Filthydelphia's Guide to Custom Campaigns

Love the Age of Kings campaigns but wish there were more? Did you know that hundreds of scenario designers have made thousands of custom campaigns, many of which were made for the HD edition and are available on the Steam Workshop?

Introduction

Love the Age of Kings campaigns but wish there were more? Did you know that hundreds of scenario designers have made thousands of custom campaigns, many of which were made for the HD edition and are available on the Steam Workshop?

This guide features the custom campaign creations of Filthydelphia, the designer of the African Kingdoms Portugal campaign.

How To Subscribe and Play

Subscribing and playing custom campaigns is easy.

Step 1: Finding a Custom Campaign

To find a custom campaign for Age of Kings HD, go to your Library and select Age of Empires II: HD Edition. Select 'Browse the Workshop'.


On the next screen, you will see a few featured Workshop items, including campaigns, scenarios, mods, music files, etc. If you know the name of the file you want, you can enter it in the search bar or select its category among the options on the sidebar. In this case, we will be selecting Campaigns.


The next screen will only show Campaigns. The screen default's to the Most Popular (One Week) items but you can change it to whatever metric you want. If you want to see the highest rated campaigns or the most popular of all time, you can select those options as well. If you want to find the newest releases, filter for Most Recent.

Step 2: Subscribing and Downloading

Subscribing to and downloading from the Steam Workshop is easy! It takes only a clilck of a button!

Now that we have found the custom campaign we want, simply click the Subscribe button. Steam will download the necessary files automatically in a matter of seconds or minutes.

Be sure to pay attention to the Required DLC for the item you are interested in, however. If you do not have the required DLC, you will not be able to play or use the content.

Step 3: Playing

Open Age of Kings HD. From the Main Menu screen, select Single Player


Select Custom Campaign


And select the name of the custom campaign you would like to play. Note that the scenario name will appear in the bottom box. Once you have completed the first scenario in a multi-scenario campaign, more scenarios will unlock.

You will also be able to set the difficulty between Standard, Moderate, and Hard. Many custom campaigns offer different challenges depending on the difficulty setting chosen.

Disabling Workshop Content

If you wish to disable the item you have downloaded, you can unsubscribe from the Steam Workshop by clicking the same button you used to subscribe or simply disable the content.

To disable but not entirely remove content, from the game's main menu, select Steam Workshop.


You will then see a list of your subscribed items and any you have created. Select the item you wish to disable and select Disable. The content will no longer be used for your game. You can always re-enable content from the same screen by selecting Enable. Note that this screen also allows you to set priority for mods which may compete for resources but that is a topic for another guide.

Recommended Campaigns

Filthydelphia is the designer of the official African Kingdoms Portugal campaign. He has also designed 12 additional campaigns for the Steam Workshop. He specializes in narrative historical campaigns of a variety of genres, including build and destroy, fixed force, and even murder mystery and haiku-writing scenarios!

View his Complete Collection here

Campaign Spotlight

Here are just a few of Filthydelphia custom creations:

Traditional Age of Empires gameplay with unique twists:

• http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=662449607
  
• http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=653326635
  
• http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=363586134
  
• http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=358551754
  
• http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=359891371
  
• http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=268400217

Narrative adventures:

• http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=363559199
  
• http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=307885391
  
• http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=277743188
  
• http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=265898293

[Dall of Cuty ⁧⁧ ⎝⧹KiTiTy⧸⎠]

works well with https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=540600396

[Andstopher]

Woah, I had no Idea this existed. This looks very promising, thanks for the link! Did I mention I love your campaigns? The Portuguese is my favorite, closely followed by the stand alone Cortes mission.

[Filthydelphia]

Vadim, this is an online AI Builder that I have found helpful: http://forgottenempires.net/aibuilder/

[Andstopher]

Hey Filthy, I love your work and I'm making my own scenario. Do you have any recommendations on an AI that will simply create and send units to fight occasionally(similar to some of the official campaigns)? I've tried using many workshop AIs but I can't find one that works the way I want it to. Any ideas?

[mmmcheesywaffles]

@kOfe... that's what I was thinking. Too many poeple do what Itend to do. We only look at Workshop when we want to change something by a mod. When really there are so many other goodies to download :)

[k0fe]

Already knew all that, but it's a pretty good guide for those who not so familiar wit' Steam Workshop yet. Also, it's a good idea to promote some of the campaigns.

[mmmcheesywaffles]

@Dlich...

Why not? Have you done any as good? Put the work in and show YOUR talent then laugh as much as you want.

[BitCoin Bandit]

low key showcasing campaigns lmao

[mmmcheesywaffles]

This is way more helpful and informative than the simple Workshop interface. I hope others follow your good example.