I hate how, in many post-Conquerors campaigns, ennemies get infinite ressources, no eco to raid and just spam military units

Hardest has to be William Wallace 1. When that drush comes, it's game over.

6:43 “You literally have to be as fast as humanly possible” More like “As fast as Cumanly possible”

Saladin 6 was the hardest mission for about 15 years.. it deserves at least a Honerable Mention. :)

Le Loi 2 should be on the list. At least in hard difficulty. I won in my 10 try. Saving and restoring, bomming and quickwalling in the right and then adding bombard galleons to kill the towers to then kill the production building. It was insane.

Deathmatch style scenarios in general tend to be really difficult, because the AI is almost always better at multitasking and micromanaging huge armies and economies than the player. You see this in both the Fate of India and Tsar of the Bulgars and, to a lesser extent, in The Old Tiger.

I just came back to Age of Empires after a while, and decided to play through the campaigns in historical chronological order. The first really difficult one I've run into was the final Alaric mission. After five pretty easy scenarios, the difficulty felt like it spiked through the roof. After two attempts of trying to build up on the mainland, I built my base on the original "island" and snuck villagers to snipe resources that I needed on the mainland. I tried assassinating the traitor Goth in the middle a couple of times, who was by far the biggest threat, but he kept rebuilding with seemingly infinite stone. That's about when I found the Gallic towns didn't rebuild, so I used my resources hollow them out and destroy them. In the end I didn't even finish building the final Castle (which was actually a rebuild) because the Goths in the center ran out of resources and sent their commander to attack me. I played that scenario for HOURS. I'm still not sure how best to hold the initial attacks back, but next time I play I will focus on destroying the Markets of the three towns, and try and steal the relics as early as I can manage.

The best laid plans changes a man

No one talks about the final Hun mission " Fall of Rome"? It may not be the absolutely hardest mission(although for me it is) but it definitely is the most unfair. You have 4 enemies that build Wonders, that you must destroy, and all 4 send massive armies all the time.

Le Loi 1 is pretty simple if you play it slow. Your base is never attacked. You just need to build a castle and a siege workshop in your ally bases and they become invincible. You can also trade very early, as soon as you clear the 1st village. Mine stone, buy stone, build castles and you can't lose, Ming is 100% unable to deal with castles.

My top 5 hardest scenarios would be: 1. The Mountain Siege (Le Loi 2) - There's absolutely no end to the spam of Ming units, and it turns into pure hell once they start producing Trebuchets. I can barely focus any attention on clearing the path, let alone wait for the villagers to flee as well. 2. The Best Laid Plans (Bari 4) - I was able to win with the Castle defense victory by forcing the Teutons to chase my discounted Camel Riders around the archer-garrisoned Castle and using them to destroy the Trebuchets, but to say the pressure is intense would be an understatement. 3. The Breath of the Dragon (Dracula 3) - The Castle you get is hardly enough to defend you from the constant mass-assaults from your five enemies, especially since you're stuck on an island with limited resources and vulnerability to boat attacks. 4. A Kingdom of Our Own (Alaric 5) - DO. NOT. LET. SARUS. GET. TOO STRONG. 5. Consolidation and Subjugation (Tariq ibn Ziyad 2) - Wonder victories combined with constant attacks from four enemies is pretty deadly. Merida alone makes the mission twice as hard as it would be otherwise. Honorable mentions go to The Old Tiger (Bayinnaung 5), The Battle at the Kalka River (Kotyan Khan 2), and The Battle at Hanoi (Le Loi 3). The Le Loi campaign is the hardest overall imo.

The easiest way to beat The Best Laid Plans is to immediately build 10 Petards when the mission starts and send them to your ally's castle. Then as soon as they betray you, you can instantly blow it up and they'll return to being your ally again. That way you not only get rid of one enemy immediately, but they'll also keep orange occupied quite a bit (and eventually can even defeat them with the help of the yellow mercs). That's how I beat it on hard at least after getting absolutely destroyed every time I tried to play the mission the intended way lol

I found field of blood (Inca DE 2) to be quite challenging. Also the entire Le Loi Campaign.

Dude, I really enjoy watching your playthroughs. Keep it up.

