Coming from AOE1 DE, need campaign tips

[nyaos]

So this game is kicking my ass absolutely. I played through every campaign in AOE1 on hardest with a nostalgia kick. It got frustrating at times but eventually I kinda found my stride and was able to get into killing the AI in pretty much every scenario well enough.

But ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ this game is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hard. I'm trying to do mission 3 in the Joan of Arc campaign (The first non-tutorial campaign in the game) and its destroying me. I'm playing on hard, and want to stay there, but I feel like I really need to kick it down to moderate.

I've walled myself in a good spot and can hold my little town just fine, but every scenario seems like its immediately a 3v1, and even worse, I'm stuck in the castle age while the AI gets to go to the imperial age. I'm out of resources in my area and stuck spamming pikemen against the AI that has a seemingly infinite number of cavaliers.

Any tips to get out of this general low point would be appreciated. I have no gold anymore so I have to just sell wood for like 14 gold per 100 to afford anything. I attacked one base with 4 rams and like 100 pikemen, and was able to basically only destroy 2 guard towers before eventually losing everything. They spawn about 4 cavaliers every 30 seconds. I can't buy crossbowmen because they need gold. I can't buy better siege equipment because it needs gold. I can't just kill their villagers because they outrun infantry and just go to the town center immediately.

Experienced AOE2 players, what is your general unit build to just kill bases? I felt like in AOE1 you could easily spam ballista and projectile units. But since towers seem to outrange everything that doesnt seem to work anymore?

Tips or advice super appreciated so I suck less and git gud.

[P£S@D£L0]

Start from William Wallace campaign.

[Novi]

Generic tip: Castle defense and a group of knights to snipe siege generally protects you from almost everything an AI can ever throw at you. Always try to get one up asap on the side the AI comes at you from, or build walls to funnel them into it.

As for that mission in specific: I can't say this one was difficult at all. Travel across the river and build your economy. Use your starting crossbowmen to surround Burgundy's town and starve it of resources, then just go in with a ram to finish them off. The rest of the mission is simply sniping castles. Since the enemy is Briton, they'll mostly make archers and rams tank their castle/tower and archer fire well. Make Frankish knights to protect them from melee units, but don't rush in with them first. There are many gold piles scattered around the map, just scout for them.

However, if this mission gives you trouble on hard, I advise to either learn the game really well or just lower the difficulty. I finished every campaign on hard and there are missions that are so hard, I'd rather take a 1v1 against a pro than that.

[P£S@D£L0]

I will play now this same mission in the Joan of Arc campaign to see what we can do.

[nyaos]

Originally posted by Novi:

Generic tip: Castle defense and a group of knights to snipe siege generally protects you from almost everything an AI can ever throw at you. Always try to get one up asap on the side the AI comes at you from, or build walls to funnel them into it.

As for that mission in specific: I can't say this one was difficult at all. Travel across the river and build your economy. Use your starting crossbowmen to surround Burgundy's town and starve it of resources, then just go in with a ram to finish them off. The rest of the mission is simply sniping castles. Since the enemy is Briton, they'll mostly make archers and rams tank their castle/tower and archer fire well. Make Frankish knights to protect them from melee units, but don't rush in with them first. There are many gold piles scattered around the map, just scout for them.

However, if this mission gives you trouble on hard, I advise to either learn the game really well or just lower the difficulty. I finished every campaign on hard and there are missions that are so hard, I'd rather take a 1v1 against a pro than that.

Gotcha, the castle defense definitely helped a lot. I was able to beat the mission by ignoring orange (Fastolf's imperial cavalier meme army) and just focusing on the objective, which is probably what they wanted you to do. If I rushed them sooner I might have been able to take them out. Thanks for the tip.

[thirty220]

im stuck on the second act of the joan of arc missions. pissing hard

[P£S@D£L0]

Originally posted by thirty220:

im stuck on the second act of the joan of arc missions. pissing hard

Watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd-CEQi--hI&t=1462s