It’s the mix of humor (and the silly irony of figured like Genghis or Attila being pacifistic) and unconventional tactics. Anyone with practice can learn to defend, boom, and counterassault the AI. But learning to exploit the design elements of the campaign maps, utilize units for ways they were never intended (like his repeated use of heavy cavalry to divert enemy fire, more like Hussite Wagons to escort his siege and monks), exploiting AI (like his use of naval units to divert the enemy warships or straight up block transports), and the very specific conditions for victory/defeat. It’s treated lightly, but each of these scenarios requires some careful thinking, and analysis of what the *real* victory condition is from a programming standpoint. Playing this as if it were a historical battle with more reasonable wind conditions is doomed to fail, hence really silly but effective techniques like bumrushing the hill in the last Joan of Arc scenario rather than defeating the English to actually capture the hill.
There is a hidden secret way to deal with Richard better... you send him 10k gold tribute then u private message and tell him that templars and the others are all under command of Barbarossa. watch him ally you. why would he do this? everyone betrays Barbarossa. its in the rules.
It's not just that everyone betrays Barbarossa. In this hypothetical case, Richard actually HATED the Hohenstaufens. Henry the Lion was Richard's brother-in-law. When the Saxons' power grab for the Holy Roman Empire failed and when Barbarossa punished Henry, Richard swore revenge. So yeah, Richard would jump on any chance to get back at Barbarossa.
@@bosbanon3452 Ha. Sweet. Kushluk, Kuchlug, Quqluq, I've heard it spelled a million different ways. Probably none of them are quite accurate. Neither the Naiman nor the tribes who would become the Mongols kept written languages.
I have win easily this mission, where i have just rushed the cyan (free ocean after), blue then the yellow. But i lost 1 hour for kill the gray and red. Do the achievement, ignore the objective.
@@zoiuduu Tbh, that's something I think the scenario designers fucked up. They often start you in super disadvantageous positions during those scenarios and often even say stuff like "don't attack they're too strong" or whatever (meaning they actively discourage you from doing the thing that wins games), and over half the tutorial campaign only tells you how to move soldiers, gather resources, go to the next age, and to train soldiers and take down a tower or whatever. None of the campaigns teach you about build orders, rushing, harassing or anything even though that's how you win the Age of-games most easily.
"I'm pacifist, I don't want to harm people!!" *sacrifices 558 poor souls in the last mission alone* Really enjoy these videos, very well cut and edited.
T-West: *uses his troops to distract the enemy* Me: "You can't sacrifice an entire division like that! Those soldiers love and defend our nation! How can you betray them?"
Man, I have vivid memories of the second Saladin mission moreso than any of the others thus far. I have a distinct memory of coming home from middle school and playing that map for hours...
I fucking love that you gave The Lion and the Demon a go on DE. You could've taken the easy way out, but you didn't and it was the most scrappy and entertaining and twisty mission to date. Huge props!
I was feeling cheated with the last level until I realized how much time was left. Those rams moving against Richard was glorious. Idea: bait his onagers into team attacking the trebuchets
I like how half of the missions are explained in a minute or so, and then the second and 5th mission take a little bit more explaining so they are 2-3 minutes but it took 8 and a half minutes to explain the Tomfoolery of the last mission lol
I'm soo glad you also did the last scenario on DE and not only on AoK. I would have still accepted it if you did it in AoK, because your video title only said AoE not DE
11:35 there is one trick I observed in the older versions of AoE2 (not sure if it still works on DE): when you place an storage facility next to a gaia-placed unit, villagers can actually harvest it for no resource associated. First time I saw this was in Barbarossa's last campaign in the original version of AoE2 (first release, when hero units were still active for monk conversion). The trick is simple: after a villager is done with chopping/picking a resource, there is a small chance of picking/chopping a gaia unit in the surroundings (cactae, rocks, tombstones, even rugs/carpets), just one hit and the gaia element is gone for 0 resource, and the villager goes to the next resource available. It also works with hunting, but only with eagles, who die after 2 hits and explode like cobra cars, but only happens when a eagle passes by a hunting area right after the animal is fully harvested, once again, the eagle just explodes for no resource. Last time I saw this was in the earlier versions of The Conquistadors expansion, in El Cid campaign, when a rock next to a stone quarry was harvested by a villager after the original stone was depleted. Quite weird bug being honest. Not sure if it is of any relevance nowadays for speedrunning, but it is something I observed looooong time ago, but I never found a way to trigger it with 100% accuracy. 😷👍
In the final mission, you can take out Jerusalems TC in with your starting ships alone. I did it by accident one time, and they resigned within the first 5 minutes of the game.
