The campaigns in the Age of Empires II are separate series of scenarios based on historical events that feature slides of cutscenes, narrative elements, often special objectives, custom bonuses and civilization mechanics, and access to heroes, other unique units, and Scenario Editor units.
The Campaign Editor (contained in the Scenario Editor) allows players to create custom campaigns.

In Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, a completed scenario selection will be marked with a bronze, silver, or gold medal depending on whether the scenario was beaten on the "standard", "moderate", or "hard" difficulty respectively (except for The Art of War, where the medal is dependent on how well the player does). If an entire campaign is completed, the selection of the campaign will also feature a medal, which corresponds to the lowest difficulty all of the scenarios of that campaign are completed at. The PS5 and Xbox versions also features a "Story mode" difficulty level which is easier than standard difficulty. The Definitive Edition also adds three levels of "sword" difficulty ratings for all campaigns, displayed in the campaign selection screen, which hints at the difficulty of the campaign overall.
In The Age of Kings, the campaigns had five difficulties, including "Easiest" and "Hardest", in the PS2 version the "Hardest" difficulty is renamed "Harder"; these two were removed with The Conquerors. In The Three Kingdoms, these difficulties are back (but exclusively for these campaigns), except that the "Hardest" difficulty is renamed "Legendary".
The medals represented for this campaign:
In The Conquerors and Age of Empires II: HD Edition, campaigns are listed by their expansion under the Single Player tab, while in the Definitive Edition, campaigns released with the base game are classified by continent, and campaigns of expansions (other than Victors and Vanquished) are classified by region. Both the Battles of the Conquerors and the Battles of the Forgotten are grouped into one section called "Historical Battles". The Historical Battles were accessible from the "Africa" page before update 107882; they were moved to the top-left section, along with the Victors and Vanquished scenarios, where they remained until update 141935. Both are now available in the bottom-right section, underneath the other campaigns.
In the Definitive Edition and its expansions, there are 40 campaigns, excluding The Art of War, Historical Battles, Victors and Vanquished, and the removed El Dorado campaign. Several campaigns are also available in the co-op game mode, where the scenarios are modified for two players to fight as a team against the AI enemies.
The grand campaigns of Chronicles are not listed here.
List of campaigns[]
Note: The following list is sorted by expansion. For convenience, it can also be sorted by any of the other columns.
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Name | Expansion | Region | Civilization | Scenarios | Date | Color | Author(s)[1][note 1] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Europe | 7 | 1296-1298 | Blue | Freeman1302 | ||||
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Europe | 6 | 1429-1453 | Blue | Freeman1302 | ||||
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Africa | 6 | 1168-1191 | Green | Bassi | ||||
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Asia | 6 | 1206-1241 | Orange | Bassi | ||||
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Europe | 6 | 1152-1191 | Red | Freeman1302 | ||||
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Europe | 6 | 434-452 | Yellow | Freeman1302 | ||||
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Europe | 6 | 1072-1099 | Red | Bassi | ||||
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America | 6 | 1517-1521 | Green | Bassi | ||||
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Europe | 5 | 394-413 | Green | Freeman1302 | ||||
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Europe | 5 | 1448-1477 | Red | HockeySam18 [1,2,4,5]
Freeman1302 [3] | ||||
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Europe | 5 | 871-1071 | Purple | Bassi | ||||
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Europe | 5 | 1426-1450 | Blue | Filthydelphia | ||||
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America | 4 | 1541-1542 | Blue | |||||
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Asia | 5 | 1180-1192 | Blue | Filthydelphia | ||||
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Africa | 5 | 711-732 | Yellow | HockeySam18 | ||||
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Africa | 5 | circa 1235* | Purple | Freeman1302 | ||||
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Africa | 5 | 1476-1509 | Blue | Filthydelphia | ||||
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Africa | 5 | circa 960* | Green | Bassi [1,3,5] HockeySam18 [2] Freeman1302 [4] | ||||
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Asia | 5 | 1293-1357 | Red | Freeman1302 | ||||
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Asia | 5 | 1002-1050 | Cyan | HockeySam18 | ||||
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Asia | 5 | 1538-1580 | Green | Filthydelphia | ||||
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Asia | 6 | 1418-1426 | Yellow | Bassi [1,3,4,6] Freeman1302 [2,5] | ||||
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America | 5 | 1410-1471 | Cyan | Bassi | ||||
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Europe | 5 | 1277-1281 | Blue | Filthydelphia | ||||
