I'm currently playing Earth 2140 on NORMAL and holy fuck. I'm 20 hours in and haven't finished the UCS campaign yet. Granted, some missions were harder than needed because I didn't realize you could call in reinforcements on some maps, BUT>Maps are a grind and sometimes come down to who runs out of resources first>I'm convinced the Devs are downright evil. They know the pathfinding for UCS mechs sucks, and the maps are a combination of chokepoints, cliffs, and destroyable terain you have to manually target. UCS air sucks so you have to grind them down with mechs all the time if you don't have the SHADOW vehicle that gives stealth to your mechs>One of the Scandinavia missions has you approach an enemy base from two sides with a 1 tile chokepoint on each sides. Your mechs stack up and die really easily. The UCS navy sucks, and you don't have air in that mission forcing you to grind them down wave by wave hoping to snipe some of their important buildings>Many missions start you in the middle between multiple enemy bases and they assault you immediately.>Constant raids by enemy air and land transports full of infantry that capture your buildings and blow them up.>Also, if the objective is to capture a building and you take it, they'll actively try to retake it and blow it up, failing the mission for you.>Scripted attacks all over the placeThis truly was a time when devs didn't give a fuck. I've heard that the Warcraft 2 expansion is hard but I haven't played it. Recommend some ball busting campaigns
>>2288856>ball busting campaignsCossacks 1: ww1 edition. If you beat any campaign on normal, not hard, normal you have my respect.
>>2288863I say it would be historical accurate if most of the mission was just throwing thousands of units to death just to slowly push the front forward.
>>2288856One of my first games ever. It has a bunch of unusual quirks.>you can capture the enemy's factories and build only some of his units that share the same technologies (I recommend massing medium cannon tanks and driving into ED's base when playing UCS, also the air troop transporters), and sometimes you can build unavailable units if the enemy queued them up>you can record orders for your troop transporters to automatically drive into the enemy's base, capture buildings and return (one of the quickest ways of dealing with them if you can lure the defenders away)>aircraft is dangerous not because of its own weapons but because of the missiles the defenders launch all over themselves>infantry is borderline useless, though the self-destructing bots can help against troop transporters in early UCS missions>the enemy doesn't blow up the mines it captures, but it will drive his transports across the map to fetch the ore, and will continue to do so even if you recapture the mine
>very powerful card mechanics, some which instantly kill everything on the map or instantly change the team of units>no way to acquire limited resources, instead money is distributed to players periodically>random pickups on the map which can decide battles>very limited LOS>crappy early eras RTS UI
>>2288920I distinctly remember bankrupting myself from the upkeep of ammo cost of few dozen MGs firing constantly for several real life hours. That's with lots of fully upgraded coal and iron mines fully staffed. The AI in that game does not fuck around with human wave tactics. Or bombers. Or artillery. Or tanks. Or poison gas permanently covering half the map, and those shells ain't cheap.
Kohan 2. I remember i beat it as a kid, but now i replay it after 20 years and man, AI is way too aggressive for me.
>>2288856Are you playing the original? Because I've heard the modern version that's on Steam and Gog has botched AI that's way more passive.>>2288863Cossacks 1 also had some bullshit missions if I recall. Especial the ones without base building, where you had to go the one correct intended by the devs path or else you get slaughtered and you can't know the correct path so it's all try and error.
>>2289015Such a shit game, the only redeeming factor is the cover art.
does total war count as RTS?
>>2289396Steam, but there is an unofficial patch that fixes the AI and other issues
>>2288920>le lions lead by donkeys tropeHistorylet detected.
>>2289396Cossacks 3 has some campaign missions that are now literally impossible because they rebalanced some stuff for multiplayer in a patch, and as a result the one option you had to complete the mission is now no longer effective.
>>2288856Do mods count? The DTA Covert Revolt campaign (also some other missions) is close to impossible and designed so that not every player is not able to complete it, according to the dev.
I think "hardest" isn't an interesting characteristic in itself. Anyone can battle an increasing number of skirmish AI until it becomes the "hardest mission".
>>2288856Empire Earth Russia campaign is up there. Mostly for mission 2 really.
>>2289797I have found the EE campaigns more tedious than difficult, but they aren't cakewalks either.
>>2288856I don't remember enough about all the campaigns I've ever played to rank them, but after watching GGG's recent C&C video (which is pretty good, recommend it) I was reminded of the atrocious GDI Mission in C&C3 TibWars that has you cycle buildings on and off until your MCV spawns that you need to escort to your base.As soon as you try to do that you get swarmed by BS scripted NOD units who focus the MCV down = Mission failed, do it again and wait another 20 minutes.Or the Red Alert 1 soviet mission where the allies destroy their own chronosphere as soon as you uncover it on the map, which ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE ALWAYS DOES the first time they play the mission because no one fucking tells you that and you are conditioned to use scout planes prior to that mission.
