Age of Empires II: The Conquerors/Scourge of God

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.

Map
Available on the Steam website.

Walkthrough
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.

Alternate walkthrough
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 their 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.