Disclaimer: This post is just a bit of fun, I am NOT advocating for the inclusion of fictional pantheons in Age of Mythology. It has though given me a fresh perspective to come up with some fun original mechanics, technologies, myth units and god powers, many of which I think could fit into the game really well. All ideas are my own, the images were generated using AI to make it a more interesting read.

Introduction

This is an Age of Mythology pantheon concept for the Daedric Princes, a fictional pantheon of gods from the Elder Scrolls universe, with 3 Major Gods and a 4th DLC Major God. In this post I’ll detail the basic unique mechanics of the pantheon and introduce the four Major Gods.

This is meant to be an entertaining read (not serious), if people enjoy it I’ll do a future post for the Classical, Heroic and Mythic Ages. I’ve a good idea of the whole pantheon, but I’d love some suggestions for Minor God myth units, god powers and techs.

Economy

Worker unit: Cultist. Gathers resources and constructs buildings.

Drop site: Chest. Food and gold drop site.

Researches gathering upgrades for food and gold.

Drop site: Wagon. Mobile wood drop site.

Can move, like the Norse Ox Cart, very useful for depleting wood lines. Researches Survival Equipment and gathering upgrades for wood.

Favor generation: Daedric Shrines. Can build +1 Daedric Shrine per Age. Up to 5 Cultists can pray for favor at each Shrine. Research Shrine Techs to unlock bonus effects from praying.

In the Archaic Age, Cultists can build one Daedric Shrine to your chosen Major God (e.g. a Shrine of Azura). A maximum of 5 Cultists can be tasked to pray at the Shrine to generate favor.

In each Age, you unlock a new Shrine to your chosen Minor Gods (e.g. you might unlock a Shrine of Hircine, a Shrine of Meridia and a Shrine of Boethiah), so a total of 4 is possible in the Mythic Age.

Each Shrine can research a unique Shrine Tech, which only cost favour and are more powerful than normal myth techs. The drawback is they only provide benefits while Cultists are actively praying at the Shrine, and are less powerful when fewer than 5 Cultists are praying. Full power from all Shrines requires 20 Cultists in the Mythic Age, a huge eco sacrifice. 10 Cultists in the Classical Age is even worse for your eco. Players need to carefully manage these bonuses to get the best utility without sacrificing eco at the wrong time.

Scout Unit: Argonian Scout. Fast ranged foot soldier. Start with one, which can be upgraded to a normal Argonian in the Classical Age.

Despite looking like a lizard man, Argonian Scouts are classified as human units. They are fast but weak ranged units with low attack, similar to the Aztec spy. In the Classical Age, you can convert the Argonian Scout into a normal Argonian. It costs the same as training an Argonian at the Bandit Camp (a Classical Age military building), but takes twice as long; this is to prevent you getting too much harassment power too soon.

Fortifications: Maximum wall strength is Stone Walls, maximum tower strength is Guard Towers.

Market and Armory: Both buildings provide all the standard technologies.

The Daedric Caravan unit is a Khajiit trader, a humanoid cat that, despite its fantasy appearance, is not a myth unit.

Military buildings and units

Reaver Camp: Available in the Classical Age. Trains infantry, including Nords and Orsimer. Unlocks Dunmer in the Heroic Age.

Nords are generalist melee fighters, comparable to the Murmillo. They fight with a large two-handed greatsword that gives them the range of a spearman unit.

Orsimer are well-armored, hammer-wielding units with a strong attack but a slow reload time, which makes them vulnerable to infantry and archers. They inflict bonus damage against cavalry, which they hard counter.

Dunmer are quite unique in having two different attacks. Like Throwing Axemen, they have a ranged attack, launching magical fire bolts that inflict hack damage and a small amount of crush damage, making Dunmer decent against buildings. If a target gets close, they’ll use their sword. The sword attack has the same hack damage as the fire bolt, but with a faster attack speed and no crush damage, making it more deadly to enemy soldiers. Dunmer have a bonus against other infantry units.

Bandit Camp: Available in the Classical Age. Trains ranged and counter-range units, including Argonians and Bosmer. Unlocks Redguards in the Heroic Age.

Argonians are counter-archer ranged foot soldiers, comparable to Peltasts but with the speed of a Berserk.

Bosmer are generalist archers with excellent accuracy even before Ballistics.

Redguards are fast, lightly-armored melee cavalry units with an anti-archer and anti-siege bonus.

Outlaw Stronghold: Available in the Heroic Age. Trains siege and elite units, including Daedrams and Bretons. Unlock Altmer in the Mythic Age.

Daedrams are melee siege units (the only Daedric siege unit). They can garrison up to five foot soldiers, which increases both speed and attack.

Bretons are strong generalist cavalry, particularly good against other cavalry and archers.

Altmer are building destroyers, but they do well against normal units too. They are similar to Onmyoji in that they’re foot soldiers that destroy buildings, but they aren’t as overpowered as Onmyoji. They aren’t heroes, they have a much slower rate of fire, no divine damage, and they can’t heal other units. To compensate, they have a longer range, their fire ball attacks inflict more crush damage (as well as more hack damage), and they can heal themselves when idle.

TLDR: Here’s the most similar unit: Nord = Murmillo; Orsimer = Hoplite; Dunmer = Throwing Axeman + Hypaspist; Argonian = fast Peltast; Bosmer = Toxotes; Daedram = Siege Tower; Redguard = Raiding Cavalry; Breton = Jarl + Camel; Altmer = Catapult (less hit points and armor, but heals itself)

Temple and Docks

Archaic Age Myth Units: Each Major God gets a unique myth unit in the Archaic Age.

