Age Of Empires 2

AoE2 is a top 3 video game for me. I purchased the game dirt cheap for like $2 on steam. Its now available on OSX too! I'm replaying all the campaigns on hard now. Tracking my thoughts here.

Campaign	Rating	Notes
Alaric	8	Pretty fun campaign. Mission 2 was a drag. Mission 5 was insaneeely hard but super satisfying to finally finish. The other missions were pretty easy. Misson 4 felt epic. The goths require aggressive spam gameplay which is the opposite of my playstyle. So that was a bit difficult to deal with.
Barbarossa	7	I liked playing the Teutons. I like the slow lumbering Teutonic knights. The campaign was interesting from a history perspective but the missions could have been more fun imo. AoE2 says its an easy campaign but I disagree. Some missions can be difficult if you are playing them for the first time.
Edward Longshanks	6	I think it was just ok. The longbows were fun. But the missions kinda felt lacklustre. Mission 2 was both hard and fun. Overall still an easy campaign.
Prithviraj	5	I thought the missions were hard and irritating.
Tamerlane	9	Very fun campaign. All the scenarios felt grand. Very very easy though.
Sforza	6	Another easy campaign. The Italians are an archer civ which I enjoy playing and the unique units are quite fun. But the missions were pretty boring.
Montezuma	4	Didn't enjoy this one. Its just annoying to play with no cavalary. And a lot of missions just felt slow. The Jaguar Warriors were pretty cool though.
Ivaylo	9	Such an enjoyable campaign. Cool story, very fun scenarios. The 3rd mission was frantic as hell. I wouldn't call this a hard campaign but its definitely not an easy one either.
The Hautevilles	8	For some reason I didn't pay attention to the story. But my god was this a hard campaign. The last scenario is especially rough. Still very fun.
Pachacuti	7	Pretty fun campaign. I liked all the missions except that god awful 3rd mission. I just really miss stables lmao. This is a very hard campaign. Lots of infinite unit spam which is annoying. But still a proper challenge.
Jan Ziska	8	A lot of the missions didn't allow you stuff like base building which was very annoying. But I really enjoyed playing with the Hussite Wagon units + mission 2 and 6 were quite fun.
Devapala	6	Interesting story. But the campaign is wayyyyy too easy. Every mission was a cakewalk except the last one which was quite fun. Its also a bit boring to play with a lot of elephant units given how slow they are. I think this campaign can be much better with some difficulty adjustments.
Francisco de Almeida	8	A hard campaign. I hated a few scenarios but I gotta say: the missions were super unique and fun to play. A lot of very interesting objectives + I love the feitorias. Very replayable too. The last scenario was hell though.
Joan of Arc	5	I didn't really like this campaign. Likely because of how much I hate scenario 5. But it just felt boring most of the time.
Genghis Khan	8	Always fun to play with Mangudai and fast siege. Some very cool scenarios like 'Into China'. The campaign is way too easy though. Still very fun!
Gajah Mada	8	This one is a bit difficult to rate. Its a very beautifully designed campaign. The maps are awesome, the missions are all very unique and overall gives everything a sense of awe. But its also an incredibly difficult campaign. Every mission is consistently difficult. It also has 2 of the best naval levels in the game. Some things could have been better. eg. the time limit on the last mission means you cant really explore the map. I want to rate this higher but the unit spam is a bit too much sometimes.
Vlad Dracula	5	Some interesting ideas but the missions ultimately just felt boring. Mission 3 was nice though. Also a bit too easy.
El Cid	3	Boring. Bland missions, weird maps. Conquistadors were fun though.
Kotyan Khan	6	Hard frustating missions. Mission 3 is one of my most hated missions. But it does capture the theme of fleeing from a Mongol invasion very well with its frantic pace. I did really like the last mission too. But otherwise not my cup of tea.
William Wallace	1	Meh its just a tutorial campaign.
Bayinnaung	7	Another beautifully designed challenging campaign. Mission 4 is another one of my most hated missions. But mission 2 is a very cool idea. And mission 5 is pretty epic as well. I docked points because only 1 mission allowed an economy with imperial age. I like base building and expanding and this campaign doesnt have enough of it.
Attila the Hun	9	Awesome campaign with enjoyable missions. The last 3 missions were super fun to play. I definitely found this campaign to be hard. But still super satifsying. I like Huns as a civilization too. I say its almost perfect.
Grand Dukes	8	The storyline is interesting but the whole thing felt uninspiring coming from something as good as Attila. I'm giving it a good score because the missions were pretty fun with a lot of boom and destroy scenarios. Lowkey easy campaign too.
Suryavarman I	8	Many fun missions. Mission 4 was one of the hardest missions I've played so far. Mission 5 was super fun too! The Khymer is a fun civilaztion with its instant food production from farms. Lots of boom and destroy scenarios again. Also fun to learn of an empire I never heard about.
Bari	5	I was bored with this campaign. Mission 4 is well known to be hard but its pretty easy if you know the tricks to beating it. Mission 5 is one I've always hated and just not a good final mission. The other missions are fine but meh. Fun civilaztion though.
Yodit	2	Incredibly boring campaign. Frustrating missions with infinite unit spam and very empty maps. Can be grindy.
Sundjata	2	Frustrating campaign. The first 3 missions are awful. I especially despise the first one. Infinite unit spam nonsense. The last 2 missions are fun though.
Saladin	6	There are some boring irritating missions. But I think the 6th mission is pretty fun! I like the castle unit as well.
Rajendra	10	My favourite campaign. I think all the missions were great! I especially loved missions 3 and 5. It's very cool to see references to the Suryavarman campaign as well. It was also so cool to see my home state in India be a player in the 1st mission. Just an epic campaign.
Tariq ibn Ziyad	4	This was kinda enjoyable because trying to defeat the continuous infinite spam of enemy units was sometimes fun. But its just absurd sometimes. Mission 5 was just stupid levels of spam. Imagine fighting a continuous horde of Frank paladins and throwing axemen from 2 enemies. I'm tempted to rank this campaign higher because it genuinely takes skill and time to design mission 5. But atleast it wasn't a boring campaign.
Jadwiga	9	Awesome campaign. Pretty much every mission was epic. Mission 5 especially is just so incredible! Lots of very cool ideas. This is a difficult campaign too. Big ups for mission design. I'm not giving it a 10 because frankly I enjoyed playing Rajendra more.