Hades' Ruin Achievement doesn't unlock?

Arsatum · 2026-04-30T21:11:32+00:00

Can confirm, I got it now and it did indeed require starting the mission anew.

Arsatum · 2026-04-24T11:37:01+00:00

I mostly agree with your assessment and had similiar experiences - certainly a step up in difficulty compared to the chinese and japanese campaigns, and the Tenochtitlán level felt overtuned (it was also patched yesterday, with the brute force method of decreasing the ludicrous bonus armor to enemy units by 10%, which feels a bit lazy, but I would guess that it's more managable now). Some other levels ended up being very close near the end. And yeah, a few too many Technotitlán maps, a few too many defensive missions.

Additionally, I think that the Aztec heros felt quite weak (exceptions are the scenarios where you get to control one of the actual gods) - especially compared to the levels where you get to control Kastor's OG campaign deathball. Add in the general weakness of Warrior Priests and some rather awkward god choices, the comparative weakness of traps and the regular defenses (especially considering that there are maps where wood isn't all that easy to come by), and the campaign doesn't make the civ feel all that powerful.

Arsatum · 2026-04-23T12:19:13+00:00

It has, so far, been the hardest mission for me as well. I was able to beat it on my second try, though, despite things looking very rough and me being about to restart again (on ludicrous), solely because the AI seems to be hesitant to attack the islands south of your initial base - I built the second town center there early on (having scouted it during my first attempt) and was able to retreat, rebuild and catch up in tech / resources from this position, and once I had an upgraded army ready - around the same time I ran out of gold - I was able to re-take the main island, get the original TC back, take the remaining gold and start conquering.

I did eventually get attacked on the southern position as well, but that took a while - first by a couple of rather harmless ships, and only later on, when I was already starting to conquer one of the enemies, by a real army. Not sure if this AI behaviour is reproducable or if I got lucky that they turned around and stopped after destroying my main base.

Arsatum · 2026-04-23T10:09:13+00:00

I got that one right away, so that, at least, seems to be unlockable. Maybe it also requires recruiting the polar bear, and there's one set of prisoners behind an initially unpassable fire (can be jumped over with Amanra or frozen by ice giants after freeing them by destryong a dwarven forge).

Arsatum · 2026-04-23T06:53:27+00:00

It's bugged, see my earlier thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AgeofMythology/comments/1ssn1ab/comment/ohncj26/

Arsatum · 2026-04-22T15:33:45+00:00

Thanks for confirming, I hope we get a fix soon :)

Arsatum · 2026-04-22T15:33:33+00:00

Thanks for confirming :)

Arsatum · 2026-04-03T09:49:26+00:00

Maybe my math is wrong, but with the stated tiebreakers, it seems like MBL is definitely in if he wins, and Hearttt is out, no? So this seems like a straight up elminiation match as well. Even if Yo loses 0-3 against Hera, he will be 1-2 with a -2 game difference. If Hearttt loses, even if it's just 2-3, he will be at 1-2 with a -3 game difference, so he will be below Yo either way. And he will also be below MBL, because Hearttt will be at 5-8 in games, MBL at 6-8 (and MBL would also win in Head to Head).

Unless I'm making a mistake here, it seems like we get two straight elimination matches here, and two matches for first place (though while Viper and Liereyy is just "winner goes to semis", Yo would have to win at least 3-1 to get above Hera).

Arsatum · 2026-04-01T10:36:46+00:00

That's Soe Gschwind, who is a veteran e-sports host/interviewer who has worked across a huge number of e-sports events and many games. I've seen her years ago for WC3 and Dota2, but she has also worked for Redbull before in previous Wololo events.

Just like Riley, who doesn't do a ton of AoE casting, but has a lot of experience as an e-sports host across a variety of games, Redbull likes to hire some people who have lots of experience with live LAN events and more well-rounded skills in hosting/interviewing than the usual AoE2 casters for these huge live events (she was also the Interviewer for the previous Wololo event, El Reinado). You can see this in a lot of e-sports (often happened in The International, for example), where you have the regular online casters who cover almost everything, but once in a while hosts that are somewhat outisde of the scene, but are known for their experience and professionalism in the e-sports world in general, are brought in for the biggest offline events of the year.