Over a hill a single condotiero surveys his camp and his men , seing their bonfires light the night sky ,he makes his mind , to go against the very principles of his profession , on this night he swears to never again take another man's life, to achieve his goals with cunning rather than brute force , to found a principality without bloodshed and becone a true renaissance prince , viva sforza!!
Probably the easiest way to deal with the hero trebs is to wall them in somewhere away from your base. Their minimum range prevents them from being able to free themselves.
@@T-West Oh, wow, you are the biggest youtuber to reply to me, I love this series and your sense of humour. Have you considered doing the StarWars Age of Empires campaigns? If I remember they seemed easy to exploit and sequence break.
@@HeartBurstHD also : second mission you must kill Kushluk, fourth mission you assassinate the Shah... going around that would be tricky For the first mission, maybe luring them to Ornlu ?
@@HeartBurstHD for 1st mission you can still convert them though, sadly you cannot exploit diplomacy anymore. So you need to protect your monk will do it
Man. Deleting the transports was surprisingly dark. Like, that's such a terrifying idea. Imagine you're trapped on a boat, packed into the hold with the other soldiers. Then, you hear the crew of the boat begin to pray in another religion. Then, before you can do anything, they scuttle the ship, with you and all the others trapped inside. It's like something out of a horror movie.
Some may still argue that winning campaign missions by 'victory condition' workarounds etc is technically taking advantage of the AI or whatever. But after watching him beat The Lion and the Demon fair and square, seeing the Crusaders learn of peaceful ways (by force), one must arrive at the conclusion that this person may be classified as an absolute madlad.
You’re pacifist runs remind me of the ghost runs in the thief series, where players try to reach the objective without knocking out enemies. And I love it.
An impressive accomplishment on the final Saladin mission. That one's tough even without going for pacifism. Especially now that the island trick has been removed
Man this is legendary stuff! It took me around 3 hours to win this scenario on standard difficulty, this guy did it in half the time without killing any units
Hmm... T-West makes a video referencing Fatslob and the Saracen team bonus on the same day that SoTL releases a new video on the cost of walling... I feel a conspiracy afoot
So I just randomly discovered these videos, and holy wow! These are really well put together given your channel size. Maybe I'm a little confused about that, but regardless, this is top notch material and I'm really impressed. Keep up the excellent work!
excelent series.thank you for the videos =D love the torch passing within joanna, barbarossa and now saladin. dont think that aztecs, mongols or huns will cope with the ways of pacifism. Maybe Rodrigo Dias de Vivar, El Cid, listened to this stories and got inspired. who knows. even attila listened to the pope...
Saraen bonus in DE is actually very useful even in *high elo game* Castle Saraenean crossbow cleans house and wall faster. It makes their push faster and more deadly, and it is more difficult to wall off these crossbows with house as high elo players often do
He did it. The absolute madman. He actually did it.
He found a use for the Saracen team bonus.
Get rektered, Spirit of the Low!
But...he use it for selfish purpuse lol. Not as an actual team strat
@@cl8804 You mean Spirit of the LOL! Or if you're an Orc, Spirit of the KEK!
@@nicotube4178 but the team can use it alose 111
@@MALEMization He meant "Spirit of the law"
"But Your Majesty, every single soldier sent to the Holy Land for the last 300 years has abandoned Christianity".
