Age of Mythology

I was never terribly excited by the Age of Empires series, and when I first heard about AoM I wasn't convinced, but it turned out to be the primary RTS game  played between StarCraft and Starcraft II, and I had a lot of good times playing this with my friends.

Developer: Ensemble Studios
Platform: PC
Release: 2002
Genres: Real time strategy (RTS), mythological

Plot

The setting was the ancient era, when the empires of Egypt, Greece, and the Norse dominated the planet. The single player campaign had a specific storyline which was extended in the expansions Age of Mythology: The Golden Gift (free to download) and Age of Mythology: The Titans.

The campaign follows the Greek hero Arkantos who begins his journey in the city of Atlantis. He is set the task of returning the favor of the god Poseidon to the Atlantean people. Along with Ajax and Odysseus he is then instructed to aid Agamemnon in the Trojan war, where the infamous Trojan Horse is used to penetrate the city defences.

After several skirmishes against the Trojans, Arkantos takes his fleet to Ioklos to be repaired but on arriving finds the port is under attack. The centaur Chiron takes them north to rescue the prisoners who are being forced to dig a hole to the Underworld by the cyclops warlord Gargarensis.

Arkantos and his men enter the Underworld where Gargarensis is trying to batter down a door. Gargarensis is stopped before the door can be broken down, but the way out is blocked trapping them in the Underworld. The dead aid Arkantos and take him to the temples of the three major gods. There, Arkantos prays to Poseidon asking him to aid in their escape, but is refused. Instead, it is Zeus who listens and helps them escape.

Upon escaping they find themselves in Egypt where they get drawn into another conflict. Set has killed the god Osiris, and is in league with Gargarensis. Amanra, a Nubian mercenary, plans to find the body parts of Osiris to bring him back to life and Arkantos agrees to help her.

Arkantos

While sleeping, Arkantos is met by the god Athena who reveals Gargarensis' plan. He is favored by Poseidon and has been tasked to break the gates of Tartarus to free the Titan Kronos (whom Zeus imprisoned in the past). There are three gates; the one near Ioklos, one in Egypt, and one in the Norse lands.

Arkantos and Amanra are able to find the body parts of Osiris and bring him back to life. In return Osiris destroys Gargarensis' army and Gargarensis flees to the Norse lands.

In the North our heroes are tricked by Loki into bearing the banner of the enemy giant Folstag instead of one to help unify the clans, and the Norse become hostile towards them. They are aided by the Valkyrie Reginleif to find Gargarensis at the Tartarus Gate. On the way they are waylaid by Fire Giants and Chiron sacrifices himself to save them. Finally, Odysseus confronts Gargarensis and executes him.

Arkantos sails back to Atlantis but when he arrives he realises the head of the giant is not Gargarensis at all, as Loki has tricked them once again. Instead, Gargarensis is alive and is in Atlantis opening a final Tartarus Gate. Poseidon has taken control of a statue in the city and is protecting him.

With no way to stop him by force, Arkantos builds a wonder to Zeus and asks for his blessing. Zeus grants him awesome power which allows him to enter the temple, defeat the aspect of Poseidon and defeat Gargarensis. The temple and the entire city collapse under the ocean, Arkantos is buried along with it.

As reward for his actions Athena brings Arkantos back to life, and makes him a god.

The Norse dragon Nidhogg, summoned by using a mythic age god power (see below).

Gameplay

Age of Mythology is a real time strategy game set in the ancient world, combining the mythology of ancient Greece, Egypt, and Norse mythology.

There were two primary aspects to the game; the single player campaign which contained 32 scenarios, and multiplayer and skirmish games.

The campaign was the most in-depth and the longest campaign from any Age of * games to date, with a rich storyline which contained both a decent plot and good characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign as I felt like I went on a real journey. It was an excellent way to introduce the game mechanics, and I feel with the campaign alone it would have been worth the money I spent on buying the game.

Most of my time playing this game was multiplayer LAN with my best friend Rowan (DRTsorak from Viva la Dirt League).

One of the things that made this game different to StarCraft was the way maps were handled. Maps were not necessarily "static" in design, there was an element of randomisation about them between different games. The number of spawn locations and the amount of resources on any given map depended on the number of players in the game. I quite liked that mechanic in one way; it meant you had a varying game experience with the same "map", but it was also frustrating at times when I wanted the map to be shaped and organised a certain way but I couldn't guarantee that it would turn out that way when we started the game. One specific example of this was spawning locations; in a 2v2 VS the AI sometimes you would not spawn together, but on opposite sides of the map (in contrast to Starcraft II which handles this well). This forced us to re-create and quit games often just to get in a good spawning position.

