Age of Empires II has numerous campaigns depicting heroes and villains from many civilizations. Some tales are bound to bring tears to players' eyes.
HD Edition Campaigns:
- The final mission from the Gajah Mada campaign, when he lets his ambition run out of control and ruin everything he has worked for, his reputation and the Majapahit Empire's glory. Seeing him reduced to an old man wallowing in regret is quite depressing, even if he deserved some kind of punishment.
- Bayinnaung actually never intended to take the throne, as he was perfectly happy to let his beloved foster brother Tabinshweti rule. Only for said foster brother to slowly devolve into The Alcoholic and being murdered, leading to nationwide chaos and forcing Bayinnaung to crown himself the new king. While everyone is celebrating his ascension, he's just crying over Tabinshweti's demise and feeling he should have been the prophesied "World Ruler".
- Sanyogita's reaction when she learns her husband Prithviraj was killed (but not before killing his gaoler in spite of being blinded) was to immolate herself on a pyre. It hits even harder since the poet Chand Barhai made a point of emphasizing how much they were in love with each other. Downplayed once one learns that the plot of Prithviraj's campaign is actually based on literature, not history.
- Muzio Sforza drowning right in front of his son Franceso after lambasting him for being a coward. It gets worse with the Brigata captains confessing that Muzio actually loved and cared for Francesco.
- If you kill too many of Alfonso de Albuquerque's men in the last Francisco de Almeida campaign instead of converting them, you get a Non-Standard Game Over that's surprisingly heavy. Without text appearing on the screen as is the usual and clearly both disgusted with himself his attempts to avenge his son led to his men killing countrymen of theirs and depressed and having completely given up, Francisco says "I have failed Laurenco (his recently-deceased son he at least wanted revenge for the death of before abdicating). Release Albuquerque, and give him my banners. it is time for me to go." The Game Over screen then appears as he's getting finished saying it, instead of five seconds later.
Definitive Edition Campaigns:
- Ivaylo's campaign depicted a man whose era was not yet ready to receive him. If he had been born in later times, where people were judged on their abilities and not their lineage, he could have survived and thrived. Instead, he was reduced to a noble punchline (although still beloved by his fellow peasants and their descendants).
- Fridge Tearjerker: It becomes worse when you contrast his fate with Ivan Asen III's and George Terter I's. Although Ivan lost the tsardom and his pride, he survived. His exile to the Byzantine Empire wasn't even the end of the Asens; his descendants intermarried with various Byzantine noble dynasties and thrived for generations. In contrast, Ivaylo's daughter became a historical mystery; even her name has been lost to time. For George, he ruled for more than a decade, and had the fortune of his son Theodore ransoming him back to Bulgaria by exchanging thirteen high-ranking Byzantine officers during his exile in Byzantium. Theodore then settled George in a life of luxury in an unidentified city until his death. This, after George had used Theodore as a hostage twice when he was younger.
- Pretty much the entire Cuman campaign, where the previous Ghengis Khan campaign largely glorified the rise of the Mongol Empire, the Kotyan campaign really shows how destructive for many people and cultures the Mongol Invasions were. The Cumans especially not only loose their homeland, with many being scattered or enslaved by the Mongols, when they seemingly finally find a safe haven in Hungary, their Hope Bringer Kotyan is murdered by nobles and they are prosecuted even further (not that it does the Hungarians any good as they are crushed by the Mongols shortly after). In the end it's a small wonder they keep going after all of this and managed to achieve a Bittersweet Ending by setteling in Hungary and Bulgaria (where the Cuman culture would in the long therm largely disapear) and at least some of their enslaved kin managing to form the Mameluk Sultanate in Egypth and taking some revenge on the Mongols.
- The DE version of Dracula's campaign changes the framing device to that of a traveller (leading some soldiers) who ends up spending some time with an Old Soldier who fought loyally beside Dracula, in Poenari Castle, the ancestral fortress of Dracula's family, the House of Basarab. It is heartbreaking to see the old soldier overwhelmed by emotion as he recalls the trials and tribulations both his beloved home of Wallachia and his lord went through. Then, it becomes heartwarming when at the end, the traveller comforted the old soldier by inviting him to join in the pilgrimage to Dracula's rumoured final resting place: the Monastery of Snagov; the old soldier accepted gratefully.
- The final Poles campaign mission The Fruits of her Labour.
Prior missions were framed as Jadwiga in 1399 writing about her life, while heavily pregnant with what she hoped to be her first child with Jagiello, but this mission is narrated by her husband in 1410, heartbroken, as neither her or their daughter survived. Reflecting this, (for the first time in AOE history), the narration segment has changed, the bright warm backdrop now an icy pale white as Jagiello (who throughout the expansion, oozed pride,) painfully recounts how he believes Jadwiga's heart was broken too many times, first when she was denied her marriage to William of Austria for his benefit, and then again when their daughter lived only four days. Despite all they gained for Poland and Lithuania, despite marrying again, to a woman she recommended, it's clear none of it lessens the weight of her absence on his heart, not even achieving victory over the Teutonic Order.- Fridge Tearjerker when you considered the rest of Jagiello's life: after Jadwiga, he was further widowed twice (in 1416 when Anna of Cilli died, and in 1420 when Elisabeth of Pilica passed). Like with Jadwiga, the marriages were childless. It was Jagiello's fourth wife (Sophia of Halshany) who would eventually bear him his heir, Władysław III.
