The Catalaunian Fields Huns misson 5

[Pioniere]

In the original aoe 2 game the AI did run out of resources, but there they keep coming much more often. I did play this on standard difficulty, but that was way too easy from what I recall. I read on ageofempires.fandom the player should take out the Visigoths, because they don’t have castle at start. What strategy do you use against the enemies in this mission?

[James3157]

On standard difficulty it does not matter besides maybe taking out all wonders for getting achievement before they are completed, but on moderate or hard difficulty maybe take out Visigoths (red) first, then take out the rest, and maybe not worry about the wonders if you already got the achievement on standard difficulty. If you can get achievement on standard difficulty for taking out wonders early enough then hopefully you do not have to worry about them on moderate or hard difficulty especially if you combine booming your economy and researching Atheism which is one of the rare exceptions where this unique tech might seem useful during Imperial Age despite being expensive. It is however worth mentioning that having a strong military and strong economy should perhaps be the most important before you even consider researching Atheism on this mission. Your civilizations needing to be strong enough to survive assaults on all fronts should be more important than researching Atheism. Also, it is not an opinion but a fact that Catalaunian Fields is one of the hardest missions on moderate or hard difficulty for a one sword difficulty rating besides the 3rd and 4th missions (especially with achievement even on standard difficulty) for Huns in addition to the third mission for Mongols and 6th Mongol mission for especially getting achievements (including even standard difficulty) and when it comes to winning especially on moderate or hard difficulty. Maybe not one of the hardest for getting achievement on standard difficulty since I already got this achievement on standard difficulty, but hardest just for winning on moderate or hard difficulty.

[James3157]

It is however mentioning that you probably should take out at least two opponents as quickly as possible and not just one on moderate and hard difficulty even if you do not need to worry about losing to a wonder victory. The reason being that you are just one player playing against multiple opponents with no ally. The longer you delay taking out your opponents the harder I think it might be in taking them out especially since on this mission it is 1v4. I have not won moderate difficulty yet with this mission, but I do eventually plan on playing moderate again someday despite my failure to win moderate difficulty from earlier.

[Marco]

Originally posted by James3157:

On standard difficulty it does not matter besides maybe taking out all wonders for getting achievement before they are completed, but on moderate or hard difficulty maybe take out Visigoths (red) first, then take out the rest, and maybe not worry about the wonders if you already got the achievement on standard difficulty. If you can get achievement on standard difficulty for taking out wonders early enough then hopefully you do not have to worry about them on moderate or hard difficulty especially if you combine booming your economy and researching Atheism which is one of the rare exceptions where this unique tech might seem useful during Imperial Age despite being expensive. It is however worth mentioning that having a strong military and strong economy should perhaps be the most important before you even consider researching Atheism on this mission. Your civilizations needing to be strong enough to survive assaults on all fronts should be more important than researching Atheism. Also, it is not an opinion but a fact that Catalaunian Fields is one of the hardest missions on moderate or hard difficulty for a one sword difficulty rating besides the 3rd and 4th missions (especially with achievement even on standard difficulty) for Huns in addition to the third mission for Mongols and 6th Mongol mission for especially getting achievements (including even standard difficulty) and when it comes to winning especially on moderate or hard difficulty. Maybe not one of the hardest for getting achievement on standard difficulty since I already got this achievement on standard difficulty, but hardest just for winning on moderate or hard difficulty.

On Catalaunian Fields Visigoths are green, not red. Red is your ally (Ostrogoths) and I don't recall anyone of the opponents building a wonder in that mission.

Originally posted by Pioniere:

In the original aoe 2 game the AI did run out of resources, but there they keep coming much more often. I did play this on standard difficulty, but that was way too easy from what I recall. I read on ageofempires.fandom the player should take out the Visigoths, because they don’t have castle at start. What strategy do you use against the enemies in this mission?

Replayed this mission last october or november. Field an army quickly and take out green first as they are the weakest opponent before they get to Imperial and start sending rams and floods of infantry (huskarls+pikemen spam), in the meantime defend from attacks by Alans (mostly cavalry archers, elite skimishers and mangonels) and Romans (they now send the combo centurions+legionaries along with scorpions and trebuchets; it was cataphracts+champions when they were still Byzantines). Romans are the worst because they have numbers and the strength of the new units.

But in Attila's campaign you have an advantage, this is also noticeable in the previous mission (a barbarian bethrotal): basically AI will target your TC or one of your buildings so you can intercept their siege and force enemy troops to fight your units before they reach your base (the Roman army moves all troops together and as you know, on AOE2 different troops will move at the same speed as the slowest unit if ordered to move together). I know it sounds like cheesing, but it helps. It should also work with Alans' mangonels, so try to keep control of the rivers and the center of the map.

It is a long mission and green could also resist your early attacks (they can build two castles), but keep pressure, target their villagers and destroy their TC. You want to defeat them to take their resources. To defeat Alans, you need at least a castle to north-west, better if close to their base. Their army will target the castle and will be annihilated.

Romans, of course are the strongest and also have 3-4 castles pumping trebuchets to destroy your castles if you build some next to their base, so you need to continuously replenish your losses on the battlefield. They should resign after you start killing villagers.

Also consider to trade with Ostrogoths, but be careful that Romans can target your carts and that's another reason for why you have to keep control of the center of the map. You can also trade with Visigoths, as they should have a market too, once you defeat them.

However, you start with plenty of resources, so you can also research Imperial Age as soon as you build your first TC and queue additional villagers and start booming by building second TC.

Also, try to take advantage of Huns' bonuses, like cheaper cavalry archers (against legionaries and pikemen) and use tarkans to demolish buildings (they attack faster than rams and are still a good melee unit against Alans' composition) if you can't afford trebuchets yet (Hunnic trebuchets are more accurate). You could mix in knights against Visigoth huskarls (but you still need cavalry archers against pikemen), so you need tons of gold.

[Pioniere]

I played the mission earlier today and managed to finish off the Visigoths early on and later on I attacked the Alans when the crashed into my two castles. What remains now is the Romans they are strong now, but I can see if I can attack them later one after they have another failed attack, but at one point the almost killed off my allied to the north. I protect them with an extra castle. Also an early warning system is also needed so I can stop there trebuchets. Thanks for the input.

[James3157]

Originally posted by Marco:

On Catalaunian Fields Visigoths are green, not red. Red is your ally (Ostrogoths) and I don't recall anyone of the opponents building a wonder in that mission.

I confused the 5th mission with mission 6, but while I do think that mission 5 is easier than mission 6 on moderate difficulty the achievement for mission 5 is much more difficult than achievement on mission 6 even on standard difficulty. Despite its one sword difficulty rating I think that Truly Countless Bodies is one of the hardest achievements on standard difficulty to get on AoE II: DE. My fastest victory was taking out the Romans (blue) first, but it required a lot of trial and error and restarting the game a number of times before I figured out how to take them out first before the other two that are much easier to take out by trading gold for wood to spam rams. While I could not win fast enough to get achievement it did take me 40 minutes meaning that I was only 10 minutes short from getting achievement.

[Pioniere]

I won today at modrate it was somewhat hectic, but I build a barracks and an archery range plus a castel near the Roman base for suport. I had an large army with Halberdiers , skirmishers and cavalry. I also had to face there strong Siege engines even so I outflanked them. The last Hun mission I did last year on modrate.