I was playing the jadwiga campaing and managed to get to scenario 5. I find it interesting how the designers tried to introduce different mechanics. I had to google to beat scenario 4 but it was doable, I got used to defend against the teutonic order waves. Then I proceeded to scenario 5, and everything was going well until I started attacking the karzikermen. I started noticing a pattern, wave after wave of fully upgraded units…where have I seen this? a yes! Attila the fall of Rome, Verona creating infinite paladins without having an economy, those paladins crashing against my castle, and endless wave of them. I suspect there is a script to give this PC infinite resources, but I have no proof. If so..very poor design decision, to just let the computer flood the map with fully upgraded units. As the fight continued the golden horde eventually attacked me. Both my ally and I lost our town centers. A massive army of kazikermen punched right through to our economy. We managed to survive but of course beating these enemies with the time running against was a silly dream.
So, in my humble opinion the following should be true:
If the computer is going to have infinite resources it should be more passive, waiting for the player to make his move instead of unleashing its wrath all over the map.
The mission is supposed to be a conquest but it somehow turns in to a siege, with the player defending, and yet you have a timer there. The army you are given to face the golden horde is quickly melted away by their troops.
I found out in google that you are supposed to use cannon galleons hidden away in the map, yet the hints vaguely point to this. For a campaign where most of the instructions have been straightforward this is a departure from form. It should be clear in the hints that the kazikermen are unbeatable on land and you have to use those ships.
I really dont see the point of having a god computer spewing infinite units and building a wonder. Why not start the scenario with some dialogue, and then proceed to show the “you have been defeated message”? at least that way you save some time.
this is your 14th topic claiming that missions are broken.
they are all beatable, if they are actually bugged, file a bug report
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Some AIs have indeed a script which give resources by interval (depending the difficulty), this was done to not collect all resources on the map with many villagers and finishing to be empty in resources for them (unlike those from Aok and Aoc versions).
Also you are mentionning “it’s broken” “it’s supposed to be chill for a casual player”, we understand your frustration to not win it like you wish, but again we repeat “the difficulty is made by design” otherwise all scenarios would just be the same one on a loop at the easiest difficulty (like playing 1000x william wallace in a row). The campaign is definied as hard (3 swords) so this is normal to have some difficulties with some scenarios.
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Difficult doesn’t mean Broken otherwise you would have evidence for a bug report, and the strategy you mention of cannon galleons, i’ve never heard It and i’ve beaten It in hard.
If you are not playing on easy, you are not a casual, so you should improve more your skill if you intend to beat It. Use Art of War as practice trying to decrease your time, lower the speed of the game It pause more. The single player part has tools like that to make It more forgiving
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Hello! thank you for your interest in my post.
Beatable does not mean well designed.
You can “beat” a broken mission by abusing pathfinding glitches, using specific cheat-like speedrun strats, or knowing exactly which trigger lines not to cross. But that isn’t playing a strategy game anymore—that’s just solving a poorly coded scripting puzzle. When Moderate difficulty requires the precise optimization of a Hard/Extreme speedrun just because the AI has infinite, un-depletable resources, the difficulty scaling is fundamentally broken.
Thank you for the advice regarding the Art of War and game speed. However, this isn’t a critique of the game’s difficulty level; it is a critique of scenario design and mechanical transparency.
There is a distinct difference between a scenario being difficult and a scenario being mechanically broken.
A well-designed, difficult scenario forces the player to adapt their strategy to counter an opponent who is playing by the same structural rules. When an AI is scripted with infinite resources and automated spawn triggers, it bypasses the core mechanics of an RTS game (resource management, economic raiding, and production scaling). Defeating a scenario like this doesn’t require standard strategic skill; it requires exploiting specific AI pathfinding or trigger lines—which is fundamentally a puzzle, not a strategy game.
Regarding the Cannon Galleons: the issue isn’t whether the mission can be beaten on Hard without them. The issue is that the scenario heavily incentivizes a specific hidden mechanic to bypass an otherwise infinite land meat-grinder, without providing clear narrative or tactical hints to the player.
According to you, the community doesn’t have a problem with this scenarios design, in fact It gives more variety and challenge to have different kinds of scenarios. There’s multiple ways to beat each scenarios and nobody forces you to play in moderate if you don’t enjoy It.
Stop saying difficulty=broken
jadwiga is arguably the best designed campaign in the entire game.
i found this campaign to be fun and the gameplay very intuitive
If you first attempt at a scenario doesn’t work out, that should be reason to reconsider your strategy. It is not valid to claim “this scenario is broken”, just because your first choice of strategy didn’t lead to success.
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and how can the game incentivize a “hidden mechanic” that it is in no way intended nor required to beat the scenario?, I don’t even know what that cannon galley strategy is and I have beaten the scenario without a guide. There’s countless ways to beat an scenario, but you seem to like finding one random guide with one specific cheese strategy and the proceed to believe that it was the intended gameplay.
Yeah, infinite resources are annoying in many scenarios, but the AI is never going to be challenging enough without a human brain unless you give them advantage. If you don’t enjoy challenge DON’T increase the difficulty, but it is not broken, your economy management and strategic planning is clearly flawed if you believe that cheese strategies are required.
There’s Hard and Legendary difficulty and it is still beatable, use the difficulty level according to your skill level, if it was broken, it would have been reported or you would be able to find proof to report it
Read the strategy on the wiki and tell when they mention cannons galleons are required https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Vytautas’_Crusade, it is something you may use, but not something required at all
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