Scenario Idea: Borneo

Age of Empires II: DE II - Discussion
1

In my vision for an Oceania-themed expansion, the scenario Borneo would be part of the Island Legends anthology campaign in the vein of Historical Battles. That concept expansion would add the Filipinos, who are in this scenario as themselves, but an actual scenario would have to represent them using another civ, since they aren’t actually in the game. However, I will keep the Filipinos as themselves for convenience’s sake.

This scenario represents the Castilian War of 1578 between the forces of the Spanish Empire and the forces of the Sultanates of Brunei, Sulu, and Maguindanao, the Ottoman Empire, and the Portuguese Empire. The war came about because of Spanish attempts to colonize Borneo and the Muslim parts of the Philippines, which were at the time controlled partly by the Brunei Sultanate. The Muslim sultanates reached out to the Ottoman Empire, which sent a multi-ethnic army to assist them, and the Portuguese came to Bruneian aid as well.

The Spanish, for their part, also had a multi-ethnic military, consisting of not only Spanish, but also Mexicans, Peruvians, Filipinos, and Bornean defectors. This was a true world war in the sense that men from every continent were involved. I chose this war because its multi-ethnic nature works well with the game’s representation of many regions, and because battling a variety of civilizations makes for fun gameplay.

The scenario is played as the Spanish, and the color is red.

–Starting conditions–

Starting age: Post-Imperial Age

Starting resources: 500 wood, food, and gold, 400 stone

Population limit: 250

Starting units:

  • 10 Paladins
  • 15 Halberdiers
  • 10 Elite Conquistadors
  • 10 Hand Cannoneers
  • 5 Bombard Cannons
  • 5 Transport Ships
  • 15 Galleons
  • 8 Elite Cannon Galleons
  • 10 Villagers

–Differences between difficulty levels–

  • On Hard, the enemy players will have Carrack and Arquebus researched. Enemies also gain the ability to train Organ Guns from Siege Workshops and Caravels from Docks.

–Objectives–

Main

  • Destroy the Mosque in Brunei
  • Defeat 4/5 enemies by destroying their Town Centers

Secondary

  • Even the numbers by locating the Bruneian defectors
  • Destroy enemy Universities to prevent them from training gunpowder units

–Hints–

  1. Both sides feature multi-ethnic armies with diverse unit compositions. Direct your allies to produce specific units temporarily by clicking on individual units standing outside their production buildings.
  2. The enemy greatly outnumbers you, but if you find the Bruneian defectors, you may be able to turn the tide of battle.
  3. Gunpowder is heavily used by both sides, but destroying the Universities providing knowledge on how to manufacture and use it will prevent the enemy from being able to produce it anymore.
  4. You cannot produce more military buildings, so keeping control of the high seas is essential to being able to transport troops to the enemy islands.
  5. The Portuguese are involved in the battle only through their captain of the Bruneian fleet, Pengiran Kestani (a renamed Vasco da Gama), but they keep Feitorias in the towns of each enemy. Destroying those will significantly hamper their economies.

–Scouts–

  • Francisco de Sande (1, red) is centered in Manila. He starts with Galleons, Cannon Galleons, cavalry, and gunpowder units.
  • The Mexican allies (2, green) are situated south of Manila, placing them rather close to the enemy. They start with two Barracks, an Archery Range, and a Castle.
  • The Filipino allies (3, blue) are located north of Manila. They start with two Docks, two Archery Ranges, and a Barracks.
  • The Sultanates of Sulu and Maguindanao (4, yellow) are located in the southern part of the Philippines. Not much is known about them, but it is speculated that they have a large navy and are preparing a powerful ground force.
  • Brunei (5, yellow) is across the ocean on the island of Borneo, though it has some small camps in the Philippines. There is a Mosque in the center of the island, but not much else is known about it.
  • The Ottoman auxiliaries from India (6, purple), Africa (7, orange), and the Middle East (8, gray) are scattered throughout both the Philippines and Borneo.

–Players–

Player

  • Player (Spanish, red): Starts in Manila with 5 Docks, 5 Archery Ranges, 5 Barracks, 5 Stables, 3 Siege Workshops, and two Castles.

Allies

  • Mexican Allies (Aztecs, green): They have a small base which will expand over time. They train Elite Eagle Warriors, Elite Jaguar Warriors, Champions, Trebuchets, and Elite Skirmishers. They do not build a navy at any point, except for Fishing Ships.
  • Filipino Allies (Filipinos, blue): Their base is quite sizeable, but located farther from the enemy. They have multiple Docks and will not only build more, but will build a navy. They train gunpowder units, Knights, Champions, and their unique unit.