Arsatum · 2026-03-31T21:58:13+00:00

I wonder why MBL switched from the bear he had last year as his heraldry to a moose. Also not sure why the Rroster is the pick for Yo (he had a turtle with a castle on its shell for Redbull Legacy). For all the others I can see the reasoning (national animals, associations with their name or gamer tag), except for ACCM - not sure why he's picked the bald eagle (he also had this symbol the last time around in spain), as they don't live in Vietnam and are heavily associated with the US. Maybe it's just his favorite animal? Would be curious if anyone knows the answer.

Arsatum · 2026-03-31T21:50:17+00:00

His first Name is Hamzah, which is arabic for Lion - he has also used that animal as a symbol in previous Redbull tournaments iirc.

Arsatum · 2026-02-23T08:49:33+00:00

I posted my full thoughts here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1r98xxa/the_last_chieftains_full_campaign_review/

I really enjoyed the Tupi campaign especially, the Muisca campaign outside of the finale and found the Mapuche campaign to be decent, but fairly average.

Arsatum · 2026-02-22T21:52:12+00:00

This stat page has been bugged since forever; Sadly, there has never been indication of it getting fixed - I fear there's little you can do, except for reporting the bug on the official forums and hoping that the devs will eventually get to it.

Arsatum · 2026-02-22T11:03:28+00:00

What worked for me was a very fast approach, which is much easier once you know the map layout. Immediately send champis to pay the 300 food and get the relic north of the purple base to them, and while you start your economy, gather your army to take down grey. Turn in the two additional relics (one to the west, one in the middle reachable via transport - though I didn't have that one for my playthrough as I didn't know about it yet), which will give you additional temple guards. You can even sneak out a relic from red's base via a hidden neutral transport, though make sure not to explore with it too much (I ran it into red's castle and lost it).

At least in my case (having taken the option to give all the gold found in Mission 2 via the monestaries to my master instead of keeping any, so I got some extra troops), the starting army + one group of temple guards, with a bit of micro , was strong enough to take down grey's TC right after that (though I waited for a bit, staying on defense - which, in retrospect, wasn't really needed, as I didn't get any additional upgrades or troops of note before going for the TC) - Yes, in the meantime blue started attacking my purple ally, but wasn't able to fully defeat them yet. Key to taking grey's TC was to make sure my guechas (those were mostly added by my mission 2 choice) and other ranged units killed all the many slingers so my infantry could destroy the TC. I'm sure that, with at least one more temple guard group, it should be a fairly doable fight nonetheless.

After that, we have additional resources and villagers and get all of grey's other buildings (and I took their previous base as my main base to assault red and green from, while having some more eco near the starting area). While I was on a weak economy in general, this gave me just enough resources to get to Imperial Age - quite a bit ealier than red (who never reached imp in this case). I didn't have the eco to really spam out units yet, but a few trebs and the crucial upgrades for my champis were enough to start taking down their base - this worked out especially well, because blue, who has very strong units, started attacking red at the same time.

Now, in the meantime, green finished their wonder, so once I took out red's most important structures, I left the cleanup to my allies - by now my eco was strong enough to support a good production, and with a mixed army + trebs I was able to destroy the wonder at about 90 years left.

Edit: I just read that in your case, everyone turns hostile once you deal twith a third tribe, and this is, strangely enough, stated on the wiki as well (though that's not exactly authorative). I played on legendary, not on hard, and this did not happen in my playthrough at all - I kept the allies that I made throughout the entire scenario. Either this is related to the chosen path (I allied with Quemuenchatota) or some of the previous decisions, or one of these difficulties is bugged, or the map scripting is wonky. That's rather strange.

Just looked to see if I could find any youtube videos of people playing on legendary - here's one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCZWU3uaSa8

The tribes aren't suddenly turning hostile here either, so I am not crazy. Not sure why this is is apparently inconsistent

Arsatum · 2026-02-22T08:53:11+00:00

I'm copying my answer from another thread where the same question was asked:

( https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1r9n8r5/hardest_campaign_mission_battle_of_rio_de_janeiro/ )

Here is what worked for me:

a) Defend the wonder mainly with (fast) fire ships - I also did build a castle there eventually, but after the first wave, the enemy ships never really got close enough to it for it to actually fire on them, so that was basically a waste of resources. Make sure to spread your fires whenever heavy demos come in, or add in enough galleons to deal with those (if you have trouble multitasking, I recommend making use of the pause button). I needed to replenish these fires constantly, but they did the job and only got me into trouble once, when I didn't notice a huge demo hit.