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Europe | 5 | 1222-1242 | Green | Freeman1302 | ||||
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Asia | 6 | 1370-1402 | Purple | HockeySam18 | ||||
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West Europe | 5 | 1264-1307 | Red | HockeySam18 | ||||
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West Europe | 6 | 1407-1431 | Purple | Bassi | ||||
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West Europe | 5 | 1047-1140 | Blue | Filthydelphia | ||||
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East Europe | 5 | 1345-1382 | Green | Bassi | ||||
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East Europe | 6 | 1383-1410 | Red | Lord Basse | ||||
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East Europe | 6 | 1405-1424 | Cyan | HockeySam18 | ||||
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South Asia | 5 | 1497-1527 | Orange | Bassi | ||||
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South Asia | 5 | 1007-1025 | Red | Lord Basse | ||||
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South Asia | 5 | 810-850 | Yellow | HockeySam18 | ||||
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Caucasus | 5 | 1185-1211 | Red | Lord Basse | ||||
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Caucasus | 5 | 1141-1169 | Orange | HockeySam18 | ||||
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Caucasus | 5 | 1499-1524 | Yellow | Bassi | ||||
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China | 5 | 184-208 | Green | |||||
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China | 5 | 184-208 | Blue | |||||
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China | 5 | 190-208 | Red |
Multi-storied campaigns[]
These are the non-traditional campaigns. In these campaigns, the player does not follow the story of a single hero, or even a single civilization. All scenarios are unrelated among each other.
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Name | Expansion | Scenarios | Difficulty | Author(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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8 | ||||
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8 | ||||
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16 | Freeman1302 HockeySam18 Bassi[note 6] | |||
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9 | ||||
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20 | Filthydelphia |
Count[]
- By difficulty
- By civilization
Armenians : 5
Aztecs : 6
Bengalis : 5
Berbers : 5
Bohemians : 6
Britons : 10
Bulgarians : 5
Burgundians : 6
Burmese : 5
Byzantines : 8
Celts : 8
Chinese : 2
Cumans : 5
Dravidians : 5
Ethiopians : 5
Franks : 10
Georgians : 5
Goths : 9
Gurjaras : 5
Hindustanis : 4
Huns : 6
Inca : 8
Indians : 4
Italians : 10
Japanese : 4
Jurchens : 0
Khitans : 0
Khmer : 5
Koreans : 1
Lithuanians : 6
Magyars : 3
Malay : 5
Malians : 5
Maya : 1
Mongols : 6
Persians : 6
Poles : 5
Portuguese : 5
Romans : 0
Saracens : 8
Shu : 5
Sicilians : 5
Slavs : 3
Spanish : 6
Tatars : 8
Teutons : 7
Turks : 3
Vietnamese : 6
Vikings : 6
Wei : 5
Wu : 5
- By AI appearance per civilization
Armenians : 22
Aztecs : 9
Bengalis : 12
Berbers : 19
Bohemians : 20
Britons : 42
Bulgarians : 17
Burgundians : 12
Burmese : 15
Byzantines : 82
Celts : 29
Chinese : 41
Cumans : 24
Dravidians : 31
Ethiopians : 24
Franks : 88
Georgians : 8
Goths : 47
Gurjaras : 37
Hindustanis : 24
Huns : 8
Inca : 52
Indians : 21
Italians : 86
Japanese : 25
Jurchens : 3
Khitans : 4
Khmer : 21
Koreans : 2
Lithuanians : 24
Magyars : 20
Malay : 31
Malians : 18
Maya : 11
Mongols : 37
Persians : 28
Poles : 15
Portuguese : 11
Romans : 11
Saracens : 46
Shu : 25
Sicilians : 18
Slavs : 48
Spanish : 32
Tatars : 46
Teutons : 49
Turks : 53
Vietnamese : 15
Vikings : 15
Wei : 30
Wu : 16
- By color
- Blue : 75
- Red : 64
- Green : 45
- Yellow : 31
- Cyan : 19
- Purple : 24
- gray : 0
- Orange : 17
- Variable : 1
- Notes
- ↑ The original versions of all The Age of Kings and The Conquerors campaigns were designed by Greg "DeathShrimp" Street.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Reworked in the Definitive Edition
- ↑ Simply named "Dracula" before the Definitive Edition
- ↑ Removed in the Definitive Edition
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Merged into "Historical Battles" in the Definitive Edition
- ↑ Freeman1302: Bukhara, Dos Pilas, Honfoglalas, Bapheus, Lake Poyang, Agincourt, Lepanto, Kyoto, and Noryang Point
HockeySam18: York and Kurikara
Bassi: Cyprus, Tours, Vinlandsaga, Hastings, and Manzikert - ↑ Unlike the other multi-storied campaigns, the campaign is present on a continent map, in this case, Asia. All scenarios have a common color, blue. The entire campaign is ranked as easy, instead of individual scenarios having difficulty ratings. Moreover, there is no story in the campaign, not even fictional.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 This is including the different scenarios in The Forgotten (except the second, third, and fifth scenario of Dracula and the scenarios in The Art of War)
Event challenges[]
Certain scenarios were released in association with timed events. The challenge scenarios feature a leaderboard where the player can compare their scores with their friends (linked on Steam or other distributors of the game). Before Mangudai Madness, the leaderboard showed scores of all other players. There is no separate scoring system or leaderboard for The Siege.
