About the Scenario
In the 4th century AD, the Jin dynasty was in turmoil. Ruled by a weak Emperor, China was torn apart by jealous and ambitious princes competing for power and influence. Into this fractured empire came the Five Barbarians, fearsome tribes from the northern steppes. While the Goths and Vandals toppled Rome on the other side of the world, the Five Barbarians would make their mark on history by conquering the Middle Kingdom.
In Uprising of the Five Barbarians, play across three short scenarios that bring the fall of an empire to life! Featuring unique objectives and a fascinating historical narrative.
About the Author
The author is a campaign designer on the Forgotten Empires team, where he made official campaigns for both Age of Empires: Definitive Edition and Age of Empires II: HD Edition. He is also a prolific custom campaign designer with over a dozen releases totaling over 146,000 unique downloads.
I played this campaign through and I find it very good! It's a little on the easy side, but that is okay since it was meant to be played on that difficulty. Especially liked the 2nd scenario with the priest, I chose to go the puzzle way which I found more interesting than the convert-build-battle path, but it's nice given there are multiple routes to victory! The last scenario, you get way too many resources but it's okay I guess. Liked the enemy raiding very much, keeps you on your toes. I would recommend disabling the TC however so you can't build it, which would make this more challenging. The maps could use more eye-candy since they seem to lack this quite a bit. I would also have loved to see a bitmap included but unfortunately DE doesn't have this, however the lovely history section more than makes up for this.
Overall this is a very, very enjoyable campaign geared towards mostly rookie players, but would definitely recommend this to anyone. Well done!