The trick about Kotyan Khan 2 is to go full on aggressive: don't bother with TCs, just throw all resources into rams, scout cavalry, bloodlines and fletching (mainly for starting kipchaks) it's not very hard to beat tatar's starting army and cripple their economy. If you can prevent them from getting to castle age they basically can't make any more military and you can win the scenario in 20 minutes

Bari 4: First of all recapture Capua by Petard , then block the entrance from the North , enemies will attack from the south but they will first deal with yellow and blue. Thus, in this way, it becomes very easy even in hard difficulty.

Your videos were very helpful, bro. I managed to beat the ones that I couldn't with your advice. thanks a lot!

Haven’t done them all but vlad 3 is definitely in my top 3. It’s literally like a 5v1

I'm amazed you've managed to complete them all already! I've been getting through them pretty quickly myself, but I still have 6 campaigns and the historical battles to get through.

Le Loi is definitely the hardest for me. The only campaign where I had to reload more than one mission multiple times.

Hey bro, in just getting back into aoe2 and am really enjoying your vids, keep it up :)

the best laid plan had me questioning my life. felt impossible to me to do it in the "normal" defend way

Thanks brother for this video....AoE my all time fav game😍💯...

Great video, Ornlu - but I can't believe he last Bari scenario and the last Le LOI scenario weren't included!! The Le Loi one broke me for about a week

I think the hardest are actually on historical battles, Dos pilas( going with tiklal) and bapheous, especially if you're going for the "turkish delight" achievement

The hardest scenario was the one in El Dorado where you have to find out who is the killer

I knew Bari 4 was gonna be on this list. I certainly wasn't able to beat it on hard since I am nowhere near the strength of the mighty OrnLu. Merry Christmas!

Haven't played the first 4 mentioned yet. Managed the toughest. Feels good.

Bari 4 is actually incredibly easy if you play this like a tower defense game. All you have to do is get strong eco and spam towers behind the walls where the castle is. I can win this scenario by just sitting behind the walls with less than 10 cataphracts and sniping any trebuchet or rams with them. I usually end the match with about 30 towers, and eventually, the arrows become so overwhelming that they're even taking out rams before they even get a single hit in. I'm literally able to win without even leaving my base and doing any secondary objectives that benefit me

Just beat Bari 4 today! I did cheese it by watching your video of that campaign and doing the petard trick. But I also built a TC beside the stone in the mountains to kill the trade

You're a legend!

Honestly, I think that Le Loi 2 is harder than the first one, and as for Razzia, I found crossing the Pyrenees much harder.

Hey Ornlu, what do you think about the ideia of replace the Sforza campaign to for example: Enrico Dandolo campaign, telling the Venetians history in 12th century and the struggles against the Byzantines, Genoeses and Bulgarians.

I haven't played all scenarios, but agree on the choice for spot number one. It was an interesting task.

Agree about Prithviraj 4 - huge armies, total chaos and short time limit, I ragequitted this mission

Joan of arc cheapter 6 made me cry while playing it on hard it changed alot since the brungandy is civ now it needs to be on the list you need to replay it , its much harder now.

Kotyan Khan 2 was a PITA doing the Feudal only challenge, but it was seriously easy mode if you play normally and advance to Castle. You can hold off the Mongols indefinitely and clear them off the map by just setting up some castles in the one chokepoint and using Light Cav to absorb aggro and snipe siege. After you've dealt with yellow, you can open up a decent trading lane with the blue Slavs up north, put out some siege and begin trashing Orange. There's even a voice line for destroying Subotai's wonder as well.

The two last Lê Loi are also quite difficult! An I think the Lion and the Demon (Saladin 6) also would deserve an honourable mention? Bari 4 is hard, but walling in, using the Monks and allies and sniping the objectives I managed to play it all right compared to most of the hardest scanerios on the list!

I almost 100% agree with this! I would probably lower Kotyan II a bit and maybe kick the Dai Viet or Rakhine scenarios for Ivaylo III and Yodit I, although Tsar of the Bulgars is quite easy to cheese. I think everyone will agree on the first one though, definitely the hardest single campaign mission of the whole set! I was looking forward to seeing Viper go through it but he does not seem too interested to keep playing the campaigns nowadays.

