If you go to Stephen first, villagers will tell you that he disobeyed your orders and attacked the Byzantines, they're the only ones that remain. Mleh will remain your ally and remark how reckless his brother was.
If Mleh is defeated he will curse you for not help you and remark that he should have accepted the Byzantines offer. He really was the worst of the family.
@@SIGNOR-G In fact, historically, he soon after conspired to dethrone Thoros and was banished by him. He then defected to Muslim-held Aleppo, converted to Islam and, after Thoros abdicated, murdered the latters son to become King of Armenia himself. Karma caught up with him, though, as five years later he was in turn killed by Stephen's son, who took the Throne from him.
it's historically accurate as well to choose Stephen as in real life he died because of attacking Greek garrisons, breaking the temporary peace with the Byzantines, Thoros would practically not give a crap about his death but he would use it as an excuse to raid the Byzantines again
Not really, Reynald's 2 daughters married well (one to the King of Hungary, the other to the Marquess of Ferrara) and so he has descendants today. Thoros II's son and successor Roupen II was murdered at the age of 5 by Mleh the year after Thoros died.
The campaign rating should be revised, Thoros’s one sword campaign is harder than Ismail’s two swords one; one of the hardest part is getting the achievement for letting survive the starting villagers.
Rating per particular mission seems better. The first 3 Thoros scenarios feel indeed like 1 sword diff, but 4 and 5 lean towards 2 and 3 swords respectively.
yes Ismail 1 Tamar 1 or 2 Thoros 2 Think dev grant 3 swords difficulty because some missions are not just simple B&D missions. Nonethless they are easy with Monaspa spamming
@@MegaMaster1021 I had to turn down difficulty from moderate to standard, because I kept getting beaten in 4 and 5. Even then it was difficult. I'm not a good player, but like to play on moderate, then go down, rather than start on standard.
I only allied with Stephan on standard, his position is much easier to defend at least. I replayed on moderate siding with BLEAHH hoping that Stephan would be as aggressive as in the previous missions, but he spent most of the game suiciding against the Byzantine outpost southwest of him and had his TC destroyed if I didn't send reinforcements, heh Edit: this definitely feels a bit like Reynald De Châtillon campaign starring Thoros as a cameo guest isn't it? xD
To be fair Mleh gets slaughtered if you don't help him either (at least on hard). I had to reset this one a lot, and he pretty much consistently lost his TC around the truce moment.
@@poklours4257 for me (also on hard) red held out long enough for me to build up and soaked up a lot of damage (mostly from green). Definitley was a better ally than yellow who just randomly attacked byzantine stone walls
@@poklours4257 One my successful attempt, Mleh indeed lost his TC pretty early on, but stayed alive until the end, sending waves of spearmen and skirmishers regularly.
This mission seems wildly inconsistent with how hard you get hit, when the Byzantines attacked me for the first time after picking a base there were easily 5x as many units.
37:42 Yeah, I’ve been seeing a lot of that bug lately. Groups of units refuse to move together, but snap out of it if you move them separately. It usually happens with trebs for me though.
Start of this scenario was a bit of a blitz, hard to hold the city for 15 mins but at least you only need Thoros to live and the Castle to survive, in which case it wasn't too bad to complete if you're just willing to give up whatever else is necessary. As for the two starting locations, I only did Stephan's but it was pretty easy being tucked away in the corner, just castle up near the bridge and it's a pretty smooth chokepoint defense against Byzantine attacks while you build up as they rarely seemed to attack from the northwest corridor. I'd imagine Mleh's start is harder as it is much closer to the enemy and is more surrounded by them I do think this campaign deserved a 2 sword rating at least based on the 4th and 5th scenario though
Even Armenian navy isn't that good despite being described as "naval & infantry civ". I lost many ships than my infantrymen & archers during the previous 4th mission at Cyprus😂
"We are gonna have to do a lot of defending here" says Ornlu, oh boy ... I played this map to completion twice (so that I get the achievement too), tried it three time though in total, my very first attempt I went to Stephan thinking "Oh, walls" and then Mleh was like "I will send you resources" so I was like "Neat", and Mleh proceeds to die in the first 10 minutes. So I restarted and went to Mleh to experience near death a couple of times until the cease fire came so I just allied myself with the dude that had the most troops in my base, lol
@@martijnbouman8874 Well Ornlu did not trigger it for some reason, I guess it might only happen if you get overrun like you have no army and they are in your base so Reynald offers a cease fire, but then Green immediately does too and you can choose who to ally for 15 in-game minutes so you can just concentrate on taking the down the other in the meanwhile.
