being able to enjoy AOE2 in so many different ways is absolutely true. I love playing multiplayer, but I also have so much fun playing campaigns. There's such a huge amount of single player content and most of it is really, really fun. That's not even getting into things like community/unranked games.
It's very rare that I can play both multi and single player for an RTS game and enjoy both equally, but AOE2 manages to do it.
This was great! Would love to see more!
From what I remember from playing this scenario ages ago, the Genoese were Byzantines.
Barbarossa's last mission (The emperor sleeping), Vlad Dracula's 4th mission (The moon rises)
I'm new to this channel and loved to watch this. More campaigns on hard mode would be nice.
boss! love this content, i also struggleD a lot with this campaign but manage to do it on the 4 try like 3 years ago, barely alive.
I know this level has a reputation, but I never felt it was that bad honestly.
Having beaten all campaigns on hard, some personal nail biters for me were Dracula 3, Alaric 6 and one in the Indian campaign before Dynasties of India, I haven't checked back on that one since. They are all very fun though if you wanna check them out. Or just enjoy the campaigns by themself.
The Age of Titans campaign on the hardest difficulty is another story though. Those levels have no middle ground, either absurd or absolute jokes for some reason 11.
Rebellion of Melus has to be the hardest
If you ever decide to go for the custom campaigns , I would suggest you to go for the Apranik campaign or the two parts of the timur campaign that maybe custom but act as the precursors to the official aoe2 Timur campaign .
Very satisfying video. Keep playing campaigns please!
Please do more campaigns/historical battles, would be nice to see you play the SP side of this epic game.
I'm loving to see campaigns in this channel! With all honesty there's many extremely difficult campaigns today, way harder than Saladin's.
Don't point at me with that Tsar of the Bulgars.
Yes please, more Campaign content Hera!
This is fun ! The only let down is that nothing in the campaigns are going to challenge you enough haha !
Cumans campaign would be interesting, those are some really high pressure missions. I first try most missions on hard but Cumans has been kicking my ass
I played this scenario when I was a kid, and I remember taking all the ressources from the small island, then build the wonder there and fortify the island with towers, walls and galleons. Worked as a charm
Base layout in campaign is great. Just think about it: for you it's nice to have houses in groups of 4, but the devs were reproducing historical maps and having the fun you don't have time for in game.
YES! I wanna see more Hera doing campaigns
I have been playing AoE2 for just under 1 year and I have over 1000 hours playing time ... 90% of that being campaign play and 10% being 1v1 against the computer. I definitely love getting value out of my units and then healing them up, but man ... I have only about 10% of your micro skills!
During the lockdowns I did every campaign, then I doubled down and did all of them in hard, some are crazy long, also made it every steam achievement, also looong
I regret nothing so fun
8:25 On that note, Persian campaign was probably easier because of the buffed War Elephants.
Persians are such an insanely good civ nowadays 11. And against AI armies, Saracens with the new Monk tech feel almost unstoppable. Just go Mameluke + Monks + Monk Unique tech + some Seige and you can beat basically any AI army other than like, camel archers.
14:36 That's what they did in game of thrones vs the white walkers and the cavalry all died. That is usually how my games go.
Yoo more campaigns would be sick! Try the "Rome Was Destroyed in One Day" achievement (Goths campaign), it's absolutely brutal on hard.
Would love a series where you go through all campaigns.
Wasn't thinking I would like the campaign play through - totally did. I vote mix in some more
When you do this again try the 2nd mission of the pachacuti campaign on hard with the steam achievement of not building any walls, that is the hardest mission i ever played
i love the one campaign where u have Teutonic castle and they attack you on every side and theres like 3 or 4 bridges and u start in the middle of the map.
TBH it's really nice to see pro playing campaigns. We have the real opportunity to see how good micro/macro can also be helpful in single player
Also:
25:39 Hera short but very wise explanation why AoE2 is so popular to this day and beyond
Love that you are doing Campaigns Now Too, Hope you keep doing more and more of them...
More campaigns on this channel would be awesome! I would especially like to see the first mission of the Vietnamese campaign (on hard obviously) :)
More campaign content would be amazing!
This brings me back... I remember playing campaing when i was like 10-12 and falling in love with the first AOE
I have never thought about "Active defense" I have been playing RTS for so long, and this is the first time i heard it in a way that it clicked. Thank you! also remember Keep Exploring the Map.