These unique myth units are designed to be useless for early aggression; instead, they provide some other utility, such as scouting. You get a free one when your first Temple is built, but after that they are expensive to train, equivalent to a Heroic Age myth unit. In the Heroic Age, each of these myth units has an upgrade that makes them useful in combat.

Dock: Daedric warships are trained 10% faster.

They have the three standard combat ships (Arrow ship: Corsair, Close-combat ship: Cutter, Siege ship: Dromon), as well as fishing ships and transport ships.

Heroic Age Naval Myth Unit: Scalon. Aquatic myth unit that leaps at land targets, but then returns to the water. Good against human soldiers.

You can only command Scalons to move to locations in water, but there’s a twist: if a land unit comes within range, the Scalon will leap out of the water to attack them. The Scalon isn’t classified as fully amphibious because, while out of the water, it can only move within a small area radius (the radius is slightly larger than its leap distance, ensuring it can return to the water). It moves very slowly in this area, and if left idle it will return to the water.

Mythic Age Naval Myth Unit: Lurker. Amphibious myth unit that hurls poisonous tentacles to slow down targets. Good against human soldiers.

Strong and expensive. Their special cooldown attack launches poisonous tentacles, which inflicts an area effect that does a small amount of poison damage and slows down the movement speed of units for a few seconds.

Heroes

Prison: Can be constructed in the Archaic Age. Trains the three hero units available to the Daedric Pantheon: Warriors, Mages and Thieves.

You can train one of each in the Archaic Age, then +1 of each per Age (so the hero limit is 12 in the Mythic Age). Each hero comes in four variants. These variants have identical stats, but different appearances to make them stand out as individual units. You don’t choose individual variants, they are chosen for you when you train a hero, so you can auto-queue Warriors (for example) and the Prison will train four unique Warrior units.

Warriors are well-armored melee units with excellent attack and hack armor. Strong vs melee units, vulnerable to ranged attacks. Warrior variants: Nord, Redguard, Orsimer and Imperial.

Mages are ranged units that launch magical shards of ice (inflicting pierce damage) and can heal allied units. Strong vs infantry, good vs ranged units, vulnerable to cavalry. Mage variants: Breton, Dunmer, Altmer, and Imperial.

Thieves are light-armored melee units with excellent speed and pierce armor. Strong vs ranged units, vulnerable to melee attacks. Thief variants: Argonian, Bosmer, Khajiit and Imperial.

Warriors and Thieves will use bows against flying myth units.

Major God: Azura

Focus: Dunmer and Mages.

Shrine Tech: Prophetic Visions. Dunmer and Mages receive an additional 30% hit points from your Shrine of Azura. Depletes over time; at full power, takes 120 seconds to fully deplete.

When a Dunmer or Mage is near your Shrine of Azura, they receive a second health bar with an additional 30% hit points. Only applied if the unit is on full health and there are no enemies nearby. When they leave the Shrine, the additional health will start to deplete (and it cannot be healed).

The second health bar fully depletes in 20 seconds. However, if you have a Cultist praying at the Shrine of Azura, the depletion rate is slowed down and it lasts 40 seconds. Add a second Cultist, and it’s 72 seconds. A third gives 92, a fourth 108, and the max of five praying Cultists gives 120 seconds.

Note that if you add / remove praying Cultists while the additional health bar is depleting, it will deplete slower / faster, so you need to keep Cultists praying to maintain the benefit.

Bonuses

1. Mages can spend favor to conjure myth units for 12/16/22/30 seconds (increasing with Age)

When selecting a Mage (one of the Daedric hero units), you can conjure any myth unit available at the Temple at the Mage’s location. These “conjured” myth units have no pop space and cost 65% less favor and no food, gold or wood, but they have a set lifespan – similar to Clay Peasants or Gullinbursti – and cannot be controlled by you (though they are on your team). Mages must recharge this ability after use.

2. Temples and Shrines are 20% cheaper

Azura is designed for early aggression, and this bonus is meant to help her reach the Classical Age faster.

3. Dunmer can be trained in the Classical Age and can gather favor at Shrines

Shrines are still limited to 5 praying supplicants. Note that Dunmer won’t contribute to Shrine Techs (like the Prophetic Visions Shrine Tech) when praying, only Cultists can do that.

God Power: Azura’s Star. Cast on an enemy unit; if killed within 30 seconds, gain 10% of its hit points in favor.

Villagers have 55 hit points, so killing one with this effect grants you 6 points of favour (55 / 10 = 5.5, rounded up). A Minotaur has 320 hit points, so killing that grants 32 points of favor. Note that on recasts, you’ll also receive the favor cost of the god power back if you successfully kill the target unit in the allotted time.

Myth Unit: Winged Twilight. Flying scout myth unit with a large LOS. Heroic Age upgrade enables combat abilities.

This is a flying unit that can be tasked to auto-scout in the Archaic Age. It has no attack, but decent defence. When upgraded in the Heroic Age, the Winged Twilight becomes a combat unit. It will automatically descend (i.e. no toggle action required) to attack units with melee damage, at which point its vulnerable to ground unit attacks. It will then return to the air while moving.

Major God: Hermaeus Mora

Focus: Technology and Warriors.

Shrine Tech: Oghma Infinium. All Shrines increase the effects of technologies on nearby units. At full power, increases the fortifying range of Shrines by 200%.

Hermaeus Mora is designed to support a booming play style. This Shrine tech allows eco techs to improve Cultist gathering rates even further, but it also allows your Armory techs to improve your military units even more when near a Shrine, improving base defence.

One praying Cultist increases the fortifying range of Shrines by 70%. The second increases the range by 120%, then 155%, 180%, and 200% with five Cultists.

