Now do it pacifist.

So well-played! I am a campaigns only player, 59 years old. Don’t play often enough to have any real skill, but I’ve been enjoying AOE 1 and 2 since they first came out.

Hera playing this mission: Chillin & having the time of his life. Meanwhile I still go to therapy with severe PTSD from this mission

Honestly, you doing all the campaigns would be sick.

bro I was literally asking myself today, "What would it take to get hera to play some campaign?" I've never clicked on a video so fast in my life Edit: would def love to see more campaigns. Try one of the new ones you haven't played before and soak in the excellent storytelling. Armenians and Georgians have really good campaigns

You can trade with the Persian ally, which is arguably more efficient than mining gold.

The best part about this is how excited Hera was about everything - even the fact that his teammate conjured elephants out of thin air.

Genoese were Byzantines before Italians existed, regarding your question later in the video. I'd love to see some campaign content on this channel. The defensive strategy here is imo actually harder to pull of compared to going aggressive early on and taking out 2-3 enemies right away, so excellent work with that one :) If you're looking for some specific campaigns scenarios that are challenging and well designed on hard, here are some I'd recommend: Kotyan Khan 2 (The Battle at the Kalka River), Thoros 4 (Bloody Crestwaves - okay, you could argue about "well designed" for that one because it's in a one sword campaign, but it's definitely challenging), Rajendra 3 + 5 (Rising Star, Slaying the Vritra - some of the best macro missions in all campaigns) and Jadwiga 4 and 6 (The Siege of Vilnius, The Fruits of her Labor). The Jadwiga campaign in particular is often considered to be the best of all the campaigns by a majority of campaign fans (it's also worth playing just for the story, being propably the campaign with the best writing and storytelling, though one should propably play the Algirdas and Kestutis campaign first, because one of the characters from that one features heavily in both campaigns). I don't doubt that you can still propably beat each of these on your first try, but I think you'd have a decent amount of fun with them. If I could pick one I'd want to see you play the most, it would propably be Jadwiga 4 (The Siege of Vilnius) - not because it's the hardest, but because I think it has some of the best design elements.

There’s an alternative strategy to just go out and defeat all the opponents. You should replay, start building a wonder, delete it, then try to defeat all the opponents And yes, I’d like more campaign stuff.

I loved the “It’s been 15 years since I landed on an island with gold, west of here” nostalgia moment. If you loved the classic campaigns, you are gonna go crazy with the newest ones; they are a different game. I need more content like this @Hera. Thanks!

"I need gold" ignores the allied dock... :D (probably wouldn't have been worth it for the time remaining)

I remember playing this around 2001. I did not have build orders. I did not know any counters not listed on the game card. Population limits were 75 at the time so going up to 100 was a challenge in and of itself. I lost quite a few times as I was defending the walls. Eventually I won with less than 100 hp on my wonder. It was exhausting. I didn't know there was gold and stone elsewhere, so after running out I was selling food to repair my wonder. I had over a full side full of villagers repairing. It would have been helpful to know they could have destroyed rams. This was by far the hardest challenge. If Hera is going to do campaign events an APM limit like Viper has been doing, will be needed to make it any challenge at all.

This was awesome to watch, Hera. I would love more of this. Exciting to see a pro player play the harder AI maps. And you shaming the teal 'player' was hilarious. I had a pretty hard laugh on that... "Teal is costing u guys the game btw" 🤣🤣

in my personal experience, the alternative route (defeating all enemies) is way easier than defending the wonder, clearing all the right side with hussars and mamalukes let you collect a lot of wood and gold for bombard cannons and just start pushing the remains enemies, and letting them out of resources killing all their siege

What you said about how AoE2 has something for every kind of player is so true. Nowadays I mostly watch competitive multiplayer games, but back in the day the strongest draw for me was the game's insanely robust scenario design community. The game didn't have many official campaigns at the time, so people took to the scenario editor straight away to make tons of custom scenarios and campaigns. The variety was WILD, like from the more multiplayer-leaning proto-tower defense scenarios to strictly SP, quasi-RPG campaign experiments. And that's never really stopped, people have been at it for 25 years now and continued creating a functionally infinite amount of gems. It's super cool

Your love for this game is so contagious ❤ I haven't tried it yet myself, but since there is now the option to co-op campaign, maybe you could team up with your brother, or maybe Daut? That could be great fun to!

Your take playing campaigns is absolutely unique here. Love the insight you provide, and it really feels like you have a blast. Please do more!

Bari 4 is such a hard level when you play on hard for first time, its a "defense" 4x1 basically

Barbarossa's last mission (The emperor sleeping), Vlad Dracula's 4th mission (The moon rises)

I know this level has a reputation, but I never felt it was that bad honestly. Having beaten all campaigns on hard, some personal nail biters for me were Dracula 3, Alaric 6 and one in the Indian campaign before Dynasties of India, I haven't checked back on that one since. They are all very fun though if you wanna check them out. Or just enjoy the campaigns by themself. The Age of Titans campaign on the hardest difficulty is another story though. Those levels have no middle ground, either absurd or absolute jokes for some reason 11.

