History ThatOneLevel / AgeOfEmpiresII

** The third scenario "Rising Star" starts where the third Suryavarman mission left off, where you have to escort the Grand Chariot and the Envoy across the sea. Like in Vinlandsaga, the deep sea damages your ships passing through it, but the shallow waters near the coasts are littered with pirate ships. Expect lots of resets if you do not know the map layout beforehand, or even knowing the existence of lumber piles that can be collected to repair your ships. Upon reaching the Indian subcontinent, the mission doesn't get any easier as you will be bombarded by the Chalukyan Empire from both land and water. Your allies on the map will turn on you should their respective castles are damaged enough, which can catch you off guard should you only focus on defending one ally. To get the achievement "Eye of the Tiger", you must defeat Srivijaya, Madurai, the Chalukyan Empire, and Bengali Pirates before getting 10 prestige points (which automatically wins the scenario).

** The very first scenario, "The Successor", starts off at night time where you have to use your band of cavalrymen to raid the main enemy's encampment before the sun rises. Once the time is up, you will get villagers and are able to build a base, but the Chalukyan Army wastes no time in hammering your forces before you can even start building proper defenses, which gives time for Manyaketha to finish you off with their Imperial Age army while everyone else is stuck in Castle Age.

%%[[folder:''Dynasties of India'']]
%%[[/folder]]

** Mission 5, "The Siege of Paris," on any difficulty level other than "Standard." The English now have fully developed and highly aggressive Longbowmen that can snipe you dead from far away or lead you to their towers and castle's range. Once inside the city, the simplest mistake will have you swarmed with all the possible enemy troops in the city, including the above mentioned Longbowmen, Champions, Halberdiers and Siege Onagers. Even if you manage to evade all these foes, there's still the matter of leading [[EscortMission Joan and at least 6 out of 10 villagers]] through a huge Burgundy attack safe and sound. And the most difficult part? There are NO HEALERS to support your forces.

* Attila the Hun

[[folder:''Dawn of the Dukes'']]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:''Dynasties of India'']]
[[/folder]]

----

* "The Fate of India," the penultimate Prithviraj scenario, has you and the other three enemy AI players beginning with resources similar to Deathmatch mode. As such, the enemies will swarm you with cavalry, and said enemies include the Persians with their mighty War Elephants. The most difficult part? It is a TimedMission similar to a Relic Victory, and you have to destroy the monastery located in each of enemies' bases, although the timer will reset for each monastery destroyed.

* Prithviraj
** "The Fate of India," the penultimate scenario, has you and the other three enemy AI players beginning with resources similar to Deathmatch mode. As such, the enemies will swarm you with cavalry, and said enemies include the Persians with their mighty War Elephants. The most difficult part? It is a TimedMission similar to a Relic Victory, and you have to destroy the monastery located in each of enemies' bases, although the timer will reset for each monastery destroyed.
** "The Legend of Prithviraj," the final scenario, begins with you choosing one of the four bases in each corner of the map. You will also need to acquire the other three (by converting the leaders, where each of them are protected by a small army in each base) to complete the scenario. As it is commanded by a poet who lacks skill at war, you are restricted to ''a [[ArbitraryHeadcountLimit population limit]] of 100, and cannot build new castles and town centers''. Also you cannot train additional villagers, and many valuable resources are located outside the bases. Should you lose all of your villagers, you will have to acquire resources by exchanging food from fishing ships in a market (where you will lose a lot of resources). And did we mention that you also have to defeat three other enemies that constantly harass you?

** The second scenario, "The Mountain Siege," is a HoldTheLine mission in which you cannot build any additional towers, castles, walls, or trebuchets. You and an allied player are atop a mountain fortress surrounded by Ming forces, who constantly attack with elite infantry, heavy cavalry and siege equipment, while your objective is to muster a force to break through the Ming's lines to the east without losing all castles within said fortress. So you have to clear the eastern roads of Ming infantry while keeping your HeroUnit alive, while also sallying forth to destroy enemy rams and trebuchets that your ally doesn't seem to know how to deal with, and if at any point a gatehouse is destroyed, you're probably done for. And don't think clearing the east road wins the scenario - after that objective is met, you have to continue to defend the fortress while the Ming attacks intensify, so that small groups of friendly soldiers can spawn every other minute and flee off the edge of the map (assuming they don't encounter a stray Ming soldier along the way) until forty of them have escaped.