>>2288856Terminator Defiance on "realistic" is basically impossible without heavy savescumming in my experience, at least on a blind playthrough. And even if you know what's coming it's still a savescum game for 99% of people.I've beaten most campaigns in series like Combat Mission/Graviteam/Men of War/etc. with very little saving, but I find I had to save every 10-15 seconds in this one. It's not even that the AI or scenarios are that difficult, it just throws an obscene and unmanageable amount of Termies at you, sometimes on infinite spawns (meanwhile you have a fixed [small] number of units with limited ammunition).One thing I love about this game is that it uses physically-simulated projectiles (so, closer to Men of War than Company of Heroes when it comes to how shooting behaves). You can miss a tank with an SMAW rocket, have it fly over a dozen houses, just to land inside a window on a 10th story apartment in a high rise, killing your sniper who was chilling it that specific room.Also, despite how fucking cool it might look, don't ever bother putting a 30mm Avenger on the Abrams (or anything really). Unless they patched it in the last year or so, it's a really mediocre weapon compared to the default main gun + coax, against anything other than HK Aerials, and the fuel costs of running an Abrams as your dedicated SPAAG in the post apocalypse is too ridiculously prohibitive.
>>2289826Unrelated, but is Terminator Defiance any good? What's the best comparison to it?I sort of got Cuban Missile Crisis vibes from it.
>>2289826Yeah, and Syrian Warfare is the same.I remember the Mission in Defiance where you have to rescue Stevens (?), basically capture a building, wait, and extract with a convoy while they attack you from all sides.I remember just completing the mission without worrying about losses because I thought it's the last mission since its that obnoxious. I only beat it by sacrificing all my infantry and extracting the vehicles.
>>2289826If you need to save every 15 seconds is that even an enjoyable game?
>>2289831Haven't played that but I have played a ton of Blitzkrieg 1 (same engine). Hard to compare to any specific game, but it is an RTT rather than RTS, like those games.I really enjoyed it a lot (even though it's balanced terribly and incredibly difficult, at least on higher diffs). It's sort of like the tactical gameplay of a Men of War game (minus direct control), but also a strategic layer and logistics element in-between missions that force you to really pick and choose your force composition.There's a really enjoyable period at the end of (most) missions, wherein after you've wiped most of the Terminators and completed the Objs, you can basically scrounge around the battlefield and find vehicles and weapons (your own or from third parties) that are recoverable. Then after that phase, it goes to a strategic map where you have to decide what forces/units to keep with you (everything has a fuel cost/upkeep for every day you travel on the map). Really tickled my autism in the same way salvaging a adhoc fleet of captured ships in Homeworld 1 did, except this time around there's a balance mechanic added to it to keep it from spiraling wildly in the form of upkeep.It also doesn't quite feel like "Terminator" to be honest... maybe that's something to do with the "Dark Fate" branding (haven't seen the movie), but e.g. it's "Legion" now and not Skynet, there's zero Arnolds (even voice lines) in the entirety of the game, etc.Overall I give it a strong 8/10.>>2289837Yeah that mission was tough. One tip I found for that (and several missions) is that if you don't move the convoy up the road to the facility, you don't trigger the Termie reinforcements... so you basically have all the time in the world to get set up in defensive positions along the route. And if you want to get really cheesy, AP/AT mines on all the roads leading into the suburbs...>>2289847Yup. Could be balanced better, but the good outweighed the bad, for me.
>>2289854>Blitzkrieg 1So the answer is yes, but "better". Good to know.
>>2289856Have you tried Stalingrad?It's my favorite of the Enigma engine games. Has a number of improvements on vanilla Blitzkrieg like much longer unit ranges, and having buildings finally block LoS/shooting (kinda important if your game is focused on a largely urban battle, I guess). Also kinda fits the thread I guess, because it's hard as piss on higher diffs, too.It also has an industrial/heavy metal soundtrack that I personally really liked. Kinda gave me C&C/Frank Klepachi vibes. But I'll admit it is kinda weird for an otherwise very historical WW2 game focused on Stalingrad.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDoHTsx2XDU
>>2289854>>2289856>>2289882I found Blitzkrieg 1 too easy but it's very easy to cheese the whole map with Artillery.I see how it could be really hard if you don't do that. Haven't tried Stalingrad yet
The stronghold crusader trail has some pretty insane levels. Reaching the end felt like an accomplishment.
>>2289531The only egregious one I remember is in the Prussian campaign, Kesselsdorf, I think. What else was there?
