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Age of Mythology, an underrated strategy game...

The premise is that you pit the followers of several different

mythologies against each other...

including Greek, Egyptian, and Norse. The expansion is where it really comes

together, where they add Atlanteans as a race, and Titans...

...which are giant monsters you can create for battle. I must say, without the threat

of titans, this game can be very basic.

Food, wood, and gold are your three major resources...

there is, as per usual, a unit cap limiting your population.

The last resource is 'favor from the gods,' which

each race earns in different ways. Unfortunately,

The most pronounced difference in each race is how they manage their economies

and buildings— not in how they fight. If you play as Egyptians, you'll be begging for gold.

Farms, instead of being made with lumber, like with other races,

...are made from gold. Important buildings are also made from gold instead of wood.

..So the Egyptians depend on this resource like no other.

Gold is also the scarcest resource, unless you're at the fourth tier of

technology; meaning Egyptians have a serious weakness to be exploited.

Egyptians generate favor from the gods by building statues...

so it's just build statues and you're all set...

They have some other minor benefits, like how it costs nothing to build resource depots,

houses, and markets. Their units are generally cheaper than their Greek,

Norse, and Atlantean counterparts. It's worth mentioning here that

each army can field myth units, or mythological monsters,

against their foes. They're sort of cool... but all they amount to are beefed-up soldiers.

I often go through whole games without using a single one.

In terms of combat, Egyptians have difficulty fiedling hero units,

relying completely on weak priests and the Pharaoh.

This makes them vulnerable to myth units.

The best asset of the Egyptians are probably war-elephants.

A battalion of these bad boys will make quick work of

forces of a similar size. They are also effective against buildings.

Other than this, Egyptians only stand out by their art design.

The Greeks, like the other races, work differently depending on what god you chose.

Whenever you choose a major god, you get a selection of minor gods to choose from-

-when you advance your civilization to the next technology tier.

Fortunately, all three major gods have accesse to Hephaestus,

who can create a Vault of Plenty, which provides you with a stream a free resources.

He also gives an upgrade which makes all other armory upgrades

dirt cheap, meaning Greeks can get a distinct advantage in their economy.

the Greeks fight myth units with specific heroes,

and you can only have one of each hero. They're better than the Egyptians for

fighting myth units,

but not as good as the Norse, in my opinion. Greek troops seem stronger than

the other armies'...

and their earlier myth units are more useful than the other races.

They have some minor flaws, though. Building supply depots is more expensive

than with other races...

They also need to assign worshipers to gain favor from the gods,

which takes up some extra space in the population limit.

The only way to increase your maximum population to field stronger armies is to

gain control of 'settlements,'

which adds the element of strategy to the game. Battling for control of new

settlements means knowing precisely where and when to strike.

If enemies are the same strength as you, get ready for multiple battles,

as it's impossible to defeat a fully functional enemy with one attack.

You also need to be sure that no one is attacking you in the flank while you're

busy with conquest.

No matter what you do, with the key to victory is in the settlements.

Gaining them helps you gather momentum by fielding larger and larger armies.

Attacking an enemy city will mean replacing your army several times.

I find the best thing to do is to build four or so barracks right outside enemy

territory and then to just make a constant flow of reinforcements.

This brings me to the Norse, which is my favorite race.

The biggest difference with the Norse among the other races is that their foot-

-soldiers can build buildings but their peasants can't.

This seems at first to be a disadvantage, because why would you want to divide the

labor between two different units,

when the peasants should be able to do everything... but in reality it makes the Norse

vicious conquerors. This is because Norse soldiers can assist each other in building,

meaning that the buildings are constructed very quickly.

When you have enough resources, set out for conquest with Norse soldiers...

as soon as you're outside enemy territory, erect as many buildings as

you want to reinforce your army.

This happens lightning fast, and you don't have to waste manpower by getting

extra peasants to slowly reach the area.

What's more is that regular peasants have to be replaced at a settlement,

while norse builders can be replaced on the spot.

You can dig in quickly, deploy rapidly, and attack with overwhelming strength...

...so long as you have the resources to back up your strategy.

What's even better is that the Norse can construct a settlement as soon as they

destroy an enemies'.

The instant you get rid of it, your own settlement will be up in the blink of an eye,

Giving the Norse the advantage of both speed and flexibility.