** The fifth mission, "The Old Tiger," is a fixed-force, micromanagement-intensive nightmare, similar to The Great Hunt. Yes, ''that'' Great Hunt. Your main objective is to escort a Monk HeroUnit to four shrines that are unfortunately inside well-fortified enemy bases. You have no resources or buildings to produce additional units for this part of the mission, so any Monk or siege weapon you lose is a major blow (and you ''can't repair'' your siege weapons, so you better keep them well guarded). You're up against four different factions (three sharing the same color), all of which will not only throw waves of units at you near-constantly, but will also ''upgrade'' their units, while you're stuck with a late Castle Age force. Even worse, the only ranged units your army gets are Arambai, which do great damage but can't hit ''anything'' unless they're at point blank range. Trying to go for the shrines will result in being caught in a constant pincer attack, while attacking the Rakhine and Portuguese infrastructure means grinding through their considerable defenses while they spew units at you. You have a second force primed for a naval invasion on the far side of the map from the Monk hero and his bodyguard, but actually breaking through the enemy's coastal defenses and Portuguese navy to merge your army is easier said than done. The second part of the scenario, where you're finally allowed to train new units to wipe out the enemy, is easy by comparison, but even so, the resources you are given are limited unless you convert one of the Portuguese Feitorias, so you better make sure to destroy as many of your enemies' production buildings as possible during the first half of the mission, or else you won't be able to make much progress before running out of supplies. Additionally, the Monk hero isn't the only unit that [[HeroMustSurvive has to survive]]; even after you're done escorting him to all four temples, you will automatically lose if his bodyguard falls in battle. Bringing him to safety is no easy matter, as not only will your land army be badly depleted by the time you're done with the temples, but your ability to get him on a Transport Ship to flee to your northern base ends up depending on whether or not the Rakhine and Portuguese navies are blocking your way; if they're already ravaging your docks before you're ready, keeping the hero alive will be that much harder.

** The fifth mission, "The Old Tiger," is a fixed-force, micromanagement-intensive nightmare. Your first objective is to escort a Monk HeroUnit to four shrines that are unfortunately inside well-fortified enemy bases. You have no resources or buildings to produce additional units for this part of the mission, so any Monk or siege weapon you lose is a major blow. You're up against four different factions (three sharing the same color), all of which will regularly use their infinite resources to send squads of soldiers at you - and if you go straight for the shrines instead of trying to clear the map with your starting army, you'll be attacked from all sides. And once you're actually attacking the AI's buildings, it will respond as expected, by spamming siege engines and elite infantry until you destroy their military infrastructure. You have a second force primed for a naval invasion on the far side of the map from the Monk hero and his bodyguard, but actually breaking through the enemy's coastal defenses and Portuguese navy to merge your army is easier said than done. The second part of the scenario, where you're finally allowed to train new units to wipe out the enemy, is easy by comparison, but even so, the resources you are given are limited unless you convert one of the Portuguese Feitorias, so you better make sure to destroy as many of your enemies' production buildings as possible during the first half of the mission, or else you won't be able to make much progress before running out of supplies. Additionally, the Monk hero isn't the only unit that [[HeroMustSurvive has to survive]]; even after you're done escorting him to all four temples, you will automatically lose if his bodyguard falls in battle. Bringing him to safety is no easy matter, as not only will your land army be badly depleted by the time you're done with the temples, but your ability to get him on a Transport Ship to flee to your northern base ends up depending on whether or not the Rakhine and Portuguese navies are blocking your way; if they're already ravaging your docks before you're ready, keeping the hero alive will be that much harder.

** The first scenario, "The Burmese Tigers," has a primary objective of besieging a town in the center of the map to capture its Monument, except you have to worry about a secondary objective of killing a particular king unit before he flees to a fortress. If he manages to succeed, his faction will start sending armies your way even while you're busy with the primary objective, but the best unit you have to chase him down is the Arambai, whose attack has a miserable 20% accuracy rate. And did we mention that you start in the Feudal Age while most of your enemies start at the Castle Age, and the city starts off at the Imperial Age?

** The second scenario, "The Field of Blood," is, like "King of Valencia" from the El Cid campaign, a Wonder victory scenario where you're relying on an ally to build the thing. You start with a large Castle Age base and two allies that will feed you resources regularly so long as you defend them, because they have almost no soldiers (and what few they do have will gladly chase Chanca scouts into enemy territory and get slaughtered). Making things worse, while you start in the Castle Age, you ''don't'' start with Feudal Age techs researched, so getting your units up to snuff requires a massive resource investment. The Chancas, meanwhile, have unlimited resources and will come from the west, east, and south almost constantly, requiring you to fight a war on multiple fronts - and since Cuzco is ''big'', it's hard to move units around quickly enough to counter their assaults. Once the Wonder finally goes up, the gloves come off, and Anccu Huallac steps in, sending waves of siege weapons, Kamayuks, and Jaguar Warriors ([[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard which the Incas don't even have access to]]), which will effortlessly roll over you if you aren't prepared.

** The second scenario, "The Field of Blood," is, like "King of Valencia" from the El Cid campaign, a Wonder victory scenario where you're relying on an ally to build the thing. You start with a large Castle Age base and two allies that will feed you resources regularly so long as you defend them, because they have almost no soldiers (and what few they do have will gladly chase Chanca scouts into enemy territory and get slaughtered). Making things worse, while you start in the Castle Age, you ''don't'' start with Feudal Age techs researched, so getting your units up to snuff requires a massive resource investment. Your opponents, meanwhile, come from the west, east, and south almost constantly, requiring you to fight a war on multiple fronts - and since Cuzco is ''big'', it's hard to move units around quickly enough to counter their assaults.