I'm glad Fate of India made the list. God that was a pain. 3vs1 and they start with nearly infinite resources was not fun. Heading over to green's econ base early on and massing priests to take their elephants helps a lot. Destroying green's economy and nearby red's economy makes it a lot easier. Putting castles right before the trench helps get a height advantage against red's CA spam.

You should definitely do a Top 5 Hardest Campaign Scenarios in AoE2: Rise of the Rajah

Bari scenario is the hardest, but its also one of the most fun to play.

It helps a lot to build extra Castles in your allies' bases in Le Loi 1, since the Ming never invade your own camp.

Notice how they're all new dev team missions. I feel as if the new devs made these scenarios with hardcore players in mind, compared to the original Ensemble Studios team who made them for the average gamer who may not know all the hotkeys or play multiplayer. I think that's why I don't really like the newer campaigns aside from sub-par or overdone level design and voice acting, they're just not made for a casual player.

Just finished Bari 4 after getting my ass handed to me then getting inspired by your own video on it, its honestly all on the initial setup, send most of your starting vills to the stone excavation (except 2-3 which you keep at base building new TCs and finishing the wall around the castle), start training some 3 petards and a few extra units to invade Dattus early and rush his tower, train 9-10 petards more and send them to capua castle, hold out for the first waves of enemies until the excavation ends, and then it's a breeze, sack the monastery with your acquired breathing space and give the gold to the normans for an easy win (not paying the makes them turn on you, and if you haven't finished the other optional objectives, it essentially turns an extremely hard 4v1 into an impossible 5v1)

What about your best/favourite scenarios?

I wonder who first thought of petarding the allied castle? they must have been really smart ornluaCornlu

I completed bari 4 on hard first try. After having scouted Dattus's tower I docked outside Capua, and built a couple of cannon galleons to snipe it and defeat Dattus before they could even deal any damage. Capua then turned on me, but conveniently the castle was close to the waterline, so the cannon galleons took care of the castle as well within a short time. They proved to be very useful against the trebs from the holy roman empire as well (I'd walled up the northern pass, so the teutons had to go the long way round), and they sniped a few of the trebs before finally getting converted by the Papal states monks. By this time I'd recruited some arbs to help defend the castle and my economy was decent enough to defend (with help from the norman mercenaries).

I think the second Tariq ibn Ziyad level, Consolidation and Subjugation is top 5 most difficult. Hard difficulty, of course. It's funny how different people experience different "issues" with each campaign scenario lol. I personally don't find Razzia to be a top 10 hardest scenario on Hard, but can see why it is honorable mention. I also find the second Prithviraj scenario The Digvijaya incredibly frustrating, while I find the fourth, The Fate of India, merely difficult, but again, I can see why it is on the list. A scenario in my personal top 5 would be the final DE Alaric mission, A Kingdom of Our Own, especially if you do not kill Sarus immediately. Anyway, great list. Love the content! -Good call on The Old Tiger! Wouldn't be my number 1 most difficult on Hard, but definitely top 5, and could be my favorite scenario overall. It is what urban warfare should look like in all the scenarios. For instance, the 4th Tamerlane is laughably easy on Hard. It should turn into a bloodbath. You are assaulting DELHI, for fs sake!

Hi, Ornlu! Would you stay have "The Best Laid Plans" and "The Battle at the Kalka River" in the top 2? Nowadays they aren't as hard as the other three.

Was working my way through this today lol. Best laid plans - 4 hours completion time lol, without trying to keep capua and trade (as soon as you go fast imp into trebs and kill castle straight away it becomes dead easy - you can trade with blue market and it's just a multiplayer game v AIs - found that too easy). Real tough but great map. Found mountain siege harder. Cumans one was tough but you just gotta wall and add xbow and you're golden.

This explains why my vid of "The Best Laid Plans" got so many views LUL, nice vid.

why isn't field of blood on here? that is a ridiculous mission

I'm curious as to what your thoughts would be on the 5 hardest mission specific achievements in AOE2:DE. I had quite a helluva time knocking out the Jin before they get their wonder up, reaching the king in Gajah Mada before 10 minutes (not nearly as hard as the Jin) and defeating the Hungarians before Subotai arrives, also in the Genghis campaign.