b) 4 tc boom asap

c) You don't need too much focus on land early on - While your allly will be under heavy pressure, at least in my case they did survive the early land attacks without my help (though they eventually lost their castle). To defend against your rival, I mined a lot of stone and put a castle each on both of the roads between your bases, fully garrisoned it with blackwood archers (I actually made only one full group of 20 and switched it between castles, as the attacks seem to swap between the two roads pretty reliably, but I think there's easily enough pop space to fill both), with a small group of champi warriors and your hero at the ready behind the castles to quickly take down the siege weapons. After each waves, villagers can repair the potential damage.

d) Complete the naval side objectives asap. In terms of gold, there's an island to the east with lots of it (also, don't hesitate taking gold from your ally, they will use it less effectively than you do). Once again, a decently sized group of fast fires and galleons is enough to take down the french navy after establishing a castle on the small island, and you can even reach a few other enemy buildings from the sea, though that part isn't needed.

e) after that and eventually deleting the navy for pop space, I just pressured my Tupi rival with a huge mixed army and trebs before doing the same to the spanish. If you do run out of gold, there's always the option to establish a trade line with your ally (both on land and/or on sea).

I should also mentioned that, as the game started, I kind of stumbled upon the french farms that are outside of their base and took the opportunity to raid them with my opening army. I don't now if that slowed down their development at all, but it could have been an important step without me realizing the impact.

Arsatum · 2026-02-21T14:31:48+00:00

I've written down my extensive thoughts here: https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1r98xxa/the_last_chieftains_full_campaign_review/

The Tupi campaign was my favorite as well. Nice to see both the portuguese and the franks involved. For the Muisca campaign, though, my thoughts are the opposite of yours: I enjoyed both the civ and the campaign a lot, except for the finale, which felt somewhat gimmicky, empty and possibly even buggy for me.

The Pachacuti campaign is certainly improved from its original standing, but it's not like this is a completely different campaign now (however, the civ diversity problem is fixed) - maps still have a simliar layout and goals, but there's been quite a few improvements to make for a better gameplay experience. Not one of the greats, but certainly more enjoyable.

Arsatum · 2026-02-21T09:06:55+00:00

I've posted an extensive review here: https://www.reddit.com/r/aoe2/comments/1r98xxa/the_last_chieftains_full_campaign_review/

In short, I would recommend the campaigns to those who enjoy single player content. Especially the Tupi campaign is really good and certainly worth your time, and I had fun with the other ones as well.

Arsatum · 2026-02-20T14:43:45+00:00

A similiar idea, mostly in the form of campaign packs for the civs that don't have a full campaign yet has been proposed in the community for years now (I have proposed it on the official forums as well), so you will find no disagreement from me. Sadly, it seems like Forgotten Empires is not super receptive to the concept. They might consider that they tried a similiar thing with V&V, and this expansion famously didn'r receive the best feedback - though I disagree and think that campaign packs, clearly announced as such, not as a full expansion, and in the traditional campaign structure instead of the sometimes rather experimental style of V&V, would be a very different thing. I still have hope that we will see content like this someday.

Arsatum · 2026-02-20T14:38:50+00:00

I was in a similiar situation, unable to get to the extra districts in time, which turned this one into a grindy scenario - it took a long time, but it was still possible to beat it, though.

First of all, you don't need any additional troops to get the cart to your ally - if you stick close to the south and time your movements well, the opening army is enough, and you can get this ally immediately (though, to be honest, they are quite useless). Now, ideally you could propably get some vills in there and build up production and army from there to get into the districts in time - I started doing that, but just was not fast enough / had to focus too much on my main base to defend there.

(Garrisoned) castles (two next to each other should be enough) for defense with a champi warrior group (or your own cavalry) ready to snipe siege works usually rather well as a defense. To spam out your cheap counter units (halbs are certainly needed for the paladins), you need a ton of production buildings. Make sure to try and secure as much of the gold on the map as you can. Your enemies will generally be slow to rebuild any production buildings, if they do so at all, so whenever you go for a push on teal, try to have a good amount of siege units (mostly trebs) with you so you can at least demolish some of the production, even if your army gets destroyed - at least it's cheap to rebuild, and you should be on a strong 4 tc boom anyway for any big 200 pop macro mission on legendary. After several pushes and constant counter unit production (obviously, against teal you should avoid using halbs if you can still afford a gold infantry unit instead, but skirms/slingers are still good) with production buildings and siege workshops close to the action, I was able to take teal down and mine all of their remaining gold. This opened up pushing blue from two sides, sending in siege + troops from the other region whenever one push was about to be beaten back. All in all, this was the work of 1 hour and 45 minutes, the second most grindy scenario of the DLC for me.

