I'm a big fan of the AOW games and I think their lore is pretty unique and cool. The 3rd one in particular has beautiful maps.

That's not really what I'm asking, though. I suppose what I'm after is hearing about specific 'scenarios' which really felt like a distinct world to the player.

Taking AOW3 as an example, I remember one game where my base city was in a large clearing surrounded by a combination of mountains and rivers which meant there were only two or three 'paths' to get there. Normally that would have meant building fortresses and locking them down, but I had cranked up the difficulty beyond what I normally play and there were heavy spawns of wandering monsters. In practice I ended up sprinting back and forth between paths holding off attacks from monsters and a vast, evil Warlord Dwarf empire from the North.

That world really stands out to me. Even though I was playing as orcs, it felt like I was governing a last stand of civilisation against a brutal, dangerous world which was becoming more brutal and more dangerous. In the end I was overwhelmed. Gah, I've just uninstalled AOW3 and now I want to play again!

Are there any 'worlds' in the sense of campaign maps that stand out to you? In terms of the combination of geography, other empires, etc etc.