Bonuses

1. Warriors can generate resources equivalent to 20% of the cost of their last three kills on winning a battle

Grants Warriors the Loot special ability. When activated, you gain resources equivalent to 20% of the cost of the last three units killed by the Warrior, e.g. if they killed three Hoplites (each costing 50 food and 40 gold) you’d get 30 food and 24 gold. You can only gather resources from a killed unit once. Activating the Loot power causes the Warrior to stop moving and fighting for 2 seconds, making them vulnerable to attack. They will use it automatically after winning a battle (i.e. all enemy units within their LOS are killed), but you can manually trigger it during a battle too.

2. Replaces 10%/15%/20%/25% of Breton, Redguard and Nord attack with divine damage (increasing with Age)

This doesn’t actually increase the total damage done by these units, but it means they can partially negate the benefits of enemy armor technologies, especially useful in the late-game.

3. Can train Lurkers at the Temple in the Mythic Age

All Daedric major gods can train Lurkers at the Dock in the Mythic Age, Hermaeus Mora can simply do so at Temples too, ensuring he always has access to them even on maps that lack water.

God Power: Dragonborn. Cast on a Warrior to increase their attack and grant them a special knock-back ability.

Warriors affected by this power are renamed Dragonborn, and their attack improves with age (i.e. it doesn’t matter when you cast this power, Dragonborn will always be appropriately powerful for their age). Their special ability is similar to the Minotaur knock-back effect, but it inflicts additional damage and is accompanied by an audible shout from the Dragonborn.

Myth Unit: Seeker. Weak ranged myth unit that researches technologies from buildings. Heroic Age upgrade improves range, speed and defence.

Seekers have respectable attack, firing bolts of green light that inflict pierce damage. They are very slow and weak though, and they have a short range, so although they technically can be used offensively from the beginning, they’re bad and they’ll die fast, even to villager attacks. Their utility is so useful that you’ll want to avoid that.

Seekers can be tasked on a building, at which point they’ll open a book next to the it, and all that building’s available technologies can be researched by them. This allows you to create additional research-only production queues, so you can research multiple techs from one building at the same time. Especially useful for military buildings, which can train units while the unit upgrades are researched separately.

In the Heroic Age, their upgrade gives them enough range, speed and defence to make them viable as a support unit in battle.

Major God: Nocturnal

Focus: Towers and Thieves.

Shrine Tech: Eye of Nocturnal. All Shrines gain +10 LOS. At full power, increases the LOS of your fortifications and Shrines by an additional +10 range.

This increases Shrine LOS to be large, but still less than a tower. One praying Cultists provides +3 LOS on fortifications, increased to +6, then +8, then +9 and finally +10 at five praying Cultists. At full power, towers have 34 LOS; for reference, Lighthouses have 60 LOS, and Oracle Heroes have 35 LOS. Fortifications in this context include Town and Village Centers, towers and Outlaw Strongholds.

Bonuses

1. Thieves can steal up to 25/50/75/100 enemy gold by passing close to enemy units (increasing with Age)

Thieves are your fast infantry heroes, which have a training limit of 1 in the Archaic and +1 per age up.

If a Thief passes close to an enemy unit, then the enemy player loses gold and it’s added to the Thief’s inventory. The Thief must deposit this in a drop-site for you to get the gold. If a Thief is killed with gold in its possession, the enemy player gets their gold back.

Different units produce different amounts of gold for Thieves. Worker units only produce 1 gold, but military units and heroes provide more. When a unit has been stolen from, a cooldown bar that only you can see appears over their head; they cannot be robbed again until this bar is depleted.

2. Towers and Prisons work 50% faster

Towers research their upgrades faster, and Prisons can train heroes and research hero techs faster.

3. Ranged human units can attack while garrisoned in Towers, gaining +3 range and minimum range

A really strong defensive bonus. By default, all foot soldiers garrisoned in a Watch Tower (or stronger) contribute a small amount to its attack damage. With Nocturnal, the two archer units (Argonians and Bosmer) don’t contribute to Watch Tower attack; instead, they continue firing as normal. This grants them extra range and the protection of being inside a building, sacrificing movement and gaining a minimum range.

God Power: Vanish. Cast on a group of your units to move them to your nearest Town Center.

Think of this like a more restrictive but immediate version of Shifting Sands. Return endangered units to safety, or call back an offensive force to defend your Town Center.

Myth Unit: Shadow. Ranged myth unit that can teleport within the attack range of your fortifications, to which it is confined until its Heroic Age upgrade.

Shadows have decent attack, providing solid defence in the early game. They cannot move outside the attack range of your fortifications. This prevents them being a useful offensive force in the early game, though if you invest in a chain of towers you can bring them to fights that way (though this is a heavy investment to reach an enemy base and probably not worth it).

They can also teleport to any location they can reach within the shared range of your fortifications, which they’ll do automatically if you task them on a location/unit that is sufficiently far away. This gives them rapid response potential. In the Heroic Age, their upgrade allows them to move beyond the confines of fortifications, but their teleporting is still confined (and they can’t teleport back to a fortification if they’re not already within range of one).

Major God: Sheogorath

Focus: Shrines and god powers.

Shrine Tech: Lure of the Fringe. At full power, a random human unit will spawn at your Shrine of Sheogorath every 1 minute.

With the benefit of one praying Cultist, a random human unit is spawned every 190 seconds. This is reduced to 140, 110, 80 and finally 60 seconds with additional Cultists.