@@martijnbouman8874 Wow, meanwhile me getting it on all 3 attempts I made, I am so much worse at this game I guess, but Hard difficulty just takes you by surprise for sure xD
This one was challenging but a rewarding challenge. It wasn't crazy unit spam like some of the past scenarios (looking at you. Razzi haha). I haven't tried Mlhe's base but Stephen's is pretty straightforward. The chokepoint by the bridge is great to lay down castles/archers and use the waterway to abuse the Aremnian galleons. Each faction doesn't deviate from a set group of units and fortunately the aremnian unique unit and their buffed infantry counter the horse-heavy franks and byzantines and the hussar spamming turks. If the enemy suddenly started making onagers.... yeah I'd ragequit haha. One shot would obliterate my wall of infantry. One tip I found: if you can take the water from the franks and byzantines (they dont make too many boats) you can use Dromons to destroy the Tarsos castle. Just be prepared to defend your new ally because they dont do well on their own against the byzantine attacks.
you can actually take your remaining army from the siege part of the mission over to mieh's base. You have to walk past the two towers in the southern byzantine camp towards the bridge connecting to mieh's base. The bridge is broken initially but will be repaired once thoros gets to his new base. so you need to send thoros in the transport and run him to the red TC and you can walk your army over the bridge. I managed to take 50+ elite composite bowmen with me. that basically made it easy to defend my boom
Yes on standard difficulty the campaign feels quite easy imo. On hard it's easily a 3 sword campaign, especially last two missions. Also for the achievement on this mission it's best not to destroy the Byzantine castle in Tarsos as any villagers that die after that also count as a fail
Am I the only one who was offered a 10 minute cease fire by Reynald on hard difficulty? There must be a trigger for it if you fall under a certain pop or something. I ran away from Mleh's base once it was overrun in the beginning and rebuilt outside Stephan's walls. Also you can easily snipe the Byzantine castle in Tarsos with a dromon when you build a dock in that pool you land with the transport ship. Made things a lot easier.
Going to Stephan’s camp gets you a message like “Stephan didn’t follow your orders and attacked instead and lost his entire army! We are all that’s left” so different but the same essentially as what Mleh’s camp said. Except the Seljuks didn’t attack for a while and instead it was reynald joining the byzantines to attack instantly
Also it was easier in the sense that yes, you were more fortified and further away so your economy could boom unbothered for longer behind your walls while you defended, but harder in that you had to leave your base soon for resources and your 3 enemies REALLY hated when you tried to do that lol. So for a long while I was using trash until I was able to protect the gold in Mleh’s ruined base. Oh and yes Mleh got steamrolled pretty quickly as an ally
This mission was CRAZY. Took me 2 tries because when I tried moving everyone to the transport, Thoros got stuck behind some Cataphracts and he got rekt. I found massing as many Comp Bows with a couple mangos could hold out against the big charges until time was up. I also went to Stephan because I wanted the easy walls, ceasefired with the Seljuks, grinded down Reynald, then the Seljuks after the ceasefire ended, then slowly the Byzantines. Pretty grindy mission overall, but I didn't hate it.
One thing still bugs me. Unless I missed it, who is the narrator for this campaign? Like, for example, in Barbarossa, it was revealed to be Henry the Lion the whole time.
Steven is even worse than if you choose Red. If you choose Steven, the game will not become easier; the enemies will attack in the same intensity. But because Steven’s base lacks resources, you will suffer much more. I played this scenario twice, and the second time I chose Steven. Result is, I spent 1 more hour than when I chose Red; the resources are too few, so I had to make pikemen and champions, struggling a lot. By the way, the first time I played it I chose Red. How did I defend my base? I bought stones as soon as I got the base, and immediately made a castle beside my top-left TC, and at the same time spam pikemen. Later I built a second castle beside the stone mine below the base. Then enemies could not break my defense. Oh, I forgot it. I also built an array of stone walls to block Green, so their units had to go in my castle’s range.
Impressive that you defenced Red's base. I migrated and rebuilt my TC near Yellow's castle and walled and towered every chokepoint just to survive, land trade with Yellow became my main income until I have army to push out.
This one was hard. I barely managed to hold for 15 minutes before deciding to join Stephan's camp as it has walls. Seeing this outcome with Mleh, I think he is a coward for joining the enemy whereas Stephan died fighting despite disobeying orders, so the lessor evil, I guess. At least we now know whom is the better brother. As I was doing my playthrough, I was consistently attacked, including from the side where I thought was walled off by forest near the already built Monastery. It took a while systematically take out each enemy as I was nearly over run at one point, including being attacked from all enemies at once!!
I have 2 things too add: 1st while controlling stephen's fortress during every one of my attempts Tarsus freed itself though I don't how they did it. 2. I had the same glitch picking up those relics, but with a warrior priest.