Enemies

  • Filipino Sultanates (Filipinos, yellow): They have a large base spread out across the Southern Philippines, and have two Town Centers, unlike all other enemies. They train gunpowder units, Knights, Light Cavalry, and Halberdiers.
  • Brunei (Malay, yellow): Brunei has a large urban center on the western coast of Borneo with many houses, production buildings, Docks, and Bombard Towers. A Mosque is in the center surrounded by walls. Brunei will train Karambit Warriors, Elite Battle Elephants, Two-Handed Swordsmen, Bombard Cannons, and Hand Cannoneers made available through triggers. There are a few small, isolated fleets at uninhabited islands, some with Docks, that will convert to the player when approached.
  • Indian Auxiliaries (Gurjaras, purple): The Indian Auxiliaries have small camps throughout where they will train Elite Shrivamsha Riders, Elite Chakram Throwers, Elite Elephant Archers, Siege Elephants, and Heavy Camel Riders.
  • African Auxiliaries (Ethiopians, orange): Like the Indian Auxiliaries, the African Auxiliaries have scattered camps to harass and raid the player. They train Elite Shotel Warriors, Siege Onagers, Bombard Cannons, and Arbalesters.
  • Middle Eastern Auxiliaries (Saracens, gray): The Middle Eastern Auxiliaries have a larger base in the island of Borneo, just south of Brunei, as well as scattered camps in the Philippines. They train Elite Mamelukes, Heavy Camel Riders, Hand Cannoneers, Elite Ghilman, and Elite Janissaries, the latter two given to them using triggers.

–Notes–

  • The Filipino Sultanates and Brunei players would normally have the Oceania architecture set and Southeast Asian set, being Filipino and Malay, respectively, but they are both changed to having the Central Asian set, due to being much more fitting to the Muslim style they actually had.

  • I will not go over the strategy of this scenario, since it really depends on how it is executed in reality, and just having a rough concept is not concrete enough to figure out an ideal strategy for victory.

5 Likes
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I like this idea, being interested in SEA history.

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Man why don’t you try to make your scenario based on these ideas? Yes it’s very time consuming but there’s also more satisfaction to look at it implemented.

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I could try, but triggers are very confusing and I find it impossible to get enemy units to act a certain way.

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Yeah, I agree with @SamePorpoise303 that (assuming you have time) you could try making this. Since the Filipinos are only AI players and use an existing architecture set, it doesn’t really matter that there’s no official Filipino civ – just pick the closest to what you want, and change the name and make some tweaks with triggers. Other than that, I think this would be a relatively simple scenario to make, since it’s essentially a deathmatch on a non-random map – although I have little scenario editing experience, so I’m probably not the best judge of that.

(As an aside, it feels odd to me to have a civ called Filipinos in a medieval game, since the name derives from Phillip II Spain who didn’t exist until the very end of the time period. That said, it’s fine in this scenario, given when it’s set.)

3 Likes
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I can help you in the discord server of Robby if you want, I’ve seen you joined. You can write in the scenario and mods section but looking at what you want to achieve it doesn’t seem really that hard to execute to me!
The AI behaviour may be the most problematic thing but I recently learned a bit how to do it (in the past I only used triggers and still rely on them a lot but it’s not the intended way, specially if you’re gonna make a more linear scenario like in your case).

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Actually, my Filipinos concept would use the Oceania architecture set, shared with the Polynesians, Melanesians, and Micronesians, but in fact, other sets I gave to them at one point were the East Asian and SEA architecture sets, so I’ll probably go with the latter (never mind the fact that the SEA Stable has an elephant in it, when the Filipinos don’t have any elephant units).

Edit: I just realized you were probably talking about the Central Asian architecture, which the enemy Filipinos would have triggers to receive.

This will be the hardest part. I want a civ with top-tier gunpowder and decent infantry and archers, and preferably an infantry unique unit. There aren’t many civs in the game like that.

Eh, we have the Vietnamese, who also use an anachronistic demonym.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

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Yes, I was talking about this:

Rereading it, I hadn’t realised it didn’t apply to all Filipino players the first time.

Anyway, no triggers required to set the architecture – there’s a menu to choose architecture next to the one used to choose a player’s civ.

Yes, but it’s not an eponym. It’s the combination of anachronism and eponym that makes Filipinos seem weird to me in this context. (And I should stress that this is purely a personal thing.)

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Yeah, I knew about it. Pretty nifty!

I hear ya. Unfortunately, there’s no good all-encompassing alternative that I can think of, as “Visayans” and “Tagalogs” only refer to one part of the civ (it represents both), and the informal term Pinoy is, as far as I can tell, even more modern than the term Philippines.

10

As this is a Death Match, you could always get Attila 05 AI and tweak it a little bit

1 Like
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I’m not sure why everyone makes that comparison, since unlike Deathmatch, players don’t start with absurd resources. They do start in Post-Imperial Age, so getting the action going is quite quick, but not that fast because resources still need to be collected.

It’s more like Sudden Death because enemies are instantly defeated if their Town Centers are destroyed. In fact, I may just add in a condition that the player loses if their TC goes down, just to add extra challenge.

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Have you ever made any scenario?

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In any case, try to find a sudden death campaign scenario and get the AI from there

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Fair point. I guess what I really meant, though, is that this doesn’t seem like it would be a trigger-heavy map. Some scenarios have lots of triggers because they’re heavily scripted, have a fixed narrative, etc. This doesn’t seem like that kind of scenario.

I’m not sure if that’s clear, but since I don’t have any scenario-creating experience to share, I suppose it doesn’t really matter if it isn’t. Good luck with it!

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