| Scenario | Civilization | Introduced | Removed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mongol Raiders | Update 39284 | Update 40874 | |
| Barbarossa Brawl | Update 40874 | [When?] | |
| Mangudai Madness | Update 99311 | Update 107882 | |
| The Siege* | Update 108769 | Update 125283* | |
| Ayn Jalut | Update 145651 |
As promotional and demonstrative material for the Definitive Edition, a particular scenario was made available to beta players and showcased in the E3 2019 event.
For the collaboration between the Louvre Museum and Age of Empires, a challenge scenario named Ayn Jalut was released as a custom scenario.
Trivia[]
- It is believed that the Pachacuti campaign replaced El Dorado due to the uncanny design of the latter, generally considered as unfitting for the game. El Dorado can still be downloaded via mods for the Definitive Edition.
- All the former The Forgotten campaigns can also be downloaded via this mod.
- Despite the fact that The Last Khans is an exclusive expansion of the Definitive Edition, in the game files it is possible to find the description of the campaigns for the expansion pack, which can be deduced that it was planned as another expansion for the HD Edition; additionally, the Tamerlane campaign has a slightly different description to the one seen officially.
- In the Definitive Edition, the The Forgotten campaign Dracula was renamed to Vlad Dracula. This is the only instance where a campaign has been renamed.
- Of the 50 civilizations, the Jurchens, Khitans, and Romans do not have any playable campaign or scenario. Of the remaining 47 civilizations, 37 got a playable campaign or scenario when introduced, five in the next expansion (Britons, Japanese, Turks, Vikings, and Maya), and five in the one after that (Byzantines, Chinese, Goths, Persians, and Lithuanians).
- The Franks and Britons (and Italians if the different scenarios with The Forgotten are counted) are tied for being the most frequently played civilizations in the campaigns, with ten playable scenarios each.
- If counting the hidden scenario, The Saxon Revolt, the Franks have the most playable appearances at eleven.
- Additionally, the Franks have the most AI player appearances in the campaigns.
- The Byzantines and Franks are the only ones to use a gray player color in the campaigns prior to The Forgotten, and both do so exactly twice.
- The Koreans and Maya are only playable in one campaign scenario. The Chinese are only playable in two, the Turks, Magyars, and Slavs are only playable in three, and the Japanese are only playable in four.
- In the Definitive Edition, the Inca are arguably the most isolated civilization as far as scenario designs go. They only appear within their own campaign, Pachacuti. They are only playable within that campaign's scenarios, and those are the only scenarios they are present in as AI players, with no other civilization appearing in any of the scenarios.
- For unknown reasons, all campaigns cutscenes in Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings are narrated by a woman in the Chinese version.
- Other than in Noryang Point, the Koreans are only playable in a The Art of War Challenge. The only appearance of the Koreans as an AI player is in Noryang Point and Shimazu.
- Every The Age of Kings campaign has at least one scenario where the player cannot build an economy. In the case of Barbarossa, this is the fifth scenario, making it the only campaign in this group to not start with such a scenario.
- Every The Conquerors scenario has a red team.
- Every The Conquerors campaign has exactly two scenarios with an orange team.
- The only instance in any campaign or Historical Battle with the player color being gray is the second player in the co-op version of the Gurkhan of Persia scenario of the Tamerlane campaign.
- The campaigns of The African Kingdoms were the first in the HD Edition to receive English voice acting, which was done due to community feedback on the lack of voice acting in The Forgotten campaigns.[2]
- In The Age of Kings, the Japanese and the Vikings were the only civilizations that did not appear in the campaigns. Since The Conquerors, all civilizations have appeared in the campaigns.
- The same for the Incas and Indians in The Forgotten before patches 3.3 and 3.5.