I've heard that Beyond the Dark Portal is really hard
>>2288856I'll never finish this fucking game.
>>2291882Fucking hell anon, what's giving you trouble and why aren't you praying to either krolm or chaos gods to solve it?
>>2289831Best comparison I have is Syrian Warfare. Think of it as a fusion of MoW and CoH. Most of Terminator's easier missions are equivalent to Syrian Warfare's hardest ones. There is so much shit happening that I can see someone unfamiliar with SW getting overrun in the third tutorial mission.
>>2290294I've always been filtered by Cenarius mission in the orc campaign. Like, how do you counter getting absolutely obliterated. Never did it without cheats.
>>2292115Syrian Warfare and Terminator have the same mission structure:>Preserve units at all costs>ATGMs are kings>Scout with snipers, target fire, take everything out from distance if possible>Quicksave after every engagement>In Terminator you have to salvage everything, especially early >Missions are structured in such ways that you are often swamped by many objectives at once, especially Secondary one's are hard>The only viable way forward seems replaying missions and knowing whats coming ahead and prepositioning forces.They did mix it up in the first Terminator DLC where you play Legion. Terminators are lot more expandable, you are slower, less flexible, but preserving forces is not much of an issue and you can actually grind the enemy down with attrition warfare. I liked that contrast to the Resistance forces which have to babysit every Sherman or Bradley foreverGreat games but not for everyone
>>2292200Meant Abrams* not Sherman, but there's an Integrator Sherman with Energy Weapons you can get as well in Terminator
>>2292200>Missions are structured in such ways that you are often swamped by many objectives at once, especially Secondary one's are hardOne thing that I really liked about Terminator Defiance was the fact that it often forced you to divide up your forces, and actually consider factors like mobility/transportation/etc. in your force composition.It prevented (or at least dialed back [depends on the mission]) the common RTT mission design problem, of missions always boiling down to a "stack the heavies hitters you have, just send everything at one point, overmatch everything, and repeat that while zig-zagging the map" meta.Having to hold three or four points on the map simultaneously is tense, and that's not even considering units you might want stationed near choke points or reinforcement paths, or just to hold in on-map reserve to patch holes.
>>2292180You're aware you're suppose to retreat to the forth base behind the river and turtle there until you read the bloody fountain? Like I wouldn't say it's an easy mission, might be one of the toughest in the base Warcraft 3, but by no means it's that hard. Unless they made it easier in latter patches.
>>2288856It took me 30 hours to complete the UCS campaign. Last mission was piss easy since you get super weapons.In any case, this was an insane ride. On to ED.
>>2292200How playable is either game if I'm retarded and not the best micro-er?
>>2293884You can pause, and if you look at it with how much you will pause and reload it almost turns into a turn based game anyway.So very playable.
>>2293884You're going to have a hell of a time if you expect handholding in sw.
>>2292180Mass towers before that huge swarm, then maintain them while going up north. After your orcs get corrupted, mass an army and attack a base until Cenarius shows up and clap his cheeks.
>>2288856Wait until you see 2150. It's pretty much the deAs for your question:American campaign in Original War (the loyalist path); stuff like "you and the other guy vs. endless enemy infiltration group of 8 advanced AI heavy assault vehicles, hope you like having as your faction speciality sniper rifles that are anti-personel, not anti-vehicle" are a normCold War campaign in Rise of Nations, especially if you aren't systematically doing the missions to destroy nukes of the other side and eventually US/Soviets decide it's time for WW3.R.U.S.E. has a campaign deliberately scripted to fuck you over, and the fact you are often in operations that historically ended with the failure of your side should give you a hint
>>2295019* It's pretty much the devs saying "Oh, so some of you complained our game was too easy? Well, hold our beer then"
>>2295019I've played the vanilla UCS campaign years back and it was way easier, I remember mostly chill mining for the resources you need to leave Earth. I have heard that the Lost Souls expansion is hard as shit though, haven't played that one.
>>2295090>vanilla UCS campaignThat's actually the hardest in the base game. If you weren't frugal enough, you could end up being short on resources. Some missions (the NEO ones especially) simply weren't worth playing and there was no penalty for failing them. ED and LC's were easy to finish ahead of schedule. It's a strange game - you fail the moment you finish all the missions.>the Lost Souls expansion is hard as shit thoughIt's mostly retarded, unfun slog. They took this game about small, tactical skirmishes and had you fight all out battles. The enemies get infinitely spawning reinforcements (you can no longer just wait for them to run out of resources), their bases are layers and layers of the strongest fortifications, and battles are just about spamming masses of units that launch thousands of missiles into one another. One of the things that the later WWIII:BG did well was cut down on the spam.
