Duel of the Dukes (Jadwiga) is impossible on "easy"

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
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Third scenario in the Jadwiga campaign… how the hell is anyone meant to finish it??? I’m playing it on easy, I’m attempting to cheese it (as per the hints over at AOE Fandom), and even with the military production buildings in two of the enemy’s towns taken out (but castles left standing), I’m still getting trounced.

Green is just non-stop spamming units, and I’m fighting non-stop battles at all three of my towns - there’s not even a moment of breath for me to push forward to the next enemy town. I can’t micro battles in three places at once! I’ve lost this level so many times. On easy. WTF is going on?

Devs, if you’re listening, please ease back on the brutality in the ‘easy’ versions of the scenarios! Not all of us are pros.

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I ran the game up to remind myself of this scenario, and I do remember it quite well. I don’t think I had a massive amount of difficulty doing it when the DLC came out, but maybe balance changes since then have made it harder. My APM is around 1/10th of that of a top player, so I feel most people should be able to match my APM. I also am generally unable to micro in more than one place at once. It’s possible there’s a bit of luck involved in choosing the right towns at the start. I didn’t cheese it in any way, I just took over the towns one by one, and switched my attention to any places that needed defending as necessary. If you’d find it helpful, I can record myself playing through it again and put it on YouTube for you? As I said, my APM is honestly very slow.

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i played it on hard and i got bronce medal i think

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i choose the 3 towns on the left side, move my starting army to the town just north of the starting camp and sack the castle to claim the town. move from there to the south east town and sack that castle. shouldn’t take more then a few minutes. from there just converge on the center one and east town with your combined forces. doesn’t take me long to complete this mission.

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How? For a standard campaign the medal is based on the difficulty you beat it on, bronze for easiest, silver for moderate, and gold for hard. The exception is the Art of War, where you get medals based on how well and efficiently you meet the criteria.

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oh i didin’t know. still i got bronze medal but post say impossible

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Yeah, you would have beaten it on standard. Obviously the mission isn’t impossible as the post claims, but it is probably above average on the difficulty scale. Jadwiga was given 3 swords for a reason I assume.

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i have the version when they are 2 swords 11

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Maybe I’m remembering it wrong.

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Thanks for these suggestions guys. Sounds like people aren’t attempting to defend the cities they’ve got, just pushing forward to take all the cities as quickly as possible? Maybe that’s what I’m doing wrong. At the moment if I leave cities unwatched they’re constantly set upon with terb - ram - infantry combos, and any cav I’ve left there for taking out the siege engines get killed by by the infantry first. (Ah, the curse of aggressive stance). By the time I get back to the city half the buildings are on fire, my cav are all dead and the enemy trebs and rams haven’t been damaged at all.
This is happening in three or four places at once.

In the release notes for the October update they’ve changed Jadwiga’s difficulty rating from two swords to three swords. Interestingly, they nerfed the enemy AI in Hard, and increased the difficulty rating, but left the AI unchanged for the other difficulty settings…

Still feel like the enemy AI is too hard in Standard difficulty.

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no, devs changed it to three swords

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Ah, that would make sense then.

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We definitely need “Story mode” difficulty similar to AoE 4 in AoE 2 campaigns and I’m saying this because campaigns in AOE 2 DE are alot harder than AoE 4.

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I’m probably too late, but I’m gonna share my experience, in case it will help you, or anyone in need.

Ok, so I’m a pretty mediocre player, with a heavy defensive approach in my style; and was able to win this scenario in 10:30 minutes (game time), in hard, with a FULL aggressive method.

Start choosing Vilnus, Kaunas and Seinai: the one with the Wonder, the city with University (Chemestry my man!), and the one in the far west with infantry. First thing is to make 4 trebs in Vilnus + Hoardings, and send them to the right of the city, together with the cavalry. Then create 2 trebs in Kaunas + Lechitic Legacy, and send them (together with the military of the city) close to Vytautas city in the middle of the map. Then make 1 treb in Seinai + Elite Obuch, and send both the treb and the infantry with the others from Kaunas.

Also, research crop rotation, send 3 lumberjacks to farm and 1 to get gold. Use the market to get all the resources needed.
Finally, send your initial/main army close to the castle of Grodno, but do not attack yet.

Ok, now groups and, maybe, hotkeys. Jadwiga herself in group 1, the rest of the initial military in 2, and the trebs in 3. Group 4 is the military combination of Kaunas + Seinai, 5 will be the 3 trebs of those cities. At last group 6 will be the cavalry from Vilnus (at this point start making more calvs with the 2 stables from the city) and group 7 will be the 4 trebs you are making.

First step is to conquer the city in the middle with groups 4 and 5. As soon as you gain control of that city send your troops inside, with the exception of a few archers. Since the Muscovy just joined the party, use those archers to agro them and run. With some luck, they will pursue them and leave Vilnus behind (not always work, tho).
At the same time a small infantry of Vytautas will attack groups 1 to 3. Finish them off, and star attacking the castle. After you gain control of the city research the upgrades in the blacksmith, and start making cavalry; also make infantry from Seinai and keep sending them to this main group. Immediately send them to Volkowysk (the one with archers, more at south).
And also, at the same time, send groups 6 and 7 by the northern passage close to the northeast city of Vytautas, but again, do not attack yet. Keep your troops before the river passage, because a large enemy group will soon pass there.

In the meantime send groups 4 and 5 to snipe the castle in the closest Vytautas’ city, in the east. Train more infantry from the city you just conquered to strength 4, and build more trebs, if needed. Use these troops to finish off any enemies nearby, but they will probably be killed by the large group that came from north + military already in the city + some Muscovy. Try your best to eliminate any siege you see.
At this point you may have already conquered Volkowysk, or not. In any case the Teutons will join when you get your 6th town. With some luck, they will be agro by some unit coming out of Seinai, and will pursue it for the entire south part of the map, in that classic teutonic speed. In some tries I didn’t almost fight with them, but in others they destroyed my economy and/or attacked Grodno.

Anyway, after taking Volkowysk, immediatelly send groups 1-3 to Ostrow (the one with the Pagan Shrine). At the same time, use groups 6-7 to attack the castle that they are close to. In my experience you can successfully take it, but usually you will lose some other city - Vylnus or that one you took first, in the middle. So groups 1-3 rushing to Ostrow will work as some sort of backup plan.

And there you have it.

Some things worth to point out:

  • Get your military upgrades as soon as you will gather the resources. There is no precise order nor moment to that, in my experience.
  • As you can notice above, not a single intention nor strategy was put on the defensive side. Full aggression. Maybe some onagers wil help?
  • I didn’t use bombard cannon because I’m dumb and forgot they exist lol (¯_(ツ)_/¯). But they’ll probably be a good idea.
  • KEPP MAKING UNITS!
  • I didn’t mention it, but I also made a lot of Obuchs.
  • Yes, this strategy will toll A LOT from your multitasking. For me, it was hell, but for some reason it worked.
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Its not that hard. Take control of the first ranged unit base. Green will pick one of the stable bases, the one to the North mostly. Then pick the other ranged unit base, green will go for the center stable base. With the army you get at the start just treb down the center base. Without ranges, green will be doing Leitis and winged hussars. Just go for pikes, obuchs and a lot of arbs. Later add winged hussar yourself. Don’t try to go too fast in the beginning when Slavs attack with Boyars