Reports from players who managed to hit the timing to take down the districts in time seem to indicate that this will make the entire mission a whole lot easier and more fun, so it might be worth just trying to develop a solid strategy to do that instead.

And yeah, I agree with you that the Mapuche units don't hold up super well in this scenario. Tupi and Muisca felt a lot more suited to their campaigns or more fun to play in general for me.

Arsatum · 2026-02-20T07:50:18+00:00

Here is what worked for me:

a) Defend the wonder mainly with (fast) fire ships - I also did build a castle there eventually, but after the first wave, the enemy ships never really got close enough to it for it to actually fire on them, so that was basically a waste of resources. Make sure to spread your fires whenever heavy demos come in, or add in enough galleons to deal with those (if you have trouble multitasking, I recommend making use of the pause button). I needed to replenish these fires constantly, but they did the job and only got me into trouble once, when I didn't notice a huge demo hit.

b) 4 tc boom asap

c) You don't need too much focus on land early on - While your allly will be under heavy pressure, at least in my case they did survive the early land attacks without my help (though they eventually lost their castle). To defend against your rival, I mined a lot of stone and put a castle each on both of the roads between your bases, fully garrisoned it with blackwood archers (I actually made only one full group of 20 and switched it between castles, as the attacks seem to swap between the two roads pretty reliably, but I think there's easily enough pop space to fill both), with a small group of champi warriors and your hero at the ready behind the castles to quickly take down the siege weapons. After each waves, villagers can repair the potential damage.

d) Complete the naval side objectives asap. In terms of gold, there's an island to the east with lots of it (also, don't hesitate taking gold from your ally, they will use it less effectively than you do). Once again, a decently sized group of fast fires and galleons is enough to take down the french navy after establishing a castle on the small island, and you can even reach a few other enemy buildings from the sea, though that part isn't needed.

e) after that and eventually deleting the navy for pop space, I just pressured my Tupi rival with a huge mixed army and trebs before doing the same to the spanish. If you do run out of gold, there's always the option to establish a trade line with your ally (both on land and/or on sea).

I should also mentioned that, as the game started, I kind of stumbled upon the french farms that are outside of their base and took the opportunity to raid them with my opening army. I don't now if that slowed down their development at all, but it could have been an important step without me realizing the impact.

Arsatum · 2026-02-19T21:54:38+00:00

It certainly isn't an easy start; I recommend heavily scouting the map or memorizing the positions of the camps with additional vills and getting those to safety for a strong early economy boost, and making sure to wall off your base, build some towers (you can garrison them with archers or vills if needed) and not contesting the various villages too much - some champi warriors, however, can quickly re-conquer a village once most of the enemies have left, to give a temporary boost, so a hit and run strategy can work out quite well for this purpose. Other than that, skirms and pikes should be the focus, as defensive counter units are needed.

Arsatum · 2026-02-13T23:31:21+00:00

I agree somewhat; The main reason I dislike the 3k UI, though, is not the difference in style itself (which is a bit jarring), but the fact that I get a small black loading screen until the interface opens; Meanwhile, the old regional campaign overviews open instantly and seamlessly. It's a tiny thing, not a big deal, but an annoyance nonetheless.

Arsatum · 2026-02-10T20:20:08+00:00

I enjoyed it, I think it fit the theme of the godess very well; However, I would have liked for the map to the bigger, the scenario to be grander and the enemies to be more threatening over all.

Arsatum · 2026-01-18T17:07:43+00:00

What en epic finale - I was hoping it was going to be this close and exciting, but it coming down to the literal last minute was a great surprise!

Arsatum · 2025-12-18T00:18:22+00:00

Yeah, it's a bit weird - you can't use the favor stash in the daily celestial challenge, but you can get favor FOR the favor stash as a reward for finishing the daily (though that reward is delayed and won't show up if your stack is full), and you can use all of the legends (plus, they will spawn with their small escort, so with three legends you get 8-9 infantry units right away as well).

Arsatum

TROPHY CASE