This was super fun. I'd watch a whole campaign series tbh!

I was always just campaigns for the last 25 years up until the last 2-3 months I finally started doing some ranked games with a friend (thanks partly to you and general excitement from watching tournaments). I absolutely love the campaigns!

Well played!! I always delayed the wonder a ton and focused on taking out some of the enemies first, but it did take ages since you'd just be sitting out the timer really..

I don't bother watching normal ranked games, but this? This I watch.

Some of the harder scenarios I would like to see you do: Kotyan Khan (besides the first scenario, the whole campaign is excelent and pretty challenging) The 3rd Ivaylo scenario The last Hautevilles scenario The last Bari scenario The fourth Jan Zizka scenario The Jadwiga campagin as a whole is very well designed and there are some pretty challenging ones, too.

More campaigns please! I absolutely agree that AoE's strength is the diversity of gameplay available. I'd personally never have gotten interested in, and stuck with, the game if all it had to offer was competitive multiplayer; but with campaigns, skirmish and co-op, there's tons for me to enjoy, and through that I get the knowledge to understand what's happening when I watch the competitive people stream and cast!

PLEASE do a campaign playthrough on hard! Would be sick. And by the way there is a kinda cheese strat to win this: Grab the boats and go through a river on the right to the gray team and destroy the town center, they will forfeit right away.

Oh and campaign content is always welcome. Might want to go for some of the achievements? They can be quite hard, even on lower difficulties. I tried "I Was in China Before" for about three hours on Standard/Easy. When I literrally issed on villager that started to construct the wonder with my army right next to him, it broke me. Or "No Wonder on my Watch", which constantly forced my to changed my battle plans...

Yea man I would really enjoy seeing these mixed in with your other videos. Thanks for all your great stuff ❤️

Had no idea about you or your channel till youtube reccomended this video to me, more campaigns please! This was a really fun watch

Feels really good to hear the boss of GL has trouble beating all the scenarios on hard, as I just finally finished getting all the achievements (sans the masterpiece acheivement) and also the scenarios done on hard. Some community members are too good at the game and not really appreciative of the level of skill required (looking at you ornlu). I had gotten close before the mountain royals, but got stuck on bloody crestwaves and with life. Victors and vanquished has some particularly difficult scenarios and achievements.

Was super fun to watch, would love to see more campaigns!

8:25 On that note, Persian campaign was probably easier because of the buffed War Elephants.

More of this gameplay please. It was a nice change of pace from the usual 1v1 ladder stuff we mostly see streamed.

The comment about being able to enjoy AOE2 in so many different ways is absolutely true. I love playing multiplayer, but I also have so much fun playing campaigns. There's such a huge amount of single player content and most of it is really, really fun. That's not even getting into things like community/unranked games. It's very rare that I can play both multi and single player for an RTS game and enjoy both equally, but AOE2 manages to do it.

Would love to see Hera try the different Victors and Vanquished campaigns. They are more difficult than most other campaigns and some have extra Steam achievements that add more challenges

i loved this, would absolutely love to see you play the campaigns, it can even be a theme on twitch like "historic friday" or something

Love seeing the campaigns played. Would be fun to see more from you!

This was great! Would love to see more!

Love this great video I’d love to see more campaigns 👍🏼

You should make a video on your father trying AoE lol. By the way as a campaign player, loved this video and definetely make more campaign videos with challenges and stuff like that.

boss! love this content, i also struggleD a lot with this campaign but manage to do it on the 4 try like 3 years ago, barely alive.

adding context to that alert made me laugh so hard, so sweet rofl

Yes please, more Campaign content Hera!

this is so kino! amazing content wouyld love to see more like it

These are the type of contents we need, when the regular content starts to get booring. Make some vids about water maps as well.

If I managed to beat this campaign (with restarts admidetly) then Hera most likely does it first try. But there are really fun campaign missions in thid game for sure!

When you do this again try the 2nd mission of the pachacuti campaign on hard with the steam achievement of not building any walls, that is the hardest mission i ever played

I have been playing AoE2 for just under 1 year and I have over 1000 hours playing time ... 90% of that being campaign play and 10% being 1v1 against the computer. I definitely love getting value out of my units and then healing them up, but man ... I have only about 10% of your micro skills!

I played this scenario when I was a kid, and I remember taking all the ressources from the small island, then build the wonder there and fortify the island with towers, walls and galleons. Worked as a charm

Love that you are doing Campaigns Now Too, Hope you keep doing more and more of them...

That was funny to see ngl, keep the campaign content pls

I'm new to this channel and loved to watch this. More campaigns on hard mode would be nice.

YES I will watch and like all of your campaign content if you do more!