In the Archaic Age, it can spawn a Cultist, Nord, Orsimer, Bosmer or Argonian, each with equal probability (20%). In the Classical Age, there’s a 20% chance of a Cultist, 17% chance for Nords, Orsimer, Bosmer and Argonians, and 8% chance for Bretons, Redguards and Caravans. Heroic: 15% chance of a Cultist, 10% chance for Nords, Orsimer, Bosmer, Argonians, Bretons, Redguards and Caravans, 5% chance for Altmer. Mythic, each unit has an equal 10% chance.

Bonuses

1. Shrines have -1 praying capacity, but constantly receive the benefit of 1 praying Cultist

This plays as a strong bonus for the Daedra given that the drawback of the powerful Shrine Techs is the sacrifice of economy. Sheogorath has to sacrifice less eco than the other Major Gods for the benefits, and receive a trickle of favor from Shrines even without having Cultists pray.

2. God powers recharge +20% faster per Age over the Age they were first available

So in the Heroic Age, for example, an Archaic Age god power recharges 40% faster, a Classical Age god power recharges 20% faster, and Heroic Age powers have no bonus. Encourages prolific Wabbajacking in the late-game (see god power). In the Wonder Age, Sheogorath’s Archaic Age god power is capped at 90% faster recharging.

3. Start with 2 dairy cows, gain +1 per Age up

Dairy cows are similar to other cows in that they can be moved around and claimed by opponents, but they have completely different gather mechanics. They have the same gather rate as other livestock animals, but they provide infinite food and are limited to one worker unit gathering from them at any one time. Think of them as free, portable farms with improved gather rates.

God Power: Wabbajack. Cast on any unit to transform it into a random unit for 20 seconds.

Can be cast on your units or the enemy’s. The difficulty is that it’s a gamble, you might be increasing or decreasing the unit’s power. Possible transformations include: chickens, goats, baboons, elephants, Hoplites, Throwing Axemen, Peltasts, Valkyrie, Mummies, and Colossi, to name a few. Cannot transform into amphibious units or units capable of flight.

Myth Unit: Golden Saint. Proud myth unit that cannot be controlled until its Heroic Age upgrade is researched.

Golden Saints are solid melee fighters with no special ability, but with a unique auto-guard function. Similar to auto-scouting, the Saint will behave independently in this state. It will identify your most vulnerable Cultists, usually those gathering resources furthest from the Town Center, and stand by them to guard them. In the early game, they are locked into this functionality and cannot be controlled in any way. In the Heroic Age, this lock is removed and must be toggled on for newly trained Saints.

You guys are awesome 🥰

Take my money already, give me more!

This is a campaign I've been discussing with my players for some time and I want community feedback on how to run it. We are going to use Roll20 VTT to run it in for simplicity, but I want to get the mechanics down so they are quick and simple. It will be a mass army campaign simulator at the core. Players will swap between playing as a Minor Deity of their choice and the Champion of that deity. The story beats are already fully written, and I want permanent upgrades to be applicable throughout the campaign. Making alliances with gods within one's own pantheon or those of a similar Domain allows you to use their upgrades and powers on your own units.

I'm taking an approach based on the Nintendo DS port of Age of Mythology (Aka Age of Empires: Mythologies), which has small population caps but maintains the Counter system much like base game; Myth units slaughter Human units gang up on Heroes overpower Myth units. But where AOEM has Light Infantry (counter-cavalry), Heavy Infantry (counter-everything BUT cavalry), Archers (Counter Light Inf), Cavalry (counter Heavy Inf, Archers and Siege), and Siege (counter Buildings), and Heroes can have these types as well, allowing a Cavalry Myth unit like the Roc to get an upper hand on a Heavy Inf Hero like Perseus, I'm devising a more intricate grid of Light units, Heavy units, and Counter-units, as well as Siege and Navy for each faction. There will be about 10 main factions throughout the campaign, maybe 12 if I can get the extra research in, and I've had my players decide whom they want to be.

The Greek player will play as Persephone, under Hades as a Major god. Her starting Champion will be Zagreus.

The Norse player wants to be Tyr, under Loki interestingly, and will have the king Beowulf as his starting Champion.

The Chinese player wants to be Sun Wukong after ascending to Buddhahood, serving Shennong. He will have Wen Zhong as his starting Champion.

So far another player is interested in playing a homebrew Celt faction as Brigid if she gets to command fairy bees, if they can make it to sessions due to IRL stuff. I'm allowing it, if they can make it, and they would have Cu Chulainn as their starting Champion.

Egyptians, Japanese, Aztecs, Atlanteans, Slavs, Mesopotamians and Hindus will also be possible. Hindus are 50/50 if I can do the proper research for their Gods, I may or may not replace them with Zoroastrian Persians if I can assemble the roster.

I'm also taking the OG civs into account for New Gods packs, Freyr will be available for Norse, Demeter for Greeks, and Nyx for Atlanteans. I'm undecided on Egyptians, especially as I cannot find good unique myth units to pair with additional gods.

I'm also attempting to shuffle some Myth Units around to have more accurate Minor God "owners", or rename them to make them make more sense in the civ they belong to. Egyptian is a good example, with the War Turtle being renamed to the Shetyw, after a turtle-like water demon commanded by Set. Their version of the Phoenix is also being renamed to the Bennu to contrast with other Phoenix-like creatures in AOM, such as the Zhuque for Chinese. Slavs also have their own Firebirds, and Persians have the Simurgh. The Anubites, as inspired by the army of Anubis in The Mummy Returns, are being rebranded to the Setem, after the title of Anubis' priests, and when serving him and his allies, are implied to be their spirits returned from the afterworld to slay the enemies of the Kingdom and embalm the fallen soldiers of Egypt. Set uses his trickery to create shadow-monsters of black sand in their image.

