Hardest campaign ?

[MilfGuard]

I`ve been doing some achievement hunting so I`ve been playing all of the campaigns. So far nothing is really that difficult, barring some missions that spike in overall difficulty ( Kotyan 2, Ivaylo 3..) and I`ve finished most of them. I`m missing Le loi and Bayinnaung cause I haven`t started those. So what`s the consensus on the most difficult campaign in AoE 2

[Tempires]

Le loi and Bayinnaung do have some difficult missions. There has been many changes to campaign over the years which have affected difficulty of some missions.

Custom campaigns are probably more challenging.

[Sir Phantom]

Have you tried Kotyan Khan 5 ?

[joaosantos92]

Most of Bayinnaung scenarios are of moderate difficulty. The exception being the infamous last scenario. About Le Loi... well, let's not talk about Le Loi.

[MilfGuard]

Originally posted by Sir Phantom:

Have you tried Kotyan Khan 5 ?

Yep, finished the Austrian part for the achievement, and I did the pretty standard 3 TC boom into Kipchaks rams trebs and some paladins, And I finished the Austrians in 44 mins, though I`ve been hearing that the Bulgarian section is more difficult.

[MilfGuard]

Originally posted by joaosantos92:

Most of Bayinnaung scenarios are of moderate difficulty. The exception being the infamous last scenario. About Le Loi... well, let's not talk about Le Loi.

Damn, that hard huh. I finished Bari and they must have changed it cause it people said like Bari 4 was very difficult. I just hope it`s challenging in a good way and not infinite resources spam like Tariq

[76561199169650260]

Generally, any mission where they have infinite resources and you cannot even build normally or are behind in tech due to mission restrictions are the most difficult.

Bayinnaung's last mission certainly qualifies, you have to be really fast there or else you're going to face insane waves after waves of elephants on the ground and ships on water. It is possible to win in war of attrition, but it involves you waiting for Portuguese to research Redemption on their monks and convert their monks with your monks, so that you can convert their Feitorias.

Le Loi on the other hand is straightforward. The "escape" mission is intense, but is short, and the last mission you can just push with Trebs and mass Rattan and be OK.

[joaosantos92]

Originally posted by Гамбит:

Damn, that hard huh. I finished Bari and they must have changed it cause it people said like Bari 4 was very difficult. I just hope it`s challenging in a good way and not infinite resources spam like Tariq

Bari 4 used to be difficult when DE was released but nowadays it's relatively easy. There's no infinite spam, just make sure you do the side quests.

[Vonklyce]

I still think the hardest campaign, is the 5th or 6th Saladin mission that you have to build and protect a wonder from 7 enemies, having no room for farms and still having to deal with a giant fleet constantly wiping your boats.
The second one, i think it's the one from Jeanne d'Arc that you have to protect and deliver the wagon, and again, facing multiple enemies against you alone.

It's weird, because for me, the hardest ones are the classics from The Age of Kings, none ffrom the newer expansions were that hard for me, and it's not because of nostalgia or because i'm more experienced after all these years, i still have trouble playing the classics on the hardest difficulty.

[TheRedFireLion]

Originally posted by Vonklyce:

I still think the hardest campaign, is the 5th or 6th Saladin mission that you have to build and protect a wonder from 7 enemies, having no room for farms and still having to deal with a giant fleet constantly wiping your boats.
The second one, i think it's the one from Jeanne d'Arc that you have to protect and deliver the wagon, and again, facing multiple enemies against you alone.

It's weird, because for me, the hardest ones are the classics from The Age of Kings, none ffrom the newer expansions were that hard for me, and it's not because of nostalgia or because i'm more experienced after all these years, i still have trouble playing the classics on the hardest difficulty.

Same for me! Just today I played the 6th mission of Saladin and had many troubles. First attempt: got annihilated, couldn't stand a chance, just too many trebs, bombards, teutonic tanks (oops, I meant knights). Once the enemies are in the city, it's over. But with my second attempt I chose to be super aggressive; at first I just wanted to eliminate one AI player or two, then build the wonder and defend it, but I quickly decided to push forward by spamming light cavs, trebs and bombards and booming as much as I could at the same time. This way I managed to destroy every single enemy without even starting to build the wonder and I got a rare achievement for that (Steam says just 1% of players unlocked it) lol.