I found that for the Best Laid Plans Mission it is wise to send 1 vil to your ally's base to build a dock and create 2 cannon galleons. They are pretty much invincible once you get them in the water as I never had to deal with enemy ships and on the off chance you miss your window for getting the Norman Mercenaries (which I did because I was too busy defending my base) they are perfect for sniping all their buildings and forcing them to resign. Doing that while building towers and units to defend, quick booming for economy, and sending a few vils to mine out that stone (they won't be attacked), and I found that I was able to push up and take out the enemies one by one. Cannon galleons early on make one enemy completely trivial which helps. Still though I agree it took me several tries to get it.

You are right Baris campaign mission 4 is the hardest but not impossible cuz NOTHING CAN STOP THE BYZANTINE ARMY

Just started campaigns because of server maintenance. I picked Cumans, because why not, and hard difficulty. Little did I know how weird the second part will be. I managed to beat it after an hour or two but I'm glad the other campaigns aren't as crazy.

Bari 4 took so many tries for me as well. You can actually treb down the orange tower from the Norman Mercenaries’ camp if you go to the very edge of the cliff. Eliminate them right away and once they are gone, get fortified walls and start walling the side of your base in order to funnel the enemy attacks against your castle and boom with multiple tcs behind it. Even with the funneling it gets extremely hard to withstand when the teuton assault begins because they bring a lot of siege units. But once you fully garrison your castle and build a couple garrisoned towers aswell and have enough cav to snipe their siege, it starts to get easier. I know funneling is a bit cheesy against the AI but I think that’s the only way if you want the castle defense victory.

I find the second Le Loi mission much harder than the first one. In the 1st mission, you can pretty much ignore the allied villages from the beginning and instead focus on economy and protecting your 2 allies. I have done that by simply building a second castle in their base and garrisoning them with light cavalry (against rams) and a few villagers (to repair the damaged walls/towers/castles). You can also build more walls arround the enemy bases if you want (since the allies do not have fortified walls). There are 3 relics in total on the map so gold is not so much of a problem. Once you secure your allies, you can focus on eliminating the Chinese patrols and occupying forces in the allied villages. A great advantage for the player is the fact that the Chinese do not attack your base, so you do not need to build any defences and just support your allies. Also - Dracula 3 was very hard, I won by building walls on every section of the bridge where it was possible in order to keep the grey player away while I dealt with the rest.

In the Fate of India mission, you can "cheat" by starting to build a wonder right away and then you need to snipe just one monastery (or two if you started building it later). I also often exploit the fact that AI land units usually don't attack ships so if you have a map with rivers or lakes, you can use them for defense. Just be careful about onagers.

Th emost difficult one for me was the one in the Berber campaign in which we have to cross the Pyranees, The fact that our units constantly loose HP when crossing the mountains made it really hard.

I think other missions in Le Loi were tough too. The 4th or 5th mission was brutal because there's a huge army that attacks very early on.

From memory on lost of these mission I just when trash units then got a death ball. I didnt know what to expect but I had to build eco, be effective in all fights, and build final armies.

I saw from a chinese player a cheese strat for bari 4. Rushing the monks for their gold to use for the mercenaries and making a cannon galleon for the tower and castle.

*For Bari 4 on Moderate Difficulty I had to fully enclose the wall around the castle & rely on mainly defensively training archery range units that I stationed either in or around the castle. I also built towers both inside the enclosure and south of a southern woodline TC I built since the towers seemed to be efficiently keeping Capua at bay w/ only minimum guard military needed, all while trying to get the Normans' assistance. Not sure if the same strat to defend the castle would work on Hard Difficulty tho*

I just tried the first Goth campaign and it was quite the grind

Ivaylo 2 but only because I didn't get the right information (very manageable otherwise) : the church that had to be taken didn't appear on the map so I first thought it was the unique building in the town, so I started playing defensively. But the green player on the southwest got the timer and I still had no idea where was the monument to capture, so I launched an all in assault on the green town 50 years before the end of the timer. Destroyed half of their town but still no monument in sight, and eventually the timer expired. Only when I restarted it did I see it quickly appeared on the map near the beginning. Maybe it was a bug on my first try.

