Age of Empires II: The Conquerors/Atilla the Hun

Barbarian Hordes feast on a dying Roman empire. The most dangerous of these invaders are the Huns and their ferocious king, Attila. After pouring out of the Caspian Steppes, looting and burning all the while, the Huns become so powerful that the Roman empire is forced to pay a tribute to Attila. But the king of the Huns is still not satisfied, and he mobilizes his horsemen to invade Gaul and eventually Rome itself! Can nothing stop the brutal Attila?

Much as the Huns are a rushing civilization in random maps and Deathmatch, much of the campaign is best completed or mitigated by all-out attack. Light defenses don't slow the Huns down much and they don't have much of their own beyond castles.

Atilla the Hun 1

 * Objectives
 * Attila must survive
 * Attila must kill Bleda
 * Defeat Scythians, Persians, or Western Roman Empire (defeat only 2 Enemies)
 * Optional: Free the Scythian Scout, Bring Attila to the Scythian Camp, Bring 10 Horses to the Scythian Pen.

This can be surprisingly complex and tricky for a first mission.

At the start, Bleda will challenge Attila to a boar hunt. You can let the boar kill Bleda, kill him yourself, or wait until he betrays you after you kill the boar. Optimum units are collected by letting Bleda betray you and fleeing back to camp. All options end with Attila having all the Huns on the map and Bleda's base. Bleda's base includes a mostly defenseless Persian mining outpost walled off along the coast. You'll want their gold so break in and torch it. You will also want to start collecting and protecting 10 horses.

Start gathering resources and exploring. You'll want to wall and gate the two bridges into your base as soon as possible, and ultimately build a castle or two close to your south bridge. You have a lot of wood and thus a lot of food, so use your market if you find yourself short of stone. Rush to the Castle Age - you need that castle and some monks.

The best strategy is to attack the Romans first for reasons that will become obvious. You are told they have a number of your villagers, so you don't like them anyway. Once you have a sizable force of knights, Tarkens and cavalry archers, head south and sweep into their base from the west side. It's lightly defended and lets you protect your villager bounty. There is a Scythian scout captive next to your villagers who promises to reward you if you help him. Change relations with them to Ally so you don't hurt him. You want him alive. Your villagers can free him on their own as you are sacking the Romans.

Burn the Romans to the ground. If you free the Scythian unharmed, the Scythians will ask for Attila to visit the Scythians base. They will ally with you (make sure to research Cartography) and ask for 10 horses. If you provide this, they will reward you with a large force of Mangudai. You can then either betray the Scythians from inside or attack the Persians. Defeating one will end the scenario now that the Romans are toast.

The Persians are quite powerful and will use mangonels and war elephants, along with a lot of supporting war galleys. The war elephants are best dealt with by kiting them back towards your base and converting them with your monks. Once you have many war elephants, use them to spearhead your attack on Persia. Launching a full-on assault without preparation is a bad idea here; the combined war galleys, mangonels and elephant counter-attack you will provoke at their gate will chew light horses up.

Tips: You can refuse the challenge of Bleda by going south. A few troops will join you, so bring them west of the river and start your base. You will soon be attacked by Bleda himself and his troops so kill all of them then you receive Bleda's base.

Atilla the Hun 1 alternate
That's one way of doing it. I find that if you ride up to the iron boar then Bleda will attack and be killed. To free the villagers from the roman camp you should have the villagers attack the dividing palisade between them and the Scythian. After that destroy the palisade keeping them in, then walk out of the west end of the camp. (There's no gate at that end) walk a little ways, build a mill and take out the large deer herd. And build towers to the souh of your base to prevent the Romans from attacking. Also sell most of your resources for gold. Then buy what you need back to train. Speaking of which I use a lot of skirmishers, horse archers, and sword infantry. Watch for Persian settlements being built, especially just West of your base. You don't have to give the Scythians the horses. If you bring Atilla to there base they become your allies, then you can trade with them. And if you wait long enough they will attack the Persians. Coordinate your attack with theirs. And use fireships. They have much better rate of fire than the Persian war galleons. And The Persians have an entire network of docks up and down the East bank of the river, take out ALL of the war galleons.

Attila the Hun 2

 * Objectives
 * 1) Raid All Roman Villages Except the Roman Fort (blue)
 * 2) Destroy the Roman Fort's Town Center
 * Optional: Give 6 Villagers to the Scythians

While the "point" of this mission is raiding, you are really playing more steamroller than hit and run. Your initial forces can't dent the Roman fort but no one else will last long.

You begin with an assembled raiding group. You can start by raiding Naissus to your east without taking any damage to your troops and receiving wood, and then kill all the villagers of Sofia before they enter the town center for protection. Then destroy Sofia's town center, so that you get some food. Then, go south, and someone from your troop will tell you that some of your soldiers are trapped near the castle of Dyrrhachium.