The start of this scenario was a real pain, especially trying to escape with nothing left but Thoros and whoever was left of your army. But afterwards things got less stressful and more irritating, Reynold betraying me in classic Aoe2 fashion, the constant grind against all three sides. I snowballed my way to victory using a mixed for of all 3 infantry units, Arbs, Comps, Cavaliers, and Trebs and is was a steamroll once I started off attacking southwest from Stephan's/my base. The Seljuks definitely put up a better fight than Reynold, who went down in about a minute from my first volley of 8 Trebs. All in all I really liked this campaign, grindy at times, irritating at others, but both the campaign and civ was fun. And as a bonus, I got the achievements for scenario 2 and 4 in funny ways. Scenario 4 I just cleared Cyprus first because the Byzantines were across the water so I just rampaged across Cyprus with Reynold. And Scenario 2 I thought all 5 Byzantine generals needed to be captured, turns out only 3 were needed... Woops. That's half a dozen monks and a dozen infantry that died when I only needed 3/5 generals captured. But, hey, 1000 gold is still 1000 gold.
I could just not get the achievement on hard, had to do it on standard. Then came back just to beat the mission on hard. Definitely choosing Stephan seems easier, you start with walls and all enemies come from one direction. One or two castles and a small army is enough to defend. Plus, you can liberate Tarsos with a small fleet, mainly dromons, gaining you another ally
Backing the wrong horse is an approximative English translation of "miser sur le mauvais cheval," which literally means "betting on the wrong horse." It means you made the wrong choice. You are right to assume it refers to a bad outcome for horse racing bets. "Zut alors" does not have an exact translation. I would translate it as "Oh crap, shoot, or simply damn.
Definitely one of the hardest one that I had played... That said Mleh's camp gives the most fun, as I had sent a few demo ship guarding and baiting enemy around
Well, at least it wasn't that hard for me. Focused on Wood in the beginning, traded for gold, got many techs and revived very good. I've saved some composite bows, chose Mleh built a castle on southwest mined all the stone while building pikes and bows and safed my corner to the turks. Once u realized, that your trade route is behind Stephans castle, you should be fine. Then go for Green, Blue, Purple and you win.
I chose Stephen since it offered the better site for defending against the early onslaught. Also I built a dock and sailed two dromons to take out the Tarsos castle
I went with Stephan on hard and I think it is easier. You get a nice very defendable position and Mleh as an ally, who can hold back the Seljuks for a while (although, eventually he gets overrun if you don't help). You still get dogpiled by Reynald and the Byzantines, but you have a chokepoint to funnel them into. The downside is that your gold is very exposed in contested territory, so you either fight for it, which can be rough or turtle up and rely on relics for gold. Mleh is also in the middle of the map and won't be able to hold alone. He doesn't rebuild his TC, so if that falls, he'll likely be out of the game soon. I'm not sure, how the ratings for the campaings are decided, but I feel like this should have been 2 sword. While the maps aren't that complex the AI is agressive and relentless and if you slip up, you can easily get overrun. Especially in the last 2 maybe 3 maps, where you are no longer that ahead of the AI in IMP rather than in Castle Age with Halbs and Champs.
3:15 🤣 4:40 Dont worry, we can try 9:54 Guard: Byzantine's Rams heading for our walls! Ornlu: The Cap Ram may look scary but we got 24 Composite Bowman here theye're doing fine. 9:59 *Ornlu look a Treb Ornlu: Now that Treb may look scary becoz it is scary... 🤣 15:37 Mleh: We welcome u. Even after u said to me. 36:34 Large Army: We fight for Ornlu the Wolf! 37:42 1st time, Ornlu? 🙂
Armenian Composite Bowman on the subject of his straight shots: Don't be so surprised. My great great great great so on and so forth grandfather was a Minoan Composite Bowman
I allied with Stephan and enjoyed fortifying its natural defenses and chokepoints! I hope to build up my competence and beat this campaign at higher difficulties -I had *fun* driving the Barbie car with scenarios 3-5 on standard after getting my shit rocked in my first attempts at 3 and 4 😹 but for the sake of my people, I will get before at Age of Empires 🇦🇲
I feel like the Stephan path is a bit easier with the snuggled up in the corner base and only being able to be attacked by two sides that being said the amount is still relentless especially early on in that first few pushes before you can build much even if you just wall. I have to say Ishmail should be the 1 sword and Thoros be at least 2
Stephan's land is more defensible, and you can hold against all three enemies, but you swiftly run out of resources and end up in a real scrap to survive. I had to use loads of trash units to push out and ended up taking Mleh's resources anyway
Siding with Stephan is even more difficult because you are insanely cornered with not many resources and the Byzantines will be a much stronger opponent than the Seljuks
GGs, as always you kick ass. There's one thing amiss however in your playthrough and several I watched, the initial attack after taking over a base. You only get attacked by like 10 cataphracts and 2 arbalesters when you take over Mleh's base while every time I play this map I get attacked by a gigantic army of 30 cataphracts, 10 knights. 5-10 two-handed swordsman, 20+ arbalesters and rams at the same point. I have no idea what causes that, is it a bug or an AI script glitch?