Unlike Age of Empires the unit composition for each empire was entirely different. The three primary "races" were:

• Greek: Strong and expensive units. Had the most "traditional" game mechanics. Gained favour by villagers praying at temples.
• Egyptian: Weaker but less expensive units, gained favour by building monuments.
• Norse: Powerful forces who gained favour by engaging in warfare.

I really liked this aspect of the game; it meant there were three entirely different styles of play available. I personally loved playing Greek, particularly Hades for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there was a Greek bow unit which could level buildings very quickly... I loved those and would spam them in most games. Additionally, there was a god power which opened up an Underworld Passage. This allowed you to transport units across the map and was ideal for engaging an enemy from behind their defences.

The resources were slightly different from Age of Empires, most notably there is no stone in the game. The resources were:

• Gold; Gathered by mining gold veins or through trading. Trading was done by sending a trade unit from a trade post to any town centre on the map - and could be used to gain infinite resources. Trading was essential in the latter parts of the game when other sources of resources dried up. The Norse had a "dwarf" builder unit who was specialised at mining gold quickly.
• Wood; Gathered by chopping down trees.
• Food; Gathered by killing animals or gathering fruit and vegetables, but farms become a source of infinite food as the game progresses.
• Favour; Used to create mythical units. Each race had their own unique method of obtaining this.

I didn't like the favour generation method of the Greek race; having to use up villagers to get favour seemed like a waste, and I often ended up using mostly non-mythic units.

A Greek army

As I've hinted earlier, there were several categories of units:

• Mortal/normal units; Most units in the game.
• Mythic units; Powerful mythical units which cost favour. For example; Centaurs.
• Heroes; Unique anti-mythic units who were powerful and super efficient at killing mythic units.
• God-power Units; There were various units which were created by casting a "god power" (explained below). In particular the Son of Osiris and the Norse dragon Nidhogg.

Another major layer to the game were the god powers. Just like Age of Empires the tech paths in the game were broken up into ages:

• The Archaic Age
• The Classical Age
• The Heroic Age
• The Mythic Age

Each age unlocked new buildings and units. At the point at which a new age became available the player was given a choice between two minor gods. Depending on their decision, different powers and units were unlocked. This allowed you to modify your strategy mid-game in terms of the tech path you wanted. Each age also unlocked a single god power as well.

God powers were unique abilities which could be used one or more times during a game, but once they were used up that was it. They were generally powerful buffs or attacks which could be used to give yourself an edge at a certain moment in the game. Some examples of god powers:

• Lightning bolt; An archaic age god power (Zeus) which could be used to kill a single unit. This was interesting in that it could be used to kill a scout in the early parts of the game, or it could be saved up to wipe out a powerful unit later on.
• Healing spring; a Norse classical age god power which placed a healing spring on the battle field to regenerate all of your biological forces. It was a double edged sword - whoever controlled the ground around it took its power, so if an enemy came and held that spot they could use the healing spring against you.
• Son of Osiris; an Egyptian mythic age power which summoned the Son of Osiris, a powerful unit who could blast a chain lightning arc at enemies. He was immensely powerful and could turn the tide of any battle, but could not be healed.
• Meteor; summoned a metor storm over a certain area of the map doing massive damage to units and buildings alike, although with some randomness to where it hit.

God powers were an awesome mechanic; with careful use they could be made to turn the tide of a game in a moment.

Another interesting mechanic was that the primary building which provided additional supply to your army, the town centre could only be built on certain pre-set locations around the map. This created an element of territory and map control in any game.

Depending on the scenario you were playing victory was obtained by one of multiple ways including destroying all enemy structures or building a wonder and holding it for a certain period of time.

Meteor god power hitting a town centre.

Positives

Diverse and interesting units, the game mechanics overall were rich and interesting. God powers were a lot of fun. Lots of challenge - try taking on an AI at the Titan difficulty.

Fun campaign with a good story and great characters.

Negatives

Something about the flow of the game didn't work as well in player versus player games as StarCraft. I can't describe why, it just wasn't as good.

Randomised maps could be a pain, player spawn position also difficult in multiplayer.

Memorable Moments

We mostly played games against the AI. Our eternal goal was to take on a single AI at the Titan difficulty. Not only did a Titan AI get given a huge boost to economy (they got more resources from every activity) but they were just relentless and smart. We did beat the AI on a few occasions, but it was always a fun challenge.

I played Hades in almost every game... I found some units and god powers I liked, and just ran with it. I loved the Earthquake god power, it was easily the best at taking down enemy buildings. And those crossbowmen who could take down buildings quickly were godly (Gastraphetes).