It is best to approach Dyrrhachium along the southern side of their base, so as to completely avoid the fortified mangonel to the north. Your cavalry archers should make short work of any infantry. Destroy the Town Center, then free your troops at the castle to the west. You can destroy the castle itself with light casualties, as it does not have murder holes. This is optional and depends mostly on where you want to put your base.

When you get to Thessalonica, do not kill the villagers, only destroy the houses and soldiers. The Thessalonica villagers will be "captured" and change sides; kill any holdouts. To the southeast, you'll see the city of Adrianople. Take out the towers, kill everyone, and destroy everything. The mining camps yield stone and gold.

Now with resources, villagers and most of the map, you can build a base on Adrianople's ashes or inside the old walls of Dyrrhachium. If you do the latter, just destroy both gates and the castle, replacing the gates with your own; this leaves you with a very defensible base. If using Adrianople, you will need your own walls.

When you have enough stone, you can build a castle to the north of ex-Adrianople to cut off Roman probes. If you have not already, your scouts will learn of Scythian wild women to the west of the Roman fort. There is an opening in the trees there leading to the Scythians, who want 6 villagers for reasons that totally don't have anything to do with all those skeletons. Send 6 lucky villagers to then and you will be told to claim a reward. Max out your population cap first - the reward is a dozen each of petards and hunting wolves.

Use the petards along with your built-up army and blast the southern gate of the Roman fort and the towers, then hooking east to the Town Center over the Roman standing army. Destroy the Town Center and the Romans surrender. You do not need to kill them all or take out the castle.

Tips
Don't attack the Roman Fort early or your army is toast.

Max population out first with a good mix of combat units before accepting the Scythian reward, since it will push you far over the limit.

It is not needed to destroy all the buildings in the area just destroy the needed buildings to get the Resources.

If you want to defeat all of the Roman Villages kill or destroy the following:
 * Sofia: Town Center.
 * Dyrrhachium: Castle and Town Center.
 * Thessalonica: Market, troops, Docks, and Villagers if some did not join you.
 * Naissus: villagers and trade workshop.
 * Adrianople: villagers, troops, and some of the buildings.

Attila the Hun 3

 * Objectives
 * Stockpile 10,000 Gold in tribute from Rome.

There is no Optional in this Mission

This mission is a question of reading your instructions. Your goal is to amass 10,000 gold. Attacking Constantinople is incredibly difficult but mostly irrelevant to the mission. As the intro indicates, it pays barbarians and barbarians don't successfully attack it. It is entirely possible to win the scenario without ever scouting close enough to Constantinople to see the walls.

This is also a mission where being fast makes things much easier. If you can destroy Green and Red rapidly with few forces, you will amass your gold much more quickly because you're not spending it on casualties. And you can.

You will be immediately and frequently attacked by harassing efforts from Marcianopolis (Green). Kill off the first wave with your town center, monk and Tarkens while you are training some knights. Those knights will make short work of anything Green sends out. You can send one cavalry south to wait for a trade cart, which pays 500g when killed. Spawn villagers and amass 650 stone as quickly as you can, then get a castle up on the east side of your base within range of the Green gate. You will also receive 500g in protection money for the castle and now can make supplemental Tarkens. Let your castle cut down Green's gate, then sack their military buildings, docks and town center with a mix of Tarkens and knights. Build a monastery at some point while Green is getting burned. Receive large tribute from Constantinople.

Now wheel your cavalry southwest and flatten Philippopolis (Red), again taking out the economic buildings systematically before torching the Town Center. As your hint indicates, Red's only real "defense" early on are light towers, which your Tarkens mow down. Receive another large round of tribute from Constantinople. There is a relic almost directly to the north of Red's Town Centre at the edge of the map and one in the very corner of the map at the back of reds base both of which can be garrisoned for gold in your monastery.

You'll find a Constantinople monastery with another relic near the middle of the map. Torch it for protection money with your raiding force and poach the relic.

Now send your raiding force along the south coast until they find a peninsula with a gold mine and a monk who was hoping to see only a couple horses. Kill the monk and send villagers to build a mining camp to loot the gold. Wait for 10,000.

Note: You can also generate gold via building docks and trade cogs in Green's base and trading with Constantinople along the eastern sea.

Attila the Hun 4

 * Objectives
 * 1) Defeat Orleans, Metz and Burgundy.
 * 2) Defeat the Roman Army.
 * Optional: Tribute 500 gold to Burgundy, Build a castle in the Flag area of Burgundy in 10 minutes.