'Conquering Rakhine is dubious in modern context.' That right there is why I love your casting.

last Francisco Almeida mision...where u must avoid killing units of one faction, while also being pushed by time limit at the same time.

What I found most ... iffy about Ivaylo 3 was the khan placement. one Cuman khan right in a chokepoint (with little wiggleroom to lure him) and the tatar one being cut-off from the main camp. apart fromt hat the scenario does tell you what to do. just how you do it is up for debate and really takes a fair bit of force concentration, while you're getting manguod.

First, thx for the videos I did the old tiger in a different way...started to kill the Portuguese, converted their Feitoria, and with the resources, built a lot of towers to protect my base. Converted the blacksmith and upgraded all the stuff, converted other buildings and made all the updates...in the end was fun :)

Took me 3 failed attempts to do Best Laid Plans before I thought of using petards against the castle. One mission I really think should have been mentioned was the final Hun level Fall of Rome when you're up against 4 enemies who all build wonders. Had me swearing at my computer when I couldn't get my trebuchets near the Veronan wonder because they had an army of paladins defending it. Trick I used in the end was having a transport ship full of trebs ready for when they started building it so I could rush in and knock it down when it was much more vulnerable.

I really struggled with the Kotyan one, always got overunned. But what worked for me was attacking the Tatars with the starting army as soon as the game starts while building my base. They dont have many soldiers at the begining so I just entered their camp, killed most of the villagers and their attacks diminished by a lot, in stead of sending complete armies they just send 4 horses. It was really easy then.

Bari 4 in hard surprised me initially and I got slaughtered first try, but on the second, I made a lot of tower around castle which was enough do defend against most attacks, some building outside so AI targets them. Paid Normas really fast to get the bully other enemies. They slowly build up eco and army and I managed to slowly wipe out enemies from south to north. Was a bit challenging to figure out start.

The Best Laid plans is kinda hard, but it gets way easier if you know this cheap exploit: 1) Wall up like crazy around your castle. You want to delay the HRE ever getting to your castle (remember they attack you with this huge army at like, minute 10). Best thing to do is to delay them as much as possible. 2) Make some cavalry and place it outside your city so that, when HRE trebs arrive, you can snipe them with ease. Mangonels may help too, but this is kind of dubious. 3) At the very start, send 2 vils to build a dock in the river near Capua. You have access to cannon galleons, so build 2-3 of them. 4) Snipe the orange tower in order to defeat them extremely early. 5) As soon as Capua turns, destroy the castle with the same cannon galleons 6)Pay off yellow as soon as possible. Now you have taken out 2 enemies, made a friend and are in a position to slowly push back the HRE and the popeman. I strongly suggest taking out the grey monks, which provide gold to the HRE and the popeman. I don t remember much about the rest of it since I played it long ago but, if you start like this, you are already well positioned to take on the scenario.

So far hardest for me has been the Sargon campaign (Return of Rome) "The Land of Kings" mission. Looks a lot Like Le Loi 1 But I haven't played any you mentioned in the video yet, the one in the intro looks like it's going to be rough

For the ‘Tsar of the Bulgars’ campaign I just made an army of 60 knights on repeat and suicide rushed them at the tent till they won

I'm surprised Ivaylo 5 doesn't get any mentions. The insane enemy monk spam and defences made me eat my keyboard, I remember it took me like 4-5 full-blown invasions with insane micro to take down Poland. That whole campaign is the hardest I've played (though I haven't played all of the post-Conquerors ones yet)

Bari 4. Took so many tries, did it on hard and defended the castle to win. Used a lot of fortified walls. 3 TC boom into halbs, used walls to force enemy to fight under the castle, spammed halbs, with a few arbs to kill Teutonic Knights. I found the mercenaries useful to keep orange and green occupied.

I did manage to do Bari 4 by saving my castle. It took me at least a dozen tries. For me it was like completing a jigsaw puzzle by moving right pieces in the right place at the right time.

A kingdom of our own is pretty hard if you don't know that you are supposed to kill Sarus with your starting army.