"Send more, I said".
The absolute gem of a comment
*Shoots enemies down from allied TC*
"Why would *Aqaba* do this ?"
Clearly our Crossbowmen are simply donating their crossbows to the staff of the Town Center so *they* can shoot the enemy.
"it's not cheating if you don't get caught"
-Saladin, where are you going with that great army?
- No worries, bruh, pacifist run.
Just passing
11
icarly meme: carly (Egypt): whatcha got there?
Spencer (saladin): a smoothie
ostrich (saladin's army)
Tourism.
Lol. In that time, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Anatolia [now renamed Turkey by it's Central Asian colonists/invaders] - was majority Christian.
I still can't explain to myself why I am a fan of your pacifism series, but keep them coming
Man Genghis Khan will be hard, if not impossible
Probaly cuz he got you to the dome of the rock by peacefully following the teachings of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I use it to help me
It’s the mix of humor (and the silly irony of figured like Genghis or Attila being pacifistic) and unconventional tactics. Anyone with practice can learn to defend, boom, and counterassault the AI. But learning to exploit the design elements of the campaign maps, utilize units for ways they were never intended (like his repeated use of heavy cavalry to divert enemy fire, more like Hussite Wagons to escort his siege and monks), exploiting AI (like his use of naval units to divert the enemy warships or straight up block transports), and the very specific conditions for victory/defeat.
It’s treated lightly, but each of these scenarios requires some careful thinking, and analysis of what the *real* victory condition is from a programming standpoint. Playing this as if it were a historical battle with more reasonable wind conditions is doomed to fail, hence really silly but effective techniques like bumrushing the hill in the last Joan of Arc scenario rather than defeating the English to actually capture the hill.
Spirit of The Law needs to see this awesome use of the saracen team bonus
Crusader coalition: We did it! The Saracen city has fallen!
TWest: YOU FOOL! YOU JUST ACTIVATED MY T R A P C A R D !
Funny enough this is what actually happen at real history
@@satriapratama3162 epic
As a wise starfish once said: why dont we take the city and push it somewhere else
lol
I would like to meet that starfish. Tell me good sir...where i can meet this amazing creature?
@@xed_i2070 he lives near a pineapple under the sea
"It's not cheating if we don't get caught"
Famous last words.
There is a hidden secret way to deal with Richard better... you send him 10k gold tribute then u private message and tell him that templars and the others are all under command of Barbarossa. watch him ally you.
why would he do this? everyone betrays Barbarossa. its in the rules.
It's not just that everyone betrays Barbarossa. In this hypothetical case, Richard actually HATED the Hohenstaufens. Henry the Lion was Richard's brother-in-law. When the Saxons' power grab for the Holy Roman Empire failed and when Barbarossa punished Henry, Richard swore revenge.
So yeah, Richard would jump on any chance to get back at Barbarossa.
Kushluk likes this series
Edit: The end was epic, I didn’t expect it.
If Kuchlug lives past his own funeral I'll be pretty impressed.
Just get villager to build palisade wall around him and then convert him then delete him. I'm more excited to see Latter 3 missions.
@@MrPathorn you can't convert heroes
@@xotl2780 kuchlug mean idiot in Javanesse
@@bosbanon3452 Ha. Sweet.
Kushluk, Kuchlug, Quqluq, I've heard it spelled a million different ways. Probably none of them are quite accurate. Neither the Naiman nor the tribes who would become the Mongols kept written languages.
i've never completed the lion n demon..ever...n this guy does it without kills-twice!! well done sir!!
i completed on easy and took me 3 hours, when there is a lot of enemies, u need to attack soon at list one of them, it makes a huge difference
Hahaha weaklings (my cobra engine intensifies)
@@zoiuduu Or type 'i r winner' ;)
I have win easily this mission, where i have just rushed the cyan (free ocean after), blue then the yellow. But i lost 1 hour for kill the gray and red. Do the achievement, ignore the objective.