Also the third mission of Gengis Khan (Into China) gave me some headaches: almost after 3 hours (and after I miraculously managed to destroy the Jin Wonder when the countdown was literally at 1 year left) I won the scenario.

I'm not bad at this game, not even an expert but I can confidentially say some of the Age of Kings campaigns/scenarios are really difficult.

[OuijaMawl]

Only really tricky ones for me were Kotyan 5 on the bulgarian side where fast setup and steamrolling byzantium is requisite, and timer wonder countdowns are my least favorite conditions to be under.
Baiyannung 5 also gave me some fits only one I had to restart a "few" times to get things to work fast enough to get through the first section.

[joaosantos92]

Originally posted by Ransom:

Bayinnaung's last mission certainly qualifies, you have to be really fast there or else you're going to face insane waves after waves of elephants on the ground and ships on water. It is possible to win in war of attrition, but it involves you waiting for Portuguese to research Redemption on their monks and convert their monks with your monks, so that you can convert their Feitorias.

The Burmese have Redemption (you start in the Imperial Age), so you can use your own Monks. Interesting that the Portuguese doesn't have Heresy in this scenario. Probably so that you're able to convert the Feitorias.

[MilfGuard]

Originally posted by Vonklyce:

I still think the hardest campaign, is the 5th or 6th Saladin mission that you have to build and protect a wonder from 7 enemies, having no room for farms and still having to deal with a giant fleet constantly wiping your boats.
The second one, i think it's the one from Jeanne d'Arc that you have to protect and deliver the wagon, and again, facing multiple enemies against you alone.

It's weird, because for me, the hardest ones are the classics from The Age of Kings, none ffrom the newer expansions were that hard for me, and it's not because of nostalgia or because i'm more experienced after all these years, i still have trouble playing the classics on the hardest difficulty.

I feel ya man. The thing is those campaigns have some difficulty spikes that I wasn`t expecting, Joan of Arc ( The Paris mission and the last one were a lot more difficult, but I feel like when the game gave you some troops in the older campaigns you were basically forced to play aggressive. The last Saladin mission if you go ultra aggressive it`s quite easy, you just gotta micro the archers a bit and you`re all good.

[mickeyjim2]

I mean it also depends on what difficulty you're playing, but the general rule is that the newer the campaigns, the harder they are. The original AoK and Conquerors campaigns are relatively easy, with a few difficulty spikes like Barbarossa 4, Genghis Khan 3, Attila 6.

The Forgotten campaigns are a decent challenge, Bari is probably the hardest. The African Kingdoms campaigns are pretty hard, with Tariq being a pretty good contender for the hardest campaign imo, since in every single mission the enemy has fortified bases and infinite resources while you often have a slow start. The Raja campaigns are pretty hard. Le Loi and Bayinnaung are pretty infamous and the Malay campaign isnt a pushover either. Kotyan from the Last Khans is also quite hard, so is Ivaylo. Tamerlane not as much. The Sicilian campaign is also a fair challenge, the 3rd mission can be quite time consuming.

So I would put forward Tariq as the hardest campaign in my personal experience, with Le Loi probably a close 2nd.

[MilfGuard]

Also Le Loi 2 can suck a ♥♥♥♥

[joaosantos92]

Originally posted by mickeyjim2:

So I would put forward Tariq as the hardest campaign in my personal experience, with Le Loi probably a close 2nd.

I disagree with Tariq being the hardest.
Yes, scenario 2 has a timer and you're in the middle of the map (I don't think Tariq conquered Toledo first and then went on to conquer the other cities but this game isn't known for its historical consistency) and scenario 5 you start from zero, only to be overrun if you aren't fast enough.
But on scenario 4 you start with like 100 units (the main trick is to use the hero's regenerating ability to clear that path and only cross the path after, the main issue being the final fight against Huskarl+Halbs combo) and on scenarios 1 and 3 you get reinforcements all the time so you can beat their infinite spam with your own infinite spam. I think the idea is to only go on the offensive when your army is big enough.
2 swords instead of 1 would be more accurate IMO.