Talk:Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings/Holy Roman Emperor

Adam's Strategy
For those of you who find this, here are my tips for Barbarossa I: Holy Roman Emperor.

The difficulty I chose was Hard, and I made a personal decision not to build any WALLS. There is something to be said about being able to defend yourself with just UNITS and CASTLES/TOWERS/TOWNCENTRES.

This is not a walkthrough, but more of advice and general tips! I want you to experience it for yourself. Don't just copy other's solutions. Find your own :) Use your wits! But, I hope these tips give you some ideas.

MISSION START
Before I do ANYTHING, I pause the game and examined the situation. As a player, you are:

1. In the center of the map. You will probably be attacked from all sides.

2. However, your base is surrounded by rivers, and there are only 4 crossings inside.

3. You have a castle on the East side of your base. Moreover, Tuetons get free "Murder Holes", so your castle can attack enemies that are standing right beside it (primarily melee units trying to attack your castle). The castle, plus the surrounding forest means that your entire EAST SIDE is much stronger than your WEST SIDE. Thus, I made a mental note to build all of my MILITARY buildings on the WEST side of my base.

4. Your enemies. All enemies have 1-2 monks in their ranks. Swabia trains armies of SPEARMEN, and the occasional MANGONEL. Burgundy trains armies of ARCHERS and SKIRMISHERS. Austria trains SWORDSMEN and a variety of SIEGE. Mainly SCORPIONS, with the occasional MANGONEL and RAM. Bohemia trains mainly KNIGHTS and ARCHERS. Saxony trains mainly TUETONIC KNIGHTS and ARCHERS, and the occasional MANGONEL.

With such a diverse range of enemy ranks, you will need to customise your own army according to who you wish to battle. However, a good backbone (and generally for the Tuetons), are KNIGHTS. So start snatching up that GOLD and FOOD.

DIRECTING YOU TO THE FINISH LINE
I don't want to give away the entire mission, as I believe you should figure it out yourself. However, here are some tips to get you started (some of them even just general advice for beginners to AOE II):

1. Build up your economy! Wood, food, and gold are of EQUAL importance, but wood not so much in the later game. Have 9-10 villagers on EACH resource except stone, which can have just 3-4.

2. Prepare to DEFEND yourself with UNITS and CASTLES. You don't need WALLS. WALLS change your mentality, psychologically, and you begin to turtle yourself in. You want to aggressively EXPAND at every given window of opportunity. This goes for ALL of the Barborossa missions. LEARN how to be AGGRESSIVE, and don't be afraid of LOSING troops. They are there to defend you, and actually do a much better job than WALLS could (once you learn their strengths and weaknesses).

3. Keep a few knights stationed around the important areas of your base. Your Castles, your Town Centers (yes you should have more than one TC!).

4. Don't hesitate to launch an attack within 10-15 minutes of game time. Once you have several knights and a few battering rams, go and attack Burgundy. Their archers will not be able to handle the pierce armour of your army. But watch out for their MONKS! A good trick is to lure a monk with one of your knights and then ambush him with the rest of them.

5. Keep being aggressive! Don't wait until all your enemies are in the Castle Age! Strike them while they are still weak.

6. Keep an eye out on your base! If you are attacked, defend! Keep units spotted around your base: primarily KNIGHTS and TUETONIC KNIGHTS. The latter are very HEAVY infantry, and are super useful against the SPEARMEN of Swabia. KNIGHTS are critical for quickly reaching and destroying enemy SIEGE.

END
That is it !!! Enjoy the mission :) I hope these tips were helpful. If anyone has additional tips, please add them in!