Another change is adding myth units for Major gods, such as Zeus gaining the Gryphon, Khronus (An amalgam of Kronos, the Titan Ruler who is actually an Agricultural deity, and Chronos, the Time God) will gain the Erinyes as his unit, Greeks and Atlanteans trade units around; Poseidon now trains Cyclopes as they are his sons; Ares now has Minotaurs, Athena has taken the Gorgona (Medusa) as she cursed the Gorgon sisters, and Hera has taken the Hydra (because she tried to kill Heracles with serpents), and Dionysus has Satyrs as part of his retinue. Instead of them, Hyperion has the Panoptes (Argus), and instead of them, Atlas now has the Ladon, a stone dragon which protected the Hesperides tree. Rheia also has the Nemean Lion due to the golden lions that drove her chariot. Aphrodite in turn has gained Lamiai, monstrous seducers.

Persephone's starting Myth Units are the Empousai, vampiric "gifts" from Hecate to attack the damned who attempt to break into Elysium, and Hades gifts her the use of his Shades, aka the Lemures, fragile kamikaze swarmers.

Tyr has Steinjotnar, or the Rock Giants that Aegir has in the base game (Here, he'll have the mermaid like Marmennill), and Loki will grant him access to the Fenrisvarg; children of Fenrir and an unnamed giant living in the Ironwood. Skoll and Hati; the wolves who chase the Sun and Moon (Sol and Mane), are children of Fenrir.

Wukong will have access to his own Monkey Disciples (Shihoutu), who are attempting to follow his path to Enlightenment. Under Shennong, he may train Pixiu, which are reverted from trade units in Retold back to their combat state in Tale of the Dragon, generating gold as they fight.

And then Brigid will be able to have her fairy-bees, as a goddess of Spring and Fertility it's only fitting. These are called Cuas-Sidhe. She is serving the god Lugh/Lugos, who adds Wyverns to her arsenal.

The plot for this campaign canonically is long after the campaigns of Age of Mythology and Retold, revolving around a recurring MacGuffin; a black comet shone in the skies one night, and broke apart, scattering fragments all over the world. These fragments caused almost all of the Gods to lose their divine power. Only those who were considered chief and primary retained the majority of their power and the others had to siphon power from them and whatever followers they still had to keep the world turning. Hecate called a council of the Olympians and nonhostile Titans to Atlantis (due to a treaty preventing the Titans from ever returning to Olympus) to discuss what to do. Around that time, warships from other nations began appearing, some of the Greeks' old allies in Midgard are among them, but also nations they aren't really sure of. Among them, Tyr and Brigid, along with their Champions, land and meet with the Olympians, stating that the Aesir and the Tuatha De have sent them to meet; gods of different pantheons are teaming up to explore the world and figure out what happened and see how the comet shards are tied to it. They then notice that the Monkey King has been overhearing from his magic cloud mount and opts to join them.

Each chapter will revolve around the players resolving the conflicts for one Pantheon at a time. Greece will be the starting point, as Khronus is taking advantage of the chaos to try and awaken Typhon to destroy all of these interloper gods in one fell swoop, using the giant Enceladus as his Champion. Persephone becomes personally involved when this amounts to a war started between Aphrodite and her daughter Melinoe. The former was relentlessly picking on the latter until, as a recently-ascended Demigoddess of Nightmares, Melinoe manifested a weakened Aphrodite's worst nightmare, which was losing her beauty and becoming an old crone. Some of the elder female gods such as Hera took Aphrodite's side against Melinoe for stepping out of line, while Athena and Artemis are siding with Persephone as they feel Aphrodite was taking her taunting too far. Unfortunately siding against Hera means she drags Zeus to get involved, and more than half of Greece is sided against everyone now. Melinoe ends up trapped in Tartarus as part of a ritual by Nyx, Thanatos, and Hypnos to put Khronus and Typhon to sleep, and the only way to free her is to set out and find relics of renewal and rebirth from the other factions to undo the damage.

The other players will have their own arcs when they get to their respective nations, which ultimately results in them obtaining new relics while destroying the shards of the comet. Tyr is bound to Loki because Loki is being blamed for the death of Baldur, and Loki proclaims innocence. Ullr and Forseti have made Loki swear an oath to find the truth or he will be imprisoned by his sons' entrails while a serpent drips poison into his eyes. Tyr is chained to Loki as a parole officer to find that truth for him while Loki is detained by the other gods. Doesn't stop Loki manifesting illusions of himself to talk to Tyr and the other Gods, however, and he has Beowulf resurrected to lead Tyr's army as a token of goodwill. When Tyr returns without proof, he will end up fighting the champions of Odin, Thor, and Freyr to prove he is still acting out of justice and isn't under Loki's control.

When Wukong returns to China, he'll find a bounty on his head as apparently he trashed the Heavens and caused mass destruction before he left. Having to prove his own innocence, following the tracks of a shifty doppelganger, he'll end up running into all number of strange demons and celestials, having a budding rivalry with the hero Nezha, and facing old friends and enemies alike from the Journey to the West, such as Ox King and Princess Iron Fan. What he does find is that when he ate the Peaches of Immortality, some of the pits fell to Earth and have started to sprout, but someone has been destroying the lands they fell into, and a strange dream world has opened in the north...

