After giving Yue Fei's Legacy a try in hard difficulty, I decided to also finish the Sultans Ascend campaign. While Yue Fei was overall pretty decent (it's the best AoE4 campaign IMO, which isn't much, given how the game's solo player content is overall mediocre), boy, The Sultans Ascend was quite a (tedious) ride. I don't know how it works in lower difficulties, but in hard, the AI constantly gets free attack waves consisting of pretty much every unit, including a few dozens of elite knights on later missions. It makes the entire thing incredibly tedious, since you can hardly have a good trade with the AI past mission 3 (except for Ain Jalut, where you can more or less enforce your own tempo). His units will counter your units, and you will suffer a bunch of casualties, no matter how hard you micro. The later two missions are the icing on the cake: if you're caught in the open, you'll likely lose your entire army, or most of it, after each IA attack and will have to rebuild from scratch. It's not so bad in the last mission where you have infinite gold, but it's pretty effing annoying in the siege of Acre, where gold is sparse. I found myself constantly oscillating between max population and less than a 100, because my army kept getting wiped out by insane AI waves that would spawn out of thin air in front of my very eyes every five minutes. I know there's something to be said with deathballs rolling over the AI in some RTS's campaigns (SC2 and AoE2, I'm looking at you), but constantly losing your entire army to spawned attack waves really isn't more exciting. TDLR, I didn't have a bit of fun playing this campaign on hard and I think it a good summary of how not to design your RTS campaign

Am I the only one that misses the feature that allows a unit to defend another unit? And it will continuously move with it to defend it?

So i barely played this week, going online this saturday, 3 games in a row, 3 cheaters (at least, i didn't have time to check their teamates) if not always, it's nearly always chineses. i have like 150 videos for 2 years for my personnals support reports, it's 95% chineses. At this point i will go back to sc2. It takes like 15/20 min to make a full report with accounts links, video edit..etc. Every single fucking game. Not to mention i can't watch all replays in x1 speed, or their teamates, but maybe i would have doubled reports, and bans, if i had patience and time to do it. I'm at the point i ll now play unranked and leave as soon as there is a chinese in the game. Edit : microphone was disabled for some reason, so u cant hear my comments https://youtu.be/2Rq6Hv5Y0-Q edit 1 : he watches randomly ennemy tc in fow very early game, focuses on a deer pack in the fow, again and again, and wait till the last milisecond to "legit" send villagers on it, also going on every sheep possible https://youtu.be/H4MNjSMbRVI edit 2 : nearly exactly same scenario, different player https://youtu.be/iQwB_zEcBGE edit 3 : watches my early rush , and the non scouted stable on the top left of my base in fow, at about 5 min, then proceeds to also stares at my first horse in fow going to his base theses were the 3 first games of the day, deranked from legit diamond to gold, playing of course vs diamonds cheaters meanwhile all the time, ranks are not even balanced, also they cheat...and they premade !!!

English (63) (9 coming from England/HoL) Camel Rider Camel Archer Trade Caravan Camel Lancer Desert Raider Tower Of The Sultan Varangian Guard Imperial Official Palace Guard Nest Of Bees Fire Lancer Grenadier Scholar War Elephant Tower Elephant Sultan’s Elite Tower Elephant Longbowman King Wynguard Ranger Wynguard Footman Royal Knight Cannon Rus Tribute Traction Trebuchet Prelate Black Rider Demilancer Hobelar Earl’s Guard Lord Of Lancaster Yeoman Buddhist Monk Jeanne’s Champion Jeanne’s Rider Bed Crossbow Emissary Eruptor Mounted Grenadier Mounted Villager Reindeer Trader Genoese Crossbowman Heavy Spearman Hospitaller Knight Pilgrim Serjeant Templar Brother Teutonic Knight Venetian Trader Venetian Galley Javelin Thrower Freeborn Warrior Warrior Scout Cattle Great Bombard Grand Galley Warrior Monk Horse Archer Militia Worker Elephant Raider Elephant Healer Elephant Ballista Elephant Imperial Guard Mix/Anglicized (32) Bedouin Skirmisher Bedouin Swordsman Cataphract Ghazi Raider Galleass Kipchak Archer Keshik Mounted Samurai Samurai Katana Bannerman Uma Bannerman Yumi Bannerman Shinto Priest Iron Pagoda Meng’an Mouke Defender Mohe Tribesman Zhanma Swordsman Genitour Szchlata Cavalry Musofadi Warrior Musofadi Gunner Khan Khan’s Hunter Janissary Lodya Fishing Boat Naginata Samurai Kanabo Samurai Ikko-Ikki Monk Yari Cavalry Amir Warrior Yuan Raider Shaolin Monk Native (34) Ghulam Atabeg Dervish Cheirosiphon Limitanei Dromon Zhuge Nu Arbalétrier Batu Khan Torguud Kharash Landsknecht Atakebune Onna-Bugeisha Onna-Musha Ozutsu Shinobi Yumi Ashigaru Chevalier Confrere Condottiero Bogmaðr Atgeirmaðr Riddari Donso Sofa Mangudai Huihui Pao Mehter Sipahi Akinji Streltsy Yatai Daimyo Tanegashima Ashigaru [ For this list I’ve opted out the Gilded Troops and Hippodrome Troops ]