I'm just a casual but I love re-playing this one on hard. It's a perfect amount of challenging. Next time I'll try it the way you're playing it.

I like how hera makes an active choice to just stand ground fight a teutonic knight with mamelukes

Wasn't thinking I would like the campaign play through - totally did. I vote mix in some more

Would love to watch you play all the campaigns bro!

I loved this video. Please do all the campaigns. It was so much fun.

I love campaign content but occasionally; since competitive is more fun to watch. Great video!

YES! I wanna see more Hera doing campaigns

From what I remember from playing this scenario ages ago, the Genoese were Byzantines.

Just wanted to say that I love this video! I hope you would do a full campaign series, going through each level on hard (I know there's a lot!). I would totally watch every single video!

Please keep doing the Campaign missions! As a majority campaign only player it’s awesome seeing my favorite AOE2 player have single player content. Great video! !

hera plays this how i always imagine the leaders from the past wouldve done it, like saladin himself. its totally satisfying to watch, because i myself can never be so clean.

i love the one campaign where u have Teutonic castle and they attack you on every side and theres like 3 or 4 bridges and u start in the middle of the map.

Very satisfying video. Keep playing campaigns please!

Love the campaign content. I hope you can do a few more on occasion :)

This brings me back... I remember playing campaing when i was like 10-12 and falling in love with the first AOE

Love the content! If continue with the campaigns should try the harder ones - or even custom ones, there are great options to play!

A cool challenge for 1v1s could be make an aesthetically pleasing base

Yeah definitely do the campaigns! You seem to enjoy them and I enjoy this content.

The latest DLC has some really challenging scenarios, so I'd like to see how you would tackle them, mainly on hard as a number of them have a timer.

Right, cool thing about Aoe2 is you can enjoy it in many different ways. Even for completing this particular mission there are several strategies exist. With starting units you can go ahead and defeat the Grey right away. Then I used to develop some navy + mamelukes and kill Teal blocking them from the sea at the same time. Hardest thing was to defend the base from other enemies at this point, since my APM is far from being good :) Then it was time to build a wonder and the choice either to defend it from the enemies left, or continue to kill them slowly one by one. Anyways, I've never found this mission too hard even on Hard difficulty. Maybe only in my childhood 25 years ago, but I don't remember, and pretty sure I was playing on lowest difficulty back then :D

yeah this was pretty amazing to watch

Campaign content would be fun, I'd watch it! Plus, it would be fun to see how different our strategies are for each mission. Personally, I don't think this is the hardest mission but it's definitely challenging and fun!

More campaigns on this channel would be awesome! I would especially like to see the first mission of the Vietnamese campaign (on hard obviously) :)

Love to see some of the custom campaigns on the channel

I do love that AOEII requires different skill sets for different parts of the game. It is one thing to start in the dark ages on an even playing field with a human, but it's completely different to do an very difficult campaign where you are set at a major disadvantage against an AI with a specific plan.

This is fun ! The only let down is that nothing in the campaigns are going to challenge you enough haha !

24:53 Byzantines, obviously

I've played the Saladin campaign ages ago on the Nintendo DS version of AoE. Though playing as Richard the Lionheart was so much harder

Cumans campaign would be interesting, those are some really high pressure missions. I first try most missions on hard but Cumans has been kicking my ass

This was awesome, I loved it.

I can do hard campaigns, but only with a lot of save-scumming. It's amazing to see someone breeze through them. I'd definitely watch more!

I would definitely like to see more Scenario content like this. When I watch pro-AoE it's really cool but there's so much about it that I will never understand because I've never played pro-AoE. But I've played the scenarios and I understand the challenges and tactics that come with them, so watching a pro handle the scenarios at the highest level is really cool.

Before italians they were Biz.

Finally ! Let’s go! Time to go for the achievements too

Fun fact, I was carried in this scenario by an army of 40 mamelukes. They single handedly beat Jerusalem and held back the advance of other factions while I built up defences. English Cavaliers were like butter and the French and Teutons never sent mass paladins. So yeah, mamelukes are real good in this scenario

More campaign content would be amazing!

I would totally watch you do a campaign run!

video was great, would watch more campaigns

That was fun to watch!

This is my favorite campaign map to use cheats on. I'd build an intricate wall above the cliffs, and then use 6 cobra cars to destroy the enemy. The trick though is that I had to keep the cars hidden (because time travel) so they had to unalive any unit that found them. I also didn't get to spawn more.

would love to see you play campaign, especially the remade old ones!

The Geonese is in the Imperial Age like others but was attacking with Castle Age units. Weird.

Please do more of this, or the 1v4 against LAN Partys, both make great videos

Sooo great to see you do one of these! Huge fan of the campaigns! Btw what dpi speed do find works best for AoE?

I've been dreaming of this day. More campaign please!

This was great. Loved the commentary on cutting the Genoese from the 'team.'