I played it on standard and still got almost overwhelmed. This is a hard scenario for a one sword difficulty campaign. ( I just heard you complaining about the frame drops. I thought it just happens to me. I worried that my pc was having troubles. It pretty much ruined the experience somewhat to me )
I finished the 3 sword Tamar over the weekend, & from watching your vids, Thoros is a much harder "one sword" campaign by comparison! P.S. Mass Monaspas are really OP
Choosing to go to Mleh (your choice) is way harder. You are attacked constantly by all enemies while my ally yellow is just attacking random defencless enemy stone walls. I lost and choose to go to yellow. You start with a way better defended base and your ally red will basically soak up most of the enemy attacks, giving you plenty of time to build up unoppossed and defeat the Byzantines. Choosing Yellow is much easier than choosing red.
Only time I managed to save the villagers Thoros got trapped between the now neutral vills and the walls and I had to restart. Kind of annoying. BUT I was sneaky enough to save the relic.
I went Stephan route, he dies and Mleh is a useless ally but holds off Seljuks atleast for a bit before he's overrun the Byzantines will attack you relentlessly and theres very few resources.
Are the swords supposed to determine the difficulty of the campaign, or it’s complexity with objectives? Cause there’s no effing way this was a one sword campaign if the notion was that it was easy
What I disliked about this mission is that the franks that an incredible amount of trebs, when I reached their base I've noticed they cant produce that many and they have them just spawning out of thin air. While I was besieging them they had no units left, but behind the castle they had 12 trebs piled up 11
I think Tamar and Thoros should have their sword difficulty swapped. Tamar's campaign was pretty easy all told. Only real bugbear was rushing to get all the side objectives done in Tamar 5.
Thoros should be solid 2 swords. 4rd and 5th mission are arguably harder than any Ismail or Tamar missions As for the 5th one, found stephan side harder. It depends on the rng tho. got consistently pushed by byzantines, followed by seljuk and Reynald 'cause they detour the mleh's castle. needed to train arbs and halbs asap. Stone piles are denied after a series of raids. When i choice Mleh base, on the otherhand, byzantine only rushed once. eco was better cause i only need to spam the hordes of halbs not to mention that stone piles are accessible and secured.
Quite funny that is 1 hidden way to pass this mission. With initial army defeat purple, than cut with trebs south pass for transport, land across the river and finish blue and green.
Shittiest campaign to be given 1 sword I'd say. Its easily 3 sword if not 4 if I could clearly finish other 2 with hard difficulty and I cannot finish this on Standard. Also I got attacked even more with trebs and all remaining byzantine troops very early on once i sided with Stephan. Didn't have time to build at all. I hated this campaign as much as I hated Rajendra Chola map 5.
So you hate campaigns that are hard? I had a lot of fun and the scenarios are great with a lot of objectives and enemy players, the characters are some-what engaging and the armenians are a cool civ and they let you utilize their bonuses.
@@CptSquirrel I meant I hated that its given a 1 sword rating, while the other easy ones are given 2 and 3. I thought if this is 1 sword I won't be able to finish others, I was so wrong.
If you go to Stephen first, villagers will tell you that he disobeyed your orders and attacked the Byzantines, they're the only ones that remain. Mleh will remain your ally and remark how reckless his brother was.
If Mleh is defeated he will curse you for not help you and remark that he should have accepted the Byzantines offer. He really was the worst of the family.
@@SIGNOR-G In fact, historically, he soon after conspired to dethrone Thoros and was banished by him. He then defected to Muslim-held Aleppo, converted to Islam and, after Thoros abdicated, murdered the latters son to become King of Armenia himself.
Karma caught up with him, though, as five years later he was in turn killed by Stephen's son, who took the Throne from him.
@@alexandersturnn4530 so it wasnt an artistic license of the game his conversion to islam. What a snake.
it's historically accurate as well to choose Stephen as in real life he died because of attacking Greek garrisons, breaking the temporary peace with the Byzantines, Thoros would practically not give a crap about his death but he would use it as an excuse to raid the Byzantines again
also being far from the enemy, when u choose Stephen you get enough time to build a castle and defend yourself from the first enemy wave
Reynald got what he deserved in Saladin campaign at least 😂
"Avenge me my brothers! For I cannot..."
Not really, Reynald's 2 daughters married well (one to the King of Hungary, the other to the Marquess of Ferrara) and so he has descendants today. Thoros II's son and successor Roupen II was murdered at the age of 5 by Mleh the year after Thoros died.
Do you remember Kingdom of Heaven? ua-cam.com/video/yhGr0wEhObU/v-deo.htmlsi=QnK03USyTZkb-BHk
@@cg8397 Yeah but Reynald got executed by Saladin so I think thats what they mean lol
@@cg8397 That was horrible, but at least Mleh got some karma, because Stephan's son killed him.
This one was brutal. Probably the hardest 1-sword I have done for a while.
