Pyrrhus of Epirus (Hardest/Fastest) AOE1:DE Rise of Rome Campaign Low APM Gamer Dad Edition

#aoe #ageofempires #ageofempiresdefinitiveedition #aoede

Ok so this is my playthrough of Pyrrhus of Epirus on Hardest Difficulty Fastest Game Speed. Pyrrhus of Epirus is the guy for whom the term "Pyrrhic victory" is coined. Only in this level, you're gonna beat him so he won't even get a chance to win. This level is grossly imbalanced and difficult. The key milestones you want to go for are bronze age upgrade completed before 9 minutes game time (4 minutes 30 seconds real time on fastest game speed) minute game time and iron age upgrade finished by around 16 minutes game time (or 10 minutes real time on fastest game speed).

To start with, you want to spam tons of fishing boats in order to get the food for bronze age. Get some workers on gold production (you'll need iron age), lumber (for boats and farms), and a few on stone just so you can build walls. Now in order to survive you'll have to cheese the computer. You are in tool age, computer is going to start attacking you with catapult triremes by sea and elephants by land. Plug up the land entrance by filling up the narrow strip of land connecting the two continents with walls. The computer won't be able to figure out how to bypass. Think its unfair? Try beating this level without this cheese. Now you only need to focus on navy.

You only have scout ships and computer will be sending catapult triremes, so get the bronze age, and immediately get war galleys. Around 10 minute mark is when the computer attacks by sea. If earlier, chances are your island base will be overrun and destroyed - its ok its possible to win without but you can also restart the mission. Either way, to buy time, try to wall off your island to make it harder for computer to land. You'll want to keep your ships off to the side so they can flank the enemy navy when its pounding on your land base. Your ships, towers, and walls at the island are only to buy time to get iron age. Once you do, you can build shipyards off to the side in your main base and power up a trireme army to wipe out the enemy navy. Once that happens, you are finally safe.

Rest of the level is first destroying enemy shipyards, then bombarding the enemy coast, and then securing a beachhead of towers. Then you'll want to rely on your Roman swordsman to roll up the enemy base. The enemy will have elephants and since Macedonians have resistance to conversion, they're going to give you a hard time. Your priests won't be able to help as much. But you'll eventually win the war of attrition.