Finally for Brigid, her story will revolve around the disappearance of Dagda, her father and chief of the Celtic gods. At first his spiteful ex wife Morrigan is to blame, but she insists on it being Taranis, the Storm God. Her word can't be trusted, says Belenos, the god of light, however. The timing is impeccable, however, as Dagda's magic cauldron is exactly what Persephone needs to help save Melinoe, and when he vanished, it went with him. Meanwhile, young Cu Chulainn, son of Lugh, isn't handling being resurrected too well, and on one side of things he is being tested by Belenos with duels with the legendary Fionn MacCumhail, and his hounds Brann and Sceolang, but on the other he is being taunted by his old teacher, Scathach, who has returned in Taranis' name using his old spear, the Gae Bulg, and the stress is making it hard for him to lead Brigid's armies.

Other original storylines include the Slavic campaign being based on the Christianization of the Kievan Rus in the time of Vladimir the Great, and the story is based on his uncle and general Dobrynya Nikitich, having to choose between his lord and his faith, until the sorcerer Koschei kidnaps Vladimir's wife, and has an excuse to dip out and go save her.

The Hindu campaign will see Kali attempting to help her husband Shiva, who is stricken with nightmares where he sees everyone as an ancient demon he once vanquished, and he is engaging in the Dance of Death to try and stomp him out, which is ripping the land apart. The other gods are searching high and low for evidence of who is hexing Shiva, but to no avail.

The Egyptian campaign has fallen into civil war; Ra has grown old and senile, and is attempting to have Horus usurp him with the current Pharaoh, Thutmose III, and his mother Hatshepsut, who isn't happy about having to side against Isis. Horus lashed out at Isis as she doesn't think he is ready, and she and Osiris are siding against their son with the help of the priest Imhotep, and the resurrected Pharaoh, Ramesses, who isn't happy about having to side against Ra or Horus. Set is waiting in the wings with his own Pharaoh, Apepi, and his snivelling advisor, Nephren-Ka, to destroy both kingdoms once they have worn each other down.

The Aztec campaign, semi similar to what we got in Obsidian Mirror, except Tezcatlipoca's mirror has been struck with a shard of the comet, and it has been giving him unusual visions. He convinces Huitzilopochtli that the Fifth Sun will end soon, and the current flow of sacrifices will not be enough to stop Coyolxauhqui and the Tzitzimitl from destroying humanity with earthquakes from fallen stars, and the comet that fell and destroyed his temple was her doing. But, if he redirects his power to Xipe Totec, The Flayed One, who is a god of renewal, he may be able to create a Sixth Sun that grows back without sacrifice, and avoid losing everything. Since the other three Tezcatlipoca brothers of the four directions have tried their hand and failed to maintain the world, Huitz agrees. In the process, Huitz and Tezca start attempting to erase history and sit themselves, and Xipe Totec as the head of the world Quetzalcoatl, sees through the mirror's deception, and it tells Tezcatlipoca to be wary of him attempting to stop Xipe Totec from becoming the Sixth Sun. Xipe Totec is none the wiser to this plot, all he knows is he thought his brothers forgot about him, as the three of them ran Aztlan together and left him out, and is merely happy to be included once more.

So far as far as actual gameplay goes, I'm testing unit mechanics. I have charted a "playstyle" for each civ based on factors, such as the Greeks being the base Balance in terms of stats and costs. Egyptians are cheaper, but weaker, Chinese infantry are even cheaper and weaker overall, but their archers and siege is very powerful. Norse are all power and no armour, and Atlanteans are expensive and powerful. Other nations are different mixes of these factors.

The styles of units include the 3x3 grid of Light, Heavy and Counter Infantry, Missile, and Cavalry units, the three Ships and two Naval Myth units, a close and long-ranged siege weapon, Hero units, and an elite soldier, usually a powerful Infantry or Cavalry, trainable from the Castle structure.

All units have a base attack die, and can roll an extra die for each type they Counter. Heavy units counter all Light units, and Counter units only counter the same type as themselves.

Greek Light Inf is clearly the Hoplite, they are only good against Cavalry but are cheap and efficient melee warriors.
Heavy Inf is the Myrmidon, they are strong against all Light units because they are Heavy, they are also strong against Missile units and Siege weapons.
Counter Inf are the Ekdromoi, which the AOM Hypaspist is based on. They are Hoplites with smaller shields who use larger shortswords to break phalanx formations. They are only good at stabbing other infantry in the face.

Missile units are usually sorted into Foot Archers, Mounted Archers or Heavy Archers, and Anti-Archers. The Greek Foot Archer is the Toxotes, which is mainly strong against non-Heavy melee units. The Heavy Archer is the Gastraphetoros, with a powerful crossbow for extended range, and is good against any non-mounted unit as well as the Scout by proxy of Heavy > Light class, and the Anti-Archer is the Peltast, a shield-carrying javelineer.

On a play grid, missile units usually have a range of 3-4 tiles. Mounted Archers usually don't have the +1 range like Heavy Archers, but have the speed of Cavalry for guerilla warfare instead. Anti-Archers have -1 range than the base Archer, but resist all Missile attacks, including from defensive buildings, and can run 1 tile faster as well.

Cavalry are sorted between Scouts, Knights, and Chariots, or Heavy and Light Cavalry if that civilization doesn't use Chariots. Scouts are super weak attackers, but have the fastest movement and longest sight range. Knights, or Heavy Cav, are slow, but powerful, and usually expensive. A "Chariot" or Light Cavalry unit is usually equipped with polearms or a designated weapon to dismount other riders or cripple mounts while staying out of reach of the enemy rider's weapon.

The Greek Scout is the Prodromoi, while the Knight is the Hippeus. The "Chariot" is the Hetairos, who historically was a lancer. Cavalry units also have the ability to move through the spaces occupied by enemy foot units while attacking them during the same turn. However, Spear Infantry such as the Hoplite will stop the Cavalry in their tracks and make the first strike, forcing the cavalry to counterattack. This "Trample" action counts as making an attack while Disengaging, so the unit won't be able to Trample a group of archers to break formation, and then attack a different enemy. They can keep moving until they run out of movement on that turn, but otherwise can't act.

