One-eyed Jan Zizka spent his youth as a mercenary fighting for honor and coin, but his destiny changed forever when he heard the preachings of the reformer Jan Hus in Prague. As a champion of the Hussite cause and the leader of its invincible armies, Zizka shattered existing notions of warfare with technological and tactical innovations. Cement the legacy of one of history's greatest generals by galvanizing mere peasants into highly disciplined units and leading them to triumph over the Holy Roman Emperor's knightly armies.
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—In-game campaign description
The Jan Zizka campaign consists of 6 scenarios. The player plays as the Bohemians, and the player color is cyan.
Jan Zizka is a cavalryhero with a unique appearance. He is armed with a war mace. He can reduce the armor of enemy units that he attacks (like the Obuch). As a hero, he cannot be converted and can regenerate health.
He appears in the first four scenarios of his namesake campaign: The One-Eyed Wanderer, Courage and Coin, The Iron Lords, and The Golden City. Starting from the fifth scenario, he loses his other eye, making it no longer possible for him to fight. Thus, he only appears in dialogue in the last two scenarios.
History[]
Nicknamed "One-eyed Žižka", having lost one eye in battle, Jan Žižka led Hussite forces against three crusades and never lost a single battle despite being completely blind in his last stages of life.
The effectiveness of his field artillery against the royal cavalry in this battle made it a successful element of Hussite armies. Žižka's tactics were unorthodox and innovative. In addition to training and equipping his army according to their abilities, he used armored wagons fitted with small cannons and muskets. He had to quickly train peasants to repeatedly face highly trained and armored opponents who usually outnumbered his own troops.
Trivia[]
The campaign icon contains a mace which was Jan Zizka's most iconic weapon. The icon also contains a golden chalice of wine, which was the symbol of the Hussites and can be found in flags and banners.
The campaign was adjusted from three-sword to a two-sword difficulty in update 87863, possibly because many of the scenarios were actually easier than initially portrayed, while several still had complex gameplay with straightforward objectives in some scenarios (this is the same rationale on why the difficulty of Sforza was downgraded from three-sword to two-sword difficulty).
Gallery[]
Many views of Jan Zizka
Jan Zizka, totally blind in late 1421, leading troops; from Jensky codex
Jan Zizka (right) as seen in the expansion's official art
Jan Zizka singled out from the art
A band of Hussites
JAN ZIZKA vs EVERY UNIQUE UNIT - AoE II- Definitive Edition