Age Of Empires 2

AoE2 is a top 3 video game for me. I purchased the game dirt cheap for like $2 on steam. Its now available on OSX too! I'm replaying all the campaigns on hard now. Tracking my thoughts here.

I've finished all the campaigns(the main campaigns and the free DLCs only) on hard. It was so much fun!

Campaign	Rating	Notes
Alaric	8	Pretty fun campaign. Mission 2 was a drag. Mission 5 was insaneeely hard but super satisfying to finally finish. The other missions were pretty easy. Misson 4 felt epic. The goths require aggressive spam gameplay which is the opposite of my playstyle. So that was a bit difficult to deal with.
Barbarossa	7	I liked playing the Teutons. I like the slow lumbering Teutonic knights. The campaign was interesting from a history perspective but the missions could have been more fun imo. AoE2 says its an easy campaign but I disagree. Some missions can be difficult if you are playing them for the first time.
Edward Longshanks	6	I think it was just ok. The longbows were fun. But the missions kinda felt lacklustre. Mission 2 was both hard and fun. Overall still an easy campaign.
Prithviraj	5	I thought the missions were hard and irritating.
Tamerlane	9	Very fun campaign. All the scenarios felt grand. Very very easy though.
Sforza	6	Another easy campaign. The Italians are an archer civ which I enjoy playing and the unique units are quite fun. But the missions were pretty boring.
Montezuma	4	Didn't enjoy this one. Its just annoying to play with no cavalary. And a lot of missions just felt slow. The Jaguar Warriors were pretty cool though.
Ivaylo	9	Such an enjoyable campaign. Cool story, very fun scenarios. The 3rd mission was frantic as hell. I wouldn't call this a hard campaign but its definitely not an easy one either.
The Hautevilles	8	For some reason I didn't pay attention to the story. But my god was this a hard campaign. The last scenario is especially rough. Still very fun.
Pachacuti	7	Pretty fun campaign. I liked all the missions except that god awful 3rd mission. I just really miss stables lmao. This is a very hard campaign. Lots of infinite unit spam which is annoying. But still a proper challenge.
Jan Ziska	8	A lot of the missions didn't allow you stuff like base building which was very annoying. But I really enjoyed playing with the Hussite Wagon units + mission 2 and 6 were quite fun.
Devapala	6	Interesting story. But the campaign is wayyyyy too easy. Every mission was a cakewalk except the last one which was quite fun. Its also a bit boring to play with a lot of elephant units given how slow they are. I think this campaign can be much better with some difficulty adjustments.
Francisco de Almeida	8	A hard campaign. I hated a few scenarios but I gotta say: the missions were super unique and fun to play. A lot of very interesting objectives + I love the feitorias. Very replayable too. The last scenario was hell though.
Joan of Arc	5	I didn't really like this campaign. Likely because of how much I hate scenario 5. But it just felt boring most of the time.
Genghis Khan	8	Always fun to play with Mangudai and fast siege. Some very cool scenarios like 'Into China'. The campaign is way too easy though. Still very fun!
Gajah Mada	8	This one is a bit difficult to rate. Its a very beautifully designed campaign. The maps are awesome, the missions are all very unique and overall gives everything a sense of awe. But its also an incredibly difficult campaign. Every mission is consistently difficult. It also has 2 of the best naval levels in the game. Some things could have been better. eg. the time limit on the last mission means you cant really explore the map. I want to rate this higher but the unit spam is a bit too much sometimes.
Vlad Dracula	5	Some interesting ideas but the missions ultimately just felt boring. Mission 3 was nice though. Also a bit too easy.
El Cid	3	Boring. Bland missions, weird maps. Conquistadors were fun though.
Kotyan Khan	6	Hard frustating missions. Mission 3 is one of my most hated missions. But it does capture the theme of fleeing from a Mongol invasion very well with its frantic pace. I did really like the last mission too. But otherwise not my cup of tea.
William Wallace	1	Meh its just a tutorial campaign.
Bayinnaung	7	Another beautifully designed challenging campaign. Mission 4 is another one of my most hated missions. But mission 2 is a very cool idea. And mission 5 is pretty epic as well. I docked points because only 1 mission allowed an economy with imperial age. I like base building and expanding and this campaign doesnt have enough of it.
Attila the Hun	9	Awesome campaign with enjoyable missions. The last 3 missions were super fun to play. I definitely found this campaign to be hard. But still super satifsying. I like Huns as a civilization too. I say its almost perfect.
Grand Dukes	8	The storyline is interesting but the whole thing felt uninspiring coming from something as good as Attila. I'm giving it a good score because the missions were pretty fun with a lot of boom and destroy scenarios. Lowkey easy campaign too.
Suryavarman I	8	Many fun missions. Mission 4 was one of the hardest missions I've played so far. Mission 5 was super fun too! The Khymer is a fun civilaztion with its instant food production from farms. Lots of boom and destroy scenarios again. Also fun to learn of an empire I never heard about.
Bari	5	I was bored with this campaign. Mission 4 is well known to be hard but its pretty easy if you know the tricks to beating it. Mission 5 is one I've always hated and just not a good final mission. The other missions are fine but meh. Fun civilaztion though.
Yodit	2	Incredibly boring campaign. Frustrating missions with infinite unit spam and very empty maps. Can be grindy.
Sundjata	2	Frustrating campaign. The first 3 missions are awful. I especially despise the first one. Infinite unit spam nonsense. The last 2 missions are fun though.
Saladin	6	There are some boring irritating missions. But I think the 6th mission is pretty fun! I like the castle unit as well.
Rajendra	10	My favourite campaign. I think all the missions were great! I especially loved missions 3 and 5. It's very cool to see references to the Suryavarman campaign as well. It was also so cool to see my home state in India be a player in the 1st mission. Just an epic campaign.
Tariq ibn Ziyad	4	This was kinda enjoyable because trying to defeat the continuous infinite spam of enemy units was sometimes fun. But its just absurd sometimes. Mission 5 was just stupid levels of spam. Imagine fighting a continuous horde of Frank paladins and throwing axemen from 2 enemies. I'm tempted to rank this campaign higher because it genuinely takes skill and time to design mission 5. But atleast it wasn't a boring campaign.
Jadwiga	9	Awesome campaign. Pretty much every mission was epic. Mission 5 especially is just so incredible! Lots of very cool ideas. This is a difficult campaign too. Big ups for mission design. I'm not giving it a 10 because frankly I enjoyed playing Rajendra more.
Le Loi	9	Another incredible campaign! Every single mission was hard but the fun kind of hard aka doable. I wonder if they nerfed the campaign because I remember it being a lot harder. Anyway I loved playing this. I really liked all the unique units. The mission design was was very good. The story was interesting. I could give it a 10 but again I just enjoyed the grandness of Rajendra more.