One thing I notice with every pro who plays the campaigns and has issues with them is that there is basically no defense from them (no walling, towers etc..). They rely on rushing and booming economy. That's it. I got through these hard scenarios by just cheesing with multiple layers of walls and defenses while occasionally raiding their economy. Sure it turns into lengthy battles but it does the trick.

For real, I actually beat The Best Laid Plans ony first try. I was anxious the whole time.

I just went through The Best Laids Plans in hard. I dreaded it, cause I was barely good enough to finish it in standard last time I tried. Long story short, it was a breeze. Maybe they rebalanced it, but I hardly ever felt under pressure after the last attack. What I did was : - Take my starting army, raze Montecassino (grab the relics if you can), use the gold to pay of the Normans. - Take three peasants and immediately go mine the stone to shut down the trading route. - Make a dozen petards to blow up Capua's castle. I also did a path of walls to herd the AI toward the castle (it seems it sometimes prefer to wander around and destroy your base, rather than go for the castle). I boomed, got to Imperial age, destroyed Melus' tower with a treb deployed in the norman mercenaries' base (but Melus was almost gone by that point, as yellow and blue were pounding him). I had to destroy one treb, maybe two. But it seems red won't make any once the trading route is shut down. I had an army of 60 cataphracts by the end, while green was slowly getting destroyed by blue and yellow (+ my siege)

I don't understand what happen with the campaigns on DE. When I was a kid I beat all the conquerors ones, and when the forgotten was out I did the same (until I reach the "El Dorado" one that was so bugged that was impossible to play, at that point I left the campaigns). Now I am back to it, with a better understanding of the game mechanics, and I am constantly struggling. I don't know, it feels like they did something wrong. Also, I miss how before you have to play them in order, from (supposedly) the easiest to the hardest. I don't get how did they rate the campaigns for DE, doesn't make much sense to me.

never struggled and scared to play again was The India 4, which is now Gurjars 4, with the time limit and fast paced game.

I'm writing this 3 years after the video upload, so there could be made some changes to campaigns, but most of them feels actually easy (I started aoe2 de just one month ago and i was playing them on hard). All you need to do is just to build forward castle and garrison it. For kotyan 2 two castles full of your unique horse archers can hold you from mongols for hours. Dai viet is similar, you just rush castle to one side and attack another without worries that it'll fall. Ivaylo 3 and prithviraj 4 goes the same way with the difference that sometimes you need to snipe trebs with ur cavs. Bari casstle def is doable this way aswell, you just add some monks inside to convert anoying units and set ur cav outside with passive stance to kill trebs. Ai there rushes to ur castle and ignore them totally, leaving theirs trebs undefended.

Agree with the levels mentioned in the video (although in no particular order). I actually loved those as they finally challenged one to focus and most of them took multiple tries. I believe that a campaign, where you can take as long as you want and also make multiple mistake AND yet be able to win, is a bad campaign.

Razzia was literally the hardest thing I beat on aoe2. BC even if you beat the other enemies and stop the attacks on your bases, even if you have a lot of resources (which you most certainly don't at the end when playing on hard) the enemy just spams troops so quickly that I just couldnt destroy his military buildings. No matter how large an army I sent, if I had a foward base to train more and send quickly, there was just no way my troops survived long enough to destroy the enemy buldings, which was the only way to stop him as it had no eco. I got lucky after countless hours on my 4rth or 5th play that the enemy had amassed a large army on the other side of the map when I hit his base from west, so with enough rams I destroyed many of its buildings before his troops came back and while he was at his pop cap. Once half his buildings were destroyed the rate of his spaming was reduced enough so I could hold back his paladins while the rams destroyed the rest of the buildings. But I was so mad I left a final building standing so I could raze all his walls.