Bari 4 is such a hard level when you play on hard for first time, its a "defense" 4x1 basically
The key is to do four things (SPOILER ALERT):
-let Imperial Age for later, your starting resources NEED to be used a.s.a.p. on the creation of troops
-make a wall in the north passage at enough distance to not provoke grey enemy and the red teutons, so that way you'll face enemies only by one side
-be two steps ahead of your enemies, make a second TC where is convenient to pull villagers and gather all the food+wood as possible, and make pikeman and skirms (byz have cheaper pike and skirms so is even better like this) to help your starting cataphracts
- the only gold costing unit you need to do early game are petards for two things: one to destroy Melo's tower early as possible and remove him to don't deal with him ever again (also the resources he won't exploit will be utmost benefitial) and the rest of the petards will be to destroy the blue's castle when he turn against you (if you put the petards right next to blue's castle the amount of troops you'll need to turn him back to you will be just those petards)
Later on as an extra, get the yellow norman mercenaries as allies since they are helpful, but avoid them as much as possible to avoid having to deal with the until you can pay them the amount of gold they demand, if you don't pay them, is an extra enemy you must deal with -_-
It could be an achievement to not pay the mercenaries and beat them, and also the blue guys having a 6vs1 instead of the regular starting 4vs1 xD
Bari 5 is way harder in my opinion. It took me a long while to beat that one
@@El_Papaco if you want the cheesy way I can help you: be careful and destroy the two yellow players before the final stage starts, you know, in between attacking the light blue camps, for that convert almost all siege but a last siege tower, use the ramms to destroy the yellow bases and at the end to trigger the final stage the destroy the final siege tower with a fast group of units like light cav
Oh, just let a single military building of the two yellow enemies but no houses. Good luck doing units without population space xD...
in my win play i start creating 3 cataphracts and using them with archers to kil the monks for the gold and insta contracting the yelow, then sending 10 petards to blues castle to instakill him when they turn so the mercenaries and blue takes melos tower solo and i just have to deal with red and green in north part
The latest DLC has some really challenging scenarios, so I'd like to see how you would tackle them, mainly on hard as a number of them have a timer.
Hi, I would certainly watch long form videos of you doing campaigns. Maybe go from beginning and do them all on hard?
I know I may not represent your core audience but for me that would be a absolute win
Fun fact, I was carried in this scenario by an army of 40 mamelukes. They single handedly beat Jerusalem and held back the advance of other factions while I built up defences. English Cavaliers were like butter and the French and Teutons never sent mass paladins. So yeah, mamelukes are real good in this scenario
historically speaking, they were the perfect counter against the crusaders, paladins, French royal knights and Teutons in big numbers, but generally it was the French knights of noble background or royal backgrounds. etc .
mamelukes have actually far outlasted in achievements and feats, such as defeating the invading Mongols. and other such invasions etc. despite the worst situations in those periods, so mamelukes were definitely pivotal in those moments of chaotic history in terms of benefiting the Muslim world.
I don't bother watching normal ranked games, but this? This I watch.
Would love to watch you play all the campaigns bro!
I would totally watch you do a campaign run!
I can do hard campaigns, but only with a lot of save-scumming. It's amazing to see someone breeze through them. I'd definitely watch more!
A cool challenge for 1v1s could be make an aesthetically pleasing base
I've been dreaming of this day. More campaign please!
Hera this was awesome, more content like this please!! Do justice for campaign players
video was great, would watch more campaigns
This is my favorite campaign map to use cheats on. I'd build an intricate wall above the cliffs, and then use 6 cobra cars to destroy the enemy. The trick though is that I had to keep the cars hidden (because time travel) so they had to unalive any unit that found them. I also didn't get to spawn more.
Genoese were Byz before DE iirc. Enjoyed this a lot btw!
would love to see you play campaign, especially the remade old ones!
14:40 Historicly accurate as well. Good defender are active in sallying out, not to defeat the enemy but just to slow down enemy siege progress(like say destroying that precious trebuchet that would have been useful on sieges)
I've played the Saladin campaign ages ago on the Nintendo DS version of AoE. Though playing as Richard the Lionheart was so much harder
Most campaigns got easier with DE and all its updates. This one got harder. I couldn't do it the first time I tried it on DE. But Mameluke micro was the way for me.