@@zoiuduu Tbh, that's something I think the scenario designers fucked up. They often start you in super disadvantageous positions during those scenarios and often even say stuff like "don't attack they're too strong" or whatever (meaning they actively discourage you from doing the thing that wins games), and over half the tutorial campaign only tells you how to move soldiers, gather resources, go to the next age, and to train soldiers and take down a tower or whatever.
None of the campaigns teach you about build orders, rushing, harassing or anything even though that's how you win the Age of-games most easily.
"Fatslob the passages"
"We'll rely on the Saracen team bonus..." *breaks out laughing*
"I'm pacifist, I don't want to harm people!!"
*sacrifices 558 poor souls in the last mission alone*
Really enjoy these videos, very well cut and edited.
“There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
T-West: *uses his troops to distract the enemy*
Me: "You can't sacrifice an entire division like that! Those soldiers love and defend our nation! How can you betray them?"
Damn the Lion and the Demon got to be your best one yet. Absolutely insane.
Man, I have vivid memories of the second Saladin mission moreso than any of the others thus far.
I have a distinct memory of coming home from middle school and playing that map for hours...
I fucking love that you gave The Lion and the Demon a go on DE. You could've taken the easy way out, but you didn't and it was the most scrappy and entertaining and twisty mission to date. Huge props!
8:50 Galleon casually floating through elevated terrain :D
me too saw that
That's Black Pearl
haters will say its a bug. I say the water around the holy land is pure as glass, enough that sand even in ship-deep water is visible.
I was feeling cheated with the last level until I realized how much time was left. Those rams moving against Richard was glorious.
Idea: bait his onagers into team attacking the trebuchets
My childhood memory of Acre in Saladin 6 is three times as big as it really was, and I'm always surprised every time I see it
might be slower scrolling speed in hd edition lol
"The European murderer's shall DIE in this desert."
T-west: "Is that a challenge?"
I like how half of the missions are explained in a minute or so, and then the second and 5th mission take a little bit more explaining so they are 2-3 minutes but it took 8 and a half minutes to explain the Tomfoolery of the last mission lol
"WALL THEM IN" top 10 most epic moments in anime
It was super smart xD
I'm soo glad you also did the last scenario on DE and not only on AoK.
I would have still accepted it if you did it in AoK, because your video title only said AoE not DE
You ended creative assembly's whole career bro
Is this a joke I don't get or did you confuse Ensemble Studios and Creative Assembly?
@@ConquerorDash my brain farted
In the end you had more converted units than lost ones.
"Now it's the warmongers who will know true fear."
11:35 that's the ultimate pro-gamer move. I'm in awe.
5:17 nice description for baptism.
Dude: Saladin, where are you going with that great army?
Saladin: don't worry, I'm doing a pacifist run :3
11:35 there is one trick I observed in the older versions of AoE2 (not sure if it still works on DE): when you place an storage facility next to a gaia-placed unit, villagers can actually harvest it for no resource associated. First time I saw this was in Barbarossa's last campaign in the original version of AoE2 (first release, when hero units were still active for monk conversion). The trick is simple: after a villager is done with chopping/picking a resource, there is a small chance of picking/chopping a gaia unit in the surroundings (cactae, rocks, tombstones, even rugs/carpets), just one hit and the gaia element is gone for 0 resource, and the villager goes to the next resource available. It also works with hunting, but only with eagles, who die after 2 hits and explode like cobra cars, but only happens when a eagle passes by a hunting area right after the animal is fully harvested, once again, the eagle just explodes for no resource. Last time I saw this was in the earlier versions of The Conquistadors expansion, in El Cid campaign, when a rock next to a stone quarry was harvested by a villager after the original stone was depleted. Quite weird bug being honest. Not sure if it is of any relevance nowadays for speedrunning, but it is something I observed looooong time ago, but I never found a way to trigger it with 100% accuracy. 😷👍
more monks are killed in a single scenario of twest than in my entire childhood.
In the final mission, you can take out Jerusalems TC in with your starting ships alone. I did it by accident one time, and they resigned within the first 5 minutes of the game.