Z is pretty fucking hard. I almost smashed my keyboard in rage playing that SHIT
>>2288863>normal, not hardSo what exactly does make the medium skill setting be actually the most difficult one there?
>>2288856Warzone 2100 (which has been described as a spiritual relative of the EARTH series) is pretty nut busting at times as well during the campaign. You're consistently the underdog with worse tech than your enemy and missions often have timers.. Luckily the AI is mostly brain dead so you can cheese once you get a handle on things.
>>2291882Gambling houses, Krolm and Chaos(Teen Titans Raven ladies) allowed me to beat the game.
>>2293884I am retarded and hate micro and on medium its fine aside from BULLSHIT moments but game autosaves plenty so its fine. even moved difficulty up once tardiness got better
Difficulty can come in generally 3 forms, imo.The 'AI is faster' than you, like older RTS games, see C&C missions. The difficulty being you need to play on the slower speeds and just micro wellThe 'timed' missions, regardless if that's something like Warzone 2100 with actual mission timers to beat or something like WC3 where the AI attacks per turn. The difficulty being that you need to to be ready for the next attack (WC3) or just be optimized on a certain degree (WZ2100)'Lack of Knowledge', so something like say, Supcom FA, where it goes from 'the map is small to the map is now bigger also you better have a good army to take out the game ender we're sending'Overall, none of the RTS campaigns I've played are 'hard' in really any degree. It's mostly just been about playing how the designers expect you to play.
>>2289818>which is pretty good, recommend it>5 hoursLearn to organize your fucking thoughts, sperg.
>>2312940>Warzone 2100 with actual mission timers to beatWarzone is really fucking generous with its timers in 99% of all missions.I like to turtle in it since it's the greatest game for turtling, and I don't think I ever timed out more than once.WZ's timers are only there because its resource points are infinite and they needed a way to prevent you from farming infinite amount of cash for the next mission too easily.
>>2289517only the first two
>>2288856Reflux / Robo Rumble is not close to fucking fair, and the jank mechanics for purchasing upgrades don't help
>>2313384It's not like it was meant to be fair storywise, since it was about securing a crucial military contract through a series of challenges. By the way, I feel like the game came out a few decades early, because nowadays there's more demand on wacky, sandboxy, puzzle-like gameplay.
This fucking mission. It's only halfway through the campaign but it's more difficult than anything that comes after. I only beat it with reading guides. Turns out you're supposed to set game speed to minimal, get your archers and crossbowmen, and clear towers one by one before sending in your spearmen filling in the moat.
>>2313786I heard the meta in Stronghold is to not even bother with building a castle, just build some unnatural monstrosity. Is this true? I do not like games where you have to play in unintuitive ways. Failure of game design.
>>2313786Bro just use your spearmen (as cannon fodder) to cover the ditch to the left flank then zerg rush it with ladders and your mace men or any spearmen left.
>>2313787Crusader is a little better really like the low walls in addition to mercs.
>>2313787Building mazes is genuinly a good strategy against the AI.I build "dragons teeth" in front of my castle walls when the ai uses miners early or when facing several AI at the same time.
>>2313786SH1 is mostly 'lower game speed to min, micro like fuck, savescum, hope rng is on your side'>>2313787It depends on the mission - most times it's 1-5 towers, with walls/stairs for access and no real castle due to the AI sending pre-determined attack forces so once you can beat a wave, you don't need defense and if anything, defense via construction is actually a bad thing
>>2288856Halo Wars 1
>>2288856red alert 2 mental omega on mental
>Those are some nice spells you have there>Shame if something happened to them
>>2288856Locoland was bretty tuff
>>2290294It's definitely a big jump in difficulty from wc2:tides of darkness, where the AI isn't that aggressive.I remember being surprised by how easy the vanilla campaign was when replaying it, and then suddenly getting swarmed in some expansion mission because I didn't prioritize defence.It's been a while though and I'm not sure how hard it is, or if it's just that it's hard compared to vanilla wc2.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htGMSK0HlwM&t=528sThis video covers it pretty well when it goes over the different scripts used in the campaigns, BTDP has a lot more unique scripts..
>>2288856>>2312365
I couldn't beat Tzar: The Burden of the Crown's campaign as a child, retried it as adult and still got my ass kicked. I wonder if anybody actually beat that game without cheese.
Sudden Strike and especially Forever were a constant stream of FUCK YOU if you weren't playing West Allies.
>>2321888>and then suddenly getting swarmed in some expansion mission because I didn't prioritize defence.in BTDP it's better to just be insanely aggressive, that way you don't need to defend. you can beat most maps by kicking the AI's ass before it gets set up.