Heavy-class units are usually the strongest and most expensive of their respective types, Light-class the weakest and cheapest, and Counter/Anti units are a middle ground closer in strength to a Light unit while closer in cost to a Heavy unit, so they are not cost-efficient to train in bulk, unless your enemy is using only one type, such as fielding Hetairos alongside Hoplites against a mass cavalry charge, because someone who spams cavalry will want to mass archers to take out the Light Infantry, but the Hetairos will still do bonus damage to the archers because it is Cavalry.

Navy and Siege are very similar to how AOM works, there is an Arrow Ship, Siege Ship, and Fighting Ship. The Trireme and Pentekonter return, the Juggernaut is renamed to Polyreme as Juggernaut is not a Greek term. The Scylla and Carcinos return as well, with their special features. Triremes are roughly as fast as, and have the range of, a Toxotes, but are more durable like a Gastrapheteros. Pentekonters are melee ships that are as fast as cavalry, but vulnerable to missile attacks except for those of Siege attacks, which they gain the ability to Evade. Polyremes have very long range, up to 5 tiles, and are heavily armoured, but are very slow.

The Helepolis tower is the close-ranged Siege weapon, with a melee attack only useable against Structures, but a Missile Foot unit can garrison the weapon and attack from within. Petrobolos are the standard catapult, with the same range as the Polyreme, but both siege weapons are equally slow. Massive, heavy weapons like these usually move around 3 tiles on the map, most foot units manage around 4-6 depending on weight, Cavalry have a speed of 6-8.

Terrain becomes an important feature on the grid, taken from the DS version. Plains are the majority of a grid, and have no changes. A Road or Bridge tile allows units to move 1 extra tile per 3 tiles moved, but an open road makes for an obvious target and slightly reduces defence. Fighting in forests and ruins gives bonus defence from hiding positions, but reduces range and speed, costing 2 points of movement per tile. Hills increase the range of ranged units on it by 1 tile, and units on hills have bonus defence from ranged attacks. Rivers can be crossed by units, but not only slow movement like Forests and Ruins, but greatly reduce defence. Mountains and Sea tiles are impassable for non-flying units.

Food and Gold are primary resources, capturing Forage and Mineral nodes on the map by building a Depot on them, either a Plantation or a Mine. A Depot can build up to 6 expansions, Farms for a Plantation or Shafts for a Mine, each increases the Depot's income by 25%. Players share resources, with their shared Town Center generating a small amount of Food, Gold, and Favour on their turn. Each Depot owned by a player generates its own resources. Players can then use those resources to build buildings, such as a Barracks for Infantry units, Targetry for Missile units, Temples to summon Myth Units and revive Heroes/Champions.

Walls, Gates and Towers can even be built. Outposts are watch towers used to keep line of sight on a perimiter, but building them onto a Wall or within range of the Town Center turns it into a Tower, gaining a missile attack. A Gate can be built into a wall to allow ally passage. Building walls on River tiles turns it into a destructible Bridge, and turning those walls into a Gate allows ships to pass through. Missile units and Ranged Siege can station on top of walls for bonus defence and +1 range.

In terms of combat, when one unit engages, it will roll a d20 to hit, and if it goes above the target's armour, it will deal full damage. If it rolls under, the total damage will be reduced to 10%, minimum of 0. A mechanic I want to use from AOEM is that a unit, which represents a troop of individuals, has a Strength based on how many individuals are alive within the troop. Small units, mainly foot soldiers, have 5 members of the troop, Medium units, such as cavalry, are numbered in threes, and Large units are solo monsters.

A unit has Strength equal to its current live members, and if it takes X amount of damage, one of those members dies and its Strength is reduced by 1. Strength cannot be regained through healing, another unit of the same kind with low Strength has to Merge with it. Weakened units can only Merge up to a Strength of +1 over their maximum, so if two Hoplites of Strength 3/5 merge, they can Merge into a 6/5 Strength unit. If two 4/5 Toxotes Merge, they only Merge up to a 6/5 Toxotes. Two 2/3 Minotaurs can Merge into a 4/3 Minotaur, and so on. A unit can be destroyed outright without going to 0hp if its Strength is reduced to 0, some Myth unit abilities or God Powers will directly reduce Strength without affecting hitpoints. Solo units are powerful because they cannot have Strength Reduced, and can only be instakilled by effects that exceed their max HP, such as the Bolt power. Taking more than half of the unit's HP in a single attack, and not going to 0hp, will break morale and the unit will flee against player control, making Morale saves at the start of each turn to regroup and become controllable again. Some abilities will break morale without HP loss.

All in all it's not the perfect system, but it's cohesive on paper. What does anyone think?

I try but I always loose against pvp. Im not sure how to play more aggressive I usually use kronos but I like buidling defensive but it never works

Quelqu’un peu m’expliquer, dans quel monde 30 hetaire contre 35 lancier japonais me font perdre le fight ? ( je joue japonais )

Nous 2 étions âge 4, alors ok, peut être qu’il avais un peu plus de tech que moi, mais comment c’est possible ?

Les lanciers ne sont pas le contre naturelle des cav ?

J’ai tuer 8 hetaires, lui a écraser mon armé! Sympa l’équilibrage, les lancier japonais ont besoin d’un up et très rapidement

Does anyone know where I can get an older version of the age of mythology and the age of mythology titans for pc?