- In the PS2 version, the Turks do not appear either.
- In the PS2 version, all intros and outros use the English voices for all languages (except in the Japanese version), but the in-game dialogs are silenced.
Multi-PoV scenarios[]
| This section is most likely incomplete and may need expansion. You can help by adding to it. |
The following scenarios depict the same historical events from different points of view:
- The Battle of Stirling and Hammer of the Scots - One played as the Scots (Celts) in an allohistorical narrative, the other as the Britons following historical accounts
- The finale of The Siege of Paris, which is played as the Franks, can be played from the opponent Burgundians' perspective in The Maid Falls.
- The Horde Rides West, The Battle at the Kalka River, and Mstislav - One played as the Mongols, another as one of their enemies, the Cumans, and the last played as another enemy, the Rus (Slavs), in the leadup to the battle
- Challenging a Thalassocracy and Slaying the Vritra - One played as the Khmer, the other as their ally, the Chola Empire (Dravidians)
- The Fruits of Her Labor and Courage and Coin - One played as the Poles, the other as one of the mercenary groups led by Jan Zizka (Bohemians)
- Constantine XI and Fetih (based on the Fall of Roman Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks) - One played as the Byzantines defending their capital, the other as the Turks laying siege to the city
- Cao Cao's (Wei) invasion of Tao Qian's holdings in Xu Province is depicted in Emperor In All But Name, which can be played as the opponent Shu in Heroes of the Realm.
- The Battle of Red Cliffs (based on the namesake event) - One each for Shu, Wei, and Wu
Campaign designers[]
The original versions of the campaigns from The Age of Kings and The Conquerors were designed by Greg "DeathShrimp" Street. The Definitive Edition campaigns/scenarios were made by the following campaign designers, according to a reddit post confirmed by the developers:[1]
- Freeman1302/The King of Wessex: Alaric,[note 1] Sundjata, Gajah Mada, and the Kotyan Khan campaigns, certain Battles scenarios (Bukhara, Dos Pilas, Honfoglalás,[note 1] Bapheus, and Lake Poyang), and certain scenarios from the Dracula (scenario 3), Yodit (scenario 4), and Le Loi (scenarios 2 and 5) campaigns.
- HockeySam18: Tariq ibn Ziyad, Suryavarman, Tamerlane, Edward Longshanks, Jan Zizka, Devapala, and Thoros II campaigns, certain Battles scenarios (York and Kurikara), and certain scenarios from the Dracula (scenarios 1, 2, 4, and 5) and Yodit (scenario 2) campaigns.
- Filthydelphia/PhillySouljah (Ramsey Abdulrahim): Francisco de Almeida, Bayinnaung, Ivaylo, Sforza,[note 1] Prithviraj,[note 1] The Hautevilles, and Victors and Vanquished campaigns.
- Bassi: Bari,[note 1] Pachacuti, The Grand Dukes of the West, Algirdas and Kestutis, Babur, and Ismail campaigns, Cyprus Battle scenario, and certain scenarios from the Yodit (scenarios 1, 3, and 5) and Le Loi (scenarios 1, 3, 4, and 6) campaigns.
- Lord Basse: Jadwiga, Rajendra, and Tamar campaigns.
Touch-ups[]
In addition to creating new campaigns, scenarios from The Age of Kings and The Conquerors received updates for the Definitive Edition:
- Freeman1302/The King of Wessex: William Wallace, Joan of Arc, Barbarossa, and Attila the Hun campaigns, certain Battles scenarios (Agincourt, Lepanto, Kyoto, and Noryang Point).
- Bassi: Saladin, Genghis Khan, El Cid, Montezuma, certain Battles scenarios (Tours, Vinlandsaga, Hastings, and Manzikert).
- Notes
Gallery[]
Definitive Edition[]
HD Edition[]
References[]
| Game modes in the Age of Empires series | |
|---|---|
| Main | Campaign (II) · Multiplayer · Random map · Deathmatch · Lightning · Regicide · Nomad · Co-op (Campaign · Arena of the Gods) · D3 · Free-for-all · The Crucible |
| Additional | Battle Royale · Capture the Relic · Defend the Wonder · Dominion · Empire Wars · Historical map · King of the Hill · Sudden Death · Treaty · Turbo Random Map · Tycoon · Wonder Race |
| Limited time | Chaotic Climate · Chart a Course · Conqueror’s Cache · Full Moon · Map Monsters · Season's Feast |
























