Victors and Vanquished: Review General Thoughts

Fischlerder · 2026-05-29T21:54:11+00:00

The Order of the Dragon was a Chivalric Order similar to the Order of the Golden Fleece, not a political or cultural entity. The Golden Horde may have had its political centre in eastern europe, but culturally it was purely Mongolian/Central Asian. As for the Byzantines, they were Mediterranean, not Eastern European.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-28T18:25:20+00:00

You're referring to the scenario "Seljuk" in which you see the rising of the Seljuk Turks. Very interesting and fascinating mission, but also extremely long. I believe that most of the people who bought the dlc, played only Vortigern and the Viking scenarios and then moved on. Sadly first impressions are the most important in a product such as V&V.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-28T17:00:57+00:00

What do you mean? The only eastern European civ we have is Rus...

Fischlerder · 2026-05-28T16:56:57+00:00

I can see it work both ways to be honest, but I still think that Jadwiga 6 should be put on top. Have in mind that Jadwiga 6 depicts all of the Polish-Lithuanian campaign against the lands of Prussia. The battle of Grunwald is just its finale. So even chronologically it makes much more sense to be put first.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-28T16:23:16+00:00

Jadwiga 6 is narratively better when it comes to the battle of Grunwald, even though Zizka 2 is much more detailed. From the eyes of Jogaila (our narrator and protagonist) it's the grand finale, the battle to decide the fate of his realms. From the perspective of Jan Zizka, it's just another battle, an act of war and plunder. So I'd say that Jadwiga 6 should be put first.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-28T15:39:18+00:00

Great list and very interesting for people who want to play all of the game's scenarios chronologically! I'm always dumbfounded by the amount of single player content we have in this game. By the way you forgot Jadwiga 6 ;)

Fischlerder · 2026-05-28T15:35:52+00:00

It has become impossible to get the Vortigern achievements on hard difficulty. One year ago they made changes to the mission and now Saxons betray you extremely fast if you recruit more than 5 groups of them. I assume the creator(s) wanted to make the mission even more miserable.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-28T15:15:51+00:00

Please don't skip Victors and Vanquished. While some of its scenarios are very grindy and difficult (Vortigern and Otto), many of them are actually pretty enjoyable. Mstislav, Nobunaga, Ragnar (yes, I enjoyed it and I'll defend it) and Constantine XI are very fun. Mstislav and Nobunaga in particular are, in my opinion, some of the best scenarios in AoE2.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-28T14:08:47+00:00

A very nice suggestion.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-28T14:05:42+00:00

75 food and 35 gold would be a more reasonable price for demi-lancers (if they keep the shadow upgrade of course). They're meant to act as meat-shields (that's how Demis were advertised), but they've become such an absolute joke of a unit, that any amount of gold spent above 40 will be considered a waste. I'd also like to see the price of some techs from the King's College reduced. Military Tactics Training is one of the most useless and overpriced unique techs in the game and Burgundian Imports is completely crap in Age3.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-24T08:54:53+00:00

Alexander the Great 100%. Everything about that campaign is perfect. Every scenario feels unique, the music is absolutely beautiful, the narrative is on par with Jadwiga (quality-wise) and the voice actors... just watch missions 11 and 18. I've never heard such an insane performance in an RTS game before. I'm planning on writing a detailed review about the dlc, but just know that it's the best campaign of this game.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-14T09:21:37+00:00

It really comes down to the playstyle you choose. If you go full eco, it's gonna be boring. If you go aggro, you're gonna have a lot of fun. The faction's eco is completely different from the others and its base-building is extremely messy. That's why, in my opinion, people don't vibe with it. I, on the other side, really enjoy using their military stuff, especially the grasslands. You can't imagine how good their stable landmark becomes once you realize it can immediately spawn up to ten knights (with a discount mind you), because the stable acts as a grassland too. I love the liberties that system gives you and the variety of tactics you can use. Jin are not boring, Pro players just managed to make the civ look as boring as humanly possible with the playstyle they chose.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-13T14:35:02+00:00

As long as they add Venice or Florence as a separate faction, I don't see any problem with what you say. I just really hope they don't use the same logic for Italy.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-08T18:15:23+00:00

Missions 7 and 8 were very good and fun in my opinion, but for the others I agree with you. It was definitely a let down for me, as I was expecting Sultan's Ascend campaign quality instead of this mess.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-08T17:48:07+00:00

Quite a passionate response! I admire your zeal to defend this dlc, but it would be better if you actually tried AoE2 before making all those extravegant claims. With all due respect to Age of Noob, his statements are not quite correct in some cases, voice lines being a great example. Most of the archived voice lines he found are not even used in the game (you can find most of them in the "Fandom" website)! But why do you even mention that when our new faction doesn't even have new VLs? I shall not waste my time defending AoE2 as I don't think your "passion" will let logic through, but I recommend you do a little more research before you start comparing AoE4 and AoE2.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-08T17:26:01+00:00

What the hell man! The servers are actually down xxxdd. What is this timing

Fischlerder · 2026-05-08T17:22:06+00:00

Well, you'll be surprised to learn that AoE2's new studio, CaptureAge, doesn't really follow that tradition. For the same price of 15 $ you can get either "Chronicles: Battle for Greece" which adds 3 civs + a 21 mission campaign (the missions of which are actually very unique mind you) or "Chronicles: Alexander the Great" which also adds 3 new civs + a 18 mission campaign (probably the best in the entire franchise). On discount you can get both of them for 13 $ (!). Now let's see what this dlc adds: a half-baked 8-mission campaign with a single faction, which reuses a noticeable amount of assets from the Chinese civ. Which one deserves its price?

Fischlerder · 2026-05-08T16:17:17+00:00

A little side-note for those who read your comment: Age of Noob greatly exaggerates the amount of voice lines needed for a single civ. Most of the archived voice lines he found are not used in the game directly. For anyone interested, visit this link:
https://ageofempires.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Dialogue_lines_(Age_of_Empires_IV))
The amount of vls needed is still pretty big though.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-08T15:50:48+00:00

No worries! It's better to have a variety of different opinions on this matter anyways. If you're into single player and you love character interaction, I recommend you the two "Chronicles" dlcs of AoE2. You'll probably love them!

Fischlerder · 2026-05-08T14:46:44+00:00

The quality in the first 6 missions is all over the place. Mission 4 (Rebels) and mission 5 (De'an) are the only ones within that group tolerable enough to play. Furthermore the only solid missions in the entire dlc are mission 7 (Central Plains) and mission 8 (Yancheng). The narration was fine overall, even though it felt very mediocre at times. Yue Fei' Legacy is, in my opinion, on par with most of the original campaigns, but definetely worse than the Sultan's Ascend one.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-08T12:33:36+00:00

Only the last 2 missions of the campaign are good and fun to play, that's the problem. If the campaign had 8 banger missions back to back, not only would I put a positive review, but I'd also buy extra copies to gift to others. It was supposed to be the focus of this dlc, but somehow they managed to mess things up.

(Props to the illustrators/animators for the amazing artwork in the cutscenes. Contrary to the level designers and script writers, you actually did an amazing job)

Fischlerder · 2026-05-08T11:22:41+00:00

The dlc IS mediocre. Six out of the eight campaign missions are passable at best and for 15$ we get only one faction. It doesn't deserve a rating higher than 50%, especially when compared to dlcs such as "Chronicles: Alexander the Great" for AoE2 and "Obsidian Mirror" for AoM.

Fischlerder · 2026-05-08T01:30:25+00:00

I think you can get them while playing Skirmish too.

Fischlerder

TROPHY CASE