I am doing Ismail's one and IC an tell you is easier that Thoros campaign
@@Dylan011235 Both Tamar and Ismail is easier than Thoros imo
yeah it is a joke as with Tariq ibn ziyad rated as 1 sword difficulty 11
The campaign rating should be revised, Thoros’s one sword campaign is harder than Ismail’s two swords one; one of the hardest part is getting the achievement for letting survive the starting villagers.
I agree, Ismail's campaign is much easier because you constantly have support.
Rating per particular mission seems better. The first 3 Thoros scenarios feel indeed like 1 sword diff, but 4 and 5 lean towards 2 and 3 swords respectively.
yes Ismail 1 Tamar 1 or 2 Thoros 2
Think dev grant 3 swords difficulty because some missions are not just simple B&D missions.
Nonethless they are easy with Monaspa spamming
Yeah, this campaign is way more harder than the supposed three swords campaign and this is coming from someone who isn't a very skilled player
@@MegaMaster1021 I had to turn down difficulty from moderate to standard, because I kept getting beaten in 4 and 5. Even then it was difficult. I'm not a good player, but like to play on moderate, then go down, rather than start on standard.
I loved that Reynald shows up in this campaign as the narrator. Very fun call back to a classic basta- err.. I mean, historical character.
I only allied with Stephan on standard, his position is much easier to defend at least. I replayed on moderate siding with BLEAHH hoping that Stephan would be as aggressive as in the previous missions, but he spent most of the game suiciding against the Byzantine outpost southwest of him and had his TC destroyed if I didn't send reinforcements, heh
Edit: this definitely feels a bit like Reynald De Châtillon campaign starring Thoros as a cameo guest isn't it? xD
To be fair Mleh gets slaughtered if you don't help him either (at least on hard). I had to reset this one a lot, and he pretty much consistently lost his TC around the truce moment.
@@poklours4257 Building a castle on his base is enough
@@poklours4257 for me (also on hard) red held out long enough for me to build up and soaked up a lot of damage (mostly from green). Definitley was a better ally than yellow who just randomly attacked byzantine stone walls
@@poklours4257 One my successful attempt, Mleh indeed lost his TC pretty early on, but stayed alive until the end, sending waves of spearmen and skirmishers regularly.
This mission seems wildly inconsistent with how hard you get hit, when the Byzantines attacked me for the first time after picking a base there were easily 5x as many units.
The number of units you get hit with is dependent on how many units remain after the siege. so the more you kill early, the less you fight later.
37:42 Yeah, I’ve been seeing a lot of that bug lately. Groups of units refuse to move together, but snap out of it if you move them separately. It usually happens with trebs for me though.
Oh yeah that happens to me too, which can be dangerous if you're on an attacking situation and you waste time by doing that
Start of this scenario was a bit of a blitz, hard to hold the city for 15 mins but at least you only need Thoros to live and the Castle to survive, in which case it wasn't too bad to complete if you're just willing to give up whatever else is necessary. As for the two starting locations, I only did Stephan's but it was pretty easy being tucked away in the corner, just castle up near the bridge and it's a pretty smooth chokepoint defense against Byzantine attacks while you build up as they rarely seemed to attack from the northwest corridor. I'd imagine Mleh's start is harder as it is much closer to the enemy and is more surrounded by them
I do think this campaign deserved a 2 sword rating at least based on the 4th and 5th scenario though
Infantry civs really struggle in campaigns
Barbarossa campaign flashbacks.
Even Armenian navy isn't that good despite being described as "naval & infantry civ". I lost many ships than my infantrymen & archers during the previous 4th mission at Cyprus😂
"We are gonna have to do a lot of defending here" says Ornlu, oh boy ... I played this map to completion twice (so that I get the achievement too), tried it three time though in total, my very first attempt I went to Stephan thinking "Oh, walls" and then Mleh was like "I will send you resources" so I was like "Neat", and Mleh proceeds to die in the first 10 minutes. So I restarted and went to Mleh to experience near death a couple of times until the cease fire came so I just allied myself with the dude that had the most troops in my base, lol
Which cease fire?
@@martijnbouman8874 Well Ornlu did not trigger it for some reason, I guess it might only happen if you get overrun like you have no army and they are in your base so Reynald offers a cease fire, but then Green immediately does too and you can choose who to ally for 15 in-game minutes so you can just concentrate on taking the down the other in the meanwhile.
@@Roa16 Ah interesting. I played the mission but didn't trigger this, either.
@@martijnbouman8874 Wow, meanwhile me getting it on all 3 attempts I made, I am so much worse at this game I guess, but Hard difficulty just takes you by surprise for sure xD
Devastating news to hear that Mleh betrayed his faith, after all this we went through
This one was challenging but a rewarding challenge. It wasn't crazy unit spam like some of the past scenarios (looking at you. Razzi haha).
