BG 2 full on vanilla (except I'm not sure about alignment). It's time to end this!

It's the only AOE2 campaign I ever managed to complete (and the Wallace tutorial campaign of course). I didn't know El Cid either, but enjoyed the story a lot like you did.

If I recall correctly, I think your mentioning that in the other thread was what inspired me to reinstall the game and give the campaigns another chance. I'm in awe of my progress after two decades of not completing anything. So really, I should be thanking you for these recent strides!

~~~

I'm clawing my way through "Quetzalcoatl", the infamous third mission of the Montezuma campaign that I couldn't beat a number of years ago. This one was absolutely difficult, so it took a lot of trial-and-error, rethinking, and reloading to reach the midpoint. I just defeated the enemy Aztecs, and now I'm going to try and capture the Spanish horses. The sooner I beat this sadistic mission and move on, the better!

A Toy Story... aka Supraland

Been bouncing between a few games. I was going to continue Elex yesterday, but I just wasn't in the mood. Then I tried Atom RPG for the first time, but the first few hours were quite slow-going so I put that on halt as well for now.

Supraland was just what the doctor ordered. I'm pretty sure I won't be playing anything else until I complete this one. Quite the fun first-person metroidvania. I wouldn't mind seeing more of such. Good times. :)

What game is this?

Nightmare Reaper

Photo #1:

Alright, so my two decades of AOE2 suckage is finally on the mend. I beat "Quetzalcoatl" earlier today, and man, I'll happily never play that mission ever again. Between the Spanish kicking my ass with their Bombard Cannons and the STUPID 75 population cap, it was hard getting the upper hand. The designers are a sadistic bunch, as well. To beat the mission, you're given the choice of either wiping out the Spanish or stealing 20 of their horses. The problem is, the horses are walled away in 3-4 sections throughout the heavily-defended Spanish base. By the time you capture 20 horses, you've basically destroyed 80% of the Spanish anyway. Bastards.

Photo #2:

The next mission, "La Noche Triste", presented me with other challenges. It's another of those "beat the Wonder timer" scenarios, but this one has lots of devious elements thrown in. First of all, a solid half of the mission is spent running around, rescuing allies, and evading powerful enemies - all while the Spanish are building a Wonder. You're eventually given a settlement with two Monks and no Town Center; you're then told to convert some enemy villagers at the center of the map. Well, guess what? After sending my two Monks down a loooong causeway to the enemy base, the AI's villagers fled within the walls and never came back out. Terrific. My only other option was to put my Monks in Transport Ships and send them clear across the map to where the enemy Aztecs had a small village. That ate up even more valuable time, but the worst was still to come. When you finally build a Town Center, the AI scripts turn on and the Spanish start flooding the ocean with Galleons, Demolition Ships, and Cannon Galleons. I needed stone to build a Castle for making Trebuchets, but all the stone mines are along the coast, which means my miners got fired on. What a pain in the ass! It took some real effort to get a coastal Castle up in time Plus, thanks to the 75 pop limit and all the allies I rescued earlier, I had to split the same dozen villagers between each resource. When I had three Trebuchets, I had roughly 100 years left on the Wonder timer. Marching across the causeway to the enemy base was too dangerous and time-consuming, as the sea was teeming with Galleons. My last resort was to build a pair of Docks, create as many Transport Ships as possible (my previous ones were sunk), and send as much of my invasion force as possible to the beach where the Wonder was located. This desperate move was successful, and my army managed to destroy the Wonder despite three enemy Castles firing on them. And as you can see from the photo, I finished the mission with just under 25 years to spare. Like the mission before it, I'm not doing this one ever again.

Photo #3:

Time flies when you're kicking yourself in the balls. Given the insanity of the last two missions, I'm tempted to hope that the worst is over. Sadly, that probably won't be the case.

After three months… end is close...

Far worse than upkeep in Warcraft 3.

It's over!!! The Montezuma campaign is over!!! Praise be to Lord Quetzalcoatl!!!

I drove too fast...

Joan of Arc mission 3: "The Cleansing of the Loire" (long time no see...)

Thank you, this looks great.

Sometime in the early 2000s, I played AOE2's Joan of Arc campaign. Shortly after unlocking the third mission, "The Cleansing of the Loire", I lost interest and abandoned my progress. In recent years, I've been looking back on my failure to complete this mission with some regret. I felt like I dropped the ball by not giving it an honest try. I hoped that I'd give that mission another go if I ever got the game up and running again.

Well, I just beat the mission and I no longer regret giving up on it years ago. The Orange AI was a royal pain in the ass (at least on Hard), and I had a hell of a time dealing with his constant stream of Cavaliers. One third of the way into the mission, it seemed like his numerous Stables were perpetually queuing those units, thereby making it extremely hard to fulfill my objective of destroying three Castles. And since I was restricted to Castle Age, I had to rely on those slow-moving cavalry magnets, Battering Rams. I suppose I could have attempted massing Long Swordsmen or Throwing Axemen instead, but the stupid pop cap was 75 and the Cavalier spam would've been bothersome anyway. Why must my pride compel me to play these campaigns on Hard?