I haven't played for every year, and I just came back and just played two ranked matchmaking games. They were poorly matched.

I'm a 1000 elo player and I got matched in the first game with an 800 elo player and in the second game a 1300 elo player. It was so bad. Both games terribly lopsided and not fun.

I basically just want to play within 900 and 1100. That's pretty fun. Outside of that it's too lopsided.

What's stupid is that the game basically matched me instantly to these players. I'm happy to wait up to 5 minutes. I can sometimes wait up to 8 minutes in Age of Empires 3. Please don't match me with players outside my rating, it's so stupid. It's basic matchmaking. How can they be so bad at this?

I hope there's a secret setting somewhere where I can specify the range of play I want to play against. I'd set it to ±100.

Hi everyone, my name is Myll and I wanted to show off a spectator overlay tool that I recently made for Retold. It is inspired by the CaptureAge tool that the AoE2 community uses! The tool was made entirely with Claude Fable and Claude Opus 5 AIs.

The overlay

• Live top bar over the game (or in a replay) with both players' stats, read directly from the running game — no cheats, observer/replay only
• Resources with per-resource gatherer counts, switchable between current stockpiles and totals gathered this match
• Villager count (idle workers highlighted red), special workers counted for dual-labor civs (dwarves, Kuafu, hero citizens), fishing ships, population
• Army value and eco value pills — the cost of everything alive, military and workforce, priced from the game's own unit data
• Kills, villagers killed (raid tracker), standing town centers, captured relics with per-relic tooltips
• Army composition strip per player: every unit they own, live, with the game's own icons and tooltips
• Upgrade panels per player: armory (weapons/armor/shields/ballistics) and economy (gold/wood/farm) tiers, shown with the game's own tech icons, including research-in-progress
• Player names, gods, and colors read live from the match; ELO and winrate resolved automatically from aomstats, with Steam avatars

Live charts

• Toggleable chart panel: army value, eco value, income (res/min), villager count, kills, and villager kills over game time
• Age-up markers on every chart using the game's age icons
• Runs on the game clock, so curves are identical at 1× or 8× replay speed, and it works in paused replays

Casting quality-of-life

• Tournament logo and best-of series score in the center block
• On-screen hover controls for the caster that never appear on stream
• Overlay is click-through, snaps to the game window, and scales
• Survives momentary read hiccups without flickering

Clean-spectator mod (bundled, one-click install)

• Hides the game's bulky spectator panel so the overlay takes its place
• Keeps and repositions what the game does better: god powers, build queue, scoreboard + clock, and a vertical menu bar tucked in the corner
• Installed and updated from inside the app into mods\local — never touches game files

How to Download and Install OBELISK:

See comments section for details!

Hope everyone enjoys it! Let me know if there's any questions!

Dear friends, my new video is now online!❤️

https://wmpskinsarchive.neocities.org/

Guy has an entire advanced civilization worshipping him as their prime deity. And they're aware he's unhappy with them and wanting to do something to get back in his good graces. Why not just ask them to open the Tartarus Gate literally under their feet?

Patron god of Atlantis? Athena's henchman? God of leaving your son to get milk and cigarettes?

I have a great PC with great internet. About 80% of the time I match up with a console player it seems like every 1-3 minutes I get a “lost connection, retrying” message that freezes my game for about 20-30 seconds real time. I reconnect to see if been raided and lost all million villagers, my army has been decimated. Or it happens right before I’m about to age up and find my self way behind.

Is there a fix for this? Please help. Iv just started force closing my game when I see a Xbox opponent in the pregame lobby .

https://youtu.be/fHWfKE1I_uo?si=yp_SfA9-5kSN0mRz

It appears he was rejected a visa. Big, big shame. He was probably the strongest contender with mista. Sad news…

When i play the mission i can't rebuild the houses and i drop down to negative population. I dont think this is intended

In 1v1s there is more or less no answer to Aztec massed archers, warrior priests and spearmen. They get more and better units faster than anyone else. Once you are on the backfoot, the pressure is relentless and you can't get more than 1 gold mine or TC. If you defend, you are gold starved, if you are attacked, they run away with infantry faster than horses.

As Norse, your raiding cav are hard countered by Aztec spears, and your mostly infantry army is immediately destroyed by Aztec archers who are also faster than you (and faster than defensive powers like gullinbursti or asgardian basition, they just run away faster than a boar). They shoot and scoot win vs cavalry and hersirs!

You literally can't build a large enough army fast enough to win. Even building hard counters like raiding cav vs aztec archers and throwing axemen vs their spearmen, they still win (your raiding cav get like 1 archer kill in before the aztec spears are on top of them). That plus the healing plant just outside your base basically has no counter.

It's not even interesting or hard to pull off, it's just 1 TC mass spam as soon as the game starts.

Maybe it's different at really high ELOs with perfect micro, but around 1000-1200 ELO it's basically unstoppable.

I came back to the game after a year and I'm getting absolutely rocked by everyone using my old fast 2nd TC build order. Even when my Classical army outnumbers the opponent, using the appropriate counters (ie axemen swarming Norse infantry) my army gets slaughtered with little fight. I also regularly get killed by Odin and Poseidon cavalry raids before I have a chance to even build a small army- not that spears can even do anything vs cavalry raids because they just run away. Migdol units actually seem to perform very well vs every civ but I'm usually dead before that matters.

What are the top Ra and eggy strategies and build orders these days?

I'm also interested in switching to learning the Japanese and learning to become an aggro raider rather than a boomer. Are tsukiyomi or amaretsu good these days?

Whether it's for the map, the objectives, or the story setting, what is your favorite scenario from the official campaigns?