Yes indeed, they resign if your ships kill their TC and Villagers. Too bad I can't let them kill the Villagers, though.
I think even normal AI will rebuild the tc if it has enough res and a civ
Me: As if Saladin can refuse killings.
T-West: (A "few" clever pauses and saves and monk dancing)
Me: (Subscribe)
Good luck trying to not kill Kuslak
Run away, run away!!
It's maybe possible, if he could lure him to die of his own mangonel shot or something like that
I think Khushluk should be an exception since he's a dastardly villain who doesn't deserve mercy
And Persian Shah
@@MeanGuy969 everyone deserves mercy. That's the way of pacifism!!
WOW this series is a masterpiece! that last scenario was a rollercoaster of emotions
I'm loving this series, and the editing is just enough to keep the viewing experience enjoyable while not becoming overwhelming.
I thought u cannot even complete El-cid, but after saladin, that would be a piece of cake i think
You are an absolute madman. Trapping the enemy in the ruins of your own city was a stroke of genius.
Holy shit, I thought the Last Mission would be Impossible for you
Super SUPER Epic video. I LOVE It man
Over a hill a single condotiero surveys his camp and his men , seing their bonfires light the night sky ,he makes his mind , to go against the very principles of his profession , on this night he swears to never again take another man's life, to achieve his goals with cunning rather than brute force , to found a principality without bloodshed and becone a true renaissance prince , viva sforza!!
I love this series, keep it up!
Probably the easiest way to deal with the hero trebs is to wall them in somewhere away from your base. Their minimum range prevents them from being able to free themselves.
The AI was very aggressive in ramming them free when I tried that.
@@T-West Oh, wow, you are the biggest youtuber to reply to me, I love this series and your sense of humour.
Have you considered doing the StarWars Age of Empires campaigns? If I remember they seemed easy to exploit and sequence break.
@peterroe2993 Never played the SWGB campaigns before, always wanted to try them out.
It's like Saladin employee lots of preachers, but the enemy choose to die rather than join Saladin's Faith. Seem accurate.
Whoah chill
Why do I have the feeling that a no-kill run will be harder for Genghis Khan's campaign ?
Well, if I am right, in the first mission you must kill 1 of your allies in order to win.
@@HeartBurstHD also : second mission you must kill Kushluk, fourth mission you assassinate the Shah... going around that would be tricky
For the first mission, maybe luring them to Ornlu ?
@@HeartBurstHD for 1st mission you can still convert them though, sadly you cannot exploit diplomacy anymore. So you need to protect your monk will do it
on the 1st mission after a long time you just win without doing anything iirc. idk if that is still there in de
dont forget the Huns, it seems a running theme to nomads
Man. Deleting the transports was surprisingly dark. Like, that's such a terrifying idea. Imagine you're trapped on a boat, packed into the hold with the other soldiers. Then, you hear the crew of the boat begin to pray in another religion. Then, before you can do anything, they scuttle the ship, with you and all the others trapped inside. It's like something out of a horror movie.
Disclaimer : no wolves were harmed in the beating of this campaign
Some may still argue that winning campaign missions by 'victory condition' workarounds etc is technically taking advantage of the AI or whatever. But after watching him beat The Lion and the Demon fair and square, seeing the Crusaders learn of peaceful ways (by force), one must arrive at the conclusion that this person may be classified as an absolute madlad.
Losing Acre at the last scenario while building the wonder at the island makes it more historically accurate lul.
You’re pacifist runs remind me of the ghost runs in the thief series, where players try to reach the objective without knocking out enemies. And I love it.
I love how that when you said the speech about Saladin's journey, it matches with the Saracen Main theme
An impressive accomplishment on the final Saladin mission. That one's tough even without going for pacifism. Especially now that the island trick has been removed
Man this is legendary stuff! It took me around 3 hours to win this scenario on standard difficulty, this guy did it in half the time without killing any units
I'm so glad you played both strategies for the last scenario it was really fun to watch
Congratulations on achiving such an amazing feat! That trap at the end was sublime!!! I hope you will continue this series
I subscribed today, what an amazing idea for a series, I'm absolutely loving this!! Good luck with the rest, can't wait to see more
16:30 I laughed out loud at the wall in :D Amazing series.