As soon as they're done building, they can go right back to pillaging.

The best thing is that the Norse can rapidly construct a portal to unleash a

Titan, without sacrificing labor in gathering resources.

All other races need to stop labor elsewhere and assign it to building the portal.

The Norse can just use the army, while the rest of the population keeps the

resources flowing.

The Titans can both make and break Age of Mythology.

In many ways, they're the best part. Would you rather watch dozens upon dozens of

your loyal soldiers die trying to defeat a stubborn opponent,

or would you rather do something like this:

It's my party now!

(yes!)

awwwww, I'm the largest land mammal on earth, awwww....

that's what I thought.

Titans are so powerful that a full battalion of soldiers won't be able to

kill it. It takes multiple ways attack to bring these monsters down.

"Whatever it is I'm willing to put wave after wave men at your disposal right men?"

"You suck!" ... ...hero units are more effective than ordinary units

but even a large force of hero units will only deal partial damage to a Titan.

So if an enemy has not only an army of soldiers to match yours,

but also has a Titan bearing down on you, your outmatched.

And don't think you can hide behind buildings; Titans break buildings in a

matter of seconds.

Half your farm-land to be taken out in a single stomp...

...towers and houses last about two hits...

barracks and temples last about three or four...

...even settlements are taken down with devastating speed!

The surest route to killing a Titan is to have your own Titan.

The two beasts will cancel each other out in an epic duel,

and you'll be back to sending hundreds to die in brutal, bloody,

ordinary combat. You can only build the Titan once per game,

so when you decide to build one and how you use it is a big part of the player's

strategy. You can use one as soon as you can to defeat a defenseless opponent,

or you can use it to defend against another Titan.

If you decide to build too early and you can't defend your Titan portal as it's being built,

another player can attack and destroy the portal and severely cripple you by

ruining your only chance to have a Titan.

The Titans are so game-changing that you can opt to not allow them at all,

because too much of your game will center on making one. Each Titan looks

different, but they all do the same thing...

from the Norse is Ice Giant to the Atlanteans'... crystal...

...monster... thing. Speaking about Atlanteans, they're my least favorite race.

I don't know what it is, but they just don't seem very powerful.

They generate favor from the gods by having settlements...

...so okay, that's a little idiot-proof... and their builders don't have to return to

any supply depot when gathering resources.

You can upgrade normal troops to be heroes, they can get the strongest walls,

and their barracks are organized differently. But other than that, they

don't really stand out.

The biggest problem with this game is that there's too little difference

between one race in another.

The individual units have different stats, but very rarely do you play any

differently once you have sufficient resources.

The only race that felt significantly different was the Norse,

and that was only because of they're building advantage. Even though they

don't look the same,

they play the same.

All you need to remember is to have a good mix of units and never to get just

one kind. Siege it seem unnecessary, since fully upgraded soldiers can overwhelm

buildings anyway...

The siege units units don't destroy buildings more efficiently

in such a way that you need to buy them, in most cases...

There is one good thing about the fact that most units fight the same way:

instead of being a game about tactics, like Warcraft 3, for example...

this game is more about strategy. A game like Warcraft 3 is more about seeing

what kind of units an enemy's using and responding as fast as possible to use

the tactic that trumps your enemy's.

Nothing in Warcraft 3 was more important than tactics,

especially with the hero mechanic. Age of Mythology is less about tactics and more

about planning your conquest phase by phase.

If you attack an opponent's stronghold first, he or she will probably repel your

invasion. But if you seize the outlying settlements to increase your army size

and reduce your enemy's,

victories in the making. Flanking maneuvers are important,

as is the placement of fortifications. You can effectively stall an enemy using walls,

towers, strongholds, and a handful of archers. You can maneuver around walls

by sea, you can rush to build the Titan, or rush to slaughter an enemy in the early

phases of development.

There's more to this game in the single player campaign,

which is entertaining as well, but I wanted to talk about the core mechanics.

That's what keeps the game together as a concept. So the ruling is that this is a

fun strategy game and offers quite a bit of fulfillment in the way a strategy and

not just tactics...

...which is often the case with real-time strategy games.

I'm The Rat, and I review strategy and role-playing games.

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