This is a scenario where Hun rushing is of limited value. Your principle enemy, Orleans, starts a full age ahead of you with a full fortified city, while you are basically starting a random map. They have a secret weapon as well. You will need to grind down your main two enemies. As the scenario intro and hints indicate, the Burgundians are ally potential.

First thing - you need a base. The best location is in the far eastern corner, as it is largely protected by cliff ridges and a large forest you don't need to cut down. As the Huns have bad defenses, something that can be defended with castle chokepoints and forward defenses is gold. Don't bother trying to wall off the bridge to the north, the river is frozen. You have three goals - get a castle up on the west side of your base compound, get a rush army for Burgundy and get to the Imperial Age. You will need a combined 1300 gold that you're not spending on units, so get cracking. Forgo upgrades that cost gold at this point.

Burgundy is an unwalled settlement to your southwest. Once you have 500 gold and 650 stone in reserve, send your army to crush the town center. Burgundy will then ask for the gold as tribute and a castle in their territory within ten minutes after you pay that. After this they will ally with you and you have your side of the map free of enemy. You can also trade with Burgundy's market for a revenue stream and can freely access their resource camps. This is far superior to burning resources to wipe them out in a 3-on-1 match.

You'll need to be in a maxed-out Imperial Age to win, so get cracking on that and your cavalry and counter-cavalry lines. Don't bother with non-trebuchet siege weapons; Hun trebuchets are excellent and so are the Frankish defenses. Heresy is a useful technology to grab on this map because Orleans will have monks behind those walls.

Deal with Metz first. During or after their demise, you will want a forward base near theirs for the attrition that is Orleans.

Haven't seen that promised Roman army from the hints yet? That's because it's waiting for you to destroy the Orleans town center. It's big and advanced and will flood directly to Orleans. The good news is that all the troops are one-off; Rome does not have production buildings. You're going to lose an army or two in this endeavor between Orleans and the Roman counter-attack, so just be prepared to reload your ranks.

Tips
Use natural terrain for your base defenses.

Don't make Burgundy more of an enemy than they need to be.

This is a resource-intensive, turtle-cracking mission. Just accept that cheap won't work and you will expend many times the resources and casualties of the last three missions combined.

The Roman army is triggered by sacking the Orleans town center and cannot replace its losses.

Attila the Hun 5

 * Objectives
 * Defeat the Romans, Visigoths, and the Alans.

This level reminds much of deathmatch. You are against 3 enemies, every of them on the other side of river, so you can gain some control by building docks, and controlling water area in general. Don't mind Frank buildings, you can either clear them up to build something or leave the buildings to be. You will be attacked early on, and probably later on, so make sure to have backup troops ready. Unlike usual AI's, Ostrogoths actually send in regular attacks on your enemies, so you might even gain breathing room. Your enemies have been granted with early castles, small cities and other valuable buildings, so you can't really competate. Make a well defended base, and start creating army. Kill the weakest enemy first. You can find their cities by following the road.

Attila the Hun 6

 * Objectives
 * 1) Defeat Milan, Padua, Verona, and Aquileia.
 * 2) Bring Attila to the Gates of Rome to meet with Pope Leo I.

now start by upgrading to elite Tarkan then send you villagers to work, Padua has started building a wonder send you army to Padua then arrange them to a defensive position your heavy cavalry archers are good in this city since they can hit and run on there target this will prove useful when facing Padua's Army now when you taken out the army make sure the Trebuchets signal the army of Padua to that location (northern Gate) Take out the towers and gates and move in for the kill Padua will not be defeated because they have a town center in Verona then Aquileia will start building their own wonder make sure you have researched Atheism then build a castle near the city send your army to defend the castle and build a army in your base. Trebuchets are not useful when being attack by scorpions so Cavalry Archers are needed in taking them out quickly siege the city when you have finished making your army target the Gates so that you Tarkans will quickly get in and do a quick kill on those siege units then finish Aquileia, Devastate the Entire City Completely then turn you attention to Milan. Milan is pretty well defended other than on the Barbarossa Campaign now start by luring Milan's army out of the City and Destroy the army Onagers are Completely Dangerous to the cavalry archers so use only a few, send your Trebuchets knock out the Gate and the Towers then start devastating Milan this is pretty easy anyway turn your attention to Verona and Padua. Verona is Franks so they are well defended at the north gate so attack from the East wall using your Trebuchets. now make a diversion with a small group and attack the gate and make sure to build a Castle there first. and when you make a opening in east wall send all your cavalry and make a great havoc on the city then when Verona and Padua are Defeated. Pope Leo I Appears out of nowhere and wishes to speak with Attila so send Attila to Rome and the Mission is Done! Thank you for Reading the Campaign God bless!

Tips
All your Enemies will build a Wonder so research Atheism early so you won't have to worry about them.