I haven't tried Mlhe's base but Stephen's is pretty straightforward. The chokepoint by the bridge is great to lay down castles/archers and use the waterway to abuse the Aremnian galleons. Each faction doesn't deviate from a set group of units and fortunately the aremnian unique unit and their buffed infantry counter the horse-heavy franks and byzantines and the hussar spamming turks. If the enemy suddenly started making onagers.... yeah I'd ragequit haha. One shot would obliterate my wall of infantry.
One tip I found: if you can take the water from the franks and byzantines (they dont make too many boats) you can use Dromons to destroy the Tarsos castle. Just be prepared to defend your new ally because they dont do well on their own against the byzantine attacks.
you can actually take your remaining army from the siege part of the mission over to mieh's base. You have to walk past the two towers in the southern byzantine camp towards the bridge connecting to mieh's base. The bridge is broken initially but will be repaired once thoros gets to his new base. so you need to send thoros in the transport and run him to the red TC and you can walk your army over the bridge. I managed to take 50+ elite composite bowmen with me. that basically made it easy to defend my boom
It is possible to win without taking any ally's towns and defeat all enemy using just initial army.
Yes on standard difficulty the campaign feels quite easy imo. On hard it's easily a 3 sword campaign, especially last two missions. Also for the achievement on this mission it's best not to destroy the Byzantine castle in Tarsos as any villagers that die after that also count as a fail
Am I the only one who was offered a 10 minute cease fire by Reynald on hard difficulty? There must be a trigger for it if you fall under a certain pop or something. I ran away from Mleh's base once it was overrun in the beginning and rebuilt outside Stephan's walls. Also you can easily snipe the Byzantine castle in Tarsos with a dromon when you build a dock in that pool you land with the transport ship. Made things a lot easier.
Going to Stephan’s camp gets you a message like “Stephan didn’t follow your orders and attacked instead and lost his entire army! We are all that’s left” so different but the same essentially as what Mleh’s camp said. Except the Seljuks didn’t attack for a while and instead it was reynald joining the byzantines to attack instantly
Also it was easier in the sense that yes, you were more fortified and further away so your economy could boom unbothered for longer behind your walls while you defended, but harder in that you had to leave your base soon for resources and your 3 enemies REALLY hated when you tried to do that lol. So for a long while I was using trash until I was able to protect the gold in Mleh’s ruined base. Oh and yes Mleh got steamrolled pretty quickly as an ally
This mission was CRAZY. Took me 2 tries because when I tried moving everyone to the transport, Thoros got stuck behind some Cataphracts and he got rekt.
I found massing as many Comp Bows with a couple mangos could hold out against the big charges until time was up. I also went to Stephan because I wanted the easy walls, ceasefired with the Seljuks, grinded down Reynald, then the Seljuks after the ceasefire ended, then slowly the Byzantines. Pretty grindy mission overall, but I didn't hate it.
One thing still bugs me. Unless I missed it, who is the narrator for this campaign? Like, for example, in Barbarossa, it was revealed to be Henry the Lion the whole time.
@@gerriejordaan8385 It's Reynald de Châtillon
Steven is even worse than if you choose Red. If you choose Steven, the game will not become easier; the enemies will attack in the same intensity. But because Steven’s base lacks resources, you will suffer much more. I played this scenario twice, and the second time I chose Steven. Result is, I spent 1 more hour than when I chose Red; the resources are too few, so I had to make pikemen and champions, struggling a lot.
By the way, the first time I played it I chose Red. How did I defend my base? I bought stones as soon as I got the base, and immediately made a castle beside my top-left TC, and at the same time spam pikemen. Later I built a second castle beside the stone mine below the base. Then enemies could not break my defense.
Oh, I forgot it. I also built an array of stone walls to block Green, so their units had to go in my castle’s range.
The start of the mission on hard is one hell of a ride.
Impressive that you defenced Red's base. I migrated and rebuilt my TC near Yellow's castle and walled and towered every chokepoint just to survive, land trade with Yellow became my main income until I have army to push out.
This one was hard. I barely managed to hold for 15 minutes before deciding to join Stephan's camp as it has walls. Seeing this outcome with Mleh, I think he is a coward for joining the enemy whereas Stephan died fighting despite disobeying orders, so the lessor evil, I guess. At least we now know whom is the better brother. As I was doing my playthrough, I was consistently attacked, including from the side where I thought was walled off by forest near the already built Monastery. It took a while systematically take out each enemy as I was nearly over run at one point, including being attacked from all enemies at once!!
The ram that knocked down the fence at 20:55...
I cant believe devs used my homecity's name wrongly lmao.
Wow hopefully they will fix.
I have 2 things too add: 1st while controlling stephen's fortress during every one of my attempts Tarsus freed itself though I don't how they did it. 2. I had the same glitch picking up those relics, but with a warrior priest.
