Which campaigns are the toughest on hard difficulty?

[Max Doge]

I'd like to start by playing the toughest campaigns first and then casually chill later on. But I also heard that those sword indicators don't paint a clear enough picture, meaning 1-sword campaign can be as tough as a 3-sword one etc.

So far I heard that Bari 4 and 5 are very difficult, but what about the rest? Would like to hear other people's experiences.

[Vlad The Inhaler]

the cuman campain mission 2 is really hard if u mess up ur done after 5 min in. you really have to be quick and rush efficient

[Novi]

I haven't finished all yet (finishing Rise of the Rajas campaigns atm), but so far, I'd say overall the toughest campaigns were Vlad Dracula and Bari.

You will find very difficult missions in other campaigns as well, but they're generally 1 or 2 maps.

[Catbeard Beardcat]

Have had my hardest time in Barbarossa 4 so far.

[Max Doge]

Originally posted by Vlad The Inhaler:

the cuman campain mission 2 is really hard if u mess up ur done after 5 min in. you really have to be quick and rush efficient

I actually just played that mission now and surprisingly didn't have to rush the Tatars. I tried to rush them with my starting army but they wrecked me with 3x army and kept spamming after that. But instead of restarting I got a castle for defense to rebuild my eco and won after 45mins in total.

The Mongols didn't push beyond the river so they gave me enough time, so got the mission on the first try. But a bit confused, because I've seen how Viper played this mission 4 months ago and he had to restart a few times since the Mongols pushed hard beyond the river and wrecked everyone.

[WhiteForest]

for me Bari and the 4th of Alaric, havent played most of the forgotten campaigns or AK, ROR

[Jouni]

Originally posted by Max Doge:

I actually just played that mission now and surprisingly didn't have to rush the Tatars.

Speaking of rushing... the game gives you an achievement for completing that mission at Feudal Age("Cuman Flush"). Then you have to rush or you die.

[Max Doge]

Yeah looks like you're right, you get an achievement if you beat Tatars without advancing to Castle age. So they want us to "rush" them by using the Cuman ability to build siege rams in feudal age, and they can also build 2 town centers in feudal so early booming is possible too. Meaning you can take your sweet time and still get the achievement, as long as you don't advance to castle age.

Since Tatars have too much army at the start and they keep raiding.

[Jouni]

I guess you could beat them in Feudal without rushing too but it would be much more difficult. You would have to defend against their Castle Age army with Feudal Age units. It's much easier to just make sure that they can't advance to Castle Age either. Keep in mind that mongols will attack you at some point too.

[WastedTrojan]

Alarik 5 was a tough mission, so was Dracula 3. It's hard to give campaigns and overall difficulty rating because the missions can vary so wildly in difficulty. Like the Saladin campaign, the first five missions are a cakewalk, mission 6 is very difficult.

The historic battles also vary wildly in difficulty. Agincourt and York are easy no matter which difficulty you play on. Honfoglalas is difficult even on medium.

[Senor Cardgage]

Originally posted by Max Doge:

Yeah looks like you're right, you get an achievement if you beat Tatars without advancing to Castle age. So they want us to "rush" them by using the Cuman ability to build siege rams in feudal age, and they can also build 2 town centers in feudal so early booming is possible too. Meaning you can take your sweet time and still get the achievement, as long as you don't advance to castle age.

Since Tatars have too much army at the start and they keep raiding.

A tip for that mission, don't even bother making town centres, just go straight to building a siege workshop and start creating rams. You can use your vills to cut some wood and mine some gold but its not worth it to try and build a major economy, the absolute most important thing in that mission is speed. You need to destroy the enemy town centres as quickly as possible, this prevents them from advancing to the castle and if they get a castle age army and economy going its all over. If you force them to stay in the feudal age then they won't make any more military units than the ones they start with, you can whittle them down with your forces, especially Kotyan Khan himself since he regens, and sometimes your allies will help you attack. After you've destroyed the TCs and killed the enemy villagers all you need to do is destroy the castles and they should resign.

[Max Doge]

Thanks for the tips. The next map (Kotyan Khan 3) after that was tricky as well, had to defend with skirmishers and double/triple palisades for the first few attacks until I got the eco going. Then cleaned up the map of Tatars with 20 knights, 40 elite skirms and 20 kipchaks. Realized in the end that I could have wrecked the Mongol base as well, and then probably beat Subotai's push with my castle. Wonder if I could have beaten the map that way, instead of running away.

[YannickJ]

I've been on a mad quest to finish every campaign on hard. Right now I've Gold medalled all the European campaigns, the two American campaigns, two African campaigns (Saladin and Tariq) and 4 Asian campaigns (Genghis, Tamerlane, Gajah Mada and Suryavarman)

My take away is that the swords usually don't correctly indicate the difficulty of the entire campaign. And also that the missions don't get harder the further in the campaign. For example, Cuman mission 2 is, to me atleast, the hardest mission I had so far. While the other three are relatively simple.

Also that some of the hardest missions are basically impossible without using a cheese strategy. For example the last Saladin mission was insane until you realize you can take out most of the competition by immediately rushing their bases.

Some missions are mostly a slog instead of actually difficult. Tariq has some missions where you basically have to fend of endless waves of units (from an enemy without an economy) until you take out he military buildings. However a strategically places castle filled with archers is usually enough to hold out.

[amolang]

Lake Poyang and Pachacuti personally.

[Max Doge]

That's some great feedback guys. Rushing someone early is not really cheese, it's always an option if you get a decent starting army, it makes some missions much easier. I agree that well placed castles and walling in general can absorb a lot of the pressure the AI throws at us. But as much as I enjoy a chilled slower paced mission where pretty much every strategy will work, it's kind of a fun challenge to play everything on hard since you have to strategize much more.

Since not many have the micro of Viper one tip I give if things become too hectic and overwhelming is to bind pause to space key, and play a bit more chilled like They Are Billions. I much more prefer that than reloading games.

Campaigns like Tariq where enemy doesn't have any villagers but massive scores tells you that they have infinite resources and will spam units out of every production building, so you have to go for those, but the usual trade off is they won't usually rebuild them.

Originally posted by Married with a Parrot:

Lake Poyang and Pachacuti personally.

What was difficult about them btw? I randomly played Lake Poyang on moderate a week ago and it seemed fun at first clearing the blockade, but then I had to keep a massive fleet at all times since the AI kept sending his own huge fleets from 2 directions which was very annoying, bought at least 30 of those special ships from the ally. But I don't think I got attacked on land from the left until I started to push them a bit. Don't like how I couldn't clear the map, because they've put some godly towers that 1 shot every unit.

[WhiteForest]

Originally posted by Wasted Trojan:

Alarik 5 was a tough mission, so was Dracula 3. It's hard to give campaigns and overall difficulty rating because the missions can vary so wildly in difficulty. Like the Saladin campaign, the first five missions are a cakewalk, mission 6 is very difficult.

The historic battles also vary wildly in difficulty. Agincourt and York are easy no matter which difficulty you play on. Honfoglalas is difficult even on medium.

saladin 6 is hard if you want to get the achievement and kill them all. but if you want to win by objectives and build/defend wonder, its one of the easiest of Saladin