Recap pages are Spoilers Off by default, so in all these pages all spoilers are unmarked. Proceed with caution. You Have Been Warned
Victors & Vanquished is a series of mostly unrelated scenarios depicting historical battles, set at various points across the Middle Ages and featuring different protagonists.
These scenarios contain examples of:
- Alternate History:
- The final objective in Stephen is to fend off an invasion launched from France by Henry FitzEmpress; after he loses sufficient units, he'll surrender his claim to the English crown and return to his lands in France. In real life, as mentioned in the outro, while Stephen remained King of England, he agreed that Henry would be his successor.
- The objective of Constantine XI, which depicts the fall of Constantinople, is to survive longer (until 1 June) than historically accurate (29 May), at which point the Turks give up and flee the battle. The outro mentions that in truth, the Ottoman armies overwhelmed the defenders of Constantinople.
- Base on Wheels: In Gaiseric, where you play as the Vandals during the Migration Period, your Town Center can be packed into an Ox Cart and moved to be unpacked elsewhere. In return, the only buildings that can be constructed are the Blacksmith, Monastery, Barracks, Archery Range, Stable and Siege Workshop, and when you move your Town Center all other buildings are lost.
- Civil Warcraft: While missions where you face off against your own civilisation are nothing special for the game, this is zigzagged in Nobunaga. All five of the rival clans are Japanese, but each has its own bonuses, secondary objective (which unlocks one further bonus when completed) and unique technology.
- Enemy Exchange Program: The Swan, a hero ship in Drake, is uniquely capable of capturing enemy vessels, like a seaborne Monk. Unlike normal Monks, the Swan can only capture ships at close range, but also immobilises the target in the process and is tanky enough to withstand retaliation, in addition to the Regenerating Health shared by every hero.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation:
- In Vortigern (which is set in Britain and Ireland), the Romano-British player (whose only role is to transfer their buildings to the player) is represented by the Byzantines, simply for the bonus HP to said buildings.
- In Seljuk, the player plays as the Tatars instead of the Turks, even though the Seljuk Empire was a predecessor state to modern Türkiye. According to the scenario designer, this was done because the Tatars' civilisation bonuses fit better than the Turks' (the Turks' design focuses more on the Ottomans and their gunpowder bonuses will be useless in a scenario without gunpowder), and because the Tatars' bonus to Geo Effects is more useful in a Baseless Mission.
- Marathon Level: This campaign features some of the longest scenarios in the game that can take hours to complete.
- The Migration: Gaiseric, set from 405 to 466, depicts the Vandals migrating from their ancestral lands to avoid the coming of the Huns, wreaking destruction across Roman Gaul and Hispania, finally settling in Carthage and forming a new kingdom in North Africa.
- Odd Name Out: Fetih (meaning conquest in Turkish) is the only scenario in the campaign that is not named after one of its protagonists.
- Perspective Flip: Fetih and Constantine XI depict the same event (the fall of Constantinople) from two opposing of the battle. Notably, in Fetih you have to capture the Hagia Sophia and kill Constantine XI before 1 June 1453 (three days after the city fell in real life), while in Constantine XI you have to protect the Hagia Sophia and Constantine XI until 1 June 1453.
- Stephen also showcases the Anarchy for the titular Kings POV after the Norman Campagin in Age of Empires IV followed Mathilda's.
- Protection Mission: In Vortigern, the objective is to defend the Wonder for an hour.
- Resource-Gathering Mission: The objective of Drake is to gather 40000 gold. Since this is a Baseless Mission, you have no Villagers to gather gold and nothing to spend it on; instead, this is done by plundering enemy towns (by killing their garrison) and using the Swan to capture (convert) enemy Galleons (which have been filled with treasures and cannot attack; when captured, a Galleon will be scuttled and the gold added to your reserves, proportional to the amount of hit points it has when it is captured).
- Resource Reimbursement: The Madrasah tech, exclusive to the Seljuk scenario, returns 33% of a Monk's gold cost to your stockpile if the Monk gets killed.
- Slave Liberation: Throughout his raids across Spanish Caribbean, Francis Drake frees numerous Africans enslaved by the Spanish and recruits them to his service.
- Timed Mission: In Nobunaga, on Hard difficulty, all clans must be defeated before 90 minutes pass.