Today i have completed all of those scenarios in the video. But I've seen harder missions than those missions you have described. e.g. Le Loi 6, Bari 5, Dracula 3. So far i have completed the following campaigns: -El Cid, Alaric, Sforza, Prithviraj, Tariq, Sundjata, Almeida, Yodit, Bayinnaung, Le Loi, Ivaylo, Kotyan Khan, Tamerlane P.S. i have almost completed the Bari campaign but it's almost impossible!!!! I defended bari for 20 minutes but it hasn't switched to the part where i destroy all the docks, WTF?! P.P.S. Le Loi 6, oh gosh..... it was so painful! i only barely finished this mission with about 15-20 rattan archers and two trebuchets left after my whole army was utterly destroyed

I haven't played all the DE campaigns but for me at this point: 1.- the last Saladin's scenario is tricky, you need to be super aggressive. 2.- Last Alaric they punch my face every time. 3.- Le Loi has like 2-3 difficult maps. 4.- From Tamerlan's campaign when you go to Russia. 5.- 2 water maps from Malayan's campaign. 6.- The river mission from Dracula's campaign. 7.- Honfoglalas (Magyar's scenario). They're not in order. But now I have even more difficult suggestions from Mr. Mongolian Wolf.

The key for "The Best Laid Plans" ( Bari 4 ) was to like you said petard Blue Castle as fast as they change diplomacy to enemy, hire as fast as possible mercenaries and build many galleons on this river near Capua. For me the worst in term of difficulty was Pachacuti campaign - for me really boring and sluggish.

I didn't find Best Laid Plans that bad... as you can heavily cheese the start. As soon as it starts, build a bunch of rams, place them next to your ally's castle, and perhaps even wall off the area around the castle to prevent him from sending knights against your rams. Once he flips to being an enemy, you can flip him back in less than half a minute. He'll send out some units quickly against orange and you can follow along with your rams and quickly destroy his tower, taking him out (with just that it goes from 1 v 4 to 2 v 2). Also at the start, wall off your castle with gates and bring all your missile troops in (perhaps even locking the gates - the Germans are weak against archers). Send 5 villagers up to mine stone to cause an avalanche. At this point you could raid the monastery with light cav (bonus against monks), which gives you enough gold to hire the Normans. Wall off the river on the left and near where the monastery is to prevent the remaining enemies from getting into your base.

How about Kotyan Khan 5 - Bulgaria (HARD) after july 6th? I know you did this one late last year but it seams that something changed since then. I´ve managed to defeat the Latin Empire but I can´t beat the Byzantines. Is this mission bugged? The huge amount of army you encounter is overwelming. Thanks a lot.

Le loi, the second mission is where I am stuck right now. Edit: finally beat the scenario after booming fast and putting units at every gate, using light cav to snipe the trebs.

Kotyan 2 is probably my best gameplay ever. Yes it took me lot of tries but when I completed it in 30 mins, I paused for a moment just so I could convince myself that I actually completed a mission in less than an hour. Usually, my campaigns last at least 90 minutes. So kotyan 2 and bari 4 are some of my memorable campaigns.

Not sure if someone already mentioned it, but Bari 4 has been nerfed (not sure which patch does), now Teutons make trebuchet only in the very late game. (pay attention to the "our mighty siege engine......" dialogue) The early trebuchet push is the only reason I think why the scenario is hard, without that, just wall the base and the castle will do most of the work. now, I think it is harder than Le Loi 1, but easier than all 4 other scenarios you mentioned. And I think Bayinnaung 5 and Pachacuti 2 (with no walls & gates achievement, or even try to keep both allies alive) should be on the list!

I haven't really played the FE campaigns, so I can't comment on their difficulty. I definately agree on the 3 other mentioned (I only won Kotyan 2 because the mongols ai bugged out a bit). That Sundjata one how you are locked in feudal and get constantly harrassed would be one of my picks, had it not been for the fact that you can cheese it. Anyway, I don't like the newer campaigns as much. Having to fight more enemies that have infinite resources (supported by no eco) feels tedious on hard. Alternatively, raiding ecos on earlier campaigns is viable. You would actually get rewarded for hyper-aggression and interesting tactics.

I find Ivaylo 3, and the Kalka river one quite difficult. But I love to replay them once I know how it needs to be done. Also Dracula 3 is terrible if you don't snipe the enemies before entering the city.

On Prithviraj 4, i wouldn't recommend Elephant archers, just spam thrash units and keep your gold for upgrades, trebs, monks and camels... Counter attack yellow first, its monastry is easy to snipe and red and green often mix their armies