For the Age series, eh to the campaigns for me. Seemed too easy no matter what so it wasn't whole lot of fun. Never played WC3, so dunno.
Stronghold Crusader/Extreme had some fun campaign missions for me. No 'real' story behind them, but some of the maps were incredibly difficult, even vs the AI.
I know this isn't an RTS game, but Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and 5 had insanely fun campaigns for me (can even mention H4 here). Perhaps the most fun I have had far as campaigns go, especially if you use WOG for H3. And there is some decent story with them too, which always adds something.
Ever played that?I've voted for AoE2, for me is the most nostalgic one and at the same time is historic (some more than others)
AoE1 ones are too boring for me, most of them are, go there and kill all or go there knowing all the small tricks that allow you to go through. Even though I like the history approach.
AoE3 was kind of meh, the story telling is better, but the game itself is less build and destroy style and a more rush thing, also the history is 100% invented.
I'd love to see a real remade of the original aoe2 campaigns.
Ever played that?
Same flavour as the original AOE2 campaigns, with classic build & destroy gameplay, but better. Better design, better storytelling, and more challenging games.
So my advice would be when you buy a new RTS game, play the campaigns first, before watching anyone else play them or reading the rule book or playing any single/multiplayer standard game.
That's what I did for AoE 3 and it was good and challenging.
AoE 1, there was no challenge at all, because when I bought it myself and played the campaigns I already was OK at AoE 2 and had played 1 for a few times with a friend.
I wanted to say that the more experience you have with the game the less fun the campaigns are. The less you know about the game including the AI, the more likely they will be interesting or even challenging.My advice is, when you buy a new RTS game, go straight to multiplayer. Seriously, even though I've played most of the campaigns of games mentioned in this thread, all of them are basically horrible because of the stupid AI and I don't understand how anyone can enjoy an RTS game in single player mode. I was about 8 years old when I first played aoe1, and from pretty much day one it was only ever fun on MSN zone with other ppl.
I don't know about the Steam version, I used to play it on the CD version a couple years ago.
I hope it works as intended but it's possible some AI scripts bug out due to the version difference.
Can't play campaigns from Voobly and who knows were my CD is now
Tried the HD one.. bugs even on the 1st mission (I know it's a cutscene, but what might happen later on...)
I could extract de scenarios, even with some digging I could extract the IA files aswell, I could also run my base game out of voobly without any mod and could play it... but you know, I need my pussywood, grid, no snow...