You did a GREAT job keeping the video exciting. Well done :)
Cool video bro, 10:19 that phrase make me have nightmares
Hmm... T-West makes a video referencing Fatslob and the Saracen team bonus on the same day that SoTL releases a new video on the cost of walling... I feel a conspiracy afoot
Really hope you keep trying with each campaign and make it a whole series and carve out your slice of AOE2 history :)
keep it up!
that Galleon at 8:49 cruising on land up and down lol
Haha, when I tried the final Saladin mission, I didn't know how to delete houses and I didn't know about the secret island so I didn't even try it.
So much hard work to do just to keep peace ☮️ Incredible 👏
Love the Tyrese Galleon just casually crossing that peninsula at 8:50
The commentary alone on this is gold, let alone the content!
Nice, last video I commented, that you could do saladin and now there it is! Awesome!
Dude that Longbow you converted almost killed the Frank Hand Cannon at 15:00 :D
Man, you are f...ing crazy... the Lion and the Demon the way you did it IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
Man I love videos like these. Can't believe I found it only just now.
Thanks! Glad you enjoy them.
"For 300 years we were holed inside the walls"
Me: sounds like attack on titan all over again
Wonderful... especially that storyline of Saracens where they wall off themselves for a 300 years and victory is theirs😂 loved it 👌🏻👌🏻
I don't know if you do anything else on this channel... I just watch this series and I really like it!
You're an absolute madman.
And I love it.
Do the forgotten , I rewatched these ones countless times and they are still entertainig. Something new would be apreciated by everybody:)
That is some dedication man, well done.
Day god knows of quarantine: I'm marathonning these for some reason and keep getting hearts. Positive reinforcement
So I just randomly discovered these videos, and holy wow! These are really well put together given your channel size. Maybe I'm a little confused about that, but regardless, this is top notch material and I'm really impressed. Keep up the excellent work!
@16:30 sykw!!! nobody expects the saracen inquisition
you are not just a skilled and intelligent player
you are also a nice movie director and a prefect comedy actor
TWEST is best, im sure
Man I am truly amazed by this series and I really like your voice, it is quite soothing. I hope you could do more voices videos, you are awesome!
Wow man.
Always thought the last scenario was impossible with pacifism.
You're an ace!
Keep it up!
I can't believe you did the last one, immense
Do the Attila the Hun. Peaceful barbarians
Peaceful barbarians 😂😂😂😂😂
You are an absolute genius man. I love your content.
What an absolute, legendary madman!
Great video as always!
The ultimate juggler of Saracen's team bonus, Spirit of The Law! needs to see this!
excelent series.thank you for the videos =D
love the torch passing within joanna, barbarossa and now saladin. dont think that aztecs, mongols or huns will cope with the ways of pacifism. Maybe Rodrigo Dias de Vivar, El Cid, listened to this stories and got inspired. who knows. even attila listened to the pope...
Monks& Rams.
Can't wait for their next album to drop.
Amazing, just amazing, I thought the last one was imposible. Congrats!
Awesome series, please keep it up :)
you are becoming my favourite aoe channel
keep up with the great work
A Freakish delight Especially The lion and the demon Superb effort
you are the AoE madlad!!! You have my admirations!
Frederick Barbarossa, Saladin, Master of the Templar and Genghis Khan are my favorite heroes.
I really really wanned to see the monks getting hit by those roccks in 15:57
Saraen bonus in DE is actually very useful even in *high elo game*
Castle Saraenean crossbow cleans house and wall faster. It makes their push faster and more deadly, and it is more difficult to wall off these crossbows with house as high elo players often do
Absolutely, there are situations in which the Saracens bonus is extremely strong!