The start of this scenario was a real pain, especially trying to escape with nothing left but Thoros and whoever was left of your army. But afterwards things got less stressful and more irritating, Reynold betraying me in classic Aoe2 fashion, the constant grind against all three sides.
I snowballed my way to victory using a mixed for of all 3 infantry units, Arbs, Comps, Cavaliers, and Trebs and is was a steamroll once I started off attacking southwest from Stephan's/my base. The Seljuks definitely put up a better fight than Reynold, who went down in about a minute from my first volley of 8 Trebs.
All in all I really liked this campaign, grindy at times, irritating at others, but both the campaign and civ was fun.
And as a bonus, I got the achievements for scenario 2 and 4 in funny ways. Scenario 4 I just cleared Cyprus first because the Byzantines were across the water so I just rampaged across Cyprus with Reynold. And Scenario 2 I thought all 5 Byzantine generals needed to be captured, turns out only 3 were needed... Woops. That's half a dozen monks and a dozen infantry that died when I only needed 3/5 generals captured. But, hey, 1000 gold is still 1000 gold.
This level keeps kicking my entire ass lol
I could just not get the achievement on hard, had to do it on standard. Then came back just to beat the mission on hard. Definitely choosing Stephan seems easier, you start with walls and all enemies come from one direction. One or two castles and a small army is enough to defend. Plus, you can liberate Tarsos with a small fleet, mainly dromons, gaining you another ally
Backing the wrong horse is an approximative English translation of "miser sur le mauvais cheval," which literally means "betting on the wrong horse." It means you made the wrong choice.
You are right to assume it refers to a bad outcome for horse racing bets.
"Zut alors" does not have an exact translation. I would translate it as "Oh crap, shoot, or simply damn.
Definitely one of the hardest one that I had played...
That said Mleh's camp gives the most fun, as I had sent a few demo ship guarding and baiting enemy around
Well, at least it wasn't that hard for me. Focused on Wood in the beginning, traded for gold, got many techs and revived very good. I've saved some composite bows, chose Mleh built a castle on southwest mined all the stone while building pikes and bows and safed my corner to the turks. Once u realized, that your trade route is behind Stephans castle, you should be fine. Then go for Green, Blue, Purple and you win.
I chose Stephen since it offered the better site for defending against the early onslaught. Also I built a dock and sailed two dromons to take out the Tarsos castle
I went with Stephan on hard and I think it is easier. You get a nice very defendable position and Mleh as an ally, who can hold back the Seljuks for a while (although, eventually he gets overrun if you don't help). You still get dogpiled by Reynald and the Byzantines, but you have a chokepoint to funnel them into.
The downside is that your gold is very exposed in contested territory, so you either fight for it, which can be rough or turtle up and rely on relics for gold. Mleh is also in the middle of the map and won't be able to hold alone. He doesn't rebuild his TC, so if that falls, he'll likely be out of the game soon.
I'm not sure, how the ratings for the campaings are decided, but I feel like this should have been 2 sword. While the maps aren't that complex the AI is agressive and relentless and if you slip up, you can easily get overrun. Especially in the last 2 maybe 3 maps, where you are no longer that ahead of the AI in IMP rather than in Castle Age with Halbs and Champs.
3:15 🤣
4:40 Dont worry, we can try
9:54
Guard: Byzantine's Rams heading for our walls!
Ornlu: The Cap Ram may look scary but we got 24 Composite Bowman here theye're doing fine.
9:59
*Ornlu look a Treb
Ornlu: Now that Treb may look scary becoz it is scary...
🤣
15:37 Mleh: We welcome u. Even after u said to me.
36:34 Large Army: We fight for Ornlu the Wolf!
37:42 1st time, Ornlu? 🙂
This scenario alone warrants the Thoros campaign to two swords. Tamar should be downgraded to two while Ismail to one.
Armenian Composite Bowman on the subject of his straight shots: Don't be so surprised. My great great great great so on and so forth grandfather was a Minoan Composite Bowman
Can't believe Ornlu is a restart. >)
I allied with Stephan and enjoyed fortifying its natural defenses and chokepoints! I hope to build up my competence and beat this campaign at higher difficulties -I had *fun* driving the Barbie car with scenarios 3-5 on standard after getting my shit rocked in my first attempts at 3 and 4 😹 but for the sake of my people, I will get before at Age of Empires 🇦🇲
The other two campaigns are total blast with tons of fun, but Thoros feels kinda "mleh" (pun intended).
How do you get the fortified churches too shoot more arrows?
I feel like the Stephan path is a bit easier with the snuggled up in the corner base and only being able to be attacked by two sides that being said the amount is still relentless especially early on in that first few pushes before you can build much even if you just wall. I have to say Ishmail should be the 1 sword and Thoros be at least 2
Stephan's land is more defensible, and you can hold against all three enemies, but you swiftly run out of resources and end up in a real scrap to survive. I had to use loads of trash units to push out and ended up taking Mleh's resources anyway
After first 15min, if you side with Stephen, it basically become easy mode since Mleh absorbs attack from Seljuk and Reynald
Siding with Stephan is even more difficult because you are insanely cornered with not many resources and the Byzantines will be a much stronger opponent than the Seljuks
Mine keeps crashing after I put Thoros on the transport ship and leave the city
A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one 😊
Did the game crash on anyone else as soon as the siege is withheld and the transport turns up?
GGs, as always you kick ass. There's one thing amiss however in your playthrough and several I watched, the initial attack after taking over a base. You only get attacked by like 10 cataphracts and 2 arbalesters when you take over Mleh's base while every time I play this map I get attacked by a gigantic army of 30 cataphracts, 10 knights. 5-10 two-handed swordsman, 20+ arbalesters and rams at the same point. I have no idea what causes that, is it a bug or an AI script glitch?
I think Thoros`and Tamars` campaign should have their difficulties swapped.
I had the same frame drops and straight up crashes too.
I played it on standard and still got almost overwhelmed. This is a hard scenario for a one sword difficulty campaign.
( I just heard you complaining about the frame drops. I thought it just happens to me. I worried that my pc was having troubles. It pretty much ruined the experience somewhat to me )
I finished the 3 sword Tamar over the weekend, & from watching your vids, Thoros is a much harder "one sword" campaign by comparison!
P.S. Mass Monaspas are really OP
Choosing to go to Mleh (your choice) is way harder. You are attacked constantly by all enemies while my ally yellow is just attacking random defencless enemy stone walls. I lost and choose to go to yellow. You start with a way better defended base and your ally red will basically soak up most of the enemy attacks, giving you plenty of time to build up unoppossed and defeat the Byzantines. Choosing Yellow is much easier than choosing red.
Only time I managed to save the villagers Thoros got trapped between the now neutral vills and the walls and I had to restart. Kind of annoying. BUT I was sneaky enough to save the relic.
I went Stephan route, he dies and Mleh is a useless ally but holds off Seljuks atleast for a bit before he's overrun the Byzantines will attack you relentlessly and theres very few resources.
I walled Seljuks in and then went for Reynald first which worked well
What does it mean "one sword campaign"?
the cherry trees of Tarsus
Archers of Armenia follow the Path of Haik
Are the swords supposed to determine the difficulty of the campaign, or it’s complexity with objectives?
Cause there’s no effing way this was a one sword campaign if the notion was that it was easy
What I disliked about this mission is that the franks that an incredible amount of trebs, when I reached their base I've noticed they cant produce that many and they have them just spawning out of thin air. While I was besieging them they had no units left, but behind the castle they had 12 trebs piled up 11
this mission felt super grindy, really hard to build from scratch and defend the attcks with the akward armenian composition in late game
I think Tamar and Thoros should have their sword difficulty swapped.
Tamar's campaign was pretty easy all told. Only real bugbear was rushing to get all the side objectives done in Tamar 5.
Is this Reynold that Reynold whom executed by Saladin in the Saladin scenario And historically ?
Yup!
Thoros should be solid 2 swords. 4rd and 5th mission are arguably harder than any Ismail or Tamar missions
As for the 5th one, found stephan side harder. It depends on the rng tho. got consistently pushed by byzantines, followed by seljuk and Reynald 'cause they detour the mleh's castle. needed to train arbs and halbs asap. Stone piles are denied after a series of raids.
When i choice Mleh base, on the otherhand, byzantine only rushed once. eco was better cause i only need to spam the hordes of halbs not to mention that stone piles are accessible and secured.
Curse your inevitable betrayal!
Quite funny that is 1 hidden way to pass this mission. With initial army defeat purple, than cut with trebs south pass for transport, land across the river and finish blue and green.
SALADIN DON'T COMMAND THE BYZANTINES, SALADIN COMMAND THE SARACENS. 😅😅
Yes
This is the only scenario i couldn't win.... and it's the "easiest" of the 3 campaigns
in this vid you have two relics so you have a “cheat mod” this one will not help you win on hard it is a con
Shittiest campaign to be given 1 sword I'd say. Its easily 3 sword if not 4 if I could clearly finish other 2 with hard difficulty and I cannot finish this on Standard. Also I got attacked even more with trebs and all remaining byzantine troops very early on once i sided with Stephan. Didn't have time to build at all. I hated this campaign as much as I hated Rajendra Chola map 5.
So you hate campaigns that are hard? I had a lot of fun and the scenarios are great with a lot of objectives and enemy players, the characters are some-what engaging and the armenians are a cool civ and they let you utilize their bonuses.
Cryyyyy
@@CptSquirrel I meant I hated that its given a 1 sword rating, while the other easy ones are given 2 and 3. I thought if this is 1 sword I won't be able to finish others, I was so wrong.
DE scenarios don't look very good.